by JT Lawrence
“He’s old,” says Seth, inspecting the creature’s 3D printed bones, electrical circuit, and motorised joints.
“We became quite attached. Couldn’t bear the thought of killing him just because the tech advanced.”
“Hello, Meadon,” says Seth.
The creature slinks over to a nearby tank and slides in, swimming away effortlessly.
“We created him when we were studying vertebral columns and spinal cords. He informed a lot of our work on cyprosthetics.”
“He likes swimming,” says Seth, amused.
“Yes. So…it’s not a lost art for everyone.”
Seth stares at her.
“You were – ” he starts.
“I was reading your thoughts when you were out there. I apologise. It’s my psychic-switch. It’s part of our security procedure.”
“But…how?”
“It’s not something I can discuss. Not yet, anyway. I’m sorry about the intrusion. I’m sure you’re aware of how careful we have to be. I’ve deactivated it now.”
“How do I know that’s true?”
Her lips twitch. “You don’t.”
Seth crosses his arms.
“We’re under a constant threat here, as you can imagine,” she says. “The programmes we run: they’re ahead of even the most cutting-edge research out there. Some of them can be seen as…controversial.”
Seth knows. That’s why he agreed to come.
“I’ll get straight to the point. We need your expertise on a specific project.” She places her hands on the white table that separates them. “There’s an extremely small pool of specialists on our Trust List and you came the most highly recommended.”
This doesn’t surprise Seth. He’s the best chemgineer in the country.
Meadon hops out of the water on the other side of the lab and hunkers down on a terrycloth bed.
“He’s like a dog,” says Seth.
“Better than a dog,” says Arronax. “Less mess. But if you’re a dog-person – ” Her nose wrinkles at this. “I must show you our latest K9000. It is an extraordinary animal. We developed it for the veterinary science institutions so that the students could practise their surgeries, but everyone involved in the pilot programme fell in love with the things and wanted to adopt them.”
Mally would go nuts for a K9000. He’d pretty much been nagging for a petbot since he was born. Well, not born. Since he was –
Arronax blinks at him, and he stops himself from thinking of the kids. “So that’s what you guys do? Robotic animals?”
“Bionicreatures are just an offshoot of our main work.”
“Which is?”
She smiles. “Perhaps, Mister Denicker – ”
“Call me Seth.”
“Perhaps we can have a comprehensive briefing in the future, but for now, let’s stick to the project we asked you here to assist with. We’re on a hard deadline.”
They’ve certainly paid him enough. Business-class flights and one hundred thousand Blox for a 24-hour contract. Seth puts his elbows on the table and leans in. “I’m all ears.”
A keyboard of sorts appears in front of Arronax – a few buttons of blue light. She taps one to bring up a 3D hologram and a jellyfish appears, swimming with stilted movements. Something about it is odd.
“2010. Our first robotic jellyfish.” She taps another button and the jellyfish morphs into a small transparent sea animal following a flashing light through water. It’s the size of a ten rand coin and flashes something metallic at them.
“2016. A biohybrid sting-ray.”
“Biohybrid? Like, cyborg?”
“Essentially, yes, but technically it’s the other way around. While a cyborg is smartificial – an animal with a bionic adaptation – a biohybrid is a synthesised animal with a biological addition.”
“Biotech, brought to life. Artificial life.”
“Layers of soft silicone printed with cardiomyocytes – mouse heart cells – in a serpentine pattern. The cells are genetically engineered to contract when light hits them – ”
“Which propels the ray forward.”
“Yes.”
“Is that a – ” Seth pinches the screen open, zooming in. “ – metallic spine?”
“A skeleton of gold. Elastic gold. It stores energy.”
Seth looks at her. A gold skeleton? Why does that sound familiar? Where has he heard that before? It nags at the edge of his thoughts. He sits back in his chair. “It’s very pretty, but what’s the endgame?”
She seems pleased he’s asked. “That’s why you’re here.”
Another button, another image fades over. It’s an invisible heart, and then it all makes sense.
“You’re engineering tissue,” says Seth. “Human hearts.”
“We’re almost at the finish line. It’s taken sixteen years, and we’re on track to push this to market by December.”
“Just in time for the Christmas rush.”
Arronax ignores his flippancy. “That is, on track, apart from one thing, which I’m hoping you can help us with.”
“Push it to market? So, you’re going to sell them?”
“Of course we’re going to sell them. There’s a huge demand. The infertility epidemic wiped out a whole potential generation of young, healthy organ donors.”
“Why a synthetic heart? You can get those bacon hearts nowadays, can’t you? Those human hearts grown in pig chimeras.”
Oinkubators, the press liked to call them.
“Epi-hearts are not acceptable to everyone. A biohybrid heart arrives at the patient brand new, with no history. No baggage. It’s seen as an upgrade, instead of a leftover. This is more pleasing to our clientele.”
“Your wealthy clientele.”
“Nautilus is a business, Mister Denicker.”
“Sure.” Seth stretches his arms above his head. Of course it is. He didn’t think it wasn’t, not when they’re paying him so much bank – money that he hasn’t refused or donated to charity. He just misses Alba. Misses biopunking. Doing grind that matters.
