MaddAddam (MaddAddam 3)

It's all right. You don't have to put on the red hat. Please don't cry.

"Well, that was a bit of a fiasco," says Toby. "I didn't know they were afraid of it - that old red baseball cap."

"I was afraid of the Red Sox myself," says Zeb. "When I was a kid. I was a gambler at heart even then."

"It seems to be a sacred object to them. The hat. Sort of taboo. They can carry it around but they can't put it on."

"Cripes, can you blame them? That thing is filthy! Bet it has lice."

"I'm trying to have an anthropological discussion here."

"Have I told you recently you've got a fine ass?"

"Don't be complex," says Toby.

"Complex is another word for pathetic jerkoff?"

"No," says Toby. "It's just that ..." Just that what? Just that she can't believe he means it.

"Okay, it's a compliment. Remember those? Guys give them to women. It's a courtship move - now that's anthropology. So just think of it as a bouquet. Deal?"

"Okay, deal," says Toby.

"Let's start again. I spotted that fine ass of yours way back when, o

n that day we composted Pilar. When you took off those baggy Gardener-lady clothes and put on the parkie overalls. Filled me with longing, it did. But you were inaccessible then."

"I wasn't really. I was ..."

"Yeah, you kinda were. You were Miss Total God's Gardener Purity, as far as I could tell. Adam One's devoted altar girl. Wondered if he was having it off with you, to tell the truth. I was jealous of that."

"Absolutely not," says Toby. "He never, ever ..."

"I believe you. Thousands wouldn't. Anyway, I was hooked up with Lucerne at the time."

"That stopped you? Mister Babe Magnet?"

A sigh. "I was magnetized to babes, naturally. Back when I was young. It's a hormone thing, it comes with the hairy balls. Wonders of nature. But babes weren't always magnetized to me." A pause. "Anyway, I'm loyal. To whoever I'm with, if I'm really with them. A serial monogamist, you could say."

Does Toby believe this? She isn't sure.

"But then Lucerne left the Gardeners," she says.

"And you were Eve Six. Talking to the bees, measuring out the head trips. You were like a Mother Superior. Figured you'd slap me down. Inaccessible Rail," he says, using her old MaddAddam chatroom codename. "That was you."

"And you were Spirit Bear," says Toby. "Hard to find, but good luck if you happen to see one. That's what the stories said, before those bears went extinct." She starts to sniffle. The Meditation formula does that too: it melts the fortress walls.

"Hey. What? Did I say something bad?"

"No," says Toby. "I'm just sentimental."

All those years you were my lifeline, she wants to say. But doesn't.

Young Crake

"Now I have to come up with something," says Toby. "A story with Crake in it, and you as well. Crake did know Pilar when he was younger, I figured that out. But what am I going to say about you?"

"As it happens, that part's actually true," says Zeb. "I knew him before the Gardeners even got started. But he wasn't Crake then, not even close. He was just a fucked-up kid named Glenn."