by Dhar, Mainak
'Looks like we're safe here. We'll hear or spot anyone coming down the highway. Stay here and I'll take a quick walk.'
Bunny Ears began to growl in protest, and Alice had to laugh at how over-protective he could sometimes be.
'I'll be nearby, and someone has to stay here and watch the truck.'
Bunny Ears agreed, though he kept growling his reluctance as Alice stepped away, heading onto the highway. She walked for ten minutes, observing the few abandoned, rusted vehicles that littered the road. Then a scraping noise made her freeze where she was. Someone was moving in the darkness, and had brushed against one of the cars.
It might well be nothing more than an animal, but Alice was not going to take any chances. Not knowing who else might be out there in the darkness, she left her handgun at her belt but took out her knife from its sheath, holding a small flashlight in her left hand. She flattened herself against the car, and heard the scraping again. She crept till the end of the car and then rolled over the hood, shining her flashlight straight at the intruder.
What Alice saw shocked her.
It was a Biter crawling along the road with both his legs chopped off at the knee. She panned her flashlight into the distance and the blood trail told her the Biter had been crawling for some time. The blood was still fresh and he had been cut recently. He looked up at Alice and snapped his jaws as Alice knelt before him, wondering who could have been so cruel. As the Biter got a good look at her, his ferocity gave way to bewilderment, and he emitted a low growl, as if asking for help.
All she could do was to put him out of his misery but she hesitated as she felt the heft of the knife in her hand.
'I am sorry someone did this to you. I really am. There's nothing I can do to help or to make things better, but if I see the men who did this, I will avenge you. That much I can promise you.'
The Biter crawled off into the darkness and off the highway. A part of Alice wanted to race ahead down the highway and find the men who had done this, but she held herself back. She needed to get back to the truck and to warn the others that they might have to fight sooner than they had anticipated.
When she got back, John was already up and watching Bunny Ears.
'You know, Alice, I could swear at times he tries to talk.'
Alice affectionately patted Bunny Ears' arm as she passed him.
'They understand much more than people think.'
Then she told John about the Biter she had seen, and his eyes hardened.
'Let's head out now. If they're coming our way, best to hit them on our terms and in the dark.'
They woke Zohar and within ten minutes they were walking down the highway, Alice taking point, scanning the road through her night vision scope. She heard a low growl—Bunny Ears had smelled their enemy before she had spotted them. There were four men, carrying machetes and with rifles slung across their backs. Liquid dripped from one of their machetes, the blood of one of the Biters they had massacred. The men were loud, making no attempt at stealth, and they died where they stood as Alice and John opened fire. Not a single one of them even managed to get his rifle into his hands before they were shot down.
***
The men carried little of value, their guns being ancient bolt-action rifles from at least fifty years ago. However, two of them did have bread, which John appropriated for himself and Zohar. The sun was now creeping up over the horizon, and in the dim light, Alice saw that all four of them were covered in the scaly skin she had seen so many times.
'More of the same gang that we've met before. They must have a base somewhere nearby. Looks like we're on the right track.'
Alice kept looking at the bodies. While she had despised Zeus and the Red Guards, at least she could understand why they fought and died—some out of a misplaced sense of duty born out of having bought into the Central Committee's propaganda, others to get power or loot. But these men were slaughtering humans and Biters alike at random, perhaps under the influence of the drugs that had not just made their skins like those of reptiles, but also made their minds more reptilian than human.
Before they proceeded, Alice wanted to get a better bearing on their location. She had not turned on her tablet for three days, and when she turned it on to take a look at maps of the area, there were at least a dozen messages from Arjun and Danish back at Wonderland, all asking Alice to get in contact as soon as she could. Alice immediately tapped on the icon to contact them on a video link, and silently thanked Zeus and the Central Committee for having created a satellite-based communication system which Alice and her friends had inherited after their victory in the Deadland. How it all worked was a mystery for Alice, as unlike teens before the Rising, she had grown up in a world with no mobile phones or Internet, but Danish seemed to know how to keep it running, and with the US Homeland now under the control of General Konrath and his forces, the old Internet was slowly but surely being revived.
Danish's face appeared on the screen. He forced a smile, but his eyes were creased with worry. Despite not having spoken to Alice in so many days, there was no greeting.
'What's wrong?'
'General Konrath is dead.'
The words hit Alice like a sledgehammer. Konrath had gone from being a writer before the Rising, to a guerrilla leader fighting Zeus and the Executive Committee, and then the first President of the free United States once the Homeland had been liberated. Alice had been there fighting side by side with his forces in an attempt to hunt down the nuclear-armed Snark missiles which the Executive Committee had threatened to unleash on Wonderland after they had destroyed Shanghai. She had seen the loyalty he inspired, and how despite the power he had at his disposal, he had used that power not to become a tyrant, but to try and reconstruct his nation into the free, mighty and prosperous country it had once been. She didn't know how to react to the sudden news, and was silent as Danish continued.
