Moxyland

Moxyland Winners – There Can Be Only Three
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A huge thank you for everyone who took the time to write a story inspired by some aspect of Moxyland.

The stories were fantastic, from canny perspective switches on major events in Moxyland to sheer insanity I don’t know if I would have come up with if you shot me full of hallucinogens and locked me in one of those floaty sensory deprivation tank things. I’d often catch myself grinning at stories, at the wild inventiveness.

The calibre of the writing was great, and even when it wasn’t, when the writers didn’t quite deliver on the premise, the ideas fizzed and popped like sherbet laced with C4, from a live guitar that had to be tamed to nano-goo sex dolls to body armour made of meat.

It’s been an incredibly frustrating process to decide on just three stories. In making the big decision, I looked for stories with smarts, that were playful or surprising, but also had bite.

They had to be bold, inventive and ideally have a social conscience. If they found a sneaky way to bring in Moxyland’s characters or major events or ensure that it was very much at one with the universe, so much the better.

Ultimately, it was a very subjective and personal decision. I chose the stories that excited me the most, the ones that resonated with Moxyland, the ones that made me want to rave about them to everyone I know.

The full short-list and long-list are included below.

The (very, very close) runners-up are:

• Khanyi by 821202 - A cunningly brilliant perspective switch on Moxyland’s gallery scene written with wit and style and a razor-edged verve. I loved this story.

• Shade by TobyOne – A wicked and thoughtful gem of a story. It has great writing, a well crafted story about energy and land claims with impeccable world-building and a nastily appropriate resolution. And it has zeppelins.

AND… THE WINNERS ARE (cue drumroll: segues into extended drum solo):

• Inatec Biologica by Unpresuming

• Land of the Blind by Newmouse

• @nother by Bryan Steele


Authonomy will be in touch with the winners directly.

Inatac Biologica by Unpresuming
I love stories that play with unconventional format and the minutes of a board meeting between various concerned parties concerning the Toby situation was both clever and appropriate.

This, along with the runner-up story, ‘Khanyi’, represents, for me, the best of true fan fiction, picking up a dangling thread in the novel and running with it.

It’s smart and funny and disgusting (the kebab image is vilely, perfectly Toby). A pitch-perfect post-script to Moxyland that answers, very satisfyingly, the burning question at the end of what Toby did next.


Land of the Blind by Newmouse
This isn’t a perfect story. It has rough edges, partly due to the lost formatting. But it’s the kind of story I wish I’d written.

It’s loaded with subtle telling details incisive insights, beautiful descriptions and a dark plot that tangles up a mesh of shiny ideas in a way I didn’t see coming, incorporating a secret drug trial only accessible via a virtual world, disturbing art, seedy Salt River locations, epilepsy and the anti-corporate struggle.

It’s provocative, political and really, just horrible. Which I appreciate.

@nother by Bryan Steele
This story plays out behind the scenes on Moxyland. Cnapce is a repo man cum bouncer for the digital age, an irresistible bastard who gets a kick out of pulling the plug on unpaid accounts, booting duplicates and generally enforcing the rules of Pluslife according to his dailylister uploaded by his corporate bosses.

The writing is sharp and slangy and Cnpace is that dangerous combination of cocky and oblivious to what’s really going down here. You just know someone is going to get hurt. It’s fast and fun, hurtling towards a moral crisis that’s all in a day’s work.

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Here’s the shortlist:

1. Khanyi by 821202 – a cunningly brilliant perspective switch on Moxyland’s gallery scene
2. Raw Materials by Anitero – Death and architecture in Manila with a dose of brand sabotage.
3. @nother by Bryan Steele – The story about the online equivalent of the repo man, booting users and shutting down illegal accounts that seamlessly latches Moxyland.
4. The TICK-TOCK-MAN by B. Saint V – a queasy mash of identity and art with beautiful characterisations and explosive results.
5. No Cure For Cancer by Decca – A secret nano-cure for cancer and reality TV are not a good combination in this raucous fast-paced frolic of a story.
6. Nostrum by Duffy5000 – Before Kendra’s Ghost, there was another lurking in Foo Bear’s tai-chi classes. A sly, smart tale about what’s wrong (or right) with the kids today.
7. Digem 1.0 by Keith Harvey – Tobacco industry advertising at its finest and vilest with compelling characters and a real sense of Cape Town.
8. Land of the Blind by Newmouse – Secret drug trials, disturbing art, a working class stiff stricken with epilepsy, virtual espionage and dodgy dealings and an anti-corp struggle hero who is going down.
9. Shade by TobyOne – When even sunshine has become a commodity, Startek finds a unique solution to dealing with an unwanted intruder in their Kalahari solar plant. A provocative, relevant and spiky story.
10. Inatec Biologica Inc by Unpresuming – a pitch-perfect postscript to Moxyland that answers the burning question of what Toby did next.

And, by popular demand, here’s the long-list:

1. Khanyi by 821202
2. Raw Materials by Anitero
3. @nother by Bryan Steele
4. The TICK-TOCK-MAN by B. Saint V
5. No Cure For Cancer by Decca
6. Nostrum by Duffy5000
7. Digem 1.0 by Keith Harvey
8. Land of the Blind by Newmouse
9. Shade by TobyOne
10. Inatec Biologica Inc by Unpresuming
11. The Sedge by Steffan Evans
12. A Cup of Coffee by Adrian Ellis
13. You Have No Fucking Idea by flatbread
14. Job Hunting by qscribe
15. Optical Delusions by Cadence
16. Life is a Diamond by Giulietta M. Spudich
17. Level Four Physicality by Rico Craig
18. Whispers on the Wind by Sam W. Sanders
19. Thandie Barbie Meet Ghost by Poppet
20. Technically Defunct by Ryan
21. Untitled by Seamus33

PS: If you’d like to discuss your story with me (briefly) I’m open to giving you once-off feedback. This is not an invitation to a lengthy critique, but I can give you some quick comments and notes, if you’d like. Contact me on moxy@angryrobotbooks.com

Land Of The Blind

Agent HK - Ideological Security Unit

The corporate function of truth is to tell the various parts of the mechanism what to do. Of course it doesn’t actually have to be truth, not in the absolute sense. It just has to fit in with the rest of the system. I understand that now, more so than ever. I thought I had the system figured out, I thought I could work it. But it was the system that was working me.

They wanted to show me how serious they were so they stopped me turning left for a week. Easy as implanting a neuromuscular program that told my body that left turns were a no-go. “That’s a level one program” they said. “You’re primed for level four.” I tried to deviate a couple more times but eventually I just did what they said.

Drew

Hers isn’t the most elegant of necks. It’s a little too thin and her head teeters awkwardly on it like a toddler taking its first steps. There is something about the necklace though, purchased from an expensive boutique with six months of savings that made that neck into something wonderful. I smile as I close the clasp and turn her by the shoulders to face me. She is smiling too. “Thank you,” Kara whispers holding both my hands. Then the moment is over and she breaks away to signal that she is done. Thanks has been given. Strange that we should move so quickly through these moments - in a couple of months so vague and remote that they’ll hardly seem real.

The factory bleeds iron, vomits sparks and screeches like an exorcised demon. Some days are better than others, days when the churning mouths of the furnaces seem less likely to devour. And I am luckier than some. Luckier than those from the Rural that transport the ore and breathe in the noxious metallic powder. Weekly they drop like feverish bowling pins from respiratory diseases and are replaced by those also willing to swop their lives for the lives of their families.

I feel it coming but there is only an hour left before the end of the day. Taking a break would bring shit from my supervisor. I feel it coming like it had so many times; the flickering vision, the hissing of a thousand of stove-top kettles, the smell of burning. I feel the elation and everything fades to white.
Then it’s gone and people are shouting. I look around, blinking stupidly as if I have just woken up. Everything is saturated with light, giving objects a lingering halo effect. I wipe my eyes. One of the guys from Rural is pulling my arm and pointing at something; an eccentric splatter of stains on the factory floor. What is he trying to say? I can’t tell. Is it oil and iron ore? Even in my state I know it’s neither. It’s too bright. The Rural guy shoves me and points again. A contorted shape lies next to the splatter. I struggle to make sense of its contours until I see the red, yellow and green bangle hanging from one of its appendages. An arm. Connected to a body; Elias.

“I know you have a condition, we all do, so you can’t be blamed for this,” my manager says. Somehow I’m in his small, prefabricated office on the factory floor. “This is a hard business and people get hurt…” he pauses and I begin to cry. My episode had caused me to stumble activating one of the grinding machines while Elias was hunched over it to clean the metal silt that regularly clogs the mechanism. He shifts uncomfortably “Listen, I understand, but you can’t blame yourself.” I’m so surprised by this that I actually stop in mid-sob. He hesitates as if deciding whether to say something. “Andrew, I want to recommend a doctor, a corporate.” I look at him blankly. He covers his mouth with his hand as if trying to push the words back through his lips. It’s all so strange. “You’re doing valuable work here, and PMET looks after its own,” he says. My phone buzzes with a temporary access card to Waterfront City. “Go see the doctor, Andrew.”

Matt

The gallery is just starting the uplink to Nata Manzi. The screen comes alive showing her plump face framed by the iconic grey dreadlocks. The crowd draws a collective breath. Her left eye is missing and the socket filled with mutilated scar tissue. Everybody knows about the attack but it’s the first time anybody here has seen her since it happened. The photographer and media activist is now well into her seventies and it shows. Sentimental liberals call her the Lioness, the figurehead for the corporate resistance in South Africa. She was the one that had almost single-handedly fought corporate propaganda and disinformation pumped out by the Ideological Security Unit during the Second Food Riots. This is what it had gotten her. New Freedom, the zealot corporate youth movement, had publicly taken responsibly for the brutal attack outside her home. New Freedom leader Dawid ‘Storm’ Sepanga cited her corporate disloyalty as just cause for the ‘re-education.’
These protest gatherings are always a surreal experience. I see other expats, South Africans who, like me, had run when the riots broken out yet still felt the need to pretend like they cared. I usually avoid these things like the aidsplague. I don’t like people who yearn for their homeland. The history of humankind is the history of displacement. Earthquakes, volcanoes, wars, genocide have always forced people to flee familiar places for the unknown. It’s just a more sane choice to refuse to make a fetish of your land of birth.

It’s halfway through the speech by the Data Without Borders founder ,Tara Lopez, when I get a call. Lopez is repeating the soulful call-to-arms of the global info-warrior, kitsch hacker shit about the tech utopia awaiting us if we just could make the world see. I look at caller ID. “Little bro,” I say all jovial-like. We haven’t spoken in months. “Matt,” he says, his voice hoarse. He sounds like he’s about to break into a thousand pieces. “Can you come back?” he says right away. “Drew I said I’d try, it’s just..” I can’t think of anything to say. “You’re my brother,” he says. “I know, I know, little bro and family comes first, right, but I’m just super busy at work.” There’s no fucking way I’m going back and he knows it. “You’re still in contact with Luvuyo, right? “No,” Drew says distantly. I plow on. “He’s still administering the folks’ estate, Christ he says there are still people dying of radiation sickness, is that true?” “I've seen some of the kids begging on the street,” he says, sounding exactly like the lost little kid I grew up with. “Matt,” he says. “Yeah?” I ask, putting iron in my tone. “Nothing.” I’m again stuck for words so I try to wrap it up. “Ok bro, gotta run, speak to you soon ok?” There’s no answer.

Drew
“Homemade bio-fuel, larnie,” the cabbie says apologetically as the car splutters and jerks, “but my rates is cheap-cheap.” He edges the old car into the stream of traffic, hooting as a cavalcade of black vehicles with tinted windows roar past us. The cabbie scowls at me in the rearview mirror. “Real petrol is almost the same price as gold and these corporate fuckers are burning it in their SUVs.”
We make our way slowly through the traffic toward Waterfront City. The complex was bought by the Sheik of Dubai at the turn of century, a man so rich, as the old lame joke went, that when his wives went shopping there was a shift in the economy. Lush vegetation rises up from the gleaming towers. “150 species of indigenous flora,” the cabbie says nodding his head at the central tower with its balconies overflowing with plant life, “think of all that water.”

The doctor’s offices are all marble and steel. I’m ushered in by an expressionless woman. The doctor is sitting at his desk.“That’s a Stone,” I say nodding at the painting on the wall, a large of a mushroom cloud over Cape Town, the violent blacks and reds dwarfing the subdued purple of Table Mountain. I knew from art magazines my parents collected that it was called “The Spill” even though the real things hadn’t been like that at all. There had been fires, sure, but not like that, more like a progressive poisoning of the land with radiation. The artistic vision was powerful nonetheless and the doctor was obviously pleased that I recognized it. Personally I thought it was garish, typical of Stone. The egocentric young African artist had wowed the world, reaching superstar status before chaining herself to the body of an Aids victim in an unknown location and starving herself to death. She had documented it by webcam as her final work and her final minutes were still one of the most watched clips ever. You could buy a t-shirt printed with her emaciated face and last words on Greenmarket Square.

I change into a thin paper gown and lie still as machine scans my brain from different angles. The doctor keeps up a subdued banter but I hardly hear what he says. I change back into my clothes and allow myself to be ushered back into his office. We wait in silence for the results to appear on his desk console. “Andrew, there’s no easy way to say this,” he says when they finally appear with beep. “Your childhood medical results are correct, it is a severe form of epilepsy…but it’s been improperly treated.” He pauses and rubs his brow. “Your episodes, as you call them, have caused lesions to form on the brain.” I nod.“No patented medicine exists that can treat this,” he says. I sit absolutely still. I’m not disappointed because I wasn’t hoping for anything.“There is, however, a medicine that might work….it’s not patented because it’s not produced by a major corp and as such highly illegal,” he says quickly as if trying to get it out before he changes his mind.“I know how medical patents work,” I say. “It’s an option, but I can’t make the decision for you,” he finishes. “Does it have a chance of stopping these seizures?” I ask. He thinks for a moment then nods. “Then I want it.”
My phone buzzes and I look at it. It’s an access card with the name Kaden on it. “Kaden is username,” he says, “for a very specific game.” I stare at him. “Have you heard of the Kraal?” I shake my head. He smiles, “It’s testament to your character that you haven’t.” He gives me directions to a bar on the outskirts of Salt River “Ask to use the White Room.” I nod, but he catches my eye, “It has to be the White Room, you can’t reach Kaden any other way,” he says seriously.

I look at the gnarled cloud formations wrapped around the Mountain as if I’m trying to read them like tarot cards or tea leaves, but there’s nothing there to help me. I walk through the streets of Salt River, dodging kids riding skateboards, flipping the beaten wooden decks with their hard bare feet. One Rasta kid looks at me, his feet bloody from contact with the jagged tar of the pavement, his dreadlocks matted and keen green eyes peering out from beneath them. The kids follow me to the door of the Kraal which turns out to be a grungy games arcade and strip club and then they melt away.

The interior is dark and cavernous, older kids in the back plugged into VR units, the slick grey pods that have become more commonplace than slot machines. After the Spill, the sickness coupled with rising fuel and food prices have driven people from reality in droves. “Your mind can hardly tell the difference,” a faded sticker on one the unit proclaims. I walk up to the bar and sit. The barman is built like a bulldog and checks me out. “This is not a tourist centre, are you drinking or what?” he says. “A single Harm’s Way,” I say quickly. It’s the only drink I really know - cheap locally-made whiskey, an offshoot of the biofuel industry, that the Rural guys at the factory drank like water. I absently watch two girls dancing on the poles, my mind on other things. The barman grins. “The Germans love it...come over here on contracts, stay in chic apartments in Waterfront City then come slum it with ‘real’ Africans. “You see those two,” he said pointing at the two gyrating, they’re called Sheba and Uhuru.” He grins again.
“Looks busy,” I say, pointing at the VR units. The barman nods. “I’ve heard some of these kidpsychos have started setting up drips so they don’t have to leave their little cytopia.”
We watch as a kid takes off his VR mask and stands staring at the room trying to focus his eyes.
“Reality must be a real bad comedown,” the barman says laughing. “I need to use the White Room,” I say. His eyes harden and the laugh drops off his lips.“Never heard of it,” I show him the card on my phone. He eyeballs me then grunts and motions for me to follow him, leading me to a completely white room with wireless VR unit. “20 minutes,” he says. I log on.

Quickly I go through the motions of creating an avatar, choosing randomise to select a set of looks and skills and then hit “Incarnate”. I’m immediately in a bright, bustling square. Hundreds of avatars push past me in costumes inspired by a myriad of forgotten mythologies. A lot of people are crowded around a handsome avatar in a top hat standing on the back of an elephant. He opens his arms wide in a gesture of benevolence “The real world is pain,” he says in a silky voice. He vaults off the back of the elephant and lands at the feet of his audience.”At very best created by a neglectful god and at worst a random, haphazard collision of particles.”“Look around you,” A world created by a merciful and giving Corporation. Why would you want to leave?”

A small goblin-like creature sidles up next to me. “Corporate troll,” it scoffs. I don’t know what to do next so I say “I’m looking for Kaden.” The thing nods. “No shit, you’re in the White Room,” it. It notes the surprise on my avatar’s features. “Nobody else can see me.” He walks off and I follow him through the square. After walking for some time we approach a Greek temple on a hill. The creature gestures for me to go inside and then blinks out of existence.

Kaden’s avatar is a woman, or at least feminine. Huge angelic wings curl and uncurling behind an elegant body. “Please excuse the ostentatious aesthetics,” she says motioning to her body and the surrounds “but I’ve always felt it reflects most accurately what I am: a healer, an oracle for the to those whom corporate profits keep people from getting well” The code on my phone gives me one object in my player’s inventory, a small golden bowl inscribed with symbols that serve as a prescription. I hand it to her. She looks at it and nods. She in gives me an object, a scroll, which then in turn will be stored as code in my phone. She gives me directions to a pharmacy on Loop Street and. An hour before you pick it up you transfer the money to this account. “Show the code to the pharmacist.” I nod. “It’s ok, right? I mean there are no side-effects?” I say, but the avatar blinks out as she disconnects.

Kara is babysitting her two little sisters, the older one, Lucy tittering excitedly. She looks up briefly as I come in the door and smiles. I raise my hand in a wave but she has already looked away. “I’m going to lie down for a while,” I say. She doesn’t answer. I go into our room and made sure the door is close. I strip down to the waist and go into the bathroom, taking three of the capsules from the protective packaging and lining them up on the basin. They’re pink and grey. Three little pigs. Three blind mice. Three chances. After my parents died in the riots and Matt left I thought it wouldn’t be long before I was crushed by the weight of living. The truth is I’m not a survivor. But I had surprised myself. And then the episodes had grown progressively worse until they had become unmanageable. Black makt drugs. Highly Illegal, but maybe they’d give me a chance at a life. I look at myself in the mirror and then down them in quick succession.

Kara puts her youngest sister on my lap and I rock her gently. I feel peaceful and relaxed. I’m rocking contentedly when my head explodes. I look down and see a snarling creature where the baby had been. It’s snapping at me, teeth ripping at my flesh. I scream and push it to the floor. But there are more of them circling me. Then come patterns. Interlaced patterns crawling across everything, writhing, like a curtain of fireants digging holes in my vision. I scratch at my face to get them off and feel wetness on my fingertips. The things advance. I know something is not right but I can’t think. There is a knife on the kitchen table. Oh god I need help. Something is not right.

Agent HK

This is always the worst part. Waiting. Waiting for the first media reports of the massacre. He’d rip as many people apart as possible before something stopped him. Rage drugs. Military-grade neurotropics, a cocktail of steroids, PCP and pure adrenaline enhanced with nano that rips through the blood-brain barrier. Street names: Babykillers, Hate- in-a pill. Discontinued after a platoon had been dosed with them and gone zombie on a routine mission in the Rural.

They’d find anti-corporate material in his apartment. Data linking him to several known resistance groups and directly to Nata Mzanzi, the Lioness herself. Media channels were primed for the full scoop. Embedded casters would have photos of the bodies “leaked” to them. The danger, the degradation. Inside the mind of a killer. People would lap it up. The titillation of it all happening so close. Thank god somebody was protecting them. Thank God you’re protecting them Lerato.


*commenting box stripped out a lot of the formatting, so it looks a bit rough.

(Here is my entry for the Short Story Competition...hope you like it. In the word file, anything that is txt-scrip should actually be in "OCR A Extended" font type. Please keep that in mind, as the cold text style loses some of its impact in this format. Thanks!)

@nother
A Moxyland short story by Bryan Steele

>>SysRun: Pluslife
>>Plugin/Cnapce: run
.
.
.
>>Pluslife/Cnapce online
>>Enter Password

My mates, both IRL and streaming, always say that a persona’s password needs to be special and private. Something different for every account or prog. Something that no one will ever be able to acci-hack, especially not some low-tech lifejock with a score to settle with people like me. Yeah, I run my plugins on the bill of some big daddy corporate, but show me a half-cooked simp that wouldn’t do the same damn thing if the contract msgd their way.
So yeah, passwords. I have a dodgy memory on the best of days, popping pills just to keep my focus, which makes my having several passwords for my lives a lost cause. So, I keep one password. One, easy to mem, password. It’s a joke really, how it came about.

>>Password: @nother

From my days of misspent youth. When a prog asked “Enter another password” for sec-proof reasons, I did. I entered “@nother” password. I was a clever little shit. Now I am stuck with it. For all my progs and accounts. SIM, CV, Grande…Pluslife. Especially Pluslife. My "@nother" life.

>>Password accepted
>>Welcome! to Pluslife, user Cnapce

Pluslife. Where I work. The bigwig queue-cutters and cheque-chasers that keep me fed and roofed IRL hired me. Some kind of experimental prog that they needed beta’d. Beta’d? More like Omega’d at this point. Two years of running this deal for them, and do I know anything new about the prog? Nope. Not that I care. I’m never jonesing for black-makt shit, my weekly install keeps me sony. I have a roof over my nob in both lives, all paid up and looking swank.

All I have to do is find the users on my daily lister, that’s all. The corp feeds me the IDs of Pluslifers and I use this topline tech to hack them out and get my avvie to where they are. It is a sugar-sweet deal, really. I get all the time in the box as a want, so long as I’m surfing around for these users, and I get to see the net from all over. Last week I was sifting the code for some user in Kenya handled “And3rson” and I spent most of a day checking Ken-makt. Got a sweet deal on some T-warez for my ma, too. Then And3rson happened by the shopsite and I pulled his plug. The next day, I was in Oslo, skiing the pixel moguls and searching out “Doktor_Mow”. They are both disconnect now. That’s my gig. Adminning the people on my lister. I sever the links. Go ahead. Call me a wager. Call me a corporate bitchcat. The money is good, and now I don’t have to run quests and odd-jobs to get it. And my SIM don’t know any difference.

I never know exactly what they did, my listers. I get brief notes, that’s all. Illegals, rot-users, corp-debtors, hacktavists or fragged SIMs. But srsly, who cares? I find ‘em, meet ‘em, then fry ‘em. The warez I get to use is toplined now, designer nano, onsite support? What else can a user ask for?

Oh, wait. Today’s lister is cooked and inboxing right now.

>>Lister 08.099/
>>>User ID: CS44 (delinquent account)
>>>User ID: cranque (suspected hack)
>>>User ID: Malessa77 (account sharing)
>>>User ID: LthreethreeT (account sharing)
>>>Location: Sydney

Sydney? That’s the fucking tops. I’ve never been. Well, IRL anyways. A good four-pop like this should take me most of the week. Let’s see. We get to start off with what? A delinquent account. Old user, probably. They stop paying their bill, get defused, whatever. Their avatar was logged in when they went DQ, so now I get to go clean up the server.

So. Sydney. I’m going to need to blend in. Jeans. Plain shirt. Floppy hat…no…brimmed cap. Yeah, now I look good. I might as well be an outbacker. Well, Pluslifed, anyway. And now, I’m going down under.

>>Cnapce/port
>>Dest/Sydney//117.CS44

My apartment pixelates, unfocuses, then refocuses like a bad edit in streamcast. I don’t get it. Pluslife can afford to make the experience perfect for everyone, but you snag up some admin rights and you get total analogue naush. Oh well. The refocus has me, or my avvie anyway, in the parking lot of some makt. I pull up the tag cues, and suddenly my…uhm…target for lack of a better term…flashes above a guy sitting in his auto. CS44 (afk) glows in blue above his head. Here I go. Time to earn my keep.

I pop on over to the target. He is looking forward, totally zomb’d out. He isn’t in there anymore. Probably hasn’t paid up in weeks. Well, it’s the cycle of life…or, Pluslife. Time to do my thing.

>>Cnapce: User ID CS44. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement, your account has been…

I lean in, close to his vacant ear. Not that he knows anything that I’m doing, but it makes me feel like a real leet.

>>Cnapce:…terminated.

There is a brief flutter of static and little mister CS44 gets the pixel flush treatment. In a flash I’m looking at an empty ride. One down. Three to go. I love this job. It’s one part gamer, one part world traveller, and one part serial killer. All digi, all the time. Yeah, there’s urbans out there that blog about Pluslifers offing themselves IRL when they lose their Plus, but that’s just mythchat. I mean, this is just a game. Just a prog. Well, I guess it is my life...you know, my job. But srsly? Sure, I wouldn’t know what I could do without this gig, but if I do my job right, I don’t need to think about it. Speaking of which...

>>Cnapce/port
>>Dest/Sydney//133.cranque

Another pixel shift, another backdrop. Where the hell am I? It’s low-res, off the streets, but still Sydney. No furniture, not even a digi-cot. My tag cues are still up, and the bright blue cranque floats right in front of me. Nothing beneath it. He should be right here. Fuckin’ hack job. These are my least favourite marks. Aggro backdoor coding fucks. All of them.

>>cranque: What the hell, bro? How R U in my codex? Ralphie, izzat u?
>>Cnapce: Ya, where R U?
>>cranque: Sidedoor, shift-alt-7.

Arrogant black-hatters. They always give up the goods. I punch the sideline hack, the door appears, and in I go. The side room is nothing but copy-cut-paste codes. All vintage gear and stolen merch from around the Net. Two other users are sitting with the tagless cranque. They plugout as soon as my avvie pops in. They know.

>>report:TyTy
>>report:Angel0fDeth

Cranque looks like most Pluslifers. He’s the perfect height, built like a streamstar, and covered in perfect-image tattoo script. Another perfect body in a perfect world full of perfectly happy perfects. You’d think this would be enough. But no. Hacks and cheats don’t think so.

>>Freezeplug/Cnapce: cranque
>>cranque: Wait! No! Cmon man, dont do this. What do U want? Ill code it! Cmon!

The look on his face is priceless. I can just see this pimple-facer sitting in his mom’s basement, desperately trying to back out of the prog, frothing and sweating and popping a nervous chub about getting caught. But it is no use. Time for a little admin-play.

>>Cnapce: User ID cranque. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement, your account has been…
>>cranque: Nononononononononononononononononononononononono!!!!!!!!!1111111
>>Cnapce: ...terminated.

Another one bytes the dust. Lesson taught. Now go tell your mom that her funds have been wasted and her SID is tagged for possible disconnect. Fucker. There is nothing I hate more than a user who cheats the prog. Especially in Pluslife. I mean, for some users this is their escape from the smog and the static. A place to look good, get out and party, and do it without shaving a single whisker. Cheat-hacking here is just wrong. Dirty pool. Loaded dice. To me, it’s no better than those old nano’d runners on Moxy making all the little kids cry. Cheaters should be sterilised.

Okay, so I get to cheat. But it’s my job. Not cheating. Adminning. Which, if I want to keep rolling this style, I need to get back to it.

>>Cnapce/port
>>Dest/Sydney//186.Malessa77

The shift is a good one. From the dark of the hack-house to the sunny yellow40 of a suburb footie-family cottage yard. This place is a typical hab in Pluslife. Single floor flat, pastel buttery siding, Hansel-Gretel shingles, and even a whitewash picket fence with a fun little gate. It even has a coded inbox with her name on it. Classy shit, this is. It isn’t often that I have to go godmode on someone who can afford Homes and Gardens digi-rose bushes and two Prada topiary dolphins. This is no scam-shack. This is a Pluslife homestead worth taking a screencap of. What the hell is Malessa77 getting binned for? Account sharing? Srsly? That is just sad.

Account sharers are letting each other password in to check accounts, mails, msgs and even move code around in their Pluslives. Most of the time it turns out that somebody stole somebody’s @nother, or hacked their way in, or whatever. Nobody likes having an unwanted avvie running around in their Pluslife, so they report their ID, and management puts them on my lister. Like Malessa77 here. And then it is the end of them.

Here I go. The port-plugin took me to this place, so she has to be inside. I hop the fence and stroll the walk. Wow. The digi-roses are srsly primo code. They smell and feel real. I am impressed. I’ll put in for one on the next reqform. My habzone is not this swank, but I do alright.

The secure on the door is good, but not admin. I don’t get to play with my Pluslife stats much, so this will be fun. All SWAT with none of the training.

>>Cnapce/PlusAvatar/Adjust
>>Avatar/Strength/+99

It doesn’t feel any different to me in the rig, but I know the world will react right. My code++ foot turns that high-priced doorframe encryption into scrapcode at a single click-n-drag, and I am in.

The graphic chatroom is even more prime than the hab’s shell. Most of these private sceneboxes are where the richies show their true colours. You know, either leave the place all white00 or pull out the pr0ncode and let their freak flag fly. Décor by Martha Stewart with a few touches by the Marquis De Sade or maybe Himmler. But not this place. This place is full on swank. The carpets match the shades, the furniture is all high…I guess high dollar, being Sydney and all…and the atmos-code is exactly like that potpourri my stepmom used to set out on Boxing Day. Top stuff, all of it. Even includes a jpeg family photo over the mantle. I am almost sorry that I have to admin Malessa77. She has put a lot of time on the keys into this joint.

A shame, really.

Each room in this place is just as fanced up as the last. It is something special. Back toward the rear of the place, I can hear a voice. No, two voices. It’s another chatroom, so I can’t see what’s being txt, but I can follow the stereophonics.

The door at the end of the hall pops open and there it is, the story unfolds. Two young ladies, their avatars all remarkably normal for Pluslife images, are lying in bed inside. By the state of things, I’d say I was just too late to see one helluva show. Oh well. Wait. One of them is Malessa77, but the other. The other is lister number four. LthreethreeT is the brunette on the left. Two for one. Fantastic.

>>Malessa77: I don’t know who the hell you think you are, barging in here, but…
>>LthreethreeT: Uhm, Mal, I think he’s Company.
>>Malessa77: Really? Oh God, that means…
>>LthreethreeT: Sir? Mister, uhm, what can I call you?

Since they are both here. I don’t get out much IRL, and being around two nudies is a great way to spend my time on the clock.

>>Cnapce: It is probably better if you don’t call me anything. Easier anyway.
>>Malessa77: Easier? Oh god, no. Please don’t. This is all we have.
>>LthreethreeT: He isn’t going to care, Mal. They don’t know how. Corporate bullies.

Bully? I fuckin’ don’t think so. It’s just a job, chickie. You and your digi-lez friend are breaking the rules. Time to pay up.

>>Cnapce: User ID Malessa77. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation…
>>Malessa77: No! She didn’t hack me! I GAVE her the code!
>>LthreethreeT: It wasn’t her fault, it was my idea. Leave her alone, you fuckn wage-slave!
>>Cnapce:…your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement…
>>Malessa77: This isn’t fair. I can’t live without her! I’m quarantined! This is the only place we have together! Don’t take it away! Don’t take HER away!
>>LthreethreeT: It’s okay, baby. I’ll find another SID. This corporate douche can’t keep us apart.
>>…your account has been…
>>Malessa77: I luv u, Linda. Whatever happens to me, remember this place. Our dream house. Remember me! I lo-
>>Cnapce: ...terminated.

Her avatar’s perky little B-cups pixel out, and I almost feel bad for her. I hope they don’t ban her complete. You know, full disconnect. A suspension. Yeah, that’s what her and her friend will get. I’m sure of it. Oh yeah, her friend.

Wow.

I didn’t know Pluslife avvies could cry.

Streaks of digital pain and synthesised anguish colour-tint LthreethreeT’s rose19 cheeks, and if there was a player-mod for eye beams or aggro-static weapons…my avatar would have just been pwned by the look she is giving me. I actually have that worried tingle in my gut, like the feeling right after cheating on a lover. This is the shite part of my job.

>>LthreethreeT: You rotting corporati bastard. You just killed the only thing I loved. I can’t afford the med-pass to see her IRL. This is all we have. Had. Past tense. Fuck you.
>>Cnapce: Chill. You guys broke the rules. I’m just doing my job.
>>LthreethreeT: So I guess you have to do your job on me, too.
>>Cnapce: Yeah. I’m sorry.

Sorry? Why the hell did I just txt that? THEY are the rules-breakers. THEY fucked up. Why should I be sorry? Oh well. It’s syntax now. It’ll fall off the cache when she is gone.

>>LthreethreeT: Sorry? You will be. Keep your eyes on the Sydcast news for the next couple of days. My name is Linda Barrows, look for it in the obits. I can’t live without her. I’d rather die than go on knowing she is wasting away in a med-centre alone and suffering without me.
>>Cnapce: No you won’t. You won’t kill-
>>LthreethreeT: We both know you don’t care. You are a soulless corporate slave marching to the tune that key turning in your back is grinding away. Just fucking get on with it.

She’s right. She is just pixels and memory bytes to me. I can’t let her slide. This is MY livelihood, after all. I gotta watch out for Player One, you know?

>>Cnapce: User ID LthreethreeT. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code.

Her avatar’s last emote, standing there naked like she forgot to buy clothes-code, looks at me with sadness scrawled on her face. She is holding a jpeg in her hands. It shows two women, arm in arm. One looks like an athlete, maybe a footie player. The other looks like all the warning ads I have seen about the last big outbreak. She holds it out like a mirror at me, filling my monitor with the image.

I have to do this. It’s just another job. Heh, @nother job.

>>Cnapce: As per said agreement, your account has been terminated.

She closes her eyes the moment before the pixel storm sweeps her away. The jpeg goes along with her. So does the room. The furniture. The drapes. The art. The walls. The entire hab scrambles out and becomes an empty lot with an Ebay page already forming for its auction.

Full disconnect.

Oh well. Job’s done. I’m paid. That’s what it is all about, right? Keeping your head above water and making your way through RL. Yeah. And all that shit about offing herself? Really? No way. It’s just a game. Nobody really dies because of the shit that happens in Pluslife. No way. Digital lives, not real ones.

Wait a sec. My lister just chirped out at me. I must have scored a bonus gig. Exactly what I need to get that melodrama-mama out of my head. I mean, who dies over something like that? Life is never THAT bad.

>>Lister 08.10/
>>>User ID: 10 (delinquent account)
>>>Location: Cape Town

Great. Another bum not paying his bills.

>>Cnapce/port
>>Dest/Cape Town//453.10

Time to take out the trash.

INATEC BIOLOGICA INC

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
For viewing by legal entities with Corporate Status (CS) A+ or above only.

PLEASE SHRED ALL PHYSICAL COPIES AFTER IMMEDIATE USE in accordance with company policy, 223rd Rev. #464. Failure to observe the company policy will result in salary suspension, downgrading of employee status, and curtailed network access.

Minutes created by FACILIT4TOR PRO version 4.01 licenced copy 10876-12
Copyright (c) FACILIT4TOR Inc 2019. You may not distribute, copy, print, scan, etc. these minutes or parts thereof without written permission from FACILIT4TOR Inc. For detailed legal information, visit facilit4tor.law.

MINUTES OF MEETING #4586 Ref. 32

Dated 27-09-2019

ATTENDING: (5)

List By Corporate Status.

-- Nwabisa Mthini, Vice president of marketing, Ghost Inc (subsidiary of Praetorian Global).

-- Harold Brown, Legal Division: Corporate relations, Inatec Biologica.

-- Jacques Du Plessis, Corporate alignment official, Actisponse Private Security (Police Affiliated).

-- Busisiwe Zono, liason, Vukani Media.

-- Jules Dyonashe, BioInformatics applications division, Inatec Biologica.


ABSENT: (None)


START 21.45


-- Automatic reading of minutes of previous meeting by FACILIT4TOR PRO is cancelled at 0:07.

-- Brown (Initec) thanks all present for attending.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) tells Brown (Initec) to cut the bullshit.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) reminds all present of the details of the enhanced branding campaign for the soft drink Ghost. Salient points are:

1) Vukani Media, in association with Inatec Biologica, was contracted to enhance the branding of the soft drink Ghost.
2) The enhancement was to include cellular-level biological modification of Ghost Inc's brand ambassadors.
3) The modification was to bring the brand ambassadors in line with the Ghost brand, as laid out in the Ghost Inc Brand Bible Version 5.5 (Doc 564. Not found in archive).
4) The key phrases of the Ghost brand are: Youth, Aspiration, Peer-group bonding, and Safe (pro-consumption) creativity.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) tells Du Plessis (Actisponse) to play Media File #13-586 (Not found in archive).

SUMMARY OF MEDIA FILE #13-586

OPENING TITLE TEXT: "Broadcasting From A Little Pink Spaceship Orbiting Your Anus, It's The Toby Show!"
Footage cuts to a young man wearing a pair of sunglasses. His head is half-shaved. He is wearing an open BabyStrange jacket with no shirt beneath, leather chaps, and a pair of boxer shorts printed with a black-and-white image of female pudenda.
The man, who appears intoxicated, narrates a clearly fictitious experience he had escaping from a police holding cell. The narration is punctuated as the man swigs from a family-sized bottle of Ghost.
The fictional account of the escape cumulates in the man skewering his captors through their hearts with his own engorged penis, and carrying them around "like a kebab."
After this story, the video concludes with a montage of sex scenes, where the young man has coitus with a variety of women of different nationalities, in a variety of positions. Each shot in some way includes the soft drink Ghost, or Ghost-themed memorabilia, often in an inserted capacity.

-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) calls up a still frame from Media File #13-586 (Frame 2:41:15) revealing a bioluminescent marker on Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION))'s arm. The marker is the corporate logo of Ghost Inc.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) suggests that everyone involved in the branding exercise should be subject to immediate dismissal and disconnect.

-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) reports that Media File #13-586 has been downloaded 3,566,143 times in the last 6 months, giving it a pop culture profile of B (Underground - High Popularity).

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) states that, together with other video files from the same source, this media file has irrevocably damaged the brand of the soft drink Ghost.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) claims that the man in the footage, Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)), is not, and never was, an officially selected brand ambassador for Ghost, and his actions are not the responsibility of Vukani Media or any of its affiliates.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) says that he doesn't give three shades of shit if Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)) is an official brand ambassador or not. He is clearly a by-product of the branding program.

-- Brown (Initec) asks Dyonashe (Initec) if it is possible that a non-brand ambassador could have been subject to cellular level branding.

-- SILENCE. (17 secs).

-- Dyonashe (Initec) says that he cannot answer fully, as the branding brief contained elements that were classified at level A++. However, the therapies involved did have a contagious component, as specifically requested by Ghost Inc.

-- IMPOSSIBLE TO PARSE NEXT SECTION. Multiple persons speaking simultaneously. (23 secs).

-- Brown (Initec) asks if he is correct in understanding that Ghost Inc and Initec Biologica have been collaborating on an infectious virus to spread addiction to a soft drink.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) demands silence, as no-one in the room has clearance to speculate on company policy.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) asks when Vukani Media was going to be notified about this.

-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) activates a taser-nightstick.

-- SILENCE. (4 secs).

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) tells everyone to focus on the matter at hand, which is that Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)) is damaging the Ghost brand.

-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) offers a physical solution to the problem.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) explains that Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)) has important family connections. Removing him would risk upsetting the monopolistic détente.

-- Dyonashe (Initec) asks if he can offer a solution. Mthini (Ghost Inc) grants him the floor.

-- Dyonashe (Initec) explains that people who are modified by the Ghost branding are not addicted to Ghost per se, but to specific marker chemicals that are not found in any other drink. If another drink could be made with stronger concentrations of those chemicals, the brand ambassadors would switch allegiance.
-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) suggests that they mix the marker chemicals with cyanide.

-- Dyonashe (Initec) proposes a new beverage line from Ghost Inc, to lure unsavory elements away from the brand.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) suggests that Ghost Inc can do better. Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)) has a wide and influential reach. If Ghost Inc creates a new drink, they can play off Toby's bad-boy image and underground fan base to get an immediate consumer following. A whole new brand could be created around Toby.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) says he will propose the idea to his superiors.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) suggests the brand names "Ghost - Barbed Wire" or "Ghost - Battery Acid", and requests a royalty fee if either brand name is used.

--Brown (Initec) points out that using Toby as a brand icon will upset the carefully cultivated social landscape.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) agrees that Toby as a mainstream icon could trigger a new wave of counter-culture, and such waves are notoriously difficult for corporations to steer. A new counter-culture would be extremely damaging for all the companies who are gearing their products towards a conservative and homogenous youth culture.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) agrees that it's true, but it will only be damaging for the companies that aren't ready for it, and Ghost Inc, Vukani Media, Actisponse and Initec will be. As long as this meeting remains confidential, the four companies will be the only ones prepared for a youth culture upheaval. They will be prepared to gear their products towards a cynical, hedonistic, antisocial culture. While others companies fall, they will ride Toby's wave into a bright and glorious future. And if Toby wants to throw Molotov cocktails, they'll be right there to sell them to him.


ENDS 22.31

1254 words.

This is a fantastic book. I'm not surprised at all to see it's been published by Angry Robot and is here as part of a promo. Adding it to my real life to-read list.

I am so impressed with this book. The picture you've painted is of a world when rules have created a ruleless society- drugs, deprevation. The beauty of it is that, while it echos texts like A Clockwork Orange and 1984 the protagonist is far more likeable due to the personal details you subtly offer, her fear of cancer, her feeling on loosing her virginity ect. 10/10 and definately deserving of publication.
Katie
x

Lauren, you have a great storyline. The premise is strong; the pace is steady and characterizations compelling. I really like the plot and the writing is good. You have a flair for building tension that explodes off the page, and creating action propels the story forward.
Great storytelling
Scott
The Esrevinu Chronicles/Secrets of the Elephant Rocks

Lauren: Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in your contest. It has been a real treat for me. As a consequence, I re-read some Andre Brink and Breyten Breytenbach to steep myself in the literary juices of South Africa before writing (which was a pleasure) and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience writing about the orally-fixated Tau. Best regards in your endeavors and I look forward to your next book. Keith

Moxyland Winners – There Can Be Only Three
-------------------------------------------------------------------

A huge thank you for everyone who took the time to write a story inspired by some aspect of Moxyland.

The stories were fantastic, from canny perspective switches on major events in Moxyland to sheer insanity I don’t know if I would have come up with if you shot me full of hallucinogens and locked me in one of those floaty sensory deprivation tank things. I’d often catch myself grinning at stories, at the wild inventiveness.

The calibre of the writing was great, and even when it wasn’t, when the writers didn’t quite deliver on the premise, the ideas fizzed and popped like sherbet laced with C4, from a live guitar that had to be tamed to nano-goo sex dolls to body armour made of meat.

It’s been an incredibly frustrating process to decide on just three stories. In making the big decision, I looked for stories with smarts, that were playful or surprising, but also had bite.

They had to be bold, inventive and ideally have a social conscience. If they found a sneaky way to bring in Moxyland’s characters or major events or ensure that it was very much at one with the universe, so much the better.

Ultimately, it was a very subjective and personal decision. I chose the stories that excited me the most, the ones that resonated with Moxyland, the ones that made me want to rave about them to everyone I know.

The full short-list and long-list are included below.

The (very, very close) runners-up are:

• Khanyi by 821202 - A cunningly brilliant perspective switch on Moxyland’s gallery scene written with wit and style and a razor-edged verve. I loved this story.

• Shade by TobyOne – A wicked and thoughtful gem of a story. It has great writing, a well crafted story about energy and land claims with impeccable world-building and a nastily appropriate resolution. And it has zeppelins.

AND… THE WINNERS ARE (cue drumroll: segues into extended drum solo):

• Inatec Biologica by Unpresuming

• Land of the Blind by Newmouse

• @nother by Bryan Steele


Authonomy will be in touch with the winners directly.

Inatac Biologica by Unpresuming
I love stories that play with unconventional format and the minutes of a board meeting between various concerned parties concerning the Toby situation was both clever and appropriate.

This, along with the runner-up story, ‘Khanyi’, represents, for me, the best of true fan fiction, picking up a dangling thread in the novel and running with it.

It’s smart and funny and disgusting (the kebab image is vilely, perfectly Toby). A pitch-perfect post-script to Moxyland that answers, very satisfyingly, the burning question at the end of what Toby did next.


Land of the Blind by Newmouse
This isn’t a perfect story. It has rough edges, partly due to the lost formatting. But it’s the kind of story I wish I’d written.

It’s loaded with subtle telling details incisive insights, beautiful descriptions and a dark plot that tangles up a mesh of shiny ideas in a way I didn’t see coming, incorporating a secret drug trial only accessible via a virtual world, disturbing art, seedy Salt River locations, epilepsy and the anti-corporate struggle.

It’s provocative, political and really, just horrible. Which I appreciate.

