Incognita

by Kristen Lippert-Martin

  I put my finger to my lips and then point to the window lock, trying to make him understand what I need him to do.

  He lets his head fall back against the pillow and stops fighting with the nurse. He points to the window and I think I see him say the word “air.”

  She shrugs and nods.

  Of course she’s accommodating. He can’t cause much trouble while he’s strapped down to the bed, under the influence of whatever drug she just administered—probably a sedative. I take a step back on the ledge and press myself against the wall of the building so the nurse won’t see me when she opens the window.

  The sash swings outward. As soon as I hear the exam room’s door close, I lean forward and listen. “It’s safe. She’s gone,” Mikey says from inside.

  I climb in and rush to the bed, where I automatically start undoing the straps holding him down. He’s got a fat lip but otherwise seems unhurt.

  “How long will she be gone, do you think?” I whisper, pulling at the straps little by little so the sound of the Velcro tearing isn’t too loud.

  “Probably a while. They just gave me a shot of something to calm me down.”

  Already his body is sort of loose and relaxed. I remember that stuff well. It doesn’t knock you out, just makes you a little goofy and docile.

  “Can you fight it?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  He sits up as I undo the last two straps around his ankles. Once he’s finally free, he swings himself off the bed and sort of stumbles into me. I’m not sure if he’s hugging me or just trying to stand up.

  “You came to get me,” he says. “Thank you.”

  I can’t bear to tell him the truth—that we kind of wrote him off, and that I’m only here because we’re hoping he can lead us to the antidote.

  Mikey’s head starts to loll on his shoulders. I put my hands on either side of his face to keep him looking straight ahead. “You said you know your way around this place. Where can we get the antidote to Snowball?”

  “Fourth floor.” He holds his hand up and can’t quite manage to use just four fingers, so he pushes his thumb down with his other hand.

  “But isn’t that where the nursing home patients are?”

  “Just one,” he says, putting up his index finger, pleasantly surprised that his motor skills are up to this task. “One old lady.”

  Thomas only reluctantly agrees to be strapped down on the gurney.

  “Why can’t Mikey be the patient?” he says.

  “I hate to break it to you, but you look sicker than Mikey does at the moment,” I say.

  We’ve dressed Mikey quickly in a pair of slightly-too-small nursing scrubs from a drawer in the examination room.

  Mikey insists he knows exactly where he’s going, but I feel like I’m using a drunken monkey as a guide. As we head out into the hallway, toward the elevator, he sways from side to side, points and smiles at things we can’t see, and occasionally answers questions that he must have asked himself inside his own mind.

  Thomas and I keep looking at each other with increasingly panicked expressions. I lean down and whisper into his ear, “Just a little while longer. It can’t be much farther.”

  “You guys are, like, in love or something, right?” Mikey says, turning around and walking backward so that he’s facing us. He slaps Thomas right on the stomach.

  “Ooof!”

  “You’re a lucky guy. This girl . . .” Mikey puts his arm around my shoulders. “She’s amazing. She’s Spider-girl!”

  “Mikey, focus!” I grab his hands, which he’s using to mimic spiders crawling. “Just keep it together for five more minutes.”

  We stop in front of the elevator. Heading toward us now is a harried-looking nurse carrying a tray of little paper cups—meds cups just like the ones I remember from the research hospital. She looks up and I roll my eyes toward Mikey. She doesn’t smile but she also doesn’t stop us. I guess looking annoyed is the surest way to imitate medical professionals.

  The elevator car arrives and we take it to the fourth floor. But when we get there, the doors don’t open. Thomas raises his head. “What’s the deal?”

  “Can’t get through without the code!” Mikey says in a singsong way, pointing to a number pad right above the regular elevator buttons.

  “Why didn’t you say that before?” I practically shout at Mikey.

  “Hold on a sec.” Mikey slaps himself on the side of the face. “I know it! The nurses go like this . . .” He uses his finger to press buttons in the air. “Boop, boop, beep, boop.”

  Thomas sits up on the gurney and watches him, fighting to maintain his concentration. “Do that again.”

