Moxyland - Lauren Beukes [34]
Except the barbwire is not twitching back to life. The screen is still frozen. There's no time to consider. I yank Zuko up and out of the coils at his feet and pelt across the highway, holding up a hand to the oncoming headlights that swerve round us, disappearing into the curve of Hospital Bend, horn bleating angrily.
Toby is waiting on the other side, sitting on the fence and rolling his shoulder. I hope it's fucking broken.
The adboard comes back up with a flicker. And I feel that hard kick of victory. Cos we've fucking done it. And now, with the TSR fraying the signal, all those too-beautiful clebs and models and realife™ virtua spokespersons frisking in the ocean or nodding into the latest cell or acting in the consumer mini-movies for LG or Lucky Strike or Premiere Recruiting will look somehow wrong.
And maybe it will take the commuters a second or two to figure it out. To pick up that the features of the bouncy beach babe or the cool hand smoker in the ads on this board are melting, running down their faces. Smeared. And it feels fucking great, even with Zuko sporting an injury that is going to be difficult to explain to casualty. Until Toby opens his mouth.
'Shit, that really hurt. Do not try this at home, kids. Oh, what. Don't be so panicky, Tendeka. I was kidding about the eight minutes. Lerato's real generous. She gave us twelve. I just thought you could do with added incentive, up the drama, you know?'
This time I do hit him. In the face. Full on.
Lerato
I get to work to discover that Mpho has turned stalker boy. There is an outrageous bouquet of flowers on my desk, complete with miniature butterflies, the kind gen-modded to stay within a hand's-length radius of the scent of the assigned homing flower and guaranteed to live seventy-two hours, if you believe the advertising. Until now, I've never met anyone cheesy enough to fall for it.
Seed has paired us on the MetroBabe Stroller audio job, designing an interface that works for both toddlers and parents. At the touch of a button, it has to be able to play back rockabyes, current hits packaged as instrumental lullabies for baby, or MetroBabe's private info station, simply jam-packed with useful information to help guide new parents through the very special hell they've signed up for. The things already come with two cup-holders, one for baby's bottle, one for mom's moccachino or, more realistically, mom's whisky flask.
I wave away the butterflies that are hovering near my screen, attracted to the light, and shove the bouquet to the edge of my desk, which will hopefully limit the little bastards' range. There's no sign of Mpho, which is savagely annoying.
There is a MetroBabe audio file in my jobs folder, so I can get some idea of the content we're dealing with. I ignore it and kill time waiting for Mpho by checking my mail, updating my dating profile on Seed and prowling the responses. There're three pre-approved potential matches, all within Communique or affiliated companies (which means no lengthy mutual non disclosure contracts to sign before you can move on to the sex), one civilian, which I delete without even looking at (at least I admit I'm biased), and a man of real interest from a rival corp, which Seed has tagged as questionable, meaning a potential headhunter.
Considering how I got here, to this twentythird floor office, to this desk with its views of the seaboard, you'd think the system might trust me to spot one all on my own. Or maybe they're letting me know that they know. Heads up, girl, we're paying attention. Hopefully not too closely.
The guy's profile looks sony, as Toby might say. Stefan Thuys. Forty-one, which is ten years older than my ideal, but hey, I'm open to trying new things. He's a development exec on gamesoft, reasonably attractive apart from the craggy nose that looks as though it may have been broken at some stage, which