Tabula Rasa

by Kristen Lippert-Martin

  I get up and look over his shoulder. He points at a series of red dots on the screen. All of which are moving.

  “Look what we have here.”

  “What are those?”

  “This is a map of the compound, both inside and out. Each dot is a soldier.”

  He scrolls through some pages, and I can see that some of the dots are inside the building, and some are roaming around outside. He brings up each floor of the hospital in turn.

  “Uggh,” he says.

  “What?”

  “I count thirteen armed dots.”

  My heart sinks. “That’s a lot of armed dots.”

  “Yeah, but this tells us something important. Wait. Look at this.” Again he taps the screen, and this time I see the wreckage in the main lobby. Snow has blown in through the windows and collected in a drift near the front doors. They’ve stacked a pile of bodies near the potted palms.

  “You have access to the security cameras?”

  “Indeed. Now let’s get back to finding those pills. I had no luck figuring out where the med locker is. It’s not on the map, anyway. Where do you think they’d keep something super secret like that? I mean, do you remember someplace inside that was off-limits?”

  “Pretty much everywhere was off-limits.”

  “But I mean, do you remember the staff ever talking about certain floors of the building being special for any reason?”

  “The sixth floor,” I say automatically. “That’s where Larry’s office was. I think that’s where all the doctors’ offices were. I once heard some of the nurses talking about how you had to have special clearance to get in and out of there.”

  “The sixth floor,” he repeats. “Okay. We’ll start there. But first we’ve got to get back inside.”

  “Wait. What does the fact that there are thirteen dots tell us?”

  “What?”

  “You said that the number of guys they’ve brought tells us something.”

  “Oh, right. Well, one assumes these guys know what they’re doing, and since 8-Bit helped case the joint electronically for them, they must have decided that all they needed to raid this huge hospital was thirteen guys.”

  “Fourteen,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah. Right. They’re down a man thanks to Oscar. Still, that’s not much firepower for a compound this big.”

  “Maybe they knew that people would be clearing out for the storm.”

  “They didn’t. They knew a storm was coming, but I don’t think anybody expected it to be this bad.”

  “So that pretty much proves that there weren’t many of us left in here.”

  “Yeah, something strange is going on. This hospital is pretty swank, considering it was about to become a ghost town.”

  He gets up and walks over to the little space heater. “No point in conserving energy now.”

  He turns it on full blast, and I let the warmth bathe me.

  “What else was in the bag?” I ask.

  “Lots of goodies. I don’t know what they all do, but I’m sure some of them blow things up.” He rubs his hands together quickly, then says, “I’m going to do something now. Trust me?”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  He hits a button, and I see on the screen that the alarm system goes off in an area on the first floor. We watch on the soldier’s computer as a bunch of red dots start moving toward that area.

  Thomas turns the alarm off.

  Then he turns it back on.

  He waits about thirty seconds and does it all again. We wait another five minutes and suddenly the whole wing goes dark.

  “What just happened?” I ask.

  He raises his finger and points at the soldier’s computer. Slowly, the red dots begin moving back toward the main lobby again.

  “You made them think the system was glitching on and off,” I say.

  “Yep.”

  “So they shut all the power off in that section because the alarm was so annoying. Genius.”

  “ ‘Annoying Genius.’ That should be my slogan from now on.” He points at the screen. “We should head toward this door. I think it’ll be open now, so we don’t have to use a passcard to get in. Plus, if we trip any alarms, they’ll assume it’s another problem with the security system.”

  We start to pack up our things, but I pause. “Oscar. What should we do about him?”

  “That nut-job is on his own as far as I’m concerned, especially after that hilarious attempt to drop me to my death.”

  “He didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “You’re defending him? He almost got you killed, too.”

  “I know, but I was reading some of the other staff reports about treatment effects. Oscar isn’t sure what’s real and what’s just in his head.”

