But an azi of Florian’s bent didn’t flux. Not for two seconds running. Florian damned well hadn’t forgotten it.
He stopped, turned, reached into his pocket. Pulled out the thin card. “Florian.”
Florian had walked the other direction–was a diminished figure in the dark. But he heard, and stopped.
“I’ll take it to him,” Grant said.
He surrendered it without a word. Grant knew. Grant had seen Jordan’s action. Grant knew his reasoning the way Grant knew their situation from the inside out.
Grant crossed the dark distance between them, delivered the card, and walked back again. Florian stood there a moment, until Grant reached him, took the card, then turned and pursued his way back to Admin, where they had come from, and maybe on to the Education Wing beyond it, where their office was–or had been.
“Damn,” he said when Grant joined him. “Damn it. Grant.”
“Do you know what was on the card?” Grant asked.
“I haven’t the faintest, It may be a joke, for all I know. I don’t want to know. Damn him!”
“I intend to evade Jordan’s company, in private,” Grant said. “I’m relatively confident I could, even if we shared an office. But it seems the question is settled for now.”
“Settled,” Justin found himself saying, and realized it was impossible the second the word came out of his mouth. “It isn’t settled–not with him. Whatever quarrel he had with his Ari isn’t mine. It wasn’t mychoice to support young Ari against him. But–”
“But?”
“He’ll keep it going. And maybe he’s justified. Maybe he’s pure and right and just my living here put me on the other side. I’ve missed him all these years. But here I am, living on the other side, in herwing, working in herwing…”
“A different Ari. A very different Ari.”
“We don’t know how different she’ll become, as time passes.”
“Even azi,” Grant said, “aren’t identical.”
“But her interests are the same as the first Ari’s.”
“The people who pursued us are dead.”
“And all being reincarnated.” He reached the door. And stopped there, in the wind and the dark, in the last haven before they went into heavily monitored Wing One. “Maybe that concept ought to bother me more than it does.”
“You think that constitutes Jordan’s motive in this? That he believes she’ll eventually become his enemy?”
“I think it’s personal. I think it’s him against Ari. All the traits that make her and him. My immortality–if they do that to us–won’t be his. I don’t know if he’ll see it that way, but we’re not, thank God, psychological twins. I’m myself. I’m the first of myself. The only.”
“I understand that,” Grant said, who was also the first and only of his kind…so far.
“Thinking about it makes me a little crazy.”
“You’re notcrazy. Your actions have been completely logical, given the flux.”
“Including giving her security that card? Jordan’s going to land in trouble for it, and I set him up for it.”
“No. He set youup for it. You simply returned the favor.”
Cool, clear, utterly reasonable. He shivered in the cold wind. “Sometimes I don’t understand him. I just don’t understand him. Or I don’t want to.”
“Your father is intelligent. He iscapable of staying out of trouble. He simply declines to do that.”
“And it’s what you always said. CITs have their logic sets installed late. Emotions on the bottom, logic on the top. Sometimes it’s a complete bitch‑up.”
“Apparently.”
“I wish I could talk to him. Damn, I wish I could talk to him. Sensibly. Logically. You see how it goes. You saw how it went Sunday night.”
A moment passed. “I have a question.”
“Ask.”
“Should we be physically afraid of him?”
He had to think about that. There was one fair answer, one answer that would protect both of them. “Yes,” he said, and slid his apartment key‑card into the outside door lock. The door opened, letting them into the foyer for a dozen other id programs to work over. “Maybe we should be.”
BOOK ONE Section 1 Chapter xi
APRIL 25, 2424
2039H
Justin and Grant had reached their apartment. The door shut and locked. The light on the console showed green, safe. They were in, and their conversation on the way had been scant, and worried. Tracking had flicked from one station to the next, and surveillance had been hard pressed to keep up with the two parties, homeward bound in opposite directions.
Justin and Grant weren’t the problem. Jordan was. And he, with Paul, had gone home, too, talking about Library access and his intention of calling Yanni Schwartz in the morning.
Catlin flicked a switch, passing the watch back to the senior Reseune‑Sec team that watched over Wing One, entry by entry, movement by movement. Florian was on his way back. So was Marco, from Education, having ascertained that Jordan had made no detours.
She and Florian had one paramount interest in their action tonight: protecting Ari, which was to say, keeping certain individuals away from An, tracking the activities and interactions of absolutely everyone who even casually crossed into her security zone.
Secondary was protecting Justin. That was sera’s explicit and standing order. And third priority was a general and constant surveillance: keeping abreast of a list of individuals outside Reseune whose whereabouts and safety could impact Reseune’s operations. ReseuneSec, under Security Director Hicks, had numerous agents solely dedicated to that purpose, and that office informed them of what Hicks deemed necessary to tell them.
But, occasionally crossing Hicks’s office–they had their own watch‑list of troublesome individuals insideReseune. It wasn’t the first time they’d mounted their own surveillance, no matter what Hicks did or didn’t do–as tonight, when Hicks had wanted to bug the restaurant; but they had done it themselves, told Hicks to stay out, and fed the information to Hicks as it came available…promising that, for Hicks’s promise to stand back.
Yanni’s coming for dinner in Wing One, for instance, aroused no particular alarms. The Director’s contacts, the ones he himself chose, were either clean, or they were obligations he dealt with for ascertainable reasons, even if sera had been angry with him for matters she’d declined to mention to them. Yanni came into Wing One with no large security contingent, and sent no orders to Hicks. But she and Wes had been in position. If sera had indicated Yanni should be detained or otherwise dealt with, it would have happened, and a very specific code would have flashed to Florian, triggering yet other actions, as best they could manage, as fast as they could manage.
But there had been no such outcome. Yanni’s companion azi, Frank AF, shadowed Yanni everywhere, as closely and as obsessively as they followed Ari. Frank was out of green barracks, like themselves, and while Frank was, like Yanni, a little reticent on Yanni’s personal business, he was certainly a solid type, and absolutely loyal, not only to Yanni, but to the entity Yanni served–which was Reseune itself. So Frank was a watch‑it, but no great worry.
What clustered around Justin Warrick, however, was a different matter, and dealing with him was not simple. Justin and Grant had not a single close contact except Yanni that they didtrust on that level. It was a constant worry that those two personally had sera’s clearance, residing right next door. But sera maintained they were important to her and insisted that they were securely hers–so they took measures, sera being unavailable for consultation. They had had to improvise tonight and move fast, and in such a way that what they did could be amended, if sera ordered.