MaddAddam (MaddAddam 3)

Ren, calling for help: Toby! Toby! Hey! Let go of her!

Toby looks over, across the fire: Amanda has disappeared in a flickering thicket of naked male limbs and backs. Ren throws herself into the sprawl and is quickly submerged.

Toby: Wait! Don't ... Stop that! What should she do? This is a major cultural misunderstanding. If only she had a pail of cold water!

Muffled cries. Toby rushes to help, but then:

One of the Painballers: Hey you! Over here!

These ones smell very bad. They smell like dirty blood. Where is the blood?

What is this? This is a rope. Why are they tied up with a rope?

Snowman showed us rope before, when he lived in a tree. Rope is for making his house. Oh Snowman, why is the rope tied to these men?

This rope is hurting these ones. We must take it away.

A Painballer: Yeah, that's right. We're in fucking agony. (Groans.)

Toby: Don't touch them, they'll ...

The secon

d Painballer: Fucking hurry up, Blueballs, before that old bitch ...

Toby: No! Don't untie ... Those men will ...

But it was already too late. Who knew the Crakers could be so quick with knots?

Procession

The two men were gone into the darkness, leaving behind them a snarl of rope and a scattering of embers. Idiot, Toby thought. You should have been merciless. Bashed their heads in with a rock, slit their throats with your knife, not even wasted any bullets on them. You were a dimwit, and your failure to act verges on criminal negligence.

It was hard to see - the fire was fading - but she made a quick inventory: at least her rifle was still there, a small mercy. But the Painballer spraygun was missing. Pinhead, she told herself. So much for your Saint Julian and the loving kindness of the universe.

Amanda and Ren were clinging to each other and crying, with several of the beautiful Craker women stroking them anxiously. Jimmy had toppled over and was talking to a bed of coals. The sooner they could all get back to the MaddAddam cobb house, the better, because they were sitting ducks out here in the dark. The Painballers might come back for the remaining weapons, and if that happened it was already clear to Toby that these Crakers would be no help. Why did you hit me? Crake will be angry! He will send a thunder! If she downed a Painballer, the Crakers would throw themselves between her and the finishing shot. Oh, you have made bang, a man fell down, there is a hole in him, blood is coming out! He is hurt, we must help him!

But even if the Painballers held off for the moment, there were other predators in the forest. The bobkittens, the wolvogs, the liobams; worse, the enormous feral pigs. And now, with the people gone from the cities and roads, who knew how soon the bears would begin to come down from the north?

"We need to go now," she told the Crakers. Several heads turned, several sets of green eyes were looking at her. "Snowman must come with us."

The Crakers all started talking at once. "Snowman must stay with us! We must put Snowman back into his tree." "That is what he likes, he likes a tree." "Yes, only he can talk with Crake." "Only he can tell the words of Crake, about the Egg." "About the chaos." "About Oryx, who made the animals." "About how Crake made the chaos go away." "Good, kind Crake." They began singing.

"We need to get medicine," said Toby desperately. "Otherwise, Jimmy - otherwise, Snowman might die." Blank stares. Did they even understand what dying was?

"What is a Jimmy?" Puzzled frowns.

She'd made an error: wrong name. "Jimmy is another name for Snowman."

"Why?" "Why is it another name?" "What does a Jimmy mean?" This seemed to interest them much more than death. "Is it the pink skin on Snowman?" "I want a Jimmy too!" This last from a small boy.

How to explain? "Jimmy is a name. Snowman has two names."

"His name is Snowman-the-Jimmy?"

"Yes," said Toby, because it was now.

"Snowman-the-Jimmy, Snowman-the-Jimmy," they repeated to one another.