Vigilantes

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  The bubble stopped not too far from Nyquist’s. Uzvaan’s eyes still dominated his face, even without the mask. So Nyquist decided to focus on them.

  Nyquist made sure he had started recording.

  “Detective,” Uzvaan said, in that sarcastic tone of his.

  Nyquist had figured out the day before that Uzvaan used the sarcasm to mask his desperation. If Uzvaan didn’t get Nyquist’s help, he would probably die horribly. If Uzvaan cooperated, he might be able to live—although Nyquist had no idea why someone like Uzvaan would want to live.

  “I have a list of questions for you,” Nyquist said, his voice cold. He was supposed to tell Uzvaan before they even started that they had a deal. DeRicci would sign some kind of order declaring Uzvaan an individual under Alliance law, not a clone. But Nyquist couldn’t quite bring himself to tell Uzvaan about the deal.

  This bastard had tried to kill him, and that still angered Nyquist more than he could say.

  “I told you my conditions,” Uzvaan said, sounding like the lawyer he still was.

  “You’re not in a position to deal,” Nyquist said.

  “Detective, you believe I have information or you wouldn’t be here. So I am in a position to deal. And I won’t talk to you until you talk to your friend Noelle DeRicci.”

  Nyquist wanted to hit the release button, sending his little bubbly ship out of the Tunnels. He would have too, if this damn meeting weren’t so important.

  “Well, lucky you,” Nyquist said. “Security Chief DeRicci believes you actually have some value to the investigation. She’s willing to sign an order granting you individual status after we’ve heard what you have to say.”

  “Before,” Uzvaan said.

  “Look,” Nyquist said, leaning forward, elbows resting on the table. “If it were my choice, you wouldn’t get a fancy deal. You might get protective custody or you might be able to have your case severed from everyone else’s, but to be considered an individual, a person? I think you lost that chance when you tried to kill thousands.”

  Uzvaan raised his head slightly. The bluish tinge near his eyes betrayed how deeply that comment had disturbed him, but his expression hadn’t changed.

  “You would not believe an apology,” he said softly.

  “No,” Nyquist said. “I wouldn’t. And I think, if you were truly sorry, or if you were truly forced to do this against your will, you would talk to me because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’ll get something out of it.”

  Uzvaan’s entire face turned blue. He looked down, and said softly, “I am a lawyer, Detective. I have not been trained to think of anything from that angle.”

  “Yeah,” Nyquist said. “We know how susceptible you are to training.”

  Uzvaan flinched. Nyquist felt a sense of satisfaction. He wasn’t sure he liked that about himself.

  Then Uzvaan nodded, as if part of the conversation had gone on without Nyquist. “I—am—you are right. I—um—it is logical to repent for one’s actions by going above and beyond.”

  Nyquist half expected Uzvaan to add, I often told my clients that, but Nyquist couldn’t quite imagine Uzvaan ever giving that advice.

  “Ask your questions,” Uzvaan said. “I will not withhold my answers.”

  Nyquist wanted to believe that Uzvaan was trying, but Nyquist had already made DeRicci’s offer. Uzvaan knew that if his information was valuable, he would get a deal.

  Of course, Nyquist didn’t have to tell DeRicci that Uzvaan took the deal. Twice since he started negotiating with Uzvaan, Nyquist had felt the urge to lie about any kind of deal with Uzvaan.

  For once, Nyquist had to fight himself to tell the truth about what was happening in these little rooms.

  “All right,” Nyquist said, hoping that his ambivalence hadn’t shown on his face. “Someone created all of you clones of Uzvekmt. Who? And why? And how many of you are there?”

  “That is more than one question,” Uzvaan said, then caught himself and looked away. “But I shall endeavor to answer all of them.”

  He pulled a little from side to side, his arms remaining in place. His hands were strapped to the sides of the chair. That had to hurt, considering he had been in the same position the day before.

