Several of the humans were gathered around Dewan as he dug into his backpack and took out a flat, sleek device.
'What it it?'
Alice's mother answered her.
'Looks a lot like a tablet computer, but I haven't seen one in years.'
Alice had grown up without many of the technological trappings and toys that kids had enjoyed before The Rising, and by the time she had grown up enough to understand what they were, the people at her settlement had lost or thrown away their computers and cellphones. She leaned over her mother's shoulder to see what Dewan had in his hand. The device suddenly seemed to come to life with bright, vivid colors appearing on its screen. She saw the Zeus logo, which was then replaced by lots of numbers and letters and symbols. As Dewan touched one of the pictures with a finger, a new set of visuals and text filled the surface. To Alice, it looked almost magical. Her mother was reading it aloud for the benefit of everyone around.
'The Central Committee has announced the beginning of the new harvest season where workers are joyously participating in planting seeds and working the fields in preparation for a new year of prosperity. Chairman Wang has said that the Red Guards are vigorously pursuing heroic actions in the Deadland in India and America to continue their victorious charge against the Biter hordes and in helping bring more human survivors into the fold of the People's Revolution.'
Alice could see her mother's mouth twist in disgust as she looked at Dewan.
'What is this crap? Do the Chinese control everything now?'
Dewan looked at her, surprise on his face.
'Didn't you know? Oh I forgot, you guys have been off the grid for some time now. A few years after The Rising, when people started rebuilding, China was the only major power that was relatively untouched, and they set about taking charge under the Central Committee. They used the old Chinese Army as the beginning of the Red Guards but then contracted Zeus to help in the Deadland.'
The Queen was now right behind Dewan.
'I find it very convenient that the net outcome of The Rising was that the US and other powers were largely scattered and destroyed and China emerged as the centre of the new human civilization. I used to think that the US decision to hit China was madness on our part. Now, I'm not so sure. Perhaps it was true that the elites in the West who wanted a New World Order joined up with the Chinese to engineer this.'
Dewan sat in silence, considering it in his mind.
'Look, Dr. Protima, I was in the old Indian Army and we hardly saw China as a friend, but I'm not sure they would have done this. Why destroy the whole world and rule over the ashes?'
Alice's mother spoke up.
'Colonel, I worked in a bank in my old life, and we all remember the way the world was. Markets were melting down and the US on the verge of defaulting on it's debt. There were protests throughout the world against the elite who had brought the world to such a state. China's economy was booming but it was also the largest holder of US debt-if the US had collapsed and defaulted, China would have been ruined. Add to that growing demands for democracy in China, and the second Tinanmen Square massacre of 2012, and I don't find it hard to believe they could have engineered this. From what I see here-they seem to be fine, maybe because they prepared for it. They still have big cities, and are using slave labor from the Deadland to harvest their crops and feed their people. And every surviving human is so terrified that they are willing to live with any level of dictatorship if it means some level of safety.'
Alice's mind was reeling. Why would anyone destroy so much, and kill so many countless numbers of people to hold on to power? She began to understand why her father had hated men who craved power and had tried so hard to keep their settlement out of the clutches of Zeus and it's masters. Now, as she looked at Dewan, she began to see the first cracks appear as he perhaps for the first time began to understand the role he had unwittingly played in the whole conspiracy.
Alice sat down next to him. 'Amit, what can we do to fight this army of theirs? Could you help train some of us or maybe help us get better weapons?'
Dewan shook his head.
'No, Alice. You cannot win this war through weapons alone. What you've seen is nothing compared to the firepower they have. The Zeus troopers only have personal weapons and some air support, but the Central Committee has missiles and heavy bombers. They would flatten us without us even getting a chance to take a shot at them.'
'So what do we do?'
Dewan was up and he began pacing the room.
'Exactly as I said before, we need to get the rank and file of the Zeus troops to know the truth. Once they know what they are doing and who they are really serving, we'll get more allies in the battle.'
Alice's mother was now holding the tablet and she looked at Dewan, an idea forming in her mind.
'We are totally cut from the information networks Zeus and the Central Committee uses, but you are plugged into it. If you leave this tablet here, we could post messages that all Zeus troopers would be able to see.'
