Slipping

by Lauren Beukes

  “Nothing to worry about,” they said. Neither, it turns out, is the GMP progsaw I put to my forehead, positioning it right against my temple for maximum damage before I flick the on switch.

  I have a dream about my mom. I am scampering over the factory floor, back when she still had the job, dodging the electric looms to collect scraps of fabric that she will sew into dishcloths and dolls and maybe a dress, to sell to the neighbors, illegally. We are not allowed to remove company property. They incinerate leftovers every evening, specifically to prevent this. Be careful, she whispers, her breath hot against my cheek. But I’m not careful enough. As I duck under the grinding, whirling loom, the teeth catch my ear and shear down my face. My skin tears all the way down to my belly button and unfurls, flopping about, obscenely, like wings, before the flaps stiffen and wrap around me like a cocoon. In the dream, it feels like I am falling into myself. It feels safe.

  I wake up in a hospital bed, with my right arm cuffed to the rail. There is a woman sitting on the edge of the bed wearing a pinstripe skirt and matching blazer. She is blandly pretty with blonde-streaked hair, wide blue eyes, and big, friendly teeth in a big, friendly mouth. A mom in a vitamin-enriched living commercial. Not someone I’ve seen in homelab before. Too neatly groomed. I sit up and automatically reach up to touch my head, to the place where the progsaw had started ripping into my temple, only to find layers of bandage mummifying my skull.

  “We do pay attention, Coco,” the woman says, and then adds, more softly, “I’m very sorry about what happened to Malan.”

  “Who?” I say. My cheek is burning. I try to rub the pain away and find a row of fibrous stitches running from my temple down to my jaw.

  “Malan Rousseau? Your coworker? It’s quaint how you call each other by surnames. This isn’t the army you know. You’re not at war.”

  “Tell that to The Green,” I mutter. I am angry to be alive.

  “Yes, well. We installed new safety measures into the GMPs after the accident. Chemical agents that would clog up the blades of your weaponry with fibrous threads if it came into contact with human pheromones. It’s based on threadworms. One of the technologies you’ve helped make possible, Coco. Saved your life.”

  “Didn’t want to be saved.” My throat feels raw like it’s been sandblasted from the inside.

  “Pity about your face,” she says, not feeling any pity at all.

  “Never going to be a model now.” I try to laugh. It comes out as a brittle bark.

  “Unless it’s for a specialist scar porn, no, probably not. Do you want some water? It’s the painkillers making you so thirsty. Even with our new safety measures, you still managed to do quite a bit of ruin to yourself. No brain damage though.”

  “Damn,” I deadpan, but the water is cold and sweet down my throat.

  “My name is Catherine, I’m from head office. They sent me here especially to see you and do you know why? It’s because you’ve made us reevaluate some things, Coco, how we work around here.” Every time she says my name, it feels like someone punching me in the chest. A reminder of Ro.

  “Don’t call me that. It’s Yengko. Please.”

  “As you prefer,” her mouth twists impatiently, “Ms. Yengko. You’ll be pleased to know, I think, that after your incident, Inatec has elected to relocate the OPPs—what do you call them?”

  “Zombie puppets.” But I’m thinking, Living prisons cells.

  She looks down to her hands folded in her lap, at her perfect manicure, and smiles a little tolerant smile. But what I’m thinking is, That bitch still has her fingernails, which also means she has no intention of sticking around. “Pinocchios, right? Isn’t that what you call them? That’s cute. But we’ve come to realize, well, you made us realize that having them in homelab puts undue stress on our employees. I guess we were so busy focusing on this huge medical breakthrough—”

  “Profit, you mean.”

  She ignores me. “That we didn’t think about how it was affecting you guys on a personal level. So, I’m sorry. Inatec is sorry. We’ve moved the OPPs to another facility. We’ve already paid stress compensation into everyone’s accounts and we’re implementing mandatory counseling sessions.”