  “Who created us?” Uzvaan said. “This I do not know, at least, not exactly. I do know that a corporation titled—”

  And then he spoke Peytin, which irritated Nyquist. He was trying to record this conversation like he had recorded the one yesterday, but he wasn’t certain if the prison officials would let him leave with it. Yesterday, the officials hadn’t noticed the recording chip that Nyquist used. He couldn’t guarantee that they would miss it today.

  “The name has many translations,” Uzvaan was saying, “but I believe that the one the corporation’s founders intended was a little known meaning for the phrase. It is legal fiction.”

  “You were part of a corporation called ‘Legal Fiction’?” Not even Nyquist could believe that.

  “I was not part of any corporation with that name. That corporation—named in Peytin—” and again, he said the unintelligible words—”is the one that housed, fed, and educated me and about one hundred of my fellows.”

  He did not say the word “clones.” Nor did he look at Nyquist as he said this last part.

  Nyquist paused for a moment. He could either follow his list or he could go with the conversation. At the moment, he wanted to go with the conversation.

  Jin Rastigan, the head of Earth Alliance Security Office Human Division on Peyla, had observed clones of Uzvekmt killing each other in rather horrible ways, not long ago. She had contacted DeRicci about it. Nyquist wondered if Uzvaan had lived through a similar experience.

  Nyquist would approach this issue slowly.

  “Did all of your fellows, as you put it, go to law school?”

  “No,” Uzvaan said, still looking down.

  “Did all of them survive their upbringing?”

  Uzvaan looked at him quickly, as if startled. Uzvaan opened his mouth, then turned his head a little, his face grayer than Nyquist had ever seen it.

  “Why do you ask?” Uzvaan asked.

  “Answer the question,” Nyquist said.

  “No, not all survived.” Uzvaan spoke softly.

  “Because some of the clones were not viable?” Nyquist asked.

  “Because some of them failed,” Uzvaan said.

  In spite of himself, Nyquist felt chilled. “The cloning techniques failed? That means the embryos weren’t viable.”

  “No,” Uzvaan said, speaking even softer than he had before. “They—the individuals—they failed.”

  “At what?”

  Uzvaan’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever they were assigned.”

  The chill Nyquist felt settled around his heart.

  “What happened to the ones that failed?” he asked, even though he knew. Or he thought he knew.

  Uzvaan closed his eyes. He twitched. Then he opened his eyes. They seemed bigger than before, glassy.

  “I would like to move on to more recent events,” he said.

  “I would like an answer,” Nyquist said.

  “It is not relevant,” Uzvaan said in his lawyer’s voice.

  “I decide what is relevant,” Nyquist said.

  “They died,” Uzvaan said so softly that Nyquist almost missed it.

  “They died because they failed?” Nyquist repeated.

  Uzvaan nodded, his face so tense that his eyes had narrowed.

  “Isn’t it more accurate to say that you and the other survivors killed them?” Nyquist asked.

  “No,” Uzvaan said.

  “Then how did they die?” Nyquist asked.

  “They failed,” Uzvaan repeated. Then he spoke the Peytin phrase he had used the day before, which Popova had translated as You can’t have a failure in a unit.

  “So it’s okay to kill someone if they fail,” Nyquist said. “Because you were told it was all right?”

  Uzvaan’s skin had turned
a bluish gray wherever it was visible. Nyquist had never seen anything like it, but he sensed it meant extreme distress. He wondered if he was pushing Uzvaan too hard.

  “We were raised,” Uzvaan said, “in a controlled environment. Failure was not possible, and that included a failure to follow orders.”

  “So,” Nyquist said. “Murder for you was something you did when ordered.”

  Uzvaan’s color grew even darker.

  “Never mind,” Nyquist said. “You don’t have to answer that because your behavior last week makes the answer obvious. Of course you can be ordered to murder someone. You’ve done it all your life.”

  “Failures are not ‘someone,’” Uzvaan said in a small voice. “They have lost the right to exist.”

  Nyquist paused. The next logical question—if this were a standard interrogation—would be more of a statement. But you’re a failure now, right? You didn’t achieve your goal as destroyer of the Moon.

