"Zoo City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Beukes Lauren)36.It's 4:30 am and the queue to the Beit Bridge border is already more than a thousand cars long, and that's on the South African side. Never mind the torrent of refugees trying to cross over from Zimbabwe. Barbed-wire fences barricade the dusty scrub on the riverbank from anyone stupid or desperate enough to try to swim across from Zimbabwe. After all, there are crocodiles in that river. The high drone of cicadas rises with the heat as we inch forward one car at a time through the carbon-monoxide fug. There is a bus two cars ahead of me loaded down on its axles with bags and chickens and a cram of people. The tangle of lost things on that bus swarms like a cloud of spaghetti. And even here, there's that Zoo City hustle going on. Maybe it's not peculiar to Hillbrow. Maybe it's South Africa. You do what it takes, you take the opportunities. Vendors walk up and down the line of cars selling warm cold-drinks and chips, single Sloth is hidden in a rattan bag full of clothes with a hole slashed in the side for him to breathe. The bag is stacked on the roof amid a jumble of other bags, loaded with the kinds of things returning Zimbabweans bring home for their families. Clothes and canned food, blankets, appliances, toilet paper, sanitary pads. I will dump these on the other side. They're only a cover while I'm still in South African territory. Still in Inspector Tshabalala's jurisdiction. Never mind Vuyo's. The Capri has had a paint job. It's now black. The window has been fixed. It has new plates to go with my new Zimbabwean passport in the name of Tatenda Murapata, twenty-nine, full-time nanny going home for a holiday. D'Nice sourced the papers for me, to make up for pointing the cops in the direction of my apartment. But only after I threatened to frame him for Mrs Luditsky's murder. He doesn't need to know I already handed over the knife after I retrieved it from the drain along with the china kitten. He even got me a good exchange rate on my counterfeit notes. Just because they're fake doesn't mean they don't have value, particularly when dealing with border officials who don't look too closely. Benoît is still in hospital. Critical condition, the doctors say. They speak in medical terms, but what I understand is broken ribs, a bruised heart, a punctured lung, nerve damage to his dislocated arm. He will need months of physiotherapy. He may never recover the full use of it. But the worst is the bite. It's the magic. Animal wounds take longer to heal, come with stranger side-effects. He sways between fevered moments of wakefulness and unconsciousness that's borderline coma, but with more erratic brain activity, like he's still fighting monsters in there. The Mongoose paces the corridors, looking thin and miserable. There was nothing I could do there. Eight days to Kigali if I keep to the tar, and don't hit any potholes or roadblocks I can't bribe my way out of. Day one: Johannesburg to Harare Day two: Harare to Lusaka Day three: Lusaka to Mbeya Day four: Mbeya to Dar es Saalam Day five: Dar es to Nairobi Day six: Nairobi to Jinja Day seven: Cross into southern Uganda Day eight: Mbasa to Kigali. The place names sound like new worlds. I have only ever travelled to Europe. On a skiing holiday with my parents when I was eleven, when Thando broke his leg, not on the slopes but slipping on an icy pavement. On a working holiday to London when I was eighteen, which lasted a month before I decided to hell with living in a shitty apartment and working a bar and returned to the creature comforts of my parent's Craighall house with the pool and the gardener and the char lady who made my bed. Before I met Gio, before I killed my brother, before Sloth. I have an What I do not have is permission to leave the country in the wake of a multiple homicide/serial killer investigation. Celvie. Armand. Ginelle. Celestin. It's going to be awkward. It's going to be the best thing I've done with my miserable life. And after that? Maybe I'll get lost for a while. Acknowledgments Making the fantastic seem credible is hard work. I was lucky to have co-conspirators. Special thanks to Johnson Sithole of JBS Security, who was my fixer in Hillbrow and Berea (special thanks for not bringing your gun), and to photographer Marc Shoul for recommending him. Thanks to Lindiwe Nkutha for taking me to Mai Mai and Faraday healers' markets and for getting bounced from the Rand Club with me when we weren't appropriately dressed. I'm grateful to the management of High Point and their passionate young security team, who gave me a complete tour of the building and really did catch a rapist. Nechama Brodie's fine pop-culture history of the city, My music industry insiders/informers were Esther Moloi, Jason Curtis, Gabi le Roux, Shamiel Adams and music journalist Evan Milton, who insisted on being allowed to interview Odi Huron, albeit for a fictional magazine. Thanks to you all, and to travel writer Justin Fox for helping me plot Zinzi's travel arrangements. Thanks also to Charlie Human and Sam Wilson who were roped in to write additional materials for this book, the psychological paper on the Undertow and the prison interviews respectively. Both pieces added a depth to my story and provided perspectives I wouldn't have thought of on my own. Dr Meg Jones and Cape Medical Response paramedic Chris de Meyer were invaluable in providing expert medical opinions on fictional conditions and injuries. I'm very grateful to Jamala Safari, who shared his journey from the DRC to South Africa (hopefully soon to be a novel), unravelled acronyms and the tangle of conflicts over resources that has resulted in an estimated 5.4 million deaths in the Congo since 1998. James Bocanga, another DRC émigré who runs his own security firm in my neighbourhood, patiently explained slang and daily life, and provided translations for me. Bishop Paul Verryn invited me to visit the Central Methodist Church, where, at the time, over three thousand refugees were living in terrible, dehumanising conditions – that were nevertheless better than sleeping on the street. It was a shocking and humbling experience that has stayed with me, even though I couldn't find a way to fictionalise it. The church offered shelter during the xenophobic attacks of 2008, and continues to