I was wondering how we could wake her up, since I wasn’t going to try to carry her, when the girl moaned loudly and opened her eyes. She studied her bandaged arm while struggling briefly against the bonds tying her wrists together. When she realised she couldn't pull her hands apart, she took the weight of her right arm in her left hand, taking the pressure off the wound.
"Untie me this instance, traitor!" she demanded.
"Not happening," was my response.
"I command you to untie me!"
"In case you blinked and missed it, you're our prisoner now, so you’ll do what we say," I said as I put my arms around her shoulders and hauled her to her feet. I stuck my face in hers, which was white from the pain. "We can do this one of two ways. We can drag you with us, or you can walk of your own volition."
"I am not going anywhere with you, traitor," she hissed through clenched teeth.
"Drag you it is, then," I said, and grabbed her firmly by the left upper arm and pulled her after me.
"Very well, I will walk!" she snapped, wrenching her arm free.
And so with the Custodian beside me and Nanako behind her, we resumed our walk across the bridge. My three forager buddies were quite a distance ahead of us and would soon be off the bridge.
"Where are you taking me?" the girl demanded.
"We’re going into the south eastern suburbs," I replied.
"To hand me to the Skel?"
"We just saved you from the Skel, remember? So why on earth would we hand you back to them?"
"Because you are in league with them."
"Don’t be ridiculous, if that was the case, why are we running from them?"
"Because you let the Rangers into Newhome, remember?" she said with conviction.
"I didn’t let them in; David did, and that’s because the Rangers were blackmailing him by threatening to kill our mate Leigh if he refused. Once I found out, I hunted down the Rangers and took them out, and then rescued David and Leigh," I explained.
"You honestly expect me to believe that?"
"I don't care what you believe. It's what happened."
"Bah."
"What’s your name, by the way?" I asked.
Silence.
"We’ll just call you ‘Consultant,’ then – okay?"
"I am not a consultant!" she spat.
Chapter Eight
"Then what are you? A Custodian lackey, a stooge?" I asked, trying to goad her into talking.
"I told you I am not a Custodian," she replied angrily, "I am a specialist – I work for the Council."
I glanced at Nanako, for I’d never heard of council specialists before, but then again, until I’d met Bhagya Singhe, I didn’t know there were Custodian consultants, either.
"Specialising in what?" I demanded.
More silence.
"I get it," I said after a moment’s reflection. "You do the Council’s dirty work, eliminating corrupt Custodians and politically dangerous civilians."
She shot me a venomous look.
I glanced back at Nanako. "She’s an assassin."
"And not a very good one," Nanako said, looking daggers into the girl’s back.
"Right back at you!" the girl spat over her shoulder.
"How’s the arm?" Nanako asked.
"Not what you expected, is it?" I asked quickly, before the girl could respond to Nanako’s barb.
"What?" she snapped.
"The world outside Newhome. You blundered right into a Skel ambush. What I don’t get is why you weren’t using your flash sonar – you would’ve spotted the ambush if you were."
She looked at me as though I was a simpleton, which kinda gave me the answer. "Oh," I said, cottoning on, "You couldn’t echolocate because you were looking for me, and if you had, you would’ve broadcast your position."
We fell silent after that, and soon left the bridge and continued down the West Gate Freeway. Rundown warehouses and factories were below us on our left, while bushland was to our right. It looked like we’d have to go another kilometre or so before the freeway returned to ground level.
The lads saw us coming and waited for us beside a couple of rusted-out cars, and when we drew close, they sauntered over to join us, their eyes fixed on the girl – Leigh with resentment, David with fear, and Shorty, well, he was enamoured with her.
"What’s her name?" Shorty asked.
"She won’t tell us," I said, "So just call her ‘Consultant.’"
"I’m not a…" the girl practically shouted.
"Then tell us your name," I suggested.
"Fine!" she growled. "I am Specialist Madison Taylor."
"What do you specialize in?" Shorty asked.
Madison ignored him.
"In killing people," I explained.
Shorty looked from me to her, and then back to me again, not sure where to go with that response.
"I'm serious; she's an assassin. She whacks people for the council."
"And you're gonna keep her with us? Are you nuts?" Leigh asked, eyes popping out of his head.
"You're not gonna cause us trouble, are you, Specialist Madison?" I asked her.
She glared daggers at me.
"See?" I said to Leigh, "She's not gonna cause us any trouble."
"Jones..." Leigh protested.
"Just drop it," I said, and stared him down.
Leigh turned away from me in a huff.
Nanako sat down in the shadow cast by the closest car – an old sedan – fished out her bottle, and finished off what little water she had left. "We need food and water, Ethan," she said.
"When we get off the freeway we can scrounge up some bush-tucker and water," I said as I sat cross-legged on the road beside her. The others sat down too, except for Madison, who remained standing, looking down on us with contempt, a neat trick considering she was in considerable pain.
"What happened to her arm?" Shorty asked.
"Nanako shot her," I replied.
"Couldn’t you have shown a bit more restraint?" he grumbled.
"She didn’t give us the option," Nanako replied.
"Couldn’t you have shot her somewhere a little more terminal?" Leigh asked.
