"How is that going to help?" In a way, Olga had already begun to accustom herself to failure. Every spur to going on, even the memory of the children, had been blunted by her growing fear. She desperately wanted to see the sky again, to feel real wind on her face, even the warm bathwater that they called air down in this part of the United States. "It is not going to blow the doors off or anything, and it is too far down in the building to hide me from anyone without choking me to death at the same time."

"But if they have to evacuate the building they won't be paying much attention to who's getting on and off at the forty-sixth floor or whatever."

"You said they had cameras. Even if they don't see me at that moment, they can access the footage when they find out it's a false alarm."

"If we're lucky—if you're lucky, I should say, since I know you're the one taking the risks—you'll be done by then, maybe even out of the building, and none of it will matter. So you'll have to be quick with the tap. Just plant the device, then get out."

She felt dizzy. "I . . . I will try. Are you going to set off the smoke bomb now?"

"Not yet," Ramsey said. "Beezle needs to fake your clearance—pretending to set the building on fire won't do us any good if you're still locked out of that floor. And I'd like to study Sellars' notes. I called you in a hurry, so I've hardly had a chance to think." He sounded glum again. "I wasn't really trained for this kind of thing."

"So who was? Me?" Olga lowered her feet to the restroom floor.

"Can you find somewhere safe to hide again? We'll call you at midnight."

"Fine." She cut the connection, feeling a bit like she was watching the departure of a boat that had dropped her off on an isolated, uninhabited island.

The restroom door hissed shut behind her as she headed back to tell Jerome that her plans had changed. It was some small solace not to have to drag him into danger. She thought of the lost children. She seemed fated to be their paladin and protector whether it made sense or not, and even whether she wanted to or not. She hoped they appreciated it. What was it her mother had used to say about gratitude?

"You should be grateful to me now, while I'm still alive. It will save on postage."

But I wouldn't mind paying the postage, Mama, she thought. If I only had your address.

Her mother wanted her to go to the store with her, but Christabel just didn't want to go. She didn't want to do anything. She told her mommy that she wanted to stay at the hotel and watch the wallscreen, but she really didn't. Mommy and Daddy had a little fight—Daddy didn't like Mommy going out where someone might see her.

"We just need to lie low," he said.

"I'm not going to lie so low my child eats nothing but junk food," she said. "We have a kitchen as part of this room and I'm going to use it. That child hasn't touched a vegetable that wasn't deep-fried in days."

It was a small fight, and it wasn't the reason Christabel was feeling bad, but she still didn't like it. Mommy and Daddy didn't make jokes anymore. Daddy didn't put his arms around Mommy, or lean over and kiss her on the back of the neck. He picked Christabel up and gave her hugs, but he wasn't happy and neither was Mommy. And since the bad thing had happened to Mister Sellars and the boy, they hardly talked at all without fighting.

"Are you sure you won't come with me, honey?" her mother said. "You could pick out some cereal you like."

Christabel shook her head. "I'm tired." Mommy closed the door and came back into the room to feel Christabel's forehead, then sighed. "No temperature. But you don't feel good, do you?"

"Not really."

"We'll be getting out of here soon," Mommy said. "One way or the other. I'll bring you home something nice."

"Call if you're not going to be back by half an hour, Kay," her father said.

"Half an hour? It'll take me that long just to get there and back." But for a moment the little angry look she almost always wore these days went away and she looked at Daddy the way she used to. "If I'm still out, I'll check in an hour from now. I promise."

When she was gone Daddy went off to the next room to talk to Mister Ramsey. Christabel tried to watch the wallscreen, but nothing was interesting. Even Uncle Jingle seemed stupid and sad, a story about Queen Cloud Cat's new baby, Prince Popo, getting lost at the circus. Even the best joke in the whole thing, when Uncle Jingle got his foot caught by an elephant and it started swinging him around and around and around in a big circle, only made her smile.

Feeling bored, but also like she was going to cry, she opened the connecting door and went into the next room. Her daddy was talking to Mister Ramsey, both of them looking at Mister Ramsey's pad so they didn't even see her. She walked down the hall to the bedroom where Mister Sellars and Cho-Cho were lying side by side on one of the beds, still quiet, still not moving. She had gone to look at them a lot of times, always hoping that she would see Mister Sellars' eyes open so she could run to her parents and Mister Ramsey and tell them he was awake. They would be very proud that she had noticed, and Mister Sellars would sit up and call her "Little Christabel," and thank her for watching over him. Maybe Cho-Cho would wake up, too, and would be nicer to her.

But Mister Sellars' eyes weren't open, and she couldn't even see his chest moving. She touched his hand. It felt warm. Didn't that mean someone wasn't dead? Or were you supposed to touch their neck? People were always doing it on the net, but she couldn't quite remember how.

Cho-Cho looked very small. His eyes were closed, too, but his mouth was open and a little spit was on the pillow. Christabel thought that was pretty yick, but decided it wasn't his fault.

She leaned in close. "Wake up, Mister Sellars," she whispered, loud enough for him to hear if he was listening, but not loud enough for her daddy to hear in the other room. "You can wake up now."

But he didn't wake up. He looked bad, like something that had been run over and was lying by the side of the road. She felt like crying again.

Uncle Jingle didn't get any better. She tried a bunch of other shows—even Teen Mob, which her parents didn't like her to watch because they said it was "vulgar," which meant bad or scary, she wasn't sure which. Maybe both. Her daddy came back then so she had to change to another show fast.

"Why on earth are you watching lacrosse, Christabel?" he asked her.

She guessed that was the name of the game. The people were swinging sticks at each other. "I don't know. It's interesting."

"Well, I'm going to lie down for a few minutes. Your mom should be calling in a quarter of an hour, so if she doesn't call, come wake me, okay?" He pointed at the clock in me corner of the wallscreen. "When that says 17:50, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy." She watched him walk into the bedroom, then switched back to Teen Mob. The people on the show always seemed to be talking about who was dancing with who—dances she hadn't heard of, like "Shoeboxing" and "Doing the Hop." Someone said "Klorine will play Bumper Cars with anything in sprays," and Christabel wasn't sure if they were talking about another dance or real bumper cars, even though there hadn't been any on the show, because someone else said, "Yeah, and that's why she's always getting hurt," which sounded more like cars than dancing. She turned off the wallscreen.

It didn't seem fair. Mister Sellars was sick, maybe dying, and they didn't even call a doctor. What if he needed some medicine to get better? Mommy was at the store buying things, but Christabel knew you didn't get real medicine at the grocery store, just fruit-flavored cough medicine and things like that. When you were really sick, like Grandma Sorensen, you had to have medicine from the drugstore, or even go to the hospital.