MaddAddam

Zeb tells Toby the real story of the bear—flirting with her while doing so—including the parts Toby edits out for the Crakers. Zeb was working for Bearlift, a company that airlifted meat trash to feed hungry bears affected by climate change. He was in the mountains having survived a helicopter crash after a struggle with his co-pilot Chuck, who tried to sedate him. Chuck has died, and Zeb wishes he knew who hired Chuck to kidnap him, possibly “bioscrapers” (57) who wanted Zeb’s adept hacking skills. Zeb describes Bearlift as a scam, largely because bears were hungry but not in short supply. Grizzly bears mated with migrating polar bears (creating grolars and pizzlies), and bear country was dangerous.

Like most of the Bearlift staff, Zeb was there to escape legal problems. The job was simple, if tedious: They’d fly out to pick up the biotrash, “grab a beer” (61), then drop the load in designated bear locations before heading back. When Chuck showed up at Bearlift, his clothes seemed too new, and his too-white teeth and demeanor reminded Zeb of his abusive father Rev. Zeb suspects Chuck was trying to get close to him, especially after Zeb’s usual flight partners left Bearlift due to sudden family death, leaving Chuck as Zeb’s pilot. Two flights ran smoothly but on the third flight, Zeb pretended to sleep, catching the flash of a hypodermic needle before incapacitating Chuck and crashing the helicopter.

Shaken, Zeb stripped supplies and warm outerwear from Chuck’s body. When Chuck’s phone rang, Zeb smashed it, then smashed his own phone as it rang, though he wondered if he might have gotten answers if he’d picked up and posed as Chuck. Zeb finds inadequate survival supplies and the bear gun in the wreckage; guns were outlawed for citizens by CorpSeCorps, but the bear gun was deemed an exception, in part so that CorpSeCorps could use Bearlift as a distraction while they seized power. Zeb didn’t find the syringe; he assumed Chuck’s plan was to “strip-mine his neural data […] then leave him […] staggering around with amnesia” (69). Zeb also took a piece of Chuk’s body; food was scarce, and hunting would be difficult. Zeb hid Chuck’s body under the helicopter wreckage and put one of his own boots on it so Chuck’s conspirators assume it’s his body if they come looking. He knew he was vulnerable out in the open, so he looked for cover in the barren tundra, wary of the fact that bears might be hidden in the landscape.

Zeb knew the area from his many flights, but the terrain was tough. His bear spray and gun were woefully inadequate and in most circumstances would just anger a bear. With blisters from Chuck’s boots, Zeb stopped to drink from a stream, suddenly paranoid that there might be a tracker in Chuck’s warm vest. Zeb sent it sailing down the creek, calculating how long it might take Chuck’s employers to find the wreck. He headed toward a defunct highway with a few abandoned structures. Finally, he found an old, crumbling building and hid inside. After an hour, he listened as a drone arrived, blasted the wreckage, and left. Eventually, Bearlift showed up, hovered, then also left. Zeb made a fire and cooked; listening to the story, Toby is surprised that he could unceremoniously cook and eat Chuck. Zeb teases her for acting like an old Gardener vegetarian.

Zeb doesn’t admit to Toby that eating Chuck had been a struggle, but he had no other food. He had experience eating disgusting things, as his abusive father had forced him to eat the contents of the toilet, a memory he suppressed.

In the next morning of his story, Zeb followed the road, anxiously singing to himself. By nighttime, his boots were falling apart, and there was no meat from Chuck’s body left. He fantasized about eating a bear. The following morning, delirious with hunger, he spotted one. Killing it was a blur, and then he was eating it. He dressed in the fur and continued, strengthened and snacking on bits of fat. Then, he spotted a couple mountain-biking. The woman sped ahead, and Zeb jumped out and scared the man who fell off the bike, knocking himself unconscious. Zeb stole the bike and raced away, pleased to find food, supplies, and an identity to steal. Later, the couple would tell the newspaper that they had been bike-jacked by Bigfoot. Soon, groups of sasquatch-believers gathered there with renewed determination to prove Bigfoot’s existence.

Toby tries to finish telling the Crakers the story of the bear. She thanks them for the fish but must explain “thank you” to them. She says that Zeb thanked the bear’s spirit, drawing questions about spirits. Toby ends up trying to explain death to the Crakers, which leads to more questions about whether they will be eaten when they die. She reassures them that they won’t and that Oryx allowed Zeb to eat the bear. She knows that some of her children need to eat others. Toby describes Zeb wearing the fur, but they don’t understand cold or snow. Finally, Toby gives up and says, “good night,” a phrase she also must explain.

