Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 33 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

So Jacques had the reins in his hands and wasn’t going to do what he’d promised Reseune he’d do–retreat quietly as Lynch had done and leave a Proxy in charge of Defense; draw his salary for two years and then go take his nice posh executive post. They’d had it all set up for Jacques, a do‑nothing Councillor, to do nothing another two years and still know his job was waiting for him. And Hicks had flown down there to get that agreement. Well, thathadn’t gone outstandingly well, had it?

Maybe Jacques just wanted Yanni to come down there in person and hold his hand through the process. Maybe he wanted face‑to‑face assurance. She doubted that was the game.

She paced. She walked up to the fish wall and watched the fish. She’d gotten rather fond of the little pearly jawfish–that was their real name: opistognathus aurifrons–golden‑brow–that made their home in the substrate, right by a rock. They came half‑out to see her, tails still in their burrow. They were white, with a blueish opal look to their fins, pale yellow head. Little jewels. Their world was on that side of the glass, hers on this one; and this evening their world was running much more smoothly than hers.

The big Achilles tang came sweeping past, black, orange‑detailed, and elegant, acanthurus achilles.The jawfish dived into their burrows, and the Achilles, ominous shadow, went on to terrify the rabbitfish, who dreaded everything.

Small wars. Small problems. Everlasting, between species that had been conducting their same business and having the same quarrels since the last ice flowed on Earth.

The more intelligent of old Earth’s species weren’t doing much better, locally.

A small commotion drew Theo and Jory to the front door, and they admitted Amy and Maddy, Tommy with a stack of pizza containers, and the rest of the gang.

“Are we doing anything yet?” Amy asked in the same cheerful tone she’d used on pranks and schemes against Denys, not so many years ago. It was incongruous. It filled her with an irrational sense of capability. Are we doing anything yet?

But they weren’t within striking distance of this problem. Just Yanni was. And it was a two‑way strike potential.

“Yanni’s going. I cleared Reseune One to fuel. He’ll probably go tonight.”

“He will, sera,” Florian said. “He’s called for a car. Ten of ReseuneSec’s higher officers are going with him.”

“Backgrounds,” she said. “Tell Rafael do it.”

“Yes, sera,” Florian said, and went off to the foyer to do it quietly.

Meanwhile Tommy was laying out the pizza containers on available tables, and Mischa opened them one after the other. The smell wafted through the living room.

“Catlin,” she said, “tell kitchen we’d like some wine.” She’d have one. She’d earned it. But no other, not tonight. “Call Justin. Tell him and Grant come across. We’re having an election party.”

“But Jacques didn’t name Bigelow,” Amy said.

“That’s why Yanni’s on his way to Novgorod,” she said, and shopped among pizzas, finding her favorite, bacon and basil. She took a slice in her fingers. “Jacques has weasled.”

“Is that a word?”

“An old word for a slinky little mammal. He’s weasled. We don’t know if somebody’s gotten to him, or if he’s just waiting for Yanni to show up in person and ask him nicely. If he does something like name Khalid–he’s been gotten to.”

“Somebody can file on him in two months,” Tommy said. Tommy had probably looked it up.

“They can,” Ari said, “and somebody’s bound to, Bigelow on one side, and Khalid on the other, and we go another seven months trying to get somebody elected who’s competent. Don’t talk to me about Khalid. I’m eating.”

Wine showed up from the hallway, at one end. And Justin and Grant showed up at the door, at the other.

“Pizza,” she said. “Drinks. Call for what you want.”

Justin didn’t ask a question, but he looked a little cautious. So did Grant.

“It wasn’t all good,” Amy said under her breath. “Jacques was supposed to name Admiral Bigelow Proxy, and didn’t, and Yanni’s going to Novgorod.”

Justin had looked Amy’s way.

“It’s not totally good,” Ari said. “But we’ve still got Jacques, and Yanni’s going there, with a guard we hope he can rely on, to call in a non‑military guard, I hope, to keep Jacques safe. Choose your pizza. It’s still warm. We’re not celebrating yet, but we’re not panicking. Spurlin was murdered.”

