“Certainly better than some invasions we’ve had,” Justin muttered, and let go a long, long breath. He hadn’t known he was that wound up about the move, but he had been. He didn’t see a safe. Opening several desk drawers didn’t turn up Ari’s material. It had gone somewhere, and that bothered him.
“Her stuff isn’t here,” he said.
“Security will have it,” Grant said. “Five against ten, Florian will have gotten it, personally.”
“Well, it’s not a bad office,” Justin said, looking around. It wasn’t bad. It was even good, given there was room for the two of them–ample room, but nothing for staff. God knew what Em thought, this morning, arriving to find he had no office and no job.
There was a window. The view from the purported window was fake, but it was a very expensive fake: a screen showed the Novaya Volga from, one supposed, the top of the cliffs, more likely the top of one of the precip towers–he’d never been up there: nobody went there, except the repair and maintenance crews working on the weather system, and most of those were robots.
It was a dizzying image, if one thought about it. It gave an illusion the whole building was forty stories tall, when the brain knew for a fact they were on the ground floor.
“Nice view,” Grant said.
“You’re such an optimist.” Justin ran his hand over the spines of the physical books on the shelf, finding no flaw in the order of them–printout of this and that psychset. He likedprintout, when it came to review. He marked‑up with abandon, and liked things in order, hisorder. The stacks on the desk looked like his stacks. He thumbed through them. They were in a reasonable order. Likely the stacks on Grant’s desk were the same.
But he wanted to find something they’d messed up. He checked the drawers. Exact order, exact contents. “I hate it when I don’t know what they’ve done wrong. I’m sure there’s something.”
“The movers were ReseuneSec, weren’t they?” Grant asked. “They’re used to not having things look disturbed.”
That was worth half a laugh at least.
There was an in‑office coffee dispenser sitting on a sideboard. That was new, and good. The machine was loaded and it turned on and functioned at the touch of a button. That was even better.
And the movers had improved on one other thing: the move had organized the supply cabinet contents in a logical, eye‑pleasing way, with little colored bins for the various styli and clips and pointer‑tags. He surveyed it top to bottom, looking for flaws.
“Color‑coded.” Justin remarked, giving up his search. “I suppose our mess was too much for them to get here intact. We have all shiny new paper clips.”
“Have a cup of coffee.” Grant handed him one, an implicit calm‑down.
“You know Jordan’s going to be beside himself this morning.”
“Likely he is,” Grant said. “Just about now.”
He took a sip. It was better coffee than what they’d had available down the hall in the old office. Much better. It was probably real. “Pricey.”
“Free,” Grant said.
“Meaning we’re entirely on her tab.” That didn’t improve the taste.
“Do we ever actually run through our wages?” Grant asked.
“We never get a chance to find out, do we? And what about our regular work?” He turned full circle, looked at the walls, the river view, and something beyond vertigo bothered him, something indefinably bothered him and made his shoulders twitch. He walked across the office and back before it dawned on him. “It’s backward. It’s damned backward! The back wall is south. The old office wall faced north.”
“Is that going to bother you?”
“It’s already bothering me.” He was still frustrated. The office had always had its carefully designed clutter–even his every‑other‑layer stacking was preserved, in the pile on the corner of his desk. The room was white‑walled, had a view that cost a month’s pay. The desks were new black lacquer, not brown lake wood, scarred from years of use. Their use. It was like that damned black and white bedroom they lived in, that was what. “I want some flowers in here. Some pictures that don’tmove.”
“I can order the flowers,” Grant said, and added wickedly. “Red?”
“No. Blue. Green. Purple. Anything but red.” There was one red pillow, one red flower, in their professionally decorated black, gray, and white quarters.
“Maybe you’d like to pick out the pictures yourself.”
That nettled him, too. “Ordering flowers is not your job to do. You’re not my–”
“I’m not as afflicted by the decor as you are,” Grant said. “It’s a born‑man problem. You’re fluxed. I’m sure I could order flowers in a sane, logical way. Possibly I’d be calm enough to pick out complementary pictures. Clearly–”
“The hell.” He found his mood improving, unwanted improvement, even toward laughter. “Oh, hell, blue. Blue would be good. Blues and purples, that sort of thing.” The single screen pretending to be a window drew the eye and suggested blue‑greens and grays. “Cancel the purple. Blues and quiet greens. That might do it. I’d like that. If you wouldn’t mind doing it. I’m not that logical, at the moment.”
“I’m sure there’s something that’ll work,” Grant said nicely. “I’ll look.”
By computer. You could do anything by computer. It would be there in an hour, if they opted for messenger service, and flowers and paintings could get through security, oh, by tomorrow, if security was in a good mood.
It certainly wasn’t the way he’d done things in the days when he’d been free, on his own salary and Grant’s.
Before the first Ari had gotten her hands on him. Before Jordan had gotten himself in trouble and gotten shipped to the far side of the world.
So Jordan came back, and Ari protected him from his own father…meaning she’d finally gotten her way and gotten him all the way into her wing–to do nothingin his career, but teach her.
Standing, he flipped on the computer. The screen blinked up.
Threemessages from Ari, in the upper righthand corner.
Calamity?
He dropped into the chair, keyed the messages up.
And had to laugh, however ruefully.
“What is it?”
“Ari’s postscripts. The first Ari didn’t do postscripts. Wouldn’t have done a postscript when she was six. Our girl’s done two in the same letter. She’s worried I’ll hit the ceiling. I think she’s really worried.”
“What does she say?”
“That they’re giving the other office to Jordan. That were better off here. That the old office was bugged, anyway.”
That got a laugh from Grant.
Justin keyed off and got up. “Let’s go out for lunch.”
“Out for lunch? We haven’t gotten any work done yet. I’m just into the flowers.”
“Lunch. Relaxation. Out of the Wing. Prove we can. But somewhere lesslikely to run into Jordan.”
“Jordan is going to be heading for Yanni’s office about now. If we stay off that track, we’ll miss him.”
This time helaughed. It made fair sense. Jordan was going to take about five minutes to realize he’d been given the office solo, and bet on it, Jordan wasn’t going to be working today, either.
Straight line course for Yanni’s office, no question.
Not that Yanni would do anything to make Jordan happier. Yanni didn’t do it, Ari’s final note had said. And she claimed she hadn’t done it.
So who had? What other authority was there, ruling his life?
Justin walked over to the desk, picked out the printout he’d been working over. Laid the project‑book, open, on his desk, where he would work on it when he got back. “There. We’re officially moved in and my desk is officially cluttered, so it’s home. God knows what the fallout was from that card Jordan handed me. Opening barrage, in what’s going to be some kind of war, I’m afraid. A war for possession of us, for starters. For possession of Reseune, I’m very much afraid. Jordan’s not going to win anything and I don’t think he’ll stop until someone stops him. And I don’t want that, Grant, damn, I really don’t want it.” His mood crashed. He leaned on his chair back. “He’s headed for a fall.”