Regenesis (24 page)

Justin walked over to the desk, picked out the printout he’d been working over. Laid the project-book, open, on his desk, where he would work on it when he got back. “There. We’re officially moved in and my desk is officially cluttered, so it’s home. God knows what the fallout was from that card Jordan handed me. Opening barrage, in what’s going to be some kind of war, I’m afraid. A war for possession of
us
, for starters. For possession of Reseune, I’m very much afraid. Jordan’s not going to win anything and I don’t think he’ll stop until someone stops him. And I don’t want that, Grant, damn, I really don’t want it.” His mood crashed. He leaned on his chair back. “He’s headed for a fall.”

“You think she’ll send him back to Planys?”

Deep down, he actually wished she would, this morning once and for all. And that was so startlingly dark and traitorous a thought that he felt deeply ashamed of himself. Jordan had spent twenty years in comparative privation, shut out of the modern world for a crime his accuser had likely committed; and his own son at least owed him some sympathy for the resultant bitterness, didn’t he?

But not when Grant was in danger from that sympathy: Ari had created Grant, Jordan had written some of his first tapes, knew at least his initial keywords and triggers, and if Jordan decided there might be flaws in Grant’s loyalty, and wanted to revise things, he could do major damage.

And
hell
if he’d let that happen, not if it meant Jordan going straight back into exile. He shoved back from the chair and picked up his coat.

“Jordan’s not making it easy for anybody,” he said grimly. “Not for me, not for you, not for two hours running since he’s been back.”

“Why does he do it?” Grant asked, reaching for his own coat. “What does an intelligent CIT want out of this situation?”

“Intelligent as he is, I’m afraid intelligence is nowhere in this situation.”

“You’re angry with him.” Halfway into the coat.

Justin settled his own onto his shoulders. “You noticed that.”

“Angry enough to take action against him as you did. That seems justified, from my own view.”

“I’m angry about being uprooted into an office that’s just damned
backward
to what I’ve been used to for most of my life. I’m angry at being co-opted deeper into Ari’s wing. I’m angry because I’m going to miss Abrizio’s…”

“We can walk over there. Nothing’s stopping us.”

“We could run into
him
!”

“So you want to avoid him permanently?”

“
Damn
it.”

“But not damn
him
?”

“I don’t know!”

Grant frowned. “So all across the horizon, very intelligent CITs aren’t acting rationally. Young Ari didn’t do a thing, Yanni didn’t, the elder Warrick makes a stupid move, and the younger doesn’t know what he damns, but he doesn’t want to talk to his genefather at all. What was the card you asked me to give Florian?”

It bordered on funny, it was so stupid. The idiocy of the situation afflicted his already raw sensibilities. At very least, his universe was not on the same track this morning, and he no longer knew where it was going, not an unusual condition in his life, but not one he liked.

“Jordan’s likely to be at our favorite lunch haunt on any given day if he’s using that office, and I don’t want the confrontation. So, for starters, I think we’ll walk to the north corridor of Admin for a late breakfast. That won’t be on his route.” He stared disconsolately at the cabinets, finding everything out of sorts. “They’ve color-coded the damn supply cabinets. It looks great. But are we going to remember to put the clips back in the red box? Should we have to remember? Does anyone care?”

“At least your father won’t be into your notebooks.”

“Definitely a point in favor of this place.”

“And it
was
originally his office.”

It was. It had been. “Let’s just get out of here before—”

The desk phone went off. He shot a look at Grant. It rang again. It was Jordan’s ID. He hesitated toward the door, then looked back.

It went on ringing. He swore, and punched in Speaker.

“Dad?”

“
Where in hell are you?
” came from the other end. “
What’s going on?
”

“They moved us. I think we were bugged.”

“
You
think
we were bugged! Bloody hell!
” So much for that piece of deliberate naivete. And more quietly, even gently, Jordan added: “
Are you all right?
”

He
hadn’t
expected parental concern. That ploy hadn’t even been on the radar. It set him back about a beat or two and almost hurt. Not quite. “We’re fine. Dad. We are.”

