Ari’s face, too. Elder Ari’s face. A glass in his hand. The feeling of being drugged. Sex. And a voice saying–
He couldn’t remember what she’d said. To this day, it blacked out at that point. He’d tried not to let his father know what had happened. He’d tried so hard.
But too many had known.
And he’d spent his next years being arrested for the suspicion of thinking. He’d given up his father’s head‑on attack on life and adopted a stubbornness that laid low, laid modest plans, and just survived into the next Ari’s growing up, to become a general annoyance to Denys Nye.
Mirror into mirror, physically, himself with Jordan. But the psychology Jordan knew in his son had been Worked on and Worked over every time they’d arrested him and hauled him in…
He suspected they’d tried to bend him, at least.
But cracking any Working the first Ari had done–that wasn’t easy. He’d been set on a course. He’d even begun to cling to it, mentally, telling himself from the start that the Nyes could have done the murder themselves, and that they might someday kill him, but they weren’t going to crack him, because he was Ari’spiece of work. What kept him alive, he greatly suspected, was the fact they couldn’t tell whether he was somehow essential in the plans Ari had laid down–essential in the construction of her own psychological and physiological clone. The genius that had made Reseune what it was had to be reborn to keep the power Reseune had, which was currently in their hands: and if Justin Warrick was somehow part of it–the Nyes had to keep him alive.
They’d gone into convulsions of policy when their precious clone had found her way to him.
They hadn’t known what to do with him after that, except try to make sure he didn’t come up with any Working of his own, where it regarded the little girl, who’d become a bigger girl, who’d become a young woman and developed notions her guardians finally couldn’t control.
Sex, prominent among them. He’d gotten away from her. He’d known that was worth his life, but the Nyes weren’t what scared hell out of him in that regard. What scared him was young Ari herself, the fact that there was no predicting what psychological trigger could go off in that interface, as if whatever the first Ari had done had set a mark on him that wouldn’t stay quiet if he ever got involved with child‑Ari. It wasn’t where he wanted to go. It wasn’t who he was supposed to be. His whole being shrieked no and he backed away.
And Jordan came back into his life, now that the Nyes were done, and now that Yanni Schwartz was in charge.
Yanni sat sphinxlike behind his desk, watching all the pieces shift on the board, doubtless wondering whether the piece that was Justin Warrick would gravitate to the troublesome piece that was Jordan, and whether Jordan would gravitate back to his old intention of getting out of Reseune and attacking its policies from the outside. Jordan had had contacts–contacts that had had contacts with the Paxers, the Abolitionists; and he’d had friends at the opposite end of the spectrum, the Defense Bureau, who’d been the first Ari’s allies, but who simultaneously wanted to get the upper hand over Reseune. And Jordan had dealt with them…back then, dealt with every contact on the planet he could use to break Reseune’s power and overthrow the system
They were all watched, constantly, had been for years, and Yanni reported regularly to an eighteen‑year‑old girl who would own absolute power over ReseuneLabs whenever she wanted to take it up. Within a decade, the corporation that was creating population and civilization in the farthest reaches of human exploration would come back under the control of a second Ariane Emory.
And a third Ariane, someday. That event was already in the planning stages. Every detail of young Ari’s life was being stored up, the way the first Ari’s life had been stored.
And come the day, the inevitable day–the question would be…which of the two Aris ought to be born again.
And how many of the people who’d been part and parcel of the second Ari’s life had to be recreated, and whichAri were those replicates going to have to deal with?
He had a horrid suspicion a storage somewhere now had hisdata, and Grant’s programming, and maybe Yanni’s. Giraud Nye, who had probably never looked to face such an event, was already less than a year from rebirth. Denys Nye, the shadowy eminence who’d run the labs in the interim years, was still a question mark…but he’d bet a year’s pay which way that decision was going to go. Ari’s teenaged emotions were still in the ascendant; but the cold, keen intellect was rising fast.
He didn’t know how much of that situation Jordan knew. How did you tell your father you–and therefore he, through you–were destined for immortality, right along with the original Ari, Jordan’s onetime partner and lifelong rival, all to help her exist again and go on shaping humankind for all eternity?
It wasn’t going to make for family tranquility once Jordan got that picture, that was for very damned certain.
And that city young Ari was founding, upriver from ReseuneLabs? Who wasgoing to live there, but people that Ari didn’t want living under Reseune’s roof, or downriver in Novgorod, either, where the government and other troubles resided?
“It should have been a pleasant evening,” he remarked, in the chill, deep silence of the deserted quadrangle, the absence, usually, of electronic bugs…unless somebody was aiming ears specifically at them. And he wouldn’t say absolutely that that wasn’t the case, given the red flag of Jordan’s invitation. “I’d tried to look forward to it.” He felt the card in his pocket, a little paper card.
“Tried?” Grant asked.
“He’s bitter,” Justin said. “I can’t blame him for that part of his attitude. Twenty years in exile…”
“Against whom should he be bitter?” Grant asked. Judging CIT emotions was not what he was born to do. “You? Does he blame you because you work with young Ari? Is it Yanni he dislikes? Or did I miss the entire point of that discussion?”
“No. You didn’t miss it. He blames me for coming out of it on her side. That’s one thing.”
“They’re all dead, all the ones actually responsible for his situation. Yanni’s alive. But Yanni didn’t send your father away, did he?”
“He didn’t, exactly. Or he actually may have, but the deal probably saved Jordan’s life. But the fact those responsible are dead now is only one more frustration for him. A slice of his life is gone in those two decades. He could live a hundred years more, on rejuv. But all he sees is the twenty years he lost. And the fact he’s been robbed of a fight about it. And what he really wants–what he really wants, between you and me, is no Reseune.”
Several more paces in silence. “What would take its place?” Grant asked. “Does he know that?”
“I didn’t say it was a reasonable attitude.”
“He’s as intelligent as either of us.”
“That’s no guarantee of rationality.”
“I’ve observed that occasionally,” Grant said dryly. It was worth a dry laugh, even under the circumstances.
“What I’ve said still holds,” Justin said. “You’re not to go anywhere near him without me, and you’re not to occupy a room with him or Paul without me, and you’re not to take seriously anything he tells you privately, not even if he tells you I’m dying. Just–no matter how finely you dice it–stay away from him.”
“He Created me. Reseune forever holds my Contract and you’re my Supervisor. I know what’s right.”
“Contract, hell. Protect yourself.”
“Protecting myself, I protect you. That’s logical, isn’t it?”
“Very. I’m glad you see it that way.”
“Someone is by the pond,” Grant remarked. And it was true. A shadow stood near the small fishpond ahead of them, where quadrangle walks crossed. Four benches offered seating there, to anybody who wanted to contemplate the water–a pleasant place to sit and think, on a sunny summer day. It was still April, it was long after dark, and the wind was up. Their ordinary coats were barely enough to make a walk to the other wing bearable. And somebody was standing there in the dark, somebody in dark, close‑fitting clothing.