Cyteen

1988

Welcome to Cyteen, the centre of Union.

Welcome even more to Reseune Bio-engineering, the most important place on Cyteen.

Please give a cheer for Ariane Emory. Although 120 years old, she still leads Reseune in the fields of genetics and psychology as an absolute despot.

So when she's found with her head bashed in, there was severe concern: over who had done it? Why (well... for which of several whys) had it been done? And, how was Reseune going to be able to continue providing the improved Azi required by Union's expansion. Even more important, who would provide the necessary tape learning? Reseune had to have Ari back.

Given that Reseune is a major genetics lab, providing the body of Ari was relatively trivial. What they really needed was her mind and that was a much more delicate thing to replicate, for those guiding Ari 2 had to make sure that she was put under the same pressures as the original model so one of the most intensive research studies in history was undertaken to this end.

However, when Ari 2 had grown to an age where she was allowed her own suite of rooms, it appeared that the original Ari had taken thought on the matter herself and put together a sophisticated Artificial Intelligence that also guided the young Ari throughout her development.

Meantime, the parallel investigation into the murder reveals that Justin was the last person to have been in her presence. It was also clear that he had good cause for murdering her. But there was no overt proof that he had been the killer. There was a good chance, indeed, that Ari had killed herself (or had herself killed).

So the watchers watched both Justin to see that he did not get a chance at the second Ari and on Ari herself to make sure that she did not step outside the parameters of Old Ari's life as they were known.

As Ari grew up, she slipped ever further off-track from the original Ari's life but the genes will out and young Ari finds it in herself to be as nasty as her predecessor as she grabs back control of Reseune and through that, Union.

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