Alice ran through a charred forest, trying hard to see through the smoke and to breathe despite the suffocating fumes all around her. Much of the ground was still burning as far as she could see. What kind of weapons had the Red Guards unleashed that had caused such damage-turning acres of land into a sea of fire? She raised her hands to her mouth, trying to stifle a gasp of horror as she saw a gaping hole where the entrance to their shelter should have been. She kept hoping that perhaps people would have had a chance to go deeper into the hardened shelters further underground, but as she ran closer she knew she was hoping against hope. People would have stayed in the larger but less secure chambers close to the surface. There was no reason for them to cram into the smaller chambers deeper underground as they had no warning of what was coming. She stopped abruptly as she saw what the hole in the ground revealed, and then she fell to her knees, crying and screaming as she saw dozens of bodies heaped upon each other, many burnt beyond recognition.
Alice didn't know how long she just sat there, afraid to go in and see the true extent of the horror inside and unwilling to confront her loss. She felt a hand on her shoulder and whirled around, ready to fight. Instead she saw the Queen standing there unsteadily, her body cut in dozens of places and her left hand a stump below the elbow.
'Alice, it's all gone. They are all gone.'
'Mom…'
The Queen shuffled away, mumbling to herself.
'All gone. All gone.'
Alice jumped into the hole, and thirty minutes later was back, sitting with her back against a tree, her mind vacant with the loss and the horror she had just endured. There had not been a single human survivor, and from what she could see, all the Biters inside had also been incinerated. She took the pistol from her belt and toyed with it. A single pull of the trigger was all it would take, and she could end it all. What was the point of a life where she had lost every single person and thing she had taken to be her own in just a few days?
She felt someone standing next to her, and she looked up to see the Queen there. There was no emotion on her face, but she seemed to be looking into the distance as she asked Alice to put the gun away.
'Alice, the prophecy still lives.'
Alice saw that she was holding onto the book she treasured so much in her remaining hand. Alice grabbed the charred book and threw it away, turning on the Queen with a fury.
'Damn you and damn your stupid prophecy! Look around us-everything's gone. Everything!'
Alice walked away and sat down against a tree, sobbing. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the Queen get up and walk towards the book. She picked it up and then Alice saw her expression change as her lips curled back, revealing her jagged teeth and like a cornered, wild animal she hissed and spat at someone approaching from Alice's right. Alice looked up and saw more than a dozen fully armed Zeus troopers standing there, automatic weapons in their hands. Instinctively Alice felt for the gun at her belt and even before her hand reached the gun, she knew that she would never have enough time.
A young trooper stepped ahead of the others.
'You must be Alice.'
Alice still had her hand on the gun, weighing in her mind whether she should just try and take at least one of the Zeus troopers with her instead of being taken alive. The trooper must have sensed what was on her mind so he put his rifle on the ground.
'Relax. We're not here to kill you or arrest you.'
Alice kept her hand on the gun but now took a closer look at the troopers. They looked like they had just come out of a battle-many had cuts and scrapes from running through the forest, and at least one had a bloody bandage around his head. The trooper extended a hand, and as Alice got a closer look at him, she saw that he must have been very young, and looked like a local boy, certainly not one of the dreaded Red Guards.
'Alice, my name is Satish. I was from a settlement near the old city of Agra. All of us were drafted into Zeus from settlements in the Deadland.'
He turned to see the Queen, who was still on edge and Alice could see his eyes widen but he made no threatening move.
'Dr. Protima, I presume.'
The Queen stopped hissing, but still stood rigidly, her book clutched to her chest with her one remaining arm.
'Satish, how do you know who we are?'
The trooper smiled.
'A blond girl and a half-Biter are not exactly a common sight in these parts. Plus, Colonel Dewan had given all the details of who you were and what role you'd played so far.'
At the mention of Dewan's name, Alice sat bolt upright.
'The Colonel. Amit. Is he okay?'
Satish motioned for the other troopers to fan out.
'Guys, keep a watch while I fill them in on what's going on.'