@nother by Bryan Steele
This story plays out behind the scenes on Moxyland. Cnapce is a repo man cum bouncer for the digital age, an irresistible bastard who gets a kick out of pulling the plug on unpaid accounts, booting duplicates and generally enforcing the rules of Pluslife according to his dailylister uploaded by his corporate bosses.

The writing is sharp and slangy and Cnpace is that dangerous combination of cocky and oblivious to what’s really going down here. You just know someone is going to get hurt. It’s fast and fun, hurtling towards a moral crisis that’s all in a day’s work.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here’s the shortlist:

1. Khanyi by 821202 – a cunningly brilliant perspective switch on Moxyland’s gallery scene
2. Raw Materials by Anitero – Death and architecture in Manila with a dose of brand sabotage.
3. @nother by Bryan Steele – The story about the online equivalent of the repo man, booting users and shutting down illegal accounts that seamlessly latches Moxyland.
4. The TICK-TOCK-MAN by B. Saint V – a queasy mash of identity and art with beautiful characterisations and explosive results.
5. No Cure For Cancer by Decca – A secret nano-cure for cancer and reality TV are not a good combination in this raucous fast-paced frolic of a story.
6. Nostrum by Duffy5000 – Before Kendra’s Ghost, there was another lurking in Foo Bear’s tai-chi classes. A sly, smart tale about what’s wrong (or right) with the kids today.
7. Digem 1.0 by Keith Harvey – Tobacco industry advertising at its finest and vilest with compelling characters and a real sense of Cape Town.
8. Land of the Blind by Newmouse – Secret drug trials, disturbing art, a working class stiff stricken with epilepsy, virtual espionage and dodgy dealings and an anti-corp struggle hero who is going down.
9. Shade by TobyOne – When even sunshine has become a commodity, Startek finds a unique solution to dealing with an unwanted intruder in their Kalahari solar plant. A provocative, relevant and spiky story.
10. Inatec Biologica Inc by Unpresuming – a pitch-perfect postscript to Moxyland that answers the burning question of what Toby did next.

And, by popular demand, here’s the long-list:

1. Khanyi by 821202
2. Raw Materials by Anitero
3. @nother by Bryan Steele
4. The TICK-TOCK-MAN by B. Saint V
5. No Cure For Cancer by Decca
6. Nostrum by Duffy5000
7. Digem 1.0 by Keith Harvey
8. Land of the Blind by Newmouse
9. Shade by TobyOne
10. Inatec Biologica Inc by Unpresuming
11. The Sedge by Steffan Evans
12. A Cup of Coffee by Adrian Ellis
13. You Have No Fucking Idea by flatbread
14. Job Hunting by qscribe
15. Optical Delusions by Cadence
16. Life is a Diamond by Giulietta M. Spudich
17. Level Four Physicality by Rico Craig
18. Whispers on the Wind by Sam W. Sanders
19. Thandie Barbie Meet Ghost by Poppet
20. Technically Defunct by Ryan
21. Untitled by Seamus33

PS: If you’d like to discuss your story with me (briefly) I’m open to giving you once-off feedback. This is not an invitation to a lengthy critique, but I can give you some quick comments and notes, if you’d like. Contact me on moxy@angryrobotbooks.com

ANNOUNCING THE SHORT-LIST

(Winners announcement Tuesday)

Judging the Moxyland short story competition has been hellish.

It started off well enough, getting to read 52 stories and pretending like it was work? Especially when those stories had DNA in common with Moxyland and all the things that excite me? Brilliant!

But then I had to start culling them down to a longlist. And then, god help me, a short list, and then the final three. Just three. It nearly killed me. Curse you all.

I looked for stories with smarts, that were playful or surprising, but also had bite. If they found a sneaky way to bring in Moxyland’s characters or major events or ensure that it was very much at one with the universe, so much the better.

Generally, the calibre of the writing was very good, and even when it wasn't or when the writers faltered and couldn't quite deliver on their premise, the ideas fizzed and popped like sherbet laced with C4, from a live guitar that had to be tamed to nano-goo sex dolls to body armour made of meat.

I’d strongly encourage the writers who didn’t make the shortlist to rethink and rewrite their stories – the potential is there. (Steffan Evans, Adrian Ellis, Poppet and Rolland get honourable mentions for kick-ass ideas that need more work)

Without further ado - or any more bitching about the talent out there - here is the shortlist.

The short-listed stories have been cherry-picked (ie. moved to the top of the comments section) so they're easy to find and read.

UPDATE: Looks like i can only cherry-pick 5 comments at a time. Please do a search to find the relevant stories if you want to read 'em.

Winners to be announced tomorrow.

SHORTLIST (in alphabetical order by author)

1. Khanyi by 821202 – a cunningly brilliant perspective switch on Moxyland’s gallery scene

2. Raw Materials by Anitero – Death and architecture in Manila with a dose of brand sabotage.

3. @nother by Bryan Steele – The story about the online equivalent of the repo man, booting users and shutting down illegal accounts, seamlessly latches onto Moxyland.

4. The TICK-TOCK-MAN by B. Saint V – a queasy mash of identity and art with beautiful characterisations and explosive results.

5. No Cure For Cancer by Decca – A secret nano-cure for cancer and reality TV are not a good combination in this raucous fast-paced frolic of a story.

6. Nostrum by Duffy5000 – Before Kendra’s Ghost, there was another lurking in Foo Bear’s tai-chi classes. A sly, smart tale about what’s wrong (or right) with the kids today.

7. Digem 1.0 by Keith Harvey – Tobacco industry advertising at its finest and vilest with compelling characters and a real sense of Cape Town.

8. Land of the Blind by Newmouse – Secret drug trials, disturbing art, a working class stiff stricken with epilepsy, virtual espionage and dodgy dealings and an anti-corp struggle hero who is going down.

9. Shade by TobyOne – When even sunshine has become a commodity, Startek finds a unique solution to dealing with an unwanted intruder in their Kalahari solar plant. A provocative, relevant and spiky story.

10. Inatec Biologica Inc by Unpresuming – one possible answer to the burning question of what Toby did next.

The competition is now closed. Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter. I'm gob-smacked by the quality of entries. Results will be announced in the next two weeks.

'The Big Rescue'

The motherbitch is constantly on to me about how I'm too self-centred, so my good deed for the day, kids, is saving this poor chick from the mob she's gotten herself a part of. She's near the front, probably managed to slide through with how tiny she is, and she is bleating along with the rest. Above her some slogan flashes all red and digital, projected into the air from her phone. Similar flashes of red wave all over above the crowd. Although it's so goddamn sunny today that you can barely read what the slogans say through the sunglare. I squint but can't make it out. And what with everyone shouting different things at the same time, it's all just noise.
Protest protest protest.
Normally I'd walk right on past, but it's not like I have anywhere important to be, and with her being so cute and innocent and all, I actually feel sorry for her. I record the action for a few seconds, then switch to display mode so the crowd is mirrored on my jacket. Maybe one or two of them will see themselves, empty faces shouting empty words looped right back at them, and they might realise how pathetic they look, and how pointless they are.
But probably not.

So, camoed up with the crowd's likeness, I just wade on in.
They're all too busy to notice me, and she's screaming along with the rest of them, all hidden away in her long-sleeve hoodie. The hood is pulled up, so all I can see is her cute button nose, pierced of course, and rosy cheeks that give away her age. So I grab her by the arm, and when she turns to me her face is all shock horror and step off, china! but I just pull anyway.
“You're coming with me!” I say, like I'm her Dad or something.
No one even notices me plunge into their midst, let alone tries to stop me.
What's a crowd of protesters minus one little girl?
A crowd of protesters.
Free from the crush I head straight for Stones with the girl in tow. My grip is tight, and I can feel her struggle, but I'm thinking if she really wanted to she could get out.
“Give me your phone,” I say, turning right sharp so she ends up walking right into me. Then she's looking up from her small size, face all defiant.
“What the hell did you do that for?”
“I'm taking you to Stones for a drink.”
“I was kinda of in the middle of something!”
“Look, just give me your phone...” I say again, trying to ignore her whining and ready to grab her again if she tries to run back (this one's worth saving, I reckon) and I'm not even expecting it when she shoves her hands into her rucksack, digging deep, and comes up with a cell. She plonks it in my hand.
“Thanks,” I say, taking my own phone from my pocket. “I'm sure they won't miss you too much.” I nod my head, without looking back, towards the crowd. “Just one drink, I promise...”
She laughs, scoffing it sounds like. “Are you mad? Stones is corp access only now, dumbo.”
“I know. Last place to go...”
Fuck.
It just hits me what all the shit over there is for. Access. Aw man, that's what they were shouting and screaming. It all makes sense now. Well, a little bit of sense anyway.
“What are you doing then?” she asks. “You ain't corporate so, what... you're giving me your number?” she asks, all sassy and pouty. Totally a put-on.
“Not yet,” I joke, and I press a few buttons on my phone. “Here,” I say, passing hers back. When she takes it I grab her hand again, and I pull her all brazen, right in front of the crowd, straight into Stones. The scanners pick up our SIM IDs as we walk through, reading the access entry code I scored from Lerato and the permission I just logged on the girl's phone.
Inside is still as dingy as ever. I was nervous all over when this place went corporate that they'd change it, and even with my illegally-obtained pass I'd hate what they'd done with the place and have to ditch it in favour of something more real. But it's still the same, turns out some corp types like it like this.
Longing for the old days?
Slumming it for the kicks?
Whatever the reason, I'm not really interested.

The girl is looking round, so I'm like “drink?” like I didn't just snatch her out of a protest.
She turns to me, and she's got this grown-up, all serious face on that really doesn't suit her. She's thrown her hood back and her head is blonde and freshly-washed. Her eyes are bright blue. Now she finally stands out.
“What the fuck did you do that for?”
I grimace at her swear, which I'm not used to doing.
“Ow,” I say, covering my ears, “please don't swear. Normally I'd find it kinky, but coming from you... that's just wrong.”
She pushes me, and it's really weak and like nothing I almost laugh.
“I'm leaving,” she tells me, and begins to walk towards the door. I catch her wrist again.
“C'mon...” I plead, all cute and mocking. “Just one drink.”
She rolls her eyes at me, like I'm the immature one here. “Don't... I know what 'just one drink' means to guys like you.”
I can't help but laugh. “Guys like me?”
“Yead, guys like you. You just snatched me out of a protest.”
“You don't wanna be out there,” I tell her.
She gives me that serious look again, but it's starting to fade, like an corporate adboard powering down after a sabotage.
“Fine. Ghost, since you're buying.”
I take a beer and a Ghost for the girl. She pops open the can and swigs it back like it's alcohol and she's a trying hard to get pissed. She burps, satisfied, and I take a swig of my own.
“So, does the Burping Anarchist have a name?” I ask.
“Maddox.”
“Tobe.”
She offers her hand, real dainty like, and I think she's forgiven me for saving her from the mob. But I can't resist stirring.
“So, what were you doing out there anyway?”
I grin at her, and she rolls her eyes.
“You're like that fucking Cheshire Cat,” she tells me.
“Woah...” I rock back, hands in the air all mock hurt, but I'm genuinely surprised. “You've read that story? We're talking ancient deluxe, sweet girl.”
“My parents used to read that story to me when I was younger.”
I get it.
“Riiiight, I think I get you now.”
She turns on her stool to full-on face me now.
“Oh, really?”
“Hippy 'rents, right?”
She turns back to the bar. “Fuck. You.”
I can't help but laugh, and it comes out a fucking cackle if you believe it, and my hands drum rapid-fire on the bar.
“Yeeee-eeeessssss! Got it in one.”
Now I've done it. She bangs the can down, interrupting the swig she was about to take, and she's off on the anti-establishment express, first-class ticket.
“You think you know me?! Saving me, is that what all this is? I chose to be part of that protest cos we have to make our voices heard. I know I'm only young but everyone has to fight!”
No no no no no I shake my head at her, still downing my beer. I didn't bring her here for a debate but looks like I'm getting one. Didn't count on this. I need to shut her up quick.
“C'mon girl... live a little. I know this city's fucked but, sweet... you're only young. Just live for a bit, first. Let those crusties out there fight, they're the ones who've been fucked...”
“You think I don't know about getting fucked?” she almost yells, but she catches it and turns it into a sort of hiss between her gritted pearly whites. Deep inside her mouth I can see her tongue is stained a little from the Ghost. Her bright blue eyes are starting to fill and her bottom lip begins to tremble, the ring piercing it waggling away. It's all very you-don't-know-the-pain-I've-suffered-poor-little-white-girl-victim, and way touching, I might add.
I don't buy it.
“I don't buy it.” I tell her.
She's starting to annoy me a little, already, which ain't good. “What do you know about this city? Apart from what your Mummy and Daddy have told you...?”
Now she turns back to the bar, crossing her arms and folding herself over all defensive, stonewall silent treatment.
“Aw, c'mon...” I say. “You're out there for the kicks, that's all. You're out there because you think we should be fighting, because you think it'll make a difference.”
“You're wrong,” she says, calmly, speaking to the back of the bar. “We can make a difference. Ten said so.”
I fucking knew it. That dreadlocked bitchmonkey sack of shit.
“Is he there?! Shiiiiit girl, I should of known! I didn't even see him. Shows you how much of an impression he's making out there, huh?”
She turns to me like I've just called her Dad out, or something. I cut her off before she can come back with some kinda messiah/prophet/Che Guevara recycled bullshit.
“Listen, Baby X, I'm only telling you this for you own good. I like you, so you get my wisdom for free...when it comes to C-Town, if you're not Corporate, there're only two types of people you can be.”
She rolls her eyes at him, waiting like oh I'm so on tenterhooks this better be good.
“You're either me, or him.”

She doesn't want to hear it. I can tell by the way she storms out the place, and I'm hot on her heels. No way is she jumping back in that pool. So I'm belting out of Stones like I'm in love or something, and it's only then that I see, past her little frame wearing a strut and a strop fifteen sizes too big, is Ten. I really seriously didn't even notice him earlier. He is at the front, of course, waving his panga round like a limp dick, it's about as useful. He ain't gonna stab anyone with neither.
“Seriously, you pick him?” I shout after her, stopping. Maybe she'll come back on her own.
She flips the bird at me over her shoulder as she goes, and throws her hood up, way dramatic. Okay, she needs saving.
I dive forward, she's nearly into the crowd now, and her hands are already above her head. Big mistake, girl, and I catch up with her and grab her wrist.
Only when I do I pull her sleeve down, and then the crowd notice her.
And suddenly I'm standing all shameful, like I let this girl down. The logo, green and glowing and perfect, shines out for a second, and in that second Mads, who I tried to save, is naked and alone and I can see her past laid out in front of me.
I was wrong.
Already fucked, and still so young.
Only the system isn't finished with her yet. The crowd, they've already whipped themselves into a frenzy of self-flagellated bitterness and rage, and the glow of Ghost in their eyes is too much. The whole mass of people folds inwards upon itself like a black hole, with Maddox in the middle, and I'm forced out, repelled. They grab her, pulling her sleeves back when she tries to cover herself up.
“Toby!” she screams.
Their mantra has changed, and they're chanting it anew. I can't make it out, as I try and keep her in sight but I can't with all the people moving around her, circling. No one seems to know what is going to happen next, then out of the crowd comes this kid. Must be her age, maybe younger. His mouth is all twisted in a snarl and all kinds of regurgitated shit is falling out, and his voice all high-pitched joins in the new slogan, and it's only then that I catch it.
“Destroy the ad, destroy the system. Destroy the ad, destroy the system.”
And I tell you that one smells particularly fucking bad. He's shouting it over and over with them, and he has this look in his eyes, so, fuck, curse me and my dumb wits for not twigging what's about to happen, but it does, y'know, all slow-mo and unreal and fucked up, and his panga digs deep into Baby X's glowing wrist, digging out the logo, and with it comes a big chunk of artery.
And then there's blood.
The woman holding Mads drops her to the floor. There is a sickening splat as she hits, dead weight.
I see Ten, the fucker, run. I don't think he's seen me, but if he has I hope the thought is running through his head that I might, nay most probably, have my BabyStrange on. Which I do, of course, but you kids already knew that. And the fear that I might turn my jacket in to the police for the uploading of materials pertinent to the capture of a repeat offender and soon-to-be public enemy #1, inciter of riot leading to the brutal attack on a poor, defenceless girl, already raped by the system and bought-off for life, might very well be a brick growing in his bowels.
Because I might just turn the recording in, and wouldn't that just fuck up his day? Although, most likely, I'll just upload it to 'Diary of Cunt', and see what happens to my readership. Which, if this superhero rescue is anything to go by, should sky-rocket by next week. I check that I'm still recording, and charge right in.

INATEC BIOLOGICA INC

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
For viewing by legal entities with Corporate Status (CS) A+ or above only.

PLEASE SHRED ALL PHYSICAL COPIES AFTER IMMEDIATE USE in accordance with company policy, 223rd Rev. #464. Failure to observe the company policy will result in salary suspension, downgrading of employee status, and curtailed network access.

Minutes created by FACILIT4TOR PRO version 4.01 licenced copy 10876-12
Copyright (c) FACILIT4TOR Inc 2019. You may not distribute, copy, print, scan, etc. these minutes or parts thereof without written permission from FACILIT4TOR Inc. For detailed legal information, visit facilit4tor.law.

MINUTES OF MEETING #4586 Ref. 32

Dated 27-09-2019

ATTENDING: (5)

List By Corporate Status.

-- Nwabisa Mthini, Vice president of marketing, Ghost Inc (subsidiary of Praetorian Global).

-- Harold Brown, Legal Division: Corporate relations, Inatec Biologica.

-- Jacques Du Plessis, Corporate alignment official, Actisponse Private Security (Police Affiliated).

-- Busisiwe Zono, liason, Vukani Media.

-- Jules Dyonashe, BioInformatics applications division, Inatec Biologica.


ABSENT: (None)


START 21.45


-- Automatic reading of minutes of previous meeting by FACILIT4TOR PRO is cancelled at 0:07.

-- Brown (Initec) thanks all present for attending.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) tells Brown (Initec) to cut the bullshit.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) reminds all present of the details of the enhanced branding campaign for the soft drink Ghost. Salient points are:

1) Vukani Media, in association with Inatec Biologica, was contracted to enhance the branding of the soft drink Ghost.
2) The enhancement was to include cellular-level biological modification of Ghost Inc's brand ambassadors.
3) The modification was to bring the brand ambassadors in line with the Ghost brand, as laid out in the Ghost Inc Brand Bible Version 5.5 (Doc 564. Not found in archive).
4) The key phrases of the Ghost brand are: Youth, Aspiration, Peer-group bonding, and Safe (pro-consumption) creativity.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) tells Du Plessis (Actisponse) to play Media File #13-586 (Not found in archive).

SUMMARY OF MEDIA FILE #13-586

OPENING TITLE TEXT: "Broadcasting From A Little Pink Spaceship Orbiting Your Anus, It's The Toby Show!"
Footage cuts to a young man wearing a pair of sunglasses. His head is half-shaved. He is wearing an open BabyStrange jacket with no shirt beneath, leather chaps, and a pair of boxer shorts printed with a black-and-white image of female pudenda.
The man, who appears intoxicated, narrates a clearly fictitious experience he had escaping from a police holding cell. The narration is punctuated as the man swigs from a family-sized bottle of Ghost.
The fictional account of the escape cumulates in the man skewering his captors through their hearts with his own engorged penis, and carrying them around "like a kebab."
After this story, the video concludes with a montage of sex scenes, where the young man has coitus with a variety of women of different nationalities, in a variety of positions. Each shot in some way includes the soft drink Ghost, or Ghost-themed memorabilia, often in an inserted capacity.

-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) calls up a still frame from Media File #13-586 (Frame 2:41:15) revealing a bioluminescent marker on Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION))'s arm. The marker is the corporate logo of Ghost Inc.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) suggests that everyone involved in the branding exercise should be subject to immediate dismissal and disconnect.

-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) reports that Media File #13-586 has been downloaded 3,566,143 times in the last 6 months, giving it a pop culture profile of B (Underground - High Popularity).

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) states that, together with other video files from the same source, this media file has irrevocably damaged the brand of the soft drink Ghost.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) claims that the man in the footage, Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)), is not, and never was, an officially selected brand ambassador for Ghost, and his actions are not the responsibility of Vukani Media or any of its affiliates.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) says that he doesn't give three shades of shit if Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)) is an official brand ambassador or not. He is clearly a by-product of the branding program.

-- Brown (Initec) asks Dyonashe (Initec) if it is possible that a non-brand ambassador could have been subject to cellular level branding.

-- SILENCE. (17 secs).

-- Dyonashe (Initec) says that he cannot answer fully, as the branding brief contained elements that were classified at level A++. However, the therapies involved did have a contagious component, as specifically requested by Ghost Inc.

-- IMPOSSIBLE TO PARSE NEXT SECTION. Multiple persons speaking simultaneously. (23 secs).

-- Brown (Initec) asks if he is correct in understanding that Ghost Inc and Initec Biologica have been collaborating on an infectious virus to spread addiction to a soft drink.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) demands silence, as no-one in the room has clearance to speculate on company policy.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) asks when Vukani Media was going to be notified about this.

-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) activates a taser-nightstick.

-- SILENCE. (4 secs).

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) tells everyone to focus on the matter at hand, which is that Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)) is damaging the Ghost brand.

-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) offers a physical solution to the problem.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) explains that Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)) has important family connections. Removing him would risk upsetting the monopolistic détente.

-- Dyonashe (Initec) asks if he can offer a solution. Mthini (Ghost Inc) grants him the floor.

-- Dyonashe (Initec) explains that people who are modified by the Ghost branding are not addicted to Ghost per se, but to specific marker chemicals that are not found in any other drink. If another drink could be made with stronger concentrations of those chemicals, the brand ambassadors would switch allegiance.
-- Du Plessis (Actisponse) suggests that they mix the marker chemicals with cyanide.

-- Dyonashe (Initec) proposes a new beverage line from Ghost Inc, to lure unsavory elements away from the brand.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) suggests that Ghost Inc can do better. Toby ((FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION)) has a wide and influential reach. If Ghost Inc creates a new drink, they can play off Toby's bad-boy image and underground fan base to get an immediate consumer following. A whole new brand could be created around Toby.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) says he will propose the idea to his superiors.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) suggests the brand names "Ghost - Barbed Wire" or "Ghost - Battery Acid", and requests a royalty fee if either brand name is used.

--Brown (Initec) points out that using Toby as a brand icon will upset the carefully cultivated social landscape.

-- Mthini (Ghost Inc) agrees that Toby as a mainstream icon could trigger a new wave of counter-culture, and such waves are notoriously difficult for corporations to steer. A new counter-culture would be extremely damaging for all the companies who are gearing their products towards a conservative and homogenous youth culture.

-- Zozo (Vukani Media) agrees that it's true, but it will only be damaging for the companies that aren't ready for it, and Ghost Inc, Vukani Media, Actisponse and Initec will be. As long as this meeting remains confidential, the four companies will be the only ones prepared for a youth culture upheaval. They will be prepared to gear their products towards a cynical, hedonistic, antisocial culture. While others companies fall, they will ride Toby's wave into a bright and glorious future. And if Toby wants to throw Molotov cocktails, they'll be right there to sell them to him.


ENDS 22.31

1254 words.

It's 2am and I am incredibly frustrated that this site won't let me post my story.

Nostrum

There’s a bear doing tai chi on the far wall of the nursery. He’s huge, ten feet tall and at least six wide and is standing on his hind legs, his paws forming and dismissing a sphere in front of him. His movements are slow and graceful, his voice is warm and funny and encouraging as he says ‘Feel your hands getting warm, kids? That’s your chi, the energy that helps you run and jump and play! Focus it and you can do anything!’

Then the bear falls over and he laughs and the other children in the class laugh and Matt dies a little inside. He’s five and he’s already cynical enough to know that Foo Bear up there is a palatable face on the company’s callisthenics program, that all he exists to do is keep the kids in tip top form for when they graduate into their pre assigned jobs. Colour inside the lines, play the right games and you’ll go far.

Not that he can articulate any of that. Because he’s five. So instead, Matt stands at the back of the class, runs through the forms and thinks about other things. Things like how Tai Chi is a deceptively cuddly martial art being taught to them by a creature that not only can kill humans but often quite wants to. Things like how a gentle side step can become a fist in the face, how redirecting your opponent’s energy against him is actually sneaky and kind of fun. Most of all though, he’s thinking how Jolo the class bully, an inch taller and broader than everyone else is having problems. His stance is wrong, he keeps over extending himself and he moves through the forms far, far too quickly. This is a weakness, a big one and the next time Jolo decides Matt doesn’t really need his lunch which, based on past experience, will be tomorrow, Jolo’s going to be in for a surprise.

Then Matt gets angry because this is how they want him to think. They want him to view each social engagement as a fight, they want him to pick up on the weaknesses of his compatriots and use them as weapons and most of all, they want him to pay attention, to enjoy this. A good little corporate soldier standing to attention, fists balled from the moment he could walk. It’s a betrayal, a theft of identity and individuality before either of those concepts are fully embedded. Not that he can articulate any of that, because he’s five, but the anger is real and present and sits in his chest like a stone. He lets his hands drop, he shifts a quarter second out of step with the rest of the class. He thinks about colouring outside the lines, over them, onto the table and onto the floor and out into the world. He thinks about writing his name across the planet and he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that will never happen. His gaze drifts, and that’s when he sees the ghost.

He knows it’s a ghost because he’s five and every five year old knows that ghosts are white sheets with black eye holes and a spooky mouth. It’s floating on the right hand wall, just above the line of sight of Foo Bear’s students and looks like Matt feels. The ghost is reclining, it’s spectral arms folded, it’s head slowly drooping forwards. It’s bored because this is boring and as Matt looks a string of cartoon ‘z’s begin to rise from it’s mouth. He giggles, utterly innocent, utterly genuine.

And it turns and looks at him.

Matt freezes, mouth open in shock.

The ghost freezes, mouth open in shock.

Matt raises a hand. So does the ghost.

They wave. They giggle.

The ghost holds up a finger, the meaning clear ‘Wait a sec.’ turns and produced a notepad. He writes it on it and holds it up:

HI MATTHEW. ARE YOU BORED?

He nods. The Ghost writes again.

ME TOO. DON’T WORRY, YOU WON’T BE BORED FOREVER.

Matt raises an eyebrow. Five years old and so cynical. The ghost smiles, all teeth and blackness and writes again.

REMEMBER THIS WORD: NOSTRUM. I’LL SEE YOU SOON.

The Ghost begins to fade and Matt feels a tinge of regret. He can’t do this, he can’t sit through another session of Foo Bear, another interminable round of colouring and the inevitable, tedious team sports that will surely follow. He’s thinking about crying when the Ghost reappears suddenly.

BY THE WAY, JOLO ALWAYS LEADS WITH HIS RIGHT. USE THAT.

Then disappears with a cartoon pop. Matt looks around, oddly guilty as though he’s done something wrong. No one else is looking at the wall, no one else saw the ghost.
That means something, not that he can articulate it of course but he knows something important when he sees it, knows a flag has been placed on this day in his life. He has no idea why but the knowledge is enough. Matt turns back to Foo Bear, redoubles his efforts and smiles. It’s easier now especially with the tip the Ghost gave him about Jolo. That’s going to come in very useful.

*
A collection of action figures are on the far wall, guiding the children through their first day of XTREME!ercise. They’re not action figures of course, Matt knows that, he’s fourteen after all, but they may as well be. Five is the magic number where tween bands are concerned and part of him wonders, even as he pops and locks, who decides whether it’s three girls and two boys or two girls and three boys.

Five is certainly a magic number for him. It’s been a long nine years, made longer by the fact he can understand and perceive the passage of time now but he’s kept his nose to the grindstone, kept his hands clean. Matt has worked hard, hit every grade, every target, excelled in very nearly everything he’s ever done and made a point of doing so just enough to get noticed. Not long after the first visit from the Ghost, Matt worked out something that no one else in his class had; that his failures would define him more than his successes and as a result, to be truly successful, he would have to define his own failures. It was rather fun and, after the admittedly satisfying beating he’d handed Jolo, Matt decided that the physical was the area where he’d fail, just a little. It was embarrassing, not to mention painful, throwing the next couple of fights with Jolo but it was worth it. Now, he’s seen as a little clutzy, a little unsteady on his feet and now people give him a wider berth.

Which means breathing room, time to think away from the petty social niceties of who plays with which toy when, who beats who up, who shows who what when they think no one else is there. Matt doesn’t play well with others, he knows that, he’s fourteen, but he also knows he does so on his own terms. Matt can socialise, does have people in the class who he could call friends with a straight face but he comes to them on his terms, no one else’s. He remembers a story they were read a few years ago; The Cat Who Walked by Himself. As far as Matt’s concerned, the cat had the right idea.

On screen the white guy in the unthreatening navy blue tank top kicks sideways, folds his left knee behind his right and drops onto his fingertips. Matt can see a split second of pain behind his eyes before he pushes off, spins backwards up to his starting position and, with a smile born of adrenalin and very expensive surgery, says ‘Now you try!’

Matt is reminded of the first gymnastics class they had. The teacher was a tall, stocky man with a SAPS tattoo on one arm who lined them all up against the wall of the air conditioned, multi-functional sports hall and walked calmly to the other end. He positioned his feet with exaggerated care, raised his hands, leapt and twenty children, healthy and well fed but still blocky and uncoordinated, watched as he flick flacked four times down the hall, turning it into a cart wheel, then a back flip then a somersault and landed in front of them. He turned, smiled and said ‘Now you try!’ too. He wasn’t smiling when, twenty minutes later, the best one of them had managed was a forward roll.

Things are better now, of course, although Matt can see why he winced when he tries the knee drop himself. It really hurts. Which means it’s a test as much as a dance move, a chance to prove how XTREME!ly loyal you are. He feels anger rise and deliberately slows down, falls out of step. Why should he bother? He’s fourteen, after all.

Then he thinks about last night, about sitting in the private study hall past hours because he’s such a dutiful boy and always works so hard. About how easy it was to access the Headmaster’s email account. About the blank PASSWORD box mocking him.

About typing the word NOSTRUM into it and the beautiful, beautiful ping as the email opened and finding himself at play in the fields of the Lord. Or at least, the inbox of the headmaster which was almost as good.

A search for anything tagged with NOSTRUM gave him three results; his file, an email address and a telephone number. Part of him was worried it was a game, just like FallenCityTM, something designed to teach them, to improve them but he doubted that somehow. If it was, someone else would have seen the Ghost, someone else would have found the information and Matt knows for a fact no one else is half as clever, half as unique as he is. After all, he’s fourteen.

His file makes for interesting, even comforting reading. He’s regarded as an exceptional student by the right teachers, a student not quite living up to his potential by others. ‘Comfortable’, ‘Confident’, ‘Self assured’ all nuzzle up against one another in his psych evaluation with only ‘Slight difficulty socializing’ out by itself, not quite sure what it’s dancing to. He’s on track, whatever that track may be.

He spent more time sniffing around the email address than reading about himself. nostrum@a.com is owned by a company called Synaptic Michelangelo, a tiny little art promotion firm with holdings in a night club in uptown Joburg and on the Isle of Man, a small rock in the middle of the Irish sea with 82,000 residents and almost as many offshore, tax free bank accounts. Something huge and almost invisible is following him and Matt finds that oddly reassuring.

The photo is what really interests him though and he’s thinking about that even as the Asian girl in the pink tank top, as always, comes forward and shows them how to do a scuba split. It’s a tough move and he misjudges it the first time, genuinely. His landing is good but he drops a little too enthusiastically, lands on the wrong spot and a very special, very real type of pain erupts between his legs. He curls up, eyes tearing even as he’s paying attention to the sensation, working out how to replicate this reaction without the agony and above all else, relishing the free time to think about the photo.

He sits out the rest of the class, a tactful ice pack on his groin. He watches with rapt attention, absorbing the remaining moves even as he examines the photo over and over in his mind. It’s of the night club in downtown Joburg, called Nostrum, of course. It’s a nice building, white marble without being ostentatious, smart, elegant holograms glittering around it. On the back of the photo is a short, printed message:

MATT, BE HERE ON YOUR SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY. THE GHOST

Matt smiles when he thinks about that message, even through the really quite surprisingly intense pain. He smiles because it shows he’s not been forgotten, he smiles because it means there’s something good coming down the line just for him and most of all he smiles because he has a fake id hidden on his phone that will work perfectly. He’s not tested it yet but why would he have to? After all, he’s fourteen.


*

Matt doesn’t pay any attention to the far wall of Nostrum as he enters, hair tangled and loose, faded East Germany army jacket draped on his wiry frame. He’s disaffected, scruffy, a henna tattoo of a snake wrapped around his right hand and a black retro fingerless glove wrapped around his left. No one makes eye contact and no one speaks to him. He’s sixteen.

No more than twenty people bounce off each other’s bubbles of social awkardness in a space built for a couple of hundred. Twenty fragile teenage egos all do the threat assessment two step on one another as they carefully Do Not Look. They’re all dressed differently and that’s something, Matt thinks, even as he makes his way across the gallery at the club’s entrance and down onto the dance floor. He’s not going to dance, he’s sixteen, but it’s a good place to start, a good spot to survey the club, to collect his thoughts.

It also looks really cool.

Nineteen other teenagers. Plus him. Twenty. Just like his old class. The bouncers on the door didn’t look corporate but the building is trying a little too hard, putting a little too much muscle into walking that razor thin line between street chic and respectable establishment. Even the flyers being buzzed to Matt’s phone look like they’ve been designed by committee.

Things are getting ugly, he can sense it. Nineteen other teenagers, all bright, all convinced they’re unique and all starting to realise that they’ve been played by a badly designed Corporate ARG with a nice front end. Santa Claus is real, but he punches the clock just like everyone else, kids. It’s over, it’s done and the definition of Nostrum that he found on wikipedia; a fake or illusory cure suddenly makes far too much sense.

Matt gets angry, after all, he’s sixteen. Around him, the other teenagers are doing the same thing and one of them Joe Strummers a stool, bouncing it off the ground in a perfect arc. Two others take pictures of her doing it. Any second now their phones will trigger and each and every one of them will be doing the pacification boogie all the way back to school and all for absolutely nothing.

There’s something on the floor. Glasses break upstairs but there’s something on the floor, where Joe Strummergirl hit it. Something white, something that seems to shine and dance.

Something Matt has seen before.

He walks forward and a glass floats through the air and smashes behind him.

He looks at the piece of floor, the piece of floor that seems oh so familiar as behind him one of the other kids turns a table over.

He crouches as the first window breaks.

Joe Strummergirl did some good work, there’s a beautiful star pattern fragmenting the floor covering for half a foot in every direction. But that’s the thing; there shouldn’t be. The floor of places like this should either be vibracrete or metal or

Flatscreen.

Now he sees it, now he knows and Matt tears at the floor with total focus and absolute excitement. The faux vibracrete covering peels back leaving tiny hints of white adhesive on the screen but that doesn’t matter because the thing he saw, the thing he knows, is white itself. He pulls and pulls, tearing strips of the covering off and finally takes two steps back, looks deep into the eyes of an old, old friend and says one word.

‘Nostrum.’

The Ghost, huge on the flatscreen floor turns to him, hands held high in a ‘You betcha!’ pose and winks. The lights come on. A few seconds later, the destruction stops. Matt feels a presence at each shoulder, dimly registers a girl with long red hair, a boy with dreads.

‘You find this?’ The boy, voice filled with admiration and a little caution.

‘Yep. Seen it before?’

‘On the wall during-‘ Dreadboy begins, realisation and something like nostalgia in his voice.

‘Foo Bear.’ Redgirl finishes his sentence and there’s warmth in her voice, half a laugh too.

The crowd continues to form behind them and Matt can see Joe Strummergirl looking daggers at him. That’s fine, it’s not his fault she was more concerned with breaking stuff than seeing what the pieces could make.

‘Well done!’

The back wall shimmers and a man steps through. He walks towards them clapping vigorously.

‘You’re the first group this year to pass, and in record time too.’

It was a test. Matt thinks. What isn’t? The man reaches them, shakes each hand. They gather unconsciously, slightly frightened children in the presence of a grown up. No one takes pictures. The man keeps speaking.

‘Every year, we drop a test icon into the children’s programming we produce.’ He smiles. ‘Bear Foo isn’t for everyone but if you’re…conventional, then that and XTREME!ercise are perfect fits for you, conventional, safe, dull. But they also serve a second purpose for us.’

‘To keep most people occupied and to help you notice us?’ Joe Strummergirl, desperate to be enthusiastic, desperate to be noticed. He lets her have it. ‘That’s absolutely right, Lucy.’ Then turns and points at the rest of them.

‘The Nostrum program is for you. It’s not big, but it’s enough to get people of your intellect, your perception to pay attention. Which is why you’re here, why you had the final test and why you passed.’

‘What did we win?’ Redgirl with an admirably direct question. The man’s smile widens.

‘Jobs. For life. My name is Mr Attwell, I run our Special Talents Program and I need your help.’ He takes a step forward. ‘We’re in a constant arms race with our competitors, with our children, with ourselves. We’re all getting smarter, Francesca-‘

What a lovely name, Matt thinks.

‘And it’s all we can do to keep finding the geniuses and recruiting them before someone else does. Which is where you come in.’

‘You want us to act as talent scouts.’ Dreadboy, something like accusation in his voice.

‘To a point, Dominick.’ He focuses in, talking to Dreadboy, to Dominick, man to man. Dominick meets his gaze and Matt decides he likes that.
‘You understand the world on a level that’s almost instinctive, you speak the languages, you understand the patterns, you swim in the signal.’ He rubs the bridge of his nose. ‘We need you, it’s that simple, not only to find other people like you but to show us where we should be going, how we should be working.’ A tiny spark of resentment in his eyes. Matt wonders if he’ll look like Mr Attwell in twenty years. The spark fades, the smile returns. ‘A baseline salary that’s more than your parents will ever make, a house for life, a job that you define even as it defines you. You in?’

A ragged cheer goes up from the other kids and Matt joins in, just enough to be noticed. They’re escorted out of the building by Mr Attwell, into limos waiting around the back. Matt makes sure he’s last out and watches the cleaning crews come in to reset the final test. The Ghost winks at him one more time before the fake floor covers it.

He shares a limo with Francesca and Dominick. Dominick speaks first.

‘Who thinks this is too good to be true?’

Three hands. Then it’s Francesca’s turn.

‘Who thinks we’re going to end up finding and training our own replacements?’

Three hands. Then it’s Matt.

‘Who thinks we can use this to our advantage?’

Three hands. Matt again.

‘Who thinks if we can define this job, we should define it so we’re indispensable?’

Three hands.

‘Who thinks Mr Attwell is still going to be our boss in a year?’

No hands. Matt grins.

‘Who wants a drink?’

Three hands and three laughs bounce around the car. It’s not funny and he hates alcohol but it needs to be done. After all, he’s sixteen and as the limo pulls away he realises something, something that Mr Attwell realised far, far too late.

He’s only young once.

She sat alone in the room and waited. Waited for what? Whatever was coming. Hungry in more ways than one and cold, even though the thermostat claimed eighty-four. Lights passed through the window briefly, sending the window’s dark reflection on the floor, on her face, on her fingers gripping the seat. If she had known it was coming she would have closed her eyes or turned her head. Two greenish spots of memory now pulsated in the dark wherever she looked.

She told herself she was waiting for whatever, but she knew what was coming. They were coming. It was only a matter of time. One cannot get away with murder and live in free bliss forever. In theory, anyway. But she wasn’t a murderer. Only a lover of free bliss.

It was time to stop gripping the seat and anticipating. Time for a shower, time to clear her head. The microchip at the back of her neck would inform her of their arrival anyway, with its creepy visible clicks beneath the thin skin; an obnoxious quasi-hemiola, out of sync with her heartbeat, like an insect trying to free itself.

He said that when they were together again the clicking would stop. Maybe he was just trying to assure her, since he did say it in a rush to board a train to who-knows-where. But he did say it, and he had a tendency for guilt anytime a little white lie escaped his lips, or even crossed his mind. It was silly, but she loved him for it. She loved the fact that he stared at her for annoying periods of time, that he got sleepy at 7:00 pm like a little kid, that he refused to walk anywhere without holding her hand, not even to the kitchen. She loved his strong moral standing and defiance against the government. And she wished she had his guts; he had taken out his microchip with the help of a friend and had gotten a tattoo of a happy face put right over the scar.

Maybe he was just trying to assure her. That train was taking him away as a martyr marked for death. He could never come back. She was never going to see him again.

She shoved the thought out of her mind and looked for a clean towel. Laundry hadn’t been her priority for the past couple of days, but now she was regretting it. Air drying was always a possibility, but there may not be time for that. After all, they would be here pretty soon.

A shower is twice as satisfying when you know it’s your last. You know ahead of time to make it count. But at the same time, it isn’t, because showers are addictive and your mind will always want another. The sensation of the warm water flowing over your body, the rhythm of the pressure drumming on you head. Intoxicating. So, you want more and more of it. You get greedy and shower twice a day, three times. And then you beg your girlfriend to help you flee the country because the water company has a problem with the amount of water you use and you need a new location where you are virtually unknown to feed your addiction. And she helps you, because she’s stupid and in love and believes in your cause to feel clean… alive. In feeling alive, you sentence your girlfriend to death, all the while forgetting that, eventually, showers run cold.

A sick feeling crept along the lining of her stomach. She would skip the shower. The Server didn’t like when people showered in the middle of the day, anyway. It always wondered why. For The Server, everything had to have a function. Apparently, wanting to be clean in the middle of the day didn’t count.

Minutes to go. She settled down on her bed and blasted her favorite recording of “Dies irae” over the speakers circling her room, not caring that the bass thumped and distorted the music and lyrics into chaos. Very fitting atmosphere, considering the events. She allowed the piece to play through once, then lay quietly until a polite knock on the door signaled Showtime.

Showtime. That was a twisted way of looking at it.

“It’s unlocked,” she called from her bed.

They entered the house, a robot and a miniature record-keeping bot on wheels. The robot looked brand new, beautiful and nothing like metal, and she almost second guessed that it was a machine until she noticed the gears spinning in its eyes. In fact, it looked like it could have been an Average Joe, a neighbor, a friend. Yeah. A friend with expressionless eyes. A friend toting a gun.

“Virus located,” said the robot. No matter how authentic it looked, there was no humanity in its voice. Well, no humanity left. She knew how the monster was created.

“Are you here to kill me?” Stupid question.

“Processing query.” The robot’s eyes lit up white for every beep its system uttered. Beep beep beep. How could something so advanced have the loading time of an out-of-date computer? It took nearly two seconds. Perhaps it hadn’t downloaded the new software yet. Its expression was immovable as it said in that same mechanical tone, “Query affirmed.”

“Can I at least put on some decent clothes?” People said weird things when they were about to die.

“Processing query.” Beep beep beep. “Request denied.”

“Well, then can I stay on my bed? The ground is cold.”

“Processing query.” Beep beep beep. “Reasoning inadequate. Request denied.”

She eyed the robot, quite annoyed. Comfort meant nothing to it. “Can I—“

“Query quota reached. Please select preferred position for deletion.”

What a sense of humor this one had. The hit of every robot party, without a doubt. “You pick,” she said, with the last bit of defiance she had left in her. How thoughtful that they would allow their victims to die standing, sitting, lying down, whatever tickled the fancy at the moment. It gave the sense of such freedom to the process. But then, that may have been the point. In choosing the way you died you were virtually choosing to die, period. Suicide, as in not The Server’s problem, as in less paperwork on their part. Anything to keep The Server happy.

The robot paused for a moment, as if there were indeed a human inside the shell secretly thinking it over without the aid of loading. And then, “Processing request.” Beep beep beep. “The standing position. Back adjacent. Please comply.”

“Back adjacent,” she mumbled, “perfect.” She would have preferred to sit down, but that’s what happens when you give your freedom away. She stood with her back against the robot’s solid chest plate, grateful for the cloth that blocked her from the freezing metal. Its hard arm clamped around her waist, there to support her when the time came that she couldn’t. And then the thin, unforgiving barrel was pressed against the side of her head, and she felt the needle inside of it measuring, adjusting to aim directly for her brain stem. It was only then that she began to panic.

“Haven’t you ever been in love?” she asked, her voice faltering in the end.

“Query quota reached. Please prepare for deletion.”

“You would have helped your love escape on that train, too.” She was crying now. She might as well feel every human emotion while she still could. “You must have loved someone before… before they stole your heart and fed it to The Server. You must have been in love once.”

There was thoughtful silence for a quarter of a minute. An adjustment of the gun. The sound of the air conditioner booting. A car cruising by outside.

“Once,” the robot said simply, and pulled the trigger.

He said that when they were together again the clicking would stop. Although her body felt next to nothing, her mind was overcome by a sick joy on hearing the final cadence of clicks inside of her ear before a thick, black curtain shrouded the world from her view.

