MaddAddam

Guru

The morning after her visit to Pilar’s elderberry bush, Toby is still feeling the effects of the Enhanced Meditation mixture. The world’s a little brighter than it should be, the scrim of its colours and shapes a little more transparent. She puts on a bedsheet in a calming neutral tone — light blue, no pattern — gives her face a quick wash at the pump, and makes it over to the breakfast table.

Everyone else seems to have eaten and gone. White Sedge and Lotis Blue are clearing off the dishes.

“I think there’s some left,” says Lotis Blue.

“What was it?” Toby asks.

“Ham and kudzu fritters,” says White Sedge.

Toby has dreamt all night: piglet dreams. Innocent piglets, adorable piglets, plumper and cleaner and less feral than the ones she’d actually seen. Piglets flying, pink ones, with white gauzy dragonfly wings; piglets talking in foreign languages; even piglets singing, prancing in rows like some old animated film or out-of-control musical. Wallpaper piglets, repeated over and over, intertwined with vines. All of them happy, none of them dead.

They did love to depict animals endowed with human features, back in that erased civilization of which she had once been a part. Huggable, fluffy, pastel bears, clutching Valentine hearts. Cute cuddly lions. Adorable dancing penguins. Older than that: pink, shiny, comical pigs, with slots in their backs for money: you saw those in antique stores.

She can’t manage the ham, not after a night full of waltzing piglets. And not after yesterday: what the sow communicated to her is still with her, though she couldn’t put it into words. It was more like a current. A current of water, a current of electricity. A long, subsonic wavelength. A brain chemistry mashup. Or, as Philo of the Gardeners once said, Who needs TV? He’d done perhaps too many Vigils and Enhanced Meditations.

“Think I’ll skip that,” says Toby. “It’s not so great warmed over. I’ll go get some coffee.”

“Are you all right?” says White Sedge.

“I’m fine,” says Toby. She walks carefully along the path to the kitchen area, avoiding the places where the pebbles are rippling and dissolving, and finds Rebecca drinking a cup of coffee substitute. Little Blackbeard is there with her, sprawled on the floor, printing. He’s got one of Toby’s pencils, and he’s swiped her notebook too. But useless to call it “swiping” — the Crakers appear to have no concept of personal property.

“You didn’t wake up,” he says, not reproachfully. “You were walking very far, in the night.”

“Have you seen this?” Rebecca says. “The kid’s amazing.”

“What are you writing?” Toby says.

“I am writing the names, Oh Toby,” says Blackbeard. And, sure enough, that’s what he’s been doing. TOBY. ZEB. CRAK. REBECA. ORIX. SNOWMANTHEJIMY.

“He’s collecting them,” says Rebecca. “Names. Who’s next?” she says to Blackbeard.

“Next I will write Amanda,” says Blackbeard solemnly. “And Ren. So they can talk to me.” He scrambles up from the floor and runs off, clutching Toby’s notebook and pencil. How am I going to get those back from him? she wonders.

“Honey, you look wiped,” Rebecca says to her. “Rough night?”

“I overdid something,” says Toby. “In the Enhanced Meditation mix. A few too many mushrooms.”

“It’s a hazard,” says Rebecca. “Drink a lot of water. I’ll make you some clover and pine tea.”

“I saw a giant pig yesterday,” says Toby. “A sow, with piglets.”

“The more the merrier,” says Rebecca. “So long as we’ve got sprayguns. I’m running out of bacon.”

“No, wait,” says Toby. “It — she gave me a very strange look. I got the feeling that she knew I’d shot her husband. Back at the AnooYoo Spa.”

“Wow, you really went to town on the mushrooms,” Rebecca says. “I once had a conversation with my bra. So, was she mad about the … I’m sorry, I just can’t call it a husband! It was a pig, for chrissakes!”

“She wasn’t pleased,” says Toby. “But more sad than mad, I’d say.”

“They’re smarter than ordinary pigs, even without the Meditation booster,” says Rebecca. “That’s for sure. By the way, Jimmy came to breakfast today. No more invalid trays for him. He’s doing well, but he’d like you to double-check his foot.”

Jimmy has his own cubicle now. It’s a new one, in the cobb-house addition they’ve finished at last. The cobb walls still smell a little damp, a little muddy; but there’s a larger window than in the older part of the building, with a screen set into it and a curtain in a vibrant print of cartoon fish, with big curvy mouths and long-lashed eyes on the female ones. The males are playing guitars, with an octopus on the bongos. This is not the best thing for Toby to be looking at in her present state.

“Where did those come from?” she asks Jimmy, who’s sitting up on his bed ledge with his feet on the floor. His legs are still thin, wasted; he’ll need to build up the muscles again. “The curtains?”

“Who knows?” says Jimmy. “Ren, Wakulla — I mean, Lotis Blue. They felt I needed some cheerful interior decoration. It’s like pre-school in here.” He still has his Hey-Diddle-Diddle coverlet.

“You wanted me to look at your foot?” she says.

“Yeah. It’s itchy. Driving me crazy. I just hope none of those maggot things got left inside.”

“If they did, they’d have burrowed out by now,” says Toby.

“Thanks a million,” says Jimmy. The scar on his foot is red but sealed over. Toby examines it: no heat, no inflammation.

“That’s normal,” she says. “The itchiness. I’ll get you something for it.” A poultice: jewelweed, horsetail, red clover, she thinks. Horsetail might be the easiest to find.

“I heard you saw a pigoon,” says Jimmy. “And it spoke to you.”

“Who told you that?” says Toby.

