Moxyland (Angry Robot) by Lauren Beukes

  I'm prowling the street, swigging openly from the Fish Eagle, trying to figure which direction Kendra would have taken, when the same damn street kid from before sidles up to me.

  'You Toby?' he says, uncertainly.

  'Look, kid. Seriously. Now is not the fucking time. Piss off.'

  'Jussus. No need to be so rude, my larnie. I got someone wants to see you.'

  'Oh, look. I appreciate the sentiment. But I got my preferred dealers. And I really don't like buying my illicit streetside, especially here with all the cams. Tell your friend he may want to consider relocating to a less heavily watched area.'

  'Toby. You're Toby. Come with me.' The runt is so insistent, I follow him down the side street into a parking lot, half underground, quiet on a Sunday, with a CCVTV system that's looking a little fritzy, judging by the frayed wires swinging from the cam by the entrance boom. We go deeper in, between the cars, to find Tendeka huddled in a convincing impression of a bergie, a hoodie pulled low over his face. He looks like shit. It's the texture of his skin, sort of murky beige like clay that might slough off his skull. The street kid is on the point of tears.

  'Okay, I did it. Can I go now?'

  Tendeka waves, tired, dismissive. 'Yes, Whitey. Thank you. If you see Zuko. Or Ashraf… No. Never mind.'

  The kid waits, squirrelly on the balls of his feet in those oversize shoes, to see if there's gonna be more, and then scuttles away, too fast to be polite. The motivation right there, kids? I'd say that was fear.

  'He's frightened. I've lost everyone, Toby. I don't know where they are. When I saw you, across the street…'

  'Jesus, Tendeka. You are pretty fucked up.'

  'Not looking so great yourself.'

  'You could hit me. That always seems to make you feel better.'

  'I would if it helped. But it doesn't work. You're still a fucking prick afterwards.'

  He smiles. And I know what will make it even better. I hand over the bottle. We get shitfaced. Not a bad way of killing a coupla hours, all told. Only catch is that while the cheap scotch makes me bouncier, it's bringing Ten down bigtime.

  He says it's the end of the world. We've got a difference of opinion here. 'Sure, we might feel like death set on defrost,' I tell him. 'But how else are they going to make it seem authentic? It's a bluff and I'm calling it. I'm not going to roll over and hand myself in at one of their immunity centres. Immunity from the virus supposedly about to chow down on my spleen, but not from the nice officers waiting to arrest me for illegal activities.' And I know it's a hoax because it's letting up, although I'm still itching like crazy. The inside of my wrist is red from scratching.

  Tendeka agrees that we shouldn't go in. But see, this is where we part ways, because he's swallowed the hoax wholesale. He tells me it's exactly what they planned, him and his chomma in Amsterdam. He tells me he's going to die. Because that's the only way to expose it, for the outside world to know it's real. He yaks on about some bomb thing, can't believe I haven't seen the footage, but when have I had a chance to kick back with TV? So he set off this bomb, cos he says if it's just him dying from this bug, they can cover it up. But the bombs will focus attention on this thing. It'll stop people getting the vaccine. They'll die. In the limelight.

  He's fucked. It's hilarious. So when he asks me if I'll come with him and bring the BabyStrange, cos his camera-phone's fucked from the station fry-up, and he needs to get this down, who am I to say no, kids?

  Kendra

  It's not so hard. Without Toby looking sketchy and virtually dying at my side, it only takes four tries at sugar-coated grovelling to get someone to let me make a call.

  'I dropped it down the stairs,' I tell the lady at the bookstore, who flutters in the stacks nearby to ensure that I don't make a duck with her phone. As if it would be any use to me without her unique bio-sig. I dial Damian's number from the flyer he gave me. I'll be damned before I phone Jonathan.

  Vix answers. She seems less than stoked to hear that it's me. 'You didn't rock up, hey?'

  'I know. I'm sorry. Please can I just speak to Damian? It's urgent.'

