Why You Were Taken (20 page)

He ends the call. They never say ‘I Love You.’ They agreed long ago that that the phrase was overused and trite. They wouldn’t reduce their relationship to a cliché. What they had was deeper.

  ‘How much trouble are in you in?’ asks Keke.

  ‘He cooked dinner for me: a surprise.’

  Keke looks at the time on her phone. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘He wanted to do something nice for me.’

  ‘Double-ouch.’

  ‘So where were we?’ Kirsten asks, but Keke is looking at her strangely.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Since when do you lie to James?’

  ‘What? I didn’t. I don’t.’

  ‘We’re working on a ‘story’?’

  ‘Well,’ says Kirsten, ‘we are, kind of. Aren’t we?’

Keke pouts, not convinced.

  ‘You’re the one that says everyone has a story. Maybe this is mine. And, believe me, the less James knows, the better.’

They go back to solving the puzzle they had been working on all night: trying to make sense of the code that was in the plastic envelope they found in the seed bank. It was a list of barcodes that when scanned were numbers, 18 digits to a line.

100380199121808891

104140199171209891

20290199142117891

20201199161408891

101250199160217891

201250199160217891

1010199112016891

They all started with either 10 or 20, all contained the numbers 1991 in the same position near the middle, and ended in 891. The more wine Kirsten drank, the more the numbers glowed with their colours. It was distracting. She had never been good at maths for this reason.

  ‘I don’t know how much longer I can look at this,’ she says, rubbing her neck, which was tender from the car accident. ‘Are you sure you don’t know any maths-geniuses-code-crackers?’

Keke shakes her head. ‘Nope.’

      They had tried everything they could think of, from simple alphabet a=1 algorithms to squares and prime numbers, and all the search engines they could think of. Kirsten is playing with Keke’s Beckoning Cat. If you push its belly-button its USB port comes out the other side, like a stunted tail. A secret porthole of information.

 
Maneki Neko,
she thinks
: Japanese Lucky Cat. Brings good fortune to owners.
She gives the hard plastic a squeeze, puts it back on Keke’s desk.

  ‘Look, we’ve had a hectic day and we’re not getting anywhere tonight,’ sighs Keke, standing up. ‘Why don’t you go home to Marmalade and make up?’

Kirsten starts to protest but she knows Keke is right. ‘Besides,’ says Keke, putting on her leather jacket, ‘I need to get laid.’

As soon as Kirsten opens the front door she smells roast chicken: her favourite. James had left a plate for her on the kitchen counter: a golden thigh, butter-roast potatoes, candied golden beetroot. She peels the cling wrap away and starts to eat the chicken with her fingers. It is exactly right, the taste: an undulating curve with a few small points bouncing off it, finishing in a wavering line. She’s exhausted; it feels like more than just tiredness. Deathargy.

Her body is cold when she climbs in next to James, and she’s unsure of whether to wake him. She moves closer to him, barely spoons him, trying to gauge how lightly he is sleeping.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers, ‘the potatoes were perfect.’

He grunts, turns around, pulls her towards him in a full-body hug. A warm, sleepy hand slides under her pyjama top, rubbing her back, then settles under her panties, on the arch of her hip. She moves against his hand, slowly, rhythmically, but stops when she realises he is asleep.

A few hours later Kirsten wakes with a start. Colours swirl in her head: green, grey, brown, yellow. 7891. She knows the colour combination so well, but where from? Pine Tree, Ash, Polished Meranti, English Mustard. Somehow she knows it’s part of her. Then she gets it. She bumps Keke, even though it’s past 2am:

KD> The colours are backwards!

Surprisingly, or not, Keke responds.

KK>> Wot R U doing? LSD?

KD> It should be yellow/brown/grey/green.

KK>> U need to be institutionalised. Good night & good luck.

KD> Not 7891, but 1987, the year I was born. Think the whole sequence is backwards. It says 60217891, that’s my birthdate, backwards. 6 December 1987. It features twice in the list, 5
^th
and 6
^th
lines. It must mean something. I knew the colours but it was hard to see when they were backwards.

