"What are you gonna do with us?" Nanako demanded from Ram-Horns as we prepared to get out of the truck.
"Brand you and stick you in the fields - now get off the truck and into the Com Centre," he growled, before suddenly grabbing her by the upper arm. "You should've racked off when you had the chance, sheila, you're gonna regret comin' here."
Nanako yanked her arm from his grasp and helped me get out of the truck. Shorty and David jumped down to join us, then Ram-Horns and his companion jumped down too. They pushed us out from behind the back of the truck and shoved us impatiently towards the community centre building.
That's when I noticed the big black 4WD parked on the other side of the road and the five Asian soldiers wearing military camo-fatigues standing beside it. However, in my fevered state I didn't realise the significance of this until one of the soldiers, who wore the stripes of a sergeant, suddenly strode angrily towards us, shouting at Ram-Horns at the top of his voice. "Woah, woah, woah, hold it right there, Skel."
"What now, Jap?" Ram-Horns growled back belligerently, clearly offended.
"What on earth are Hamamachi Rangers doing here?" Nanako whispered to me in shock.
I looked at the Rangers in renewed interest, and then I jolted as though I'd been struck - these five Rangers wore the exact same military camo-fatigues as did the dead man in my seizure-evoked memory. And that sent my head spinning. Could that young man have been one of the men in my Ranger squad that been wiped out two years ago? Nanako said they'd all been shot, and that man had been shot.
I could ponder these thoughts all day and not work out what they meant, so I cleared my mind and wondered why these particular Rangers were standing so casually in the midst of a Skel settlement. Councillor Okada said the Japanese shot Skel on sight, so what was this then?
"We have a deal," the Ranger sergeant shouted at Ram-Horns, "You don't encroach on our lands and you don't take our people - and these four are our people."
I widened my eyes in astonishment - us four? Great, the Rangers knew who we were: fugitives wanted by Hamamachi for acts of terrorism. So if the Skel handed us over to them, they'd take us back to Hamamachi to be executed to appease their paranoia - talk about getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.
The hulking Skel glanced at us and then turned back to the Ranger. "What do you take us for, Jap? The blokes are a Chinaman and two Skips. The sheila's a Jap - we told her to rack off - but she tagged along anyway."
"That's because you nabbed her husband - not all of our citizens are of Japanese ancestry."
"So take her and the husband, but we nabbed the other two fair 'n' square," the Skel replied.
The Ranger sergeant reached Ram-Horns and looked up into his skull-adorned face while stroking his assault-rifle's trigger menacingly. "You're not listening, Skel. These four are our people - so hand them over!"
The other four Rangers moved away from the vehicle and began to saunter towards us, weapons held loosely in their hands. Seeing this, the other three Skel who had captured us hefted their weapons and walked towards the Rangers. Several other Skel, including the two guarding the community centre, noticed the confrontation and approached us too. The Rangers were now outnumbered two to one.
"They're ours, Jap, so back off before you get hurt," Ram-Horns declared emphatically.
The Ranger sergeant lifted his assault-rifle slightly. "Are you going to throw away our pact over this? Over two guys I've told you are our people? One call from me and all your Smartphones turn off - is this what you want?"
That comment hit me like a punch in the gut. The Japanese were supplying the Skel with Smartphones. But why? The Skel were evil, a blight that had terrorised Melbourne and Victoria for nearly a hundred years.
"How you gonna make that call if you're dead, Jap?" Ram-Horns threatened as he lifted his crossbow and aimed it at the Ranger sergeant. The rest of Skel aimed their crossbows and bolt-action rifles, or gripped their clubs and prepared to charge.
In response, the four supporting Rangers couched their Austeyr assault-rifles to their shoulders and sighted them at the Skel.
"This is going to get really ugly, really quickly, so get ready to duck," I whispered. My companions nodded their understanding.
Chapter Four
The Ranger sergeant suddenly lowered his gun and asked calmly, "Okay, what do you want for them?"
