“You worked out where we going to live after we get hitched, Councillor Thomas?” Ryan asked, interrupting my reading.
“Get hitched? Don’t recall you popping the question yet.” I smiled mischievously.
“Spoken about it enough, doesn’t that count?”
“No, it mostly certainly does not. Besides, you’re stuck here for another three months, remember?”
“And that’s a reason to delay getting married? Haven’t we waited long enough?”
“Hospital bedside marriage? I’ll have to think on it.”
The anticipation on Ryan’s handsome face was priceless. “Well, have you thought about where we’ll live?”
“Your mother said we can stay with them. I reckon we should take her up on her offer, at least until you have regained some mobility.”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
Hearing a familiar voice, I looked up and saw Bhagya enter the room accompanied by two dark-skinned children with thick black hair. One was a teenage girl and the other a primary-school-aged boy.
“Your family?” I asked.
“My sister Kyra and my cousin Mitra.” She ruffled the boy’s hair, the faintest traces of a smile tweaking the corners of her mouth.
“A smile from Bhagya! This is new,” I whispered to Ryan.
“She can hear you, you know. Be careful or she may display a different emotion,” he said, smiling broadly.
“Are you two trying to be funny?” she asked, putting on her typical deadpan expression.
“Good being back with your extended family, yeah?” I asked.
“I’ve got fifteen years of catching up to do – including seven new brothers, sisters, and cousins to get to know.”
“Extended family?” Ryan asked.
“You have three or four generations living in the same apartment, Bhagya?” I said.
“Four. But don’t get us wrong, there’s too many to live in one apartment. We live in three adjacent apartments with the intervening walls removed.”
“Seriously? They let you do that?” Ryan said.
“We didn’t ask for permission.”
“Hey, how you going in cataloguing the genetics laboratory’s contents?” Bhagya was in charge of a small group of doctors and scientists who were going over the lab with a fine-tooth comb, cataloguing every single item and all the data and research stored there. This information was to be shared with Hamamachi as it was gathered. Their primary goal was to confirm that the virus had not been released.
“It’s as much fun as watching grass grow,” she said, before continuing in a whisper too soft for the others to hear. “Turns out Dr. Zhao looked further ahead than we anticipated.”
I lifted my eyebrows. How so?
“It isn’t just Anna who has Korean DNA. Dr. Zhao added Korean DNA to all of the genetically engineered children, making us impervious to the virus. The longevity treatment perfected for the chancellor was added to our DNA too.”
“Seriously? How long will we live, then?”
“Dr. Zhou anticipated at least two hundred years.”
“The Korean kids will be the same, then.”
“Yes.”
“Hey, will you two cut it out?” Ryan said.
“Cut out what?” I put on my most innocent face.
“Talking so low that no one else can hear you.”
“Guilty as charged.” I laughed.
Aware of movement behind me, I turned and saw Ethan, Shorty and Aika, all wearing Custodian uniforms. They looked considerably more relaxed than when I saw them last. Now that Pat Tori was in prison awaiting trial, we could all breath freely.
“Any luck in finding out what I asked?” I said.
Ethan nodded. “Eighty refugees rocked up to Ballarat nigh on three years ago.”
“Did you find out anything else? Is there someone in Ballarat we can call to find out if my sister and Sophia were among those who made it?”
He held up his phone, smiling broadly.
* * *
“Well, you gonna knock or what?” Ethan asked, looking at me inquisitively.
Heart racing, I rapped my knuckles on my parents’ apartment door. Having driven me here in a G-Wagon, Ethan helped me into my wheelchair and brought me up here. I would have preferred Ryan to accompany me, but he was weeks away from getting out of that bed.
“Eldest Daughter!” my father said after he opened the door.
“Father! I’ve got great news!” I said.
“Well, come on in then.”
Ethan pushed the wheelchair over the step and into the small lounge room. Mother stood in the kitchen doorway, eyeing me with disdain.
“Father, Mother, this is Captain Jones of the Custodians.”
That changed my mother’s expression. Her eyes widened and the look of derision dropped instantly from her face, replaced by confusion and a touch of awe. No doubt she was wondering why such a high-ranking Custodian was pushing her daughter around in a wheelchair.
“Welcome, sir. I’m Malcolm, and this my wife, Abigail,” Father said.
“For what reason do we have the honour of your visit, sir?” Mother asked, joining us.
“At your daughter’s request, I have been doing some digging around,” Ethan said.
“Oh?” Father prompted.
“And I found something to show you,” he said, taking out his phone and dialling a number. “Here, please answer this, ma’am.”
“I’ve never used–”
“Just place it flat against your ear – that’s it.”
My mother pressed the phone to her ear, and had to reach out a hand to steady herself when a young woman answered.
“Karen speaking,” my younger sister answered.
“Youngest Daughter?”
“Mother! Are you well?”
“It’s really you? You’re alive?”
“Well of course, Mother.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Ballarat.”
“And you’re not hurt? Or imprisoned or anything?”
