Tabula Rasa

by Kristen Lippert-Martin

“I know what a guilty person looks like. And you are not it.” I start to reply, but he covers my mouth again. “Am I a very smart guy?”

  I nod.

  “Yes, I am.” He takes his hand away from my mouth.

  “Did you already read my file? Do you know for sure?”

  He clamps his hand over my mouth yet again. “There is no file for you.”

  I grab his hand and pull it back. “How—”

  “I looked while you were asleep.”

  “Because you were worried about me.”

  He smiles. “Maybe a little.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “All I know is that there was only one patient named Sarah in this whole place, and her file was removed by LLLadner58.”

  “Larry?”

  “Could be. Whoever it was went so far as to delete it from long-term and backup storage.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “True. I could be wrong and you could turn out to be the worst mass murderer in the history of mass murderdom, but I don’t think so. And if it was Larry who helped you, he obviously didn’t think so, either, or you wouldn’t be here right now. Feel better?”

  I nod. He puts my cap back on my head. We both jump up as the trailer door pops open.

  I walk over to the door and look out. The snow whirls inside and melts at my feet. No one is there. The wind changes direction, and then we both hear the sound of gears grinding in the distance.

  “Thomas! The light!”

  He hurries to close his laptop and turn off the desk lamp. I pull the door shut and lock it and then run to the opposite end of the trailer. I push the blinds out of the way and look out the window, but all I see is empty black night.

  Thomas is looking out the window on the other end of the trailer. “Snowcats. Two of them.”

  “Heading toward the building or away?” I ask.

  “Seem to be going away.”

  “Toward the fence?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe they won’t see the snowmobile,” I say.

  “Of course they will, and when they do, they’re going to know someone’s creeping around out here. We need to go.”

  The wind is battering the trailer now. I can feel the cold air blowing through seams in the walls and up through the floor. Thomas is at one end of the darkness and I’m at the other. I walk toward his voice and then get down on my hands and knees to feel around for my jacket, wishing I hadn’t taken the thing off in the first place.

  In the darkness, I bump into Thomas, who’s also searching the floor for something. I reach around for the nailer but can’t find it. My hand touches something soft on the floor.

  “Your hat,” I say.

  We stand up at the same time, both of us holding on to his hat.

  I hear someone rattling the doorknob. Thomas exhales in annoyance, and says, “Who can that be at this hour?”

  “Maybe Oscar finally realized that it’s cold outside.”

  I walk toward the trailer door.

  “Don’t let him back in! Are you nuts?”

  “But if they see him, they’ll come over and investigate.”

  He groans. “I suppose.”

  I unlock the door and it instantly swings open. Someone grabs the front of my coveralls and pulls me out into the snow.

  The back of my skull smacks against the frozen ground, and I see lights popping against a dark background and then afterimages of burned-out stars. I try to roll over, but there’s a soldier sitting on me, pinning my arms against my sides with his legs. When I strain to get up again, he backhands me across the face with his glove, which is covered with jagged bits of ice. He’s about to speak into the radio clipped to his collar when suddenly a blur of movement dislodges him.

  I see a bright yellow flash and hear someone growl. Oscar. He pummels the soldier, his fists flying so fast, so hard, I’m sure the soldier’s face must be shredding like wet paper. Oscar clasps his hands together and begins pounding the soldier’s chest, like he’s doing ultraviolent CPR. The soldier kicks both legs up in the air, but Oscar holds on to him with his legs and keeps squeezing. I hear a snap. I think it’s one of the soldier’s ribs. Oscar lets go, maybe thinking the soldier is now hobbled, but the guy rolls to the side and tries to reach for his weapon. Oscar grabs the rifle away from him and momentarily tries to figure out how to fire it. He puts his finger on the trigger, but nothing happens. The soldier manages to get a hand on the end of the gun and pulls on it. I can see the soldier has some kind of computer screen attached to his arm, just above his wrist.

