Through the Killing Glass (7 page)

Alice pulled
the pin from one grenade and threw it, jumping off her bike as it went
careening into the APC. The grenade bounced off the APC and exploded, shredding
several of its tires. Now the vehicle was effectively stranded, and Alice
clambered onto its back, a handgun in one hand and a grenade in the other. The
commander was struggling to take out his own pistol from its holster when Alice
fired at him, sending him slumping back inside the vehicle. Then she pulled the
pin off the second grenade and dropped it into the open hatch, jumping off as
it exploded.

The Red Guards
in the jeeps had now disembarked, and were firing at Alice. She felt a round
hit her thigh as she sought cover behind the burning APC. The second APC was
now approaching and she was effectively trapped between the dozen or more Red
Guards approaching her from the right and the armored vehicle bearing down upon
her from the left.

The first few
Red Guards were now no more than a hundred meters away and Alice could hear
their triumphant shouts as they came closer. Alice leaned out and fired a burst
from her assault rifle. One seemed to go down, but there were just too many of
them. And as Satish’s men were pinned down by the second APC even as it drove
towards her, she was on her own.

The ground near
one of the Red Guards seemed to explode in a burst of dust and sand and a dark
figure wearing a hat rushed up, grabbing the Red Guard and pulling him down,
breaking his neck in one move. Several more Biters streamed out of the hole,
overwhelming the Red Guards around them. Hatter picked up another Red Guard,
raising him cleanly over his head before smashing him to the ground. Several of
the Red Guards were conscripts who had never seen combat, let alone seen a
Biter up close. They began to panic, and that was their undoing. They fired
blindly at the approaching Biters, and while many of the scored hits, only a
direct shot to the head would be of any use. Within seconds they all fell to
the clawing, biting attackers who had come to Alice’s rescue.

The APC now
drove towards the Biters, cutting several of them into ribbons with its machine
gun. The Biters were still not finished, but with their bodies mangled and
their legs cut off, they were out of the fight.

Hatter was
staring defiantly at the approaching APC, screaming in rage when the APC
lurched to a halt, exploding from a direct hit. Alice heard Satish behind her.

‘Thank God for
RPGs. My boys got here just in time.’

Alice knew that
they owed their survival to more than just a handful of men armed with one
rocket launcher. They would not have survived without the intervention of
Hatter and his fellow Biters. Several of the Biters had fallen in the battle
and their bodies lay scattered around the ground, their heads blown open by
direct hits.

Alice made her
thanks to the surviving Biters, and then they ambled back to their hidden
tunnel and disappeared. In spite of having spent so much time with them, and in
spite of being like them in some respects, Alice was yet to fully figure out
the Biters. They followed her with a loyalty that she had never experienced
among humans, even humans who owed her their lives. They would throw away their
lives to protect one of their own without a second thought, and unlike humans
they never seemed to expect anything back in return. Alice was still young, but
had seen enough of the world and of humans to know that those qualities were in
incredibly short supply. People fought over power, over money, over control.
Biters just fought to protect their own.

In becoming a
Biter, it was strangely as if one became more human.

Alice's
thoughts were interrupted by Satish.

'Let's now find
out who our new American friends are, shall we?'

***

'A jeep would
be nothing more than a magnet for air strikes. Why do you think I asked all my
men to disperse?'

Satish said the
words with a smile, but Alice had known him long enough to recognize the
underlying irritation. The two Americans had proved to be a study in contrasts.
The older man, who walked with a pronounced limp, was yet to utter a word. He
merely kept looking around him with wide eyes, and Alice found him staring at
her way too often for her comfort. Looking at his disheveled hair, torn vest
and vacant expression, she wondered if he had indeed lost his mind in some Red
Guard labor camp. The younger man, conversely, was all business. He had
immediately equipped himself with a bulletproof vest from one of the fallen Red
Guards, and armed himself with an assault rifle. To Alice’s amusement, he
seemed very vocal about his opinions – though Satish certainly seemed to find
nothing funny in his trying to impose his opinions.

