Oryx and Crake

by Margaret Atwood

  Jimmy should have known better than to bad-mouth Crake. Crake was her hero, in a way. An important way. As he, Jimmy, was not.

  "Okay. Point taken." At least he hadn't completely blown it: she wasn't angry with him. That was the main thing.

  What a mushball I was, thinks Snowman. How entranced. How possessed. Not was, am.

  "Jimmy, I want you to promise me something."

  "Sure, what?"

  "If Crake isn't here, if he goes away somewhere, and if I'm not here either, I want you to take care of the Crakers."

  "Not here? Why wouldn't you be here?" Anxiety again, suspicion: were they planning to go off together, leaving him behind? Was that it? Had he only been some sort of toy-boy for Oryx, a court jester for Crake? "You're going on a honeymoon, or what?"

  "Don't be silly, Jimmy. They are like children, they need someone. You have to be kind with them."

  "You're looking at the wrong man," said Jimmy. "If I had to spend more than five minutes with them they'd drive me nuts."

  "I know you could do it. I'm serious, Jimmy. Say you'll do it, don't let me down. Promise?" She was stroking him, running a row of kisses up his arm.

  "Okay then. Cross my heart and hope to die. Happy now?" It didn't cost him anything, it was all purely theoretical.

  "Yes, now I'm happy. I'll be very quick, Jimmy, then we can eat. You want anchovies?"

  What did she have in mind? Snowman wonders, for the millionth time. How much did she guess?

  Airlock

  ~

  He'd waited for her, at first with impatience, then with anxiety, then panic. It shouldn't take them that long to make a couple of pizzas.

  The first bulletin came in at nine forty-five. Because Crake was off-site and Jimmy was second-in-command, they sent a staff member from the video monitor room to get him.

  At first Jimmy thought it was routine, another minor epidemic or splotch of bioterrorism, just another news item. The boys and girls with the HotBiosuits and the flame-throwers and the isolation tents and the crates of bleach and the lime pits would take care of it as usual. Anyway, it was in Brazil. Far enough away. But Crake's standing order was to report any outbreaks, of anything, anywhere, so Jimmy went to look.

  Then the next one hit, and the next, the next, the next, rapid-fire. Taiwan, Bangkok, Saudi Arabia, Bombay, Paris, Berlin. The pleeblands west of Chicago. The maps on the monitor screens lit up, spackled with red as if someone had flicked a loaded paintbrush at them. This was more than a few isolated plague spots. This was major.

  Jimmy tried phoning Crake on his cell, but he got no reply. He told the monitor crew to go to the news channels. It was a rogue hemorrhagic, said the commentators. The symptoms were high fever, bleeding from the eyes and skin, convulsions, then breakdown of the inner organs, followed by death. The time from visible onset to final moment was amazingly short. The bug appeared to be airborne, but there might be a water factor as well.

  Jimmy's cellphone rang. It was Oryx. "Where are you?" he shouted. "Get back here. Have you seen ..."

  Oryx was crying. This was so unusual Jimmy was rattled by it. "Oh Jimmy," she said. "I am so sorry. I did not know."

  "It's all right," he said, to soothe her. Then, "What do you mean?"

  "It was in the pills. It was in those pills I was giving away, the ones I was selling. It's all the same cities, I went there. Those pills were supposed to help people! Crake said ..."

  The connection was broken. He tried dialback: ring ring ring. Then a click. Then nothing.

  What if the thing was already inside Rejoov? What if she'd been exposed? When she turned up at the door he couldn't lock her out. He couldn't bear to do that, even if she was bleeding from every pore.

  By midnight the hits were coming almost simultaneously. Dallas. Seattle. New New York. The thing didn't appear to be spreading from city to city: it was breaking out in a number of them simultaneously.

  There were three staff in the room now: Rhino, Beluga, White Sedge. One was humming, one whistling; the third - White Sedge - was crying. This is the biggie. Two of them had already said that.

  "What's our fallback?"

  "What should we do?"

  "Nothing," said Jimmy, trying not to panic. "We're safe enough here. We can wait it out. There's enough supplies in the storeroom." He looked around at the three nervous faces. "We have to protect the Paradice models. We don't know the incubation period, we don't know who could be a carrier. We can't let anybody in."

