Regenesis

But that was an inquiry he pla

At very least Hicks and Ya

Sera’s life was at issue. Primarily sera’s, most clearly. Any enemy getting power would immediately want a new Ari‑clone to work with, or see all Union space thrown into a power struggle. Certain enemies might think they would like that event. But only the most fringe elements–or Alliance agents from outside Union space–could benefit from losing Ari altogether. Domestic enemies, sensibly bent on unified power, would need to have people on‑staff at Reseune to make sure there was a third Ariane Emory.

Those were the ones to worry about most acutely: their ambitions were far more local. Some individuals with those well‑targeted motives might be inside their perimeters, and Jordan was only the visible problem, the most likely focus of trouble.

“A pleasure to cooperate with you, ser,” Florian said, and took the datastick, got up and gave a little bow. “If I have the requisite materials in this. I’ll handle the other details.”

“Done,” Hicks said. “And that stick is clean, by the way.”

“Of course, ser,” Florian said pleasantly, with every intention of passing it through protocols, even considering it came directly from the man who saw to the safety of all Reseune. “We can’t say that about the card’s data‑strip. But we’ll look forward to the information.”

“Pleasure,” Hicks said, and looked as if he meant it.

So that was that. Kyle AK was waiting to show him out. Florian walked out of that hall, out through a reception area where the number of waiting CITs had nearly doubled.

Elsewhere in the system, in other offices, a number of security‑trained azi were about to hear a keyword to disturb them to the depths. They’d be notified of reassignment to new specific operations, with special training.

They’d be excited, anxious at the same time, vulnerable as their professions never let them be for any other reason.

It was his job and Catlin’s, and Wes’ and Marco’s, to settle the new security staff in their duty and handle the logistics. They’d have residency in Wing One: they needed to have it. But, unlike their own hand‑picked domestic staff, they’d never come into direct contact with sera, not until he knew them specifically and by experience, and until sera had had a close look at their files.

Patil was a useful first question for them to try their new ReseuneSec access on. The quality of the information that query produced would tell them more about Hicks than about Patil.

Hicks himself might be the more vital question. When people gave things gratis, looking into the origin of the impulse was a good idea.

And when rumor said there was more than one authority inside the office, and that Hicks wasn’t the strongest administrator ReseuneSec had ever had–that fact was worth noting.

In the meanwhile, Florian thought, passing the outside door…in the meanwhile, and with their own careful examination of what Hicks handed them, ReseuneSec’s close cooperation with sera’s staff might prove useful.

BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter v

APRIL 26, 2424

1538H

After brunch was an extended but less than productive day trying to arrange the backwards‑feeling office–in which they waited, continually on edge, for another call from Jordan.

Damn it.

But at least their current cases had arrived in the paperwork ported over from the Education Wing.

Justin doggedly slogged away at a routine check of a psych record, a fifteen‑year‑old azi up at Big Blue who’d had extraordinary scores in work‑study, a cheerful looking girl with freckles on her nose and a quite amazing ability to troubleshoot problems in a handful of aging bots. It was a mechanical aptitude that had never manifested in the ThT‑382s–possibly because no ThT‑382 had been faced with a broken bot and a looming production deadline. Strong ethic to succeed, strong bond with her CIT Supervisor, who was about as old as the bots, and a deadline.

It was a good combination. Create those desires and skills in the ThT‑382 path and they had a new training route with a fairly complex technical slant. Reseune liked to keep a strong theta presence in a given genepool, good practical sense, good hand‑eye, ability to fix the plumbing before the water rose, as the first Ari used to put it–but more than that, it was a diverse, adaptable geneset. All sorts of things cropped up in the ThT‑382s that were good traits in a population. The mechanical ability was a revelation.

Alpha types–mentally top‑end and having more delicate psychological needs, in order to function at maximum–found employment mostly inside Reseune, very few outside, until a settlement reached a need for higher‑end management, and then only a few, specialized in admin, usually, very few in science, went to that assignment. An alpha closely paired with a born‑man Special–the CIT equivalent of an Alpha–those sets were all at Reseune, or at Planys, or at installations like Reseune Space. His pairing with Grant, Jordan’s with Paul–

God, there was one mortal waste in his father’s situation. Paul and Jordan hadn’t done a damned thing useful in twenty years, and the stagnation had to be killing both of them.

There wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Jordan and Paul were sitting over in his office by now, stewing, not getting anything done not only because they were so far behind it was going to take years to catch up, but because Jordan wasn’t ready to get started catching up. And Paul, who was totally i

Maybe, if he couldfind a way to work with Jordan, he could fix the situation, get Jordan moving again on something creative.

And maybe that was at the core of what Jordan wanted–come bring me up to speed, give the old man a hand, put us back where we were…before Denys Nye framed me for murder…

The revenge part of it…that wasn’t going to go away so readily. That, he didn’t know how to cure.

Jordan had tried working with Ari Emory. That didn’t work. Jordan could work with Paul, but Paul didn’t work at all while Jordan was emoting, and if Paul was currently trying to deepstudy his own way back to what he himself had been, it was under impossible conditions: Jordan was scattershot at the moment and mad as hell, and Paul was suffering.

Paul was still functioning tolerably well in the crisis–socially speaking. Jordan, being a born‑man and a Special, was not that well‑organized. Jordan was damned pissed, and intent on everyone around him knowing it, intent on everyone acknowledging he’d been wronged, whatever it was that would satisfy him…and by all evidence, nothing ever would satisfy Jordan. His enemies were dead–and reborn–and twenty years of his life were gone. Meanwhile his son, his personal rebirth, had gotten entirely pragmatic about those missing years, and hadstayed current with his work, and was living under the current Ari Emory’s thumb.

That was what was eating Jordan alive.

Well, he couldn’t help it. Couldn’t change it. He wasn’t going to change it at Grant’s expense, no matter what kind of pseudo‑filial impulses surged in his gut whenever Jordan pulled one of his pity‑fests, damn him. No, no, and no, he wasn’t going to divert himself and Grant from a comfortable career doing useful work to go join his father in self‑destruction. Selfish, maybe. But this version of Ari had a certain hold on him, too, and it wasn’t hate.

Memory of the first Ari–even that had had its good spots. One really bad one, but some good ones, too.

Memory of the second–a kid with a gift of guppies, a teenager upset as hell because her first attempt at seduction hadn’t at all worked–