Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

A clever old warhorse like Corain, head both of the Centrist party, and of the Citizens Bureau–the very constituency that happened to contain most of the Paxer movement–did know what grief his party would come to if the Paxers ever got their wish. This might be the time, Corain might well be persuaded, to move the Centrists closer and closer to the same interests as the Expansionists–at least for this generation. Together, Defense, Information, Science, and Trade, the Expansionists had a strong bloc in the Council of Nine: add Citizens to that, and they had an unbreakable majority–on issues that Citizens could remotely favor.

And when the Nine swung that definitive a weight, the Council of Worlds historically fell into line.

That wrapped it up neatly enough. Yanni sipped his coffee, reminisced a little with the first Ari’s old adversary, and listened as much as he spoke.

They didn’t get into the second bottle of the Sauvignon.

They weren’t thatfriendly.

BOOK ONE Section 1 Chapter v

APRIL 22, 2424

1545H

Ari wasn’tin a good mood. The smile was bright enough, a broad grin, a second or two in duration, and then it was gone. She went over paper printout with a forced concentration that just wasn’t up to its usual enthusiasm.

Justin Warrick didn’t ask why. It wasn’t profitable to ask, but her mood was bothersome. Ari wasn’t sulking, nothing to do with him, he sensed. She was just trying hard not to be elsewhere this afternoon, and didn’t volunteer the information that anything was wrong, but there was, somewhere in her universe.

Which, if it wasn’t his doing, he had to take as not his business. Her universe in one sense had widened when Denys had died; in another, in the weeks after, it had gotten a lot more focused, more down to the task at hand, and he was fairly sure she was dropping weight. He saw it in the hand that gripped the stylus, in the angle of the back–backbones showed under the silk jersey. She had a few people on her domestic staff, people who were supposed to be seeing to her welfare and making sure she got meals. She certainly had Florian and Catlin to look out for her and serve as confidants. But something wasn’t right, and he’d begun to suspect it was a troublingly unusual complaint in an eighteen‑year‑old genius‑level CIT: far too muchstudy, obsessive study. Too little real sleep. Taking the cataphoric drug too often, trying to let deepstudy hours sub for sleep, and giving herself no time for dream‑function. That could lead to some real eetee behavior. Ari didn’t say so, but the signs of that were increasingly there, in the weight loss, the slight rawness of nerves.

“I don’t see it,” she said, after scanning page after page, “Justin, I don’t see it.”

“Maybe a little sleep would be a good thing.”

“I sleep just fine.”

“Sure you do,” he said. “Ari, do me a personal favor. Have a little more of it.”

Now he got the frown, full‑force and directed at him. “There’s nothing wrongwith my sleep pattern. I’m just not seeing this problem, is all.”

“Well, possibly I’m wrong.” Not likely. He knew the psychset represented in that printout very well, and he knew the particular case in question, and the right answer was obvious to a much lesser operator. On the other hand, he was dealing with a mind that was capable of taking a new approach to a classic problem, and capable of not pinning the solution where every other operator thought it was. It was an interesting point, whether the obviousness of the answer would make her miss the question…or whether she had rejected the classic answer and was after something else which no other examiner had ever caught.

They weren’t going to find it out in five minutes.

“I want you to take this home,” he said. It was near the end of their regular session. “Don’t look at it again until tomorrow morning. And, young sera–”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Ari. Get some sleep. No study tonight. That’syour assignment.”

A quick flash of dark, sullen eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Sure you are. Take the evening off. Take the night off. Think about it.”

“Too damned much thinking,” she said. “I can getthis, dammit.”

She had a real bent for macrosets, the big picture, a very, very rare skill; he was an expert at microsets, and he taught her what he knew. It was what he did, these days, regular one‑on‑one sessions, five days a week. He gave her cases, she figured them, they discussed the answers and sometimes argued them. They were working on actual integration work, putting psychsets together in a community, letting them run in the original generation and two or three more, and seeing how the interface worked.

