“We already have a homeroom and history teacher.”
“What’s your name, student?”
“Jazza. Jazza Mariano.”
Ryan fixed him with a glare that would have stripped paint from a wall, and stood there, waiting.
“Mr. Hill,” Jazza added, his voice dripping with contempt.
“Your previous homeroom and history teacher, Mr. Kershaw, was promoted to a position in North End,” Ryan said.
“You seriously expect us to believe that...Sir?” I said, looking up.
Ryan sought out the speaker immediately, his mouth opening in shock when he realised who it was. But then his gaze softened, as he no doubt figured I was playing along with my role. Except I wasn’t – I was genuinely worried about Mr. Kershaw.
“Don’t care what you believe, student.”
“But–”
“You’re Brandon Thomas, aren’t you?” he said.
“Yeah, so?”
“Mr. Kershaw told me about you. How you figured you could waltz back to school after a two-and-a-half year absence and continue where you left off. Son, you’re going to wonder what hit you.”
“I’ll handle it, Sir.”
Ryan snorted derisively and then marked the roll.
When the bell signalled the end of homeroom, Ryan took the roll and handed the class over to the physics teacher, Mr. Li, who had just arrived.
I don’t know if Ryan looked at me on his way out, I was too busy struggling with my anger. I wanted to – no, needed to talk to him, but at the same time, I couldn’t bear the thought of doing so.
* * *
Fourth period finished and I followed the flow of boys towards the cafeteria for lunch.
Mehmet stepped up beside me. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I wished I had dark skin like his. My skin was so white that I burnt like a crisp in the sunlight, and I had a band of freckles across my cheeks and nose.
“You didn’t answer my question yesterday about whether you’ve seen nay Skel,” he said.
“No, I didn’t.”
“So you did, huh?” He gave me a disarming, mischievous smile.
Although he was kind of cute for a seventeen-year-old, I didn’t want to encourage him to get too familiar with me, so didn’t bother replying.
“Come, spill the beans. Did they ambush you? How did you escape? I won’t tell, honest.”
Thoughts of the brutish Skel’s fetid breath and garish skull helmet as he tried to bash my brains in triggered fearful memories I wanted to forget.
“Don’t want to talk about it, eh? Fair enough. I’ll have to make do with the fantastical stories I keeping hearing about Ethan Jones then.”
“Ethan Jones? Didn’t he disappear a couple of years ago?” I remembered coming back from foraging the day we were ambushed by Skel, only to learn that Ethan Jones had gone missing that same day.
“That’s news to me. I heard he was in hospital for a while, but he’s been foraging ever since he was released. And if there’s any truth in the rumours about him, he and his team have been butchering the Skel like they’re going out of fashion,” Mehmet said, his youthful face animated.
“Haven’t heard nothing about that. Not the kind of rumours you hear when you’re put away.”
Our conversation was suddenly interrupted when a rather irate Ryan Hill stepped out from a classroom doorway and accosted me.
“A word, Brandon Thomas.”
“It’s lunchtime,” I snapped.
“Now, Brandon.”
Seeing a need to be elsewhere, Mehmet backed away quickly. “Catch ya later.”
“Follow me,” Ryan said. He turned and weaved his way through the crowd. Reaching the staircase, he ascended the stairs two at a time. I followed him reluctantly, trying to get my thoughts into some semblance of order as my eyes flicked over his muscular frame. He cut an impressive figure, even in that dorky teacher’s getup. I guessed he still worked out. That thought tugged at my emotions, reminding me of better days when, masquerading as my brother, I went to the gym with Ryan.
He took me up past the third and fourth floors and out onto the roof, a large flat area cordoned off by chain-link fences. Having never been here before, I was surprised to see the rooftop included a well-tended garden with flowering potted bushes and vines that twisted up the sides of wooden trellises. There were even large flat benches to sit on.
