Me, I couldn’t move. The dread coursing through me exploded into some infinitely worse, as I realised that the girls and I were directly responsible for this. We told Ethan about the virus in the hope he’d come back to Newhome and help overthrow the chancellor. It never occurred to me that he would tell the Japanese Militia, and that they would resort to using a nuclear weapon to destroy the town – and all of us with it.
“You’ve doomed us all!” Hong shrieked.
“And you lot – you stupid fools,” Badger said, pointing at my sisters and I. “You brought him here!”
Standing, I pushed through the others and stood before Ethan. “The nuke’s in the trailer, isn’t it? You brought it with you.”
“How did you get a trailer – and yourselves, for that matter – into town without the Custodians seeing you?” Anna asked. “What are you, some kind of magician?”
“Where’s the nuke, Ethan?” I said.
“I never said anything about a nuke – that was Mal,” he replied.
“Actually, bringing it with you would make perfect sense,” I said. “All you have to do if the uprising fails is detonate the nuke and it’s all over.”
“We didn’t bring a nuke!” Madison said.
“Prove it – let us inspect the trailer,” Anna said.
“All that’ll do is confirm we’re telling the truth, and waste valuable time. How about you lot settle down so we get back to discussing how we can overthrow the chancellor in less than four weeks?” Ethan said.
Anna gripped his shoulder. “Tell us where you put the trailer, Jones.”
“As I said–”
“Enough!” Mal snapped from where he stood in the middle of the room. When everyone stopped talking, he pushed his way past Dylan and confronted Ethan. “Look, Jones, for everyone’s peace of mind, you’re going to have to let us examine that–”
Ethan’s phone suddenly vibrated. He took the device from his pocket and studied the small screen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The Custodian Gamma Company didn’t return to barracks at the end of their shift an hour ago. They appear to be engaged in some form of covert exercise,” Ethan said.
“Is that significant?” Mal asked.
“It’s highly irregular,” Ryan said. “The men of Gamma Company are all one-eyed supporters of the chancellor – and the hardest unit to infiltrate. We’ve haven’t been able to get any of our people into it. Something’s off. We’d should get ready to make a quick exit.”
“I’ll check the front entrance and see if anything looks out of place,” Anna said. She sprang to her feet, pulled her hoodie over her head, and ran lithely from the room.
“We’ll check the back,” I said, meeting Ryan’s eyes before heading for the door.
My senses on full alert, I hurried quickly but quietly down the hallway with Ryan dogging my footsteps. At first, I couldn’t hear anything untoward, but I started when I heard a muffled bang followed by the sound of a body hitting concrete.
My hand flew to my mouth – nineteen-year-old Isaac was on lookout duty at the rear entrance.
Reaching the back door, I glanced worriedly at Ryan as I stretched out a hand to open it. “Something’s wrong,” I whispered.
He grabbed my arm. “Be careful.”
I nodded, opened the door a crack, and had to hold my breath to stop myself crying out. Isaac was sprawled on the crumbling concrete patio outside, blood pooling beneath his head.
I looked up in trepidation, and my heart leapt to my throat when I saw a dozen fully armed Custodians climbing over the back fence and weaving through the blackberry bushes and discarded plastic or wooden crates that filled the backyard. Their faces were grim and their movements determined. This was no random patrol – they knew we were here. They had silencers fitted to their assault rifles and wore Gamma Company insignia.
One of the Custodians spotted me staring through the crack of the opened door. He barked out a command and the group abandoned their cautious approach and rushed the entrance.
I pushed the door shut and slammed home the bolt, my eyes moist with tears from Isaac’s loss.
“Come on!” Grabbing Ryan’s hand, I pulled him after me and ran down the passage as fast as I could.
“What is it?”
“Isaac’s dead!”
“He’s what?”
I slammed my hand on the doorframe as soon as I reached the staffroom, getting everyone’s attention. “Custodians are coming through the back – we’ve been sold out!” As if to confirm my words, the back door shook violently as boots slammed into it.
