by JT Lawrence
She stops on Channe! Woke. Usually the programming is so crunchy it’s practically granola: how to grow your own hydroponic organic sprouts from empty eggshells, how to make sun tea, ten different ways to compost — that kind of thing. But Maistre Lumin is on, and the show is called IN THE HOT SEAT so she puts down the remote and starts eating pretzel stix again.
“Maistre Lumin,” says the interviewer. “With all due respect — ”
Kate immediately sides with Lumin. She hates it when people use the phrase ‘with all due respect’. A person who says ‘with all due respect’ inevitably says something offensive, so why the fraudulent warning?
“You can’t honestly tell me that you think we shouldn’t make use of the technology we have to stamp out diseases like cancer.”
Lumin, as ever, is serene and cheerful. He’s known as the white Xhosa-speaking spiritual sweetheart of South Africa and lives up to his reputation as being perennially unruffled. Kate’s not interested in his spiritual shit, but she loves watching his gardening programme. She misses the urban jungle she used to have in her old flat in Illovo and watching Lumin double-dig and compost and prune is balm for her weary soul. The drought seems to have killed most of the country’s roses, but Lumin designed his own water harvesters and has the lushest garden on the continent. He’s always banging on about permaculture and how everyone should be growing something edible, even if it’s just a pot of catnip on your windowsill. He’s especially good with roses, and he has more than six hundred varietals in his elaborate rose maze at the Luminary. He has hounds and geese and rabbits and these golden secateurs that are his trademark in the celebrity gardening circuit; he says in every show how important it is to keep them super sharp. But this isn’t his gardening show. It’s some kind of debate with a man in a suit and bespoke tie. God, how Kate hates the bespoke tie fashion. Especially when those damn yuccies dye their beards to match.
The man continues, “We’ve managed to get rid of malaria, zika, lyme disease and HIV. We’ve decimated Rift Valley fever. Why do you think we should stop at cancer? We’ve been trying to find this cure for hundreds of years, and now that we have it, you don’t want us to use it?”
Lumin smiles at the debater. “I have no problem with cures. I am happy about the cures.”
“Forgive me, Maistre, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“A vaccine that prevents the disease in the first place is excellent,” Lumin says. “A cure is almost as good. But this gene drive tech is not that. Cancer crisping is a different thing, entirely.”
“The chairman of the Bioethics Committee has expressed his support for the technology.”
“Of course he has.” His eyes twinkle.
Kate straightens her back and turns up the volume.
“Would you like to elaborate on that?”
There is a moment of hesitation. “No.” Lumin laughs.
The host isn’t sure what to say. He fingers his awful tie. “Please, help me to understand.”
Lumin claps his hands in front of his chest. “It’s as complicated and as simple as this: Gene drive technology is interfering with God’s work.”
Okay, you’ve just lost me there. Kate likes the man, but to bring a topic as old and dead as religion into this debate seems nonsensical. Besides, crisping has been around for a decade already. You could go to an underground black clinic and get your DNA segments hijacked for various outcomes.
“When you take human genes,” says Lumin, sketching an invisible double-helix in the air with his strong hands, “and you edit out a small part of it — ” He plucks out the imaginary piece. “That part is gone forever. Every subsequent generation will be missing that part. You can never put it back. You can never put it back. Do you understand the ramifications of that?”
The man hesitates, then gives a half-shrug. “No.”
“Exactly,” says Lumin, his eyes alight. “Nor do I! And that is my point. No one does.”
“Then I assume that you are not a fan of AI.” He smiles at the camera. It’s kind of a joke. He’s trying to lighten up the interview. There is a moment of silence.
“I beg your pardon?” says Lumin.
The host chuckles awkwardly. “I just meant… You’re obviously not a fan of skinbots. Humanoids. Anthrobots.”
Despite the man’s obvious attempt at humour, Lumin’s eye-sparkle falters for a moment. Then he zips on a matching fake smile, slaps the tops of his thighs, and chuckles.
