Moxyland

Tendeka

It’s over.

Ashraf is gone.

Taken S’bu and Ibrahim with him, along with any of the other kids he found en route. Gone belly-up, slinking off to the nearest vaccine centre, and then to find Emmie, make sure she’s okay. Always the responsible one. Too impatient to wait it out, to call their bluff. He couldn’t see this is exactly what we’ve been working towards. Pushing the corporates and the cops so far over the line there’s no coming back for them.

skyward* says not to stress. There was a box waiting for me, on our bed, when I got eventually got home last night. Inside was a new Nokia. And a note. ‘Thought you might need this.’ As soon as I turned it on, the messages started coming through. He says it’s going to be beautiful, not to chicken out at such a cru cial juncture. They’ll never know what hit them.

skyward* says we have to do it now, immediately. Trigger the lightbombs, hit as many of the vaccine centres as we can. We can’t let them submit. It’s a trick. There’s worse waiting for Ashraf and them than being arrested or disconnected. skyward* says they plan to ship them out to the Rural, put them into camps, detain and charge them as terrorists, even the kids. They might not come back. He says he never thought they would go this far, but isn’t this the ultimate proof of what they’re capable of, how fucked up the status quo really is?

But I’m confused. I thought it was a bluff. Not real. Not cause for concern, not reason enough for Ashraf to leave.

skyward* reassures me: yes, of course, but if they’re so casual about inducing widespread panic, lying to us like this, then what else have they been lying about? We have to stop it. We have to expose the underlying tumour in our society. This is not the time to have doubts.

And then Zuko comes back, staggering in, half-fucked on glue, which would be a red card, but under the circumstances, I’ll let it slide. Because he’s a true believer. And there’s work to do today, as skyward* keeps reminding me, the msgs coming in incessantly, like jabs with a sharp stick.

I don’t know how he knew where to find me.