“Quickly, out the front and disperse!” Mal said.
The room exploded into motion as everyone rushed the door, their expressions ranging from alarm to terror. Even Ethan and Madison looked worried as they followed at the rear, the former leading his wife with one hand while fiddling with his earpiece with the other.
I didn’t have time to look for Bhagya. Ryan had taken the lead now and was yanking me roughly behind him. He tore open the old wooden door leading to the bistro’s restaurant and ran inside. Men of all ages sat at square tables, eating, drinking, and conversing. Most stared in shock when the eleven of us burst into the room and sprinted at breakneck speed through their midst, heading for the front door.
I couldn’t get the image of Isaac’s broken body out of my mind. I couldn’t believe they gunned him down in cold blood like that.
Ryan ran like a madman and it took all my effort to keep up without stumbling. We were almost at the door when it was flung open violently. A dozen Custodians stormed in with grim expressions, their assault rifles aimed at us. Patrons throughout the club leaped from their chairs, trying to get back from the brutal paramilitary policemen.
“Stop – or we’ll shoot!” a burly sergeant bellowed.
Ryan lost his balance as he skidded to a stop and would have fallen had I not thrown my arms around him to steady him. We were knocked forward another step, though, when Dylan and Hong slammed into us.
Glancing back the way we came, I immediately abandoned all thoughts of escape in that direction when I saw the Custodians from the backyard run into the room.
“On your knees and put your hands on your heads!” the sergeant shouted. “This is your only warning!”
Ryan stood rooted to the floor like a statue, too stunned by this cruel turn of events to comply with the order. I made the mistake of looking into the sergeant’s eyes. The naked hostility that radiated from them confirmed what my heart already knew – we’d failed before we’d even begun. General Cho would throw us in the Round Room and use a combination of drugs and sleep deprivation to get the information out of us. Then, when he no longer had any use for us, we would be executed as traitors.
The urge to throw myself at the Custodians and be done with it was overpowering. Ryan must have felt my muscles tense, because he grabbed my arm with an iron grip and yanked me down to the floor beside him. He flashed me a stern look as he placed his hands on his head.
“Don’t throw your life away for nothing, Chelz,” he muttered beneath his breath.
Ryan addressing me by my brother’s nickname was the wake-up call I needed let go of my emotions and return to the real world. I sucked in a breath and put my hands on my head. Sure, we’d failed, and I couldn’t see any way out of this disaster, but maybe there was still cause for hope. Who knows, perhaps General Cho would give us life sentences instead of killing us.
Once all eleven of us were on our knees with our hands on our heads, the Custodians from the front entrance approached us. Each holding an assault rifle with one hand, they hauled us to our feet and propelled us into the street outside.
Two Bushmasters were parked in the street. Custodians aimed the roof-mounted machine guns in our direction. Standing midway between the vehicles and the restaurant was an extremely irate General Cho, accompanied by five more Custodians and a very frightened Anna. She was on her knees with her hands on her head. No one else
was in sight, even though the clubs lining the street made this a popular location.
The Custodians pushed us towards the general and arrayed us in a line. My handler held my upper arm with such a fierce grip that my flesh was probably beginning to bruise. More Custodians spilled from the club and stood behind us. There was nowhere to run.
The general approached Madison, who stood rigidly at the other end of the line. “I had high expectations for you, Taylor – you’re an utter disgrace.”
He looked at Ethan and Nanako, standing beside her. “The great and mighty Ethan Jones? Have to thank you for coming back – saved me the effort of trying to find you.”
Mal Li was next. The general looked him up and down, shaking his head. “Mr. Li, the so-called leader of the Freehome Resistance Movement, a ragtag bunch of misfits who couldn’t achieve anything, let alone lead a revolution. Did you honestly think we weren’t aware of your activities?”
Walking down the line, he leered at Hong and Badger as he passed them, and finally stopped in front of Ryan and me.
