MaddAddam Read online

  Our own deep what? Toby rummages for the next phrase. She's slipping: she ought to write such things down. Keep a daily journal, as she did when she was alone at the AnooYoo Spa. She could go further, and record the ways and sayings of the now-vanished God's Gardeners for the future; for generations yet unborn, as politicians used to say when they were fishing for extra votes. If there is anyone in the future, that is; and if they'll be able to read; which, come to think of it, are two big ifs. And even if reading persists, will anyone in the future be interested in the doings of an obscure and then outlawed and then disbanded green religious cult?

  Maybe acting as if she believes in such a future will help to create it, which is the kind of thing the Gardeners used to say. She doesn't have any paper, but she could ask Zeb to bring some back on his next gleaning expedition; if he can find any that isn't damp, or nibbled for mouse nests, or eaten by ants. Oh, and pencils too, she'll add. Or pens. Or crayons. Then she could make a start.

  Though it's hard to concentrate on the idea of a future. She's too immersed in the present: the present contains Zeb, and the future may not.

  She longs for tonight, she longs to skip the day that's just begun and plunge headlong into the night as if into a pool; a pool with the moon reflected in it. She longs to swim in liquid moonlight.

  But it's dangerous to live for the night. Daytime becomes irrelevant. You can get careless, you can overlook details, you can lose track. These days she'll find herself upright, in the middle of the room, one sandal in her hand, wondering how she got there; or outside under a tree, watching the leaves riffle, then prodding herself: Move. Move now. Get moving. You need to ... But what exactly is it that she needs to do?

  It isn't only her, and it isn't only her nightlife that's causing it. She's noticed others slacking off as well. Standing still for no reason, listening though no one's talking. Then jerking themselves back to the tangible, visibly making an effort. Busying themselves with the garden, the fence, the solar, the extension to the cobb house ... It's tempting to drift, as the Crakers seem to. They have no festivals, no calendars, no deadlines. No long-term goals.

  She remembers this floating mood so well from the months that she spent holed up in the AnooYoo Spa, waiting out the plague virus that was killing everyone else. Then - after there was no more crying, no more pleading and pounding at the door, no more bodies collapsing on the lawn - just waiting. Waiting for a sign that there was someone else left alive. Waiting for meaningful time to resume.

  She'd stuck to her daily routine: keeping herself fed and watered, filling up the hours with small activities, writing in her daily journal. Pushing back the voices that tried to get into her head, as such voices do when you're solitary. Fending off the temptation to wander away, wander off into the woods, open the door to whatever was going to happen to her or, more honestly, to put an end to her. An ending.

  It was like a trance, or sleepwalking. Give yourself up. Give up. Blend with the universe. You might as well. It was as if something or someone was whispering, enticing her into the darkness: Come in, come over here. Finish. It will be a relief. It will be completeness. It won't hurt much.

  She wonders if that sort of whispering is beginning in the ears of some of the others. Hermits in the desert heard those voices, and prisoners in dungeons. But maybe no one's hearing them now: it's not like the AnooYoo Spa here, it's not an isolation cell; everyone has other people. Still, she's conscious of counting heads each morning, making sure all the MaddAddamites and former Gardeners are still in place: that none among them has strayed away during the night, into the labyrinth of leaves and branches, of birdsong and windsong and silence.

  There's a tapping on the wall beside her door. "Are you inside, Oh Toby?" It's little Blackbeard, come to check up on her. Perhaps on some level he shares her fears and doesn't want her to vanish.

  "Yes," she says. "I'm here. You wait out there." She hurries to put on her bedsheet of the day. Something less austere and geometrical than usual: more floral, more sensuous. Roses, full-blown. Vines, entwining. Is she being vain? No, it's a celebration of renewed life, hers: that's her excuse. Does she look ridiculous, mutton dressed as lamb? Hard to tell without a mirror. The main thing is to keep the shoulders back, stride forth with confidence. She pushes her hair behind her ears, twists it into a knot. There, no waving tendrils. Best to show some restraint.

  "I will take you to Snowman-the-Jimmy," Blackbeard says importantly, once she's ready. "So you can help him. With the maggots." He's proud of having learned this word, so he says it again: "The maggots!" He smiles radiantly. "The maggots are good. Oryx made them. They will not hurt us." A glance up at her, scanning her face to make sure he's got it right, then another smile. "And soon Snowman-the-Jimmy will not be sick." He takes her by the hand, tugs her forward. He knows the drill, he's her little shadow, he's absorbing everything.