Justin had been picking up a piece of pizza, sausage and cheese. He let it lie.

“Have your pizza,” she said. “Just letting you know it’s dangerous out there.”

“Had that idea,” he said, and took the pizza anyway. Haze offered him a tray, white wine and red. He chose red, and had the pizza in one hand and the drink in the other. Grant had gone for cheese on cheese, and white, and settled on a settee near the fish wall, his long legs a little tucked, given the height of the seat.

“I called you here,” Ari said to Justin, “because you’re on the inside, same as everybody else. Because if I pull Hicks out of his job, and I may, I may put youin as head of ReseuneSec.”

“Don’t even joke about it,” he said, the wineglass in one hand, the pizza, frozen, in the other. “No. Lock me up, but keep me out of thatjob.”

“I think you’d actually be good at it.”

“Realtime work, remember?”

“You just arrest them. You don’t cure them.”

“I don’t want to arrest anybody,” Justin said. “Ari, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m joking,” she said, but she wasn’t–she had a short, short list of candidates she’d trust for the time it took to fill the job permanently. “Your other choice is Yanni’s job.”

“No,” he said, fast.

“If anything should happen,” she said. “But it won’t, if I can help it. That’s why you’re here. You’d do it, wouldn’t you, a week or two, if you really had to?”

He stood looking at her with the ridiculous pizza and the wineglass, and finally went and laid the pizza piece back with the nearest pizza.

“Ari, if you’re anywhere close to serious, I’m asking you, pick just about anybody else in Reseune. Amy, over there, damned near ranReseune for the duration of the last–”

“I trust you,” she said, “beyond most people over the age of eighteen. And if things go wrong, I’ll owe you and Grant a very, very big apology for all of it, because things will go to absolute hell and you’re going to get swept up in the fallout. Right now. Base One recognizes Yanni as my guardian if I should die. He’s responsible for getting me back. And Base One recognizes you as second in line to run Reseune and to do exactly that.”

“No,” he said earnestly. “Ari, no. I’m not remotely qualified.”

“Who is?” she asked. “Who has a thorough knowledge of the system when it’s going badly, and when it’s going right? I could appoint Wojkowski, or Peterson, or Edwards, but they’re none of them up to saying no to the right people.”

“I’m not outstandingly good at saying no, either. Look at how far it’s got me. I spent more time being arrested than anybody else in Reseune.”

“That’s not your sole qualification. You’re qualified to bring meup if you had to. You’d be qualified to bring up Giraudif anything happens to Yanni in the next few weeks–at least long enough to find somebody to be as non‑fit as the first Giraud’s mother. Tell me you will. Or tell me who’s going to do the job. You’d have Amy, you’d have Maddy–she does a lot more than look nice and run a dress shop: believe that. You’d have Sam. He’s hands‑on, but he’s brilliant at what he does. Florian, Catlin–you’d take care of them. You’d see they were safe…they’d see you were…”

He opened his left arm of a sudden, wrapped it around her gently and hugged her against his shoulder. He smelled good. He was warm, he was stronger than you’d ever think, and he held her the way nobody ever had who was older, nobody but Ollie, a long, long time ago. She didn’t cry, though if she weren’t so hyped to fight, she might have, and he didn’t make a scene of it, he just walked her aside from everybody else, over toward the garden‑glass of the dining room, and let her go, and said, facing her, “If I’m all, Ari. If I’m absolutely all there is, I’ll do it. I wouldn’t be near good at it. I’d be looking for advice, wherever it came from. But I’d keep your people safe, with everything I could put together, and I wouldn’t waste any time getting your next edition into the tank and going, fast as I could. My father–my father I know is a question. But he wouldn’t be, in this. If it came down to it–I’d be there, long as it took for your own people to get their feet on the ground.”

“We don’t knowthings about history, Justin. We don’t know how things happened. We just know where things are now.”

“That’s pretty well the condition of everybody born, isn’t it? Except you, being what you are–”

“And you’re Jordan’sreplicate, so you know things you wouldn’t, if you were Amy, or Sam, or Maddy. You know things. You were part of that world, the way it was.”

