Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series)

by Peter R Stone

Careful not to give the wrong signal or appear threatening, I slipped my assault rifle off my shoulder and placed it on the floor. Although confused, my friends followed suit. Chelsea Thomas, however, was chomping at the bit, wanting nothing more than to throw herself at Pat Tori but unable to due to her injuries.

  “You won’t get away with this, Pat,” I said as I headed for the door. The rest of my team joined me grudgingly, sending querying looks in my direction.

  Six Custodians checked us for weapons, and then with Pat and the two councillors in tow, exited the morgue. They took us out via an emergency exit so we could walk around the hospital instead of through it and avoid facing awkward questions.

  As we set off, I saw Pat hang back and pull Councillor Rossi and the tall, muscular Badger to one side. Keeping my eyes forward and expression downcast, I slowed my pace so I could eavesdrop on their conversation before we passed beyond my hearing range.

  “Take them straight to the psych ward, sedate them, and put them in isolation rooms. Bring in Romy DeVries and Anna Georgiou as well,” Pat said.

  “And then?” Badger asked.

  “Overdose them on tranquilisers tonight – they’re too dangerous to leave alive.”

  That’s all I heard, but the conversation finished soon afterwards. Pat Tori hurried along behind us in an attempt to catch up.

  “What’s going on, Ethan?” Nanako asked quietly as she walked beside me.

  Conscious of our Custodian handlers, I answered just loudly enough for her to hear. “Pat Tori’s taking over the town and getting rid of anyone he thinks may get in the way.”

  She fixed her beautiful, brown eyes on mine. “Then why are we going quietly? The six of us could take care of these goons with our eyes closed.”

  “I’m giving Pat Tori some rope,” I replied.

  “Rope?” Nanako looked confused.

  “To hang himself with,” David whispered from behind us.

  “Cut the chatter!” Hong shouted, glowering at us from the front of the group.

  As we continued our trek to the HQ, I surreptitiously slipped out my phone. I thumbed in a quick message, hit send, and secreted the phone back into a pocket the Custodians hadn’t checked when they frisked us for weapons.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, I was sitting on a metal and plastic folding chair in an interrogation room in Custodian HQ. The room was as bleak as they come, with bare, windowless walls, a table, and three chairs. I never imagined I’d be grilled in one of these rooms again. Fortunately, I wasn’t getting worked over by one of the Korean ruling elite. Still, I was worried that Pat Tori had effectively taken over the town in less than a day. Did Newhome just exchange one dictator for another?

  Lieutenant Hong stood behind me, radiating hostility. Pat Tori and Captain Smithson sat across from me. I had anticipated receiving gratitude from the resistance movements’ leaders for playing a pivotal role in overthrowing the chancellor’s regime.

  Captain Smithson stared at me long and hard, his expression grim. Shaking his head disapprovingly, he activated a recording device and rattled off the names of those present.

  “Where’s the nuclear bomb, Jones?” Pat spoke with a sense of urgency, leaning towards me.

  “What bomb?” I said.

  “Don’t play cute, Jones. Several witnesses have testified that you brought a nuclear warhead into the town and were seconds away from detonating it.”

  “Did any of them say they saw me with a nuke?”

  “Did you bring one with you or not, Jones?” Smithson said. “After vowing and declaring you didn’t bring one, did you actually do so and were seconds away from destroying Newhome and its ten thousand inhabitants?”

  “Hypothetically speaking, if you had to weigh the lives of ten thousand people, including your family and friends, with the extinction of the human race, what would you have done, Captain?” I asked.

  “So you did bring one. You stupid fool – I asked you to save the town, not kill everyone in it!”

  “You haven’t answered my question. What would you have done, Captain?”

  “We’re not interested in listening to you justify your terrorist actions!” Pat said, slamming his small hands on the table. “Tell us where you hid the bomb and how to disable it so it cannot be detonated remotely by your Hamamachi friends. Quickly, before they change their minds and blow us all to smithereens.”

