The guy said something into his earpiece, which must have been very small because Zeb couldn't see it. Maybe it was inside a tooth: some were using those now, though if the tooth got knocked out and you swallowed the thing you might end up talking out your ass. An inner door marked HEAD OFFICE, BODY OFFICE TOO, with a shiny green winking-snake logo and the motto "We're Flexible."
"In," said the big guy once more - not a large vocabulary, him - and in Zeb went.
The room was an office of sorts, equipped with a lot of video screens and some expensive overstuffed furniture that was making a muffled statement, and a mini-bar. Zeb eyed the bar longingly - maybe there was a beer, all this running around and pretense had made him thirsty - but this was not the time.
There were two people in the room, each deep in a chair. One was Katrina WooWoo. She wasn't in her snake outfit: only an oversized sweatshirt that said BITCH #3, tight black jeans, and a pair of silver stilettos that would cripple a stilt dancer. She smiled at Zeb, one of those stage smiles she could always maintain while hissing. "Long time," she said.
"Not that long," said Zeb. "You still look easy to pick up and hard to put down."
She smiled. Zeb had to admit he longed to wend his way into her scaly underthings - that boyish yen hadn't faded - but he couldn't concentrate on such goals right then because the other person in the room was Adam. He was wearing a dorky caftan affair that looked as if it was put together by spastic ragpickers for a stage play about leprosy.
"Fuck," said Zeb. "Where'd you get that pixie nightshirt?" It was best not to show surprise: it would give Adam an advantage he didn't, at the moment, deserve.
"I note your tasteful T-shirt," said Adam. "It suits you. Nice motto, baby brother."
"Is this place bugged?" said Zeb. One more baby brother quip and he'd deck Adam. No, he wouldn't. He never could bear to hit the guy, not full-out: Adam was too ethereal.
"Of course," said Katrina WooWoo. "But we've turned everything off, courtesy of the house."
"I'm supposed to believe that?"
"She actually has turned it off," said Adam. "Think about it. She doesn't want any of our footprints on her establishment. She's doing us a big favour. Thanks," he said to Katrina. "We won't be long." She stilt-walked out of the room, teetering a little, casting them a smile over her shoulder: not a hissy smile this time. She was evidently keen on Adam, despite the caftan. "There's some food later, if you want it," she said. "In the girls' caf. I need to get changed, showtime coming up."
Adam waited until she'd closed the door. "You made it," he said. "Good."
"No thanks to you," said Zeb. "I might've been lynched because of those nerdy brown pants." He was in fact very pleased to know that Adam was still alive, but he wasn't going to straight-out admit it. "I looked like a fucking fuckwit in those fucking things," he added, piling on the profanity.
Adam ignored that part. "Have you got it?" he said.
"I take it you mean this fucking chess piece," Zeb said. He handed it over. Adam twisted the head, and off it came. He turned the bishop upside down: out slid the six pills: red, white, black, two of each colour. Adam looked at them, then put them back into the bishop and reattached the head.
"Thank you," he said. "We have to think of somewhere very safe for this."
"What is it?" said Zeb.
"Pure evil," said Adam. "If Pilar's right. But valuable pure evil. And very secret. Which is why Glenn's father is dead."
"What do they do?" said Zeb. "Supersex pills or what?"
"Cleverer than that," said Adam. "They're using their vitamin supplement pills and over-the-counter painkillers as vectors for diseases - ones for which they control the drug treatments. Whatever's in the white ones is in actual deployment. Random distribution, so no one will suspect a specific location of being ground zero. They make money all ways: on the vitamins, then on the drugs, and finally on the hospitalization when the illness takes firm hold. As it does, because the treatment drugs are loaded too. A very good plan for siphoning the victims' money into Corps pockets."
"So those are the white ones. What about the reds and the blacks?"
"We don't know," said Adam. "They're experimental. Possibly other diseases, possibly a faster-acting formula. We aren't even sure how to find out in any safe way."
Zeb took this in. "This is large," he said. "I wonder how many brainiacs it took to think that up."
"It's a small, designated group within HelthWyzer," said Adam. "Directed from the top. Glenn's father was being used by them. He thought he was working on a targeted cancer-treatment vector. When he realized the nature of it, the full scope, he couldn't go along with it. He slipped these to Pilar, before ..."
