Ntshona (6 page)

She recited it to him.

Again he began to tap away at the keyboard and the monitor. A few moments later he was once more scanning through several windows’ worth of information. “Right, got it”. He brought up another data display simply entitled “
Evelyn Chen
,” written in red text, followed by, all in blue text, a string of numbers, her ID number, “
D.O.B: 20/04/2176
” and “
Ethnicity: Chinese
”.

“Dammit!” Eve yelled.

The others were taken aback.

“I’m not Chinese!”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Lon, trying to calm her down. “What’s important is finding out whether you’re in trouble or not”.

“This is your NGT check-in and check-out data for the last six months,” said Tan. Give me a moment, I’ll narrow it down to today’s information”. A few taps later the screen once again refreshed.

There were five rows of information; two check-ins and three check-outs, the last of which, like Eve’s name, was written in red.

“Aw, crap,” said Eve.

“Dammit,” added Lon. “Could you please check mine too?” he told Tan his ID number.

Tan obliged and again brought up a new screen, this time entitled “
Lon Dres
,” written in red text, his ID number, “
D.O.B: 04/03/2176
,” and “
Ethnicity: White
”.

“These are your records for the last thirty-six months,” said Tan.

There was a single instance of Lon using the NGT system displayed on-screen. It was written in red text.

“Go
d dammit! I was doing so well!” said Lon, very annoyed at his tarnished record. “Can’t you delete that?”

Tan hesitated before he answered, “No”.

“What? Why not?”

“Well, from here I can easily view the NGT system, as you can see, but if I try to alter anything, it makes it easier for me to be detected. Obviously I don’t want to run the risk of being caught while in this building. I don’t want to put Chris’ business at risk”.

“Hmmm…” Lon was not pleased.

“Anyway,” said Chris, “let’s worry about that in the morning. For now we should see if we can pick up any new info from the news”. He gestured again at the television and said “Search for local news”. Several separate boxes appeared on the screen, each displaying what looked like a news broadcast, each with the channel number written. “Seventeen,” said Chris, and the feed from channel seventeen expanded to fill the whole display.

It was a female reporter at the shopping centre where Lon and Eve’s awful situation began. “… hours ago, and eye witnesses are yet to come forward. Police have been scouring the area for evidence of any form of struggle, but as yet have discovered nothing. It’s just as though the people shopping and working simply vanished”.

The screen changed to the video surveillance footage that Lon and Eve had seen earlier.

“Surveillance footage from before the disappearance doesn’t seem to show anything out of the ordinary, although footage from the numerous surveillance cameras in the shopping centre is still being analysed. At 6:43pm the video feed from all surveillance cameras inside the shopping centre and on the NGT platform outside the shopping centre was cut. According to surveillance technicians at the scene, numerous electronics malfunctioned simultaneously. The cause is as yet unknown”.

The screen returned to the news reporter a
t the scene. “This incident bears a resemblance to other incidents that have been happening across the municipality within the last several years, where large amounts of civilians disappear with no apparent cause. A range of theories have been put forward, ranging from-”

“So they’ve found nothing new,” said Lon, interrupting the news broadcast.

“Well, what do you expect?” said Chris. “As far as they know there weren’t any witnesses, and there’s no evidence of what happened. It’s understandable that they have no idea".

"Then, what now?” asked Lon, discouraged.

“Wait until tomorrow,” said Chris, “we should think more about it when you two have had some rest. In the meantime we should keep an eye on the news. Oh yeah, and you should both stay here tonight”.

“What about you?” asked Lon.

“I’ll stay too, I’ve got a lot of work to do, and don’t have time to go home. Which means there’s only one spare bed. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Oh!” exclaimed Lon, “Um, we’re not, um-”.

“Ah, I see,” said Chris, slightly embarrassed, “sorry about that. Well, um, there’s a spare quilt for one of you to sleep on the sofa with”.

“Eve can sleep in the bed, I’ll take the sofa,” decided Lon.

“Okay, that’s fine”. Chris then turned his attention back to Tan, “Before you go home, can you please alter the security data of all the cameras in the building that saw Lon and Eve?”

“Not a problem, boss man,” said Tan, and he and Chris returned to the workroom.

“If you need anything, give me a shout,” Chris said as he exited the room.

As the door closed, Lon stood up and walked to the workstation. “Eve, I’m gonna fix my palm screen. Do you want me to fix yours and mod it at the same time?”

“Oh, yes, please,” she said. She pulled back the arm of her shirt to reveal her forearm, pressed her thumb into her skin and slipped it under the edge of the palm screen sleeve that tightly hugged her wrist, and then carefully removed the entire machine from her limb. She handed it to Lon. “How are you going to fix it?” she asked.

