"Don't you think you've already done enough to us in your quest for revenge?" I demanded. "You stopped people serving Nanako in the market, you spread malicious rumours, you put racist insults on our door and dumped bags of garbage on our doorstop."
Sienna still didn't budge. "So what - she destroyed my life, don't you get it?"
"I do get it, and I've apologised to you for that, remember?" I replied in mounting frustration. And then on impulse, added, "Oh, by the way, there's something I need to tell you - you and your mother - about your brother."
"What?"
"Your brother wasn't killed by the Skel."
"Wh-what?" she stuttered, the gun dipping slightly.
"The Skel did not kill your brother," I repeated.
"But you said…" Sienna was beginning to panic. The gun dipped even further.
"I told you what Custodian Command ordered me to tell you, nothing more."
Mrs. King had been standing to the side, but on hearing this she came forward in alarm. "If that story you told us was just lies, then what really happened to my son?"
The gun was almost falling from Sienna's fingers now, so I snatched it from her hands and pushed her roughly aside, for we didn't have time for this. But as we walked past her, Sienna caught my arm and pulled me around to face her.
"Tell us – what happened to my brother?"
I was so tempted to walk away without saying another word, but I saw the anguish in her face and I realised I couldn't leave them with just that little bit of knowledge. "He wasn’t sent to Hamamachi to deliver trade goods, he was sent there on a suicide mission - a mission that failed and yet still cost him his life."
Sienna stood stock still, unable to believe what she was hearing.
"Were you there...when he died?" Mrs. King asked anxiously.
How was I going to answer that? Yeah, I was there. Having been shot a half-dozen times (by Nanako), Liam King had died clutching my foot while telling me he'd won, that he had succeeded in his assignment to destroy Hamamachi with the hydrogen bomb he had smuggled into the town.
"I was there, yeah. He died a Custodian, brave and true to the end," I said, and then with a nod to Bhagya Singhe and another to my mother and sisters, hurried Nanako out of the Courthouse and into the sunny street outside. Where we ran right into a Custodian standing on the Courthouse steps. I had the major's pistol trained on him in less than a heartbeat, but then instantly lowered it when I realised it was Sergeant Xiao.
"You sure let that go right down to the wire," he said, smiling broadly.
"Only way I could think of getting the Custodians away from her," I replied.
"So that hole in the wall is courtesy of you, eh? Yeah, I wondered about that," he laughed. "Before you trot off, though, Captain Smithson told me to tell you that a couple of squads from Delta Company is manning the Western wall's gatehouse and guard towers right now, if you get his meaning."
"I do," I replied.
The sergeant picked up a six-foot long, narrow black bag that was on the ground beside him. "Here, take this."
"What's in it?" I asked, curious.
"Run now, look later," he replied.
"Sergeant?"
"Yeah?"
"Take care of yourself."
"Will do," he laughed. "Oh, one more thing, the captain asked me to give you a message. He said, ''Don't forget us, Jones.'"
"I won't."
"Good. Now scram."
Nanako had regained some of her strength now, so we quickly descended the Courthouse steps and made our way across town to meet up with the others. I held her hand as we ran, though we had to take frequent rests, for she was still emotionally, mentally, and physically weakened by her ordeal. I didn't know how long it would take her to return to normal, but I could tell that she was no longer in that terrible, horrible place.
My heart overflowed with joy at being back together with her - our gamble to get her out of the Custodian's clutches had worked!
Now all we had to do was get out of the town alive, but thanks to Captain Smithson, I believe we had that covered.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Getting out of town had been easy, even anti-climatic, after the happenings of the past few days. But that was cool; give me anti-climactic any day.
The bag Sergeant Xiao gave us turned out to be a treasure trove. It had the three bows and quivers full of arrows that belonged to Nanako, David and Shorty, a magnetic key, and best of all, Nanako's 3D photo-viewer, with a note saying it'd been found in Custodian Command's property and evidence room. No doubt put there by Major Harris after he trashed our flat. I wonder how many hours he'd spent going through the photos, trying to find evidence against us but finding nothing incriminating.
