by Mainak Dhar
Alice had to ask the next question given what she had been through over the day.
'Danish, what about the Biters in America?'
Danish tutte looked away.
'Well, they hear that it’s more like a disease, that they can be lived with – they hear about you. But they’re not buying it. I can't blame them. Remember how things were here before you got here? They hunt down Biters and burn them. They call it a Biter Barbeque. Not pretty.'
That night was anxious for Alice, spent wondering how she could possibly keep things from exploding. The next morning, she did what she thought was the right thing to do. She went to visit each of the families who had lost children in the attack. She told them about what had happened in the Biter Reservation and promised them that she would not allow such a thing to happen again.
Then she called Arjun and Satish for a meeting in her room.
'Guys, there is no way such a thing can take place ever again. I've told Hatter and Bunny Ears, but you know that discipline is too much to expect from every Biter out there. So we need to help.'
'What do you have in mind?'
'Arjun, we need more security patrols inside Wonderland to watch the borders from the inside.'
Arjun sadly shook his head. 'It’s not as simple as that now we number so many. Now we'd need it voted in the Council, and you know how Arun and his friends feel.'
'Come on, they would think differently after the attack, wouldn't they?'
Arjun looked at Alice grimly. He realized that for all her combat skills she was but a child, and unschooled in the murky world of politics that Arun had mastered.
'Alice, Arun was very nice to you when he last met you, but he's been telling anyone who'll listen that he doesn't believe the story about it being Biters from the outside. He says he's sure it was Biters from the Reservation. He won't vote to increase patrols; he'd much rather put the blame on you for being too soft on the Biters.'
Alice gritted her teeth. 'So what does he want to do?'
'He hasn't said it out loud as such, but he thinks we should move the Biters far away, and of course, he'd rather he run this place all by himself as leader instead of a Council where you have such a large say given your past. That's why he keeps asking for elections for a single leader.'
Satish broke his silence. 'I can help.'
Both Arjun and Alice looked at him as he elaborated.
'I could have two of my recon teams come in closer to the city centre.'
Arjun spotted the obvious problem in the suggestion. 'We send the deep recon boys out to watch for Red Guard incursions and wild bands of Biters to intercept them before they get close. Your move would leave us exposed.'
'Yes, but only till the situation stabilizes.'
Alice shook her head. 'Word will get out. Some of those boys will speak to their wives in the city. Others will talk too much over a drink. Arun and his friends will throw a fit and accuse us of overriding them.'
Just then, Alice's tactical radio crackled to life.
'White Queen, this is Looking Glass.'
It was Danish.
'Looking Glass, what do you have to report?'
'One of our recon teams called in and said that they found fresh footprints, many of them, leading into the city. I don't know how they evaded our patrols, but they say the footprints must be of Biters by the way they seem to have moved. Then Rahul down at the farms just called on his radio, saying he saw what seemed to be a group of Biters down the road.'
The words sent a chill down Alice's spine. Satish and Arjun had both heard the transmission and they knew what the implications of another Biter attack would be. Without a word being said between them, they gathered their weapons. Alice was the first out the door, and roared down the road on Danish’s bike, with Satish and Arjun following closely behind in a jeep. There was no time to call for reinforcements. They would have to handle this themselves.
Alice remembered the bodies of the children and vowed to make these Biters pay dearly for what they had done.
***
Alice cursed as her first burst went wide, and the Biters in front of her scattered behind the bushes overlooking the farmlands north of the city center where the Biters had been reported. Alice had let her anger get the better of her and fired even before her bike had come to a complete halt. Firing her assault rifle one-handed and on the move was something her trainers back at her settlement would have frowned upon, but then they had also always advised her never to fight angry.
Stilling her mind she slipped off the bike, selecting single-shot mode on her assault rifle. Spraying rounds was hardly a smart tactic when all that mattered was putting one round into a Biter's head.
There.
