Les Grands Chantiers (Wattys 2022)

22. How The Other Side Live

While the rest of Corviston prepared for the long weekend, Brendan and Adrian headed up the M1 to Wythaven. Traffic was light, and they were making good progress. When he was younger he had felt guilty for gawking out the window and not making conversation with people sitting next to him, but now he no longer felt the same way. He felt at ease with staring out the window, watching the scenery flash by.

They had started out early, and a few hours later they were already on the outskirts of the largest city in New Carinthia. Wythaven had been a small trading post on the barren plain of the river Arrowhead with little strategic importance until after liberation, when its much better access to port facilities than Corviston allowed for it to quickly overtake the capital in size. Now it sprawled across the floodplain of the Arrowhead River, its fingers creeping up the escarpments that flanked it on all sides.

The radio was tuned to WBC One, the main news channel in these parts. "...in our latest developing story, Carleton College is facing new allegations that it breached clauses of the Responsible Use of Magick Act which it had previously agreed to uphold, which could result in up to two years in jail for those responsible..."

"Wait for it, wait for it," Brendan said. "They're going to mention the school fees. They always do."

"The prestigious Corviston private school, which charges over $30,000 in annual fees-"

They burst out laughing at the same time.

Brendan turned off the radio. "They're never really going to do anything. It's all talk. They'll keep on pushing it, then it'll slowly fade away."

"I don't really follow current affairs."

"Good for you," Brendan said. "It's fucking psychotic."

"What am I missing out on?"

"You don't want to know. One of the major parties did a cover of Dancing queen where they changed the lyrics to Welfare Queen. They posted it on their Facebook page! They had to take it down after an hour because of the backlash. Just the level of sociopathy required to think that was an okay thing to post. Even the most messed up alphas aren't like this. Hang on." Brendan squinted at the view from the elevated expressway. "We're getting close to the border. Weren't we going to a hotel in the city centre?"

"Well actually," Adrian said, "when I said I was from the north, I didn't mean Laidlaw or Wythaven. I meant a bit further north of that."

"You're from a pack," Brendan surmised. "So you're like, the alpha's son. Holy shit." "Haha well not exactly. We were part of a pack, a long time ago. Then, uh, one of us did something and we got kicked out . We haven't been part of a pack, since, I don't know, several decades at least. We're rogues. All the way down."

"You don't look like a rogue."

"You know, we don't all live in tin shacks and shit in holes," Adrian said. "Some of us live quite opulent lives. I mean, I don't blame you if you've never heard of us before. You've never heard of us because we don't like the limelight. It's not really well known even on the other side of the border. And even when we get attention it's the usual dumb questions. Why don't you move? Why did you stay? You have no idea how many times we get asked that. You know, you got businesses there, you got family there, you got your whole life there. Yes, it's hard sometimes, but it's not like you can just up and move. A lot of people have moved. But we decided to stay."

"So what's with the factory in Laidlaw?"

"It's ours. We bought it decades ago." 

***

The shimmering stainless steel of the border fence stretched out on both sides. as they waited to clear the border checkpoint. The line moved forward with excruciating pace. They were hemmed in on all sides by container trucks and buses. He recognised some of the buses as retired Corviston Transport ones. They had a second life now. The windows were open. The people inside looked tired. Many of them were napping, their sleeping faces slumped against windows, bags, each other.