After leaving town through the secret entrance in the western wall, we had crossed over the Maribyrnong River using Lynches Bridge and passed into Footscray. There had been only two small parties of Skel near the bridge facing the town, but by using echolocation and stealth we were able to sneak past them unnoticed.
It was dusk now. We'd decided to hole up for the night in an old Asian grocery store, taking refuge in its back corner.
As to be expected, the store was a mess. The shelves crowding the aisles had been stripped bare decades ago, and were covered with dirt, dust, and rot. Several commercial refrigerators stood ominously silent against the wall on our right, their glass doors smashed and in some cases hanging off at the hinges. A number of plaster ceiling panels had collapsed; air conditioning ducting following them to the floor. I don’t know what colour the walls used to be - they were caked with dirt and filth now. Mildew grew on the floor and the walls, creating an unpleasant, rank odour.
We had found a relatively clean, dry patch of floor near the back windows, which by some miracle were still intact, though no longer transparent.
I sat with my back against the wall. Nanako lay curled up on the floor beside me with her head on my lap. I stroked her hair, and smiled at the sight of her 3D photo-viewer goggles, which she was wearing on her head like when I first met her. I got the feeling she may never take them off again. She had ditched the ankle length black funeral dress and was wearing her clothes from Hamamachi again, for I'd popped into our apartment after we'd left the Courthouse. I figured it would be safe, as just about every Custodian in the town was down trying to prevent Skel getting into the town through the hole we blew in the wall. I guess we'd well and truly earned the title of terrorists now.
Nanako was extremely weak and still suffering from depression, but she'd already come a long way since I'd rescued her at midday - her perspective on the things that had troubled her had been completely transformed.
Leigh lay on the floor on my left, pale and weakened from the effort to walk here, and David and Shorty sat beside him.
I know Michal wasn't with us, but there was a sense of solidarity amongst us now that we were back together again.
"What did the captain's message mean - 'Don't forget us?'" Shorty asked.
"He wants me, or us, rather, to save Newhome from the Skel," I replied.
"What? Forget that! Why don't we find some quite little spot out in the country and settle down, away from these two stupid feuding towns," David shot back.
"That ain't gonna work, David, you doofus, because you know, it's just the five of us," Shorty replied, "And the boy-girl ratio ain't too hot, in case you didn't notice."
"And just how are we supposed to save Newhome from the Skel?" David asked, ignoring Shorty.
"The Rangers are the problem, not the Skel," Nanako said, surprising us, for we thought she was asleep. "If we can remove the Rangers from the equation, the feud between our towns will stop. Without the Ranger's support, the Skel will grow bored of besieging Newhome and will go back to their old way of life."
"I ain't going up against no Rangers, not never," Shorty declared adamantly. "Look what the blighters did to my nose!"
"It's an improvement," I said with a chuckle.
Shorty
stuck out his tongue and sneered at me.
"Do I have to join you on this lunatic quest?" Leigh queried, scowling.
"Of course not," I replied without hesitation, "And that goes for all of you. But think of what's at stake - if Newhome falls, our families go with it."
"Thought you'd say something like that," Leigh moaned. "Fine, I'll come."
"Hey, have the Rangers been behind the Skel attacks on Newhome from the beginning?" David asked.
"That's what I think, but Newhome wasn't their first target," I replied.
"Really, then who was?"
"Councillor Okada."
"You mean the Skel attack on Councillor Okada and Nanako wasn't random?" Leigh asked.
Nanako sat up. "Can't have been - the Rangers gave us the route we took to Newhome."
"And they gave that route to the Skel and asked them to kill you? Those scum!" Shorty said, genuinely angry.
"Any idea why the Rangers wanted Okada dead?" David asked.