'How fast can
we walk? Let's take one of the jeeps and get back to this city of yours.'

Satish took a
step closer to the American. He was a good six inches shorter than the blond,
lanky man he faced, but Alice's eyes, trained by years of experience, told her
that the American would not stand a chance. He clearly had little experience of
close combat, since he was holding his rifle in both hands. At such close
quarters, he would never even be able to bring the rifle up before Satish cut
his throat. She held out a restraining hand on Satish's shoulder and addressed
the American.

'My name is
Alice Gladwell. What's yours?'

'I am Captain
Vince Hudson, U.S Marine Corps. I flew with the White Knights squadron before
The Rising.'

He pointed to a
patch stuck on his jacket, showing an armored man on horseback, carrying what
appeared to be a spear or lance. Above the patch were the words 'White Knights'
and below it were inscribed the letters 'HMM-165'.

'Vince, I have
lived and fought in the Deadland all my life. Here are some things you should
know. The Reds control the skies. So traveling in a large group is suicide.
Traveling in large vehicles is suicide. And not listening to someone like
Satish is suicide. We risked our lives to save you, but if you would rather be
on your own, go ahead. I do not like to carry excess baggage.'

With that,
Alice shouldered her assault rifle and began walking off.

'Hey, wait.
Sorry if we started on the wrong foot. Being chased by Red Guards for a week
has a way of putting you on edge.'

They took
refuge in a nearby clump of trees. Satish had already radioed his men to give
him advance warning of any incoming Red Guards, on land or by air. For close to
an hour they lay flat against the ground, waiting for the telltale buzzing
sound that would announce the arrival of an attack helicopter.

Finally Satish
whispered, 'Looks like they've bled enough for a day. Alice, it'll be dark
soon; let's get into the woods and hear what Vince and his friend have to say.'

When they were
in the forest, Satish passed around a meager meal of biscuits, which the two
Americans wolfed down hungrily.

Alice found the
old man staring at her, and finally she turned to look at him. That was when he
spoke his first words.

'You are for
real. So there is hope after all.'

'Excuse me?'

The old man
smiled, revealing several missing teeth.

'My name is
Doctor Steven Edwards, young lady. I have a story that may interest you.'

Doctor Edwards
sat back, munching on his biscuit.

'I was a
virologist working for the US Department of Defense before The Rising. In the
days that followed, I did what many did. I hid and survived the best I could,
and one day I was picked up to go and work in some labor camp in the Mainland.'

'How long were
you in the camps?' Satish asked.

'I spent eight
years cleaning barracks and tilling fields. At first I tried to fight back, but
when I realized there was nowhere to go to and no hope for escape, I gave in.
The beatings and broken teeth helped.'

Doctor Edwards’
response chilled Alice. She had heard of the camps and had talked to people who
had lost relatives to them, but she had never met anyone who had survived one.
She now saw the scars crisscrossing the old man's body and wondered what horrors
he had endured. Having grown up to think of Biters as the ultimate horror,
Alice now realized that her father had indeed been right: the worst cruelty was
what man could inflict on a fellow man.

Doctor Edwards
continued, 'I had resigned to slaving away in the camp until a year ago, when
some folks in the Central Committee had me brought to Shanghai. They told me
that they thought they could create a vaccine against the virus that turned
people into Biters. Based on my background, they thought I could help.'

'Why would they
single you out?'

'Because, my
dear girl, I had worked on the viruses that perhaps led to this monstrosity in
the first place.'

Alice thought
back to the Queen of the Biters and the story she had told Alice.

'Did you know Dr.
Protima?'

The old man
looked down. 'I did not know her personally but I knew she was one of the
researchers. Unfortunately when I did meet her, it was to harvest her dead
body.'

