Zoo City - By Lauren Beukes Page 0,10

away, curt as always. Vuyo is not his real name, of course. It's probably one of several not-hisreal-names that he uses in the course of business.

I like to think of him hanging out in a huge sprawling Internet café adjoining a raucous street market in Accra or Lagos, kinda like a 419 sweatshop, but the truth is he's probably in a dingy apartment like this one, maybe even right next door. Flying solo, because it's all carefully decentralised.

>>Kahlo999: Hey, hello. How are you? Got a very strange msg. No return address. About forks. I'll fwd it.

>>Vuyo: No! U dont know what it is girl. Might b a virus. Might b bad muti.

>>Kahlo999: Or a msg about cutlery.

>>Vuyo: U dont know. Could b rival syndicate. Police. Click here.

>>Kahlo999: What am I downloading? It's just, you know, I have very particular tastes in porn.

>>Vuyo: Propriertary firewall 4 viruses spyware malware muti. And delete that thing.

>>Kahlo999: So what's with the dental appointment, boss guy? I haven't been flossing enough?

>>Vuyo: I need u 4 an interview. 2pm. Rand Club. Frances format. Clients want to meet her.

I turn cold. Frances is a refugee in a camp in Côte d'Ivoire. Twenty-three years old. Suitably flirtatious if the moegoe on the other end of the line is a man, a good chaste Christian girl if it's a woman. More or less. Most characters are designed to be slightly flexible depending on the operator, although Frances is fairly one-dimensional. After the rebels attacked, she fled to safety, got stuck in the refugee camp, and now she can't access her father's fortune. Bog standard format. That is to say, not one of mine.

>>Kahlo999: Sorry. Not in my contract.

>>Vuyo: Not neg.

>>Kahlo999: Let's talk remuneration.

>>Vuyo: Will deduct it from ur total. Dont worry, Im keeping track.

>>Kahlo999: It would be nice if I could keep track too. Not that I don't trust you.

>>Vuyo: U forget who u dealing with girl.

>>Kahlo999: My own personal knacker. The guys who bought the lame horse of my drug debt for cheap-cheap to turn it into glue.

>>Vuyo: Lame horse? Ur horse is expensive.

>>Kahlo999: Do you know how much racehorses go for? R150,000 is cheap at the price. So, here's the thing. Where do we stand you and I? What's my lame horse ass worth?

>>Vuyo: R55,764.18.

>>Kahlo999: Profit?

>>Vuyo: Ha. No. U still owe us R94,235.82.

>>Kahlo999: That's impossible. How many moegoes have I hooked for you?

>>Vuyo: Is v. possible. U forget interest. Normally 45%, but u get employee discount. Only 34%. And it is not fish on the hook, it is the fish in the bucket that counts.

>>Kahlo999: Fuck you, Vuyo.

>>Vuyo: This deal will bring in 50 Titos. If u do well, it is worth 10% to u.

>>Kahlo999: And if I don't?

>>Vuyo: Of course u will do well. U R practically a pro. Ur dealer told us about all the stories u came with, crying about ur mama with cancer + ur dead granny + being mugged just when u were coming to pay for ur coke. This will b easy for u.

>>Kahlo999: I mean, if I don't do it at all.

>>Vuyo: I will have to add a penalty to ur total. 20% + usual interest. So that is ... let me work it out.

>>Kahlo999: I got it, thanks.

>>Vuyo: 2pm at the Rand Club. Dress nice. But not 2nice.

>>Kahlo999: Refugee chic.

>>Vuyo: Good girl. BTW ur new format – the coltan – its doing well. Head office likes it.

>>Kahlo999: What can I say? I'm all about the job satisfaction.

>>Vuyo: Cheer up girl. Greed is a bad thing. They deserve it.

Part of me thinks I do too.

I sign off and delete the forks message, but not before I've copied and pasted it into a Word doc. And I leave the install icon on the firewall waiting patiently in its folder, un-installed. I know how the Company works. Who knows what else their firewall will do?

The Rand Club is a relic of Johannesburg's Wild West days, when it was frequented by Cecil John Rhodes and other colonial slumlords who would sit around divvying up diamond fields and deciding on the fate of empires. A hangout for power people rather than two-bit crooks like Vuyo, who is waiting for me at the curved stretch of bar that folds itself around the room. I assume it's Vuyo because he's the best-dressed guy in here, in a suit and pointy shoes like shiny leather sharks.

The patrons pushing the boundaries of their liquid lunch-hour have the same aura of clingy colonial nostalgia as the venue, with its