Men Go

I’m sitting up, puffy-eyed and damp in someone’s bed, dealing with this intense glare from the windows, and it takes me a few seconds or minutes to figure out that that would be sunlight, specifically morning sunlight – which tells me that last night’s bunkmate has cheap bedcams installed, seeing as they didn’t notice me waking the fuck up, or if they did, they didn’t have the decency to dim the windows.
It gets worse - I’ve been awake a little over ten minutes now and ventilation hasn’t kicked in with the wake-up vits (with-sugar-on-top, if I’ve anything to say about it), so I’m having to face wakeup without the comfort of perceptual distortion.
Steeling myself, I turn my head – slowly – to the right, where my strange bedfellow is lying on his back, still asleep, mouth open. I wince. He looked younger in sepia. Really wishing those windows would dim right about now. Damn Keith for convincing me to go to the oldies club. Damn him twice for leaving me with the Palaeolithic man here.
I try and get my phone to tell me where I am – quietly – but I’m never up this early for anything productive, so my button mashing is interpreted as early morning mashing of another sort, and the phone clicks out. Bastard electronics.
I sigh, and lever myself out of bed, scanning the floor for bits of clothing that look like they might fit me at night. I spot the bedcams in the far corners of the room, which tells me how old they are – anything made in the past five years is made to look tastefully nondescript, so as not to offend anyone with the idea of cameras in the bedroom. This dude’s colossal devices are three quarters pervy.
This is the problem with fucking for shelter, I reflect. The fee stays more or less the same, but the quality of accommodation fluctuates dramatically.
I brave the glare of the outside world to try and navigate – look for a familiar building or billboard – but all I can see is a stretch of road, an apparently disused train line (no water in the sluices), and a wide expanse of sand. Metal boxes in the distance – wave generators? Too far to tell.
Okay, no. Great. I know exactly where I am. I’m in that place where I click my fucking heels and magic myself home. Superb.
“Zerene, right?” comes a muffled voice behind me.
God damnit. Why would I give a real name? Where was I last night? What’s his na—guh. Thinking is hard sober. I turn, flashing my teeth.
“Hi there!” I have to fight to keep my morning face where it is – evidently bunkmate doesn’t care for the heat much either, seeing as he is now naked. And saggy. And brown. I am not a fan of my eyes.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, and doesn’t say anything – he stares at me (not my face) for a while, and then stands up with a quiet grunt.
“Shower’s to the left,” he says, regarding the bed for some seconds before striding out.
“Thanks!”, I call to his retreating form. I don’t like taking showers in other people’s houses – the settings are all primed for a different temperature, pH and length preference – but I feel a touch gross at the moment. Right now, water would be good. Other liquids would be better. I walk into the bathroom – ha, nice retro look, I think, stepping into his clawed bathtub – and turn the most appropriate-looking tap.

* * * * * *
I hear a light scream coming from upstairs, followed by concentrated silence. I guess they do plumbing different in the city now. They still seem to drink the same, though. Granted, I could have told her we only get hot water on Sundays, but then she might not have showered – which means she might’ve left the house still wearing my pheromone tags, which could get ugly, what with the dogs and the bugs and such.
Oh, the dogs and the bugs. Woof woof barf barf.
Hesitant steps from above – poor thing probably doesn’t know where she is. Pity seems the appropriate response here. Sympathy?
“Coffee’s up,” I call, hastily dissolving the brown dry and the clear wet. They got the taste right, but the smell just isn’t there. She comes in, wide-eyed doe (ha, wide-legged), and gingerly reaches from the steaming mug, and sits down. Zerene. Good name, evokes serenity. She’s clearly not feeling herself, though – biting the inside of her cheeks, table being scratched, she’s quiet. Am I staring?
“There’s a shuttle back into town at around noon,” I say, blurt out, because the small-talk leading up to a get-out-of-here card isn’t the sort of mountain I want to approach. She relaxes, or nods, anyway.
“Mango?”, I ask, hoping to put her at ease. She looks up from her hands, startled.
“Uh, no. Zerene – we met last night. At…at the place.”
I laugh too loudly. She winces.
“No, no – I mean would you like some mango. For breakfast.”
She scrunches up her face, pixie-like.
“What production cycle is it? Sorry, it’s just I’m on, um. Medication, and they, the doctors said that if it was from before 20 –“
“No production cycle,” I interrupt, delighted to show off. I think briefly about garden parties and a new strain of tulips, just imported from Turkey, but shunt the thought aside.
* * * * *
The old man is crazy and I still don’t know his name and now I’m worried that I’ve caught his crazy. He leads me out of a back door from the kitchen – it’s a surprisingly big place, and one of the few buildings that have been saved from collapsing in this area. I’ve figured out where we are by now – it’s the old old beachfront, which makes the old man’s crazy stand out even more. Chalk Bay – there’s not even nothing here. Soil’s too salty to farm, too soft to build on, too far from anything important to matter. First generation tidal generators broke the tides here, turned beach into dead sea. Yay for a Geopolitics degree. I don’t know how he plans on making a shuttle appear here – this is a red zone for most city bound vehicles. Emissions deal. I don’t know quite how I got here, either.
Greenhouse in the back.
I need to repeat this, crazy old man who stares has a greenhouse behind his house. Which means he’s producing crop. Mango? What is that, the new flavour? Nobody actually grows crop anymore when you can synth it. Old hippy druggies are the only ones who pretend to care where it comes from, or youngfolk who don’t know that the difference is not a difference. And oh merciful fucking defecation but I have shared sweat with this man and his hands which are probably coated in drugstink. Which means I need to leave, and burn off a few layers of skin and hair. Probably lose the front teeth, too. And there go my ‘don’t attract attention’ plans. I am going to rape you, Keith.
I walk into the little glass shack, resigned to paying for an intensive wash or two. I’m contaminated as it is. Besides, crop, right? This is going to be like a museum trip for drugs. This is like being in an episode of -
* * * *
“You’re fucking kidding me.” Voice behind me. Still not serene, but she sounds impressed.
“Mind the gulliver,” I say, stooping under one of the pipes.
“What?”
“Sorry – your head. Look out for it. I uh sorry, most of my attempted slang is guesswork.”
She ignores me, and stares at the fruit. She looks impressed, I think.
All I could really grow was mango. I’d sort of hoped for strawberries to better ease my bourgeois discomforts about living outside the city, but the climate doesn’t really allow for it. Besides, it’s rich in…vits? I don’t know. I’m still alive and my teeth haven’t turned purple or anything, so I think it’s healthy enough.
“Mangos,” she says. Trying out the word, how old is she? Surely mangos are not a new thing. I offer an alternative:
“The guy next-door does bananas. We can have bananas too, sometimes.”
This does not seem to sweeten the deal. She stares, eyes like…well, mangoes I suppose.
* * *
I send her back to the City. Dad’s buddies still feel like they owe me something, so getting a chartered bus out here every now and then isn’t the problem they like to tell me it is.
* *
I go back to the city. Back to the fights and Keith and the velcro, with a suspicious little brown bag of dried fruit.
*
Business is looking up.

Hi one more for the contest

Shade:

“We are the ghosts of sunlight of days that quickly fade;
Lost in an empty night one more shadow in the shade.”

The zeppelin made berth in Johannesburg early on Sunday morning. No point paying for speed as far as Startek was concerned. Besides, using the sorry green giants was all part and parcel of the company’s fiercely protected image as a champion of the environment. God help any employee who went anywhere with anything but helium and good old solar power to get them into the air. God help them officially at least. The company would put the Zeppelin flight on the official expenses but conveniently forget to mention the thousand kilometer road trip to actually reach their section of the Kalahari sun pit. Oh the vehicle would be electric or an old hybrid at the worst but as far as Daniela Stevens was concerned the world could stand to loose a few more pandas if it meant her arse didn’t have to fall asleep for eight hellish hours. If the damned things were so cute how come it took electrodes and a blindfold to even get them to consider mating with each other?

The great pyramids that housed the many levelled farms that fed most of the African union and much of the world whizzed by, their reflective amber surfaces blinking in the sun. There’s a lot of sun sine in this part of the world if only they had a licence to collect it Daniela muses. There were still some who made the ridiculous argument that if it came from the sky it should be free. As if any rain that fell hadn’t simply been siphoned off from someone else’s water supply through evaporation. It was all very well for some people but Daniela knew that things worked better when someone owned them. People were careless of resources until they actually had the pink slip.

Startek had the pink slip for half the Kalahari and every photon that fell on it for the next five years. Let the other corps chase the natives for catching rain water in buckets, Daniela and her company had secured a place at the top of the heap in the sun pit and it wasn’t likely that the AU would allow development above the fifteen meter mark - for a while at least. Even though she had seen them many times before Daniela was always gob smacked by the sight of the canopies of solar panelling that covered every available inch of the sun pit. Each layer of collectors straining towards the sun like golden and silver leaves told the story of the struggle between the great corporate powers. Some of the older people at Startek had been around when the solar collectors had only been a few feet off the ground but then the government had wised up and started selling the right to build above other collectors. Every time the goal post shifted, government representatives assured the companies that structures would not be allowed to go higher. They invariably changed their minds just about the time they needed to fund the next elections.

The companies always caved and went for the bribe because there simply wasn’t anywhere left on the planet where you could get such clear skies over this much real estate. Most companies needed a way to supplement and launder the power coming from the nuclear and coal powered monsters that were still the real work horses and the corp’s secret shame. The sun pit was not power just because it pulled in the energy from miles of sunlight. The companies with the biggest shares got the biggest concessions. Ironically being green was a licence to pollute.

Daniela had made herself something of a corporate star when she had made the deal to fix the collector heights at fifteen meters for five years. With that agreement Startek had forced Armitz corp out of its number one spot in the pit. Having left the competition trying to wriggle out of a contract for millions of useless platforms, she’d thought she’d seen this back water for the last time. Then there was the incident. Details were spotty at the moment - no one wanted to say too much on the grid. It only took one hacker and the whole thing could be blown right open. No one needed things to get out so the company had sent their hottest young trouble shooter back where she’d started.
Daniela checks the auto drive one more time before closing her eyes to review the footage she had uploaded into her corneal implants. It’s dark and the angle is bad but that’s to be expected. The footage has come from under the canopy where the sun never reaches.

The problem was that in their rush for the top many companies had neglected the infrastructure below. They had built layer upon layer for so long that by the time they realized that they had turned an area the size of several countries into a lightless flexi steel jungle it was really too late and too expensive to do much about it. Service bots didn’t need much light so no one had though much of it until it got really cold in there. Cold enough to make sure that anyone foolish enough to send their bots out into the centre of the sunpit at ground level might not get them back. What little footage had been brought back (no one really cared enough what was down there for there to be much of it) showed how much of the old infrastructure had crumbled unnoticed beneath the upper support layers. Old panelling that no longer functioned was cracked and twisted by the intense cold generated in a desert that never saw the sun. Like so many plants that had failed in their race for the light they had withered and their owners concerned by bigger and better things had left them to be swallowed by the sand and the numerous funguses that seemed to bloom in the darkness.

As far as Daniela could make out from the footage she had been sent there was something moving in that darkness next to a large clump of the fungus on one of the great supports that held up a second tier platform. The pallid luminescence of the fungus gave her some reference against which to gauge the bulky shape that appeared to be some kind of squat animal tearing strips off the meaty frills that had grown halfway up the great steel girder. The creature stops what it’s doing as the camera pans back to reveal a Starteck security bot on routine patrol. Most of the conduits ran higher up now but there was still potential for sabotage at ground level. The animal was unfortunate to be near enough to the edge of the pit to encounter the half hearted security. It had probably been driven out by the lack of food at the increasingly frigid heart of the pit.

The bot boomed its routine warning over Daniela’s ear implants causing the creature to raise its head. There was more light now, shed by the ruby targeting beams that played over the creature’s wrinkled pelt. As it lifted its huge head Daniela thought she saw something terribly familiar in its movements almost as if the strange animal understood the dire warning. If the creature was intelligent enough to understand then it did exactly the wrong thing. It tried to run, using a loping two legged stride. Of course the bot was having none of it and let rip with a short burst, officially the warning shot, but a bullet ricocheted off of the flexi steel and punched through the outside of the animal’s shoulder spinning it round and dropping it onto its back. Daniela had expected to see blood the first time she’d seen this footage but instead it seemed that the creature was stuffed with something as white as the growths on the struts all around it. No not flesh or fungus but cotton she’d realized as the animal reached up and pulled back the hood on the heavy coat that had been so skilfully adorned with animal skin. It was someone wearing a heavy padded jacket. The footage ended before the face of the intruder could be revealed and this was all the local office had sent, along with a ‘come quickly’. The fact that it had been sent using jet fuel spoke volumes about the urgency.

There seemed to be little point in watching the footage a third time so Daniela resigned herself to simply watching the miles roll and enduring the slow process of the chair stealing any feeling from her legs. Daniela had many questions left unanswered by the time the Startek installation rose over the spartan landscape and she spat them at the site liaison almost as soon as she’d left her car in the auto park. “What the hell’s up with this Marcel, did the bot forget to scan for a SIM?”
“How many saboteurs are going to be chipped Daniela?”
“Well then we should change the subroutine! For fuck sakes Marcel there’s some etiquette to this sort of thing. You don’t just go plugging other operatives because they’re not coming out on the scan. How can you get information from a corpse?”
“The individual in the footage is not dead.”
“What am I doing back in this dust bowl then? Surely you could have handled the interrogation on your own!”
“I don’t think you understand mam.”
“So explain it to me.”
“The individual was not from another corporation.”
“What then some kind of hippy collecting mushroom samples? We can still have them dealt with in the courts even if your bot did fuck up the warning shot. The pit is restricted. No one from outside is supposed to be there.”
“He’s not from outside.”
“Now you’re starting to piss me off, Marcel. Just give me a straight answer who would want to live in there? Besides we paid enough for the land that it’s off limits to everyone right?”
“That’s just it Daniela, this guy didn’t move in there. His people have always been there.”
“I don’t think I follow.”
“The guy we nearly killed, he’s a bushman.”
“Impossible they disappeared years ago.”
“Well apparently we were wrong. This guy’s family stayed when all the rest left.”
“So there are more of them?”
“There were until recently. Now he seems to be the last unless he’s not telling us everything. The translator is a little bit hazy on some of what he says. ”
“What happened?”
“Well according to him they’ve been out there at least since he was born fifteen or so years ago. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible considering how cold it gets away from the periphery, but then these people were known for surviving in extremes.” Marcel swallowed hard before making his next statement, “You know what that means?”
“Enlighten me.”
“We only got rights to the Kalahari because no one was supposed to be living here. You know what an issue land rights are in this part of the world. Or at least the issue the officials will make out of it in order to squeeze us for more money. This could invalidate our most recent agreement. Hell if they wanted to they could ask us to tear everything down or try to claim this kid owns it all. You can see it on the grid already ‘the last bushman’, ‘give back what is ours’. Of course we would never let that happen but this could be a real pain in the arse. Heads will almost certainly roll.”
“So what do you recommend we do?”
“There was a reason we didn’t send you much info. Right now almost no body knows what has happened and almost no body ever has to.”
“You think we should make him disappear.”
“You don’t?”
“Marcel you’ve obviously missed the most important thing that you said.”
“What you think it’s too risky that it might somehow get out?”
“No we want it to get out as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made.”
“How can that be a good idea? It’s bad enough that we could loose our jobs. You want to make it a sure thing?”
“You said he was fifteen right?”
“Ja, but…”
“That means he’s still a minor, a child all alone in the world.”
“What you want to adopt him?”
“Exactly right.”
“Have you totally flipped the fok’n camel? Why would you want to get more involved in this? Even if you are nuts enough to want to do that the kid will never get anything he’ll just be a pawn for everyone else who thinks they can make a buck.”
“You’ve been in this back water too long if you thought I was saying I would adopt him myself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Startek is going to adopt him.”
“Can they do that?”
“There is some precedent and we have already won the right for corporations to be treated as individual legal entities why not adoption. Better that he be our pawn than someone else’s if young… sorry does he have a name?”
“Nothing the translator could make much sense out of.”
“You found him a couple of days ago right? Yes, Friday it is then. If young Friday wants to pursue his land claims against so many of the corporations that have spoiled his desert then his backer the Startek corporation will be only too happy to assist.”
“As long as he directs his righteous indignation away from the Startek corporation.”

Daniela simply nods she is already too busy considering the permutations. It’s always better when a resource is owned she reminds herself as she logs into the grid and begins to review international laws on adoption. Some one needs to hold onto the pink slip and corporations like Startek had long ago learned how to take ownership of others. The view in her left eye shifts to the perspective of the camera in the holding room two levels beneath her in the complex. It is clear that the boy sitting in the corner of that room is more frightened than cold. No doubt he had been cold all his life. “The first order of business is to get him a SIM,” Daniela says without bothering to switch her eyes back into meat space, “once he’s on the grid he’ll feel more like one of us.”

Land Of The Blind

Agent HK - Ideological Security Unit

The corporate function of truth is to tell the various parts of the mechanism what to do. Of course it doesn’t actually have to be truth, not in the absolute sense. It just has to fit in with the rest of the system. I understand that now, more so than ever. I thought I had the system figured out, I thought I could work it. But it was the system that was working me.

They wanted to show me how serious they were so they stopped me turning left for a week. Easy as implanting a neuromuscular program that told my body that left turns were a no-go. “That’s a level one program” they said. “You’re primed for level four.” I tried to deviate a couple more times but eventually I just did what they said.

Drew

Hers isn’t the most elegant of necks. It’s a little too thin and her head teeters awkwardly on it like a toddler taking its first steps. There is something about the necklace though, purchased from an expensive boutique with six months of savings that made that neck into something wonderful. I smile as I close the clasp and turn her by the shoulders to face me. She is smiling too. “Thank you,” Kara whispers holding both my hands. Then the moment is over and she breaks away to signal that she is done. Thanks has been given. Strange that we should move so quickly through these moments - in a couple of months so vague and remote that they’ll hardly seem real.

The factory bleeds iron, vomits sparks and screeches like an exorcised demon. Some days are better than others, days when the churning mouths of the furnaces seem less likely to devour. And I am luckier than some. Luckier than those from the Rural that transport the ore and breathe in the noxious metallic powder. Weekly they drop like feverish bowling pins from respiratory diseases and are replaced by those also willing to swop their lives for the lives of their families.

I feel it coming but there is only an hour left before the end of the day. Taking a break would bring shit from my supervisor. I feel it coming like it had so many times; the flickering vision, the hissing of a thousand of stove-top kettles, the smell of burning. I feel the elation and everything fades to white.
Then it’s gone and people are shouting. I look around, blinking stupidly as if I have just woken up. Everything is saturated with light, giving objects a lingering halo effect. I wipe my eyes. One of the guys from Rural is pulling my arm and pointing at something; an eccentric splatter of stains on the factory floor. What is he trying to say? I can’t tell. Is it oil and iron ore? Even in my state I know it’s neither. It’s too bright. The Rural guy shoves me and points again. A contorted shape lies next to the splatter. I struggle to make sense of its contours until I see the red, yellow and green bangle hanging from one of its appendages. An arm. Connected to a body; Elias.

“I know you have a condition, we all do, so you can’t be blamed for this,” my manager says. Somehow I’m in his small, prefabricated office on the factory floor. “This is a hard business and people get hurt…” he pauses and I begin to cry. My episode had caused me to stumble activating one of the grinding machines while Elias was hunched over it to clean the metal silt that regularly clogs the mechanism. He shifts uncomfortably “Listen, I understand, but you can’t blame yourself.” I’m so surprised by this that I actually stop in mid-sob. He hesitates as if deciding whether to say something. “Andrew, I want to recommend a doctor, a corporate.” I look at him blankly. He covers his mouth with his hand as if trying to push the words back through his lips. It’s all so strange. “You’re doing valuable work here, and PMET looks after its own,” he says. My phone buzzes with a temporary access card to Waterfront City. “Go see the doctor, Andrew.”

Matt

The gallery is just starting the uplink to Nata Manzi. The screen comes alive showing her plump face framed by the iconic grey dreadlocks. The crowd draws a collective breath. Her left eye is missing and the socket filled with mutilated scar tissue. Everybody knows about the attack but it’s the first time anybody here has seen her since it happened. The photographer and media activist is now well into her seventies and it shows. Sentimental liberals call her the Lioness, the figurehead for the corporate resistance in South Africa. She was the one that had almost single-handedly fought corporate propaganda and disinformation pumped out by the Ideological Security Unit during the Second Food Riots. This is what it had gotten her. New Freedom, the zealot corporate youth movement, had publicly taken responsibly for the brutal attack outside her home. New Freedom leader Dawid ‘Storm’ Sepanga cited her corporate disloyalty as just cause for the ‘re-education.’
These protest gatherings are always a surreal experience. I see other expats, South Africans who, like me, had run when the riots broken out yet still felt the need to pretend like they cared. I usually avoid these things like the aidsplague. I don’t like people who yearn for their homeland. The history of humankind is the history of displacement. Earthquakes, volcanoes, wars, genocide have always forced people to flee familiar places for the unknown. It’s just a more sane choice to refuse to make a fetish of your land of birth.

It’s halfway through the speech by the Data Without Borders founder ,Tara Lopez, when I get a call. Lopez is repeating the soulful call-to-arms of the global info-warrior, kitsch hacker shit about the tech utopia awaiting us if we just could make the world see. I look at caller ID. “Little bro,” I say all jovial-like. We haven’t spoken in months. “Matt,” he says, his voice hoarse. He sounds like he’s about to break into a thousand pieces. “Can you come back?” he says right away. “Drew I said I’d try, it’s just..” I can’t think of anything to say. “You’re my brother,” he says. “I know, I know, little bro and family comes first, right, but I’m just super busy at work.” There’s no fucking way I’m going back and he knows it. “You’re still in contact with Luvuyo, right? “No,” Drew says distantly. I plow on. “He’s still administering the folks’ estate, Christ he says there are still people dying of radiation sickness, is that true?” “I've seen some of the kids begging on the street,” he says, sounding exactly like the lost little kid I grew up with. “Matt,” he says. “Yeah?” I ask, putting iron in my tone. “Nothing.” I’m again stuck for words so I try to wrap it up. “Ok bro, gotta run, speak to you soon ok?” There’s no answer.

Drew
“Homemade bio-fuel, larnie,” the cabbie says apologetically as the car splutters and jerks, “but my rates is cheap-cheap.” He edges the old car into the stream of traffic, hooting as a cavalcade of black vehicles with tinted windows roar past us. The cabbie scowls at me in the rearview mirror. “Real petrol is almost the same price as gold and these corporate fuckers are burning it in their SUVs.”
We make our way slowly through the traffic toward Waterfront City. The complex was bought by the Sheik of Dubai at the turn of century, a man so rich, as the old lame joke went, that when his wives went shopping there was a shift in the economy. Lush vegetation rises up from the gleaming towers. “150 species of indigenous flora,” the cabbie says nodding his head at the central tower with its balconies overflowing with plant life, “think of all that water.”

The doctor’s offices are all marble and steel. I’m ushered in by an expressionless woman. The doctor is sitting at his desk.“That’s a Stone,” I say nodding at the painting on the wall, a large of a mushroom cloud over Cape Town, the violent blacks and reds dwarfing the subdued purple of Table Mountain. I knew from art magazines my parents collected that it was called “The Spill” even though the real things hadn’t been like that at all. There had been fires, sure, but not like that, more like a progressive poisoning of the land with radiation. The artistic vision was powerful nonetheless and the doctor was obviously pleased that I recognized it. Personally I thought it was garish, typical of Stone. The egocentric young African artist had wowed the world, reaching superstar status before chaining herself to the body of an Aids victim in an unknown location and starving herself to death. She had documented it by webcam as her final work and her final minutes were still one of the most watched clips ever. You could buy a t-shirt printed with her emaciated face and last words on Greenmarket Square.

I change into a thin paper gown and lie still as machine scans my brain from different angles. The doctor keeps up a subdued banter but I hardly hear what he says. I change back into my clothes and allow myself to be ushered back into his office. We wait in silence for the results to appear on his desk console. “Andrew, there’s no easy way to say this,” he says when they finally appear with beep. “Your childhood medical results are correct, it is a severe form of epilepsy…but it’s been improperly treated.” He pauses and rubs his brow. “Your episodes, as you call them, have caused lesions to form on the brain.” I nod.“No patented medicine exists that can treat this,” he says. I sit absolutely still. I’m not disappointed because I wasn’t hoping for anything.“There is, however, a medicine that might work….it’s not patented because it’s not produced by a major corp and as such highly illegal,” he says quickly as if trying to get it out before he changes his mind.“I know how medical patents work,” I say. “It’s an option, but I can’t make the decision for you,” he finishes. “Does it have a chance of stopping these seizures?” I ask. He thinks for a moment then nods. “Then I want it.”
My phone buzzes and I look at it. It’s an access card with the name Kaden on it. “Kaden is username,” he says, “for a very specific game.” I stare at him. “Have you heard of the Kraal?” I shake my head. He smiles, “It’s testament to your character that you haven’t.” He gives me directions to a bar on the outskirts of Salt River “Ask to use the White Room.” I nod, but he catches my eye, “It has to be the White Room, you can’t reach Kaden any other way,” he says seriously.

I look at the gnarled cloud formations wrapped around the Mountain as if I’m trying to read them like tarot cards or tea leaves, but there’s nothing there to help me. I walk through the streets of Salt River, dodging kids riding skateboards, flipping the beaten wooden decks with their hard bare feet. One Rasta kid looks at me, his feet bloody from contact with the jagged tar of the pavement, his dreadlocks matted and keen green eyes peering out from beneath them. The kids follow me to the door of the Kraal which turns out to be a grungy games arcade and strip club and then they melt away.

The interior is dark and cavernous, older kids in the back plugged into VR units, the slick grey pods that have become more commonplace than slot machines. After the Spill, the sickness coupled with rising fuel and food prices have driven people from reality in droves. “Your mind can hardly tell the difference,” a faded sticker on one the unit proclaims. I walk up to the bar and sit. The barman is built like a bulldog and checks me out. “This is not a tourist centre, are you drinking or what?” he says. “A single Harm’s Way,” I say quickly. It’s the only drink I really know - cheap locally-made whiskey, an offshoot of the biofuel industry, that the Rural guys at the factory drank like water. I absently watch two girls dancing on the poles, my mind on other things. The barman grins. “The Germans love it...come over here on contracts, stay in chic apartments in Waterfront City then come slum it with ‘real’ Africans. “You see those two,” he said pointing at the two gyrating, they’re called Sheba and Uhuru.” He grins again.
“Looks busy,” I say, pointing at the VR units. The barman nods. “I’ve heard some of these kidpsychos have started setting up drips so they don’t have to leave their little cytopia.”
We watch as a kid takes off his VR mask and stands staring at the room trying to focus his eyes.
“Reality must be a real bad comedown,” the barman says laughing. “I need to use the White Room,” I say. His eyes harden and the laugh drops off his lips.“Never heard of it,” I show him the card on my phone. He eyeballs me then grunts and motions for me to follow him, leading me to a completely white room with wireless VR unit. “20 minutes,” he says. I log on.

Quickly I go through the motions of creating an avatar, choosing randomise to select a set of looks and skills and then hit “Incarnate”. I’m immediately in a bright, bustling square. Hundreds of avatars push past me in costumes inspired by a myriad of forgotten mythologies. A lot of people are crowded around a handsome avatar in a top hat standing on the back of an elephant. He opens his arms wide in a gesture of benevolence “The real world is pain,” he says in a silky voice. He vaults off the back of the elephant and lands at the feet of his audience.”At very best created by a neglectful god and at worst a random, haphazard collision of particles.”“Look around you,” A world created by a merciful and giving Corporation. Why would you want to leave?”

A small goblin-like creature sidles up next to me. “Corporate troll,” it scoffs. I don’t know what to do next so I say “I’m looking for Kaden.” The thing nods. “No shit, you’re in the White Room,” it. It notes the surprise on my avatar’s features. “Nobody else can see me.” He walks off and I follow him through the square. After walking for some time we approach a Greek temple on a hill. The creature gestures for me to go inside and then blinks out of existence.

Kaden’s avatar is a woman, or at least feminine. Huge angelic wings curl and uncurling behind an elegant body. “Please excuse the ostentatious aesthetics,” she says motioning to her body and the surrounds “but I’ve always felt it reflects most accurately what I am: a healer, an oracle for the to those whom corporate profits keep people from getting well” The code on my phone gives me one object in my player’s inventory, a small golden bowl inscribed with symbols that serve as a prescription. I hand it to her. She looks at it and nods. She in gives me an object, a scroll, which then in turn will be stored as code in my phone. She gives me directions to a pharmacy on Loop Street and. An hour before you pick it up you transfer the money to this account. “Show the code to the pharmacist.” I nod. “It’s ok, right? I mean there are no side-effects?” I say, but the avatar blinks out as she disconnects.

Kara is babysitting her two little sisters, the older one, Lucy tittering excitedly. She looks up briefly as I come in the door and smiles. I raise my hand in a wave but she has already looked away. “I’m going to lie down for a while,” I say. She doesn’t answer. I go into our room and made sure the door is close. I strip down to the waist and go into the bathroom, taking three of the capsules from the protective packaging and lining them up on the basin. They’re pink and grey. Three little pigs. Three blind mice. Three chances. After my parents died in the riots and Matt left I thought it wouldn’t be long before I was crushed by the weight of living. The truth is I’m not a survivor. But I had surprised myself. And then the episodes had grown progressively worse until they had become unmanageable. Black makt drugs. Highly Illegal, but maybe they’d give me a chance at a life. I look at myself in the mirror and then down them in quick succession.

Kara puts her youngest sister on my lap and I rock her gently. I feel peaceful and relaxed. I’m rocking contentedly when my head explodes. I look down and see a snarling creature where the baby had been. It’s snapping at me, teeth ripping at my flesh. I scream and push it to the floor. But there are more of them circling me. Then come patterns. Interlaced patterns crawling across everything, writhing, like a curtain of fireants digging holes in my vision. I scratch at my face to get them off and feel wetness on my fingertips. The things advance. I know something is not right but I can’t think. There is a knife on the kitchen table. Oh god I need help. Something is not right.

Agent HK

This is always the worst part. Waiting. Waiting for the first media reports of the massacre. He’d rip as many people apart as possible before something stopped him. Rage drugs. Military-grade neurotropics, a cocktail of steroids, PCP and pure adrenaline enhanced with nano that rips through the blood-brain barrier. Street names: Babykillers, Hate- in-a pill. Discontinued after a platoon had been dosed with them and gone zombie on a routine mission in the Rural.

They’d find anti-corporate material in his apartment. Data linking him to several known resistance groups and directly to Nata Mzanzi, the Lioness herself. Media channels were primed for the full scoop. Embedded casters would have photos of the bodies “leaked” to them. The danger, the degradation. Inside the mind of a killer. People would lap it up. The titillation of it all happening so close. Thank god somebody was protecting them. Thank God you’re protecting them Lerato.


*commenting box stripped out a lot of the formatting, so it looks a bit rough.

___________Job Hunting______________


It’s only a job. It’s only a job. Only a job. Only a... The mantra plays over and over as I step through the double doors and cross the lobby to the too-beautiful receptionist.

‘Hi, my name's Kyo, I work for...uh...' shit, '...um...I’m here to clean the windows.' She looks up from her ‘zine, smiles tightly and, with a blur of mint nail polish, types a number into the keypad on her desk. Her headset lights up and I hear a tinny voice through the speaker.

‘He’s here.... no... yeah, the window cleaner... okay... I dunno, smart I guess? Cute, too,’ she pauses, blowing a bubble with the neon green gum she’s chewing, ‘long hair though, kind of boho, oldstyle, you know? Okay,’ she presses a button on the side of her headset and nods at the row of metal framed seats by the coffee table.

I sit. My palms are clammy.

If I don’t pay the rent this month I’ll be out, Mr. Yamamoto didn’t even bother to tell me this time; he just slipped the rent agreement under my door with certain words highlighted.

I look around for any signs of what they do in here but the green paint on the wall doesn’t want to tell me any secrets. My hands are really sweaty now. There’s nothing worse than not knowing who’s paying you.

A door to the side of reception-girl opens, its frame filled by another too-good-to-be-true woman. Business-class, suit, glasses, blouse only buttoned so far. Small chain dangling between... Oh, shit, am I staring? I’m staring. I stand up and wipe my hand on the side of my leg as she approaches.

‘Kyokusen?’

I nod, and stupidly stick my hand out. She looks at it like its diseased, and I remember this isn’t the States. I pull it back and bow my head quickly.

‘Follow me, please.’ She doesn’t look Japanese, that’s what threw me. Her cocoa skin could be from anywhere, she’s eclectic, one of the newer mixes, probably has more countries in her gene pool than I’ve ever been to. And that accent...

My feet find a certain rhythm, stepping in between the sharp clacks of her heels against the polished floor. I shake myself out of a sudden daze, staring at her ankle, and realise she’s still talking.

‘...forty-eight stories. It's that oldstyle two-way reflective glass, so you’re workload won’t be much. Don’t touch anything, don’t look at anything, just walk straight on through until you get to the door marked “supplies”,’ she turns on her heels abruptly, tilting her glasses down her nose and squinting, ‘you getting all this? Anything you need to ask?’

‘I get it lady.’

She laughs. So much so that she has to take her glasses off and wipe the corner of her eye before pausing for a moment to regain her composure.

‘Violet said you were cute.’

‘I heard, so i get up there, clean up and come back down, right? ’

More rapid-fire laughter.

‘No doll,' she takes her time polishing each lens before replacing them, ‘there’s a ladder that reaches into the basket from the observation deck, you’ll have to climb that and make your own way home.’ She holds her hand out, ‘I’m Charley, HR, I’ll be the only person you report to, but there shouldn’t be anything to report. You’ll be paid once the jobs complete.’

‘So, no interview?’

‘Are you afraid of heights?’

‘No.’

‘Congratulations, you pass,’ she smiles. Either I’m still high on last night’s sugar or this girl likes me.

‘So when do I start?’

‘Now,’ she says, handing me a small key-card before click-clacking away.

The supply room is near the end of the corridor. In it I find everything I need: gloves and a rifle. It's a DARPA EXACTO, cerca 2015, but all that tells me is that I’m working for Americans or anyone with access to their artillery.

That’s anyone and everyone then, huh?

The external elevator is just a wooden basket with a pane of glass split halfway through the middle, made of that two-way stuff people used to love. This has to be an old structure. After the third 9/11 everyone except Dubai stopped building these stupidly high skyscrapers.

I hit the green button, the lift crawls up the side and I start clicking the EXACTO together. It’s a point and click model, I would’ve preferred something that actually required some effort, but a job like this, a shot from just over a mile, I guess my employers would rather be safe than sorry. I look up, but the only thing I can see is a bright ball of fire, the sun must make this whole thing a yellow blur. They think of it all, time was you’d have to bring your own gun. Now they set up escape routes and everything. All you do is find a job online, download a picture of the mark onto your phone while showering, and follow the GPS to the location. Half an hour later you’re sitting on the floor of a slow-ass basket piecing some oldschool tech together.

I’m chewing my bottom lip again.

Sophie used to say I do that when I’m nervous, or was it when I concentrate? I don’t feel nervous much anymore. I stop fiddling with the rifle and take a pair of bud’eez out of my pocket, place one in each ear and let the ambient traffic noises wash away into SubUman’s new album streaming from my phone, some tech-rage violin mash-up. Once the rifles pieced together all I can do is roll up my sleeves and wait for the carriage.

My mind wanders. What’s the deal with hiring beautiful women? Or is it just coincidence that the only two people I see before I’m supposed to do this look like they fell off an adboard? Maybe it increases productivity if everyone’s genetically superior. Every contingency always thought of. Just like me. My left arm itches. I absentmindedly scratch the neon tattoo that came as a freebie when dad decided his little designer-baby piano prodigy wasn’t prodigious enough and got me shot up to the gills with nano.

Improves hand-eye co-ordination? I can’t remember how good I was before, but damn if that little green man didn’t work wonders for my frag count. Increases aptitude while decreasing learning curves?

Check and check.

May cause uncontrollably sweaty palms. They left out that part.

Thanks, Pop. Thanks for forcing me to take piano lessons until my knuckles creaked, thanks for having your buddies at work pump me full of crap and, best of all, thanks for sending me off to some Swiss boarding school the day after the operation without even checking to see if I was okay. Thanks for being one of those parents people don’t believe exist.

When I cut a Houdini out of school was it an easy transition from passive-aggressive psycho to grieving parent? I watched you pretend to cry; telling the world you missed me and needed me home. I bet you loved it; your five minutes of fame came without you ever having to sit through a recital.

The music in my head has turned to ringing.

I shake myself back into reality. Shit, how long was I out?

‘Hello,’ I answer hesitantly.

‘Where the fuck are you?’

It's Yamamoto. ‘I’ll be there in a few hours, don’t worry, I’ll have your money,’ I sigh.

‘Do I sound worried to you? Is there something about the tone of my voice that makes you think I’m worried? ‘Cos if this is what worried sounds like to you, you and I have entirely different definitions of the word.’

‘Right, oka—‘

‘Don’t give me that bullshit, son,’ he says, ‘I know how you spend your nights, you gamers, sitting around pretending to kill each other online. You get paid for that shit?’

‘Right, yeah, I understand,’ the basket stops, forty-eighth floor, ‘I’ll get my shit together,’ I lift the rifle onto the deck, slip the nozzle between the two sheets of glass and set my eye to the scope, ‘but I’m in the middle of something, so if you don’t mind?’

‘Oh, oh, of course,’ he laughs, ‘I wouldn’t want to distract you,’ a pause, but I hear him breathing, ‘...fucking waster.’

The phone clicks off, right into a bass-synched violin loop; a song called Exodus. I’m already scanning for my mark, across what used to be Shinjunko Central Park looking for the suit they sent to my phone this morning.

Balding; grey hair; moustache; brown suit; glasses; there. Him.

I suck the air in through my teeth and cock the rifle, my finger nudging the trigger gently...gently...now.

EXACTOs hit wherever the red dot lands, no-matter what, the bullet can change mid-air if it needs to, and unless the mark actually physically sees the thing coming, you turn him into a Hindu, he’s dead. But there is no fun to be had in taking a pot-shot from over a mile away. No, the fun is in finding somewhere other than the marks face or chest. Something that will ricochet and still ’86 the mark. It’s the little things that buy you extra points.

I chose one of those gongs. It’s always nice to go out with a bang. Within nanoseconds my phones blaring my message tone, some theme from a banking commercial way back when: pop goes the weasel.

That’s the way the money goes.

I’m halfway onto the packed observation deck peeling the gloves off when I notice the white tip of Mount. Fuji shimmering in the distance like some animated screen-saver, a simple backdrop to the city’s daily chaos.

I count the seconds wordlessly while trying to drown out tourist chatter with another song. It takes fifty-five for the elevator to take me back down to street level. It took nearly an hour just getting up there. Isn’t that always the way though?

A huge build-up; then wham, bam, thank you man. And for what? I’ll probably never know. It’s only a job.
As I climb onto my bike I see a newsboard above my head has the subtitle:

‘FINANCE: Nissan (NISNY) announces take-over bid after Honda (HMC) CEO found assassinated.’

Oh.

* * *

>> skyward*: Yo, you heard what Nissan did?
>> 10: What?
>> skyward*: Changed the meaning of the words 'hostile takeover'.
>> 10: Lol, how?
>> Skyward*: Well...

RAW MATERIALS:
(2,972 words, not counting the title.) (anitero.mail@gmail.com)

They perch at the edge of the pews: vultures, eager to gorge on my grief, eyes open and phone-cams ready. I find their gazes to be more unnerving than the corpse of my brother; at least Ron expects nothing of me. Not anymore.

The Madre clears her throat. "We'll now hear a few words from Mr. Harry Diego, brother of the deceased. "

She's repeating herself, trying to keep to her itinerary of mourning. I apologize Sister, if I missed my cue--next time we have a death in the family, I'll be sure to attend the dress rehearsal.

I clear my throat, straighten my tie. My stare skips over the heads of those who've come to bury my brother. There is a collective intake of breath--the eulogy from the representative of the family is always the main event at a wake--but the tinted light is beautiful as it spirals down from the stained nanoglass, an arcing blur of colors like an ad on a passing Metro Rail.

“Mr. Diego?”

Ron would have liked that, would have turned it into one of his spontaneous sculptures, replicating the effect of multi-mill peso artwork with a few scraps of shredded pushmags and faded denim. He’d been as adept with words as he was with his hands. When my brother had given a eulogy, it had hit number one on the Deadstream chart, beating out the Crying Ladies remix. It was something about paradox and jazz and the buggy nature of life… Dad probably rolled over in his grave.

“It seems Mr. Diego still needs some time to pull himself together, so perhaps we should—“

“Ronald Coching Diego was my brother,” I say. My voice is pitched low, normal, but it booms from the sound system with an authority drawn from sheer volume. “He was born four years before I was. When we were young, we used to play with blocks together, until he moved on to clay. I never did like clay.”

I go on to describe what my brother had been like growing up, and I can see the initial spark of interest begin to fade; my brother had been a public figure, his life already the subject of a movie and an eighty-three episode telenovela. By the time I reach the year of his death, most of the guests are drooping in their seats. The Deadstream admins probably think it’s a shame that I’m not the one in the coffin.

“The last time I saw my brother was in April. He said he was putting the finishing touches on an installation for the Ayala-Gokongwei Museum, and that he’d see me for my birthday in June.” I pause. “Two weeks later he tried to scale the ad-build at the Ortigas-EDSA junction and fell to his death.”

The audience stirs—this is it, what they’ve been waiting for. The blogs had been eagerly anticipating my tirade against the world, the government, the security guard who triggered my brother’s diffuser seconds before he’d reached the top.

“My brother,” I say, then stop. How best to put this? “My brother sometimes did very stupid things.”

I step away from the podium, and resume my seat in silence.

#

My people have always been fascinated by death; not what comes after death mind you, but the spectacle of it: the ghoulish repetition of the deceased’s final days, the tacit competition between the flower arrangements sent, the macabre dance of eulogies, carefully crafted to praise, to immortalize—not to bury—the dead. It was only natural then that some of the more lucrative lines of work in the Philippines dealt with mortality—as well as memory, death’s romantic detritus.

The iTouchstone was the flagship product of one such business, a repurposed multimedia device which contained the entirety of the deceased’s lifecache—every status update, every text, every photo album—in an aesthetically pleasing black tablet, no larger than an ereader. The nature of quan-drives makes storage space a non-issue, but Ron’s iT is easily double the size that of a person who’d lived three times as long. Ron rejected the very concept that there were “things better left unsaid.” Thoughts were said aloud, plans were put into action. His video blog files alone take up twelve terabytes of data… not that I’ve seen any of them yet. The only video I’ve watched is something he downloaded from some underground viral site, three days before his death.

I’m watching it for the forty seventh time now: a group of four youths—not counting the unseen cameraman—each dressed in black, picking their way carefully through coils of inert smart barbwire and climbing up on to the catwalk behind an adboard. Soon, two of them will hack in to the adboard’s hardware, then the entourage will scramble down in a panic. One young man will cut himself amidst the barbs before the leader of the group decks the cameraman with an angry blow. I’ve seen the video enough times to have the sequence of events memorized, but for the life of me, I still can’t understand what about it so inspired my brother that he set out to emulate it.

“Harry?”

I slide the iT closed with a finger. Terrence leans against the cubicle partition, looking down at me with what I’m sure began as an expression of concern, but which his drill sergeant visage has transformed into one of scowling judgment. “Pare, you really need to let that go. There’s nothing you could have done.”

I shrug. “You know how it is.” Actually he probably doesn’t, but then again, neither do I. “Did you need something?”

“You wanted to know when CBC got in. She’s at the executive lounge at forty-nine, but you might need to wait a bit longer. She’s in a meeting.”

“That’s fine, I’ll only take a minute.” I’m already half-way to the elevators before Terrence can get over his shock.

“Are you nuts? The meeting is with some big shot from Communique. Harry!”

“Perfect,” I say, but he can’t hear me over the ding of the elevator doors.

The executive lounge on the forty-ninth floor is one of five in the headquarters of Chan Engineering Consultancy, and it is the only one that smells of smoke. While the total cigarette ban has been in force (as opposed to ”in law”) for a good five years, each piece of furniture in the dimly lit interior had spent enough time in similarly distinguished rooms—Club Filipino, Manila Golf, and the ilk—to have imbibed the scent of gentlemanly tobacco. At least, that’s the official explanation for the odor.

“It’s not a question of money.” Even with her back turned to me, I recognize Constance Balane Chan and her wide, smartfabric collars, constantly displaying montages from her biopic. “It’s a matter of feasibility. There is no way we can construct an ad-build in time for your client’s launch, especially given its rather… unique specifications.”

The man seated across from her has skin the color of barako beans, and wears the slightly amused expression of a boardroom veteran. “Come now Mrs. Chan. Do you really expect me to believe that your refusal has nothing to do with our initial, and in hindsight ill-conceived, offer to DSE?”

“Mr. Dumont, I’m not denying that if you’d come directly to us three months ago we might have come to terms--and, mind you, I do hope you and your principals have learned your lesson; but whether or not you have does not change the fact that to meet your timeline I’d need to pull my engineers from other projects, and that is unacceptable.”

I round the long bar and come into full view, just as the Communique executive raises his eyes.

“Well perhaps we can get a second opinion,” Mr. Dumont says, just as I reach their table. “One of yours I presume?”