"Be nice, Leigh, she’s our guest now," I said.
Madison’s cheeks coloured slightly and she turned her back to us.
We rested in the shadow of the car until Nanako and Leigh had regained their strength, and then continued down the freeway until it returned to ground level. After that, we slipped off the road and plunged into the riotous bushland that flourished right up to the edge of the asphalt.
We weaved our way through ferns, shrubs, waist-high wild grass, and gumtrees, until we found a small open area that was out of earshot from the freeway. I didn't know if the Rangers and Skel used the road, but I was betting they did.
"Right," I said after we'd dropped our backpacks on the grass. "We've had plenty of practise finding edible fruits, nuts and berries while we were foraging, so let's spread out, gather up what we can find, and be back here in twenty. Shorty, you take the water bottles, duck back to the Yarra and fill 'em up." Our water bottles had filters that did a pretty good job of filtering out any sediment and other impurities in the water. However, the water would taste like dirt.
"Alone?" Shorty asked.
"You're more than up to it," I assured him.
"Bah!" he huffed, but collected everyone's water bottles, stuffed them into his backpack, and then disappeared into the bush, heading back towards the river and muttering obscenities all the while.
As the others fanned out into the surrounding bush to look for anything we could eat, I pulled Madison over to a tree and sat her down with her back to the trunk. I removed one of her shoelaces and tied her neck to the tree. "Don't go anywhere," I said while flashing her a winning smile. I turned and was about to rush off into the bush, when she said something that made my blood run cold.
“What did you just say?” I demanded as I came back to her.
"I said, you a
nd the Jap cannot have children together. You know that, right?" she repeated.
"What are you talking about? She's been pregnant once," I replied heatedly.
"And she had a miscarriage." It was a statement, not a question.
"What makes you say that?"
"She did, yes?"
"Yes. Yes, she did, but it was because she wasn't well at the time," I conceded.
"That may have had some bearing on it, but ultimately, it would not have made any difference. We genetically engineered humans cannot procreate with normals; our DNA is incompatible, apparently."
"And who told you that nonsense?"
"They conducted trials in Newhome on us genetically engineered girls. The geneticists wanted to see if the genetic modifications would pass on to our progeny, and if so, to what extent. But we never got to find out, for the pregnancies all ended in miscarriages," she explained. "Subsequent tests confirmed the incompatibility."
"But...no, that can't be!" I protested, aghast, as the implications of what she was saying exploded through my mind. For if she was telling the truth, then Nanako and I could never have children, and I knew how keen Nanako was to have that ‘gaggle’ of kids. And not just Nanako, I'd been looking forward to having them too; and, like we’d discussed, raising them out in the country somewhere. But if what Madison was saying was true, this was just empty dreams now. I mean, we'd still have each other, and that would be enough, but something would still be missing.
Another thought hit me then. Nanako had been beating herself up after her miscarriage, blaming herself for it since she hadn't been eating or sleeping properly at the time due to being so severely depressed. But according to Madison, she would have miscarried anyway, so if I was to tell this news to Nanako, she could be set free from the crushing guilt that burdened her.
But no! Sure, it could stop her feeling guilty and blaming herself for the miscarriage, but it would come with the knowledge that we couldn't ever have kids, that we couldn't ever build the home together we'd dreamt of building.
Still, I had to tell her, for I couldn't keep something that important from her. I couldn't tell her now, though, not when she had just pulled out of such a savagely debilitating episode of depression. To tell her now could send her spiralling back down into that terrible place and I couldn't let that happen. I would have to hide this terrible knowledge in my heart, and not share it with her until she was a lot stronger and healthier.
"I have endured three such miscarriages since I turned sixteen," Madison added.
"They conducted these tests on you too?" I asked, shocked. We echolocators were not laboratory test subjects; we were people!
"Of course," she replied.
"I'm sorry."
"No need to be. It was an honour to serve."
"They treated you like a lab rat and you think it was an honour?" I asked incredulously.
"It was not like that at all. As a citizen of Newhome, it is my duty to serve in any way I can," she said, and then after a pause, added, "The geneticists believe we can only reproduce with our own kind."
"And that's something they haven't been able to test, right, because they murdered all the boys?" I asked, venom lacing every word.
"It was necessary to euthanize the male echolocators for the welfare of the town. But you are correct, at this stage it is merely a hypothesis."
“It was necessary...” I said as righteous anger arose and threatened to consume me. How could she sit there and justify the coldblooded murder of children?
Madison watched me with an arrogant expression on her face, apparently enjoying the effect her words were having.
“You’re...you’re unbelievable, you know that?” I finally managed to say, and then, remembering that I was supposed to be foraging for bush tucker, and having no desire to continue this conversation, I turned and plunged into the grass beside the tree with my mind lost in a morass of fear and doubt.
Twenty minutes later, give or take, we were all back in the clearing. Between us we'd gathered several quandong, which was kind of like a native peach, green and red muntries berries, black berries, and from David, several cicadas plus more berries.
"You expect us to eat those?" Shorty said, pointing to the cicadas.
"Best when wok-fried," he replied.
