“Then what?” says Toby.
“Then I got mad. So I said something I wish I’d never said.” A pause. Toby waits. “I said he wasn’t really my brother, not genetically. He was no relation to me.” Another pause. “He didn’t believe me at first. I backed it up, I told him about the test Pilar had done. He just crumpled.”
“Oh,” says Toby. “I’m sorry.”
“I felt terrible right away, but I couldn’t unsay it. After that we tried to patch it up and paper it over. But things festered. We had to go our own ways.”
“Katuro went with you,” says Toby. She knows this for a fact. “Rebecca. Black Rhino. Shackleton, Crozier, and Oates.”
“Amanda, at first,” says Zeb. “She got out, though. Then new ones joined. Ivory Bill, Lotis Blue, White Sedge. All of them.”
“And Swift Fox,” says Toby.
“Yeah. And her. We thought Glenn – we thought Crake was our inside guy, feeding us stuff from the Corps through the MaddAddam chatroom. But all along, he was setting us up so he could drag us into the Paradice dome to do his people-splicing for him.”
“And his plague-virus-mixing?” says Toby.
“Not from what I hear,” says Zeb. “He did that on his own.”
“To make his perfect world,” says Toby.
“Not perfect,” says Zeb. “He wouldn’t claim that. More like a reboot. And he succeeded in his own way. Up to now.”
“He didn’t anticipate the Painballers,” says Toby.
“He should have. Or something like them,” says Zeb.
It’s very quiet, down there in the forest. A Craker child is singing a little in its sleep. Around the swimming pool the Pigoons are dreaming, emitting small grunts like puffs of smoke. Far away something cries: a bobkitten?
There’s a faint cool breeze; the leaves go about their business, which is rustling; the moon travels through the sky, moving towards its next phase, marking time.
“You should get some sleep,” says Zeb.
“Both of us should,” says Toby. “We’ll need our energy.”
“I’ll spell you – two on, two off. Wish I was twenty years younger,” says Zeb. “Not that those Painball guys are in great shape, you’d think. God knows what they’ve been eating.”
“The Pigoons are fit enough,” says Toby.
“They can’t pull triggers,” says Zeb. He pauses. “If we both come out of this tomorrow, maybe we should do the bonfire thing. With the green branches.”
Toby laughs. “I thought you said it was a meaningless empty symbol.”
“Even a meaningless empty symbol can mean something sometimes,” says Zeb. “You rejecting me?”
“No,” says Toby. “How could you even think it?”
“I fear the worst,” says Zeb.
“Would that be the worst? Me rejecting you?”
“Don’t push a guy when he’s feeling skinless.”
“I just have trouble believing you’re serious,” says Toby.
Zeb sighs. “Get some sleep, babe. We’ll work it out later. Tomorrow’s on the way.”
Eggshell
Muster
Peach-coloured haze in the east. Day is breaking, so cool and delicate at first, the sun not yet a hot spotlight. The crows are abroad, signalling to one another. Caw! Cawcaw! Caw! What are they saying? Look out! Look out! Or maybe: Party time soon! Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot.
Dump the morbid soliloquies, Toby tells herself. What’s needed is a positive outlook. That was what trumpet fanfares were for, and drums, and march music. We are invincible, that music told the soldiers. They had to believe in them, those lying melodies, because who can walk intrepidly towards death without? The bear-shirted berserkers were said to have doped themselves up before battle with northern hallucinogenic fungus: Amanita muscaria, perhaps, or so said Pilar, at the Gardeners. Historical Mushroom Practices, for senior students only.
Maybe I should spike the water bottles, she thinks. Poison your brain, then stride forth and kill people. Or be killed.
She stands, unwinds herself from the pink bedspread, shivers. There’s been a dew: dampness beads her hair, her eyebrows. Her foot’s asleep. Her rifle is where she left it, within reach; and the binoculars as well.
Zeb’s already up, leaning on the railing. “I dozed off last night,” she says to him. “Not much of a watchperson. Sorry.”
“So did I,” he says. “It’s okay, the Pigoons would’ve sounded the alarm.”