My sister laughed. “I’m fine, Mother, really. It’s wonderful here, nothing like Newhome. No suffocating, stupid rules: we’re free to come and go as we please. Why don’t you and Father come join us here in three years when Newhome’s quarantine has been lifted?”
“Is that allowed?”
“Of course. But, Mother…”
“Yes?”
“I should tell you – I’m married and have a one-year-old daughter, Millie.”
Mother’s mouth worked silently for a moment. “Your husband – is he from Ballarat? What’s he like? How old is he? Is he good to you?”
“He’s from Newhome, actually. His name’s Gerry – he’s the one who led us here. He’s great, you will like him. Takes real good care of us.”
I pulled back slightly to give Mother some privacy, satisfied and relieved. Believing the Custodian’s lies that the escapees from Newhome were all killed or captured by the Skel, my mother had blamed me for my sister’s death for three years. Now I was finally free of that terrible burden. My sister was alive and well, as was my friend, Sophia, who now lived on a farm.
I turned to Ethan. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “Anytime.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
~ Ethan Jones ~
“Seriously?” Nanako looked up into my eyes, an upturned smile playing over her mouth.
“Yep.” We stood in front of an apartment with a familiar looking door. One that had been reinforced with metal strips to stop people kicking it down and trashing the unit.
“You couldn’t get a bigger place?”
“We could have, but our old flat was still available, so I asked if we could have it for nostalgia’s sake.”
“Who’s this nostalgia person? I need to have a word with them.”
“Ha-ha.”
She reached out to the doorhandle. “I do have a lot of good memories of this place. Like the times I made dinner for you when trying to trigg
er your memories of me.”
“Not to mention living here after we got back together as husband and wife.”
“Not going be the same without our old furniture, though.” She opened the door and entered with me one step behind.
Flicking on the light, Nanako just about jumped out of her skin when the people gathered in the combined lounge room/bedroom beyond the kitchen shouted, “Surprise!”
“Whoa, everyone’s here!” she said, laughing.
And indeed they were. Trajan, the Recycling Work’s manager and my old boss, stood beside his wife – my elder sister, Ruth. Their three children from his late first wife clustered around them. Studying my sister’s face, I couldn’t recall ever seeing her as content as she looked now. I was delighted she could marry a widower with three children. She had been so afraid that her inability to have children meant she would never get hitched. That was something she had blamed me for, since Father spent the money she needed to recover from the illness that rendered her infertile on me.
My younger sister, Meredith, greeted us with a beaming smile that stretched from ear to ear. She was with Mother, who looked flushed from busting her gut trying to get our flat cleaned in time. I was surprised to see my father standing behind them, scowling as he caught sight of us, though without the animosity he typically reserved for me.
And of course, standing behind my family was the goon squad – David, Leigh, Shorty, Ken and Aika.
Everyone suddenly stepped back to give us a clear view of the room.
“Ta-da!” Meredith said with a flourish of her arms.
Nanako ran into the lounge room, so flabbergasted that it took her a minute to find her voice. “This is our old furniture! And bedspread, and curtains – all of it. How’s this possible?”
“Your furniture? If I recall rightly, I lent it to you after the Custodians trashed yours. You think I was going to let them throw it all away?” Trajan said.
“You excelled yourself, Trajan. You kept everything, not just the furniture.” I opened the kitchen cupboards and whistled when I saw the old battered saucepans and frying pan that I bought cheap. I took out the well-used S-shaped cutting board and ran my hand over it.
“We knew you’d come back one day–” Younger Sister said, bouncing over to me.
“You’re the only one who said that – the rest of us never thought we’d see hide or hair of them again. It was just easier to store the stuff than sort through it and recycle it.” Elder Sister spoke emotionlessly, but it sure beat the scorn that used to colour her speech whenever she spoke to me.
“Don’t believe her,” Trajan said, winking conspiratorially. “We all hoped you’d be back. That’s why I stored it in a corner of the Recycling Works warehouse.”
“Took a bit of work to clean it, though,” Mother said. “We’ve been scrubbing the flat and washing your clothes and dishes for two days!”
“Thanks, everyone – you’re the best,” Nanako said, giving Younger Sister a warm hug.
“And what did you guys do?” I said, looking at the members of Special Forces Unit.
“They helped too, believe it or not – loaded all the stuff into the truck and carried it up here,” Trajan said, before he pointed at Shorty and Leigh. “Well, except for those two jokers. They just pretended.”
“Some things never change, do they?” I laughed, slapping Leigh on the shoulder.
“Hey, how do you make a Skel laugh on a Friday?” Shorty asked.
“I don’t know, how do you make a Skel laugh on a Friday?” I asked.
“Tell him a joke on Monday.”
There was a collective groan from those who knew Shorty. I just rustled his hair and moved on. Surely he’d run out of material one day.
My mother touched my arm gently. “Some things never change, but the town, the chancellor and the Custodians – that’s all changed now, hasn’t it, Son?”
