Forager - the Complete Trilogy (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Trilogy)

by Peter R Stone

  "Have you ever been late before?" I asked, hoping against hope that she was wrong.

  "Never, I’m as regular as clockwork." Hope shone in her eyes.

  "Still, we don’t know for sure, right?" I asked, trying to find any slim chance she might not be pregnant. If she was, and it ended in a miscarriage, that miscarriage would be the death knell of our marriage, and I didn't want to face that now. I'd been hoping she wouldn't get pregnant again for many months, if not years, so I could stay with her as long as possible before I had to leave her.

  Nanako frowned, hurt. "You don’t seem too happy about it. What’s going on, Ethan? I thought you’d be delighted, considering what happened last time?"

  I grabbed her hands and tried my best to give her a reassuring smile. "Well of course I’m happy, and excited to boot, but I just wanna make sure, that’s all. I mean, we’re not exactly in a good place to deal with a pregnancy right now, you know what I mean?"

  "Oh," she said, breathing out a large sigh of relief, "Is that all that’s troubling you?"

  "Absolutely," I half-fibbed. Truly, this was the last place on earth anyone would want to have a baby.

  "Well, I’ve been thinking about that, and I know we haven’t finished our mission and all, but...I...I can’t stay here, not if I’m pregnant. ‘Cause this time I have to do everything right. I need a balanced diet, folic acid and regular checkups at the hospital." She stopped and searched my eyes, seeing if I was on the same page.

  I forced myself to nod, to agree, even though I knew that if she was pregnant and Madison was right, there was nothing she or any doctor could do to bring this pregnancy to term.

  "Sorry, I could not help but overhear your conversation," Madison said as she walked too casually over to join us.

  I looked at her and panicked, my heart smashing away like a sledgehammer. Was she gonna tell Nanako what she’d told me? I glared at her and gave my head a tiny shake, hoping she’d get my drift.

  Madison gave me a sickly sweet smile and turned to Nanako. "I can check if you are pregnant, if you like."

  "How?" Nanako asked, surprised.

  "With flash sonar, of course."

  "You can use it like that?"

  "Sure can."

  "Ah, okay," Nanako said, nodding hesitantly. "Do you need me to lie down or something?"

  "No, just stand still for a moment."

  Nanako complied, so Madison knelt before her and let off several strings of ultrasonic musical notes over her midriff. And in between these bursts of flash sonar, she whispered to me below Nanako’s hearing, "You still have not told her, have you, Jones?"

  "Of course not – you could be wrong," I whispered back.

  "I am not wrong. You have to tell her."

  "I will."

  "When?"

  "That’s for me to decide!"

  Madison regained her feet and flashed what could possibly be classified as a smile. "Congratulations, Nanako. You are about five or six weeks pregnant."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "But how can you tell?" Nanako asked as she ran her hands over her stomach, wonderment framing her face.

  "I have...had experience with these sorts of things before. We echolocaters are like living ultrasound machines," Madison replied carefully.

  Nanako whirled around and took my hands in hers. "Ethan, I am pregnant, did you hear? Isn’t that just wonderful?"

  I threw my arms around her and chanted to myself, Madison could be wrong. "That’s awesome, Nana-chan."

  I realised then that Nanako was right; we couldn’t stay here. If there was even the slightest chance that doctors could make this pregnancy work, we had to take that chance. This baby was our highest priority right now. At the very least, I had to get Nanako somewhere she could get the proper medical attention, and then I could come back here and finish the job of catching the Rangers. "And you're right, we have to leave. But where can we go? Hamamachi’s off limits, and so is Inverloch."

  "What about Ballarat?" Nanako suggested. "That’s a pretty good-sized town, right? They'll have doctors and gynaecologists and a hospital?"

  "From what their foragers told me, I expect so, yeah."

  "Hold fire for a moment," Madison interrupted coldly. "You two are going to up and leave in the middle of the mission just because she’s pregnant?"

  "I lost my last baby. I’m not losing this one too," Nanako replied.

  "I am sorry to hear that, but your baby is one life, and this mission will determine the fate of everyone who lives in Newhome. More, it will affect the lives of everyone in Victoria. And do not get me started on the effort it took to get here and what has transpired because of it. Do you want that all to be for nothing? Do you want to be responsible for the death of everyone in Newhome? Not to mention how common it is for pregnancies to miscarry in their early days."

  "Now come on, that’s unfair," I protested, almost tripping over my words. I'd almost squeaked in shock when Madison mentioned miscarriages: I thought for a moment she was about to tell Nanako what she'd told me.

  "Talk her into staying or I'll tell her what you will not – that she will have a miscarriage – and then she will resign herself to remaining as long as is necessary," Madison said softly.

  "Don't threaten me, Madison," I whispered back angrily.

  "Look, I know you can't count on a pregnancy in the early days, but after what happened last time, I've got to do this pregnancy right. I owe it to this little one. So why don’t we give it a few more days," Nanako said after a moment’s thought.

  "And if there is still no sign of the Rangers after that?" Madison prompted.

  "We can talk about it again then. I mean, they have to come soon, right?" Nanako pleaded.