  There's a scuffle and then Damian comes on, sounding sleepy. 'Hey, Ghost girl, you missed out.'

  He hasn't heard about the bombs or the station 'incident', as they keep referring to it on the news. He hasn't even got up yet, and it's already afternoon.

  It takes a lot of work to convince him to come pick me up and take me to Andile. And when his car pulls up outside the bookstore, a classic Ford Anglia done up with decals of skulls and bunnies, Vix is sitting in the passenger seat.

  She turns round in the seat to look at me. 'You don't look sick.'

  'Well, we don't know that until she's been checked, right?'

  Damian puts a hand on her knee.

  'And you're sure it's not contagious?'

  'I don't know. I'm sorry. They said it wasn't. It would be crazy to unleash an infectious disease. They'd never recover from the bad press.'

  'Sounds pretty crazy as is,' she says. 'You do seem to attract drama.'

  'Victoria!' Damian shoots her a scandalised look.

  'I'm just saying!'

  Outside the world seems removed, glancing past the windows of the car, which are rainpocked, like dusty fingerprints. The inner city is usually quiet on a Sunday, but today there are road blocks and reroutes, blue and red lights flashing around the diverts near the hospital. Everything is coated with a layer of grey dust. The emergency workers in their biosuits look like ashen alien yetis.

  Initially, they won't let Damian's car into the Inatec car park. The security cop is steadfast that there's no chance, his Aito padding round the car, sniffing intently. His logic is sound; if we had a permit, the gate would have accessed us already.

  Vix takes charge. 'Would you just call, what's his name?'

  'Andile Cwane,' I contribute from the back.

  The security guard takes a long time checking the register. 'Sorry, no one by that name works here.'

  'No, sorry, of course not. I'm an idiot. Dr. Precious. Can you call Dr. Precious?'

  'Precious de Kock?' There is a note of surprise in his voice, and Vix seizes on it.

  'Yeah,' she pipes up, 'call Dr. De Kock. Tell her it's about the sponsor babies, and there's a huge issue that would upset the Prima-Sabine company greatly. She'd want to know about this. You'll probably get into trouble if you don't call.'

  The security guard doesn't seem too sure, but he steps back into his booth and dials someone, maybe Dr. Precious, maybe higher-level security. His Aito loops around the car.

  'Can you do up the window, please?' I ask.

  'Why? I'm just going to have to unwind again when he comes back,' Damian complains, when the dog jumps up against my window in the backseat, its breath huffing against the glass, claws scratching against the bodywork.

  'Shit!' Damian grabs for the handle and rolls it up as fast as physically possible.

  I don't flinch. The dog is so close to me, through a millimetre of glass, I can see the black sheen of the gums around its teeth, the Braille of its tastebuds on its grey-pink tongue.

  'Get down! Get down! Dammit!' The security cop bats at the dog, which whines in agitation. 'Okay. She's on her way. Forty minutes. You can go through and wait in the parking lot. The silver Chrysler Spitfire. That'll be her.' We sit in awkward silence, until Damian clicks the radio, loads a sample from Kill Kitten's new album.

  'It's not the final mix,' he says, by way of apology. And I try to listen, I really do, but I'm distracted watching the main gate.

  'Are you even into new spectro, Kendra?' asks Vix bitchily, but then a gunmetal shark of a car pulls into the parking lot and I don't have to answer.

  Dr. Precious emerges from the Chrysler with Andile in tow. He chucks me on the shoulder, playfully. 'Woah, hectic mess you landed in, babes! Real history stuff. Don't worry, we'll sort it out. You didn't get caught up in all that ugliness, did you, Dame? No? No antibodies required for you, then, china! Well, come on, Kendra!'
Andile ushers me giddily towards the doors.

  Damian and Vix are standing, hesitating at the car.

  'Should we, uh… Do you want us to come in with you?' Damian asks.

