I, Neil: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No. 8) Read online

  Some of the Homelanders have brought along machines to play these movies, and I am standing there now, watching some movie about a man who goes into space and lands on the moon. I wonder if it happened for real, but Alice tells me that in movies, people act out stories.

  One would have thought making sense of who you are and what your real life means would be difficult enough to not have the time to watch others pretend to be something they are not. But you humans are strange in many ways.

  Someone near me says, 'Neil,' and I whirl around. It is not me they are talking about but someone called Neil Armstrong, who was the man who went to the moon long ago. I have seen the moon at night and wondered if I once knew what it was and why it was there in the sky. Perhaps Neil knew. But why would humans be in such a hurry to travel to other worlds when they made such a mess of their own?

  Alice calls out to me. She looks worried, and as we rush to the Looking Glass I can see why. There are images playing out on a screen and Danish whispers to those who enter that he is hacking into news broadcasts from the Homeland. Black and white images show Biters moving into tunnels taken from above and then a huge plume of dust. A man's voice can then be heard.

  'President Robertson has vowed to contain, combat and ultimately defeat the threat being posed by rogue Biters who have refused to be put in the FEMA camps being organized to keep them and humans safe. He said that the point of these camps was to ensure the Biters did not inadvertently hurt humans till a reliable cure can be found. As you have just seen, Biters have been using the old mining tunnels around the DC area to go into hiding.'

  Then I can see the man called Robertson. He is wearing a warrior's uniform, but he does not look like a warrior. I doubt he would ever fight but would be happy to let others do the dying for him.

  'My fellow Homelanders, as you have just seen, today I authorized drone strikes against rogue Biters to show them that resistance is not an option. They must comply with my directive to have them placed in our camps for their own and our safety. These rogue Biters will learn that they cannot continue to be a source of terror to our people and way of life.'

  The screen goes blank and Alice bangs her hand on the table.

  'To protect his own rule, he has restarted war between Biters and humans.'

  John has been watching from a corner of the room.

  'Some things never change. I was thrown into a war on terror to protect the American people. Turns out all I did was to protect oil companies and their rich patrons. They divided us then to further their own interests, and they do it now again. But Alice, he's not being too smart about this.'

  'What do you mean?'

  John asks Danish to bring up a map of the Homeland on the screen, and begins tracing lines with his finger.

  'Here and here. There are old tunnels that run almost all the way from Detroit to Washington DC. A whole underground network. In the old days, there were all kinds of conspiracy theories about the government using these to stockpile weapons. I have no idea if that's true, but those tunnels exist and Robertson is driving the Biters into them. There's no way he can get in there from the air. Either he sends in ground forces for a messy fight or he's actually making them safer.'

  I would very much like to meet Robertson in a dark tunnel. I would love to see how brave he is when he is face to face with the enemy, not sending others to fight for him or attacking from the air. We spent years in our own tunnels with the Queen before Alice brought us up to freedom, and what humans don't know is that we are far better at fighting in the dark than they are.

  ***

  Aalok is drinking more of his foul liquid nowadays than ever. I don't know what is weighing on his mind. He is sitting next to me and begins to sob. I want to make him feel better so I reach out with my good hand and place it on his shoulder. I wish I could say words that would make sense to him, that would make him forget whatever is on his mind. But all I can do is growl and say his name.

  'Aaaa… alok.'

  He looks up at me, wiping away tears.

  'Thanks, buddy.'

  He breathes deeply before he begins.

  'I always wondered what happened to my family. I had my parents living with me and my little sister. When the Rising happened, I was coming back from the airport from a work trip and I never made it home, which was more than a two-hour drive away in Noida. In the beginning, I was just so scared, so focused on trying to live from one day to the next. Then I got caught up among some survivors and set up in a small settlement in the Deadland. I tried heading back towards Noida, but on foot, with Zeus and Biters around, there was no way.'

  I remember those days. Darkness. Hiding. Death.

  'Alice said yesterday that we could scout further from the borders to see if we could find things of use. I heard one of the old-timers say Noida, and I jumped onto the van that was heading out. I looked around the old neighborhood. Not much of it left, Neil. Nothing left. Not sure if it was the nukes they exploded in the air or Zeus later, but everything was blown to pieces.'

  He stops before he pulls himself together enough to continue.

  'I found where my house was, and while some part of me always knew it, I saw… their bones.'

  He collapses against me, sobbing again.

  Now, at night, I lie down, thinking of those Neil left behind. Are they also dead? Are they in some settlement we haven't yet got in touch with? Or are they Biters now, with no memory of who they had been?

  Why do I remember all these things? I have been around Biters for so long, and none of them show any sign of remembering who they had been. Why do I have to bear this terrible burden?

  My eyes close and images float by.

  A city, lit up by more lights than I can count. People milling around, smiles on their faces. Giant towers of glass and stone. It is a photograph on a wall in front of me. In front of Neil. He is studying, peering into his books, and then he looks at the photo and says something.

