"Really," says Croze. "That's major."
"Said they were Painball, like we should respect that," says Beluga. "They wanted to trade the woman for spraygun cells and Mo'Hair meat -- the woman and the rakunk."
"I bet it was them got our purple Mo'Hair," says Croze. "Toby found the legs."
"Rakunk! Why would we trade for that?" says White Sedge indignantly. "We're not stahving!"
"We should've shot them," says Manatee. "But they were holding the woman in front."
"What was she wearing?" I say, but they ignore me.
"We said no trade," says Ivory Bill. "Tough for the girl. But they're desperate for cells, which means they're running out. So we'll deal with them later."
"It's Amanda," I say. They could have saved her. Though I don't blame them for not trading: you can't give spraycells to guys who'll use them to kill you. "What about Amanda?" I say. "Shouldn't we go and get her?"
"Yeah -- we need to get everyone together now that the Flood's over," says Croze. "Like we've said." He's backing me up.
"Then we can, you know, rebuild the human race," I say. I know it sounds stupid, but it's the only thing I can think of. "Amanda could really help us -- she's so good at everything." But they just smile at me sadly as if they know it's hopeless.
Croze takes my hand and walks me away from them. "You mean that?" he says. "About the human race?" He smiles. "You'll have to have babies."
"Maybe not just yet," I say.
"Come on," he says. "I'll show you the garden."
They have a cookhouse, and some violet porta-biolets over in one corner, and some solar they're fixing up. There's no shortage of parts for just about everything back in the pleebs, though you have to look out for falling buildings.
Their vegetable garden is in behind: they don't have a lot of stuff planted yet. "We get pig attacks," he says. "They dig under the fence. We shot one of them, so maybe the others got the point. Zeb says they're superpigs, because they're spliced with human brain tissue."
"Zeb?" I say. "Is Zeb alive?" I feel dizzy all of a sudden. All of these dead people, coming alive again -- it's overwhelming.
"Sure," says Croze. "Are you all right?" He puts his arm around me, to keep me from falling down.
72
TOBY. SAINT RACHEL AND ALL BIRDS
YEAR TWENTY-FIVE
Ren and Crozier have wandered off behind the cobb house. No harm, thinks Toby. Young love, no doubt. She's telling Ivory Bill about the third man -- the dead one. Blanco. He listens carefully. "Plague?" he asks. An infected bullet wound, she says. She doesn't add the Poppy and the Death Angels.
While they're talking, another woman comes around from behind the house. "Hey, Toby," she says. It's Rebecca. Older, less plump, but still Rebecca. Solid. She takes hold of Toby's shoulders. "You're too thin, sweetheart," she says. "Never mind. We've got bacon. Fatten you up for sure."
Bacon is not a concept that Toby can grasp right now. "Rebecca," she says. She wants to add, "Why are you alive?" but this is -- increasingly -- a meaningless question. Why are any of them alive? So she merely says, "Wonderful."
"Zeb said you'd make it. He always said that. Hey. Gimme a smile!"
Toby doesn't like the past tense. It has a deathbed smell. "When did he say it?" she asks.
"Heck, he says it most days. Now come on in the kitchen, eat something. Tell me where you've been."
Zeb's alive then, thinks Toby. Now that it's true she feels she's always known it. She also doubts it -- it won't really be true until she sees him. Touches him.
They have coffee -- dandelion roots, roasted, Rebecca says proudly -- and some baked burdock root with herbs, and a slice of -- could it be cold pork? "Those pigs are a nuisance," says Rebecca. "Too smart by half." She eyes Toby challengingly. "Needs must when the devil drives," she says. "Anyways, at least we know what's in it -- not like at SecretBurgers."
"It's delicious," Toby says truthfully.
After their snack, Toby hands over the three remaining Mo'Hair legs, not that fresh but Rebecca says they'll be fine for stock. Then they plunge right into history. Toby runs through her time in the AnooYoo Spa, and tells about the arrival of Ren; Rebecca describes her fake identity selling life insurance in gated communities out west while planting MaddAddam's inventive bioforms, and how she got the last bullet train east -- a risk, lot of folks coughing but she wore a nose cone and gloves -- and then holed up in the Wellness Clinic, along with Zeb and Katuro. "In our old meeting room, remember?" she says. "Our Ararat supplies were