  'Ag, no! She'll be fine! Really. You'll be bored. All the scans and samples. Nothing serious. Just procedure. You know what it's like. No point waiting around. We'll get her home.'

  Damian looks concerned.

  'It's cool, Damian,' I say. 'Seriously. Thanks for getting me here. I don't know what I would have done.'

  'No. I think we should come with,' he says, slowly.

  Dr. Precious moves over to him, and says something really quiet. Vix gives me a sharp, quick glance, but the way Damian studiously doesn't look at me is more alarming.

  I smile uneasily. 'Is there something I should know?'

  'No, we're good, come along.' He hustles me in through the doors. 'Precious, she's just living up to her name. Doesn't like people hanging around when she works, especially civilian hangers-on like Dame's little girlfriend. Doesn't really have the clearance to be here. You know she applied for the sponsorship, right? Didn't make the cut.'

  The sound of a car door snapping shut makes me look back.

  'I think she's jealous of you,' Andile shakes his head ruefully as Dr. Precious walks in behind us. Beyond the glass doors, the Anglia reverses into an inexorable parabola and out of the Inatec parking lot.

  Tendeka

  'So what are you gonna do with all your worldly after you're gone? Donate it to the street kids? Auction it off? Martyr relics get top price on eBay.' Toby bounces beside me, facing backwards on the street, so that he nearly crashes into a flower-seller struggling with two plastic buckets bristling with bouquets.

  'I'm dying,' I tell the flower-seller, who is cursing at Toby, by way of apology. She recoils behind her buckets and the flowers. I can't tell what they are. The colours blur when I try to focus. 'No sir, I don't got no flowers for that!'

  'Too dramatic,' Toby muses. 'Cliché. Flowers. Bad. No. I thought you planned all this meticulously. You can't go whimsical all of a sudden. And, besides, you're frightening the lady.'

  'She should be frightened. We all should be. Can your friend hook us up? Lerato?'

  'To what?'

  'Remote link-up. So we can transmit your coat's cameras to the billboards? The city is going to bear witness.'

  He looks uncomfortable. 'Yeah, about that.'

  'You can back out. I don't mind. Go running to an immunity centre, get your life-saving shot and your arrest warrant all in one, let them fuck you, let them fuck all of us. Just leave me with the coat.'

  'Jesus, all right. Don't get so worked up.'

  'I'm fine,' I say, ignoring the smear of bright red on the back of my hand when I wipe my mouth. 'You still don't believe it, do you? We're dying, Toby. Both of us.'

  'See, here's the thing. I don't feel like I'm dying, as a matter of fact, I… Jesus motherfuck.' He catches me as I list forward, bracing me against his chest and his shoulder, laughing. I hadn't realised how skinny he is.

  'This shit does not agree with you, Tendeka.'

  'It's my fucking asthma. Accelerating the virus. Fuck, it's the steroids in my meds. I'm immuno-compromised.'

  'Didn't Che Guevara have asthma?' chirps Toby. 'What is it with you revolutionaries and lung issues?'

  'I can't be the only one. What about the kids who were there? Old people? This is happening way too fucking fast. Bastards. Fucking bastards. They didn't think it through.'

  'Hate to blow your big momentous revelatory, but whatever it is, you're going to have to get to a hospital.'

  'No.'

  'Okay, well, then we have to get away from here. People are staring.'

  'I want them to. They should see.'

  'But you don't want the cops to come ruin all your fun, right? You don't want to premature, not on your martyrdom. Trust me. Come on.' He slips in under my arm and we slope down the street.

  'I'm fucking dying!' I scream at two young men, about to step into Steers. 'Pay attention. Open your eyes!'

  'And I have fucking leprosy!' Toby shouts. 'And scabies!'

  'Stop it! This is real. Stop fucking around for once in your goddamn life.'

  'Hey, Ten, can you walk on your own?'

  He shrugs me half-off, leaves me unbalanced for long enough to admit that I can't.

