Moxyland

Tendeka

If there’s one thing street kids know, it’s how to vanish effectively. Ashraf is still shaking by the time we get to our refuge, a garage in a neighbouring apartment block. skyward* sent me a basic key SIM, that jimmies a signal to get in doors that aren’t coded high security. It’s a blunt hack job, but it works.

All the protests I’ve been involved in till now have been phone-based. Text msgs are the quickest, cheapest, most convenient way of coordinating and relaying information instantly. ‘Someone arrested.’ ‘New rendezvous.’ ‘Take Strand Street, cops are waiting on Riebeeck.’ But tonight there are no phones. No way of passing on msgs or warnings – or being tracked down.

‘This is what we should be campaigning for.’ I try to explain to Ashraf how we need to create an alternate economy that doesn’t rely on SIM IDs and credit rates. We should all live like Emmie and our street-kid army collaborative. But he is too furious to listen.

‘You told me the knives were just for show.’

‘It’s not about show. Not anymore.’

‘Oh, cut the big talk. They’re children, Tendeka.’

‘They’re disenfranchised. Society’s dropouts, the lost generation. We’re giving them a purpose.’

‘Anyone can give a kid purpose! You can twist them whichever way suits you. Especially if you’re letting them vent their aggression. You can’t just put a leash on that afterwards.’

He scrapes his hands through his hair. ‘I just don’t know what you were thinking. This wasn’t the plan, was it? This Lord of the Flies number you just pulled? Please tell me that.’

For once, his frustration leaves me unmoved. There are bigger things at stake than Ashraf’s inhibitions.

‘I don’t need your stubbornness right now, Ten. God, you make me crazy. This fucks everything we’ve done. You want to talk violation? This – fuck, this is the moral opposite of everything we believe in. This is going to make the news in Tibet!’

‘That’s what I’m counting on.’

‘You really don’t get it. I mean, you really, really don’t. Did you see the fucking cams in the gallery? Do you know the licence you’ve given them to crack down?’

‘Looked right at ’em. That was the point. skyward* said we needed to make global news, to force their hand.’

‘You don’t even know who skyward* is. He’s an avatar. A fucking online persona whose orders you blithely follow, like a lapdog. Roll over. Play dead. Drag a bunch of kids into what’s going to be classified as terrorist action. You don’t know anything about him.’

‘I know he sends us first-class tech. Shit we’d never get our hands on. Shit so new they haven’t even drawn up countermeasures on paper, let alone implemented them. The smear, the LEDs for the graffiti project.’ I’ve let slip too much, but Ashraf is so angry, he doesn’t even notice.

‘So fucking what? How does he get access to it? You don’t know who he is. What his motivations are. If it’s even a he.’

‘I understand his motivations better than yours. At least he’s committed to a revolution—’

‘Don’t be like this.’

‘–not just play-play in amateur hour.’

His shoulders slump, but I can’t afford sympathy. He has to face up to his erroneous thinking. He nearly fucked up the whole gig with his interruption. It’s not like I was going to hurt her. It was only intended to scare. Part of the act. I was in control at all times. It’s not like it felt good.

‘You need to get over yourself, Ash.’

‘Really? I need to get over myself. I’m the play-play amateur? At least I’m not nice middle-class boy pretending at hardcore revolutionary.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘You know what the difference is between us? When all this goes bad, you can go running back to the family homestead in leafy Houghton – and the rest of us fucking can’t.’

‘I would never.’

‘I’m afraid for you, Ten,’ he says, something in his face caving.

I’m not made of vibracrete. I pull him to my chest and we just stand like that for long minutes. Until he murmurs, ‘We have to call off the pass protest.’

I pull back, the better to gauge if he means it. ‘We can’t. It’s all fucking arranged. We’ve been planning it for months.’ And we have. If I think about the effort involved… to abandon it now? It’s impossible.

It’s going to be the ultimate, to demonstrate the divides in our society between the Emmies and the Zukos and the corporati with their goldplated all-access passes and the things they do to keep us in our place.

‘We can’t, Ash. I’m sorry. The gamehack has already gone into effect. All those FallenCity players won’t know what hit them. It’s going to happen no matter what, now, and if we’re not at the forefront, then someone else will be, and they will fuck it up. You think you can stop those kids going? Zuko will lead it personally if we don’t. Do you know what the end result of that would look like? Those kids running rampant with the players?’

‘I can’t. Tendeka. You shouldn’t. I’m tired. It’s too much.’

‘One more, okay, baby? Just one more. Then we can lie low, I swear. This is massive. This is the culmination of everything. You can’t let this incident throw you off. I’m sorry. I fucked up. I admit. It got away from me. I won’t let it happen again.’

‘No more putting the kids at risk. No more violence.’

‘Not from us.’

‘Because if there is…’