Overfall

Six

Anna sat on the back step of the lodgelike facility on South Windham Island and watched Nutka paint. Jason’s house had a name-Cedar Spirits, a reference to a common Kwaikutl phrase, according to Nutka. Anna had befriended her and found her to be unmarried, thoughtful, and unburdened by cultural expectations, a confident woman who seemed to be able to make her own freedom. Surprisingly, Nutka managed the household staff and groundskeepers, most of whom were men and many years her senior. Although Frank Stefano, a Grace Technologies employee from France, officially ran the place, he always spoke with Nutka in order to get the work done.

Nutka had good-humored eyes and was small of stature, maybe 110 pounds and five feet four inches. She kept her hair braided and wore a clean and pressed slightly faded house dress under an earth-toned, elaborately designed, hand-made blanket that she draped over her shoulders.

Nutka was painting from memory a stream that poured into Knight Inlet, an immense fjord to the south that penetrated well into the British Columbia mainland wilderness.

“Many artists have to look at what they are painting,” Anna said.

“I prefer to see it through the mind of the child I was when I first saw it,” Nutka said. “I used to go there every summer with my grandparents. We said it was a place for owls because the spirits were strong there; my grandfather said they were wise spirits and you could feel them in the breeze.”

“Was it a spiritual place for you?”

“Oh, yes. It is where old men go to build a sweat house and see visions. They find meaning in being Salish.”

“I thought you were Kwaikutl.”

“I am half and half. This is the Kwaikutl land and my mother’s family is Kwaikutl. My father’s family is Salish. The Salish are in the south. But I am painting a place near a village of people called Kwakwaka’wakw. Confusing, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is hard to say.”

“I don’t go there anymore, at least to the place I’m painting. As my people say, the government’s giant giving hand tends to take more than it gives.”

“You know, I’m worried that it’s that way with my brother and Grace Technologies.”

“Yes,” Nutka said, her eyes shining and gaze direct.

“Tell me something about my brother.”

“Yes?”

“I know that your massage must be good, but why does he crave it so?”

“When I miss more than two days he is very nervous until he gets the massage, unless one of the other girls does it, which he doesn’t like.”

“And why doesn’t he like the other girls?”

Nutka looked away and giggled. “He is, uhm. I don’t want to say it.”

“But if I could understand…”

“Maybe he has a crush on me. It embarrasses him.”

“You mean he… can’t help being drawn to you?”

“Yes. Most definitely.”

“Well, maybe he just likes you.”

“Then I wish he would say it. But the oil will give him relief no matter who puts it on him. I think the oil is some kind of medicine.”

“Medicine? Where do you get it?”

“Grace provides it. It comes on the helicopter. I’m careful to save a little bit from each container. I think about what would happen if they stopped sending it.”

“And you massage him every day.”

“Not every day, but usually at least every other day.”

“Can you get me some of the oil?”

“I think so. I would need to sneak it.”

Just then one of the Grace security people walked by with two rotweillers straining at their leashes.

“I do not like those dogs,” Nutka said.

“Me either.”

“You never explain exactly what you do,” Nutka said. “I know you are famous in the movies.”

“You know what? Next visit I’ll show you what I do.”

“Good. I would like that.”

“I’d better go find my brother,” Anna said.

She walked through the large kitchen into the great room where her brother did his work. In the middle of the room stood a dark walnut table, crafted without frills and graced with a single roller-wheeled desk chair. On the table sat two computer screens with cables that disappeared into a brass fitting in the middle of the hardwood floor.

Anna sat alone in the room in the overstuffed chair that Jason had designated as her seat.

Footsteps and the whoosh of a swinging door announced Jason. He looked healthy enough. Curly-haired and dark-skinned, five feet ten inches, solid but not fat, he had a spot of jet-black whiskers on his chin and a sly smile that looked a little whimsical. Because his eyes smiled with his lips, you tended to like him. When he did not have the soul-starved look of worry, just by looking at him, you assumed him to be a man of compassion and good humor. As he stared down at her, his eyes found hers and for a moment he looked more serious than she had ever seen him. It almost seemed as if he’d read her mind.

He glanced around, wary, then led her through the back door into the garden. He touched Nutka’s shoulder and smiled at her in a way that made Anna feel good and sad at the same time. If he were near normal he might be capable of loving Nutka, and there were few women as worth loving as she was.

They walked to a stand of Douglas fir trees, where Jason removed a Celine Dion CD case from his pocket and handed it to her.

“You best keep this where it’s safe. If you show it to anybody make sure it’s someone you can trust. There are people at Harvard and MIT and places like that who might understand this at least a little bit.”

She wondered what could be on the CD he’d hidden in the album jewel-case. “Do you have a name?”