He sat down in front of Alice and took out a tablet from his backpack. Alice saw that the Queen, while not feeling at ease enough to join them, had come closer to listen to what he had to say.
He told them about how initially Dewan had pretended that someone had just hacked into his account to post the first messages, and then when messages started being posted from other accounts created by Nikhil, he never showed any signs of support in public. However, when the Red Guards were brought into the Deadland in ever increasing numbers and their tactics kept getting increasingly brutal, his men had sensed a shift in his mood. When troopers began deserting, he stayed at his post, but on more than one occasion, he saw troopers slip out but didn't raise the alarm.
'But none of us knew just how deeply he supported your cause till in his last moments, he posted this. We all saw his last warning when he learnt of the air raids, but it was all too late to warn anyone in the Deadland. The Reds have deleted his post, but I saved a copy to my tablet.'
Satish held his tablet up and both Alice and the Queen skimmed it. Dewan had laid out everything he had learnt. Coming from anonymous posters, such messages could always have been dismissed and countered by official propaganda. Coming from a veteran officer in Zeus, it would have been explosive, and with the devastation the air raids had unleashed on the Deadland, there was now more or less open mutiny among the local Zeus troopers.
'Is that why you deserted? What happened to the Colonel?'
Satish looked at Alice and she noticed that he was quite terrified.
'Red Guards were hunting down all local troopers. We managed to get out just in time to save our lives. I'm not sure if the Colonel made it, but I heard that they sent several units to attack his quarters.'
Alice looked at the Queen.
'They've now declared war on their own troopers! That's crazy. Why would they do that?'
The Queen was studying the tablet as she replied.
'Alice, troopers like Satish have always been expendable. If what Dewan wrote about the ongoing insurgencies in other parts of the world like America is true, then using local troopers under Zeus just helped them wipe out the remaining Biters and ensure human settlements continued to provide labor while their main forces were being used to suppress resistance in what was the United States.'
Alice was looking off into the distance and the Queen asked what was on her mind.
'I'm thinking of how we could fight this war.'
***
The next week went by in a blur. Alice, the Queen and the Zeus troopers spent much of it in hiding from the Red Guards who had been airdropped across the Deadland to mop up any survivors. With much of the foliage burnt out and a lot of the underground passages and tunnels exposed by the bombing, they were forced to use a different tactic, and instead of moving deeper into the Deadland, they moved into the heart of what had once been the city of Delhi. There they sought refuge among the ruins of the buildings that had once been the landmarks of the Indian capital. Almost all the buildings bore signs of damage, the result of the many waves of devastation Delhi, like many other cities had suffered. The ravages of The Rising, the nuclear bursts that came soon after, and then years of warfare that had followed till the remaining human survivors had left the city to seek refuge in the Deadland had all taken their toll on the city. Now what had once been the bustling, overcrowded city of Delhi looked deserted, but Alice knew better than that. The Queen had told her that several bands of Biters were likely hidden in the city, usually emerging at night.
Alice saw a tall building which had half of it's top cleaved off, as if a giant unseen hand had taken an axe and chopped it off. The Queen muttered.
'Well, I guess we'll have 5 Star accommodation tonight. Welcome to what's left of the Taj Hotel.'
Satish, as young and inexperienced as he was, had become the de facto leader of the Zeus troopers and he told three of them to take up positions near the lobby to watch for any attackers while the others went deeper into the hotel. Alice had never been in a hotel before, though she had heard stories of the nice hotels her parents had been to when they had gone on holidays before The Rising. Imagine that! Someone to bring you food and drink whenever you wanted and a warm, cosy bed to sleep in instead of a dirty old sleeping bag. Alice wanted to go upstairs and look at the rooms but Satish stopped her.
'The stairs looks pretty unstable and I don't want us to be stuck in here if there's any trouble.'
So they lay down in what had once been the lobby and Alice was about to sleep when one of the sentries spoke in a hoarse whisper.
'Folks, I see multiple shadows approaching!'