  Mikey makes the same motion and repeats the boops and beeps. Thomas watches—no, he listens—and then reaches for the pad. He types in a four-digit code.

  The elevators dings, and the doors slide open. Mikey raises his fists in the air triumphantly. “Yeah!”

  I pin his arms to his sides. “Quiet!”

  “Mikey might just be the only person to fall into the category of ‘useful idiot,’ ” Thomas says.

  We’re about to find out exactly how useful.

  The fourth floor looks nothing like a hospital. It’s like the elevator has opened up into the middle of someone’s country estate. We’re in a mirrored foyer with a chandelier. A woman wearing a pastel blue cardigan sits at a desk nearby, looking like a receptionist at a spa. Behind her is a set of French doors with heavy leaded glass that distorts the flames of a crackling fire in the room beyond.

  I stare through the door. The familiarity of it calls to me. I know exactly what I’ll see on the other side: a little oasis of hominess nestled inside the sterility of the hospital. But it’s a deception. All the Persian rugs and oil paintings and throw pillows won’t change the fact that it’s just a gilded cage.

  “Hello!” the nurse says cheerfully. “I think you’re on the wrong floor. The operating room is one more level up . . .”

  I continue walking forward, right past her desk. I reach for the French doors.

  “Wait! What are you doing?” she says. She leaps up and grabs me by the arm. “You can’t just go in—”

  It’ll be no trouble to shake her off. But before I have a chance, Mikey lays her out with one punch, knocking her off her feet.

  “Jeez, Mikey!” I say, helping Thomas slide off the gurney. “Still a bit trigger happy, I see.”

  Without responding, Mikey picks up the nurse and straps her down onto the gurney. Meanwhile I start opening desk drawers until I find some duct tape. Mikey grabs the roll from me and starts layering pieces over the unconscious receptionist’s mouth.

  “Angel, what’s going on?” Thomas says.

  “I need to get in there.”

  “This isn’t where they keep the meds,” Mikey points out.

  “I just need to look around a moment.”

  “For what?”

  “Not for what . . . for who.” Thomas and Mikey leave the gurney and follow me. They close the doors behind me.

  We’re standing in a beautiful room filled with luxurious furniture, paintings, silk curtains, and bouquets of fresh flowers. There’s a real fireplace built into one wall and a flat-screen TV on the opposite wall. As far as prisons go, it’s top of the line.

  She’s sitting by the fire, her slight body dwarfed by the large armchair she’s in. She’s so still, it’s almost as if she’s a wild animal trying to blend in with her surroundings.

  “Mrs. Claymore,” I say.

  She turns, startled, but as soon as she sees me, her face lights up. Her eyes are deep blue. She has a cute bobbed hairstyle, dyed platinum blonde like she wore it when she was young. She once told me she hadn’t seen her natural hair color in more than fifty years.

  “Angel! How lovely to see you! It’s been so long.” She extends both hands for me to take. “And what is this ‘Mrs. Claymore’ business? It’s Sarah, of course!”

  Her skin is smooth and cool and she holds on very tight.
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  “Tell me where you’ve been all this time. I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too.”

  Even if I didn’t realize it.

  Mikey heads straight for the sofa and curls himself up on it like a cat. Thomas begins to pace, scrubbing his hair as he walks. I know we’re wasting precious time. At the moment, Thomas has regained enough strength to walk, but at any second he could keel over again. If we don’t get him the antidote within the next hour, something unthinkable could happen to him.

  But how can I walk away from my . . . grandmother?

  This is my grandmother. My family. How strange for a stranger to be your family.

  I clear my throat and look down at her small hands. “Um, Sarah, I—”

  “Angel,” she cuts me off. “I know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  I feel simultaneously elated and alarmed that my disguise has been stripped away.

  “Yes. But I wasn’t sure that you knew.”

  “How did you figure it out?” I ask.

  “Your eyes, of course. Though I had no real proof until Grace Fitzgerald told me for sure. She’s a lovely woman. She’s been sneaking in here for years to keep me apprised of what’s going on.”

  “Mrs. Fitzgerald,” I say. “You trust her?”

