Right now though, she had to pee. She looked over to the corner of the hold. She hated using that toilet. It meant having to squat above all that empty space and that long fall to the ground below. Despite this now being her second flight on a dirigible she was no closer to conquering her fear of heights. Given that she had been dropped from the first dirigible she’d flown in, she felt completely within her rights to remain terrified of flying.
She unwound the thin rope from the metal hook that kept the toilet hatch fastened down when not in use and lifted the wooden hatch. She was about to drop her pants and do her business when she froze. There was something below them.
She dropped down and knelt on the wooden floor, slowly peering out over the hole. Lynn’s entire view was filled with red dust rising into the air. All she could see down there was movement, as if the ground itself was undulating, shimmering, crawling forward. She knew what it was. She could make out the individual figures. Even from up here she could see the way they moved in their stuttering motion, shuffling forward in stops and starts. They were ghouls, not just a scattered group like she and the others had run into during the dust storm, but the main horde. This was the horde she had ridden to battle against, the horde that had devastated the Diggers, the horde that still moved inward toward Alice.
It was strange seeing them again. Not just because it was odd from this high above, a distance that meant she couldn’t see the terrifying and disgusting nature of the ghouls: their cloudy white eyes, the way their flesh fell away from their off-white bones and left behind clumps of the claggy goo that had once been blood, or the way they were permanently disintegrating into that gray-red dust that floated away on the wind behind them. The detailed horror of each individual ghoul may have been discernible, but it had been replaced by something else. Looking down on the horde left Lynn feeling hollow. The number of ghouls was clear. Even facing them down in the Battle of Dust it hadn’t seemed like there were this many, but looking down now from above, she could see that the horde stretched on and on and on across the red landscape.
They were clearly heading in the same direction the dirigible was flying. Lynn knew, of course, that they were headed for Alice, but seeing it made her think of all those people outside the city in the slums – especially now that she knew the High Priestess had no intention of letting them inside the walls and was in fact drawing more people in to die. There were so many ghouls that those outside wouldn’t stand a chance. She didn’t know how close they were to the city, but they’d already been flying for a week and dirigibles moved much faster than the wandering ghouls. Even if Squid managed to get free of the prison, find Big Smoke and find the weapon, Lynn had the sinking feeling that he would never make it to Alice before the ghouls did. Looking down through the hatch, Lynn realized what the next step in her plan was. Once she’d jumped free of the dirigible and escaped the Church her goal was simple. She had to find a way to save those outside the city. She had to get the Outsiders inside.
CHAPTER 30
“That’s certainly a fence,” said Mr. Stix.
“Did we get turned around or something?” Nim said. “Walked back toward the Territory by mistake?”
Squid shook his head. “No,” he said. “Look at the posts, they’re white, not black, and spaced further apart. It’s a different fence.”
“And we’re on the outside,” said Mr. Stix.
They’d been following the river for a week, Nim helping them find food and showing them how to filter the murky brown river water through reeds and grass to clean it up. The stories told to children within the Territory made it seem that the badlands were nothing but emptiness, red dust overflowing with ghouls that would suck you dry if you took two steps beyond the ghoul-proof fence, but Squid had quickly realized that wasn’t the case. They had not yet encountered a single ghoul. Which was lucky, he supposed, because they no longer had any weapons with which to defend themselves. And not only were the badlands not a scorched wasteland of nothingness, the land seemed to become more full of life with each passing day. Trees were more plentiful, and there were birds in the branches and desert creatures scurrying beneath the sand.
Ever since they had left Pitt, no one had commented on whether they were wandering toward nothing. Squid could tell they had begun to think that, though, particularly as more days had passed without any sign of human habitation. Even Squid himself had begun to wonder whether Lynn had been right all along and there was nothing out here. Then, they had spotted the fence, and all doubt had been lifted from his mind. This was it, he knew it this time, this was another settlement. This was a place surrounded by a fence just as the Central Territory was.
They spent the afternoon following the fence east away from the river, searching for a way through. It was late in the day, and the world around them was beginning to turn orange when Nim spotted the rising dust coming toward them from inside the fence.
“Seems someone has spotted us,” Mr. Stix said. “I imagine our best course of action would be to wait for them to arrive.”
So, the four of them waited on the outside of the fence, watching the cloud of dust coalesce into the shape of a vehicle. Squid recognized the sound it made, the steady rumble and occasional pop of an engine burning bio-fuel. But as the vehicle became clear Squid noted the difference in design from the bio-trucks he had seen. The Territory’s bio-trucks were large rumbling things, all square edges and boxy with an enclosed cabin and a shielded engine bay. This was a smaller, sleeker-looking thing, obviously not designed for towing trailers or hauling large loads. It was low to the ground, the four large wheels dominating its shape as they rose up almost higher than the vehicle itself. The roaring engine was at the rear of the vehicle and uncovered, spewing sound and smoke out behind it. The structure of the vehicle was just a frame of old metal pipes holding the wheels, engines and seats in place so that the vehicle was more empty space than anything else as it tore toward them. Two figures were inside. One, obviously the driver, sat low and worked the steering wheel and controls. The other stood beside him, holding on to a handle with one hand and brandishing a rifle with the other. They approached the fence at breakneck speed, about as fast as Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes’s bio-cycles had gone.
