by Dhar, Mainak
Alice walked up to him and knelt in front of him.
‘We are happy to let you be in the wastelands, as long as you don’t bother our people. I know of some bandits who have come in and joined us as well, and some of them helped us in our fight against Zeus. We have no enmity with you, but when you try and attack us or kidnap our people, we will destroy you. Isn’t that clear?’
The man was now crying even harder, sobbing like a child. Salil stepped in and slapped him hard across the face.
‘Stop crying. If you’re man enough to go around looting settlements and killing unarmed civilians, you’re man enough to face the consequences.’
One of the other men spoke, his voice low and subdued.
‘We got the message when you set up your Wonderland. Did we ever attack your city? We don’t have one leader, but we keep in touch with the others, and we all agreed to leave the city alone. Too much firepower, not worth it. Not because we cared about you and your damned Biters, but because it was bad business to go after such a hard target.’
Alice looked at the man. There was still defiance in his eyes. He had to be the leader of this gang.
‘So then why did you attack us?’
The man spat on the ground.
‘You were the ones who expanded. Your new farms came into what was our territory and your people began clearing us out.’
‘That still doesn’t explain why you’re kidnapping people and Biters.’
The man looked up at Alice, and she saw a hint of fear overshadow the defiance in his eyes.
‘It was business for us. That’s all—as they used to say before The Rising, there was nothing personal, just business. A few years ago, the Phantoms made contact and word spread—they had Dreamweed and weapons, and they wanted people. It made no difference to us why they wanted them. Zeus used to get people for their slave farms, so we figured they wanted the same. This was back when there were still many small settlements out here and Wonderland was not yet up and running, so it was easy pickings for us. Watch a settlement, figure out when people went out to fetch food or water and then grab them. We worked out areas so that we wouldn’t come into conflict with other gangs, and it worked well for years. Till you showed up.’
Now he was looking at Alice, and she felt nothing but disgust towards the man.
‘You are wrong. It is never business when you are playing with people’s lives, it’s always personal.’
She turned away to look at Salil.
‘Have the others had any luck?’
‘Arjun radioed in a few minutes ago. They’ve got the trail of another gang and they’re going in after them.’
She then turned back to the bandit leader.
‘So, what do you want to do now?’
The man spat at her and Alice stepped back to avoid the spit.
‘You think you have things under control. You have no idea what’s going on out here. You’re seriously pissing off the Phantoms and if you put us out of business, sooner or later they will come down themselves. Then you and your Wonderland will be finished.’
‘What is so special about these Phantoms? We’ve fought Zeus and their armies, why should we be afraid of some men on horseback?’
The man looked at Alice.
‘You’ll see when the time comes, witch. Kill us now so we don’t come back to kill you.’
Alice got up and walked away to confer with Salil and Brittany.
‘I’m afraid these men will not give up their ways.’
Brittany had her finger on the trigger of her rifle.
‘Should I finish them?’
‘No, we don’t kill people in cold blood. But we could always use a few more helping hands. Bunny Ears?’
That was all she needed to say. As Alice and the others walked back to the Jeep, Bunny Ears and two other Biters stepped forward. The bandits screamed and pleaded as they were bitten, and then minutes later, they all headed back, with three more Biters in their ranks.
***
‘Alice, I haven’t told you this, but people used to grumble behind your back about how you made people still go through drills and training even though the war was over. I think they all owe you an apology.’
Alice looked at Aalok.
‘I don’t want or need an apology. I just hope we never forget that what matters is not celebrating the war that’s just ended, but being ready for the next one that may seek you out. How is Sayoni doing?’
Aalok looked down, hesitating before he answered.
‘She’s amazingly strong to be the way she is after all we went through. But sometimes at night, she’ll wake up screaming. She’ll say it was just a bad dream, but I can feel that she’ll take a long time to get over it, if she ever does.’
‘It takes much more strength and courage to keep smiling and living after you’ve been through hell than to pick up a gun and shoot someone. You’re lucky to have her, and we’re lucky to have her here.’
Aalok smiled and got back to his work. Work on the factory had begun in earnest, and teams had fanned out into the Ruins to look for the spare parts Aalok needed. As for the farm, they had talked and decided that there was no sense in being defensive. Also, the monsoon rains would start within a month or two and Haroula was insistent that they needed to get the farms up and running, and seeds planted by then. The bandits were on the run, and if the Phantoms were interested in picking a fight, they might as well show them what they would be up against. So a large force was guarding the farms at all times, and patrols were sweeping the wastelands daily.
Salil had just come back from such a patrol and stopped by the Looking Glass to check on Alice.
‘All quiet today as well?’
He sat down and took a long drink from his water bottle. ‘We saw two bandits, but they ran the moment they spotted us. I think word’s spread and at least for now, they fear us more than these Phantoms of theirs. What about the one we captured? How’s he doing?’
