Through the Killing Glass (8 page)

Hu continued to
twirl the pawn in his hands.

'Comrade, any
war is like a game of chess. You need to make your moves carefully, and
sometimes there may be a long wait between moves. We have been patient, and we
have been waiting for the right opportunity to make our move. Do you play
chess, Comrade?'

Chen was
getting more and more confused as to where this conversation was going.

'Comrade
General, we were quiet in the Indian Deadland because we were hurting ourselves
by trying to fight this Yellow Witch with conventional tactics. If anything,
our men who fought in the Deadland came back with their minds filled with
stories about the Biters and how the people of the Deadland had found a way of
living with them. Then we had to spend time, effort and lives to re-educate
them and re-instill the right revolutionary fervor. What a waste.'

Chen felt his
throat tighten. He knew he was one of those who had been punished for going
back to the Mainland with dangerous new questions about the war.

'Comrade
General Chen, dangerous ideas like those make people question the reality that
they have come to accept. The idea that they can gain so-called freedom can be
a very dangerous one, for it makes people forget that in that freedom lies the
loss of all the security and prosperity that we can provide.'

'With all due
respect, there are enough veterans back in the Mainland who have passed on
stories about the Biters and their Queen.'

Chen saw Hu
smile, but there was little humor in his expression; just the look of a man who
finally seemed to have things under control. He said, 'It is time we put an end
to this. Time that we brought back the savages of the Deadland under our
control. That is the key to stop the brimming unrest among the people of the
Mainland. Once food flows onto their dinner tables and they no longer have to
work on the farms, our people will stop thinking of freedom.'

'Comrade
Commissar, we have tried. We brought to bear all our firepower, but you know as
well as I do that in a guerilla campaign on their home ground, at best we will
fight a long, hard war of attrition.'

Now Hu replaced
the pawn, taking up another piece: the Queen.

'Comrade
General, I flew down because I need you to know what is going on, so that you
can use your experience in the Deadland and the trust your men have in you. We
are about to enter a decisive phase in this battle, one that will change the
game in our favor. A phase that has already begun with a few select operations
behind enemy lines.'

Seeing Chen's
puzzled expression, Hu pointed to the black helicopter at the far end of the
base.

'Comrade
General, it is time we stopped trying to win this war with pawns. The enemy has
that half-Biter witch they call their Queen who they follow into battle. It's
time that you met the Red Queen.'

***

Despite all
that she had seen and experienced, Alice found it hard to believe that what
Edwards had shared could have happened: experiments conducted on labor camp
inmates to try and create hybrid human-Biters who could wage war in the
Deadland, in an attempt to create an army that would not require food, water,
and be immune to pain and injury. More importantly, it would not be an army of
impressionable young conscripts who would go back to the Mainland with
uncomfortable questions for their masters in the Central Committee about the
true nature of the war they were fighting.

Hundreds of
young men and women had died in the experiments, which was when Edwards refused
to co-operate any further, despite all the torture he was subjected to. When he
was shipped back to the labor camp, he knew that a vaccine could be created but
also knew that the Chinese researchers were getting closer and closer to their
dream of creating an army of hybrids.

'That explains
the Biters who attacked our people. But they seemed to move and fight like
Biters, without any real human characteristics.'

Alice and
Satish had brought their new companions up to speed on what they had been
through. Edwards seemed to be recovering both his spirit and strength with
every passing hour, as he came to grips with the fact that he was finally free.

'Satish, maybe
they haven't created hybrids, but if these Biters attacked your people, and
they were brought in by helicopter, the Reds have found some way of controlling
them.'

Alice asked
Satish to get on the radio. 'We must get in touch with Danish and get this news
back. If people in Wonderland know what is happening then we can work together
instead of fighting each other.'

Satish's radio came
alive. Satish heard Danish’s voice as he put his headset on.

'White Queen,
this is Looking Glass. I have some bad news. Humpty Dumpty just sat on top of
the wall. He called elections and has declared that he is the new Prime
Minister. Things are pretty hot now, so suggest you not visit too soon.'