As the vehicle reached the fence it turned suddenly, the wheels stopping so that it slid sideways and spun. The man with the rifle now faced them. He was dressed in a loose-fitting white uniform, tinged pink and brown with dirt. A white cloth was tied around his head so that his scalp was covered, and it extended in a flap down the back of his neck. He wore a pair of brown goggles with darkly tinted lenses that obscured his eyes. There was a circular patch sewn onto the shoulder of his sleeve, red writing on a black background. His skin was dark, not quite as dark as Nim’s, but certainly more than just colored by the sun.
“Who are you?” he said, his voice gruff, his words direct. “State your business.”
“My name is Squid,” Squid said, this time not hesitating to take the lead, “and this is Nim, Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes. We have come from Alice. We’re searching for Big Smoke.”
The dark-skinned man looked to his colleague. He was an older man dressed in the same white uniform with the same brown goggles wrapped around his face, his skin leathery and wrinkled, his moustache and beard cut short and shaved so that they only surrounded his mouth and covered his chin, a style Squid had never seen before. He stood so that he could address them.
“You’re from the Central Territory then?” the older man asked. “That’s the only Alice I know of.”
“That’s right,” said Squid. “You know about us?”
“Aye,” the man said. “I know you’re a bunch of crazies, and anyone who knows anything stays well away from your borders.”
“What do you mean?” Squid asked. “You go outside your fence?”
“Not if we can help it,” the old man said, “but traders’ve got to make the runs to other settlements – ’cept for yours, of course; too much risk of being killed by
you religious freaks if we get too close.”
“And the Runners,” said the younger man with the rifle.
“Aye,” said the older man, “and the Runners, though nobody likes to talk about them.”
“Are you saying there are more settlements out here?” Mr. Stix said. “How many?”
The old man shrugged. “Half a dozen that I know of,” he said. “’Course, some are mighty far away.”
“It’s true what they say then,” the younger man with the rifle said. “You Centrals don’t know anything about anything outside your fence? That’s wild.”
Squid shook his head.
“Told ya,” the old man said, “all insulated crazies that think the damn suckers are a punishment from God.”
“The ghouls,” Squid said, “you call them suckers?”
“Well,” the old man said, “that’s what they do, ain’t it? Suck you dry.”
“I suppose.”
“So,” the man continued, “how’d you even get out here? I heard no one left the Central Territory.”
“We …” Squid stopped, thinking for a moment before he continued. “We escaped,” he said. “Not all of us want to live the way the Church makes us.”
The old man examined Squid for a long time before he started nodding slowly. “I can respect that. Name’s Ernest, this is Kit. You said you were looking for the Big Smoke. Why?”
“We heard there was a weapon there,” Squid said. “Something that can destroy the ghouls.”
Ernest nodded. “True enough,” he said. “Stories like that have been going round since the Collapse. Ain’t no one ever found anything though, and people have tried. The city’s a dangerous place too, crawling with suckers and who knows what else.”
“You’ve been there?” Squid asked.
“New Sydney?” Ernest said. “Hell no, I ain’t one for suicide.”
“New Sydney?”
“Yeah,” Ernest said. “If you’re looking for the Big Smoke, that’s it, New Sydney, built to be the last city standing after the Collapse. Gone now though, just like everything else.”
Squid looked from Nim to Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes and back through the fence to Ernest. “Will you show us how to get there?”
Ernest looked at him. “You have any weapons?”
Squid shook his head. “No.”
Ernest raised an eyebrow. “You’re out here without weapons?”
“We lost them,” Squid said.
“Damn stupid thing to lose,” Ernest said. “Look, there’s a tower and a gate a ways up the fence. You head in that direction and we’ll meet you there, let you in and point you in the direction of New Sydney. We may even be able to provide you with some weapons. Something tells me you lot are all right, ’specially if you’re trying to get away from the Central Territory.”
“Thank you,” Squid said.
Ernest turned and sat back in the driver’s seat of his bio-vehicle.
“Wait,” Squid said. “What is this place?”
“This here,” Ernest said, “is Reach, last settlement before the world turns mad.”
CHAPTER 31
It was several hours’ walk to the gate Ernest had told them about and the sun was bathing the landscape in the purple-orange of dusk when they finally reached it. A single high watchtower, similar in construction to those that had been standing around the underground prison town of Pitt, rose above them. There were several figures moving around on the wooden platform of the tower. Squid heard the repetitive clicking and whirring sound of someone turning the crank handle of a generator, and then a slowly brightening light shone down on them.