She saw a Biter round the corner and she aimed and put a round into his chest. The Biter staggered back and bared his teeth at her when another round drilled him through the head. Another Biter was coming up just behind her to the right and Alice swiveled towards him, firing at him. One shot, one kill. By now Arjun and Satish had joined the battle and were firing away. Alice saw Arjun kick a large Biter down and step on his chest before shredding the Biter's head with automatic fire. Clearly she was not the only one who was fighting angry today – but given the scene of the slaughtered children, it was no surprise.
That momentary distraction almost cost her dearly. A gnarled, bloody hand swept at her face, scratching her just below the eyes. She turned towards the Biter, looking at her with red eyes, his skin coming off in bloody patches. She brought her rifle around in an arc, shattering his jaw. Then she kicked his feet from under him and shot him twice in the head.
The shooting had stopped.
‘Did we get them all?’
Satish was not about to let his guard down and swept the area, his rifle raised. Arjun kicked one of the Biters to make sure he was gone. It twitched, so he fired into the back of its head.
‘I think we got all the bastards now.’
The three of them looked at each other for some time, mixed emotions coursing through all of them. They had not been in such an intense fight this far inside Wonderland for many months, and certainly they had all thought that the days of defending against Biter hordes was over. However, along with that concern came a sense of catharsis. They had avenged the deaths of the children, and while nothing would bring the kids back, this would hopefully start bridging some of the rifts that had been created between Alice and the settlers who seemed to favor Arun.
Satish and Arjun took a break, taking out their water bottles. They were about to go back to their jeep when Alice noticed something.
‘Guys, something is not right here.’
They stopped and looked where she was pointing.
‘Check out their faces and bodies. They are decomposed like Biters, but they don’t have too many visible wounds other than the rounds we put in them. Normally they’re covered with unhealing wounds from their conversion. These guys are barely scratched.’
Satish peeled off the clothes of a Biter at his feet with his knife and stepped back, shocked.
‘Shit, this one has a totally clean body.’
Arjun was still taking it all in.
‘Maybe they got infected recently. Maybe that’s why there aren’t too many wounds.’
Alice wasn’t satisfied.
‘Could a dozen of them be infected at the same time? All of them without a single visible bite or scratch mark?’
Just then Satish heard a message coming over his radio in the jeep. He ran to it and picked up the mike. As he spoke, Alice saw the color leave his face.
‘Satish, what happened?’
He looked her, a fear in his eyes that Alice had never seen before, even in the thick of combat against the Red Guards.
‘Alice, come on. We need to get you to the Looking Glass. That’s the only safe place I can think of now till things cool down.’
‘What happened?’
Satish looked at her, his eyes filling with tears. ‘This was a decoy
. Another group of Biters got into the city. They got to some apartments before some of the men stopped them. They’re saying more than twenty of us are dead, most of them women and children. Some of the Biters got away, but they killed eight of them. From what Danish said, they seem to be the same sort as the ones we killed.’
Alice held onto the side of the jeep for support, trying to comprehend what was happening.
‘Biters don’t use tactics like these. I don’t understand what is going on.’
Satish grabbed her hand and pushed her towards the jeep. ‘We’ll figure all that out later. Now we need to get you to safety.’
‘Safety? Satish, this is my home. We started this place together. I am not going to hide in my own home.’
As soon as she finished her sentence, a bullet whizzed past her, missing her head by inches. Driven by instinct and training, Alice rolled to her right, bringing up her handgun in a two-handed grip, aiming at where the shot had come from. The shooter was a young boy, perhaps no more than twelve years old, carrying a rifle that was too heavy for him. He was crying and had blood covering his shirt.
‘Your Biters killed my brother!’
Alice lowered her handgun, too shocked to react, when Arjun snatched the gun away from the boy. Satish was still on the radio and Danish spoke with renewed urgency.
‘Don’t bring the White Queen here. My men report that a large mob is headed here, and another group is on its way to the Biter Reservation. They’re saying that it’s time to wipe out the Biters.’
Satish put the radio down.
‘A war with the Biters will destroy Wonderland, and everything we’ve created.’
***
THREE
‘Hatter, I know you did not do this, but we don’t have time to prove or explain anything!’
