by JT Lawrence
What Have We Done
JT Lawrence
Contents
Also by JT Lawrence
Prologue
Part I
1. Funeral Cake
2. Chaser
3. Electrosmog & Sunlight
4. Running With the Rodents
5. From Chop to Stab
6. You Should Always Be Worried
7. Not Kids Like You
8. Milk&Silk
9. Dragon Scales
10. On Ice
11. Amphibian Suspicion
12. Even My Toaster is Intelligent
13. Revenge Re-targeting
14. Dead City Sunbeams
15. Prisons Never Sleep
16. Pirate. Despoiler. Bandit
17. Double Deception
18. Shorn and Stitched
19. Skin Zip
20. A Normal Kind of Midnight
21. Mister Galaxy
22. Bread & Circuses
23. A Fucking Lucky Packet
24. Hot Tokyo
25. We're Not Safe Anymore
26. Sinner Please
Part II
27. Blood and a Brutal Past
28. Forehead to Nape
29. Powder Musk
30. Graveyard Trees
31. Purest Human
32. Cursed White
33. Maybe This is the Future
34. A Map to Nowhere
35. Ghost
36. Is This The Real World?
37. Smudged with Ash and Heartache
38. You Used to be Able to See the Stars
39. Balls in a Bear Trap
40. Midnight Elves
41. Hollow Buttons
42. Under the Surface
43. Good Angel, Bad Angel
44. Trumpet of Death
45. Menacing Halo
46. Craving Keke
47. Corporate Video of Death
48. Cosmic Chess Game
49. Blooms of your Beloved
50. Nitrogen-Rich Material
51. No One Likes To Keep A Secret
52. Her Mouth is Lemon Pith
53. Bone Bark
54. Elevation
55. Stained for Slaughter
56. Cold-Butter Bodies
57. The Cooler
58. Tinted Mirror
59. Retch
60. Honeyed Hallucination
61. Shell
62. 12 Years Later
63. The Inverse of Pandora's Box
Part III
64. RedPepper Proxies
65. Happy Hour
66. Kill Switch
67. Ghost Cutlasses
68. Rocky Rabbit Hole
69. Dead Men Don't Care
70. Grey Skull
71. Darkmeat Venus Flytrap
72. Corpse Compost
73. Anthrobot Academy
74. You Are Excused From Your Daily Grind
75. Slate Sorrow
76. Galaxy of Bright Rolling Pain
77. A Different Kind of Family
78. Glass Mercury
79. Brain on Fire
80. BrightCandy Canal
81. Mezzanine Puzzle
82. Hot In Her Pocket
83. Doomsday Debris
84. Brain Bleach
85. Hansel & Gretel
86. Car Carcass
87. Force Quit
88. Smoke & Shimmer
89. Skeleton Turns to Ice
90. Dragon Dagger
91. Crimson Chemical Copper
92. Blood Handkerchief
93. Tweak
94. Bloodthirsty Bot Hunters
95. Shoulder Crow
96. Soul Shard
97. Shield
98. Genesis Child
99. World's Worst Jehovah's Witness
100. This Is What Kool-Aid Tastes Like
101. Cybercosmic Dust
102. Poison & Lace
103. Rapture Party
Epilogue
What’s Next?
Also by JT Lawrence
About the Author
Stay In Touch
Acknowledgments
Also by JT Lawrence
FICTION
WHEN TOMORROW CALLS
• SERIES •
1. Why You Were Taken (2015)
2. How We Found You (May 2017)
3. What Have We Done (October 2017)
The Stepford Widow: A Short Story (Oct 2017)
The Memory of Water (2011)
Sticky Fingers (2016)
Grey Magic (2016)
NON-FICTION
The Underachieving Ovary (2016)
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the loyal readers of this series
who first encouraged me to write a sequel to
‘Why You Were Taken’.
It’s been a ride! Thank you.
Prologue
The Gordhan Hospital
Johannesburg, 2024
“I’m telling you again,” comes Keke’s terse whisper from behind one of the unisex restroom doors. “I’m telling you again to leave me alone.”
Kate suspects Keke’s talking on her phone, so she’s shocked when she hears a reply. Bright nerves flash through her (Cadmium Current). She turns away from the smart mirror and forgets about the spilt mascara on her cheeks.
“Keke, please, just hear me out,” says a man.
“No!” says Keke. “I’m not gonna do it. I can’t.”
“I’m not going to hurt her. I promise. All I need is—”
“Is that what you told the friends of your other victims?”
“Victims? Keke, what are you talking about?”
