I remember one day: Maman comparing Gloria to me and finally telling Julia to take Gloria and get out of the apartment… Gloria was trying to beat my brains in, that day, so there was a reason, but I can still hear Maman telling Julia to get her daughter out of there, and even then I knew it wasn’t the most politic thing she could have said to her daughter. When you live so long–when rejuv lets you go through family after family, the layers get more complicated than nature ever designed us to deal with, I think. The relationships get tangled, adults with kids, this generation’s kids with the other one–they sell a lot of books advising people how to get along with polygenerational families and serial partners and rejuv issues. Maybe by your generation it’ll all be saner, but rejuv was still a new issue in those days, and people didn’t always handle it well. I know Maman’s household was likely upset before I even got there, and my presence just drove Julia over the edge and made her do things that weren’t smart.
And Valery–who wasn’t even part of our family–the Project directors couldn’t have me getting attached to a friend, or have me that happy, so they had to find a way to get Valery away from me. There just wasn’t much of anywhere to send his mother, Andrea, because she was doing classified work. So off they went to ReseuneSpace at Fargone, where they could be in a sealed research community, involved with trying to clone another personality. Look up Rubin, if you’re curious.
Denys was probably the one who ordered Valery to go away–because at a certain point–you understand better than anyone–it was just time for life to get harder for me.
So for starters, they sent Valery away, and Julia and Gloria, and then when I was seven, they sent Maman away. And that was because the first Ari’s mother died at that precise age, and it was time, in the Project, for Jane Strassen to go away–along with Ollie, which was kind of Denys, at least, that Ollie went with her…but I think Denys never even thought about that. They just wanted everybody I loved to leave, and Denys took charge of me one day and told me Maman was gone forever and I had to move in with him, and that was the way things had to be.
I was upset. I was terribly upset. Everything had been good, and then it wasn’t, and he really hated having a child around. He made that clear, fast.
Worse, he particularly hated the first Ari. Or at least what he felt about her was tangled and complicated. If what I think is right, he may be the one who killed her. Or his azi did, to protect him from her. And Abban and Seely are both dead, so nobody can ask them what the truth was, not that it matters, now, anyway.
I hope, I really do, that you don’t have to go through that kind of separation from people you love. But probably you’ve already had to, and maybe you hate me as part of all of it, but likely by now you probably realize why you had to go through it, so I hope you forgive me along with the rest of them. I know I might not have survived my coming of age if I hadn’t been through the fire.
So maybe the first Ari was right, and if I’d had no stress on me I’d be like that poor clone of Estelle Bok. I’d guess you still study that case, along with Rubin, or if you don’t–do. They gave Bok Two the best of everything, and that genius brain just floundered around with no boundaries, until it went way, way off into miserable territory, and became none too sane. Rubin wasn’t a great success, either, or isn’t, so far. He’s just a pretty good chemist. And his predecessor, with every luxury in the world, committed suicide right in the middle of the program. Didn’t that throw my keepers into a fit?
So you are whatever you are, and I am what I became, because they were suddenly hard on me at the right time. The first Ari had had her mother telling her when to breathe in and out, until her life changed suddenly and her mother died and she was just Ari, trying to survive in Reseune and not to have anybody murder her. She suddenly had to fight. So did I. Maybe so do you.
So even at eighteen years old, I’m still sorting out what the Project did to me, and I can say I’m all right and I’m glad I learned to defend myself. But I’m not satisfied with just finding out I’m all right. Now is my time to try to sort out what the Project did to other people–people the Project didn’t give a damn if it hurt. Maybe it will work. Maybe it’s beyond recovery. But I intend to try.
I hope all those people will find a way to love me after all. It’s selfish. But I do hope so. Is that a vulnerability? Maybe. But it’s me.
BOOK THREE Section 1 Chapter iii
JUNE 1, 2424
1540H
Ari shoved back from the console. Replayed the last bit. Struck it out, disturbed by what had come out of her in that rambling account, not sure it was good for her successor to hear that much honesty, whether that it was too stupid, that badly written, too naive to say, or whether it revealed too much–it was embarrassing, was what. It revealed a trigger. A touch‑point. That was worth considering. It was just too personal.
But her successor had to know her. It could be life or death. And she recalled that section, reviewed it, then entered the code that made it, with all the other entries, uneraseable.
BOOK THREE Section 1 Chapter iv
JUNE 6, 2424
1657H
It ought to be suppertime, but it wasn’t, yet–the new domestic staff was finally arriving. Ari had put on a favorite rose sweater and a nicer pair of pants, plus a little jewelry, anxious to have the new people have the best impression of her and the household.
Catlin and Florian had missed their dinnertime, too–there was never a time she met strangers that they weren’t right beside her. Marco and Wes were in the security station, it being their shift as of an hour ago, but the rest of staff was stirring about in the kitchen, getting ready with a nice little party, sandwiches and refreshments for the incomers.
Herself–she was thinking of that pile of sandwiches when the word came that the group had passed building security, presented their IDs, and been logged in. That was about a three‑minute process to reach upstairs via the lift, another to reach her apartment.
Deep breath.
And a group of people exited the lift and approached the apartment. Corey was on duty there, with his partner Mato, the two Marco and Wes identicals. They were spit and polish for the occasion.
And, no question, the group on the other side of the door would be all nerves: they were just Contracted. It was birthdays, weddings, and first jobs all rolled into one bundle and presented to them–and they were Contracted not just to anyclient, mind, but–she could think so without overmuch egotism–to her. With all she meant to make thatmean to them, every advantage, every comfort for her staff. She’d do well for them, and they’d help her run the new place, once they moved over.
She stood in the hallway, hands folded. Corey opened the doors to the newcomers, a handsome lot, mostly male, all wearing the typical azi barracks issue. Her domestics, like Corey and Mato, wore dark blue, her security–like Florian and Catlin, plain black. These wore, at the moment, gray.