Forager (18 page)

Another thought popped into my mind – what if I could find a way to persuade my father to let me marry Nanako? It was a long shot, especially in light of what had happened last night. Then there was the matter of the inexplicable animosity between my father and Nanako.

As I tried to dig my way through this impossible situation, my eyes grew heavy and I too fell asleep.

And began to dream.

Although I was dreaming, my mind entered a state of such clarity that it felt like I was actually experiencing what I dreamed. It was January 2120, and I had only been out of school for several weeks. The next month I would turn eighteen.

Having run away from my foraging team, I was prowling quietly along the front of an old, dilapidated factory in Lilydale, one of Melbourne's easternmost suburbs.

To my left was the factory’s car park, overgrown by weeds and wild blackberry bushes. A battered old ute was parked there, but it wasn’t the ute that interested me. It was the sound of four young people having a riotous good time – laughing, cackling, and shouting in a foreign language.

I was wary of them – as I was of everything out in Melbourne’s ruins – yet at the same time irresistibly curious because I could hear male and female voices together. So I crept quietly through the wild blackberries and climbed, without making a noise, onto the bonnet of the ute. I sat cross-legged and settled down to watch them.

They were teenagers of a similar age – there were two guys and two girls. And they were having a fun watching four small lizards racing through narrow plastic pipes. Whenever a lizard popped its head out the wrong end, they would slap their thighs and laugh boisterously. The little lizards garnered a similar reaction when they appeared out of the far end, but then disappeared back into the safety of the pipe before they could be caught.

I was most surprised and yet extremely fascinated to see girls outside their homes without their mothers to chaperone them, not to mention mixing with boys on even terms.

The shorter of the two girls must have spotted me from her peripheral vision, because she suddenly stood up and whirled to face me, her slightly upturned mouth open as she studied me with a mixture of concern and curiosity.

She was by far the strangest and yet the most intriguing girl I had seen. Her beautiful hair was jet black except for the fringe and some longer strands, which were dark pink. She wore a zebra striped jacket over a black top, a skirt made of lace, and tattered pink and black leggings. She also had a black choker with a silver bell around her neck.

"Hello," she said in English with a broad Australian accent.

"Hi," I replied.

"Have you been there long?" Her dark brown eyes studied me intently.

I nodded. "A while."

"I didn't notice you come. Are you by yourself?" She glanced around.

"I can be pretty quiet, and yes, I’m alone."

Her three companions, who were now aware of my presence, jumped to their feet and stood beside her, clearly worried. The taller girl was dressed similarly, while the boys wore jeans and t-shirts. The tallest boy pulled out a gun and aimed it at me, but the first girl stretched out a hand and pushed it away.

"What's your name?" she asked, peering out from beneath her pink fringe.

"Ethan."

"I’m Nanako. Where are you from?"

"From a town about a day's walk west of here."

"Really? So why are you out here by yourself?"

"I kind of ran away," I replied, hoping the admission didn’t make me seem like an immature juvenile.

"From your family?" she asked, clearly surprised.

"No, not from them, from the town," I replied, thinking that should have been obvious.

Her eyes, rimmed with thick, black eyeliner, widened in surprise. "You mean you can't come and go from your town as you please?"

"No. No one is allowed to leave Newhome."

"So how did you get away?" She took a step forward. It appeared she wasn’t wary of me any longer.

"I'm a forager. I go out into Melbourne's ruins with a team to collect scrap metal. When no one was looking yesterday I ran off."

She came closer, smiling warmly now. "We're a foraging team too. We collect old mobile phones and such. But hey, I bet you’re hungry. How’d you like to join us for lunch?"

"Sounds great," I said as I slid off the ute.

The girl’s friends spoke to her in hushed voices in their own language, clearly concerned. But she must have allayed their fears, for they joined her in fetching their lunches from the ute.

Nanako brought out a beautiful lacquered black lunchbox wrapped in a handkerchief, and invited me to sit with her.