Satish slammed
a fist against the ground. 'With all that's going on, Arun is still bothered
about grabbing power!'

Alice sat back,
wondering what she could do. It was clear that it would not be an easy job to try
and get everyone in Wonderland to work together. And even more pressing, the
enemy wouldn’t wait until they had things together before attacking again.

***

Chen followed
Hu to the far side of the base, passing a heavily guarded checkpoint manned by
black-clad Interior Security Service men before they entered the main building.
The first thing he noticed was the stench, and he brought his fingers up to his
nose. He saw that Hu had put on a mask covering his nose and mouth.

'Comrade
General, do you want a mask?'

The last thing
Chen wanted to do was to offer Hu the satisfaction of seeing any sign of
weakness.

'Comrade
Commissar, I have spent enough time in the Deadland to not be bothered by a bit
of the smell of death. But I do wonder why a Red Guard base has been piled up
with dead bodies?’

He could hear
Hu chuckling as he went deeper into the building, which seemed like a warehouse
with what appeared to be prison cells lining one end of it. Heavily armed
black-clad guards wearing the insignia of the elite Interior Security Service
stood guard. There was not a single Red Guard conscript in sight.

'Come, Comrade
General. Let me introduce you to the new shock troops of the Red Army who will
help us win this war and bring the Deadland back into the fold of our
revolution.'

Hu guided Chen
towards one of the cells, and Chen struggled to keep himself from gagging at
the intense stench. When he was in front of the cell, a decayed hand with two
fingers missing reached out to grab him. Chen recoiled back as a bloodied, torn
face slammed into the bars.

There were more
than a dozen Biters inside the cell, and many of them began screaming and
banging their heads and hands on the bars. Then, just as suddenly as they had
started, they stopped screaming, and to Chen's disbelief, they went down on
their knees. Hu tapped him on his shoulder.

'Look this way,
Comrade Chen. The Red Queen is here.'

***

'Arun, please
listen to me. We need to talk, otherwise we will have more deaths.'

Even after
explaining the situation to Arun and pleading with him, Alice still faced an
uphill struggle.

She had managed
to get Danish to convince Arun to come to the Looking Glass. That part of the
job had not been difficult at all. One of Arun's hobbies was getting time in
the Looking Glass from Danish and spending hours on the radio. He had been a
ham radio operator before The Rising, and while there were few people to talk
to, he had actually produced a couple of very interesting connections in the
short time he had been at Wonderland, including a couple of young people from
the Chinese Mainland who were risking certain death or deportation to labor
camps by using radios to get in touch with the outside world. From them Alice
and the others had got an invaluable glimpse into what was happening inside the
Mainland. They had learnt about small demonstrations and disturbances in cities
like Shanghai and about how some young men had refused to be drafted into the
Red Guards to be sent to the Deadland and been punished for it.

But getting
Arun on the radio had been the easy part. Actually getting him to listen to
what Alice had to say was proving impossible.

'Alice,
thirty-four innocent people are dead, including more than twenty children. All
killed by Biters, some of whose bodies we found. All this talk of Red Guards
flying in Biters is fantastic but why would I not look closer to home and ask
why all the Biters in the Reservation disappeared after the attacks?'

'I asked them
to hide to avoid a bloodbath till we could clear things up.'

There was a pause.
When Arun next spoke, Alice knew she had already lost.

'Alice, we got
everyone together and had a snap election. We cannot be leaderless in this time
of crisis, and I am now Prime Minister of Wonderland. I now bear the
responsibility of taking care of all the thousands of people who depend on me,
and I cannot act with the impulsiveness of youth that has perhaps led us to
where we are.'

Alice heard
Satish snort in disgust, but the last thing on her mind was bothering about
barbs thrown her way.

'What if you
are wrong? Do you want to risk more deaths?'

'We have
strengthened our security. I have ordered all of the recon units to come back
within Wonderland’s borders just a couple of hours ago.'

