Forager (Forager - A Dystopian Trilogy)

by Peter R Stone

  "Why is that a problem?" I queried, although I already knew the answer. It was another way the Custodians were trying to root out the mutants who had slipped through the cracks.

  Doctor Nguyen stood, quietly closed the door, and sat again. "I went to great lengths to hide your, what shall I call it, unique ability, when you came here in November '20. I also used a handpicked team I could trust to observe patient confidentiality when we operated on you."

  I think my eyes were just about popping out of my head. "You know?"

  "Of course," he said quietly. "Your brain, ears and voice box are very noticeably different from the norm, and very remarkable, I might add."

  "Doctor, I don't know what to say," I whispered as I was almost overcome by emotion. All my life I had hidden my mutation, believing I would be reported should it be discovered - yet this doctor and the team who had operated upon me had kept my secret, and at great personal risk.

  "You don't need to say anything, Son," he said warmly. "There are many in the medical profession who will do virtually anything to hide the batches of children who were biologically engineered back in the early 2100s. The ultrasound technician who scanned your mother when she was pregnant was obviously one."

  "Sorry, did you just say ‘biologically engineered?’” I asked, not believing what I had heard. The Custodians declared my abilities a mutation - a freak caused by nuclear radiation.

  “That’s right, why, what did you think caused you to be like this?”

  “I thought it was a mutation caused by nuclear radiation,” I replied.

  “Oh no,” he reassured me with a smile, “nuclear radiation may cause birth defects, such as cleft palates, extra fingers or toes, but that’s all pretty much in the past now.”

  “So this was done to me deliberately? By whom and with whose authority?” I demanded, anger at this intrusion on my body welling up.

  “For your own safety, Ethan, it is best you do not know the precise details of what happened. Suffice to say it was an unauthorised experiment done in secret by a geneticist, who regretfully took his own life and destroyed his work when what he did was discovered.”

  “Do the Custodians know this?”

  “The senior ones do, mostly certainly.”

  “So why are they trying to kill us?”

  “Honestly, Ethan, that is not necessarily the case. All I know is that when the Custodians find any of the biologically engineered children, they take them to a secret facility in North End and they are never seen again.”

  They could have been dissected by the Custodians in an attempt to see what made them tick, or they could be alive and imprisoned. The only way to find out would be to let myself get caught, and I wasn’t going to do that. I suddenly felt as though I didn’t know myself – I wasn’t a mutant like I had always believed, but was deliberately altered to be like this – to have these abilities. On one hand I was angry that such a thing was done underhandedly, but on the other, I considered my abnormality to be the most amazing gift ever. I wondered why the geneticist had done it, what was his purpose? Was it to make us better adapted to survive in our Post Apocalyptic landscape? If it was, he succeeded most magnificently.

  “So what do we do about these temporal lobe seizures?” I asked, changing the topic.

  "What I will do for now, at least until the Custodians relax their grip on the hospital, is give you anti-convulsant medication to take twice a day. These should stop the seizures. Start taking the tablets tomorrow, and make an appointment to see me again in four weeks. However, if you have a grand mal seizure, come to the emergency department immediately and request me by name. Don't let anyone else examine you."

  I nodded as he handed me a prescription.

  "There was one more thing I wanted to ask you, Doctor. The images I see when I have these temporal lobe seizures, what are they?" I asked hesitantly.

  "They are memories."

  "Memories?" I queried, shocked. "But if that's the case, then how come I don't recognise any of them?"

  "Give me an example."

  "One image was of a polished wooden floor with slippers and boots, none of which I remember seeing before. Another was of a messy bathroom sink that is nothing like the sinks I've ever seen, and stuff like that," I thought I'd better not mention the gun, just in case.

  Doctor Nguyen expired thoughtfully. "My guess, young Ethan, is that these memories are from the year you don't remember."

  Now that statement had been baffled. "But my father told me I spent all of 2120 in hospital."

  "Goodness no. You responded very well to the operation and were discharged within a few days, if I recall correctly," he replied.

  Fear blossomed deep within in my gut. I suddenly felt very, very disorientated. "So what was I doing for the rest of that year?"

  "I suggest you ask your father."

  "We aren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment," I admitted reluctantly. "How long was I in hospital?"

  The doctor leafed through the pages in my file. You were admitted into hospital on the 16th of November '20, and checked out on 8th of December.

  I rose slightly in my seat so I could see the hospital patient-discharge form the doctor was examining. I could see quite clearly where it said:

  Patient: Ethan Jones

  Discharged: 8 Dec 2120

  Signed out by: William Jones

  Relationship to Patient: Father

  I had been in hospital for just over three weeks, from mid-November to early December. So where was I from January till November? And why was my father hiding it from me?

  The doctor suddenly leaned forward and touched my knee gently. "There's one more thing I need to tell you, Ethan, since it appears your memories are starting to return. It was due to your father's insistence that I told you your head injury was caused by a collapsing ceiling."

  "That's not what caused it?"

  "No, you had been shot, though not when you were brought in. You had been operated on previously, but not by a neurosurgeon," he said.

