Nanako was looking at me intently, her eyes wide with disbelief. "But you didn't, right?"
"I...I don't know. I woke at that point, but a memory that accompanied one of my seizures was of the Rangers and me standing around the girl. She was lying on the road and had been shot several times. She was dead."
"Then one of the others must have shot her. You'd never do something like that!" she stated heatedly.
"Don't you get it?" I said as self-hatred rose up to consume me like a cancerous growth that could not be stymied. "The Rangers are rotten, corrupt, and murderers. And I was one of them. I was a bad person, Nanako. Along with them I stole, I probably shot that girl, and then finally, I killed them. I'm a murderer."
Nanako leaped off the bed and caught me, forcing me to stand still. "You're misinterpreting the memories and leaping to the wrong conclusions, I know you are!"
"You can't possibly know that!" I snapped.
"Yes, I can. Do you know how I know?"
"No, how?" I asked, though I knew there was nothing she could say to change my mind.
She reached up, took my face in her hands, and forced me to meet her gaze. "Would you steal something now?"
"No."
"If you were in that same situation with the refugees right here and now, would you shoot that girl?"
I glared at her. "No."
"What if Captain Smithson told you to shoot her, would you?"
"No."
"Then you can't have done those things back then either, and I know this because you haven't changed. You are the same good, honest, and upright man today that you were back then. When I look into your eyes I see your heart, and it hasn't changed. You are the same, Ethan."
"Even if I was to believe you, how does my shooting my own Ranger team fit into it?" The logic of her argument was getting through to me. Maybe she was right, maybe I was leaping to the wrong conclusions.
"If – and I mean if – you are understanding your dream correctly and you really did kill your own Ranger teammates, then there must have been a justifiable reason," she said.
"What justifiable reason could there be to kill my teammates? My friends?" I asked.
"You killed a Ranger today," she pointed out quietly. "He saved our lives two weeks ago and he used to be your friend. Yet you killed him today. Why?"
"I didn't want to kill him – it was self defence!" I protested.
"There you go, there's a justifiable reason," she said.
I looked into her loving, concerned face, and I wondered if she could be right. And then I remembered the conclusion I had come to when we got back from the mission to eliminate the sniper.
So was Nanako right? Could the reason I shot my teammates two years ago be justified? Was it self defence? Was it to stop them from doing something awful? If so, what could it have been?
"I'm getting through to you, aren't I?" Nanako said.
"You may be right," I conceded, "The memories I have of that day are only pieces of a much greater whole. I guess I need to wait until I have the rest of the pieces before I go passing judgement on myself. But it's so hard. Now I know what I did, I feel so guilty."
"Ethan, your perspective in all this is distorted. Until the entire truth of what happened that day is revealed, I want you to look at yourself through my eyes, to view yourself the way I see you. You were the same back then as you are now, a man of integrity, upright, and honest. I trust you and believe in you. You must not view yourself through your fearful eyes of doubt. Okay?"
Comforted and relieved by her words, I took her into my arms. "Thanks, Nana-chan, that helps a lot. And you know what? I have no idea how I managed to get through the past two years without you."
"It wasn't easy on me either." She snuggled into my embrace.
The evening news declared that the sniper threat was over. The market, shops, and all industries would re-open tomorrow as usual. The Custodians were praised for their dedication to maintaining peace and safety for Newhome and its inhabitants by eliminating the sniper threat.
The Custodians? Humph!
* * *
I woke early the next morning troubled and afflicted with guilt at the distorted memories of me shooting the Rangers sprang immediately to mind.
But then I remembered what Nanako told me last night, and so I spent the next ten minutes reminding myself of her perspective and practised seeing myself through her eyes.
When the feelings of guilt had mostly faded away, I got up, ducked outside, and picked a bunch of red geraniums from a bush that had grown somewhat out of control.
When I got back to the flat with the flowers hidden behind my back, Nanako was preparing a simple breakfast with what little food my mother had given us last night. But something about her looked off.
"You’re, um, not having second thoughts about what you told me last night, are you?" I asked, wondering if that was the cause of her disquiet.
"No, of course not," she declared as she touched my wrist gently to reassure me, though I could tell that something was haunting her.
I pulled out the geraniums from behind my back. "For you."
"Well, now you've gone and done it," she said as she accepted the flowers with a weak smile. "There goes my plans for this morning."
"You could just put them in a vase without arranging them," I suggested, wondering what was worrying her.
"They’re calling to me."
"Can we at least have breakfast first?"
She glanced from the flowers and then to me. "Why don’t you eat now and I’ll eat later."
I raised my eyebrows and stared at her with a smirk, refusing to budge.
"Okay, breakfast first," she said as she popped them reluctantly in a vase of water.
"You'll be off to the market today?" I asked.
"Yeah, though I'll probably have to get your mother to do all the buying if they still won't serve me."
"I dunno, I reckon once they see all your bruises they’ll trip over themselves to serve you."
