Vigilantes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Read Free Book Online Page B

hadn’t done anything.
    His shirt was wet. His entire body was wet with something warm and sticky.
    The coffee, probably. It was the only thing he’d been holding.
    Coffee. And not very good coffee.
    He wanted to say, Stop, please. I’m only doing my job . Instead, he coughed out some—coffee? Too thick to be coffee. Tasted of rust or iron or something metallic. And it bubbled up from inside, but he wasn’t throwing up, was he?
    The very thought made him hurt.
    Something landed on his back, but he only knew that because his entire body bounced. He couldn’t feel the weight or the ground or anything. He heard more snapping, but didn’t know where it came from.
    His right eye was completely closed now and his left was pressed against the ground. He couldn’t see these attackers. He had no idea who they were. They hadn’t been on the street a moment before.
    He had watched to make sure he wasn’t followed. He hadn’t heard any footsteps except his own.
    He’d ordered lunch for the staff.
    He was a good man.
    Really.
    Why couldn’t they see that?
    He didn’t deserve this.
    He tried to tell them, but they kept kicking him, these anonymous people, these shoed feet, these attackers. They were talking, but he couldn’t hear them.
    He didn’t want to hear them.
    If they wouldn’t let him talk, he wouldn’t listen to them either.
    He closed his left eye, feeling the eyelashes scrape against the sidewalk, and heard himself grunt. Another kick, apparently. He was going to ignore it.
    It was happening to someone else.
    Things always happened to someone else.
    That was why lawyers existed. To handle disputes.
    Not kickers. Not attackers. These people should have visited the law firm. He could have helped them.
    He shuddered, wondering if someone at S 3 would take their case.
    Couldn’t, though.
    Conflict of interest.
    Conflict.
    Interest.
    He sighed, then decided to worry about the legal side of it later.
    Later.
    After he woke up.

 
     
     
     
    SEVEN
     
     
    NYQUIST STARED AT the Peyti clone across from him. Uzvaan’s face was still blue with shame, his hands at his sides. The android guards had returned to their corners.
    It almost felt like Nyquist and Uzvaan were alone inside this watery tunnel, linked by their gigantic environmental bubbles.
    “Let’s go back to law school,” Nyquist said, as if Uzvaan hadn’t sickened him a moment before. “Who paid for your education?”
    “The corporation,” Uzvaan said.
    “Under what name?” Nyquist asked.
    Uzvaan said the Peytin name again.
    “No one questioned the name Legal Fiction, sending kids who looked alike to law school?” Nyquist asked.
    Apparently Uzvaan did not see the irony, because he continued to stare at Nyquist.
    “Our schools do not use DNA for identification,” Uzvaan said. “It is considered a violation of privacy. And how we appear is our business. Like your enhancements are.”
    “I was talking about the name,” Nyquist said. “Legal Fiction.”
    “The name has other meanings,” Uzvaan said. “I cannot vouch for the schools. I can merely assume that they chose to accept a different meaning for the name.”
    “School s ,” Nyquist said. “They sent you all to different schools?”
    “Yes,” Uzvaan said. “There are thousands of law schools on Peyla and even more off Peyla that cater to Peyti. All law schools must include an Earth Alliance track.”
    “You didn’t go to school with the other members of your—what do you call it? Team? Unit?”
    “No, we did not go to school together,” Uzvaan said quietly.
    “That must have felt odd,” Nyquist said.
    “We were prepared for it,” Uzvaan said. “We were removed from the compound in our last year, and trained one on one.”
    “In bomb-making?”
    “In Peyti standard curriculum,” Uzvaan said. “We were tested rigorously in it.”
    “And if you failed—?”
    “I did not fail,” Uzvaan said. The lawyer never entirely left him. It was deeply a part of him, perhaps