“Yes, Mother. The chancellor’s reign of terror is finally over, as are the days of Custodian brutality. Things are going to be different here from now on. And when the quarantine’s over, we’ll even be free to travel to other towns.” I took her hands in mine, gave them a gentle squeeze, and added quietly, “And no more waiting on the menfolk from the doorway at mealtimes. Everyone can eat together now.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” she said, embarrassed.
Yes, it was going to take some time to deprogram everyone from the Founders’ forcibly imposed traditions. But we’d get there.
I saw my father open the sliding glass door and step onto the balcony. Recalling how he had always been a one-eyed supporter of the Founders’ ways and his disapproval of me joining the resistance movements, I wondered if I should risk talking to him.
“Need some emotional support?” Nanako indicated my father with a nod and linked her arm through mine.
“Sure. And kick me if I get angry and go off on a tangent because I can’t get through to him. I can count on one hand how many times we’ve had a civil argument that didn’t descend into a muck-slinging fest.”
“You’re too much like him, that’s the problem.”
“Please don’t say that. I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be like him.”
“He has his good points too – you’re just too busy focusing on your conflict with him to notice them.”
“You lecturing me again?” I tried to frown disapprovingly.
She punched me on the arm with her free hand. “You better believe it.”
I sucked in a deep breath to prepare for the coming confrontation, and with my wife on my arm, stepped outside and joined my father on the balcony.
He turned to appraise us and scowled when he saw the stripes on my sleeve.
“So, you’re a Custodian captain now? What’s that – an honorary reward for backstabbing the chancellor and deposing him?”
“I never stopped being a Custodian once they conscripted me, Father. I’ve been working undercover for Captain Smithson to save Newhome. To save the town from external threats, he sent me out to destroy the combined Skel and Ranger menace. To save the town from internal threats, yes, I had to help overthrow the chancellor.”
“Threat? What threat? Just because you disagreed with the Founders’ teachings and policies, and the way in which the chancellor interpreted them, you considered him a threat? You’re such a fool, Son, and too young to have even an inkling of what you’re doing. Do you have any idea of what you’ve done by helping destroy this society? The only one designed to survive in this post-apocalyptic world?”
“Father! Why are you so stubborn? Every time we disagree on something you reject my viewpoint out of spite, don’t you?”
“Ethan!” Nanako snapped, kicking me gently on the shin. “Stay objective.”
“Sorry.” I exhaled deeply to let out some steam. I turned back to my father. “The reason we rebelled against the chancellor that night, Father, was because he and the Koreans were quitting the town the next morning, taking with them the town’s best engineers, doctors, and geneticists.”
“And that was your justification to attack them and cause all that bloodshed?”
“No. If that were all, we would have happily let them go. But you see, they were going to take the sub with them. Do you know what would have happened to the town without electricity?”
The rigid expression of disdain that framed my father’s face cracked and fell away, piece by piece.
“Not only that,” Nanako added softly. “Father, on the morning the chancellor tried to quit the town, they were about to release a genetically engineered virus that would have rendered all non-Korean males unable to have children.”
My father’s shoulders slumped. “So you’re saying you didn’t spy for the Japanese?”
“No.”
“And that you really were working with the Custodians all this time?”
“Yes.”
He snorted derisively. “You expect me to treat you like a genuine hero now, then?”
“E
veryone in this town who persevered under the tyranny of the chancellor’s regime is a hero.”
My father was quiet for a couple of minutes. “Leave me alone now – I want some time to myself.
Nanako gave my hand a strong tug, so we quietly slipped back into our flat, leaving my father to his thoughts.
“Think we got through to him this time?” I said.
She glanced over her shoulder, then nodded. “I think we did. Now come on, let’s mingle. Everyone else in here’s in a partying mood. This is the first time I’ve seen an atmosphere like this in Newhome.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. “You sure you don’t mind being stuck in this town for three years?”
“Doofus. I already told you I was happy to live here for the rest of our lives. That we can come and go as we please after the quarantine’s lifted – that’s a bonus.”
“Make sure it’s more coming than going,” said my younger sister as she threw her arms around us.
“Okay.” I ruffled her long hair.
“And have some kids, eh? I want to be an aunt and babysit when you need a break.”
A pang of longing flashed through Nanako’s eyes, and no doubt mine as well, but we quickly suppressed it. We couldn’t have our own children, but nothing was stopping us from adopting some orphans.
Chapter Twenty-Five
~ Chelsea Thomas ~
Three months had passed since the night of the revolution. After picking up Ryan and Romy from the hospital, Bhagya and I drove them to the Recycling Works in a modified G-Wagon with a larger tray at the back – perfect for carrying supplies and in this case, a wheelchair.
We helped Ryan disembark and get into the chair and then made our way through the outer yard and into the massive warehouse itself.
Bhagya and I had recovered completely from our wounds some time ago, but the other two hadn’t been so fortunate. Romy had a noticeable limp and required a walking stick to get around. The doctors were astounded by the speed of her recovery and predicted full range of movement to her leg after another operation or two.
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