As soon as they had got the news, Alice and Satish had rushed to the Biter Reservation on Danish’s bike, while Arjun had headed to the Looking Glass, both to try and pacify the people headed there and also to keep Danish safe. Danish was not as closely associated with Alice as Satish was, but neither did he have any qualms about making his distaste for Arun known publicly. Alice had gathered the Biters and told them what had happened and their reaction was clear. Even without human language, their surprise and indignation was apparent.
Hatter reared up to his full height, roaring in frustration. Alice reached out, touching the rough, bloodied skin on his hand.
‘If you fight the humans today then all will be lost. We will be back to what our lives had been like in the Deadland, fighting and slaughtering each other, and then the Red Guards and their masters would have won. Do you understand what I am asking you to do?’
Hatter had put his head down, but refused to acknowledge what Alice had just asked. Bunny Ears, however, stood next to him and emitted a low keening sound. Alice knew that he was sad, much like a pet being asked to go away, but that he would listen to her. Alice just wanted them to get out of sight while she tried to figure out where the attacking Biters had come from, and also try and cool things down with people in Wonderland.
Within minutes, there was no sign of the Biters. They had disappeared down the warren of underground tunnels and bomb shelters where Alice had first encountered them. Arun and his closest supporters were relative newcomers and would have no idea of the full extent of the tunnel network. The ones who had some idea of where the tunnels opened were the recon teams that worked for Satish, and they would not betray him or Alice.
‘Satish, come on! Let’s get to the Looking Glass.’
As she started her the bike, they got their first glimpse of the approaching mob. There were more than a hundred men on foot, some carrying lit torches, and all of them armed. As they saw Alice speed away, a couple of them fired, sending dust and gravel flying all around her as Alice rode away. The fact that they had opened fire without even giving her a chance to explain meant that things had totally gone out of control. She also knew that sending the Biters into hiding would only make her and the Biters look even guiltier, but that was a better option than the bloodbath that would have followed otherwise.
When they approached the Looking Glass, Alice knew that something was wrong. Arjun had driven in Satish’s jeep, and now it was lying on the side of the road, pockmarked with bullet holes and with its windshield shattered. Anxious about her friend, Alice jumped off the bike and was about to run to the Looking Glass when Satish grabbed her hand.
‘This could be an ambush. Let’s not rush into it.’
Both of them unslung their assault rifles and approached the temple complex.
Alice said, ‘I saw some movement near the doorway.’
Satish knelt down, looking through his scope. ‘There’s someone hiding there.’
Alice crept along the far wall while Satish hid behind the jeep, covering the doorway. Alice did not want to harm any of the people of Wonderland– after all, they were like family. But if any of them had hurt Arjun, there would be hell to pay.
Alice was now just feet away from the doorway and she dove in front of it, coming up with her rifle raised. She saw Arjun sitting huddled against the door. He had his rifle in his hands, but there was a small pool of blood forming under him, and he was struggling to keep his eyes open.
‘Arjun, no!’
Hearing Alice’s anguished shout, Satish ran over and they took Arjun inside the complex. Danish was there, his hands and face cut. Some of the glass surrounding the communications room had been shattered and there were three bodies lying among the bloodied glass fragments. The men wore filthy, dust-covered clothes of the sort that Alice had not seen since her people formed Wonderland.
Satish was tending to Arjun’s wounds while Danish filled them in on what had happened.
‘They heard that you were headed to the Reservation so most of them went there. That bastard Humpy Dumpty ordered the mob to go there. I heard him myself on the radio.’
Humpty Dumpty was Danish’s preferred term for Arun, in reference to his weight and nearly bald head.
‘Arjun and I were here when these three bastards came to kill us. These were not our people, Alice. They are stragglers from the Deadland someone must have hired to do their dirty work. I bet some of them are mixed in with the mobs, riling them up. Arjun took them all out, but they managed to shoot him.’
