Ntshona (13 page)

“It looks like you’re famous,” Cat said in her usually calm tone.

“It’s not exactly the kind of fame we want though,” said Lon.

“Dammit, I wanted to be a famous scientist, not a famous terrorist!” said Eve in despair.

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out,” said Cat, trying to reassure them. She continued to watch the footage on the screen of the initial altercation with the police. “That was a good one, hey!” she said excitedly as she watched the video of Lon roundhousing the policeman in the ribs. “Seriously boy, you can get your leg high!”

The next clip was a long-distance shot of Lon’s interaction with the policeman on the motorcycle.

“Man, you’ve got some skills!” she said excitedly again.

“It looks so different on TV,” said Eve, “it only lasted like, a few seconds, but when I was watching you it seemed like it was in slow motion. How did you get so good at fighting anyway?” she turned around to face Lon.

“I know martial arts,” he said.

“How?!” Eve was surprised.

“Chris taught me, and seeing as I’m not really employed, I get a lot of time to practise in his home gym”.

“But how does Chris know martial arts?”

“He was secretly taught by someone who was secretly taught by someone else who learnt martial arts before they were outlawed”.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” asked Eve.

“Obviously because it’s a secret. You know the police are brutal, so I wanted to learn how to protect myself years ago, and apparently it’s a good thing I did!”

“Apparently so!” said Cat, “I’m starting to like you more and more, y’know?”

Lon felt his cheeks get hot. It was only now that he realised that she seemed a similar age to him and Eve.

“How long till we get to the hospital?” asked Eve before anything else could be said.

“Let’s see,” said Cat, “It looks like we’re making good time. I reckon about twenty minutes if the traffic doesn’t slow down”.

Not much else was said after that until reaching the hospital. Cat merely concentrated on the road while Lon and Eve continued to watch the news.

West Athlone General Hospital was like a community hospital, not so large compared to the hospitals in the city centre, probably due to lack of government or government related private funding, yet it did cover quite a wide area.

The surrounding buildings of the area too were not as magnificent as those in the city centre, and most roads were at different heights, making it more difficult to navigate. This also meant that there were numerous large, extremely dark spaces between some roads and buildings, where light struggled to penetrate. It was clear that, despite being built to impressively high altitudes, as with most of the city, this area enjoyed less government funding and interest during the developmental stages.

The car drove along a road with buildings on the right, and a highway above to the left. Underneath the highway road, all that was visible were the evenly spaced pillars which held it up, and some other roads beyond. In between the supporting pillars the immense gaps were, during this twilight, filled with nothing but darkness, and, perhaps, too would be the same during the brightest of days.

Lon remembered something Cat had told him earlier, that “
somewhere in the old city centre there’s a large, dark hole between buildings that descends for hundreds of metres into ‘nothing’
”. Exactly how many of these ‘dark holes’ were there? If it were true that some of the city was built on a mountain, then there must surely have been a lot of empty space underneath. What was down there?

“We’re here”.

The car slowed in order to turn into the hospital parking area, and pulled up near the entrance.

The hospital was busy, but not bustling.

The three alighted from the vehicle and walked to the entrance, whose doors slid open, and they stepped inside. Immediately they saw the main reception desk several metres to their front, and leaning against the counter talking to a receptionist, yet facing the entrance, was a doctor in a white coat, who Lon and Eve assumed to be Dr. Gqirhana.

He immediately noticed them and transferred his attention. He smiled, got up and walked towards Cat, Lon and Eve. “Good evening,” he said, “good to see you Cat”.

“Good to see you too,” she said.

He paused for a moment to recognise Lon and Eve’s faces before saying, “Come with me, come with me, quickly,” and gestured for them to follow him, which they did. They did not speak as he led them, until they were taken to his office.

Dr. Gqirhana closed the door behind them. “Please, everybody take a seat”.

All three obliged and sat down, Eve nearest the doctor’s desk.

“I take it you are the friend who has lost her ID?” he said to Eve as he placed himself on his chair by his desk.

She nodded.

“Let me take a quick look here,” he said, and leant forwards to move the hair back from covering the bruise on Eve’s cheek. “Eish, that looks sore”. He prodded it with his finger.

“Ouch!”

The doctor frowned. “I don’t know what they think you have done, my dear, but it did not deserve a strike in the face like that”.

“Oh, so you’ve been watching the news?” asked Cat.

“Indeed I have. I like to know what is happening in this city, especially when it has to do with the sleazy government”.

Both Lon and Eve found these words comforting in their current vulnerable situation.

“Anyway,” he sat back in his chair, “we need to get you an X-ray, your cheek might be fractured, it was a hard hit”. He stood, opened the door, and again beckoned them to follow him. “You two come as well, I need to keep you all close”.

Once more nobody spoke until they arrived at the X-ray room.

“You two, please kindly wait here while I take this young lady in for an X-ray. Don’t talk to anybody”.

The doctor and Eve stepped into the room, and Cat and Lon sat in the corridor outside and waited.

Still Lon felt uncomfortable asking more questions, but there was one to which the answer he was eager to know. “Cat, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

She looked at him. “Why do you want to know?”

“Well, I just thought earlier that you seem to be quite young, round about my age”.

“You’re twenty-three, right?” she wanted to clarify.

“Yeah”.

“Then we are the same age. Why? Are you interested?”

Lon’s cheeks began to burn. “No no no no! Not that!” he said, although he actually considered her to be very pretty.

She laughed.

