Out the back of the BP, amongst the metal drums and the giant gas cylinder, beside the throbbing diesel generator that had given Adam all that power I found a wheelbarrow. I put a garbage bag in it then lined the bag with cans of Coke. My body was excited to be overwhelmed with energy-rich food for the first time in 200 – no – 265 days. It occurred to me as I was cramming the food how berserk I must have seemed. I'd been involved in the violent deaths of a quarter of the people in my nation and I was only concerned about eating. That realisation didn't make me stop. It didn't even make me slow down. I pulled the last few bags of butterscotch caramels off the prongs and tore open cardboard boxes and sucked back energy drinks so hard the cans crumpled in my hand.
I noticed Chan gawping at me as I wheeled up the street, leaving the canopied area. Chan had Esther on his back at first. She slid down and onto the ground as I passed. I felt bad Esther would never get her chair back, now that it was buried under bodies and blood and broken glass. Concern for Esther, though, was outweighed by my concern for drinking Coke. I drank four cans as I covered just eight hundred metres. I kept stopping to crack them open. Even the psst as I opened each can was comforting, intoxicating, reassuring. Hauling my bloated, baby-bellied, sugar-fed body around the Riviera, I encountered these pretty riverfront bungalows I'd never got around to exploring. Then I told myself I didn't deserve a pretty river view. A tame, quiet, one storey house on Junction Road was good for me, a place indistinguishable from others. A place normal and average. All my suffering this year had been a punishment from Eli's god for choosing such an ostentatious mansion on my first night here. I'd seen what the gods did to people who put themselves in high places.
I parked my barrow round the back of the house on the lawn beside the deck, shunted the ranchslider open, pulled out the sofa, kneed and pushed it flat until it became a bed, then raided the neighbouring ten houses for pillows, blankets, sheets and comforters, drinking three more Cokes as I gathered fluff for my nest. My Home Hospital.
I pulled the covers over me and before I could do anything – go to the toilet, eat pork rinds, watch that stupid video on my organiser, re-read Mumshine's message and think of a way to make it up to her for being a useless daughter – sleep pulled a black sack over my head.
*
My daddy points out the building where he works for the Mechastructure, drives through campus, over into Mahonyland, stops the car, carries me on his shoulders and walks to the playground. My head is near the birdsong and the breeze and the sun. In his right hand he holds a circuit board with a portable soldering iron and his tiny screwdrivers and tweezers. He sets me down on the path and holds my hand with his left. When I'm on the roundabout by myself and he can snatch a moment, he works on motherboards with a tiny stick of lead and a soldering laser on his keychain. 'Our final invention,' he says, pushing a transistor into place, 'And about time too. I'm tired of us.'
'Daddy,' I call from the swing, 'Why's it our final invention?'
*
I was in my Home Hospital reading that Dr Seuss Lorax book about all the 'thneeds' people don't need when the voice came.
Watson. 'Jesus Christ. You should've knocked.' I kicked against the mattress. It took heaps of strength to haul myself upright. 'A warning, dude – if you annoy me, you'll get what Adam got. Sorry to be harsh but if you're here to mess with my baby… Don't make me say it. Just know bad stuff'll happen to you.'
He stood in the middle of the room, straight and stiff and robotic. 'You feel threatened. That's interesting. Tell me why.'
'Tell you what? Tell you I got zero reason to trust people? I should've looked out for number one from the beginning.' I tipped my head away, caught up with my breath. 'Society wants leadership? More like leadershit.'
He cleared his throat and without asking if I was okay, or even sitting on the edge of my bed (which was the only place to sit, since all the chairs had been turned into firewood) he began reciting some kind of a speech, playing nervously with his fingers. 'Human child birth can be, er, compared to a tattoo, if you're worried, if you're anticipating, um, it's rather painful and the duration is many hours, so I've read, but, well, people do it over and over in their lives, the pain won't kill you or anything, I- I just - I thought I could put your mind at ease. I'm informed the sensation of human child birth is halfway between a broken leg and a difficult bowel movement. Apparently.'
'Wow. Bravo.' I put the Once-ler and his truffula trees aside. 'Now I get why Adam wasn't stoked about having you around. This is how you put people at ease?'
Watson stood rigidly at the foot of the bed. 'You have this contraction coming through you, okay, my sources describe it as kind of like a sharp menstrual cramp that you feel right above your mons pubis from hipbone to hipbone. Contractions are sharp, I understand, strong and intermittent; expect the episode to last perhaps 12 hours, with only a core two hours of real pushing. Time can pass quickly when you're doing something difficult. Timekeeping in the brain is decentralised, with neural circuits segmented according to their timekeeping properties. There's the lateral intraparietal cortex, for a start… but I digress.'
'Just a tad.' I threw a cashew and it bounced off his head. 'Finish your story.'
'So, um, Ms Shepherd, your contractions are expected to come in waves and peaks, okay, they require effort, they become harder and harder then go downward and become easier. You're going to – if you'll allow me to put this in layman's terms – you're going to do something called 'throwing down,' um, that means this abdominal pushing akin to vomiting downward. Shall I… continue?'
'Nah, I've got to run. Got a meeting at 1.30.'
Watson's eyebrows collided.
'I'm being sarcastic. Go on with your… lecture or whatever this is. Entertain me. I wanna hear you say "akin" again, robot boy.' I threw a pillow at him this time. 'Don't stop. I'm enjoying this. I never realised you'd had so many babies before.'
'I can say in no uncertain terms there's no way I could – ah. Sarcasm. Now, statistically there's an 80 percent likelihood you'll soil yourself at the so-called "vomiting down" stage of childbirth. And on the subject of intense rectal pressure, so I've read, you can expect to feel like your anus is going to split in two. Rest assured, Eden, it shall not.' Watson began gesticulating, cupping his hands to simulate the curve of a baby's head. 'The sensation will actually mean your child's head is crowning and although it'll sting and rip your labia somewhat – some stitches might be required. From what I've read, the release of endorphins you might identify as "joy" or "ecstasy" will ameliorate any more pain. "As joyous as one's fifth birthday" is an apt description, so I'm told. That last part is a, er, quote from William Simenon, 1893. He studied the act of childbirth in great detail. Now– '
'Shut up and come here, you creep.' Watson approached cautiously; I seized one of his fingers as he tried to back away. I was strong and I pulled his plank-thin body into me and crushed him with a hug and rolled on him. It amused me to squash him with my belly. I liked seeing Emotionless Boy squeal and wriggle.
Finally I seized his ears, rested my forehead against his cold brow and told him sincerely, 'Watson: that was really sweet of you to try make me feel better.'
'Happy to be of assistance,' he rasped, my tits crushing his chest. 'I was sort-of wondering if you've selected a midwife.'
'Not yet. I've been going through the Yellow Pages, y'know, asking heaps of midwives if they're available.'
Watson took a deep breath while he sifted through my words. 'I'm aware you're mocking me, but it's imperative your birth is observed and assisted with.' Watson's eyes darted side-to-side. 'So... d'you know precisely when she'll come out? I can look you over?' He leaned in. 'I'm ever so curious.'
I tugged the blanket away so my big pale blueveined hump of a belly became exposed. 'Ultrasound me. I know you things can scan with your hands.'