KK>> What about the other numbers?

KD> No idea.

KD> Yet.

TOY CHASE

21

Johannesburg, 2021

Despite a very late night, Seth is in the office early. In theory he is trying to tweak his 3D mathematical model animation of the CinnaCola taste experience but his head is pounding and Fiona’s pass is burning a hole in his pocket. He gulps down his anxiety with a few pills and leaves his office, heads towards the Waters wing of the building. He walks past Fiona’s office and does a double take as he sees her sitting at her desk. Relief like a splash of water on his face.

  ‘Fiona!’ he says. The brunette at the desk looks up at him, puzzled.

  ‘Hello?’ she says.

It’s not Fiona. Similar looking, thinner, more attractive.

  ‘Oh,’ says Seth, taking a step back and looking at the new name on the door. ‘Do you know where Fiona is?’

  ‘I don’t know a Fiona,’ the usurper says, mechanical smile, cherry red lipstick, and a whiff of Stepford. ‘Can I help you with something?’ She is being super polite: she wants him to leave.

  ‘This is her office,’ Seth says, incredulous.

  She blinks at him, stops smiling. ‘Not anymore.’

Besides Seth’s better judgement he strides up to the main reception. The receptionist looks alarmed.

  ‘Fiona Botes,’ he says, ‘she’s been away from the grind, and I was wondering if you knew where she was.’

The man fingers his hair, taps on his tablet, looks cheerfully confused.

  ‘No record of a Fiona working here,’ he says.

Seth wants to pull him by his effeminate tie, punch him in the face. He does everything in his power to keep calm. He shouldn’t be here asking questions, calling attention to himself.

  ‘Check again,’ he says.

The man taps a bit more, then patches the HR infobot on his earbutton. ‘Botes,’ he says, ‘Fiona.’ After a moment he ends the call. ‘It appears that Ms Botes is on a business trip. Asia. She’s not expected back any time soon.’

  ‘Asia?’ mumbles Seth, ‘Is that the best you can do?’

At the look in Seth’s eyes the receptionist takes a step back, despite the counter separating them. His eyes dart to the army of security guards. Seth retreats. He has five, maybe ten minutes before someone with clout realises he needs to be taken care of. 

He runs to the Waters wing and uses Fiona’s access card to get into the lab, hurries to put on a mask. Once he gets into the factory it’s easy to disappear between the giant vessels of water, darting between gauges, graphs, clicking dials. Fiona had told him that the tap at the end of all the barrels and valves, just before the bottling, is where the sample test tubes are filled up.

Seth removes the test sample of Anahita, replacing it with a virgin tube, and slips the sample into his pocket. Then he walks over to the Tethys section, and the Hydra section, and does the same there. He knows there are cameras everywhere.

Once he is out of the lab he bins his mask, runs up the stairs, towards his office to grab his Tile, but immediately feels like someone is following him. He picks up his pace. As he’s about to turn into his office when he sees them: three security guards armed to the max, ready to pounce. Dobermans with a rabbit in their sights. Just before they grab him, The Weasel steps in their way.

  ‘No, no,’ he’s saying. ‘I’m telling you there has been a mistake.’

The guards want to flatten Wesley but know they can’t. They know that hurting an innocent Fontus employee would have consequences.

  ‘On whose orders?’ Weasel’s demanding, the back of his white collared shirt straining, struggling with the mountainous men as they try to reach around him, but Seth is just out of their grasp.

He darts into his office and locks the door. Grabs his backpack and jumps out of the window, onto the narrow balcony. Sprints towards the back of the building and runs down the perforated metal stairs of the fire escape. Once he hits the grass he hijacks a CinnaCola golf cart, floors it, mows through a gazebo, sending trays of breakfast
hors d’oevres
and flutes of Buck’s Fizz flying. A waiter in a tux stands frozen, open-jawed. Seth swerves and narrowly misses the corner of the squash courts.

