Darwin's Bastards

by Zsuzsi Gartner

  Who buys this junk? she said, while helping me with my transfusion.

  I said, People on Mars, for the most part.

  Then she said to me, Martians take what they like and leave us to die like hogs.

  I agreed with her, they are greedy up there. But there’s no use complaining, I thought, because that’s where I’m headed.

  Those epically rich island townships they call dubais that speckle the crystal oceans of Mars, that’s where I want to live. This after years of ignoring the importance of Mars to my status on Earth, and knowing that Martians are responsible for the conditions we endure. It’s the money they inject into our economy through nostalgia purchases that’s made it possible for me to take advantage of their monopoly over our lives.

  I always had a thing for women who peddled drugs, and having always married within a conveniently devout circle, I felt liberated knowing that I could talk to Polli about my health. She also had close contacts among the mafias who operate the Lagrange tollbooths along the interplanetary gravity tunnels between here and Mars. Before her grisly murder I was able enough to engage with some of these militant fellows who profit from the bright stars in our sky. The big orbiting mall-ships we can even see in broad daylight, they all lease space from the drug cartellites, and they are the ones who really own the gravity junctions between here and Mars.

  We married in April that year, and spent eleven months together that I’ll never regret. I’ve had the cancer fourteen times. I’ve had five very natural wives. Before Polli, none of my wives knew of my criminal double life, and if they suspected, we never spoke of it. No one at the Extinction Museum knew a thing; once you’re past a certain age suspicion is inevitable anyway; what’s the saying, Don’t trust anyone over sixty? As director there were things I had wanted to accomplish for the institution, and I had a staff of over eight thousand to ride. I’d been the public face representing an institutional pillar of our social contract to remain part of the natural cycle of life and death. I’m not ashamed anymore but at the time I thought my fear of death and the lengths I went to stay alive contradicted everything I stood for in my social and business life.

  LAZARUS TAXA

  The twenty-three Aurochs collectors are all from Mars. Since I was retired from the museum I’ve worked exclusively with Martians. Nostalgia for Earth up there is fervent. Mars worships nostalgia. That lethargic, blue-hued and misty-eyed sense of lost time is a Martian’s most holy feeling, whole Martian culture guided by nostalgia for Earth. Ridiculous, you say—who cares? Up there they give each other Earth gifts for everything, for birthdays, for name days, for Venus Day, any occasion. They spend more on gifts up there for each other to show off at trifling parties than the averagely educated man earns in a year down here on Earth.

  Shortly after Polli’s murder I was hired to do an evaluation of the holdings from the early twenty-second century for a deceased banana-peel energy oligarch named Omidyar, and that’s where I found my Aurochs. The Omidyar family owned two of every automobile ever made, hidden a kilometre under the city of Kitimat. His elegant, satin-skinned daughter told me her father estimated that the family owned enough cars—they weren’t certain how many because all the records were on decades worth of hard drives—and easily 30-billion ears’ worth of cars— oh, yes, yes, I assured the family (rubbing my chin thoughtfully when really it was to conceal my drool), the sales would easily be enough money to get your children to Mars; the dreary part of my job was to update and confirm the collection in the database. In the will, the Omidyar patriarch stipulated that the automobiles be auctioned in separate lots, that is, even go so far as to split the pairs and sell each individually for greater profit to share among the living relatives. An excellent idea, I told the grieving eldest daughter, one of six blood relations with rights to the Omidyar clan’s fortune. I was all alone for miles in every direction with some shah of shah’s complete car collection. And there behind a concrete wall, hidden in its own garage at the far end of the bunker, an off-the-line 1999 Daewoo Aurochs in pristine condition. There it was. For a moment I didn’t even want to recognize it, my mind wouldn’t let me believe it; besides, the light was dim, the surface of the thing was soft from dust, and too pristine to be true. Then I felt it in my heart, soon the feeling was in every vein, that all my life’s work was worth it, worth every crime, oh, boy, that perfectly thermophallic shell, the muscular hips, period-accurate chrome spinner rims, five per cent tint on the windows, big smiling chrome grille, those bright-black rubber-tree tires, to say nothing of the hood ornament—God, it all made it so unbeatably terrestrial, so loaded down, a volcano with a burning, lava-red chassis.

