[He knows that's a thing some of these worlds have with their laws. Their overly complicated legal systems. It's all alien to him, hard to wrap his head around. It's so impersonal. It's so strange that societies don't have people who just...admit wrongdoing to each other and fix it.]
[They need Deciders. People that argue, people that pick the right truth like the truth isn't just the truth.]
[He thinks about the things he read about clones, but as used in stories. The stuff he read said it was about exploitation. Using people for things. That...that isn't impossible to wrap his head around. Not entirely.]
[People as a commodity is something he can grasp.]
They use the other clones for things, don't they. Like they're not people.
[There is no yelling. His voice stays gentle.]
[And he doesn't ask the question "Did someone try to treat you that way too?" He already has the answer. In the shaking, and crying out, in the way he's pulling his hair. It'd be like someone asking Branch's younger self, as he frantically dug into the dirt to hide, if something had ever traumatized him.]
[Lucky's father had been there - protecting him, probably, as fathers do. But for whatever reason, maybe that protection was gone. And then what was left after? If a world didn't see his kind as a person?]
Look, I can't speak for that guy and about what the clone thing means to him. But if it means to some people that you're not a person, and that they can force you to do things somehow, whoever thinks that is wrong.
[Maybe in Lucky's mind, clone = unperson, but to anyone else here, not from his world, the math ain't mathin'.]
I know you feel trapped. If I thought it wouldn't just get us killed, I'd still take you somewhere else, if it was what you really wanted.
[He tries to find the right words.]
But we're not like this...judge, though. Whoever they are. We're just trying to keep you safe. Even Miguel...I think he's trying to give you structure, like the kind you have in a normal life, before anything bad happens. He's just dumb and bossy about it.
I know it's hard to believe because I've had to work so hard at believing it myself, but...I think maybe people are telling the truth that nobody wants to hurt either of us.
no subject
[He knows that's a thing some of these worlds have with their laws. Their overly complicated legal systems. It's all alien to him, hard to wrap his head around. It's so impersonal. It's so strange that societies don't have people who just...admit wrongdoing to each other and fix it.]
[They need Deciders. People that argue, people that pick the right truth like the truth isn't just the truth.]
[He thinks about the things he read about clones, but as used in stories. The stuff he read said it was about exploitation. Using people for things. That...that isn't impossible to wrap his head around. Not entirely.]
[People as a commodity is something he can grasp.]
They use the other clones for things, don't they. Like they're not people.
[There is no yelling. His voice stays gentle.]
[And he doesn't ask the question "Did someone try to treat you that way too?" He already has the answer. In the shaking, and crying out, in the way he's pulling his hair. It'd be like someone asking Branch's younger self, as he frantically dug into the dirt to hide, if something had ever traumatized him.]
[Lucky's father had been there - protecting him, probably, as fathers do. But for whatever reason, maybe that protection was gone. And then what was left after? If a world didn't see his kind as a person?]
Look, I can't speak for that guy and about what the clone thing means to him. But if it means to some people that you're not a person, and that they can force you to do things somehow, whoever thinks that is wrong.
[Maybe in Lucky's mind, clone = unperson, but to anyone else here, not from his world, the math ain't mathin'.]
I know you feel trapped. If I thought it wouldn't just get us killed, I'd still take you somewhere else, if it was what you really wanted.
[He tries to find the right words.]
But we're not like this...judge, though. Whoever they are. We're just trying to keep you safe. Even Miguel...I think he's trying to give you structure, like the kind you have in a normal life, before anything bad happens. He's just dumb and bossy about it.
I know it's hard to believe because I've had to work so hard at believing it myself, but...I think maybe people are telling the truth that nobody wants to hurt either of us.