Why You Were Taken (10 page)

Worse still, it makes it almost impossible to do his real job – his Alba job – the reason he is here is in the first place. Seth feels a hot rush of irritation, almost anger; he needs to blow off some steam. He has a cocaine drop, his third for the day, and decides to head to the SkyBar.

*                  *                  *

Kirsten catches a tuk-tuk for the short ride into the inner city. She has the feeling that someone is watching her, and keeps looking over her shoulder for James, thinking he must have followed her out of Molly Q’s, but each time she thinks she hears something, or sees movement out of the corner of her eye, there is no one there. Despite the reassuring company of her fellow passengers, she starts to feel quite spooked.

Kekeletso is already at the bar when Kirsten gets there, and is getting some girl’s number. Once she has it, they smile at each other, and the woman kisses Keke’s cheek, strokes her arm. Keke is wearing a lacy tank top that shows off her nano-ink tattoo beautifully. It’s an antique grey colour now, so Keke must have shot up quite recently.

The SkyBar is on top of the tallest skyscraper in South Africa. It’s five hundred floors, and has a glass elevator on either side. They used to have a C-shaped infinity pool outside, running almost all the way around the venue. Now it’s dry and filled with exotic-looking plants with larger-than-life leaves and trailing tendrils. The club’s main attraction is that there’s always an interesting crowd, a good mix of BEE and reverse-BEE millionaires, bohemians, sports celebrities, tourists and race-car drivers.

  ‘Hey,’ she greets Keke, ‘this place is packed! I thought we were only meeting at nine-thirty.’

She waves the woman off. ‘I decided to come early, to network.’

  ‘So that’s what the kids are calling it nowadays?’

Keke smiles, and Kirsten grabs the still-warm barstool, which is more of a post-modernist statement than an actual chair.

  ‘Seriously, she’s a good contact to have. Grinds for the Nancies.’

  ‘Yuck,’ says Kirsten, ‘and I thought my life was bad.’

  ‘She’s clearly a masochist.’

  ‘Those masochists. Handy to have around.’

Keke orders them a couple of beers, hits the ‘tip’ button twice, and the barman delivers them with a wink in her direction. Her account will be debited with the balance by the KFID system as she leaves.

  ‘So, why are you early? I thought Marmalade was taking you out tonight. What happened, did he stand you up? No petrol in Zim again? No water? No aeroplane stairs?’

  ‘It would have been better if he had.’

  ‘Oh, shit. Sorry. Another fight?’

  ‘Argh … I’m so sick of hearing about my own problems. Fuck it. What are we here to celebrate?’

  ‘Well … can I tell you a secret?’ asks Keke, eyes a-sparkle.

  ‘Hello,’ says Kirsten, ‘who else would you tell?’

  ‘You can’t tell anyone, not even Marmalade.’

Won’t be the first time, thinks Kirsten. She nods.

  ‘I’m just about to break this big story. It’s huge. I’d love to say that it’s been weeks of hard journo-ing but actually it just fell into my lap. All I had to do was fact-check.’

  ‘In other words, all your Friend With Benefits had to do was fact-check.’

  ‘Yeah-bo.’

  ‘Hey? Who did it come from? Why would someone just hand over a story to you? And why you?’

  ‘I don’t know. The gods of the fuck-circus that is journalism decided to smile down on me. Why do whistleblowers toot their flutes? – Justice? Revenge? It arrived in my SkyBox with no note and no author. Just the picture of a little green rabbit that disappeared as soon as I opened it.’

  ‘Bizarre,’ says Kirsten.

  ‘I know already. But listen to this. You know that Slow-Age super-expensive beauty-salon-slash-plastic-surgery clinic in Saxonwold? Tabula Rasa. They were the first spa in SA to have a Lixair – vitamin air – chamber. They made headlines a while ago with their FOXO gene therapy? The one with all-white everything? Like, you get blinded when you go in there?’

  ‘Heard of it. Never been. My freelance salary doesn’t stretch that far.’

  ‘Lucky for you. All that white was hiding something very dark indeed.’

  ‘Let me guess. They were exchanging their wrinkled flesh-and-blood clients for smooth-skinned Quinbots?’

  ‘Worse,’ says Kekeletso.

  ‘Ha,’ says Kirsten. ‘What?’

