by Joe Plus
He turned to the news and the reader, a solemn, tearful angel, announced PurePlus’s sudden and unexpected cryofreeze. He had been working slowly on finger lengthening; making incisions up to his knuckles with a scalpel and hacksaw. He had succumbed to a new strain of bacterial infection for which there was no effective antibiotic. Within days his own immune system had begun to attack every internal organ, so they had put his body in the ice-can to await a future cure. A remembrance service would be held this Saturday and an annual PurePlus day would be instituted.
“So sudden, so unexpected. The contributions of PurePlus are manifold. He will return, one day,” said Bob to the interviewer.
“Back one day?” said John. “The guy was a fucking nut. No way they’ll have him back.”
“PurePlus was a pathfinder,” said Bob, “and led the way in container progress. But we have moved on, and things have become more complex. The old ways were good for the time, when Transhumanism was still in its infancy. You know our American way: load, fire, and aim? An understandable beginning for any revolutionary movement. Look, nothing’s going to change. You want a new pair of zoom-eyes? You will get a new pair of zoom-eyes, so no one need worry about imp-tech.”
The interview followed with the announcement of a new organizational structure. The Mender sect would now report to Scrunch. John laughed; Scrunch hated Menders. The lens, wide angle now, switched to Scrunch, his head leek shaped, his nose a stretched triangle of cheese. Scrunch got straight to the point, wagging his fist as if holding a chopping knife.
“No one will be allowed so much as an ankle tattoo without an approved change control. This applies to everyone, including me. A medical officer, under my direct supervision, will assess each request, routine or otherwise. The one thing we can’t have is some kind of Skunkworks tattoo parlor going on. We will follow a single org-wise strategy for advancement, not do it yourself butchery. But listen, if you think it’s in the interest of the church, then speak to your local ethics and compliance contact for further details.”
Soon bored, John switched to view some old images of his mother. He was surprised to find a shot of the last time he saw her; alone in her dormitory, swaddled in a plastic cot, and still as a block of wood. He reached out to touch her face, hard and wrinkled like a burnt sultana. She died soon afterward, and was practically deified by the church. A statue of her youthful self, a printed block of white resin, stood atop a marble pillar in HQ’s hall of fame.
There was a turning of paper - an enormous bear sat at his reading desk, flipping through his private files.
“What the fuck, get the hell out of here,” he said, and the bear threw the file down, turned and ambled off down the passage.
John got out of bed, he thought he heard Adam’s voice, a few weak calls for his mother.
“Adam. Adam my boy, is that you?”
Nauseated and weak, he crawled to a porous wicker basket and vomited into it.
Chapter 19
Log: 05-15-2044::18:46
Field Trip: Batang Garing
Role: Field Lead
Name: Augusta Green
Bad news: It’s been one hell of a hike to this point, here in the First - a porter fled. I do not see how anyone, even a Dayak, could get back alive without support; we are, after all, in the great unknown. Mohammed told me not to assume anything about the Dayak, in a tone I found rather condescending.
Second - Malcolm had a drunken fight with two porters. He injured one of them - seriously. The boy has cuts all across his right cheek from the sharp end of a broken bottle. He needs surgery. Trish and I expected something like this. Malcolm is like an old, decayed bomb - who knows when or where he will explode? There is a dispiriting mood of ill will toward us from the porters.
Third: Someone made a pass at Natalie; grabbed her from behind and tried to drag her into the bush. She did not see who it was, but she managed to break free by sliding out of her jacket. She ran sobbing up to me. Trish and Johanna will stay with her for the night. We must keep a look out. I spoke about my visitor, that he touched me this time. Malcolm suggested guard duty, two guys for two hours each night. Sounds doable, so I will organize it.
We have spent the morning travelling up river – plenty of rapids. Four or five times we had to wade in the water and push the boat up and over rocks. It is humid, hot and I am so tired. Still a long way to go and there is a small tributary we need to find – it’s on google at least, and it eventually will take us into the mountains. I am sure we needn’t go that far; the sightings have all been in the foothills.