That quip brought a weak laugh.
* * *
I was to meet up with Captain Smithson at Custodian Command at seven in the morning, but I got there twenty minutes early to change into my uniform. Plus, I didn’t think the Custodians would turn a blind eye if I was five minutes late every day like when I was a forager.
The captain, who'd been in the officer’s lounge, threw down another swig of coffee and led me outside to the barracks fenced-in training yard. There were about twenty men waiting for us, including Sergeant Xiao, Private Kirkwood, and many other faces I recognised – these men were what was left of Delta Company.
I realised immediately that the men were no longer looking down at me. With the exception of Private Kirkwood, they looked at me with considerable respect.
"We have been given a new assignment by Custodian Command," the captain said, raising his voice so all those assembled could hear. "Our company is to infiltrate and drive off or eliminate the Skel besieging Newhome."
Almost all of the Custodians present began to protest, their expressions ranging from alarm to outright terror.
"As you were!" Sergeant Xiao bellowed, and all fell silent. The sergeant sure had a strong voice for a guy with such a slender build.
"To prepare us for this assignment, Sergeant Jones will be training us in stealth and anti-Skel techniques," the captain concluded.
"I will?" I whispered to myself, astonished by this surprising yet extremely sensible Custodian order. If the Custodians had an anti-Skel specialist unit like the Hamamachi Rangers, it could turn the tables in Newhome’s favour at long last.
"Sergeant Jones, they’re all yours," the captain said. "We’ve got one week."
I raised my eyebrows at that, but conceded it was doable, though I thought the men would be cursing me before the week was up. "Thank you, sir," I replied, and then got to work.
I needed to raise the men’s overall level of fitness, teach them stealth techniques, how to spot Skel booby traps and a
mbushes. Also how to infiltrate the Skel lines and attack them in the rear, and how to fight Skel in general.
And I had one week in which to do it.
Chapter Thirty
After I'd pushed the men for over ten hours, the captain called it a day and dismissed them. For the most part, they weren't the fastest learners in the world, but they were getting there. The captain and Sergeant Xiao showed the most promise.
After they'd gone off to shower and go home, I stood with the captain in the empty training yard, its collection of wooden, rope and tyre obstacle courses no longer the centre of activity.
"Custodian Command is going to give you a Medal of Gallantry for your achievement in taking out the Ranger sniper," the captain said as he massaged his aching muscles. "But I'm guessing that won't mean squat to you, will it?"
"No, it won't." I eyed him thoughtfully. This Captain Smithson was a most atypical Custodian.
"There's even talk of allowing you and your wife to move into North End."
I looked at him sharply at that comment – we could move to North End? The very place I'd spent my life trying to stay out of by downplaying my abilities. Well, I guess I kind of blew it this week.
And if we did move into North End, the horrible persecution would most likely cease, for surely North End was beyond Sienna's reach.
That brought a smile to my face. If Nanako and I moved to North End, it would be tantamount to a slap in Sienna's face, since the only reason she wanted to marry me was so that I could get us – her – into North End. How ironic it was offered to Nanako and me now.
"Thanks, but no thanks," I replied. "My family and friends live out here, so this is where I will stay."
"Is there anything that you do want, then?" he asked.
I pulled four pieces of paper from my pocket and handed them to him.
"Fines?" he asked in surprise as he examined them. They were the fines Major Harris had given us.
"My only request, sir," I said, "is for these to be cancelled."
Captain Smithson shuffled through the fines, his generally impassive features replaced by a mask of curiosity. "Something I should know about these, Jones? They add up to over two thousand dollars."
"Our flat was trashed, sir, and I mean completely. But when he responded to the incident, Major Harris decided it was the result of us hosting a wild party and hence issued those fines."
"What was the major doing investigating a routine matter like this? He’s a major for goodness sake – this is way beneath his station."
"I think he's got it in for me."
"There’s something fishy going on here," the captain said as he folded the fines and slipped them into his breast pocket. "But don't worry, I will get them annulled."
"Thank you, sir," I said, relieved. It would have taken us months to pay the fines back. As it was, we still didn't have a fridge.
* * *
I showered at the barracks, dressed in my civvies, and was in the process of putting my runners back on when I discovered a note stuffed into one of them.
meet me in the janitors office
I had no idea who the note could be from, and for all I knew, it could be a trap. I stood there, staring at it for a couple of minutes, wondering what to do, but curiosity won out in the end.
I headed down to the janitor’s office, which was more like a storeroom with a desk stuffed in one corner. The room was filled with brooms, mops, vacuum cleaners, and bottles containing a variety of disinfectants and floor cleaners.
A slim teenage boy of Indian heritage was leaning over the desk, trying to repair a mop with a jammed mechanism. He wore filthy overalls and a cap that partially covered his face.
"Got my note I see." He looked up. As I studied his face, which was devoid of emotion, I realised he reminded me very much of Consultant Singhe.
