Alice in Deadland Trilogy

by Mainak Dhar

  In becoming a Biter, it was strangely as if one became more human.

  Alice's thoughts were interrupted by Satish.

  'Let's now find out who our new American friends are, shall we?'

  ***

  FOUR

  'A jeep would be nothing more than a magnet for air strikes. Why do you think I asked all my men to disperse?'

  Satish said the words with a smile, but Alice had known him long enough to recognize the underlying irritation. The two Americans had proved to be a study in contrasts. The older man, who walked with a pronounced limp, was yet to utter a word. He merely kept looking around him with wide eyes, and Alice found him staring at her way too often for her comfort. Looking at his disheveled hair, torn vest and vacant expression, she wondered if he had indeed lost his mind in some Red Guard labor camp. The younger man, conversely, was all business. He had immediately equipped himself with a bulletproof vest from one of the fallen Red Guards, and armed himself with an assault rifle. To Alice’s amusement, he seemed very vocal about his opinions – though Satish certainly seemed to find nothing funny in his trying to impose his opinions.felt otherwise.

  'How fast can we walk? Let's take one of the jeeps and get back to this city of yours.'

  Satish took a step closer to the American. He was a good six inches shorter than the blond, lanky man he faced, but Alice's eyes, trained by years of experience, told her that the American would not stand a chance. He clearly had little experience of close combat, since he was holding his rifle in both hands. At such close quarters, he would never even be able to bring the rifle up before Satish cut his throat. She held out a restraining hand on Satish's shoulder and addressed the American.

  'My name is Alice Gladwell. What's yours?'

  'I am Captain Vince Hudson, U.S Marine Corps. I flew with the White Knights squadron before The Rising.'

  He pointed to a patch stuck on his jacket, showing an armored man on horseback, carrying what appeared to be a spear or lance. Above the patch were the words 'White Knights' and below it were inscribed the letters 'HMM-165'.

  'Vince, I have lived and fought in the Deadland all my life. Here are some things you should know. The Reds control the skies. So traveling in a large group is suicide. Traveling in large vehicles is suicide. And not listening to someone like Satish is suicide. We risked our lives to save you, but if you would rather be on your own, go ahead. I do not like to carry excess baggage.'

  With that, Alice shouldered her assault rifle and began walking off.

  'Hey, wait. Sorry if we started on the wrong foot. Being chased by Red Guards for a week has a way of putting you on edge.'

  They took refuge in a nearby clump of trees. Satish had already radioed his men to give him advance warning of any incoming Red Guards, on land or by air. For close to an hour they lay flat against the ground, waiting for the telltale buzzing sound that would announce the arrival of an attack helicopter.

  Finally Satish whispered, 'Looks like they've bled enough for a day. Alice, it'll be dark soon; let's get into the woods and hear what Vince and his friend have to say.'

  When they were in the forest, Satish passed around a meager meal of biscuits, which the two Americans wolfed down hungrily.

  Alice found the old man staring at her, and finally she turned to look at him. That was when he spoke his first words.

  'You are for real. So there is hope after all.'

  'Excuse me?'

  The old man smiled, revealing several missing teeth.

  'My name is Doctor Steven Edwards, young lady. I have a story that may interest you.'

  Doctor Edwards sat back, munching on his biscuit.

  'I was a virologist working for the US Department of Defense before The Rising. In the days that followed, I did what many did. I hid and survived the best I could, and one day I was picked up to go and work in some labor camp in the Mainland.'

  'How long were you in the camps?' Satish asked.

  'I spent eight years cleaning barracks and tilling fields. At first I tried to fight back, but when I realized there was nowhere to go to and no hope for escape, I gave in. The beatings and broken teeth helped.'

  Doctor Edwards’ response chilled Alice. She had heard of the camps and had talked to people who had lost relatives to them, but she had never met anyone who had survived one. She now saw the scars crisscrossing the old man's body and wondered what horrors he had endured. Having grown up to think of Biters as the ultimate horror, Alice now realized that her father had indeed been right: the worst cruelty was what man could inflict on a fellow man.

  Doctor Edwards continued, 'I had resigned to slaving away in the camp until a year ago, when some folks in the Central Committee had me brought to Shanghai. They told me that they thought they could create a vaccine against the virus that turned people into Biters. Based on my background, they thought I could help.'

  'Why would they single you out?'

  'Because, my dear girl, I had worked on the viruses that perhaps led to this monstrosity in the first place.'

  Alice thought back to the Queen of the Biters and the story she had told Alice.

  'Did you know Dr. Protima?'

  The old man looked down. 'I did not know her personally but I knew she was one of the researchers. Unfortunately when I did meet her, it was to harvest her dead body.'

  Alice recalled how Dr. Protima had sacrificed herself in the attack to rescue Alice from the Red Guard base where she was being held. In the chaos that had followed the battle, and in wanting to escape impending Red Guard reinforcements and air strikes, Satish and his men had whisked Alice away from the base, but Dr. Protima's body had been left behind.

  'I took her blood samples and got to work, thinking they were interested in only a vaccine.'

