Free Moxyland by Lauren Beukes Page A

kids: new illicit phone that's immune to defusings and capable of reading illegal downloads (let's try not to spread that around too much), and a spiffing VIMbot to restore my swivel to the state of superclean it hasn't seen since my old lady first picked it out of the catalogue. Not that I've ever been especially bothered about fighting the good fight against creeping entropy, but it'll make for a change.
       I spill the VIMbot out of my pack onto the bed and it goes zooting between my Pumas, breaking for the corridor and nearly gets away. Luckily the door has already started to rotate away. A lot of people don't like this whole cog system of floors, the entire building like a gyroscope in perpetual motion, but, hey, it saves space on doors and it just saved my VIMbot from bolting.
       The little fucker just misses the gap and thwacks off the wall, tipping itself over and lying with its legs twitching frantically, a fantastic dirty sound emanating from its inner devicings. If a robot could grind its teeth, assuming they had teeth, that's what it would sound like. It's the kind of sound that's eminently sampleable.
       I like to mix it up eclectic, got over 150,000 songs on my phone, ready to download to the decks and about nine and a half thou records in the mix. Everything from spectro to new bliss jazz, and some oldtime stuff too. And my brand spanking handset will double that capacity, now I'm free to loot and plunder without the digital rights malware blowing up in my face.
       I set the VIMbot down on the kitchen counter, holding it down with one hand, and sample that deliciously awful sound directly to my phone. I can already hear the track unfolding in my head, with that metallic teethedge in the backbeat.
       I play around with that for a while, thinking about how I really like sweet-K, and what a bad sign that is. The last person I was this interested in was Tamarin, and she was psycho deluxe, especially when she bust me and Nokulelo together. But what was she expecting when I was still with Jenna when we hooked up? Forget the rational; they always think they can change you. Rearrange the furniture. What is it with that?
       If I'm going to do this Kendra thing properly, I'm going to have to upgrade my gear. The way I'm figuring it, fuck Boing Boing , I'm gonna syndicate this straight to CNN or Sky News, then hit up some funding to do a proper documentary or a feature, and land a sweet deal on a major cast channel. MicrosoftTimeWarner or Al Jazeera.
       I'm going to need a decent mic, a broadcastquality lens, and to stock up on extra memory – and the fridge while I'm at it. It's glaringly empty, like my bank balance, which is already looking unhealthy deluxe, even with Lerato's loan. My mother doesn't realise how much maintenance my accustomed lifestyle chows up. She would have to cut me off mid-month. Cunt.
       So it's off to hook up with Unathi and make some quick cash-in-phone. When I finally make it through the traffic, it takes me another halfhour to find his dockside squat among the derelict buildings. It's borderline illegal, mainly because of the health hazard he and his slumfriends pose, but at least they're not drug dealers or human traffickers or anti-corporate terrorists, which are all the cops really care about. Occasionally, they'll get harassed, mainly for tapping into the grid and using juice they're not paying for, and they've had to move twice already in the last six months, but it's all par for the lifestyle, kids. Take note before you consider a career in the lucrative but feckless world of underground game-dealing.
       A shaven-headed someone, so nondescript I can't distinguish if it's guy or girl, opens the door without so much as a heita, then vanishes into the maze of backrooms which smell of burnt rice and that heavy sour smell of humanity that hasn't had access to running water for a while.
       Unathi doesn't bother to surface from the sagging wallow of the