  "Do they?" was Madison’s spiteful reply as she locked eyes with me.

  "Okay, we stay a few more days, and then we'll discuss it again," I said, siding with Nanako while clenching and unclenching my fists. The timing for Nanako getting pregnant couldn’t have been worse! This was a disaster.

  Later that night when we were in bed, Nanako took my right hand and placed it on her belly. "I know I shouldn't get my hopes up this early in the piece, but it's hard not to, you know? Can you believe there's a little life in here, that's half-me and half-you?"

  "I know, right?" I tried to sound authentically delighted, but I felt like I was being torn apart on the inside. I could see her hope and determination to see this pregnancy through, but if Madison was right, she would not only lose this baby, but me as well. But losing me was good, right? She'd remarry and then her desire to have her own kids would be fulfilled.

  I just had to find a way to tell her the truth before she got her hopes up too high. But I was still terrified out of my wits about how she'd react if I told her the bad news. I mean, on one hand, if I didn't tell her and she lost the child, she woud be heartbroken. So surely I should warn her now and prepare her for this eventuality. That way she wouldn't get her hopes up and be destroyed by disappointment when it happened. But if I did tell her, she might become so disillusioned it could trigger another depressive episode. So either way, she'd be distraught, but which was worse?

  "You still don't sound too pleased about all this, Ethan," Nanako said after a moment.

  Blast, but did she have to read me like a book? "Oh, I am," I replied. "I've just got so much on my mind. I mean, we have to save Newhome – we have to catch the Rangers making another delivery of refugees, and we have to do that within a week."

  "They'll come. They have to," Nanako assured me as she wrapped her arms around my chest. "Now stop worrying about it, okay? Things'll turn out all right. You'll see."

  "Yeah," I agreed, though with far less conviction than I should have.

  The next five days crawled by at a snail's pace. I spent half my time in the small bedroom watching for any sign of the Rangers, but the inconsiderate scumbags wouldn't show.

  And my attitude didn't improve any, either. Every time I saw Nanako, smiling and hopeful, pondering a be
tter future, my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. All I could see was a future in which Nanako lost this child and we divorced because of it. I tried to keep those thoughts from my mind, but they haunted me twenty-four seven, and they were driving me insane.

  That Wednesday evening, the sun was low on the horizon and the shadows were long. David was upstairs on watch while the rest of us were down in the lounge room eating raw vegetables we'd stolen from the market gardens the previous night.

  And then, Madison went and opened her big mouth. "Right, I want to know," she began, looking pointedly at Nanako and me. "It has been almost a week and no sign of the Rangers, so, what are you two planning on doing?"

  "I want to go to Ballarat." Nanako glanced at me.

  "When?" Madison demanded.

  "I want to leave on Friday," she replied.

  "In two days? I cannot believe you are still thinking along those lines!" Madison said angrily. "As I said before, the mission must take priority over your pregnancy."

  "I'm sorry, but I have to give this little one priority, I just have to," Nanako said hesitantly.

  Madison sighed deeply, and put down the carrot she'd been munching on. "This has gone on long enough, Jones. Will you tell her, or shall I?"

  Everyone fell still, and my face blanched with fear. I glanced unsurely at Nanako.

  "Tell me what?" Nanako demanded, looking between Madison and me.

  "Well?" Madison said.

  "Can we go somewhere private to talk, Nana-chan?" I asked.

  "Don’t worry, we’ll go," Leigh said. He grabbed Shorty and the two of them traipsed upstairs. Annoyingly, Madison remained.

  "Well?" Nanako prompted.

  With my face burning and my stomach churning, I began to explain. "Madison told me that the geneticists in Newhome did tests on all the biologically engineered girls and came to the conclusion that us genetically engineered humans cannot procreate with normals, that our DNA is incompatible."

  "But I'm pregnant. And for the second time, so their conclusion is wrong," Nanako pointed out.

  "You miscarried last time, and you will this time too," Madison said bluntly.

  "You can't know that," Nanako stated angrily.

  "I can and I do," Madison replied, though a little more sensitively this time. "They conducted trials on a dozen of us. We were impregnated two or three times each, and although the germination was successful, all pregnancies resulted in miscarriages between the six to twelve-week mark. Subsequent tests confirmed that we biologically engineered people can only reproduce with our own kind."

  Nanako's expression suddenly changed, from one of protestation, to one of unbridled anger. "Ethan, how long have you known this?"

  "A little while," I stammered, withering beneath her accusing stare.

  "Almost four weeks," Madison interrupted, and with no small amount of satisfaction. She was enjoying watching the trouble she was creating between Nanako and me.

  "You've known about this for four weeks and you kept it to yourself?" Nanako asked as she stood and looked down at me.

  "I...I didn't want to worry you."

  "You didn't want to worry me? Which is worse, do you think? Letting me run around for nigh on a week, excited and hopeful because I'm pregnant, when all along you knew it'd result in a miscarriage. Or telling me the truth so I could face up to what's gonna happen before it does?"

  "But..." I stammered as I stood too.

  David and Leigh moved slowly away from us, heading for the kitchen. Shorty, on the other hand was watching everything with morbid fascination.

  "But what?" she snapped.