  Alice explained about the vaccine Dr. Protima had given her, and Edwards looked away sadly.

  'That vaccine was unstable. It saved you from becoming a Biter, but not entirely. With the labs the Reds gave me access to and blood samples from Protima, I was able to refine it.'

  Satish leaned over. 'Is there a vaccine?'

  'I couldn't get an actual sample out, but if I can get to a lab, I do have the details in a print-out with me. The reason we were trying so hard to get to you was that I wanted to find out if Alice was real or just a story created by people. With her blood sample and a lab I could make a vaccine that works.'

  'Doctor, how did you escape?'

  Vince had been silent so far, but now he chipped in. 'Not all of the Chinese are bad. As word got out about what was happening here, many of our guards were talking about whether the Biters were what they had been told. Several of them were letting prisoners escape, even against threat of execution. A young man who had lost his brother in the Deadland helped me and a few others get a spot hidden on a transport plane to Ladakh. When the doc told me what was going on, I got him along.'

  'What happened to the others who escaped with you?'

  The soldier's eyes hardened. 'They all died. Every single one of them. There were twenty of us, hidden among boxes of food and ammunition. We didn't have a much of a plan, but this was our best chance. When the plane landed, we tried to fight our way out. We had surprise on our side, but not much more. There were only a couple of us who knew how to use weapons, and I managed to get Doc out, but nobody else made it. We got a jeep and drove some of the way, but since then we’ve been walking and jacking abandoned vehicles, trying to stay alive long enough to find you.'

  Something did not yet make sense to Alice.

  'Doctor, why did you suddenly want to escape?'

  She saw the fear in Edwards' eyes as he answered.

  'They wanted a vaccine all right, but they were also doing other things. Terrible things.'

  ***

  Chen saw the man in front of him pace his office, his face contorted in barely controlled anger. The Commissar had flown in from Shanghai that morning, and the last time Chen had seen him was when the Central Committee was sentencing him to a
labor camp. Then Chen had literally trembled in fear – but not today. The Commissar was one of the most powerful men in the Central Committee, second only to the Supreme Commander, who had not been seen in public for years. Chen had seen the worst they could do to him, and he was no longer afraid for himself, but he still had his wife to think of, so he made an attempt to placate the Commissar.

  'Comrade Commissar, we lost more than two dozen Red Guards in pursuing the fugitives. It was my decision to stop the pursuit because we accounted for most of them at the airfield, but two men were not worth losing more men over.'

  The Commissar turned on him, fury showing in his eyes.

  'Comrade General, what were you doing before The Rising?'

  The sudden question took Chen by surprise.

  'I was commanding an infantry regiment.'

  The Commissar stared at Chen, his eyes boring into him.

  'Comrade General, I was in charge of all our strategic missile groups. You do know the decisions I had to make.'

  Chen remembered the nuclear devastation that had followed The Rising and realized where Hu was going.

  'So, Comrade General, difficult times call for difficult choices and sacrifice. We have sacrificed much to preserve our people and provide stability in these trying times. China is the only nation still standing from all the nations of old. More than two hundred million people still depend on the Central Committee to keep them safe. So when two fugitives escape, it is not about two people getting away; it is about people seeing that we are no longer in control.'

  Hu saw a chessboard on Chen's table and walked to it, picking up a pawn.

  'I realize you have been through difficult times, but we need men of your talent and experience in the coming struggle.'

  Chen hesitated. 'Comrade Commissar, the war in the Deadland here has been fought to a standstill. For months, we have not aggressively pursued the terrorists, following the orders of the Central Committee.'

  Hu continued to twirl the pawn in his hands.

  'Comrade, any war is like a game of chess. You need to make your moves carefully, and sometimes there may be a long wait between moves. We have been patient, and we have been waiting for the right opportunity to make our move. Do you play chess, Comrade?'

  Chen was getting more and more confused as to where this conversation was going.

  'Comrade General, we were quiet in the Indian Deadland because we were hurting ourselves by trying to fight this Yellow Witch with conventional tactics. If anything, our men who fought in the Deadland came back with their minds filled with stories about the Biters and how the people of the Deadland had found a way of living with them. Then we had to spend time, effort and lives to re-educate them and re-instill the right revolutionary fervor. What a waste.'

  Chen felt his throat tighten. He knew he was one of those who had been punished for going back to the Mainland with dangerous new questions about the war.

  'Comrade General Chen, dangerous ideas like those make people question the reality that they have come to accept. The idea that they can gain so-called freedom can be a very dangerous one, for it makes people forget that in that freedom lies the loss of all the security and prosperity that we can provide.'

  'With all due respect, there are enough veterans back in the Mainland who have passed on stories about the Biters and their Queen.'

  Chen saw Hu smile, but there was little humor in his expression; just the look of a man who finally seemed to have things under control. He said, 'It is time we put an end to this. Time that we brought back the savages of the Deadland under our control. That is the key to stop the brimming unrest among the people of the Mainland. Once food flows onto their dinner tables and they no longer have to work on the farms, our people will stop thinking of freedom.'

