Moxyland

Toby

Once it breaks, it’s kif deluxe. Total 360, matter of, what, an hour? From spitting up blood, to an endorphin overload equal to a bliss hit. I wonder if that’s intended, designed to make you more willing to hand yourself over, flooded with goodwill and lush happiness, or if they fucked up the formula one time. Maybe it’s the whisky, the bug burned up in the alcohol content we just poured into ourselves. Maybe they didn’t factor that in, didn’t get the lab rats loaded before they made ’em sick. Course, the bottle we sunk between us is starting to catch up with me. I smack my tongue against my parched palate.

Tendeka is looking savagely grim, but it’ll wane soon soon. It’s cos I’m thin, I tell him, fast metabolism, but he’s still on his apocalypse trip. He’s still trying to explain it away: ‘It’s your body’s natural response. It’s an old evolutionary trick of the mind, flood your system with happy chemicals when you’re dying.’

‘You don’t understand, buddy, I’m flying.’ I lug him towards my apartment. Despite his good intentions, I’m not going to hang around the street corner while he waxes lyric about the repressive regime and rights and clampdowns. Not when I’ve managed to avoid the cops, being arrested, the freaking Aitos prowling outside my door. And by the time all this is over, I will have wangled a new phone, found a legit excuse for why mine was stolen or schmangled, and everything will be back to normal.

Tendeka slurs something.

‘What? I can’t understand you.’

‘Alcohol. Adrenalin.’

‘Alcohol and adrenalin what?’

‘Why you’re feeling better.’

‘Yeah, yeah. You’ll see. Wait till it hits you. Any second now. It’s not the booze.’

‘My tongue is swollen.’

‘That would be the whisky talking.’

‘No, it’s…’ He wrenches forward and kotches a thick splodge of blood onto the pavement. There are globby bits in it. It’s seriously vile, and maybe I’m underestimating how he’s handling. Lucky then, kids, that his primitive hackjob of a key works perfectly on my apartment block’s door. We have to swipe it a few times over the door scan, which squawks in protest, but just when I’m ready to concede, the override goes through and it clicks open. It’s a handy thing to have, and when Tendeka doesn’t ask for it back specific, I pocket it.

He’s badly delusional by the time I lug him onto the roof of my apartment block, going on about getting skywards and future renovations, as if this were the time for home improvements. It’s very pretty up here. I should come here more often.

‘Is it casting? Is Lerato hooking us up?’

‘Course, man. Would I let you down? Oh, there I go.’ This is a joke, kids, cos I’m easing him down so he can sit, only he sort of keels to the side, so he ends up lying on his back instead. And then he curls half-foetal on his side.

‘Nice position,’ I say. ‘There’s a reason people lie on their sides like that, we covered it in first aid. I’m not remembering what it was, though. But it’s good. You got it right.’

‘Where’s the camera?’ His eyes dart around, hunting out the lenses in my coat.

‘All over. There’re like a thousand of them embedded in the fabric. Miniature. You can’t see ’em.’

‘Okay, tell them…’

‘Tell ’em yourself. You’re going out live. Just speak into the coat.’

He looks up and grits his teeth, focuses. ‘My name is Tendeka Mataboge.’

‘Excellent start.’

‘I’m thirty-two. I’m dying. It’s the only way to show… I’ve been infected with the M7N1 virus as an act of government-corporate censorship. Repression. This is human rights violation taken to its worst. They are wilfully killing their citizens. It’s… It is casting, right?’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ I’m getting bored with this whole shebang. ‘Oh hey, I can see it from here.’

‘Where?’

‘No, no, don’t sit up.’ I point and watch the LG billboard flashing through its routine. Smiley models selling consumer electronics and cars. ‘Trust me. It’s going out all over the city. I’m surprised they haven’t sent out the helicopters yet.’

‘Good. That’s good. That’s…’ he feels for my hand, ‘important, Toby.’

I grasp his hand in both of mine.

‘Do you think Ashraf is watching? Will you tell Emmie? It’s, it’s… I’m doing it for the baby.’

‘China, I don’t know what you’re on about. You just hang in there, Ten. Get your strength up, then you can finish the cast.’ He looks up at me with painful gratitude.

I’m so looking forward to him pulling out of this whole dying swan mode, and how stupid he’s going to feel when he does. On a whim, I hit record on the BabyStrange anyway. It might just record something. Keep in mind, kids, it’s always good to catch humiliating moments live.