“Sounded?” she says, laughing a little.
“You’re such a stickler. Okay, grunted the alarm. Our porky pals have been busy.”
Toby looks where he’s looking: over and down. The Pigoons have levelled the meadow, all the way around the spa building, wherever there were tall weeds or shrubs. Five of the larger ones are still at work, trampling and rolling on anything higher than an ankle.
“Nobody’s going to be sneaking up on them, that’s for sure,” says Zeb. “Clever buggers, they know about cover.” They’ve left one tuft of foliage in the middle distance, Toby notes. She peers at it with the binoculars. It must mark the remains of that boar she’d killed, back when there was a turf war between her and the Pigoons over the subject of the AnooYoo garden. Oddly enough they hadn’t devoured the carcass, though they’d seemed willing enough to eat their dead piglet. Was there a hierarchy in such matters, among them? Sows eat their farrow, but nobody eats the boars? What next, commemorative statues?
“Too bad about the lumiroses,” she says.
“Yeah, planted them myself. But they’ll grow back. Darn things are as hard to kill as kudzu, once they get going.”
“What will the Crakers have for breakfast, though?” says Toby. “Now that the foliage is gone. We can’t have them wandering over there, close to the forest.”
“The Pigoons thought of that too,” says Zeb. “Look beside the swimming pool.”
Sure enough, there’s a heap of fresh fodder. The Pigoons must have gathered it, since there’s no one else around.
“That’s considerate,” says Toby.
“Crap, they’re smart,” says Zeb. “Speaking of which.” He points.
Toby lifts the binoculars. Three medium-sized Pigoons, two spotted ones and a third that’s mostly black, are approaching from the north at a brisk trot. The squad of huge bulldozing Pigoons assiduously levelling the meadow roll themselves upright and lollop out to meet them. There’s some grunting, some nuzzling. All ears are forward, all tails are curled and twirling: they’re not frightened or angry, anyway.
“I wonder what they’re saying?” Toby asks.
“We’ll find out,” says Zeb, “when they’re damn ready to tell us. We’re just the infantry as far as they’re concerned. Dumb as a stump, they must think, though we can work the sprayguns. But they’re the generals. I’d bet they’ve got their strategy all worked out.”
Rebecca must have been ferreting around, discovering odds and ends. For breakfast they have soybits that have been soaked in Mo’Hair milk and sweetened with sugar. On the side, for a treat, a teaspoonful of Avocado Body Butter. The AnooYoo Spa had gone in for cosmetic products that sounded a lot like food: Chocolate Mousse Facial, Lemon Meringue Exfoliating Masque. And the various body butters, so rich in essential lipids.
“There was some of that stuff left?” says Toby. “I was sure I ate it all.”
“It was in the kitchen, hidden in one of the big soup tureens,” says Rebecca. “Maybe you put it there yourself, and forgot. You must’ve been building up an Ararat cache somewhere in this building, all the time you worked here.”
“Yes, but it was in the supply room,” says Toby. “Here and there. I disguised it inside the colon cleanser bulk packaging. I wouldn’t have left any of my own supplies in the kitchen; someone might have found them. It was most likely one of the staff who hid it. They used to try that – make off with a
little of the high-end AnooYoo line, sell it on the pleebland grey market. But I did an inventory every two weeks, so usually I caught them.”
Not that she always reported them: the help was not overpaid. Why wreck a life?
Breakfast concluded, they assemble in the main foyer, where once a welcoming pink fruit-based drink, with or without alcohol, was served to the arriving clients. The MaddAddamites are all present, and the former God’s Gardeners. One of the boars is also in attendance, and, staying close to it, little Blackbeard. The rest of the Crakers are still out by the swimming pool munching on their pile of breakfast fodder. So are the rest of the Pigoons, similarly munching.
“So,” says Zeb. “Here’s where we stand. We know the direction the enemy is taking. There are three of them, not two. The pigs – the Pigoons – are sure of that. They haven’t seen these guys clearly – the pig scouts kept well out of sight to avoid being shot – but they’ve tracked them.”
“How far away?” says Rhino.