"I haven't the slightest idea," Nanako replied as she sat up. She reached out and ran her fingers through the scars on the left side of my head - scars from the bullet wound and subsequent operations. "Any ideas about who shot you, Ethan? If you can remember who did it, it may help us put the pieces of this puzzle together."
"Only that it was a guy, and that he was the one who asked me to infiltrate the Rangers to find out what they were up to."
"We need to know who he is," she prompted. "Can you try to remember now?"
I nodded, and focused on the memory I had in the dream. I saw myself sitting on that fence with my assault-rifle on my lap as the man approached and sat beside me. But as I tried to remember who he was, my senses began to reel up, down, and inside out, and I felt as though a seizure was about to trigger, and not just a complex partial seizure, but something more powerful. "I can't...I can't see who he is," I said, gasping for breath and backing away from the memory.
"Okay, don't force it," she said, taking my hands in hers. "I wish we had a phone so we could call Councillor Okada. Maybe he can work out who this man is."
"We'll have to add a phone to our shopping list," I suggested.
"Works for me," she laughed.
It was so good to see Nanako slowly returning to her old self. Now that she knew the truth about the past, she was being set free from those fears and doubts. And her fears that I'd leave her if I found what had happened to her two years ago were going too.
And next year, when the anniversary of her miscarriage came around, I'd be there beside her and we'd get through it together.
"So it's decided then; we're going up against the Rangers?" Shorty asked, looking at each of us in turn. "'Cause if you ask me, I'd rather take on the Custodians or the Skel, or the Custodians and the Skel."
"We wouldn't have to go up against the Rangers directly," I answered. "The Rangers have gone rogue - they aren't acting under the auspices of the Hamamachi Council. All I want to do is gather evidence on their activities and present it to the Council - then they can shut them down."
"Jones," Leigh said.
"Yeah?"
"Haven't you learned anything yet? Nothing ever goes the way you expect or want it to," he grumbled.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," I agreed.
"So when do we set off on this insane mission against these psycho-killer Rangers?" Shorty asked.
"Not for a while," I answered. "Leigh and Nanako need to rest and recover before we start making plans."
Nanako tapped me gently over my never-healing chest wound. "We’re not the only ones who need to rest and recover, Mister."
With the threat of Newhome using its nuclear bomb against Hamamachi gone, we could afford to sit back to rest and recover from our recent ordeals. And we could do so away from all the dramas and persecutions that had befallen us in Newhome. On one hand I was glad Nanako was finally free of Sienna's hate campaign and Major Harris' endless harassment, but I was also sad, for her dreams and hopes for a normal life with me in Newhome had been crushed. There was no way we could ever return to Newhome and see my family again, and the same applied to Hamamachi and her family. We were expatriates, exiled from our respective hometowns. But we were together again, and that was what mattered. And after we'd dealt with the Rangers, I'd find somewhere that Nanako and I could live in peace and raise a family.
But in the meantime, Leigh's words kept ringing in my mind like a village church steeple bell warning its inhabitants of an approaching calamity. "Nothing ever goes the way you expect or want it to."
Love endures through every circumstance.
(1 Corinthians 13:7)
New Living Translation Bible
Copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, Tyndale House Foundation
Acknowledgements
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being my very life.
Thanks also to:
Alice Kurata, the beautiful model pictured on the book's cover to represent Nanako.
Juliet Lauser, for her fantastic critique and helpful suggestions.
Gordon Long, for his invaluable critique and editing.
Faith Blum, for her editing, and encouraging feedback.
Hannah Stone, for all the priceless chats we had while reading the book to her.
Tim Steen, for spotting a whole bunch of typos.
David Caldwell, for spotting typos the rest of us had missed.
Expatriate
Forager Series, Book Three
Copyright © 2014 Peter R Stone
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental.
Chapter One
When I woke, I was surprised to see I was in a hospital ward. The window on my right was shuttered and a floor-to-ceiling curtain to my left provided privacy from the occupant of the adjacent bed. I felt terrible – disoriented and disgustingly awful. I tried to work out where I was, but my mind was sluggish to the point that I was having trouble forming coherent thoughts. My head had been shaved and the left side ached intolerably. I ran my fingers over my scalp above my left ear and found a mass of scar tissue.
