by JT Lawrence
It’s a mistake.
The stranger grabs her from behind. Two hot hands: one on her stomach, one on her throat. She screams and tries to dislodge his grip on her. One of his hands goes to her mouth to stop the sound from coming out.
“Ssh,” he says. “Keep quiet, or they’ll hear you.”
Kate cries and thrashes, trying to get him off her.
“Kitty, shush,” he says again. There is a sprinkle of turmeric in the air. Her hand goes up to the one covering her mouth. She wants to dislodge it, wants to shout for help. The skin on the attacker’s hand is smooth to the touch – too smooth – shiny and marbled. It’s been burnt. She recoils and gags. It only has four fingers.
Kate wakes up screaming, her hands at her throat. There are stars in her vision and her white cotton sheets are wet with perspiration. In her pitch black room, she fumbles for the Sunrise switch and smacks it hard. The curtains sway open and pretty pink and yellow light hits the walls. Birds flutter and tweet on the sound system.
It’s okay, she tells herself. It’s okay. You’re okay. It was just a dream.
The block-out blinds are still in place. The artificial dawn is cool and gentle, not like a real South African sunrise that has you sweating by 8AM. With these floor-to-ceiling windows, if she opened the block-out the room would be bleached and baking in seconds. She tries to slow her speeding pulse; tries to even her breath. It takes her a full minute to adjust properly to her reality. She’s home. She’s safe. The kids are safe.
Are the kids safe?
“Mally?” she calls. Without waiting for an answer she jumps out of bed. She needs to see the twins. Touch their sleep-scented skin. Hug their little bodies. Kate needs to feel the realness of their warm bodies to ground her spinning mind. “Silver?”
A note on the kitchen table stops her from going to their room. It’s in Sebongile’s handwriting, saying that she’s taken the kids to school. Kate didn’t even know that it was a school day. It means that the nanny woke, fed and dressed the twins and walked them to school all before Kate had even woken up. She had also cleaned the place. The apartment was spotless apart from some half-eaten apples, and cereal bowls on the table.
It’s eerily quiet. Kate taps the countertop, unsure of what to do. She pushes the memory of the nightmare away and thinks of the children. They’d be home in a few hours and everything would be fine. Goosebumps needle up her spine, making her whole body shudder. She blames it on her damp pyjamas making her cold, pulls them off, and gets into the shower.
Chapter 7
Popgrains and Sex
Marko is in his man cave. That’s what Keke calls it, anyway. It’s his hoffice, his happy place, the room in which he keeps all his electronics. It’s dim, apart from various LEDs and alphalights blinking. The cinewall, while state of the art, remains largely mute, apart from a weekly Hedy Lamarr film they watch together. The room always smells of popgrains and sex the day after.
He never thought he’d move out of his mother’s house, where he had the whole basement to himself and authentic Indian food on demand, but then his mom decided to travel through India, and, well, Keke is a uniquely persuasive woman. Just last night she was persuading him of the benefits of a walking desk. He knows he’s sitting too much, eating too many stevia-laced kronuts. None of his favourite shirts fit him anymore. His fan-shirts look like crop tops on him. He’d turfed his Talking Tees years ago, when the fad had ended, and now he wishes he hadn’t. He’s sure at least some of them would fit him now. He hates the idea of a walking desk. He helps himself to a NutNut cookie. He can always order more shirts online. Bigger shirts. It will be nice to have something new.
Marko spins around on his chair, dusts buttery crumbs off his fingers. Keke’s heart is beating, slow and steady, through his Soulm8 Ring, and it reassures him. Whenever he feels a stab of anxiety, he closes his eyes and concentrates on her real-time pulse. Eventually he drags his attention away from the image of Keke’s heart beating under her beautiful chest, and gets back to work. More than twenty leaves are open in front of him. He checks his international bank account and is pleased with what he sees. Last month he’d designed a hack to beat an online casino in Thailand. It was just a trickle of Baht, but a trickle is all he needs. A trickle stays under the radar and pays his modest bills. It’s the greedy bank-gamers and clickjackers who get caught. His low-grade ambition serves him well. Still, he can’t become complacent. He’ll shut it down soon, before they are any the wiser.
Marko wheels himself away from the desk and all the leaves wink out, leaving the room considerably darker. He’ll need a new strategy for the next stream of income, but not the same-old – not just anything. This time he wants to try something more exciting.
Chapter 8
The Cheerful Psychopath
It’s the second day of the accused, Mack Lundy, being up on the stand. Every part of him looks worn out and weary, as if he’s aged a decade during the past few weeks, as if his will to live has been siphoned out of him. Everything about him is grey. Keke can’t look away.
Lundy has been asked over and over again about the events of the night his young son died. The prosecutor is trying to catch him out.
“It’s not going to change.” Lundy rubs his face. Maybe he thinks that if he rubs hard enough he can erase himself altogether.
“What’s not going to change?” The prosecutor has beady eyes and a sharp nose. She’s like a crow: peck, peck, pecking at his testimony.
“What happened that night,” says Lundy. “It’s not going to change what happened that night.”
“You mean your version of what happened that night,” says the crow.
