by Mainak Dhar
'How did you guys make such an elaborate hiding place in just a few days?'
Alice did not reply, weighing in her mind when and how she should break the full reality of her situation to Dewan. She needed him to be on her side and to trust her, and she was not sure if revealing the true nature of the Biters and Zeus would be too much too soon. As they progressed down the tunnel far enough that Alice was confident they could not be heard overground, she asked Dewan to sit down.
'Colonel...'
'Just call me Amit.'
'Ok, Amit. There's a lot going on here that you need to know about. I don't know where to start. It all sounds crazy.'
Dewan laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He was very different from her father. He was shorter, built much broader, and had a much squarer face, but his eyes had the same kindness in them. Alice found it easy to be relaxed in his company as he spoke.
'Alice, I was a newly commissioned officer in the Indian Army. I had a girl I was going to propose to. I had a career to look ahead to. Then one day, my life and my world collapsed around me, and I found myself fighting for survival. I hid in the Deadland for months, surviving off the land, using my special forces training in a way I had never imagined before, fighting Biters and human scavengers alike, till I was picked up by a Zeus helicopter. They were the first promise of stability and safety in this crazy new world, and I signed up without a second thought. Since then, my life has had one purpose: to fight the monsters who had caused so much loss and to help the humans still in the Deadland. I never doubted anything I was doing, till now. So compared to what I have seen and been through, nothing you tell or show me can be too crazy for me to handle.'
Alice was about to begin when a shadow moved in front of her and she gasped. It was Bunny Ears, standing there looking at her, as if wondering why she was with a Zeus trooper inside the base.
'Holy shit!'
Dewan was on his feet and was about to bring his rifle up. Bunny Ears, startled by the move, had bared his teeth and was hissing when Alice grabbed Dewan's hands.
'Amit, no! Please don't shoot!'
'But, this is...'
Alice looked at him, pleading with him.
'Just believe me for a minute and come further down. You'll see for yourself everything that I've discovered and the real reason behind why Appleseed suddenly wants me and my friends dead.'
Dewan seemed to be struggling with himself for some time. All his training and experience were telling him to open fire, yet he wanted to trust Alice. When Alice let go of his hands, she saw him look at her but then quickly shift his gaze to Bunny Ears.
'Alice, if you were a terrorist and you wanted me dead, I wouldn't be alive now. So I will trust you – but not this...thing. Any sudden move and I blow his head off.'
Bunny Ears growled as Dewan looked at him defiantly. An uneasy truce having been established between them, the three of them walked down the narrow path deeper into the base. When they entered the hall where the humans were sheltering, Alice heard several weapons being raised and cocked at the sight of a Zeus trooper in uniform. Alice stepped in front of Dewan.
'Please, he's a friend. He can help us.'
Everyone listened to Alice, but if looks could kill, Dewan would have been dead within a few paces with everyone in the room looking at him with undisguised hostility and contempt. Alice took him straight to the Queen's room, and apparently having heard of the arrival of a guest, she was dressed for the occasion, wearing her dark glasses and gloves and with a shawl covering her body. One glance at her and something clicked in Dewan's head and he took out his palmtop device.
'Let me guess. I am a wanted terrorist in your system, am I not?'
He looked sheepishly at the Queen, who smiled, showing reddish teeth that caused Dewan to blanch as he began to wonder who or what he was dealing with. Alice asked him to sit and told the Queen about how he had helped her earlier, and then looked at Dewan.
'Amit, please listen to what she has to say and read the documents she has. That's all I ask of you. Just listen to it all first before you say anything.'
Dewan sat impassively as the Queen took him through her tale, complete with all the documents she had and topped off with her revealing her true nature. Alice saw that Dewan didn't seem fazed at all by everything he saw. If anything, he seemed lost in thought, almost as if his mind were somewhere else. When the Queen finished, all eyes were on Dewan, waiting to see what his reaction would be. He got up and let his breath out in an audible sigh and then buried his face in his hands. Alice was worried that he was losing it and started to walk towards him, but he held out a palm, motioning for her to stop. When he finally spoke, it was in a tone that was barely a whisper.
'When people are scared enough, they begin to accept any form of tyranny because unquestioning obedience to unknown masters is better than facing known dangers.'
Alice sensed that Dewan needed to talk, so she stepped back as Dewan continued, talking more to himself than to anyone in the room.
'In all these years, I never asked who we served. All I heard was that the Central Committee had been set up in China and was overseeing all rehabilitation efforts, but I never asked who they were. I met my senior officers once in a while, and the only order they gave was simple: exterminate the Biters and bring more humans in the Deadland into settlements regulated by the Central Committee. When settlements refused to sign up, we were somehow assigned other duties, and we saw Red Guards from China who were flown in and kept in isolated camps on our bases, but we never asked why they had to come in.'
He stopped, and then looked at Alice, and she saw the beginnings of tears in his eyes.
'I saw thousands of people flown to China to be resettled. There were always rumors that they were being taken to slave camps, but I always ignored the stories, convincing myself that these were just conspiracy theories. You know the funny thing about everything you've shown me?'