“I know things.”

“So you’re the best I could choose. And I’ll give you a verbal code, which will only work in your voiceprint, and only if my CIT number has gone inactive in the system. Just say my name three times. Just say AriAriAri. And Base One is yours. Even if Yanni’s Base Two is still active. I trust you, more than Yanni. And if anything happens to me, you take possession of this apartment, and all my staff, and every defense this place has. And you bring my friends in until it’s safe.”

“Don’t get killed. Pleasedon’t get killed.”

He did care. He did. And that mattered. She was in the mode she’d been in when they’d come after Uncle Denys–close to that. But she could be amused, just a little, and moved to put a hand on his shoulder. “So you don’t have to run Reseune? There’s a major difference between you and your father. You really love the work, the puzzles in it; you tolerate me because I bring you puzzles.”

His brows knit, just a little offense, not much. “You’re a little better than a puzzle, young sera. Just a little.”

“And you’re a little better than a puzzle‑solver. A lot better, in fact.” She pressed her fingers into his arm. “I’ve been in love with you since forever. So far I’ve been mostly good. And you know that, too.”

“Don’t even open that door.”

“My name is Ari. Not kid. Not young sera. I wish you’d use it.”

“And you know you areyoung sera, to most everybody.”

She tilted her head to look up at him, right in the eyes, pursed her lips slightly and shook her head, ever so slightly. “I’m Ariane,” she said. “That covers everything people say I am. You’re only half a replicate. Thank God. I’m pretty damned close to the original. Don’t worry about me. Just don’t let anybody get in a hit behind my back. I want you safe while I’m gone.”

“ You’renot going with Yanni.”

“Yanni will have already left by now–or be on the verge of it. I’m going to be busy. And I’d like to give you Amy, but she’s going to Novgorod. She’s real quiet. The media let her alone. She’ll find out things. She’ll have Quentin with her, and he’ll be out of uniform. All very quiet. Just a business trip. Give me a kiss. I’m collecting them, storage for the next few days.”

He did, just a kiss on the cheek. She’d wondered what he’d do if she asked.

That he could do that, that smoothly, that collectedly, said worlds about his mental state.

She left him, then, to go talk to Amy.

“Sure.” Amy said. “When?”

“See if Yanni caninfuse some backbone into Jacques and get Khalid shut out. I’m worried, all things considered, that that won’t be enough.”

“If Khalid’s involved in Spurlin’s murder…”

“Likely it won’t stop other things from happening. That’s what’s got me worried: if Yanni succeeds, Yanni’s in imminent danger.”

“Jacques is in trouble, in either case,” Amy said.

“He’s a dead man, either walking around for a while, or cold before nightfall. But we can only protect him if he agrees with us and puts Bigelow in the line of fire–if that’s what’s going on. This is dangerous, Amy. You should understand that. I’m not sure Patil and Thieu aren’t linked into this, and that means Yanni is a majortarget.”

“I’m in the fish breeding business. It’s about your tank. I’m staying in the Wilcox, third floor–fast to reach ground level: and Quentin’s my secretary. You want some blennies.”

“You’ve got it,” she said. “Bore anybody who asks. If you’re absolutely sure you’re overheard, you and Quentin start arguing about calcium supplements and temperature stability in the bar.”

Amy laughed. Then: “Understood,” Amy said, with a little pat on her arm, and went to talk to Quentin.

A plane took off. Ari caught the sound, above the water‑sound of the room. That would probably be Yanni.

Good luck, she wished him. Good luck.

Please stay alive, Yanni.

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter iv

JULY 26, 2424

0828H

“Ser.” Rafael met Florian in the foyer of the little office, opened the back hall door, and showed him right through.

An item had turned up. That was what Rafael’s message had said, and when Florian went into Rafael’s office a very anxious young woman leapt up and bowed that slight degree ReseuneSec protocol taught. She was no older than the rest of them, just old enough for assignment. Her uniform tag said CARLY BC‑18, and she was dark‑skinned, broad‑faced, wide‑shouldered. She clutched half a ream of physical printout to her chest as if it were state secrets.

