Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series)

by Peter R Stone

  “What’s that smile for?” I asked

  “Just thinking that if all goes according to plan and the chancellor and his cronies are toppled from power within a year, there will no longer be anything keeping us ap–”

  I sprang off the bench and placed a finger against his lips. “Don’t say it, not yet. We still have to move heaven and earth before that can even become a possibility. Besides, as soon as this is all over, I’ll be heading to Ballarat the first chance I get. I need to know that my sister and Sofia are okay.”

  “Don’t mind if I tag along, do you?” His eyes were full of hope.

  “What if I don’t want to come back?”

  “I want to be with you, Chelsea, wherever that may be.”

  “I may hold you to that,” I said, smiling.

  “I’m counting on it,” he said.

  Revolutionary

  Forager Impersonator, Book Three

  22nd September ’17

  Copyright © 2017 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

  ~ Chelsea Thomas ~

  It was almost four in the morning. Out in the Victorian countryside beneath an overcast sky, it was pitch dark except for a handful of twinkling stars shining weakly through gaps in the clouds.

  There were six of us walking in single file on the side of a crumbling asphalt road lined with gum trees, wild ferns, and razor-tipped grass. We’d had to abandon our G-Wagon an hour ago after it broke down and defied all attempts to restart it.

  We were in the vicinity of the Japanese coastal town Hamamachi on a mission known only to our team leader, Anna Georgiou. General Cho, the man in charge of the Specialists program, had told her not to reveal the details of the mission until we reached the target.

  Anna led from the front, singing out with echolocation at regular intervals so she could see where we were going. The rest of us joined in, adding ultrasonically pitched harmonies to compliment her melody so that we wouldn’t trip over the road’s uneven surface.

  We six girls were sisters in respect to being genetically engineered to better survive in the post-apocalyptic world. One special gift we shared was our ability to use echolocation, or flash sonar. I glanced at Romy – a girl who was always proud of her Dutch heritage – as she walked confidently behind Anna. She had thrown off the last vestiges of Mr. Cho’s brainwashing several months ago and had quickly become an important member of the Freehome Resistance Movement and a good friend.

  Claire and Lucia followed on after Romy, while Bhagya and I brought up the rear. Like me, Claire was an Anglo-Saxon Aussie. We were a similar height, but whereas I was still quite slim, she had a much heavier build. She liked her food – second helpings during mealtimes were the norm with her. I had enough trouble getting through the first course. Lucia was the shortest girl of our group. She constantly rubbed me up the wrong way with her incessant whinging about everything.

  Over the past few months, Bhagya, Romy, and I had managed to free most of the girls from the Round Room’s brainwashing techniques. In fact, the only three girls we hadn’t managed to turn yet were Anna, Claire, and Lucia. It didn’t matter how many worms we dangled in front of them – subtle hints about the reconditioning achieved through the Round Room, doubts about the chancellor, misgivings regarding his dreadful Plan – they never bit.

  As we trudged through the night, I kept glancing nervously at the minty, pine-scented gumtrees and brush that pressed up to the edge of the road. I could not banish the fear that Skel savages could pop out at any moment, although they had no reason to be this far from the city. We had been warned of other dangers before leaving, though – ones in the Australian bush that came in small packages – redback spiders and red-bellied black, brown, copperhead, and tiger snakes. There were plenty of redbacks to be found in Newhome, but I’d never seen a snake and I wanted to keep it that way.

  I wondered what Ryan would think if he saw us skulking down a country road in the middle of the bush. I had told him I was going out on a mission, but had given him no details, since I didn’t have any. He’d even gone and won brownie points by refraining from telling me to keep my wits about me. All the same, he’d been sullen and uncommunicative after that, mumbling curses against Cho and the chancellor.

  Ryan was still working undercover in the secondary college, looking out for dissidents and malcontents. He loathed the job from the depths of his being, since, like me, he actually agreed with most of the disgruntled students. For each malcontent he had to make a judgment call. Were the rebellious ones worth recruiting to the Freehome Resistance Movement or were they too dangerous and uncontrollable? In the latter case, he would report them to his superiors and then come home from work stricken with guilt.

  Walking quietly behind me, Bhagya broke me out of my reverie by tapping a question on my back in Morse code. This was the only way we could communicate without the others overhearing us.

  Tempted to duck off to Ballarat? she tapped.

  This mission was the first time I had stepped outside Newhome since my foraging days when I had masqueraded as my twin brother.

  The thought crossed my mind, I replied by reaching behind my back and tapping the answer on her hand.

  Even though three years had passed since my sister Karen, my friend Sophia, and the other foragers and their families had escaped Newhome, I still didn’t know if they’d made it to Ballarat. What I did know, was that the Custodian report that they’d been killed or captured by Skel was a lie.

  You will get your chance one day.

  I hope you’re right, I replied. We just had to stop the chancellor releasing the virus first.

  Bhagya started to reply, but her hand dropped away when we rounded a bend in the road and saw multiple lights blazing into the night farther along.

  Keeping as close to the curb as we could, we approached a facility boasting a collection of poorly maintained buildings, pools and water tanks. The place was brilliantly lit by an assortment of halogen and LED spotlights. There was no sign of activity, but I figured the facility was probably run on a skeleton staff at night along with a handful of guards.

