Tabula Rasa

by Kristen Lippert-Martin

  “What you doing here?” he says. His lips are touching my ear. “What you in for, huh?”

  “I don’t know, man,” I say. “I don’t wanna know.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean. Except … suddenly it’s coming back to me. I keep seeing all these people’s faces staring at me, and they want to know why I did it to them, why I put them in the ground. And I don’t know. I can’t remember why. They’re all around me, all the time. I can’t get away from them.”

  I pull the syringe out of my pocket and put my thumb on the end of it, ready to push the button.

  “Did you shoot Rich Kid, Oscar? Is he all right?”

  He lets go of me but starts circling around, keeping his face inches from mine.

  “Oh, ho! Now I see what’s going on!” He slaps me hard on the back. “You like him, don’t you? You got a thing for Rich Kid, eh?” He grabs my ear and tugs on it, pulling me over to one side. “You from the hood? ’Cause I look at you and I think you got some white girl in you.”

  “I’ll tell you who I am: I’m Angel.”

  He pushes the gun into my cheek so far I feel it against my teeth. That’s when I reach up behind him, stick him in the neck with the syringe, and hit the plunger. He reacts to the shock of the injection by bobbling the gun. I hear it clatter onto the floor as he loses his balance and steps backward. He immediately recovers and grabs me by the throat with both hands, slamming me into the wall.

  “What did you do to me?”

  I can’t breathe. He’s pinching off my windpipe, his fingernails digging into my skin. The sedative I just used on him—either it wasn’t enough or it’ll be too late for me when it takes effect. Because I’m done. He’s staring right in my face, his teeth gritted, trying to hurt me as bad as he can.

  A few seconds later, my vision becomes an endless tunnel, and I slide to the floor.

  CHAPTER 32

  Everything is black. The air is gone. I hear something, though—a voice. I don’t know who it belongs to. Maybe it’s just the echo of a voice that called out to me long ago. It’s been reverberating in the air, looking for me all this time. It’s telling me to hang on.

  Oscar falls to his knees and his grip loosens. I’m able to pull free and push him away. I watch as his eyes go glassy and his mouth hangs open. A small bit of saliva gathers on his lower lip and he falls forward, one hand still pressed to the wall. I take out the other syringe now, the one Jenner told me that he needed, and seeing as I’ve just gotten another taste of his psycho-killer side, I’m inclined to believe her. I give him a shot in the arm even though I’m sorely tempted to put it right into his eyeball.

  He falls over.

  I tell myself to breathe. To calm down. I need to get to Thomas. I give Oscar a kick, and his limp body rocks forward before rolling over.

  I grab the power cord and kick Oscar’s gun along in front of me as I run down the hallway to the rec lounge. I’m so tired I can hardly keep moving. When I finally arrive, I find Thomas sitting up, Elmer cradled in his lap. Thomas’s hand, sticky with blood, is pressed to Elmer’s chest. I drop the battery and cord and skid on my knees across the smooth floor. Elmer is still alive. Barely.

  He tries to speak to me. There’s a question in his eyes, and I answer it. “You did good, soldier. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Seconds later he’s gone. I take him from Thomas’s lap, lay him on the floor, and cover his face with my jacket.

  Thomas shouts, “I’m going to kill that crazy—”

  “You can kill him when he wakes up.”

  “He’s asleep somewhere?”

  “He is now. I found that medicine locker and got a syringe full of sedatives from one of the nurses.”

  I leave out the rest of the details.

  “Did you get your pill?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I can read people. It’s what makes me a good hacker. I can put things together, figure out what people might do, how they might hide their secrets and where. More than anything else, I hack into people’s heads.”

  “That right?”

  “Yes. And that’s why I know you’re lying to me. You think it will somehow make me feel better, like it did for him.” He points to Elmer’s body. “Something terrible happened to you.”

  I look at Thomas. I am empty. The world is no place I want to be right now.

  “Tell me,” he says. “Trust me.”

  “She killed her.”

  “Wait, who killed who?”

  “The woman I told you about, the one we heard on the radio. She’s the one who’s running this whole operation. She killed my mother, ran her down like a dog in the street, and now she’s coming after me.”

  “What?”

  He puts his hand on my cheek, and I let my face fall into his palm, let my head rest against his hand. I feel his hand start to shake and I lift my head up, but I can’t quite bring myself to look at him. My nose starts to run. I wipe it on my sleeve and swallow the hot lump in my throat, trying to make words come out.

  “She works for Erskine Claymore.”

  “Claymore? But that’s … it doesn’t make any sense. Why would he wipe out a project that he funded? And what’s it got to do with you?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe he’s just angry because I made him look bad.” I look up and scream. “She killed my mother, Thomas!”

  “Oh, Angel. Oh … I just … I wish …”

  I hug my knees to my chest. I feel Thomas’s hand on my head, but then it falls away and I look up. He’s in bad shape.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says. “What can I do? What can I say? I’ll do anything.”

  “I know nothing can bring my mother back, but I hate that woman. And I hate her most of all for making me remember how much I loved my mother and how she died in the same exact moment.”

