by K. W. Jeter
But he couldn't. You'll give it away, the remaining rational part of his mind argued. Walk out of here, and it'll prove that you're not one of the hired actors. The man standing in front of the door would have set security down on Holden's ass in no time.
Besides, he told himself, there's nothing to worry about. All he had to do was bluff this officious bastard a little while longer, then find some way to slip out of here and continue looking for Deckard.
The rational part had its reasons for him to go on sitting at the table, across from the replicant whose image was so firmly bolted into his memory. They amounted to nothing compared to the irrational ones.
Fear kept him nailed to the seat. Fear, and the locks of time. Time repeating itself, a loop tightening around him, against which it was impossible to prevail. He knew what was coming-he remembered everything now-and knew that there was nothing he could do to keep it from happening all over again.
"Say your line." The partial smile ebbed on the face of the man by the door. "Go on."
Holden closed his eyes for a moment, to make sure that he got it absolutely right. "Tell me He opened his eyes and looked straight into the resentful gaze of the Kowalski replicant. "Tell me all the good things that come into your mind, when you think about . . . your mother .
"My mother?" The replicant was right in character. His voice sounded just the way the other Kowalski's had, so long ago.
"That's right." Holden couldn't keep himself from nodding, even smiling, the same superior fraction of expression that he'd had the first time through this loop. All he lacked was the cigarette and the blue smoke curling above his head. "Your mother."
The Kowalski replicant's face flushed with anger, small eyes widening.
That's perfect, thought Holden. Unresisting.
"I'll tell you about my mother-"
That was all he heard; the rest wasn't spoken, but shouted in flame that burst through the table, leapt and struck him in the chest, where his old, fleshiy heart had once been. The new heart took the bullet's impact without pain, without even shock. His breath was blood in his mouth; the artificial lungs had collapsed into two clenched fists.
The chair spun around with him in it, head thrust hard against the words TYRELL CORP. He accepted another shot between the shoulder blades, the bullet tumbling through the chair back; fragments of surgically inert metal and polyethylene spattered before him in a red mist. The bullet's momentum thrust both him and the chair through the flimsy wall panel-
Just as it had before. Well, they got that right, thought Holden. The chair had stopped, caught by debris and black cables on the set's flooring, but he hadn't. He found himself lying in a spreading pooi of blood, his fingertips heated by the red flow from the broken machinery in his chest. The blank idiot eyes of the video-cams stared down at him.
He was right-a subsystem of the cardiopulmonary gear was still functional, at least for another few seconds; enough to pump a last trace of oxygen to his brain and rapidly dwindling consciousness. The briefcase had been right when it had warned him. Big trouble, thought Holden. His last thoughts ticked away, in synch with the final small battery winding down. To what the briefcase had said: You'll probably die.
There was no arguing with that, not now.
What the briefcase had gotten wrong, though-Holden shook his head, the back of his skull mired in the sticky wetness. It wasn't big trouble; at least not for him. The end of trouble-as the doctors had told him, there wouldn't be any chance of plugging a new heart and lungs into him, so he didn't have to worry about being brought back, to do this all over again.
He could even smile about it, really smile, though he couldn't be sure that anything was happening with his face-for a few time-dilated microseconds after the second bullet had laid him out, he'd been able to catch a tiny reflection of himself in one of the curved lenses above him. But his sight had gone unfocussed and dark, and his flesh was too numb and cold to get any kinetic feedback. Not that he could move, or even want to; that was all past him now.
But not for the briefcase. Wiseass-a last thought flickered through the darkening chambers of Holden's brain.
That was the joke, the final one. The delivery he'd come here to make ...
It would have to find its own way now.
They heard the shot, followed by another one. Deckard turned away from the video director as the two hard-edged sounds, spaced only a couple of seconds apart, rolled through the orbital station's canned atmosphere. They came from close by-he could tell just from the way the shock waves sifted dust from the pipes and walkways above the room's open ceiling.
"What the-" The ample flesh of Urbenton's face quivered as though the noises had come from his being slapped. "There's not supposed to be any taping going on down here. Not now-"
"It's not taping," said Deckard grimly. "It's happening." The last low-pitched echoes had faded away. He left Urbenton standing in the middle of the room as he pulled open the door and strode out into the hallway beyond.
