Yes, Croze says: they were all helping Crake with his big experiment: some kind of perfectly beautiful human gene splice that could live forever. They were the ones who’d done the heavy lifting on the BlyssPluss pill too, but they weren’t allowed to take it themselves. Not that they were tempted: it gave you the best sex ever, but it had serious side effects, such as death.

“That’s how the pandemic plague got started,” Croze says. “They said Crake ordered them to put it in the supersex pill.” I felt lucky all over again that I’d been in the Sticky Zone because I might’ve gulped down the BlyssPluss pill secretly even though Mordis said no drugs for Scalies. It sounded so great, like a whole other reality.

“Who’d do a thing like that?” I say. “A poison sex pill?” It was Glenn, it must have been. That’s the sort of stuff he was telling the ReJoov Mr. Bigs, at Scales. He didn’t tell about the poison part, of course. I remembered those nicknames, Oryx and Crake. I’d thought it was just sex talk, with Glenn and his main plank: a lot of people used animal names at such times. Panther and Tiger and Wolverine, Pussycat and Doggie-wog. So, not sex talk: codenames. Or maybe both.

For one split second I think about saying all this to Croze – how I know quite a lot about this Crake from a former life. But then I’d have to tell about what I used to do at Scales – not just the trapeze dancing or even Glenn making us purr and sing like birds, but the other things, the feather-ceiling room things. Croze wouldn’t want to hear about that: guys hate to picture other guys doing sex things with you that they want to do themselves.

So instead I ask, “What about the splice people? The perfect ones? Did they actually make them?” Glenn always wanted everything to be more perfect.

“Yeah, they made them,” says Croze, as if it’s an everyday thing, making people.

“I guess those people died along with everyone else,” I say.

“Nope,” says Croze. “They’re living down by the shore. They don’t need clothes, they eat leaves, they purr like cats. Not my idea of perfect.” He laughs. “Perfect is more like you!”

I let that go by. “You’re making this up,” I say.

“No, I swear,” says Croze. “They get these huge – their dicks turn blue. Then they have group sex with these blue-assed women. It’s wicked!”

“It’s a joke, right?” I say.

“Seen them myself,” says Croze. “We aren’t supposed to go near them in case we mess them up. But Zeb says we can look at them from a distance, like the zoo. He says they’re not dangerous – it’s us that’s dangerous to them.”

“When can I see them?”

“Once we take care of those Painballers,” says Croze. “I’d have to go with you, though. There’s another guy down there – sleeps in a tree, talks to himself, crazy as a bag of snakes, no offence to snakes. We leave him alone – figure he might be infected. I wouldn’t want him bothering you.”

“Thanks,” I say. “This Crake, in the Paradice Project dome. What did he look like?”

“Never saw him,” says Croze. “Nobody said.”

“Did he have a friend?” I asked. “Inside the dome thing?” When Glenn brought Jimmy to Scales that time, they were definitely into something together.

“Rhino says he wasn’t much on friends. But he did have some pal of his in there, plus his girlfriend – the two of them were supposed to be planning the marketing. Rhino says the guy was a waste of time. Told a lot of stupid jokes, drank too much.”

That would be Jimmy all right, I thought. “Did he make it out?” I say. “Out of the dome? With the blue people?”

“How would I know? Anyway, who gives a shit?” says Croze.

I do. I don’t want Jimmy to be dead. “That’s kind of harsh,” I say.

“Hey, be cool,” says Croze. He puts his arm around me, lets his hand fall onto my breast, as if by accident. I take it off. “Okay,” he says in a disappointed voice. He kisses my ear.

The next thing I know Croze is waking me up. “They’re back,” he says. He hurries out and I put my clothes on, and when I go outside Zeb is there in the yard, and Toby’s got her arms around him. Katuro’s there; and the man they call Black Rhino, who’s even kind of black. Shackie’s there too, grinning over at me. He hasn’t heard yet about the two Painballers and Amanda. Croze will have to tell him. If I do he’ll ask me questions, and I only have bad answers.

I go slowly over to Zeb – I’m feeling shy – and Toby lets go of him. She’s smiling – not a thin smile, a real one – and I think, She can still be pretty sometimes. “Little Ren. You grew up,” Zeb says to me. He’s greyer than the last time I saw him. He smiles, and squeezes my shoulder briefly. I remember him singing in our shower, back at the Gardeners; I remember the times he was nice to me. I’d like him to be proud of me for making it through, even though that part was mostly luck. I’d like him to be more surprised and happy that I’m alive. But he must have a lot on his mind.

Zeb and Shackie and Black Rhino have sprayguns and packsacks, and now they start opening up the packsacks and taking things out. Tins of soydines, a couple of bottles – looks like booze – a handful of Joltbars. Three cellpacks, for the sprayguns.

“From Compounds,” Katuro says. “Gates open on a lot of them. Looters have been through.”

“CryoJeenyus was locked up tight,” says Zeb. “Guess they thought they could tough it out inside.”

“Them and all the frozen heads they had in there,” says Shackie.

“I doubt anyone got out,” says Black Rhino. I’m sorry to hear that, because Lucerne must have been inside that Compound, and despite how she acted later, she was my mother once, and I used to love her. I look over at Zeb, because maybe he did too.

“You find Adam One?” says Ivory Bill.

Zeb shakes his head. “We looked in the Buenavista,” Zeb says. “They must’ve been there for some time – them, or someone. There were all the signs. Then we tried a few more Ararats, but nothing. They must have moved on.”

“Did you tell him someone was living in the Wellness Clinic?” I say to Croze. “In that little room in behind the vinegar barrels? With the laptop?”

“Yeah, I did,” says Croze. “It was him. And Rebecca and Katuro.”

“We did see that crazy guy, limping along and talking to himself,” says Shackie. “The one who sleeps in a tree, down by the shore. He didn’t see us, though.”

“You didn’t shoot him?” says Ivory Bill. “In case he’s catching?”

“Why waste the ammo?” says Black Rhino. “He won’t last long.”

When the sun’s low we make a fire outside in the yard and have nettle soup with chunks of meat in it – I’m not sure what kind – and burdock, and some Mo’Hair-milk cheese. I’m expecting them to begin the meal with “Dear Friends, we are the only people left on Earth, let us give thanks” or some Gardener thing like that, but they don’t; we just have the dinner.

After we’ve finished, they talk about what to do next. Zeb says they have to find Adam One and the Gardeners before anything or anyone else gets to them. He’ll go to the Sinkhole tomorrow to check out the Edencliff Rooftop and some of the Truffle safe houses, and other places they might’ve gone. Shackie says he’ll go with him, and Black Rhino and Katuro say the same. The others need to stay and defend the cobb house against the dogs and pigs, and also the two Painballers in case they come back.

Then Ivory Bill tells Zeb about Toby and how Blanco’s dead now, and Zeb looks at Toby and says, “Well done, babe.” It’s kind of shocking to hear Toby called a babe: sort of like calling God a studmuffin.

I work up my courage and say we need to find Amanda and get her away from the Painballers. Shackie says he’ll vote for that, and I think he means it. Zeb says he’s very sorry, but we have to understand that it’s an either/or choice. Amanda’s just one person and Adam One and the Gardeners are many; and if it was Amanda, she’d decide the same thing. Then I say, “Okay, I’ll go alone then,” and Zeb says, “Don’t be silly,” as if I’m still eleven.