Ryan turned to face me, all signs of hostility gone. “Good job this morning, Chelsea. You played your part well. But tell me, how have you been? I haven’t heard boo from you since you entered the lab. Are they treating you well? I’ve been going crazy worrying about you, hoping I made the right decision sending you in there.” He looked genuinely concerned for my wellbeing, all signs of the imperious teacher persona gone, replaced by the Ryan I used to know. Or the Ryan I thought I knew.
“You think I was playing a part this morning?” I said, using my own voice.
“Come again?” He looked genuinely confused.
“What are you doing here, Ryan?”
“Last night, Councillor Cho asked my superiors to send an undercover operative – me – to ascertain if any of the teachers are involved in what you discovered yesterday. Specifically about the Patriot and the acts of terror those three boys were discussing. The brass have suspected for some time that an organised resistance movement is forming in the shadows, but they’ve never been able to find anything concrete.” He spoke softly, his eyes occasionally darting towards the stairs, in case anyone else was to come up to the roof. He didn’t need to do that, of course. I would hear anyone long before they saw or heard us.
“This Patriot guy, is he the leader of your movement?” I asked.
Ryan shook his head. “No. Never heard of him.”
“Like you’d tell me even if he was.”
“Sorry? What do you mean?” He looked hurt.
“You’ve never been particularly honest with me, have you, Ryan? First hiding the fact that you were a Custodian working undercover, then revealing that you were a member of a clandestine group trying to overthrow the government.”
Now he was really taken aback. “You know why I couldn’t reveal those things to you at the start. Besides, you were just as complicit in subterfuge as I was, considering you never told me you were impersonating your brother. What’s going on, Chelsea, why are you bringing that up again now?”
I studied him closely, looking for signs of deception in his expression, stance, anything. I wished I had Bhagya Singe’s gift of being able to tell when people were lying.
“You know how I was sent to this school to look for dissidents?” I said at last.
“Yeah?”
“What do you think Mr. Cho would say if I told him of your movement and your involvement in it?”
He stepped back in shock. “Chelsea! Why would you even suggest doing such a thing – we're on the same side!”
“Are we?”
“Yes!”
“In that case, tell me what really happened to my sister!” I spat the words out vehemently, weeks of pent up anger exploding like a volcano blowing its top.
Chapter Eleven
“What?” Ryan gasped.
“My sister, Sofia, and the others who broke out of town two years ago. Tell me what really happened to them, instead of the half-baked lies you’ve been feeding me!” I stepped closer, the brim of my cap almost bumping against his nose.
“Lies? What are you talking about? I told you from the beginning that some Custodians were circulating a story about the escapees being killed or taken prisoner by the Skel. And I told you that as far as I knew, it was just a rumour they were spreading to stop anyone else following in their footsteps.”
“As far as you knew.”
“That’s right.”
I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Ryan, I don’t want to hear your opinion. I want to hear exactly what happened. Who was sent out after the escapees and what exactly did they say?”
“Chel
sea, just trust me and let it go.”
“Answer my questions, Ryan!”
Ryan sighed. “Fine! The morning after the breakout, First Platoon of A. Company went out in three Bushmasters. They came back three days later, and without speaking a word to anyone, went straight to HQ for debriefing. When they came out, they shared a story with the rest of the Custodians that they had found the bodies of some of the escapees on the Western Freeway on the way to Ballarat. They said they had been killed by Skel and that there was no sign of the rest of them.”
“‘Some of the escapees?’ How many bodies did the Custodians say they found? Come on Ryan, out with it!”
“Over fifty. But–”
“Why didn't you tell me this two years ago? Did you think I couldn't handle it? Or were you keeping the truth from me because you were worried it would unhinge me and ruin your plans of sending me into the Genetics Laboratory to spy for you?”
You would have thought I had hit him square between the eyes with that accusation. “Chelsea, I–”
“What?”
