Alice in Deadland

'Colonel…'

'Just call me Amit.'

'Ok, Amit. There's a lot going on here that you need to know about. I don't know where to start, it all sounds crazy.'

Dewan laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He was very different from her father-he was shorter, built much broader and had a much squarer face but his eyes had the same kindness in them. Alice found it easy to be relaxed in his company as he spoke.

'Alice, I was a newly commissioned officer in the Indian Army. I had a girl I was going to propose to. I had a career to look ahead to. Then one day, my life and my world collapsed around me, and I found myself fighting for survival. I hid in the Deadland for months, surviving off the land, using my special forces training in a way I had never imagined before, fighting Biters and human scavengers alike, till I was picked up by a Zeus helicopter. They were the first promise of stability and safety in this crazy new world, and I signed up without a second thought. Since then, my life has had one purpose-to fight the monsters who had caused so much loss and to help the humans still in the Deadland. I never doubted anything I was doing, till now. So compared to what I have seen and been through, nothing you tell or show me can be too crazy for me to handle.'

Alice was about to begin when a shadow moved in front of her and she gasped. It was Bunny Ears, standing there looking at her, as if wondering why she was with a Zeus trooper inside the base.

'Holy Shit!'

Dewan was on his feet and was about to bring his rifle up. Bunny Ears, startled by the move, had bared his teeth and was hissing when Alice grabbed Dewan's hands.

'Amit, no! Please don't shoot!'

'But, this is…'

Alice looked at him, pleading with him.

'Just believe me for a minute and come further down. You'll see for yourself everything that I've discovered and the real reason behind why Appleseed suddenly wants me and my friends dead.'

Dewan seemed to be struggling with himself for some time. All his training and experience were telling him to open fire, yet he wanted to trust Alice. When Alice let go of his hands, she saw him look at her but then quickly shift his gaze to Bunny Ears.

'Alice, if you were a terrorist and you wanted me dead, I wouldn't be alive now. So I will trust you-but not this….thing. Any sudden move and I blow his head off.'

Bunny Ears growled as Dewan looked at him defiantly and an uneasy truce having been established between them, the three of them walked down the narrow path deeper into the base. When they entered the hall where the humans were sheltering, Alice heard several weapons being raised and cocked at the sight of a Zeus trooper in uniform. Alice stepped in front of Dewan.

'Please, he's a friend. He can help us.'

Everyone listened to Alice, but if looks could kill, Dewan would have been dead within a few paces with everyone in the room looking at him with undisguised hostility and contempt. Alice took him straight to the Queen's room, and apparently having heard of the arrival of a guest, she was dressed for the occasion, wearing her dark glasses and gloves and with a shawl covering her body. One glance at her and something clicked in Dewan's head and he took out his palmtop device.

'Let me guess. I am a wanted terrorist in your system, am I not?'

He looked sheepishly at the Queen who smiled, showing reddish teeth that caused Dewan to blanch as he began to wonder who or what he was dealing with. Alice asked him to sit and told the Queen about how he had helped her earlier, and then looked at Dewan.

'Amit, please listen to what she has to say and read the documents she has. That's all I ask of you-just listen to it all first before you say anything.'

Dewan sat impassively as the Queen took him through her tale, complete with all the documents she had and topped off with her revealing her true nature. Alice saw that Dewan didn't seem fazed at all by everything he saw. If anything, he seemed lost in thought, almost as if his mind were somewhere else. When the Queen finished, all eyes were on Dewan, waiting to see what his reaction would be. He got up and let his breath out in an audible sigh and then buried his face in his hands. Alice was worried that he was losing it and started to walk towards him, but he held out a palm, motioning for her to stop. When he finally spoke, it was in a tone that was barely a whisper.

'When people are scared enough, they begin to accept any form of tyranny because unquestioning obedience to unknown masters is better than facing known dangers.'

Alice sensed that Dewan needed to talk, so she stepped back as Dewan continued, talking more to himself than to anyone in the room.

'In all these years, I never asked who we served. All I heard was that the Central Committee had been set up in China and was overseeing all rehabilitation efforts, but I never asked who they were. I met my senior officers once in a while, and the only order they gave was simple-exterminate the Biters and bring more humans in the Deadland into settlements regulated by the Central Committee. When settlements refused to sign up, we were somehow assigned other duties, and we saw Red Guards from China who were flown in and kept in isolated camps on our bases, but we never asked why they had to come in.'

He stopped, and then looked at Alice, and she saw the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

'I saw thousands of people flown to China to be resettled. There were always rumors that they were being taken to slave camps, but I always ignored the stories, convincing myself that these were just conspiracy theories. You know the funny thing about everything you've shown me?'

Alice watched the Colonel come to grips with himself as he continued.

'The funny thing is that I and perhaps many other officers guessed that there was something going on, that this mysterious Central Committee was not just doing things out of the goodness of it's heart, that we were serving masters whose agendas were not always transparent. But we had seen how chaotic and fickle life was in the Deadland, with no authority or government, and we chose to close our eyes and hang on to the illusion that we were fighting a just war. But what you've showed me goes so far beyond just today's reality-this could change everything!'

The Queen had been watching Dewan and now she came closer.

'Colonel, we need your help. We know we cannot survive a war against the Central Committee forever, but we need someone in the administration to help get the truth out. Is there someone in power we could reach out to?'

Dewan shook his head.

'I don't know and with Appleseed now so involved in the operations, I don't know whom to trust. As I said, I've never even seen anyone on the Central Committee, but you don't need to reach the top to get your message across.'

'What do you mean?'

Dewan looked at Alice as he answered her.

'We start at the bottom-with the common troops, young boys and girls from settlements like yours who form the backbone of Zeus here. That's where we get this thing started.'

NINE

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.