“Far enough. They’ve got a head start on us. But, in our favour, the Pigoons say they can’t go really fast because one of the three is limping. Dragging a foot. That right?” he says to Blackbeard, who nods.
“A smelly foot,” he says.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is that they’re heading towards the RejoovenEsense Compound. Which most likely means the Paradice dome.”
“Oh fuck,” says Jimmy. “The spraygun cellpacks! They’ll find them!”
“Think they’re going for those?” says Zeb. “Sorry. Stupid question. We have no way of knowing what they intend.”
“If they aren’t just wandering around, we can assume they have a goal,” says Katuro. “The third one – he might be directing them.”
“We need to head them off,” says Rhino. “Keep them out of there. Otherwise they’ll be well armed, and for a long time.”
“And after a short time we won’t be,” says Shackleton. “We’re already running low on the cellpacks.”
“So, only question,” says Zeb. “Who comes with us, who stays here. Some of that’s self-evident. Rhino, Katuro, Shackleton, Crozier, Manatee, Zunzuncito, coming. And Toby, of course. All the pregnant women, staying. Ren, Amanda, Swift Fox. Anyone else with a bun … anyone else declaring?”
“Gender roles suck,” says Swift Fox.
Then you should stop playing them, thinks Toby.
“Granted,” says Zeb, “but that’s reality now. We can’t have anyone doing an unscheduled bleedout in the middle of.… In the middle. Any more than necessary. White Sedge?”
“She’s a pacifist,” says Amanda unexpectedly. “And Lotis Blue has, you know. Cramps.”
“Staying, then. Anyone else have disabilities, or else qualms?”
“I want to come,” says Rebecca. “And I am definitely not pregnant.”
“Can you keep up?” says Zeb. “That’s the next question. Be honest. You may pose a danger to self and others. Veteran Painballers don’t fool around. There’s only three of them, but they’ll be lethal. This picnic is not for the squeamish.”
“Okay, scratch that,” says Rebecca. “Know yourself, out of shape, hand up. Not to mention squeamish. I’ll stay here.”
“Me too,” says Beluga.
“And I,” says Tamaraw.
“And I,” says Ivory Bill. “There comes a time in a man’s life when, no matter how agile the spirit, the earthly carapace develops its limitations. Not to mention the knees. And on the subject of the …”
“Right. And Blackbeard comes with us. We’ll need him: he seems to have a fix on whatever it is the Pigoons want to convey.”
“No,” says Toby. “He should stay here. He’s only a child.” She doesn’t think she could live with herself if little Blackbeard got killed, especially in the ways the Painballers would kill him if they got hold of him. “And he has no fear – or none that’s realistic – when it comes to people. He might go running right out into the open, into crossfire. Or get snatched as a hostage. What would happen then?”
“Yeah, but I don’t see how we can manage without him,” says Zeb. “He’s our only liaison with the pigs, and they’re essential. We’ll have to take the risk.”
Blackbeard himself has been following this exchange. “Do not worry, Oh Toby,” he says. “I need to come, the Pig Ones have said so. Oryx will be helping me, and Fuck. I have already called Fuck, he is flying to here, right now. You will see.” There’s no way Toby can contradict any of this: she herself can’t see Oryx or the helpful Fuck, nor can she understand the Pigoons. In the world of Blackbeard she’s deaf and blind.
“If they point a stick at you,” she says to him, “those men, you must fall flat on the ground. Or get behind a tree. If there is a tree. Or else a wall.”
“Yes, thank you, Oh Toby,” he says politely. This is evidently old news to him.
“Right then,” says Zeb. “Are we clear?”
“I’m coming too,” says Jimmy. Everyone looks at him: they’ve assumed he’d stay behind. He’s still skinny as a twig and pale as a puffball.
“Are you sure?” says Toby. “What about your foot?”
“It’s fine. I can walk. I have to come.”
“Not sure that’s wise,” says Zeb.
“Wise,” says Jimmy. He grins a little. “Never been accused of that. But if we’re heading to the Paradice dome, I really have to go.”
“Because?” says Zeb.
