by Mainak Dhar
‘For years, we have lived a life that is little more than surviving from day to day. We have taught out children nothing more than how to kill and avoid being killed. All of us who lived before The Rising know that there is more to life than that. I had forgotten that life and I had resigned myself to a life where my only and biggest achievement was to see my family live one more day. But today, I realized there is hope. There is hope that the evil that has overtaken all our lives can be reversed. There is hope that once again we can live like humans, not wild animals. That hope is worth fighting for, and I for one will not give into someone who represents the same forces that destroyed all our lives in the first place. I will not choose for you. If you choose not to side with me, I will take my family and those with me and leave with Dr. Protima.’
Appleseed snorted derisively.
‘His daughter filled your ears with fairy tales, and you have this delusional old woman who means nothing to any of you. Why throw away your lives for them?’
Rajiv walked up to Appleseed and looked him in the eye.
‘When I was a banker, I thought the bloody stock market crashing was the end of the world. If there’s one positive of all this crap we’ve gone through, it’s that it has given me a sense of perspective, a sense of what really matters and what is worth standing up for. I will stand by the men and women who sheltered me when I had nothing and whom I have fought with shoulder to shoulder every day. You can stuff your Central Committee up your fat ass.’
If Alice’s father’s appeal had not done the trick, Rajiv’s certainly did, and everyone gathered started cheering.
Alice walked up to Appleseed and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘I don’t think you’re welcome here anymore.’
He glared at her and began to walk away, when the Queen emerged from the building where she had been hiding and stood next to Alice.
‘General, wait. I believe you were looking for me.’
He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her, and then recoiled in horror as she took off her glasses and gloves.
‘I dare say, General, for a delusional old woman I still have a bit of a bite.’
As she opened and snapped shut her bloody teeth, Appleseed stumbled back, almost falling down as he realized what the true nature of the elusive Dr. Protima he had been pursuing for so many years was. He ran more than walked out of the gate, as cheers rang out all around Alice.
The Queen looked around her and spoke to no one in particular. ‘There is still goodness left in man. There is indeed still hope.’
Alice’s father shouted above the cheering. ‘Quiet, everyone! We’ve done enough celebrating; now we need to get ready.’
‘For what?’ shouted someone in the crowd.
‘For the attack that is surely on its way even as we speak.’
***
Alice watched till the combination of the smoke drifting into her eyes and her own tears made it impossible for her to see much more. Jane was tugging at her arm and shouting something, but Alice did not hear a word of what she was saying. All she heard was the crackling sound of what had been her home for more than a year burn down to the ground. And yes, the sound of men screaming. Men she had trained with, men she had known all her life. Above all else, the one man she had loved with all her heart: her father.
Soon after Appleseed had left, Alice’s father had asked for twenty volunteers to stay on in the settlement, both to slow down the Zeus forces that were surely on their way, and also to ensure that any drones watching them didn’t spot that they were in fact abandoning their settlement. Alice had bawled and pleaded when it was obvious that her father would stay. He had just held her tight and spoke to her as she cried.
‘Alice, you must survive. Dr. Protima and her secret must survive. Just remember that and while you are young, you must now lead the ones who remain.’
The remaining people half-crouched, half-crawled through the narrow irrigation tunnels behind the settlement. Alice’s father had them covered long ago, thinking they would provide a good place to hide or to make a quiet getaway, and now they were being put to use as Alice, her mother, sister, Dr. Protima and the others made for the neighboring forests. It was from there that Alice saw the attack unfold. Three black helicopters swept in low and took positions, hovering just meters above the settlement. Appleseed was in one of them, and Alice could hear his voice booming over a loudspeaker, offering one last chance for surrender. When there was no response, Zeus troopers began rappelling out of the helicopters. For a split second, Alice’s heart had harbored hopes that her father and the other men may make it when their first volley brought down several of the Zeus troopers. But then she realized both just how cruel and how merciless Appleseed was. He had sacrificed his first men as pawns to make the defenders reveal their positions. Three more helicopters, sleek, fast gunships, swept in, raking the settlement with rockets and machine guns. A brutal, hammering assault that ended when more than half the buildings in the settlement were ablaze and all defending guns silent.
Another wave of Zeus troopers landed, but Alice saw that her father had more tricks up his sleeve. She watched through tear-filled eyes as several jury-rigged bombs, mostly cans filled with fuel, were set off, making the Zeus troopers dive for cover, and a single sniper rifle barked several times from the second floor of the building where Alice’s parents had lived. Two Zeus troopers fell and didn’t get up. Four troopers tried to rush the building, but two more were brought down by sniper fire. Finally a helicopter fired two rockets that destroyed the building as Alice screamed in agony.
