Tabula Rasa

by Kristen Lippert-Martin

  CHAPTER 36

  Retracing my steps, I try to go back out the way we came in. I reach the conference room near where I first saw Sam and his fire ax. As I round the corner, Oscar is standing there, holding on to the wall like he’s trying to steady himself on a boat.

  Oh no!

  This is just what I don’t need. I make a fist. He looks at me and makes a fist, too. But then he starts punching himself in the side of the head. I should let him keep doing it, but instead I rush toward him and grab his arm.

  “Everything hurts. Everything in here,” he says, punching himself again.

  Whatever was in that shot I gave him has turned him inside out. He looks at me like a scared little boy. I’m about to walk away, I really am. But I stop. Now, I understand what Thomas was trying to tell me and how I’m going to do it.

  “Oscar, you want to make it all better? You need to help me, okay? You need to help me now, and we need to go because they’re coming for us.”

  “Who?”

  “The bad guys.”

  “I’m the bad guy.”

  What am I going to say to him? He is. I must have given him a dose of truth serum with that syringe.

  I pull him by the arm. “Oscar, you remember the crane, right? The big one, like the kind they use to build skyscrapers back home?”

  I hear men shouting, their robot voices getting closer. Beams of light bounce up and down as they search for us.

  “Oscar. Come on. We gotta get out of here.”

  We burst out the door into the white world beyond. I have no idea what time of day it is. The air is still achingly cold even though the storm has died down.

  I point to the crane. “Can you operate that?”

  He rocks his head from side to side, as if he’s thinking about it. “I can figure it out.”

  That’ll have to be good enough.

  I know I’ve done this before. Many times. Unfortunately, I don’t remember how.

  There are rungs that run up the interior of the crane structure. I put my hand on one and pull myself up, hoping it will all come back to me. I make it about six feet off the ground before realizing that I don’t need to climb. Unlike back in New York, when I was always sneaking around construction sites at night, we can use the operator’s cab.

  Oscar looks over the controls. The crane is gas-powered, and after a few attempts at firing up the ice-cold engine, he gets it working. He plays with the controls a little, testing them. The cab rises and falls a few feet. I hear the groan of the swing arm moving overhead. Then the entire crane rotates, and I watch the hook at the end of the arm move back and forth like a pendulum. The wind is still blowing hard, and it sends the hook around and around in a circle. I start to feel afraid. I should feel afraid. This is crazy.

  The cab shudders up a few feet, and Oscar feels satisfied that he knows what he’s doing. There’s something in his face that’s different.

  “This is a nightmare.”

  From the way he says it, I’m not sure if he’s asking or telling me.

  “Yeah, it is, Oscar.”

  We rise. The cab slams to a jarring halt at the top. Oscar takes my hat and wraps it around his hand. He punches the window out. Between the two of us and a few good kicks, we’re able to clear the frame of glass. I crawl out onto the swing arm.

  The wind is much stronger up here. I look out at the long climb ahead, at the hook swinging back and forth, and I want to stop this madness. I used to like it up here. I know that. But not anymore.

  The crane’s arm lurches sickeningly to the right, and I fall onto one of the struts, right onto my pubic bone. It hurts like crazy, but I hold on tightly with my arms and legs. I guess I should expect sudden shifts like that. The wind seems to be aiming for me.

  “Make sure the arm is over the top of the roof,” I shout to Oscar.

  He moves some levers, and I feel the crane turn. First we go the wrong way and shudder to a stop. Then he swings the arm into position directly over the main building. He begins lowering the hook.

  The fastest way to get to the end of the swing arm is to get on my belly and pull myself along. I reach and pull, reach and pull, my whole body burning from the pain as I fight against the gusts of wind. Thomas’s jacket and his hat are making this attempt at bravery possible. Oh, and his gloves. Without them, my hands would be raw and bloody.