“The cops were here, Zack. They told me everything.”
“You’re going to believe the police? Really?”
“You killed Helena Nash.”
“Helena Nash killed herself.”
What the fuck? thinks Kate, adrenaline rising. She sneaks a little closer to the door.
“You helped her. And those others,” says Keke. “I’m leaving.”
There is a scuffle.
“Let me go. Let me go or I’ll scream.”
“Keke. Listen to me, please—”
“I’ll pay you back, okay? I’ll find a way.”
Kate frowns. Pay him back? What the hell is going on here?
She tiptoes closer, her heart banging in her chest.
“You don’t have to pay me back! This isn’t about quid pro quo. It’s about something far bigger than that. All I need you to do is—”
“No! Kate has been through enough. She can’t deal with this. Let me go.”
Kate feels a flare of anger. She slides open the door, and Keke and the man turn to look at her. His fingers are wrapped around her forearm.
“Let go of her arm,” says Kate.
“Kate.” He’s good looking, dressed in a sharp dark suit and a silk tie. Teal Trespasser. “I have something I have to tell you.”
“Then tell me.” Kate can’t remember ever meeting the man, but something about him is familiar. As if she’s seen him before, on the homescreen, or in a dream.
“Not here,” says Zack. “Not like this.”
“I don’t know who you are, and I’m not gonna play games with you,” says Kate. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Who sent you?”
“Now, that’s an interesting question.”
Kate glares at him.
He rubs his lips. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
There’s a purple hammering behind Kate’s eyes. It’s exhaustion or frustrati
on or, more likely, a debilitating blend of both. She has the inappropriate urge to slink down onto the hard cold floor and close her eyes for a long time. Why does she attract the crazies? She’s had enough crackers people in her life. From now on, she only wants conversations with sane people. Nice, non-crackers people who don’t drag her into surreal, unpredictable worlds.
“You’re wasting our time,” says Kate, ready to leave. She wants to get back to Mally and Silver in the hospital ward. The purple hammering gets darker, starts tipping towards indigo.
Zack looks at the micro-camera in the corner of the ceiling, and whispers, “Is there somewhere we can meet?”
Kate scowls at the idea. “You really think I’d agree to that? What’s next? Sweets from your trenchcoat pocket? No, there is not somewhere we can meet.”
Zack shows her his palms in surrender. He has beautiful hands, and Kate’s annoyed at herself for noticing. Now is certainly not the time to appreciate them or the depth of his eyes (Stardust Surveillers). She needs to get out of here right now.
“Hurry up!” Keke fidgets, and Zack shoots her a look. What are they not telling her?
“Zack is a suicide agent,” says Keke.
“A what-what? I don’t know what that means.”
The Suicide Contagion is pervasive, but what do the unlucky lemmings have to do with her?
“This will be difficult for you to understand, at first,” he says, “but for the sake of your children I need you to have an open mind—”
For the sake of my children? Kate takes a step away from him. He advances on her, gripping her arm. Firm, and thrilling.
“You’re not threatening my kids.”
“No! No. The opposite. I’m here to save them. To save you all. It’s what I’ve been put here to do. It’s the reason I—”
Kate is about to ask—save us from what? But there’s a crash as a squad of men in black kevlarskin and exoscales break through the main door and flatten Zack against the sonic shower tiles. Kate cries out in alarm as she grabs Keke and they move away from the aggressive men, bumping into the basins behind them. Panic paints her insides a shrill shade of yellow. The men are shouting at Zack, jamming oiled gunmetal into his cheek. Telling him not to move, not to try anything stupid, not to breathe. Kate spots a glint of a police badge. They force his arms up against the wall and frisk him with gloved hands.
Detective Ramphele trails in and nods at a stone-eyed Keke, who nods back.
The men turn Zack around. “Girdler,” the detective says, blinking, as if he doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing. Zack is calm, his eyes unflecked by fear. Ramphele looks at Zack with something akin to admiration as he caresses the revolver in the harness strapped to his hip. “Zachary Girdler. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Zack. I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.” Keke’s face darkens, as if clouds have raced over the sun.
Unspoken words echo in the air: You always have a choice.
“They were going to arrest me for conspiring with you in Helena Nash’s murder,” says Keke. “They had me in cuffs and Marko was dying. The twins were missing. I was desperate. It was the only way they’d agree to—”
Zack clenches his jaw, says, “You did what you needed to do,” but his eyes say Jesus, Keke, what have you done?
Kate’s stomach percolates with dread. Her instinct tells her this shouldn’t be happening, that this is not part of the plan.