  “That’s our target,” Anna Georgiou said softly. She didn’t bother turning to face us as she spoke since she knew we could hear

  “A water purification plant?” I asked.

  “The Kardella Water Treatment Plant.”

  I didn’t bother asking her why we were here. Although she hadn’t told us the reason for our foray across the Victorian countryside, the blocks of C4 plastic explosives and detonators in our backpacks kind of gave it away.

  An uneasy feeling started in my stomach and curled its way up my spine to the back of my neck.

  “Anna, wait up,” I said, hurrying to the front of the line.

  “What, Chelsea?” She spoke coldly, as usual. Of the surviving biologically engineered girls, she was taking the longest to warm to me. To be honest, I wasn’t doing too well with Claire either.

  “I’m guessing this place supplies water to Hamamachi?”

  “Correct.” She didn’t look at me as she spoke, just kept on walking, occasionally echolocating so she wouldn’t trip over any of the cracks in the road in the dark.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Remember when I left town for a few days a couple of weeks ago? I came here to verify that this was where Hamamachi gets its water. The pre-war records showed that this plant supplied Inverloch with fresh water, so General Cho figured it would supply the Japanese town as well.”

  “So we’re going to blow it sky-high to deprive Hamamachi of its fresh water supply?”

  “Something like that.”

  Chapter Two

  ~ Ethan Jones ~

  “Are we there yet, Jones? Are we there yet?” Shorty asked for the ninth time, gripping the steering wheel tig
htly with his small hands. He had to sit on a thick foam cushion to see out the windscreen. He was a good driver, though – even with ungainly vehicles like this Bushmaster armoured personnel carrier.

  “Almost. We’ll be hitting the outskirts of Skel territory in a few minutes,” I replied, holding an overhead handrail to steady myself as the heavy vehicle lurched over a jutting crack in the asphalt road.

  As it was an hour before midnight, Shorty and I were both wearing night vision goggles so we could see where we were going, a necessity since our four-vehicle convoy – the Bushmaster and three trucks – was travelling without headlights. We didn’t want to give the Skel advance warning that we were coming. I didn’t need the goggles to see at night thanks to my genetic enhancements, but echolocation was only effective at close range and was quite tiring. The goggles let me see a lot farther and without expending any effort.

  We were making another foray into Skel country tonight to liberate several truckloads of slaves. Some time ago, we’d learned that the bone-armoured barbarians were not nomads like everyone assumed. They had built a small empire in the middle of the once nuclear-radiated zone, centred around the suburb of Mulgrave.

  “Hey, did you hear what the Skel said to his girlfriend when he found out she was pregnant?” Shorty said.

  “No, what did he say?” I said.

  “He said to her, ‘Are you sure it’s yours?’”

  I groaned. Nanako, Aika, Ken and Hiro, riding in the crew compartment behind us, burst out laughing. There was no reaction from Madison, which wasn’t surprising since she was operating the roof-mounted machine gun – only her hips and legs were inside the vehicle.

  “Can anyone tell me why we brought him along?” I said.

  “Maybe because you asked him to drive?” Aika replied. She looked deceptively like a typical petite Japanese girl, though at five-two she was two inches taller than Shorty and Nanako. She was also as tough as old boot leather, the best sniper I’d seen, and Shorty’s girlfriend despite being four years his senior.

  “That must be it.”

  “Seriously, Aika-chan, why are you dating him?” Nanako asked.

  “He’s the only guy I’ve met who’ll let me use him for target practice,” she replied.

  “Hey, you said you wouldn’t tell anyone that,” Shorty said in mock seriousness as he looked over his shoulder.

  Nanako leaned into the driver’s compartment and punched Shorty in the arm. “How about you keep your eyes on the road, mister?”

  Nanako looked eerie in the green light of the night vision goggles. All the same, my heart skipped a beat at the sight of her beautiful round face framed by her thick black hair, which she wore in a characteristic bob cut.

  In recent months, she had made great strides in coping with anxiety attacks and depression. Monthly visits to a psychologist were helping, as was getting to the underlying cause of her mental illness. Her father’s suicide and the Militia’s subsequent false report that I too had attempted to kill myself had caused her to fear that we didn’t love her like she loved us. That we didn’t love her enough to stay alive for her sake. The fact was, her father had committed suicide in the last stages of cancer when the pain was too overpowering to cope with. That had nothing to do with the love he and his daughter shared for each other. Finding out that I had not tried to end my life but had been shot by Councillor Okada in an attempt to hide the Ranger’s villainous actions had had a major effect in setting her free from those fears. She still had some bad days, but we faced them together.

  “Suspected ambush directly ahead,” Madison said, her voice coming through our headsets.

  “What have you got?” I said as I tapped Shorty rapidly three times on his shoulder. He braked hard, bringing the Bushmaster to a stop. I had to brace myself against the dashboard to keep from falling headfirst into the windscreen.

  “Tarpaulin dead ahead between two burned out cars,” Madison replied.

