My mind went into overdrive as I considered all the ramifications of this fact. Firstly, the only females in Custodian service were special agents, consultants, spies, and like me, illegally biologically engineered echolocators. And that meant she was one of my kind – my race, in effect – family.
Without further thought, I was out from behind the car and sprinting towards the Skel and the girl in a flash. "We have to save her!" I shouted back to David and Shorty as I ran.
Chapter Three
David and Shorty called me back, but I ignored them and continued my mad dash towards the Skel, who had just about wrestled the girl's clothes all the way off, temporarily slowed by her boot laces. But I was close enough to shoot now, so I slowed to a jog and opened fire.
I shot the two Skel with their backs to me first, putting a bullet through the back of their necks. They dropped like stones, their bone armour clattering noisily as it impacted the asphalt road. The other three Skel dropped the girl, grabbed their weapons, and sprang into action. The one with the rifle tried to draw a bead on me, and in doing so, covered his throat with his arms. So I unloaded half my magazine into his armoured arms and shoulders, causing him to flinch and expose his neck. One more shot and it was lights out for him.
Unfortunately, that allowed the other two Skel to get dangerously close. One swung his club at me just as I fired, putting off my aim so that my shot went wide. The second Skel tried to take my head off with a swing of his rusting metal club, and I only just managed to duck beneath it as I scooted backwards, tripping on a crack in the asphalt road and falling unceremoniously on my butt.
I aimed and fired frantically, once, twice, and the closest Skel fell – but right on top of me, pinning me to the ground and knocking the pistol from my hand and sending it clattering away across the road. The last Skel let fly a string of expletives that would have made a Custodian blush and moved in to finish me off, when an arrow swished through the air and hit him in the chest.
Enraged even further, the Skel spun towards the new threat, and upon spotting David and Shorty, screamed more obscenities and charged them. They loosed arrow after arrow at the Skel until looking like a pincushion; he finally came crashing down when one of the specially sharpened arrows penetrated his bone armour deeply enough.
"Took your time!" I snapped as I crawled out gagging and retching from beneath the dead Skel – for his fetid body odour was beyond comprehension. Why didn't Skel wash?
"You're most welcome," Shorty chuckled as he rushed over to help me to my feet.
I immediately hurried over to the unconscious, half-naked Custodian consultant lying on the ground, who by the looks of her couldn't have been a day older than me. I gave her a quick going over with echolocation and my enhanced hearing, and quickly ascertained that her breathing and heartbeat were normal. It looked like they'd only knocked her out.
I knelt beside her and tried not to notice her, ah, assets, for want of a better word, and quickly pulled her shirt and jacket down and then tried to tug her pants back up over her hips. But trying to dress someone when they're unconscious was a lot harder than you might think.
I glanced back at the lads to ask them to give me a hand, only to see them standing and gawking at her with their mouths open.
"What, you never seen a girl before?" I snapped.
"Not like her, no," Shorty practically drooled.
David blinked rapidly and somehow managed to tear his eyes from her to glance at me.
I guess with a society that segregated males and females to the degree that Newhome did, their reaction was to be expected. If I wasn't married, maybe I'd have reacted the same way. Still, we didn't have time for this nonsense. "Snap out of it and help me out here!"
David came to his senses first and hurried over, and we had the girl's pants back on in a jiffy.
"Is she okay?" he asked.
"Just unconscious, from what I can tell," I replied.
"How come she's wearing a Custodian uniform? What's going on?" Shorty asked, confused.
"She's one of a select group of girls who serve the Custodians as consultants," I explained. The only reason I knew this was because I'd met a Custodian consultant before – Consultant Bhagya Singhe. Due to her ability to detect if someone was lying with one hundred percent accuracy, the Custodian colonel who interviewed me when we got back from Hamamachi had brought her along. Gave me the fright of my life too, when she started using flash sonar on me.
