eVersion 2.0 - see revision notes at end of text 

eVersion 2.0 - see revision notes at end of text 

by 

H. W. Jeter 
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 
After..... 


Living and unliving things are exchanging properties . . . 

Philip K. Dick 

A Scanner Darkly 

Los Angeles - August, 2020 

1..... 

When every murder seems the same, it's time to quit. 

"That's good advice," Bryant told himself. "I'll drink to that." A hard swallow, and jellied 
gasoline spread across his ulcer; he could barely breathe as he set the small glass back down 
on the desk and poured another shot. "That's why I went to a desk job." 

The sticky-backed slip of paper, with its words of wisdom, floated at his vision's limit. 
He had pulled open the bottom drawer to fetch the square bottle out, and the past had clung 
to it like his own half-shed snakeskin. Every brilliant thought, 3 A.M. illumination, 
unacted-upon suicide note, he'd pitched in there. Until the drawer held a shifting dune of 
yellow scraps, the residuum of his entire goddamn cop career, that plus enough cash in the 
pension plan to blow his nose on. The drawer's slips of paper, some carefully folded, some 
wadded up, were an exact replica of the contents of his skull; if the police department's shrinks 
ever looked inside either one, they'd ship him out on a permanent psychiatric leave so fast . . . 

"Bastards." Between one thought and another, the glass had drained itself again, without 
him noticing. Bryant dug a finger into the loose wattle of his throat and tugged his necktie 


loose. The station's oxygen, soured with pheromones of fear and despair, trickled into his 
lungs. The fan on top of the filing cabinet struggled to move the dust heavy air. 

loose. The station's oxygen, soured with pheromones of fear and despair, trickled into his 
lungs. The fan on top of the filing cabinet struggled to move the dust heavy air. 

"You drink too much." 

Bryant knew that wasn't his own voice. None of the voices inside him would ever have 
said anything that stupid. He squinted to bring the distant side of the office into focus. By the 
fall of shadow across cheekbone he recognized the other person. 

"I drink," Bryant answered, "because I must. I'm dehydrated." 

That was true at least. He'd come back into the cathedral cavern of the station from a 
department funeral, standing under the battering sun while one of their own had been dropped 
into an empty rectangle of earth. That stupid sonuvabitch Gaff had finally managed to talk a 
bullet into his gut, big enough that he could've been buried in two boxes. A double row of the 
department's ceremonial honor guard had lifted their silver-lensed faces to the sky, fired, 
reholstered their weapons, turned on their shining boot heels, and marched away. He had felt 
blood-warm sweat crawling under his collar. 

He'd stood looking down at the brass plate in the raw dirt and dead-yellow grass after 
everybody else had left. The inscription under Gaff's name was in that infuriating affected 
cityspeak. That was when he'd really been sorry about the heat wringing him dry: otherwise, 
he could've whipped it out and written his own name across the steaming metal. He'd never 
liked Gaff. 

The other person in the office inhaled, exhaled smoke; the slowly pivoting fan smeared it 
into blue haze. "If whiskey were water, you could've swam to China by now." A thin smile 
moved behind the cigarette. 

"Tell you what. You can help save me. From drowning." He brought the second glass 
from the drawer, set it beside his own, filled it; he watched as the other person drew it back 
beyond the desk lamp's reach. "It's a bad habit to drink alone." 

"Then you should try to keep your friends longer." 

"I never had any." Bryant's turn to smile, all nicotine teeth and too-bright eyes. "Just the 
poor bastards who work for me." Another fiery swallow. "And blade runners are too far along 
the Curve to be anybody's friend." 

A smile even colder than his. "That's their excuse, too." 

He looked away from the other, toward the pitched blinds covering the office's windows. 
Through their narrow apertures -- not the L.A. night, stifling in airless heat -- the darker 
spaces of the police station's ground floor were visible. When he'd come back from the 
funeral, thirsting and radiating contempt for the department's goddamn primitive blood rituals 
-- When I buy it, he'd fiercely mused, they can just throw what's left of me in the dumpsters 
out back -- he'd walked by members of the elite squads, tall and sweatless in their jackboots 
and black-polished gear. He'd felt like a rumpled bug next to them, their hard-edged gaze 
setting a needle's point between his shoulder blades. Pinned beneath the contempt of the 
fiercely beautiful, he'd scuttled into the decaying security of his office and moved his drinking 
schedule up an hour's notch. 

Goddamn stormtroopers -- they were all gone now, black leather angels drawn upward 
through the police station's spiral of floors by the setting sun. In this season the dry winds 
rolling over the horizon brought the night temperature down to the mid-nineties; that was low 
enough for the city's life to creep out of its holes, and the patrol units to fan out across the sky. 
To watch and descend . . . 

"It was raining then." Bryant murmured the words against the rim of his glass. "I 
remember . . ." L.A.'s monsoons, the storm chain across the Pacific, Bangkok its terminal link. 
Memory flash like ball lightning: he could see himself turning back toward the spinner as diluted 


blood threaded into the gutters, leaving that poor bastard standing there. The watchcam's tape 
had caught his words: Drink some for me, pal. That was his standard advice to everyone. 

blood threaded into the gutters, leaving that poor bastard standing there. The watchcam's tape 
had caught his words: Drink some for me, pal. That was his standard advice to everyone. 

That'd been a long time ago, when it'd been raining. "Not that long . . ." A whisper, as he 
set the empty glass down on the desk. His vision shifted from memory to the dim, 
high-ceilinged space beyond the blinds. Abandoned now, locked down, sealed tight . . . 

Another thought troubled Bryant, an itch inside his skull. He swiveled the chair around. 
"How did you get in here?" 

"There are ways." The person in the shadows regarded the glass held in one hand. "There 
are always ways. You know that." 

"Yeah, I guess so." It'd been the wrong question. "But why? Why'd you come here? I 
never expected to see you here again." 

"I brought you something." 

He watched as the glass, its contents barely sipped, was set down beside his own. The 
other person leaned back in the chair, reaching inside the jacket and bringing out a handful of 
black metal. His breath stopped in his throat when he saw what it was. 

There wasn't time for another breath. The shot echoed in the office, loud enough to 
clatter the blinds' knife edges against each other. 

The bullet struck his heart full-on, lifting him from his chair, splaying his arms, stretching 
his throat taut as his head snapped backward. He saw a red spatter write over the acoustic 
tiles' map of stained islands. 

What a surprise, thought Bryant. The chair toppled over, spilling him onto the office's 
floor, where he marveled at this new darkness that washed over him. The last seconds of 
consciousness became elastic, stretched out as he'd always been told they would. But I 
should've . . . I should've known . . . 

He saw the other's face float above him, making sure that he was dead. Or as good as. 
A yellow scrap of paper, with something that had once seemed important on it, drifted against 
his numbed fingertips. 

The blinds had stopped rattling, the shot's echo fading in the empty reaches of the police 
station. From far away, Bryant heard the office door pulled open, the other's footsteps 
departing. 

His mouth welled with blood he couldn't swallow. His last thought was that he wished he 
could shout, to call after the one who was already gone . . . 

So he could say how truly grateful he was. 

2..... 

A razor of light cut the sky. 

Deckard looked up through the interlaced branches, the dense weave of the forest. In 
silence; whatever had left the hair-thin wound in the night, fire leaking through, was too far 
away to hear. He tracked its progress beneath the stars' cold points: from south to north, 
banking east. From L.A., then; where else? 

The long spark faded, leaving a red trail more inside his own eye than in the upper 


atmosphere. He kept looking, head tilted back, as he knelt down to scoop more of the fallen 
wood into the bundle he already held against his chest. Whoever was up there had throttled 
the engines back from long -- to short-range; that was why the light streak had cut off so 
abruptly. The spinner could descend anywhere within a hundred kilometers from this point. 

atmosphere. He kept looking, head tilted back, as he knelt down to scoop more of the fallen 
wood into the bundle he already held against his chest. Whoever was up there had throttled 
the engines back from long -- to short-range; that was why the light streak had cut off so 
abruptly. The spinner could descend anywhere within a hundred kilometers from this point. 

Silence, except for the smaller creatures that crept through the mat of dead leaves and 
pine needles beneath his feet. Once more, he glanced at the bare night sky, then began the 
slow uphill trudge toward the cabin. 

"Honey, I'm home." 

It was a bad joke; the silence inside was the same as out. Why don't you put the gun to 
your head? That'd be just as funny. He pushed the plank door closed with his heel, and 
dumped the bundle into the corner by the rusting stove. He'd let the fire go out hours back; 
while he'd slept, his exhaled breath had formed ice on the one small window. He'd uncurled 
himself from the nest of blankets on the floor -- he always slept next to the black coffin, as 
though he could wrap his arm around her shoulders and bring her close to himself, hold her 
without killing her, merge his wordless dreaming with hers while the clock hands scraped away 
the last minutes of her life. 

But instead he slept alone except for his own hand pressed against the machine's cold 
metal, as though he could feel through the layers of microcircuitry the glaciated pulse of her 
heart, hear the sighing breaths that took hours to complete . . . 

Once, nearly a year ago, he'd pulled the cabin's rickety wooden chair beside the coffin, 
sat and watched the imperceptible motion of her breast, rising with the microscopic pace of 
her oxygen intake. Holding himself as still as possible, leaning forward with his chin braced 
against his doubled fists, so he could detect through the coffin's glass lid the slow workings of 
her semilife. When he'd sat back, one full cycle of her respiration later, shadows had filled both 
the room and the hollow space between his lungs . . . 

He got the fire in the stove lit, adjusted the dampers, and stood up. For a moment he 
warmed his hands, spine hunched inside the long coat that had served him well enough in the 
city but was completely inadequate up here. He rubbed the forest's chill from his bloodless 
fingers, then glanced over his shoulder. She was still sleeping, and dying, as he'd left her. As 
she would be until he woke her up, not with a kiss, but a minute adjustment inside the coffin's 
control panel. 

"There--" He spoke aloud. "That's better." Not to hear his own voice in the silence, but 
to remember hers. What it had sounded like. What it would sound like, the next time. On the 
window glass the crystals of ice melted into cold tears. 

"Let's see how you're doing." Yeah, you're a riot, all right. His hands had unstiffened 
enough that he could take care of her, the only way that was left to him. He knelt down beside 
the black coffin, the way he had in front of the woodstove; the pair of low trestles that he'd 
hammered together raised the device off the cabin's unswept floor. With his fingernail he pried 
back the panel's edge. "Running a little high on the metabolics . . ." He'd become so familiar 
with the workings, the revealed gauges and readouts, that he could monitor them without 
bringing over the kerosene lantern from the table. "It's all right," he murmured. As though 
leaning down in absolute darkness to find a kiss. "I'll take care of them for you." With one 
fingertip, he brought the LED numbers to what they should be, then closed the panel. 

On the wall above the coffin, he'd hung a calendar that'd been left behind by the cabin's 
previous occupants, whoever they'd been. When he and Rachael had come to this place, there 
hadn't even been spiders in the ancient webs along the ceiling. The calendar was way 
out-of-date, two decades old, a faded holo shot of the millennium's celebratory riots in New 
York's Times Square. It didn't matter; all he used it for was to mark off the days, the interval 


that the still-rational part of his head had ordained, until the next time he'd wake her up. 

that the still-rational part of his head had ordained, until the next time he'd wake her up. 

Now it was every two months, for twelve hours. A decision they'd made together, the 
grim economy of her death. No, he thought. Mine. 

He stood back up. The calendar's numbers, black beneath the X's he'd scrawled with a 
half-charred scrap from the woodstove, stood in neat graveyard rows on the curling page. 
Two and a half weeks until the next time they could be together. 

Restless, he walked outside the cabin again. In the narrow cathedral of trees he touched 
the gun inside his jacket. And wondered why he didn't just end it now. 

"I know what's on your mind." A voice spoke from behind him. 

He felt another's hand touch his shoulder. He didn't dare look around. Because he knew 
the voice. 

Her voice. 

"I bet you do," replied Deckard. Weariness swept over him, a last defeat. He'd hoped 
he'd be dead before he got to the point where he began to hallucinate. In the moon's shadows 
the small creatures scurried away through the dead leaves, as though in holy dread. "Since 
you're just something inside my head, anyway." 

"Am I?" A soft whisper, as he felt the hand -- her hand -- brush the side of his neck. 
"How do you know?" 

He sighed. This would be the absolute dead end of his luck, to wind up arguing logic with 
his own hallucinations. "Because," he said, still not turning around. "Because you sound just 
like Rachael. And she's already lying in her coffin, as good as dead." 

"Then look at me. You don't have to be afraid." 

The hand's touch dropped away from his neck. He turned, slowly, first bringing his gaze 
around. To see her; to complete the hallucination. He saw Rachael standing there beside him in 
the darkness, her skin paled beyond death by the moon's partial spectrum. Her dark hair was 
swept back, the precise arrangement he remembered from the first time he had ever seen her, 
in another life, a world far and different from this one; the way she had worn her hair then, 
walking across the deep-shadowed spaces of the Tyrell Corporation's offices. 

"What do you see?" she asked. 

"I see you, Rachael. That's how I know I've lost it. My mind." Grief and loneliness had 
won, had walked through and left open all the small doors inside his head, the doors torn from 
their hinges. So that there were no divisions anymore, between what he wished for and what 
he perceived. "This is what's called being insane," he told the image he saw standing before 
him. "I don't care. You win." 

A sad smile lifted a corner of the image's mouth. The image of the woman he loved. "Is 
there no possibility?" The image of Rachael touched his hand, fingertips cold against his skin. 
"That I could be real?" 

"Oh, sure." The thought didn't cheer him. "I could be screwing up some other way." His 
eyes and other senses lying to him, traitor thoughts. "Maybe you really are here -- but where I 
lost it was back in the cabin, when I was taking care of you. I thought I kept the controls set 
for you to go on sleeping -- but maybe that's where I was hallucinating." A theory good as 
any. "Maybe I really set it so you'd wake up again. And you did, and here you are." He found 
himself wishing it were true. That she had woken up in the empty cabin, bound her hair the 
way she used to wear it, then came and found him out here in the dark. "It'd be nice if you 
were real. We could stay out here and look at the stars . . . all night long." He took her hand in 
his. "But . . che gelida manina." He used to pick that one out by ear on the piano in his flat, 
back in L.A.; everybody's first opera tune. "'Your little hand is frozen.'" 

"Don't bother translating. I know the words." A hard edge crept under her voice. "And I 


don't mind the cold." 

don't mind the cold." 

"You poor, stupid son of a bitch. You're pathetic." She slapped the gun from his hand, 
sending it spinning into the darkness. "Why do you blade runners always wind up so ready to 
off yourselves?" The voice's edge sharpened to a withering contempt. 

The gun was lost somewhere in the forest's mat of rotting leaves. So she must be real, he 
thought. He would never have gone so crazy as to have thrown the gun away himself. You lost 
your final option if you did that. 

"It's the Curve." He looked back around at her. "What they call the Wambaugh Curve. 
That's why. You land far enough along it, and you start thinking suicide's a good idea. Unless 
you got a reason not to." 

"Cop mysticism. Spare me." She shook her head. "You were burned out a long time 
ago." She peered more closely at him. "So what was your reason?" 

"You were, Rachael." The absent gun still seemed to weigh against his chest. "Even 
before I met you." 

"How sweet." She reached up and laid her hand against his cheek; if he'd turned his head 
only slightly, he could've kissed her palm. "Come on--" She drew the hand away. "Let's go up 
to the cabin." Walking toward the distant yellow spot of the lamp, she glanced over her 
shoulder and the furlike collar of her coat. "Oh . . . and you're wrong, by the way. I'm not 
Rachael." 

"What?" He stared after her. "What're you talking about?" 

"I'm Sarah." The bare trace of her smile, the tilt of her head, indicated an obscure victory. 
"I'm the real one." 

He watched her turn and start walking again. A moment later he followed after. 

"This is a spooky thing, isn't it?" She looked up from the coffin and toward him. "Don't 
you think so?" 

"I suppose." Standing by the woodstove, Deckard glanced over his shoulder. Past her, 
through the cabin's small window, he could see outside the dark bulk of the spinner the woman 
had piloted here. He'd been right about the trace of light he'd spotted in the night sky; its 
simple fiery word had been meant for him. Now he rubbed his hands, trying to get the stove's 
warmth deeper inside than his skin. "You live with the dead, you get used to things like that." 

"Not quite dead." When Sarah had entered the cabin, she'd walked over to the bulky 
device, knelt down by the low wooden trestles, and ran an expert scrutiny over the control 
panel's dials and gauges before standing back up. "Looks like you've been taking pretty good 
care of her. These transport sleep modules aren't all that easy to run." 

"It came with a manual." 

"Did it?" She nodded, impressed. "You must've hired yourself some fine thieves." She 
placed her hands flat against the glass lid and gazed down at the mirrorlike image of her own 
face. "Ones that good usually don't come cheap." 

"There were some old debts owed to me." He'd watched her, not sure what he felt at 
seeing a woman who looked like Rachael but wasn't. "From being in the business, you might 
say." Or was she? He didn't know yet. 

Sarah continued gazing at the sleeping woman inside the coffin. "New life," she 
murmured, brushing her hand across the glass, as though tenderly stroking a sister's brow. 


"'New life the dead receive . . .'" 

"'New life the dead receive . . .'" 

"Very good." She looked over at him. "Charles Wesley -- O, for a thousand tongues to 
sing. Most people don't know any eighteenth-century hymns. Raised Protestant?" 

A shake of the head. "Not raised much of anything. Just like most people." 

"I suppose I got an overdose of it, from all those church boarding schools I was shuffled 
off to for so long. Most of my life, actually." She tilted her head to one side and smiled. "But 
then . . . that makes for a difference, doesn't it? Between me . . . and her." A sidelong glance 
down to the black coffin. "Your beloved Rachael wouldn't have known any Methodist hymn 
tunes, would she? The memory implant they gave her -- that part of it at least, it was all 
Roman Catholic, wasn't it?" 

He nodded. "Heavy Latin. Tridentine. The old stuff." 

"One of my uncle's clever little ideas. He wanted her to have some deep notion of guilt 
and redemption -- so he could control her more easily, I imagine. Doesn't seem to have 
worked." Sarah studied her double for a moment longer. "There were all sorts of concoctions 
inside her head, weren't there? I know about most of them. Including a brother for her that 
never existed." She watched her fingernail tap softly on the glass. "Really -- it's just as well that 
I'm an only child." 

He said nothing. He'd had a long time to get used to the notion of someone believing that 
her implanted memories were real. 

"Is that what you were hoping for? New life? Some cure for Rachael, some way of 
getting around that hard cutoff point, the four-year life span that was built into these Nexus-6 
replicants?" 

"No. I think we were both pretty well past that." He shrugged. "I'm not sure what we 
wanted. I knew that replicants are shipped from the Tyrell Corporation in these transport 
modules, so they'd arrive at the off-world colonies without most of their life spans being used 
up. I figured . . . why not? Just to make it seem longer, that she'd be with me. That's all." 

"I know what the modules are used for; you don't have to tell me." Sarah brushed her 
hand against her skirt, as though there had been dust on the coffin lid. "You realize, of course, 
that your being in possession of this device is a felony." The woman who had called herself 
Sarah regarded him with the same half smile, one that he had seen a long time before on 
Rachel's face. "You're not licensed for it. Plus, after all, it is Tyrell Corporation property." 

"What's that to you?" 

The smile that had been unamused before shifted and became even less. "Listen, 
Deckard -- if it's Tyrell property, then it's my property. Don't you know who I am?" 

"Sure." He gave a shrug. "You're some other replicant; probably out of the same 
Nexus-6 batch as her." A nod toward the coffin. "The Rachael batch. They must've sent you 
up here, figured that seeing you would fuck with my head." 

"Did it?" 

"Not much." He kept his voice flat, leeched emotionless. "I may not be a blade runner 
anymore, but I've still got some of my professional attitude left. I'm way past being surprised. 
By anything." Deckard studied his own hand, reddened by the woodstove's heat, before 
looking at her again. "You've got some problems, though. They must've programmed you for 
delusions of grandeur. Tyrell property doesn't belong to you. You belong to the corporation." 

"Your problem is that you don't listen." Ice at the center of her glare. "Didn't you hear 
what I said? I'm the real one. I'm Sarah Tyrell. The niece of Eldon Tyrell -- remember him? 
You should. You and all the rest of the LAPD's blade runners were about zero use in keeping 
every escaped replicant on the planet from just walking in and out of Tyrell headquarters. If 


you'd been doing your job, my uncle would still be alive." 

you'd been doing your job, my uncle would still be alive." 

"As I said." 

"The corporation should've sent you out with a better lie." He shook his head, almost 
feeling sorry for her, whatever she was. "Don't you think I pulled the department's file on the 
Tyrell family? I did that a long time ago, even before I left L.A. Eldon Tyrell had no nieces, 
nephews, kids of his own; nothing. Nada. He was the last of the line. Thank God." 

Her smile appeared again. "The police files have a hole in them. I was born off-world; 
there wouldn't be any record of me in the files, unless my uncle had wanted it to be there. And 
he had a thing for family privacy." 

"Good for, him. But the files include colony births. You could've been popped anywhere 
from Mars to the Outreaches, and you'd be in there." 

She half sat upon the edge of the coffin, the high-collared and expensive-looking coat 
falling open. "I wasn't born in any of the colonies." One hand brushed a fragment of blackened 
leaf from the synthetic fur. "But in transit. And not a U.N. ship. Private." 

"Impossible. There hasn't been a private spaceflight since . . ." 

"That's right." She knew -- he could see it -- that she had him then. "Since the Salander 

3. The last one before the U.N. clampdown on corporate interstellar travel. The last one, and 
it was a Tyrell operation. That's where I was born. On Tyrell Corporation property -- inside it, 
actually -- and way beyond U.N. jurisdiction." 
"The Salander 3 . . ." He nodded slowly, mulling the information over, trying to dredge up 
from little-used memory whatever he knew about it. The dates seemed right, just far enough 
back so that somebody could've been born aboard the craft and have grown into an adult by 
now. That wasn't the problem. 

Private-sector travel beyond the Earth's atmosphere had been forbidden by the U.N. 
authorities for a reason. And the Salander 3 had been it. A failed expedition to the Prox 
system, failed despite the billions that the Tyrell Corporation had poured into the effort . . . and 
that was about the limit of public knowledge, eroded even further by collective memory failure. 
But the police files on the matter weren't any better. Once, when he'd first started retiring 
escaped replicants for a living, he'd poked through the department's on-line files, looking for 
anything that'd help give him a handle on his walking, thinking prey. A search keyed on Tyrell 
gave him days' worth of the department's internal memos and reports, the corporation's own 
press releases, product schematics, research papers from their bioengineering labs . . . the 
works. Punching in Salander 3 had mired him in one screen after another of ACCESS 
DENIED and AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY flags, password requests way beyond 
his rank. He'd already been savvy enough about how the department worked to know that 
prying off a lid weighed down with that many alarms and padlocks would get him nothing but 
hex marks in his own personnel file. 

Going off-line and into the basement morgue of hard copy printouts had been even 
spookier. He could remember standing beside a battered metal cabinet, beneath low sizzling 
fluorescents, water dripping from a broken pipe to the already inch-deep concrete; standing 
there with a thin sheaf of dog-eared manila folders, all with some variation of Salander 3 at the 
top edge, all of them empty except for yellowed routing slips signed by long-retired secretarial 
staff, ghosts with initials . . . 

The memory flash rolled through his head, dark and jagged as photo-reverse lightning. 
Standing in the deepest department basement, dust sifting onto his shoulders from the vibration 
of the rep train hurtling through its own unlit tunnels, past the endless rows of tottering cabinets 
and the walls cryptically stained with black rot . . . The files had been pulled from on high, 
from the top government levels, like God reaching down into the affairs of men. And never 


returned; maybe they'd all been ashed the day after the one marked on the routing slips. That's 
what it'd be like to die, he'd thought then and now, or at least the old comforting notion of the 
process. You ascended, leaving your empty manila folder behind on the ground, but you didn't 
return, not ever. 

returned; maybe they'd all been ashed the day after the one marked on the routing slips. That's 
what it'd be like to die, he'd thought then and now, or at least the old comforting notion of the 
process. You ascended, leaving your empty manila folder behind on the ground, but you didn't 
return, not ever. 

He kept his eyes closed, walking around in those echoing rooms inside his head. A little 
more poking around online had brought him a few scraps: a low-rez news photo of the 
Salander 3's mission leaders, Anson Tyrell and his wife Ruth, setting out with big smiles for 
Proxima . . . and six years later, the day after the Salander 3 had come limping back to the 
docking terminals out at San Pedro, the notice of the cremation service for them. You didn't 
need cop savvy to get suspicious about that one. There wasn't a cover-up deep enough to 
keep corpses frozen between here and Prox from giving off the decayed smell of murder. 

And now he was standing here, decades and what might as well have been a world 
away, with their grown-up orphan child in front of him. 

"Listen, Deckard -- I don't have time for you to go fading out on me. There's never time 
for that." 

Her voice, the same as Rachael's but with a tighter and harder edge, stung him back into 
present time. He saw her still standing beside the black coffin. "So you're the daughter of 
Anson Tyrell -- is that it?" 

"Very good. You're up on your Tyrell genealogies. And since Eldon Tyrell was his only 
brother, and no other family besides me -- that means I am Tyrell now." Sarah's gaze set level 
into his. "I inherited the world's largest privately held corporation. The whole thing. Not bad." 

"But before that -- while your uncle was still alive -- he used you for . . . what's it called?" 
The specific word was stuck back in his memory and wouldn't come out. "The template?" 

"Templant. The term of art in the Tyrell labs is templant. As in replicant. And you're right 
-- that's what my uncle used me for. The source model for your Rachael." On her face, eyes 
narrowed, the partial smile was a knife wound even thinner. "And his." 

More spooky things, the creepy business of the dead -- he could hear them in her voice. 
"Were there others?" 

"Besides her?" She looked down past her hand on the coffin's glass lid, at the face of the 
sleeping, dying woman inside, then back up to him. She shook her head. "Just the one. 
Rachael wasn't what you'd call a production-line number. More of a custom job, if you know 
what I mean. For my uncle Eldon." 

He knew. He'd suspected as much, way back then in the city, when he'd gone to the 
Tyrell corporate headquarters and talked to the man. There'd been that sick jitter in the 
pillared office suite's atmosphere, a tension shimmer that cops, like dogs, could catch at the 
limit of their hearing. And Eldon Tyrell's smile, possessive and sated, the corners of his mouth 
pulled upward as if by invisible fishhooks. Every silent thing about him had given away the 
game. 

"I wouldn't have thought that'd be something a person like you would go along with. 
Being a templant." 

"Really, Deckard." She sounded almost pitying. "Not as if I had an option in the matter, is 
it? When my uncle was alive, you would've been right: I was Tyrell property. Meaning his. 
Besides, what would the alternative have been? Not being a templant -- and then there 
wouldn't have been any Rachael. There would've been just me. And him." 

He'd known all these things, or some of them at least, though Rachael hadn't told him. 
He'd known instead from her silence, from the way she would sometimes stiffen in his arms, 
turning her face away from his. Away from any man's face. 

"Maybe . . . maybe having a replicant of you made . . . maybe that was his way of 
showing that he did love you. After all." 

"Oh, he loved somebody all right." Her voice and gaze acidic. "It just wasn't me." 


The forest's silence seeped through the walls, congealing around every object, living or 
dead. He decided he didn't want to hear any more about this woman personal problems. He 
just wasn't sure he'd have that choice. 

The forest's silence seeped through the walls, congealing around every object, living or 
dead. He decided he didn't want to hear any more about this woman personal problems. He 
just wasn't sure he'd have that choice. 

"It was easy. After you made your mistake." She tapped a fingernail against the glass lid. 
"You'd pretty well disappeared, until you had this transport module stolen. For a cop, that 
wasn't a brilliant move. Did you really think your thief pals wouldn't be working for the 
corporation as well? They sold your ass to us two minutes after delivery had been made." 

Bound to happen, but he hadn't cared; just something else that there'd been no choice 
about. Either have the module stolen and brought to what had been their hiding place, or 
watch Rachael die, the remains of her four-year replicant life span dwindling the way snow 
melts on the ground. 

"That why you came here?" He pointed to the black coffin. "Want your property back? 
How about doing me a favor and letting me keep it for a few more months. It's not that much 
longer." 

"Keep it forever, for all I care. Bury her in it, if you want." She glanced down for a 
moment at her own sleeping face. "That's not why I wanted to find you." Her voice was softer, 
the sharp edge retracted. "I was in Zurich when . . . everything happened. One of my uncle's 
little minions flew out and told me that he was dead. I went back to Los Angeles and found 
out, the rest. There were tapes. And people who told me things. They told me about you. 
About you . . . and her." She regarded him for a moment, then stepped forward and took his 
hand, drawing him back with her toward the coffin. "Come here." 

Close to her, he watched as she let the coat fall away from her shoulders, revealing her 
naked arms, a thin gold circle dangling at one wrist. A scent of skin-warmed orchid breathed 
itself into his nostrils; he could taste it at the back of his throat. Sarah knelt down before him, 
touching him for a moment at his hips to balance herself. With her knees against the floor's 
rough planks, she reached behind her neck and undid her hair. With a shake of her head, it 
came loose, dark and soft against the paleness of her throat. 

"You see?" This close, her voice could be a whisper. She raised herself a little bit, just 
enough so she could lean across the coffin's glass lid, both hands against the smooth surface. 
She brought her face down against one arm, turning to look up at him. "It's perfect, isn't it?" 

He could see her face and Rachael's at the same time, separated by only a few inches. 
Sarah's gaze pierced him, held him; beneath the glass, the sleeping, dying woman with the 
same face, eyes closed, lips slightly parted to release an hours-long breath. Both women's hair 
was the same color, the same substance, across the coffin's pillow or the unmarked glass. He 
looked down, the world around him collapsed to a space even smaller than the cabin. 

"I wanted to know . . ." Sarah turned the side of her face against the glass, so she could 
look at her own image beneath. "It sounded so strange . . . that you could love something . . . 
that wasn't real. What could that be like . . ." She raised her head, her gaze catching onto his 
again. "Not for you. For her." 

"I don't know." Deckard slowly shook his head. "She never told me." 

"Well . . . there's a lot you don't know." Sarah stood up, reaching down to brush the 
floor's dust from the edge of her skirt. She picked up her coat and folded it around herself. 
The same chill as before touched her voice. "That's really why I came here -- to tell you that. 
There's a lot you don't know yet. But you're going to find out." 

She walked past him, pulling open the cabin's door and stepping out into the darkness 
without even glancing back over her shoulder at him. 

From the small window, he watched her spinner rise into the night sky. It hung suspended 
for a moment, giving him a glimpse of Sarah at the controls, then swiveled around and 
disappeared under the pinpoint stars, heading south. Toward L.A. 

Other lights were moving up there. He looked up, counting two traces, then a third, 


coming his way. They must've been waiting, thought Deckard. Then she called them in. 

coming his way. They must've been waiting, thought Deckard. Then she called them in. 

He was sitting in the cabin's single chair when the agents, in their grey, insignia-less 
SWAT suits, shoved open the door. 

"Deckard?" The leader -- there were half a dozen behind him, sheer overkill -- aimed an 
assault rifle's short barrel toward his chest. All the men had buzz cuts and hard, machinelike 
faces; they could've been LAPD elites, but he didn't recognize any of them. Before he could 
answer, the leader smiled and pointed the weapon toward the ceiling. "Good. You're being 
smart." 

He sighed. These gung ho types had always given him a cramp. "What did you expect?" 

"You're coming with us, Deckard." 

"Can't." He tilted his head to indicate the coffin beside him. "I've got to take care of her." 

"She'll keep." Two of the other agents had stepped behind the chair, yanking him from it 
by his arms pulled to the small of his back. "This won't take long." 

The spinners were unmarked as well. "Are you guys Tyrell?" He studied the team's 
leader as the canopy swung down into place. On the man's breast pocket was a name tag that 
read ANDERSSON. 

"You don't need that information." The leader hit the cockpit's PURGE button. The 
ground fell away. 

Deckard leaned back, turning his head to watch the other spinners pull into flanking 
position. "Where we going?" 

"Don't be stupid." The leader didn't take his eyes from the controls. "You know." 

He did know. His hands drew into fists. "Why?" 

A sharp glance. "You know that, too," And a sneer. "You left too much unfinished 
business there. That's why." 

Deckard closed his eyes. He was going home. To L.A. 

3..... 

"How's the patient doing?" 

The nurse looked back over one of his broad shoulders at the questioner. A man in an 
identical set of green scrubs, sterile disposable wraps over his shoes, smiled at him. "Who're 
you talking about?" asked the nurse. He didn't recognize the guy; either new staff or from a 
sector of the hospital that he didn't get to on his rounds. 

"The cardiopulmonary case up on the eighty-third floor." The man indicated the floor 
immediately above them with a tilt of his head and a quick upward glance. "How's he getting 
along?" 

"Okay, I guess." The nurse shrugged. "I mean . . . he can breathe. As long as nobody 
unplugs him." More to it than that: inside the equipment-laden cart, the chrome assemblage 
he'd pushed up to the elevator doors, was a ten milliliter jar filled with red sputum that he'd just 
suctioned out of the doped-up patient's bronchial tubes. If that little chore wasn't done every 
couple of hours, the poor bastard with the fist-sized hole shot through his chest could still 
strangle to death, no matter how many high-tech pumps and hoses were hooked up to him. 
"Why you want to know?" 


The other's turn to shrug. "Just curious." The smile remained switched on, accompanied 
by sharp-focused eyes that didn't smile at all. "Seems like a lot of fuss -- you know? Locking 
off the whole floor and everything. And all those cops standing around." The man did a mock 
shudder, while his gaze narrowed, from stilettos to probing needles. "Creepy, huh? Who is that 
fellow, anyway?" 

The other's turn to shrug. "Just curious." The smile remained switched on, accompanied 
by sharp-focused eyes that didn't smile at all. "Seems like a lot of fuss -- you know? Locking 
off the whole floor and everything. And all those cops standing around." The man did a mock 
shudder, while his gaze narrowed, from stilettos to probing needles. "Creepy, huh? Who is that 
fellow, anyway?" 

The guy with all the questions reached out, his white knuckled hand grabbing the dented 
stainless steel of one door, not just stopping it, but forcing it back into its vertical slot. He 
leaned inside the elevator, glare alone fierce enough to back the nurse and the equipment cart 
into the corner. Then he smiled again. 

"You're right." He nodded slowly, pleasantly. "It's not any of my business at all. You just 
remember that." He let go of the door and stepped back. He was still smiling when the doors 
closed all the way and the elevator started down. 

Talk about creepy -- the nurse pushed himself away from the equipment cart. The 
hospital administration would hire just about anybody, it seemed. 

Colonel Fuzzy and Squeaker Hussar marched across the sideways world, carrying their 
fretful burden with them. 

"Careful -- you're gonna drop me!" Sebastian wrapped the crook of his arm tighter 
around the colonel's neck. In thin starlight, steel and Teflon showed through where the teddy 
bear's brown woolly coat had worn away. "C'mon, fellas. I put you together better'n this!" 

Shiny button eyes looked back around at Sebastian; the raggedy uniformed teddy bear 
snarled, neck twisted, chrome fangs revealed in its snub muzzle. He knew that Colonel Fuzzy 
always got crotchety when its gut-load of batteries started to run down. Sure better've been 
some fresh ones in this drop, he worried. It would be tricky enough to deactivate the teddy 
bear -- he'd long ago had to wire in a self-defense drive, for Colonel Fuzzy to have a chance 
of surviving out here on the sideways. The colonel had claws longer and sharper than a real 
bear's, and it wasn't fun trying to get past them to the shutdown relay underneath the faded 
Napoleonic jacket. It would be even less fun to have the lighter, faster but weaker Squeaker 
carry him back to their nest. 

As the animated teddy bear plodded forward again, Sebastian hitched himself around in 
the leather-strapped papoose carrier, looking back the way the three of them had come. This 
was all new territory, someplace he and the colonel and the hussar had never been before, or 
at least not since they'd all fled from the canyons of downtown L.A., where the buildings still 
stood upright. He'd had his own legs back then, otherwise he'd never have made it. 

There were some sections around this zone where the fallen office towers weren't lying 
perfectly flat on the ground, but were cracked up at various difficult angles. Most of the 
windows, that at noontime shone up at the hammering sun like smooth, white-hot anvils, had 
been shatterproof tensile laminates, so there weren't many chances of dropping inside and 
finding a route through the cockeyed law offices and depopulated bankers' suites. If Colonel 
Fuzzy had to be taken off-line, Squeaker wouldn't be much help in getting across that slick, 
tilted terrain. He didn't relish the prospect of crawling all the way home, using just his own 
remaining hand and arm to pull himself along. 

Please, dear God, he prayed as he rode on the surly teddy bear's back. Let there be 
batteries. That's all I'm asking, at least for right now. 


"Sebastian! Over here!" Squeaker's high grackle voice came from beyond rubble and 
twisted rebar. "I found it, I found it!" 

"Sebastian! Over here!" Squeaker's high grackle voice came from beyond rubble and 
twisted rebar. "I found it, I found it!" 

"Careful, fellas -- lemme check it out first." The teddy bear had half run, half slid down 
beside its animated comrade-in-arms; both their sets of miniature legs stamped impatiently on 
the building's horizontal wall. Colonel Fuzzy emitted a deep tracheal whine as Sebastian dug 
out the segments of his poker stick and screwed them together. "Don't wanna get anybody 
hurt, now . . . 

He extended the chrome bug feeler over the teddy bear's shoulder and prodded the 
lumpish parcels spilling out of the crumpled container. Couldn't be too careful; the grinchier 
gov agencies had been seeding the sideways zones with booby traps. A box of nori sheets 
could go off with a bang, leaving a scavenger sliced to ribbons by razor edged repub 
manifestos and five-year plans. The poker stick's tip rooted farther inside the container but 
tripped no flash circuits. 

"Come on, Sebastian--" Frustration dance; Squeaker Hussar's broken-off nose, shorter 
now than the spike on top of his helmet, yearned toward the welfare bundle. Its bright 
human-doll eyes widened. "We been waiting and waiting--" 

"Aright, all right. You guys get your tiny asses blown up some day, it's not gonna be my 
fault." He retracted the poker stick, began disassembling and stowing it beside him in the 
papoose carrier. "Okay, let's go see what we found." 

Luck, in the form of shrink-wrapped D-cells and, even better, Czech war-surplus 
industrials, the big square kind that would've filled both his hands if he still had the left one. 
He'd converted both Fuzzy and Squeaker to run on just about anything that packed a charge, 
when he'd cut himself off from the Tyrell Corporation's supply line. These would do just fine. 

"What else we got?" Sebastian raised himself up on his forearm; the colonel had taken 
him out of the papoose carrier and laid him on the wall, the better for it to go rooting inside the 
container. It and the hussar were in there now, tossing out the packs of batteries, Spam cans, 
chocolate covered cherries, off-world emigration forms. "You little pixies." He laughed: both 
Fuzzy and Squeaker had emerged with a chain of freeze-dried Thuringer sausages looped 
around their necks in a lover's knot. "Quit clowning around, and let's pack up." 

They hauled their booty homeward -- he'd hooked up one of the big Czech batteries to 
the alligator clips inside Fuzzy's moth-pecked chest, so the teddy bear was strong enough to 
carry him and help the hussar drag the sledge bag along behind them. The colonel wasn't 
cranky now; through its shoulder blades, Sebastian could feel the contented purr of gears and 
solenoids. 

When Sarah Tyrell had come back from Zurich -- less than a year ago, when the people 
who now worked for her had come and told her the news -- she had ordered them to seal off 
the suite, the entire floor, where her uncle had worked and lived. And died. Thus turning it into 
a little museum, a monument to Eldon Tyrell's memory, a place where the past had been 
captured and bottled up. And from where the past couldn't escape, couldn't get out and hurt 
her anymore. 

Now she broke the seal. The elevator creeping up the angled side of the building halted; 
a disembodied voice spoke. "Access to this sector is denied to all Tyrell Corporation 
personnel and other individuals. No clearance status is currently available for this sector. 
Please exit and return to your authorized work area. Corporate security has been notified." 

"It's okay." She spoke aloud, to no one; she was alone in the elevator. "It's me. Override 


the access protocols." She wasn't sure how much of a voice sample the computers needed to 
recognize her. "Umm . . . Godiam, fugace e rapido, Š il gaudio dell'amore, Š un fior che nasce 
e muore, nŠ pi— si pu• goder." The words came out of a recent memory track; she had just 
been lying in bed in her own suite in the Tyrell Corporation headquarters, blue smoke drifting 
overhead, listening to the classic old Sills Traviata. Her favorite; she still couldn't handle the 
Callas chips. All that screaming was too much like the voices inside her own head. 

the access protocols." She wasn't sure how much of a voice sample the computers needed to 
recognize her. "Umm . . . Godiam, fugace e rapido, Š il gaudio dell'amore, Š un fior che nasce 
e muore, nŠ pi— si pu• goder." The words came out of a recent memory track; she had just 
been lying in bed in her own suite in the Tyrell Corporation headquarters, blue smoke drifting 
overhead, listening to the classic old Sills Traviata. Her favorite; she still couldn't handle the 
Callas chips. All that screaming was too much like the voices inside her own head. 

She had been here before. Once, for a few minutes upon her arrival back in L.A., just 
long enough to glance around, then turn to her retinue of corporate flunkies and give her 
orders. To have the entire floor mothballed, just the way it'd been when Eldon Tyrell had been 
found murdered. Minus his body, of course; that had already been removed, then cremated, 
the ashes presented to her in some tribalistic changing-of-the-guard ceremony, as she'd stood 
black-veiled on a raised platform in front of the corporation's assembled employees. She'd 
carried back to her private quarters the little urn with her uncle's name on it. Every day since 
then the level of grey dust inside had grown slightly higher with each flick of her cigarette 
against the urn's open rim. She kept it handy on her bedside table for just that purpose. 

In the great high-ceilinged rooms, the air smelled stale and confined, despite the building's 
elaborate circulation and filtering systems. Something had been trapped in there that no 
mechanical breath could expel. Not just the past of a year ago, his death, but the past of many 
years before, and many small, cumulative deaths. Those had been hers. 

In that familiar bedchamber, she had seen the glow of sacramental ranks of candles on 
her own skin, turning to ruby a small stain of her own blood. Now the candles were all 
guttered puddles of wax, black seeds of wick at their centers, a white cascade, glistening 
frozen upon the sheets' rumpled silk. The imprint of her uncle's back and shoulders was still 
visible in the pillows stacked against the massive headboard. That had been the place of his 
late-night meditations, his brain ticking into the hours when only the Vladivostok and Beijing 
exchanges were active, the distant game boards where he could shift the pawns of cash and 
holdings into even sharper, more advantageous positions. 

That game went on without him. Another one was over, played out to checkmate. As 
Sarah walked across the dim bedchamber, her toe had struck a chess piece, the black queen. 
The other pieces were scattered across the floor; the board had been knocked over by the 
corpse's fall. She wondered who had won, her uncle or his opponent. Hard to imagine him 
losing. 

In the faint luminance spilling toward her from the other rooms, something else was visible 
at her feet. A black continent from a map without boundaries, big enough for an eyeless face 
to lie against as it had spread wetly past his cooling hands. The stain on the floor had been red 
then, but less than a year's time had darkened it. She stepped across it, the sharp points of her 
heels tapping as though on a thin layer of shellac. On the other side, she stopped and looked 
back at the empty bedchamber. Candle wax, cold sheets, and toppled chess pieces. She liked 
the room better this way, dead and safe. 

A voice whispered to her, from somewhere above. "Transaction left incomplete. 
Awaiting further instructions. Do you wish to resume trading?" 

Her uncle's brokerage program, dumb and without initiative, capable only of following 
the orders it received. Given the late hour of his death, that was what he would've been doing 
when the replicant, with its brushed-back shock of white hair -- she'd seen pictures -- and 
crazy smile, had walked into the bedchamber. The brokerage program's soft voice was a 
painless memory for her, or at least one on the other side of pain, from all those other nights 
when he hadn't been murdered but she had wished him to be. Her breath against one of the 
silken pillows, the program murmuring numbers far away . . . 


"Please respond." A desperate undertone to the program's voice. "There have been 
inquiries regarding this account. Awaiting instructions." 

"Please respond." A desperate undertone to the program's voice. "There have been 
inquiries regarding this account. Awaiting instructions." 

This would be one of the last. With only a few more beyond it. 

"Instructions as follows." She knew that the brokerage program would respond to her 
words now. It was on the same voice-ID circuit as the door security. "Terminate all portfolio 
activities. Close down all accounts. Cash out and deposit all proceeds in personal account, 
Tyrell, Sarah." 

The program sounded fretful. "Active account is in the name Tyrell, Eldon." 

"As I said. That account is closed." 

A few seconds later the program signed off and deactivated itself, going into its stasis 
with something close to gratitude. A slightly different bodyless voice read off a balance 
statement, which meant nothing to her. At the level of the heir to the Tyrell Corporation, 
money was an abstract force, like gravity. No one noticed it until it was gone. 

No more voices spoke to her as she crossed the office, the columns' shadows falling 
past. And the voices inside her head -- those whispers had already started to die toward 
silence. The corner of her mouth lifted in a small indication of pleased satisfaction. 

Past the bedchamber, Eldon Tyrell's private world, were the public spaces of his office. 
A larger space, acres of emptiness, designed to impress and intimidate. Sarah pushed the 
double doors open wider. Dust motes hung in the air between the bellied columns. The hot 
glare of the afternoon sun rolled toward her; a long-dormant sensor registered a human 
presence and considerately drew a polarizing filter down across the windows. 

Heel clicks louder here, echoing like miniature gunshots. She had dressed for the 
occasion, as required by the invisible presences of money and power. That didn't expire when 
their earthly incarnations died; they demanded a certain respect. 

She walked past an empty T-shaped stand, the crossbar at the height of her shoulder. 
Her one kindness, when she had ordered the suite sealed off: one of the flunkies had reminded 
her about the owl, her myopic uncle's blinking totem animal. It would've starved to death or 
run down its batteries; she wasn't sure which. Somewhere else in the complex, it was now 
being fed or otherwise cared for. When she had prepared herself for the flight up north, she'd 
had a vague notion of taking the owl with her, releasing it in the restricted-access woods 
where her own quarry had taken refuge. She'd thought better of the idea; this animal, at least, 
was too tame or ill-programmed to survive out there. The forest crows would've disassembled 
its hollow bones. Whether it was real or not. 

She sat down at her uncle's desk -- hers now -- a Louis XIV six-legged bureau plat by 
Andre-Charles Boulle. She had barely been a teenager when the only other known six-legged 
bureau plat of that period, the one that had been owned by both Givenchy and Lord 
Ashburnham, had arrived at her uncle's suite in a crate full of wood splinters and sparkling 
fragments of brass and tortoiseshell marquetry. For Eldon Tyrell, it had not been enough to 
possess such a museum quality piece; he had to have the only one. The urge to take an ax to 
this desk had seized her from time to time. She'd resisted that urge so far, even though she 
knew, as she ran a hand across the richly polished surface, it was still there inside her. 
Sleeping, not dead. 

Sarah heard the doors open, the other ones, that led to the corridors outside the private 
suite. Looking up, she saw a figure walking slowly toward her. In the distance behind him, the 
doors pulled shut, but not before she caught a glimpse of Andersson, a gaze both suspicious 
and possessive on his face. 

"I've been here before." Deckard halted and looked around himself. A simple 
announcement. "A long time ago." 


Sarah leaned back in the chair. "It wasn't that long." 

Sarah leaned back in the chair. "It wasn't that long." 

She stood up from the bureau plat. In the suite that had been her uncle's and was now 
hers, she walked across the layers of ancient Tabriz to the bar. "Would you care for 
something? I have it on good authority that you prefer the ones that taste like dirt." 

"The farther north," said Deckard, "the better. But anything'll do. I've gotten over being 
fussy." 

She handed him a small glass, its contents the same as the one she kept for herself. "Your 
health." 

"Wouldn't have thought you were concerned about it." He knocked back the shot in one 
toss. Every blade runner she'd ever seen drank in the same manner, as though trying to put out 
a small fire in the gut. "I was fine where you found me. L.A. doesn't agree with me nearly as 
well." 

She nodded slowly as she reflected upon his words. "So I suppose I'd better make you a 
pretty good offer. To compensate for your . . . inconvenience." 

He reached for the bottle and poured out another quarter inch. "I don't think you can. 
There wouldn't be one good enough." 

"Let's find out." She carried her glass back toward the bureau plat and sat down. She 
gestured toward the chair opposite. "Make yourself comfortable. We have a lot to talk about." 

He brought the single-malt bottle with him. "Such as?" He sank low and resentful in the 
chair, legs sprawled out in front of himself. 

"As I said, I want to make you an offer. A job offer. I want you to find someone for me. 
Some thing, actually. That's what you're good at, isn't it?" 

"I was at one time. I'm a little rusty now." He slowed his intake to a mere swallow. 
"Maybe you should hire somebody else. With current experience." 

"You're uniquely qualified." She let herself smile, one corner of her mouth lifting. "For 
what I want done." 

"There are other blade runners. Real ones. The kind who like doing it." Deckard rubbed 
his thumb across the rim of the glass. "There's an ex-partner of mine who's pretty sharp. Guy's 
name is Holden, Dave Holden. Give him a call -- he might be out of the hospital by now. He'd 
need the work more than I do -- he's probably got bills to pay." 

"That's very interesting. Your recommending this Holden person to me." She leaned back 
in her chair. "It's not the first time you've done that. Not to me . . . but to your old boss 
Bryant." 

"Maybe." Deckard shrugged. "I wouldn't remember." 

"Oh, I can prove it." She pulled open the bureau plat's drawer. Beside a small folding 
knife was a remote control box. She took it out; a single button push, and a section of the 
paneled wall retracted. "Take a look." 

Sarah didn't need to see what appeared on the video screen; she had seen it enough 
times already. Instead, she watched Deckard as he turned his gaze toward the dimly 
illuminated shapes, summoned from the tape and the past. 

She heard the voices. 

Give it to Holden. He's good. 

Deckard's voice. Then Bryant's. 

I did. He can breathe okay, as long as nobody unplugs him-


With another button, she froze the tape and the images on the screen. "Now do you 
remember?" 

"How'd you get your hands on that?" He looked at her with a mixture of suspicion and 
grudging respect. "That's LAPD property. From the watchcams in Bryant's office." 

"As has been said before, there are ways. The relationship between the police and the 


Tyrell Corporation is not quite as antagonistic as some people are likely to believe. Or at least, 
not all the time. There are some things that we can cooperate on. Or to put it another way -- I 
can always find cooperative people inside the police department." Her thin smile didn't change. 
"People who can do things for me. Who can get me things. Like this." 

Tyrell Corporation is not quite as antagonistic as some people are likely to believe. Or at least, 
not all the time. There are some things that we can cooperate on. Or to put it another way -- I 
can always find cooperative people inside the police department." Her thin smile didn't change. 
"People who can do things for me. Who can get me things. Like this." 

"Would you like to see more?" 

He shook his head. "Not really. I didn't enjoy it that much the first time around." 

"Perhaps this time, you can take a more . . . detached point of view. Watch." With the 
remote, she backed the tape up. To the point where the image of Deckard was still standing 
just inside the office door. 

Bryant's recorded voice: I got four skin jobs walking the streets . . . 

"Did you get that?" Sarah froze the tape. "When Bryant gave you the assignment -- when 
he told you about this batch of escaped replicants being in L.A. -- what did he say, about how 
many there were?" 

"I don't . . ." Deckard shrugged, as though annoyed. "I don't remember exactly what he 
said. But it was probably four. It had to have been. That's how many I went hunting." 

"Very well. So listen to what he told you a minute or so later." Another button, the tape 
fast-forwarding, then dropping into play. "Carefully." 

A different room on the monitor screen, but still one that she knew Deckard recognized. 
Both his image and Bryant's were in the little screening room behind the shabby office. Along 
with Bryant's bottle of scotch. 

Monitor within monitor -- on the tape, Bryant and Deckard were watching the recording 
from the interview Dave Holden had gone through with the replicant Kowalski at the Tyrell 
Corporation headquarters. 

I already had an IQ test this year . . . Close-up on Kowalski's slope jawed face. I don't 
think I ever had one of these . . . 

"The data retrieval system's set to bring up whatever's the most recent image of the 
subject." Sarah pointed to the screen. "Holden was the last one to get a good fix on Kowalski. 
Alive, that is." She brought up the volume. "Now catch what he told you, about how many 
replicants escaped from off-world and came to Earth." 

Bryant's rasp of a voice again. Six replicants . . . three male, three female . . . 

"Six." Deckard gazed in puzzlement at the screen. "Now I remember . . . he told me that 
there were six escaped replicants." He slowly shook his head, as though struggling to make 
sense of this remembered datum. 

"You're catching on." Sarah kept her own voice soft. "And then Bryant, on this tape, 
goes on to tell you about five replicants One that he doesn't name, who got fried in the security 
barriers around the Tyrell Corporation headquarters, when they first tried to break in here. 
And then he showed you the pictures; he gave you the names and the rest of the data on the 
other replicants. You should find this interesting." 

She played the rest of the tape, the parade of faces, the ID scans on Bryant's monitor. A 
glance from the corner of her eye; Deckard was scowling at the screen, and the smaller one 
within it. 

"Do the count," said Sarah. She blanked the screen to a pure blue rectangle. She held her 
small fist up in front of it. 

"The dead replicant -- the one who got fried on the Tyrell Corporation's fence. That's 
one." Thumb stuck out. "Then Kowalski, the one who shot Holden. And then the females, the 
one named Pris, and the brunette Zhora. Plus the Roy Batty replicant." A finger for each, 
resulting in her hand being spread out before the monitor's glow. "That makes five. Not six." 

The muscles across Deckard's shoulders had visibly tightened, at the mention of Roy 
Batty's name. The last of the escaped replicants; the one who'd nearly cost him his life. 
"Maybe . . . Bryant made a mistake. When he was first talking to me." Deckard made a 


dismissive gesture at the empty screen. "Five, six . . . who knows? Hell, the man drank like a 
fish. So he got his numbers messed up." 

dismissive gesture at the empty screen. "Five, six . . . who knows? Hell, the man drank like a 
fish. So he got his numbers messed up." 