“
Where are you?
”

“Wing One.” Where Jordan couldn’t come. Not a hope in hell he’d ever get through her security to have a look around this office. “They moved my office.”

And Jordan had to know that the move was for good.

“
Are you going to protest this?
”

Tell the truth or temporize? Truth was simpler. Kinder, if that mattered. “No, actually.”

“
No?
”

Outrage. Truth, again? Or was it a lie?

Both wrapped together, both truth
and
lie, likely. Jordan wanted his son to rise up and challenge Admin, and challenge Ari’s existence. But he didn’t really expect it to happen—for reasons Jordan thought he understood better than the rest of the universe. “It won’t do a damn bit of good if I do. It’s not a bad office here. More room. Certainly more room than four of us and staff jammed into the other one.”

“
Come to breakfast.
”

Now a lie was necessary. Absolutely the polite thing. “Things are in a mess here. I’ve got some unpacking to do. I’ve got to find some things.”

“
Supper, then. We’ll cook.
”

It wasn’t an invitation. It was a challenge to trust. Maybe to come talk about that card he no longer had. And he didn’t trust Jordan, not at all. He wasn’t bringing Grant and himself through Jordan’s doors, subject to whatever they were handed to eat and drink, which might have God-knew-what in it. “I can’t.”

“
Arrested?
”

“Just detained. I don’t know for how long. It’ll ease up. It always does.”

“
Damn it, I’m going to Yanni with this.
”

So they both went through the motions. The pretense of familial affection. The reality of outrage. “Don’t use up your credit with him. This was bound to happen. They’re not going to like us working together. You knew that when you pushed it.”

“
You mean she’s not going to like it.
”

“Look, you’ve got to settle in, start producing again, start your work up…let them see you haven’t lost a beat. That’s what’s important. Get current with things… I understand they’re going to give you that office.”

“
Current!
”

“All right, yes, I’m sure that’s an issue among the younger researchers.” It was, and a painful one, which he used with only the faintest twinge of shame. “Get a new project going. And since you’re in that office alone with Paul, there won’t be any question what’s my work and what’s yours.”

There was just a little silence on the other side. As if his son’s work was going to overshadow his, as if, if it was any good, no one would believe he did it. That was going to sting. And he did it deliberately, knowing how instinctively jealous and competitive his father was. Jealousy had been the core issue with Jordan and the first Ari, that Jordan wouldn’t be second to her…he’d tried to be her equal partner in research, and that hadn’t worked, because the first Ari
had
been smarter than Jordan, just like the second.
He
accepted that fact of life, with his Ari. Jordan hadn’t ever been able to. He didn’t know what he felt at the moment, but it was perilously close to unreasoning anger—which didn’t damned well help in a fencing match with his father.

“
That’s the way it is, is it?
” Jordan asked. “
That’s the concern she has, just so solicitous to have me look good? Pardon me if I don’t buy it.
”

“I don’t either, Jordan, but there’s a certain assumption around the labs that you’re so many years behind the times, that you can’t possibly overcome—”

“
The hell! The hell I am! And the hell I can’t!
”

“It’s the next generation, dad. They don’t know you. Just produce. They’ll learn who you are.”

“
Who I am? Damned right they will!
”

Jordan broke the connection, right there.

Grant lifted a well-controlled eyebrow. “Breakfast?”

A
PRIL
26, 2424
1302
H

Message from Hicks, director of Reseune Security, to sera’s security:
Consultation urgently needed.

It might involve the card—if Hicks was running an operation at Yanni’s direction, they’d gotten in the middle of it last night, and Hicks was probably quietly furious at their having swept it up.

They could say no. They could hold onto the card and force Yanni to request sera to order them to release it; but a feud with Hicks wasn’t profitable. Hicks had agreed when they’d outright insisted on their monitoring the business with Justin and his father, and relaying what they found to him; and the interview seemed, overall, a reasonable request.

“I’ll likely be a while,” Florian said, while leaving the security station.

“All secure here,” Catlin said. “I’ll hold things down. It wouldn’t be good to annoy ReseuneSec if we don’t need to.”

“No,” he agreed. “It wouldn’t.”

