The Pack
Authors: Tom Pow
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Contents
PART TWO: THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORIES
PART THREE: THE INVISIBLE CITY
PROLOGUE
The engine screamed as the driver, both hands round the gear stick, forced the transport truck up into third. Thick black smoke from his cigarette washed over one eye and he cursed.
Still, they did the job, these old monsters. Their wheels were almost as tall as a man and the capacity of each was like the hold of a small shipâall stacked with sacks of potatoes, onions, carrots; trays of oranges, peaches, limes, star fruit, artichokes, asparagus and fresh herbs: the finest the Compounds could grow.
The driver smiledâat least the jerking would have woken Stringer. Usually, when they arrived at the depot in the Invisible City, he found him molded to a sack of potatoes, his machine gun pointing harmlessly at the empty sky.
He drew the last inhalation from his cigarette, unwound the window and threw out the butt. The rush of cold air chilled the sweat that had formed on his forehead and chest as he labored in the giant greenhouses of Compound 16, helping to load the truck.
He leaned his forearms over the wheel. No more changing gear from now till the depot: Route 3 stretched out before him, one of the five limbs of the star that held the city together. He had made so many trips, now he could almost drive it blindfolded. Of course, they were still given warnings; particularly the new driversâ“Be vigilant, your cargo is gold” and all thatâbut really there was no need. Not these days. Even at nightâand the first flecks of darkness were already in the skyâthe route was floodlit, clear as a runway.
Careering down the route, feeling that surge of power, still gave him pleasure. It had been so different in the Dead Time. For what, in your tiny world, did you have power over then? Perhaps only those you could terrorize into giving up some of their food for your own brats; while in the great worldâthe one you had put all your faith inâthere was chaos.
Overnight, everything you had worked for and saved for had become worthless: all the gilt-edged documents you had signed with such a flourish became fit only for lighting fires. And they had been promises. Yes, promises! Route maps of your lifeâ
Futures Guaranteed.
Not only yours, but your parents' and your children's as well. But in the Dead Time, there was someone else writing everyone's script. Someone or somethingâa vague but ruinous power, indifferent to anyone's dreams. And there was no road back that you or anyone else could see, for your mind and your body were on the scrapheap too.
So, after the chaos of rioting and looting, had come a despair that couldn't be plumbed. The uprooted world entered a time when nothing improved, nothing seemed to grow, nothing was worth learning. Only the warlords prospered, as people aged, grew sick, diedâand, while they were able, fought for their corner.
Was it any surprise that they yearned for order? And that, when it came, with the Invisible City shining at its heart, the design felt God-given, natural, right? It had been soon after the Zones were established and the first Compounds started to produce that the driver had begun making deliveries to the Invisible City itself.
It had still been the Time of Reconstruction and he remembered the hollow-cheeked, shambling migrants who had lined the road as he drove into the city. The Compounds had taken the best land and turned most of them into farmers of dirt and of stone. Only a few could get by. Occasionally, one of the migrants had glanced up at his cabin and their eyes had met and he had seen, in spite of the hunger and the tiredness, a faint hope shining there, for what the city might deliver to them and to their scrawny children. And foolish though he thought it, hope then had its reasons. For in each of the crowded Zones, once or twice a week, one of these capacious trucks would stop and sacks of potatoes and rice be broken open and distributed. Oh, they had needed a gun then, all right. But just to calm the excitement down.
There, there,
the gun said,
this handful of potatoes isn't worth your life.
What amazed the driver was how accepting the Zones-folk became. Like the best-trained dogs, they would stand back in a talkative line till the sacks were opened, the scales in place, and they were bidden forward. But those who came to rely on the handouts to get by were soon to get a rude awakening.
There was great discussion in the Compound canteen when the change in the original directive was announced. It had come, they were told in hushed tones, from the highest level. And it was clear that it had to do with the restructuring of the Zones beyond the Invisible City. The most powerful warlordsâRed Dog, Black Fist, Jumplead, Footrot and Screelâwere to be given control over a territory each. These territories were to be known as the Forbidden Territories and their purpose was to act as buffer zones between the Zones themselves and the Invisible City. It was merely a “precautionary measure.” There was no cause for offenseâsimply a recognition that envy could have a corrosive effect and it needed to be guarded against.
“Drive on,” they were told now. “No matter what, drive on⦔
He recalled those first tripsâhow, seeing the crowd gathered as usual, he had put his foot down on the pedal and his fist on the horn. They had scattered like pigeons. Sure, there were casualties at the start. How else would they learn? The massive treads of the tires took a couple; the gun stuttered a few times to warn off the others. But again, it was remarkable how quickly the Zones-folk came to accept that this was the new arrangement; that their inventiveness and resilience were now going to be tested in different ways.
