And when he had chafed himself dry in the shower-cabinet blower and he had come out into the cold air of the bathroom, Florian walked in with a folded stack of his clothes.
"There's coffee, ser, if you like."
Bland as if nothing had happened. As if none of it were real. "Where's a shaver?" he asked.
"The counter, ser." Florian motioned toward the mirrored end of the bath. "Toothbrush, comb, lotion. Is there anything you need?"
"No." He kept his voice even. He thought of going home. He thought of killing himself. Of knives in the kitchen. Of pills in the bathroom cabinet. But the investigation afterward would open everything up to politics, and politics would swallow his father up. In the same moment he thought of subliminals that might have been buried in his mind last night, urges to suicide, God knew what. Any irrational thought was suspect. He could not trust them. A series of tape-flashes ripped past him, sensations, erotic visions, landscapes and ancient artworks. . . .
Then real things, set in the future. Images of Jordan's outrage. Himself, dead, on the floor of his kitchen. He rebuilt the image and tried to make it something exotic: himself, just walking out beyond the precip towers, a body to be found like a scrap of white rag by air-search a few hours later . . . "Sorry, ser, looks like we've found him"
But that was not a valid test of any suspected subliminal Ari might have put into his tape. When a mind drank in tapestudy, it incorporated it. Tape images faded and resident memory wove itself into the implant-structure and grew and grew in its own way. There was no reliable way to detect an embedded command; but it could not make him act when he was conscious, unless it accurately triggered some predisposition. Only when drugs had the threshold flat, then he would take in stimuli without censoring, answer what he was asked, do whatever he was told
Anything he was asked, anything he was told, if it slipped past the subconscious barriers of his value-sets and his natural blocks. A psychsurgeon could, given time, get answers that revealed the sets and their configurations, then just insert an argument or two that confounded the internal logic: rearrange the set after that, create a new microstructure and link it where the surgeon chose
All those questions, those questions in the damned psych-tests Ari had given him, calling them routine for Wing One aides . . . questions about his work, his beliefs, his sexual experiences . . . that he, being a fool, had thought were simply Ari's way of tormenting him . . .
He dressed without looking at the mirrors. He shaved and brushed his teeth and combed his hair. There was nothing wrong with his face, no mark on it, nothing to betray what had happened. It was the same ordinary face. Jordan's face.
She must have gotten a real satisfaction out of that.
He smiled at himself, testing whether he could control himself. He could. He had that back, as long as he was not facing Ari herself. Her azi he could handle.
Correction. Florian he could handle. He thanked God it was Florian she had left with him and not Catlin, and then a wild flutter of mental panic wanted to know why he reacted that way, why the thought of dealing with Catlin-the-icicle sent a disorganizing quiver through his nerves. Fear of women?
Are you afraid of women, sweet? You know your father is.
He combed his hair. He wanted to throw up. He smiled instead, a re-testing of his control, and carefully wiped the tension of the headache from the small muscles around his eyes, relaxed the tension from his shoulders. He walked out and gave that smile to Florian.
He'll report to her. I can't think with my head splitting. Damn, just let him tell her I was all right, that's all I have to do, keep my face on straight and get out of here.
The sitting room, the white rug, the paintings on the walls, brought back a flash of memory, of pain and erotic sensation.
But everything had happened to him. It was a kind of armor. There was nothing left to be afraid of. He took the cup from Florian and sipped at it, stopping the tremor of his hand, a shiver which hit of a sudden as internal chill and a cold draft from the air-conditioning coincided. "Cold," he said. "I think it's the hangover."
"I'm really sorry," Florian said, and met his eyes with an azi's calm, anxious honesty: at least it seemed to be and probably it was very real. There was not a shred of morality involved, of course, except an azi's, which was to avoid rows with citizens who might find ways to retaliate. Florian had real cause to worry in his case.
Florian, last night: I don't want to hurt you. Relax. Relax
The face had nothing to do with the mind. The face kept smiling. "Thanks."
Far, far easier to torment Florian. If it was Ari, he would fall apart. He had, last night. Seeing Florian afraid . . .
. . . pain and pleasure. Interfaces . . .
He smiled and sipped his coffee and enjoyed what he was doing with a bitter, ugly pleasure even while he was scared of what he was doing, meddling with one of Ari's azi; and twice scared of the fact that he enjoyed it. It was, he told himself, only a human impulse, revenge for his humiliation. He would have thought the same thing, done the same thing, the day before.
Only he would not have known why he enjoyed it, or even that he enjoyed it. He would not have thought of a dozen ways to make Florian sweat, or considered with pleasure the fact that, if he could maneuver Florian into some situation, say, down at the AG pens, far away from the House, on terms that did not involve protecting Ari, he could pay Florian in kindFlorian being azi, and vulnerable in a dozen ways he could think of... without Ari around.
Florian undoubtedly knew it. And because Florian was Ari's, Ari probably fed off Florian's discomfiture in leaving Florian alone with him. It fitted with everything else.
"I feel sorry for you," Justin said, and put his hand on Florian's shoulder, squeezed hard. On the edge of pain. "You don't have a real comfortable spot here, do you? You like her?"
The first thing you have to learn is that you can get it anywhere. The second thingit ties you to people who aren't family and it mucks up your judgment unless you remember the first rule. That's how I'm going to do you a favor, sweet. You're not going to confuse what we're doing here. . . .
Florian only stared at him, not moving. Even though the grip on his shoulder undoubtedly hurt, and even though Florian could break it with a shrug. And maybe his arm, into the bargain. That stoic patience was, Justin thought, what one could expect, in this place, of Ari's azi.
"What does Ari really want me to do?" Justin asked. "Have you got it figured out? Am I supposed to stay here? Am I supposed to go home?"
As if he and Florian were the same thing. Co-conspirators, azi both. He loathed the thought. But Florian was, in a way, his ally, a page he could read and a subject he could handle; and he still could not read the truth in Ari's eyes, not even when she was answering his questions in all sobriety.
"She expects you to go home, ser."
"Do I get other invitations?"
"I think so," Florian said in a quiet, quiet voice.
"Tonight?"
"I don't know," Florian said. And added: "Sera will probably sleep tonight."
As if it were all a long-familiar sequence of events.
A queasiness went through his stomach. They were all caught in this.
Attitude, Jordan would say. Everything is attitude. You can do anything if you're in control of it. You have to know what your profit is in doing it, that's all.
Life was not enough, to trade a soul for. But power . . . power to stop it happening, power to pay it back, that was worth the trade. His father's safety was. The hope someday of being in a position to do something about Ariane Emorythat was.