by JT Lawrence
Chapter 21
Mister Galaxy
12 YEARS PREVIOUSLY
ICE
Johannesburg 2024
Zack uses the mean bar of prison-issue soap to draw on the bag-washed brix of his cell. He uses the whole wall opposite his metal bunkbed as his canvas, and only manages to get the outlines done before running out of soap—a loose-lined sketch of a blooming lotus flower. He likes that it’s almost invisible.
It’s the best use of the soap he can think of: to add something pretty to look at. Something that embodies beauty and potential and hope because, the Net knows, there’s none of that in here. More importantly, it’s his daily reminder of The Truth, why he’s here, and what he still needs to do. Zack stands there in his small grey cell and looks at the flower. Imagines it blooming and arching and then crumbling away to nothing.
I’m here to wake up the Lotus Eaters.
The arrest has temporarily derailed his plan, but there is always a way forward, and it’s imperative that he keeps his nerve.
The small soap lozenge is one of those maddening details he’s glad he’s now rid of. They give you a pillow-case, but no pillow, a window with no view, and a piece of cheap soap with no water. He can’t yet tell if it’s lack of attention to detail or, in a more sinister vein: a welcome mat to the house of insanity. Sometimes he feels, psychologically speaking, as if they’re giving him just enough rope to hang himself with.
He hears a whistle from outside. Lazy-eyed Lovemore. He knows without a doubt because Lovemore is the only guard who warns you before he enters. He’s usually whistling a kind of musty gospel tune. Maybe he thinks prisoners deserve a modicum of privacy, or maybe the whistling is like his protective charm, to shield himself from walking in on cell mates doing things he doesn’t want to see.
The door opens, and the guard motions for Zack to follow him.
Lovemore’s not his favourite, but at least it’s not Bernard.
The light hurts Zack’s eyes; he blinks away the burn. “Where’re we going?”
“Didn’t they tell you?”
They walk down corridors and up stairs and on conveyor belts until Zack loses his sense of direction. It doesn’t help that there are no windows and no natural light to gauge the scope of the sun. He wants to think that his lawyer, his real lawyer, has somehow managed to break through the red tape, or that the charges against him have been dropped, but he can’t help but have a bad feeling. Everything about this place seems underhanded, opaque. Helena Nash told them so, said they had sped through her trial with one goal only, and that was to put her away forever.
They reach the courtroom, which is already populated by the jury and a sprinkling of press. He inspects the journalists’ faces one by one, searching, hoping, for Keke. Surely she would attend? At best, to support him, at worst, to see him grilled and found guilty. But even that, he’d prefer over this: not one familiar face in the crowd.
“It’s happening now?” he asks Lovemore. “The trial? Already?”
“You’re never happy, you crims,” he says, “nag, nag, nag for a speedy trial and then when you get one, you complain. We can’t keep you on ICE forever, you know.”
Yes, Zack knows. ICE costs the state cash, while the crim colonies pretty much print money. They don’t want creeps to stay here for one day longer than absolutely necessary.
“But we don’t even have a strategy, yet.”
“You had the opportunity to liaise with Mr Mpanghi.”
“You’re kidding.”
He’s not kidding.
“That wasn’t a meeting. That was an ambush.”
Lovemore shrugs. “You weren’t very co-operative for a man being offered free legal counsel.”
“I haven’t even shaved. I’m in prison overalls.”
His bright orange suit screams ‘dangerous criminal’ and he has itchy, three-day stubble. His hair is greasy and his eyes are underlined by dark crescents.
“Don’t worry about it, pretty boy, this isn’t Mister Galaxy. You’re not getting judged on your looks.”
Zack knows very well that everyone, everywhere, is always pre-judged on their looks, and he knows for a fact that at the moment he looks exactly how they want him to look: like a degenerate serial killer.
Lovemore leads him to his seat in the front row of the gallery, next to Mpanghi, who nods to acknowledge his presence.