offer support and assistance even as many try to ignore the dire situation of refugees in South Africa. There's been ongoing controversy about it, especially recently, but the people I met there were courageous and empathetic, and doing the best they could in the worst possible circumstances. Tim Butcher's Other books that proved invaluable include Bongani Madondo's Matt Weems's fantastic website Friends on Twitter leapt to help me with research questions on anything from storm drains to good places to dump a body (only a Various 419 scammers were very helpful in sending reference material direct to my inbox (you're welcome to contact me to claim a percentage of my royalties, although there may be a small administrative cost involved), but I owe greater thanks to the good people of Thanks to my meticulous and highly critical readers: Sarah Lotz, Sam Wilson, Zukiswa Wanner, Lindiwe Nkutha, Verashni Pillay, Nechama Brodie, Charlie Human, Louis Greenberg and my husband, Matthew Brown – you all helped make this book what it is. Genius illustrators John Picacio and Joey Hifi created the two most beautiful covers in the world for the international and South African editions of the book respectively. They're both incredible in different ways, and both artists took time out of their insane schedules to do the work. I'm grateful. Marc "Marco" Gascoigne and Lee Harris at Angry Robot, and Pete van der Woude and Maggie Davey at Jacana have been exceptional and brilliant people to work with, as has been my editor, Helen Moffett. Finally, thanks to my family and friends – especially to Matthew and Keitu – for making everything worth it. About the Author Lauren Beukes is a writer, TV scriptwriter and recovering journalist (although she occasionally falls off the wagon). She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town under André Brink, but she got her real education in ten years of freelance journalism, learning really useful skills like how to pole-dance and make traditional sorghum beer. For the sake of a story, she's jumped out of planes and into shark-infested waters, and got to hang out with teen vampires, township vigilantes, AIDS activists and homeless sex workers among other interesting folk. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and daughter. www.moxyland.com EXTRA. MOXYLAND WINNERS. Extras Moxyland Short Story Winners The Minutes // Sam Wilson INATEC BIOLOGICA INC. PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL For viewing by legal entities with Corporate Status (CS) A+ or above only. PLEASE SHRED ALL PHYSICAL COPIES AFTER IMMEDIATE USE in accordance with company policy, 223rd Rev. #464. Failure to observe company policy will result in salary suspension, downgrading of employee status, and curtailed network access. Minutes created by FACILIT4TOR PRO version 4.01 (licensed copy 10876-12). Copyright © FACILIT4TOR INC. 2019. You may not distribute, copy, print, scan, etc. these minutes or parts thereof without written permission from FACILIT4TOR INC. For detailed legal information, visit facilit4tor.law. MINUTES OF MEETING #4586 Ref. 32 Dated 27-09-2019 ATTENDING: (5) List By Corporate Status. ABSENT: (None) START TIME: 21.45 – Automatic reading of minutes of previous meeting by FACILIT4TOR PRO is cancelled at 0:07. – Brown (Inatec) thanks all present for attending. – Mthini (Ghost Inc) tells Brown (Inatec) to cut the bullshit. – Mthini (Ghost Inc) reminds all present of the details of the enhanced branding campaign for the soft drink Ghost. Salient points are: 1) Vukani Media, in association with Inatec Biologica, was contracted to enhance the branding of the soft drink Ghost. 2) The enhancement was to include cellular-level biological modification of Ghost Inc.'s brand ambassadors. 3) The modification was to bring the brand ambassadors in line with the Ghost brand, as laid out in the Ghost Inc. Brand Bible Version 5.5 (Doc 564. Not found in archive). 4) The key phrases of the Ghost brand are: Youth, Aspiration, Peergroup Bonding, and Safe (pro-consumption) Creativity. – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) tells Du Plessis (Actisponse) to play Media File #13-586 [not found in archive]. [ SUMMARY OF MEDIA FILE #13-586 OPENING TITLE TEXT: Footage cuts to a young man wearing a pair of sunglasses. His head is half-shaved. He is wearing an open BabyStrange jacket with no shirt beneath, leather chaps, and a pair of boxer shorts printed with a black-and-white image of female pudenda. The man, who appears intoxicated, narrates a clearly fictitious experience he had escaping from a police holding cell. The narration is punctuated as the man swigs from a family-sized bottle of Ghost. This story is interspersed throughout by video clips of sex scenes recorded on a BabyStrange jacket, in which the young man has coitus with a variety of women of different nationalities, in a variety of positions. Although these clips are not directly related the narration, they are tangentially connected to the action described. For instance, a description of the young man cutting through some prison bars with a metal file is illustrated by close-up footage of a penis being thrust repeatedly between a pair of breasts. Each shot in some way includes the soft drink Ghost, or Ghostthemed memorabilia, often in an inserted capacity. At least three participants in the video clips are recognisable social figures, media rated B+ and above. They include 17 year old pop starlet ‹NAME REDACTED›, Luxury Travel Presenter ‹NAME REDACTED›, and ‹NAME REDACTED›, the socialite daughter of ‹NAME AND GOVERNMENT POSITION REDACTED›. The fictional account of the escape cumulates in the man skewering his captors through their hearts with his own engorged penis, and carrying them around "like a kebab." ] – Du Plessis (Actisponse) calls up a still frame from Media File #13-586 (Frame 2:41:15) revealing a bioluminescent marker on Toby ‹FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION›'s arm. The marker is the corporate logo of Ghost Inc. – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) suggests that everyone involved in the branding exercise should be subject to immediate dismissal and disconnect. – Du Plessis (Actisponse) reports that Media File #13-586 has been downloaded 3,566,143 times in the last 6 months, giving it a pop culture profile of B (Underground – High Popularity). – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) states that, together with other video files from the same source, this media file has irrevocably damaged the brand of the soft drink Ghost. – Zono (Vukani Media) claims that the man in the footage, Toby ‹FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION›, is not, and never was, an officially selected brand ambassador for Ghost, and his actions are not the responsibility of Vukani Media or any of its affiliates. – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) says that he doesn't give three shades of shit if Toby ‹FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION› is an official brand ambassador or not. He is clearly a by-product of the branding program. – Brown (Inatec) asks Dyonashe (Inatec) if it is possible that a nonbrand ambassador could have been subject to cellular level branding. – SILENCE (17 secs) during which Dyonashe (Inatec) flips through the print-outs in front of him. – Dyonashe (Inatec) says that he cannot answer fully, as the branding brief contained elements that were classified at level A++. However, the therapies involved did have a contagious component, as specifically requested by Ghost Inc. – IMPOSSIBLE TO PARSE NEXT SECTION. Multiple persons speaking simultaneously. (23 secs). – Brown (Inatec) asks if he is correct in understanding that Ghost Inc. and Inatec Biologica have been collaborating on an infectious virus to spread addiction to a soft drink. – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) demands silence, as no one in the room has clearance to speculate on company policy. – Zono (Vukani Media) asks when Vukani Media was going to be notified about this. – Du Plessis (Actisponse) activates a taser-nightstick. – SILENCE. (4 secs). – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) tells everyone to focus on the matter at hand, which is that Toby ‹FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION› is damaging the Ghost brand. – Du Plessis (Actisponse) offers his company's expertise in swift and discrete removal of individuals. – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) explains that Toby ‹FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION› has important family connections. Removing him would risk upsetting the monopolistic détente. – Dyonashe (Inatec) asks if he can offer a solution. Mthini (Ghost Inc.) grants him the floor. – Dyonashe (Inatec) explains that people who are modified by the Ghost branding are not addicted to Ghost per se, but to specific marker chemicals that are not found in any other drink. If another drink could be made with stronger concentrations of those chemicals, the brand ambassadors would almost certainly switch allegiance. – Du Plessis (Actisponse) suggests that they mix the marker chemicals with cyanide. – Dyonashe (Inatec) proposes a new beverage line from Ghost Inc., to lure unsavoury elements away from the brand. – Zono (Vukani Media) suggests that Ghost Inc. can do better. Toby ‹FULL NAME REDACTED AT REQUEST OF CORPORATE RELATIONS DIVISION› has a wide and influential reach. If Ghost Inc. creates a new drink, they can play off Toby's bad-boy image and underground fan base to get an immediate consumer following. A whole new brand could be created around Toby. – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) says he will propose the idea to his superiors. – Zono (Vukani Media) suggests the brand names "Ghost – Barbed Wire" or "Ghost – Battery Acid", and requests a royalty fee if either brand name is used. – Brown (Inatec) points out that using Toby as a brand icon will upset the carefully cultivated social landscape. – Mthini (Ghost Inc.) agrees that Toby as a mainstream icon could trigger a new wave of counter-culture, and such waves are notoriously difficult for corporations to steer. A new counter-culture would be extremely damaging for all the companies who are gearing their products towards a conservative and homogenous youth culture. – Zono (Vukani Media) agrees that it's true, but it will only be damaging for the companies that aren't ready for it, and Ghost Inc., Vukani Media, Actisponse and Inatec will be. As long as this meeting remains confidential, the four companies will be the only ones prepared for a youth culture upheaval. They will be prepared to gear their products towards a cynical, hedonistic, antisocial culture. While others companies fall, they will ride Toby's wave into a bright and glorious future. And if Toby wants to throw Molotov cocktails, they'll be right there to sell them to him. @nother // Bryan Steele ››SysRun: Pluslife ››Plugin/Cnapce: run . . . ››Pluslife/Cnapce online ››Enter Password My mates, both IRL and streaming, always say that a persona's password needs to be special and private. Something different for every account or prog. Something that no one will ever be able to acci-hack, especially not some low-tech lifejock with a score to settle with people like me. Yeah, I run my plugins on the bill of some big daddy corporate, but show me a half-cooked simp that wouldn't do the same damn thing if the contract msgd their way. So yeah, passwords. I have a dodgy memory on the best of days, popping pills just to keep my focus, which makes my having several passwords for my lives a lost cause. So, I keep one password. One, easy to mem, password. It's a joke really, how it came about. ››Password: @nother From my days of misspent youth. When a prog asked "Enter another password" for sec-proof reasons, I did. I entered "@nother" password. I was a clever little shit. Now I am stuck with it. For all my progs and accounts. SIM, CV, Grande…Pluslife. Especially Pluslife. My "@nother" life. ››Password accepted ››Welcome! to Pluslife, user Cnapce Pluslife. Where I work. The bigwig queue-cutters and chequechasers that keep me fed and roofed IRL hired me. Some kind of experimental prog that they needed beta'd. Beta'd? More like Omega'd at this point. Two years of running this deal for them, and do I know anything new about the prog? Nope. Not that I care. I'm never jonesing for black-makt shit, my weekly install keeps me sony. I have a roof over my nob in both lives, all paid up and looking swank. All I have to do is find the users on my daily lister, that's all. The corp feeds me the IDs of Pluslifers and I use this topline tech