by JT Lawrence
“What’s wrong, Mom?” asks Mally.
Silver is still whining, her long hair tousled, obscuring most of her face.
“Silver!” she shouts, and Silver jumps, finally opens her eyes. Sebongile reaches out to comfort her but Kate holds up a hand to stop her. “Wake up. I have something important to say.”
They sit, bleary-eyed, mouths pouted by sleepiness.
“You are never, and I mean never, never ever allowed to go with a stranger. Do you understand me?”
They both nod.
“We know that rule,” whines Mally.
“But you still went with that woman today!” Kate’s voice has an ugly edge to it.
“She was a nice lady,” says Mally. “She was going to help me find you.”
“Listen very carefully, Mally. Are you listening?”
His whole body sways backwards and forwards with his nodding.
“The rule isn’t that you mustn’t go with strangers who look bad. The rule is you don’t go with anyone you don’t know. Ever.”
“Why?”
“Because some people look very nice on the outside, but they’re not nice inside.”
Silver has fallen back to sleep, and her body lists against the wall.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay Mama.”
“Okay,” says Kate. She bundles him up in her arms and slots him back into the cocoon inside his hammock, claps so that the light switches off again. Sebongile tucks a sleeping Silver in.
“Thank you, Bongi,” she says. “You can go home now.”
“No way I’m going home!” she says. “I’m staying right here.”
By the time Kate kisses Mally’s forehead and squeezes his hand, he’s also drifted off. She nudges the hammock anyway, and it sways him gently in the dark.
Keke is waiting in the lounge for her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Kate says.
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“He went off with that woman today, you know. Willingly. Despite me telling them all the time that they aren’t allowed to do that.”
“I know. I’ve heard you tell them.”
“I’ve drilled it into them! It’s the most important rule!”
“I know,” says Keke.
The real or imagined danger of the twins being kidnapped looms – mostly unspoken – in every exchange between the friends, so much so that Marko has taught the kids how hack self-driving cabs. They can catch a lift from anywhere on their own, without a credit card or an adult dynap code. Seth showed them some self-defence moves, Keke taught them how to scream. Kate’s told them, over and over again, to never go with anyone they don’t know.
“Fuck’s sake,” she says, holding her shaking hand against her forehead.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“There he was, holding her hand, strolling along. She could have killed him!”
“She would have killed him. Or taken him to someone who would.”
“She would have done it herself. I saw it in her eyes.”
“We’ll protect them,” says Keke, pulling Kate towards her in a hug. “Don’t worry.”
Kate breathes in her scent, nutmeg and leather, is comforted by a cloak of familiarity.
“You can’t protect him,” says Solonne from behind them.
The Assessor joins in the conversation. “Of course we can. We’re the top personal security company in the country. You know that,” he says to Solonne, “we guard all the country’s top VIPs. The president, the ministers, even the Luminary.”
“You’re on Lumin’s detail?” asks Keke. “Why would Maistre Lumin need protecting?”
He shrugs. “He’s important. He has opinions. And it’s a dangerous world.”
“Christ on a cracker,” says Keke. “You’re telling me.”
“Why do you say that?” Kate asks the matriarx. “Why do you say that we can’t protect Mally?”
“Because in the Resurrectors’ minds, the only thing that stands between them and the end of the world is your boy.”
“You can’t be serious,” says the Assessor.
“How many of them are there?” she asks the man. “How many Resurrectors?”
“Fifty?” he says. “A hundred. That we know of.”
“An army of a hundred brainwashed religious fundamentalists want your child dead. As far as they’re concerned, they’ve got twenty-four hours to stop the apocalypse. How are you going to protect him?”
“W-we have the guards,” Kate stammers. “At the front door.”
“You have two guards at the front door. Really? You’re really going to be able to sleep tonight because you have two men standing guard and two hundred on their way?”
“I never said anything about sleep,” says Kate. She’s sure she’ll never sleep again.
