Read Online A Murder of Clones: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Free Book Online Page A

and the boy. Okani confirmed what Uzven had told her: the boy would not answer anything until he had a guarantee of protection and safety from “other humans.”
    “Not all humans,” she said.
    “That’s where it gets difficult.” Okani’s face was in shadow, his voice masked. “The Eaufasse believe that there is no distinction among humans.”
    “I don’t care what the Eaufasse believe,” she said. “I care what the boy believes. He should know the difference between ‘all humans’ and ‘other humans.’”
    “He should also not be fluent in Fasse,” Okani said. “You are splitting hairs here.”
    “I am not,” she said, “because he did not ask for asylum.”
    “To my knowledge,” Okani said, “the Eaufasse do not have that word in their language.”
    “What about a comparable word?”
    Okani sighed. “I know Fasse pretty well, but not that well. Let me listen to everything you have. I’ll tell you the context when I arrive.”
    “I need context,” she said, “but I can’t send you the rest of the footage through an open link. We’ll do the work after you arrive.”
    He agreed, and they signed off.
    He wouldn’t arrive for another ten hours. That gave her two hours to show him the rest of the interrogation footage. Even if she didn’t like him after he arrived, his initial answers calmed some of her fears.
    She had received two interpretations of the boy’s words, and in both cases, she was told he wanted protection and safety. She understood why he would want that, given what she had seen on the other surveillance footage.
    In fact, the surveillance footage had calmed even more of her concerns. She would have asked for “protection and safety” as well, after what happened.
    While she waited, she went back to the footage.
    The surveillance footage tracked all four boys from the moment they left the enclave. She assumed that tiny individual cameras followed all of the boys, but she did not know that for certain. She did know that a single camera had followed the surviving boy to an Eaufasse outpost. When the boy reached the outpost, he had stood as plants grew around him, rising upward, touching the door itself. He didn’t seem to mind. Then the door opened and he went inside.
    The other boys did not go with him. Nor did the plants help them like they seemed to help the first boy. The other boys ran in a group, slowing as the plants grabbed at them. She was convinced now that those plants were actual creatures, convinced that they were somehow impeding the boys’ progress for reasons she didn’t understand.
    When the twelve other boys appeared outside the enclave hours later, she froze their images and enlarged them.
    Her breath caught. Those boys, all twelve of them, looked the same as the four.
    The only difference was the twelve had laser rifles.
    They stalked the path left by the four boys, not noticing where the single boy had split off. The path left by the three was obvious. The same plants grabbed at the twelve, holding them and pushing them at the same time. But the twelve had weaponry, and when they reached the top of the ridge, she knew without looking that they could see the three.
    And then all twelve shot at the same time, then shot again. She knew the pattern. She could even count it down.
    It was an execution; all twelve shot together so none of them would get credit for the actual kill.
    She was glad she had watched the footage alone; it had left her shaken.
    She had met clones before. If they knew the other clones with whom they shared DNA, they called themselves siblings. The word was a little off. The clones she had met were closer than most siblings, often completing each other’s thoughts. The only time she had ever seen clones raised together that didn’t get along, the clones had been victims of a poor cloning process.
    She was making assumptions here, and she knew it: she didn’t know if these sixteen clones were raised together or even if they were from the