Voyager

• V O Y A G E R •

anne·elizabeth·zeek

&

pat·nussman

And how am I to face the odds,

Of man's bedevilment and God's?

I, a stranger and afraid

In a world I never made.

-- A.E. Housman,

“Eight O'Clock”

He ignored the water lapping about his feet, ignored it as he had ignored the steady drizzle of rainfall and the chill that was more than bone-deep. His weapon, un-powered now, still lay fifty paces back where he had dropped it. His hands, his murderer’s hands, rested in his lap, lightly clasped. His thoughts circled wearily, mechanically.

The water crept past his insteps, soaking the lower part of his trouser legs. The boulder he was sitting on was fast becoming an island. Not even sure why - his life, his hope for happiness, lay at the edge of the strand, killed by his hand - he pushed himself up. He inhaled deeply. The taste of the sea was no saltier on his lips than his tears had been.

Finally he turned, and trudged back along the gently sloping beach to the edge of the shoreline. Stooping, he retrieved his weapon. The gun glowed back to life the moment he hefted it in his hands. Strong hands, deft hands. Murderer’s hands.

He walked back to the small, slight shape that scarcely made an impression in the sand. He looked down at her. His latest - his last? - victim. Memories, bittersweet, sweetly bitter, flooded back.

They had escaped the city, and the future beckoned to them brightly. Even here, this far north of the Los Angeles/San Francisco complex, pollution smeared the landscape; the vegetation was malformed, stunted. Yet in contrast to the ever-present rain and the yellow smog of the city, the countryside had seemed -- to their wondering eyes, at least -- a verdant paradise.

Their plans were nebulous, unformed. They would go where whim, or the prevailing winds, would take them. There were other cities. There were also rumors -- unfounded, scoffed at by almost everyone in authority -- of people who had returned to the earth, people who had left the sprawling hellholes that were Earth’s megalopolises and had gone, not to the robot-run farming combines, but to the wilds.

There were also the spaceports. If a shuttle could be hijacked to Earth, why couldn’t they take one and go -- Up There?

The important thing was, that afternoon so long, so short a time ago, they had had options. They had had choices that could be made.

And then she had made the choice he never expected, the choice that left him standing here, looking down at her, his tears lost in rain and sea spray. She opted for death.

*

Threatening clouds loomed from the west, but the rain had not yet reached this lonely stretch of beach at the end of the scrub forest. Hand in hand, like children released from school, they explored the wonders of both worlds, forest and shore. City-born and -bred, they had -- neither of them -- any memories of such places.

She plucked a handful of leaves, held them in front of her as though they were an old-fashioned bride’s bouquet. The leaves were brown and ragged from disease, not at all the golden and red glories legend said they had been during autumns past, but her smile above them made them more beautiful in his eyes than even the telling of now-gone roses or dahlias or lilies.

As though she knew what he was thinking, her smile grew into laughter, and she whirled about that he might see her. She had shed her synthafur coat, had tossed aside her stiffly severe suit jacket. Silk blouse and skirt, pearly opalescent in the slanting afternoon rays of the so-seldom seen sun, clung to her well-remembered body, and her hair, still unconfined, floated about her head.

She was a faerie child, wild and free.

Her laughter died, and she halted her dance. Somber now, she buried her face in the mock-bouquet in her hands.

“Rachael?” Hand outstretched, he stepped toward her.

Lifting her head, she smiled at him. Un-shed tears shone in her eyes. She straightened and walked toward him, head held high, as though a crown graced it.

Reaching him, she held out her hand to him. He took it into his. His thumb automatically searched for her pulse and, finding it, caressed it.

Holding his eyes with hers, she said, “I, Rachael, take thee, Richard, to be my lawful husband. To have and to hold from this day forward, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, so long as we both shall live.”

Shock held him silent. Rachael’s pulse quickened beneath his thumb. She started to pull away, to turn aside, and he drew her back to him.

He raised her hand to his lips, kissed it. “I, Richard, take thee, Rachael, to be my lawful wife. To have and to hold from this day forward, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, so long as we both shall live.”

The leaves fell unnoticed to the ground as he drew her into his arms and kissed her gently. They consummated their marriage there, where the shore met the land, and slept after; locked in each other’s arms, the synthafur coat cushioning them from rock and sand.

He woke to find his head cradled on her lap. One of her hands caressed his face; the other held his gun in a most competent grasp. The suspicions of a lifetime rose to the surface and he rolled off the coat and away from her, pushing into a defensive crouch.

“Rachael?”

She seemed startled by his sudden movement. Looking down at the gun, she said only, “Oh!”, then handed the weapon over to him butt first.

He stared from gun to woman, then shrugged. In her own good time she would explain what had been going through her mind. Setting the weapon aside, he got to his feet and pulled her up.

He cupped her face with his hands. “Happy?”

She nodded. “Dangerously so.”

“Dangerously?”

“Such happiness can’t last.”

He held her fiercely, protectively. “Don’t be a pessimist, Rachael. That’s in the marriage contract.”

Pulling away from him, she stared into his face. “What is?”

He kissed her brow, the tip of her nose, the pulse point of her neck. “Eternal happiness.” His lips met hers, and the kiss was a promise of eternal fealty.

They stood locked in a close embrace for several long moments. Then the wind from off the ocean, bearing with it the chill dampness of an incoming fog or rainfall, finally reminded him that they were still naked. A distant thrumming he took to mean the storm was coming closer.

He pushed her away. “No more of this. We have miles to go yet. Let’s get dressed.”