“The Crakers, who else?” says Jimmy. “They’re my radio. That kid Blackbeard gave them the whole story, it seems. They think you shouldn’t have killed that boar, but they’re forgiving you because maybe Oryx said you could. You know those pigs have human prefrontal cortex tissue in their brains? Fact. I should know, I grew up with them.”

“How did the Crakers learn about that?” Toby asks carefully. “Me shooting the boar?”

“The pigoon gal told Blackbeard. Don’t give me that look, I’m just the messenger here. And according to Ren I’ve been hallucinating for a while, so hey. Maybe I’m not the best judge of reality.” He gives her a lopsided grin.

“Mind if I sit down?” she says.

“Help yourself, thousands do,” says Jimmy. “Fucking Crakers wander in here whenever the whim takes them. They want to know more shit about Crake. They think I’m his fucking guru. That he talks to me through my wristwatch. ’Course it’s my own fucking fault because I made that up myself.”

“And what do you tell them?” Toby asks. “About Crake?”

“I tell them to go ask you,” says Jimmy.

“Me?” says Toby.

“You’re the expert now. I need to take a nap.”

“No, really, they always say you … they say you knew Crake, in person. When he was walking the earth.”

“Like that’s supposed to be first prize?” Jimmy gives a sour little laugh.

“It gives you a certain authority,” says Toby. “In their eyes.”

“That’s like having a certain authority with a bunch of … Crap, I’m so wrecked I can’t even think of a smartass comparison. Clams. Oysters. Dodos. What I’m saying is. Because, I’m tired. My guru juice is all used up. They wore me out a while ago, to tell you the truth. I never want to think about Crake again, ever, or listen to any more crapulous poop about how good and kind and all-powerful he is, or how he made them in the Egg and then sweetly wiped everybody else off the face of the planet, just for them. And how Oryx is in charge of the animals, and flies around in the shape of an owl, and even though you can’t see her she’s there anyway and will always hear them.”

“As I understand it,” says Toby, “that’s consistent with what you’ve been telling them. It’s Gospel as far as they’re concerned.”

“I know that’s what I fucking told them!” says Jimmy. “They wanted to know the basic stuff, like where they came from and what all those decaying dead people were. I had to tell them something.”

“So you made up a nice story,” says Toby.

“Well, crap, I could hardly tell them the truth. So yes. And yes, I could’ve done a smarter job of it, and yes, I’m not a brainiac, and yes, Crake must’ve thought I had the IQ of an aubergine because he played me like a kazoo. So it makes me puke to hear them grovelling about fucking Crake and singing his fucking praises every time his stupid name comes up.”

“But that’s the story we’ve got,” says Toby. “So we have to work with it. Not that I’ve grasped all the finer points.”

“Whatever,” says Jimmy. “It’s over to you. Just keep doing what you’re doing. You can add stuff in, go to town, they’ll eat it up. I hear they’re fanboys for Zeb these days. Stick with that plotline, it’s got legs. Just keep them from finding out what a bogus fraud everything is.”

“That’s very manipulative,” says Toby. “Shoving it all onto me.”

“Yeah, I’m not denying it,” says Jimmy. “I apologize. Though you’re good at it, according to them. Your choice; you can always tell them to piss off.”

“You realize we’re under attack, in a manner of speaking,” says Toby.

“The Painballers. Yeah. Ren told me,” he says more soberly.

“So we can’t let these people go wandering off on their own too much. They’d most likely be killed.”

Jimmy thinks about that. “So, then?”

“You need to help me,” says Toby. “We should get our stories straight. I’ve been flying in the dark.”

“Nowhere else to fly on the subject of Crake,” says Jimmy gloomily. “Welcome to my whirlwind. He cut her throat, did you know that? Good, kind Crake. She was so pretty, she was … Just thought I’d share that. But I shot the fucker.”

“Whose throat?” Toby asks. “Who did you shoot?” But Jimmy’s face is in his hands now, and his shoulders are shaking.

Piglet

Toby doesn’t know what to do. Is a comforting maternal hug in order, supposing she’s capable of giving one, or would Jimmy find that intrusive? How about a brisk, nurse-like Chin up or a feeble withdrawal, on tiptoe?

Before she can make up her mind, Blackbeard runs into the room. He’s unusually excited. “They’re coming! They’re coming!” he says. It’s almost a shout, which is rare for a Craker: even the kids aren’t shouters.

“Who is?” she asks. “Is it the bad men?” Now where did she leave her rifle? That’s the down side of Meditations: you forget how to be properly aggressive.

“They! Come! Come,” he says, tugging at her hand, then at her bedsheet. “The Pig Ones. Very many!”

Jimmy lifts his head. “Pigoons. Oh fuck,” he says.

Blackbeard is delighted. “Yes! Thank you for calling him, Snowman-the-Jimmy! We will need him, to help us,” he says. “The Pig Ones have a dead.”

“A dead what?” Toby asks him, but he’s out the door.

The MaddAddamites have dropped their various tasks and are moving in behind the cobb-house fence. Some have armed themselves with axes, and rakes, and shovels.

Crozier, who must have set out to pasture with his flock of Mo’Hairs, is hurrying back along the pathway. Manatee’s with him, carrying their spraygun.

“They’re coming from the west,” says Crozier. The Mo’Hairs surround him.

“They’re … It’s weird. They’re marching. It’s like a pig parade.”

The Crakers are gathering by the swing set. They don’t seem in any way frightened. They talk together in low voices, then the men begin to move west, as if to meet whatever’s coming down the path. Several women go with them: Marie Antoinette, Sojourner Truth, two others. The rest stay behind with the children, who clump together and stand silently, though no one has ordered them to do that.

