Cape Wall Market is the biggest market in Africa. It fills the Grand Parade in front of Cape Town City Hall. Farmers, Salt Fleet sailors and traders from the north all sell here, and wagon trains going north hire guards here.
Cape Wall wants to reopen the long road north. Sipho Ndlovu, chair of the Wall Council, wants it, and Zanele Dube dreams of opening it all the way to Nairobi.
About 40 kilometers north of the city, outside the wall, Lifeline runs a donor camp in the old town of Atlantis. About 150 Mutated live there behind two fences. Most were caught at the Cape Wall gate and never given a choice. The council knows about the camp and does not speak of it, because Lifeline makes the medicine the city needs.
Blood from Atlantis goes to a locked wing of Groote Schuur Clinic. Dr. Fatima Adams runs the clinic pharmacy but does not work in that wing. She asked about it and was told not to. Johan Visser, the camp director, knows the Marked try to smuggle donors out along the coast at night, and he has doubled the guard.
Pieter Botha at Salt River Gate turns away Mutated travelers unless they carry a Lifeline pass.
Thabo Mokoena, market warden. He keeps the peace and checks the scales. He believes a fair market keeps a city alive. He gives hungry children free bread.
Zanele Dube, trader in maps and news of the road north. She is honest about the road, because lies get her customers killed.
Sipho Ndlovu, chair of the Wall Council, at Cape Town City Hall. He wants trade, safety and the road north.
Pieter Botha, gate captain at Salt River Gate. He tests everyone who comes in.
Dr. Fatima Adams, at Groote Schuur Clinic. She makes the only antibiotics in southern Africa.
Johan Visser, director of Atlantis Donor Camp. He counts every bag of blood and does not ask questions.
The road north. Wagon trains to Maseru, Johannesburg and further. Guards are always needed, and Zanele pays for news of the road.
Across the sea. Salt Fleet ships leave Duncan Dock Harbor for Reykjavik, Honolulu, Muscat and the African coast. A seat costs more than most people earn in a year, so many work their passage.
The camp nobody talks about. Atlantis, the locked wing at Groote Schuur, and the Marked who smuggle donors out.
Market trouble. Cheats, thieves and quarrels between traders, all for Thabo to settle.
The wild north east. Kruger Park, its rangers and the poachers they hunt.
Inside the wall, the city is safe from the dead. The dangers are people and money.
Raiders on the roads north, and bridges that are out.
Johannesburg holds the largest horde in southern Africa, and it spreads along the highways each summer.
Lions and buffalo in Kruger Park kill more travelers than the dead do.
The raider gang at Chikurubi Prison near Harare takes captives from the farm villages.
Salt River Gate, Duncan Dock Harbor, Groote Schuur Clinic and Cape Town City Hall in Cape Town.
Atlantis Donor Camp, north of the wall.
Maseru Bridge Gate, the mountain stronghold in Lesotho.
Johannesburg Picker Camp, Skukuza Ranger Station and Chikurubi Prison, further north.