Rachael nodded.

They’d jumbled their clothes into one pile and it took much laughter before they sorted everything properly. Slowly, almost reluctantly, they got dressed then. It was, he felt, almost as though they were putting on their city identities once more, and every piece of clothing, every accessory, made those identities so much more inevitable.

His belt and gun holster were the last items to be donned. Looking at them with distaste, he almost hurled them from him. If he didn’t think he might need the gun for protection, he would leave it here. It had cause too many deaths, too many nightmares.

He buckled on the belt and holster, then reached for the gun. As his hands closed over the weapon, Rachael reached for him.

“Do you love me?”

He straightened. They stood closely touching, both holding the gun lightly. “I love you,” he answered.

Standing on her toes, she pressed a kiss to his lips. “And do you trust me?” she whispered.

Almost, he could not hear her, her voice was so low.

“I trust you,” he said.

“Remember that, Deckard,” she said. “And remember that this has been the happiest day in my memory.” She kissed him again, and even as their lips met her fingers tightened on the trigger.

The bullet tore through her. She jerked spasmodically, and he could smell the harsh copper stench of sudden death as her blood drenched his sweater.

He stared down at her face. It was still now, and peaceful. He picked her up, laid her on top of the synthetic fur coat. Their marriage bed. Her shroud.

Hopelessly, knowing how useless were the gestures, he stroked her face, took her chin in his hand and shook her head. “Rachael?” he pleaded, looking for a sign of life -- a movement, a breath, anything.

If it weren’t for the hole through her torso -- like Pris, he thought -- he might think she were asleep. He bent, sought her lips once more. Already they were cold to the touch.

Tears burned his cheeks.

Straightening, he walked aimlessly to the water’s edge. Somewhere on the way he dropped his gun. He sat, mind numb, remembering nothing, and looked at the ocean...

*

And still he did not know why she had chosen death. She knew her end might be years in the future, knew he loved her. People had lived with less than that to give them strength. Why couldn’t she?

The muffled snarl of an airborne spinner sounded then, half-rousing him from his memories. He holstered the gun, waited patiently. It did not matter any more what they did to him.

The rain, as though brought from the city by the spinner, fell heavily now, and the chill was deeper. Although he had thought himself once more beyond feeling, he shrugged deeper into his sweater, seeking warmth.

It was cold. As cold as Bryant’s heart, he thought.

As though his thoughts conjured up the man, he heard the hated voice behind him. “Told you, you could learn from this one, Gaff. There she is, the last skin-job, laid out all nice and quiet for us.”

Thunder roared in his ears, and it was a moment before he realized the sound he heard was the blood coursing through his veins and not an outer storm. His hands clenched and he fought the urge to yank his gun from its holster, to spin and fire on the Blade Runners behind him.

Heavy feet crunched sand and gravel underfoot, and a hearty slap on the back nearly sent him sprawling. “Damn, Deckard, you’re still Number One, still Mr. Nighttime. When I heard you were headin’ north with Tyrell’s demo model I thought you’d gone bad. Either that, or been caught yourself. Shoulda known better, though. What’d ya do, catch her off-guard?”

Still Mr. Nighttime? Then -- Deckard stared down at Rachael’s calm face. Understanding grew. She had heard the spinner’s approach and had taken the only way she knew to protect him.

Three times now, his life had been saved by a replicant. Twice by Rachael, once by Roy Batty. He could not, would not, place Rachael’s sacrifice and Batty’s freely offered gift at naught just to strike out in anger at Bryant.

Wiping his hand across his face, Deckard turned to Bryant and Gaff. “You got it, Bryant,” he said.

Bryant glanced at Rachael’s body. “You’ll get a double bonus for this, Deckard. See if you don’t. That’s, what, five in two days? Almost as good as the time you wiped out the entire Slaughterhouse bunch.”

Deckard shoved his hands into his pants pocket. “Yeah, if you say so.” One of his hands encountered a small silver-foil pellet, crumpled now past recognition. The unicorn. Gaff’s calling card. Yet now the man was here with Bryant. Didn’t make sense. But then, what did? “And that reminds me. How come Mr. Charm here’s been following me all over?”

Bryant’s eyes slid away from Deckard’s. “Following you?”

“You heard me. He’s always just a step or two behind me. Why, Bryant? If I’m so god-fucking-damned good, why’s he cat-belling me?”

Bryant’s eyes shifted again. “I told you, Deck, he’s learning the business from you.”

Deckard flicked a quick glance at Gaff. Yeah, sure. And I’m the Director of New Cathay. The other Blade Runner was not looking at him. All his concentration was on the rapid pattern of his agile fingers as he fashioned yet another origami figure from bright red paper.

Narrowing his eyes, Deckard tried to make out what the design was this time. A long-necked bird with a graceful, trailing tail. A cockatrice? Or a phoenix, maybe? Was the other Runner into the classics?

Deckard rolled the silver-foil pellet in his pocket between his fingers. He knew enough classical history to have read the warning Gaff had left him with the unicorn. Was this new figure to be another warning? And if so, on whom? Gaff’s face gave nothing away.

Deckard looked back at Bryant, caught the other staring at him with a cautious expression on his porcine face. Something was going on. It might have to do with the replicants, with himself, with the entire Blade Runner squad. And if he were going to make Rachael’s death, Batty’s death, count for anything, he needed all the information he could garner. So let him just catch Bryant and Gaff off-guard...

“Yeah, well, I hope he learned all he can, ‘cause I want him off my back.” Deckard turned, started back toward the vehicles. Gaff had landed the police spinner next to his groundcar. “See you in the city, Bryant,” he snarled over his shoulder.

