Alice looked towards the open door at the far end of the large hall and saw several Biters standing there. Bunny Ears was there, as was Hatter, and they all seemed to be just standing there, watching her. It was a curious dynamic-the humans knew that they owed their lives to the Biters and their Queen, and the Biters knew that Alice was somehow the key to their salvation, so they had to obey their Queen. Yet, both groups seemed to almost shrink from each other. Years of mutual hatred and fear could not be undone in a few days.
The Queen emerged from behind the Biters and watched as Alice made her way towards her. Now that her true self had been revealed to all the humans, she no longer bothered wearing her glasses or gloves, but stood there as she was. Just a few days ago, the humans would have considered it impossible to be in such a confined space with Biters without the two groups bent on mutual annihilation, but they had come to realize that the world was not quite what they had been taught to believe.
The Queen looked at Alice's bandaged wounds and then at her.
'I'm glad to see you have recovered. Thank you for the sacrifices you have all made.'
Alice suddenly remembered her father and the others who had been lost and struggled to keep her composure, leaning against her mother, looking more like a frail, lost young girl than the leader the humans took her to be.
'Alice, I know you have had a very tough time, but we do need to talk. Please come to my room as soon as you can.'
A few minutes later, Alice was in front of the Queen and the dilemma that was weighing on the Queen's mind was clear.
She could easily shelter more than a hundred humans in her underground lair, but she had no way of feeding them or getting them drinking water.
'We don't need any food or water, Alice, but you do. I cannot send my folks out to get it-they won't even understand what to get.'
Alice thought back to the years of scavenging, hunting, baking homemade bread, looking for wild fruits and berries and when they stayed in a place long enough, the occasional attempts at farming. With Zeus no doubt looking for them, there was no way such a large group could go out and look for food, so a smaller group would have to go out and forage for food and water. Alice immediately set about explaining the task, and after all they had been through together, she was not surprised when several dozen hands went up when she asked for four volunteers to scout the nearby area for food or water. She picked four of them, all young boys, all known to be fast and to have had at least some combat experience. She asked them to wait and went to the corner where her mother and sister were sitting to gather her weapons. Her mother held her hand tight.
'Alice, you must be crazy to head out in the state you're in! You've barely recovered.'
Alice looked at her mother, and gently removed her hand.
'Mom, I cannot ask any of them to head out if I'm not willing to go myself. Don't worry, I'll be careful.'
When they stepped out of the hidden entrance to the base, Alice saw that the Queen had chosen well. The entrance to the base was hidden among some old construction pipes. From even fifty meters away, nobody would guess what lay under the ground. Alice was carrying only her handgun and knife, and the boys with her were similarly armed. They planned to travel light, since the last thing they wanted to do was to get in a fight. They moved in the woods, and Alice kept her ears pricked, not just for any Zeus troopers but also for the sound of water. She knew that there was a stream nearby, and that was their best bet to get water. After just a few minutes of scouting, she heard something, and walked towards the source of the sound.
'Water!'
The boys were by her side in seconds, and they looked on with wide grins at the water flowing slowly in front of them. Three of the boys were carrying bottles tied around their waists and filled them one by one. It would hardly be enough for all the people with them, but it was a start, and Alice planned to get a larger group out to fetch more water once they knew the area was secure. Next they picked some of the nearby trees clean of berries and fruits and when they went back, they received a heroes' welcome. The meal they shared that night was frugal by any standards, but they were all smiling, and in their eyes Alice saw the glimmer of something she had though had been lost with the ashes of their settlement-hope.
So when the Queen came to visit them, Alice was understandably in good spirits. The Queen sat down in front of her.
'We cannot keep going like this forever. Now that Zeus and their masters are onto us, sooner or later they will crush us.'
Alice was a bit surprised at this frank admission of defeat.
'You were the one who wanted to fight them.'
The Queen looked at her with her lifeless, red eyes.
'Yes, but we cannot simply win in an armed conflict. That's why I so looked forward to you-a human who could help get our message and the vaccine into the right hands. They way I am, nobody would believe me.'
Alice's mother chipped in.
'You've seen what Zeus is capable of. Who could we possibly reach out to?'
'Mrs. Gladwell, of course I know many of the senior officers in Zeus are a part of the conspiracy, but do you really believe every foot soldier is? Most of them are not very different from what you were till a few days ago-scared humans from the Deadland who really believe the Biters are monsters out to exterminate them. Even at senior levels, there must be some people who also don't know the full truth. Such a conspiracy could not have involved everyone in the chain of command.'
As Alice went to sleep, she thought over the Queen's words. Was it really possible that there were men in power out there who were not part of the conspiracy? Was there hope after all?
***
A few days later, Alice and two others were on a scouting mission a few kilometers away from the base. Alice was beginning to appreciate just how difficult and complicated managing logistics was. Feeding close to two hundred mouths required a lot of supplies, and they had to ensure that there were sources of food close by. She caught a glimpse of Hatter through the bush, and she knew the Queen had sent some of her Biters out to ensure that Zeus troopers were not nearby. There was still no real possibility of the humans and Biters co-operating in any organized way. The humans would likely listen to Alice if she told them that they were to work together with the Biters on their missions, but the Biters only seemed to take their orders from the Queen, and Alice did not want to risk them turning on the humans with them if they did get into a fight.
After a few minutes, Alice found a stream and asked the others to go back while she freshened up and followed them. She knelt by the water, and splashed the cool water on her face. She looked at her reflection in the water, and perhaps she was imagining it, but she looked different from what she had remembered. The old Alice always had a mischievous smile on her face, always looking to play jokes and pranks on the others in the settlement. A pixie, her father had once lovingly called her. The Alice that looked back at her had a harder face, with eyes that seemed more focused, yet much colder.