  'Thought so. C'mon. Let's find a locale appropriate to making your last stand.'

  I'm forced to sling my arm over his shoulders and stagger on.

  Lerato

  'You've violated company code, Ms. Mazwai.'

  Jane sits sprawled on the couch, her arms across the back, smug, patient. I don't say anything. Her casualness is what's really terrifying, more than the dogs panting in creepy tandem, or the man standing behind me with an AK-47, subverting the cosy domesticity of our little scene. I have to confess, I was expecting a blank interrogation room, not a lounge on the penultimate to penthouse floor. I smile, carefully cultivated, loose and easy, slightly rueful. The punch of adrenalin in my gut sharpens everything.

  I consciously echo her pose, cheap tricks of body language. She notices and leans forward, irritated. 'Don't you have anything to say in your defence?'

  I shrug. Laugh, a little. 'You bust me. What am I supposed to say? I'm sorry? I didn't think it was such a big deal. Is all this…' indicating the man with the gun, the dogs, 'really necessary?'

  'What were you doing in the bathroom?'

  I stare at her, amused, puzzled, ignoring the uncomfortable edge of the SIM digging into me, inside. Then spell it out, as if she's a moron. 'Okay. If you really want to know, I was taking a dump.'

  She waits, lets the silence draw out between us, the loaded kind. In spite of myself, I plunge into it.

  'Bad chicken. Last night. Upset stomach.'

  'So why isn't this a big deal? Being bust?'

  I shrug, look away, bored with the proceedings. 'Like you've never had a little sugar. In fact, as I recall, you smoked that joint with me.'

  'You think that's what this is about?'

  'Why don't you tell me what it's about, Jane? This terrible thing you think I've done.'

  Another silence, fraught and frigid. Like Jane herself, come to think of it.

  'Do you have to keep doing that? It's really tacky.'

  'Does it bother you?'

  'I've read the same books you have, Jane. The manuals on intimidation techniques. Please. It's too tedious. Can we just skip to the bit where you accuse me of the heinous crime?'

  'Intention to defect.'

  Shit. I knew Stefan was a fucking plant. I knew it. But still, it's not so bad, not irrecoverable.

  She lets a long pause play out before she adds, 'Corporate sabotage.'

  'What?' The adrenalin ratchets up a notch. But I don't let it show. I am the incredulity distilled, made flesh.

  'One count direct involvement. Four conspiracy. Eleven aiding and abetting.'

  'You think I did what?' I am standing up now, radiant with outrage, doing the maths in my head – they're way over, which means, maybe, that it's a bluff. Or that they're trumping up the charges. The Aito at my knee grumbles a bass warning. 'This is absurd.'

  'Sit down, please. We have records. Instant messenger chats. Phone calls. Photographs. Our last conversation.'

  'Of what?' Both dogs are growling now, but I stay standing. I am righteous indignation personified. I am the wrath of the falsely accused.

  'You violated Communique's trust, your contract.'

  'Please. Where's this evidence?'

  'You aided a terrorist.'

  Fuck. Still, not like I wasn't expecting this one. I shake my head in pained disbelief and sit down with a sigh. 'These are pretty hectic allegations, Jane. Where is this proof?'

  'Are you denying them?'

  'I want to know where your proof is. You're accusing me of… insane stuff, conspiracy against the company, corporate sabotage, and as for terrorism! That kind of crap could lead to serious jail
-time, disconnect.'

  'Execution even.'

  'I'm sorry?'

  'We're thirty-two storeys up.'

  There are employee suicides, occasionally. Wall Street Crash syndrome, even though those reports of executives throwing themselves lemming-like from tall buildings in 1929 were apparently severely exaggerated. Today, it's usually because someone can't hack the pace, typical burn-out, but sometimes it's because they've realised there's no get-out-of-jail-free card when they get bust siphoning off funds or selling proprietary information to a competitor. But then, windows in skyscrapers are usually designed not to open. Jane catches me looking.