“Well! That’s a conversation for another day!”
Chapter 10
The Lost Art of Swimming
The Cape Republic, 2024
The self-driving taxi drops Seth off at the entrance to Nautilus.
“Thanks, Cabbie,” he says, climbing out and closing the door after him. A ping in his Patch-ear lets him know that he’s been billed for the ride. He’d love a coffee before the meeting, but he doesn’t have time. He taps out some Snaffeine on his knuckle and snorts it instead. He can almost feel his pupils contracting.
Seth walks to the jetty at the water’s edge where he spends a minute admiring the vast ocean. Was it the Atlantic, or the Indian? He can never remember. He’s a city dweller, and the Cape Republic had never been more than a holiday destination to him. Or at least, the idea of someone else’s holiday destination. Seth doesn’t take holidays, and he hates beaches. He doesn’t see the appeal of a day out to garner skin cancer. He finds the sand irritating, the water unpredictable. The snakewatch and locket footage of the Indo tsunami of 2022 was surely enough to put off even the most intrepid beach-goer. With all the weather tech that’s available, you’d think the experts would have been able predict a wave gigantic enough to wash away entire islands and kill twenty-two thousand people. By the time the warning bumps were sent out, it was too late. There was nowhere to go. What were the Indonesian weather technicians doing? Playing Pachydon, perhaps, or watching the pirates that always hovered on their horizon.
The memory of the disaster unsettles him. He doesn’t mind the idea of dying too much, but the kids are another story. They’re small. They can’t swim – who can, nowadays? There’s something sad about that. The lost art of swimming. What bothers Seth is the idea of the helplessness he would feel with that wave coming, blasting everything in its path, when he has the twins with him. It’s impossible to swim, holding a child. And even if he could, he’d have to choose one over the other.
This water is cold. You can tell by the surfers who are wearing their full climasuits. Cold water means hypothermia and Great Whites. The suits and smart surfboards repel the sharks now, but that is no reason to venture in.
Seagulls flap and cry above him. The air tastes like salt.
The Whale Coast, they call this strip. He thinks of Kate and the sad whale. 52Hz: No other whale can hear his frequency. For all he knows he’s all alone in the deep dark sea.
Does everything always have to lead back to Kate? Is that what being a twin is about? Being trussed to another person for life just because you’re almost identical, genetically-speaking? Usually their connection makes him feel secure; less alone in a lonely life. Fills up the space, as Kate likes to say, where his heart should be.
“Mister Denicker,” says a clipped British voice behind him. Female and as smart as the Union Jack.
Seth turns around, and an astonishingly attractive woman smiles at him. Clear skin and eyes; her hair is a hundred shades of blue. He wonders if she is the kind of mermaid that lures sailors to their deaths. She’s wearing a tailored lab coat with barnacles for studs, and a silver charm – a seahorse with an extravagant tail – around her neck. Seapunk.
“I’m so glad you could make it. Thank you for coming. I’m Arronax.” Her accent is as sexy as hell.
“I’m still not exactly sure – ” he starts, but she puts her hand on his arm and leads him towards the access path. Nautilus has, in the past, proven impossible to investigate. The hacktivist Truther organisation he used to belong to tried for years to infiltrate
the place, but without an invitation from the head of the corp it was clear that no one was getting in.
“The entrance is this way,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll find the work very exciting.”
Chapter 11
Escape
The jurors are led out of the main court house and into the adjoining admin building. It’s time to examine the proof. The suit sticks close to Keke: a self-appointed companion, an undercover bodyguard. Keke doesn’t dislike it.