  “Yeah. Well, I hope he gets over that sometime soon or he’s gonna fantasize us all into a bloody pulp.”

  The rumble of an engine makes us both turn toward the door. “Maybe those snowcats are back,” Thomas says.

  The sound gets louder and louder until it sounds like it’s coming from right outside the trailer. Because it is. The whole trailer is trembling. Headlights come on directly outside the window, and we both freeze like deer waiting to be shot.

  CHAPTER 18

  Thomas grabs my hand and the tablet and dashes for the door, but we don’t make it more than a few steps before the whole trailer starts rocking. We land on the floor and slide toward one wall and then back again. The furniture slides with us, including the heavy oak desk and the pictures dangling from their wall hooks. I hear glass cracking and metal twisting and a crunching sound that I think is coming from the roof. Thomas manages to get a hand on the laptop to keep it from sliding off the desk just as the desk smacks into the wall, and I barely escape being pinned by the leather sofa.

  “Maybe my little security system trick didn’t work so well after all,” he says, dodging the desk chair as it flies by.

  The trailer tips upright again and remains still for a moment. I crawl toward the window, expecting to see a snowcat, but what I see instead is only slightly less troubling. Oscar is behind the controls of an excavator. He’s using the digging arm to push the trailer, like he’s trying to knock it off its foundation.

  I watch as he swings the arm as far as it will go to the left. I have just enough time to scramble backward before he uses the claw to rip the end of the trailer off like he’s opening a cereal box.

  “Come on!” I grab Thomas’s arm and pull him toward the trailer door. “It’s Oscar!”

  Just then, something crashes through the roof of the trailer, smashing the desk to splinters. The computer flies into the air, and when it hits the floor, the screen snaps off.

  “What does he think he’s doing?”

  We roll into the opposite wall as the trailer tips so far to the left I’m sure it’s going to fall onto its side. At least we’d be falling toward solid ground. I guess this is not what Oscar wants, though, because he lets the trailer slam flat upright again. I realize that he’s trying to push the whole thing over and send it tumbling into that big hole in the ground.

  Just as I reach the door, Thomas pulls away from my grasp. He stretches to retrieve the computer from where it’s landed next to the mini-fridge. Through the opening in the roof, I see Oscar winding up again to punch straight down through the top of the trailer.

  “Thomas, no!”

  “I need the flash drive!”

  He flattens his body completely, just able to reach the drive with his fingertips. With the other hand he grabs the strap of the soldier’s backpack and pulls it toward him. Oscar brings the arm of the excavator down. Inside my mind, I’m screaming at Thomas to get back, but there’s not even time for my lips to form the words. He’s trying to get up but can’t get off his knees because the trailer has collapsed and fallen off its supports. He’s sliding toward the end that Oscar ripped away. Thomas isn’t going to make it out. The digger claw is going to cut him in two.

  I reac
h through the door and grab him by his jacket just as the claw smashes what’s left of the ceiling. He screams in pain, and at first I think he’s been crushed, but then I see what’s happened. The claw missed Thomas, but pinched a piece of metal from the roof against his lower leg. I have to wait for Oscar to lift the digger claw up again before I can try to get Thomas out.

  Oscar struggles with the excavator’s control levers. A moment later the arm swings upward, and I’m able to peel back the piece of debris and pull Thomas out through the door. We both land hard on the frozen ground and Thomas howls. His boot has been slashed all the way through. The cut runs from kneecap to ankle in almost a straight line along his shinbone.

  Oscar looks directly at me; his eyes are innocent. He could be playing in a sandbox with a toy. He swings the excavator’s arm up and brings it down again onto a porta-john, smashing it flat. He laughs as the putrid slush in the porta-potty gushes onto the ground and runs downhill toward the excavation pit.

  I need a way to get Thomas out of here, because he won’t be able to walk. I grab a plastic section of the porta-potty and retrieve the rope we used earlier. After threading it through the air vent at the top, I roll Thomas onto this makeshift sled and pull him out of range of the claw. Every bump makes him shriek in agony.