  I wonder if they’ve found Thomas yet and if they’ve, if she … Would Hodges really do it? She had mercenaries cut down unarmed people, but would she order her own son shot and killed?

  His mother is Hodges.

  I don’t care.

  It changes nothing about the way I feel for him. The only reason I’m here, that I’m alive, is because of him. So I keep pulling myself along until I get to the end of the crane arm.

  Oscar is supposed to lower the hook as far as he can, all the way onto the rooftop if he’s able, but nothing’s happening. I turn and look toward the cab, and I see that it’s descending. This was not what we agreed to. I want to kick myself for trusting him, but I can’t waste any thought or energy on it, because I have to focus. Now comes the worst part. I’ve got to get myself onto the cable and down to the hook at the end, which means swinging my body out over the edge and grabbing the cable with my legs. For a moment, I’ll be holding on with just my legs. This is the most dangerous time. Because worse than the fear of falling is the desire to fall.

  Every time I ever climbed, I felt it. And every time I felt it, I fought it.

  I close my eyes, trying not to look down. I can hear it: my own fear disguised as longing. It’s calling to me. No more pain, no more loneliness, no more fear.

  Let go.

  Let go.

  Let go.

  I need to think of something, of a point in the future, a place I want to get to. I need something that will overpower gravity’s seduction.

  I can’t have my mother back. I may never be able to get all of my memories back. But there is something I do want very much.

  I want to see Thomas again.

  I believe he’s still alive.

  I believe that with all that I am, and I won’t be able to see him again if I don’t get through this.

  The hook is still impossibly high above the roof, and Oscar has abandoned me. Even if I got myself all the way to the bottom and hung down as far as I could, I’d still have a long drop. I can’t judge the distance from here, but it’s at least one, if not two, broken ankles far.

  I open my eyes to take one last look around. It’s not a bad place to die—beautiful and ferocious and indifferent. It’s like the city in a strange way. The lawn, covered in white, sparkles in the stray bits of light showing through the breaks in the storm clouds. So clean and new. Like a blank piece of paper.

  The snow!

  There must be six feet of it. It will soften my landing—maybe just enough to let me get up again after I jump.

  I swing over the edge and nearly lose my balance.

  And then … the flutter of a memory. Delicate as a feather. It’s there. The answer is there. I hear Larry’s voice in my head, and now I understand what he was trying to tell me.

  Sometimes the answers to all our questions are staring us right in the face.

  That whiteness, the blank white space that I see every time I remember my mother. It’s not a cruel trick. It’s the answer.

  Blanca. My mother’s name was Blanca.

  Suddenly my mind is flooded with peace. Because that’s what clarity is: peace. A slow-moving peace. Peace on my own terms. I wrap my legs around the cable and take my hands off the crane arm. I feel sure of myself. I will not let go. I will not listen to the whispers. They have always lied to me.

  I tighten and release the cable between my thighs, moving in a controlled descent until I reach the hook; then I use my arms to lower myself the rest of the way. I know that I have to get as far down as I can so that the drop will be as short as possible.

  I hang there, at the end of the hook, swinging back and f
orth in the wind.

  It’s time to let go.

  With one hand I unzip my jacket, and as I release the hook, I pull the jacket wide, trying to catch the wind. After a split second of joyful flight, I land with a hard thud. My kneecaps hit like two overripe plums against concrete. Whatever breath I had in my body is squeezed out, and for a long moment I have a hard time inflating my lungs again. Finally, I gasp and roll over. I test my arms and legs, moving them back and forth to see if they’re working.

  When I rise a moment later, I realize I’ve made a snow angel.

  I look down over the edge of the roof, searching for where Oscar went. Below me, near the base of the crane, the lights of a cement mixer turn on. What is he doing? Oscar backs up, stops, and then circles the truck around. Then he guns it. The mixer is barreling through the snow like a plow. He’s heading directly for the crane, and as he gets closer to the base, I realize that he’s not stopping.