to hack them out and get my avvie to where they are. It is a sugar deal, really. I get all the time in the box as I want, so long as I'm surfing around for these users, and I get to see the net from all over. Last week I was sifting the code for some user in Kenya handled "And3rson" and I spent most of a day checking Ken-makt. Got a sweet deal on some Twarez for my ma, too. Then And3rson happened by the shopsite and I pulled his plug. The next day, I was in Oslo, skiing the pixel moguls and searching out "Doktor_Mow". They are both disconnect now. That's my gig. Adminning the people on my lister. I sever the links. Go ahead. Call me a wager. Call me a corporate bitchcat. The money is good, and now I don't have to run quests and odd-jobs to get it. And my SIM don't know any difference. I never know exactly what they did, my listers. I get brief notes, that's all. Illegals, rot-users, corp-debtors, hacktavists or fragged SIMs. But srsly, who cares? I find 'em, meet 'em, then fry 'em. The warez I get to use is toplined now, designer nano, on-site support? What else can a user ask for? Oh, wait. Today's lister is cooked and inboxing right now. ››Lister 08.099/ ›››User ID: CS44 (delinquent account) ›››User ID: cranque (suspected hack) ›››User ID: Malessa77 (account sharing) ›››User ID: LthreethreeT (account sharing) ›››Location: Sydney Sydney? That's the fucking tops. I've never been. Well, IRL anyways. A good four-pop like this should take me most of the week. Let's see. We get to start off with what? A delinquent account. Old user, probably. They stop paying their bill, get defused, whatever. Their avatar was logged in when they went DQ, so now I get to go clean up the server. So. Sydney. I'm going to need to blend in. Jeans. Plain shirt. Floppy hat… no, brimmed cap. Yeah, now I look good. I might as well be an outbacker. Well, Pluslifed, anyway. And now, I'm going down under. ››Cnapce/port ››Dest/Sydney//117.CS44 My apartment pixellates, unfocuses, then refocuses like a bad edit in streamcast. I don't get it. Pluslife can afford to make the experience perfect for everyone, but you snag up some admin rights and you get total analogue naush. Oh well. The refocus has me, or my avvie anyway, in the parking lot of some makt. I pull up the tag cues, and suddenly my… uhm… target for lack of a better term… flashes above a guy sitting in his auto. CS44 (afk) glows in blue above his head. Here I go. Time to earn my keep. I pop on over to the target. He is looking ahead, totally zomb'd out. He isn't in there anymore. Probably hasn't paid up in weeks. Well, it's the cycle of life…or, Pluslife. Time to do my thing. ››Cnapce: User ID CS44. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement, your account has been… I lean in, close to his vacant ear. Not that he knows anything that I'm doing, but it makes me feel like a real leet. ››Cnapce:…terminated. There is a brief flutter of static and little mister CS44 gets the pixel flush treatment. In a flash I'm looking at an empty ride. One down. Three to go. I love this job. It's one part gamer, one part world traveller, and one part serial killer. All digi, all the time. Yeah, there's urbans out there that blog about Pluslifers offing themselves IRL when they lose their Plus, but that's just mythchat. I mean, this is just a game. Just a prog. Well, I guess it is my life… you know, my job. But srsly? Sure, I wouldn't know what I could do without this gig, but if I do my job right, I don't need to think about it. Speaking of which… ››Cnapce/port ››Dest/Sydney//133.cranque Another pixel shift, another backdrop. Where the hell am I? It's low-res, off the streets, but still Sydney. No furniture, not even a digicot. My tag cues are still up, and the bright blue cranque tag floats right in front of me. Nothing beneath it. He should be right here. Fuckin' hack job. These are my least favourite marks. Aggro backdoor coding fucks. All of them. ››cranque: What the hell, bro? How R U in my codex? Ralphie, izzat u? ››Cnapce: Ya, where R U? ››cranque: Sidedoor, shift-alt-7. Arrogant black-hatters. They always give up the goods. I punch the sideline hack, the door appears, and in I go. The side room is nothing but copy-cut-paste codes. All vintage gear and stolen merch from around the Net. Two other users are sitting with the tagless cranque. They plugout as soon as my avvie pops in. They know. ››report:TyTy ››report:Angel0fDeth Cranque looks like most Pluslifers. He's the perfect height, built like a streamstar, and covered in perfect-image tattoo script. Another perfect body in a perfect world full of perfectly happy perfects. You'd think this would be enough. But no. Hacks and cheats don't think so. ››Freezeplug/Cnapce: cranque ››cranque: Wait! No! Cmon man, dont do this. What do U want? Ill code it! Cmon! The look on his face is priceless. I can just see this pimple-facer sitting in his mom's basement, desperately trying to back out of the prog, frothing and sweating and popping a nervous chub about getting caught. But it is no use. Time for a little admin-play. ››Cnapce: User ID cranque. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement, your account has been… ››cranque: Nononononononononononononononononononononononono!!!!!!!!!1111111 ››Cnapce: …terminated. Another one bytes the dust. Lesson taught. Now go tell your mom that her funds have been wasted and her SID is tagged for possible disconnect. Fucker. There is nothing I hate more than a user who cheats the prog. Especially in Pluslife. I mean, for some users this is their escape from the smog and the static. A place to look good, get out and party, and do it without shaving a single whisker. Cheathacking here is just wrong. Dirty pool. Loaded dice. To me, it's no better than those old nano'd runners on Moxy making all the little kids cry. Cheaters should be sterilised. Okay, so I get to cheat. But it's my job. Not cheating. Admining. Which, if I want to keep rolling this style, I need to get back to. ››Cnapce/port ››Dest/Sydney//186.Malessa77 The shift is a good one. From the dark of the hack-house to the sunny yellow40 of a suburb footie-family cottage yard. This place is a typical hab in Pluslife. Single floor flat, pastel buttery siding, HanselGretel shingles, and even a whitewash picket fence with a fun little gate. It even has a coded inbox with her name on it. Classy