“Make them come back!” says Jimmy, who has joined the MaddAddamite group. “Those things will rip them open!”

“You can’t make them do anything,” says Swift Fox, who is holding — somewhat awkwardly — a pitchfork from the garden.

“Rhino,” says Zeb, handing over another spraygun. “Don’t get trigger-happy,” he says to Manatee. “You could hit a Craker. As long as the pigs don’t charge us, don’t fire.”

“This is creepy,” says Ren timorously. She’s standing beside Jimmy now, holding on to his arm. “Where’s Amanda?”

“Sleeping,” says Lotis Blue, who’s on the other side of Jimmy now.

“More than creepy,” says Jimmy. “They’re sly, the pigoons. They’ve got tactics. They almost cornered me one time.”

“Toby. We’ll need your rifle,” says Zeb. “If they split into two groups, go around to the back. They can root under the fence fast if they’ve got us distracted out front. Then they’ll attack from both sides.”

Toby hurries to her cubicle. When she comes out carrying her old Ruger Deerfield, the herd of giant pigoons is already advancing into the clearing in front of the cobb-house fence.

There are fifty or so in all. Fifty adults, that is: several of the sows have litters of piglets, trotting along beside their mothers. In the centre of the group, two of the boars are moving side by side; there’s something lying crossways on their backs. It looks like a mound of flowers — flowers and foliage.

What? thinks Toby. Is it a peace offering? A pig wedding? An altar-piece?

The largest pigs are acting as outriders; they seem nervous, pointing the moist discs of their snouts this way and that, snuffing the air.

They’re glossy and greyish pink, rounded and plump and streamlined, like enormous nightmare slugs; but slugs with tusks, at least on the males. A sudden charge, an upward slash with those lethal scimitars, and you’d be gutted like a fish. And soon they’ll be so close to the Crakers that even a direct hit with a spraygun wouldn’t stop their momentum.

A low level of grunting is going on, from pig to pig. If they were people, Toby thinks, you’d say it was the murmuring of a crowd. It must be information exchange; but God knows what sort of information. Are they saying, “We’re scared?” Or “We hate them?” Or possibly just a simple “Yum, yum?”

Rhino and Manatee are stationed just inside the fence. They’ve lowered their sprayguns. Toby has thought it best to conceal her rifle; she’s carrying it at her side, a fold of her bedsheet tucked around it. No need to remind them of her boar-murdering exploits, though they probably need no reminders.

“Cripes,” says Jimmy, who’s standing behind Toby. “Would you look at that. They’ve got to be planning something.”

Blackbeard has left the other Craker children and has clutched himself on to Toby. “Do not be afraid, Oh Toby,” he says. “Are you afraid?”

“Yes, I am afraid,” she says. Though not as afraid as Jimmy, she adds to herself, because I have a gun and he doesn’t. “They have attacked our garden more than once,” she says. “And we have killed some of them, to defend ourselves.” She thinks uneasily of the pork roasts, the bacon, and the chops that have resulted. “And we have put them into soup,” she says. “They have turned into a smelly bone. A lot of smelly bones.”

“Yes, a smelly bone,” says Blackbeard thoughtfully. “A lot of smelly bones. I have seen them near the kitchen.”

“So they are not our friends,” Toby says. “You are not the friend of those who turn you into a smelly bone.”

Blackbeard thinks about this. Then he looks up at her, smiling gently. “Do not be afraid, Oh Toby,” he says. “They are Children of Oryx and Children of Crake, both. They have said they will not harm you today. You will see.” Toby’s far from sure about that, but she smiles down at him anyway.

The advance deputation of Crakers has joined the herd of pigoons and is walking back with them. The rest of the Crakers wait silently by the swing set as the pigoons advance.

Now Napoleon Bonaparte and six other men step forward: piss parade, it looks like. Yes, they’re peeing in a line. Aiming carefully, peeing respectfully, but peeing. Having finished, they each take a step back. Three curious little piglets scamper forward, snuffle at the ground, then run squealing back to their mothers.

“There,” says Blackbeard. “See? It is safe.”

The Crakers move into a semicircle behind their demarcation line of urine. They begin to sing. The herd of pigoons divides in two, and the pair of boars moves slowly forward. Then they roll to either side, and the flower-covered burden they’ve been carrying slips onto the ground. They heave to their feet again and move some of the flowers away, using their trotters and snouts.

It’s a dead piglet. A tiny one, with its throat cut. Its front trotters are tied together with rope. The blood is still red, it’s oozing from the gaping neck wound. There are no other marks.

Now the whole herd is deploying itself in a semicircle around the — what? The bier? The catafalque? The flowers, the leaves — it’s a funeral. Toby remembers the boar she shot at the AnooYoo Spa — how, when she went to collect maggots from the carcass, there were fern fronds and leaves scattered over it. Elephants, she’d thought then. They do that. When someone they love has died.

“Crap,” says Jimmy. “I hope it wasn’t us who nuked that little porker.”

“I don’t think so,” says Toby. She would have heard about it, surely. There would have been some culinary chitchat.

The two piglet-bearers have gone forward to the line of piss. Abraham Lincoln and Sojourner Truth are on the other side of it. They kneel so they’re at the level of the pigoons: head facing head. The Crakers stop singing. There’s silence. Then the Crakers start singing again.

“What’s happening?” says Toby.

