Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam 1)

"So it's sort of like she's saying they could make it together if he only had the right kind of dick, which he doesn't?" said Jimmy, who'd been thinking hard.

"Jimmy, you're a genius," said Crake.

"This is BioDefences," said Crake. "Last stop, I promise." He could tell Jimmy was flagging. The truth was that all this was too reminiscent. The labs, the peculiar bioforms, the socially spastic scientists - they were too much like his former life, his life as a child. Which was the last place he wanted to go back to. Even Martha Graham was preferable.

They were standing in front of a series of cages. Each contained a dog. There were many different breeds and sizes, but all were gazing at Jimmy with eyes of love, all wer

e wagging their tails.

"It's a dog pound," said Jimmy.

"Not quite," said Crake. "Don't go beyond the guardrail, don't stick your hand in."

"They look friendly enough," said Jimmy. His old longing for a pet came over him. "Are they for sale?"

"They aren't dogs, they just look like dogs. They're wolvogs - they're bred to deceive. Reach out to pat them, they'll take your hand off. There's a large pit-bull component."

"Why make a dog like that?" said Jimmy, taking a step back. "Who'd want one?"

"It's a CorpSeCorps thing," said Crake. "Commission work. A lot of funding. They want to put them in moats, or something."

"Moats?"

"Yeah. Better than an alarm system - no way of disarming these guys. And no way of making pals with them, not like real dogs."

"What if they get out? Go on the rampage? Start breeding, then the population spirals out of control - like those big green rabbits?"

"That would be a problem," said Crake. "But they won't get out. Nature is to zoos as God is to churches."

"Meaning what?" said Jimmy. He wasn't paying close attention, he was worrying about the ChickieNobs and the wolvogs. Why is it he feels some line has been crossed, some boundary transgressed? How much is too much, how far is too far?

"Those walls and bars are there for a reason," said Crake. "Not to keep us out, but to keep them in. Mankind needs barriers in both cases."

"Them?"

"Nature and God."

"I thought you didn't believe in God," said Jimmy.

"I don't believe in Nature either," said Crake. "Or not with a capital N."

Hypothetical

~

"So, you got a girlfriend?" said Jimmy on the fourth day. He'd been saving this question for the right time. "I mean, there's quite an array of babes to choose from." He meant this to be ironic. He couldn't picture himself with the Woody Woodpecker--laugh girl or the ones with numbers all over their chests, but he couldn't picture Crake with one of them either. Crake was too suave for that.

"Not as such," said Crake shortly.

"What do you mean, not as such? You've got a girl, but she's not a human being?"

"Pair-bonding at this stage is not encouraged," said Crake, sounding like a guidebook. "We're supposed to be focusing on our work."

"Bad for your health," said Jimmy. "You should get yourself fixed up."

"Easy for you to say," said Crake. "You're the grasshopper, I'm the ant. I can't waste time in unproductive random scanning."

For the first time in their lives, Jimmy wondered - could it be? - whether Crake might be jealous of him. Though maybe Crake was just being a pompous tightass; maybe Watson-Crick was having a bad effect on him. So what's the super-cerebellum-triathlon ultralife mission? Jimmy felt like saying. Deign to divulge? "I wouldn't call it a waste," he said instead, trying to lighten Crake up, "unless you fail to score."