  The Skel were getting wise to us if they were watching obscure routes into their territory like this one. Until now, they had only watched the main roads.

  I spotted the broad, grime-stained tarp stretched out across the road a hundred meters ahead. “Is it an IED?”

  “Can’t be. I torched their munitions warehouse, remember?” Madison’s voice said.

  “Light it up, just in case.”

  “Roger.”

  Madison fired a couple of quick bursts at the tarpaulin, but we were surprised when instead of a hidden roadside bomb exploding, the cloth disappeared into the road, along with several planks of wood it had been covering.

  “It’s a hole. Wide enough and deep enough to trap any wheeled vehicle,” Madison said.

  “Resourceful little blighters, these Skel. Still, must have taken hours to dig through the asphalt.” Aika stuck her head into the cab. She was wearing her night vision goggles now.

  There was a flash of light from a derelict house just beyond the vehicle trap. I heard a bullet ricochet off the top of the Bushmaster followed by Madison grunting in pain. Never one to give up, the ex-Newhome Specialist opened up with the machine gun, riddling the ruined house with bullets.

  The staccato bark of the machine gun suddenly ceased and Madison dropped down into the crew compartment, blood dripping from her left hand. She grabbed the first aid kit and started to sing at an ultrasonic pitch so that she could see clearly in the dark. The night vision goggles were impressive feats of technology, but the biologically engineered echolocation that Madison and I could use was infinitely superior for close quarters work.

  “Is it bad?” I asked, twisting around in my seat.

  “Nah, bullet just nicked my arm.” She peeled her sleeve back and inhaled sharply from the pain. Nanako applied a compress and strapped on a bandage, something she could do with her eyes closed.

  “Reckon you got the shooter?” I asked.

  “Not a chance. The Skel are just trying to make us mad enough to drive over their trap,” she said.

  “Right – time to ambush the ambushers.” I rose from my seat and slipped into the crew compartment.

  Madison held up a hand. “You sprung the ambushers on the last mission. It’s my turn today.”

  “You’re hurt.”

  “Give me a break – it’s just a scratch.” Madison pulled off her goggles and grabbed her Japanese short bow and arrows. She had only been practising for a few months, but was very proficient with them. She slipped through the others in the crew compartment, opened the rear door and sprinted off into the night, echolocating as she went.

  Sniper rifle in hand, Aika jumped out too. She didn’t follow Madison, though, but went to the opposite side of the road. From there she took the occasional shot at the house inhabited by the Skel gunman and his buddies – they normally operated in groups of five. It was her job to keep the Skel’s attention fixed on us so they would be taken completely by surprise when Madison appeared behind them in around fifteen minutes.

  While Nanako, Ken, and Hiro disembarked and took up positions beside Aika, I climbed up to operate the Bushmaster’s roof-mounted machine gun, keeping a close eye on both sides of the road in case the Skel broke form and left their prepared ambush positions.

  Just over ten minutes later, two of the skeleton armoured monstrosities came running from the house. Aika put one down immediately, the bullet from her powerful sniper rifle penetrating his resin-hardened bone armour with ease. The second one aimed his rifle in our direction and snapped off two shots before a sustained burst from my machine gun sent him crashing to the ground.

  Madison’s voice sounded through the headset. “That’s all of them. Coming out now.”

  A moment later she emerged from the ruined house, bow with a notched arrow in her hands. I studied her through the night vision goggles as she strode towards us. She wasn’t particularly tall, only five-six, but her easy gait, confident demeanour, and eyes that missed nothing, revealed her strength and shrewd mind.

  It was hard to believe th
at only eight months ago, a number of biologically engineered Specialists had been sent after my team after we escaped from Newhome. Madison was the only one to find us – though technically, it was really us finding her. We saved her from rape after she blundered into a Skel ambush. However, instead of thanking us for our efforts, she tried to drag me back to Newhome to stand trial on charges of treason, terrorism, and being an illegally biologically modified male. Weeks later, after finding out that Captain Smithson had sent us out of Newhome to save the town from the combined Ranger/Skel menace, she opted to join us. However, she wasn’t set free from Councillor Cho’s brainwashing until she’d learned that the Korean children in Newhome – who had been given our genetic enhancements – had been told that their abilities were the result of natural evolution and that they would emerge from the Chancellery for the first time in two of years. After all the Specialist girls had been euthanized.

  After that, Madison became an invaluable member of Hamamachi’s newly formed Special Forces Unit. In fact, she was my second in command.

  “Any problems?” I asked when she reached us.

  “Not a one.”

  “Five of them?”

  She nodded, and climbed into the vehicle.

  “Okay, everyone, mount up. Shorty, push one of those wrecked cars out of the way and go around that hole.”

  We got back into the Bushmaster – I sat beside Shorty again, while Ken jumped up to take control of the machine gun.

  “Let’s go rescue some slaves,” Nanako said, leaning into the driver’s compartment.

  Shorty put the lumbering vehicle into drive and carefully nudged the rusting shell of a car beside the Skel tank-trap out of the way. That was an easy feat for the fifteen-ton armoured personal carrier, considering the car weighed less than half a ton. A moment later, we moving cautiously down the road, followed by the rest of our convoy.