Moxyland (12 page)

   'You should have called me,' he leers. 'I could have come over. Helped you
sleep
.'

   'The job?' I point at the screen, impatient.

   'You didn't even say anything about the flowers.'

   'They're stunning. Amazing. How did you ever think of such a meaningful and original gesture?'

   'Wow. You are vicious.' He seems hurt, and because I need him to hurry up and get this out of the way, I kiss and make up.

   'I'm sorry, Mpho. I'm ratty when I'm sleepdeprived. You should tell the product designers it should be a hanging mobile rather than a button. You want something the little shit will want to play with, something sparkly or dangly that he'll reach for anyway, and then it just happens to make a cute sound or play a lullaby or whatever.'

   'Rockabye.'

   'Yeah, okay. That too.'

   'That's actually brilliant, Lerato.'

   'I know.'

   'You should be in design. You should be heading up design!'

   'Oh, I know.'

   It takes twenty minutes to work out the details of how the interface needs to work, and then I chase Mpho off so I can focus on the programming. I have an idea I can patch in a fair amount of the code I used in a previous job (the PlayPlay Pterodactyl Robot Friend), but it's still going to take me most of the morning, and I run into trouble with a finicky bit with the voice recognition, getting it to filter out baby's babblings. Of course, the real solution here would be to program it to recognise the different gooing and gurgling and translate it into English for mama. Didn't I read some pushmag thing on the theory of baby communications? If I could figure out baby's language code, that would be a product feature. Let's call it Radio Gaga.

   Toby calls, just as I'm about to crack it. Okay, so I'm nowhere near cracking it, but I tell him it's his fault anyway. He's not sympathetic. 'Don't dump me with your dilemmas. I need serious work-related tech support.'

   'Uh-huh?' I say, carefully neutral, surreptitiously activating privacy on my cubicle so the audio dampeners kick in, just in case he's stupid enough to make any passing reference to the adboard. There still hasn't been an official report. Not that I don't know that invoking privacy means that Seed automatically tags my conversation, all phone calls will be recorded for quality assurance purposes blah blah blah, but I've got misdirects in place. I have a mix of prerecorded conversations, from the polite and cursory catch-ups with my sisters (when Zama can be bothered to call), to a variety of hot and heavy that gives the spyware controllers upstairs something to do with their hands. The only hassle is constantly updating them, so the monitoring boys don't get suspicious. I needn't have bothered on this one. Toby's 'dilemma' is almost a legitimate request. Easy enough. And fucking hilarious.

   'Whenever you're ready, sweetness,' Toby says, put out, which only makes me laugh harder.

   'That's a new record in lame, Toby.'

   'Yeah, let's see how
you
handle getting cut off from your trustfundable by your motherbitch.'

   'Oh nice, Toby. Real nice.' The only thing I ever got from my parents was a kickstart into corporate life.

   'You know what I fucking mean. Don't get touchy.'

   'Fine. But you owe me.'

   'Rack it on my tab.'

   'And you're still king lame.'

   'Love ya, babe. Gotta run, got little kiddies to kill for fun and profit.'

   It takes a minute and a half to reroute Toby's IP address so it looks like he's logging in from Melbourne rather than Cape Town, which should sort out his little problem.

   And then, at last, the adboard call comes in. I'm not technically involved in the maintenance process, but I have access to the job sheets, and it's not unusual for coders at my level to monitor the execution. Yusuf and Petronella get the call as the closest technicians in the vicinity. I couldn't have calibrated it better myself. Yusuf is smart but lazy, and Petronella is just plain lazy. They'll be more worried about the damage Toby and his friends have done to the hardware than any inconsistencies in the software. Assuming my code holds, all will be well.

   And it does. And it is.

   There's a surplus of people who do what I do, to the extent that I'm surprised they don't consider culling. Good programmers are as easy to score as a blowjob on Lower Main Road, and just about as cheap. You really have to distinguish yourself if you're going to make any progress.

   It was easy getting noticed at nineteen, but I'm getting on, and if you haven't cracked management by twenty-eight, your chances of doing so decrease exponentially for every year you add to your CV. I've still got a few years, but I'm not ending up like Jane. Rather be a startling failure than a benign success.

   I figure my options are pretty limited within Communique. But with the penalties for intercorporate poaching running into hundreds of thousands, it's going to be difficult to persuade another corporate that they need me, when they can get fresher and younger talent straight out of the skills institutes for much, much less. Unless I have something to sweeten the deal. Like a backdoor, say, installed in their rival's security software on the adboards that allows you to access Communique's proprietary information, track the data and the response rates. Call it market research. 'Corporate espionage' is so over-dramatic.

   A monarch alights on my keyboard, flexing its wings, flashing the striations of velvety orange and black. Strayed too far from the nest, little guy. They don't like that around here. I crush it delicately under my thumb.

 

We arrive at the Green Point market, to find that Emmie is AWOL. Ashraf tries to convince me we've got the wrong row, but I know exactly where her stall is supposed to be, wedged between the downloads booth and the over-pierced goth girl with her radical handmade fashion, all velvet, lace and PVC with complicated lacings, now also available in Pluslife, according to a sign in dayglo purple highlighting.

   I know we're in the right place, only instead of Emmie with her plastic chickens and wire jewellery, there is an aggro Kenyan punting kangas and cowrie bracelets, and for all I know dodgy defuser interference devices under the counter, who starts screaming at me when I ask why the fuck he's working the stall registered to my wife, Emmie Chinyaka? Especially when Ash paid the full month's rental in advance two days ago.

   'You should look better after your
wife
, hey?' the Kenyan cracks smugly.

   I drop Ashraf's hand abruptly. I would wipe that smirk off his face if it didn't mean I'd have to deal with the cops.

   We cause enough of a fracas that the market manager, who introduces himself as Mr. Hartley, no first name provided, materialises and takes us to his office stadium-side.

   It seems Emmie terminated her contract yesterday, and took a refund on the rent, no problem for management with so many clamouring to fill the space. Only 50% of the eight thousand though, due to last-minute notice clauses. She sold off her wares and her shadecloth to some of the other traders, packed up the scant remains, and left. No, unfortunately, terribly sorry, he doesn't know where she went or why.

   'Have you tried the hospital?' Mr. Hartley says with sugary concern, like we wouldn't have thought of that already. She's not due to pop for another month, unless it's a miscarriage or a premature, both eventualities Ash obsesses about constantly. We don't have a clue who the father is, whether it was some border guard demanding a toll, or a militia rape. Emmie won't talk about it. But Ashraf and I have discussed it, and we believe the kid shouldn't have to carry the karma. This is the chance to make something good out of the worst possible scenario. And soon he'll have two dads. We're going to name him for Ash's father.

   'I'm sure she's at home,' Ash smoothes. 'Thanks for all your help. I'm sorry if there was any misunderstanding.' I hate it when he apologises for me.