  ‘They were buying
discarded embryos
from dodgy fertility clinics, spinning them for their stem cells, then injecting them into their clients’
faces.’

  Kirsten stops smiling. ‘No,’ she says.

  ‘That’s what I thought. No way it could be true. But this report came from someone who had worked there. Had infiltrated the system and had proof of hundreds of transactions. Pics, video, everything.’

  ‘That is so fucked up. Horrible. I wish you had never told me. I wish it wasn’t true.’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Keke. ‘I had to tell someone. I’ve been sitting on it for days waiting for all the facts to check out.’

  ‘What kind of world are we living in?’ asks Kirsten.

  ‘One where at least there is someone willing to out those bastards. If something like this had happened fifty years ago we wouldn’t have had a cooking clue. May The Net bless Truthers everywhere.’

  ‘To Truthers!’ says Kirsten, raising her drink. ‘Also: ha ha.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s funny? The name? Tabula Rasa means “clean slate”, doesn’t it? Like, come in all aged and wrinkled and shit and leave with a face like a clean slate.’

  ‘And a brain to go with it,’ Keke adds.

  ‘Except now it’s going to be revealed as a black clinic.’

  ‘Poetry!’

  ‘You’re right, it is funny. Ha!’

  ‘Or would be, if it wasn’t so fucked up.’

  ‘Yes,’ Keke pulls a face, ‘well. You know what they say.’

  ‘Tell me. What do they say?’

  ‘If you don’t laugh, you cry.’

  ‘Story of my life. Well, congratulations. That’s one big fucking story. I sense some kind of award for journalistic excellence on the horizon. Huzzah!’

  ‘I wish I could take the credit. Oh, Kitty … there’s something else,’ says Keke, looking hesitant.

‘What’s up?’

  ‘I found something else. It’s something about you. About your parents.’ Keke rubs her lips, rings for another round. ‘You’re not going to like it.’

*                  *                  *

Seth is gliding to electro-house swampo-phonic with a drunk woman in a kimono on the superglass dance-floor. It is easier to dance if you don’t look down: five hundred floors up, the vertigo from looking down sucks the rhythm from your feet.

Usually he loves the mixed crowd at the SkyBar but he feels off-balance tonight. The drinks don’t taste as good; the women aren’t as pretty as usual. It’s too crowded. He tried taking more coke earlier but it seems like a waste with this mood. Usually he would have already banged this girl in the plant pool, or in the unisex bathroom, but tonight it doesn’t feel worth the bother. This makes him feel worse. Is he getting old? Is grinding in a corporate environment leaching him of his personality? What’s next? Wearing a suit and tie? A nametag? A hearing aid? Joining the Fontus gaming club? Facebook? Getting married? Viagra? He shivers involuntarily. The sooner he can get his job there done and move on, the better.

He gives up on having a good time, abandons his drink, shrugs the kimono off and goes to get his jacket and gun from the security counter. While he manoeuvres through the warm bodies that block him he inadvertently gets close to the bar. As he’s making his way forward he feels a surge, an electric current zip through his body. It shocks him into standing up straight. He is surrounded – touching so many creeps at the same time – and he looks about to see if anyone else felt it, but no one around him registers any kind of surprise.

The fuck was that?

*                  *                  *

Kirsten is doubled over. Keke grabs her arm.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Christ,’ she whispers, ‘what the fuck?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just had the weirdest feeling.’

  ‘Your synaes-stuff?’

Slowly she starts to straighten up, hands on hips. ‘Fucking hell. I don’t think so. More like getting the electric chair. You didn’t feel anything?’

  Keke shakes her head.

  ‘I must have touched something,’ she says, and looks around for anything that looks like it could have shocked her.  ‘It’s so crowded in here, maybe it was just some kind of sensory overload.’

Keke looks unconvinced. ‘Good God, woman. The more I get to know you, the stranger you become.’

  ‘It’s nothing. I’m okay. Hit me,’ she says to Keke. ‘I can take it.’

  ‘You weren’t adopted,’ says Keke.

  ‘What?’ says Kirsten, cupping her ear.

  ‘You weren’t adopted!’ shouts Keke.

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘I know,’ says Keke. ‘But my FWB knows his stuff and there is no record of your parents adopting you, or of you being put up for adoption. He’s the best hacker I know. If Marko didn’t find anything, believe me, there is nothing to find.’