  Oscar kicks the soldier in the face, wrenches the rifle free, and tosses it as far as he can into the darkness, throwing it like a boomerang. I hear the sound of jingling metal coming from wherever it lands.

  I look up at the trailer and see that Thomas has been watching this, too. I need to see where that gun landed. “Turn the lights on!”

  Thomas is confused, but he does it. The lights from inside illuminate a small patch of ground, and I now see that the trailer is about fifteen feet from the edge of the construction pit. Between the trailer and the pit there’s a series of chain-link fence sections. They’re not sunk into the ground. The posts are anchored in buckets of hardened concrete, maybe to make the fence movable.

  Now we can all see where the rifle landed. It’s hanging by its strap from the top of one of the fence sections. The soldier is gasping for air, but he runs toward it. Oscar stays put, squatting in the snow, his black eyes blazing. When the soldier gets to the fence, he tries to lift the gun up, but he’s having trouble getting the strap free.

  Oscar looks over his shoulder and smiles at me with an expression that says, Watch this.

  He sets himself up like a sprinter and takes off running full tilt toward the fence. The soldier has just about untangled his gun when Oscar plows into his back and drives the guy headfirst into the fence, flattening both of them to the ground. The soldier must be unconscious, or at least dazed by the impact, because he hardly fights as Oscar grabs him by the front of his jacket and drags him toward the edge of the pit.

  “Oscar, no!”

  It’s too late. Oscar positions the guy at the edge and rolls him into the darkness with his foot. I run to Oscar’s side and stare into the black mouth in the earth. All I can hear is the moaning of the wind. There is no sound from below.

  Oscar waves sweetly at the abyss. “Adios.”

  I take a few steps back. I notice that Oscar found some footwear—a pair of rubber boots. He’s laughing hysterically as he slaps me on the back and points at the pit below.

  Then we hear the sound of someone talking, calling out. Followed by a beep. The soldier’s radio had been clipped to his collar, but it must have come loose in the struggle.

  “Come back,” a man’s voice says. “Hey, where you at, Simmons? Answer me.”

  I search in the snow, trying to find the radio. When the guy at the other end calls out again, I find it, along with the soldier’s pack. I shake the snow off the radio and press the call button. I hear a blip of static, followed by a beep.

  “That you? Where you at? I’ve got nothing out here except frostbite.”

  “Go back in the trailer, Oscar. Turn all the lights out again. Now!”

  He smiles at me and says, “Si, si, mija. Whatever you say.” He takes his time walking toward the trailer, still laughing to himself. I press the radio button to speak as Oscar steps into the trailer. The lights go out. Suddenly, Thomas is at my side.

  “I’m not staying inside the trailer alone with that guy.”

  Again the soldier on the radio speaks. “Simmons, man, what’s up?”

  I press the button and say, “He’s dead.”

  Thomas hisses at me, “Angel! What are you doing?”

  He tries to take the radio, but I swat his hand away and say, “Grab the backpack! It’s your turn to trust me now.”

  Thomas snatches the pack off the ground.

  “He’s dead,” I sa
y into the radio again. “I … I don’t know what happened. He fell. He fell into the construction pit.”

  “You better be lying to me or I’m coming for you!”

  Thomas is freaking out pretty good now, but he steps back when I press the radio button again. “I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Don’t hurt me,” I say. I’m trying to sound like Jori. It seems like the kind of thing she would say and the world would ignore. “I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to do it.”

  The guy’s voice softens a little as he says, “Yeah. Okay. I’m sure it was an accident. Just tell me where you are.”

  I motion for Thomas to follow me, and we go back to where we put Jori. An inch of snow has covered her. I brush it off, startled at how much she resembles a child.

  “Help me move her over near the fence,” I say.

  As we pick her up, her flimsy hospital gown rides up to her waist. I whisper to her again and again, “I’m so sorry for this.”

  “Are you still there?” I hear the soldier say over the radio after a minute.

  I press the button. “Yes. I just want to go back inside. I’m so cold.”

  “I can help you with that. Tell me what’s around you. I’ll find you.”