  I sat there for some time, trying to process the distressing information he had just dumped on me. I had been shot in 2120! How on earth did that happen? Who shot me? Why did they shoot me? The disorientation I had experienced a moment ago threatened to become full blown vertigo.

  "I know this is a lot to swallow at once, Ethan, and I wish I could talk with you more, but I have a list of patients to see today as long as my arm. However, you can stay in my office for as long as you need, I'll use the office next door for my next patient," Doctor Nguyen said as he rose.

  I don't think I even noticed him leave, and I'm not sure how long I sat there in his office, trying to get my head around what he told me. My father said I'd been in hospital from January until December '20, but the doctor said I'd only been here from November. So what had I been doing between January and November? Wherever I was, and whatever I had been doing, it had lead to my being shot.

  I had an impulse to rush over and see my father to get the truth out of him, but gave up on the idea when I figured he would probably attack me or throw me out of the house.

  I eventually left the hospital and began the slow walk back to my flat. I hadn't taken the prescription to the hospital pharmacy, for if I started taking the anti-convulsants the temporal lobe seizures would stop, and so would the memories. And I desperately wanted those memories, as they could be my only chance to find out what happened to me in those missing months.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lunch was leftover oden and it proved to be just as delicious cold as when hot. In fact, the flavour had been drawn out by sitting in my fridge for a couple of days.

  I had just finished and was clearing the table when I heard Nanako and Councillor Okada walking down the walkway towards my flat. I considered opening the door before they got here, but as I was supposed to be hiding my superior hearing, decided against it.

  A moment later came the expected knock at the door. Today Nanako wore over-knee socks, boots, jacke
t, and bike-rider's shorts - all black. The black contrasted magnificently with her pink fringe.

  “You finished early today?” I queried as she stepped inside, surprising me by rising to her toes to plant a kiss on my cheek.

  “They didn’t request our presence today,” she replied, “All the bigwigs have been called to some urgent meeting.”

  "Probably trying to work out what to do about this new Skel threat,” I said, and then, bearing in mind what Michal told me this morning, I turned to Counsellor Okada. “Please join us, Sir.”

  He hesitated, but then acquiesced and stepped into the flat. “Thank you, Ethan.”

  “You’re looking a lot better today,” Nanako said as she ran a petite hand down the side of my face, her gentle touch breaking down some of the mental and emotional walls I had built about myself over the years to protect myself from getting hurt. And thanks to Father and Elder Sister, there were a lot of them.

  “Amazing what a good sleep can do for you,” I replied.

  While the councillor remained in the kitchen and stared out the window, Nanako pulled me over to the sofa and we sat facing each other.

  “I dropped by this morning but you weren’t in,” she said.

  “I had a check-up with the neurologist.”

  “And how did it go?”

  “Well, not so good. I’ve been having these strange turns lately, and he said they are a form of epileptic seizure,” I said.

  Nanako’s face inexplicably paled. She leaned forward and laid a hand on my forearm. “Oh no - are they dangerous like the seizures you used to get?”

  “They’re not much of a risk, apparently,” I assured her, for she looked really worried. “And they can be controlled by meds I'm supposed to take twice a day. There is one good thing, though - every time I have one of these temporal lobe seizures, a memory flashes into my mind. And according to the doctor, the memories are from the year I don’t remember.”

  Nanako grabbed my left arm with great excitement, but quickly let go again when I grimaced in pain. “Sorry,” she grinned sheepishly, “but that's wonderful! What have you remembered?”

  “Just a bunch of mundane items and places I don’t recall having seen before, like a polished floor, a beaten up ute in a factory courtyard, a messy bathroom basin, stuff like that.”

  “Any memories of people?” she asked keenly.

  “No, not yet.”

  She was clearly disappointed. “Well, keep thinking of those memories, and try to trigger more, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve been pondering the memories over and over, trying to work out how they fit into that year,” I told her. Suddenly I remembered what I wanted to do this afternoon. “Hey, I’m going to pop over and visit my younger sister, would you like to come?”

  “Of course, but what about your father?”

  “He doesn’t get home until five. All the same, we’re going to have to sneak into my sister’s room, as I’m not allowed to enter it otherwise, and she’s probably too tired to come out and talk to us.”

  And so we headed over to my parent’s place, with the ever faithful Councillor Okada giving us a lift and walking us to the door.

  I pulled out the key I'd been given to my parent's flat and then listened carefully, trying to work out where my mother and older sister were. Not being able to climb the back of the building like I normally did was a major inconvenience.

  I could just discern sounds in the kitchen – sounds caused by two people. So I slipped the key into the door and opened it noiselessly. Glancing down at Nanako, I held a finger to my lips and crept silently into the house. To my amazement, Nanako proved to be rather adept at walking quietly too.

  I led us to the small hallway that led to the kitchen and the women’s bedroom, and when the sounds indicated that my mother and older sister were on the far side of the room, we darted into the bedroom.

  I quietly closed the door behind us and opened the blinds overlooking the balcony, letting light illuminate the dingy room.

  My younger sister opened her eyes and smiled when she saw us. “Hi Ethan, and you brought Nanako too, that’s great.”

