Lighthouse Island (19 page)

James slammed both hands down on the wheelchair arms. What the hell is she doing going barefoot?

Well, sir, said the watchman. How am I supposed to know?

He was a youngish man with white untanned circles around his eyes where he wore his goggles and the tattoo of an abstract eagle on one arm. His khaki shirt smelled of cooled sweat. He said, Probably just resting her feet. That was yesterday. Nobody saw her go out as far as I know but you know the ground guys; they're holed up in some alleyway drinking.

James's heart failed when he thought of her slipping out of the abandoned towers at night, into an unknown world. All right. I'll have your army knife here in a minute. I will meet you up in front. You know the penalties for buying for outsiders here.

I don't want it, sir, said the watchman. That's not what I want.

James's expression became formal and blank. That's what you're going to get, he said. Period.

No, no, I just want you to go talk to your brother for me. Sir. Sir, I'd give anything to learn the big ones. Anything, just to get some instruction on a real prop plane. I'll clean his house, sir, I mean it. I'll wash his windows and mop his floors. Talk to him for me. I don't want the army knife, sir.

Are you serious? Do you know how precious those things are?

Yes. If he would just let me hand tools to the airplane mechanic or something. Anything.

How do you know about my brother?

He's on the alert list at the neighborhood stations. Farrell Orotov, pilot, it says. Just an alert. Not an arrest or anything. Per Director Crumm.

No kidding, said James. And me?

No sir, nothing. Not yet.

All right. I'll remember. Now go on.

J
ames tried to buy the Vercingitorix Army Knife with its ten blades, whistle, flashlight, awl, and scissors, but the clerk ran his ID card through the slider and said, Not authorized.

James did not argue. It was time to stop arguing. It was not an easy thing to abandon everything, all he had ever known, his disappearing social circle, his comfortable apartment, his work, his books, the carefully arranged life that enabled him to function in a wheelchair. To launch himself into an unknown country with nothing but a few survival items and his maps, some experimental medication and a girl he barely knew, but there had been other people at other times who had also hesitated, even in the face of the sure but steady crushing of their lives. They had hesitated and hoped that official protests and moral arguments and legal representation would save them. Those people were all dead.

He was going someplace where social prestige did not matter. His privileges were gone. In the world to come much would depend on physical strength and field expedience, risk taking, weapons, brains. His heart bounded ahead like some beautiful, long-limbed animal gathering itself and flying over a fence in a cascade of shining hide and muscle, a creature beloved of the sun and the open spaces. It landed in a field of grass that seethed like a sea and Nadia walked along beside him and there were others, men of old. That phrase was from some song or poem, what was it?
Men of old
. . . ta dum ta dum . . .

He rolled toward the exit through the cool, swampy air with his shoebox and fresh celery and jicama and wine and a set of batteries. He came to the exit card-check and a small but intense light began to flash.

Sir, sir, your permission chip to enter Dollar General has been canceled, the girl said. I'm sorry but this is your last visit until you update your chip.

 

Chapter 23

N
adia slipped out of Dogtown Towers in the dark and into streets of the neighborhood to the north. A moon came up but it was the rice milk advertising moon with the cow jumping across it and a dish and a spoon running after the cow.
Good as milk!
Then the real moon came up, and it was a crescent diminishing into a sliver and it was faint and undecorative compared to the advertisement moon.

She fell asleep on a roof in her boy's clothes and the red polka-dot canvas shoes, leaning against the parapet, wrapped in everything she had. Drying curtains floated on lines, solar casserole pots were washed and ready for the next day. Nothing in them. She checked.

In the first pale light she woke up and climbed down the fire escape ladder. It was a strange gray morning with drooping clouds and the feel of water in the air.

She was unsure of how to walk or act as a boy. The thing was to bring as little attention to herself as possible, and find some means of transportation, to make it to the e-waste area. James was the man who lived in the rice-milk moon, he was the voice of the dazzling glaciers, the brown-haired man who would rise from his imprisoning wheelchair, where he had been confined by enchantment, and take the rudder of a sailboat over the glassy seas until the lancing beam of Lighthouse Island swept across their sails.