  This reassured them a little. He went out of the monitor room, reset the codes of the inmost door, and also those on the door leading into the airlock. While he was doing this his videocell beeped. It was Crake. His face on the tiny screen looked much as usual; he appeared to be in a bar.

  "Where are you?" Jimmy yelled. "Don't you know what's going on?"

  "Not to worry," said Crake. "Everything's under control." He sounded drunk, a rare thing for him.

  "What fucking everything? It's a worldwide plague! It's the Red Death! What's this about it being in the BlyssPluss Pills?"

  "Who told you that?" said Crake. "A little bird?" He was drunk for sure; drunk, or on some pharmaceutical.

  "Never mind. It's true, isn't it?"

  "I'm in the mall, at the pizza place. I'll be there right away," said Crake. "Hold the fort."

  Crake hung up. Maybe he's found Oryx, Jimmy thought. Maybe he'll get her back safely. Then he thought, You halfwit.

  He went to check up on the Paradice Project. The night-sky simulation was on, the faux moon was shining, the Crakers - as far as he could tell - were peacefully asleep. "Sweet dreams," he whispered to them through the glass. "Sleep tight. You're the only ones now who can."

  What happened then was a slow-motion sequence. It was porn with the sound muted, it was brainfrizz without the ads. It was melodrama so overdone that he and Crake would have laughed their heads off at it, if they'd been fourteen and watching it on DVD.

  First came the waiting. He sat in a chair in his office, told himself to calm down. The old wordlists were whipping through his head: fungible, pullulate, pistic, cerements, trull. After a while he stood up. Prattlement, opsimath. He turned on his computer, went through the news sites. There was a lot of dismay out there, and not nearly enough ambulances. The keep-calm politico speeches were already underway, the stay-in-your-house megaphone vehicles were prowling the streets. Prayer had broken out.

  Concatenation. Subfusc. Grutch.

  He went to the emergency storeroom, picked up a spraygun, strapped it on, put a loose tropical jacket over top. He went back to the monitor room and told the three staff that he'd talked with CorpSeCorps Security for the Compound - a lie - and they were in no immediate danger here; also a lie, he suspected. He added that he'd heard from Crake, whose orders were that they should all go back to their rooms and get some sleep, because they would need their energy in the days to come. They seemed relieved, and happy to comply.

  Jimmy accompanied them to the airlock and coded them into the corridor that led to their sleeping quarters. He watched their backs as they walked in front of him; he saw them as already dead. He was sorry about that, but he couldn't take chances. They were three to his one: if they became hysterical, if they tried to break out of the complex or let their friends into it, he wouldn't be able to control them. Once they were out of sight he locked them out, and himself in. Nobody in the inner bubble now but himself and the Crakers.

  He watched the news some more, drinking Scotch to fortify himself, but spacing his intake. Windlestraw. Laryngeal. Banshee. Woad. He was waiting for Oryx, but without hope. Something must have happened to her. Otherwise she'd be here.

  Towards dawn the door monitor beeped. Someone was punching in the numbers for the airlock. It wouldn't work, of course, because Jimmy had changed the code.

  The video intercom jangled. "What are you doing?" said Crake. He looked and sounded annoyed. "Open up."

  "I'm following Plan B," said Jimmy. "In the event of a bio attack, don't
let anybody in. Your orders. I've sealed the airlock."

  "Anybody didn't mean me," said Crake. "Don't be a cork-nut."

  "How do I know you're not a carrier?" said Jimmy.

  "I'm not."

  "How do I know that?"

  "Let's just suppose," said Crake wearily, "that I anticipated this event and took precautions. Anyway, you're immune to this."

  "Why would I be?" said Jimmy. His brain was slow on logic tonight. There was something wrong with what Crake had just said, but he couldn't pinpoint it.

  "The antibody serum was in the pleeb vaccine. Remember all those times you shot up with that stuff? Every time you went to the pleebs to wallow in the mud and drown your lovesick sorrows."

  "How did you know?" said Jimmy. "How did you know where I, what I wanted?" His heart was racing; he wasn't being precise.

  "Don't be a moron. Let me in."

  Jimmy coded open the door into the airlock. Now Crake was at the inmost door. Jimmy turned on the airlock video monitor: Crake's head floated life-sized, right in front of his eyes. He looked wrecked. There was something - blood? - on his shirt collar.