'He had a heart attack four days ago. They have a new President in the Homeland, some general called Robertson.'
Alice took it all in, trying to understand all the implications.
'Does it change anything for us?'
'Not that we can see so far. Their supply flights still come in with spare parts for the farm machines and to take back crops and the tinned food our factory's churning out. The folks here who came from the Homeland seem worried though. Seems Robertson had a reputation of sorts. He was a diehard Executive Committee supporter, and defected only a few years ago to the resistance. He of course claimed he knew nothing of the Executive Committee's real agenda, but I get the sense not too many people trust him. Anyways, he wants to talk to you urgently. He says there's something you must help out with.'
John and Zohar were watching Alice in silence, their emotions very different. John had served the United States of America before the Rising, and to know that his old country was now emerging again from darkness brought on a strange mixture of nostalgia and regret. Nostalgia from remembering the life he had before the Rising, and regret at not having been a part of the struggle his people had waged for so many years. Zohar on the other hand knew nothing of the nations of old, and it boggled his mind just how vast the world must be, and how magical the instrument in Alice's hand seemed to be.
Alice brought up the link to connect to General Konrath's office and in a few seconds an unfamiliar man appeared on the screen. He was old, with grey hair and lines across his face, but was still lean and handsome. He wore a military uniform with medals and stripes across his chest.
'Alice, I have been so anxious to speak to you. I'm David Robertson and you have presumably heard of the terrible news. It has been a great loss for all of us and I know how much President Konrath liked you.'
'General, what is happening in the Homeland?'
The man's eyes narrowed in anxiety.
'As soon as the President fell, we had a few attacks from some scattered Zeus guerrilla forces who have been holding out. That's why I stepped in—we need a strong hand to ensure that they can be conta
ined. So far, we've only had a few scattered ambushes and firefights and I think we can hold them back. It's a matter of time before the last of them surrenders or is defeated.'
'That's good to know, General. I'm relieved to hear that.'
Then Robertson's expression changed, and his eyes burned with a new intensity, that of a man not used to failing.
'Arjun and the others told me that you had crossed across the old border into what had been Pakistan. Are you still there?'
When Alice told him that they were on their way to Karachi, his eyes lit up.
'Perhaps everything does happen for a reason. In the last few days, we have learnt of a grave new threat to all of us. A threat that the Executive Committee had kept hidden from us, and which is now threatening us.'
Alice felt a familiar tingle—she had thought that the war they had waged for the liberation of Wonderland and Homeland was over. Now it seemed to be emerging again.
'We're not sure what it is, but someone contacted us, threatening us with long-range nuclear strikes. We traced the signal to near Karachi, but we don't know exactly what the nature of the threat is. We cannot hit back at this range, and the only way we can get there is to secure the old airport and fly troops in. Alice, I have no authority over you and cannot ask you to do anything, but this is the predicament we are now in.'
John had been listening and now came in front of the tablet, saluting the President.
'Sir, I am Sergeant John Ayers. I was a Delta operator before the Rising. I haven't worn the US uniform in years, but I was sworn to defend my flag and country, and to serve the Commander-in-Chief, which would be you, sir. I will take on the mission to recce the airport.'
Alice spoke up.
'General, we have all lost too much to gain the freedom we enjoy. I cannot let that be threatened again. I'm in.'
As they set off towards Karachi, Alice felt mixed emotions. Part of her had been looking forward to a world where the biggest threats were bandits or gangs looking for drugs, and not one where a giant global tyranny threatened every free man and woman. But part of her, the part that had been forged in years of war and suffering, looked forward to meeting and destroying this new threat.
***
Many years ago, thousands of passengers had embarked on flights from this airport and thousands more had thronged its terminals every day. Businessmen going on work, families going on vacations, people coming to receive loved ones or to see them off. Now not much remained of Karachi airport other than a series of jagged craters.
The airport had been pummeled by cruise missiles fired by India when Pakistan had begun to use the airport for military flights during the Rising. The old city itself, visible in the distance, had fared little better. Taliban had battled security forces in an orgy of violence in the last days, and bombs and rockets had ripped the heart out of the once-cosmopolitan city of Karachi. What they had not destroyed, hordes of Biters and looters had achieved. Alice had seen and lived in the ruins of the old city of Delhi, but this was different. Delhi had fallen to the Biters during the Rising, and been depopulated by the catastrophe of the Rising and the airburst nuclear weapons the government had used as a last resort. Karachi had not seen a nuclear strike—India had taken out the nearby Air Force base and army barracks with tactical nukes, but had spared the city's civilian areas. Yet the city looked like it had been ripped apart brick by brick.
'So much for the LZ. We need to tell the President that nothing will land here.'
Alice noticed how easily John had accepted Robertson as his commander. There was a lot she did not understand about the old world, and one of those things was why people so readily gave others authority over them. Very few people were able to exercise such authority without being corrupted by it. Konrath had been one of them, but she was still not sure about Robertson. Yet John was right. No plane could land in the wreckage that remained of the old airport. If Robertson wanted to bring in reinforcements to tackle whatever threat lurked in Karachi, he would have to find a different way.