“They are talking, Oh Toby,” says Blackbeard. “They are asking for help. They want to stop those ones. Those ones who are killing their pig babies.” He takes a deep breath. “Two pig babies — one with a stick you point, one with a knife. The Pig Ones want those killing ones to be dead.”

“They want help from …” She can’t say the Crakers, it isn’t what they call themselves. “They want help from your people?”

If killing is the request, how can the Crakers help? she wonders. According to the MaddAddamites, Crakers are nonviolent by nature. They don’t fight, they can’t fight. They’re incapable of it. That’s how they’re made.

“No, Oh Toby,” says Blackbeard. “They want help from you.”

“Me?” says Toby.

“All of you. All those standing behind the fence, those with two skins. They want you to help them with the sticks you have. They know how you kill, by making holes. And then blood comes out. They want you to make such holes in the three bad men. With blood.” He looks a little ill: he isn’t finding this easy. Toby wants to hug him, but that would be condescending: he has chosen this duty.

“Did you say three men?” Toby asks. “Aren’t there only two?”

“The Pig Ones say there are three,” says Blackbeard. “They have smelled three.”

“That’s not so good,” says Zeb. “They’ve found a recruit.” He and Black Rhino exchange sombre glances. “Changes the odds,” says Rhino.

“They want you to make blood come out,” says Blackbeard. “Three with holes in them, and blood.”

“Us,” says Toby. “They want us to do it.”

“Yes,” says Blackbeard. “Those with two skins.”

“Then why aren’t they talking to us?” says Toby. “Why are they talking to you?”

Oh, she thinks. Of course. We’re too stupid, we don’t understand their languages. So there has to be a translator.

“It is easier for them to talk to us,” says Blackbeard simply. “And in return, if you help them to kill the three bad men, they will never again try to eat your garden. Or any of you,” he adds seriously. “Even if you are dead, they will not eat you. And they ask that you must no longer make holes in them, with blood, and cook them in a smelly bone soup, or hang them in the smoke, or fry them and then eat them. Not any more.”

“Tell them it’s a deal,” says Zeb.

“Throw in the bees and the honey,” says Toby. “Make those off-limits too.”

“Please, Oh Toby, what is a deal?” says Blackbeard.

“A deal means, we accept their offer and will help them,” says Toby. “We share their wishes.”

“Then they will be happy,” says Blackbeard. “They want to go hunting for the bad men tomorrow, or else the next day. You must bring your sticks, to make the holes.”

Something appears to have been concluded. The pigoons, who have been standing with ears cocked forward and snouts raised as if sniffing the words, turn away and head west, back from where they came. They’ve left the dead flower-strewn piglet on the ground.

“Wait,” says Toby to Blackbeard. “They’ve forgotten their …” She almost said their child. “They’ve forgotten the little one.”

“The small Pig One is for you, Oh Toby,” says Blackbeard. “It is a gift. It is dead already. They have already done their sadness.”

“But we have promised not to eat them any more,” says Toby.

“Not kill and then eat, no. But they say you would not be killing it yourselves. Therefore it is permitted. They say you may eat it or not eat it, as you choose. They would eat it themselves, otherwise.”

Curious funeral rites, thinks Toby. You strew the beloved with flowers, you mourn, and then you eat the corpse. No-holds-barred recycling. Even Adam and the Gardeners never went that far.

Palaver

The Crakers have moved apart, over to the swing set, where they are chewing away at the kudzu vines and talking together in low voices. The dead piglet lies on the ground, flies settling on it, encircled by a ring of MaddAddamites, pondering over it as if holding an inquest.

“So, you think those pricks were butchering it?” says Shackleton.

“Maybe,” says Manatee. “But it wasn’t hanging from a tree. That’s what you’d do normally, to drain the blood.”

“The pigs told my blue buddies it was just lying on the path,” says Crozier. “In plain view.”

“You think it’s a message to us?” says Zunzuncito.

“Sort of like a challenge,” says Shackleton. “Like they’re calling us out.”

“Maybe that’s how come the rope. It was the rope on them last time,” says Ren.

“Nah,” says Crozier. “Why would they use a piglet for that?”

“Maybe like This will be you next time. Or Look how close we can get. They’re triple-time Painball vets, remember. That’s Painball style: freak you out,” says Shackleton.

“Right,” says Rhino. “They really want our stuff now. Must be running out of cellpack power, getting desperate.”

“They’ll try to sneak in at night,” says Shackleton. “We’ll have to double up on sentries.”

“Better check the fences,” says Rhino. “They’re still pretty makeshift.”

“They may have tools,” says Zeb. “From some hardware store. Knives, wire cutters, stuff like that.” He moves off, around the corner of the cobb house, with Rhino following.

“Maybe it’s not the Painballers who killed it. Maybe it’s persons unknown,” says Ivory Bill.

“Maybe it’s the Crakers,” says Jimmy. “Hey, just joking, I know they’d never do that.”

“Never say never,” says Ivory Bill. “Their brains are more malleable than Crake intended. They’ve been doing several things we didn’t anticipate during the construction phase.”

“Maybe it’s someone in our own group,” says Swift Fox. “Someone who wanted sausages.”

There’s an uneasy, guilty laugh round the circle. Then a silence. “So. What next?” says Ivory Bill.

“What next is, do we cook it or not?” says Rebecca. “Suckling pig?”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” says Ren. “It would be like eating a baby.” Amanda starts to cry.

“My dear lady, what’s all this about?” says Ivory Bill.

“I’m sorry,” says Ren. “I shouldn’t have said baby.”

