Regenesis

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter x

SEPT 8, 2424

1927H

A long, long silence prevailed in communications…with the airport, with the city, with the Bureaus, and with the station overhead…not to mention the two aircraft that laced the skies, zigging and zagging, occasionally going down to one plane as one aircraft landed down at Novgorod Airport. Those two planes didn’t talk to Reseune ATC and it didn’t seem a politic time to be trying to pry into the Defense system. Ari just took what she had, which was a fair amount of knowledge she couldreach.

She wasn’t alone in ReseuneSec Ops. Amy had come back to sit in the little room, and regale her quietly with an account of how they haddodged people trying to track them from the hotel, and taken out toward the docks instead. They’d walked the last bit, Amy said, so as not to leave their stolen car too obviously close to the barge they’d picked.

“They were moving out a few barges. This stack of containers was ready to load on. It was construction stuff, for Reseune,” Amy said, sipping juice by tiny, tiny degrees, and with a monitor patch taped to her wrist. “So Frank got us into a container, got the door to stay shut while they loaded us on, way down deep in the hold, and later on, when we were ru

“I’m not sure I remember what that is,” she said. She liked hearing Amy’s voice near at hand. She wanted to hear from Sam, and they hadn’t; she wanted to hear from Awei that his forces weren’t losing, wherever they were, and the silence around that operation was thorough.

She was supposed to talk to the media–her security wouldn’t let her go down to the airport, but they were going to bring three representatives up to Admin for the first time to hear a report–and she didn’t know where she was going to get the strength to sound as if the momentum of the Council action was still going.

Ya

Keywork. She thought better that way. No verbals. Idiom crept in, imprecise. Even the Base One AI wasn’t entirely safe, not when it came to sequencing orders. She did it.

Amy fell silent, just watching, maybe interpreting. Amy was all right. She’d been there since childhood, almost the first. Amy didn’t know all the tools she had under hand nowadays. Amy could use Base One’s functions, but nobody could quite useBase One, except her, except Florian and Catlin, and anybody she let have just one little tag end of a command that Base One could execute.

Executewas a dangerous word. A meaningful word.

She stacked up commands, things to cascade once the first button was pushed–knowing if she got it wrong, she’d expose Reseune agents over in Planys, and elsewhere. The whole Planys‑base ReseuneSec organization was out there for her to use. She could access everything about the agents there, names, numbers, experience, rank, and how deeply embedded.

Maybe she should bring up the first Ari. Maybe she should give her a chance to argue with her plan. But she knew the keywords. She knew what Ari had told her. Politics matters. Perception matters. Assassination breeds assassination. War breeds war.

And after all the philosophy: If you have any choice, don’t be perceived to have struck first.

In going after Reseune, Khalid had given her everything she needed.

She pushed a button. She stored the orders, left them waiting in System on this side of the ocean. When the pipeline opened, it would open wide, and the chain would cascade in nanoseconds.

An hour later Catlin and Florian both lifted their heads from the console. “Awei is calling,” Florian said. “He says–now is the time, sera. He needs the data.”

The sequence was prepared. The orders were prepared. They’d probably lose System in Planys once the intruders retaliated. They’d very possibly lose a dozen perso

Execute.

The order went out. Spa

System in Planys came all the way up. Took a snapshot. Locked doors. Located faces. Fired that information off to Reseune and Awei, and sounded the intrusion alert in Planys’ hallways–just to create maximum confusion.

Ari sat with chin on fist, looking at Planys’ readouts. A few went out, quickly extinguished. But the room where a major part of System actually sat was deeply buried, difficult to find. That was what Base One said about it…

Planys System was a lot like Base One. It moved. It created power‑out conditions. It turned out lights. It locked and unlocked doors for a handful of agents whose faces the Planys System knew, individuals who could go like ghosts where they needed to go.

Meanwhile it produced maps for the general, and located vehicles, aircraft, perso

The intruders figured out they were in trouble. Some eyes went out. Some stayed.

Florian and Catlin handled communications as needed. Amy hovered close, watching, in total silence.

They had found the Enemy.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter xi

SEPT 9, 2424

1303H

It wasn’t where Justin had pla

Justin had his own share: did he count his appointment permanent, did he believe Ya

And if Paul was here–

Jordan came into the room, quietly wearing the usual ugly tweed coat, stood there in camouflage…come to see his son take a Council post, or to see his old enemy’s replicate take her place on Council; or come to raise hell, Justin had no idea. At the moment Jordan exchanged a quiet word with Paul, and Paul with Grant.