  I prop Jori’s body up against a section of the fence that rings the construction pit. We’re now a good fifty yards from the trailer. I say into the radio, “I’m sitting by some big machine. It’s orange with a big drill.”

  “I think I know where you are,” he says. “I’ll be there in a second. Do not move.”

  Thomas and I quickly scurry into the shadows. A few minutes pass. Then a shot rings out. It hits Jori in the chest, and her body momentarily jerks up into the air.

  Thomas whispers to me, “And I thought I was smart. You’re a genius. Holey head or no.”

  I don’t feel like a genius. I feel sick as I watch the soldier walk up to Jori and give her a push with his boot. She falls over.

  He speaks into his radio. “Simmons is dead.”

  Another voice on the radio. “Get his computer and pack and get back up here.”

  “Can’t. They’re both gone. The little nut-job pushed him into the construction pit.”

  The robot-voiced soldier on the other end says, “You’re going to have to retrieve them before we leave.”

  “Understood.”

  The soldier takes a last look around and heads back toward the research building. Thomas whispers to me, “What computer is he talking about?”

  “The guy had something strapped to his arm. Right here,” I say as I point at my forearm. “What do you think it could be?”

  Thomas’s eyes narrow. “I’m not sure, but the fact that they want it back so badly makes me want it even more.”

  CHAPTER 17

  One hour, one scavenged rope, and many slipknots later, Thomas is standing on the edge of the construction pit, looking scared to death but ready to descend. I explained to him that my experiences with freestyle climbing were exclusively on urban terrain. Giant black pits in the earth during a blizzard? I don’t do those.

  “Just go slowly,” Thomas says. “And remember, if you drop me, I will kill you both.”

  Oscar gives his squinty-eyed smile and says, “I got you.” Oscar seems to warm up to Thomas the crabbier he becomes, like he finds Thomas’s annoyance amusing.

  Thomas and I exchange looks of terror. Oscar is still suffering from a case of the psycho giggles, which is worrying, because each time he starts laughing, he lets go of the rope a little. But we both realize that I need Oscar’s help. I don’t think I can lower Thomas down on my own.

  “Here we go,” Thomas says as he positions himself and then leans back into the pit. I feel the rope go taut as he starts to rappel down.

  Thomas had looked over the drawings in the trailer and determined that the pit was about fifty feet deep. What wasn’t clear was how much progress they’d made in pouring the concrete for whatever this underground bunker was going to be.

  I feel the rope tacking back and forth. I look over at Oscar, who has the rope braced against his back, his hands gripping it on either side of his hips. He’s doing most of the work, and really, other than the fact that he might be a remorseless killer, he’s just the kind of person you’d want as a spotter.

  The rope goes momentarily slack and then taut, again and again. Just as I’m getting into the rhythm of lowering Thomas down, the rope goes limp. I wait for the pull of his weight again, but it doesn’t come. The time seems to stretch out. He can’t be more than halfway down.

  “Thomas!” I shout, trying not to be too loud. I have no idea who else might be around, but it’s hard to shout quietly.

  “Thomas, can you hear me?”

  I’m answered by nothing but silence for a long, frightening moment. Then I hear Thomas’s voice. “I landed right on top of the guy. We’re on some kind of scaffolding. Hold on.”

  Two minutes later, he calls for us to pull him up. Oscar wastes no time hauling up the rope, pulling hand over hand like a machine. We soon see the light from Thomas’s headlamp, and a second later his head emerges from the blackness. Oscar lets out a whoop.

  Then he lets go of the rope.

  He walks away with his head cocked in this weird way, menace and glee spreading across his face as he laughs to himself.

  I still have the rope, but I’m not expecting to take the full brunt of Thomas’s weight and I get pulled forward off my feet. Thomas is able to get a hand onto the section of the fence that had fallen over and hangs on. Then the whole fence section starts to sliding toward the edge of the pit.