“Okay, cards on the table,” says Rebecca. “Hands up, anyone here who didn’t know that Amanda’s pregnant?”

“I appear to be the only one left in gynecological ignorance,” says Ivory Bill. “Perhaps such intimate feminine material was considered unfit for my elderly ears.”

“Or maybe you weren’t listening,” says Swift Fox.

“Okay, so that’s clear,” says Rebecca. “Now I would like to open up the circle, as we used to say at the Gardeners … Ren, you want to do this?”

Ren takes a breath. “I’m pregnant too,” she says. She begins to sniffle. “I peed on the stick. It turned pink, it made a smiley face … Oh God.” Lotis Blue pats her. Crozier makes a move towards her, then stops.

“Three’s company,” says Swift Fox. “Count me in. Bun in the oven, up the spout. Farrow in the barrow.” At least she’s cheerful about it, thinks Toby. But whose bun?

There’s another silence. “I don’t suppose there is any point,” says Ivory Bill with heavy disapproval, “in speculating as to the paternity of these … these various imminent progenies.”

“None whatsoever,” says Swift Fox. “Or not in my case. I’ve been doing an experiment in genetic evolution. Reproduction of the fittest. Think of me as a petri dish.”

“I find that irresponsible,” says Ivory Bill.

“I’m not sure it’s any of your business,” says Swift Fox.

“Hey!” says Rebecca. “It is what it is!”

“With Amanda, it may be a Craker,” says Toby. “From something that happened the night she was … the night we got her back, from … That’s the best possibility. And that may be what happened with Ren too.”

“It wasn’t the Painballers, anyway,” says Ren. “With me. I know it wasn’t.”

“You know that how?” says Crozier.

“I don’t want to go into the gory details,” says Ren, “because you’d think it was oversharing. It’s girl stuff. We count the days. That’s how.”

“I can definitely rule out the Painballers,” says Swift Fox. “In my case. And I can rule out a few other guys too.” None of the men look at each other. Crozier suppresses a grin.

“And the Crakers as well?” says Toby, keeping her voice neutral. Who’s on her checklist? Crozier, definitely, but who else? Have there been multitudes? Maybe Zeb was one of them, after all; if so, soon there may be an infant Zeb. Then what will she herself do? Pretend she doesn’t notice? Knit babywear? Brood and sulk? The first two options would be preferable, but she’s not sure she’ll be up to them.

“I did have an interlude or two with the big blues,” says Swift Fox. “When no one was looking, which didn’t give me a huge window of opportunity, since everyone here is so snoopy. It was energetic, and I’m not sure I’d want to make a habit of it. Not much foreplay. But the pink smiley face doesn’t lie, and I will soon be heavy with young. The question is, young what?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” says Shackleton.

Zeb and Black Rhino return from their inspection of the fences. “This place is hardly a fortress,” Zeb says. “Thing is — if we take the weapons with us on the hunt, we leave everyone in the cobb house undefended.”

“Which may be what they want,” says Rhino. “Lure us out the front, sneak in the back. Make off with the women.”

“We’re not just packages,” says Swift Fox. “We can fight back! You can leave us a couple of sprayguns.”

“Good luck with that plan,” says Rhino.

“We need to move our whole group out of here when we go hunting for those guys,” says Crozier. “We can’t leave anyone behind. Take the Mo’Hairs too. If we’re all together, it’s harder for them to ambush us.”

“But easier to stampede us,” says Zeb. “How fast can we all run?”

“I’m not running,” says Rebecca. “And I need to point out here that there are three pregnant women in this crowd.”

“Three?” says Zeb.

“Ren and Swift Fox,” says Rebecca.

“When did that happen?”

“They told everyone else when you were checking the fences,” says Rebecca.

“They got knocked up by elves overnight,” says Jimmy.

“Not funny, Jimmy,” says Lotis Blue.

“Point is, bad for them to run,” says Rebecca.

“So, we can’t keep our end of the deal? We can’t go into battle with the pig militia?” says Shackleton. “They’ll have to do it alone?”

“They can’t,” says Jimmy. “They’re fucking lethal but they can’t climb stairs. If the pigs chase those Painball guys into the city, they’ll just move up a floor and shoot down. The pigoons will be decimated.”

“Crozier’s right, we should all relocate,” says Toby. “To a more secure place, with doors that lock.”

“Like where?” says Rebecca.

“We can go back to the AnooYoo Spa,” says Toby. “I holed up in there for months. There’s still some basic food left.” And maybe some seeds, she thinks: I can collect seeds, for the garden. And more bullets, she’d left some there.

“They’ve got real beds,” says Ren. “And towels.”

“And solid doors,” says Toby.

“Could be a plan,” says Zeb. “Vote?”

Nobody votes no.

“Now we must prepare,” says Katuro.

“First we should bury the piglet,” Toby says. “It would be right. Under the circumstances.”

So they do.

Fallback

It takes them a day to get organized. There are many things they need to take with them: the basic supplies for cooking, a change of daywear bedsheets, duct tape, rope. Flashlights, headlamps: most of the batteries are still good. The sprayguns, of course. Toby’s rifle. And any sharp-edged tools, because you wouldn’t want such things as knives and picks to fall into the hands of enemies.

“Keep it light,” Zeb tells them. “If all goes well, we’ll be back here in a few days.”

“Or else this place may be burned to the ground,” says Rhino.

“So if you really need it, take it with you,” says Katuro.

Toby worries about her hive of bees. Will they be all right? What could attack them? She hasn’t seen any bears, and the Pigoons have made a no-bees deal, or so she must believe. Do wolvogs like honey? No, they’re carnivores. Rakunks, perhaps, but they’d be no match for an angry hive.

