“You know that boy?” said Toby. The T-shirt looked wrong. If he was a real pleebrat it would have fit him better.
Zeb glanced over. “Him? Why?”
“He’s taking an interest in us.” CorpSeCorps, she thought? No. Surely too young.
“Don’t stare,” said Zeb. “He knew Pilar. I let him know we’d be here.”
36
According to Adam One, the Fall of Man was multidimensional. The ancestral primates fell out of the trees; then they fell from vegetarianism into meat-eating. Then they fell from instinct into reason, and thus into technology; from simple signals into complex grammar, and thus into humanity; from firelessness into fire, and thence into weaponry; and from seasonal mating into an incessant sexual twitching. Then they fell from a joyous life in the moment into the anxious contemplation of the vanished past and the distant future.
The Fall was ongoing, but its trajectory led ever downward. Sucked into the well of knowledge, you could only plummet, learning more and more, but not getting any happier. And so it was with Toby, once she’d become an Eve. She could feel the Eve Six title seeping into her, eroding her, wearing away the edges of what she’d once been. It was more than a hair shirt, it was a shirt of nettles. How had she allowed herself to be sewn into it this way?
She knew more now, however. As with all knowledge, once you knew it, you couldn’t imagine how it was that you hadn’t known it before. Like stage magic, knowledge before you knew it took place before your very eyes, but you were looking elsewhere.
For instance: the Adams and Eves had a laptop. Toby had been shocked to discover this – wasn’t such a device in direct contravention of Gardener principles? – but Adam One had reassured her: they never went online with it except with extreme precaution, they used it mostly for the storage of crucial data pertaining to the Exfernal World, and they took care to conceal such a dangerous object from the Gardener membership at large – especially the children. Nevertheless, they had one. “It’s like the Vatican’s porn collection,” Zeb told her. “Safe in our hands.”
They kept their laptop in a concealed wall compartment in the small room behind the vinegar barrels, which was also where they held the bi-weekly Adam and Eve meetings. There was a door to this room, but before Eveship had closed in around her Toby had been told there was only a closet behind it, used for bottle storage. There were indeed some shelves for empty bottles, but the whole shelf unit swung open to reveal the room’s actual door. Both doors were kept locked: only the Adams and Eves had keys. Now Toby had a key too.
She ought to have realized the Adams and the Eves had some way of meeting together. They appeared to move and think as one, and they didn’t use phones or computers, so how would they have made their group decisions except face to face? She must have supposed they exchanged information chemically, like trees. But no, nothing so vegetable: they sat around a table like any other conclave and hammered out their positions – theological as well as practical – as ruthlessly as medieval monks. And, as with the monks, there was increasingly much at stake. That was worrying to Toby, for the Corporations tolerated no opposition, and the Gardener stance against commercial activities in the larger sense might well come to be construed as that. So Toby was not wrapped in some otherworldly sheepfold-like cocoon, as she’d once supposed. Instead she was walking the edge of a real and potentially explosive power.
For the Gardeners, it seemed, were no longer a tiny localized cult. They were growing in influence: far from being confined to the Sinkhole Edencliff Rooftop Garden and its neighbouring rooftops and the other buildings they controlled, they had branches in different pleebs, and even in other cities. They also had cells of hidden Exfernal sympathizers embedded at every level, even within the Corporations themselves. The information provided by these sympathizers was indispensable, according to Adam One: by means of it, the intentions and movements of their enemies could be monitored, at least in part.
The cells were referred to as Truffles because they were underground, rare, and valuable, because you never could tell where they might appear next, and because pigs and dogs were employed to sniff them out. Not that the Gardeners had anything against actual Pigs and Dogs, Adam One made haste to explain – only against their enslavement by the forces of darkness.
