Hunting The Snark: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No. 4) Read Online Free

he escaped and joined up with a small
band of resistance fighters led by Konrath. When Konrath heard of Aaron’s
background, he had an idea—using his skills and experience for more than
firefights with Zeus. Aaron signed up for the Zeus army and soon, with his
credentials and experience, he caught the eyes of his superiors. Over the
years, he rose in the Zeus hierarchy, but kept alive his role as a double
agent, sending intelligence to General Konrath when he could. Over the course
of the past month, he had moved to a new role, as part of the security detail
for the President of Homeland Operations, and now Konrath had given him a
mission that would fully take advantage of this.
    Sam King took a quick drink from the glass of Scotch on his
table as he prepared for the videoconference with the Executive Committee. Sam
was the President of Homeland Operations, and had the unenviable task of
managing security, food and resources throughout the US Homeland across the
three dozen FEMA camps he oversaw, in addition to coordinating
counter-insurgency efforts with Zeus. He had been a senior executive at a large
bank before The Rising, and one of his mentors, a CEO at an investment bank,
had introduced him to the Executive Committee. Sam had been thrilled at rubbing
shoulders with the world’s richest and most powerful men—bankers, royalty and
media moguls who shared a vision—to depopulate the world based on their
projections that the planet’s resources of oil and food would never sustain the
growing population. They believed the optimum population was no more than five
hundred million.
    Sam took another drink, reflecting on how that plan, like
most plans, hadn’t quite worked out the way it should have. Instead of
‘depopulation’, vast numbers of people had turned into Biters as the virus the
Executive Committee had unleashed mutated, and the resulting nightmare was
something they were still trying to manage. Sam’s employers hadn’t quite given
up—and they had announced a new twenty-year plan to kill off or contain the
Biters and get the remaining human population under control. Sam had been
through too much and seen too much to have a sudden attack of conscience, but
at times he wondered if they had gone too far. It was late for him to turn back
now, not just for himself, but for his family, who were fortunate enough to
live in the estate near the Cheyenne Mountains where the Executive Committee’s
members and key shareholders lived in luxury—people who had paid up to a
billion dollars each to be a part of this new world order.
    The screen in front of him came to life, and the former
billionaire banker who wanted to be known only as the Baron addressed him.
    ‘Sam, you saw my note. Congratulations on your promotion and
taking on International Operations as well.’
    Sam smiled, but he knew that the golden goblet he had been
handed was a poisoned chalice. The President of International Operations was now
rotting at a FEMA camp with his family after both the Indian Deadland and the
Mainland had been lost on his watch. His employers could lavish praise and
gifts when he delivered, but failure met with instant and brutal punishment.
    ‘Baron, as you outlined, we have our plan in place to
restore food supplies from the Deadland. The message to their leaders has gone
out and I expect compliance after Shanghai.’
    The old man on the screen smiled. ‘The shareholders are
getting restive. The Sauds in particular are having another of their royal
fits. Our food stocks are down to three months, as you well know, and with the
insurgency in the Homeland still active and the Biters not yet contained, what
scarce farmland we have here is still insecure. The Deadland fed us for years
and we will need to re-establish control over the farms there. I do hope you
remember that the shareholders will vote on our top management positions next
month in time for your appraisal. It would be good to have some concrete
progress till