A City Called Smoke: The Territory 2

by Justin Woolley

  Above her she saw Squid struggling but battling on. Nim made it look easy as he swung his body over the top, avoiding the spiked tops of the posts and the sharp twists of metal and wire. Lynn saw him looking down at her. She felt annoyance over her injury flare up again. What use was she if she couldn’t keep up with the others?

  She tried again but when she gripped the fence with her right hand she found it impossible. Pain shot up her arm whenever she tried to bend her fingers or put any substantial weight through her hand. She had barely managed to get off the ground.

  “Sin,” she whispered under her breath, annoyed at herself.

  “Miss Hermannsburg,” Mr. Stix said, “get on Mr. Stownes’s back. He can carry you over.”

  “I can do it!” Lynn snapped, knowing that it wasn’t Mr. Stix’s fault but wanting someone to vent at nonetheless.

  “No, you can’t,” he said. “Your hand is injured. Now get on his back or we go on without you.”

  Lynn dropped down off the fence. Mr. Stownes was looking expectantly at her. She knew Mr. Stix was right. She wouldn’t get over the fence without help, but she hated that. She hated that she couldn’t fight ghouls, couldn’t climb this stupid fence, couldn’t do anything. Plus, after her capture by the pirates and her fear and helplessness in the face of that pirate Rabbit, she felt like she had something to prove – even more so than she usually did.

  “Fine,” she sighed, looking at Mr. Stownes. “Come on then.”

  Mr. Stownes dropped the bags off his back and one at a time lobbed them over the fence. They clattered as they hit the dirt hard on the other side. Mr. Stix looked at him.

  “I hope there was nothing breakable in there, Mr. Stownes.”

  Mr. Stownes simply shrugged at the smaller man and then knelt down for Lynn to climb onto his back. She did so, wrapping her arms around his thick neck and holding her right wrist with her left hand. Mr. Stownes stood and began climbing the fence. Under their combined weight – though Lynn figured her contribution was meager – the fence rocked back and forth, but Mr. Stownes climbed steadily. At the top he swung his leg over, forcing Lynn to hold on tightly to avoid falling, and then began descending the other side.

  He let Lynn slide down his back and land on her feet before he walked to collect his bags. It took her a moment to realize that this was it. Without any pomp or ceremony they had done it. She was no longer in the Central Territory.

  “Wow,” she said, almost involuntarily. “So these are the badlands. Seems pretty much the same as everywhere else, doesn’t it?”

  “Well,” said Squid, “the fence doesn’t really change anything, does it? We just say that’s where the Territory stops and everywhere else starts, but if it was a little bit further in or a little bit further out it wouldn’t really make a difference.”

  “I suppose so,” Lynn said. “I just thought, I don’t know, I just thought being out here would feel different.”

  “Lucky the ghouls aren’t smart enough to climb,” Nim said as Mr. Stix dropped down off the fence and came to join them, “’cause that wasn’t that hard.”

  “True enough,” said Mr. Stix, placing his black bowler hat on his head and straightening it. “Shall we?”

  And they began to walk east, but this time, Lynn knew, they were walking into the real east, with absolutely no idea what lay before them.

  CHAPTER 23

  Over the next few days the terrain grew rockier. It was still mostly the same as they had known within the Territory, but the red desert was interrupted more and more often by outcroppings of sandy rock rising above the flat. Ground coverings of grass and shrubs became a more consistent sight, and trees became more regular. It wasn’t long before the rocky ground sloped away and became the bank of a river. It wasn’t much more than a shallow stream, a run of muddy brown water that seemed to have seeped up from the ground rather than flowed here from somewhere else. Lynn had never seen a river before but this certainly wasn’t the churning rush of water she’d heard described in stories and books. It was a stagnant creek buzzing with mosquitos and flies. The water level was much lower than the banks; some time ago the water must have been higher, but it didn’t look like it had been for many years.

  “This must be the river Archibald was talking about,” Squid said. “From here we can follow it south to the underground town.”

  “If it’s there,” Lynn said.

  Squid turned to her. “You still don’t believe it?” He sounded hurt, or at least annoyed. It was sometimes hard to tell with him. “Even Melbourne said there was something out here.”

  “No,” Lynn said. “He said that the pirates thought there was something out here. Are we supposed to just believe everything?”

  Lynn was hot, her feet hurt and the truth of the matter was that she still wasn’t convinced there was anything out here. They could be walking into the badlands – a place that seemed more or less the same as the red desert she knew but without the benefit of towns where they could find foot, water and shelter – and they could be doing it all for nothing.

  “I’m just saying,” Lynn said, “what happens if we start going south and we don’t find anything? How long do we keep going? Do we just walk forever?”

  “Why don’t you believe me?” Squid said.

  “Squid,” she answered, trying to keep her voice level, “why do you believe it? You haven’t got any proof. You’re usually someone who looks at proof, at numbers and patterns and stuff like that. What proof do you have that Big Smoke and the vaccine are there?”

