I limped over to the car and stepped slowly past the open rear passenger door so I wouldn't appear as a threat. Crouching on the floor between the front and back car seats was a middle-aged Asian man with cropped black hair. He wore a black suit and exuded an air of authority, despite his current predicament. I hazarded a guess that he wasn't Chinese.
I realised he was studying my face as closely as I was studying his. Perhaps he was unsure of our intentions. "And where are you from, young man?" He asked with an accent so peculiar that it took me a moment to work out exactly what he said. In fact, some words I could not quite understand at all.
"I – we – are from Newhome, Sir. You're lucky that we just happened to be in the area today."
His face lit up with hope and he reached out to take my hands. "From Newhome? That is most fortunate!"
"So you were on your way there? That's what I thought. I'm so sorry we couldn't get here soon enough to save your companions," I said as I helped him step down out of the car. His hands were shaking, but I was not surprised considering how close he’d just come to getting skewered by a Skel.
The man bowed. "Please forgive me, but I do not speak English. I am from Hamamachi."
I stared at him in confusion regarding his claim that he couldn't speak English. Apart from his weirdly disturbing accent, he was doing just fine so far. "Oh, you're from the Japanese colony over near Inverloch," I said. From what I knew, the colony was established around the same time as Newhome, by a Japanese whaling fleet that had been working the South Pacific Ocean when the bombs rained down. Rather than return to Japan, which was said to have been completely destroyed, the fleet made landfall near Inverloch and established a colony there.
I handed the Japanese man over to Shorty, and then turned to help the remaining passenger out of the car. And then I froze, dumbfounded. Sitting on the floor between the seats was a teenage girl: seventeen-years-old at a guess, and everything about her blew my mind. Over a black top and a pink-and-blue lace skirt she wore a faded light-blue jacket with black zebra stripes. Her knee-high black boots nearly covered torn pink leggings, and around her neck was a black dog's collar, from which hung a silver bell and a pair of golden rings.
Her black hair barely reached her jaw and curled in to frame her face, while her dark pink bangs reached below her eyebrows. Two much longer locks of pink hair cascaded over her shoulders. The nose ring was another unexpected touch.
However, it was her dark brown eyes that caught my attention – they were completely encircled by thick, black eyeliner, and were studying me intently.
I don't know how long I stood there staring at her, and her me, but she finally flashed me a shy yet encouraging smile as she reached out a small, delicate hand. "I'm Nanako."
"Nice to meet you, Nanako – I'm Ethan," I replied hesitantly as I helped her down. Nice to meet you? I berated myself. She had just watched Skel murder four of her companions and had been seconds away from meeting the same fate, and that was all I could think to say?
I didn't realise just how petite she was until she stood beside me – the top of her head only just reached my chin. I stood there, holding her small hand, too confused by her strange appearance to form any coherent thoughts, – let alone speak.
"Thank you for coming to our rescue, Ethan. I was terrified those Skel were gonna..." her voice trailed off. I noticed she spoke with the same, peculiar intonation as her companion, but I was able to understand her a bit better.
"It's okay, it's all over now."
"Did you shoot the Skel that was about to kill Councillor Okada?" she asked.
"Yes, that was me. You speak English very well, by the way."
She tilted her head slightly to one side, and this time spoke with a broad Australian accent. "I wasn't speaking in English."
"You weren't? Then what language were you speaking?"
"Japanese." She eyed me curiously.
I looked at her, astonished. How on earth could I understand Japanese?
"Jones, get over here!" bellowed Sergeant King, interrupting any further attempt at conversation. "Bring the girl. I need her to translate what this guy is trying to tell me."
The sergeant was attempting to talk to the Japanese gentleman, Councillor Okada. Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t getting anywhere. Nanako and I hurried over to them. Well, she hurried, I hobbled. Sergeant King had a huge, bloody gash along his arm. The other surviving Custodian was busy trying to bandage the wound, but King was making it difficult for him by refusing to stand still.
“You’re limping, Ethan, are you hurt?” Nanako asked with genuine concern as we joined the others.
“I’m fine, it’s just a bruise,” I assured her, surprised she had noticed.
Nanako nodded, and then began to translate what her companion was saying to Sergeant King.