shit, this is. It isn't often that I have to go godmode on someone who can afford Homes amp; Gardens digi-rose bushes and two Prada topiary dolphins. This is no scam-shack. This is a Pluslife homestead worth taking a screencap of. What the hell is Malessa77 getting binned for? Account sharing? Srsly? That is just sad. Account sharing is when someone else uses a user's password to check accounts, mails, msgs and even move code around in their Pluslives. Most of the time it turns out that somebody stole somebody's @nother, or hacked their way in, or whatever. Nobody likes having an unwanted avvie running around in their Pluslife, so they report their ID, and management puts them on my lister. Like Malessa77 here. And then it is the end of them. Here I go. The port-plugin took me to this place, so she has to be inside. I hop the fence and stroll the walk. Wow. The digi-roses are srsly primo code. They smell and feel real. I am impressed. I'll put in for one on the next reqform. My habzone is not this swank, but I do alright. The secure on the door is good, but not admin. I don't get to play with my Pluslife stats much, so this will be fun. All SWAT with none of the training. ››Cnapce/PlusAvatar/Adjust ››Avatar/Strength/+99 It doesn't feel any different to me in the rig, but I know the world will react right. My code++ foot turns that high-priced doorframe encryption into scrapcode at a single click-n-drag, and I am in. The graphic chatroom is even more prime than the hab's shell. Most of these private sceneboxes are where the richies show their true colours. You know, either leave the place all white00 or pull out the pr0ncode and let their freak flag fly. Décor by Martha Stewart with a few touches by the Marquis de Sade or maybe Himmler. But not this place. This place is full on swank. The carpets match the shades, the furniture is all high… I guess high dollar, being Sydney and all… and the atmos-code is exactly like that potpourri my stepmom used to set out on Boxing Day. Top stuff, all of it. Even includes a jpeg family photo over the mantle. I am almost sorry that I have to admin Malessa77. She has put a lot of time on the keys into this joint. A shame, really. Each room in this place is just as fanced up as the last. It is something special. Back toward the rear of the place, I can hear a voice. No, two voices. It's another chatroom, so I can't see what's being txt, but I can follow the stereophonics. The door at the end of the hall pops open and there it is, the story unfolds. Two young ladies, their avatars all remarkably normal for Pluslife images, are lying in bed inside. By the state of things, I'd say I was just too late to see one helluva show. Oh well. Wait. One of them is Malessa77, but the other. The other is lister number four. LthreethreeT is the brunette on the left. Two for one. Fantastic. ››Malessa77: I don't know who the hell you think you are, barging in here, but ››LthreethreeT: Uhm, Mal, I think he's Company. ››Malessa77: Really? Oh God, that means ››LthreethreeT: Sir? Mister, uhm, what can I call you? Since they are both here. I don't get out much IRL, and being around two nudies is a great way to spend my time on the clock. ››Cnapce: It is probably better if you don't call me anything. Easier anyway. ››Malessa77: Easier? Oh god, no. Please don't. This is all we have. ››LthreethreeT: He isn't going to care, Mal. They don't know how. Corporate bullies. Bully? I fuckin' don't think so. It's just a job, chickie. You and your digi-lez friend are breaking the rules. Time to pay up. ››Cnapce: User ID Malessa77. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation ››Malessa77: No! She didn't hack me! I GAVE her the code! ››LthreethreeT: It wasn't her fault, it was my idea. Leave her alone, you fuckn wage-slave! ››Cnapce: of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. As per said agreement ››Malessa77: This isn't fair. I can't live without her! I'm quarantined! This is the only place we have together! Don't take it away! Don't take HER away! ››LthreethreeT: It's okay, baby. I'll find another SID. This corporate douche can't keep us apart. ››Cnapce: your account has been ››Malessa77: I luv u, Linda. Whatever happens to me, remember this place. Our dream house. Remember me! I lo››Cnapce: terminated. Her avatar's perky little B-cups pixel out, and I almost feel bad for her. I hope they don't ban her complete. You know, full disconnect. A suspension. Yeah, that's what her and her friend will get. I'm sure of it. Oh yeah, her friend. Wow. I didn't know Pluslife avvies could cry. Streaks of digital pain and synthesised anguish colour-tint LthreethreeT's rose19 cheeks, and if there was a player-mod for eye beams or aggro-static weapons…my avatar would have just been pwned by the look she is giving me. I actually have that worried tingle in my gut, like the feeling right after cheating on a lover. This is the shite part of my job. ››LthreethreeT: You rotting corporati bastard. You just killed the only thing I loved. I can't afford the med-pass to see her IRL. This is all we have. Had. Past tense. Fuck you. ››Cnapce: Chill. You guys broke the rules. I'm just doing my job. ››LthreethreeT: So I guess you have to do your job on me, too. ››Cnapce: Yeah. I'm sorry. Sorry? Why the hell did I just txt that? THEY are the rules-breakers. THEY fucked up. Why should I be sorry? Oh well. It's syntax now. It'll fall off the cache when she is gone. ››LthreethreeT: Sorry? You will be. Keep your eyes on the Sydcast news for the next couple of days. My name is Linda Barrows, look for it in the obits. I can't live without her. I'd rather die than go on knowing she is wasting away in a med-centre alone and suffering without me. ››Cnapce: No you won't. You won't kil ››LthreethreeT: We both know you don't care. You are a soulless corporate slave marching to the tune that key turning in your back is grinding away. Just fucking get on with it. She's right. She is just pixels and memory bytes to me. I can't let her slide. This is MY livelihood, after all. I gotta watch out for Player One, you know? ››Cnapce: User ID LthreethreeT. As per your digital SID signature, you have been found in violation of your Terms and Conditions agreement with the Pluslife programming code. Her avatar's last emote, standing there naked like she forgot to buy clothes-code, looks at