“Because Oryx is there.” An embarrassed silence: this is demented. Jimmy looks around the circle, grinning nervously. “Okay, I’m not crazy, I know she’s dead. But you need me,” he says.
“Why?” says Katuro. “Not meaning to be rude, but …”
“Because I’ve been back there already. Since the Flood,” says Jimmy.
“So?” says Zeb, voice level. “Nostalgia?” Toby guesses the meaning of that levelness: rid me of this brain-damaged dweeb.
Jimmy stands his ground. “So, I know where everything is. Such as the cellpacks. And the sprayguns: there’s a stash of them too.”
Zeb sighs. “Okay,” he says. “But if you lag behind, we’ll have to send you back. Under non-hominid escort.”
“You mean those werewolf pigs,” says Jimmy. “Been there, done that: they think I’m tripe. Forget the escort. I can keep up.”
Sortie
Toby changes into a Spa track suit, with a pillowcase torn open for a sun cover on her head. Too bad about the kissy lips and winky eye on the sweatshirt – not very military – and too bad also about the colour pink, which could make her a target. But there are no khaki textiles at AnooYoo.
She checks her rifle, tucks some of her extra bullets into a pink Spa carrybag. There’s some Spa cotton half-socks with fluffy pom-poms at the backs: she puts on a pair of those, takes an extra pair. If Zeb says anything about her getup she’ll be tempted to smack him.
In the main foyer she distributes the water bottles, filled with water that’s been properly boiled by Rebecca earlier with the aid of Ren and Amanda. The AnooYoo Spa emphasized the need for proper hydration during gym workouts, so there are enough plastic bottles. The MaddAddamites have brought some Joltbars with them from the cobb house, and some cold kudzu fritters. “Enough energy to run on, not too much or it weighs you down,” says Zeb. “Keep some for later.” He looks at Toby, her kissy-lipped pink outfit.
“You auditioning for something?” he says.
“It’s vivid,” says Jimmy.
“Like a rock star,” says Rhino. “Kinda.”
“Good camouflage,” says Shackleton.
“They’ll think you’re a hibiscus,” says Crozier.
“This is a rifle,” says Toby. “I’m the only one here who knows how to use it. So button up.” They all grin.
Then they set forth.
The three Pigoon scouts are out in front, snuffling along the ground. To either side of them, two more act as outriders, testing the air with the wet disks of their snouts. Odour radar, thinks Toby. What vibratio
ns well beyond our blunted senses are they picking up? As falcons are to sight, these are to scent.
Six younger Pigoons – barely more than shoats – are running messages between the scouts and outriders and the main van of older and heavier Pigoons: the tank battalion, had they been armoured vehicles. Despite their bulk, they can move surprisingly fast. At the moment they’re keeping a steady pace, conserving their energy: a marathon gait, not a sprint. There’s not much grunting going on, and no squealing: like soldiers on a long march, they’re saving their breath. Their tails are curled but inactive, their pink ears are aimed forward. Lit by the morning sun, they look almost like a cartoon version of cute, huggable, smiling pigs, Valentine pigs clutching red heart-shaped candy boxes, the kind with Cupid wings: If This Little Piggie Could Fly He’d Bring You My Love!
But only almost. These pigs aren’t smiling.
If we were carrying a flag, thinks Toby, what would be on it?
At first the going is easy. They cross the flattened part of the meadow, which still has a few handbags and boots and bones poking out of the ground from where the plague victims had fallen. If they’d been covered by weeds these objects might have tripped up the marchers, but because they’re visible they’re easy to avoid.
The Mo’Hairs have been turned loose and are grazing on the far edge of the meadowland that’s been left for pasture. Five young Pigoons have been deputized to watch over them. They don’t seem to be taking their duties very seriously, which means they smell no danger. Three are rooting around in the plant life, one is rolling in a damp patch of mud, and the fifth is dozing. Would the five of them be a match for a liobam, should one attack? No doubt of it. A pair of liobams? Possibly even that. But before they’d even get close, the youngsters would have the entire Mo’Hair flock rounded up and trotting back to the Spa.
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