But the one he’d given her, and also slipped into the latest mix, was an azi named Young AY‑4, who wasn’t theoretical. AY‑4 had blown up and attacked his teammates…lethally…during the War. Justin hadn’t told her that. He just pointed out something had gone wrong in the integration, and she’d correctly picked up on AY‑4 as the problem. The real‑life AY‑4 had gotten the self‑defense part down, all right, but it had gone bad, very bad, and he had taken himself out along with his teammates, for reasons still debated. The Defense Bureau had trained their own so‑called Supervisors for a certain period during the War, over Reseune’s protests. They’d messed with azi psychsets, thinking they’d turn out a better, more obedient soldier, who could work with anyofficer, not just a Reseune trained Supervisor. Thathadn’t worked outstandingly well–witness the AY‑4 case. It was a famous case in his generation–an azi designation most anyone of his age would recognize.

One thing was certain: Ari hadn’t cheated and looked the case up in Library. She’d rather be stumped. She’d rather do it herself. That certainly had echoes of her predecessor. So did the temper. But do‑it‑herself was characteristic of young Ari, too: passion for knowledge was one of her better attributes, so long as she wasn’t sleep‑deprived.

“I know you can get it,” he said. Then he added, because she looked so tired: “Do you want a hint?”

“No,” she snapped back, and then the frown mitigated into a worried expression. “I’m sorry, Justin.”

“Sleep’s good,” he chided her. “Try it. You’ll like it.”

The worried look staved. “It’s not study, it’s Yanni.”

Yanni Schwartz. Thatshed a different light on her week‑long mood. “Oh, well, a lot of people have said that.”

“Sometimes I just want to break his neck.” She gathered up her papers, shoved them into the folder she was taking upstairs and got up slowly. “And you’re not supposed to hear me say things like that, so I didn’t, but it’s so, anyway. Damn him!”

Yanni was off doing legislative business in Novgorod. And Justin didn’t want to ask what had happened. He just folded up his briefcase and wished he had a quick fix for what bothered his sole student. By what she said, it wasn’t kid business, though her reaction wasn’t helped by lack of sleep.

“You just take care of yourself. Don’t take any kat tonight. Relax.”

“I’m trying,” she said, and sighed and gave him a pat on the arm as if hewere the child, at thirty‑odd to her eighteen. “You’re right. I know you are. Probably the answer’s obvious as hell and I’m being terribly thickheaded. Isit a trick question?”

“I’m somewhat interested to see what you’ll come up with. I don’t want to spoil it.”

“You think I’m a fool.”

He laughed; that proposition was so unlikely. But it was the perpetual self‑doubt of a young genius mind that never found peers to compare to. “You’re my science project. I’m determined to see the outcome. Keep going on it.”

A very heavy sigh. She took up her briefcase and hit the door button. Florian and Catlin were waiting for her, dark and light, doubtless having tracked the whole four‑hour session with the endless patience of their profession. Grant was on his feet, too, across the hall, not in possession of the coms Florian and Catlin used, but taking his cue from them. Grant was supposed to have been busy in the Education Wing office, but he habitually came over to Wing One to gather Justin up around this time.

The sets parted company, he and Grant, Ari and her bodyguards, taking their separate ways at least for the evening. They lived next door to each other, met for lessons in this little downstairs office in Wing One, because it was just more comfortable, and because her security didn’t want her walking about outside Wing One lately, no matter that Wing One was largely depleted of shops, of restaurants, of diversions–even its lab now mostly gutted of equipment. They kept to their separate apartments and didn’t socialize, beyond that.

Teaching her was how he earned a living these days, doing his regular work in psych design two whole days a week, back to back, Thursdays and Fridays, and then five days of afternoon sessions with Ari. His teaching her had been Ari’s idea–her insistence, in fact; and that job had its moments of interest, flashes of brilliance, even excitement, when Ari chased some idea through the undergrowth of other opinions, and when, sometimes, she sparked hiscreativity, and opened windows for him into her own esoteric field. That was a reward he couldn’t have bought for any price. Some days, many days, Grant sat in on the sessions, and gave his own opinions, and they argued with Ari over coffee and sandwiches–those were the good days.

This hadn’t been one of them. Nor had the day before, nor the day before that, not since Yanni had left, now that he added it up. She turned in her lessons, and her notes, and her projects–his briefcase held her current one, which was a huge integration, nearly town‑sized: he was supposed to run that for her on the lab computers–another plus: there was no shortage of computer time, not on young Ari’s budget. Slip your own projects in whenever you want, she’d told him, and that casual little gift could be worth more than the extravagant 10k a month he drew on salary as the director of a non‑existent research wing.

But she hadn’t been herself for a week, and Yanni–Yanni, off in Novgorod, seemed to have done something she didn’t like.

