Supper takes place at the long table. White Sedge in an apron with bluebirds on it and Rebecca with a mauve bath towel tied around her middle with yellow satin ribbon dish out the food from the pots, then sit down. Ren and Lotis Blue are at the far end, coaxing Amanda to eat. The MaddAddamites not on sentry duty filter in from their chores.
“Greetings, Inaccessible Rail,” says Ivory Bill. He takes pleasure in calling Toby by her old MaddAddam codename. He has a tulip-sprinkled bedsheet draped around his sparse form and a turban-like object made from a matching pillowcase on his head. His angular nose juts out from his leathery face like a beak. It was odd, thinks Toby, how the MaddAddamites chose codenames that mirrored parts of themselves.
“How’s he doing?” says Manatee. He’s wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat that makes him look like a chubby plantation owner. “Our star patient.”
“He’s not dead,” says Toby. “But he’s not what you’d call conscious.”
“If he ever was,” says Ivory Bill. “We used to call him Thickney. That was his MaddAddam name, back in the early days.”
“He was Crake’s jackal at the Paradice Project,” says Tamaraw. “Once he wakes up, there’s a lot he needs to tell us. Before I trample him to death.” She snorts to indicate that she’s joking.
“Thickney by name, Thickney by nature,” says Manatee. “I don’t think he had the least freaking idea. He was just a dupe.”
“Naturally we wouldn’t have had a high opinion of him, to be fair,” says Ivory Bill. “He was at the Project by choice. Unlike ourselves.” He sticks his fork into a chunk of meat. “Dear lady,” he says to White Sedge, “could you possibly identify this substance for me?”
“Ahc-tually,” says White Sedge with her British accent, “actually, not.”
“We were the brain slaves,” says Manatee, spearing another chop. “The captive science brainiacs, working the evolution machines for Crake. What a power-tripper, thought he could perfect humanity. Not that he wasn’t brilliant.”
“He wasn’t alone there,” says slender Zunzuncito. “It was big business, the BioCorps were backing it. People were paying through the ceiling for those gene-splices. They were customizing their kids, ordering up the DNA like pizza toppings.” He’s wearing bifocals. Once we run out of optical products, Toby thinks, it really will be back to the Stone Age.
“Just, Crake was better at it,” says Manatee. “He put some accessories into these guys nobody else even thought of. The built-in insect repellent: genius.”
“And the women who can’t say no. That colour-coded hormonal thing, you have to admire it,” says Zunzuncito.
“As a meat-computer set of problems to be solved, it was an intriguing challenge,” says Ivory Bill, turning his attention to Toby. “Let me elucidate.” He’s talking as if they’re all at a graduate seminar, while cutting his greens into small, even squares. “For instance, the rabbit gizzard, and the baboon platform for certain chromatic features of the reproductive system —”
“The part where they turn blue,” says Zunzuncito helpfully to Toby.
“I was doing the chemical composition of the urine,” says Tamaraw. “The carnivore-deterrent element. Hard to test at the Paradice Project – we didn’t have any carnivores.”
“I was working on the voice box: now that was complex,” says Manatee.
“Too bad you didn’t code in a Cancel button for the singing,” says Ivory Bill. “It gets on the nerves.”
“The singing was not my idea,” says Manatee sulkily. “We couldn’t erase it without turning them into zucchinis.”
“I have a question,” says Toby. They turn and look at her, as if surprised that she’s spoken.
“Yes, dear lady?” says Ivory Bill.
“They want me to tell them a story,” says Toby. “About being made by Crake. But who do they think Crake was, and how do they think he made them? What were they told about that, back in the Paradice dome?”
“They think Crake is some sort of a god,” says Crozier. “But they don’t know what he looks like.”
“How do you know that?” says Ivory Bill. “You weren’t in Paradice with us.”
“Because they fucking told me,” says Crozier. “I’m their pal now. I even get to piss with them. It’s, like, an honour.”
“Good thing they can’t ever meet Crake,” says Tamaraw.
“No shit,” says Swift Fox, who has now joined them. “They’d take one look at their lunatic of a creator and jump off a skyscraper. If there were still any skyscrapers to jump off,” she adds morosely. She makes a show of yawning, stretching her arms up and behind her head, thrusting her breasts up and out. Her straw-coloured hair is pulled into a high ponytail, held in place by a powder-blue crocheted scrunchie. Her bedsheet has a dainty border of daisies and butterflies, cinched at the waist with a wide red belt. It’s a startling touch: angel cloud meets butcher’s cleaver.