Moxyland

by Lauren Beukes

  Toby is shouting above the ruckus, into his mic, like he's reporting live. There are even more people trying to wedge into the space, so that the cops, who have finally arrived, have to shove their way inside.

  Self-Portrait is covered in a mist of blood. I move to wipe it clean, although I'm scared the blood will smear, will stain the paper, but just then Jonathan wraps his arms around me and kisses my neck. And now it's my turn to collapse against him.

  'It's okay, sweetheart, everything's going to be okay.'

  Tendeka

  If there's one thing street kids know, it's how to vanish effectively. Ashraf is still shaking by the time we get to our refuge, a garage in a neighbouring apartment block. skyward* sent me a basic key SIM, that jimmies a signal to get in doors that aren't coded high security. It's a blunt hack job, but it works.

  All the protests I've been involved in till now have been phone-based. Text msgs are the quickest, cheapest, most convenient way of coordinating and relaying information instantly. 'Someone arrested.' 'New rendezvous.' 'Take Strand Street, cops are waiting on Riebeeck.' But tonight there are no phones. No way of passing on msgs or warnings – or being tracked down.

  'This is what we should be campaigning for.' I try to explain to Ashraf how we need to create an alternate economy that doesn't rely on SIM IDs and credit rates. We should all live like Emmie and our street-kid army collaborative. But he is too furious to listen.

  'You told me the knives were just for show.'

  'It's not about show. Not anymore.'

  'Oh, cut the big talk. They're children, Tendeka.'

  'They're disenfranchised. Society's dropouts, the lost generation. We're giving them a purpose.'

  'Anyone can give a kid purpose! You can twist them whichever way suits you. Especially if you're letting them vent their aggression. You can't just put a leash on that afterwards.'

  He scrapes his hands through his hair. 'I just don't know what you were thinking. This wasn't the plan, was it? This Lord of the Flies number you just pulled? Please tell me that.'

  For once, his frustration leaves me unmoved. There are bigger things at stake than Ashraf's inhibitions.

  'I don't need your stubbornness right now, Ten. God, you make me crazy. This fucks everything we've done. You want to talk violation? This – fuck, this is the moral opposite of everything we believe in. This is going to make the news in Tibet!'

  'That's what I'm counting on.'

  'You really don't get it. I mean, you really, really don't. Did you see the fucking cams in the gallery? Do you know the licence you've given them to crack down?'

  'Looked right at 'em. That was the point. skyward* said we needed to make global news, to force their hand.'

  'You don't even know who skyward* is. He's an avatar. A fucking online persona whose orders you blithely follow, like a lapdog. Roll over. Play dead. Drag a bunch of kids into what's going to be classified as terrorist action. You don't know anything about him.'

  'I know he sends us first-class tech. Shit we'd never get our hands on. Shit so new they haven't even drawn up countermeasures on paper, let alone implemented them. The smear, the LEDs for the graffiti project.' I've let slip too much, but Ashraf is so angry, he doesn't even notice.

  'So fucking what? How does he get access to it? You don't know who he is. What his motivations are. If it's even a he.'

  'I understand his motivations better than yours. At least he's committed to a revolution–'

  'Don't be like this.'

  '–not just play-play in amateur hour.'

  His shoulders slump, but I can't afford sympathy. He has to face up to his erroneous thinking. He nearly fucked up the whole gig with his interruption. It's not like I was going to hurt her. It was only intended to scare. Part of the act. I was in control at all times. It's not like it felt good.

  'You need to get over yourself, Ash.'

  'Really? I need to get over myself. I'm the play-play amateur? At least I'm not nice middle-class boy pretending at hardcore revolutionary.'

  'Fuck off.'

  'You know what the difference is between us? When all this goes bad, you can go running back to the family homestead in leafy Houghton – and the rest of us fucking can't.'

  'I would never.'

  'I'm afraid for you, Ten,' he says, something in his face caving.

  I'm not made of vibracrete. I pull him to my chest and we just stand like that for long minutes. Until he murmurs, 'We have to call off the pass protest.'

  I pull back, the better to gauge if he means it. 'We can't. It's all fucking arranged. We've been planning it for months.' And we have. If I think about the effort involved… to abandon it now? It's impossible.

  It's going to be the ultimate, to demonstrate the divides in our society between the Emmies and the Zukos and the corporati with their goldplated all-access passes and the things they do to keep us in our place.

  'We can't, Ash. I'm sorry. The gamehack has already gone into effect. All those FallenCity players won't know what hit them. It's going to happen no matter what, now, and if we're not at the forefront, then someone else will be, and they will fuck it up. You think you can stop those kids going? Zuko will lead it personally if we don't. Do you know what the end result of that would look like? Those kids running rampant with the players?'

  'I can't. Tendeka. You shouldn't. I'm tired. It's too much.'

