Alice in Deadland Trilogy (23 page)

'That explains the Biters who attacked our people. But they
seemed to move and fight like Biters, without any real human characteristics.'

Alice and Satish had brought their new companions up to
speed on what they had been through. Edwards seemed to be recovering both his
spirit and strength with every passing hour, as he came to grips with the fact
that he was finally free.

'Satish, maybe they haven't created hybrids, but if these
Biters attacked your people, and they were brought in by helicopter, the Reds
have found some way of controlling them.'

Alice asked Satish to get on the radio. 'We must get in
touch with Danish and get this news back. If people in Wonderland know what is
happening then we can work together instead of fighting each other.'

Satish's radio came alive. Satish heard Danish’s voice as he
put his headset on.

'White Queen, this is Looking Glass. I have some bad news.
Humpty Dumpty just sat on top of the wall. He called elections and has declared
that he is the new Prime Minister. Things are pretty hot now, so suggest you
not visit too soon.'

Satish slammed a fist against the ground. 'With all that's
going on, Arun is still bothered about grabbing power!'

Alice sat back, wondering what she could do. It was clear
that it would not be an easy job to try and get everyone in Wonderland to work
together. And even more pressing, the enemy wouldn’t wait until they had things
together before attacking again.

***

Chen followed Hu to the far side of the base, passing a
heavily guarded checkpoint manned by black-clad Interior Security Service men
before they entered the main building. The first thing he noticed was the
stench, and he brought his fingers up to his nose. He saw that Hu had put on a
mask covering his nose and mouth.

'Comrade General, do you want a mask?'

The last thing Chen wanted to do was to offer Hu the
satisfaction of seeing any sign of weakness.

'Comrade Commissar, I have spent enough time in the Deadland
to not be bothered by a bit of the smell of death. But I do wonder why a Red
Guard base has been piled up with dead bodies?’

He could hear Hu chuckling as he went deeper into the
building, which seemed like a warehouse with what appeared to be prison cells
lining one end of it. Heavily armed black-clad guards wearing the insignia of
the elite Interior Security Service stood guard. There was not a single Red
Guard conscript in sight.

'Come, Comrade General. Let me introduce you to the new
shock troops ofn the Red Army who will help us win this war and bring the
Deadland back into the fold of our revolution.'

Hu guided Chen towards one of the cells, and Chen struggled
to keep himself from gagging at the intense stench. When he was in front of the
cell, a decayed hand with two fingers missing reached out to grab him. Chen
recoiled back as a bloodied, torn face slammed into the bars.

There were more than a dozen Biters inside the cell, and
many of them began screaming and banging their heads and hands on the bars.
Then, just as suddenly as they had started, they stopped screaming, and to
Chen's disbelief, they went down on their knees. Hu tapped him on his shoulder.

'Look this way, Comrade Chen. The Red Queen is here.'

***

'Arun, please listen to me. We need to talk, otherwise we
will have more deaths.'

Even after explaining the situation to Arun and pleading
with him, Alice still faced an uphill struggle.

She had managed to get Danish to convince Arun to come to
the Looking Glass. That part of the job had not been difficult at all. One of
Arun's hobbies was getting time in the Looking Glass from Danish and spending
hours on the radio. He had been a ham radio operator before The Rising, and
while there were few people to talk to, he had actually produced a couple of
very interesting connections in the short time he had been at Wonderland,
including a couple of young people from the Chinese Mainland who were risking
certain death or deportation to labor camps by using radios to get in touch
with the outside world. From them Alice and the others had got an invaluable
glimpse into what was happening inside the Mainland. They had learnt about
small demonstrations and disturbances in cities like Shanghai and about how
some young men had refused to be drafted into the Red Guards to be sent to the
Deadland and been punished for it.

But getting Arun on the radio had been the easy part.
Actually getting him to listen to what Alice had to say was proving impossible.

