The Messenger window on his screen beeped and he saw that he was being called for a debriefing to Appleseed's office. When he reached there a few minutes later, he was surprised to see Appleseed sitting with a Chinese General whom he had never met before. The slight man was wearing his cap even indoors, and as he stood, Dewan saw the red star emblazoned on his it. Dewan saluted and the man returned his salute.
'At ease, Colonel. I am General Chen from the Central Committee. I flew down from Shanghai last night to meet you for myself.'
Dewan was instantly on guard.
'Sir, I would have been available anytime for a call. I'm sorry you had to travel so far on my account.'
Chen smiled, his thin lips pursed back, and Dewan realized that he was looking at a man who could be very dangerous.
'Colonel, you have had a number of brushes with the Biters recently, and you brought in this counter-revolutionary, this girl Alice. We have spoken to some of your men and it seems you had recaptured her when they last saw you.'
Dewan tried not to betray the fear he felt.
'Sir, I had her but when I was bringing her in, I was ambushed by a force of her supporters and I lost her.'
Chen looked at him for several seconds before turning his back to Dewan.
'Yes, Colonel, and it seems you lost much of your kit including your service tablet.'
'Yes, Sir. One of them grabbed my backpack and pulled it off.'
Chen was picking something off the desk and when he turned to face Dewan, he was carrying a tablet in his hand. He powered it on and tapped the Browser. When it opened up, Dewan saw a new post on the Intranet Board used by Zeus. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the headline.
What is the real truth behind The Rising? Read more to find out.
'Colonel, this was posted last evening. We triangulated the location to somewhere deep in the Deadland, but of course nobody was there when a squad got there.'
When Dewan replied truthfully that he had not seen the post, Chen smiled.
'Of course you did not. It was up for only five minutes before we removed it and locked your account from which it was posted. That won't stop whoever did it from creating new accounts and posting again, but it does make you wonder. Biters cannot use tablets, but their terrorist human collaborators can. Counter revolutionaries like this Alice of yours.'
The last two words caught Dewan totally off guard and he realized he was walking a razor's edge and that anything he said could land him in serious danger.
'Sir, I have devoted the last fourteen years to serving the cause we all fight for, and I want to help in any way I can.'
Chen dismissed him and told him that he could go and rejoin his unit.
'Colonel, I may take you up on that offer someday.'
Dewan reached his desk, his heart pounding. He knew his story was wafer thin, and the fact that Chen was here showed just how a serious a threat the Central Committee saw the situation as. Media and what had been recreated of the Internet was strictly regulated, and nobody had really complained, once again trading off democracy for security. But for the first time ever, that tightly controlled information flow had been breached.
A few minutes later, he went to the cafeteria to have dinner and saw several troopers there. He sat down next to a few young recruits and while they quickly shut up when he sat, he could see that they had been in the middle of an animated conversation.
'So guys, what were you talking about?'
One of the troopers looked around, as if seeking support from his comrades and then looked at Dewan.
'Sir, it's nothing, just some stupid rumors some of the guys had seen.'
Dewan had always been well liked by his men, not least because he was always accessible and was someone they could count on to help. Many of his men had been mere boys who had been picked up from the Deadland, and Dewan had trained them and in many cases, saved their lives in combat. He looked at a young trooper he knew well.
'Satish, what are these rumors?'
The young trooper seemed to be struggling with how to say what was on his mind.
'Sir, it seems someone hacked into your account and posted some stuff about The Rising last night. A few of the guys happened to read it, and have been telling all sorts of wild stories.'
Dewan had to stop himself from smiling.
'I heard some bastards hacked my account. What did they post?'
Another trooper spoke, seemingly hesitant to even say the words out loud.
'Something about The Rising having been caused by human governments and about how China was behind so much of it.'
Another trooper, now more confident since the subject had been broached, spoke up.
'I also heard that it mentioned something about what all the folks from the Deadland were doing in the colonies being set up for them. Something about them being little more than slave labor. Sir, they may all be lies for all I know, but why would someone suddenly make up such lies and post them on our boards?'
He quickly shut up when a whole squad of Red Guards came into the cafeteria and sat at an adjoining table, and they continued their meal in silence but Dewan, despite the fear he had felt while meeting Chen, was exulting inside.
His plan was beginning to work. Now it was all up to Alice and her group to take it forward. With Chen and his Red Guards here in force, he knew they would hardly have it easy.
***
'Nikhil, hurry up!'
Alice was gnashing her teeth in frustration at the time Nikhil was taking to upload his latest post. She scarcely understood the technology involved in it all, but she knew that the Red Guards would know within minutes where the post had been uploaded from and would be sending troopers their way. So far, in the last week they had uploaded two posts. In both cases, they had ventured far from their base, making an overnight journey through the forests, uploaded the posts and then made their way back. Alice had no idea if anyone had even read the posts or what impact they were having, but Nikhil was sure that the Central Committee would be trying it's best to delete or block the posts. Nikhil was over fifty and quite unlike most of the other men at the settlement. He was slightly built, and wore broken glasses that were crudely held together by adhesive tape. Before The Rising, he had claimed to be a blogger, though many of the older folks said he had been a hacker. Alice didn't really know what those words meant, but she knew that he was able to use the tablet Dewan had left behind and was willing to make the dangerous journey with her through the forest.
To minimize their chances of detection, only the two of them had ventured out. While that made for better stealth, it also meant that if they ran into trouble, their chances of survival were low. Alice was armed to the teeth, with her handgun, knife and an automatic weapon that they had salvaged from a Zeus trooper. But while Nikhil carried a handgun, she was not sure he even knew how to use it properly. To make things worse, he had been sitting hunched over the tablet for the last fifteen minutes, whispering something about firewalls. The post he was uploading was one that was a detailed first person account of Appleseed's role in the destruction of their settlement, based on Alice's story. It was a risk to personally identify her, but they had reasoned that putting a face to the messages would make it more believable than them being from anonymous posters. Also, with Alice supposedly a wanted terrorist, this would help sow doubts in the minds of Zeus troopers about who the real bad guys were.