Hunting The Snark: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No. 4) (3 page)

Aaron and his family were herded into a FEMA camp, where he
saw his son die of disease. His wife committed suicide soon after, and Aaron
vowed vengeance upon the evil men who had done this to so many Americans.

He got his chance when he escaped and joined up with a small
band of resistance fighters led by Konrath. When Konrath heard of Aaron’s
background, he had an idea—using his skills and experience for more than
firefights with Zeus. Aaron signed up for the Zeus army and soon, with his
credentials and experience, he caught the eyes of his superiors. Over the
years, he rose in the Zeus hierarchy, but kept alive his role as a double
agent, sending intelligence to General Konrath when he could. Over the course
of the past month, he had moved to a new role, as part of the security detail
for the President of Homeland Operations, and now Konrath had given him a
mission that would fully take advantage of this.

Sam King took a quick drink from the glass of Scotch on his
table as he prepared for the videoconference with the Executive Committee. Sam
was the President of Homeland Operations, and had the unenviable task of
managing security, food and resources throughout the US Homeland across the
three dozen FEMA camps he oversaw, in addition to coordinating
counter-insurgency efforts with Zeus. He had been a senior executive at a large
bank before The Rising, and one of his mentors, a CEO at an investment bank,
had introduced him to the Executive Committee. Sam had been thrilled at rubbing
shoulders with the world’s richest and most powerful men—bankers, royalty and
media moguls who shared a vision—to depopulate the world based on their
projections that the planet’s resources of oil and food would never sustain the
growing population. They believed the optimum population was no more than five
hundred million.

Sam took another drink, reflecting on how that plan, like
most plans, hadn’t quite worked out the way it should have. Instead of
‘depopulation’, vast numbers of people had turned into Biters as the virus the
Executive Committee had unleashed mutated, and the resulting nightmare was
something they were still trying to manage. Sam’s employers hadn’t quite given
up—and they had announced a new twenty-year plan to kill off or contain the
Biters and get the remaining human population under control. Sam had been
through too much and seen too much to have a sudden attack of conscience, but
at times he wondered if they had gone too far. It was late for him to turn back
now, not just for himself, but for his family, who were fortunate enough to
live in the estate near the Cheyenne Mountains where the Executive Committee’s
members and key shareholders lived in luxury—people who had paid up to a
billion dollars each to be a part of this new world order.

The screen in front of him came to life, and the former
billionaire banker who wanted to be known only as the Baron addressed him.

‘Sam, you saw my note. Congratulations on your promotion and
taking on International Operations as well.’

Sam smiled, but he knew that the golden goblet he had been
handed was a poisoned chalice. The President of International Operations was now
rotting at a FEMA camp with his family after both the Indian Deadland and the
Mainland had been lost on his watch. His employers could lavish praise and
gifts when he delivered, but failure met with instant and brutal punishment.

‘Baron, as you outlined, we have our plan in place to
restore food supplies from the Deadland. The message to their leaders has gone
out and I expect compliance after Shanghai.’

The old man on the screen smiled. ‘The shareholders are
getting restive. The Sauds in particular are having another of their royal
fits. Our food stocks are down to three months, as you well know, and with the
insurgency in the Homeland still active and the Biters not yet contained, what
scarce farmland we have here is still insecure. The Deadland fed us for years
and we will need to re-establish control over the farms there. I do hope you
remember that the shareholders will vote on our top management positions next
month in time for your appraisal. It would be good to have some concrete
progress till then.’

As the line was disconnected, Sam poured himself another
drink and closed his eyes. He needed to show some progress and while the Baron
had issued the threat to the freak girl running the Deadland, it was up to Sam
to back up that threat. He jotted on his pad for a few minutes and then went to
the restroom.

Aaron came into the room a minute later and, as was his
daily duty, gathered up Sam’s things for the ride back home. He took a quick
glance at the notepad, committing to memory all he saw there to pass on to
General Konrath.

