'Stop!'
Her warning was too late as a rifle barked and Alice saw the boy next to her fall. He screamed once and then was silent.
'They're in front of us!'
Alice had her group scatter for cover behind trees, but now she knew the awful truth. Zeus had not just been flying in reinforcements but they were using the mobility of their helicopters to flank Alice and her group. Now Alice had Zeus troopers on both sides of her, closing in on her position. She raised her rifle and fired at the nearest shadow, but could not be sure if she hit anything. The Zeus troopers, with their night vision scopes, had no such disadvantages. Two bullets slammed into the tree trunk inches from her face, showering her with splinters as she screamed and took cover, bleeding from her right cheek. Gunshots were ringing out all around her and now she had totally lost control of her situation. They were no longer a cohesive unit, but just eight or nine scared individuals in the dark against a larger number of heavily armed troopers.
She heard one of her friends scream in agony, and then something snapped inside Alice. Her life had been tough enough, but at least she had known a loving family, known the comfort that came from living among people who cared about each other. She was not going to have all of that taken away in one night because of the greed and cruelty of some men. She saw a large group of Zeus troopers emerge in front of her, and she took out her last remaining flash bang grenade and rolled it towards them, closing her eyes as it exploded, temporarily blinding the Zeus troopers.
She slung her rifle across her back and took her handgun in her right hand and her knife in her left and emerged from the shadows towards the Zeus troopers, running towards them at full tilt. The first trooper she encountered was one who was still rubbing his eyes to clear them. She fired two rounds, aiming for the face, knowing that the troopers wore body armor that would fend off small arms fire. As the trooper went down, she placed her right hand on his back, vaulting over him and coming up in a crouch as she brought her knife up into another trooper's leg. As he grabbed his leg and screamed, she stood up and fired into his face. Another trooper behind her was trying to raise his rifle when one of her friends shot him.
Alice jumped into the trees, leaving the disoriented Zeus troopers behind. She saw fleeing shadows and knew that she had bought enough time for her friends to get away, but now she was alone in the dark and surrounded by enemy troopers. She heard Appleseed shout.
'You little blond witch, come on out and I may still let you surrender. Don't make us hunt you down, because then it won't be pretty when we're finished with you.'
Alice tried to force herself to stay calm, but it felt like her breathing was so loud that it could be heard across the entire forest. She pressed herself flat against a tree, and could hear Zeus troopers move all around her. It was just a matter of time before one of them looked in her direction through his night vision scope and the game would be up. She thought of climbing up the tree she was near but froze when she heard footsteps near her. There was a Zeus trooper on the other side of the tree, and she heard him unzip his trousers as he relieved himself. She stifled an urge to laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation, and waited till he moved on.
She peered around to see if the coast was clear and then moved slowly behind another tree. It was excruciatingly slow progress, moving from one tree to another, but at least she was moving closer to where her friends would be. The one thing she hoped was that they did not try and rescue her-that would be sure suicide with the odds against them. She stepped on a branch and the cracking noise made her cringe but when she heard no response from the troopers she moved on. And then she found herself face to face with a grinning trooper. The man was at least twice as broad as Alice and towered over her. In the dark, she saw the whites of his teeth as he grinned. It was the first time she got a close look at the troopers they were fighting and she realized that he looked very different from the brown skinned people of what had been known as India in the Old Days or even white-skinned people like herself. This trooper had narrow, slanted eyes and spoke with a strange accent. He must have been one of the Red Guards that people spoke of.
'Hello, darling. While the others get here maybe we could have some fun.'
As he reached out to grab her, his fatal mistake was that he saw a young girl alone in a forest, not a trained killer who had shot her first Biter when she was ten years old. Alice caught his wrist in a lock, snapping it back till she heard a popping noise, and as the man gasped in pain, she broke his nose with a back-handed strike with the thick ivory handle of her knife. She was tempted to shoot him, but that would have caused too much noise, so she stepped beyond the sputtering, sobbing man and went to the next tree.
That was when she felt a searing pain in her left shoulder and a split-second later heard the boom of a gunshot. Alice was lifted off the ground by the impact and fell hard against the tree, the wind totally knocked out of her. She felt for her left shoulder and her right palm came back covered with blood. She didn't know if it was a flesh wound or if the bullet had gone inside, but either way, she knew that unless she moved fast, she would lose too much blood and be too weak to continue. As she started to get up, a bullet smacked into the tree above her head and she flattened herself, feeling for the handgun at her belt. She pulled it out and readied herself, just hoping that she got a chance to take a few of the troopers with her.
She saw approaching shadows, wearing the unmistakable bulky body armor of Zeus troopers and carrying assault rifles. They were laughing and joking, no doubt thinking that they had killed her. Just then a large shadow leaped out from behind a tree and snapped the neck of one of the troopers. As the others turned to contend with their unseen attacker, two more shadows jumped on them and beat them to the ground, smashing their heads with their bare hands. The two remaining troopers turned to run, but the large shadow grabbed them and bashed their heads together, tossing them aside like rag dolls. As the three shadows walked closer, Alice got a better look at them. The large figure was the huge Biter who wore the floppy hat. He just stood there glaring at Alice and then slowly extended an arm with a grunt.
Alice took it, realizing that when all had seemed lost, help had come from the most unexpected quarter.
EIGHT
Alice opened her eyes and barely able to speak with her parched throat, asked for water. Someone poured some cool water on her lips that she lapped up gratefully, and then lay her head down again, slipping once more into unconsciousness. She had no idea how long she had been out, and where she was, but the one thing she remembered were the dreams she had. Dreams of Appleseed burning her home, of strange slant-eyed men in black uniforms chasing her, and dreams of her father telling her that she must live.
When she finally awoke, she found her mother by her side. Her mother, always on the thin side, looked gaunt and haggard with her hair in a mess and cheeks that were stained with tears.
'Alice! Thank God you're ok.'
Alice managed to sit up and fell into her mother's arms.
'Mom, what happened?'
She learnt that she had passed out from blood loss from her wound, and had been carried back to the underground base where the Queen had led the survivors from the settlement. As she heard her mother's story, she learnt that the Queen had not abandoned them at all. Far from it, she may have saved all their lives. She had appeared in the forest and led the humans to an underground passage where they had been sheltering for the last three days, and had sent out some Biters to fetch Alice and any other survivors from the small band that had tried to hold off the Zeus troopers. Alice got up and walked around a bit with her mother's help and saw the large underground hall where all the humans were sheltered. They were huddled together in small groups and as Alice walked in, all of them stood up. They looked filthy, had not eaten a single decent meal or taken a bath in three days, but every single one of them smiled. Many held out their hands to shake hers when she passed and some of them hugged her. Alice's father may have appointed her to lead them, but her actions in the forest had earned her not just their leadership, but something more than that. She had earned their trust.