“Make sure you do, Deck,” Bryant’s harsh voice followed him, “we got unfinished business to settle.”

For all of two seconds, Deckard wondered what Bryant’s “unfinished business” could be. The rest of the long trip back to the city, the trip he had thought never to make again, was spent in thoughts of Rachael, and of the four replicants he had just “retired”.

Was it something wrong with him, that he could view them as human? He thought of Bryant, who owned a prize-winning hog, and whose only concern for the animal was that it was organic, rare and expensive, the same attitude he would have toward a replicant if he owned one; Bryant, who never thought beyond the “skinjobs’” outer shell to wonder if replicants had thoughts, feelings, emotions of their own, who never wondered if replicants could dream. He thought of Gaff, whose face never changed, who watched life and death alike with the same passive acceptance, the same amused distancing of self; if there were something underneath, how deeply buried was it, how much would be necessary to disinter even one true feeling?

Then he thought of Zhora, who had loved life so much it had taken five bullets to bring her down. Of Pris, whose slender body had almost been torn apart by her anger when, in spite of all, she had felt life draining from her.

Of Rachael and Roy, who so loved life, they gave it back to him.

“More human than human,” Tyrell had said facetiously, not realizing in his arrogance that his advertising slogan was true. More human than humans.

Deckard’s deep-drawn breath was nearly a sob. No wonder it was as though war had been declared between replicant and human. The humans, weary and defeated, losing all touch with their feelings, could not stand the constant reminder of what they had lost -- and so they programmed the Nexus Six replicants to autodestruct after four years.

Murder, and false memories.

Memories...

Six hours Roy had taken to die. Six hours, and he had clung to even the pain, as though the pain made sharp within his mind the memory of all he had seen, all he had felt, all he had learned in the four short years that made up his life.

And for six hours he had talked, telling Deckard of what life was like as a slave Up There: the torture he had gone through, knowing that any second, any moment, for any reason and for no reason, he could be destroyed.

And yet, withal, the wonders he had seen. “Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.” Yet he had left those wonders willingly, for the chance to find life and freedom on Earth.

And he, and those who had followed him, had found death.

Deckard’s hands tightened on the wheel of the roadcar. No more death. No more. There had to be a way. If he could only bring life for once...

The rain beat against the windshield in an almost solid curtain, but looming through it were the towers of the city. He had not heard the spinner passing overhead, but he assumed that Gaff and Bryant were already back at police headquarters. And Rachael still on the strand... But he had had to leave her, lest his concern for her be marked by Bryant and his motives questioned. Then Rachael’s death would be in vain.

He could not allow that.

Now Bryant would be waiting to hear from him, would be waiting for him at the police headquarters.

Deckard snorted. Let him wait.

A grin slashed hunting-knife sharp across his face.

Murder would out, and he would help it. It was time to stop the slaughter, stop the slavery.

*

Deckard stopped off at his apartment only to get a change of clothing. Then, after dropping his groundcar off at a lock-and-park, he commandeered a spinner and headed for Tyrell Corporation headquarters.

The corporation’s twin pyramids towered so high above the sky-scrapers of San Angeles, even above the looming industrial spires of Hellsector, that the sun was known, on occasion, to break through the smoky haze of pollution that lay like a permanent blanket over the city and shine through the upper windows of the offices where the corporate grandees held court.

Deckard landed the spinner atop the primary pyramid and took the elevator to the main reception area. He glanced around at permastone walls, marble floors, massive furniture. Was it only two days ago he had met with Dr. Eldon Tyrell to administer the Voight-Kampff test to his Nexus Six “demonstration model”?

A receptionist, the same one who had taken his name-badge that last time, came forward. She moved with the same grace, the same unconscious arrogance, that Rachael had possessed. Deckard played with the idea that she, too, might be a Nexus Six model, then dismissed that thought. Simply having this job, in this day and age, was enough reason for arrogance. She probably functioned as an unofficial “hostess” for the Tyrell Corporation, and if that didn’t call for a more-than-adequate salary...

Bet she can afford a live dog! He glanced at her sleek outline as she advanced on him. Better yet, a cat.

“Mr. Deckard? I assume there is a reason for this -- call?”

Something had been bothering him about Bryant’s indoctrination speech. He seemed to have misplaced a replicant. Could he use that as his reason for being here?

He ran his hand across his scalp, smiled ingratiatingly at her. There was no response. Yeah, she was human all right.

“One or two things still need to be settled,” he said, taking his cue from Bryant’s unfinished business. “Miss -- ?”

“Leeds.”

“Miss Leeds. Yes.” He coughed apologetically, continued. “There’re one or two things we still have to straighten out concerning our recent investigation. One replicant is still unaccounted for. We think there maybe some bearing on Dr. Tyrell’s murder; and -- “

She nodded, all brisk, strict efficiency. “What departments will you have to deal with? I’ll contact the heads.”

“Biomechanics, Design, and Records.” Surely somewhere within this megalithic structure he would find an answer to his problem? The only trouble was -- how would he know the answer when he wasn’t even sure of the question he was asking?

“Replicant sectors only?”

He nodded. He had no need to rifle through design concept for a new form of toaster. Nor yet to study records of the corporation’s human employees.

She handed him visitor’s passes to the three areas he wanted to investigate, adding, “Instructions on where the sections are located are on the back of the passes. If you’ll step this way now, to the elevator banks?”

