Moxyland - Lauren Beukes [74]
'Please be advised…'
'What's wrong with her arm? What if–?'
'It's not.'
'… to terrorist action.'
'But how do you know?'
'More info?'
I pull the gun on him. Precarious, cos I'm holding up K, still unconscious and leaden against my hip. Eddie blinks at it stupidly. 'You're not allowed to shoot a clan mate.'
'Try me.'
We load her up between us, though the little shit is careful not to touch her or the spillage on her dress. She gags like she's going to kotch again, and Eddie nearly drops her. I cuff him with the back of my hand, the one that's not holding her up, so I knock his hoodie back off his head with the muzzle of the gun. He whimpers.
At the entrance, there is a row of lumo orange infocones in a row as sharp as soldiers, effectively cordoning off the area.
'This station is closed. Taxis are available on the concourse to transport you to Junction. Please be advised. This station is closed. More info?'
Kendra
'Don't.'
I try to break away, but they won't let go. I can't stand the proximity, the heat of their bodies is too close, too tight; it makes me feel nauseous. Until I was about three, I couldn't handle anyone touching me, I'd scream if they tried. It's common with premature babies, my parents said, but maybe they got it wrong, maybe it was my brother or another baby entirely. Maybe I never felt anything like this before.
They ignore me, and it's easier to go along with them, because the stairs abruptly seem too steep, laborious, like someone overtilted the axis into an Escher painting.
The emergency exit doors start howling an alarm as we push through them and into the night. It's drizzling. The wind is as cold as teeth. I don't know what I've done with my bag. I try to look back for it over my shoulder.
One of them, the smaller one, yelps, 'Hey! She's going to kotch again.'
I feel vaguely insulted, but then I'm distracted by swathes of blue light strobing the side of the building. The lights seem warm. I'm drawn to them, but we go in the opposite direction instead, and then there is a car, and I am leaning with my head out the window and a hand on my back and cold air and rain stinging against my mouth and I'm getting wet, but they won't let me back inside. And then there is shouting and we're all bundled out and the car screeches away and we have to walk.
And then I wake up.
'Well hello, sunshine.'
I close my eyes again as fast as I can. But it's too late, I've already let in the light and, with it, sparking dazzles of pain.
'Hey? Hell-o? Eugh. Shit, Eddie. Didn't I tell you to clean this up?'
There is a moist dabbing at my chest and I open my eyes, to see Toby – who else would it be? – working at the front of my dress with a dishcloth. It smells distinctly of vomit. The couch I'm lying on is damp with sweat. And I would feel miserably humiliated if the pain didn't override everything.
'Easy, tiger,' Toby says. 'Take it you're feeling better?'
I touch my face, feel a sullen welt on my jaw, where the cop got me with his baton. He would have got me again if his partner hadn't intervened, so his second blow was only a glancing lash across the kidneys as I scrambled past him.
Toby gives me the cloth. 'What were you doing, baby girl?'
'Going to Rep…' I say it again, because the first time it comes out as a malformed croak. 'Going to Replica. For the party? I was meeting friends for a sundowner.' Realisation hits. 'Oh God, they must think I stood them up. Where's my phone, I have to call…'
'It's almost three in the a.m., sweet.'
'Up and about?' An overweight man with a shaven head pokes his face into the negative space between the door and the wall. 'Good. Okay. Then you need to get out.'
'Would you just chill, Unathi?'
'Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. You said till she's conscious. And now she is. You have to vamos. Andelay.'
'I want to