All around her, Alice heard the sounds of guns being loaded and cocked. She had only her pistol with her, having lost her rifle in the bombing, but she quickly rushed to a window to see what was happening. As she looked around her in the darkness, she realized that the Zeus troopers may have been lavishly equipped, with their night vision scopes and rifles, but most of these boys had never seen much combat before. Satish was hurrying to get them into position and she saw them fumble their way in the dark. With an army like this, Alice realized their war was off to a pretty bad start.
Satish crawled up next to her, and she saw that he was carrying a spare assault rifle, which he handed to her with a smile.
'I think you can use this better than most of these kids.'
Alice took the rifle in her hands and flipped on the scope and looked through it. In the ghostly green light of the night vision scope, she saw a large mob appearing over the driveway that led to the hotel lobby. She switched off the scope, knowing that they needed to preserve the precious batteries of the night vision sights till they found refuge someplace with a generator which they could jury-rig to recharge them. What she had just seen did not make any sense. The figures were not moving like Biters, but like humans. However, there was no way such a large group of Red Guards would just amble up to them in the open, where they were sitting ducks for the defenders.
'What do you make of it? Should we fire?'
Alice shook her head.
'No, Satish. I don't think they mean to attack us. They probably outnumber us three to one or more, but walking in the open like that means we could pick them all off with probably little or no losses. I think they're trying to signal that they're friendly.'
'Friendly? Who could they be?'
As if by way of reply, a male voice spoke up outside.
'Which one of you is Alice?'
Satish was about to rest a restraining hand on Alice's arm, but she replied.
'Who is asking?'
'Why does that matter?'
Alice sighted her rifle on the man who had been speaking and saw him through her night vision scope. He was heavily bearded, wearing a cap and carrying at least two rifles slung across his back, but his hands were held up in front of him. She spoke up again.
'It matters because it determines whether I greet you with a smile or a bullet through that silly cap of yours.'
She heard several chuckles outside and the man answered, his voice now much softer.
'We are friends. We come to join you.'
Satish and the troopers covered her while Alice stepped out. She still had her rifle at her shoulder but she lowered it when she saw the man smile and motion for all those with him to put their weapons down on the ground. There must have been over thirty of them, men, women and some children. Every one of them was carrying at least two guns, which Alice noted seemed to be all weapons taken from Zeus troopers or Red Guards. The man stepped forward, extending a hand that Alice shook.
'Alice, we have heard so much about you. My name is Arjun and we would like to join your group.'
For a minute Alice was too surprised to reply. She had never really consciously thought that she was leading anyone or anything. They had just been so focused on staying alive for the last few days that she had not had much time to think of anything beyond immediate survival. Arjun coughed softly, which snapped her back to reality. To her surprise, he seemed to be almost pleading.
'Look, we may not seem like much, but we can all fight. Give us a chance.'
They all walked in and sat around the lobby, with the newcomers looking at the armed Zeus troopers with some initial suspicion. Satish broke the ice by offering his hand to Arjun.
'Arjun, we're all local boys and all on the same team. We've been trying to escape the Red Guards for the last one week and finally decided the Ruins may be a better bet than the Deadland, or what's left of it.'
Arjun sighed and sat back.
'I know, we've been tracking you since you entered the Ruins.'
Alice spoke up, the surprise in her voice evident.
'Tracking us? But we…'
Arjun smiled, his eyes creased with years of worry, and making him look much older than his forty years.
'When The Rising happened, we decided to stay and protect our homes instead of escaping out of the city as many did. The first few years we lived like rats, then we began to fight back-against human looters and the Biters alike. You never saw us, but we saw you.'
He turned to Satish.
'Zeus never came in here much. It's easier to pick off targets from the air but that's of no use in a built up area like this. We'd meet and trade with folks in the Deadland but when we learnt how Zeus was taking over, we decided to stay here and remain free.'
Alice had always taken for granted that only Biters remained in the ruins of the old city, but as she was learning, there was much more to the world than she had ever imagined. She asked the question that had been on her mind ever since Arjun's group had shown up.