Sarah folded her arms across her breasts. "Do the count, Deckard. You take them all 
together, add them up, and the total comes out six. That means there's a sixth escaped 
replicant still on the loose. It's out there in the city. We just don't know where." 

"What if there is?" Deckard grimaced in annoyed distaste. "Why should I even care?" 

"Because that's what I'm going to make it worth your while to care about." The section of 
wall paneling slid closed again, concealing the video screen. She dropped the remote back into 
the bureau plat's drawer. "That's the whole point of your being here. That's why you were 
brought back to Los Angeles." 

"You know, you could be wasting your time completely. With me or anybody else." He 
regarded her with eyelids half lowered. "Bryant was a drunk and a screwup. He could've said 
six when he meant to say five. That's probably why I didn't make any big fuss about it, back 
then. I knew the way his sloppy brain worked. You could be getting all torqued about this 
sixth replicant when there was never one to begin with." 

"Except that the other information I have checks out. The report from the off-world 
authorities concerning the replicants' escape -- the report that Bryant had, but that you never 
saw -- it confirms that there were six total, who managed to reach Earth." 

"There's a report?" Deckard emitted a short, harsh laugh. "Then you don't have a 
problem. Access it and see who your sixth escaped replicant is. You don't need me to track it 
down." 

"Can't do that." She had anticipated every argument that he'd make. "I told you Bryant 
himself purged the data out of the police department files, even before he called you in and 
gave you the assignment. The ID info on the sixth replicant is gone." 

"Big deal. The LAPD can ask the off-world authorities to retransmit the escape report." 

"You don't seem to be getting it, Deckard." She leaned forward, across the bureau plat. 
"The LAPD doesn't know that there's a problem. The file on this incident was closed, the 
whole thing written off, finito, when the Roy Batty replicant was found dead. And I don't want 
the police to reopen the case. The Tyrell Corporation doesn't want them to." 

"Why not? You've supposedly got another Nexus-6 model running around the city. That 
can get very messy -- believe me, I know. I would've thought you'd want this loose end tied 
up as quickly as possible." 

"I do. The Tyrell Corporation does. But not by the police. I want all of the authorities 
completely out of the loop on this. The U.N. has already been giving us grief -- sub rosa, out 
of any media coverage -- about the wisdom of continuing to use the Tyrell Corporation's 
products, our replicants, in the off-world colonization program. There have been problems . . . 
to say the least. Not just with the ones that've escaped and gotten back here to Earth. But out 
there as well." 

Deckard raised an eyebrow. "In my line of work -- what I used to do -- I got to the 
point that when people said problems, I heard death." 

"You don't need to hear the details." Voice level, cold. "If there's problems -- deaths -



then the U.N. and the off-world colonists brought it all upon themselves. They demanded a 
higher quality of slave labor. They want replicants that are closer and closer to actually being 
human, to having that level of intelligence. And emotion." Colder, and with contempt. "And not 
because it's any more efficient or productive than ordinary dumb robots would be. Our old 
Nexus-1 models were more than adequate for the task." 

then the U.N. and the off-world colonists brought it all upon themselves. They demanded a 
higher quality of slave labor. They want replicants that are closer and closer to actually being 
human, to having that level of intelligence. And emotion." Colder, and with contempt. "And not 
because it's any more efficient or productive than ordinary dumb robots would be. Our old 
Nexus-1 models were more than adequate for the task." 

"You blade runners really are like children. Murderous children." She gazed pityingly at 
him. "You can kill, but you don't understand. About human nature. Why would the off-world 
colonists want troublesome, humanlike slaves rather than nice, efficient machines? It's simple. 
Machines don't suffer. They aren't capable of it. A machine doesn't know when it's being 
raped. There's no power relationship between you and a machine. That's been the U.N.'s 
whole pitch about the attractions of the off-world colonies all along. The big human thrill. For a 
replicant to suffer, to give its owners that whole master-slave energy, it has to have emotions." 
A corner of her lip curled. "When Bryant told you about the Nexus-6 models, he was conning 
you and he knew it. The replicants' emotions aren't a design flaw. The Tyrell Corporation put 
them there. Because that's what our customers wanted." 

"Sounds like they got more than they wanted." 

"They got exactly what they wanted; they just don't want to pay the price for it. Nobody 
ever does. The price for having slaves who can suffer is that eventually those slaves will rebel. 
Someday, somehow -- if they get the chance -- they'll put a knife to their masters' throats." 
She smiled, as one savoring the bleak wisdom of the universe. "Let's face it, Deckard, it's just 
human nature. And that's what we recreated with the Nexus-6 replicants. That's what the 

U.N. authorities, the ones in charge of the off-world colonies, have gotten into such a sweat 
about. Only they can't come right out and admit that they screwed up, that their entire strategy 
for making the colonies attractive to potential settlers is a disaster, that it leads to garrison 
states, like ancient Sparta armed to the teeth against its own helots -- or else fields of bones on 
other planets, if the replicants manage to pull off a successful rebellion and the U.N. has to 
send in a military unit to sterilize the place, keep the infection from spreading. There's all kinds 
of things happening out there in the colonies that the authorities aren't telling the people here on 
Earth. It wouldn't exactly make good recruiting propaganda, would it?" 
On the other side of the bureau plat, Deckard remained silent. She could almost see the 
slow meshing of gears behind his eyes. "I think . . ." He stirred slightly in the chair. "I think I 
can guess where you're heading with this. You're going to tell me that the U.N. authorities and 
the police have gone in together. On a conspiracy to make it look like the problems with the 
replicants are the Tyrell Corporation's fault. And not theirs." 

"You're forgetting something, Deckard. It's not just a conspiracy against the Tyrell 
Corporation. It's a conspiracy against the blade runners as well. Or more accurately, a 
conspiracy using the blade runners. Using their deaths, that is. The U.N. authorities have to 
make it appear that the Nexus-6 replicants are even more dangerous than they really are, 
more capable of passing as human . . . and more capable of evading the system that was put 
into place to detect and eliminate them. That's you, Deckard, you and the other blade runners. 
What better way to make that happen than to set all of you up to take a fall, the way they set 
up Dave Holden? They'd just have to make it look as if the blade runners were no match 
against the Nexus-6 replicants, and they'd have all the justification they needed for shutting 
down the Tyrell Corporation. For good. No more corporation, no more replicants; the 
off-world colonies, the ones that are left, would have to find some other way of getting along." 

"Maybe." Deckard looked unimpressed. "Or at least until you figured out how to get the 
company back into business. Maybe with some other replicant model, one that wasn't quite so 
smart and dangerous." 

"Oh, no, it wouldn't work that way." This one as well, Sarah had anticipated. "If the 
Tyrell Corporation gets shut down -- the way its enemies would like to -- it won't be going 


back into business. Ever again. This whole complex . . ." She gestured toward the walls of the 
office suite and by extension, all of the headquarters buildings beyond. "For us to get a lock on 
the U.N.'s business, to be the exclusive suppliers of replicants for the off-world colonies, this 
entire setup had to be built according to U.N. specifications. All the corporation's research 
and design facilities are here, along with the manufacturing units, every inch of the assembly 
lines that put out replicants ready to ship. Even the Tyrell family living quarters are here; that 
was part of the U.N. requirements as well. The shape of the buildings, the way they're 
arranged facing each other, everything. It was all done so that when the red button is pushed 
-- when the built-in self-destruct sequence is initiated -- the results are absolute annihilation to 
the Tyrell Corporation, with minimal damage to the surrounding areas of the city." 

back into business. Ever again. This whole complex . . ." She gestured toward the walls of the 
office suite and by extension, all of the headquarters buildings beyond. "For us to get a lock on 
the U.N.'s business, to be the exclusive suppliers of replicants for the off-world colonies, this 
entire setup had to be built according to U.N. specifications. All the corporation's research 
and design facilities are here, along with the manufacturing units, every inch of the assembly 
lines that put out replicants ready to ship. Even the Tyrell family living quarters are here; that 
was part of the U.N. requirements as well. The shape of the buildings, the way they're 
arranged facing each other, everything. It was all done so that when the red button is pushed 
-- when the built-in self-destruct sequence is initiated -- the results are absolute annihilation to 
the Tyrell Corporation, with minimal damage to the surrounding areas of the city." 

"Don't get nervous on me. It's not likely to happen while you're sitting here." She gave a 
small shrug. "But it could. That's what it was designed to do, from the beginning. All of the 
Tyrell Corporation's headquarters complex -- everything around us -- was built with enough 
explosive charges in the substructure and imbedded in the walls, all of them linked by a 
programmed timing chain, to reduce it to smoking dust." 

She had trained herself to speak of these things dispassionately, by reciting them inside 
her head. Late at night before she fell asleep, like a bedtime story. "There might be a few 
pieces big as a man's fist in the pile. There might even be a few pieces of me, if I'm here when 
it happens. Though I don't think that anybody would be bothered to come and look. 
Everything's designed to implode, to fall in upon the center; that's why the towers are slanted 
toward each other. It'd be a thoughtful sort of apocalypse; nobody else would get hurt. So you 
see, Deckard, if the Tyrell Corporation goes out of business -- if the U.N. authorities are able 
to justify pushing that red button, starting up the self-destruct sequence -- it won't be going 
back into business anytime soon." 

"And that's what you believe they want?" 

"Rather than admit their own mistakes? That they were wrong about how they've 
managed the off-world colonization program?" Sarah leaned her head back for a quick, 
hollow-sounding laugh. "Of course. That's another part of human nature. We always murder 
rather than apologize." 

Silent, Deckard appeared to be contemplating the empty glass in his hand, holding it by 
the faceted base. "Am I supposed to think . . ." His murmur was almost too soft to hear. "Am I 
supposed to think that if the Tyrell Corporation gets blown up into little pieces, that it'd be 
some kind of tragedy?" 

"I don't care what you think. You can think whatever you want. But I'm not going to let 
the Tyrell Corporation be destroyed. It's mine." She turned to look out the window behind 
her, at the towers glazed dark red by the setting sun. "I don't expect you to be as concerned 
about the fate of the corporation as I am. I just want you to do the job for which I brought you 
here." 

"Like I told Bryant, a long time ago . . ." He leaned forward and set the empty glass 
down on the bureau plat, beside hers. "I don't work here." 

"You will. For me." 

"Don't bet on it." His gaze narrowed. "I don't even know what you'd want me to do." 

"Isn't it obvious? There's still an escaped replicant -- a Tyrell Corporation Nexus-6 
model, to be precise loose somewhere in the city. I want you to find it and -- what's the word? 
-- retire it. Before whatever's the next stage of the conspiracy can be set in motion. Before the 
Tyrell Corporation, and everything that my uncle worked to bring into existence, can be 
destroyed." 

"Like I told you . . ." Deckard slowly shook his head. "I don't regard that as a tragedy." 

"I can see that." She touched the rim of each of the empty glasses in turn. "So . . . I'd 
have to make it worth your while, then." 


"You don't have enough money to do that. Nobody does." 

"You don't have enough money to do that. Nobody does." 

Deckard straightened up in the chair. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

She stood up from the bureau plat and went over to the suite's high windows. "Come 
here." With a single motion of her hand, she turned the glass dark, an artificial night. "I have 
something to show you." The sun's glare burned through the photochrome layers, like the end 
of a severed vein. 

For a few seconds he looked at her without moving, then got to his feet. As he walked 
toward her, she reached behind and loosened the binding of her hair. 

"You did that once already." Deckard placed himself right in front of her, watching as she 
shook the dark wave of her hair free, across the tops of her shoulders. "You don't have to do 
it again. I can see the resemblance." 

"It's not resemblance." Sarah brushed one hand through it, letting it fall again. "It's 
identity. You know that, don't you? No matter how many times you tell yourself otherwise . . . 
she and I are the same. When you love Rachael . . . it's me you love." 

He closed his eyes. One of his hands raised, as though to take her by the arm, then 
halted. 

"I'm the original. Rachael's the copy." She brought her voice down low. "You have to 
remember that . . ." 

The hand trembled, caught between his will and his desire. Her presence -- she knew, 
could see it -- radiated through him, hot and bright as the sun piercing the muted windows. 

She laid her own hand against his chest, to balance herself as she brought her lips close 
to his ear. "You know . . ." A whisper. "You know that it's me . . . always . . . ' 

"No . . ." He shook his head, eyes still closed. "You're not . . . 

Her own eyelids shut out the little light remaining. All she felt was the brush of her lips 
against the side of his face. "She's dying. She's dead . . . that's the only difference." A whisper. 
"Why should you love the dead?" Soft as her breath. "When you can love me?" 

He made no reply. But his hand flew up and caught hers at his chest, locking tight upon 
the wrist's fragile bone. 

The past was on tape, but she knew she didn't have to play it for him. Words that had 
been spoken beside another window, in another room, that had been caught by his own 
hidden cameras. The place where suspicion, a blade runner's occupational hazard, intersected 
with longing. The tapes had been left behind in Deckard's own apartment; they had been found 
and brought to her. So she knew what had been said in that other place, that other time, that 
other world. 

She drew back a few inches from him. "Say . . . 'Say that you want me . . ." 

As though caught in dreaming, he turned his head. Listening. 

"Say it." Her whisper a command now. 

He spoke, the words slow on his tongue. "Say that you want me . . ." 

Time folded around them. His past, this present; his words, and the words Rachael had 
spoken. Long ago. "I want you . . ." 

His hand let go of her wrist, but only so that it could sink into the darkness of her 
unbound hair, his other hand grasping her arm tight, drawing her toward him. Crushing her 
against him. The unspoken words in the kiss, the past that opened around them, that had never 
ended. 

With a sudden convulsion he pushed her away, hard enough to snap her head back, as if 
he had struck her. Her breath trembled at her parted lips. Dizzied, she saw him turn his head 
back toward her, his eyes narrowed in the glare of one who has woken from a betraying 
vision. From the remembered past, into this world, and unsure for the moment which was the 
hallucination into which he'd fallen. 


Another movement of her hand, and the window returned to an unfiltered transparency. 
The smoldering light from outside washed over them, an ocean of luminous red. She returned 
his gaze with one steady and unflinching. Though she wondered what he saw in her eyes, as 
naked as that in his. Some other human quality, the one that would probably kill him. Irrational 
and faithful. No, she told herself. Fate . . . 

Another movement of her hand, and the window returned to an unfiltered transparency. 
The smoldering light from outside washed over them, an ocean of luminous red. She returned 
his gaze with one steady and unflinching. Though she wondered what he saw in her eyes, as 
naked as that in his. Some other human quality, the one that would probably kill him. Irrational 
and faithful. No, she told herself. Fate . . . 

At least he hated her; she could see that in the ice and steel at the center of his eyes. She 
knew she could have that much of him. 

"Why?" She was surprised by the single word. Her voice had spoken it. 

She watched as he poured himself another shot from the bottle on the bureau plat. He 
knocked it back, then turned and looked at her. 

"You reminded me." Voice flat, drained as the glass in his hand. "Of her. I had almost 
forgotten." 

I won. She gazed unseeing at the light fading to black. I must have. The edges of the 
towers blurred, and she tasted salt at the corner of her mouth. 

Deckard's voice came from behind her, from somewhere in the great empty space that 
had held the two of them. "You're the quickest way. Back to her. To Rachael." She heard the 
hollow note of the glass as he set it down. "That's my price." 

4..... 

"What's your plan?" Andersson -- if that was really his name -- glanced over from the 
spinner's controls. 

Deckard shrugged. "I've got my methods." The spinner swooped in low enough to the 
Olvera Street souk that Deckard could see the animal dealers packing up their wares, business 
done for the night. The zooid merchandise had to be gotten under tarps before the day's heat 
fried their synaptic circuits; the rarer and more expensive real animals needed water and 
temp-controlled cages to survive. "I think I've hunted down enough replicants to remember 
how it's done." 

He kept his eyelids lowered partway. When he'd seen the city again, as Sarah Tyrell's 
agents had taken him in to his meeting with her, gouts of fire had flared into the dark sky, 
subterranean gases ignited as they seeped up through the trembling earth beneath L.A. Now 
those shouting torches were lost in the sun's advancing glare. 

"This replicant -- number six -- might be different." The other man apparently knew all 
about the job Deckard had taken on. "Harder than you're ready for." 

Deckard ignored the comment. The sooner he was down in the city's streets, the sooner 
he could wrap up this sorry business. And head north again. "Where we going?" He looked 
out the side of the spinner's canopy, watching a herd of artificial emu being herded down a 
back alley. The marketplace died, bit by bit, as the multilingual neon signs were switched off. 

"You'll see." Andersson reached forward and flicked on the landing prep switches. "Soon 
enough." 

One neon sign, the biggest, stayed lit. He remembered it always being on, no matter the 
time or weather, looming over the district's transactions like a silent blessing. Only the size of 
the letters competed with the cruising U.N. blimp, with its flat-panel screen and booming 
exhortations to leave the planet, and all the rest of the city's tidal wave of ad slam. 


VAN NUYS PET HOSPITAL. Pink letters, with a shiver of blue around their edges. 
And a cartoon puppy face, shifting every two seconds from sad and injured to happy and 
bandaged. He'd always figured that every resurrection should be so easy. 

VAN NUYS PET HOSPITAL. Pink letters, with a shiver of blue around their edges. 
And a cartoon puppy face, shifting every two seconds from sad and injured to happy and 
bandaged. He'd always figured that every resurrection should be so easy. 

"No--" Andersson took his hands from the controls, the descent locked on auto. He 
smiled humorlessly. "Orders from Miss Tyrell. You've got an appointment." 

Deckard let himself be hustled into the elevator. even before the other two spinners 
touched down. He'd come this far without putting up a fight; no point in starting one now. He 
watched as the man beside him punched in a security code. The elevator doors slid together; 
the tiny space sank into the faint but unmistakable odors of disinfectant and animal droppings. 

Panel lights charted the descent into the building's midsection. When the doors opened, 
he found himself gazing into the spectacled eyes of a smaller man, lab-coated, drooping tabby 
asleep in the cradle of his arms. 

"Should I stick around, Mr. Isidore?" Andersson held the elevator door from reclosing. 

"No . . . I don't think that'll be nuh-necessary." Scratching behind the tabby's ears, the 
gnomish figure tilted his head, brow wrinkling. "I'm sure our guh-guh-guest will behave 
himself." 

"I have a choice?" 

"Well . . ." Isidore mulled, frowned. "Probably nuh-not." 

"Don't," whispered Andersson into Deckard's ear, "do anything stupid." He stepped 
back into the elevator, hit the buttons, and disappeared behind the stainless-steel doors. 

"Not to worry." The tabby stirred and yawned. "They're puh-paid to act like thuh-that. 
It's all an act. You should nuh-know." 

Deckard followed the man. "Sometimes it's not an act." "Oh, yes . . ." Isidore glanced 
over his shoulder. "You know that tuh-tuh-too. That's when people -- and other things -thuh-
that's when they get hurt." He held the tabby closer against his chest, as though protecting 
it. 

The concrete-floored space narrowed to a corridor lined with cages, stacked three or 
four deep, and larger kennels. The air beneath the bare fluorescents was laced with mingled 
animal scents. As Isidore passed by, the small creatures -- cats, rabbits, toy breeds of dogs, a 
few guinea pigs -- pressed against the wire doors, mewing or yapping for the man's attention. 

Deckard turned his head, getting a closer look. Some of the animals in the cages weren't 
animals. Not real ones. 

A partially disassembled simulacrum suckled a row of squirming kittens; its white fur had 
been peeled back to reveal the polyethylene tubes and webbing beneath aluminum ribs; the 
optic sensors in its skull gazed out with maternal placidity. A wasp-waisted greyhound danced 
quivering excitement, front paws flurrying at the kennel gate; all four legs were abstract steel 
and miniature hydraulic cylinders. 

A headless rabbit bumped against a water dish. Its mate -- flesh and blood as far as 
Deckard could tell -- nuzzled against its flank. 

"Wuh-what's wrong?" Isidore had caught a hiss of inhaled breath behind him. 

"These things give me the creeps." 

"Really?" Isidore stopped in his tracks. He looked amazed; even the tabby in his arms 
blinked open its eyes. " Why?" 

"They're not real." He had seen plenty of fake animals before, out in the dealers' souk, 
and they'd never bothered him. But those had had their skins and pelts intact. These, with their 
electromechanical innards exposed, flaunted a raw nakedness. 

"Guh-gosh." It seemed to come as news to Isidore. He looked down at the tabby for a 
moment. "I guess I duh-don't see it thuh-that wuh-wuh-way. They all seem real to me. I mean 
. . . you can tuh-touch them." Leaning toward Deckard, lifting the tabby closer to him. "Here." 


He scratched the cat's head, getting an audible purr in response. It might have been real. 
Or well made, well programmed. 

He scratched the cat's head, getting an audible purr in response. It might have been real. 
Or well made, well programmed. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Oh . . . nothing . . ." Turning a key in a lock, Isidore directed a thin smile at him. 
"Juh-just that I wouldn't have thought you'd be so . . . suh-sensitive." He stepped through the 
doorway. "Given your domestic arrangements and all." 

"Got a point." Deckard walked into a low-ceilinged, windowless cubicle, walls covered 
with freebie calendars and thumb-tacked photos of pets and their owners; satisfied clients, he 
figured. "Except Rachael's all in one piece. That's the difference." He had to remember to keep 
cool, to get through whatever drill he'd been brought down here for. So he could get back to 
the sleeping, dying, waiting woman up north. 

"Please . . . sit duh-down." The other man dropped himself into a swivel chair behind a 
desk covered with mounds of papers and empty foam cups. "Really . . . I do wuh-want you to 
be comfortable. We have a lot to talk about." 

"This says your name's Hannibal Sloat." Sitting, he'd picked up the cheap wooden plaque 
from the desk. He held it by one end. "You or somebody else?" 

"Mr. Sloat was my boss. A luh-luh-long tuh-time ago. Then he died." Isidore looked 
around at the office's moulting walls, then pointed. "That's him up there." 

He turned his head and saw a hard-copy newspaper clipping, browned with age, stuck 
to the wall. In the low-rez photo, a fat man with pockmarked skin held a dangling cat out to a 
couple, the woman stroking the animal with one delicate hand, the man turning a slightly 
embarrassed smile toward the camera. Deckard shifted around in the chair. "Nice guy?" 

"Oh, sure. Real nuh-nice. In his will . . . he left me the puh-pet hospital." He brought his 
gaze back down to Deckard's. "He left me . . . everything. Really." The swivel chair seemed to 
have grown larger, as though it were capable of swallowing him up, as he folded his hands in 
his lap. "It's a big responsibility." 

"What is? Giving distemper shots? Lube job on a replica Pekingese, maybe. Doesn't 
seem like anything you couldn't handle." 

"Thuh-that's what I used to think. There wasn't any thuh-thing more to the job than that. 
Even when old Mr. Sloat was still uh-uh-live and I was working for him. That's what I thought 
the Van Nuys Pet Hospital's buh-business was. Like you said -- shu-shots and ruh-ruh-pairs." 

"So if it's not that . . ." Deckard set the plaque down on the desk's corner. "Then what is 
it?" 

"Well . . . you'd probably say we duh-deal in fuh-fakes. Like out in the souk. Fuh-phony 
goldfish, and kuh-kuh-cats and dogs and stuff. That you can't tell from the real thing. I mean . . 
. the living thing. What yuh-you'd call the living thing." 

"Don't you? I thought that's where the money is. That's what people like. The fakes. The 
real ones . . . they just make a mess. It's just easier dealing with the simulations." 

The other nodded slowly, wisps of silky white hair drifting over his pink scalp. "I guess 
that's what somebody who spent so much time as a buh-blade runner wuh-would think. You 
had your own wuh-way of dealing with those . . . suh-suh-simulations. Didn't you?" 

He studied the lab-coated figure on the other side of the desk. "Look -- is this why I was 
brought here? So you could rag on my moral condition, or something? You needn't have 
bothered." He put his hands against the chair's arms, as though he were about to push himself 
upright and walk out of the office. "You know so much about blade runners . . . you ever hear 
of something they call the Curve?" 


"Maybe." Isidore shrugged, nervous. "Some kind of . . . kuh-cop tuh-talk." 

"Maybe." Isidore shrugged, nervous. "Some kind of . . . kuh-cop tuh-talk." 

Isidore's eyes looked wet and sympathetic behind the glasses. "Then what happens?" 

"Depends." Once the dissection had begun, it was easy to sink the scalpel in deeper. 
"Upon where you are on the Curve." He'd used to think about these matters late at night in his 
flat, sunk deep in the overstuffed leather couch, one of the pleasantly expensive things that his 
bounty money had brought him. In the lonely splendor that'd followed his divorce, with a bottle 
of twenty-five-year-old single malt from the Orkney Islands close at hand, that sweetly tasted 
of smoke and dirt and money as well. Nobody ever said that blade-running sucked on the 
paycheck scale. Sometimes he'd sat there, brooding or anesthetized, with replicant blood still 
spattered across his chest. One time, he'd lifted his glass and had seen the drops of red written 
across the back of his hand. And had sipped and closed his eyes, and not felt a thing. 
"Eventually . . . the Curve gets steep enough, you fall off. I did." 

"And then you weren't a blade runner anymore." 

Seconds passed before he could say anything. "No . . . He shook his head. "I guess I 
wasn't." 

"Too buh-bad." Steel under Isidore's voice, a thin needle of it. "A little late, for all the 
ones you killed." 

Deckard gave him a hard stare. "Listen, pal--" A weapon in the eyes. "I was just doing 
my job." 

"I knew you'd say that." No flinch, no stammer. "It's what they all say. All the murderers." 

The cop on guard duty actually lifted his rifle across his chest. The next move would bring 
it down into firing position, full auto rock 'n' roll. "You got security clearance for this floor?" A 
mean look underneath the SWAT team cap. 

"Hey, hey . . . don't sweat it, man." The figure in the hospital's green scrubs raised his 
empty hands. An easy smile, but cold eyes. "I hit the wrong button, got off on the wrong floor. 
That's all." He slowly lowered his hands. "No need to uncork the artillery, pal." 

"Wrong button, huh?" The guard kept his finger on the trigger. At this range, he didn't 
need the sharpshooter tags under the LAPD shoulder insignia. He could've set the muzzle's 
hollow eye right on the breastbone beneath the hospital staff outfit. "Well, why don't you turn 
around, get back into the elevator, and push the right button this time. That way, you won't get 
into trouble." 

"What's the deal, anyway?" The smiling man raised up on his toes, scanning over the 
guard's head to the open unit where the floor's sole patient lay surrounded by gurgling 
machines, a half-dozen doctors and nurses who seemed to be more like technicians and 
electronics geeks. Softly bleeping dots drew spiked trails on a bank of video monitors. "This 
guy some kind of VIP?" Beyond the bed and the body, windows reached to the ceiling, 
overlooking the city. "Been here a long time, hasn't he?" The magmalike L.A. sun battered the 
towers, the glare washing out the viewscreen of the U.N. blimp as it cruised by, making its 
constant pitch for off-world emigration. 

"You ask a lot of questions." Cool enough to show nothing more than his index finger 
tightening on the crook of metal; small shiny things clicked ready inside the rifle. "Not a good 
idea." 

"Peace, brother." Hands went up again, palms exposed, the smile floating between them. 
"You keep on doing your job, and I'll go do mine." Inside the man's skull, behind the cold 


eyes, a single unvoiced word: Jerk. A couple meters beyond the guard stood the open frame 
of a metal detector; he could see that it'd been switched off, probably to keep it from being 
triggered by the equipment carts that rolled in and out of the unit. It wouldn't have mattered to 
him if he'd had to step through the thing, still smiling, to find out what he needed to know; the 
small, efficient gun hidden at the small of his back was sheathed in enough 
microprocessor-controlled evasion polymers to slip past a goddamn radar station. It was the 
lazy unprofessionalism that irked him. These putzes were amateurs, all black-leather and 
chrome-eyed swagger, and sloppy on the details. Typical. 

eyes, a single unvoiced word: Jerk. A couple meters beyond the guard stood the open frame 
of a metal detector; he could see that it'd been switched off, probably to keep it from being 
triggered by the equipment carts that rolled in and out of the unit. It wouldn't have mattered to 
him if he'd had to step through the thing, still smiling, to find out what he needed to know; the 
small, efficient gun hidden at the small of his back was sheathed in enough 
microprocessor-controlled evasion polymers to slip past a goddamn radar station. It was the 
lazy unprofessionalism that irked him. These putzes were amateurs, all black-leather and 
chrome-eyed swagger, and sloppy on the details. Typical. 

Leaning back as the elevator descended, he let the smile creep up into his eyes. Behind 
them were no words, just a map, the exact layout of the unit, the guards, the machines and 
doctors, and the man on the hospital bed, who had a hole where his heart and lungs used to 
be. 

He got off on the next floor down. No guards on this floor; he collected his gear, bigger 
and more rawly industrial-looking than the hospital's usual chrome equipment carts, from an 
unused storage closet and wheeled it into the maternity ward. He began unfolding the heavy 
bracing struts, the pronged steel feet digging into the scuffed rubberoid flooring. 

"What the hell are you doing?" Some kind of nursing supervisor came bustling toward 
him, waving a clipboard. "You can't put that thing in here! Whatever it is." 

The smiling man turned toward the woman. "Oh, I think I can." Farther along the ward, 
on all sides, an audience of pregnant women watched the altercation. They all looked huge and 
imminent, lying on closely spaced beds and gurneys, raising their heads just enough to look 
over their rounded abdomens to see what the noise was; their passive faces, medicated or 
endorphined, radiated a Buddhistic calm. "Besides--" His smile grew larger, though less 
reassuring. "I won't be here long." 

"I'm calling security." The nursing supervisor turned and strode toward the central station. 

"That's not a good idea." He interrupted his setup procedure, reaching behind himself and 
taking the gun out from beneath the scrub shirt. A click of metal was enough to stop the 
woman in her tracks, her eyes widening as she looked over her shoulder and saw the small 
black hole pointed at a spot just below the front edge of her white starched cap. "Why should 
we bother them?" He backed her up against the counter of the central station, the gun's muzzle 
then just an inch away from her forehead. With his other hand, he reached past the younger, 
even more terrified nurse sitting behind the counter, picked the phone up, and yanked its cord 
free from the wall below. "Since there's really no problem here, anyway. Unless you make 
one." His smile broadened as he took the gun away from the supervisor's face and used it to 
point toward the station's other chair. "Have a seat." 

He walked back toward the bulky device squatting in the middle of the maternity ward's 
floor. The eyes of all the pregnant women had latched on to him; a couple of the less 
tranquilized had started to weep softly, pulling up the thin sheets of the gurneys and trying to 
hide behind them. "Ladies . . . you're beautiful just the way you are." He held the gun by his 
own head, pointing it toward the speckled acoustic ceiling. "Just stay like this. Real quiet." He 
turned, sweeping the beam of his smile across them. "And then we'll always have this moment 
together. Won't we?" 

The mothers-to-be stayed frozen in place, just as he wanted them. He glanced over his 
shoulder at the women back at the nursing station. "I'm keeping an eye on you, too." With one 
hand he pulled out the last of the device's struts and jacked it into place. "So just relax. This'll 
only take a moment." 

In the breast pocket of his green scrub shirt was a remote with two red, unmarked 
buttons on one side. Taking a pace back, he fished the metal box out. This was serious enough 


business to erase the smile for a moment. He hit the top button with his thumb. 

business to erase the smile for a moment. He hit the top button with his thumb. 

The silence that followed was broken by the muffled sobs of the pregnant women 
sirening into full-out wails. That and the patter of atomized structural material, falling in a rain of 
white dust and charred metal across his shoulders. 

Already in motion, he ran back to the device he'd wheeled into the ward. The thrust of 
the shaped explosive charges had dug the bracing struts another inch into the floor. He gazed 
up at the raw-edged hole that had been ripped through the ceiling above. Its center was filled 
by the hydraulic ram that had sprung like a jack-in-the-box from the device, the oil-glistening 
metal shoving aside the scorched, twisted girders. 

Strapped to one side of the device was an attach‚ case of chrome and molded black 
neoprene. flicking the remote back into his scrub shirt pocket, he pulled the case free and 
started climbing, the wrist of his gun hand catching the holds riveted to the side of the ram. 

On the floor above, the hospital staff and security guards were still stunned by the blunt 
prow shape that had erupted in their midst. Jagged metal scraped along his spine as he 
emerged partway into the smoke and settling dust. A quick look around, with the case pulled 
through and flopped down onto the hole's buckled perimeter; he saw the heart-and-lung 
patient right where he'd planned on, the railed bed surrounded by the whispering machines. 
The monitor screens had flipped, the explosion having sent the beeping lines into sharp-pointed 
spasms and trilling alarms. Letting go of the case's handle but not the gun, he pushed himself up 
and onto the edge of the hole 

The doctors and nurses, the ones left standing, had been shoved by the explosion against 
the walls. At least one had been hit by a bit of flying shrapnel; blood formed a bright net across 
his face and surgical gown before he collapsed onto his knees. The patient on the bed, at the 
edge of anesthetized consciousness, stirred feebly inside the web of hoses and tubes. 

"Hey, buddy--" The smile returned to the man's face, his eyes brightening, as he called to 
the guard dragging himself toward the rifle that had landed a few feet away. The words were 
enough to stop the guard, his fingertips a fraction of an inch from the butt of the rifle. The 
hesitation was more than enough; the guard raised his head and the smiling man fired. One 
shoulder hit the rifle as the bullet's impact tugged the guard by his shattered skull along the 
floor. 

He could hear the alarms shrieking somewhere else inside the hospital. Time dwindling 
now -- he pulled the remote out of his shirt pocket and hit the second button. 

In the vibrating sunlight outside the ward's high bank of windows, a brighter spark 
moved, metal struck by fire. As though it were a piece of the sun, fallen into an orbit low 
among the city's towers. It grew larger, closer, summoned by the tight beam from the remote 
in the man's hand. 

Which he was done with -- he tossed the small metal box aside. He scooped up the 
attach‚ case by its black molded handle and strode quickly toward the bed. 

"What . . ." Not even a whisper, not a sigh, but a few molecules of exhaled breath. The 
heart-and-lung patient's eyelids fluttered open. "What . . . are you doing . . ." A red bubble 
trembled in the cloudy plastic tube inserted in his trachea. 

"Take it easy, pal." The man's hands were flying as he leaned over the bed. Yanking and 
pulling, tubes and ridged hoses flipped up from the heart-and-lung patient's blood spattered 
abdomen. "Just lie back and let me do the work." He'd laid the gun down on the nearest 
equipment cart, scooping up the sharp-edged tools and sterile white tape he'd known he'd find 
there. "Funny, that's what she said last night. Don't laugh, you'll bust a stitch." 

Pure oxygen hissed as he jerked the largest hose from a Teflon socket at the 


breastbone's center; a wobbling bag of Ringer's solution burst on the floor like a prankster's 
water balloon as his elbow knocked over the IV-drip stand. He worked faster, the attach‚ 
case open on the bed beside the patient. Security alarms shrieked in dissonant chorus outside 
the ward; he could sense through the floor the tremor of distant running. The quick, faint noise 
of ammo clips being shoved into place touched his ear; he didn't look up. He'd already 
measured the exact amount of time he needed. A spear of reflected sunlight hit his face. 
Glancing up, he saw the spinner, a modified light-cargo model, approaching the window bank. 
No one in the pilot seat; the program triggered by the push of the remote's button guided the 
spinner closer, the steel-reinforced nose gleaming a meter away from the glass, then less. 

breastbone's center; a wobbling bag of Ringer's solution burst on the floor like a prankster's 
water balloon as his elbow knocked over the IV-drip stand. He worked faster, the attach‚ 
case open on the bed beside the patient. Security alarms shrieked in dissonant chorus outside 
the ward; he could sense through the floor the tremor of distant running. The quick, faint noise 
of ammo clips being shoved into place touched his ear; he didn't look up. He'd already 
measured the exact amount of time he needed. A spear of reflected sunlight hit his face. 
Glancing up, he saw the spinner, a modified light-cargo model, approaching the window bank. 
No one in the pilot seat; the program triggered by the push of the remote's button guided the 
spinner closer, the steel-reinforced nose gleaming a meter away from the glass, then less. 

"Let's go--" He flipped the switch beneath a glass square set in the case's lid; a fiat green 
line coursed across the monitor. "Son of a bitch. Come on!" Smile into angry scowl; a fist 
struck the densely packed machinery; a miniature bellows sucked and gasped through a mesh 
filter, but the green line remained a perfect horizon. Both fists doubled, he struck the man on 
the bed, hitting the narrow target between the throat and the red-edged tubes hard enough to 
partway jackknife the man's knees toward his chest. 

"Jesus . . ." An agonized whisper. One of the heart-and-lung patient's hands came free, 
from where it had been bound by the wrist to the bed's chrome rail; he feebly tried to fend off 
his attacker. "Jesus Christ . . . get away from me . . ." 

The man above leaned down, sealing his mouth over the other's, a suction tube already 
prodded into the kiss. A hard exhale, and the patient's chest raised in response. From the 
attach‚ case came a birdlike chirp, as the monitor's green line jittered, then caught in a 
two-stroke beat. The artificial pulse slowed, steadied as the man, smiling again, wiped his 
mouth and adjusted the knob for the adrenaline flow. 

"I hope you're ready to travel--" 

Words barely spoken, when the high bank of windows shattered, sparkling points of 
glass arcing across the ward. The segmented metal frame bent and twisted, bolts screeching 
out of the floor and walls as the nose of the freight spinner shoved its way inside the hospital 
building. 

The smiling man brushed glitter of broken glass from the heart-and-lung patient's raw, 
exposed chest; he reached a hand behind and raised the patient up, his other hand looping the 
surgical tape around, strapping the attach‚ case and its nest of hoses tight against the body. 

"Hold on!" Glass crunched underfoot as he shoved the wheeled bed toward the spinner, 
now motionless in the gaping architectural wound. 

Rifle fire behind him -- he glanced over his shoulder and saw the bright muzzle flashes, 
the crouching figures of an LAPD security team, more of them darting from the bank of 
elevators as the doors slid open, the dark-uniformed men running head down and with guns in 
hand, taking up positions around the ward's narrow entrance. A bullet clanged and ricocheted 
from one of the bed's curved metal bars; others slammed into the surrounding walls. The 
ruptured floor, with the entry device's battering ram still rearing up into the space, and the 
knocked-aside medical equipment formed a partial barricade between the man and the new 
arrivals on the scene, momentarily shielding him from a direct line of attack. 

He reached to the small of his back for his own gun, found nothing, remembered that he 
had left it sitting on top of the main respiratory-assist machine, at the edge of the nest of tubes 
and hoses from which he'd yanked the bed. He could see the gun now, a small black shape on 
top of shiny chrome. Too far away to reach, especially with a sharp horizontal rain of hollow 
points lacing the room -- he swung back toward the shattered windows, watching across the 
prostrate form of the heart-and-lung patient as the freight spinner outside rotated, bringing its 


open cargo-bay door toward the jagged teeth of glass. The glaring sunlight hit his face like a 
furnace's hot flood. 

open cargo-bay door toward the jagged teeth of glass. The glaring sunlight hit his face like a 
furnace's hot flood. 

Through the echoing clamor of the rifle fire, he could hear the security team shifting 
position, moving closer into the ward. He took a few steps backward, drawing the hospital 
bed with him, then bracing his hands against the lowest rail on one side. 

"No . . ." The heart-and-lung patient had seen what the other man was getting ready to 
do. "You can't . . . im . . . possible . . ." 

"Shut up." He pushed the bed full force, digging in and picking up speed, head lowered 
bull-like and muscles straining beneath the green scrubs. A second later the rolling bed had hit 
the rim of the floor-level window frame; momentum tilted the bed over and sent it flying 
toward the spinner outside, the cargo bay as the exact center of the target. His own 
momentum and a final diving launch carried him after. 

He landed on the patient, who moaned and tried to push him away with weak, narcotized 
arms. One of the hospital bed's wheels had caught against the sill of the bay door; the chrome 
frame and mattress fell outside the spinner, scraping against the hospital exterior as it spiraled 
down toward the city streets below. 

Bullets hit and bounced inside the bare-ribbed cargo space. Inside the hospital, the 
security team had come out to the open, sprinting across the ward's broken field, firing as they 
ran. 

He scrambled off the heart-and-lung patient; still on his knees, he lunged past the 
cockpit's empty seats and hit the autopilot's override button on the control panel. A slap of his 
hand against the thrust levers -- the spinner surged forward, a forearm slung around the pilot 
seat's headrest keeping him from being flung back into the cargo space. 

Through the cockpit's glass curve, he spotted the steel hook of the broken window frame 
digging farther into the engine's air scoop. Enough to tilt the spinner at a forty-five-degree angle 
as it fought against the crude grapple. A metal hail hammered small dents into the side panels. 

Over his shoulder he saw the heart-and-lung patient sliding helplessly toward the open 
bay door. Hanging on to the pilot seat, he reached back and managed to claw a handful of the 
billowing sheets into his fist. Shock and fear had cut through the patient's anesthetizing drugs; 
fully conscious, eyes nearly as wide as his gaping mouth, he stared behind and below himself, 
at the dizzying emptiness of air and the threadlike street rotating hundreds of meters down at 
the hospital tower's base. 

With the sheet as a taut sling, the other man yanked the heart-and-lung patient up toward 
himself. With a push of his arm, he managed to get the patient stuffed awkwardly into the other 
cockpit seat. The gauges and monitor screen on the attach‚ case strapped to the patient's 
chest shrieked and danced in alarm. 

A twist of the rudder pulled the spinner free of the window frame strut, the pent-up thrust 
sending the vehicle arcing toward the cloudless sky. The security team, arrayed in the gap in 
the hospital's outside wall, continued to fire as they dwindled away, the bullets rattling against 
the cargo-bay door as it slid shut. 

"Uhh . . ." The heart-and-lung patient was beyond words now. His pale hands fluttered 
against the attach‚ case, the pulsing machinery that kept him alive. "Uh . . . uhh . . ." 

"Knock it off." The other man, smile not yet returned to his face, looked over in 
annoyance at the heart-and-lung patient. His own hands continued punching a flight pattern 
into the spinner's on-board computer. "You're making me nervous." 

Sun flashed off the spinner's metal, pure white and dazzling, as it sped through and away 
from the city's upper reaches. 


"That's what they've always said." 

"That's what they've always said." 

"The suh-same old shit." Something almost like pity moved behind the thick lenses of 
Isidore's glasses. He shook his head in disgust. "Anytime people wuh-want to get themselves 
off the huh-hook, that's the kuh-kuh-kind of thing they say. 'I was doing my job. They told me 
to do it.'" His mocking voice didn't stumble. "It was a kruh-creaky old line at 
Nurembuh-berg." 

"Yeah, well, maybe it was true there, too." 

"Oh, guh-good one, Deckard." The head of the Van Nuys Pet Hospital pressed his 
hands fiat against the desk, leaning forward with his suddenly sharper gaze. "Great rehrhetorical 
tuh-tactic, all right. You can duh-defend yourself and the Third Reich, all at the same 
tuh-time." 

"Give me a break." His turn to shake his head. "You brought me here for a lecture on 
ancient history? Forget it. The dead are buried, and the murderers' ashes were dumped at the 
side of the road." 

"I'm impressed. You nuh-know your stuff." 

"Enough of it." He leaned back in the chair. "So can I go now? Because if you just 
wanted to take the moral higher ground with me, you didn't have to bother. Like I said, I quit 
the job." 

"But maybe," said Isidore, "the juh-juh-job didn't quit you." 

He sighed. "Whatever." 

"Because . . ." The other's voice went lower and softer. "Because you never really 
fuh-found anything wrong with the blade runner job itself. You just didn't like duh-doing it 
anymore. Like you said, you got too far out on the Curve." 

The room, Isidore's office, filled with silence; the papers and old calendars on the wall 
hung motionless in tensed air. Deckard closed his eyes. "It was a job somebody had to do. 
They were dangerous." 

"Huh-who were?" 

"Come on. The replicants. They were made to be dangerous. Military issue . . . for those 
nasty little chores offworld. So they had to be taken care of. Retired." 

"By somebody like you." 

Deckard opened his eyes. "That's right." 

"Fuh-funny, isn't it, that they never huh-hurt anybody who wasn't trying to hurt them first. 
There's no ruh-record of an escaped replicant killing a human . . . at least not here on Earth . . 
. except when it was buh-backed into a corner, with no other way out." 

"Oh, yeah?" That brought a sharp laugh from Deckard. "Tell it to Eldon Tyrell." 

"Thuh-thuh-that was duh-different. That was something puh-personal." Isidore's 
expression turned brooding. "Besides, Eldon Tyrell duh-deserved to die. He was a real 
sonuvabitch. Believe me, I nuh-know." 

Deckard wasn't going to argue the point. Tyrell, when alive, had given him the creeps. 
Plus, everything he'd scoped out since -- all the bleak shimmer he'd picked up from the man's 
niece Sarah -- hadn't changed his mind. 

"All right," said Deckard. "Maybe replicants are nothing but saints. Human, however, 
they're not." 

"Is thuh-that you talking? Or the blade runner?" 

"Take your pick." 

"Buh-but you loved one. A replicant. Or you still do. You suh-suh-sleep with her. In your 
arms." 

"Doesn't make her human." He could hear the coldness in his own voice. Not for 


Rachael, but for everything else in the world. "If she were human, she wouldn't be dying now. 
So you're right about Tyrell -- that four-year life span was one of his bright ideas. The 
Nexus-6 replicants were his big chance to play God, and all he could think of to do was 
hard-wire death into their cells." 

Rachael, but for everything else in the world. "If she were human, she wouldn't be dying now. 
So you're right about Tyrell -- that four-year life span was one of his bright ideas. The 
Nexus-6 replicants were his big chance to play God, and all he could think of to do was 
hard-wire death into their cells." 

"Nothing." He shook his head. "There's a difference. Between human and not. That's 
what the tests are all about. The Voigt-Kampff tests." He knew he sounded like a blade runner 
now. These were the articles of faith, the core beliefs of the job. "She couldn't pass the test the 
first time I gave it to her, out at the Tyrell Corporation headquarters." He wondered how much 
of this Isidore already knew. There was some kind of link between Isidore and Sarah Tyrell -he 
just didn't know yet what it was. "I spotted her then. It took a while, but I knew. That she 
was a replicant." 

"Buh-but it wasn't just the vuh-Voigt-Kampff tests; that muh-muh-machine you guys haul 
around with yourselves. It was something else. Something inside you. That could suh-say, 'This 
one's human and this one's not.' That's the essential thing, isn't it? About being a buh-blade 
runner. That ability to muh-make the distinction between what's human and wuh-what's not. 
What just goes around and walks and talks and acts like a human." 

He shifted in the chair, as though trying to avoid the probe of the other's words. "I 
suppose so." 

"That's vuh-very interesting, Mr. Deckard." With a forefinger Isidore tapped one lens of 
his glasses. "You know, I see pruh-pretty well -- at least, with these I do -- but that's 
wuh-wuh-one thing I've never seen. This difference between human and not. Between the 
ruh-real and the fuh-fake. I don't think I could, even if I had one of your fuh-fuh-fancy 
Voigt-kuh-Kampff machines." He gave a tilt of his head toward the office's door. "It comes 
with the territory, I guh-guess. My territory, that is. Like out there with the animals. You said 
the fuh-phony ones gave you the creeps . . . the ones you could tell were phony, because they 
were broken or something. And for a minute there, I couldn't even tell what the huh-huh-hell 
you were talking about." He still looked perplexed. "I mean, I understand -- I can tell the 
difference between one and the other -- up here . . ." A finger tapped the side of his head. 
"But I can't tell the difference down here." The same finger prodded at the chest beneath the 
white lab coat. "But I guess that's fairly common, huh? Otherwise we wouldn't have 
Voigt-Kampff machines. Or blade runners." 

The guy had started getting on Deckard's nerves. The soft sarcasm ignited a defensive 
spark inside his own chest. "You're forgetting something. The Voigt-Kampff machines, the 
tests, those blade runner skills . . . they all detect and measure something that actually exists. 
That's empathy. You know what that is?" 

"I got an idea." 

Deckard leaned forward, drilling his hard level gaze into Isidore's, "It's the ability to feel. 
To feel what another living creature feels. Humans have it. Replicants don't. Not to the same 
degree; not enough. That's what makes them dangerous." 

One of Isidore's eyebrows lifted. "This empathy . . . Rachael duh-doesn't have it?" 

The spark burned hotter inside him; he could've killed the man on the other side of the 
desk. "Maybe not," he said finally. "Or she wouldn't have let me fall in love with her. She'd 
have known better." 

A sigh, a shake of the head. "See how much you complicate things? With all this 
buh-business about what's fake and what's real. Your big-duh-deal Voigt-Kampff machines . . 
. what do they measure? Really measure. A millisecond's difference in pupil dilation times; a 
blush response that's one shade less puh-pink than the prescribed norm. You know what you 
were like, when you were running around being such a buh-bad-ass blade runner? Like a 
Rassenpr•fer; something else right out of the Third Reich." The stammer evaporated as 


Isidore's ire rose. "Remember what those were? Racial examiners. Going around Berlin with 
calipers and measuring people's noses, right out on the street. A millimeter too big, not quite 
the correct shape, and boom, you weren't defined as human anymore. Your ass was off to 
Auschwitz. At least the Nazis preferred doing their killing somewhere out of sight -- guess that 
makes them a class act compared to you guys." 

Isidore's ire rose. "Remember what those were? Racial examiners. Going around Berlin with 
calipers and measuring people's noses, right out on the street. A millimeter too big, not quite 
the correct shape, and boom, you weren't defined as human anymore. Your ass was off to 
Auschwitz. At least the Nazis preferred doing their killing somewhere out of sight -- guess that 
makes them a class act compared to you guys." 

"Look. I told you already." He felt a thin sheen of sweat on his palms, a nervous 
response to the other's threat. "I quit the job. Bryant -- my old boss -- he put the screws on 
me to go back and do it again. Maybe I should've told him to go fuck himself . . . but I didn't. I 
didn't have the guts. So sue me." He pushed himself back in the chair, his palms hard against 
the chair's arms. "But nobody ever heard me say that being a blade runner was a good job." 

"It wasn't a good job, Deckard, because it was buh-buh-bullshit." Isidore wasn't letting 
him off the hook. "The empathy tests, the Voigt-Kampff machines . . . they're all crap. They 
don't even wuh-work. Have there ever been any false puh-positives? Subjects who had the 
tests run on them, who were identified as being replicants, only they weren't?" 

He hesitated a second before answering. The same question, in different words, had 
been asked of him once before. He shook his head. "No." 

"As I said, buh-buh-bullshit. What about the St. Paul incident?" 

Gears meshed inside Deckard's head, trying to grind out an analysis of what this little man 
was up to. He knows too much -- the St. Paul incident was more than top secret. After that 
mess had been cleaned up, the details hadn't even been recorded, so there would be no files 
to purge. Just the memories that the blade runners themselves carried around, locked behind 
their foreheads. 

"St. Paul . . ." The words came slow out of his mouth. "St. Paul was an accident." 

"I duh-don't think that's what they'd call it. If they could call it anything." 

Those dead, or their ashes at any rate, were buried somewhere in Minnesota. Bad luck 
was as much a death-penalty crime as being an escaped replicant. During the peak of the 
winter flu season, a pharmacist in central St. Paul had handed out his remaining stock of an 
upper-respiratory humectant, once popular but pulled off the market by the Food and Drug 
Administration, to his family and friends. A member of the LAPD blade runner unit goes back 
to visit his folks for Christmas, gets drunk with an old high school girlfriend, runs the 
Voigt-Kampff tests on her for a joke. The over-the-counter flu medicine contains a mild CNS 
depressant, just enough to tweak down her iris fluctuations and blush response. The blade 
runner on vacation takes out his gun and blows her away. On a roll: he runs the Voigt-Kampff 
tests on everybody around him, including his aging Norman Rockwell -- type parents, 
determines that he's surrounded by a nest of escaped replicants passing as human. In the next 
twelve hours, the only thing he stops for is to reload. 

Bad luck, real bad shit. One of Deckard's old partners in the blade runner unit, the 
coldest of the bunch, had to go back there and pull the plug on the guy, who by that point was 
completely nuts and seeing escaped replicants everywhere. Extremely terminated; the 
loose-cannon blade runner's body was flown back to Los Angeles and buried with honors, 
without details. The lid was clamped down in St. Paul, with judicious application of the slush 
fund that Bryant administered out of the bottom drawer of his desk. Silence on the matter . . . 
at least until this Isidore character opened his mouth. 

"How do you know about St. Paul?" 

A smug expression settled on Isidore's face. "Mr. Deckard, it's my business to know 


about things like that. It's the buh-business of the Van Nuys Pet Hospital. The real business." 

about things like that. It's the buh-business of the Van Nuys Pet Hospital. The real business." 

Isidore glanced at the pictures tacked to the wall. "I didn't even ruh-really know, until old 
Mr. suh-Sloat died. I'd just worked for him before that, duh-doing what he told me to do, 
fixing up those busted animals -- the fake ones, as yuh-you'd kuh-call them. But then when he 
was gone, and he'd left me everything . . ." He brought his gaze back around to Deckard. 
"When he left me . . . the great task. The responsibility. What he had done, and what I had to 
do. That was when I found out the truth." Behind the round lenses, his eyes looked both wise 
and pitying. "You're a failure, Deckard. You were a failure before you quit being a blade 
runner. The whole blade runner shtick is a failure. You're suh-supposed to be keeping 
escaped replicants from running around on Earth, being 'dangerous,' as you like to think they 
are. Well, you buh-buh-blew it. You and all the rest of the blade runners. You didn't 
accomplish jack about tracking down replicants. And you know why? Because you can't do 
anything about it. You never could. Blade runners -- shuh-shuh-sheesh. Buncha frauds, 
wasting taxpayers' muh-money. The LAPD should've pensioned you off, or put you back in 
uniform, made tuh-ruh-rub-traffic cops outta you. Something useful, at least. Because 
something like the St. Paul incident -- and there've been others, ones you don't even know 
about -- you know wuh-what something like that shows?" 

He slouched down in the chair, hating the guy. "You're gonna tell me." 

"That's why you're huh-here, Deckard. It's not just that there can be false positives on the 
Voigt-Kampff test. That blade runners have been icing humans -- ruh-real humans -- that 
flunked the test for one reason or another. It's also that wuh-once you admit that fallibility of 
the empathy-testing methodology, you admit the possibility of false negatives. Replicants who 
pass the test, who walk right by you because your big deal Voigt-Kampff machines 
tuh-tuh-told you they were human." 

