(Sipho — POV)
The city is a map he can read by heart: choke points and shortcuts, the exact hour a taxi rank thins, where potholes hide like teeth. Sipho moves through that map the way other men move through their prayers—methodical, certain that if he organizes the world correctly it will answer in kind.
He wakes before the sun and checks the routing app—the riders' morning runs already live and messy. Ten pickups. Two urgent school deliveries. One corporate contract that still hasn't paid last month's invoice. He scrolls through messages: half a dozen from his crew, one from a supplier, and the short line at the top that tightens his chest.
Meeting moved. Investor arriving 9:00 a.m.
The ping on the printshop computer felt smaller now at his kitchen table than it did when it landed, but smaller doesn't mean easier. Nine a.m. is not a negotiation; it is a deadline with teeth.
He makes coffee fast and black, the bitter that keeps his thoughts sharp. The pitch lives on paper and in his mouth and in the way he places numbers next to faces—how many parcels per week, average fare per kilometre, rider retention, margins on third-party contracts. He repeats the opening until the sentences fit his jaw: "Khumalo Logistics gets parcels there on time. We serve small businesses who can't afford corporate delays." Plain, true. Investors respect truth wrapped in clarity.
The riders arrive one by one, a small constellation of helmets and worn gloves. Sipho moves among them, checking manifests, adjusting for a street closure on Bree Road, asking Junior if he can pick up the extra run to Lenasia. He keeps his voice low; panic is contagious and he won't let fear travel his routes.
"Boss," Junior says, breath sharp. "Traffic's blocked on Queen. I'll drop the school run 'til the afternoon."
"Do it," Sipho says. "Call Ms. Khumalo and tell her we're delayed. Don't let them wait at the gate."
He feels the ledger in his chest: creditors' calendars, the pending fuel bill, the warehouse rent that compounds in his mind each month. Pride is his operating system: never ask for handouts, never surrender control. It has kept him alive—and it has also made him small inside the things he cares about.
He paces for twenty minutes and then sits at the small table by the office window. His laptop is a scatter of tabs—financials, the slide deck, a client testimonial video that still stabs relief into his chest whenever he watches it. He tightens the opening, adds a customer story, rehearses the ask until it feels like plan rather than plea.
A compact message interrupts: Rashid: Need payment by Friday or we collect. No more delays.
Short. Brutal. The language of creditors who trade muscle for mercy. Sipho types: Working on it. Meeting tomorrow with investor. Will call after. He does not say how thin the margin is. He does not say how many nights he has slept with numbers chasing him.
He thinks of the flyer folded into his jacket from the printshop—the neat font, the way Naledi had read his sentences aloud. He remembers her hands on the paper and how she'd rearranged a sentence until it sounded like honesty. He wishes he had asked for her number then, properly. One more human margin might have kept him from running on empty.
He re-opens the deck and tightens the contingency slide: use the investment to hire two riders, secure a van, lock a month's fuel at wholesale. He rehearses those numbers until they feel like ballast.
At eight fifty the office phone rings. It is Junior.
"Boss," Junior says. The word for breath becomes a sound that is too big for morning. "Our rider on the east run—Sizwe—he's been held up. Someone took the parcels."
The sentence lands like a dropped crate. Sipho's knuckle, where it rests on the table, goes white.
"Which parcels?" he asks.
"Two school boxes and the demo bag—the TechBridge units. The sample router units for the pitch. Sizwe says three men jumped from a bakkie and took them."
The simple facts crack the air. The demo bag is not just promotional material; it contains the fragile prototype units from TechBridge—the hardware that proves Khumalo can handle high-value, delicate deliveries. Without those samples, his presentation becomes numbers without evidence. Rhetoric is not enough today.
He moves before his brain finishes calculating. Jacket, keys, the battered clipboard that is almost an extension of his hand. "Where are you?"
"At the rank, Boss. We chased but—"
"Get to Rashid's office," Sipho says. "Tell him we're on our way. Lock anything you can. Don't let anyone else go after them."
He hits the street and the city narrows to corridors of urgency. The cab radio blares; a vendor calls for change. He maps detours with the speed of habit: where to cut across, which taxi drivers know which lanes. In his head the investor presentation condenses into a single fragile object: a bag of product samples that turns words into something an investor can see and feel.
His phone chirps: Investor: Running early. Can you present at 8:30?
Early is a word with teeth. He is twenty streets away from riders chasing ghosts.
He answers the investor with the steady cadence he has practiced. "I can be there. Fifteen minutes."
He does not tell the investor about the stolen bag. He does not tell Rashid the depth of the shortfall. He says only what will keep doors open.
At the taxi rank the riders have gathered, breath steering like small, impatient birds. Sizwe paces, helmet under one arm, hands shaking.
"They took it all, Boss," Sizwe says. "The demo bag—client stuff. Gone."
Sipho's chest goes cold—not from the morning but from arithmetic: without the TechBridge samples, his pitch loses its backbone. The investor wants proof of handling and care; the samples are proof.
"Who saw it?" he asks. "Names. Time. Direction."
Junior rattles off a taxi number, a bakkie description, a vendor who might have seen them. Sipho locks the names in his head and sends them out: calls to clients, a message to security, a terse text to Rashid: Issue. On it.
On the way to the investor location he taps a plan into the driver's hand: route to the demo site, call the assistant, salvage a physical argument—photos, invoices, testimonials. He imagines Naledi at his side, steady with a pen; she is warm and a few streets away.
He arrives and sits in the lobby, the slide deck under his arm. He uses the thin silence to hone the contingency: begin with the customer story, pivot to the security plan, show retention metrics, ask for a bridge loan that buys time, not equity. He will not sell his company for crumbs.
His phone buzzes. Junior: Sizwe tracked a number—the bakkie is at the old market. Two men unloading.
Heat climbs his back. He stands so fast the glass water dispenser tips and rattles.
"Stay," he tells Junior. "Call me if anything moves. Don't chase reckless."
He keeps his voice even. Under it, a machine fires: logistics, contingency, a refusal to be outplayed.
He steps into sunlight that tastes of dust and petrol. The old market is a cluster of stalls and angles where things and people slip out of sight fast. At the rank a vendor named Mandla, who often receives parcels from riders, spots them and waves.
Sipho hears the new call ring and answers.
"Is this Sipho Mokoena?" a voice asks—gravel and caution. "It's Mandla from Old Market. I think I've got something of yours. A bag with Khumalo stickers and some TechBridge boxes. Meet corner of Market and Third. Now."
The voice is a hand he can place on a map. Mandla runs a kiosk that sits where deliveries shift hands. He is not a miracle; he is part of the city's economy of exchange. This is earned, not deus ex machina.
Sipho looks once at the slide deck under his arm and then at the market where the bakkie might be parked. One small exchange could save the pitch—or it could be a trap. He measures risk the way he measures routes.
He runs.