He took the card with him, carefully protected in an envelope—its disposition dependent on what he heard from Hicks: maybe he would turn it over, maybe not, and Hicks would not lay hands on him, not if Hicks wanted his career. He headed out, downstairs, out of the wing and over to Admin, to an office that supervised his kind, but not him, not Catlin, and no one else inside sera’s apartment.

ReseuneSec was operationally directly responsible to Yanni Schwartz these days. Hicks had succeeded Giraud Nye in the post, and
hadn’t
been implicated in Denys’ attempt on sera’s life—in fact Hicks had stood down, done his best to keep things calm and safe for most of Reseune, and taken neither side, while sera’s people and Denys’ people shot at each other in the halls of Wing One. So Hicks had kept his job. Yanni said he was a good man, and since they trusted Yanni—so far—they trusted Hicks—so far.

Over to Admin, upstairs to the executive level, down the corridor from Yanni’s office. The ReseuneSec offices were a busy place, even at this early hour. The anteroom was full of people in suits, people in uniform. If he had to wait, he had things he could do in the interim.

He went to the desk. “Florian AF, Sera Ariane Emory’s bodyguard. The director called.”

The receptionist immediately lost the preoccupied look. “Ser. You’re expected.” He stood up and personally escorted Florian down a carpeted hall straight to the director’s office, past cameras and other devices—no matter all the waiting CITs back there.

That was gratifying, on sera’s behalf. It made a good impression—so far.

“Florian AF.”

A man with dark hair, dark good looks, and a gold bar indicating a colonel’s rank, intercepted him and the receptionist both.

Kyle AK. Alpha azi. Hicks’ aide.

“Ser.” Kyle AK outranked him. And might prevent him, but he would
not
do business with a substitute. He eyed Kyle AK with a certain reserve, just stared at him, at a dead stop, and the receptionist retreated.

“The message was from the Director,” Florian said. “I’ll
see
the Director.”

“To be sure,” Kyle AK said smoothly, and opened the door that said
Adam Hicks, Director, Reseune Security
in gold letters.

He walked in with Kyle AK, facing a silver-haired, square-faced man at a desk.

Suit, not uniform. That was Hicks, CIT, and never trained in green barracks, not an expert in actual practice, only in administration. He’d gotten the services of Kyle AK, a very highly trained alpha, former Fleet service. And it was widely suspected that Kyle AK was and had been the source of no little policy and no few orders in ReseuneSec…but it was the born-man who held the office and signed the papers.

“Ser,” Florian said. “Florian AF. You called sera’s office.”

Hicks got up from his chair and offered his hand across the desk, again, proper behavior. “Florian AF. A pleasure. Have a seat.”

“Ser,” Florian said, placing hands in the back of his belt and continuing to stand, post-handshake, as Hicks sat down: he had reached a decision. “Jordan Warrick surreptitiously passed a calling card with a contact number to Justin Warrick. The younger Warrick volunteered the card to me when I intercepted him on the quadrangle, and made no further comment. I think you’ll know that from my report.”

“Do you have the card with you?” Hicks asked him.

“Yes. May I have your word, ser, we’ll have the benefit of your investigation? This regards a person under sera’s authority.”

“Agreed. Absolutely agreed.”

Florian reached into his jacket front and pulled out the envelope. Hicks took it and laid it on the desk in front of him.

“What do you know about the card?” Hicks asked.

“The number, ser, belongs to a Dr. Sandur Patil, University of Novgorod.”

Hicks’s face betrayed very little. He was good, in that regard. “Researcher and professor. Did the Director brief you who she is?”

“Scheduled for promotion to a directorship at Fargone. Yes, ser. Director Schwartz said so, in conversation with my principal.”

Hicks nodded slowly. “How far did he brief her?”

“Perhaps farther than he briefed you, ser, so I shouldn’t go into specifics.”

Momentary silence. A perusal by very cold, very opaque eyes. “You know about Eversnow.”

“Yes, ser. We do.”

“You got this card from the younger Warrick.”

“It was given, Ser. Volunteered by him.”

“He got it from Warrick Senior.”

“We observed that he did, ser, unless cards were switched. We didn’t search him. Justin Warrick has been honest with us.”