Dewan clearly didn't think that was a good idea as shook his head vigorously.
'They would track the tablet down in a few minutes and how could…'
As he was saying something, he suddenly stopped, as if a new idea had struck him.
'What if I lost my backpack in a firefight and someone took my kit including my tablet?'
The Queen saw where Dewan was going and chipped in.
'Could any of us use this device? We haven't been near computers for years and this is more advanced than anything we used in our time.'
A man stepped forward.
'Hey, I was really into tech and was a blogger before The Rising. I'm sure I could learn if the Colonel here showed me the basics.'
'Then we have a plan.'
Alice looked at Dewan.
'Plan? We keep the tablet here, and figure out some way of getting messages to the Zeus troopers, but what about you?'
Dewan looked at her.
'I go back to my base, pretending to have survived a ferocious firefight and then continue being a loyal soldier to the Central Committee.'
Several people began to speak up at the same time, and the Queen had to raise her voice to hush them.
'Quiet everyone. Let him finish.'
'But how can we be sure he won't lead them here?'
Dewan turned to face the speaker, an elderly woman who shrank back under his gaze.
'Look, you just have to trust me. I took enough of a risk wandering out alone to look for Alice. If I just wanted to follow orders, I would have arrested or killed her when I had her alone in the forest.'
Alice heard a few more people grumble so she stood in front of Dewan and addressed the crowd.
'Everyone, on this you need to trust me. The Colonel didn't have to come down here with me; he didn't need to save me from his men in the forest and he certainly didn't need to put himself at so much risk by trusting me. I trust him, and ask you to go along with his plan if you trust me.'
Her words carried the day, and as Alice watched everyone back down, and many of the gathered people averted their gazes when she looked at them, she was once more surprised at what she had become. She had never wanted to be a leader of any sort, and certainly would not have asked for the responsibility and burden that came with it, but now whether she liked it or not, she realized that everyone was looking to her. She just hoped that she did not mess things up too much. Dewan touched her gently on the shoulder.
'Thanks, Alice. You'll all be better off having someone on the inside helping you.'
After brief goodbyes, Dewan gathered his weapon but left the rest of his kit behind and slipped out into the forest. He turned once to wave at her and then Alice saw him disappear behind the trees. Her heart was pounding as she wondered if she had done the right thing by letting him go or had doomed all of them.
***
Dewan was sitting at his desk, typing his After Action Report for the third time. He had sent in his first draft, which had been sent back by Appleseed with more than a dozen questions. He had tried to address all of them systematically, but knew that no matter what he wrote down in a formal memo, he could not address the underlying skepticism of how an elite officer like him was caught in close combat with terrorists and managed to escape without his kit. His second draft had gone through to the Central Committee in Shanghai and had come back with more notations and questions. Dewan had half-hoped that he would not attract too much scrutiny but with the high level of anxiety, even paranoia that Appleseed had about Alice and the escaped humans, he was not going to let Dewan off the hook so easily. Dewan noticed that Appleseed said nothing about the attack on the settlement and made no mention of the Queen. If Dewan had any doubts about what he had heard from Alice and the others, Appleseed's behavior nailed it for him.
The Messenger window on his screen beeped and he saw that he was being called for a debriefing to Appleseed's office. When he reached there a few minutes later, he was surprised to see Appleseed sitting with a Chinese General whom he had never met before. The slight man was wearing his cap even indoors, and as he stood, Dewan saw the red star emblazoned on his it. Dewan saluted and the man returned his salute.
'At ease, Colonel. I am General Chen from the Central Committee. I flew down from Shanghai last night to meet you for myself.'
Dewan was instantly on guard.
'Sir, I would have been available anytime for a call. I'm sorry you had to travel so far on my account.'
Chen smiled, his thin lips pursed back, and Dewan realized that he was looking at a man who could be very dangerous.
'Colonel, you have had a number of brushes with the Biters recently, and you brought in this counter-revolutionary, this girl Alice. We have spoken to some of your men and it seems you had recaptured her when they last saw you.'
Dewan tried not to betray the fear he felt.