'Alice, thirty-four innocent people are dead, including more
than twenty children. All killed by Biters, some of whose bodies we found. All
this talk of Red Guards flying in Biters is fantastic but why would I not look
closer to home and ask why all the Biters in the Reservation disappeared after
the attacks?'

'I asked them to hide to avoid a bloodbath till we could
clear things up.'

There was a pause. When Arun next spoke, Alice knew she had
already lost.

'Alice, we got everyone together and had a snap election. We
cannot be leaderless in this time of crisis, and I am now Prime Minister of
Wonderland. I now bear the responsibility of taking care of all the thousands
of people who depend on me, and I cannot act with the impulsiveness of youth
that has perhaps led us to where we are.'

Alice heard Satish snort in disgust, but the last thing on
her mind was bothering about barbs thrown her way.

'What if you are wrong? Do you want to risk more deaths?'

'We have strengthened our security. I have ordered all of
the recon units to come back within Wonderland’s borders just a couple of hours
ago.'

Satish exploded at that.

'Those are my men! You cannot order them back. Without them
out there, we will get no early warning about what's going on outside.'

'Satish, you no longer command anyone,’ Arun replied. The civility
had vanished from his voice. ‘You ceased to have that privilege and trust when
you helped a fugitive escape. All your trigger-happy antics achieve is to
provoke the Red Guards – even more so on this latest fugitive rescue mission of
yours. The last thing I want is to have your fugitives inside Wonderland and
risk retaliation by the Red Guards. The bottom line is that we have known
months of peace, and I do not want to risk that.'

Alice said, 'Arun, please listen to me. You spend so much
time in the Looking Glass yourself. You know as well as any of us that the
world outside that we see through the Looking Glass is far from being at peace.
Please give us a chance.'

'The only thing we need to talk about is you standing trial
for complicity in the murder of so many innocents.' And with those final words,
Arun ended the transmission.

***

'Comrade General, meet Lieutenant Li.'

Chen took in the neatly pressed Red Guard uniform, the
shoulder labels of a lieutenant, the thin and wiry frame, and then last of all,
the face that stared back at him. The face of a young woman with yellowed skin,
red eyes and a wound on her left cheek that had left a large chunk of her skin
hanging loose. She snapped to attention and saluted.

'Comrade General Chen. It is my pleasure to be working under
your command.'

When she extended her hand, Chen took it without thinking
and then felt a stab of panic as he realized she was as cold as a corpse. He
stepped back.

'Comrade Commissar, who is she? What is going on?'

Hu now had a smug look on his face, as Chen began to realize
that he had been totally oblivious to some of the moves occurring on this
chessboard of war.

Li answered, 'Comrade General, I lost my brother and my
father in the war against the terrorists in the Deadland. My brother was killed
in battle against this so-called Queen, this witch that the terrorists follow.
I was in our Special Forces, and wanted to strike back against the enemy who
had caused me so much pain. But as you well know, our tactics were of little use,
and when the Central Committee asked for volunteers for a special experiment to
help us strike back, I raised my hand.'

Chen studied Li, seeing not the half-Biter monster that the
scientists had somehow produced at the bidding of the Central Committee, but a
young woman who had lost her family to a war based on lies. A woman who had
been a good comrade, a good soldier who had never questioned the story sold to
her. Was this the future? Did human salvation really lie in making monsters of
us all? Was that the solution the Central Committee had to all their problems?
It would surely be expedient; Biters would not ask questions and if they
followed this so-called Red Queen like they followed the young girl called
Alice; they would go to their deaths without any objections. It would mean not
struggling for conscripts and the war could be waged in the dark, while the
masses in the Mainland once again hid behind the facade of security and
stability. But how would they win the war? What could one hybrid like this and
a bunch of Biters really achieve?

Hu must have sensed the emotions on his face.

