Regenesis

One thing was certain: Ari hadn’t cheated and looked the case up in Library. She’d rather be stumped. She’d rather do it herself. That certainly had echoes of her predecessor. So did the temper. But do‑it‑herself was characteristic of young Ari, too: passion for knowledge was one of her better attributes, so long as she wasn’t sleep‑deprived.

“I know you can get it,” he said. Then he added, because she looked so tired: “Do you want a hint?”

“No,” she snapped back, and then the frown mitigated into a worried expression. “I’m sorry, Justin.”

“Sleep’s good,” he chided her. “Try it. You’ll like it.”

The worried look staved. “It’s not study, it’s Ya

Ya

“Sometimes I just want to break his neck.” She gathered up her papers, shoved them into the folder she was taking upstairs and got up slowly. “And you’re not supposed to hear me say things like that, so I didn’t, but it’s so, anyway. Damn him!”

Ya

“You just take care of yourself. Don’t take any kat tonight. Relax.”

“I’m trying,” she said, and sighed and gave him a pat on the arm as if hewere the child, at thirty‑odd to her eighteen. “You’re right. I know you are. Probably the answer’s obvious as hell and I’m being terribly thick­headed. Isit a trick question?”

“I’m somewhat interested to see what you’ll come up with. I don’t want to spoil it.”

“You think I’m a fool.”

He laughed; that proposition was so unlikely. But it was the perpetual self‑doubt of a young genius mind that never found peers to compare to. “You’re my science project. I’m determined to see the outcome. Keep going on it.”

A very heavy sigh. She took up her briefcase and hit the door button. Florian and Catlin were waiting for her, dark and light, doubtless having tracked the whole four‑hour session with the endless patience of their profession. Grant was on his feet, too, across the hall, not in possession of the coms Florian and Catlin used, but taking his cue from them. Grant was supposed to have been busy in the Education Wing office, but he habitually came over to Wing One to gather Justin up around this time.

The sets parted company, he and Grant, Ari and her bodyguards, taking their separate ways at least for the evening. They lived next door to each other, met for lessons in this little downstairs office in Wing One, because it was just more comfortable, and because her security didn’t want her walking about outside Wing One lately, no matter that Wing One was largely depleted of shops, of restaurants, of diversions–even its lab now mostly gutted of equipment. They kept to their separate apartments and didn’t socialize, beyond that.

Teaching her was how he earned a living these days, doing his regular work in psych design two whole days a week, back to back, Thursdays and Fridays, and then five days of afternoon sessions with Ari. His teaching her had been Ari’s idea–her insistence, in fact; and that job had its moments of interest, flashes of brilliance, even excitement, when Ari chased some idea through the undergrowth of other opinions, and when, sometimes, she sparked hiscreativity, and opened windows for him into her own esoteric field. That was a reward he couldn’t have bought for any price. Some days, many days, Grant sat in on the sessions, and gave his own opinions, and they argued with Ari over coffee and sandwiches–those were the good days.

This hadn’t been one of them. Nor had the day before, nor the day before that, not since Ya

But she hadn’t been herself for a week, and Ya

He didn’t like to think about the outside world. Didn’t like to think that politics down in Novgorod could ever affect him again. But he was co

“You’re thinking,” Grant said. Grant, alpha azi, life companion, lover–Grant knew him. Grant could read him like no other. “You’re worried.”

“Tell you later.” he said. Out in the halls was no place to discuss Ari’s business, not even with a friendly power in the Director’s office and no more Nyes anywhere. He found himself tired, after the four hour session–the psychological drag of an upset kid.

Or the fact it was near the end of the week. He hadn’t slept well himself, last night, mostly, he realized now, because he’d gotten increasingly worried about the sessions with the kid, and dreaded having to deal with that temper. “I want to drop by the office and pick up a file, get the computer ru

“Is there time for me to chase down some loose ends of my own?” Grant asked.

“About half an hour. Then di

“Fine with me. Not enough time for my business. I’ll watch you work.”

They shared that office over in Education, their old office, as happened, convenient for the small staff they had–a staff that couldn’t get clearance for Wing One, orhis work with Ari. He couldn’t hand Ari’s notes to his staff to deal with, for two reasons: one, that anything she produced was classified, and two, because his staff couldn’t operate on that level. But staff saw to it that the other things got done, when he was gone most afternoons–Em had gotten the rhythm of their schedule, and kept it going when neither he nor Grant was there; and a couple of beta clericals under Em, who could actually read the prefaces and classify psychsets quite accurately, had the place ru