me with sadness scrawled on her face. She is holding a jpeg in her hands. It shows two women, arm in arm. One looks like an athlete, maybe a footie player. The other looks like all the warning ads I have seen about the last big outbreak. She holds it out like a mirror at me, filling my monitor with the image. I have to do this. It's just another job. Heh, @nother job. ››Cnapce: As per said agreement, your account has been terminated. She closes her eyes the moment before the pixel storm sweeps her away. The jpeg goes along with her. So does the room. The furniture. The drapes. The art. The walls. The entire hab scrambles out and becomes an empty lot with an Ebay page already forming for its auction. Full disconnect. Oh well. Job's done. I'm paid. That's what it is all about, right? Keeping your head above water and making your way through RL. Yeah. And all that shit about offing herself? Really? No way. It's just a game. Nobody really dies because of the shit that happens in Pluslife. No way. Digital lives, not real ones. Wait a sec. My lister just chirped out at me. I must have scored a bonus gig. Exactly what I need to get that melodrama-mama out of my head. I mean, who dies over something like that? Life is never ››Lister 08.10/ ›››User ID: 10 (delinquent account) ›››Location: Cape Town Great. Another bum not paying his bills. ››Cnapce/port ››Dest/Cape Town//453.10 Time to take out the trash. Land of the Blind // Charlie Human Agent HK – Ideological Security Unit The corporate function of truth is to tell the various parts of the mechanism what to do. Of course it doesn't actually have to be truth, not in the absolute sense. It just has to fit in with the rest of the system. After this last kill, I understand that more so than ever. My handler Shaw had been a commander in the apartheid security police. He wanted to show me how serious they were so he stopped me turning left for a week. Easy as implanting a neuromuscular programme that told my body that left turns were a no-go. "That's a level one programme" he said. "You're primed for level four." I tried to deviate a couple more times but eventually I just did what he said. Drew The factory bleeds iron and vomits sparks. I am luckier than some. Luckier than the endless supply of desperate people from the Rural who transport the ore and drop weekly from respiratory diseases. I feel it coming on but there is only an hour left before the end of the day. All the signs are there; the flickering vision, the exhilaration, the hissing of a stove-top kettle and the smell of burning. Taking a break would bring down shit from my supervisor. I carry on working even as the exhilaration builds and the world bleaches out. I look around, blinking stupidly. Everything is saturated with light. One of the Rurals is pulling my arm and pointing at a spill on the factory floor. What the fuck is he trying to say? I can't tell. Is it oil? But it's too bright. A contorted shape lies next to the spill. I struggle to make sense of it… Joseph. "Ja, it's like I tell everyone, this is a hard business and people get hurt," my manager says. Somehow I'm in his small office on the factory floor. "I know you have medical condition." I cross my arms over my chest and huddle in the hard plastic chair. Joseph had been cleaning one of the machines, hunched over it scraping out the metal silt. When I whited out, I fell onto the control panel. "Listen, I understand you're upset, but you can't blame yourself," my manager says. "Christ, these guys from the Rural can barely read and write, let alone operate machinery properly." "It was my fault," I say. "Who the fuck cares, the Riffa is dead," he says. I wince at the slur. My parents were staunch anti-classists, and bigotry directed at Rurals always makes me uneasy. "His family will get paid out and everyone will be happy." He sighs, then hesitates, as if deciding whether to say something. "Andrew, I'm recommending a doctor, a corporate." I look at him, not understanding. I wasn't a Corporate Citizen; I didn't get corporate medical aid. "You're doing valuable work here, and XMET looks after its own," he says. My phone buzzes with a temporary access card to Waterfront City. He puts a hand on my shoulder, like a fat pink spider. "Listen, take a break, and spend some time with Kara." Despite everything, I'm surprised he knows my wife's name. My voice is shaking as I tell her what happened. I hear her little nieces laughing in the background. Playing mommy has taken on an edge lately. Kara says she just wants to give her sister a break, but to me it looks more like practice Or an invitation. Or an ultimatum. There's a long silence. "I thought you said the fits weren't happening anymore, Drew," she says. "They weren't." She breathes out deeply. "I'm…" I want to tell her what happened. I want her to understand. But I don't. "I'm going to be home late." Agent HK I watch the interview again. It's hosted on a trendy subversive site, one of ours. Like everything else, dissent is easier to control from the inside. The vlogger is American, her hair tied back in blonde dreads under a R4000 Dolce amp; Gabbana beret. She's overwhelmed at meeting a real life resistance fighter. Matthew Ibrahim, one of the Lionesses' inner circle. He comes across as bitter, cynical, the girl's adulation seems to make him tired. I wonder if he'll feel guilty when his brother dies. If he comes back for the funeral it'll be like a gift to Shaw. A chance to kill the one that got away. The draft. It appeared on my phone on my eighteenth birthday, indicated by the mandatory Governance ringtone. From that point on I had two days to reply or it was a Zimbabwean labour camp. There was no way I could join the Coporate Service Platoon and Godima was the only other option. I don't know if I'd describe the Lioness in those terms. She's incredibly focused. It's part of her training. She was with an MK cadre in Angola during the First Struggle, but after it ended, she refused to take a cushy job in the new government. They hated her for it, more for opposing them. She went into exile and then returned to plant the seed that was to become the Second Struggle and Thaba Godima. I was a Changent, short for "change agent". We were an elite unit trained in Godima camps to fight the power network of the ISU. We had an alliance with the Soldiers of Gaia, an