by Andy Graham
Set in a future with parallels to life in the 21st century, A Mother's Unreason is Book Two of The Misrule series. Part political thriller, part dystopian fiction, part sci-fi action novel, it is a compelling, morally ambiguous tale from British author Andy Graham.
Can Rose Franklin right the wrongs in her own past to save her family’s future? Read on to find out.
The cast of A Brother’s Secret
The Settlements/ Free Towns/ Bucket Towns
Tear
Ray Franklin – corporal in the 10th Legion
Rose Franklin – Ray’s mother
Donarth Taille (deceased) – Ray’s father (born in Axeford)
Frederick ‘Rick’ Franklin (missing) – Ray’s maternal grandfather
Stann Taille – Ray’s paternal grandfather (born in Axeford)
Lenka Zemlicka – Ray’s neighbour & surrogate Aunt
Ben/ ‘Latch’ – a small boy from the village
Axeford
Skovsky (deceased) – member of the 10th Legion
Tino Martinez – former 10th legionnaire, now a cleaner in the Kickshaw in the capital.
New Town
Baris Orr – sub-corporal in the 10th Legion
The Gates
Ailan (The capital city of Ailan) and other cities
Bethina Laudanum – the president
The vice-president
David Prothero – Spokesperson for the Unions (born in New Town)
Reza Aalok – captain in the 10th Legion
Ernest Hamid – sergeant in the 10th Legion
Jamerson Nascimento – sub-corporal in the 10th Legion
Stella Swann – doctor/ medical researcher
Dan Swann - Stella’s husband
Lynn - manager of The Kickshaw
James Lind – professor/ chief scientist at camp X517
James Avery – researcher at camp X517 (born in a Free Town)
Joanna Miescher – researcher at camp X517
Wu-Brocker – dermatologist/ former clinical lead of camp X517
The medi-sec – military hospital administrator
Neufeld - doctor/ clinical lead therapist surgeon colonel (PhD. BAMF!)
Wilson - police sergeant
The Famulus – leader of the Ward (the secret society)
Willa Chester – General of the Ailan Army
James - Sci-Captain from Sci-Corps
The Donian Mountains
Karlyne Brooke – corporal in the 10th Legion
Kaleyne - one of the Elders
Eleyka - one of the Elders
Karaan - one of the Elders
Lukaz - leader of the Hoyden (a group of rebels and misfits within the Donian tribes)
The Ailan Military
The 10th Legion
Captain Reza Aalok
Sergeant Ernest Hamid
Corporal Karlyne Brooke
Corporal Ray Franklin
Sub-corporal Jamerson Nascimento
Sub-corporal Baris Orr
Skovsky (deceased)
Martinez (military veteran)
non 10th Legion
General Willa Chester
Clinical Lead Therapist Surgeon Colonel Doctor Neufeld (PhD!)
Sci-Captain James
A note about this edition
This book was first published as Franklin: A Brother in Search of Himself. (The Lords of Misrule: Book Two)
This 2018 edition has been re-edited and re-covered. Some of the places within the series have been renamed.
The story remains the same: a brother in search of himself.
Copyright and Disclaimer
Copyright © Andrew Graham 2015
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters in it and real people, events or organisations is entirely co-incidental.
A MOTHER’S UNREASON
The Misrule: Book Two
1
Bait
Ray Franklin collapsed against a tree trunk, narrowly missing the small bodies huddled under his camouflage cloak. His breath came in steaming gasps. He closed his eyes and forced his aching muscles to relax. One of the shapes whimpered. Ray stroked the boy’s hair. The other child was still snoring. They would rest here, just a minute. Just one.
Part of the darkness detached itself from a rock. Nose twitching ever higher, it lumbered towards an ancient wolfbark tree. The tree had bullied its way towards the sky long ago and was sucking the light out of the clearing. Jagged, yellow fingernails twisted through the creeping ivy on the branches. The shadow snapped a leaf off, sniffed it and headed deeper into the forest.
The bark was biting into the back of Ray’s head.
“Wake up, don’t sleep! Not now, please, not now.”
He dragged himself out of the warm embrace of the sleep he craved, ignored the childlike whispers in his ears that it would all be OK, and forced his eyes open.
“Life is never OK unless you make it OK.” He pushed himself upright, gritting his teeth. The muscles around the back injury that had never fully healed refused to relax. The little finger on his left hand was numb. Something burned in the back of his shoulder, too. That was new. Whatever the ache was, it hadn’t been there before he’d dozed off.
“Stop whinging. Get a move on. Focus.”