Although they’d hidden their distress from the mass of the Gardeners, the Adams and Eves had been badly frightened by the arrest of Burt. Some claimed the CorpSeCorps would offer the age-old devil’s bargain – information in exchange for your life. But the CorpSeCorps didn’t need to make deals, Zeb said grimly, because once they got started on their Internal Rendition procedures a person would say anything. Who knew how many buckets of incriminating lies were being squeezed out of poor Burt, along with his blood, shit, and vomit?
So the Adams and Eves expected a CorpSeCorps raid on the Garden at any moment. They set their rapid-evacuation plans in place, and alerted the Truffle cells, who could be counted on to hide them. Then Burt had been discovered in the vacant lot behind Scales and Tails, with freezer burns on his skin and minus his vital organs.
“They want it to look like a mob hit,” Zeb said at the Council meeting behind the Vinegar Room. “But it’s not convincing. A mob would do more gratuitous mutilation. Fun stuff.”
Nuala said it was disrespectful of Zeb to use the word fun in this context. Zeb said he was speaking ironically. Marushka Midwife, who rarely said anything, said that irony was overvalued. Zeb said he hadn’t noticed such overvaluation much among the Gardeners. Rebecca – who was now a powerful new Eve – Eve Eleven of Nutriment Combining – said everyone should get a grip and bite their tongues. Adam One said that a house divided against itself could not stand.
A spirited debate then took place concerning the disposal of Burt’s body. Burt had been an Adam, said Rebecca: he deserved to be illegally composted in the Heritage Park, like any other Adam or Eve. That would be fair. Philo the Fog – who was less foggy inside the Council Room than outside it – said this would be too dangerous: what if the CorpSeCorps had planted Burt’s cadaver as bait and were watching to see who came to collect it? Stuart the Screw said the CorpSeCorps already knew Burt had been a Gardener, so what would they learn by that? Zeb said maybe dead Burt was a message from the CorpSeCorps to the pleebmobs, to tell them to tighten up their operations and root out maverick freeloaders.
Nuala said, well, if they couldn’t compost poor Burt, maybe they could just go at night and sprinkle a spoonful of earth on him as a symbolic thing: she personally would feel a lot better in the Spirit if she could do that. Mugi said Burt was a meat-breath pig-eater who’d betrayed them, and he didn’t know why they were even talking about this. Adam One said they should take a moment of silence and put Light around Burt in their hearts, and Zeb said they’d already put so much light around him the guy was probably burning like a suicide bomber in a fried-chicken franchise. Nuala said Zeb was being frivolous. Adam One said they should meditate overnight and perhaps the solution would arrive by visionary inspiration. Philo said in that case he’d toke up.
But the next day, Burt’s corpse was no longer in the vacant lot: he’d been scooped by the early-bird garboil collectors, Zeb informed them, and was doubtless fuelling some Corps employee’s cityvan. Toby asked how he was sure of that, and Zeb grinned and said he had connections among the pleebrat gangs who’d snitch on anyone if you paid them.
Adam One made a speech to the Gardener membership at large in which he outlined the fate of Burt, called him a victim seduced by the spirit of materialist greed whom they should pity rather than condemn, and asked them all to be extra vigilant and to report any overly curious tourists and especially any unusual activities.
But no unusual activities were reported. Months went by, then more months. The daily chores and teaching hours went on as usual, and the Saints’ Days and Festivals kept their appointed rounds. Toby took up macramé, hoping it would cure her of idle daydreaming and fruitless desires, and increase her focus on the mo
ment. The bees increased and multiplied, and Toby delivered the news to them every morning. The moon emerged from darkness, then plumped out, then dwindled. Several babies appeared, and an infestation of shiny green beetles, and a number of new Gardener converts. The sands of time are quicksands, said Adam One. So much can sink into them without a trace. And what a blessing when those things that sink away are needless worries.
APRIL FISH
APRIL FISH
YEAR FOURTEEN.
OF THE FOOLISHNESS WITHIN ALL RELIGIONS.
SPOKEN BY ADAM ONE.
