Extinctathon

On the last evening, Crake said, “Want to play Extinctathon?”

“Extinctathon?” said Jimmy. It took him a moment, but then he remembered it: the boring Web interactive with all those defunct animals and plants. “When was it we used to play that? It can’t still be going.”

“It’s never stopped,” said Crake. Jimmy took in the implications: Crake had never stopped. He must’ve been playing it by himself, all these years. Well, he was a compulsive, no news there.

“So, how’s your cumulative score?” he asked, to be polite.

“Once you rack up three thousand,” said Crake, “you get to be a Grandmaster.” Which meant Crake was one, because he wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise.

“Oh good,” said Jimmy. “So do you get a prize? The tail and both ears?”

“Let me show you something,” said Crake. He went onto the Web, found the site, pulled it up. There was the familiar gateway: EXTINCTATHON, Monitored by MaddAddam. Adam named the living animals, MaddAddam names the dead ones. Do you want to play?

Crake clicked Yes, and entered his codename: Rednecked Crake. The little coelacanth symbol appeared over his name, meaning Grandmaster. Then something new came up, a message Jimmy had never seen before: Welcome Grandmaster Rednecked Crake. Do you want to play a general game or do you want to play another Grandmaster?

Crake clicked the second. Good. Find your playroom. MaddAddam will meet you there.

“MaddAddam is a person?” asked Jimmy.

“It’s a group,” said Crake. “Or groups.”

“So what do they do, this MaddAddam?” Jimmy was feeling silly. It was like watching some corny old spy DVD, James Bond or something. “Besides counting the skulls and pelts, I mean.”

“Watch this.” Crake left Extinctathon, then hacked into a local pleeb bank, and from there skipped to what looked to be a manufacturer of solarcar parts. He went into the image of a hubcap, which opened into a folder – HottTotts Pinups, it was titled. The files were dated, not named; he chose one of them, transferred it into one of his lily pads, used that to skip to another, erased his footprints, opened the file there, loaded an image.

It was the picture of Oryx, seven or eight years old, naked except for her ribbons, her flowers. It was the picture of the look she’d given him, the direct, contemptuous, knowing look that had dealt him such a blow when he was – what? Fourteen? He still had the paper printout, folded up, hidden deep. It was a private thing, this picture. His own private thing: his own guilt, his own shame, his own desire. Why had Crake kept it? Stolen it.

Jimmy felt ambushed. What’s she doing here? he wanted to yell. That’s mine! Give it back! He was in a lineup; fingers pointed at him, faces scowled, while some rabid Bernice clone set fire to his undershorts. Retribution was at hand, but for what? What had he done? Nothing. He’d only looked.

Crake moved to the girl’s left eye, clicked on the iris. It was a gateway: the playroom opened up.

Hello, Grandmaster Crake. Enter passnumber now.

Crake did so. A new sentence popped up: Adam named the animals. MaddAddam customizes them.

Then there was a string of e-bulletins, with places and dates – CorpSeCorps issue, by the look of them, marked For Secure Addresses Only.

A tiny parasitic wasp had invaded several ChickieNobs installations, carrying a modified form of chicken pox, specific to the ChickieNob and fatal to it. The installations had had to be incinerated before the epidemic could be brought under control.

A new form of the common house mouse addicted to the insulation on electric wiring had overrun Cleveland, causing an unprecedented number of house fires. Control measures were still being tested.

Happicuppa coffee bean crops were menaced by a new bean weevil found to be resistant to all known pesticides.

A miniature rodent containing elements of both porcupine and beaver had appeared in the northwest, creeping under the hoods of parked vehicles and devastating their fan belts and transmission systems.

A microbe that ate the tar in asphalt had turned several interstate highways to sand. All interstates were on alert, and a quarantine belt was now in place.

“What’s going on?” said Jimmy. “Who’s putting this stuff out there?”

The bulletins vanished, and a fresh entry appeared. MaddAddam needs fresh initiatives. Got a bright idea? Share with us.

Crake typed, Sorry, interruption. Must go.

Right, Grandmaster Rednecked Crake. We’ll talk later. Crake closed down.

Jimmy had a cold feeling, a feeling that reminded him of the time his mother had left home: the same sense of the forbidden, of a door swinging open that ought to be kept locked, of a stream of secret lives, running underground, in the darkness just beneath his feet. “What was all that about?” he said. It might not be about anything, he told himself. It might be about Crake showing off. It might be an elaborate setup, an invention of Crake’s, a practical joke to frighten him.

“I’m not sure,” said Crake. “I thought at first they were just another crazy Animal Liberation org. But there’s more to it than that. I think they’re after the machinery. They’re after the whole system, they want to shut it down. So far they haven’t done any people numbers, but it’s obvious they could.”

“You shouldn’t be messing around!” said Jimmy. “You don’t want to be connected! Someone could think you’re part of it. What if you get caught? You’ll end up on brainfrizz!” He was frightened now.

“I won’t get caught,” said Crake. “I’m just cruising. But do me a favour and don’t mention this when you e-mail.”

“Sure,” said Jimmy. “But why even take the chance?”

“I’m curious, that’s all,” said Crake. “They’ve let me into the waiting room, but not any further. They’ve got to be Compound, or Compound-trained. These are sophisticated bioforms they’re putting together; I don’t think a pleeblander would be able to make anything like that.” He gave Jimmy his green-eyed sideways look – a look (Snowman thinks now) that meant trust. Crake trusted him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have shown him the hidden playroom.

“It could be a CorpSeCorps flytrap,” said Jimmy. The Corpsmen were in the habit of setting up schemes of that sort, to capture subversives in the making. Weeding the pea patch, he’d heard it called. The Compounds were said to be mined with such potentially lethal tunnels. “You need to watch your step.”

“Sure,” said Crake.

What Jimmy really wanted to know was: Out of all the possibilities you had, out of all the gateways, why did you choose her?

He couldn’t ask, though. He couldn’t give himself away.

Something else happened during that visit; something important, though Jimmy hadn’t realized it at the time.

The first night, as he was sleeping on Crake’s pullout sofa bed, he’d heard shouting. He’d thought it was coming from outside – at Martha Graham it would have been student pranksters – but in fact it was coming from Crake’s room. It was coming from Crake.

More than shouting: screaming. There were no words. It happened every night he was there.

“That was some dream you were having,” said Jimmy the next morning, after the first time it happened.

“I never dream,” said Crake. His mouth was full and he was looking out the window. For such a thin man he ate a lot. It was the speed, the high metabolic rate: Crake burned things up.

“Everyone dreams,” Jimmy said. “Remember the REM-sleep study at HelthWyzer High?”

“The one where we tortured cats?”

“Virtual cats, yeah. And the cats that couldn’t dream went crazy.”

“I never remember my dreams,” said Crake. “Have some more toast.”

“But you must have them anyway.”

“Okay, point taken, wrong words. I didn’t mean I never dream. I’m not crazy, therefore I must dream. Hypothesis, demonstration, conclusion, if A then not B. Good enough?” Crake smiled, poured himself some coffee.

So Crake never remembered his dreams. It’s Snowman that remembers them instead. Worse than remembers: he’s immersed in them, he’d wading through them, he’s stuck in them. Every moment he’s lived in the past few months was dreamed first by Crake. No wonder Crake screamed so much.