Regenesis

“An honest Defense Councillor could,” she said.

“Naive,” Jordan said.

“You say Khalid did it, ultimately. We’ll never attach things to him. If we take it to the media and can’t prove it, ultimately that’s a problem, because he’ll deny it, and we’ve damaged our credibility with everybody. I’m not that naive, ser, to try to prove anything yet. I’m thinking what we can do now to get him stopped.”

“Well, first you find an honest Defense representative and then you get his electorate to put your honest Councillor in. Spurlinwasn’t likely it–just somebody who wouldn’t kiss ass with Khalid, which is why he’s dead and you’re probably right. You’re a target, I am, everybody who’s heard this is, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think having a Council meeting on the quadrangle out there is going to make Defense run for cover. You’re thinking he’ll observe civilized limits. He’s already out of civilized limits.”

“It’s a problem,” Ari said.

“It’s a problem,” Jordan echoed her nastily. “Damned right it’s a problem. So I’m i

“I may need you again,” she said. It was scary, being told by a very bright Special that he was out of answers, and that there was no fix for the problem. It was particularly scary, because at the moment she didn’t see a fix, either, and whatever was wrong inside Defense had been going on for sixty years. Their problem had had a lot of time to build an infrastructure in that Bureau. “Go get some rest. Thank you, especially, Jordan. Thank you for doing this.”

“The hell,” he muttered. “You go prove I’m i

“We should get on back to the Wing,” Justin said. “We’re all exhausted.”

Jordan didn’t move.

“You’ll get your not‑guilty,” Ari said.

“Promises, promises.”

She stood up, leaned on a chair back with both hands. “We’ll figure things out,” she said. “Ya

“Hold a vote. Hell.” Jordan shoved away from the wall and walked out.

Paul lingered a moment, looking distressed.

“It’s all right,” she said to Paul. “He could be right, you know. But I hope not. Good night, Paul. Tell him good night. –Justin, Grant, Sera Prang… Justin, you can–”

The overhead lights flashed.

Then the storm siren sounded.

“There’s no weather,” Ari said, and then thought of the pile of papers and manuals in the surgery, at that back table. “The records. Kyle.”

“Our territory,” Prang said. “We have enough help. I’ll help Petros with the patient. Go!Get herdownstairs!”

“Damn,” Ari said, and by then Florian had her one arm and Catlin had the other, and Prang was headed for the surgery.

“I’ll get the manuals,” Justin said, and he and Grant headed out of the room, headed the same direction, Mark and Gerry close behind them, while the siren howled.

“Sera, come on,” Florian said, and she surrendered. She had to. Florian and Catlin pulled her out into the hall and down the nearest stairs.

They were on the next flight down when something screamed overhead, the walls rattled and the ground heaved up, like a blanket toss.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter i

AUGUST 27, 2424

1927H

Giraud blinked, flinched, moved wildly, first at an unprecedented jolt, then at the abrupt cessation of everything in his world.

Then the rocking and the sounds started up again, regular as the heartbeat that ruled it, and he, and Abban, and Seely, all slowly settled and relaxed. They all had something approaching a memory for the first real event they had ever experienced, knit together for the first time in one experience, at one specific age. They couldn’t define it. But they had all been in the same situation.

They were too old, however, to be seriously inconvenienced by a glitch, They each weighed about a kilo–still none of them carrying the weight they needed for that unruly world that had just intruded. They were adding neurons as fast as they could grow them. Their brains were organizing so one day they would be able to remember things. They were packing on body fat, storing it up, not anticipating any other such disturbance, though hormones had surged and they remained unsettled for some un‑thought reason.

They didn’t plan. They didn’t anticipate. They just did things their DNA told them to do, and right now, with all the nutrients they could get, they just filled out their skins and grew eyelashes, because their DNA said it was time to do that.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter ii

AUGUST 27, 2424

2011H

The drills in underpopulated Alpha Wing hadn’t remotely conveyed the urgency of a populated area or the fear in a gathered crowd who’d felt that shock. They’d possibly had a tower fall. That was the image Justin framed in his mind; one of the big precip towers on the cliff must have come down, and of all disasters in his life, of all things that had ever happened to him and Grant–that imagination was the worst: atmospheric breach. Death, if you got caught outside.

Traffic in the tu

Mark and Gerry had kept up with them. They all four had briefcases full of classified papers and the manual they’d rescued–they’d managed that coherent task, amid everything else. But they didn’t know what had happened up on the surface, nobody else did, so they made their way generally toward Alpha Wing, with hundreds of other people caught out at restaurants, in residences, working night shift. And, Justin thought, he might get through on Base One, on his handheld, but he didn’t want to make himself a target of questions from everybody else who was missing a relative. They didn’t have a place where they could do it in any privacy.

“Can you gather anything?” he asked Gerry, pausing to let those two overtake them. “Is your com working?”

“Just ops and tracking, ser,” Gerry said. “They aren’t saying, except there’s an emergency cha

Then a familiar young voice said, over the general address: “This is Ariane Emory, in ReseuneSec Admin, Defenses have brought down a device on the grounds. There’s no significant damage to Reseune facilities, just a hole in the ground where it hit. Please stay in the tu