It was the first time Alice had tasted chocolate and she licked the wrapper clean. Food for her had consisted of whatever could be hunted or scavenged. One or two men in their settlement had harbored dreams of growing their own food, but when you're constantly on alert and may have to abandon your position in minutes, you don't really have a lifestyle suited for agriculture. Dewan had walked in and sat down next to Alice. He had showered and changed and was wearing a simple khaki uniform. He seemed to epitomize all the ways in which Zeus was different from the life she had known. He was clean, wearing spotless clothes and was not constantly looking over his back. He seemed to be about the same age as her father, and he asked Alice if she wanted to shower and change before she met anyone else.
Alice was instantly aware of just how she must have looked in the muddy clothes she had worn for the last few days. At the settlement, her mother had gone on and on about how young ladies should always appear well groomed, but when your big extracurricular activity is sniping at Biters and your favorite toy is a handgun, meeting such archaic standards was impossible. Alice's hair was cropped short (so that nobody could grab it in a close fight, as her instructors had said), and her face was lean with her cheekbones showing prominently. She was thin, but certainly not weak, since she had the wiry frame and strength that came with years of running and combat training every day.
After she changed into some khaki clothes Dewan gave her, she joined him in what appeared to be a cafeteria of some sort. There were long benches and tables which were filled with black-clad Zeus troopers. Most of them were men, though Alice did see several women. They all greeted Dewan with deference and he asked her to sit down and ordered dinner. Alice felt her mouth water as hot soup and chicken were put in front of her and Dewan smiled.
'Dig in and don't worry about formalities. You must be starved.'
After that, she needed no more encouragement as she polished off her food. Dewan told her that he would talk more to her the next morning and showed her the way to her room. As Alice was walking to it, she saw two young Zeus troopers looking at her and whispering among themselves. One of them, a young, pimply Indian boy worked up the courage to talk to her.
'Are you the one from the Deadland who lived with the Biters?'
Alice looked him straight in the eye and saw him flinch at her response.
'The Deadland?'
'Oh, you know, the settlements outside our centrally administered zones where people are….'
'Free.'
Alice completed the sentence for him. Her father had told her about how Zeus tried to get more and more settlements into their fold, promising protection in return for the supply of young men and women for their army and effective control over their defenses and supplies. The settlements who signed up got security, but effectively became bonded labour-growing food in farms for Zeus and their masters, giving up their right to bear arms unless Zeus allowed them to, and supplying young men and women to serve in factories and mines that those who controlled Zeus ran. Nobody really knew who the real masters behind Zeus were, but the Queen had mentioned Chinese Red Guards, and she had heard her father sometimes grumble about how he would never submit to the Red Guards.
She walked back to her room, and lay down on what was a simple cot, but a luxury compared to what she had just been through and also compared to the old sleeping bag that was her bed back home. She was fast asleep within seconds of hitting the mattress.
She was awakened by a light tap on the door and she found Dewan standing there, wearing a black uniform.
'Your father is on the way and should be here any time. I thought I'd let you know.'
Alice ran more than walked to the small attached bathroom to shower and change and then joined Dewan in a small meeting room. There were two more men there with him wearing black uniforms covered in medals and badges. One was white and other Indian. The white man, who was bald and built like a bull, spoke first.
'Good morning young lady. My name is General John Appleseed and I oversee all the Asian operations for Zeus. I flew in last night when we learnt that your extraordinary ordeal was coming to an end.'
The Indian, wearing the traditional Sikh turban, spoke next.
'I am Major Balbir Singh. I am in charge of the Indian subcontinent.'
Alice never thought she would get intimidated by any man, but the way these men spoke and the way Dewan showed deference to them told her just how big and organized Zeus was. That feeling was intensified when her father walked in. He was tall, wiry and wore faded jeans and a crumpled shirt. At first sight one might have assumed that he would be awed by the men in front of him, but he gathered his sobbing daughter in his arms and looked them straight in the eye as he thanked them.
