He winces. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? Did you just say you’re sorry?”
“I meant I’m sorry for you. Not that I’m apologizing for what’s going on in there, because I had nothing to do with it. I’ve got my own problems, and I need to get out of here.”
“You’re complaining to me.” I pull off my cap.
He stares at my bald head a moment and then looks me in the eye like I’m … like he knows I’m a lost cause, but can’t quite bring himself to break the news to me.
“So you’re one of them.”
“One of who?”
“One of the lab rats here.”
“Obviously.”
He starts to speak, stops, then starts again. “I’m probably the last person who could help you. Believe me when I tell you that those guys inside are going to be very cranky when they realize what I just did. I wouldn’t be doing you any favors if I let you come with me.”
He’s putting his gloves on now. I guess he assumes I’m going to just let him walk out the door.
“Tell me something,” I say, trying to keep the anger out of my voice.
“Can’t.”
“Anything! I need something useful, now, or I will nail your feet to the floor!”
So much for containing my anger.
“I doubt you even know how that thing works.”
I point the nailer at his computer bag. This gets his attention.
“Take it easy, okay? Just take it easy.”
“Tell me one thing. That’s all.”
“Okay. One thing.”
“How are you involved, but not involved?”
“My boss is the preeminent hacker in the entire world. He does jobs for people. People with a lot of money. He got paid to come here and remove some information.”
“And shoot everyone in sight?”
“We didn’t know they were going to do that. I swear. Why do you think I’m getting out of here?”
“I don’t believe you. Why would somebody need help hacking a hospital computer?”
“Hospital? Is that where you think you are?”
I almost blurt out yes, but I know now that this answer is laughable.
“This ain’t no hospital, sunshine,” he says. “Or maybe I should say, it’s a lot more than a hospital. This place is seriously state-of-the-art.”
“Why?”
“You know what? No offense, but there’s not much point in explaining this to someone who’s brain-damaged.”
“I am not brain-damaged.”
“You are, and you’ve got the drill holes to prove it.”
I shoot his computer with my nailer.
He starts howling, jumping, swearing, asking me if I realize what I’ve just done. I stare at him, unmoved. Nobody calls me brain-damaged. Even if, technically, I suppose I am.
Suddenly a voice comes over his radio. A woman’s voice. “Who’s there? Is there someone on the other end? Answer me.”
The kid looks alarmed and holds the walkie-talkie away from his body like whoever it is can see him through the speaker.
“I take it that’s not your boss,” I say.
He shakes his head and puts the radio back in his pocket.
Of course it’s Hodges. Her voice is a razor blade covered in nectar. I know this, but I don’t want to tell him. I won’t be saying anything more to this kid until he’s willing to trade more information with me.
“Why does she have your boss’s radio?”
“I don’t know, but I have to go. Now.”
Like that hadn’t occurred to me.
“How about you just tell me where I am,” I say. “Tell me where the nearest highway is and point me in the right direction. That’s all I need.”
He snorts once. “That’s all you need? One, you’re assuming I even know that. Which I don’t. If I didn’t have this thing”—he pulls out a small, handheld GPS and shakes it in front of my face—“I couldn’t find my own zipper. Two, even if you did know where you were going and had the right clothing and a snowmobile—which obviously you don’t—you’re not going to get anywhere in this freak of a storm.”
“How did you get here?”
“How I got here is not relevant. Look, time is short. I really can’t help you. I’m not even sure I can help myself. I’m sorry.”
“Where is this yurt thing you were talking about? Can I just follow you there? Just for a little while? You don’t have to help me after that. I need to get away from here … from them.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Look, those military guys inside are after someone. Some personal vendetta or something. I can’t believe 8-Bit got involved with this. I don’t care if it was a personal favor. I’m telling you, if you just lie low, they’ll clear out eventually. They’re not interested in you.”
“No? Then why are they trying to kill me?”
“They’re trying to kill you? You?” He looks me up and down, and for a moment, his eyes settle on my bare head.
“Yes.”
He presses his lips together and says nothing for a few seconds. Then he points at my head. “You’ve got some dried blood. There. Above your left eye. And on your neck.”
I lick my thumb and wipe the blood off my forehead. I’m not sure who this blood belongs to. I think of the woman who’s probably still lying in the lobby right now. She’s gone from being a person to being a thing. So have Steve and the coma kid. The horror of it, the unrealness of it, hits me like a wave of nausea. For all I know, Larry is also dead.
And Jori.
My face burns white-hot when I think about the way I ran out on her. The way I completely forgot about her.
I wipe my nose and eyes with the back of my hand. I don’t even realize I’ve let go of the nailer until I hear it hit the floor.
“I don’t know what to do or where to go.”
I’m half convinced that I’ve only said this to myself, but then I realize he heard me, because when I raise my head, I catch him looking at me. I can’t tell if his expression shows pity or something far deeper. Something more like empathy.
His shoulders drop in resignation.