They are briefed on what to expect from the virtual reality evidence experience then, one by one, they’re called by their numbers to go through to the Immersion Room. Some jurors opt out of the experience. It will no doubt be traumatic and barbed with triggers. She is called last, and the administrator hands Keke a pair of visigogs which she puts on. They ping as they sync with her Patch. The administrator vanishes and she finds herself transported back in time: standing in a family bathroom while a toddler pours grey soapy water from one jug to another. He has hazelnut hair, matching eyes. He’s talking to himself and playing so sweetly that Keke can’t imagine him being disobedient. There’s a large mirror on the wall, but when Keke looks at it, her reflection is not there.
She can smell cooking, hear the hiss of frying next door. When she pops her head around the door she sees Lundy standing at the stove, humming to the neoclassical music and shaking a wok of sizzling vegetables. The instakettle tweets. As Keke steps back into the bathroom, the boy is trying to climb out. He has one foot on the lip of the bath and a jug in each hand, so when he slips, he can’t grasp onto anything to break his fall, and he bangs his head on the way down, toppling face-forward and unconscious into the shallow water. The sounds from the kitchen mask the sound of his tumble. His last breath bubbles up in the murky water, and his small body is still. Keke knows it’s a simulation, but she steps forward to save him, anyway. When she reaches to pull him out of the water her hand just disappears. She tries again and the same thing happens.
There is a buzzing and the bathroom vanishes, as if she has messed up her part and someone has yelled ‘cut!’. She pulls off the goggles. The administrator comes back into sight.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m sorry,” says Keke. “I know it’s not real, but — ”
She feels off-balance.
“Just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean it’s not real,” says the man, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. She can tell he’s a complete VXR-head. Perfect person for the job.
“I know I’m not supposed to…participate,” she says.
“It’s not a problem. Homocide first-timers always try to save the vic. It would be weird if you didn’t.”
She looks around at the blank room.
“Only one juror today didn’t try to save the boy. Suffice to say, I wouldn’t want to be stuck with him in a dark alley, if you know what I mean.”
Keke’s mouth is dry.
“You can still opt out,” he says, “if it’s too much for you.”
“No. I’m fine. I’m ready to go back in.” She puts her gogs back on.
“The next scenario is a lot more disturbing,” he says. “You don’t have to do it.”
Keke takes a breath. “I’ll do it.”
Once again, Keke is in the bathroom. The toddler is in his own world, splashing and chirupping to himself. Again, she looks in the mirror which is empty of her reflection. She smells and hears the cooking. But this time, when she looks around the corner, Lundy throws down his utensil and storms right towards her, his face red with rage. He walks right through her and stops on the wet bathmat.
“Damn it, Justin,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’ve told you five times already to get out of the bath!”
The boy, startled, looks up at him, drops his jugs in fright.
“Look at all this water on the floor! You know you’re not supposed to wet the floor!”
“Sorry, Daddy,” says the pale-lipped boy. He starts to get up, but Lundy smacks him hard across the face. The boy spins, falls, and the father stalks out, not seeing the boy hit his head on the top of the bath and end up in the water. Lundy switches off the stove and slumps at the kitchen table. Puts his face in his hands, tries to gather himself. Talks himself down from his fury; he spends a minute cooling down while his son drowns in the next room.
“Escape,” says Keke, and the simulscene disappears.
Admin is there, in his empty room. “You okay?”
Keke nods.
“So those were the two scenarios. You get to decide which you think is true, or more true, anyway, than the other.”
She nods again.
“Now you’ll go back one more time, but to the empty house, post event. The crime scene. You get to poke around.”
“Okay,” says Keke.
“You’ll see some transparent icons on the side of your vision. If you want to listen to any of the testimony again, just tap in.”
With a ping, Keke is back at the house. This is how it looked when the police arrived. Dinner still on the stove, congealed and long cold. Four fingers of water still in the bath. A puddle on the floor. Keke walks around, not sure what to look for. The victim’s pyjamas — RoboDog — sit neatly on a chair, never again to be filled with a small boy’s just-bathed body.
“Shit,” she says under her breath. “Shit.” She’ll never, ever get that image out of her head.