Ram-Horns didn't miss a beat. "Your assault-rifle."
"Try again," the sergeant replied just as quickly.
"Your pistol then."
The sergeant shrugged in agreement, slung his assault-rifle over his back, undid his pistol belt, which contained the holstered sidearm and three clips of ammo, and then handed it to the Skel.
Ram-Horns gave his crossbow to a comrade and took the gun-belt, turning it over in his hands, clearly pleased with the trade. He flicked his head towards us without even glancing in our direction. "Take 'em."
"Right, you four, get in the car," the Ranger sergeant ordered us sternly.
"We're not going back to Hamamachi, Sergeant Tamura," Nanako declared firmly. I was surprised they knew each other, but I guess I shouldn't have been, for Hamamachi was a much smaller town than Newhome.
"I didn't say you had to, Nanako. So come on, get in the car," the sergeant replied.
Nanako glanced up at me in concern, torn by indecision.
"From the look of him, Ethan needs medical attention. We have a medkit in the car," the sergeant said, "So get in and let us treat him."
"Okay! We'll come," Nanako replied grudgingly.
Not wanting to go with the Rangers, but wanting to be Skel slaves even less, we hurried to the car under the baleful glare of the Skel. We crammed into the large 4WD's back seat and the sergeant and a female corporal - the driver - got into the front. The other three Rangers jumped onto the back of the vehicle, where they stood on the large rear bumper and held onto the roof rack.
I sank into the comfortable leather seat and expired deeply, I was so glad to be off my feet finally. Still, what I really wanted to do was lie down.
The corporal turned the car around and drove slowly back the way we had come.
"We were told to keep a look out for you four after you escaped from lock-up," the sergeant explained, twisting around in his seat to talk to us. He was studying me intently as he spoke. "I have to say, though, that a Skel settlement was the last place I expected you to pop up."
"Our car ran out of petrol outside Lilydale and we were ambushed by Skel," Nanako answered brusquely.
"Okay, but who busted Jones and the other two out of lock-up?" the sergeant asked.
"I did," she replied.
"With whose help?" he pressed.
"I did it alone," she lied, covering up for Councillor Okada. "I went to Militia headquarters around midnight to see if they'd let me check on Ethan, and found the place abandoned and all the doors open."
"Oh, come on."
"I know you don't believe me, but that's what happened," she replied gruffly.
"We'll get back to this later, Nanako - I know you could not have busted them out by yourself - and you will tell me who helped you." He turned his piercing gaze to me, "You still suffer from amnesia, Jones?"
"I don't remember anything from my time in Hamamachi, if that's what you're asking," I replied through clattering teeth.
"So you don't recognise me or the others?"
I shook my head, "Sorry, no."
The corporal driving the car turned and glanced at me then, clearly troubled. She was an attractive woman in her own way, with an angular face, small eyes, and black hair tied back in a short ponytail. I must have known her too, perhaps as a friend. Blast my stupid mind and its selective amnesia - the memories were there, so why couldn’t I access them? I wanted them back, no - I needed them back.
"That's a major inconvenience, we've got a ton of unanswered questions about when you and your squad were shot two years ago," the sergeant said.
"Look, can we keep this q
uestion and answer time for when Ethan's feeling better?" Nanako interrupted curtly. "His wound's infected and he's burning with fever."
"We'll get to that shortly, Nanako, we just need to put some distance between us and the Skel first. They're like wild dogs, they'll lick your hand one minute and bite it off the next," the sergeant replied.
"The Skel are the common enemies of all free peoples, so how come you've shacked up with them?" I asked none too kindly.
"We've come to a beneficial arrangement."
"Which is what, exactly? What do you give them in return for them keeping off Hamamachi lands?"
"Sorry, that’s confidential," the sergeant replied nervously. Was he afraid I'd remember something incriminating of this deal?