When she booted up her tablet to pass the bad news, there was already a message from Robertson waiting for her. He wanted her to contact him urgently. When she got on the video link, his eyes were drawn with fatigue, as if he had not been sleeping much. As he heard the news about the airport, his shoulders visibly sagged.
'We have but two days. They say they will destroy Washington unless we free all the Executive Committee leaders in our custody. We have to do something.'
'Do you know where these missiles are based?'
'No. We barely have a few communications satellites up. The old spy satellites that could have tracked them are no more. All we've been able to trace is that they are in Karachi somewhere.'
John seemed to be thinking and then he spoke up.
'Sir, the airport is gone, but we came through a large stretch of highway where fixed-wing aircraft may be able to land. There are long stretches with no vehicles or wreckage that could act as a runway. The forces you send would have to trek several hours to get to Karachi, but it's better than nothing.'
Robertson's eyes lit up at the suggestion.
'Great idea! Send me the co-ordinates or any landmarks. The Executive Committee had a few of the old satellites up and running and we captured some of their transport aircraft with working GPS systems so if we know the rough area, our pilots can find it. We'll work on something, but we don't have much time. You need to get more intel about what we're up against.'
As Alice and her companions set off in the direction of the city, she could not shake the feeling that she was being watched. Call it intuition, call it paranoia, but she felt that someone's eyes were on her. They were passing through some densely packed slums on both sides of them, and more than once, she thought she spotted movement.
'John, I have a bad feeling about this. Bunny Ears, scout the—'
A bullet slammed into her chest, sending her crashing to the ground.
***
SEVEN
Shots erupted all around Alice, sending the dust swirling around her from near misses. She had been wearing a protective vest, not because she could be killed by anything other than a direct head wound, but because she saw little reason to carry around any more wounds and gashes on her body than was absolutely necessary. She still retained some of the vanity that had come with being a young woman, and grimaced when she saw the many wounds she had from years of fighting.
Alice rolled to her right, coming up behind the hulking wreck of an old bus. She could see numerous muzzle flashes and brought up her rifle to shoot at one of them. She pulled the trigger and someone jerked back as her rounds struck home. She had no idea whether she'd scored a hit or not, but the shooting stopped for a few seconds, as if their attackers were regrouping to deal with a quarry that could shoot back.
'Bunny Ears, John, Zohar!'
In the chaos of initial ambush, Alice had lost sight of her companions, and when no reply came, she had a sinking feeling. Then she caught sight of a pair of familiar rabbit ears across the road. Bunny Ears had heard her and was coming towards her. Several shots rang out, hitting the buildings near him, but he kept coming. Afraid that she was calling her friend to his death, Alice shouted out again.
'No, stay there!'
An explosion rocked the other side of the bus and Alice was lifted by the impact and thrown several feet away. Two men came at her, carrying old rifles. Both looked like the addicts she had seen so far, wearing tattered clothes, with ancient weapons, and with scaly skin all over their arms. Alice knelt and put a three-round burst into one man's stomach and the man went down in a heap. The second one knelt and took aim but Alice stitched him with another burst that sent him down.
An impact on her back sent her staggering. The men directing the attack had used the addicts as cannon fodder to distract her and reveal her position, and had flanked her, bringing fire onto her from behind. Alice rolled into a shallow ditch on the side of the roads and turned to face her attackers. Mor
e firing rattled in the distance. Presumably John was still alive and fighting back. Men shuffled among the buildings ahead and she took aim.
That was when a voice spoke in a strange accent.
'Give up or we kill the boy.'
Zohar.
Alice watched with a sinking feeling as a large white man emerged from the buildings, dragging Zohar forward with one hand, while in the other he held a pistol pointed at the boy's head. He was flanked by two addicts, both carrying automatic rifles pointed at Alice. Has it just been her, Alice might have taken her chances, but she was not going to sacrifice an innocent boy.
'Put down your weapon.'
Alice did as she was told and then sensed movement behind her. She barely had time to look back when two men rushed at her and put a cloth sack over her head and hit her head with the butt of a rifle. Alice fell to the ground as the men bound her hands behind her while the man holding Zohar called out to her again.
'Resist and I blow the boy's head off.'
Alice's head rang from the blow and she struggled to her knees when a kick to her back sent her down again. She could see nothing with the sack around her head but she could hear Zohar crying and the occasional pop of gunfire. There were more attackers out there who seemed to have John and Bunny Ears pinned down. Hands pulled Alice roughly to her feet and she was dragged away and loaded onto a vehicle of some sort. As the vehicle started moving, she felt a comforting hand on her leg. It was Zohar, sobbing uncontrollably.
'I'm so sorry. I couldn't fight them off.'
That focused Alice. She had no idea who her attackers were or where they were taking her, but she needed to be strong for Zohar.