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.