Moxyland - Lauren Beukes [17]
Two hours and seventeen very mellow minutes later, thanks to a combo of Dormor and vodka served on the connecting flight, we arrive home courtesy of the corporate underway doorto-door. Mpho tries to grope me in the lift, a clumsy invitation to spend the night in his apartment, but I'm too exhausted to break it off or even avoid breaking it off with a mercy fuck. Besides, my apartment has a better view. It gives me obscene satisfaction that I'm one floor above him in the Communique residence, even if his is a single pad.
The door opens to my SIM ID and total cacophony. Jane twitches guiltily. home™ is in rebellion, the system flopping between settings like a dying fish, desperately trying to accommodate all our personal pre-programming at once. The stereo is genre-blending, overlaying the banal pop she likes onto the frantica dub I got compliments of Toby, bass lines colliding with the alarm.
I can't say it's not interesting, but it's wrecking the effects of the Dormor, especially with the lights strobing, caught between the sheerday blue I prefer and the warm orange plush Jane's convinced she likes after she read some colourtherapy article in the pushmags, and plunging sporadically into darkness as some kind of compromise.
Jane is the kind of desperately depressing unattractive that would be borderline pretty, if only her nose didn't resemble a ski-jump or her jaw weren't so pointy or her hair wasn't such a stringy orange, just for example. Nor, sadly, is she the kind of girl whose personality makes up for her physical limitations. As far as I've paid attention, Jane's tastes seem to be a pastiche lifted from pushmag articles, TV makeover shows and social networking recommendations that keeps her comfily secure within her own genre.
Oh, and did I mention she's in Accounts? And let's face it, at thirty-four, way too old to be stuck in middle management. Catch me still hanging around as executive programmer eight years from now.
Infuriatingly, Jane hits the off switch on the remote.
'Oh nice, Jane. Give me that. How am I supposed to restore the settings if it's off?' I turn it back on and click onto the menu. 'Christ on ice. What have you done? Pass me the keyboard.'
'I'm sorry. I was only trying to record Ángeles de la Calle,' which is the soap Jane is happily addicted to, a remake of a 1951 Mexican telenovela, only sexified, modernised, stripped of context and colour. A bit like Gaborone. A real bleach job. And particularly perverse, considering you can stream the original on the Retro channel. Okay, so it's unwatchable, unless you're a total fanboy or an academic, or alternatively, stoned with the subtitles turned off.
'I already set that up for you.'
'But with the rugby–'
'It's a clever system, Jane. It would have registered the reschedule automatically. Oh, never mind.' I reboot home™ manually, so it defaults back to the original settings. God only knows how she managed to do so much damage with the remote. 'There. It's all set up for you.' But I do it in such a way that it's going to cut off the last two minutes of the episode, overriding the download manager that normally insures against such eventualities. And you know what these things are like. Can you say cliffhanger? She's going to die.
'Can you do me a favour and not touch anything in future?' I snap. Jane looks so miserable, I almost recant, until I open the fridge and see that she hasn't bothered to place a grocery order.
There's only ice cream. Thank God Communique has twenty-four hour chefs, which is one major benefit (apart from the sea view, of course) that made defecting from New Mutua all worth it.
I don't ask if there's anything Jane wants, although when I place the order with the kitchen, I throw in a side of avo maki. Keep your friends close and your enemies and all that. I'm just going to ignore the contradiction in