Alice in Deadland Trilogy (7 page)

***

SIX

Alice had a quiet dinner back at the settlement, but found
it impossible to sleep. Jane was lying in her own sleeping bag just feet from
her, and Alice considered waking her up, but then dismissed the thought. What
could she possibly tell her older sister that would make the story she had to
tell sound anything other than ludicrous? She lay in silence for a few more
minutes, but soon realized that she was so on edge that there was no way she
could sleep. Her ears seemed to be picking up every sound and magnifying it,
mirroring her fears. A solitary footstep sounded like a full squad of Zeus
troopers; the sound of a bird or bat flying made her wonder if a helicopter was
on the way. Finally, Alice sat up and realized that the risk of her being
laughed at or not believed was nothing compared to what would happen if
Appleseed did carry out his threat and the settlement was taken totally by
surprise.

She got up and quietly walked to the room her parents were
in. Her mother was asleep, but her father was poring over some papers. The
brutal fact was that everyone who had survived so long in the Deadland had to
know how to take a life, and she knew her father had done his share of fighting
and killing, but he always was more in his element as a man of peace. Which was
why he was the de facto leader of their settlement. He was the person people
knew they could rely on to get fair advice on how to solve a dispute. He was
the one who was trusted to tally and apportion their stocks of food and fuel,
which he was doing now. And he was the only person in the world whom Alice
could contemplate trusting with her secret.

He looked up at Alice and smiled, motioning for her to sit
down next to him.

'Dad, can we talk outside?'

He put the papers aside and joined her in the chill of the
night. As they walked together around the settlement, he didn't say a word,
choosing to wait for when Alice would be ready to say what was on her mind.

'Dad, I think I found out some stuff. It sounds crazy, but I
think it's true, and because of it, we may all be in danger. I'm really
scared.'

He stopped and looked at her.

'Alice, all those years ago when everything suddenly went to
hell, I was just as scared. Your mom was expecting you and with all the chaos
in the last few days, I had no idea how I could protect my family.'

'So what did you do?'

He smiled, the light from torches burning around the
settlement's walls reflecting in his glasses.

'I got help. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to
ask for help. I went to a general in the Indian Army who had become a friend,
and he let us shelter with his unit in their barracks when the Biters came out.
He and I started this settlement once we had to leave the cities after they
became unlivable and we realized that there was no more government and no more
help coming our way.'

Alice wrapped her hands around herself, not just because of
the chill, but because she needed to brace herself to tell her story. Her
father put an arm around her and they continued walking as she spoke. He didn't
interrupt her once, though he did see his face cloud over with a flash of anger
when she related what had happened with Appleseed.

Finally, he stopped and seemed to be staring off into the
distance. When he said nothing for several seconds, Alice tugged at his hand.

‘Dad, I know it sounds crazy. That’s why I was so afraid of
saying anything to you.’

When her father turned to look at her, Alice was shocked to
see his eyes well up with tears.

‘Alice, when the first infections emerged and within a day
or two all law and order broke down, a lady had come to meet me at the Embassy,
pleading with me to pass on some information to my superiors in Washington. The
Ambassador was in the US so she wanted to meet me. Just before she was to come
and visit me, I got a call direct from someone in the White House that I was
not to meet her or to entertain anything she had to say. I thought she was
another wacko who had lost it in the madness of those days and I did not meet
her.’

Alice felt her heart almost stop as she guessed what was to
come next.

‘That lady’s name was Dr. Protima Dasgupta. She was an
Indian-American researcher who had recently left the government. My background
check showed that she had been working on some classified projects, which had
such a high level of secrecy that I couldn’t even find out what they were.’

‘So everything she said is….’

Her father exhaled loudly, as if clearing his mind and
trying to come to grips with what he now faced.

‘Alice, I don’t know if everything she said is true or not,
but what’s clear based on what you saw is that there is more to the Biters than
we’ve always been led to believe. In the five days after The Rising, when the
media was still on, did you know what was on TV every single day?’

Alice had never watched TV but knew of it from her parents
and sister, so she just shook her head.

‘Reports about how horrible these creatures, these mutants,
were. Reports about how our brave troops were fighting a new war on terror.
Every single channel was screaming about how these creatures needed to be wiped
out. But what was funny was that ordinary folks had no real protection; most
National Guard units in the US were pulled back to barracks. Then all of a
sudden, wars started breaking out all over. If I were a conspiracy nut, which I
most certainly am not, I could start connecting all those dots and say that
what this Queen or Dr. Protima has to say may well be more true than not. But
that’s not what worries me most. Something else terrifies me.’

‘What, Dad?’

He looked at Alice, his eyes dead serious.

‘If Protima lives, there is a chance that this secret could
come out, and getting to her is the only chance Zeus and its masters have of
wiping out the Biters as per their plan and then bring the surviving humans
under their control. Appleseed now suspects that you know where she may be. He
will be coming for you.’

Alice tried to put on a brave face.

‘Dad, can we hold them? We have almost two hundred men and
women who can fight. We can all shoot well, and we know this area better than
they ever will.’

He shook his head sadly.

‘No, sweetheart, we won’t be able to hold them. You’ve seen
a lot more death and evil than I would have ever wished upon a child of mine,
but the most evil thing in this world is what one man can do to another. If
Zeus comes here with their air power and heavy weapons, we won’t last more than
a few minutes. They will wipe us out and take you away.’

Alice didn't know what to say. Part of her felt guilty for
having involved her father. The rational part of her knew that the dangers
would have been just as great and just as real even if she had not told a soul,
but telling her father and seeing how scared even he seemed made it even more
real, and infinitely more frightening.

***

'Gladwell, we don't know if even a word of this is true.'

