'Are you okay?'
The Queen smiled, a strange expression given her lifeless eyes.
'Alice, am I glad to see you alive. The prophecy…'
Before she could complete her sentence, the Biter on the ground jumped at Alice and sank his teeth into her leg. She screamed in agony and on reflex shot him in the head. She grabbed her bleeding leg and stared at the Queen in horror.
'Help me!'
The Queen seemed to flounder and then saw the vial around Alice's neck.
'We must use the vaccine now!'
The Queen wrenched the vial from Alice's neck and took out the syringe, pressing the needle deep into Alice's calf but was able to inject only half the contents before Alice spasmed and the needle came out, spraying some of the precious liquid on the floor. Alice felt a burning sensation spread from her legs to her entire body. Her hands were shaking and her vision was blurring. She tried to say something but it felt like there was a giant lump in her throat. The Queen lay Alice on her lap and took the vial and opened it, pouring the remaining contents down Alice's throat.
'Alice, my child. You cannot die or become just another Biter. The prophecy needs you to live, to bring an end to all this suffering.'
Alice felt the liquid flow down her throat and it felt as if her entire body were on fire. She saw the Queen glance up and then she pushed something into Alice's hand. Before Alice could say anything, she saw the Queen's head disappear in a spray of blood. As the Queen's body fell, she dropped Alice to the ground. Alice's head hit the ground hard and through the red mist that clouded her vision she saw someone approaching, a pistol in his hand. Alice screamed as her body spasmed time and again and then went still.
Appleseed had come back into the room, looking for the key card that he must have dropped in his struggle with Alice. He had only one hope now, to hide in the small panic room near the Command Center and hope that he was not discovered till Red Guard reinforcements arrived. When he entered the room, he saw that all the Biters were down but also noted with satisfaction that Alice was down as well. He had spotted the Biter Queen near Alice and had taken her head off with a single shot.
As he came closer, in the dim light he saw Alice's leg twitching and he put a bullet into it. Her leg jerked once and was then moved no more. Appleseed screamed at nobody in particular.
'I got you all, didn't I?'
He took out a small flashlight and began to search among the mangled bodies littering the floor for his key card. He could now hear footsteps on the roof, and he knew he had very limited time. His foot hit something and he looked down to see a charred book clutched in Alice's hand. He stopped, wondering why anyone would be carrying an old children's fairy tale into a battle.
'All that's left of your damn Wonderland is ashes.'
He began to move on when he felt a cold, clammy hand grip his feet. Appleseed froze with fear. One of the Biters was not yet destroyed. He spun around to face the threat when the door above him swing open and Satish and two other men ran in, rifles at the ready. Satish saw Appleseed and fired, grazing him on the shoulder. Appleseed fell to the ground, and his flashlight and pistol both fell from his hands. He clambered to his feet again, trying to find his weapon when cold hands gripped his wrist and twisted it till he screamed in agony as his bones snapped. He managed to free his hand and saw his pistol lying nearby but before he could grab it, he saw a hand reaching for it and raising it towards him in the darkness. Bullet after bullet tore into Appleseed as he fell, not knowing who or what had killed him.
EPILOGUE
'Comrade General, are you sure you want us to land at the forward base?'
Chen glared at the pilot next to him.
'Comrade Colonel, do I take it that your revolutionary fervor is waning in the face of the enemy?'
The pilot blanched and looked away, taking the helicopter into a slight turn as they approached the base near the Deadland. He knew that for all that had changed in the last six months, a mere insinuation from someone like Chen could send him and his family to a labor camp for indoctrination. That, he knew, was a death sentence in all but name.
Chen looked down at the parked APCs and the Red Guards milling about the base and wondered just how long they could keep any meaningful presence in the Deadland. Expressing such thoughts in front of his masters in the Central Committee would be unthinkable, but as a professional military man, he knew the momentum was against them. While he knew his career, and indeed his life, depended on unquestioning obedience to his masters, he also knew that when political masters refused to see battlefield realities, it usually meant that defeat was around the corner. It had begun with the events in the Deadland revolving around that damned Biter Queen and the girl called Alice. The rout of the Red Guard base and Appleseed's death was a minor tactical reverse, but the larger strategic ramifications of those events had been great. The large scale defections among Zeus had meant that the Central Committee had deemed that only frontline Red Guard units be used in the Deadland. That in turn had meant fewer troops for the continuing war in the Americas, where the enemy was making steady progress in its brutal insurgency campaign. But that was a military campaign-one Chen knew how to wage. What had happened in the Deadland was different, and more dangerous. An idea had been born-the idea that humans and Biters could somehow coexist and that the Central Committee and its masters were behind the catastrophe that had been The Rising. The idea that it was possible to start to recreate civilization without the control of the Central Committee and it's Red Guards. That idea had taken root throughout the Deadland and had begun to seep into the cities of the Mainland. That, Chen mused with a bitter smile, had perhaps less to do with ideology and more to do with the choking off of slave labor from the Deadland. When the citizens of Shanghai and Guangzhou were called on to work the farms, they realized the utopia the Central Committee had promised was not quite the same without slave labor from the Deadland to lubricate the wheels of their utopian society. A nascent campaign of resistance had begun, and many of the dangerous messages which had preceded The Rising-calls for freedom, democracy and accountability were once again whispered in the Mainland.
The helicopter landed and Chen stepped out, saluting the Red Guards outside who stood at attention. He singled out the commanding officer, a burly officer whose eyes seemed to be constantly scanning the horizon. Chen had read his dossier-the Major had never been in combat before, but had been a rising star back in Shanghai due to his political connections. The mere fact that officers like him were being shipped out to the Deadland to make up for losses among frontline troops was a clear sign of how the war was going.
'Comrade Major Liang, how is the war progressing?'
The Major snapped to attention, but Chen noticed that he seemed to be on edge.
'Sir, we are carrying on our struggle to liberate the citizens of the Deadland from the tyranny of fear that the Biters impose and the counter-revolutionary ideas of the terrorists.'
Chen smirked. The young officer no doubt had excelled in his political education back in Shanghai. He just wondered how long he would last out here. As Chen sat in the Command Center and was subjected to a briefing containing what he had little doubt were largely fictional figures of losses the unit had inflicted on the enemy, his mind began to wander. He had no wish to be out here, but the Central Committee had decreed that senior officers needed to visit forward bases to bolster morale and no doubt provide photo-ops which would reassure the people back home that things were under control.
He was snapped back to reality when they heard a sentry cry out on the radio.
'Multiple contacts coming in fast.'
Liang was instantly at his command screen where live video from a circling unmanned drone overhead was being streamed. The looting of man-portable SAMs from overrun Red Guard armories and experienced Zeus operators to use them had meant that several drones had been lost in the last few months. As a result, drones
