‘Toby. You’re Toby. Come with me.’ The runt is so insistent, I follow him down the side street into a parking lot, half underground, quiet on a Sunday, with a CCVTV system that’s looking a little fritzy, judging by the frayed wires swinging from the cam by the entrance boom. We go deeper in, between the cars, to find Tendeka huddled in a convincing impression of a bergie, a hoodie pulled low over his face. He looks like shit. It’s the texture of his skin, sort of murky beige like clay that might slough off his skull. The street kid is on the point of tears.
‘Okay, I did it. Can I go now?’
Tendeka waves, tired, dismissive. ‘Yes, Whitey. Thank you. If you see Zuko. Or Ashraf… No. Never mind.’
The kid waits, squirrelly on the balls of his feet in those oversize shoes, to see if there’s gonna be more, and then scuttles away, too fast to be polite. The motivation right there, kids? I’d say that was fear.
‘He’s frightened. I’ve lost everyone, Toby. I don’t know where they are. When I saw you, across the street…’
‘Jesus, Tendeka. You are pretty fucked up.’
‘Not looking so great yourself.’
‘You could hit me. That always seems to make you feel better.’
‘I would if it helped. But it doesn’t work. You’re still a fucking prick afterwards.’
He smiles. And I know what will make it even better. I hand over the bottle. We get shitfaced. Not a bad way of killing a coupla hours, all told. Only catch is that while the cheap scotch makes me bouncier, it’s bringing Ten down bigtime.
He says it’s the end of the world. We’ve got a difference of opinion here. ‘Sure, we might feel like death set on defrost,’ I tell him. ‘But how else are they going to make it seem authentic? It’s a bluff and I’m calling it. I’m not going to roll over and hand myself in at one of their immunity centres. Immunity from the virus supposedly about to chow down on my spleen, but not from the nice officers waiting to arrest me for illegal activities.’ And I know it’s a hoax because it’s letting up, although I’m still itching like crazy. The inside of my wrist is red from scratching.
Tendeka agrees that we shouldn’t go in. But see, this is where we part ways, because he’s swallowed the hoax wholesale. He tells me it’s exactly what they planned, him and his chomma in Amsterdam. He tells me he’s going to die. Because that’s the only way to expose it, for the outside world to know it’s real. He yaks on about some bomb thing, can’t believe I haven’t seen the footage, but when have I had a chance to kick back with TV? So he set off this bomb, cos he says if it’s just him dying from this bug, they can cover it up. But the bombs will focus attention on this thing. It’ll stop people getting the vaccine. They’ll die. In the limelight.
He’s fucked. It’s hilarious. So when he asks me if I’ll come with him and bring the BabyStrange, cos his camera-phone’s fucked from the station fry-up, and he needs to get this down, who am I to say no, kids?
Kendra
It’s not so hard. Without Toby looking sketchy and virtually dying at my side, it only takes four tries at sugar-coated grovelling to get someone to let me make a call.
‘I dropped it down the stairs,’ I tell the lady at the bookstore, who flutters in the stacks nearby to ensure that I don’t make a duck with her phone. As if it would be any use to me without her unique bio-sig. I dial Damian’s number from the flyer he gave me. I’ll be damned before I phone Jonathan.
Vix answers. She seems less than stoked to hear that it’s me. ‘You didn’t rock up, hey?’
‘I know. I’m sorry. Please can I just speak to Damian? It’s urgent.’
There’s a scuffle and then Damian comes on, sounding sleepy. ‘Hey, Ghost girl, you missed out.’
He hasn’t heard about the bombs or the station ‘incident’, as they keep referring to it on the news. He hasn’t even got up yet, and it’s already afternoon.
It takes a lot of work to convince him to come pick me up and take me to Andile. And when his car pulls up outside the bookstore, a classic Ford Anglia done up with decals of skulls and bunnies, Vix is sitting in the passenger seat.
She turns round in the seat to look at me. ‘You don’t look sick.’
‘Well, we don’t know that until she’s been checked, right?’
Damian puts a hand on her knee.
‘And you’re sure it’s not contagious?’
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. They said it wasn’t. It would be crazy to unleash an infectious disease. They’d never recover from the bad press.’
‘Sounds pretty crazy as is,’ she says. ‘You do seem to attract drama.’
‘Victoria!’ Damian shoots her a scandalised look.
‘I’m just saying!’
Outside the world seems removed, glancing past the windows of the car, which are rainpocked, like dusty fingerprints. The inner city is usually quiet on a Sunday, but today there are road blocks and reroutes, blue and red lights flashing around the diverts near the hospital. Everything is coated with a layer of grey dust. The emergency workers in their biosuits look like ashen alien yetis.
Initially, they won’t let Damian’s car into the Inatec car park. The security cop is steadfast that there’s no chance, his Aito padding round the car, sniffing intently. His logic is sound; if we had a permit, the gate would have accessed us already.
Vix takes charge. ‘Would you just call, what’s his name?’
‘Andile Cwane,’ I contribute from the back.
The security guard takes a long time checking the register. ‘Sorry, no one by that name works here.’
‘No, sorry, of course not. I’m an idiot. Dr. Precious. Can you call Dr. Precious?’
‘Precious de Kock?’ There is a note of surprise in his voice, and Vix seizes on it.
‘Yeah,’ she pipes up, ‘call Dr. De Kock. Tell her it’s about the sponsor babies, and there’s a huge issue that would upset the Prima-Sabine company greatly. She’d want to know about this. You’ll probably get into trouble if you don’t call.’
The security guard doesn’t seem too sure, but he steps back into his booth and dials someone, maybe Dr. Precious, maybe higher-level security. His Aito loops around the car.
‘Can you do up the window, please?’ I ask.
‘Why? I’m just going to have to unwind again when he comes back,’ Damian complains, when the dog jumps up against my window in the backseat, its breath huffing against the glass, claws scratching against the bodywork.
‘Shit!’ Damian grabs for the handle and rolls it up as fast as physically possible.
I don’t flinch. The dog is so close to me, through a millimetre of glass, I can see the black sheen of the gums around its teeth, the Braille of its tastebuds on its grey-pink tongue.
‘Get down! Get down! Dammit!’ The security cop bats at the dog, which whines in agitation. ‘Okay. She’s on her way. Forty minutes. You can go through and wait in the parking lot. The silver Chrysler Spitfire. That’ll be her.’ We sit in awkward silence, until Damian clicks the radio, loads a sample from Kill Kitten’s new album.
‘It’s not the final mix,’ he says, by way of apology. And I try to listen, I really do, but I’m distracted watching the main gate.
‘Are you even into new spectro, Kendra?’ asks Vix bitchily, but then a gunmetal shark of a car pulls into the parking lot and I don’t have to answer.
Dr. Precious emerges from the Chrysler with Andile in tow. He chucks me on the shoulder, playfully. ‘Woah, hectic mess you landed in, babes! Real history stuff. Don’t worry, we’ll sort it out. You didn’t get caught up in all that ugliness, did you, Dame? No? No antibodies required for you, then, china! Well, come on, Kendra!’ Andile ushers me giddily towards the doors.
Damian and Vix are standing, hesitating at the car.