Mainak Dhar - Alice in Deadland

'Nikhil, come on! They'll be here any minute!'

The Sun had barely risen and Nikhil had timed his message to catch the attention of any Zeus trooper who was up but had some time to go before their morning drills. This was one among many details shared by Dewan which were helping them time their postings to coincide with downtimes for Zeus troopers when they were likely to be surfing on their tablets.

Alice and Nikhil were running into the trees when the first helicopter appeared over the horizon. Alice turned around and saw that there were two sleek gunships and a larger troop carrier. By the time the first Red Guards were on the ground, Alice and Nikhil were already more than a kilometer away, tearing through the forest as fast as they could run. From her previous run-in with the Red Guards, Alice knew that they would likely be trying to flank them and drive them into a trap, so instead of taking the path that led to the road which they needed to follow back to their base, they turned right, running through the forest till they came to a clearing. She could see the broken shells of old buildings. Nikhil had told her that once upon a time this had been a posh suburb and that some of the wooded areas they had run through had once been part of farmlands of the elite. That was a world that sounded totally alien to her, but she was happy for the cover the buildings would provide them. They ran into an old apartment building and rushed up the stairs. On the second floor, they stopped to see where their pursuers were, but saw no sign of them.

Alice relaxed a bit and took a look around her. For someone who had lived in the open for much of her life, it was hard to imagine living in these concrete shells, but then their occupants never had making an instant getaway as a priority. Perhaps if they had, they would have lived longer than they did during The Rising. The apartment was obviously abandoned and as they walked from one flat to another, they found little of use or interest, since they had been picked clean over the years. As Alice entered one flat, she saw something small lying in a corner. It was a small female figure with half burnt blonde hair.

'Nikhil, what is this?'

'Alice, that was a Barbie doll that girls used to play with.'

Alice flung the doll to one side, wondering how girls ever had enough spare time to sit and play with silly little figurines. She looked out the window and froze. There were a dozen or more Red Guards outside, their rifles at the ready, walking past the apartment. She motioned for Nikhil to get down as she continued watching the men outside. One of them was speaking into a handheld radio and as Alice looked up in the sky, she saw the faint outline of something black hovering above them. That must have been one of the drones Appleseed had mentioned, thought Alice, wondering if they had been spotted on their way into the apartment. Most of the Guards walked past and Alice was beginning to relax when one of them suddenly stopped and looked back at the apartment. Alice ducked down as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder, looked through the scope and casually fired a single round.

The bullet hit the wall just outside the window where Alice and Nikhil were sheltering, and they waited for a minute or more, hoping the Guard had moved on. Nikhil, tired of sitting on his haunches, started to get up to stretch when another bullet shattered the glass on the window. Nikhil dove to his right, and even without hearing the Red Guard's bellowed command to his men, Alice knew that the sudden movement had given them away. Alice was at the window in a split second, her rifle at the ready, and she fired at the first Red Guards approaching the apartment. Her bullets kicked up the dirt around them and she saw one of them fall before he was pulled behind cover by a comrade. Before she could find new targets, the other Guards opened fire on full automatic, shredding the window and showering her with glass. With the numbers so stacked against her, standing her ground and hoping to win the firefight was a losing cause.

She saw that Nikhil was crouched against the wall, and while his hands were gripping his gun, they were shaking uncontrollably. An idea came to her as she considered the odds against them.

'Nikhil, just point your gun out the window and fire down at them. You don't even have to aim, just stick it out and shoot once every few seconds and please don't get yourself killed.'

He offered her a wan smile, as she took her rifle and ran out of the flat and down the stairs. She could hear the pop of Nikhil's gun, immediately answered by an overwhelming volley of automatic weapon fire from the Red Guards. She rounded the corner on the corridor and climbed out an open window that had once served as a fire exit. She crouched on the narrow stairwell outside and saw the Guards, four of whom were now advancing from cover to cover while their comrades kept up a withering rate of fire at the window where Nikhil was hiding. She was almost behind the Red Guards and they had not yet spotted her. She selected single shot mode, not wanting to waste bullets and aimed carefully at the Guards advancing on the apartment. Her first shot took a Guard in the neck, killing him instantly. Before the others had realized what had happened, another was down. By the time the Guards spotted her and their officer, a tall and thin man, screamed orders to his men, a third Guard was down.

As Alice dove back into the corridor, bullets slammed into the stairwell where she had been seconds ago. There were still nine Guards left and while she had managed to give them a nasty surprise, the odds were still very much against them. She retreated back up the stairs and found Nikhil grinning.

'Did I hit anyone?'

Despite all the stress, she smiled.

'Nikhil, you should stick to that tablet thing of yours.'

As she peered out another window, she saw that the Guards were again advancing on the apartment, and she brought her rifle up, determined not to go down without a fight. Just then, a dark figure wearing a hat rushed out from the forest and picked up the nearest Red Guard, snapping his neck and tossing his body away. Several more Biters jumped out of the bushes, and Alice saw the Red Guard officer shoot one in the head before beginning to run towards the apartment. Taken by surprise and outnumbered, the Red Guards never stood much of a chance, and two or three more were killed before Alice saw Hatter stand up to his full height and scream. The other Biters took his cue and the remaining Red Guards were not killed but bitten. The Officer who had been running towards the apartment raised his rifle, aiming straight at Hatter, who was now lunging towards him. The Red Guard Officer was about to pull the trigger when a single bullet from Alice hit him in the neck and he went down. Hatter looked up with his expressionless, red eyes and saw Alice at the window.

Alice had never been so happy to see Biters before and as she and Nikhil came down, they saw that the four Guards who had been bitten were now twitching on the ground, as if suffering a violent fit, and then they sat up, all trace of humanity gone in their lifeless eyes, blood from the bites they had suffered streaming down their bodies. They looked at Alice and Nikhil and one of them hissed and started to move towards them when Hatter hit him hard and then barked something to them. Alice didn't understand what he said, but it was clear that they knew who was in charge because as they ran into the forest to get back to their base, the newly converted Biters made no move to attack them. Alice turned back after a few minutes of running to see Hatter and the other Biters following them. Some distance behind them were the new converts.

Alice smiled and Nikhil asked her what she found so funny about their near brush with death.

'When the Colonel talked about us turning Zeus troopers to our side, I'm guessing he didn't have this in mind.'