confer with Joseph. They walked together to a set of steps in the back corner. Naila put the microdrone in her breast pocket and followed them.
Up on the roof, Joseph sat in a rotting armchair, Jacob on a stool the shape of a barbell. Naila walked over to the hole in the roof and peered down. The empty pool lounger below cast prison-bar shadows. The guys were quiet, sipping whisky and sharing the joint. Naila intercepted it and took her due, then stepped to the edge of the building to look out at the swarm moving in elastic circles above the pool.
‘Drones are frikkin scary, men.’
‘You can’t stop technological progress,’ said Joseph.
‘Progress?’ she said. ‘Progress is just the word we use to disguise power doing its thing.’ Naila let the joint drop but before she could put it out with her shoe, Jacob leapt up and snatched it from under her sole. She watched him walk away, admiring the muscles in his back.
‘Here we go again,’ said Joseph. ‘Between Niles and my gran, it’s like I’m still at uni.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t have quit,’ said Naila. ‘Maybe you would have made more progress. You could’ve been the one with the scientific breakthrough.’
‘Fuck you, Niles,’ said Joseph.
Jacob raised his eyes at the squabbling couple. Naila smiled to herself. This was an act – Joseph was bitter about his wasted vaccine research, yes, but he never cursed at her, not even in bed. Jacob lit the joint again, cupping his hands around his mouth to keep the wind from snuffing it.
‘The Chinese fucked us,’ Joseph was muttering, nudging his toe at an empty beer bottle, sending it rolling. ‘They stole our work and then they stole the credit for it.’
‘Why you so frikkin racist, men? It’s bigger than “the Chinese”. It’s the Consortium.’
‘The Sino-American Consortium?’ Jacob asked slowly, as if the words were new to him.
‘You’ve seen the SAC clinics? They’re giving out free beta vaccines for The Virus.’
‘Better than what?’ Jacob frowned.
‘No, beta. You know, like alpha beta delta?’ said Joseph. ‘A beta version means a trial.’
‘Beta version,’ Naila scoffed. ‘They should just say black version. They’re testing it on us.’
‘Oh-oh?’ Jacob said softly. Naila couldn’t read the expression on his face.
‘Human trials are the only way science can move forward,’ said Joseph.
‘Ya, and black people have always made great guinea pigs.’ Naila crossed her arms.
‘You’re always crying paternalism but development is a good thing,’ said Joseph. ‘Take AFRINET and Digit-All. Those technologies helped us leap ahead with free Wi-Fi for all.’
‘Oh yes, bwana,’ she clapped her cupped hands, ‘thank you please for foreign investment!’
‘These foreigners take out more than they put in,’ said Jacob.
‘Exactly!’ She raised a finger. ‘They only gave us free Beads because electro-nerve technology uses melanin. Again, they were testing them on us. If the product is free, you’re the product.’
‘But if you are so against Beads, why do you have one?’ Jacob turned his on and fixed her with its beam. She couldn’t see because it was flashing in her eyes but she knew the pinprick light was crawling over her face as he scribbled his fingertip at her. Was he pulling her pigtail?
‘Ya, Niles. In fact, aren’t you about to bead us all?’ Joseph asked sarcastically.
She turned her back and stared out over the lumpy green view of Lusaka. From out here, you could barely tell they were in a city. Joseph was explaining the new government-sponsored roll-out of National Registration Beads to Jacob. ‘No more laminated green ID cards. We all get chips in the finger instead.’
‘But what if you have already got a Bead?’
‘You still have to come in to the Reg Office,’ Naila said over her shoulder, ‘for an update.’
‘She knows all about it. She works there.’ Joseph’s voice was insufferable.
‘A job is a job,’ Jacob said appeasingly. ‘It is not so easy to find a job in Lusaka nowadays.’
‘So what are these for anyway?’ Naila pointed at the drones over the pool.
‘Security,’ he said.
‘Surveillance, you mean?’
Jacob tutted. He fiddled on his Digit-All, then stood and cast a screen onto the rooftop. With his hand splayed in the air, light streaming from it, he was a beautiful bare-chested wizard. Naila dragged her eyes to the video, a moving scan over rocky grasslands. People appeared, some holding signs, others holding guns, all of them shouting.
‘Ya. I know about drone photojournalism. But is that really what these tiny-ass drones are for?’ She pulled the microdrone from her shirt pocket and held it out to Jacob