  “I didn’t bring a nuke into the town–,” I said.

  “But you just said–” the captain began.

  “All I said was that in theory, if it came down to saving the town and allowing the virus to be released, or destroying the town to save humanity, the latter was the logical course of action. I never said I brought a nuke into the town.”

  “You expect us to believe you were bluffing when you told General Cho you armed the bomb and started a five minute countdown?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?”

  “Jones, enough!” Pat barked. “Several witnesses have mentioned how you and the members of your Special Forces Unit appeared distraught when you told Cho that you had armed the bomb and it would detonate in five minutes.”

  “Come on, Pat, think,” I said. “The nuclear bomb you’re accusing me of bringing into town is the one that Newhome tried to blow up Hamamachi with. Do you honestly think Hamamachi Militia would have let me bring it here and risk it falling into the chancellor’s hands again? That’s absurd.”

  “So you really didn’t bring it with you?” the captain said.

  “No. Get Bhagya to scan me if you don’t believe me,” I said.

  “Perhaps we should exactly that?” The captain reached for his radio.

  “Bhagya Singhe is currently indisposed in the hospital due to her wounds,” Pat said.

  “Actually, that’s not entirely true,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I overheard you talking to Councillor Rossi when we left the morgue, Pat. You told him to take Singhe, Thomas, Georgiou, and DeVries to the hospital’s psyche ward and, in your words, ‘to overdose them on tranquilisers tonight – they’re too dangerous to leave alive.’”

  Pat Tori stared at me in disbelief, his mouth open.

  “You didn’t know, did you Tori?” the captain said.

  “Know what?” Pat asked, alarmed.

  “That Jones is one of them.”

  “Them?”

  “He’s genetically engineered – the same as the girls. Which means he’s telling the truth about overhearing you order Rossi to murder the girls tonight.”

  Pat looked at me horror. “They can’t be trusted, Captain, you must know that. Their hidden programming could take over at any moment and who knows what they could do then – maybe even release the virus. They must be terminated.”

  “Your decision to murder Chelsea wouldn’t have anything to do with her saying earlier that she will have the interim council and your election declared invalid? That a new council representing a broader selection of townsfolk will be formed, and that this council will elect a new mayor? One other than you?” I said.

  “How you cast aspersions on my integrity and honour, Jones!” Pat shouted.

  “You can drop the act, Tori,” the captain said. “You targeted the Specialists today because they oppose you. Who will it be tomorrow, and the day after? How are you any different to the chancellor and his cronies?”

  “What are you saying, Smithson? Are you siding with him?” Pat looked flabbergasted.

  The captain took a voice recorder from his pocket and pressed play.

  Chelsea’s voice rang out loud and clear. “You tried to kill me, Tori! Laced my drink with cyanide. You had your boys kidnap me and shove a dirty cloth halfway down my throat! And your association with the Rangers almost led to the complete destruction of this town…”

  “You’re a monster!” we heard Pat reply.

  “If I’m a monster, it’s because you turned me into one.”

  “Fine! The Underground movement will
submit to Freehome’s leadership. Now get out!”

  Smithson put the recorder back in his pocket. “I also had a detailed conversation with two boys from the Newhome Resistance Movement. They told me some very interesting things about how the Rangers and Skel broke into town last year. Can you imagine my surprise when I learned that you were the one who invited the Rangers and even sent your boys to guide them once they got inside?”

  “What are you trying to do here, Captain?” Pat demanded.

  The captain stood. “Patrick Tori, you’re under arrest for consorting with the Hamamachi Rangers which resulted in multiple deaths and the near destruction of the town. You are also charged with attempted murders of Thomas, Bhagya, Georgiou, and DeVries.”

  “You’re completely out of line, Smithson!” Pat turned to Hong, still standing behind my chair. “Arrest him, Lieutenant!”