  I don’t tell him about Claymore being my father. I think I don’t say anything because I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to think that there’s any of him running through me. For some reason that helps me stand and pull myself together.

  “You’re in pain,” I say.

  “A bit. I guess that painkiller is wearing off.” He points to the cord I’ve dropped on the floor. “Did you find any power?”

  “I did.”

  I hand him the cord attached to the battery, and as he plugs it into the laptop, I tell him how many people died to bring that to him. Not to make him feel guilty. But he should know.

  “You better have the best hacking day of your life.”

  Hours pass. I don’t know how many. I nod off at one point and awaken to the clacking of fingers on a keyboard. I feel a hand stroke my cheek, and I drift back asleep. I dream that I’m still in my hospital bed, and the bed is sitting in a field of white. Everything is white. The sky, the ground, all of it. I’m frightened by it. Terrified. How can there be such nothingness all around me? Suddenly Jori appears at my bedside. Her blonde hair is long, and she’s wearing a red bow in it. I tell her she is beautiful, and she says, “Yes, I am.” She’s holding a crayon in her hand. She sits on the ground and starts to draw. “It’s paper,” she says, looking around at the whiteness. “Blank paper. Come and draw with me.” I tell her I’m not a very good artist, but she says I can write a story instead. Any story I want. I tell her I don’t like this white world. It’s so empty. She smiles. “Not empty. Blank. Full of possibility.” She holds the crayon up again and tells me, “I can fix your broken wing if you’d like.”

  I tell her no. No one can fix my wings for me.

  She puts her finger to my lips and sings, “Be true. Be true. Be true.”

  It’s all crazy Jori talk.

  When I wake, I don’t open my eyes for a long, blissful moment. I could be anywhere. I can tell I’ve slept a long time. My limbs are heavy.

  “You shouldn’t have let me sleep. Those guys could be here any second.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve
kept our mercenary friends busy for the last few hours, setting off alarms all over the building.”

  I sit up and lean into him. He winces, and I pull back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I cross my arms over my chest. “It feels colder in here.”

  “Does it?”

  When I can focus my eyes again, I look at Thomas. He doesn’t look well. I lean over and put my hand to his forehead; he pulls away.

  “You’re burning up.”

  “Yeah,” he says, still staring intently at the screen. “I’m sure that’s all kinds of bad.”

  He stops and looks up at me. I can’t read his expression. He could say anything right now and nothing would surprise me.

  “I love you.”

  I was wrong about that.

  “I assume you’re trying to make me laugh. Which isn’t very funny.”

  “No, I have a reason for saying it. A selfish one.”

  “You have a selfish reason for saying that you love me?”

  “I have a weird bucket list, and that one was right at the very top. I never said it to anyone before, and I wanted to say it to someone before I died.”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “Odds are not looking good.”

  “I’m not talking about this anymore.”

  “Okay.”

  “What happened while I was asleep? Did you find anything useful?”

  “Have a look.”

  He turns the laptop toward me, and suddenly I realize that he’s leaning on me to keep from tipping over. “Maybe you should lie down.”

  “Okay.”

  He lets me lay him on the floor. I hover over him and stuff the blood-streaked pillow under his head. He looks sleepy now, like he’s having trouble staying with me.

  “So how did it feel?” I ask.

  “How did what feel?”

  “Saying ‘I love you.’ ”

  “Oh. It was fine. I mean, awkward, but it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Here, I’ll say it again.” He looks me in the eye and says softly, “I love you.”

  I look away. “Okay, now you’re just showing off.”

  He smiles at me, but I know he’s faking. He’s in pain and it’s getting harder and harder for him to cover it up. I reposition the pillow just as a way to divert attention from my own embarrassment.

  “Well, I’m glad you said it,” I say.

  “Yeah? How come?”

  “Because I doubt I’m going to hear anybody tell me that ever. Whether we die here or not.”

  “You really are brain-damaged, aren’t you?”

  “Hey!”

  He sucks in a breath between his teeth and licks his lips before saying softly, “Let me explain something to you, Angel. There are two kinds of girls in this world: the kind that guys find it easy to say ‘I love you’ to and the kind guys find it nearly impossible to tell. You’re the second kind of girl.”

  “I think I already knew that.”

  “You don’t understand. See, when a guy is afraid to tell a girl he loves her, it’s because what he feels scares the crap out of him. Some girls inspire fear; others don’t.”

  “I’m scary. Well, that’s nice to hear.”

  “Angel, you’re not getting what I’m saying.…”

  I feel stung. I don’t want to have this conversation anymore. When I look down at my arm for the tablet, I realize that Thomas must have removed it while I was sleeping. It’s lying on the floor, and the screen is black.

  He sees me searching and shakes his head.

  “It’s useless to us now. But that’s okay, because I just discovered something about portable mainframes. They are easier to hack than you might think. Hacking into a system designed to hack into other systems—that’s like a double negative. Anyway, we’ll still be able to see them on the security cameras now.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “Yes. But as you are no doubt aware by now, good news usually comes with bad news.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “There’s only one place you’re going to get another pill.”

  I close my eyes. “Of course.”