Doctor Edwards was there, taking a break from the clinic. What had begun as their communication center had become a gathering place for Alice and her closest circle. ‘He’s good enough to be let go. He’s been talking a lot for the last couple of days, ever since he finally figured out that we weren’t going to torture him or kill him.’
‘What have we learned?’
‘He was a low-level guy. A petty criminal before The Rising, into stealing credit cards and such. He got swept up into a gang while in prison. When The Rising happened, they broke out, stole weapons from the police station and stuck together. They made hay in the first few years, preying on people out in the Deadland and their numbers and weapons helped them survive the Biters. When we began setting up, they stayed away. He says word had spread about you and our fighting with Zeus, and they decided wisely enough not to mess with us. Then the Phantoms showed up a few years ago, and they started on a new line of business. It began with them trading food or fruits for Dreamweed, and soon many of them were addicted. Then came the real offer—Dreamweed and guns for people.’
‘Does he know anything more about these Phantoms?’
Edwards shook his head.
‘He’s seen them only twice and that too from a distance when they went to drop off their human cargo at the designated pickup point. Same thing we heard during the attack on the farm—big men on horses, carrying automatic weapons and fully covered by cloaks and a mask.’
Alice turned to Danish, who had been soundlessly typing away on the keyboard in front of his computer terminal.
‘Did you manage to learn anything?’
Over the last couple of years, the Internet had been restored slowly but surely, starting with using the servers captured from the Central Committee and increasingly by putting online old servers. The days of recreational surfing were long gone, but at least people could now communicate using message boards, mail and even video chats. That had been the lifeline between Alice’s forces and Konrath in the US Homeland. It was what had allowed them to get advan
ce warning of the danger posed by the Snark missile the Executive Committee had unleashed on Shanghai, and now they were counting on it to get some information on what they were up against.
‘Unfortunately not much. What was Pakistan was pretty much wasted in The Rising. After they nuked some Indian bases, they were pretty much wiped out. Nobody knows much about these so-called Phantoms. As we’ve talked before, it’s perfectly possible some tribe survived but I still don’t get what they want with people.’
Alice stepped out to get some fresh air and found Bunny Ears there, standing in wait.
‘Spotted anything unusual, Bunny Ears?’
He growled, a low-pitched sound that Alice had come to recognize as a no. Bunny Ears and his Biters had been out in force for much of the day, but as Alice had guessed, once news spread of what had happened to the three bandits they had encountered, bandits had been very shy when it came to confronting patrols from Wonderland. Alice thought about the moment she had ordered the men to be bitten. At one time she had believed, like all other settlers in the Deadland, that being turned into a Biter was a fate worse than death.
Better dead than undead.
Now she knew better. The Biters were diseased, aggressive and did not always act in line with what people might consider rational behavior, but they were not supernatural monsters. They were people infected with a virus or disease that could be vaccinated against, and perhaps one day cured. Still, being bitten would have been as harrowing for the men as being shot in cold blood. Alice had done it in the heat of the moment, angered by the nonchalance of their leader, by the fact that killing and raping innocents for loot and plunder did not weigh at all on his conscience. Now, in the cold, sober light of day, she wondered if she should have let them go or brought them in.
And then what? Wonderland didn’t have a penal system. Arjun had taken an old building and made it a makeshift jail. The rules had been simple when they started out—steal or fight, and you spent a couple of days in the ‘jail’. Serious assault, rape or murder and you were cast out into the Deadland, which in the early days had been as good as a death sentence. Now, with thousands of inhabitants and the borders of Wonderland spreading fast, they would need to rethink how they thought about crime and punishment. It was precisely at moments like these when Alice regretted not having her Dad along. He would have figured it all out. He would have managed to make everyone agree on one course of action. All with a smile on his face.
Feeding thousands of people, resolving daily disputes that were inevitable when you had thousands of people living in close proximity, arranging work schedules—all were things that Alice was sure she was no good at. Yet people looked to her for answers. She had never set out to lead anyone. She had set out to avenge her fallen family, a personal vendetta that had transformed into a bigger struggle for freedom. A fifteen-year-old girl had been swept up by circumstances and destiny and transformed into something and somebody that she was not sure she wanted to be.
But all that didn’t matter—as her Dad had once told her, he wasn’t leading anybody because he wanted to. He had people counting on him, and he would do what was needed to take care of them. He had said that leadership did not lie in big, formal titles, but in doing the very best for whoever depended on you. As Alice looked around at Wonderland, with people bustling around, Biters freely walking on the roads, children playing in the open, she realized she had a lot to defend and fight for.
Bunny Ears shuffled off and Alice followed. It was that time of evening, when the Biters would gather and she would read from the old book she carried with her.
***
‘So, what did you do before The Rising?’
‘I was like seven years old, so I guess I didn’t do much other than bug my older sister.’
Salil had been trying to make polite conversation, but Brittany was proving to have no such intent. Truth be told, he was trying to be more than just polite. If he was going to spend hours out in the sun in the wasteland with an attractive woman, he might as well get to know her a bit better.
