He grabbed her hand and pinned it against her back as his other hand slammed into her mouth. Then, pulling her by the hair, he dragged her to the car parked by a tree. There, he grabbed her breasts and squeezed them, hard. She winced in agony. The hormone pills had made her breasts sore and tender. She looked wildly round for the other policeman, caught his eye, and knew he would do nothing to stop his mate. A momentary relief as her assailant let go of her breasts to pull his pants down, but in the next instant, she found her face in front of his groin, her head caught in his vice-like grip. Resistance was impossible. She took his penis in her mouth and sucked him off, gagging when his come spurted into her throat.

They left her there, vomiting out the nasi kandar that had given her so much pleasure just a few minutes ago. Marina stood up, wiped her mouth with her hand and leaned against the tree to steady herself. Only then did she become aware of the furious tears that salted her mouth.

The new millennium was approaching. As the Y2K bug sparked a global panic, we were told to “party like it’s 1999” because the digital repercussions could spell the end of civilisation as we knew it. Banks would collapse, personal accounts would fade into oblivion, airports, airplanes, hospitals would simply stop functioning, all because computers would not be able to distinguish 2000 from 1900. People on life support would die. Planes would crash into each other. Refrigerators would stop working. Digital watches would stop. Purchases of upgrades went into overdrive, everyone was backing everything up and overnight computer techs were born. You had to have records for proof of everything. Proof of your bank balance, your dental records, your car loan. Your existence. Documents were printed and kept in safes. Supermarkets started running out of food, water, batteries; cars queued up for extra gallons of petrol, collected in containers and then stored in the corners of living rooms, kitchens.

The seat of the Malaysian government had moved to Putrajaya—or “prince-city-success”—named after our first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra. A city erected on the swamps south of KL in Sepang and the tracts of land owned by the indigenous people called the Temuan. Mahathir had a vision of creating a Multimedia Super Corridor, or the MSC, linking Putrajaya, Cyberjaya and the gleaming new KLIA airport into a superhighway of information, high-speed Internet and a glowing version of a futuristic era.