The People's Alpha ✔

17: Congress

"Order!" 

Wethermore banged his gavel impatiently.

The Alpha of the Oslo pack from Norway was duking it out with his counterpart from the Bergen pack. What appeared to be the entire delegation from Australia was laying into the English packs like there was no tomorrow. Several dozen of the North American packs had formed an inseparable mess of arms and legs and blood-matted fur. Seat cushions, water bottles, bloodied teeth and half-baked insults were flying everywhere.

Meanwhile, in our corner of the chamber, we were battling to keep the two co-regents of the Quaking Tree pack as separate as possible, both of whom seemed intent on fighting to the death.

The only part of the room that still remained somewhat civilised was to the upper right, where the delegation from the Thunder Falls pack was sitting, along with the bureaucrats from Zirconia. They just watched as the chaos unfolded beneath them in a weirdly cathartic tableau.

As far as I knew, this was Alpha Adlai Betancourt's first-ever appearance in this chamber. His mousy brown hair, thin glasses and robust build suggested an accountant, or a nameless Zirconian bureaucrat, like the one sitting a few seats away from him. His muddy green eyes gave little away, but he didn't seem interested in the entertainment presented before him. He almost looked bored here; he bore the air of an introverted youngster waiting his turn in a playground full of noisy children.

In between the fighting, countless furtive glances were exchanged at him, this enigmatic and somewhat inscrutable person who most only knew from press photos and the odd rumour. The few times that Thunder Falls had attended Congress they had always sent representatives, usually Stevenson, whose exact rank and first name had never been divulged.

Stevenson was here too, whispering in Adlai's ear. His figure was gaunt and his head was shaved. He had on a black turtleneck, which looked very out of place in a chamber full of damaged three-piece suits of varying sombre shades.

But then something distracted him and for a moment our eyes met momentarily across the great hall, and we found ourselves staring at each other.

We had at most a few seconds of eye contact. But that was enough to make me look away after a few seconds.

There was nothing in those eyes. They were almost pure black. 

***

The Thunder Falls pack had always been somewhat of an anomaly. Set in a remote and part of the Highlands, and ringed on one side by the border with Zirconia and on the other by the Arrowhead River, it was about as inaccessible as it got, and that was somewhat of an achievement in a place where most roads turned to mud in heavy rain.

It was the perfect place for the legendary Arthur Sefton, he of the enormous white beard, to lead several hundred of his followers and set up his new pack in the early 1960s, after running afoul of his old one for creating a schism regarding the legitimacy of the Alpha. In his new, isolated home, he became infamous for paranoia-fuelled radio broadcasts and frequent border skirmishes with Zirconian forces.

Sefton had never been the most level-headed person ever, and he had become increasingly unstable over the years. When he did pass in early 1980, he had left no will, and his increasing senility in his last years meant his choice of successor was ambiguous to put it mildly. But most were certain that his choice would have been Grayson Betancourt.

The Betancourt family had been one of the most prominent of the families who had followed Sefton to his new pack, according to one of the more reputable publications regarding the history of Thunder Falls. The patriarch Julio had placed great hopes on the shoulders of his children: Adlai had headed off to medical school, in preparation for a career as a pack doctor, while Grayson was well on the way of becoming Alpha.