Moxyland (7 page)

   'Do you ever worry about her?' He jerks his head at the door.

   'Uh. No.'

   'Surely,
surely
, sugar and, hmm, let me see…' He sniffs delicately at the length of the joint, takes a long drag and smacks his lips together, playing connoisseur. 'Just a hint of vanilla and a touch of bliss isn't exactly on the employee preapproved list?'

   'Stop fooling and hand it over.'

   'Only if you tell me you got it.'

   'Only if you tell me what's in the bag.'

   'Ah. Seems we're stalemated.' He waggles the joint. I ignore it, nudge the neoprene with my foot. Then I look up at him coyly through my lashes. This is an old game we play, practically choreographed.

   'What do you think?'

   He tackles me, knocking me back onto the bed and pinning my arms above my head. 'You incredible woman.' He moves as if to kiss me, trying his luck as if the final play wasn't already pre-determined, and I twist my head away and take a drag from the joint still pincered between his fingers instead. He mock-sighs and lets up. 'You used to be so much fun.'

   'And you used to be not such a drugged-out freak. Put that away. And put some clothes on. I assume you brought clothes?'

   He gets sulky and crouches down beside his pack, turning his back on me. As he starts unzipping the bag, it jolts and struggles. A scrimmage ensues.

   'Shit!' Toby falls backwards onto his ass as a VIMbot shoots across the room and under my bed. I yelp and pull my feet up, laughing. 'Toby! What was that?'

   'My new friend. I liberated him.'

   'How do you know it's a him?'

   'I would never have gone for a female. Too troublesome.'

   I stick my head over the edge of the bed. The VIMbot is already at work, rustling the dust bunnies.

   'Tobe. I can't help but notice that this particular VIMbot appears to have the Communique logo on it.'

   'Yeah, like I said, I liberated him. Just like I'm gonna liberate you one day: storm into the cursed citadel, slay the vile monsters or, you know, Jane, and carry you off.'

   'To your shitty swivel with the rest of civilian humanity.'

   'Hey, don't knock the swivel. I get a view at least a fifth of the time.'

   'And motion-sick the rest.' His rotating apartment, designed to maximise space, makes me dizzy.

   'I like the revolving. It's like being on a ride. All the time.'

   'Thanks for the offer, the noble knighthood thing. But I'll pass.'

   'Okay, you wanted to know my motivation? It's revenge.'

   'Oh. Right. I see. You kidnapped a VIMbot because you resent Communique's security policies?'

   'Not just Communique, Lerato. Every corporation! Let every multinational conglom quake in fear, for the people have spoken! Dredge humanity is banding together, taking a stand for freedom, truth, equality – and the right to buy Fong Kong brands.'

   'A noble cause indeed. But I'm not buying the whole Fong Kong cheap rip-off pledge, considering you're wearing a thirty grand BabyStrange chamo coat. Please.'

   'Okay, all right. I needed some help in my apartment. It's a mess. And this little guy… I just know he wants to help out.'

   'All right, all right. I concede. You can have the damn thing. But let me neuter the little bugger first. Pass it here.'

   Toby scrabbles under the bed and yanks out the bot, which is buzzing hysterically, desperate to get back to vacuuming. They're pretty dense. You can't interrupt them mid-task. He hands it to me, and I snap out my toolkit and unscrew the faceplate underneath it. It takes less than ten seconds to over-ride the GPS tracking program and the homing instinct. It's not like a cleaning bot is exactly a priority.

   'What about the vocal responses? You want 'em?' I ask Toby, who is now pulling on his jeans.

   'What does it say?'

   I click through the options. Even less than you'd expect. It's such a simple piece of tech and they're not expected to last long, so they're pretty limited. 'Error, please try again,' it chirps mechanically. 'Property of Communique Inc.,' and, lastly, a really cute 'All clean.'

   '
Mal
,' Toby says, so I leave the vocals operative and hand over the bug, which is now sitting quietly on best behaviour.

   'Oh, crap, speaking of my BabyStrange, know anyone who might be keen to buy it? My parents cut me off. Again.'

