Chapter 18
Within the jungle, where the vines are so thick and tangled they seem to represent an impenetrable barrier, there is a small, cunningly constructed village of some eight simple pavilion houses, so well camouflaged they are almost impossible to discern.
It is secret, furtive and safe. It is home to some thirty humans who - living in the jungle as they do - would be called ‘savages’ by the street dwellers, had they known of their existence. But the concerns of the day dictates that street memories are of short duration. So many think of the savages - if they think of them at all - as having ceased to exist and in this they are not far wrong. Like all communities in the V-City below the dead zone, the savages are slowly dying out, for children are few and the mortality rate high.