“Do you have a plan?” Zack whispers.
“Of course.” He smiles: an ebony Cheshire cat.
Zack searches the gallery again for Keke.
The trio of judges trails in, and everybody stands. Zack doesn’t recognise any of them.
His charge sheet is read aloud, and the corner-mounted cameras record the muted exclamations from the crowd behind him. The anchor reels off every victim’s name, one by one, so that the jury can feel the mass accusation like a heavy stole on their shoulders. It’s their job, is the clear, unspoken message, to secure justice for these people. The jurors take turns to cast suspicious glances at him, their minds perhaps already made up.
The anchor finally gets to the end of his list: 108 counts of premeditated murder. There’s a hushed moment, an opportunity to let the gravitas of the charges against him sink in, and then the head judge claps his hands and says “Well! Let us begin.”
Chapter 22
Bread & Circuses
TWELVE YEARS PREVIOUSLY
ICE
Johannesburg, 2024
Every day when Zack is brought to the courthouse, he looks for Keke, and every day he’s disappointed. Surely, surely one day she’ll show? It starts to feel like an unrequited love affair of the criminal variety. Every day he slumps further into despair. He hasn’t had a shower or a decent night’s sleep in weeks. He’s haunted every night by the looming silhouette of Bernard. He lies awake, waiting for her to arrive, and when she does—she always does—then he lies there listening to her breathe while adrenaline combs his nerves and keeps him awake long after she leaves.
Why does Bernard stalk him? Why does she watch him sleep? Does she know who he really is?
Impossible.
He’s begged Lovemore for something, anything to read, to stop the slow atrophying of his brain. It’s one of the most difficult things about being in here. He can deal with no showers, no company—and lately, no toothbrush—but with no sleep and nothing to read he will surely go insane. Every day in this place is a step closer to delirium.
Mphangi subtly sniffs the air, then moves an inch away from Zack. He doesn’t blame him. He’d move away from himself if he could. Far away. Perhaps if he thinks about the metaphysical hangman’s noose they’re extending to him hard enough it will materialise. Something like Schrödinger’s Cat. Schrödinger’s Noose?
Stand up! Stand up! Observe!
Zachary Girdler is both alive and dead at the same time.
“When can I take the stand?” he asks Mphangi.
The pirate’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re not taking the stand.”
“Won’t they want my testimony? Won’t they need to ask me questions?”
He shakes his head.
“What if I want to say something?”
“What would you say?”
“I could prepare a speech. In my defence.”
“This isn’t Law & Order.”
“Mpanghi. I need to get the hell out of here.”
“Just let me do my job.”
“But you’re not doing your job! That’s the problem. We just sit here all day watching the prosecutor paint me into a a corner.”
“You need to trust in the judicial process.”
Zack doesn’t even know why he’s arguing. It’s not like he can tell the truth about what he does, anyway. Maybe he thinks that without any hard evidence—because he knows none exists—they won’t be able to convict him. But no one seems to mind this minor detail. In fact, he gets the feeling that most of the time these people aren’t even listening. He has his suspicions that one of the junior ju
dges hasn’t heard a word of the trial—Zack saw his earbuttons in, and his right foot is always tapping—and the day-dreaming jury don’t seem to require any further convincing of his guilt. He can tell from their dagger glares that they were against him from day one.
The prosecutor comes to the end of his examination, and thanks the witness. The woman rises to leave the stand.
“Aren’t you going to cross-examine?” Zack whispers.
Mpanghi shrugs, wrinkles his nose. Nah, his body language says. Nah. As if someone’s offered him a tepid cup of tea.
“Next witness!” calls the head judge, and Zack can’t help but imagine that he’s treading some Kafka-flavoured Möbius strip, a Lewis Carrol trial where everyone’s crazy and no one seems to mind. “Next witness!” says judge, but he may as well be shouting “Off with his head!”
What was that quote about bread and circuses? Zack wishes he could remember it, because he thinks it might just sum up exactly what’s happening here.