“I don’t know who to trust. I can’t think about trust. Maybe Carl Fielding.” Then he looked at her and touched her cheek. “This could get you killed.”

“Can you tell me what’s on the CD?”

“Consciousness, time, space, energy, and uncertainty. See, everything at its core is uncertain until a conscious mind apprehends it. I have assisted in removing some of the uncertainty in the universe. Or rather, I am developing the equations for understanding it. We will probably need a quantum computer for me to finish. It’s a race with the Nannites, you understand. We’re toe to toe. Head to head. We’re lip-smacking, French-kissing close.” His eyes showed that he at least understood that he was losing her. “To answer your question, all of my new work is summarized on this CD. There is also something on here that may help fix brains that have been ravaged by the Nannites. You understand me?”

“Has your brain been ravaged by the Nannites?”

“I stand strong, but they have made their inroads.”

“I’m afraid what you do is… a little beyond me. And I… I… think maybe the Nannites aren’t real?” Her voice intoned the courtesy of a question.

“It’s easier for you to believe my photon paradox than Nannites? Good gracious, sis. I tell you about electron spin and the hope of quantum computing and you look as though I’ve just explained where babies come from. But when I say Nannites, you struggle not to roll your eyes. I don’t get it.”

“I’m trying, Jason. Please remember what your doctors-”

“The quarky quacks? They still think like Euclid, and you believe them?”

“I promise I will try to understand the Nannites. Now how can I help you with this CD?”

“You keep it. It will help you understand me. I’m serious about not making a mistake with this. They’ll kill you.” Then he put his hand on her shoulder and gently shook her. “Remember, just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me.” Then there was that wry smile and she ached-wondering.

“Tell me what you think of Nutka,” Anna said.

“I love her.”

“Jason I’m so sorry about what happened… I mean way back when you called me from France. It was my fault. You see, I believed…”

At that moment Roberto joined them under the firs, his eyes on Anna, then Jason, studying. Anna had already put the CD in her coat pocket. She kneaded nervous fingers.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“We were talking,” she said. “But I’m going for a walk.”

“The rest you know,” Anna told Sam. “I grabbed a few things, called for a plane to come to the far side of the island, and ran. That’s when you saw me, before I fell.” In the telling of her story she still had omitted any reference to Jason’s CD and she hadn’t told Sam what she had been trying to tell Jason. “My brother is owned by Grace. They control everything about his life except what little I can interject. He is a captive of his own paranoia so they can construct a prison that fits his paranoid fantasies. What keeps others out, especially the Nannites-his fantasy enemy-keeps Jason in.”

“And you don’t know who was following?”

“Roberto or one of his men. Does it matter?”

“It does if Jason blew up my boat. You’d assume it was part of some fantasy, I’m guessing?”

“I just don’t know.”

“They give a paranoid crazy guy a rocket launcher?”

“They just let him shoot it at the hillside. I think it’s a game for him. Look, it’s unbelievable. I know it. But I’ll fix the boat. I’ll do something about the rocket launcher.

“There’s one other thing. Last night I heard Roberto yelling at my brother.”

“And?”

“I have been wanting Jason to go to another therapist, Dr. Geoff, for a second opinion. Not just this guy hired by the company. While Roberto tells me he’s trying to get Jason to go, I hear him trying to scare the hell out of Jason-trying to keep Jason away from Geoff.”

“What does the company doctor say?”

“Incurable but very rare form of schizophrenia. Paranoia, but not a lot else wrong with his brain. I guess that’s obvious. I wanted him to write up my brother’s case in a medical journal, but it’s never happened. I thought somebody might read it and know something.”

“So this fear of Roberto is why you jumped into the rubber boat and why you were uncertain about the helicopter.”

“It’s more like a fear of Grace Technologies. They’re huge, and definitely not on the up-and-up.”

Suddenly she smiled. “I’m sorry. You remind me a little bit of someone else. Except he was not a pushy tough guy.”

“And he would be?”

“Jimmy-a man I met who helped me when I was really down.”

Sam nodded and screwed the lid on the jar of wax-covered matches. This Nutka you told me about. How does she figure in all this?”

“Someone I trust. Jason trusts her. And she cares about my brother more than she cares about the company and certainly more than the company cares about my brother.”

I’m gonna take a nap,” Sam said. He put the bottle of matches on the rockwork next to the stove and crawled into his bag. She wriggled up in front of him and got close.

Talking, telling the story had wakened her and set her mind in motion.

She had done some things right in her life and some things wrong. Nothing about her life before age twenty-four, when she started getting paid for her first big movie, had been particularly easy. Up to age twelve her life was a blur of day care and baby-sitters. Her mom taught drama at the high school. Her father sold cars. It was more than full-time employment because Dad sold as many cars at night as he did during the day, and Mom’s plays were put on after school and practice often ran into the early evening.

