Year of the orphan / Daniel Findlay.

In a post-apocalyptic future, survivors scavenge in the remnants of our ruined world, and an orphan with her own brutal past must decide if what's left of humanity is worth saving. 'There were a heat. Air hotter'n blud. She felt it bakin her skin as she moved. There weren't nothin certain but one thing i- the Reckoner were coming.' Pursued by the Reckoner, the Orphan flees across the desert, scavenged spoils held close. In a blasted landscape of abandoned mines and the crumbling bones of civilisation, she survives by picking over the dead past. She trades her scraps at the only known settlement, a ramshackle fortress of greed, corruption and disease. An outpost whose only purpose is survival i- refuge from the Ghosts and creatures that hunt beyond. Orphaned, sold, then raised hard in the System, the Orphan has a mission, carries secrets. She holds the key to the deadly remains of Australia's history, and the sickness taking hold of her people, but the past still holds power over the present. Torn between letting sleeping dogs lie and loyalty to the few she cares for, will the Orphan save the System or see it returned to dust? Either choice leads to blood, but whose will be spilled?