He can hear them behind him now, in turbo-carts with flashing lights. They motor past the swimming pool, a strip of restaurants, a mini touch-rugby field. It’s like playing cops and robbers in Toyland, he thinks. He can see the exit, but at the speed they’re approaching they’ll be able to stop him before he gets to it. A bullet zings past his head, another hits his cart. Toy chase, but real guns, real bullets.

A small bang and his cart spins and tumbles, rolling over itself and throwing Seth out. They blew out a tyre. He stands up, re-orients himself, notices his head is bleeding. Feels for the test samples to make sure they’re not broken. The three guards are out of their vehicle and pointing their weapons at him with practised aims. A trio of testosterone. More guards will be on their way. Seth doesn’t have a choice: he reaches to his ankle holster and pulls out his gun. They all begin to shout orders at him, drowning each other out.

  ‘Put down your weapon!’ yells the one with the blonde crew-cut.

  ‘You put your fucking weapons down!’ shouts Seth, flicking off the safety catch. No one moves.

  ‘I am warning you Mister Denicker, we will use force against you if you don’t come with us.’

  ‘We just want to talk,’ pipes the other one.

Seth walks backwards, towards the exit. The men stiffen their arms, each one wanting to take the shot. Frustrated wannabes with itchy fingers: dangerous.

  ‘You have families, children,’ he shouts at them. ‘I have fuck-all. No one. Nothing. You’ve got the most to lose.’ They keep their sights trained on him. Then, slowly, the youngest of the three lowers his gun. The crew-cut shouts at him, swears, but the man slides his gun back into his hip holster, backs away. His parental units never liked him grinding here anyway.

  ‘You two: you’re ready to widow your wives over fucking bottled water?’

They don’t say anything but keep advancing while he inches closer to the exit. Seth knows he has no choice: he squeezes the trigger and puts a bullet in crew-cut’s leg. The man lets out a shocked noise, falls to the floor, lifts his gun at Seth, pulls the trigger, misses, and misses again. Now empty, the felled man’s gun clicks impotently in Seth’s direction, and he roars in frustration. Specks of saliva in the sunlight. The other man doesn’t know what to do. He seems shocked by the blood and doesn’t want to shoot or be shot.  His gun is still raised but it’s at an unconvincing angle.

  ‘Tell them to open the exit,’ says Seth.

  ‘No!’ shouts the crew-cut, his arms out at his side as if to hold back the other man. Seth points his gun at the uninjured man’s thigh.

  ‘Wait!’ shouts the man, ‘wait,’ and he finally throws his weapon forward, onto the grass, and speaks into the crackle of his radio.

  ‘We have the suspect in hand. Call off back-up and open exits. Repeat: suspect is apprehended, all clear.’ An acknowledgement sputters back.

Seth collects the abandoned gun. ‘Give me your access card,’ he says, and the man does so. He wonders what in particular this man has to live for.

Thirty seconds later Seth walks out of the Fontus grounds and the colourful throngs of morning tuk-tuk and taxi traffic swallow him up. He wasn’t convinced until now that Fontus had something to hide.

RED FINGERPRINTS

22

Johannesburg, 2021

Kirsten takes her eyes off her screen to think, and sees the file she has been keeping on her mother. Opens it, looks through the morbid illustrations, the pricked paper dolls, the onion-skin birth certificate, sees the colours. She thinks that’s the end of the file but then she sees the magazine cutting again, the one she had found framed, in storage. Cute baby, but not her. The date on the back says 1991.

She puts the file away and Googles the year 1991. She searches South African pages: South African cricket was unsanctioned, political violence continued, Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Prize for literature. 1991: Yellow, brown, brown, yellow. Not a nicely coloured year at all. She can’t imagine it being a very happy year for anyone.

The birth dates, if that’s what they are, thinks Kirsten, are all around the same time. From 1986 to 1988: a year or two apart at most. So that’s seven people, born around similar dates. Then the other set of dates all contained 1991. Her watch rings, making her jump. She turns on her TileCam and answers the call.

  ‘Hi,’ she smiles, happy to see Keke, but Keke doesn’t return it.

  ‘Listen, you’re in trouble.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You should leave your house.’