  I don’t fully appreciate how wobbly I am until I try to run. Then those knees that cushioned my landing—they don’t work so well. But I still feel that peace. This must be what the Velocius project has given me. It’s both a small thing and a huge advantage. There is speed, yes, but more than this, there is a sense of calm to my thoughts, and every sense is heightened.

  Fear? There is no fear whatsoever. It’s all just questions and answers. What needs to be done and how I can do it.

  I watch as Oscar collides with the crane’s base at full speed. He doesn’t hit it straight on, and this may have been his plan. One of the struts buckles and destabilizes the whole thing. I know where he wants it to land.

  I keep watching the truck. Whether he meant to do it or not, the cement mixer sails past the base of the crane and into the construction pit. There is no way he can survive that fall, and no way I have time to stand around thinking about it, because the crane is now coming down.

  Directly onto the roof.

  CHAPTER 37

  Time seems to elongate as the crane comes toward me. I run to the edge of the roof and look down on the glass walkway connecting the main part of the building with South Wing, just like the ice-covered bridge that Sam, Jerry, Sylvester, and I came across, except this one is finished. Or at least it has a roof on it.

  It’s maybe twenty feet down. I remove my backpack and feel around inside. I have three mines left. All this happens in a matter of seconds. I look over my shoulder. The crane has bent at the base and is now collapsing. The arm will hit the center of the roof, but the real damage will come when the ten-ton counterweight lands shortly after that.

  I twist the mine, hold it for what seems like three seconds longer than I can possibly stand, and throw it at the metal roof of the walkway below. The falling crane is getting closer and closer. Part of me is screaming to jump, now now now.

  That’s not the part that’s in control.

  I force myself to wait, jumping only a fraction of a second after the mine detonates and creates a hole in the roof wide enough for me to pass through. I keep my arms at my sides, sinking through the air like a deep-sea diver as the crane crashes, dividing the roof in two. The counterweight plunges down, and then the swing arm crushes one edge of the building. The sound is horrendous—an exploding plane crashing into my skull. I can tell it’s over only when I see papers and file folders flying out of the hole in the side of the building.

  I cannot move at first. I’ve landed hard and hurt myself badly, though I’m not sure where exactly. I’m pretty sure “everywhere” would cover it. As I try to push myself up, I realize that my left arm doesn’t work. I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder.

  But I’m alive. Only because of what they did to me. Because I can refuse to give in to panic. Because I can find peace, clarity, and strength at the moment I need it most—now and possibly every moment from now on, assuming I have a “from now on.” And for the first time, I do assume it. More importantly, I want a future.

  Because I have work to do.

  As distractions go, a tower crane falling onto a roof is very effective. I limp toward the main building, wondering how deep the crane has penetrated. It’s probably too much to hope that Hodges is ground paste beneath a steel beam or pile of concrete, but I hope it anyway. Of course, I know that the crane also may have destroyed the medicine locker. But last chances, first chances, only chances—they’re all the same. A chance is a chance.

  I open the door between the walkway and the main building. There is snow blowing in through the roof, but oddly, sections of the floor are completely unscathed. I need to go up to the sixth floor, and I don’t dwell on the insanity of rushing headlong into an unstable, half-crushed building toward a woman who’s determined to kill me.

  My shoulder is definitely dislocated. My arm hangs limp as dead meat on a hook. I don’t care what I’ve done to my legs or my knees. They must work. I make this clear to them and ignore the pain crawling up my shins like fire.

  The layout of this floor is no different than the others. There’s a large, open center area where the partially destroyed nurses’ station is located. Patient rooms ring the rest of the floor. Stairwells positioned at opposite ends. I’m sure the one at the far side has been obliterated by the crane, but the nearer stairwell looks passable.

  I go up the stairs, heavily, noisily. It feels like I climb for an hour, but I’m sure it can’t be that long. At the top, the sixth floor is open to the sky. The crane is wedged into the building, its giant metal carcass motionless.

