Moxyland

Tendeka

The thing is, transparency only works as a policy if you can still find a way to make the stuff you don’t want people to see invisible – especially when it’s out in the open. We’re here to make sure there’s no possibility of hiding what has happened.

Who would have thought that so many were ready to give it up, turn turtle before it even kicks in, before they even know it’s going to kick in at all? Traitors to the cause.

And cowards, adds skywards* in yet another msg.

The emergency room at Chris Barnard Memorial is street level, a glass box beside the ambulance parking with a ramp that leads up and away to the parkade. There is already a queue of people outside, rumpled like they’ve been up all night, so everyone looks homeless. They’re pale and shocked and some of the more pathetic ones have convinced themselves they’re sick for real, doubled over and coughing, psyching themselves out, buying in, pushing to get to the front. There’s no sign of the media.

But there will be.

There’s been nothing on any of the newscasts, not even a suggestion on the alt channels, which implies that the clampdown on info is already in force. There are probably S&D teams working round the clock, scanning every blog, censoring every streamcast. Suppress and destroy.

‘Here?’ Zuko asks. We’re standing across the road, at the edge of the parking lot for the chichi restaurants in Heritage Square. He tosses a soccer ball deftly from foot to foot, ignoring the carguard, who is beckoning that he must skop the ball over here, have a little game, man. But this is not the time for play.

We’ll already have been picked up by the security cams outside the hospital, but I don’t think it’s worth pointing this out to Zuko, who is tensely eager underneath his cool, still fucked on glue, and wound up from watching the Grand Parade light up in pyrotechnics.

‘Yeah. It’s the most accessible.’ We’ve already checked out two other temporary vaccine locations, one in the CBD police centre, the other set up at the main entrance to Adderley Station, but there were dogs lurking at both of those, and they started barking when we came too close, picking up some residue of the chem scent.

No one will get seriously hurt. The explosive is low-capacity RDX. Limited ‘blast phenomena’ according to the instructions from Amsterdam. The nearest people will suffer flash burns, maybe. But they’re right next to the ER. They’ll be able to get medical treatment on the spot. Sometimes small sacrifices are necessary. It’s collateral damage. And there is zero chance Ashraf will be here. He’ll have gone to a more convenient clinic, closer to Khayelitsha. Definitely.

Zuko shrugs, always the team player, and strolls across the road, dribbling expertly, dodging a car, while still keeping the ball going, casually following it towards the ER doors, like goal posts. Just a kid messing around. The security guard is too preoccupied with managing the line to hassle him.

Zuko bounces the ball off his knees a couple of times, fearlessly, as if it were not packed to capacity with RDX, then lets it drop. Before it has a chance to touch the ground, with a swift and perfect sideswipe, he lobs it at the automatic doors.

The motion sensors pick up the ball and slide open to swallow it up.

I click the detonator in my pocket, subtly as possible, already walking away.

The bomb rips through the building with a shudder of glass and concrete.

I don’t look back for Zuko.