***

‘Who or what the hell is a Snark?’

Arjun’s question was one to which nobody at the Looking
Glass had an answer. Earlier in the day, Konrath had got back with information about
the Executive Committee’s plan, but it was so cryptic that there was no clarity
as to what it actually meant. What Aaron had seen was little more than
scribbles: the words ‘Deadland bastards’, ‘Send Snark’ and ‘Cape Canaveral’.

‘What we do know is Cape Canaveral, and if the key to the
threat to us lies there, then we are in deep trouble.’

Danish had been poring over a mail that had come from
Konrath’s people and as Alice asked him what it meant, he replied with his
voice betraying the helplessness he felt.

‘Cape Canaveral is located on an island off Florida. It was
a big Air Force station and also used to launch rockets into space. Konrath’s
spies tell him that the Executive Committee has secured the air base there, and
it may well be that they launched the rocket at Shanghai from there.’

‘So why doesn’t Konrath attack there? They have a few planes
operational, right?’

‘At last count they had four or five small planes that they
were using to roll bombs onto Zeus positions. Konrath sent one of them to
overfly Cape Canaveral and it was shot down by a missile before it got anywhere
near the base. So they just don’t have the resources to attack the place from
the air.’

‘Just go in and take them out. For God’s sake, Konrath has
got hundreds of experienced and well-armed fighters.’

Arjun’s impatience was showing and Alice could understand
why. They had all given so much and fought so hard to create their little piece
of home called Wonderland. While they had faced threats before, all had been
from enemies they could contend with on the field of battle. To be threatened
with obliteration from thousands of kilometers away was infuriating.

‘The General’s online now. Ask him yourself.’

Konrath’s face came on the screen, and Alice could see from
his expression that he had no good news to offer. Still, they needed answers.

‘General, why don’t your people try and attack this base at
Cape Canaveral?’

She knew she was asking Konrath to sacrifice his men and
women to help save Wonderland, but he owed her and the people of Wonderland a
lot. Her blood samples had led to the vaccine now helping survivors in the
Homeland. Konrath looked almost apologetic as he replied.

‘If we could, we would have already attacked. But we just
cannot.’

‘Why?’

Konrath shifted in his seat.

‘The area around the base is full of thousands of Biters.
Our plane spotted them before it was shot down. The Executive Committee has
kept a buffer zone around the base with electrified fences and automated gun
turrets to keep them out, but the area outside that is wild—there are Biters
everywhere, and there is no way my folks could get anywhere close to the base.’

‘There must be a way…’

No sooner had the words left Alice’s mouth that she knew
what she had to do.

‘General, you’ve been asking me to come to the Homeland.
Maybe it’s time I did so.’

Konrath nodded, but Arjun protested. ‘You’ll be going into
the heart of our enemy. The Executive Committee will do anything to destroy you
once it knows you’re there, and you won’t have all of us with you there.’

Alice touched Arjun’s hand, a very human gesture despite her
cold, clammy touch. ‘You know that I can control the Biters. We’ve managed to
stop the bloodshed between humans and Biters here in Wonderland. Maybe it is
time I tried that in the Homeland—and if I succeed, we can remove this threat
to our home once and for all.’

‘But what will you do there?’

Alice answered with her usual disarming honesty.

‘I don’t really know how to do it, but I need to find out
who this Snark is and kill him or her.’

He looked at Konrath, and to his surprise, the old writer
looked almost forlorn.

‘I know the terrible danger you would be putting yourself
in, but there may be no other way. With the destruction of Shanghai, the Zeus
forces there are all back here, and we are struggling to fight them. If they do
indeed have more nuclear weapons, I doubt they will destroy you since they need
your land for food, but is that a chance you would be willing to take? I know
you have given a lot and lost a lot, but one more time, you may need to put
yourself in harm’s way.’

Alice stood up and looked at her friends around her.

