Regenesis (33 page)

That got a dark, naked stare, all the way to the bottom. “You little devil,” Jordan said. “You little devil.”

Got to him. Found a button.

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m just Ari. The new model. You were almost partners, you and the first Ari. Justin and I already
are
, at least as much as you two ever were. You’re my disagreeable uncle, whether or not you’re Denys.”

“Denys killed her.”

“I’m pretty sure he did,” she said. “And he as good as killed you. The question is whether you can recover from that. Maybe you can. We’ll see.”

“The devil,” he said, and drank the last of his coffee. “I think we’ve had the discussion. I trust I can leave this place.”

“Of course you can.” she said. “Paul. I’m glad you came.” She pushed back from the table. Justin and Grant did. She wondered if they would leave the apartment with Jordan and Paul and walk them to the doors of Wing One, or make a maneuver so as
not
to leave in that company.

“Thank you, sera,” Paul said, pro forma. Trust azi manners to try to force a calm over the situation.

“Thank you for the evening,” Jordan said with a small, tight smile. “It was very informative.”

“It was, very,” she said, and offered her hand. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“Nothing much better to do.” He took her hand briefly, as chill a grip as before, nothing like Justin’s. “Good night.” And to Justin, a look shot past her to the other door: “I suppose you’re staying.”

“No,” Justin said, “but good night, Jordan.”

Letting Jordan walk out with Paul and the door shut, Justin put on his coat very slowly, while Grant waited.

“I needed to know,” she said in that artificial pause. Toward Justin and Grant, she felt an impulse of remorse. “I’m terribly sorry. I hoped, not too rationally, that it might go better than this.”

“You gave us different arrival times,” Justin said. “You set the tone.”

“I tried to set it better than it turned out,” she said.

“I don’t think anything was ever out of control,” Justin said darkly, implying, she read it, that things had gone just the way she wanted. She shook her head to that.

“Remember he’s somebody the first Ari couldn’t Work,” she said. “She couldn’t handle him, or everything would have gone better than it did. She really did want him to work with her. But he wouldn’t share, and she couldn’t change him.”

That got a thoughtful look, a long and thoughtful look. “I wasn’t so hard a target.”

“For her? No. You were young. You were as young as I am now.”

“I don’t think you’ve had the chance to be,” he said, “not that young. Not that stupid. I was, once. At an absolutely emotional pitch, caught between her and him. I don’t like that territory. I don’t intend to go there again.”

“I don’t want you to,” she said, and kept her hand off his arm, much as the urge was there to touch, to plead, even, for a kinder look. “Justin, I asked you here because I didn’t want to meet him and have any question in your mind what we said.”

“And because he’d have exploded if I wasn’t here. A whole complex of reasons. I get them.”

“I hope you get all of them,” she said, “because they add up to my doing this because I’d like to stop this upset, and I don’t want you ever having to do things like give Florian that card.”

He looked at her a long moment. “I’d be as glad not to have to. I’d be as glad to live under a regime where that’s not an issue.”

“I’m trying. I’m honestly trying. Those sets you’re going over—a lot of those
are
my security. Or they’re going to be.”

“I had an idea they were, from the skill-sets involved.”

“Don’t give me anybody I can’t rely on. Help me set this up right this time.”

“As if you can’t read them yourself.”

“I do. I have. But I
want
a partner. I want backup. A double-check. I do.” This time she did touch him, gently, briefly. “Justin, I need you. Maybe the first Ari didn’t need your father as much: she didn’t need people. But I do. I want people. I like people. I don’t even mind people who argue with me. Jordan’s all right, Justin. He really is, or he would be, if he could just stop short of trying to take over.”

Justin’s expression grew very somber. “You said it. The first Ari couldn’t work with him. Are you better than she was?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I know I’m not, yet.”

“Good night,” he said firmly, cutting off any hope of longer conversation. “Good night, Ari.”

He was upset with her and with Jordan. She was sorry for that. But she’d had the truthers running, the while, and she had a load of data for Florian and Catlin to sift, before they gave any instructions to the new people.