There was still a chance to outrun this thing.
The two small shapes lay curled up together at his feet, sleeping peacefully in the decaying leaves. The kids had burrowed into each other, a bundle of arms and legs. One had tousled blonde hair, the other’s was a messy brown that would have had the military barbers’ fingers twitching. They had the look of absolute peace children have when sleeping. It was a total contrast to the relentless energy that poured out of them in torrents when they were awake.
Was this how my brother and I looked before we were separated? The thought slipped into his brain from nowhere.
“Stop it.” The words felt odd, alone in this forest with no one else to hear them. “Get the kids to the drop-off point. Clear up the mess you’ve made. Then you can deal with your own past.”
Shaking the fatigue out of his head, and the feeling into his hand, Ray gathered the children into his arms.
It stooped to pick up a broken stick, touched the wood to its tongue and loped into the darkness. As it moved away, the forest animals crept out into the open, chattering in high-pitched noises.
Branches slapped at Ray’s face. Roots, greasy with dew, threatened to trip him. One child was slung over his shoulder, the older one, the boy, clung to his back. He didn’t know how long he’d been stumbling through the trees. His legs seemed like they belonged to someone else, someone old and drunk. He shifted the children around, carrying both on his shoulders, then one on each hip. The boy even woke long enough to walk a little, but they were getting slower.
The figure collapsed to its knees, branches cracking. It tore at hair that was no longer on its scalp. Fingernails left fresh gouges amongst the old scars. Swollen red flesh peeled off its scalp and dropped onto the mossy floor. A raised disc embedded into the flesh of its wrist beeped. The figure traced a fingertip over the flashing green light that gleamed pinkly under the skin. A voice was begging for forgiveness. A human voice it no longer recognised. “I’m not an animal. I’m not an it. I’m a he. A man. I’m a man. I don’t want to end up like the monster that lives under the Donian Mountains, an abomination used to scare the children into behaving. Let me go. Let me free.”
The light stayed green. He sat back on his haunches and scrubbed the tears off his grimy face. “I won’t do it.” He pulled at the metal implant bolted to his skull behind his ear
. “Damn you to the seven hells, I won’t do it.”
The light changed to amber.
“No, no, no! Please no.”
Started flashing.
“It. Not he. It.” The words broke off into moans.
It stood and crashed through a line of bushes.
Ray stopped to get his bearings and lay the children down. He rolled onto his back, rested his legs up against a tree trunk and shook them. He was hoping it would flush the life back into them. It had never worked in the past, but right now, he’d try anything. Hope meant survival. The dense canopy of leaves above him blocked out most of the sky. The leaves rustled, exposing tantalising glimpses of inky blue. A single star flashed out of a skull-shaped hole in the clouds. “Maybe this is the constellation I need,” he whispered. “Maybe—”
“—this is the constellation you need,” said Lieutenant Cole, their Natural Navigation instructor from Sci-Corps. She tapped the screen with a finger that was more joint than bone.
“She’s got the physique of a stand lamp,” Nascimento whispered. “Do you think her uniform is holding her together?”
The instructor, seemingly mistaking Nascimento’s bass rumble of a voice for Ray’s, shot him a look. “This is the constellation you need,” she repeated. “The Jester always points north.” She circled it with her laser pointer. “It must be important because it’s underlined in red.”
The class of legionnaires laughed politely, all except Nascimento. He carried on carving Skovsky’s name into the plastic desk.
“Line the Jester up with the Little Cleaver, and you’re good to go,” said the lieutenant.
“Better that than lining myself up with her little cleavage. She’s so uptight, it’s a wonder she doesn’t crack a rib every time she farts,” Nascimento mumbled to Ray, who let out an involuntary snigger.
The chitter of an animal off to one side broke through the memories. Ray was in the Weeping Woods with two young children, not giggling like school kids with Jamerson Nascimento in the training room. He rolled onto his haunches and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
Lieutenant Cole had finally lost her temper that day. She’d hauled Ray to the front of the class for disobedience and inattentive behaviour unbecoming a government peace diplomat (the term that had been briefly trialled as an alternative for a legionnaire). With a sly curve to her lips and the threat of a group punishment hanging over them all, she’d ordered him to demonstrate how he would find his way when lost in the wilderness with no compass or sat nav. Three minutes later, the red-faced woman had sent him back to his seat, with a warning that he was treading a fine line between cocky and clever.
