EdgeOfHuman (10 page)

"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?"

"Turning fakes -- what
you'd
call fakes -- into the real. That's what we'd started out doing, with the animals -- building and repairing them so they couldn't be distinguished from the ones that'd been born that way. Doing it with animals is legal; Hannibal Sloat just took it the next logical step. The
necessary
step. The Van Nuys Pet Hospital is the last station on the underground railway for escaped replicants: when they get out of the off-world colonies and reach Earth, they come straight here. Right under the noses of the blade runners and all the rest of the LAPD; who'd ever think of raiding a pet hospital? Hm? And then when the escaped replicants get here . . . I
fix
them. And when I get done fixing them . . . they can pass an empathy test. I tweak their involuntary reaction times, their blush responses, their pupil fluctuations, so they can sail right past a Voigt-Kampff machine. And they do pass; they
always
pass." Isidore nodded slowly, as if he'd just thought of something. "So given that there've been some real humans who've flunked the empathy tests . . . I guess that makes my fixed-up replicants realer than real, huh?"

"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."

As the search party topped the last big rise, a fifty-floor office tower now laid out on the ground like a cubist obsidian snake, the first smoky flush of dawn crept over the horizon.
Gonna be a hot one
-- Sebastian could already feel the sun's blistering kiss on his face. Until the monsoons came back, every one was a hot one.

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."'

"And wuh-what's that?"

"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?"

"But the ID . . . the video I was shown . . ."

"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."