by Dhar, Mainak
Hunting the Snark
An Alice in Deadland Adventure
By Mainak Dhar
Copyright © 2013 Mainak Dhar
All Rights Reserved.
www.mainakdhar.com
This is a work of fiction, and all characters and incidents depicted in it are purely the result of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely co-incidental.
Table of Contents
Greetings from the Deadland
Hunting the Snark
Credits
As always, for Puja & Aaditya
GREETINGS FROM THE DEADLAND
In late November of 2011, I uploaded my novel Alice in Deadland to the Kindle store using Amazon’s KDP self-publishing program. I had first discovered the tremendous opportunity in reaching readers worldwide through the Kindle store in March, and after a modest beginning (I sold 118 ebooks in my first month), I was beginning to see some success, having sold some 20,000 ebooks by November. However, nothing had prepared me for the reception my story about a girl called Alice in a dystopian world called the Deadland got from readers. Alice in Deadland quickly became an Amazon.com bestseller and encouragement from readers like yourself led me to write the sequel, Through The Killing Glass, which was published in March 2012.
As of November 2012, the two Alice in Deadland novels had been downloaded by well over 100,000 readers on the Kindle store. This was the kind of reception most writers dream of, and certainly more than I had ever expected. I received more than two hundred reader emails and also started a Facebook group for Alice in Deadland fans (at http://www.facebook.com/groups/345795412099089/). The feedback I got was pretty unanimous—readers wanted to know more about the world that Alice found herself in. How had our civilization been reduced to the Deadland? What was the story behind some of the characters readers encountered such as the Queen and Bunny Ears?
That feedback motivated me to keep the story alive, and I wrote the prequel to the series, Off With Their Heads. As I interacted with readers, I was inspired to take the story further. Many of my readers asked me what would happen if Alice came back to the land her parents came from, the land where the architects of The Rising were still entrenched—the United States? So, this story was born, and I do hope you have as much fun reading it as I did while writing it. As a mark of gratitude to the readers who have inspired me along the way, I ‘drafted’ many of them into the resistance to help Alice on this new and perilous journey. You know who you are—this is your story as much as it is mine.
Mainak Dhar
ONE
The one day of freedom the people of Shanghai enjoyed was exhilarating till it was ended by a mushroom cloud.
Galvanized by news from returning veterans from the Indian Deadland about the true nature of the war on terror being waged there, discontent had been simmering in the Mainland for months. Then, one day, a young girl had appeared on TV screens, shocking at first due to her half-human, half-Biter nature. The words she had to say were even more shocking. Alice Gladwell’s story laid bare the lies the Central Committee had been peddling for years and finally brought home to millions of Mainlanders what the war had really been about. The Rising had occurred more than fifteen years ago, but now they knew that it had not been the sudden emergence of undead monsters called Biters that had brought it about. Very human machinations and politics had led to the spread of the infection. The war that was being waged in the name of security was in fact being waged to secure the interests of the Central Committee and Zeus, the mercenary army that acted on its behalf.
The Central Committee had reacted as tyrants have throughout history when confronted with uprisings. They lashed out with overwhelming force. But again, as history teaches us, air power and artillery are never powerful enough to crush a people’s desire for freedom. Under the guidance of senior Red Guard officers who had defected to their cause, their armory bolstered by missiles and heavy weapons defectors brought with them, the dissidents began to turn the tide. There was fierce fighting for four months, with heavy losses on both sides, and then suddenly the Zeus troopers began to leave. Their masters had seen that the Central Committee was now living on borrowed time, and they wanted to cut their losses. That finally turned the tide, and the Central Committee fell.
As with most revolutions, the end was not pretty. Old men who had clung onto power at the cost of thousands of lives were executed in the streets, and in a particularly vicious form of justice, several Central Committee members were exiled out of the city to try and survive in lands infested with Biters.
That morning, General Chen had been on the video link with Wonderland, relaying news of their final victory to his comrades there. It had been more than a month since he had seen Alice, the girl he had first tried to destroy, and then been inspired by, as he waged his own battle for liberation in the Mainland. Alice had told him that the people of Wonderland had used the last four months to rebuild their city after the damage it had suffered in the assault by the Red Guards, spearheaded by the half-Biter Red Queen that the Central Committee had created in its labs to destroy Alice. Biters and humans were beginning to live together, and while trust was going to take time to build, most people in Wonderland had come to accept coexistence. Hearing and seeing the progress in Wonderland gave Chen hope that his own nation would one day know such peace. If the barren wasteland that had come to be known as the Deadland could now be the home of such a flourishing and peaceful city, there was hope that humanity, and human civilization, could be resurrected after more than fifteen years of war.
His time in the torture chambers of the Central Committee had left him with one ruined eye and a leg that didn’t quite work any more. However, his days of fighting were long over. Now as he watched civilians and Red Guards mingle in the battle-scarred streets of Shanghai, he felt that perhaps there was going to be peace again in his homeland.
