"It's fucking creepy having your voice in my head," said Zeb. "You sound like a Martian."
"No doubt," said Adam. "But that is not your number-one problem right now. The man who died was our mutual parent, I'm told."
"You were told right," said Zeb, "but who told you?"
He'd gone into a corner of the room so the conversation would be semi-private, out of consideration for others: it was annoying to have to listen to a person talking to their own tooth. Katrina was in another corner with her intramural cell, calling in the Scales cleanup squad, who were bound to be taken aback. Similar things had been known to occur with older guys during the course of House Specials - the kick-tails could be overly powerful for those of diminished bodily abilities and functions - but nothing very similar. Usually it was a stroke or a heart attack. This kind of frothing was unprecedented.
"Katrina called me. Naturally," said Adam. "She keeps me informed."
"She knows he's our ...?"
"Not exactly. She knows I have an interest in anything concerning the Corps bookings - especially the OilCorps - so she notified me of the four-party reservation, and of the special surprise arrangements made by three of the clients as a gift to the fourth. Then she sent me the headshots generated automatically by the doorware at the front, and of course I recognized him at once. I was already on the premises, so I came to the front of the house in case I might be needed. I'm out in the bar area now; I'm right beside the glass shelves, where the novelty corkscrews and the salt shakers are displayed."
"Oh," said Zeb. "Good," he added lamely.
"Which one did you use?"
"Which one of what?" said Zeb.
"Don't play innocent," said Adam. "I can count. Six minus three is three. The white, the red, or the black?"
"All of them," said Zeb. There was a pause.
"Too bad," said Adam. "That will make it more difficult for us to determine what exactly was in each one. A more controlled approach would have been preferable."
"Aren't you going to tell me I'm a fucking stupid fuckwit," said Zeb, "for doing such a stupid fucking dickwit thing? Though not in so many words, I guess."
"It was a little spontaneous of you," said Adam, "but worse things could have happened. In the event, it was fortuitous that he didn't recognize you."
"Wait a minute," said Zeb. "You knew he was walking in the door? You didn't warn me?"
"I counted on you to act as the situation would dictate," said Adam. "Nor was my confidence misplaced."
Zeb was outraged: his cunning bastard of a big brother had set him up, the shit! But he'd also trusted Zeb to be competent enough to deal with whatever mayhem might result, so in addition to the outrage he felt all warm and vindicated. Thank you didn't really fit the case, so instead he said, "You fucking smartass!"
"Regrettable," said Adam. "And I do regret it. But may I point out that, as a result, that man is permanently off our case. Now, and this is important: get them to collect as much of him - of it - as they can. Put it in a CryoJeenyus Frasket - Katrina always keeps a few on hand for clients with CryoJeenyus contracts. The full-body model would be preferable to the head-only. Many Scales customers who are no longer young have made such arrangements. The protocol is that if they have a - what CryoJeenyus calls 'a life-suspending event' - and when speaking of those who have had their lives suspended, please do avoid the word death, as CryoJeenyus employees do, since you will shortly be impersonating one of them. If such a life-suspending event occurs, the client is flash-frozen immediately in the Frasket and shipped to CryoJeenyus for re-animation later, once CryoJeenyus has developed the biotech to do that."
"Which is when pigs can fly," says Zeb. "I hope Katrina's got a giant ice-cube tray."
"Use buckets if necessary," said Adam. "We need to get him - we need to get the effluent to Pilar's cryptic team, out on the east coast."
"Pilar's what?"
"Cryptic team. Our friends," says Adam. "They have day jobs in the biotech Corps: OrganInc, HelthWyzer Central, RejoovenEsense, even CryoJeenyus. But they're helping us at night, cryptic being a bio-term for camouflage in, say, caterpillars."
"Since when are you so palsy with caterpillars?" said Zeb. "Are you warping your brain lurking in that dumb MaddAddam Extinctathon name-the-dead-beetle game site?" Adam overrode him.
"The cryptic team will find out what it was, inside the pills. Or is. Let's hope it can't go airborne; we don't think it can yet, or anyone who was in that room will have been contaminated. It appears to be very rapid-acting, so they'd be showing symptoms. As things stand, we believe it's contact-only. Don't let any of the - of the residue touch you."