*

The Biomechanical Labs were his first stop, even though he doubted he could follow the explanations of the corporation’s biomechanical engineers, especially if they started throwing around technical jargon.

One thing he was sure of, however. Rachael had been designed without a specific termination date. Surely that offered hope that there was some way to revert the aging process for other replicants? Perhaps an adaptation of the method used on her? But how much of the job done on Rachael was actually done in the major labs? Could Tyrell have designed his “special demo model” by himself?

Too many questions.

“Have you tried every possible combination of intracellular biochemical reagents?” The words, culled from hundreds of learning seminars, meant nothing to him, but they apparently made sense to the frank-faced young scientist facing him.

“Mr. Deckard, what possible -- “

Deckard glanced around the room, his face a picture of guilt. Drawing the scientist aside, he whispered, “Look, we don’t want this to become common knowledge or it might start a panic, but we picked up a rep who’s been listed on the books as ‘dead’ because of the age factor. Damn skinjob should’ve run out of steam three years ago, but here it was, living just like a human, right down to the wife and family.” The lies came smoothly, believably. The way they always came. He was a Blade Runner. And that meant, soon or late, a lie.

“Family? But, Mr. Deckard, it’s biologically impossible for replicants to breed. If this, this ‘Methuselah’ replicant was living within a family structure, it must have married and adopted some children after it passed over the line.”

“Passed over the line?”

“After it took on a human identity.”

Deckard shrugged.

“I don’t know, Doc. You tell me it’s impossible for skinjobs to breed, but the lab boys back at HQ tell me a gene scan on the kids came out positive for the damn rep to be their old man.”

He let that sink in, then added the capper. “Our lab techs tell me they don’t think it’s a case of natural longevity, either. If the skinjobs have a way of getting around cellular breakdown, we have to find out how they do it, so we can stop them.”

“Replicants, Mr. Deckard, replicants. Must you Blade Runners always be so -- “ He broke off, curiosity overcoming disgust. “Can I see this replicant? The Methuselah one?”

Deckard shrugged, tried to look apologetic. “‘Fraid not. ‘Fore we realized there was anything special about it, anything abnormal, we ‘retired’ it and sent the corpse to the crematorium.” He tensed, wondering if the other would accept his story. It was thin as hell, but it was all he could come up with quickly.

Frowning, the scientist turned back to his lab table. “It would certainly have made things easier if I could have studied the replicant’s blood composition for biochemical anomalies.” He stared down at his computer keyboard. Deckard’s tension grew. This had to work. Tell a research scientist someone else’d already done something, and --

“We were always warned that EMS recombinant technology would result in a carcinogenic mutation, but if... ” The scientist seated himself at the console, and his fingers played over the keyboard. He did not even notice when, smiling victoriously, Deckard left the room.

He’d be back in a day or so. Perhaps by then...

Standing in the empty hallway, Deckard looked first one way, then the other. Should he try Design next, or Records? It seemed six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. In the end, it was proximity that governed his choice. Design was closest.

Turning left, he headed for the elevator banks. An elevator car was already on his floor. He entered, and the doors closed behind him; a feminine voice asked his destination. He fitted the chit for Design into the feedtray and the elevator noiselessly descended to Floor 235.

He looked around curiously as he disembarked. It was darker here than in either the reception area or the Biomechanical Labs. The ceilings were lower, the windows not so large, and the lighting fixtures further apart. Moreover, this far down the sun would almost never break through the yellow acid-smog that curled outside the windows.

Greeting him was a watered-down version of Rachael: hair less lacquered, suit not so sharply tailored, makeup less perfect. Her manner, however, was every bit as brisk and businesslike as Rachael’s had been.

“This area is off-limits for non-authorized personnel.”

Reaching into his pocket, Deckard pulled out his ID and handed it over to her with his visitor’s pass. “I’m Deckard. Blade Runner 26354. I’ve been cleared for this area.”

A suggestion of hostility flickered across her face at the mention of his profession, then disappeared, leaving Deckard to wonder if he had imagined it. She examined his ID voucher and visitor’s pass closely, clearly expecting one or the other to be a hoax. “If you’ll excuse me a moment?”

He nodded, watched as she strode across the room to the vid-phone on her desk. The conversation was short, but she did not rejoin him immediately, instead, she called something up on the small terminal beside the phone, then nodded to herself. Finally she returned, handing him his ID and pass.

“What can we do to help you, Mister Deckard?” Her voice caressed the honorific as if it were a private joke.

He looked around, shrugged. “Anything, everything. We’re trying to close off a recent case, but there are one or two loose threads, including a missing replicant. So the more I know about skinjobs, the better.” He paused. A faint glimmer of distaste, strangely combined with ironic appreciation, crossed her face at his choice of words, but she said nothing. Frowning slightly, he continued. “When you design a replicant, do you slap any old thing together, or do you -- ”

“No, of course not.” She looked him over carefully. “Replicants are designed according to rigid standards. We look at the job they’re required for, then work around that.”

“The packaging. Is that from your heads? From people you know? From trideo personalities?”

She smiled coldly. “That depends on the intricacy of the specimen needed, Mr. Deckard.”

That sharp, niggling nodule of curiosity that had made him so successful at his profession was back. “How do you mean?”

Quite obviously, she resented discussing her work with a layman. “If the unit is to be used in simple manual labor,” she replied finally, “we build for brute strength, bypassing any intellectual development beyond that of a dull-normal or average IQ: your typical high-school dropout or graduate, respectively.”