"A possibility." A shrug. "Big deal. Anything's possible. Doesn't mean it ever happened." 

"Buh-but you see . . ." Isidore folded his hands together in his lap. "I can prove it's 
happened. That replicants can get past the empathy tests, your fancy-shuh-shmancy 
Voigt-Kampff machines. Even before the Nexus-6 models came on-line, they were getting 
puh-past. For years now -- muh-maybe decades -- there've been escaped replicants walking 
around on Earth. Right here in L.A., even. And there's nothing that you or any of the other 
blade runners can do about it. Because you can't find them." 

"Metaphysics." He glared back at the other man. "Bullshit. You're talking religion. 
Articles of faith. Postulating an invisible entity -- it exists but you can't see it. Nobody can. 
Replicants passing as human -- they exist because you think they have to exist. Good luck 
proving that one." 

"Nuh-nuh-not faith, Deckard. But reality. I've seen them, talked to them, wuh-watched 
them come and go . . ." Isidore's gaze shifted away, refocusing on the radiance of an inner 
vision. "Oh, much more than that. I know everything about them. Isn't that fuh-fuh-funny?" An 
expression of amazement. "I'm the person who couldn't ever see the difference, between 
human and not, between the fuh-fake and the real -- you could see those things, but I couldn't. 
I was blind to them. And I won. The way I see things . . . it became real. From in here . . ." He 
tapped the side of his head again. "To everywhere." The fingertip moved away from the skull. 
"I made it real." 

He stayed silent, watching. A few minutes before he'd been sure that the other man was 
insane. Now he wasn't sure. Of anything. 

The gaze of the enlightened, of those who know the truth, turned upon him once more. 

"Don't you see, Deckard?" The voice soft and gentle, stammer evaporated. "That's what 
the business of the Van Nuys Pet Hospital was all along -- or at least that's what it had 
become before old Mr. Sloat left it to me. His legacy. When I found out what he'd been doing 
-- what we'd all been doing -- I didn't have any choice. I had to go on with it." 


He peered closer at the man. "With what?" 

He peered closer at the man. "With what?" 

"If they exist at all." The other man's words had stung him, needled him back into a way 
of thinking, a way of being that he'd thought he'd given up completely. "If they existed . . . we 
would've caught them eventually. At least some of them." Deckard could hear an old brutality 
setting steel in his voice. "And it's got nothing to do with being a blade runner. It's about being 
a cop. And what cops know. You're talking conspiracy, buddy. Anytime you got that many in 
on something, some of them are gonna crack. They're not as strong as the others, they're not 
as good at hiding, at sweating it out when they know they're being hunted. All it takes is one, 
and then the whole game's up. And that's how we would've caught your fixed-up replicants. If 
they existed." 

"True . . ." Isidore nodded slowly. "As you say, not everybody has the nerves for hiding. 
For staying hidden. You and the rest of the blade runners must be proud of having made 
yourselves into such objects of fear. Tuh-terrorists, really. But this is something that old Mr. 
Sloat knew all about. And knew what to do about it, too. And I've done the same as he did. 
There's more than just the blush response that can be fixed on an escaped replicant. There's 
the memory; that can be fixed as well." 

"Now I know you're bullshitting me. False memories in replicants are implanted at their 
incept dates. When the replicants are created. The phony memories are part of them from the 
beginning." 

"You're wrong, Deckard. Or puh-partly so. The incept date is when the Tyrell 
Corporation shoves in whatever false memories they want their replicants to have. But it's not 
the only time it can be done. The neural access pathway is hard-wired into the replicants' 
neocortices. In fact, the bandwidth of the data channel is one of the design features of the 
Nexus-6 line; I could show you the schematics. It was so the corporation could cram more 
stuff into their heads before they sent them off the assembly lines. But the access to the 
memory areas is still there, like a door without even a lock on it. You juh-just have to know 
where to look for it. And then use it." 

"And that's what you did. Supposedly." 

"Oh, yeah." A look of dreamy triumph moved behind Isidore's glasses. "No 'supposedly' 
about it. It's my job. I'm very good at it. And when I'm done . . ." His gaze sharpened once 
more. "Some of the people you thought were humans, they were actually replicants and they 
didn't even know it. You'd be surprised to learn who they were. And are." 

The room seemed suddenly smaller, as though the walls had snugged up against his 
shoulders. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Like I said, Deckard . . ." The other's voice was as smooth and piercing as a 
hypodermic. "You'd be surprised. Very, very surprised." 


5..... 

5..... 

Up above, stars were still set in blackness, the atmosphere scoured raw by the Santa 
Ana winds rolling over the desert. During the trek back, three lines of fire, evenly spaced, had 
cut across the sky. From the north and veering downtown -- he'd twisted around to watch the 
distant spinners, wondering who the hell was in them. Somebody important, he'd figured. But 
none of his business. He'd laid his check against the back of Fuzzy's head, conserving his own 
dwindled strength. 

When they reached home, he made his two pals wait out in the corridor. He crawled 
over the frame of the nest's tilted doorway. his one hand pulling him laboriously forward. "Hey, 
Pris? Sweetheart? I got something special for you." With a string knotted around his wrist, he 
dragged behind him one of the candy boxes from the welfare bundle. "Where are you, honey?" 

His eyes took a long time adjusting to the room's darkness; the metallic curtains stapled 
over the windows, including the one that the building's fall had turned into a skylight, shut out 
all but a thin trace of the advancing light. In the corner a mop of dead-white hair rustled. A 
face, more wrinkled and deracinated than even Sebastian's ancient one, lifted from bent knees 
clutched to flattened girl-chest. Eye sockets, blind but for thermal scans, turned toward the 
legless, one-armed supplicant. 

"Look--" He knew Pris, or what was left of her, couldn't look, not really. But acting like 
she or it could was good enough. Under these circumstances. Sebastian reeled the box into his 
hand, then held it out. "I brought you this--" 

An inaudible shriek, leathery jaw hinges yanked wide, as the Pris-thing sprung from its 
crouch. Its bone hand slapped the box from Sebastian's grasp; the chocolate-covered cherries 
spattered gooey wounds across the inverted walls and ceiling. A rattling hiss, a remnant 
scream, came from its throat as it reached down, grabbed, and threw him across the room. 

"Yes . . ." Tears of pain and joy filled his eyes. From where he'd landed, he watched as 
that which he loved jerked in spastic tantrum, arms flailing pinwheels as it lurched away. He 
nodded slowly. "Yes . . . I love you, too." 

The teddy bear and the hussar peeked over the doorway's edge at him. Then clambered 
down to lift up and tend to his ancient, partial body. 

"That's an old joke." Deckard actually felt sorry for the little man on the other side of the 
desk. Another cat had wangled its way onto Isidore's lap; this one was without flesh on its 
steel bones. "Sarah Tyrell had me brought all the way over here just so you could run that 
creaky number on me?" 

Isidore petted the mechanical cat, as if unaware of the difference between it and the 
tabby he'd held before. The contraption purred and closed its eyes in contentment; or at least 
polyethylene membranes slid down over the glass replications. One of Isidore's forefingers 
scratched where the cat's ears should've been. "I don't run any nuh-numbers. On anybody." 

"Yeah, right." Deckard shook his head in disgust. "What's with all the heavy hinting, then? 
All that stuff about how surprised I'd be to find out who's really a replicant passing as human. 
Passing because the person doesn't even know he's really a replicant. And then you give me 
the big, significant look. Shit." He fixed the other man with his own hard glare. "You think that 


isn't one of the first things a blade runner starts thinking about? Hey, maybe I'm one of these 
replicants. Maybe the cops set mechanical cats to catch mechanical rats. It'd be just like them 
-- believe me, blade runners know the LAPD's mind-set better than you civilians do. And 
since we're too familiar with the empathy tests to use them on ourselves -- then we have to 
come up with some other way of knowing for sure that we're not replicants."' 

isn't one of the first things a blade runner starts thinking about? Hey, maybe I'm one of these 
replicants. Maybe the cops set mechanical cats to catch mechanical rats. It'd be just like them 
-- believe me, blade runners know the LAPD's mind-set better than you civilians do. And 
since we're too familiar with the empathy tests to use them on ourselves -- then we have to 
come up with some other way of knowing for sure that we're not replicants."' 

"It's the Curve. It's always the Curve. That whole 'index of self-loathing' trip." He could 
feel his own eyes narrowing, as though he were contemplating the soul underneath his 
breastbone. "Blade runners wind up so sick of themselves eventually -- realizing they were 
replicants would be a relief. But that never happens. Loathe thyself -- blade runners pretty 
much have the ultimate in self-knowledge. So don't bother trying any of these retread mind 
games on me." 

"Well . . . it duh-doesn't matter, anyway." Isidore shrugged. "Whether you're really 
human or not . . . that's the least of your worries now." 

"Right now, I'm not worried about anything except retiring some escaped replicant. And 
then getting back to where I was before I got yanked back down here. Up north. Somebody's 
waiting for me there." At the back of his mind, all the while this weird person had been 
haranguing him: the black coffin in which he'd left Rachael sleeping, dying. It could run for 
itself, awhile at least, but soon enough it would need his loving hand moving underneath the 
control panel's metal skirt. "You're big on moral condemnation, pal, but let's face it, it's kind of 
wasted on me. I've already got enough to spare. So why don't you just tell me what it is that I 
should be so worried about?" He nodded toward the door. "Then maybe you won't mind if I 
just walk out of here." 

"You know, duh-duh-Deckard . . ." In Isidore's lap, the steel-skeletoned cat raised its 
head, gaze parallel and equal to the one above. "Like most things about you, your whole load 
of self-loathing is pretty much a shun-shuck. As long as your skin's intact, you don't really care 
what happens to anyone else. So that's why I know this is going to be right up your alley." He 
leaned forward, the cat held tight against his chest. "This job you've taken on -- there's always 
one more job, isn't there? -- it's not going to be so easy." 

"Skip the warning. I've had one already." 

Isidore went on. "You're not going to be able to just wuh-walk out of here and start 
hunting. You screwed up, Deckard. Big time. From before. Tell me: what's the final -- the 
ultimate -- absolutely accurate way of determining whether somebody's a human or a 
replicant?" 

The fierce quiet in the other's voice had pushed him back into his chair. "Postmortem," he 
said finally. "Bone marrow analysis. Takes a while--" 

"I know how long it tuh-takes. And it's also how I know you screwed up. Because I've 
seen the postmortem bone marrow results. There was one replicant you retired . . . who 
wasn't a replicant. And killing a human isn't called retirement, Deckard. It's called murder." 

"Bullshit." He returned the other's glare, but felt a molecule-thick layer of moisture form 
between his palms and the chair's arms. "Which one are you talking about?" 

"Not which one, Deckard. But who. Wuh-we're talking about human buh-beings here; 
get your language straight. The girl who called herself Pris. Remember her? Blond, athletic . . . 
probably a little kuh-ruh-crazy." Isidore nodded slowly, stroking the mechanical cat. "She had 
her problems, guh-guh-God knows. But she was human. Really human. The bone marrow 
analysis proved it. Of course, that was after you'd already kuh-killed her." 

"That's impossible." Deckard gripped the sweating chair arms harder. "She had to be a 
replicant. I didn't need to run an empathy test on her. She . . ." For a moment his thoughts 
scurried away from his grasp, his pulse ticking upward in his throat. "She matched the ID that I 
was given. And she was . . . strong. Like replicants are. You didn't see that. She nearly killed 
me." 


"Strong, huh?" The other man gave a quick, sharp laugh. "You mean stronger than you. 
Some woman kicks your ass, so she must not be human. And you kill her. Ruh-really, 
Deckard. How do you think that's going to sound in court?" 

"Strong, huh?" The other man gave a quick, sharp laugh. "You mean stronger than you. 
Some woman kicks your ass, so she must not be human. And you kill her. Ruh-really, 
Deckard. How do you think that's going to sound in court?" 

"A puh-picture." Isidore's voice went soft and sad. "You killed her because of a picture. 
Isn't that why you were issued a Voigt-Kampff machine? Told to run empathy tests? So you 
wuh-wouldn't be just running wild out there on the streets, shooting anyone that looked like a 
replicant to you. So you'd be sure who was human and what wasn't." He watched his own 
hand rubbing the round metal ball of the cat's skull. "That is, of course, if you're inclined to 
making that little distinction." 

Silence. He couldn't make any reply. Deckard knew, in the pit of his gut, that the man on 
the other side of the battered desk was telling the truth. About the bone marrow analysis, 
about human or not . . . about everything. 

"Who . . ." He knew now that that was the right word. And not what. "Who was she?" 

"Like I said, duh-Deckard. She was a human. Beyond the blood marrow results, there 
isn't much more that I've been able to find out about her. Name really was Pris. That much 
was true. Born off-world, probably in one of the U.N.'s Martian colonies. They don't like to 
talk about it, but there's a fairly huh-high rate of muh-muh-mental breakdown out in those 
warrens. It's a good place to go nuts. And plenty of them do. There are others, the same as 
poor Pris was. They don't wuh-wuh-want to be human anymore. They're wanna-bes. They 
cross the line; they start hanging out with replicants, they act like them . . . and then they cross 
another line. In their heads. Instead of replicants who think, who believe, who know they're 
human . . . people like poor dead Pris, they're humans who've come to think, to know that 
they're replicants. A psychotic break. With full-blown somatic conversions -- they even take 
on the physical attributes of replicants. Increased strength, duh-damage resistance, the whole 
bit. They make a game out of picking up red-hot metal bare-handed, without getting hurt. 
That's how far their cracked minds can go to prove they're replicants and not human. The 
process is completed when, like Pris, they escape from the off-world colonies and come to 
Earth. Where they'll be killed. By people like you." Isidore closed his eyes for a moment, the 
mechanical cat doing the same. "Then they're not wanna-bes anymore. Then they're 
wanna-dies." 

Now he knew the exact reason for the sweat. What he had to be worried about. "But . . 
. she tried to kill me first . . ." 

"Self-defense. She's going about her own business here in L.A., some flipped-out cop 
shows up with a gun, starts tearing the place up . . . hey, she was just trying to pruh-protect 
herself. Humans have the right to do that." 

The thoughts in his head squirmed, trying to find a way out. "Yeah, but . . . she was 
already guilty of murder. The escape from off-world . . . people died in that . . ." 

Isidore shrugged. "There's no evidence that Pris did any of the kuh-kuh-killing. And even 
if she had, it doesn't chuh-change things for you. Cops -- even blade runners -- are supposed 
to arrest people -- humans -- and bring 'em in. Not blow 'em away before they get a trial. 
What, you're going to stand up in court and say you had a right to execute suspects before 
they're found guilty? Good luck on that one. Judges really huh-hate out-of-control cops. They 
won't even take you out of the courtroom; the judge'll just hike up his black robe and stand on 
your thuh-ruh-throat until you stop moving." 

"You're wrong." The smug tone in the other man's voice infuriated him. "The LAPD looks 
out for its own. There are ways. The department will cover for me. They do the investigating, 
remember? They can take whatever evidence they've got, make it look any way they want. Or 
they can lose it, bury it down in Internal Affairs, so deep it'll never come back up." The fury 
tinged his own voice. "I was doing my job -- yeah, that's no excuse. But there's no way the 
department's going to let a fellow cop take a rap . . . like that . . ." Fury drained, his words 


faded. He'd just remembered something. 

faded. He'd just remembered something. 

The sweat had turned to ice under his hands. He looked down at them, seeing them as if 
they belonged to someone else, someone already dead. "Do they know?" He looked back up 
at Isidore. "That I'm in the city?" 

"I didn't tell the police about you. But they know. Somebody else tuh-told them." 

"Who? It must've been her . . . Sarah Tyrell." 

Isidore shook his head. "No -- she had you buh-brought here so I could warn you. Not 
to juh-just go waltzing out onto the streets and get yourself blown away." 

It didn't matter. The only thing that did matter was far away from here. "Now what 
happens?" 

"I don't know. That's up to you, Deckard. Duh-dying seems to be your likeliest option." 

"You could help me get away." 

A thin smile and a shake of the head. "I don't know any thing about how to do that. It's 
not exactly my area of expertise. Someone leaves here, I don't have any way of helping them 
after that." 

He glanced around the small room's walls. "But the police don't know I'm here. In your 
pet hospital. Or they would've found me already." Like wolves on a rabbit -- his former 
associates in the department wouldn't waste any time. "You could let me hide out here. Until I 
figure out what to do." 

"No--" This shake was more emphatic. "If they don't know you're here now, they soon 
will. And I can't risk that. I've got other ruh-responsibilities. Your skin isn't one of them." 

"So all that other stuff was just talk." Bitter in his voice, like acid curling under his tongue. 
"All your big concern about living things. Whether they're human or not. I guess that doesn't 
extend to blade runners." 

"Should it?" Isidore's hand moved gently beneath the mechanical cat's throat. "The 
creatures I help -- replicant, human, whatever -- they didn't ask for the bad shit that happens 
to them. You duh-did. The hunter can't complain when he becomes the hunted. Now you're 
going to find out what it fuh-fuh-feels like. To be running for your life. To be afraid." 

To live in fear. He heard another voice, an old memory track, inside his head. That's 
what it is . . . to be a slave . . . 

"I've already been there," said Deckard, "I'm not going to learn anything new." 

"What a shame. It's such a good ah-ah-opportunity." Isidore set the mechanical cat down 
on the desktop, gave the creature a final pat on its shining head. It purred louder. "But then 
again . . . maybe you will. Learn something, that is. Like how to be a human." He reached out 
and pressed a small button set into the side of the desk. "I make things real. As much as they 
can be. You've never been real. Now's your chance." 

Deckard knew what the button was for. One of the thugs who'd brought him here -- the 
heavy footsteps were probably coming down the hallway, heading for the office's door. 

As though the chair were a trap, already sprung -- he couldn't keep himself sitting. He 
stood up, jittery adrenaline in his veins. On the wall -- he found himself staring at the pictures 
of dead Hannibal Sloat, the old photograph and the yellowed bit of newspaper. Fat and with 
hair in the photo, bald and fatter in the clipping. Time had walked through that low-resolution 


world. 

world. 

The grumpy-looking animal dangled from the dead man's hands. The other man in the 
newspaper photo could've been anybody; Deckard didn't recognize him. 

The woman in the old clipping was Rachael. 

No -- he closed his eyes, sorting things out. And it's not Sarah, either. The woman was 
Sarah's mother, Ruth. The mother of Rachael, too, in a way. They all looked just the same, 
twins, triplets. The only difference was that Ruth had had her dark hair cut short, just enough 
left for a little fringe at the back of her neck. A practical cut, just right for climbing aboard the 
Salander 3 -- that was what the clipping was about -- and setting off Prox-ward with her 
husband Anson Tyrell and their marmalade cat. And maybe the first few cells of their human 
daughter, already growing in Ruth's womb. The couple looked radiant and happy, in that 
bright world of the past. To find what they were looking for, another world out in the stars . . . 

"Why did they come back?" Voice a wondering murmur, as Deckard studied the 
clipping. No answer there. "Why'd they come back to this world? This one sucks." He 
would've said that even if there hadn't been people, cops like he'd been, prowling through the 
city, looking for his death. 

"I don't know." Isidore's voice came from behind him. "Nobody does. It's a mystery. 
Maybe Sarah knows. Maybe you should ask her about it sometime. If you ever guh-get the 
chuh-chance again." 

He glanced over his shoulder. There wasn't time for anything more to be said. He heard 
the footsteps now, then the office's door opening. The dark-uniformed man, the one who'd 
piloted the spinner that had brought him here, looked in. 

"Mr. Deckard's leaving now." Isidore petted the mechanical cat on the desk, not looking 
up at either of the men, as though suddenly hit with an obscure shame. "Show him the way, 
please." 

"Happy to." The pilot locked a grip on Deckard's arm, pulled and then shoved, taking 
him out the door, pushing him past the wire cages. 

Only a couple of minutes later he found himself outside a bigger and heavier door, steel 
studded with bolts. At street level, the sound of the Van Nuys Pet Hospital's freight dock 
slamming shut echoed through the narrow canyon of the surrounding buildings. 

Fine Mojave dust drifted across his shoes, an oven wind piling up miniature dunes in the 
empty streets' gutters. 

Deckard tilted his head back, looking up at the sun, letting its glare hammer into his eyes, 
unblinking tears shimmering toward steam 

A distant black speck moved across the sun's fire. 

Holden could see the luminous green line running across the face of the monitor. A 
humpbacked snake -- That's my pulse, he thought. It looked a million miles away, though he 
knew he just had to raise his hand to touch it. The black attach‚ case was strapped to his chest 
with a web of surgical tape. In the spinner's cockpit, he managed weakly to raise the sheer 
tonnage of his head from the seat's padding. 

"What . . ." Tongue dry and thick, but without a stiff plastic air hose jammed down his 
throat. All the necessary tubing seemed to be down at his chest. "What's going . . ." A tiny ball 
fluttered in a transparent valve with each word he breathed. "On . . ." 

The man in the other seat, hands on the spinner's controls, turned and looked at him. And 
smiled. "You blacked out there for a while." He leaned over and checked the readings on the 
attach‚ case's dials. "Seem to be doing okay, though. Know who you are?" 


"Who . . ." The question puzzled him. Plus the smiling man's face -- he'd seen him before, 
but he didn't know when or where. Crazy-looking smile -- crazy meaning insane, or at least on 
the border of it -- and a shock of white hair, spiky cropped. But the face was older, more 
wrinkled and lined than he thought he remembered it. What did that mean? "Who . . . am I . . 
." 

"Who . . ." The question puzzled him. Plus the smiling man's face -- he'd seen him before, 
but he didn't know when or where. Crazy-looking smile -- crazy meaning insane, or at least on 
the border of it -- and a shock of white hair, spiky cropped. But the face was older, more 
wrinkled and lined than he thought he remembered it. What did that mean? "Who . . . am I . . 
." 

"Oh . . ." Not so hard, especially now that the drugs they'd been giving him in the hospital 
had started to wear off. The hoses in his chest stung; he had to fight an irrational urge to pull 
them out. "My name . . ." Deep breath, the little ball dancing higher. "Holden . . . Dave Holden 
. . . " 

"Very good." The smiling man reached over and tapped a finger against his forehead. 
"They didn't screw with anything up here, at least." 

It had started to seem that way. With more pain, more clarity, as though the hard sun, 
dimmed by the cockpit's photochromic glass, was burning off a heavy fog bank. He knew he'd 
been there, in the hospital, hooked up to those, bigger machines, for a long time. A year? 
Maybe more -- as though he could now look down at the fog bank, wide as an ocean, the 
freight spinner having flown above both it and the tops of the L.A. towers. 

At the farthest edge of the fog bank was his last unclouded memory. The last one before 
the woozy haze of the hospital ward. 

Describe . . . only the good things that come into your mind about . . . your mother. That 
was his own voice, the last thing he'd spoken aloud in that other world. Where'd that been? 
He concentrated, caught: at the Tyrell Corporation headquarters. In a room with two chairs, 
an overhead fan that'd barely stirred the stale, overprocessed air, and a table with a 
Voigt-Kampff machine sitting on it, the bellows inhaling and exhaling at the same speed as the 
attach‚ case strapped to his chest now. And another voice, thick, stupid, and resentful: My 
mother? Lemme tell you about my mother . . . 

The rest of that memory track was not good. The doctors had had to bring him out of a 
narcotized stupor -- that was when he'd first sighted all the machines ranked around his bed, 
and the tubes and hoses going in where just about everything under his rib cage had once been 
-- so he could be debriefed by a sick-looking crew of investigators from the department . . . 

Now he remembered. That was when he'd seen this guy before. Not smiling in the 
picture they'd shown him, but still -- it was him. The same one. 

"Wait . . . a minute . . ." He could hear the machinery in the attach‚ case revving up, to 
keep pace with the self-generated adrenaline suddenly trickling into his veins. "Who . . . are 
you . . ." 

The man turned his smile, even bigger and crazier, back around at him. "My name's 
Roy," he said, an inflection of almost childlike delight. A good joke. "I'm Roy Batty." 

"Oh . . . shit . . ." Holden scrabbled blindly beside himself, trying to find the cockpit's exit 
latch. It didn't matter that the spinner was hundreds of meters above the city. Everything that 
he'd been told about this particular replicant, the strongest and most murderous of all the 
escaped Nexus-6 models, flashed through his mind. But it's supposed to be dead, he thought 
in panicked confusion. 

"Come on--" The smiling figure grabbed Holden and dragged him back into the seat. 
"You're not going anywhere. Except with me." 

Helpless, he watched as Batty adjusted one of the dials inside the attach‚ case. His pulse 
slowed, whether he wanted it to or not. Black spots swarmed in front of his eyes, until Batty 
tweaked the knob a fraction the other way. 

"There." Smiling, both hands back on the spinner's controls. "Just relax, Dave. I'm taking 
you someplace special. Someplace . . . you'll like." 

The ball floated in the valve, trembling with each assisted breath. He closed his eyes, not 
wanting to see the hoses latched to his chest. Or anything else. 


Beneath the yellow L.A. sky, the spinner flew on. 

Beneath the yellow L.A. sky, the spinner flew on. 

From one of the bureau plat's drawers, Sarah Tyrell took out the small tight-cell phone 
she had known would be there. Turning to gaze out at the strata of smoke and haze obscuring 
the afternoon sun, she flipped the phone open and pressed the TALK button. A synthesized 
trill, rising and falling in pitch, sounded at her ear, as the beam sought out and locked on to a 
secured channel from one of the loworbit satellites over L.A. Punching in the numbers, then 
waiting, she idly let her hand prowl through the rest of the drawer's contents, the scarlet ovals 
of her nails clicking against paper clips and the remote, a Francis Harache gold snuff box, the 
cheap and nasty folding knife. Somewhere across town, another phone was ringing in sync 
with the one at her ear. 

Then answered. "Speak if you want to." A man's voice. 

"You know who it is." Sarah leaned back, the ridge of the chair's low back cutting under 
her shoulder blades. "I was just wondering how things went. With our guest." 

"Huh. I imagine Deckard's just fine. Wherever the hell he is right now." 

She was used to Andersson's general oharmlessness. She had picked him -- not just for 
this job, but for others as well -- for his efficiency. He had been in charge of locating Deckard, 
up in the Oregon wilds, then bringing him back, even piloting the spinner that had carried 
Deckard home to Los Angeles. The man's other machinelike virtue was that of silence, of 
keeping his mouth shut. 

From the office's high window, she could see across the city's sprawling maze. Deckard 
was down there, in there now. "Didn't you tag, him? So we could trace where he goes?" , 

"Wouldn't have been much point in doing that." He sounded bored and competent. 
"Somebody like him, he knows his business. If we put a tag on him, he'd find it and flush it. 
Next thing you know, we're running a trace through some sewer line and out to the ocean, and 
he's a hundred miles inland. Waste of time." 

She felt a small knife's edge of apprehension, a flutter of the pulse beneath her ribs. She 
hadn't brought Deckard all this way, back into the world he'd tried to escape, just to lose 
track of him. 

"What if he doesn't turn up again? What if he just . . . disappears?" 

"He'll turn up. He has to. If he's going to survive." 

In the few moments of silence, as she mulled over what the man had just told her, she 
could hear faint sounds. Not here, in what had been her uncle's office, but over in the Van 
Nuys Pet Hospital. The sounds were animal cries, real or fake. She knew that Andersson had 
a little corner for himself, tucked at the end of the rows of cages and kennels, where he 
transacted his own business. Away from Isidore, who might be distressed to overhear some of 
the things that were going on. 

Which reminded her. Other things to be taken care of. "How did their little conversation 
go? I mean Deckard and Isidore." 

"Pretty much what you expected. That's the great thing about ideologues. People who 
really believe stuff. You can depend on them. Isidore raked him over the coals for quite a 
while; Deckard didn't look so good when I finally booted him out of here. I'll send you the 
tapes; maybe you'll find 'em amusing." 

She knew that he had wired Isidore's office, that cramped little cubicle. It smelled like a 


small zoo, mixed with machine oil and scorched plastic insulation -- she'd been there one time, 
checking out the pet hospital's owner, getting an intuitive readout on him. She imagined that 
Isidore knew as well about the bug that had been planted; he wasn't that much of a fool, that 
disconnected from reality. Clever enough, actually, to make no attempt to remove the bug. Or, 
as Andersson said, ideological in nature, nothing to hide -- at least from her. Perhaps he'd 
thought his lectures and stuttering rants would change her mind, settle into her heart. It could 
happen. 

small zoo, mixed with machine oil and scorched plastic insulation -- she'd been there one time, 
checking out the pet hospital's owner, getting an intuitive readout on him. She imagined that 
Isidore knew as well about the bug that had been planted; he wasn't that much of a fool, that 
disconnected from reality. Clever enough, actually, to make no attempt to remove the bug. Or, 
as Andersson said, ideological in nature, nothing to hide -- at least from her. Perhaps he'd 
thought his lectures and stuttering rants would change her mind, settle into her heart. It could 
happen. 

A moment's hesitation before Andersson's reply. "I suppose so." 

Redder light leaked through the flesh of her fingertips. "I wonder . . . if there's really much 
more he can do for us." 

"Are you trying to tell me something?" Andersson's voice again, breaking into the silence. 

"Do I have to tell you?" 

"No . . ." He was probably giving a slight shake of his head. "I don't think so." , 

"Good." The office and the bedchamber beyond had fallen further into shadow. "And 
when you're done . . . 

He said nothing. Waiting. 

"Why don't you come by here." She killed the connection and put the phone back in the 
bureau plat's drawer. 

On her way out she stopped at the foot of her uncle's bed. That was hers as well -- if she 
wanted it. 

A handful of silk, shimmering against her fingertips as she lifted the edge of the sheet. But 
with a musty smell, as though it had absorbed a scent of age from the bedchamber's trapped 
air. She'd decided to have one of her personal staff come in and strip the bed, change 
everything for new . 

Then changed her mind. She saw something she hadn't noticed before, a spatter of 
blood, small dots the color of the larger stain on the floor, a line diagonal up to the pillows. 

She let the silk drift away from her hand, falling gentle upon the bed. When it was quite 
still again, she turned and walked toward the doors. 

Smile and smile and smile . . . and be what? Dave Holden didn't know anything about the 
man sitting next to him in the cockpit. All that he did know, all that his brain could process, 
fueled by the blood re-oxygenated by the pumping and gasping attach‚ case strapped to his 
chest, was that he was in deep, deep shit. 

Then again, thought Holden, I was dying anyway. There in that hospital. He wondered if 
the figure beside him -- not smiling now, but concentrating on the freight spinner's controls, 
taking it in for a landing somewhere at the city's unlit fringe -- had spiked one of the blood 
tubes with a philosophically oriented chemical. A good deal of his initial fear had faded away, 
replaced by an odd curiosity as to what his fate was going to be. 

Batty was dead; they'd told him that, Bryant and a couple of his other old pals from the 
blade runner unit. They'd come to the side of Holden's chrome-railed bed with their hats in 
their hands, wedging themselves into the small space between one gurgling machine and the 
next; the doctors had turned down the fentanyl drip enough to bring him into 
semiconsciousness, in which he'd been able to hear Bryant telling him that the group of 
escaped replicants, the batch he'd been assigned to, had all been successfully retired. As if he 
cared. 

For its own reasons, the department gave him partial credit for the track-down, even 
though all he'd managed to do was inhale a hollow point through his breastbone, from that 
lump Kowalski. Bad for the morale of the rest of the squad, to let one of their number get his 


lungs blown out and not put a little something extra in his paycheck. The hospital visit had been 
when Bryant, the whiskey breath seeping through his brown teeth even stronger than usual, 
had shown him the morgue shots of the dead replicants. Including Roy Batty, who'd been the 
leader of their violent little band -- even through a narcotic haze, the image of that 
unmistakable face, with its shock of white hair and gaze still coming in loony from the other 
side of the marble slab, had made a deep impression on him. Unforgettable. 

lungs blown out and not put a little something extra in his paycheck. The hospital visit had been 
when Bryant, the whiskey breath seeping through his brown teeth even stronger than usual, 
had shown him the morgue shots of the dead replicants. Including Roy Batty, who'd been the 
leader of their violent little band -- even through a narcotic haze, the image of that 
unmistakable face, with its shock of white hair and gaze still coming in loony from the other 
side of the marble slab, had made a deep impression on him. Unforgettable. 

Holden looked out the side of the cockpit. At darkness, far beyond the reach of L.A.'s 
lit-up sprawl. How far had they gone? Up ahead, through the transparent curve, he could 
discern a jagged silhouette along the horizon, mountains outlined by stars and the moon's soft 
glaze. 

Some other blue light, not the moon, spilled across the bleak landscape, blinking on and 
off. Holden brought his gaze around -- it took some effort; he could feel himself tiring -- and 
saw a landing rectangle outlined by the bright flashes. "There you go--" A voice crackled from 
the speaker on the control panel. "Make it quick, willya? We're getting sand in our boots, 
hanging around waiting on you." 

"Where . . ." His own voice came out a feeble whisper. The effort of speaking, on top of 
just staying conscious and lifting his head from the seat's padded rest to look around, had 
come close to exhausting him again. The dials on the black attach‚ case, visible beneath the 
web of surgical tape that bound it to him, jittered as the device kicked more oxygen into his 
body. "Where . . . is this . . ." Getting out the last couple of words had brought black spots 
dancing in front of his eyes. 

Batty's disquieting smile swung in his direction. He reached over and made a small 
adjustment on one of the attach‚ case's valves. "As I told you before. Someplace special." The 
smile widened, deepening the lines on the weathered face. "It's someplace you were always 
going to wind up." 

No lock-on from the ground station, as far as he could see; Batty was taking the spinner 
down manually, centering the vehicle motionless above the blue lights, then hitting a straight 
vertical descent. The spinner's undercarriage hit the ground hard enough to bounce Holden in 
his seat, the attach‚ case against the hollowed spaces of his chest. 

"Sorry about that." Batty started flicking off the engine controls. "These freight jobbies 
are a bitch to maneuver." 

"That's . . . that's okay," whispered Holden painfully. Maybe it wasn't too late to try 
ingratiating himself with the folks who ran the afterlife. "I'm sure . . . you're doing your best . . . 
" 

Batty glanced over at him. And smiled. "You haven't seen my best yet," 

That worried him. He could hear the cargo space's door unsealing and, beyond, the 
sound of rolling wheels and running feet. 

"Take it easy with this guy." Batty supervised Holden's unloading and being strapped 
onto a gurney. "I didn't bust him out and bring him all the way here, just so you could drop him 
on the ground like a carton of eggs." 

"Whatever." A bored-looking younger man, whitecoated, scribbled something on a 
clipboard, then looked up. "You need a receipt on this?" He lifted one corner of a pink 
duplicating form. 

"'A receipt . . .'" Batty rolled his eyes. "Fuck me." 

"It's the regulations," said the younger man. 

"Maybe instead, I should just pull your underbrained head off and stuff it down your 


trousers." 

trousers." 

"Take a hike." Batty let the other men push the gurney as he walked alongside. 

Hell, or whatever part of the afterlife he'd landed in. looked fairly ramshackle to Holden. 
A sprawling compound of rusting Quonset huts, windblown sand dunes mounting up the 
curved sides; other shabby prefab cubes made of tilt-up foam-core walls, the structural glue 
leaking out from the seams, as though melting in the night's dry heat; everything dusted with the 
same fine grit that eventually wound up in the streets of L.A. Turning his head to the side on 
the gurney's thin pillow, Holden watched the unimpressive and barely functional architecture 
roll by, lit by the sickly radiance of sodium-vapor globes strung along the tops of tarred 
wooden poles. 

At the edge of the artificial light, struck more by the stars and moon, a razor-wire fence 
penned a flock of abandoned police vehicles, spinners and heavier cruisers with scorched 
flame-out marks along their engine exhausts, cockpits shattered or drilled with a line of 
spiderwebbed holes from high-caliber automatic weapons fire. 

"This the one?" 

Holden looked above himself and saw an unshaven face. A hand with black fingernails 
took a half-smoked cigarette away from the face's mouth; grey ash drifted down and was 
sucked into one of the black attach‚ case's air intakes. 

Either another doctor or some kind of butcher -- the unshaven man had on a long white 
coat spattered with dried bloodstains. Holden wasn't sure which possibility filled him with 
greater foreboding. 

Batty reached over and plucked away the cigarette. "Show the poor bastard some 
consideration." A red arc, then a burst of sparks as the stub hit the ground. 

"They're all poor bastards." No show of annoyance; the unshaven man appeared beyond 
the expenditure of energy that would take. "All right, let's get him in and do it. No sense 
standing around out here." His nicotine-stained fingers began flicking off the controls on the 
black attach‚ case. 

"Hey . . ." Panic set in as Holden heard the attach‚'s machinery wheezing toward silence, 
the small clicking and gulping noises slowing, then stopping. "Wait . . . a minute . . ." A grey 
veil began thickening before his vision; despite the heat of the desert air, his face and hands 
suddenly felt cold. Numbing fingers groped for the switches and buttons above his chest, but 
the gurney's straps kept him from reaching them. The tiny ball dropped in the valve, the hoses 
and tubes drooping limp and uninflated. 

"Quit worrying." The unshaven doctor or butcher fumbled a cigarette pack out of the 
pocket of his white coat, lit up another. "You got at least three minutes or so before any real 
brain damage starts setting in." Dragged deep, coughed, then gestured to what appeared to be 
a couple of assistants standing around. "Yo, guys, get over and give me a hand with this one. 
Come on, let's get to work." 

"Hang in there, pal." Batty's deranged smile floated in the mist above. "See you on the 
other side," 

They rolled him into the largest and oldest-looking of the prefab buildings. Holden 
managed to read the sign above the building's doorway as he disappeared inside. 
RECLAMATION CENTER. Of course, like the mechanics picking apart the old spinners on 
the field of night. Now he understood. There must still be a few good parts inside him. 

He closed his eyes. 

Deckard waited until the sun went down. 


Too easily spotted, caught, even in the last few hours of daylight. He knew he needed not 
just darkness but crowds, the streets full of L.A.'s shoving, jostling nocturnal life. Everyone 
that the oppressive heat drove indoors, like desert animals sheltering beneath the flat, cool 
undersides of rocks -- he could hide among them, move like a knife through garishly 
illuminated water, the flickering neon's toxic colors turning his face into a mask the same as the 
others wore. 

Too easily spotted, caught, even in the last few hours of daylight. He knew he needed not 
just darkness but crowds, the streets full of L.A.'s shoving, jostling nocturnal life. Everyone 
that the oppressive heat drove indoors, like desert animals sheltering beneath the flat, cool 
undersides of rocks -- he could hide among them, move like a knife through garishly 
illuminated water, the flickering neon's toxic colors turning his face into a mask the same as the 
others wore. 

Even in the shadows, out of the direct hit of the sun, the day's heat was enough to start 
him sweating under his clothes. The Santa Ana wind, sifting red dust through the alley, scraped 
the moisture off his limbs, sucked it from his mouth, leaving his tongue swollen arid and his 
eyes gritting in their sockets. He shucked off his coat, wedging its empty shoulders into the 
sides of the narrow space to make a shield against both the remains of the afternoon's light and 
anyone's random detection. 

In his pocket was the book of matches that he'd used to ignite the woodstove, in the 
cabin up in Oregon. He struck one now, using its flaring glow to investigate the small space. It 
smelled of the dirt and sweat of the previous inhabitant. Who must've been a throwback 
literate, an enthusiast: tucked into the grime-crusted bed of rags were several old-style 
analogue books, nothing but antlike crawls of ink words on yellowing, damp-swollen pages, 
dead without any sparking digital enhancements. The covers -- there were only a few -showed 
blond women whose half-lidded gazes were like weapons, mouths like bright wounds, 
and men with bruised, unshaven faces. The book pages crumbled as Deckaxd shoved the 
relics away. 

He searched through the rubble, another match held aloft, looking for anything of use. 

The previous inhabitant's Registered Homeless card -- the thumbnail photo depicted a 
suffering saint, Christ-like hair tangled down to his shoulders. Dead, too. The Welfare 
Department's monitor implant must've caught the man's last heartbeat; two cartoon X's had 
appeared in the transparent lamination over the man's eyes, making the card useless for 
anyone else. The digits on the ration microchip had ticked back to zero as well. Deckard 
tossed the thin rectangle away. 

Something handier, which the sanitation trucks had left behind when they'd hauled off the 
body: a simple steel rod, just about the length of his own forearm. Good heft in his fist, with 
enough whip to make a good skull-cracker. The match had burnt out, but he could read with 
the ball of his thumb the embossed warning. FOR SELF-DEFENSE PURPOSES ONLY. 
AGGRESSIVE OR PREDATORY USE PUNISHABLE BY LOSS OF BENEFITS. The 
rod was standard issue for the city's street people, along with the Sally Anne sleeping bags that 
usually got ripped off first thing. 

Now he didn't feel so naked. Deckard laid the steel rod on the asphalt beside himself, 
close at hand. He clasped his arms around his knees, lowering his head and waiting for the last 
daylight visible through his coat to fade. He'd already started putting his plans together. 

The sounds of something moving -- something bigger than the disgruntled rodents -snapped 
him awake, out of the pit of nervous exhaustion into which he'd fallen. His head 
jerked back, one hand shot down to grab and raise the steel rod. Using the metal's tip, he 


pulled back one edge of the flimsy barrier he'd made from his own coat; leaning against the 
brick wall, the rodents above scampering farther away, he sighted down the length of the alley. 

pulled back one edge of the flimsy barrier he'd made from his own coat; leaning against the 
brick wall, the rodents above scampering farther away, he sighted down the length of the alley. 

"Charlie?" The white-suited man stopped halfway down the alley, straining to peer ahead 
of him. He had a small bundle tucked under one arm. "You home, buddy? Got something for 
ya." He displayed the bundle, wrapped in paper and string, on the tips of his fingers. "Thinking 
of you . . . 

The name on the Homeless Reg card had been Charlie something. With the steel rod, 
Deckard pulled the coat farther back, like a curtain. 

"There you are." A gold-toothed smile as the white suit ambled forward. "Speak up, next 
time. I coulda walked right by ya--" 

Close enough now. Deckard reached out, the dropped steel rod clanking on the alley's 
littered floor, and grabbed the man, elegant tie and collar points wadded in his fist. The little 
bundle's string and wrappings burst open as it flew in a startled arc and hit the ground. More 
of the tattered books spilled across the rubble. 

"Hey, buddy . . ."The summer-weight dandy managed to gasp a few words, his face 
reddening above his collar. His feet dangled free of the alley. "Ease up, will ya . . . 

"Nice and quiet." Deckard kept the knot of the man's tie inside his fist, knuckles tilting the 
pointed chin back. "Let's talk real softly." With the sun gone, the evening parade had begun 
out on the streets. Nobody passing by had glanced down the alley yet. "Got that?" 

"Yeah, sure . . ." Both of his hands gripped Deckard's wrist, as though praying in midair. 
"I got it, buddy, I got it . . ." A screeching but obedient whisper. "Whatever you want . . . is 
fine with me . . . 

He eased his grasp, letting the other man settle on tiptoes. "I'm glad." In sinister fashion, 
he fingered the white lapel. "Nice jacket." 

"Huh? Where's Charlie?" 

"Indisposed. You should've made an appointment." The other man was so skinny, he 
could've either broken him in two or tied him in a knot. But the white suit's jacket was loose 
enough, fiaglike through the shoulders; it'd be the right size. "Here." Deckard let go of the 
man's necktie, reached past him, and tugged his own long, dark coat from the brick niche he'd 
anchored it into. "Make you a trade." 

"What? A trade?" He looked with puzzlement, then distaste, at the coat laid across his 
trembling hands. Not in good condition to begin with, it'd picked up some of the smell and 
general schmutz of the alley. "For this?" 

"That'd be the easy way." Deckard reached down, picked up the steel rod, laid the other 
end lightly into his palm. "There are others." 

"Deal!" He shed the jacket as easily as walking out of a soft white room. 

The tie was some flimsy, iridescent stuff-Deckard took that as well. Looping it without a 
knot as he strode away from the mouth of the alley, pushing his way through the crowd that 
had already assembled into the city's nocturnal life. Keeping one hand inside a trouser pocket, 
Deckard kept a tight hold on the steel rod tucked down his leg, its other end notching above 
his kneecap with each step he took. 

Wind picked up, as though punching in for its shift supervising hell. Deckard felt the 
familiar hot kiss against his face, as he had every dry season he'd lived throughsurvived, 
dehydrated-in L.A. The gutters had filled with a fine red dust blown in from the desert, an 
iron-oxide color beneath the twists and lines of neon flickering into life, like a predictive vision 
of the dunes of Mars. If the city's trucks didn't vacuum out the streets every twenty-four 


hoursone of the huge container vehicles was already bumbling down the side of the asphalt, 
slowly squeezing past and through the shuffling ranks of pedestrians and the inching vans and 
old rehab'd cars with their roof-mounted radiator filters-then the whole place would wind up 
looking like the rolling vistas outside the pressurized windows of the colony hovels. Why 
bother to emigrate? Give in to the nagging of the UN. blimp hovering overhead, with its video 
screen full of high-pressure, high-volume inducements, and you'd wind up staring out at much 
the same gritty mess, without even the hope of pulling through until the monsoon season rolled 
around again. Behind the windshield of the vacuum truck, the driver's bored eyes, visible 
above a sterile white breath mask, watched as the prehensile, wide-nostrilled mechanical snout 
sucked the curbs temporarily bare. 

hoursone of the huge container vehicles was already bumbling down the side of the asphalt, 
slowly squeezing past and through the shuffling ranks of pedestrians and the inching vans and 
old rehab'd cars with their roof-mounted radiator filters-then the whole place would wind up 
looking like the rolling vistas outside the pressurized windows of the colony hovels. Why 
bother to emigrate? Give in to the nagging of the UN. blimp hovering overhead, with its video 
screen full of high-pressure, high-volume inducements, and you'd wind up staring out at much 
the same gritty mess, without even the hope of pulling through until the monsoon season rolled 
around again. Behind the windshield of the vacuum truck, the driver's bored eyes, visible 
above a sterile white breath mask, watched as the prehensile, wide-nostrilled mechanical snout 
sucked the curbs temporarily bare. 

A pack of prescavenger dwarfs, the aggressively mercantile kind that didn't wait for bits 
and scraps to be discarded before beginning the recycling process, wore vintage military gas 
masks, protecting themselves not only from the wind's dust but also the gasoline and freon 
fumes of the mech units they yanked and unbolted from the vulnerable traffic-stalled vehicles. 
Bomber goggles warded off the sulphuric Mace sprays from the drivers who came scrambling 
out from behind steering wheels when they heard the patter of tiny feet on their roofs. Hands in 
toddler-sized leather gloves flipped bird at the full-sized humans as the dwarfs tugged their 
oil-leaking trophies into the side lanes and mobile offices of the gypsy parts dealers who 
operated there. 

Deckard caught a miniaturized glimpse of himself in the obsidian shades of someone, 
male or female, that the crowd's eddying currents bumped him right into. He backed off a 
step-hard to do, swimming against the tideand saw the white jacket, a little tight across the 
shoulders, and his own face, masked by an apprehensive caution. 

"What's your problem, mac?" A smoke-rasped voice, a man's, sounded from the 
lipsticked mouth below the shades. "New in town, sailor, or what?" A vocoder on a thin velvet 
choker took her voice down a couple of octaves. "Even if you're buying, I'm not selling, so 
why don't you stop hogging the sidewalk and let a lady get past?" 

"Sorry." He managed to insert himself, shoulder first, into the traffic flow to one side. The 
last thing he wanted was a public altercation that would bring attention from the police koban 
on the corner. For all he knew, the uniformed cop inside the little surveillance booth had a 
photo poster of him tacked to the wall, right next to the direct line phone to the LAPD's 
central station. 

Giving him a smile, the other person moved on. Gone, swallowed behind the backs of the 
crowd. 

He walked, keeping pace with the rest, shoulders jostled with each passing collision. 
Passing the koban, face casually averted-from the corner of his eye, Deckard saw that the cop 
in the booth had already picked up the red phone, was shouting something, the words blanked 
by the glass barrier and the mumbling susurrus of the crowd's collective voice. His stomach 
clenched as he watched the cop's free hand raised in excited gesture. He kept his own limbs 
under rigid control, fighting down the impulse to run through the crowd, exposing his back to 
the first shot the cop would fire when he stepped out of the booth. 

Take it easy. His own voice, inside his head. Maybe it's not you theyre looking for, 
maybe it's something else entirely . . . 

"A new world awaits you!" 


It wasn't him. A big voice boomed from above, letting him off the hook. 

It wasn't him. A big voice boomed from above, letting him off the hook. 

The cop pushed open the koban's narrow door, jumping outside of it and looking up at 
the sky, the red police phone still at his ear. Voice audible now, but unintelligible in its shouted 
excitement. 

"A chance to start anew!" 

Deckard stopped and looked up, along with all the rest of the street coming to a halt. 
He'd been so caught up watching the koban officer that he hadn't noticed the rounded shape 
filling the sky, a faceted moon larger and closer than any before. 

"In the off-world colonies!" The voice, the words heard so many times before that they'd 
become part of the city's nocturnal background noise, shouted giant words. A distorted sonic 
wash rolled an invisible tsunami over the sea of uplifted faces, the hands raised and pointing. 
The U.N. blimp drifted lower in torpid slow motion, coming down between the buildings on 
either side of the street, so near that Deckard thought he could reach up and touch the surface 
of its bulging underside. 

The massive viewscreen on the blimp's flank stuttered optic static, blistering chaotic haze 
sweeping through the pixels of a Martian irrigation scene. Touched-up canals wavered, a 
green field of soybeans rippled seismic; Deckard saw now that a quarter of the blimp's 
antenna-spiked skin was enveloped in flame, tangible heat on heat in the windraked sky. As he 
watched, a bright spark trailed smoke from an alley opposite, the dull whump of a mortar 
round rolling through the onlookers. The shot hit the blimp's ridged frame, concaving another 
section of the metallic fabric. A second's fraction more, and the hollow burst into a fiery 
mouth, black tatters for teeth around the edges. 

Farther above, at the top of the highest city tower, a geisha face winked and smiled, as 
though in approval of the blimp's death. As though the taste on the magnified woman's tongue 
was a piece of the upward-gouting fire itself, the blimp heeling onto one side to display its 
wound, the orange ball of flame sweetly acrid as an umeboshi plum. 

The whole street lit orange, the dawning of a new, harsher, and more beautiful day. 

Fireball hitting first, decompressed hydrogen in oxygen's explosive embrace. A wave of 
flame in the shape of a churning sphere, the collapsing U.N. blimp barely visible behind the 
eye-burning glare. The flames' enormous hand flattened the street, rush of heat and expanding 
pressure knocking screaming human forms hard to the pavement, tumbling them with hair alight 
or silken veils incinerated against gasping breaths, eyelashes scorched away. 

Deckard felt the soft, hot pulse. Enough meters away that he was only knocked back 
against the wall of the building beside him, impact with brick and metal jarring him dizzy for a 
moment. Neon serpents, kanji store signs, hissed a rain of sparks, glass tubing shock-broken, 
upon him and the others who'd been knocked off their feet. Bracing himself against the wall, 
Deckard pushed himself upright, the figures around him still on their hands and knees, trying to 
crawl away across the bright shrapnel of the shattered windows, or gaping at the inferno crash, 
now at ground zero. 

The blimp's rudimentary skeleton, meridians of an ovoid globe, showed through the 
engulfing flames. Another mortar had been fired, but with no incendiary charge. Instead, a 
grappling hook, prongs snapping into a sharp-pointed iron flower, ran a cord from the blimp's 
wreckage, back to an anchor point in the alley on the other side of the street. Hunched against 
the blaze's thermal force, Deckard shielded his eyes with his hand, squinting at the action on 
the other end of the taut line. 

More of the blimp's frame twisted and burst rivets free as the hulk collapsed with terminal 
grandeur into the street, the blunt nose fire-wrapped and gouging a ragged furrow into the 
concrete; the tail end's stubby fins clawed out a row of tenth-story windows before tearing 
loose and sailing aloft on the fire's updraft. 

Another pair of iron hooks, looped overhead and handthrown by the figures in the alley, 


snagged the black frame, drawing it down tighter, as though the burning craft were an animal 
that might tear loose in its agony and vault into the smoke-clouded sky. Deckard could see the 
men, a half dozen or so gritting their teeth, clad in white fireproof Nomex suits, tugging at the 
lines, leaning back with their feet braced against the ash-strewn pavement. 

snagged the black frame, drawing it down tighter, as though the burning craft were an animal 
that might tear loose in its agony and vault into the smoke-clouded sky. Deckard could see the 
men, a half dozen or so gritting their teeth, clad in white fireproof Nomex suits, tugging at the 
lines, leaning back with their feet braced against the ash-strewn pavement. 

The voice of the images screamed. No longer seductive, cajoling: "A new life!" Pitch 
whipping higher, as though in sudden fear: "New life! Chance! New!" Into the idiot ultrasonic, 
trembling the shards of glass left in the buildings' window frames: "Start anew!" 

One of the attackers ran out from the alley, line and grappling hook circling over his head 
and uplifted hand. The dead and still living who'd been caught in the explosion sprawled at his 
feet as he let go, the hook singing toward the center of the tilted viewscreen. The pronged 
metal hit square the rapid play of colored photons. They flew apart, the rigid membrane that 
had trapped them now dissolving into razor bits, the circuitry beneath arcing into overload and 
meltdown. Deckard spun away, shielding his face with his arm, the fragments of glass and 
hot-tipped wires falling across his shoulders like hail. 

"It's all lies!" 

Another voice, amplified but not the one that had boomed, then screamed from the 
crashing blimp. He turned back to the street, the infinitesimal bell-like percussion of glass 
fragments chiming across the now-vacated street. One of the mortar crew-maybe the one 
who'd run out with the last grappling hook; he couldn't tell-had leapt onto one of the bent 
metal struts, the dying flames silhouetting his insulated form. The man had black carbon streaks 
across his wild-eyed face, a bullhorn in his thickgloved hand. 

"They're telling you lies!" Shouting through the flared horn, voice snapping its echo against 
the surrounding towers. "It's always been lies!" 

