CHAPTER FIVE: Bracelets
DEREK Mbūgua was having a not-so-fanciful afternoon after possibly spending the last seven hours cursing at his computer.
He scratched his dark close-cropped hair while his free hand worked furiously on a keyboard. Before him, past a partitioning platform, stood a young couple who seemed oblivious of the situation that their vendor was currently stuck in as they engaged in a conversation about which HBO TV series to watch.
"There you go!" Derek said, finally getting his computer to cooperate before handing over a flash drive to the couple.
The couple slipped him a one hundred shillings-bill then left.
"Ugh, what is up with you today?" Derek grumbled, stashing the bill in one of the many drawers of the wide desktop platform in front of him.
"Files missing again?" came a voice towards the right of the platform where a young man sat with his back to Derek. In front of him was a large plasma screen.
"Computer virus," Derek sighed.
"Should've updated the system like I told you to," the young man spoke with the slightest of interest, apparently fixated on playing FIFA '23.
"I would have if you'd remembered to refill the power tokens like I told you to, Jim. "
This time, Jim turned in his seat and looked over the platform to Derek. His poker face was not doing him any favors.
"Niliweka!" Jim protested in Swahili.
Derek raised an unconvinced eyebrow at him.
"Well, I did it this morning before you came in."
"You're lucky your video game idea increased the profits for this place," Derek said, turning back to his computer.
Jim let out a nervous chuckle, not knowing what to say to that as he sat there with his shaggy Afro, plain white T-shirt and black slacks. He finally thought it best to return to his gaming pad and resumed the Real Madrid vs Liverpool match.
Shaking his head, Derek found his phone from one of the drawers, turned it on and noticed the time. It was a little after three p.m.
"Alright, I'm heading out," he said, "catch you later."
"Sure thing, boss," Jim replied, his face glued to the screen.
Derek did not need to tell him when to close up or anything else about the job. Jim knew all that-for the past three years since Derek started the movie shop. It was large enough to contain three rooms; one of which had been designed as a gaming area, another for providing cyber services and of course, the main room where Derek copied bootlegged and pirated movies/series (and allegedly had a legal certificate to do so) then sold them.
He met with a customer on his way out and was already descending the stairwell before Jim began cursing silently about the computer.
That should teach him. Derek grinned to himself and left that part of the arcade before crossing the avenue in the busy Westlands streets of Nairobi.
The day had started out rather perfectly, especially with the rare occurrence of sunshine in the cold July season. Though, to be honest, Derek preferred colder weather.
The sun's radiance fell over his face, highlighting his complexion which lay somewhere between chocolate and dark brown. He was in black jeans that gave away his slim fit, matching his plain black shirt with the sleeves rolled just below the elbows, revealing an old Casio™ watch and a silvery bracelet-both dangling around his left wrist.
Derek Mbūgua stared particularly at that bracelet. He had never been a sucker for bling and the bracelet was not an ornament designed to serve that purpose either. Then why did he wear it? He was observing it while awaiting the light to go red at the crosswalk when something got his attention.
Just on the other side of the road, stood three tall figures, all decked in full combat gear. Under different circumstances, one would have thought there was a riot nearby but Derek and everyone else knew otherwise. They had on black helmets, thick protective glasses and masks. Their chests were puffed up with Kevlar vests and their camo pants stocked with a variety of filled pockets, not to mention the assault weapons strapped onto their utility belts.
Derek averted their gaze. They were watching. They were always watching, looking out for anyone who did not possess the bracelet.
The sound of shuffling feet restored Derek's attention. The light was red. He hurried on to cross with the rest of the pedestrians.
A hip hop mixtape that he had been listening to in like forever played on through headphones until he got to his other workplace.
It was a tech store dealing with phone accessories, laptop repairs, phone repairs; that kind of thing.
Today, he had quite a handful of phones to fix. He picked one up. A cracked screen. He scrutinized it carefully, his brown eyes taking in all the details: six inches. . .damaged speaker outlet. . .possible water damage. He then sighed.
"You poor Samsung Galaxy . . . walikufanyia nini?" he muttered to himself in Swahili before getting to work.
He had done screen replacements hundreds of times and would always marvel at the remarkable ways people broke their phones. There are those who would accidentally sit on them (though how that was even possible, Derek had no idea), others would somehow forget they were holding a phone and end up throwing them? All of these were real-at least that's what the customers would say happened. Did they like rehearse this? Derek would wonder, going through every broken phone or accessory the way a field medical doctor in the army would tend to fallen soldiers and treat the various kinds of injuries they would have sustained.
More than five phones would have been fixed in the next two hours, three laptops given a service repair and Windows installation in another hour. Easy money!
Derek Mbūgua would then close up shop at around six or seven in the evening, ending a day's work. The work would have been called good but Derek had lately been lacking a word for it all. He could fix any kind of gadget, get paid for it, so what? He would do the same thing the next day and the day after that and the day after that. . .
Darkness began to set in and he found himself looking at the bracelet again. The reason why patrol agents had been commissioned all over the country, following a global-wide order that had been passed by the United Nations.
This had been as a result of the rise of the infamous pandemic-the coronavirus-the airborne contagion that had broken out back in late 2019 and gone rampant the following year.
Still looking at the bracelet, Derek recalled when things had gotten a whole lot worse. A new variant had sprung up and with that the death of his parents.
Four years later, Derek was still battling with the fact that the virus had decided to take his parents and not he-he who had so greatly refused to take any vaccine or have any needles puncture his skin.
