Impersonator (Forager Impersonator - A Post Apocalyptic Trilogy Book 1) (8 page)

Finally, I laid my hand on her arm. “Mother, if I’m caught and have to go to prison, it’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means we can keep the flat and have food on the table in the meantime. And what is the point of keeping our honour intact if we are starving?”

At that, she finally relented, though begrudgingly. To be honest, I think she gave up because she had no energy left to argue

“Right, then, we need to tidy up the flat,” I said.

In a whirlwind of activity that helped keep our minds off our woes, we cleaned up much of the mess. We were in the kitchen, washing and drying all the pots, pans and plates, and putting them back in the cupboards, when there was another knock at the door.

“Oh for goodness sake, who is it now?” Mother exclaimed. A glance at the clock revealed it was nearly seven. Two more hours until curfew. That was another aspect the Founders’ vision. Everyone had to be home by nine o’clock to maintain public order and reduce crime, which according to the Founders, tended to be more prevalent at night.

“More Custodians?” Karen asked, wild eyed.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. I had not heard any boots tramping down the walkway outside.

I hurried to the door and opened it a crack, and almost did a double take when I saw Jack’s smiling face. Matt was behind him, looking over his shoulder, while Con leaned back against the railing.

“Ah, hi Chelsea, how are you?” Jack asked, blushing. He looked at my birthmark but quickly returned his gaze to my face.

“I’m good, thanks.” I forced myself to smile. It took a conscious effort to use my normal voice and not speak an octave lower like I had today.

“That’s great. Hey, is Brandon in?”

“Sorry, he’s not feeling well,” I said, thinking that would get rid of them.

Con pushed off the railing. “Tell that wuss to get his butt out here on the double or we’re coming in to get him.”

“Don’t speak like that around Chelsea!” Jack hissed behind the back of his hand.

Con starred daggers at him.

“We’re throwing a celebration in Brandon’s honour tonight, so it ain’t gonna work if he’s not there,” Matt said.

“Celebration in his honour?” I asked.

“You know, since he saved us from the Skel today,” Jack said, beaming. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“Brandon saved you from Skel?” I acted suitably surprised.

Jack filled me in on their miraculous escape from the Skel, embellishing it in the process. I had to suppress a laugh, for his rendition had me overcoming the Skel with scarcely believable combat skills.

Con pushed Matt and Jack aside. “You sending him out or are we coming in? We’re wasting precious time, curfew’s only a couple of hours away and we’ve got a lot of drinking to get done before then.”

There was no way I could let them in, so I lifted a hand to stall his approach. “I’ll go get him.”

I closed the door and ran for the bedroom. Seemed I would be donning my Brandon persona sooner than planned.

Mother caught me half way across the room. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I have to go with them. As Brandon. Otherwise they’ll find out and I won’t be able to go to work tomorrow.”

“I don’t like this, not one little bit,” she growled.

“I’ll be careful. Can you please help me change?”

“If you want to break the law, don’t expect me to–”

“Come on, I’ll help,” Karen said.

I didn’t see that coming.

* * *

“Come on, little buddy. This is your night, so live it up!” Jack beamed. He opened the door to the Forager’s Club and gestured me inside. Even Con and Matt deferred to me. I was way out of my depth and I knew it, but it was too late to back out now. The charade had to continue for my family’s sake.

The club was nothing like I expected after hearing my brother’s stories about what went on here. I’d always envisioned a brightly lit room with neat rows of tables and benches with the foragers sitting and occasionally chatting politely with each other.

The reality was a large, poorly lit room with dark grey walls, black ceiling, and white-flecked black marble floor. Black netting hung from the ceiling and all sorts of memorabilia from pre-Apocalypse days adorned the walls, brought in from the ruins. Wooden wagon wheels, rusted and pristine hubcaps, shredded tyres, exhaust pipes, engine blocks, defunct computers and plasma-screen TVs, and on it went. Entertainment was three pool tables, a selection of painstakingly restored pinball machines, and of course, a bar at the back.

Round, knotted wooden tables were spaced haphazardly around the room. These were frequented by rowdy men of all ages who laughed raucously while engaging in animated conversations. Without exception, every forager present, which had to be just about all of them, had a stubbie – a glass beer bottle – in his hand.

An old jukebox in the centre of the room pumped out songs from the late twentieth century – those with lyrics approved by the Custodians, of course. Songs that promoted sex, drugs, or seditious messages were banned.

I was impressed, and mightily jealous. All the men in Newhome frequented clubs like this pretty much every evening after work, while we women had to sit at home twiddling our thumbs, doing cross-stitch, or watching TV. This so wasn’t fair. All the same, even with these freedoms, the men were still just as trapped here as the women were at home.

I glanced about quickly to see if Ryan was here, but couldn’t locate him. That was no surprise, considering he preferred to be alone.

Jack moved to put his arm around my back, intending to shepherd me towards an empty table.

“No touchy! Sore back! Had a tussle with Skel today, remember?” I blocked his arm and stepped forward. If he put his arm around me, there was no way he’d miss my narrow waist hidden beneath my brother’s baggy windcheater.

Con grabbed my shoulder. “Thought it was only your leg that got hurt?”

Didn’t that guy miss a thing? “Okay, so I downplayed my injuries a bit.”

“It’s ‘injuries’ now?” He stuck his chubby face closer.

“Seriously, Con, you need to chill out. I got a couple of bruises, that’s it. And before you say more, yes, I had them checked out. No broken bones.” Which was true, after a fashion, because Karen applied a herbal balm on the bruises when she helped me don my Brandon disguise earlier.

“Come on, Con, what’s with the third degree? He’s fine.” Jack pulled Con’s hand from my shoulder.