  I saw the barely touched plate of sandwiches on the bedside table next to her and sighed. “You told me you were going to try harder to eat,” I chided her.

  "Sorry," she said, avoiding eye contact.

  Nanako sat on the bed beside her and smiled warmly. "How are you feeling, Meredith?"

  "Tired."

  Nanako peered closely at the sores at the corner of her mouth, and took one of her hands in hers, brushing her fingertips lightly over the slightly upturned nails.

  "Do you sleep well?" she asked.

  My sister shook her head.

  "Do you get leg cramps? Is it hard to breathe when you walk about?"

  My sister nodded in the affirmative for each questions.

  Nanako looked over to where I stood at the foot of the bed. "She's anemic."

  "She's what?" I asked, fearing it may be an incurable disease.

  "She has less red blood cells than normal - it's from not having enough iron in her diet," she explained, running a hand affectionately through younger sister's unkempt, long hair. "Has she been like this long?"

  I nodded. "Too long."

  "It's easy to treat," she assured us confidently.

  "My father won't take her to a doctor," I said resentfully.

  "You don't need a doctor," Nanako replied, and then turned to my sister. "Do you want to be well, Meredith, and be normal like everyone else?" My sister nodded. "You'll have to be brave and eat a special diet, even if you don't like it. And if you do, you'll be healthy like the rest of us in no time."

  "I'll try," my sister said hesitantly, which was better than a flat out refusal, I guess.

  The bedroom door suddenly banged open and my older sister barged in, only to freeze with eyes wide in disbelief. "Ethan! What are you doing here? And you brought that girl with you!"

  Mother heard the disturbance and rushed into the room, scowling when she saw us. "Ethan, you know you're not allowed in here."

  "We wanted to see Younger Sister," I replied simply.

  "Then knock on the front door like normal people," Elder Sister snapped. "How did you get in here, anyway?"

  "Walked right past you," I replied, and then turned excitedly to my mother, "Mother, Nanako says Younger Sister is anemic and it can be treated easily with a special diet!"

  Mother sighed. "Oh Ethan, you know your father won't allocate any more money for buying food."

  "You won't have to, Mrs. Jones," Nanako assured her, "You just need to buy some different foods to what you are used to."

  "I can't believe we're even having this conversation!" Elder Sister snapped. "Get out of our room, Ethan - and don't ever come in here again."

  "Please don't stop him visiting me," Younger Sister implored.

  "You mean he sneaks in here often?" asked my older sister.

  "Mother knows," Younger Sister answered softly, "and she never stopped it."

  "Well, I wasn't sure, but I suspected it," Mother answered kindly. Like me, she had a real soft spot for my little sister. "I could not think of anyone else who could be buying you such expensive food so often."

  "I thought you were buying that food for her, Mother," said my older sister as she glanced from mother to me, and back again. "I thought you were secretly taking money from Father to buy it."

  "Oh, don't be silly," mother scolded her. She fetched a pad of paper and pencil and turned to Nanako. "Please go ahead, Nanako. What changes do I need to make to her diet?"

  "You don't have any beef in Newhome, but instead of that you can have chicken, eggs and fish. Always eat wholegrain breads and cereals, and also spinach, lentils and peas, nuts, and dried fruits like prunes, apricots and raisins. And give her citrus fruit with each meal, it helps the body absorb the iron better," Nanako said as my mother wrote.

  "Thank you, I will incorporate as many of these as I can into her diet, and I'll
find a way to do so without Father complaining," my mother replied enthusiastically, "Tell me, how do you know so much about food?"

  "It is a Japanese tradition for mothers to instruct their daughters about nutrition and healthy eating," Nanako replied, "Our schools also provide healthy lunches to the children - they are not allowed to bring their own."

  After that, Mother and Nanako fell to talking about food and recipes, so I sat with my younger sister and chatted with her, hoping against hope that she would co-operate and eat this special diet and recover from her condition. And if she did, one of the heaviest burdens that had weighed my heart down for so long could lift away.

  We left my parent's flat at four-thirty to ensure there was no risk of us being there when Father came home from work. He was still very angry this morning, apparently.

  My Japanese friends drove me home again, and Nanako told me she would come back and cook dinner for me after she had gone shopping.

  While she was gone, I lay down for a much needed rest, my mind racing with thoughts about this girl who was taking such an interest in me. It was a most peculiar experience, which both worried and excited me at the same time.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As she had promised a couple of nights ago, Nanako cooked udon when she returned an hour later. It was a Japanese soup with thick white noodles, tofu, seaweed, her hand-made fish cakes, radish, and deep-fried prawns. (I had invited Councillor Okada to join us again, but this time he had politely but firmly refused my invitation, bowed and made his exit.)

  Nanako served the udon in breakfast bowls, with salad and bread rolls served alongside it. “Sorry, the noodles aren’t the correct ones,” she said as we sat down to eat together, “but they are the closest thing I could find.”

  “Smells fantastic,” I assured her as I picked up my chopsticks to eat. And while I sucked down the thick noodles with as much decorum as possible, Nanako slurped hers down quite noisily. I was surprised at this sudden display of bad manners, but hid my reaction best I could.