As he began to leave with her, General Appleseed spoke up softly.
'Chief of Mission Gladwell. It is a pleasure to see you after all we have heard of you. It is a pity that you choose not to join your old comrades again.'
Alice felt her father stiffen as he turned to talk to the General. There was a cold bite to his voice, very different from the gentle, loving father she had known.
'General, I served the United States of America and what she stood for-freedom, liberty and equality. That nation is dead, but the spirit lives on in all of us who refuse to bow to the new dictatorship of big business and hired guns and the Chinese tyrants who pay you.'
The General's eyes hardened but his voice remained soft.
'How long can you last out there by yourselves in the Deadland?'
'We've done well so far.'
With those words, he whisked Alice out of the room and walked her out. She wanted to tell him so much about what had happened, but he just hushed her, telling her that they would talk more when they got back. When they stepped out of the building, Alice saw that there was a sprawling air base outside and Dewan ran up behind them.
'Your helicopter is waiting there. Mr. Gladwell, you have an incredibly brave daughter. Good luck to you both.'
Alice's father seemed to size Dewan up for a second and then seemingly liking what he saw, shook his hand, thanking him again as they walked towards the waiting black helicopter. Alice saw four boys whom she recognized from the settlement standing at a far corner. They looked miserable and scared and one of them glared at Alice as she passed him.
'Dad, what are they doing here?'
'They're here to join Zeus as recruits.'
'But we never…'
Her father stopped her.
'That's the price we paid to get you back. Four young, untrained boys for a trained combat veteran like you. We all agreed it was the best decision when Zeus demanded something in return.'
Alice felt like she had been punched in the stomach and felt sick that four boys would now have to live away from their families, in the murky world of the Zeus army because of her. As they sat down in the helicopter, she looked at her father. He looked old and tired, as if he had aged years in just the few days she had been gone. He had implied that the leaders had decided on trading her for the boys, but she knew just how much it must have been gnawing at his own conscience. She reached out and took his arm, and he smiled at her. She saw Dewan waving to them as the helicopter took off and she sat back, wondering just what she had got herself into with that one fateful decision of jumping into that hole behind the bunny eared Biter.
***
Alice's mother smothered her in hugs when she landed and her older sister, Jane, ruffled her hair. That was as close as she had ever seen Jane get to a public display of affection. Jane was almost ten years older than Alice, and remembered enough of what the world had been like before The Rising to harbor bitterness at what she had lost. That bitterness had never entirely left, and if anything, it had acquired an even sharper edge with the years of fighting to survive. For the last one year, they had made an abandoned village their home. The village was located near the crest of a small hill with a great view of all directions, and that made it both easily defensible in case of attack and also offered several escape routes if they had to abandon their settlement.
When Alice walked into the large building that had once been a school but was now the communal dining hall, she could feel many eyes on her. She had been well liked and also respected for her skills, but she saw that something had changed. Many of the men and women she had fought shoulder to shoulder with were averting their gazes. She sat next to Jane, who seemed to be in a foul mood as well.
'What's wrong?'
Jane took a small bite and then answered.
'Everyone's really angry about us giving into Zeus and sending our boys over. They think once Zeus has a foothold they'll be back for more. Some people are saying Dad made the others agree since you were the one involved.'
Alice ate in silence, realizing that whatever she said would not help. She came back to her room and saw that a fresh set of weapons had been laid out for her. Whether they grumbled or not, everyone at the settlement knew that her skills could be needed at any time. She spent the next few hours cleaning her guns and then lay down to sleep. She heard a knock at the door. It was her father.
'Alice, tomorrow some folks from Zeus will be here to take you.'
Alice sat up in a panic, wondering if saving her life had meant sending her to join Zeus as well. Her father saw her expression and sat down next to her.
'No, no. You don't need to worry-I would never let them take you. But they want to question you about what you saw and heard while you were in the Biter base. Nobody's survived so long behind enemy lines and they want to know what you saw. Anything you'd like to tell me before you go with them?'