A bus came slowly around the corner. It bumped over the curb of the sidewalk. It was painted sky blue with pictures of Savory Circles on the side but passersby shrank against the walls, women with their secondhand briefcases and children going to school and men in carefully polished shoes ducked into doorways, fled down alleyways. The entire crowded street drained away as if somebody had pulled a plug. They knew all the hiding places and boltholes but Nadia did not. As she tried to open the front door of an office building, a door that had been slammed shut in her face, the bus stopped and a Legal Forensics Department agent got out in his uniform of track pants and jacket and a watch cap with F on the front.

Nadia pulled out the little device with the bar and ran it over a nearby wall.

You, he said. He walked over to Nadia.

I'm checking cable, she said. Look, I have a job to do, okay?

The officer took her by the wrist and jerked her toward the bus. It made her cap fly off. They had seized two others along with Nadia and were cramming them all into the narrow door. Nadia fell on the steps and then clawed her way upright by holding on to the belt of a man in front of her. Somebody behind cried out in a strangled sound and clutched the back of Nadia's shirt. Nadia tore away and fell into a seat. It was dark inside. The guards shouted and bright fractions and splinters of powerful lights fled over their faces.

Wait, said Nadia. Wait, wait, I have a job! I have to report in!

A heavy flashlight struck her across the mouth and she bent over holding her face. A woman sitting beside Nadia was uncontrollably weeping. After an hour of traveling, maybe more, somebody in the back said, This old man's dead.

Shut up, said the guard.

He's had a heart attack.

The guard came back without saying anything and jammed the Taser into the woman's stomach and she shrieked in a high-pitched blast and leaped almost out of her seat.

I said shut up.

Each person in the bus held his or her life closely in two hands as if it were a bird's egg or a hazelnut, as if it were all of creation and indeed it was, so easily broken within an instant. The smell was terrible. Nadia sat staring straight ahead as the flashlight illuminated one face after another, and then hers, a light so powerful that she was blinded.

Where's your ID? said the agent.

I lost it. She decided to remain quiet and to show no signs of panic; the guards were on some kind of sadistic trajectory where they needed to kill. Her lips were dry and her hair had fallen in her face. She felt shrunken inside the boy's shirt. She said in a calm, reasonable voice, Listen, I'm late for work. Look. She held up the device with the gray screen. See?

That's your job?

Checking cable, finding outages, yes.

The agent stood very close, looming over her and said in a low voice, You got three hundred?

I don't have that kind of money. Nadia said. Her voice became unintentionally loud and the agent jammed his flashlight against her shoulder.

Tell everybody, why don't you?

T
hey traveled a long time. They were struck if they tried to talk to one another. From time to time somebody passed out from lack of water and air. The bus lurched along at twenty miles an hour, through noisy, narrow streets and around sharp corners. Sometimes the bus stopped and the guards jumped out and grabbed passersby. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to the arrests. It was as if they were on a hunting-and-gathering trip.

The guards and the Forensics men scribbled on forms and handed them to those who were conscious.

That's your arrest sheet! they yelled. Hand them in when we arrive! Any goddamned questions?

There were no questions.

 

Chapter 24

K
eep to the white line, a policeman said. He herded them along with light taps of his club. Nadia stared straight ahead at the policewoman sitting behind the computer screen. One side of her face felt tight and hot as it bloomed into a great bruise.

I have to get out of here, I have to get out of here,
the words set off galloping through her head like a film clip of wild horses.
How do I get out of here? By being nobody
.

But then all her records said she was somebody.

Nadia tried to hear what was being said to the policewoman but hundreds of voices made a wall of noise. Prisoners crept past sweeping and their brooms raised dust clouds. The high ceiling sagged with hanging electrical lines and ripped patches of plaster.

The policewoman behind the computer monitor at the head of Nadia's line lifted a cup of coffee to her lips without taking her eyes off the screen. After speaking with each woman in turn, she indicated with a quick gesture for her to go to another area. Names were being called.
Brown, Margaret! Ortiz, Jane!
A good-looking young woman clutching a string bag of market purchases stood shaking in front of the line. She had fine blond hair under a bright flowered head wrap.

The policewoman squinted at her and then said to a guard, Take this one for a screen test. She's got a good TV face. The policewoman rattled at the keyboard. Try her out for trial and execution.

A guard told the girl, This way. He took her by the arm and led her toward a high, broad doorway where a man in a suit and tie sat behind a desk. Beyond the desk Nadia saw daylight, outside light. The doorway out of this place.