He didn’t like to think about the outside world. Didn’t like to think that politics down in Novgorod could ever affect him again. But he was connected to Ari. And it could.

“You’re thinking,” Grant said. Grant, alpha azi, life companion, lover–Grant knew him. Grant could read him like no other. “You’re worried.”

“Tell you later.” he said. Out in the halls was no place to discuss Ari’s business, not even with a friendly power in the Director’s office and no more Nyes anywhere. He found himself tired, after the four hour session–the psychological drag of an upset kid.

Or the fact it was near the end of the week. He hadn’t slept well himself, last night, mostly, he realized now, because he’d gotten increasingly worried about the sessions with the kid, and dreaded having to deal with that temper. “I want to drop by the office and pick up a file, get the computer running on this in downtime.” He could use his own Education Wing office for an access: no indication on the papers as to whether the combination of sets represented a real town, or just hypotheticals: the work itself was just a listing of Library links and job codes. The result, the only thing that mattered, would drop into the Wing One office computer tomorrow, representing what these personalities would be like in three generations, given that the first generation of the class ones would turn CIT and the second generation of the class twos would be born and reared CIT–by the class ones. It was complex, and it contained, in that fifteen pages of links to manuals, a few noted changes to those psychsets, and of course it included the choice of group ethic. That was Integrations. And Ari ran them in her head. He’d had to makeher write them down, arguing that the computer didn’t read her mind and he wasn’t going to write it out for her, thank you, or check them the same way she wrote them–let’s be precise, he said, and she’d said, the little minx, Run them in your own head: the computer isn’t always right.

“Is there time for me to chase down some loose ends of my own?” Grant asked.

“About half an hour. Then dinner out. All right? It’s been a long day.”

“Fine with me. Not enough time for my business. I’ll watch you work.”

They shared that office over in Education, their old office, as happened, convenient for the small staff they had–a staff that couldn’t get clearance for Wing One, orhis work with Ari. He couldn’t hand Ari’s notes to his staff to deal with, for two reasons: one, that anything she produced was classified, and two, because his staff couldn’t operate on that level. But staff saw to it that the other things got done, when he was gone most afternoons–Em had gotten the rhythm of their schedule, and kept it going when neither he nor Grant was there; and a couple of beta clericals under Em, who could actually read the prefaces and classify psychsets quite accurately, had the place running like a machine. Things came out of Library, recommendations got printed, results folderized and cataloged, simple requisitions went out, supplies came back. They also handled the routine idiocy from Admin, the inane inquiries like, Please list your monthly case load by origin. State whether resolved or ongoing. It didn’t matter if they sat and threw darts for two days–their salary solely depended on his teaching Ari–but the Admin computers didn’t know that, because Yanni hadn’t ordered technical to fix their classification. Admin computers still added their output into the Education Wing statistics. That could have been an ongoing problem for Wendell Peterson, who was over that Wing. They didn’tcontribute greatly to Wing performance ratings. But Grant kept them in the black, at least. And Jordan did–who never even entered the office.

Downstairs, down again, the two of them took the storm tunnels that crossed the quadrangle underground, a long, dingy concrete passage that offered a longer but warmer walk on a cold April day, when wind exceeded the safe limits of the barriers and brought in contaminants the bots and the pigs would have to track down. The tunnel was crowded today, a popular route, past Admin, between Admin and Education–they’d recently installed a bank of vending machines down by the intersection, by the water fountains; but those only produced a traffic jam at noon. Right now people were bent on supper, and restaurants.

The route was particularly convenient for them: the storm tunnel exit in the Education Wing delivered them right near their own office door, in the 100’s of A corridor, in that sprawling building.

Their office was dark. Em and the staff had properly locked up and gone home on schedule, to residences down in the town–the shuttle buses, a whole new fleet of them, ran a heavy service right at 1610h, the whole fleet lining up at the curb ten minutes after shift change. Em and the staff likely had mentally dumped the day’s business and joined the outpouring, blithe and free for their own pursuits of the evening.

Their employers, however, didn’t enjoy the luxury of such precise hours–especially not on teaching days.

Justin reached for his keycard, but Grant beat him to it and opened the door–walked in through the foyer that was Em’s office, into their own slightly less tidy inner sanctum. Grant disposed his long frame in his own office chair, legs extended at grand leisure, while Justin opened his briefcase and extracted the desired folder. He fed sheets into the reader, which spat them out again. He returned each to the folder in the briefcase, not to mingle them with the piles of paper on the desk.