‘I was ten. I remember going to school, I remember the Internet, I remember listening to songs on my iPod. I remember watching zombie movies. Who would have guessed what would happen to all that?’
Brittany grinned as she answered.
‘At least we know the zombie movies got it wrong.’
‘You watched zombie movies when you were seven?’
Brittany grinned again.
‘My sis had all of the Walking Dead series on DVD and I’d pop them in when nobody was around.’
They kept walking together, now just a kilometer away from where they had parked their Jeep, and a ten-minute drive back to the farm.
‘We’ve been at this for an hour. There are no bandits out here, and even if they are, they have better sense than us than to be walking about in the heat. Should we get back to the farm?’
Brittany nodded.
‘I hear Haroula’s making some cake. It’s Christopher’s birthday celebration in a couple of days. Haroula told me we can’t touch the cake till his birthday but she’s also making some sweets that she’s promised us.’
That put an extra spring in Salil’s step. Christopher was one of the kids who had come over to join their parents at the farm. He was about to turn twelve, and was a good kid, always eager to help out on the farm. He had been fascinated by the sniper rifle Salil carried, and even more in awe when he heard how Salil had taken it from a Red Guard sniper who had shot three resistance fighters by crawling up behind him and killing him in hand-to-hand combat.
‘Come on, I’ll race you to the Jeep.’
Salil set off, but soon regretted his challenge. Brittany was a good few steps ahead of him and he was struggling to keep up.
That was when he heard the horses.
‘Brittany, get down!’
She turned to look at him, wondering what had gotten into him, and he ran towards her, pulling her down behind a rock. As they peered over the side, two horsemen galloped into view. Each one had a rifle strapped to his back over a cloak that totally covered their bodies. Their faces were masked, and they were riding from the direction of the farm. Salil looked through his scope and saw that the front of both their cloaks were streaked red.
Salil had his rifle ready, but the horsemen veered away and galloped away at top speed.
‘What do you think that was about?’
Salil’s face was grim as he answered.
‘Can’t be anything good. Let’s get back and let Alice and the others know.’
Salil drove as fast as he could and when they reached the farm, they ran out, weapons at the ready. Haroula was there, a bemused smile on her face.
‘What happened, kids?’
Salil was still breathing hard from his sprint to the Jeep and then to the farm and looked around with visible relief.
‘I thought they…’
Brittany sought out Patricia and Phoenix who had been on guard duty.
‘Did you see any horsemen?’
Both shook their heads, which didn’t reassure Brittany much. If the horsemen had been in close proximity and managed to get by the farm unseen and unheard, then they knew their stuff better than the average bandit.
When Alice heard on the radio, she came right away, with Bunny Ears along. With the birthday celebration coming up, they decided not to spook everyone but to take a closer look at what had happened. An hour of tracking made it clear. The two intruders had kept their horses about a kilometer away and then come on foot, perhaps crawling the last two hundred meters, judging from the marks in the sand. They had hidden behind a small dune and watched the farm before going back the way they came, retracing their tracks. As Alice watched the tracks, she felt a new stab of concern. These were not ordinary bandits, but men who knew what they were doing, trained in the ways of surveillance and war. The distance at which they had surveyed the farm meant that they would have seen little detail with their naked eyes. That meant they had sco
pes or binoculars. Their footprints showed heavy soled boots, not the tattered footwear of ordinary bandits.
Just who were these new enemies and what did they want?
***
FIVE
The Khan lay curled in a fetal position and coughed again, covering his mouth with his hand, trying to muffle the sound as best as he could. When he removed his hand, he saw blood on it.
He had long known it would perhaps come to this. Many of his men had met a similar fate over the years, others fallen sick suddenly and died. They were illiterate tribesmen, well trained in the art of war, but with no real idea of what had happened to their bodies.
The Khan sat up and looked at his reflection in the mirror, and then took out a faded photograph from his pocket. It showed a blond, handsome man with his arms around a beautiful woman. Then he put the photo back. That had been a dream, something he did not often try and remember, because remembering the past never helped him cope with what he had become and what he had to do. The world of his past, one he had devoted his life to, had betrayed him, and he had been reborn as The Khan. In this new world he would make sure he was never again as vulnerable and helpless as he had been in the old world. In the early days, he had yearned for what he had lost, and he had remembered who he had been. Matt Kobold. That name meant nothing to him now.
The patrol was due back soon, and he was keen to hear what they had learned. In a way, he admired this girl called Alice. They were more alike than not—both survivors, both having become something very different from what they had been. The Khan put on his mask and cloak and stepped out of his tent. His men were practicing below. Rashid was putting them through their paces, and over the last couple of days, The Khan had asked Rashid to increase the tempo of exercises. That served two purposes—to not give them much spare time or energy to grumble about the drying up of the supply of humans and also because The Khan suspected they would be tested in battle sooner rather than later.
