Up Against It - M. J. Locke [79]
“But what’s this?” he asked. “One stone went into Hannah’s ear!” With this, he reached behind Hannah’s head and rolled the stone into his palm, and then held it for both to see. They clapped again, and giggled. “Again! Again!” she said, and Abraham said, “Me too!”
“No, now it’s time for little rabbits to sleep,” he said, and kissed them both good night. He gave them each a stone, and they settled down in their covers and closed their eyes, clutching the rocks in their hands.
Outside, Xuan and Jane found Thomas and Esther dangling from branches, staring at something on the canvas wall of their own family tent. Xuan bounded back up. Jane came right behind him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Somebody drew on our tent,” Esther said. Xuan grasped a branch and squinted. His vision adjusted swiftly in the dimness. Someone had drawn a crude symbol in phosphorescent green, red, and yellow paint: a bleeding bird caught in the talon of a hawk.
“Vandals,” he said, disgusted, but Jane’s fingers dug into his biceps. He drew her aside. “What’s wrong?”
Her voice came out a harsh whisper. “This is a message. A threat.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded. She drew a slow breath. “The hawk is the logo for the Ogilvie family business. The Martian mob. They’re telling me they know where I live. They are threatening the family.”
Xuan thought perhaps Jane was reading too much into it, but she seemed certain. He said over her shoulder to the children, “It’s just some stupid prank. Go get some soap and water, and wash it off.”
“Come on,” he said, and they went to Kieu and Emil’s tent, where the adults were. “We need you all to come out and see something,” Jane said.
Everyone climbed out and sank down with her and Xuan to the children’s tent where the graffiti was. “I hate giving you more to worry about,” she told them. “But you need to know this, for your own protection.”
“What is it?” Kieu asked.
“I believe it’s a threat aimed at me. I have enemies whose symbol is the hawk.” They all looked at Jane. She went on, “I don’t believe they will do anything. This is just to keep me off-balance. But we should all be alert.
“Keep the kids in view of ‘Stroiders’-cams at all times, and keep them close during offline periods. These people can’t afford to alienate the viewers back home. We can use that to our advantage.”
“We’ll deal with it,” Pham said. “Thanks for the warning.”
Xuan escorted Jane to the park exit. He kissed her good-bye beneath their tents, and tasted tea, peanuts, and tongue-stinging chili on her lips.
Jane smiled. “I’ll be all right.”
“We will, too. Don’t worry.”
He kissed her again, gave her hands a final squeeze, and watched as she sprang off down the corridor, hand and foot: nimble, commanding, beautiful primate. Jane and Xuan’s grandmother were very different. But Jane’s spirit reminded him a little of his ba-noi. She was so still, so calm: unbending in her stance between power and need. In his nightmares, sometimes, she too ended up dying on a rubbish heap.
The hardest part of loving was how much it gave you to lose.
14
For a while the three teens stayed where they had been tossed, trussed up with packing cord like Mr. Rotisserie beef packets readied for shipment. Geoff and Amaya had been thrown across the small bed and Ian was slumped in the corner beside it. Blue Tattoo had warned them that if they even breathed too loud, he would come back in and pound them.
The viewer in the other room was loud, so Geoff figured they did not have to worry too much about being heard, as long as they were careful. The cords bit into his wrists and his hands were numb. He squirmed, but the movement merely made his limbs hurt more. His nose had stopped bleeding, but his head hurt, and the crusted blood on his face itched.
“What are we going to do?” Amaya whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Ian huddled