  “He was trying to talk.”

  “No. He’s dead, Coc—Ms. Yengko,” she corrects herself. “It must have been very upsetting, but he can’t talk. The OPP symbiote sometimes hooks into the wrong nerves. We’re still learning, still figuring each other out.”

  “How buddy-buddy of you. Didn’t realize this was a partnership.”

  “We’re a bio-sensitive operation. It’s about finding a balance with nature, no matter how foreign it is.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “We’d like you to stay on, if you’re willing. Under the circumstances, Inatec is willing to retrench you with two weeks payout for every year you’ve worked, plus stress bonus, plus full pension. Which is, I’m sure you’ll appreciate, very generous considering your attempt to damage Inatec property and injure personnel, which would normally be grounds for instant dismissal. Your non-disclosure still applies either way, of course.”

  “Wait. You’re blaming me for Ro’s death?”

  “By injuring personnel, we mean your attempted suicide. You’re a valuable asset to the company. Which is why I’d encourage you to hear my alternate proposition.”

  “Does it involve letting me fucking die like I wanted?”

  “As I said, you’re a valuable asset. How long have you been here? Two years?”

  “Twenty months.”

  “That’s a lot of experience. We’ve invested in you, Ms. Yengko. We want to see you achieve your potential. I want you to walk away from this . . . challenge in your life, stronger, more capable. You’ve got a second chance. Do you know how rare that is? It’s a unique personal growth opportunity.”

  “Double pay.”

  “One and half times.”

  “Plus my pension payout. You wire it to my mom in the meantime.”

  “You don’t want to hear about the alternative?”

  “More of the same, isn’t it?”

  “It’s better. We’re running a pilot program. New suits. We want you to head it up. We’ve learned from our mistakes. We’re ready to move on. It’s a new day around here. What do you say?”

  She thinks I don’t know. She thinks I’m an idiot.

  Homelab has been renovated in the time I’ve been out. A week and a half, according to Shapshak, who is strangely reproachful. He follows me around, as if trying to make sure I don’t try to off myself again. He can’t look at my face—at the puckered scar that runs from my ear to the corner of my mouth, twisting my upper lip into a permanent sneer. He’s more stoned than ever—and so are most of the other crews. Whatever else Catherine’s proposed “new day” involves, obviously restricting access to recreational pharmaceuticals isn’t part of it. Or maybe it’s the mandatory counseling sessions, which involve a lot of antidepressants that Mukuku says leave him feeling blank and hollow. I wouldn’t know. I felt that way already.

  The Pinocchios are, true to Catherine’s word, gone. Along with some of the staff. Lurie has been shipped out, together with Hoffmann, Ujlaki and Murad, all the A-level am-bots, half the other team leaders, and 60 percent of the labtechs. Leaving a shoddy bunch of misfits, unsuitable for anything except manual labor. Or guinea pigging.

  Labs one to three have been cleared to accommodate the new suits, ornate husks floating in nutrient soup in big glass tanks. Like soft-shelled crabs without the crab. The plating is striated with a thick fibrous grain that resembles muscle. The info brochure posted on the bulletin board promises “biological solutions for biological challenges.” There is grumbling about what that means. But underneath all that is the buzz of excitement.

  The operations brochure talks about how the suit will harden on binding, how the shell will protect us from anything a hostile environment can throw at us and process the air through the filtration system to be perfectly breathable w
ithout the risk and inconvenience of carrying compressed gas tanks around. We’ll be lighter, more flexible, more efficient—and it’s totally self-sufficient, provided we take up the new nutritionally fortified diet. “No more fucking oats!” Mukuku rejoices. He’s not Ro, but he’s not an asshole and that’s about all we can ask around here.

  Lab four is still cranking. The reduced complement of labtechs are busier than ever, scurrying about like bugs. They wear hazmat suits these days. They’ve always been offish, always above us, but now they don’t talk to us at all.