“Didn't you hear a word of what I said? Don't you think it odd that the Custodians weren't permitted to talk to anyone until after they were debriefed? That after the debriefing they shared their pat little story about finding them? It's all fake, Chelsea – they never found anyone. They shared the story they were told to share, to discourage anyone else from trying to escape,” he declared vehemently.
“Did any of the Custodians who went out there tell you that?”
“What? No.”
“Did you even try to talk to them?” I said.
“I tried, but they won't talk to me. I've been universally shunned because I reported my squad mates who covered up your father’s accidental shooting, remember? Now come on, Chelsea, think! You honestly think the escapees would have waltzed down the Western Freeway – the most direct route to Ballarat – in broad daylight? It’s impossible!”
“What about the photos, then?”
“What photos?” he asked, perplexed.
“Mr. Cho showed me a bunch of photos the Custodians took of the escapees massacred by the Skel.”
Ryan stared at me, aghast. “That’s the first I’ve heard of there being any photos. Did you get a close look at them? Did you recognise anyone in them?”
“I saw men, women, and children, shot with arrows or bludgeoned to death. They were so hideously beaten and bloodstained I couldn’t recognise any of them.”
“So how do you know it was them?”
“Who else could they be?” I spat.
Ryan took hold of my shoulders. “I don’t know, Chelsea, but I’ll do some digging and I promise I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“And will you tell me if you find out the rumours are true?” I said, brushing off his hands.
“Of course I will.” His expression of hurt slowly morphed into anger.
“You’d better.”
He reached a hand towards me, but pulled it back before he touched me. “What happened to you in the lab, Chelsea? It’s like you’re a different person.”
I turned away, unable or unwilling to face that question at the moment.
He touched the back of my hand, his light touch sending a thrill up my arm, confusing my tumultuous emotions even more.
“My feelings towards you haven’t changed, Chelsea. You know that, right? This sending you into the lab to find out what the geneticists are up to – it’s a step towards destroying the chancellor’s tyrannical rule over the town. Do you know what my greatest motivation is in all this? It’s to create a future in which we can be together, a future without fear.”
“Oh please, spare me the romantic claptrap. You were planning to infiltrate the lab and topple the administration long before you met me.” I stepped away abruptly so that our hands broke contact.
“That’s true, but as I said, I’ve got extra incentive now. You.”
“That’s what I am, incentive?”
“Don’t twist my words! You mean everything to me, Chelsea. You know that, right?” He was becoming angry now, his brow creased in a brooding frown.
“Ryan, as I told you before, I’m a convicted criminal, the sister of a murderer, and daughter of a convicted drug user. I won’t disgrace your family name,” I said.
“And I told you I don’t care about that. It’s something we can overcome and face together. Besides, you’re only a criminal under this administration. Once we’ve brought it down, you’ll be hailed a hero. No one will accuse you of breaking the law for instigating the breakout. They’ll laud you for taking a stance against the injustice of this oppressive regime.”
I held up my hands. “Ryan, I...” My voice trailed off as I suddenly remembered taking a bullet for him, and him taking one for me. I remembered how I felt about him, but realised my feelings now were one big jumbled mess. Largely because I no longer trusted him.
“What?” he asked.
“Just find out what happened to the escapees, okay? I have to know if Karen and Sofia were killed or captured by the Skel.”
“And if they were?”
“If they were captured, I’ll escape and go look for them,” I said, images fleeing through my mind of myself ranging high and low through Melbourne’s ruins in a desperate attempt to find them.
“But what about your mission in the lab?” He narrowed his eyes, his voice becoming harder.
“What about it?” I snapped.
“That has to be your highest priority.”
“Says who – you? Forget that. My family means more to me than anything else. If Karen’s out there somewhere, slaving away under the Skel, I have to save her.”
Ryan looked at me long and hard. Several times he was about to say something, only to clam up. “Have you found out anything about the geneticists yet?” he said at last.