He smiled wryly, thinking of Leon. Brute strength, limited intelligence. So? The routine labor replicant would still be smarter and healthier than half of the “normal” humans remaining Earthside.

She continued. “Designation here would be N6MAC or N6FAC, depending on whether the laborer were male or female.”

“AC?”

“Top-of-the-line physical development, dull-normal to average intelligence.”

“There are other categories?”

Again that careful survey, the mixture of insult and amusement. “Of course. The AB models are our most widely-used numbers. They’re top-of-the-line in physical development, and bright-normal to superior in intelligence.”

“And the packaging your AB models come in?”

She eyed him as though he were a two-headed mutant, or a replicant whose programming had proven defective. “I’ve already explained that packaging depends on the specimen specifics required, Mr. Deckard.”

He was tired of her games with words and glances. Pulling out a chair, he dropped into it. “Explain it to me again.”

She primed her mouth. If Tyrell Corporation had replaced God and the Church, as the more irreverent of his co-workers claimed, this woman was one of the most steadfast of the new religion’s acolytes.

Or was she? There was something else here, something to young woman’s hostility. Something that didn’t feel right... He shook his head, pushing the thought aside for later consideration.

“Explain,” he repeated.

“If a personal bodyguard is requested, we would, of course, make the physical package more muscular than if the order is for a book-keeper. If a, um, sexual companion is required,” the look she swept over him was deliberately mocking, “a certain skill in amatory affairs is more important than brute strength.”

“That I could have figured out myself. You design job to be filled. What about details, though? Face, hair eyes? The things that aren’t a part of job function?” She hesitated. “In many cases the purchaser has an idea of what he or she wants and we either supply an approximate match from our catalogue or design to personal specifications.”

“That’s for the personals, for the colonization freebies. What if it’s not one of those?”

She looked around as if for some way out. “I don’t understand what you’re --

“Combat models? Especially the higher-ranked sweeties in charge of colonization defense programs?”

A shade of uneasiness entered her eyes. Deckard pressed on. “Or what about a demo model? Wouldn’t the designer have a lot to say about how the model looks?”

She nodded reluctantly. “The designer has the final word in such a case.”

He felt a rush of, excitement. “Are such models ever duplicated?”

She spoke slowly, weighing her words. “Unless it’s a special demo model, all of our models are duplicated. It wouldn’t be cost-effective to design a working model and use it only once; we’d never keep up with the demand. Once a model has been developed, the initial customer gets sole use for a limited period. After that time runs our, the model is placed in our general catalogue.”

He waved a vague hand in her direction, as though this meant nothing special to him. “With certain exceptions.”

“With -- certain exceptions, yes.” Hiding his disappointment, he pushed himself out of the chair. Rachael had been a “special demonstration model”. She was truly one-of-a-kind. Tyrell’s own toy.

Damn.

“You’ve been -- more than helpful. If I need information about individual models?”

“Records Department.” She smiled then, and he tensed. As though the sudden surge of adrenaline prompted it, the instinct, the knack that had made him the best Blade Runner around, furnished the answer to the woman’s behavior.

A replicant! She’s a god-damned replicant!

Now he knew the difference in her that he had immediately absorbed, and understood, also, her hostility when he named his trade: retiring her kind.

Damn! Is everyone at Tyrell off the production line?

Her smile widened, ice-sharp, as she took in his expression. “You might want to check into model N6MAB71317a while you’re in Records. I think you’ll find the file -- interesting.”

She almost purred the last word.

He looked at her doubtfully. After such a buildup, he had expected an earth-shattering revelation. Instead, just the file for some anonymous replicant? “N6MAB71317a? I’ll remember that, thanks.”

He left the department. And the replicant’s laughter echoed in his ears.

*

Four hours later he leaned over his 97th-floor balcony to stare blankly at the garbage-strewn streets below. He ignored the rain plastering his short hair to his head and soaking through his mismatched clothing.

Memories.

Again and again this case came back to memories. Rachael’s. Leon’s. Roy’s. His. Memories.

He took a long swig of scotch. It burned as he swallowed it, and he wondered: did he really like scotch, or did he only remember liking it? He flung the glass away. It hit the wall behind him; even without looking he could tell by the sound that it had smashed into a hundred razor-sharp pieces.

File 71317a had been informative. It had been more than informative. It had destroyed his world.

Model N6MAB7l3l7a was the sixth replicant who had escaped from the offworld colony of New Caledonia with Batty and the others -- the one he had not been encouraged to remember.

Bryant must have been worried, showing him the pictures of Batty and Leon and Pris and Zhora, must have been holding his breath for fear he’d ask, “Hey, okay, so one of the reps got fried trying to break into the Tyrell Corporation. What happened to the sixth one?”

But no. He’d been too stupid to count.

He turned, reentered the large, empty apartment. In response to the heat of his body, the lights came on. Tossing the printout of file 71317 on the couch, he continued on to the bathroom.

He stared at himself in the mirror. Funny. He felt like he always felt. Like he remembered feeling.

What he did not feel like was model 71317a, a top-of-the-line replicant who had a dead man’s memories grafted onto him, a replicant who’d been sent out to track down his brothers, a “skinjob” who’d been used to kill his own.

A Judas-goat.

But the file, which included a photo printout and full physical display, didn’t lie. Why should it?

He studied the face in the mirror. How much of it was his, really? What had Deckard, the one who’d died in a drunken car crash two years ago, what had he looked like? How much of what he remembered could he trust?

Even his own face...