The use of protective masks came to pass and a year just before his parents' passing, there came a new directive where vaccination had to be mandatory, hence the invention of the vaccination verification bands-the bracelets, if you may.
Created in China then mass produced from distribution points all over the planet, these tiny silvery rings were designed to match with the wearer's DNA, so that when scanned, they would give confirmation of having been vaccinated.
Now, just like in many other countries, the people of Kenya thought this as a huge relief as in 'Hey, I don't need to get some damn vaccine! I can just put this thing on and voila!'
That was not the case, however. Professionals were quick to inform that the bracelets had a fail safe. They could detect the wearer's system and woe unto that one guy who would manage to illegally slip a bracelet down their wrist. The bracelet was fitted with a hidden explosive and once attached to an 'unqualified' wearer, it would tighten around the wrist and send a pulse throughout the wearer's body, shattering their nervous system and causing their internal organs to explode-what fun! You either die with the virus or die trying to outsmart a piece of digitized jewelry.
Derek got to witness this happen of course, a couple of times. But he was not vaccinated. He had always been self-conscious when it came to putting things inside his body-which is also why he never did drugs-well, except for that one time he got tricked into a drinking game but that is not important.
So, how did he have a bracelet on and not have his guts spilling all over the place like those poor victims who end up falling prey to torture at the hands of those nasty hillbillies from the Wrong Turn movies?
He designed his own bracelet of course. As mentioned earlier, Derek had a way with technology.
At half-past six, Derek had closed up and was on his way home. The city lights and high-rise buildings illuminated the central business district, casting shadows of people hurrying to catch the bus back home in the evening rush hour. Vendors were wrapping up bundles of second-hand clothes, books, others doing last-minute sales. It was all just like any other day, everyday.
Derek then realized he had not eaten all day since the morning coffee and had just spotted a stand with one of his favorite snacks on display when his field of vision was cut off by a dark figure in camo pants and Kevlar. Oh great, a patrol agent.
"Bracelet, kijana!" the agent barked and Derek had to flinch, surpressing the urge to inform the agent that he could hear him quite clearly and there was no need to yell as if he were a mile away.
As per the protocol, Derek stretched out his left arm and the agent fished out a device that looked like a scanner then passed it over his bracelet. The scanner had a red LED glow that turned to green, confirming that Derek's bracelet was legally acquired and that of course, he was 'vaccinated'. Apparently, the Government had come to learn of people like Derek. People who could forge their own bracelets that did not have explosives. Luckily for Derek, he had also overseen this little flaw.
Derek was grateful to be through with the inspection and rushed over to the stand he had spotted earlier. The vendor was a woman with a bandana and an apron who gave him a wide smile.
"Nisaidie smokey-pasua mbili," he said to the woman who scooped out two sausages, split either of them and here was the part that Derek liked the most about the delicacy, filled them in with onion and tomato salad topped with sauce.
Paying off the vendor, Derek hungrily bit into the first smokey-pasua and the taste was just. . .nope. . .he could not quite describe it. He had to leave the stand before being tempted to get another order or two. The world may have looked boring and worn out to Derek but smokey-pasuas always seemed to step out.
It took him about fifteen minutes to get home by bus.
Derek lived in a rental apartment that was a large ten-storey building accommodating around thirty apartments in the Triangle Curio Market area, next to the Sankara Hotel parking lot. His apartment was on the fourth floor and cussed when he took the stairs. Who builds something like this and doesn't install an elevator? But then the rent was good so, a few stairs couldn't hurt.
He got to his floor. His apartment, labelled '15', came in and out of view towards the farthest end, thanks to the flickering hallway lights and had to pass three more apartments to get to it. He was just taking out his keys when he heard the sound of laughter and turned to see two people; a man and woman seriously enjoying the company of one another and also probably drunk.
Derek recognized the man as his neighbor and was not at all surprised. This was not the first time he had walked up on the jacked, bald-headed man bringing countless of women into his place. Wherever those women disappeared off to, Derek did not want to know. If anything, he was in more of a hurry to open his own door and click! The door creaked and allowed him inside.
Finally! Home! No dust, no different people smells or those nasty good-for-nothing agents!
Derek locked his door, switched on a light bulb and slumped into a sofa. He knocked off his shoes, took off his headphones, got up, found a remote on his table then proceeded to turn on not one but four of his TV screens (yes, as if one just wasn't enough).They all came to life, welcoming him back.
Some of them displayed ongoing movies, others played music videos, others TV programmes and news headlines. All of this controlled noise filled his two-roomed apartment.
He went to wash his face in the sink in his bathroom, took out his shirt so that he was left with a plain white T-shirt and went back to the living room/bedroom/kitchen and took out a packet of pasta from his mini fridge.
A few minutes later, Derek was helping himself to steaming noodles while working behind one of the screens, all of which were attached to computer systems. He had received a message from his assistant Jim via WhatsApp, informing him that he had just closed up the movie shop.
It was nearly ten p.m. when Derek had finally finished downloading an anti-virus software; updated his proxy server; set up a new VPN and pirated a few latest films, when he got the news. . .
One of the screens had a news anchor reporting the murder of a certain scientist from the World Health Organization headquarters.
Derek watched this with mild interest. The world was tearing at each other's throats. Yap, just another normal day for Derek Mbūgua-or at least that is what he thought before changing the channel to anything that did not involve politics.