by Toby Weston
“No, follow me.”
Marcel was usually happy to go along with Stella's suggestions; but she had learnt, long ago, if he insisted, he usually had a good reason. She agreed, and they headed to one of the pontoons that stuck out of the rim like multiple handles from a giant mutant ping-pong bat.
They were close to the equator, and it was about thirty-five degrees centigrade with a brisk, moist wind. Shirtless and without a trace of shyness, Marcel stepped out of his shorts and stood in his underpants, grinning.
“Coming?”
Last year, Stella would probably have stripped to her underwear and joined him. Now, even though she thought of Marcel as practically a brother, it didn’t feel right.
“I'll just climb down the ladder and hold the bucket.”
Marcel shrugged and immediately dived from the pontoon. He gracefully traversed two metres of air and passed through the water’s interface with barely a splash. He swam back. Stella passed him the net. The trick was to dive below the bottom of the pontoon, where great clumps of seaweed hung down into the water, and run the net through the weed. The big shrimps, startled by the net, flipped away from the wooden bar at the front and, hopefully, ended up in the net. If you were quick and lucky, you could trap them before they escaped.
Marcel passed up the spiky crustaceans, one at a time, and Stella plopped them into the bucket, keeping the lid down to stop them from jumping out. She had been right to trust his choice of fishing spot. After an hour, Marcel had caught about twenty of the big prawns and far more of the smaller shrimps. They grilled a few big ones on a piece of sheet metal the sun had heated until it was too hot to touch. Then, they ate the delicious sweet flesh, while sitting with their feet in the water, watching the churning shoals of little fish that materialised to glean the discarded scraps of shell.
Chapter 5 – R > G
Contemplative, docile, uncharacteristically calm for once, he let the Companion flop from his fingers onto his lap, and he sat staring at the horizon. Punt was Disney Land quaint. All marble, sandstone, and golden Byzantine domes, the hotel was set high on the slopes of Ras Syan, chiselled into the red stone, filled with tinkling fountains and dotted with palm trees. It was reachable up a thousand convincingly worn stairs that threaded through the terraced chaos of the ‘Old Town’. Alternatively, escalators pierced the rock, linking the surface town to the many air-conditioned artificial caverns that riddled the hill.
The city had been built in an epic surge of construction by the first of the new Caliphs, who had needed to cement the extremity of his empire onto the horn of Africa. Out to sea, the colossal concrete stakes, between which the spans of the Bab-el-Mandeb bridge would one day hang, marched off towards Arabia. When completed, Punt would be the gateway house, linking the Caliphate’s northern and southern estates. It was already the Caliph’s administrative capital for the entire continent.
He looked down on the chaotic roofs below. The maddening disorder of the ‘Old Town’ had been built first in zeros and ones by simulating a thousand years of commerce and organic development. Only when forty generations of virtual peasants had lived their imitation lives was it caused to manifest into the tangible world of atoms. Massive, crawling insectile machines had extruded a mixture of sand and lime from which the walls and roofs of the city had slowly grown, layer by layer. The impression was of an ancient Kasbah that had risen out of the sea and draped itself across the little mountain.
Passively, he let his eyes flick across the cobalt wedge of water in jumps and starts, pausing on the ochre blurs of islands and flicking between the small shapes of fishing boats and yachts that speckled the bay. He gazed over the gulf of Bab-el-Mandeb and toward the faint bar, lost in haze, that might be the far shore of the Gate of Tears.
A cruise ship was moored offshore and, even at this distance, he could see the multitude of tiny garish skiffs leaving its sleek silhouette, to carry the curious back in time. He didn't need his eyes to picture the hawkers, 'looky-looky' men, beggars, cripples, whores, porters, would-be slaves, refugees and every other example of desperate human ingenuity, converging on the rich feast.
Effluence drawn to Affluence, he thought to himself.
This was where mankind had left its first cradle. One hundred thousand years ago, newly minted Homo sapiens crossed the same short distance that his eyes had just traversed in a couple of hops.
His gaze, now guided by a message from even further back in time, jumped again and came to rest on the tits of the woman lying on the next balcony. Nice. Small and evenly tanned, tiny glistening beads of sweat formed between them where their swell stilled the wind and slowed evaporation. His eyes followed a chain of features: the soft hollow of her solar plexus; a succession of tiny silky fair hairs contrasting with her tanned stomach; the perfection of her navel; then, his eyes seemingly unable to pace themselves any longer, straight to the camel's toe.
He stood suddenly. The Companion clattered to the tiles. Ben was now anything but relaxed; ‘pre-coital’ might more accurately describe his condition. He couldn't think of an opening gambit with the tits on the neighbouring balcony that would allow the desired traversal of social space, so he set off for the bar, where the social topology was more conducive and the transitions better mapped.
Ben had been in Djibouti for six days and was gradually learning its ways. It was early afternoon, and the people in the hotel bar in the early afternoon tended to fall into a small set of well-defined classes. This would further restrict the dimensionality of the ‘pick-up phase space’, allowing him to skip the tedious iterative stage of snubs and slaps and directly select an optimal starting location.
