Elmer says unapologetically, “I’m a medic, not a doctor. I’ve done what I can.”
“Help me sit up,” Thomas says to our turned backs.
“No,” Elmer and I say simultaneously.
“Seriously. I need to type.”
Thomas rolls onto his stomach, trying to keep his injured leg still. He pushes the computer screen open and reaches into his pocket for his ugly glasses. The left lens is cracked, but he puts them on anyway. I realize I still have the power cord around my neck. I also realize it’s useless because there is no working outlet. When Thomas presses the power button, the screen lights up, and I’m flooded with relief. If there’s anything useful in this computer, I know Thomas will find it.
I crouch down next to Thomas as he works. Sam is staring at the computer, his eyes thin slits. He’s confused by us. And suspicious. I don’t have any hairs on the back of my neck, but if I did, they’d be standing up right now.
After a few minutes of typing Thomas says, “I’ve got good news, bad news, and everything in between.”
“Let’s hear it all,” I say.
“First of all, this computer is swank. Like, even better than 8-Bit’s computer. It’s also chock-full of tasty information. They seem to have a completely separate, encased mainframe for just this area. I’m sure 8-Bit didn’t know about it.”
I glance at the soldiers and then back at Thomas, who notices something is wrong. I give a slight shake of my head: Don’t ask right now.
“Go on,” I say, lowering my voice.
Thomas lowers his as well. “I can get into their system easily enough. It’ll take me maybe thirty minutes to bypass their security. Maybe an hour. I’m not really at my best at the moment.”
I wince. “And the bad news?”
“This battery has about fifteen minutes of juice left, tops.”
He closes the machine up.
“It’s okay. I can take it back to where I found it.”
“You don’t need to take the whole thing. It’s got a removable nuclear battery. Not exactly commercially available. This might be a prototype.” He pops the battery out of the back of the computer and attaches the cord to it. “You found a place where the power hadn’t been cut?”
“Yeah,” I say, taking the battery from him. “I found this weird concierge waiting area thing. Thomas, this place is South—”
I snap my mouth shut and look up. Sam looms over me, radiating anger.
“This place is what?” he asks.
I see his grip on the ax handle tighten and realize much too late that we have a new problem.
“Whoa. What’s up?” Thomas asks. His forehead crumples as he looks back and forth between me and Sam.
How stupid I’ve been. I go to the “latrine” and return with a laptop computer? They can’t make sense of it. Part of what’s keeping these men here is their belief that they can’t leave. They’re prisoners of their own minds. Maybe I’ve been living that way, too.
I take a deep breath and stand up to face Sam and his ax.
I may not have all the answers about my past yet, but I know that being timid, weak, indecisive—that’s not who I used to be. And I need that girl back again. Right here and right now.
Sam is glaring at me. “Our captors could return at any moment. Unless you already know that.…”
Suddenly Thomas catches on to the danger we’re in. “Hold on. Check that hostility just a second. Let me show you something.”
He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket. Sam raises the ax slightly.
Thomas pulls out the tablet we retrieved from the dead soldier in the construction pit. I’d forgotten all about it. He must have tucked it into his jacket like a father penguin sheltering its egg when Oscar got homicidal with the excavator. He hands the device to Sam.
Sam tips it back and forth in the light. “What is this?”
Jerry looks over Sam’s shoulder, trying to see what he’s holding. “How were you able to smuggle this in? They stripped us of everything.”
“Yeah. Even our dang tighty-whities,” Sylvester says.
“They don’t know we’re here,” Thomas says. “Nobody does.”
Sylvester lets out a whoop and elbows Sam. “I told you they’d send someone for us!”
But Sam is having none of it. He shakes his head and looks at me, unconvinced. “You think they’d send a girl to rescue us? Really?”
Sylvester’s face dims as he looks at me anew.
“I guess it worked then,” Thomas says as he nods in my direction.
“What worked?” Sylvester asks.
“Special ops is getting trickier and trickier these days, eh? Who would suspect her?”
Sylvester’s face lights up at this answer. “Yeah. Absolutely. No one would.”
I point at the tablet. “We stole this. We’re still trying to figure out how it works, but see these red dots? This shows us where the, uh, enemy combatants are.”
Sam clears his throat and looks down at the screen. I watch as he follows the red dots swarming all over. I can’t read his expression at all. Finally he points at the tablet and says, “They’ve concentrated their forces here and here. That’s bad for them, good for us. One well-timed ambush and they’re wiped out.”
I pick up the backpack and hold it out to him. “We also managed to get our hands on some of—”
“Your captors’ equipment,” Thomas finishes, warning me with his eyes.
With a nod from Sam, Sylvester takes the pack from me, unzips it, and begins examining the contents. I look at the tablet in Sam’s hands, and my heart sinks. I see that the red dots, about ten of them, are moving around near where I just was, at the entrance of South Wing.
“Can you bring up the security camera view for that area?” I ask Thomas, pointing at a spot on the screen.