Fifteen sheets, file done, and the program asked him what program should apply.

He used his keycard again and told it, aloud, “Code Y10, Class alpha through mu. Read to D3, run Integrations. Output results to Base One, code Y10.”

“Voiceprint accepted.”

For about a second, thanks to his keycard and that spoken code, it hadn’t been his own computer talking: that had been Base One itself, in a significantly different tone. It always sounded so human.

Then it was gone. His own computer, with far lower clearances, said, “Done.”

“Thanks, computer, endit.”

“Well,” someone said. It was his own voice. Or nearly so. He turned, his heart giving a little thump, and saw his father standing in the inner doorway.

“Hey, we’re closed for the day.” Half a joke. His father wasn’t supposed to be here. It took a security clearance to get through that door, in an office that dealt with actively working psychsets andone special student’s study projects. Jordan Warrick’s security clearance was entirely nuked. Gone. Non‑existent. And Em would have stalled, held him in the outer office. Nobody being there but them, they’djust left the inner door open and the outer door unlocked.

“I figured you were.” It wasn’t only Jordan who’d come in, it was, of course, his companion Paul as well, whose accesses had also been nuked. Jordan walked all the way through into their inner office and looked around. “My old digs.”

It had been. Before the first Ari died.

“You changed the paint,” Jordan observed.

Justin was still off‑balance. He looked around him, foolishly, remembered it had once been a slightly different shade. Twenty years ago. “I suppose it is different. Still green. I didn’t even question it.”

“Probably security took the walls apart.” Jordan gave a look around him, and Justin snapped the briefcase shut, sealing up the last item exposed. “Probably a whole new set of bugs.”

“Possibly,” Justin said. He worked with his father in off hours since Jordan’s return, in the living room of Jordan’s apartment. He brought a different briefcase with him when he did.

Jordan asked him: “What are you working on?”

“Today’s a teaching day.” He used his handprint to open the safe, and put the briefcase into it.

“Her.”

“She’s the only student I’ve got.” He shut the door and sealed it, feeling much more comfortable after that door was shut. Grant, meanwhile, had gotten to his feet as Paul came all the way into the office. “I hate to say it, but you know you two are pushing it with security right now.”

“What’s life worth without a little excitement?” Jordan sat down on Grant’s desk edge. “You look tired.”

“I am, I think.”

“Want to go out for a coffee?”

“I’ve had way too much coffee today. Bar?”

“Sure,” Jordan said. “Got an idea?”

“Abrizio’s.” It was downstairs in Ed A, it had been there forever, never mind the new decor, and he thought Jordan would be comfortable in his old habitat.

“Great,” Jordan said, entirely cheerful, and cast a wistful look around. “A lot’s changed. I’ve been to that bar. I liked the old color. Red. You remember.”

“Everything changes.” His memory had holes in it, back then. Significant ones. He didn’t mention that. He’d shed the briefcase. He picked up one that didn’t matter.

“Have you gotto take that thing?”

“I suppose I don’t.” He set it back on the floor, and nodded toward the door, anxious to clear the room and lock up before they drew down a set‑to with Security.

He didn’t quite make it. Three agents were standing outside, ReseuneSec, black‑uniformed and somber. Just standing. Watching.

Offer a guilty excuse? Security knew where he’d come from, who’d walked into his office, and by way of the bugs Jordan predicted existed, they’d know exactly where they were going next. He could ignore them. But it wasn’t in his constitution to do that.

“Off work,” he told them cheerfully, “off to the bar.”

“Ser,” one said, stony‑faced and solemn.

It didn’t make him feel any better and it wouldn’t stop them from reporting. The report to their headquarters had likely been simultaneous with Jordan’s arrival in the office. But it didn’t make him feel worse.

“I dropped by, actually, to invite you to dinner,” Jordan said as they walked. “Tomorrow night. Paul’s cooking.”

“Sounds good,” Justin said, not mentioning the known fact that he couldn’t reciprocate–living where he did. Jordan didn’t mention it either.

“That design question you posed Friday,” Jordan said, “I think I’ve got an answer for you.”

“I’ll be interested.” They’d collaborated long‑distance while Jordan was over on Planys, a cooperation permitted and not permitted by turns, largely by the whims of the Nyes. Now the papers flew back and forth much faster, and they traded notes on the house system, sometimes hourly, when he was in his Education Wing office.