The corporal turned off the highway and entered a side street, after which she took two more turns and then drove into the ruins of an early twenty-first century industrial complex, where the factory and warehouses were constructed from prefab concrete walls. She drove into one of the warehouses, driving over chunks of concrete and the remains of sheet-aluminium and plastic roof sections which littered the warehouse floor.
The corporal parked the vehicle and turned to face us. "Right, everyone but Ethan out, I need to treat his wound."
David and Shorty clambered out their respective doors immediately while the corporal fetched the medkit from the front passenger seat's door.
Remaining in the car, Nanako held out her hand for the medkit. "I'll treat him," she said testily.
The corporal seemed hurt. "What's all this animosity, Nana-chan?"
"Oh spare me, Reina, you expect me to treat you civilly after we find you in bed with the Skel?"
"Our deal with the Skel was arranged to protect our town and its citizens," the corporal said. "Now, please, let me treat your husband."
"I said I'll treat him," Nanako snapped, refusing to budge an inch.
Sergeant Tamura stuck his head in the car, interrupting the girls' argument. "Nanako, can you step out of the vehicle please? I want you to fill me in on what happened in Hamamachi yesterday. Don't worry about Ethan; Corporal Sato is more than qualified to tend to his medical needs."
I squeezed Nanako's hand, "Go on, I'll be fine."
Nanako frowned but hopped out of the large 4WD and went with the sergeant.
The corporal squeezed through the gap between the car's front seats and sat beside me in the back. She opened the medkit, donned sterile gloves, and carefully unwound the soiled bandage that was around my head. She was a lot younger than I thought, perhaps no more than a year or two older than me.
"You don’t remember me, do you?" she asked while she worked.
"No. Should I?"
"We did a few missions together - I'm Reina Sato."
"Sorry, that whole year's one big blank," I told her as she cleaned the wound with an antiseptic lotion and put on clean dressings.
"And yet you've been re-united with Nanako, I see," she commented with what appeared to be disapproval or disappointment, or both. She rolled up my right sleeve, swabbed the skin and gave me a shot of antibiotics. After that came an oral dose of painkillers to lower the fever.
"Nanako and Councillor Okada came to Newhome two weeks ago to broker a trade agreement - that's when we got back together."
"She certainly moves fast, that Nanako," she said as she rolled my sleeve back down.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" I asked, annoyed.
She sighed. "Look, don't take this the wrong way, but out of all the girls in Hamamachi who had the hots for you, I could never figure out why you chose her - and then married her so quickly."
"What are you talking about? She's the most amazing and wonderful person I've ever met," I snapped.
"And you've known her, what, a whole two weeks? You know, because of your amnesia and all."
Although I took umbrage to her attack on Nanako, there was something in her gaze that led me to wonder if she was one of those girls in Hamamachi who had the 'hots' for me. I could have told her I remembered the first time I met Nanako, but I'd told Nanako I wouldn't tell anyone my memories were returning. "You can learn a lot about someone in two weeks," I said.
Reina grabbed a blanket from behind the back seat and wrapped it around me.
"She hasn't told you, has she?" she asked softly.
"Told me what?"
"What happened to her after the Custodians dumped her back in Hamamachi two years ago."
"She said she couldn’t get another lift back to Newhome until two weeks ago."
She shook her head. "I'm not talking about that."
"Then what are you talking about?"
She lowered her gaze.
"Just come out and say it already," I insisted.
"Sorry," she said sadly as she met my piercing gaze and held up her hands. "I shouldn’t be the one to tell you."
I glared at her - what on earth could she be referring to? What had happened to Nanako that was so bad she wouldn't tell me about it? But then I remembered Councillor Okada's parting words to me, to take good care of Nanako because she wasn't as tough as she seemed. But whatever it was, Nanako would tell me about it when she was ready.
"Look, sorry if I spoke out of turn, but it's something you need to know, and I had this sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t have told you, that's all. But hey, enough of that. Have a drink to rehydrate yourself and then get some sleep. We need to break that fever, okay?"
