The shadow watched the water. It might be a despondent lover, someone wanting solitude. It might have nothing to do with them.
But fear had been a constant, in the Nye years. Fear of arrest. Fear of being tampered with, of having Grant tampered with–Ari was their only protection. And Ari wasn’t going out of her Wing lately.
The figure had been intent on the water. Now the head turned. The whole body turned to stand confronting them.
“Ser,” the shadow said politely as they met, and recognition revised the shadowed vision into familiar detail, the black elite Security uniform, dark curly hair, light build.
Florian. Ari’s personal bodyguard. A youth no older than Ari herself, with absolute power–to arrest. To kill, without a second’s warning. And he had that damned card in his pocket.
“Jordan proposes to share your office,” Florian said.
“I told him no.” Surely Ari’s security knew he had. He’d bet his life they’d heard every word of it. And it was better than other alternatives.
“Let him have it. Your materials will go to another office.” Florian held out a keycard, offering it.
He took it. He had no choice but take it, in a hand growing chill through. “But our personnel–”
“Sorry, ser, they’ll have to find other employment. They aren’t cleared for Wing One.”
“They’re our people.”
“No longer.”
“And the computers, our files…we have notes, handwritten notes–the order they’re in–in delicate position. Stacks that can’t be disrupted without losing information–we’re not that neat. Things we can’t have just anybody rifling through, for God’s sake. It’s a mess, but we know where things are. Things in the safe. Look, if we have to do this, we can go over there tonight. We need to do this ourselves…we’re willingto do it ourselves.”
“We’re aware of the state of your office,” Florian said–dark humor at his expense, he had no idea. “And qualified personnel will perform the transfer.”
“We need to go over there.”
“Best you don’t, ser, so the persons moving it can do so with the greatest attention to detail. All the items will be there in the morning, in their original order, and new equipment will be in place in your former office by 0500.”
“For him. Buggedequipment.”
“Absolutely.”
“He’ll think I arranged this. No matter how you explain it, he’ll think I had something to do with this.”
“Unfortunate if so, ser, but your notes will be safe, and your staff will be safe, in other employ, at a priority. They’ll be given employment, no problem. Just not Wing One.”
At least they wouldn’t miss a paycheck, Em, and the others. They’d be all right. But they were the ones that knew his work. They’d been his people.
“No wipe.”
“No wipe, ser. Nothing of the sort.” This with a slight shift of the shadowed gaze toward Grant, and back. “We ask you to accept this arrangement and not attempt to circumvent it in any fashion. Grant, you’re not to go there, either.”
“My father won’t take this well at all,” Justin said. “I’m afraid he’ll be in Yanni’s office in the morning.”
“We’ll advise the Director. It’s not your problem, ser.”
“I appreciate your concern.” The cold of the night had penetrated his dinner jacket. He felt a shiver coming on. “I’m freezing, at the moment. Can you tell me–I take it, it was Ari ordered this?”
“Sera has retired for the evening. We’re operating on our own discretion, on sera’s general instruction. We’ll inform sera in the morning. You won’t need to.”
“And where is this new office?”
“Downstairs, ground level, and a right turn from your apartment. More convenient, and a better office, I believe. There’s room for staff. But it will be Wing One‑approved staff.”
Yanni Schwartzdidn’t maintain an office in that high‑security territory. He had one, already, a cubbyhole he used for Ari’s lessons. Downstairs–those rooms–they had a historic connection with the old Wing One lab, where the first Ari had died. That lab had been decommissioned now. And he didn’t know how up to date the offices in that area were, these days, whether they were still tied into System. But Florian said their computers were coming over. They must be.
“Do go on, ser,” Florian said. “You’re chilled. Good night to you.”
“Thank you,” he said, and started on his way, Grant attending without a word.
Then he thought of Jordan’s card in his pocket, wondered, all in a rush, what sort of trouble he could bring down on Jordan’s head; and considered the fact that Florian hadn’t asked him for it.
Florian didn’t know? Something had slipped past Ari’s staff? It had been a surreptitious handoff.
But Reseune Security surely knew. Florian might let him go his way. But someone inside Ari’s wing might confront him yet.
Maybe Catlin. Maybe, worse thought, someone he didn’t know, out of ReseuneSec, and that was more trouble than he wanted. He’d been fluxed by the office matter. He had an excuse for having forgotten.
But an azi of Florian’s bent didn’t flux. Not for two seconds running. Florian damned well hadn’t forgotten it.
He stopped, turned, reached into his pocket. Pulled out the thin card. “Florian.”
Florian had walked the other direction–was a diminished figure in the dark. But he heard, and stopped.
“I’ll take it to him,” Grant said.
He surrendered it without a word. Grant knew. Grant had seen Jordan’s action. Grant knew his reasoning the way Grant knew their situation from the inside out.
Grant crossed the dark distance between them, delivered the card, and walked back again. Florian stood there a moment, until Grant reached him, took the card, then turned and pursued his way back to Admin, where they had come from, and maybe on to the Education Wing beyond it, where their office was–or had been.
“Damn,” he said when Grant joined him. “Damn it. Grant.”
“Do you know what was on the card?” Grant asked.
“I haven’t the faintest, It may be a joke, for all I know. I don’t want to know. Damn him!”
“I intend to evade Jordan’s company, in private,” Grant said. “I’m relatively confident I could, even if we shared an office. But it seems the question is settled for now.”
“Settled,” Justin found himself saying, and realized it was impossible the second the word came out of his mouth. “It isn’t settled–not with him. Whatever quarrel he had with his Ari isn’t mine. It wasn’t mychoice to support young Ari against him. But–”
“But?”
“He’ll keep it going. And maybe he’s justified. Maybe he’s pure and right and just my living here put me on the other side. I’ve missed him all these years. But here I am, living on the other side, in herwing, working in herwing…”
“A different Ari. A very different Ari.”
“We don’t know how different she’ll become, as time passes.”
“Even azi,” Grant said, “aren’t identical.”
“But her interests are the same as the first Ari’s.”
“The people who pursued us are dead.”
“And all being reincarnated.” He reached the door. And stopped there, in the wind and the dark, in the last haven before they went into heavily monitored Wing One. “Maybe that concept ought to bother me more than it does.”
“You think that constitutes Jordan’s motive in this? That he believes she’ll eventually become his enemy?”
“I think it’s personal. I think it’s him against Ari. All the traits that make her and him. My immortality–if they do that to us–won’t be his. I don’t know if he’ll see it that way, but we’re not, thank God, psychological twins. I’m myself. I’m the first of myself. The only.”