Tabula Rasa Kristen Lippert Martin (25 page)

used to be when she was younger. Isn’t that what women
 do?”
“A lot of people have red hair.”
“Angel.”
I stare at him, trying to make sense of this horrible fact,
 still hoping that he’s wrong.
“That woman took every single thing in my life away
 from me.”
“I know. I’d give anything for this to not be true. Any-
 thing.”
Thomas can barely keep his eyes open now, and he’s
 fallen to the side, cradling the computer, unable to push
 himself up again. I take him in my arms, propping his head
 up with the crook of my elbow.
“They were married. 8-Bit says he didn’t know about
 me until after I’d been adopted. By then he had problems
 of his own to deal with. Like fleeing the country.”
Thomas again holds the flash drive out for me.
“No.” I push it back at him.
“Take it.”
“No. Keep it, hide it. She wants it. You need something
 to bargain with.”
“I don’t need it to keep me alive. Nothing will keep me
 alive now.”
“What does that mean?”
“I told you, I read a lot. I know a lot about things.
Shock, for example. And sepsis . . . Angel, I want you to
 promise me something . . . .”
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“No.”
“You’re going to take this drive and promise me that you
 won’t give them the data. You can get the pill another way.”
His voice is fading now.  
“How? It’s impossible!”
“Not for you, Angel.” He raises his hand slowly and
 points toward the ceiling. “You’ve got wings.”
I don’t want to leave him, even though he’s now left me. I
 know he’s unconscious and there’s nothing I can do to help
 him, but I’m still torn.
Suddenly the choice is taken from me.
I hear an explosion above me. The soldiers are coming.
It sounds like they’re blasting through the rubble in the
 stairwell. This gives me minutes to get out. If I’m lucky.
I think of Hodges. Then my mother. I’m blind with
 rage and sorrow and fear. I want to run, and I want to curl
 into a ball and cry. I can’t do both. I must choose.
Thomas is right.
I know what to do. There’s only one way to escape
 now; I have to go back out into the storm. And then I have
 to go up.
Thomas’s jacket is lying on the floor nearby. I take it,
 plus his hat and gloves. Then I sling the soldier’s backpack
 over my shoulder. Just as I’m about to leave, I go back for
 two more things. I take the headlamp, because I might
 need it. Then I whisper in Thomas’s ear, “I love you, too.”
Because if I’ve ever said it to anyone before, I don’t
 remember.
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CHAPTER 36
 etracing my steps, I try to go back out the way we
Rcame 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 him-
 self 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, punch-
 ing 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.
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“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.
“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
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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.”
The way he says it, I’m not sure if he’s asking or telling
 me.
“Yeah, it is, Oscar.”
The cab slams to a jarring halt at the top. Oscar takes
 my hat and wraps it around his hand. He punches the win-
 dow 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
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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.
“Move the arm 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 hap-
 pening. I turn and look toward the cab, and I see that it’s
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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 hook 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 fall-
 ing 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 over-
 power 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
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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 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
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go. I will not listen to the whispers. They have always lied
 to me.
I tighten and release the cable between my thighs, mov-
 ing 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
 forth 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 are like two overripe plums hitting
 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.  
Below me, near the base of the crane, the lights of a
 cement mixer turn on. What is Oscar doing? He 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
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run. Then those kneecaps that cushioned my landing—
 they don’t work so well.
But I still feel that peace. This must be what the Velo-
 cius 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 do it.
I watch as Oscar hits 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.
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CHAPTER 37
 ime seems to elongate as the crane comes toward me. I
Trun 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 fin-
 ished. 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 two mines left. All this happens
 in a matter of milliseconds. 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 sec-
 onds longer than I can possibly stand, and throw it at the
 metal roof of the walkway below. The falling crane is
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getting closer and closer. Part of me is screaming to jump,
 now 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
 comes down, 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 dislo-
 cated 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
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