Chapter 20
At 11:32 John, hungover and desperate for a piss, arrived at the lab. The cams followed him as he turned the corner and up the steps, buzzing from a distance, forming a stitched bubble of cctv, his every wink, twitch, and scratch recorded from every angle. John adjusted his shades, and the smartgate made its greeting.
“Hello Mr. Blessing.”
“Hi,” said John. He saluted and made his way through the smoked-glass sliding doors and made his way up the stairwell to the second floor. A floor cleaner a Springbok colors gave way, and John hurried over the wet tiles.
“Thanks,” said John.
“Mrnnnggg,” said the cleaner as it mopped up John’s footmarks.
John slowed his pace to take a close look at a picture of a pink ear-pierced Jin with its vapor tail puffing from a dark glass bottle, turned right into the YouGenieData lab, his leather case swinging back and forth with each step. Lower ranks nodded as he passed, his secretary, some new intern whose name escaped him, greeted him warmly. With head up, chin out, and an insolent, peacock swagger, he stepped into his office. Being a Blessing meant that his room was furnished with a fine, gilded rosewood desk, bookshelves with real books, the wall gussied with a genuine Dali scribble and, of questionable provenance, a Picasso print numbered 173. He closed the door and breathed a sigh. He slouched and shuffled, dithered on where to put his briefcase, scratched his butt, ground his front teeth, and thought: What shall I do today? He sat down behind his desk, put his antique Denel Z88 in his desk drawer, locked it and said: “Agenda.”
Agenda also brought to focus a webcam with a real-time image of Adam's cryotank, his face barely visible through the glass portal. This morning his eyes were closed. On closer inspection he appeared relaxed; at peace. Heartbeat was six times per day. Brain activity was low - no dreams, no anxiety – a good thing, so he had been told.
John reviewed his tasks for the day:
Contact outsource partners for deviation reports
Follow up on some licensing issues
Review Quality Agreement with CMO
Lunch with Mickey Venter
All boring, he needed to work on the new secretary, whatever her name was. Just look at this crappy list. There was nothing he wanted to do, and now, thanks to her inexperience, he would have to set aside some time to prep for a 1-to-1 with Mickey. He leaned back into his chair, folded his hands behind his head, and opened the latest edition of the church magazine, New Beginnings. He let it run to see what caught his eye.
Subject: Borneo Batang Garing Project – Newsflash
“Oh, Goosie’s trip.”
We announce the latest findings direct from the field. Twenty-two new species have been discovered thus far, contributing significantly to the vast body of scientific knowledge obtained by the Church, the de facto curator of the world's genetic code.
“Fuck off.”
New species include:
• A giant spider the size of a rat. This spider is related to the golden Orb species of Madagascar and South Africa. How such a closely related species exists as far away as Borneo is an intriguing question best left to the great minds of Bob and the Eldership.
• A new species of white bat. Clearly the albino mutation has evolutionary benefits still unknown to us.
• Three new species of poisonous tree frog.
• A small omnivorous waterbuck with an unexpected diet. The newly named Bles
sing Buck appears to enjoy a daily banquet of river snails, mud worms and the occasional frog.
Our wealth of knowledge surely runneth over, thanks to the Crypto-team led by Augusta Green under the wise guidance of Uncle Bob.
John closed the article.
The usual pile of shit.
After an hour or so he began to flag, so he surfed the web, and flipped idly from one porn site to the next. The prep for the lunch meeting with Mickey was fading in the fog of clustered genitalia, so he would have to wing it. Meanwhile a web site on the art of Kinbaku, Japanese rope bondage, had caught his eye.