   'Is that your way of asking for a loan? Least you have parents, big boy.'

   'Is that your way of turning me down? Aw, poor little orphan girl in her subsidised

beachfront corp apartment and cushy job.'

'You are such an ass.'

'That's still a no, then?'

   'I have an idea. I know it's out there. Why don't you try working for a living?'

   'I would, but my allergies. No, okay, I've got something hooked up with a games merchant, but it's been a while since I played with a joystick. Well, apart from this one.' He touches his crotch. 'Point is it's gonna take a couple of days for anything to come through.'

   'This is only because I pity you and your delusions of splendour,' I sigh, pointing my phone in the general vicinity of the item in question, but really at his phone. 'Check your account. I've transferred 5k for you. Which I expect back, Toby. Seriously.'

   'Truly, you are a generous corporate bitchmonkey,' he says, putting his hands together and bowing. I throw a pillow at him.

   'Oh, and still on the subject of the BabyStrange. Now that you've saved it and, not uncoincidentally, my streamcasting career, I've got something to show you.'

   He plays back a weird mash of some almost bar fight, which ends tediously and predictably in a defusing. It's not overly interesting, until he points out the big guy with the dreads, his would-be revolutionary friend.

   'Is that where you're getting all the political doggerel?'

   'Yeah. Along with the winning phrase "corporate bitchmonkey." We're having a protest party. It's the new theme night at Replica. Insurrection Saturdays. Awesome DJ playing.'

   'You, you mean?

   'You should come. It's going to be toyota. I can comp your phone, plus one, if you want.'

   'Toby. You know I can't attend those sorts of things.'

   'Not even to show solidarity with your generation? Okay, okay, chill. It's just a bash. No one actually gives a shit about protesting against the system, except Tendeka maybe. But I did want to ask if you wanted to make a contribution.'

   'What kind of contribution?'

   'My beauty, your genius? The perfect pairing.'

   'I can't do this guy's phone if that's what you're asking, especially not if he's just been defused.'

   'So, what about switching off the security on an adboard? I can get you the exact GPS. It's just temporary.'

   'Oh. I don't know. What's temporary?'

   'Long enough.'

   'For?'

   'A little outlaw smear campaign.'

   'What would you do if you didn't know me, Toby?'

   'I'm sure the world would be hugely improved.'

   'Whose board is it?'

   Toby sucks intently on the joint, all the better to avoid meeting my eye. 'Fuck knows. I don't keep track.'

   'Well, where is it?'

   'N2, near Roodebloem Road. Smack in the middle of the highway.'

   'You know that's a Communique board.'

   'Your employers would disapprove terribly.'

   'It's a serious offence, Toby.'

   'Worse than the tamper job you just did on this little guy?'

   'Oh, please. That's the equivalent of stealing stationery. Aiding and abetting a hack job on corporate property? That's a whole other category. That's goodbye plush apartment and cushy job. Firing offence, no written warning required.' I have to feed him the lines, cover up the snap of excitement. It's like finding the wall blocking your way in a dead-end alley is only made of cardboard, that you can push right through it. I know exactly how to use this.

   'You could have just come out with "no",' says Toby, pulling his shirt over his head. It clings to the damp on his back, so he is all elbows tangled in rumpled cotton.

   I yank the tee down to his chin, so he can see me, see how serious I am. His lanky arms are still caught in it, sticking stiffly above his head, like he's being robbed.

   'I didn't say I wouldn't do it, Toby. I just want you to appreciate the risk I'm taking on your behalf.'

   'Okay. Got it. Muchos graçias, scary intense girl. Can I have my t-shirt back?'

   I step back so he can finish getting dressed.

   'And speaking of dangerous favours…' I rummage in my suitcase for his present and toss it to him. He stashes the phone just in time, as the door cracks open.

   'Uh-oh,' Toby stage-whispers, 'evil housemate alert.'

   Jane pokes her head in, bearing gifts. 'Oh, hey, your food is here. What are you guys doing?'

   'Fucking,' Toby says brightly. 'You wanna join us?'

