Alice in Deadland Trilogy

by Mainak Dhar

  For months they had tried to get in touch with the ongoing resistance in what had been the United States, but without much success. Other than that, they used captured computers and handheld tablets to monitor what the Central Committee and its minions were up to. There was no news other than what the Central Committee allowed to be transmitted, but at least it gave them some idea of what was happening outside their settlement. Looking Glass had been initially located in the heart of the city, but then people had asked for it to be moved to the outskirts, since they did not really want to hear the bad news from the outside world. That was another sign that people had grown complacent, and forgotten the struggle that had won them this peace.

  Alice wondered what Satish had learnt that required her to be in the Looking Glass at this time of night.

  ***

  ‘The fools want to create political parties and have an election.’

  Alice could sense the disdain in Satish’s voice. She knew that with relative peace, people in Wonderland had been quick to lapse into the jockeying for power that was perhaps inherent to man. It was a shame that it required something like The Rising and being hunted by Biters for men to realize that petty tokens of power and prestige were not what really mattered.

  ‘That bastard Arun is riling everyone up, telling them we need true democracy and that they no longer need you.’

  Alice tried not to get involved in the politics of men like Arun, who had been a politician before The Rising. She had continued to run Wonderland the way it had been, by a small committee of elders, and with every big decision being put to a vote.

  ‘Satish, they will talk because they have nothing better to do. I don’t think it means anything.’

  Satish turned towards Alice. With all they had been through together, he saw beyond the decayed skin and yellow eyes. He still saw the incredibly brave yet naïve young girl who had done so much for everyone in the Deadland.

  ‘Alice, you don’t know how men like them work. They are no better than the leeches in the Central Committee in Shanghai. Give them half a chance and they will become tyrants in their own right.’

  It was an old argument. Both Arjun and Satish hated how all they had fought for was being lost, and people were lapsing into petty politicking. A few months of security, one which they and their friends had shed blood to win, had led men like Arun to proclaim that they no longer had a war to fight, and they needed to create a more peaceful, democratic society. One where people like Alice and Satish did not need to have such a prominent role, and of course one where, conveniently enough, politicians occupied the highest rungs of the ladder.

  ‘Satish, I’m sure you didn’t call me here at this time to bitch about Arun.’

  Satish slapped himself on the forehead in exaggerated apology.

  ‘No, no, of course not. Come on, we have some exciting news. For the first time, we actually may see something of value though our Looking Glass.’

  Alice followed him to a console in front of which an elderly man was sitting, hunched over a computer terminal and with headphones around his ears.

  ‘Danish, have you got anything yet?’

  Danish raised one hand as he focused on tuning the radio in front of him. Danish had been a Communications Officer in the Indian Army before The Rising, and now he was in charge of running the Looking Glass in their continuing endeavor to learn about what was happening outside Wonderland, and also to try and make contact with others like themselves.

  ‘We’ve finally made contact! Check this.’

  Alice peered over his shoulder to see a single message displayed on the computer screen.

  ‘We are your brothers in arms, fighting for the independence of the United States of America. We have heard much of you and your Queen. Listen for us in a day’s time.’

  Danish was visibly excited, his old, wrinkled eyes twinkling as he spoke.

  ‘They managed to get an old server up and put up this page. This is the first Internet posting in sixteen years, and looks like the Central Committee hasn’t seen it yet.’

  Alice had been born after The Rising, when people were more bothered about escaping from hordes of Biters than surfing the Internet, but she had seen how powerful information could be in their own struggle against the Central Committee. With tablets brought over by defecting Zeus officers, they had managed to hack into the Central Committee’s Intranet. Since then they had been posting messages that led to further defections among Zeus and also started creating discontent among the masses in mainland China, who had begun to question the true nature of the war they had been sold.

  Before Alice could say anything, Danish hushed her, putting on his headphones, and then passed them on to her.

  ‘Alice, they want to talk to you.’

  Alice put on the headphones and heard the crackle of static. Then there was the deep voice of a man.

  ‘Alice, this is General Konrath of the Free American Army based out of Forth Worth, Texas. We have been fighting our own war against the same enemy you face, and we are all proud to call you a fellow American.’

  Alice’s father had been with the American Embassy in New Delhi before The Rising, but she had been born in a world where the countries of the old world were little more than memories. Still, it was good to make contact with people from outside the Deadland where she had been born. It made their struggle feel less lonely.

  ‘General, we have had a few months of relative quiet in Wonderland, and the Red Guards don’t really come here anymore. How are things in the United States?’

  There came a pause before the general’s reply.

  ‘Alice, we are facing brutal house to house fighting against the Red Guards and the still loyal Zeus mercenaries. Our bigger problem is that we’re fighting them and also fighting against the damned Biters.’

  Another pause, before he added, ‘You know what I mean, Alice.’

  ‘General, there’s no need to apologize. I lived in fear of Biters for the first fifteen years of my life as well.’