  If I'd had a child, thinks Toby, would he have been like this? No. He would not have been like this. Don't repine.

  Jimmy's still asleep, but his colour is better and his high temperature is gone. She spoons some honey-and-water into him, along with the mushroom elixir. His foot is healing rapidly; soon he won't need the maggots any more.

  "Snowman-the-Jimmy is walking," the Crakers tell her. Four of them are on duty this morning, three men and a woman. "He is walking very quickly, inside his head. Soon he will be here."

  "Today?" she asks them.

  "Today, tomorrow," they say. "Soon." They smile at her. "Do not be worried, Oh Toby," the woman says. "Snowman-the-Jimmy is safe now. Crake is sending him back to us."

  "And Oryx too," says the tallest man: Abraham Lincoln, possibly. She really must try to sort out their names. "She, too, is sending him."

  "She told her Children not to harm him," says the woman. Empress Josephine?

  "Even though his piss is weak, and they did not understand at first that they could not eat him."

  "Our piss is strong. The piss of our men. The Children of Oryx understand such piss."

  "The Children with sharp teeth eat those with weak piss."

  "The Children with tusks eat them, sometimes."

  "The Children who are like a bear, big, with claws. We have not seen a bear. Zeb ate one, he knows what is a bear."

  "But Oryx told them not to."

  "Not to eat Snowman-the-Jimmy."

  "Crake sent Snowman-the-Jimmy to take care of us. And Oryx sent him too."

  "Yes, Oryx too," the others agree. One of them begins to sing.

  Girl Stuff

  The breakfast table is lively this morning.

  Ivory Bill, Manatee, Tamaraw, and Zunzuncito have cleared their plates and are deep into a discussion of epigenetics. How much of Craker behaviour is inherited, how much is cultural? Do they even have what you could call a culture, separate from the expression of their genes? Or are they more like ants? What about the singing? Granted, it must be some form of communication, but is it territorial, like the singing of birds, or might it be termed art? Surely not the latter, says Ivory Bill. Crake couldn't account for it and didn't like it, says Tamaraw, but the team hadn't been able to eliminate it without producing affectless individuals who never went into heat and didn't last long.

  The mating cycle is genetic, obviously, says Zunzuncito, as are the changes in female abdominal and genital pigmentation that accompany estrus, and the male equivalent, leading to the polysexual acts. Which in a deer or a sheep you'd have to call rutting, says Ivory Bill, but in the Crakers, would these phenomena vary with circumstances? There'd been no chance to test it, back there in the Paradice dome, which was a pity, they all agree. They could have made some variations, run studies on them, says Manatee. But Crake ruled with an iron hand, says Tamaraw, and he was so dogmatic: he didn't want to hear about any possible improvements apart from those he thought up himself. And he sure as hell didn't want his prize experiment ruined via the introduction of possibly inferior segments, says Zunzuncito, because the Crakers were going to be a mega-
money-spinner. Or that was his story, says Tamaraw.

  "Of course he was bullshitting us all along," said Zunzuncito.

  "True, but he got results," says Ivory Bill.

  "For what they're worth," says Manatee. "The fucker."

  "The question is more why than how," says Ivory Bill, gazing up at the sky as if Crake really is up there and could send down a thunderous answer. "Why did he do it? The lethal wipeout virus in the BlyssPluss pills? Why did he want the human race to go extinct?"

  "Maybe he was just very, very messed up," says Manatee.

  "For the sake of argument, and to do him justice, he might have thought that everything else was," says Tamaraw. "What with the biosphere being depleted and the temperature skyrocketing."

  "And if the Crakers were his solution, he'd have known he'd need to protect them from the likes of us, with our aggressive if not murderous ways," says Ivory Bill.

  "That's what megalomaniac fuckers like him always think," says Manatee.

  "He'd have seen the Crakers as indigenous people, no doubt," says Ivory Bill. "And Homo sapiens sapiens as the greedy, rapacious Conquistadors. And, in some respects ..."

  "Well, we came up with Beethoven," says Manatee. "And, you know, the major world religions, and whatnot. Fat chance of anything like that with this bunch."