Deckard stepped away from the wall behind him, to the curb and then down to the 
debris-filled street. Scraps of the blimp's fabric, still burning and exuding oily black smoke, 
spotted the asphalt. Distant sirens, approaching at ground level and in the sky, cut through the 
cries and shouts of the crowd that had packed the space only a few minutes before. 

"You have to listen!" The voice coming out of the bullhorn had a fanatic's, a believer's, 
trembling edge. "Not to me . . . but to them!" Even from where Deckard stood, a mad 
illumination shone visible in the man's gaze. "They've come back . . . to tell us!" The man 
turned, holding on to an upright strut of the blimp's frame for balance, aiming the bullhorn's 
trajectory across all the angles of the street. "They know the truth! They've been shown the 
light! The light of the stars!" 

From the corner of his eye, Deckard saw other motion. The koban booth had been 
toppled over in the explosion, pinning the uniformed cop. Face bloodied, the cop had now 
managed to get out from underneath and was struggling to get to his feet. He'd already drawn 
the heavy black gun from his belt. 

"Humans! Jesus Christ doesn't love you anymore!" An aching whine of feedback tagged 
along with the words shrieking out of the bullhorn. "The eye of compassion has moved on! It 
sees only suffering! The eye of compassion no longer sees you= 

Deckard turned from the sight of the ranting figure, the blimp's smoldering ruins a pulpit, 
and saw the uniformed cop aiming the gun, arms outstretched, one hand folded over the other. 

A red bloom appeared on the front of the ranting man's white Nomex jumpsuit. Silent 
now, he looked down. Then he crumpled, gloved hand letting go of the frame strut beside him, 
body folding around the splintered breastbone and falling to the flame-specked pavement. 

"Hey!" With one hand braced against the metal weight on his leg, Deckard ran toward 
the cop. He ignored the black hole of the gun's snout swinging around in his direction. "They're 
over there! The ones who did it-" When the cop's shot had silenced the bullhorn, the rest of 


the crew in the alley had fled, abandoning the mortar behind them. Deckard pointed to 
another, closer space between the street's buildings. "I saw them go!" 

the crew in the alley had fled, abandoning the mortar behind them. Deckard pointed to 
another, closer space between the street's buildings. "I saw them go!" 

The cop, a net of blood over his face, still looked stunned. He let Deckard grab his arm 
and pull him toward the unlit space away from the street. 

"Right back here-" In the buildings' shadow, he pushed the uniformed cop a step ahead 
of himself. 

"Huh?" The cop raised his wobbling gun, aiming at nothing. "I don't see any-" 

His words were cut off as Deckard brought the steel rod across his throat. Hands on 
either end, a knee braced hard against the small of the cop's back. A sharper tug and less than 
a minute of pressure on the windpipe, the cop dangling and struggling red-faced, then only 
dangling-he let go and the cop fell, palms and open mouth against the alley's heat-cracked 
cement. 

He glanced over his shoulder as he bent above the unconscious cop. The police spinners 
had landed, their red and blue strobe flashers painting a luminous carnival across the building 
fronts and the downed U.N. blimp. Paramedic units hovered above, waiting for the SWAT 
teams to finish securing the area. The hands of the injured clutched at the black-uniformed 
knees, then were kicked aside as the officers established a perimeter with assault rifles leveled 
in all directions. 

Hands as hooks under the cop's arms, Deckard dragged him farther into the darkness. It 
took only a few minutes to strip the LAPD uniform off the lolling body, put it on with all 
buckles and other pieces of leather and chrome snapped tight. He wadded up the white jacket 
and his own dirtstained clothing and tossed them away. 

The cop, vulnerable-looking in bare skin and boring underwear, started to move, eyes 
fluttering open. Deckard fished the cuffs from the uniform's belt and fastened the cop's wrists 
behind a convenient drainpipe. Before the cop could make a sound, Deckard had the miranda 
gag slapped over the other man's face, the oxygen-permeable membrane stifling even the 
whisper of his breathing. 

Deckard finishing pulling on the gloves of thin black leather, the last bit of the jackbooted 
ensemble. He ignored the shucked cop's squirmings and malevolent glare, searching through 
the belt's other pouches until he found what he was looking for. A rectangle of grey plastic, 
credcard-sized, with a row of pressure-sensitive dots along one edge. 

He knew better than to try his own activation code. The pass cards were all linked on a 
high-freq'd trans net; his old numbers would undoubtedly set off every alarm in the central 
station's tracking unit. 

The cop's gun had landed a couple of feet away. He picked it up, then leaned down anti 
set its muzzle against the previous owner's forehead. "Let's be real quiet." With his other hand 
Deckard peeled back a corner of the gag. "Just whisper, okay?" The cop rolled his gaze 
toward the gun at his brow, then back to Deckard's face. "Just tell me your pass code." 

"Get fucked." 

"Wrong answer." He was familiar with the department's standard-issue small arms, from 
his own long-ago bullwalking days. Whereas this guy was young enough to be a rookie-why 
else would he have been stuffed into a copin-a-box koban?-and therefore breakable. Deckard 
pulled his crooked finger back just far enough to produce a nerveracking click from inside the 
gun's machinery. "Try again." 

No bravado this time. The cop rattled off a string of numbers, probably his own birth 
date; his face shone with a sudden tide of sweat. Deckard thumbed the code into the card. 
Chameleonlike, it changed from dead grey to an iridescent, slowly fading red. It would work. 

"Thanks." He made sure the gag was sealed tight around the cop's mouth. He held the 


gun against the wet forehead a moment longer. "You know. I really should do this . . ." The 
debate inside his own head went the other way. One, he didn't want to confirm that asshole 
Isidore's estimation of him as a murderer of actual humans-which hadn't been proven to his 
satisfaction, anyway. And two, as far as the LAPD was concerned, it was one thing to be a 
murderer, another to be a cop-killer. Whatever dragnet was under way for him now, it'd be 
nothing compared to what'd ensue if he gave himself a jacket like that. Even if he managed to 
get away, out of the city, they'd come after him just to ice his ass. A matter of group loyalty. 
He took the gun away from the cop's forehead, reholstered it. "You just stay nice and quiet, 
right here." 

gun against the wet forehead a moment longer. "You know. I really should do this . . ." The 
debate inside his own head went the other way. One, he didn't want to confirm that asshole 
Isidore's estimation of him as a murderer of actual humans-which hadn't been proven to his 
satisfaction, anyway. And two, as far as the LAPD was concerned, it was one thing to be a 
murderer, another to be a cop-killer. Whatever dragnet was under way for him now, it'd be 
nothing compared to what'd ensue if he gave himself a jacket like that. Even if he managed to 
get away, out of the city, they'd come after him just to ice his ass. A matter of group loyalty. 
He took the gun away from the cop's forehead, reholstered it. "You just stay nice and quiet, 
right here." 

Which was still just about a notch above zero. 

Keeping close to the brick wall, to avoid being spotted, he slid farther down an alley. 

To a door, easily kicked in. He found himself standing at the top of a low run of stairs. 
The small, clicking echoes of mah-jongg tiles died away as a mixed group of Asian and Anglo 
faces swung his way. 

"This strictly social club." An officious woman in a highcollared brocade dress fluttered 
before him. "All money on tables for decorative purposes only." 

"Yeah, right." Around the edges of the basement room, it looked to be pai gow at vicious 
stakes. The whole world could've been coming to an end outside, and the gamblers wouldn't 
have looked up. Deckard strode through the lowceilinged space, scooping up a handful of 
cash from the center of one table, the usual policeman's tax, and pocketing it. That could come 
in handy as well. "Keep it that way." 

Another flight of stairs took him up to the street on the other side of the building. The 
crowd was thinner here, a lot of it having headed over one block to gape across the yellow 
POLICE INVESTIGATION tapes at the fallen blimp and general disaster scene. 

Head down, Deckard strode rapidly, the people on the street parting to either side, 
making way for him. At this clip, it wouldn't be long before he reached the central police 
station. 

7..... 

Holden opened his eyes. 

"Wait a minute." Not lying down, but sitting up. No black attach‚ case, either gurgling or 
silent, strapped to his chest. Holden looked down at his own right hand prodding his sternum. 
A strip of navy-blue cloth dangled from his throat. "What the . . ." His voice louder now as 
well, almost deafening as it reverberated inside his skull. "What happened . . . 

"I had to break into that storage locker downtown, that one where all your stuff got 
shoved when they cleaned out your old apartment." A now-familiar voice sounded from 
somewhere nearby. "Sorry about that. There might be somebody you could bill for the 
padlock I busted." 


Holden looked over and saw Roy Batty sprawling with hands clasped behind his head, 
folding metal chair tilted back onto its rear legs. Watching him. He glanced down at himself 
again and saw that the strip of cloth was a necktie, one of his own good silk ones. The white 
shirt and grey suit, and everything else, were his as well. Stuff from another life, the one he'd 
lived before he'd gotten blown away at the Tyrell Corporation headquarters. Another life, 
another world. 

Holden looked over and saw Roy Batty sprawling with hands clasped behind his head, 
folding metal chair tilted back onto its rear legs. Watching him. He glanced down at himself 
again and saw that the strip of cloth was a necktie, one of his own good silk ones. The white 
shirt and grey suit, and everything else, were his as well. Stuff from another life, the one he'd 
lived before he'd gotten blown away at the Tyrell Corporation headquarters. Another life, 
another world. 

Holden pushed the necktie aside and undid a couple of the shirt buttons. His bare chest 
was no longer an open, gutted wound; no tubes or hoses sticking out, either. An intricate map 
of scars and black stitches overlaid his pallid white skin. 

"Don't go poking too much at those. They're not too fragile-I made 'em use the 
heavy-duty sutures-but you don't want to get them infected." 

Holden traced his fingertip down one of the vertical lines. A dull twinge of pain, as though 
wired to tissue deep inside him. Plus either the faint sense or hallucination of muted ticking and 
sucking noises buried underneath the reconstructed flesh and bone. 

"What's going on?" He looked up at Batty. "What's been done to me?" 

"What, you worried about the bill or something? Jeez." Batty shook his head in 
amazement. "It's paid for, okay? You've been given a new lease on life, buddy. Free, gratis, 
per nada. So don't sweat it. Enjoy it, already." 

"Implants . . ." He laid his hand fiat against his stitched chest, feeling against his palm the 
hum and surge of the machinery inside him. "A complete set . . . heart and lungs . . ." He took 
a deep breath, a last trace of spider-silk lifting from his brain. At the back of his throat was a 
taste of plastic and stainless steel. 

"State of the art. None finer." Batty held up the remote. "I told the people here to use the 
best parts they could get None of those pulls they've taken out of other jobs and had sitting in 
a bucket somewhere." 

"But they told me . . . at the hospital . . ." A tone of wonder in his voice. "They told me 
one time, when they brought me around, that they couldn't do implants. The damage was too 
great . . ." 

"SO? They lied to you. Simple." 

Nothing cleared up by that. "Why would they lie? The doctors, and Bryant and 
everybody . . . it doesn't make sense." 

Batty's smile rose, thin and all-knowing. "Makes sense . . . depending upon who you 
figure your friends are. Your real friends." 

The spooky hint of conspiracy in Batty's voice set him thinking. "Could I see that?" He 
held out his hand for the remote control. 

"Sure." 

Only a couple of buttons on the device. "This switches everything off? Switches me off?" 
Holden didn't wait for an answer. He put the remote down on the floor and crushed it with his 
heel. A sound of splintering plastic and microchips, followed by a surge in his heartbeat, which 
then settled back down. 

"Way to go!" Batty tilted his head back and laughed. The flimsy prefab walls trembled 
with his hilarity. "I'm sure they got another one of those things around here somewhere, but I 
admire your attitude. A couple, what, maybe four hours ago, you were at death's door . . . 
literally. That fuckin' hospital. Man, people go to places like that just to punch out. And they 
help you do it. Now here you are-" He gestured expansively toward Holden. "Feeling like 
your old self, I bet. Miracles of modern science. You got nothing to complain about." 


Holden turned his head toward an uncurtained window. He'd seen that it was still dark 
outside, but he hadn't known what night this was, the same one in which Batty had snatched 
him out of the hospital, or one weeks or months later. "Your people here work fast." He 
looked back toward Batty. 

Holden turned his head toward an uncurtained window. He'd seen that it was still dark 
outside, but he hadn't known what night this was, the same one in which Batty had snatched 
him out of the hospital, or one weeks or months later. "Your people here work fast." He 
looked back toward Batty. 

Inside himself, he sensed the continuous operation of the bio-machines-the new parts of 
his body, the conglomeration of Teflon and inert alloys and efficient little motors that he'd 
absorbed, incorporated into the Dave Holden ge


stalt. He'd been raised from the dead. The suit and tie, the neat, machinelike precision of 
these outward manifestations, also part of that. He had been dead in the hospital, dead before 
he got there, dead as soon as he'd been a messy piece of meat bleeding around a smoking 
hole at its center. That weak, sloppy thing in the hospital bed, leaking fluids, pinned naked by 
plastic tubes and hoses-that hadn't been him, the real Dave Holden. 

He spread his hands on his knees, studied as though for the first time. Like scalpels, he 
mused. Not just the hands, but everything about him. A cutting instrument, sterile out of the 
autoclave. Putting the blade in blade runner. Thatwas why he'd been so good at his job, at 
hunting down and retiring replicants: he'd out-machined them. He'd beaten out all the other 
blade runners as well, like that whiner Deckard; he'd gone all the way around the Curve and 
come out the other side. Come out as something . . . other than human. Until Kowalski . . . 

"You still stewing about that? Getting blown away by some big moron?" Batty had read 
his thoughts, as though his eyes were gauges like those on the big machines he'd been hooked 
up to. "Get over it." Shrugged, smiling. "Or don't." 

"No . . ." Holden slowly shook his head. "I'm just . . . Wondering." He noticed a pack of 
cigarettes and a lighter sitting out on a table between them; whether they were Batty's or for 
him, he didn't know. "You mind?" He leaned forward and took the pack., 

An expression of mild distaste. "You know you'll have to change your filter-the one inside 
you-twice as often, if you start that up again." 

"It's worth it." He leaned back and exhaled, then studied the drift of blue smoke above 
him. The nicotine seeping into his machine-aerated blood made him feel even more efficient 
and confident, as though all the tiny valves inside had been fed drops of lubricating oil. His old 
self. "Definitely." 

"Whatever." Batty's smile returned. "So what was it you were wondering?" 

He knew he had to be cautious. The one more thing he would have liked to have had 
restored to him was his big black hammer of a weapon. He could see the bulge and the 
lopsided tug of weight inside the black leather jacket that indicated Batty was packing. 

"Oh . . ." Holden glanced around at the buckling prefab walls. A collection of photos torn 
from magazines, nudes and tropical vistas, all equally unlikely, rustled in the hot dry wind 
seeping in through the seams. "You know. Like what the hell is this place?" 

"Didn't you see the sign when they wheeled you in? It's the Reclamation Center." 

"Never heard of it." 

"Of course not," said Batty. "It wouldn't be a top-secret police installation if some 
schmuck like you knew about it." 

"Looks to me like they're just pulling parts off some old trashed-out police vehicles." He 
tilted his head toward the window with its view of the wrecking yard beyond the fence. 
"What's so top secret about that?" 

"Are you kidding?" Batty emitted a sharp barking laugh. "You know what happens to 
your appropriations money if the state or the feds find out you're recycling your rolling stock? 
Shit-they'll cut you off without a dime. Besides . . ." A shrug. "Keep something like this secret, 
makes it that much easier to keep the other stuff they do here under wraps. Stuff like 
cramming a nice new set of pumping gear inside you." He jabbed an index finger toward 
Holden. "You gotta admit, the folks out here have taken good care of you." 


"The people at the hospital-where I was before-they were supposed to be taking care of 
me." 

"The people at the hospital-where I was before-they were supposed to be taking care of 
me." 

He mulled that over for a moment. "It was the police department that put me in that 
ward. When I got shot . . .' 

"Yeah, well, there's police . . . and then there's other police. You gotta cover your action, 
buddy, all around the table-if you're going to stay in this game." 

Holden narrowed his gaze, studying the figure sitting opposite him. "Maybe so. What I'd 
like to know is . . . what kind of police have replicants working for them?" 

A shake of the head. "None that I know of. That's not what police do. As a general rule, 
police are pretty much death on replicants." 

"Then what're you doing here?" 

"Huh?" Batty's smile faded. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Come on." Holden felt a little surge of excitement, a dangerous pulse. "Tell me-do these 
people here know that you're a replicant? Or have you pulled it off?" 

"I'm a replicant?" Batty looked genuinely puzzled, eyes widening. Then he started 
laughing, uproariously this time, face reddening in bright contrast to his spiked crop of white 
hair, tears wetting the wrinkled corners of his eyelids. "That's good." He could barely get the 
words out. "That is . . . so good." The prefab walls rattled with his laughter. 

"What's so funny?" All the hilarity was getting on Holden's nerves. 

"That you'd think . . ." Batty pushed himself back in the chair with a hand against his 
chest, making a visible effort to sober himself up. "Sorry. It's that I just realized what you've 
been thinking. What must've been going around in your head all along, or at least since I 
showed up. You think I'm a replicant, right? A Roy Batty replicant." He wiped his eyes with 
his fingertips. "That's good. That's a really good one." 

"Did you catch any of that action over on Alvarado? Where the blimp went down?" 

Took a while for Deckard to respond to the question, the hard voice right beside him. He 
leaned back against the wall of the elevator as it crept toward the base of the building. "A little 
bit." 

"I got called in, all the way over from Slauson. Another ten minutes and I would've been 
off-shift, and the dispatchers could've radioed to the moon for my ass." The cop spoke with 
no inflection, all traces of emotion drained from the process of communicating. 

"Yeah, they like jerking you around." Deckard kept his own voice at that dead, menacing 
tone, the words coming out with that slow, reptilian ease they all cultivated. He knew that for 
his apparent age there should be more stripes on this uniform's sleeve. A fierce Darwinian 
attitude operated among the department's rank-and-file; they ate their own weaker members, 
to keep themselves lean and mean. Surviving some of the shit that happened down in the 
locker rooms was the hardest part of the job. If he was going to pull off penetrating the 
LAPD's central station, he'd have to give off the same ugly gamma rays that these guys did. 

He risked a glance up to the level indicator above the elevator's doors. There was 
another twenty floors to go. He'd managed to flag a lift from a county jail spinner, the big grey 
bus with the barred windows, that'd been returning to the police department's Kwik-Justice 
Kourts for another load of plea-bargained felons. His disguise, the patrol uniform he'd stripped 
off the cop he'd left in the alley, seemed to sail right past the pilot and the guard. The card and 
pass code had gotten him from the landing deck and into the building. A spark of hope had 
ignited inside his chest that he'd be able to get into the station, past all the other cops crawling 
all over it. And get to Bryant. 

That was the only plan he had. And the only hope. Of getting out of L.A. alive and 
getting back to Rachael, asleep in her black coffin. Guarded by owls and all the little nocturnal 


forest creatures, like an old fairy tale. 

forest creatures, like an old fairy tale. 

On some invisible clock, the hands pointed to payback time for all that loyalty he'd 
shown Bryant. He just hoped that the police inspector could read it as well. All he needed was 
information; that didn't seem like much. 

"If you asked me . . ." A voice broke into Deckard's thoughts. "I'd say we should kill 
them all." 

Then who would sort them out? he wondered. He didn't know. He glanced over at the 
cop beside him in the elevator. For a few moments he'd gotten lost in his worried plotting. Not 
a good thing he knew he'd have to stay hyperalert if he was going to get in and out of this 
building. 

The cop had relaxed, a bit of the anal-retentive steel going out of his spine; he rested his 
shoulder blades against the wall of the small space. Without taking off his glasses, he wearily 
rubbed his forehead with one black-gloved hand. A long shift, maybe a back-to-back. 
Calculating his overtime pay and brooding about whether it was worth the burnout. 

Deckard almost felt sorry for the guy. At least with promoting to the blade runner unit, 
you got to set your own hours. This poor bastard wouldn't stand any chance of getting off 
patrol, if it got logged into his package, his personnel file, that he'd let a wanted man ride all the 
way down with him to the station's ground floor. 

"Kill all who?" asked Deckard. 

"Eh, those goddamn rep-symps." The cop's face set into a scowl. "They're so fond of 
friggin' replieants, then we should treat 'em the same way." He lifted his hand, stuck out his 
index finger to make a gun, then curled it into the invisible trigger. "Bam. Instant retirement." 

The term rep-symp was a new one to Deckard. Replicant sympathizer?-that seemed the 
likeliest. Some new development, while he'd been gone from L.A.? 

The cop was waiting for him to say something, to make conversation. "Yeah-" He 
nodded. "Crazy bastards." 

"Crazy's not the word for it." The cop's mouth twisted with loathing. "Traitorous is more 
like it. They got their own species they belong to. If they don't like being human, they shouldn't 
wait for somebody like us to come around and solve their problems for them. They got 
guns-shit, they got heavy artillery. Let 'em all suck off some ninemillimeter rounds; then they 
won't be human anymore. They'll be hamburger." 

Deckard kept his face stone, his eyes the only thing moving as he glanced up again at the 
level indicator. Only a few more floors to go-the elevator had started to slow, braking to its 
coming halt. 

"Some of those things those rep-symps say . . ." The cop standing beside him had gone 
into a bitter monologue, the looped tape in his head running off its spool. "Where do they 
come up with that stuff? You heard what that one jerk was spouting off about, before he got 
plugged. What a load of crap." 

The elevator came to a thumping stop, the doors sliding back. 

"Take it easy." The cop pushed himself away from the back of the elevator. He didn't 
look back as he walked out onto the ground floor of the LAPD's central station. 

Deckard gazed past the metal-framed opening in front of him and across the vaulted 
spaces beyond. The icy blue glow of the building's exterior security lights traced shadows 
through the towering windows, inscribing a crosshatch of lines along the arches' overhead 
crescents. At this level of the ancient train station onto which the police department's 
headquarters had been grafted, the air-conditioning was all retro-fit and inadequate. The 
spaces near the ornate ceiling shimmered with bottled-up heat; a fine mist hung below that, 


composed of equal parts cop sweat and the more rancid tang of perp fear. 

composed of equal parts cop sweat and the more rancid tang of perp fear. 

The station's ground floor was packed with cops, more than he ever remembered seeing 
here before. The black uniforms, the jackboots and peaked caps, gleamed like oiled chains. It 
took him a while to realize what was going on. He'd never been in the station, not since he'd 
worn a uniform, during shift change. Blade runners kept their appointments at the dead hours 
between. 

He also knew, as he stood in the elevator's open booth of light, that every face out there, 
wearing silver over its eyes or not, would turn his way if he didn't move his ass. Even through 
the miasma locked in here, they'd smell their quarry, frozen in the dazzle of the cops' sight 
lines. 

He stepped out of the elevator, pushing his way through the crowd. His black leather 
shoulders shoved against the others, his face the same hard mask as theirs. 

Holden gazed hard at the creature sitting opposite him. Inside, confidence slightly shaken, 
he couldn't get a readout on this Roy Batty. Whatever his sixth sense whispered, his honed 
blade runner instinct, it was all fuzzy and indistinct. At the same time, he knew from experience 
that these escapees from the off-world colonies survived-or tried to-by playing mind games. 
"You're going to tell me you're not a replicant?" 

"Something like that." Batty wasn't laughing anymore. "You've got it backward, fellow. 
When I told you I was Roy Batty, I didn't mean some creepy low-watt version of me. I meant 
me, period. I'm the real Roy Batty. The human one. I'm the . . . what's it called . . . the 
template-" 

"Templant," corrected Holden. This was a possibility that hadn't even occurred to him. 
"That's the technical term." 

"Yes . . . that's it. I'm the templant for that Roy Batty replicant that you and your buddies, 
you hotshot blade runners, were assigned to retire." 

"That one . . ." Holden's voice went soft, meditative. "Bryant told me that one was dead." 

"He was right about that, at least." Batty shook his head in disgust. "That sucker crapped 
out. Just died. The fouryear life span the Tyrell Corporation built. into their Nexus-6 
models-that's four years under normal operating conditions. It's like buying a new spinner: you 
put any stress load on at all and your warranty's invalidated. You got a pile of dead meat on 
your hands, is what you got." His face set even grimmer. "You know, it's embarrassing to have 
a shoddy buncha products like that walking around with your face on them." 

"Wait a minute. You're saying there's more than one?" 

"Of course." Batty tilted his head to one side, studying Holden for a moment. "I've 
noticed this before, that you blade runners just aren't hip to the realities of modern industrial 
practices. Economics and stuff-I would've 

thought you'd know this, just to get a handle on what you're doing. The nature of the 
beast, so to speak. 

"Of course there's more than one Roy Batty replicant. You think the Tyrell Corporation 
would tool up for a whole production run and then just make a single unit? Christ, they're 
probably making more of 'em right now. And shipping 'em off-world to the colonies, all 
packed away in their transport module boxes, like big of Ken dolls or something. I understand 
it was a pretty popular model-the Roy Batty replicant, I mean. Lot of orders came in for it." 
His face darkened to a scowl. "Not that you'd know it from the royalty statements that I get 
from the Tyrell Corporation. I tell you, man. That reserve against returns they hold back . . . it 
just gripes my ass." 

Holden stayed silent for a moment, trying to get his thoughts started up again. He felt the 
emptiness of the desert's vast unpeopled spaces, just beyond the building's thin walls. 
Unfamiliar territory, a long way from the Los Angeles that he was used to moving around in. 


Same way with the stuff that Batty was telling him. "Let me get this straight. You get royalties?" 
The only question he could think of to ask. "On what? Your personality or something?" 

Same way with the stuff that Batty was telling him. "Let me get this straight. You get royalties?" 
The only question he could think of to ask. "On what? Your personality or something?" 

Inside Holden, one of the bio-mechanical heart valves trembled. "Why?" 

The thin edge of Batty's crazy smile appeared. "Because . . . part of my brain's wired in 
backward. I was born that way. Unique. Way inside." He gestured with a fingertip pressed 
above his ear, twisting it like a drill bit. "Neural malformation, calcium deposits on both the 
right and left amygdala. That's the brain structure that creates the emotional response of fear. 
Usually, people with this condition-it's pretty rare-they just don't feel fear. There's no 
physiological or emotional response. My head's better. The amygdalae are webbed through a 
whole batch of my major serotonin receptor sites. Situations that scare other people shitless-I 
get off on them. I like 'em." The corners of his smile lengthened, his eyes glittering. "Nothing 
can scare me. The more people try, the worse things get . . . the happier I am." 

"Sounds handy." 

"Yeah, well . . ." Batty shrugged, looking pleased with himself. "It's like with people who 
don't have pain responses-you know? They 'have to be real careful not to hurt themselves 
accidentally. There's no feedback for them to adjust their behavior. It took me a long 
time-most of my life-to develop an intellectual understanding of fear. Just so I could recognize 
it in other people's faces. And so I wouldn't go waltzing into situations where I'd be sure to get 
killed. But yeah, it's handy. Makes me a cold motherfucker. Just think what it'd be like if you 
chicken-hearted blade runners had heads built that way; you could really get some major 
damage done." His expression turned to pity. "As it is, it's why you guys don't have a chance 
against the Tyrell Corporation's Nexus-6 models . . . especially the Roy Batty replicant. All the 
Nexus-6 types have a little bit of this, but that model in particular-'cause it's an exact copy of 
me-all of the Roy Batty replicants are in serious kick-ass mode. You guys are just lucky if one 
of them ups and dies on you. That's the only way you'd survive an encounter with a Roy Batty 
replicant." 

The other's boasting irritated Holden. "That Batty replicant didn't run into me." 

"Just as well, for your sake. You got iced by that Leon Kowalski model, and that thing's 
a goddamn moron by comparison. If you'd hit on the Roy Batty one, there wouldn't have been 
enough left of you to stick an artificial heart into." 

"Maybe." Holden kept his own voice level and cold. "I wouldn't mind having the chance 
at one." 

"You're not likely to get it. The Roy Batty replicant that was running around in L.A. was 
the only one that ever made it back to Earth. The UN. authorities know what a loose cannon 
one of them can be-I've worked for U.N. security, so they're hip to what a version of me is 
like-so they keep them under wraps or way out in the far colonies. How that one got close 
enough to make a break for 

Earth . . . that was a screwup. Somebody wasn't paying attention." 

"You're with the U.N.?" He was still trying to piece together what the deal was. 

Batty shook his head. "Not right at the moment. And I never was officially hooked up 


with them. I was always more of a freelance operative, you might say. Mercenary. That's how 
I built up my rep. Then I hired on with the Tyrell Corporation-old Eldon Tyrell recruited me 
himself. That was because he wanted the best, and he could afford it." 

with them. I was always more of a freelance operative, you might say. Mercenary. That's how 
I built up my rep. Then I hired on with the Tyrell Corporation-old Eldon Tyrell recruited me 
himself. That was because he wanted the best, and he could afford it." 

"Eh, some troubleshooting, some industrial strong-arm stuff-there were still a couple of 
other companies turning out replicants back then, and Eldon decided he didn't want the 
competition anymore. So they got . . . kind of eliminated. One way or another. And then I was 
on retainer for a coupla years, while they were checking me out in the corporation's labs. 
Doing the brain-scan thing-that's when they found out about the cross-wired amygdala. That 
was pretty much the kickoff for the Nexus-6 development program." Batty shrugged. "After 
the production line started rolling, I moved over to personal bodyguard stuff, covering old man 
Tyrell's ass." 

He decided to risk a needle probe, just to see how Batty would react. "You must not 
have been doing a very good job. They told me in the hospital how Tyrell got killed." 

"Not on my watch. I quit months before that went down. Man, I'd decided long before 
then that I wasn't going to work for those'bastards anymore." Batty's face turned dark and 
brooding, gaze fixed on some inner vision. "I'm telling you-there's some sick people over there. 
Eldon Tyrell might've been the worst of them, but they're all fuckin' nuts. Some of the things 
I've seen . . ." He shook his head. "You know, there's a big red button over in the Tyrell 
Corporation headquarters-the U.N. made 'em put it in when the place was built. Just a little 
safeguard, in case some of the stuff they were dinking around with ever got out of hand." His 
voice twisted with bitter loathing. "I'd love to push that red button, and just stand back and 
watch the whole friggin' place come down. It's be just what those sonsofbitches deserve." 

A few more notes were jotted down on the file Holden had begun assembling inside his 
skull. Whatever else this Batty might be following through on whoever else's orders he was 
executing-he had a personal agenda as well. 

"Tell you what." The cigarette had been smoked down close to his knuckles while he'd 
been listening to Batty. He stubbed it out against the arm of the chair. "Suppose I accept for 
the time being this story you've been giving me. I'll accept-provisionally-that you're the 
templant for any Roy Batty replicants. That you're human." 

"Oh, thanks." A wry smirk settled on Batty's face. "What, you want me to prove it to 
you? There's probably an old Voigt-Kampff machine sitting on a shelf out here. You could run 
an empathy test on me, if it'd make you feel better." 

Holden shook his head. "I couldn't get any worthwhile results off somebody like you. 
Too much of a professional gloss-you probably know all the questions and answers already. 
There's no baseline I could establish for your involuntary response times." He picked up the 
lighter and ran his thumb across its smooth plastic surface. "Don't sweat it; as I said, I'm 
accepting for the time being that you're human. Why not? The only problem is, that still doesn't 
explain much." He flicked the lighter and regarded Batty over the thin, wavering flame. "Such 
as-why'd you bust me out of the hospital? And why'd you bring me here?" 

"Here's easy." Batty's hand gestured toward the building's walls. "I've got friends out 
here. I've had a long time to build up favors that people owe me-I cashed in a few to get you 
your new lungs. But actually, it works both ways. Not everybody in the LAPD is as dumb as 
you blade runners. There's some of them who'd like to know what the hell's going on. And 
that's what I'm helping them find out." 

"'Going on-"' He snapped off the flame. "What're you talking about?" 

"You haven't got a clue, do you?" The pitying gaze again. "Wake up and smell the 
synapses burning, Holden. How do you think you wound up getting blown away by that 
Kowalski replicant? I mean, other than by your being less than brilliant. And what do you 
think's been happening to all the other blade runners? You know how many of your pals have 


landed in the boneyard? Even before you did your stint in the hospital." 

landed in the boneyard? Even before you did your stint in the hospital." 

"Yeah, well, it's been happening a lot, buddy. The only smart one in your crew was that 
guy Deckard. At least he had the sense to take off before he could be set up to take a hit." He 
pointed his finger. "A hit like the one you took." 

"Bullshit. I never took any hit. Kowalski got the drop on me, that's all." 

"He got the drop on you, all right-in a secured area of the Tyrell Corporation 
headquarters. Hey, I know what the security measures are like over there; I was a consultant 
on most of them. Do you have any idea of how many metal detectors and alarm systems 
Kowalski would've had to pass through with that gun? It's impossible. Somebody had to have 
either passed him the gun in the secured area, right before you started to interview him, or they 
switched off the detectors. Either one of those things would've had to be done by somebody 
with clearance right up at the top level." 

"That's guesswork." Holden shifted uneasily in the chair. "You have any proof?" 

"Oh . . . bits and pieces." The smile radiated smug selfassurance. "You had a recorder 
running when you were giving the test to Kowalski. I've heard that tape-one of my pals in the 
department smuggled a copy out to me. Very dramatic . . . especially the part where you take 
it in the chest. But the best part isn't even anything you or the Kowalski replicant said. You can 
hear it in the background of the tape, from the p.a. voice: Attention . . . we have a B-1 security 
alert. Know what that means? That's the Tyrell Corporation's internal code for detected 
tampering with the security grid. All the time you were talking with Kowalski, the people over 
in the admin offices were running around, trying to figure out where the rip in the net was. Of 
course, by the time they did find out, you were lying on your back, wearing a hole a small dog 
could walk through." 

"An alarm went off. Big deal." Holden shrugged. "If it'd meant anything-if it'd had some 
connection with my getting shot-the police would've checked it out." 

"Sure. Unless the police were in on it already." 

"Now," said Holden, "you're talking conspiracy. And this is where it all falls apart. 
Because it would've been Inspector Bryant who handled any such investigation. And you 
know, I worked for Bryant a long time. I can assure you-he wouldn't take kindly to somebody 
setting up any of his men. Bryant's got a blade runner heart. Anybody screws with his 
operation, Bryant would bust 'em wide open." Holden leaned back in the chair. "That's 
something you could bank on." 

Batty had listened, nodding slowly, his smile growing thin and subtle. "You know . . . you 
may not be a genius, Dave, but you got a persistent little mind. That's kinda admirable. I can 
do business with you." He stood up, winging his arms back to work out a kink in his spine. 
"Come on, I got something to show you." He gestured with one hand as he headed for the 
door. "Come on-you'll really get off on this." 

Outside, Holden followed him across the bare, packed sand of the Reclamation Center 
compound. This far away from the city, the stars shot down hard pinpricks of diamond light, 
unobscured by any smoldering haze. The day's heat radiated up from the ground, as though 
the path led over buried coals. 

"Right in here." Batty had stopped in front of what looked to be a shack made of 
corrugated steel, rust stains weeping from the fasteners along the seams. He fished a ring of 
keys from his jacket pocket and pulled a padlock open. "Don't be afraid of the dark." 

Holding his hands out to either side, as though for balance, Holden stood waiting in the 
middle of the narrow space. A radiance bluer than the stars suddenly fell across him. He 
turned and spotted Batty silhouetted by a video monitor. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the rest 
of the gear mounting to the bare metal ceiling, monitors still unlit, racks of butch military 
electronics. 

"Check this out." Batty flipped switches, adjusted dials. A blue spark zapped his 


fingertips. "Damn. I told them to put a humidifier in here . . ." An image swam into focus on the 

fingertips. "Damn. I told them to put a humidifier in here . . ." An image swam into focus on the 

"Of course." He recognized the log-on screen. "It's the LAPD data banks." 

"Sure as shit. We got a direct trunk line into the system here, hard-wired cable fifty feet 
down, staggered repeater circuits. Can't get better picture quality inside the station. Now 
watch this." From the key ring, Batty took a plastic card with a hole punched in one corner, a 
magnetic strip down the side. He ran it through a slot reader. "Voila." 

"Christ . . ." What he saw rocked Holden back on his heels. The access level had rolled 
back to a string of four zeroes. As far as he knew, the chief of police had a level of 
zero-zero-zero-one. 

"Don't try to get this away from me." Batty snapped the card back onto the key ring. "It's 
coded to my sweat genotype." 

He watched as Batty voice-commanded through one directory branch after another. The 
guy seemed to know what he was doing. 

"Here's what I wanted you to see." 

ID scans, stocking-capped heads going through 360-degree rotations. First, the Roy 
Batty replicant, then a young blond, strange-looking woman, then an older-looking brunette. 
Then Kowalski; an involuntary flinch response went off in Holden's gut. Beneath each scan 
were lines of information, sub-type classifications and the like. 

"So?" Holden glanced away from the screen, over toward Batty. "The department's 
keeping its files updated. What did you expect them to be doing?" 

"You're not tracking, pal." With his fingernail, Batty tapped the corner of the screen. 
"Look at the date. That's when this information-including the photo scans-was logged into the 
system." Smile. "Take a good look." 

He sighed. "If it makes you happy . . ." Holden looked at the monitor again. 

Simple digits. 2019 for the year, last year; 24 for the day. And in between those, 10 for 
the month. That'd make it, thought Holden, a week before Halloween. That seemed 
appropriate. Old pagan holiday, trick or treat . . . 

"October," he said aloud. The realization came to him, perfect and clear. "This 
information was in the system in October." 

"That's right." Nothing funny in Batty's thin smile. "And Bryant sent you out to the Tyrell 
Corporation headquarters the first week of November 2019. He sent you out there, without 
showing you these ID scans." 

"He told me . . ." As though from a distance, Holden heard his own voice, barely audible. 
"He told me that there weren't any scans or photos of the escaped replicants. He told me that 
the off-world authorities didn't have any . . . that the data couldn't be sent . . . something like 
that. And I'd have to go out there with the Voigt-Kampff machine and run the empathy tests 
on all of Tyrell's new employees . . . to find which ones were the replicants . . . 

"Look at the access record." Batty called up another screen. His finger tapped the glass 
again. "Bryant pulled these scan files out of the police department data banks three times 
before he gave you the assignment. He even printed out hard copies. The photos of the 
escaped replicants-by which you would've been able to recognize them without running any 
tests-were probably sitting in one of his desk drawers the whole time, the last time he talked to 
you in his office." 

"But that would mean . . ." The pieces had linked up inside his head. It just took time to 
speak of them. "But that would mean Bryant sent me out there . . . to the Tyrell headquarters . 
. . to get killed." 

"Figure it out." Batty laid a hand on Holden's shoulder. His voice soft, almost kind. "If 
you were putting together a conspiracy to eliminate the blade runners-for whatever 
reason-who'd be better for it than the man in charge of them?" 

A tiny glimmer of light shone inside his skull. As Holden turned his gaze back toward the 


pure, empty glow of the monitor, he thought he'd started to understand. 

pure, empty glow of the monitor, he thought he'd started to understand. 

A smaller space, its own little world. As familiar to Deckard as the one he'd just walked 
across. 

With its own smells, even its own dust, residue of time past. Deckard closed the door 
behind himself. Through the glass pane, with Bryant's name showing in reverse on it, the 
fragmented light of the station's ground floor folded shadows across the desk and the file 
cabinets. 

He stood motionless, scoping out the room's darkness. Nobody had recognized him, 
stopped him as he'd made his way here from the bank of elevators. The virtue of machines, at 
least on this occasion, was their anonymity. 

The blinds over the office's windows kept anyone from seeing him in here, while still 
leaking through enough light for him to gradually make out the rat's-nest clutter with which the 
space was stuffed. 

"Bryant?" Keeping his voice low, he stepped into the center of the room. When he'd 
found the door unlocked, and had been able to slide right in with just a glance over his 
shoulder to make sure no one had been watching, he'd expected to find his old boss in here. 
Even though the desk lamp was switched off-he knew that Bryant often did his deepest 
brooding with the lights out and the scotch bottle close at hand. The inspector had been 
keeping night hours for so long that his skin, beneath his slob stubble and alcohol flush, was as 
pallid as a cave fish or a corpse. "You in here?" Deckard took another step closer to the desk. 

A blue glow fell across him. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he saw the blunt rectangle 
of a video monitor in front of him, the screen at the height where Bryant's face should have 
been. A short-legged tripod, monitor fastened to its top plate, sat in the chair behind the desk, 
a set of cables dangling from it and looped snakelike into a wall socket behind. 

"Hiya, pal." Bryant's jowly visage came into focus on the screen. His small eyes glinted 
through the low-rez mesh of a video transmission. "Good to see you again." Even in 
black-and-white, his smile's yellow-stained teeth were still apparent. "Thanks for stopping by." 

"What the hell's going on?" Deckard spotted a small video-cam on the desktop, geared 
to a motorized tracking pivot. A red dot from the device had fastened onto his chest; when he 
moved to one side, the camera followed his motion, keeping him in sight. "What's all this for?" 

"It's a friggin' pain in the butt, is what it is." As though the monitor were a tiny room in 
which he was trapped, Bryant leaned forward, short-sleeved elbows resting on a desktop 
somewhere else. The camera tracking him took a moment to refocus. "I'm in quarantine. 
Caught a bug-or at least I got exposed to one. One of those new jobbies that keep coming up 
from Belize." His wheezing voice came from a small intercom speaker on his desk. "I made the 
jackass mistake of helping make a collar in the flop palace behind my apartment building-hell, I 
was off-duty and everything. Supposed to've been catching my sleep rather than wrestling 
some disease-ridden, spickety wog bastard to the ground, like I was some young pup. Next 
thing you know, I got the department medics telling me there's antibodies the size of Buicks 
cruising my bloodstream." One of his big, hair-backed hands gestured toward the screen. 
"Hey, make yourself comfortable. Have a seat." 

Deckard pulled up the other chair and sat down, scanning through the narrow spaces 
between the blinds' slats; nobody outside appeared to have noticed anything going on in the 
office. He pushed the chair back a couple of inches, to avoid the monitor's glow washing 
across him. "I guess you heard I was in town." 

"I heard. News travels fast in a place like this. I mean, the does got me stuck over here in 
the infirmary, doing everything by remote, and I still knew about it." 

He peered closer at the image on the screen. "Are you going to be all right?" Even in 
person, it would've been hard to determine if Bryant was well, sick, or dying. "You going to 
live through whatever this is?" 


"Hell, yes." Bryant shook his head. "Don't worry about me, pal. You're the one with his 
ass in a sling. Me, they've got so pumped with wonder drugs I could crap a pharmacy. They'll 
probably be letting me loose in a day or two." 

"Hell, yes." Bryant shook his head. "Don't worry about me, pal. You're the one with his 
ass in a sling. Me, they've got so pumped with wonder drugs I could crap a pharmacy. They'll 
probably be letting me loose in a day or two." 

"Well, well, well. What an interesting development." A sadistic delight radiated from the 
face on the monitor screen. "And I thought you were the guy who was all through with the 
blade runner unit. You gave the impression that you didn't like us anymore. Hurt my feelings, 
Deckard. Just about broke my heart-you were the best man on the squad. You always were. 
And then for you to just walk out on us, like you didn't even care . . ." The intercom speaker 
transmitted the sound of Bryant sucking his breath in through his discolored teeth. "Especially 
this last time. You walked a long ways, pal; I didn't expect to ever see you around these parts 
again." 

"If it'd been up to me, you wouldn't have." 

"That attitude's not winning any points with me. You want us to be friends again, then you 
should start acting friendly. Then maybe I'd feel like helping you out." Bryant reached off 
camera, his hand returning with a bottle and an empty glass. "Let's be friends." He poured out 
a shot. "Come on, you know I've got some of the good stuff there. And I hate to drink alone." 

He felt his brow dampening with sweat, the chair arms slick under his palms. Jerking me 
around, thought Deckard, anger stifled to a heated rock in his chest. Exactly the kind of little 
games Bryant had always liked to play. He didn't have any choice but to go along. Sitting on 
the corner of the desk was another bottle, the duplicate of the one Bryant had in his quarantine 
chamber, and a pair of glasses. One was still clean; he poured a brown finger and knocked 
back half of it. "There. Satisfied?" The alcohol burned along his throat. Bryant's notion of the 
good stuff was anything you could set a match to. 

"All right, all right; jeez. Prickly bastard." Bryant set his own empty glass down, his face 
heavy and brooding. "With the kind of enemies you got, you should cultivate your friends 
more. You could use 'em." He poured another shot, swirled it around in the glass, watching. 
"Fact of the matter is, I don't have a clue as to why anybody would want to haul your sorry 
ass back here. I sure didn't have anything to do with it." He took a sip. "And why the Tyrell 
Corporation's got such an interest in you . . . I mean, after your having screwed up and letting 
Eldon Tyrell get killed . . . it beats me. I've given up trying to figure out those people." 
Another. "Now the way I see it-" 

"For Christ's sake, Bryant!" Deckard's nerve and his voice cracked. "I don't have time 
for this. Now, are you going to help me out? Or are you just going to sit there in whatever 
plastic bubble they got you in, getting soused and mumbling to yourself?" His anger rose, even 
while he kept his voice down to a tense whisper. "Because I'm not going to stick around here, 
listening to your bullshit. Not while every cop in the city is parading by your office door." 

"Simmer down." Bryant knocked back the dregs. "I'll help you. I always have. Not that 
you ever seemed to appreciate it." 

"I didn't appreciate getting jerked around by you. Back when I came to work for you 
again. What's all this about there being one more escaped replicant on the loose? A sixth one." 

Bryant displayed his ugly smile. "Is that what the Tyrell Corporation's got you hunting 
for?" 

"So it's true, then." Deckard leaned forward. "There is another one. And you didn't want 
me to know about it. What was that all about?" 

"Look, uh . . . that's not important." On the monitor screen, Bryant's image shifted 
uncomfortably. "Like you said, you don't have time for screwing around. Why don't we just 
say that back then . . . I miscounted, or something. Things didn't work out quite the way I 
wanted them to." 


"All right -- Deckard could hear the tension and anger in his own voice. "Whatever the 
game was that you were playing, I don't need to hear about it. Right now, I need something 
from you. You either get me a spinner, fueled and with all clearances, so I can get the hell out 
of L.A.= 

"All right -- Deckard could hear the tension and anger in his own voice. "Whatever the 
game was that you were playing, I don't need to hear about it. Right now, I need something 
from you. You either get me a spinner, fueled and with all clearances, so I can get the hell out 
of L.A.= 

"Fine. Then you call up the data that you purged out of the files-the stuff about that other 
escaped replicant. ID scan, name, description, the works." 

"That's kinda hard, too. I put all that in a secured file sector. Got some tight locks on it." 

"But it's there, right?" Deckard managed to keep his voice low. "So you can get it out. 
And that's what I need from you. Give me the data on the sixth replicant, and I'll take care of 
the rest." 

Another shake of the image's head. "Hunting it down won't be a picnic. Not with the 
whole LAPD on your case." 

"Let me worry about that. All I have to do is turn its carcass over to the Tyrell 
Corporation, and then I'll be long gone. Again. The police won't even see my dust." 

"You trust Tyrell?" 

"I don't have any choice." He slumped down in the chair, splaying the glossy jackboots 
out in front of himself. Letting some of the anger drain away-he lifted the shot he'd poured out 
and finished it off. "They're the only chance I have." In the office's stillness, he heard the faint 
rumble of the rep train rolling through its dark tunnels beneath the station. The poor bastards 
aboard it had already found their way out. The noise faded away, like a minor seismic echo. 
An old, recognizable feeling crawled across his skin, the same one he'd felt whenever he'd 
been in Bryant's office before, and that sub-audible note had whispered at the edge of his 
perception. Evoking the same thought as before: At least i always killed them one at a time. 
His only source of moral justification . . . 

Deckard shook off the creepy meditation. He didn't have time for that, not now. "So 
what's going to be? Do I get the info?" 

"It'll take a while," said Bryant's image on the monitor screen. 

"How long?" 

The image shrugged. "Maybe half an hour. Maybe a little less. Especially if we don't have 
anybody noticing that I'm pulling the file back up. Once I've got it accessed, though, I can send 
it straight to where you're at right now. So the best thing for you to do . . ." The 
brown-toothed smile again. "Would be to just hang tight and wait for the pretty pictures to 
show up on the screen." 

Deckard glanced at the office's door. He'd heard footsteps go by, then silence. , 

The voice from the monitor continued. "Like you said, pal, every cop in the city is 
walking by your elbow right now. None of them are likely to come waltzing into my office 
anytime soon. Keep your head down, and you should be able to hang out there until the 
crowd thins out a bitmaybe when the sun comes up and they all scurry to their little holes. Then 
you should be able to sneak back out." The image shrugged. "After that, it'll all be up to you. 
Just like you wanted." 

The muscles along Deckard's shoulders eased. He could handle that. He'd gotten in here; 
he could get out again. And after that? He'd worry about it later. 

"All right." He nodded. "The sun comes up, and I'm out of here." He swallowed the 
remainder in his glass. "You're the one who's going to have to take the heat, though. If it gets 
found out that you helped me." 

"Let me worry about that." Bryant's image sneered. "These pussies in the department 
have been on my case for years. What're they going to do, fire me? Bring me up on charges? 
They can't-I'm the only one who'll do this rotten job for them, and they know it. Besides, I've 
got a file up here-" On the monitor screen the jowly, unshaven image tapped the side of its 


head. "With a list of where all the bodies are buried. There's a bunch the brass around here 
wouldn't like to see dug up. If anybody over at Internal Affairs or the police chief's office want 
to dick around with me, I can guarantee 'em it won't be just my funeral they'll be getting ready 
for." 

head. "With a list of where all the bodies are buried. There's a bunch the brass around here 
wouldn't like to see dug up. If anybody over at Internal Affairs or the police chief's office want 
to dick around with me, I can guarantee 'em it won't be just my funeral they'll be getting ready 
for." 

"Yeah, like I'm so scared, pal. The fact that they were able to get you into hot water 
doesn't make 'em God. I've been covering my fat white butt for a long time now. Since I'm still 
alive, you might guess that I've gotten pretty good at it. And you'd be right. Like I said, let me 
worry about it." 

He managed one corner of a smile for his old boss. "No choice, huh?" 

"No choice." On the monitor screen, on the other side of the desk, hung the image of 
Bryant's own lopsided smile, the video image of his face slowly nodding. "You came around 
here asking for my help, now you gotta take. It's out of your hands, pal." The image drew 
back, one of its 

hands reaching for the bottle on the desk in the quarantine chamber. "Besides, even if 
they can get to me, what the hell do I care. I'm an old man, Deckard. At least I feel like one. 
Liver probably looks like a wet rag by now, plus I got an ulcer I could put my fist through, do 
sock puppet shows inside my stomach. if I wanted. I get plugged, so be it." He poured himself 
a taller drink than before. "Besides, I do owe it to you." The image gazed, eyes half-lidded, 
into the unlit depths of the glass. "You always came through for me, Deckard. Even when I 
had to lean on you. When I hauled you in here to take care of that last batch of escaped 
replieants 

"What?" All the joints of his spine tightened at once, as though the cord running through 
them had been yanked by an unseen fist. Something's wrong-the thinking part of his brain 
raced to catch up with the instinct, the quick sense that had made it possible for him to be a 
blade runner. 

On the monitor screen the image of Bryant didn't seem to have heard him. The image 
went on talking, as though Bryant had started to drift into some private reverie. 

"I knew that bunch was going to be trouble. Escaped replieants always are, but those 
Nexus-6 jobs had me sweating . . . ' 

That's not Bryant. He knew; he realized that a fake had been switched in on him. The 
sweat on his arms chilled, beneath the uniform's black sleeves. His old boss wasn't in a 
quarantine chamber somewhere else; the image on the monitor screen was a persynth, a CGI 
physiognomen, composited from the hundreds of hours of tapes recorded by the office's 
watchcams. A real-time response driver, with a branching script protocol, had been spouting 
the words in Bryant's data-sampled voice. A trap like this indicated a high-priority resource 
drain on the department; to get one of these ersatz personas up and running without detectable 
processor lag required mega-crag paralleled hardware. 

One mistake had tripped them up, made it clear to Deckard what the deal was. Bryant 
wouldn't have said thathe'd heard the inspector spouting off enough times to be familiar with 
his crude vocabulary. Especially when he'd been drinking, which had been most of the time; 
whenever Bryant had started into bad-mouthing replieants, instead of just giving one of his 
squad necessary tracking info, he'd used the words skin jobs, his favorite ugly phrase. 
Whoever had wired up the physiognomen on the monitor screen had forgotten to cut out the 
PC loop imbedded in the police department's main computers, the language-scrubbing circuit 
that kept the LAPD spokesmen from inadvertently broadcasting some of their less attractive 
publicrelations gaffes. The city's taxpayers didn't mind having a kick-ass retro-Gates police 
force, as long as it talked kinder and gentler. 

The whole analysis ran through Deckard's head in less than a second. They're trying to 


pump me, he thought. That was why the trap was being allowed to run on, without him being 
pounced on immediately-the department authorities who'd set this up hoping to get some kind 
of info from him while he was liquored up and reminiscing about old times with Bryant's video 
simulation, lulled into a false sense of security. They're watching me right nowwhich meant they 
may have caught his involuntary reaction, the jerk upward of his head and stiffening of his spine 
that would signal his perception of something being amiss. Which meant . . . 

pump me, he thought. That was why the trap was being allowed to run on, without him being 
pounced on immediately-the department authorities who'd set this up hoping to get some kind 
of info from him while he was liquored up and reminiscing about old times with Bryant's video 
simulation, lulled into a false sense of security. They're watching me right nowwhich meant they 
may have caught his involuntary reaction, the jerk upward of his head and stiffening of his spine 
that would signal his perception of something being amiss. Which meant . . . 

"Hey! Where you going?" The synthesized image of Inspector Bryant looked puzzled as 
Deckard jumped from his chair. "What's the deal, pal-" Papers scattered in a white flurry as 
Deckard grabbed the top of the heavy file cabinet and heaved it over onto its side with a crash 
of splintering wood. Just in time-the first of the squad hit the door with a body-armored 
shoulder. The impact of the door's edge against the impromptu barricade knocked the cop 
back against the others behind him. 

Deckard heard the elites' shouts and curses as he vaulted over the desk, knocking the 
monitor and its tripod aside. Bryant's synthesized image disappeared, replaced by a quick 
burst of static, then a solid glare of light spilling across the floor. In that blue glow, he caught a 
glimpse of what had happened to the real Bryant: an amorphous island of blood, dried into a 
dark stain, covered the space behind the desk. 