eco-survivalist movement who also opposed Corporate. We had a…falling out after they found some of our cadres cooking an endangered species of hare, but it was the bush, what were we supposed to do? They executed them mafia-style. It turned into a war. We only found out later it was a set-up. The ISU killed our guys and made it look like the Soldiers. We took the bait. Like Drew will. How could he resist. I shut down the streamcast. It will be enough to link him to his brother, to bring everything tumbling down. Drew "Homemade bio-fuel, larnie," the cabbie says, smiling apologetically through missing front teeth. The old car splutters and jerks as he edges it into the stream of traffic, hooting as a cavalcade of black vehicles flashing blue lights roar past us We pass the decaying Greenpoint soccer stadium. It looks like the skeleton of a giant spider squatting on the tar, the WELCOME 2010 decals faded but the plastic veneer of the grinning official mascot is still surprisingly bright. I wonder how anybody could have ever thought it was cute. It's a demon, a tokoloshe that grinned maniacally over the lean and brutal years that followed the World Cup. We make our way slowly through the traffic toward the towers of Waterfront City. The contrast between it and the surrounding area is stark. Lush vegetation rises up from the gleaming glass towers. I'm ushered in to see the doctor, a large man with soft, jowly face. "That's a Stone," I say gesturing at the large oil painting behind his desk of a mushroom cloud over Cape Town. I know from the art magazines my parents collected that it was called "The Spill", even though the real thing it hadn't been like that at all. There had been fires, sure, but not like that, more like a progressive poisoning of the land with radiation. I thought it was garish, typical of Stone, the egocentric young African artist that had wowed the world, reaching superstar status before chaining herself to the body of an Aids victim in an unknown location and starving herself to death. She had documented it by webcam as her last work and her final minutes were still one of the most watched clips ever. You could buy t-shirts with her emaciated face on them at Greenmakt Square. He motions for me to lie down on his examining table as he consults my record on the medical database. I lie still as a hovering machine scans my brain from different angles. The doctor keeps up a subdued banter through the flashes, but I hardly hear what he says. We wait in silence for the results to appear on his desk console. "Mr. Ibrahim, there's no easy way to say this," he says finally. "You have a severe form of epilepsy that has been improperly treated." He pauses to gauge my reaction. "Your episodes, as you call them, have caused lesions to form on the brain." I nod and he continues. "No patented medicine exists to treat this," he says. The world contracts to a tiny point in front of my eyes. I think of Kara and the children we'll never have. I know in that moment that if I can't be helped then I'm going to leave her. To give her a chance at the life she wants. And before she leaves me. "Wait," the doctor says. "There is an option. Lodafril. It's not patented. I don't have to tell you what that means." He watches me carefully for a reaction. I don't blame him. Offer black makt meds to the wrong person and you'd end up in a labour camp, even if you're a Citizen. "Does it have a chance of working?" I ask. He pauses for a moment then nods. "Then I want it." He taps his console and my phone buzzes. I look at the screen of my phone. It displays an access card with the name KADEN on it. "It's a username for a game" he says. He gives me directions to the Kraal, a bar on the outskirts of Salt River, making me repeat them to make sure I have them. "Ask to use the White Room," he says as he leads me to the door. I nod, but he catches my eye. "It has to be the White Room. You can't reach Kaden any other way." I exit Waterfront City and walk until I hit a Congolese internet café called the Rat Tunnels. The atmosphere is humid and the sounds of French and Portuguese come from businessmen engaged in video chats. I call Matt. And not only because he was a med student before he joined the cause. He looks tense, like he's looking for a reason to disconnect. But the moment I say the word "Lofadril" the connection cuts off. The proprietor strides across the room and looms over me. His hands are tattooed with badly-rendered holographic ink that glitches as it shows violent sexual scenes; prison tattoos. "What you doing, eh? he asks. "I was just chatting," I start, but he cuts me off. "You used a banned phrase. If ISU picks it up, they're gonna disconnect me. How I'm gonna live then?" "I just need to-" "No, you need to leave," he says. It's not a request. The Kraal turns out to be a grungy games arcade and strip club. One corner is dedicated to kids jacked into VR units; the slick grey pods that have become more commonplace than slot machines. Sickness and rising petrol and food prices have sent people from reality in their droves. "Your mind can hardly tell the difference," a faded sticker proclaims. There's a screen in the corner showing a news report about the Left Hand of Allah, the Somalian jihadist group that had absorbed Yemenite and Pakistani terrorist cells after they had finally been pushed out of the Middle East. The barman, a bearded, rough-looking Afrikaans guy, is watching it. "There's going to be a major war in Africa soon, you mark my words," he says as I walk up to the bar. "I hear they're offering heroin money to recruits." "Heroin too," I say. "Let's hope it makes their little child soldiers slow on the trigger," he says laughing. "Are you drinking?" "A single Harm's Way," I say. It's the only drink I really know – a cheap local whisky, an offshoot of the biofuel industry. I down the potent liquor which burns my throat. "Games look busy," I say. "They are, some of these kidpsychos have started setting up drips so they don't have to leave their little cytopia," he says. We watch as a kid takes off his VR mask and stands staring at the room trying to focus his eyes. "Reality must be a real bad comedown." I can't think of a way to do it, so I just blurt it out. "I need the White Room." The smile drops off his lips. "Never heard of it," he says. I show him the card