  But he didn’t dare say that. What if he pushed Uzvaan into killing himself, made Uzvaan realize that he should have died because he had done something wrong?

  Still, Nyquist couldn’t resist one question. Or perhaps it was more of a jab.

  “So, you clones are supposed to die if you failed at something,” he said slowly, “and to succeed at destroying the Moon, you would have died as well. Does that mean if you succeeded in destroying the Moon, you were a failure? There seems to be no logic to this. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Of course it does, Detective.” Uzvaan spoke with great sarcasm, but his expression hadn’t altered. Was that what Peyti looked like when they were sad? “It makes sense if one does not think of us as individuals, but as tools. One tosses out tools that do not work. Tools designed for a single purpose only achieve that purpose, often through their own destruction.”

  “Like bombs,” Nyquist said.

  “Like bombs,” Uzvaan agreed.

  Nyquist let the words hang for a moment. They left him shaken. Clearly Uzvaan had thought this through. Why wouldn’t he? He’d had a lot of time alone in this place.

  “When did you realize you were an individual and not a weapon?” Nyquist asked.

  Uzvaan shook his head ever so slightly. “Your question is incorrect, Detective. I was always a weapon.”

  Nyquist was not going to repeat that question. It showed too much empathy, and that bothered him. So he just waited to see if Uzvaan would answer anyway.

  “It is a mistake, in my opinion, not that my opinion is worth much any longer,” Uzvaan said, looking down, “to set the timer on a weapon for decades instead of minutes.”

  Nyquist studied Uzvaan. Uzvaan still wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  “I had time to contemplate,” Uzvaan said. “I learned, when I came to the Moon, when I realized that no one here knew what I was, that I could be seen as something other than a clone. I achieved respect. I achieved position. I achieved a life.”

  Nyquist swallowed. He was frowning. “Then why did you continue with the plan?”

  “You act like I had a choice,” Uzvaan said.

  “You did,” Nyquist snapped. Both words were filled with fury. He couldn’t suppress it.

  Uzvaan shook his head again. The human movement was, apparently, the best way he could express himself, at least with this.

  “I did not think I had a choice,” Uzvaan said. “I would contemplate abandoning the mission, and then I would think what fools you all were to believe I was a legitimate Peyti, a real lawyer, someone who was a true individual.”

  “You were,” Nyquist said.

  “No.” Uzvaan raised his head. His eyes were blue-tinged again. “I have thought on this long and hard, Detective. It is the point that vexes me the most.”

  He paused. Nyquist wondered if Uzvaan would continue, or if Nyquist should push him. Nyquist had never been this emotionally conflicted in an interview, nor had he felt like so much was at stake.

  Apparently, Uzvaan didn’t notice Nyquist’s conflict.

  “I was trained, from the beginning, from the moment of conception—however you measure that—to believe I had no worth. I had a purpose, and only in achieving that purpose would I obtain—again, your language does not have the word.” Uzvaan said something in Peytin. “This word, it mixes what you call humanity, personhood, a soul, and legitimacy. It is the core of being a Peyti, something that no clone can ever achieve, or so I was raised.”

  “You just told me you could achieve it,” Nyquist said.

  “We were taught that we could achieve it through completion of our mission,” Uzvaan said. “It was the only way.”

  Nyquist blinked. He thought about it. He didn’t understand Peyti culture. He didn’t understand his own culture half the time. He could wander down this side corridor, or he could talk to Popova about it all, maybe get Jin Rastigan to weigh in.

  “It is a lie,” Uzvaan said. “I know that now.”

  Nyquist had been so lost in his own thoughts that he wasn’t sure what Uzvaan meant. “What’s a lie?”

  “That we could become—” And again, he used that Peytin word. “I have spent the last week wondering if I could have achieved it without ever doing what was asked of me. I wonder if as a lawyer, as an individual, if I had avoided my training, if I had done something different, would I have achieved this on my own?”

  Nyquist let the words hang. He needed the interrogation to move in a different direction, but he didn’t want to make Uzvaan more defensive than he already was.

  Finally, Nyquist said, “Have you spoken to any of the others about this?”

