She had gone to uncle Denys then, and asked, worried:

"Uncle Denys, is there a bug in my bathroom?"

And uncle Denys had said: "Who told you that?"

"Is there?"

"It's for Security, " uncle Denys had said. "Don't worry about it. They don't turn them on unless they have to. "

"I don't want it in my bathroom!"

"Well, you're not a thief, either, dear, are you? And if you were, the alarm would go off in Security and the Minder would watch and listen. Don't worry. "

"Yes, ser, " she said; and had Florian go over the whole bathroom till he found the lenses and the pickups and put a dab of clay over them. Except the one in the wall-speaker. So she hung a towel over it, and Nelly kept moving it, but she always put it back.

Florian found the ones in the bedroom too, but uncle Denys called her in and told her Security had found the bathroom pickups dead in a regular test they ran, and he would let her cover up the bathroom ones, but the rest were apartment Security, and she had better not mess with them.

So they hadn't.

That wasn't the only Security, either. Catlin said Seely was Security. So was Abban, Giraud's azi. She could tell. Florian said he thought so too.

Catlin taught her things too: how to stand so still nobody could hear you, and where all the spots were that you ought to hit for if somebody attacked you.

So uncle Denys didn't need to worry so much about security all the time, and didn't need to worry about her being in the halls. And when maman's letter came—it had to come, soon; she had the months figured out—then she could take care of herself going to Fargone.

She was a lot more scared of going where there were strangers than she had ever been, since she had begun to understand there were a lot of people outside Reseune who wanted to break into places and steal and a lot who would kill you or grab you and steal you;but at least it was a scared that knew how to spot somebody being wrong; and she was learning how to handle nasty people more than by getting Hold of them and Working them.

She would really like to do it to Amy Carnath.

But that was where you stopped thinking about like-to and knew how wide that would go, all over the place, and Amy would really be dead, which meant something you couldn't take back and you couldn't Work and you couldn't get Hold of.

You got a lot more by Working people, if you had the time.

That was something she showed Florian and Catlin a little about. But not too much. First, they were azi, and you couldn't push them and it was hard to show them without doingit; and, second, she didn't want them learning how to do it at her.

For one thing she had to be best at it. She was their Super.

For another, they made her scared sometimes; sometimes she really wanted them, and sometimes she wished she didn't have them, because they made her mad and they made her laugh and they made her think sometimes, in the middle of the night, that she shouldn't like them that much, because maman might not let them come.

She didn't know why she thought that, but it hurt a lot, and she hated it when people made her scared; and she hated it when people made her hurt.

"We shouldn't get in trouble, " she said to Florian and Catlin, when they were in the room after Nelly had scolded them; and finally, because it was on her mind, sneaked up on what she had been wanting to tell them for a long time, but it was hard to put words on it and it made her stomach upset. "I know a lot of people who aren't here anymore. You get in trouble and they get Disappeared. "

"What's that?" Florian asked.

"They just aren't here anymore. "

"Dead?" Catlin asked.

Her heart jumped. She shook her head, hard. "Just Disappeared. Out to Fargone or somewhere. " The next was hard to talk about. She warned them with her face to be real quiet or she would be mad, because it wasn't Nelly she was going to talk about. "My maman and her azi got Disappeared. She didn't want to. Uncle Denys said she had real important business out on Fargone. Maybe that's so. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's what they tell you because you're a kid. A lot of kids got Disappeared, too. That's why I'm real careful. You've got to be careful. "

"If anybody Disappears us, " Catlin said, "we'll come back. "

That was like Catlin. Catlin would,too, Ari thought, or at least Catlin and Florian would do a lot of damage.

"My maman is real smart, " she said, "and Ollie is real strong, and I'm not sure they just grab you. I think maybe they Work you, you know, they psych you. "

"Who's our Enemy?" Florian asked.

It was the way they thought. Her heart beat hard. She had never, ever talked about it with anyone. She had never, ever thought about it the way the azi did, without being in the middle of it. Things suddenly made sense when you thought the way they did, straight and plain, without worrying. And when you thought: what if it couldbe an Enemy? She sat trying to think about who could do things like grab people and psych people and Disappear strong grown-up people without them being able to do anything about it.

She dragged Florian real close and whispered right into his ear between her two hands, the way you had to do if you really wanted something to be secret, because of the Minder—and if they were talking about an Enemy, you didn't know where you were safe. "I think it might be Giraud. But he's not a regular Enemy. He can give you orders. He can give Security orders. "

Florian looked real upset. Catlin elbowed him and he leaned over and whispered in Catlin's ear the same way.

Then Catlin looked scared, and Catlin didn't do that. She pulled Catlin close and whispered: "That's the only one I know could have Got my maman. "

Catlin whispered in her ear: "Then you have to Get him first. "

"He might not be it!" she whispered.

She sat and she thought, while Catlin passed it to Florian. Florian said something back, and then leaned forward and said to her: "We shouldn't be talking about this now. " She looked at Florian, upset.

"An Older is real dangerous, " Florian said. And in the faintest whisper of all: "Please, sera. Tomorrow. Outside. "

They understood her, then. They believed her, not just because they were azi. What she said made sense to them. She tucked up her legs in her arms and felt shaky and stupid and mad at herself; and at the same time thought she had not put a lot of things together because she hadn't had any way of making it make sense. She had thought things just happened because they happened, because they had always happened and the world was that way. But that was stupid. It wasn't just things that happened, people made things happen, and Florian and Catlin knew that the way she should have known it if it hadn't always been there, all the time.

What's unusual?was a game they played. Florian or Catlin would say: What's unusual in the living room? And they timed how long it took you to find it. Once or twice she beat Catlin and once she beat Florian at finding it; a couple of times she set things up they had to give on. She wasn't stupid about things like that. But she felt that way about this.

The stupid part was thinking things had to be the way they were. The stupid part was that she had thought when maman went away, that someone had made her go, but then she had just fitted everything together so that wasn't so important—if maman had had to go without her, it was because she was too young and it was too dangerous. And thatwas what she had been looking at, when the Something Unusual was sitting right in plain sight beside it.