by JT Lawrence
“Jesus, Marko. Aren’t you listening? AI wants to kill us.”
Keke side-eyes the waitbot who is still vacuuming the restaurant floor. No wonder they’ve gone postal. Imagine that is your entire existence.
“What are you saying? That they’ve closed the airports?”
“Of course they’ve fucking closed the airports!”
Everyone knows how much damage can be done when a plane is used as a weapon. Finally something clicks in Marko’s brain. Keke can see a sudden clarity in his expression.
“You say it’s spreading?”
“The Nancies are trying to keep it under the blanket. The danger of mass hysteria, blah. But yes, it’s spreading. Twenty-four hours ago there were a couple of seemingly isolated incidents reported. Since then it’s just exploded.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. AI is specifically programmed to never harm humans or animals.”
“Something’s changed.”
Marko scratches his head again. “Those initial incidents. Were they spread out? Or did they come from a common point of origin?”
“As far as we could tell, a common point, but none of the reports were official. Just first-hand accounts posted on SMstreams by civilians.”
She brings up a sub-screen showing red pins on the map. There’s a definite concentration over Sandton. Within a few seconds it updates, adding hundreds of new pins in a menacing halo.
“Holy Hedy Lemarr,” says Marko.
For a second Keke glimpses the old Marko, and it twists her heart. Not that it matters anymore.
“This isn’t a malfunction, Keke.”
His face flickers in the static. She loses him for a while then he comes back.
“Keke?” he says. “I’ve lost you. Keke?”
“I’m here,” she says, “Marko. I’m here.”
“Listen to me. If you can hear me. This isn’t a malfunction.”
And just as Keke’s about to ask what it is, and what they can do, they get cut off, and she doesn’t get through to him again.
Chapter 46
Craving Keke
Ashram Ramanana
Panchagiri Hills, India, 2036
Marko smacks his Tile in frustration. The signal here is worse than the itch on a neckbeard. No wonder these mountain yogis preach unplugging. It’s like being back in the dark ages for Net’s sake.
“Sorry,” he whispers to the device. “It’s not your fault that quantum tech hasn’t reached us yet.”
He needs to be nice to the Tile. He polishes it with his sleeve. It might be the only way to keep Keke safe.
There’s a faint knock on the door. A swami sweeps in, and stops in his tracks when he sees Marko with an electronic device in his hands. There’s confusion in his frown, and disappointment, even though he tries to not show it.
“Marko, it’s time for the retreat to begin.”
They’ve planned a three-day silence retreat, which they’ll finish off with a yajna. Suddenly Marko thinks if he has to scrub one more stone floor he’ll turf himself out of a window.
“I can’t,” says Marko. “Sorry. I have an emergency.”
“An emergency is a manmade concept.” The sage’s voice is a calm, clear pond. “Look around you. There are no emergencies here.”
Marko’s hand shoots up to his eye-patch. He traces the edges with clammy fingertips.
“It’s my friend. In South Africa. She’s in trouble.”
“It’s not up to you to fix her situation. Do not take that power from her.”
“It’s important. I just need some time. Half an hour. I’ll join you as soon as I can.” The fib flushes his cheeks.
“As you wish,” says the swami, and starts to leave. He puts his hand on the door. “I hope that you will not undo all we have accomplished in dealing with your technology addiction.”
If Marko could push the man out of the room he would.
“Yes,” says Marko. Yes. Whatever it takes to get rid of the guy.
Knowing that Keke and the others are in danger has burst the incense-fragrant bubble in which Marko’s been living. He’s been trying his best to sort out his head, to fix himself before he can try to repair his relationship with Keke, but knowing that she’s in trouble now and he can’t go to her feels like someone is punching his lungs. Will he ever see her again? He thinks of all the time he’s wasted, being here, when he could have been with her.