'How did you know about me?'
Now it was Arjun's turn to be surprised.
'Everyone knows about you! Many more troopers like Satish and his friends have been through the Deadland and the Ruins. They all have stories from what they read and heard, and some of them passed these papers out. Word spreads fast. We all lost everything in The Rising, and now that we know who was behind all the misery we faced, we want to help fight back.'
Alice saw the paper in Arjun's hand and saw that it had Dewan's last email printed on it. Even in death, the Colonel had more than done his duty.
***
'It's going to blow!'
Alice hid her head in her hands as the Improvised Explosive Device went off with an ear-splitting boom. When she peered back around the corner, she saw the results of the first ever IED she had rigged. Half of the target building was blown off and smoke and dust covered the whole area.
'Amazing what you can accomplish with a humble gas cylinder, isn't it?'
She turned to see Arjun standing there, grinning. Over the last two weeks, more human survivors in the Ruins had sought them out as well as close to a hundred more Zeus deserters. While Alice had naively believed they would all stay together, Arjun had told her to scatter them across the Ruins, to be kept in touch via a system of messengers. Satish and the other Zeus troopers were heavily armed, and Alice was skilled well beyond her years when it came to combat, but when it came to fighting in a congested, built-up environment like the Ruins, Arjun was the resident expert. His people called him General, but he had once sheepishly admitted to Alice that he had no military experience, but had been a salesman before The Rising. When he lost his young family in the chaos, he fought to survive and there his mastery of his former sales routes served him well.
With more than three hundred people now in her force, Alice had asked aloud how they should plan their campaign. Bitter at all she had lost, she had been tempted to lash out, but Satish and Arjun had convinced her otherwise.
'Alice, the Red Guards will smash us if we challenge them in the open. We need to lure them into the Ruins and bleed them.'
The Queen had been quiet and withdrawn for much of this time, and Alice wondered if it were because she had been so used to being among Biters that she found it hard to adjust to human company. That night, the Queen came to Alice as she was about to go to sleep.
'Alice, I want you to keep something.'
She thrust the red vial that contained the vaccine into Alice's palms. When Alice protested, the Queen insisted she keep it.
'Alice, I had foolishly thought that we could find some honest men in power who would help us. It looks like we are condemned to a life of war now, but I don't want to give up hope. Keep it with you and if there is someone we can trust, hand it over.'
Alice woke the next morning to find the Queen gone. Nobody had seen her slip out during the night, and when Alice mentioned it to Arjun, his face darkened.
'Are you sure you can trust her?'
Alice was shocked at his reaction. She had been genuinely worried about the Queen being on her own in the Ruins.
'Alice, there are still bands of Biters in the Ruins, and there are areas we never go into. She seemed sane enough and I know that she and her followers helped you but the Biters in the Ruins are crazed and would rip our throats out any chance they got.'
'She is not going to betray us.'
Alice said those words and walked away, hoping that her faith in the Queen was well placed. They did not get much of a chance to talk about it further because they soon got busy in planning their first operation.
As Alice watched the men and women move about their drills, she saw just how far they had come. Now it was impossible to tell apart someone who had been a Zeus trooper living in the relative luxury of their barracks and someone who had spent years hiding and fighting as a `Ruins Rat', as they had come to be called. The troopers had swapped their uniforms for civilian clothes and as Alice noted, if nothing else, they all smelt alike, since bathing was a luxury to be enjoyed once in a few days in the Ruins.
'Where do you want the first squad to go?'
Arjun, Satish, a woman called Sheila who led one of the groups of Rats and Alice were huddled around a hand-drawn map showing the Ruins, the Deadland and a Forward Base just ten kilometers from the city center where a large detachment of Red Guards had set up. It took a second for Alice to realize that the question had been directed to her. She struggled to answer and then Arjun gently nudged her along.
'Maybe we could do it as you said last night. Okay?'
When the others had dispersed, Alice called Arjun aside.