Feeling way out of my depth, I accepted her invitation and hesitantly sat beside her. She gave me a rice-ball wrapped in paper-thin seaweed. I had never eaten rice before, and it tasted awesome – a refreshing break from potatoes and bread.

"My friends are Miki, Ken and Hiro. They don’t speak English, I’m afraid," she said. "We're Japanese, by the way, from Hamamachi, over near Inverloch."

I nodded politely to the others, and they gave short bows in return. I reflected on my good fortune to have found such friendly people one day out of Newhome.

"Hey Ethan," Nanako said as she passed me a block of scrambled egg wrapped with seaweed. "Why don't you come back to Hamamachi with us and join one of our foraging teams – maybe even ours. We can use all the foragers we can get."

"Can I leave the town when I want to?" I asked, worried that I might be walking into another prison.

"Of course," she answered, and then, after making meaningful eye contact with me, added, "If you want to leave, that is."

My head jerked, tearing me out of the dream. For a moment I was so disorientated I had no idea where I was. Nanako's presence quickly brought me back to reality, though. She was snuggled against my chest, legs draped over mine, still fast asleep.

I don't know how long I slept, but it must have been at least a couple of hours. Apart from the flickering light and shadows caused by the television, the room was almost completely dark.

My mind raced frantically as I tried to process what the dream revealed. It was clearly a memory from my missing year. And a major clue as to what really happened during that time. I had run away from Newhome in January 2120 and headed east, where I bumped into Nanako and her foraging team. After that they invited me to Hamamachi.

I guess I had been willing to run away at that time because it was before my younger sister got sick. Perhaps father lied about what really happened because he was afraid I would run away again if I found out I had done so previously.

I ran my fingers through Nanako's silky black hair and contemplated the most puzzling revelation of the dream, that Nanako and I did not meet on Monday as I had supposed, but three years ago.

Now I understood why she kept staring at me after we saved her and Councillor Okada from the Skel. She must have been so surprised that out of all the people in Newhome who could have rescued her, it just happened to be me. Yet at the same time she must have been so disappointed I didn't recognise her.

But why didn't she greet me by name as soon as she saw me? If I had responded by saying I didn't know her, she could have explained to me how we'd met before. Instead, she greeted me as a stranger. And in all the times I saw her since then, she never once gave me any indication that we met previously. Well, except for the excitement she showed when I told her my memories were returning, and disappointment when I said I hadn't remembered any people yet. She was obviously hoping I would remember her.

The question was, why was she hiding the truth from me? Was there something she didn't want me to find out? I mean, I know she had been in a relationship with a guy two years ago who dumped her and broke her heart. But where did I fit into her life at that time? Were we workmates? Good friends?

Whatever the answer was, she clearly had feelings for me now. She told me that she liked me and whispered under her breath that she loved me.

That I had gone to Hamamachi solved another mystery. Nanako said that everyone in Hamamachi, from seventeen to fifty-five years of age, served in the Militia, so I must have served in it too. That would explain how I learned to use a gun and fight in hand-to-hand combat, confirming King's suspicions that I had been properly trained. It also explained my memory of assembling an Austeyr assault-rifle.

The doctor said I had been operated on before I was brought to him in November, so after I was shot I must have had an operation in Hamamachi. That led to another puzzle I desperately needed answers for. How was I shot?

And this of course led to the next question, and this one was quite significant – who brought me back to Newhome? Whoever it was, they brought me back because they didn't have the means or knowledge in Hamamachi to treat the bad seizures I was having. They must have suspected or known that Newhome had a better hospital and neurosurgeons.

I recalled the discharge paper from the hospital. My father was listed as the one who checked me out. There was also an admission sheet, but unfortunately, I hadn't seen any of the details.

Suddenly, I had to know whose name was written on that sheet. There would be other information in that file I needed to know too. Perhaps even a record or details of how I was shot.

I could sneak over to the hospital right now, pick the lock, and find the information I needed. I considered waking Nanako, confronting her with what my dream had revealed, and asking her if she knew the answers I sought, but would she tell me the truth?

