Pangaea
Annie Partridge
“In the year 1284, on the day of John and Paul, it was the 26th of June, came a colorful piper to Hamelin and led 130 children away.”
~Inscribed on a church window in Hamelin, Germany.
Now destroyed.
Prologue.
The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him,
Lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses,
Rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones ...
Race straight past that coast!
~Homer’s Odyssey
Current Day
A girl of about thirty stood before the subway coffee shop. She was of rather plain appearance and slightly too rounded, but her blue eyes were kind and gentle, and her blonde curls might even be called pretty. With her hands thrust into her overcoat, she stared up at the TV screen, perched on a high shelf in the little shop.
Onscreen the announcer continued: “Another excellent year for the Pangaea Territories. Just look at that graph of economic equality, at that population rate, at that happiness quotient: not too high or too low. But the big question is, how does Pangaea do it? How do they get such perfect results? But it doesn’t really matter, does it—when you get things done so quickly, so properly. They must be doing it right—whatever ‘it’ is. An equal share for everyone: No one starves. No one too fat or too thin. No too many or too few of one profession. If they can do it, why can’t we do it? No more waiting for tomorrow! These are the days of the future. We are tomorrow.”
“Earl grey for Lucy,” the clerk called.
The girl dropped her money onto the counter and took the cup of tea. As she left the coffee shop and headed towards the train platform, she passed a guitarist, fast asleep on the floor of the subway. Beside his head lay his guitar case and a small paper cup of coins. The girl paused a moment and, just as she did every morning, dropped a five dollar bill into the cup.
~
Morris Adams was a struggling musician. His father had thrown him out of the house two years ago, after Morris had failed to find a job. “I’m through, Morris,” his father had yelled. “You should have spent your college fund on a better career path. You made your bed; now lie in it. But I’m not paying for it anymore!”
Now Morris spent his days curled up in the subway tunnel, watching the trains go in and out. He applied for job postings, but with his scruffy clothes and bitter attitude, no one wanted to hire him. Employment was becoming progressively difficult to find these days, as more jobs were shipped abroad to the cheaper labor forces of Pangaea. And so Morris wallowed in the misery of the dank subway, playing his guitar for the passengers. Some people were kind enough to give him a few coins, and even the occasional dollar. And then there was that particularly generous person, who always left him a five-dollar bill before he woke up.
Morris glanced at his money cup, and there lay the five-dollar bill as always, just like a timely old friend. He shoved the bill into his pocket and rubbed the dust from his sleep-swollen eyes. It was a new day, but Morris already knew what the conclusion would be: depressed, hungry, and jobless. It was ironic, in a way, to be stranded among all these trains headed to so many destinations, and yet here he lay starving, like a forgotten stray dog.
A tap thumped his shoulder.
Morris looked upward.
Standing before him was a dark-haired man, clad in a black suit. “Hello, son,” the man said. He knelt and gently laid his hand atop Morris’s shoulder. “Hard times, eh?”
Without answering, Morris bowed his head against his knees and shut his eyes. Pity—how he hated it. Those sad, mournful looks that people cast his way as they walked past, as though they somehow could tell his entire life story from how terrible he looked now.
“Every day, on my way to work, I hear you play,” the man continued. “And I must say, I think you have a hidden talent, much greater than you could possibly realize.”
Every day he hears me? Morris did not remember this man going onto the subway “every day.” And Morris knew everyone in the subway: all their faces, which times they came and went, and even their favorite shoes for each day of the week. So why was this man lying so frankly, so unabashedly? But Morris quickly shrugged away the doubts. So many people lied—sometimes for no reason at all.
“I have someone who would be interested in your music,” the man said. He pulled a card from his breast pocket and laid it on the ground beside Morris. “This is her business card: for Miss Dorrod. As you can see, her office is in your country, but she represents our country of Pangaea.”
Pangaea!
At this word, Morris’s ears perked up in interest. He had never been there, but he had heard stories about it—such wonderful, hopeful stories. A strange land, free of worries: food, care, and housing provided for everyone. Ruled by a kind government of anonymous leaders, called the Benefactors. It was a pleasing thought indeed, to not have to worry about food or shelter—to never have an empty stomach again. But how could Morris possibly be expected to trust this man, who had just blatantly lied?
“Call that number if you’re interested,” the man insisted, with a last pat on Morris’s shoulder. “You deserve it, my boy. Pangaea wants to give you a chance to succeed! The sole question is, will you give yourself that chance?”
Morris did not look up, but he heard the man’s footsteps retreating into the distance, towards the arriving train. The train, Morris knew, was the eight o’clock to Hampton: a tiny farming town just outside the city. It was strange that a well-dressed businessman like the stranger would be going to that plain sort of place. But again, Morris pushed aside his concerns. I ask too many questions, Morris thought irritably.
Through his arm and knee, Morris could see the business card the man had left on the floor on his right side, but he did not pick it up. Why should he even bother—they would likely just reject him, like everyone else had.
A screech sounded as the train lurched forward, and sent a draft of air towards Morris. The wind caught the card, and it blew towards the edge of the platform.
