Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam 1)

"He's outside Paradice, he went out. He had a meeting. He doesn't want to see me when he comes back, he said he would be thinking tonight. He never wants sex when he's thinking."

"Do you love me?"

That laugh of hers. What had it meant? Stupid question. Why ask? You talk too much. Or else: What is love? Or possibly: In your dreams.

Then time passed. Then she was pinning her hair up again, then slipping on her kimono, then tying it with the sash. He stood behind her, watching in the mirror. He wanted to put his arms around her, take off the covering she'd just put back on, start all over again.

"Don't go yet," he said, but it was never any use saying don't go yet to her. When she'd decided a thing, she was on her way. Sometimes he felt he was merely a house call on a secret itinerary of hers - that she had a whole list of others to be dealt with before the night was over. Unworthy thoughts, but not out of the question. He never knew what she was doing when she wasn't with him.

"I'm coming back right away," she said, slipping her feet into her little pink and red sandals. "I'll bring pizza. You want any extras, Jimmy?"

"Why don't we dump all this crap, go away somewhere?" he said on impulse.

"Away from here? From Paradice? Why?"

"We could be together."

"Jimmy, you're funny! We're together now!"

"We could get away from Crake," said Jimmy. "We wouldn't have to sneak around like this, we could ..."

"But Jimmy." Wide eyes. "Crake needs us!"

"I think he knows," said Jimmy. "About us." He didn't believe this; or he believed it and not, both at the same time. Surely they'd been more and more reckless lately. How could Crake have missed it? Was it possible for a man that intelligent in so many ways to be acutely brain-damaged in others? Or did Crake have a deviousness that outdid Jimmy's own? If so, there were no signs.

Jimmy had taken to sweeping his room for bugs: the hidden mini-mikes, the micro-cams. He'd known what to look for, or so he thought. But there'd been nothing.

There were signs, Snowman thinks. There were signs and I missed them.

For instance, Crake said once, "Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain?"

"You mean, commit euthanasia?" said Jimmy. "Like putting down your pet turtle?"

"Just tell me," said Crake.

"I don't know. What kind of love, what kind of pain?"

Crake changed the subject.

Then, one lunchtime, he said, "If anything happens to me, I'm depending on you to look after the Paradice Project. Any time I'm away from here I want you to take charge. I've made it a standing order."

"What do you mean, anything?" said Jimmy. "What could happen?"

"You know."

Jimmy thought he meant kidnapping, or being whacked by the opposition: that was

a constant hazard, for the Compound brainiacs. "Sure," he said, "but one, your security's the best, and two, there's people in here much better equipped than I am. I couldn't head up a thing like this, I don't have the science."

"These people are specialists," said Crake. "They wouldn't have the empathy to deal with the Paradice models, they wouldn't be any good at it, they'd get impatient. Even I couldn't do it. I couldn't begin to get onto their wavelength. But you're more of a generalist."

"Meaning?"

"You have a great ability to sit around not doing much of anything. Just like them."

"Thanks," said Jimmy.

"No, I'm serious. I want - I'd want it to be you."