Alice watched the Colonel come to grips with himself as he continued.
'The funny thing is that I, and perhaps many other officers, guessed that there was something going on, that this mysterious Central Committee was not just doing things out of the goodness of its heart, that we were serving masters whose agendas were not always transparent. But we had seen how chaotic and fickle life was in the Deadland, with no authority or government, and we chose to close our eyes and hang on to the illusion that we were fighting a just war. But what you've showed me goes so far beyond just today's reality. This could change everything!'
The Queen had been watching Dewan and now she came closer.
'Colonel, we need your help. We know we cannot survive a war against the Central Committee forever, but we need someone in the administration to help get the truth out. Is there someone in power we could reach out to?'
Dewan shook his head. 'I don't know, and with Appleseed now so involved in the operations, I don't know whom to trust. As I said, I've never even seen anyone on the Central Committee, but you don't need to reach the top to get your message across.'
'What do you mean?'
Dewan looked at Alice as he answered her. 'We start at the bottom: with the common troops, young boys and girls from settlements like yours, who form the backbone of Zeus here. That's where we get this thing started.'
***
NINE
Several of the humans were gathered around Dewan as he dug into his backpack and took out a flat, sleek device.
'What it it?'
Alice's mother answered her. 'Looks a lot like a tablet computer, but I haven't seen one in years.'
Alice had grown up without many of the technological trappings and toys that kids had enjoyed before The Rising, and by the time she had grown up enough to understand what they were, the people at her settlement had lost or thrown away their computers and cellphones. She leaned over her mother's shoulder to see what Dewan had in his hand. The device suddenly seemed to come to life with bright, vivid colors appearing on its screen. She saw the Ze
us logo, which was then replaced by lots of numbers and letters and symbols. As Dewan touched one of the pictures with a finger, a new set of visuals and text filled the surface. To Alice, it looked almost magical. Her mother was reading it aloud for the benefit of everyone around.
'The Central Committee has announced the beginning of the new harvest season, where workers are joyously participating in planting seeds and working the fields in preparation for a new year of prosperity. Chairman Wang has said that the Red Guards are vigorously pursuing heroic actions in the Deadland in India and America to continue their victorious charge against the Biter hordes, and in helping bring more human survivors into the fold of the People's Revolution.'
Alice could see her mother's mouth twist in disgust as she looked at Dewan.
'What is this crap? Do the Chinese control everything now?'
Dewan looked at her, surprise on his face.
'Didn't you know? Oh, I forgot, you guys have been off the grid for some time now. A few years after The Rising, when people started rebuilding, China was the only major power that was relatively untouched, and they set about taking charge under the Central Committee. They used the old Chinese Army as the beginning of the Red Guards but then contracted Zeus to help in the Deadland.'
The Queen was now right behind Dewan.
'I find it very convenient that the net outcome of The Rising was that the US and other powers were largely scattered and destroyed and China emerged as the centre of the new human civilization. I used to think that the US decision to hit China was madness on our part. Now, I'm not so sure. Perhaps it was true that the elites in the West who wanted a New World Order joined up with the Chinese to engineer this.'
Dewan sat in silence, considering it in his mind. 'Look, Dr. Protima, I was in the old Indian Army and we hardly saw China as a friend, but I'm not sure they would have done this. Why destroy the whole world and rule over the ashes?'
Alice's mother spoke up. 'Colonel, I worked in a bank in my old life, and we all remember the way the world was. Markets were melting down and the US on the verge of defaulting on its debt. There were protests throughout the world against the elite who had brought the world to such a state. China's economy was booming, but it was also the largest holder of US debt: if the US had collapsed and defaulted, China would have been ruined. Add to that growing demands for democracy in China, and the second Tinanmen Square massacre of 2012, and I don't find it hard to believe they could have engineered this. From what I see here, they seem to be fine, maybe because they prepared for it. They still have big cities, and are using slave labor from the Deadland to harvest their crops and feed their people. And every surviving human is so terrified that they are willing to live with any level of dictatorship if it means some level of safety.'
Alice's mind was reeling. Why would anyone destroy so much, and kill so many countless numbers of people, to hold on to power? She began to understand why her father had hated men who craved power and had tried so hard to keep their settlement out of the clutches of Zeus and its masters. Now, as she looked at Dewan, she began to see the first cracks appear as he perhaps for the first time began to understand the role he had unwittingly played in the whole conspiracy.
Alice sat down next to him. 'Amit, what can we do to fight this army of theirs? Could you help train some of us or maybe help us get better weapons?'
Dewan shook his head. 'No, Alice. You cannot win this war through weapons alone. What you've seen is nothing compared to the firepower they have. The Zeus troopers only have personal weapons and some air support, but the Central Committee has missiles and heavy bombers. They would flatten us without us even getting a chance to take a shot at them.'
'So what do we do?'
Dewan was up and he began pacing the room.
'Exactly as I said before, we need to get the rank and file of the Zeus troops to know the truth. Once they know what they are doing and who they are really serving, we'll get more allies in the battle.'