Lon’s cheeks became more luminescent, but he tried to act composed. “I mean, you’re so young, but you seem to be doing a lot. For example, I’ve been using your Masquerade app for about three years, which means you must have been younger than twenty when you wrote it”.

“Yes, I was nineteen”.

“That’s incredible! How did you manage that?”

“Are you trying to flatter me? I thought you weren’t interested”.

Although Lon did in fact find her attractive, he too found her to be quite intimidating for some reason.

“I’m not trying to flatter you,” actually he was, “I just want to understand more”.

She laughed again.

The door of the X-ray room opened and out walked Eve and Dr. Gqirhana, saving Lon from further embarrassment.

“Please come back to my office,” said the doctor.

All three followed again, still not speaking until they reached the doctor’s office.

“Well, we’re not unlucky today,” said Dr. Gqirhana as he took his seat by his desk and powered on his computer. “If you take a look at this model,” he brought up a 3D representation of Eve’s head, “you can see that she has a very slight fracture in the cheekbone. However, providing she does not treat it roughly, it can be healed quickly using calcium nanobots. Although, that will be costly”.

“Okay, I’ll pay for the nanobots,” said Cat.

Eve was surprised. Paying for apple pie was one thing, but this was something totally different. “What? I can’t expect you to pay for that!”

“Don’t worry, it would be my pleasure,” said Cat.

She must have been earning a lot of money, which added to Lon’s increasing esteem for her.

“Right,” said the doctor, “I’ll get to it then”. He got up and walked
calmly over to a set of cupboards on the opposite side of the room. He activated a sensor and out slid a drawer full of differently labelled containers. He opened one, removed a syringe with a clear, liquid substance, replaced the lid of the container, and closed the drawer. He walked back to his workstation and replaced himself on his chair, then laid the syringe on the desk in front of his computer monitor.

On the screen popped up
a window; a nanobot management program, seemingly linked to the appearance of the syringe. The doctor programmed in some commands, and linked in the data from the 3D X-ray. Once finished, he transmitted the instructions, making the syringe gave off a soft, blue glow in confirmation of reception.

He retrieved
the syringe. “Now, I am going to inject this into the area around the bruise, so it may hurt”. He flicked the needle, released the air from it, and pierced the skin several times around the bruise on Eve’s face, injecting the liquid each time.

Eve looked as though she was in pain; she had her eyes closed, she cringed often, and tried to take deep breaths.

“Okay, you can breathe normally now,” said the doctor as he leant back in his seat.

She opened her eyes. “How long will it take to heal?”

“Should be less than twenty-four hours, if you are careful”.

“What about the bruise?” asked Cat.

“I can apply some medicine to reduce the swelling, but it is best to let it heal more naturally; nanobots would not be advisable for fixing blood vessels in a non-life threatening situation”. He got up from his chair once again, disposed of the syringe in a small medical incinerator, and walked to a different cabinet this time to get some medicine and plasters. “I will add some cooling gel to keep the swelling to a minimum,” he again retook his seat and gently applied some of the gel with his index finger, “and this plaster,” he removed it from its packaging and placed it over the bruise, “will help your body to restructure the broken capillaries in your skin naturally by absorbing the-”

“I know how it works,” interrupted Eve, “I’m a biologist, I work at the Science Centre,” grabbing the opportunity to flaunt her scientific
status.

The doctor was wide-eyed and surprised. He looked at Cat, “I do not know what you are up to this time, but I hope it
results in something good,” he said.

Cat grinned, “I’m not up to anything”.

Lon was, as the current trend in his mental status dictated, confused. Why did Eve working in the Science Centre have anything to do with what Cat was ‘up to’? He glanced at Eve, who also seemed somewhat baffled by this.

Dr. Gqirhana sat back after applying the plaster. “For the benefit of your friends,” he looked at Cat and Lon, “this plaster will soon take on the natural colour of the skin, making it nearly impossible to tell that it is there. It will disintegrate within the next week, and the bruise should also be gone”.

“Thank you Doctor,” said Cat.

“Thank you,” repeated Eve.

“Do you want me to pay here?” Cat asked.

“Yes, you can pay here, let me just write up an invoice,” he said, and started tapping away at his computer. “Okay, and a twenty percent discount of good faith
… and it is done. Do you want it in physical format?”

“My palm screen will do,” she said.

“One moment… sent”.

Cat opened her palm screen to read the invoice. “That’s great Doctor,” she said before tapping a few times on the screen, “paid in full”.

“Thank you my dear,” he said as he rose again from his seat. He proceeded to shake the hands of all three of them in a somewhat excited manner. He took Lon’s hand the last and said, “You, my friend, do not always be so reckless”.

So he certainly did see the news.

Lon felt embarrassed. “I, um… okay”.

Dr. Gqirhana opened the door and let Cat, Lon and Eve out of the room. He guided them to the hospital entrance. “Take care,” he said as they exited the building, and he returned to his office to continue the paperwork he was working through before he went to greet them at their arrival.

After returning to the driver’s seat of her car, Cat audibly inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Right. We’re going back to my place in the city now. I want you two to be aware that there’s a chance we’ll encounter some problems. It’s unlikely, but it might happen”.

“What kind of problems?” inquired Lon.

“Police problems,” she said. “If we get stopped by anyone, although I don’t think we will, then Eve, you get in the back seat, and both of you stay silent”.

“How ominous,” Lon said, “do you really think they’ll stop us for something?”