  'One more, okay, baby? Just one more. Then we can lie low, I swear. This is massive. This is the culmination of everything. You can't let this incident throw you off. I'm sorry. I fucked up. I admit. It got away from me. I won't let it happen again.'

  'No more putting the kids at risk. No more violence.'

  'Not from us.'

  'Because if there is…'

  Toby

  The footage from the security cams in the gallery is playlisted on all the newscasts, animal rights activists gone seriously mental, and there's all kinds of uproar, from the Minister of Safety and Security swearing to step up measures against terrorism to arts critics alternately decrying it as a tacky publicity stunt or lauding it as bold political theatre that outstrips any performance art done previously. Or, to put it another way, kids, it's huge, and my exclusive eyewitness is piggybacking off it beautifully.

  It's not that there weren't plenty of people with cams and chamo clothing, but I was the only one with the smarts to jump up on the bar to lock down the best angle.

  My report went out this morning – the edited version with extra commentary. I've already had an offer to syndicate Diary of Cunt from a producer on MTV.

  But maybe you want to watch that again? I can do it easily, you know. Just hit 'replay'.

  KENDRA ADAMS'S SHOW is a sell-out. Her shockingly intimate portraits taken on old photographic stock interplay light and

  texture like a Dutch Master. The effect of using disintegrating film means the work is inherently flawed, inherently damaged. Her first exhibition has been an unprecedented success, every work snapped up in a bidding scrum that forced the prices up to eight times the sticker. Not bad going for a girl who dropped out of Michaelis Art College six months ago. No insult to the artist or the striking technical mastery demonstrated in Unspoken – a woman's jawline arching out of shot, delineated against a twist of stair well and the arc of city lights, or the harsh reality of a homeless woman being defused, or the witty statement of Self-Portrait, a 2 x 3.5 m print that is entirely black, but her skill is not the reason her work is suddenly so popular. It's be cause her photographs are newly flawed that she's flooring the critics and the art buying public, hungry to claim a whif of scandal, a bloody scrap of current events. Those fourteen portraits all carry the mark of violation from the invasion of Thursday evening, when animal-rights actives hacked apart enfant terrible Khanyi Nkosi's controversial and grotesque bio mod creature, Woof & Tweet. Nkosi commented:

  [insert Nkosi soundbite]

  'It's revolting that anyone would try to profit of my loss. This is an atrocity. It's up there with
blood diamonds and wartech corps racking up their cash registers over the stink of corpses!'

  Prices for her work have already sky rocketed, especially on her other almost-animals like Sweetheart Sputnik, an oversized heart riddled with receivers, that quickens or slows its rhythm according to incoming text messages from the audience. And the corpse of Woof & Tweet, stinking or not, has already been sold to a Dubai businesswoman, who paid, it's rumoured, in the region of R1.7 million for the bloody gibs, together with the video footage and one panga that was left behind, unused. The 22 year-old Adams was unavailable for comment, recovering from the fraught of the eve, although her manager-elect, Jonathan Rider, said:

  [insert art bitchmonkey soundbite here]

  'We hope to assure Khanyi Nkosi that no one is trying to undermine the agony of what she must be going through. I don't want to suggest that it's egotistical to believe that the only reason Kendra's photographs have sold so well is that they have some residue of blood from her piece's awful preemptive disassembly, but I believe Ms Nkosi is quite undone by the grief. It's very unfortunate that she's demanded a share of the profits on Kendra's sales, considering her stature internationally in the art world, while Kendra is an aspirant up-and-coming young artist, fresh to the scene. Kendra's work speaks for itself and it obviously speaks to its audience. And that's really all there is to it. We've also offered to have the prints professionally cleaned and restored, removing any traces of organic matter, for those buyers who request it.' So far, none have.

 

  It's enough to spike interest, a calling-card to the world that's helped drive up a more generous price on the candid interview with Kendra and Damian talking about their all-new injectable tech.

  I've edited together a teaser – you might have seen it already, it's the one that starts:

  KENDRA ADAMS SOLD out her first exhibition a couple of days ago, but now it seems that she's sold out in another way entirely, as one of Ghost's controversial sponsor babies.

  And now I'm just kicking back, waiting for the offers to start spinning in.

  In the interim, Unathi is not letting me squirm out of the FallenCity mission. It's not so bad. I can kill some waiting time and blow off steam by fragging a few people in realspace.

  And hey, it'll be good to see Julia again, seeing as how Kendra is not speaking to me at the moment.

  Lerato

  'What are you doing?'

  Mpho raises his head from his arms to look up at me. It's fairly obvious he's been crying. It's bad enough I have the whole family memorial ceremony ahead, but finding him here, camped outside my apartment door, just upped the ante on a day already heading straight for shitty territory.

  'Waiting for you,' he says, getting to his feet.

  'Well, I'm here now. Sooooo, I guess you can go.'

  'Can I come in?'

  'I don't think that's a good idea. I mean, what's the point?'