Questions remained. Doubts didn’t. Justin had firmly stepped to her side. He just had to reconnoiter a bit, and settle his stomach about it. He was upset. But he stayed hers.

Jordan—Jordan was still Jordan. That hadn’t changed. But she knew him better because of this evening. And that was also very useful.

M
AY
3, 2424
1003
H

It was more home than it had been, the new office, with the quasi-window showing a rainy day and blue flowers brightening up the corner. The color-sorted cabinet still grated on the nerves, but the annoyance was fading.

Mostly the phone stayed quiet this morning. And for that, Justin found himself very grateful, considering the scene last night.

But it worried him. Jordan had more than one way to work on his nerves.

“Coffee?” Grant asked. Grant rose from his own desk to pour a cup. Justin held his out mutely, swivelled his chair around, and received it back when Grant had poured it.

“No phone call,” he said.

“Enjoy it,” Grant said.

“She’s trying to make peace with him. It’s not going to work.”

“It won’t, likely. But that’s his choice, isn’t it?”

“They’ve been fair with him,” Justin said. “Sometimes I just want to shake sense into him.”

“I’m only content he doesn’t try his version of that with you,” Grant said, and sat down with his own cup. He leaned back, crossed long legs in front of him. “Young sera, however, trusts you. And this, frankly, is a better thing. This is, mind you, a logical judgement. Or I believe it is.”

“Believe it is.”

“Convincing Jordan of her isn’t likely,” Grant said. “Young sera remains somewhat flexible.”

“No matter if she deviates from what she was born, she can’t deviate from what she was born
to
. She’s going to
be
what Jordan flatly won’t accept, that’s the bitter truth.
Any
director of Reseune is in his way, I’m afraid that’s the sum of it, and that’s what she’s going to be. So it’s a chimera we’re chasing, peace with Jordan. Doesn’t exist.” He thought of the monitoring and looked at the ceiling. Grant’s eyes traveled the same direction, and met his, and he shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I said it last night. I said it all last night.”

“We live in a glass box,” Grant said with a shrug of his own. “But it’s quieter for it.”

“If I have any guilt in the world,” Justin said soberly, “it’s on your account. All the things you could do, and you spend far too much time worrying about my family, my future, my problems.”

Grants brow, generally azi-like, innocent of frowns, acquired one. “If I were burdened with choices, I’d still choose to be where I am. I’m relatively sure of it, given the requisite information.”

“What? If someone told you you’d be linked up with the clone of an egotistical problem case in a lifelong feud with a dead woman, you’d jump at the chance?”

“I’d at least find it an interesting proposal,” Grant said. “A source of unique experiences.”

“God.”

“Not all pleasant experiences, true, but I’ve found no need to run tape at all, not in this whole year. Which indicates I’m perfectly adjusted.” Grant gave a violent twitch of his shoulder. “Mostly.”

He had to laugh, in spite of it all. “I wish there were tape that could cure me of worrying about the damned son of a bitch.”

“Oh, I know there is for me, but there you are, the disadvantages of being a born-man. Just shut down, go peacefully null—”

“You can’t do it so well yourself nowadays, you know.”

“Curiosity is a plague. Contagious. I can’t help it. I want to
know
.”

“You’re right it’s contagious. Jordan’s a carrier. God, I wish he’d use good sense. Just—calm down and let it all flow past him. But no. He’s got to be in the dead center of the flow, going upstream while he’s at it. In some ways I can admire him—” Momentarily he’d all but forgotten about the bugs, twice in five minutes, and consciously, wearily amended it: “—and in others I know he’s a lunatic.”

“There’s nothing wrong with his sanity,” Grant said.

“No. There isn’t. Everything’s perfectly reasonable if you realize he wants to manage Reseune and he thinks second prize doesn’t matter.
Why
he wants to—” He tried to make it make sense and simply shrugged. “He doesn’t like to be inconvenienced. And
anybody
else’s orders are an inconvenience.”

Grant laughed softly. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“God, I want to love him. But he doesn’t give a damn. That’s the bottom line. I stopped being his project, and he washed his hands of me. Second prize again—isn’t good enough for him. Things are perfect or they’re garbage. Thank God for you, Grant, or I’d be—God knows what I’d be. Not as good as I am, for damn certain.”