  Species vanish and then are discovered alive after decades or centuries with no signs; I wrote a popular post on the phenomenon. The Lazarus Taxa is central to the philosophy of Extinctionism. My Lazarus Taxa was cherry red. Blood-red interior leather. Cherry wood wheel. I mean I was sobbing. I was on my knees. I pressed my slobbering face against the hood and even after centuries that bus still tasted like gasoline. I cried and cried and it echoed in the vast underground bunker. The Omidyar family owned two of every automobile ever made. Two of everything, but they only owned one Aurochs.

  When I scanned and rescanned the databases, the Aurochs wasn’t there. No, I thought, I’m wrong, denying my impossible good fortune. I feared there might have been a paper copy made of the collection from generations ago—and indeed there was a small office inside the Kitimat bunker, and in it I found a rusted metal file cabinet and a janky ring binder with a handwritten list of six thousand cars dated to 2101. I came to the page where I saw the Aurochs. Written in pencil, my god, pencil, very faint graphite shale on the legal pad. I simply dusted over the page and the letters 1999 Daewoo Auroch vanished, leaving no trace whatsoever. Not satisfied, I crushed the entire pad of paper as if it had been a clump of ash lying in a fireplace.

  THE EVAGINATION OF MY LAZARUS TAXA

  I decided I would not keep the Aurochs. I decided I would not sell it either. Thinking about Polli’s murder helped me decide what to do. My anguish, my loss. And my wife Coleco, and Melvin, my siblings, and everyone dying from easy things we used to cure with a poke or a pill two hundred years ago. Instead of cherishing the thing whole I set about disassembling the SUV for greater profit. At first I could barely touch it, all my faculties resisted, and yet over a period of some months—still in mourning—I dissected the beauty. I pulled it apart entirely. I took my time. And lay every last piece separately on the floor. Then, quietly and carefully and biting my knuckles, so to speak, I sent them off to the market like the faces of lovers. The first piece I sold was the four-wheel drive. It fetched me a great deal. I sweated and stressed and I pawed tearfully over the exhaust manifold before giving it up. Kissed and fondled each baby-like airbag.

  During the past decade I’ve put the four-wheel drive on the block, then the oil pan, and the A/C condenser, but not the hood ornament, not yet, I can’t put that to auction yet. I told colleagues I found pieces over the years on my obsessive flea market hunts throughout the junk cities and had been keeping them for my retirement fund. No one would dare investigate those sepulchrous alleys where I said I made my finds. And selling two or three parts every year, so discreet, on the black market, to keep that line open. The hand-milled steel turbo unit had to go, finally, to bribe a Martian minister of real estate. The odometer: seven kilometres. Fetched me enough ears to feed a billion. Even the little oxygen sensor fetched an impressive price. Passenger-side seatbelt. Not the hood ornament, not yet.

  Why did I do it—pluck to death this rare SUV? I asked myself that every day and still I tore the car apart. I dithered and wept and fought my instincts. Then I ratcheted out another bolt. I remembered the words in the will of the man I stole the Aurochs from, never for a moment did I forget who rightly owned the SUV, and how Omidyar advised his heirs. I counted myself one of his heirs. What I took was on par with a gallerist’s fee—fifty per cent. One Aurochs was worth as much as all t
hose thousands of other vehicles, if you took it apart. Sell in separate lots, split the pairs, and auction off the collection one by one for the greatest profit. The words in the will rang in my head. And tearing the Aurochs apart like I did, I felt Omidyar’s spirit on my conscience, practically speaking, his will being done through me. I got a chilly, lonely-but-triumphant pleasure in having seen through my greatest self-deception and finally giving in to my addiction to life. Perhaps memories of my anaemic childhood got woven up in my mind with the story of the rare and exquisite Aurochs SUV. How else could I find strength to debone the angel I’d used to guide me until that day if I hadn’t realized that my life meant more than it? How else could I afford Mars? Mars: with health care, I can go on.

