Moxyland - Lauren Beukes [48]
But the meeting with Rathebe is not a disciplinary. It's about the report on the MetroBabe Strollers, and how very much she liked my outof-the-box Radio Gaga suggestion, and how very wasted she thinks I am in core coding. There's a position that's just opened up in strategic, developing new tool sets for existing technologies, and she'd be happy to back me if I were 'gutsy' enough to apply for it.
I could bring Mpho Gumede with me if I like, she says. We seem to work well together. I decline, politely. Regrettably, I tell her, and only under duress, he's too volatile. No imagination. He nearly jeopardised the Bula Metalo job.
I know, I know, it's heartless. But if I'm stuck in Communique for the duration, I can't afford to be coupled with someone who might hold me back.
Toby
In the fourth corridor, kids, I finally find something potentially useful. It's a mural, giant-scale and kif skilful, of a Nguni cow in profile, the kind you only ever see now emaciated in the background of the politsoc broadcasts about how fucked up the Rural is.
This pastoral beast, by comparison, is plump as the motherbitch's credit rating. But I catch on quickly that it's not just paint rendered ultra-realistically, it's actual hide (dark speckled brown on a dirty cream) cut to shape and mounted up fresco on the wall, which is creepy as hell. Not an obvious clue, but disregard at your peril, kids, when you got nada to go on after thirtynine abandoned rooms, that noise getting closer, and still no sign of anything resembling the Redux Core, which is the last, best, only hope for the Nemesis star system.
Under the sound of the dripping, like Chinese water torture in the reverb, and the skrawk of rusted pipes, apparently susceptible to shifts and groans, and the machinery clanking off-kilter on twisted gears, is a distinctly kitchen sound. And if that doesn't sound particularly frightening, I'd like you to imagine the gurgling of a drain remixed with the metal screech of the garbage disposal, only more organic – as if it were coming from something's larynx. Something big. And alien. And very fucking scary. Let's just say it's not encouraging, kids, especially when I can't tell if it's getting closer with all the ambient noise.
Okay, but I gotta focus on the cow, or bull, if the fuck-off sharp and long horns are anything to go by. The local flavour is a nice touch – a little extra the developers threw in to mod the experience to whatever part of the world you're logging in from – like water buffalo in Indonesia. Whatever, the moo is almost a storey high, reaching nearly all the way up the factory wall to the narrow row of filthy windows (too small to climb out, too high to get to, thanks for the suggestion, I've already tried). Where they're broken, light comes in so bright and sharp it slices the gloom into thin geometric slits, swirling with dust. I've been avoiding them. It's superstitious, like not standing on the cracks, but also I don't want to be exposing myself in a bright blast of sunlight to whatever is making that noise.
And cos it seems the obvious – although it wouldn't in realworld – I collect some of the crates scattered oh-so-conveniently in the near vicinity and push 'em over to the wall in a teetering pile to get a better look at the damn thing.
There's something odd about it. The beady eye is a dissected marble, the kind with a green cat's eye twist in the centre, so it looks really fake. And the hooves and the horns are especially weird, cos they'd be the bits it would be easy to get, just stick the bones right up there. But they're made up of big oval sequins, misshapen and discoloured and overlaid on each other like scales.
On closer inspection, the hide is patchwork; no cow big enough to cover this mural on its own, but well done – you can