Alice thought about all that the Queen had said, and even as she began to say something, she realized just how ridiculous it would sound. A Biter Queen who could talk. A supposed conspiracy behind it all led by shadowy powers trying to bring about a New World Order. Biters who were not entirely the bloodthirsty monsters everyone took them for. Whichever way she tried to spin it, she thought it made her sound crazy or delusional. So she just shrugged and lay down to rest and was asleep within seconds.
She was awakened by the sound of helicopter rotors and when she sat up, she saw her parents standing near her.
'Sweetheart, they're here to get you. They promised us that you'd be back by evening. Just tell them whatever they want to know and you'll be fine.'
Despite his reassuring words, Alice could see the strain in her father's eyes. She knew that he was dealing with a lot of compromises he had been forced to make to get her back-sending the boys to Zeus and dealing with those he had tried hard to avoid all these years. He had often told Alice that unlike before The Rising when there was at least some form of order due to governments, the chaos and vacuum that had resulted had been filled by greedy, power-hungry men and their private armies. He had spent all these years keeping their settlement free of such men and now to protect his daughter, he had been forced to compromise with them. Alice was old enough to realize just how much of a sacrifice her father had made for her and she hugged him tight as she boarded the black helicopter.
The helicopter turned North East, and flew over forests on the outskirts of what had once been Delhi, but was now simply called the Ruins. On her previous flights she had been too terrified or tired to notice, but now she got her first look from the air at what lay below. It was a depressingly familiar pattern-miles upon miles of wrecked buildings and debris, broken by the occasional small settlement of humans. Without many standing buildings, the sands from the Rajasthan deserts were now freely swirling over the cities nearby, creating a near constant haze.
She then saw a large fortified compound with gun turrets on the walls, followed by the airfield she had seen before. As the helicopter came to a rest, she saw Dewan run up to it. While he was a stranger by any standards, he was the one familiar face and she felt a bit more comfortable having him there. He spoke loudly to be heard over the helicopters and Alice leaned over to hear what he was saying.
'General Appleseed himself is here. From what I gather, what our Intelligence folks most want is tactical intel. So just tell them what happened when you went into the Biter base, what you saw, the numbers of Biters and so on. Also, any clues as to where hidden entrances could be will be very helpful. That's really all they want, so it should be pretty simple and then you're on your way home.'
It sounded simple enough and Alice was feeling much more reassured when she stepped into the briefing room. General Appleseed was the only one there and as Dewan saluted, he asked him and Alice to sit down. The big General folded his arms in front of him and smiled, trying to put Alice at ease. With his big neck, huge arms and bald head, it was hard to think of the General as anything other than a raging bull, but Alice smiled back, glad that he was at least trying to be nice.
'Ms. Gladwell..'
He paused, puzzled as Alice stifled a laugh.
'I'm sorry, nobody's ever called me Ms. Gladwell before.'
Appleseed grinned and continued.
'Okay, Alice. I know you've had a tough few days, but you know just how terrible our continuing war is, and any information that can help us strike a blow for all humans would be of great value.'
Alice didn't say anything, but she noted that Zeus was now claiming to represent all humans. She wondered what her father would have said to that as the General continued.
'So, please just let me know everything you saw and experienced. Don't worry about any detail seeming to be too small or insignificant, just tell me everything from the beginning.'
So Alice began her tale, starting with how she had seen a Biter jump down a hole and how she had followed. She watched Appleseed raise his eyebrows as she talked about the first confrontation in the caves and how she had managed to get away. He was scribbling notes furiously and stopped when she mentioned about the room she had entered and the seal she had seen on the door. He looked at Dewan.
'That can only be where the US Embassy was. I know we had underground bunkers, but who would have thought those mindless monsters would have used our own underground bunkers and the ones the Indians had built against nukes to hide? When we're done here, I'd like a recon group to go and check out the area.'