To be frank, his stay here has been pretty lame. He realises now that he was after some kind of eighties Hollywood spiritual training, some kind of Karate Kid/Sensei shit. Wax on, wax off. But really he’s been playing along. Hoping that if he drinks the Ashram Kool-Aid for long enough he really will find peace and forgiveness. Pretending that he can be happy in this analogue world of mindful physical chores and meditation when really he’s been jonesing for his online life: being completely in the flow when he’s doing what he’s best at. Most of all, of course, he’s been missing Keke, although ‘missing’ is too weak a word. Images of her hold his sleep hostage: the warm fingers of his memories keep him wide awake. The feel of her, the scent. ‘Craving’ is more accurate a word. It could pretty much sum up the past few months. Years? Whether he admits it to himself or not, he’s been craving Keke.
He restarts the Tile, hoping a new connection will be cleaner, but the call to Keke won’t go through. He wants to tell her he might be able to help, after all. It’s true he has no experience in defective droids, but he suspects something else is going on: something more sinister. Yes, he’s a conspiracy theorist, and yes, he’s naturally paranoid, but something about this ‘rebellion’ feels dirty, and he has an idea what it is.
He tries to call her again, without luck, so instead he concentrates on finding out what he can about the attacks. He thinks it’ll take a while to get back into the saddle, hacking-wise—especially on this troglodyte of a Tile—that maybe he’ll be a bit rusty and need time to adjust, but he’s wrong. As soon as he’s in, it’s as if he’s a bullet in a greased chamber, and within twelve minutes he’s scraped enough darkdata to prove his theory correct. It feels good. He doesn’t want it to, but damn, it feels fucking fantastic. His synth-heart is pounding. The footage of the Bent Hotel murder plays over and over in his head.
The bad news is that he was right about the so-called rebellion not being a code malfunction. As soon as he saw those red pins multiplying he knew. He recognised the pattern immediately. It’s not a coincidence, or an uprising, or a defect. It has all the hallmarks of an infective agent that multiplies within the host.
It’s a virus, and it’s the scariest thing he’s ever seen.
Chapter 47
Corporate Video of Death
TWELVE YEARS PREVIOUSLY
SkyRest
Johannesburg, 2024
Lewis and Zack enter the dim cineroom, and Lewis dials up the lights, interrupting the crims watching an old nature documentary.
“Hey!” some of them say, before realising who it is.
“Sorry to interrupt, gents,” Lewis says, pausing the film. “We need the room.”
The men complain under their breath, but no one dares confront Lewis. They stand up and amble out.
“Scram!” he says to a laggard then closes the door behind him. “It’s not like they haven’t seen that grizzly documentary a hundred times before.”
Zack flips through the available titles on DVD. The titles are milquetoast. No new releases, no sex or violence. Just old wildlife shows, clean sitcoms, and vintage feel-good films. He picks one out, cracks open the cover and inspects it. ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’.
Lewis laughs at the old tech. “When’s the last time you saw one of those?”
Even the dusty DVD player looks a hundred years old.
Lewis changes the amp source then types in a code to unlock a SkyRest-branded video. When prompted to confirm, he looks at Zack. “You sure you want to know this shit?”
Zack nods.
“It’s like bad porn,” h
e says.
“What?”
“I mean, it’s not something you can un-see.”
Zack nods again, and Lewis shrugs and clicks play.
They grab a seat in the front row, and the film begins. The introductory shot is drone-footage of the architecture: some flattering angles of the white honeycomb shard among the deep green of the surrounding forest, and a woman’s honey-tongued voice-over begins.
“Welcome,” she says, “to SkyRest.”
Is that Gaelyn’s voice? Or do they all just sound the same?
An ultra realistic animation of a tree falling in a forest occurs. The tree soon greys and shrinks as it breaks down, and new growth—bright green saplings—shoots up from the nurse log.
“It’s easy to become disconnected from nature when you’re living a high-speed urban life. Part of this disconnect is thinking of death as an inherently negative experience.”
