Regenesis

With nodeclaration of martial law. That was definite, too…because Reseune sheltered the requisite Councillors.

It was suppertime in the outside world; but her stomach was on a different schedule. She entrusted the two Councillors to a good catered supper ordered up from Jamaica and took herself and Catlin and Florian back to the hospital as fast as she decently could. She had a sandwich from the hospital cafeteria–Catlin got it for her–and then settled in to catch up and hear the report from Ivanov, who’d finally gotten the subject calmed down and stable. Ivanov had had to give Hicksmedical help; rapid heartbeat.

“I can’t give Hicks much more help without putting him to bed,” Ivanov said. “He’s not young, any more than the subject is.”

“We either leave Kyle in limbo for the night and see he doesn’t dream.” Justin said, “or we go after the block tonight. Stress continues on both of them–even–”

“Go for it,” Jordan said, “if young sera’s through taking her own sweet–”

Paul’s hand landed on Jordan’s shoulder, pressed hard, though Paul didn’t say a thing.

“We need her concentration here” Jordan said, “dammit. This isn’t a picnic.”

“You’ve got it,” she said. “I don’t blame you. You’ve got it. No complaints, no objections.”

“Let’s just go, then,” Justin said, and Grant got up, and Justin did.

Hicks, asleep on a cot, took a little rousing. “At this point.” Jordan said, “you don’t have to do anything. Just talk to him occasionally. Tell him what we tell you. Verbatim.”

Hicks nodded. They took their positions. They’d unraveled the kill‑capability. Now they went after the block. Hicks’ job was to let him progress gently, find the block, figure what symbolized it, and encourage Kyle to set it in a neutral position.

And Kyle seized.

Machines ticked on, took over, cleaned out the adrenaline surge, supplied a gentler cocktail, and got Kyle breathing on his own again.

It was past midnight, into the next day.

Justin leaned over the mike, “Tell him reset. It’s all right.”

Jordan said, “Tell him–tell him to open the door.”

Hicks did. Kyle’s face contracted, then relaxed. His breath went out, and came in again.

“Tell him. Reset,” Jordan said then.

“Reset,” Hicks said, and Jordan let go a long breath and said, softly, gently into the mike, “It’s usually a door, in some sense or other. You’ll want to put that into his manual. It isn’t broken. He’s keyed on you now, we’re not going to have to break it. Tell him he can clean up, put things to rights. It’s all right. He can trust what comes in if you say he can. Get him to agree.”

Hicks did that, quietly rephrasing.

Kyle lay there, breathing deeply. His face was quiet, seeming to have acquired lines. He had fluids going in and coming out. He had machines doing a lot of the work for him, while he just lay there and breathed on his own, and blinked from time to time. But the storm on the monitors had decidedly quietened.

“Get him to say your name.” Jordan said.

“It’s me,” Hicks said then. “You know me. You know my name.”

“Adam,” Kyle mumbled. “Adam Hicks.”

“Run the code,” Jordan said then, sharply. “Straight into the Contract.”

“You’ll–” Hicks started to protest angrily, and shut himself down, lips bitten to a thin line.

Jordan said, “Go.” And Ari thought so, too. She looked at Justin. Justin said, “Code.”

Fast as they could, before stress piled up. “Code in,” Paul said, and sent it through with the push of a button. Kyle sucked in a breath as if he’d fallen into icewater. The monitors spiked up, a jagged mountain range of crisis. Then Kyle let the breath go.

Contract tape followed immediately. “You have an assignment,”it routinely began. “You have a place. You are wanted…”

Kyle went on breathing. The lines of stress evened out to a steady tick. Strengthened.

Giraud couldn’t have done this one, Ari thought to herself. No way in hell. That beta tape was ancient history. It had taken Base One to haul it out of storage. It was tape that didn’t belong to any azi living…now that they’d pried it out of Kyle AK.

They got up from their small table, then, moving quietly, while Ivanov checked and took notes. Jordan moved closer to their patient. Ari did, out of curiosity to see, besides the monitors, how he was doing.

Then Jordan leaned over Kyle, very close, and said, fast, before anyone could stop him, “Who was your Supervisor before Adam Hicks?”

