Tabula Rasa Kristen Lippert Martin by Kristen Lippert-Martin, ePUBator - Minimal offline PDF to ePUB converter for Android Read Free Book Online Page A

 pull him to his feet.
“I didn’t say you could get up.”  
“Just let me do what I was gonna do, all right?”
“Which is what?”
“Can’t tell you that, but if I don’t do it quick, a bunch
 of angry dudes with real guns are going to come rushing
 in here.”
I look around the room. The green glow of the emer-
 gency lights has leached into the air like weak tea, but it
 reveals nothing familiar. At least not to my eyes.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“It’s where they house the mainframe for this joint.”
He points toward the other side of the room. Now I
 can see the outline of a series of small, rectangular towers.
They’re elevated off the floor behind a metal cage.
“Why would they have the computer so far from the
 main building?”
“This system needs to be kept super cool all the time,
 which is why this room is like a meat locker. And it needs
 to be kept safe. So it’s in a bunker with four-foot-thick
 walls. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
52
    “Not really.”
“Please. I’m running out of time. What do you want?
You want me to beg?” He gets on his knees. “Here. I’m
 begging. Happy now?”
“Ecstatic.”
He reaches for his pocket suddenly, and I point the
 nailer at his face.
“It’s a headlamp, okay? As in, a lamp I wear on my
 head.”
“Let me see it,” I say, trying to sound menacing.
He takes the headlamp out, puts it on his head, and
 turns on the light. Then he throws his hands out to the
 sides. Ta-da.
“See? Just like I said. Head. Lamp.”
I lower the nailer and kick his computer bag behind me.
“I’ll hold on to this for insurance.”
“No, I need that for what I’m going to do.”
I wait a moment. He makes a motion with his hand,
 like gimme, and I push the bag toward him with my foot.
He grabs it and crosses the room in three strides. He takes
 a pair of glasses with thick brown frames from his coat
 pocket and puts them on. The glasses easily cut his attrac-
 tiveness by half. Possibly three quarters.
“Why would you . . . what are you putting those on
 for?”
“Because you knocked my contacts out when you
 punched me in the face, and now I can’t see.”
I gape at his glasses, wondering if this is what people
 wear these days in the outside world. I feel my forehead
53
    crinkling in dismay at the pure, incandescent ugliness of
 them.
“Look, I got them in Pyongyang, okay? This was the
 only set of frames they had, and we were kind of in a hurry.
Now stop distracting me.”
At the door of the security cage, he punches in a code.
Nothing happens. He tries again.
“Well, this is embarrassing. Thought I had that code
 cracked.”  
Scanning the room, he zeroes in on one particular
 server. He pulls a tool from his bag and uses it to cut away
 part of the cage so he can reach through. Then he pulls
 out his laptop, connects a cable, and starts typing madly. A
 moment later, he looks relieved and quickly tucks some-
 thing into his pocket.
“What did you do?” I ask.
“Took some stuff. Then I killed it.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what my boss told me to do.”
“Your boss?” Now I’m good and mad. I point the nailer
 at his throat. “I thought you said you were trying to get
 away from those guys—”
I want to add who are trying to kill me but don’t. Even I
 realize how crazy it would probably sound.
“My boss isn’t with those guys,” the boy says. “Well,
 actually, he is, but not in the way you think. It’s compli-
 cated.”
The boy takes his glasses off and puts them back in his
54

inner coat pocket. Then he crouches down, packs away his
 laptop, and zips the bag shut. He looks up at me like he’s
 not sure why I’m still here. His eyes are so brown they look
 black, or maybe it’s just that his pupils are fully dilated in
 this dim light.
He starts for the door.
“Wait. What are you going to do now?” I ask.
“Leave.”
“Leave?”
“Yeah.