***
“Dry Martini for the lady,” the waiter said, placing a small black doily on the bar and centring the glass on top.
The mythical breasts from the balcony were still fresh in his mind, so it was a minor disappointment these were so large and soft—and orange. Yet, they were undeniably breasts. The body, from the tips of its pink toenails to the top of its tightly-permed hair, with all the expanses of orange flesh between, was undeniably female; and that was, after all, the point.
“Nice tan,” he said.
“Oh, thanks,” she replied with apparent sincerity, entirely missing any implied sarcasm. His subconscious incorporated this latest titbit and pruned off several more scenarios.
She lifted the conical glass to her purple lips and smiled with her eyes at him over its rim, while hooking the olive with her exceedingly dexterous tongue.
The number of potential end-states for this interaction was rapidly approaching one. So, with some annoyance, Ben answered his phone, which had just started chirping and vibrating around in his pocket.
“Sure, no problem. I can be on my way in forty minutes... Okay, sure, I will be there in forty minutes... yes I am at work... Okay, okay, fuck, I’m leaving now!”
“Oww, have you got to go away?” she said in her best ‘daddy's little girl’ voice.
“No, it’s nothing. You want to go for a little drive, see the city a bit?”
“Sure.” Her glass was emptied and her purse snatched up in one practised movement, then she was on her feet and ready to go.
Already on his way to the door, he reached back, closed his hand around her plump fingers, and piloted them out of the gloom into the blinding light. They entered an old sandstone gatehouse set into the side of the mountain, got onto the escalator, dropped three floors, then took the lift down to the auto park.
The auto was cruising along the dual carriageway, driving itself so the humans could concentrate on more important matters. He hadn't bothered to dial the windows to opaque. She hadn't noticed or didn't care. His seat was fully reclined and she was bumping and grinding away, holding onto the sides of the open sunroof for stability and whooping from time to time with enthusiasm. After ten minutes, they left the main autobahn and entered the winding streets of old Djibouti City. The antiquity passing by their windows was genuine now. The cobbled roads were
uneven and scattered with potholes. She grinned down at him, reached back to the console and dialled the suspension to sport mode. The hardened suspension transmitted the vibrations very effectively from road to flesh.
“Not the first time you've been in a Benz then?” he said.
She grinned again and settled into a determined rhythm for the final straight. The streets were much narrower here; more importantly, this was where he was meeting his contact. They drove the last few blocks with windows blackened.
***
A man watched the progress of the black Benz as it edged forward, gently nudging through the throng of pedestrians swarming the streets, a mix of tourists and locals. The locals, he knew, were all some vague blend of historical re-enactor and petty criminal. The road was quaintly uneven, but this did not seem sufficient to explain the severe amount of rocking and swaying going on with the car. An astute observer could postulate the rocking might have something to do with the head bobbing up occasionally through the sunroof. Two minutes after it pulled to a halt, the door opened and the owner of the head stepped out, followed by Ben Baphmet. Both spent a few seconds tucking loose clothing back in and sealing fasteners.
On the pavement below, the process of polite disengagement began.
“Shall I get the car to drop you somewhere?”
“Look at you... the last of the gentlemen!” She seemed genuinely impressed. “The Red Cat in the Hilton is always fun at this time of day.”
“You got that car?” Ben said.
“Yes, Mr Baphmet,” the Benz replied.
“Okay, I’ve got to dash, go have fun!”
“Sure Honey, thanks for the ride.” She winked.
She had already climbed into the back and was exploring the contents of the refreshment console. She blew him a little kiss and winked as the car pulled away. A pale, troubled man in a cheap polyester suit had joined them and watched the car slip back into the crowd.
“Jesus Ben, what the fuck was that?” he said.
“A little afternoon delight.” Ben winked back and took the moistened towelette that his colleague was offering. He worked on some of the purple lipstick and orange chemo-tan that was plastered over his face and collar.
“Your father was fuming on the phone just now!” said the man. “He said he needs you on the six o'clock flight to Johannesburg and that you need to put Al-Afaf straight first.”
“He'll live. What's all this about?” Ben asked. “I was supposed to meet him tomorrow.”
“Your father had Wallace move it up. Apparently the deal is looking very fragile.”
“Well, that's why I'm here, right?” Ben quipped. He was feeling pretty pumped right now.
“Sure that’s why you’re here.” Shaun said under his breath.
“Fuck you, Shaun! You wanna get re-assigned to fucking Manchester or something? Open the fucking door and tell Mr Al-Afaf I'm on my way.”
Even as a joke, it was not a threat to be taken lightly, and Shaun rushed to hold open the door to the Caliphate government building.
Adil Afif Al-Afaf stepped back from his window and sighed melodramatically. The heavy curtains fell back over the windows; the slab of white light, projecting onto the blue and crimson carpet, shrank, and the room returned to its normal gloomy state.