More Zeus troopers entered the settlement, and started going door to door. When it was obvious that most of the residents had abandoned the settlement, Alice saw them signal frantically to the hovering helicopters. She knew that she could wait no longer. Her throat burned and she longed to strike out at the men who had just killed her father, but she remembered what her father had told her. Most of the combat-tested veterans had chosen to stay behind at the settlement, choosing to go down fighting so that their families may have a chance. Of the ones left, leave aside a couple of men who were good shots, Alice was perhaps the most experienced in both battle and in navigating the woods. She now had to lead them to safety. In the confusion of the hasty flight into the woods, she had lost sight of the Queen, and only hoped that she had not abandoned the humans who had sacrificed so much to keep her and her cause alive.
It was now nearly dark, and they could no longer hear the helicopters at the settlement. That could mean only one thing: that Appleseed had realized that pursuing them from the air was of no use in the dark when they were walking through a thick forest. They would have to come for them on foot. That suited Alice just fine. She, like most of the other survivors from the settlement, had learnt to live off the land and to fight on foot, in the dark, and with nothing but the weapons they could carry. She had seen the awesome firepower Zeus could bring to bear, but also had seen that its troopers relied too much on air power and heavy weapons. Now they were on Alice's turf and she would make them pay for what they had done.
She asked the group to halt and scanned them. More than half were children too young to fight, or those who were too old or sick to fight against trained troopers. Everyone at the settlement knew how to handle weapons; after The Rising that was almost an elementary education every human child had to go through if they wanted to live beyond a few years. But it was one thing to snipe at mindless Biters, and quite another thing to take on heavily armed and trained Zeus troopers. Alice picked a dozen young men and women, all of whom she had trained with and knew were good in close combat. She was the youngest of them, but nobody questioned her authority. Alice had always been acknowledged as someone with fighting skills well beyond her age, but with the role she had played in unearthing the deadly secret behind the Biters, there was even more of an aura surrounding her.
Alice asked the rest of the group to go ahead. She knew that there were some abandoned mines about
five kilometers away and that was to be their resting place for the night. If they got there undetected, it would be virtually impossible for Zeus to locate them from the air, and once the sun rose, she planned to make contact with the Queen. Her hope was that she would give refuge to Alice and her fellow humans. What followed then was something Alice had not had time to plan for or think through. Alice took the dozen she had asked to stay with her and asked them to gather in a circle.
'These are not Biters. They will not come in blindly to be shot. They have better weapons than us and they know how to use them.'
'Thanks for that inspirational speech, boss,’ one of the boys quipped.
Alice smiled as she replied, 'They are not Biters, but they are human. That means they will feel one thing Biters do not.'
'What's that, Alice?'
'Fear.'
***
Alice sat with bated breath, some thirty feet above the ground, hidden by the branches of the tree she was perched on. The others with her were similarly hidden, waiting for the Zeus troopers to appear. Two boys had been sent ahead as scouts, and when they had understood the likely route the troopers were taking through the forest, Alice had told everyone to take their positions. This was a tactic that they had often used before, born out of the simple insight that no matter how ferocious Biters could be, nobody had yet seen a Biter climb a tree. Alice could hear the troopers long before she saw their shadows in the dark.
'They move like pregnant cows,’ she thought to herself as she heard their heavy footfalls and their voices. For someone who had grown up in the open countryside and learnt from an early age what it meant to move with stealth and in the darkness, Alice knew this form of warfare intimately. The Zeus troopers, used to swooping down from the air and with heavy air cover to back them up, found this totally alien to how they normally went to war. That was the fatal weakness Alice hoped to exploit.
As Alice sighted her rifle at the nearest shadow, a flicker of doubt crossed her mind. This was not like shooting Biters, whom she had regarded as lifeless, mindless zombies, but shooting men; men who would bleed, men who would scream and thrash about as they died, men who were perhaps conscripts in the Zeus force from other settlements. Then she remembered what she had witnessed at her settlement and steeled herself and opened fire.
A single shot rang out and a trooper fell, hit in the leg. He screamed aloud and his comrades stopped, watching for attackers they could not see. They had night vision optics on their scopes, but night vision was of use only when you knew what you were looking for. A flash bang grenade rolled towards the troopers and as it exploded, it blinded them, rendering their night vision useless and also illuminating them in a ghostly glow. Alice and her comrades opened fire, using carefully aimed single shots. The firing lasted for less than twenty seconds, and when it had finished, not one of the dozen Zeus troopers was standing. Alice whistled, and all of them clambered down the trees and ran towards their escape route. They would not go straight for the mines, lest they lead the troopers to the larger group headed there, but would create a diversion, moving north and then looping back when they were in the clear.
Alice ran through the trees, her heart hammering, and keenly aware of the sounds behind her. She heard several helicopters overhead, and while the helicopters would not be able to target them through the thick forest cover, it meant that Zeus had perhaps called for reinforcements. More troopers were coming after them to avenge their comrades and she thought she heard Appleseed bellowing orders. Part of her wanted to stop and seek her vengeance against him, but she knew that she would not be able to do what her father had entrusted her with by leading a suicide mission. With the element of surprise gone, they would be not much of a match for the more numerous and better equipped Zeus troopers. She had to regain the advantage of surprise, otherwise they would not live to see the next morning.
