Vigilantes Read Online Free PDF Page B

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