Which, given that Rafael was investigating staff backgrounds, it might be.

“This is Carly BC, ser. Records.”

“Ser,” Carly said.

Florian took the available conference chair. Carly settled on the edge of her seat and held her printout on her knees.

“So what do you have, Carly BC?”

“Ser, Giraud Nye’s contacts, systematized; the azi in question. Also Giraud Nye’s aides and seconds, their whereabouts, their contacts. I have the computer file.” She touched her breast pocket.

“Tell me what you learned,” Florian said. He expected a little nervousness. Carly BC was new, straight from the barracks. First real assignment.

And Carly had, first off, a shorter document, within the cover of the first. She pulled it out and handed it over, a set of graphs and schematics. Trips to Novgorod. Time spent in Novgorod. Meetings with Defense. Persons involved. Giraud. Abban. Gorodin, deceased Councillor.

Regime change. Giraud, Abban, Hicks. Khalid. Jacques. Spurlin. Jacques, just recently.

He looked up at Rafael. “You’ve seen this?”

“I’ve skimmed it, yes, ser.”

“Specific data on Hicks. Carly BC.”

“Ser.”

“Can you pull that out?”

Carly opened the printout on her lap and frantically turned pages. “It’s here, ser.” Large, dark eyes fixed on his. “I broke out stats on each individual involved. Nye, Abban AB, Hicks, Gorodin, Khalid, Jacques, Spurlin…”

“Give me the data file,” Florian said, and held out his hand. Carly BC opened her pocket and handed it to him immediately, a finger marking her place in the printout.

Branches. Branch led to branch, led to branch. One person connected to another. It didn’t always produce valid theory, but the investigative AI tended to err on the side of the smallest connection, once it launched.

“Well done, Carly BC.”

“Thank you, ser.”

The threads all wove back and forth. That was the pattern. Never expect that it was going to connect up too tightly. Defense was massive.

“Visits by Abban to Hicks,” he said. “Do you have that stat?”

“A lot, ser. I can find it.” She started to resort to the printout again.

“That’s good, Carly BC. No, don’t bother. If it’s searchable, it’s in here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ser.”

“I think we’re through with Carly BC’s report,” Florian said quietly. “Thank you, Carly BC.”

“Ser.” She looked uncertain. Then started to get up.

“I’ll take the report,” Florian said. And took it, and Carly received a nod from Rafael and left.

Florian looked at Rafael, at the azi who’d been primed to report to Hicks.

“How are you now, Rafael BR?” he asked. “Are you with us on this?”

“My Contract is to sera,” Rafael said firmly.

“No lingering troubles.”

“None, ser.”

Florian looked at him a long time, and Rafael gazed back, level and long.

“Take precautions,” Florian said. “The ferret she sent may have rung bells in certain offices. It shouldn’t. But sometimes we aren’t as clean as we hope to be. Assume we’re not. That’s safest.”

“Yes, ser,” Rafael said faintly.

“Assume nothing.” Florian said. “Expect anything. At any time.”

“Yes, ser.”

Florian pocketed the datastrip, took the printout in hand, and left what ought to be the securest office in the securest wing in Reseune.

He went upstairs to sera’s apartment, to the security station in the front hall, and laid the printout on the desk by Catlin’s elbow.

“Sera Amy is safely in the hotel,” Catlin said. “Third floor, as she wanted.”

“Hicks accompanied Giraud to Defense very many times,” he said, “and was Giraud’s go‑between there, as sera remembered. Sometimes Abban was with him. Yanni is, by comparison, a stranger in that tower.”

“The military have their own psychs,” Catlin said.

He nodded. “I think this has to go to sera,” he said. “I think we need her opinion on this.”

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter v

JULY 26, 2424

0929H

“Yanni’s not meeting with Jacques today,”was the gist of Amy’s report. It was Friday, Jacques ought to be available, Spurlin’s funeral was on the vid, and Jacques was notably absent.