“Mr. Diego.” Mrs. Chan’s face betrays nothing, but I swear I can see her collar ruffle, like that of a threatened lizard. “Are you lost? This is a private gathering.”

“No ma’am. I know that ma’am.” I’m not the type to get tongue-tied simply because I’m speaking to my ultimate employer. I can take the anxiety out of most things by tackling them the same way I would a building design: lay the foundation, erect the frame, piece it together a step at a time. “I’m here because I heard you were having a meeting about the Communique ad-build ma’am.”

Mrs. Chan flattens her collar with the heels of her hands. I notice the montage has reached her reign as Mutya ng Pasig. “Get to the point Mr. Diego.” She takes a closer look at me. “Aren’t you on mourning leave?”

“Yes—well, no ma’am, that’s next week and that’s what I wanted to speak to you about. I would like to withdraw my request for leave and volunteer for this project.”

“Well!” Mr. Dumont claps once in delight. “There you go.” However, he’s not the one I have to convince.

“You’re in no condition to work Mr. Diego. Or did you forget that your brother just died?” When Mr. Dumont blinks at the remark, her tone softens. “Take the vacation Mr. Diego. I can’t afford to have one of my top engineers suffering a break down.”

“I haven’t forgotten my brother ma’am. But I want to.” I take a breath, searching for the right words, the proper tools. “I need to work ma’am. I need something to… to build.”

“Harry Coching Diego was it?” Mr. Dumont is looking at his phone. “Top engineer indeed. I’m fairly certain that if you must go on enforced leave that there will be plenty of people willing to give you work. Strictly temporary of course.”

He grins, and Mrs. Chan’s eyes narrow. “Oh, I would never force my employees to do anything against their will. If Mr. Diego will devote all his time to your project, it just might be possible. Of course we have to make sure Mr. Diego is fully compensated for his dedication—we’re looking at hours stretching well into the night, and weekends…”

The negotiations having begun in earnest, the two executives lean towards each other, excluding me from the discussion of my worth. I know I won’t see a centavo of that overtime pay, but that’s beside the point. It will be good to do something creative after so long.

#

I first discovered the beauty of structures through brightly colored, stackable blocks called Legos. They were outlawed around the same time as cigarettes--in favor of the “safer” digital games--but are much more difficult to find on the black market. A shame really. For all the glowing studies released on the benefits of early online gaming, the digital world has yet to come up with something as effortlessly educational as creating a miniature nipa hut—or Sydney Opera House.

It’s not really all that difficult to duplicate feats of architecture using Legos, or any stackable objects for that matter. For all the grand variety to be found in human architecture, each is merely a different combination of a small set of basic elements: if you know how to set up a strut, prop up a beam, and center an arch, then you’re good to go.

Of course, I learned the proper way to build only by dint of my frequent and messy failures. I also learned it was best to build when Ron was far, far away.

I remember spending three solid hours constructing a roman arch around the picture of a mouse hole that a younger cousin had whimsically drawn in the corner of my room. Ron announced his arrival with the thunk of the doorknob ricocheting from the wall plaster as he bounded inside, still dipping sweat from soccer practice.

“I scored three goals!”

“Go away,” I said. This, of course, produced the opposite effect.

“Whatcha doin’?”

I sighed, then placed the keystone—three blocks making a downward pointing triangle—atop the arch and removed the supports. It hardly even wobbled. I grinned in satisfaction.

Ron was unimpressed. “What does it do?”

“It’s an arch.” No reaction. “I spent three hours making it.”

“Why bother? What does it do?” He peered critically at my work. “You know that’s not a real door right?”

“It…” I ran a hand vigorously through my hair. “Look it just stands ok? That’s what it does.”

“OK.” Ron paused. “That’s kinda dumb.”

“It is not.” I folded my arms across my chest. “It’s worth… five dozen goals!”

“Eh, it doesn’t seem so hard,” he said, and before I could say a word he plucked the keystone from the center of the arch… and three hours of loving craftsmanship went down the drain.

“It was just one piece!” I remember him saying that over and over, even after our parents had arrived, summoned by the maids to quiet my disconsolate weeping. “It was just one!”

My dear, reckless brother. One piece, one mistake, one flaw. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

#

“You sure you won’t join us for the unveiling?” Mrs. Chan actually sounds disappointed. “It’s your exceptional work which made this possible after all. I hear you personally supervised every aspect of the construction. You’ve earned a break Harry.”

She’s never called me by my first name before. She’s never called anyone by their first name before, not that I know of. Maybe it’s the ultra-caffeine kicking in, or the adrenalin, but I can’t help but giggle.

“I’d love to Constance, but I can’t. Our ad-build is right beside the one where my brother died. So you see… you’ll have to excuse me.”

There is an awkward silence. “Ah,” she says at last. “Of course. I’ll see you later then, Mr. Diego.”

She cuts out before I can reply. I stare at the phone with bleary eyes. Maybe I shouldn’t have called her by her first name. Maybe I shouldn’t have done a lot of things. Too late now.

I take the elevator to the roof of the Chan Engineering Consultancy Tower, fifty-four floors above ground level, my phone in my right hand, a tall glass of champagne in my left, snagged from the office party five floors below. It was a sign of Mrs. Chan’s jubilation that she’d allowed the use of the executive lounge for something as tawdry as a celebration. Terrence told me that the scuttlebutt was that I had it made. I told him that the only thing I’d made was an ad-build, and Manila was lousy with those.

I can see them clearly from my position at the edge of the rooftop: ad-builds of all shapes and sizes, proudly proclaiming the benefits of whitening nano-infusions, neutered mutacutes and custom VIMbots to the starless night. Adboards had gone out of fashion after Typhoon Donya had ripped through the city seven years ago—which resulted in an ignoble end for one of the President’s daughters—but the Metro Manila skyline was too valuable to leave brand-free for long. The ad agencies had taken to refurbishing abandoned buildings at first, and when those ran out they simply decided to build their own: tall, stable structures designed purely for product placement. Now there were hundreds along EDSA alone.

I can see the chunky outline of the newest addition, still veiled by a rain-proof tarpaulin. And right next to it…
The ad-build at the EDSA-Ortigas junction, right across from the Shrine to Our Lady of Galleria, had been playing an ad from Bench when my brother plummeted to his death—I know this because the corp sent flowers to Ron’s funeral, along with a waiver for me to sign absolving them of any liability. Tonight I watch as its ads cycle from bank loans, to seg-scooters, to bottled breast milk, and back again: I’m watching a chorus line of full-bodied women draw bra-straps down their shoulders when I get a message on my phone.

Showtime.

The tarp flows down the new ad-build like the skin of a snake, and my newest creation stands revealed: a five hundred foot column of smartfabric and reinforced concrete, four massive high-def screens per side, and topped by the head of Moxy, ubiquitous Kiwi Pop mascot. It grins down at the passing traffic, reflected light giving its black, beady eyes the illusion of life as it opens its toothy maw. I can’t hear the industrial-strength amalgamation of audio chips from here, but I by now I know the spiel by heart:

“Hi kids! Moxy here! Wanna see a place full of fun and good cheer? If your Ma and your Pa truly love you, they’ll hurry and get you Kiwi Pop 2!”

My masterpiece. My brother, of course, would have hated it. I can hear him now: Why waste your time on this? What does it do?

Ron never did understand the concept of planning, of patience. I type in a quick message on my phone and send it out. It takes two seconds for me to receive a reply.

Defy. - 10*

That’s when the explosions go off.

For a moment, nothing happens. The Metro is silent except for the distant blaring of car alarms in the vicinity of my ad-build. Then, slowly, inevitably, the entire structure shears to the left, as if following a pre-ordained path of least resistance. The movement twists the ad-build ever so slightly, and for a moment it’s as if Moxy’s eyes meet my own, a silent accusation.

Then his stubby ears crash into the adjacent ad-board.

I can’t hear the sounds of the impact from where I stand: the screech of tortured metal, the roar of cascading concrete. But I can see it fall clearly, that hateful monument, sparkling even in its descent, like the shards of a church window, cracked and newly profane.

Port Elizabeth, Room 102 (My Beautiful Children)
- D.R Stevens

When I ask her where my room is she points me to the lift as though it’s an effort and says second floor. She’s an ugly thing alright, young but with bad pale skin, black hair, a prelude to gothic surrealism in a hotel uniform, trying to show as much of her night life in her day job. I have no intention of turning on the charm. Not that I’d do anything anyway, I’m a kept man, but business trips can invoke a sense of mischief. I get lonely in my hotel room. Often I lie at night watching whatever’s on, entertaining thoughts of requesting porn. Not that I would ever watch porn for long periods, only perverts do that, but some part of me wants a quick peek, ten minutes at max. Once I even had the T.V on the screen where you order the porn, all I had to do was push the select button on the menu but I chickened out. I know the hotel can hide this expense but it’s my shame I can’t seem to hide. I’d be too embarrassed to approach reception in the knowledge that they knew what I’d been up too. People watch porn to get off with themselves. I don’t want strangers knowing that I had a wank the previous night even though sometimes, alone in my hotel room, I wank anyway. And if the front desk clerk of the hotel is a pretty thing I’m probably thinking of her when I do it. She sneaks in and quietly slips out of her uniform. I reach out and touch her body, front desk clerk flesh. She climbs into the bed and I climb into the fantasy. This is what I think about when I wank with the porn just a click away and me too scared to access it. Except for tonight of course. If I have a wank tonight I won’t be thinking about this front desk clerk. She frightens me. As I reach the lift I hear her calling. Excuse me, sir she says, excuse me. I turn back. She’s staring at me, nothing malicious except that she seems a lot more interested in me than a moment before. Are you a light sleeper, sir? This is a strange question to ask a customer. No I reply, as a matter of fact I’m not. Why do you ask? Sometimes the children can get a bit carried away late at night. She laughs and I feel uneasy. Children, I say, whose children? She ignores my question. Don’t worry, sir, if you’re not light sleeper it shouldn’t worry you in the slightest. She laughs again and then busies herself with a pile of papers completely cutting me off. I can’t help feeling worried as I enter the lift.

The noise starts around two in the morning. It’s a gentle tapping at the door. I don’t know how long it’s been going on but long enough to wake me. I lie still and listen. There is no other noise in the room. It’s all quiet except for that tap. Suddenly everything is sinister. The room seems intimidated, as though contaminated with something unwanted. I sit up and listen closely for any other sounds, breathing perhaps, the shuffle of feet but there is nothing. I focus on the noise. Who taps on a hotel door late at night? A pervert, a loser, a psychopath. I make to pick up the phone but then a wave of bravado sets in. I could phone reception but I’m angry. The room is dark so I reach out to the bedside lamp and thumb the switch. No light comes on. There must be a power shortage. I grope for the bathrobe and shuffle to the door. Who is it, I hiss. Nothing, just the gentle tap-tap-tap. And then I get a feeling like something’s in the room with me. I swing around to look behind. There’s nothing there. Get out of your head, I think, you’re scaring yourself.
If you don’t stop bothering me, I’m going to have to come out there.
Tap-tap-tap. In one swift movement I yank the door open. The passage is empty, there’s no-one there, no sound, no retreating footsteps, just the passage. The lights are on. I walk in my bathrobe to the part where the passage turns right and heads to the elevator. There’s no-one there either, it’s all quiet. It’s only when I walk back to my room and close the door that I realize the bedside light is now on. I can’t sleep for a long time after, my heart thumping like two wrestling strippers in my chest.

When I tell reception the next morning, the ugly girl, the one I wouldn’t wank to, acknowledges the disruption with little more than a scant apology and some forced reassurance that it won’t happen again. I’m a nice guy so I don’t ask to see the manager. Just as long as it all gets sorted out I say.
She nods and gives me some false smile. I leave wishing I had asked to see the manager. The problem is in the evening when I return I’m worn out, tired from the day of business and glad for the quietness of my room. I have forgotten the incident, thinking more about whose going to get the sack if the deal folds. After dinner and a cup of the heartburn sachet coffee that comes free I lie in bed and flick through the channels. There’s nothing on as usual, typical when you’re stuck alone. I end up falling asleep with the T.V on.
I don’t know how long I’m out but when I do wake up my neck is sore and my mouth is a stale plantation of coffee beans. The tapping sound is back. Didn’t the front desk clerk promise to have this sorted out? The room is dark and the T.V. off, another power outage. It’s not uncommon here. I have the Eishkom t-shirt and enough experience of sitting in gridlock traffic. Then I remember this happened last night with the bedside light. The moment the tapping stopped the power came back. Someone’s having a laugh. This time I don’t ask who’s there. I tiptoe to the door. I’m going to yank it open before they have a chance to get away. It’s then I hear the voices of children. They are laughing softly. I think back to when I checked in. The ugly receptionist told me about kids getting carried away. This must be them, ADD, junk fuelled, jelly baby scoffing little shits whose parents deserve to be shot. It’s never too late to start I think as I reach for the handle. But I hesitate. Something about the laughter isn’t right. It’s the laughter of evil people, dark with malevolence. A ribbon of fear creeps into me, messes around with my rationality. My legs feel weak. Those wrestling strippers are warming up. Get a grip, these are just kids. I pull open the door. No-one is there. The passage is empty but the laughter continues. I hear it coming from the elevator. This time I sprint to the end of the passage. I look right, hoping to see them. No-one is there. The laughter has stopped. Now I really do get scared. The one thought I have been trying to suppress springs out like acne hills on a teenage landscape. Maybe this hotel is haunted. I tell people I don’t believe in ghosts but who really knows. Unexplained lights twinkle all over the place these days. The ghosts are restless. I take one final look down the passage before I close my door. The T.V is back on. I turn towards the bed and those wrestling strippers jump right into my throat.
Holy jumping Jesus whores, I shout.
The ugly receptionist is there. She’s in the bed, naked, with the covers pulled up. My fantasy has become my fear. It’s night of the front desk zombie clerk. I want to say something but I’ve forgotten how. I don’t know how she got in here without me seeing. She’s smiling at me, some horrible, pale excuse of a smile as though she really has to make an effort to get her cheeks to move with all that pasty make-up. She puts a black fingernail seductively into her mouth.
Did you hear them, she says. Did you hear the kids?
This psycho woman is making me sweat in places I’ve never sweat before. The ribbon of fear is flying a kite.
Fuck the kids, what are you doing here?
I’m sounding braver than I feel. She seems to be touching herself beneath the sheets.
The children always make me horny, she says. Her tongue darts out and she makes a horrible sucking noise as though she’s getting ready to eat her prey. I’m her prey. I’m her goddamn a la carte. I lose my rag.
Get the fuck out of here you sicko.
It has no effect. She continues to smile, rubbing herself, putting her black fingernail into her mouth.
Don’t be like that baby, she says. Come here and stay for awhile. I’m warm inside you know. I’m red hot.
The phone is right there. But she knows what I’m thinking. She holds up the unplugged end of the cord.
I didn’t want anyone to disturb us, she says.
This woman is a lunatic, some mental asylum drop out. She’s unstable upstairs and probably even worse downstairs. Get out, I think, get out before she turns nasty. I make for the door but it slams suddenly shut. I hear the children laughing again.
They think you’re funny. They think you’re a real hoot.
Those black fingernails are moving beneath the sheets. I have nowhere to turn. Panic sets in.
People go to jail for this, I say now very afraid and in dire need of a shit. I want to shit myself that’s how bad it’s got.
What, she says smirking, for having sex, for making it with a front desk clerk, bringing whoopee to the hotel staff. Maybe I’ll tell them you drugged me and raped me then we’ll see who goes to jail.
I back away from her but the wall is only two feet away. I’m up against it.
Come here, she says. Instead I make for the door, shake the handle wildly but its locked shut. I bang on it. I bang and scream. Help. Help me. But the laughter drowns me out. It’s ringing in my ears. There are voices as well. We know you, they say. We know you and you know us.
Come honey, she says. She’s closer than ever. She’s in my head. Come light the fires and we’ll burn this crippled old hotel to the ground. I’m facing her. The kids are laughing insanely loud. Or is it just me. She’s still in the bed, touching herself, licking her lips, but it feels like she’s in my head.
Let me taste me on your breath, she says, feel your white darlings swimming my channels.
Who are you, I scream, what do you want.
It’s the voices who answer. We are your children, they say. We are your bloodline. We are your meat. We are your lies, your aching, swollen lies.
I swing around violently. I’m looking for those voices but I see nothing. I almost punch the walls.
I have no children, I scream, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Oooohhhh, baby, come here, she says. The children make me so horny, come feel how wet I am. I want you. I want to feel you.
They are laughing. They are everywhere.
Ooooohhhhh baby.
I am going to be sick. I look down and see blood. Where’s it coming from? It’s dripping from the ceiling. I don’t want to look up but something is forcing me. I can’t help myself. I know there’s something above me. You know, say the voices, we know you know, and they’re right. My mind is working its way through the archives but it doesn’t have to work too hard. This is one memory that will never leave no matter what. God knows I’ve tried, therapy, booze, coke, weed, this one is there forever. It’s a stayer. Some memories smell real bad. It’s easy to say we shouldn’t have done it all those years ago. We were young. We were stupid. We were young and stupid and too fucking thick to know any better. The blood is coming faster now. It’s dripping into my face and my upturned palms. It’s drenching my feet. I don’t want too look up but I know I must.
Ooooohhhhhh baby, I’m almost there.
If we could do it all again we would do it differently. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be, remorse, guilt, apology and forgiveness. We were young and foolish. We just wanted the sex, we didn’t want the by-product. Isn’t fate a hairy balled bastard, to give us dicks and pussies and feelings and no proper instruction. I’m gagging. The blood is filling up my mouth. I can’t close it. I want to but I can’t. The voices are everywhere. We know you, they say, we know what you did. Now I’m screaming back. We were so young, so dumb, so full of our own self importance. We still had so much to live for. We know you, they say, and you know us. My face is turning to the ceiling. My mouth is filling up with so much blood that I have to swallow it down. It’s the blood of my sin, the blood of the placenta. I try keeping my eyes shut but slowly they are being forced open. We know you, say the voices, both of us know you. Twins. That was the part that hurt the most. It was twins.
Ooooohhhhhhh baby, I’m coming, I’m coming.
I open my eyes. My children, my beautiful children.

DR PRECIOUS

My parents are greenies. They have always wanted to change the world. But buying organic vegetables and watching overly-biased documentaries while smoking grass is hardly my idea of having an impact on the world. Hell, even if you go all the way and use wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, drive a hydrogen car, and consume only enviro-friendly products – do you want to guess how big an impact it would have? You might as well not bother, because the impact you will have will be so insignificant. I know the world needs changing. I just have a very different idea of how to go about achieving this.

Like most teenagers I felt the need to rebel. But unlike most teenagers I couldn’t really rebel by dating girls or using drugs or getting my nose pierced. God knows, my parents would probably have approved. Instead, I developed an interest in “society’s ultimate evil” – science. At the age of 14, in a temper tantrum, I declared my aspiration of doing genetic engineering one day. I think my parents would have preferred me rather getting knocked up and dropping out of school. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that science was my chance to touch something bigger. To matter. To (unlike my parents) actually have an impact on the world.

Call me spoilt. I call it persistence. I have always gotten what I wanted. And this was no exception. I wanted a chance to change the world, and I didn’t want to wait around for “one day”. It took a few phone calls and a lot of cunning to get the number one of the Genetics professors at the University of Stellenbosch. I convinced him to see me, using the excuse of a science fair project on a subject matter close to the research they specialized in. With a combination of the outfit that I wore (a skirt so short that it was almost indecent and a top that generously enhanced the little bit of cleavage I had) and my keen interest in genetics (even at 14 I have already done an impressive amount of self-study on the subject), I managed to convince Prof Almeida, who ran the university’s plant biotech research lab to hire me as an assistant to one of this PhD students, Ian.

I started out washing test tubes and grinding up plant tissue for DNA extractions. But I had a steady hand and a talent for working accurately, and 6 months after starting in the lab I was conducting most of the practical experiments of Ian’s research. My tea breaks were spent in Prof Almeida’s office - talking about genetics, of course. I was 16 when I left high school early to enroll in the University of Stellenbosch’ undergraduate molecular and cellular science program with a bursary, courtesy of strings pulled by Prof Almeida. Of course, my career choice made living with my parents rather unpleasant. I was happy to finally be able to move out. And after the head-start I got by working in the lab, my studies were a breeze. While my fellow students were struggling to get the hang of micropipettes and amino acid structures, I was taking extra subjects. I got my bachelors degree after two years, instead of three, and already started some of the research for my Masters project before graduating. By the age of 21, I had completed my PhD, and got offered a very attractive research post at Inatec Biologica, one of the world leaders in gene therapy and nanotech research. I, on the other hand, had other plans. The research they proposed didn’t interest me much. But what I proposed interested them quite a bit. I was going to change the world, and it wasn’t hard to convince them to dish out the funding. My project was labeled classified and moved to a secret underground facility away from the greenies who often vandalizes field trials. Even with police intervention, they still manage to cause irrecoverable damages to many research projects. I was glad to finally be away from all that. At our facility we are still running several side-projects to cover up what we are really working on. Custom-made Mutacute© pets, nanotech-enhanced police dogs and human branding that interacts on gene-level - just enough to satisfy people’s curiosity as to what we are really doing.

The world’s problems mostly stem from the same root – limited resources that are over-exploited by an over-populated species that has managed to work around nature’s usual means of controlling population. Relax. No, my idea was not to wipe out a large portion of the human race. In fact, my idea didn’t involve wiping out anyone for that matter. No, what I had in mind was far more elegant than that. Why fix a problem if you can avoid it? In third world countries, girls pop out more babies than they can feed. They don’t bother with birth control or family planning. And of course, these countries do not have the resources to provide for the offspring. And as soon as they hit puberty, this offspring result in yet more offspring. It isn’t fair towards these kids. What chance do they have in life? What is there for them to aspire to? It is nearly impossible to rise above the dirt they were born in. And for as long as they live, they will drain the world of resources without contributing anything back. The poor and uneducated have unintentionally become earth’s parasites. Of course, the solution seems simple – only allow those who can afford to take care of children to reproduce. That way, there won’t be any starving babies. The implementation of this, however, is not that simple. Human rights activists turn mass-sterilization campaigns into more effort than they are worth. And no corporation wants to be associated with the bad press that this would generate. I cannot help but ask what has happened to a child’s right to proper resources? But I won’t waste my breath arguing with them. Growing up with my parents taught me that it is pointless using logic against the hippy-activist types. So I came up with a way to allow populations to regulate their own growth. I’ve named the project Messiah, because this will quite literally save the world. It is surprisingly simple. Messiah is a nanotech-virus which is highly contagious, only sexually transmittable (to avoid uncontrollable spread), and it works on a retrovirus principle – meaning that it integrates itself into the recipient’s genome to ensure infection for the rest of the recipient’s life. This won’t make the recipient sick, but only infertile. The sweet brilliant part is that it causes infertility by preventing cell differentiation after fertilization. This means that regular fertility tests won’t be able to pick up that the recipients are infertile. How beautiful is that?

As Inatec Biologica is Africa’s largest producer of human vaccines, it was only a matter of adding a few extra drops of fluid to the shots destined for the children in townships and third world countries, delivering Messiah directly to their bloodstreams. With sexual abuse of children being so prevalent amongst the target population, we started picking up Messiah in a measurable portion of the adult population after only a month after the first introduction. Nobody got sick, and nothing showed up in regular STD tests. Messiah is showing good exponential growth in its spread. It has been two years, and nobody has a clue. I wonder how long it will take before anyone notices. There will be a negative population growth, but no associated elevation in mortality rate. People will blame environmental factors and malnutrition. It will take years before anyone realizes what is really going on. Even when they start suspecting, it will be nearly impossible to detect. And by the time they do figure it out, it will be too late to stop the spread. Inatec Biologica will come to the rescue with our “miracle cure” serum that will allow people to get pregnant again. This serum doesn’t come cheap, but neither does raising kids. Despite being targeted at the poor, it is just a matter of time until Messiah spreads to the rich. And this is where Inatec Biologica will start monetizing on my little project. If anyone is rich enough to give a child a proper life, they are rich enough to pay for it. Of course, most of the third world will be left unable to afford our serum and unable to reproduce. Earth will have enough to offer our children. Each child will have a bright future. No more hunger. No more poverty. Only bright possibilities will await tomorrow’s youth.

This is my short story. crisetta@live.com
Best served cold

The club house is open. I want it to be the way it was before. It was a good place. We had our uniforms. We went painting and I was great, the best at it. Fuck Tendeka, fuck Ash, fuck the lot of them, that cram in the station was lank mif. It just got us in terrible trouble, nothing good at all. Nothing ever lasts. Nothing is ever good and safe.
Whitey is curled up in a corner on top of the dirty uniforms. When he saw me he turned his face away. He’d been crying, what a sucker! Eddie’s here, and S’bu and Ibrahim and a few of the others. No Zuko though.
“Where’s Zuko? Where’s Ash?” I shouted.
Whitey’s voice was all trembly and pathetic.
“They kept Zuko. They saw him kick the bomb in. They let Ash go, though, because he brought all of us to get vaccinated. He said we were with him, we were going to a game. They believed him. Fucking believed him, because he’s high LSM. He’s gone to check on Emmie. She’s gotta be coke, she and that bergie man she’s shacked up with were never out when the bad things were going on.”
“Sharpen up, my larnie,” I told him. “We did without them all before, we can do without them again.” He turned away, tears pouring down his cheeks.
“I liked the painting, and the overalls and everything. Where is Tendako, where is he? Did they get him? Why did he have to do all those crazy things, blowing things up, smearing the ads? Now it’s all spoiled. It was kif, having our team and our strips. Fuck him, fuck the lot of them, they didn’t care about us at all. You think you’re so tough, Ned, but you liked it all too. And you were just as glad as the rest of us to come and get vaccinated. Ash did care about us, he didn’t want us to die.”
Daft little bugger was going right off like a bloody steam whistle. I wanted to smash his face in to shut up that great wailing hole in the middle of it, all that snot and wet yelling. I went and stood over him and he shut up quick, he could see what I was thinking.
“Anything to eat?” Eddie said yes, there’s some bunny chow. I wolfed some down. S’bu gave me a coupla puffs, I could feel the anger flattening and dulling, like a mist covering it.
“Where were you, anyway?” said Eddie.
“I followed that Toby smartarse. He was with Tendeka. Ten was really sick, gobbing up blood. I know where they went.”
“But they’ll die!” someone shouted.
“Nah, they won’t, not those two. They know their way round everything. They’ve got friends. Someone will fix things for them. Ten won’t die, not him!” I said, sounding really sure of myself. I wasn’t – Tendeka was one sick puppy when I saw them. Toby was laughing like a drain, he can never take anything seriously, he mucked up all Tendeka’s plans, always breaking the rules and sneering. I bloody hate him. I wish Tendeka had stayed with us. I wish he hadn’t deserted Zuko when they blew up the Casualty place. That’s the worst part. He didn’t care about Zuko. He just walked away, didn’t even check if he was hurt or anything. Zuko thought he was fucking Jesus Christ, he would have gone to hell and back for Tendeka. Maybe he has, now, - gone to hell, I mean. I bet they’ll ship him to the Rural, we’ll never see him again.
Suddenly the door flies open with a crash and it’s the police, and they’ve got those bloody Aitos, three of the damn things, I got up on top of the cupboard where the boots are kept, I watched as that little wimpy creature that hangs around with Whitey was grabbed by the arm. She’s a girl, we all know it, but we always just pretend she’s makoya, a real person. One cop is simunye calling the dog off, but the little stick arm is snapped and shredded and the kid is lying in a pool of blood. It’s well mif, china! Whitey’s screaming and kotching and the cops are calling an ambulance, they look lank shocked too. One of them is shouting:
“Where’s Zuko Sephuma? Where is he? Has he been here?” and I think, he’s loco, don’t they know they’ve already got him? That’s their own indaba, we wouldn’t help them even if we could. Anyway they’re gone, took the kid with them, she looked dead. She’s so small, and the blood was just pouring away from her – stopped now. Think she’s dead. Whitey is screaming fit to burst, trying to go out after her, but they just push him and threaten him with the dogs. When they bang the door after them, in his face, I go over and put an arm round him.
“Just chill, Whitey, it’s icy, everything’s sony, they’ll look after her, they can’t go round killing kids, not even the cops, she’ll be toyota,” I babble at him, but I know damn well that that little kid’s life isn’t worth a brass razoo. She’s a goner all right.
We are used to the bad stuff, but this is lank bad. We sit round the room, no-one is speaking, every so often there’s another huge gasp sob from Whitey.
“We need to find Ash,” I say, after a bit. “He’ll find out where they took her.”
The others just want to wait for him to come to us.
“This is where he’ll look for us, we should just wait,” someone says. I can’t wait. I’m full of fury and want to go out and make someone pay for all this mess, for that little girl who never even had a name, always just a shadow hiding behind Whitey. He had a doorway with an old broken shutter where he used to leave her, and she would cower there for hours til he came back. They set a dog on her. They broke her arm like a twig, and stripped her dirty grey skin away. She was very small, although she was probably at least eight. She didn’t matter. She didn’t matter to anyone except Whitey, and Whitey doesn’t matter. Now I’m crying, too. I never cry, never never. I’m tough, I’m not afraid, I can stick up for myself. I turn and run out of the clubhouse, run with the tears streaming down my face, run till I’m doubled over with pain and can’t breathe.
Hours later I get to Emmie’s place. I pound on the door, shouting and screaming all over again. I’m so angry and sick and hungry. What’s Emmie going to do? Why come to her? She’s got her man and her baby coming, what would she care about us?
That fuckwit, the BabyDaddy, he come down and unlocks the door and yells at me.
“What you want? Emmie doesn’t want all you little fuckers, just because that Tendeka pervs on you all and plays at bloody social worker, why should she? Get lost, get fucked, you bloody little bergie kid.” I stare at him. I’m wondering what I’m doing here – why did I come? His face softens. He dives into his pocket and brings out a few notes.
“Here,” he says. “I’m sorry, my larnie, I know you kids must be lank broken with Tendeka dead.” I just stare at him. What did he say?
“Dead?” It comes out like a creak of an old wino, fully vrot. We just stare at each other.
“Didn’t you know? It was all over the news, there he was spread out on the roof, like he exploded, blood everywhere, horrible, mal dead. Emmie kotched first time she saw it.”
“Dead?” I gasped out again, my voice was not working, I couldn’t get any air.
“Bloody oath, lank dead!” He looks at me, not exactly ashamed, but is he sorry for me or what?
“Solved our problem anyway. Those two perverts thought they would take my baby. Had his name picked out and everything. Just using Emmie. Married! Who was he kidding? Slumming with the bergies, pretending to be on our side. Using us to make himself look good. Homo bastard.” He hoicked and spat. Stared at me some more, then turned and went in and slammed the door locked it. “Leave us alone!” he shouted through the door.
It was getting late, I snuck into a spaza and stole me a Ghost, and I struck lucky with a half-eaten pizza in a rubbish bin.
There was nobody at all at the clubhouse when I made it back. I found bread and scarfed it down. I took one of the dirty shirts. I wanted to wear it, to remember, and because I wanted to spite Ash with his lovely uniforms that he bludged for us. Fuck him.
Tendeka is dead. What will Ash do? What will we do? What was Tendeka thinking, how could he just let himself die? What was that Toby doing, letting Tendeka die? Tendeka the martyr, was it? What good was that going to do? The thoughts went round in my head and I wanted to scream again, and hurt somebody, hurt the ones who hurt me, hurt anyone.
I found the others in one of our usual places, a broken condemned warehouse with big skulls painted. “Danger – Keep Out!” the big signs said. Tendeka told us. He said we shouldn’t go there, it would fall in on us any day soon.
Eddie let out a whoop when he saw me:
“Tendeka’s dead. We’re going to kill that Toby!” His eyes looked crazy, he was lank tweaked on glue. They all were. They were holding planks of wood and rocks and sticks, and making a hell of a row.
“You’re not going to get very far, the police will hear you and when they see you ready for a fight, they’ll set the dogs on you!” I sneered at them. But I wanted to kill Toby, too. He should be dead already, splattered and burst like a melon a truck ran over. We need to find him. They put their weapons down.
It’s been a lank mif day, and Whitey has gone stumm, won’t meet my eye, just lies there curled up and every so often he groans like he’s having a baby, deep and heavy. It’s a terrible sound. He gets up to come out with us, though.
We spread out and go searching. First we ask around the loxion shelters, finding out all we can. Then it’s into the city proper, begging and stealing as we always do, but listening, asking all the gamchees and the skeefs and dronkie bergies. Everyone has a story, it’s hard to know what’s the genuine makoya and what’s just fear. The smell of fear is everywhere.
I meet Ibrahim. He knows where Toby is. I told him where Toby lives, he’s been watching. He saw Toby leave.
“It’s coke, I heard a man in the street say, he’s left with a couple of bags, he’s heading out to the port,” Ibrahim tells me. I send him running to get as many of the kids as he can, and bring them all. We skeef Toby will be walking, he’s disconnect, isn’t he? Got to be.
That Toby, he thinks he knows everything. He thinks that we’re scum. He’s wrong – we are the ones who know everything. We are shifting in and out, up and down, and soon we catch up with him. He is walking, staggering a bit. Not dying – of course not, not him – but he’s scared and he’s staggering. I’m creeping up right behind him, unseen, when I see Zuko!
How did he get free? How come he’s here?
He goes straight up to Toby, who’s walking with his hood up and his head down. He’s not wearing his blasted BabyStrange that he’s so proud of, I skeet he knows it would make him too easy to see. He’s on the run. He lifts his head and there’s Zuko, standing in his way.
“Heito!” says Toby, blustering, like he’s glad to see Zuko. “How are things, china?”
Zuko smashes him in the face. Then we’re all there. We carry him down an alley way, between the rubbish bins.
We kick him, we smash him. Ibrahim cuts his face, over and over, with a piece of glass. Zuko is worst, he pulls down his pants and stomps his tackle. Toby’s squealing like a pig, he’s terrified, he’s offering money, he’s cursing and threatening, and finally he’s quiet.
“Is he dead?” Whitey whispers, the first time I’ve heard him speak for hours.
“Nah, we don’t want to kill him. We want them to find him,” Zuko says. He calmly squats over Toby and shits on his face. The rest of us go wild; we’re pissing on him and shitting on him and someone crams a turd into his mouth and nostrils.
We go quiet suddenly, and then without anyone saying a word, we all disappear like we’d never been there.
Hours later, word goes out that Ash is waiting for us at the clubhouse.
I’m glad you’re all safe,” he says, pale as death. He looks at each of us, but nobody says a word. “I’ve got help for us, we can keep our school, in Tendaka’s name we must keep on…” he begins, but suddenly Whitey breaks. He’s crying again, openly this time.
“It doesn’t feel good at all. It was supposed to make us feel good. I don’t feel better. It didn’t help at all!” he wails, as we all stare at him.
He’s right; it didn’t help at all.

Sitting huddled, with my face between my knees , an old gown over my back, I used to sit on the bed, looking out of the window, daring to thrust my arms out of the window to get a flake or two on my hands and then I would close the window again.

This was my favorite window as it provided me with a wide view of the valley, trees and the path-way which brought my dad from the main road to our house. I would sit there and count up to five hundred in the hope that as soon as my counting would be completed my I would see my dad, coming home with brisk steps…..

For the last three days I was not been fed properly nor did my mom serve me with my favorite dishes…..

Someone must be ill, that’s why such a simple diet is being cooked. The wails and cries that I had heard a day back confirmed my view….. who it could be.

Everybody wore those shabby clothes and the didi(sister) made sure I did not get out of the room …… poor didi(sister), she tries to keep me in the room to prevent that infection of the patient coming to me…. She cares for me and so never allowed me to step out of my room these days.

And when Daddy would come, I would not talk to him…. I mean I would talk to him but only after he gives me five chocolates…… yeah I would not agree to be "abba" with him if he does not bring at least five chocolates….. these days, didi(sister) told me, he comes home late and goes for his office before I get up……

Hmmm…. Its cold these days that’s why grand pa and grand ma have come to our house from Delhi. Grandma makes my bed early so that I may not feel cold at night…… and I know every night when daddy come home, they stealthily enter my room and kiss my face……. Hey hey hey hey….and daddy thinks I am sleeping, but he does not know that their son is a grown-up boy of 5 years and 3 months now. I know how stealthily he enters my room an without disturbing others he kisses me.

Today I shall hold his arm when he comes for my good-night kiss. I would remember not to sleep early today. Aha…..he would be happily surprised to find tat his son has become so clever and naughty too…… and a smile danced on my lips as I winked my eye to the birds sitting on the branches of the deodar.

This deodar is a very serious type of tree…… always standing still….. its so fat it can never sway and dance with the wind…. Idiot tree, its stem is so rigid , just like my grandpa, never allows the branches to dance and play……Stupid tree…. See how gleefully those small plum and apricot trees sway with the light nudging of the northern wind.

My eyes were still on the path-way…deserted…..no one walking to-wards our home.

Daddy must be awfully busy, must be working over-time….. I had heard these words when daddy worked to earn a bit extra for my Didi(sister)’s admission. Huh.. did, the little devil, she gets so good uniform for her new school at the city, but these days she is also not going to the school neither she wears that dress…. Fool, does not know the dress would worn-out if she would not wear it…..

The sun played hide and seek with the clouds and soon bade good-night , the sparrows had also went into their bed in the nest, but today I remember, not to sleep early….
Yeah today I would not sleep early, but this grandma would sing some lullaby and make me asleep ….. what should I do to prevent my-self from sleeping…..
Hmm…. Come on think something….. I would pretend as if I am in deep slumber and then no one would pay attention to me. And Grandma would not sing her lullaby .....

But I would not sleep and when Dad comes to my room, I would grab his arms…. Wow, a perfect plan.
Huh, and they think I am a kid and do not allow me to go the other rooms these days …… not even to see who is crying-weeping-sobbing in the near-by rooms.

After he same old dinner, I pretended to sleep, covering my face in the blanket……
My grandma and grandpa used to sleep with me.
“Is he sleeping….?” Grandpa enquired.
“Yeah…!” said grandma.
“What would we do now, shall take them with us and get them admitted at Delhi…?”
“Nah, let them study here and then….”
Ah….. these old people trying to get me out of here, why ? My ears became attentive.

Soon my uncle joined in the talks and all that I could make out was that there was no one to look after us and no one to earn money for us, none to protect us from bad people….. YOU idiots, my dad is there to earn for us, to protect us and to …… Even my grand-parents think that he is not there…..
What does that mean……

I could not translate all that I heard and soon I could listen the sobs of my grandma and grandpa as they discussed the matter further…..
They are all stupids talking irrelevant and irrational things…..
I could feel the hollowness and some alien feelings in my heart…..
I was wide awake under the blanket.

Soon the lights were switched off, I pinched my cheeks with my fingers to prevent the sleep to creep in me.
I felt the gush of air, warm air, that too when it snowed out-side.
I could feel the touch on my fore head and I raised my arms , jumped off the bed and shouted , “DADDY>>>>> I have caught you….. they all say you are now not there to earn for us ……show these idiots you are here……”

Soon I realized it was only air that had touched me, Dad was not there…..

My grand parents woke up, startled…..
My grandma took me in her arms and I thought it better to sleep coz my dad always came when I slept from that day onwards…..

The comments box is unfortunately lacking in formatting capabilities, and as my story depends heavily on italics, I have decided to divide the sections utilizing italics with dash marks between i's. So
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is in italics. I hope it is not as jarring as it seems to me. That being said, here we go, at exactly 2999 words...

Moxyland: Whispers on the Wind
Sam W. Sanders

Backpack stuffed to the seams with stolen cans of spray paint, I slam the front door, ready to fucking rock and roll. Plugging in the earbuds running to my positively ancient mp3 player, I slip into a narrow alley and break in a full out run straight for the garbage strewn dead-end brick wall. i--Clang!--i My foot connects with a rubbish bin as I leap vertically up the wall where I push off with my other foot to grapple the rusted like fuck emergency fire escape. I swing and fling myself along a parabola across the alley that brings my fingers wham bam onto a windowsill, startling an old lady who starts screaming obscenities. With folk like that, sailors are a dying breed, I philosophize as I throw myself from sill to sill until a cold metal ladder is graced by my nimble presence. On the roof, I look across my domain, my motherbitch city. The corporate sprawl glitters, stabbing the sky in an aerola of arrogance, overcasting the ugly poverty that surrounds this carefully cordoned off technological haven. The shantytowns are full of the disconnected and the unsavory, and I call it home.

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Anansi flies from rooftop to rooftop in a choreography of dance, of physical mastery of the urban environment. He has run these streets from a very young age, when he was nameless, then these roofs as Anansi. He windmills over a HVAC unit and rebounds off a wall, an artist of movement, cleverly manipulating gravity from wall to wall until his worn shoes slap on the rotting asphalt roof of the adjacent building.

Anansi, a street rat without name, is a child of the city, raised by its streets, shaped by its customs and prejudices. For a refugee from an orphanage, life in the gutter is never kind, and from this he learned empathy towards his fellow man and a loathing for those who would tread upon others.

Anansi, yesterday's nameless child, carefully pickpocketing a wallet from one of the many tourists who came to gawk at the shantytowns with pretend indignation and false concern veiling a secret relief, and as he turned to dash into the crowd, a steel grip caught his emaciated arm. It was the blind bard, his leathery face haloed with a shock of grey-white hair, sitting crosslegged on his usual tattered tartan ottoman, saxophone in lap. The boy screeched and scrambled, but he was caught as a fly in a web. The blind bard, mad bluesman of the street who played for pennies thrown in a frayed top hat, fixed his gouged gaze upon the gutter child. He smiled. “One cannot go through life without a name, boy,” his expressive mouth moved, almost laughing. Then to the suddenly hushed boy he said quietly, “You have a trickster soul, ooh, goddam you fucking reek of it. In honor of the dust of our heritage, I hereby name thee Anansi.” He loosened his grip to pick up his saxophone, wailing long and beautiful.

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I'm itching for some fucking vandalism, but first things first. I have a baggieful of negatives waiting to be developed. Nothing fancy, mostly pictures of my graffiti and scenes from the city. Hot girls caught unawares and dogs pissing on rusty fire hydrants, shit like that. I don't have a studio, but this one dude's fucking old school and he lets me help him as long as I don't forget the formalities. He's been around, seen things. He doesn't talk much about it, but you can see it in his face, how it's broken him a little bit, and he has books filled with his pictures of the world before it went all digital. We met at the market, when he let it drop that he was looking for some acetic acid. Turns out I had just found a black market stockpile in a particularly seedy portion of town the night before. I liberated the chemicals that evening, and asked only that he teach me the way of the dark room. He laughed at that, consenting. I could never find any more acetic acid for him, and he tells me it costs him an arm and leg just to get it imported.

With a skip and hop into a hundred eighty degree turn I plunge over the roof edge into empty air, my hands and feet catching the drainpipe which sways dangerously as I shimmy on down. My rolls of film snug in my pocket and an ounce of sticky sweet flower buds wrapped in plastic, payment for his services rendered snug in my backpack. I slink up the steps only to be jostled aside by this pretty girl with bodacious hair and a funky style. She murmurs her apology. I watch her sway away for a moment, even as she sticks an arm straight up to terminate in a rude gesture. Hot diggety damn! I turn to the mic and speak softly.

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One doesn't survive the streets alone. The boy with the moniker from the blind bard ran with the gangs, who fed him and taught him how to steal and run. He avoided the more brutal groups and joined Saut de Chat, a collection of intelligent misfits genuinely impressed by his natural agility. When Anansi asked about the cornball gang name, they just shrugged and said, “It exemplifies our philosophy, man! When in free fall, fucking land on your feet.” Anansi shrugged too and there the city became his playground. The streets are rough, but it is also kind, and in Saut de Chat he found solidarity and an education. He soaked in burglary and car jacking. He improved his pickpocketing and learned to read. It was then Anansi acquired an intense interest in illegal street art.

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My back against an ancient water tower, I sip from a joint of old style ganja, none of that fucking bliss. Twilight tears the sun from the sky, pulling in the stars after, but you can't see them too well. The corporate sprawl lights up the night, and I can see sparks in the sky coming and going, all the fucking helicopters of techno bigwigs. I yearn for the old days, of the pictures in Mr. Muller's book, when everything was much simpler, and nobody had to be all strung up with plastic and gadgetry. Warez, phones, all kinds of crazy tech, that's what it's all about these days. I thumb through my pictures and note I really need to work on my composition. A noise, and I insta-flop onto my belly, peering down and see four, no, five figures.

I gotta smile.

I spot Tendeka's distinctive walk. We're in the same business of artistic sabotage but he's taken the roundabout way, immersing himself completely in the fucking techworld. A shadow, I stalk them across the roofs until there are no more roofs and drop to the ground with moves a ninja got nothing on me. I met Tendeka at one of his ill-fated outings, the one where he wanted to do a documentary on graffito kids. I hooked up with one of the Castle Street orphans to be on scene, but it all fell through. Just because he wouldn't take corporate sponsorship. “It's against everything we stand for!” Tendeka ranted. Well, it'd be fucking subversive to take their cash and do a switcheroo mural about how fucked up the corporations are. At least his heart's in the right place. I get where he's coming from. When it speaks to you from inside, fierce and honest, you just gotta listen to that beat.

