“And why is that?”
“Because their complaints are justified and I’ll never be able to look in the mirror again if I report innocent civilians who, like me, are dissatisfied with living in this repressive society.”
“It’s important that you remain true to yourself?”
“Yes, Sir, it is.”
“More important than keeping the town safe from internal and external threats that could lead to its destruction?”
“Yes, I mean, no...” I paused, confused by his question.
He raised his eyebrows.
“There has to be a better way to keep the people safe, Sir, than removing their freedoms and forcing them to adhere to the Founders’ teachings with barrel of a Custodian gun.”
“Have you forgotten the road our ancestors walked? They were free to act as they chose and were tolerant towards all forms of sexual orientation – heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual. They accepted of all forms of religion. They practised equality in all areas for men and women. Nations warred incessantly and radicalised terrorists spread chaos across the globe.”
“I have not forgotten, Sir. But our society is not the answer to those problems.”
“She’s is not convinced of that, Sir,” Bhagya said.
I glanced at her, irritated, expecting to see disapproval mirrored in her eyes. But there was nothing, no hint of emotion. She may as well have been looking straight through me.
“Care to revise your statement, Chelsea?”
“There are towns out in the countryside like Ballarat, Sir – towns that are flourishing. They don’t adhere to the Founders’ teachings.”
“Who told you they were flourishing?”
“Foragers from Ballarat, Sir.”
“I see. Tell me, if you were to travel a hundred years back in time to the days before the nuclear apocalypse, do you think the people of Ballarat would have said their town was flourishing?”
“Yes, I expect they would have.”
“And what of the people in the rest of the world? Would not most of them answered in the same way?”
“Many, perhaps, but not all. Some nations were in a very sad state of affairs, from what I’ve heard.”
“My point, Chelsea, is that the masses who considered their nations to be flourishing were wrong, weren’t they? They cultivated cultures and a worldwide environment that created the war that practically destroyed the world. In fact, as far as we know, Australia could be the only continent to have any survivors. That the inhabitants of Ballarat consider their town to be flourishing today is therefore irrelevant. Given enough time, their descendants will eventually make the same mistakes their ancestors did.”
“I know Australia was hit by multiple nuclear warheads, but surely our ancestors were not involved in the war, Sir. We didn’t have any nuclear weapons from what I’ve been told,” I protested.
“Australia despatched jet fighters to the Middle East to combat the rise of the Islamic Caliphate, as well as warships and troops to the Sea of Japan to combat the rising threat posed by the United Democratic Republic of Korea and their Chinese allies, who were expanding into the South China Sea, their rightful territory.”
I looked at him in surprise, wondering if he told the truth.
“He tells the truth,” Bhagya said, as though able to read my mind.
“You are an uneducated and naive young girl with virtually no knowledge of the past. And yet you hold your personal beliefs above the teachings of the Founders, men of learning who possess firsthand knowledge of exactly where our ancestors went wrong,” Mr. Cho said.
I bristled at that. There was far more to this than my personal beliefs. I may be young and uneducated, but I had spent my life watching the injustices of the Custodians. Beating those they arrested, arresting anyone who spoke against the ruling establishment, carting away children with biological defects to be euthanized. I also listening to my mother as she spouted the offensive nonsense taught by the Founders.
“Chelsea, are you willing to forsake your opinions and conclusions drawn from your limited experiences and whole heartedly embrace the Founders’ wisdom and teachings?” he asked. He watched me closely.
“I can see your point that just because people think their society is flourishing, it doesn’t mean it isn’t already planting the seeds of its own destruction, but...”
He held up his hand, and I fell silent. “You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? I’m not surprised, though. You have responded exactly as anticipated. Considering you are the one who instigated the breakout, I did not think I would be able to get through to you so easily.”
“What does that mean, Sir?”
“It means you need to be deprogrammed.” He stood and strode for the door. “This way, Chelsea.”
A feeling of dread erupted in my stomach and spread slowly up my spine. What exactly had Ryan gotten me into?
Chapter Two
“I would go with him if I were you,” Bhagya said. I looked at her dead, lifeless eyes, surprised to hear her speak of her own volition.
Seeing no point in delaying the inevitable, I followed Mr. Cho from the room. He led me down the corridor and opened a door near the end.
“Inside.”
Noticing the determined set of his square jaw and hard eyes, I stepped quickly into the room. It was small, round room with a plain concrete floor and unadorned white walls. There were no windows, just a centrally located light panel giving off harsh white light. The only furniture in the room was a metal washbasin and a one-piece metal toilet, identical to those found in the prison factories.
Mr. Cho stepped back and closed the door, leaving me standing, alone, in the most nondescript place I’d ever seen. It was even blander than the room in the Homeless Shelter I shared with my family after we were evicted from our apartment.
“What I am supposed to do now?” I asked no one in particular, wondering if this was a temporary holding cell while they prepared for my deprogramming.
