"I'm not sure that'll work to convince them, it could be easily faked."

"How?"

"Hidden bugs, off the top of my head."

"They, pick the place. Can't bug everywhere."

"Hmm, I suppose. And then how will you tell me? Like, I'd have to go find you somewhere else?"

Nod. "Here, anyplace. Need to know... when, to listen; you can be here."

"Right. Maybe they could be in several different places and you could hear them all and then I call them and tell them and we can repeat that until they're satisfied."

She nods. "Sure."

"Alright. Do you have, like, a phone or something I could use to message you? Or should I just show up here again?"

She nods, "phone, yeah," and takes it out to check the number and give it to him.

He gives her his, and then goes off, promising to text her with building locations.

And she goes back to her lurking.

Lurk lurk people sure don't go to the library, huh, it's way quieter than any library she's ever lurked around—

—and one day a girl shows up. "Uh, I'm not sure how to do this, should I just—show up and wait?"

That sounds like Penny, and not like a chaos monster at all! She does her usual safety check and heads over to say hi.

Yup, look at her, with only one body, one pair of eyes, one mouth that is finite and tridimensional and all of that.

"Hiii!"

"Hi! How's... things?"

"...kinda hectic. Dad wants to move to the 'burbs and stop mapping for some reason he won't tell me, and what am I even going to do there? I don't know anyone there and I don't know almost anything there and all the girls my age will be figuring out that boys exist and what boy would even look at me? And that's not important, mapping is way cooler and I'm almost figuring this out, I'm sure of it..."

"...figuring out?"

"Okay, so, I got this... it's a really weird theory, but you're an import, so everything here's weird for you, right? Everyone else would think I was crazy but I'm pretty sure I'm not. They think the Sideways are this maze of horrors, and it can look that way, but... I think it's more than that. Like, okay, sure, sometimes you can go through a door and end up in the middle of a basketball court with no door behind you, and sometimes you go up and down at the same time somehow, but there's... a reason to all of it. I'm, uh, I have this theory that the City has a, a heart of some kind, that it's all connected, but I'm not quite sure how, and it sounds really silly when I say it out loud so I'll shut up."

Shrug. "Doesn't sound silly. Dunno if it's, true, but could be."

"Yeah! And I've been exploring it a lot and getting the maps and I feel like I'm almost getting it, it's just there, but then Dad starts talking about us moving, getting a quieter, safer life—I think that thing at the Defined Tower made him a bit paranoid, maybe, I dunno, he won't tell me, just say that maybe it's time I lived a normal life for a bit, just to see what it's like, and I know what it's like, and what it's like is boring."

Hmmm. "Might, be safer, with me? Except..."

"With you—oh, your superpower! Wow, I bet you're even better than EchoMap—but most people are scared—is that what you meant by 'except'?"

Headshake. "Been working on, hearing Sideways doors; I think it'd be safe. But..." she makes a sour face. "Heard of Bedlam?"

"Bedlam? Yeah, some story, isn't it, about some cultists thirty years ago who were sacrificing kids to the goddess of chaos or something and were all crazy?"