Chapter 36
A Howl in the Distance
Marko sits in his dim office. All his equipment is off. It’s a novel feeling. If it weren’t for his eyeborg, he’d be completely cut off from the world. He unscrews the lid of his bottle of saline and dispenses a few drops into his eye. He isn’t sure his eye needs it, but it’s something to do. He taps on the desk. Plays an imaginary piano. Maybe he should turn on a light. Or open the curtains. Who knows what’s behind those; they haven’t been moved in years. Maybe a large window, looking out into the wild garden beyond. Maybe a brick wall covered in a lunatic’s scribbles, or a genius’s workings. Maybe a painting worth nothing, or a painting worth everything. He sits still, lost in thought. He doesn’t open the curtains.
Soft footsteps sound at the back of the house. Keke, at last. He’s been missing her these past weeks. They’ve both been so busy. He takes her for granted. Decides to do something nice for her. Take her out to dinner, or something. Maybe they can even go for a walk; she’d like that. It would be good for him too. Some natural light, some exercise. It feels to him, with all his machines off, that he is kind of waking up. He blinks into the darkness, resists the urge to turn on his Lens. His finger hovers over the switch on his old SnapTile. More footsteps. Why hasn’t she come in yet?
“Keke?” Marko angles backward on his chair. “I’m in here!”
It is a stupid thing to say, really, because where else would he be? Maybe he should stand for a change, and go and greet her. That would be nice, instead of just sitting here and mumbling at her with donut-dusted lips when she comes in.
“Kex?” He gets up, then stays frozen in the middle of the room. He can hear himself breathing. It seems quicker than usual. Marko imagines the hackspider in his head, tangling his brains, poised to sink its teeth into his brain. He tries to calm himself. Wipes the sweat from his upper lip. There’s no way they’ve found him. His TCX trail leads to eighty-three different locations all over the world before coming back here. Even if they had the means to find him, it would take weeks.
Surely it would take weeks?
There’s movement at the entrance to the room. He squints into the low light. The next sound he hears sends him into a cold sweat. Unmistakable, that sound, and immediately familiar to any gamer worth his salt. A sword being unsheathed.
He dives under his desk. He has nothing with which to defend himself. He closes his eyes and says a silent prayer to Hedy Lamarr, then taps his 911 button, which auto-selects ‘POLICE’ and ‘AMBUDRONE’. His Lens sends his details and location to the relevant departments. His blood pressure spikes, sending his Patch into worried chirrupping. It’s outwardly silent, but it deafens him to the intruder’s movements. He tries to mute the function, but the default setting for health alerts means it can’t be silenced. The warning beeps get louder as his heart races. He rips off his Patch, taking some scalp with it, and swallows his exclamation of pain. Finally free of the pinging, he locates the housebreaker, who is prowling around the room. Marko holds his breath as the black boots walk right past his face. What are the chances that he didn’t hear Marko call out, like an idiot, when he first broke in? What are the chances h
e’ll just have a look around and not notice Marko under the desk? His heart is banging madly. It’s so loud he imagines it filling the room with its galloping. How can the man not hear it? But then the boots reach the other side of the room, and turn towards him. He can see the silhouette, a body and a handsome sword, hanging casually by its side, but can’t make out a face. The body isn’t especially muscle-bound; he’s not a brawny thug. Small, athletic. Whoever sent someone to knock him off didn’t send their biggest killer.
And then it makes sense: the man is petite because he’s Thai. The Thai mafia have tracked him down.
Oh shit oh shit oh fuck-me shit.
Marko fantasises about springing up, knocking the table over and using it as a shield while he pumps the trespasser full of lead from imaginary automatic weapons in either hand. He fantasises about sweeping the assassin off his feet with a well-timed ninja kick, then karate-chopping him till he loses consciousness. A light sabre –
The boots start walking towards him. His blood pressure is so high he thinks he’ll pass out. At least it will be a peaceful way to go. Instead of … What? Instead of what this person has in store for him. Where are the cops? Are they at least on their way? He has no way of knowing. The boots come closer and closer. Marko holds his breath. It’s not the way he pictured himself dying. He hopes there’s not too much pain.