  Hearing Hong reach for his gun, I spun about in my seat, leapt upwards like a spring uncoiling, and drove a fist into his jaw. He hit the floor with a thud.

  “You were right about the rope, Jones,” Smithson said. “He hung himself well and good.”

  “You two were working together,” Pat said. It was a statement, not a question.

  I walked around the table and gave Pat a hearty slap on the shoulder. “Didn’t you know, Pat? I’ve been Smithson’s operative, both in and out of Newhome, for almost a year. Now, up you get – you’ve got a date with a prison cell.”

  “Don’t be absurd! I’m the acting mayor – you can’t tell me what to do. Smithson, arrest Jones and put him in solitary confinement. Then and only then will I consider overlooking your betrayal.”

  “Lieutenant Xiao!” Smithson shouted.

  The door swung open and the Custodian walked in, accompanied by two men of Delta Company.

  “Gag him and put him in cell. Write ‘John Smith’ on the door. Best he stays out of sight while we clean up his mess,” the captain said.

  Xiao acknowledged the order and his two men bundled an extremely vocal and irate Pat Tori from the interrogation room. The door slammed behind them.

  Smithson sat on the edge of the table. “Now tell me the truth, Jones – did you bring a nuke into the town?”

  I shook my head. “Not into the town.”

  “Outside the town, then?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The warhead has a 350-kiloton yield,” I said. “I didn’t need to bring it into Newhome to destroy it. The Hamamachi Militia sent it up the river in a remote controlled armoured speedboat and parked it just outside the town’s western walls.”

  “So you really were going to kill us all.”

  “Would you have let them release the virus?”

  Smithson looked at me for an uncomfortably long moment, and then sighed deeply. “No, I guess not. Where is the speedboat now?”

  “Back in Hamamachi.”

  He was very relieved to hear that.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ~ Chelsea Thomas ~

  The door to the psych ward’s isolation room swung open and a man wearing Custodian-issue boots entered. I couldn’t see more of him, since my head, torso, and limbs were strapped to the table. However, I recognised his footsteps at once – it was Badger, one of the Undergrounders elevated to Custodian status after the town had been liberated.

  Struggling against the bonds was pointless, so I waited with my heart racing in my throat, wondering what Badger – and ultimately Pat Tori – had in store for us girls tonight. At first, I thought they were going to restrict us to the psych ward and subject us to an endless regimen of ‘deprogramming’ sessions. Not to find out if we were still under the Round Room’s control, but to keep us out of Pat Tori’s way until he had the town completely wrapped around his finger.

  So I was taken completely by surprise when the on-duty doctor jabbed me with a needle the moment I arrived. I fell asleep seconds later, and awoke only recently to find myself strapped down like this. Something was off.

  Badger came to the side of the bed, allowing me to see him from the corner of my eye. He held a syringe in his hand.

  “Time to sleep – forever.” He smiled wickedly.

  “Badger, don’t do this. You know it’s wrong, right?”

  “What’s wrong is you biologically modified freaks running around the town,” he said.

  The door opened again and I heard three people enter.

  “I’d put that syringe down if I were you,” I heard Jones say.

  “Jones never misses, apparently. So put it down and put your hands on your head,” Dylan said.

  Fuming, the Undergrounder put the syringe on the floor and did as he was told. Two sets of hands attacked the straps pinning me to the bed and I was free. I sat and rubbed some life back into stiffened limbs.

  I sent an appreciative smile to my rescuers.

  “And you just let them do this to you?” Ethan asked.

  “Oh, you’re funny,” I said.

  “They were going to euthanize the four of you tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Your warning about Pat was spot on. He’s one dangerous man.”

  “Giving that recording of your conversation with Pat to Captain Smithson and telling him to look up me and Mehmet was a masterstroke,” Dylan said.

  “Bhagya, Romy and Anna?” I asked.

  “Our teammates are with them now,” Ethan said. “Can’t believe the mongrels brought Romy here in her condition.”