  White Sedge is beside them, gazing at them attentively but possibly not listening. If anyone's hearing voices, thinks Toby, it might be her. She's a pretty girl, perhaps the prettiest of the MaddAddamites. Yesterday she proposed that they start a morning yoga and meditation group, but there weren't any takers. She's wearing a grey bedsheet with white lilies on it; her black hair's knotted into a chignon.

  Amanda's at the end of the table. She's still pallid and listless; Lotis Blue and Ren are fussing over her, urging her to eat.

  Rebecca's having a cup of what they've all agreed to call coffee. She turns as Toby sits down.

  "It's ham again," she says to Toby. "And kudzu pancakes. Oh, and if you want, there's some Choco-Nutrino."

  "Choco-Nutrino?" says Toby. "Where'd you get that?" Choco-Nutrino had been a desperate stab at a palatable breakfast cereal for children after the world chocolate crop had failed. It was said to contain burnt soy.

  "Zeb and Rhino and them gleaned it somewhere," says Rebecca. "And Shackie. It's not what you'd call fresh, don't even ask about the sell-by date, so I figure we better eat it now."

  "You think so?" says Toby. The Choco-Nutrinos are in a bowl. They're like tiny pebbles, brown and alien-looking, granules from Mars. People used to eat this kind of stuff all the time, she thinks. They took it for granted.

  "Last-chance cafe," says Rebecca. "Kind of a nostalgia trip. Yeah, I used to think it was disgusting too, but it's not bad with Mo'Hair milk. Anyway it's fortified with vitamins and minerals. Says so on the box. So we won't have to eat mud for a while."

  "Mud?" says Toby.

  "You know, for the trace elements," says Rebecca. Sometimes Toby can't tell if she's joking.

  Toby sticks with the ham and the kudzu pancakes. "Where are the others?" she asks, keeping her voice neutral. Rebecca counts them off: Crozier has already eaten and is taking the Mo'Hairs out to pasture. Beluga and Shackleton are with him, one spraygun between them, covering his back. Black Rhino and Katuro did sentry last night, so they are sleeping in.

  "Swift Fox?" says Toby.

  "Taking her time," says Rebecca. "Having a doze. I heard her thrashing around in the bushes last night. With a gentleman caller or two." Her smile says, Like you.

  No Zeb yet. Toby tries not to peer around too obviously. Is he, too, having a doze?

  As she's finishing her bitter coffee, Swift Fox joins them. Today she's wearing a pale gauzy shift, shorts, and a floppy hat, pastel green and pink. She's done her hair in pigtails, with plastic Hello Kitty clips. It's the schoolgirl look, and if it were former times she'd never get away with it, thinks Toby. She'd been a highly qualified gene artist, so she'd have feared ridicule and loss of status, and dressed like a grown-up to advertise her rank. But that kind of rank and status have peeled away, so what exactly is she advertising now?

  Don't be so hard on her, Toby tells herself. After all, she took a big risk: she was an undercover MaddAddamite informant before Crake hijacked her and made her a whitecoat brainiac serf inside the Paradice dome, along with the rest of the kidnapped MaddAddamites. He'd scooped most of them.

  But not Zeb: Crake never managed to corner him. He'd covered his tracks too well.

  "Hi, everyone," Swift Fox says, stretching her arms up, lifting her breasts, aiming them at Ivory Bill. "Ooh, I could go right back to bed! Hope you slept well. I fucking didn't! We need to do something about the bugs."

  "There's spray," says Rebecca. "We've still got some of that citrus stuff."

  "It wears off," says Swift Fox. "Then they bite and you wake up, and then you can hear people talking and etcetera, like in one of those not-your-real-name motels with cardboard walls." She smiles at Ivory Bill again, ignoring Manatee, who's staring at her, his mouth tight. Is it disapproval or extreme lust? Toby wonders. With some men it's hard to tell the difference.

  "I think we should have a curfew on vocal cords," Swift Fox continues, with a sideways glance at Toby. I heard you, that look says. If you must indulge in dusty, ridiculous middle-aged sex, at least put a sock in it. Toby feels herself blushing.

  "Dear lady," says Ivory Bill. "I trust our sometimes heated nocturnal discussions did not awaken you. Manatee and Tamaraw and I -"

  "Oh, it wasn't you, and it wasn't a discussion," says Swift Fox. "Are those Choco-Nutrinos? I threw up a whole bowlful of those once, back when I still got hangovers."

  Amanda stands up from the table, clamps her hand over her mouth, hurries away. Ren follows her.