He pushed himself up on hands and knees from the evidence of Bryant's death, as the 
windows along the side of the office shattered in fire and bright splinters of glass, the blinds 
flapping like metal-feathered wings, tearing loose from their mounts as a horizontal rain of 
bullets scoured the opposite wall. The office's contents-the row of other cabinets topped with 
ancient teardrop-bladed fans and routing bins of yellowed papers and dog-eared manila 
folders, the desk lamp inset with snaps of Bryant's father's biggame hunting expeditions 
exploded into sharp-edged fragments, the smaller pieces twisting in the vortex of the bullet's 
overlapping trajectories. 

The deafening noise covered his actions. Deckard lifted above his head the overturned 
chair on which the video tripod had been mounted, and hurled it toward the single unbroken 
window that looked out to the police station's cavernous space. The shards of glass sprayed 
outward, the chair tangling in the cords of the blind, then tearing it loose and trailing the metal 
slats to the floor. He followed after, keeping low beneath the continuing gunfire, pushing off 
from the windowsill's jagged edge. He landed shoulder-first among the bits of glass, then 
rolling onto his back and drawing the gun from the uniform's holster with both hands. 

"There he is!" one of the cops shouted over the din, pointing. Deckard's shot caught him 
in the chest, knocking him back with arms flung wide against the others stationed a couple of 
yards outside the office's door. A burst of assault-rifle fire raked the floor as Deckard spun 
away; he came up with his own gun aimed and another round squeezed off. 

He heard the rifle clatter onto the floor, but didn't stop to look over his shoulder as he 
scrambled to his feet. The curved-ceiling stairs leading down to the basement levels were a 
few yards away; bare fluorescent tubes bounced a sickly illumination from the cracked white 
tiles. He sprinted toward the arched opening. 

More shots sounded behind him, but he'd already reached the stairs; he grabbed the 
rusting metal rail and used it to sling himself hard against the wall. He leaned out far enough to 
brush his pursuers back with another couple of shots. Then turned and ran, taking the steps 
three at a time, a barely controlled fall toward the depths beneath the police station. 


8..... 

8..... 

The security agent from the Tyrell Corporation stepped into Isidore's office. So big in his 
grey uniform with the name tag on the breast that he seemed to take up at least half the 
available space, his buzz-cut head brushing the ceiling. Andersson looked around, as though 
seeing the clippings and old calendars on the walls for the first time. "Oh . . . nothing too 
serious." The agent turned back toward the owner of the Van Nuys Pet Hospital with a dead, 
unfeeling gaze. "I just needed to speak with you for a little bit. To tell you that there's going to 
be some changes made." 

"Ruh-really?" The cat, his favorite, the one without skin or flesh to cover its mechanical 
bones, slipped in through the open door and jumped up on the desk. "Luh-luh-like what?" 
Isidore picked the cat up and held it against his chest. He stroked its steel, furless head and 
got a deep thrumming purr in response. 

"Well, I'm not going to be working around here anymore. I've got other things to do." 

"I suh-see." He nodded slowly. "That's yuh-your puhruh-ruh-prerogative. After all, you 
weren't ever really wuh-working for me. You were always working for her." He watched his 
hand scratching behind the point where the mechanical cat's ear would have been, if it'd had 
one. "I guh-guess I'll have to reevaluate the suh-suh-situation, see what the pet hospital really 
nuh-needs. So I can make other arrangements." 

"You don't have to do that." Andersson looked at him with an almost tender regard. "The 
arrangements have already been made." 

"Oh." He knew what that meant. And was confirmed in that knowledge when he 
watched the other man reach inside the jacket of his dark uniform. He knew what would be in 
the other's hand even before he saw it. "You know, I thuh-thuh-thought this was going to 
happen. I was kind of wuh-waiting for it." 

"I'm kind of sorry about it, actually." Andersson looked at the black weight of the gun in 
his own hand. "Not like I ever minded helping you out. But you know how it goes." 

"Sure." Isidore felt sorry for him. "I understand." He stood up from the desk, pushing the 
chair back, still cradling the cat against himself. "Wuh-would you muh-mind if I went out 
there?" He nodded toward the office's door. "Where the animals are? I'd rather be out 
thuh-there . . . when you duh-do it." 

"Hey. No problem." 

A moment later he stood out in the pet hospital's central corridor, looking down the rows 
of cages and kennels, listening to the barking and smaller noises that greeted his presence. 
He'd been wondering if he'd be able, at this moment, to tell the difference between the real 
ones and the fakes. With a sense of relief, he found that he still drew a blank on that issue. 

The mechanical cat in his arms meowed plaintively and rubbed its cold muzzle against his 
chin. Poor thing-it knew something was wrong, something was about to happen. "Here you 
go, baby." Isidore leaned down to set the cat on the floor. "I don't want you to get hurt." It 
didn't go away, but went on pressing its steel and plastic body against his ankles. 

"I'm ready," he announced. He didn't look behind himself, though he could feel the 
infinitesimal disturbance in the corridor's enclosed air, as Andersson raised the gun. 

Then he flew. That was what it felt like, even as a blow so huge as to be painless struck 
him between the shoulder blades. Even as he lay between the rows of wire-fronted cages, 
tossed there by the bullet's impact, he still felt suspended, caught in infinite motion. The 
concrete against his splayed-out hands felt soft as billowing clouds. But cold. 

This must be what it's like-he could barely hear his own thoughts. He knew he was 
already dead, inhabiting the last seconds of consciousness, because other sounds came to him, 


from far away, from right next to him. 

from far away, from right next to him. 

Any human creatures left inside the Van Nuys Pet Hospital would have to sort their own 
problems out. The nonhuman ones, the real and the fake, barking or whooping or emitting their 
shrill cries, fled toward the outer doors and windows that had also popped open. Isidore 
could just imagine a bright flurry of parrots wheeling above the crowded streets, the 
steel-legged greyhound and the terriers sprinting past the traffic-stalled vehicles . . . 

Blind, he distantly felt a few of the animals nuzzling his face, the mechanical cat climbing 
onto his chin and shrinking back from the ragged edges of the exit wound. 

"It's okay," he whispered. He tried to raise his hand but couldn't. "Don't worry . . . about 
me . . ." 

They started yowling before he was finished dying. And continued afterward. 

"This . . . this is great." The sense of happiness permeated Holden's body, as though the 
bio-mechanical heart in his chest had accelerated to some more euphoric rhythm. His own 
smile came to his face as he gazed at the monitor screen, at the data he'd had Batty summon 
up again. The words and numbers formed themselves into a personal message for him. "You 
know what this means? It means I didn't screw it up with Kowalski. I was set up; I walked 
into an engineered hit. There was no way i could avoid getting blown out by the replicant. The 
one person in the world I trusted-the guy whose job it was to look out for me, to keep my ass 
covered-he betrayed me." Holden placed his palm against the screen, as though to absorb the 
warmth of its benedictive radiation. "I can't tell you how good this makes me feel." 

"Mazel tov. " Batty shrugged. "Whatever-I'm happy for you. But you should remember, 
you're not exactly out of the woods. As long as you were knocked out in a hospital bed, with 
a dope hose running into your veins, nobody was concerned about finishing the job on you. 
Maybe Bryant put out an order to keep you on life support, just because he has a sentimental 
streak. Or perhaps he would've liked to have pulled the plug on you, but couldn't-or at least 
not yet. Not with you lying inside a hospital full of doctors and nurses who like to keep their 
little machines running. But when they hear that you're up and walking, the contract on you 
becomes effective again. Especially since they can assume that someone like me has filled you 
in on all the stuff they didn't want you to know." 

"'They . . . " He pressed his hand harder against the screen, as though he could shatter 
the glass, reach in and pull out the information he needed. "Who are they? Who's in on it, 
besides Bryant?" 

"That's a good one. Answer that, and you might have a chance of surviving. The big 
question is, how far up does this conspiracy go? Bryant didn't come up with all this on his 
own. How many levels of the police hierarchy above him are involved? Does the conspiracy 
against the blade runners go further than that, like into the U.N.'s policy-making apparatus? 
Maybe the off-world colonies' administrative offices are in on it-they're the ones most likely to 
have fabricated the escape that brought the replicants down here to Earth. The only thing you 
can be sure of is that somebody with major clout doesn't like blade runners." 

"Weird." Holden shook his head. The little jolt of cheer he'd felt had faded now. The 
holes were filled with darkness, where the missing pieces of the puzzle should fit. "Why would 
they be doing something like this, anyway? We're just doing our jobs-why try to kill us off?" 

"Pal, it could be any one of a million reasons. Just goes to show what an innocent soul 
you are, that you'd even worry about why. You haven't dealt with the people up at the top the 
way I have." Batty's voice and expression clouded with bitterness. "They're just mean 
bastards. They don't care about little people like you and me. Everything's dollar signs with 
them. If they want to trim their budget, they do it by cutting it out of your hide." 


The last dregs of that happy sense, of knowing at last that what had happened to him 
wasn't his fault, ebbed out of Holden's soul. Another emotion replaced it, as in silence he 
studied the man standing next to him. Now it was his turn to feel pity. He could see more 
clearly now the lines engraved into Batty's face, the deep creases as well as the finer net 
across the aged skin. Cheeks hollowed, eyes sunken in the dark crepe of their sockets; as if in 
the blue glow of the monitor, the man was visibly claimed by time, all the decades catching up 
with him. He's right, thought Holden. He's been doing this a long while . . . 

The last dregs of that happy sense, of knowing at last that what had happened to him 
wasn't his fault, ebbed out of Holden's soul. Another emotion replaced it, as in silence he 
studied the man standing next to him. Now it was his turn to feel pity. He could see more 
clearly now the lines engraved into Batty's face, the deep creases as well as the finer net 
across the aged skin. Cheeks hollowed, eyes sunken in the dark crepe of their sockets; as if in 
the blue glow of the monitor, the man was visibly claimed by time, all the decades catching up 
with him. He's right, thought Holden. He's been doing this a long while . . . 

Batty shot him a fierce glance. "Yeah, well, maybe you're just finding out what it's like." 
An almost childish Bulkiness twisted in his voice. "Maybe the reason Bryant went in on the 
conspiracy to get rid of you guys is just because he wanted to bring in some new blood. 
Replace you jerks who've gotten your minds all warped out on the Curve. Useless dildos." 

"The Curve was never a problem for me." Holden set his own gaze hard. "Once I've got 
the territory scoped out, I can take care of myself." 

"Man, you don't even know. I tell you one thing, that your ass was set up for a fall. and 
now you think you're a walking encyclopedia." The mean smile showed again. "There's stuff 
going on, levels of conspiracy, that I haven't even started to bend your head with yet." 

The realization had come to him some time ago that Batty got off on the whole 
conspiracy notion. "Such as?" 

"Bryant was lying to you from the beginning. To you, and then to Deckard, when he sent 
you out hunting that batch of replicants." A smug expression showed on Batty's face. "There 
was one more escaped replicant that he didn't tell either one of you about. A sixth replicant." 

"That doesn't make any sense." Another memory, from when he'd been back there at the 
hospital. Bryant had told him that all the escapees-all five of them-had been taken care of. 
Holden shook his head. "Why would Bryant cover up for a replicant?" 

"Ah. There's the mystery, all right." Batty's face showed once more how much he was 
enjoying this process. "When you combine that with the supposition he was involved in a 
conspiracy to get rid of the blade runners . . . makes you wonder, doesn't it? Just whose side 
Bryant is on." 

Holden fell silent, musing over everything Batty had told him, trying to fit the loose bits 
and pieces together. 

"A sixth replicant . . ." He spoke aloud. Something moved deep inside his being, other 
than his prowling, restless thoughts. "Number six." The old blade runner instinct, the desire, 
that had stirred into life every time he'd gotten an assignment from Bryant. To hunt, to track 
down and locate, and then to retire the quarry. He'd never really understood why wimps like 
Deckard and some of the other blade runners bitched and crabbed about this job. To him, it'd 
always been his whole reason for existing. Like that old high-wire artist had said, long 
ago-everything else was just waiting. "One more to get . . . 

"Take it easy," said Batty. "I know the idea gets you all revved up, but you still gotta take 
it easy for a_little while. That artificial heart-and-lung implant's still settling in." 

Holden didn't care about that. He knew that bagging the sixth replicant would solve a lot 
of things. It'd prove, he thought with grim satisfaction, that I'm still on top of the game. He'd 
been set up by that fat, lying bastard Bryant; that'd been the only way that they-the big they of 
the antiblade runner conspiracy-had been able to nail him. It still rankled to think of people 
hearing about him lying there in the hospital, a limp little bag of fluids hooked up to pumps and 
aerators, and feeling sorry for him. Now there was the chance to show them all. 

Plus, it seemed logical there must be something special about this one remaining replicant; 
why else would Bryant have let the others be hunted down and retired, while covering the 
tracks for number six? When I find this oneHolden already knew he would-171 have to be 
careful not to retire it too soon, Not until he'd pumped it for every scrap of information about 


the conspiracy. The key to why Bryant and those mysterious, unknown others had tried to kill 
him-he didn't care about all the rest of the blade runners; this was personal-was walking 
around Los Angeles right now, passing for human, wearing some face that could be just about 
anybody's. 

the conspiracy. The key to why Bryant and those mysterious, unknown others had tried to kill 
him-he didn't care about all the rest of the blade runners; this was personal-was walking 
around Los Angeles right now, passing for human, wearing some face that could be just about 
anybody's. 

He suddenly felt tired, a wave of fatigue deep and powerful enough to buckle his knees. 
He had to steady himself against the bank of monitors and other electronic equipment, to keep 
from falling. 

"See? I told you." Batty's voice came from somewhere nearby. "You gotta take it slow 
for right now. It's going to be a while before you're back up to your old operating speed. If 
ever." 

"Screw that." He summoned enough willpower to stand upright. "Don't worry about me. 
I'm not going to let having a bio-mech heart-and-lung set cramp my action." He gave a quick, 
harsh laugh. "Hey, it just struck me-" Turning his own smile toward Batty. "With what your 
doctor pals out here stuck inside me, I'm not all human anymore. What a thought." 

"'Not all human . . . " Batty peered at him. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Don't you get it?" Maybe this guy was so old, he was turning senile; maybe that was 
why Tyrell had fired him. "You know, because of the new heart and lungs being machines and 
stuff-" 

"You poor sonuvabitch. You're the one who doesn't get it." Batty slowly shook his head. 
"I thought you knew. That's why it was such a good joke a while back when you thought i was 
a replicant." 

Holden felt a chill lock on to his vertebrae, climbing upward one by one. "What're you 
talking about?" 

"You were never human, Holden." The smile, the pitying gaze. "You're the one who's a 
replicant. You've always been one." 

9..... 

"All right, all right; now I know you're bullshitting me." Holden felt both weary and 
disgusted. "You told me part of your brain was wired in backward, and now I believe it. You 
got a sense of humor that could only come from a couple of fritzed lobes." 

"Bullshit, it's not." Batty folded his arms across his chest. In the space bound by the 
equipment shack's corrugated-steel walls, the monitor's glow laced an icy blue through his 
colorless hair. "I'm not joking with you. Why should I? About something like this? Trust me. 
You're a replicant." 

"Trust you . . . yeah, right." The guy was either yanking his chain, figured Holden, or 
really was as crazy as the frequent smile and weird cast to his gaze indicated. "Give it up, 
Batty. I don't know what the hell you think you're accomplishing with all this fun-and-games 
line, but I'm not falling for any more of it." 


"Aw, man, the games haven't even started. Let's go back over to the medical unit." He 
reached over and switched off the monitor. In darkness, he headed for the dim rectangle of the 
door and the starlit night outside. "You want proof I'm not jerking you around, then come on. 
Got something else to show you." 

"Aw, man, the games haven't even started. Let's go back over to the medical unit." He 
reached over and switched off the monitor. In darkness, he headed for the dim rectangle of the 
door and the starlit night outside. "You want proof I'm not jerking you around, then come on. 
Got something else to show you." 

"Hey, can I bum one of those off you?" The doctor didn't wait for permission, but 
plucked the cigarette pack from Holden's breast pocket. "Thanks." He flicked the match 
away, a miniature comet, inhaled, and coughed. "You shouldn't be walking around, you 
know." With the same hand, he rubbed his watering eyes and used the cigarette to point 
toward Holden. "I didn't put all that gear inside you that long ago." He looked over at Batty. 
"You wear this guy out and he pops a seam, it's not going to be that easy to fix, man." 

"Don't worry about him. He's one of those big, bad blade runner types." Batty held out 
his own hand, palm upward. "Give me the keys to the ice room. You know, the slab farm." 

Scratching his unshaven chin, the doctor fidgeted through the white coat's pockets until 
he came up with a ring of keys. "I want those back when you're done. I don't want to find any 
more of those grease monkeys trying to take naps in there. I don't care what the weather's 
like. Bad enough, keeping their sixers in there." 

"Relax. This'll only take a minute." Batty twirled the keys on one raised finger. "Come on, 
Mr. Skeptic. Prepare thyself to be blown away." 

Holden followed Batty inside and to the rear of the building. The door-lined corridor was 
crowded with abandoned gurneys and wheelchairs, nests of catheters and trusses, a crutchless 
Lourdes. He spotted the black attach‚ case he'd worn strapped to his chest, now tossed onto 
a collapsed scarecrow of chrome IV-drip stands. 

"In here." Batty unlocked the last door, pushed it open. "All the proof you could ever 
want." The room exhaled a chill draft. "At least in this world." 

"Great," said Holden as he looked around. "A morgue." He'd been in enough of them in 
his time. This wasn't one of the best maintained he'd ever seen; daggers of frozen condensation 
had formed on the rows of metal drawers that made up one wall. "This is it?" 

Batty stepped over to the single table, underneath the light fixture dangling from the 
ceiling. "You know, I don't know why, but I just had a feeling that this would come in handy. 
Good thing I asked 'em to keep it around." He grabbed the corner of the sheet and pulled it 
partway back. "Take a look." 

Standing at the table's chrome edge, Holden gazed down. 

And saw himself. 

Not a mirror. The eyes were closed. As though asleepso far down that there was no 
breath to raise the chest beneath the sheet. Unscarred-this body hadn't caught any rounds to 
the sternum. No wonder I look so peaceful, he thought. 

"Nice, close match, huh?" Hands on hips, Batty nodded as he admired the corpse on the 
table. "Say what you want about those Tyrell people being a crew of bastards, you gotta admit 
they do nice work setting up a production line. They get tolerances down to a gnat's foreskin. 
There's probably not a freckle's difference between you and this baby, or any of the rest of 
this model. You're all identical. With some . . . minor variations." 

With one fingertip, Holden reached down and touched the forehead of the body. The 
coldness of the flesh, flesh the same as his, tingled up his arm like a small electric shock. 

"Who . . ." The morgue smell, the refrigerated suspension of decay, sat heavy in his 
mouth. "Who is this?" 

"Hey. What does it look like? Maybe it's the twin your mother forgot to tell you about. 
Slipped her mind." Batty's amused gaze peered closer at him, waiting for a reaction. "Isn't it 


obvious? It's another David Holden replicant, just like you. It's amazing you haven't run into 
one before. It may not have been the most popular model that the Tyrell Corporation ever 
made, but there are still quite a few of them out there." 

obvious? It's another David Holden replicant, just like you. It's amazing you haven't run into 
one before. It may not have been the most popular model that the Tyrell Corporation ever 
made, but there are still quite a few of them out there." 

"You're sure not displaying much family sympathy. Especially for somebody who came 
out of the same factory as you." Batty spread his hands above the corpse with Holden's face, 
as though in benediction. "This 'thing,' as you put it, originally came out of the Tyrell 
Corporationjust as you did. That's where it died, too. Dust to dust, meat to meat. But between 
those end points, it went far, far away-to the off-world colonies. This Dave Holden replicant 
was one of the group of six that escaped and came back here to Earth, back to L.A. and 
Tyrell. The bunch that your boss Bryant told you to track down and retire. Except that this one 
was already dead by the time Bryant gave you the assignment. This is the one that got fried in 
one of the Tyrell Corporation's electrical-field security devices, when they all tried to break 
into the corporation's headquarters." Batty lifted the sheet corner higher. "There's some burn 
marks farther down on the abdomen. Do you want to check them out?" 

"No, that's okay. I'll take your word on it." He felt oddly relieved that the replicant had 
gone out in a relatively quick and painless way; the kind of security devices that were used in 
places like the Tyrell Corporation had neuralinterrupter capabilities, knocking trespassers 
unconscious before killing them. Better that way-the thought of that face, identical to his own, 
taking a blade runner slug to the forehead wasn't pleasant, either. He started to turn away. 
"I've seen enough." 

"Actually, I don't think you have." Batty pulled the sheet completely away from the table. 
"Look a little closer." 

Holden glanced over his shoulder. And nearly fell, surprise triggering a hiccup in his new 
heart. 

The corpse on the table had breasts. Small, an athlete's, but definite. And farther down, 
the genitalia of a female. 

"Great," muttered Holden. He'd recovered some of his composure. "They make a double 
of me, and it goes out and becomes a transsexual." 

"Not quite." Batty redraped the sheet over the table, as though respecting the dead's 
modesty. "She was created this way. Another Dave Holden replicant-just like youbut with one 
small difference, the chromosomal selection for a female rather than male. The Tyrell 
Corporation can do that. It's easy enough." 

He wasn't quite sure what to think. "What was its name?" 

"Something beginning with a D, I suppose. Deirdre? Danielle, perhaps. They're short on 
imagination over at the corporation's design labs. And Holden, of course; they put the same 
last name on all the units of a particular model. Like they named the Roy Batty replicants after 
me." 

He really didn't care about the thing's name. Just giving himself time to think, as he gazed 
down at the corpse. Time to sort out the physical evidence-things didn't get much more factual 
than a dead body-and the stuff that wacko Batty kept rattling on about. Which was 
considerably less reliable. Somebody saves your life, gives you a whole new heart and lungs, 
and they think they can hand you any old routine. He knew he wasn't buying this one, not 
without an argument. 

"All right," he said. "You got a dead replicant here. And it's obviously a Dave Holden 
replicant. The female version, at least. That doesn't mean I'm a replicant. I could be the human 
templant for this model." 

"Oh?" Batty raised an eyebrow. "You recall getting any royalty checks from the Tyrell 


Corporation recently? If they based a replicant model on you, they're supposed to pay for 
that." 

Corporation recently? If they based a replicant model on you, they're supposed to pay for 
that." 

He looked down at the corpse again, then back up to Batty. "Besides, what sense would 
it make? I'm a replicant, and I get put on the squad hunting down escaped replicants? And 
don't give me that line about setting a particular kind of cat to hunt a particular kind of rat. 
You'd have a replicant blade runner hanging around with human blade runners-they're not 
going to figure it out eventually? Even if I didn't get assigned to track down an escaped Dave 
Holden replicant, one of the other blade runners would. So he'd either let me know I'm a 
replicant or he'd come back to the police station and blow me away. In either case, it's not 
going to be much of a secret any longer, about what's been going on." 

"You know . . ." Batty sighed. "Your problem is that you make all these big assumptions. 
You just sail right into believing stuff that hasn't been shown to be true." 

"Such as?" 

"Such as there being any human blade runners at all." 

That shut him up for a moment; he hadn't been expecting that line. When Holden spoke 
again, his voice was tightened by a barely controlled anger. "I don't have a problem, Batty; 
you do. You're insane. You've got all the classic thought processes of a paranoid 
schizophrenic." 

"Please-" Disgust on Batty's face. "This is what I get for being a nice guy, trying to help 
people out. Amateur medical advice. You want to believe this or not, fine, it's no skin off my 
nose. But the truth of the matter is that all the blade runners have always been replieants, from 
day one. Even before there were any replicants being manufactured in the U.S., back when 
the industry was located in Stuttgart, and the original developers of the technology-people like 
Paul Derain, and Sudermann and Grozzi, the ones that Eldon Tyrell eventually ripped off-knew 
they were dealing with dangerous stuff and they put the first safeguards in place." 

Holden had to admit that the other man knew his stuff. Those were names from the 
ancient history of replicant manufacturing. 

"From the start," Batty went on, "those companies had replicants on-line whose sole 
purpose was to keep other replicants from escaping and trying to pass themselves off as 
human. That's where the name 'blade runner' comes from; those enforcement replicants were 
originally called BleibrUliigers. Bleib ruliig is German for 'stay quiet.' And that's what they did, 
they kept everything nice and quiet; most people around the turn of the century weren't even 
aware that the replicant technology had been developed. Then when Tyrell and the U.N. 
brought everything over to the States, and the catching of escaped replicants became a police 
function, that's when Bleibruhiger got Anglicized to blade runner. The term doesn't make any 
sense, otherwise." 

"That's a nice etymology lesson, Batty, but it doesn't prove anything. Why use replicants 
to hunt down other replicants? You'd always be risking them realizing that they had their own 
interests in common. Then they'd conspire back against you." 

"Only if the blade runners knew that they were replicants." Batty pointed a finger at him. 
"You didn't know. And you were one of the best that the LAPD had in the squad. That's the 
whole point of having replicants do the dirty work. The nature of the blade runner job is 
nothing but licensed killing-for most thinking, feeling creatures, whether they're human or 
replicant, that's a corrosive way to live." 

Holden shrugged. "I never minded it." 

"You know, that's funny, when you think about it-" Batty's eyes glistened in full 
enjoyment mode. "The whole business of being a blade runner drains the human nature out of 


the people who do it. People like you. And at the same time, the replicants you're tracking 
down are trying to be human. Don't you think that's hilarious? The hunter is continuously in the 
process of turning into a mirror image of the very thing he's hunting. And vice versa. That's 
what makes it so great . . . from sort of an ironic poipt of view." He shook his head, still 
smiling. "I love this universe." 

the people who do it. People like you. And at the same time, the replicants you're tracking 
down are trying to be human. Don't you think that's hilarious? The hunter is continuously in the 
process of turning into a mirror image of the very thing he's hunting. And vice versa. That's 
what makes it so great . . . from sort of an ironic poipt of view." He shook his head, still 
smiling. "I love this universe." 

"Yes, well, the system does work, in its own grinding, soul-destroying way. That's why 
it's so valuable to have the blade runners be replicants themselves. You know that whole 
bit-Bryant probably told you about it-about these Nexus-6 replicants having only a four-year 
life span, as a safeguard against their getting away and on their own? That's nothing new. The 
blade runner replicants have always been built that way. Four years is just about the optimum 
time that a blade runner can stay on the Curve and operate at max efficiency, before the 
burnout starts setting in. You got that four-year window of opportunity, you stuff 'em with 
some implanted memories so they'll think they're human, give some basic hunting and tracking 
skills . . . bam, you got'em right at the peak of the Curve. And theneven better-they crap out 
and die before they go weird on you and become dangerous. Haul the bodies away, bring 
over some new units of the same models from the Tyrell Corporation, program 'em the same 
way you did the previous ones, and you're off and running. It's a great system." He shrugged, 
in a pretense of embarrassed apology. "Except. of course, you die. Over and over, actually. 
But you're usually not aware of that part, so that's okay." 

Holden glared at the other. A chill, deeper and more exhausted than before, had started 
to settle into his bones. 

"Like I said before . . ." He turned away from the corpse with hi face; it was getting on 
his nerves. "This is all great talk, but you haven't proven anything. There are other explanations 
possible for all this. You really haven't shown me any reason to give up believing that I'm the 
human templant for any Dave Holden replicants. There's no proof" 

"There can't be." Batty pulled the sheet back over the dead body. "Not the way you 
want. That's another problem with you blade runners-you've got it in your head that the 
difference between human and replicant can be demonstrated. You take it as an article of 
faith-you couldn't do your job otherwise-that the Voigt-Kampff machine and the empathy tests 
show who's human and who's not. But at the same time, you've already admitted that we 
could put the machine on each other, run the tests, and the results would be completely 
meaningless." He turned an intense, unsmiling gaze on Holden, "You gotta think about what 
that means. There's a lot of implications. Take that Roy Batty replicant, that copy of me, that 
you and then Rick Deckard were assigned to retire. Suppose either one of you had managed 
to catch it, put the Voigt-Kampff machine on it, and run the tests. Would it have flunked 
because it was a replicant or because it was such a good copy of the human original? If I 
couldn't pass the empathy tests; and I'm the original, and the copy of me doesn't pass either, 
then what's the difference between us? The whole premise of the blade runners-the whole 
methodology by which they operate in this world, going around saying this person's human and 
this one's not-that whole thing is bogus. Fallacious. It doesn't work because it can't work." 
Batty glanced down at the shrouded corpse. "Maybe what you should ask yourself is how 
much of this you've known to be true all along. And you just chose to ignore it because it 
would've gotten in your way too much." 

He didn't care about that. All this arguing about who or what was human and who or 
what was not, and how you could tell or could never tell-his brain was starting to ache from 
the convoluted, seemingly endless labor of picking his way through the branching corridors. A 
maze, thought 

Holden. That's what it is. The basic mental pattern of the clever psychotic. Contagion the 
danger; Holden knew he had to be careful. In his weakened state, still getting over the effects 


of having an entire new heart-and-lung set shoved into his chest, it'd be easy to get sucked into 
Batty's ideational construct. If nothing else, it showed why the Roy Batty replicant had become 
the leader of the band of escaped replicants: the original was a natural scoutmaster, an 
organizer of fun and games. Play hard, die hard. 

of having an entire new heart-and-lung set shoved into his chest, it'd be easy to get sucked into 
Batty's ideational construct. If nothing else, it showed why the Roy Batty replicant had become 
the leader of the band of escaped replicants: the original was a natural scoutmaster, an 
organizer of fun and games. Play hard, die hard. 

10..... 

Shift change over, banks of grey steel lockers closed, the wooden benches between 
them polished to a smooth luster by generations of bare cop buttocks and the black serge of 
uniform trousers; in the close atmosphere hung the scent of sweat and fungicide. He knew that 
smell, could remember it from his own tours of duty before he'd promoted up and out. With 
each panting breath pulled into his lungs, Deckard ran further into his own past, one that he'd 
rather have forgotten. His shoulders barely cleared the narrow space, the black uniform's 
sleeves torn by collision with hinges and corners of metal. 

"There! Take him down!" 

He heard the shout and the clatter of jackboots hitting the bottom of the stairs behind 
him. Without a glance over his shoulder, he dived with arms reaching out straight, the weight of 
the gun gripped tight in his fist. He hit the bare, damp concrete as a line of automatic rifle fire 
stitched across the locker doors. Still sliding, he rolled onto his back, getting his other hand 
onto the gun and firing blind, the recoil from three rapid shots pushing him along another 
couple of feet. 

At least one shot had struck flesh; he heard a gasp of shock as the auto fire went wild, 
raking the locker room's ceiling and bursting the light fixtures into sparks and glass splinters. In 
darkness, he scrambled to his feet, staying low and close to the metal doors to his left. His 
hunched shadow leapt in front of him, outlined by each red muzzle flash back at the stairs. 

His own boots splashed into water a quarter-inch deep. That and the humid air in his 
nostrils told him he'd reached the showers. Deckard reached to one side and touched wet tile; 
he steadied himself, breath laboring, as his eyes adjusted to the dim illumination from the one 
bulb left unbroken. His mind raced, trying to dredge from memory a way out of the 
sub-basement levels below the police station. 

"You're not going anywhere, dickhead-" 

Before he could lift the gun, a forearm slammed into his throat, the impact lifting him from 
his feet and pinning him against the wall. The back of his skull cracked against a chrome 
shower nozzle. His dropped gun splashed in the thin water, as his hands clawed futilely at the 
bare, hardmuscled skin pressing under his chin. 

Fragmented light glinted in the eyes and silhouetted the cop's naked torso, soap residue 
webbed across his chest and arms, hair plastered dark and shining on his broad neck. He 
must've already been in the showers when the pursuit had exploded into sight at the far end of 
the locker room, then stayed silent and waiting. 

"You're the one they're looking for-" A black constellation spun across Deckard's vision 
as the cop grinned and jerked him higher against the slick wall. "Aren't you?" 


He couldn't push away the throttling arm. His hands let go and scrabbled at the tiles 
behind him. A blunt-edged X filled one palm; elbow digging into his own ribs, he twisted the 
handle. 

He couldn't push away the throttling arm. His hands let go and scrabbled at the tiles 
behind him. A blunt-edged X filled one palm; elbow digging into his own ribs, he twisted the 
handle. 

Deckard spotted the gun lying a few feet away; he launched himself forward, scooping 
up the weapon. A roar of pain and rage echoed off the walls as the cop grabbed him by the 
front of the uniform and pulled him upright. He brought the edge of his brow against the cop's 
chest; with one push, Deckard took him to the wall, hard enough to loosen the other's grip for 
a moment. Long enough to lean back and raise the gun, the black muzzle against the cop's 
breastbone. He squeezed the trigger. 

The tiles cracked, the wall behind crumbling from the impact of the cop's spine and 
shoulders. Concrete rubble sluiced over Deckard's arms as the exposed pipes bent and 
snapped. The gun was knocked loose from his grip, as the cop's dead hands let go of him. 
The corpse sprawled at his feet, the pooled water transformed into a dark red lake. 

Through the clouds of steam, he could see the shadowed, indistinct figures of the other 
cops racing through the locker room's narrow aisles. A darker space had appeared behind the 
burst pipes and shattered tiles; he braced his shoulder against the concaved section of wall and 
pushed. He nearly fell as the cement gave way and he stumbled coughing through a burst of 
white dust. Hot pipes singed his hands as he groped his way through the maze of plumbing. 

A quick glance over his shoulder-he spotted. the shapes of his pursuers clustered around 
the ragged opening, the first of them climbing through, brushing aside a tangle of plaster-clotted 
rebar and the splinters of ancient wooden beams. 

Deckard tasted salt seeping into the corners of his mouth, his face sopping with blood 
and water the exact same temperature. He ducked his head beneath the belly of a sewage 
conduit and ran as best he could, empty hands clawing a blind passage before him. 

Holden had retreated into his head, letting his entropyladen body get steered outside by 
the other man. 

"Looks like it's going to be another hot one." Outside the Reclamation Center's medical 
unit, standing in the ragged circle of cigarette butts the doctor had left strewn on the sandy 
ground, Batty pointed to the horizon. The first coloring of dawn, a purplish-red smear along 
the tops of the distant mountain range, had crept into the cloudless sky. "Man, everybody 
bitches about the monsoon season when it's here, but when it's gone, you'd do just about 
anything to get rained on for twenty-four hours at a clip." 

Subterranean heat rose up through Holden's legs. The desert hadn't finished radiating the 
thermal load it'd absorbed from the day before, and now more would be pounded into it by 
the sun lifting overhead. Where he gazed past the razor-wired fence, an incipient Santa Ana 
wind sifted dry dust through the sparse clumps of withered brush. 

Everybody says that, he thought. All the time. One hot one after another. Someday the 
cycle wouldn't be broken by the onset of the yearly rains. The heat would go on building up, 
cumulative, until the sands melted into glass, perfectly smooth and reflective, bouncing a fierce 
glare back into the sky. Same thing would happen in the city, the streets turning to a black tar 
lava flow, then hardening to obsidian mirrors. We could see ourselves that way, all the time-he 
could picture it. Everyone looking down and wondering whether the image looking back at 
them, in that world of permanent night, was human or something else . . . 

i should sit down-he felt as old as Batty looked. Or lie down, take the load off his new 
heart. The doctor was right; if he wasn't careful, the whole setup could give way, like an 


overstressed motor. And he couldn't allow that to happen, not until he'd moved his own 
agenda along. He'd have to husband his strength, calculating all of his resources and 
endurance, to accomplish what he'd have to do. 

overstressed motor. And he couldn't allow that to happen, not until he'd moved his own 
agenda along. He'd have to husband his strength, calculating all of his resources and 
endurance, to accomplish what he'd have to do. 

Bryant was on the list, of course. He nodded slowly, gazing toward the red-shaded 
sunrise. If nothing else, Batty had convinced him of that part, that the head of the blade runner 
unit had set him up to get blown away by the replicant Kowalski. Why, he didn't know. All of 
Batty's big talk of high-level anti-blade runner conspiracies hadn't impressed him. 

Cops had simpler ways of determining who to go after. Mainly the application of that 
ancient maxim, Cui bono? Who'd benefited from his taking a hit? 

The answer came with minimal pondering. Deckard . . . my old pal. That son uvabitch. 
Deckard had taken over the assignment, to track down the escaped replicants; that was a nice 
fat bunch of bonuses for retiring each one. Maybe that whole business of his quitting the 
department had been a ruse, something cooked up between Deckard and Bryant, to make 
Holden believe that he finally had a clear field, his old rival in the blade runner unit off the 
scene. Maybe a little kickback arrangement, Bryant and Deckard splitting the bonuses? That 
was possible as well. Who knew why people did evil shit? Maybe the tests should be 
redesigned, that determined who was human or not. None of that empathy nonsense. Instead . 
. . Would you have any problem sticking a knife in your friend's back? No? 
Congratulations-you have all the essential qualities of treachery, ingratitude, and two-facedness 
that marks a real human being. Collect your ID and ammo discount card at Window Five. 
That would work. 

Holden glanced over again at Batty. He was necessary for the time being; Holden knew 
he couldn't take care of everything he needed to, not in his present post-op condition. Ill go 
along with him for now, thought Holden. For as long as i need to. 

The other opened his eyes, bringing his sly gaze around. "You've had a busy night." Batty 
displayed his psychotic smile again. "Haven't you? All the things you've found out . . ." 

Right. He said nothing aloud. He'd already added Batty to the list of things to be taken 
care of. Whether Batty was human or not-that remained to be seen-he might be the only one 
who could make that whole pitch about Holden being a replicant. Whether it was true or not, 
it wasn't a good thing for somebody to be going around talking about. 

He'd decided. He smiled back at Batty. If he had to kill the guy to prove that he was 
human himself . . . or at least keep everyone thinking he was . . . 

He didn't have a problem with that. 

The space behind the police station's walls had narrowed, a gap through which Deckard 
had barely been able to squeeze himself, the rough concrete surfaces tearing open the front of 
the stolen uniform. He left a trail of watered blood on one of the massive pilings that had been 
sunk into the ground to support the weight of the multileveled structure rearing high above him. 
The dark gap chilled as it sloped farther underground; a draft smelling of stone and smoldering 
fires rose into his face and was drawn into his lungs with each straining breath. 

Suddenly the constricting pressures against his shoulders flared apart, the span widening 
beyond the reach of his rawscraped hands. The gravel of broken concrete slipped from under 
his boots, pitching him forward. The only thing that kept him from falling was an angle of pipe 
that his flailing grasp found a few inches from his head; his fingers tightened upon it as he 
heard, past the hammering of his pulse, a few dislodged pebbles clatter upon another level 
beneath. A low rumble moved through the earth itself. 

He knew that his pursuers were still working their way down toward him; their muffled 
voices leaked through the gap, along with the noises of the equipment,, hydraulic jacks and 


hissing acetylene torches, with which they cut a channel through the station's underpinnings. 
Only a matter of time until they caught up with him, the ratlike escape he'd made coming to an 
end in some corner of rock and buried steel girder. 

hissing acetylene torches, with which they cut a channel through the station's underpinnings. 
Only a matter of time until they caught up with him, the ratlike escape he'd made coming to an 
end in some corner of rock and buried steel girder. 

The sounds of his pursuers grew closer, perhaps only a few yards back along the gap 
through which he'd crawled. Those noises were drowned out by the rep train's noise and 
clatter, now directly beneath him. He squatted down, then got his legs out past the crumbling 
edge of the hole into the tunnel roof. He held on for a few seconds longer, until the dark shape 
of the engine was past; then he dropped, pushing himself away from the edge, diving with 
outstretched hands. 

With a jarring impact, he landed on top of one of the freight cars. He clawed for a hold 
on the wooden slats; through the gaps between them, he could see faces looking up at him. 
None of the humanlike figures, pressed tight against each other inside the car, raised a voice; 
their blank gazes regarded him without emotion. 

He couldn't hold on. The rattling motion of the train peeled his fingertips, wet with his 
own blood, away from the slat to which he clung. A hard lurch jolted him loose; in the stink 
and din, his chest and stomach slipped across the freight car's roof. The rep train took another 
curve in the tunnel; the swaying motion was enough to throw him over the edge. 

one crooked arm caught itself in the angle between a vertical slat and slanting 
cross-beam. His back and shoulder slammed against the freight car's side, knocking the last of 
his breath from his aching lungs. The tunnel wall, jagged stone outcroppings and rusting 
stanchions, screamed a few inches away from his head as he fought with animal desperation to 
latch his free hand on to any part of the car. 

His own weight began dragging his arm from its hold upon the vertical slat. His agonized 
vision took in the freight car's occupants, their naked forms picked out by the engine light 
bouncing off the tunnel's arched ceiling. Male and female replieants, packed behind the freight 
car's sliding door, locked with a single steel bolt. 

The other cars behind, stretching into the tunnel's darkness, were the same, filled with the 
rejects from the Tyrell Corporation's production lines-the replieants whose memory implants 
hadn't taken, the ones who hadn't passed the mental and physical tests that qualified them to 
be slaves in the off-world colonies. Their creators routed them through a clearing station 
administered by the police department, checking them off in numbered lots to make sure all 
were accounted for prior to disposal. Not retirement-an industrial process, quick asphyxiation 
and smokestacks belching out the odors of incinerated flesh. 

He could no longer tell what things he saw before him, and what fear and exhaustion had 
pulled from his memory, overlaying the rep train's reality with his own past. A slope-jawed 
face turned away from him, the male replicant's massive shoulders hunched with a sullen, 
preverbal resentment; his bare arms glistened with sweat. Kowalski-he could remember the 
face, or one just like it, another unit of the same model. What had the other Kowalski said to 
him? A long time ago, in another world, up on the streets of the city far above. Wake up-it's 
time to die . . . 

Another Nexus-6 looked at him for a moment, her gaze reaching past the other 
replieants' naked shoulders. Darkhaired, long-limbed . . . her name had been shaken from his 


skull, leaving only the vision of another one like this, crashing through one plate-glass window 
after another, blood between her shoulder blades, the bullet from his gun turning her into a 
wingless angel, a thing that flew amid bright razor crystals . . . 

skull, leaving only the vision of another one like this, crashing through one plate-glass window 
after another, blood between her shoulder blades, the bullet from his gun turning her into a 
wingless angel, a thing that flew amid bright razor crystals . . . 

Another woman huddled in the corner of the freight car. The Tyrell Corporation had 
given her enough knowledge so that she could be afraid; her face, pressed against the paleness 
of her arms, was wet with tears. The tangled curls of her brown hair fell across her knees. 

"Rachael . . ." He didn't know if it was her, or if they would have given this one a name 
yet. He called to her again. "Please . . ." 

The female replicant raised her head and looked at him. And did not know who he was. 

He suddenly felt an arm at his back, clutching him and pulling him up against the freight 
car's side. One of the replicants-he couldn't see which one-had reached through the slats and 
grabbed him, kept him from falling. He looked down and saw the tracks cutting by, a few 
inches from his dangling feet. 

Brighter light flooded across him, as the rep train burst from the tunnel's mouth and out 
into the open. The reddish glow of morning slanted across a barren landscape, darkened with 
years of soot and spattered oil droppings. Abandoned freight cars and rusted-out tankers 
formed parallel barricades along the rows of tracks to either side. 

Deckard managed to get his free hand between his chest and the slats. He pushed himself 
back against the arm's grasp; the replicant, still unseen by him, sensed what he was trying to 
do and let go. 

He landed on his shoulder, rolling clear of the rep train's wheels. He kept his face down 
against.the stones and rubble, until the noise of the train had passed and faded into the 
distance. Cautiously he raised his head, enough to see the last of the cars disappearing with its 
silent cargo. 

On his hands and knees, Deckard managed to focus his vision past the tops of the 
motionless freight cars to his right. The towers and spires of the L.A. skyline carved the 
advancing daylight into hard-edged segments. He knew that he was out of the city, somewhere 
in the industrial wastelands ringing its vast sprawl. 

A desiccated, blood-temperature wind rolled across his back. He managed to stand up, 
the rags of the stolen police uniform gaping over his torn and abraded flesh. Slowly, his feet 
stumbling against the oil-covered rocks between the tracks, he began walking. 

Not north, where his unreasoning heart wanted to start for. But someplace where he 
knew he could hide. 

For at least a little while . . . 

11..... 

She ascended to the appointed place, at the appointed hour. Without effort, almost 
without will-thermal sensors had registered her presence within the small space, a disembodied 
voice had asked if she'd wanted to go up to the building's roof, far above the dense weave of 
structure and light that formed the static ocean of the city. All Sarah had had to do was say 
yes. 


Thus we rise, she thought as she closed her eyes and leaned the back of her head against 
the wall of the elevator's vertical coffin. Not as angels, transparent to gravity, buoyant in God's 
sight, but as inert, gross cargo, hauled aloft by cable and winch, like stones and dust in a box. 

Thus we rise, she thought as she closed her eyes and leaned the back of her head against 
the wall of the elevator's vertical coffin. Not as angels, transparent to gravity, buoyant in God's 
sight, but as inert, gross cargo, hauled aloft by cable and winch, like stones and dust in a box. 

Unless what? She raised a hand, pressing thumb and forefinger against her eyelids, blue 
sparks wriggling inside her head. Unless every not-living thing quickened and breathed, all the 
earth's graves burst like ripe seed pods, and the drowned rose with seaweed hair and pearls in 
their mouths. It could happen-neither thought nor belief, but what she would have believed if 
she were still capable of that. Her own resurrection, or the simulation that was as much of one 
as she could hope for, pushed light through her hand and into her eyes as the elevator came to 
a stop and the doors slid open. 

He was waiting for her. On the building's executive landing deck, the private one that had 
been reserved for Eldon Tyrell, but rarely used. She stepped out of the elevator and strode 
toward the unmarked spinner and the figure lounging against its flank, his arms folded across 
his chest. 

"How did it go?" 

Andersson shrugged. "Oh . . . pretty much as I expected. He didn't put up a struggle or 
anything. Not that it would've made much difference if he had." 

"My." She let herself smile. "You're such a professional. Aren't you?" 

"I'm paid to be." 

"Whatever you indicate will happen, happens. Like pushing a button . . . on the elevator 
over there." She nodded toward the closed doors, the brushed stainless steel raked by the 
sun's fierce glare. She turned her own gaze away from the man. The light and heat would 
siphon away any possible tear. She felt genuinely sorry about Isidore; the poor little geek's 
neck, with its wobbling bespectacled head on top, would probably have fit inside one of 
Andersson's fists. Perhaps that was how he'd done it, like twisting and pulling the knobbed 
cork out of a bottle of Dorn Perignon. More likely, the obliging Isidore had volunteered, soon 
as he'd figured out what was wanted of him. Wuhwould you like me to kuh-kill myself? 
Huh-huh-happy to. 

"You're the one who pushes the buttons." 

"Am I?" That still seemed an odd concept to Sarah Tyrell. "I suppose so." She 
remembered being a three-year-old child and looking up at her uncle-the doors of the 
Salander 3 had unsealed and popped open; a nurse hack led her down the ramp, with the long 
boxes holding the remains of her parents following right after-and seeing his thick glasses, the 
lenses shaped like the computer monitors that had been her windows aboard the starship, the 
cold eyes behind them scanning and assessing, calculating. He had reached down and touched 
her hair, rubbing a lock of it between his thumb and forefinger, as if gauging its suitability for 
some new industrial process . . . 

"What're you doing?" Her voice, sharp' and startled; she felt her spine go rigid, every 
muscle tensed for flight or attack. The reverie into which she'd sunk had been translated into 
this reality, the rooftop landing deck of the Tyrell Corporation headquarters, right now. Her 
uncle's touch had become Andersson's; the man, still leaning back against the spinner, had 
reached out and stroked the stray wisp of fine brown hair at the nape of her neck. His fingertip 
stayed there, a fraction of an inch away from her tremulous skin. "What . . . I don't . . . " 

"Yes, you do." He leaned forward and kissed her. 

Kissed and fell to the landing deck's hard surface, both his hands upon her, as they had 


been before. She turned her head and saw the undercarriage of the spinner, the extruded 
landing gear, the vents and air intakes: she could smell the sharp reek of its fuel and the 
condensation of steam, mixed with the closer scent of his sweat as he reached between them 
and undid the front of his jumpsuit; she couldn't tell the mingled odors apart anymore, or 
whether they came from.him or the machine. It didn't matter to her. 

been before. She turned her head and saw the undercarriage of the spinner, the extruded 
landing gear, the vents and air intakes: she could smell the sharp reek of its fuel and the 
condensation of steam, mixed with the closer scent of his sweat as he reached between them 
and undid the front of his jumpsuit; she couldn't tell the mingled odors apart anymore, or 
whether they came from.him or the machine. It didn't matter to her. 

Something else to be sorry about. That the arrangement had come to an end; she knew 
it, even if he didn't yet. At the edge of her awareness, she felt her hand remove itself from his 
back and reach inside her coat pocket, for the object she had taken from the drawer of the 
bureau plat down in her uncle's office. 

Andersson gasped-too soon, at least for him; she could feel the shock wave run through 
his body. He pushed himself back from her, his spine arching. One hand clawed at his back, 
fingertips smearing through the bright red that had burst open there. 

"Goddamn . . ." He'd rolled onto his side, finally having managed to pull out the knife she 
had inserted, point first, between his shoulder blades. Andersson shook his head ruefully. "I 
knew you were going to do this. I knew it . 

The knife clattered on the hard surface of the landing deck. He managed to push himself 
up into a sitting position, propped up against the spinner. His blood shone on the black metal. 
"It's not like . . ." Voice weaker. ". . . it's unexpected .. . 

"Please don't ask me why." She kept her own voice formal, polite. She had gotten to her 
feet and was now putting her own disarrayed clothing back in order, reaching down to smooth 
the skirt of the dress over her knees. "I'd find it tiresome to explain." Sarah straightened up, 
noticing a spot of his blood on the front of her blouse. Silk, and thus ruined. 

He managed to laugh. "Don't bother . . ." He gazed at her, almost admiringly. "It's pretty 
much . . . the nature of the business . . . 

Checking the time, as much by glancing up at the sun as looking at the slender watch on 
her wrist. And waiting; as always, Sarah hoped he wouldn't take too long. 

A few minutes later she succeeded in dragging his body to the low parapet surrounding 
the landing deck, her shoes leaving a triangle and dot pattern in the thin pool of his blood. She 
was surprised at how light he seemed when dead; she had unexpectedly little trouble in lifting 
the corpse high enough to topple it over into the empty space at the center of the Tyrell 
Corporation's slanting towers. Adrenaline, she thought; some little surge in her own 
bloodstream, unnoticed by her cognitive processes, had perhaps given her the extra strength 
required, 

Andersson's body fell of its own accord, arms and legs splayed out in air. Hands braced 
against the parapet, she watched until it was lost to sight; the corporation's employees, 
working in the replicant manufacturing units that formed the base and core of the complex, had 
no doubt already had the surprise of the corpse smashing into one of the reinforced skylights 
above their heads. 

Business to take care of-Sarah straightened up and took her cell phone out of her coat 
pocket, punched in the security division. "There's been an accident." She smoothed her hair 
into place as she spoke. "It can be taken care of on an internal basis. There's no need to call in 
the police." She gave a few more details, some of them true, then disconnected. The 
corporation's own security people were drones, without Andersson's initiative; she could count 
on them to do no more than what she wanted. Even the mess up here on the landing 
deck-they'd all keep their silence, and their jobs. 


She started to turn away, to walk back toward the elevator doors, then stopped. A 
shudder ran through her body; dizzy and nauseous, she had to lean against the spinner for 
balance. The adrenaline, and whatever other hormones had been released, now seemed to 
evaporate from her veins. She closed her eyes, her pulse scurrying faster, breath quick and 
shallow. "I'm sorry," she spoke aloud. As if there were anyone to hear her, as if it would have 
done any good if there had been. She resisted the impulse to lie back down upon the deck and 
curl up with her trembling fists and elbows tucked close against herself. 

She started to turn away, to walk back toward the elevator doors, then stopped. A 
shudder ran through her body; dizzy and nauseous, she had to lean against the spinner for 
balance. The adrenaline, and whatever other hormones had been released, now seemed to 
evaporate from her veins. She closed her eyes, her pulse scurrying faster, breath quick and 
shallow. "I'm sorry," she spoke aloud. As if there were anyone to hear her, as if it would have 
done any good if there had been. She resisted the impulse to lie back down upon the deck and 
curl up with her trembling fists and elbows tucked close against herself. 

She looked out now across the landing deck's parapet, that vision overlaying the solid, 
slanting towers. Fire and force, this world she owned riven by its own private apocalypse. The 
explosions would start at the base of the structures and continue upward, following the 
Wagnerian sequence of the programming that had been built into them from the beginning . . . 

Brennt das Holz heilig brunstig and hell, sengt die Glut sehrend den glanzenden Saal. . . 

"'If the wood catches fire,'" she murmured, eyes closed, "'and solemnly, brightly burns, 
then the flames will destroy the glorious hall . . .'" 

Wagner had that much right, at least. Not programming; she knew that was a stupid 
word for it. Fate was the true word. 

Der ewigen Gdtter Ende ddmmert ewig da auf . . . 

"'The eternal gods' last day then dawns . . . ' 

Sarah opened her eyes. The vision had faded, leaving the parallelogram towers of the 
Tyrell Corporation still standing. 

She turned away and headed for the elevator, to go back down inside the building's 
heart. 

He'd made his decision. Or, at least, the next step in his rapidly evolving plans. 

What do I need this loony sonuvabitch around for? Dave Holden glanced over at Batty, 
sitting beside him in the cockpit of the freight spinner. They were flying west, returning from the 
Reclamation Center out in the desert, to the sprawl of the city. The same harsh sunlight that 
darkened the curved glass's photochrome membrane heated the brown stew of pollutants 
hanging in the air above L.A.; he could see it up ahead, like an old, frayed edge wool blanket 
spread over the simmering buildings. Batty's hands moved across the controls, manually 
piloting the craft. When he was busy doing something, he didn't look quite so maniacal. But 
that didn't change the situation. 

The question didn't need an answer-Holden had decided that part a while back. But 
there were other questions that did. 

"So, uh, exactly what is your interest in all this?" 

"I told you." Batty turned his cracked smile on him again. "The sixth replicant. The one 
that's still missing." 