At the canteen Mickey spent the first ten minutes talking Rugby, a subject dear to his heart. A former policeman, just under two meters tall and technically obese, he liked to laugh at his own jokes then slap John on his shoulder. But underneath a genial and relaxed manner, there lurked an unsettled, puzzled uncertainty; a tension in his voice, tones of horror in his laughter; in his demeanor, one John a readiness to strike out; make a head-shot.
Probably seen a few things in his day, thought John.
They eventually touched the topic of the missed deliverables.
“You know, I am trying to help you get back on your feet again my friend, ha, ha, oh dear lord.” said Mickey.
“Well, that’s great,” said John.
“That’s what I have been asked to do, to keep my eyes sharp. Look out for you. Keep your old man happy.”
“He appreciates it, I’m sure,” said John.
Mickey chuckled, that laugh of dread and terror, “You don’t though,” he said.
John shrugged and chewed a few pine nuts. No, he did not appreciate it.
“Your new secretary’s hot,” said Mickey smiling.
“She’ll soon hate me,” said John.
“Ach ja, she’s looks like she could have got a temper, the way she answers calls and all that.” Mickey scratched his stubble and thumbed his gun belt. “I have to tell you something.”
John braced himself. “Go on.”
“Your Dad wants me to put time-management as a training objective for you, for the coming financial year.”
“Oh Christ, is that it?”
“I think it could help you.”
John shrugged and said: “Fine.” He would just go with it, let the old man spend CoT+ money.
Lunch veered into an hour of interrogation – how was John feeling? What were his future plans? “Walk the earth.” What was he dreaming of? “Neanderthals. Cave chicks are hot.” Why were his projects over budget? “The same old reason. Unrealistic expectations.” Why didn’t he try and network more? “Simples. Because I hate people.” and so on and so forth.
“Out of sight, out of mind, my friend,” said Mickey
John ate a few nuts, and said nothing.
“Sounds like the perfect place.”
After lunch John sat at his desk, dispirited and angry. A time management app ran in the background, just another 10 minutes, while he plugged haltingly at a deliverable two months overdue – a periodic review for some R&D application. He could just go ahead and select reviewed, but then what would he do? Watch more porn? Boooriiing. He picked up a stapler, and squeezed it each time he completed a line of text. His secretary messaged him - Mickey had mentioned something about having a beer or two at an Irish bar in town. Something to look forward too, he thought. Maybe he would join him, maybe not. By the end of the document he had a pile of folded stables on his lap. From seven o’clock he packed his things into his case, took his Z88 out of the drawer, clipped it into his holster and left the building.
Outside he walked past the BP tower on Thibault Square to the car park. The wind was blowing hard, and he could hear snippets of a choir coming from an uncertain direction. He hurried past the Medical Center, marched along Adderly Street and took the crossing at the traffic circle with the van Riebeek statue. The singing had stopped, replaced by the intermittent shrill of a woman. He walked toward the foreshore and approached the car park. A grim faced man with a navy blue skipper’s cap embossed with an Anchor sat in the tollbooth. John and the man nodded in passing.
“Good day sir. That nice car yours sir? We had some problems today sir with some skollies coming past here.”
“O.K. What’s a skollie?”
“Yes, that is your car if I am not mistaken sir?” He pointed to a Porsche Carrera.
“Shit! What happened?”
John ducked under red and white tape. As he approached the bio-scanner clicked and the doors unlocked. Three spots of shattered glass extended web-like across the windscreen, and the right hand side-window was missing. There was a ticket lodged between a wiper and what was left of the windscreen. The guard sauntered alongside.
“Yes, the police put a notice on it sir, after they shot the skelm.”
“Shot the skelm?” In the dim light John could see little, but he could detect some discoloration on the seat and, alarmingly, holes.
“This is a secure area; how could it have happened?”
“Yes, those skelms tried to rob the Nedbank next door, and a gangster came in here and tried to take your car hey.”
“A gangster? My car?”
“Yes, and he was breaking in hey,” he pointed to the broken side-window, “and then got in the car and someone saw him and called the police over by the Nedbank.”
