Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake

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.

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.