“It’s the truth.”
The prosecutor looks up at the three judges. “Your Honours, will you please instruct the accused to answer the question?”
The junior judge is about to talk when the head judge interjects.
“It would please the court,” says the old man in a gentle Greek accent, “if you would answer the question.”
“Chief Justice,” complains Rabinowitz, Lundy’s lawyer. “My client has given his version of events over and over again. Can we please move on for the sake of everyone in the house?”
Rabinowitz gives the jury a look that says ‘Am I right?’ Some subtle nodding happens around Keke. It’s a good tactic to win favour with the audience and get Lundy off the stand. Two birds with one stone. The crow narrows her little black eyes at the defence attorney, and he keeps his face neutral. Are they sleeping together?
“Your Honour?”
“Mister Lundy, please answer the question.”
The man sighs, takes a moment to gather himself. “Justin – ” His lips pull momentarily to the side. A sad tic. Just saying his dead son’s name is almost too much to bear. You can’t fake that, can you?
Lundy swallows hard. “Justin was watching something on the homescreen when – ”
“What was he watching?”
“Does it matter?” asks Rabinowitz.
“Details matter,” counters the prosecutor.
Rabinowitz gives her a subtle nod and motions for Lundy to answer the question.
“It was that dog programme. That robotic dog.”
“RoboPup?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“I was cooking. I told him to get into the bath.”
“What were you cooking?”
“Excuse me?” says Lundy.
“Relevance, your Honour?” says Rabinowitz.
“If you could stop interjecting,” says the prosecutor, looking at the jury, “this won’t go on longer than it needs to.”
It’s almost time to break for lunch. Everyone is hangry. No one wants this testimony to go on for a minute longer than it has to.
“It was stir-fry.” Lundy seems puzzled by his own answer. It’s probably because he can’t imagine his previous life being so mundane, so simple. His main concern that night was probably getting dinner on the table and his son bathed and in his py
jamasuit before his wife came home. Now he’s facing losing everything and spending a lifetime in the Crim Colony. He wilts in his chair. His lawyer gets his attention and signs something to Lundy. Something to wake him up.
All of a sudden he shifts gear, sits up straight. Blinks to clear his eyes. This is his last chance to convince the court that he’s innocent. He swallows hard.
“Asian-style stir-fry, with water chestnuts,” he says. “Butternut noodles. I even had those edible chopstix, you know. I thought Justin would think it was fun.”
This is a glimpse of what Lundy was like before he lost his son: happy, hopeful. His wife holds a trembling, crumpled tissue to her eyes.
“I had to nag him to get into the bath. He loves that show.”
The court is absolutely silent.
“Loved,” says Lundy, clearing his throat. “He loved that show.”
“Did you get angry with him?” asks the prosecutor.
“Angry? No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t sound certain.”
“I wasn’t angry with him.”
“But he wasn’t listening to you.”
“Ja, but…”
“But?”
“Small kids are like that, you know.”
“Like what?”
“You have to ask them a few times to do something. They’re not robots.”
“How many times did you have to ask him?”
“How many times? I don’t know. Sometimes it’s three times, sometimes it’s ten.”
“But that night. How many times?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“If you had to give an answer.”
“I don’t know. Five times? Six?”
“So he was being disobedient.”
“Not disobedient. Not really.”
“He wasn’t listening to you. And you got angry.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Do you have a temper, Mister Lundy?”
Lundy falters. He looks down. The answer is clear.
“Do you have a temper?” the prosecutor asks again.
“I…”
All three judges are looking at Lundy.
“Your Honour, will you please instruct the accused to – ”
Lundy whispers something into his chest.
“Could you please repeat that?” says the crow.
“I have a temper.”
“Louder, please?”
“I have a temper,” he says.
The audience murmurs.
The prosecutor is filled with a new resolve. She strides across the room to address Lundy. “On the night of the fifteenth of August you lost your temper, didn’t you?”
“Objection,” says Rabinowitz.
“No,” says Lundy, shaking his head, “No, I didn’t.”
“You got angry and you slammed your child’s head against the lip of the bath.”
“Objection!” shouts Lundy’s lawyer.
People gasp at the idea, as if this is the first time they’ve heard it.
“The blow was enough to knock him out, and you left him to drown, face-down, in the water.”
There is an uproar. Emotion propels onlookers from their benches, shock bleaches others’ cheeks. Both lawyers shout over each other and all three judges bang their gavels for silence.
“I didn’t,” Lundy says, wilting again, and weeping. “I didn’t. I would never.”
“So?” says Keke. “Did he do it?”
She looks out onto the cityscape and takes a huge bite of her shamwich. Lab-fab ham and cashewmilk cheddar.
“How’s your fake ham?” the suit asks.
His skin looks really good in the early afternoon light. Good lips, too.
“You’re avoiding the question,” she says. “And it’s not ‘fake’. It’s lab-fab.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Laboratory-fabricated meat has the identical chemical makeup of biological meat. It’s not like it’s…counterfeit,” says Keke. “Molecule for molecule, it’s exactly the same thing.”
“But it’s not, is it?”