They cut through the barbed wire paralleling the highway and make for one of the billboards. I realize what they're trying to do, but don't see how the hell they're gonna get through the wicked quick barb wire. None of them got my mad urban skills. They hurry up the base and my jaw slackens; one of them must be in deep, really fucking connected, to shut down that crazy wire action! They seem panicky, which suggests there's not a whole lot of time involved, and by the time they get back on the ground, good ol' Tendeka has knocked the lights out of a comrade. I laugh, loving that idealistic hothead a bit more. They leave, but I stay low in the grass. I watch the cars in the highway and the dim stars above. I smoke one more joint and decide it's go time. I run past the flashing cars to another billboard a couple miles down. I take the rope from my backpack and start twirling.

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Anansi tried graffiti on a lark, and to his surprise, it was another natural ability. His mates, with years of hit and run art under their belts, were slightly miffed, but they cheered him on when he flung himself up the sides of corporate buildings to scrawl slogans, his nose pressed against windowpanes of board meetings whose horrified members yelled for security. He was never caught, thanks to his remarkable agility, but there were many close calls. He gradually built his talent to the point he was capable of making intricate designs within ten, fifteen minutes. He generally stuck to pictures or slogans that carried a message, eschewing personal signatures and affectations. All over the city, there are graffiti showing business suits stuffing dataphones down the common man's throat, frolicking children with satellite dishes gleaming from their skulls, corporati hanging from the receiver of a landline telephone, men and women with a monitor for a face displaying “CLONE”, slogans such as “Technowhores” and “Come Out and Play in the Sun!” and “Take a Leap, Turn Off Your Computer.” His subversion, maddeningly elusive, enraged the elite. Never one to back down from challenges, he also took on the highway adboards.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------i

I hurl the rope and it snags i--spang!--i onto an aerial. I run for my life. I wouldn't want it otherwise. A skip jump hop springboards me into the air where my monkey arms do their magic pulling myself up the rope at a fucking frantic pace, the smart barbwire swirling then slumping as I hit the adboard hard with my feet. I haul myself up and tie up right proper then rappel back down, both arms free. I whip out the cans of paint like a gung ho cowboy in a showdown and let loose.

There is a snap.

I smear paint in a convulsion of horror, bouncing wide across the stream of pixels, slowly swinging to a stop at the crotch of a massive blonde bimbo hawking a nanotech weightloss solution, feeling very much like a pervert. I can't move, the knock in the head filling my vision with blooming galaxies. Swell vigilante I turned out to be, tangled up like a fly in a giant digital web, a poignant conclusion to a remarkable career. I start chuckling, then laughing as blood fills my skull and Security arrives. With typical cop brutality they raise their tasers and I scream my laughter until everything goes black.

i--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anansi, arms bound behind his spine, dangles from the ceiling by a rope attached to a chandelier of dubious structural integrity. He is unconscious, quite unaware of the voices that filter from the musty hall leading up to the crumbling, disused room.

“...what we're doing is illegal!” The woman steps into a cracked floorpane and screeches, dropping her silver case. This is a house in the old section of the city, considered too dilapidated even by the standards of disconnected vagrants. “Cool your jets, it's the only way we can do this. Corporate doesn't want any negative association if this...” The man's face is unreadable in shadow, but his hand searches the air. “...becomes a shitstorm, Doctor—“

She snarls. “I. Told. You. Don't use my name!” Finally extricating her foot, she glares at him, and rubs at it.“Ooh, you're so precious,” he giggles. Seething, she limps closer to get a better look at Anansi. “Are you sure this is a likely candidate? He looks quite unsavory.”

“Corporate rules,” the man said, running a hand across his scalp. “We can only use street trash like him. Dispensable, if the situation requires it.” He pats Anansi hard on the face. “Looks like our guest's awake.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------i

“What the fuck is this, where am I?” I tear the words through a parched throat, blinking at the pair before me. The man just fucking grins and calls the woman over. She has a pinched face and she bends over it to pull a big mother of a syringe from a silver case. “Everything's just sony,” he says as she sticks the needle in my arm. Liquid fire fills my veins and a guttural howl fills my throat.

i----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Something's wrong!” she screeches, a hand fluttering to her open mouth. “Oh, God, look at him!” Anansi is bucking on the rope, his muscles distorting and swelling until he is a caricature of his original form. She turns and runs, shrieking down the stairwell on a broken heel and staggers outside where her escort awaits in an eruption of headlights. The man pulls a gun at the pulsating, bulging Anansi and we converge onto him. We tear him and his soundless scream to bits, into so much raw material; it streams violently inside the room like a sandstorm.

Anansi thrashes, the thing inside tearing him apart. We swarm into him, slipping through the void between his molecules, grappling the flawed technology, to push it out of his pores in incandescent streamers. We tear it apart too, its light leaking into the darkness. Anansi slumps, beads of sweat spattering the dusty floor. The room roars with our rage, the walls splintering into sheer molecule, but he exists in an island of calm. We disintegrate his bounds and set him down reverentially.

O brother, we speak, look upon your history, our shared history. The violence abates, cohering into a three-dimensional stage drama on the floor under Anansi's bowed head, to show a laboratory and a pair, husband and wife, in celebration. She holds her baby, you, our dear brother, and clinks her husband's champagne flute against hers.

Between them is a dull grey ceramic canister.

The door splits into two, the jackboots of corporate thugs hammering the quiet celebration. He starts, hands outstretched, to protect his family, and a gaping maw appears in his chest. He falls onto the canister and smashes it. His wife screams as a soldier tears the child away to repeatedly throw her against the wall. A blackness streams from the ceramic shards lying in a pool of blood and fills the room with a roaring rage until all is dust but an island of womblike calm where the child has curled up, placated by the dark music crawling on his flesh like a million million insects.

Anansi looks at us, not knowing where to look. Brother, we've always been with you, we say, but you had to see the ways of the world. We show him us.

The blind bard sits before him and smiles.

Then we really show him us. He gasps as he sees everything in the world. Everything.

“You're everywhere...” He sees Tendeka locked with his lover, the cloud formations above Antarctica, the grinding of mantles under the Pacific ocean, the earth's incandescent iron core, the range and amplitude of satellites transmitting earthward, the very information contained in the transmission. He sees sonar, the storm of neurons in a man's thought, the jumble of blood cells in his veins, the tireless ATP factories of mitochondria. He sees as we see.

We can do anything, we tell him.

We can make you unto gods to the heat death of the universe. We give him a glimpse of the kaleidoscopic possibilities. The earth slowly turns to slurry, just dust propagating into eternity. Anansi and the goodness inside him, despite such evil in his world, recoils at this possibility.

We show him visions of heaven: Screaming men on the battlefield, blistering pain of bullets shattering skulls and exploding hearts, only to be tied together into smooth unblemished tissue by the epidermis of this baryonic dream, us, the whispers on the wind, until all violence fades off into boredom, punctuated by spurts of sport.

Misogynists sprout breasts as penises recede in a menstrual tide, racists scream awake with cocoa-coloured flesh, humankind finding that all the prejudices of the world have turned onto its head.

Children in devastating accidents just giggle as if tickled. The old find elasticity returning to their skin, crows's feet disappearing as if sandblasted, jump about filled with long yearned vigor.

There is no death.

Humanity becomes utterly transfigured, never more separate from its origins, and in its decadence becomes unrecognizable. Thousands of cults spring forth, the alien ambitions of each slowly isolating one from the other in mutual respect, from rabbit people to those who gaze with sonar the once unreachable oceanic fathoms. Earth fills to overflowing with the varieties of human life, and what is there for a race that has everything? Their eyes turn to the stars.

Like dandelion puffs, men and women with vacuum adapted physiques sail the void on massive nanothin membranes that surf the solar winds and gather sustenance from drifting particles. Whole planets become whimsical art sculptures; the gods skip from planet to planet merely to create. A massive garden halos a liquid planet, nourished by vacuum dragons who gather the water in their giant jaws. Planets the size of marbles tangle in an insane orbit, populated by sentient microbes. DNA is tinkered with, twisted into fantastic possibilities. Life blooms, many and varied, from his footsteps as he spreads outwards further and further the reaches of the universe, navigator of infinity. Anansi is sprawled on the dust in awe. We ask of him, Brother, tell us what to do.

A million years of our time passes before a grin snicks on his dark face and he says,

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------i

“Let's fucking do it.”

The Big Date
By T.Nocera

It's cold.

I knew it'd be cold but all I wore was this sweatshirt.

Why?

Because sometimes it's just nice to feel the bite of a cold wind. It's refreshing. Makes you feel alive. That's rare these days.

Three quick vibrations indicate an incoming call.

"Hello."

"Hurry the hell up Dules your late again. I mean really, your a grown ass man and you can't get to work on time. Hurry up."

"Don't worry boss, I'm running now."

I am not running. They don't pay me enough to run. They just about pay me period. I had the day off. I have a date tonight. I'm doing this as a favor for the boss.

No way I'm running. I'll stroll.

"Weather," I say to my phone.

"High of 40 degrees F with chance of rain." Knew it. "Avoid sectors 1 through 4 today due to dangerous levels of smog."

Oh New York, New York. Yes even the air here is foul. Along with nearly everything else. The government, the economy and the people. Although that last one's nothing new.

Most people here don't stop to recognize that, well their living. Sure they eat, sleep, have sex.

Sure they see ad-boards and logically contemplate buying the crap displayed.

But they're not alive. Not by a long-shot. Their zombies. Minds held frozen in a wasteland of thriving consumerism and virtual reality. They've been gobbled up.

No, no they are not alive.

It's like a story my grandfather told me years ago. It was about a man. A fat man he had known named Henry. Henry loved eating. He always ate. Henry ate himself to death. Literally.

"Literally ate himself to death," my grandfather had said.

Now with monumental advancements in liposuction, fat dissolvers and instant appetizer suppressors, occurrences of people eating so much that their stomachs pop and spew deadly acids into their bodies has dropped greatly in recent times. But the story's still relevant.

Works a block away. I turn the corner.

Splat.

Step right Into a teeming pile of shit. Human shit by the looks of it.

"Ah Shit."

If only society was physically eating itself to death today! Oh that'd be grand. However we're metaphorically doing it. Much, much worse.

I wipe the shit off my shoe at the front door and walk in.

Boss is standing there. Arms crossed, glaring. He's pissed.

"I ask you to come in today as a personal favor! A favor and you're an half-an-hour late. You can't be late when your a surveillance employee. People pay to be guarded, watched. What the he –"

"Listen Boss," I interrupt. "I had a late night. I apologize. Tell me what you need, I'll have it done."

"I need camera feeds logged into the system, and I needed them 10 minutes ago." He hands me a list. It's long.

Shit man. He knows I have a date tonight.

"Got it, " I say.

I walk into viewing room 1.

The news feed blares about that executive they found last night.

I take seat and turn it down.

"What the hell Tom?" shrieked Mel. My shift partner. Damn, I'd forgot he was in today.

"I already know what happened I don't feel like hearing this again man."

"The hell you know what happened Tom. This is the first news alert on it. You don't know shit. Nobody does yet."

"Oh yea. But I mean it's probably going to be just like the last one they found ya', know."

"We might as well listen." He turns it up.

The newscaster goes into detail about Carmine Corps head executive, Mrs. Pauline Thursdem. She was found tied to a buoy 100 feet into the water outside of of her beachfront home. A "$" was carved into her forehead.

"That's the second attack this week, he says matter-of-factly. "This was worse then the first."

"What happened with the first one again? Enlighten me."

"What?" He looked dumbfounded.

"Enlight– tell me Mel. Explain to me what happened with the first exec."

"Oh you could have just said that." What a moron.

"Mr. Cobishi. Found him gagged up at his office. Had a dollar sign carved into his forehead too. Someone's pissed."

"Mmhmm."

Everyones been talking bout the exec attack. This is the second one. The first was big news. No one could understand it. Maybe if they weren't so blind they would.

Societies dying. Been dying. Slowly committing suicide. And everyones too stupid to see. It's all the faceless companies and money-hungry execs. Someone's finally taking a stand.

For too long life has been lived around the newest fads and interesting gadgets. We consume what the corpos throw at us like baby birds eating regurgitated worms.

Hydraulic shoes, laser-light headwear. Talking toilets. Yes talking toilets. Toilets that talk. Crap depositors that ask if you'd like to engage air freshener, want the seat up or down, would like a concentrated stream of water sprayed at your bottom to help wash away debris. Crab Co. developed them. They sold over 8 million in a week.

You get where I'm going?

We work to eat. We eat to live. We live to buy. Mankind is harvested like crops. People are only as good as their bank accounts.

I read through my workload. Thirty-two requests for manned-surveillance. Mostly execs. This is a usual duty for a private surveillance company employee. But thirty-two requests? Twice the usual number.

I begin to log in names and addresses. Cameras must ordered and set-up. People scheduled to watch them. A lot of work. Damn it. Got to be out of here at 7, no excuses. My date won't wait.

The news-feeds still blaring in the background.

"Top story. New Breast Augmentators cause cancer: Fact or Fiction."

I turn it off. Expecting a rebuke from Mel I look over in his direction. He doesn't notice. He's got an attention span like that of my pinky.

My pinky has no attention span.

He's just sitting there staring at his screen with those bulgy little eyes. I give him the up and down critiquing look. God he's fat. Really fat. And smelly. I smell him from here. His eyes have this real distant look in them. Everybody's eyes do these days.

I take a quick look at his console. He's on exec duty. "I see they got you on exec duty. Who you watching?"

"Classy Broadway house. Mr. Con –"

"Mr. Conneray. Blue Corp."

Funny.

"Yep."

"I had him a few weeks ago." Key code 5013 if I remember correctly.

"Yea. Ya know what? I get off early. He's got a little play mate that comes by around 8:30. Cameras off at that time he says." Now Mel's just boasting.

"Well lucky you."

Small talk dies down and I right to work. Each surveillance requests drags on. It never ends. I take one break for lunch. I head across the street to an old-school Chinese place for some fried rice. Walking back I take notice of the bar two store-fronts down. It's completely packed.

It's a Thursday.

It's only 1-o-clock. P.M.

Well I don't blame them. What else do the neglected people of the slums have to do? They need to find joy somewhere.

Back at the office and halfway through my work Mel let's out a long whistle.

I look over. He's freeze-framed a large breasted woman on one of the street video feeds.

"That's an eyeful alright! You see them tits Tom."

"Yes Mel, yes I do."

God I can't wait to get out of here. My dates waiting.

I work faster than ever. Can't be late. I promised myself I'd be out of here by 7. I'll do it.

After another few hours, I finally finish up the last of the the names. The clock reads 6:55 p.m. Damn I'm good.

No time to waste. I grab my bag, give Mel a pat on the back, creep past boss-man's office and out the front door.

Oh it's a big night tonight.

I step outside.

It's cold.

The walk to the train is faster than its ever been. The cold keeps me moving fast. I get to the station and my phones scanned.

"Thank you for riding New York City Modern Transit. Have a splendid trip."

I walk down the steps, into the deep, dark bowels of the city. Down into the belly of a monster. Deep in to the fear and loathing, greed and jealousy, self-sex change kits and talking toilets. Yes, society stinks like the rancid ass- end of a wild street-dog.

I head to the North-bound train side. The platform is long and narrow. It's graced only by a long metal bench flanked by two garbage cans. I sit directly in the middle of the bench, pull out my phone, and shut it off. Can't have anyone disturbing my date.

The train arrives. I board. It's relatively empty and quite. I like that.

The plasma screens above the seats are linked to the local entertainment network . I find one set to the news station. That exec they found was brought to Victory City Hospital. Apparently she's being treated for hypothermia.

It must of got cold being strapped to buoy.

"Hey kid."

I turn to the right to see who was hailing me. The words came from a man about 50. Scruffy looking with exhausted eyes. Not physically exhausted, but exhausted. He just looked tired. He was wearing a beat up blue sweater with old denim jeans. Uncommonly underdressed for this weather. Commonly broke for this time.

"Ya' got any food in there for me?" he says, pointing to my bag.

His lucky day. I got a Dr. Swang's protein bar. Not that I give a crap about increasing my protein intake. But they taste good.

"Yea, yea, hold on." I fumble through the pack, reaching my hands in past a notebook, an old buck knife, a copy of 1984, through some white twine rope, and finally, in the bowels of my bag, the bar.

"Here you go."

"Oh bless you." He retreats to the end of the train and chomps down.

There are way to many like him these days. Shack dwellers. The left-over's. In a time when money – more than ever before – is god, people like him are left in the dust. Corpos care nothing for those with nothing.


"Broadway street next stop," the automated voice chirps.

Here we go. I walk to the door, get off the train and head upstairs. It's raining. Pouring. I'm almost immediately drench. Thousands and thousands of streetlights reflect off the millions of rain drops. It actually looks quite beautiful. To bad all rain is slightly acidic.

Unzipping my pack, I whip out my notebook and open to a folded over page.

House number 345. Here I come my love.

I rip the page out and throw it on the already flooded sidewalk.

Im a bit tense as I come up to the house. I always get a bit tense on a big date. Especially this third one.

The keypad is right on the doorframe.

5013.

The door clicks open and bings.

The house is nice. Real nice. Red carpet from wall to wall. Color-shifting paint-job. That must of cost a pretty penny. A hot tub in the middle of the first room flanked on the left by a tremendous bed. I've seen it before. But only on camera.

Damn it's hot in here. So hot. I wish I hadn't worn this sweatshirt.

I hear shuffling. My date walks out of the bathroom to the left.

Mr. Conneray.

He's wearing a bathrobe with the Johnson Inc. logo, and carrying a bottle of champaign.

"So glad you made it. A bit early bu –," he stops talking and notices me. Rain soaked in nothing but a sweatshirt and jeans. "Hey who the hell are you?"

I smile.

"A concerned citizen," I say.

He grimaces.

"Wait, wait hold on now. I know who you are. Leave me alone I got cameras!"

"There offline."

I fumble through my pack. Past the notebook and copy of 1984. I grab the white twine rope and place it on the desk to my right. I grab the buck knife and place it on my side.

"We need to have a little talk."

Level Four Physicality – by Rico Craig
She watched him, inert behind the bar, staring at the still air, doing his best to avoid contact with the targets. The live stream was broadcast from a collection of static cameras. Her vision was a repeated sequence: bar, pool table, entrance, bar, pool table, entrance. Techs had used the brackets for security cameras; no one thought to question their presence anymore. The emotionless voice of his internal audio feed played through her ear pods. She listened to the digital manifestation of his voice. Her brain began segmented processing of the conflicting audio and visual information.
Parts of the report were auto-composing on her second screen. The Havar-sequenced parts of her brain were feeding objective answers into the Transparency Template. Her unsequenced mind examined the sounds and vision streaming from 181 Long St, Randomised Education facility B5.
She knew the name; his appearance had been altered by five years of lackey jobs, screen addiction and deep fried cheese. He was a soft version of the knife edge she’d recruited.
Ralaa sat behind the bar, surrounded by bottled stock, a SIM transaction unit, a couple of remotes for the TV screens and music noise. There was football on the screen closest, but he wasn’t watching. If Merrlin had been able to trace his line of sight she would have documented the unerring attention he paid a blinking light located below the plasma screen.
The digital manifestation of his voice filled her ears; internal audio feed, the most intrusive part of Education Officer Training. Thoughts turned to waves, turned into code, turned into words. Internal interface was ubiquitous in high order administrative tasks.
Ralaa was drifting, he held the bar. The active constituent of empathogenic gas was moving quickly from breath to lungs to blood to brain. The ingrained defences of all in the facility were being lowered.
The visual feed showed target clients grouping and involved in preliminary interaction. Ralaa watched the entrance of targets Toby and Kendra. His internal feed registered a change in the prototype education spectacle. Merrlin’s computer instantly logged SIM recognition on her Transparency Template. She watched the girl pick up a pool cue and watched her hang lazily over the baize. It was familiar.
Ralaa’s immobility concealed the rapid shifts in the audio of his internal feed. Merrlin listened as he slipped deeper into the vernacular of his character. Ralaa’s internal feed moved quickly from the assessment of education opportunity to contemplation of his past.
Merrlin followed the shift, noted the appearance of her name in his internal feed. Her unsequenced brain space was counting the years since their break up. She watched him perched fearfully behind the bar, hiding himself from attention when he should have been directing the scene and controlling the interaction of the target clients. Her Havar-sequenced brain space logged comments in the Transparency Template and live stream assessment of Ralaa’s internal stream.
She opened the template for an Emotional Turbulence Report. This would be her first incident of self-reporting.
~

Transparency Document for Education Proposal
Subsection 6 - Education Officer Training
Promotion Panel Supervisor: Merrlin Chinyaka
Education Officer: Ralaa Inface - Grade Naïve, 0 terms experience with non-compliant education.
Objective: Assess suitability of Education Officer for Spectacle Education Program.
Target Clients: Toby, Kendra, Tendeka, Ashraf.
Departmental Outcomes: Insurrection Susceptibility Buffering; Conflict Administration and Involvement; Controlled Emotional Response to Technical Conglomeration.
Location/ Infrastructure: Randomised Education Facility B5 - Stones Pool Hall, 181 Long Street. Facility is fitted with live streaming visual and audio equipment. Concealed gas ducts are available for the dispersion of empathogenic gas.
Delivery Company/Operator: Havar Concepts –Randomised Education Program. Havar Concepts is an advanced provider of education systems; utilising imaging, empathogen gassing and a unique tiered corporal discipline system. Modules and/or individual lessons can be randomised and delivered on a rolling basis or targeted to fit specific socio-groups, geographic or network locations.
Company Statement: Havar Concepts, aware of the uncertain position of education in this age of transient and fluid identity parameters, is continually realigning the space in which the education dialogue occurs. Innovative education options are offered in the non-compulsory third phase of education. The success of Havar’s Randomised Education Program has shown that third phase education provides essential development and consolidation of the Education/Socialisation targets initiated in second phase education. The high percentage of students who do not complete institutional third phase education represent an estimated five billion dollars per annum negative impact on national spending. Continued third phase education minimises the drain on public finances and reduces the rate of incipient ado-generational unrest.
Contracts: Implementation of Scripthouse (character/literacy development) program. Discontinued as per governmental agreement (radical sub-culture section). Implementation of Randomised Education Program. Current contract until 2021. Development and testing of Spectacle Education Program. Progress review 2020.
Transparency Statement: Discontinuation of Education Officer Training was the result of an unpredictable empathogenic connection between Education Officer and Target Tendeka. Cause: high levels of empathogenic gas and undocumented turbulence of Education Officer.
Post-Training Redevelopment Opportunity: Increased screening of Education Officers. Compulsory reporting of emotional turbulence from all education officers. To be implemented immediately.
~
Live stream: Education Officer Training - Ralaa Inface
Promotion Panel AF134
Supervisor live stream: Covert Recruitment Officer Merrlin Chinyaka
EOT: Career advancement statement. This will be my first Randomised Education Program training. I have observed various phases and understand that my training will involve the live internal stream. Third phase education is about the utilisation of potential relationships. It’s an optimal node at which education can occur. In house research has shown that the offer of a relationship is always taken seriously. Brain imaging has revealed the truth of emotional interconnectedness in our race, most particularly in the ado-generation. I’m not here to teach letters and numbers, that’s the job of the phase one and two teachers. I’m the director of a drama and a player in the drama, I control the flows and capture people in a situation where socialisation can be maximised.
Supervisor: Acceptable advancement statement. Empathogenic gas has been released. Measurement gauge unavailable, Instinctive awareness to be used. Education Officer has assumed default position of power relationship with potential target group. Targets Tendeka and Ashraf involved in preliminary physical gaming. Entry of target Toby. Group interaction and stabilisation. Empathogenic gas at education facilitation level 2.
EOT: A society needs all types, we need variety and predictability in abundance. My decision is based on the interaction between my clients, I have to make swift decisions about how the process of education will be maximised.
Supervisor: Entry of Target Kendra.
EOT: You beautiful clients when they comes wandering in, two then one then one. There always be the stragglers the late starters who come into class and be causing a raw upset. They also be the crucial situation at which the feat of socialisation comes to grief or success.
Supervisor: Layer 3 empathogenic connection. Identity and vernacular shift in progress. Instinctive awareness of connection drift: relationship epicentre, Target Kendra.
EOT: How this raw upset to be dealt on when it comes? Target Kendra be the wacked up girl, she’s the centrepiece to this event, she the real south in a gathering that lacks coraz. The event going nowheres until she take a stride through the door. I trim smile when I see long sleeve girl cause I knows the situation is about to become the more realistic.
Supervisor: Identity and vernacular shift has been achieved. Education Officer is in emotional drift. Moderate empathogenic gas in area two. Education Officer must remain in area two. Seek face-to-face with Targets Kendra and Toby. Negative response from Target Tendeka re. technical conglomeration of Target Kendra.

EOT: I’m feeling the empathy zone left by Merrlin. Uploading too many personals into the education spectacle. Swap you cool points my new sister, they don’t mean a speck to anyone but you. See if I can actually teach these lagging kids some knowledge. You think school stops at 15, you think school stops at 17, this is the new school, the place of total learning. This be a real freedom situation. Situation untethered, dream of untethered where the reals of feeling get manifest. Fleeting chances in life; pass me by. To this watcher, border guard manqué. Uploads continue. Losing mastery of empathic reaction. Merrlin memory, her dove finger tip in bar, window light, daytime. True dove, her voice, true dove. Same dirty boots, long boots, ancient Gordon memory. Music in the bar, juke box, before days of complete service. Untethered. Where has she gone?

Supervisor: Education Officer approaching minimal output. Adjunct Observation – Targets Kendra and Toby reacting well to empathogen gas. Request physical intervention to complete separation of target group. Target Tendeka continues negative reaction; suggest corporal intervention and separation.

EOT: Find her, here she is, what goes add with olden time. Present, real time, inevitable disappointment, life complete distraction. What has brought me to this place? Her inclination and dissatisfaction. The entire of my recent life. An eternal in the sound chunks and electro haze. Here, always wanting to be here in the true experience. Now it all goes untoward.

Supervisor: Education Officer remains in a state of accelerated emotional drift. Arrival of physical intervention. Aggressive termination of Target group completed.

~
Havar Concepts – Corporate Memory Unit
Scripthouse - Character based writing prompt program.
A pre-programmed sequence of stimuli (visual/audio/text) used to promote the production of character based narrative. Developed by Havar Concepts. Superseded with the redistribution of third phase education funding.
Clients: Predominately upper second phase. Also used by numerous second phase providers as a segue unit to third phase education.
Unsupervised use by second phase providers allowed the program to be combined with client use of Adderall (a pharmaceutical psychostimulant composed of mixed amphetamine salts).
Manning Government discontinued the program for second phase education in 2010. Under an agreement based on radical sub-culture provision Havar Concepts began limited use of Scripthouse as a Covert Recruitment Module.
From 2011, Scripthouse cafes were allowed to proliferate in designated zones (Berlin and Joe Slovo). Allocation of Adderall prescriptions was increased to clients within the target profile. Adderall allocation was jointly funded by Havar Concepts and Manning government.
The ‘underground’ status of Scripthouse cafes attracted a non-conformist, post-second phase cliental. Scripthouse Radical Sub-Culture Module has been a successful source of covert recruitment.
~
1 week later
‘Merrlin, this is Ralaa.’
‘Ralaa?’
‘You know how long it took me to find you?’
‘…’
‘Forever and yesterday.’
‘You think of me now?’
‘…’
‘Don’t say it.’
‘I wouldn’t’
‘Good.’
‘It’s been a long time.’
‘That’s weak.’
‘I am now.’
‘I know.’
‘…’
‘How’d you find me?’
‘They still know you around the cafes.’
‘Not much pride in that. People stay there forever.’
‘You?’
‘I’m not there too much. I’m not a habit girl anymore. In those days it worked, I’m different today.’
‘They were good times.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Employment stasis, six years with Havar. Put me on vision. Look what they did to me, turned me into a bartender look alike.’
‘We said it wouldn’t happen.’
‘They made me sign a solitary clause.’
‘Why?’
‘Company integrity.’
‘Was it worth it?’
‘No.’
‘How’d you get out?’
‘They fired me.’
‘Might be lucky.’
‘I thought I’d get to work on something like Scripthouse.’
‘…’
‘You still there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s an in illusion. Every event is an illusion.’
‘Even this?’
‘You don’t know half until you work for them.’
‘…’
‘Do you want to meet?’
‘Yeah.’

~

6 years earlier
The clack of pool balls. Merrlin, lines all lose over a shot. Pinpricks of Adderall beginning to liven her mind.
‘Will you get me another drink after I win?’
‘I’ve still got a chance.’
‘That’s the Adderall. Focus on the impossible.’ She laughs
The white skids from the chalked nub of her cue, skews the two straight and clean into the corner pocket. Ralaa watches her rise from the shot, recalls every touch of the body beneath her clothes. The Adderall is starting to work on him. The clarity of his focus is intensifying. His focus shoots in three directions; Merrlin, the pool ball and his desire to get back to the cafe and start writing on Scripthouse.
‘You’re in aren’t you?’
Merrlin smiles with stiff-faced concentration. ‘Don’t off-plot me.’
‘We’ve got six hours.’
‘I can see you thinking about Scripthouse.’ She tries to look away, tries to come over all disgusted but control of her facial muscles is starting to drift as the Adderall takes hold, all she can do is purse her lips.
Ralaa gets into the swing. ‘One day I’m going to work for the company that made Scripthouse. They’re the only company that really understand where our brains are at.’
‘Truthy?’ Merrlin looks up from the table. ‘ You got the employment epiphany.’
‘Never would have known if you didn’t show me.’
‘Should never have outlawed Scripthouse.’
‘Hardly outlawed for us. Imagine if they didn’t,’ she taps the cue on the floor, ‘every house playing.
‘Get’s me thoughtful.’
‘You’re good thoughtful.’
‘I wish.’
‘Let’s immerse tonight.’

~


Emotional Turbulence Report – Merrlin Chinyaka

Since signing on a trainee educator with Havar Concepts I have progressed from security clearance 12 to security clearance 3. I have played a significant role in the shift from our reliance on Scripthouse education (conclusion of second phase education) to our market leading position in third phase education. The development and implementation of Randomised Education has formed the basis of much of my work for Havar Concepts. During this time, even in my role as Covert Recruitment Manager, I have never felt doubt about the work of Havar Concepts or my position within the company. The failure of recent promotions to the role of Education Officer has forced me to question the recent changes in the corporate structure of Havar Concepts. Concentration of company resources on the development of Spectacle Education has left the Randomised Education unit under-resourced. The lack of resources has led to situations in which the emotional integrity of Covert Recruitment Subjects has been undermined. This in turn has created emotional turbulence among the recruitment officers who worked at a covert level during the development of the Randomised Education Program. This is an ongoing structural problem with Havar Concepts which will continue to undermine the actions of middle level staff in the Randomised Education Program/Project.
I, personally, have been forced to file my first emotional turbulence report. A young Education Officer who I recruited using a combination of the Relationship and Scripthouse Sub-culture modules was recently awarded a non-completion award and issued with subsequent termination because of emotional turbulence encountered during a live stream Randomised Education activity. The subject (Naïve Education Officer Ralaa Inface) appears to have suffered from over-attachment during the recruitment process. His over-attachment had been concealed during training and manifested as empathic confusion during his final phase of Education Officer training. Such empathic confusion will begin to undermine the Randomised Education Program if financial backing is not approved for an investigation of recent covert recruitment procedures. Following the investigation of said procedures it is highly likely that funding will also be required for emotional stabilisation of Education Officers who have been recruited using Relationship and/or Scripthouse Sub-culture Modules. Emotional Adjustment Time will be required for Recruitment Officers who employed said modules over their required employment segment as Covert Recruitment Officers.
As a result of this emotional turbulence report I request an unsurveilled interface with Education Officer (former) Ralaa Inface. Said interaction is likely to include level four physicality; allocation of confidential material will remain within the security 8 clearance range.

Diskonneksie

Just because you are honest and straight-up doesn’t mean everybody else is too. That’s the problem with living online – the anonymity of it all. Man, you could sit in Jozi and say you’re in Berlin. Who’s going to care enough to check it out? We’re all just nano-freaks running around in an alternate universe. For some lying and going online goes hand-in-hand. And both are addictive: log in, tune out. It might as well be shoot up, chill out. You should seriously try that sometime – the chilling out I mean.

No one really gives a shit, precious; not even me, I guess. Just go with it. Be nothing, have nothing, care about nothing. Ghost girl. It’s not that hard, and it sure as hell beats the touchy-feeliness of real life. And once you get it right online, you can download that feeing, or then lack thereof, and apply it irl. Removed from love, removed from hurt, and disappointment; no more anger, no more fear.
Total numbness. Total
>disconnected<

This is my submission for the contest. This is a Kendra's short story remix. I have read the book, and know what happens to her, but this is a 'parallel' story to the book. I have played and used the opening and ending sentences of the book from Kendra's chapters to create a kind of a loop and a wink to the real story.


***

KENDRA

Buy, Sell or Trade :

Love calculator; to find out what the chances for you and your dream; love index calculate formula: R150

***

IT’S NOTHING. An ejectable. An itch. No feeling involved. Tall. Eyes like the Camps Bay Sea 10 years ago and his prints came out perfect. Even the blow ups. Still. I should be able to squeeze it out of me. But, I can’t. Or I don’t want to. His face is stuck on my non-digital mind which I can’t erase.

Jonathan found out about it and he said I am such a spoiled child. I AM branded to the bones after all. I am spoiled. From inside out. He’s vicious with words. Like a cop with a defuser; have to tease until you fry.
It’s my fault, I should not have left the pictures at his place. I thought I had it covered; a face sunk in a pool of petty snaps, but he is no fool. He knows my work too well. ‘Who’s that Mr. Perfect? A once off fuck or a constant?’ I did not grant him an answer and he smiled back at me. A smile so stiff it might as well been held up by pegs. I shot him. My Leica Zion is a dog always ready to snap. ‘He’s just a casual. Expelled already’ I said, but he knows me too well.

***
HIS NAME is Noah. I had not heard a name like this in ages. No one dares be so spiritual anymore; it’s as bad as being branded. Worse even; stamped with the Holy Spirit, Amen. A name like this will have you trailed like a bitch in heat. Just the suspicion is enough to have you defused to a crisp and have the Aitos deal with your leftovers. A meaty bone for their den. The worst is he’s not even a believer, but a ‘fervent devotee to tradition’ he said. His name has survived a long chain that goes as far back as his great great grand-father. He might be brave and admirable, but he’s a fool and I told him so.

I met him outside the convention building. They were having a conference on logos and branding; EVERYTHING BUT THE TRUTH. That’s odd, I thought. The corporates would have tried to stop it; at least get involved, but in the end, I guess they have to give a bit of leeway so they can look genuine. Dull seminars can’t be that harmful. A bit of controlled chaos. Otherwise, it looks too much like the cartel it really is. It’s surely only a minor casualty for giants like them; a drop in their synthetic ocean.

Noah was handing out pamphlets at the entrance. It struck me that they were the old kind; no 3-D images, no virtual tricks. Real-natural-organic. A genuine and out-dated supply. I was drawn in. ‘Come in, free entry, no ID control checks.’ How the hell did they get away with this?
When he saw me, he smiled and I noticed immediately the symmetry of his jaw. Smooth contours, high cheek bones, and so picture perfect. I wanted to shoot, but I couldn’t risk drawing attention. This was definitely not a place for a sponsored babe like me. Noah tried to hand me a pamphlet and I took it. No harm done I thought, they can’t be traceable. Where would they put the chip? This is just good old organic paper I kept convincing myself. I wondered if his smile was genuine or if he was also a fraud, just like the branded people trying to lure me in, but somehow, I felt connected. A kind of Nano clasping to blood cells. I went in.

It turned out he was the speaker as well. Very devoted indeed. He spoke of ad-boards, branded entertainment, marketing on Pluslife, sponsored bloggers, Nano-tech and all the rest. Nothing new really. But he seemed to believe in his revolution, in his war against the evil logo world. He spoke of virgin times when tech and branding had not yet corrupted languages. He spoke English in the old way. He flaunted it, just like it was once spoken decades ago before branding and marketing strategy contaminated it. His speech is the mark of a free mind, he said. We all should at least aspire to freedom. If only we could reconnect with ourselves with REAL reality. Reconnect. He could not have chosen a better word. Think about it, he said. You’re words are branded. You sell as you speak.

And the phrase that came to my mind was “Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s a wrap’ from the women on the news sponsored by ‘Wrap it up; a healthy alternative’ food chain, because it was. Some bold participants were clapping and Noah had already left the stage. I was hungry.

Anyway, a guy like this has his cell on the radar 24/7 and that’s a fact. For now, it seemed the Giants considered him to be a small threat, allowing him to speak and be heard, but that won’t last. They’ll shut him up quietly, today or the next. They won’t let a glitch corrupt their system for very long.


I knew it would be a scandalous mistake to engage in any kind of contact with him. Yet, I could not escape it. I sat through the conference and I waited for him. There were only a handful of people; everybody was way too scared these days. This type of gathering could, in a flash, turn into an illegal public disturbance.
I waited for him at the backdoor exit, but he went out the front. I should have known better. I ran, the Nano tech had made me super fit and I easily caught up with him. I struggled to find the right thing to say without sounding to patronising; I am a Ghost girl after all, the very same kind of branding he was fighting against. So I just tried to be honest and played my old school artist card.
‘You’re brave...standing up against the Giants. Let me take your imprint….its old school film. Genuine. What do you say?’ and I took my Leicon Zion out. He was stunned; his eyes shone like engineered diamonds. I knew I had him.
‘Impressive I know. Can’t find this on the market anymore. It’s expensive to develop, but the result is so much better. It’s real. Authentic, you know?’
He smiled, but I had already clicked a moment ago when he gazed at my Zion like a magpie. That was a good one. The anti-consumer activist yearning for the past like the corrupted mind for the latest trend. Definitely one for my next exhibition. Even Jonathan would agree.
And then, it happened. Ever so suddenly. Coming out of me like a bird out of an antic Coo-Coo clock. I invited him to my flat.
And he said yes.
***

IT DID NOT take long for Andile to call me in.
‘What’s up with the freak show babes? You’re a Ghost ambassador now…you understand? We can’t afford you hanging out with Mr. Weirdo…He’s trouble.’
Yeah, Andile, he’s trouble, but no can do. Crazy, I think I already love him. Is it the Nano that makes the feeling so strong? I am so irritated with Andile that I want to run off.
‘Relax. He’s got perfect genes’ I tell him in my defence. And it’s actually the truth. I have done the check; his DNA is perfect. No history of cancer and a very low risk of developing diabetes or any other chronic diseases. The lab also checked for chromosomal abnormality; he’s clear. And he’s clean; no HIV. No threat of corrupting the race or spreading diseases; as far as safe reproduction requirements go we have the green light from the Department of Health. They already issued a certificate of authorised reproduction on my cell. I showed Andile, but he won’t hear a word.
‘Babes, you and the Ghost are now one ok? It’s in your contract.’ I do have them under my skin after all, literally. Andile takes my cell and fits in a tracker chip.
‘Just in case Babes, it’s for your own good. You don’t want to go legal’ Legal? Now I’m really annoyed. In truth I DO have a case. Technically anyway. We are, after all, a suitable match for breeding. I would probably even be eligible for a government family financial support plan. But even with all of this, my case means nothing. They can buy themselves out of anything. Or in, for that matter. They’ll corrupt my files, alter the results and my certificate will be worthless. Or, they’ll find another reason to charge me and I can’t afford to lose the pay anyway.
‘Fine Andile, you win’ but I lied. I can’t let it go. I just can’t. Andile smacked a kiss on my branded forehead. I wish I had enough guts to slap him.

***

Congratulations !!!!!! You are the 1000 000 000 visitor and that makes you a winner !!! flashes my screen. There are stars circling the pop-up. I tried to close it, but it’s rigged. As I click on the X, it opens another window. I can’t believe it, it’s Noah.
‘KENDRA, I NEED TO SEE YOU’ it looks as if Noah has succeeded in tracking me online and hacking the page to create a chat room. Crazy.
‘I MISS U’ I replied, but already I regretted it. Noah is not one for chat slang and I am going way to fast for my own good, but his answers flash and it looks like we are on the same cloud after all.
‘KENDRA, YOU MUST COME TO MY HOME TONIGHT’
With Jonathan it’s always BABE or KEN. With ANDILE it was Kendra at first, but now it’s just Ghost girl.
‘I CANNOT’
He does not even ask why; he knows; corporates have squid-like arms when it comes to a branded girl like me.
‘IT IS FINE KENDRA, WE CAN MEET DOWNTOWN’
LONG STREET CAFÉ?’

I know they’ll track me. I know it’s going to get me into trouble, but I am going anyway.
‘YES’
I can’t wait.

***

NIGHT COMES and I am at the door, last glance at the mirror but I know; I look amazing. I must admit, the Nano has its benefits. Noah is sitting at a far end table, an e-reader on his lap. His conference did not even make the news. I am glad in a selfish way; its better he stays in the dim light. I am already stretching my luck and there is no doubt Andile or one of his kind is bound to crash in at any moment. But surprisingly no one comes. It’s only me and Noah.
‘I missed you.’
It does seem surreal. So soon. But I’ll take any crumb he throws my way.
‘My flat?’
This is stupid. Too much, too quick. And they’ll find out about it, there’s no doubt. But somehow I have to do this.

***

JONATHAN PITCHES up at my door. Lucky enough, Noah’s gone. We managed to escape Andile and his squad somehow. It’s odd. Jonathan is in a rather good mood looking at the creased sheets.
‘Busy night Babes?’
‘Fuck you Jonathan’ I surprised my self. Jonathan too. What’s happening to me?
‘Easy tiger. You actually might want to kiss my feet…’
I really doubt that Jonathan. I really wish I could deflate his conceited self.
‘I did a little control check on your Messiah, babes. Just because I care. He’s corporate, Babes. Yep, that’s right, he is a corp. Working for Dr. Precccccioussss©’
‘Fuck you Jonathan. You lie’ but it’s the truth. Fuck. It is the truth. No one pitched up at the Café. Nor at my flat. But still, I refused to buy it and Jonathan can tell.
‘Babe, I know the pill is difficult to swallow, but, face it; he’s a spy and a corp…’
Jonathan switched to big puppy eyes mode.
‘Andile called me in Jonathan. Why would he do that if Noah’s part of his clan?’
‘You’re so naïve babes…you’re theirs now y’know…. They have to keep an eye on you… and they know your style…that’s why they chose you…because of this whole old school artist profile. It’s great and they knew Noah is exactly the type of guy you’d go for. Andile is a small fish you know…he doesn’t know all the inside stories…working on the surface…more like seaweed than a fish actually…you know…keeping it clean.’
No. It can’t be. But it is. They got one of their own. Even now, knowing it all, I still crave him. Stupid. Stupid Ghost girl.
‘And what about this whole conference thing… a fucking set up?’ My head is spinning. I need a Ghost.
‘Oh that…well…I don’t think they planned it Ken…that was a kind of a stroke of luck…’
‘Luck?’
‘Yeah, luck. A set up conference to track down eventual trouble maker…that’s standard… they got everyone there on record, for sure. Noah is corp remember…I don’t think the conference had anything to do with you…. What were you doing there anyway?’
Fate. Faith. Looking for salvation. And I found it. Fake.
‘So is that it then? He’s one of them?’
‘He’s one of them, babes. Like you. Like me. Like reality.’ I must be crying because Jonathan is staring.
‘Oh c’mon Babes, keep it real’
Fuck you Jonathan.

***

I LEAVE Jonathan ASAP and he is still looking at me as if I am some kind of dumb teenager with a crush. I hate him and I need a Ghost desperately so I head downtown. The first bar in sight looks dingy, but I need the drink real badly. I sit at the bar and there is an idiot who comes to park himself right next to me.
‘You’re so pretty’
The Nano has really worked on me. I wish he would just take his stare and his little self somewhere else, but he doesn’t.
‘You drink?’
‘Ghost’, I said. I do need the drink after all. And I must face it; I am a Ghost girl now. Inside out. From the tip of my hair to the tip of my sole.
‘So, are you also a corp’s dog or what?’
He looks at me, puzzled, he almost wants to leave, but I hold him back. I might just take him home. I might just take them all home. Going on retail. That’s all I am anyway. Good old retail.

***
I take him home. I am shaking from the inside out, he can tell and wraps his arms around me. He’s already breathing fast and I can feel him hard. I shiver. I look up and see that he is watching me intently. ‘See. It’s nothing sweetheart, just a little prick. Don’t fight it.’ And I don’t.

2493 words

MOXYLAND entry - You Have No. Fucking. Idea.


>>: st*rshine: new project for you

Christoph's eyes flicked to the chat window as his fingers continued to shape the Avalon code. It was a sign of how tired he was that he actually considered not answering. Sighing, he saved off his half-remodeled tinshack and tabbed to the chat window.

>>: d*rkways: a bit busy @ the moment
>>: st*rshine: sending debrief now

Christoph tabbed over to his email client and logged in, skimming through the spam. He'd just started using the Christoph name a few weeks ago and already his account was inundated with offers to increase his manhood and triple his income. That's what happens when you use an online dating service as your data cover, he thought, as he opened the email with "Lola"'s invite.