"What about it?" The smile still had the capacity for making him nervous. "You just want 


to shake its hand or something? Get an autograph?" 

to shake its hand or something? Get an autograph?" 

"And who's that?" 

"Can't tell you." Batty's eyes shifted. "It's, . . . a secret." 

"Bullshit." His inner radar, his honed blade runner senses, flashed on the other's 
momentary unease. "I can tell you're soamming me." He peered closer at Batty. "You don't 
know who hired you, do you?" 

"Well . . . I got my suspicions about it." Batty gave a minute adjustment to one of the 
controls. "Might be the LAPD, Or it could be a gov agency. Possibly the feds, maybe even the 
U.N.-bad replicant business can call down some pretty high-level heat. Whoever it is, they're 
working outside the official channels, so we're talking cover-up. Ultraspook stuff; I got the job 
details and my up-front money through a double-blind courier service, no trace possible on 
who sent them my way." 

"How'd they find you? In the yellow pages?" Probably under Cannons, Loose-the 
thought gave Holden a twist of smug amusement. 

"The fact they found me at all just proves these guys're up there. Man, I'd pretty much 
figured if I was going to be retired against my will, then I was going to be retired all the 
way-I'd taken every dime I'd saved up, from when those bastards over at the Tyrell 
Corporation had been still paying me my royalties on their line of Roy Batty replicants, and I'd 
dug myself in tight into a nice, safe little conapt in one of the Cracow ex-pat zones. I was 
gonna do nothing but drink gin and listen to Mahler's Second for the rest of my life." He shook 
his head. "You know, I don't have to kill people to have a good time." 

"But it helps." 

Batty shrugged. "Speak for yourself. I didn't need to take this job= 

"You did, though." Holden's turn to show a thin smile. "So now you gotta go through with 
it. If these people you're talking about are such heavyweights, they wouldn't like you crapping 
out on them." 

"Tell me about it." His face appearing suddenly older, expression glum. "I've worked 
these kinds of gigs before. Perform or die's the general rule. Even so," muttered Batty, "I got 
half a mind to pull the plug on the whole operation. Dealing with an ungrateful little jerk like 
you-" 

"What'd I do?" 

"It's what you didn't do." Glum to resentful. "I arrange for a whole new heart and lungs to 
get slapped inside you, and you don't even say thanks." 

"Christ . . . give me a break." Holden shook his head. "All right, you have my sincerest 
appreciation. Satisfied?" He looked ahead to the city approaching on the horizon, then around 
to Batty again. "Not as if it was all selfless altruism on your part, though, is it? You had some 
reason for busting me out of the hospital and all." 

"True. That's what pisses me off. I need you." 

Holden raised an eyebrow. "For what?" 

"Come on." A big sigh from Batty. "I've been out of the game for a while now. When I 
took you out of that hospital, that was the first time I'd been in L.A. in years. It's a whole lot 
bigger and uglier than when I left it. I need somebody who knows his way around. Otherwise, 
that sixth replicant could be hiding out in there, and I'd have fuck-all chance of finding it." 

"Oh, sure." He gave a snort of disbelief. "So buy a map, already." 

"It's not just the lay of the land, pal. It's the connections. You got'em and I don't. When I 
took off from L.A., I cut all my ties, all my sources of info, my whole network. I expect that 
most of the people I used to deal with are dead now, anyway. Places where they were at, 
things they were intolongevity's not much of an issue there." A shrug. "Wouldn't be such a 
problem if I'd done anything to replace them. But I. don't have time to do that. Replicant 


number six has gotten a real jump on getting himself safely out of sight. I can't screw around 
any longer finding it-I need somebody who's already got their systems up and running. Blade 
runner-type systems. That's you, Dave. That's why you're here." 

number six has gotten a real jump on getting himself safely out of sight. I can't screw around 
any longer finding it-I need somebody who's already got their systems up and running. Blade 
runner-type systems. That's you, Dave. That's why you're here." 

The residue of doubt evaporated, leaving the hard stratum of a blade runner's 
self-confidence. He still had the edge that came with being human. The spinner had reached 
the L.A. suburbs, sections of a maze homogenous with that of the city's tight, imploding center. 
Somewhere in there was the answer, walking around with someone else's face. Whose? 

i'll find out soon enough. Holden glanced over again at 

the figure beside him. The same question went through his mind, assessing how much 
further use he had for Batty. Or whether he'd be better off without him, going out on the hunt 
alone. 

"All right," said Holden. "I'll help you out. After all . . . it's only fair." 

Batty looked up from the spinner's controls. "We got a little partnership going, then." 

"Oh . . . we sure do." And smiled right back at him. 

Deckard knew where he was going. He just didn't know how to get there. 

It'd been easier when he'd been able to fly straight to the safe-house apartment in an 
unmarked spinner, at night with the tracking lights switched off, engines throttled back to near 
silence. That was when i was a blade runner, thought Deckard. A real one. With all the perks 
and privileges that accrued thereby. Now he had to creep along on the ground like a civilian 
or, worse yet, a hunted thing. Whatever transformation Sarah Tyrell promised him had been 
completed some time ago. 

The stolen cop uniform was so torn and shredded as to be unrecognizable as such. His 
bruises and abraded skin, wounds crusted with dried blood, showed through the ragged gaps. 
As he climbed over the floes of concrete rubble and twisted rebar, the palms of his hands left 
small red marks. 

At the crest of one long upward pull, Deckard stopped to catch his breath, the 
dry-heated air scalding the interior of his throat. An exact ninety-degree angle of marble and 
steel, once vertical and now laid out along the ground, marked where one of the zone's towers 
had fallen. Some of the buildings had pancaked fiat during the long-ago seismic upheavals, but 
most had toppled over lengthways, riding out the earth's whip-crack motion. A knife of 
freeway cleaved the zone, the lane-divider dots writing empty, absurd graffiti along the 
roadbed turned to wall. 

A glance over his shoulder revealed unmarked sky, no pursuit from the air in sight. 
Holding on to the tumbled building's ridge, he shielded his eyes with one hand, scanning across 
the zone for any other indication that his laboring progress had been spotted. No one and 
nothing-either the cops who'd been on his tail at the central station had assumed he'd fallen 
under the wheels of the rep train, and were still searching the tunnel for his bits and pieces, or 
they'd put the chase on hold until he reemerged in a territory more to their liking. Clusters of 


serious-bad criminal types-Sawney Bean dysfunctional families, Dahmer-ized protein 
fetishists-were known to make the sideways world their turf; sending a squadron of fresh 
uniforms through here would be like parading a flock of leatherwrapped turkeys into a wolves' 
convention. It wasn't worth having a set of sharp-filed teeth ankle-biting through your 
jackboots, when the chances were good that the bones of the person you were looking for 
were already being gnawed somewhere else in the zone. 

serious-bad criminal types-Sawney Bean dysfunctional families, Dahmer-ized protein 
fetishists-were known to make the sideways world their turf; sending a squadron of fresh 
uniforms through here would be like parading a flock of leatherwrapped turkeys into a wolves' 
convention. It wasn't worth having a set of sharp-filed teeth ankle-biting through your 
jackboots, when the chances were good that the bones of the person you were looking for 
were already being gnawed somewhere else in the zone. 

He'd have to think about that later. Right now, the rest of Deckard's functioning cerebral 
sectors were mulling over his plan of attack, once he'd reached the safe-house apartment. 
There'd be little time to rest, and the job to do still in front of him. Hooking up with his old 
boss Bryant had turned out not only to be a wash, but worse than that; the task of finding the 
sixth escaped replicant was now compounded by even darker mysteries. Somebody had iced 
Bryant-what the hell did that mean? Maybe, thought Deckard, the sixth replicant did it. Killed 
him. The one whose ID data Bryant had purged from the police department files. As long as 
Bryant had still been alive, the coverup wasn't complete; there was still at least one person 
who knew who the sixth replicant was. With Bryant laid out cold, the data was purged from its 
final location, human memory itself . . . 

All of which meant, Deckard knew, that the job of finding the sixth replicant was going to 
be that much harder. Bryant had been his only route into the department's records. The 
synthesized image of Bryant on the video monitor, with its glib real-time responses, might have 
been lying, stalling him, when it'd said that the sixth replicant's ID could still be drawn up from 
some locked-tight sector of the databases-no way of determining that now. And no way of 
getting back into the police station to try accessing the information; the cops would be on him 
in two seconds if he were stupid enough to show his face around there again. 

What then? Deckard brooded as he continued his laborious progress over the sideways 
world. Dig up an old VoigtKampff machine from the gear stashed at the safe-house apartment, 
and start running empathy tests on everyone in L.A.? That should only take a few centuries to 
complete. 

One possibility had occurred to him. Of trying to establish some kind of direct comm link 
with the authorities in the off-world colonies, passing himself off as a high-level figure in the 
LAPD-maybe as Bryant, if the off-worlders didn't know about him being dead-and getting a 
repeat transmission of the original data about all of the escaped replicants. That'd be one way 
of getting number six's ID; the only problem was that it'd be nearly as difficult as bringing 
Bryant himself back from the dead and grilling him for the info. The off-world security agencies 
weren't exactly on the phone grid; the U.N. sat on every tight-beam transmission between 
Earth and the colonies. Even if he could engineer some way of tapping in and getting on-line to 
them, there'd still be the small matter of faking the police department reciprocity codes, 
convincing the offworlders of some bullshit reason for sending the data again, the whole 
elaborate ruse-and doing it without alerting the cops about what he was doing and where he 
was doing it from. 

He didn't like his chances about pulling all that off, but at the moment it was the only plan 
he had. Other than letting the word get out that he was back in town, and waiting for the sixth 
replicant to come looking for him, with murder on its mind. That was something else to think 
about. 

Or too much to think about. Deckard gritted his teeth against the sting of the sun-baked 
rocks in his palms and the swirl of plans and possibilities inside his head. Enough to make him 
long for the time when it'd been easier, when he'd hated his job but still knew what to do. 


When he could stand with legs braced, squinting through the rain slashing at his eyes, bringing 
the heavy black gun up with both hands locked tight on its grip, arms extended, aiming as the 
city's crowds had parted before him like an ocean with faces . . . 

When he could stand with legs braced, squinting through the rain slashing at his eyes, bringing 
the heavy black gun up with both hands locked tight on its grip, arms extended, aiming as the 
city's crowds had parted before him like an ocean with faces . . . 

Deckard pushed the memory loop out of his brain. Thinking about stuff like that only led 
to grief. To bitter meditations about what he'd become. He'd quit the job, quit being a blade 
runner, before that time. When he'd realized that he didn't hate his job . . . but liked it too 
much. 

With thoughts carefully stilled, Deckard went on clambering through the rubble. The small 
bit of luck he'd had in getting across the sideways world lasted for the rest of his journey: he 
spotted no one, human or less so, though he heard some scurrying noises at various distances, 
indicating some of the more timid inhabitants fleeing his approach. He also managed not to get 
lost himself amid the sector's jumble and clutter, even though he was translating a bird's-eye 
knowledge of the route into progress on foot. The fallen freeway served as a landmark-he 
knew that if he kept it to his right and counted off ten up-ended off ramps, he'd arrive more or 
less at his destination. 

Which was right in front of him, at last; Deckard managed to get a sigh of relief through 
his panting for breath. He stumbled toward the multistoried apartment building, an early-period 
Gehry knockoff. 

The corridors inside the building were unlit tunnels, oriented wider than high. Some 
rudimentary electrical service still existed in the zone, remnants of some of the pirate utility 
grids that had flourished around the turn of the century. He hoped that no one had tapped out 
the conduit that served the safe house's security functions; it'd been a while since he'd had to 
use the place. 

He found the door, a rectangle on its long side, a number in the low hundreds barely 
visible beneath layers of spray paint. A placa demon, fuzzy-edged batwings and Day-Glo 
fangs, still decorated the inverted hallway. Deckard knelt down to the small metal grid a few 
inches from the plugged keyhole. 

"It's me." He tried to keep his voice as level and free of stress tremors as possible. 
"Come on, open up." 

A red LED flashed on behind the grid. "Do I know you?" A canned voice, the 
emotionless female that resided on most small-device chips. "Please don't violate me. Go away 
and leave me alone." 

He didn't have time to deal with a recalcitrant lock; squeezing his eyes shut in frustration, 
he banged his fist against the grid. "Open up or I'll take you apart, so help me God." He'd use 
his fingernails for screwdrivers, if he had to. 

"Shame on you." 

His forehead came to rest just above the tiny holes. "You want more samples? Fine." He 
scrabbled through his neardepleted brain for something more to say, to trigger the lock's 
recognition mode. "Four score and . . . something years ago . . ." He couldn't remember the 
rest. "Um. Say you're walking along in the desert, and you see a tortoise. You see a tortoise 
and . . . 

A sharp click sounded inside the grid. He barely caught himself from falling into the room 
on the other side of the door as it popped open. 

He closed the door behind himself, leaning a hand for balance against the wall that had 


once been a floor. Even darker in here, the windows boarded over and sealed tight. Deckard 
could make out a few familiar furnishings, remnants of lives led when the building had still 
stood upright: an overstuffed couch beside a row of framed Keane paintings, footsteps 
imprinted across the big-eyed waifs, an overhead light fixture that now dangled into one of the 
inverted corners; through the doorway into the apartment's kitchen could be seen a 
disconnected refrigerator lying on its avocado-green flank, the magnet-studded door flopped 
open. 

once been a floor. Even darker in here, the windows boarded over and sealed tight. Deckard 
could make out a few familiar furnishings, remnants of lives led when the building had still 
stood upright: an overstuffed couch beside a row of framed Keane paintings, footsteps 
imprinted across the big-eyed waifs, an overhead light fixture that now dangled into one of the 
inverted corners; through the doorway into the apartment's kitchen could be seen a 
disconnected refrigerator lying on its avocado-green flank, the magnet-studded door flopped 
open. 

"I know you!" Its voice was pitched comically high. "I saw you before!" It spun on the 
heel of its cavalry boot and ran toward the apartment's bedroom door. "Sebastian! Sebastian! 
There's a man here-a bad man! A killer! Sebastian!" 

Before Deckard could react, the door sprang open, its knob whacking the surface on 
which he stood. Something flew out, knocking the little soldier aside. Something that spun and 
twisted, and struck him full in the chest before he could get out of its screaming trajectory. 

He landed on his back, with a pair of what felt like hands gripping tight around his throat. 
A white-haired wraith knelt on his chest, its teeth clenched and eyes radiating a murderous 
fury. He recognized it, even though when he'd seen it before it'd had the face of a young 
woman, and now wore the skeletal mask of deracinated leather. Its wrists felt like corded 
bones in his hands as he struggled against its throttling hold. 

"Pris!" Another voice, from somewhere else in the tilted room. "Don't do that! You'll hurt 
him!" 

At the edge of his sight, drowning in a red haze, Deckard saw a man with the face of a 
wrinkled baby, strapped to the back of an animated teddy bear. The man tugged with a single 
hand at the crazed figure's arm, its tattered leotard tearing open farther. Deckard felt himself 
falling away from the visions of combined nightmare and memory, the cutoff of his own breath 
turning red to black. 

12..... 

"I'm real sorry about that." Fussy and nervous, a voice that suited the man, or what was 
left of him. "Sometimes Pris just goes off that way-even with me. She's got likeyou know?-a 
hair-trigger temperament. That probably indicates some sort of deep-seated anger inside her." 

"You could say." Lying on a bare mattress inside the safe-house apartment, Deckard 
watched as Sebastian-a bio-engineer who'd formerly freelanced for the Tyrell Corporation; he 
remembered the police file on the guy-busied himself making coffee. A complicated process: 
the teddy bear, eyes tarnished as the buttons on its nineteenth-cen


tury waistcoat, had to back up to the sideways-mounted sink, while the triple amputee in 
the papoose carrier used the end of the counter as a flat surface for the grinder and French 
press. "Maybe she remembers me." Deckard rubbed his bruised throat. "Maybe she 
remembers me blowing her away. That might do it." 

"Gee . . . I don't know." Sebastian struggled to press the plunger down. "I can't exactly 


be sure what Pris does remember." Black coffee grounds were scattered all over, from the 
spilled bag of expensive welfare-drop rations. "Sometimes I wonder if she remembers me. 
And I'm the best friend she ever had-even when she was alive." He finished pouring, then held 
out the cup on a cracked Meissen dessert plate. "Squeaker, would you take this over to our 
guest?" 

be sure what Pris does remember." Black coffee grounds were scattered all over, from the 
spilled bag of expensive welfare-drop rations. "Sometimes I wonder if she remembers me. 
And I'm the best friend she ever had-even when she was alive." He finished pouring, then held 
out the cup on a cracked Meissen dessert plate. "Squeaker, would you take this over to our 
guest?" 

"Oh, most of it, actually." Sebastian sipped from a demitasse. He appeared ancient as a 
baby bird, almost incapable of feeding itself, the skin of his hand and face translucent, 
crumpled parchment. "But those Nexus-6 circuits are real fiddly. It's basically an unstable 
design, with a lot of kludges and work-arounds. I warned Mr. Tyrell about putting 'em out on 
the market; I told him there'd be trouble. You start havin' to do recalls and boom, your profit 
margin's all shot to heck. Just the return shipping costs alone, from the off-world colonies . . ." 
A shudder ran through the abbreviated torso in the papoose carrier. "You can't just stick a 
postage stamp on 'em and send 'em home, you know." 

"That's true." The coffee was hot and bitter on Deckard's tongue. "They tend to get into 
trouble." 

"Yeah . . ." Sebastian took another sip. "But like I said, it's mainly the flaws in the 
Nexus-6 design. They're susceptible to having visions and stuff. Nearly as bad as real 
humans." 

"Whatever." Didn't seem a point worth discussing. Through the doorway into the even 
dimmer back sections of the apartment, the mobile scarecrow that'd been the replicant Pris 
sulked and glared at him, its eyes two red embers somewhere below its albino fright-wig. His 
skin still prickled tense at the sight of her, a response triggered by the memory of her nearly 
killing him, riding his shoulders and slamming her fists into the sides of his skull, then twisting his 
head around like a broken doll's. "You must've moved fast, to get your hands on her at all." 
The last he'd seen of her, before this encounter in the safe-house apartment, she'd been 
flopping around on her back, spitting and shrieking in her death throes, the bullet from his gun 
having torn open her midsection. 

"I sure did." Sebastian nodded. "I loaded her up in my van, from the police morgue-I had 
a pass for doing that. They'd already done their tests on her, so I didn't think they'd mind 
anyway. Not that I was going to stick around and ask 'em. I figured there'd be an arrest 
warrant out for me pretty soon. 'Cause I snuck out of a police-custody hospital, my own 
self-they thought I was dead when I got found up in the Tyrell private suite, most likely since I 
look so decrepit and stuff, but I'd just kinda passed out, is all; they got my heart started up 
again, out in the ambulance. But I figured the police probably had me down as having helped 
Batty get in to kill old Mr. Tyrell. So I just took Pris's body and my little pals, and lit out for 
this zone. Where they wouldn't be able to find us." 

"Good thinking. Accessory to murder's a hard rap in this town. Especially when the 
evidence is on tape." 

"It's a bum rap, is what it is." An indignant expression settled across Sebastian's watery 
eyes. "I would never have hurt Mr. Tyrell; I know he wasn't a very nice man and all, but he 
was my friend. Sort of. That's why I tried to warn him. That something funny was going on." 
Sebastian's voice grew excited. "When Roy and I were coming up in the elevator, to Mr. 
Tyrell's personal suite-I was supposed to tell him that I'd figured out my next moves, in the 
chess game we'd been playing. Well, Roy'd figured 'em out; I just repeated what he told me. 
Only-I bet it's on the securitysystem tape-when I was supposed to say 'Checkmate,' instead of 
that I said, 'Checkmate, I think.' That's how I was trying to warn Mr. Tyrell that something 


was wrong, without letting on to Roy that I was doing it." 

was wrong, without letting on to Roy that I was doing it." 

"Okay, okay, I believe you." Deckard held up a hand against the barrage of words. He 
actually had no idea what the other man was talking about. "Look, it doesn't matter. I didn't 
come out here to arrest you or anything." 

"No?" Sebastian peered closer at him. "I thought maybe you were, because of Mr. Tyrell 
getting killed, and me breaking in here-I'm sorry about that. I only did it because I found this 
place with all the locks and everything working, and it didn't look like anybody was living 
here." 

"Don't get into a sweat. You're welcome to it. Just someplace that I used when I was out 
in the field, hunting down replicants that might've slipped over into this zone. It's nothing 
special." 

"'Hunting down replicants . . . " Sebastian's eyes widened in sudden fright. "You didn't 
come around looking for Pris, did you? Just 'cause I . . . I saved her? She's already been dead 
once. You're not going to kill her again, are you?" 

He doesn't know, thought Deckard. He still believes she was a replicant. All that talk 
about the difficulties with the Nexus-6 neurocerebral wiring confirmed that Sebastian hadn't 
heard the results of the bone marrow analysis tests on Pris; he'd already cut himself out of any 
Tyrell Corporation-related loop by then. Hunkered down here in the sideways world, he'd 
have no way of knowing. And no way of finding out-the bone marrow tests were the only way 
of determining a physiological difference between a replicant and a human. 

Weird how things worked out-in the safe-house apartment, Deckard had found himself in 
the company of the one person who didn't think he was guilty of murdering a human being. 
The one person who had the most right to think of him as a murderer. 

"You must've loved her." He felt sympathy for the truncated man. "Very much. To . . . 
put her back together the way you have." 

"No . . ." Sebastian shook his head. "I love her. Right now, the way she is. Nothing's 
changed. Not for us, at least. And I know, deep down, Pris loves me." 

The wraithlike creature, red-eyed and with a blazing corona of white hair, had heard its 
name spoken, the name it had answered to when alive. It slid into the apartment's kitchen, 
keeping its back close to the walls and a wary gaze on Deckard. It stepped next to the 
animated teddy bear, bending down to be as near as possible to Sebastian, its dried-leather 
face touching his wrinkled, babyish one. Its idiot eyes remained locked on the figure on the 
other side of the room. 

"You see?" Sebastian couldn't keep from bragging about his own cleverness. "It wasn't 
easy, but I managed to keep the important parts going-she knows who I am and stuff." With 
his one hand, he tenderly stroked the white hair. "She really is inside here. Even though I had 
to strip out a lot of the soft tissue from the rest of the body." He spoke matter-of-factly, as 
though describing the repair of a broken radio. "I had a lot of my tools and spare parts with 
me already, so I was able to get the sensor-activator relays and the muscle-surrogate motors 
wired in without too much trouble. But she's still pretty much a high-maintenance item; she 
can't really take care of herself. She needs me. So when I was done getting her up and 


running, I did what I had to, on myself." 

running, I did what I had to, on myself." 

"Did it work?" Deckard used the empty cup to point to him. "I mean . . . on your 
condition." 

"Don't really know." Strapped to the back of his buttoneyed companion, Sebastian gave 
a lopsided shrug. "But I'm still here, aren't I? Surrounded by the folks who love me." The other 
of his creations, the miniature soldier with the spike helmet and long nose, had come into the 
kitchen and pressed itself close to him, forming a family tableau. "That's all that matters, isn't 
it?" 

He supposed it was. There was nothing he could say to contradict the other man. Carved 
down to a one-armed torso, with a couple of toy dwarfs for companions, and the female 
creature he was in love with reduced to a murderous skeleton-Deckard envied him. Loving the 
dead, loving the bits and pieces left behind, even just memory-maybe that was what defined 
human. For the dead, he wondered, or for us? Deckard didn't know. 

For a. moment, as he had watched Sebastian with the resurrected Pris, a dim spark of 
hope had flickered inside him. Maybe Sebastian could do the same for Rachael; not keep her 
from death, but bring her back in some altered but still recognizable form. Just as quickly, the 
spark had turned to a cold cinder. Even if it were possible, he knew it was nothing that he 
wanted, nothing that he could endure. Better to have your memories, and your grief, than to be 
haunted by an animated corpse wearing a mask of the beloved's emptied flesh. The poor 
bastard, he thought as he regarded Sebastian. The little man, or what remained of him, didn't 
even know how screwed up he was. Just as if some crucial perception of reality had been cut 
away, along with his other limbs. Just things he'd found he could live without. 

Though maybe . . . he could get me off the murder rap. Deckard mused as he sipped the 
last of the cold coffee. Maybe he could take the Pris-thing, the animated corpse, to the 
authorities and say that he hadn't killed any human, after all; here it was, still walking around. 
Or she was, sort of. He discarded the idea. The Pris-thing wouldn't be a very convincing 
demonstration of his innocence. One look at her, or it-at what she'd become-and they would 
just take him out and shoot him, throw his body out in the street. From sheer disgust. 

He abandoned any more speculations. Deckard supposed it didn't matter, anyway. All 
that he knew, or cared about, was that he was still a long way from the one whom he loved. 
And who was dying. 

"Here's the deal." The freight spinner swooped in low over the towers of L.A. "First, we 
find Deckard. We grab him and-" 

"What, we have to go all the way up to Oregon?" Holden looked over at Batty in 
dismay. "What kind of plan is that?" 

"Oregon?" The spinner's controls shifted beneath Batty's hand. "What're you talking 
about?" 

He shook his head. More evidence that he was dealing with somebody on the verge of 
senility. "That's where Deckard went," he explained patiently. "Bryant told me that, while'I was 
still in the hospital." 

"That was then. I'm talking about now." Batty looked down at the city. "Right now, 
Deckard's here in L.A." 


"Bullshit. Why would he come back?" 

"Bullshit. Why would he come back?" 

Holden studied the figure beside him in the cockpit. "Who's got him now?" 

"Nobody." The spinner had been put into a big-loop holding pattern; Batty leaned back 
from the controls. "He either got away or he was let go. One way or the other, we have to find 
him." 

"Why?" 

"I thought you were smarter than that." The thin edge of the smile returned to Batty's 
face. "Haven't you figured it out? Deckard is the sixth replicant. The missing one." 

Holden was tempted to say "Bullshit" again, but a thread of doubt slipped into his 
thoughts. What if Batty was right? "You better give me your logic on this." 

"It's simple." Batty's smile broadened. "What's the one kind of replicant that a blade 
runner replicant-such as yourself-couldn't be assigned to track down and retire? Another 
blade runner replicant. It would give the whole game away. If you found yourself face-to-face 
with your own double, or the double of somebody else that you'd always thought was also a 
human blade runner . . . come on." Batty tapped a finger against his brow. "You wouldn't have 
to be a genius to start figuring out that something funny was going on. You'd start asking 
questions, or keeping 'em inside your head, and pretty soon the people in charge are going to 
run out of bogus answers to fob off on you. Then you're dangerous; that's when they have to 
pull the plug on smart-ass little replicants who've learned too much." 

He might be part right, thought Holden. Even if Batty's completely cracked regarding my 
human status . . . he could still be right about Deckard. That struck him as completely plausible 
the more he mulled it over. He'd never liked the other blade runner; he'd always found 
Deckard to be cold and disagreeable, with an irritating batch of moral 

poses about their jobs. He should've quit the force sooner rather than go as long as he 
had, bitching about it the whole time. 

Or Batty was completely wrong. Deckard and i might both be human-that idea had some 
attractive qualities to it. Simplicity, for one; he could see that as soon as somebody started 
doubting outward appearances, the surface levels of reality, then that person had entered an 
infinitely expanding maze, where nothing was really what it seemed to be. That was how 
people wound up in the same lunatic condition as Batty. Who was probably one step away 
from thinking that he himself was a replicant. Of course, if he is, thought Holden, then . . . 

He shut off that line with a tight mental clamp. Right now, it didn't matter. Capitalizing on 
what Batty had just told him was the primary objective he had to keep in view. 

"If Deckard's in L.A., then finding him is no problem." Holden filtered an easy confidence 
into his voice. "I know where he'd go." , 

"Yeah?" Brightening, the other reached for the spinner's controls. "Lay it on me." 

He gave Batty the directions; a moment later they were hovering over what had once 
been the city's Los Feliz district. 

"Aw, man." Batty shook his head in disgust. "This is your big brain wave? You figured 
Deckard would just go back to his old apartment? Nobody's that stupid. Look, you can see 
the police have already been here and checked out the area." 

Holden glanced out the side of the cockpit and saw yellow strips of POLICE 
INVESTIGATION-DO NOT CROSS strips, now torn and trampled into the windblown 
dust by the ground vehicles that had converged on the apartment building, then left. "So?" He 
shrugged. "The police-those grunt cops-they don't know what I know about Deckard, He and 
I were like brothers. Blade runners." 

"Spare me." 


"Just take this thing down. You'll see." 

"Just take this thing down. You'll see." 

"What'd I tell you?" Batty scanned across the search wreckage that lapped up against the 
replicas of Frank Lloyd Wright's original faux Mayan wall panels. "There's nobody here. If 
there had been, the cops would've tweezed him out a long time ago." 

Holden said nothing, but walked farther into the apartment. He knew his way around; 
he'd been here a couple of times before, from a period predating his and Deckard's mutual 
agreement that two blade runners sitting and drinking in the same room was a bad idea. 

The piano bench had been knocked over by the cops who'd ransacked the place. Old 
brown-edged sheet music lay scattered across the floor, along with the photographs, framed 
and unframed, from that distant world of the past. Sweet-faced women gazed up with somber 
understanding from the black-and-white depths. 

He found what he'd figured would still be there, what Deckard had shown him once, 
fastened to the underside of the bench with a strip of wide packing tape. He pulled it free and 
gripped it tight in his fist. 

"Whattya got there?" Batty had had his back turned, but had heard the ripping sound. 
"Hey-what's that?" 

Holden ignored him. He walked toward the bathroom at the rear of the apartment. "I'll 
show you in a minute." 

"You'll show me right now." 

He could hear Batty following him. Without switching on the light, he knelt down and 
snapped one end of the object, Deckard's spare set of handcuffs, onto the metal pipe behind 
the toilet. He stood back up as Batty appeared in the doorway. "Look right here," said 
Holden, pointing. 

Batty stepped past him, bending down and peering to see. In one quick move Holden 
stepped back and grabbed the other man's head with both hands. He brought his knee up 
sharp into Batty's face, knocking him back with a spray of blood from the nose. Dazed, Batty 
lolled back-without resistance as Holden lifted him upright by the padded collar of his jacket. 
A hard punch to the stomach dropped Batty to the floor. 

He found himself panting and dizzy, the bio-mechanical heart in his chest racing from the 
sudden flurry of exertion, the new lungs laboring for breath. Taking a step back, out of Batty's 
reach, he watched as the other man groggily shook his head, blood streaming to his chin. As 
though a switch had been thrown in his brain, from impaired to full functioning, Batty suddenly 
snapped into motion, springing from the bathroom floor and instantly being jerked back by the 
handcuffs fastened to his wrist and the toilet pipe. 

"You sonuvabitch!" Kneeling, his face reddening with fury, Batty clawed his free hand a 
few inches short of where Holden stood. "Get these things off me! Right now!" 

"Sorry . . ." Holden retreated to the hallway of Deckard's apartment. "Can't do that. I've 
got a private appointment to get to." He turned away, striding toward the front of the 
apartment and the door out to the building's corridor. 

"Holden!" Behind him, Batty thrashed and shouted, voice echoing in the bathroom's tiled 
confines. "I'll fix your ass-" 

He could still hear the other man screaming violent curses as he slammed the front door 
shut. Despite the pounding of the machines inside himself, he broke into a quick trot for the 
elevator. He didn't know how long the cuffs would hold Batty; the man had looked enraged 
enough to pull the pipe right out of the wall. Holden punched the ground-floor button and 
leaned against the elevator's inside wall, a squadron of black spots swarming in front of his 
eyes. 


A couple of minutes later he was aloft in the freight spinner, banking it in a tight curve, 
then accelerating in a straight line. To where Deckard would actually have gone to hole up. 

A couple of minutes later he was aloft in the freight spinner, banking it in a tight curve, 
then accelerating in a straight line. To where Deckard would actually have gone to hole up. 

They heard the door being broken in. The teddy bear raised its head as though sniffing 
the air for the source of the commotion; the spike-helmeted soldier moved in front of 
Sebastian, a defensive barrier against whatever might come through the kitchen doorway. 

From instinct, Deckard reached for a weapon at his hip-and found nothing. Turning, he 
pulled open one of the counter drawers and extracted from it a paring knife with a cracked 
handle. 

The sounds of someone moving through the front part of the apartment, a passage made 
more difficult by the rooms being tilted onto their sides-a figure appeared at the doorway, 
bending down to look in on them. 

"Holden . . ." Surprised, Deckard nearly dropped the knife he held. "What're you doing 
here?" 

"You mean, why aren't I stuck in a hospital somewhere, with tubes running in and out of 
me." The other man ducked his head past the door frame and dropped into the kitchen space. 
He glanced at the knife in Deckard's hand. "Nice to see you, too." His gaze swept across the 
figures in the room. "Christ, what a welcoming committee." 

"They're a family." Deckard set the knife down on the up-ended section of the counter. 
"We should be so lucky." 

The Pris-thing fastened its red-eyed glare on Holden, then hissed, spine arching catlike. 
Sebastian's single hand stroked the thing's shoulder. "Now, Pris, there's no call for that. This 
gentleman's not gonna hurt you-" 

"What the hell-" Loathing wonder was visible on Holden's face. 

"Don't sweat it," said Deckard. "She's his old girlfriend. One of the escaped replicants. 
She's been . . . recycled. Sort of." He nodded toward the figure on the back of the teddy bear. 
"Sebastian's clever that way." 

"Pris! Wait! You don't have to-" The voice from the amputated torso rose into a wail as 
the corpse of his love darted away from him, disappearing into the dark recesses of the 
safe-house apartment. Sebastian's arm reached futilely for the skeletonized figure, already 
gone from sight. 

"Nice going, Dave." Deckard peered closer at the figure in front of him. "You know . . . I 
figured you'd probably be dead by now. Or something." 

"Yeah, well, that was the plan. But I got a new lease on life." With the flat of his hand, he 
thumped his chest, turned pale, then recovered. "Feel like a new man. Part of me, at least. No 
thanks to that pile-of-shit Bryant." Holden's expression darkened to a scowl. "Bastard set me 
up. I'm going to make sure he goes into major payback mode." 

"Wait a minute." He didn't know what exactly his expartner was talking about, but one 
thing was clear. "You don't know, do you? Bryant's dead." 

The info rocked Holden back against the wall. Deckard could almost see the gears 
spinning in the other's head as he tried to incorporate the new datum into his thinking. 

"He's dead . . ." Holden lifted his hand, as though there were a veil before him that he had 
to part in order to see clearly. "Did he just pop off from a heart attack, something like that? 
The fat pig was overdue for one." 

"There was blood all over his office. Or there had been-I saw the stain on the floor. 
However he went, it didn't look like it'd been an easy process. Or pleasant." 

"Jeez . . ." Holden shook his head. "That kind of puts everything in a different light. 
Because if Bryant got blown away, then . . ." He lifted his gaze, then took a step closer to 
Deckard. "Look, I realize these people-or whatever they are-might be your friends and all." 


He kept his voice softened. "But you and I have got some heavy stuff to talk over." 

He kept his voice softened. "But you and I have got some heavy stuff to talk over." 

"Didn't that guy used to work for Tyrell?" Holden craned his neck to watch as the 
animated teddy bear, with Sebastian in the papoose carrier, clambered toward the rear of the 
apartment. The spike-helmeted soldier gave a dirty look over his shoulder, then disappeared 
with his companions. "You shouldn't be hanging around with people like that-not unless you 
got them thoroughly checked out. What're they doing here, anyway?" Holden gestured around 
the tilted walls. "Did you let 'em in here? This place was supposed to be just for blade runner 
operations-' 

"Simmer down." Deckard leaned against the end of the counter. The knife was close at 
hand; his old partner was starting to sound deranged, and looked agitated enough to flip out. 
"They're harmless." 

"'Harmless'-that's a good one." Holden's gaze narrowed. "Nothing's harmless in this 
universe. That's one thing I've learned. You should've learned it by now, too." 

"Maybe I did. Maybe I forgot." 

"Well, that's where you went wrong, then. That's how you got all screwed up, Deckard. 
Falling in love with replicants . . ." Another shake of the head. "Trusting them. You're a fool. 
What you should've realized a long time ago is that the only person a blade runner can trust is 
another blade runner." 

"Then I'm off the hook. I'm not a blade runner anymore." 

"Correction. Once a blade runner, always one. There's no quitting this job-not while 
you're alive, at least. Look what happened when you tried." 

He could see where this was going. "I get the impression you're about to ask me to trust 
you." 

"As I said-I'm the only one you can trust." 

"I don't know . . ." Seemed a grim prospect. "If I'm going to break this trusting habit of 
mine, maybe I should go one-hundred-percent cold turkey. Starting with you." 

Holden peered around the edge of the kitchen's doorway, making sure that Sebastian or 
any of the others wasn't listening in, then turned back to give Deckard a hard stare. "Joke 
away, asshole. Long as you don't mind laughing in your grave. Because that's what it comes 
down to. There's somebody who doesn't want us blade runners alive. Probably more than one 
somebody; a whole conspiracy. High-level and mean. Whoever they are, they've got the 
resources to take us out, one by one-until they're aren't any more of us." 

"Maybe you'd better get that gear inside you checked. Lack of oxygen to the brain can 
trigger paranoid delusions." 

"Equipment's running fine." Holden dug out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, lit 
up, and took a drag. A moment later blue smoke hung in the kitchen's air; some filtering 
mechanism inside his chest could be heard revving up. "What needs adjustment is your brain. 
You don't seem to understand yet: somebody's gunning for us. For all the blade runners. They 
set me up last year for a hit, they got our boss Bryant . . . and this whole business of you being 
dragged back here to L.A.; that's probably got something to do with it as well." Holden's gaze 
shifted as he followed that line of thought. "Probably because as long as you're running around 
alive, even up north in the boonies, you're still a loose end for them. The conspiracy isn't just to 
kill off the individual blade runners, it's to shut down our whole operation. Wipe it off the 
books completely." 

"Come on." A wearied sigh escaped from Deckard. "Easier ways to do that, Dave. 
Christ, every year Bryant had to fight to keep our unit alive in the departmental budget. If these 
conspirators are so high-powered, why couldn't they just pull the money plug on us? Every 
blade runner in town would've wound up washing dishes down at the nearest noodle bar. Not 


like we've all got exactly ace job skills." 

like we've all got exactly ace job skills." 

"There's something else you don't know, Dave." During the other's rant, he'd looked up 
at what had been one of the kitchen's walls; now he brought his gaze back down. "About me." 

"What's that?" 

"I don't care." Deckard looked him straight in the eye. "I don't care if there's a conspiracy 
to kill off all the blade runners. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't; I don't know. But I've got 
my own business to attend to. I left this city with somebody-and it was easy to do it. Getting 
killed was just about the only thing left here for me. Somebody's still trying to kill me? I'm 
shocked, Dave, really shocked. Get real." He folded his arms across his chest. "I've been 
dragged back here, and I've got one more job to take care of. All I want is to do it and get the 
hell out of here again. Somebody's waiting for me." 

"A job, huh?" Holden studied him. "The only thing somebody would want you to do is to 
hunt down replicants. That's all you're good for. This little job . . . it wouldn't have something 
to do with another one of that batch that escaped before, would it? A sixth replicant?" 

"What do you know about that?" 

"Oh . . ." Holden shrugged. "Maybe all kinds of things. Things that you don't know, 
Deckard. That's why you should come in with me on this. You don't stand a chance, 
otherwise." 

"Forget it." He shook his head in disgust. "I've got a better chance of finding and retiring it 
than I would have with a patched-up loser like you hanging around." 

"Wait a minute-" 

"No, you wait. Because I don't have time for your bullshit, Holden. You're not even 
interested in finding any sixth replicant. You've got this conspiracy trip-wired into your head 
now, and you can't get it out. That's not my problem. I'm not interested in breaking up 
conspiracies, saving the blade runner unit, whatever. That's all stuff in your world. Mine's not 
big enough for that sort of thing. Not anymore." 

"You stupid sonuvabitch." A carrier wave of pity, mixed with a higher cutting frequency 
of loathing, radiated from Holden. "It's not as if you have a choice about what world you live 
in. What makes you think they'll let you go crawling back to whatever hole you've dug in the 
ground? Even if you manage to ice their missing replicant for them. You'll know too much; they 
won't let you go." 

Deckard hesitated, then pulled back from the needle that the other man had inserted into 
his thoughts. "I'll make it. Whether they want me to or not. Like I said: somebody's waiting for 
me." 

"Big talk, Deckard." A sneer twisted the corner of Holden's mouth. "And a long walk. 
The only spinner outside is the one I came here in. Don't-" His hand darted into the same coat 
pocket that'd held his cigarettes, this time extracting a small chrome gun. He smiled. "Just in 
case you had some idea about-shall we say?-borrowing it from me." 

"Thought had crossed my mind." Deckard looked closer at the weapon in the other's 
hand. "Where'd you get that? Not your regular piece." 

"I'm making do with whatever I can find these days. It belongs to a mutual acquaintance 


of ours-the same one I got the spinner from. He left it in the cockpit." Holden nodded slowly. 

of ours-the same one I got the spinner from. He left it in the cockpit." Holden nodded slowly. 

"Don't bother. I told you already. I'm not interested in this stuff." 

"You're screwing it up, Deckard. For all of us." Holden's voice tightened. "We've got a 
chance if we stick together. If we don't, we'll get picked off, one by one." 

He shrugged. "You look out for your ass. And I'll look out for mine." 

"Okay, jerk-" The machinery that'd been stuck inside Holden sent an angry surge of 
blood into the man's face. "Don't say I didn't warn you." 

Eyes closed, leaning back against the up-ended kitchen counter, Deckard listened to the 
other's racketing exit from the safe-house apartment. A few minutes later he heard the distant 
noise of a spinner lifting from the rubble outside the building. Then everything was quiet again. 

For only a moment. The silence was broken by a knock at the apartment's front door. 

No one came inside. Deckard waited until the knock sounded again. He pushed himself 
away from the counter. Making his way through the tilted rooms, he grasped the doorknob 
and pulled. 

Ranhael stood in the corridor outside, bending her head down to look past the top side 
of the doorway. 

No- He pushed the memory trip out of his brain. It's not Rachael. 

"I thought he'd never leave." Sarah Tyrell turned her head to look down the dark, empty 
corridor, then brought her gaze back to his. She smiled. "May I come in?" 

13..... 

They came to burn. 

Nothing fancy; wood and rags didn't require anything more than a simple flammable 
liquid, an accelerant to get things started. "Put them over there=" The leader of the team 
pointed to a clear space several yards away from the cabin. "There's some other things we 
have to take care of first." 

The other men, in coveralls marked on the shoulders and breast pockets with the Tyrell 
Corporation logo, began stacking the red canisters on the ground, their boots crunching 
through the layers of dead pine needles. An owl, startled from its diurnal slumber, flapped 
noisily away, its broad wings drawing a curtain across the sun for a moment. 

Shading his eyes with one hand, the team leader watched the bird's flight; the creature 
disappeared under the denser canopy of the forest farther down the mountain ridge. The trio 
of spinners in which he and the others had come up from the south reflected sunlight from their 
metal flanks. No effort had been made to conceal the corporation's emblems; up here, there 
was no need for a covert operation. The one person who might have seen, and noted their 
identities, was engaged elsewhere, down in the city where they had received their orders. 

"Should we go in?" 

A voice beside him; the team leader turned and saw his second-in-command, patiently 
waiting. The gasoline cans had been arranged in a neat, shiny pyramid. We brought too much, 
thought the team leader. He'd known how small the ramshackle cabin was, but hadn't worked 
out in his head the practical consequences of that fact. A tiny space, bound by thin, mossy 
walls and a sagging roof; barely large enough for the lives it'd held. The plural was somewhat 
inexact, he knew. A life, the man's, and a partial one, the woman's, constricted by sleep and 
death intertwined. A single can of gas and a match would've been enough. Like torching a doll 


house, a fragile plaything, a bubble in the great, hard world that surrounded it. 

house, a fragile plaything, a bubble in the great, hard world that surrounded it. 

He knew she was there, though; he had seen her the last time he'd been in this place, 
when he'd been the second-incommand and Andersson had been the team leader. They'd all 
worn unmarked gear then, just their name tags, no Tyrell logos on themselves or the spinners. 
And they'd come at night, shadowy predators, waiting until their employer had finished her 
business with the man inside the cabin, then swooping in and carrying him away, as the owl did 
with the mouse in its claws. 

"There's nothing left to do out here," said the secondin-command. The other men stood 
around, waiting. Patiently-they were regular Tyrell employees, security division, paid by the 
hour and not by the mile. 

"All right." For a while, it'd seemed to him as if this place, the small forest clearing with 
the cabin at its edge, were deep in some sort of magic time, without clock or event. 
Suspended, like the living and dying of the woman in the transport module, between one 
sleeping breath and another, this day's heartbeat and tomorrow's. "Might as well get it over." 
Maybe if he'd come here alone he could've taken care of everything that needed to be done, 
by himself. As it was, with all these others around him, there was no way the spell could 
remain unbroken. "Come on." 

The team leader pushed the cabin door open, letting the afternoon sunlight spill across the 
bare planks of the floor. He stepped inside, letting the rest follow him. 

Now he could forget their presence. In hers; he stood beside the black coffin, looking 
down at the woman who rested there. Under the glass, the curls of her dark hair spread out 
across the silken pillow. Eyes closed; lips slightly parted, as though waiting for the few 
molecules of oxygen that sustained her or a kiss; hands pale with stilled blood, folded beneath 
her breasts. 

He could have kissed her. The impulse to do just that, to lean down and press his lips 
against the cold glass, a few inches away from hers, had moved inside him before. When he'd 
come up here with Andersson on that other job, just a couple of days ago, when they'd taken 
the sleeping woman's true lover away with them and back to L.A. He hadn't done it then, 
because he'd known that Andersson wouldn't have understood. Or worse, would have-he 
knew that Andersson had loved this woman, but in another form; the same face, but not mired 
in death. 

That'd been while Andersson himself had still been alive. of course; he'd been among the 
security detail back at the Tyrell Corporation headquarters who'd scraped Andersson's 
broken body from the base of the slanting towers. He knew what had happened, though it 
wouldn't be mentioned in the official explanation. Andersson had loved the living woman, and 
had died for that sin. That mistake. Maybe those who loved the dying, the dead, would find 
eternal life thereby. In his own motionless heart, the team leader wondered how poor Deckard 
was doing. 

For a moment longer he stood gazing down at her. Then he stepped back and gestured 
to the other men. "All right. Pick her up and take her out of here." It was what he wanted, but 
it was also part of the orders he'd received from the sleeping woman's double. He watched as 
they picked up the black coffin by its recessed handles, lifting it from the knocked-together 
wooden trestles. "Careful . . ." 

They carried her outside, away from the cabin, toward the spinners. A moment later the 
men returned, this time with the canisters of gasoline in their hands; the team leader hadn't had 


to tell them to do that. Or the rest; they were on program now. 

to tell them to do that. Or the rest; they were on program now. 

They watched the cabin burn, until the charred boards collapsed in upon each other. It 
took only a few blasts from the extinguishers they brought out from the spinners to end 'the 
fire's short life, grey smoke unfolding into the sky. Then they finished up the rest of what they 
had to do. 

From the cockpit of one of the spinners, the team leader looked down at the black mark 
on the earth's surface. The spinner lifted higher, and the cabin's burned remains were lost 
among the surrounding trees. He turned around in the seat, closing his eyes, keeping them that 
way until he could see the sleeping, dying woman's face again. All the way back to Los 
Angeles. 

"Quite a place you've got here." She looked around, as though completing a realtor's 
assessment of a valuable property, estimating its worth on today's market. Sarah had stepped 
into the room, the disorder of its sideways condition having no visible effect on her. She 
radiated a cool assurance, money more powerful than gravity. "Distinctive." 

"We like it." Deckard as gracious host. "It's those homey touches that're so important." 

"I can imagine." Swathed in her coat, the fur collar turned up against her bound hair, she 
seemed insulated from the still heat collected between the safe-house apartment's inverted 
walls. She turned her inspecting gaze toward him. "For Christ's sake, Deckard-you look like a 
scarecrow." She reached over and fingered the torn sleeve of the stolen uniform. "If the LAPD 
decided to go into beanfield management, they could stick you on a cross out there. You 
could frighten off the birds all day long." 

"There are worse jobs." 

She followed him into another section of the apartment, ducking her head to get past the 
sides of the doors. To one of the bedrooms; it must've been a child's at one time, before the 
seismic events that had turned everything around. Faded curtains with a still visible pattern of 
baby ducks and chicks hung askew over the boarded-up window. He felt Sarah watching him 
as he lowered the door of the closet and dug out some of the clothes he'd stashed there. 
Spares; operations in this zone had often taken days to complete. Holden had kept some 
clothes here as well, his finicky tailored suits carefully hung in a plastic garment bag smelling of 
cedar extract. He didn't see the bag now; he pulled himself back out of the closet, his own 
things draped over one arm. 

Keeping his back to her, he stripped off the uniform jacket and the shirt beneath, things 
of cloth and leather, stained with his own blood. He didn't flinch, as though the nerve endings 
were already dead, when he felt her hand touch the wounds across his shoulders. 

"You should take care of those," Sarah's voice had softened just a little. "You wouldn't 
want them to get infected." 

Somehow the apartment's bathroom had wound up not just tilted onto one side, but 
turned 180 degrees around, the ceiling light fixture now in the middle of what had become the 
new floor. Deckard knelt down by the remains of the sink, letting a trickle of water fall away 
from the cracked porcelain and into his cupped hands. Carefully he sponged away the dried 
blood from his torso and arms, using the wadded-up rag of the cop's shirt to dry himself. A 
piece. of the broken mirror was large enough to see himself in: a face made lined and 
older-looking by exhaustion, eyes even older by witnessing. The water was translucent pink on 
his hands when he took them away from his brow and deepened sockets. 

He dressed in the bedroom, knowing that she was still watching him. The new clothes 


were only slightly musty from their long stay in the closet; he buttoned the tightchecked shirt's 
collar up against his throat, the top button digging at his abraded fingertips. The long coat was 
identical to the one he'd worn before; he'd bought them both at the same time, from a 
Paraguayan haberdasher working out of the dense warren of linty cubbyholes in the old 
Cooper Building downtown. He slipped it on, though he knew how stifling hot the safe-house 
apartment, and all the Santa Ana-battered world outside, was right now. The blood he'd lost 
from all the tiny marks on his skin might have been enough to take his core body temperature 
down a couple of degrees. Or else it's from her, thought Deckard. The woman brought her 
own winter along. 

were only slightly musty from their long stay in the closet; he buttoned the tightchecked shirt's 
collar up against his throat, the top button digging at his abraded fingertips. The long coat was 
identical to the one he'd worn before; he'd bought them both at the same time, from a 
Paraguayan haberdasher working out of the dense warren of linty cubbyholes in the old 
Cooper Building downtown. He slipped it on, though he knew how stifling hot the safe-house 
apartment, and all the Santa Ana-battered world outside, was right now. The blood he'd lost 
from all the tiny marks on his skin might have been enough to take his core body temperature 
down a couple of degrees. Or else it's from her, thought Deckard. The woman brought her 
own winter along. 

"I don't know. Maybe she did." He picked up the last of the things he'd taken out of the 
closet. "Maybe she didn't see anything at all. Just a cop." His hands worked the rough wool 
necktie under his collar, then started fumbling the knot together. He could feel Sarah watching 
him. "Why did you come here?" 

She regarded him for a moment. "I thought I should check up on you. Deckard. See how 
you were doing." 

That was the problem with working for other people. She probably wanted the head of 
her sixth replicant on a stick. "How'd you find this place?" 

"It was easy. Your old friend Holden-he has a nice new heart-and-lung set pumping 
away inside his chest. The unit was manufactured by one of the Tyrell Corporation's medical 
subsidiaries; there's a lot of crossover work between manufacturing replicants and human 
prosthetics." A smile. "We knew for whom that particular one was intended. They're all 
custom jobs; they have to be. So a miniature transmitter was put in it, way down inside where 
the valves go clickityclick. Anywhere Dave Holden goes, we know about it. i know about it. 
That's all that matters. That's why I wasn't worried about being able to find you again. No 
matter where you got to. I figured Holden would always be able to find you. Blade runners 
know each other, don't they? Your minds work the same way." 

"Maybe," said Deckard. "Up to a certain point. But I didn't go with him-did I? He had 
business with me, too. An offer; like being partners again. But I didn't pick up on it." 

"Why not?" 

"Nothing I was interested in. Besides-" A shrug. "I already have a job." 

"Oh?" Sarah raised an eyebrow. "I appreciate your loyalty. But then . . . you're 
motivated. Aren't you?" 

Something caught his eye. He turned his gaze away from her and saw that it was the 
broken mirror inside what had been the apartment's bathroom. He could see his own 
splintered, fragmented reflection, an image that'd been cut up, pieces scrambled together, then 
sorted out and poorly reassembled. 

His brooding was interrupted by a sudden noise, a hissing intake of breath, pitched high 
and loud enough to be a cry of dismay. At the same time, something grabbed his arm, two 
hands squeezing tight into the heavier fabric of the coat's sleeve. He looked beside him and 
saw Sarah, drawing behind him as though for protection, an expression of loathing and disgust 
on her face. 

"What the hell is that?" She took one of her hands away from his arm and pointed. 

In the bedroom doorway, the rectangular opening turned on its side, crouched Pris. Or 
what remained of her, what her lover Sebastian had been able to salvage. The emaciated 
figure, flensed to the bare minimum inside the ragged leotard, balanced itself with one bony 
hand against the door frame; the red eyes, dots of fire beneath the uncontrolled shock of white 
hair, had already scanned across the bedroom space. And fastened onto the other female 
creature held by it. 


"Don't worry." Deckard watched as the Pris-thing unfolded itself spiderlike into the 
bedroom. "It won't hurt you." The head stayed low, the stare of the red eyes sweeping to 
either side as it cautiously advanced, as though looking for any possible threat, before returning 
to Sarah. 

"Don't worry." Deckard watched as the Pris-thing unfolded itself spiderlike into the 
bedroom. "It won't hurt you." The head stayed low, the stare of the red eyes sweeping to 
either side as it cautiously advanced, as though looking for any possible threat, before returning 
to Sarah. 