  “Getting up to the sixth floor is not going to be easy,” he says.

  I let out an unhappy little chuckle. The idea of carrying on against these odds is completely laughable. Getting up three floors took four lives and almost cost me mine. Now I’m going to go twice as far? By myself?

  “Thomas. Come on. It’s over, and we both know it. I’m not going to get that pill in time. And even if I did, I’m probably not going to get out of here alive.”

  “I don’t want to hear that from you! You are going to get what you need. I’m going to help you. I don’t care if you want to give up. You can tell yourself you’re doing this for me now. Whatever it takes. Listen. There are seventy-two security cameras in this building. I’m going to scroll through all of them. You’ll see four angles per screen. Tell me when you see something interesting; I’m going to have a little rest.” He closes his eyes and lets his head tip back against the wall.

  I watch as the images go by. Some cameras show static; some only display black. After twenty or so, I see the main lobby appear in the upper corner. My eyes pass over it for a moment, but then I think I catch sight of something moving on the floor.

  “Wait.”

  Thomas takes his hand away from the keyboard.

  “It’s Steve!”

  “Who?”

  I’m still trying to get over being pissed that he tried to hand me over to the soldiers, but when I see what he’s doing, it makes it a little easier to let that go. He’s pulling his huge body across the floor, inch by inch, leaving a trail of blood; he’s moving toward the security guard’s desk.

  “I think I know where he’s going. There! See. On the wall. That’s the panic button.”

  Thomas does a weak, sleepy cheer. “I hope whoever comes brings balloons and lots of painkillers.”

  In another shot I see more movement. There are four soldiers, rifles in hand, making their way toward a stairwell. The next camera angle shows them walking downstairs. They’re one floor above the main lobby. I watch as they continue to descend.

  “No,” I say. “No, no, no.”

  “What?”

  “Those soldiers are going to the lobby,” I say. “They’re heading straight for him.”

  We watch Steve’s progress across the floor. He’s using his elbows to move his big frame across the marble, brushing aside glass pellets as he goes. It’s excruciating to see, like watching some inhumane sport.

  Steve’s got seconds before the soldiers come through the door. Slowly, slowly, he inches along, his hands trembling each time he pulls himself forward.

  He just needs a little more time.

  “Where’s that radio?” I ask.

  “What radio?”

  “The one we took off the soldier who fell into the excavation pit.”

  “I don’t know. It’s still in the pack, I think.”

  I find it and turn it on.

  “Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

  The soldiers on the screen stop and look around.

  “Seems you got their attention.”

  Steve is still three feet away from the button, and it looks like his strength is giving out.

  “Angel,” a voice coos over the radio. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do long, drawn-out good-byes. It’s uncomfortable for everyone. I’m still hoping we can just shoot you and be on our way.”

  “I remember,” I say to her.

  “Do you? Tut, tut, tut. That’s got to be very hard on you.”

  As I take my thumb off the radio button, Thomas says, “Tell her you know what they did to you.”

  “What?”

  “Tell her you know what Buckley did.”

  I look at the monitor. Steve’s reached the guard’s desk. He’s stretching toward the wall, flailing blindly for the button. He pulls himself up, falls, pulls himself up again. T
he four soldiers are running down the stairs toward the lobby.

  “Come on, come on,” I say to the computer screen, trying to egg Steve on.

  “Keep talking,” Thomas says. His skin has gone gray, and his eyes are glassy. “Tell her you have what she wants.”

  “What do I have that she wants?”

  “The data. Tell her you have all the research on the Velocius project. By now they’ve probably figured out that it’s gone.”

  I press the radio button. “I have what you want.”

  I hear a hiss and a beep. Then Hodges’s voice.

  “I’m sure you don’t have what I want, not unless you’ve got some size-six-and-a-half Jimmy Choos with you. No, be assured that the only thing I want right now is you, dead, preferably killed in a violent manner.”

  Thomas shakes his head. He’s in agony. “Go on. Tell her you have the data 8-Bit took. About the Velocius project. Say it.”

  I echo Thomas even though I don’t understand. There’s no response for a long time. I wonder if the radio has cut out. After a minute, I repeat what I said. Suddenly we hear a humming sound, and all the lights come on. The brightness stings my eyes. I’ve never been so unhappy to see light. I feel like a hole has formed in my chest and the rest of me is falling into it.

  “Guess they figured out where we are,” Thomas says.

  I look at the computer screen. Steve has collapsed onto the floor, his arm still extended toward the desk, inches from the button. A soldier with a smoking rifle is standing over him.

  “That’s really, really freaking discouraging,” Thomas says.

  I turn my radio off and take the computer from his lap.

  “I’m going after her.”

  “No, you’re not. Not yet, anyway. Not until you get that last pill. Then you can kill her all you want. Please, Angel. Please don’t leave me right now. I mean … let’s see what else we can find out first.”

  Thomas slumps down and takes his glasses off. They fall from his hand onto the floor. “I need to rest my eyes for a minute. You look.”

  I continue pressing the “enter” key, trawling through the camera angles for something helpful. After a few screens, I see a man tied to a desk chair.