Morris leaped forward, nearly toppling over the platform to the electric rail below.
But he caught the paper.
~
Lucy held tightly onto the strap dangling from the train ceiling. On the opposite wall of the train was taped a MISSING CHILD poster. The paper had long since yellowed with age, and the last name had worn away, but Lucy could still read the first name:
Have You Seen This Child?
Brian…
The poster was dated over forty years old.
“Missing for over forty years!” remarked an old lady. She shook her head in disbelief. “I wonder if they’re even still searching for him after all this time!”
~
Forty Years Earlier
“Focus, Brian,” the captain grunted. “We’ve got to find that treasure.”
The horizon rocked back and forth as the salty wind tore painfully into Brian’s nostrils. “I…I think I’m going to be sick,” he muttered, clutching his stomach.
Brian was only thirteen years old, but already he had received a major assignment from his employers. He had been sent onboard a ship, to help locate a Spanish shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean. Legend claimed that the ship held six million dollars worth of gold dubloons.
As of yet Brian had no luck finding the wreck, because the tossing ship never stayed still long enough to peer through the water, much less lower their scanning instruments. And his assignment was the farthest thing from his mind; he was too focused on keeping himself from emptying his stomach over the side railing.
“It’s not even a storm, boy,” the captain snapped impatiently. “Just a bit of wind. Don’t be such a wimp.”
A thin sound suddenly split the air.
It was a sound like nothing Brian had heard before: a mixture of clicks and whistles, in a hypnotic rhythm, almost like a whale song, but softer and more melodic. A strange drowsy calm settled over him, and his motion sickness melted away instantly.
“What is that noise?” the captain demanded. He pushed his binoculars up to his eyes, and glanced out over the water. The clicking whistles continued. The captain knelt down on the deck, pressing his face against the railing. “What could that possibly be?” he wondered. He stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes.
Brian stared out at the water. The sound was calming, but something about it seemed inherently dangerous too…as though the sound itself were waiting in the water, ready to strike any moment. And why had he and the captain grown so suddenly tired? Part of Brian felt pleased to at last be so calm, so relaxed—but a deeper part of him was plagued with a visceral, gnawing fear.
“Cover your ears,” Brian said abruptly. He thrust his fingers into his ears.
“What?” the captain mumbled tiredly. He had now slumped against the ship’s railing, almost fast asleep now.
“No, Captain!” Brian cried. “Don’t fall sleep! Cover your ears!” Without thinking, he uncovered his own ears and grabbed the captain’s shoulders, and began shaking the man back and forth. But the captain’s eyes had already drooped shut. “Captain, please!” Brian begged. “You have to cover your ears right now!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the captain sighed weakly. “It’s just a whale.”
“No!” Brian begged, shaking the captain’s shoulders. “It’s not! I know what it is, and we’re in incredible danger. I can’t explain, I just know—”
At this moment, a long pink shape rose up over the ship’s railing, just behind the captain’s head. It looked like a fat pink arm, humanlike in shape. The hand even had a normal palm, but the five fingers were abnormally long, and squirmed wildly in all separate directions, like a squid’s tentacles.
Brian had never seen a creature like it in his entire life, but he already knew what it was. And he knew what it could do to them, if he did not pull the captain away from the railing right now. “Captain! Captain!” Brian shouted. He tried to drag the captain away from the railing, but the man’s body was far too heavy.
The tentacles edged slowly along the railing, as though cautiously searching for something. Brian let go of the captain’s shoulders and pushed his full weight against the creature’s arm, trying to shove it back into the ocean. He expected the arm to be fleshy with fat, but it was incredibly hard and strong. The arm did not budge. Nor did it even bother to push Brian away as it continued to feel its way along the railing. When the hand reached the captain’s neck, the tentacles traced over his face for a long moment.
“Let him go!” Brian cried. He tried to pry the tentacles away from the captain’s face, but the creature held fast. “Let him go! What in hell’s name are you?”
Then in one quick motion, the tentacles wrapped round the man’s neck.
The captain’s eyes flew open in terror. He struggled to pry the creature’s hand from his neck, but the grip was tight as a vice. The captain could not speak, but he pointed past Brian to where a metal bar lay on the deck.
Brian instantly understood. He grabbed the bar and, with all his might, struck the creature’s arm across the elbow.
The arm sank back over the railing, and out of sight. An angry snarl rose up from the water.
The captain, sputtering and choking for air, scrambled away from the railing across the deck. “My god!” he gasped. “What is a person doing stranded out here? And why did he just try to kill me?”
“It’s not human,” Brian said. He grabbed a spear gun and lunged toward the railing. Just below the water, he could still see the pink creature spiraling round and round. The monster was pink and fleshy, with a smooth humanlike torso, but with the piebald tail of a seal. Its angry dark eyes locked with Brian’s for a moment. Terror filled his veins.
He pressed the trigger.