  'Comrade Commissar, we have tried. We brought to bear all our firepower, but you know as well as I do that in a guerilla campaign on their home ground, at best we will fight a long, hard war of attrition.'

  Now Hu replaced the pawn, taking up another piece: the Queen.

  'Comrade General, I flew down because I need you to know what is going on, so that you can use your experience in the Deadland and the trust your men have in you. We are about to enter a decisive phase in this battle, one that will change the game in our favor. A phase that has already begun with a few select operations behind enemy lines.'

  Seeing Chen's puzzled expression, Hu pointed to the black helicopter at the far end of the base.

  'Comrade General, it is time we stopped trying to win this war with pawns. The enemy has that half-Biter witch they call their Queen who they follow into battle. It's time that you met the Red Queen.'

  ***

  Despite all that she had seen and experienced, Alice found it hard to believe that what Edwards had shared could have happened: experiments conducted on labor camp inmates to try and create hybrid human-Biters who could wage war in the Deadland, in an attempt to create an army that would not require food, water, and be immune to pain and injury. More importantly, it would not be an army of impressionable young conscripts who would go back to the Mainland with uncomfortable questions for their masters in the Central Committee about the true nature of the war they were fighting.

  Hundreds of young men and women had died in the experiments, which was when Edwards refused to co-operate any further, despite all the torture he was subjected to. When he was shipped back to the labor camp, he knew that a vaccine could be created but also knew that the Chinese researchers were getting closer and closer to their dream of creating an army of hybrids.

  'That explains the Biters who attacked our people. But they seemed to move and fight like Biters, without any real human characteristics.'

  Alice and Satish had brought their new companions up to speed on what they had been through. Edwards seemed to be recovering both his spirit and strength with every passing hour, as he came to grips with the fact that he was finally free.

  'Satish, maybe they haven't created hybrids, but if these Biters attacked your people, and they were brought in by helicopter, the Reds have found some way of controlling them.'

  Alice asked Satish to get on the radio. 'We must get in touch with Danish and get this news back. If people in Wonderland know what is happening then we can work together instead of fighting each other.'

  Satish's radio came alive. Satish heard Danish’s voice as he put his headset on.

  'White Queen, this is Looking Glass. I have some bad news. Humpty Dumpty just sat on top of the wall. He called elections and has declared that he is the new Prime Minister. Things are pretty hot now, so suggest you not visit too soon.'

  Satish slammed a fist against the ground. 'With all that's going on, Arun is still bothered about grabbing power!'

  Alice sat back, wondering what she could do. It was clear that it would not be an easy job to try and get everyone in Wonderland to work together. And even more pressing, the enemy wouldn’t wait until they had things together before attacking again.

  ***

  Chen followed Hu to the far side of the base, passing a heavily guarded checkpoint manned by black-clad Interior Security Service men before they entered the main building. The first thing he noticed was the stench, and he brought his fingers up to his nose. He saw that Hu had put on a mask covering his nose and mouth.

  'Comrade General, do you want a mask?'

  The last thing Chen wanted to do was to offer Hu the satisfaction of seeing any sign of weakness.

  'Comrade Commissar, I have spent enough time in the Deadland to not be bothered by a bit of the smell of death. But I do wonder why a Red Guard base has been piled up with dead bodies?’

  He could hear Hu chuckling as he went deeper into the building, which seemed like a warehouse with what appeared to be prison cells lining one end of it. Heavily armed black-clad guards wearing the insignia of the elite Interior Security Service stood guard. There was not a single Red Guard conscript in sight.

  'Come, Comrade General. Let me introduce
you to the new shock troops ofn the Red Army who will help us win this war and bring the Deadland back into the fold of our revolution.'

  Hu guided Chen towards one of the cells, and Chen struggled to keep himself from gagging at the intense stench. When he was in front of the cell, a decayed hand with two fingers missing reached out to grab him. Chen recoiled back as a bloodied, torn face slammed into the bars.

  There were more than a dozen Biters inside the cell, and many of them began screaming and banging their heads and hands on the bars. Then, just as suddenly as they had started, they stopped screaming, and to Chen's disbelief, they went down on their knees. Hu tapped him on his shoulder.

  'Look this way, Comrade Chen. The Red Queen is here.'

  ***

  'Arun, please listen to me. We need to talk, otherwise we will have more deaths.'

  Even after explaining the situation to Arun and pleading with him, Alice still faced an uphill struggle.

  She had managed to get Danish to convince Arun to come to the Looking Glass. That part of the job had not been difficult at all. One of Arun's hobbies was getting time in the Looking Glass from Danish and spending hours on the radio. He had been a ham radio operator before The Rising, and while there were few people to talk to, he had actually produced a couple of very interesting connections in the short time he had been at Wonderland, including a couple of young people from the Chinese Mainland who were risking certain death or deportation to labor camps by using radios to get in touch with the outside world. From them Alice and the others had got an invaluable glimpse into what was happening inside the Mainland. They had learnt about small demonstrations and disturbances in cities like Shanghai and about how some young men had refused to be drafted into the Red Guards to be sent to the Deadland and been punished for it.