Chapter 23
A Fucking Lucky Packet
Lovemore is whistling outside Zack’s cell again. Zack stops what he’s doing—adding scratch detail to his lotus flower mural by using a small nail he pried from his prison-issue boots—and hides the tack inside a tiny slit inside his mattress.
The door opens, and Lovemore stops mid-tune and greets him in a celebratory manner.
“Prisoner!” Lovemore’s never once called him by his name. Do they teach that in guard training, to keep the detainees at a distance? Will he get a number when he’s taken to the crim colonies, concentration camp style? It should do a good job of further dehumanising him in the penal scouts’ eyes. Maybe Zack is being paranoid. Maybe Lovemore’s just not good with names.
Zack expects the guard to admonish him for drawing on the wall, or say something demoralising like, “They’re just going to paint over that as soon as you’re out of here, you know,” or “Get scrubbing, Prisoner!” or maybe worse, but he acts as if he hasn’t seen it at all. As if he hasn’t seen it grow from a barely invisible soap sketch to a massive toothpaste and boot-polish shaded 3D-looking bloom.
“Jury’s out!” says Lovemore, who is clearly having a good day.
“What?”
“Get your stuff, Prisoner. It’s moving day!”
“But we didn’t even conclude the trial. We haven’t heard all the testimony. What kind of trial is over in three days?”
“A successful one,” says Lovemore.
Zack almost chokes. “Successful for who?”
The guard shows him his big white teeth. “For everyone.”
Mpanghi has a similar attitude. “Very good,” he says, when he sees Zack. “A very good trial.”
Zack’s fuse is lit. “The fuck do you mean? It’s been an absolute sham.”
“The quicker the trial, the less expensive it is for the people. We all knew the outcome from the beginning, didn’t we? There’s really no point in dragging these things out.”
The judges enter and everyone stands, then sits down again. Zack remains upright.
“Have you reached a verdict?” asks the head judge.
A juror with long white braids stands and says, “We have, your Honour.” She clicks a button on the remote she’s holding and their jury score is projected onto the evidence cinescreen.
Twelve red men. Twelve out of twelve. A dirty dozen.
“Eish!” Mpanghi looks impressed. “Full marks!”.
Zack grits his teeth, curls his hand into a fist.
Do not punch your attorney. Do not punch your attorney. Not in front of the whole court, anyway.
The audience is pleased. They clap as if it’s been a long but satisfying stage play. The head judge bangs his gavel and the people quieten down.
“Thank you for your service,” he says to the jury, who look jolly for the first time. It’s as if they’ve been holding their vote in for three days, and now they can finally relax. Now they’re free to get back to their normal lives, spend whatever stipend they’ll receive for their work here, root through their ICE-branded goodie bags for their Kool-aid flavoured jelly beans.
“Guilty as charged. We’ll now proceed with sentencing.”
“Sentencing?” says Zack. “That’s not how it works.”
The judge puts his gavel down. “Mister Girdler? You have an objection?”
Zack looks down at Mpanghi, who returns his glare with interest. Is his client really stupid enough, he seems to be thinking, to piss off the judge who’s about to sentence him?
“You need time to consider the verdict, and then decide on the sentence.”
“I don’t need any more time,” says the judge. “I’ve heard and seen enough.”
“But—”
“Guilty of 108 charges of pre-meditated murder, Mister Girdler. I didn’t need to think very long at all when it came to decide what we should do with you.”
The jury has lost its cheer, now. They look on, fascinated. Zack realises then that none of this has been real, from the imposter lawyer to the actors on the jury bench. The head judge narrows his eyes at Zack. It’s all been an elaborate ruse, a game, an expert choreography of power vs pawn.
“I’m not falling for this!” Zack shouts. “I can see what’s happening here!”
The audience starts tittering. They weren’t expecting an encore.