The spear plunged below the water, into the pink flesh. A cloud of darkness filled the water—whether ink or blood, Brian could not tell—and the angry creature leaped out towards their ship, with a savage growl. Brian fell backward, just as the wounded creature sailed onto the deck. Brian and the captain stood back from the creature and watched as it thrashed about wildly for nearly a full minute. At last, it finally lay still.
It was dead.
The captain cautiously edged towards the monster, and flipped it over. The gaping jaws were still opened in a wide, horrifying snarl. “What in the blazes is it?” the captain demanded. He rubbed one of the monster’s teeth, and held up his red-stained finger. “Look, it’s still got blood in its mouth! From its last meal. I guess it could be a seal, but seals don’t have arms or make sounds like this. It looks like it crawled out of hell itself.”
Brian tossed the spear gun aside. “I know exactly what this is. I didn’t think it was real. No one does. It’s supposed to be just a legend.”
“What the devil is it?” the captain snapped.
~
“It is what the ancients called a mermaid,” the biologist explained. He handed the photo of the strange creature’s carcass to the old man. “But it’s really nothing more than a small mammal closely related to a seal. It possesses a unique type of sonar signaling: a hypnotic tone, which the creature uses to lull its victims into sleep, and then it devours them. Even the strongest of wills cannot withstand its song.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a cassette player. “After analyzing the vocal structure of the creature, I was able to recreate what I believe to be its sound. Perhaps you would care to listen?”
“No, no.” The old man quickly closed his hand over the tape player. “That is quite all right. I prefer to stay awake; but I know of others who must sleep.”
Pangaea.
The magician’s fear is not that he will slip,
but that his audience will not blink.
~Pangaean Proverb
1.
Current Day
It was a typical Pangaea street.
In the center, the concrete road.
To the left and right, the tower blocks.
And on every window perched the radios, blasting their crass nonsense through the air.
The Food Distributor had just begun his morning rounds, slowly driving from building to building with his truck of ration boxes. He paused at Tower Block 707 and pushed his cartload of brown cardboard boxes up to the entrance. Just outside the front door was a little girl, skipping rope, and chanting a rhyme.
I hungered for buns
And yet I had none
So I begged for help instead.
Pangaea gave one,
My mum gave me none,
And the Outsider left me for dead.
The Distributor knew the rhyme well. The chant was relatively new, and he often heard the children singing it in the streets. It was a rather stupid rhyme, but had an inexplicably catchy way about it that once you heard it, the tune would be caught in your head for days after.
After parking his cart, he began to deposit ration boxes into each of the mailboxes along the far wall. And as he worked, he could not help overhearing a woman talking (rather loudly) in one of the first-floor apartments, to someone named Clara.
On the door of the apartment, the nameplate read Edwards.
~
“Clara,” Mama called, “hurry up and finish your breakfast. The bus will be here in ten minutes, and I don’t want you to be late again. Your teacher has already sent me several notes this month.”
Clara did not glance up from her schoolbook. She had pressed her hands over her ears, as though she were trying to keep her thoughts from spilling out the sides of her head. Her eyes were shut in deep concentration.
“Clara, didn’t you hear me?”
Clara’s head jerked upright. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, rubbing her right ear. “I didn’t hear
you…it’s my ear. Bothering me again today.”
Mama’s expression softened. “It’s all right.” She turned back to scrubbing the dishes. “I knew you shouldn’t have played in the rainstorm yesterday. It made it worse, I’m sure.”
Clara rubbed her ear angrily. “I’m sick of worrying about my stupid ear all the time. Why can’t it just be normal again?”
“Calm down, Clara. It’s not use complaining about it. Give me your bowl, so I can wash it. I have to leave for work in a few minutes.”
Clara set her cereal bowl into the sink and turned to leave, when she heard Mama gasp in horror. “Clara! There’s almost a half bowl of cereal left here! Finish that right now. I won’t allow waste in this household.”
“But it tastes terrible,” Clara grumbled.
“Be grateful that you have food at all!” Mama scolded.
A knock sounded at the door.
Mama handed the bowl to Clara, and wiped her soapy hands on a towel. “I’ll get that. You finish your cereal, and then off to school with you. No more notes, Clara. You are a very bright girl, and I know you can do well. You just need to choose to do well. Put forth the effort.” With this final advice, Mama opened the front door to greet the visitor.
It was a middle-aged woman, dressed in a grey suit. She smiled kindly. “Robin Edwards?” she said.
“Yes, that’s me,” Mama said, nodding politely.
“My name is Miss Dorrod,” the woman said, “and I’m from the Social Center.”
“Do come in,” Mama offered.
As Miss Dorrod entered the hallway, Clara glanced up from her cereal bowl at the table.
Miss Dorrod smiled at her. “You must be Clara,” she said.
Clara raised her eyebrows. “How do you know my name?”
“Because you are the reason I came,” Miss Dorrod laughed. She turned to Mama. “You see, Miss Edwards, Clara has been struggling academically, and the school suspects it is due to…well, unstable home life.”
Mama’s face turned pink with shame.
Clara frowned angrily. “My home is perfectly fine. Why don’t you leave us alone?”
Pangaea Page 1