Toby sinks into nihilistic thinking once again and tells herself that all the younger humans are laughing at her and Zeb’s relationship despite her trying to be discrete. She imagines they all think she is old and used up but are baffled why Zeb isn’t attempting to procreate and start his genetic legacy with all the younger women, especially Swift Fox. She reminds herself that allowing such negative emotions to fester is what causes small survivor groups to implode, and her anxiety over the situation is causing her to have bad dreams. Toby is woken up from one such dream by a Craker child stroking her leg. He is surprised she has legs under her clothes and asks about other parts of her anatomy, finally asking if she will have a baby after she mates like Crakers do. Toby was rendered infertile by an infection caused when she sold her some of her eggs before she became a Gardener. The boy sees her sadness and hugs her. His name is Blackbeard, and Toby finds it absurd to name a sweet child after a murderous pirate, but Crake gave all of his creations odd historical names. Blackbeard offers to mate with her when he grows up, even if she isn’t very blue. His language suggests that he understands her age and what that means for childbearing. She sends him off, so he won’t see her eat smelly bones for breakfast. According to Snowman-the-Jimmy, Blackbeard says, “the bad people in the chaos ate the Children of Oryx” (93). Toby replies that they ate them the wrong way, but they are eating them the right way. Blackbeard asks about the bad men who also ate smelly bones the wrong way, and Toby reminds him to be on alert for them. The Crakers trust Zeb to make them safe, so Zeb is becoming part of their mythology. She wonders if Blackbeard will run back and laugh about her with the Craker children like regular children would.

Toby notes everyone else is already starting their day. Swift Fox and Ivory Bill are flirting at the breakfast table, and Ren and Lotis Blue are working on adding layers to the cobb-house addition while Amanda sits quietly. Amanda was always so tough, and Toby knows the Painballers must have put her through something unspeakable to turn her silent. The Crakers watch the cobb building process, and Toby knows they’re asking questions. Toby has learned that telling them, “It’s a Crake thing” (96) seems to satisfy them. Toby heads to the violet biolets, the compostable toilets converted from the park’s bathroom stalls using Gardener methods, to avoid having to sit with Swift Fox at the table. She experiences a vicious wave of jealousy, but Toby knows she is just afraid that Zeb might sleep with Swift Fox too and that Toby has no exclusive claim to him. In the stall, she reads old pleebrat graffiti: vulgar declarations of love and hatred, anger at the Corps, curse-filled poetry, and violent threats. Toby wonders, “What to eat, where to shit, how to take shelter, who and what to kill: are these the basics?” (98).

Three Crakers purr on Jimmy as Toby tends to him. Toby wonders about how the purring mechanism works. Before, a rival Corps would have grabbed the Crakers and dissected them to find out, but there are no labs now, so there is no way to know. The Crakers say Jimmy has stopped traveling and is afraid to wake up and live in this world. Just in case the Crakers can really communicate with him, Toby suggests they convince him to wake up. Ren and Lotis Blue enter, followed by Amanda. The two Craker men converse quietly, unsure how to respond since the women smell blue but have made it clear that the Craker way of mating is unacceptable. The Craker men wonder why Crake made these women so unhappy. Ren and Lotis Blue fuss over Jimmy, and Ren tries to get Amanda involved. Abruptly, Amanda announces that she needs to leave and walks out unsteadily. Ren notes that Amanda vomited that morning and her demeanor is worrying. One of the Craker women tells Ren that Jimmy hears her voice and has started walking because “he is happy, he wants to be with you” (102). Ren is surprised and pleased by this information. Jimmy smiles, and the Craker woman states that he will wake up soon.

Toby avoids the Craker’s story time because she finds it exhausting to create fictions for them. She gives them an excuse, but they ask questions and wonder if what she needs to do has to do with the Painballers. She assures them that no one has seen the bad men, though to herself she wonders if the Painballers might be responsible for the red Mo’Hair’s disappearance.

Even in the heat and humidity, Toby and Zeb sneak off together. Afterward, Toby asks for more stories of Zeb’s life so she has things to tell the Crakers because they now idolize Zeb and want to know about him. Zeb tells Toby to make it up, but Toby needs something to work with because the Crakers “cross-examine like lawyers” (106). Toby admits to herself that she wants to know his stories too. Zeb doesn’t like reliving the past, but he gives in and starts his story with, “Okay. First you need to understand: We got the wrong mothers” (106).