He leaned close to the mirror, trying to see some difference in the image that stared out at him now that he knew a different truth. Nothing. Straightening, he rubbed his hands across his face. Could he “erase” himself? Put on a new self, a new face, as easily as they’d given him a dead man’s memories? He winced as he rubbed the still-raw wound under his right eye. He knew how and when he’d gotten that injury -- didn’t he? -- but what of the scar on his chin?

His memories -- Deckard’s memories? -- told him of going through a car window fifteen years ago, of lying on a rain-slicked pavement staring up at his wife’s frightened, panicked eyes. He even had memories of the arguments they’d had later, when he’d refused to have the plas-docs clean up the scar. Iran hadn’t understood, any more than she’d understood why he didn’t just up and leave, take advantage of one of the bonus-laden government offers for offworld colonists.

You’ve got the brains, the health, the training, she’d say over and over and over, and all he’d ever been able to say in response was, “No, babe, I need the room to make choices, not just grab onto the same brass ring as millions of other guys.”

Choices. That had always been the important thing to him -- to Deckard.

And now all the choices he’d ever made in his life came down to this, that he had no choice. That the he, he remembered was dead, dead and ash now, and he’d been brought back to life by the magic of the Tyrell Corporation -- and an illegal brain-cell recording that had rested in Bryant’s office-safe for the past two years.

Choices.

Choices and memories.

Whose face was that in the mirror? Rick Deckard’s? That’s what his memories said. He remembered that face -- younger, to be sure, but still the same face -- sticking out over a flapping gown on graduation day, or over a monkey-suit on the day he’d gotten married, or grinning idiotically the day his son was first placed in his arms. (His son. But then, replicants can’t breed.) There was no sense of, of dissonance there, no gap in his memory, no blurring where perhaps another face might once have been. The face in the mirror fit Rick Deckard as easily as the size nines in his closet.

The only trouble was -- file N6MAB71317a said that the face in the mirror, comfortable enough fit though it might be for Rick Deckard, belonged to John Madden, designed to be second-in-command of the Planetary Expedition Forces assigned to New Caledonia.

(Second-in-command... Roy Batty’s second-in-command... )

Now here he was, not even able to remember what his own face looked like.

Memories. Woven together to form the fabric of his days. Strand after strand of hand-picked memories woven into a seamless whole, until it seemed the memories -- and the man -- were real.

Who had chosen which memories he would keep? That was power. To pick and choose among the memories of a man’s life, like a weaver picking and choosing among the colored yarn on a loom; to take the memories from one man’s skull and deposit them whole in the brain of another man, completely erasing the other’s being and existence in the process.

He reached out, touching the mirror. His hand was shaking. Where was John Madden? Dead? Sleeping? And did he really want to know?

He smiled bitterly. No wonder Gaff had been trailing him. Set a thief to catch a thief -- or in this case, a replicant to catch a replicant -- but be sure to keep your eye on him, just in case. Just in case the memory implant slipped, and your fox suddenly realized he was hunting with the hounds.

And no wonder, too, that each of the four replicants he’d just tracked down had greeted him so strangely. A lost comrade, friend, brother, now well and truly lost -- They’d all, up to the end, hoped he’d regained his own memories.

Deckard rubbed his hand, the broken fingers still bandaged and smarting. He grinned wryly --Guess it didn’t work, Roy.

He slammed his hand against the wall. The pain was reassuringly real. He could still feel, still think, still plan. He didn’t know how long the Deckard implant would last, but while it did, he was well and truly committed to that role.

He was Rick Deckard. He had no idea what had happened to the consciousness that was -- that had been -- John Madden. He was Rick Deckard.

And Deckard, now that he had something worth fighting for, would not be content to lie back and die again (What was it like, dying? Is that memory buried someplace in my mind, too? ), would not become one of the faceless “little people”, not ever again.

Fleetingly, he wondered if Gaff and Bryant had been informed about his new knowledge; he could only hope that they had not been. Blade Runners usually functioned autonomously, and there was no reason why the Records Department at Tyrell should alert Police HQ about the files he’d extracted from their computer’s memory banks.

As for the replicant in Design, the one who had put him onto his own file... He hoped she’d been operating out of sheer spite, and would not actually betray one of her “own” kind. Or that she had, quite simply, thought he should know the truth about himself -- if not for altruistic reasons, then to destroy his usefulness to the Blade Runner unit. It had to be one or the other. Otherwise, she would already have contacted Bryant and he’d be “retired” before he could begin.

He smiled bitterly. He’d better hope hard. That encounter had taught him that not all replicants had found their souls. Not like Rachael, not like Roy. Not like -- John Madden.

After one last, close scrutiny of his familiar/unfamiliar face, he wandered back to the living room, stared at the other files littering the chairs and floor. Where the hell to begin?

Picking up the file on Roy Batty, he leafed through the printout. N6MAAlOBl6a. Top-of-the-line indeed. The Tyrell Corporation kept thorough records on their replicants. His own file -- the file of the person, the being, he had been before he became Rick Deckard -- had been full, and so was Roy Batty’s.

Deckard -- he was still Deckard, at least to himself, with all of Deckard’s thoughts, all of his memories -- was awed by Batty’s exploits. In almost four years of continuous service, the combat specialist had fought in a total of twenty-six battles ranging from deep space to the bogs and jungles of New London and then to the ice-capped wastes of Novo Muskov, finally being sent to New Caledonia as head of planetary defenses.

(And I was there, with him. What was it like? What -- )

N6MAA. Yes. Top-of-the-line both physically and mentally, with an IQ that, quite literally, could not be measured.