The prowler stands before his desk now. The sword is held with more purpose. Marko wishes he has time to tap out a quick bump to Keke, telling her that he loves her. That he loved her.
The silhouette lifts a leg and kicks over the desk, sending Marko’s machines flying, and exposing him lying on the floor: a tortoise without a shell. Fear jams his eyes shut.
A howl in the distance. Police sirens. They’ll be minutes too late. Marko pictures Keke in his mind. This is the last thing he wants to see. But his eyes won’t stay closed; his panic forces them open like matchsticks.
A sword is lifted in slow motion and aimed at his chest. He looks straight into his murderer’s eyes, and is surprised by what he sees. It’s not a Thai, and it’s not a man.
Chapter 37
Like Dominoes They Fall
Kate turns on Solonne. “I don’t understand why you’re here.”
“I came to warn you, and to offer help,” she says. “We have a prophecy of our own.”
“What’s that?” says Keke.
“It’s not for civilians to know, but suffice to say we need your son to live.”
Civilians? Kate has had enough crazy for one day. “Look, I don’t know what you’re up to. I don’t know what your endgame is, but I want you to leave Mally out of it.”
“You don’t understand,” says Solonne. “We can’t.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
She looks surprised. “The SurroTribe, of course.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“Wait,” she says. “Please. You need to hear what I have to say.”
“If you can’t tell me what you need my son for, then I’m not interested.”
“It’s…complicated.”
“Then un-complicate it for us,” says Keke.
“Let us help you,” says Solonne. “Let us look after Mally.”
“What do you mean? Look after him?”
“Let him come and stay with us, at the compound.”
“No!” says Kate. “No way. Are you insane? After what happened today?”
“Because of what happened today! He’ll be safer with us than anywhere else. It’s the reason I’m here.”
“There is no way I’m letting him out of my sight. And you’re mad for thinking I would.”
The matriarx is getting frustrated. She tries to not show it but her eyes are jumpy. “Don’t you see? It’s the best way to protect him!”
The Assessor chirps in again: “It’s a good idea, Miss Lovell. They wouldn’t look for him there.”
Solonne takes a calming breath. “It’s the only way to keep him safe. To keep you all safe.”
Kate’s mind is a tumbling mass of broken boxes: half-formed ideas and fears and stories without endings. How is she supposed to think with all of this going on inside her head? The Assessor and Solonne look at her expectantly.
I can’t, she wants to say. We can’t be separated. But the alternative is unthinkable.
“If you can’t tell me why you need him alive,” she says to Solonne, “then he’s not coming with you.”
Kate thinks of Betty/Barbara, the beagle’s namesake and previous owner. The first and only time Kate met her, in a dark parking basement, B/B warned her about people wanting them dead. Click, click, click, she had said, clicking her fingers in Kate’s ear. Like dominoes they fall. Betty/Barbara had also been a couple of straws short of a haystack, but she had been right. Kate and Seth would both be dead without her.
Keke’s face suddenly knits together, her skin tints.
“What is it?” asks Kate. “Keke?”
Keke puts her fingertips on her Soulm8 ring. Feels it. Looks more worried, takes it off, shakes it next to her ear, puts it back on again.
“What?” demands Kate.
Keke looks as though she’s just seen a ghost.
“It’s Marko,” she says. Dry lips. “His heart just stopped.”
Chapter 38
Empty of a Heartbeat
Keke grabs her bag and shakes on her jacket while Kate auto-inflates her helmet for her, trembling in empathy.
“Where are you going?”
Keke checks her SnapTile. A bump from Marko’s medical aid to her as his ICE number: a notification that he is being medevac-ed to The Gordhan in ChinaCity/Sandton.