Kirsten can’t think of a word to say.

  ‘It wasn’t easy, either. I did some of the digging myself. Since the last orphanage closed in 2016 it’s tricky to get information … enough red tape to strangle all the bureaucrats on the planet. It’s as if, now that adoption doesn’t happen anymore, it’s a closed chapter in SA history.’

  ‘I guess that makes sense. Now that babies are … hard to come by, no one wants to think of a time when there were hundreds of them growing up in nasty institutions.’

  ‘Another legacy of the HI-Vax. No more AIDS orphan babies.’

  ‘And of the fertility crisis. No more babies, full stop.’ Pain flashes across Kirsten’s face.

  ‘Sorry, I know this must be difficult for you.’

  ‘It’s not. I mean, of course it is, but for different reasons. So you’re sure? No record of an adoption?’

‘Actually, no record of you being born. At all.’

Kirsten had guessed the birth certificate was a fake. She laughs despite herself.

  ‘So, what? You’re saying I don’t exist? I’m a ghost? No wonder I feel hollow. It’s all starting to make sense now!’

  ‘Not quite a ghost, but there’s definitely something odd about the way you came into the world. We just need to work out what happened. I mean, if that’s what you want. You could just forget about the autopsy report. Go back to living your normal life. It’s probably the sensible thing to do.’

  ‘Impossible. Besides, it’s never been
normal
. I need to find out the truth.’

Keke downs the last of her drink.

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

*                  *                  *

Seth looks at the clockologram on his bedroom wall for what feels like the hundredth time since getting into bed. Agitated, he wonders if he should get a sleeping pill but he’s already had two TranX so another downer would probably be a bad idea, especially on top of everything else he’s had today. A rock lyric comes into his head.

  ‘Sandy,’ he says to the open room.

  ‘Yes, Seth,’ purrs the apartment voice.

  ‘Play the song ‘Slumber is For Corpses’.’

Three beats later the song comes onto the sound system.

He closes his eyes and listens for a while, then reaches over for the sleeping pills, taps one into his palm.
Fuck it,
he thinks, and swallows it dry. He feels immensely dissatisfied with life in general. His QOL score was sitting at 32 out of a possible 100.

He had logged on to the Alba network when he arrived home to see if there were any messages, but there was no green rabbit. He looked for a chatterbot in the quantum philosophy circuit but didn’t find one interesting enough. He watched half an hour of a really bad ultra-reality programme about the Underground Games: NinjaJitsu and Punch-Rugby, before giving up on the day and going to bed. He had been alone for so long, but had never gotten used to the feeling. On nights like this he feels his life gaping before him, one big, empty gash. He was a prime number, and prime numbers are always lonely.

The animated graphic novel on his Tile fails to interest him, and he doesn’t feel up to gaming, so he just lies back and watches the red hologram digits click over and over. 00:00. He can’t even be bothered to jerk off.

*                  *                  *

They leave the SkyBar at around midnight. Kirsten knows by the look in Keke’s eyes that she’s on her way to a booty call.

  ‘Watch yourself,’ Keke says, strapping her helmet on and inflating it. She flings her leg over her sleek e-motorbike, releases the kickstand, and revs the engine. Kirsten waves as Keke takes off with a roar.

Standing in the monochrome rectangular box of the almost empty, poorly lit parking basement, Kirsten feels restless, cocky, horny, and not at all in the mood to go home. If she were single she would go back to the bar, pick up some unsuspecting man and show him her talents.

She misses that, sometimes, the thrill of sleeping with someone for the first time. The feeling of a stranger’s lips on hers; lips that have nothing to do with love or affection. The first undressing, the first nipple-in-mouth, pulling of hair, and then the heady relief of that first swollen thrust. Just thinking about it, Kirsten feels her breathing deepen, and a general throbbing in the lower half of her body. James is a generous lover, but he doesn’t have the same nagging libido as she does. Add thirteen years of old-fashioned monogamy to that and it’s always tempting on nights like this, with booze in her blood, to accept one of the many advances made to her. After all, she reasons, no one would have to know, so no one would be hurt. She has never cheated on James, but at times like this, angry with him, angry with the world, she feels a hard, rebellious recklessness. A sharp chipstone in her fist.