MaddAddam (MaddAddam 3)

Now they've reached the eastern gatehouse - pink, Tex-Mex retro - and the high fence that encloses the AnooYoo grounds. "We came here," Ren says. "That man was inside it. The Painballer, the wor

st one."

"Yes," says Toby. It was Blanco, her old enemy. He'd had gangrene, but he was bent on murder despite that.

"You killed him, didn't you?" says Ren. She must have known at the time.

"Let's say I helped him enter a different plane of being," says Toby. That was the Gardener way of putting it. "He would have died soon, but more painfully. Anyway, it was Urban Bloodshed Limitation." First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled.

She'd dosed Blanco with Amanita and Poppy: a painless exit, and better than he deserved. Then she'd dragged him onto the ornamental planting ringed with whitewashed stones, as a gift for the wildlife. Was the dose of Amanita strong enough to poison anything that ate him? She hopes not: she wishes the vultures well.

The heavy wrought-iron gate is wide open. Toby had tied it shut when they'd left, but the rope has been chewed apart. The two Pigoons trot through first, snuffle around the walkway to the gatehouse, nose their way in. They come back out, then trot over to Blackbeard. Subdued grunting, eye-to-eye staring.

"They say the three men have been there. But they are not there now," he says.

"Are they sure?" Toby asks. "There was a man in there earlier. A bad man. They don't mean that one?"

"Oh no," says Blackbeard. "They know about that one. He was dead, on the flowers. At first they wanted to eat him, but he had bad mushrooms in him. So they did not."

Toby checks out the ornamental flowerbed. It used to say WELCOME TO ANOOYOO in petunias; now it's a lush thicket of meadow weeds. Down among them, is that a boot? She has no desire to probe further.

She'd left Blanco's knife there, with the body. It was a good one: sharp. But the MaddAddamites have other knives. She only hopes the Painballers haven't retrieved it; but they, too, must have other knives.

Now they're in the AnooYoo grounds proper. They keep to the main roadway, although there's a forest path: Toby and Ren had taken it earlier, to stay in the shade. That was where they'd come upon Oates, slaughtered by the Painballers and minus his kidneys, strung up in a tree.

He must still be there, thinks Toby. They should find him, cut him down, give him a proper burial. His brothers, Shackleton and Crozier, will welcome that. A true composting, with his own tree planted on top of him. Restore him to the cool peace of rootlets, the calm dissolve of earth. But now is not the time.

Dogs barking, off in the woods. They stop to listen. "If those things come over wagging their tails, you need to shoot them," says Jimmy. "Wolvogs; they're vicious."

"Ammunition's rationed," says Rhino. "Until we find more."

"They won't attack us now," says Katuro. "Too many people. Plus two Pigoons."

"We must've killed most of them by now," says Shackleton.

They pass a burnt-out jeep, then an incinerated solarcar. Then a crashed pink mini-van with the AnooYoo logo on it: kissy lips, winky eye.

"Don't look inside," says Zeb, who has already looked. "Not pretty."

And now there's the Spa building up ahead, solid pink, still standing: no one has burned it down.

The main force of the Pigoons is milling around outside, probably finishing off the organic kitchen garden, one-time source of garnishes for the clients' diet salads. Toby remembers the hours she'd spent alone in that garden after the Flood, hoping to raise enough edible plant life so she could keep going. It's all churned earth by now.

At least she left the door unlocked.

Shadow, mildew. Her old self, bodiless, wandering the mirrorless halls. She'd put towels over the glass to blot out her own reflection.

"Come in," she says to everyone. "Make yourselves at home."

Fortress AnooYoo

The Crakers are entranced by the AnooYoo Spa. They walk carefully along the hallways, bending to touch the smooth, polished floor. They lift the pink towels that Toby had hung over the mirrors, glimpse the people in there, look behind the mirrors; then, when they realize the people are themselves, they touch their hair and smile to make their reflections smile too. They sit on the beds in the bedrooms, gingerly, then stand up again. In the gymnasium the children bounce on the trampolines, giggling. They sniff at the pink soap in the washrooms. There is still a lot of pink soap.

"Is this the Egg?" they ask. Or the younger ones do. They have a faint memory of a similar place, with high walls and smooth floors. "Is this the Egg where we were made?" "No, the Egg is not the same." "The Egg is far. It is more far than this." "The Egg has Crake in it, the Egg has Oryx. They are not here." "Can we go to the Egg?" "We do not want to go to the Egg now, it is dark." "Does the Egg have the pink things in it, like this? The flower-smelling things we can eat?" "That is not a plant, that is a soap. We do not eat a soap," and so on.

At least they aren't singing, thinks Toby. They haven't sung much on the way here either. They've been looking and listening. They seem to know there is danger.

Fortunately there haven't been any leaks in the roof. Toby is happy about that: it means the beds, despite being slightly musty, are still sleepable. As de facto hostess, she assigns rooms. For herself she picks a Couples room. The Spa contained three of those, in the unlikely event that a husband and wife or equivalent would check in together, to undergo joint facials and cleansings and tweaks and polishes. But this offering was not popular, or not among heterosexual couples - usually women liked to have such adjustments done in private so they could emerge like butterflies from a perfumed cocoon and astound the multitudes with their ravishing beauty. Toby used to run this place, so she knows. She knows, also, about the disappointment felt by these women, when, despite the large amounts of money they'd spent, they did not look very much better.