She never really questioned in her head whether she was loved, and she told herself and everybody who would listen that her father was probably one of the better people that had ever walked the earth. Pretty much, she ignored the defining moment in their relationship.

It was May 14, 1979, two days after her twelfth birthday, and it hadn’t been hard to fool the babysitter-one good lie did the trick.

It was 4:10 when she walked into the hospital. The walls were light yellow. There were tubes coming out from under the sheet. The tubes were full of fluid and it made her sick.

He was mold-gray and breathing oxygen.

Everything that she was going to say whirled in her mind. About loving him. That he was the best dad ever. That she would keep a special place for him in her soul.

Her father’s hand waved. The arm was rail thin, the skin under it loose, the muscle gone.

She went to him and took the hand. It trembled badly. It seemed like he couldn’t catch his breath.

“Dad… Dad…” He put a finger to her lips and beckoned her. She drew close.

“You didn’t get your butt tattooed, did you?”

A joke. Dad did that a lot. He joked. When he read the newspaper and she waited patiently for him to look up, he always smiled. He usually patted her on the head and then he joked. Like now.

“Dad, I wanted to talk about that day under the tree.”

“We didn’t tattoo your butt under the tree?”

He laughed and then he choked. He couldn’t quit. There was a cord and he pushed the button. The nurse came running.

“We’ll just be a minute, honey.” There was a hole in his throat that had a plastic lining and that was normally blocked off, airtight, allowing him to breathe through his nose and mouth. Now they unplugged it and put a green tube down inside. The sucking sound, the green fluid, brought a gut-wrenching sadness. She could tell they didn’t want her to watch, they didn’t want to feel her pain.

Figuring to start over in her talk with her father, she went into the hall and took a seat. She thought about the tree. Big hot tears rolled down her face. A second and third nurse came down the hall.

“No code. No code,” she heard the big one say. Then they closed the door. It was taking a long time. She went to the door and just then they opened it. They were fixing his hands. His head was thrown back and his mouth was open. There was a stench. Her knees shook, and the big nurse came over and pulled her to her bosom.

“Honey, I’m sorry. He’s gone.” Her knees shook and she wanted free. The woman’s flesh and perfume were suffocating. Her head was spinning.

“I’ll be okay,” she sobbed, and ran down the hall.

When she got outside, it had stopped raining. Life was cheating her. Please let it rain. She said it all the way home. To this day she remembered nothing of the walk. The tree in front of their house was no longer dripping. Just the same, she went and stood under it She tried to remember. But there was no rain.

Lying on the ground next to the house was the garden hose, right where her father had left it not two weeks ago. She went to the faucet, turned it on, and took the hose to the base of the tree. Using her thumb she created pressure and squirted water on the leaves of the big maple, letting it drip down over her body. Three years ago there had been a swing from the large branch, but it was no more. He had pushed her on the swing in the rain with the water pouring down. It was a simple moment. There had been no joke. He had said: “I love you and I’m so proud to be your father.” That was all.

Sam realized that maybe she was crying. There was no sound, it was just a feeling. Maybe a vibration in her body.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Sleep,” she said. Then she wriggled even closer. Of course the heat of her and the smell of her filled his mind.

He breathed deeply and thought about his grandfather and a place of old trees-fir, hemlock, cedar, and pine. A lake, opal smooth, cooled the eye while the leather brown of its sand shore rippled the air in the afternoon sun. There was the emerald green of spring-fed meadow dotted white, yellow, and fireball red. Around the cabin, mountain bilberry grew, heavy-branched with sweet fruit. He was walking through the pasture to the trees and there was a tunnel shaped by the foliage as if elephants had passed through. When he looked down the dark of the tunnel, there were people running and hearts pounding. Anna was there, out of nowhere, and she was panting bent over and the crowds were rushing past. Then the fire came, a ball of yellow and red rising, tearing through the trees and opening a hole to the sky. Fear was in her eyes and she was shaking him, talking, trying to tell him. But he couldn’t understand.

Sam awoke with a start, still glued to her back-sweating. “We’ve got to go now.”

“What? Why?”

“Out.” He jumped out of his bag, pulling at her.

“You were dreaming.”

“Yeah.”

He turned his back as he pulled on his clothes. “We’ve got to get off this island and get to a place we can really build a fire.”

“How do you intend to get off this island, or do I want to know?”

“We can make it. Misery doesn’t usually kill, it just hurts. Staying here we could be instantly crispy. Like one rocket into this place and pufffff. A fireball.”

She fingered her still-damp clothes. “What if we stay here and dry off a little more by the stove?”

“You stay. I’ll go check around and see if anybody is coming.”

They were both nearly dressed when he turned and looked at her.

At that moment the roof exploded over their heads and it began raining fire.