  "You've been through so much lately and I didn't want to trouble you with this. I mean, what if Madison's wrong?"

  Nanako suddenly poked me in the forehead with her forefinger and snapped, "Wrong answer!"

  I looked down into her beautiful face, marred by fury and resentment, and I hurt for her. I had so wanted to shield her from the pain this knowledge could cause. "Look, Nana-chan, I'm really sorry..."

  "I don't wanna hear it, Ethan! I can't believe you kept a secret this big from me. What other secrets like this are you hiding?"

  "What? None! And besides, you're not exactly one to talk about hiding secrets, are you?" I shot back.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You didn't tell me about the first pregnancy, remember? I only found out about that because Reina told me."

  "You can't compare that to what you've done."

  "And why not? It was a pretty big secret, don't you think?"

  "That was something that'd already happened, it was in the past. But this information affects me right here and now – and our whole future. You knew I was gonna lose this baby, and that we could never have kids, and you didn't even tell me!"

  "I was going to tell you, I was just looking for the right time..."

  "The right time was when Madison told you."

  I hung my head in shame, feeling completely lost about what to do. Nanako was ropeable – nothing I was saying was calming her in the slightest. I had held back the knowledge because I was trying to protect her, but that had backfired big time.

  Nanako threw up her hands and strode purposefully to the kitchen.

  I just stood there, helpless. Perhaps I needed to give her time to cool down?

  "So Nanako," Madison said just before Nanako left the room. "You will be staying now, right? You know, since there is no longer any reason for you to leave?"

  Nanako glanced briefly at her and then hurried through the doorway. I heard her stomp through the kitchen and bash open the aluminium back door that led into the backyard.

  I made the mistake then of sending a fleeting look in Madison's direction. Seeing her standing there, mightily pleased with herself, made me want to shove her right through the wall this time. But recalling Nanako's recent rebuke tempered my reaction, I went upstairs to relieve David, who was on watch.

  David looked up from where he was kneeling beside the window. "You okay, mate?"

  "Don't want to talk about it." I slumped down beside him.

  "I couldn’t help but overhear," he said kindly.

  I looked down the street at the community centre and at the handful of Skel who milled about in front of it. "I...I just want what's best for her, that's all," I admitted softly.

  David laid a comforting hand on my forearm. "I know you do, and she'll realise that too. Just give her time."

  "Man, I hope you're right. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Damned if I told her, damned if I didn't."

  David gave my arm a reassuring squeeze.

  "Go on, I'll take the watch now," I said.

  David scampered off downstairs and I sat beside the window, my left arm resting on the windowsill, and I lamented my troubles. I thought of Nanako, and of all the pain and suffering she went through when she lost her first baby, and of her recent depressive episode and panic attacks, and I felt both angry and miserable. Angry that life had dealt us this unreasonable, unfair card, and miserable because of the situation Nanako was in right now. I wanted to go to her, to help her through this, but since I was the 'enemy' at this particular juncture in time, there'd be no point. I wished there was some kind of manual newlywed guys could consult in situations like this to guide them. I wished Michal was here. He'd know what to say, he'd know what to do.

  I thought I could sit through the four hours of my watch, but knowing Nanako was down in the backyard, trying to work through this alone was too much. I didn't even last an hour before I went looking for Shorty to replace me so I could go to Nanako and try to set things right between us.

  Night had fallen and it was pitch black in the house, but I found Shorty sitting on the stairs, playing the drums.

  "Shorty..."

  "She's in the backyard."

  "Right."

  "She's been crying a lot," he added.

  "Oh? Say, can you take over my watch? I'll make it up to you."

  "No worries," he said, and scampered
up the stairs.

  I skipped down the stairs two at a time, and almost bumped headfirst into Madison, who was standing in the lounge room’s doorway.

  "Jones?"

  "What do you want?" I snapped angrily. I hadn’t the time nor the patience to stand here bantering with her, I just wanted to go to Nanako.

  "I want to talk to you."

  "Not now."

  "Why, is there somewhere you have to be right now?"

  "Okay, what is it?" I demanded as I leaned back against the wall.

  "I want you to get everyone together so I can talk to you all at the same time."

  "About?"

  "Let us wait until we are together..."

  "No," I interrupted rudely, "Tell me now."

  "Very well. It seems that we will be staying here now until the Rangers show up, but we cannot afford to sit here, idle, while the Skel continue to besiege Newhome."

  "We’ve already discussed this," I said.

  She held up her hands, a gesture I could see since we were both, by habit, echolocating while talking. "I know, but I have had an idea that will stop the Skel from blaming the slaves for our acts of sabotage."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "And that is?"

  "When we carry out our next raid on the Skel, we do it during daylight. And you and I will wear our Custodian uniforms and we will make sure the Skel see us before we slip away."

  I shook my head. "The answer is still no, Madison. The Skel could still leap to the conclusion that we have been in contact with the slaves – and they’d be right – and we’d be right back to Skel executing slaves in an attempt to make ‘em talk."

  "Jones..."

  "I said no!"

  "Some leader you are." She said as she turned to walk away, but paused at the last moment, and added, "And some husband, too."