“Okay, fine. You can come with me for now. Maybe wait the storm out. But after that you’re on your own. And we might not even make it. We might end up frozen in the woods.”
I pick up the nailer and stick it in the inside pocket of my coat. “I’d rather freeze to death than get shot.”
“That’s the spirit,” he says as he checks his watch again. After a minute, he closes his eyes and says quietly, “Where are you, man?”
“Are you waiting for someone?”
“I was. But now I’ve got to leave without him.”
“Who?”
The kid kicks the mutilated body of his laptop across the floor and says, “Somebody who’s going to be very annoyed when he finds out what you did to his twenty-thousand-dollar computer.”
CHAPTER 7
We go back outside and stay close to the walls of the mainframe building. The snow is coming down so thick and fast that it builds up on the tops of our boots each time we stop to check if it’s safe to move forward.
I’ve never been this far from the main building. Now that I’m closer to the fence line, I can see that this place is a fortress, just like the kid said. There’s a twelve-foot-high fence with razor wire on the top. If there are roads leading here, I can’t see them. This compound is an island in a sea of mountains.
I see a snowmobile with a sledge tied to the back. The kid points to it. “That’s mine.”
“We can’t take it—they’ll hear us.” I don’t have to translate that what I really mean is, They’ll shoot us.
“I need to get some stuff from out of there. Come on.” He starts to run and I follow. We reach the snowmobile and kneel behind it. The kid reaches under the tarp covering the sledge and pulls out a pair of rain ponchos, except they’re white. A moment later he takes his GPS out of h
is pocket and hands it to me.
“You know how to use that?”
“I might. Give me a second.”
This is an effect of the tabula rasa treatment. Sometimes we don’t know what we can do until we do it. Something inside us takes over and suddenly we can paint or draw or read another language. Or in my case, climb the gym walls like they’re nothing. Like I knew that being up high was where I belonged.
The GPS sits in my hand; I wait to see if I know what to do with it, but I guess I’m too slow. He takes it back from me and says, “It’s okay if you don’t. I’m surprised you’d remember how to use a light switch with all those holes in your head. I counted five of them, by the way.”
“Five of what?”
“Holes in your head. Not including the metal studs in your skull for the halo.”
How does he know about that?
I guess he heard me thinking this—or maybe he noticed that I jumped when he said it.
“I know a little about what goes on here. To be honest, there are days I’m half-tempted to check myself in.”
“I don’t think they take people like you.”
“People like me? Who are ‘people like me’?”
“You just don’t seem to be as … you don’t seem the type, is all.”
“You don’t know what type I am,” he says darkly. He pulls a white poncho over his head and hands one to me.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He hesitates for a short, telling moment. “Pierce.”
“Pierce what?”
“Pierce Belmont.”
“Pierce Belmont?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s obviously a fake name.”
“No, it’s … not.”
“Whatever. Don’t tell me.”
We stay low as we head for the fence. Pierce takes out the bolt cutters he’d used inside. I put my hand on his arm before he can use them.
“What?”
A thought rushes at me suddenly, warningly, out of nowhere. “It might be electrified.”
“You’re right. I could have just fried myself.”
He reaches into his pack and pulls out what looks like a small pair of scissors. The cutting end is shiny like black glass.
“Nonconductive,” he says. “Thanks for the heads-up. You’re already earning your keep.”
Once we are both through, he takes a plastic zip tie out of his pocket and ties the fence flap back in place.
“From a distance they won’t be able to tell where we went through. Might buy us a little time.”
I’m suddenly annoyed. “Don’t you want to know my name?”
He puts the tool back in his pack and says, “Do you even know what your real name is?”
“Sarah?”
He looks at me skeptically. “You sure about that?”
I open my mouth to respond but find I really don’t have anything to say.
The woods are black and white. White from the snow coming down, black from night falling. We’d be walking in circles if not for the GPS.
By the time we get a few hundred yards into the woods, every step takes a huge amount of effort. The wind has blown the snow into drifts in places, and as we cross them, I sink up to the middle of my thighs. The cold has numbed my legs, and I’m only walking from memory, one foot in front of the other, over and over again.
Just as I’m about to tell Pierce that I’m done, I can’t walk any farther, he looks at the GPS and says, “We’ve only got twenty more yards to go.”
There could be a herd of elephants twenty yards ahead; I can’t see more than a foot in front of my face. We walk another few steps and suddenly a small tent appears, as if Pierce waved a magic wand to summon it.
“So this is a yurt,” I say.
It’s a round structure, maybe fifteen feet wide. It looks like a miniature circus tent with a satellite dish on the top of the center pole.
“8-Bit got it from some guy he knew who quit the Russian intelligence service. He was selling all his equipment off. The Russians will sell you anything. Secrets, guns, kidneys, their children. Anything.” He grabs the flap of the tent and flips it over to show me the layer of fur on the other side. “That’s reindeer hide.”
He pushes the flaps back. “There’s only room for one person at a time in the doorway. You’ll see. Take your boots off and turn the lantern on when you go inside. It’s hanging next to the inner door.”