Toby goes through the usual ritual that includes wearing Jimmy’s hat and watch and eating a ceremonial fish, and then she begins to tell the Crakers Zeb’s story. She does her best to keep the Crakers focused and to answer their questions succinctly. Toby explains that Zeb wasn’t made by Crake but formed in a bone cave and birthed. Zeb’s brother Adam was born first, but Adam’s mother ran away when Adam was young. Toby calls marriage and monogamy a “thing of the chaos” (108). Zeb was born from their father’s second wife. Adam and Zeb took care of each other because their father hurt them sometimes, and Zeb’s mother wasn’t nice to him, which she explains is another “thing of the chaos” (108). They would lock Zeb in the closet, and Zeb would sing while he was locked up.

The Rev, Adam and Zeb’s father, told the boys that Trudy, Zeb’s mother, was good and Adam’s mother Fenella “was the shag-anything trashbunny” (110). Zeb was often confused how Trudy and the Rev could be his biological parents when they were so perfect, and he was always told he was worthless. As Zeb grew up and learned genetics, he realized he looked more like one of the “illegal Tex-Mex guys” (110) Trudy hired and probably had sex with. The Rev got rich starting a megachurch cult called the Church of PetrOleum. From the pulpit, the Rev praised oil as a gift to the faithful. At the dinner table, he preached that oil was a blessing because it was what provided the food they ate since tractors used oil to plow fields, trucks to deliver food, and cars to bring their mother to and from the grocery store.

Although younger, Zeb quickly grew to be much bigger than Adam, who was skinny with large eyes. Adam was cool-headed and calculated, and Zeb was impulsive with a temper. Adam was the golden child, praised for rising above Fenella’s genetics. Once, Zeb found photos of Fenella on a forgotten flash drive. She looked like Adam and nothing like the salacious descriptions they’d been told, though she didn’t look strong enough to run away. Zeb fell in love with her. Jealous of Adam’s experiences with a mother who wasn’t the narcissistic Trudy, Zeb made dirty jokes about Fenella, but Adam just smiled. At their Oil-Corps-funded private school, as the Rev’s sons, they were known as the Holy PetrOleum Brats, but Zeb would beat up anyone who picked on Adam.

Zeb learned to pick the lock on the closet they locked him in and started hacking the Rev’s computers. He started with porn and moved on to bank accounts, diverting 0.09% of the Church’s massive tithes into his own offshore accounts. He also discovered that the Rev’s porn tastes were violent and sadistic: One haptic feedback site provided virtual sex with someone like Anne Boleyn and then the sensation of executing her, which felt and looked very real. Zeb stashed a record of the Rev’s activities in case it ever came in handy. As graduation neared, Zeb had become a computing and hacking prodigy, but he hid his intelligence and skills. In lieu of college, the Rev secured Zeb a high-paying oil field job to “make a man of” him (120) and probably kill him. Adam went to college for PetrTheology to be groomed as the Rev’s replacement. They wouldn’t communicate digitally while they were apart for fear of the Rev eavesdropping, but when they were together on breaks, they would talk covertly. Zeb would try to find out whether Adam had had sex and Adam would ask how much money Zeb had siphoned from the Rev’s church. Zeb realized the Rev was also funneling money, probably planning an escape to a tropical island. Adam doubted he’d bring Trudy, who had been demanding more and more. Zeb commented that Fenella had escaped for wanting more, and Adam replied mildly, “Fenella didn’t get out. […] She’s under the rock garden” (122).

Away from the house, Zeb demanded an explanation. When he was three, Adam watched the Rev and Trudy burying Fenella. Trudy was probably pregnant, and the Church forbade divorce. Adam was afraid Zeb would slip and say something, so he never told him about the murder until then, and he told him then because Adam said it was time for them to disappear with the money Zeb funneled off the church before Zeb was sent to die in an oil field. They would pretend Zeb was accompanying Adam on his return to college via the bullet train. Emptying the Rev’s offshore accounts, Zeb messaged: “We know who’s under the rocks. Don’t follow us” (126), attaching proof of the Rev’s embezzlement and porn site activity to lead the Rev to believe they intended to extort him and would be back. Adam and Zeb separated in San Francisco, both with new identities. Despite the extortion, they expected the Rev’s retaliation. Zeb set up a hidden digital dropbox to communicate, but any online presence might alert the Rev’s digital detectives, so staying offline for a while was necessary. Adam advised, “Just don’t act like yourself” (128).

Zeb’s disguise wouldn’t pass muster on bullet trains, so he hitchhiked the Truck-A-Pillar. There were sex workers at truck stops, but he wasn’t quite ready for the non-virtual experience. Disappearing meant going deep in the poorest pleeblands. He got a low-wage job at SecretBurger, where women earned even less and were sexually harassed. There, Zeb met Wynette, who was frugal enough to rent a room, and he finally had sex with a real woman.