The Children of Desolation
By Spencer Sekulin
Tumelo Laska had never believed in miracles, yet as he sat by one of Underhaven’s coveted hospital beds, he rested his face in his hands and prayed for nothing less.
Like some fool at his wit’s end, and I am that fool. He knew it made him a hypocrite, but for Kagisa he would become anything, even the devil himself. Anything to see her smile again. “You always told me miracles still happen, even though I thought that only the Old World was stupid enough to believe in them. You’d still tell me that, wouldn’t you?”
Kagisa’s breaths were her only answer, yet Tumelo still felt scolded. He took a shaky breath and ran a hand over his shaved head. Even catatonic and laden with wires and intravenous lines, lustrous obsidian hair fallen out and chestnut skin pallid, she left him breathless. Not even the buzzing overhead lights, which seemed determined to bring out every wrinkle and vein, could change that.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” he whispered. “What did you do to deserve this?”
Like every time, he knew the answers.
Tumelo squeezed Kagisa’s hand. When she squeezed back, he choked on a sob and forced a smile. She would want him to smile, but her eyes remained closed, flicking behind their lids in fevered dreams. He hoped they were good dreams of when Thabo was alive, of when they were a family and not even the Desolation could poison their happiness.
“Hold on,” he said. “I have another client. This will be paid for. You’ll get better. You’re strong . . . stronger than I ever was.” He clenched the client’s note in his other hand. “I’ll return, like I always do. I promise.”
“And if you’re wrong?” he imagined Kagisa asking.
Tumelo bit the inside of his mouth.
“Ahem,” someone said behind him. “That’s five minutes. More will be extra.”
Tumelo suddenly felt twice his fifty-three years. In the Old World he wouldn’t have been charged by the minute to visit. Neither would he have had to choose between staying by her side and paying for her treatment. That era had died a century ago, and here he was, jealous of the dead. Wishes would not save Kagisa. Only money. Money he didn’t have. He kissed her forehead and let go.
Doctor Harris leaned in the doorway, tapping his vintage Rolex, the anemic lighting reflecting in his glasses. His pinched face and plastic smile seemed made for throttling.
“Have you heard of bedside manners?” Tumelo asked.
“Everything has a price, Tumelo. You know that.”
“Right . . . I was just finishing up.”
“It’ll be another thirty for the extra twenty seconds. You know the policy.”
Prick. Tumelo forked over the bills, but Harris shadowed him down the dim hallway, his white coat smudged with God knows what. Wheelchairs, gurneys, and disorganized crash carts cluttered the way, and each open door breathed the smells and sounds of others in shoes very much like his own. Blood and urine stained the floor tiles, and the air smelled too little of antiseptic and too much of cigarettes.
“I trust you’ll pay her medical expenses?” Harris asked.
“Next month.”
“With interest?”
“With your damn interest.” Tumelo felt his stomach twist.
Another impossible promise. “I’ll pay. Please take care of her in the meantime. You’re a doctor.”
“Yes, yes, but this is still a business, and I need to—”
“Make ends meet, of course.” Tumelo reached the clinic’s rusty front door. As usual the secretary was bombed out of her mind on synthetics. He felt ashamed for leaving Kagisa here, and disgusted that it was still the best option. Harris’s droning made it worse.
“And need I remind you. If her bills are not paid, I’ll unfortunately have to clear the bed for someone who can. Though I’m sure—”
“Doctor Harris.” Tumelo kept his eyes on the door, anything but that viper. “If you do that, I don’t care if I have to cross the whole Desolation to do it, I will kill you.” He meant it, too. Look what you’re doing to me, Kagisa. Without giving Harris time to reply, he handed over a brown paper envelope. “If this doesn’t make you happy, you can shove it.”
One glance at the documents within had Harris wide-eyed. “A-Are you certain of this?”
“Absolutely.”
“But it’s your livelihood! I’m not talking about medical bills. If you can’t pay the Proprietor you’ll be—”
"Have you ever been so in love with someone you’d depart with all sense just to be with her?” When Harris only blinked, Tumelo smiled and opened the door. “Then you couldn’t possibly understand. Good day, Doctor.” Chew on that. Maybe it will grow you some conscience.
Underhaven’s grey, convoluted walkways greeted Tumelo with their usual embrace of stale air and the groaning machinery that kept southern Africa’s last subterranean city alive. He wondered if he’d inhaled the secretary’s synthetics when he saw a massive German shepherd sitting by the clinic’s entrance. It perked up and studied him with its brown eyes. He hadn’t seen a dog in twenty years.
