The Apex Book of World SF 2 (4 page)

Mr Goop stopped
walking and waited patiently in the hot sun. Tamuka closed his eyes and
imagined the happy sun-soaked scene behind the wall; he could almost smell the
chlorine in the water.

"You are
unauthorised to be near these premises," bellowed a disembodied voice, "Please
vacate the immediate area in twenty seconds, or become liable to arrest and
prosecution."

It scared Tamuka so
badly that he jumped backwards, deep into a very dense and thorny wait-a-bit
bush that he had already so-carefully avoided. As Mr Goop plunged off the
tracks to get to him, Tamuka kept very still. He could feel blood starting to
drip, warmly, where the small needle-sharp thorns had painfully punctured right
through his sun-screen coveralls and school uniform.
Well, it wasn't called
the wait-a-bit bush for nothing
, Tamuka thought. The trick was to keep very
still and remove each thorn-studded, vine-like branch, one by one. The property
had to belong to a really rich and important person to have such a security
system. Tamuka tried to stay calm, but his breathing was hard and deep,
steaming up the clear oxygen mask. At least he had remembered to strap the
vulnerable oxygen line underneath his clothes before leaving the school
airlock. And so far, he could hear the steady hiss of the mask: no thorns had
penetrated it.

"Nineteen."

Mr Goop reached
Tamuka, its grey skin paler than usual, and began to gently remove the thorny
branches, one by one.

"Eighteen."

Mr Goop had done
this before, Tamuka could see. There was no hesitation in his movements.

"Seventeen."

Tamuka was mentally
racked by visions of armed and armoured men, jumping from fliers in the sky to
capture him at any moment.

"Sixteen."

There was a measured
haste to Mr Goop's actions now; Tamuka could tell that it knew, in its way,
what could happen if Tamuka was arrested.

"Fifteen."

The surface of the
wall began to hum and several holes opened like pupil irises along the top.
From these apertures sprung robotic necks with camera heads, which swung
themselves around and whined into focus on Tamuka and Mr Goop.

"Fourteen."

Faster now, and with
no thought to the thorns that were scratching his own skin, Mr Goop started on
the branches wrapped around Tamuka's head.

"Thirteen."

New holes opened
along the wall and out popped several sleek, gun-bearing robot arms. Beams from
their blue lasers roamed Mr Goop and Tamuka's bodies like glowing beetles.

"Twelve."

The last branch
finally came free and Mr Goop hauled Tamuka over its shoulder and sprinted up
to the tracks. Though the countdown had ended, the robot cameras and guns
continued to track them.

Mr Goop did not stop
when it made the safety of the tracks, or when Tamuka flailed to be let down,
or even when its own breathing became ragged and its footfalls heavy. Tamuka
lay helpless in its strong grip, wondering at Mr Goop's reaction. Surely they
were safe now.

Still, he had been
twelve seconds from a fate possibly worse than death; the faster they went and
the further they were, the better for him. Tamuka then had a flash of what
might have happened had he not been with Mr Goop.
What use would a normal
kid's Geneform have been
, he thought? He would certainly have been
arrested, or worse.

Mr Goop set Tamuka
gently down by the front entrance to their apartment block before collapsing in
a heap. It gasped for air like a stranded fish, but just as Mr Goop did not
speak, it did not sweat either—none of the Geneforms ever did. Digging for the
remote digikey in his schoolbag, he looked upwards and squinted at the thin
clouds whipping past floor one hundred and twelve. Their apartment was one of
ten thousand in the government housing block. They were on the ninety-second
floor.
Just below the cloud-line
, Tamuka thought grumpily, not that they
could have seen anything anyway, set right in the middle of the block as they
were, with no external windows. Their block was officially called Tsvangirai
Heights, after some ancient, long dead prime minister, back when this was a
country, not a state, called Zimbabwe.

Tamuka found the
digikey, pulled it out, and waved it at the thick glass doors. They swung
silently open to the air lock chamber beyond. Tamuka ambled in slowly, giving
the tired Mr Goop enough time to rise and join him. If Mr Goop was locked
outside it would be denied access until a registered owner came to fetch it.