Which wasn’t good. Ari didn’t acknowledge receipt of the message from Amy. There wasn’t anything to say. She did message Yanni, saying, “How are you doing, Uncle Yanni?”

And Yanni shot back, “As well as can he expected. Funerals depress me.”

“We’re all fine,” she wrote. “Don’t worry about things.”

That was about five minutes before Florian came through the door and told her they were not fine.

“Sera,” he said. “We have specific data. Abban and Hicks were both Giraud’s special envoys to Defense tower, during all recent administrations, including Khalid and Gorodin, and sometimes they were there over eight hours at a stretch. Two: Hicks is a provisional Alpha Supervisor. He has an alpha assistant, Kyle AK, and he’s provisionally certified for that azi; the certificate was obtained in the last year of Giraud’s tenure. He was in Giraud’s office as deputy director for fifteen years. He had a key. He could have accessed any manual. As an Alpha Supervisor, he could have used any manual in that office…”

“Oh, this is good, Florian.”

“You know born‑men, sera. But we know access. He had access.”

“He certainly did. Access to Abban. Probably to Seely. Access to Yanni’s office, right now, while he’s in Novgorod. Every timehe’s been in Novgorod. Damn it! Florian, do youthink Abban would have betrayed Giraud? Killed, contrary to Giraud’s wishes?”

That drew a rapid blink of Florian’s eyes. A rapid assessment. “Sera, no, I don’t.”

“Abban was upset as hell when Giraud died. Denys took him in. But Abban stayedupset. Denys didn’t do anything to help him. Or Denys couldn’t. That’s what I think. And maybe Abban continually supplied Denys with what somebody wanted Denys to know. Or think. Denys was only half paranoid–until Giraud died, and Abban moved in.”

“Were we mistaken to kill Denys, sera?”

“No,” she said definitively, and then amended that: “I don’t think so. I don’t think there was anything to save, once Giraud died. He’d have killed us.”

“I believe he would have, sera. I know Seely would have.”

“Seely was always Abban’s partner…out in green barracks. The way you and Catlin are partners.”

“He probably was that, yes, sera. It makes sense that he was.”

“But it’s not in his manual, nor is it in Seely’s. That’s just damned odd. A subsequent generation wouldn’t guess that relationship–based on that manual. A spy wouldn’t. It was just in their heads. And Giraud’s. And whoever really, really knew them. Bring me a cup of coffee, Florian. Call Catlin. We need to talk about this.”

“Yes, sera.”

She didn’t need the coffee, so much as the time. When they were there, Florian or Catlin, she had a range of possibilities that might be too wide, too drastic.

Call Yanni home, now, urgently? That might protect Yanni–assuming Yanni wasn’t aiding and abetting.

Hicks. With access to alpha‑level personal manuals in Giraud’s office. Giraud had been a real Alpha Supervisor. On the record Denys had an alpha license. But Seely and Abban both, once they’d been solely in Denys’ care, hadn’t had expert handling. They’d both given her cold chills, but it had always been true, Giraud was the one who’d have had those manuals, Giraud was the person that could make the world make sense to Abban, and to Seely…and when he’d died, Denys couldn’t handle them.

Giraud, dammit, should have found it out if somebody had gotten to Abban. He’d known Abban that well. He’d livedwith him that closely. How did anybody get to Abban and Giraud not know it?

But everybody’dbeen upset for weeks after the first Ari had died. Giraud more than most. Giraud hadn’t been at his best… Giraud had been emoting, leaning on Abban, not the other way around. And Abban had taken care of Giraud. An alpha could. An alpha could end up being the support for his CIT–even if it meant hiding a truth, and lying, and not getting caught at it. That was the hell of working with alphas. Given the collapse of the CIT they relied on, they so, so easily ended up doing all the navigation on a map they didn’t wholly understand, and satisfying their internal conditions by the nearest available substitute–the satisfaction of coping well, and rescuing their CIT, and keeping him going. You couldn’thave an emotional meltdown and stay in charge, not with an Abban type.