"But what is she – what were they – doing out here?" Shorty asked as he looked about at the slain Custodians while he quickly plucked the arrows out of the Skel they'd taken down. Our arrows were too valuable to leave behind.
"Trying to sneak through the Skel siege lines and go to another town for help, perhaps?" David suggested.
I shook my head. "Nah, not their style. You were right the first time. They were looking for us."
"Surely even they'd have known that'd be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Shorty said.
I indicated the unconscious Custodian consultant. "Not with her helping them – she's one of my kind."
"An echolocator?" David asked, eyes wide.
"Yeah."
"She's a mutant?" Shorty queried, stepping back as though she was contagious or something.
"We're not mutants!" I snapped.
"You could sure fool me!"
"Cut it out, you two," David said. "The question is, what do we do with her?"
I looked about the street, searching and listening for signs of any additional Skel in the area, for more would be out here – it was just a matter of time before they came to investigate the shooting.
"We should drop her off outside Newhome's gates," I suggested thoughtfully.
"And if Delta Company's not on watch? They'll either drill us full of holes or rush out and arrest us," David said.
"I ain't going nowhere near Newhome," Shorty declared, his eyes fixated on the girl’s face. She was pure Aussie, as Anglo-Saxon as we came, complete with freckles running from one cheek to the other. "So we gotta take her with us – and quickly, before any more of them blighters come."
"Take her with us? She a Custodian – let’s just stick her in one of these buildings and hightail it out of here," David argued.
"But we just saved her life, surely that's gotta mean something to her when she comes to," I said.
Shorty tugged on my arm. "We gotta get out of here, Jones, just bring her with us!"
Conceding the need for haste, I stood and held out my hands to David. "Shorty's right, we gotta take her with us. Give me your bow and quiver – you gotta carry her; my chest isn't healed yet." David was a good two inches shorter than I and had a leaner build, but the girl was slim, so he could manage.
David handed his weapons over, peeled the unconscious girl off the road and hefted her over his shoulder with a grunt. "She's heavier than she looks."
"Good muscle tone," I replied.
Shorty was already slinking back the way we'd come; an arrow notched to his bowstring. "Let's go already!"
I slung David's bow and quiver over my shoulder, retrieved my pistol from the road, and then formed the rearguard as we headed back to the Asian grocery store as quickly as David could walk. I wondered what Nanako would say when we rocked up with an unconscious Custodian consultant with us. She hadn't been happy when I told her I'd confided in Consultant Singe, so I don't think she'd be particularly pleased about this development.
I wondered what the girl’s story was. How old was she when the Custodians discovered she could echolocate and removed her from her family? How had she reacted to the Custodians’ attempts to brainwash her into thinking the chancellor and counsellors were wonderful human beings, to be revered and obeyed without question? Or did she sneak around the geneticists’ biological engineering division and discover the horrific secret of what they did to the boy echolocators they caught? If she was anything like Bhagya Singhe she’d thank us for rescuing her from the Skel and the Custodians
, and she might even join us in our mission to expose the Rangers.
By some miracle, we got back to the store without mishap. Shorty held open the battered aluminium frame door for us, and we hurried inside.
"It’s only us," I called out softly to let Nanako and Leigh know we weren’t Skel. You know, just in case Nanako panicked and accidentally shot us.
Nanako materialised out of the darkened alcove beside the staircase that led upstairs and lowered her bow – which did have an arrow fitted to the string, just as I’d expected. Leigh stepped out from where he’d been hiding behind the row of broken refrigerators.
"Who's that? Is it Sergeant Xiao?" Nanako asked, for the store's gloomy interior made it hard to see, plus with David carrying the girl over his shoulder, Nanako could only see her legs and butt.
David laid the unconscious girl on the filthy linoleum floor beside the refrigerators. Nanako and Leigh gasped when her head lolled to one side and her blonde hair spilled into view.
"What the…" Leigh stammered.
"What's going on, Ethan, who is she? Where'd you find her? Was she alone?" Nanako demanded, eyeing her suspiciously.
