"Where's Nelly?" she asked again.
"Nelly's in the hospital. She's fine. Come to the dining room."
She brushed her hair fast. She opened the door and walked down the hall of her suite past Nelly's room. She opened the door to the main apartment and walked on into the sitting room.
Uncle Denys was at the table beyond the arch. She walked in, clipping her keycard on, and uncle Denys said she should sit down and have breakfast.
"I don't want to. What's the matter with Nelly?"
"Sit down," uncle Denys said.
So she sat. She wasn't going to learn anything till she did. She knew uncle Denys. She reached for a muffin and ate a nibble dry. And Seely came and poured her orange juice. Her stomach felt upset.
"There," uncle Denys said. "Nelly's in hospital because she's getting some more tape. Nelly's not really able to keep up with you, Ari, and you're really going to have to be careful with her from now on. You're getting bigger, you're getting very clever, and poor Nelly thinks it's her duty to keep up with you. The doctors are going to tell her it's not her fault. There's a lot Nelly has to adjust to. But you do have to remember not to hurt Nelly."
"I don't. I didn't know the bug was going to scare her."
"If you'd thought, you would have."
"I guess so," she said. It was a lonely morning without Nelly. But at least Nelly was all right. She put a little butter on her muffin. It tasted better. "One of the things Nelly has to adjust to," uncle Denys said, "is two more azi in the household, because there will be."
She looked at uncle Denys, not real happy. Seely was bad enough. "They'll be yours," uncle Denys said. "They're part of your birthday. But you mustn't tell them that: people aren't birthday presents. It's not nice." She swallowed a big gulp of muffin. She wasn't at all happy, she didn't want any azi but Nelly to be following her around, and if it was like a present, she didn't want to hurt uncle Denys's feelings, either, for a whole lot of reasons. She thought fast and tried to think of a way to say no.
"So you don't have to go to tapestudy today," uncle Denys said. "You go over to hospital and pick them up. And you can spend your day showing them what to do. They're not like Nelly. They're both Alphas. Experimentals." A large gulp of orange juice. She didn't know what to think about that. Alphas were rare. They were also awfully hard to deal with. She was sure they were supposed to be watching her. That sounded an awful lot like uncle Denys was going to make it really hard for her to do anythingshe wasn't supposed to. She wasn't sure whether this present came from uncle Denys, or uncle Giraud.
"You go to the desk," uncle Denys said, "and you give your card to Security, and they'll register them to you. Effectively, you're going to be their Supervisor, and that's quite a lot different than Nelly. I'mNelly's Supervisor. You're only her responsibility. This is quite different. You know what a Supervisor does? You know how responsible that is?"
"I'm a kid,"she protested.
Uncle Denys chuckled and buttered another muffin. "That's all right. So are they." He looked up, serious. "But they're not toys, Ari. You understand how serious it is if you get mad at them, or if you hit them the way you hit Amy Carnath."
"I wouldn't do that!" You didn't hit azi. You didn't talk nasty to them. Except Ollie. And Phaedra. For different reasons. But they were both special, even Phaedra.
"I don't think you would, dear. But I just want you to think about it before you hurt them. And you can. You could hurt them very, very badly, a lot more than you can Nelly—the way only I could hurt Nelly. You understand?"
"I'm not sure I want them, uncle Denys."
"You need other children, Ari. You need somebody your own age."
That was true. But there wasn't anybody who didn't drive her crazy. And it was going to be awful if they did, because they were going to live-in.
"The boy is Florian, the girl is Catlin, and it's their birthday too, well, just about. They'll live in the room next to yours and Nelly's, that's what it was always for. But they'll have to go back to the Town for some of their lessons, and they'll do tapestudy in the House, just like you do. They're kids just like you, and they have Instructors they have to pay attention to. They're very quick. In a lot of things they're ahead of you. That's the way with azi, especially the bright ones. So you're going to have to work to keep up with them."
She was listening now. No one had ever said she wasn't the best at anything. She didn't believe they could be. They wouldn't be. There was nothing she couldn't do if she wanted to. Maman always said so.
"Are you finished?"
"Yes, ser."
"Then you can go. You pick them up and you show them around, and you stay out of trouble, all right?"
She got down from table and she left, out into the halls, past Security and the big front doors and across the driveway and along the walk to the hospital. She ran part of the way, because it was boring otherwise.
But she was dignified and grown-up when she passed the hospital doors and gave her card to hospital Security at the desk.
"Yes, sera," they said. "Come this way."
So they brought her to a room.
And they left and the other door opened. A nurse let in two azi her own age. The girl was pale, pale blonde, with a braid; the boy was shorter, with hair blacker than their uniforms.
And uncle Denys was right. Nobody ever looked at her that way when she had just met them. It was like friends right off. It was more than that. It was like they were in a scary place and she was the only one who could get them out of it.
"Hello," she said. "I'm Ari Emory."
"Yes, sera." Very softly, from both, almost together.
"You're supposed to come with me."
"Yes, sera."
It felt really, really strange. Not like Nelly. Not like Nelly at all. She held the door button for them and she took them out by the desk and said that she was taking them.
"Here are their keycards, sera," the man at the desk said. And she took them and looked at them.
There were their names. Florian AF-9979 and Catlin AC-7892. And the Alpha symbol in the class blank. And the wide black border of House Security across the bottom.
She saw that and a cold feeling went through her stomach, a terrible feeling, like finding the Security guard in maman's apartment. She never forgot that. She had nightmares about that.
But she didn't let them see her face right then. She got herself straight before she turned around and gave them their cards, and they put them on.
And they had different expressions too, out here, very serious, very azi: they were listening to her, they were watching her, but they were watching everything.
You had to remember how they had been in the room, she thought. You had to think how they had looked in there, to know that that was real too, and that they were two things.
They were Security and they were hers, and it was other people they were watching like that, every little move that went on around her.
I wanted an Ollie,she remembered, but that was not what uncle Denys had given her. He gave her Security.
Why?she wondered, a little mad, a little scared. What do I need them for?
But they were her responsibility. So she took them out and down the walk to the House and checked them in with House Security. They were very correct with the officer on duty. "Yes, sera,"they said very sharply to the officer, and the officer talked fast and ran through the rules for them in words and codes she had never heard. But the azi knew. They were very confident.
Uncle Denys hadn't said they had to come straight home, but she thought they should. Except she went by uncle Denys's office and uncle Denys was there. So she took them in and introduced them.