“You think she’ll send him back to Planys?”
Deep down, he actually wished she would, this morning once and for all. And that was so startlingly dark and traitorous a thought that he felt deeply ashamed of himself. Jordan had spent twenty years in comparative privation, shut out of the modern world for a crime his accuser had likely committed; and his own son at least owed him some sympathy for the resultant bitterness, didn’t he?
But not when Grant was in danger from that sympathy: Ari had created Grant, Jordan had written some of his first tapes, knew at least his initial keywords and triggers, and if Jordan decided there might be flaws in Grant’s loyalty, and wanted to revise things, he could do major damage.
And hellif he’d let that happen, not if it meant Jordan going straight back into exile. He shoved back from the chair and picked up his coat.
“Jordan’s not making it easy for anybody,” he said grimly. “Not for me, not for you, not for two hours running since he’s been back.”
“Why does he do it?” Grant asked, reaching for his own coat. “What does an intelligent CIT want out of this situation?”
“Intelligent as he is, I’m afraid intelligence is nowhere in this situation.”
“You’re angry with him.” Halfway into the coat.
Justin settled his own onto his shoulders. “You noticed that.”
“Angry enough to take action against him as you did. That seems justified, from my own view.”
“I’m angry about being uprooted into an office that’s just damned backwardto what I’ve been used to for most of my life. I’m angry at being co‑opted deeper into Ari’s wing. I’m angry because I’m going to miss Abrizio’s…”
“We can walk over there. Nothing’s stopping us.”
“We could run into him!”
“So you want to avoid him permanently?”
“ Damnit.”
“But not damn him?”
“I don’t know!”
Grant frowned. “So all across the horizon, very intelligent CITs aren’t acting rationally. Young Ari didn’t do a thing, Yanni didn’t, the elder Warrick makes a stupid move, and the younger doesn’t know what he damns, but he doesn’t want to talk to his genefather at all. What was the card you asked me to give Florian?”
It bordered on funny, it was so stupid. The idiocy of the situation afflicted his already raw sensibilities. At very least, his universe was not on the same track this morning, and he no longer knew where it was going, not an unusual condition in his life, but not one he liked.
“Jordan’s likely to be at our favorite lunch haunt on any given day if he’s using that office, and I don’t want the confrontation. So, for starters, I think we’ll walk to the north corridor of Admin for a late breakfast. That won’t be on his route.” He stared disconsolately at the cabinets, finding everything out of sorts. “They’ve color‑coded the damn supply cabinets. It looks great. But are we going to remember to put the clips back in the red box? Should we have to remember? Does anyone care?”
“At least your father won’t be into your notebooks.”
“Definitely a point in favor of this place.”
“And it wasoriginally his office.”
It was. It had been. “Let’s just get out of here before–”
The desk phone went off. He shot a look at Grant. It rang again. It was Jordan’s ID. He hesitated toward the door, then looked back.
It went on ringing. He swore, and punched in Speaker.
“Dad?”
“ Where in hell are you?” came from the other end. “ What’s going on?”
“They moved us. I think we were bugged.”
“ Youthink we were bugged! Bloody hell!” So much for that piece of deliberate naivete. And more quietly, even gently, Jordan added: “ Are you all right?”
He hadn’texpected parental concern. That ploy hadn’t even been on the radar. It set him back about a beat or two and almost hurt. Not quite. “We’re fine. Dad. We are.”
“ Where are you?”
“Wing One.” Where Jordan couldn’t come. Not a hope in hell he’d ever get through her security to have a look around this office. “They moved my office.”
And Jordan had to know that the move was for good.
“ Are you going to protest this?”
Tell the truth or temporize? Truth was simpler. Kinder, if that mattered. “No, actually.”
“ No?”
Outrage. Truth, again? Or was it a lie?
Both wrapped together, both truth andlie, likely. Jordan wanted his son to rise up and challenge Admin, and challenge Ari’s existence. But he didn’t really expect it to happen–for reasons Jordan thought he understood better than the rest of the universe. “It won’t do a damn bit of good if I do. It’s not a bad office here. More room. Certainly more room than four of us and staff jammed into the other one.”
“ Come to breakfast.”
Now a lie was necessary. Absolutely the polite thing. “Things are in a mess here. I’ve got some unpacking to do. I’ve got to find some things.”
“ Supper, then. We’ll cook.”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a challenge to trust. Maybe to come talk about that card he no longer had. And he didn’t trust Jordan, not at all. He wasn’t bringing Grant and himself through Jordan’s doors, subject to whatever they were handed to eat and drink, which might have God‑knew‑what in it. “I can’t.”
“ Arrested?”
“Just detained. I don’t know for how long. It’ll ease up. It always does.”
“ Damn it, I’m going to Yanni with this.”
So they both went through the motions. The pretense of familial affection. The reality of outrage. “Don’t use up your credit with him. This was bound to happen. They’re not going to like us working together. You knew that when you pushed it.”
“ You mean she’s not going to like it.”
“Look, you’ve got to settle in, start producing again, start your work up…let them see you haven’t lost a beat. That’s what’s important. Get current with things… I understand they’re going to give you that office.”
“ Current!”
“All right, yes, I’m sure that’s an issue among the younger researchers.” It was, and a painful one, which he used with only the faintest twinge of shame. “Get a new project going. And since you’re in that office alone with Paul, there won’t be any question what’s my work and what’s yours.”
There was just a little silence on the other side. As if his son’s work was going to overshadow his, as if, if it was any good, no one would believe he did it. That was going to sting. And he did it deliberately, knowing how instinctively jealous and competitive his father was. Jealousy had been the core issue with Jordan and the first Ari, that Jordan wouldn’t be second to her…he’d tried to be her equal partner in research, and that hadn’t worked, because the first Ari hadbeen smarter than Jordan, just like the second. Heaccepted that fact of life, with his Ari. Jordan hadn’t ever been able to. He didn’t know what he felt at the moment, but it was perilously close to unreasoning anger–which didn’t damned well help in a fencing match with his father.
“ That’s the way it is, is it?” Jordan asked. “ That’s the concern she has, just so solicitous to have me look good? Pardon me if I don’t buy it.”
“I don’t either, Jordan, but there’s a certain assumption around the labs that you’re so many years behind the times, that you can’t possibly overcome–”