“Hopefully I’ll just need to replace a few parts. Chris should have a microscope and some other tools around here,” he pulled open several small drawers by the workstation and began searching for the appropriate tools. After a few moments he found a computer microscope attachment which he positioned next to the monitor, and a few other technical tools needed to work on intricate computer parts. He then began to work.

Eve in the meantime kept an eye on the news, regularly switching between channels in an attempt to discover unheard news.

“Yep, it looks like it could’ve been an EMP grenade, the memristor’s blown. If I can replace it, the computer should be able to power it on, then I’ll be able to mod it”, said Lon.

“Okay, how long will that take?” said Eve.

“It shouldn’t be too long, it just depends how quickly I can replace it, because it’s so small, and my hands are shaking because I’m hungry”.

“I never thought about that,” said Eve, “I’m actually really hungry”.

“There should be food in the kitchen. Just take what you want, there should be plenty”.

“What about you?”

“I’ll try to get this done first, because it’s important,” said Lon, and he set to work fixing the palm screens.

Eve did not have the motivation to prepare a meal, so she settled for a bowl of cereal, and took up her seat again in front of the television, waiting for some more news about the day’s incident.

Roughly thirty minutes passed before Lon took a break from his work, and sat on the couch in front of the television, also with a bowl of cereal. “I’ve managed to physically fix your palm screen, the computer’s reformatting it now, and then I just need to mod the operating system. I hope you had no data on there that you wanted to keep, cos it’s all gone now”.

“It’s okay,” replied Eve, “ever since I lost my dissertation once and had no backup, I always make at least one backup of everything. Right now it’s on my computer at home”.

“Well, I would suggest synching your palm screen with your backup from here, but if the police are by any chance monitoring your home’s data flow, then maybe it’s best not to right now,” explained Lon.

“Do you really think they’ll be after us just for not paying for an NGT ride?” asked Eve.

“I dunno, but I’d rather be careful,” said Lon.

“Yeah, I suppose,” said Eve, “but how can we resolve the problem?”

“Well, for now I think we should be more focussed on more important things like figuring out where our friends-” Lon interrupted himself when he saw what was on the television screen. “Oh, looks like there’s been another murder,” he pointed at the news report on the television screen.

The scene was outside, in front of a large building. It was footage of a corpse being carried away from the scene.

“The body has been identified as that of Hugo Winters, eldest son of famous banker Arnold Winters. The circumstances surrounding his death are still being investigated, however, police are not treating the incident as suspicious, and are not calling for witnesses. Initial findings suggest that Mr. Winters jumped from a window on the twentieth story of the office building
owned by his father’s company, and where he also worked”.

A recently recorded clip of Hugo Winters taken at some function was played on-screen.

“Hm, that’s weird, he seems familiar, I recognise his pointy face,” said Lon, “I wonder if he’s been on the news before”.

“Probably,” agreed Eve, “I’ve seen him before too”.

“Why would the son of a banker want to kill himself?” asked Lon.

“I have no idea,” said Eve. “It can’t have been money issues, and his social status is probably extremely high”.

“Maybe that’s why; maybe he was put under too much pressure by his peers, or his father, or something”.

“Maybe,” said Eve. “Being at the top doesn’t necessarily mean that everything in life is great”.

“Formatting completed,” sounded the computer.

“Oh, I’d better get back to work,” said Lon, who then got up and took his empty bowl to the sink in the kitchen area. “You can go to sleep now if you want, I’ll keep working for now, it shouldn’t take long”.

Lon showed Eve to the spare bedroom where she immediately fell asleep once laying down on the bed. He then returned to the workstation in the living room and continued repairing and upgrading the palm screens.  

Chapter 4

Dawn broke across the city well before 6am, but the darkened windows did not lighten and allow light to pass through until 8am. The sunlight across his face, along with the sounds of Chris making breakfast, caused Lon to wake. For a moment he had forgotten where he was and was confused by awakening on the couch in front of the television.

“Goeie môre,” said Chris in a light tone.

“Oh, morning,” said Lon, finally remembering where he was.

“It’s 8 o’clock. You’re lucky it’s not a weekday, else my employees would start arriving soon, and it would be difficult for you to remain inconspicuous”.

“Oh, yeah, lucky,” said Lon, still a little dazed from his sleep.

“Did you find out any more information from the news?” asked Chris.

“No, each report was the same as the last”.

“I see. Did you manage to fix your palm screens?” asked Chris.

“Yes,” replied Lon, “but mine took much longer to fix than Eve’s, typically”.

“Why? Does she have a different operating system?”

“Same operating system, different make,” said Lon. “I thought mine would be easier because it’s newer, but I was wrong”.

“Oh well, at least you fixed them,” said Chris. “I’m making you breakfast by the way. Is Eve vegetarian?”

“No, she eats most things, as far as I know,” said Lon.

“Good!” said Chris, “Because I’m making a fry-up”.

