Why You Were Taken (31 page)

Seth’s Tile vibrates with a bump.

  LL> Hey, hope u OK. Hope you get this. Results in. Ramifications huge. Hve already called emergency meeting with YKW. Hero u. Biggest bust in Alba’s history. Fontus going down in big way. All yr previous fuck-ups forgiven. U officially now Rock Star. Whn can u come in? We hve a few bottles / Moët wth yr name on.

  SD>> Results?

  LL> Oh, U R there! Alive. : ) Sending report now. Come in ASAP!

Two separate PDFs come through. The first is the report on the Fontus samples: Anahita and Tethys clear, Hydra with lots of red tabs, showing irregularities. Seth recognises the main chemicals: ethinyl estradiol; norgestrel; drospirenone; mestranol; ethynodiol -- the same active ingredients you’d find in a contraceptive pill. James casts a backward glance, but keeps driving.

        The next PDF is the analysis of Kirsten’s yellow pills, and he sees some more red tabs. Confused for a second, he checks that he is looking at the right report and not the Hydra analysis, but it’s the correct one. The red tabs highlight various chemicals, all of which Seth recognises from his time at Pharmax. Diazepam, Sertraline, Doxepin.
The fuck?
He thinks. It’s a zombie pill. He starts as he remembers that James was the one who filled her prescription for her.

James speeds up and weaves through the traffic, causing them to sway in their seats at the back. He swears under his breath and skips red lights. Smacks the steering wheel with his palm.

Seth bumps Kirsten.

  SD>> Who’s the beefcake?

  KD> Cop. Mouton. He worked my parents’ case.

  SD>> WTF?

  KD> ??

  SD>> U know those pills u had?

  KD> Yebo?

  SD>> Tranquilisers.

  KD> No way. I got them from James.

Kirsten digs in her handbag for her lipstick magic wand, and slips it into her pocket, along with her pocketknife. When the front entrance of the clinic is in view the tension in the car climbs. Inspector Mouton pulls off his long sleeve shirt. Kirsten’s eye is drawn to the skin on his arm. It’s marbled, shiny. Burn scar?

They pull into the parking space closest to the giant glass entrance, and James and the inspector get out. Kirsten tries her door again, but it’s still locked. She jimmies the handle, knocks on the window.

  ‘James!’ she calls. ‘It’s on child-lock!’

The realisation hits Seth just before it does Kirsten, and he puts his forehead in his hands. She doesn’t understand his reaction, and then all of a sudden she does.

The memory comes back to her like a swift punch to the stomach, slams her back into her seat, takes all the air out of her lungs. She sees it as if she is back in that moment, that terrible moment, when the light went out of her life. A moment so long buried in her subconscious you’d think it would be decayed in some way, but it’s not. It’s cruelly vivid and so clear that Kirsten can taste the colours.

She is playing a game with her twin brother on an emerald lawn in the front garden of a pretty little house. She remembers the building: rough ivory paint that scratched your skin if you brushed up against it, curlicue burglar bars in the windows, cracked slasto leading up to a light blue (lemongrass-smelling?) front door. A brittle little letterbox on a pole with two red numbers on it (Lollipop)… red means two, so maybe it was 22? The garden was bursting with colour, enough to make Kirsten giddy.

The sun was shining brightly but it was uncharacteristically cold that day, and they were dressed in warm boots and brightly coloured jackets: peppermint for Sam and mandarin for her. Her mother – her real mother -- is leaning on the doorframe, watching them. She is pale and slim in a charcoal polo neck. She has her gardening apron on, and dirty gloves. A smear of soil on her cheek. Young, beautiful, with a long, thick braid of red hair. Kirsten gives her a toothy grin, and she responds with a smile and a thumbs-up. The phone rings from inside the house, and her mother peels off her gloves and goes to answer it.

Despite the warmth of the jacket, the skin on her hands is red when she looks down at them. Sam passes her something: a toy horse. No, a little pony, pink with a grubby white mane and tail. One of his action figures astride. A Thundercat. She zooms the pony over the grass and makes the appropriate sound effects; laughs. Sam doesn’t smile. Something has caught his attention in the street and he looks past her, frowning. He stands up on his chubby legs, toy still in hand, held against his round stomach.