"Shit," said Zeb. "They killed her too?"
"No," said Adam. "They don't even know she knows, or so we hope. She's just been transferred to HelthWyzer Central, on the east coast."
"Mind if I have a beer?" said Zeb. He didn't wait for an answer. "So now that you have this stuff," he said after the first refreshing swallow, "what next? You going to sell these things on the grey market? Foreign Corps would pay a lot."
"No," said Adam. "We couldn't do that. It would be firmly against our principles. All we can do in this world, now, is to learn what to avoid. We'll warn others about the vitamin supplements if we can, but if we were to try going public with this information we wouldn't be believed. We'd only sound paranoid, and after that we would have unfortunate accidents. The press is Corps-controlled, as you know, and any independent regulation is independent in name only. So we will keep the pills hidden until they can be analyzed without danger."
"Who's this we?" said Zeb.
"If you don't know, you can't tell," said Adam. "Safer for everyone, including you."
The Story of Zeb and the Snake Women
"How do I explain all of that to them?" says Toby. "The Scales and Tails girls, dressed up like snakes?"
"You could just leave it out."
"I don't think so. It needs to be in. It seems appropriate, a woman who is also a snake. It goes along with the Meditation, and whatever happened with that animal. With that sow. It ... She really seemed to be communicating with me. And with Blackbeard."
"You think that thing is part human? A Pig Woman? You really drank the Kool-Aid." A chuckle.
"No, not exactly, but ..."
"Too many peyote buttons in that mix of yours. Or whatever you put in."
"Maybe. No doubt you're right."
The story tells itself inside Toby's head. She doesn't seem to be thinking about the story, or directing it. She has no control over it; she just listens. Amazing what a few plant molecules will do to your brain, and how long that lasts.
This is the story of Zeb and the Snake Women. The Snake Women do not come into the story at first, they come in later. Important things often come into stories later, but also at the beginning. And in the middle as well.
But I have already told the beginning, so right now it's the middle. And Zeb is in the middle of the story about Zeb. He is in the middle of his own story.
I am not in this part of the story; it hasn't come to the part with me. But I'm waiting, far off in the future. I'm waiting for the story of Zeb to join up with mine. The story of Toby. The story I am in right now, with you.
Pilar, who lives in the elderberry bush and talks to us through the bees, was once in the form of an old woman. She gave Zeb a special important thing and told him he had to take care of it - a little thing, like a seed. And the seed would make you sick if you ate it. But some bad people from the chaos were telling all the other people that this seed would make them happy. And only Pilar and Zeb and a small number of other people knew the truth.
Why were the bad people doing that? Because of Money. Money was invisible, like Fuck. They thought that Money was their helper; they thought he was a better helper than Fuck. But they were wrong about that. Money was not their helper. Money goes away just when you need it. But Fuck is very loyal.
So Zeb took th
e seed, and he went out through the door, because if the bad men knew he had it they would chase him and take it away from him, and then do something very hurtful to him. And he was hurrying without seeming to hurry, and he said, Oh Fuck, and Fuck came flying through the air, very fast, as he always does when you call him; and he showed Zeb how to get to the house of the Snake Women. And the Snake Women opened their door, and took him in.
The Snake Women are ... You have seen a snake, and you have seen women. The Snake Women were both. And they lived with several Bird Women and Flower Women. And they hid Zeb inside a giant ... Inside a great big ... A clam shell. No, a sofa. Or maybe they hid him inside a great big, an enormous ... A flower. A very bright flower with lights on it.
Yes, a light-up flower. No one would look for Zeb inside a flower.
And Zeb's brother, Adam, was inside the flower too. That was nice. They were very happy to see each other, because Adam was the helper of Zeb and Zeb was the helper of Adam.
The Snake Women sometimes bit people, but they didn't bite Zeb. They liked him. They made him a special drink, called a Champagne Cocktail, and then they did a special dance for him. It was a twisty dance, because after all they were snakes.
They were very kind. Because that is how Oryx made them. And they were her Children, because they were part snake. So they had nothing to do with Crake. Or not much.