She covers her head and speaks to the hive, as she’s been doing faithfully each morning. “Greetings, Bees. I bring news to you and your Queen. Tomorrow I must go away for a short time, so I will not be talking with you for several days. Our own hive is threatened. We are in danger, and we must attack those that threaten us, as you would in our place. Be steadfast, gather much pollen, defend your hive if need be. Tell this message to Pilar, and ask for the help of her strong Spirit, on our behalf.”

The bees fly in and out of the hole in the Styrofoam cooler. They seem to like it here in the garden. Several of them come over to investigate her. They test her floral bedsheet, find it wanting, move to her face. Yes, they know her. They touch her lips, gather her words, fly away with the message, disappear into the dark. Pass through the membrane that separates this world from the unseen world that lies just underneath it. There is Pilar, with her calm smile, walking forward along a corridor that glows with hidden light.

Now, Toby, she tells herself. Talking pigs, communicative dead people, and the Underworld in a Styrofoam beer cooler. You’re not on drugs, you’re not even sick. You really have no excuse.

The Crakers watch the departure preparations with interest. The children hang around the kitchen, staring at Rebecca with their huge green eyes, keeping a distance between themselves and her flitch of bacon and her dried wolvog jerky.

The Crakers don’t seem to fully understand why the MaddAddams are moving house, but they’ve made it clear that they themselves are coming too.

“We will help Snowman-the-Jimmy,” they say. “We will help Zeb.” “We will help Crozier, he is our friend, we must help him to piss better.” “We will help Toby, she will tell us a story.” “Crake wants us to go there,” and so forth. They themselves have no possessions, so there’s nothing they need to carry; but they want to carry other things. “I will bring this, it is a pot.” “I will bring this, it is a wind-up radio, what is it for?” “I will bring this sharp one, it is a knife.” “This one is a toilet paper, I will carry it.”

“We will carry Snowman-the-Jimmy,” one trio announces, but Jimmy says he can walk.

Blackbeard marches into Toby’s cubicle. “I will bring the writing,” he says importantly. “And the pen. I will bring those, for us to have there.”

He views Toby’s journal as a joint possession of theirs, which is fine, thinks Toby, as it lets her follow his writing progress. Though sometimes it’s hard to get the journal away from him so she can write in it herself, and he has to be reminded not to leave it out in the rain.

So far he’s concentrated mostly on names, though he’s also fond of writing THANK YOU and GOOD NIGHT. CRAK GOODNIT GOOD BAD FLOWR ZEB TOBY ORIX THAK YOU is a typical entry. Maybe one of these days she’ll gain some new insights into how his mind works, though she can’t say she’s had any blinding illuminations as yet.

At sunrise the next day they set out from the cobb-house compound in the Tree of Life parkette. It’s an exodus, a move away from civilization, such as it is.

Two Pigoons have arrived as escorts; the rest will meet them at the AnooYoo Spa, says Blackbeard. He’s got Toby’s binoculars, which he’s figured out how to use. Every once in a while he steps off to the side, lifts the binocs, focuses. “Crows,” he announces. “Vultures.” The Craker women laugh gently. “Oh Blackbeard, but you knew that without the eye tube things,” they say. Then he laughs too.

Rhino and Katuro walk ahead with the Pigoons, followed by Crozier and the flock of Mo’Hairs. Some of them have bundles tied onto their backs, which is new for them, though they don’t seem to mind. With their human hair, curly and straight, and the lumpy packages on top of it, they look like avant-garde hats with legs.

Shackleton stays in the middle of the procession, with Ren, Amanda, and Swift Fox, who are surrounded in their turn by most of the Craker women, attracted by their pregnant state. The Crakers make cooing noises, they smile and laugh and pat and stroke. Swift Fox appears to find this annoying, but Amanda smiles.

The rest of the MaddAddamite group is behind them, and then the Craker men. Zeb brings up the rear.

Toby walks near the Craker women, rifle at the ready. It seems a long time since she came this way with Ren, searching for Amanda. Ren must be remembering those days as well: she drops behind to join Toby, slipping her arm through Toby’s free left arm. “Thank you for letting me in,” she says. “At the AnooYoo Spa. And for the maggots. I would have died if you hadn’t taken care of me. You saved my life.”

And you saved mine, thinks Toby. If Ren hadn’t stumbled along, what would she have done? Waited and waited, shut up inside the AnooYoo by herself, until she went bonkers or dried up of old age.

They stick to the road that leads through the Heritage Park, heading northwest. There’s Pilar’s elderberry bush, covered with butterflies and bees. One of the Mo’Hairs grabs a mouthful of it on the way past.

Now they’ve reached the eastern gatehouse — pink, Tex-Mex retro — and the high fence that encloses the AnooYoo grounds. “We came here,” Ren says. “That man was inside it. The Painballer, the worst one.”

“Yes,” says Toby. It was Blanco, her old enemy. He’d had gangrene, but he was bent on murder despite that.

“You killed him, didn’t you?” says Ren. She must have known at the time.

“Let’s say I helped him enter a different plane of being,” says Toby. That was the Gardener way of putting it. “He would have died soon, but more painfully. Anyway, it was Urban Bloodshed Limitation.” First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled.

She’d dosed Blanco with Amanita and Poppy: a painless exit, and better than he deserved. Then she’d dragged him onto the ornamental planting ringed with whitewashed stones, as a gift for the wildlife. Was the dose of Amanita strong enough to poison anything that ate him? She hopes not: she wishes the vultures well.

