by JT Lawrence
“I can’t explain that. I mean—”
“She hasn’t said one other word. Not one. Not ‘help me’ or ‘Mom’ or ‘Mally’ or anything. ‘Zack’, she said. ‘Get Zack’.”
“How?” says Keke. “On a normal day it would be impossible. Now we’re dealing with the roguebots and the Bot Hunters too. Have you seen the reports? They’re killing each other in the streets. Civilians too. It’s only going to get worse.”
They both look at the servbot, who has stopped vacuuming. Its eyes are closed, as if it’s powered down for a nano-nap. The overhead lights flicker, then stabilise again.
Chapter 52
Her Mouth is Lemon Pith
Keke stands and gathers her things.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?” says Keke. “To SkyRest. To get Zack.”
“No,” says Kate. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Ah, well,” says Keke. “It’ll be exciting, if nothing else.”
“Don’t fuck around, Keke.”
“I’m not.”
“When I asked you the favour … to find out where Zack is … I didn’t mean I wanted you to go out and find him. I’d never ask you to risk your life for me.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Silver.”
A lilac rush of sad gratitude spirals in Kate’s peripheral vision. “You can’t. You’re right, it’s impossible. You won’t even be able to get in.”
“What kind of fairy godmother would I be if I wasn’t willing to duel with a few roguebots and break into a maximum security crim colony to find a character in Silver’s dream?”
Kate smiles. “No ways. I’ll go after Zack. You stay here and be with Silver.”
“I’m not welcome here,” says Keke.
“This place is safe.”
“No place is safe. If artificial intelligence is really trying to kill us, then … no place is safe. I may as well go out with all guns blazing.”
Then what’s the point of anything? What’s the point of finding Zack and saving Silver if they’re all going to die, anyway? But Kate knows she has to do something. She thinks of Silver’s body lying in that white room, so close to living and so close to dying. She has to try, despite the odds, because that is what having children does to your heart. It cleaves it in two—or in her case, three—and it feels as if you have your heart beating outside your body, just out of your reach, pulsing along and weathering the elements.
“I’m doing it no matter what you say,” says Keke, “so you can wipe that look of desolation off your face.”
“Don’t,” says Kate, but she only half means it, and hates herself for it. She’s already asked so much of Keke.
Keke is halfway out of the restaurant when she turns and says: “I’m sticking you with the bill!”
“Ha ha,” says Kate. “The drink was complimentary!”
“Ha ha!” shouts Keke. “I had ten!” and then she’s gone, and there is a blue watercolour wash all over, and Kate has the very real feeling that she’ll never see her best friend again.
All of a sudden her mandible beeps with an outgoing call response. When she couldn’t get hold of Seth earlier she had set her device to perpetual silent dialling. It’s taken more than two hours to place the call.
“Seth!” she yells.
“No need to shout.”
“I’ve been trying to … Never mind. Have you found Mally?”
“Not yet. I’ve been to Vega’s hostel. It’s not good.”
“What?”
“It’s like civil war here. It’s like the fucking apocalypse. Looting. Explosions. Bot Hunters in full force, taking out anything without a pulse.”
“Oh no.”
“Now that the light’s coming up I can see the full extent of it. It’s … terrible, Kate. It’s terrible.”
Kate’s body tenses with anxiety; her mouth is lemon pith.
Seth clears his throat. “They’re rounding up anthrobots. The AI Security Branch.”
“And doing what with them?”
Usually this news wouldn’t dye her insides yellow but she knows Mally is out there and would do anything to protect Vega.
“I don’t know,” says Seth. “They’re saying it’s for their own protection, but I doubt it.”
Kate remembers the revolver strapped to her thigh.
“Oh, shit.” There’s a bright green spike in her anxiety. She runs after Keke, calling her name, but she’s already gone. She breathes hard into the mandible. “Shit!”
“What’s wrong?” says Seth, still on the line.
“Keke. I forgot to give her my gun. If it’s as bad as you say it is out there, then—”
“She’s going out into the city? Unarmed? That’s insane. Stop her!”
“It’s too late. She’s gone.”
“Where?”
“She’s going to SkyRest. For me. For Silver.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later. I need to go after her.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
Chapter 53
Bone Bark
TWELVE YEARS PREVIOUSLY
SkyRest
Johannesburg, 2024
Zack is in the forest. Dark as dread. He’s running from something. Someone? The leaves hit his face, the thin black branches whipping his cheeks and arms as he races away from the danger. Where is he? This must be the forest that surrounds the crim colony. Has he escaped? He runs despite the dark, despite not being able to see more than a metre in front of him, despite the soft mounds of earth that threaten to swallow his feet and twist his ankles. He runs and runs despite not having any energy left in his limbs. Panic pushes him forward; makes his legs feel weightless.
He’s wearing his suit and tie. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know in which direction he’s running. He’ll just keep going until he reaches the edge then strategise when he gets there. He needs to leave the threat behind.
But there’s a problem with his plan or, rather, a problem with the forest. Because he keeps running but he’s not getting anywhere. He can sense that despite his frantic pace, he hasn’t moved an inch—an enchanted forest, a cursed forest. All of a sudden, he’s flying through the air and lands in a shallow ditch full of leaves. The air is knocked out of him. He touches the soil on the banks that surround him and realises it’s not a ditch at all. It’s way too deep. It’s a rectangular hole, six feet down. A grave. The realisation doesn’t help to get the oxygen he needs into his lungs. The air is thick with the aroma of humus and clay. Leaf mould. Too thick to breathe. He scrabbles to climb out of the hole; he can’t find a foothold.
He makes it halfway up the bank of soil when a rock gives way and he falls back down. He collapses hard, onto his back, and the shock of it keeps him lying like that until his head stops buzzing. But in the place of the buzzing is another sound: a whispering, rustling, an animal ticking, hundreds of insect legs. There’s a pin prick on his ankle, then on his hand. He jumps up and shakes off the things. One is trying to get inside his ear and he swipes at it with a yell. Another sharp pain, on his leg, and then there are stings all over as the beetles swarm over him. Zack screams as he tries to sweep them off. As if sensing his panic they bite down. They want to get their feed before their dinner disappears. He starts to feel the wetness of the trails of blood mixing together. His fingers frantically scrape at the walls of black soil, and one of his nails tears off. Eventually he finds a root to grab onto and uses all the strength the adrenaline gives him to haul himself up and out of the death cube.
Zack pulls off what’s left of the flesh-eating beetles and crunches them underfoot. He’s dripping blood. Once he’s sure he’s free of the bugs, he puts his hands on his knees and waits for his lungs to catch up with him. The danger is still present, some unseen evil in the forest, but there’s also the danger of him passing out and then there’ll be no way he gets out of here alive. How did he get here? All he can remember is—
There’s a
sound behind him, a dead branch snapping. He spins around, his heart already trying to judder out of his body. Zack tries to make out what—who?—made the noise. He starts reversing and backs into a wide tree trunk. He puts his hands out to steady himself against the bark, but as his palms touch it, he recoils. It doesn’t feel right. He turns towards it and yells in fright. Bits of bone are embedded in the bark. Bone bark. The branches further up are cartilage and sinew. There is some hair, some cheekbone. Teeth. Fragments of the pale woman from the video are part of this tree. An eyeball swivels to look at him, and he yells again, wants to run but his horror keeps him rooted to the spot. A shaft of moonlight casts the softest light on the tree, and Zack realises it’s not the woman from the video. It’s him.
Zack is yelling into the dark. A large hand is covering his mouth. Spongey, cold skin over his fevered jaw. His eyes click open. It’s Bernard trying to suffocate him. He tries to fight her but she has the advantage of being above him, and uses all her heft to pin him down, knee on shoulder. He struggles and struggles, but is made weak by the starvation, the sleep-dep, the forest nightmare. Zack tries to call for Lewis, but her hand cancels out any trace of his voice. Gradually he stops struggling, thinking she will kill him now, she’ll kill him and would that be that bad? But as he stops fighting her, she eases off too, until there is just one soft hand on his mouth the other goes to her own, an index finger crosses her lips telling him to be quiet.
“Shhh,” Bernard says.
Chapter 54
Elevation
The day’s chute delivery arrives with a neatly wrapped Rewards parcel for Zack. The bald resident—Spud, they call him—hands it over.
“Congratulations!” Spud says, slapping Zack on the shoulder. Zack thinks he means for the Reward but then he looks down at what Spud is eyeing: he has a colour stripe on his lapel. His first Stage.
Zack swings by Lewis’s room and is shocked when it’s empty—not only of Lewis but also all his things. It’s completely stripped down to the basics, with just a sleeping mat on the floor.
“Isn’t it great?” says a voice in his ear.
Zack spins around, holding his Reward parcel against his chest. It was meant to be a gift for Lewis. Spud is grinning.
Zack’s mind is furry with last night’s events. “What?”
“Isn’t it great?” Spud says again. “He’s gone! Promoted!”
Zack shakes his head. Of course. Lewis has been Elevated. That’s good news. That’s really good news, but why does it make his stomach simmer with dread? He looks down at the gift. His nails are lined with dirt, and one of his fingernails is torn.
Chapter 55
Stained for Slaughter
TWELVE YEARS LATER
Fourways
Johannesburg, 2036
Keke hops off the northbound solartram and stands still for a second, adjusting to her new reality. On her way to Fourways she’s seen things she’d never believe if someone else had told her about them. It’s as if the city has begun to eat itself.
Right now, right in front of her, a school smokes in the early morning light. A teenager in a blackened, frayed school uniform stumbles towards her, and Keke catches her. Ash floats like grey snow in the air.
“Hey,” says Keke. “Are you all right?”
The injured girl’s having problems talking. Too traumatised? But then Keke sees she’s having trouble with her mouth. It looks as if her bottom jaw is stuck.
Jesus.
“Are you okay? What happened?” but the girl still can’t talk. She’s just leaning into Keke and drilling into her with wide eyes. Suddenly Keke realises none of the girl’s wounds are bleeding, and she jumps backwards, causing the schoolgirl to fall onto the pocked pavement and skin her knee. No blood.
Keke shows the girl her palm. “Sorry. I got a fright.”
The anthrobot keeps trying to talk through her closed jaw. She’s becoming more frantic now. She stumbles towards Keke, who reverses, not wanting to be touched again.
“I didn’t mean for you to fall. I just didn’t realise—”
The non-bleeding girl keeps coming; Keke almost trips over a blown-out tyre.
“Stay where you are,” says Keke. “We’ll get you some help.”
Her promise rings hollow in the hazy air. All around her she sees broken tarmac, maroon soil, sharp rocks.
The schoolbot starts crying. She’s terrified.
Of what?
Then the answer becomes clear as a dozen other schoolgirls come out from behind the redberry pines adjacent to the slowly burning building.
Like a cackle of hyenas the girls prowl round them. They’re armed with various make-shift weapons: a fragment of glass, a hammer, a rock. A palm of stones. The anthrobot is crying: a long, shrill wail that is almost human. Keke pulls the bot towards her. Her burnt uniform dusts Keke’s hands with black.
“It’s okay,” Keke tells her. “You’ll be okay.” It’s only then she sees the blue circle spray-painted on the back of the bot’s uniform. Marked as non-human: stained for slaughter.
They’re surrounded. The girls kick up red dust and inch forward, tightening the circle.
“What’s going on here?” demands Keke with an authority she doesn’t feel.
“What’s going on here,” mocks the bobbed girl with the hammer. She wears her school dress’s collar pointing up and has a illustration of a lobotomised chimp on her face mask.