  The storm is ferocious, and the wind slashes at my bare head. In the scramble to get out of the trailer, I’ve lost my hat, my gloves. We’ve lost Thomas’s backpack, though he managed to hold on to the soldier’s pack. He’s clutching the flash drive in his hand so tightly I think he might be crushing it.

  I’ve completely lost my bearings. I look up at the hospital. It’s just a broad expanse of wall and rows of windows too high to reach. We might as well be trying to break into a prison.

  “Thomas, where do we go?”

  He points at a huge pile of dirt next to the construction site.

  “Other side of that?”

  He nods.

  Of course. There’s no way I’m going to get him up and over this mound of dirt, but I start to climb anyway. Each step I take, I use up all my strength, decide it’s pointless, and then try one more time. I keep my eyes closed so I don’t have to keep looking at how far I still have to go. After struggling up the hill for what seems like an hour, I feel a blast of wind hit me full in the face, shocked to find that I’m at the top.

  I pull as hard as I can, but I can’t get the sled up the final few feet. “You’re going to have to climb the last bit, Thomas. I’m sorry. Can you do it?”

  He lifts his body just enough to let the sled beneath him slide away. I lie flat and he uses my body like a ladder, pulling himself up until we’re both sitting at the top. He bites down on his lip to keep from screaming.

  I look down toward the door and realize getting down won’t be so easy. The dirt pile is right up against the building, and the angle of the incline is steeper than on the side I just dragged Thomas up. I’m going to have to take him down inch by inch, and if I lose my grip on him, he could slide out of control, right into the wall.

  We need to hurry. We’re in open view, and snowcat headlights are now moving toward the trailer. Oscar seems oblivious. He begins working the excavator’s arm up and down, up and down. The claw plunges repeatedly into the ground, right in the same spot, but the ground is so hard he’s not making any progress. What is he doing?

  Then I understand.

  “I think he found Jori’s body, and he’s digging her a grave,” I say.

  Thomas raises his head and says, “I don’t care what that lunatic is doing.”

  A second snowcat suddenly emerges from the swirling snow. It’s further away, but I can tell by the way both snowcats are moving that they’ve caught sight of Oscar. He sees them, too, and steps out of the cab, onto the tire of the excavator.

  I wave my arms and shout, “Hey! Here! Over here! Oscar!”

  Thomas reaches up and tries to pull me down by the edge of my coat.

  “Like it or not, he’s our problem now.”

  I see Oscar turn toward me, unsure of where my voice is coming from. Then he looks back at the snowcats, which are getting closer. Still he does nothing. He ducks as a few sparks fly off the edge of the excavator. Apparently gunfire registers enough with him that he knows he’s got to run and hide.

  I see more sparks and then Oscar goes down. He grabs his shoulder and staggers to his feet. He’s up the pile of dirt in a matter of seconds, shivering violently, his eyes wild and terrified.

  “Help me,” I say.

  I tell him to get on Thomas’s other side, and he follows my lead as we try to make a controlled slide down the dirt pile to the door. It doesn’t work. We shoot to the bottom, and I end up acting as the bumper when we come to a stop against the side of the building. Thomas slams into my rib cage, but I stand up quickly and put my hand on the door handle. A prayer springs to my lips. I don’t know if I believe a word of it, but when I yank the door open I know my prayer has been answered, and I’m grateful.

  There is no light inside. Not even emergency lights. I have to leave the door propped open slightly to see anything at all. Oscar helps me drag Thomas, but I can see he’s fading fast. Once we heave ourselves through the door, Oscar makes a little gagging noise and passes out. His body is half in and half out of the door. I pull him across the threshold.

  “Forget him, will you? And shut the door,” Thomas says.

  “It’s pitch-black in here!”