“I sent you a memo this morning,” Jordan said.

“Sorry. I didn’t pick up my mail.”

“That’s all right. You’ll get it tomorrow. This is a therapeutic break.”

Another turn in the hall. They took the escalator down among a handful of clericals and educators. A scatter of noisy kids, likely residents from upstairs, played tag in the planted garden below the escalator, down among the stone benches. Beyond, on the right side of the mall, a small cluster of neon lights advertised a bakery, a florist, a shoe shop, a casual clothing store, and, farthest in the limited view, Abrizio’s Bar and Grill. The little mall was at storm tunnel level: it formed the commercial underpinnings of the Education Wing, a cozy little place, hardly wider than it had to be, frequented at noon mostly by academics, clericals and the occasional tradesman from the adjacent shops, but in the evening, mostly by residents from upstairs–Abrizio’s offered a better menu then.

Inside the little bar was dark, neon, and had a reasonable level of music and conversation–one table was left, midway down, and they claimed it, pulled back the worn, still‑comfortable chairs that had given up all pretense of authentic wood, and sat down.

Dog‑eared menus stood on the table in a cluster of seasoning and condiment bottles. Justin and Grant didn’t bother: their regular was a standard choice. Jordan took a perfunctory look. And it wasn’t the sort of place where you input your choice with button pushes. An actual waitress–her name was Sonia–came over, asked for orders, and served ice water for starters.

They’d come in just for drinks. Justin and Grant ordered a large plate of chili over chips with real cheese, which was usually supper enough on its own, Jordan agreed, and they talked about integrations and deepsets between chips. It was a slightly high‑end conversation for Abrizio’s evening crowd, where the more likely conversation was administrative and domestic woes, or the current soccer scores. It was quiet enough for a reasoned argument, at least, and a disposable napkin went the circuit of the table, increasingly blue with the hieroglyphs of psych structure notation–not the sort of item they’d leave behind them, but not the sort of conversation that posed a security problem, either: the items he regularly brought Jordan weren’t under security lock. Pleasant evening. Uncommonly pleasant.

“That’s interesting,” Paul said, regarding Justin’s latest insert into the set they described. “Nice.”

Jordan snatched the napkin back from Paul. “Ease off. Thought you’d know better. Don’t you daretake that in.”

It was a little feel‑good Justin had added, the sort of routine that had once had him going round after round with Yanni. He tinkered with this design–had flown it past Jordan several times without comment. He’d slid it past him again in a moment of mellow curiosity, part of a larger structure he was working on, his own little foray into macrosets. And perhaps it was a due warning: they’d all had, somewhere between the first glass and the chili and salty chips, perhaps just enough vodka to take the edge off their cautions.

“No intention of taking it in,” Paul said defensively.

Jordan shook his head. “Worm‑ish little bastard. Don’t trust it. Whose isthis crap?”

Justin didn’t, personally, agree that it posed that order of problem, or that it was crap. He checked himself short of saying so. The fact was, Jordan was right to check Paul if he had a doubt: being alphas andskilled in psych operations, both Paul and Grant were used to taking a small item in on a look‑see, sending some little routine all the way to their own deep‑sets and hauling it out again without ever letting it plant any roots–and producing some good commentary. The only danger lay in something that hit their deepsets and felt good at the time, that tempted even an alpha to hold it, secretly. And it was, in fact, deepsets, that little piece, but he didn’t think what he’d handed Jordan was in any sense harmful.

“That’s not one of yours,” Jordan said.

“Actually, yes.” He’d written it. And–perhaps it was a little stinginess, or just that he wasn’t quite through refining it yet–he hadn’tlaid that little routine on the table for Ari to sop up and run with, the way she sopped up and used whatever else he gave her. A conversation with her had sparked the idea a few weeks back, off his own notions of reward and gamma tapes, and Grant had thought it was good, but chancy, rule‑wise. So he’d put it out for Jordan’s comment. Paul hadn’t at all flinched.

But Jordan had a contrary opinion. That could be useful.

“This,” Jordan said, “is aimed at group dynamics.”

“It is,” he said, impressed that his father had laid his finger right on it, and added, “macroset, yes. But that’s not the important thing.”

“You’re meddling with deep sets and it’s ‘not the important part.’ I hate to tell you who that sounds like.”

