Free Overfall by David Dun Page B

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