  'Vegas.'

  Then the images change. A young girl surrounded by Biters, and a boy among them. But I am not attacking her, instead I am swinging at them with some object, smashing their heads, trying to fight them off. I was that boy, wearing the ears over my head that led me to get the name Bunny Ears. Biters are milling around the boy and one of them bites him on the shoulder.

  My eyes snap open. That was me. Neil. The girl was Neha. That was the day I was bitten. Memories come back in a torrent—a ride on my bike to get her to safety. The horrifying realization that I had been bitten. A date—our first and last—at a gas station, and then a race against time to get her to the highway and to safety. She rode away in a convoy, while I lay on the road, bleeding, dying, and turning into what I have become. It feels like I remember now everything that Neil once did.

  I sit up. Where is Neha now? Even if she is no more, did she at least enjoy a few days, months or even years of safety? That would have made it all worth it.

  I have no more time to think of these things. The ground shakes with the impact of a huge explosion. We are under attack, and this time they are not striking with rifles or small rockets. This is something else altogether.

  ***

  There are houses burning, and this is not the border where the raids happen. This is in the middle of Wonderland. Have our enemies entered so far into the city? People are running around everywhere, many with guns, and I gather a band of Biters and head out towards the fires. If Red Guards are indeed inside the city, they will not get out alive. They have made a big mistake in attacking us at night.

  But as I get closer, there are no enemies to be seen, just dead and wounded people lying around. Alice is in the distance, and she is furious. At first she thinks the same thing I did—that somehow our patrols and defenses let our enemies in. But that is not the case.

  Arjun is there, and so is John. They are the two leaders of the human forces, but John was a warrior even before the Rising and so has more understanding of weapons of war. He is looking around and finally c
alls us over. There is a hole in the ground near the burning houses and in that hole, something shiny is stuck in the ground. It is long and round with sharp edges near the end.

  'Damn Robertson and his friends.'

  John explodes into anger and continues shouting till he calms down.

  'That is a medium-range surface-to-surface rocket. If they've started getting their hands on these, there's not much we can do to defend against them. They could be firing these off from a dozen miles away. Bastards are shooting off at random knowing they will be killing civilians.'

  Our vehicles roar as Salil and his men race off to intercept our attackers, but there are no more attacks that night. Six people are dead and Wonderland is under threat from an unseen attacker. Not since the days when Zeus rained death on us from the air have I seen the people around me feel so helpless.

  It is morning now, but I don't think too many of the humans got much sleep. John has told people that the rocket left small bombs scattered around the area and that if we find any of them, we should call him. Alice walks by, rifle in hand. Most of the people around me are armed. I don't think these rifles will be of much use if another such rocket comes, but it makes them feel more secure. We Biters also need our sense of security, and that comes from being together. Almost all of the Biters are now gathered close to the Looking Glass, and I know Alice has read to them to soothe them before coming here.

  'Neil, that rocket was not an attack. It was a warning, a threat. What they want from us I don't know, but they will be back. The only hope is that Salil and his men can catch them before they get within firing range, but it's a big area out there.'

  I know she's talking to reassure herself. It strikes me that perhaps she is seeking her own sense of security and comfort in me. As she walks off on patrol, Aalok joins me. His eyes are red, and I know he has not slept at all, as he has been helping Doctor Edwards take care of the many wounded from the night's attack.

  'Neil, what is happening to us? I just want to curl up and sleep but John says there may be bomblets around and we need to ensure we get all of them. Walk with me while I sweep this area—talking to someone will at least help me stay awake.'

  Aalok is talking all the time as we walk, about Sayoni, about the rocket, about how it is a very bad idea to piss Alice off. I don't know much about girls or rockets, but I do agree with him on the last point. Every time an enemy has taken Alice for granted, she has surprised them with just how tough she can be.

  A little human girl walks by. She has golden hair like Alice. When I first saw Alice, I was as terrified of her as she was of me. A girl, with a gun, in the middle of our tunnels. I had no idea if she was being followed by an invading army or not. This girl is smaller than Alice was, skipping along the ground, as if oblivious to the tension that has gripped all of us. Aalok is looking away. Sayoni is calling out to him, asking him when he will come for lunch.

  The little girl keeps running towards a building whose walls have been partly torn down by the explosion last night. Children have the capacity to be so happy to not fall victim to the hatred and fears that seem to consume so many humans when they grow up. What happens to them when they grow up?

  I see something now. Something shiny in the ground. A round object. It's just as John had described.

  A bomblet.

  It is half embedded in the mud by the side of the building, and nobody has seen it yet. The little girl is now no more than two dozen feet away from it. John has told us that the bombs can go off if anybody touches them or even comes near them.

  The girl has no idea what she is headed towards. I have seen what bombs can do. Limbs ripped off, heads split open, innards strewn around. I imagine the same happening to her. I want her to stop. I want someone to notice, but none of the adults nearby has spotted her.