The waitress showed up with a bottle and refilled all the glasses while their attention was on the piece of paper. Which was probably, for people parsing psychsets, one glass too many. Jordan took his forthwith and knocked back a large gulp of it before he returned his close attention to the scrap of napkin.

Justin had a sip of his own, read in that gesture of Jordan’s a degree of anger that filled in only one name.

So, well, maybe the kid had been doing a little research in elder Ari’s notes–she had them. She’d said she did. And, though it would be a disappointment to him if she’d pulled those items straight from elder Ari and not from her own intellect, he shouldn’t be surprised. She had a clerical staff, had an office. She could get any access, God knew. She’d been putting out masses of design work in recent weeks. Certain people in Admin–Yanni in particular–had warned him about Ari One’s notes, to be just a little alert for Ari cribbing off her predecessor.

But she’d been arguing with him–and, dammit, she’d argued her points with understanding. There was no mistaking that. They’d had fun with it. And, no, dammit, he didn’t think she was cribbing: she was too fast on the response, give or take today’s performance. He worked back and forth with the kid. She produced things that were downright elegant–and scarify wide–while he watched her work. He’d listened to that simplicity and simultaneous broad sweep, admired it, and this one was his flight of inspiration, dammit.

But it evidently sounded to Jordan like hisAri.

So maybe he had more of the original Ari’s notes in that briefcase in the safe than he knew he had… God knew what classified programs thatcould dip into. Gehenna was only what this generation knew about. Or–worse thought–one that sent a cold rush through his veins–could he be remembering the original Ari’s lessons with him, from way back? Could repressed thoughts have woken up, lately, having, finally, found something in her successor to tie onto?

That was an eetee thought, one he really didn’t like. He didn’tremember the study sessions with the first Ari. Not all of them.

“So you did this?” Jordan asked him bluntly.

“Yes.”

“Wide as hell. Feed this to a population with a disposition to take it deep and it’ll set hooks. You won’t ever get it out.”

“It doesn’t seem to do any harm. That’s what I’m asking you about.”

“The breadthis the harm. That little routine won’t stop. It’ll mutate in ways you don’t know and the computers can’t track.”

“Are you sure it will, in the gamma sets?”

“I’m saying it will.”

“Where will it intersect? I’ll admit I don’t know. That’s why I brought it to you.”

Another slug from the glass. “You don’t know, I don’t know, she doesn’t know. You don’t let something loose that mutates as it integrates. That’s exactly the kind of thing Ari loosed–when she loosed it. You know that? The damn woman wouldn’t listen–she’d just go eetee and say it didn’t matter what you thought. She understood it, sorry you don’t, it’s going operational next week. Damnher.”

A small silence. Grant quietly retrieved the napkin and pocketed it, conversation over, at least on that topic, that might have grazed oh so close to things security wouldn’t want discussed in a neighborhood bar.

“Well, you’re likely right about the routine,” Justin said, and got a smouldering flash of eye contact from Jordan, a stare that locked, hard. “Probably it’s too wide.”

“You’re init up to your neck.” Jordan said. “You’re teaching the brat. Be careful she doesn’t teach you. Do you know what I mean?”

“That this is an example of it?” Justin said. “I don’t think so. It’s just a mind‑stretch. A thought problem.”

“And she’s coming up with stuff like this on her own?”

“It’s mine, for God’s sake. Believe me. But this isn’t the place. Let’s not discuss it.”

“Let’s go to our place,” Jordan said, “because I’ve got some things to say.”

He didn’t want to. That had been three glasses already, counting before and during dinner, and now after, and they were generous glasses, fie hadn’t taken more than a sip of his third. Jordan tossed off the rest of his and shoved back from the table, then intercepted the waitress and handed her his card.

Justin threw a look at Grant. Grant’s face didn’t react, but his eyes moved in a quick warning reaction.

“Probably.” Justin said when Jordan had paid out, “we really had better get on home. I’ve got–”

“I have some things to say,” Jordan said brusquely, “and I’ve had alcohol enough to say them.”

“Maybe too much.”

“Come on.” Jordan said, and he could have a fight now, try to corner Paul and get Paul to quiet the situation, if only by handing Jordan enough alcohol to shut him up, maybe even hitting the bar down the row, where the music was too loud for coherent conversation. It had been pleasant until then. It wasn’t, now. And Jordan’s tolerance with security was already paper‑thin, as it was.