Regenesis

“It was an agitation on her part. But a quiet one, the presentation of a theory, not a how‑to. The War’s over. We could enlist any nanistics expert we want out of Beta, and will–but for various reasons–including the fact she’s the darling of the Paxers, the Centrists, and the military, and could get us the votes–she’s our pick for the lab going out to Eversnow. It’s a dream assignment for her. She may be the Centrist intellectuals’ darling, not that they understand half of what she’s about, but she does want to see her theories put into the field, and she’show we got the two Councillors to shift their vote to support mine, notable Defense and Citizens. And just to draw a line under the fact of who’s in bed with whom, our Jordan’s spent the last eight years having lunch with the professor who taught Patil.”

“He doesn’t havea Base in System any more. So how did he know about it? How did he get the card? Maybe he wanted us to have it. Maybe he’s trying to ask a question…in his unique way.”

“That would be an interesting position,” Ya

“To drag Justin into it on his side,” Ari said, “but I don’t think he did what Jordan would want him to do.”

“Oh, it probably was within his guesswork,” Ya

“It has a reader‑strip, ser,” Florian said. “We didn’t put it into a System‑co

“Probably a very good notion,” Ya

“I’d rather not if I can avoid it,” Ari said. “But Justin is staying in Wing One.”

“Granted,” Ya

“ Youdidn’t bring Patil’s name up with Jordan, did you?”

“Hell, no.”

“Just asking,” she said easily. It remained a possibility, all the same. But less likely, perhaps.

So Justin was safe. But Jordan definitely wasn’t.

BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter iii

APRIL 26, 2424

0855H

Late to bed, late to rise, and not that early to the office.

The morning was definitely off routine, when you had to rack your memory to recall what your own office address was, and it was entirely surreal to walk in and find the set‑up pretty much what you remembered–and you hadn’t put it there.

Justin had expected boxes. The office was–just moved. Things were on shelves in exactly the same order…apparently so, at least. Florian hadn’t exaggerated.

“Well,” Grant said, at his shoulder, “they were neat.”

“Certainly better than some invasions we’ve had,” Justin muttered, and let go a long, long breath. He hadn’t known he was that wound up about the move, but he had been. He didn’t see a safe. Opening several desk drawers didn’t turn up Ari’s material. It had gone somewhere, and that bothered him.

“Her stuff isn’t here,” he said.

“Security will have it,” Grant said. “Five against ten, Florian will have gotten it, personally.”

“Well, it’s not a bad office,” Justin said, looking around. It wasn’t bad. It was even good, given there was room for the two of them–ample room, but nothing for staff. God knew what Em thought, this morning, arriving to find he had no office and no job.

There was a window. The view from the purported window was fake, but it was a very expensive fake: a screen showed the Novaya Volga from, one supposed, the top of the cliffs, more likely the top of one of the precip towers–he’d never been up there: nobody went there, except the repair and maintenance crews working on the weather system, and most of those were robots.

It was a dizzying image, if one thought about it. It gave an illusion the whole building was forty stories tall, when the brain knew for a fact they were on the ground floor.

“Nice view,” Grant said.

“You’re such an optimist.” Justin ran his hand over the spines of the physical books on the shelf, finding no flaw in the order of them–printout of this and that psychset. He likedprintout, when it came to review. He marked‑up with abandon, and liked things in order, hisorder. The stacks on the desk looked like his stacks. He thumbed through them. They were in a reasonable order. Likely the stacks on Grant’s desk were the same.

But he wanted to find something they’d messed up. He checked the drawers. Exact order, exact contents. “I hate it when I don’t know what they’ve done wrong. I’m sure there’s something.”

“The movers were ReseuneSec, weren’t they?” Grant asked. “They’re used to not having things look disturbed.”

That was worth half a laugh at least.

There was an in‑office coffee dispenser sitting on a sideboard. That was new, and good. The machine was loaded and it turned on and functioned at the touch of a button. That was even better.

And the movers had improved on one other thing: the move had organized the supply cabinet contents in a logical, eye‑pleasing way, with little colored bins for the various styli and clips and pointer‑tags. He surveyed it top to bottom, looking for flaws.

“Color‑coded.” Justin remarked, giving up his search. “I suppose our mess was too much for them to get here intact. We have all shiny new paper clips.”

“Have a cup of coffee.” Grant handed him one, an implicit calm‑down.

“You know Jordan’s going to be beside himself this morning.”

“Likely he is,” Grant said. “Just about now.”

He took a sip. It was better coffee than what they’d had available down the hall in the old office. Much better. It was probably real. “Pricey.”

“Free,” Grant said.

“Meaning we’re entirely on her tab.” That didn’t improve the taste.

“Do we ever actually run through our wages?” Grant asked.

“We never get a chance to find out, do we? And what about our regular work?” He turned full circle, looked at the walls, the river view, and something beyond vertigo bothered him, something indefinably bothered him and made his shoulders twitch. He walked across the office and back before it dawned on him. “It’s backward. It’s damned backward! The back wall is south. The old office wall faced north.”

“Is that going to bother you?”

“It’s already bothering me.” He was still frustrated. The office had always had its carefully designed clutter–even his every‑other‑layer stacking was preserved, in the pile on the corner of his desk. The room was white‑walled, had a view that cost a month’s pay. The desks were new black lacquer, not brown lake wood, scarred from years of use. Their use. It was like that damned black and white bedroom they lived in, that was what. “I want some flowers in here. Some pictures that don’tmove.”

“I can order the flowers,” Grant said, and added wickedly. “Red?”

“No. Blue. Green. Purple. Anything but red.” There was one red pillow, one red flower, in their professionally decorated black, gray, and white quarters.

“Maybe you’d like to pick out the pictures yourself.”

That nettled him, too. “Ordering flowers is not your job to do. You’re not my–”

“I’m not as afflicted by the decor as you are,” Grant said. “It’s a born‑man problem. You’re fluxed. I’m sure I could order flowers in a sane, logical way. Possibly I’d be calm enough to pick out complementary pictures. Clearly–”

“The hell.” He found his mood improving, unwanted improvement, even toward laughter. “Oh, hell, blue. Blue would be good. Blues and purples, that sort of thing.” The single screen pretending to be a window drew the eye and suggested blue‑greens and grays. “Cancel the purple. Blues and quiet greens. That might do it. I’d like that. If you wouldn’t mind doing it. I’m not that logical, at the moment.”