And don't stick my finger in the goo and then shove it up my ass, Zeb thought. "I'm not a fucking idiot," he said out loud.
"Live up to that pledge. I know you can," said Adam. "I'll see you on the sealed bullet train, with the Frasket."
"We're going where?" said Zeb. "You're coming too?" But Adam had rung off, or hung up, or logged out; whatever you did on the other end of a tooth.
While the plastic-film-dressed and face-masked cleanup team was water-vaccing the Rev into enamelled pails and then funnelling him into sealable freezer-friendly metal flasks, Zeb headed off to become a tidier and sweeter version of Smokey the Bear. He disposed of his black outfit, doomed to incineration, and took a quick antimicrobial-enhanced shower - same product the Scalies used - lathering his face, sanctifying his pits, and Q-tipping his pointy ears.
I'm gonna wash that Rev right offa my head,
'Cause he's not only dead, he's red,
He's a red red goo, and a good thing too,
'Cause Daddy I'm through and so are you,
A boobity-doop-de-doop-de-doop-de-doo!
He did a little two-step, a little hip-wiggle. He liked to sing in the shower, especially when danger threatened.
One more river, he sang while putting on a fresh black suit. And that's the river of boredom! One more molar, There's one more molar to floss.
Then he resumed his duties, standing sentinel behind Katrina WooWoo - now dressed as a fruit cluster with a fetching set of tooth marks embroidered on one apple-shaped boob - while she and March the python broke the lamentable news to the three OilCorps execs, having first ordered frozen daiquiris on the house, all around, and a platter of mini-fish-fingers, PeaPod Good-as-Real Scallops - No Bottoms Dragged for These, said the label, as Zeb knew from mooching them in the kitchen - some Gourmet's Holiday Poutine, and a plate of deep-fried NeverNetted Shrimps, a new lab-grown splice.
"Your friend has unfortunately had a life-suspending event," she told the OilCorps execs. "Total bliss can be taxing on the system. But as you know, he had - excuse me, he has a contract with CryoJeenyus - full-body, not head-only - so all is well. I'm so sorry for your temporary loss."
"I didn't know that," said one of the execs. "About the contract. I thought you wore a CryoJeenyus bracelet or something; I never saw his."
"Some gentlemen prefer not to advertise the possibility of life suspension," said Katrina smoothly. "They choose the tattoo option, which is applied in a concealed and very private location. Of course, at this enterprise we become aware of all such tattoos, as a casual business acquaintance might not." One more thing to admire about her, thought Zeb, trying not to peer down the front of her apples: she was a tip-top liar. He couldn't have done better himself.
"Makes sense," said the dominant exec.
"In any case, we did discover this fact in time," said Katrina, "and, as you know, the procedure has to be carried out immediately in order to be effective. Luckily we have a fast-track Premium Platinum-level agreement with CryoJeenyus, and their trained operatives are always on call. Your friend is already in a Frasket, and will be on his way to the central CryoJeenyus facility on the east coast almost at once."
"We can't see him?" said the second exec.
"Once the Frasket is sealed and vacuumized - as it now is - it would defeat the purpose to open it," Katrina said, smiling. "I
can provide a certificate of authentication from CryoJeenyus. Would you like another frozen daiquiri?"
"Shit," said the third exec. "What do we tell that nutbar church of his? Fell over getting fracked in a moppet shop won't go down too well."
"I agree," said Katrina, a little more coldly. She felt Scales was much more than a moppet shop: it was a total aesthetic experience, ran the blurb on the website. "But Scales and Tails is well known for its discretion in such matters. That is why it is the number-one choice among discerning gentlemen such as yourselves. With us, you do get what you pay for, and more; and that includes a good cover story."
"Any bright ideas?" said the second exec. He had eaten all the NeverNetted Shrimps and was starting on the scallops. Death made some people hungry.
"Contracted viral pneumonia while working with disadvantaged children in the deeper pleeblands, would be my first suggestion," said Katrina. "That would be a popular choice. But we have our own trained PR personnel to assist you."
"Thank you, ma'am," said the third exec, watching her through narrowed and slightly reddened eyes. "You've been very helpful."