I stared at into his deep brown eyes, wanting to tell him what I had learned so far – that the chancellor made weekly visits to see the geneticists, but I just couldn’t do it. “How do I know you’re actually working for a resistance group? For all I know, you could be working undercover for the chancellor, checking to see if the geneticists are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”
“I can’t believe you just said that.” His face was a mask of concern. He lifted my chin and looked down into my eyes. “What did they do to you in there, Chelsea?”
The school bell rang, signalling the end of lunch break. I batted his hand aside. “My sister, Ryan. Find out what happened to her.” I had to know who was lying to me – Mr. Cho, or him.
I turned my back on him and hurried downstairs for my next class. He came after me, calling out my brother’s name, but I ignored him.
* * *
When I walked into homeroom the next morning, I almost blundered headfirst into Dylan and Isaac, who were loitering just inside the doorway. As soon as they saw me, expressions of pure and utter loathing crossed their faces. Dylan wiped the look off his face just as quickly as it appeared, before backing away and going to his desk, followed by Isaac. Mehmet, on the other hand, ran his eyes up and down my figure while frowning.
“What?” I snapped.
“You wanna hang out after school? You know, like shoot some pool or something?” he asked, smiling now.
I looked at Dylan and Isaac, their backs towards me.
“Where’s this coming from?” I asked.
“Where’s what coming from?” There was a twinkle in his eye.
“This – what you’re asking.”
“Just being friendly.” The smile was still there. I couldn’t fathom what was happening. Why would Mehmet openly try to befriend me while his friends went from blaming me for the breakout to loathing me with a passion?
“Don’t waste your time.” I slipped past him and made for my desk, only to pull up short when I saw Jazza sitting in my chair.
“Do you mind?” I asked.
“I do actually.” He looked straight at me, lip curled with distaste.
Riding on a hunch, I glanced around for Stefan and Carver, and saw them both watching me with similar expressions of disdain.
Mystified by the inexplicable change in attitude from these two groups of boys, I made for one of the empty chairs in the back row. I’d only taken two steps, though, when Jazza stuck out a foot, tripping me and sending me sprawling to the floor.
I landed on my left hand and right forearm, grazing the first and bruising the latter. Refusing to give Jazza the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me, I bit my tongue and scrambled quickly back to my feet. I shot him a dirty look and dropped into a chair at the back, wondering what was going on. Yesterday Stefan wanted to recruit me; today they looked set to kill me. Did I slip up somehow? Did they work out that I was impersonating my brother?
Ryan Hill chose that moment to make his entrance. The first thing he did after going to his desk was seek me out. Upon spying Jazza in my seat, he looked momentarily alarmed, but relaxed when he spotted me sitting in the back row. A quizzical expression creased his brow all the same. He opened the roll and started calling out names. As the boys called out “here” or “present,” I saw Stefan lean closer to Jazza and whisper softly in his ear.
“We still on for after school?”
“Sure thing,” Jazza whispered back, his head still forward.
“Where?”
“Same place as usual.”
“That abandoned apartment block gives me the creeps. Can’t we find somewhere better to meet?” An involuntary shudder wracked Stefan’s beefy frame as he spoke.
“Nope. Suits our purposes perfectly.”
“Stefan Petrakis!” Ryan called, glaring at him for being half out of his chair.
“Present!” Stefan slouched back into his seat.
I stared at the backs of their heads, contemplating their plan to meet up after school. I had a good of idea of the place they referred to. I used to pass a derelict apartment block on the way to the Recycling Centre when I worked there. Its upper floors were gutted by fire and it was surrounded by chain-link fencing adorned with red and black signs telling everyone to “KEEP OUT.”
The bell rang after Ryan gave us a pep talk on ethics and morals, and the importance of grounding our principles upon the Founders teachings, rather than upon our own understanding and personal opinions. For our society to thrive, we all had to share a common foundation. Judging by the way most of the boys fidgeted and shot each other wry looks, I got the impression they weren’t taking the talk to heart.
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 107
