'Oh, gosh. Where are my fucking manners? Let me introduce you. Jasmine. Toby. Jasmine's a political-economy student at UCT who's interested in joining the cause. Toby's a fuckhead.'
'Tendeka.'
'Sorry, Ash. But this is not cool. Toby, you cannot fucking come here fucked up and fucking think you can fuck this for us!'
'Ooh,' he says, pulling a face. 'Thanks, but not on the first date.'
'What?'
'All the fucking. Not on the first date. Sorry.' Zuko snickers, and this time not even Ash can stop me. I shove Toby, and he tumbles back into a stack of boxes, spraying the floor with packing material. He rebounds, like one of those punchbag clowns, laughing.
'Jesus, what a rush. Do it again. C'mon. Once more. Hit me. For real this time. C'mon. Just not in the face, okay?' He bounces like a boxer, shaking out his hands. 'Wait. Wait. Okay, I'm ready.'
'Fuck you.'
'Yeah. Already said that. Moving on … We gonna go wreak some havoc on capitalism or what?' Ash has a gentle restraining hand on my arm. But it's cool. I know the fucking score here. I shake him off.
'Is your friend ready, Toby? Because if she's not, you can just fucking go home.'
'Waiting on my beck.'
'Well, call her then.'
'I'll msg her when we're imminent. Not
before. She doesn't like prolonged chats. It raises her risk profile.'
I pull him aside, rougher than necessary, away from Jasmine, who is already looking nervous, and getting more so since Zuko started on a systematic sabotage half an hour ago, gutting boxes so they'll spill everything as soon as someone tries to lift them, switching labels. 'It's bad enough you come here fried when you know how I feel about that shit, but don't undermine me in front of my people, okay, Toby?'
'Okay, china, we're cool. I wouldn't want to affect your status with your people.'
'Are you fucking mocking me?'
'No, Ten. No. How can you think that? Look, I'm sorry. Let's just hit it, okay? Rewind. Press play. Back on schedule and everyone's happy!'
'All right. But this is serious. This is deep water.'
Toby looks confused.
'We're not playing in the shallow end.'
'Right. Got it.'
'Hey, Tendeka. Can he stop that?' Jasmine says, worrying at her thumbnail with her teeth. The girl's not going to last the night, I can tell. She's got heart, absolutely with the cause, but she doesn't have the nerves to endure the risk. It's the same for almost everyone who joins us. Either they're believers, or they're just along for the ride, but they never last. It's a complex operation and we've got a high turnover, to use the enemies' lingo.
'It's standard anti-corp, Jasmine. Don't sweat it. We can't limit the sentiment to the largescale corporati. Every capitalist enterprise propagates the system that fucks people over, keeps the poor and the sick down and out of sight. Your boss has it coming.'
'Okay. It's just that my boss was, like, a decent guy, yeah?'
'How decent could he have been if he fired you?' Toby cuts in, getting a grateful look from Jasmine.
'All right, whatever. We're heading out. Now that everyone is finally here.'
As we pull up our hoodies, I can't help noticing that Toby has ignored the very specific instructions to wear all-black.
Outside, the humidity from the rain earlier sinks down on us together with that musky smell of wet tar. I'm already starting to sweat. At least it's deserted. The lofts above the warehouses are all lit up, but nobody bothers to look out the window. The loft dwellers are all locked away. All the stuff they need is inside, cafés and laundros and private gyms, so they go direct from garage to apartment, never venturing out on the street unless it's in the security of their cars.
We turn left into Roodebloem, stepping up the pace. Zuko is playing handlanger, carrying the ropes and the harness. It's a test run, his first major sabotage, and I have high expectations of him.
The rules are that the targets have to switch constantly. It's self-evident, but you'd be surprised at how many wannabes don't think that far ahead, and get bust when they hit the same board the third time round. It's great that kids are doing it, that they're actually getting out there, but they fucking have to think it through properly. It's not like we haven't made the information available.
Most of them do it for the thrill. And when it comes down too heavy, the first time they get crisped, say, then they're out. They'll still hang in the forums, they might make it down for a protest or a flash mob, but they won't go on a raid again. Zuko is going to be different, though. I can tell.
I turn to tell him this, but he's not behind me as I anticipated. Instead, he is tagging along with Jasmine, both hanging tight with Toby, who is spouting shit, dragging up the whole Hope Modise thing, as if Jasmine weren't nervy enough already.
'Twenty years' disconnect. And the kid was only fourteen. You seriously didn't hear about this? It was, what, three years ago? There was that whole ad campaign?'
Zuko trots up, obedient. 'Sorry, Ten. Toby was telling us about–'
'Hope Modise, I heard. But he's got it wrong. You got it wrong, Toby. She was thirteen. And she didn't get twenty years. They remanded her sentence.'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was getting to that.'
'What do you mean, remanded?' Jasmine says, too bouncy in her step by far, wired on adrenalin.
