“I’ll let youport it to that wing,” Catlin said to Florian. “ Youtalk to them.”
Florian smiled absently. The dedicated experts, azi, were odd beyond all reason, monofocused alphas who’d rather deal with code than eat or sleep or do most anything. A couple of sensible betas sat as directors over the lot, the human Supervisor, himself a specialist, being almost as eetee as the azi he supervised. “Should have done before now, anyway.” He punched the recording on again.
“I was surprised it was a large plane,”Jordan Warrick said. “I was surprised we weren’t being sent to some even more remote hellhole. I was surprised when we crossed the ocean. I was moderately surprised we ended up landing at Reseune. And I was surprised to learn Yanni was somewhat in charge despite the little darling. Life was just a chain of surprises that week. I still remain surprised we’re alive. That could always change. We’re here. One of Thieu’s connections tried to get me involved with his pet pupil. I declined. She’s dead. He’s dead. I’m here, and I’ll be here for the rest of time. I’m not involved, but nobody’s going to believe it. What more can I do?”
And Justin Warrick, “Just don’t antagonize Admin, for God’s sake, Dad, just settle in, forget the damn card, just answer any questions they ask–”
“The hell!”
“Answer them, dammit! Leave it for Security. Live your life. Ask Yanni for a few cases, and get busy, high‑level, low‑level, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go to him…”
“But you haven’t done it, have you? I seem to remember you were going to do that.”
“I’ve been a little busy. Never mind how. Just–I will.”
“You really don’t get the picture, do you? They won’t let me write sets. They’re paranoid. And, no, I’m not going to get any work.”
“Jordan, don’t explode.She’d check them over. If she passed them, ultimately, they’ll be passed.”
“That’s not even worth a comment.”
“Because you’re too fucking proud.”
“Because I’m not going to deal with her. I’m not going to her begging.”
“Then I will,”Justin said. “She’ll get you through this. Nobody’s going to pin anything on you. No more frame‑ups.”
“Forget it.”Rattle of ice in a glass, and a thump, a glass set down. Hard. “They’ll do what they want to anyway.”
“I’ll find a way,”Justin said.
“Stubbornness,”Jordan said, “runs in the family.”
“So Justin offered sera’s help,” Catlin said.
It was curious, considering where Justin’s loyalties lay. It was worth bringing to sera, who understood born‑men infinitely better.
“Sera should definitely hear this,” Florian said.
Reaching to her own keyboard, Catlin said, “I’ll send the transcript to her queue. She may not like that part.”
BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter v
JUNE 12, 2424
0602H
Sleep hadn’t come early, but Ari was up and dressed before Joyesse had a chance to show up…she’d fallen asleep before she’d heard how things had gone, and trusted Catlin to wake her if they’d gone spectacularly badly.
There wasa note in System from Catlin. And files for her. Interesting, Catlin’s note said. There was a flag on a section of note, but she started skimming the file from the top, choosing rapid‑audio over script–she wanted the nuances.
And it was interesting, right from the start. Jordan tended to be that.
“…So my own appeal couldn’t get you through my door, but you don’t mind bringing the little dears guards to burgle my apartment.”
A little odd to hear oneself snarled at in absentia. She had a pet name. How sweet.
“I was concerned for your safety.”That was Justin, a little further from the pickup, talking about Patil, and she slowed the audio down. “She was talking about somebody inside, Dad. Who would that be?”
Then, “How was Patil involved? Why were you carrying her card around? And why in hell did you dump it on me?”
There was a nice list of questions. She didn’t expect answers from Jordan, but it was a good fight, very much the same as at her dining table.
“…the fact I got close to Ari,”Justin fired back at one point. “Who, outside of being the incarnation you deplore, is a pretty good little kid in her spare time.”
The audio went on. And on. Her heart had begun picking up its beats. Gotten harder and harder. And she got Mad. As Mad as she’d ever been. And that was all she could hear. A pretty good little kid. A pretty good little kid.That wasn’t Justin putting on an act. That was Justin defending her. A pretty good little kid.
Damnhim! Damn him!
She shook, she was suddenly so mad. And her breath came short, and her eyes stung, suddenly swimming with tears.
Well, thatwas interesting. She’d just had a heavy hit of adrenaline, and a rush of hormones, and she kept hearing those same five words, over and over, and she wanted to cry. She wanted to cry so badly she burst into sobs and buried her face in her hands. Which was just damned stupid. She wiped her eyes, and kept wiping, smearing tears all over her face, and hiccuping, which just finished it–she hadn’t had a tantrum like that since she was three.
God!
The audio had just gone on, far past, and the worst part was, she had to run it back to find her place and hear it again.
Little kid.
Dammit all. She wondered what else she’d hear that would send her over the edge. Or break her heart. She really, really didn’t want to go on listening.
But it was what one got for eavesdropping on somebody else’s conversation, and he probably hadn’t even thought twice about saying it. That was the problem. He was, face it, older. A lot older. And that was exactly how he saw her. And that was where he was, her Justin, forever out of reach.
She had to hear it to the end. She had to know, about Justin, of all people, what he was thinking and saying. It was her job to know, if she was going to take over Reseune, if she was going to go on trusting him as a major asset.
And it was an interesting reaction. Her heart was still beating hard. She wasn’t thinking straight. Jordan was saying important things about where the card could actually have come from and how he’d reacted, and she couldn’t analyze anything. They used to shoot her full of hormones so she’d react in certain ways. This was like that. She was still shaken, and still feeling sorry for herself, and actually jealousof the first Ari, for having had, just once, a physical chance at Justin. And simultaneously, she was ashamed of that thought; and knew, still, that the first Ari hadn’t won Justin’s heart. Or she had, but not in the way anybody would want to–she’d taken him, shaken him, and then died, leaving him to suffer the consequences of being under Denys Nye’s regime and tangled somewhere in the first Ari’s involvement with Jordan. So it had kept him safe, but it had made him a target. Not mentioning what Ari had done to him, deliberately, as an act of policy.