Alice recalled
how Dr. Protima had sacrificed herself in the attack to rescue Alice from the
Red Guard base where she was being held. In the chaos that had followed the
battle, and in wanting to escape impending Red Guard reinforcements and air
strikes, Satish and his men had whisked Alice away from the base, but Dr.
Protima's body had been left behind.

'I took her
blood samples and got to work, thinking they were interested in only a
vaccine.'

Alice explained
about the vaccine Dr. Protima had given her, and Edwards looked away sadly.

'That vaccine
was unstable. It saved you from becoming a Biter, but not entirely. With the
labs the Reds gave me access to and blood samples from Protima, I was able to
refine it.'

Satish leaned
over. 'Is there a vaccine?'

'I couldn't get
an actual sample out, but if I can get to a lab, I do have the details in a
print-out with me. The reason we were trying so hard to get to you was that I
wanted to find out if Alice was real or just a story created by people. With
her blood sample and a lab I could make a vaccine that works.'

'Doctor, how
did you escape?'

Vince had been
silent so far, but now he chipped in. 'Not all of the Chinese are bad. As word
got out about what was happening here, many of our guards were talking about
whether the Biters were what they had been told. Several of them were letting prisoners
escape, even against threat of execution. A young man who had lost his brother
in the Deadland helped me and a few others get a spot hidden on a transport
plane to Ladakh. When the doc told me what was going on, I got him along.'

'What happened
to the others who escaped with you?'

The soldier's
eyes hardened. 'They all died. Every single one of them. There were twenty of
us, hidden among boxes of food and ammunition. We didn't have a much of a plan,
but this was our best chance. When the plane landed, we tried to fight our way
out. We had surprise on our side, but not much more. There were only a couple
of us who knew how to use weapons, and I managed to get Doc out, but nobody
else made it. We got a jeep and drove some of the way, but since then we’ve
been walking and jacking abandoned vehicles, trying to stay alive long enough
to find you.'

Something did
not yet make sense to Alice.

'Doctor, why
did you suddenly want to escape?'

She saw the
fear in Edwards' eyes as he answered.

'They wanted a
vaccine all right, but they were also doing other things. Terrible things.'

***

Chen saw the
man in front of him pace his office, his face contorted in barely controlled
anger. The Commissar had flown in from Shanghai that morning, and the last time
Chen had seen him was when the Central Committee was sentencing him to a labor
camp. Then Chen had literally trembled in fear – but not today. The Commissar
was one of the most powerful men in the Central Committee, second only to the
Supreme Commander, who had not been seen in public for years. Chen had seen the
worst they could do to him, and he was no longer afraid for himself, but he
still had his wife to think of, so he made an attempt to placate the Commissar.

'Comrade
Commissar, we lost more than two dozen Red Guards in pursuing the fugitives. It
was my decision to stop the pursuit because we accounted for most of them at
the airfield, but two men were not worth losing more men over.'

The Commissar
turned on him, fury showing in his eyes.

'Comrade
General, what were you doing before The Rising?'

The sudden
question took Chen by surprise.

'I was
commanding an infantry regiment.'

The Commissar
stared at Chen, his eyes boring into him.

'Comrade General,
I was in charge of all our strategic missile groups. You do know the decisions
I had to make.'

Chen remembered
the nuclear devastation that had followed The Rising and realized where Hu was
going.

'So, Comrade
General, difficult times call for difficult choices and sacrifice. We have
sacrificed much to preserve our people and provide stability in these trying
times. China is the only nation still standing from all the nations of old.
More than two hundred million people still depend on the Central Committee to
keep them safe. So when two fugitives escape, it is not about two people
getting away; it is about people seeing that we are no longer in control.'

Hu saw a
chessboard on Chen's table and walked to it, picking up a pawn.

'I realize you
have been through difficult times, but we need men of your talent and
experience in the coming struggle.'

Chen hesitated.
'Comrade Commissar, the war in the Deadland here has been fought to a
standstill. For months, we have not aggressively pursued the terrorists,
following the orders of the Central Committee.'