 

As usual, there was
no-one home when they arrived. After tending to Tamuka's cuts and scratches, Mr
Goop opened a cup of Instacook noodles and set it out on the kitchen counter.
Then it climbed into its capsule in the adjoining scullery and closed the
hatch. It wanted to be left alone then. Tamuka stood in the kitchen and munched
on the now-steaming hot noodles, while absently staring out of the fake
windows.

 

Out there, if you
believed the windows, it was a late summer's day and a brisk wind blew leaves
around silently. The wind swooped down from the thick European pine forests
just past their back-garden fence. You could turn the sound on, even the smells
with some of the newer models he had seen on display in the mall. You could
also change the scene with those new ones. Not these ones though; these were
all standard issue and came with the apartment. They had one built-in scene:
Remote European Countryside. Throughout the whole apartment all you could see
were these damn forests, cows in rough-walled fields and the odd blackbird. Not
forgetting, never forgetting, the damn scarecrow in a wheat field outside
Tamuka's bedroom window.

Ever since he could
remember, he had been absolutely terrified of that damn scarecrow. That was
before he was old enough to realise that none of it was real, or could ever be
real anymore, not even in Europe itself. However, even when he had finally
caught on, the irrational fear remained and he was even more scared than
before. Eventually, against government policy, he had pinned up a large picture
of an extinct puppy over the window. The picture was still there, and his
parents let it stay, even though it would mean a fine if it was ever
discovered. Tamuka vaguely remembered that the "windows" had something to do
with the psychological-well-being of the approximately thirty thousand
inhabitants of Mbare, which was his block's informal name.

Tamuka knew the unofficial
name used to belong to a high-density suburb that existed here once, when this
had been the capital city—not just the state capital city—Harare. The current
Mbare was the first of the really big housing blocks to be built in the United
Federation of Africa. The proper name for the block was an Arcology. Every
basic need was met within the arcology, apart from their schooling. Tamuka wasn't
sure exactly why school was outside Mbare, but it was also something to do with
that psychological-well-being stuff. Inside Mbare was a huge interior mall,
thirty storeys high and filled with all the shops, cinemas, playgrounds, gyms,
sports grounds, restaurants, nightclubs, lakes and parks one could ever need.
Quite a few of the adults—including his parents—worked here, too. Some had
never left the arcology and were quick and proud to say so.

Although the idea of
forever living in Mbare was not for Tamuka, he could understand why others
could do so. It was, he supposed, like living in one huge, close-knit village. People
could know you, and you them, for your whole lifetime. Families often made
deals to move their apartments closer together. Tamuka's closest friend,
nicknamed Chinhavira, was surrounded by no less than twenty apartments, all
belonging to members of her extended family. They were strict traditionalists
and her father, Mr Tonderai Mpofu, held a senior position in the Tsvangirai
Height's People's Council. Chinhavira already had an apartment that was being
rented out until she married. It seemed to Tamuka that she had no choice either
in her parent's choice of apartment, or her future genetically-selected,
arcology-born marriage partner.

Tamuka slurped the
last of his noodles down, opened the atomiser by the sink and threw the cold
cup inside. He flicked the lid down and it automatically locked in place with a
vacuum hiss. A muffled bang came from inside as the cup was atomised and sucked
away. Gone, forever. Like his grandfather, even if his parents said he was with
all their ancestors, watching over all their living family.

"Can you hear me,
Grandfather?" Tamuka whispered, half expecting, half dreading an answer. The
apartment remained silent.

 

"Tamuka!"

 

His mother's call
jerked Tamuka rudely awake on his bed where he had fallen asleep while reading.
He leapt up and tossed the digital screen-reader to the bed. Quickly, he wiped
his face and straightened his clothes. It would not do for mother to know he
had been asleep, on top of whatever else was obviously bothering her. He
hurried out of his bedroom; if she had to call twice, there would be hell to
pay.