Copying the text into the buffer, Christoph tabbed over to a shell and de-crypted the message. He frowned as he read what he had to do.

>>: st*rshine: issues?

Christoph looked out the window. Dark clouds made the ocean a patchwork of somber sapphire and muted indigo. When he'd first moved here, the sight of so much water had overwhelmed him. He'd leave the curtains closed, only daring to push them aside at night, when all was dark and he could pretend it was just sand stretching to the horizon; dark undulating waves of dirt, moved by the desert wind.

One day his boss took him sailing. Determined not to show his terror, Christoph had focused on the ropes and the sails, narrowing his attention to each task given to him so he didn't have think about the endless water surrounding him. On the way back, his boss had told him to take the wheel. He could no longer ignore the ocean.

To his complete and utter surprise, he found it beautiful. That night, he had spent hours online, looking up every possible way to describe the color 'blue' so that he would have the words to talk about his new love. And like any young man in amour, he would do anything to stay by her side.

>>: d*rkways: no issues. by what means?
>>: st*rshine: SOP

Standard Operating Procedures - do whatever it takes, use whoever you need, if you get caught you have less than a hour to get your affairs in order.

The clouds started to move as the wind picked up. Tiny whitecaps began to dot the top of the cobalt water like seams of silver thread.

>>: d*rkways: will do

There was no reply. Christoph hadn't expected one.

Pushing his keyboard aside, he stood and stretched his arms over his head, arching his back, hearing the pops but thankfully not feeling them. He grabbed a Ghost from the fridge, slammed half of it and tossed the rest away. Standing by the ceiling-to-floor windows, he took a final look at his ocean. The storm clouds had completely swallowed the sky, reflecting gray-blue upon blue-gray. Christoph pulled the curtains closed and sat down in front of his computer.

While he had heard of the environ, all he knew of Moxyland was it was home to over one million eight-to-twelve year old kiddies, and a couple thousand perverted adults looking for loot to sell or innocents to ravage. He did have some lines he wouldn't cross, at least not until he was pushed over them.

Unwilling to go to the trouble to be sure he wasn't recruiting a real kid, Christoph spent the next three hours writing a script to spawn and control three avatars at once. Since it looked like the mark was coming in fresh, three should be enough.

Unless he brought friends.

Cristoph growled and set up a hot key to double the script if he needed to and then spent another hour confusing the trail. Then he recorded some sound bites, ran them through a synth, and mapped them to hot keys.

With only five minutes to spare until spawn, Christoph set his script loose and waited. Thankfully they had given him the point of origin, otherwise he would have had to find the mark in game. So much easier to just take him out post-spawn.

A purple Romper Stomper appeared under the arch. Christoph verified the userID and sent in all three of his avatars, teeth and claws bared.

Christoph heard the words "Shit! Wait!" echo out of his speakers as the Romper Stomper vanished in a spatter of sparks. The idiot mark hadn't turned off his mike and the in-game Moxy had taken him out of play for cursing. Christoph was almost disappointed. He pulled back his avatars to wait.

After a few minutes, the same purple Romper Stomper spawned again. As it took a few hurried steps forward, Christoph saw the default prompt come up.

>>:Romper Stomper: Hi guys! Will you be my friend?

Tapping an audio hot key, Christoph surrounded the mark.

>>:Fluffoki: Die, newbie scum!

Romper Stomper had learned a few moves in his time offline, and Christoph's eyes narrowed with concentration as he maneuvered his avatars. It soon became obvious, however, that the mark was all tactics and no strategy. He would whale on anyone he could get close enough to and set off Shaker Quake after Shaker Quake without any concern for the genki point cost.

Christoph sacrificed his Fluffoki, keeping his def-field down so the next Shaker Quake rolled the avatar off its feet. The mark went to town on it, taking serious glee in the damage being done. It was easy for Christoph to get his Lovely Koi behind the Romper Stomper and take it out with a single blow to the head. A poof of glittering sparkles filled the air.

Shaking his head, Christoph healed up the Fluffoki and retreated back to his hiding place to watch the arch. After an hour, Christoph was sure the mark wouldn't return. Whoever fought like that didn't have the patience to wait any longer than this; he had given up or re-routed the IP address to spawn somewhere else. In either case, it was no longer Christoph's assignment. Tabbing back to his script, Christoph automated some of the audio files and set the avatars loose, watching as they headed toward the floating stairs in the distance.

Christoph shut down his access to Moxyland, pulling his head gently toward his shoulder with his right hand. That pop he felt. Straightening up, he opened his email client and replied to "Lola"'s invitation - he had just finished work and would love to join her for a drink. In a few days, he would get her apology for breaking their date, and the cost of his bar tab would be refunded into his account. Since the money all came from the same place, he thought the pretense silly, but rules were rules.

He tabbed back into Avalon. There was still a lot of re-decorating to do.

When his virtual neighbor finally showed up, Christoph pushed aside the corrugated door and spun around, hands wide, avatar grinning as much as it could grin without a hack. He initiated a chat under his other working alias.

>>: skyward*: tada, what do you think? do you like it?

Optical Delusions - A MoxyProxy Vignette

At Winterland the pain began, fractured halcyons fragmented and splintered leaving mirage spirals of neural optical overlays flashing brightly inside the newly attached, corneal implants. Not even the black street anodyne Siberian pharmaceuticals, currently coursing his arterial highways, could lessen the panoptic damage.
Nightly, in Gravital Orbisium he fought the slipstream illusions while ghosting with sweat soaked crowds to the pulsing throbbing beat of savage rhythms, implants synching with flashing retinal pulses. He fended her calls in the ozone chill cubes, watching as her voice faded in & out through bad Vocikrome circuitry, her lips forming the words as the sound slipped away. Then he began to wonder if the Andile nano subdermals were killing more than just his creative clusters.
***********
“Hey Linkon…we got a bad connection agai…? “
He watched the screen silently as confusion slid over her face.
“ Link? Can you hear me? Nod your head..”
Her smile was infectious.
“Yeah Kendra I can hear you. It’s just the weather here, it fucks with the circuitry…all that wet you know, stuff never dries out up here…”
Once he thought he was in love with her but after many conversations he came to understand it wasn’t her he loved, it was her pictures…her photographs. She had a way of catching things just as they were moving away and right before they were gone. It gave her street credibility and later made her an Andile corporate darling. It was the corporate part that had brought them together then inched them apart, he had always been more corporate than street much to her dismay.
“Listen Link, I think you should know there’s a rumor going down around here…….that m…be yo..e not the… on Andil .. assignme…”
He shook his head slowly, knowing she would understand then clicked off, watching as the screen bounced to saver mode. If he knew anything at all about Kendra he knew she was quick on the uptake & that she would understand his silence at the moment and his need to consider her words.
In the darkness of the chill cube he could feel the implants bleeding toxins into his irises, eroding his creative tools drip by drip. He reached back into his memory searching for the point where his indiscretion could have been discovered, but as always it was hard to detect, there had been so many suspicious moments in time. Kendra had always known Winterland was not a “corporate aggregate for top photographers who needed to hone their B&W skills.”She, like he, suspected it was a killing field for those who exposed the hand that feeds. A slow optical death for those that see the most then participate the least.
He unfolded himself and slid from the chair, crossing to the door and popping the no vacancy button on the velvety soundproof chamber. Then he slipped his wrist into the niobium cuff and waited for the approving wink of green to pulse around the Andile lo-glo.
She would call back.

***********

Kendra paced Kong Road watching the AdBoards creep with the demographically diverse crowd. They still freaked her out occasionally. It was embarrassing having your last Oggle search results spewed out in advertisements so all the world could see you needed new underwear. She had long since learned not to log on from her wetware, that at least kept her private needs private. Advertising had finally found a way of truly getting under your skin.
She tapped the phone and stilled Linkons face on the screen. He looked tired and haunted not the way he would look if he were just tweaking his monochromatic skills. Maybe the weather had finally gotten to him or maybe her suspicions about Winterland were coming closer to reality.
Coldest place on Earth, that’s what the dotdoc said when she Oggled it – “Coldest place on Earth with an unsurpassed monochromatic landscape reminiscent of A.Adams in his heyday, a must for Corporate AdBoard Digitographers seeking to manipulate dioramic pixilated environments for dramatic consumer impact.” Then, the fine print : “ Assignment & Selection by Corporate LitMigs ONLY- no open admission.” That was the weird part LitMigs are the top of the ladder in corporate structure, their job is to take on anyone or anything that might compromise the security of a corporation or it’s Intellectual Property. So the question that kept coming back is how much about their extra curricular activities does Andile really know if suddenly Linkon is studying “ …for dramatic consumer impact” at Winterland ? then the bigger more pressing question would be, why did they take Linkon when SHE had actually been the engineer of the whole adhak , why not HER if they knew about their projects? Was it a setup ?
She crumpled the NowfoNe and hailed a BurnGator. As it lumbered its way through the crowd she noticed it was flashing a message for her. The downside of working for Andile was that they owned almost all adspace so they could find her almost anywhere. Of course they didn’t bother telling her that, they just assumed she’d find it out pretty quick. As she tossed the phone in the mobile incinerator it thanked her and asked if she wanted her message now or would she like it downloaded to her Wets. She declined the message totally and headed to the nearest SuperslutsXXX booth for a new phone. On her way there she realized just how difficult it would be to disappear when even a trashcan could find you.

***********

In the cube Linkon had almost nodded off except the room kept reminding him it was a no sleeping zone and scrolling its walls with images of luxury hotels available at Winterland. Then the walls would suggest his own corporate suite and ask if he’d like transport now.
So he paced the cube slowly, watching his reflection in the gelliglass. Wavy and disproportionate, he wondered if it was designed to make the pharmacides of Orbisium less hostile if their chemical trip took a turn for the worse. It did make him look pretty amusing even in his current situation, which he guessed would be considered a pretty bad trip at this point.
When the phone finally spoke he was on the verge of panicking but managed to calm himself enough to keep her from noticing.
“Kendra, why am I seeing you as an anime school girl face fucking a snuggly puppy?” he asked her, widening his grin hoping she would be amused.
“All for you Link, you like it? I got it just for you. I’m running out of options of for gabbies ….” The screen image belly flopped and exposed its soft round ass as she spoke. “Muller developed yesterday, it’s good and it’s a go, everything is in place. I know why you are at Winterland and I’m sorry …….” the school girl image turned and pouted while snuggly puppy covered her with wet kisses.
“Winterland. No point in pretending they haven’t already listened to every conversation we’ve had Kendra. So, let’s just go from here quickly ok? Last conversation for us so lets get it right. Your longevity nano begins its reverse the moment it detects corporate disloyalty, mine has already started. And that nice piece of lo-glo on your wrist is listening to everything we say, as is mine. So it’s only a matter of time before they shut YOU down. They don’t need to go after your adhaks K, trust me on this. They just hack YOU not your work – YOU are their work, their property……as am I…….. They own us so what they do with us is their business…..K?....are you there? Are you listening?” and suddenly he realized there was no more ‘heavy weather’ in the circuitry.
He watched as the school girl image spread her legs, winked, waved and faded to black.
He closed the phone and slid quietly down into the velvet silence.
***********


In less than 24 hours the current pandemic of Compulsive Consumer Rationing would be declared a hoax and AdBoards all over the world would be scrolling pictures of its profiteers, the founder of Andile would be the first image in this worldwide slideshow.

Kendra crumpled the phone and started running.

**********

In Winterland the optical nerve damage was completed just after midnight as the AdBoards booted up and began flashing. The corporate nano that had been neatly tacked into his implants blurred his vision then quietly deleted his visual memory cells leaving him with only a shadow of reality and a complete optical delusion.

Cadence/nm boliek 09

Moxyland short story - steffan evans, London

The Sedge

I’d never thought I’d stoop this low; boxing up greased artificial muscle wrapped in translucent protective “skin”. Jesus, selling bio-armour to the rebels! What am I doing? This was not going to be stream cast anywhere - if Tendeka found out what I was up to I’d be hung out to dry.

But motherbitch had cut me off again and I needed the money to pay off a heavyweight from the Shacklands – my life was on the line and if it wasn’t me it would be some other lowlife. It’s not as though anyone would ever find out, I wasn’t going to go shooting my mouth off about it, unless I was totally out of it and then they’d just think it was dreamfesting. But still, I’d seen the vids of what this Muscle Enhancer technology was used for – stuff America and China would turn their noses up at, spouting hypocritical shit about ethics, as if they cared so long as it wasn’t on their voter’s doorsteps.

Here in good old-fashioned Africa you could let loose a bunch of 14 year old muscle- enhanced old psychos on a village of civvies and get away with it. The result was like an abattoir just before Christmas. Year, I know I’ve stooped low in my life but never quite this is the bottom of the cess pit.

I clipped the PowerBox onto my SedgeBike and screamed off using every volt of power, kicking up a dust cloud before I hit the freeway. Just as I clipped the autogate I flicked on the speed limiter override, pulled back the throttle and let all hell loose – laughing at the sheep in their little BMW pods. I stuck out my tongue, clocking their shock at my snake-fork enhancement – a little bit of plastic I got done after a successful drop in the Shacklands - my surgeon’s worth every penny – they say he even made Britney look twenty again and you’d really have to sell your soul to the devil to do that!

I headed north up the freeway, following the holomap inside my helmet out towards the Shacklands where those without hope scratched and scraped their life away. Luckily the old Sedge still had some life in her yet – break down out here and the vultures will strip you bare in twenty minutes – and I’m not talking wildlife!

The rendezvous was an old shoe factory that went bust at the turn of the century. On the roof, painted in metre high letters was the acronym KASI, whatever the hell that was, some kind of soft drink corp probably. It was surrounded by a few old shacks, too dirt poor and fly-ridden for even the most hard core poverty tourist. I slammed the Sedge onto the drive, revving up to the gate where a guard slouched in dusty combat trousers holding a high-powered assault weapon. He stared at me with glassy eyes and spat out a wadge of khat – another god-dammed Somali. He leaned his head slightly, listening to his fake diamond mike-ring on his ear then waved me past like he was swatting a fly. It gave me the creeps this place. I avoided stepping over the mounds of newly turned earth for fear of what might lie beneath. As I entered I was struck blind for a second – the shuttered building, lit only by a few solar lamps, was kept deliberately dingy. As my eyes acclimatised I saw a man slugging from a bottle of Glen Morangie, an Asian guy with whiskers and huge traffic cop shades.

“Show me the goods,” he muttered in a North Korean accent – ever since the neo-fascists had taken power they were everywhere – it was scary how much those guys knew about hi-tech weaponry and it hadn’t taken them long to work out that being a pariah state could have lucrative benefits if you weren’t too fussy about what you were selling.

I began nervously unwrapping the muscle slabs, slipping in their grease like wet fish. The man handled them with skill, grabbing them firmly and dropping them neatly into his exo-skeleton armour: biceps, triceps, calves, thighs – all slapped into place with amazing speed. He pinned in the tiny piezzo electric wiring deftly, despite his broad hands, and uploaded the software in a zap. It took him a little under a minute to snap on the body armour – Jesus, he’d done this before.

Then he picked up a pair of plastic eye protectors – what the hell did he need those for? Then it hit me – he didn’t like getting blood in his eyes. I began to feel sick in my stomach as he opened a rusty old locker and pulled out a heavily notched dull grey machete. He meant to test out the ME equipment then and there. My knees suddenly felt so weak I could hardly stand let alone run. All I could think of was going to church when I was kid with my grandmother and looking up to Jesus standing up there and wishing that he would cut me some slack. That’s the nearest I’d ever got to praying – until now.




Big Farmer
I looked up from my pool cue and there he was standing there in a pool of sunshine, his black outline swirling with dust motes. He couldn’t have been more than seven years old and something in the way he stood really shook me to the core. He seemed to carry a weight on his shoulders far too heavy for any child to carry.

I broke my rule then and there. I got personally involved. Tendeka the tough revolutionary just went marshmallow.

How the hell he found me I don’t know. But as I walked towards him I could see that he was holding back a tidal wave. He looked up at me and I just said,

“You’ve come for help haven’t you.”

He nodded and scratched his ear. I could see it was red from an insect bite that had become infected.

“Come here,” I said, offering him a can of “kiks4kids”, hoping the caffeine buzz would hold back the tears.

“You can tell me everything, you know you can trust me or you wouldn’t be here,” I said, trying not to think of the times I had used that line and lied through my teeth. I’m not allowed to be weak. That’s for the others. The corporate doormats who are happy to have the fat cats wipe their asses on them. The question is, how mean do you have to get before you start looking like one of them? It was a question that bothered me more as I got older. You have to have some feel-good or you go mad, you have to know you can make a difference and that you’re not just piling the shit even higher. That’s what this kid was to me. He reminded me of why I had become what I was.

“My name is Voyo. I have come to you because my sister has gone. Her name is Rose. She is sixteen years old. She has been my mama ever since my real mama went to see her friend Jesus.

“Jesus is a good friend to a lot of people around here,” I said cynically.

“Yes, Jesus loves everyone; he is very good to me. But I’m worried he’s not looking after Rose. She left me because the Big Farmer said he would give her money. He must have lots of cattle because my sister says he is very rich.”

I almost spat out my Guinness.

“Big Pharma?” I said.

“Do you know him,” asked the boy excitedly.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

The boy saw the look on my face. “Is he a very bad man?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know what else to say. Another drug guinea pig for Big Pharma in Africa. Same old story. A trial, something goes wrong, or they just don’t fit the profile – it was just natural wastage, a part of the production cycle. Another poor African who would have died of AIDS anyway.

“But what about my bicycle?” asked the boy.

“What bicycle,” I replied, not sure where he was going with this.

“The bicycle that my sister promised me, and lots of toys, and she said I could go to school and we could go to McDonalds every day if I wanted as soon as the Big Farmer and Cassy gave us the money.”

Man, when he said that you could have seen my draw drop a mile.

“KASI?” did you say,” I demanded, grabbing his arm. “Are you sure?”

“Don’t hurt me, it was Cassy.”

My God. Kasi: aka, Korea Angolan Systems Incorporated. One of the world’s most notorious arms dealers – first stop shop for every rogue state in the world - they’d sell their own grandmother for dog food if the price was right.

“What do you know about KASI?”

“Nothing,” said the boy, smiling shyly and putting his finger to his lips. “Shhh. It’s a secret. Rose said not to say what she saw.”

“And what was that?” I asked.

“On the vmail at the Big Farmer she saw lots’ of vmails from Cassy. They good friends.”

“That’s nice,” I said, smiling back, but feeling cold as ice inside. So the drug trial drop-outs were being sold on somewhere – but who would buy them? What use could they possibly be after that?

“Now Voyo - tell me the name of the nice Big Farmer.”

And he did.

The Cloud

“What is it you want Kendra?” said Lerato. “I hope this isn’t another one of your schemes to find out exactly how wonderful and successful you really are?”

“I’m not that shallow,” I lied. “Not this time at least. I’m worried about Toby. He’s got himself into something deep – he’s even stopped stream casting.”

“And the world stops turning?” Lerato rolled his eyes. “So what? No one takes that shit seriously anyway.”

“So what? He’s disappeared and I want to track him.” Lerato could be a selfish son-of-bitch sometimes. “I thought you might be able to help. You could use The Cloud to do it! Come on, you owe me! You keep on going on about it all the time it must have some use. What is it anyway?”

Lerato rolled his eyes. “What is the Cloud? I can’t believe you said that. The Cloud is the future. My only future. If anything’s gonna cure me of this disease it’s gonna be The Cloud. The planet’s single most intelligent computer, built by OPEC in its dying years to prove that global warming was nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Trouble is the guy that designed it gave it a self-learning capability. Within a few hours of booting up it had figured out the answer and was beginning to hatch contingency plans to prevent its early demise.”

“You mean it escaped?” I said, wondering how the hell a computer could escape.

“In a manner of speaking. By the time the old oil worked out their plan had gone wrong the game was up for them anyway. But The Cloud continued. It outsmarted them and it was too late for shut-down. It fooled OPEC for long enough to set up its hardware channels via a network of Synbiots – a thousand petaflops of sheer power.

“What are Synbiots?”

Sympathetic Biological Advisers,” said Lerato lightly sweeping his fingers across the touch screen in a quick-fire drag’n’drop. “People like me, tech-lovers who helped link up to the hardware channels it needed to continue living…and learning.

“Iris scan ready,” said a deep cultured female voice from the audio pod.

Lerato picked up pair of goggles and slipped them on. They glowed pink for a second,

“Good to see you again Lerato,” replied the voice. “Your eyeballs look lovely today.”

“Thanks Cloud.”

“How can I help you?”

“I wanna do a find-locate body scan search on a suspect.”

“Identification code number?”

“XR257028A.”

“Searching – don’t worry Lerato, I’ll find your man.”

A map holo shimmered in the air in front of them, a bird’s eye view of the Cape just low enough to show the pencil lines of breaking surf. The search adjusted, moving in-land and down slightly.

“Oh shit. It’s moving into the Rural. What the hell’s he doing out there? I hope he’s not messing about dealing with some Shackland gangster. I knew he was in trouble.”

“Signal located,” said Cloud calmly.

The holo map spun down towards the semi-desert bush land and then froze.

“Can’t you get any closer?” asked Lerato.”

“Access denied,” replied Cloud.

“Shit,” said Lerato. He could be anywhere within 20 kloms.

“No wait,” I said. “Look there’s a building. And there’s some writing on it.”

“You’re right,” said Lerato. “K.A.S.I.”

I leaned over and kissed Lerato right on the lips with a loud smacking sound. It grossed me out; I don’t know why I did it.

“So you are a genius after all…I wish I could say the same for Toby. What the hell has that idiot got himself into now. That boy needs help.”

“Oh no,” said Lerato, holding up his hands. “See these? I don’t get these dirty, not for anyone. Don’t even think about it.”

“Oh come on man, I said. Then I saw the look on Lerato’s face. “Ok, I get it, but just help me get the security clearance to get into the Rural.”

“It’s your death,” said Lerato. “But don’t go without vemailing Tendeka.”



The Darkness
The girl stepped out. It was clear she had been held in the dark for along time, because she held up her eyes to shield them from the low level wattage in the pre-fab.

“Can I go now?” she asked, nervously excited.

The man ignored her. He strode passed her furiously barking at someone in the next room in Korean. Suddenly it struck me. He’d expected a man to test out the bio-armour on and they’d just sent out a girl. I looked at her and she smiled back, happy that her nightmare was about to be ended; she was pretty and even in her captivity had taken care to re-plait her braids – she looked at me like I was her saviour - totally unaware that she was just seconds away from being sliced up like a salami by a psychotic North Korean arms dealer.

Suddenly something weird happened. I got angry. Really angry. And the stupid thing was I was angry with myself for being such a fucking loser and total idiot. What the hell was I doing here? I felt ashamed. New strength flooded back into my legs and I did something incredibly stupid. It was very nearly the last thing I ever did. But at least I know there’s one thing in my life I can be proud of.

I walked over to her and took here hand.

“Don’t say a word or we’ll both be dead,” I said.

And then we just walked out. I could hear an argument kicking off next door. I figured the dealer would never dream that I would leave without my money. As I walked towards the Sedge I heard a scream from inside; the argument ended abruptly. It sounded like he’d got to test out the equipment after all.

The girl began to look really scared.

“On the bike, quick,” I said, jumping on and pressing my thumb onto the bio-start. I pulled back the throttle and almost soundlessly the bike spun off. The guard didn’t even see up until we shot past him in a motion blur, kicking up a plum of red dirt that left him choking on his knees as his bossed charged out screaming orders.

I grinned to myself, thinking how I’d got away with it, yodelling in elation. How naïve was that? If I’d stopped to think for just a nano-second even I would have worked out that an outfit like that didn’t just operate on its own. I saw the roadblock after just two kloms, and spun over to go off-road. Luckily I saw the spike-tracks just in time, laid all along the side of the road. They would have shredded both wheels down to the metal. I jerked the bike back on track, and felt the girl grabbing widely, only just holding on. She was sobbing behind me as I slowed down. Four soldiers stepped out pointing assault rifles at our heads. They were next to a large black hydro-powered Humvee. They motioned us in. I helped the girl, fully expecting to be ordered to my knees and executed then and there by the roadside. The back door shut with a clunk. As the vehicle pulled away I tried to console the girl as best I could, putting an arm round her shoulder and hugging her tight.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She didn’t look up. “Rose,” she whispered.

“That’ a beautiful name,” I said. And because we were both so scared it didn’t sound trite and corny the way it usually did.

I could just make out the shape of a man and a woman through the filthy glass panel which divided the rear of the vehicle from the driving area. The man leaned one hand back and slid the panel sharply to one side. Relief flooded through me like a shot of pure adrenalin-spiked absinthe as I clocked the familiar grin.

“What would you do without me to save your sorry ass?”

“Ten, man! Shit! What are you doing here?”

“He just said didn’t he,” said the woman, turning round. “He’s saving your sorry ass.”

Kendra! Jesus, what was she doing here? She can be a spoilt pain in the butt sometimes. But just at that moment I could have bowed down and kissed her…well, pretty much anywhere she asked me too.

(Here is my entry for the Short Story Competition...hope you like it. In the word file, anything that is txt-scrip should actually be in "OCR A Extended" font type. Please keep that in mind, as the cold text style loses some of its impact in this format. Thanks!)

@nother
A Moxyland short story by Bryan Steele

>>SysRun: Pluslife
>>Plugin/Cnapce: run
.
.
.
>>Pluslife/Cnapce online
>>Enter Password

My mates, both IRL and streaming, always say that a persona’s password needs to be special and private. Something different for every account or prog. Something that no one will ever be able to acci-hack, especially not some low-tech lifejock with a score to settle with people like me. Yeah, I run my plugins on the bill of some big daddy corporate, but show me a half-cooked simp that wouldn’t do the same damn thing if the contract msgd their way.
So yeah, passwords. I have a dodgy memory on the best of days, popping pills just to keep my focus, which makes my having several passwords for my lives a lost cause. So, I keep one password. One, easy to mem, password. It’s a joke really, how it came about.

>>Password: @nother

From my days of misspent youth. When a prog asked “Enter another password” for sec-proof reasons, I did. I entered “@nother” password. I was a clever little shit. Now I am stuck with it. For all my progs and accounts. SIM, CV, Grande…Pluslife. Especially Pluslife. My "@nother" life.

>>Password accepted
>>Welcome! to Pluslife, user Cnapce

Pluslife. Where I work. The bigwig queue-cutters and cheque-chasers that keep me fed and roofed IRL hired me. Some kind of experimental prog that they needed beta’d. Beta’d? More like Omega’d at this point. Two years of running this deal for them, and do I know anything new about the prog? Nope. Not that I care. I’m never jonesing for black-makt shit, my weekly install keeps me sony. I have a roof over my nob in both lives, all paid up and looking swank.

All I have to do is find the users on my daily lister, that’s all. The corp feeds me the IDs of Pluslifers and I use this topline tech to hack them out and get my avvie to where they are. It is a sugar-sweet deal, really. I get all the time in the box as a want, so long as I’m surfing around for these users, and I get to see the net from all over. Last week I was sifting the code for some user in Kenya handled “And3rson” and I spent most of a day checking Ken-makt. Got a sweet deal on some T-warez for my ma, too. Then And3rson happened by the shopsite and I pulled his plug. The next day, I was in Oslo, skiing the pixel moguls and searching out “Doktor_Mow”. They are both disconnect now. That’s my gig. Adminning the people on my lister. I sever the links. Go ahead. Call me a wager. Call me a corporate bitchcat. The money is good, and now I don’t have to run quests and odd-jobs to get it. And my SIM don’t know any difference.

I never know exactly what they did, my listers. I get brief notes, that’s all. Illegals, rot-users, corp-debtors, hacktavists or fragged SIMs. But srsly, who cares? I find ‘em, meet ‘em, then fry ‘em. The warez I get to use is toplined now, designer nano, onsite support? What else can a user ask for?

Oh, wait. Today’s lister is cooked and inboxing right now.

>>Lister 08.099/
>>>User ID: CS44 (delinquent account)
>>>User ID: cranque (suspected hack)
>>>User ID: Malessa77 (account sharing)
>>>User ID: LthreethreeT (account sharing)
>>>Location: Sydney

Sydney? That’s the fucking tops. I’ve never been. Well, IRL anyways. A good four-pop like this should take me most of the week. Let’s see. We get to start off with what? A delinquent account. Old user, probably. They stop paying their bill, get defused, whatever. Their avatar was logged in when they went DQ, so now I get to go clean up the server.

So. Sydney. I’m going to need to blend in. Jeans. Plain shirt. Floppy hat…no…brimmed cap. Yeah, now I look good. I might as well be an outbacker. Well, Pluslifed, anyway. And now, I’m going down under.

>>Cnapce/port
>>Dest/Sydney//117.CS44

My apartment pixelates, unfocuses, then refocuses like a bad edit in streamcast. I don’t get it. Pluslife can afford to make the experience perfect for everyone, but you snag up some admin rights and you get total analogue naush. Oh well. The refocus has me, or my avvie anyway, in the parking lot of some makt. I pull up the tag cues, and suddenly my…uhm…target for lack of a better term…flashes above a guy sitting in his auto. CS44 (afk) glows in blue above his head. Here I go. Time to earn my keep.

I pop on over to the target. He is looking forward, totally zomb’d out. He isn’t in there anymore. Probably hasn’t paid up in weeks. Well, it’s the cycle of life…or, Pluslife. Time to do my thing.

>>Cnapce: User ID CS44. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement, your account has been…

I lean in, close to his vacant ear. Not that he knows anything that I’m doing, but it makes me feel like a real leet.

>>Cnapce:…terminated.

There is a brief flutter of static and little mister CS44 gets the pixel flush treatment. In a flash I’m looking at an empty ride. One down. Three to go. I love this job. It’s one part gamer, one part world traveller, and one part serial killer. All digi, all the time. Yeah, there’s urbans out there that blog about Pluslifers offing themselves IRL when they lose their Plus, but that’s just mythchat. I mean, this is just a game. Just a prog. Well, I guess it is my life...you know, my job. But srsly? Sure, I wouldn’t know what I could do without this gig, but if I do my job right, I don’t need to think about it. Speaking of which...

>>Cnapce/port
>>Dest/Sydney//133.cranque

Another pixel shift, another backdrop. Where the hell am I? It’s low-res, off the streets, but still Sydney. No furniture, not even a digi-cot. My tag cues are still up, and the bright blue cranque floats right in front of me. Nothing beneath it. He should be right here. Fuckin’ hack job. These are my least favourite marks. Aggro backdoor coding fucks. All of them.

>>cranque: What the hell, bro? How R U in my codex? Ralphie, izzat u?
>>Cnapce: Ya, where R U?
>>cranque: Sidedoor, shift-alt-7.

Arrogant black-hatters. They always give up the goods. I punch the sideline hack, the door appears, and in I go. The side room is nothing but copy-cut-paste codes. All vintage gear and stolen merch from around the Net. Two other users are sitting with the tagless cranque. They plugout as soon as my avvie pops in. They know.

>>report:TyTy
>>report:Angel0fDeth

Cranque looks like most Pluslifers. He’s the perfect height, built like a streamstar, and covered in perfect-image tattoo script. Another perfect body in a perfect world full of perfectly happy perfects. You’d think this would be enough. But no. Hacks and cheats don’t think so.

>>Freezeplug/Cnapce: cranque
>>cranque: Wait! No! Cmon man, dont do this. What do U want? Ill code it! Cmon!

The look on his face is priceless. I can just see this pimple-facer sitting in his mom’s basement, desperately trying to back out of the prog, frothing and sweating and popping a nervous chub about getting caught. But it is no use. Time for a little admin-play.

>>Cnapce: User ID cranque. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement, your account has been…
>>cranque: Nononononononononononononononononononononononono!!!!!!!!!1111111
>>Cnapce: ...terminated.

Another one bytes the dust. Lesson taught. Now go tell your mom that her funds have been wasted and her SID is tagged for possible disconnect. Fucker. There is nothing I hate more than a user who cheats the prog. Especially in Pluslife. I mean, for some users this is their escape from the smog and the static. A place to look good, get out and party, and do it without shaving a single whisker. Cheat-hacking here is just wrong. Dirty pool. Loaded dice. To me, it’s no better than those old nano’d runners on Moxy making all the little kids cry. Cheaters should be sterilised.

Okay, so I get to cheat. But it’s my job. Not cheating. Adminning. Which, if I want to keep rolling this style, I need to get back to it.

>>Cnapce/port
>>Dest/Sydney//186.Malessa77

The shift is a good one. From the dark of the hack-house to the sunny yellow40 of a suburb footie-family cottage yard. This place is a typical hab in Pluslife. Single floor flat, pastel buttery siding, Hansel-Gretel shingles, and even a whitewash picket fence with a fun little gate. It even has a coded inbox with her name on it. Classy shit, this is. It isn’t often that I have to go godmode on someone who can afford Homes and Gardens digi-rose bushes and two Prada topiary dolphins. This is no scam-shack. This is a Pluslife homestead worth taking a screencap of. What the hell is Malessa77 getting binned for? Account sharing? Srsly? That is just sad.

Account sharers are letting each other password in to check accounts, mails, msgs and even move code around in their Pluslives. Most of the time it turns out that somebody stole somebody’s @nother, or hacked their way in, or whatever. Nobody likes having an unwanted avvie running around in their Pluslife, so they report their ID, and management puts them on my lister. Like Malessa77 here. And then it is the end of them.

Here I go. The port-plugin took me to this place, so she has to be inside. I hop the fence and stroll the walk. Wow. The digi-roses are srsly primo code. They smell and feel real. I am impressed. I’ll put in for one on the next reqform. My habzone is not this swank, but I do alright.

The secure on the door is good, but not admin. I don’t get to play with my Pluslife stats much, so this will be fun. All SWAT with none of the training.

>>Cnapce/PlusAvatar/Adjust
>>Avatar/Strength/+99

It doesn’t feel any different to me in the rig, but I know the world will react right. My code++ foot turns that high-priced doorframe encryption into scrapcode at a single click-n-drag, and I am in.

The graphic chatroom is even more prime than the hab’s shell. Most of these private sceneboxes are where the richies show their true colours. You know, either leave the place all white00 or pull out the pr0ncode and let their freak flag fly. Décor by Martha Stewart with a few touches by the Marquis De Sade or maybe Himmler. But not this place. This place is full on swank. The carpets match the shades, the furniture is all high…I guess high dollar, being Sydney and all…and the atmos-code is exactly like that potpourri my stepmom used to set out on Boxing Day. Top stuff, all of it. Even includes a jpeg family photo over the mantle. I am almost sorry that I have to admin Malessa77. She has put a lot of time on the keys into this joint.

A shame, really.

Each room in this place is just as fanced up as the last. It is something special. Back toward the rear of the place, I can hear a voice. No, two voices. It’s another chatroom, so I can’t see what’s being txt, but I can follow the stereophonics.

The door at the end of the hall pops open and there it is, the story unfolds. Two young ladies, their avatars all remarkably normal for Pluslife images, are lying in bed inside. By the state of things, I’d say I was just too late to see one helluva show. Oh well. Wait. One of them is Malessa77, but the other. The other is lister number four. LthreethreeT is the brunette on the left. Two for one. Fantastic.

>>Malessa77: I don’t know who the hell you think you are, barging in here, but…
>>LthreethreeT: Uhm, Mal, I think he’s Company.
>>Malessa77: Really? Oh God, that means…
>>LthreethreeT: Sir? Mister, uhm, what can I call you?

Since they are both here. I don’t get out much IRL, and being around two nudies is a great way to spend my time on the clock.

>>Cnapce: It is probably better if you don’t call me anything. Easier anyway.
>>Malessa77: Easier? Oh god, no. Please don’t. This is all we have.
>>LthreethreeT: He isn’t going to care, Mal. They don’t know how. Corporate bullies.

Bully? I fuckin’ don’t think so. It’s just a job, chickie. You and your digi-lez friend are breaking the rules. Time to pay up.

>>Cnapce: User ID Malessa77. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation…
>>Malessa77: No! She didn’t hack me! I GAVE her the code!
>>LthreethreeT: It wasn’t her fault, it was my idea. Leave her alone, you fuckn wage-slave!
>>Cnapce:…your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement…
>>Malessa77: This isn’t fair. I can’t live without her! I’m quarantined! This is the only place we have together! Don’t take it away! Don’t take HER away!
>>LthreethreeT: It’s okay, baby. I’ll find another SID. This corporate douche can’t keep us apart.
>>…your account has been…
>>Malessa77: I luv u, Linda. Whatever happens to me, remember this place. Our dream house. Remember me! I lo-
>>Cnapce: ...terminated.

Her avatar’s perky little B-cups pixel out, and I almost feel bad for her. I hope they don’t ban her complete. You know, full disconnect. A suspension. Yeah, that’s what her and her friend will get. I’m sure of it. Oh yeah, her friend.

Wow.

I didn’t know Pluslife avvies could cry.

Streaks of digital pain and synthesised anguish colour-tint LthreethreeT’s rose19 cheeks, and if there was a player-mod for eye beams or aggro-static weapons…my avatar would have just been pwned by the look she is giving me. I actually have that worried tingle in my gut, like the feeling right after cheating on a lover. This is the shite part of my job.

>>LthreethreeT: You rotting corporati bastard. You just killed the only thing I loved. I can’t afford the med-pass to see her IRL. This is all we have. Had. Past tense. Fuck you.
>>Cnapce: Chill. You guys broke the rules. I’m just doing my job.
>>LthreethreeT: So I guess you have to do your job on me, too.
>>Cnapce: Yeah. I’m sorry.

Sorry? Why the hell did I just txt that? THEY are the rules-breakers. THEY fucked up. Why should I be sorry? Oh well. It’s syntax now. It’ll fall off the cache when she is gone.

>>LthreethreeT: Sorry? You will be. Keep your eyes on the Sydcast news for the next couple of days. My name is Linda Barrows, look for it in the obits. I can’t live without her. I’d rather die than go on knowing she is wasting away in a med-centre alone and suffering without me.
>>Cnapce: No you won’t. You won’t kill-
>>LthreethreeT: We both know you don’t care. You are a soulless corporate slave marching to the tune that key turning in your back is grinding away. Just fucking get on with it.

She’s right. She is just pixels and memory bytes to me. I can’t let her slide. This is MY livelihood, after all. I gotta watch out for Player One, you know?

>>Cnapce: User ID LthreethreeT. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code.

Her avatar’s last emote, standing there naked like she forgot to buy clothes-code, looks at me with sadness scrawled on her face. She is holding a jpeg in her hands. It shows two women, arm in arm. One looks like an athlete, maybe a footie player. The other looks like all the warning ads I have seen about the last big outbreak. She holds it out like a mirror at me, filling my monitor with the image.

I have to do this. It’s just another job. Heh, @nother job.

>>Cnapce: As per said agreement, your account has been terminated.

She closes her eyes the moment before the pixel storm sweeps her away. The jpeg goes along with her. So does the room. The furniture. The drapes. The art. The walls. The entire hab scrambles out and becomes an empty lot with an Ebay page already forming for its auction.

Full disconnect.

Oh well. Job’s done. I’m paid. That’s what it is all about, right? Keeping your head above water and making your way through RL. Yeah. And all that shit about offing herself? Really? No way. It’s just a game. Nobody really dies because of the shit that happens in Pluslife. No way. Digital lives, not real ones.

Wait a sec. My lister just chirped out at me. I must have scored a bonus gig. Exactly what I need to get that melodrama-mama out of my head. I mean, who dies over something like that? Life is never THAT bad.

>>Lister 08.10/
>>>User ID: 10 (delinquent account)
>>>Location: Cape Town

Great. Another bum not paying his bills.

>>Cnapce/port
>>Dest/Cape Town//453.10

Time to take out the trash.

Hi, below is my entry for the competition. I have tried to take inspiration from the theme and ideas of Moxyland without trying to imitate it. I hope that you enjoy it.

“You are going to tell us who else is involved, how you did it, if anyone else knows about this and, most importantly, why you did it?”.
I look square at the officers eyes behind his Spectorvisions, the very thing that has caused all this mess, the reason I am here being interrogated. It's strange that I never even noticed people were wearing their Spectorvisions before, they were as normal a feature as their own eyes. After all, Spectorvisions are forbidden to be removed and for those dumb enough to try, the electric shock given knocks them the fuck out until officers are waking them up reminding them not to try and remove them again.
But I know they are not normal, I know they don't really belong, I've gone too far.
This fucker knows I'm going to tell him everything, he didn't even need to fill me up with the truth drugs that he has, I came here on my own accord. Like I said, I've gone too far.

So how did I end up here? Well it started two weeks ago. I woke up to my Sim ringing. It was a smart move taking Sims from normal phones and embedding them into Spectorvisions. It meant when someone calls there is no getting away from it, and everyone can be contacted at any time, no more hiding, no more using the excuse that the phone battery has ran out.
Other things incorporated to Spectorvisions are video and photo cameras, satellite navigation systems, MP4 players, Internet viewing, everything that you can think of is now viewed through Spectorvisions. They resemble an old fashioned pair of glasses I suppose except they have digital screens so that computer information is perfectly positioned along side objects and items we are actually viewing. So when walking down the street the arrows for the satellite navigation actually appear to be there in front of you, solid and large showing you which way to go. Thinking about where you are going is no longer an issue, nobody ever gets lost. The super light and tight frames mean that you can wear the Spectorvisions at all times including going to bed. In fact it is law that you have to wear them at all times, it has been since I can remember.
“Beno, wake up you lazy fuck!” I recognised Ish straight away, only he would dare to interrupt my haven of sleep.
To be lethargic when talking to Ish is a joke, the abrasive tone of his voice is about as calming as a pneumatic drill being tested on your temple.
“Ish, my long and dearest of dear old friends, why on earth would you call me at such an ungodly hour of...what time is it man?”
“I'm not your servant or your errand boy,” I almost sensed hurt in his voice, “Have a look your self, my dear old friend.”
I held my finger to the command button on my Spectorvisions, so that they know I'm talking to them, and said “Time”. Instantly in the corner of my vision I see floating in mid air the digits, '07:54' and after three seconds they vanish again.
“Damn Ish what's the deal man, I have at least twenty two hours of sleep left, its a Sunday bro.”
I hear the annoyance in Ish voice, in his breathing even, “Just meet me and Zack thirty minutes at bar Zero.”
“Hey, what's this all...” before I could finish Ish had disconnected.
“What's going on?” I had woke Maria up, actually scrub that, Ish had woke Maria up. The idea of leaving her in bed, with her perfect body, perfect pert breasts, perfect tight ass, perfect full lips, perfect deep eyes and perfect silk smooth tanned skin, to go and sit in a bar with two Software geeks was not appealing I can tell you. However there was something extra urgent about Ish tone of voice that day which made my decision to go a no brainer.

“I shouldn't have gone. I should have stayed in bed, with my perfect girlfriend, If only I could...”
“You can't” the officer was blunt, but right, he wants details, “We want you to visualise and remember everything you can from the point you met Ish and Zack onwards, this is very important Beno, you do understand the importance of this don't you?”
“Yes, I do.”

Zero is an ultra cool bar where anybody who is anybody goes to. We all go there, we are all tanned, toned and good looking, and we all have excellent well paid jobs. This is where I met Maria. I could generally sleep with any hot girl I wanted and with Maria this was no exception, except the exception was she was extra hot and had an excellent well paid job.
This day however the hot girls was not the topic of conversation, in abundance they were, but Ish and Zack were not in the mood for flirting, they looked incredibly serious.
I sat down at the table instantly regretting leaving a super hot girl lying naked in my bed, “Shit guys, who died?”.
“What?” Zack snapped, nervously looking around him, “Shut up Beno, we haven't got long.”
I found this brilliant, the exact kind of statement Zack would make if the emergency was say, something like, needing to buy the latest computer game add on for our Spectorvisions.
“Come on Zack,” I said uninterestedly, looking over my shoulder at the gorgeous red head waitress, “What we doing here, saving the world?”
Turning back, after getting the babes attention and sensually mouthing the words, “Beer please”, Zack and Ish were looking at each other as though I may have been right, we may have been saving the world.
I was beginning to get tired of this shit now and wanted to know what was going on. The waitress leaning over me putting my drink down, practically rubbing her breasts in my face, was making me horny. I wanted to go home and get laid.
“I'm leaving guys, this is bullshit.” As I stood up Ish grabbed my arm, something he has never done before, he looked at me and I could see the fear in his eyes. He had my attention again, I sat back down.
“Have you ever seen anybody not wearing their Spectorvisions?” Ish asked me this, knowing the answer, it wasn't possible not to wear them.
I answered, “No, of course not.”
With a sly smirk Zack retorted, “I have.”
Not believing him I started to chuckle.
“Two days ago in the office I was walking round trying to get collections for a party when I walked in to the software development team for Spectorvisions.”
My attention was back, I was beginning to believe. Ish and Zack worked in software and I worked in hardware, microchip technology and the like. I knew that the software updates for Spectorvisions were done in their office, so this was not that unrealistic.
Zack continued, “When I burst in the room, of say five or six developers, they all looked up at me, without their Spectorvisions on, and I knew instantly that I was not meant to be there. I apologised and took a step back closing the door behind me. My breath had been taken from me, seeing people for the first time in my life without their Spectorvisions was like seeing someone with no legs for the first time when you are a kid.”
Ish was looking from me to Zack and back again, his nerves had turned to excitement, “Tell him what you heard from behind the door.”
“They all started to shout at each other blaming one another for not locking he door, and someone said something about 'the consequences of anybody knowing the truth'” Zack said this last sentence with all the drama of a character from an old sci-fi film from the twentieth century.
We talked for over an hour, they told me how after this revelation they hacked into the patent office records to find out who invented Spectorvisions. They found documents about someone called Sebastian Hawkes, who invented Spectorvisions as a development from ideas he had from people he saw at rock concerts. He observed that people would film the concert on their mobile phones and watch the screen of their phone rather than the actual concert itself. This practice became so common that people began to get more used to looking at life through a digital screen than actually looking at real life itself.
What disturbed Zack and Ish the most was that it appeared that the idea of the Spectorvisions wasn't just to give the viewer a digital copy of what they were actually viewing but to distort the image, to transform what is actually being seen into something else entirely.

