"I'm cutting power, get ready!" shouted Robert, typing fast.

Alice tightened her restraints, keeping one eye on the men from the truck with the shoulder-mount rocket. The helper finished adjusting something on the long brown tube and retreated two steps back. His companion steadied the weapon and took aim.

"Now Robert, do it now!" There was a flash from the launcher in the distance, then the helicopter fell dead silent once again. The sensation of falling was immediate this time. Low as they were flying, it was easy to see the ground rushing up to meet them. It reminded Alice of riding the drop tower at the fair as a teenager. The only real difference was the lack of hydraulic breaks. And the missile.

The next second and a half were a chaotic jumble. The rocket screamed through the empty space their helicopter had just occupied, detonating directly above them. The explosion rocked the cabin and perforated the ceiling with a hail of shrapnel. Robert yelled out in pain. Then came the shriek of twisting metal as the the helicopter's landing gear crumpled against the ground, punctuated by a bone-jarring impact and ominous CRACK from the front windscreen.

When it was all over, Alice realized she was sitting flat on the floor, legs extending straight out. She looked over to Robert and saw his seat had also sunk level with the ground. Some safety feature of the chair? Miraculously they both seemed free of major injury, though Robert looked more than a little dazed. He'd managed to keep hold of his laptop and was squeezing it against his torso. Alice flashed back to toddler Julian strapped in his carseat, hugging Walter the walrus with both arms as she hurled suitcases into the trunk. She wrestled her attention back to the present predicament.

The cabin was destroyed. Dappled sunlight shone down on them from where chunks of missile had pierced the roof. Several large cracks arced across the forward windshield. A pixelated parody of the old interface flickered across the view before decohering into garbled static.

The entire craft tilted 20 degrees to the right; Robert's sunken chair was now a moderate uphill climb from Alice. She noticed that the wall on his side of the craft had compressed and buckled - the door looked unlikely to open again. Alice was suddenly glad she'd inadvertently dropped hers into the ocean.

"C'mon Robert, we need to go. Those shooters weren't far, we have to get away from here before they arrive."

Robert blinked at her twice, then started pawing ineffectually at his restraints, hands shaking from the adrenaline crash. Alice unlatched her own harness easily and stood to help. She stumbled as pain lanced through her lower-back, then caught her chair to steady herself. Her legs felt full of pins and needles. Probably some spinal damage from the landing. Any doctor would advise her to hold still and wait for an ambulance. Not really an option today.

She shook her head slowly and tried again, moving slowly and experimenting with different gaits. Taking the swing out of her hips seemed to relieve some of the pressure.

Robert recovered somewhat in the time it took her to make the awkward climb over. He still hadn't made any progress with the restraints though. Once she got close Alice could see that his harness latch had been struck by a piece of shrapnel. Luckily the buckle has mostly stopped the metal fragment; there was a thin line of blood where it'd sliced his belly, though the wound had already closed. Still, the release mechanism was hopelessly jammed.

Robert made the same realization. A note of panic entered his voice when he saw Alice glance back at the door. "Don't leave me here. Please, you need my help."

"I'm not going to abandon you, but we need to move fast. You don't carry a knife or anything do you?"

"No, the physical security team frowns on that. They like to have all the weapons."

"Alright. I think I saw something we can use instead." Alice made her painful way back across the cabin. An arm-length piece of twisted metal jutted up by her door. It looked like it might once have been part of the landing gear. It was now held on by a single rivet, partially torn. Alice spent a half second looking for something to grab it with, then reluctantly pulled her white Armani crossover blouse over her head, ignoring the pain from her shoulder. She wrapped the shirt around one end of the sharp metal to form a makeshift handle, then rocked the piece back and forth until it snapped free.

Her spine seemed to be loosening up a little with exertion; the way back to Robert was smoother. He had tucked away his computer and was trying to unbend the buckle with his bare hands.

"Hold still." Alice slipped one end of the jagged metal under a shoulder strap. With a careful sawing motion she was able to fray a few of the nylon filaments.

"At this rate it'll take me hours to get you out. I think we've got more like five minutes." Alice paused. "I'm going to need to get violent here - this may hurt a little." She braced herself between the two seats and attacked the strap with her improvised saw. A spur of metal poked through the fabric handle and pricked her palm, but there was no time for adjustments

Threads were fraying faster now, Alice found a rhythm that worked with the irregular cutting surface. Robert was in visible pain, the smooth side of the metal banging against his collarbone. To his credit he kept his mouth shut - he knew the stakes.

Two minutes passed, and finally Alice was through the first strap. "You'll have to wriggle out, we don't have time to do the other." She unwound her blouse from the chunk of metal and returned it over her head. The fine fabric was frayed in multiple places, and there was a gash across her lower right torso. Blood from the puncture on her palm had made a sort of demented Rorschach blot that wrapped around her left side. Maybe the look would catch on, she thought perversely.

Robert strained to twist his body out through the gap in his four point harness. He got both arms free, then Alice grabbed him by the torso and pulled. Robert pushed with his legs, and at once he was loose; they tumbled backward and fell in a pile on the helicopter floor, Robert on top. He rolled off of her and started to apologize. "I'm so-"

"Quiet!" said Alice in a fierce whisper. "They're probably close now. Follow me." Robert snatched up his laptop and lovingly tucked it back into his hoodie. Alice led him over to the door, motioning to be careful of his footing on the sloping floor. Thanks to the angle of impact and the collapsed landing gear, the ground was only a six-inch step down. Alice took it carefully, probing with her toes to avoid the many shards of metal jutting out of the sand. Robert followed suit.

Outside, Alice surveyed the area. The ground nearby was thoroughly churned from the crash. With luck it would confuse their trail and buy them a few minutes grace to run. Once they reached the unmarred sand of the dunes their footprints would be easy to pick out.

A shout in Russian from up the hill emphasized the need for haste. Alice broke into a run on a path she hoped was perpendicular to the attackers. Her flats soon filled with sand and flopped awkwardly on her feet. She kicked them off, taking the opportunity to glance back and check on Robert. The man was no athlete, but he'd still manage to keep up with Alice's speed-hobble. Accumulated injuries were taking their toll.

She dashed another hundred feet parallel to the road, looking for a clear path up. The dunes abutted cliffs that looked hard to climb on a good day, much less in her current state. Finally she spied it, a place where a vertical face had crumbled, leaving a skree-covered path up. Time for the hail Mary.

Alice pointed the way, didn't bother checking to see if Robert was following. The ground transitioned to scrub as they wound their way toward the cliff. Alice already missed her shoes.

The land sloped more sharply upward here. Heading uphill there would be less opportunity for cover - even keeping to the ravines, the sight-lines from down-slope would leave them frequently exposed. Alice risked another shoulder check, but saw no sign of the attackers. With luck the pursuers were still investigating the crash site.

Alice rounded a corner in the scrub and stopped. The path ahead had disappeared; Twenty foot tall dunes lined three sides, making something of a miniature box canyon. Robert came around the bend and stumbled into her back.

"Dead end," Alice whispered.

"Alright, we'll go around." Robert turned and started back the way they'd come from. Alice spied a trail of telltale puffs of sand racing toward him. With a practiced leap she tackled Robert and forced him to the ground. Angry leaden bees buzzed millimeters over their heads. More slammed into the ground downhill of them. The rat-a-tat-tat-tat of gunfire finally caught up with the supersonic bullets.

"Go back," Alice shouted at Robert. "Keep your stomach to the ground, and your head down." They belly-crawled into the canyon and waited.