  Butchering the Aurochs was no easy task. I was constantly telling myself, This Tiptronic keeps me alive, this dual climate control keeps me alive, these chrome nudge bars keep me alive. When I take the hood ornament to Sotheby’s, I can only imagine what that great silver aurochs dashing to his feet will inspire in collectors, with the scorpion pinching its balls and about to strike the soft flesh of the belly, as if to remind buyers to step on it, act fast or be overbid. I estimate the sale of the ornament alone will buy me a seat among the elite—the healthiest, most aspirant, most discerning Martian class. I am near the top on a waitlist for a unit in a Cape Verde high-rise overlooking the general hospital of the Victoria Lake dubai. So, keeping all this in mind, I cut apart that ox car like a pomegranate and sold every last red pebble. I remember Omidyar’s testament, written in the spirit of the age of the Aurochs.

  DOUGLAS COUPLAND SURVIVOR

  FUCKING FUCK, THERE is no place worse than the port side of the Luxurious CBS Yacht. Each morning I’m greeted by sauna-like humidity and the perpetual odour of tuna sandwiches, plus, believe it or not, the sound of CBS executives playing racquetball. Their court is on the other side of my headboard’s wall. Thank you, British divorce laws, for handing me this sack-of-shit career move. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere and sleep doesn’t even provide me with dreams, just an escape from those snivelling American shits I now have to shadow all day. Could these people have found a place on Earth more remote? Excuse me, but were the Kerguelen Islands all booked up? Did Pitcairn Island shut down for an extended religious holiday? I tried Google-mapping this place: Fucking fuckity fuck.

  The Republic of Kiribati is an island nation located in the central Pacific Ocean. It comprises thirty-two atolls and one raised coral island, and is spread over 1.4 million square miles. Kiribati straddles the equator and, on its east side, borders the International Date Line. Its former colonial name was the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. The capital and largest city is South Tarawa.

  Official languages: English, Gilbertese

  Population: 105,000

  GDP: $206 million

  Internet Top-Level Domain (TLD): .ki

  International calling code: +686

  Our ludicrous contestants had to choose names for their “tribes” today. I suggested Swallowers versus Spitters and got pursed lips all around. Fucking Americans: no sense of humour. Doubtless they all own Forrest Gump on Blu-ray and have already asked each other what they want to be when they grow up. They are monsters.

  Kiribati has few natural resources. Commercially viable phosphate deposits were exhausted at the time of its 1979 independence. Copra (dried coconut kernels) and fish now represent the bulk of production and exports. Tourism provides more than one-fifth of the country’s GDP.

  I have eight fellow cameramen, five of them veteran crew members of this wretched show. They divide contestants into two categories: Fuckable and Unfuckable. They treat the latter like Molokai lepers. As far as I can see, our biggest technical issue is ensuring that our shadows not appear on the sand—very hard to do around sunrise and sunset.

  Survivor is a popular reality-TV game show, versions of which have been produced in many different countries. In the show, contestants are isolated in the wilderness and compete for cash and other prizes. The show uses a progressive elimination, allowing the contestants to vote off tribe members until only one remains and wins the title of “Sole Survivor.”

  The initial U.S. series was a huge ratings success in 2000 and triggered a reality-TV revolution.

  Last night I got saddled with infrared nightshift filming. Ray, another screwed-by-life cameraman from Leeds, told me it’s too early in the season for the contestants to truly fuck around, and I was prepared for eight hours of drying paint when a storm came out of nowhere and blasted away the pathetic huts they’d made as shelters. Talk about snivelling! So much fun to see them get what they deserve. The Spitters also inadvertently spilled their rice canister. When they picked it all up, it had become a big white lump filled with dead sand flies. It looked like raisin-bread dough. They are going to starve and it’s going to be very funny.

  Ray tells me that it usually takes about three storms before the contestants discreetly offer blowjobs in return for chocolate bars, bug repellant, and anti-fungal sprays. Perhaps there is light at the end of this tunnel.

  Am feeling a bit ill. Too much sun is getting to me, I think.