“Nor would I,” Grant said with a nod of his head, “be anything worthwhile, in that household. I escaped, along with you, and I have just enough born-man ego to be glad of that fact.”

“Nothing wrong with your ego,” Justin shot back. “Perfectly well-exercised.”

“Oh, now—”

A knock at the door—which opened.

Florian.

Face of an angel and inevitably the bearer of bad news. Grant sat still. Justin nodded a welcome.

“I don’t suppose you dropped by for coffee.”

“No, ser, thank you,” Florian said. “I came to ask your help.”

“My help.”

Florian let the door shut, reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a small card, and handed it to him. It had a number hand-written. “This is Dr. Patil’s number.”

“I gave it to you. I don’t want it back.”

“We understand that. But, purely in an investigative way, we’d like you to call it and simply find out what the reaction is. Are you willing to do that?”

His heart began a thoroughly familiar acceleration of beats. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Grant set his cup down, as if he was considering entering into the conversation.

“And say what?” he asked, forestalling that, and straightway protested, though he marginally thought he was believed on this point: “I’ve told you I don’t know this woman.”

Florian reached in his pocket, drew out a folded piece of paper, and gave it to him.

The printout said:
Your father gave you the number, and you assumed he wanted you to convey his good wishes and Dr. Thieu’s. Possibly you became curious.

You wish to warn Dr. Patil that there is some concern here because of her relationship with your father. You feel that you can be of use in that matter because of your connections with me
.

“This comes from Ari,” Justin surmised. “
Me
means Ari.”

“You understand that this entire thread of conversation is classified.” Florian said. “Sera suggests this line of conversation as an assistance.”

“Florian, I can’t lie. I’m terrible at lying.” Begging off, abjectly, and in front of Grant—was undignified. Embarrassing. But survival, Grant’s safety, everything was suddenly at issue. “I can’t do this.”

“You’re a certified Supervisor, ser,” Florian said smoothly. “You’re not lying if you make these representations to this woman. You’re temporarily adjusting her reality, just as you might maneuver one of us for good reasons, to reach a point. If, out of her own reality, she chooses to believe certain things about your motives, that’s hardly your fault.”

“God, Florian, it’s not the same situation. You know it’s not.”

“I’m sure sera will understand if you refuse. But she urges me to say you could do a great deal for Dr. Patil, should she be innocent of any suspicious action—and for Reseune, since Dr. Patil is scheduled for a very sensitive appointment. On my own judgement, let me inform you of one other matter: Yanni Schwartz, on his return from Novgorod, discussed the resurrection of the Eversnow project with sera; within the same hour, Jordan left his apartment on his way to dinner at Jamaica, carrying in his pocket the business card of the woman meant to be in charge of the Eversnow project. Jordan gave you that card in full view of surveillance. Does that make sense to you?”

His heart reached max. He looked at Florian and froze inside.

But he had to ask it. Cold and clear. “What’s my father up to? Do you know?”

“We don’t. We do want to know why that peculiar juxtaposition of events.”

Florian was leveling with him: Justin had that sense. That was a situation both reassuring for his own future and as precarious for Jordan’s as he could conceive. He didn’t know what he’d been dragged into.

“I’m
sure
you want to know,” he said to Florian, and picked up his coffee and had a sip to steady his nerves, looking, meanwhile, at Ari’s script for a phone call to a woman who might either be, like him, a target, or someone he wished his father had never heard of.

Nanistics, for God’s sake. Jordan had nothing to do with nanistics. Jordan had had nothing to do with Abolitionists, either, but had once had phone numbers of people who themselves had ties in such dark places, twenty years ago. Jordan’s political contacts had nearly cost him Grant that night. And since that time he had taken nothing at face value, where it regarded Jordan’s correspondents.

Grant sat over at his desk, silent, impassive—he glanced in Grant’s direction and met Grant’s eyes. Expression touched Grant’s face, a nod, support for whatever he opted to do…when Grant would assuredly suffer right along with him if he made the wrong choice or the wrong move.