'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.
'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.
Finally, he got up and looked at Alice with a look of triumph.
'It's done! And this time I waited to see if there were any responses so I could be sure somebody is reading our posts.'
Alice froze.
'You waited! You know they'll be coming soon. Let's get out of here.'
Nikhil persisted and handed her the tablet.
'Look at this.'
Knowing that this war was going to be fought and won as much with words as with bullets, Alice had finally got around to asking her mother to teach her to read and had been brushing up her reading skills. There was only one reply to Nikhil's post and it was short enough for it to not tax her reading skills much. A Zeus trooper had posted.
'So that's why the Red Guards are all over the place nowadays.'
Alice knew that whoever had replied to the post would likely get into a lot of trouble, but it was a small yet significant sign-their messages were getting through to the Zeus troopers and they were beginning to create some doubts in their minds. As Nikhil turned off the tablet and put it in his backpack, Alice heard the dull roar of approaching helicopters.
'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