"My pleasure," said Katrina, smiling graciously and leaning forward to let her hand be shaken and then her fingertips kissed while disclosing enough but not too much of her upper torso real-estate. "Anytime. We're here for you."
"What a gal," says Zeb. "She could have run any of the top Corps with one thumb, no problem."
Toby feels the familiar snarly tendrils of jealousy knotting round her heart. "So did you ever?" she asks.
"Ever what, babe?"
"Ever get into her scaly underthings."
"It's one of my life-span regrets," says Zeb, "but no. I didn't even give it a try. Hands stayed in the pockets, firmly clenched. Jaw clenched likewise. It was an effort to restrain myself, but that's the bare-naked truth: I didn't give it a single grope. Not even a wink."
"Because?"
"One, she was my boss when I was working at Scales. It's not a smart move to roll around on the floor with a woman boss. It confuses them."
"Oh please," says Toby. "That's so twentieth century!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm a sexist-wexist pig and so forth, but that happens to be accurate. Hormone overdrive craps up efficiency. I've watched it in action - women bosses getting all coy and weird about issuing orders to some bullet-headed stud who's just erased their rational faculties and blown off the top of their heads and made them growl like a rakunk in heat and scream like a dying rabbit. It alters the power hierarchy. 'Take me, take me, write my speech, get me a coffee, you're fired.' So there's that." He pauses. "Plus."
"Plus what?" She's hoping for some revolting feature on the part of Katrina WooWoo, whom, granted, she has never seen, and who is 99.999 per cent likely to be dead; but envy crosses all borders. Maybe she was knock-kneed, or had halitosis or hopeless taste in music. Even a pimple would have been some comfort.
"Plus," says Zeb, "Adam loved her. No doubt of it. I'd never poach in his goldfish pond. He was - he's my brother. He's my family. There's limits."
"You're kidding!" says Toby. "Adam One? In love? With Katrina WooWoo?"
"She was Eve One," says Zeb.
The Train to CryoJeenyus
"That's hard to believe," says Toby. "How do you know?"
Zeb is silent. Will this be a painful story? It's likely: most stories about the past have an element of pain in them, now that the past has been ruptured so violently, so irreparably.
But not, surely, for the first time in human history. How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. The dead bodies evaporating like slow smoke; their loved and carefully tended homes crumbling away like deserted anthills. Their bones reverting to calcium; night predators hunting their dispersed flesh, transformed now into grasshoppers and mice.
There's a moon now, almost full. Good luck for owls; bad luck for rabbits, who often choose to cavort riskily but sexily in the moonlight, their brains buzzing with pheromones. There's a couple of them down there now, jumping about in the meadow, glowing with a faint greenish light. Some used to think there was a giant rabbit up there on the moon: they could clearly make out its ears. Others thought there was a smiling face, yet others an old woman with a basket. What will the Crakers decide about that when they get around to astrology, in a hundred years, or ten, or one? As they will, or will not.
But is the moon waxing or waning? Her moontime sense isn't as sharp as it used to be in the days of the Gardeners. How many times had she watched over Vigils when the moon was full? Wondering, from time to time, why there was an Adam One but no Eve One, nor ever any mention of such. Now she'll find out.
"Picture it," says Zeb. "Adam and me were on the sealed bullet train together for three days. I'd only seen him twice since we cleared out the Rev's bank account and went our separate ways: in the Happicuppa joint, in the back room at Scales. No time to dig down. So naturally I asked him stuff."
Zeb had to sacrifice his face waffle, of which he'd become moderately fond despite the meticulous upkeep, what with those stubbly mini-squares to sculpt. He clear-cut the thing with a shaver: all that remained of it was a goatee. He had some new head growth - an unconvincing Mo'Hair glue-on from the early days of that Corp - in a shade of glossy pimp-oil brown.
Luckily he could cover up some of the more fraudulent effects with the dorky hat that was part of the CryoJeenyus outfit for the position that would have once been called "undertaker's assistant," though CryoJeenyus used the label Temporary Inertness Caretaker instead. The hat was a modified turban, referencing both magicians and genies. It was reddish in colour and had a flame design on the front.