The speaker was Rajiv, a former banker who had become one of
the pillars of their settlement ever since he and his wife had stumbled onto
them while running from a horde of Biters. Alice had sat quietly for the half
hour her father had taken to relate her story. He had thankfully spared her the
ordeal of having to speak in front of more than two hundred people, most of
whom looked increasingly skeptical as the tale progressed. Alice saw more than
a few of them get up and leave. She knew they were among the many who had lost
family and friends to the Biters, and even an insinuation that the Biters were
anything but a mindless, bloodthirsty horde offended them. What made it worse
was that the first accusation came not from one of the rabble-rousers but the
normally placid Rajiv.

Alice's father looked at Rajiv, pleading with him. 'Why on
Earth would Alice make all this up?'

Rajiv looked sheepish and shrugged his shoulders. 'She is
but a girl. Maybe she just got scared in the tunnels down there and imagined
things.'

'Or maybe this is just you trying to hold onto your
so-called freedom!'

That stinging accusation came from the rear of the group,
and Alice saw her father flinch as if he had been struck physically. His
accuser was now standing up, and as three or four more men stood up, felt
emboldened to continue his tirade.

'For years, Zeus has been coming to us. What they want isn't
much: our boys to join their army, a share of whatever we find by way of
salvage, and maintaining a tally of our weapons with them. In return, we get
some fixed rations, ammunition and safety.’

Alice saw her father’s face tighten.

‘We are FREE! That counts for something. We all owed
allegiance to others, and several of you served in government or in uniform, so
we all know what that meant. But that was different: that was allegiance to a
nation, to our identity. Zeus are a bunch of hired guns, and their real masters
never reveal themselves openly. Have you forgotten about those settlements who
signed up and then had their weapons taken because Zeus decided they were
needed elsewhere? Who saved them from attacks after that? What about those who
were re-settled into farms to grow food, half of which is taken away by Zeus
for their masters with no payment? What about all those young people who are
taken away and never seen again – and the rumors that they are being used as
bonded labour in the factories and mines of the elites who control Zeus? Why
become their slaves when we can be free?’

It was an old argument, one that had consumed many meetings
before, but tonight the revelations about what Alice had found had given it a
new, bitter edge. The man who had been arguing with her father refused to back
down.

‘We all know how you feel about it, and you also know that
there have been some of us who disagree. Some of us who are tired of fighting
to survive every day, or scavenging for food every day for our families. And
now you conveniently have this fairy tale from your daughter where Zeus and
their masters are some sort of super-villains who destroyed the world.’

As the meeting disbanded, Alice’s father took her aside.

‘I tried, sweetheart, but their minds are closed. The
problem is that if this general is indeed going to strike, we are running out
of time. We cannot just sit here and debate and hope we convince these people.’

‘Dad, what can we do?’

He hesitated, as if weighing whether to say what was on his
mind.

‘We need to meet this Dr. Protima. She’s the only one who
could convince them.’

Alice shuddered at the thought of going back to the Biters
in their dank, dark underground world, and also of what they would do to her
when they found her after her betrayal.

‘Dad, I don’t know if what they said is true or not, but
that silly prophecy and that book she has freaks me out.’

‘Darling, that’s just an old fairy tale called Alice in
Wonderland. I don’t blame her if she has lost her mind a bit down there and
believes it to be some prophecy. I guess they heard your name and saw the way
you met them, and wanted to believe it was this prophecy come true, that’s all.
If that’s what it takes to save us all, then just play along for a little bit.’

Alice could see her father’s conflicted face, because he
knew he was putting her in harm’s way. But the sheer fact that he was willing
to even contemplate that told her just how desperate their situation was.

The next morning, Alice walked along the woods where she had
followed Bunny Ears down the hole. They were a good five miles away from their
settlement, and if there was trouble, they would not be able to make it back in
time, and of course, there was no way they could expect help or reinforcements.
Alice held a pistol in her right hand and a shotgun slung across her back, but
she had already seen that up close, with the weight of numbers on their side,
the firepower she carried would count for little if the Biters were intent on
attacking her. Her father was sitting a hundred meters away, hidden in the
trees, his face daubed with camouflage paint, his eyes glued to the scope of
his rifle.

Alice had no idea if Bunny Ears or any other Biter would
even show up again at this location, but as far as she knew, no other human had
found this entrance, and now that she scanned the area, it was so well hidden
that she could not spot it either. So if it had not been compromised, there was
a chance that they would still be using it. Also, she reminded herself, they
were probably looking for her. That thought made her grip the handgun in her
hand even tighter as she waited.

They waited for what seemed to be an eternity, and as Alice
was about to give up and go to her father and ask if they should just return to
the settlement, she saw some movement in the bushes. She froze, both hands
gripping the handgun, but she forced herself to not bring the gun up. If their
plan was to work, she had to make sure that she was not seen as a threat. She
held her breath as the bushes parted, reassured by the fact that at this very
moment her father’s rifle would be trained on whatever was emerging. She saw
two pointy ears emerge first, and then Bunny Ears was in front of her. He
growled, spitting in her direction, and for a moment, Alice thought that he was
about to attack. He pounded his feet on the ground and raised his head to the
skies, howling, but as Alice watched she realized that his roar was not one of
fury but more a plaintive wail.

She tucked her handgun into her belt and took a step closer.
As she looked at Bunny Ears, she saw that he too was looking at her with his
lifeless eyes. She had no idea if he would understand what she wanted, but she
had no other choice. She spoke in a gentle voice.

‘I am so sorry. I did not know what Zeus and their masters
were up to, and I did not believe the Queen. I know now, and I need your help.
The only way we can survive is if we help each other. Please tell the Queen
that I need her help. We’ve tried convincing others in the settlement but many
of them don’t believe us.’