I sat on the floor and leaned back against the door. And waited. Time flew by – an hour, perhaps longer – but no one came. I let my mind run back over the events of the past two years, of when I masqueraded as my brother and foraged out in the ruins. Of my terrifying encounter with a massive Skel warrior, and of the endless troubles caused by my father falling further in debt to a vicious illegal gambling syndicate.
I didn’t know how much time passed, as there was no way to keep track of it. My backside was numb from sitting on the concrete floor for so long. I got up, stretched, and rubbed some life back into my aching limbs. Then seeing nothing better to do, got down and began to exercise, doing the body-weight exercises my brother taught me. I alternated between sets of push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and lunges. The lunges were a bit of a challenge, though, because I kept tripping on the hem of my dress. I had always exercised in my pajamas at home.
When I was too tired to continue, I drank my fill of water from the basin, reflecting that the water tasted like it had been stagnating in the pipe forever. After that, I paced around the room until I was too hungry and tired to continue. I sat again, but thanks to the concrete, it wasn’t long before I had to shift to a new position. I tried kneeling, but that became painful as well.
When I figured hours had passed and my patience was at an end, I banged on the door and called out. I did this several times, but there was no response. In the end, I went back to sitting against the wall.
I jolted in surprise when a panel at the base of the door snapped open. Someone pushed through a plastic tray with a bowl of soup, sandwiches, and cup of water.
“Hey!” I shouted as I scrambled to my knees and scooted towards the door. Unfortunately, my legs had gone to sleep from sitting too long and I tripped and banged my head on the door.
The panel snapped shut, leaving me alone with the tray. And a sore head.
I slapped the door again. “Excuse me, how much longer do I have to be here?”
There was no reply, of course, so I
surveyed the food. Two salad sandwiches, pumpkin soup, and water. Wasn’t much, but no doubt much healthier than the muck we ate in prison. Muck I often didn’t eat thanks to a prisoner with a chip on her shoulder seasoning it with dirt, saw dust, spit, or worse.
Wracked by strong hunger pangs, I sat on the floor and consumed the meal, wondering if it was lunchtime. However, if that was the case, it meant I’d been in here for only three to four hours, which I found hard to believe. It felt like I’d been here for a whole day.
Having nothing else to do, I did more body-weight exercises until fatigue sent me back to sitting against the wall. After that, I waited until I was doubled over with hunger pangs. Remembering what happened last time, I banged on the door, hoping for the same result.
However, no food appeared.
Angry, I filled my stomach with water from the basin to trick it into thinking I wasn’t hungry. Achieving some success, I lay on my side on the concrete, using my arm as a pillow. Too tired to keep my eyes open, I waited to fall asleep. However, sleep wouldn’t come. I just lay there with my mind empty, yet still unable to sleep. And thanks to the concrete, it wasn’t long before my hip, knee and shoulder ached so much that I had to roll over. When that became too painful, I tried my back, and finally, my stomach.
After what felt like hours passed, and feeling angry at my inability to sleep no matter how exhausted I was, I got up and gave the door a solid kick. I called out, but there was no response.
Sometime later, the door panel snapped open and someone pushed in another tray of sandwiches, soup, and water.
I dove for the door. “Hey! If you’re going to leave me in here for so long, at least give me something to sleep on!”
The panel snapped shut before I had a chance to see my captor. Succumbing to hunger, I sat and ate, feeling a little better for it.
Tired to the point of exhaustion, I lay on my stomach again, using my arms as a pillow. However, just as I was about to close my eyes, I noticed the words ‘Remember who you are,’ scrawled in the dust near the wall. I wondered who wrote it and for what purpose. Did the previous occupant write it as a note for themself?
Sighing, I laid my head on my forearm and tried to sleep, but just like before, sleep was impossible. From that point, my awareness of my surroundings began to blur. I couldn’t concentrate and was unable to form a single coherent sentence in my mind. I also began to experience flashes of rage interspersed with periods where I drew my knees to my chest and cried.
Trays of food were occasionally passed through the door – at least I think so – because I couldn’t remember eating the food. I just noticed that the stack of empty trays near the door grew in height.
I also began to find myself in different places in the room, as though I was blacking out or sleep walking – though I had no memory of falling asleep. I wondered if Mr. Cho had slipped something into the food to keep me awake, though for what reason I couldn’t fathom.
As if that wasn’t enough, a horrific buzzing like a swarm of bees began to resonate within my head.
“It’s not bees, silly, they can’t get in your head,” my brother said.
Confused, I crawled over to him. “Brandy? How did you get in here?” There was something else I needed to ask him, but couldn’t put my finger on it.
“I live here,” he said.
“In the lab?”
He suddenly grimaced and gripped his stomach. Blood poured out from between his fingers. “No, in this room, Chelz.”
“You’re hurt!” I reached out and tried to stem the blood flow, but it just kept coming.
“Why couldn’t you be like other girls?” Mother said.
“What?” How did she get in here? And why wasn’t she concerned about Brandon bleeding out in front of her?
“You never tried to follow the Founders’ teachings, never adhered to society’s dictates. You think I didn’t see you sneaking into the lounge room in the middle of the night to read your brother’s schoolbooks? Or the times you went into your room to exercise like a boy! No wonder you turned out like you did. You’re a disgrace – an embarrassment to the Thomas family name.”
