I woke in the middle of the night from a fitful, nightmare-plagued sleep. The clicking sound of the metal bolt sliding back was the culprit. My first thought was that it was the assassin, come to finish what he started two years ago, but those fears evaporated when I saw Councillor Okada and another man standing there. Before either of them could speak, however, Nanako pushed her way between them and darted to my side.
“You’re so pale, Ethan, are you okay? I can’t believe they haven’t given you proper medical treatment, considering what you did for them today,” she said angrily.
I pushed myself to a sitting position and regretted it instantly as pain stabbed through my head. I took her small hands in mine, simply relieved that she was unharmed. “That’s not the way they see it, apparently,” I replied.
“You two will have ample opportunities to talk later, but right now you have to go,” the councillor said as he stepped back from the cell door.
“Where are we going?” I asked as I left the small concrete-walled cell with one arm around my wife’s shoulders to steady myself. Out in the corridor, I was glad to see Shorty and David waiting for us. They nodded in greeting, but appeared as bewildered as I was.
“My nephew, Ken, will drop you off a couple of kilometres from Newhome,” Councillor Okada explained as we hurried down the prison block’s corridor towards the entrance.
“Why are you doing this, Councillor? Won’t you get in trouble?” I asked.
“All video surveillance has been disabled, and there has been an error with the prison staff shift change. None of this will be traced to me,” he replied. “As to why am I doing this? It’s because I know you are innocent of complicity in the Custodian’s plan, because I owe you my life two times over, and because you’re my friend.”
We left the prison and stepped into the brisk night air. An old, weathered 4WD was parked at the curb with its engine idling.
“But what of Leigh? We can’t leave without him,” I protested.
“Leigh is still in critical condition and cannot be moved. Do not worry. I will keep a watch over him.”
“But…”
“Ethan, the council is understandably in an uproar over this. All they can see is that the people from Newhome tried to destroy the town with an atomic bomb. They cannot differentiate between the Custodians and foragers, not even after I tried to explain it to them. Even the fact that you foragers took out the Custodians and disarmed the bomb does not allay their suspicions.”
“Ethan,” Nanako said with a sense of urgency bordering on panic, “Some of the councillors are convinced the foragers are Custodian spies and are demanding you be tortured and, whether you confess or not, executed. So please! Get in the car, we have to go.”
Ken was already behind the steering wheel, so Shorty, David and Nanako quickly clambered into the vehicle. Shorty in the front and the other two in the back. I held back for a moment and reached out to shake Councillor Okada's hand. “Thank you, Sir, I won’t forget this."
"Take good care of Nanako, young Ethan," he said softly so that only I could hear him. "She is not as tough as she seems."
The councillor cared for Nanako like a daughter, and obviously knew something from her past I didn’t. The information did not come as a surprise to me though. I had already seen that side of her – and loved her all the more for it.
"You can count on me, Sir," I assured him as I climbed into the vehicle and sat next to my wife in the back seat.
The councillor’s nephew took off as soon as I closed the door, accelerating to 80-klicks in an instant. I glanced out the rear window as we set off and saw the councillor hurrying towards his black 4WD.
"Someone wanna tell me why we’re going back to Newhome?” Shorty asked, as he twisted around in his chair to meet my gaze.
"Somewhere else you’d rather go?" I asked.
"Anywhere but there."
"I wanna go back," David added, earning an evil look from Shorty.
"Our families are there," I reminded him.
"Exactly," David agreed.
"They’ll do just fine without me. No, they’ll be thrilled to bits if I don’t come back," Shorty said. "Why are you so keen to return, Jones?"
"As I said, my family’s there. More specifically, my little sister needs me. As I told you before, until she returns to full health, leaving Newhome ain’t on my list of things to do. However, there is another reason – one that affects us all."
"And that is?" Shorty demanded.
"What do you think the Custodians will do when they find out their attempt to nuke Hamamachi failed?"
"They’ll try again," Nanako said, joining the conversion.
"Exactly," I agreed.
“What’s that got to do with us?" Shorty asked.
"Excuse me?" Nanako blustered. "That’s my home, my family, my people – possibly the last Japanese on earth."
"Shorty, don’t you care if the Custodians succeed in nuking Hamamachi – in murdering a whole town of innocent people?" I asked, meeting his gaze.
"Of course I do, but what can we do about it?"
"I say we go back to our jobs but keep our eyes and ears open to what’s going on in the town. Besides, as foragers, we should be the first to know if the Custodians are going to mount another attack on Hamamachi. And if they are, we can work out then how to stop it."
"Still rather we’d go somewhere else," Shorty mumbled.
"Fine! But tell me this, though – what are we gonna tell the Custodians when we get back?" Shorty asked.
"We’ll tell them that we got ambushed by Skel on the way back," I replied. "We’ll work out the details later to make sure our stories match."
"And if they don’t buy it?"
"They will, don’t worry."
As darkened houses, buildings, and sheds flashed past in the night, I put my arm around Nanako and she rested her head against my shoulder. I looked down into her lovely round face and at the mixture of determination and concern etched there.
"We’re gonna get through this, okay? And one day we're gonna live our lives without the worry of our two towns trying to wipe each other out – or of people trying to kill me," I assured her.
She searched my face for a long moment and said, “I’m going to hold you to that.”
We sat there in the darkened interior of the 4WD as the councillor’s nephew drove over the weed overgrown freeway through an eerie, nighttime landscape. As we went, I wondered what was in Newhome that was such a threat to the Skel and whoever was backing them – a faction in Hamamachi perhaps? – that they wanted to destroy it.