Satish exploded
at that.

'Those are my
men! You cannot order them back. Without them out there, we will get no early
warning about what's going on outside.'

'Satish, you no
longer command anyone,’ Arun replied. The civility had vanished from his voice.
‘You ceased to have that privilege and trust when you helped a fugitive escape.
All your trigger-happy antics achieve is to provoke the Red Guards – even more
so on this latest fugitive rescue mission of yours. The last thing I want is to
have your fugitives inside Wonderland and risk retaliation by the Red Guards.
The bottom line is that we have known months of peace, and I do not want to
risk that.'

Alice said,
'Arun, please listen to me. You spend so much time in the Looking Glass
yourself. You know as well as any of us that the world outside that we see
through the Looking Glass is far from being at peace. Please give us a chance.'

'The only thing
we need to talk about is you standing trial for complicity in the murder of so
many innocents.' And with those final words, Arun ended the transmission.

***

'Comrade
General, meet Lieutenant Li.'

Chen took in
the neatly pressed Red Guard uniform, the shoulder labels of a lieutenant, the
thin and wiry frame, and then last of all, the face that stared back at him.
The face of a young woman with yellowed skin, red eyes and a wound on her left
cheek that had left a large chunk of her skin hanging loose. She snapped to
attention and saluted.

'Comrade
General Chen. It is my pleasure to be working under your command.'

When she
extended her hand, Chen took it without thinking and then felt a stab of panic
as he realized she was as cold as a corpse. He stepped back.

'Comrade
Commissar, who is she? What is going on?'

Hu now had a
smug look on his face, as Chen began to realize that he had been totally
oblivious to some of the moves occurring on this chessboard of war.

Li answered,
'Comrade General, I lost my brother and my father in the war against the
terrorists in the Deadland. My brother was killed in battle against this
so-called Queen, this witch that the terrorists follow. I was in our Special
Forces, and wanted to strike back against the enemy who had caused me so much
pain. But as you well know, our tactics were of little use, and when the
Central Committee asked for volunteers for a special experiment to help us strike
back, I raised my hand.'

Chen studied
Li, seeing not the half-Biter monster that the scientists had somehow produced
at the bidding of the Central Committee, but a young woman who had lost her
family to a war based on lies. A woman who had been a good comrade, a good
soldier who had never questioned the story sold to her. Was this the future?
Did human salvation really lie in making monsters of us all? Was that the
solution the Central Committee had to all their problems? It would surely be
expedient; Biters would not ask questions and if they followed this so-called
Red Queen like they followed the young girl called Alice; they would go to
their deaths without any objections. It would mean not struggling for
conscripts and the war could be waged in the dark, while the masses in the
Mainland once again hid behind the facade of security and stability. But how
would they win the war? What could one hybrid like this and a bunch of Biters
really achieve?

Hu must have
sensed the emotions on his face.

'Comrade General,
any chess player will tell you that one piece or one move cannot be decisive.
Our Red Queen has already made a couple of important moves, but we also have
other pieces in play who will come into their own when the time comes. But now,
Comrade General, let me tell you of what you need to do. So far we have made a
few small forays but for bigger operations we will need your men to work
together with Lieutenant Li and her forces, to co-ordinate our actions. Come
back to your office and I will brief you on what needs to happen next.'

Thirty minutes
later, Chen was back in his office. He had grown up as the son of a loyal
Communist Party member and joining the Army had seemed a natural progression.
He had first started questioning what he was doing when the regime started the
brutal crackdowns in 2012 on popular protests in rural areas against land grabs
and official corruption. That had culminated in the second bloodbath at
Tiananmen Square when it had first hit home. Some of his fellow officers had
dared to talk about mutiny, and Chen remembered conversations with his wife
when they began to weigh their options. The Rising had changed everything.
Biological attacks by the United States, regional wars and instability and
retaliatory strikes by China had made everyone forget internal issues and
everyone, Chen included, had rallied around the national cause.