'Comrade General, any chess player will tell you that one
piece or one move cannot be decisive. Our Red Queen has already made a couple
of important moves, but we also have other pieces in play who will come into
their own when the time comes. But now, Comrade General, let me tell you of
what you need to do. So far we have made a few small forays but for bigger
operations we will need your men to work together with Lieutenant Li and her
forces, to co-ordinate our actions. Come back to your office and I will brief
you on what needs to happen next.'

Thirty minutes later, Chen was back in his office. He had
grown up as the son of a loyal Communist Party member and joining the Army had
seemed a natural progression. He had first started questioning what he was
doing when the regime started the brutal crackdowns in 2012 on popular protests
in rural areas against land grabs and official corruption. That had culminated
in the second bloodbath at Tiananmen Square when it had first hit home. Some of
his fellow officers had dared to talk about mutiny, and Chen remembered
conversations with his wife when they began to weigh their options. The Rising
had changed everything. Biological attacks by the United States, regional wars
and instability and retaliatory strikes by China had made everyone forget
internal issues and everyone, Chen included, had rallied around the national
cause.

Then came the horror of the Biters, and Chen and his fellow officers
were thrown into the forefront of a terrible new war. Several months went by in
a blur of savage fighting and Chen had initially been relieved when the Central
Committee was formed and announced, hoping it would mean some stability and
security. Securing food and safety for mainland citizens was the declared
priority, and Chen signed up when the elite Red Guards were announced. Then
came one revelation after another. The fact that they were to work with Zeus,
an American Private Military Contractor, and then a war that soon shifted from
being one waged in defense of the Mainland to an aggressive war of
counter-insurgency in the Deadland. Chen had gone along, putting aside any
misgivings before the terrible threat of the Biters and the need to secure food
sources for the Mainland. He had directed the struggle with brutal vigor in the
Deadland, with the clear understanding that the ones he was fighting were
inhuman Biters and human terrorists who were disrupting the flow of food.

And then he had come face to face with Alice and the Biters,
and his conviction had been shaken. He had already paid dearly for the doubts
he had expressed then. What was he to do with what he had learnt today? How did
one reconcile to being part of a campaign whose first salvo had included the
murder of innocent children?

***

'All but two of my recon teams are back within the city
limits! I never thought they would fold so easily.'

The disappointment and hurt on Satish's face was clear. Most
of his men were those he had commanded in Zeus for several years and then
fought shoulder to shoulder with in the war against the Red Guards. To have
them now effectively desert him and report back to the city on Arun's orders
had come as a shock.

Alice was silent. She understood Satish's frustration but
also knew that many of the men had wives and families back in Wonderland. They
would not risk being cut off from them – but at the same time, they were now
willingly blinding themselves to the Red Guards’ next move. There were just two
recon teams left, no more than a dozen men patrolling the vast expanse of the
Deadland.

Vince was drawing something on the sand. Alice asked him
what he was doing.

'We can figure out how to convince this Prime Minister of yours
later. Right now, the best thing we can do is to prevent another attack. I
spent the last two hours talking to Satish to understand the lay of the land
and how your city is situated. I flew V-22 Ospreys in the Marines for years, so
I can guess where their chopper pilots will try to come in.'

Satish radioed his teams to cover two of the likely ingress
routes. He and Alice would have to cover the third. As they gathered their
weapons and backpacks, they saw Vince shoulder his rifle as well. Alice looked
at him and Edwards.

'You don't have to join the fight if you don't want to. This
is not your war.'

She saw Vince's eyes narrow.

'Alice, this is my war. My squadron was wiped out when we
refused to do what Zeus and their masters wanted, and I lost my whole family in
a Red Guard missile attack.'

Alice went ahead on her bike, intending to also make contact
with the Biters and get them to join the battle. The problem was that they
would only follow in helping the humans if she were there to lead them. Edwards
was already frail and the escape had taken a heavy toll, so he sat behind her.
Vince and Satish would cover the ten-kilometer distance on foot.