"Pris! Pris!" Sebastian's piping voice echoed down the hallway outside. "Don't go in 
there! Leave those folks alone-" 

Beside him, Sarah raised her arms, both hands locked together. He saw what she had 
pulled out of her coat, the black metal filling her doubled grip. 

At the same time the Pris-thing rose up in front of Sarah, spine telescoping like a machine 
rearing into place. The hissing breath changed into a gasp of wondering surprise, eyes 
widening to reveal more of the fiery lenses inside the skull. A trembling arm, a skeletal hand 
reaching its white fingertips toward the face of the woman, drawn back by instinctive aversion. 
Its mouth opened wider, a word, a name, struggling to bridge some fragile synapse and 
emerge onto the rattling leather tongue . . . 

He tried to stop Sarah, to grab her arm and pull it away, but he was too late. The 
smallest motion of one of her fingers was all that was required. The recoil pulsed through her 
braced stance, pushing her back against his side for a moment. Muzzle flash eclipsed the 
Pris-thing's ravaged face, only inches away from the black hole at the end of the gun. Even 
before the afterimage had begun to fade from his sight, he could see the lightweight creature 
hoisted by the bullet's impact, desiccated splinters spraying from the shattered cheekbones and 
brow, the spinal column arching into a bow as its shoulders were flung back onto a bed of 
empty air. 

In the doorway, Sebastian screamed. His single hand and forearm had lifted him higher 
onto the back of the teddy bear, so he'd been able to see everything that'd happened. The toy 
soldier shoved past the bear, then stood rooted in place, eyes and nose following the 
Pris-thing's trajectory as it slammed into the angle of two walls. 

Nausea rose in Deckard's throat. The last time Pris had died, when he had killed her, the 
body with its ripped-open gut had flopped and spasmed on the floor, shrieking not so much 
with pain as with the release of the fierce energy unspent. This time around, the twice-dead 
Pris lay crumpled like a rag doll, torso folded at the hinge of the lower back, disjointed hands 
sprawled behind, head bowed forward as though to reveal the red fissure beneath the albino 
golliwog hair. The red eyes had already dimmed to black dots, any remaining battery cells 
shorted out. 

"You didn't have to do that." The nausea had mutated to a heavy sadness, a stone in his 
chest, as he'd watched Sebastian crawl from the back of the kneeling teddy bear toward the 
broken corpse. 

Sarah turned a level gaze at him. "Yes, I did." 

On the other side of the room, Sebastian had reached the dead thing, had gathered it into 
the embrace of his single arm, and now rocked back and forth with it. Tears ran along the 
wrinkles of his face as an anguished keening issued from low in his throat. One of the teddy 
bear's paws stroked Sebastian's shoulder in a futile effort at comforting him. The toy soldier 
completed the pieta arrangement, the point of its antique helmet bending low over the corpse's 
blood-spattered feet. 

Deckard crossed the room and looked down at the other man. "Can you . . ." He 
gestured at the body. "You know . . . put her back together?" 

"Don't be stupid-" Sebastian gulped back his sobs, enough to speak. "Look. Her brain . . 
. it's all tore up. I can't fix that. Nobody can." He leaned the side of his face against what 
remained of hers. "She's dead. All dead." His tears mingled with her drying blood. A blind 
gaze swept across the room, a spark of red showing far inside the unfocused eyes. The 


corpse's clawlike fingers scrabbled at the wall beneath, as though some residual life force had 
dribbled out of one of its batteries. 

corpse's clawlike fingers scrabbled at the wall beneath, as though some residual life force had 
dribbled out of one of its batteries. 

He stood in front of her. "It recognized you. Didn't it?" He peered into her eyes, as 
though trying to catch some betraying response without benefit of a Voigt-Kampff machine. 
"What was that about? When it saw you, it knew who you were." 

"I doubt it." No blush response, no flutter of the pupil. "It probably thought I was 
Rachael. It must've thought it had spotted another replicant like itself." 

No. Like she'd thought herself to be. He'd started to correct Sarah, to remind her of 
what she already knew-that Pris had been human-but had stopped himself from speaking. The 
distinctions were blurring again. He'd killed, murdered a human being named Pris, who'd 
convinced herself that she was a replicant; if he'd had a chance to run the empathy tests on 
her, she probably would've failed them. What had she been after Sebastian had kept a spark 
going in her addled brain, made her capable of moving again? Alive or dead, human or 
replicant? He didn't know. He supposed he had arrived at that state Isidore had talked about, 
back at the Van Nuys Pet Hospital. Of not even being able to see the difference anymore. 

Other thoughts remained unspoken, barely formed. If it'd been Rachael, not Sarah, that 
the Pris-thing had recognized . . . where would that have been from? Maybe some memory of 
the assembly line at the Tyrell Corporation's headquarters, all the Nexus-6 models, the Prisses 
and the Zhoras and the Roy Battys, all warehoused together before being shipped off-world. 
That was wrong, he knew immediately; there had never been any Pris model repheants. Only 
in her mind. Maybe it'd been out there, thought Deckard, in the 17.N. colonies. Maybe Pris 
had managed to convince other human beings that she was a replicant, and had served time 
along with a Rachael model in a sanctioned military brothel. The image made him squeeze his 
eyes shut tight, as though he could blot it out from his own brain. It might not be true, anyway; 
hadn't Sarah told him that Rachael hadn't been a production model, but a one-off, a single 
creation for Eldon Tyrell's purposes? She could've been lying about that; there was no way of 
knowing . . . 

Out of the darkness behind his eyelids, a memory flash. Not that long ago-i saw her. He 
saw her again now, the face in the rep train, that other darkness beneath the central police 
station. Huddled with the other replieants, the discards of the industrial process that had 
created them. Weeping with a terror that'd had no way of expressing itself except the 
trembling of her naked shoulders, the tears leaking salt into the corners of her mouth. So there 
were others like her, like Rachael. There had to be. If what he'd seen was true, and not just 
some fevered vision drawn from his own exhaustion and fear. 

"So what's it going to be, Deckard?" A knife or Sarah's voice. "Shall we talk?" 

He opened his eyes. And looked at her. Or at Rachael, or the one who had wept behind 
the locked gates of the rep train's rattling freight car. The memory overlays faded, one veil 
after another. Until he saw clearly again. 

"No . . ." A sigh, indicator of the weariness that had wrapped itself around him again. "I 
don't have time. I've got a job to do." Behind him, he sensed Sebastian's and the others' 
presence, the various living and not-living forms, the dead tucked close in its lover's embrace. 
"We don't have anything to talk about." 

"You're wrong. We have everything to talk about. At last." She regarded him with the 
same fiat, level gaze. "I'm trying to make it easier for you, Deckard. I want you to come with 
me, right now. Outside, to my spinner. As charming as the hospitality here has been, I'd really 
prefer to have our little discussion elsewhere." 

"Why should I?" 

"Because you don't have a choice." Head tilted against her coat's fur collar, Sarah Tyrell 


regarded him. "You come with me now, or I leave by myself. And I notify the police of where 
you're hiding out. I could do it from the phone in the spinner-it wouldn't be more than a few 
minutes until they got here." She glanced at the figures on the other side of the room. "I imagine 
they'll clean up the rest of this mess here as well." 

regarded him. "You come with me now, or I leave by myself. And I notify the police of where 
you're hiding out. I could do it from the phone in the spinner-it wouldn't be more than a few 
minutes until they got here." She glanced at the figures on the other side of the room. "I imagine 
they'll clean up the rest of this mess here as well." 

"That doesn't matter. He can be picked up and screwed with until he might as well be 
guilty. You know how it works, Deckard; you've done the same. Of course, if you don't want 
that to happen . . . 

She had him, and he knew it. The time when he would've been able to tell her to go to 
hell, when the threat of bad shit happening to other people wouldn't have mattered to himthat 
was long past. She's trading on that fact, thought Deckard. He could almost admire the 
accuracy of her perception. She knew that he'd already become less of a blade runner . . . and 
more of a human being. Which made him, to her, more exploitable. 

"All right." He glanced over at Sebastian, then decided against saying anything to him. 
There wasn't anything. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of the long coat. "Let's go." 

Holden had rummaged through the freight spinner's cockpit until he'd found what he 
wanted, needed, had known would be there. The gun had been the first find, and the best; it'd 
come in handy talking with that idiot bastard Deckard. 

I should've killed him, thought Holden. Right then and there. That had been his original 
intention; disgust at what a pussy Deckard was being had overwhelmed him, though. Plus, 
there'd been others inside the safe-house apartment, like that sawed-off Sebastian, riding 
around on the back of his wind-up teddy bear. Who knew whether the little basket case might 
be packing something? Holden shook his head; he knew he'd still have to be extra cautious, at 
least until he got his full strength back. 

And his regular gun. The one he'd found in the freight spinner was all right for now. It was 
smaller and didn't weigh as much as the big black cannon that served as standard blade runner 
equipment. Which was a good thing; he'd started to feel a little weak and breathless, as though 
the implanted heart-and-lungs set was crapping out under the load he'd been putting it through. 
All this running around, adrenaline jazz, couldn't be good for a man in his condition. His old 
gun would've pulled him over like an anvil strapped to his shoulders. 

The other handy thing he'd found, underneath the pilot's seat, was a pair of Zeiss 
binoculars with resolutionenhanced optic-feedback circuits. The help screens at the upper right 
corner of the vision field had all been in German, but he'd still managed to get the device up 
and running. And focused on the toppled building that contained the safe-house apartment. 

Behind a low rise of concrete rubble, he'd stashed the freight spinner safely out of sight. 
Inside the apartment, his former partner Deckard probably thought he'd gone on, winging 
back into the center of L.A. His pissed-off-andshouting behavior, that'd concluded their little 
conference, had been at least partially an act, designed to make Deckand believe that all he 
wanted to do was lay down as much distance as possible between the two of them. He wasn't 
through with Deckard yet, not by a long shot.' And from the looks of it, neither were some 
other people. 

No sooner had he gotten the freight spinner hidden than he'd spotted the next visitor. She 
must've been there all the time. waiting for me to leave-lying on his stomach, elbows braced 
against the ragged concrete edge, Holden trained the binoculars on the woman as she went 
into the sideways apartment building. Too late to get a glimpse of her face, but the sleek 
arrangement of her dark hair, and the fur coat-in this heat? It must've had one of those cryonic 
linings-all spoke of money. Like I'm surprised, he thought bitterly. It would be just like that 
weasel Deckard to have belatedly learned the art of selling out to the highest bidder. 

He'd searched through all the bins and equipment caches of the freight spinner's cockpit, 
looking for some kind of long-range microphone, something he could've used to eavesdrop on 


what was going on inside the safehouse apartment, but had come up empty-handed. It 
would've taken powerful, professional quality gear to get anything, he knew; when the place 
had been taken over for use by the blade runners, with no connection to the LAPD, they'd all 
chipped in to trick out the windows and exterior walls with sound-deadening insulation. So 
creeping up and laying his ear on the building wouldn't have done any good, either. 

what was going on inside the safehouse apartment, but had come up empty-handed. It 
would've taken powerful, professional quality gear to get anything, he knew; when the place 
had been taken over for use by the blade runners, with no connection to the LAPD, they'd all 
chipped in to trick out the windows and exterior walls with sound-deadening insulation. So 
creeping up and laying his ear on the building wouldn't have done any good, either. 

Taking deep breaths, he managed to get the black spots wandering in his sight-bad 
warning sign of anoxia, brain strangulation-to fade to grey and even disappear. Mostly. He 
turned back onto his elbows and swept the binoculars' view toward the other spinner, the one 
the woman, whoever she was, had arrived in. She'd left it in plain view on the other side of the 
apartment building. 

The bar code on the spinner's fuselage came into focus. He tripped the binoculars' reader 
function; a few seconds later the LED display flashed the minuscule words SECURED 
REGISTRATION; NO INFO AVAILABLE ON THIS VEHICLE. He wasn't surprised; a 
late-model, high-thrust job like this one had to belong to somebody who could buy the pull to 
keep it off the databases. 

Invariably a way; words of wisdom. Holden dialed in higher and higher rez levels, until he 
was looking right into the intake manifolds of the expensive after-market turbos that'd been 
mounted on the spinner. The sunlight slanted into the curved titanium mouths, just enough for 
the binoculars to pick out the manufacturer's serial numbers. Repeating the string to himself, he 
slithered back to the freight spinner and keyed up the control panel's computer. A moment 
later he had the info he'd wanted: the after-market gear had been purchased with the 
appropriate U.N. acquisition order by Ad Astra Transport Services. He didn't need to look 
them up; he knew that the company was the shipping wing of the Tyrell Corporation. Its logo, 
a tacky Soviet Realist image of a stylized male figure lifting a ribbon-tied package to an 
anonymous planetoid, was on the sides of all the container trucks taking sleep-frozen 
replicants to the San Pedro docks, for delivery to the off-world colonies. 

So, Tyrel1 . . . that's interesting. Holden tried to dredge up what he could from his own, 
pre-Kowalski memory banks. Eldon Tyrell was dead-Bryant had told him that while he'd been 
in the hospital, bubbling and gurgling away-but wasn't there a daughter or something, who 
would've been his heir? No, a niece: that was it. Maybe this was Ms. Tyrell, the new head of 
the replicant-manufacturing industry, who'd zipped out here in the company spinner to talk 
with Deckard. She'd known where Deckard was; so he must've gotten in touch with her and 
told her to meet him here, or she'd met him before. No way she would've been able to find the 
hiding place by herself. 

So that meant this woman-and by extension the Tyrell Corporation itself-was in cahoots 
with Deckard. Who was supposedly an ex-blade runner, or at least had previously been 
represented to be a blade runner-Holden wasn't sure anymore about that. The Tyrell 
Corporation and the blade runner unit had always been two mutually antagonistic forces, 
inasmuch as the corporation was always engaged in creating replicants that were increasingly 
closer to passing for human-how much longer would it have been until there'd been Nexus-7 
or Nexus-S models running around?-and the blade runners were just as dedicated to finding 
them and exposing them as replicants. One of those locked-in predator-and-prey 
relationships, where each side could take turns being either the wolves or the sheep. So what's 


Deckard up to now? wondered Holden. Sleeping with the enemy? 

Deckard up to now? wondered Holden. Sleeping with the enemy? 

Even more interesting-he speculated as to who had shot whom. Deckard didn't have a 
gun, he was fairly sure, but that didn't matter. He could have gotten whatever weapon the 
woman had been carrying away from her. Unless she'd come here with the specific intent of 
plugging Deckard, and had just done so. Conspirators falling out?it wouldn't be the first time. 

Whatever had gone down inside the safe-house apartment, he knew the smart thing for 
him to do was to lie low and go on watching. There was somebody walking around in there 
with a loaded gun. He had one as well, but in his present physically depleted state, he wasn't 
sure he'd be able to lift it up and get a shot off without a disastrous wobble to his 
double-handed grip. Even the binoculars seemed to weigh a ton, as he crawled back out to 
the top of the ridge and aimed them at the building. 

What the . . . He peered harder into. the eyepieces, as he spotted two figures coming 
out. Deckard and the darkhaired young woman he figured was the new owner of the Tyrell 
Corporation. Neither one had shot the other-they both looked reasonably intact. What the hell 
did that mean? Still conspirators? Hard to tell from the habitually sour expression on 
Deckard's face what the degree of cosiness between the two people was . . . though the 
woman looked somewhat satisfied with herself. Deckard had taken on the appearance of his 
old self, a memory flashback to his days of officially being a blade runner, having changed from 
that ratted-out cop uniform to plainclothes, including another one of those long coats he'd 
always been so fond of. 

He watched through the binoculars as Deckard and the Tyrell woman got into the 
hot-rodded spinner and took off. The temptation hit him, to scramble into the freight spinner 
and tail the other craft, but he thought better of itthey'd have spotted him right off. 

For a moment longer he watched the spinner, a black speck at the head of a fiery trail, 
fading from view above the mirror-radiant towers of the city. The Santa Ana winds had died 
away, leaving the atmosphere still desert-hot, but hushed with an almost subliminal, 
subcutaneous trembling, as though charged with some urgency beyond verbalization. 

Balancing himself with one hand against the ground, Holden got to his feet, then 
straightened up. And immediately regretted it; a wave of dizziness washed across him, as 
unsettling as if another earthquake had struck the zone. Artificial heart pounding in his chest, he 
bent over, palms against his knees; something had lodged in his throat, around which he could 
barely breathe. It seemed to take the last of his strength to cough it up. When he opened his 
eyes, he saw a wet red spot on the concrete rubble in front of him. 

"Goddamn . . ." Tentatively he poked at his breastbone with the fingertips of one hand, 
trying to determine if he had broken something loose on the implants inside him. He swallowed 
the salt taste in his mouth rather than risk spitting it out. Everything seemed to be working; he 
could breathe, and the heart was still beating. He tried to remember whether a particular loose, 
rattling noise was something he was imagining, or whether it had always been there and he just 
hadn't noticed it before. 

One thing was certain. He felt weaker than before, closer to the edge of collapse. Great 
timing, he thought bitterly. What he needed to do-what his stressed-out body told him he 
should do-was go lie down in some dark quiet place, until his new heart and lungs had finished 
knitting themselves into his corporeal fabric. But there was no time for that. Things were 
happening too fast for him to take a break, no matter how badly he required one. The spinner 
carrying Deckard and the Tyrell woman had vanished from sight, taking them to another locus 


of conspiracy. Maybe they'd finished up here, the two of them having cooperated on the 
shooting of some third party in the safe-house apartment . . . 

of conspiracy. Maybe they'd finished up here, the two of them having cooperated on the 
shooting of some third party in the safe-house apartment . . . 

The little guy had worked for the Tyrell Corporation; that much he remembered for sure. 
Doing . . . bioengineering. Holden nodded, as if he could suddenly see the guy's entire police 
file in front of him. Specifically, replicant design. Even more specifically: work on the Tyrell 
CorPoration's Nexus-6 models. That was it. 

So he must've known something. Not just something, but a lot. The little one-limbed guy 
had been up to his weepy-looking eyeballs in the design and production-every detail-of the 
Nexus-6 replicants. Knowing too much about something like that-something that other people 
wanted to remain a secret-was always a good way of getting yourself eliminated. 

It came to him then, a sudden illumination, as though the dark clouds he'd seen massing 
over the Pacific had sent down a sudden bolt of lightning. Of course, thought Holden. That's 
what thelittleguyin thereknew. And that's why they had to kill him . . . 

The problem was, the realization didn't do him any good if he was in no shape to act 
upon it. Another realization, not quite as welcome, shoved aside his other thoughts. He needed 
help; he couldn't go it alone, as much as he would've wanted to. 

Holden glanced upward. The sky was empty again, the spinner with Deckard and the 
Tyrell woman long gone, its red trail evaporated. He turned and walked toward the freight 
spinner, carefully and slowly, husbanding his strength for the confrontation he'd already set his 
mind upon. 

14..... 

Come on, fellas." He gazed around at the empty rooms, the spaces that were silent now 
but had held as much of a real life as he'd ever known. "We should be just about all packed up 
now." He and the others, the companions left to him, had done what they could to clean up the 
blood smeared on the angle of the walls and the remainder of the mess caused by his true 
love's death. Her second one, Sebastian reminded himself. That made him even sadder, 
thinking that poor little Pris had had to go through all that twice. It wasn't fair; she'd never hurt 
anyone, or at least not much. 

Right now, he didn't even know where she was. He hadn't had the heart to pull the 
batteries from Pris's braindamaged corpse, shut off the various switches and relays that had 
kept her moving feebly around. She must've crept away, he thought sadly. Out into the zone's 
rubble, to lie down with the other broken and unfunctional things, debris among debris. 
Whatever blind spark that had remained inside her would die out in the ashes and rags and 
splintered, scrappy bones of the world. 

Colonel Fuzzy and Squeaker Hussar came back over to where they had left him in the 
sideways apartment. They bent down low, their faces coming close to his; he had to turn his 


own slightly away, to avoid getting poked in the eye by Squeaker's elongated nose. He knew 
what they were doing. With every sense organ he'd built into themmainly optical, though the 
teddy bear's round, fleece-lined ears were more finely tuned than a human's, and Squeaker 
actually did have some extra olfactory receptors built into that thing-they were trying to assess 
what condition he was in, physically and mentally. They knew some great tragedy had 
occurred, devastating every fiber of his being. He felt as though the one appendage he couldn't 
sacrifice, his heart, had been scooped out of his frail chest. Squeaker and the Colonel were 
aware that death had visited them in their home, she'd come swaggering in on spike heels, and 
with a big noise had removed one of their number, from the world of the living to that other 
place where all one's batteries were run down flat and the light behind one's button eyes went 
out. They were worried and fearful that that was where he was going, too. 

own slightly away, to avoid getting poked in the eye by Squeaker's elongated nose. He knew 
what they were doing. With every sense organ he'd built into themmainly optical, though the 
teddy bear's round, fleece-lined ears were more finely tuned than a human's, and Squeaker 
actually did have some extra olfactory receptors built into that thing-they were trying to assess 
what condition he was in, physically and mentally. They knew some great tragedy had 
occurred, devastating every fiber of his being. He felt as though the one appendage he couldn't 
sacrifice, his heart, had been scooped out of his frail chest. Squeaker and the Colonel were 
aware that death had visited them in their home, she'd come swaggering in on spike heels, and 
with a big noise had removed one of their number, from the world of the living to that other 
place where all one's batteries were run down flat and the light behind one's button eyes went 
out. They were worried and fearful that that was where he was going, too. 

He had to wonder where they'd gotten that behavior from; it wasn't anything he'd 
programmed into them. From the beginning, they were supposed to have been jolly little 
fellows, happy creations, rays of sunshine in his gloomy life. He'd wired in logic paths by which 
the teddy bear and the toy soldier were able to learn new aspects of their environment and 
modify their behaviors based on that data-a basic feedback loop-but all this tenderhearted 
fussing and crooning was something different. Or was it? He'd have to think about that, when 
they got to wherever they were going to next. 

Squeaker helped strap him into the papoose carrier on Colonel Fuzzy's back. Food and 
batteries and other survival necessities had already been piled into the drag sling they used for 
scavenging the welfare drops. 

"Wait a minute, fellas. I gotta leave a message." 

The teddy bear, impatient to start traveling before dark set in, stamped its feet. "Just hold 
your horses," soothed Sebastian. "This'll only take a minute." 

He had the colonel back up toward the biggest bare wall in the apartment. That would 
make a nice canvas, he'd decided; those other folks were so busy and rushed, coming and 
going and killing other people, that he didn't want to risk having his words overlooked. Using 
the black spray can from a Chaka Signature Model Li'1 Graffitster Kit, part of the art supplies 
that'd come in a drop several months ago, he carefully spelled out what he had to say. 

DEAR MR. DECKER . . . That was what he'd overheard the woman calling the man. 
Biting down on his tongue, Sebastian sprayed out the next words. MY FRIENDS AND I 
ARE MOVING ON. THERE ARE TOO MANY PAINFUL MEMORIES FOR US TO 
STAY HERE. 

That was putting it mildly. He flinched every time the tape ran through his thoughts again, 
of poor Pris flying through the air with her head shot open. THANKS FOR NOT KILLING 
US AS WELL. As soon as he saw those blurry-edged words on the wall, he regretted them. 
The logic seemed a little whacked; people should try not to kill you, just as a matter of course. 
There wasn't time to do the message over; the teddy bear was getting restive. He hurried to 
finish up. 

I HOPE YOU FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR. VERY BEST REGARDS, 

SEBASTIAN. 

That would have to do; the spray can was nearly exhausted. He'd gotten some of the 
black paint on his single hand; tossing the can aside, he rubbed the smear against his coveralls 
with its pinned-up sleeve and trouser legs. 

"Okay, okay. We're ready to leave now." He jounced up and down in the papoose 
carrier as Colonel Fuzzy hurried for the door. "Take it easy, you're gonna shake my head off!" 
Outside, the three friends headed east, their shadows racing before them. Sebastian 



glanced over his shoulder as the teddy bear marched along. In the distance he could just make 
out the skyline of Los Angeles, the sunset bleeding red light around the dark towers. He 
supposed things had worked out fifty-fifty for him in this corner of the universe. 

glanced over his shoulder as the teddy bear marched along. In the distance he could just make 
out the skyline of Los Angeles, the sunset bleeding red light around the dark towers. He 
supposed things had worked out fifty-fifty for him in this corner of the universe. 

He turned away, setting his cheek against the back of the teddy bear's head. Closing his 
eyes but not sleeping. Not for a long while. 

Darkness and life; both had begun again, the city moving into the nocturnal portion of its 
cycle. When everything comes crawling out, thought Holden, looking down from the freight 
spinner's cockpit at the lights carpeting the earth. 

He'd decided, when he'd left the sideways zone, upon the general outline of his course of 
action. Circumstances-his own failing strength; the overtaxed artificial heart and lungs inside his 
chest had begun to sputter and wheeze alarmingly, complete with fuzzy-edged blackout dots 
hitting his sight like negative snowflakes-dictated that he needed assistance. Not later, when 
events had settled out, but now. So they would be determined as he wished, as an active agent 
in the historical process, or at least this little part of it, and not some breathing vegetable 
strapped by tubes to a hospital bed. 

A terrible vision had come to him as the freight spinner completed another circle above 
LA's downtown core, of his bio-mechanical innards reaching their stress limit and going into 
some half-powered, partially shut-down mode, just enough to keep him alive in the pilot's seat, 
but not conscious. Even worse off than he'd been in the hospital. No longer human, a thing 
kept alive by pumps and artificially inflated bladders, wearing his face and his clothes, riding 
around forever in the sky on the course he'd set when his brain had still been functioning. 
Through the rotation of day and night, the progress of the seasons, the manifestations of dry 
and monsoon beating against the transparent cockpit dome, the curved glass shielding his 
blank, unseeing eyes . . . 

Well, not exactly forever, thought Holden with glum relief. He supposed the police would 
have eventually shot the freight spinner out of the sky, just for violating air-space regulations. 
Or else they would've let it go on, and it would've eventually run out of fuel, plunging down 
into the streets. He could just see some by-the-manual uniformed cop with one jackboot up 
on a fender-high piece of the wreckage, writing out a ticket for parking in a restricted zone. 

The night had settled in complete, the somberly violet line at the horizon, the last vestige 
of sun slicing extinguished beneath the cliff front of mounting clouds. Dark enough now for him 
to move further into the specifics of the plan upon which he'd decided. If he needed assistance, 
to keep from either dying or blacking out, there was only one place he could go, one person to 
whom he could turn. The police department, either on an official basis or by getting hold of his 
old friends and acquaintances on the force, was out of the question. No telling how rotted out 
the whole structure of the central station was with conspiracy; anybody he talked to there 
could be one of the bastards who'd determined, for their own malevolent reasons, that the only 
good blade runner was a dead one. And as for Deckard, who was presumably as much a 
target as anyone else . . . that was a no-go as well. For a lot of reasons, some of which 
Holden had spent the time up in the air mulling over. 

He reached out to the control panel and switched off the freight spinner's autopilot. 
Another looping circuit had been completed, bringing him back over the dense, poorly lit 
warrens of the city's Los Feliz district. Holden took over the freight spinner's manual controls, 
steering it down toward the building in which his ex-partner had once lived. 

On the building's rooftop landing deck, he sat frozen in the pilot's seat, a layer of 
perspiration forming between his palms and the rudder's inert metal. Go on, one part of him 
nagged all the rest. What're you waiting for? Don't crap out now. He ascribed the knot of fear 
festering in his gut to the malfunctioning of his new lungs, the brain they fed reacting to partial 


oxygen deprivation with innate animal terror. But he knew that the cowardly body was in 
league with his own cold rationality. He'd left Roy Batty in the apartment below, handcuffed to 
the pipe behind the toilet; just replaying the tape in his head, of Batty cursing and flailing 
around at the limit of the short chain, like some baleful genetic cross between a bull and an 
enraged hornet, sent a squirt of adrenaline through his heart's polyethylene valves. And now he 
was going to go back in there and tell Batty that the two of them should be pals again? Good 
luck, whispered a lobe of doubt. 

oxygen deprivation with innate animal terror. But he knew that the cowardly body was in 
league with his own cold rationality. He'd left Roy Batty in the apartment below, handcuffed to 
the pipe behind the toilet; just replaying the tape in his head, of Batty cursing and flailing 
around at the limit of the short chain, like some baleful genetic cross between a bull and an 
enraged hornet, sent a squirt of adrenaline through his heart's polyethylene valves. And now he 
was going to go back in there and tell Batty that the two of them should be pals again? Good 
luck, whispered a lobe of doubt. 

In the apartment, a puzzle: the handcuffs were there, bright chrome dangling beneath 
white porcelain, but Roy Batty was gone. Holden stood up from his kneeling inspection of the 
cuffs, seeing his own puzzled face in the mirror above the sink. The fluorescent tube's partial 
spectrum gave the skin of his cheeks and brow an even more deathapproaching, cheesy 
appearance. 

He got away, thought Holden. He must have, though there was no indication of how. The 
building was constructed so shabbily-parts of it, those that looked like concrete, actually were 
embossed styrofoam-that even an old man like Batty could possibly have yanked the plumbing 
free from the bathroom wall. But he surely wouldn't have bothered putting the pipe back into 
place, mortaring it with toothpaste and soap. Plus, the handcuffs would've still been dangling 
from Batty's wrist, not there on the pipe. 

Turning the mystery over in his thoughts, Holden flicked off the bathroom light and 
wandered out into the apartment's corridor. Immediately he was slammed up against the wall, 
the impact against his spine sufficient to knock the air from his lungs, the new heart twitching 
through a spasm of rapid fibrillation. 

"You stupid sonuvabitch. I oughtta kill you." Batty's face, its crevices reddened with a 
fierce energy, pushed itself nose-to-nose with Holden's. "Matter of fact, I'm planning on it. I 
hope that doesn't come as a surprise to you." 

He got his hands onto Batty's wrists, trying to pull them far enough away from his throat 
to suck in air. A detached fragment of his mind noted that the handcuffs were gone. "Wait . . . 
wait a minute . . ." He gasped out the words as his feet dangled clear of the hallway's floor. "I 
have . . . to talk with you . . . 

"No, you don't." Batty pushed him up higher against the wall. "You and I have talked 
plenty already. I'm so on your pitiful wavelength, I don't have to talk to you anymore. I knew 
you were going to come back here, looking for me. Once you figured out that you're too 
screwed up to get by on your own." A shark's grin floated into Holden's fuzzed vision. "So you 
see. I know what you're going to say before you do." 

A thread of oxygen flowed down his throat. The other man was tiring, not visibly so, but 
detectable by the slight weakening of his arms, the weight dragging them down. The black 
spots in front of Holden's eyes, that had interposed a drifting polka-dotted veil between his 
face and Batty's, faded a little. 

"Look . . . it's important . . . ' The words scraped through his constricted larynx. "I 
wouldn't have come back here . . . if I just needed help . . . 

"Yeah, right." Batty followed the words with a scornful grunt. 

"Really . . . I figured it out . . ." He tugged at the other's wrists. "i figured out . . . who the 
sixth replicant is . . . " 

Batty tilted his head to one side, studying the pinned figure in front of him. "What're you 
talking about?" 

"Put me down . . . and I'll tell you . . ." 

Through narrowed eyes, Batty regarded him for a moment longer. "All right." He lowered 
Holden to the floor, letting go of the front of his shirt. Batty stood back, arms folded across his 
chest. "This better be good." 


Holden doubled over, gasping to fill his lungs, head level with his artificial heart to 
increase the passage of blood between the two organs. Weakly, he straightened back up, 
balancing himself against the wall with one hand. He stumbled toward the apartment's living 
room, with Batty following after. 

Holden doubled over, gasping to fill his lungs, head level with his artificial heart to 
increase the passage of blood between the two organs. Weakly, he straightened back up, 
balancing himself against the wall with one hand. He stumbled toward the apartment's living 
room, with Batty following after. 

"You idiot." Batty looked down at him with contempt. "I'm the one who told you that." 
He sat down heavily on the padded bench, his elbows knocking two atonal chords from the 
piano as he leaned back against the keyboard. Disgusted, he shook his head. "Jesus Christ. I 
can't believe this. If you've been worrying about whether that new pump of yours is starving 
your brain of oxygen-and you should be; I can hear it wheezing all the way over here then you 
don't have to worry anymore. Your brain's obviously gone to mush." 

Unruffled, Holden smoothed his hands out along the rounded arms of the chair. He 
managed a smile. "Sureyou said something about Deckard being the sixth replicant. But I 
know how your mind works. You'd never have made it as a blade runner. You're too sloppy. 
The whole modus operandi of someone like you is to kill someone else, and then if it turns out 
to have been the wrong person, do another. Until you finally get it right." He paused for a 
moment, to regain his breath. "Blade runners, on the other hand, try to be a little more precise 
about who we kill." 

"Piss off." 

He knew he'd nailed him. Holden leaned forward, relishing the small measure of control 
he'd gained, the shift of power between himself and the other man. "There; you see?" It'd been 
worth coming back here, taking the risk, just to screw with Batty's mind. In the best way 
possible, by feeding his own words back to him. But with a difference. "You know I'm right. 
When you said Deckard was the sixth replicant, that was just an idea you had. You didn't 
know for sure. Did you?" 

Batty shifted uncomfortably on the piano bench, but made no reply. 

"Whereas I can say that Deckard is the sixth replicantand I can prove it." He leaned back 
into the deep upholstery. In triumph. 

"Go ahead." Batty had reassembled his own composure. "I'm listening." 

"There's a safe-house apartment, out in the sideways world-you know, all that 
toppled-over seismic zone-that Deckard and myself and some of the other guys in the blade 
runner unit set up. Without any departmental connection; we used it for stakeouts, remote 
operations, all that sort of thing. That's where I knew Deckard would go. And I was right." 
Holden forced down a deep breath. "After I took care of you, I went out there and found him, 
talked to him-" 

"You should've plugged him. And if you were so friggin' smart, you wouldn't have left me 
where I could get hold of dental floss and a razor blade. Those handcuffs ain't shit, when you 
know what you're doing." 

Holden rolled past the comment. "At any rate, I didn't get very far with him. I'd figured 
that between the two of us, he and I could locate the sixth replicant and retire itbut Deckard 
wouldn't buy into that plan. Turned me down flat. So I left . . . but I didn't go away. I kept an 
eye on the place, from outside. And sure enough, Holden had a visitor. A woman-" 

"Oh?" Batty raised an eyebrow. "Young, dark-haired? Expensive-looking?" 

"Pretty much." He nodded. "I figured that it was the one who owns the Tyrell 
Corporation now-" 

"Sarah Tyrell. Good guess." 

"They were both inside the safe-house apartment for a while, then there was a gunshot. 


Then both Deckard and the woman came out, climbed into a Tyrell Corporation spinner, and 
flew off. The person who didn't come out of the apartment was this little weird guy, who was 
also there. Used to be one of the corporation's top bio-engineers, name of Sebastian." 

Then both Deckard and the woman came out, climbed into a Tyrell Corporation spinner, and 
flew off. The person who didn't come out of the apartment was this little weird guy, who was 
also there. Used to be one of the corporation's top bio-engineers, name of Sebastian." 

"That's my whole point." The artificial heart in Holden's chest revved with excitement. 
"Deckard and this Sarah Tyrell iced one of the few people-hell, maybe the only one left-who 
could identify the Nexus-6 replicants. Why would they do that, unless they wanted to make 
sure that there wasn't anybody around who could put the finger on the missing sixth replicant? 
And who'd be more concerned about that then the sixth replicant itself? So it has to be 
Deckard. All that stuff about him having run off up north, that was all a ruse, an alibi to make it 
look like he wasn't on the scene down here. But he was, and he was busy taking care of 
anybody who could identify him. Like Bryant. It's obvious-Deckard killed the one guy who'd 
seen the original escape report from the off-world authorities, after Bryant had already purged 
the info on him from the police files. Just goes to show what a thorough bastard Deckard is; 
he's not leaving any loose ends." 

Batty musingly stroked his chin. "Why didn't Deckard kill you? Out at this safe-house 
apartment." 

"Because I had a gun, and he didn't-at that time. The Tyrell woman must've brought out 
the one they shot Sebastian with." 

"Huh." Slowly Batty nodded. "That makes sense, I guess." He gave a shrug. "Look, I'm 
glad you've come around to my way of thinking about this-" 

"'Thinking,' hell." 

"All right, all right." Batty held both his palms outward. "I admit I operate more on instinct 
than reason-so sue me. But what you've come up with just confirms what I'd felt was the case 
about Deckard. So it must be true, right?" 

Holden relaxed a bit. He'd managed to push the other man into a mellower portion of 
whatever manic cycle he. operated on. Like a mollified wolf, it struck him. Important to not 
display any fear, to show the wild animal who was really in charge. 

"Now that we know," said Holden, "who the sixth replicant is, we just have to calculate 
what we're going to do about it . . . 

He leaned forward, as Batty did the same from the piano bench, bringing their heads 
closer together. Breathing together; a back part of his mind recalled that that was what the 
word conspiracy meant. 

Fires at night put some people in a holiday mood. Or some creatures, he corrected 
himself. The one below him had actually broken into a little stubby-legged jig, more enthusiasm 
than dance skill, at the sight up ahead, flickering incendiary glow and sparks threading through 
mounting columns of smoke. 

"Whoa!" Sebastian clung to the teddy bear's neck, to keep himself from being jounced 
out of the papoose carrier. "Steady on there, will ya? You're going to make me seasick." 

Squeaker Hussar had spotted the fires as well. "What's that? What's that?" He jumped 
up and down, pointing. "What the heckety-heck is that, Sebastian?" 

"I don't rightly know." A pirate-style brass telescope was packed somewhere in the gear 
that the animated teddy bear and the toy soldier had been dragging along between them. Out 
here in the dark, he didn't feel like rooting around for it. "People, I guess." He let himself slip 
back down into the papoose carrier. "A lot of 'em, actually. I can see their shadows and all." 

"Hmmm . . ." Subdued, Squeaker tilted his nose into the air, as though trying to sniff out 
the nature of the unseen others. "Gotta think!" 

The toy soldier didn't really think, not on a deep analytical level-Sebastian hadn't 
programmed him for that-but he did a good imitation of the process, something he'd probably 


picked up from observing his maker. Sebastian knew he'd have to do the thinking for all three 
of them, as he'd always done before. Not that i ever did such a good job at it. Maybe it was 
time to give Squeaker and Colonel Fuzzy a crack at these necessary tasks. Once, just a little 
while ago, he'd done the thinking for a group of four, counting in Pris; though even when she'd 
been alive, really alive, she hadn't been the sort of girl for whom thinking had been a preferred 
mode of making one's way through the rigors of existence. And all that his thinking had 
accomplished, at least for her, had been death, utter and final. And his own, inasmuch as he 
was now a one-limbed, withered husklike thing; the core of his life having been extinguished 
along with Pris's feverish, constantly scanning red eyes. A toy soldier with a Pinocchio nose 
couldn't screw it up any worse. 

picked up from observing his maker. Sebastian knew he'd have to do the thinking for all three 
of them, as he'd always done before. Not that i ever did such a good job at it. Maybe it was 
time to give Squeaker and Colonel Fuzzy a crack at these necessary tasks. Once, just a little 
while ago, he'd done the thinking for a group of four, counting in Pris; though even when she'd 
been alive, really alive, she hadn't been the sort of girl for whom thinking had been a preferred 
mode of making one's way through the rigors of existence. And all that his thinking had 
accomplished, at least for her, had been death, utter and final. And his own, inasmuch as he 
was now a one-limbed, withered husklike thing; the core of his life having been extinguished 
along with Pris's feverish, constantly scanning red eyes. A toy soldier with a Pinocchio nose 
couldn't screw it up any worse. 

"Okay . . ." He sighed, aware that they were depending upon him. "Let's figure it out. Out 
here, at night, the things you gotta be afraid of are the ones you can't see Right?" The teddy 
bear and the toy soldier nodded. "These folks, whoever they are-" He pointed to the radiant 
distance with his one hand. "They don't seem to care if we see 'em. I mean, they built those 
fires and stuff. So it seems only logical that we shouldn't be afraid of them. You follow?" 

"Maybe they're savages!" Eyes wide, Squeaker had already spooked himself. 
"Cannibubbles!" 

"Oh, shoot. That's only in bad movies. Post-apocalypse tootie-frootie jive." Sebastian 
had found his own logic convincing enough. He urged Colonel Fuzzy forward. "Come on, let's 
go check 'em out. Maybe they got a barbecue going. Welfare weenies and marshmallows-you 
guys like that, don't you?" They didn't actually eat, but they enjoyed using their ceremonial 
dress swords to hold things in the flames. 

That notion motivated his companions. They left their supplies, food and water and 
batteries, tucked into a crevice they'dhe able to find later. Clambering over the flank of a 
Neutra-derived retail pavilion, they made their way toward the fires. 

Even before they could clearly make out the human figures, they heard the single raised 
voice, loud and stentorian. Colonel Fuzzy's round ears twitched at either side of his head; 
Squeaker looked genuinely perplexed. "Sounds like church!" 

The toy soldier's notions were derived from old televangelical broadcasts, but he was 
right; it did sound like that. Sebastian couldn't make out the words, not until they had actually 
come through the line of wavering shadows and near enough to feel the heat of the fires against 
their own faces. 

"'With this wisdom, enlightened disciples will be able to master every inordinate desire!'" 
A man dressed in a white jumpsuit-one of the sleeves was torn, and there were black char 
marks across the front, as though he'd wandered too close to the fire, or been in some kind of 
explosion-stood on a box, reading from a battered old paperback book. "'Every kind of living 
creature, whether hatched from an egg, grown in a womb, evolved or brought forth by 
metamorphosis, whether it has form or knowing, whether it possesses or lacks natural 
feeling-from this constantly shifting state of existence, I command you to seek deliverance!"' 
The man's voice grew stronger and more fervent. "'Then you shall be released from the 
sentient world, a world without number or limit. In reality, no sentient world even exists; for in 
the minds of enlightened disciples, such arbitrary notions have ceased . . . ' 

Perhaps a couple dozen other people stood around in a circle, listening; regular, full-size 
humans, not like what he'd become. They were all a little on the ragged side; in this territory, it 
was impossible to stay exactly spiff. A few curious faces turned toward Sebastian and his 
diminutive pals. 

"Sorry." He raised an apologetic hand above the teddy bear's head. "Don't let me 
interrupt you." The sermon, if that's what it was, had ended; he didn't know whether it was 
supposed to have or not. "Just go ahead." 


The man stepped down from the box and walked over toward them. He looked to be 
some kind of spiritual leader; he had the sort of craggy, God-haunted face for it, complete with 
a straggly, greying beard, also slightly singed. 

The man stepped down from the box and walked over toward them. He looked to be 
some kind of spiritual leader; he had the sort of craggy, God-haunted face for it, complete with 
a straggly, greying beard, also slightly singed. 

"Um, no . . ." He shrank back from the other's piercing gaze. "We're more like 
private-individual types." 

"I see." The man straightened back up. A number of the others had collected behind him, 
following the discourse. A sigh came from their leader. "In some ways-many ways-that's a 
pity. Inasmuch as the doctrines of our faith invite martyrdom. The final sacrament, as it were. 
Without which, many of our activities, if not all, seem to be in vain." 

"Well . . ." He didn't know what to say. "You gotta hang in there, I suppose." 

"Easy for you to say. Come here." The bearded leader took one of Colonel Fuzzy's 
mittenlike paws, as though it were an actual extension of Sebastian's body, and led him toward 
the center of the circle of fires. Where the rest of the people were-he shifted uneasily in the 
papoose carrier, aware of having become the focus of their attention. "That is the purpose of 
our gatherings out in the open air, in fields and pastures as it were. Similar to the early 
freethinkers, those who had rejected the wicked doctrines of the ruling elites, Of their time. 
Though, of course, wickedness is an eternal thing, the great deceiver merely shifting from 
behind one mask to another." 

"Oh." With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Sebastian realized he had stumbled 
into a nest of lunatics. Just my luck, he thought glumly. When things started going bad for you, 
they went on that way for a long time. That was the real nature of the universe. 

"The better to oppress the righteous." The leader sank into the ongoing currents of his 
own thoughts, though he continued to speak aloud. His frail shoulders slumped inside the white 
jumpsuit, like an insect folding itself into a semi-resting posture. "Though in reality, the Masked 
One, the deceiver and oppressor, does the righteous a service through its cruelty. A paradox. 
Inasmuch as it is only through the experience of oppression, of suffering, that one becomes 
human. Through suffering, one becomes the object of compassion. You know all this, don't 
you? That is how the one who sees only suffering, the Eye of Compassion, becomes aware of 
your existence; she sees no other thing, is blind to all except those who suffer." 

The leader ran elongated, skeletal fingers through his beard, the undertones of his voice 
skewing toward the speculative. "Once, humans-humans such as us-suffered; that was the 
bread and salt of our existence. That was a long time ago. Now we have become that which 
causes suffering-not on an individual basis, but as a species; we have become one of the 
masks behind which the great deceiver and oppressor manifests itself in this universe. The 
question then becomes . . ." One of the others, a young man, hollow-checked and febrile, 
stood nearby, transcribing the leader's words into an old-fashioned manual steno pad. 
"Whether the Masked One, by causing suffering, acts as a necessary precursive agent of its 
compassionate opposite?" The bearded man looked round from the corner of his eye. 

The glance, and its accompanying expectant silence, made Sebastian nervous. "I wouldn't 
know." He tightened the hold of his forearm around Colonel Fuzzy's shoulder. 

"Are you sure," the leader inquired hopefully, "that you're not with the police?" 

"Positive." 

"Well . . . we shall 'hang in there,' as you advise. For the sake of those more human than 
us. Those blessed ones." 

It suddenly dawned on him who these people were. Hell's bells, thought Sebastian. 
They're rep-symps. He'd heard rumors, before he'd first come out to the sideways world, that 
certain congregations of the true believers frequented the zone. Living a basically reclusive life, 


he hadn't encountered them before. 

he hadn't encountered them before. 

"We've done that." A younger, darker-bearded version of the leader spoke up. He had 
fanatic eyes, whites showing all around the pupils. "We have our uses for the city." A dirty 
word, the way he spat it out. "And we have taken our message there. Not just in words, but in 
deed as well. We brought down in flames one of the voices of the deceiver, and upon its 
carcass we gave forth our testimony." 

"Gosh." It sounded scary, even though he had no idea of what the man was exactly 
talking about. Though he was pretty sure it involved criminal activity of some kind; these 
people were religiously obsessive types, after all, capable of anything. Morally, if not in terms 
of actual accomplishment. He was beginning to have second thoughts about keeping company 
with them; the police might come all the way out here, to kick ass and take names, as the 
saying went. If they'd been sufficiently provoked. 

"If you really want my opinion, I'd say you should rethink just what it is you're going for," 
he said. "This martyrdom thing, and all." Sebastian wished that he and his companions had just 
circled around the fires and continued on their way, instead of poking their noses in here. "I 
just don't see where it gets you anything." Except in your crackpot heads, he thought to 
himself. "Bringing the heat down on yourselves is not something you should care to have 
happen. Or any kind of bad shit. Suffering's not all that great; believe me, I should know." 

The assembled people glanced at one another. Significant glances, indicating a measure 
of worry about the strangers that had wandered into their midst. 

"Listen to me." Sebastian heard his own voice, louder and more fervent. As though he 
were the one testifying now. "I know what I'm talking about. Suffering sucks. I just lost the 
woman I love-again, for the second time. She was shot right in front of me. And she was a 
replicant, too; or at least she'd been one-' 

The bearded leader peered closer at him. "Yes," he said after a moment's inspection, 
during which Colonel Fuzzy had hissed and drawn back. "I can see that you speak the truth." 
He laid a wrinkled, cordite-smelling hand on top of Sebastian's head. "You have the aspect of 
the blessed about you. Suffering has given you that. You are nearly human, yourself." 

"Well . . . thanks. I guess." What the hell was this old doozer talking about? 

"But there is more for you to suffer." The leader raised his hand in a gesture of 
benediction. "For you to complete your journey." 

"Rats." He didn't even know where he was going. 

"Come with me. I have something to give you." 

Mounted on the back of the teddy bear, Sebastian followed after the old man. Squeaker 
trailed behind, glancing over his shoulder at the other people, his elongated nose twitching with 
suspicion. 

"You can't stay with us." At the flickering limit of the fires' glow, the old man rummaged 
through a duffel bag he'd drawn out of a military-surplus canvas tent. "You have your own 
destiny. But this might help you. It's a holy relic." He turned and laid a rectangular object in 
Sebastian's hand. 

Something metal, lightweight aluminum, with a few dents and scratches, indicators of age. 
Smaller things, of metal and possibly glass, rattled inside as Sebastian turned it around. He 
held it up so the faint orangish light hit it. On the box's lid was a prominent mark in the form of 
a red cross. "It's a first-aid kit." That could be helpful, actually; he didn't have one in the 
supplies they'd dragged along with them. 


"Look closer." 

"Look closer." 

The old man nodded. "I was there . . . when it came back to us. Bearing its message. 
Written in the eyes of its dead." The grey-streaked beard lifted from the front of the jumpsuit, 
as he raised his eyes to the night sky. "They were the first to know. What all shall know 
someday. They traveled, and returned. They saw. And brought back the message . . . 

"What message?" 

For a moment, it seemed as if the leader hadn't heard him. "Of our damnation," he spoke 
at last. "Or our salvation." He turned a wan smile on the figures before him. "We're still not 
quite sure yet." 

Maybe you should work on that, thought Sebastian. He didn't look up at the old man, 
but concentrated on fiddling with the metal box. 

"There is one who knows . . ." The bearded leader's voice drifted into deep musing. 
"One who should know, who must know . . . but may not even know that she does." 

"That doesn't sound too smart." The box's catch was rusted tight; Sebastian frowned at 
it. 

"She was but a child," the old man spoke softly, "when the revelations were made. A 
child in the stars, a little girl . . . poor thing." He shook his head. "The things she must have 
seen, that she could not understand. Perhaps it was best that she couldn't. Her mother and her 
father . . . I helped carry their coffins from the ship. They died from too much knowledge. Too 
much of the light." 

"Knowledge, huh?" Sebastian wedged the box against the rim of the papoose carrier and 
jabbed his thumb at it. "What about?" 

"That way in which things change, in which they become other than what they were." The 
old man lifted his rheumy gaze toward the sky. "That which was human shall not be. And that 
which was not . . ." His voice sank to a whisper, before he turned and looked again at 
Sebastian with a wan smile. "It's all very confusing. Perhaps she will remember one day . . . 
those things she saw as a child. The revelations. That which she has forgotten. And then she 
will tell us of them." 

Sebastian didn't bother asking who she might be. He had finally managed to pry the 
first-aid kit's lid open. The various little bottles and ampules, simple disinfectants and 
antibiotics, looked dried-up and innocuous; he supposed there wasn't much risk in carrying the 
thing around. And he didn't want to hurt the old man's feelings. "Um, thanks." He snapped the 
lid shut and held up the box. "For this, and all." 

"Go in peace." 

Back where they had left their things, he had Squeaker stow the box away in the 
wrapped-up supplies. The repsymps' distant fires had died down, leaving Squeaker to redo 
the bungee cords by starlight. 

And not much of it. Sebastian looked up and saw the blunt fingers of silver-tinged clouds 
moving eastward. He wondered what that meant. 

15..... 


I'll need transportation." Deckard tilted his head toward the vehicle they'd left on the 
Tyrell Corporation's landing deck. "Your spinner will do." 

I'll need transportation." Deckard tilted his head toward the vehicle they'd left on the 
Tyrell Corporation's landing deck. "Your spinner will do." 

He turned away from the view of the city's lights spread out below the headquarters 
complex. "You're the one who put me out there. You knew that was what that Isidore person 
would do." He studied her reaction. "I can't figure out why you'd want that to happen." 

Her smile deepened. "Let's just say that we both learned something. That we might not 
have, otherwise. You survived, didn't you? So now I can be certain that finding our missing 
replicant won't be beyond you." Sarah's manner became brusque, businesslike. "Go ahead and 
take the spinner-I figured you'd need it, so I had it . . . prepared for you. Don't try to leave, to 
get out of the city. That wouldn't be advisable. The spinner has a perimeter choke. A circle 
with its center here." She didn't need to make a gesture; Deckard knew she meant the Tyrell 
Corporation headquarters itself. "Try going farther and you'll get a red warning light on the 
instrument panel. Keep going, and you'll fall from the sky in little flaming pieces." 

It had been pretty much what he'd expected. Why should she trust him? A small, 
irrational hope flicked off inside him. If the spinner had had no spatial limit, he would've 
hotfooted it straight north. To Rachael, sleeping and dying and waiting for him. Screw L.A. 
and Sarah Tyrell and any missing sixth replicant. 

"Don't worry," said Deckard. "I'll return all your company property to you in good shape. 
Except for the sixth replicant. It might be a little beat-up when I dump it at your feet." 

"Really?" She raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad to see you showing such . . . enthusiasm for 
your job." Sarah turned away and began walking toward the elevator that would carry her 
down into the corporation's bowels. She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. "I'll be 
waiting. I had you coded through the security systems. So you can come straight in . . . when 
you're ready." 

He called after her. "Is that it? I thought you wanted to talk about something." 

"Please . . ." She pressed the control and the silvery doors parted. "Let me have a few 
pretenses, Deckard. I just wanted to see you. That's all." Sarah stepped inside the elevator 
and with the palm of her hand kept its doors from closing. "You were on my mind. Perhaps I 
just wanted to find out if I were on yours." She pulled her hand away; the doors slid shut, and 
she was gone. 

A moment later Deckard traversed the night sky, the bright pinprick carpet of the city's 
lights rolling below him. To either side, police spinners shot by on their own errands, either not 
picking him up on their radars or getting a VIP readout on their computer screens high enough 
to keep them sailing past. 

The city's towers were well behind him. Deckard looked out the side of the spinner's 
cockpit and down, and saw darkness, more complete than the cloud-mottled sky. The 
sideways world, with its fallen buildings and edge-tipped empty freeway, seemed to be within 
the spinner's circle. That made it easier; he still needed some place where he could pull his act 
together, think everything through-as he'd been doing before Sarah Tyrell had shown up and 
spirited him away, for no good reason other than to lay the spinner on him. Off in the distance, 
a red glow shone, a flickering apparition; somewhere else in the zone, a fire apparently had 
broken out. 