Con complied with a scowl, but couldn’t resist leaving one last barb. “Next time you get hurt, you tell it like it is. You may be a pain in the neck, but you’re one of my team. My responsibility. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“I think that’s Con’s way of saying he cares about you, but don’t quote me on it.” Jack whispered just loud enough for us all to hear. Con rose his eyebrows.

“First round’s on me,” Matt said when we got to a table. He disappeared towards the bar and returned with five chilled stubbies. Officially, I’d never had beer before, but Brandon had slipped the occasional bottle to me when no one was looking, which was lucky. If I didn’t drink tonight or couldn’t hold my liquor, they’d ask too many questions.

All the same, the other three went through several stubbies each in the time I consumed just the one. Fortunately, they were too busy yabbering and laughing to notice. Many other foragers dropped by our table and congratulated me for owning that Skel today. I played along as though I knew them, and no one caught on.

My friends were tipsy or well on the path to getting drunk when Con suddenly straightened up. “Here’s trouble,” he said.

We looked over to the door and saw four neatly dressed men enter the club and check it out.

“What the blazes are they doing here?” Matt snarled.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“The tall, bald one is Richardson; he’s the supervisor of one of the appliance manufactories.”

The men split up, approached four different tables, and started chatting up foragers. Something was up, though, for they spoke furtively, often glancing towards the door.

Our table was the second one Richardson visited. He was probably around fifty, like my father, though the aging process had been kinder to him except for the lack of hair.

Three foragers followed him over and gathered around our table. One looked thoughtful, the other two sceptical.

“Hiya, lads. Like what you’ve done with the place,” Richardson said. He was all smiles and sunshine, as though he was our life-long best friend.

“This ain’t the Workers Club, Richardson.” Con spoke without warmth or welcome, though he nodded amicably at the foragers who came with the newcomer. “Gerry, Anton, Bird.” They nodded in reply.

“Nice to see you again too, Dimitriou.” Richardson laughed, a little too forced.

“Why are you here?” Con asked.

“I need a reason to be?”

“This is the Forager’s Club.”

“Good point.” Richardson laughed again, and then leaned closer, suddenly serious. “Look, Dimitriou, lads, the reason my friends and I are here is to let you know that a group of us are coordinating a stop-work protest next Wednesday to demand certain concessions from the Chancellor and councillors–”

“What group?” Matt asked.

“A group of concerned citizens like us. Primarily from the manufacturies, but we’re reaching out to other groups, like you lot tonight.”

“What concessions?” Con demanded gruffly.

“I’m glad you asked. For starters, we want all citizens to have access to the privileges enjoyed by the residents of North End. This includes the option to apply for jobs there, our apartments renovated to the same standard, a cinema and more playgrounds for the children, a public swimming pool, access to North End shops, and the curfew lifted. Oh, and for weapons permits for foragers when they’re out in the ruins.”

Hearing Richardson talk about taking action to set us free from our society’s oppressive constraints caused hope to spring up within me. If Newhome were to change into a better place, there’d be no reason for me to escape.

“Like that last point,” Jack said, his eyes sparkling. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what he was imagining right now. Him, with a gun, blowing away Skel.

“You’re going overboard if you think they’ll make that many concessions at the same time – especially concessions regarding North End. You should begin with just one or two minor requests and if they grant those, go for more later,” Matt said.

“The way we see it, if we demand only a couple of things, they’ll ignore us. If we demand the world, they’ll try to meet us half-way and grant some concessions,” Richardson said.

“What about women’s rights?” I asked.

“What?” He appeared completely stumped.

“You know, equality for women and girls. Surely that’s a bigger issue than the ones you’ve mentioned so far. You should request the right for girls to attend school, to apply for jobs alongside men, to walk freely about town without a chaperone, to be able to frequent restaurants.”

All the foragers at the table, my teammates included, looked at me with their mouths wide open.

“Where's this coming from?” Matt whispered to Jack.

“No idea. You ever heard Brandon talk like this before?” Jack asked.

“Never.”

“Me neither.”

“What’s happened to him?” Matt seemed most perplexed.

“No idea, man.”

“Young man – sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” Richard said.

“Brandon.”

“Thank you. Well Brandon, let me say that that we need people like you. People who are thinkers, people that question the status quo rather than following it blindly like sheep. Why don’t you join our stop-work protest, and bring as many of your foraging friends as you can. If the Chancellor and councillors see men from all walks of life united in solidarity as we make our demands, they will have no choice but to listen.”

“Does this mean you’ll add women’s rights to your list of demands?” I asked. He didn’t respond to my suggestions, just skirted around them.

“The agenda for the stop-work protest has already been tabled, and as I’m sure you can see, the concessions we will demand are crucial for the wellbeing of all.”

“Really? Concessions to apply for jobs in North End, cinemas, a public swimming pool, and removal of the curfew. Only men will benefit from those,” I said.

“Knock it off, Brandon,” Con said.

“Knock off what?” I snapped.

“You want women to compete with men in applying for jobs?” A look of smug superiority dominated his corpulent features.

“You think they can’t do it?”

“Come on, Brandon. Can you see either of your sisters owning a Skel like you did today?”

I clenched my fists and fought back the urge to scream. If they only knew. “Karen, no. Chelsea, most definitely.”

“Chelsea? That feminine, delicate thing couldn’t hurt a fly,” Con said.

“Actually, I’m with Brandon,” Jack said. “From what he’s told me about Chelsea, I reckon she’d excel at anything she put her hand to, even foraging. And if she can do it, so can other women. Besides, we’ve all see the books, magazines, and DVDs out in the ruins. Before the Apocalypse, women worked alongside men in every type of profession. Factory work, office jobs, the police force, even the army. There was no male/female segregation like we have.”

Brandon told his friends about me? Without bagging me? And Jack believed I could do anything they could do? I felt my heart warming towards him.