Abban might have killed the first Ari–but working with the security sets as she had, she knew–she knew in a way she hadn’t been able to accept–that scary as Abban was, Abban hadn’t been doing the steering. Abban hadn’t been to blame. And she’d gotten over it when she’d made up her mind that she wouldn’t abort Giraud, and more particularly wouldn’t abort the Abban and Seely Denys had made to keep him company.

Pyramids in the desert. The immortality of the ancients, the burial with worldly goods, with attendants, with all the panoply of kings. Offerings to the dead, for the rebirth. She’d had that thought, when she’d first known Denys had activated all three genesets.

All three. Even while Abban and Seely were still alive–they’d been reconceived. Were weeks along, when Denys and Abban and Seely had died.

The sarcophagus and the womb‑tank.

She gave a little shiver. Knew exactlythe same decision had attended her birth, and Florian’s, and Catlin’s, though they’d all been dead.

Who’d given the order to terminate Florian and Catlin? Not likely Denys. Giraud.

Full‑circle, now. Absolutely full‑circle.

Hicks betrayed you, Uncle. Betrayed all of you. Jordan had been conniving with Defense. He was going to break it all open and bring Reseune down–but that wouldn’t have served Defense. If there had been no Reseune in those years, Defense would have been desperate to have one. So Defense just wanted to control Reseune, not bring it down. They already had their man inside Reseune–and they wrote their own script, not Jordan’s. They knew about the psychogenesis project. They knew it, probably, from Jordan, who’d tried it with Justin, and Jordan would have warned them not to go along with it–warned anybody who’d listen, if they’d asked.

But the warnings wouldn’t mean a thing to Defense. They just saw a way to have a re‑start on Ari Emory, a quieter, merely potential Ari Emory, who wouldn’t bother them for years, while Reseune kept their contracts, Reseune did the work for Defense, gave them what they wanted…

But, damn! who just authorized Defense to move in on Planys? Who authorized that military base built right next to our labs?

She leaned over the computer and posed the question:

2404. The year the first Ari died. The year Jordan Warrick became the man in the iron mask, the prisoner at Planys.

The military moves in, to keep him quiet. Cooperates–aids and abets–in keeping Ari’s so‑called killer and their agreed ally in Reseune…away from any communication with the outside world.

Wasn’t that a window on their real set of priorities?

The first Ari safely dead. The second in planning.

Jordan…silenced.

Their installation set up at Planys, with Giraud’s consent.

And their own man, Hicks, or Abban, with easy, constant access to Giraud’s office.

But there was a problem with that line of reasoning.

Hicks himself had been a victim.

Somebody put a Rafael type in Hicks’s office–and Hicks–or somebody–put an identical into my security organization.

So whose were they to start with?

Hicks didn’t have the wherewithal–didn’t have the knowledge to create them. He had the authority to order it done. But how did he get it past Giraud?

And how old is that set? When was the first one setted?

2373. Fifty‑one years ago.

Fifty‑one years ago. On the first Ari’s staff. An azi named Regis. And who could have done that?

How to excavate that much history? Who’d been in a position to do that in those days?

Jordan? Not old enough. Giraud himself…when he first started Operating. He could have.She’d been down this track before, but mostly Not old enoughkept coming round and round and round, troubling any conclusion aiming at the people she’d liketo blame. Chi Prang, head of alpha azi–holding that position a long, long time…that was the best candidate to have created someone to infiltrate the first Ari’s staff.

But why? Whose? Chi Prang had never done a thing on record but do her job.

Shoot off a letter to Chi Prang and just ask; did you infiltrate the first Ari’s staff, and Hicks’ staff, and now mine? It just didn’t make sense. And it kept coming down to…

One who had been alive, and in office a hell of a long time. One who played his own side of the board, consistently, and generally not too quietly.

In between the outbursts, you tended to forget.

Yanni. Yanni was what he was, one of the best.

Not necessarily a bad set of motives. But worth questioning.

Maybe Hicks had somehow figured out there was a double agent in his office–one he daren’t touch. But he could bestow the same gift elsewhere. As Giraud had been doing. Spying on the station. Spying on the military.