“Not the kind of miracle I asked for,” he muttered.
The dog wagged its tail.
“Careful. I know a few people who would eat you in a heartbeat.”
It cocked its head and kept wagging.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Tumelo craned his neck to let the cavern’s artificial sun warm his face. His father would roll in his grave if he knew he’d just used the Iris, his family’s greatest treasure, as collateral for bills he could never afford. He resisted the urge to renege on the deal and hurried into the musky streets. He had a job to do, and every second lost was a second Kagisa couldn’t afford to lose.
Underhaven’s claustrophobic forest of towering apartments, water pipes, and recycling silos pressed around him. Despite being one of the few places people could survive without radiation gear, Underhaven was more commonly called Underdump, much to the Overseer’s chagrin. Tumelo smirked at one of the grainy television screens that hung at every junction. Upon it, Overseer Henrik Ward made his daily address. A grey-haired man Tumelo’s age, but with pale skin, tailored clothes, and half as many wrinkles.
“Citizens of Underhaven, we have been blessed with another day,” Henrik said, his elegant voice butchered by the crackling speakers. “We are the jewel of these lands. Underhaven survives by your efforts. Let us carry on our duties today for the building of a better tomorrow.” Henrik gave the same smile he did every day, and the same gesture: a closed-fisted arm across his chest. At least he bothered to say something different every day.
The streets teemed with gritty townsfolk and merchants, with undercurrents of orphans from the slums. And fanatics. The Order of Retribution had recruiters at every corner, hawking the crusade against the mutant demons in human skin, called Desolates, as a noble cause for the city’s otherwise aimless youth. The Order’s zealous hunters swaggered about in their red cloaks and ramshackle armour, eager for excuses to use their holy bludgeons on any suspected Desolate. Tumelo tried to ignore them. They were right to hate the Desolates, but they reminded him too much of pain and regret.
“Hey, Tumelo!” one of the zealots said. “Got any leads on Desolates for us?”
Tumelo met the wild-haired youth’s hazel eyes and felt his stomach twist with recognition. Rudo, one of the local orphan boys. Tumelo had watched him and so many others grow up. Kagisa had even taken Rudo in once, when he’d caught a fever. He still looked no older than sixteen. Thabo was that age when he joined. The Order bled young blood. “No, I have not. Good hunting.”
Rudo blocked Tumelo’s path with his bludgeon. Several others joined him. “Come on. You travel a lot on that old locomotive of yours. You sure you haven’t got any?”
“I’m sorry.” Tumelo pushed the bludgeon aside. “And why would a Desolate come here, to the heart of your Order?”
Rudo glanced at the others, who shrugged.
“I thought so,” Tumelo said. “Those things are not idiots.”
“But—!”
“How old are you, Rudo?”
Rudo squared his bony shoulders. “Fifteen yesterday.”
“Seventeen!” another said. “We’re grown men!”
No, just boys with dreams of grandeur. Is this the Order’s cream of the crop? “Then you’re lucky there aren’t any Desolates here. They would turn you to paste without breaking a sweat. Go to school. Learn something useful. Do whatever kids your age do these days. Just don’t throw your lives away being fodder for those geriatric wonders that collect your weekly tithes. Your lives are worth more than that.”
Thabo’s was, too, but Tumelo doubted they’d listen either.
Rudo pressed his bludgeon against Tumelo’s gut. “Mind your words, Grandpa. That’s blasphemy.”
Tumelo knew what they saw—a man whose dark beard was peppered with white, his ebony skin crisscrossed with pale scars and wrinkles, his muscular engineer’s body half of what it used to be. An old man running out of time. A relic who had no right telling them how to live. Too bad he would do it anyway.
“I’m giving you my best advice. Walk away while you still can. The moment they send you out, there’s no going back.”
“A Desolate killed my sister!”
The others murmured their own grievances.
“So, you think you’ll just exterminate them?” Tumelo asked.
“We’re not quitting until they’re all dead.”
“You’ll be dead long before they are.”
Rudo seethed. The others closed in and were startled when a dog started barking. Tumelo yanked the bludgeon from Rudo’s hand and pressed it under his jaw before he could blink.
