Why You Were Taken

A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION ₂₅

Johannesburg, 2021

Seth scrubs his scalp with his knuckles. It was obvious that this woman was insane, you could tell at a glance: head shorn; blood-stained. Of course, his head had been bleeding too, but… that wild look in her eyes. She does look eerily familiar. No, not familiar, but similar. Looking into her flecked irises was like looking through a mirror into some parallel universe.

‘You what?’

‘Your sister. Twin. I think.’

‘You think?’

‘This is also new to me. I still don’t know what happened to us or what is going on, but I know that we’re both in danger.’

‘Look, lady…’ he puts his hand up and takes a step back.

‘I know! I know that I sound crackers. That’s what I thought about the woman who warned me, but then she turned up dead.’

‘Who’s dead?’

‘It’s not important. What you have to know is that there is a… list… and the people on the list are being killed, in order, and we are next.’

Too many teenage summer horror movies, he thinks.

‘Bullshit,’ he says, and then, ‘by who?’

Kirsten takes the piece of paper out of her bag, hands it to Seth, who makes sure their hands don’t touch. Looks down, looks at her.

‘Lotto ticket?’

‘They’re barcodes. Of people. Look at 5 and 6. That’s us – see our birth date? Everyone above us on this list has been murdered.’

‘What happened in 1991?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘Where on the list is the woman, the one that approached you?

‘Number 4.’

‘So then I am 5 and you are 6?’

‘So you believe me?’

‘No, but I’m naturally paranoid and I like patterns and when I hear that someone is trying to kill me I pay attention.’

Seth’s rational side knows that the story is far-fetched, but what if this is really his twin? His flesh-and-blood sister? Standing here with her feels right. There is an unmistakable connection. Against his better judgement he flicks the safety back on.

Kirsten looks at his face, wants to touch it, but all of a sudden he grabs her arms and throws her to the ground. As she opens her eyes a body crashes down onto the pavement next to her, where she had been standing. In slow motion she watches black oil spread towards her, and just before it reaches her, Seth pulls her away from it and to her feet.

The dead man on the ground is young, twenty-something, black-clad with waxed spiky hair and smudged eyes. He lies with his mouth open towards the sky, a leg bent at an awkward angle. Seth bends over the warm body and searches his pockets. Kirsten wants to ask him what he is doing but her voice doesn’t seem to be working. Seth doesn’t find a wallet. He sees the glint of a locket, and looks inside: the smallest green rabbit glows at him.

‘Fuck,’ he says, ‘fuck!’ He rips the locket off, pockets it, grabs Kirsten’s hand, and they peel off into a charcoal alley.

A few blocks south, out-of-breath Kirsten manages to flag down a cab. Before they get into the car, Seth makes a point of checking the cab-driver’s licence.

‘You’re good at it,’ puffs Kirsten as they climb inside.

‘Good at what?’

‘Being paranoid.’

‘Ha.’

Kirsten gives the driver the address of The Office.

‘I wouldn’t have—’ she motions to the driver, ‘checked.’

‘Ja, well, it comes naturally.’

‘Being paranoid comes naturally?’

‘Yip.’

‘Bad childhood?’

‘Is any childhood not bad?’

Kirsten hesitates. ‘I’d like to think so.’

‘Yours?’ he asks.

‘Actually, to be honest, I don’t remember a lot of my childhood, especially early on.’

‘Me neither. Our brains are programmed to forget bad stuff.’

‘So you’re a glass-half-empty kind of guy.’

He shrugs. ‘Depends what’s in the glass.’

Kirsten fidgets, plays with the ring on her finger, desperate to tell him about the microchip, knowing that every minute it stays in his head is a minute’s advantage they’ve lost, but she has to weigh up the consequences. Just another half hour, she thinks, till I can show him some proof. Till then I need him to stick around. Instead she tells him about Keke.

Seth watches Kirsten talk, recognises himself in the anxious motions of her hands, the spinning of the ring on her finger. He feels impelled to do the same, but denies the urge. He pops a pill instead. She watches him do this, and without thinking, reaches for her own pills. She keeps forgetting to take them. She snaps the cap off the bottle, but before she can take one he grabs it out of her hand.

‘What is this?’ he demands.

She is shocked. ‘Um,’ she says, ‘a prenatal supplement.’

Seth studies the label: Dr Van der Heever, it says, PN supp 1 per day.

‘Prenatal?’ he asks, ‘so, you’re…’

‘Yes. Well, no. Been trying for a long time. No dice.’

‘Where did you get this from?’

‘Take it easy,’ she says, ‘my boyfriend filled it for me. He’s a doctor.’

‘I hate doctors,’ says Seth.

‘So do I. Ironically.’

Seth pockets the pills. Kirsten lets him.

‘How long have you known this guy?’

‘James?’ she laughs. ‘Forever.’

‘How long?’

‘Thirteen years longer than I’ve known you.’

Betty/Barbara had said to not trust even the people you love. And James had hidden the letter from her. She didn’t know what it meant, and she wished Marmalade was with them, but there was a little tapping, a little whirring in her brain, warning her to be careful.

They arrive at The Office and take the stairs to stay out of view. Kirsten leads Seth to Keke’s regular office.

‘Keke!’ she shouts, looking around. The room doesn’t look right: it’s in its normal mess but it doesn’t have the right colour. It feels like cold water is rushing over her body.

‘Has someone been here?’ asks Seth, looking at the open drawers and floor white with paper.

‘It’s difficult to say. It is usually – messy – but something doesn’t taste right.’

‘Excuse me?’

Kirsten checks the safe; it’s empty. Keke’s Tile is gone.

‘Maybe something spooked her and she ran for it,’ says Kirsten, more to reassure herself than anything else. ‘Maybe she’s hiding out, waiting for to hear from us.’

She dials Keke’s number, and they both jump when a disembodied voice starts singing from underneath the desk. Elvis Presley: A Little Less Conversation. Kirsten scrabbles around on the floor, and she finds Keke’s phone.

‘Fuck,’ she says again. Keke would leave a lot of things behind in a hurry, but never her phone. ‘They’ve taken her.’

All her contacts. More importantly: her SugarApp.

Seth scrunches up his face. ‘Elvis?’ he says, ‘really?’

While she is on the floor she spots the Beckoning Cat flash drive. Thank God, she thinks, they didn’t know it was a drive. She holds it up to Seth, pushes its belly to reveal the tail. ‘They left her flash drive.’ He takes it from her, plugs it into his Tile.

Kirsten uses her pocketknife to unlock the fridge. As soon as she opens the door she sees Keke’s insulin kit and there is another wave of cold water. She shuts her eyelids against the glow of the refrigerator, wishing the insulin away, but it’s there again when she opens them. She puts it on the desk in front of Seth.

‘We’ve got seven hours to find her.’

‘Hey?’

‘Seven hours to go,’ she says, ‘before Keke… gets really sick without her insulin.’ She says ‘really sick’ but what she means is: ‘die’ – she just can’t say it out loud.

‘She’s diabetic?’ he asks. Kirsten doesn’t answer. She sits back down on the floor and closes her eyes for a while. After a few minutes Seth is kneeling down in front of her. He touches her gently on the shoulder. It buzzes.

‘Kirsten?’ he says. ‘I think we’ve got something.’