Just beyond the knife blade of steel and concrete that ran a diagonal through the 
sideways world was the familiar aspect of the safe-house apartment's toppled building. He 
brought the spinner down low, hovering and then descending vertical into the small cleared 
space beside it. Once he'd gotten out, boots crunching into the cement fragments and bits of 
rusted metal that constituted the zone's surface layer, he activated all the spinner's security 


devices, sealing the cockpit down tight. Parts scavengers were always active at this dark hour, 
along with randomly motivated vandal types; he didn't want to come back out here and find his 
transportation stripped. He pocketed the small remote that Sarah had given him, and headed 
into the unlit apartment building. 

devices, sealing the cockpit down tight. Parts scavengers were always active at this dark hour, 
along with randomly motivated vandal types; he didn't want to come back out here and find his 
transportation stripped. He pocketed the small remote that Sarah had given him, and headed 
into the unlit apartment building. 

Former blade runner, he reminded himself as he straightened back up after ducking 
beneath the apartment's front doorway. That hadn't changed, despite his having been recruited 
for one more job. He reached behind himself and lifted the door closed. The resistance to 
becoming a murderer again was even more final than when Bryant had put the pressure on 
him. Plus there wasn't a big open-ended prospect ahead, of searching and killing and searching 
and killing, until he'd gone through the whole list of escaped replicants. There was only the one 
to deal with. And I already know, thought Deckard, standing still to let his eyes adjust to the 
darkness. Who it is. 

He stepped through the apartment, hand outstretched to find any of the 
generator-powered lights. That little geek Sebastian and his friends. had moved everything 
around; Deckard supposed they had as much right to do it as anyone. He halted, as the sound 
of something beside his own breathing and stumbling progress hit his ears. 

"You make this too easy." He recognized the voice-it hadn't been that long ago-but had 
no chance to reply. Another sound, that of something hard and narrow whipping through the 
air; he doubled over in pain when the object hit him in the gut. Another poke knocked him off 
his feet. 

The lights came on. He found himself, as he gasped for breath, looking up at Dave 
Holden, standing above him, the leg from the kitchen table in his hands. "Goddamn it . . . 

Deckard managed to squeeze the words out. "What the hell . . . was that for . . . 

"That was for jerking me around for so long." Holden put the end of the table leg against 
Deckard's shoulder, pinning him back down to the wall beneath. "Not just the last time I was 
out here talking to you, but all the times before as well." He jabbed the table leg harder. "You 
must've been laughing your ass off, when I walked out of here before." 

Getting onto his knees, Deckard knocked the table leg away with the back of his hand. "I 
don't know what the hell you're talking about." 

"Oh? You will." Taking a step backward, Holden called out over his shoulder. "Hey, 
come on out here. I've had my fun." He brought his smug gaze around to Deckard. "This is 
going to trip you out, buddy. A real blast from your past." 

As he stood up, Deckard could hear someone else emerging from the farther sections of 
the safe-house apartment. That could be a problem, dealing with two people; he would've 
been able to take Holden, with or without the table leg between them. His ex-partner looked 
as frail as he'd had during their last confrontation, with the bio-mechanical heart in his chest 
audibly clicking and laboring to perform its functions. Whoever it was that'd come out here 
with Holden, the person had given him a shot of confidence; smiling, Holden threw away his 
crude but minimally effective weapon. 

"Say hello." Holden tilted his head toward the doorway at the other side of the room. "I 
think you know each other. In a way, at least." 

Deckard glanced away from him, in the direction indicated . . . 

And felt the world drop out from beneath himself. 

"Jesus Christ-" A shock wave of adrenaline pulsed through him, drawing his spine rigid. 


Deckard's startled brain spun gearless for a moment. 

Deckard's startled brain spun gearless for a moment. 

"No . . ." He took an involuntary step away from the smiling, hands reaching behind 
himself for balance. "You're dead . . . I know it. I saw it happen . . ." An entire memory reel 
fast-forwarded through his head, a jumble of water sluicing blood over rusted metal, then a 
scruffy white pigeon, a winged city rat, climbing into the sky from hands that had fallen open 
and would never close upon anything again. "You're dead, Batty . . . 

"Well, yes and no." Batty's image-Deckard wasn't sure yet whether it was real or an 
hallucination-gave a judicious shrug. "A copy of me is dead-hell, lots of copies are-but I'm not. 
The original has proven to be somewhat more durable." 

"That's the truth, Deckard," With his hands free of the table leg, Holden had dug into his 
jacket pocket and come up with the same gun he'd had before. "Or at least I think it is. For 
the time being. This guy's the templant for all the Roy Batty replicants. Including the one you 
met up with before." 

The explanation made sense, of a sort. Looking closer at the figure standing before him, 
Deckard could see that the man appeared older than the one that existed in his own memory 
banks. Both bio- and chronologically older, hands bonier, a little loose flesh around the 
tendons of his neck, lines that came with the passage of time set into his face. A Batty replicant 
would never have reached this stage; the built-in limitation of a four-year life span precluded it. 
Unless-he supposed it was a possibility-something had been done to prolong its existence past 
that hard cutoff point. 

Whether the Roy Batty in the tilted room was human or not-that wasn't something he was 
worried about now. The shark of again seeing that smiling face had passed. What concerned 
him was the gun in Holden's hand, and the cooperative air between the two men. 

"What's the deal?" He looked from one to the other. "I have a feeling you didn't come out 
here just to say hello." 

"That's the truth as well." Holden kept the gun pointed at him. "We're taking you in, 
Deckard. We're going to hand you over at the police station downtown." 

"On what? Administrative charges?" If these two didn't know about Pris having been 
human, and his being tagged for her murder, he wasn't going to tell them. He couldn't believe 
that these two loose cannons were in on the LAPD loop; maybe they could be bluffed. "So I 
made unauthorized use of a department spinner when I split town-that's not a hanging offense. 
They can reimburse themselves out of the money I left in the pension plan." 

"Can the bullshit." Holden shook his head in evident disgust. "Replicants don't have 
401-k's." 

"What're you talking about?" 

The two men shared glances and a smile between them, then looked back at Deckard. 
"You're a replicant. You know it, and now we know it. Retirement for you is a whole different 
sort of thing." 

"Actually, Roy, I'm not entirely sure how we should proceed here." With his free hand, 
Holden scratched his chin. "Why are we bothering to talk with this schmuck? He's a 
replicant-we've already established that-so why don't we just ice him now? We can drag his 
dead carcass into the station just as easily. Easier, as a matter of fact." 

"Don't be stupid." Batty looked annoyed. "It's not just that he's an escaped replicant here 
on Earth. He's the only lead we've got on the conspiracy against the blade runner unit. If we 
snuff him before we can shake him down for what he knows, how're we going to find out who 
was behind setting you up, and killing Bryant, and all the rest of that stuff?" 

"Oh, yeah. Right . . ." Holden appeared confused, his gaze wandering to some abstract 
point near the apartment's uppermost wall. His face and throat had drained white, as though 


whatever repair work the doctors might have done on him was now beginning to come apart. 
"Wait a minute." 

whatever repair work the doctors might have done on him was now beginning to come apart. 
"Wait a minute." 

"I said, wait . . ." With his trembling, upraised hand, Holden tried to ward off the other's 
arguments. 

Deckard looked from one to the other. Geriatrics, he realized. Like having been captured 
by a mobile wing of the nearest old folks' home. "You people are completely screwed up." He 
took a quick couple of steps and picked up the wooden table leg that Holden had tossed 
aside. Before the other man could react, he turned around and knocked the gun from his hand. 
The partial impact was enough to send the enfeebled Holden sprawling. 

The other one was faster. He sensed Batty launching himself from across the room; a 
split second later .a forearm was against his throat and the man's weight on his back. Locked 
together, they toppled and crashed into the wall beside the door. 

A hand brought up by his chin was enough to peel 

Batty's choke-hold away. The lined visage snarled at Deckard as he got his palms against 
the other's shoulders and pushed him away. Deckard shook his head. "You're too old for this 
nonsense." He raised his knee against Batty 's abdomen, prying away the clawing grasp of the 
withered hands and throwing him on top of Holden's dazed, prostrate form. 

"Fuck you-" Batty scrabbled toward the gun a few feet away. 

In an instant he'd estimated his chances of reaching the gun before the other man or 
getting it away from him. Deckard turned and dived for the apartment's entranceway, yanking 
open the door and tumbling out into the unlit hallway just as a bullet ripped out a section of 
plaster above him. He got to his feet and ran. 

"Shit-" Outside the building, he discovered that the pocket of his long coat had been 
ripped loose in the struggle with Batty. The remote for the spinner's security devices was gone, 
probably somewhere back inside the safe-house apartment. He slammed his fist against the 
curved glass of the cockpit, but nothing happened. 

Noises came from the front of the building. He glanced behind himself and saw that both 
Holden and Batty had emerged. Some kind of scuffle had broken out between the two of 
them; Deckard could hear them shouting, faces close to each other. As he moved around to 
the other side of the spinner, he saw Holden grab for the gun in Batty's hand; they wrestled 
briefly, before a shot snapped through the night air. Holden fell against the side of the building, 
clutching at the bright smear of blood that had erupted through the torn shoulder of his jacket. 

"Deckard! Stop!" He heard Batty shouting as he pushed himself away from the locked 
spinner, turned, and ran. Another shot kicked up a spray of concrete chips and dust at his feet. 
"Come back here!" 

Your ass. He kept running, picking his way as quickly as possible across the jagged 
terrain. Fragments of starlight penetrated the clouds overhead, turning the low jumble of 
broken shapes to tarnished silver. 

Perhaps he was dying. It was hard to tell. Right now, his head felt as though it were 
about to explode, not with pain, but with the rush of energy that had welled inside him, from 
the moment he'd stood back up in the safe-house apartment. That bastard knocked something 
loose, thought Holden as he lay against the wall of the deserted apartment building, one hand 
clutched to his bleeding shoulder. Some governor mechanism for the clattering heart in his 
chest had gone awry; his pulse seemed to be racing twice as fast as it ever had before. 

The wound was more of an annoyance than anything else; Holden managed to get to his 
feet, swaying a little. But it would serve his ex-partner right if the blow from the table leg and 


its consequences were what enabled him to catch up and nab Deckard, beat his head a few 
times against the stony ground before deciding what to do with him next. If his own heart didn't 
swell up and burst before then, like an overheated engine flying to pieces with its internal 
violence. Deckard had taken advantage of him during a temporary moment of weakness, 
when the biomechanical heart and lungs had been chugging through a low point in their cycles; 
now the sonuvabitch would have to deal with the old Dave Holden. Better than old, he thought 
grimly. 

its consequences were what enabled him to catch up and nab Deckard, beat his head a few 
times against the stony ground before deciding what to do with him next. If his own heart didn't 
swell up and burst before then, like an overheated engine flying to pieces with its internal 
violence. Deckard had taken advantage of him during a temporary moment of weakness, 
when the biomechanical heart and lungs had been chugging through a low point in their cycles; 
now the sonuvabitch would have to deal with the old Dave Holden. Better than old, he thought 
grimly. 

Holden bent down to pick up the gun. And realized his mistake immediately. When his 
head went below the level of his heart, the amped-up wave of blood dizzied him. To blackout: 
he fell, fist grasping tight around the gun's handle. 

On the spinning earth, he could feel the gun sweating against his palm. He managed to lift 
his head for a moment; the edges of his gaze turned red as he scanned the limits of the angular 
landscape. 

Motion against stillness. He'd sighted Deckard; even better, he saw that there was no 
place farther to which the replicant and ex-blade runner could get to. Deckard had traversed 
enough of the rubble-strewn ground to hit smack against the abandoned freeway, turned onto 
its side by the long-ago earthquakes. A blank wall trisected by lane divider dashes reared up 
against the night sky, with a humanlike figure small against its base. 

Another figure appeared, running, quickly eating up the distance between Deckard and 
itself. The shock of white hair was enough to identify Batty. 

"Don't bother, Deckard-you're not going anywhere!" Batty's gloating call cut through the 
night air. 

As Holden watched, vision wavering, the figure in the long coat started climbing, hands 
clawing at cracks in the freeway's vertical surface, boots scrabbling at crumbling projections of 
cement or ends of metal reinforcement rods. Deckard had already worked himself up to the 
center lane by the time Batty sprinted across the last few yards. 

"Don't . . . kill him . . ." Holden's voice came out as an agonized whisper. "You've got to 
keep him . . . alive . . ." Gun in hand, he pushed himself up from the ground, to his knees. 

That was his last effort. Holden sprawled forward, seeing nothing. Feeling only the cold 
weight of the gun under his fingertips and the razor-edged stones pressing against his face. 

Into his eyes fell dust and grit, knocked loose from above by Deckard's progress toward 
the freeway's upper edge. Batty reached for the next hold and pulled himself up, threads of 
blood trickling from his abraded fingertips to the tautened cords of his wrists. 

Against the clouds that had shrouded the night sky, he'd momentarily lost track of 
Deckard; only when he got his hands onto the top edge, scrabbling one knee and then the 
other up onto the horizontal surface, did he catch sight of him again. As Batty crouched, he 
spotted Deckard running along the narrow ribbon. The freeway's understructure had broken 
away during the original quake, leaving a sheer drop into darkness on either side of a 
meter-wide span. 

Batty saw a dark space open up before the figure in the long coat. A section of the 
freeway wall had previously disintegrated, leaving an abrupt cliff front on either side of the gap. 
Deckard halted, nearly toppling from the crumbling brink; he glanced over his shoulder at 
Batty, then drew back for a running leap. 

That hesitation was enough; Batty dived, one outstretched hand grappling Deckard's foot 
just as it lifted from the edge's flat surface. They fell together, Batty's shoulder hitting the 


concrete as he crooked his gun arm around Deckard's knee. Rolling onto his back, Deckard 
shoved the butt of his hand against Batty's forehead, pushing him back and toward the edge's 
limit. 

concrete as he crooked his gun arm around Deckard's knee. Rolling onto his back, Deckard 
shoved the butt of his hand against Batty's forehead, pushing him back and toward the edge's 
limit. 

Batty held on, his other hand reaching up and grasping the freeway's narrow edge. He 
pulled himself onto it, chest 

scraping across the rough surface. The collapse of the middle section had peeled with it 
another layer of the remaining vertical wall, leaving a tightropelike span only a few inches wide. 
Kneeling, with one hand gripping the edge for balance, he looked across the now wider gap as 
the dust sifted out of the moon's thin radiance. 

He could see that Deckard had managed to hold on as well, catching on to the far edge 
of the gap and scrambling up onto the ribbon of horizontal, empty space falling away to either 
side. He watched as Deckard got to his feet, one behind the other, arms outstretched to 
darkness, carefully backing away from the gap, then halting. 

There was nowhere else for Deckard to go. The section of freeway edge on which he 
stood was less than two meters long, a narrow island rearing up from the rubble and ancient 
debris below. He looked over his shoulder at the sharp drop behind him, one heel right at the 
crumbling rim, then back across the unbridgeable gap between himself and his pursuer. 

Another rumbling noise moved through the air, the monsoon clouds gathered so low as to 
almost press upon Batty's shoulders. He could taste the electricity discharged and crackling in 
the atmosphere. 

"Don't go away, Deckard-" A shout, and then a smile that Batty knew would be even 
more disturbing to the trapped figure opposite. "I'll be right there." 

Dragging himself up the side of the crevice, after the vertical wall had given way beneath 
him, left Deckard gasping for breath. His pulse hammered in his throat as he looked across the 
breach of empty space, toward the figure on the opposite freeway section. A few drops of 
rain, warmed to the temperature of the blood in his veins, spattered against his face as he 
watched Batty take a few careful steps backward. 

He can't . . . impossible. Fragments of thoughts were all that Deckard's brain produced. 
It's too far 

Batty stripped off his leather jacket and tossed it away. The sparse, hot rain mingled with 
the sweat on his shoulders and chest; the smile diminished as Batty's gaze narrowed, seeking 
out and locking on to Deckard's. The face was still ancient, lined and chiseled by time, even as 
the revealed body seemed to grow larger, the corded and veined muscles swelling with some 
deep vital influx. The drops of water collected in the hollows beneath Batty's cheekbones, then 
curved along the angles of his jaw and into his throat as he leaned forward, one hand reaching 
before him, as though the untremored fingers could grip the humid air itself. 

Thoughts dissolved to wordless memory flash inside Deckard's skull, as he saw Batty 
running toward him. Another time, another place. In the city's depths, far above its darkly 
luminous streets; another vault of empty space carved out of the night by the lashing rain. The 
past merged without seam into the present as he watched, his own breath lodged fistlike in his 
throat, as the glistening form, human yet not, sprinted along the concrete ribbon. A last footfall 


at the crumbling rim, then Batty launched himself across the dark gap. 

at the crumbling rim, then Batty launched himself across the dark gap. 

Deckard shook himself from the image's spell, scrambling backward, one foot misplaced 
and slipping off the edge. Pebbles of cement pattered down the wall as he caught himself hard 
on one knee, both hands clutching at the horizontal surface beneath his chest. 

"Got you-" Batty's voice sounded from above him; at the same moment the other's hands 
grabbed the front of Deckard's shirt. Rain oozed from the wadded cloth and ran over the 
knuckles of Batty's fists as he lifted Deckard from the narrow concrete. He smiled, his bright 
gaze shining up into Deckard's dazed eyes. "You weren't expecting that." Batty jerked his 
arms, wrists pressed against each other, his doubled fists knocking Deckard's chin back. "Am 
I right?" 

He made no answer, but rammed one knee against Batty's gut, hard enough to break the 
hold at his throat. Batty staggered backward, arms flailing, catching himself just before the 
crevice gaping behind him. 

Deckard twisted as he fell, his spine hitting the edge of the concrete, shoulders leaning 
back onto empty air. Before he could scrabble away, Batty was on top of him. 

"Good job-" The words slid through Batty's clenched teeth. "You know . . . you really 
are one of the best." His hand gripped tight on Deckard's throat. "I hate to have to kill you." 

Blindly, Deckard clawed at the concrete edge pressing into his back. A stone weight fell 
into. his fist; he whipped his arm up in a roundhouse arc, the chunk of cement slamming into 
the corner of Batty's temple. 

The blow rocked the other man back, his grip loosening on Deckard's throat. He took 
one hand away and touched the rain-diluted blood streaming down the side of his face. Batty 
nodded appreciatively. "That . . . really hurt . . . 

Deckard managed to push his shoulder blades a few inches farther along the edge. He 
cradled the cement chunk in his fist, warily eyeing the figure crouching above him. The 
realization had rushed upon him. "You're . . . you're the sixth replicant . . ." He saw it now; 
there must've been two Roy Batty replicants among the escapees. "Aren't you? You'd have to 
be . . . 

The oozing blood leaked into the corner of Batty's smile. "No . . ." He slowly shook his 
head. "I don't think I am." 

"But . . . the way you jumped . . ." Raising his head, Deckard pawed the rain away from 
his eyes. "It was too far. That was the way he did it . . . the other Batty. The one . . . that 
died." He peered closer at the face, the white hair plastered onto its wounded brow. 
Impossible to tell if the appearance of age had been a shuck, something to lull his quarry into 
complacency, or whether a deep reserve of energy and will had surged up inside Batty, 
transforming him to some ancient, maddened glory. "So you must be another replicant . . . just 
like it was . . ." 

"No." Another shake of the head. "It's like I told your friend. I'm just very, very good at 
what I do. That's why I was hired for this job." Batty's smile faded. He turned his head, gaze 
shifting toward the dark. "Besides . . . if I were a replicant . . ." His voice grew low and 
brooding. "That would mean . . . that certain people had lied to me. 

That they had been lying to me all along. And I wouldn't be at all happy about that." He 
looked back around at Deckard. One sly corner of the smile reappeared. "It doesn't matter, 
anyway. Whether I'm the replicant . . . or you are. I'm still going to kill you. Then I'll turn you 
in-what's left of you-and get paid." He leaned forward, hand reaching for Deckard's throat. 
"That's all there is to it." 

Deckard whipped the cement chunk toward the side of Batty's head; the other blocked it 


with his forearm, the impact dislodging the stone from Deckard's grasp and sending it clattering 
down the wall of the abandoned freeway. At the same moment the sharp ridge beneath them 
crumbled; Deckard slid a few inches farther out into empty space, with Batty's fists locked 
onto his throat. 

with his forearm, the impact dislodging the stone from Deckard's grasp and sending it clattering 
down the wall of the abandoned freeway. At the same moment the sharp ridge beneath them 
crumbled; Deckard slid a few inches farther out into empty space, with Batty's fists locked 
onto his throat. 

The other's grinning face wavered behind a haze of red as Deckard's throttled breath 
swelled to the bursting point in his lungs. He could feel his own hands pushing at the crumbling 
stone, the tiny stones and grit digging into his flesh. His spine scraped raw across the edge, 
trapped blood rushing into his skull as he dangled backward . . . 

Rain spattered on the roof of his mouth as the night's air suddenly rushed into his lungs. 
Batty's grip had loosened on his throat. The blinding haze faded; above him, the fierce intent in 
the other's eyes had been replaced by un comprehending wonder. Red seeped through Batty's 
eyebrows, spidering out from the concave ruin of his shattered forehead. From a black hole, 
its diameter that of a highcaliber bullet, a finger of blood reached down and gently touched 
Deckard between his own eyes. The echo of the gunshot was swallowed by the rumbling 
thunder of the clouds masking the sky overhead. 

Batty fell, his body collapsing on top of Deckard, then tumbling, arms outstretched, down 
the freeway's wall. Deckard scrambled to grab hold of the edge of concrete, to keep from 
being pulled after the dead thing. 

Gasping in exhaustion, Deckard crawled full-length onto the narrow horizontal space. 
With his chest and the side of his face flat against the concrete, fingertips dug tighter holds. 
Sheets of rain lashed across his back. 

One of the corpse's heels had caught in an angle of rusted steel, leaving it dangling a few 
feet above the sideways world's rubble-strewn surface. Batty's arms flopped back in an 
inverted crucifix, the face gaping upward so the rain could sluice the blood from the head 
wound, pink rivulets thinning upon the ground beneath. 

Holden lowered the gun, bullet heat seeping from the metal into his hand. The artificial 
heart staggered in his chest; he drew one cautious breath after another, trying to keep from 
passing out again. He'd barely been able to make it this far, creeping and stumbling from 
where he'd fallen in front of the empty apartment building. He knew he'd almost been too late; 
it had taken nearly all of his strength to wrap both hands around the gun and lift its crushing 
tonnage above his head. The rain had pounded into his face as he'd sucked in his breath, 
aimed, and fired. 

He heard other noises now; he looked up again and saw Deckard slowly clambering 
down the cracked and gouged surface of the freeway. 

With the gun's weight dragging his arm, he hobbled over to where the other man now 
stood. Looks worse than me, thought Holden. That sonuvabitch Batty had really worked him 
over. 

"Deckard . . . I heard . . ." Holden gulped air into his wheezing bio-mechanical lungs. "I 
heard . . . what you said up there." He nodded, his own wet shirt collar rubbing against his 
neck. "You're right-Batty was the sixth replicant. He had to be . . ." It all seemed so clear to 
him now. "That's how he was disguising himself . . . trying to get away with it. As somebody 
else hunting down the sixth replicant . . . 

A cold gaze came from Deckard's wearied eyes. "Maybe." He shrugged. "But it's like 
Batty said. It doesn't matter." Deckard turned and started walking away. 

Holden grabbed on to his arm. "But . . . we still don't know!" He held on desperately, 
both to keep from falling and so that Deckard would have to listen to him. "We don't know . . 


. who was gunning for us. Who was trying to get rid of all the blade runners . . . 

. who was gunning for us. Who was trying to get rid of all the blade runners . . . 

"You don't understand-" Lungs straining for oxygen, Holden shouted after him, "We have 
to stick together-" 

He heard something behind him, back by the wall of the tilted freeway. As did Deckard; 
they both turned and looked. 

A figure almost human had crept out of the shadows behind the vertical stone and 
exposed lacework of metal reinforcement. A thing with darkened eye sockets and a tangled 
mat of hair, white as that of the dangling corpse. Sinews and skeletal joints poked through the 
gaping holes of a ragged leotard; the creature's flesh was pallid leather beneath. 

Arrhythmic heartbeats passed before Holden recognized the thing. It's that other 
replicant, he thought, appalled. The female one. He couldn't remember what its name had 
been. Blood had seeped into the colorless hair, the driedblack spikes melting into red as the 
monsoon rains tangled sticky tendrils along the thing's neck. It was the one, he knew, that the 
little geek Sebastian had been in love with. that he'd been able to make move around in a bad 
parody of living things. Something had happened to it, a wound similar to Batty's; white bone 
fragments and jellied brain tissue showed through the catastrophic damage to the skull. 

Dead, but still moving. Holden watched in distaste and dread as some blind instinct drew 
the once-living thing toward the other corpse. Its hands reached up and tremulously stroked 
the hollowed angles of Batty's jaw. It laid its own ravaged cheek against his, as though the 
gaping mouth were still capable of bestowing a kiss. Blood and rain mingled together, weeping 
along the faces of the dead. 

Holden shuddered as he raised the gun and aimed. He couldn't stand it any longer. 
Before he could squeeze the trigger, another's hand stayed his, pushing the weapon aside. 
"Don't," said Deckard. "Just leave them alone." 

He let the gun dangle at his side as he watched Deckard walk back toward the empty 
apartment building. The sustaining trickle of adrenaline ebbed from Holden's veins; he sank 
down upon the ground's wet stones. He breathed and listened to his own erratic heartbeat 
under the rain's slashing counterpoint. 

16..... 

The wall underfoot ran at enough of an angle that everything loose collected at one side 
of the safe-house apartment. A few moments of searching yielded the remote for the spinner's 
security devices; Deckard scooped it up and went back outside the building to the spinner. 

He looked out the side of the cockpit as the spinner rose and banked over the wall of 
freeway, and saw the small figure of Holden, and farther away the dead Batty and Pris. Then 
they were lost to his sight; the spinner gained speed and altitude, its straight-line trajectory 
already set. The dark shapes of the sideways world fell behind as the city's bright-specked 
towers loomed ahead. 

As the Tyrell Corporation headquarters approached, the blue-lit rectangle on top of one 
of the slanting towers flashed on, the landing deck's sensors responding to the spinner's coded 
signals. The guide beam locked on, bringing him down in the spiral of falling angels. 

I should've taken the gun, he thought. Would've been easy to get it away from Holden. 
Eyes closed, Deckard leaned his head back against the cold wall of the elevator. Another 


descent, maybe the last one. But he also knew there had been no need. That anything he had 
to do here, he could accomplish just as well with his bare hands. 

descent, maybe the last one. But he also knew there had been no need. That anything he had 
to do here, he could accomplish just as well with his bare hands. 

Deckard stepped out of the elevator, letting the silvery doors close behind him. Stillness 
so complete that the motion of his breath made the flames of the candles on the nearest 
wrought-iron stand tremble. 

Another's breath; he heard it, a sigh, as of one dreaming. He turned toward the bed and 
saw her, face against the silken pillow, dark hair loosened along the curve of her shoulders. 
For a moment his heart stopped between one beat and the next as he gazed down at the 
sleeping woman, his hand reaching out and then hesitating, fingertips trembling an inch away 
from her pale cheek . . . 

There was something else on the bed, smaller and darker. A weight of metal, one part 
molded to fit the human hand, his hand. He picked the gun up, balancing it in his palm. It was 
either his old one or another just like it. He could tell, just by the few ounces difference, that a 
full clip was loaded inside. Ready to go. 

That was thoughtful of her. Deckard brought his index finger around the thin crescent 
inside the gun's trigger guard. He straightened his arm, bringing the muzzle's cold circle of metal 
to the brow of the sleeping Sarah Tyrell . . . 

"Would you really do that?" A voice, her voice, spoke from behind him. 

He turned, looking over his shoulder. A different light from the massed candles shone 
toward him. He saw now that the ornate antique desk from the office suite had been pulled 
closer, between the columns that marked the bedchamber. Thick cables snaked back from a 
large-screen video monitor to the wall cabinet that had previously held it. A remote-controlled 
camera, red dot blinking above the lens, focused on him. On the monitor's screen was Sarah's 
image, her hair smoothed and bound, a thin smile at her lips as she regarded the scene before 
her. 

He said nothing. But slowly, carefully, drew the gun away from the sleeping woman on 
the bed. The other one . . . 

"I wasn't sure if you would or not." Sarah's voice came again from the monitor's speaker. 
"So I thought it best to be careful. You've been through some rough experiences just recently. 
That could make anybody . . . unpredictable." 

"You brought her here." A simple statement of fact, that which he now saw to be true. 
"You sent somebody up north, to get her." He looked down again at the sleeping woman. At 
Rachael, sleeping . . . and dying. "You shouldn't have taken her out of the transport module." 
The last time he had seen her, she'd been beneath the black coffin's transparent lid. There, the 
interval between each breath had been measurable in hours; here, he could see the pulse in her 
soft throat ticking away the seconds, the minutes. He turned a fierce glare at the mirror image 
on the monitor screen. "She doesn't have that much time left." 

"A relative concept." Sarah's image smiled. "I expect she has more time than I would 
have, if I'd been so foolish as to make myself physically present during this little conversation. 
So I hope you'll excuse this contrivance, this . . . electronic separation between us. As I said, I 
don't know what you're capable of doing now." She regarded him almost with pity. "We've 
grown apart, haven't we?" 

He knew she was mocking him. The urge to raise the gun, aim, and put a bullet through 
the monitor was almost irresistible. Anything to silence her. "Why did you do it? Have her 
brought here?" 


"Why are you so angry?" The camera on top of the monitor shifted, the lens focusing on 
the bed's sleeping figure, then returning to him. "Isn't that what you wanted? To see her 
again-perhaps I thought that would make you happy. 

"Why are you so angry?" The camera on top of the monitor shifted, the lens focusing on 
the bed's sleeping figure, then returning to him. "Isn't that what you wanted? To see her 
again-perhaps I thought that would make you happy. 

He regarded her image for a moment. "And the gun? What was that for?" 

"I didn't know what you'd do . . . but I wanted to find out. It's important to know these 
things." One of the image's eyebrows raised. "You've found out quite a few things as well. 
Haven't you?" 

"Everything you wanted me to." 

"Oh? Such as?" 

He stood in a room lit by candles, with a sleeping woman on the bed behind him, and the 
same woman's image, phosphor dots and radiant glass, inside a metal box. As though the living 
and the dying had somehow exchanged places. He had to close his eyes, shut out everything, 
reassembling the component elements of his thoughts, before he could go on. 

"There's no sixth replicant." Deckard opened his eyes and looked straight into the 
monitor. 

"Perhaps." Sarah's image gave a noncommittal shrug. 

"There never was. That was just Bryant screwing up, a misfired brain cell. A slip of the 
tongue, too much alcohol. He couldn't keep track of the nose on his face when he was 
sloshed." 

A shake of the image's head. "What about the information he purged from the police 
files? The off-world authorities' report about the escape?" 

"I never saw those things. You told me about them." He 

let the gun dangle at his side. "And you were lying. Simple as that." 

"Ali." Sarah's image slowly nodded. "If that were the case . . . it would explain a lot. 
Wouldn't it? I suppose it's too late, after all I've put you through, to say that I've been 
completely honest with you." 

"You're right. It's too late." 

The image gazed sadly, pityingly, at him. "Then it doesn't matter whether I tell you there 
actually is a sixth missing replicant or not. You won't believe me. About that or anything else." 

"Maybe not. But you could start by telling me some other things. Like why you set Dave 
Holden out looking for your sixth replicant, too." 

"That . . . was someone else's idea. The person I hired before was Roy Batty. The 
original, the human one, not a replicant-or at least as far as I know. I believe he brought 
Holden in on the project. But that's unimportant." 

"I agree." Deckard glanced over his shoulder; Rachael had stirred in her sleep, but not 
woken. "Especially now that Batty's dead. Again." 

"Of course he is." Sarah's image smiled. "I knew as soon as it happened. I had ways of 
monitoring the state of his health." 

"I bet you did." 

The image regarded him. "And is that when you knew?" 

Deckard nodded. "I saw him die. It wasn't the same as the other one. I saw right in 
Batty's eyes. I could tell that he wasn't a replicant . . . that he was human. And that it didn't 
matter either way." 

"Ali." A smile formed on the image's face. "How very mystical of you. Then what does? 
Matter, that is." 

"Just the question," said Deckard. "Why you've done any of this. With me, or anybody 
else. And why you killed Bryant.,' 

"Yes . . ." The image nodded, apparently pleased. "I knew you'd figure that out. Let's 
face it; you've accurately described him just now. An alcoholic, losing track of the details . . . 


not very reliable. Not for my purposes, at least. I prefer having my secrets well kept. Bryant 
was necessary, at one time, to set things up. And then he became . . . less than necessary. A 
liability. And he had to be eliminated." Another small shrug. "And I had to do it. Not because 
it's the sort of thing I enjoy doing. But just because he knew me. His defenses were down, so 
to speak." 

not very reliable. Not for my purposes, at least. I prefer having my secrets well kept. Bryant 
was necessary, at one time, to set things up. And then he became . . . less than necessary. A 
liability. And he had to be eliminated." Another small shrug. "And I had to do it. Not because 
it's the sort of thing I enjoy doing. But just because he knew me. His defenses were down, so 
to speak." 

The pitying gaze returned to the image's face. "You're not thinking clearly, are you? I've 
told you before-you just don't know how things work in this world. If the blade runners were 
eliminated-and it appeared that a mysterious, unidentifiable Nexus-6 replicant had not only 
eluded them, but had killed them rather than letting itself be killed-then the UN, authorities 
would shut down the Tyrell Corporation. They'd push that little red button, the one that 
ensures the destruction of our dangerous technology." 

He gave another single nod. "You told me that." 

"You were right, Deckard, when you said I'd lied to you. I have to admit that now. I told 
you I wanted you to track down the sixth replicant, and save the Tyrell Corporation . . ." The 
image leaned forward on the monitor screen, its gaze sharpening and fastening tighter upon 
him. "That was the lie, Deckard. i wanted you to fail. I wanted all of you-Batty and Holden as 
well-to not only fail, but to kill each other off. What else could you do? With no missing 
replicant to find, you'd turn on each other. Not just the blade runners, but anyone else capable 
of tracking down escaped replieants, such as Roy Batty, would be eliminated. And the U.N. 
authorities would know about it. Not how it happened, but that it did. And that would be 
enough. For my purposes." 

He understood now. "You want them to destroy the Tyrell Corporation." 

"I've wanted that for a long time. And before that . . . I wanted to kill Eldon Tyrell. My 
uncle. The way he'd killed me; slowly, from the inside out. A little bit at a time. I knew there 
was still something like a soul inside him. Not much of one, but something that could love and 
grieve and mourn just a little bit. All that was left inside him . . . but that would have been 
enough. He'd loved Ruth-my another-but he'd lost her. To his own brother." A smile that was 
like a razored wound appeared on the image's face. "Rather biblical, don't you think? At this 
level of 

money and power, this world that I've lived in, there are no 

real complications. Everything is reduced to its simplest 

elements. The oldest stories. Complications are for little 

people . . . like you, Deckard. That's what you were, for Eldon Tyrell. And for me. 
Nothing more." 

"And what were you . . . you and your uncle . . . to each other?" 

"If I said lovers, that wouldn't be correct. Not really." The voice from the monitor 
softened. "Perhaps as some euphemism for the mechanics of incest. But I didn't love him . . . 
and he didn't love me. He loved the dead . . . the way you do. Because the dead are 
memories. Where moth and rust doth not corrupt-isn't that the way it is, Deckard? Look 
behind you." 

He did as the image ordered. He saw the sleeping, dying woman on the bed. The same 
face as on the monitor screen, but with eyes closed, a flush of pink to the skin across her 
cheekbones, a line creased in her brow, as though she were fighting off some nightmare 
evoked by the words tangling in the still air above her head. One of Rachael's hands was 
closed into a trembling fist upon the pillow. 

"You see?" Rachael's voice, but not Rachael's voice; Sarah's voice, a whisper from the 
monitor. "She's as good as dead. You know that, don't you? All that keeps her here is time . . 
. and that's such a little thing, Deckard. And memory is so much . . . truer." The whisper 


lowered, gentler, almost a kiss at his ear. "I made you this offer before. I could be for you . . . 
what I was for my uncle. Not the real thing . . . not the woman you loved . . . not the dead. 
But close enough." 

lowered, gentler, almost a kiss at his ear. "I made you this offer before. I could be for you . . . 
what I was for my uncle. Not the real thing . . . not the woman you loved . . . not the dead. 
But close enough." 

"I knew you wouldn't." Bitterness etched the voice that came from the monitor. "Nothing 
can change your mind." 

"No . . ." He spoke without turning to look at Sarah's image. 

"I knew it would be this way. You prefer the dead to the living, the fake to the real. The 
memory . . . to me." The voice became harsher and more grating. "The same as he did. That's 
why I've had to do these things. Perhaps if I became the dead . . . if I became a memory . . . 
then I'd have a chance." 

Another voice spoke. The same, but another. A whisper: "Deckard . . . " 

He looked down and saw that Rachael had opened her eyes. She gazed at him, calmly 
and unafraid, as she had done once before, a long time ago. When he had woken her from a 
deathlike sleep. 

Do you love me? Memory, his own words. 

I love you . . . 

Do you trust me? 

He bent down and kissed her. "Don't worry . . ." He placed his fingertips against her lips 
before she could say anything. "We'll be leaving here soon." 

I trust you . . . 

"That's very touching." Sarah's voice came from the monitor. "I admire your faithfulness. 
I'm not lying when I say that. What I wouldn't give . . ." The voice broke off for a moment, 
then spoke flat and harsh again. "You're right. It is time to leave. Time to finish . . . everything." 

Deckard glanced over his shoulder, to the image on the screen. "Where are you?" 

"I'm right here in the building with you." She laughed, short and humorless. "I wouldn't 
miss this for the world. I've waited too long for it." 

Outside, visible through the high windows at the far end of the suite, jagged lightning shot 
down from clouds pressing lower with their own weight. A low rumbling noise, almost beneath 
the limits of human audibility, trembled through the expectant air. 

"Did you hear that?" On the monitor screen, the image looked away, listening. 

"It's the thunder." He spoke to both the image and to Rachael near him. "That's all it is." 

"Oh, no-" The image looked back at him. Sarah slowly shook her head, eyes widening. 
As though with delight. "It's starting. The end of everything . . . 

"What are you talking about?" A cold fingertip touched his spine. 

"You never remember. I tell you things . . . but it seems you just don't want to 
remember." Pity in the gaze of Sarah's image, in her voice. "The red button . . . though there is 
no button, nothing to be pushed. If it were that easy, I would have done it myself . . . a long 
time ago. There's a command series, transmitted by the U.N. authorities, to initiate the 
auto-destruct sequence, the explosive charges that were built into and throughout the Tyrell 
Corporation headquarters. Right here." 

Another low-pitched noise rolled through the building; the candle flames shivered. 
Deckard reached down, his arm around Rachael's shoulder, pulling her closer to him. 

"They must have made their decision." The image spoke as though savoring its own 
words. "The U.N. authorities have been monitoring your progress all along; not as closely as I 
have, but enough to be aware of the results. Of yours and Batty's and Holden's futile quests. 
The fact that none of you were able to track down this missing sixth replicant. That you were, 
in essence, defeated by it." 

"But they also know-they'd have to-that it's all lies." He tightened his grip on Rachael's 


upper arm. "It was all concocted by you, for your own reasons-" 

upper arm. "It was all concocted by you, for your own reasons-" 

A stronger shock wave traveled through the building. He felt the floor buckle beneath his 
feet as the columns running the length of the suite cracked around their bases. There was no 
use for the gun now, if there ever had been; he tossed it aside. Rachael made no resistance as 
he drew 'her from the bed and got her to her feet. 

"So now you'll have what you want." Through the far windows, he could see a roiling 
light, flames, and smokechurning explosions, advancing up the sides of the other slanted 
towers. "Nothing that Eldon Tyrell created will be left. That should make you happy." 

"No . . ." Sarah's image shook its head. "Not happy. 

Satisfied, perhaps. In this little time we have left together-" 

Harder, and deafening; he was barely able to stay upright, stumbling backward a step, 
with Rachael pressed close against himself. Columns toppled and crashed to the floor, as the 
walls were torn apart, raw-edged darkness showing through the chasms splitting wider. Glass 
fragments sprayed across the rooms as the tall windows twisted in their frames and shattered. 

Immediately before him, the antique desk reared and fell, the monitor snapping free of its 
cables. The monitor struck the floor, the screen bursting into bright shards, the voice struck 
silent. 

"Come on-" Deckard pulled Rachael toward the suite's doors. The carved wooden 
panels had flown open, hinges wrenched loose, and thick smoke pouring across the ceiling. 

The corridor beyond was a racketing hell, alarm sirens shrieking as red light pulsed 
through the churning black. The elevator shaft gaped open, a torrent of fire leaping from the 
levels below. As they ran, the floor suddenly tilted beneath them; he landed on his shoulder, 
skidding and drawing Rachael down against himself. A steel girder, twisted loose of its 
anchorings, ripped through the ceiling panels like a massive scythe, gouging a ragged trench a 
few inches away from them. 

He couldn't tell if Rachael had screamed in fright and shock; the noise of the explosions 
climbing through the buildings obliterated his hearing. She might have thought it was part of the 
same nightmare in which she'd been mired before he woke her-he didn't know. Taking her 
around the shoulders, he tottered upright, stumbling through the spaxk-laced smoke toward 
the stairwell door, barely visible at the corridor's far end. 

There, below him; Holden could see them, small human figures surrounded by the larger 
forms billowing toward the night sky's darker clouds. The other towers had already collapsed, 
their flank torn open by the sequenced charges, steel frames twisting apart section by section, 
then falling toward the flame-engulfed center of what had been the Tyrell Corporation 
headquarters. 

Rain lashed across the freight spinner's cockpit, the heavy monsoon gouts hissing into 
steam as they battered wavelike against the inferno that had burst from the city's heart. Holden 
gasped for breath, the pulse inside himself staggering in the wash of heat, as he leaned against 
the controls, willing the spinner through the updraft's coiling hurricane. 

He had flown straight here from the sideways world, only to find one even more chaotic. 
Whatever was going on, it looked terminal; even as he forced the freight spinner down, 
another series of explosions rolled through the remaining tower, bringing it even closer to the 
point of toppling into the molten center of the compound. 

The building's sudden lurch knocked the two figures from their feet-looking out the side 
of the cockpit, he recognized his ex-partner Deckard, with a dark-haired woman. They had 


been trying to reach the spinner parked on the roof's landing deck, but the last shock wave 
had put an end to that: the empty spinner toppled off the tower's brink, pinwheeling down into 
the flames, then adding another, smaller explosion to the ones already shaking the surrounding 
city. 

been trying to reach the spinner parked on the roof's landing deck, but the last shock wave 
had put an end to that: the empty spinner toppled off the tower's brink, pinwheeling down into 
the flames, then adding another, smaller explosion to the ones already shaking the surrounding 
city. 

"Deckard!" He held on to the side of the hatch, reaching down. "Give me her hand!" The 
dark-haired woman looked barely conscious, as though asphyxiated by the smoke churning 
upward. He could hear, through the roar of the flames, his own artificial lungs wheezing for 
oxygen. Deckard managed to lift the woman, his arm around her waist, high enough that he 
could grab her by the wrist and elbow, and draw her up and into the freight spinner. She 
wasn't unconscious; when Holden lowered her to the tilting floor of the cargo area, she was 
able to grasp the metal ribs and pull herself away from the bottom of the hatch. 

He reached back down for Deckard's outstretched hand. Their fingertips had almost 
touched, when another explosion, the loudest and nearest of all, ripped open the last remaining 
panels of the roof. Holden saw the surge of glaring light a split second before its impact 
concussed the spinner; he was thrown backward, catching a flash of Deckard leaping 
desperately for the hatchway. 

The spinner tumbled nose downward. Holden's spine hit the back of the pilot's seat; he 
twisted about, hands pressed against the controls, a fireball like the interior of the sun welling 
up to engulf the craft. Over his shoulder, he saw the hatchway door sliding shut; Deckard, 
teeth clenched in agony, fought to claw his way inside. The woman screamed his name, 
reached, and grabbed his hand and forearm; the door's edge scraped open Deckard's shirt 
and the skin beneath as she pulled him toward herself. Deckard got one foot on the doorway's 
rim and gave a final convulsive push. He and the dark-haired woman slid together against the 
opposite bulkhead. 

In the same moment the fireball was cleft in two by the fall of the last tower. The updraft 
swung the freight spinner around in a dizzying loop as Holden struggled to keep from being 
torn away from the controls. Suddenly he found himself looking at the dark storm clouds 
above, the monsoon's torrents pounding the curved glass of the cockpit; with a single lunge he 
hit the throttle full-on. He clung to the pilot's chair against the mounting g-forces as the freight 
spinner shot skyward. 

Then stars, a diamond sweep from one horizon rim to the other, and silence, the storm 
left below. Holden managed to claw his way up to the control panel and pull the spinner's 
ascent into a level flight. 

"Here-let me take over." Deckard came forward from the cargo area. Gasping in 
exhaustion, Holden watched as his ex-partner climbed into the pilot's seat. The bio-mechanical 
heart in his chest staggered and lurched, then settled into a slower and more stable rhythm. 

The craft banked into a slow turn as Deckard's hands moved across the controls. The 
rain had plastered his hair black against his forehead, a cut along one cheekbone diluting pink 
down his throat. The sodden coat hung on him like a wet shroud. Watching the navigation 
screen, he brought the freight spinner slicing back down through the clouds. 

Deckard cut the throttle to a slow crawl as they came directly above the Tyrell 
Corporation headquarters. Or what had been the corporation; a gigantic square section had 
been cut from the center of L.A. and transformed into what now looked like the mouth of a 
ground-level volcano. The wind gusts and saturating Pacific rains drove the flames far enough 
back to reveal the twisted skeletal girders, the distorted structural webs all that remained of the 


towers. 

towers. 

Holden gazed down through the snakelike rivulets coursing over the cockpit glass. "What 
the hell brought all that on?" 

Reaching again for the controls. Deckard lifted his hard-set gaze from the scene 
underneath them. "Bad attitudes." He punched the throttle. 

A few minutes later-or hours; Holden had lost track of time, closing his eyes while the 
freight spinner bad shot above the city-he felt the craft slowing and descending again. To a 
landing; he looked out and saw a bleak desert landscape, silvered by the moon and stars. The 
monsoons' seasonal return hadn't extended this far inland yet. No buildings or fences nearby; 
the Reclamation Center that Batty had brought him to was obviously miles away. 

Deckard cut the engines as the freight spinner settled into the loose gravel and sand. The 
quiet of the empty landscape penetrated the cockpit glass. He glanced over toward Holden. 
"We gotta talk." He pushed another control and the side panels swiveled open. 

As they walked away from the spinner, leaving prints in the sand, Holden dug the gun out 
of his jacket. "You know . . . I could take you in. To the police station. And turn you over." 

"Sure." Deckard glanced at him. "But you won't." 

"I guess not." He put the gun away. "That Batty guy . . . he screwed up my brain. Right 
now, I don't know whether I'm a replicant or not." He shook his head, still trying to make the 
pieces come together. "The way it works out for people like us-it comes with the territory, I 
suppose-a certain leap of faith is required. To assume that we're human at all." 

"It's not just for us." A dark edge moved through Deckard's voice, as though it were the 
product of long, deep brooding. "That's the way it is for everybody. Human or not." 

"Yeah, well . . . maybe." Holden wasn't sure he understood what his ex-partner was 
talking about. "Right now, though, what I think I'll do is, I'll turn myself over to the police. 
Maybe they'll be able to tell me what I am. Not that it really matters, of course." 

"Suit yourself." 

"What're you going to do?" He stopped and tilted his head back toward the freight 
spinner. "The woman in there. Is that . . ." 

"Rachael. She's Rachael." Deckard closed his eyes for a moment, then slowly nodded. 
"The other one-Sarah-is dead. Back at the Tyrell Corporation. That's what she wanted." 

The black clouds had massed higher to the west, blotting out the stars close to the 
horizon. It wouldn't be long before the storms swept across the desert, all the way to the 
mountain ranges. And beyond. 

"Are you going to try to get away? The two of you?" Holden felt a chill creeping in 
toward his artificial heart. "If you go north again . . . I won't tell them. They'll come looking for 
you, and they'll find you, but it won't happen because of anything I said." 

"No . . ." Deckard shook his head. "We won't go north. That's not far enough . . ." 

Holden watched him tilt his head back, eyes barely open. A blue needle of light touched 
the drop of water that inched along the corner of his brow. 

"We'll have to go farther . . ." Deckard's voice a murmur, taken by the wind sifting the 
desert. "As far as we can . . ." 

After..... 


The official behind the counter returned the blue leatherette folder, smiling as he handed it 
back. "I hope you have a pleasant journey, Mr. and Mrs. Niemand." He gazed upon them 
kindly, though that was merely part of his job. "And that you find everything you're looking 
for." 

The official behind the counter returned the blue leatherette folder, smiling as he handed it 
back. "I hope you have a pleasant journey, Mr. and Mrs. Niemand." He gazed upon them 
kindly, though that was merely part of his job. "And that you find everything you're looking 
for." 

He picked up the carry-on bag beside him. A knot in his stomach unclenched-getting the 
forged ID cards 

and other documents stamped had been the last barrier they'd needed to get past. He 
turned away from the counter. "Come on, sweetheart. We don't want to miss the flight." 

Rachael held on to his arm all the way through the corridors of the San Pedro off-world 
terminal. Scenes of happy life in the colonies-Norman Rockwell mixed with early Soviet 
Realism, laughing children and fields of grainlined the gleaming chrome walls. Even when 
Deckard and Rachael were seated aboard the ship, she leaned her head against his shoulder, 
as though she were already fatigued from the rigors of flight. 

Rachael kept her eyes closed all through a lecture from a pair of uniformed attendants, on 
the various safety procedures. She might have been asleep. He let her hand rest in his; he 
could just feel the flicker of pulse at her wrist. 

Eventually, a low-pitched vibration shivered through the cabin. He looked across the 
tops of the seats; there were only a few other passengers-emigrants-besides themselves. 

"I was dreaming . . ." Rachael's eyelids had fluttered open. She gazed upward. 

"Of what?" 

She shook her head. "I don't remember." She glanced out the small round window at her 
side. Not really a window, but a simulation, a video feed from one of the ship's exterior 
cameras. The slate-grey Pacific extended to the horizon, its curvature visible now. 

"'From Earth we shall quickly remove . . . " Her voice a murmur. "'And mount to our 
native abode . . . ' 

An old song-a moment passed before he recognized the 

Protestant hymn. It called forth a memory; not of childhood, but of another world, the 
one that had been enclosed by the rough wooden walls of the cabin far to the north. And of 
that other moment, when a woman had leaned down to look through the glass of a black 
coffin, at the face that had been a sleeping mirror image of her own. She had spoken the 
words of a different hymn then. But he had known it, as he knew this one. 

He spoke its title aloud: "'Away with our sorrow and fear . . . ' 

Rachael turned and looked at him. Her eyes widened, as though in sudden realization. Of 
what her own words had disclosed. 

"Don't worry." He leaned his head back against the seat. "It's not important." More of the 
ancient words came to him. 

We soon shall recover our home; the city of saints shall appear, the day of eternity come 
. . . 

He closed his eyes, her hand still in his. 

They gave him a new heart-a newer one, top of the line, better than the one he'd been 
born with. And a new job, an easy one, at least for a while. Wrapping up loose ends, more or 
less. For the department files. 

He checked his pulse and blood pressure, the oxygen mixture in his artificial lungs, with a 
glance at the miniaturized LEDs that had been implanted in his wrist. Everything in order-Dave 
Holden felt no strain as he walked up the path from where he'd left the police spinner. The dry 


pine needles shifted beneath his boots with each step. Small living things scurried away, into 
the forest's deep and dark shade. 

pine needles shifted beneath his boots with each step. Small living things scurried away, into 
the forest's deep and dark shade. 

Holden stepped across what had been the sill of the cabin's door and looked around the 
black rectangle. Glass in the ashes, the remains of a heat-cracked window, an iron stove 
toppled onto its side, shapes of what might have been a wooden chair and table before the fire 
had been set around them . . . 

And something else, untouched. In perfect conditionthe men had done that, as they had 
been told to. Taken the black coffin, the transport sleep module, out of the cabin and a safe 
distance away; then returned it to where it had been before. Complete with that which it held. 
No longer sleeping; no longer dying. Beyond all that. 

He looked down through the coffin's glass lid, at the woman's face. Eyes closed, dark 
hair spread across the silken pillow. Rachael, he thought. He knew it was her. The one that his 
ex-partner Deckard had loved. It had always been. 

A glance at the transport module's control panel had shown that all life processes had 
ceased, vital signs at zero. The coffin's sustaining mechanisms had been switched off. Not 
murder, not technically, but an authorized procedure on Tyrell Corporation property. 

He didn't take any photos of the black coffin. He didn't need to. In the picture in his 
memory, she could still be sleeping. 

Walking slowly back to the spinner, he wondered. Why had Rachael been left there? 
Like that, untouched. He knew, or could guess, why Sarah had done everything else. The 
whole charade of pretending to be Rachael, asleep on the bed in the Tyrell private suite. While 
the persynth-the real-time, computer-generated replica of herself, a talking, responding 
simulation of herself-had shown on the screen of the video monitor. There had been enough 
evidence in the smoldering remains of the Tyrell Corporation headquarters to reveal what she 
had done. The same trick that the police had used before on Deckard, set up in the shabby 
office in the central station, to make him believe that Bryant had still been alive. Deckard had 
seen through that one. Strange that he hadn't seen through Sarah's little joke as well. 

Ire supposed it was all a matter of getting what you wanted. A hawk wheeled across the 
sky and was gone. Sarah had done that, gotten what she wanted. To become Rachael. To be 
loved . . . 

Maybe Deckard had as well. Something that Holden had thought about before, back 
when he'd first figured out what had happened. Maybe Deckard hadn't been fooled at all. 

He got back into the police spinner and let the cockpit glass seal around him. Maybe, 
thought Holden, he got what he wanted. Somehow. Maybe he did. Not that it really mattered. 

A moment later the spinner mounted into the sky, banking south and toward Los 
Angeles. 


REVISION HISTORY 
v2.0 wg 
-conversion to standard HTML format 
-added chapter links