“But...” I tried to refute her accusations, but then she was gone. Brandy remained, though. He had crawled over to the wall, leaving great streaks of blood on the floor.
I cried. I couldn’t bear seeing him in such pain.
“Tried to save you, Sis,” he said.
“You did save me,” I assured him.
“No, I failed you. I failed you all. I should have listened when Mother tried to direct our lives in the way they should go, instead of making fun of her when she wasn’t looking. I was a bad example and I led you astray.”
“That’s not true,” I said as great, wracking sobs tore through me. Then even as I watched, he melted into the floor like heated wax, which for some reason looked completely normal. Other things began to move through the room at the edges of my peripheral vision, a Custodian, a wild dog, dark things without form.
A soft, persuasive voice entered the room, coming from no point in particular. I tried to ignore it at first, but it spoke with such passion and intensity that it seeped past my defences. Soon I was listening to it raptly, as though my very life depended on what it was saying.
“Chelsea Thomas, daughter of Malcolm and Abigail. You are a dissident, a nonconformist, a rule breaker. Self centred to the detriment of the wellbeing of those about you. Placing your trust in your own opinions rather than submitting to those who know better, those in authority.” On it went, criticising my person and character, pointing out my faults and weaknesses, stripping away my outer layers until I felt exposed, useless, and a failure. I tried to fight it, to remember who I was and what I believed in, but it felt like a dream, a nightmare over which I had no control.
The voiced faded away and I blacked out. When I came to, Mr. Cho appeared in front of me. He was sitting on a simple metal chair, holding a large envelope. He stared at me with obvious displeasure, as though I was a hardened criminal he was about to sentence.
He lifted my chin, forcing me to meet his steely gaze.
“The breakout you instigated failed. Did you know that?” he said.
“If you’re referring to the rumour that they all died, that’s nothing but Custodian propaganda to discourage anyone else from attempting the same thing,” I said. That rumour had circulated through prison soon after the escape, but like everyone else, we paid it no heed. What better way to discourage others from attempting another breakout than to tell them that everyone involved in the last one was killed or captured by Skel? Besides, I raised the matter with Ryan during one of his visits and he assured me it was a false rumour.
“The Custodians we sent in pursuit of the escaped foragers and their families found what was left of them outside Melbourne on the Western Freeway, the road to Ballarat,” he said.
Chapter Three
“I don’t believe you.” My voice wavered as I spoke.
“They had been butchered – over fifty of them, the children, the elderly, and others – their bodies left to rot in the sun.”
I shook my head, trying to blot out his words. It wasn’t true, it was just a rumour, even Ryan said so! The escapees were surely living safely in Ballarat now, living without Newhome’s suffocating rules and regulations. Without Custodians enforcing the Founders’ vision of the perfect society with the barrel of a gun.
Mr. Cho moved so close that his eyes merged into one. “Some bodies had so many Skel arrows in them that they looked like pincushions. Others had been bludgeoned to death.”
I tried to move back from him, but as I was leaning against the wall, there was nowhere to go.
“And that’s not even the worst part,” he continued. “There was no sign of the other forty, so you know what that means don’t you? The Skel took them to be slaves.”
“It’s just a rumour the Custodians created!” I insisted, though more to myself than to him.
“We don’t know if your
sister was amongst the dead. They were too badly mutilated and decomposed to identify.”
“I don’t be–”
“Would you like to see the photos the Custodians took before they buried the bodies?” He opened an envelope and took out a sheaf of photos. “If I was you, though, I’d just take my word for it. Don’t look at them, they are quite disturbing.”
My thoughts were sluggish and everything still felt like a lie, but I had to know if there was any truth to his claims. With shaking hands, I took the photos and slowly leafed through them, gasping in horror at the sight of so many corpses lying close together on a weed-overgrown highway. They had been herded together and butchered wholesale. I saw crossbow bolts sticking out of torsos, heads smashed, and limbs shattered with bones protruding through skin. Horrifically, many of the bodies were small, clearly children. My hands shook almost uncontrollably as I examined each photo, trying to spot my sister or Sofia. Unfortunately, the dead were so badly mutilated and their clothes stained with so much blood that I couldn’t recognise anyone. Still, any of those women in long dresses could have been them. The backpacks and blanket rolls scattered about the bodies were further proof I was looking at the demise of the people I had helped escape town.
The photos slipped from my fingers and spread out on the concrete floor. Mr. Cho was telling the truth. And that meant my sister, and poor, sweet Sofia, were either dead or Skel slaves, being worked to death. What’s more, Ryan must have known this and hidden it from me to save me the heartache.
“What have I done?” I wailed, my heart shattering. I had thought my intentions noble, my cause just. I thought I was giving those people a fulfilling life in Ballarat by helping them escape. However, if I was brutally honest with myself, it was my desperation to get my family and myself away from the syndicate debt collectors that prompted me to manipulate Con into arranging the breakout. Because of my selfishness, I doomed ninety people to death or slavery.
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 101