‘Send a message to the Executive Committee that we will
accept their proposal, but need a few weeks to organize people and reclaim
farmland from the Biters. Buy us some time while I get to the Homeland.’

Satish smiled, and replied that it was a good plan, but that
there was no way he was going to let Alice go alone.

‘Arjun’s needed here—after you, he’s the closest thing to a
leader here. As for me, all I know how to do is fight, and I reckon there’ll be
a lot of fighting needed where you’re headed. I’m coming with you.’

Alice didn’t want to get any of her friends in any more
danger than she needed to, but with all the battles they had fought together,
she knew Satish would not back down.

‘Fine, let’s prepare for our trip. General Konrath, can you
help arrange for the transportation?’

‘I’ll get on it right now.’

That evening, Alice sat in her room, wondering what the next
few days held in store for her. She had been born in a time when the nations of
old meant nothing, but she did know that her parents had come from the United
States, and had often told her and her sister stories of what life had been
like there. The world her parents had grown up in would never return, but
perhaps with all she had been through, there was one last twist of fate for
her.

It was time for Alice to go back to the land her parents had
once called home.

***

THREE

‘Ladies and gentlemen, don’t worry about your seatbelts
because I don’t have any on this bird. There will be no refreshments served and
no in-flight entertainment other than watching the ruins of the cities we pass
on the way to Kolkata. Other than that, I hope you enjoy your flight with
Hudson Air.’

Vince Hudson was grinning as he said the words but when he
looked back into the cabin of the helicopter, he saw that his humor was lost on
all but one of his passengers. Satish was smiling, but the joke meant nothing
to Alice, who had never been in an airliner. The third passenger just growled
when Vince caught his eye. Vince winked at the bunny-eared Biter and then
turned his attention back to flying the helicopter.

Six months ago, they had captured this chopper from Red
Guards when Vince had been on the run from a Red Guard prison camp along with
Doctor Edwards. His rescue by Alice and her friends had meant not just a new
lease of life for him, but also finally an opportunity to put his past training
as a US Marine pilot to some use. He had used this helicopter to ferry Edwards
along with Alice’s blood samples to Kolkata and then on a DC-3 to the US, a
route he was going to repeat today.

Alice sat in the back, looking down at the shattered
buildings that had once been the city of Agra. Before Alice had been born, this
had been a bustling city that attracted millions of tourists wanting to visit
the Taj Mahal. Now there was nothing for miles around the shattered ruins of
the Taj Mahal other than a giant crater. This was where a Pakistani tactical
nuclear missile had impacted in the madness following The Rising.

A growl sounded near her left ear and she laid a reassuring
hand on Bunny Ears’ shoulder. She could sense how agitated he was at flying
above the ground, and wondered how much her own nervousness showed. She had
been in a helicopter only once before—in a Red Guards chopper much like this
one—when she had been captured and taken to a Red Guard base to be tortured. Of
course, even that had been only a thirty-minute ride. She had never really left
the Deadland in all her life, and now she was headed to a foreign land, where
unknown dangers awaited her. She had grown up with an irrational fear and
hatred of Biters, seeing them as undead monsters, and that hatred still ran
rampant in what had been the United States.

Bunny Ears grunted back and she wondered, not for the first
time, how the virus that turned people into Biters made them aggressive and
territorial, like wild animals, yet sometimes left very human characteristics
intact. Traits like loyalty. When she had set out for the airfield along with
Satish to meet Vince, Bunny Ears had simply sat down in the Jeep.

Ever since she had first followed him down a hole in the
ground more than two years ago, the Bunny-Eared Biter seemed to have been an
integral part of her life. At first, he had been her captor, but once she had
transformed into her current self, he had been her most loyal follower, and
more than once had put himself in harm’s way to serve her. Now, he simply
assumed that he would come with her. She had tried telling him that there was
no need for him to come, and also that he would be putting himself in great
danger. Her arguments either didn’t register with him, or he just didn’t care,
because when the helicopter touched down, he wordlessly followed her in.