“See what I mean? I’m an old man. Desolates never age. Imagine what one could do to you.” Tumelo shoved the weapon back into a speechless Rudo’s hands and stormed off, mindful of the dog trailing him. Must be old and hungry, like me. He quickened his pace, eager to get to the Iris before—
“Popular as ever with the devout I see,” a velvety, precise voice purred at his elbow. “The Proprietor sends his regards.”
Crap. Tumelo drew debt collectors like wasteland blood flies. The Proprietor was the puppet master of Underhaven’s criminal underworld. Everyone owed him money, but no one ever saw him, only his goons. This sweet-mouthed little midge was Beetle. The portly man, barely four feet tall, waddled up alongside Tumelo, bringing his usual stench of garlic.
“He can keep his regards,” Tumelo said. “Tell him I’ll pay after my next job.”
“Hmm, and when will that be?”
“Today. Sooner if you leave me alone.”
Beetle tittered. “The Proprietor cannot bank on promises forever. Your debts grow by the day, let me check . . . ah yes, as of today, you’re at seven million.”
That could pay for Kagisa’s care ten times over. Tumelo clenched his teeth.
“The Proprietor is eager to know your repayment plans,” Beetle said. “You’re his star debtor, after all.”
“My father was, not me,” Tumelo growled.
“Need I remind you that your father died without paying a cent towards his dues? After everything the Proprietor did to keep Laska Locomotives from going belly-up.”
“After you lied about the interest rates.”
“Oh my, that’s slanderous.” Beetle folded his hands over his prodigious gut. “The Proprietor never lies. Your father simply neglected to read the contract.”
“Then maybe you should have read it to him!”
Beetle showed his crooked teeth. “Now, where’s the fun in that?”
Some inheritance you left me, Old Man, Tumelo thought. You never told me about this. Probably never knew. Lucky me. “I need more time.”
Beetle jotted it down on a notepad. “Needs more time, says Tumelo. Anything to add?”
Tumelo could think of a few choice words, but decided against it, letting the poison fester in his stomach like a bad meal. His ancestors must have felt the same, under the boot of their oppressors. He shook his head.
“I don’t think he’ll like it,” Beetle said.
“It’s all I have.”
“How about that bracelet of yours?”
Tumelo instinctively drew his right arm back. “It’s not for sale.”
Beetle pouted. “Pity. Artifacts like that sell well amongst collectors.”
“I’ll make another payment after this job.”
“Then get busy working or get busy picking a casket.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Much obliged.” Beetle tucked the notepad away. “That mutt seems to like you.”
Tumelo glanced at the dog. “Probably smells the ration bars on me.”
“Ration bars?” Beetle said, tongue flicking across his lower lip.
“That’ll count for a payment.”
“Of what, ten dollars?”
“Five point three to be exact.”
Number crunching prick. Tumelo entertained the thought of shoving them down the man’s throat. Instead he groaned and handed them over, and Beetle left with more swagger in his gait than someone with such a low center of gravity should.
Tumelo glared at the dog. “I was hoping you’d bite his pancake butt and save me some trouble.”
Underhaven’s train yard was ten minutes away, where eleven gated tunnels took separate tracks to the surface. Eight trains occupied the platforms, mostly derelict and overrun with rust, and far fewer than the thirty there’d once been. The tracks were too treacherous, and the trade too sparse for most folk to bother anymore. A dying art—one Tumelo was proud to go down with, if need be. Among all the rundown engines the Iris stood out like a hawk amidst pigeons. Sleek and powerful, her armoured hull painted in bold strokes of blue and grey. Even after all these years, the sight of the Old World diesel engine sent his heart aflutter. A Class 43-000 General Electric type C30ACi diesel-electric locomotive, a relic from his great-great-grandfather, who’d been an engineer and conductor for Transnet Freight before the Desolation. It had been passed down for generations, along with blood charged with a love for machinery.
Tumelo savoured the sight, feeling the years unwind until he felt like a boy again, full of dreams and wonder. Then he took out the note he’d found under his front door. Blank. A signal that someone wanted discreet service. Yet when he glanced around the platform all he saw was a scrawny girl sitting against a recycling bin; a bundle of rags with grey cloth wrapped over her eyes and faded hair that bore ghostly hints of auburn.
Just a beggar. No one’s here.
He walked past the blind girl, tossing a coin at her bare feet as he went.
“You’re late,” the girl said.