Something about the death industry feels familiar to him, but he’s not sure why.
Is this why I was sent to this particular crim colony?
“But what makes SkyRest different from other urban vertical cemeteries?”
Unseen things click into place one after another in Zack’s mind, like someone shuffling a deck of cards.
“SkyRest offers clients a variety of burial options—”
Hexagonal frames appear on the screen to illustrate the available alternatives, and the first frame is enlarged: Inside is a tombstone.
“Our traditional burial contains all the hallmarks of a conventional burial, except that it takes place on one of our sky storeys. You are welcome to visit the resting place of your loved one any time of day or night.”
The next frame is an urn on a mantelpiece. “If you end up selecting customary cremation, we have a variety of options to deal with the ashes. These include, amongst others: having them mixed with oil paint, and commissioning an artist to create a unique work for you. Having them distilled and turned into jewellery, or having them buried under the rootball of a sapling that you can take home and plant in your garden.”
Seems sensible. Zack doesn’t see what the big deal is so far.
“If you don’t want to keep the remains, we also offer water cremation.”
Okay, that’s a new one, but still, hardly controversial.
“These are all popular burial solutions,” says the speaker, “but none of them is environmentally friendly, and at SkyRest we strive for a carbon-double-negative footprint. If it’s also important to you to leave the world with causing minimal damage, you may consider our earth-friendly options.”
Zack’s ears prick up; the SkyRest logo animates on screen.
“SkyRest introduces … Recomposition™. Your Doorway to Immortality.”
Immediately Zack thinks of zombies. Does this place bring dead bodies back to life? A shameful amount of bank has been spent on immortality tech, but as he thinks it, he knows this isn’t that kind of place. Everything he’s seen has been deep green and eco-devoted—and he’s petty sure zombies don’t fit into that equation.
“For most people, the suddenness and permanence of death is difficult to accept, especially when it’s a loved one. With SkyRest’s trademarked Recomposition™ technology, your spirit can live on by nurturing the earth that sustained you during your lifetime.”
Zack hardly blinks.
“Traditional burials are anything but natural. Bodies are preserved with the known carcinogen, formaldehyde, and then sealed in caskets that further embalm them, taking up valuable land and leaching poison into the ground. Even cremations are not without environmental damage: a single cremation pumps a toxic cocktail of chemicals into the air. In fact, our legal team here at SkyRest predicts that both of these options will be banned by 2040. Recomposition™ offers a positive solution to those looking for an earth-friendly burial.”
The animation of the nurse log returns.
“Recomposition™ interlaces the cycles of life into the meaning-hungry, time-starved urban fabric and reminds us that, as humans, we’re deeply connected to the natural ebb and flow of Mother Earth.”
A young woman is lying on a forest floor, asleep. Dead? Naked, apart from some strategically placed autumn leaves. Her long blonde hair is styled against the dark ground. More and more dead leaves cover her pale skin until she is no longer visible. The earth has swallowed her up.
“There you go.” Lewis pauses the video. “Happy now?”
“Yes,” says Zack. “No. I don’t understand what the big deal is. Why the secrecy?”
“What can I say? It’s death. People get cagey.”
“How does it work?”
“You want me to draw you a fucking picture?”
“Can we watch to the end?” Zack already knows the answer and is frustrated. He’s not sleeping, not eating, and he just wants answers. Is it too much to ask?
Lewis turns off the screen. “You’re not ready for the end.”
The video has jogged Zack’s degraded memory. Pictures of dead people flash in on him: Face after face of obliteration.
Ramphele’s file.
Then in a dreamlike scenario he sees himself injecting a young girl, and she collapses and dies in his arms. The disjointed memory fills Zack with bewilderment and fury.
“Do you know why I’m in here, Lewis? Do you know what I was convicted of?”
“Don’t know. Don’t wanna know.”
“I was found guilty of killing over a hundred people.”
