“Is that a shark?”
“Nope. Not a dolphin, either.”
“Oh my god,” she says.
“Killer whales! Do you know why they’re called that? Because they actually kill whales. Sharks too. They punch right up under great whites and bite out their livers!”
“They kill great whites?”
The orca’s head rises up to crest the wave, the white panda eye. There’s a gold patina on the white. Some kind of algae, he thinks. It does a graceful arc and dips down again. Another fin slices out of the water behind it, and then a third, right beside the ship.
“A whole pod of them.” Mom is so thrilled. He knew she would be.
“And they’re a matriarchal society! Aminah says the grandmothers and mothers run the pod.”
“Sounds like we could learn a thing or two from them till we get humanity back on track. What happens to the males?”
“Amihan says they go out, mate, come back.”
“Huh.” Mom gives him a squeeze. “Maybe sometimes they need to let them go too.”
“When they’re ready,” he says.
“When they’re ready,” she agrees, watching the tall fins slice through the water a hundred feet below them, and disappear again into the ocean.
Acknowledgments
Every book is a mountain and it doesn’t matter how many peaks you’ve conquered before, this one is new and unknown and treacherous in its own unique and terrible ways. Writing, like mountain climbing, is supposed to be a solo endeavor, but we are people because of other people, and I couldn’t have written this without the love and care and support of amazing friends and generous strangers.
Sam Beckbessinger and Helen Moffett, you pushed me higher and caught me when I fell. Thank you. Sarah Lotz, I’m grateful for always and everything. Thanks, Dale Halvorsen, for being a sounding board and plot-cracker and co-conspirator; also Dr. Nanna Venter, who got her PhD in half the time it took me to write this book.
I’m ever-grateful to the team in my corner: Oli Munson, Angela Cheng Caplan, and everyone at A.M. Heath and Cheng Caplan Co, my wonderful editors, Josh Kendall, Jessica Leeke, and Fourie Botha, as well as Clio Cornish, Kelly Norwood-Young, Jillian Taylor, Emily Giglierano, Catriona Ross, and Emad Akhtar.
I had several comrades in arms, where we co-worked on our own projects at each other’s houses or went away on writing retreats. Thanks, Carla Lever, for the walks and talks, Charne Lavery; for the killer salads and Antarctica; Sophia Al-Maria, for Muscat and rich art parties in desert lands, and yeah, even the serial killer cottage in the mountains with those creepy clawed frogfish lurking in the mud.
I consulted a number of scientists who advised me on designing a man-killing virus that wasn’t testosterone-based or chromosomal, namely Dr. Janine Scholfield, and Dr. Bridget Calder; CDC contractor, Jessica Riggs; Dr. Kerry Gordon; public health expert and comedian Lydia Nicholas (you really should contract yourself out as a consultant for speculative fiction); and soon-to-be-Dr. Hayley Tomes, who also let me hang out in her lab and look at rat brain slices, even though it had nothing to do with the book, really. Any scientific liberties taken or inaccuracies are entirely mine.
I got medical advice on viruses and head injuries from my favorite brain-eating biomedical engineer, Matthew Proxenos, and friends Dr. Geoff Lowrey and Dr. Rachel Blokland. Trauma unit head nurse Fiona Pieterse very sweetly kept trying to rewrite the book so a certain character could go to hospital for a CT scan. (Again, any errors or inconsistencies are mine.)
I talked economics with James Watson and Hannes Grassenger, immigration law with Tommy Tortorici, and sociology with Dr. Erynn deCasanova. Scott Hanselman and Katherine Fitzpatrick shared candid experiences of having mixed-race children in America. Jamie Ashton took me through her thesis on Eve and gender in religion, which helped inform the Church of All Sorrows; Kieran O’Neill talked end of the world, and Matthew Shelton got me into Epicureans and atomists even though I couldn’t find a way to work them into the book.
I drove some of the roads in the novel, and I’m grateful to my city guides along the way: Ashley Simon, in Salt Lake City; Damien Wolven and Kristen Brown, for showing me around Atlanta. Ania Joseph, who got us into a local megachurch, came with me to the Clermont (which inspired Barbarella’s) and introduced me to her mom, Bonita White. In Miami, Pars Tarighy is responsible for the mammoth, Donald and Erik Wilson for the location of the Temple of Joy, and Isis Masoud for general insight into the city.
I also want to thank every single person I’ve met along the way and dragged into the intricacies of world-building, gender politics, or plot points. I know I’ve forgotten a bunch of names. Please forgive me.
I couldn’t have done any of this without the co-parenting and support of Matthew Brown and Leigh Jarvis, and the assistance over the years of Dorian Dutrieux, Jenny Willis, Lucienne Bestall, Nica Cornell, and Fanie Buys, as well as my lovely housemate, Richard Pieterse, who kept the cats and plants alive while I was away on research trips.
Melody Pick-Cornelius, Maryke Woolf, and Liz Legg kept my head on straight, because mental health is vital for writing and living, and Toni-Lynn Monger and Ulika Singh helped unravel my body and the crippling idiocy of doing desk work, which is not precisely like mountain climbing, after all.
I’m grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation for having me as a Fellow on the Bellagio residency, which gave me time to write in the most extraordinary place surrounded by exceptional and inspiring people. If you’re mid-career in any field and doing work that tries to challenge the world, I’d encourage you to apply.
Finally, I’m thankful for my daughter, Keitu, who is wise and fierce and true and schools me every damn day. I love you.
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About the Author
Lauren Beukes writes novels, comics, and screenplays. She’s the author of the critically acclaimed international bestseller Broken Monsters, as well as The Shining Girls, about a time-traveling serial killer; Zoo City, a phantasmagorical Joburg noir and winner of the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award; and the neo-political thriller Moxyland. She worked as a journalist and as a show runner on one of South Africa’s biggest animated TV shows, directed an award-winning documentary, and wrote the New York Times bestselling graphic novel Fairest: The Hidden Kingdom. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
Also by Lauren Beukes
And Also!
Survivors’ Club (graphic novel)
Slipping: Short Stories, Essays, and Other Writing
Broken Monsters
The Shining Girls
Fairest: The Hidden Kingdom (graphic novel)
Zoo City
Moxyland
Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa's Past
Afterland Page 39