“This work matters,” she says. “You’ll be saving lives.”
“You said you turned the psychic-switch off.”
“Sorry,” she says.
Seth can tell she’s not in the least bit sorry. He needs to be careful of what he thinks in front of her. Already he’s given too much away.
“Okay,” he says. “Tell me what I need to do.”
Chapter 15
The Dandy Lion
Johannesburg, 2024
Kate sits down at The Six Leafed Clover. The table is some kind of scrubbed timber and the couch feels like it’s made from mushroom leather. It always makes her think of that dumb old joke.
Why did the mushroom get invited to all the parties?
Because he’s a fungi!
Her Patch tells her that Keke is right behind her – or rather, just below her – parking her e-bike in the revolving parking lot. The Clover is a new concept bistro that serves edible weeds. Organic, aeroponic, self-sustaining, zero-import, carbon-negative, vertical-farming weeds. The idea doesn’t appeal to Kate at all but Keke wants to try it, perhaps write a story on it, so she’s agreed. Kate won’t say this out loud, but it seems Kekeletso had lost her appetite for more substantial stories since Genesis. In a way it makes her feel better – less weak? – that she isn’t the only one to have lost her nerve.
The waitbot scurries over to her, but doesn’t slow down in time, and knocks the table, causing the bottle of miso to fall over and stain the hemp tablecloth. Kate waits for it to apologise, but then realises it’s a mute. Some servbots are programmed to talk, but it opens up a slew of complications when people assume the machine can understand any command just because it can act on simple verbal instructions. The robot reverses a safe distance from the table and projects its holoscreen menu at her. At least there are pictures of what the dishes look like, or she’d have no idea what she’s ordering. The pack shots are vivid: 4D and revolving, as
if you can just pluck one of the plates off the hologram and put it on the table. She swipes over to the drinks menu. Twenty different kinds of weed coolteas and shakes. God, she hopes there is alcohol available. She swipes to the next page and finds it – elderflower wine, Chickweed Chaser, a shooter called The Wild Amaranth. She decides on the house cocktail, and taps the picture of the Dandy Lion, twice. The bot spins around and heads to the bar to collect them.
“Kitty!” shouts Keke from the other side of the restaurant, causing patrons to turn around and look at her. She has never been good at volume control. Some of the people look away again, some don’t. They’re both used to the stares. Kate stands, hugs her friend. Kisses her on the cheek. Warm leather and spice and all things nice. They didn’t see each other as often as they would like, but when they do, it’s as if they’ve never parted ways.
“I can’t believe you made me come here,” says Kate. “They do literally only serve weeds.”
“Ha! What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. A few wild daisies as garnishes. A clover salad.”
“No such luck,” she says, and sits down. “But please tell me they’re licensed?”
As if in response, the waitbot zooms over with their cocktails.
A few drinks later, they’re giggling like schoolgirls.
“This weed booze is crack,” says Keke. “I’ll be back here tomorrow.”
“I won’t!” says Kate. She had the Wakame noodles with deep-fried crickets and it almost made her hurl. The texture of both foods sent her synaesthesia into overdrive; it was like trying to swallow an animated cactus. Keke, on the other hand, was more adventurous and ordered steamed larvae dumplings with purslane pesto. The pesto was delicious.
“But, yes,” Kate says. “The elderberry gin is especially good.”
They chink glasses.
“You’re feeling better?” asks Keke.
“Not really.”
“Still having the panic attacks?”
“Panic attacks. Insomnia. Nightmares. And you know what my nightmares are like. Hyper-realistic.”
“They have drugs for that, you know.”
“I know! Seth keeps trying to push them on me. Drugs to stop you dreaming. What next?”
Keke seems amused. “Well, if there’s anyone who knows his spike, it’s Seth.” She gets a kind of warm, sexy look in her eyes when she talks about him. Kate’s not sure she likes it.
“It’s not so much that I can’t sleep. It’s more that I…don’t want to sleep.”
“You’re still having those bad dreams about James?”
“About James, about Van der Heever. That man who tried to bury us at the flower farm. The one we – ” She gulps down the rest of the sentence as she’s assailed by the memory of his face skinned by the broken glass. “And… Mouton.”
Keke shudders, touches Kate’s arm.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Kate feels sweaty under Keke’s scrutiny. She takes away her arm, swats perspiration from her lip, her eyebrows.
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“There is. How come you don’t have PTSD? What they did to you was just as bad as what they did to me. You almost died.”
“We all almost died.”
“Why, then? Why don’t you get the panic attacks?”
Keke takes a sip of her drink, shrugs. “I don’t know. I was semi-conscious when the bad shit went down. I couldn’t take it all in. Not like you. You experience everything in scented super-def hypercolour. I mean, a walk down the road must be traumatic for you.”
Kate blinks at her. It’s not untrue.
Her Helix buzzes and Keke’s eyebrows shoot up.
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” says Kate.
“Damn. Thought you may be getting a booty call.”
“Hell, no. Those days are over.”