  “I’ve got a couple glow sticks in my inside pocket,” he says, patting his jacket. I reach in, take them out, snap both, and hand one to him. As I do, he grabs my hand and presses it to his face, closing his eyes.

  “Angel, you saved my stupid life.”

  I stroke his forehead. I can see he’s fighting to remain coherent. The pain must be beyond excruciating. “You can thank me by telling me the layout for this area.”

  He pants in between every other word. “End of this hallway … set of double doors. There’s a big open room. I don’t know what it is.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

  I use the glow stick like a sword, brandishing it at the blackness. The walls are bare concrete. I see a trowel and a bucket and a few other tools lying around. It makes sense now. All these places are unfinished because the government walked away from this hospital and left it to rot. Left us all to rot. But if that’s the case, why was there still anyone here at all? Why were they still talking about finishing my treatment?

  As I get to the end of the hallway, I see the double doors that Thomas mentioned. I go through and come to a T, turn right and continue along. There is a line of doors with small glass windows. It looks very familiar down here. These are hospital rooms. All the doors are open, but they have the same heavy lock mechanisms we had on the fourth floor. My back suddenly stiffens as I realize that this is a basement.

  Who would they lock up down here?

  I turn around and investigate in the other direction. At the very end of the hall, there’s a swinging door. I’m about to enter when I hear a scraping sound behind me. I turn. A flashlight, a really bright one, shines in my face. I put my hand up to block the light. The beam drops to the floor, and I see a young, bald man, maybe in his midtwenties. He’s wearing pants and a shirt that look very much like military fatigues, but he’s barefoot. A fire ax dangles loosely at his side.

  He looks at me, cocks his head to the side, and says, “Welcome.”

  CHAPTER 19

  For some weird reason, I bow. I guess it’s because I want to put my bald head front and center to make it clear: I’m one of you. Whatever you are.

  Right now he’s a guy with an ax in his hand. That’s reason enough to show him some respect.

  “Hello,” I say. “We’re … we’re looking for …”

  For what? I don’t know what to say. Safety? I don’t imagine there’s much of that around here.

  The man just looks at me. In his expression I read intelligence, exhaustion, and maybe pleasant surprise. H
e’s not unhappy to see me.

  I start to say, “I’m …” Then I wonder if I should tell him my name. I don’t know who he is or anything about him, so I think fast and finish, “… sorry to intrude.”

  “It’s no intrusion,” the man says. “Misery loves company. And that’s what we call ourselves. Misery Company.”

  Three other men suddenly step up behind him, emerging from the darkness like smoke. I can barely make them out. One of the men is carrying some kind of electric lantern. He turns it on and bright white light reveals the room behind me. It’s a conference room.

  “We thought they’d finally decided to kill us,” the man with the lantern says, almost cheerfully.

  “Who? The soldiers?”

  He looks at me quizzically, and the man standing to his right says, “Our captors, of course.”

  I don’t know what he means, but I say nothing. All four of them are dressed the same: green pants and T-shirts, barefoot.

  “My friend …,” I start to say, turning back toward the dark hallway I just came down. “My friend is back there. He’s injured. It’s pretty bad.”

  The man holding the lantern points to the smaller man to his left. “Elmer here might be able to help you. We’re allowed to keep some basic medical supplies, and he’s found some other useful contraband.”

  Elmer asks, “What’s the nature of the injury?”

  “It’s his leg—there’s a lot of blood.”

  Elmer turns around and trots off into the dark hallway.

  “My name is …” I’m not sure what to say. I still can’t call myself Angel. It’s like I haven’t earned the right to be her.

  The soldier with the ax puts his hand up and says, “We only use code names around here. The less they know about us, the better. That was our medic, Elmer. I’m Sam.” He points to the guy holding the lantern, who seems to be the youngest of the group. “That’s Sylvester. And that’s …”

  A muscular man steps forward and says, “Jerry.” He gives me a flirty smile and touches his brow with his fingertips, saluting me.