"Did anyone see you come here?" he asked.
"No." I frowned. He didn't just remind me of the consultant, he had her monotone voice, her nose, even her tight mouth. And then I had it. He wasn’t a boy at all. "Nice disguise, Consultant Singhe."
"No fooling you, it seems," she replied.
"Nope." I grinned. "Why are you here?"
"I work here covertly twice a week to spy on the Custodians for the Council." She hesitated a moment, and added. "And don't call me consultant, my name's Bhagya."
"Okay, will do. And ah, may I ask you a question, Bhagya?" As this was the first and possibly only chance I'd ever get to speak to her alone, I figured this was my best chance to ask her something that had been lurking at the back of my mind for some time.
"Go ahead."
"Are the chancellor, councillors, and senior Custodian officers all Korean?"
"That’s correct," she said.
"Are they also the descendants of those who came in the sub a hundred years ago?"
She nodded. "Also correct. The submarine came from the United Democratic Republic of Korea. We all exist for them, you know."
"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.
"The people of Newhome," she explained. "The Koreans from the sub established this town a hundred years ago, populating it with locals who survived the bomb. They didn’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts, though. They did it to get an instant workforce and army, two things they needed to survive in a ruined city full of hostiles when they numbered less than sixty."
"But why establish the town here, why not out in the country like the Japanese?" I asked.
"Only the south-eastern suburbs were bombed, so by establishing their town here, they could raid the hospitals and universities in Melbourne for equipment and the knowledge they’d need to train up the geneticists and scientists they required to prosper. Not to mention that Melbourne’s ruins have a virtually inexhaustible supply of recyclables."
"So basically, apart from the Koreans, the rest of us are expendable."
"That's it in a nutshell," she confirmed.
"How did you learn all these things?"
"I've picked up a lot of it from the Custodians when spying on them. The rest I've gleaned from the councillors themselves," she replied. "Now, I didn't ask you to meet me here to discuss the town's history. I have news for you. The Custodians are planning to launch a cruise missile containing their last nuclear warhead at Hamamachi soon."
The floor fell out of my world – they had a cruise missile? How on earth were we going to prevent them from launching that? "Why didn't they use the missile the first time, why send King to deliver the bomb in person?"
"Because the missile wasn't ready – and it still isn't. They had two cruise missiles, but neither worked. They've managed to make one functional by cannibalising the parts from the other, and they've just completed repairing the guidance program. But so far they've been unable to integrate the detonator with it."
"Do you know where the missile is?" I asked, my mind going frantically through scenario after scenario on how to deal with this problem.
"It's in the primary automotive factory. The Custodians took it over after you lot got back from Hamamachi," she replied. She suddenly lifted her head and met my gaze. "What will you do about it?"
"I have no idea. I'll get together with my friends and see what we can come up with."
"Whatever you do, get out of town as soon as you've done it," she said sternly.
"And how are we going to do that?"
"You're resourceful, Ethan, I'm sure you will think of something," she assured me. "Now, you'd better go before the head cleaner comes looking for me."
"Sure – and Bhagya, thank you."
"You're welcome."
But before I left, I grabbed the mop she was trying to fix and quickly straightened the bent parts of the folding mechanism and restored it to working condition.
* * *
I rushed home after talking to Consultant Bhagya Singhe. I knew something was wrong when Nanako didn’t greet me at the door. All thoughts of cruise missiles and nukes instantly fled my mind, replaced by concern f
or my wife.
Several plastic bags filled with fresh vegetables lay on the kitchen bench with carrot, cabbage, daikon, and onion on the chopping board, in various stages of preparation. Boiling water was bubbling away in a saucepan on the stove, though nothing had been placed in it. Yet no sign of Nanako.
Worry threatened to blossom into panic as I turned off the stove and took several more step into the flat, wondering where she could be. But then I spotted her in the bathroom, squatting down, facing the wall, with arms around her knees and her head on her arms. Her heartbeat was elevated and she was breathing too quickly. She was in the early stages of an anxiety attack – I hoped she hadn't been like this all day.
I sat beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong, Nana-chan?"
She didn't respond.
"Come on, you have to tell me what's bothering you." I brushed her hair back so I could see the side of her face.
"I can't get this one thought out of my head."
"What thought?"
Her eyes turned towards me. "Tamura was telling the truth about where he found the bodies of your teammates, right? So what if he was telling the truth about you attempting suicide too?"
"We already discussed this, remember? He said that just to distract us," I said gently.
She knelt and turned around to face me, a tortured expression on her face.
"What if you had been overcome with remorse after killing your own team, even if it was in self defence?"
"Tamura was lying, Nanako."
"But what if he wasn't? Because if you did try to kill yourself, it means I wasn't as important to you as I thought I was. I mean, if you loved me like I loved you, you would never have tried to kill yourself."
Chapter Thirty-One
Forager - the Complete Trilogy (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Trilogy) Page 42