Mrs Kundiso Zimudzi
was a formidable woman when stirred to the occasion. His father often said that
it was this fiery quality that had drawn him to her in the first place. But the
look Tamuka got as he rounded the corner into the kitchen made him wish his
father had found another, less dangerous quality. Most people did not recognise
the danger signs—distracted by her jet-black eyes and slim elegant eyebrows,
neatly shaven head and skin the colour of burnt wild honey. Her short body was
fit and generously proportioned. Her bland grey domestic worker's coveralls
were always touched with a bit of colour and individuality. Today, Tamuka
noticed that it was in the form of a fake but beautiful golden scarab beetle
brooch. All these attributes could—if you did not know her well enough— keep
you distracted until she suddenly had you at her mercy. Tamuka knew her all too
well.

"Perhaps you would
like to tell me why Mr Goop is in the capsule, and won't come out when I call?"
she asked. She placed her hand on her hip and Tamuka's danger meter shot up
about ten points. She hardly ever did that!

He took pains to be
totally honest, and yet very careful. "I'm not sure," he replied tentatively, "we
had some trouble on the way home and Mr Goop carried me; perhaps it's just
tired…?" He turned away, trying to look anywhere except at his mother.

"Not boring you, I
hope?" asked his mother lightly.

Of course, what she
was really saying was, if you don't look me in the eye right now and fully
answer my questions, there's going to be hell to pay. He turned and looked her
squarely in the eyes. It was no easy task.

Tamuka relayed the
whole day's events in one long breath, and had to breathe deeply afterwards.
His mother was silent, another rare thing; she regarded him carefully as though
seeing him from a whole new perspective. Although she said nothing, her eyes
glistened more, he thought, before she crossed the kitchen and enfolded him in
a tight hug.

"Don't you ever be
so foolish again, Tamuka," she whispered but held him even tighter for the
longest of moments. And just then he wasn't a big boy of twelve, embarrassed by
parental displays of affection. He was a little boy who'd had a big scare. He
cried a little and his mother hummed sympathetically while gently swaying from
side to side.

"Your father is
working a double, up at the air docks," his mother said, after she had slowly
broken their embrace. She then bustled around the kitchen making dinner.
Presently, she turned to him, "Now hold on, what do we have here?" She whisked
out his father's blue lunch box from behind her back. "Methinks, young sir,
that your father would be rather pleased to see this. Why don't you take it up
to him?"

Tamuka wiped away
his tears and grinned excitedly. "But what about Mr Goop?" He realised he hadn't
even considered going without it.

"Don't worry about
Mr Goop for now. You go on, and I want you back in an hour for dinner, that's
one hour only, mister." Tamuka turned and ran down the short hallway to the
front door.

"And don't forget to
put your coat on, it gets very cold up there after sunset," his mother called
out after him.

Tamuka had
forgotten, and dutifully put on the coat before slamming the door open, and
then shut.
What a day it's been so far
, he thought as he eagerly ran
down the corridor—from the morning's humiliation to the afternoon's
ordeal…and now he got to go and see his father at work—without Mr Goop. It
was a strange feeling not having Mr Goop in his shadow. A bit scary even, but he
felt wonderfully grown up, just like a short adult really. He stopped running
and a few people passed by. He nodded hellos, and felt even more adult when
they nodded back.

 

"Thanks, son," murmured Tamuka's father as he man-handled a small crate into position inside a
much larger one. Tamuka placed the lunch box in his father's work bag, which
hung on a nearby hook. In the dim light of the cavernous warehouse underneath
the rooftop runway, his father, Mr Tapiwa Zimudzi, sweated profusely. It ran
down in sheets over his enormous bare barrel chest, staining dark his light
green labourer's coverall, which was knotted at his waist. Standing at over six
feet eight, his father was as huge as his mother was diminutive, one of his
arms alone was as big as both Tamuka's legs put together. Tamuka had sometimes
heard laughter when they all walked together in the mall, but normally all it
took was one look from either of his parents to shut that person up. His father
had a square face and blunt, craggy features and could not really be called
handsome—until he smiled. He, too, sported a clean scalp.
One that shines
like a polished cannon ball and is just as hard,
Tamuka thought.

 

"Tamuka, are you
here at all, son?" asked his father, as he hefted another heavy crate.