  TRAVELLER’S ALERT

  Lymphatic filariasis

  Dengue-4 virus

  Soil-transmitted helminths

  Parastrongylus cantonensis

  Plas modium berghei

  Trypanosoma cruzi

  Leishmaniasis

  Schistosomiasis

  Multidrug-resistant falciparum

  Simulium (Gomphostilbia) palauense

  Tomorrow is my day off—a whole day on the Luxurious CBS Yacht, alone and getting shitfaced! Please, dear God, let me slit my wrists now.

  There is a chance I may get to chopper in to the main town on the big island—which actually sounds interesting in a let’s-go-whoring kind of way. Ray tells me the Kiribatese women all weigh five hundred pounds and have multiple diabetic amputations, but I find that hard to believe.

  South Tarawa is the official capital of the Republic of Kiribati. The South Tarawa population centre consists of the small islets between Kiribatese (on the east). The once-separate islets are joined by causeways, forming one long islet along the southern side of the Tarawa Lagoon. The Parliament meets on Ambo islet; various ministries are scattered between South Tarawa, Betio, and Christmas Island.

  My trip to Tarawa? A disaster. The plump, churchy Kiribati girls are apparently immune to my considerable northern-hemispheric charms. I didn’t expect a clusterfuck on the high street, but I certainly wasn’t expecting dead, frosty stares in return for a flirty goosing here and there. Fucking church. It’ll be wanking for me tonight.

  I spent the time I’d allotted for whoring walking around enjoying a litter-festooned pseudo-paradise. Its only charms for the casual visitor are the wide array of luncheon meats available in the general store, and nonradioactivity. I’m told this is one of the few atolls around here that didn’t get fried by the Americans or the French back in the sixties and seventies.

  Pacific Proving Grounds was the name used to describe a number of sites in the Marshall Islands which were used by the United States to conduct nuclear tests between 1946 and 1962. Sixty-seven atmospheric tests were conducted there, many of which were of extremely high yield. The largest test was the fifteen-megaton Castle Bravo shot of 1954, which spread considerable nuclear fallout on many of the islands.

  Tuna Schnitzel

  Tuna steak in breadcrumbs,

  served with potato chips

  and cucumber slices.

  Tuna Salad

  Raw tuna fish with onions in a spicy sauce.

  Served with crusty bread.

  Tuna Tartare

  Raw tuna fish minced together

  with hot spices,

  spread onto garlic bread.

  Vomited up lunch on the side of the grandly named Dai-Nippon Causeway (it’s just a road) and was nearly run over by a rusted-out 1982 Chrysler LeBaron driven by some tubby local whose future is doomed by a
diet based almost solely on tropical oils and the absence of any form of education.

  There was a delay with the chopper back to the Luxurious CBS Yacht: apparently the price of gas tripled last night. The marine fuel pumps were guarded by three morbidly obese thugs in purple T-shirts toting rifles. Not something you see every day. Fucking OPEC. I’ve never felt this far away from civilization in my life. And what awaits me on the Yacht but booze, body lotion, a hand towel, and my right hand—or my left hand, if I want to make it seem like it’s someone else.

  We’re down to eleven contestants now. They are:

  1. Blonde slut.

  2. Other blonde slut.

  3. Third blonde slut, inside whose chest exist two proud examples of Nena’s drifting neun-und-neunzig luftballons.

  4. Brunette slut.

  5. Black guy.

  6. Gay guy.

  7. Waste-of-space nerd.

  8. Scary, well-nourished upper-middle-class woman who would really be better off concealing her wattles beneath a Katharine Hepburn–style beekeeper’s hat (and preferably also being on some other show).

  9. Worthy black woman who will be eaten alive by a clique of young white people.

  10. Dumb hunk.

  11. Noble hunk (FDNY).

  I just found out from an assistant that when we choppered in yesterday afternoon, we flew too low over a breeding colony of endangered red-tipped auks, and most of them ate their chicks in response. By Jove, nature is majestic.

  Dumb Hunk and Brunette Slut were about to get it on in a plumeria glade when Ray and I got a transmission to come back to the Luxurious CBS Yacht, with the addendum that all shooting for the day was over. Ray, a veteran of eight seasons, said that something like this had never before happened.

  Once onboard, we learned that all transmissions to the outside world had stopped at 9:31 PM London time. As well, satellite links to the airport in Kiribati were down. We tried any other number of links, but nothing.