No other pack used our system anymore. I guess Alpha Landon had hung onto it for the sake of tradition, like an raggedy teddy bear from one's childhood. I'd heard of a pack far away in Namibia that did the same thing, but the book where I'd read that was so old that it still referred to Namibia as South-West Africa. Most other packs had long chosen to send their pups to the OPLU-run schools in the Special Industrial Zone, with the option of applying for university when they matriculated.
Taped above the ceremony invitation were the blueprints for the first robot I had made, a floor-mopping machine for the pack house. I had built it in a week using parts of a washing machine and old car parts. It had given a year of good service, long enough that Alpha Landon had commissioned another one.
Now I had a fleet of robots mopping all floors of the pack house, cooking all three meals, and doing the dishes – all the Omega duties apart from the mail collection, which I preferred to do myself. I just had to check in on them every few hours to see if everything was going alright.
Stepping through the mess, I loosened one of the floorboards under the bed, revealing a small cedar-lined space underneath.
***
Despite the attitude of my fellow pack members, I had never wavered from my dream. Slowly and painstakingly, I had built up a sizeable collection of textbooks and classic literature in my little cubbyhole, reading and studying for final exams in my spare time. Books had always been hard to get. It had taken almost a decade to build up the collection I had today.
It was my uncle who had kept me going. He had a job as an aerospace engineer with the Zirconian Air Force, testing fighter jets.
Uncle Ian had been banished from our pack many years ago for reasons nobody seemed willing to talk about. I would have never even found out I had an uncle called Ian, had it not been for his efforts to keep in touch over the years, mostly in the form of postcards. The only reason I had been able to keep them was from my duty collecting post from the pack mailbox.
The postcards were kept in a neat pile in one corner of the secret space. The one on top of the pile had the slogan CANTERBURY, CAPITAL OF ZIRCONIA – GREATEST WEREWOLF CITY IN THE WORLD emblazoned on it. I traced the skyline of Canterbury: the skyscrapers, the Zirconia Tower, the Parliament building, the old pack house.
The one underneath it had a picture of a tram, and the message CANTERBURY TRANSPORT – MOVING ZIRCONIANS SINCE 1934. I recognised the tram as a double-ended Super PCC, one of fifty built in 1981-1983 for interurban workings.
I'd never ridden a tram before. I'd read about them, about hypoid gears and rubber chevrons and the Combino fiasco, but that was no substitute for first-hand experience – something that I was sorely lacking in. In Canterbury, I'd be able to ride the tram to university every day. I felt my heartbeat quicken at the thought.
There were postcards from other places too; from Paraguay; from Burkina Faso; from all manner of exotic locations around the world. Places I'd probably never get to visit.
***
I opened the envelope, careful not to crease the paper as I unfurled its contents.
I had applied for the Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Canterbury. I'd applied to several human universities as well, but they wouldn't get back to me until early next year.
Dear Tim,
On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you admission to the University of Canterbury class of 2022. You were selected from one of the most talented applicant pools in our history. Your invaluable contributions to your community, and the ingenuity with which you have applied yourself to adverse situations make you stand out as someone who will thrive in our tight-knit community...
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