There was no getting away from it thoughâpeople were stupid. They must know by now that he was never going to stop; yet there they were in the cold, clustering at the ends of the roads which led into their Zone, staring up at his speeding truck. What were they doing but underlining the misery of their lot? Though some faces seemed to shine with a threadbare awe at the vision of plenty rushing by.
“Crazies,” he said out loud and stepped on the accelerator harder.
He glanced at his watch. He'd made good time. Stringer and he might get a chance to spend some time in the Invisible City before heading back to the Compound. It was now that he realized what the others were always telling him: that it was a privilege, in such a time, to be a driver. Precious few people could move between the worlds of the Compounds, the Zones and the Invisible City. There were even inhabitants of the Invisible City who had sidled up to him in a bar and asked him what it was like in the world beyond its boundaries. Some of them even looked at him with longing in their eyes.
They
were really the stupid ones, those who couldn't seem to accept when they were well off.
And his wifeâhuh! It was like facing the Grand Inquisitor. What are they wearing? Do couples walk hand in hand? Are there children in the streets? And it was amazing, for while in the Zones the city seemed to be dyingârusting, putrefying, belching steam from broken ventsâthe Invisible City was constantly changing: new shops, coffee bars, businesses.
He felt his excitement growing. There might almost be time to go to that bar they went to last time; the one with all that steel and glass and the girls. He glanced in the mirror. Luckily, he'd shaved.
Up ahead, he noticed an old man had stepped out from the huddle of people at a road end. He appeared to be walking towards the middle of the route. The driver frowned. Once or twice he'd had a young man testing himself, showing off as if he were in a bull run, then flinging himself clear at the last possible moment. Love and how to win it survived the most desperate situations. But this was an old man; his reactions would be slow. Better, the driver had long ago decided, not to meet the person's eyes. Why give yourself nightmares, after all?
The old man never made it to the center of the road, which was some kind of relief. It was the huge mudguard that caught him and knocked him under. It was a blind spot for the driver, so all he felt was the gentlest of joltsâtoo satisfying in its way, like stepping on dog shit.
The driver smiled to himselfâahead the lights of the Invisible City burned brightly, and he knew the depot had a powerful hose.
PART ONE
THE ZONE
1
THE OLD WOMAN
Bradley knew what he had to do. He had to listen. The Old Woman had said often enough, “If you're not willing to sit and listen, be off with you, for I'm not going to waste my breath on ears that aren't open to a story.”
He saw Floris and Victor jerk their heads to attention, tired as they were from their day's begging, always having to look into people's cold faces with interest and despair, for no one gave anything to a blank or careless glance. Bradley himself squeezed and rubbed sleep from eyes that had spent the day squinting in the winter light through piles of rubbishâold shoes, broken computers, clocks, lamps, hairdryersâfor anything of value or of use.
If you could latch onto the thread of a story, it would pull you into its world, which was another world, though it might also be your world, but not quite, and you could for a time forget the hunger that was always working in the pit of your stomach, the cold at your back, the distant siren â¦
So when the Old Woman called for it, Bradley and the others looked up from their worn out sneakers into her lined face with her bright amber eyes, and they gave themselves to whatever story she had. Seven feet tall she was nowâit was the first of her miraclesâand sometimes, telling a story, she would rise from the box she sat on and spread her arms out and, with the brazier glowing behind her, cast a shadow on the broken wall like some huge prehistoric bird, her fingers splayed like pinion feathers and her voice sounding hoarse as the
kraak-kraak
of the crows, which were one of the few birds Bradley knew. But then she would settle herself down like an old hen coorying down on her eggs. Her eyes would return from the great landscapes she had created, and fix on their upturned faces. There was a silence you could almost touch; before she'd lift a few strands of thick grey hair from her face and begin again.
“So, Thomas, oh, Thomas, what was he thinking of? He ignored all the good advice he'd been given, for he thought it wasn't for him. He crossed the little stream by its two stepping stones and took the path into the forest. It was the smell of cooking that talked to his stomach and he could see the smoke rising in the sky above the treetops”âand here the Old Woman's hand spiralled gently upwardsâ“for this smell, oh, this smell was so delicious, it was the most delicious smell you could ever imagine, it wasâ”
“Sausages,” said Bradley.
“It was sausages indeed,” said the Old Woman, “and the smell of the sausages drew Thomas on, till in the clearing he saw it, laid out on the grass, a cloth with plates of sausages, toasted marshmallows and nuts. Thomas looked about himself. He'd been told often enough never to cross the stream, never to touch the fairy food, but he was so hungry and there was no one about. He was so sure of that⦔