“Those days are over? My God, woman, no wonder you’re depressed. Who on earth is bumping you at this time of night, then? The nanny?”
“It’s not a bump. It’s my phone telling me that I’m over the limit.”
“Then your phone kind of is your nanny.”
“Ja. Good point.”
Keke tops up her glass. “What are you going to do?”
“Switch it off.”
“So, talking of sexy time -” says Kate, ordering another bottle. “How’s Marko?”
Keke licks her teeth. “As good as ever.”
“How is his cyber-what-what working out?” Kate points vaguely to her eyes to show what she means.
“He loves it, I hate it.”
“Why?”
“His lens isn’t like mine, you know. It’s not a simple BioLens, it’s cybernetic. It’s permanent. It’s connected.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It means a lot of things, right? Cool things. Like he can search The Net for anything at any time. He can type out shit and order groceries while he’s in the shower.”
“That is handy. What’s not to like?”
“He’s perennially distracted! It’s like he’s never just there with me. Like we’re never alone. I’ll be talking to him about Nina and he’ll be nodding, but I can see he’s not really listening. But the thing that bothers me the most – ”
“Yes?”
“Let me put it this way. I make him cover it up when we do the diggety.”
“Because it takes pictures?”
“Because it records everything.”
“But it’s not like anyone can download it.”
“I don’t care.”
“But – ”
“I don’t care. You know how these things work. One day you’re the only one with access to it and the next day it’s on Reverber8.tv for the world to see.”
“You have a point.”
“I’m not going to be that person. That gets famous from a kinky sex clip.”
“You’re famous already. Wait… You could always wear one of your face masks. While you – ”
“I think I’m done with the masks.”
“Really? What happened?”
“A guy I met. At the trial.”
“You’re still polyamorous? I thought you and Marko – ”
“Marko knows that the day I have to be monogamous is the day I kick my own bucket.”
“Fair enough,” says Kate.
“That said, I’m not shagging the new guy.”
“Not yet,” says Kate.
“I actually thought of introducing him to you.”
“Oh, no.” Kate shakes her head. “No thanks. Not interested.”
“He’s as handsome as fuck,” says Keke. “Intelligent. Funny. Rich.”
“Still not interested. I can’t even deal with myself at the moment, never mind someone else.”
“Maybe he can help you with that. Sex is extremely therapeutic, you know. There have been studies.”
Kate sighs, wonders if the bags under her eyes look as heavy as they feel.
“You don’t even have to date him. Or talk to him. You could just have sex.”
“Charming.”
“What?”
“It’s not going to happen.”
Kate leans on the table, hand on forehead.
“So…you make Marko cover his eyes when you have sex?”
“Just the one.”
“Just the one? Like, an eye patch? That is kinky.”
“It’s like making love to a pirate.”
“Aaarr,” growls Kate.
The servbot presents the bill on its holodash. Kate taps ‘pay’ and her Patch beeps with the receipt.
“You wanted to tell me something,” she says.
Keke pulls on her jacket. Musk. A soft breeze of brown hide. Tan Billow.
“Did I?”
“I got the idea it was about the trial. You said you had just adjourned for the day when you called – ”
“Right,” she says. “Look, I’ll tell you straight up you’re not going to like
this idea.”
“But…you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“But I’m going to tell you anyway.”
They leave the restaurant and head towards the street.
“Share a cab?” says Kate.
“No way I’m taking Nina out after drinking that weed booze.”
Keke has taken to calling her bike Nina for no apparent reason. They pour themselves into the backseat of a nearby cab that reads their codes.
“Good evening, Miss Lovell, Miss Msibi,” says the cab. “Please choose a destination.”
“Let’s drop you off, first,” says Keke. “You need to get back to the rug-rats.”
“Thanks,” says Kate. “Take me home, please, Cabbie.” She has already bumped the location to the Cabbie app.
Keke giggles. “That’s so analogue.”
“What?”
“You know that you don’t have to say ‘please’, right?”
“It’s good manners!”
“It’s an automaton.”
“So?”
“So, you’re like that story of that grandmother who used to type ‘please’ when she Googled something.”
“Rubbish.”
“Not rubbish. I was at Echo when that story ran. 2016.”
“I mean, rubbish that I’m like that grandmother.”
“Really? When’s the last time you immersed?”
“You know that I don’t like VR.”
“See? Old lady.”
“It’s not about being a technophobe – ”
“Although clearly you are. Kittysaurus.”
“Ha.”
“For instance: you still carry cash.”
“You never know when you’re going to need cash.”
“Really? When’s the last time you needed cash? 2019?”
“I still use it for some things.”
“Like what?”
“Okay, that’s a lie. I tried to tip someone the other day and they pretty much threw it back at me.”
The real reason she keeps cash is because she’s paranoid. Who knows when something catastrophic might happen and all the virtual money just blips out of existence? You can’t eat Blox.
“And look at that dress you’re wearing.”
Kate looks down. “What? I happen to like this dress. I thought you’d appreciate me showing up in something that wasn’t jeans. Or pyjamas.”