  'We could–'

  'Talk? That would be based on the assumption we have anything to talk about.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'That's because you don't listen. I told you it was a one-time deal. I'm not up for a serious affair. It was just fun, Mpho. Good times. And now the good times are done. Excuse me, you're kinda blocking the door.'

  'Jesus. Do you have to be so hard?'

  'Yeah. Sorry.' I start to move around him, but he takes me by the elbows.

  'Yeah, me too. You obviously care. Otherwise you wouldn't be such a bitch about it. It's really sad, Lerato.'

  'Not as sad as this, this last-stand psychoanalysis thing you're doing. Nice try, Mpho. But you, what we had? I don't give a shit. For really really real. I'm already seeing someone else. And he knows how to get me going.' I run the tip of my tongue over parted lips. 'If you know what I'm saying. Now get out of my way.'

  He lets go of me and steps aside, his face tilted to the floor, not even looking at me. I swish past him into the apartment and he turns to make the long slow walk back to the elevators.

  Before the door slides closed, he calls back bitterly, not looking round, 'Congrats on the promotion.'

  Jane pokes her head out of her room, looking disapproving and happily scandalised at the same time. 'You really can pick them. He's been sitting outside for two and a half hours.'

  'He'll get over it. What he needs is someone as sweet and dull as he is.'

  'I was about to take pity and let him in.'

  'You should have. You two might have hit it off.'

  'Oh thanks, Lerato.'

  'Come on, you know that's not what I meant.' That's exactly what I meant, but I don't want to upset the peace. It's only a couple more weeks max that I'll have to put up with Jane's fustiness.

  'It was more like, you know, when was the last time you had a date?'

  'Thanks for the vote of confidence. I've got one tonight, for your information.'

  'Oh yeah? Me too. Unfortunately, it's dinner with my sisters. Obligotainment.' I open the fridge to see if there's anything to snack on in the interim. It's another hour and a half before I'm supposed to meet them at Simon's Town station.

  Jane gives in. 'All right, mine too. I'm meeting my boss.'

  'Oh really? You got something going on?'

  She flushes, the swathe of pink swallowing up her freckles. 'No, I'm handing over some files. We're talking career prospects. You know, where to go from here.'

  'Mmm-hmmm.' There's nothing in the fridge. Unless I feel like eating a wodge of butter.

  'And you?' she asks.

  'And me what?'

  'I heard you're getting bumped up.'

  'It's not a big deal. More of a step sideways than up.'

  'Lead software designer, though. You're young to take that on. Twenty-three?'

  'And three-quarters.'

  'What?'

  'Sorry, you know how little kids say that. Puffing themselves up. Always looking forward to the next year.'

  'Well, it sounds like it's going to be a good one for you.'

  'I think it'll be all right. Hey, do you want to get baked?'

  'Really?'

  'Yeah, you know, I could do with something to take the edge off. You do smoke, right?'

  'The legal stuff.' She snickers. 'Mostly. You know, you've never asked me before.'

  'I thought you were too stuck-up.'

  'And I thought you were a ruthless bitch.'

  'Now you're saying I'm not? Nice. Insult me in my own home.'

  'What did you think about the terrorist thing?' she asks, while I roll a neat joint of corpissue Dormor, sprinkled with a touch of sugar, which is decidedly not pre-approved.

  'The gallery? I saw Toby's cast. It was pretty retarded. Not the cast, I mean; the attack.' Jane is quiet and then she says, 'It frightened me. That they could be so bold, you know? So arrogant.'

  'It was supposed to, Jane. It's a big splashy press release. They want you to think that your happy little status quo isn't as safe and cosy as you assume. Of course, there are better ways to do it.'

  'What do you mean?' I take a toke and hand her the joint.

  'I'm saying if I was a terrorist, I'd up the stakes. Billboard smears? Art galleries? Retarded. They're not terrorists. They're idiots. You give them way too much credit.'

  Kendra

  Jonathan prises apart the carcass of another prawn, a real one, with curled scratches of legs, not the gen-mod easy-peels – which makes it expensive. So expensive, there are conspicuous intimidating blanks on the menu where prices would normally appear. It's a species removed from the café fare and readymeals I'm used to, or even the upmarket where Jonathan has taken me before – and a whole genus away from my cooking. But I'm secretly disappointed, and somehow that's more satisfying than if it had lived up to my expectations.

  Despite it being my first time, despite the ultraglam pink Black Coffee dress Jonathan sent over by courier to the house this afternoon, and the industria minimalism of the décor, fit for any of the style mag
s with its bare-stripped walls and sharp white scatterlights like an interrogation room, it's not what I'd imagined. Even Naledi Nxumalo, sitting at a table opposite us, where she's pointedly not talking to the rugby captain whose name eludes me, is strangely inadequate in person, like she's a watercolour version of the woman in the soap, somehow diluted by the assertions of the purposely dilapidated interior.