  “We are not allowed to consult,” Uzvaan said. “I imagine, however, that they are as shaken by their survival as I am. It is not something we were prepared for. It is not something we ever contemplated.”

  Nyquist nodded. He wondered if the police could use this before remembering that the police had no access to the clones.

  “So,” Nyquist said slowly. “This corporation, this so-called Legal Fiction. It raised you and you never questioned it.”

  “Did you question your parents, Detective?” Uzvaan asked.

  “They didn’t require me to murder people,” Nyquist snapped. He regretted the words the moment he spoke them.

  Uzvaan tilted his head, acknowledging the statement. The lawyer had returned. The vulnerable being, the one who no longer understood his place in the universe, had vanished.

  “For us,” Uzvaan said slowly, as if Nyquist were particularly dumb, “such behavior was normal. We did not know differently.”

  Nyquist felt a flash of irritation. He had always felt that sort of irritation when he interviewed criminals who blamed their crimes on their upbringing. Although part of his mind was telling him that Uzvaan had a point. Uzvaan had been groomed to behave exactly as he had. As if he were a computer, programmed for destruction.

  Nyquist tamped down the irritation. Peyti were not computers any more than humans were. And Nyquist believed that every creature had a choice in its behavior—within certain biological limitations, of course.

  He asked, “When you went to law school and you learned that killing other Peyti was not only illegal, it was a major crime, when you learned that your original, Uzvekmt, was considered the most foul of all Peyti because he was a mass murderer, how did you reconcile that with your training?”

  “I did not know who my original was,” Uzvaan said. “Not for decades, and even then, I was not sure I believed it.”

  Denial. Apparently the Peyti were as good at it as humans. Nyquist threaded his fingers together so that his hands wouldn’t form fists.

  “As for murder,” Uzvaan said. “The first thing we learned in law school, long before we learned any actual law, was that different cultures abide by different rules. What is heinous in one culture is commonplace in another. It is a tenet of the Earth Alliance, no?”

  And that was why Nyquist hated talking to lawyers. They answered a question with a question.

  “You believed,” Nyquist
said slowly, “that you were raised in a different culture from other Peyti?”

  “I was raised in a different culture,” Uzvaan said. “It was obvious. I was a boy raised among other boys. The standard Peyti upbringing mixes genders. I was raised in private schools, with special teachers. We were taught that it was akin to what many of the religious upbringings other cultures—including your own—provide. So I believed in our traditions, and felt we were excused for them.”

  “When did you learn otherwise?” Nyquist asked.

  “Anniversary Day,” Uzvaan whispered.

  Nyquist sat, stunned and silent. He had expected a different answer—law school itself, something, not six months ago.

  “Anniversary Day?” He finally managed.

  Uzvaan’s entire face had turned blue again. “I realize it will seem odd, but when I saw the clones of Frémont, I understood that we were not special. We were merely tools, vessels, weapons.”

  “And still, you put on that bomb. You tried to kill everyone at the police station.”

  “What choice did I have, Detective?”

  Nyquist couldn’t stand it any longer. He stood and paced around that tiny bubble. If he had been in the same bubble as Uzvaan, he would have grabbed the bastard by the head and slammed it against the desk, then asked, What choice did I have, you asshole?

  But he couldn’t reach through the walls between them.

  Nyquist’s stomach churned, and he had to swallow hard to prevent himself from throwing up.

  He took a deep, shaky breath. He needed to calm himself.

  He had been sent here for answers.

  He couldn’t get them without asking the questions.

  One of the guards flashed a message across its forehead. Is the interview complete?

  Nyquist shook his head.

  It hadn’t even begun.

  He returned to his chair and steeled himself.

  He would get through this.

  Somehow.

  FIVE

  SHE WOKE UP screaming.

  Talia Flint-Shindo sat up in her darkened bedroom, throat raw, and hoped her dad hadn’t heard. She didn’t want to worry him. More than that, she didn’t want him tearing in here in the pretend-non-panic mode that he’d been affecting since the Peyti Crisis had begun.