inspired by nature, some scraggly vine that senses motion and snarls you up.
Ashraf is going through the ritual equipment check. Torches, auto screwdriver, rope, harnesses, karabiners. He'd be on video duty as well if Toby weren't doing the honours tonight.
The adboard's security runs on the powergrid, which means it can be taken off the powergrid, making it look like just another blackout, another Eskom power shortage, while we do our thing. The only problem is that the adboard freezes for the duration. And if someone notices that the screen has gone blank and calls it in, we're done.
'You ready to talk to your friend now, Toby?'
'Already sent her a text,' he says, holding up what is clearly an illegit phone, the defuser circuitry ripped out of the back and shoddily patched up with duct tape. It's a brute hack-job, but effective – if you know what you're doing. If not, the thing might kill you. I can only hope.
Ashraf whistles. 'Toby. Where did you pick that piece of prime?'
'I got my means and ways. I can get you one, if you want … Cost you premium, though. Probably out of your league. Handles movie downloads too.'
'Seriously?' Zuko and Jasmine crowd in.
'Can I see?'
'Focus, for fuck's sake! What does your friend have to say?' I cut in. This is all taking way too long.
'She's good to go. Whenever you are. Security's going down in… oh, it's down now. We got eight minutes. As of ten seconds back.'
'Shit! She's done it already? What the hell – never mind, just go! Go! After this one.' A Renault cruises past, headlights slicing the night, and we all dash across the highway before the next batch of intermittent traffic comes through, scrambling up onto the island.
We step gingerly between the coils of wire, just in case Toby's friend has not lived up to her promises. I jump to catch hold of a beam and swing my legs up, to the left of the maintenance ladder, which is off-limits, unless you have an official SIM ID or a particular desire to get crisped.
'Tendeka! Your harness.' Ashraf hisses, displeased, clipping himself in and starting after me, hand over hand up the rope, Toby right behind him. Jasmine and Zuko are supposed to stay at the bottom to keep watch, but the kid has other plans. He's clipping in too. I don't have time to worry about him, though. Not with the insane deadline we're on.
I pull myself up onto the catwalk that runs behind the adboard and wedge the screwdriver under the corner edge of the screen, prising it away from the casing, cracking the plastech. But there's no need to finesse it.
The great thing about smear is that the tech is straight out of the box, compliments of my friend in Amsterdam, so there aren't preventive measures in place yet. Smear's not the technical word, of course; it's a TSR-3 signal delay device that interferes with data packet transfer, so the image that gets displayed is garbled and incomplete like that painting with the melted clocks. It was invented in America to try and shut down streamcasters who were getting too vocal in criticising the administration. It's nice to be able to turn it around.
I click open the plastic container, disguised as a flashdrive, in case of random searches in the street, but I'm sweating so heavily, I nearly drop the damn thing. Ash nudges his way in beside me. 'Two and a half minutes,' Jazz calls from below. Ashraf's jaw is tight with stress as he takes the smear chip and binds it onto the motherboard with his pocket solder.
'Can you guys move it? Let me get a clear shot of this?' Toby tjunes, his abruptly added weight making the catwalk shudder.
'Fuck off, Toby, there's no time. You can't film this part of the operation. It's too sensitive.'
'Hey, fuck you, Tendeka. It's my connection. I get the footage I want. And you think they're not going to figure it out when they come to fix it tomorrow morning?'
And
Ashraf is going through the ritual equipment check. Torches, auto screwdriver, rope, harnesses, karabiners. He'd be on video duty as well if Toby weren't doing the honours tonight.
The adboard's security runs on the powergrid, which means it can be taken off the powergrid, making it look like just another blackout, another Eskom power shortage, while we do our thing. The only problem is that the adboard freezes for the duration. And if someone notices that the screen has gone blank and calls it in, we're done.
'You ready to talk to your friend now, Toby?'
'Already sent her a text,' he says, holding up what is clearly an illegit phone, the defuser circuitry ripped out of the back and shoddily patched up with duct tape. It's a brute hack-job, but effective – if you know what you're doing. If not, the thing might kill you. I can only hope.
Ashraf whistles. 'Toby. Where did you pick that piece of prime?'
'I got my means and ways. I can get you one, if you want … Cost you premium, though. Probably out of your league. Handles movie downloads too.'
'Seriously?' Zuko and Jasmine crowd in.
'Can I see?'
'Focus, for fuck's sake! What does your friend have to say?' I cut in. This is all taking way too long.
'She's good to go. Whenever you are. Security's going down in… oh, it's down now. We got eight minutes. As of ten seconds back.'
'Shit! She's done it already? What the hell – never mind, just go! Go! After this one.' A Renault cruises past, headlights slicing the night, and we all dash across the highway before the next batch of intermittent traffic comes through, scrambling up onto the island.
We step gingerly between the coils of wire, just in case Toby's friend has not lived up to her promises. I jump to catch hold of a beam and swing my legs up, to the left of the maintenance ladder, which is off-limits, unless you have an official SIM ID or a particular desire to get crisped.
'Tendeka! Your harness.' Ashraf hisses, displeased, clipping himself in and starting after me, hand over hand up the rope, Toby right behind him. Jasmine and Zuko are supposed to stay at the bottom to keep watch, but the kid has other plans. He's clipping in too. I don't have time to worry about him, though. Not with the insane deadline we're on.
I pull myself up onto the catwalk that runs behind the adboard and wedge the screwdriver under the corner edge of the screen, prising it away from the casing, cracking the plastech. But there's no need to finesse it.
The great thing about smear is that the tech is straight out of the box, compliments of my friend in Amsterdam, so there aren't preventive measures in place yet. Smear's not the technical word, of course; it's a TSR-3 signal delay device that interferes with data packet transfer, so the image that gets displayed is garbled and incomplete like that painting with the melted clocks. It was invented in America to try and shut down streamcasters who were getting too vocal in criticising the administration. It's nice to be able to turn it around.
I click open the plastic container, disguised as a flashdrive, in case of random searches in the street, but I'm sweating so heavily, I nearly drop the damn thing. Ash nudges his way in beside me. 'Two and a half minutes,' Jazz calls from below. Ashraf's jaw is tight with stress as he takes the smear chip and binds it onto the motherboard with his pocket solder.
'Can you guys move it? Let me get a clear shot of this?' Toby tjunes, his abruptly added weight making the catwalk shudder.
'Fuck off, Toby, there's no time. You can't film this part of the operation. It's too sensitive.'
'Hey, fuck you, Tendeka. It's my connection. I get the footage I want. And you think they're not going to figure it out when they come to fix it tomorrow morning?'
And
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