A black combi has pulled up and all of a sudden there is a blonde-haired little boy right there, on their pavement. He seems only slightly older than they are. He beckons to them with his hands, his sweet face promising something fun and exciting. She babbles excitedly, starts to go towards him, but Sam puts his hand on her shoulder, wanting to hold her back. He looks at the boy and then back at the house, for his mother, but the doorframe is empty. Kirsten keeps walking and is soon beside the rosy-cheeked stranger. Sam calls out: ‘Kitty!’ and runs to catch up with her.

As he reaches the walkway beside the combi, the door slides open and a giant man swoops over them and there are meaty forearms squeezing the air out of them. Before they know what has happened they are struggling in the car. The other boy, stricken, is shouted at and jumps in last, and the door is slammed shut. From light to darkness, like that. Like that, the light in her heart went out. Nothing but darkness and a shocked wail in her ears. She realises the wailing is coming from her. In the dim interior she sees the blonde-haired beckoner also crying, his face contorted with silent tears.

The face she knows so well. James.

THE ULTIMATE BLOODLESS REVOLUTION

36

Johannesburg, 2021

James opens the sliding door, flooding the car with light. Dust motes dance in the white air. Inspector Mouton stands beside him, gun drawn and pointed at the twins.

‘Is that necessary?’ James demands, anger gravelling his voice.

Mouton ignores him.

‘Come with us,’ Mouton says to Kirsten and Seth. ‘Come quietly and no one gets hurt.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ the twins say in unison. Kirsten can’t even look in James’s direction. She looks at the car, and sees where the paintwork has been touched up. It was James who had tried to run them off the road on the way back from the seed bank. James who had hidden the letter from her mother. James who had tried to incapacitate her with pills.

Her heart was in shock, as if she had just been stung by a jellyfish. A swarm, a smack. His betrayal was like deep blue venom spreading throughout her body.

  ‘Your friend is very sick,’ says Mouton. ‘You don’t have much time. If you come with us, we’ll give you the medicine she needs.’

  ‘Go!’ Kirsten says to Seth, ‘I’ll see to Keke. You get out of here.’

  ‘No way,’ he says. ‘I’ve only just found you.’

  ‘The deal is for both of you,’ says Mouton. ‘Just one of you is useless to me.’

Keke’s phone starts vibrating and wailing, the SugarApp counter is at 0: ‘DANGER ZONE.’

  ‘Fine,’ says Kirsten, ‘we’re wasting time. Let’s go!’

Mouton halts them, pats them both down, takes their guns, including the sling-smuggled Ruger. He finds the pocketknife and magic wand. Puts the knife in his pocket and looks at the lipstick, undecided. He has never seen Kirsten wear colour on her lips. He is about to inspect it when James makes an agitated sound.

  ‘Come on,’ says James, ‘we need to move.’

Mouton hands the tube back to Kirsten.

  ‘Go,’ he says, and pushes the pair in front of him. They walk in the main entrance, which has been deserted by the regular security detail, and into the elevator. James tries to take Kirsten’s hand but she stands as far away from him as she can, squashing herself into the cool corner. The mirror, meant to make the small space seem bigger, reflects their taut faces and the result is claustrophobic.

Worried that she would get sick again, Kirsten closes her eyes and breathes into her corner, resting her forehead on the mirror. Her breath and sweat mists up the glass, veiling her reflection. Mouton inserts a wafer-key and they start moving down – past ground level and two levels of basement parking listed as the bottom floors – and still further, until they are deep in the ground and Seth can almost feel the weight of the earth above them.

  ‘Kitty,’ says James.

Shut the fuck up,
she wants to say.
Your words are poison darts.

  ‘Let me explain.’

  ‘There is not an explanation that would make this okay.’

  ‘Van der Heever said to bring you in or he’d kill you.’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘I know what he is capable of.’

  ‘And yet you are delivering us to him.’

  ‘Don’t you see? I didn’t have a choice.’

Kirsten sneers at him. 

  ‘I can’t believe I ever let you touch me.’

  ‘How long have you worked for the Genesis Project?’ asks Seth.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ answers James. ‘That day, in 1988, when you were taken –’

  ‘You mean when you took us,’ says Kirsten.

  ‘Just like you did today,’ says Seth. ‘Deja-fucking-vu.’

