Eleven, 6 January

Agung

Jan 06, 2025

Dronikus, a novel set on a burning planet called Earth.

How are my dear brothers?

Back in the streets many hours later – in the early twilight – Zola, dressed in local robes and a cloth headdress, made his way back to where he had parked his van. He caught a glimpse of himself in a shop window. Even with blurred vision he could see his entire face was a mass of swelling, glutinous-looking boils, bruises, and protuberances: a lumpy face by anyone’s reckoning.

He was sore in every imaginable area of his head and an incipient migraine was spreading from the inside out. Chesa had offered to take him home, but Zola thought it better to protect Roberto’s privacy by making his own way, despite feeling so groggy.

A small dronikus came close to him and buzzed around for a while but went off to hassle a group of men lounging outside a café, just like a fly prospecting for its next meal. Zola cared little as he walked but it seemed that the Lumpyface had done its job.

The van was not at the spot where he had left it. He looked up and down the street, concluding that it had been stolen. He noticed a small crowd gathered around the railing between the street and the river flowing far below. The crowd was laughing and pointing and taking pictures on their Eyetos. Zola’s van lay on its side deep in the mud. It was a rather pathetic sight, half-submerged in the murky, swirling waters. A number of rators were trying to reach it. They had linked their arms one to another, pushing further and further out into the water, until the one at the end was able to grab the machine. It pulled, and the line of rators pulled. But the van held firm in the mud. The rators pulled and pulled and with each failed attempt to free it the growing crowd, watching from the road and bridge above, laughed and cheered.

Zola walked away, feeling each agonising step as a thumping pain in his head. He wandered the darkening streets, zombie-like, and it took a long while to find Nazim’s again. He came to a stop on the pavement, unable to move any further. The boy, who was bringing in the stock, jumped back in fright at the apparition before him. He dropped the cloth rolls and fled into the shop, emerging again only after a few long moments. The Lumpyface had worked again.

Inside the shop Zola held out his hand, indicating for boy to give him his device. Laboriously he wrote: ‘Please call taxi.’

Roberto gently shook Zola awake where lay curled on his bed in the cellar room. He stirred but had trouble moving.

‘Too much moonshine?’ said Roberto.

‘This is worse than the worst hangover I ever had. My face feels like the surface of the moon? Does it look like it?’

‘No, it’s as handsome as ever. I’m very glad you’ve done this, even if it is not that pleasant. Did they not warn you?’

‘I feel sick,’ Zola said and groaned.

‘Sorry to tell you, but you’ll have to perk yourself up. Agung is on his way here.’

‘Oh shit.’

‘I’ll make you some coffee.’

Roberto helped Agung manoeuvre his large body down the steps into the cellar. He stopped when he saw Zola.

‘Zola? Zola? Zola! Alive! Roberto told me he had a surprise for me, but this is much more than I could have imagined.’ He spoke with a plummy accent in mellifluous tones. ‘How marvellous to see you.’

Zola came across, taking short careful steps, still in pain, both from the panelbeating of his face and the not-entirely-healed wounds from his trip to the Devil’s Kitchen.

‘How have you been, my dear old friend?’ He hugged the big man.

‘Still kicking. Take a lot to get rid of me, I tell you. But, how delightful to see you here and in one piece.’

Agung lowered himself into the easy chair, his girth filling the space with none to spare. Roberto went back up the steps, leaving the two of them together.

Zola sat opposite Agung. Much of the swelling had subsided but his face was covered in bruises.

‘The mosquitoes rather large and thirsty out there in the swamps?’ said Agung.

‘You know very well there are almost no mosquitoes left anywhere,’ said Zola. ‘I willingly let someone do this to me.’

‘I wish we had invented Lumpyface,’ said Agung. ‘But, now that you say it, developing the dronisects to exterminate mosquitoes and all those nasty pests, that was something we did do. Contributed in no small measure to the good of mankind and your fortune.’

‘My fortune?’

‘Well, your family’s fortune.’

‘I don’t think I’m much in line for a fortune, Agung. Not that I want it, anyway.’

Agung shrugged, ‘you never know.’

‘And what’s with this change from Arthur to Agung?’

‘Hah! What motivates a man? Well, we’re a large international company now and it seems just a better fit all round. Something less “colonial”, shall I say? And also – between you and me – and I know you might think this is the real, real reason… “Arthur” always made me feel too big and too guilty all the time.” His voice now that of an authoritarian headmaster: ‘“Arthur! come here, let me spank your bottom. Arthur! did you wash behind your ears? Arthur! what are you doing under the covers?”’ He laughed. ‘“Agung” allows me to embrace who I am. You know what I mean.’

‘Makes me think of the dronikus. They called me Mr Tertius. When I’ve seen them in the street in the last few days, I expect them to call out: “Mr Tertius, we love you Mr Tertius”,’ Zola mimics the voices of the dronikus. They both laugh at this.

