Tabula Rasa Kristen Lippert Martin (9 page)

it fast or slow?”
“Slow.”
“Wrong answer.”
He rips it off, and I jump up, practically landing in his
 arms.  
“Fast is always better,” he says as he dabs some antibiotic
 cream on the wound. “There’s another insert that’s almost
 out. You want me to pull it out, too?”
After a second I give half a nod. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s get
 it over with.”
This one doesn’t come out cleanly. I bite down hard and
 stay motionless as he digs it out with his fingernail.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “It’s out now. See?” He
 shows me the bloody piece of metal in his hand.
“I guess we’re even for the punch in the face.”
“Yeah. Not that I’m keeping track. I mean, it’s not pay-
 back. I didn’t like hurting you just now.”
I stare into his chest. I feel his chin bump against my
 forehead, and then I slide back away from him, onto the
 mattress. He clears his throat and our eyes lock.
He leans toward me and puts a Band-Aid on my head.
“Thank you,” I say. “You’re a good guy.”
He smirks.
“You don’t know many guys, do you?”
“I think you might be the only one at the moment.”
He laughs, but I was being serious. I have no idea who’s
 left up there at the hospital. It’s kind of sickening to think
 about.
“Hey, look,” I say. “I’ve got a trick, too.”  
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I stand up, take a freeze-dried bean from the foil packet,
 and then toss it high into the air. It almost touches the top
 of the tent before dropping in a straight line directly into
 my mouth.
“That’s your trick? That?”
“You try it. It’s not as easy as it looks.”
He stands up next to me. Several minutes of throwing
 another kidney bean go by.
“It has to go all the way to the top of the tent or else it
 doesn’t count,” I say.
On his fifteenth attempt, he manages to catch it.
“See? Piece of cake.”
We sit down on one of the mattresses, side by side, and
 watch the heated air rising in a column in the center of the
 yurt. All the tension in my body seems to flow up and out
 through the roof along with it.
But almost as soon as I let myself start to relax, there’s
 a rustling sound outside. A moment later, the whole yurt
 seems to shimmy.
Someone’s found us. Someone’s coming inside.  
Seems we’re sitting ducks after all.
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CHAPTER 10
 ierce turns to me and puts his finger to his lips. Then
Phe calls out, “Hey, 8-Bit? That you?”
The inner tent flap flies up and we see the metal tips of
 two snowshoes come through the opening, followed by
 the barrel of a pistol. Pierce puts his arm in front of me and
 then tries to push me behind him.
A man enters. He’s got ice clinging to his bushy, blond
 beard. He lifts his goggles as he turns to look at us. We’re
 both gaping back at him like he’s an especially dangerous
 sort of armed bear. He drops the gun toward the floor.
“Two days of storm. Big delay. Not have delay.”
He’s got a thick accent and, besides that, seems to be
 speaking through his nose.
“Excuse me?” Pierce says.
“Delay. Storm.” He slices the air with the pistol in his
 hand. Then does it again in the opposite direction.
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Pierce looks at me, then back up at the bear man.  
“Um . . . what?”
The man grunts and shrugs. “Deal off. Have other jobs.”
Pierce scrambles to his feet as the man turns to go.
“Wait!”
The man waves his hand at us and then leaves. We hear
 the sound of him trudging away from the yurt. A minute
 later, a snowmobile engine roars to life.
“I think that may have been the person 8-Bit and I were
 supposed to rendezvous with. The guy who was going to
fly us out.”
“Looks like he just bailed on you.”
“Yeah, that’s the impression I got from the. . . ” He imi-
 tates the man’s grunting and the way he made an X in the
 air with his gun. “You know, this is the problem with pay-
 ing people to save your butt. Their hearts just aren’t in it.”
“This storm is really going to last two whole days?”
“So says the Russki.”
“So what now?”
“We wait.”
“For what?”
“For someone to find us and kill us. Or morning. You
 know, whichever comes first.”
I don’t know how Pierce managed to fall asleep so fast, but
 now that he’s out, I think this may be the most alone I’ve
 ever felt. Before these few memories came back to me, I
 didn’t have a strong sense of what was missing. But now
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that I realize how many pieces of me have been stolen, I
 can feel what’s gone even if I don’t know everything that’s
 been taken. I had a mother, a city, a whole other life before
I came here. It’s like this massive ship has sunk, and though
I dive and dive, all I can find are the smallest treasures from
 the wreck: a coin, a few broken pieces of china, a child’s
 shoe. Things that imply there was once so much before the
 weight of time and cold darkness separated me from it.
Ignorance is not bliss. Not for me, anyway.
