Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake

“I think Crake’s been snooping on us,” said Jimmy that last night. As soon as it was out he saw it could be true, though maybe he was just saying it to frighten Oryx. Stampede her, perhaps; though he had no concrete plans. Suppose they ran, where would they live, how would they keep Crake from finding them, what would they use for money? Would Jimmy have to turn pimp, live off the avails? Because he certainly had no marketable skills, nothing he could use in the pleeblands, not if they went underground. As they would have to do. “I think he’s jealous.”

“Oh Jimmy. Why would Crake be jealous? He doesn’t approve of jealousy. He thinks it’s wrong.”

“He’s human,” said Jimmy. “What he approves of is beside the point.”

“Jimmy, I think it’s you that’s jealous.” Oryx smiled, stood on tiptoe, kissed his nose. “You’re a good boy. But I would never leave Crake. I believe in Crake, I believe in his”—she groped for the word—“his vision. He wants to make the world a better place. This is what he’s always telling me. I think that is so fine, don’t you, Jimmy?”

“I don’t believe that,” said Jimmy. “I know it’s what he says, but I’ve never bought it. He never gave a piss about anything like that. His interests were strictly…”

“Oh, you are wrong, Jimmy. He has found the problems, I think he is right. There are too many people and that makes the people bad. I know this from my own life, Jimmy. Crake is a very smart man!”

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?

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.