Alice in Deadland Trilogy (28 page)

‘Yes, Alice. If I top up all the
tanks and carry a bit of extra fuel, I could make it quite easily.’

‘Then you must take the doctor and
leave as soon as possible.’

Edwards stood up, shaking his
head.

‘Alice, an attack on Wonderland is
imminent. We cannot abandon you at a time like this!’

Alice countered, ‘That is
precisely why you need to get away as fast as possible. I know that you need my
blood sample and you are the only one who can help find a cure or a vaccine
with it. We cannot risk you being here when the attack comes. Vince, take the
doctor and get to Calcutta tonight.’

For a moment he seemed to weigh
the decision. Finally, he said, ‘I’ll do it.’

Then he was gone, riding his bike
as fast as he could to get to the airport to prepare for the long flight.

To Arjun, Alice said, ‘You need to
make sure the doctor gets on the helicopter and leaves safely. Danish, tell the
Americans that we are sending someone to Calcutta in a way that the Red Guards
won’t understand even if they intercept the transmission.’

Danish nodded. ‘If only I could
disable the bloody bugs those Red Guards placed in our computers I could have
just messaged them.’

Next Alice looked at Satish. ‘We
need to get ready. The Red Guards may be here any time. I doubt they will
launch an all out attack at first. They have been winning this war with deceit
and stealth, and they will try to continue that. I expect them to start patrols
outside Wonderland and then perhaps start dictating our policies and getting
people to work on the old farms in return for their supposed security. I’ll go
and alert Bunny Ears and the others and get Arun ready; you get your men to
prepare themselves.’

***

Chen looked out of his window to
see the black transport aircraft landing at the far end of the airstrip, well
away from the prying eyes of the Red Guards at the base. Three of them had
already disgorged their passengers and he had been told there was to be one
more planeload. As soon as they landed, the passengers were met by Li on the
tarmac and then herded into the far end of the base. Hundreds of Biters had
been brought in for the coming operation and Chen felt a bit sick at the
thought of what was to come. He had dedicated his life to the Central Committee
under the illusion that the war against the Biters was necessary to protect
what was left of human civilization. It was truly a perversity that the same Central
Committee was now freely using Biters created in its labs to serve its purpose.
However, all these thoughts were buried in Chen’s mind, as Commissar Hu was
standing right behind him, having flown in the previous night to personally
oversee the operation – and while it had never been said aloud, to ensure that
Chen stuck to the plan.

'Comrade General, are your men
ready?'

Chen stiffened, weighing in his
mind how he should reply, since the question was about the readiness not just
of his men, but himself.

'Yes, Comrade Commissar, we are
ready, though I must confess some of the men have been grumbling about policing
duties in the Deadland when they had thought that phase of the war had long
ended.'

Hu chuckled. 'Your men should
learn to play chess, Comrade. That war never came to an end. We were just
waiting for the right time to make our move. If my calculations are correct,
the puppet government of this so-called Wonderland is now leaderless and their
people are divided. Many of their youth, fed on our food and clothed in our
finest fabrics, will see security in embracing us, and once more join our fold.
Then, Comrade General, these savages will do as they were meant to: serve us in
the farms in the plains. Food will once again flow to the Mainland, and our
people will enjoy the prosperity of the people's revolution. We will win this
war with little or no bloodshed, Comrade.'

Chen said nothing, but he knew
that only politicians and fools believed that any war could be won without
bloodshed.

***

Alice watched the helicopter take
off and fly eastwards. She hoped Vince and Edwards would get to their
destination safely, but for now her concerns were more immediate. Satish had
been getting in touch with his men, telling them to be ready. In the darkness of
night, six missile teams armed with surface to air missiles and RPG launchers
had moved to the outskirts of Wonderland. Arjun had also begun mobilizing his
men. He knew that many of them had mixed feelings about Alice and Satish after
the Biter attacks and the Red propaganda, so he told them that he wanted them
to be on guard against any unrest caused by the power vacuum left by Arun’s
death. Despite the late hour, he had many of his men start neighborhood
patrols, which ensured that if there was any trouble he would have a ready
reserve of armed men to back up Satish’s teams.

Alice felt a familiar buzz that
she always seemed to feel at the prospect of upcoming battle. She had been told
she had a keen edge when it came to combat, partly driven by years of training
and living in the Deadland, and partly perhaps by her nature. Dr Protima had
told her that part of the infection that turned humans into Biters activated
the most primitive parts of their brain, making them hyper-aggressive. At times
Alice wondered how true that was for someone who was only part Biter like her.
Though she had kept it to herself, since her transformation it took a conscious
effort to think strategically instead of impulsively in battle. That was what
she was trying to focus on now.

'Alice, we cannot really do much
if half of Wonderland thinks we are the enemy. What do you want to do about
that?'

Alice turned to face Arjun.

'I am on my way now. You need to
call a Council meeting and ensure as many people as possible join.'

There were still a couple of hours
to go until sunrise and Alice pedaled her bike furiously as she crossed over to
the Deadland. She passed one of Satish's recon teams hidden behind some bushes.
She waved to them as she passed and while she did not hear them, the men
whispered to themselves that when the Queen was up and about, battle would not
be far behind.

She soon saw that danger was much
more imminent than she had imagined. The light of a fire burned in the
distance, and Alice ducked behind cover.