  I push myself forward with my elbows and grab hold of the fence even as I’m still holding the rope, but it’s not enough to counter Thomas’s weight against the pull of gravity. I crawl onto the fence, thinking my weight will anchor it in place, but as Thomas pulls himself up, the fence starts sliding down with both of us on it.

  We’re going over the edge. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. The fence shoots forward, gaining speed, and I’m frozen to it, staring ahead into the void.

  I think two things at the same time: I’m going to die and Do something.

  I don’t know how long this moment lasts, but even as I feel myself tipping forward, about to plunge into the pit, somehow I have time to wonder if I should hold on to the fence or let go of it. I grab the lattice with my fingers just as it jerks to a stop.

  The fence sticks out like a diving board from the edge of the pit. It teeters slowly, and I hold my breath until it levels out again. The snow whips around my face, and a gust of wind unbalances me. I tip forward, my fingers frozen to the metal. I try to inch back slowly, but as I shift my weight, the fence dips again, sinking even farther this time.

  Suddenly it snaps back.

  “It’s all right,” Thomas says. “I’ve got you.”

  Somehow he must have scrambled up the fence as it was falling, like he was going up a down escalator.

  “Angel. You need to come back. Come on. Just a little at a time.”

  The metal is bowing underneath my body, and my head and shoulders are hanging in midair. I can’t make myself move, though. Not until I hear Thomas’s voice again.

  “I’ve got you. Come on back, Angel.”

  I crawl backward slowly, shaking more and more the closer I get to frozen ground. Finally, I feel the toes of my boots against the dirt. Two arms circle me, and Thomas pulls me the rest of the way.

  The moment I’m clear, the fence plummets down into the darkness below, landing a few seconds later with a jingling crash. We both sit there, panting.

  I look over at Oscar, who is doing some kind of shadowboxing thing. He jogs around raising his hands in victory like an imaginary crowd is cheering him on. He jogs off into the night. I get up but don’t bother to chase him down.

  “Not to make excuses,” I say, “but I’m not sure how in touch with reality he is. I mean, he clearly doesn’t realize how much all this
sucks.”

  Thomas crawls a few feet, like he doesn’t want to get up off the ground. I know the feeling. The front of his jacket is torn, and the downy fill is spilling out. In his hand is a black rectangle with two wrist straps attached to it. He holds the small computer up, victorious.

  “At least I got this.”

  “But what is it?”

  “Probably about a hundred million dollars in research and development. Let’s go find out what it does.”

  We retreat to the trailer. Thomas’s new toy has him occupied, so he tells me to go ahead and use his laptop. The trailer is once again freezing. Thomas doesn’t want to waste power on running the space heater. I can see my breath as I hunch over and begin to read hungrily, wanting to know, afraid to know. I go through page after page of reports and memos on the Tabula Rasa project. The weirdest stuff is about the side effects. This whole treatment is nothing but side effects—and they’re all over the map. Every patient seemed to display a different set of post-op behaviors—“extreme lethargy and suicidal impulses” to “hyperaggressive displays paired with loss of impulse control and empathy.”

  I know that this could be my fate if I don’t get that last pill, but I don’t want to know any more about this clinical stuff. I switch over to a file labeled “Grants and Funding,” thinking it might be fairly harmless. Instead, I find a series of emails between Dr. Buckley and some guy at the National Institutes of Health. The first line of the first message I read says, “Effective immediately …”

  “The government canceled the project!”

  Thomas hardly responds. “Project canceled. Hold that thought. I’ve just figured out that this tablet is connected to their mainframe.”

  “I thought you said you killed the mainframe.”

  “I killed the hospital’s mainframe. But this awesome little thing”—he shakes the tablet—“connects to these soldiers’ portable mainframe. This is the highest of high-end stuff. Their portable mainframe can override every system in this place.”

  “How?”

  “This thing blots out one signal and replaces it with a stronger one. It can even override hardwired connections. So these guys can basically come in and turn that sucker on, and what was once your mainframe now becomes their mainframe. But more importantly, what was once your security system now becomes their security system.”