Alice continued her story, about how she managed to get into the room and saw old newspapers. When Appleseed asked what was on those papers, Alice replied that she saw the pictures of when The Rising first happened, but that she could not read fast enough. She thought she saw a flicker of satisfaction cross Appleseed's face as he continued.
'Now these creatures were outside the door. How did you manage to get out?'
Alice started speaking and then wondered how she could possibly explain the drawing on the wall and why the Biters did not tear her apart or at any rate bite her to convert her into one of them. However, she had never been a good liar, and struggled with what she should tell the General. Her dilemma was solved when a trooper knocked on the door.
'Sir, we are serving lunch in the cafeteria now. Will you come and join us or should I send it over here?'
Appleseed growled, his friendly demeanor gone in an instant.
'Trooper, we're working here! Colonel, can you ask them to arrange a bite here?'
Dewan walked out, resting a friendly hand on Alice's shoulder as he left. Alice looked back to see Appleseed looking at her with his chin in his hands, as if contemplating something. Finally he came around the table to sit next to Alice.
'Alice, we will continue the debriefing when Dewan gets here, but there is one thing I needed to ask you in private. It is a highly confidential matter that nobody else should know about, but if you helped me with this, it could make a huge difference to the war effort.'
He took out a photograph from his pocket and put it on the table in front of Alice. It was an old, faded photo, with some of the edges torn off, but the smiling face with greying hair in the middle of it was unmistakable. It was the woman whom Alice had met as the Queen. She tried to contain her reaction, but Appleseed must have noticed.
'Alice, I need you to tell me if you saw this woman.'
***
Alice was saved from having to answer by Dewan coming in with some sandwiches. As they ate, Alice told them about how after the encounter in the Embassy room, she had managed to hide in the underground caves and tunnels for the next two days. Appleseed was skeptical and his expression showed it.
'When our men first saw you, it seems you were in the company of Biters. How did that happen?'
Alice's mind raced. At the best of times, she was terrible at making up excuses, now she had to find some plausible reason for why the Biters around her had not attacked her when they first encountered the Zeus helicopters.
'General, I was hiding behind some ruins when your helicopters arrived. The Biters would have found me in minutes if they had not landed up when they did. I was hardly with the Biters then-but with all the fighting, I couldn't get to the troopers and I hid underground.'
'And what about the incident in the forest when we gave you the beacon? Or did you again just happen to be near the Biters? One of our men said that it looked like they had you in their custody.'
Alice saw that Appleseed was not going to be so easily convinced.
'Biters can hardly take anyone in their custody. They tried to get me in the forest and I was fighting them off when your men arrived. It was all so chaotic that someone must have mistakenly believed the Biters had captured me. I was scared and in the middle of so many Biters that I just dove into one of the openings in the ground. It seemed to lead into one of their bases and I hid there, waiting for you guys to get me.'
Dewan nodded at Appleseed and whispered that he had indeed seen her fighting Biters when he first saw her. The General just grunted as Alice continued her tale about how she had been deep underground escaping the Biters when the rescue mission was mounted. As she talked, she noticed that the General seemed to be relaxing a bit as he clearly got pieces of information that he deemed useful, such as the exact location of the tunnels near the old Yamuna river, and more than once he whispered to Dewan to get sorties out over the areas to check them out for any sign of Biters. Finally he closed the writing pad in front of him and asked Dewan to go and check if the helicopter to fly Alice back had been arranged.
As Dewan left the room, Appleseed was again right beside Alice, the photo in his hand.
'Alice, in my time I've interrogated many men and women, and I know that you're keeping something from me.'
He reached over and gripped Alice's knee hard, and then Alice felt his hand moving up her leg.
'In my time, we had many ways of persuading young, attractive women like you to co-operate.'