Poor stupid kids, she thought,
wondering just how green these conscripts must be to light up a fire which
would be visible for miles around. The thought that they were probably only a
few years older than her never crossed her mind. She looked through the scope
of her rifle and through the greenish glow of the night vision optics she saw
six Red Guards huddled around the fire. Part of her felt sorry for them, but
then in choosing to obey their orders they had sealed their fate. In her young
life, if there was one thing she had learnt it was the fact that there was
always a choice when it came to accepting tyranny. The cost of saying no might
come with hardships and sacrifice, but it was never acceptable to say that
there was no choice.

She would have preferred to bypass
the six Red Guards, but they were directly in her path. Alice thought she could
handle the six of them if she had the element of surprise, but there was no way
of knowing how many other such teams had been inserted in the night in the name
of providing security to Wonderland. Alice allowed herself a grin as she
remembered what her father had once told her: that no matter how hard he tried
subtlety was never going to be something he could teach her.

Removing a flash bang grenade from
her belt, Alice began her slow approach. They were now barely twenty meters
away and in the darkness did not spot her coming. If anything, sitting so close
to the bright flame and staring at it had ruined their night vision. It was
this that Alice would use to her advantage.

Alice pulled the pin on her
grenade and threw it in a looping arc towards the men. The grenade landed just
feet away from them and exploded in a dull thump, momentarily flashing more
brightly than the fire.

The first two died without knowing
who had shot them as carefully aimed single shots took them in the head or
throat. Another Red Guard fired a wild burst from his rifle but fell as another
round hit him. The remaining three men were now firing blindly, trying to pin
down their attackers while they got their bearings. Alice was firing on the
run, and dropped one more. Then she was amongst the two remaining men. The
first fell like a chopped tree when Alice smashed his jaw in with the butt of
her rifle. The last man was now screaming in terror when Alice pivoted on one
foot and kicked him, sending him down. Without waiting to see if there were
other Red Guards in the area that would inevitably come to the scene after
seeing and hearing the gunshots, Alice ran straight towards the nearest Biter
tunnel entrance, removing the branches arranged against the old drainage pipe
and diving in.

It was as if she had entered
another world altogether. It had been months since Alice had been inside the
tunnels, but whenever she entered one, she could never forget the day this had
all begun. The day she had dived into a tunnel after a Biter wearing strange
bunny ears; the day she had discovered a strange subterranean world where the
Biters lived with their mysterious Queen; the day when Alice discovered that
her path in life was to take her very far from her settlement in the Deadland.

It was dark inside the tunnel and
she lit a signal flare, holding it in her right hand. With her left hand she
took out the book and held it before her. She didn’t have to wait long. Within
minutes of walking, a Biter appeared before her. She had been an old woman as a
human, attacked and transformed in a hospital; even now she had the needle of
an IV drip attached to her right arm. Her face was relatively unscathed other
than a terrible bite mark to the neck, and when she saw Alice she screamed and
opened her mouth to bite. Alice held the book in front of her face and
screamed, ‘NO! I am the Queen and you will follow me!’

The Biter retreated, bowing her
head down. Alice proceeded down the tunnel. She could now hear scurrying noises
all around her in the tunnels. The word would have spread that the Queen was
among the Biters. After a few more minutes of walking, she saw Bunny Ears
sitting in a corner. Arun was beside him, absently chewing on his fingers.
Alice would have loved to be able to tell Bunny Ears to show up with Arun where
and when she wanted instead of having to take them with her, but she knew such
level of thinking was beyond Biters. Then again, Biters did exactly as she wanted
them to. They did not debate, they did not strategize, and they did not have
personal political agendas. All things considered, there certainly were times
when Alice enjoyed leading Biters more than humans.

Wonderland woke up to find itself
ringed by Red Guard patrols. More than once, helicopters flew close to the city
and then turned back.

‘Should I just have one of them
shot down to make a point?’

Arjun sniggered at Satish’s
suggestion. ‘I don’t doubt that time will come, but let’s wait till we deal with
our young rebels.’

More than a hundred young boys had
gathered in front of the Cabinet. One of them, wearing clothes fresh from a Red
Guard shipment, stepped forward.

‘Arjun, why are you stopping us
from joining the Red Guards?’

That morning another transmission
had come in announcing an incoming message from the Central Committee.
Commissar Hu had informed the people of Wonderland that the heroic Red Guards
had stepped in, braving the harsh Deadland and wild Biters to provide security
to their brethren in Wonderland. He had asked for a hundred volunteers to come
out of Wonderland help in the patrols.

Arjun answered, ‘We do not take
orders from the Central Committee and certainly we do not send our boys to work
for them again. Obedience to tyrants is a habit that is hard to break once
formed. Today in the name of security they ask for so-called volunteers.
Tomorrow once again they will start taking our people to work on their farms or
labor camps.’

Jeers went up from some members of
the crowd.

The young man persisted. ‘Don’t
you get it? Those bloody Biters have run amuck again and Arun’s dead. The
Central Committee has done nothing but help us.’

Arjun stepped forward, bringing
his face to within inches of the young man, who took a nervous step back.

‘They have done nothing to help
us. They seek to buy our dependence and obedience – to conquer with their cheap
clothes and shampoos what they could not with their armies. They want to make
us sell our freedom by making us live in fear once more.’

Another boy shouted above the
crowd, ‘What other option do we have? To trust our safety to criminals and
smugglers?’

Suddenly, the crowd began surging
forward and Satish and Arjun began backing up towards the building. There were
thousands of others who had gathered to hear the morning transmission and most
of them stood as mute onlookers. Yet it took only a few to start a mob.

Satish tried reasoning with the
boys. ‘Look, we have all fought together and lived together like a family. We
need to work together, not fight each other.’