  “Of course I do!”

  Thomas cuts in. “Angel, I don’t mean to interrupt the family reunion, but I really think we need to go. Before security or someone worse shows up.”

  “Yeah. I know.” I turn to Mrs. Claymore. “I’m so sorry. I can’t stay right now. I’ll come back, though.”

  Will I?

  I jump up from the chair and kneel in front of Mikey, who’s fallen into a blissful sleep on the sofa.

  “Hey!” I give him a series of increasingly hard pokes. Then I slap his cheeks. No reaction. Our tour guide appears to be down for the count.

  “Great!” says Thomas. “Now what are we going to do?”

  “It’s okay. We’ll find the meds on our own.” I stand up, already regretting this little detour. It’s cost us time. I just hope it doesn’t cost us more than that. “Mrs. Claymore—Sarah—we’re not supposed to be in here right now. And we’re also trying to—well, I’ll be straight with you. We need to find a certain medication as soon as possible.”

  Mrs. Claymore uses her four-pronged cane to push herself up from her cushy chair. “Does this have anything to do with that zombie juice they use on people to make them forget things?”

  “How do you know about that?” Thomas asks, looking as taken aback as I am.

  She moves slowly over to a wheelchair that’s sitting against the back wall. “You’d be surprised what you can find out when nobody thinks you’re right in the head,” she says, tapping her temple. “Come with me. I’ll show you where you need to go.”

  Mrs. Claymore is remarkably unfazed by the nurse strapped to the gurney in the reception area. She just sniffs and says, “Never liked her anyway, talks to me like I’m enfeebled. Of course, in her defense, I do an awfully good job of faking it. Even my darling husband doesn’t have a clue . . .”

  I push her wheelchair while Thomas limps along beside us. If anyone asks, we’re supposed to say Mrs. Claymore demanded we walk her around. This is apparently a fairly frequent occurrence.

  “I’ve been up and down their ‘secret’ laboratory halls countless times. I whistle and hum and ask if they’ve seen my pet baby elephant, Amanda. The poor thing is always getting lost. They pay me no attention at all. Actually, some of them claim to have spotted her and send me off on an imaginary elephant hunt.”

  I lean down and kiss the top of her head. “You are brilliant.”

  “And my granddaughter takes after me. Go left when we get to the end of this hallway.”

  We pass two people in lab coats, one of whom looks at me, then at Mrs. Claymore, and smirks sympathetically.

  I’m worried about Thomas. He’s fighting to walk again, dragging his feet along as if they’ve gone numb. He stumbles a few times and then gives me an irritated “I’m fine” when I look at him. I’m torn between wanting to push the wheelchair more quickly, to get us where we’re going as soon as possible, and worrying that Thomas won’t be able to keep up if I go any faster.

  “Here we are,” says Mrs. Claymore when we reach an unmarked door. “I’ll wheel myself back up the hallway and give a shout if I see anyone coming this way. Now hurry, and get out of here as soon as you have what you need.”

  I kiss her cheek by way of saying thanks.

  Thomas and I push the door open. It’s an examination room with gray subway tiles on the walls, a steel table in the middle, and a drain in the center of the floor. On the other side of the room I see a familiar item: a stainless steel chair with a dome like a birdcage above it.

  “The halo,” I say, unable to keep the loathing out of my voice.

  Thomas puts his hand on my shoulder. At first I think he’s reaching out to me in sympathy, but he’s holding on a little too tight, putting too much of his weight on me. He needs me as a crutch.

  There are a dozen cabinets to go through. They all have glass doors and are lit from within. I realize that they’re all small refrigerators. I guess these drugs need to be kept cool. Some of the refrigerator doors have labels, but other than a few basics like saline, sucrose, heparin—things I remember hearing about in the hospital—it’s all gibberish to me.

  “I have no idea what we’re even looking for,” I say miserably.

  “That makes two of us,” Thomas says, opening doors and picking up individual vials to examine. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wish Mikey was here.”

  At that moment the door opens. Mikey rushes in.

  “Speak of the devil,” I say.