  ‘Alice, I wish we had someone like you to bring peace with the Biters. But for now, we need your help. Two of our people have escaped from a labor camp of the Reds and are making their way to the plains. They have nowhere else to go, so they are trying to escape to your city. Help them if you can.’

  Static muffled the connection, and then the line was terminated. Alice felt Satish exhale loudly beside her. She knew that they were being asked to re-enter a fight that many in Wonderland believed was over.

  ‘Alice, what do you plan to do?’

  Alice answered without a pause. ‘Satish, I lost my entire family so we could live free. I will not allow others seeking their freedom to be hunted down when I can help them.’

  Satish just sniggered.

  ‘Satish, what are you thinking?’

  Satish grinned. ‘I’m thinking that fat old Arun will have a heart attack if he knows about this.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to know, does he? Well, we don’t even know that they’ll make it anywhere close to Wonderland.’

  Danish coughed to get their attention. He had one of his tactical radios held to his ear.

  ‘Folks, something’s up. One of the advance recon parties saw a convoy of Red Guards a hundred kilometers to the north east, on the old National Highway 8. They report two trucks and some jeeps.’

  ‘Satish, I’m getting my kit. You get some men ready and join me.’

  Five minutes later, Alice was outside near her bike. Her kit consisted of a handgun in a holster strapped to her left thigh, a serrated combat knife on her right thigh, an extra handgun on an ankle holster, and an assault rifle across her back. Satish was there with three of his men, getting into their jeep.

  ‘Alice, are you sure you want to go along? This could be a trap for all we know.’

  ‘I’m all dressed up for the party. I cannot back out now, can I?’

  As she started off on her bicycle, Satish felt a lump in his throat. The thin girl he had first met in the
Deadland had become a true warrior queen, and while she looked fearsome, he still remembered the crying girl he had met in the forests of the Deadland. A girl who had just lost her family to the Red Guards. He had nearly lost her once before, to a Red Guard trap. There was no way he was going to let her down again. He checked his own assault rifle and shouted to the driver.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Let’s go!’

  By the time they started, Alice was well on her way, blond hair billowing behind her. Just a couple of years ago she would have felt fear at the prospect of such imminent danger. Now she welcomed it like an old friend. Far from the petty politicking of Wonderland, now it would be the way it had been, the way she had always liked it.

  ***

  Alice saw that there were at least two dozen Red Guards, all wearing night vision goggles and armed with assault rifles. Their trucks were parked on the road behind them. She had left her bike a kilometer behind, tracking them the rest of the way on foot. They may have had night vision goggles and the latest equipment, but with the frontline ranks thinned by months of vicious combat, she knew from the Central Committee’s Intranet that young men with no combat experience were being drafted and sent on combat missions. In contrast, she had spent her entire life training and fighting in circumstances like this. Also, one added benefit of her current state was that like Biters, she felt no fatigue. She could keep running and fighting all night long if she needed to.

  Satish and his men were nearby, but for now she was alone. She saw the Red Guard officer raise his hand and shout a command in Mandarin. The Red Guards started to get back in their trucks. It seemed that they had achieved whatever they had set out to do. Alice wasn’t sure what they had been up to, but she did not like it one bit. It certainly wasn’t recon; they wouldn’t need two large trucks and so many men for that. There was only one way to find out, and also to send a message to their masters that the Red Guards were not welcome here any more.

  She raised her assault rifle to her shoulder and aimed at the officer through the night vision scope. The crosshairs were on his forehead when she shouted her warning.

  ‘Red Guards! You are in our territory. Lay down your weapons and surrender and we will send you back unharmed.’

  The Red Guards froze. Some of them muttered something she knew very well: ‘Nu wu.’

  ‘Witch’ in Mandarin. Alice had come to be known among the Red Guards as the Yellow Witch, and she hoped that the fear her reputation generated would lead them to surrender. She certainly had no wish to slaughter green conscripts.

  But that was not to be the case tonight. Whether driven by fear or perhaps to act brave in front of his men, the officer took out his handgun and fired in Alice’s direction. That was the last mistake he made before a single round shattered his head. The Red Guards scattered, several of them firing wildly despite the fact that they were wearing night vision goggles. Alice had her rifle on single-shot mode and was now moving in an arc around the Red Guards, picking them off one by one. Several other rifles barked and she saw three Red Guards spin and fall.

  Satish and his men had joined the battle.

  Sandwiched between Alice and Satish’s men, the remaining Red Guards gave into wild panic and rushed towards her. Alice put her rifle down and rose to meet them, handgun in one hand and knife in the other. The first Red Guard was but feet away when she put him down with two shots. The one behind him was about to bring his rifle up to fire when Alice dove towards him, rolling on the ground and coming up in a crouch near his feet. She fired thrice, feeling more then seeing him fall as she pivoted to meet the next threat. The Red Guard she faced was terrified out of his mind and screaming incoherently, but with a rifle in his hands he was still a threat to be dealt with.

  Realizing he could never get a shot off in time, he swung the rifle like a club at Alice’s head. She rolled under the blow and passed the man, stabbing him twice in quick succession, getting up behind him as he fell to the ground. Another Red Guard was behind her and stabbed her with a knife in the chest. But Alice felt little more than a prick, and the man staggered back in horror as she calmly extracted the knife.