'Sir, I had her but when I was bringing her in, I was ambushed by a force of her supporters and I lost her.'
Chen looked at him for several seconds before turning his back to Dewan.
'Yes, Colonel, and it seems you lost much of your kit including your service tablet.'
'Yes, Sir. One of them grabbed my backpack and pulled it off.'
Chen was picking something off the desk and when he turned to face Dewan, he was carrying a tablet in his hand. He powered it on and tapped the Browser. When it opened up, Dewan saw a new post on the Intranet Board used by Zeus. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the headline.
What is the real truth behind The Rising? Read more to find out.
'Colonel, this was posted last evening. We triangulated the location to somewhere deep in the Deadland, but of course nobody was there when a squad got there.'
When Dewan replied truthfully that he had not seen the post, Chen smiled.
'Of course you did not. It was up for only five minutes before we removed it and locked your account from which it was posted. That won't stop whoever did it from creating new accounts and posting again, but it does make you wonder. Biters cannot use tablets, but their terrorist human collaborators can. Counter revolutionaries like this Alice of yours.'
The last two words caught Dewan totally off guard and he realized he was walking a razor's edge and that anything he said could land him in serious danger.
'Sir, I have devoted the last fourteen years to serving the cause we all fight for, and I want to help in any way I can.'
Chen dismissed him and told him that he could go and rejoin his unit.
'Colonel, I may take you up on that offer someday.'
Dewan reached his desk, his heart pounding. He knew his story was wafer thin, and the fact that Chen was here showed just how a serious a threat the Central Committee saw the situation as. Media and what had been recreated of the Internet was strictly regulated, and nobody had really complained, once again trading off democracy for security. But for the first time ever, that tightly controlled information flow had been breached.
A few minutes later, he went to the cafeteria to have dinner and saw several troopers there. He sat down next to a few young recruits and while they quickly shut up when he sat, he could see that they had been in the middle of an animated conversation.
'So guys, what were you talking about?'
One of the troopers looked around, as if seeking support from his comrades and then looked at Dewan.
'Sir, it's nothing, just some stupid rumors some of the guys had seen.'
Dewan had always been well liked by his men, not least because he was always accessible and was someone they could count on to help. Many of his men had been mere boys who had been picked up from the Deadland, and Dewan had trained them and in many cases, saved their lives in combat. He looked at a young trooper he knew well.
'Satish, what are these rumors?'
The young trooper seemed to be struggling with how to say what was on his mind.
'Sir, it seems someone hacked into your account and posted some stuff about The Rising last night. A few of the guys happened to read it, and have been telling all sorts of wild stories.'
Dewan had to stop himself from smiling.
'I heard some bastards hacked my account. What did they post?'
Another trooper spoke, seemingly hesitant to even say the words out loud.
'Something about The Rising having been caused by human governments and about how China was behind so much of it.'
Another trooper, now more confident since the subject had been broached, spoke up.
'I also heard that it mentioned something about what all the folks from the Deadland were doing in the colonies being set up for them. Something about them being little more than slave labor. Sir, they may all be lies for all I know, but why would someone suddenly make up such lies and post them on our boards?'
He quickly shut up when a whole squad of Red Guards came into the cafeteria and sat at an adjoining table, and they continued their meal in silence but Dewan, despite the fear he had felt while meeting Chen, was exulting inside.
His plan was beginning to work. Now it was all up to Alice and her group to take it forward. With Chen and his Red Guards here in force, he knew they would hardly have it easy.
***
'Nikhil, hurry up!'
Alice was gnashing her teeth in frustration at the time Nikhil was taking to upload his latest post. She scarcely understood the technology involved in it all, but she knew that the Red Guards would know within minutes where the post had been uploaded from and would be sending troopers their way. So far, in the last week they had uploaded two posts. In both cases, they had ventured far from their base, making an overnight journey through the forests, uploaded the posts and then made their way back. Alice had no idea if anyone had even read the posts or what impact they were having, but Nikhil was sure that the Central Committee would be trying it's best to delete or block the posts. Nikhil was over fifty and quite unlike most of the other men at the settlement. He was slightly built, and wore broken glasses that were crudely held together by adhesive tape. Before The Rising, he had claimed to be a blogger, though many of the older folks said he had been a hacker. Alice didn't really know what those words meant, but she knew that he was able to use the tablet Dewan had left behind and was willing to make the dangerous journey with her through the forest.
