by Mainak Dhar
That is the plan, and like all plans, I have no hope that it will turn out the way we think it will.
***
'I don't know any one of these Marines.'
John is smiling as he says the words, trying to put on a brave face in front of the dozen Marines we see before us, but our plan is gone the moment we get off the plane. He walks towards the officer and salutes.
'John Ayer here, sir. Is Captain Matt Barker on the base? I met him when he escorted flights to Wonderland and was hoping we could catch up before we flew on.'
The Captain responds to John, but is looking at me. The other men are also looking at me. When we last came here, I got those looks, but especially after our return from the Homeland, the Marines welcomed Alice and me as friends. These men are not here to make friends. I don't think we will have to look too hard here to find our enemies.
'Barker's been rotated back to the Homeland. We have a new crew here. They will escort you to the terminal building. Rest there and then you'll be off in an hour.'
As we start walking, I realize we need to do something. These men will not take kindly to Alice and our men in the airplane and the officer motions to two of his men to go into the plane to check it. What can I do? John has only a sidearm, and he will be shredded by a dozen men with rifles if he tries to fight.
What would Bunny Ears do?
Simple—he would bite into the officer's throat and rip the head off the nearest man. But then what?
What would Neil do?
I stop. The officer tenses and three of his men walk towards us. I am thinking—or rather, I can feel Neil thinking—thoughts that may not have occurred to Bunny Ears, and before I am aware of it, I am talking.
'Officer, we have a problem that perhaps you can help us with.'
The man is looking at me with his mouth hanging open in shock.
'I had heard about the talking Biter, but we all thought that was a story, or maybe you said a few words like a kid. But you…'
I lean towards him, staring straight into his eyes.
'I talk, I think, I bite and I tear throats open. I am a Biter of many talents.'
Before he can react, I grab him by the throat and pull him close, my jaws inches from his throat.
'Anyone moves or shoots and your boss here will be a Biter within minutes of my biting him.'
The officer is shaking in fear. His forearms do not have the marks of the vaccination that all the humans in Wonderland now have. Alice talks about how the vaccination program in the Homeland has slowed down, perhaps because Robertson wants to keep the fear of Biters alive to strengthen his rule.
It was a gamble and from the officer's cries, it has played off.
Biters do not gamble, but perhaps Neil did.
'Put down your rifles and take a step back.'
The officer nods and his men comply. John grabs the weapons, putting them in a pile near the airplane, and takes one rifle, pointing at the men.
'Any more in the terminal? Call them out.'
Three more Marines come out and join their comrades. The officer is now all but crying as I bring my teeth closer, grazing his skin.
'Ask your men to lie face down.'
They comply and within minutes, John has got some rope to tie their hands and legs.
'Let me go. What more do you want from me?'
I look at the officer and hiss out the words.
'Alice will tell you that.'
He almost goes limp in my arms as Alice and three heavily armed men step out from the plane. Alice smiles at me.
'Neil, you are a man of many surprises.'
***
An hour later, our plane is fueled and ready. Just as we had suspected, we have found rocket launchers and rifles among the farm equipment that had come in to be sent on to Wonderland. I got one of the men to talk. It's quite easy to be persuasive when you look like me and have the bite to back up the threat. Once a week, a special plane comes in and sits in a corner of the airport and flies to the Deadland. Nobody knows who the pilots are and whose orders they are acting on, but it's enough for us to know that our suspicions were correct. The Marines at the airport swear that they know nothing of weapons being smuggled in. The officer is pleading with us.
'I had no idea this was going on. I was just doing my duty to protect this base. For God's sake, I have family back in the Homeland depending on the food that flies in from here. I took two bullets fighting Zeus in the Homeland. I joined the government only when Konrath came to power. Why would I want to mess with this base?'
Alice has her handgun pointed in the direction of the officer's head and I can imagine what she is seeing. A child lying lifeless after an attack by the Red Guards; a woman holding her dead husband after he's been hit in the head; a Biter pulling himself along the ground after both legs have been blown away by rockets. If this man has anything to do with weapons being smuggled in, he can expect no mercy from her.
Alice pulls me apart.
'What do you think?'
The officer knows his life hangs in the balance. If we feel the Marines are involved, we cannot take the risk of leaving them here.
I look at the shaking man kneeling on the ground before us. Bunny Ears would have torn into him. But something holds me back. Someone holds me back. Neil is whispering into my ear.
Look at the man's eyes. Do not judge him too fast.
'The officer did not know.'
The man almost collapses in relief.
'Thank you.'
He looks anxiously at Alice.
'We have shed blood to help the Homeland,' Alice says, 'as have your people for our liberty. There is no stronger bond than that shared between those who have faced battle together. I can leave you and your men, but you have to work together with my men. The two here who are with me will stay back and more will fly in. Help us safeguard Wonderland and help us keep our partnership together.'