Alice's mother was now holding the tablet and she looked at Dewan, an idea forming in her mind.
'We are totally cut from the information networks Zeus and the Central Committee uses, but you are plugged into it. If you leave this tablet here, we could post messages that all Zeus troopers would be able to see.'
Dewan clearly didn't think that was a good idea as he shook his head vigorously.
'They would track the tablet down in a few minutes and how could...'
As he was saying something, he suddenly stopped, as if a new idea had struck him.
'What if I lost my backpack in a firefight and someone took my kit, including my tablet?'
The Queen saw where Dewan was going and chipped in, 'Could any of us use this device? We haven't been near computers for years and this is more advanced than anything we used in our time.'
A man stepped forward. 'Hey, I was really into tech and was a blogger before The Rising. I'm sure I could learn if the Colonel here showed me the basics.'
'Then we have a plan.'
Alice looked at Dewan. 'Plan? We keep the tablet here, and figure out some way of getting messages to the Zeus troopers, but what about you?'
Dewan looked at her. 'I go back to my base, pretending to have survived a ferocious firefight, and then continue being a loyal soldier to the Central Committee.'
Several people began to speak up at the same time, and the Queen had to raise her voice to hush them.
'Quiet, everyone. Let him finish.'
'But how can we be sure he won't lead them here?'
Dewan turned to face the speaker, an elderly woman who shrank back under his gaze.
'Look, you just have to trust me. I took enough of a risk wandering out alone to look for Alice. If I just wanted to follow orders, I would have arrested or killed her when I had her alone in the forest.'
Alice heard a few more people grumble, so she stood in front of Dewan and addressed the crowd.
'Everyone, on this you need to trust me. The Colonel didn't have to come down here with me, he didn't need to save me from his men in the forest, and he certainly didn't need to put himself at so much risk by trusting me. I trust him, and ask you to go along with his plan if you trust me.'
Her words carried the day, and as Alice watched everyone back down, and many of the gathered people averted their gazes when she looked at them, she was once more surprised at what she had become. She had never wanted to be a leader of any sort, and certainly would not have asked for the responsibility and burden that came with it, but now, whether she liked it or not, she realized that everyone was looking to her. She just hoped that she did not mess things up too much.
Dewan touched her gently on the shoulder. 'Thanks, Alice. You'll all be better off having someone on the inside helping you.'
After brief goodbyes, Dewan gathered his weapon but left the rest of his kit behind and slipped out into the forest. He turned once to wave at her and then Alice saw him disappear behind the trees. Her heart was pounding as she wondered if she had done the right thing by letting him go or had doomed all of them.
***
Dewan was sitting at his desk, typing his After Action Report for the third time. He had sent in his first draft, which had been sent back by Appleseed with more than a dozen questions. He had tried to address all of them systematically, but knew that no matter what he wrote down in a formal memo, he could not address the underlying skepticism of how an elite officer like him was caught in close combat with terrorists and managed to escape without his kit. His second draft had gone through to the Central Committee in Shanghai and had come back with more notations and questions. Dewan had half-hoped that he would not attract too much scrutiny but with the high level of anxiety, even paranoia, that Appleseed had about Alice and the escaped humans, he was not going to let Dewan off the hook so easily. Dewan noticed that Appleseed said nothing about the attack on the settlement and made no mention of the Queen. If Dewan had any doubts about what he had heard from Alice and the others, Applese
ed's behavior nailed it for him.
The Messenger window on his screen beeped and he saw that he was being called for a debriefing to Appleseed's office. When he reached there a few minutes later, he was surprised to see Appleseed sitting with a Chinese general whom he had never met before. The slight man was wearing his cap even indoors, and as he stood, Dewan saw the red star emblazoned on it. Dewan saluted and the man returned his salute.
'At ease, Colonel. I am General Chen from the Central Committee. I flew down from Shanghai last night to meet you for myself.'
Dewan was instantly on guard.
'Sir, I would have been available anytime for a call. I'm sorry you had to travel so far on my account.'
Chen smiled, his thin lips pursed back, and Dewan realized that he was looking at a man who could be very dangerous.
'Colonel, you have had a number of brushes with the Biters recently, and you brought in this counter-revolutionary, this girl Alice. We have spoken to some of your men and it seems you had recaptured her when they last saw you.'
Dewan tried not to betray the fear he felt.
'Sir, I had her, but when I was bringing her in, I was ambushed by a force of her supporters and I lost her.'
Chen looked at him for several seconds before turning his back to Dewan.
'Yes, Colonel, and it seems you lost much of your kit, including your service tablet.'
'Yes, sir. One of them grabbed my backpack and pulled it off.'
Chen was picking something off the desk and when he turned to face Dewan, he was carrying a tablet in his hand. He powered it on and tapped the Browser. When it opened up, Dewan saw a new post on the Intranet Board used by Zeus. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the headline.
What is the real truth behind The Rising? Read more to find out.
'Colonel, this was posted last evening. We triangulated the location to somewhere deep in the Deadland, but of course nobody was there when a squad got there.'