Two games had been going simultaneously. The military moving in on Planys, and getting a hold on Hicks; and Hicks knowing his own Director, Giraud, was spying on him, but Hicks moving very carefully to get at manuals in that office, so Giraud hadn’t known.

Hell. There was one contrary possibility in that scenario.

“Sera.” Catlin came in. Florian was right there with the coffee–three coffees. Florian knew her.

“Sit down,” she said. “Wait. I’m thinking.”

She hit the keyboard again. Pulled up Hicks’s age as 102. Not that old. But old enoughfifty years ago. He’d taken his alpha certs when he’d acquired his assistant, who’d been from Giraud’s office–

–AK‑36, Kyle, alpha, for God’s sake…military alpha.

She stared at the history on the screen.

Could she be so blind? Contracted first at eighteen to the military, military intelligence, no information available, reverted to Reseune, assigned to ReseuneSec after restructuring. The law said–decommissioned alphas had to come home to Reseune. This one had come to the most natural home for his abilities. Straight from the War, year of the Treaty of Pell being 2353, to Reseune, with the decommissioning of his unit in 2358.

Put into labs at Reseune for retraining. The routine was supposed to require the axe code, partial wipe, re‑Contracting. She looked for that specific date, that specific session.

Didn’t turn up until 2362.

God.

Whohadn’t given the code early on? Why not?

Somebody wanting to debrief Kyle AK‑36, and learn what he’d been into, and what he’d done for the military? Somebody who thought they’d just ask questions and mine him for all kinds of information–somebody who was an expert interrogator–and who might have reason to suspect the military?

Somebody who wouldn’t leave traces and records in the system? Base One could do that. Up to a certain limit, Base Two or Three could do it.

The first Ari could do that. So could Yanni. So could Giraud. So could Jane Strassen and Wendy Peterson, in those days…when the relationship with Defense, in the last days of the War, with the whole Gehenna situation, had been going quietly unpleasant.

AK‑36 himself had specialized in security. And he was alpha. He was one of those the military had used to analyze azi behaviors, to actually serve as Supervisors, before Reseune had pitched a fit about the practice and demanded that mentally damaged azi be taken out of action and returned to Reseune, no matter the inconvenience to the military In 2350 Ari had gotten that measure through Council and snatched back azi who were routinely being mentally and physically patched together and sent back into combat. She’d had a famous row with Admiral Azov. But she’d won, which had outraged the military and set the stage for years of uneasy relations between Science and Defense…so long as Azov was in office.

And Kyle AK‑36 had been with the military for a number of years after the Treaty of Pell. Served in a classified function from which there were no records accessible. Then in 2358, by law, all remaining alpha and beta azi had come back to Reseune. Reseune, namely Giraud, must have tried to unravel him for four more years after that, learning things, maybe, maybe just trying to understand what his history really was. It was worth looking for those sessions, of which there was no readily available record. That period had ended in 2362.

After the axe‑code that ended his Contract to the military, Kyle AK‑36 had been with Giraud, a skilled psych operator, skilled interrogator, trusted aide until–around 2404, when Ari died, Giraud had passed the ReseuneSec office to Adam Hicks…and passed Kyle along with it, as the one, maybe, to keep the office on an even keel under a much weaker administrator…and who could keep on reporting to Giraud.

And who hadordered production on the Rafael types from the outset, in those years between 2358 and 2404? Search failed. But one of them had ended up in Ari’s household. And another in Hicks’s staff.

Who’d settedthe other B‑28’s? No signature. That could mean Ari herself. It could mean anybody down to Giraud…or somebody working for him. Once AK‑36 had finally had the axe code and become, allegedly, a Reseune azi, he’d been Giraud’s specialist assistant, between 2362 and 2404. The axe code, designed to revoke a Contract–could be a wide‑ranging wipe, but wasn’t, if the azi was well setted. Ideally it just reset the Contract to None and erased specific areas of knowledge and belief, an organized amnesia. You wanted an azi to know things he could later completely forget: you linked them to the axe code. But the military theoretically couldn’t do that on his level–because they theoretically didn’t have military Supervisors at his level.