The girl held on to her string bag and cried out that she wanted her arrest on record, weren't they going to identify her? She had her ID, right here, please. The guard shoved her ahead and the women in the line turned and stared at one another.

Nadia was now standing at the front of the line.

Right hand here, the policewoman said. She tapped a pad beside the screen. Hurry up. Are you deaf, goddammit?

Nadia placed her hand on the gray pad and it was slightly warm as if it were made of flesh. The pad turned green at the bottom edge and then the green color rolled up and under her hand and took her fingerprints.

The policewoman had not taken her eyes off the screen. Huh, she said. Then she shrugged and said, Your name is Sandra . . . no,
Sendra
Bentley.

Nadia said, That's correct.

You are employed at the Urban . . . The policewoman paused, and then leaned forward to look at the screen and then began again. The Urban Geospatial Utilization Institute under the Department of Nonutilized Urban Housing.

That's right, said Nadia. Her bruised face was still and she did not miss a beat.

Research.

Yes.

Research, ah, the Anthem Advisory Council.

Nadia's heart thudded one great smacking wallop and then quieted. Yes. The Anthem Advisory Council. She licked her dry lips.

Give me your arrest sheet. Nadia handed over the wadded and sweat-stained paper.

The policewoman tapped at the heavy brass keys. She wore small sparkling stones in her ears. Her gray uniform tunic was too tight and her fingernails were bright red and perfect. The nails made little clattering noises on the keyboard.
Sendra,
Nadia said to herself.
Not Sandra,
Sendra, Sendra
.
Become Sendra
.
You are Sendra
.

She heard the hissing vacuum noise as the metal detection doors opened and more people were shoved into the great hall along with flying scraps of food wrappings. The echoing babble sounded like an enormous evil bus station. James had tagged her fingerprints, triggered them to switch names and personal histories.

A guard walked through the area behind the desks and slapped the policewoman on the back and it made her cup jump in her hand and drops of coffee sprang up like bingo chips.

Goddamn it, the policewoman said. Quit that. It's sprayed all over. The policeman made kissing noises as he walked on. The policewoman muttered as she disabled the keyboard and wiped it off and then plugged it in again.

Research, I am doing urban geospatial utilization research. I can do that. I can make that kind of stuff up
. She made herself memorize the words. Urban. Geospatial. Utilization. Somehow James had reached out to her through the crooked tunnels in what was left of the Internet into Forensics and had deceived the beast.

All right. The policewoman stared at Sendra's sheet. Looks like they've got you down for no permit to leave your sector; no residence registration card; no ID; and unauthorized entry into public buildings scheduled for demolition. You may or may not be charged with all or any of these things.

Nadia nodded. I understand, she said.

No special dietary requirements, medical condition is good, last examination two months ago . . . wait. Your pelvic examination shows some lesions. It's on the x-ray. You may have to have another pelvic examination and a biopsy.

They never told me that, said Nadia. Now that she was hidden behind another name her mind began to emerge from a suspended state of shock. Now that she, Nadia, was once more not Nadia Stepan. She stood on tiptoe, trying to see the x-ray on the screen. That's not right. Her voice was cautiously argumentative. She did not want to have a pelvic examination in a jailhouse.

These are lesions. I don't care if they told you or not. If you feel I am incompetent to read your x-ray you may fill out a form. It is ten pages long and may take up to a month to process. As she said this she groped with her right hand for her package of sunflower seeds.

Nadia stood as high as she could and leaned to one side to look at the screen. Coffee droplets arced across the monitor. The stupid woman was reading them as if they were images on the x-ray. Beneath the dark drops, somebody else's pelvic bones were stark and white in the pale matrix of flesh, somebody else's thigh bones lay helpless on the screen. Somebody named Sendra Bentley.

Oh, wait a minute, that's the damn coffee, the policewoman said in a low tone. She was angry. She glanced up with a haughty stare at the line of women to see if anybody had heard her but the women behind Nadia all looked down or away, sweating, some stained with the blood of others, some with their own. The policewoman wiped the screen with her arm. You are in male attire. Her voice was now sharp and harsh. Do you wish to be sent to the men's barracks?

Nadia said, No.

The woman clicked on a No box. Do you wish to be issued any prescription medication?

No. Another click on another No box.

Proceed to your left and enter the processing center.