“Naturally the discussion went on to what happened to Mr Hawkes, who according to Ish, took a job working for the government before disappearing. There was no other trace of him.”
I said this sentence in a way so that it sounded more like a question than a statement, a point the officer had picked up on as he said, “Mr Hawkes did not agree with the direction of which we wanted to take his invention.”
The officer is staring at me and we both knew his last comment is all he will say on the matter and all that he needs to say on the matter.
It was, I understand.
“Continue.” The officer instructs.

So we started to think about why it was law to wear the Spectorvisions, why it was impossible to take them off. We wanted to know what it was we were not meant to see. Ish and Zack are excellent software guys, the best even, but they don't understand hardware. I do, and therefore it was agreed that I would find out a way in which to disable the shock system for Spectorvisions in order for them to be removed. We wanted to view the world through our own eyes, to see the truth.
The technology was not that complicated, using magnification techniques and microchip tools I found that the electric shock system was not at all complicated but I had a suspicion that there would be some way in which if they were removed an alarm would be signaled so that someone, somewhere would know about it. I was right. Hidden in the unsuspecting frame was a chip with its own sensor and transmitter which appeared to be able to scan the brain waves of its wearer.
Seeing the extent of the effort gone into ensuring that nobody removed their Spectorvisions I started to get excited and enthralled by the idea of actually removing them. I wondered how many others had attempted to remove them, how many others had succeeded in removing them. I already knew there were the developers that Zack saw, but who else?
I hated the idea that I was being cheated, that I was being obstructed from seeing the world through my own two eyes, without any choice. I needed to see what others could see and I didn't really know why. The adrenaline was pumping through my body with insane intensity as I sat in complete silence each night working away at the millions of tiny microchips that were embedded in my Spectorvisions. I gained a massive respect for the developers and envied their expertise. But I needed to beat them, I needed to win.
Then on my sixth night without sleep I found the loophole I was looking for.
I found that it was almost impossible to remove Spectorvisions without detection but if I could work out away to leave them on, to simply disable the screens and then view the world through the frames like old fashioned glasses it would work.
I informed Zack and Ish about my breakthrough and agreed to meet them at Zero at 11:00 the following Sunday.

When the day arrived I had my nanodriver ready to go. I had done all the circuitry necessary for me to simply patch one chip to another and my screens would be deactivated and I could simply slide them out then view the world for the very first time.
Maria was making me breakfast, I could hear her singing in the next room. At 10:30 exactly I made the patch and, closing my eyes tightly, I slid the digital frames out and placed them on the work surface.
My heart was pumping, I felt sick with anticipation. The possibilities of what I was going to see had been swimming around my mind for two weeks now and I thought I had covered every outcome, I was wrong, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
Counting down from three I hit zero and opened my eyes.
Darkness.
Not pitch black, but dark, not much light. I looked up at the bulb which until two minutes ago was as bright as the sun and noticed it was a kind of ultraviolet blue colour. Cracks that I had never seen before were all over the ceiling. I followed one large crack with wonder down the wall of my room, which had transformed from a brilliant white to a stained and dirty grey. The flooring was rotten. The dust around the room was thick and patchy. My heart continued to race faster and faster. My desk was dirty too, flakes of dried blood decorating its splintery surface.
How could I have not known what a pig sty I was living in? Could the Spectorvisions really alter reality this strongly?
The room smelt rotten. I couldn't understand at first why I had never smelt it before, after all the Spectorvisions could only change what was being viewed, but I realised suddenly that I had smelt the rotten before. I smelt it all the time but I had never been able to attribute it to anything because my apartment was spotless and gleaming.
Panting I shouted, “Maria! Maria! Quick come here.”
A familiar voice, “I'm coming, what's the deal? You're never that hungry normally.”
Then appearing at the doorway was a dreadful looking girl. Her skin was almost yellow and bruised all over. She was standing in her underwear which was threadbare and faded. She was almost skeleton thin with bones sticking out all over the place. Her face was ugly and scornful. Her hair greasy and thin.
“Who the fuck are you?” I shouted at the intruder.
“What are you going on about Beno?” She answered, her teeth broken and twisted.
I stood up and barged past her, ignoring her lame attempt to hold my arm with her arachnid fingers.
“Maria?” I moved around scanning for Maria but the dirt, grime and darkness of the apartment that I did not recognise was making me feel sick.
The skeleton bitch was sheeping me all the time saying things like “Why are you being like this?.”
I burst out of the door.
Outside was worse than that of the inside of my apartment. I panicked and started to run towards the direction of Zero. All the pavements were loose and unkempt, litter ridden and worn. The sky was a strange dark green colour which was so unlike the beautiful blue that I was used to that it took my breath away.
Every person I saw along the way looked like relatives of the trespasser at my apartment, all thin and decrepit with no exception.
Buildings and walls looked war ridden and the whole scene was saturated and dull.
When I reached Zero I was beginning to accept that the utopia that we lived in was not real. We were being tricked by the Spectorvisions. Every single thing we viewed was being digitally altered and enhanced creating this perfect idyll out of the madness and depravity of the reality. At the table where we normally sat, two male freakish pale beings looked up at me.
The one asked, “Did it work?”.
“Did what work?” I muttered, realising that I recognised the voice of this cretin.
Sweat poured down my face so I burst into the washroom and closed my eyes as tight as I could, splashing water over myself.
“This can't be real.” I told myself before opening my eyes and looked at myself in the cracked mirror.
I did not know the person who was staring back at me. The skin pale and pasty, the eyes heavy and tired, the cheek bones sharp and defining, the nose was large and thin.

“It was me. The people outside were Zack and Ish. The girl was Maria.”
“What did you do next?” The officer asks.
I am shocked, he knows this bit, “I came here. I want to go back. I don't want to be this freak living in this shit hole with a witch as a girlfriend. I want a hot girl, beautiful skies, I crave to be cool again.”
“There is no going back, like you said, you have gone too far. Now you know the state of the world in which you live, how will you ever be able to return to the blind happiness of before? You see by making the population believe that their life is fantastic they are happy. They work harder and longer. Were you not happy?” the officer questions.
Answering by reaction, “Yes, but its all a lie, I am not who I thought I was, Maria is not who I thought she was.”
“Exactly,” the officer continued, “You should think of it like a girl with extreme acne wearing thick makeup. She appears beautiful but once the makeup is removed...”
He doesn't have to give me anymore examples. I don't understand how the world could get this way, how we all walk around smiling and laughing ignoring our other senses screaming the truth at us.
“What then now, for me?” I fear the answer.
“You will work for us.”
The officer stands and walks out of the room and slams the door shut.
Darkness, undigitised, real darkness fills the room, and my mind.

The TICK-TOCK-MAN

a MOXY tale
By B.SaintV


People are always asking me where I’m from.
That’s a difficult question to answer.
…3
…2
…1
My name is Andres Treborne, I was born in ‘Maritsburg, before it became a sprawl. I left like many did, to move to the big cities, to make a name for myself, but mainly just to get out of my hometown and away from my family. It took a long time to qualify for travel permission, never mind the ‘approved’ coding. But I got it, and I left. The great mistake of my life; I went to PE. Out of the frying-pan into the fire. Talk about mega-sprawl. Industrial complexes merging with Malls and an ever expanding patina of suburban-blocks. Every city has closed neighborhoods (I mean just try going for lunch in Jozi without an Executive Pass), but this was ridiculous. With twelve days still remaining on my Travel Codes, I took the plunge. I came to Cape Town. I’ve never looked back.

I step out through the sliding doors. I’m in Corporate-Class end, closer to the exits. It’s hot and sticky down here. Feels like someone has ruptured a steam pipe down here. It could be that, or the fact that I’m underground surrounded by people, with bad ventilation, and it’s 35 degrees out in the world above. Or it could be I’ve got a fever.

…3
…2
…1
I never knew my father, like so many kids these days. Sure there’s paternity testing but you need something to test. I’ve got an empty space and a set of old fractures from when I was an infant. They still show up on a scan or X-ray. Long since healed, I was so young I don’t remember the incident at all, but its ghost lingers. My father tried to kill me before he walked out and disappeared. My mother never told me his name, so I have hers. My name is Tanu Sholtz. I’ve never stopped looking for my father. That’s probably why I got into my current line of work. I work for a firm that monitors Travel Codes both local and international. It’s a Beaurocractic Firm, we answer to so many corporate bodies I feel like I work for the Govt or the public sector. That one kills them at the office. Anyone wants pass-codes or a temporary-travel-upgrade, they process stuff through us. A glorified middleman. We might serve the Big Boys, but we still got the keys to the Beemer, so to speak.

I make my way out of the Underway. Handlers with their Aito at regular intervals. Scanning the crowd. My cellphone corrects itself, sending out the correct codes for this sector. Dispite my tiara of sweat, the handlers take no notice of me. I’m by them walking up to street level with the rest of the crowd, when the barking starts. It sets off the last one. A Handler with his Aito shifting and growling away, at the top of the stairs. My last obstacle before the street. Damn it!

…3
…2
…1
I’m hunting, hunting for objects. I need them for my final-piece of the year. My masters hangs on it. Urban ‘Found Object’ sculpture collection, communicating the feel and moods of our sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful Mother City. Saturated with the memories of those who once used them, and the very essence of the city itself. Junk, street-clutter, cast-offs, crap. Call it what you will, it’s all gold to me. I’m Alicia N’Phuni, Honours Art Student at CTU, and if I can pull this off my supervisor is going to shit-a-brick with joy. Alicia N’Phuni, star-student.

Mutation burns along my nervous system. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. The Aito is going crazy, it can smell the conflicting DNA. It’ll pass in a moment. My cellphone switches carrier-signals and flash burns the Faux-Sim. If they caught me now a chipped cellphone would be the least of my worries.
The Handler calls me over. I quietly crap myself, but keep the usual nervous yet friendly smile the general public have when dealing with corrupt authorities. He tells me he’ll need to see my cellphone, standard procedure, random stop. All the while the Aito is growling at me, a mixture of fear and murder. The Handler seems oblivious. A quick user-to-user uplink, and he hands me my phone back. Thank god. A few seconds earlier and… I don’t want to think about it. He thanks me for me patience, and sends me on my way. What he doesn’t know is that in a few minutes his phone is going to go bat-shit. That’s going to mess with the Aito. Glad I’m not going to be here for that particular frenzy.

…3
…2
…1
The Purging comes quicker now. Every three minutes now, by my count. It’s agony pure and simple, but I can’t let it show. Pain-suppressors would just interfere with the already dangerous cocktail in my system. It’ll be a miracle if I get to the meet. I’ve heard horror-stories of carriers rendered early to a mass of steaming genetic stew. The body can not endure this for long and the damage is always permanent.

Arnu, just Arnu, no last name; a traveling musician from Freestate. I mostly do corporate functions and hotel restaurants. I haven’t written an original song since college, it’s other peoples work I sing now. Catchy well-worn Nu-Pop and a little Classic-Pop. In all eleven national languages; Implants. I’m a glorified jukebox. Non-offensive generic tunes R’US. I hate my life. I drink too much and do too many drugs. Secretly I’m waiting for them to kill me, but you’ll never catch me without a smile on my face, a twinkle in my eye and a song on my lips.

…3
…2
…1
I’m outside the Corporate Haven, it’s west exit on Kloof Street. It’s busy as hell here, mid-day downtown in the CityBowl. This is where I need to be. I see students and hip young professionals, corporate celebrities, walking art. I wonder if I still have the access privileges to get past the main gates? We’ll just have to see…

I’m Amanda now, though I used to be known as Steve. I had the transition young (sweet-sixteen), I hear it takes better that way. It cost, but I’m an only child and my parents don’t know how to say no to me. At least not in a way I can’t wear them down. I love being Amanda, it was like being born properly. I was in a larval state before. A pre-self state. I live and work in Cape Town. Am a bit of a slut, but no one would call me that. It’s just casual. The same thing that happens in Bars and Clubs every night in the city. If I like you at that moment or you interest me, we’ll have fun, but don’t go reading anything into it. I’m a free girl, I’m not going to be caged. Not again. Never again.

…3
…2
…1
I’mAndreTanuAleciaArnuAmandaSteve----,Crap! It’s a glitch. Previous codes are leaking through. The mutations are going crazy. Covered in sweat, it’s sticky now like snot. My skin burns, the sores are showing. Discharged D and RNA spill out, my cellphone begins to bleed. Oh God, this isn’t a glitch, this is it. Final Stage. The layers are gone the shell cast aside. Hidden nodes active Smart-Cancers, forming new structures. At once creating and destroying. My internal organs liquefy, hot and buzzing with fever. My outer molecular structure fails and my dermis splits then runs off me melting, in thick heavy drips. The sores blossom open as my phone scrambles itself with a Hari-Codi. Techno-suicide.
Wide beam transmission, all-band; every phone in a three block radius rings simultaneously, already infected. The super-high-pitch death-scream of my phone temporarily unbalancing the inner ear. People collapse around me. I hear someone retch, the dizziness too extreme for them to handle. My wounds open breathing fresh nano-engineered pathogens into the air.
Moments later having performed my final function, the nano-tech virus makers leave my body ravaged and begin the burn-procedure. No useful evidence must be found. I can feel my bones soften and fizz, along with whatever mind I still have all turning to hot genetic mush. Soon all that will be left is a horribly virulent puddle.

People always ask me where I’m from, it must be the accent.
Didn’t know I had one.
I don’t know who I am, or where I come from, but I chose this, I must have done, musn’t I? Why is a question purged along with the rest of me, for a cause I can not even pretend to remember. They might not remember me, but they’ll remember this.
I’ve been you Bio-Bomb this evening.
This is No-one from the gates of hell, signing off.
Good night

NO CURE FOR CANCER – A MOXYLAND STORY

“YEE HAH!”

The arms dealer launched himself backwards, arms splayed, onto the bales of used dollar bills that I had brought in payment. He writhed in ecstasy on his mountain of cash, outlining ersatz sand angels and throwing sheaves of rustling notes into the air like a rampant toddler in a paddling pool.

“Nuclear RPGs, Metal Storm, tactical lasers,” he crowed with pleasure, imbibing the sharp bouquet of a double fistful of notes. “You want ‘em I got ‘em."

“There’s a whole lot more where that came from baby.” I said.

The unlikely story of how I, Tendeka, culture-jammer, cellphone hacker and freelance anarchist, became supremely, dynastically rich began just ten short months ago in a squalid cocktail bar in Shantytown.

There was myself, Toby the motherbitch blog-boy, and Edgar, a get-rich-quick scheme addict, who ran his own internet talent agency single-handedly from his bedroom. I hemmed, and raised my eyebrows archly to suggest that Toby buy the next round.

“I’m skint man!”

“Why not get a job? At least you could drink more!”

He knocked back the dregs of a Tokyo Rose.

“A job, well... yes. That is an option. It implies a career, a wholesome family future, an urge to retire into benign senility. No thanks. I watched that particular train pass by a long time back.”

“The thing is Tendeka, I have no talent for anything that society might call useful. I often wonder if the only route open to me for success in life is to apply to be a TV talent show stooge act or become fodder for Joe-public on some other reality freakshow.”

Edgar chipped-in with his two-cent’s worth of conversational filler.

“Did you know that at the present rate of expansion, one in five of us will have been in a reality TV show by the time we are thirty? That more people voted for Pop Idol than in the last presidential election? People thought that in the future Big-Brother would be watching us all, but in fact it is our co-workers and friends who carry hidden cameras and film our intimate lives for TV prank show dollars.”

Edgar was a Z-grade talent agent, mostly representing weirdo YouTube freak acts, porn stars and TV reality show failures down on their luck. He patted his pockets and looked mournfully at me.

“Can you get this? I’m skint too. Two royalty cheques in the last three months! They are so fucking useless!”

I sighed in resignation and touched the credit dongle on my cellphone to the till. Somewhere in the Hills next week, a Corporati will be examining his statement and wondering why exactly his account has been charged for three dubious cocktails in Shantytown.

“I’m holding out my hopes for the Snake Woman.” Edgar said, sipping his luminous beverage.

“The Snake Woman?”

“She has a snake that dances to techno beats.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, she came fifth in the Channel Suzy talent show last year. So there’s some potential. I might try and break her as an online porn avatar.”

I was scrolling through an entertainment e-zine on the bartop.

“Have you noticed how the celebrity cancer diary has become the confessional of choice de nos jours,” I sneered. “We are so mired in moral insignificance that it is only in filming their deaths that these so-called celebrities can graft on whatever thin skein of meaningfulness that they need to redeem their sorry lives. To quote Shakespeare: ‘Nothing in their life becomes them so much as the leaving of it.’"

“The public only deals in extremes,” Edgar said. “We have people faking cancer on blogs and their online avatars now, just to get attention. You’re only truly safe from the meatgrinder of the culture industry when you’re dead.”

Edgar disappeared off the scene for several weeks, no doubt trying to build a viral campaign to promote the dancing Snake.

The next time we heard from him it was a hungover Friday morning in the bar. Toby and I were already on our fifth papaya Mojito of the day, and I’d taken some soberup pills to give me extra legs. A nano-blonde Adbaby was half-heartedly chatting us up at the bar. Her minimal clothing barely covered her fake-ivory skin which revealed a tagline for the next series of Pop Idol on Channel Twelve scrolling across her taut midriff. She looked askance then raised her arm and the tracks swirled into a text message.

“TOBY, TENDEKA – A UNIQUE BUSINESS PROPOSITION. MEET ME AT THE STATION, 2PM. EDGAR.”

The hack for the first-generation adbots was already yesterday’s cool if even people like Edgar had figured how to reprogram it.

At the station he took each of our cellphones and placed them next to a small hissing black box which he produced from his man-bag.

“It’s a white noise generator. It means we can talk safely. You’ve heard of Project Echelon? Under the new anti-terror laws all cellphone traffic and emails are scanned by supercomputer with alarms triggered by keywords such as bomb, communist, Ubuntu. What you may not be aware of is the Clipper Chip XXV. It’s in all 5th-generation cellphones now; it means that even in standby, they are functioning as passive microphones. All ambient conversation is fed to Echelon, with the same keyword triggers. The white noise disables this.”

A small Asian man approached hesitantly from the shadows. He bowed discreetly to each of us.

“This is Cazuo,” Edgar explained. “In his back street laboratory he started-out manufacturing designer recreational drugs, now he’s moved onto designer nanobot beauty therapies that he panders for the superannuated rich. Body sculpting with fat-metabolising Lipo-bots at fifty-thousand a session; let’s just say that we have some mutual clients.”

Cazuo seemed borderline sociopath, a truly introverted scientist-type better able to relate to his bacteria than their human hosts.

Edgar prompted him. “Tell the boys what you know about the Bradby-bots.”

Cazuo began to speak in soft mumbled tones.

“Last month a terrified man arrived on my doorstep,” he said. “He had seen me at the markets. He remembered me from our chemistry classes at UCT. I’m not one for class reunions you see.”

“His story was brutal and concise. He was, or had been, a nanobiologist at The Bradby Research Institute. Their cancer research had been going-on under the radar after the moratorium on bio-bot manufacture under the anti-terror laws. Essentially, they had found a method of disrupting cell membranes to allow nanobot access without inducing an immune response. The rest of the results came frighteningly quick. On terminal cancer patients they would run a quick genomic scan to determine the gene mistranscription responsible for the tumour. Then they cloned nanobots to express a modified antisense DNA enabling them to seek and destroy only the cancerous cells. The nanobots could also repair damaged cells and reoxygenate necrotised tissue electrochemically. Within a week the disease was cured.”

“Shit! A cure for cancer! No way! How come this didn’t make the news?”

“Think about the vested interests here.” Edgar butted-in. “As soon as the research was ready for publication a collection of Big Pharma executives arrived for a preview of the results. They left ashen-faced. Imagine the loss of revenue. We’re talking trillions of dollars. They came back harder than anyone anticipated. The facility burned down and those scientists who didn’t accept payoffs for early retirement found themselves living in the shanties on the run from the spate of freak accidents and car crashes that claimed those too dumb to understand the situation and go underground.”

“The patients who had been miraculously cured all suffered mysterious infections in hospital and died.” Cazuo murmured. “The official line on all the newsfeeds was that the antisense DNA had destroyed their immune system - the technology was dead.”

Edgar explained further.

“One of the scientists had saved a culture of the nanobots and a draft of the patents outlining the antisense manufacture. Cazuo used his contacts in the underworld and exchanged a safe-house and protection in exchange for everything he could give us.”

Cazuo nodded sagely.

“It took me some time before I could achieve the correct cloning conditions. Though my lab is well-equipped to do what I do, it is still primitive by industry standards. The Lipo-bots were stone-age technology compared to this. By a remarkable piece of luck an opportunity presented itself to test their efficacy. Some of my lab assistants had been scavenging in the old Groote Schuur hospital which is now derelict after the welfare system was privatised. They had dismantled a radiotherapy machine without realising that it contained a highly toxic gamma-ray source. Some died within hours of acute radiation sickness while a wave of aggressive cancers afflicted the rest. I used them as guinea-pigs for the first culture. They were cured within days, and thanks to the reoxygenation and cell repair, even fitter and healthier than before the accident.”

Edgar gathered us all together in a huddle.

“Here’s the plan guys – and I’m talking megabucks here. If I had high ideals about saving humanity and went public on this, we’d be wiped out next day by a corporate hit squad. So instead, I’ve let myself be inspired by your celebrity rant Tendeka.”

“I want to revive the careers of my artistes. The fatal flaw is that none of those terminal celebs who irk you so much ever live to taste their new-found notoriety. So it’s simple – we give the whole portfolio cancer, milk the publicity and then cure them! Cazuo still has the radiation source.”

“Cesium-137,” Cazuo grinned and hefted a metal cube out from a left-luggage cabinet.

“What the fuck!"

“It’s ok, it’s a lead box,” he rapped it with his knuckles. “You’re reasonably safe.”

“Reasonably? Thanks!”

Edgar was hyped. Pinpoints of sweat were breaking out on his upper lip.

“Using the source Cazuo can titrate the dose and target organ so that it’s a fairly slow and non-aggressive disease. Of course, they will undergo a normal course of therapy, shaved head, etcetera, and I get my twenty per cent! I’ve created blog templates for each of them, all subtly different of course, and distributed HD webcams to record their daily ups and downs. I can get contracts with each of the fifty reality channels for the individual docu-series. Deathbed weddings - the works!”

“I’ve floated this already to my artistes,” he gloated. “And it’s taken off like Saturn Five! I even have a fading soap-opera starlet who wants to lure her cheating husband back! If most of them are prepared to have their faces peeled off and rearranged in a plastic surgery clinic on a whim, then I think temporary cancer is fairly small ask. Half of them didn’t even want to see Cazuo’s clinical trial data!”

“Here’s the master stroke. After an antibody flush, the nanobots won’t leave a trace. The press release will attribute the miraculous cures to a faith-healer, a seventh son of a seventh son, and that will be you Toby! We’ll start selling bogus healing water over the internet at fifty dollars a pop. There’ll be chat show appearances, book signings, and one-to-one sessions with super-rich clients. After the first batch of cures we won’t even need the bots anymore, just the media momentum – the Big Pharma boys will think that we are just a bunch of charlatans and leave us alone with all our lovely cash!”

“Fuck the money!” I jumped around him, “I want to bring the roof down on the whole mother! Let’s jam! We destroy this whole fucking trash culture industry from within, we are the cancer!”

“Sure Tendeka, sure. But money first, ideals later ok? You both get ten percent. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Soon Edgar had the whole of his portfolio in the cancer ward. Fading careers revived. In the barbershop I scrolled through the taglines of a trashy women’s e-zine.

“BRAVE CANDICE: THE SNAKE WOMAN TELLS OF HER HOPES AND FEARS AS CANCER SPREADS.”

Once Edgar thought that we had squeezed the media circus dry, he began scheming for us to discreetly visit each of his artistes at home and inject a nanobot treatment. They would recuperate for a few weeks and then simultaneously come forth to tell the world about the miraculous healing hands of Toby, or Tobias as he would be known from now on, his full name having a suitable Old-Testament ring to it. Cazuo had arranged to leave the nanobot batches in a liquid nitrogen cryostore in the lab safe for us.

We made our way through the Asian Supermarket that provided the front for the lab complex. A retinal scan prompted the airlock to utter an asthmatic hiss and allow us entry. We stepped in to the crunch of broken glass underfoot.

“This... is not good. “ I said, as the fluorescent lights sparked into life.

The lab had been trashed by addicts. Former customers of Cazuo’s designer drug business in search of a fix. They had busted the safe and found the treatment ampoules, thought it was CZT the new love drug, and smoked them dry. They had blown the whole lot. The smell of toasted nanobot hung in the air and the empty ampoules were scattered around the floor, each one a life lost.

Edgar sank to his knees and ran his hands over his face as if trying to erase himself.

“Oh Fuuuuck! You realise that my whole portfolio of artistes are going to die! I’m ruined!”

“There is one option left.” I said, calmly messaging Cazuo and instructing him to order his contacts to track down the rogue nanobiologist.

We found him living in a wooden shack out in the bush. As soon as he saw us he lost it completely: running around aimlessly in the dusty yard, banging his head against the ground and having the perfect freak-out.

“You’ve blown my freakin’ cover!" He squawked. "You cunts! You’ve killed me!”

We pumped him full of enough CZT to help him re-equilibrate. We held him hostage in Cazuo’s lab until he had recreated the nanobots from scratch. Even with Benzedrine on tap to get him through the endless nights, it still took four agonising months. I clutched the first batch of ampoules in my hand and we raced to the hospital.

But we had left it too long; they were already at the point of death. Three had already died. The rest were on life-support. They’re gone, said the nurses. Brain dead. Nothing could be done. The EEG machines were flatlining and the doctors were itching to pull the plug. In desperation I shot triple doses transdermally into the artistes’ pallid arms, but it was too late.

We took cold comfort from the confusion of the autopsy reports that the terminal cancers had all mysteriously disappeared. The unfortunate corpses were either in the mortuary or the funeral home when the fun started - they began walking.

Two weeks later. Edgar and I had rounded-up most of them and they were shambling around inside a makeshift cage in his parent’s back yard.

“Well technically, I suppose they’re zombies,” he said, rattling the cage bars to attract them. “There is some motor cortex activity, but their hearts are not beating. It is only the nanobots constantly repairing the DNA and oxygenating the tissue that is keeping them alive.”

He handed the dancing snake through the bars to the Snake Woman. She looked at it quizzically, and then bit off its head.

The nanobiologist was dead. We had indeed blown his cover. Killed-off in a carjacking gone wrong was the official newsfeed. The supply of nanobots was soon exhausted and the secret of their manufacture had died with him. In our statements to the police we pinned the whole cancer-zombie fiasco on a bad batch of Lipo-bots. Cazuo took the heat and disappeared for a while, leaving us the number of his offshore bank account.

One sunless evening, Toby, Ashraf and I were standing with Edgar in the grey gravel yard, watching the zombies stagger around aimlessly in the cage, cannoning randomly off each other like pinball strikes.

“It’s an interesting legal grey area,” he mused aloud to himself. “Do I still represent them? I guess so. I was always keen for my clients to fully sign up to my management agreement without necessarily reading all of the small print. I would have total control over their image and estates after death. And now because they’re officially dead we don’t even have to pay them. In fact, as executor of their wills – legally I own them, and the police can’t touch me! And guess what? I have a plan.”

Edgar alone amongst us had realised the untapped entertainment value of the undead. Soon his production company ruled the airwaves with trashy reality shows, giving the lie to his statement that only the dead could escape the meatgrinder of the culture vulture. The list of shows was endless: The Zombie Simple Life, Zombie in Love, Zombie Idol. My favourite, starring Toby as the ‘Zombie Whisperer’ had him using tips discreetly cadged from a Dr Spock manual to discipline his suburban household of shambling relics.

For amusement Edgar started to dripfeed the media with stories of Toby raising these dead souls via his healing touch. We were immediately inundated with bizarre requests to reanimate dead loved ones and fondly-remembered pets even after we pointed out that they would be drooling braindead freaks. Toby would go through the motions over open coffins and exhumed graves, thankfully with little success, but for a very large fee. Some spurious resurrections were invented and circulated virally to keep this particular revenue stream going.

Edgar requested that the first TV royalty payments came in cash for tax avoidance reasons - twenty pallets worth. Together we ripped them open and threw the money gleefully into the air like the aftermath of a Vegas casino heist.

“Let’s start putting this to good use eh?” I said, shovelling my share of notes into black binliners and planning the next step in the revolution. “Know any good arms dealers?”

(3015)

2.0

Caulder

“Let’s intersect the dream with any realistic scheme of love,” crooned the honey-toned voice of the torch singer from the widescreen, but my ass was hurting and I was sweating on the floor. My bloated body a mass of quivering flesh, at least that’s how it looked in the ceiling mirror, my reflection, as always, depressing me with the reality of my downfall from youth and virility.
“Please, baby bitch, do it again,” I pleaded, but the dominatrix standing over me, who looked like Joni Mitchell, just laughed and threw away the paddle.
God she was beautiful: one of those hippy minstrels with long blonde hair, a long tangerine-colored gypsy dress, low cut, nicely accentuating full breasts. My fantasy of coupling with an earth mother was at last being fulfilled, but I had forgotten the Flow Sequence. I had probably pushed the wrong button.
“I wanna play some bloody, cricket,” I begged her, trying to talk like a British South African, but my Texas drawl didn’t cut it.
And then she was gone, but at least my prototype was functional.
My quest for satisfaction, however, had failed. My sadomasochistic sexual obsessions had, over the years, extinguished my capacity for any pleasure. Kaput! Nada! Nothing felt good anymore. If there was any pleasure in SM, it was only in my relentless memory. The more I sought extremes—the nearer I was to oblivion.
“Joni, come on!” I whined. The sting of her well-timed paddling to my bare bottom had left red marks everywhere on my fat thighs.
“You were something, babe. I dub thee the Sex Bot Extraordinaire. No wait, I dub thee the Holo-Gel-Plasma-Lover. Yeah, version 2.0, that’s what I’m going to call you.” I turned toward the cameras to give my sales pitch:
“They are tactile, visceral, and naughty. Whatever Flow Sequence you select, they will give you a good time.”
I was talking to an empty hotel room, but it was all being recorded for posterity—thanks to the Universal Guest Safety Protocols—our twenty-first century global response to terror.
What a marvelous idea, I thought, UGSP encourages every hotelier on earth to install a voice-activated video recording system—not the normal cameras found in public access areas—no, these security cameras are embedded in every guest room. Not to invade our privacy, but to enhance our sense of dwindling security. With just one word any guest could initiate a full video recording of whatever was happening at any moment in their room. It would be immediately processed by technology, developed by my employer in Austin, Texas, for evidence of a terror event or crime, which, if found, would refer the digital package to the proper authorities, instantly.
“Watch this,” I told the cameras. For some reason I couldn’t hold onto the glass of bourbon in my hand and it dropped to the floor, shattering, “Whoops! I didn’t mean that.”
On my knees now, drunk, cut from shards of glass, I lean on the side of the bed and slap away the tiny plasma ball that—just a minute earlier was a full-bodied SM dominatrix. The coagulated green jelly rolled to the wall, joining five other misshapen globs, each one a handful of aquamarine-colored robotic slime. My dominatrix was now an inert but pliant translucent gelatin—biodegradable and earth-friendly—minus two million bits of nanotechnology and a network of micro robots.
“We make this stuff for the military. It’s actually called Holo-Gel-Plasma. Shhh…don’t tell anybody.”
I had to laugh.
“Of course the military has us Flow-Sequencing the plasma to perform like soldiers. I mean, the tensile strength of the this stuff is phenomenal; it can render human shape and be programmed to fire a weapon for up to one hour of battery time—but my personal experimentation has proved it also makes a very nubile lover. Free love, baby! That’s my dream for Holo-Gel-Plasma. And I want you to have it.”
I pointed my index finger at the cameras and added, “By the way, it’s the strongest synthetic cellulose material on earth—and yet it’s almost ninety-eight percent air—poof!”
Now, I was feeling tired so I eased myself onto the bed, bloody knees and all, for the coup de grace.
“How about that for a military application?—that’s why I’ve recorded this for you—courtesy of UGSP. Sure I could have done it privately, off the grid, but that wouldn’t get your attention, would it? You see, I am persistent, maybe you are too. I’m also a self-thwarting bastard, always have been.”
I paused to scratch my naked crotch and rub my bald pate.
“That’s why I came to Lesotho to experiment and to leave you a legacy. All afternoon I have had my favorite movie stars blowing my whistle—right here in this hotel room. Well, at least they looked and felt like the real thing. For dinner I had Mussolini naked in what I call—well—it is SM, after all.”
I stopped to giggle.
“This product is for all types. You can plunge into your wildest fantasy. And when you are finished you just pop this biodegradable gelatin into your garden as fertilizer. It breaks down into nothing—completely harmless to the environment.”
Not exactly the truth, but close.
“You are going to be rich, kid—if you can figure out how to market this stuff without getting caught. I’m thinking the back-door-boys who are working around the great firewall of China will be able to assist you. What do you think? Imagine: A new silk road called the Holo-Gel-Plasma-Freeway, huh? Sounds great, doesn’t it?”
I paused to turn on the reading light by the bedside. The clock flashed eleven p.m. It was time.
“The African night…we first made love on a night like this. You were probably con—damn it! She was so beautiful…yes she was.”
Frigging tears in my eyes.
“You probably hate me. I would. I do. Hate myself, I mean, for what I’ve down for my corporate masters and for what I haven’t done for you or Jiao—may she rest in peace. I loved her. I didn’t deserve her. This is what I deserve.”
I pointed around the room for the cameras.
“See? Nothingness, just empty bottles of Kentucky bourbon, meds, broken glass, Viagra, cigar butts, and the remains of my sex bot. Maybe you’ll come up with a better name for it. So small when inert, isn’t it?—yet so voluptuous when activated. I left the specs, by the way, a plasma sample, and a remo with some glow girl in…in…I can’t quite remember now. Anyways, you’ll find her. You’re young. You’re a genius. You’ll figure it all out.”
Tears again…
“It’s the kitsch-factor that will be the draw. Who doesn’t want to make love to their old fantasies? I know you young people don’t need this sick kind of shit, but I had to leave you something before I go, kid.”
It seemed like I was repeating myself.
“Did you get this?” I asked the widescreen.
“Yes, Mr. Caulder, recording in progress,” came the electronic answer.
“Good! I want this translated into Mandarin Chinese, encrypted and packaged, okay?”
“Translation complete,” answered the entertainment console.
“Excellent. Save the file as…let’s see…as Kendra.”
“The package file ‘Kendra’ is saved,” answered the voice from the wall speakers and hidden subwoofers. “Where do you want it stored?”
“Shoot it back into my phone.”
“Transfer complete.”
“Now delete it from your hard drive.”
“Deletion not possible; file will remain—”
“XX314159—oblique mode—initiate restart,” I commanded. It was a verbal code that I knew would render the file inactive for seventy-two hours. Just something I learned from the US military when our company was working on the system that linked this hotel to the global grid.
“That’s why I choose this hotel,” I announced. “I know the crash code.”
The voice from the console asked me, “Do you want filming to continue, Mr. Caulder?”
“No, and turn off the porno.”
The console responded, “The film entitled Torchlight Love has played thirteen times for a total of five hours and forty-two minutes and thirty-one seconds. Stop mode to commence—”
“Wait! Let it play, and keep recording.”
I reached into the drawer of the bedside cabinet and pulled out my latest purchase—the SM masterpiece.
“This should be fun,” I joked, “or not.”
I pulled the trigger and a bullet burst into my mouth, scorched my tongue, grated my soft pallet like sandpaper—and in the instant my uvula was agitated enough to make me want to puke—it was all over.

* * *

I arrived at the Lesotho King Hotel within twenty-one hours of his death.
“Are you Del Caulder?” asked the police detective, meeting me at the door of the number eight rondavel unit.
“Yes, I am,” I said, holding out my hand. He scanned my SIM ID, my University pass, and the Japanese Passport embedded in my arm.
“From Tokyo, I see,” said the detective.
“Yes, you called me, remember.”
He looked at my arm with interest. “Different tech, very unusual, hmm.” He smiled. “You said on the phone that you have never met your father before?—Leonard Justin Caulder?”
“That’s right.”
The detective led me into the dark living room where a fat male body lay on the bed behind a half-wall, the dead man’s mouth a gaping crimson eruption.
“Do you recognize him?”
“No, why should I?”
“Well, I thought you might have seen photos.”
“He left my mother twenty years ago—on the day I was born.”
“Shame.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said shame. It’s what we say here in Lesotho and South Africa.”
“I don’t need your pity.”
“It’s not pity, Mr. Caulder; it’s just a kind of all-purpose-colloquialism.”
“I see.”
“So you were born in South Africa?”
“Yes, in Sea Point, Capetown.”
The detective nodded and pointed to the bed. “We had the Crime Investigation Team FD everything.”
“Thank you.” I walked over to the freeze dried body. The dead man was a stranger to me. My mother did show me a photo of him once, but I had erased the memory.
The whole death scene appeared plastic, like the fake food in the window of a Japanese restaurant. The blood on the sheets looked fresh, as did the gray matter and gooey blood all over the pillow.
“You can touch it,” offered the detective with a sense of pride, watching me. “It won’t disturb any evidence,”
“Evidence?” I touched the bed and what was supposed to be the arm of my old man. It felt brittle, slightly cool. “What evidence?”
“We don’t think there was any foul play, Mr. Caulder. It’s just standard procedure for suicides.”
“I see.”
I stepped back from the body and looked around: the living room was divided from the bedroom by a low wall. Another divider stood between a kitchenette and a bathroom, all the décor was in earthy browns and tawny yellows, and yet it felt claustrophobic in spite of the high-domed, spacious ceiling that had a cheesy mirror suspended above the bed.
“When did you move to Japan?” asked the detective.
“I was recruited by Sony when I was four years old.”
He did a double take. “You’re one of those?—a heater?”
People were starting to hear about us and I hated to talk about it. Heaters weren’t very popular outside of Japan. Why was I to blame for being born this way?—one of the gifted who worked on the Tokyo Quantums—the new computers that broke all the rules. Our motto: Take over the world, but save the whales. Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a cynic. I wonder where I got it from—not my mother—she was a saint.
“I don’t know,” I said to the detective, “Is this guy really supposed to be my father? He looks too fat, for one thing.”
“Look at the scan,” said the detective, showing me on the widescreen the complete bio readout of the dead man.
“Hmmm, okay, he is the progenitor. A breeder. So what? He wasn’t—he isn’t my real father.”
“Yes, well, he doesn’t look like the fatherly type,” remarked the detective quietly. “It seems he was engaged in some kind of sex play, but we can’t find any women at the hotel who even talked to him. All we have are these six green clumps of material by the wall, and a cricket bat, with his blood on it, in the bathroom. It seems he was beating himself with it. I don’t know how he inflicted that kind of punishment on himself. Would you know anything about that?”
“No,” I replied.
“Would you have any ideas about these green piles of rubbish?”
“No,” I said, losing whatever interest I ever had in genealogy. “It looks like green mulch in various stages of decomposition,” I added, feigning interest, “or vomit.”
“Yes, strange. Like he chewed on grass and spit it out.” The detective motioned to a policewoman, and told her, “Wrap it up and take it to the lab.”
“Was there a file package?” I asked, not that I really cared.
There was silence as the detective looked to his subordinates and then back to me. “Yes.”
“And?”
“You might not want to watch it.”
“Why?”
“It’s not pretty. He was obviously a very distraught man.”
“So it shows him blowing out his brains—is that any worse than him walking out on me the day I was born?” The sound of anger in my voice surprised me.
“I wouldn’t presume to know anything about that, Mr. Caulder, it is very graphic, though. He seems to have been suffering a psychotic episode—”
“Run it,” I said, not wanting to hear any eulogies.
“You might want—”
“To sit down, right, I get it.” I picked a bamboo chair near the window. The stench of old cigars suddenly made me want to puke.
“Are you alright, Mr. Caulder?”
After a coughing fit, I answered, “Yeah, I’m fine. Go ahead.”
And there he was—my old man on screen, alone in the room, just nineteen hours earlier, completely naked, acting like a fool, drinking, smoking, talking to himself, laughing and crying, and then squatting on his knees, as if he were talking to a spirit. It was creepy. Why was I watching? He was clearly insane. After he mumbled something incoherent about a crash code or something, he, it must be said, mercifully blew his brains out.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Caulder, I don’t know what to say,” said the detective with genuine empathy. “There was a note written to you—on paper—we found it next to his cell phone.” He handed it to me.

My life is here: My addresses, my accounts. It isn’t much, but I leave it all to you.

“We’ve already checked it out. Found nothing unusual. The judge says you can take it.”
“That was fast,” I answered, impressed. “In Japan, they would have…well…anyway, thanks.” I put the phone in my pocket. “What will you do with the body?”
“As you are the only surviving relative, that’s entirely up to you.”
“Here’s the number of my attorney—in Johannesburg.” I handed the detective a card. “Everything will go through him.”
“I see. Well, unless you have any other questions, Mr. Caulder?”
“No nothing, nothing at all.”
“Well then, we’ll just be awaiting instructions from you or your attorney for the return of the body, after we are finished.”
“Thank you.”
“Ah, before you go, is there anyplace we can reach you, for the next couple of days, Mr. Caulder?—just in case anything else comes up?”
“I’ll be at Ocean Park Suites in Sea Point.”
“That’s funny,” said the detective.
“Why?”
“According to your father’s itinerary,” he paused to check, “that’s where he stayed before he arrived here.”
“Really?”
“Like father like son,” added the detective, who immediately regretted it. He looked at me apologetically, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“He wasn’t my father,” I said, shaking the detective’s hand. “It’s a just a coincidence, that’s all, just a fucking coincidence.”

* * *

Three days later came the phone call.
“Mr. Caulder?”
“Yes.”
“This is Lieutenant Detective Pita from the Lesotho Police department.”
“Yes?”
“I think you should return to Lesotho, as soon as possible.”
“What for? Why?”
“We thought UGSP had recorded the entire incident.”
“There’s more?”
“Not more. It’s just that…after seventy-two hours the system released a revised version.”
“I don’t understand. That’s impossible.”
“It looks like Leonard Caulder was not as crazy as we first thought.”
“How so?”
“The talk about the sex-robot seems to be real. It’s on the video—it incarnated out of some kind of gelatin. And the stuff about a temporary crash code was correct, too.”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying he wasn’t crazy? But he offed himself.”
“Yes, well, he may have been on the run.”
“On the run? Why? From whom?”
“He may have stolen some classified technology from America. We’re going to have to talk to you, Mr. Caulder. Of course, I could come to Sea Point to see you.”
“Yes, that’s probably the best, detective Pita. Could you come to my hotel?”
“Sure, would six p.m. this evening be reasonable?”
“Yes, that sounds reasonable, detective Pita,” I answered dully. What didn’t sound reasonable or make any sense at all was why my absent father decided to drag me back into his world—after his death—when he had spent his whole life trying to obliterate himself from it.
“And, Mr. Caulder, just one more question: Would you happen to know anybody named Kendra?”
“What? Who?” My mind wouldn’t focus. “No, I’ve never heard the name before...”
I was reeling. It suddenly felt like my whole life was being subsumed by the tortured subplot of a bestselling science fiction novel. I knew nothing would ever be the same again.


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2986 Words

cheers

Digem 1.0 by Keith Harvey

Greasy rain splattered on the roof of the corrugated paper box.

Tau turned onto his side, pulled a stained woolen shawl that smelled of cabbage and dop over his head, fished around the pocket of his khaki shirt with a dirty forefinger, and extracted a chewed yellow dummy. He latched onto its plastic sourness and began to suck.

The dull thumps of the rain sounded like goggas in the bush and he jerked the shawl around his ears and whimpered. Eventually, he drifted back to dreamland, where his gogo dished out globs of bunny chow on a sunny afternoon in the shadow of the bergie.

Later, water sluiced off the tin roof of a caffeine shop next door onto the macadam of the Cape Town alley and filtered underneath Tau’s box. He woke a second time wet, stiff, and feverish.