He looked down into my eyes, his mouth curled into an evil grin. “Chelsea Thomas – the cheese in the trap. I assigned you the mission of finding the insurgents because I knew you would join them when you found them and then lead them straight to me. Job well done.”
I stared at him in shock. I’d been played! And masterfully as well. But how did he do it? I knew he originally sent Suyin to follow me, but it had been pretty easy to lose her, and she was killed months ago. If one of the other girls had been spying on me, I would have found out by now, since with the exception of Claire, we had set them all free from brainwashing.
That led to a most unpleasant conclusion. We had been sold out, possibly by someone standing beside me right now. I glanced quickly at the others, but none were looking in my direction. They stared forlornly ahead or at the ground.
“Right!” General Cho barked. “Load them up!”
Tightening their grips on our arms, our captors shoved us roughly towards the waiting Bushmasters. The box-like armoured vehicles sat ominously still with their rear doors open, ready to swallow us whole. I was vaguely aware of Ethan mumbling something under his breath as he went.
With my mind beset with a myriad of questions and worrisome thoughts, I almost didn’t register the loud slapping sound until the Custodian operating the second Bushmaster’s machine gun slumped over his weapon.
It wasn’t until the second machine gunner jerked and collapsed with blood pouring from a hole in his bulletproof vest that everyone else realized something was amiss.
“Sniper!” a Custodian shouted.
Chapter Twelve
~ Ethan Jones ~
“Take cover!” General Cho bellowed.
Suddenly everyone was in motion as Custodians and prisoners sprinted for. Most ran towards the Bushmasters since they were bulletproof, while others dashed for wooden fences or the club’s foyer. Custodians searched the rooftops of surrounding apartment blocks and clubs for the sniper, which was a waste of time. No one except for Madison and I knew the direction from which the sniper was firing. Which was of course Aika with her deadly Blaser Tactical 2 rifle.
A Custodian jerked and went down, gun clattering upon the asphalt road. Blood seeped between his fingers as he clutched as his chest. The Custodian’s vests and helmets could stop small calibre bullets and reduce the penetration of others, but against the heavy 7.62 mm bullets of the Blaser 2 sniper rifle, they had little effect. In reality, the vests were bullet-resistant, not bulletproof.
“Where’s the sniper?” a Custodian shouted as he swung this way and that, searching for Aika. There was another loud slap and he fell with a cry.
“I can’t even hear the gun-shots!” shouted another man.
The four Custodians with Madison, Nanako, and me were pulling and pushing us towards the back of the lead Bushmaster. That would put us out of Aika’s field of fire, so I had to think of something quickly.
Pretending to be scared witless, I ran faster than the Custodian holding my arm and tripped deliberately, bringing him down beside me. A crude tactic, but I had to delay our captors so Aika could do her work.
“Ethan! Are you hit?” Nanako wailed, playing along. She and Madison fended off their captor’s hands, knelt beside me, and went through the motions of checking for a wound.
While the downed Custodian tried to extricate his legs from mine so he could regain his feet, the other three shouted at us to get to up while glancing around fearfully. There was a whack and the Custodian closest to me gasped and fell, a bullet hole in the back of his jacket.
Nanako shook me by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Just tripped,” I said. I didn’t want the Custodians to think I was down and out, otherwise they would just drag off the two women and leave me behind.
“On your feet, scum!” a Custodian shouted at me as he glanced worriedly at his downed comrade.
Pulling myself to a kneeling position, I saw General Cho and several Custodians propel Chelsea, Anna, Bhagya, and Ryan towards the gap between the two Bushmasters.
“Get Cho!” I whispered into the flesh-coloured earpiece connected wirelessly to the Smartphone in my pocket.
First one Custodian running beside the general, then another, spun about and sprawled onto the asphalt road. The rest of the group – including a very much alive General Cho – reached the armoured vehicles and crouched between them.
“You missed!” I hissed.
“Blasted Custodians got in the way,” Aika’s small voice came back.