He takes the tablet from Sam and calls up the feed. It’s the waiting room I was just in. I take the passcard out of my pocket and think very seriously about snapping it in half. The soldiers were probably watching me the whole time. They must know exactly where I exited the room, but for some reason they just keep circling near the front doors.
I say to Thomas, “I will get you some power. But first, maybe you can use those last fifteen minutes to find out more about the, uh, situation here.”
He nods and salutes me. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“Sir.” Sylvester smiles at me and then points a finger at Sam. “See? You didn’t believe me, but I told you they’d come for us. I told you.”
“Yes,” Sam says, eyeing me. “It’s a very convenient explanation for why they’re here, isn’t it?”
He walks away and leans against the wall, watching us as he considers what we’ve just revealed. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I do know he’s got his hand wrapped tightly around that ax handle.
CHAPTER 22
I hold the tablet in front of me and bite my lip. After a minute, the cluster of red dots in the reception area moves off. I’m relieved, but also wary. Why would they back off like that?
I want to talk with Thomas about it, but I don’t want to interrupt him. Occasionally, I look over as he works. His face is set, betraying nothing but concentration. A few minutes later, he closes up the computer and motions for me to come over.
“What did you find out?”
“These guys are seriously—”
“Messed up. I know. Keep your voice down. They think they’re POWs.”
“Yeah. I found a whole slew of files, but could only get through a fraction of what’s there. Basically they’re Special Forces—some of the first patients to be treated for PTSD, using a new technique that completely and utterly backfired. What they’re experiencing is called a paradoxical treatment effect. The soldiers ended up trapped inside the traumatic memories the doctors were trying to remove.”
“This must be why the staff was always so weird about South Wing. No one ever talked about it. They tried to act like the place didn’t exist.”
“I guess this is
where the doctors have been warehousing patients who didn’t respond well to the memory modification treatment. The power outage must have set them free.”
“Yeah, but they’re only a little bit free. They won’t go beyond this lounge, because it’s what’s familiar to them. I think our jackets and boots are confusing them. They think they’re in the desert.”
“It also explains why they’re barefoot. I read somewhere that captors take POWs’ shoes away so they can’t escape. Maybe the hospital staff was trying to do what the soldiers expected. They’ve used these guys’ delusions to keep them under control.”
“That’s horrible,” I say. “And it makes me really, really mad.”
Elmer gets up and checks Oscar’s vitals, but I have the impression he’s just trying to move closer so he can eavesdrop. I think Sam might have told him to listen to what we were saying—or to make sure it’s difficult for us to have a private conversation.
I look over at Oscar. He’s breathing loudly, making little grunts each time he exhales. “You think this paradoxical effect is what Oscar’s experiencing, too?”
“I guess it’s kind of related.”
I let my head fall into my hands for a moment and then look up at Thomas. “This is real, right? I’m just worrying … maybe I’m getting like him.” I point to Oscar.
Thomas smirks and grabs my shoulders. “Remember what I told you? Does this suck?”
I nod. “It sucks a whole bunch.”
“Exactly. Real.”
He gives me a fist bump.
“What else did you find out?” I ask.
“Not much.”
“Nothing about the pills?”
“Nothing specific. Like I said, this computer system wasn’t hooked in to the other mainframe, but I did find a reference to someone borrowing medication from the locker on the third floor. We might start there. How much time have we lost?”
“I don’t know.” I look at his watch. It’s after midnight. “I’ve got about fourteen hours.”
He picks up the tablet and compares the two locations—the two medicine lockers and those menacing red dots. He sighs.
“It’s bad. I know.”
“If you like suicide missions, then I’d say these are perfect conditions for one.”
“I can do it,” I say.
“Angel, the only part of the main building that has electricity also has a lot of guys with guns. And that locker is just one giant red blob.”
I ignore this as if it’s old news. It is. “How long does the battery take to charge?”
“An hour or so.”
“I’ve stayed alive this long; I can stay alive for another hour.”
“That kind of bragging will get you killed.”
“I’m telling you, I can do it.”
“I know you can, but it’s still a terrible idea.”
“This whole thing was a terrible idea,” I say, pushing away from him. “You should have done what 8-Bit told you to do. You should have never come back to this place with me.”
“But look at all this self-destruction I’ve accomplished.” He gestures at his bandaged leg. “No way I could have done this much damage on my own, Angel.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel loads better.”
“I have no regrets, okay? So you can stop looking at me like that.”
“I can’t help it.” I almost choke on the words as I say them. “I feel awful.”
“I feel awful, too. But I’d have felt awful no matter what. None of that’s your fault, and at least this way, I got to spend some quality time with you, nearly dying. Not to mention Oscar. What a treat it’s been getting to know him a little better.”
“Thomas, you’re not funny.”
We stare at each other. He gives me a tired smile.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because you deserve to be helped.”
“No, really.”
“Because maybe I’ve got a lot to make up for, and maybe I can’t pay it back to the person I owe it to, so I’m paying you back instead. Who cares why? I’m clearly not the only one.”
“What do you mean?”
“You remember right before the Fantastic Mr. O-No tried to crush us like a couple soda cans, I said I’d found something interesting?”