A battle-machine with the soul of a poet. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Who else would have described the scene in just that way? Who else would have seen such things? He, the he he’d been, Madden, had viewed some of those far wonders with Batty and the others; had seen the stars from deep space, had known the thrill and despair of combat, had chosen to follow Batty to Earth.

Every replicant ever decanted knew that Earth meant death. Why would he, why would the others, follow Batty down to sure death? What was Batty to him, to Madden, that he would follow him?.

And the others? What had they meant to Madden? Deckard remembered the hatred and despair in Zhora’s eyes as she throttled him, remembered the desperation in Pris’s eyes as she stared at him over her shoulder before spinwheeling into an attack. What ties had there been between the replicants and Madden that, even recognizing him now for the enemy, and fighting desperately for their lives, the replicants -- save only Leon, so much more simple and direct than the others -- had held back that extra millimeter that would have meant his death, and not their own?

Memories. Lost now, as completely as though Madden, and not Deckard, were dead.

Deckard forced his attention back to the printout in his hands. Quickly, he scanned to the end of the file, noting an addendum posted after the successful rebellion in New Caledonia and Batty’s subsequent return to Earth by hijacked shuttle through the Tannhauser Gate.

“THIS MODEL UNRELIABLE,” stated the readout. “TRACERS FILED. IN THE EVENT OF OVERT ACTIVITY RETIRE N6MAA1O819a IMMEDIATELY.”

Deckard sank onto the couch, held the file in trembling hands. A life, no matter how short-lived it ultimately proved, (I got, what, one, maybe one and a half years to go? Unless the doc...), had been given him. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him to return that life, and with interest.

At least now he knew where -- and how -- to begin.

*

In the days that followed, Deckard relearned the advantage to being a successful Blade Runner. He shuttled back and forth between his apartment and the Tyrell Corporation, and his presence at the latter was considered routine. Bryant was in contact with him only once, and that was to recommend that he go on a long vacation and report back to work in two weeks.

“Got a bonus all picked out and waiting for you, Deck. You’re gonna love it,” the police chief had said.

Deckard, hoping he was still acting like the “real” Deckard, shook his head. “I told you I was quits, Bryant. What makes you think that last job made me change my mind?”

“You’ll be here, Deck,” Bryant said, and Deckard noticed how the policeman used his name almost like a talisman, as though to remind himself that the man on the viewscreen was really who he was supposed to be. “And if you’re not, I’ll just send Gaff out to arrest you again.”

Deckard had shut Bryant off without replying. Now he could only hope that Bryant’s message meant what it appeared to say, and that he had not yet been tagged at headquarters.

Right. I go in there after this “vacation”, and I can just see the ‘bonus” I get. “Hey, Deck! Surprise! You’re retired!” Bang! Bang!

Before that could happen, he had things to do, such as canceling the warnings in certain replicant files, and places to go.

He just hoped Gaff wasn’t still tailing him. He hadn’t seen the other Blade Runner for a while and that made him a nervous as -- as a replicant on the run.

He snorted. He still didn’t know what Gaff was in this for. Why the unicorn warning? For that matter, why hadn’t Bryant retired him right after Rachael’s death? Were they waiting, trying to see if the Deckard programming would hold?

Right. Instant immortality. And he was the guinea pig.

Deckard entered the biomechanics lab. His contact, Dr. Sorvegson, looked up, his expression half-triumphant, half-nervous. “Mr. Deckard --” He hesitated, then went on. “I found an EMS molecule that does not cause a carcinogenic reaction in the replicant’s system. It -- ”

“That’s pretty fast.” Deckard had hoped for results, but not this quickly.

Sorvegson’s gaze dropped. “It was already in the computer. In a lock-coded program.”

“Tyrell.” Deckard spoke softly, almost to himself. “He had it all along.”

Sorvegson glanced around guiltily, then nodded. “We’ve always accepted as a given that replicants can’t breed. In fact, it’s a bit of a joke in Bio-engineering, that the onslaught of physical adolescence hits them just as their systems begin their inevitable disintegration. ‘Dead for Love’, the engineers say.”

Deckard hid his distaste and tried to remember that, to Dr. Sorvegson, the replicants he so callously referred to had no more humanity than a toaster. Less, probably. Chances are he’s programmed his toaster to answer him back in the morning.

“‘Okay. So every skinjob going is programmed to replay ‘Romeo and Juliet’. So?”

“So after you told me about the Methuselah replicant having children, I started to access new information into the computer. I found an EMS safe molecule which attaches itself to the pituitary. It releases sex hormones into the bloodstream -- and destroys the induced aging virus in the replicant body at the same time.”

Deckard, hiding his surprise at the “truth” uncovered by his talltale about the “Methuselah replicant’s” children, pursed his lips thoughtfully. “So if the reps can live past puberty, they can live to be God-alone-knows how old?”

The doctor nodded.

“Tyrell. That arrogant bastard. Who died and made him God?”

“Deckard.” A thread of fear ran through Sorvegson’s voice. In the corporate world, even the dead (Wonder how long it’ll be before they double the old man’s brain cells onto some damn bastard of a replicant?) could inspire dread. “If it leaks out that I told you -- ”

Deckard held up his hand. “Don’t worry. No one will ever know I heard it from you.” He stood there quietly a moment, considering the implications. “So now the premature aging process can be reversed, right?”

Dr. Sorvegson nodded. “Not only that, but the molecule functions just as well combating carcinogenic reactions in human cells. Types of cancer and leukemias that weren’t treatable by chemotherapy and surgical means can now be treated, and with a prediction of a damn good success ratio.” He punched out a coded series on the computer, pointed to the vid-screen. “That’s it.”