Soon after his call with Alice, he was called by one of his officers, the man’s wavering voice betraying his panic.
‘Sir, there’s something wrong. The men at the airfield are picking up an incoming target on their radar.’
Chen got on the radio to the airfield, which had been won in a bitterly fought battle just a couple of weeks ago. Loyal Red Guards were now manning the radar and the few helicopters that had survived the battles. When the radar operator told him that the contact was moving in at over a thousand kilometers per hour, Chen began to worry. There were no fighter jets left in the Mainland and the handful of helicopters that had survived the fighting were now under the control of his forces. Nobody had fired a cruise missile in more than fifteen years. Indeed, there were not supposed to be any left.
A forward patrol then radioed in, saying that they had spotted a low-flying rocket flying towards Shanghai. Chen slammed his fist on the table in frustration. When the American Zeus officers had left, he had been puzzled as to why they had gone to such lengths to sabotage the few air defenses left around Shanghai. Now he began to suspect that their withdrawal had been part of a plan. Still, some of his men would have hand-held surface-to-air missiles, and he began barking orders to have them moved to the likely path of the incoming rocket. Even as he started issuing his orders, he knew that in a city the size of Shanghai, he would never get enough men in position in time.
‘Sir, the rocket is now just a minute away from impact. Target seems to be the centre of the city.’
Chen put down his headset and went to the balcony of the hotel that had been serving as his makeshift headquarters. People were still celebrating outsid
e and a group of young soldiers flirted with a few women. He smiled sadly, knowing now that the battle was far from over. Someone had fired one missile at the city, and it would certainly not be the last.
Part of his mind wondered where the rocket would have come from. As the Central Committee had fallen, Chen had learned that the men who ruled the Mainland had only been functionaries of hidden masters called the Executive Committee. Perhaps the Executive Committee had retaliated for the loss of its dominions in China with the missile strike.
There were no more functioning air raid warnings, so word was being passed around, largely through word of mouth or radios, warning people to take cover. Someone below shouted, pointing at the sky, and Chen looked up to see a small, dark shape diving in towards the city. He thought of going back to warn the radar operator to keep a watch for more missiles when the missile exploded.
Chen died a few seconds later, along with thousands of others caught in the fireball. As the blast wave spread through the city, thousands more perished, and the few who survived had to live out the remainder of their lives with burns and radiation, and with no access to any medical facilities.
***
‘Come on, turn on the screen!’
Arjun had spoken the words, giving voice to what many of the hundreds gathered around the screen felt. As had been the routine over the last few months, the people of Wonderland had gathered around a giant TV screen which Danish had hooked up to his computer, projecting the latest news from around the world and also updates on what was happening in Wonderland.
The small community that had started out in the ruins of what had once been the city of Delhi had almost been decimated by the attack launched by the Central Committee’s Red Guards and the force of Biters led by the half-Biter Red Queen. Everyone at Wonderland knew that they had enjoyed a very narrow escape, and the crowd around the screen at the abandoned stadium reflected that. Alice was there of course, and while she had decided not to seek any formal position of authority, it was an unspoken truth that this young girl was their leader. There were those who had started Wonderland with Alice—men like Arjun, the guerilla fighter who had once been a shoe salesman; and Satish, the Zeus officer who had defected with many of his men and weapons and played a pivotal role in the battles that had followed—and then there were the Biters.
Just six months ago, the Biters had been shunted off to a reservation on the outskirts of Wonderland, but now they were standing mingled among the human inhabitants of Wonderland. Part of that was due to the fact that Alice’s blood samples that Dr. Edwards had taken back to the United States with him had led to the development of a vaccine, which had over the last two months been administered to all the humans in Wonderland. At one stroke, knowing that they could no longer be transformed into Biters on being bitten made people far more comfortable with the idea of having Biters around. Also, it brought home the truth that the Biters were not some sort of supernatural undead, but were suffering from some sort of disease—a disease that could still not be cured, but at least could now be vaccinated against. However, part of that newfound acceptance of the Biters came from the knowledge that without Alice and her Biters, Wonderland would have been lost. Biters like Bunny Ears, now standing next to Alice, with one hand missing below the elbow and bloody scars over his body—testament to the many battles he had fought in defense of Wonderland.
Danish, who had become the eyes and ears of Wonderland, monitoring the world outside from the communications center called Looking Glass set up in an old temple, was now hooking up his computers to the screen. All morning, he had been in communication with his counterparts in Shanghai, and the people of Wonderland had been rejoicing in the news that the Central Committee had finally crumbled. What would follow was still unclear, but at least the destiny of the Mainland now lay in the hands of her people, not the Central Committee who were looking out for only their own interests. Danish was trying to hook up his computers to cameras set up in the middle of Shanghai where General Chen had told them they would formally announce victory and lay out the path ahead.