  Inatec management send in a state-of-the-art camera swarm to record the new suit trials—for a morale video, Catherine explains. Exactly the kind of camera swarm they supposedly can’t afford to send out into The Green to scout ahead of us to avoid some of the dangers. “You won’t have to worry about that anymore,” she says. I believe her.

  Harvest operations are called off while they do the final preparations, leaving us with too much leisure time, too much time to think. Or maybe it’s just me. But it allows me to make my decision. Not to blow it wide open. (As if they wouldn’t just hold us down and do it to us anyway.) Because I’m thinking that a cell doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It doesn’t have to be a prison. It could be more like a monk’s cell, a haven from the world, somewhere you can lock yourself away from everything and never have to think again.

  On Tuesday, we’re summoned to lab three. “You ready?” Catherine says.

  “Is my pension paid out?” I snipe. There is nervous laughter.

  “Why can’t we use our old suits?” Waverley whines. “Why we gotta change a good thing?”

  “Shut up, Waverley,” Shapshak snaps, but only half-heartedly. And then because everyone is jittery—even us uneducated slum hicks can have suspicions—I volunteer.

  I step forward and shrug out of my greys, letting them drop to the floor. Two of the labtechs haul a suit out of the tank and sort of hunker forward with it, folding it around me like origami. It is clammy and brittle at the same time. As they fold one piece over another, it binds together and darkens to an opaque green. The color of slime-mould.

  The labtechs assist others into their suits, carefully wrapping everyone up, like a present, leaving only the hoods and a dangling connector like a scorpion tail. The tip has a pad of microneedles that will fasten on to my nervous system. Nothing unusual here. The GMPs use the same technology to monitor vital signs. Nothing unusual at all.

  “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt. It injects anaesthetic at the same time,” Catherine says. “Like a mosquito.”

  “Not the ones on this planet, lady,” Waverley snickers, looking around for approval, as they start folding him into his suit.

  Back in Caxton, I tried converting to the Neo-Adventists for a time. They promised me the pure white warmth of God’s love that would transform me utterly. But I still felt the same after my baptism—still dirty, still broken, still poor.

  “Can we hurry this along?” I ask, impatient.

  “Of course,” Catherine says. And maybe that’s a glimmer of respect in her blue eyes, or maybe it’s just the reflection of the neon lighting, but I feel like we understand each other in these last moments.

  The labtech slip the hood over my face. She presses the bioconnector up against the hollow at the base of my skull, and clicks the switch that makes the needles leap forward. Suddenly the armor clamps down on me like a muscle. I fight down a jolt of claustrophobia so strong it raises the taste of bile in my mouth. I have to catch myself from falling to my knees and retching.

  “You okay, Yengko?” Shapshak says, his voice suddenly sharp through the glaze of drugs he’s on. He must really care, I think. But I am beyond caring. Beyond anything.

  I wondered what it would feel like. The soft furriness of the amoebites flooding through the bioconnector, the prickle as they flower through my skin. What’s better than a dead zombie? A live one. And maybe God’s touch is cool and green, not pure white at all.

  “Yes,” I say and close my eyes against the light, against the sight of the others being parceled up in the suits, at Waverley starting to scream, tugging at the hood as he realizes what’s going on, what’s in there with him. “I’m fine.” And maybe for the first time, I actually am.

  As part of a Twitter fiction festival, I asked followers to propose genre mash-ups and wrote tweet-sized stories, live.

  #Sex&TheDystopianCity I

  Picked up the most adorable bespoke pink tutu. Only had to gun down eight people. #win #summersales.

  #Sex&TheDystopianCity II

  Miranda was the first to go. All the lawyers up against the wall. Carrie was executed for looting. Samantha ran a brothel for a while. But Supreme General Commander Charlotte came out best of all. She always was the most ruthless.

  #KamaSartre

  Hell is sex with other people.

