Moxyland - Lauren Beukes [79]
skyward* says we have to do it now, immediately. Trigger the lightbombs, hit as many of the vaccine centres as we can. We can't let them submit. It's a trick. There's worse waiting for Ashraf and them than being arrested or disconnected. skyward* says they plan to ship them out to the Rural, put them into camps, detain and charge them as terrorists, even the kids. They might not come back. He says he never thought they would go this far, but isn't this the ultimate proof of what they're capable of, how fucked up the status quo really is?
But I'm confused. I thought it was a bluff. Not real. Not cause for concern, not reason enough for Ashraf to leave.
skyward* reassures me: yes, of course, but if they're so casual about inducing widespread panic, lying to us like this, then what else have they been lying about? We have to stop it. We have to expose the underlying tumour in our society. This is not the time to have doubts.
And then Zuko comes back, staggering in, half-fucked on glue, which would be a red card, but under the circumstances, I'll let it slide. Because he's a true believer. And there's work to do today, as skyward* keeps reminding me, the msgs coming in incessantly, like jabs with a sharp stick.
I don't know how he knew where to find me.
Lerato
An incessant bleeping with an undertone of tango drags me rudely from the depths of REMsleep. I've been dreaming about cars loaded down on their axles with trickle castles, like the kind you make dribbling mud between your fingers at the beach, like Toby and I did a couple of years ago. Sturdier than dry sand, but still only sand, and when it dries out it all crumbles, like the castles on the cars, toppling around me.
At first I think Jane's accidentally set off the burglar alarm again and I'm going to have to fend off the security Aitos bounding in to the rescue, but then I realise home™ is playing Buster Mzeke's Asphalt Sonata, the song I assigned to work-related calls. I turn it off, roll over and go back to sleep for another twenty minutes. It is fucking Sunday.
When I get up, the apartment is oddly quiet. Jane is usually up by now, curled up on the lounger on the balcony with the Sunday papers and a chocolate hazelnut croissant fresh from the Communique bakery.
'Jane? You want some ultra?' I call, the volume of my own voice making me wince. On the Richter scale of hangovers, this one could have been responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs. I check her room. No sign of her. Maybe she got laid after her big meeting. What are the chances?
She left the TV on, the menu open to her catalogue of soaps, which means she was up all night watching them instead of getting laid. We're really gonna have to talk. I flick across to the cartoons while I wait for the coffee to brew.
But I'm feeling restless. I get up from the couch, go back to my room and throw open the cupboards. Soon I'm going to have to think about packing in anticipation of my brand-new life. I'll have to shed a lot of it; even Jane would notice if I started emptying my room. I'll take the special items: my music drive, of course, the Joey HiFi print I bought myself to celebrate my first-ever defection at the tender age of fifteen, the Miyazaki necklace a boyfriend bought back from Japan. Stash it all at Toby's apartment for the duration. The furniture I've accumulated over the last couple of years, the Twenties medicine cabinet, the Nash couch, my books and most of my wardrobe are going to have to fly. It's all about knowing when to let go. Because once it's official, I won't be allowed back on the property.
I'm not going to miss this place at all.
It's only after I've had my coffee and the greasiest protein combo the kitchen can deliver that I get round to checking my message. It's from Rathebe. Her hyperbole suggests some national crisis, without getting into any of the details. What I think is that it better be a new outbreak of the superdemic to force me into the office on the weekend. If it's some baby stroller issue,