Tim flung open the door. “Marianne! What the fuck did you—What is it? What happened?”
She told him, her voice unsteady but her movements sure as she bagged the patch in a ziplock freezer bag and then washed her hands with a surgeon’s thoroughness.
Tim said, “Let me see that thing.”
She held it out to him. For the first time, she saw what it was: a crudely embroidered patch of a mouse face with huge bloody fangs and the letters EFHO.
“I know these clowns, Marianne. Earth for Humans Only. Strictly small-time bullies. If they have any fancy bioweapon things on this patch, then I’m the president of the United States.”
A relief. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. But what the hell were you doing outside without me? Or without your cell?”
“I forgot the cell. I needed to check something at the Museum of Natural History. Something not online.”
“I thought the museum was closed.”
“Not all of it. The research library is open.” This was true.
“You took a cab?”
“Yes.”
“And you couldn’t wait for me.” His blue eyes burned at her.
“I thought it was safe enough, midmorning and not that far away.”
“Uh-huh. But when he attacked you, there were no people close by.”
“No, Tim—I told you that. But it wasn’t an attack. He didn’t hurt me.”
“Just threatened your life. And he knew not only where you live but also your full name, even your middle name. Which wasn’t in the magazine article. How would he know it?”
“I don’t know—maybe he found it on the Internet.”
“But why use the whole name?”
“I don’t know! Tim, you’re missing the main point here!”
“I’m not missing anything.” Still his eyes trained on her face, as disconcerting as gun sights. “It’s just weird, is all.”
“Do you think I should call the police?” She’d hoped to fly under all official radar in New York, stealth-protected by Stubbins’s fake IDs and military-grade encryption programs for her computer and cell.
“No, no cops. They won’t do anything and they’ll blow your cover even more. Like I said, these are small-time bullies. What kind of gun?”
She had no idea. It might have been a realistic toy, for all she knew. She shook her head.
“From now on, you don’t go out without me. For now, come here.”
He put his arms around her. But she felt neither comfort nor desire, and that only made everything worse.
CHAPTER 19
S plus 6.2 years
Colin dreamed again about the square blue flowers. Jason was cutting them with the broken beer bottle and they were screaming at them from little mouths on the petals. Horrible! And then it was even worse because Daddy was lying deep underground where the plant Internet was and he was making noises, too. “What? What?” Colin and Jason said, because they couldn’t understand what Daddy was trying to say, but he just went on making those terrible noises and Colin woke up scared in the dark.
“Jason?”
But Jason wasn’t in his bed.
All at once the familiar morning sounds rushed into Colin’s mind: Jason and Grandma and Tim were in the kitchen, making breakfast. Grandma’s houseplants clicked in the living room; they needed watering. The building rumbled in its friendly morning way. From two stories up it was harder to hear the ground under the building, but it sounded normal, too. The screaming flowers were just a dream. Jason said dreams couldn’t hurt you.
But other things could.
When Tim left Colin and Jason at their school, Jason ran ahead to his second-grade room, where the teachers put him because he was so smart, shouting to some kids he knew. Colin was in the first grade because he was smart, too, and anyways all the kids in kindergarten either couldn’t hear anything or else took some drug that made them move really s-l-o-w. Colin hung back as long as he could but he had to go to his room, too, and then Paul would be waiting.
Colin knew that Mommy was dead and Daddy was in the hospital, but sometimes he pretended that Uncle Noah with his aliens had sneaked into the house and flown off with Mommy and Daddy. He knew that wasn’t really true, but it might have been because Uncle Noah was Daddy’s brother, and if Jason was dead or in the hospital, Colin would rescue him. But somehow Jason never seemed to see when Colin needed rescuing.
Paul Tyson was in third grade. His parents, he bragged on the playground, were very important. They had lots and lots of money. Paul always had the best tablet that played the best games, even if the teachers locked up all electronics in the safe except at lunchtime. Paul’s tablet even had Ataka!, the really cool Russian videogame that everybody liked. It meant “Attack!”—they talked different in Russia. But Paul hated Uncle Noah’s aliens; he said bad words about them all the time. And he was a bully, a word Colin hadn’t even known until he started going to the Healy School.
Now Paul and two of his friends stood in the middle of the school lobby. Colin managed to get past them by walking close to a group of fifth-graders, the oldest kids in the school. They ignored him, but Colin knew from experience that at least one of them, a fierce girl with dreadlocks and shiny clothes, wouldn’t let anyone bully anyone else. It was her crusade. That was a word Grandma used a lot; she had a crusade, too.
Even so, Paul deliberately stepped hard on Colin’s foot. “Oops, so sorry,” he said, and the fierce girl glared at him. Paul scurried away. From the doorway of his classroom he smiled at Colin. Colin’s knees wobbled. How could a smile be so nasty?
First grade was easy, compared to all the stuff Grandma taught him and Jason. Sometimes Colin was bored. But today they were doing something exciting: drawing a zoo. Colin drew an elephant. He almost drew it in a basement, like in his favorite book, but probably zoos didn’t have basements.
Then, just as he was finishing the elephant’s ears, he had to go to the bathroom—really bad, and right now. Ms. Kellerman gave permission and Colin raced down the hall and into the boys’ bathroom. In the stall, he heard the bathroom door open, and when he came out, Paul was blocking the exit. “Hey, Colin Jenner.”
Colin froze. He made himself say, “My name is Colin Carpenter.”
“No, it’s not. And you didn’t find the tracker I put on you, did you? Feel around the back of your pants.”
By itself, like it wasn’t even part of him, Colin’s hand circled behind his body. The tracker was the size of a dime, stuck on the back of his jeans. He pulled it off and held it out to Paul. He didn’t know what else to do. Paul was so big—
The older boy hit him hard and fast, right in the stomach. Colin fell to the floor. Paul raised a foot and kicked Colin in the stomach with his boot.
“Your grandma is an alien-lover. You thought nobody knows about her and your family, right? Think again, fucker. Your grandma fucks Denebs and maybe you would, too, if the cowards ever came back here. Only they better not because my mom and dad would kill them all dead. You listening to me, you piece of shit? You—”
“What is going on here!”
Black boots, blue pant legs… security. Maybe the bathroom had a camera? Somehow Colin staggered to his feet while Paul said meekly, “Nothing, sir.”
“Nothing? You hit him!”
“I—” Paul didn’t seem to have any words. Paul! A third-grader!
Colin gasped, “He… did hit me. But it… it was my fault. I called him a name.” It took everything in him to keep his voice quiet, to act like his stomach didn’t burn and scream, to add in his grandmother’s tone, “It’s over now.” But he was not going to explain what Paul had said. Grandma and Tim had told Colin that nobody at the school must know Colin’s real last name or about Grandma’s crusade. They told Colin that over and over—but Paul knew! Colin was desperate that at least the security guard didn’t know, too.