  I don’t notice the gun in Mikey’s hand until it’s pointing right at me.

  Chapter 25

  “I’m sorry, Angel,” Mikey says. “I can’t help it.”

  There’s real self-recrimination in his tone, for all that’s worth.

  “I really don’t want to hear it.”

  “You don’t understand.” He grabs my arm with his free hand. In his other hand, the gun doesn’t waver. “I’m not trying to make excuses. But what I’m doing, it’s not some choice I’m making.”

  “That’s very comforting.” I pull away from him and try to help Thomas to his feet. “So who are you working for? The Radical Pacifists?”

  “You’re about to meet my boss. Come on.”

  Just then Thomas’s body spasms like he’s just been hit between the shoulder blades by a javelin. Clutching his head and groaning in pain, he slips to the floor. I’m not fast enough to stop him from falling, but I catch him a little so his head doesn’t hit the tile.

  Mikey moves toward us but I shove him back. “Don’t touch him! I don’t need any more of your help.”

  Thomas pushes himself up onto his hands and knees and then manages to stand again.

  “Can you walk?” I ask Thomas.

  He nods.

  Mikey leads us back down the hallway. I need to keep an arm around Thomas so he can lean on me to keep his balance.

  “I retract my gratitude toward you for saving my life,” I say. “Oh, wait. You probably didn’t really save me at all, right? It was just supposed to look like you had. Then you give me the lost-dog routine, and I feel sorry for you and take you into my confidence.”

  “Seriously, Angel, I really want to help you. Like in my conscious brain. But I guess . . .”

  “It was all a setup. Was the stunt with those guys in the van shooting at me—shooting at those cops—the same deal?”

  “I guess. But it didn’t feel that way to me at the time.”

  His shoulders drop and if he had a tail, I’m sure it would be between his legs.

  But I can’t work up much sympathy for his plight anymore. We’ve suspected all along that he was someone’s puppet, but now that it’s confirmed beyond doubt, all I feel is disgust.

 
As we turn a corner and enter the elevator lobby, I see two armed men waiting for us. One is our limo driver from last night. Was it really only last night? He looks pretty pissed off, which is probably why he immediately aims his pistol directly at my head.

  I glance around. Where did Mrs. Claymore go? Is she safely back in her room?

  Behind our welcoming committee, the “UP” arrow above an elevator door lights up. Someone else is heading to the fourth floor.

  The limo driver nods to the guy with him. “Cuff ’em.” Mikey steps aside, letting the gun fall to his side, while the goon puts handcuffs on Thomas and me. “Make sure hers are extra tight,” adds the limo driver. “She’s a tricky one.”

  “Thanks for noticing,” I say, sneering at him.

  But that sneer leaves my face as soon as I see the man who exits the elevator. He’s dressed in loose-fitting jeans, shiny loafers, and a V-neck sweater. He looks like he’s about to go golfing. His smile is so warm, so charming, that I almost believe him when he says, “The infamous Angel. At last we meet. This is quite an honor.”

  Erskine Claymore himself.

  “Technically, we’ve met before,” I say icily.

  “Ah, yes. You were at the party,” he says. “But of course, I didn’t recognize you then. You were all dressed up, not in your usual sloppy attire.” Claymore’s green eyes meet mine, and perhaps I imagine it, but for just a moment—just the briefest fraction of a second—he seems to register the similarity.

  I think about blurting it out, right now, right here. The truth about who I am. Not just a thorn in his side, but his only grandchild. But even if he believed me, would it make any difference? I see my connection to him as an unclaimed piece of my history, not my future, and it’s something I can walk away from. Just as Virgil did.

  Now Claymore turns to the limo driver. “This way. I might as well kill several birds with one stone and take this opportunity to visit my wife.”

  He leads the way to Mrs. Claymore’s room, with the limo driver dragging Thomas, Mikey steering me, and one nameless goon bringing up the rear. As we pass the receptionist’s desk, Claymore glances at the struggling nurse strapped to the gurney. “Mr. Deeks, please liberate this poor woman, will you? And bring that gurney in here when you’re finished.”