‘You survived intact, despite what they did to you, eh?’

‘Only just,’ said Zola.

‘Terrible, truly terrible.’

‘Ah,’ Zola shrugged, dismissing this.

‘I don’t think anyone knows you’re here. Not that I’ve heard, lil’ ol’ me in my lil’ ol’ corner,’ said Agung. ‘It’s probably best to keep it that way, I would suggest.’

Zola nodded.

‘What a waste. All those years.’

‘In a way it was my own fault, Agung.’

‘No! Don’t say that. Nothing was your fault. You were played and manipulated and were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad people used you and you paid a heavy price. Do not think otherwise, ever. Roberto does not and neither do I. And we never will.’

He stopped and looked up as he heard Roberto coming down the stairs bearing a tray with tea and cake.

‘Ah. My favourite man bearing my favourite cake. Thanks darling. You do look after me.’

‘It’s almost impossible to source flour these days, any kind of flour. But this nutty mix seems to work okay with this recipe,’ said Roberto.

‘Ha! Nutty mix in those hands will be better than any kind of flour, I am sure,’ said Agung.

Roberto pouted and blew him an ironic kiss, before going back up the stairs. They ate the cake and sipped the tea.

‘Thank you, Agung. It is very good to hear you say those things. But tell me…’

‘Leilu? Of course. I think Roberto told you most of it. I heard about her from someone whom I really trust and, I don’t have to tell you, there are not many of those. He hadn’t seen her himself but was absolutely sure about it. Apparently she is in a clinical medical laboratory. I can’t say for certain where, although I have a strong hunch.’

‘A laboratory?’

‘After all these years, if she were “normal”, as it were, we’d certainly have seen or heard of her, y’know, doing the shopping or whatever.’

‘Unless she was a prisoner.’

‘True, but even then.’

‘Where does your hunch say she is?’

‘Do you know Visiwa Island? It is part of the West Isles in the West Sea. The company has a very important biological research facility on the island called Sesanti. It’s one of a few, but this one seems to be special, so special that no one talks about it. Enrike spends a lot of time there, he and his mate, Professor Hoxha.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘He’s now our chief scientist. Very smart.’

‘What do they do at Sesanti?’

‘That’s the thing. The main research is standard bio-stuff but there is a significant side to it that nobody knows anything about. I work in the centre of the organisation, I know most of what happens, how money is spent, what comes and what goes. But neither I nor anyone else around me knows anything about the “special projects”. Sesanti is a very large operation, but we in Accounts only ever get to see global figures with minimum detail.’ Agung stopped and held open his hands. ‘But what we do know is that there were some riots on the island recently. Something going on in the facility as a whole, with government involvement, I should add. My sense is that the research at Sesanti has caused problems with the locals.’

‘Okay,’ said Zola.

‘That’s enough. I’ll try my best to find out more. Slowly, slowly. One has to be careful. You, too, my young friend, take heed. Be extremely cautious before you go sniffing around.’

‘But if Leilu is there, I have to know. And, hey, I’m not so young anymore.’

‘Old enough to take advice? I don’t think so.’ They both laughed. ‘You are going to have to find a way to navigate these new waters, son, and they are waters full of brightly coloured monsters and sweet-smelling spirits, not to mention the friendly sharks.’

‘Talking of which, how are my dear brothers?’

Agung laughed. ‘Same business as usual, swimming in ever-larger pools.’

‘Toto told me that Meriti has joined the government.’

‘Ah, yes. He always had ambitions.’

‘Must be a bit worrying for the competition?’

‘Yep, but very good for the company.’ He looked across his cup at Zola and said, hesitating, ‘he married Nur. Did you know?’

Zola flicked his head. ‘They deserve each other. And dear Enrike?’

‘More focussed, more determined, more driven. More of a sour and surly bastard every day.’

Roberto and Agung had retired upstairs. Zola lay back, half asleep, in an easy chair. The lights had been turned down low and some jazz music played in the background. Zola’s hand reached up and felt the strange surface of his face; it did have the consistency of modelling clay. He kneaded the flesh on his jaw; it still hurt a fair bit – enough to rouse him but not too painful. He grabbed the cheek and began pulling it across his mouth as Chesa had done earlier. He squealed at the pain and smoothed it back to normal: the Lumpyface wasn’t quite ready for that. He lay his head on the cushions, trying to return to his slumbers.

His mind wandered. He let the notion that Leilu was still alive, even if she was being ‘kept alive’, float around for a while, feeling the full gamut of emotions that he’d felt so often down the years when thinking of her, but now with the added exceptional prospect of actually seeing her.

And Agung and Toto. As his mind rolled over to them, he let the emotions well up inside him – the strength of the love they had for him and that he, in turn, felt for them – that they were his family.

And as sleep approached, his mind drifted over to his Lumpyface torturer, Chesa, and her friend, the intriguing Chun. ‘Heesh’.

Hey, what's that sound?

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