  She takes a couple of more steps towards the bomb.

  I am too far to get to her in time, and all I can do is growl out my frustration. A few people look at me, but have no idea what I'm trying to say. I hate myself for being what I am, unable to even help this little girl, to be a mute witness as she is torn apart. I keep trying to get out the words, but my useless Biter groans are of no help to anyone. I have fought countless battles, ripped apart countless enemies, but ultimately I am powerless to help a little girl about to die in front of my eyes.

  A gruff voice screams loudly.

  'Stop that girl. Bomb!'

  The girl stops, looking around, and someone nearby rushes to her and grips her tightly. But everyone is looking not at the girl or the bomb.

  They are all looking at me.

  Then I realize that the voice I have just heard was mine.

  ***

  FOUR

  I do not want this attention. I do not want to be marked out as anything special. I am Bunny Ears. My job is to protect Alice and those who matter to her, to defend our home against enemies. That is the simplicity with which I define my life, and I want to keep it that way. Perhaps I have been thinking of who that Neil had been, what my life had been before I was bitten, but if this is the way to find that out, I am not sure I want to go down this path.

  All day, people have been coming by, looking at me strangely. A few children walk by, asking me to talk to them. The mother of the child who was about to step on the bomb comes by, crying and holding my hand.

  'Thank you for saving my little McKayla.'

  Little McKayla is there as well. Someone has given her a little stuffed rabbit, no doubt one of the toys found during sweeps in abandoned cities. She clutches it tight to her chest.

  All the Biters look at me strangely too. I am now not quite one of them. Earlier what set me apart was in my head, in my dreams, but now it's out there. When I walked back to the Biters earlier today, they maintained a distance from me. Even worse, several of them came and knelt before me.

  I slapped two of them down. For all that Biters lose when they become who they are, they retain one of the traits that I dislike about humans—following others too easily. Only a few people are truly worth following. Alice is one of them. I am not.

  Despite all the prodding, I have not spoken again. I do not even know if I can speak again or those words were a freak occurrence. Doctor Edwards is now walking towards me. He is a good man, and he knows I do not like all this attention, so he does not prod me much. He just looks at me and says, 'Well, this changes everything, doesn't it?'

  I do not like change. I have a home now. I have friends. Friends who need defending against a brutal enemy. Nobody needs to be distracted by a freak Biter who talks.

  Alice is now approaching and she sits down next to me. I have not met her since the incident and I don't know how she is going to take things.

  'Neil, we spend our lives worrying about what others think of us when what we think of ourselves is what matters most.'

  I am looking at her now. She is so young, yet she has seen so much, changed so much, that those who think her only contribution is on the field of battle really don't see all that she can offer.

  'When I became what I am—neither human nor Biter—I would spend whole days worried about what had happened to me, worrying about all I was missing out on. Over time I've realized something that made me accept myself. Don't define yourself by labels that others stick on you, but by who you feel you are deep within. You, my friend, are not going to be defined by whether you are a Biter, a human, a Biter who speaks, or anything else. You are my best friend, and always will be. For me, that defines you. Decide how you define yourself in your own heart.'

  As she gets up to leave, she turns to add a line.

  'And don't tell me Biters don't have hearts. You have a heart bigger than any human I know.'

  ***

  A day has passed since I spoke, and while people still look at me strangely when they walk by, there are other things on their minds. First of all, our attackers have made their demands known for the first time. A message popped up on Danish's screen, and he was as excited by the fact that it s
howed up there as by its content. We are at the Looking Glass now and he is still talking about it.

  'They have an operational network through which they're sending out an email. For sure, they don't have a server up and running out there in the Deadland, so I can only assume someone in the Homeland is not just giving them weapons but also setting up this infrastructure for them.'

  John growls, suddenly appearing more Biter than human.

  'Enough with the technobabble. Who cares how they sent the mail, let's talk about what they want.'

  Alice has been standing quietly in a corner, and now she places her gun on the table as she leans over to read the screen once more.

  'What they want is something we can never give, because that would mean the beginning of the end of our independence.'

  Everyone nods and I agree with them. The Red Guards want us to restrict our activities to no further than five kilometers from the borders of Wonderland. Any further and they will consider it an act of war. If we agree, we give them free rein to set up their own bases and settlements to surround us and one day destroy us. Even without them attacking us, we need to keep exploring outlying areas to keep getting supplies, raw materials and spares from the many abandoned factories and army bases. They must know this already.

  Alice looks at me.

  'Neil, fancy a trip in an airplane back to Kolkata?'

  Others catch on to what she is thinking.

  'We trusted the Homeland government to run the supply flights into Kolkata and then on to Wonderland, carrying machines and workers to help with our farms and to carry back food. With Robertson either part of this plan, or turning a blind eye to it, someone high up in the Homeland government is supplying and supporting the Red Guards, and the best bet is they are using the Kolkata airport to do so, hiding weapons in the very same planes that are meant to run the supply routes between us and the Homeland.'