ALICE

Chapter 57: HORISCOPE

Alice sat in the back seat of a large jeep, with Taco driving once again. In the large bench seat with her was Angel, who was in the process of bandaging Alice’s wounded hands. Redd was lying down horizontally on the floor, clutching his chest and moaning. Up front in the other bench seat was Taco, who was driving, Nine, who was keeping a watchful eye outside his window, and Krew, who was in the most pain but the least deadly situation, unfortunately for him. In the trunk was Leanne, who was tied up and gagged, still unconscious as far as the team could tell.

 “So where are we headed?” Asked Alice as she put her hands down to her sides.

 “The coast. We’ve got some of our guys coming in a zodiac, but I don’t know how long it will be.” Taco said, “I’m gonna put a message out to the base to get the ETA on the boats.”

 Taco looked down to the dashboard which had a simple radio in it. He turned a few knobs until he was on the correct frequency and picked up the handset.

 “Mirage Base 0 this is Team Alpha Lieutenant James Sydney.”

 “Go ahead Taco.” Said a voice over the radio.

 “What’s the ETA on our exfil, over?”

 There was a brief pause before the voice that Alice only now recognized as Jacob Glass spoke again.

 “We’ve just got news that the helicopter that was carrying the first zodiac has been shot down. We can get another one to you but it’ll be almost 12 hours.”

 Taco swore. “Roger that.”

 With this, Alice fell asleep, a tired, hard, nightmare filled sleep, but it did rest Alice for when she woke up later. When she awoke from her most common nightmare, Redd was still on the floor, and Angel was outside. The girl was outside too, laying on the cold snow still in the t-shirt and fashionable cigarette jeans she was wearing before. Alice opened the door and walked outside, catching what Angel was saying.

 “If I let you go, are you going to attack me?”

 The girl spat at his feet, and Angel rolled his eyes, “Really.”

 Alice walked towards them, ensuring her sidearm was still in her houlster, just in case. “Alexei sent us to get you.”

 The girl, whose gag was now around her neck, spoke for the first time. “Alexei?”

 “Yes, the dark haired Russian dream. He knew the LSF would come for you after he didn’t return, so he sent us to get you.”

 “He would do that.”

 Alice nodded. “You want to get back into the car or are you going to freeze?”

 (BREAK)

 Alice fell asleep again the back of the truck. She kept her carbine in hand, holding it like a teddy bear in case of an attack. Unluckily for the team, there was one.

 Alice could hear the helicopter overhead, even when it was still a kilometre away. Alice kicked in all directions as quickly as she could, waking everyone up.

 “We’ve got LSF overhead!”

 Redd snapped awake, sitting up quickly. “The water. Move, now!”

 Alice kicked the door open and ran towards the coast that was about twenty feet off. Before she had nodded off again, Alice had had a look around the coast, discovering it was nothing but ice cliffs off the glacier, with an average of about twenty feet height. Alice had her backpack in one hand and her carbine in the other, sprinting at full pelt towards the cliff.

 Behind her, Redd was running but clutching his side, opting to leave his sniper rifle in the truck. At about the same level was Angel, who was literally dragging the girl, being helped along a bit by Krew. In front of Alice was Taco and bringing up the rear was Nine.

 Alice half-watched as Taco threw himself over the cliff, moving into what looked like a dive. Alice stalled for just an instant when she reached the edge of the cliff, the adrenalin catching up with her. Redd only needed to wheeze for Alice to hurl herself off the face, going for a feet first landing.

 The water hit Alice like a tazer, taking the breath right out of her. It was the coldest thing Alice had ever touched, and she was immersed in it.

 Alice felt her muscles contract and went all achy across her entire body, dropping her carbine into the dark depths below her with an involuntary spasm of her hand.

 Alice swam as hard as she could to the top, gasping in for air when her mouth broke the surface. The salt water burnt her eyes when she opened them, seeing the open sea ahead. She looked around, but none of her team was in her view. Alice panicked, diving back down to find them. There they were, each one, bleeding into the inky water, slowly sinking to the ocean floor.

 Angel drifted in front of her, blood oozing from his chest. Leanne was sinking faster than the others, still in her bonds.

 Her eyes snapped open as she was slapped full force across the face. Was she home? Was she simply asleep in the park?

 Angel’s face, fully alive greeted her.

 “Alice! Get yourself together!”

 She shook her head, taking in her bearings as she realized she had just had a hallucination. Not good.

 The team was in a freezing cold cave, the walls made of hard packed snow and with spikes of ice hanging from the roof and protruding from the ground. Alice held her hand up to look at it and realized she was violently shaking.

 “Alice!” Angel yelled as her view drifted over to Redd, who was pushing ice and rocks up against the opening of the cave, blocking the view of the beautiful ocean sunset she was just in. “Alice! Focus! Look at me!” Alice looked back to him, “You’re in stage three hypothermia. If you fall asleep you will die. You hear me?”

 Alice heard herself say a yes that her body hadn’t consulted her mind on. Then, she looked over to Taco who was building a fire as quick as he could with a Willywack camp/bon fire package and a flint.

 When the fire was roaring, inconsistent and white, Alice was rolled towards it and stripped down to her thermal underwear. Angel kept a steady gaze on her, watching for the slightest hint of a yawn.

 “What happened?” Alice asked groggily.

 “We got into this cave after about fifteen seconds in the water. You went unconscious and were in for nearly three minutes.”

 “The helicopter?”

 Angel pointed towards the ceiling of the cave, only now allowing Alice to hear the sound of the rotors and the rattle of machine guns.

 The whole team got out of their wet clothes, sitting around the fire in their long underwear and thermal shirts as everyone overcame their various levels of hypothermia. Nine fiddled with his radio handset, trying to get a signal out of it before he turned it over to release a long stream of water coming out of the speaker. He gave it a frustrated look and threw it to the ground.

 “So,” Redd said. “Anyone know any good jokes?”