MaddAddam (MaddAddam 3)

Toby told this reason to me. It is a good reason.

And the Pig Ones helped them, because they did not want any more of their Pig One babies to be killed with a knife. Or a stick thing. Or in any other way, such as a rope.

The Pig Ones can smell better than any. We can smell better than the ones with two skins, but the Pig Ones can smell better than us. So they helped, by smelling the footprints of the bad men, and showing where they had gone. And by helping to chase after them.

And I was there too, so that I could tell the others what the Pig Ones were saying. I had shoes on my feet. You see those shoes, they are here, see? They have lights on them, and wings. They are a special thing from Crake, and I am grateful for having them, and I say, Thank you. But I do not need to put them on unless there is danger, and other bad men that must be cleared away. So I do not have them on my feet right now. But I have them here beside me, because they are part of the story.

But that time I put those shoes on my feet, and we walked a long way, into the place where the buildings are, where we do not go because they can fall down. But I went there that time, and I saw many things.

I saw things left over from the chaos, many. I saw empty buildings, many. I saw empty skins, many. I saw metal and glass things, many. And the Pig Ones carried Snowman-the-Jimmy.

Then the Pig Ones were following the bad men with their noses, and they found where they had gone. And the bad men went into the Egg, even though the Egg should only be for making, not for killing. And some of the Pig Ones went into the Egg also, to the room where the killing things were, so the bad men could not get those things. So the bad men were running, and they were hiding inside the Egg, in the hallways of the Egg. And at first we could not see them.

The Egg was dark, not light, as it used to be. We could see when we were inside the Egg, I do not mean that kind of dark. The Egg had a dark feeling. It had a dark smell.

And Snowman-the-Jimmy went into the first doorway of the Egg, and he found a pile of smelly bones and another pile of smelly bones, all mixed together, and he was very sad, and he fell down onto his knees, and he cried. And Toby wanted to purr on him, but he said, "Leave me alone!"

And then he took a pink twisty thing from the hair of one of the smelly bone piles, and he held it in his hands, and he said, "Oryx. Oh God." And then he said, "You fucker, Crake! You didn't have to kill her!"

And Toby and Zeb were there. And Zeb said, "Maybe she was already sick. Maybe he couldn't live without her." And Snowman-the-Jimmy said, "Oh Fuck, spare me the fucking cliches!"

And I said to Toby, "What is cliches?" And Toby said that it was a word to help people get through a trouble when they couldn't think of anything else. And I hoped that Fuck was flying very quickly to help Snowman-the-Jimmy, because he was in very much trouble.

And I was in very much trouble too, because Snowman-the-Jimmy said these bone piles were Oryx and Crake. And I felt a very bad feeling, and I was frightened. And I said, "Oh Toby, is this Oryx, and is this Crake? But they are a smelly bone, they are many smelly bones! Oryx and Crake must be beautiful! Like the stories! They cannot be a smelly bone!" And I cried, because they were dead ones, very dead ones, and all fallen apart.

But Toby said the bone piles were not the real Oryx and Crake any more, they were only husks, like an eggshell.

And the Egg wasn't the real Egg, the way it is in the stories. It was only an eggshell, like the shells that are broken and left behind when the birds hatch out of them. And we ourselves were like the birds, so we did not need the broken eggshell any more, did we?

And Oryx and Crake had different forms now, not dead ones, and they are good and kind. And beautiful. The way we know, from the stories.

So I felt better then.

Please do not sing yet.

And then after that we went all the way into the Egg. It was not bright there but it was not dark either, because the sun shone through the eggshell. But the feeling of darkness was all the way through the air. And then they were having a battle. A battle is when some wish to clear others away, and the others want to clear them away as well.

We do not have battles. We do not eat a fish. We do not eat a smelly bone. Crake made us that way. Yes, good, kind Crake.

But Crake made the two-skinned ones so they could have a battle. He made the Pig Ones that way too. They do a battle with their tusks, and the others do a battle with the sticks that punch holes and blood comes out. That is how they are made.

I don't know why Crake made them that way.

The Pig Ones chased the bad men. They chased them through the hallways, and they chased them into the centre of the Egg, where there were many dead trees. Not as when we were made there: then, there were trees with many leaves, and beautiful water, and it rained, and the stars were shining in the sky. But now there were no stars, only a ceiling.

The Pig Ones told me later of all the places where they chased the bad men. Toby would not let me go with them because she said I might get holes with blood, or else the bad ones might grab hold of me, and that would be worse. So I could not see everything that happened, but there was shouting, and the Pig Ones were screaming, and it hurt my ears. Pig One voices when screaming are very, very loud.

And there was the sound of galloping, and footsteps with shoes on. And then it would be silent, and that was when thinking was happening: the thinking of the bad ones, and the thinking of the Pig Ones, and the thinking of Zeb, and Toby, and Rhino. They wanted the Pig Ones to chase the bad men past where they were so they could make holes in them with the sticks, but it did not happen. There were many, many hallways inside the Egg.

And one of the Pig Ones came and told me that there were only two bad men being chased through the hallways. But three had gone into the Egg. And the third one was above us: they could smell him. He was above us, but they did not know where.

And I told that to Zeb and Toby, and Zeb said, "They've stashed Adam on the second floor somewhere. Where's the stairs?" And Snowman-the-Jimmy said there were fire stairs in four places. And Toby said, "Can you take us there?" And Snowman-the-Jimmy said, "So you go up one stairway and they come down another stairway and run away, and then what?" And Zeb said, "Shit."

Three of the Pig Ones became hurt when they were chasing the bad men in the hallways, and one of them fell down and did not get up again. It was the one who carried Snowman-the-Jimmy. And I saw that part of the battle, and I made the noises of a sick person. And I cried.

Then the two bad men ran up some of the stairs. Stairs are - I will tell you what stairs are later. But the Pig Ones cannot climb stairs. And when the bad ones reached the top, we could not see them.

And Zeb and Toby and the other two-skinned people told me to tell the Pig Ones to find the other stair places, and to scream if the bad ones tried to come down. Then they brought wood in from outside, and they made a fire, with smoke. And the smoke went up the stairs. And they put cloths over their faces and waited near the bottom of the stairs where the men had run up, and when there was much smoke - very much smoke, I saw it, I coughed! - two of the bad men came to the top of the stairs, and they were pushing the third man in front of them, and holding him by the arms, one on each side. And he had ropes on his hands. And he had only one shoe. On his foot. But that shoe did not have wings, and lights. Not like the shoes here, that were on my feet.