My father lied to me about what happened in 2120 –for two years. And although Nanako hadn't actually lied, she hadn't offered to tell me the truth either. And that meant I couldn't trust either of them. On the other hand, I figured I could trust the hospital records.

I pulled my left arm out of the sling and stretched, grimacing from the pain that stabbed through my chest. I gently lifted Nanako's legs, slipped out from beneath them, and placed them back on the sofa.

After that I changed into black jeans and a black hoody. I stuffed a torch into my belt and armed myself with a set of lock picks I smuggled in from a foraging trip. That done, I slipped out the front door.

With my left hand in my pocket to minimize the pain I felt every time I moved the arm, I made my way to the hospital. I had to go to ground twice so that passing Custodian patrols wouldn’t see me. If they spotted me, I could spend up to a month in prison for breaking the curfew.

Since Newhome was small size, I was soon in front of the hospital’s main entrance, which was of course locked. The emergency department would be open all night, and the entrance was just to the left, so I decided to tackle the front doors. I soon had them open with the assistance of my lock-picks. For the first time I was glad the town council had never bothered spending money to modernise the hospital – the building was decades old, and the locks were very old fashioned. I had picked many such locks out in Melbourne's ruins.

I closed the doors quietly behind me. Taking great care to avoid the hospital’s night shift staff and a roving Custodian security detail, I made my way to the neurology department. It was closed and only partially illuminated by the occasional light. Finding my file in the receptionist's office proved quite difficult using only a torch, as there were multiple metal filing cabinets, and piles of papers stacked everywhere. Eventually, I found the cabinet that contained the files of patients admitted into hospital in 2120. Filing by date instead of alphabetically.
What’s that about, anyway?

My hands were shaking when I found and removed my file. I had a good mind to put it back and walk away, but I had to know what secrets it could divulge.

I sat on the floor behind the receptionist's desk and went through the file. As the neurologist said, there were no references to my bio-engineered abnormalities. Nor were there any copies of MRI or EEG scans they had taken.

The first disturbing thing I discovered was the report on the bullet wound, which said I had been shot at point blank range. Fear’s cold tendrils snaked through my stomach and into my head. How had this happened? How could someone have gotten that close to me without me knowing about it or trying to stop them? Did someone try to kill me in my sleep? Or while serving in the Militia? With my sensitive hearing, it just didn't make any sense.

I breathed deeply and turned the page. There was no point getting all worked up and worried about something that could not be resolved by guesswork. I kept shuffling through the file, looking for the patient-admission form, and finally found it. It recorded:

Patient: Ethan Jones

Admission: 16 Nov 2120

Signed in by: Nanako Jones

Relationship to Patient: Wife

I don't know how long I sat there, staring at the admission form, simply trying to comprehend the stupendous truth it revealed. And as the truth sank slowly into my mind, my perspective of my life, of myself, slowly unravelled until I felt like I no longer knew who I was.

Nanako was my wife?

That meant I must have married her after I went to Hamamachi. Furthermore, she was the one who brought me back to Newhome to receive the operation that stopped the grand mal epileptic seizures.

But if this was true, why did she leave me? If she was my wife, why did she abandon me and go back to Hamamachi without me? She didn’t even wait to see the results of the operation.

Anger at this betrayal slowly turned to rage, driving away the confusion and all other emotions.

I put my file back in the cabinet and stormed angrily out of the hospital, pausing only to lock the front doors.

It was raining incessantly now, and the rain soon soaked through my clothes and bandages, chilling my body but not my mood.

"Why, Nanako? Why did you leave me?" I whispered to myself in an endless loop.

Running on adrenaline alone, I dodged two Custodian patrols and eventually reached my apartment. I barged through the front door and saw the flat was still lost in darkness with the flickering TV as the only light source. I switched on the lights.

Nanako was still asleep on the sofa, a picture of gentle innocence. Yet also the picture of a girl who had abandoned her husband when he needed her most.

She stirred when I stomped over and stood over her, slowly opening her sleep-heavy eyes. She blinked and gasped when she saw me. "What's wrong, Ethan, why are you soaking wet?"