“They sent a defib-drone to our place but it wasn’t activated.” Nerves pull at her lips. “He’s on his way to hospital,” she says, “that’s a good sign, right?”
“Yes?” Kate gulps. “Did they say what happened?”
Keke doesn’t answer. Perhaps her nerves are jangling so loud she can’t hear anything else. She feels the ring again, closes her eyes to concentrate, but it’s empty of a heartbeat.
“You shouldn’t take Nina,” says Kate. “You’re in shock. Take a cab.”
Keke grabs the helmet from Kate’s hand.
“I know you need me,” Keke says. “I’ll be back.”
Keke rides her motorbike hard through the dark and glittering city streets. More than one self-driving cab pulls to the side of the road when it registers her speed. Nina scolds her for speeding via her helmet speaker, and then again when she skips a red light just outside the hospital.
“That was a red light,” says the electronic voice. “You should stop at red lights.”
Keke races into the boomed area, parks right next to the accident and emergency entrance. Runs up to the counter where a bored-looking resident snaps to attention. She shows him the bump she received from Marko’s health plan company and he taps a few keys on a fossil of a keyboard. It’s cream-coloured, has actual keys grubby with fingerprints, and makes crunching sounds as he types.
The Gordhan is the best hospital in Africa. It’s not one of those quiet five-star boutique medical centres that has only the latest equipment. Instead, it’s a bustling medical metropolis: a wide spectrum of patients and top doctors. Surgeons from all over the world come to teach and practise here; the experience looks good on their portfolios. While it’s semi-privatised and well-funded by the Nancies through the NHP, there always seems to be more investment needed, as evidenced by the crunching keyboard.
“He’s just come through, from the drone pad,” the man says, pointing upstairs. He has a Nigerian accent. “Going straight into surgery.”
Keke doesn’t wait for him to finish. She ignores the gaping mouth of the elevator, runs up the stairs instead.
“You can’t go up there!” he shouts after her, but stays behind the counter.
When she reaches the top her lungs burn. She’s stopped by a barrage of patients coming in via air. The flapping rubber doors leading in from
the drone pad on the roof is like an old dinosaur mouth vomiting out gurney after gurney into the hallways, pushed by shouting medics holding IV bags and adrenaline shots.
Knife-wound! Overdose! Gunshot trauma! Skull fracture!
Has there been some kind of attack, again?
“What’s happened?” Keke asks one of the medics, still breathless. She can hear the traffic outside. Chopping and whirring and yelping sirens.
He frowns at her. “What do you mean?”
“Has there been another attack?”
“What?”
“A terrorist attack?”
He shakes his head. “Just another Saturday night.”
He pushes past her, followed by another rattling bed, and another, and another. Warm air streams in from the black night outside, diluting the smell of antiseptic. How is this not making headlines? It’s like a war zone. Thank The Net for robot surgeons. Humans would never be able to keep up with this intake. She’ll come back for the story next time.
Her ring pulses. Hope punches her in the chest. She waits for the next vibration, and just before she gives up, it pulses again. She runs towards the east wing. A number of staff members half-heartedly try to stop her as she runs past them, but they’re either too busy or too indifferent to take chase. Or maybe they just see the look on Keke’s face, and know that there would be no stopping her.
She reaches the double doors of OR1, looks in, sees an old man having his leg worked on by a machine that looks like a titanium building crane. OR2 and OR3 don’t have Marko either. Eventually, in OR6, Keke recognises the limp body on the operating table.
“Marko!” she shouts, her lungs still blazing, but no one hears her. Seeing him lying like that, a dead weight on a slab, almost doubles her over. He has human doctors attending to him. They’re covered head-to-toe in surgery scrubs as they lean over him, their hands inside his chest cavity. She tries to make out what they’re saying. The door filters it into dull monotone, but their body language spells out despair.