“This isn’t a court of law. And you,” he says to the judge. “A judge! I bet you don’t even have a law degree. I bet you got your certificate out of a fucking lucky packet!”
Now the audience and press have their devices out, recording Zack’s outburst. Further proof, he imagines, that he’s a madman, deluded and dangerous.
“Girdler,” says Mpanghi, “sit down, man. You’re making it worse.”
“Fuck you!” shouts Zack, and uses all the willpower he possesses not to break the lawyer’s nose.
“Where did they get you from?” Zack shouts at the gallery who are hiding behind their recording devices. They are all actors; he can see that now. Flashes from their cameras prick his already scratchy eyes.
The head judge bangs his gavel. “Mister Girdler!”
“Will the accused please sit down,” pipes the prosecutor, enjoying the show.
This can’t be happening. He can’t go to a Penal Labour Colony. He has to get to Kate before it’s too late.
“I will not sit down!”
A part of Zack is observing himself as part of the show. He knows the protestations before they leave his mouth. He sees himself wrecked by this insidious system: hungry, dirty, high on sleep-dep, and knows that it will be better for everybody if he just acts obsequious, because raving about the injustice won’t solve a damn thing. No one cares about the rights of a person responsible for more than a hundred individually and immaculately orchestrated deaths. They just want to lock him up and throw away the key. This cannot happen. There’s something at the very core of him that refuses to be deceived.
“I’m giving you one last chance to sit down!” shouts the head judge. The court security police start to pre-emptively make their way towards him: two navy uniforms in the corners of his vision.
“I can’t believe you get away with this shit,” says Zack.
Keep calm, now, keep quiet.
The security cops are right here. He prepares to fight them, but his cuffs keep his wrists bound.
“You get away from me!” he shouts at them. They both flinch, as if he’s a rabid dog who’s tried to bite.
“Come on, Prisoner,” says one of the cops, one hand out towards him and the other tickling her thigh holster. “Take it easy.”
“I have a name!” shouts Zack. His actions are spinning out of his control now.
“Take it easy and no one gets hurt.” She has hazel eyes. Kind eyes. He’s lulled into a second of letting his guard down when the other cop tries to grab him. Zack struggles, trying to get away while the creeps watch through their camera lenses. Flash, flash, flash.
He pulls back his ar
ms, ready to right-hook the cop, but as he does so, his handcuffs bite him hard on his wrists. He looks down at them, at once shocked and unsurprised. He immediately feels the warm, comforting rush of TranX as it streamrolls over his adrenaline. It takes away his desire to fight, to run, to reason, and the floor rushes up to meet him.
No, no, no. This isn’t part of the plan.
He hears snippets of conversation as his consciousness escapes like vapour out of his skull:
— unavoidable —
— Clearly a danger to himself and others —
— Maximum security is the only option —
— or psych ward? —
— sedation —
— paranoid —
— delusional —
— away for a long, long time —
It’s a relief when the drug washes him away.
Chapter 24
Hot Tokyo
TWELVE YEARS LATER
Innercity
Johannesburg, 2036
Mally’s mandible buzzes. Vega calling.
Pick up, he thinks, and the call connects.
“Vega. I was just on my way to you.”
“Mally,” she says. “Mally.” But something sounds wrong. Her tone is off.
His heart sprints.
“What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“Mally,” she warbles, sounding like a robot for the first time Mally can remember.
Find Vega. Find Vega!
His holomap spins out and shows him the destination pin. She’s not at her hostel—she’s closer than that—three blocks north, at the CBD Night Market. Mally instructs the tram to stop. Other vehicles hoot. He jumps off, and as he lands on the pavement a jolt of pain in his injured leg almost floors him. He can’t see any northbound trams, and no cabbies are idling, so he starts to jog towards her location. Every step is a steel rivet in his flesh. He’s running and murmuring now, he doesn’t care what the people think as they stop to watch him hiss in pain. The teeth of the railway sutures are coming apart, opening his wound.