"Ever-burning flame of life, right?" says Zeb. "When they showed that third-rate magic-show headrag to me, I said, 'You can't be fucking serious! I'm not wearing a boiled tomato on my head!' But then I saw the beauty of it. With it, and with the rest of the ensemble - a purple thing like pyjamas, or maybe a karate concept, with the CryoJeenyus logo plastered across the front - no one could mistake me for anything but an overgrown dim bulb who couldn't get any other job. Frasketsitting on a train - how pathetic was that? 'If you're where no one expects you to be,' old Slaight of Hand used to say, 'you're invisible.' "
Adam had the same uniform, and he looked even stupider in it than Zeb did. So that was some comfort. Anyway, who was going to see them? They were locked into the special CryoJeenyus car with the Frasket plugged into its own separate generator to keep it subzero inside. CryoJeenyus prided itself on being extra secure: DNA theft, not to mention the pilfering of other, larger body parts, was a worry among those who were in love with their own carbon structures: in those circles, the theft of Einstein's brain had not been forgotten.
Thus an armed guard travelled with all Frasket-sitters, riding shotgun near the door. On bona fide CryoJeenyus missions, this individual would have been a member of the consolidated and ever-expanding CorpSeCorps and would have been armed with a spraygun. But since everything about this particular caper was bogus, the role was played by a Scales manager named Mordis. He looked the part: tough, bright eyes like a shiny black beetle, smile impartial as a falling rock.
His weaponry wasn't real, however: the cryptic team could imitate clothing, but they couldn't reproduce that kind of triple-security moving-part tech. So the spraygun was a cunning plastic and painted-foam imitation, which wouldn't matter at all unless someone got close enough to be hit with a fist.
But why would they? As far as anyone else was concerned, this was just a routine dead-run. Or rather, a ferrying of the subject of a life-suspending event from the shore of life on a round trip back to the shore of life. It was a mouthful, but CryoJeenyus went in for that kind of evasive crapspeak. They had to, considering the business they were in: their two best sales aids being gullibility and unfounded hope.
"It was the most bizarre trip I ever took," says Zeb. "Dressed up like Aladdin, sitting in a locked train compartment with my brother, who was wearing half a squa
shed pumpkin on his head, and between us a Frasket containing our dad in the form of soup stock. Though we did put the bones and teeth in there, as well. Those didn't dissolve. There was some discussion at Scales about the osseous materials - you could get a good price for human bones in the deeper pleeblands, where carved artisanal human-products jewellery was a fashion: Bone Bling, it was called. But the cooler heads of Adam and Katrina and, I have to say, your humble self overruled the enthusiasts, because even if you boiled those things there was no telling what microbes might remain. As yet, we knew nothing about them."
A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow Frasket, Zeb sang.
Adam took out a little notebook and a pencil and wrote: Watch what you say. We're most likely bugged.
After showing it to Zeb under cover of his hand, he erased it, and wrote: And please do not sing. It is very irritating.
Zeb motioned for the little notebook. After a slight hesitation, Adam handed it over. Zeb wrote: FU+PO. Then he wrote, underneath them: Fuck You and Piss Off. Then: You manage to get yourself laid yet?
Adam read this and blushed. Watching him blush was a novelty: Zeb had never witnessed such a thing before. Adam was so pale you could almost see his capillaries. He wrote: None of your business.
Zeb wrote: Haha, was it K and did you pay? Since he had long suspected which way the wind of Adam was blowing.
Adam wrote: I refuse to have that lady spoken about in such a manner. She has been a devoted furtherer of our efforts.
Zeb should have written: What efforts? Then he would have known more. Instead he wrote, Haha, hole in one for my score, so to speak :D!! At least you're not gay! :D :D
Adam wrote: You are beneath vulgar.
Zeb wrote: That would be me! Never mind, I respect true love. He drew a heart, then a flower. He almost added, Even if she is running a fancypants blowjob emporium, but he thought better of it: Adam was getting very huffy, and he might forget himself and take a swipe at Zeb for just about the first time in his life. Then there would be an unseemly scuffle over the remains of their liquefied parent that would not end well for Zeb because he could never bear to deck Adam, not really; so he'd just have to let the pallid little weenie beat him up.