The old man shifted his weight onto his right leg and placed both hands on the bonnet for support. “I don’t know who called the police but, hey, now we have to watch out. You never know with them gangs sir, when they might come back sir. Sir you are not allowed to touch anything.”
“Well fuck I have to get home.”
John opened the bonnet, took out a Flashlight and looked over the driver’s seat.
“Blood sir.”
“Bullet holes.”
“Yes sir.”
“I guess they got the guy.”
“Oh yes sir,” the old man beamed, “right through the nose hey. His mother wouldn’t know him sir.”
“Nice.”
“He got what he deserved sir.”
John placed his hand in the window and placed his thumb on the starter. There was no response. John walked to the rear and opened the trunk to inspect a mess of oil-spattered metal. He noticed a hairline crack along the top of the engine block.
“Well, it’s completely fucked. The Police can keep it,” he said.
John slouched off toward Cape Town station, snapshots of the woman’s voice followed along with the erratic wind. As he approached the station a gang of half a dozen youths appeared. Each had a bandanna printed with the American flag. John instinctively turned one hundred and eighty degrees and walked briskly until one grabbed his shoulder. Within seconds he was surrounded, a knife held to his stomach. He listened carefully to what one of them was saying, something involving wallet, bank cards and ATM. A police car stooped at the curb, sirens on, and the gang headed toward the station, two policemen in chase. John turned toward the Foreshore, and to his right, the corner of a turn-off was a church. Behind he heard a youth called out: “Hey, mister. Hey, sir.”
John opened the metal gate and turned into the church grounds. He slammed the gate shut and marched up to the church door.
“Hey mister.”
John, walked in and closed the door behind him. He was in the vestibule, and he could hear distinctly the eloquent, expressive voice of the woman.
Chapter 21
Log: 05-16-2044::12:37
Field Trip: Batang Garing
Role: Field Lead
Name: Augusta Green
Good god Anna, what a day. I awoke from my sleep to shouts from across the water. It was chilly and I stuck my head through the door and into a thick mist where, apart from the grass immediately below, I could see practically nothing. Trish and Malcolm’s voices I could discern within the babble and, detecting an urgency of tone, I left my tent (in the rush forgot to switch into my wet gear, so now I have two sets of wet clothes - great) and move towar
d the riverside. It is no exaggeration to say that I could not see my hands in front of my face, only white, dispersed light. I had to endure an indignity: crouch down and, like a crippled bee, walk on all fours feeling for the moored dingy, my enormous butt thrust up, my wonky, knock-kneed legs spread. I managed to untie the bright-orange painter tied to a bush and, taking hold of it, inched my way to the water’s edge and onto the deck. I started the outboard motor, steered toward the commotion and zipped along. The water was strangely alive; boiling; I was soon drenched from what I believe were jumping. I bumped into the bank where I could see a little more clearly, the mist less dense on this side. I leapt into ankle deep silt and fell on my butt deep into mud. I struggled to find a branch or rock to tie the painter. Eventually I recalled a large metal peg in the dinghy (I had previously wondered why it was there, now I know), so I pushed it into the silt and tied the painter to it. I quickly made my way up to the campsite where I could detect a group standing in a circle near the porters’ quarters. I ran up and asked what was going on. Malcolm, Trish, Natalie and Johanna stood next to each other and, squinting hard, I could see from their faces a look of horror. The translator piped up and told me that I was standing on the cause of the alarm, the runaway, or rather, his remains. I jumped between Trish and Malcolm and, crouching down saw the heap of flesh and bone. I asked how on earth anyone had managed to find this when visibility was so poor. The translator, Herman, informed me that one of the young men, having woken for prayers, stumbled on the lad. They knew it was the boy because they had found his ring among the pile. Herman reached over to one of the men and took something from his hand. It was a small ring of copper; simple, scratched and slightly buckled, but with otherwise no distinguishing features.