Life is not fair. The rich get richer; the poor get poorer. Change is always around the corner, and the chance of a better future just out of reach. The paradox of progress is that innovation always looks like a threat to those doing well today, while it is like a chance at a better tomorrow for those with nothing. The truly powerful recognise that each invention is another niche to be exploited. Regardless of the intended purpose of each new piece of technology or regulation, in practice it will add complexity to the environment: up the stakes and shift advantage relentlessly towards the smart end of the spectrum.
Even in something as dry and structured as mathematics there will inevitably be contradictions and inconsistencies. The infinitely sloppier system of international laws is a damp dishcloth of opportunity, ripe for infestation by keen young legal minds in the service of their corporate masters.
Bio-diversity was once a barren terrain populated mainly by fans of corduroy trousers and camper vans. Now it was big business, a massive steaming heap of treaties and laws. One particularly fecund niche comprised the Recognising Economic Value of Beneficial Species act—REVOBS. It was created to stop the plundering of the commons by compensating species for services rendered. Pollination by honeybees had been the poster child. Why shouldn’t their economically vital work be compensated? Rights had been auctioned off in a massive species land grab. Nobody had bid against Al-Afaf.
The office was cool and dark. Sunlight slid into the room through slits in the heavy maroon velvet curtains. Where it fell, it illuminated the ancient creamy marble tiles, penetrating beneath the translucent stones' surface and lighting them from within.
“Mr Baphmet, do I have to remind you that we contribute thirty trillion ECUs a year to your client’s books?”
The air was too warm and far too moist. Three walls were covered in wallpaper that continued the maroon velvet theme. Disturbingly oversized antique etchings of Al-Afaf’s clients hung in gilt frames from the walls.
“Well, thirty trillion isn't what it once was, right? Frankly, I think you’re over-reacting. We are not re-negotiating existing contracts; the European and American development projects will continue to utilise your clients’ services. We’re still happy with the agreed share of the ecosystem subsidies your clients are entitled to from the UN.”
Ben didn't like Afaf’s contrived ‘lawyer to family Dracula’ style, especially the childish decor of his office. 'Slimy little shit,’ he thought as his eyes jumped from one grotesque image to the next.
“The ruling is this weekend,” Ben continued. “Çin will decide on the core ecosystem composition of the site. If your clients are given aboriginal first tier status, then we will happily extend our agreement.”
Al-Afaf was starting to whine: “We provide a vital role in any healthy wetland habitat. I can hardly believe you would risk the stability of your site’s environment by eco-engineering your way around our niche! The UN granted us wetland, tundra, and river delta first tier primary consumer status!”
“After heavy lobbying from your firm.”
“We submitted an impartial scientific analysis to the UN, just like Apis Inc. and Lepidoptera Consolidated, and several other trusts. Nobody is talking about squeezing them out.”
“Çin never ratified those treaties; they voluntarily adhere to some aspects. Not big tree huggers, the Slopes. Also, some big party names are considering purchases on our site. One rather influential party head is pushing to classify your little guys as parasites to get them cut from the first tier list.”
The fourth wall behind the desk was a sheet of glass bisecting the room, isolating its last metre. The lower thirty centimetres of this space was filled with murky water, which was lit from below so the wriggling larval stages of Al-Afaf’s clients cast sick, oversized shadows onto a back wall, which had been left a clean creamy white to enhance the effect. The air above was thick with adults.
“As the site developer, any recommendations you make will almost certainly be accepted by the sovereign authorities,” Afaf whined, wringing his hands. “Surely our longstanding and profitable relationship counts for something, even in these decadent times?”
“If Çin classifies the mosquito as a human parasite, we will be free to find an alternative provider for the fish and amphibian food niche.” Ben looked him in the eye. “Cutting all the marketing crap, nobody likes a blood-sucker, Mr Al-Afaf. Your average Çin oligarch is reluctant to pay in money and blood just to feed their fish. They’re looking into alternatives.”
Al-Afaf leant forward on his elbows. “And I suppose you have an alternative in mind?”
“Well, there are apparently some South American water snails that also feed on planktonic algae and lay copious n
umbers of seemingly delicious eggs.”
“You know we don’t represent molluscs,” the little man said with some distaste. “So, the fact that you are even here tells me you have another option for me, Mr Baphmet?”
“My client has acquired the rights of a new GM variant.”
“Based on?”
Ben was young, impulsive and irresponsible, but was good at his job. He knew Al-Afaf needed this contract and now was time for the carrot.
“The modification is compatible with a wide range of species, including the genomes you represent.”
“I see…” Smelling a compromise, Al-Afaf leant back further in his chair. He stretched his thin arms forward to rest his fingers on the edge of the desk and peered intently at Ben over his half-moon glasses. “What is the modification?”
Ben’s eyes glazed over slightly as he concentrated on the voice that his Spex whispered in his ear:
