by JT Lawrence
Zack slips in quietly, and waits for his eyes to adjust to the low light. The space has an earthy smell—is it one of the potting rooms?—but he doesn’t see any plants or soil. He blinks, trying to make out what it is in front of him. He inches forward, towards a large dark shape. When he’s closer, he sees it’s a dozen make-shift platforms built from old building palettes, and they each hold up a large burlap bag with hand-sewn, re-purposed zips.
Wood chips? Sawdust?
But the shape of the bag is wrong. It’s too long. It’s horizontal. That, and the zip, makes it look like a—
He moves towards the bag closest to him. As he touches it, the bell rings for the next shift to start, and he jolts. Time to go, but he stays there, his body and brain frozen.
They’ll miss him soon. He’ll be in trouble. His hand travels back to the zip. The smell is stronger now, the dark humus scent reminding him of his nightmare last night. Damp soil and something else. What is it? He pulls down the handle of the zip.
Inside the bag is more brown burlap, wrapped around a sphere, like a dressing. Zack keeps unzipping the rest of it and flinches when he sees that the round bandaged thing is attached to a neck, and a torso. There’s a noise in his ears, a humming. It’s the adrenaline telling him to run.
So it’s a dead body. So what? It’s to be expected, isn’t it, in a place like this?
The body is ivory, veined with blue. Zack zips it up again. He really needs to go. They’ve probably noticed he’s missing. If he goes now he can still use the excuse of an extended toilet break or—less convincingly—that he got lost. If he doesn’t get back now there’ll be someone in here to drag him away. He moves to the next bag and opens it. An ash marble torso, waiting to be recycled. One more, he tells himself, he doesn’t know why. The Net knows he doesn’t want to see another one of these cold-butter bodies. But the next body isn’t pale. The skin of the strong neck is loam-coloured and wrinkled, and as the zip moves, tooth by tooth, opening the bag, something in Zack knows what’s inside before his brain clicks. He sees the top of the tattoo that he knows so well: Ouroboros.
It’s Lewis. It’s Lewis.
Lewis, who is supposed to be ten storeys above him, swimming laps in a crystal pool.
Zack stares at the rest of the tattoo: the dragon’s head, its circular body, eating its own tail. He draws away, realises he’s close to hyperventilating. Then he opens the bag further, and there’s a strong ribbon of that soil smell—and now Zack identifies it—mushrooms. Forest mushrooms. And he sees openings in Lewis’s skin—his stomach and thighs—like a sea-sponge, dark holes stretched by and embroidered with thriving funghi where they have rolled spikes over his skin and sprinkled in the shroomspores of the fungi that is eating his flesh. Dark meat with mushroom gills.
Zack turns his head away from the body bag and sprays vomit onto the black concrete floor. Water and bile splashes out of him. He wants to run, but his body heaves and heaves. When he straightens up, there is a silhouette at the door.
Chapter 57
The Cooler
Two guards come running, almost falling over Bernard in their hurry to get to Zack. They stumble, and shine their powerful flashlights into his eyes.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she says.
It’s a bit late for that.
The guards—Xoli and Samuel—move forward and Zack puts his arms up in surrender, wonders distractedly why they didn’t just drop him with a current from the cuff. In his blinded state he has a flashback of Lewis’s myco-ravaged flesh and almost vomits again. He covers his mouth with the back of his hand. He feels arms around him as the men guide him away from Lewis and the other body bags in the room.
“Where to?” asks Samuel.
“Solitary, for now,” says Xoli. “Till they tell us otherwise.”
What had Lewis said about solitary confinement? To avoid it at all costs. You go in the Cooler, you’ll never be the same. That’s if you’re lucky enough to come out. Lewis said that ‘luck’ and ‘solitary’ do not often go hand in hand. Zack’s head is spinning. He just can’t get around the fact that Lewis is dead.
The young guard blinks. He seems surprised at the harshness of the punishment, but sets his jaw and moves Zack along.
“Stop,” says Bernard, as they get to the door. “I’ll deal with him.” She looks smug. A cat that finally has the canary in her claws.
“But—”
“Girdler has been a menace from the start. There’s only one way to deal with him and I know how.” She runs her fingers up and down her baton, moistens her lips.
The guards look uncertain, but hand him over anyway. She pushes Zack in front of her.
“Start walking, Prisoner,” she says. “The Cooler’s got nothing on me.”
Zack expects to be taken somewhere dark and beaten to within an inch his life, so when he figures out where they’re going he slows down and waits for his brain to catch up. Bernard pushes him forward.
“Stop dawdling, Prisoner.”
His mind is a spiderweb of questions and pictures that won’t fade. Bernard grabs two chairs from the common room and marches him to his room, makes him sit in one; she takes the other for herself. The residence is empty: Everyone else is still working. He should be used to her observance by now, but can still feel her ugly dishwater eyes washing all over him. Should he be grateful that she saved him from solcon? Or does she have something worse planned?
Heeled footsteps approach. Gaelyn. She arrives and beams at Zack.
“Mister Girdler!” she says, as if they’re meeting by coincidence somewhere light and sunny—on a cruise ship, maybe, Cinnacola cocktails in hand—instead of in an underground penal colony cell.
“I do hope you’re settling in nicely?”
Zack just blinks at her.
“I heard we had an incident,” Gaelyn says, but Zack doesn’t answer. “Now, I don’t want you to worry too much about that. It’s natural that you are curious as to how SkyRest functions. I only wish that you had come to me instead of exploring on your own.”
“I was just—”
“I know, I know. There’s no need to explain yourself.” She squeezes his arm. The contact, the human touch, is a surge of warmth. “Now, I see that we need to start taking better care of you.”
Bernard snorts.
“You’re half the size you were when you arrived a week ago. Is anything the matter?”
What a strange question to ask.
“Tell me what I can do to help you,” says Gaelyn. “It’s my job to take care of you.”
He finds himself gradually defrosting. “I’ve been battling to eat.”
“I can see that!” Gaelyn says. “Your cuff is reporting very low blood sugar. Don’t worry, I know just the thing.” She makes a note on her Tile. “We’ll have you sorted out in no time. I don’t want you to worry about anything. Are we all okay?”
She searches his face for agreement. Zack wants to agree. He wants to stay on her good side.
“What happened to Lewis?” he asks.
Gaelyn’s eyes flicker for a moment, then return to their friendly shine. Her smile is wide. “Oh, we’re so thrilled to have him upstairs with us!”
Zack frowns at her.
“If anyone deserved a promotion, it was Lewis! Always such a pleasure to have around. And the way he embraced our philosophy, well, we couldn’t be happier to have him with us. We hope that, after this hiccup, you’ll work hard to join us too.”
“But he’s not up there,” says Zack, and Bernard’s eyes flare.
Shut up, she’s saying. Shut the hell up, Prisoner.
“What do you mean?”
“Lewis isn’t upstairs. He’s in a body bag.”
“What?”
“Lewis wasn’t elevated. He’s dead. You can deny it as much as you want, but I saw his dead body in that room.”
Gaelyn looks concerned. “No wonder you’re not yourself! If you think you saw Lewis’s body you must have had quite a shock.”
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“I know what I saw.”
She frowns again, and feigned worry pouts her lips. “Hmm. This is unfortunate. Maybe the others were right.”
“What do you mean? Who are the others?”
“The Residents’ Care Team. Your history … during the trial. They predicted you’d need some pharmaceutical assistance.”
“I don’t.”
Gaelyn makes another note on her Tile.
“Just for a while. Till you adjust. Moving here can be a traumatic experience! We need you to be able to cope with your new environment. We can’t have people making waves, upsetting the others.”
“Maybe the others need upsetting,” whispers Zack.
“Excuse me?” says Gaelyn.
Bernard stomps on his foot. Shut up! she’s saying.
“I said maybe the other residents need upsetting.”
“If I were you,” says Gaelyn, “I’d be very careful of what you say next.”
Zack wants to shout at her, yell in their faces. He holds himself back. Getting thrown in solitary isn’t going to help his cause.
“I’m going to let you off with a friendly warning. You can even keep your first Stage. I think you’ll find that life is a lot easier down here if you co-operate.”
Gaelyn tucks her Tile into her utility harness, and turns to leave.
“What’s the first thing he did?” says Zack to her retreating back.
She turns around. “Excuse me?”
“What’s the first thing Lewis did when he got up there?”
Gaelyn turns on her most winning smile. “He stripped off the new clothes we gave him and jumped in the pool!”
Chapter 58
Tinted Mirror
TWELVE YEARS LATER
Fourways
Johannesburg, 2036
“Stay away from me!” Keke shouts as the schoolgirls close in on her. “You just stay the fuck away.”
The injured anthrobot keeps up her high whine.
“Judas,” someone hisses.
Judas? What have these kids been reading? Anyway, they have the story the wrong way around.
“You’re a traitor,” says the blue-fingered girl. “Taking a robot’s side.”
“I’m not taking anyone’s side, but I’m not going to let you hunt someone down.”
She’s about to add, What would your parents say? But then thinks better of it. Where did they learn to hate so easily in the first place? Who taught them to be so vicious? She guesses it started at home.
The girl with the hammer strikes a blow on Xarina’s shoulder. The pitch of the whining goes up a notch.
“You stop that right now,” says Keke. You little bitch!
Freckles throws a stone at the anthrobot, and it glances off her chest.
“Harder!” says the girl with mirror braids.
The next stone hits Keke on her cheekbone and temporarily replaces her vision with sparkling stars and pops.
Keke touches her cheek where the stone has drawn blood.
Motherfucker! It hurts.
She needs to run. She wasn’t convinced the kids were going to go through with the attack. She should have bolted as soon as she saw them sauntering up like pack animals. Why did she hesitate? Now it’s too late.
The hammer strikes the bot again. The blonde girl with the blue fingers and sharp piece of glass eyes Keke nervously. Is this really how it’s going to end? At the clammy hands of these schoolyard jackals?
The combination of Xarina’s high-pitched whine and Keke’s glowing cheekbone makes her feel out of control. Suddenly the rock slams into the bot’s chest, and something in Keke snaps. She takes the blood from the cut under her eye and with two fingers, paints lines on her face with it: across her forehead, down her cheeks, over her nose and chin. Then she starts screaming as loudly as she can. She launches herself at the hammer-wielder, wrestles it from her, then starts swinging it and shouting at the others like a madwoman, hoping to scare them off. She smacks the stones out of Freckles’ palm, breaking a knuckle in the process. Freckles cries out and cradles her hand.
The girl grasps to retrieve her hammer, but Keke shouts “Away! Away!” and when she doesn’t move, Keke hits her on her shoulder with it, exactly as she had done to Xarina. The girl squeals and shrinks away.
From behind Keke comes the unmistakable buzz of a taser, and Keke feels it bite into her hip: an electric cobra. She shouts in surprise and pain, but really it’s no more than a short shock: nothing like the usual debilitating current—and she sees that’s because Xarina had moved to shield her, and the jolt she’d felt was just the residual current from where she’s in contact with the bot’s body. Keke smashes the taser out of the girl’s hand so that it lands on the littered ground, right in front of Xarina, who picks it up.
“You don’t scare us,” says the girl with venomous eyes. She goes for the taser, but Xarina gets to the trigger first, and the bot sends a perfectly aimed clean shot of cobalt electricity right into the girl’s chest. The current is so strong it flings the schoolgirl’s vibrating body onto the pavement, knocking her out. She’s still shivering on the ground when Freckles makes exactly the same mistake and gets the same treatment. The other girls yelp and shout, but they don’t help their friends. Xarina shows the taser around, as if asking them who wants to be next. Three members of the gang step down from the fray and slowly reverse out of the circle. Keke feints at the timid one—Terry?—with her upraised hammer, and she backs away too. A girl with a neon pink face-mask high-kicks Xarina in the chest. It does no damage—except perhaps to the girl’s ankle—but it sets off the others to attack too, and soon there are four of them kicking the anthrobot. The bot drops the taser as they begin tearing into her with their fists and nails and teeth. They strip her singed clothes and stamped silicone skin. Her hair comes out in clumps. They kick her in her most vulnerable joints and she falls to her knees, then just as she looks like she’s about to succumb, the bot looks up at Keke with bright eyes, as if something has clicked in her processing and she realises that she is much stronger than them.
Xarina’s shrill screaming now transforms into a deeper bray as she roars and flings the attackers off her body as if they’re nothing more than dolls. She forces her fingers into her own mouth and pulls off her lower jaw, then uses the disembodied titanium to slam one of the girls on the side of the head, and she spins away from them. Xarina’s still shouting when she picks up a saucer-eyed girl and throws her twenty metres away, into a dirty bricked wall. Bones break. Xarina turns on the next girl; there are still three left, including the blonde with the glass, a girl with mirror braids, and a mean-looking blunt-cut brunette. Keke looks around at the injured girls’ bodies with horror, keeps hearing the sound of those young bones breaking, and feels as if she’s caught in a dream.
The brunette drops her rock. Mirror braids holds up her hands in surrender.
“Stop,” Keke says to the anthrobot. “Don’t hurt them.” She can’t bear to see any more violence.
Xarina turns to look at Keke. Half of the anthrobot’s face is peeled off, most of her hair is gone.
“We’re out of danger,” says Keke, “you don’t need to fight anymore.”
The skinned bot blinks. She lowers her arms and stops shouting; she’s still for a moment, processing the information. Her body seems to relax and, seemingly exhausted, she drops her metal jaw to the ground.
Without hesitating, the brunette slams Xarina from behind, causing the schoolbot to fall face forward into the red sand. The girl with mirror braids picks up the taser and jams her finger down on the trigger, sending fifty thousand volts into Xarina’s body, paralysing her. She keeps going, sending pulse after pulse into the synthetic schoolgirl’s body, until they can smell burning rubber and metal, and still she doesn’t stop. Braids has this spooky look on her face, a cold indifference. The wrecked face of the robot, turned sideways out of the dirt, watches Keke as it jerks: desperate, beseeching: an image Keke knows she’ll never forget. Some pede
strians have slowed to watch, now that the opportunity to help has passed. Multi-coloured face-masks seem to flow past in a weird stop-animation in Keke’s peripheral vision.
“Enough,” Keke says, putting her hand out, even though she knows it’s too late, but the girl ignores her and keeps melting Xarina.
“Enough now,” Keke says, moving to take the taser away, and then she feels a hot, sharp stinging in her lower back, and the stinging turns to a searing pain, as if someone has stabbed her with a hot knife, and she turns around and sees the blonde girl looking up at her with a shocked expression, as if she had never really expected the glass to penetrate Keke’s skin. As if it was too easy to slide the transparent dagger into sinew and organ. For that moment, connected by weapon and flesh, it’s as if Keke can hear the blue-fingered girl’s thoughts, and it’s like she’s wondering how something so simple and quick can have such dire consequences.
They stare at each other with matching shocked expressions, a tinted mirror of panic.
Is this what most violence is like? thinks Keke as the stars come back to reclaim her vision. Ordinary people shocked by their own and others’ swift actions?
It feels as if the blood in her head drains out all at once through the new wound, her life flowing out of her. Keke’s mind is as light as the sky above; her consciousness is floating upwards to join the grey clouds. She never expected death to be so welcoming, or so brisk.
Then there’s no more time for philosophizing as she swoons to the ground.