The pitch-black yurt isn’t helping me sleep, either. I’m
 used to lights and machines beeping and people checking
 on me every two hours. With the lantern off and the com-
 puters shut down, there’s nothing to focus on.
But the biggest reason I can’t get to sleep is that the
 coveralls I’m wearing are scratching me raw. I can’t stand it
 one more second, so I sit up and peel the top of the cover-
 alls off. I try to remember where Pierce left his backpack.
Maybe he has something in there I can borrow. I just need
 a T-shirt underneath as a buffer.
As I start to get up, I misjudge where the edge of the
 mattress is and slip to the yurt floor like a clumsy cat miss-
 ing the windowsill. Pierce wakes with a jolt, rolls on top
 of me, and presses his forearm across my throat. He yawns.
“What’re you doing?”
“You’re choking me!”
“That’s what I’m doing. What are you doing?” He lifts
 his arm so that he’s no longer pressing all his weight onto
 my windpipe. “Why are you out of bed?”
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“I was looking for something to wear.”
“What?”
“I think these coveralls are made of burlap.”
He rolls off me and gives a small huff of amusement.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“Nothing. I’m just relieved that I was dreaming after
 all. I was listening to 8-Bit argue with that Russian dude,
 and 8-Bit offered to sell me to the guy for a thousand rubles
 and a sack of beets.”
“That’s crazy. You’re easily worth three sacks of beets.
Maybe even four.”
“Thanks.” He yawns loudly. “Just to refresh my mem-
 ory, we’re in a yurt near the Canadian border and people
 are trying to kill you?”
“Correct. Possibly you as well.”
“Right. Forgot about that second part. I’ve got a shirt
 you can wear. If you help me find the flashlight. It’s in the
 pack on the floor over—”
“Don’t turn the light on!”
But he flicks the light on before I can pull the coveralls
 back up to cover my chest. I dive onto the mattress, face
 down.
“Whoops. Sorry. I didn’t realize. . .  .”
I have my arms pulled in next to my chest. I keep wait-
 ing for him to hand me a shirt, but he doesn’t. He’s not
 doing anything, as far as I can tell. Finally I say, “Can I
 have the shirt, please?”
“Here you go.”
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I feel it land on my back. My face is against the pillow
 and I can’t tell where he is. “Are you turned around?”
“No.”
“Well, turn around.”
“Look at that.”
“What?”
“Your back,” he whispers.
“What about it? What’s the matter?”
He comes closer. For a second I think he’s going to
 tell me that I have a bullet wound that I somehow hadn’t
 noticed. “What’s the matter? Is there blood or something?”
“No blood. Just wings.”
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CHAPTER 11
 e kneels on the mattress next to me and traces some-
Hthing on my back with his finger. His touch is light,
 and I feel a shiver rise up from my back, into my neck.  
 
“I don’t do ink on underage kids. Period. End of story.”
He’s got a beard down to his chest and a barbell stud through
 each eyebrow. He keeps his heavily tattooed arms crossed over his
 chest. He’s not going to budge.
“I’ll pay you,” I say. “A lot. Twice what you normally get
 paid.”
“Money’s not the issue. Last thing I need is some kid’s mom
 coming in here, threatening to have me arrested for ruining her
 poor, sweet angel’s perfect skin.”
“No one’s going to do that,” I say. “No one will ever do that.”
I tell him about me. I tell him about my mom.
He does the tattoo half price.
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I pull away so suddenly, Pierce is startled. His finger is
 still extended, like he’d been painting and I’ve snatched his
 canvas away. He’s looking at my back, and his eyes do not
 meet mine. He withdraws his hand slowly and lets it drop.    
I try to look over my shoulder to see my back. “What
 do you mean, I have wings?”
He turns away, allowing me to pull the T-shirt over my
 head quickly. When I spin back around, I see his profile.
He’s staring into space, his hand covering his mouth. After
 a minute, I wave my hand in front of his eyes.
“Pierce?”
He says nothing.
“What’s the matter with you?”
He looks at me in wonder and starts shaking his head.
“I don’t believe it.”
“What? What is it?”
“I think I know who you are.” He gets up, flips his lap-
 top open, and types something. Then he hoists me up and
 stands me in front of the computer. “Look.”
In the center of the screen there is a black-and-white
 picture of a young woman, her back exposed by a low-cut
 tank top, her arms extended like she’s about to dive. Her
 head is turned to the side, and you can just make out her
 ear, which has three piercings in the cartilage. You can also
 see part of her cheek, but her dark brown hair is blowing
 around her face. She’s standing on the ledge of a roof. The
 background is a sea of buildings and rooftops with small
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wooden water towers. It’s New York City. I’m sure of it.