It was impossible for her to account for every man and woman in her squad in the darkness and as she spotted a good hiding spot, she slid to a stop behind a large fallen tree. She whistled, hoping her comrades would join her, and soon enough they were sliding into position next to her. She did a quick voice count and came up three short.
'Where are Rahul, Divya and Chetan?'
She was answered a second later when she heard bursts of gunfire. A voice cried out for mercy and was silenced with a single shot. Alice blinked back tears and tried to think what to do. She knew how to fight, but had always counted on her father being there to lead everyone, to give direction. Now being accountable for the lives of so many was a responsibility she did not think she was ready for. But whether she was ready or not, she had to act because she could now hear the Zeus troopers coming closer.
'Everyone, let's move west over the irrigation canal and then we'll get to the mines.'
They moved instantly on her suggestion, running through the forest, their homemade and patched soft soles barely making a noise, in contrast to the heavy boots of the Zeus troopers now in hot pursuit behind them. Alice saw some shadows ahead of them and skidded to a stop as she saw one of them raise a rifle.
'Stop!'
Her warning was too late as a rifle barked and Alice saw the boy next to her fall. He screamed once and then was silent.
'They're in front of us!'
Alice had her group scatter for cover behind trees, but now she knew the awful truth. Zeus had not just been flying in reinforcements, but they were using the mobility of their helicopters to flank Alice and her group. Now Alice had Zeus troopers on both sides of her, closing in on her position. She raised her rifle and fired at the nearest shadow, but could not be sure if she hit anything. The Zeus troopers, with their night vision scopes, had no such disadvantages. Two bullets slammed into the tree trunk inches from her face, showering her with splinters as she screamed and took cover, bleeding from her right cheek. Gunshots were ringing out all around her and now she had totally lost control of her situation. They were no longer a cohesive unit, but just eight or nine scared individuals in the dark against a larger number of heavily armed troopers.
She heard one of her friends scream in agony, and then something snapped inside Alice. Her life had been tough enough, but at least she had known a loving family, known the comfort that came from living among people who cared about each other. She was not going to have all of that taken away in one night because of the greed and cruelty of some men. She saw a large group of Zeus troopers emerge in front of her, and she took out her last remaining flash bang grenade and rolled it towards them, closing her eyes as it exploded, temporarily blinding the Zeus troopers.
She slung her rifle across her back and took her handgun in her right hand and her knife in her left and emerged from the shadows towards the Zeus troopers, running towards them at full tilt. The first trooper she encountered was one who was still rubbing his eyes to clear them. She fired two rounds, aiming for the face, knowing that the troopers wore body armor that would fend off small arms fire. As the trooper went down, she placed her right hand on his back, vaulting over him and coming up in a crouch as she brought her knife up into another trooper's leg. As he grabbed his leg and screamed, she stood up and fired into his face. Another trooper behind her was trying to raise his rifle when one of her friends shot him.
Alice jumped into the trees, leaving the disoriented Zeus troopers behind. She saw fleeing shadows and knew that she had bought enough time for her friends to get away, but now she was alone in the dark and surrounded by enemy troopers.
She heard Appleseed shout, 'You little blond witch, come on out and I may still let you surrender. Don't make us hunt you down, because then it won't be pretty when we're finished with you.'
Alice tried to force herself to stay calm, but it felt like her breathing was so loud that it could be heard across the entire forest. She pressed herself flat against a tree, and could hear Zeus troopers move all around her. It was just a matter of time before one of them looked in her direction through his night vision scope and the game would b
e up. She thought of climbing up the tree she was near but froze when she heard footsteps near her. There was a Zeus trooper on the other side of the tree, and she heard him unzip his trousers as he relieved himself. She stifled an urge to laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation, and waited till he moved on.
She peered around to see if the coast was clear and then moved slowly behind another tree. It was excruciatingly slow progress, moving from one tree to another, but at least she was moving closer to where her friends would be. The one thing she hoped was that they did not try and rescue her; that would be sure suicide with the odds against them. She stepped on a branch and the cracking noise made her cringe, but when she heard no response from the troopers she moved on. And then she found herself face to face with a grinning trooper. The man was at least twice as broad as Alice and towered over her. In the dark, she saw the whites of his teeth as he grinned. It was the first time she got a close look at the troopers they were fighting and she realized that he looked very different from the brown skinned people of what had been known as India in the Old Days, or even white-skinned people like herself. This trooper had narrow, slanted eyes and spoke with a strange accent. He must have been one of the Red Guards that people spoke of.
'Hello, darling. While the others get here maybe we could have some fun.'
As he reached out to grab her, his fatal mistake was that he saw a young girl alone in a forest, not a trained killer who had shot her first Biter when she was ten years old. Alice caught his wrist in a lock, snapping it back till she heard a popping noise, and as the man gasped in pain, she broke his nose with a back-handed strike with the thick ivory handle of her knife. She was tempted to shoot him, but that would have caused too much noise, so she stepped beyond the sputtering, sobbing man and went to the next tree.