Alice saw the people gathered around her, and she knew that finally, she was home. She had been born soon after The Rising, when the Biters emerged and the world’s powers tore themselves apart in an orgy of nuclear madness. She had grown up in the Deadland outside what had been Delhi, and her home had been a settlement whose security from bandits and Biters and freedom from the mercenary armies of the Central Committee had been zealously defended by her father and others like him. They had paid dearly for that freedom—Alice had lost her family in the fighting, and she had also lost her humanity. She was now half-Biter, and after all that she had gone through, she did not regret it any more. At sixteen, she was too young to think of things like destiny, but Arjun had once told her that perhaps this was what she was meant to do, and she was beginning to think he was right. Seeing the Biters and humans standing together, children playing freely, people laughing and joking together, without worrying about air raids or attacks by Red Guards, she felt that it had all been worth it. She was looking forward to seeing the people of the Mainland rejoice in their own hard-fought freedom. There is nothing sweeter than freedom won at the cost of your own blood, sweat and tears.
‘It’s coming online in a minute.’
At Danish’s declaration, a buzz of anticipation swept through the people gathered around the screen. Alice had been born in a time when young girls fought for their lives in the Deadland instead of surfing the Net, so she had very little understanding of the technology involved, or how they would see what was happening thousands of kilometers away. All she knew was that the machines man could make were not just meant for killing, and in the hands of men like Danish, could be put to very good use.
The screen flickered to life and when the black and white picture resolved itself, there was an audible gasp that swept through the crowd. Alice couldn’t believe what she saw on the screen before her. In the morning’s chat with Chen, she had caught glimpses of Shanghai—tall buildings with lights on, streets bustling with people—all things that had given her hope for Wonderland. Now, she saw nothing but rubble. Most buildings were shattered, a cloud of dust hung over the city, and there was absolutely no sign of life.
Then a solitary figure stumbled into view. The man was covered in dust and seemed to be burnt badly. He staggered forward and fell to the ground, not to get up again. Alice looked on in horror as everyone around her stared at the devastated ruins that had hours ago been Shanghai.
***
‘General Konrath, the folks from Wonderland are asking again if we know anything more?’
Jake Konrath shook his head and sent the radio operator away. He had been awakened an hour ago by the young radio operator chattering away about Shanghai having been destroyed. Konrath had put it down to an overactive imagination but now with the reports coming in from Wonderland, he was beginning to have his doubts.
Konrath had never served in the military and his title had been earned in the brutal house-to-house fighting that had erupted after the Rising in the United States. Many like him had taken up arms to protect their families against the Biters and resist the rule of Zeus. He had been a writer in the world before the Rising and had recently been hoping to get down to writing a new novel after more than fifteen years. Peace would not be an accurate descriptor of the times he now lived in, but certainly life was more secure than he had known for years. With the events in the Deadland, and the blood samples that Doctor Edwards had brought back, many in what had been the United States had now been vaccinated, and people had begun to lose their irrational fear of the Biters. Instead, they had started to realize the truth that the people of the Indian Deadland had come to appreciate under Alice’s leadership—that the true threat came not from the Biters but from the men who had engineered the Rising in the first place.
Changing fifteen years of hatred and mistrust would take time, but Konrath and others like him were seeking to emulate what Alice had a
chieved in the Deadland. He had repeatedly requested Alice to come over, but she had so far been hesitant. Seeing videos of her was one thing, but having her here in person would finally unite free humans and Biters against Zeus and its masters.
Konrath got up and went to the computer screens set up in the next room. The building he was using as his headquarters had once been the office of some company, and a few faded mission statements still decorated the walls. Having worked as a manager for some time before taking the plunge into writing full-time, Konrath had a healthy distaste for such empty symbols of motivation, but he just didn’t have the time or energy to paint over the walls. They had been too busy trying to stay alive for the three months they had occupied this building outside Mason, Ohio.
Once the Central Committee had begun to fall, Zeus had focused all its resources on ensuring that the Homeland did not follow in the steps of the Indian Deadland and the Chinese Mainland. Without a unifying force like Alice, the resistance efforts in the Homeland had been scattered—small bands of guerillas trying to fight their own wars, and often fighting over turf. Zeus had been ruthless in exploiting that and its superior air power over the last few months. With a few servers now operational and the Internet back in at least a rudimentary fashion, Konrath had been doing his best to spread the news from Wonderland and Alice’s story, but if there was one thing at which Zeus’ masters in the Executive Committee excelled, it was propaganda.
The fear of anarchy and the supernatural terror the Biters represented had led thousands of human survivors to FEMA camps. The agency had long ceased to exist, but the Executive Committee knew well the power of symbols. So these camps were patrolled by Zeus goons in military uniforms, calling themselves Marines. That harkening back to long-dead symbols of authority would make many people obey without question despite being little more than slave labor, working in farms to feed the elite who lived under the Executive Committee’s protection.
