Nalo Hopkinson: Midnight Robber

“A proposal, yes. A discreet, unlinked courier service. Special government rate for you and the whole Palaver House. We offering to bring and carry your private messages.”

Private messages! Privacy! The most precious commodity of any Marryshevite. The tools, the machines, the buildings; even the earth itself on Toussaint and all the Nation Worlds had been seeded with nanomites—Granny Nanny’s hands and her body. Nanomites had run the nation ships. The Nation Worlds were one enormous data-gathering system that exchanged information constantly through the Grande Nanotech Sentient Interface: Granny Nansi’s Web. They kept the Nation Worlds protected, guided and guarded its people. But a Marryshevite couldn’t even self take a piss without the toilet analyzing the chemical composition of the urine and logging the data in the health records. Except in pedicab runner communities. They were a new sect, about fifty years old. They lived in group households and claimed that it was their religious right to use only headblind tools. People laughed at them, called them a ridiculous pappyshow. Why do hard labour when Marryshow had made that forever unnecessary? But the Grande ’Nansi Web had said let them be. It had been designed to be flexible, to tolerate a variety of human expression, even dissension, so long as it didn’t upset the balance of the whole.

But what the runners were offering now was precious beyond description: an information exchange system of which the ’Nansi Web would be ignorant. The possibilities multiplied in Antonio’s mind. “The whole Palaver House?” he asked.

“Seen, brother. Some of we did want to extend the offer to you one, oui? But then we start to think; if we putting we trust in only you, what kind of guarantee that go give we? Not to say that you is anything but a honest man, Compère, but this way we have some, how you call it, checks and balances in the deal, right?”

“And what guarantees you offering we?” asked Antonio petulantly.

“Contract between we and you. On handmade paper, not datastock.”

“Headblind paper too? How?”

“We make it from wood pulp.”

Like very thin composition board, Antonio imagined. Koo ya, how these people were crafty. “And what your terms would be?”

“Some little payment for we services, and reduction of we taxes to the same level as the pleasure workers and them.”

Crafty, oui. Turn right away round from paying the government to having the government pay you. Palaver House would have to mask the activity as something else, probably a government-dedicated taxi service. Only the Inner Palaver House could be privy to it, but it ain’t have nothing unusual in something like that. Antonio found himself whispering, “We could do it…”

“Me know so. You going to come to terms with we?”

“Maybe. You have ahm, a private place where me and some next people could meet with your board?”

“Yes, man.” They set a meeting time. She told him the place. “One of we go come and get you. Look smart, partner. You coming online again.” She warbled again in impossibly intricate nannysong. Antonio’s ear popped. In a voice schooled to convey worry the runner said: “Sorry man, too sorry. It working again?”

“Yes.” He was still marvelling at the few minutes he’d been dead to the web. Never before since birth. He chirruped in nannysong for his house eshu.

“Master,” said the eshu, “you want me?” No visuals this time. It was capricious sometimes.

“Yes. Something… malfunction in the blasted headblind four-eye in this pedicab, and I was only getting static for a second. I just making sure you still getting through.”

On the screen, the eshu appeared, spat. “Cho. Dead metal.” It winked out.

“I name Beata,” the woman said. She stuck out a paw. He shook it. Her palm was rough. From work, Antonio realised. How strange.

“Seen.” They had an agreement. Silently, she leapt onto the roadway, stepped into the traces and set off again.

They were at the entrance to Antonio’s house in minutes. “Here you go, Compère. Safe and sound and ready to ferret out your woman business.”

Quashee and Ione? Antonio felt jealousy turning like a worm in his belly. He didn’t like the weight of the cuckold’s horns settling on his brow. His mind was so worked up, he barely remembered to pay Beata. He got down from the cab and would have walked away, but she hauled it into his road and stood there sweaty and grimy, blocking his path. She poked a bit of betel out from between two teeth with a black-rimed nail. Flicked it away. Smiled redly at him. He threw some cash at her. She caught it, inspected the coin insolently and tucked it into her bubby-band. “Walk good, Compère. Remember what I say.”

He was sure he could still smell the sweat of her even though she had jogged off. He opened the white picket gates and walked up the long path towards the mayor house.

This day, Antonio couldn’t take no pleasure in his big, stoosh home, oui? He didn’t even self notice the tasteful mandala of rock that his Garden had built around the flag pole near the entrance when he first took office. The pale pink rockstone quarried from Shak-Shak Bay didn’t give him no joy. The sound of the Cockpit County flag cracking in the light breeze didn’t satisfy him. His eye passed right over the spouting fountain with the lilies floating in it and the statue of Mami Wata in the middle, arching her proud back to hold her split fishtail in her own two hands. The trinkling sound of the fountain didn’t soothe his soul. Is the first time he didn’t notice the perfection of his grounds: every tree healthy, every blade of grass green and fat and juicy. He didn’t remark on the snowcone colours of the high bougainvillaea hedge. He didn’t feel his chest swell with pride to see the marble walls of the mayor house gleaming white in the sun.

Quashee and Ione? For true?

On the way, Antonio found Tan-Tan playing all by herself up in the julie-mango tree in the front yard. Her minder was only scurrying round the tree, chicle body vibrating for anxious; its topmost green crystal eyes tracking, tracking, as it tried to make sure Tan-Tan was all right. “Mistress,” it was whining, “you don’t want to come down? You know Nursie say you mustn’t climb trees. You might fall, you know. Fall, yes, and Nursie go be vex with me. Come down, nuh? Come down, and I go tell you the story of Granny Nanny, Queen of the Maroons.”

Tan-Tan shouted back, “Later, all right? I busy now.”

Antonio felt liquid with love all over again for his doux-doux darling girl, his one pureness. Just so Ione had been as a young thing, climbing trees her parents had banned her from. Antonio loved his Tan-Tan more than songs could sing. When she was first born, he was forever going to watch at her sleeping in her bassinet. With the back of his hand he used to stroke the little face with the cocoa-butter skin soft like fowl breast feathers, and plant gentle butterfly kisses on the two closed-up eyes. Even in her sleep, little Tan-Tan would smile to feel her daddy near. And Antonio’s heart would swell with joy for the beautiful thing he had made, this one daughter, this chocolate girl. “My Tan-Tan. Sweet Tan-Tan. Pretty just like your mother.” When she woke she would yawn big, opening her tiny fists to flash little palms at him, pink like the shrimp in Shak-Shak Bay. Then she would see him, and smile at him with her mother’s smile. He could never hold her long enough, never touch her too much.

Antonio called out to his child in the tree: “Don’t tease the minder, doux-doux. What you doing up there?”

Tan-Tan screwed up her eyes and shaded them with one hand. Then: “It ain’t have no doux-doux here,” the pickney-girl answered back, flashing a big smile at her daddy. Sweet, facety child. “Me is Robber Queen, yes? This foliage is my subject, and nobody could object to my rule.” Tan-Tan had become fascinated with the Midnight Robber. Her favourite game was to play Carnival Robber King. She had a talent for the patter. “Why you home so early, Daddy?”