on my phone. He grunts and motions for me to follow him. He leads me to a completely white room with a wireless VR unit. "20 minutes," he says. I go through the motions of creating an avatar, choosing the Randomise button to select a set of looks and skills and then hit Incarnate. Immediately I'm in a bright square, bustling with avatars. The place has the feel of a carnival, disjointed and confusing. Lacking a plan, I make my way toward a crowd standing in the middle of the town square. They're crowding around a beautiful avatar. I feel love pour from my heart at the sight of her. I know immediately that she's a Sylb, one of the class of specially designed avatars, a perfectly synthesized being. "The real world is pain," she says in a silky voice. "But look around you." Her arms sweep around her causing a shower of stars to erupt from her hands. "A world created by a benevolent and giving corporation," she says. "Why would you ever want to leave?" I'm ripped from my reverie by a punch to the kidneys. I hadn't bothered with safety settings, so the pain really hurts. I turn to see a grinning leprechaun creature with wild orange hair. "You're falling for a Corporate troll, newfag," it scoffs. "That's so tacky." I don't know what to do next, so I just say, "I'm looking for Kaden." The thing grins. "No shit, you're in the White Room. Come on. Nobody else can see me." He takes my hand and we jump to a crumbling Grecian temple carved into the side of a rock face. The creature gestures for me to go inside, gives me a royal wave and then blinks out of existence. I push the carved doors open and enter the dim temple. Huge angelic wings curl and uncurl behind an elegant naked woman that stands in the centre of temple floor. "Another lost soul," Kaden says in a languid, silky voice. "Not lost yet," I say, "but definitely losing". Her wings unfurl to full stretch. I feel a surge of awe in her presence. Kaden sees it and smiles. "None of us are who we seem here," she says. "Are we?" "It's a game, an illusion, that's the idea, isn't it?" "And yet you come here for redemption in Fleshspace," she says. "It's my last chance," I say, "without this I can't carry on." Kaden inclines her head, "I'm here to help, not to stand in your way." The code on my phone gives me one object in my player's inventory, a scroll. I pull it from the air and hand it to her. She looks at it and nods. She in turn gives me an object, a small golden bell. "That will be stored as code in your phone," she says. A map to a pharmacy on Loop Street appears in the air and I grab it to store on my phone too. "Show the code to the pharmacist. He'll give you the account details for the payment." "Kaden," I say. The avatar looks at me. "It's OK, right? I mean, there are no side effects?" She blinks out as she disconnects. Kara looks up and smiles as I enter, gently rocking her baby niece in her arms. She looks like a mother, she'd make a good one. Emma, the older one, six now, hugs my legs as I walk in and tells me dozens of things about her day without stopping for a breath. I smile and listen, running my fingers through her curls as she reads excitedly from the schoolwork she projects onto the wall from her phone. After she finishes, I gently extricate myself and go into our room, closing the door behind me. I take three of the capsules from the package and line them up on the basin. Three little pigs. Three blind mice. Three chances. After my parents died in the riots and Matt took off to join Godima, I didn't think I'd last long. I'm not a survivor. But I'd surprised myself. Sometimes it's a matter of just putting one foot in front of the other. I gulp down the pills in quick succession. Kara puts the baby on my lap and I rock it gently. Her ancientlooking face stares up at me quizzically. Emma climbs up next to me and tries to get her baby sister to smile by making a puppet with her hand. There's a contentment one feels with children, and for a moment I truly understand why Kara wants one of her own. I'm sitting rocking when my head explodes. I look down and see a snarling creature, a monster with ghoulish eyes and flesh peeling from its face. It's snapping at me, teeth ripping at my arm. I scream and push it to the floor. There another one next to me and I lash out to stop its advance, but a third demon looms over me. Then come the patterns. Patterns crawling across everything, writhing, like a curtain of fire ants digging holes in my vision. I scratch at my face to get them off and feel wetness on my fingertips. The snarling things advance. I know something is not right but I can't think. There is a knife on the kitchen table. Oh God I need help. Something is seriously not right. Agent HK This is always the worst part. The waiting. Waiting for the first media reports of the massacre. He'd rip as many people apart as possible before something stopped him. Rage drugs. Military-grade neurotropics, a cocktail of steroids, PCP and pure adrenaline enhanced with nano that rips through the blood-brain barrier. Street name: Hatepills. Discontinued after a platoon had been dosed with them and gone zombie on a routine mission in the Rural. They'd find anti-corporate material in his apartment. Data linking him to known resistance groups through his brother and directly to the Lioness herself. Media channels were primed for the full scoop. Embedded casters would have photos of the bodies "leaked" to them. It was like driving a spike into the heart of the resistance. My debriefing with Shaw is quick. Debriefings are a necessary part of the process. Back in the bad old days agents had been known to do stupid things. Phone the families of victims and beg for forgiveness. Put service weapons in their mouths and squeeze. "Do you feel remorse?" Shaw asks. I shake my head. People would lap it up. The titillation of it all happening so close. Inside the mind of a terrorist, a killer. One of the bad guys. But they would feel safe because the good guys are protecting them. Thank God, I'm protecting them. Featuring a gritty, dirty, urban selection of the hottest independent South African music hand-picked by Lauren Beukes and HoneyB. www.africandope.co.za/zoocity Get 50% off the album now with the promo code: "marabou amp;malt3s3" Moxyland soundtrack also available. Psssst! 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