We free the Marines, but Alice does not yet return their weapons. They need to prove their loyalty in one additional way. In a few minutes, the officer is on the radio back to his base in the Homeland.
'Major Campbell here. Nothing exciting to report. Eagle Four will depart shortly with the special cargo you had asked for.'
I am a special cargo, it seems. I am not sure I like being called that, but it is better than being shot at by every man who sees you.
We are soon ready to go. John has picked up some food and a pillow for the flight. I need neither food nor sleep. He grumbles as we get into the cargo hold.
'Spent a lifetime flying in these damn things. Even now, there's no business class for grunts like me.'
Alice is standing near the plane and I look at her, wondering if I will ever see her again. She reads my mind and comes towards me.
'Neil, we've stopped the weapons flow for now. You don't need to go.'
I see her eyes and know she does not believe that. Robertson is fighting for his survival, and he needs me to prop up support for himself, to give his people hope, and if nothing else, to buy time for his forces to regroup. If I do not go, he will find some other way of attacking us, and we don't know how many rockets the Red Guards have left.
Am I going to my death? Quite possibly. Robertson does not seem like a man driven by a desire to do good for others. Given how much disregards he has shown for human life, my life is worth nothing to him. At best his scientists may harvest my blood and cells- that is all that is important to them. Whether I am destroyed is of little consequence to them. Or perhaps, as Aalok suspects, Robertson will first parade me before the cameras, get me to say things, to show his supporters that he is the only leader who holds out hope for finding a cure.
What will happen is not clear, but if we do not go there and keep our part of the bargain, the Red Guards will fire more rockets—more children will die. Can I live with that?
I hold her shoulder and lean towards her.
'Alice, I need to go.'
She smiles sadly and I wonder if I will
see her again. I want to tell her so much. How she gave my life a new direction and purpose. How so many look up to her not only because of her feats in battle, but because she gives them something that can never be won in battle—hope. How she made so many of us realize that freedom is not something you ask for and wait to be doled out, but something you wrench with your bloodied hands. How she taught me above all that you are not the label that others stick to you, but who you are inside and who you prove to be by your actions.
I have so much to say and no words to express them with, not in the little time before I must be on my way. But do I really need to say anything? I sense that she knows all that.
'Goodbye, my friend. Come back or I will come looking for you.'
Coming from anyone else, those might have been empty words, but not Alice. That's what makes so many of us believe in her. Makes so many of us love her.
I sit beside John as the plane's cargo doors close and it starts rolling down the runway. I have journeyed far, and this may be the most dangerous journey yet. But somehow I feel that it pales compared to the journey I must make within myself—to discover who Neil was and what his journey was.
I used to wish away those glimpses of the past, but as the plane takes off, I want to remember it all. I want to understand who this Neil was, because I sense that he was a good man. I sense that if he were in my shoes, he would have gone to the Homeland without hesitation, because protecting those he loved came without conscious thought.
A Biter may not have thought so much. A Biter may have been driven by only his immediate survival and that of those with him at the moment. But I have another voice whispering in my ears nowadays.
Neil does care, and Neil must go and see this through.
***
SIX
It has been a long time since we took off from Kolkata, and John has slept through most of it. I do envy the human ability to just fall asleep, while I sit there, starting at every jolt and bump. I hate flying. Did Neil enjoy flying? Did he ever take such a long journey? I close my eyes and rest my head against the cushion behind my head. The flashes start again.
Neil… me, sitting in the corner of a classroom, head buried down in the book before me.
Washing dishes in a restaurant.
Sitting at a desk, looking at a photo of the city with bright lights again. I can see more features now of the city—tall towers, something shaped like a triangle. Neil puts the word into my head—a pyramid. Was this a place Neil really wanted to go to? Next to the city is the photo of a huge hole in the ground. Neil supplies the words again—the Grand Canyon. The words mean little to me now, but I suspect Neil will tell me all about it.
Then I feel myself riding a bike so fast that the wind feels like it will blow me away.
I savor the last sensation. I have never felt anything like it before and I am enjoying it. Then the mood changes. I see soldiers everywhere, and Biters, running in a panic, attacking anyone they see. Blood, bullets, screams.
This is the Rising.
A thin, old woman is lying on the ground and a group of Biters are closing in on her. I pick up a metal rod lying by the ground and smash in one of the Biters' heads and rescue her.
She is now sitting behind me on my bike. I drive through a city that has gone mad. I drop the woman off somewhere and she turns to look at me to thank me. She has a large brown envelope in her hand. I hear myself saying.
'There must be something really important in that packet you're carrying. You didn't let go.'
She walks away into some buildings and I drive off.
I find myself stopping then in mid-thought. I have seen that woman somewhere, and I have seen the brown envelope.
Old, grey-haired, thin. A face so gaunt it seems almost pointed downwards like an arrow.
The Queen of the Biters.