Dear Friends, dear Fellow Creatures and Fellow Mortals:
What a fun-filled April Fish Day we have had, here on our Edencliff Rooftop Garden! This year’s Fish lanterns, modelled on the phosphorescent Fish that adorn the depths of the Ocean, are the most effective yet, and the Fish cakes look delectable! We have Rebecca and her special helpers, Amanda and Ren, to thank for these toothsome confections.
Our Children always enjoy this day, as it allows them to make fun of their elders; and as long as that fun does not get out of hand, we elders welcome it, as it reminds us of our own childhoods. It never hurts us to remember how small we felt then, and how we depended on the strength, knowledge, and wisdom of our elders to keep us safe. Let us teach our Children tolerance, and loving-kindness, and correct boundaries, as well as joyful laughter. As God contains all things good, He must also contain a sense of playfulness – a gift he has shared with Creatures other than ourselves, as witness the tricks Crows play, and the sportiveness of Squirrels, and the frolicking of Kittens.
On April Fish Day, which originated in France, we make fun of one another by attaching a Fish of paper, or, in our case, a Fish of recycled cloth, to the back of another person and then crying out, “April Fish!” Or, in the original French, “Poisson d’Avril!” In anglophone countries, this day is known as April Fool’s Day. But April Fish was surely first a Christian festival, as a Fish image was used by the early Christians as secret signals of their faith in times of oppression.
The Fish was an apt symbol, for Jesus first called as his Apostles two fishermen, surely chosen by him to help conserve the Fish population. They were told to be fishers of men instead of being fishers of Fish, thus neutralizing two destroyers of Fish! That Jesus was mindful of the Birds, the Animals, and the Plants is clear from his remarks on Sparrows, Hens, Lambs, and Lilies; but he understood that most of God’s Garden was under water and that it, too, needed tending. Saint Francis of Assisi preached a sermon to the Fish, not realizing that the Fish commune directly with God. Still, the Saint was affirming the respect due to them. How prophetic does this appear, now that the world’s Oceans are being laid waste!
Others may take the Specist view that we Humans are smarter than Fish, and thus an April Fish is being marked as mute and foolish. But the life of the Spirit always seems foolish to those who do not share it: therefore we must accept and wear the label of God’s Fools gladly, for in relation to God we are all fools, no matter how wise we may think we are. To be an April Fish is to humbly accept our own silliness, and to cheerfully admit the absurdity – from a materialist view – of every Spiritual truth we profess.
Please join me now in a Meditation on our Fish brethren.
Dear God, You who created the great and wide Sea, with its Creatures innumerable: we pray that You hold in your gaze those who dwell in Your underwater Garden, in which Life originated; and we pray that none may vanish from the Earth by Human agency. Let Love and aid be brought to the Sea Creatures in their present peril and great suffering; which has come to them through the warming of the Sea, and through the dragging of nets and hooks along the bottom of it, and through the slaughtering of all within it, from the Creatures of the shallows to the Creatures of the depths, the Giant Squid included; and remember your Whales, that You created on the fifth day, and set in the Sea to play therein; and bring help especially to the Sharks, that misunderstood and much-persecuted breed.
We hold in our minds the Great Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico; and the Great Dead Zone in Lake Erie; and the Great Dead Zone in the Black Sea; and the desolate Grand Banks of Newfoundland, where the Cod once abounded; and the Great Barrier Reef, now dying and bleaching white and breaking apart.
Let them come to Life again; let Love shine upon them and restore them; and let us be forgiven for our oceanic murders; and for our foolishness, when it is the wrong kind of foolishness, being arrogant and destructive.
And help us to accept in all humility our kinship with the Fishes, who appear to us as mute and foolish; for in Your sight, we are all mute and foolish.
Let us sing.
OH LORD, YOU KNOW OUR FOOLISHNESS
Oh Lord, You know our foolishness,
And all our silly deeds;
You watch us scamper here and there,
Pursuing useless greeds.
We sometimes doubt that You are Love,
And we forget to thank;
We find the Sky an empty void,
The Universe a blank.