And the Snake Women let Zeb sleep in a great big bed, a bed that was shiny and green. They said Fuck could sleep in there as well, because there was lots of room.
And Zeb said, Thank you, because the Snake Women were being so kind to him, and also to his invisible helper. And they made him feel much better.
No, they did not purr over him. Snakes can't purr. But they ... they twined. Yes, that is what they did: some twining. And some constriction, they did that too. Snakes have very good muscles for constriction.
And Zeb was really, really tired, so he went to sleep at once. And the Snake Women and the Bird Women and the Flower Women took care of him, and made sure nothing bad would happen to him while he slept. They said they would protect him and hide him even if the bad men came there.
And the bad men did come. But that is in the next part of the story.
And now I am really, really tired too. And I am going to sleep.
Good night.
That is what she'll say when it's time for the next story.
Piglet
Guru
The morning after her visit to Pilar's elderberry bush, Toby is still feeling the effects of the Enhanced Meditation mixture. The world's a little brighter than it should be, the scrim of its colours and shapes a little more transparent. She puts on a bedsheet in a calming neutral tone - light blue, no pattern - gives her face a quick wash at the pump, and makes it over to the breakfast table.
Everyone else seems to have eaten and gone. White Sedge and Lotis Blue are clearing off the dishes.
"I think there's some left," says Lotis Blue.
"What was it?" Toby asks.
"Ham and kudzu fritters," says White Sedge.
Toby has dreamt all night: piglet dreams. Innocent piglets, adorable piglets, plumper and cleaner and less feral than the ones she'd actually seen. Piglets flying, pink ones, with white gauzy dragonfly wings; piglets talking in foreign languages; even piglets singing, prancing in rows like some old animated film or out-of-control musical. Wallpaper piglets, repeated over and over, intertwined with vines. All of them happy, none of them dead.
They did love to depict animals endowed with human features, back in that erased civilization of which she had once been a part. Huggable, fluffy, pastel bears, clutching Valentine hearts. Cute cuddly lions. Adorable dancing penguins. Older than that: pink, shiny, comical pigs, with slots in their backs for money: you saw those in antique stores.
She can't manage the ham, not after a night full of waltzing piglets. And not after yesterday: what the sow communicated to her is still with her, though she couldn't put it into words. It was more like a current. A current of water, a current of electricity. A long, subsonic wavelength. A brain chemistry mashup. Or, as Philo of the Gardeners once said, Who needs TV? He'd done perhaps too many Vigils and Enhanced Meditations.
"Think I'll skip that," says Toby. "It's not so great warmed over. I'll go get some coffee."
"Are you all right?" says White Sedge.
"I'm fine," says Toby. She walks carefully along the path to the kitchen area, avoiding the places where the pebbles are rippling and dissolving, and finds Rebecca drinking a cup of coffee substitute. Little Blackbeard is there with her, sprawled on the floor, printing. He's got one of Toby's pencils, and he's swiped her notebook too. But useless to call it "swiping" - the Crakers appear to have no concept of personal property.
"You didn't wake up," he says, not reproachfully. "You were walking very far, in the night."
"Have you seen this?" Rebecca says. "The kid's amazing."
"What are you writing?" Toby says.
"I am writing the names, Oh Toby," says Blackbeard. And, sure enough, that's what he's been doing. TOBY. ZEB. CRAK. REBECA. ORIX. SNOWMANTHEJIMY.
"He's collecting them," says Rebecca. "Names. Who's next?" she says to Blackbeard.
"Next I will write Amanda," says Blackbeard solemnly. "And Ren. So they can talk to me." He scrambles up from the floor and runs off, clutching Toby's notebook and pencil. How am I going to get those back from him? she wonders.
"Honey, you look wiped," Rebecca says to her. "Rough night?"
"I overdid something," says Toby. "In the Enhanced Meditation mix. A few too many mushrooms."
"It's a hazard," says Rebecca. "Drink a lot of water. I'll make you some clover and pine tea."
"I saw a giant pig yesterday," says Toby. "A sow, with piglets."
"The more the merrier," says Rebecca. "So long as we've got sprayguns. I'm running out of bacon."