Tumelo stopped and looked back. The beggar girl was on her feet, though facing the Iris and not him. She’d been sitting on a suitcase and now held it with both hands. It was almost as big as her. “Excuse me?”
“I said you’re late.”
Tumelo blinked when the German shepherd nuzzled up to her. She scratched between its ears, and it sat, ever watchful. “It’s yours?”
The girl smiled, white teeth to an anemic-pale face. “His name’s Jasa.”
“You had him trail me?”
“In case you got into any trouble.”
This is ridiculous. Tumelo wondered if he was the target of some joke. “You’re the client. A blind kid with a dog.”
“Does that matter? I’ll pay.”
“Depends where you want to go.”
The girl turned, using Jasa for support. The dog guided her to Tumelo. She had a limp, and her breaths came hard. Bad blood, judging by the pallor. A bad leg, too. When she looked up at him, albeit over his shoulder, he felt sorry for her. Another orphan with more hope than sense. That’s how kids deserved to be, but this world ate them alive. An urchin like her could never afford his services. What dreams had gotten into her head to make her want to leave Underhaven? The Desolation would kill her in a day, and her little dreams with her.
“I’d like to go to the end of the One-Way Track.”
Tumelo almost swallowed a mouthful of air. “What?”
“Where the tracks end, before the Burn Line.”
“No.” Tumelo turned away and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Go back to your begging.”
“Aren’t you Tumelo Laska?” she asked. “People say you’re the only captain that takes the One-Way Track.”
“So what if I am? I’m not taking you there. It’s a death sentence.” For him, too, given the odds.
“Will this change your mind?”
Tumelo heard the suitcase locks click and felt a tingle go down his spine. Was she pulling a gun on him? He turned in time to see a mountain of bills spill out. Two million at least, maybe three. “Where did you get that?!”
The girl smirked. “I earned it.”
“Stole it more like.”
“How could I have done that?” When Tumelo remained speechless, she cocked her head. “Do you believe in miracles, Mister Laska?”
“No—” Tumelo looked at the cash again, then the Iris, then back into Underhaven’s hazy depths where Kagisa waited. She’d never forgive him for this, but he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t. “How soon can you be ready?”
“I already am.”
“Then get onboard. The Iris will make it in three days. Two if the tracks are clear.”
The girl nodded and began clumsily pushing the money back into the suitcase. Tumelo helped her, rejecting the urge to steal it. He was a man of his word, and Laska Locomotives had a perfect record. Next to Kagisa, and before his own life, he cherished that golden reputation. Come hell or high water, sandstorms or Ravagers, Tumelo Laska always delivered.
After helping the girl climb the rungs to the engine’s main compartment and marvelling at Jasa who made it in one leap, Tumelo followed. He flipped on the overhead lights, bringing out the gleam of every inch of polished steel, and then closed his eyes for a moment, savouring the fragrance of oil and solvents and the reassuring firmness of the deck beneath his boots. It felt like stepping into another world. His world. Then he took a crumpled document from his pocket.
“I’ll need you to sign this contract. Sorry, I don’t have braille. I can read it for you.”
The girl stared obliviously at the wall, stroking Jasa’s head. “It’s okay. Jasa trusts you.”
“We just met.”
“He would have torn your throat out by now if he didn’t. That’s what happened with the last one that tried to swindle us.”
Tumelo looked at the happily wagging dog. He laughed it off while taking an extra step back. “I’ll need a name for the contract. You have a name, right?”
“Zala Korošec.”
Tumelo began writing the name, then stopped. What am I doing? He bit his lip, glad Zala couldn’t see his face. I’m taking a fortune from this kid and taking her to her death. A better man would have helped her put the money somewhere secure, treat her leg, and buy a place to live in a safe part of town. A better man would have saved her, but he was just a lovesick fool.
He finished the contract, and Zala cosigned with a sloppy X. When she smiled and thanked him, he felt as if someone had twisted a screw between his ribs. He would hate himself for the rest of his life for this.
The things I do for love.
#
Good luck, you crazy bastard.
The signal patch rang through Tumelo’s headset in Morse code—a parting message from Underhaven’s moody station master. Tumelo smirked. Luck. Never in his hundreds of runs had he counted on it. Luck was a fickle mistress at best. A backstabbing crackhead usually.
