Impersonator (Forager Impersonator - A Post Apocalyptic Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

My sister shook her head. “Why do you bother, he won’t notice.”

“So it’s just me bickering, is it?” I said. And instantly regretted it. I didn’t know why I squabbled with her so much. It was a bad habit we had fallen into and somehow lacked the ability to end it.

“Eldest Daughter!” Mother said.

“Okay!”

I took the plate into the dining room and laid it before Father. Karen put the breadbasket and a tub of butter beside it, while Mother gave him a glass of light beer. Somehow, he always had enough money for that.

We retired to the kitchen doorway and waited upon Father while he ate. I expected him to complain when he saw the uneven bread slices, but he was so distracted by whatever had spooked him, that he made no comment. He kept glancing at Karen and me, a haunted look in his eyes. Then, when he was halfway through the meal, he suddenly seemed to have an epiphany, though his face remained troubled.

“You’re eighteen now,” he said.

“That’s right.” My birthday was last week, something he would have known had he’d shown even the slightest interest in his family.

His hands shook as he cut a roast potato into smaller chunks. “Time to marry you off, then.” He risked a quick glance in my direction.

My jaw dropped open and it took some effort to close it again. Though I couldn’t say I was particularly surprised by his announcement. It was customary in Newhome for fathers to marry off their daughters as soon as they turned eighteen. I just never expected he would follow that custom religiously. What was I, a costly possession that needed to be disposed of as soon as possible to avoid paying ongoing maintenance costs?

“Don’t feel you need to rush into it on my account, Father,” I said.

“I’ll pop into one of the marriage agencies in my lunch break tomorrow and see if there are any immediately available bachelors with good prospects and connections.” He ignored me completely.

That’s it. I was out of here. Father’s threat to marry me off, coupled with the revelation that my brother was skipping work, made up my mind.

Tomorrow I would masquerade as my brother, head over to his work and go out with his foraging team. Then when their backs were turned, I would make a run for it. From what Brandon said, Melbourne’s ruins were like a rabbit warren, so there was no way they’d find me if I ran off during a toilet break.

I looked at my father, who continued to pick away at his meal, oblivious of my presence. I sighed. He hadn’t always been like this. Before the accidental shooting he was warm hearted and considerate, especially during my younger years. However, the accident and the ensuing short stint in a prison factory, even though he was exonerated, changed him. No – it broke him. I didn’t even know who he was anymore.

I cast my mind back to one of my strongest memories. Accompanied by her mother, my Mother had just returned from the market, laden with bags of food and necessities. She found my brother and me, aged four, snuggled on Father’s lap while he sat on the sofa. He was showing us flashcards he had made containing simple words. My brother and I took turns reading the words, squealing and giggling with delight every time we did so.

“What on earth are you doing, Husband?” Mother snapped.

“Teaching them to read,” Father replied. “I can’t believe how quickly they’re picking it up!”

“You’re wasting your time teaching Chelsea now.”

“What, why?”

“She doesn’t need to read or write until she has to read recipes and patterns, and that won’t be for a few years yet.”

“Well, it’s too late for that, I’m afraid. They can both read already.” Father gave us both a hug, and kissed us lightly on the tops of our heads. We beamed back at him.

Mother looked at Father sceptically. “You seriously expect me to believe that? They’re only four!”

“Watch this.” Father held up the flashcards, and we took turns sounding out and reading them. “Impressive, eh? I’ve never heard of kids this age picking it up so quickly.”

I thought Mother would be proud, but she frowned, clearly displeased. She slammed down the shopping bags and tore me from Father’s lap. “Enough of this nonsense, Husband. Come, Chelsea, help me put the food away.”

Disappointed, I glanced back at Father, Brandon, and Grandmother as I followed her into the kitchen. Far from cowed, my father winked at me and smiled mischievously. I knew he’d keep teaching me my letters when Mother went shopping with her mother on the weekends.

Later, when Father got too busy at work and lost interest in continuing the lessons, my brother took over. Throughout his primary school years, he and I often got up in the middle of the night after our parents fell asleep so he could teach me everything he learned at school that day.

Brandon couldn’t be bothered keeping this up regularly once he hit secondary school, saying he was too tired. I figured it was more a case of it being uncool to sneak to the lounge-room to be with his sister every night. All the same, he didn’t abandon me. The nights he didn’t show me what to do, he left his school bag and textbooks in the lounge-room so I could continue the midnight lessons by myself. The next day, when Mother was out of earshot, he would test me to see what I’d learned.

Of course, there was no point in me learning mathematics, history, English, and the sciences, if I was to remain in Newhome all my life. But as it had always been my goal to escape, I figured the knowledge would come in mighty handy one day.

There was another area in which Brandon helped me. Physical fitness. A couple of years ago he came home one night and showed me his arm. He had been rather slim most of his life, but his muscles had become quite pronounced.

“Check out this, Sis,” he said, pointing to his bicep. He was supposed to call me Younger Sister, since he was born twenty minutes before I was, but like me, tended to throw a lot of conventions out the window when our parents weren’t around.

“It’s like a rock – and so big! How did you get it like this, Brandy?” I asked, impressed.

“Been going to the gym after school every day.”

“A gym, like where they do gymnastics?”

“No, doofus,” he laughed. “A gymnasium, where guys go to pump iron – sorry, lift weights, in girl-speak.”

“And of course, no girls allowed.”

“Absolutely not!”

“That’s so unfair. I want to go too.” I pouted.

“Really? Well in that case, I’ve got an idea.”

“Come on then, out with it.”

“As it’s not always possible to get to gym, our instructors have been teaching us how to use our own body weight to increase flexibility, balance, and strength. I could teach those exercises to you, if you’re interested. You can do them anywhere, even your own bedroom.”