Councillor Okada and Nanako were representatives from Hamamachi, and were on their way to Newhome in the hope of initiating trade between our two towns. They had brought with them a sampling of the goods they produced; primarily electronic items like microwave ovens, personal computers, mobile phones and cameras. He also expressed his very deep gratitude that we arrived in the nick of time to save them from the Skel.
The weird thing about listening to Councillor Okada speaking and Nanako translating was that I understood much of what he said before she translated it. And yet somehow, I could barely determine the difference between the two languages, apart from the peculiar accent. Was this was another attribute of my mutation? That I could discern the meaning of any spoken language, even though I had not learned it? Surely that could not be so, but what other explanation was there?
It was a hypothesis I could not test easily. No language other than English was permitted in Newhome since the Custodians had banned multiculturalism. Not multiethnicity, mind you, as Newhome boasted a number of different ethnic groups: the good old Anglo-Saxon 'Aussies' like me, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greeks, Italians, Indians, Turkish, and others. However, it was forbidden for the ethnic groups to follow or practise their own culture and customs. The concept was drummed into our heads at school:
Multiculturalism leads to division
Division leads to conflict
Conflict leads to violence
Violence leads to war
War leads to extinction
That war lead to extinction was a lesson not lost on the survivors of World War Three, in which the human race was virtually annihilated. All the same, each ethnic group in Newhome rebelled against the banning of multiculturalism in their own way, primarily by only marrying people of their own race. Hence generations after the Apocalypse, the different races were still distinct. For all we knew, the ethnic groups in Newhome could be the last of their race in the world.
When I was in grade two, I asked the teacher what caused the war and which nations were involved. He gave me a vague answer that it was a result of every ethnic group in the world attempting to assert their independence to the extent that every nation became involved. When I asked him which nation or nations had nuked Australia, he told me to stop asking divisive questions or he’d send me to the principal’s office. I got the impression that he didn’t actually know the answer. Or perhaps he did, but could not reveal the knowledge because people from that nation lived in Newhome. Should that knowledge get out, there could be revenge attacks against the innocent descendants of those responsible for nuking Australia.
To this day, I still don’t know the answers to those questions. After becoming a forager, I read countless contraband newspapers, magazines, and books that I found in the ruins. Although I found many articles reporting the global war against fanatical terrorist groups arising throughout the world, I found nothing at all on the nuclear war that practically destroyed the human race. That led me to conclude that the nuclear attack that triggered the war, and the other nations’ retaliation, had occurred so suddenly that it left no time for journalists to write newspaper or magazine articles about it. That Melbourne had been left without electricity was no doubt a factor as well. You can’t print a newspaper if you can’t power up your printing press or digital printers.
"Right!" Sergeant King declared once he had garnered the needed information from Councillor Okada, bringing me back to the present. "We must return to Newhome immediately, otherwise more of those abominations may find us. We will take the bodies of my men and the Japanese escorts back with us. I'm not leaving them for those vultures."
"Michal, fetch the truck. Leigh, help him get all the bodies in the back," I said, agreeing with the need to rush.
"We have to bring the trade samples from the wrecked car too." Nanako pointed to the Japanese car that had triggered the roadside bomb.
"No probs, we'll see to that!" Michal shouted back as he ran back to retrieve our truck.
"And we must destroy this car. We cannot leave it for them," Councillor Okada said as he helped Nanako lift items out of the destroyed car's boot.
"Sergeant King, Councillor Okada says we must destroy this vehicle," Nanako translated.
I pulled the detonator from my pocket and threw it to David. "Reckon you can manage that if you retrieve the Skel bomb you disarmed back there, David?"
"On it!" he shouted and ran off after Michal.
Sergeant King sent the private off to bring back the G-Wagon. Then he, Shorty and I helped Councillor Okada and Nanako – who was surprisingly strong for her diminutive size – unload the samples from the lead car.
"You wounded, Jones?" King asked when he noticed my limp.
"Just a bruise, Sir." Actually, a dented bone and a bruise. It still hurt like blazes.
"You boys handled those Skel like professionals, Jones," King said as we worked.
"Thank you, Sir," I answered cautiously.
"It wasn't a compliment, Jones – makes me wonder what you boys have been doing out here."