Ray realised now that, like many students, the legionnaires had always listened to their teacher but not paid much attention. Never having had to use the knowledge for real, and bored by endless assessments that led nowhere and taught not much more than how to pass exams, they’d become numb to exhortations that this was important and that could save your life. The men and women of the legions had viewed the Natural Navigation exams in the same way as most exams: an end to a means. In a world that was drowning in technology, when even toilet soap dispensers in the Gates were hooked up to the internet so you never ran out, no one saw the point of stellar navigation, compasses or sextants.
Connectability was a given.
Search engines ubiquitous.
Wi-fi and battery life ranked almost as high as food and water.
A damp root was digging into his thigh. Ray stretched out his leg. Wherever he moved, the root seemed to be following him.
His mother, Rose, had taught him how to find north using the stars. He’d been young, hadn’t even hit double figures. She’d just come back from one of her long absences (six months that time) and announced it was essential he learnt stellar navigation: “Just in case inevitability catches up with us before we’re ready.”
After Lieutenant Cole had dismissed the class, the navigation skills his mother had taught him had earned him the predictable taunts and odd looks from his colleagues. The puzzled glances from the few Gate-born legionnaires hadn’t bothered him, but he had been a little put out to discover that even his colleagues from the Bucket Towns had never learnt how to navigate by the stars.
As the clouds fought in the sky and the children slept at his feet, Ray finally admitted he shouldn’t have been surprised. His childhood had been more unconventional than he could ever have imagined. His neighbour, Lenka, had provided for him better than most. But his mother’s infrequent visits had become not much more than tutorials in rebellion and post-apocalyptic survival. He hadn’t understood Rose’s reasoning. He’d just been happy to have his mother at home, never realising those skills may actually save his life and someone else’s kids’ lives, too. “That’s assuming I can catch a break and see the sky.”
His feet sank into the soft moss as he stood. Being slightly closer to the clouds wouldn’t hurry them away from the stars, but as Captain Aalok had said, “Fear had ever made the irrational rational.”
Had Rose thought that ‘inevitability catching up with them’ would include her son finding out the truth about who he was? If he met her again, he needed to ask.
There’s something else I wanted to ask. Something Professor Lind said in that secret camp, just before I broke the guy’s ribs. Something about another brother or half-brother.
Precisely what that question was had been lost in the adrenaline-fuelled rush of that night. Something he now knew he should have remembered. After the turmoil of the last few months, he wasn’t sure he was ready to remember.
The nervous peace of the night was broken by a violent crack in the distance.
This way. Over the stream.
A bushtail poked its rusty coloured snout out of a burrow. The figure lashed out with a branch and the wood cracked. The sound snapped violently through the air. The bushtail yelped. Disappeared. The man-shape ignored the scuttling sounds coming from under the ground. He stepped into the stream. He could feel the cold water lapping at his shins but not the stones under his bare feet.
“Shoes, why aren’t I wearing shoes?” He raised a callused sole out of the water. “Why doesn’t it hurt?”
His breath caught in his throat. The tendons were straining against the skin of his wrist. The amber light flashed back to green. He breathed a sigh of relief. Green meant no pain. As temporary as he had learnt this colour was, he’d take it. Before the light changed again, he thundered into the undergrowth.
The wind picked up. Branches moved around him. The forest groaned.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Ray said.
All he needed was a second. A tree bent in the breeze. The skull-shaped hole in the clouds inched open and soft light from the two moons, Lesau and Melesau, spilled onto the forest floor. The fan of lines streaked into green shadows. A series of red flashing lights sunk under the cloud cover, scouring the forest. The distant thud of a helicopter got louder. Ray shrank back against a tree trunk. The leaves around him hissed in the wind and the hole in the canopy closed.
He grimaced. Not so much as a twinkle. At this point, he was travelling more on instinct than anything else. He’d explored a lot of the Weeping Woods as a child and, over the last few months, the vast expanse of forest had become his home; a place where he could plan how to track down his own mother, and now find the kids’ mother: Dr Stella Swann.
He’d been safe up until now. The clumsy attempts by the government troops to find him had been both laughable and desperate. Their attempts had, however, taught him the violent streak the military had fostered in him was harder to bottle once it had been let free. The many wounded soldiers he’d left in his wake were testament to that. Then he’d got the message he should have ignored: a pristine piece of paper nailed to the preacher tree where he’d met President Laudanum.
It was as obvious a trap as water was wet.
Someone had known roughly where he was in the forest. That same person had realised they were unlikely to catch Ray unawar
es in the Weeping Woods. So they’d led him to the preacher tree with low-flying helicopters, bullhorns and an elaborate firework display that had scared the forest quiet.