“Not for the pig.”
He laughs then covers his mouth, as if the joke has caught him off-guard. “Anyway. I’d rather be vegan than eat that modified shit.”
“This is vegan,” says Keke. “Kind of.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Cute.”
“What’s cute?”
“You. In your fifty-thousand rand suit. With principles and everything.”
“You think I can’t have principles just because I dress well?”
“I never said you dress well. I said you’re wearing a fifty-thousand rand suit.”
Keke sits back, puts her lace-up, knee-high boots on the seat of an empty chair, chugs half a bottle of coconut water then holds it to her chest. “Do you think he’s guilty?”
“Lundy?”
“Who else?”
“I don’t think the boy’s death was an accident.”
“Really? I’ve been thinking this whole time that he’s innocent.”
“That’s exactly what he wants you to think. What his lawyer wants you to think. Lundy’s a psychopath, and not in a good way.”
“You get psychopaths…in a good way?”
“You know. World leaders. CEOs. Olympians.”
“What makes them good?”
“Focus. Drive. Commitment. And that they don’t kill anyone.”
“He doesn’t seem like a psycho.”
“They never do.”
“Well, some of them do.”
“Which ones?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “The cheerful ones.”
The man laughs. “The cheerful psychopath. That does sound ominous.”
“Who are you?” asks Keke. “What’s your name? Why the snappy suit? What are you doing here?”
“You’d make a good lawyer.” He folds his ricepaper plate in on itself then rubs his fingerprints off the table top with his serviette.
“So would you. You’re really good at avoiding questions.”
Chapter 9
Gram by Gram
Kate should be doing the laundry, or at the very least, switching on the hoover bot. Even clearing the breakfast plates would be a good start, but she doesn’t have the energy. Since she’s become a mom and stopped taking photo assignments, she’s been at home, but she’s resisted the slow suck of domestic duties. Kate is sure that if you hung enough washing or mopped enough floors, the job of housekeeping would vacuum out your brain entirely.
Of course, what she’s doing now is on the same scale of zombie activity. Every muscle is at rest, apart from the hand she’s using to shovel pretzel stix into her mouth and toggle the remote to switch streams. She’s hardly blinking, either, as she scans the homescreen in front of her. It’s the last episode of a series she’s been binge-watching, and when the credits roll she’s besieged by a roving purple haze. What will she watch now? It sends her into a kind of shallow mourning for the characters. She’ll miss them.
A thought occurs to her, but she rejects it.
God, what has happened to you?
She scrolls along the streams to find something decent to watch. AI Olympics; underwater laser tag; reality porn.
Your life is fucking pathetic.
Kate pushes it away, but the seed of dissatisfaction has been planted.
She thinks back to when she was a photographer made reckless by ambition, travelling the world, chasing stories, winning awards. How she was creating content instead of this: this endless consumption of brain-atrophying bullshit. Consumption used to be the name of an illness. Was it TB? Something to do with breathing: gram by gram, a disease that slowly consumed you. Consumption is a different kind of sickness, now.
The disgust she feels for herself isn’t, however, enough to lever her off the couch or to switch off the projection. Instead she just surfs with more fervour. S
he can, at the very least, find something edifying to watch.
There is a programme about a new kind of self-driving taxi. Still in beta testing, it’s called a listening cab, nicknamed ‘Turing’, and there are only a few of them on the streets as part of a pilot programme. The cars eavesdrop on their passengers’ conversations — not just their driving instructions — and learn the art of human interaction. They are taught the difference between just following orders and AE, or applied empathy. Kate watches with a mixture of fascination and dread. Keke and Seth make fun of her for being a technosaur but she’s not, really. She’s just slower to adopt certain technologies than they are. They were the first to run out and buy a SnapTile as soon as they became available in South Africa, while Kate is still happy with her Helix, despite its slowtech and diminishing battery life.
Artificial intelligence is a whole different enchilada. She’s not one of those Chicken Littles who go around tweeting that the robots are going to kill us all, but at the same time, some of the stories she hears make her blood chink with ice-cubes. Just last week there was that game where the intelligence went rogue and built its own weapons — more sophisticated weapons than the programmers designed — and starting hunting down the players and killing them. Sure, it’s only a game, but it’s enough to make you wonder if real-life intelligence would ever do the same thing.
She’s not the only one with reservations: the Gordhan Hospital started using AI surgeons and nursebots last year, and when an old pocket granny with advanced liver disease died on the table, people went crackers. Seth had said that “rednecked backwads” — fuck, she misses him already — throw their hands up when a robotic surgeon kills someone, but they don’t take into account the number of human-led surgery deaths, which usually outnumber the former, and it’s true. Those deaths don’t make headlines.
Everyone’s obsessed with AI nowadays. Even the nature broadcast stream is showing a documentary about that robotic rhino they’re trialling in the Kruger National Park. He’s a handsome beast, like some kind of animé version of a rhinoceros. The voiceover says that the technology was donated by China as reparation, and now the Nancies are cloning the real thing back from extinction, and the robot is tracking and protecting them from poachers. Kate yawns without covering her mouth and keeps scrolling.