  Squid stared at her. It was the first time she had ever felt uncomfortable under his gaze. The last weeks had seen him grow more intimidating. She had noticed this. It had been a subtle change, but ever since they’d left Alice, particularly since their fight in Red Plains, he had grown more determined.

  “Why are you out here then?” Squid said. “Why don’t you just go back to Alice?”

  “I can’t,” Lynn said. “I was exiled, told I had to come with you, remember?”

  “Like you’ve ever listened to anyone telling you what to do.”

  Lynn looked at Nim, Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes. They were watching this take place but none of them looked as though they were about to wade into the argument. This was between her and Squid, but she still wished one of them would say something. She didn’t want to do this. Not just because she didn’t want to argue with her best friend, but because she didn’t know what was right anymore. Things had been strained between her and Squid, because of Nim, because of Squid’s blind trust in Stix and Stownes, because of their difference of opinion about the outside world, because of the leap of faith Squid was happy to take – and she was not – to undertake this quest. Their relationship had become fragile, but she had never heard him like this.

  “Why aren’t you back in Alice trying to find some evidence of what the Administrator did to your father? That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “I want to be here, Squid,” she said. “I want to help you.”

  “I think you’re scared,” Squid said. “I think that’s why you’re out here, because you’re too scared to go back and risk facing the Sisters. You care more about hiding from the Sisters than you care about your father.”

  Lynn took two steps forward and slapped Squid as hard as she could across the cheek. The palm of her hand stung. She looked at Squid, his face growing blurry through the tears forming in her eyes. Her breath was coming quickly in and out of her nose. She fought to keep her lips still. She was clenching her teeth together so hard her jaw hurt. How dare he say that? How dare he?

  Squid turned his head slowly back from where it had been forced to the side. His cheek was red, the handprint clearly visible. He just looked at her.

  “If you don’t believe in what we’re doing you should just go back.”

  “It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it, Squid?!” Lynn shouted. She knew that shouting would just make it worse but she couldn’t help it. She had grown defensive, her anger flaring
in the heat this moment was providing. She seemed unable to do much in arguments other than retaliate regardless of whether the other person was right or wrong.

  “At least pretend you think I can do this,” Squid said. “At least pretend you don’t think this is all for nothing.”

  “Why should I hide the way I feel?” Lynn said. “I don’t think there’s anything out here. I don’t believe in Big Smoke and I don’t believe in a five hundred year old prophecy spoken by Steven, a guy no one knows hardly anything about other than he led us all out here to live in the forsaken hellhole we call home! Why should I pretend we’re not just going to die out here?!”

  “Because,” Squid said, “I would do that for you. I pretend that you’ll find some proof that the Administrator ordered your father killed even though the chances of that are probably less than ours are out here. I would pretend for you because what everybody needs right now is a little bit of hope.”

  Squid turned to Mr. Stix and pointed along the river. “This way is south, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Mr. Stix nodded. “Yes, Master Blanchflower.”

  “Good,” Squid said, and he began to walk, leaving everybody else to follow.

  Lynn stood still as Squid walked away. The hot sun seemed to cook the tears right off her cheeks. Nim waited with her for a moment. Lynn looked at him. She didn’t know what to say. Squid was right. She had been negative about this quest from the very start. Squid had risked his life to save her from the pirates because he said he couldn’t do this without her, and yet she was making him do it on his own. Then Nim turned and began to follow Squid, leaving Lynn, who knew she should always have been the one right beside her best friend, to follow along last of all.

  CHAPTER 24

  “So,” Squid said, knowing there was a biting tone in his voice. “Do you believe it now?”

  Lynn looked at him and then turned back. Ahead of them a bridge stretched across the river. It was made of steel that had been eaten away by corrosion with brown grass twisting around the structure on each bank. The wooden planks that made up the base of the bridge were beginning to look decayed and rotten, but that was what Squid noticed: they were only beginning to look rotten. His heart was racing. Here, beyond the fence, was something man-made, something that was indisputable proof that there were people out here – or, not so long ago, there had been.

  “It could be from before the Reckoning,” Lynn said. “We know there were people out in the world then; doesn’t mean there are now.”

  “How long ago was the Reckoning?” Squid asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lynn said. “The Sisters say something like five hundred years ago.”

  Squid walked forward onto the bridge. The old gray wood barely creaked beneath his feet. It was sturdy. Squid turned to look back at the others.

  “This bridge hasn’t been here for five hundred years,” he said.

  “How do you know that?” Nim asked.

  Squid jumped. The wood didn’t move beneath him, even when he tried to land as heavily as he could.

  “Five hundred year old wood couldn’t do this,” Squid said. “Someone has been repairing this bridge. That must be a good sign.”

  “I suppose that depends on who has been repairing it,” Mr. Stix said.

  “Archibald said we’d find the underground town on the eastern side of the river,” Squid said. “We should cross.”

  The five of them crossed the steel bridge and continued along the eastern bank of the river for several hours before, beyond a dense group of trees, Squid saw the tops of two towers. Each was a small wooden hut mounted on four wooden legs above the canopy. Atop each tower was a flag that drooped and lifted in the intermittent breeze. Both flags were black, and without the wind necessary to hold them out Squid couldn’t make out the white symbol in the center. What further proof would the others need than this? Archibald had been right. He had been right. There were people outside the fence.