But what plan? Whose plan?
Violence scents the air. Things are happening too quickly and Kate wants to stop and scroll backwards. The men snap smartcuffs on Zack and shove him forward.
“Don’t take your eyes off him,” says Detective Ramphele. “Not for a second, d’you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’s a slippery motherfucker.”
Zack doesn’t take his eyes off Kate. It’s as if a live wire connects them.
“Wait!” she shouts, but they don’t.
Kate’s desperate now to know what he needs to tell her, but the cops are all over him. She has the feeling that something vital is spooling away from her and if she doesn’t grab on to it right now she’ll regret it forever.
“Please, wait!” she shouts again.
“You have to come and find me,” says Zack, “so that I can give you the message. You need to know. Your life depends on it.”
The testosterone squad bustle Zack out of the restroom.
“I’ll get you the best lawyer!” Keke yells after him. “I’ll come see you!”
Ramphele shouts a laugh. “Where Girdler is going, you’ll never see him again.”
Part 1
Chapter 1
Funeral Cake
12 YEARS LATER
Seth’s Apartment
Johannesburg, 2036
Kate takes another bite of the funeral cake. “What do you think?”
“Mm,” Keke says, still chewing, “If this cake was a person I’d take him home and—”
Seth clears his throat, and she doesn’t finish her sentence. At forty-something, Keke still has that violet glint of mischief in her eyes. She winks at Seth, and he winks back.
“It’s good.” Keke clicks her tongue. “Imnandi. I’d go with this one. The other two were good, but … what’s this one called again?”
Kate frowns. When her line of vision connects with the holotag, the name of the cake appears. “Death by Choxolate.”
Keke snorts. “Ah, well, at least they have a sense of humour.”
“Dark humour,” says Kate.
“Perfect for the funeral business.”
“They’ve got a lot to smile about,” says Seth. “Have you seen how much they charge? I’m in the wrong business entirely.”
“And what business is that, Mr Denicker?” Keke leans her leather-clad hip against the kitchen island’s granite counter. “Last time I saw you, you were about to start at The Company That Shall Not Be Named.”
“I’m still there.”
Keke straightens her back. “Doing?”
“Advanced chemgineering. What else?”
“Home or away?”
“Sorry?”
“Are you working for them, or against them?”
“Ah, you know. The usual. A bit of both.”
They snicker, but the truth is that if Bilchen even got a sniff of the fact that Seth was a biopunk hacktivist, he’d probably be thrown into some kind of (trademarked) dungeon.
“I keep expecting them to come to their senses and make me disappear.”
Keke taps her chin. “Maybe they have a plan for you.”
“Ja,” says Kate. “One that involves luring you in and then chopping you up for iguana food.”
Seth smiles. “With their reputation, it would hardly come as a surprise.”
Keke licks some frosting off her fingertip. “Lucky iguanas.”
“And with that sense of humour,” says Kate, “you should be in the funeral biz.”
Keke eyes what’s left of the cake. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Who knew there’d be so much bank to be made in the urban death industry?”
“I love the way you say ‘urban death industry’.”
“Ha ha,” says Kate, clearing away the confexionary boxes.
“But you guys seem to be coping well with your mom’s illness,” says Keke. “How are you feeling about everything?”
Seth shrugs. “We’re dealing, but it’s weird, you know? Planning a funeral for someone who is still … alive.”
She won’t be for long. Kate blinks away the tears that sting her sinuses.
Funeral parties are trending this spring. Woke wakes are all the rage.
WHY WAIT TILL YOU ARE DEAD? is one of the less-subtle headlines Kate’s seen on the forever-hovering city holoboards she wishes she could swat away. It costs more than a million blox to switch off the automatic ads that float into your neuroreality vision. Kate’s always called it outright blackmail and refused to pay the ransom, but lately her re
solve is sliding. She’s tired of the constant laser-targeted marketing trying to scratch her eyes out. She imagines going for an old-fashioned walk along the purple-blossomed jacaranda streets with nothing crowding her vision—just breathing in the fresh air.
I mean, what’s next? She’d demanded of Seth. Are they going to make us pay to breathe?
Seth had raised his eyebrows as if to say he wouldn’t be surprised. As it is, inane people are buying up bags of Alpine Air as if their lives depend on it. Which in a way they will, if the SMOG score climbs much higher. Creeps are digging out their old Superbug masks and adding new bespoke touches: satin patches, copper rivets, intricate stitching, hand-sewn or thread-printed with their latest avatar and/or slogo.