He holds the flap back enough for me to duck inside, into a small foyer kind of thing. I guess it was designed so you could take off your coat and boots without letting the cold air into the tent. Yurt. Whatever it’s called.
I’m not sure if I should take my coat off, but then I feel warm air leaking from the inner chamber, so I figure it must be all right. My socks come off with my snow-packed boots. It’s so cold the snow hasn’t melted, even though it was pressed against my feet.
I push the inner flap back and go inside. I find the lantern and flick it on.
In the middle of the ceiling is an opening about two feet wide and, below that, what looks like a small cauldron with a perforated top. Something inside the cauldron is glowing orange—the last embers of some weird fire that’s just about gone out.
There are two inflatable mattresses, a couple portable chairs, and a folding table with three large laptops the size of briefcases on it. Next to each mattress is a big, bulging backpack. I also see a portable camping stove near the table and some dirty plates with utensils stuck to them.
“Welcome to Hackville,” Pierce says as he pushes the inner flap up and enters. “You won’t be staying long enough to enjoy the amenities, which is just as well, because there are no amenities.”
I stand in the center of the yurt, not sure what to do with myself. After a minute he smiles and points. “That right there is known as a chair. You sit on it. A lot of people find them quite handy.”
“Thanks for the guidance.”
I plunk myself down while he turns on all three computers. As he takes his hat and jacket off, he draws himself up to his full height. His head nearly touches the top of the yurt.
“This place makes my hospital room look huge by comparison. I hope your boss doesn’t snore.”
“As a matter of fact, he does.”
“He’s paying you extra for putting up with that, right?”
Pierce uses some bottled water to fill a small kettle and then lights a propane stove beneath it. “I’m not getting paid anything,” he says, running his fingers through his hat-flattened hair. “Well, I get room and board, I suppose. 8-Bit is my father.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you just say that to begin with?”
“I’m not used to saying it yet. I only met the guy eight months ago.” Pierce pauses a second and then says, “He doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“That he’s your father or that you’re his son?”
“What’s the difference?”
“There’s a difference, depending on who’s ashamed of who.”
He snorts. “I hadn’t thought of that before, but I guess you’re right.”
He sits down in the computer chair. We’re maybe three feet apart. I sneak a look at him while he’s fiddling with one of the laptops. I’ve been in that hospital for who knows how long, and I can’t remember the last time I saw a boy who wasn’t bald with holes in his head.
Pierce catches me looking at him and smiles. My cheeks suddenly feel like they’re a hundred degrees warmer than the rest of me. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to stare.”
“That’s okay.” He gives me a cocky grin. “I get that a lot.”
He puts his ski hat back on and raises his eyebrows at me.
“Going somewhere?” I ask.
He points at my hat. “Didn’t want you to feel all alone.”
I touch the acrylic cap, which, now that it’s wet from sweat and melted snow, is very itchy. I take it off, but once I do, I feel naked in front of him.
“So,” I say. “What were
you doing back there, to the computer system?”
He shrugs.
“What did you do to end up in that head lab?”
I shrug.
“What did they tell you?” he asks.
“Not much. Telling me why I was there would sort of defeat the purpose of erasing my memory.”
“They had to have told you something.”
“Just that my parents are both dead, and that I have PTSD. Like everyone else there. I guess we couldn’t get over whatever it was, so we needed help forgetting.”
“Help? You don’t seem like you need help with anything.”
“What does that mean?”
“Those treatments, they don’t change your personality.”
“How do you know?”
“I told you. I’ve done a little reading about what they do here. Point is, PTSD or not, you are who you are.”
“Which means what?”
“Which means—how can I put this? You and your nailer don’t seem like the kind who’d have trouble dealing with anybody’s hurt feelings, including your own.”
His words hit me hard. All I’ve feared, all I’ve suspected … could it be that obvious? Even to this stranger? Maybe that’s what I really am.
Perpetrator.
I look up, expecting him to be disgusted by me, but instead I see a flicker of … not sympathy. Understanding, maybe? It’s strange.
He stands up and moves toward me. I spring to my feet, slightly crouched, my hands already hardened into fists.
“Hey, relax, will you?”
“Sorry. I’m not very good at relaxing.”
He pulls something out of his jacket pocket, and now I see what it is: a flash drive. “I need to do a few things.” He takes me by the shoulders and moves me so he can skirt past. “This may take a while. Feel free to lie down and rest.”
“I don’t want to lie down,” I say, even though all I want to do is lie down.
“Okay, tough girl. You can stare at the wall if you prefer. But you look exhausted.”
He rolls his eyes a little, like he’s known me forever and this is just the kind of thing I’m always doing, putting up a brave front. It makes me feel a little better about him. And about myself, too. The nurses were always so cautious and wary around me, but he’s not. Even after I punched him in the face. And shot his computer with a nail gun. I’m very relieved to imagine that I might be whatever he thinks I am. Being plain old all right would be a huge step up for me.
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