  “We’ve been seen,” Mr. Stix said.

  Squid saw it too, the silhouettes of four figures, two in each tower, standing and watching them. Squid looked at Lynn, who was staring at the towers, her head shaking almost imperceptibly from side to side.

  “No,” she said, not to anyone in particular. “I can’t believe it. It’s not possible. Everything we’ve been told. What my father told me. I don’t understand. Why would they do this? Why would they keep this from us?”

  “There’re people here, Lynn,” Squid said excitedly. “It means we didn’t come all this way for nothing. They can lead us to Big Smoke. We can do this. We can save the Territory.”

  But Squid saw that Lynn wasn’t as excited as he was. He was well aware of how she felt about the quest, but she should be content to have proof now, even if she’d been wrong. He knew she wanted to save everyone from the ghouls, and this was the first step.

  “Miss Hermannsburg,” Mr. Stix said. “I understand your feelings. You feel betrayed and lied to. You’re not alone. Everyone in the Territory should feel that way.”

  “If there are other places,” Lynn said, speaking hesitantly, as if she thought the words were dangerous, as if the red cloaks of the Holy Order would swoop in even out here and carry her off to the Supreme Court, “if there are other people living outside the fence, then it could have been different for all those people living in the slums, those people afraid of the Church.” Her voice broke. “It could have been different for my father. None of it would have happened. That’s why I’m angry. Don’t you see? The Church, the government, they stole the world from us.”

  “I think you’ll find that is precisely the reason they have done this, Miss Hermannsburg,” Mr. Stix said. “They don’t want you to think there is any other option but to live by their rules.”

  Squid could see Lynn’s anguish. There had been times when he’d had similar thoughts on the dirt farm. If it was so difficult to survive in the Territory, maybe they weren’t supposed to be there at all. Now they knew that maybe there were better places to live, maybe even places without ghouls. Who knew what the truth really was? But Squid knew one thing: Archibald had been right – there were people outside the Territory who might be able to help him make it to Big Smoke. It was really only then that he realized the desire to fulfil the prophecy and save the Territory had grown and grown within him until now it almost burned. He was meant to do this.

  “We should see whether they know the way to Big Smoke,” Squid said.

  Lynn looked at him and nodded. “Okay, Squid,” she said, but she still didn’t seem thrilled at the idea.

  As they passed through the trees Squid saw that the figures standing in the towers were dressed in matching black and each held a mechanical rifle. The rifles were aimed down at them. The towers stood on either side of a large gate, wood reinforced with steel, similar in design to the Great Gate of Alice except for one big difference: there were no walls and no fence. Instead this gate lay on an angle, hinged to open inward at the top. It seemed to be sealing the mouth of a tunnel that ran down into the rocky earth. An underground town, just like Archibald the Explorer had said. Beyond the towers and the gate were a number of smoke stacks rising out of the ground, and white smoke, the familiar result of burned bio-fuel, drifted upward and outward in turbulent curls.

  “Halt.” The call came from the tower on their left. The group stopped. “Who are you? State your business here.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Mr. Stix turned to Squid.

  “This is your expedition, Master Blanchflower. You should act as leader.”

  “I’m not the leader,” Squid said, looking at the others.

  “Of course you are,” Lynn said. “We’re all here because of you.”

  Even Nim shrugged, which was the closest Squid supposed he’d ever get to any sort of acknowledgment from him. Squid looked at his companions. Each of them waited expectantly for him to act. It was as if they honestly believed he was capable of this. No one, except maybe Lynn and Lieutenant Walter, had ever bel
ieved he was capable of doing anything right, let alone being a leader. He gripped the shape of his mother’s key through his shirt. The part of him that swelled with pride seemed balanced by the part of him that was terrified.

  Squid faced the towers and the barrels of the mechanical rifles that were aimed down at them. He felt a trembling in his legs, and his heart knocked against the inside of his ribcage, reverberating through his whole body and seeming to pound out through his eardrums. He wasn’t the leader of anything. Lynn was much more suited to being a leader than he was. He’d always thought of her as the taking-charge type. Then there was Mr. Stix, who was going to drag Squid east, against his will if he had to. Surely that made him the one who was leading this group. Squid turned back to the others again.

  “I’m not sure you’re right,” Squid said. “I’ve never been the leader of anything.”

  “Squid,” Lynn said, “you convinced me to come on this journey. I didn’t even believe it was real, but here I am. You rescued me from the pirates.”

  “I believed you could lead me to the Storm Man,” Nim said. “Sometimes I even still do.”

  “You got us through the dust storm, Master Blanchflower,” Mr. Stix said. “You are the glue that binds us together.”

  “You have one minute before we fire,” came the voice from the tower.

  Squid turned back to face the guards. He took a step forward.

  “My name is Squid Blanchflower,” he said in a voice as loud and confident as he could muster from within his small frame. “We’ve come from Alice in the Central Territory seeking your help. We need to find the city of Big Smoke.”

  “Has any member of your group been bitten?”