"Sir? Surely the amount of metals we bring back answers that question." I tried to rein in my irritation at his veiled accusation. What did he think we were doing, planning a revolution?
"Which is three times more than any other team does."
"In that case, Sergeant, perhaps you need to ask the other teams what they have been doing out here?" I shot back as fear and trepidation took a hold of me again. He was still searching for which one of us was a mutant.
He glared at me. "Got an answer for everything, haven't you, Jones?"
"We're just doing our job, Sir."
King made to leave, but turned back. "Put your weapons in the back of the G-Wagon."
I suddenly felt very vulnerable. How could we forage safely without them? "You're taking them from us, Sir?"
"Let's put it this way – if the other Custodians find them in your truck when we get back, you'll be in a world of hurt just for having them, and so will I for letting you use them."
"Understood, Sir," I acquiesced to his demand. We would part with our precious bows and arrows.
Michal reversed the truck down the road until it drew level with the wrecked 4WD. We loaded the trade samples in the back, and then reverently placed the bodies in there too, covering them with tarpaulins we brought with us. Once that was done, David crawled beneath the wrecked Japanese 4WD and rigged the Skel homemade bomb and detonator to its petrol tank, setting the timer to five minutes. We were lucky the Japanese still used petrol, it made destroying the car a lot easier. All Newhome vehicles were solar powered.
One minute later, our three-vehicle convoy headed off to Newhome. Sergeant King led the way driving the G-Wagon himself. Next came the Japanese car and its two passengers, driven by the Custodian private. We brought up the rear with our weather-beaten truck and its cargo of trade samples and our slain comrades. The copper we stripped from the apartment building lay forgotten in the street.
We hadn't gone far when David's bomb went off, assaulting our ears with a massive bang as a huge, angry fireball soared into the sky behind us. I guess there wasn't much left of the car now.
"Man, did we kick some or what!" Shorty exclaimed excitedly. We had fought Skel four times over the past two years, but never a dozen like today.
"That's 'cause we rock," Leigh added, his face also flushed with excitement – quite in contrast to his pre-combat expression.
“You did good, guys,” I said. However, the bodies in the back of the truck drove home an unpleasant thought – if the Japanese had not come when they did, the Skel would have attacked us instead. Since I wasn’t using my flash sonar, that would be our bodies in the back of the truck. On the other hand, the fact that the Skel had set up an ambush, complete with bombs directly in the Japanese convoy's path worried at the edges of my mind. Something wasn’t right.
I brought my left leg to my chest and gingerly explored my shin. The dent in the bone was quite noticeable and even now, it still throbbed with pain. Associated with the injury were memories of the Skel who had caused it, sending shudders of revulsion through me.
Looking to the Japanese car in front of us, I was surprised to see the girl turn and glance at us – well, not at us but at me. Her brown eyes locked with mine for an instant. An expression I could not decipher fled quickly across her round face before she turned away.
Suddenly a crystal-clear image flashed in my mind. An image of several pairs of slippers, shoes and high-heeled black boots, arranged neatly in rows across a polished wooden floor. I was hit by an overwhelming feeling that this exact situation, right down to its smallest detail, had occurred previously. I instantly rebelled against this – for I knew that was not impossible. As I tried to wade through the implications of what I had just experienced, a sharp metallic taste filled my mouth, followed immediately by a sensation of falling from a great height.
I grabbed the truck's dashboard to steady myself, but almost as soon as it began, the sensation ceased. Intense pain exploded through my stomach, and then vanished. As if that wasn't enough, the unnerving episode concluded with every nerve ending in my body spiking with adrenaline. It felt like thousands of ants had bitten me.
The entire occurrence, from image to adrenaline spike, had taken perhaps a few seconds, but the after effect was weird. I felt as if I’d woken from a very deep and exhausting sleep.
"You okay, Ethan?"
I looked at Michal, who was glancing at me as he drove.
"I...uh, I'm just tired, I guess," I replied. I mean, what else could I say – I had absolutely no idea what just happened. It defied all logic. The vision made no sense, for I had never seen that polished floor, shoes, boots or slippers. Was my mind reacting to the most stressful day of my life? Or, and I shuddered to consider this disturbing possibility, was it a premonition of some sort?
Whatever it was, I never, ever wanted to experience it again.