'Arjun, I don't know much about leading so many people. I don't know what to do.'
Arjun smiled.
'Alice, whether you like it or not, everyone here expects you to lead them. They've all heard the stories and read the posts. Most of those are probably exaggerated, but there you have it.'
Alice started to protest.
'Look, all I want is to fight back for what happened to my own. That's all. If others want to join me, then we can work together, but I'm not so sure I like leading so many people and being responsible for them.'
Arjun looked at her, and perhaps realizing that he was talking to someone who would be not much older than the daughter he had lost in The Rising, softened his voice.
'Alice, you are more than just a leader for them. These people, me, all of us-have spent the last few years without any hope, just scratching for survival from one day to the next. You've given them something they had lost. Hope.'
Alice started to say something, but Arjun interrupted her.
'You're the one who lived among the Biters and uncovered their truth. You're the one who fought Red Guards all alone to save your people. You're the one who convinced a Zeus officer to change sides. You're the one who led hundreds of troopers to desert. And yes, you're the cause of the Deadland being firebombed. So you are already responsible for a lot, whether you like it or not.'
Alice sat down as it all sank in. How many thousands had died because of her one silly decision to jump into the hole after the Biter that had triggered all of this? She wished she could just undo everything. Life had never been easy, but it had been a damn sight better than what she had to deal with now, and as she looked at the dozens of men and women gathered around their camp, she wondered whether she was just going to lead all of them to their deaths as well?
She closed her eyes and her father's face flashed before her and she remembered his last words to her. He had somehow believed she could bear this burden of leading others. He had believed that she was more than just another young girl whose fate was in other's hands. If nothing else, she had to prove him right, to make his sacrifice mean something. He had given his life so that she could live, and had believed that by living, she could make a difference and make things better. She turned to Arjun, a new determination in her eyes.
'Without heavy weapons we have no hope of getting through their base defenses, so we need to get them out of their base.'
`Why would they come out of their base?'
'They want me. I will offer myself up as bait.'
Three days later, two vans sped out of the Ruins towards the Red Guards Forward Base which housed several dozen Red Guards who had been placed there as a forward patrol and were supplied daily by helicopter. What made it less than an easy target were the two remotely controlled Gatling guns mounted on its walls. Alice was in the second van, and just thirty minutes earlier, Satish had sent a message on his tablet saying that he and his men wanted to rejoin Zeus. They had managed to capture Alice and wanted a trade-Alice for their guaranteed safety. It was a gamble-there was always a chance that Appleseed and his masters would just kill Alice when they had the chance, but Alice knew that even more than her life, they craved the secrets she knew about the Biter's hidden bases and also the Queen and her vaccine. They were sure that the Red Guards already had drones overhead, so they did not risk going too much into the open but stopped on the outskirts of the Ruins, roughly in the area where once a sprawling high-end complex had stood, housing guests and athletes for the Commonwealth Games held in Delhi some years before The Rising. The dried up Yamuna river was nearby and on Alice's instructions and unseen by any drones, more than three dozen fighters had crept through underground passages once used by the Queen's Biters.
They had timed it so that the Red Guards would not have time to bring in too many reinforcements but they could never be sure, so Alice felt her hands shake a bit as she got out of the van. She felt totally exposed as Satish and his men walked her into the open. They had all put on their Zeus uniforms and were fully armed while she had her hands loosely bound behind her. She could just about make out the Red Guards base, which had been set up inside what had once been a large temple. She could see the two round turrets on top of the walls and she struggled to control her panic as she saw a black helicopter rise from within the complex and fly towards them. The helicopter came to a hover some distance away and she could see the large red star painted on its side. The door slid open and she saw several Red Guards inside with their rifles pointed downwards. A voice called out over a loudspeaker.
'Send the girl forward alone and lay down your weapons. Other Red Guards are on their way to take you to our base. You have nothing to fear.'
Alice was pushed forward and she walked, her face downcast, towards the waiting helicopter, wondering if the bullet that would kill her was on the way.