Lewis’s hand freezes on his beard.
“So don’t tell me that I can’t handle the end of a fucking video. Don’t tell me I can’t handle a sanitised corporate video of death. I am Death’s friend, okay? I’m the Grim Fucking Reaper.”
Chapter 48
Cosmic Chess Game
TWELVE YEARS LATER
The Lipworth Institute
Johannesburg, 2036
Kate finds Keke at a booth in the dawn-lit Revolvo. Bathed in an orange glow, she’s staring out the window with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her face is still: There’s no sniffing or fussing, the tears just flow. It’s as if she’s one of those cinegraphs that used to be in fashion where only one element of the picture moves. Kate approaches Keke slowly, not wanting to wreck her reverie.
“What’s happened?” she asks. “Keke?”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Kate looks at the view. The daybreak colours are insane. It’s as if someone has painted the regular sunrise with liquid LSD.
Keke has a faraway look in her eyes. “I mean, I hate that air pollution 99.9 percent of the time. But, hot damn! This is not one of those times.”
They spend a moment absorbing the magnificence.
“The last sunrise will be the prettiest,” says Keke.
“Who said that? Confucius? The Dalai Lama?”
“Nope,” says Keke, draining her third drink. “Yours truly.”
“Don’t. It’s not our last sunrise.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling, Kitty. A very bad feeling.”
“Silver’s really sick,” says Kate.
This shakes Keke out of her daydream. “Shit! I’ve been so deep into the Doomsday and Marko shit that I completely forgot why we were here.”
“You were right. She got meshed. Some backstreet job that Morgan doesn’t know how to treat.”
“Brain damage?”
“We’re not sure yet.”
“Fuck! I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say, really.”
Keke climbs out of the booth, knocking over her empty glass as she does so, and hugs Kate. They kiss each other’s cheeks, then sit down again. Kate tastes Keke’s salt on her lips.
“Wait,” says Kate. “Did you say you spoke to Marko? Seriously? He took your call?”
“Reluctantly.”
“It’s been, what? How many years?”
“I don’t know,” fibs Keke. “I’ve lost count.”
“Motherfu
cker. How is he?”
“Skinny.”
“And he just answered? Like, ‘Hi Keke’?”
“Pretty much.”
“Did you tell him you’ve been waiting for him?”
“No. It wasn’t that kind of conversation. I asked him for help. To hack the roguebots.”
“And?”
“And … not his speciality.”
“I guess not.”
“Ja, well. He could have fucking tried.”
“Morgan said much the same when I asked him to treat Silver. Hands off. Said it’s too dangerous.”
“He probably knows best.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” says Keke, rubbing the tear-marks off her face. “Looks like we’ll have to do it our-own-fucking-selves.”
“Looks like it,” says Kate, and they smile at each other.
There is some kind of reckoning in the air, as if they’ve reached the end of something. Kate senses a new kind of nostalgia—a wistful pre-remembering. Would this really be their last day together?
Keke takes a deep breath, as if she’s ready to rush off and save the world. “Doomsday or not, we’ll make it count.”
The servbot cycles over and picks Keke’s glass up off the floor.
“Welcome to the Metro Revolvorant!” it says to Kate. They wait for it to leave before speaking again.
“I do have a favour to ask,” says Kate.
“Anything.”
“Well, if I’m honest it’s a shitload more than a ‘favour’.”
“You know I’ll do anything for you,” says Keke.
“This is different.”
“Spit it out, woman!”
“Morgan told me something about Silver. He didn’t think it was important, but—”
“But?”
“I think it might be. Something is telling me it is, or I swear I wouldn’t ask you.”
“For Net’s sake. Do I need to wrestle it out of you?”
“Okay. So Silver’s in this, like, dream state? And she’s been mumbling things. Urgent things. So I was trying to listen to her and she wasn’t making sense, but then she said very clearly …she said ‘Zack’.”