  "Where were you?' said Jimmy. "Have you been in a fight?"

  "You have no idea," said Crake. "Now let me in."

  "Where's Oryx?"

  "She's right here with me. She's had a hard time."

  "What happened to her? What's going on out there? Let me talk to her!"

  "She can't talk right now. I can't lift her up. I've had a few injuries. Now quit fucking the dog and let us in."

  Jimmy took out his spraygun. Then he punched in the code. He stood back and to the side. All the hairs on his arms were standing up. We understand more than we know.

  The door swung open.

  Crake's beige tropicals were splattered with redbrown. In his right hand was an ordinary storeroom jackknife, the kind with the two blades and the nail file and the corkscrew and the little scissors. He had his other arm around Oryx, who seemed to be asleep; her face was against Crake's chest, her long pink-ribboned braid hung down her back.

  As Jimmy watched, frozen with disbelief, Crake let Oryx fall backwards, over his left arm. He looked at Jimmy, a direct look, unsmiling.

  "I'm counting on you," he said. Then he slit her throat.

  Jimmy shot him.

  13

  ~

  Bubble

  ~

  In the aftermath of the storm the air is cooler. Mist rises from the distant trees, the sun declines, the birds are beginning their evening racket. Three crows are flying overhead, their wings black flames, their words almost audible. Crake! Crake! they're saying. The crickets are saying Oryx. I'm hallucinating, thinks Snowman.

  He progresses along the rampart, step by wrenching step. His foot feels like a gigantic boiled wiener stuffed with hot, masticated flesh, boneless and about to burst. Whatever bug is fermenting inside it is evidently resistant to the antibiotics in the watchtower ointment. Maybe in Paradice, in the jumble of Crake's ransacked emergency storeroom - he knows how ransacked it is, he did the ransacking himself - he'll be able to find something more effective.

  Crake's emergency storeroom. Crake's wonderful plan. Crake's cutting-edge ideas. Crake, King of the Crakery, because Crake is still there, still in possession, still the ruler of his own domain, however dark that bubble of light has now become. Darker than dark, and some of that darkness is Snowman's. He helped with it.

  "Let's not go there," says Snowman.

  Sweetie, you're already there. You've never left.

  At the eighth watchtower, the one overlooking the park surrounding Paradice, he checks to see if either of the doors leading to the upper room are unlocked - he'd prefer to descend by a stairway, if possible - but they aren't. Cautiously he surveys the ground below through one of the observation slits: no large or medium-sized life forms visible down there, though there's a scuttering in the underbrush he hopes is only a squirrel. He unpacks his twisted sheet, ties it to a ventilation pipe - flimsy, but the only possibility - and lowers the free end over the edge of the rampart. It's about seven feet short, but he can stand the drop, as long as he doesn't land on his bad foot. Over he goes, hand over hand down the ersatz rope. He hangs at the end of it like a spider, hesitates - isn't there a technique for doing this? What has he read about parachutes? Something about bending your knees. Then he lets go.

  He lands two-footed. The pain is intense, but after rolling around on the muddy ground for a time and making speared-animal noises, he hauls himself whimpering to his feet. Revision: to his foot. Nothing seems to be broken. He looks around for a stick to use as a crutch, finds one. Good thing about sticks, they grow on trees.

  Now he's thirsty.

  Through the verdure and upspringing weeds he goes, hoppity hoppity hop, gritting his teeth. On the way he steps on a huge banana slug, almost falls. He hates that feeling: cold, viscous, like a peeled, refrigerated muscle. Creeping snot. If he were a Craker he'd have to apologize to it - I'm sorry I stepped on you, Child of Oryx, please forgive my clumsiness.

  He tries it out: "I'm sorry."

  Did he hear something? An answer?

  When the slugs begin to talk there's no time to lose.

  He reaches the bubble-dome, circles around the white, hot, icy swell of it to the front. The airlock door is open, as he remembers it. A deep breath, and in he goes.