To minimize their chances of detection, only the two of them had ventured out. While that made for better stealth, it also meant that if they ran into trouble, their chances of survival were low. Alice was armed to the teeth, with her handgun, knife and an automatic weapon that they had salvaged from a Zeus trooper. But while Nikhil carried a handgun, she was not sure he even knew how to use it properly. To make things worse, he had been sitting hunched over the tablet for the last fifteen minutes, whispering something about firewalls. The post he was uploading was one that was a detailed first person account of Appleseed's role in the destruction of their settlement, based on Alice's story. It was a risk to personally identify her, but they had reasoned that putting a face to the messages would make it more believable than them being from anonymous posters. Also, with Alice supposedly a wanted terrorist, this would help sow doubts in the minds of Zeus troopers about who the real bad guys were.
Finally, he got up and looked at Alice with a look of triumph.
'It's done! And this time I waited to see if there were any responses so I could be sure somebody is reading our posts.'
Alice froze.
'You waited! You know they'll be coming soon. Let's get out of here.'
Nikhil persisted and handed her the tablet.
'Look at this.'
Knowing that this war was going to be fought and won as much with words as with bullets, Alice had finally got around to asking her mother to teach her to read and had been brushing up her reading skills. There was only one reply to Nikhil's post and it was short enough for it to not tax her reading skills much. A Zeus trooper had posted.
'So that's why the Red Guards are all over the place nowadays.'
Alice knew that whoever had replied to the post would likely get into a lot of trouble, but it was a small yet significant sign-their messages were getting through to the Zeus troopers and they were beginning to create some doubts in their minds. As Nikhil turned off the tablet and put it in his backpack, Alice heard the dull roar of approaching helicopters.
'Nikhil, come on! They'll be here any minute!'
The Sun had barely risen and Nikhil had timed his message to catch the attention of any Zeus trooper who was up but had some time to go before their morning drills. This was one among many details shared by Dewan which were helping them time their postings to coincide with downtimes for Zeus troopers when they were likely to be surfing on their tablets.
Alice and Nikhil were running into the trees when the first helicopter appeared over the horizon. Alice turned around and saw that there were two sleek gunships and a larger troop carrier. By the time the first Red Guards were on the ground, Alice and Nikhil were already more than a kilometer away, tearing through the forest as fast as they could run. From her previous run-in with the Red Guards, Alice knew that they would likely be trying to flank them and drive them into a trap, so instead of taking the path that led to the road which they needed to follow back to their base, they turned right, running through the forest till they came to a clearing. She could see the broken shells of old buildings. Nikhil had told her that once upon a time this had been a posh suburb and that some of the wooded areas they had run through had once been part of farmlands of the elite. That was a world that sounded totally alien to her, but she was happy for the cover the buildings would provide them. They ran into an old apartment building and rushed up the stairs. On the second floor, they stopped to see where their pursuers were, but saw no sign of them.
Alice relaxed a bit and took a look around her. For someone who had lived in the open for much of her life, it was hard to imagine living in these concrete shells, but then their occupants never had making an instant getaway as a priority. Perhaps if they had, they would have lived longer than they did during The Rising. The apartment was obviously abandoned and as they walked from one flat to another, they found little of use or interest, since they had been picked clean over the years. As Alice entered one flat, she saw something small lying in a corner. It was a small female figure with half burnt blonde hair.
'Nikhil, what is this?'
'Alice, that was a Barbie doll that girls used to play with.'
Alice flung the doll to one side, wondering how girls ever had enough spare time to sit and play with silly little figurines. She looked out the window and froze. There were a dozen or more Red Guards outside, their rifles at the ready, walking past the apartment. She motioned for Nikhil to get down as she continued watching the men outside. One of them was speaking into a handheld radio and as Alice looked up in the sky, she saw the faint outline of something black hovering above them. That must have been one of the drones Appleseed had mentioned, thought Alice, wondering if they had been spotted on their way into the apartment. Most of the Guards walked past and Alice was beginning to relax when one of them suddenly stopped and looked back at the apartment. Alice ducked down as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder, looked through the scope and casually fired a single round.
