Tabula Rasa Kristen Lippert Martin (17 page)

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 know he’s still got his hand wrapped
 tightly around that ax handle.
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CHAPTER 22
 hold the tablet in front of me and bite my lip. After
I  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
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PTSD, using a new technique that completely and utterly
 backfired. What they’re experiencing is called a paradoxi-
 cal 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 ware-
 housing 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 eaves-
 drop. 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
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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 worry-
 ing . . . 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 into 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 loca-
 tions—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 per-
 fect conditions for one.”
“I can do it,” I say.
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“Angel, the only part of the main building that has elec-
 tricity 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.”
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“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 cans, I said I’d found some-
 thing 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’ve been looking at the security cameras all this
 time. 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 com-
 puter 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.”
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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.”
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CHAPTER 23
 he idea that some reclusive billionaire has been watch-
Ting 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 I’ll make them think we
 are, too.
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.
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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 rea-
 son 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?”
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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 through 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. Thomas
 has gone very still. His eyes are closed, and I wonder if he’s
 fallen asleep.
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“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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“And?”
His brown eyes burn into me. “I envied you.”
“Envied? How could you envy something like that?”
“Whatever it is you did—you don’t have to remember
 it. You can start over right now like you’re a brand-new
 person.”
“But I’m not a brand-new person. Taking my memo-
 ries didn’t give me anything. It hasn’t given me freedom or
 peace or whatever you’re imagining. Believe me, you don’t
 want to feel like I do. It’s a terrible thing.”
“Why?”
“Before I started getting my memories back, I felt like
 nothing.”
“But that’s what I want to feel. Nothing.”
“I didn’t say I felt nothing; I said I feel like nothing.
Maybe that’s what they don’t understand with all this mess-
 ing around in our heads. When you take memories, you
 take pieces of someone away. You may think you’re better
 off, but you’re not. You’re less than you used to be. Obvi-
 ously, I am.”
“Listen, I know all about you,” he says.
“You just met me.”
“Maybe, but I still know something special when I see
 it.”
He tries to sit himself up higher but can’t manage it. I
 want to help him. I want to put my arms around him so
 he can save his strength. But that’s not what commanding
 officers do.
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“My mother used to travel all over the world buying art.
She’d be gone for weeks at a time. She’s a rich woman, had
 always been rich, and she was restless, like she was looking
 for something and didn’t even know what it was. The more
 she looked, the worse she got. I think traveling made her
 feel like she was doing something useful somehow, even
 though she was basically just going on long shopping trips
 while my sister and I hung out at home with the nanny.”
“And?”
“Hush and listen. One time she brought this bowl back
 from Japan. She paid six thousand dollars for it. It was just
 this little rice bowl. Maybe the size of your cupped hands
 together. It had a few cracks in it, and I asked her why
 she was so excited about it, especially since it was dam-
 aged. She said it was the color that attracted her. There was
 something about it. It was the lightest, most fragile color
 green. A green-gold, my mother called it. The color of
 something about to grow.”
“That’s very nice, but what does any of that have to do
 with me?”
“Your eyes are green like that. Like the color of that
 bowl. The color of something about to grow.”
It’s a beautiful thing to say. I’m just not sure that I
 deserve to hear it.
“Thomas . . . I—”
I look down at my hands and notice they’re shaking. He
 puts his hands on top of mine. They’re pretty shaky, too,
 but together like this, somehow we steady each other.
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