  "There's something wrong with that girl," says Swift Fox. "It's like she's pithed or something. Was she always such a dimwit?"

  "You know what she went through," says Rebecca, frowning a little.

  "Yeah, sure, but it's time for her to snap out of it. Do some work like the rest of us."

  Toby feels a rush of anger. Swift Fox is never the first to volunteer for chores, nor has she been within spitting distance of a Painballer: used like a prostibot, leashed like a dog, practically disembowelled. Amanda's worth ten of her. But apart from that, Toby knows she's resenting the snide innuendoes Swift Fox aimed at her earlier, not to mention the gauzy shift and the cute shorts. And the breast weaponry, and the girly-girl pigtails. They don't go with your budding wrinkles, she feels like saying. Tanning takes a toll.

  Swift Fox smiles again, but not at Toby: right past Toby. It's a full-disclosure teeth display and dimple trigger. "Hey," she says in a softer voice. Toby swivels: it's Rhino and Katuro.

  And Zeb. Of course, of course.

  "Morning, everyone," Zeb says evenly: nothing special for Swift Fox. Nor for Toby either: the night is the night, the day is the day. "Anybody want anything?" he says. "We're doing a quick scan around the area, couple of hours, just checking. We'll pass a few stores." He doesn't spell out his real object because he doesn't have to: they all know he'll be looking for signs of the Painballers. It's a patrol.

  "Baking soda," says Rebecca. "Or baking powder, whichever. I don't know what I'll do when it runs out. If you're going to a minisuper ..."

  "Did you know that baking soda comes from the trona deposits in Wyoming?" says Ivory Bill. "Or it used to come from there."

  "Oh, Ivory Bill," says Swift Fox, favouring him with a smile. "With you around, who needs Wikipedia?" Ivory Bill gives a semi-grin: he thinks it's a compliment.

  "Yeast," says Zunzuncito. "Wild yeast, if you still have the flour. You can make sourdough that way."

  "I guess," says Rebecca.

  "I'll come too," says Swift Fox to Zeb. "I need a drugstore." There's a pause. Everyone looks at her.

  "Just tell us your list," says Black Rhino. He's scowling at her bare legs. "We'll get it for you."

  "Girl stuff,
" she says. "You wouldn't know where to look." She glances in the direction of Ren and Lotis Blue, who are over by the pump, sponging off Amanda. "I'm gleaning for all of us."

  Another pause. Menstrual wadding, thinks Toby. She has a point: the stash in the storeroom is dwindling. No one wants to fall back on torn-up bedsheets. Or moss. Though we'll come to that sooner or later.

  "Bad plan," says Zeb. "Those two guys are still out there. They've got a spraygun. They're third-time Painballers, there's nothing left of their empathy circuits. You wouldn't want them to grab you, they won't bother with the formalities. You saw what happened with Amanda. She was lucky to escape with her kidneys."

  "I totally agree. It is in fact a very bad plan for you to leave the confines of our cozy little enclave here. I will go," says Ivory Bill gallantly, "if you will trust me with your shopping list, and -"

  "But you'll be there with me," says Swift Fox to Zeb. "As protection." She lowers her eyelashes. "I'll be so safe!"

  Zeb says to Rebecca: "Got any coffee? Or whatever you call that crap?"

  "It's okay, I'll change my outfit," Swift Fox says, switching her tone to brisk. "I can keep up, I won't be a drag. I know how to handle, you know, a spraygun," she adds with a little drawl, letting her eyes drift downward. Then she resumes pertness. "Hey, we can pack a lunch! Have a picnic somewhere!"

  "Get it together then," says Zeb, "because we're leaving right after we eat."

  Rhino starts to say something, stops. Katuro is gazing upwards. "I think it will not rain," he says.

  Rebecca looks over at Toby, lifts her eyebrows. Toby keeps her own face as flat as possible. Swift Fox is eyeing her sideways.

  Fox by name, fox by nature, she thinks. Handle a spraygun, indeed.

  Snowman's Progress

  "Oh Toby, come and see! Come now!" It's little Blackbeard, tugging at her bedsheet.

  "What is it?" says Toby, trying not to sound irritated. She wants to stay here, say goodbye to Zeb, even though he's not going very far, or for long. Just a few hours. She wants to put some sort of mark on him, is that it? In front of Swift Fox. A kiss, a squeeze. Mine. Stay away.