  ‘After that day,’ says James, ‘I kept tabs on you. I made sure you were okay. I watched you from afar. Watched you grow up, as I grew up. I loved you – I did, I loved you -- from the very beginning. We were meant to be together. Don’t you see? We’re a family. A different kind of family … that day we met –’

  ‘Oh my God,’ says Kirsten, ‘
everything
was a lie.’

They step out of the lift and stand before a massive security door, like something out of a high tech bank. It reminds Kirsten of the Doomsday Vault. Mouton keys in a 5-digit code and puts his thumb to the scanner pad, two green lights glow (Serpent Eyes) and the door unlocks with a decisive pop. Kirsten lifts her hand to her face and narrows her eyes to cope with the intense light.

Everything is white: a passage with many interleading doors is made up of clean white floor tiles, white painted walls, a whitewashed cement ceiling. They walk along the passage and make a few turns. Every corner looks the same and Kirsten wonders how they’ll ever find their way out again. They are rats in a 4D maze. She takes as many photos as she can with her locket. Some of the doors seem to lead to more passages; others open up to deserted labs. Huge machines whirr away. Ivory Bead. Wet Sugar. Coconut Treat. A hundred shades of white. Stuttering holograms of static. Glass upon glass upon glass.

The employees seem to have left in a hurry: Seth sees half-drunk cups of tea, open desk drawers, an out-of-joint stapler, an abandoned cardigan.

Air sanitiser streams in through the air vents, sounding like the sea. It reminds Kirsten of being on a ghost ship, many of which she explored, looted and floating endlessly on the Indian Ocean. Why had she been so captivated by stories of the Somali pirates? Because she had known all along, had a deeply buried awareness, that she, herself, had been kidnapped. Her life had been seized, snatched, carried off. It left her an empty vessel, unmoored. Haunted.

  ‘That book I gave you,’ says James, ‘The fairytale. Hansel and Gretel. I gave it to you for a reason. Do you understand, Kitty? It was for a reason. I have a file on your real parents. I’ve tried to give it to you a thousand times, but every time I … I knew if I gave it to you we’d end up here.’

At the end of a nondescript passage Mouton pushes them into a room. They are shocked by the sound of a friendly dog barking. A beagle rushes to Mouton and nuzzles his shin with a low whine and a wet nose. Mouton opens a drawer, takes out a treat, and feeds it to the hound. Gives her a cursory pat on the head, gives her loose skin a gentle shake. Locks Seth’s and Kirsten’s guns away in a safe full of meticulously arranged weapons.

Kirsten recalls the image of dog hair on Betty/Barbara’s jersey, remembers the journo telling her that Betty/Barbara’s flat had dog food bowls, but no dog. Seth looks up, at the opposite wall, and Kirsten raises her eyes too. They stand and stare.

Pinned, stapled, and tied to the vast wall are hundreds of objects. Rings, coins, photographs, pieces of jewellery, dead flowers, frayed ribbons, candy, baby shoes, old toys. Like a vast artwork, a collage of found objects, except they know as they are looking that these objects were not found, but taken. Special things stolen from the people he had killed.
Objets d’amour.
Not just a regular serial killer’s bounty of murder mementoes. Not just a random hairclip or sweater or cufflink, but tokens of genuine affection. Layer upon layer of love, lost.

A love letter engraved on an antique piano key. A muddied toy rabbit. An Olympic gold medal. She sees the Holograph photo-projector she had given to her parents. Both feel their rage build. The beagle barks.
Mouton ushers them out of the room and raps loudly on the adjacent double door. A voice inside instructs him to enter, and they tumble in.

The room couldn’t be more different to the bleached Matrix of the way in: soft light, warm colours, wood and gold, linen, organic textures. It’s someone’s office. No, more intimate than that: someone’s den. Keke is lying on the couch, as pale as Kirsten had ever seen her. She runs over, puts her hand over her mouth to see if she is still breathing, and she is, but the movements are shallow. How long has she been unconscious? Her nano-ink tattoo is so vivid it looks as if it is embossed, and her body is slick with perspiration. James hands her a black clamshell kit (New Tyre) that she unzips. Three brand new vials of insulin stare back at her. Kirsten fumbles with the case with shaking hands, can’t seem to co-ordinate her fingers. Eventually she gets a vial out, then looks for syringes, needles, but can’t find them. She hadn’t even considered this part: that she would have to load the syringe and inject her friend. Her trembling hands are all but useless.