'After she hacked Sonica Wireless's servers, some dumb teenage crush thing, sending out a worm that interrupted people's programs with a message about how much she loved this guy–'
'Her programming teacher,' Toby interrupts, 'who was way older, like 34, and she figured this was the one way she could prove herself. It was beautiful. Love made code. Cos she did it all in binary, right? So you would be working on your spreadsheet or your email or whatever, and this thing would pop up, like an animation, but all ones and zeros just flipping out all over the screen. The general public didn't have a clue. Thought it was a crash or a virus. Hit half the world in four days. They estimated the loss in productivity at something like 6.3 billion while they tried to sort it out, and I'm talking dolleros, not rands. But here's the stupid thing, cos Hope had stamped it. I mean, how else was her teacher gonna know it was her unless she included his name? Disguised in the code, but they figured it out, traced it back to him, and then to her. He got off with a warning, I reckon due to turning her in, cos by then she'd realised this was some heavy shit, and had gone to ground. So no one was going to lure her out except him.'
'I think that's a little far-fetched.'
'No, come on, Tendeka. They could have nailed him on aiding and abetting; I mean, someone had to teach her how to code like that – that, or improper relations with a minor. So he lures her out into the open and he gets off absolute scot and Hope goes down for twenty. Mal Nollywood stuff. Unrequited love and betrayal.'
'Jesus,' Jazz breathes.
'S'okay. It didn't quite work out like that. So she's s'posed to get a disconnect. We're talking relegated to homeless, out of society, cut from the commerce loop, no phone–'
'I think we all know what it means, thanks, Professor. I'm on a temporary, remember?' I cut in, irritated at the way this has turned into The Toby Show.
'Oops. Yeah. Sorry about that.' I can tell he's not sorry at all.
'But what happened to Hope?' Jasmine whines.
'Sonica cut a deal. Three years' juvenile detention to take her up to sixteen and legal employable age, and then they scooped her up. She works for them in security, closing up loops and backdoors to stop the next gen of Hope Modises getting through. And then they turned it into a PR stunt. I can't believe you haven't seen the luscious ad campaign they did with her. You can download the video of the original msg, without the contagious aspect of the code. Now it's a fucking screensaver for your phone, a Valentine's download for geeks. Poor Hope,' but he's grinning.
'Subvertising. Like what Levi's did when those kids in Brazil hacked their storefronts. Turned it into a challenge, a hacksibition,
appropriating the street culture for their own twisted purposes. Motherfuckers in advertising. Can't be bothered to do their own creative.'
'I dunno, Ten. Sounds like a pretty creative solution to me. Elegant. And aren't you trying to get sponsorship for your graffiti project?'
'Well, actually, Tendeka doesn't want to use corp financing–' Ashraf starts before I cut in. I wish he'd just leave things to me.
'It's against everything we're trying to do, which is to give the kids a voice, not the corporates. They have a voice. They have adboards and push media to your phone and into your fucking home. These kids have got nothing. They're totally disenfranchised. Our project's a creative outlet. They're making a mark on the city. It means a lot to them, right, Zuko?'
'Yeah. It's sharp.' I wait, but Zuko doesn't seem to have anything more to add.
'So how's that working out for ya?' Toby asks.
'We're on a break. We're raising more money. But we're not going to take fucking corporate funding!'
'Chill, bro. Didn't mean to diss your little art project.'
I can't believe I have to put up with this shit for brains. He wouldn't even be here if we didn't need his techster friend so badly. We've done it before on our own, but they keep upgrading the security. It's like a game. We make a move, they up the stakes. Used to be any kid with a decent connect and junior school programming could do this – hack the central server, fuck up all the adboards, and replace the video with your own stuff.
When culture-jamming society first figured it out, we used to have movie nights, staging screenings of whatever people were working on, animation or documentaries or home movies or whatever, broadcasting free to the whole city on the adboards. Ash and I met on one of those rooftop jols, sharing a blanket, drinking cheap beer, watching amateur shorts, something about a depressed clown. I wasn't paying too much attention at the time.
But the bastards caught on quick. They decentralised, so now you can't just hack their broadcast server and interrupt the transmission. It's all independently managed, each company maintaining its boards via satellite downlink to transmitters embedded in the board. It's a oneway connection that's completely inaccessible remotely. But that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to fuck with them. If you can chip the satellite receiver, you can run interference, even if you can't upload your own content anymore.
It's getting to the satellite receivers that's the bitch, no matter what people say in the forums. I've read the postings. If anyone on my local crew's egos get too much, I drop 'em. If they want to do it on their own, that's their own indaba, but I'm not having people who put us at risk, especially if they're just in it for the kicks. And that includes Toby.
I hadn't even noticed the roar of the highway, like the ocean before they installed the tide drives that levelled it off and keep the hovertrains running. And six lanes across, in the central island, the N2 Communique-108x billboard, playing out various aspirational vignettes featuring unobtainable crap. I am itching to take it down.
We duck off the main drag into Devonshire Street and down a side alley that runs between two of the houses, semi-detached Victorian farmhouses, from back when this was open land, to a wire mesh fence that is the only barrier between us and the highway. We scouted everything a couple of months ago. We're always looking for access points. Due caution. Always.