And I feel a surge of warm, gushing affection.
Home.
“That’s New York City.”
“Yes, but look at this.” He points to the girl’s back, to
 the wings tattoo. They spread across her shoulder blades.
“That’s what’s on your back. Or most of it, anyway. It looks
 like someone got a start on removing it. The tip of one of
 your wings is missing.”  
“Who is that? What’s this website?”
“That’s Angel. And I guess you could call this a fan site.
Or maybe a memorial, depending on which theory you
 believe.”
I can’t reconcile this powerful image on the computer
 screen with how I feel right now: not powerful at all.
“How do you know I didn’t just see this picture and
 copy it?”
“Turn your head.”
I do.
“May I?” he asks, but before I can answer, he’s already
 touching my ear, comparing it to the picture.
More shivering.
“That’s your ear. Ears are like fingerprints. Distinct.”
I touch my upper ear as I stare at the screen.
“And look, you’ve got three holes in your ear. Just like
 her.”
I pinch my ear. “I didn’t know that.”
“Didn’t you ever notice the piercings in the mirror?”
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“I haven’t looked in a mirror since I arrived at the hos-
 pital. I mean, here. Whatever this place really is.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You don’t know what you look like?”
“No, and I’m afraid to ask.” I feel my eyes stinging,
 because I can hardly blink. “So . . . what do I look like?”
“You look like an escaped mental patient.”
“Thanks.”
“A cute one, but still.”
He smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back. I lean
 toward the computer and look closely at the image on the
 screen, focusing less on the girl than the background, try-
 ing to see past her and into the city where she lives. I wish
 the screen were a window, so I could look out at the streets
 below.
“Let me see it again.”
“What?”
“Your back.”
I turn around and lift up my shirt a little, trying to make
 sure my back is all he can see.
“It’s so intricate. Who could copy it exactly? I’m telling
 you,” he says, looking back and forth from the computer
 screen to my back, “the tattoo on your back and that one
 in the picture—they’re exactly the same.”
He shakes his head, smiling. “Wow. That’s—I
 mean . . . you’re, like, a legend.”
A legend? I cringe a little, because I suddenly feel like
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an impostor. “What did I do?”
“Oh, nothing much. Just exposed a vast government
 scandal and then vanished into thin air, which is just the
 sort of thing that conspiracy theorists live for. Here, check
 it out.” He types  Angel and New York City and government
 into a search engine. “You kind of got famous for derail-
 ing this housing project they were going to build along the
Hudson River. At least, that’s what they said it was. The
 developer claimed it was condos. But you kept hanging
 these huge banners up nearby that had these numbers and
 stuff.”
“What were they?”
“At first nobody knew. That was sort of the fun of
 it—figuring out the message. Turned out they were verse
 citations from Hamlet. I’m not a Hamlet kind of guy, but
I think all the references were about lies and deception.
Something like that.”
I put my hand to my forehead. Larry! Had he been try-
 ing to tell me something? Trying to give me a clue about
 who I was? Why not just tell me?
“Nobody could figure out how you found out what
 was really going on, not to mention how you got those
 banners up once you did. Then the city started looking
 into the developer’s building permits, and what do you
 know? It turned out the company was a shell corporation.
From there it kind of snowballed, because the government
 stepped in and claimed whatever they were building was
 a matter of national security. A bunch of very important
 guys ended up in prison for lying to Congress about it. You
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bagged a sitting senator and two White House advisers. It
 was pretty cool. From a David versus Goliath standpoint,
I mean.”
He shows me another picture—a construction crane.
“See this? You hung banners on these. The police
figured you shinnied up the things, freestyle. No ropes,
 nothing.”
This would explain the images coming back to me.
“What happened to me? I mean her. Angel.”
“There were all kinds of rumors about you. Some peo-
 ple thought you’d been snuffed out. Assassinated. People
 started painting angel wings all over the place in New
York. Where’s Angel? It became a thing. People had T-shirts
 printed up, and posters. You know how kids are these days,
 trying to borrow your mojo. Things died down a bit after
 a while.”  
“How long ago was that?”
“About eighteen months, I guess. How long you been
 in this joint?”
“A year maybe? I don’t really know for sure.” I look at
Pierce and ask, “What were the other rumors about me?”
“Just some stuff,” he says.
“What?”
“Keep in mind that these are rumors. Probably entirely
 made up.”
“Tell me.”
“Okay, there was a report that you tried to murder
 someone in the police station when you got arrested.”
“Wow.”
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