“Agreed,” he said. BT‑384 and his partner were both security‑trained, beta and gamma in Green Barracks, where gamma was as low as they accepted. Both were older than Florian and Catlin were. GJ‑2720, female, was currently engaged in demolitions instruction, in the security wing, which was an asset, and a gamma tended to be steadier than most betas in that application. Demolitions was his own field, and he had a certain bias in favor of GJ‑2720.
BT‑384, their high‑end beta destined for majordomo, was surveillance, trained for a desk job, simple monitoring, but that meant good attention to detail, an asset.
None of their choices had at any time been in direct or traceable contact with Denys Nye, Yanni Schwartz, Giraud Nye, Jordan Warrick, Justin Warrick, or any of their staffs. No one had messed with the standard path in any recorded degree.
BT‑384 had a name. It was Theo. GJ‑2720 was Jory.
“Take their Contracts?” Catlin asked. “We might as well make a decision.”
“We’ll order initial tape for Domestic Supervision,” he said. That would call Theo BT‑384 and his partner Jory to the labs for what they might think was a routine training update. Instead, under a heavier sedation, a deepset tape would reorder their priorities and loyalties and bind them simply to their Contract. They would lose the focus they had, and gain a more general one, the knowledge they were to serve an important domestic situation somewhere, of some sort, together.
That would break their absolute focus on their current general assignment. It was–an azi could well remember–a disturbing and emotional experience. Theo and his partner had been destined for ReseuneSec. But they were about to run a ReseuneLabs household…a different world indeed. The walk they would take from the barracks to the labs where they would get their Contract would be a cold walk through absolute non‑existence.
It felt so good when the Contract turned out to be the answer to every study, every ambition, every hope of one’s life. Even knowing intellectually that the emotion was pre‑programmed in an azi, it still jolted everything, still evoked a response of absolute joy.
“Bring them here for all the specific skills tapes?” Catlin said, following his train of thought, as she did, without his quite uttering it. It was best to have that part done here, not exposing any of sera’s people to lab personnel.
No need to report the decisions to sera. Sera had told them handle it. They did.
They took Theo BT‑384 and Jory GJ‑2720 to be in charge of the household, Callie to be under their authority in domestic matters, but in charge of orders and supply, which would please Callie no end. They took the other set. Logan GL‑331, with his partner Hiro GH‑89, for general staff under Theo. Jory, and Callie, and then swept up two individual epsilons, Tomas and Spessy, for general cleaning and maintenance service, with a paired couple of thetas, Del and Joyesse, for maids of all work and sera’s personal wardrobe.
And most of all–the one find about which they’d had absolutely no doubt–two other betas, a paired set, Wyndham and Haze. Wyndham and Haze, both male, had been destined for a hotel in Novgorod, to run a very high‑end restaurant with a VIP security certificate–the CIT master chef intended to retire. The CIT chef and the hotel could wait another year. Sera had just gained one sure prize.
Staff might be a little crowded downstairs, given the number of rooms in the lower half of the apartment given over to storage. The CIT living space of the apartment was very large. Its travertine floors and high‑ceilinged rooms had easy room for a hundred CITs at a party. But the staff, all but themselves and Marco and Wes being resident in the downward L of main staff quarters, were going to need more beds than they had. Those had to be ordered.
Training tape would occupy the new staff’s leisure time for several weeks. They’d be in deepstudy in their quarters in their off hours during that time, and then they’d emerge to make the place run smoothly.
Especially the front door. Especially the kitchen.
So. Decision made. Die cast. The new staff would go through medical, take their pre‑Contracting tape. Contracting itself took a single moment, once that essential groundwork was done. They’d first be taught social behaviors and protocols in lab, nobody but Admin knowing where they were going, and there would be no great fuss here to disturb sera’s mood. All sera had to do was agree to it and sign the request.
Once it was done–they could draw a breath, not be working twelve hours on and twelve off, as they were now, as they had done for months, while sera studied day and night, and ran background checks on everyone around her. They didn’t disagree with sera’s preoccupation with security. They weren’t quite sure that the threat to sera’s life was entirely past. They’d seen her through childhood. They’d gotten her this far alive.
But the day was coming when sera would need a staff far more complex than they had ever been, and in which they might not be as close to sera, as all‑in‑all, as they had once been. They saw that coming–though Florian was upset by the prospect. Sera seemed less happy because of the pressure on her, and that defined everything. She’d snapped at him. She’d never done that and not apologized. So they had to take special care of her.
“We should monitor Justin tonight,” Florian said abruptly, “or Hicks will. I don’t want that.”
Catlin said, “I can do it.”
“Set it up,” Florian said. “I have to make sure Gianni stays on track until dinnertime. Then we’ll trade assignments, and I’ll go.”
The storm passed overhead. On the monitor, a ray of sun hit the tower, in the gray, glistening world outside.
A private plane, glistening white, came in wheels‑down for a landing on a puddled runway. The tail emblem, the Infinite Man of ReseuneLaboratories, was distinctive. It was Reseune One.
Yanni was back.
BOOK ONE Section 1 Chapter ix
APRIL 25, 2424
1748H
“How was Novgorod?” Ari asked purposely, over the shrimp cocktail. “Quiet?”
“Agreeably so, actually,” Yanni said. He had never yet asked the reason for the dinner invitation.
Not uncommon for Yanni. Yanni Schwartz gave very little away, and he’d always accorded the same privilege of reticence to her, since she had been on his good list, or thought she was. He was on rejuv, of course, dyed his hair, was eightyish and looked forty, except that most people that looked forty weren’t forty. He wasn’t handsome, but he had a strong face. She liked that face. And it made her feel better that he showed up on time and didn’t act guilty at all–as if he was going to have a reason to give her. Oh, she so hoped he had a reason. Something in her unknotted just because he’d come in and met her cheerfully, without a flinch.
He’d brought her a trinket from the capital. Giraud used to do that, and this one, when she unwrapped it, looked even to be from the same company as some of Giraud’s gifts. It was a desk sitter, a little glass globe with a holo insect that crawled in a circle so long as you set it in the light. He had handed it to her before they sat down at table and she had it by her plate. It kept running, brilliant green armor and serrated jaws, round and round.
The gift‑giving urge in Yanni was new. She noted that.
One thing was sure: Yanni had thought about her when he was in Novgorod, and Yanni had never particularly curried favor: he’d always been fair, and expected it in return. Now that he was here, at her table, she could actually quit fluxing and remember Yanni, not the reports she’d found in System. Maybe he hadbrought her the thing just because it tickled his fancy, and made him think of her.
In her opinion, that was the way family ought to be. She’d almost begun to think of him that way. Until this last week.
“I love the bug,” she said.
“Beetle,” he said. “A Glorious Beetle.”
“Well, he is, but is that his name?”
“ Plusiotis gloriosa. Native to the western hemisphere of Earth.”
“He’s really that green?”
Yanni took a little advert card from his coat pocket and set it in the middle of the table, between them and facing her. “You can actually get a collection of insects. The butterflies were obviously the big item. But you have one of those, I remembered. I thought you’d rather have the beetle.”