The heavy wrought-iron gate is wide open. Toby had tied it shut when they’d left, but the rope has been chewed apart. The two Pigoons trot through first, snuffle around the walkway to the gatehouse, nose their way in. They come back out, then trot over to Blackbeard. Subdued grunting, eye-to-eye staring.

“They say the three men have been there. But they are not there now,” he says.

“Are they sure?” Toby asks. “There was a man in there earlier. A bad man. They don’t mean that one?”

“Oh no,” says Blackbeard. “They know about that one. He was dead, on the flowers. At first they wanted to eat him, but he had bad mushrooms in him. So they did not.”

Toby checks out the ornamental flowerbed. It used to say WELCOME TO ANOOYOO in petunias; now it’s a lush thicket of meadow weeds. Down among them, is that a boot? She has no desire to probe further.

She’d left Blanco’s knife there, with the body. It was a good one: sharp. But the MaddAddamites have other knives. She only hopes the Painballers haven’t retrieved it; but they, too, must have other knives.

Now they’re in the AnooYoo grounds proper. They keep to the main roadway, although there’s a forest path: Toby and Ren had taken it earlier, to stay in the shade. That was where they’d come upon Oates, slaughtered by the Painballers and minus his kidneys, strung up in a tree.

He must still be there, thinks Toby. They should find him, cut him down, give him a proper burial. His brothers, Shackleton and Crozier, will welcome that. A true composting, with his own tree planted on top of him. Restore him to the cool peace of rootlets, the calm dissolve of earth. But now is not the time.

Dogs barking, off in the woods. They stop to listen. “If those things come over wagging their tails, you need to shoot them,” says Jimmy. “Wolvogs; they’re vicious.”

“Ammunition’s rationed,” says Rhino. “Until we find more.”

“They won’t attack us now,” says Katuro. “Too many people. Plus two Pigoons.”

“We must’ve killed most of them by now,” says Shackleton.

They pass a burnt-out jeep, then an incinerated solarcar. Then a crashed pink mini-van with the AnooYoo logo on it: kissy lips, winky eye.

“Don’t look inside,” says Zeb, who has already looked. “Not pretty.”

And now there’s the Spa building up ahead, solid pink, still standing: no one has burned it down.

The main force of the Pigoons is milling around outside, probably finishing off the organic kitchen garden, one-time source of garnishes for the clients’ diet salads. Toby remembers the hours she’d spent alone in that garden after the Flood, hoping to raise enough edible plant life so she could keep going. It’s all churned earth by now.

At least she left the door unlocked.

Shadow, mildew. Her old self, bodiless, wandering the mirrorless halls. She’d put towels over the glass to blot out her own reflection.

“Come in,” she says to everyone. “Make yourselves at home.”

Fortress AnooYoo

The Crakers are entranced by the AnooYoo Spa. They walk carefully along the hallways, bending to touch the smooth, polished floor. They lift the pink towels that Toby had hung over the mirrors, glimpse the people in there, look behind the mirrors; then, when they realize the people are themselves, they touch their hair and smile to make their reflections smile too. They sit on the beds in the bedrooms, gingerly, then stand up again. In the gymnasium the children bounce on the trampolines, giggling. They sniff at the pink soap in the washrooms. There is still a lot of pink soap.

“Is this the Egg?” they ask. Or the younger ones do. They have a faint memory of a similar place, with high walls and smooth floors. “Is this the Egg where we were made?” “No, the Egg is not the same.” “The Egg is far. It is more far than this.” “The Egg has Crake in it, the Egg has Oryx. They are not here.” “Can we go to the Egg?” “We do not want to go to the Egg now, it is dark.” “Does the Egg have the pink things in it, like this? The flower-smelling things we can eat?” “That is not a plant, that is a soap. We do not eat a soap,” and so on.

At least they aren’t singing, thinks Toby. They haven’t sung much on the way here either. They’ve been looking and listening. They seem to know there is danger.

Fortunately there haven’t been any leaks in the roof. Toby is happy about that: it means the beds, despite being slightly musty, are still sleepable. As de facto hostess, she assigns rooms. For herself she picks a Couples room. The Spa contained three of those, in the unlikely event that a husband and wife or equivalent would check in together, to undergo joint facials and cleansings and tweaks and polishes. But this offering was not popular, or not among heterosexual couples — usually women liked to have such adjustments done in private so they could emerge like butterflies from a perfumed cocoon and astound the multitudes with their ravishing beauty. Toby used to run this place, so she knows. She knows, also, about the disappointment felt by these women, when, despite the large amounts of money they’d spent, they did not look very much better.

In the closet she stashes her belongings, such as they are. Her well-worn binoculars: she hasn’t had much use for them at the cobb house because there were few vistas there, but they’ll be essential now. Her rifle, and the ammunition. She left a cache of bullets here at the Spa, so she can top up her supply now. Once that’s gone the rifle will be of no use, unless she can learn to make gunpowder.

She places her toothbrush in the ensuite bathroom. She needn’t have bothered bringing the one from the cobb house: there are a lot of toothbrushes at the Spa, all pink; and, in the supply room, a whole shelf of AnooYoo’s guest mini-toothpastes, two kinds: Cherry Blossom Organic, biodegradable with anti-plaque micro-organisms; and Kiss-in-the-Dark Chromatic Sparkle Enhancer.

The second one claims to make your entire mouth glow in the dark. Toby never tried it out, but some women swore by it. She wonders how Zeb would react if he were to be confronted with a disembodied glowing mouth. Tonight will not be the night to find out, however: she’ll be on sentry duty, up on the rooftop, and a light-up mouth would make an excellent target for a sniper.