"I just broke into the hospital," I snapped.

"What, why?" she asked, wide awake now, and bewildered by the naked anger in my eyes.

"I dug out my file in the neurologist's office, and you'll never guess what I found. I was signed into the hospital in November 2120 by one Nanako Jones – relationship to patient: wife! Why didn't you tell me, Nanako, why didn't you tell me?" I demanded, deeply wounded and enraged almost beyond rational thought.

Her face paled and her eyes widened in shock. "I was gonna tell you when the time was..."

"Why did you leave me?"

She stepped off the sofa and reached for me. "Please let me explain..."

I stepped back from her angrily. "Why did you bring me all the way from Hamamachi to have the operation and then just abandon me?"

Tears filled her eyes, but she still took a step towards me. "It wasn't like that..."

"You didn't even wait to see the result of the operation," I said. The raging anger began to turn into something else - gut-wrenching heartache. I felt like I was coming apart at the seams, tearing into a thousand pieces. Tears streaked down my cheeks.

"I couldn't..." she began.

"You left me when I needed you the most!" I almost shouted, cutting her off. "I woke up from that operation totally bewildered and confused, with a massive hole in my mind, not knowing how I had gotten there. I knew something was missing but I had no idea what it was. And then I had to do rehab with no one but unsympathetic male nurses. And you went back home to Hamamachi without even leaving me with a letter or memento of you. And now two years later you come back, playing all these mind games, not once telling me that you are my wife!"

With that outburst, the sense of betrayal and heartache grew so strong that I bolted from the apartment. She ran after me, calling my name, but I ran down the stairs and escaped into the welcoming darkness of the night. I quickly lost her amidst the trees and shrubs growing between the blocks of flats.

As I ran through the pouring rain, my thoughts veered slowly into an entirely different direction. From what I had seen of Nanako this week, she seemed so genuinely kind and caring, with a strong sense of right and wrong. Her behaviour this week was at complete odds with the apparent callousness of her actions after I was wounded. When she brought me back to Newhome and abandoned me to my fate.

I slowed to a jog, and wondered if I was reading this situation all wrong? What if she had a perfectly good explanation to why she left me and went home?

And then something she said hit me with the impact of a sledgehammer, driving me to my knees on the wet grass as the full implication of her words sank in. She said she had a man in her life two years ago, a man who told her that he never wanted to see her again.

That could mean only one thing. I was the one who said that to her. I told Nanako I never wanted to see her again. I was the insensitive fool and ugly brute who broke her heart.

Yet even so, Nanako had proven without doubt this week that she was a girl of character who would stand up for me, even going head-to-head with my father. There was no way she would have run back home with her tail between her legs just because I said that to her, especially considering I had said it while gravely wounded and ill. And even more so because I hadn't had the operation yet, the very operation she brought me here to receive.

Something was missing. There was another piece of the puzzle. A piece that would explain everything when I found it.

And then I had it.

The missing piece was my father.

He had obviously been there, and he must have met Nanako. In fact, that would explain what he said when she came to the door. Not, 'Can I help you?' but 'What are you doing here?' And then there was the issue of the considerable amount of animosity between them.

And she had goaded him, asking how he was going to make her leave his home, even asking if he would get the Custodians to throw her out.

That was it. The missing piece. There was no way in the world a girl as devoted and loving as Nanako would walk away from her wounded, sick husband. She would have stuck it out right to the end. And that lead me to the obvious conclusion. My father had her expelled from Newhome. And then taking advantage of my amnesia, he had the audacity to arrange my marriage to someone else when he knew full well that I was already married to Nanako.

I rose to my feet and headed for my parents' flat. I was going to have this out with him right now – forget the curfew.

* * *

I was utterly drenched, panting for breath, and exhausted, when I reached my parents' flat a few minutes later. Running around at night in the rain was not what I should be doing when I needed to rest to recuperate from the wound.

I banged on the front door with the flat of my hand.

"Who is it?" came my mother's frightened voice a moment later.

"Open the door, Mother, it's me," I commanded her none too kindly.