Keke has read about the bullying of teenbots in schools. Her first reaction was that they should not put anthrobots in school—what is the point?—but apparently there are many advantages to doing so. It’s important that the human kids get used to having AI around, and the machine-teens help the kids with extra lessons. They’re also well stocked, so you could always ask them for an extra stylus, a needle and thread, a platelet plaster or a protein bar. The bots’ presence makes the kids more competitive, which is great for the schools’ academic and sports performance, but it’s a double-edged sword: The most competitive take exception to the over-performing bots and abuse them.
“Hand her over,” says the blonde girl holding the shard of glass. She has blue paint on her fingers.
“Why?” says Keke. “Why are you trying to hurt her?”
“Her? It’s not a her. It’s an it. It’s a robot.”
Keke flicks her eyes over to the bot’s uniform. XARINA, the holotag says.
“Her name’s Xarina,” says Keke.
“We don’t call her that.”
Keke takes a step backwards. “Robots are here to help us.”
The girls snort and snarl.
“Looks like we’ve got a robo-sympathiser,” says the blue-fingered girl, angling her head. “They’re even worse than the robots.”
The kids step closer and there is more dust, like red smoke in the air. Their practised movements send ice water down Keke’s spine. Choreographed cruelty.
“What did she do to you?” demands Keke.
“She’s not real, don’t you get it?”
A swarm of Special Task drones buzz in the sky above them. They’re in a hurry.
“But why hurt her?”
“Where have you been?” demands the freckled one. “The machines have gone mad. They’re killing people. We need to protect ourselves.”
Xarina whimpers and shakes. Strangers walk past their sinister huddle, turning their eyes away, seeing, but not seeing.
Fuckers. Who are the robots, now?
“This android isn’t violent. Look at her. Look at her!”
“We can’t take that chance,” says the blonde. “Terry’s aunt was killed by a supermall escalator.”
The plain girl Keke assumes is Terry nods.
“And Mrs Nduli was attacked by her Elfbot.”
When Keke looks confused, the girl adds, “Her home security bot. The one that’s supposed to protect you.”
Glass shard says, “They’ll kill us all, if we don’t stop them.”
“I’ll take her with me,” says
Keke. “I’ll make sure that she doesn’t hurt anyone.”
“You!” The brunette laughs. “What are you going to do?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Whatever,” says Freckles.
“Let’s see, then,” says the schoolgirl with the hammer. “Let’s see how well you can protect yourself.”
Chapter 56
Cold-Butter Bodies
TWELVE YEARS PREVIOUSLY
SkyRest
Johannesburg, 2024
There is a jovial atmosphere in the cafeteria at breakfast time. Word has spread that Lewis has finally been elevated and the other residents are exuberant. Part of it is for Lewis, and part is the stoking of their hopes that they, too, will one day be promoted. Two men at an adjacent table each have only one more Stage to go. They laugh over their salty French toast at the inmates who joke around them about the clear blue pool and the craft ice cream and the all-you-can-watch film suites.
Zack’s stomach is still roiling when it’s time to start the work shift. He’s left Lewis’s gift in his room—still wrapped—even though he’s sure he’ll never see him again. They walk over to a hall where trestle tables are set out with old-school sewing machines, and the men are divided into those who can sew and those who can’t. Zack is in the latter group, so he is tasked with unrolling and cutting fabric according to overhead projector templates. They set to work as the machines hum in the background. Usually the white noise would be calming, but today it’s as if the buzzing is inside his head. His new shift-partner is a slimy man with nervous eyes, and adds to Zack’s feeling of unease.
After two hours of work, a bell rings and the men sigh and stretch their arms and backs before they’re shepherded to the next task. Zack trails behind the group, trying to avoid his new partner. There will be a five-minute toilet break before the next grind begins. Without really thinking, without even meaning to, Zack peels off from the crowd and slips into a dark room. He knows they’re constantly monitored—knows they’re watching his every move—so he doesn’t understand why he’s doing it. If he gets caught, he’ll get docked any Rewards due to him. He may even get stripped of his first Stage. But there is an instinct stronger than fear, stronger than the desire to climb the ladder that leads him away from the others.