The bullet hit the wall just outside the window where Alice and Nikhil were sheltering, and they waited for a minute or more, hoping the Guard had moved on. Nikhil, tired of sitting on his haunches, started to get up to stretch when another bullet shattered the glass on the window. Nikhil dove to his right, and even without hearing the Red Guard's bellowed command to his men, Alice knew that the sudden movement had given them away. Alice was at the window in a split second, her rifle at the ready, and she fired at the first Red Guards approaching the apartment. Her bullets kicked up the dirt around them and she saw one of them fall before he was pulled behind cover by a comrade. Before she could find new targets, the other Guards opened fire on full automatic, shredding the window and showering her with glass. With the numbers so stacked against her, standing her ground and hoping to win the firefight was a losing cause.
She saw that Nikhil was crouched against the wall, and while his hands were gripping his gun, they were shaking uncontrollably. An idea came to her as she considered the odds against them.
'Nikhil, just point your gun out the window and fire down at them. You don't even have to aim, just stick it out and shoot once every few seconds and please don't get yourself killed.'
He offered her a wan smile, as she took her rifle and ran out of the flat and down the stairs. She could hear the pop of Nikhil's gun, immediately answered by an overwhelming volley of automatic weapon fire from the Red Guards. She rounded the corner on the corridor and climbed out an open window that had once served as a fire exit. She crouched on the narrow stairwell outside and saw the Guards, four of whom were now advancing from cover to cover while their comrades kept up a withering rate of fire at the window where Nikhil was hiding. She was almost behind the Red Guards and they had not yet spotted her. She selected single shot mode, not wanting to waste bullets and aimed carefully at the Guards advancing on the apartment. Her first shot took a Guard in the neck, killing him instantly. Before the others had realized what had happened, another was down. By the time the Guards spotted her and their officer, a tall and thin man, screamed orders to his men, a third Guard was down.
As Alice dove back into the corridor, bullets slammed into the stairwell where she had been seconds ago. There were still nine Guards left and while she had managed to give them a nasty surprise, the odds were still very much against them. She retreated back up the stairs and found Nikhil grinning.
'Did I hit anyone?'
Despite all the stress, she smiled.
'Nikhil, you should stick to that tablet thing of yours.'
As she peered out another window, she saw that the Guards were again advancing on the apartment, and she brought her rifle up, determined not to go down without a fight. Just then, a dark figure wearing a hat rushed out from the forest and picked up the nearest Red Guard, snapping his neck and tossing his body away. Several more Biters jumped out of the bushes, and Alice saw the Red Guard officer shoot one in the head before beginning to run towards the apartment. Taken by surprise and outnumbered, the Red Guards never stood much of a chance, and two or three more were killed before Alice saw Hatter stand up to his full height and scream. The other Biters took his cue and the remaining Red Guards were not killed but bitten. The Officer who had been running towards the apartment raised his rifle, aiming straight at Hatter, who was now lunging towards him. The Red Guard Officer was about to pull the trigger when a single bullet from Alice hit him in the neck and he went down. Hatter looked up with his expressionless, red eyes and saw Alice at the window.
Alice had never been so happy to see Biters before and as she and Nikhil came down, they saw that the four Guards who had been bitten were now twitching on the ground, as if suffering a violent fit, and then they sat up, all trace of humanity gone in their lifeless eyes, blood from the bites they had suffered streaming down their bodies. They looked at Alice and Nikhil and one of them hissed and started to move towards them when Hatter hit him hard and then barked something to them. Alice didn't understand what he said, but it was clear that they knew who was in charge because as they ran into the forest to get back to their base, the newly converted Biters made no move to attack them. Alice turned back after a few minutes of running to see Hatter and the other Biters following them. Some distance behind them were the new converts.
Alice smiled and Nikhil asked her what she found so funny about their near brush with death.
'When the Colonel talked about us turning Zeus troopers to our side, I'm guessing he didn't have this in mind.'