The helicopter crashed four hours later in the middle of the desert.
Take-off had been surprisingly uncomplicated. Landing, however, proved to be more difficult. Within the first hour of leaving the compound, I'd spotted a river. The river fed into a large lake, practically an ocean by today's current environment where desert had taken over most of the landscape.
The lake was almost two miles wide at its largest point and the mountain just beyond its shore explained how it'd had managed to survive the arid climate that had overtaken the world these last years. There was even some greenery around the edges of the river and lake.
I realized when I was halfway across the lake that the helicopter's tank was starting to run empty, but the lake was no place to land the copter, and I was experienced enough with the helicopter to be confident landing it somewhere in the mountains.
As it was, I had trouble enough navigating around the crags. The sun was beginning to set and the stone peaks looked particularly jagged in the waning light. I wove through mountain passes as best I could, but I was racing daylight and the gas tank to find a safe place to land.
I knew I had to land now or risk a landing in the dark—not high on my list of options when I still had that blinding headache. I chose a stretch of ground that looked flatter than the others and maneuvered the joystick into position.
At about seven feet from the ground, one of the blades clipped a rocky outcropping and sent the helicopter veering out of control. The copter wheeled on its side rolled over the edge of the ground I'd been trying to land on.
I yanked at the controls, but one of the blades had bent in the initial fall and made it all but impossible for me to maintain a level flight pattern for more than a few seconds. Another rocky peak loomed in front of me, but I had no way to avoid it.
Time seemed to elongate, sound disappeared as I realized the inevitable was about to happen.
"Aw, fuck," I said.
The left side of the copter slammed into the rock face, sending helicopter rolling down the mountain. I managed to gain control for a few desperate minutes, and then suddenly, jarringly, I was out of the mountain range.
But I wasn't out of danger yet, either. I wrenched the gears around, trying to balance out the copter, but the machine decided it had been through enough for one day, and just seconds after I'd made it out of the mountains, the engines coughed once, twice, then died.
As the helicopter began its free fall, I scrambled out of the flight harness and leapt out into the air. The ground was maybe thirty feet below me. It might have killed me had I been the Alicebefore the T9 virus—that is if I really was Alice and not just some clone of her—but it was only slightly bone-jarring to me now.
The desert sand was softer than the mountainside would have been, but not by much. I kept my knees soft as I hit the ground and let myself roll out of the jump to distribute some of the force but even so, my body ached with the impact.
My roll had carried me to all fours, but I pushed off and threw myself to the side as the helicopter came crashing down after me. It skidded along the sand for a few feet before it flipped over and came to a rocking stop.
I sighed and collapsed back into the sand.
My cuts from the glass window were now gritty with sand, accentuated by green and purple bruises that were already forming from my rocky landing. My throat burned and still felt tender after my bout with the other Alice, and my muscles had stiffened during the long helicopter ride. And I couldn't forget my splitting headache.
"And to think that only a few hours ago I was naked and covered in blood," I said to myself. "Look how far I've come."
I thought of all the questions I needed to find answers to—about the other Alices, about the memory loss, about my research, but I could only come up with one response.
I picked myself off the ground and hauled myself into the wreckage of the copter. I used some of the supply bags to make myself a pillow, yanked a tarp over my head, and fell asleep.
A test tube filling with blue liquid. A small child with an English accent telling us politely that she had killed the employees in the Hive. Rustling the sheets with Spence, making promises. Dr. Isaacs leaning over. A terrified city held hostage. A monster with Matt's eyes. Needles pricking my skin, pain, death, corpses everywhere,deathcrowstesttubespainalone.
Carlos.
Someone ripped the tarp off of my head. I opened my eyes to see an AK-47 pointed at my nose.
Most people are relieved when they wake from nightmares. In my case, it never helps much either way.