Regenesis

Dog‑eared menus stood on the table in a cluster of seasoning and condiment bottles. Justin and Grant didn’t bother: their regular was a standard choice. Jordan took a perfunctory look. And it wasn’t the sort of place where you input your choice with button pushes. An actual waitress–her name was Sonia–came over, asked for orders, and served ice water for starters.

They’d come in just for drinks. Justin and Grant ordered a large plate of chili over chips with real cheese, which was usually supper enough on its own, Jordan agreed, and they talked about integrations and deepsets between chips. It was a slightly high‑end conversation for Abrizio’s evening crowd, where the more likely conversation was administrative and domestic woes, or the current soccer scores. It was quiet enough for a reasoned argument, at least, and a disposable napkin went the circuit of the table, increasingly blue with the hieroglyphs of psych structure notation–not the sort of item they’d leave behind them, but not the sort of conversation that posed a security problem, either: the items he regularly brought Jordan weren’t under security lock. Pleasant evening. Uncommonly pleasant.

“That’s interesting,” Paul said, regarding Justin’s latest insert into the set they described. “Nice.”

Jordan snatched the napkin back from Paul. “Ease off. Thought you’d know better. Don’t you daretake that in.”

It was a little feel‑good Justin had added, the sort of routine that had once had him going round after round with Ya

“No intention of taking it in,” Paul said defensively.

Jordan shook his head. “Worm‑ish little bastard. Don’t trust it. Whose isthis crap?”

Justin didn’t, personally, agree that it posed that order of problem, or that it was crap. He checked himself short of saying so. The fact was, Jordan was right to check Paul if he had a doubt: being alphas andskilled in psych operations, both Paul and Grant were used to taking a small item in on a look‑see, sending some little routine all the way to their own deep‑sets and hauling it out again without ever letting it plant any roots–and producing some good commentary. The only danger lay in something that hit their deepsets and felt good at the time, that tempted even an alpha to hold it, secretly. And it was, in fact, deepsets, that little piece, but he didn’t think what he’d handed Jordan was in any sense harmful.

“That’s not one of yours,” Jordan said.

“Actually, yes.” He’d written it. And–perhaps it was a little stinginess, or just that he wasn’t quite through refining it yet–he hadn’tlaid that little routine on the table for Ari to sop up and run with, the way she sopped up and used whatever else he gave her. A conversation with her had sparked the idea a few weeks back, off his own notions of reward and gamma tapes, and Grant had thought it was good, but chancy, rule‑wise. So he’d put it out for Jordan’s comment. Paul hadn’t at all flinched.

But Jordan had a contrary opinion. That could be useful.

“This,” Jordan said, “is aimed at group dynamics.”

“It is,” he said, impressed that his father had laid his finger right on it, and added, “macroset, yes. But that’s not the important thing.”

“You’re meddling with deep sets and it’s ‘not the important part.’ I hate to tell you who that sounds like.”

The waitress showed up with a bottle and refilled all the glasses while their attention was on the piece of paper. Which was probably, for people parsing psychsets, one glass too many. Jordan took his forthwith and knocked back a large gulp of it before he returned his close attention to the scrap of napkin.

Justin had a sip of his own, read in that gesture of Jordan’s a degree of anger that filled in only one name.

So, well, maybe the kid had been doing a little research in elder Ari’s notes–she had them. She’d said she did. And, though it would be a disappointment to him if she’d pulled those items straight from elder Ari and not from her own intellect, he shouldn’t be surprised. She had a clerical staff, had an office. She could get any access, God knew. She’d been putting out masses of design work in recent weeks. Certain people in Admin–Ya

But she’d been arguing with him–and, dammit, she’d argued her points with understanding. There was no mistaking that. They’d had fun with it. And, no, dammit, he didn’t think she was cribbing: she was too fast on the response, give or take today’s performance. He worked back and forth with the kid. She produced things that were downright elegant–and scarify wide–while he watched her work. He’d listened to that simplicity and simultaneous broad sweep, admired it, and this one was his flight of inspiration, dammit.

But it evidently sounded to Jordan like hisAri.

So maybe he had more of the original Ari’s notes in that briefcase in the safe than he knew he had… God knew what classified programs thatcould dip into. Gehe

That was an eetee thought, one he really didn’t like. He didn’tremember the study sessions with the first Ari. Not all of them.

“So you did this?” Jordan asked him bluntly.

“Yes.”

“Wide as hell. Feed this to a population with a disposition to take it deep and it’ll set hooks. You won’t ever get it out.”

“It doesn’t seem to do any harm. That’s what I’m asking you about.”

“The breadthis the harm. That little routine won’t stop. It’ll mutate in ways you don’t know and the computers can’t track.”

“Are you sure it will, in the gamma sets?”

“I’m saying it will.”

“Where will it intersect? I’ll admit I don’t know. That’s why I brought it to you.”

Another slug from the glass. “You don’t know, I don’t know, she doesn’t know. You don’t let something loose that mutates as it integrates. That’s exactly the kind of thing Ari loosed–when she loosed it. You know that? The damn woman wouldn’t listen–she’d just go eetee and say it didn’t matter what you thought. She understood it, sorry you don’t, it’s going operational next week. Damnher.”

A small silence. Grant quietly retrieved the napkin and pocketed it, conversation over, at least on that topic, that might have grazed oh so close to things security wouldn’t want discussed in a neighborhood bar.

“Well, you’re likely right about the routine,” Justin said, and got a smouldering flash of eye contact from Jordan, a stare that locked, hard. “Probably it’s too wide.”

“You’re init up to your neck.” Jordan said. “You’re teaching the brat. Be careful she doesn’t teach you. Do you know what I mean?”

“That this is an example of it?” Justin said. “I don’t think so. It’s just a mind‑stretch. A thought problem.”

“And she’s coming up with stuff like this on her own?”

“It’s mine, for God’s sake. Believe me. But this isn’t the place. Let’s not discuss it.”

“Let’s go to our place,” Jordan said, “because I’ve got some things to say.”

He didn’t want to. That had been three glasses already, counting before and during di