Alice cringed as the General's hand moved higher and then on instinct, she grabbed his hand with her left hand, and just as her instructors had taught her, she twisted it and brought her right palm hard against the flat of his hand. Appleseed's hand snapped back and he howled in pain as Alice stood up, ready to fight. The General towered over her and outweighed her by a big margin, but Alice's parents had not brought her up to give in so easily. She would go down fighting if need be. Appleseed was holding his wrist and his face was red.
'I should have known better than to reason with a wild girl from the Deadland like you. Savages like you aren't fit to be with humans any more. The days of isolated settlements are going to be a thing of the past-and you need to learn how to live in human society again.'
Alice spat on the ground, knowing that there was no need to waste her effort on being polite any more.
'So that we can be slaves to you and your masters, whoever they are? Is the war against the Biters your mission or is that an excuse to get power?'
Appleseed smiled.
'The woman whose photo I showed you is a known traitor and a Biter sympathizer. We know that she lives among them and claims to be some sort of leader. We don't let that information get out because we don't want anyone to know that the Biters can be lived with after all. She is a traitor and the Central Committee has already condemned her to death. Anyone collaborating with her is also a traitor.'
Alice didn't flinch at the threat.
'I have no idea who she is, but it looks like you are the ones who are keeping secrets. How would your men feel if they knew that the Biters could actually coexist with us, and that your war is based on lies.'
Alice regretted what she said next a second after the words left her mouth, but she was angry and wanted to lash out, to see Appleseed on the defensive.
'I cannot read fast, but I can read, and in the rooms below, I saw papers that I had lots of time to read. Papers that talked about experiments done before The Rising, about how the Great Fires were wars waged by elements in human governments to get power, about how people could have been vaccinated if your masters wanted to.'
Appleseed looked as if he had been punched in the gut, but then he smiled, not a smile born out of good humor, but that of a predator looking at a helpless prey.
'Your friend Dr. Protima had tried to reach out to her associates in the early days, telling them such stories and I personally had the pleasure of breaking many of them. I never got her but I managed to stamp out these lies. My masters have been working for years to create a new Earth, one where there is no overpopulation, no poverty, no weakness. They selected those who were to be vaccinated and we would have repopulated our cities and started afresh. The spread of the infection and the way it mutated surprised us, but we would have achieved what we wanted long ago by wiping out those critters had it not been for that stubborn hag.'
Alice was suddenly very afraid. There was only one reason Appleseed could be sharing all this so openly-if he had no fear that she could give away these secrets. He loomed over her.
'And you, my dear, a wild girl from an inconsequential settlement, ruled by that delusional, idealistic father of yours. Do you think you can come in the way of the vision of the most powerful men in the world? The Central Committee is based in China, but unlike what your father believes, it's not just the Chinese. Elements of the Chinese government of old are there, together with the richest and most powerful bankers and politicians of the Old World. You are like an insect before their vision for a New World.'
He heard the door open as Dewan came back and he leaned close and whispered.
'Be careful, my dear. Accidents are known to happen all the time in the Deadland where you live.'
Alice walked to the helicopter, numb with fear and dreading what was to follow. A part of her had wanted to believe that the Queen's rants and prophecies were nothing more than the product of a delusional mind. She had wanted nothing more than to forget about all that she had seen and heard while she had been among the Biters and to get on with her life. To have Appleseed so casually admit that it was all true chilled her. There was of course the realization that perhaps everything the Queen had said had been true after all, and that perhaps the Biters were not the only, or even the most dangerous enemies ordinary people like Alice and her family had to fear. As the helicopter took off, she saw Appleseed standing on the flight line, waving to her.
Her first thought was that she would go and tell her father everything. She didn't know if he would believe her, but she was sure that he would have some ideas on what to do. After all, what could she do alone against someone like Appleseed, his masters, and all the force Zeus could bring to bear? Between the hordes of Biters who regarded every human with fear and hatred and Zeus, what chance did she have alone?
Then an even greater fear gripped her. Appleseed had known who her father was. He would know that she would likely go and tell him everything. She suddenly felt very afraid for what the coming days were going to bring for her and her settlement.