Keke goes back to the bathroom. How is she supposed to know which scenario holds more truth? She taps on the icons and they zoom into a window on her main visual: clips of the testimony, still pictures, objects of interest.
She taps on video clips and listens to Lundy’s wife, sobbing at the stand.
“He would never, he would never,” she’s saying, overwrought with emotion.
She clicks on the nanny, Mirriam Maila, who has maintained throughout the trial that Lundy was nothing but a dedicated and loving father to his son. When asked about his temper, she seems surprised. Raises her eyebrows at the camera, shows us her generous brown eyes: “I’ve never seen him angry. Not even once.”
There are hours and hours of Lundy’s testimony. Keke scrolls through to the most recent clips.
“Let us talk for a moment about negligence,” says the prosecutor.
“Negligence?” says Lundy.
“The fact that you left your child in the bath on his own.”
“He’s almost four years old,” says Lundy. “I was cooking dinner.”
“The WHCP recommends you supervise bathing children at all times. Children under seven.”
“I know, but — ”
“Justin was a toddler.”
“It was so shallow, it was safe — ”
“And yet he drowned,” says the prosecutor. She’s off-camera. Keke still imagines her as a crow.
“It was a freak accident,” says Lundy. “Never in a million years would I — ”
“Ah,” she says. “So you admit that the chances of a child slipping and drowning in ten centimetres of water is extremely unlikely.”
“Well — ”
“So, basically, the scenario proposed by your defence attorney is virtually impossible.”
Lundy stutters an unintelligible reply.
Keke scrubs through the next fifteen minutes.
“If it pleases the court, the prosecutor would like to admit the following document into evidence.”
The judges nod, call the crow up to the bench. An icon pulsates — a document — so Keke taps it and it opens in a new leaf adjacent to the video clip. It’s a hospital record. She swipes through it. Pictures of bruises, stitched-up skin and an arm in plaster.
“2022. A dislocated collarbone. 2023. A fractured wrist. Lacerated forehead. 2024: twenty-fourth of January — just a few months ago — a broken arm, two fractured ribs, and a contusion to the head.”
“I know how it looks, but he was an energetic boy. He was always in the wars.”
“He only seemed to be ‘in the wars’ when he was
under your care.”
“I didn’t wrap him up in cottonwool. I didn’t coddle him. Although, now — ” His voice breaks.
“Cottonwool is one thing. But a broken arm? Ribs?”
Lundy clears his throat, tries to pull himself together. “He fell off the roof.”
“He fell off the roof?”
“His bedroom is upstairs. The attic. I don’t know how he got out of that window.”
“Ah. Another freak accident.”
“It was burglar-proofed, for Net’s sake.”
Lundy’s lawyer rises. “Objection. Relevance, your Honours?”
“Mister Lundy is clearly a negligent parent!”
“Mister Lundy is not on trial for negligence.”
“The hospital record goes to prove that the man is not the careful, loving father that he or his wife makes him out to be.” The pitch of the crow’s caw rises. “In addition, he has admitted that he has a temper, and that the scenario set out by his defence team is implausible.”
Keke scrolls to the end and closes the clip. Opens the nanny’s testimony again.
“I’ve never seen him angry,” Mirriam says. Keke thinks she’s telling the truth.
“I would’ve heard him if he was shouting,” she says. “It was my night off, but I was right next door.”
This clip isn’t from the courtroom. It’s inside the Lundy home. The lounge, the night of the incident.
“You’re a live-in nanny, correct?” asks the off-camera investigator.
“Yes. My room is right there,” she says, gesturing. She keeps rubbing her wrist. A nervous tic. “There was no shouting. Not until he found — ” Tears cut off her sentence. She holds the back of her hand to her nose.
“Excuse me!” she cries. “I just need a minute.” She gets up off the couch, and the camera cuts. According to the timestamp, she’s back a few moments later, eyes swollen. She has a box of tissues.