Her old journals; she’s gathered them up from where she’d slept on one of the massage tables, out of some nun-like sense of penitence. Here they are, written in AnooYoo appointment books, with the kissy-mouth logo and the winking eye. She’d recorded the Gardener days, the Feasts and Festivals, and the phases of the moon; and the daily happenings, if any. It had helped to keep her sane, that writing. Then, when time had begun again and real people had entered it, she’d abandoned it here. Now it’s a whisper from the past.

Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice? If so, why is she teaching this practice to little Blackbeard? Surely the Crakers would be happier without it.

She slides the journals into a dresser drawer. She’d like to read them over sometime, but there’s no space for that right now.

The toilets still have water in them, plus a lot of dead flies. She flushes: the collector barrels on the roof must be functional, which is a blessing. And there’s a vast supply of pink toilet paper, with flower petals pressed into it. Some of the earlier AnooYoo botanical-items toilet paper experiments had not gone well, as there had been some unexpected allergies.

She needs to post a Boil Water advisory, however. Seeing water actually coming out of a tap, some people might get carried away.

After washing her face and putting on a clean pink top-to-toe from the Housekeeping closet, she rejoins the others. There’s a heated discussion going on in the main foyer: what to do with the Mo’Hairs overnight? The broad AnooYoo lawn is now thigh-high in meadow growth, so grazing them in the daytime won’t pose a problem, but they’ll need to be sheltered or guarded once darkness falls: there may be liobams. Crozier is all for herding them into the gym: he’s become quite attached to them, and is worried. Manatee points out that the floor is slippery and they may skid and break their legs, not to mention the sheep-shit factor. Toby suggests the kitchen garden: it has a fence, which is still largely intact — the Pigoons have entered by means of the holes they dug, but these can be quickly filled. Then a sentry on the rooftop can keep an eye on the flock and report any unusual bleating.

But where will the Crakers sleep? They don’t like sleeping inside buildings. They want to sleep in the meadow, where there are a lot of leaves for them to eat as well. But with the Painballers on the loose and possibly in a hunting mood, that’s out of the question.

“On the roof,” says Toby. “There are some planters up there in case they want a snack.” So that’s decided.

The afternoon thunderstorm comes and goes. Once it’s over the Pigoons go for a dip in the swimming pool; the fact that it’s growing algae and waterweeds and has a lively population of frogs does not deter them. They’ve solved the problem of how to get in and out of it by shoving a collection of poolside furniture into the shallow end: the deck chairs make a sort of ramp, which provides a foothold. The younger ones enjoy splashing and squealing; the older sows and boars take brief dips, then watch over their piglets and shoats indulgently, lounging at poolside. Toby wonders if pigs get sunburn.

Dinner is somewhat haphazard, though served in grand style on the round tables and pink tablecloths of the main dining room. A foraging posse has scoured the meadow, so there’s a hefty salad of wild greens. Rebecca has found a small unopened bottle of olive oil and made a classic French dressing. Steamed purslane, parboiled burdock root, wolvog jerky, Mo’Hair milk. There was a residual jar of sugar in the kitchen, so each of them has a teaspoonful of it for dessert. Toby isn’t used to sugar any more: the potent sweetness goes through her head like a blade.

“I’ve got some news for you,” says Rebecca when they’re cleaning up. “Your pals caught a frog for you. They asked me to cook it.”

“A frog?” says Toby.

“Yeah. They couldn’t get a fish.”

“Oh crap,” says Toby. The Crakers will be asking for their nighttime story. With any luck, they’ve forgotten to bring the red Snowman hat.

It’s mellow evening now, the sun subsiding. Crickets trill, birds flock to roost, amphibians ribbet from the swimming pool or twang like rubber bands. Toby looks for something to wrap herself in while standing sentry: the rooftop can be cool.

As she’s swaddling up in a pink bedspread, little Blackbeard sidles into her room. He spots himself in the mirror, smiles, waves at himself, does a tiny dance. Once that’s over, he delivers his message: “The Pig Ones are saying that the three bad men are over there.”

“Over where?” says Toby, her heart quickening.

“Across the flowers. Behind the trees. They can smell them.”

“They shouldn’t go too close,” says Toby. “The bad men might have sprayguns. The sticks that make holes. With blood coming out.”

“The Pig Ones know that,” says Blackbeard.

Toby climbs the stairs to the rooftop, binoculars around her neck, rifle slung and ready. A number of the Crakers are already up there, waiting expectantly. Zeb is there too, leaning against the railing.

“You’re very pink,” he says. “The colour suits you. The silhouette too. Michelin Tire Man?”

“Are you being an asshole?”

“Not on purpose,” he says. “Crows making a racket.” And they are making one. Caw caw caw over at the edge of the forest. Toby lifts the binoculars: nothing to be seen.

“It could be an owl,” she says.

“Could be,” says Zeb.

“The Pigoons keep saying there are three men. Not two.”

“I’d be surprised if they’re wrong,” says Zeb.

“Do you think it might be Adam?” says Toby.

“Remember what you said about hope?” says Zeb. “You said it can be bad for you. So I’m trying not to.”

There’s a flicker of something light, over among the branches. Is it a face? Gone again.

“The worst thing,” says Toby, “is the waiting.”

Blackbeard tugs at her bedspread. “Oh Toby,” he says. “Come! It is time for us to hear the story that you will tell to us. We have brought the red hat.”