Alice took it in, but her mind refused to believe it. There were still people out in the Deadlands, mostly small groups of bandits who had terrorized the settlements before Wonderland had been formed. Alice had steadfastly refused to let any of them into Wonderland. Alice knew they would have hated her for that decision, but to think that someone from inside Wonderland had let them in to kill her was too much to believe. Satish would have seen her doubt.
‘Alice, you are still too young to know how messed up people can be when they want power. I don’t have any trouble believing Arun could have done this. I say we get my boys and bust him.’
‘No. No.’
Everyone started at Arjun’s words. He struggled to sit. Satish had bandaged the wound on his thigh, but he was clearly weak from the loss of blood.
‘No, Satish. That would mean civil war, and ordinary folks would believe that Alice and our Biters were guilty of the attacks and side with Arun. We would destroy Wonderland.’
‘What, then?’
‘Look, these three goons here are obviously Deadlander bandits and even if Arun hired them, he would never own up to it publicly. But people are baying for blood and I can’t blame them. So many families have lost people in the last two days that they aren’t thinking straight.’
‘So what do we do, Arjun?’
‘Alice, you need to find out who’s behind this. Those Biters were inserted here for these attacks, and someone human, someone very smart, thought it all up. But you can’t do that from the inside. You need to get back to the Deadland and find out what’s going on.’
‘What about you?’
‘Hey, I’ll just say these bandits hurt me, which i
s true enough, and that I’ve got no idea where you are. Remember, I used to sell useless vacuum cleaners for a living to people who didn’t need them. I can sell Arun any story I want.’
Arjun smiled as he said the words, but there was a pained grimace apparent on his face. Alice took a look around, weighing the decision before her.
‘Danish, radio the folks in town, telling them bandits attacked the Looking Glass, and ask for medical help. Tell nobody we were here.’
Danish looked at her, grim determination on his face.
‘Alice, you can trust me. Here, take this so you can know what’s going on inside and I can tell you what Humpty Dumpty is up to.’
Alice gratefully took the portable radio set he had given her and put it in her backpack. She was about to leave when Satish joined her.
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Satish, you don’t have to…’
He never let her finish. ‘We’ve fought too many battles together for me to let you go alone on this one.’
And so Alice and Satish walked out through the shattered glass facade of the Looking Glass, the bloodied glass fragments crunching under their feet as they set out for their trip back into the Deadland.
***
General Chen watched the black helicopter glide in and land in a far corner of the airfield. It was always cold in Ladakh, where he was based, but he felt a chill go through him that had nothing to do with the temperature. After he had surrendered a forward base to Alice and her forces, he had been stripped of his command of the Red Guard forces in the Deadland, and had been sent to an indoctrination camp near Guangzhou. The Central Committee propaganda machine called these camps ‘holiday camps for tired veterans to recuperate and regain their revolutionary fervor’. In reality, it was a torture camp where veterans who had become politically inconvenient or had started asking uncomfortable questions were shipped out. Like the purges of all dictators in the past, those who were perhaps most capable of defending the regime were punished, because the best soldiers are also those who dare to think. Chen had made that mistake when he surrendered his base to Alice to prevent his men from being slaughtered. He had been an officer in the Chinese Red Army before The Rising, and with the nuclear and biological weapon exchanges with the Americans and the chaos enveloping the world in the days that followed, he had devoted himself to defending his people against the Biters. It had been a clear-cut mission, one where he had little doubt as to whether he was doing the right thing or not. That was until he learnt of this girl called Alice and the stories she was spreading. He had dismissed them as propaganda, and had captured her once, intending to send her to the mainland for execution. But something had changed when he had looked at her during her attack on the Red Guard base he had been inspecting close to a year ago. He had seen the Biters following her, had seen that she was not quite human, yet not Biter either. That had planted the seeds of doubt in his mind, and he had confided to a brother officer back in Shanghai. He had raised questions about whether what the Central Committee had been telling the people about the true nature of the Biters and the war in the Deadland was entirely true. That more than his battlefield surrender had been his undoing. Chen’s only relief was that his wife had been spared the horrors of the camp.