We fall into despondency,
And curse the hour that bore us;
We either claim You don’t exist,
Or else that You ignore us.
So pardon us these vacant moods,
Our dour and gloomy sayings;
Today we own ourselves Your Fools,
And celebrate by playing.
We make a full acknowledgment
Of all in us that’s vain –
Our petty strifes and tiny woes,
Our self-inflicted pain.
At April Fish we jest and sing
And laugh with childish glee;
We puncture pomp and puffed-up pride,
And smile at all we see.
Your starry World’s beyond our thought
And wondrous without measure;
We pray, among Your Treasures bright
Your Fools You’ll also treasure.
From The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook
37
REN
YEAR TWENTY-FIVE
I must have dozed off – being in the Sticky Zone makes you tired – because I was dreaming about Amanda. She was walking towards me in her khaki outfit through a wide field of dry grass with many white bones in it. There were vultures flying over her head. But she saw me dreaming her, and she smiled and waved at me, and I woke up.
It was too early to really go to sleep, so I did my toenails. Starlite liked the claw effect with spider-silk strengtheners, but I never used that because Mordis said it would be an image brainfry, like a bunny with spikes. So I stuck to the pastels. Shiny new toes make you feel all fresh and sparkling: if someone wants to suck your toes, those toes should be worth sucking. While the polish was drying I went to the intercom camera in the room I shared with Starlite. It cheered me up to connect with my own things – my dresser, my Robodog, my costumes on their hangers. I could hardly wait to be back in my normal life. Not that it was normal exactly. But I was used to it.
Then I surfed the Net, looking for the horoscope sites to see what sort of week was coming up, because I’d be out of the Sticky Zone very soon if my tests were clear. Wild Stars was my favourite: I liked it because it was so encouraging.
The Moon in your sign, Scorpio, means your hormones are pumped this week! It’s hot, hot, hot! Enjoy, but don’t take this sexy flareup too seriously – it will pass.
You’re working hard now at making your home a pleasure palace. Time to buy those new satin sheets and slip between them! You’ll be pampering all your Taurean senses this week!
I was hoping that romance and adventure might be heading my way, once I got out of the Sticky Zone. And maybe travel, or spiritual quests – sometimes they had those. But my own horoscope wasn’t so good:
Messenger Mercury in your sign, Pisces, means that things and people from the past will surprise you in the coming weeks. Be prepared for some quick transitions! Romance may take strange forms – illusion and reality are dancing closely
together right now, so tread carefully!
I didn’t like the sound of romance taking strange forms. I got enough of that at work.
When I checked in on the Snakepit again, it was really crowded. Savona was still on the trapeze, and Crimson Petal was up there too, in a Biofilm Bodysuit with extra genital ruffles so she looked like a giant orchid. Down below, Starlite was still working away on her Painballer customer. That girl could raise the dead, but he was so close to being unconscious that I didn’t think she’d be getting a big tip out of him.
The CorpSeCorps minders were hovering, but suddenly they all looked in the direction of the entranceway, so I went to another camera and had a look myself. Mordis was over there, talking to a couple more CorpSeCorps guys. They had another Painballer in tow, who looked in even worse shape than the first three. More explosive. Mordis wasn’t happy. Four of those Painballers – that was a lot to handle. And what if they were from different teams and just yesterday they were trying to disembowel each other?
Mordis was herding the new Painballer to the far corner. Now he was barking into his cell; now three backup dancers were hurrying over: Vilya, Crenola, Sunset. Block the view, he must’ve told them. Use your tits, why in hell did God make them? There was a shimmering, a flurry of feathers, six arms twining around him. I could almost hear what Vilya was saying into the guy’s ear: Take two, honey, they’re cheap.
A signal from Mordis and the music got louder: loud music distracts them, they’re less likely to rampage with their ears full of sound. Now the dancers were all over this guy like anacondas. Two Scales bouncers on standby.
The MaddAddam Trilogy Page 49