“Teach me, Mister!” I replied. The stronger and fitter I was, the better my chances of survival if I managed to escape one day.

So Brandon taught me a number of body weight exercises, such as push-ups, reverse crunches, sit-ups, lunges, and my least favourite, burpees. Unfortunately, I had to do these when Mother was not in the room, otherwise she’d rant on and on about how inappropriate it was for a lady to engage in such pursuits. Especially since I had to do the exercises in my pyjamas, because they were impossible to do while wearing a restrictive ankle length dress. My sister saw me exercising a few times, but wasn’t interested in joining me. She thought I was nuts.

At any rate, I had nicely toned muscles now, was a lot fitter, and felt better about myself. Well worth it.

Coming back to the present, I retired back into the kitchen, lamenting the loss of my father’s friendship.

“Why do you get all the breaks?” Karen said. Envy was written all over her youthful face.

“What are you talking about?” I snapped.

“You’re getting married soon.”

“Getting married wasn’t exactly on my list of things to do now.”

“It’ll get you out of here and away from them.” She indicated our parents with a flick of her head.

“By marrying some git twice my age I’ve never met? By being pregnant, barefoot, and stuck in the kitchen for the rest of my life?” It was common for girls in Newhome to meet their husbands on their wedding day. The lucky ones met them once or twice before hand.

“It’s not that bad, surely.”

“Really. What about their marriage?” I indicated our parents again.

“Not all marriages turn out like theirs,” Karen said.

“How many good marriages have you heard about in this town?”

“Plenty.”

“Really.”

“You could strike it lucky. Besides, what do they say? ‘You get out of marriage what you put into it.’”

“That’s a nice theory, but it takes two to tango. What if I get landed with a controlling, overbearing man who lays down the law and won’t put any effort into it?”

“Seriously, Elder Sister, you can be so negative. You have to expect the best out of life,” Karen said, shaking her head so her curls bounced around her face.

“I’d rather not take the risk, thanks,” I said.

“You make it sound like you have a choice.”

“Maybe I do.”

“How so?” she demanded.

I was tempted to tell her my plans for tomorrow but realised I couldn’t. She’d tell Mother, who would probably lock me in the closet to stop me going.

Karen said something, but my mind was elsewhere, busily thinking of the things I had to do tonight so I could impersonate my brother tomorrow.

Of course, what I was planning was not without a considerable amount of risk, since it was forbidden for a woman to masquerade as a man. The penalty was a mandatory prison sentence accompanied by a hefty fine. So if my brother’s workmates saw through my disguise or caught me out in some other way, I was in for a world of trouble. Similarly, if my brother actually turned up at work tomorrow while I was there pretending to be him...

However, being arrested for impersonating Brandon was the least of my worries. My brother and I had spent the last thirteen years living in fear for our lives because we were mutants.

The law stipulated that no aberrations of the human genome were permitted – it had to be kept pure at all costs. Because of that, foetuses found to contain a mutation, even extra toes or fingers, were terminated, and all child or adult mutants were to be reported to the authorities, whereupon they were taken away and never seen again. It was rumoured they were euthanized and then dissected in the Genetics Laboratory.

That’s the primary reason I've always wanted to leave this town. To get away from the death sentence that hung continually over my head.

Regarding our mutation, my brother and I realised before the age of three that we were different from our parents – and everyone else, for that matter. We could hear things they couldn’t. And not just quieter noises, but dog whistles and even bats using echolocation, also known as flash sonar. We also discovered that we could pitch our voices up in the ultrasonic range, and that if we did this at night, we could even see in the dark! We kept this secret from our parents, though, because being able to hear them coming from a mile away gave us quite an edge. As such, our parents thought we were little angels, since they rarely caught us doing anything wrong.

Unfortunately, our days of enjoying our mutation were cut short. I remember vividly the day when my brother and I were five and our grandmother and mother took us to the market. Brandon came with us because he hadn’t started school yet.

We were standing behind our mother while she and grandmother picked out fruit and vegetables from a green grocer’s street stall, when I noticed an old man dressed in a well-worn suit standing close by, watching us. He looked a little freaky – his skin was so wrinkled and he looked so tired, as though he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He took a step closer, inclined his head, and whispered so softly that Brandon and I were the only ones who could hear him.

“You two are different, aren’t you?”

Brandon just stared at him, but I nodded.

“You can hear better than anyone else. And you’ve got a special high voice your parents can’t hear.”

This time we both nodded.

The elderly gentleman – I think he was Chinese – reached out and grabbed our arms. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you children are going to have to hide your abilities. Hide them from everyone, even your family and friends. Do not ever use your high voices inside the town. Don’t let anyone know you can hear better than they can–”

“Why?” I asked.

He pointed to a pair of imposing armed and armoured Custodians patrolling the market. “You know who they are?”

“Custodians,” I said.

“Do you know what they do?”

“They take away bad people,” Brandon replied.

“Not just bad people,” he whispered. “They also take away children like you – children with special abilities. They take you away to the Genetics Laboratory to be cut up like a frog. Do you understand what I’m saying? If they discover your abilities, they’ll kill you!”

Brandon and I nodded solemnly, so the strange elderly man straightened up and made to leave.

“But why would they do that?” I asked.

“Because you’re different, and they’re scared of children who are different,” he whispered.

“But why?” I asked. I wasn’t happy.

He took a step closer, and I saw tears in his eyes. “I didn’t think they’d discover you children so early, and I never expected they’d react like this when they did.” His face hardened. “Remember what I told you – hide your abilities!”

He turned and quickly threaded his way into the swirling crowd of shoppers.