He spat the dummy out and returned it to the pocket of his shirt. He stretched and then climbed out of the damp sour box, wrapped the damp shawl around his shoulders, and walked to an indent at the alley’s end and relieved himself.

His urine flowed away with the rain to the street, where bagels pattered up and down the sidewalk on their way to busy-busy and kugels clattered in eight-inch heels.

As he stood in the alley’s entrance, scratched his lice, coughed up a gobby of bright green phlegm, and zipped up, he planned his day.

The café adverts across the street blinked specials through sheets of rain and his stomach rumbled. A shot of dop and a choco biscuit wouldn’t hurt, he thought.

He scavenged his pants’ pocket for some paper scratch or shiny rands but there was nothing but a spoon and some yellow newsprint to wipe himself.

He decided to pan a bagel and grab some credit from one of the up-and-coming. It only took him a moment to spy a likely candidate; the mark had his phone plugged into his ear and carried an umbrella. It sounded like he was talking to God.

Tau stood in front of the bagel, blocking his progress, and squeaked: “Bra, hoezit?”

The man stopped, startled by the appearance of the young Fagin.

“Out of my way,” he growled, stepping around the boy.

Tau countered the side step and moaned: “I need to graze, bra. Can’t you spare some pocket shiny?”

The man whispered in his best Dirty Harry imitation: “Fuck off, kid.”

Tau shrugged and turned away from the bagel to find another mark.

Across the street, a young woman, a kugel with blonde hair, wearing an expensive London Fog and carrying a red and green plaid umbrella, seemed the correct demographic for a free rand or two. Tau rubbed his hands together and crossed the street at just the precise trajectory and speed to intersect her path.

Suddenly, just as he was about to sidle up to her, a fat, calloused hand slammed down on his right shoulder. Pain radiated through his back and tears welled in his eyes. Before he could turn to meet his assailant, the man whipped him around.

“Little bra, hoezit?” asked the man.

Tau gulped at the blond giant before him and stuttered, “It goes; it goes.”

Although the man terrified him, Tau dug deep inside and mustered a bit of moxy.

The man was a complete up-and-coming. He wore a black nylon hat and one of those spy coats that made him look like a gumshoe from the old bogie flicks they showed at the bioscope. Beneath the coat Tau made out a black wool suit and Sea Island cotton shirt with a black silk tie. The man’s shoes, although wet from the rain, shimmered brightly from polish and he sported a gold Rolex straight from Zürich on his right hand. He is a lefty; a pertinent fact if the man started a squabble or called the kêrels. And to cap it all off, he was tall; his red face hung above Tau like one of those death-dealers in the classic Potter flicks and stared at him with pale blue eyes like some übermensch. If he had seen the man first, he would have crossed the street to avoid him.

“I saw you try the shakey-shake on the bagel,” said the man, as he guided Tau firmly beneath an awning in front of the curry shop on the corner. A neon green tag read “men are desiring machines. Stop production now.”

“So? I‘m hungry,” replied Tau, trying to appear older than his seventeen years, before he broke into a paroxysm of coughing.

“Nothing is wrong with the occasional shakedown,” said the man with a wink. “But how would you like some steady credit?” He asked, releasing his grip on Tau’s shoulder.

Suspicious, Tau asked: “What’s the catch? Are you a pedo?”

The man squinted and Tau worried he might hit him. Suddenly the man smiled tightly like he was in pain and said: “No, little man but I do have a proposition; I need a smart wanker like you on my team.”

“What team?” Tau raised his eyebrow. “You have a football team or something? I ain’t that good. I haven’t played ball since I left the orphan school in the bushveld.”

The man fished out a pack of cigarettes and asked: “Want a Digem?” He extended the box with three cigarettes visible. Tau smelled the yellow roasted tobacco and his mouth watered.

“Of course, yes please,” he said, reaching for a cigarette.

He thrust the smoke into his mouth, wrapping his lips around the butt, tasting the sweetened tobacco on his tongue. It had been months since he had a smoke and he almost swooned, waiting for the man to produce a silver lighter from his coat to light him.

As the man lifted the lighter, Tau reached up and guided his hand toward the cigarette. Once lit, he sucked the blue smoke down into his lungs and held it. Finally, he exhaled with a sigh and ragged cough.

“Do you like it?” asked the man.

“Like it? I love it. What did you call it—a Digem?” Tau uttered, while drawing a fresh draught deeply into his chest.

“Why do you like it?” asked the man.

Tau thought a bit and tried to remember the patter from the commercials on the tele-box. He scratched his head and extracted a louse that he crushed between his dirty nails to buy some time and then said: “The taste is sweet like menthol-honey; you know like the candies they give you when you have a cough; and there is tingling at the end of the drag like fresh brewed caffeine on a fridgie morning.”

“You’re a poet,” said the man with a laugh.

“The lerares at the orphan school said I was good with words,” said Tau with a shiver.

“Are you cold?” asked the man.

Tau raised his left eyebrow, as if to say—what do you think? He was soaked through and his wool shawl hung damp and dirty from his shoulders.

“How about we go down to Auntie Nguyen’s for some tempura prawns and noodles?”

Tau took another drag and asked: “Why? What do you want with me?”

“I told you. I need a helper--an assistant really--on my team.”

“To do what?” he asked beginning to really shake. The rain and the cold were getting to him and he felt the shivers and the fever coming on him. Soon he would have to crawl back to his box. He took another deep drag on the cigarette, which he imagined was drying his lungs and cutting through the phlegm.

“Digems are new to the Cape and I have been assigned distribution rights, if you get my drift? A lot of credit will be flowing when the people realize what a wonderful product we have. There is a little worm in the apple though: Digems are Uncle Sammy’s. Pure Virginia tobacco stuffed in those fags, bra, along with some amazing pharmaceuticals to make you feel happy-happy. The locals have forbidden the fags, if you understand me, out of envy really. They are too good; they will destroy the local brand; smash the competition. So we are going to establish demand and then let the citizens cry for supply.”

Tau took one last draw off the Digem, rolled his tongue over his teeth, and swallowed. He felt better than before; the shakes were lessening but now he wanted another of the sweet sticks. “Could I have another one?” he asked.

The man extracted the pack and offered Tau a second one. “See what I mean; Digem sells itself. I just need a little help in the community.”

The rain slowed and the man asked again: “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”

With the second cigarette Tau was really beginning to feel better. It wasn’t that his fever dropped or that he wasn’t as cold anymore; the fact was he just felt more hopeful and a bit happy. Could it be the smokes? He let the thought pass and said: “Something to eat would be good.”

The man smiled and said: “We’ll walk down to Auntie’s. We can sit outside under the tin roof, because you are a bit ripe, my friend.”

Auntie’s was open on all sides and covered with a tin roof. They sat at a wooden table near the street. Elevated gas heaters roared and warmed the area. Steam rose from Tau’s wool shawl.

The rain had stopped but now a chill wind blew off the mountain. Tau held a mug of hot chocolate with both hands and a Digem smoldered in the corner of his mouth.

The man leaned toward Tau and whispered: “My offer is simple and quite straight forward. I will provide you with a cell, an eight by four coffin at the Japano-Stacks at the harbor, some new clothes, maybe some red trainers, and two squares a day. All you have to do is distribute at least one case of Digems a day, free to the inhabitants of the Cape. You can work a day or a week, a month or a year, and as long as you work, you get room and board. The day you stop, however, you are out.”

“You just want me to hand out free Digems?”

“Basically, but there is more to it than that; there are some rules and some secret stuff you must master.”

Tau cut his eyes at the man and asked: “Secret stuff? You mean illegalities?”

“I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble with the kêrels with their electronic wanes and billy-billies. That is for sure. But I mean more than that. We need statistics and consumer participation. So I will train you in diagnostics, information collection, demographic recognition, metrical instrumentation, and retrieval science.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means simply that we want information from our consumers on how the product is working in the community. It is simply prudent business and we are, after all, prudent businessmen, aren’t we Tau?”

A young Vietnamese girl with long black hair and olive skin placed a large bowl of tempura and noodles in front of Tau. She wrinkled her nose and he wondered if he really smelled as bad as the man said.
As soon as he finished the soup, he asked for another Digem and the man slid the pack over to him with a red zippon lighter from North Korea.

“I can have the pack?” Tau asked softly.

The man nodded and asked: “So are you with me or against me?”

As he lit the Digem, Tau nodded and gave the man a thumb up.

The man stood and waved for the waitress to bring the check. She touched her phone with his; the credits and debits instantly adjusted and they were ready to leave.

The man extended his huge hand and said: “My name is Ruik van Kahnweiler. Let’s get out of here. First stop is Japano-Stacks, a shower for you, and some new denims. Then we will start your training.”

Tau blinked, shook the man’s hand, and then followed him out of the noodle joint and down the sidewalk to the docks toward the Japano-Stacks.

Thirteen months later, Tau sat at the bar of Auntie Nguyen’s Noodle shop admiring his new pair of red Adidas. Mimsi Odaatje sat on the stool next to him and begged him in a shrill whining voice for a pack of Digems.

Tau sipped on a vodka tonic, swallowing the last drop and then slipping a piece of shaved ice into his mouth. Ceiling fans whirled above his head and he could see heat radiating off the macadam of the street. Finally, he said: “I am sorry Mimsi but I haven’t received my shipment this week.”

She made a sound between a bark and a whimper, grabbed Tau’s arm, and pulled him toward her. “Listen, Tau, I have to have a smoke. Look at me I’m a wreck. Surely, you have some set aside for your special friends.” She leered at him and licked her lips.

Tau edged away from her and looked out onto the street. Thomas Menge turned into the shop and Tau winced. Here was another fiend desperate for a Digem, ready to go all ghoulie-ghoulie.

“Bra, just the bra I need,” said Menge in a desperate whisper.

Mimsi interjected: “He says he is out; that his supply didn’t arrive.”

Menge grabbed his arm and said: “Listen, you little bergie shit, I need some smokes. You got me?” His fingers dug into Tau’s arm. “I understand you may need a little sweet shiny to cough them up and I am not opposed to throwing you a rand or two.”

Mimsi interrupted: “Name your price Tau. Just name it but for God’s sake don’t leave us hanging.”

Tau peeled Menge’s finger from his arm and drew out his own pack. “There’s fifteen smokes left; you two take the pack and leave me alone.”

Tau rose from the stool and exited the shop, while Mimsi and Menge argued over who would get the extra smoke.

He turned left toward the harbor and his coffin at the Japano-Stacks. Menge was right; he had kept some extra smokes for himself. Two months into the project, Tau realized that the smokes were habit forming and that people would pay to get their hands on it. At first, he simply exchanged smokes for analytics, bio-feedback. Van Kahnweiler provided him with a computer and medic-kit, which he used to gather the analytical information as prescribed by the company. But he soon figured he could get more than just information: he started asking for credits and rands; and, over the last year, he had amassed over a quarter of a million in shiny rands, scratch and credit. He rented an apartment on the beach under his grandmother’s name and opened several accounts in both Cape Town and Jozi. He also secured several illegal sim cards under various aliases and stashed several thousand Digems at the apartment; however, it had never occurred to him that the company would stop his supply. He was worried now; not because of van Kahnweiler’s disappearance but because of the look in Menge’s eyes. He had seen that look several times in the last week. There was an implied threat of violence.

When he reached the Japano-Stacks, he touched his phone to the electro-door key but nothing happened. He pushed the buzzer and waited for Alfonso, the concierge, to answer.

“What is it?” asked Alfonso.

“It’s Tau; the door didn’t spring.”

“Wait a sec,” said Alfonso.

A dragonfly buzzed past Tau’s ear and a drop of sweat rolled down his face.

The speaker vibrated and then Alfonso said: “The company terminated your contract and we refunded the deposit.”

Tau staggered back and wiped his face. The sun was particularly warm today, he thought.

He pressed the button again. “What about my stuff?”

“Mpho is on his way with your duffel. Good luck Tau.” Silence.

Mpho opened the door, handed him his duffel, and asked: “You wouldn’t have a smoke on you, would you Tau?”

“Sorry, bra, all out.”

Tau walked down to the harbor and sat on an iron bench and watched a Liberian super tanker out of Hamburg surge into the harbor carrying fresh water from Norway. Gulls swirled in a white fury above his head as his phone vibrated.

“Tau,” he answered.

“Van Kahnweiler here, bra, hoezit?”

“Jesus, where are you?”

“Amsterdam friend and I would recommend you get out of town as well. Head up to Jozi or Botswana.”

“What’s happened, Ruik? Why did you disappear?”

There was a pause and then van Kahnweiler said: “The company got what it wanted. Cape Town was a success and now they are on to the next step.”

“Next step? What are you talking about?”

“The techniques of technology; the product of production; better living through science.”

“But what about me? he asked. People are threatening me; these smokes are different. I mean they are addictive.”

“No shit, you stupid wanker,” the man said, laughing. Finally, he stopped and said: “Listen Tau, get out of town and stop smoking those Digems. You got it. I know you were making some dough off the deal. God, I am a rich man now myself. The company expects a bit of spoilage but get out. I will be back with Digem 2.0 next summer and then we start again. You understand?”

Tau wiped sweat from his forehead and said: “I will go to the bergie. You can find me there.”

“Tau, just remember that after Digem 2.0 there will be 3.0. Stay alive until I whistle.”

Tau pulled a Digem from his pocket and latched onto the butt, as he watched twenty of his clients coming his way, each carrying a knobkierie. He fingered the dummy in his pocket and imagined the knotted clubs shattering his head into pieces of bleached bone.

Thanks Hawkmoon1952, that's fantastic. It's always gratifying (and humbling) when someone connects with the book.

If you do happen to enter this competition, would you mind doing it under a different user name so I'm not unduly and unfairly influenced by your heady praise going to, well, my head.

I have posted a review of Moxyland at http://redrookreview.blogspot.com/ and on amazon.com.uk and us

Khanyi:

I awoke still smeared with the blood of the previous night's massacre. I had been so heavily emo about the whole murder-spiel last night that I had taken the drab-tabs someone had offered up, and just crashed. My sheets were streaked with blood too, as if they had been complicit in the whole thing.

I had kneeled right there in the biology of it all-felt the viscosity of life as its juices ran through my fingers. I had tried to patch the meaty chunks of my artistry together. In my ears, there was a sound, the pitiful squawking of loss- I'm not sure if the sound belonged to the creature or to me.

It's difficult to remember it all now through the fog of panic and drab-tabs. I do remember the argument with the money man. Months ago my brain replaced his name with Mr Moneybags-I hadn't called him anything since then.

"You should have known" he said in a totally preachy, I-told-you-so sort of way.

"I should have known that men with masks and pangas would invade my exhibit and do a Bob-the-butcher on my work?"

"Well, there was that incident with the blood throwing". There it was again, preachy.

"A little bit of PETA-patter is hardly a warning sign that someone is gonna hack the thing to pieces. Those blood throwers were too busy making sure the thing had a right to equality and was earning minimum wage. They'd never hurt the thing".

"I thought you said the thing didn't feel pain?"

"Jesus fuck! Were you in the room when it was dying? Did you hear the sounds the thing made? Because surely you recognise that those were the sounds of something with very real pain receptors".

"But the press release..."

"The press release is aimed at people like you so you don't feel so bad dropping money into something that might hurt people's feelings. This is art-it's meant to hurt a little".

He just looked at me, his silly little hands flapping at his sides and his mouth doing a pop-pop, before he made a conscious decision to shut it.

"You money bags are all the same" I'd said before storming off.

Granted, probably not the best attempt at talking up the money, but it didn't matter anyhow, there was little left to finance, apart from a pile of plastech and some bio-waste smeared on some shitty amateur photographs.

I'd picked the materials myself. Gone to the factory-lab to ensure that it was the right balance between artiness and meatiness to be intriguing and repulsive. I'd outlined its shape and moulded the tough flesh until it yielded into those spines.
It was my best work yet-visual and aural and totally social in that fucked up way that gets people jabbering.

And boy did they jabber. Hard-core reviews, both good and bad lamenting the new art world or falling on their knees in front of it. The regular folks never "got" it. They did their angry-mob-dance before they read the press-push. When you got to know it, really watched it move and breathe and be, it could be quite endearing though. Maybe I'm just reacting like a motherbitch because I feel responsible for the thing.

They "got" it in New Korea. They always get the weird shit there.

"I'm 26 and I'm a fucking art world genius" I had shouted after Moneybags last night. "What can you say about your achievements fucker? You banker-wankers are all the same".

No, definitely not the thing to be saying to your backer-man. But, I’ll build another animal, some other mass of cells and sounds, to push the burglar bars of boundaries wide open. Inspired, and still un-showered, I picked up my phone and started tapping ideas into it. And once I’d found my stride, I dialled Jackie, my agent.

“Jackie, good news. I’ve started work on something new. Some so fresh and hip, so very Khanyi”.

“Oh Khanyi, hi. I’ve been meaning to call you. About last night. How utterly awful. Terrible. Thing is, doll, people don’t want new and fresh. They want the old you. They want Woof and Tweet”.

“Woof and Tweet was panga-mangled into a thousand pieces last night. I’m sure you remember”, I was leaking acid all over her.

“Well yes. But. That’s exactly it.” Jackie hardly ever spoke in full sentences, it was as if her time just wasn’t worth it.

“See. There are bits. Pieces. Of the thing.”

“We can’t just sew the bits together, there was sensitive tech in there. High-tech that can’t just be replaced”.

“Mmm. Yes. What I want to say. Some woman bought it. The mangled bits. A boat load of cash is busy sailing your way. Oh and. That girl Kendra. We’ve taken her on”.

“Kendra-the shitty photographer? The one whose work was so charmingly juvenile, because she was so charmingly juvenile?”

“Well, turns out. Last night was a great op for her. When they mangled your work, her value shot up. Now that they’re dripping gore. It’s like they have been injected. Given some real lifeblood” her stupid laugh tinkled over the phone, grating inside my ear and my head.

“You should do a collab with her. A whole artist/mentor thing. The crowd will come if you move quick”.
I hung up.


Twenty six. An art world genius and they want me to work with some mediocre sponsor baby. That’s right. I saw her wrist. Although I’m not sure why they picked her.

I looked down at my bare legs-still undressed after collapsing, half naked into bed last night. I stared at the little blue patch there. Such a beautiful pale blue glow.

There was no way Spectre would let me work with a rival sponsor baby. There was just no way.

Beyond Lies
By Ashley Madau

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Each following ring differed from the previous; they symbolized a different machine, different program, and different function. The melodious ringing lingered for Kendra to awaken from each morning, or each night, depending on what the previous day entailed. But there wasn’t any reason to awake this morning, for she hadn’t fallen asleep for days now. Hadn’t slept because there wasn’t the opportunity. She wasn’t home; there was no home anymore. And she didn’t have permission to access into the computer before her, either.

The keys beneath her neon painted fingernails clicked as she raced to enter in code after code. Her fingers moved quicker than her thoughts, and the rhythm she adopted was interrupted from the occasional backspace. Her typing was soon broken once again as a new alarm interjected the familiar sounds surrounding her.

>>CASTIYO: Hello Kendra

The words spread across the screen as if she has been the one to enter them in. For a moment she sat solidified in fear. Her eyes wandered away from the computer and to the empty room she sat in; it was dark, and the humming of machinery before her filled the hidden corners. No one knew of her current position, yet she had been found.

Another ringing came from the computer screen. It stung her ears against the sounds she was becoming used to.

>>CASTIYO: Kendra, I have a job offer for you…

Even with her hesitation, her fingers entered a response.

>>KEND541: Offer, you say? But I’m just a photographer.

It was an obvious lie. Any normal photographer wouldn’t have the knowledge she possessed in hacking computer mainframes, and manipulating code to their advantage. She was self-skilled in the art of government destruction. There was great hope lying in the virus she was planting that very moment. Hope that the people would be able to regain what little power there was left.

>>CASTIYO: There’s more than meets the eye with you, Kendra.

She shuddered at his use of her name for the third time, even though it was through lettering. There was a long pause before she decided to reply.

>>KEND541: I’m listening.

>> <<

Kendra moved among the computers with great ease. She almost appeared to be one with the machinery. Finding her jacket among the wires beneath the desk she ran out the door before the computers had properly shut down. It would be easy to trace the coding and malfunction back to her, but the offer an unknown /Castiyo/ had given her was too gripping to pass up. Still without proper walking rights, she kept to the shadows and ran towards the destination given to her just moments before.

An I.D chip had been recently implanted in the back of her left hand, and for that reason, she kept it concealed in her pant pocket. The faint white glow from the back of her hand would be easy to pick out against the black of night. Even in the night sky, not a star dare broke through. Hope even hid among the stars.

The two glass doors shook before her as she entered the noted bar. Alcohol and cigarette smoke burned her nostrils the instant she entered, though both had been banned in the recent law enactment. A dim neon light greeted her: Alkain Bar. Lights flickered as she walked through the rows of booths filled with people unable to move from their seating. A disgusting human race she was surrounded by, and it had been the government’s fault. Though she had no proof, she knew it to be true.

Scrawled across the palm of her hand was the room she was looking for. Combating the smudging from holding her camera tight in her grasp, and the darkness of her surroundings, she read the numbers, and slid into the room.

The room was empty. No Castiyo, no machinery, just a bed, lamp, and dresser. She moved with hesitation towards the bed, and took a seat on its edge. A hand set itself on her shoulder emerging from the darkness behind her. All was cold, except for the heat emanating from the lit cigarette between its fingers. The smoke traveled upwards till it met the smoke blown out from the figures mouth.

“Hello Kendra,” he whispered in a raspy voice. She turned to see him, but found him still veiled in shadows. Her cell phone sat in her lap below her, and the muted light from it kept her visible to the man behind her, it kept her vulnerable.

“Castiyo?” She questioned, burying the true fear she felt beneath her confidence.

“Call me Allen,” he replied. “I’m from the IRS.”

The last words Kendra expected to hear was that he was from the IRS, from the very government she hated and fought against. Her muscles tightened as she prepared to stand and flee.

Noticing her expected leave, he began again, “Not so fast sweetheart, I’m not as loyal to them as you think.”

“Prove it,” she spat.

A clutter of cards fell upon her lap as if he anticipated her response. The first was an IRS identification card, the rest were membership cards for the rebellious groups hidden among the city. Each was addressed as A. Castiyo, and displayed a picture of the man she still couldn’t see. His hair was long and black, falling to his eyebrows in a disheveled fashion. He hadn’t appeared much older than her, though his voice had been long aged by the constant use of cigarettes. Given different circumstances, she may have once thought him to be attractive.

Kendra handed them back, but remained silent.

“Now, that you’ve gained my trust, I’m hoping I can have yours.”

She nodded and turned towards him. “I think you owe me an explanation.” Looking upon him for the first time, she noticed he hadn’t kept the same appearance as shown in his cards; his hair was now a dirty blond, much longer than the previous cut.

“You’re right,” he chuckled, and then continued as Kendra sat in a silent awe.

Allen explained how the government was quickly corrupted by those they were protecting their citizens against. There was no danger outside the city walls, it became a story of control. Any supposed infection past the walls was a grand fabrication created from the minds of an elite row of scientists. The IRS cared little for its people. Instead of protection, they began experimentation, attempting at creating a super-human species for their own benefit.

When he finished, Kendra had many questions looking for many answers.

“What does this have to do with me?” She questioned. “Everyone knows how crooked the government is, especially the IRS.”

“Yes, but if the truth were easy to see, there’d be no lies. I need you to provide us with documentation of these experiments. Hard evidence of this fraudulence,” Allen answered in a stern tone.

Kendra was now standing. “Okay, but why me?”

“Like I said before, you’re different.” He paused before continuing. “There’s so much more to you than meets the eye.”

“I take pictures just as any other member of the rebellion would. And by the looks of it, you don’t need a hacker. So just pictures?”

He pulled her camera from her arms. Though it was her most prized possession, she hadn’t felt the need to reach for it as if left her grasp. “This,” he said holding it up in the darkness of the room. “Film. Anything digital can be instantly erased by the any government official in a heart beat.” He knew more than Kendra had, no doubt because of his ties to the IRS. “You have film, something untraceable, something safe from the eyes of any other agent.”

She reached up to catch her camera as he let it float gently towards the ground. “When do I leave?” There were no other questions for her to ask. All she wanted was to bring down the government, bring down the IRS.

Now was her chance.

>> <<

The electro-magnetic force surrounding the factory kept Kendra and any other living, breathing creature from entering or exiting through the solid metal door at the front. That door was the sole access point to the inside of the factory, but without a way to get through the shield, Kendra was locked out.

Her cell phone rang. Holding to her ear she heard Allen’s now familiar voice. “Kendra, I need you to get a clear shot of the key pad at the front of the building and I may be able to momentarily disable the shield.” She closed her phone with no words from her end and aimed her phone at the keypad. In one swift movement, she captured her desired image and had it traveling through her phone to Allen’s computer.

The magnetic force before her disappeared and she ran towards the front door, which was also opened thanks to Allen’s hacking skills. Both his ability to manipulate the system, and fact that he had an IRS identification card made it easy for him to provide Kendra with an entrance point.

The inside was a tunneled maze of walls, computers and the occasional line of IRS agents. In the distance switches turning on and off couldn’t cover up the buzzing and beeping of equipment.

Brrrrzcrack.

Tubes filled with an unknown liquid were sent through the ceiling and walls of the factory to an unknown source somewhere underneath. Kendra reached her camera to her right eye and snapped a picture just before the tube disappeared behind another wall.

“Reed, this is for you,” she whispered to herself. Her best friend had disappeared just as the rebellion started to gain momentum. He was one of the founder’s son, suspected to been taken by the IRS. Her constant fighting was fueled by the loss of him in her life. And though she had a hard time admitting it, Reed was more than just a friend to her. She was certain she had loved him, but love in past tense was no love at all.

Instead of lingering on her loss, her love, she continued forward, climbing through the air vent to move unnoticed through the facility. She was positive no matter how hard she tried to remain invisible, the IRS would know something had infiltrated their system and was now scurrying around.

The beeping from her cell phone rain in unison with those from the computers below her. A text message from Allen:

>>You’re a ghost, darling. Make it quick, though. They’ll soon find out you don’t match my I.D and come looking for you. A.C

Before she had the chance to secure her phone to the strap around her neck, it started ringing for a second time:

>>Left, left, right. You’re welcome.

A smile grew across her face and she turned down the vent to her left following Allen’s directions. Before the second left, through the grate below, Kendra saw something more than just picture worthy.

It was Reed.

>> <<

It had been Reed in theory, but in actuality the man below Kendra was no human at all. Not anymore. A golden fume wrapped around his body flowing from the bottom of his glass cage, and to the very top. Pain broke through his face, though his body didn’t move to escape or ease any of the discomfort. His bones broke through the skin across his fingers and lower arms; any hair once present on his body was long washed away.

From her position, she could see him breathing, but it was hard to believe he was still alive. Each passing second gave Kendra the time to battle with the safety of her friend, and the fight against the government. Her camera stood between her and the grate below her, just as it stood between her morals and her commitment.

The room was empty besides Reed, but even with him in the center of it, his lifeless body gave the room a desolate atmosphere. Choosing to pass up the opportunity to capture the experimentation for the sake of her friend, she continued forward. Before she passed over the grate, the fabric of her pants tugged at a misplaced screw, pulling it from its place and releasing the grate to fall to the ground below.

With it, fell Kendra.

The hollowed halls echoed from her fall in the center of the room and through to the surrounding walls, but Reed showed no reaction to the sound. Kendra circled him as he stood, motionless and naked. It was difficult for her eyes to break her focus over Reed’s transformation. He was no longer the man she knew and loved. Instead, he had become a monster.

Kendra’s fists clashed against the glass he was encased in as her emotions rushed through her tears. /It could have been anyone, why did it have to be Reed?/ She thought to herself.

From below her next, past her tears, there was another beep. The text messaged opened automatically:

>> Kendra? Kendra are you all right? You have to get out of there quick. Take whatever shots you can and run. They know you’re there. A.C

As her eyes finished Allen’s initialed signature, she heard footsteps making their way down the hall to her location. Fear ripped through her skull as if lightning made its way through the building and straight towards her body. Had the IRS found her, camera in hand, and in the room with Reed, her life would be stolen away from her. Or worse, she would become their next test subject.

Instead of her feet moving towards an exit, her hands reached for her camera. Instinct told her to push the button, forever capturing Reed’s condition through film. Even with the shot taken, she had to deliver it back to Allen else all her efforts went to waste. The rebellion, the society, depended on her whether they were conscious of it or not.

Kendra silenced her phone before the beeping could leave its speaker.

The door opened- she was gone.

>> <<

>> Where are you?

>> Kendra, answer me!

The third attempt was an actual call. But Kendra was out cold.

Back at the beginning of the air ventilation maze, Kendra lay unconscious. As she struggled to get back up through the ceiling from Reed’s room, and pulled her way turning right and then right again, she had slammed her head straight into a horizontal bar above her head.

Her head wavered back and forth when her eyes finally opened. Seconds passed as she tried to comprehend where she was and what she was doing. The machinery in the background kept her in a confused daze. Again, her phone rang, and she answered.

“He-hello?”

“Kendra? What happened,” Allen’s voice rang with concern.

She paused. “Who… Who is this?”

“Kendra, it’s me: Allen,” the concern melted into fear.

“I don’t know an Allen,” she responded with confidence. Kendra began to fidget with her camera. She instantly recognized the film as a familiar tool for her photography. The man on the other line waited before he continued. It was Allen, but he was a stranger to Kendra.

“Kendra, for the time being, you have to trust me. You have to get out of there.” The tone of his voice began to rise.

“Why should I trust you?” She questioned.

“You just have to, sweetheart.”

/Sweetheart/. She could recall being addressed by that term before. But where? Nothing made sense to Kendra. Looking in all directions all she saw was metal; a flimsy metal somehow sustaining her body weight. She said nothing in reply.

“Just up to your right. Move quickly, I’ll be there to pick you up.”

All she had was the man on the other end of the phone call’s voice to follow. With her memory failing, she did all she could create in such little time.

Kendra crawled to the right and out into Allen’s arms.

>> <<

“There you are,” the voice spoke once in assumed safety.

“Where, where am I?” Kendra wondered aloud.

“You’re safe. Kendra, don’t you remember me?”

“I.. I can’t remember anything.”

He held his hand up to her forehead before he spoke. “Darling, you don’t need to remember, but you did it.”

Frustration broke through her voice. “Did what?”

A picture was soon in her arms. It was a recently created picture, the aroma of developing fluids wafted up towards her. She knew the scent and knew the picture had to have been hers.

“Reed?” Tears escaped her eyes. “I remember.”

Allen wrapped his arms around her, holding as his shoulder muffled her sobs. They sat in silence, the picture between them. But it was more than just a picture. It was a symbol of hope. Once released out to the public, the government would begin a downward spiral into destruction. The people held the power, always held the power, and finally had the proof to do anything about it.

“You did it, Kendra. You did it!”

The picture was now wet with her tears. “I did it… Oh Reed… I did it.”



End Transmission.

Seattle, Washington
Better keep running Kendra or your head will be hanging on their mantle. I tried breathing in and out, too the point of almost passing out. The sweat dripped off my forehead and slipped into my lips. The salty fluids in my mouth combined with adrenaline rush in my blood, was something I had never expected when I had planned my trip to Seattle. How could I resist though? Word had gotten out that a couple of thug vendors had gotten their hands on fresh new nano technology and I was going to be first in line and no, they weren’t willingly giving it away.
I looked back at the warehouse which became more distant, thank goodness, as I continued to sprint away from the thugs shooting at me. Their swear words became more like distant whispers as I got further away.
A few minutes later, I was downtown, forcing my way through the crowd. Swamped by thousands of vendors in the market stand. You have no idea what’s like having someone sneezing right in your ear. I wanted to turn around and slap the snot of them, no pun intended, even though I knew it wasn’t their fault.
“What up sweetheart?” The gray haired man outstretched his arms as to give me a hug. Yeah right.
“I got something for you grandpa.”
He knocked on the table. “Show me what you have.”
I laid down the silver suit case and popped it open. “The newest in nano technology. Fresh of the market.”
The man slid his hands across the syringe needles, mouth open, nearly drooling. “Where’d you get this?”
“From a couple of thugs pedaling business for the geeky scientist who make these things.”
“Those corrupt dealers?”
Kendra chuckled. “Yeah I know their Satan’s lapdog.”
“Is it safe?”
“Why you don’t trust me?”
“Hey I’m selling this stuff kid, if start killing off my clients, there’s going to be no income.”
Kendra sighed and picked up a syringe. She stuck it in her arm. The blue liquid rushed into her veins. “See Hank, I’m still alive.”
Hank laughed. “I’ll take it. What’s the price?”
“Two grand.”
“Deal.”
Hank picked up a black suitcase and handed it to me. “Thank you.”
I smiled. “No Hank, thank you.”
*****
Kendra flipped open the suitcase, revealing a blank piece of paper. She smiled. “Come to mama.”
She pinched the upper right corner of the paper. A blue square flashed under her thumb. She tapped the paper, lighting up different icons in a circular motion.
“Bingo.”
To her delight, a program displayed itself on the paper. She signed in under the name Kendra300.
“Hope you’re there Jonathon.”
She waited five seconds.
“What’s up?”
Jonathon came on the video conferencing window. He sheepishly smiled.
“Almost got my butt shot off today, you?”
“I can’t say the same. Just been hanging around. Do I even want to know why what kind of trouble you’re in?”
“Depends. What would you say if I told you I was talking to you, using computer paper?”
“I would say either stole it or you have a large stash of cashing lying around.”
Kendra laughed. She clicked on smile icon and submitted it to the conversation. “I stole something but it wasn’t the computer paper.”
"What was it?”
“Take a guess.”
“I’m at a loss this time Kendra.”
“I stole nanites from a group of thugs, who are lapdogs for a high-tech company.”
“YOU WHAT!”
Jonathan’s response caught Kendra off guard. “What’s wrong?”
“Please tell me you’re not in Seattle.”
“Maybe why? I told you I wanted personal space.”
“Kendra!”
“Ok! I’m in Seattle. What’s the big deal?”’
“That gang you stole from works for the most powerful crook organization in North America! These people are ruthless; they’ll kill anyone who gets in their way, especially anyone who steals from them.”
Kendra rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyways, I got to get going. I just wanted to check up on you to see how you were. You know I rarely hear from you anymore.”
Jonathon inhaled a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry. I miss you.”
“Me too. Well I have to go. Bye.”
Kendra closed the video window. “It’s always good to talk to Jonathan.” She smiled sarcastically and laid the computer on the pillow next to her.
*****
Walter Hayes’s hands went sailing across the faces of what he considered the dumbest employees he’s had so far. The sting of hit was evident on their faces.
“You twit! What do you mean they were stolen?”
The young man, in his twenties, wearing a black leather jacket, and his blond hair in spikes, pierced the two men with his dark brown eyes.
“Who took the nanites?”
“It was a woman. “
“A woman? Well did you see what she looked like?”
“My ocular implant captured a snapshot of her before he got away,” said the young man, wearing an orange undershirt.
“Well at least one of you did something right.”
Walter took a wireless stick and put in a laptop. “Upload the picture and do a search for online programs. When you find her, you should be able to track her using GPS.”
He looked at his watch. “I have business to attend to. Can I trust you two get these done while I’m gone?”
The two young men looked at each other and nodded.
“Good.”
*****
I laid out on the run down couch and let out a big huff. It was just me and my crappy apartment. The stained white walls weren’t the most gorgeous things on the planet but who cared.
I picked up my empty bowl and Chinese rice box. It was still half full, so I put in the fridge for lunch. I reached over to sink, before a huge clank echoed throughout the entire apartment.
My heart jumped and it was speeding, like someone had suddenly pumped a huge dose of steroids into my body. My entire was shaking. I couldn’t stop. I felt a sick feeling in my pit of stomach and went over to the couch, almost tripping on my way there.
What the heck was happening to me? It was two seconds before the harsh truth hit my brain.
The nanites.
I picked up the phone book on the coffee table in front of me and frantically went through the pages. My eyes instantly landed on doctor. Dr. Garcia. I threw on my black jacket, Seattle is so dang cold during the winter, and went out the door.
It was no more than twenty-five minutes later, that I reached a rundown building in an alley full of homeless people and other interesting personalities, let’s just leave it at that.
I knocked on the door three times. It opened. “Can I help you?” The man’s dark eyes were chocolate, matched his hair and skin tone. It made me crave a Hershey bar. I know it sounds random.
I stood there, my body shaking, trying to take control of my speech. “I need help.” Ah, dah, of course, you’re standing in the door way, having a seizure. Come on now.
I went in, walking past wall of file cabinets, and then was led to what looked like an operating table.
“So what’s the problem?”
“I can’t stop dancing, that’s the problem. Seriously though, no more than twenty-five minutes ago, I started having these tremors out of nowhere.”
Dr. Garcia began writing on his clipboard. “Do you have any idea of what may have caused this?”
I hesitated for a couple of seconds. “I stole nanites from a couple of thugs and injected my with one of them. Their brand new, fresh off the market.”
Dr. Garcia lowered his clipboard, his eyes were big. “Were they BETA prototypes?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea. I just assumed they were the real deal.”
“Well they probably are but just early test versions. You could run into some serious complications.”
“Like what?”
Dr. Garcia crossed his arms. “Death. If not treated soon.”
It’s moments like these that you think can’t be real but they are. “So what can I do?”
“I may have something that can fix it. I think we can work something out.”
I nodded my head and smiled. “I see. How much do you want?”
“Two grand.”
Everything stopped for a couple of seconds, which was how long I had to think about it. I shrugged my shoulder. “Okay. You’ll get your two grand. I’ll be by tomorrow.”
Dr. Garcia handed me his business card. “Call me when you’re coming.”
“Will do.”
*****
A puff of smoke blew from my mouth, as I approached a jewelry vendor; I swear it was below eighteen-degrees. I instantly noticed a ruby ring in a glass enclosure. The man examined with slit eyes before continuing to shine a piece of jewelry. My shaking body wasn’t helping the situation either.
“Can I help you?”
I put on a straight face. “Just looking.”
The man frowned. “I hope so.”
A baseball sized rock went clashing into the glass enclosure. Shattered class, spilled on the ground, like water spilling from a tank.
A boy holding a sling shot, nodded in my direction.
“You bratty little twit!”
The man dropped what he was holding, and made a dash towards the boy, chasing him till he both were out of site.
Everything went as planned. I reached down and picked up the ring, even went around and picked the twenty-four karat gold necklace he dropped.
I smiled and tucked the jewelry in my jacket pocket.
*****
The computer paper on the coffee table rang about three times before I picked it up. I realized something. It was when I noticed that it was Jonathan who was calling me.
It was when the video window came up that I realized something was horribly wrong.
“I think we have something of ours.” Kendra instantly recognized the man, as one of the guys she had stolen the nanites from.
“I hate to disappoint you boys but I sold your nanites in exchange for some advanced technology. I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”
“Then I believe you must compensate us. I want two grand.”
I laughed. “Yeah right, what have you been smoking?”
The man called out to someone else. “Bring him over here. Jonathan appeared in on the screen. “Hey Kendra. I guess it’s safe to say that you’re blame for this?”
Oh crap. I hate felling guilty. “You’re right this time. I’m guessing that two grand is for your release?”
“That and the fact, if you don’t pay up, I get shot in the head.”
I nodded and rolled my eyes. “I’ll have the money ready. I assume you’ll be meeting me here?”
“Yep.”
“Good. See you later.”
The window closed.
I couldn’t believe it. Here I was. It was a choice. Cure myself or save Jonathan’s life? I figured that I can always steal something else, and get money for the doctor. I lay out on the couch and sighed. Gee.
*****
I answered the knock at my door; surely enough it was Jonathan and the three men with him. They walked in and took a seat at the couch.
I handed them a black suitcase. Walter counted the cash before nodding in approval. “Very good. I like what I see.” He nodded at one his two assistants. One of them unlocked the handcuffs around Jonathan’s wrist, Jonathan sighed in relief.
“Okay boys, let’s get out of here.”
The doors and I realized a huge grin that formed on Jonathan’s face.
“What did you do?”
Jonathan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a syringe. “You think I didn’t notice something was wrong with you? I overheard a conversation by those three knuckle heads earlier on. They were talking about the side effects, and then something about an antigen.”
He handed the syringe to me.
“You’re the best.” I reached over and gave him a hug.”
“I know.”
I pulled the needle out form my arm and laid it on the table. “I believe I owe a meal tonight. Does Chinese sound good to you?”
“Sounds great. I’m starving.”
I picked up the phone and dialed.
“I guess everything worked out.”
I smiled and nodded slightly. “Yeah, I guess it did.”

Tendeka – 18th July 2017 by BonnieBelle - oops, sorry, my formatting seems to have shifted so that the paragraphs aren't cohesive anymore - hope you can still read it, despite this. Let me know if I should upload it again, and I'll fiddle to see if I can make it into a more reader-friendly format? Otherwise I'm sticking to my one allowed attempt, flawed and all...Bonniebelle

Tendeka – 18th July 2017 by BonnieBelle

The cold fucking Cape rain leaks down the back of my coat as I stand and watch them bury my brother. I’m standing under a Port Jackson bush but still the drizzle finds me through

the leaking branches. Like me, the fucking bush is an alien here too, living on borrowed time.

I cover my cellphone with my left hand as I thrust it out into the rain, tweaking it to jack up the audios. Still, all I manage to get is an ongoing mutter of solemn voices, hard to

distinguish, hard to make any sense from. Three big Corporate Doberman dogs hover on the edge of the clustered group in black, sniffing the air with suspicion, so there’s no way to get

closer in. The funeral group mill around the lumpy fresh-earthed ground and someone says something religious sounding; a chant of noise to me, with no fucking meaning. Their splayed

umbrellas blink ads into the sky – Krunchi-Flakes, Krunchi-Flakes, Krunchi-Flakes…

I lift my cellphone and zoom in through cam-view, catching a glimpse of my father turning away from the grave, face drawn and old. My family gather around him; I see my other two

brothers, my sister and – breathe deeply; careful – mother. Then they are gone behind a screen of moving corporati goons, who have no doubt flown them down from Joburg on the

Company’s spare megabucks earned from the sweat of we the oppressed.

They have no room for me there.

I tread a different road and so, ashamed, my own family have cast me out.

The bitchdogs move off too, pacing restlessly behind as the funeral group heads back into the dry warmth of the Reception Hall, to feed their faces.

They have buried Bongani on Krunchi-Flakes dead-land, not far from where the old white world war heroes lie, here at the heart of Maitland cemetery.

I step towards the gravestone, dropping my collar flat as the dripping stops, the sky still stone-grey. I move past a bouncing grave-stone video-Jesus, stopping to look at my brother’s plain

headstone, above his freshly earth-turned grave.

Bongani Mataboge; 1981-2017; Loving Son, Brother, Father, R&D Deputy-Lead; Krunchi-Flakes Incorporated.

‘R&D’ – I bet they saved a good few rands not spelling out 'Research and Development'. What the fuck were they researching though? The few times I’d seen him this year he’d been

wasted on some fancy corporate-cocktail, barely able to spin a few fucking sentences together. His last words I remember though: Fuckit Ten,” he’d said, sprawling on the billowing massage-

lounger on the stoep of his exec-home in District Six, eyes pinged to the max: “Make something of yourself, hey?”

“Sure, brother,” I promise him. So that means no more fucking drugs for me either.

The dogs begin to bark and I grab some earth to throw pronto on his grave before vamoosing out of there. Goodbye, my older brother…

***
My cell buzzes and I haul it out of my coat pocket with difficulty as we all sway around the bend, the minibus taxi accelerating into Gugs.

It’s a text from Ash, asking me how I am.

‘Safe, bra,’ I text back.

But it’s not time to head home yet. There’s one more thing I need to do.

I hitch the small back-pack deeper into the cleft of my jacketed shoulders, trying not to squash the thin wannabe bitchmodel on one side, the pale male umlungu on the other side - the

white boy is no doubt heading into the townships for some loxion kicks.Or maybe he's already there in Pluslife, getting his kicks dressed in dreads and muscle like me?

Ah - but no one follows me when I get off.

It’s the corner of NY1 and NY111. I cross the road and pull on a full-face balaclava as the rain kicks in again, the sky darkening. Yet another fucking wet Cape winter. A gamchee

screams “Meeechells Plainnn” as another taxi sweeps past, spraying water into the back of my boots.

I don’t care though, because I’m facing another set of headstones.

Only these ones are hollow, with the empty shapes of fleeing bodies carved into them. The Gugulethu Seven, gunned down by apartheid security forces the year of my birth. The police

finished off survivors at point-blank range and then planted their weapons. Very few come here anymore, to pay their tributes.

Today, there’s just me.

The rain pisses down on the seven granite blocks, bouncing off in a faint rainbow spray and I start citing their names in my head. Mandla Mxinwa, Jabulani Miya, Themba…

But the train of my thought is broken by the flash of an ad at the base of the memorial plinth, offering large loans to body-donors; Cadavers Incorporated. Dollar signs scroll along the

metre-wide screen and there’s a little note that some money from the ad will go towards paying cleaning costs for the Memorial.

I don’t give a fuck.

I put the boot in, but the vid-surface is harder than the granite it