Ashraf snags the fence with bolt-cutters and peels it open like a tin can, so we can climb through. He goes first; given my current status, it's wisest that he takes lead tonight, followed by Zuko and Toby, who winks at Jasmine and holds the wire open for her. She scuttles awkwardly through the gap like one of those Screebot rat-catchers.
The adboard is facing the traffic coming from town. In four hours, it'll swing round to face the incoming commute, like a sunflower turning towards the light. In other words, it's gonna have a major impact. We'll get most of the morning rush before they can get maintenance out to fix it.
We can only see the back side, set like an easel on its giant pylon legs, but reflected light from the cast catches the damp patches of the highway, tinting them with hints of colour. The traffic is sparse, so hopefully by the time we get across, Toby's friend will have deactivated the smart barb wire that's coiled around the base. The wire is inspired by nature, some scraggly vine that senses motion and snarls you up.
Ashraf is going through the ritual equipment check. Torches, auto screwdriver, rope, harnesses, karabiners. He'd be on video duty as well if Toby weren't doing the honours tonight.
The adboard's security runs on the powergrid, which means it can be taken off the powergrid, making it look like just another blackout, another Eskom power shortage, while we do our thing. The only problem is that the adboard freezes for the duration. And if someone notices that the screen has gone blank and calls it in, we're done.
'You ready to talk to your friend now, Toby?'
'Already sent her a text,' he says, holding up what is clearly an illegit phone, the defuser circuitry ripped out of the back and shoddily patched up with duct tape. It's a brute hack-job, but effective – if you know what you're doing. If not, the thing might kill you. I can only hope.
Ashraf whistles. 'Toby. Where did you pick that piece of prime?'
'I got my means and ways. I can get you one, if you want … Cost you premium, though. Probably out of your league. Handles movie downloads too.'
'Seriously?' Zuko and Jasmine crowd in.
'Can I see?'
'Focus, for fuck's sake! What does your friend have to say?' I cut in. This is all taking way too long.
'She's good to go. Whenever you are. Security's going down in… oh, it's down now. We got eight minutes. As of ten seconds back.'
'Shit! She's done it already? What the hell – never mind, just go! Go! After this one.' A Renault cruises past, headlights slicing the night, and we all dash across the highway before the next batch of intermittent traffic comes through, scrambling up onto the island.
We step gingerly between the coils of wire, just in case Toby's friend has not lived up to her promises. I jump to catch hold of a beam and swing my legs up, to the left of the maintenance ladder, which is off-limits, unless you have an official SIM ID or a particular desire to get crisped.
'Tendeka! Your harness.' Ashraf hisses, displeased, clipping himself in and starting after me, hand over hand up the rope, Toby right behind him. Jasmine and Zuko are supposed to stay at the bottom to keep watch, but the kid has other plans. He's clipping in too. I don't have time to worry about him, though. Not with the insane deadline we're on.
I pull myself up onto the catwalk that runs behind the adboard and wedge the screwdriver under the corner edge of the screen, prising it away from the casing, cracking the plastech. But there's no need to finesse it.
The great thing about smear is that the tech is straight out of the box, compliments of my friend in Amsterdam, so there aren't preventive measures in place yet. Smear's not the technical word, of course; it's a TSR-3 signal delay device that interferes with data packet transfer, so the image that gets displayed is garbled and incomplete like that painting with the melted clocks. It was invented in America to try and shut down streamcasters who were getting too vocal in criticising the administration. It's nice to be able to turn it around.
I click open the plastic container, disguised as a flashdrive, in case of random searches in the street, but I'm sweating so heavily, I nearly drop the damn thing. Ash nudges his way in beside me. 'Two and a half minutes,' Jazz calls from below. Ashraf's jaw is tight with stress as he takes the smear chip and binds it onto the motherboard with his pocket solder.
'Can you guys move it? Let me get a clear shot of this?' Toby tjunes, his abruptly added weight making the catwalk shudder.
'Fuck off, Toby, there's no time. You can't film this part of the operation. It's too sensitive.'
'Hey, fuck you, Tendeka. It's my connection. I get the footage I want. And you think they're not going to figure it out when they come to fix it tomorrow morn
ing?'
And then Zuko swings up, so the walkway is dangerously overcrowded, when we should already be down and safely back across the highway.
'You're risking all of us, you asshole.'
But Toby is unmoved. 'Yeah, so are you. Just give me a clear view, and we can all go home.'
'Ninety-six seconds,' Jasmine calls from below.
'Shit, shit, shit. Everyone down. Now!'
Toby jostles in to get his shot and it's all I can do to stop myself shoving him against the railing, which is the perfect height to hit him behind the knees and tip him into the mesh of barbwire below. Even deactivated, it would do plenty damage.
'You're on your fucking own.' I swing out round the side and start the descent, not bothering to look back. Ash is already halfway down, but Zuko has stalled on the walkway, trying to get in the picture. 'Thirty-seven seconds.'