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"I have excellent impulse control," he says. "And very few impulses to kill people."

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"Most people have their souls driving. I've occasionally speculated about what I'd wind up like if I were turned, and I'm not sure, but the statistics don't look good. I still don't know why you're different."

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"I invite you to speculate."

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"I could guess at near random. I don't think I have the data to produce anything I'd dignify with the label 'speculation'."

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"Don't you? Review the facts, then."

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"I could attempt to correlate your irregularities with each other. But I don't know how you were cloned, why you present yourself as Sherlock Holmes when you are not disguised as John Escott, or what led you to kill the vampires who turned you - I could tell myself a story about the last, but only at the risk of anthropomorphizing you more than I'm confident about doing."

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"You know that I present myself as Sherlock Holmes, that I seem more or less able to back it up, and that I probably didn't come by any of that naturally," he says. "What does that tell you?"

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"That I would need to know something about your unconventional and not-public-record upbringing to complete the puzzle," says Bella. "I gather that your education was accelerated and abnormally effective at rendering you able to act like you're sixteen when you're actually however old you are; I surmise that you were secluded until you caught up with Tony, or maybe only went out places you wouldn't be recognized; none of this spells 'fictional British detective' to me. Haven't you ever heard of the illusion of transparency? You obviously have an above-average ability to piece together clues about the world around you, but do note that you've never had to, in complete ignorance, figure out the history of your own life."

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"I chose the name Sherlock Holmes and everything that went with it, and then I learned it all. My personal hypothesis - and granted I have only the one case to study - is that my identity survived the turning process so well because I built it myself from scratch. Not completely, of course, but nearly so."

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"Interesting choice. Why?"

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"I didn't have a name to start with, and we run spectacular in my family."

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She blinks.

"He didn't name you?"
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"He was twelve," says Sherlock. "He cloned himself because he was bored and lonely and wanted to see if he could. And then he defaulted to the reflex that afflicts so many geniuses - when confronted with a problem whose solution is not immediately obvious, give up completely." He shrugs.

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"Lonely children who content themselves with stuffed animals manage to name them, if not necessarily with care or creativity. I would be disappointed but not appalled if he had decided to call you 'Cloney'. Calling you nothing at all is a step beyond that."

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"I'm actually quite glad, on balance, that he didn't name me the way he would a stuffed animal."

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"Yes, I suppose that's reasonable."

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He shrugs.

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"Well. My anthropomorphizing notions take a bit of a hit on learning this tidbit about your relationship with your - whatever."

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"Our relationship improved in subsequent years."

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"Could it have possibly done otherwise?"

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"Oh, I'm sure it could. He did like me, even if he hadn't the faintest idea what to do with me."

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"Ah. And then eventually you got along well enough to appear together in public."

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"Eventually yes. And to appear together in private, for that matter," he says dryly.

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Bella snorts.

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Sherlock laughs.

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