"Can't see no woks around here," Shorty said.
"More for me, then," David laughed.
Nanako bounded over to me, and with a beaming smile, held up a juicy quandong. "Wanna share?" she asked.
I tried to return her smile, but the sight of her face brought Madison's words back with crushing finality – Nanako and I couldn't have kids. Our DNA was incompatible. My imagination suddenly went into overdrive, and I envisioned a future in which Nanako and I had finally retired to the country, but she was in the bathroom, legs tucked up to her chest while she rocked forward and back, distraught because she couldn't have kids.
I shook my head in a futile effort to dislodge the hideous image from my mind, but it lingered, digging its insidious tendrils deep into my core. I railed against the vision and told myself Madison could be wrong, that maybe we could still have kids; that my fears were therefore baseless.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Ethan – are you okay?" Nanako asked, as perceptive as ever.
"Just...tired, that's all," I lied.
"Yeah, you and me both," she said with a sigh as she held out her hand. "Can I have your knife?"
"Sure," I said, and gave her my combat knife.
As I stood there, watching her cut the quandong in half, and stressing big time over the tumultuous thoughts raging through my mind, I felt suddenly disoriented and...
...found myself inside a small chapel that'd be lucky to seat fifty. It had a slanting slate-tile roof, stained-glass windows, and heavy wooden pews set out in neat rows, which were occupied by members of Nanako's immediate family, Councillor Okada's family, and our close forager friends.
I was standing up at the front next to a man of the cloth – a tall Aussie minister from Inverloch – with my heart racing in anticipation, for I'd heard the car pull up outside and then two pairs of familiar footsteps. She was here! I'd finally get to see her in her wedding dress, which she'd kept secret from me. I couldn't see it before the day, it'd bring us bad luck, she'd said. I didn't even know if she'd chosen to wear a Western-style white wedding dress or a traditional Japanese one.
The chapel’s lovingly maintained wooden door opened, and Councillor Okada entered with Nanako on his arm, as he had volunteered to give her away.
Everyone gasped when they saw Nanako, and for me, time came to a standstill as I stood there and gaped at her, struck speechless by her beauty. She was wearing a magnificent red kimono, embroidered with cranes, trees and mountains, in gold, white and green thread. Her hair was put up with golden hairpins, with several stray locks hanging down the sides of her face. The joy shining from her face as she locked her eyes on mine and walked gracefully up the aisle filled my heart with such joy and anticipation of what was to come that I thought I was gonna burst. This was a dream, it had to be! I'd only met her just over seven weeks ago, and here I was marrying her on the day of my sixteenth birthday. Me, the guy who'd vowed not to marry until I was thirty. But I'd never figured I'd meet her when I made that vow, did I? And yet here I was, getting married...
..."Jones, you tripping or something?" Shorty asked, pulling me out of the memory and back into the present.
I staggered back, but quickly steadied myself. "I'm fine," I replied, as I turned to Nanako, who’d been so engrossed in cutting the quandong she hadn't seen my strange turn.
I wanted to tell her right now the wonderful news that I'd remembered our wedding day at last, but before I say a word, Madison's words thrust themselves foremost into my mind. "The two of you can never have children together, you know that, right?"
And those words soured the wondrous memory of our wedding day, sending tendrils of fear and doubt twisting up from my gut. We'd entered into
our wedding with such hope for the future, yet only a few months later I was shot in the head, and everything went south for the next two years. Two years of excruciating suffering for her, and two years of acute loneliness and a sense of lacking some greater part of my life, for me. And now, just weeks after getting back together, our dreams for the future were under attack again. How would Nanako react when she found out this horrible news? Did I even have the heart to tell her? What if Madison was wrong? I could go nuts trying to work through this!
And then suddenly, like a sucker punch to the gut, I realised what I had to do if her next pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and therefore confirmed Madison's claims. I had to divorce her and get out of her life so she could marry a normal person and have children, a family, and a future.
But the very thought of divorcing Nanako tore my heart apart, for she was my very world, the best thing that had ever happened to me. But I knew with conviction that this was the right thing to do if Madison was right, for I knew how important it was for Nanako to have her own children.
Wanting to flee from such terrible thoughts, I tried to reassure myself that Madison could be wrong, that we could still have kids. That I was worrying over nothing.
Nanako looked up and handed me half the quandong. I decided I'd tell her later about remembering our wedding day. For starters, I didn't want to go shouting it out in front of Madison, especially in the light of what she'd just told me. Secondly, it just didn't seem appropriate.
We ate the fruits and berries, a nutritious though not particularly filling meal. And as I predicted, the water tasted like dirt.
We offered Madison some quandong and blackberries, but she just stuck her nose in the air. She'd come around soon enough; I reckoned.
After we'd rested, we headed south until we hit the beach that fronted onto Hobson's Bay, which was nestled between rotting wharfs and piers. From there we made our way to Beach Street, continued slowly east, and then southeast, flabbergasted by the size of the mansions that fronted the road. The rich and well-to-do had lived here once, but like the poor, had been forced to up and leave their homes when the power and water were cut off, and their supplies ran out.
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 53