Lon stood up and turned to face the window to admire the morning view. It was one of the reasons he enjoyed staying at his brother’s workplace. “I’ll go and wake Eve,” he said before entering the hallway leading to the spare bedroom where Eve was asleep. The door of the room was shut, so he knocked, but got no response. “Eve, time to wake up,” he shouted in hopes that she would hear him, but still there was no response. “Eve, are you awake?” There was still no response, so he slowly opened the door. “Eve, time to wake up,” the windows in the room were still tinted, therefore not much light was getting in.

Eve was still fast asleep and unaware of anyone else’s presence in the room.

Lon slowly walked towards the bed, not bothering to tiptoe because he wanted to wake her, although she was so serene in her slumber that he felt like he would be depriving her of something special if he did. Nonetheless, Lon tried again to wake her with his voice, “Eve it’s time to wake up”.

Still Eve did not respond, but Lon did not want to shake her awake out of worry of being impolite, so instead he altered the window settings using the control panel by the window in the corner of the room opposite the bed.

The window pane lightened, as did the room and Eve’s face.

Lon tried again to wake her. “Eve, time to wake up,” this time there was a result.

She slowly opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” said Lon. “Sorry to wake you, but Chris is making breakfast and it’s almost done”.

She was not at all bothered by being awoken by Lon. She simply said, “Okay,” then smiled at him.

“I’ll leave you to get dressed,” he said, and left the room, closing the door on his way. He returned to the living room and kitchen area where Chris had started dishing out breakfast for the three of them. He took a seat at the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. “She’ll be here in a minute, she’s just getting dressed,” said Lon taking and biting into a slice of bacon.

Chris poured three glasses of apple juice.

Lon ate another piece of bacon.

Eve entered the room, dressed in the same clothes as the previous day, the same as Lon.

“Good morning,” said Chris, “did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thanks. I can’t even remember hitting the pillow, I was so tired,” she said.

“Good”, said Chris. “If either of you need to take a shower, I suggest you do it straight after breakfast, because I need you to meet up with someone at eleven”.

“Oh? Who would that be?” asked Lon.

“Someone who should be able to help us,” said Chris.

“Who? How can they help us?”

“I’m not gonna say, you’ll have to wait till you meet her”.

“Where are we meeting her?” asked Lon.

“Somewhere quite far from here,” said Chris, “out in the suburbs”.

The rest of breakfast time was uneventful.

“Can I please borrow some of your clothes?” asked Lon, “These ones smell like canal water”.

“Um, yeah, I think I have some spare that you can have,” said Chris.

“And is there by any chance anything of Sonja’s that Eve could borrow too?” asked Lon.

“I’ll go and take a look,” said Chris, and he left to go to his bedroom.

“I finished fixing the palm screens,” said Lon to Eve.

“Oh, that’s good,” she replied.

Lon walked to the workstation and picked up both devices. He first handed Eve hers, then carefully fitted his own, trying to make it as close to his skin as possible without trapping any air.

“Thank you,” she said as she fitted hers.

“To use ‘ID masking mode’ you just have to open the menu and select ‘
Masquerade Party
’. After that your ID will always be secret”.

“Oh, great! Let me see
…” she said as she followed Lon’s instructions. She gestured on her wrist to bring up the display, opened the main menu and pressed the “
Masquerade Party
” option.

“
Welcome to the party
,” said a single popup window, before disappearing and re-displaying the main screen.

Eve made a gesture to turn off the palm screen. “I hope it helps us”.

“It should,” said Lon, “I’ve already put my number on there, as well as Chris’. To be safe I’ve put my number under the name ‘London’, and Chris’ under the name ‘Cross’”.

Chris re-entered the room with several items of clothing, only one option for Lon, including a sleeved t-shirt, but several choices for Eve, which he handed to them respectively. “Sorry Lon, that’s all I’ve got that’ll fit you. Eve, you’re lucky, my girlfriend leaves clothes everywhere she goes. She has a similar build to you, so they should fit nicely”.

“Thank you so much,” she said in gratitude.

“Cheers Chris,” said Lon

“You’d better hurry,” said Chris, “you should leave soon. If you need a shower, one of you should get in now”.

“Okay,” responded Lon, “then Eve, you should get in first. I’ll check the news while you I wait”.

“Right. I’ll try to be quick,” she said.

“Just use anything in there that you need. Towels are in the cupboard under the sink,” advised Chris.

At this, Eve left the room.

Lon turned on the television to check the news. Unfortunately for them there was nothing new to be heard or seen.

Almost an hour had passed before the two were washed and dressed in clean clothing and ready to leave.

“Okay, we’re ready to go,” stated Lon.

“Good,” said Chris. “The first place I want you to go to is a cafe called ‘Caixa de Café’ where you’ll meet Tan,” he handed Lon a business card taken from the establishment, “then he’ll tell you what’s next”.