  I hear a grinding sound. Then moaning.

  I find a soldier pinned on his side under a long piece of metal—one of the support struts of the crane. The riveted metal bar sticks through the soldier’s abdomen, protruding through his back.

  The soldier has very dark skin, dark eyes, a heavy set of brows grown nearly together. His gaze is focused but lacks emotion. Maybe he’s assuming I’m going to kill him and he’s simply waiting.

  He has one of those voice translators. Maybe he doesn’t speak English. I pick the translator up and speak through it.

  “Where is she?”

  The language that comes out is unrecognizable to me. I hold the translator against his face and wait for his response. He says nothing, just reaches out feebly with his fingers. I now see that his rifle is near my foot. I kick it across the floor and the handle falls off. A few other parts come away as well.

  I don’t understand how you can pay a man to be this loyal. His injury is grisly and he’s in agony, and still he’s trying to kill me?

  I hold the translator up and tell him, “Your rifle is toast.”

  Who knows if toast will translate? I don’t really care.

  At first he pushes the translator away. He keeps saying the same thing. He looks at me, pleading. I put the translator to his mouth again.

  “Please. Shoot me.”

  He says it over and over again. I now know how to say “Please shoot me” in whatever language he speaks.

  He points down toward his boot, and I see that he has an ankle holster with a small handgun in it. I take the gun out. I will not shoot this man, even if it would be a mercy to do so. Of course, he doesn’t know that.

  I put the translator to my face and say, “Tell me where she is, and I’ll shoot you.”

  It’s strange to say this to him. It’s like we have this situation all backward. I’m supposed to be threatening him to tell me something or else I’ll shoot him.

  “Director’s office.”

  “Who’s with her?” I ask.

  “The computer hacker, four soldiers, the boy.”

  Thomas. This could complicate things.

  I take the soldier’s radio. I may need it. He closes his eyes and waits for me to pull the trigger. Instead, I walk back toward the stairwell with the gun in my hand. When I reach the stairs, I bend down and slide the gun across the floor. It skitters to a stop against his body and he puts his hand on it. I won’t shoot him, but he can shoot himself if he wants.

  As I descend the stairs, he d
oes.

  Although I’m still in pain, still limping, my head still filled with holes and my memories little more than shadows that lurk just beyond my grasp, I’m feeling lighter. And I know why.

  I am extremely pissed off.

  I don’t know why, but I feel anger like I’ve never felt it before. It’s pure, crystalline, freeing. It feels like power. How can anger feel so good? Because it’s anger without hate. I don’t understand it, but it’s true.

  I press the button on the radio as I walk up the third-floor hallway. I start with a simple pleasantry.

  “Hello.”

  Hodges responds almost immediately.

  “Not a very nice trick, trying to crush us all to death.”

  “I wish I could take credit, but I can’t.”

  I continue walking down the hallway into the darkness. I know where I am. I don’t need a map or even light. I count my strides the way I used to count the tiles on the floor.

  “I don’t want any more of this nonsense. Just get yourself down here so we can finish our transaction. I should warn you that I’m in a much less generous mood now that you tried to drop a crane on my head. That five-minute start is now off the table. I’ve sealed off all the exits. Bring me the data. Now.”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “For you, not a thing, but I would be willing to save your friend’s life.”

  “Your son’s life, you mean.”

  There is a long pause before she answers, “Whether he’s my son or not is none of your business.”

  “I don’t have the data,” I say calmly, like I’m telling her that we’re out of the soup of the day. “Can’t help you.”

  “Your friend here says you do.”

  I’m about to deny it again, but then I put my hand into the front pocket of my coveralls and sigh. That boy and his stupid sleight of hand.

  “Turns out he’s right.”

  “Hurry up, then. If you don’t come promptly, I may send a few men to escort you here.”

  “I see. Well, in that event, I’d like to apologize,” I say.

  “Oh? Why?”