I wasn't sure if she was genuinely sorry or was just trying to placate me after planting such destructive thoughts in my head, but at any rate, there was something else I needed to know, so I reached out and touched her sleeve, delaying her departure. "I want to ask you something."
"Go ahead."
"What's this deal you've made with the Skel?"
"Sorry, I'm not at liberty to discuss it."
"Really? Then who is? And who made the deal - was it the Hamamachi Council or just the Rangers?"
"They're not as bad as you think, you know," she said defensively.
"Who, the Skel? Or the fools in Hamamachi who made this deal with them?" I asked, trying to goad her.
"The Skel," she answered. "Did you know that upon reaching the age of eighteen, their children have to pass a gruelling, painful initiation ritual to be allowed to join one of their tribes, which they call chapters, by the way - and that if they fail the ritual they are expelled from the chapter for good?"
"You think that's good?"
"It's all about the survival of the fittest - each chapter wants to be as strong as it can be, which means they can't afford to allow the weak to pull the chapter down."
"It's barbaric, Corporal. Humans are not animals who abandon their weak and sick - all humans are all of equal value."
"That kind of thinking will just get you killed out here in the ruins, Ethan. And yes, I see how they seem barbaric to you, but when you get to know them, you learn to respect them. Did you know that after being accepted into a chapter, the new Skel warrior spends the next one to two years making his body armour out of two or three human skeletons? They even have a factory that hardens the bones by treating them with a resin that makes them bulletproof."
"None of that changes the fact that they are psychotic murderers and slavers," I said, appalled that Reina - that anyone - could respect the Skel so.
"Didn't think I would get through to you, but it was worth a shot," she said with a weak smile. "Now seriously, get some sleep, okay?"
I wanted to talk more, but I was so sleepy that I couldn't think clearly. I glugged down the offered bottle of water, lay down on the car's seat and was soon lost in nightmares from a shallow, feverish sleep.
Sometime later I became aware of Nanako sitting beside me and holding my hand. I tried to ask her what the sergeant wanted to talk to her about, but I couldn’t get the words out.
I had a temporal lobe seizure during the night too, mixed somewhere amongst the nightmares. The image from memory that accompanied the seizure was of me with
a group of Japanese young men and woman in a crowded restaurant. Nanako wasn't there, but Reina Sato was, although she was not in uniform. However, something about the memory troubled me, and there were traces of anger associated with it.
Great - another memory fragment from a puzzle that was missing most of its pieces. It did confirm, however, what Reina had said - we knew each other when I was in Hamamachi.
Chapter Five
The fever broke sometime in the early morning hours, after which I got a couple of hours of deep sleep that were not plagued by nightmares of twisted, dark ruins haunted by Skel.
When I woke, Nanako was beside me. "You're looking a bit better," she said with a smile as she handed me a bottle of water.
"And about time too," I said and then sculled the drink. My muscles ached all over, especially in my back. The good news, however, was that the bullet wound in my head no longer burned and the headache was gone. I pushed myself slowly upright. "We're still in the warehouse," I remarked with surprise as I looked out the car's windows. "I thought they'd have taken us to Hamamachi by now."
"The sergeant's been talking to Yamada Kenji, the Ranger colonel, but he wouldn't tell us what they’ve decided to do with us until you woke up."
" I see. Did I know this colonel well?"
"You were his protégé, you know. He was so impressed with you that he was teaching you everything he knew. He was devastated when you were shot, and never stopped pestering me when you were in hospital, hoping you'd remembered something about who shot you."
The car door was wrenched open and Sergeant Tamura stuck his head in. "Feeling better, I see."
"A lot better than yesterday," I assured him. "Can you please tell me what's going to happen to us?"
"We're going to take you four back to Newhome," he said, as though it was the only option.
"You what?" both Nanako and I exclaimed together.
"I've been on the phone with Colonel Yamada, and he seems to think the sun rises and sets in your behind, Jones. He's told us to restore you to health and then take you lot back home - I presume that's where you were headed."
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 25