  Here are Crake and Oryx, what's left of them. They've been vulturized, they're scattered here and there, small and large bones mingled and in disarray, like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

  Here's Snowman, thick as a brick, dunderhead, frivol, and dupe, water running down his face, giant fist clenching his heart, staring down at his one true love and his best friend in all the world. Crake's empty eye sockets look up at Snowman, as his empty eyes, once before. He's grinning with all the teeth in his head. As for Oryx, she's face down, she's turned her head away from him as if in mourning. The ribbon in her hair is as pink as ever.

  Oh, how to lament? He's a failure even at that.

  Snowman goes through the inner doorway, past the security area, into the staff living quarters. Warm air, humid, unfresh. The first place he needs is the storeroom; he finds it without difficulty. Dark except for a few skylights, but he's got his flashlight. There's a smell of mildew and of rats or mice, but otherwise the place is untouched since he was last here.

  He locates the medical-supply shelves, roots around. Tongue depressors, gauze pads, burn dressings. A box of rectal thermometers, but he doesn't need one of them stuffed up his anus to tell him he's burning up. Three or four kinds of antibiotics, pill form and therefore slow-acting, plus one last bottle of Crake's super-germicide short-term pleebland cocktail. Gets you there and back, but don't stay until the clock strikes midnight or you'll turn into a pumpkin, is what Crake used to say. He reads the label, Crake's precise notations, estimates the measurement. He's so weak now he can hardly lift the bottle; it takes him a while to get the top off.

  Glug glug glug, says his voice balloon. Down the hatch.

  But no, he shouldn't drink it. He finds a box of clean syringes, shoots himself up. "Bite the dust, foot germs," he says. Then he hobbles to his own suite, what used to be his own suite, and collapses onto the damp unmade bed, and goes brownout.

  Alex the parrot comes to him in a dream. It flies in through the window, lands close to him on the pillow, bright green this time with purple wings and a yellow beak, glowing like a beacon, and Snowman is suffused with happiness and love. It cocks its head, looks at him first with one eye, then the other. "The blue triangle," it says. Then it begins to flush, to turn red, beginning with the eye. This change is frightening, as if it's a parrot-shaped light bulb filling up with blood. "I'm going away now," it says.

  "No, wait," Snowman calls, or wants to call. His mouth won't move. "Don't go yet! Tell me ..."

  Then there's a rush of wind, whuff, and Alex is gone, and Snowman is sitting up in his former bed, in the dark, drenched in sweat.

  Scrib
ble

  ~

  The next morning his foot is somewhat better. The swelling has gone down, the pain has decreased. When evening falls he'll give himself another shot of Crake's superdrug. He knows he can't overdo it, however: the stuff is very potent. Too much of it and his cells will pop like grapes.

  Daylight filters through the insulating glass bricks facing the skylight window well. He roams around the space he once inhabited, feeling like a disembodied sensor. Here is his closet, here are the clothes once his, tropical-weight shirts and shorts, ranged neatly on hangers and beginning to moulder. Footwear too, but he can no longer stand the thought of footwear. It would be like adding hooves, plus his infected foot might not fit. Underpants in stacks on the shelves. Why did he used to wear such garments? They appear to him now as some sort of weird bondage gear.

  In the storeroom he finds some packets and cans. For breakfast he has cold ravioli in tomato sauce and half a Joltbar, washed down with a warm Coke. No hard liquor or beer left, he'd gone through all of that during the weeks he'd been sealed in here. Just as well. His impulse would have been to drink it up as fast as possible, turn all memory to white noise.

  No hope of that now. He's stuck in time past, the wet sand is rising. He's sinking down.

  After he'd shot Crake, he'd recoded the inner door, sealed it shut. Crake and Oryx lay intertwined in the airlock; he couldn't bear to touch them, so he'd left them where they were. He'd had a fleeting romantic impulse - maybe he should cut off a piece of Oryx's dark braid - but he'd resisted it.

  He went back to his room and drank some Scotch and then some more, as much as it took to conk himself out. What woke him up was the buzzer from the outer door: White Sedge and Black Rhino, trying to get back in. The others too, no doubt. Jimmy ignored them.

  Some time the next day he made four slices of soytoast, forced himself to eat them. Drank a bottle of water. His entire body felt like a stubbed toe: numb but also painful.

  During the day his cellphone rang. A high-ranking Corpsman, looking for Crake.

  "Tell that fucker to get his big fat brain the fuck over here and help figure this thing out."