  He stammered in broken English, ‘Yellow Witch! Please let me go.’

  Alice tossed the knife aside as she heard Satish and his men mop up the remaining resistance. The Red Guard in front of her was little more than a boy, perhaps not much older than herself. She drew closer to him and saw that he was shaking in fear.

  ‘Go back and tell your officers that Red Guards are no longer welcome in our land.’

  The man ran without hesitation and never looked back.

  Satish and his men were gathering the captured weapons and equipment. So many night vision goggles and extra ammunition were always welcome but Alice had her eyes on something else.

  ‘Satish, those trucks would make for nice school buses.’

  He smiled and then stopped on seeing the wound in Alice’s chest. She caught his gaze. The wound was a couple of inches wide and there was some blood on its edges. Alice shrugged.

  ‘It looks far worse than it feels. I’m more worried about ruining a perfectly good shirt.’

  Satish grinned and continued as Alice went back to gather her rifle. Short of a direct shot to the head, Alice could not die, and she had taken more than her share of gunshots and knife wounds in the months of fierce fighting that had followed her transformation. As a result her body was crisscrossed with bloody wounds. While ordinary Biters were oblivious to these and walked about with their wounds plainly visible, Alice still retained enough of her old self to not want to be seen as she really was. So she insisted on wearing black turtleneck sweatshirts, jeans, gloves and boots at all times. It had become a trademark of hers, but nobody really knew the solitary pain behind the look.

  They drove back as the sun rose over the horizon, and after changing her bloody clothes Alice went to the Council meeting that had been called that morning. She hoped that her present of two new school buses would help mollify Arun and his friends.

  When she walked into the room, she saw that all the dozen members of the Council were there

  The dozen council members were already present when Alice arrived, including Arjun and Satish. Arun was in a corner, mumbling something to two of his friends, and when she entered the room, he rose to address her.

  'Good of you join us, our Queen.'

  Alice saw murder in Arjun's eyes and she gently tapped him on the shoulder as she passed him. She had no idea why Arun was so riled up this morning, but the last thing she wanted to do was to take the bait and say anything she might regret. She sat down and the meeting began.

  As Wonderland had begun to take shape, Alice had gained a new appreciation for all the complexities her father had to deal with as one of the leaders of their settlement in the Deadland. Fights over food supplies, disputes over who took how much of the communal pool of clean drinking water, cases of adultery and of people getting into fights after having too much to drink – all the problems that ironically came with humans becoming more civilized and living in more settled communities. Today was no different, and they talked about the banalities of running the community for some time. Alice noticed that Arun seemed on edge, as if he was dying to say something.

  Throughout, Arun seemed to be on edge. Alice tried to work out what it could be – and then, when the discussion turned to security, she realized what it was..

  As the head of security within Wonderland, Arjun first rose to give his update. 'Folks, no real crime to report since last week, unless you count the Chopra kid getting drunk and taking a leak in front of Arun's house as an offense.'

  Everyone laughed, and Alice was once again grateful as to how the salesman turned guerilla leader turned security chief seemed to have a natural talent for defusing tension. But things took a turn for the worst when Satish rose to give his update on external security.

  'Thankfully, not much excitement to report outside either. The Red Guards have been relatively quiet in our ne
ighborhood. Intranet reports show that the Central Committee is dealing with enough unrest in China and a very tough war in America to pay us much attention. We do have some big news to report, though.'

  Everyone seemed to sit up as he continued, 'We made contact with the Americans last night.'

  There was a palpable buzz in the room as Satish outlined what had been said, but before he could talk about the incident involving the Red Guards, Arun stood up.

  'Alice, the Red Guards no longer bother us and we enjoy a peace we have not known for years. Why did you then provoke war with your ambush last night?'

  Alice was not entirely surprised. Many of Satish's men had taken up wives in the settlement and word would have spread.

  'We did not ambush anyone. There was a large force of Red Guards well within our territory, and we gave them a chance to surrender. When they fired, we had to defend ourselves.'

  Arun glared at her, his jowls almost shaking as he contained his anger. He had been a politician before The Rising, and Alice knew that in Wonderland, he finally saw his chance at gaining that kind of power again. The problem was that she came in his way. He knew that many people in Wonderland would unquestioningly follow the young girl who had brought them together and lost so much on their behalf rather than trust him – once a career politician, and a man who had joined them only after the worst of the fighting was over.

  Alice adopted a more conciliatory tone. 'Arun, we got two buses I thought the school could use. Moreover, whatever the Red Guards were up to, they would have got the message that they cannot come here anymore.'

  The subject dropped, but Arun moved onto something else to needle Alice.

  'What news of those Biters?'

  Alice's eyes narrowed at the contempt in his tone.

  'They are well within the area we had decided to give to them, and I have people in charge who I can trust.'

  'People indeed.'

  Several other sniggers whispered through the room.