Contraction of the brows. Ari tensed. Kyle’s eyes flew open. He was still deeply under.

“Arbero,” Kyle said. “Captain Vincente Arbero.”

“Did you ever put Abban under kat?”

Kyle opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. Hicks grabbed Jordan’s shoulder and shoved him back, and Florian had moved in. Florian restrained Jordan gently, just put himself in the way, while Catlin faced Hicks.

“Yes.” Ari heard Kyle say in the interim, and she touched his pallid face gently and said, “You’re forgiven. It’s all right now. You can rest a bit and wake up later. Adam Hicks won’t leave you. Remember Vincente Arbero. But never listen to him again.”

She looked toward Hicks, who was still furious, then toward Jordan. “That’s on the record,” she said. “It’s on the record, Jordan, and all of us know it. It was recorded.”

Jordan wasn’t fighting against Florian, who wasn’t touching him now: he looked on the edge of a collapse, himself. Justin had moved in close, and laid a hand on Jordan’s shoulder.

“Let’s go,” Justin said. “Let’s go back next door, let him sleep it off. We did it, Dad. It’s done. Everybody heard.”

“ Idid it,” Jordan snapped, jerked his shoulder aside, and looked at Ari. “So what do you propose to do about it?”

“What I promised I’d do,” she said. “Let’s go next door. Come on. We need to talk. Now. Come on. Everybody.”

They went to the conference room, then–a window on the outer hall, one on the operating room itself. Petros Ivanov had gotten Hicks back to one of the consoles, to a stable chair with a back on it, was talking to him, probably medical advice. A nurse had come in.

Jordan didn’t say a word, meanwhile, didn’t sit down. He just stood there, against the wall of the conference room, staring at the windowed view, arms folded, not talking.

“Arbero,” Catlin said, quietly, having consulted her handheld. “Not on the Defense rolls. No CIT number.”

“That’s two,” Ari said. She was disappointed, deeply disappointed, but a thought began sliding sideways in her mind, just out of one compartment and into another. “Anton Clavery. Vincente Arbero. Every CIT has a CIT number. But arethere people in Defense that don’t? We’ve been assuming the radical underground. Paxers. Rocher Party, everything but somebody in uniform. Kyle’s given us a name that doesn’t exist. And, under deep kat, he saysthis person was in Defense with a high rank.”

Jordan had unfolded his arms. Justin and Grant sat looking at her. So did Mark and Gerry, Florian and Catlin, who weren’t going to talk, not in front of the rest.

“Florian,” she said. “Catlin. What are you thinking?”

“That CITs in other places are supposed to have numbers,” Florian said. “But we can’t get into Defense to find out if the rules are different there.”

“If they made hollow men,” Catlin said, “they’d have all sorts of resources to do that. People died in the War. Some die in training. And they’d be hard to track. Hollow men with all sorts of identities available.”

“We assumed a whole Bureau is going to observe the law,” she said. “We assumeif they were breaking the law somebody would talk about it.”

“Well, somebody didn’t,” Jordan said, “until he went under deep kat.” A muscle jumped in Jordan’s jaw. “Khalid runs Intelligence. Covert operations. I said I’d met him. Bastard. Thorough arrogant bastard. Asked mequestions I declined to answer. The man collects bits and pieces of everybody. Gets real pissed when you don’t react when he gives you that look. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I found out, the second meeting. People tried to hint to me you didn’t cross him. I probably went down in his book as a potential problem. Maybe it had something to do with their decision, the way they handled my case…they didn’t have a handle on me; they wanted more information and I wouldn’t give it to them, if you want the bloody truth. You all assumedI told them any damned thing they wanted to hear, and I didn’t. I told them what Ari was doing– therewas a dark little history, nasty little secrets left over from the War, the azi designs that didn’t work, that she put down and wouldn’t give me fucking access to try to fix them…you want to know where you can get any human material you want? Ask about herdeals with Defense, ask what kind of spies shecould create that never would have a CIT number…” He drew breath, waved a hand. Said, in a quiet voice, “It doesn’t matter. If they exist, we can’t get at them.”