“This them, Sarge?” a voice said.
“Aye.” Squid recognized Ernest’s voice. “This is them. Open the gate.”
Two men dressed in the same white uniforms as Ernest and Kit climbed down and unbarred the gate, which consisted of two reinforced wooden doors that swung inward as the men pulled, both of them required to open one at a time. The white uniforms must represent the equivalent of the Diggers here, Squid thought, hoping they weren’t the equivalent of the Holy Order instead, though judging by the way Ernest had been speaking he didn’t think that was very likely.
Ernest walked to meet them as the gate opened. He reached his hand out to Squid first, acknowledging that despite looking like the smallest and youngest member of the group, he was clearly the leader. Squid shook his hand.
“Welcome to Reach,” Ernest said. “I’ll take you to see the Council of Five. It’s really their decision what assistance we can provide. I’m First Sergeant of the Border Patrol, have been for a damn lot of years. I’m sure I can convince them you’re all on the straight and narrow.”
Squid had no idea what being on the straight and narrow meant but he nodded anyway. “Thank you,” he said.
“We’ll take my buggy,” Ernest said, walking toward the vehicle he’d arrived in at the fence.
With Kit no longer in the buggy Squid, Nim, Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes all climbed aboard, Mr. Stownes taking up almost the entirety of the rear bench seat and squashing Nim and Mr. Stix into the doors. Ernest pushed a button and the engine started with a bursting roar. It shook behind them with pent-up energy, rumbling and shaking as if the engine was impatient to release its power. Before he knew it Squid, sitting in the front seat where Kit had been standing, was forced to grab the handle in front of him to stop from falling out as the wheels of the buggy spun. The back of the vehicle seemed to move sideways as Ernest turned them around and headed away from the fence at high speed.
“We should get ourselves one of these, Mr. Stownes,” Mr. Stix yelled into the wind with a wide grin on his face. Mr. Stownes nodded enthusiastically in return. Squid gripped the handle in front of him with white knuckles, very much looking forward to the day when he would not have to ride on bio-vehicles of any sort.
*
Unlike the Central Territory which had settlements spread out across a vast expanse of land, Reach was essentially just a single town. They passed a number of houses and a few small farms during their approach, but the township of Reach itself was only an hour or two back from the fence. It was bigger than any of the towns in the Territory, but nothing like the bustling city of Alice with its sprawling slums. Several water towers rose up from among the buildings dotted across the town. The streets were narrow but well kept, with bio-trucks and buggies zigzagging along them. Most of the buildings were made of wood, though many contained a patchwork of other building materials: corrugated metals, stone and glass, clearly repurposed from some other structure that had once stood here, or more likely had once stood somewhere else.
The people in the streets moved aside for them as Ernest drove the buggy toward the center of town. Everyone Squid saw was just like anyone who might have lived in the Territory, with one very distinct difference. Nearly everyone who lived in Alice was clean and expensively dressed while those who lived in the Outside were dirty, their clothes much rougher, and those in the slums were the worst off of all. Here in Reach, though, no one seemed to be at either of those extremes. No one wore the finery of Alice, but no one seemed as destitute as those outside that city’s walls.
Ernest drove the buggy to a stately looking building set back behind a park of patchy green grass and gum trees. The words carved above the façade, which was held in place by four wide pillars, read “Council Building.” There were already several identical-looking buggies parked off to the side, and Ernest drove in beside them and cut the engine, which petered out before stopping with a final pop.
“This is where the council meets,” Ernest said. “The Border Patrol operates out of here too, but more importantly it’s where the Council of Five handles,” he made vague waving gestures with his hand, “stuff. Come, I’ll take you inside. It’s late, but they should all still be here. Today was a sitting day.”
“So the council is your only government?” Squid asked. “You don’t have an Administrator?”
Ernest shook his head. “I
don’t know what an Administrator is.”
“He’s the head of our government,” Squid said. “Well, sort of above the government. The most important person, apart from the High Priestess, and, well, she’s the one who’s running the Territory at the moment. The Administrator is usually in charge, though,” Squid said. He paused for a moment, realizing he wasn’t doing a very good job of explaining. “It’s a position that’s passed down from father to son.” He saw Nim watching him while he said that last part. Nim had overheard what Squid’s mother had told him. Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes knew that Sister Constance was Squid’s mother, but he hadn’t told them anything about the Administrator being his father. Nim had kept the secret too, and for that Squid was thankful.
“That sounds more like a king to me,” Ernest said. “A bit old-fashioned, ain’t it? A bit like bloody oppressive nonsense.”
“So, how does it work here then?” Squid said.
“We vote, of course,” Ernest said. “The people of Reach choose who gets to be on the Council of Five.”
“You choose your own government?” Squid asked.
“Of course,” Ernest said. “People nominate to be on the council and there’s a vote every three years. That’s democracy.”
A City Called Smoke: The Territory 2 Page 21