He focused on the gauges as the Iris accelerated. Her twelve-cylinder engine roared, taking her to an easy sixty kilometres per hour. Pale lights flashed by on both sides of the track, marking every hundred meters, and the Iris’s lamps painted the track silver. Clearing Underhaven’s tunnels always reminded him of the first time his father had taken him out—the day he’d realized that dreams could come true.
“Remember to keep her slow until you’re past the junction,” Father had said with a wink. “It’s no rush to get out. When you reach the open tracks, that’s when the real race begins.”
Daylight appeared ahead, and the Iris burst into the Desolation, veering along the Hawequas Mountains and into the lowlands. Somewhere southwest, in the red haze, lurked the ruins of Cape Town. Capital of South Africa, back when nations existed.
Zala inhaled sharply. “We’re outside! Aren’t we? It feels warmer.”
Tumelo had offered her the living compartment, where she could stay in comfort the whole journey—God knows she deserved at least that much—but she’d insisted on sitting in the seat next to his, where he had sat as a boy. As to what a blind girl could hope to experience, he did not know, but her smile told him she enjoyed it, and that was enough.
“Yes, we are,” he said at last. “How does it look? Please tell me!”
“Do you really want to know?”
Zala smiled ear to ear, and Jasa, sitting beside her, wagged his tail.
Damn kid. Tumelo told her, detailing the skeletal remains of Wellington and Paarl and the eternal red sky. Trains lying abandoned on tributary tracks. A group of optimistic scavengers in trucks tried to catch them on the way inland.
“They’re too slow. Already choking on dust. No one outruns the Iris.”
“You like it a lot,” Zala said. “Your train.”
Tumelo eased off the throttle and realized he was smiling. “I do.”
Zala looked ahead. “I feel that way about Jasa. He’s my best friend.”
“I’d be a sorry man if a machine was my best friend.”
“Then who?”
Tumelo felt his mirth evaporate. “Someone far away.”
“Oh.” Zala kicked her little legs back and forth, the cushioned seat making her look even smaller. “I hope you see your friend again.”
You’re only making this harder. “Yeah, me too,” Tumelo said, amazed that such a kind urchin girl had survived so long.
“There aren’t many trains left, are there?” Zala asked.
“And none like the Iris,” Tumelo said. “My great-great-grandfather ran trains. He saved this one from the Desolation. Laska Locomotives has never needed another. She can easily pull over a hundred cars, has repellent coatings and sealed links to keep the bad air out. It’s all I need. Right now she’s even faster. Just five cars—fuel, living quarters, supplies, and two dummies.”
“Dummies?”
Tumelo winked despite himself—just as Father had done when Tumelo had asked that same question in Zala’s place. “Hopefully it’s a smooth run and you’ll never have to find out.”
“Why do you call it Iris?”
“My great-grandfather named it that, after some Old World goddess. Apparently she could travel to hell and back. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Zala frowned. The Desolation’s crimson light offset her pallor, but the way she sagged in the chair reminded him of her sickness. The silence gave too much room for guilt. So he told her the stories his father had passed to him, tales of the desolate lands they were passing, of beautiful forests and fields and the extinct creatures that had inhabited them. Lions, zebras, elephants, and all the rest. He described them one by one, much to her delight.
“How do you know so much?” she asked, ramrod straight with curiosity.
“Because my ancestors lived here,” Tumelo said. “The Khoisan people. They walked these lands long before they had a name, when the world was plentiful and free. They were one of the oldest cultures on Earth.”
“Were?” Zala frowned. “What happened?”
Tumelo found himself staring at his bracelet. Passed down like the Iris, but much older. A strand of ostrich eggshell beads, originally tied with giraffe hair. It had been a necklace, but had broken down over the generations, leaving a bracelet Tumelo held together with string.
“Other people came,” he said at last. “People who saw my ancestors as animals. They were hunted as such, forced to live in the barren regions no one else wanted. There was much division back then. By the colour of your skin and the language you spoke, things that should have been a mark of pride rather than shame.”
“That’s terrible,” Zala whispered, hands gripping the sides of her seat.
Just like what I’m doing to you, Tumelo thought, jaw tensing. They went miles in silence, passing through fields of sand and ash. Drifts had blown over the tracks, but the Iris’s plow cleared it away. It would get worse. The closer you got to the Burn Line, the worse the wind and acid showers and drifts. Past the Burn Line lurked a hell only a Desolate could walk.
“You never told me why you want to do this,” Tumelo said at last.