  #MuppetPrisonDrama

  They shaved Animal to reveal the map, Gonzo picked the lock. But Warden Piggy was waiting for them. “Going somewhere, Frog?”

  #PotterxPalahniuk

  I am Benjamin Bunny’s vented spleen. His gutted innards. His roast haunch on a plate.

  #MyLittlePonyNoir

  Ain’t no rainbows here, Dash said. Not since Pinkie Pie turned up hooves up in an alley.

  #ColdWarFairyTale I

  The sad truth was that magic gets mired in bureaucratic red tape, same as everything.

  #ColdWarFairyTale II

  He opened up the warhead and found her heart. All glass and nuclear love.

  Dearly beloved

  is a good way to start.

  So is:

  Hello my friend

  Or:

  Greetings to you and your family

  Or even an exotic:

  Salut

  In the end, it doesn’t matter how you address them. You don’t even need a name. They will give you everything. Roll over to show you their bellies like dogs, their tails wagging. Money talks, you see. It roars like a stadium of soccer fans, drowning out that little voice of doubt.

  Laryea has never had any doubt: people are greedy and stupid; they get what’s coming to them. People like Hilda Varone, whose name is printed in big block capitals on his cardboard sign, so she can’t miss seeing him in the clog of people waiting in the arrivals hall of OR Tambo International. Not that she could miss him anyway. He is a big man—more fat than muscle these days, if he is honest, but still good-looking, in a button-up shirt and chinos and a flat-top you could stand a glass on. He likes to look professional for his clients.

  He knows from experience that Hilda will be feeling anxious, that all those hours and hours on a plane from Mexico City via New York will have given her too much time to think. And it’s her first time without her husband, Oscar. In these kinds of circumstances, it’s important to stick to routine. People like routine. It makes the world seem safe and predictable.

  The glass doors from baggage claim glide open and spit out a flurry of people with suitcases and backpacks and wheelie carry-ons. He spots Hilda right away. She looks rumpled and tired, dragging her big grey suitcase with the dodgy wheel. He has chosen a spot right in front of the doors, but her eyes skid over him and his neatly lettered sign, searching the crowd as if she is expecting someone else.

  He’s always thought of her as chubby, but she’s lost weight since he last saw her. Now, she’s just a short compact package of a woman with over-plucked brows and a frizz of dark hair that doesn’t like being told what to do. Much like Hilda herself.

  Laryea has always found Oscar easier to deal with. For an ambulance driver, Oscar is a meek man, as if all the shout has been drained out of him by the yowl of the sirens as he navigates the sprawl of Mexico City, his arthritic hands clamped on the wheel, wishing for power steering. He should retire, but how can he, considering the circumstances?

  The couple has been to Johannesburg three times since they first made contact eighteen months ago. But Oscar opted to stay home in sunny Me-hi-co this time round. It g
ets expensive, all these flights, all these meetings, all the administration. Supposedly, this is the last trip. A mere formality and it will all be done.

  Laryea knows better.

  “Ms. Varone!” he calls out to Hilda. “Over here.”

  “Laryea,” she says, noticing him at last, but sounding less than thrilled. Jet lag is a bitch. He moves to welcome her with a kiss on both cheeks.

  “You still dragging this old thing around?” he says, taking the suitcase from her. “Don’t worry, soon you’ll be able to afford Louis Vuitton. A matching set for you and Oscar!”

  “I think we have más importante things to spend the money on, no?” she says, sharply.

  “Of course. Forgive me, señora. How is Gael?”

  “The same,” she says, bleakly.

  Life can change in an instant. One moment your six-year-old son is stepping out of a bodega, the next he is on his back under a car, the axle pressing down on his stomach, crushing his spine, his spleen, his pelvis, so the doctors say he will probably never walk again. A burst tire. A freak accident.

  It’s not that Laryrea doesn’t feel sorry for Hilda and Oscar. But the world is full of tragedy.

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