Lon opened his palm screen and scanned the card to load the cafe’s co-ordinates onto the device’s map.

“It’s not far away, within walking distance. I doubt surveillance cameras will be searching for you two after just fare dodging, so there shouldn’t be much to worry about. Also, it will be safer if you don’t use satellite mode on your palm screen to navigate there,” explained Chris.

“I gathered that,” said Lon.

“Okay then, you’d better go,” Chris said, “I’ll get Tan to delete your presence on the surveillance system when he comes back to work on Monday”.

“See you later then,” said Lon, and he left the room.

Eve did the same, but not before saying, “Thank you so much for all your help”.

The workshop was void of people, as was the reception area on the other side of the workshop. Lon and Eve continued to the ground floor using the lift and exited the building, the security guard not paying attention to them.

The air outside the building was cool and clear. The sun lit up as much of the main shopping plaza as it could while projecting long shadows across the ground due to the immensely tall buildings surrounding the square. It would have been a perfect day to relax in the city, had it not been for the current circumstances.

“Does it seem like there are more police to you?” Lon asked Eve.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, “there are always a lot on Saturdays”.

“But I’m sure there aren’t usually this many, we should be extra careful”.

There were indeed a large number of police personnel located throughout the plaza, something common on busy days, especially in the run up to the holidays.

The pair proceeded west of their current location and exited the vicinity of the building in which they had been hiding. Just as the previous night when they had been walking through the plaza to get to Chris’ workshop, the two were extremely vigilant and stuck to the crowds. After several minutes walking they took a left turn out of the pedestrianised plaza and into a long business street lined mainly with office buildings and banks.

“Damn, I never realised how annoyingly slow crowds are,” said Lon. “We need to get to Tan as quickly as possible, but we need to avoid the police as well, just to be careful”.

“Tell me how we got into this situation,” said Eve.

“I have no idea,” Lon said sombrely, “and I don’t have a clue how we’re gonna get out of it either. All we can do now is what Chris tells us to. Thankfully he’s not an idiot”.

The time flowed quickly, much unlike the pedestrian traffic in which Lon and Eve were encapsulated.

“We need to get a move on if we want to meet Tan and get to the suburbs before eleven,” said Lon as he took a mental picture of the map on his palm screen. Using his free right hand he grabbed Eve by the wrist. “Come, we need to leave this crowd”.

Eve was removed from the safety of numbers and directed around the crowds by Lon, who was still scanning his field of vision for potential threats. Thus far, their presence in public had not been contended. “Are you sure it’s safe to literally stand out from the crowd?” she asked. “Couldn’t it look suspicious?”

“I don’t know,” replied Lon, “but so far everything’s normal. Maybe we were worrying for nothing”.

“Okay,” said Eve, “but we should still be careful”.

The two walked past several very wide buildings, and passed over several crossings.

The morning was very slow and uneventful, in contrast to the traffic on the pavements and the roads; thousands of cars whizzed past thousands of people. It would be like this for nearly twenty-four hours on weekends, and weekdays were mostly similar.

Eventually, after many minutes of walking, Lon and Eve came upon another crossroad, this one more significant than the last due to it being situated near the entrance of the parliamentary buildings complex partially shadowed by the huge pillar-like towers that rose behind it. Here was an abundance of greenery and water features, surprisingly not so uncommon in the high-tech, high altitude city, but certainly more lavish and extravagant in style, typical of the self-loving, self-pleasing, self-promoting, self-righteous government. Yet the place’s significance was not due to its aesthetic beauty, but in fact owing to the level of security around the area.

“Eve,” said Lon, “we need to be really careful here, we should mix back in with the crowd”.

There were far fewer people in this area, but perhaps still enough to shield one’s self from the eyes of onlookers if so was needed. Facing towards the parliament buildings before the intersection were two small greens, large enough for small families to picnic on, one to the left, one to the right.

Lon and Eve followed the road to their west, orientating themselves so that on their left was one of the small fields, and to the right the parliament buildings.

Many things were running through both their minds; thoughts of what happened yesterday, what was happening today, and what would happen tomorrow.

There was something that was present somewhere in Lon’s consciousness, hiding, only partially showing its face. What it was bugged him. It felt as though it was playing a game with his reasoning. What was it?

Lon tried hard to think. It was a memory of something. With all the thoughts flowing quickly through his mind it was not easy to differentiate one from the other, old speculations from new feelings. At the same time he was trying his best to be wakeful of danger, as well as trying to navigate through thousands of people, and find some cafe he had never heard of.

Something poked its head into his mental awareness. He remembered the man on the news the previous night, the one who had jumped out of the window of his father’s building, Somebody Winters. Although he could not remember the man’s name, he all too easily recognised his face, and could still recall how distinctly angular his features had been, in addition to how unnatural his blonde hair had seemed.