 

As soon as I step out into Long Street and the warm sheet of rain that soaks through my clothes, I realise I can't face going back to the loft right now. Not because of the gaping holes in the walls where the builders have knocked through the kitchen, or the dust that the absorbent tarps are supposed to sponge up right out of the air, but because it's too weighed down with memories.

   The way your brain works it's always rewiring itself; the layers of association tangled up with different people and places recontextualised by new experiences. You can map out a whole city according to the weight of memory, like pins on the homicide board tracking the killer's movements. But the connections get thicker and denser and more complicated all the time.

   I feel like the tarps sop up emotional residue along with the dust drifting down to settle on the carpets, filming the walls; the shouting matches we degenerate into at two in the morning when he stops in for a 'chat' after a night out with his friends – and wants to leave straight after. Five months ago, I liked the glamour of being a kept woman. It made a change from being just another impoverished Michaelis student. But now it just seems stale and tired and terribly naïve.

   I walk down the steps to the underway, below the new deco curls of the signage that says 'Long' and 'D', and stand on the platform along with some kids who epitomise the Michaelis breed, with their overtly punky hair and ramshackle clothes, cultivating the ugly look for the shock value.

   The tunnels rumble and shush with far-off trains. It's 98 seconds till the next connecting train to Chiappini Street. If it wasn't so humid and soggy, I'd walk.

   The rumbling amps up and the train rides in, sending plumes of water skating up on either side of it. The plastech doors slide open and I push past the crowd to slide into a seat while there's still one going. The train rises slightly, hissing as the hover reinflates, and glides off, the neon lights on the tunnel walls slipping into blurred darts as we pick up speed towards Adderley Station.

   I've got several spools to drop off with Mr. Muller. It was a mission to find someone who still dabbled in oldschool processes like film. If I were a real artist, Jonathan teased me, I would have done it myself as a point of pride.

   Four Ghosts down, the sense of panicky urgency has eased up. Andile didn't tell me it would be like this. That I would have to placate it. Or maybe it's just the residual humiliation of Toby trying to kiss me. The pathetic truth is that Jonathan would probably encourage it.

   I take out my Leica Zion, my everyday filter on the world, and start clicking through the memchip, past the people framed in the window of the Afro Café and the unfinished graffiti on the Parade clustered between the adboards, past the pictures of bridges from the negative space binge I went on last week, until I come to the images of my wrist.

   Four thousand one hundred and twenty photographs over the time it took to develop, like film. Played back in timelapse the bruise blossoms and bursts, resolving like a Rorschach into the logo. It's the exact colour of the phosphorescent algae shimmering in the waves on the beach in Langkawi, where Jonathan took me after the agonising slow-mo months of my father's death.

   I spent an hour looking at my skin this morning, studying my wrist, my face. The cosmetic effects are the most obvious, but it's the stuff you can't see that counts; the nano attacking toxins, sopping up free radicals, releasing antioxidants by the bucketload. It's a marathon detox and a fine-tune all in one. And the nano's programmed to search and destroy any abnormal developments, so I'll never have to go through what Dad did, the cancer chewing its way through his stomach, consuming him from the inside out.

   No promises, said Andile, before he made me sign the contradicting waiver: 'The applicant understands that any claims made by Inatec staff regarding medical or health benefits are based on preliminary findings from testing in animals. The applicant understands that the Inatec nanotechnology is still in the prototype phase of development and, based on this information and understanding, accepts full responsibility for all the risks inherent, etc, etc.'

   I don't mean to be dismissive of the etceteras or the risks inherent. I know exactly what I'm in for, despite what that freakshow from the bar might think. Or my shrink, who believes I'm just doing this as a way of asserting myself in the whole bang shebang with Jonathan.

   I'm a demo model for their demographic. An angel of aspiration. A guinea pig for an appropriate alliterative beginning with g. Ghost, I guess. Only once removed on the food chain from the kids who sell space on their chamo, adblips playing out on the plastivinyl of tees and jackets like walking projectaboards, only with more 'risks inherent'.