My eyes snap open and I find that I am breathing heavily. A kind-looking woman is kneeling beside me. As I look at her, she smiles.
'My name is Pamela Kolstad. I'm the co-pilot on this plane. I thought I'd come by and see if you guys are doing okay, and I saw you thrashing about in your sleep. We'll be landing soon in Oregon to refuel and then we're off to Washington.'
As she walks back towards the cockpit, I steal a glance at John. He is still fast asleep and snoring, and then what Pamela has said hits me.
I was sleeping.
Biters don't sleep.
But Neil did.
***
As we get out the airplane to wait for it to be refueled, we meet the two pilots. Pamela brings on board some food for John, which he accepts gratefully. The pilot is a younger woman who comes over and shakes our hands.
'I'm Melissa. Melissa Kujat. We still have a bit of flying to go, but I just wanted to warn you that we'll be taking a pretty rough and roundabout route. There's a fair bit of fighting on and we may not have secure airspace all the way through.'
John looks up at that comment.
'You mean Adam Tunks and his forces?'
'He's just the most photogenic one who's found a way to get himself on the Net. There are a dozen others, each trying to fight the government. Some want their own nation, others just don't want Robertson in charge.'
'What do you make of Robertson?'
Melissa looks at John closely.
'My daddy was in the Air Force, but his eyes prevented him from becoming a pilot. He fought for Konrath and was killed in the fighting against Zeus. I don't serve Robertson or anyone else. I serve the people of the United States.'
'And where does Robertson fit in terms of representing the people?'
Melissa looks away, as if unwilling to commit to an answer. This Robertson has more than his share of doubters even among those who are supposed to be serving him. No wonder he is getting desperate to protect his position.
'Load up. We're on our way.'
For a while the flight is uneventful, and John, now fully awake, keeps talking about his old days as a soldier. He normally does not show too much emotion, but he is visibly excited at being back in what was once his home country.
'You know, Neil, once I was in Syria on a snatch-and-grab mission, and the target turned out to be a frigging blond guy from Jersey. I had imagined he'd be some jihadi Arab, but here was Johnny American who had gone over to the other side. And you know what, he wasn't even a fighter, he used to hack into sites for the bad guys.
'And then there was this time when I got back from a deployment in Afghanistan and I had been through a Taliban attack from hell. They had hit us from three sides and the fighting lasted all night. Just point at anything that moves and shoot. That was about as fancy as we got. There were four of us Delta boys and six SEALs, all supposedly having a night's rest with friendly Afghan forces, but they sold us out. The so-called friendlies ran at the first bullet, and then we were left on our own. When I got back stateside, I had three bullet wounds and every time I heard a noise I would jump for my gun.'
John talks on and on, and I listen to the stories of a man who has made war for most of his life. For a man like him the world we live in now is no stranger, for before the Rising, when ordinary people were sleeping with their families in the safety of their homes, men like him were setting off into the night on missions to wipe out enemies. Someone like John would have adapted fast to the world after the Rising. But what would have happened to Neil?
He was not a warrior. From what I can remember, he was a student, always buried in his books. Always dreaming of a better life, of traveling around the world. Other than the desperate struggle during the Rising, I don't remember him ever having been in a fight. He was happier when he was able to make people smile. He was a smiler, a dreamer, not a fighter. If he had lived, how long would he have survived in the world we live in now? Not long, I suppose.
'Neil, you sure are lost somewhere.'
I snap back to the present on hearing John's words. I pretend nothing happened, but he has been around me long enough to know.
'Thinking of th
e old days, right? Of how things were? Tell me a bit about who you were.'
I hesitate. I don't like talking. I don't like people looking at me as if I am some freak. But as I look at John's smile, I find myself relaxing. Or maybe it's Neil whispering in my ears again, telling me to open up.
And so I begin telling him what I have seen and what I remember, and in that telling, my memories flood back even more.
***
The plane suddenly vibrates and then turns sharply to the right. I have been on these aerial contraptions only a handful of times, and I have never had cause to enjoy them. This makes it even worse. The plane moves to the right and then abruptly to the left and then I hear several pops nearby.
'What is going on?'
John's face is twisted in a grimace and he is holding onto the seat next to him so tightly that his knuckles are turning white.
'We're under fire. Old-fashioned flak guns.'
I have no idea what he's talking about, but guns firing at us are all I needed to make this ride even more unpleasant.
'Can they hit us?'
'Of course.'
Great.
The cockpit door swings open and Pamela comes out, swaying from side to side expertly, managing to keep her footing despite the erratic movements of the plane. She sits down next to John and puts her belt on.
'We're under fire. We need to deviate from our flight path and take a bit of a detour.'
The popping noises continue as the plane keeps moving from one side to another and then descends in a sudden dive that makes me feel like everything that is inside my body is going to come out of my mouth. Looks like I am not the only one as John leans to one side and throws up loudly.