"We found her a couple of streets away. The Skel had taken out the other four Custodians with her and were trying to rape her..."
"The mongrels were going at her like dogs, so we had to save her. There were five of ‘em, but we took ‘em out just like that!" Shorty added, embellishing his reply with a snap of his fingers.
I looked at him.
"Okay, Jones got four, and me and David got the other one."
"Is she hurt?" Nanako asked as she put her weapons on the floor and gingerly explored the girl’s head with experienced fingers.
"Just unconscious from what I can tell. The Skel hit her over the head pretty hard, but she was wearing a helmet, though," I replied.
"How come she's wearing a uniform?" Leigh queried, his eyes glued to her beautiful face.
Nanako transfixed me with a piercing gaze. "She's a Custodian consultant, isn't she?"
"Yeah."
"And is she like you?"
"Yep."
Nanako concluded her inspection of the girl and rocked back on her haunches. "You know we can’t trust her, right?"
"Hold on, am I missing something?" Leigh asked, perplexed. "What d'ya mean, is she like Ethan?"
"Ethan's a mutant; he can see in the dark," Shorty said, smiling broadly, taunting me.
"I am not a..."
Leigh's mouth dropped open. "He can what?"
"I'm right here," I snarled.
David placed a hand on Leigh's shoulder, but he shrugged it off angrily. Hurt but undeterred, David answered Leigh's question anyway. "One of Newhome's geneticists was doing illegal experiments on foetuses before Ethan was born. As a result, he can hear better than us and see in the dark."
"Is that true?" Leigh asked.
"Yes. Now, are you gonna go all funny and say you thought you knew me and stuff?" I demanded, remembering all too well how badly Shorty took it when he found out.
Leigh shrugged. "Nah, you're still you, I guess. But you could've told me before now instead of keeping it all hush-hush."
"Considering the Custodians would have executed me had they found out, I thought it best to keep it secret as long as I could."
"I’m with you on that one – keeping secrets certainly can mean the difference between life and death," Leigh said as he looked pointedly at David.
Overcome by guilt at his lapse of judgement a month ago, which resulted in Leigh being arrested and his girlfriend being executed, David went bright red and stepped back, hanging his head down.
"What are we gonna do about Sleeping Beauty here?" Nanako said, interrupting us.
Before I could answer, the girl sucked in a deep breath, arched her back, and her eyes snapped open. She immediately began echolocating, singing out notes at an ultrasonic pitch, just like Bhagya Singhe did.
She gave us all a quick once over, and before I could even speak, she suddenly launched herself at Nanako, who was still squatting beside her. She swept Nanako's legs out from beneath her with a sweep of her right leg and then mashed her elbow against her face. Nanako cried out in pain as she collapsed, trying to arrest her fall with one hand while the other went to her nose, which was bleeding furiously.
I wanted to rush to Nanako, but the girl was between us, so I held up my hands as a sign of peace. "It's okay; you're safe now – we won't hurt you!" I assured her urgently.
But instead of backing down like I expected, the girl sprang off the floor like a cobra uncoiling and drove first her fist and then her knee, into Leigh's stomach. The poor guy didn't stand a chance. He dropped soundlessly and writhed about on the floor, clawing at the dirt and detritus on the floor as he desperately tried to draw a breath.
"Hey!" I shouted, angry now. "I said you're safe with us, so cut it out!"
The girl spun around and sized me up, her blue eyes ablaze with fury. "Ethan Jones – traitor, terrorist, illegally biologically modified male – Custodian Command has issued a death warrant for your execution, and they have sent me to carry it out."
Chapter Four
So much for thinking she’d be appreciative and thank us for saving her from the Skel!
The girl was a good four inches shorter than I but clearly well trained in combat, with a muscular, well-conditioned body. Still, I reckoned I could get sense through to her, so I gave it another shot. "You can forget your orders now, consultant; you're not in Newhome anymore and your men are all dead. So stand down – we don’t want to hurt you."