“Yeah?”
“The first thing these ninja soldier dudes did when they got here was shut off the one and only external security feed.”
“But we just used the security cameras. We know they’re working.”
“Yes, the internal camera feed is working. But there was one feed that they blacked out.”
“Meaning?”
“This system is supposed to be a closed circuit. Nobody from outside is supposed to be able to look in. Except somebody was. There was a feed routed through a computer here that was heavily encrypted—and I’ll bet you anything that if I traced it back to its source, I’d find that it was your friend Larry’s.”
I sigh. “Please just tell me what you think this means. I’m too tired to put two and two together, but I promise to note your extreme cleverness.”
“Okay, listen. What I think it means is, someone on the outside had a secret link into the security camera network here. Someone has been watching this place ever since you arrived.”
“Who?”
“I’ll tell you who. Someone with a net worth of seven-point-four billion dollars, that’s who.”
“You think Erskine Claymore has been watching the hospital?”
“Not the hospital. You.”
CHAPTER 23
The idea that some reclusive billionaire has been watching me around the clock is less worrisome than what I see when I look up. This time there’s no mistaking it. Sam has had enough of watching our private chat. He’s staring right at me, his eyes cold and unblinking.
“We have a more immediate problem,” I say.
Thomas turns and looks. “Secretive whispering does not sit well with our man Sam, does it?”
I know what I’ve got to do—what the nurses did: play by the rules of these guys’ delusions. They think they’re soldiers at war? Then that’s what we’ll let them think.
I lean over Thomas and mutter, “Sorry for this.”
“Sorry for what?”
I grab a fistful of his hair, scowl at him for all I’m worth, and say, just loud enough that only he can hear me, “So. You’re a redhead.”
I let go, pushing his head back a little harder than I intended. He has that surprised and offended look on his face again, the same one he gave me after I punched him.
“Ow! What the heck? You got a thing against redheads or something?”
Through my clenched teeth I say, “I’m chewing you out for, you know, talking back.”
“It’s called insubordination.”
“Whatever. Just go with it.”
“Why?”
I point directly into his face. “You’ll do what I tell you to do, you got that?”
He puts his hands up. “Okay! Okay! Sheesh.”
I can’t tell if he’s playing along or really annoyed. I say softly, “I think it’ll put them at ease if they think the reason we’re whispering together is because I’m chewing you out.”
“Couldn’t we just have pretended that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend? Then it wouldn’t look so suspicious—the two of us sitting together.”
“You told them we were special ops. They don’t send boyfriend-girlfriend teams to rescue POWs.”
“Maybe we’re the first of our kind.”
“Thomas.”
He shrugs. “Fine. Keep chewing.”
I crouch down in front of him and shout, “I don’t want to hear that talk from you again, you hear me?”
Thomas nods and then grumbles, “My idea was a lot more pleasant. I’d rather be your fake boyfriend than have you shouting in my face.”
I pace back and forth, trying to look as disgusted as possible. Sylvester hands Sam the backpack, and he begins rifling thro
ugh it.
I whisper, “Is it working?”
Thomas glances behind me and his expression collapses into dread.
“What’s the matter? What’s Sam doing now?”
“Did you know there was a pistol in the backpack?”
“Really?”
“Afraid so.”
“Great.”
Thomas keeps watching Sam over my shoulder. “On the positive side, the gun does seem to have cheered him up a lot.”
I turn toward Sam and give him a nod. He shakes his head like he knows what I’m dealing with. It’s not easy to keep the troops in line sometimes. Ten tense minutes pass as I wonder what Sam might do with that gun, but he seems much more relaxed now that he’s armed. I try not to look too concerned as he keeps putting the ammo clip into the pistol and popping it back out again, like he’s playing with a jack-in-the-box. At least it’s keeping him distracted.
I slide closer to Thomas, not sure what to do. He’s gone very still. His eyes are closed, and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep.
“Hey. I think you’re supposed to stay awake.”
“I am awake,” he says, his eyes still shut. “I can see you perfectly right now.”
“Another magic trick of yours?”
“Yeah.”
He smiles up at the ceiling and then all of a sudden his face contorts. I can’t tell if it’s the pain or for some other reason, but he’s quiet for too long. It makes me nervous.
I give him a gentle poke in the arm. “Come on. You have to stay alert.”
“I’m completely alert. By the way, in case you’ve ever wondered, morphine is really nice.”
“Glad to hear it. Now what are you thinking about?”
“What makes you think I’m thinking about anything at all?”
“The tortured look on your face a moment ago.”
“That’s just a thing I do sometimes. Girls can’t resist it.”
“Come on. Out with it.”
“I was thinking.” He opens his eyes and blinks slowly. “Maybe when all this is over, I can get my memory sucked out, too.”
My mouth drops open.
“Angel, I’m serious.”
“Why would you even say that?”
“You don’t—you wouldn’t—” He shakes his head. “When 8-Bit got this job, I read all the stuff about you guys. The patients here. The tabula rasa treatment to pull all those memories out.”
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