I noticed another group of Custodians dragging the two Underground members, Mal and Dylan, towards the back of the second vehicle. One was gunned down before they got to safety, and another joined his comrade on the ground when he stuck his head out from behind the Bushmaster trying to locate Aika. The next two bullets put down two Custodians trying to use the restaurant’s foyer for cover. Although the Blaser Sniper rifle used straight-down bolt action to eject spent cartridges, it had a five-round detachable magazine, allowing the sniper to get off shots relatively quickly.
“Embark and withdraw!” I heard General Cho command from where he was hiding. There was a creak of poorly oiled hinges and the Bushmaster’s rear access doors were flung open.
“Covering fire!” shouted a burly Custodian officer. Men exposed themselves and fired randomly at the tops of buildings in the hope of forcing the sniper to put his or her head down. A pointless exercise, since Aika was outside Newhome, shooting from the twelfth floor of an apartment block about a kilometre way. That’s why no one could hear the gun shots. And as bullets travelled faster than sound, the only warning a bullet was coming was when it hit its target.
“Don’t let them load our people into the Bushmasters!” I whispered to Aika.
“Can’t get a clear shot, Jones. The general, a bunch of his men, and the rest of the insurgents are crouched down out of sight behind the vehicles.”
“Blast it, Aika – that’s not good enough! We can’t leave anyone behind!”
“I’m not a miracle worker, Jones!”
The three Custodians watching over us finally managed to yank us to our feet, shouting in our faces to move. One was so afraid of the sniper that his gun was shaking in his hand.
“Get those three over here and into the Bushmaster!” Cho shouted at our handlers, pointing at us. He locked his steely eyes upon mine, his face livid with rage. He was using the open backdoor of the Bushmaster as cover, but quickly ducked back when a bullet ricocheted off the armoured metal door.
“Move! Into the Bushmaster!” A Custodian prodded me in the back with his gun, and none too gently, causing pain to shoot through my ribs. Another dragged Nanako towards the vehicle by her arm.
There was a loud slap and my captor collapsed behind me like a marionette with its strings cut. In the space of a heartbeat, I spun around and snatched the assault rifle from his slackening grip. I immediately fired a short burst at the Custodian manhandling
Nanako, aiming at the gap between his helmet and vest. He fell backwards as he vainly tried to staunch the blood pouring from the back of his neck. Guilt knifed through me when I realised this was the first time I’d killed a Custodian, one of my own people. I thrust it away just as quickly – I didn’t have time to deal with this now.
Nanako had the man’s gun in her hands before he hit the ground. She dropped to one knee and fired at Cho and the Custodians still crouching beside the first Bushmaster’s open hatch. The general moved back out of sight, while his men made the mistake of returning fire. Having never seen combat before, their panicked shots went wide. My wife’s shooting was more accurate and both men dropped like trees felled by an axe.
Bullets suddenly peppered the ground near our feet, just missing us. Three Custodians taking cover in the restaurant’s foyer had seen us overpower their comrades and had turned their guns in our direction.
Having dispatched the Custodian who had been bundling her towards the vehicle, Madison fired back at them, putting two down with shots to their throats. The third dived to the ground, shooting at us as he did so. More bullets skipped on the ground about our feet.
There was the sound of a pistol shot, followed by Madison grunting in pain as she collapsed to one knee. Spinning around, I saw that General Cho had popped out from behind the Bushmaster’s hatch. I snapped a shot at him, but he was already moving – this time into the vehicle. The hatch clanged shut with a bang, and the engines of both vehicles roared to life. They immediately started reversing, trying to get out of the sniper’s field of fire. The occupants of the lead vehicle were pulling their dead machine gunner back inside, no doubt hoping to replace him.
“Get out of there – more Custodians are approaching from that side street!” Aika shouted in my earpiece.
“Cover me!” I ordered Nanako as I shouldered my captured gun and turned to assess Madison. She was still kneeling, her face pale, while she clutched her side with her left hand. Blood was seeping through her fingers.
I bent down, pulled her right arm around my neck, put my left arm around her back, and pulled her to her feet.
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 131