I began to panic. Where was I? What had happened to me? I could remember foraging with my team out in Melbourne’s ruins, but the memories felt vague, as though I was trying to access them from the Murray River's murky depths.
The door opposite the bed slid back and a male nurse and an oddly dressed Asian girl in her mid-teens entered.
"And how are you feeling this morning, Ethan Jones?" the nurse asked as he came over and cranked the bed up to a sitting position.
"I feel…awful," I managed to croak, for my words slurred together as though I couldn’t talk properly.
The girl – what was with the way she dressed – rushed around to the other side of the bed and took my right hand in hers as she studied me anxiously. Her face was round and her thick black hair was cut in a bob-cut. But her clothes – I'd never seen their like before. She wore a black-and-blue zebra-stripe-patterned jacket, pink tutu, a rather too-revealing black top and torn pink tights. How come the Custodians let her parade about dressed like that?
I pulled my hand from hers and glared at her with undisguised annoyance – who was she anyway, to take such liberties with me?
"Where am I?" I asked the nurse.
"You’re in Newhome’s general hospital," the girl answered in a broad Aussie accent as she studied my face anxiously. Why did they let her in here?
"How come – what happened to me?" I asked the nurse as I ran my fingers over the scars on my head again.
The nurse fitted the cuff of a blood-pressure gauge to my upper arm and began pumping it up.
"I...I brought you back here," the girl replied, glancing between the nurse and me as she spoke. "To get you the proper help you needed for your injury."
Newhome’s general hospital? Injured? Then where were my father and mother – why weren’t they
here? I looked at the girl, and she stared back with dark-brown eyes wide with apprehension.
"You brought me?" I asked as my head began to swim, and it felt like my senses were beginning to flip up and down, inside and out. "Who are you? Why are you here? Where is my family?"
She was even more worried now. Tears began to slip down her cheeks and caused her thick black eyeliner to run. "It’s me, Ethan. It's Nanako. I’m your…"
Just the sight of her, and the familiarity she was taking with me as though she knew me, caused something to shift inside me. An overwhelming sense of déjà vu tore through my mind, trying to convince me that this situation, right down to the final, minute detail, had happened before. But while I tried to process what that could possibly mean, an image of an Asian soldier lying dead on a dusty road flashed into my mind, and then a most horrible sensation began to tear into my mind and body, twisting, writhing, building towards – something.
"...wife," the girl finished.
The sensation exploded, overloading every nerve ending throughout my body, and then my mind was sucked down, down towards a well of unconsciousness...
…and I jerked awake with a cry, my heart racing furiously. Thanks to the dream-memory, I had no idea where I was. The fact it was pitch-black didn't help.
I realised I was sitting up with my back against a smooth metallic surface with a familiar weight resting on my thighs. I reached out, and then breathed a massive sigh of relief when my fingers identified the object as Nanako – she'd gone to sleep with her head on my lap, using my thighs as her pillow.
It had just been a dream-memory; it wasn't happening now. I did know who Nanako was – she was my wife, and she was the most wondrous, delightful person in the whole wide world. True, my memories of our times together before I'd been shot still eluded me, but we were back together again, and that was enough for me.
I leaned my head back and ran my fingers through Nanako's thick hair while I waited for my heart to come back to earth. It slowly dawned on me that we were hiding in the back of a ruined Asian grocery store in Footscray. We'd fled Newhome yesterday after rescuing Nanako from being executed on the trumped-up charge of being a spy. In the process, my three forager friends and I had well and truly earned the title of terrorists, for we'd blown a massive hole in Newhome's eastern wall in order to provide the distraction we needed to rescue Nanako. Stupid Custodians. It served the gits right. After all I'd done for them, saving their collective behinds from the Skel and the Rangers, and they still went and tried to arrest us all as spies and terrorists.
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