  “Hey, if you knew they were going to try to kill us, don’t you think you were cutting it a bit too fine waiting until now? If you came a minute later I’d be dead,” I said.

  “As soon as I heard what they were going to do, I sent Dylan and Mehmet to watch over you.” Ethan said.

  “So you were never in danger,” Dylan said. He left the room and returned with my wheelchair. “We’d better get going; Mal Li wants to see you.”

  “Me?”

  “With Smithson’s backing, he’s going to dissolve the council tomorrow and establish a more balanced, unbiased one.”

  “That’s good news, but why does Mal want to see me?” Was it because I was a member of the Freehome Resistance Movement?

  “He’s going to nominate you.”

  “Nominate me for what?”

  “The council, of course. We need at least one genetically modified person on the council, and you’re it.” Dylan smiled as he helped me off the bed and into the wheelchair.

  “Why me? Shouldn’t Ethan be the one to join the council?”

  “You serious - me, a councillor?” Ethan laughed. “I’m no politician. My job’s protecting the town from Skel and hostile raiders.”

  “But why me?”

  “You’re motivated, a thinker, and the girl who organised the only successful breakout in the town’s history.”

  “I only did that so I could escape.”

  “Not fussed about the why, just the fact that you did it.”

  “Okay, fine, take me to see Mal.”

  “One thing Mal wants to talk to you about is the genetically modified children,” Ethan said.

  “Oh?”

  “Mal’s in a bit of a quandary where they’re concerned. He doesn’t know whether they should be integrated into the schools or educated in isolation, considering they’re faster, stronger, have higher IQs, and can hear everything.”

  “Which would give them a seemingly unfair advantage over the others – is that what you’re thinking?”

  “What do you think?”

  “We can’t isolate them – we can’t afford to create an elitist group. We’d be straight back to the Newhome Proper/North End days,” I said.

  “So what would you suggest? Surely not integration?”

  “Integrating the Korean children into the normal schools isn’t just the only solution – it’s what we have to do. There can’t be anymore ‘us’ and ‘them’ in this town.”

  “But they’re different–”

 
; “There will always be differences. We’ll just have to teach the modified children not to take undue advantage of their unique abilities, especially their superior hearing. We’ll also have to add more teachers and teacher aides to make sure the Korean children are not bullied, shunned, or mistreated because of their parents’ behaviour.”

  “Interesting. Next topic – should the genetic modification be made available to the townsfolk’s future children from here on? Or should we ban such genetic tinkering?” Ethan studied me intently as he walked beside me.

  “Of course we should make it freely available …”

  * * *

  I stood beside Ryan’s bed – would have preferred to sit, but I still couldn’t bend my right leg. I was reading to him from a previously prohibited book given me by Jones, The Day of the Triffids. He had a small library concealed in the walls of the apartment block he used to live in.

  The story of a group of survivors trying to rebuild their world after a cataclysmic event rang close to home, reminding us of the task ahead.

  A lot had happened in the two days since Jones and his combat team rescued my sisters and me from the psych ward. First, Rossi and a couple other members of the council were incarcerated along with Pat Tori.

  Captain Smith had moved quickly to bring all of the Custodians and Undergrounders under his authority. That done, Mal Li worked with me and Ethan to dissolve the unfairly selected council and establish a new, more balanced one. Not surprisingly, Ryan’s father was elected to the council, along with Mal, Smithson, and, to my astonishment, me. The newly elected mayor, winning with a small margin over Mal Li, was the principal of the Newhome Proper University. Well versed in all areas of learning, including prohibited texts from before the war, he immediately started drawing up a new constitution, receiving input from all of the council members. Jones even provided him with a copy of Ballarat’s constitution, which they used as a guide.

  Ethan’s friends, David and Leigh, were working with Newhome’s serving magistrates, examining the arrest records and court rulings for all the town’s prisoners. They had already set free over a hundred political prisoners and had another three hundred to review.