"I am not a consultant," she snapped as she rushed me and surprised me by delivering a double roundhouse kick, first to my left knee and then to the side of my head, making me see stars and stagger back. She followed up on her success by executing a jumping kick to my chest. I managed to block it, but the blow was so powerful that it sent me careening into the floor-to-ceiling shelving, the rotting wood splintering and cracking when I collided with it.
David, who’d been trying to help Leigh regain his breath, jumped to his feet now and charged the girl. He threw his arms around her and tried to restrain her with a bear hug, but the girl back fisted him in the groin and then elbowed him in the stomach, after which she spun around in his arms and propelled him head-first into one of the fridges. The broken glass in the fridge door shattered and David slid to the floor with blood flowing from lacerations to his face and hands.
Having regained my balance, I delivered a front kick that should have sent her flying, but she sidestepped and used a lower block to deflect my leg, and then stepped in and kicked me in the ribs.
I fell back with waves of pain radiating through my chest and tripped over a tube of ducting that lay on the floor behind me. As I struggled to regain my feet, Shorty attacked her, using his bow as a club. But a jumping back kick from the girl and he was on the floor, writhing in pain. She tried to stamp her boot down on Shorty’s throat with murderous intent, but Nanako, who was quite a frightening sight with her face and hands covered with her own blood, was back on her feet, and she kicked the girl’s leg aside.
Thrown off balance, the Custodian righted herself and attacked Nanako with a series of kicks aimed at her head. Nanako did her best to dodge or block the attacks and even snapped out a couple of kicks herself. But in the end, the girl landed a kick on Nanako’s forehead, and she stumbled backwards and collapsed, shaking her head in an attempt to remain conscious.
Having regained my feet, I rushed forward again, desperate to stop her from inflicting any more injuries on Nanako and my friends. I stepped over David and Shorty’s prone forms, and tried to punch the girl in the back of the head. She heard me coming and spun around to face me while executing the perfect crescent kick, which blocked my punch and spun me off centre as well. She followed this up with a front kick to my midriff, sending pain spiralling up to my chest wound again, causing me to stagger back.
I wondered what fighting style she had learned. Nanako
and I had studied karate while over in Hamamachi, but the girl’s style was remarkably different, using kicks almost exclusively.
I concluded that we weren’t gonna overpower her with might alone, so I quickly drew my pistol and aimed it at her. "Stop or I’ll shoot!" I shouted.
Instead of surrendering to me like I had hoped, the girl snapped a roundhouse kick to my hand, sending the gun flying from my fingers to hit the shelves beside me and fall to the floor.
"Ethan!" Nanako called out as she valiantly pulled herself to her feet yet again. "Her fighting's pure text-book!"
Textbook? I glanced at Nanako, wondering what she meant, and then I had it. The girl had no street smarts. Perfect technique, yes, but no experience – this was probably her first fight held in anger.
Fine, time to stop playing her at her own game and fight dirty. I grabbed a handful of dirt and dust from the shelf beside me, and then as she stepped in to attack me again, I shrieked the loudest ultrasonic shout I could manage right at her. She staggered to a stop, her eyes bulging as she lifted her hands to cover her ears, whereupon I promptly flung the dirt into her eyes.
Coming forward, I snapped a roundhouse against a pressure point on her right thigh, robbing her leg of its strength and causing her to stumble. Next I stamped my shoe onto her left instep, and then after grabbing her by the shoulders, drove my knee into her ribs once, twice, three times. Thoroughly winded, she buckled over into my arms, so I drew back my right fist and smacked it into the back of her head behind her left ear.
The girl crumpled face first to the floor, out cold.
The silence that followed the sudden cessation of such frantic combat seemed completely out of place.
"Shoot me dead!" Shorty exclaimed from where he sat on the floor nursing his bruised and battered torso.
"You okay, Nana-chan?" I asked as I used flash sonar to check on her condition, and on that of my friends.
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 50