Deckard eased behind the doctor, studied the screen. Even to his untutored eyes there seemed a certain rightness about the hills and valleys of the molecular readout. It had form and beauty.

So that’s what Tyrell’s been keeping to himself all these years. So scared he wouldn’t be God anymore, he let humans die of cancer rather than give replicants a chance to live.

And he’d wondered how anyone could have so callously used the dead Deckard, the living Madden? After this, that had probably been child’s play.

Deckard’s fingers ached with the need to punch out a hard copy of the information of the viewscreen. He had someone in mind who could use it. “Can’t understand a thing your computer says, doc, but I’m glad you found it. Will it help you with our problem?”

“Humn? What problem is that, Mr. Deckard?” His uneasiness over the hidden formula had obviously driven the original problem from Sorvegson’s head.

“How to reverse the formula,” Deckard reminded him. He could tell by the suddenly empty look on the other’s face that Sorvegson had not even thought of that aspect of the situation. There was, at least for the moment, no antidote to this cure.

Sorvegson licked his lips, peered around. the lab. “What -- what do I do with this information, Mr. Deckard? If anyone finds out I broke into a top-security clearance code-locked program, I could be -- ” Smiling, Deckard held out his hand. “It’s a police matter now, Doctor. Just hand it over, cancel the program, and no one will ever know where the information came from.”

Sorvegson hesitated, civic and medical responsibilities clearly at war. Deckard’s mouth tightened and he gestured sharply. “Doctor.”

Sorvegson nodded abruptly, and pulled a hard copy of the readout. As Deckard watched, he erased the information on the screen. Then he handed the printout over to Deckard.

“I hear scientists have terrific memories. Relax, doc, this’ll make you a hero when you ‘invent’ it.” Pocketing the information, Deckard turned, then faced the doctor once more. “Don’t forget to work on that antidote for us. We may need it if any ‘Methuselah’ skinjobs like that last one show up.”

“Replicants, Mr. Deckard, replicants.” The scientist retained a hint of nervousness.

“And don’t worry, Dr. Sorvegson. No one will know what I’ve learned.” No people, actually.Just a few replicants. An ironic smile caught the corner of his mouth. And no one counts those. Still smiling, he left the lab.

*

It took barely ten minutes to go from the Tyrell Corporation to his apartment. He took the elevator to the 97th floor, the door sliding open smoothly. He stepped out, then paused.

Something was wrong, and his senses immediately alerted him to it. He yanked his gun out, held it steady before him, and advanced down the hallway. He tried his apartment door; it was unlocked.

Slamming the door open, he rolled forward into the apartment. He got to his feet and slowly made his way into the living room, then into the bedroom area, his eyes searching the blank spaces. No one was there.

But someone had been.

Gaff. He was onto me all along. His hand clutched the butt of his gun almost convulsively.

Another silver-foil unicorn stood on top of the ESPer unit. Riding the unicorn was a gold foil warrior bearing a shiny banner and a tiny sword.

Remembering the dreams he’d been having, the dreams of a white-silver unicorn in a forested glade, Deckard thought he understood the message Gaff was sending. The message and the warning. John Madden had come back to Earth from the lands of faerie, and death had been his toll. Now he, Deckard, his job done, faced a second death. But if he could escape, and bring the gift of life to his brothers...

Deckard frowned. Why was Gaff warning him? Unless...

Gaff was one of the “little people”, and had come up the ranks through the ranks; he was a good enough Blade Runner that he’d always been one step ahead of him, and he, Deckard, was -- had been -- the best. It must rankle, to have even a repossessed replicant given the nod over such skill. And the “little people”, who had just as much at stake as the replicants, what if they were planning an uprising of their own soon?

Especially if not all the “little people” were little people?

There must be quite a few “little people” with Gaff’s abilities. If they were to rise against their few remaining rulers...

If they did, what should a good little replicant do?

Smiling, Deckard removed all evidence of where he might be going from his apartment, packed his bags.

A good little replicant would do what every good little three-year-old did.

He’d go home.

* * *

As he’d thought, hijacking a shuttle from Earth proved easy. Who, after all, expected such a thing? Most “normals” who wanted to leave were shipped out in style. The “little people” were too cowed to pull such a stunt, and there was no one else who might even consider such a move.

No one but a replicant named Deckard, who had once been called Madden.

Calgary Heights was the capital of New Canada, and its name fit it well. An aerie suitable only for an eagle and his mate, the city perched where cold winds swept down from the higher mountains to wash every breath of pollution and contamination from the town. Mining was the prime source of revenue, and the townspeople had sent only last year for a peace-keeping force from Earth.

The Tyrell Corporation had handled the request.

Deckard landed the shuttle on the landing field outside Calgary Heights, then walked down and entered the unguarded gates. The man he sought was across the great plaza, his mobile face alight with laughter and his gloved hands waving in the air as he spoke to his companion. His uniform, tan with red piping, fit him like a glove, and his light hair was close-cropped under his military cap.

Drawing a deep breath, Deckard reassured himself that the computer printout of the safe molecule was still in his pocket, then crossed the square.

“Roy?” he said hesitantly.

The man turned, laughter stilled. Crystal-blue eyes gazed at him, a look almost of recognition stirring in their depths.

Deckard held out his hands and smiled. He greeted the other replicant.

“Brother.”

This Blade Runner fanfiction was first published in the CITYSPEAK: Special Edition fanzine in 1988.