"No, wait," says Toby. "It - she gave me a very strange look. I got the feeling that she knew I'd shot her husband. Back at the AnooYoo Spa."
"Wow, you really went to town on the mushrooms," Rebecca says. "I once had a conversation with my bra. So, was she mad about the ... I'm sorry, I just can't call it a husband! It was a pig, for chrissakes!"
"She wasn't pleased," says Toby. "But more sad than mad, I'd say."
"They're smarter than ordinary pigs, even without the Meditation booster," says Rebecca. "That's for sure. By the way, Jimmy came to breakfast today. No more invalid trays for him. He's doing well, but he'd like you to double-check his foot."
Jimmy has his own cubicle now. It's a new one, in the cobb-house addition they've finished at last. The cobb walls still smell a little damp, a little muddy; but there's a larger window than in the older part of the building, with a screen set into it and a curtain in a vibrant print of cartoon fish, with big curvy mouths and long-lashed eyes on the female ones. The males are playing guitars, with an octopus on the bongos. This is not the best thing for Toby to be looking at in her present state.
"Where did those come from?" she asks Jimmy, who's sitting up on his bed ledge with his feet on the floor. His legs are still thin, wasted; he'll need to build up the muscles again. "The curtains?"
"Who knows?" says Jimmy. "Ren, Wakulla - I mean, Lotis Blue. They felt I needed some cheerful interior decoration. It's like pre-school in here." He still has his Hey-Diddle-Diddle coverlet.
"You wanted me to look at your foot?" she says.
"Yeah. It's itchy. Driving me crazy. I just hope none of those maggot things got left inside."
"If they did, they'd have burrowed out by now," says Toby.
"Thanks a million," says Jimmy. The scar on his foot is red but sealed over. Toby examines it: no heat, no inflammation.
"That's normal," she says. "The itchiness. I'll get you something for it." A poultice: jewelweed, horsetail, red clover, she thinks. Horsetail might be the easiest to find.
"I heard you saw a pigoon," says Jimmy. "And it spoke to you."
"Who told
you that?" says Toby.
"The Crakers, who else?" says Jimmy. "They're my radio. That kid Blackbeard gave them the whole story, it seems. They think you shouldn't have killed that boar, but they're forgiving you because maybe Oryx said you could. You know those pigs have human prefrontal cortex tissue in their brains? Fact. I should know, I grew up with them."
"How did the Crakers learn about that?" Toby asks carefully. "Me shooting the boar?"
"The pigoon gal told Blackbeard. Don't give me that look, I'm just the messenger here. And according to Ren I've been hallucinating for a while, so hey. Maybe I'm not the best judge of reality." He gives her a lopsided grin.
"Mind if I sit down?" she says.
"Help yourself, thousands do," says Jimmy. "Fucking Crakers wander in here whenever the whim takes them. They want to know more shit about Crake. They think I'm his fucking guru. That he talks to me through my wristwatch. 'Course it's my own fucking fault because I made that up myself."
"And what do you tell them?" Toby asks. "About Crake?"
"I tell them to go ask you," says Jimmy.
"Me?" says Toby.
"You're the expert now. I need to take a nap."
"No, really, they always say you ... they say you knew Crake, in person. When he was walking the earth."
"Like that's supposed to be first prize?" Jimmy gives a sour little laugh.
"It gives you a certain authority," says Toby. "In their eyes."
"That's like having a certain authority with a bunch of ... Crap, I'm so wrecked I can't even think of a smartass comparison. Clams. Oysters. Dodos. What I'm saying is. Because, I'm tired. My guru juice is all used up. They wore me out a while ago, to tell you the truth. I never want to think about Crake again, ever, or listen to any more crapulous poop about how good and kind and all-powerful he is, or how he made them in the Egg and then sweetly wiped everybody else off the face of the planet, just for them. And how Oryx is in charge of the animals, and flies around in the shape of an owl, and even though you can't see her she's there anyway and will always hear them."
"As I understand it," says Toby, "that's consistent with what you've been telling them. It's Gospel as far as they're concerned."
"I know that's what I fucking told them!" says Jimmy. "They wanted to know the basic stuff, like where they came from and what all those decaying dead people were. I had to tell them something."