Some colour returned to Zala’s face. “It’s a long story. . . .”
“They all are. We have time.”
Zala chewed her lip, but before she could speak Tumelo heard coded beeps in his headset—the Proprietor’s call sign. His blood froze. He glanced at Zala, then reached to the device on his control panel and tapped twice to acknowledge. The Proprietor responded immediately.
CHECK YOUR LEFT UPPER POCKET.
Tumelo blinked and felt there. Sure enough, where those ration bars used to be, he felt a small note. It may as well have been a scorpion.
OPEN IT IN YOUR BATHROOM AND CHECK UNDER THE SINK.
Zala seemed content to just feel the Desolation’s hot light on her face. Tumelo took a deep breath, then eased out of his seat. “I’ll be right back. The track will be straight for at least an hour. There’s some rations in the drawer on your right, I’m sure Jasa can help you reach them.”
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.” To speak with the devil.
Tumelo checked under the sink and wasn’t sure whether to be furious or amazed when he found a blocky device. An Old World radio transceiver, military grade. A treasure in its own right. It crackled. Tumelo put it to his ear. “You snuck into my train.”
A distorted voice chuckled. “Beetle may be one of my dues collectors, but before anything else he was a thief. I hate wasting talent.”
Tumelo measured his breaths. The Proprietor had him in a web, but he dared not struggle yet. “What do you want?”
“I have a job for you. If you play things right, it will be the last job you’ll ever need to do.”
The Proprietor’s words always had two edges, and his promises were poison, but the temptation tugged at Tumelo’s heart. “I’m listening.”
“I want the girl.”
Tumelo blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t play dumb. You know what I mean.”
“Why would you want her?”
“That is none of your business. All that matters is that you are in the perfect position to give her to me.”
"She signed a contract. I am bound—”
“Open the letter, Tumelo.”
Tumelo clenched his teeth and did so. The letter was a contract, elegantly handwritten in blue ink. His skin crawled. The most powerful man in Underhaven had held this paper.
“Your new contract, dated to yesterday,” the Proprietor said. “It rescinds your current one and absolves your reputation of any tarnishing. I had one of my scribes append your signature for you. Your parents did well to teach you such elegant hand. And don’t tell me I cannot do that. I can. Now will you listen, or must I remind you how far I can reach?”
Tumelo bit his tongue and waited.
“Good. In exchange for your service, I will pay triple what the girl offered, and your father’s debts will be erased. Carte. Blanche.”
Tumelo’s head spun. He was lying. He had to be. “You had enough time to sneak onto my train beforehand. You could have captured her ten times over.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“No, I’m just—”
“It’s not a detail for you to worry about,” the Proprietor said.
“And this is not a difficult choice. All you need to do is say yes. One syllable to end all of your worries. From there, take the last junction to the Boneyard. We will be waiting and oh so very grateful.”
“I . . .” Tumelo swallowed hard. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Is that so? I spoke with Doctor Harris this morning. Kagisa’s prognosis is rather grim, though I did encourage Harris to do his best. He’s my creature, after all.”
Proprietor or not, Tumelo bristled. “You can threaten me all you want, but if you dare hurt Kagisa—”
“Just a reminder, friend. I also had Harris prepare a sedative. It’s in the drawer where you keep your antiquated maps. Use it on the girl no more than five hours before you arrive. It will make things easier for all of us.”
Between the hum of the Iris and the throbbing of his heart, Tumelo barely heard himself. “You’re asking me to . . .”
“I know what I am asking, and you will do it. You can’t afford not to. I know what you’re willing to die for and it’s not that girl. The only kid you’d die for got minced in Pretoria. You have ten minutes.”
The radio went dead, leaving Tumelo feeling as if someone had punched him in the gut. That bastard. He tossed the device aside in disgust. Too late. He felt vile, but was this any worse than what he was already doing? His throat tightened as he remembered the day his son Thabo was born. The joy, the fear, and the tears he had shed. Zala was someone’s daughter too, born into the world innocent.
When Tumelo entered the control room, Zala lay asleep in the chair, a curled-up ball of rags. Jasa watched him warily. Tumelo couldn’t look into his eyes for fear that they would know. Sure enough, an injector waited in the map drawer, filled with milky serum. He glanced at the transmitter. Ten minutes. It had been six so far.
Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.
He tapped twice and was glad that Zala was asleep when he retched…