Urbenton followed him; he could hear the director's trotting footsteps and wheezing breath. Deckard paid no attention as Urbenton called in a panicky voice for him to stop and tell him what was going on.
Other voices came from behind one of the doors. Deckard recognized the first one that spoke.
"Was that okay?" It was the voice of another Leon Kowalski replicant. He didn't sound happy. "Was that what was supposed to happen?"
"You did just fine." The thin door barely muffled someone else's reply. "Don't worry about it-"
The voice was interrupted by Deckard's shoving the door open. Two faces, a taller man's and a second Kowalski replicant's, looked around at him. Deckard's gaze took them in, as well as the evidence of what had happened in the room. It was laid out as a small video set, with lights and cameras, all switched off, angling in from above.
One side of the set was in apparent ruin. Past a table and chair, marked TYRELL CORP across its high back, the room's far wall was torn open. An identical chair lay toppled over in the wreckage, a body with shattered chest sprawled out from it. Blood pooled out from beneath the corpse.
Deckard walked past the others and stood looking down at the figure, its arms splayed wide, half-lidded gaze turned blindly toward the empty spaces above. The oddly peaceful expression on his old partner's face was the only thing he didn't recognize. The gaping chest wound extruded broken bits of machinery, fragments of the artificial organs that had wound up being implanted in him some time after he'd first been blown away by Leon Kowalski-another one of the exact same Nexus-6 replicant model. From the looks of Holden, this replicant had completed the job its brother had begun. Irrevocably-there wasn't enough left to bring back from the dead, let alone from any penultimate state of minimal pulse and brain functioning.
The video's script had called for a scene where Dave Holden's first encounter with Leon Kowalski, at the Tyrell Corporation's headquarters back in Earth's L.A., would be reenacted. Whether that scene had already been taped or was going to be taped later in the production, Deckard didn't know-and didn't care. Even before he'd arrived at the Outer Hollywood station, all he'd been concerned about was getting paid for this technical adviser gig and getting back to his unfinished business in the U.N. emigrant colony on Mars.
But Urbenton had told him nothing about Holden's being brought up here as well. Which meant that the video director had been concealing that bit of the production plans-Why? Deckard wondered-or else it'd never been part of the plans at all. If that were true, then Holden had come to the orbital station on his own . . . or somebody else had sent him.
So maybe, thought Deckard, it wasn't an act when Urben ton got all spooked about the other Kowalski replicant's getting killed on the street set. As much of a conniving little sneak as the video director was, there still might be things going on of which he hadn't been the prime motivator. Urbenton had clammed up, in true paranoid style, when Deckard had finally convinced him that a live round from a real gun had killed one of t
he Kowalski replicants; there hadn't been time to pump the director for more info- just who it was supposed to be, that the possibility of their pulling stuff in the orbiting studio was so blood-drainingly scary-when the sound of more shots being fired had interrupted them.
He turned and looked back at the others in the room, the still living ones, human and replicant.
The Leon Kowalski replicant had the same uncomprehending expression in his small eyes as his twin had gotten when the bullet had penetrated his skull and leapt out through his forehead. This one held another gun, the weapon that had just blown away Dave Holden, extending it on his beefy palm toward the other men.
"I'm really sorry..." As big as he was, the replicant had the voice of an overgrown, frightened child, one who wasn't even sure of the nature of the crime he might have committed. "I did it just like I was told to. But ... I don't know..." He shook his animal head. "D'you want me to do it again?"
"Don't worry about it." The taller man, calm and supercilious beside the video director's perspiring, stubby form, reached out and took the gun from the replicant's hand. "Like I said, you did just fine."
"'Fine'?" Urbenton screeched, goggling at the other man. "What the hell are you talking about?" He flung out one arm, pointing to where Deckard stood next to the corpse. "I don't even know who you are. And you come around here and all of a sudden I've got a dead body on the set-a human body- plus a dead replicant somewhere else, and you say 'Fine'?" He started to turn toward the door. "That does it. I'm calling studio security."
"There's no need for that. Everything's under control here." The taller man didn't look at Urbenton, but wrapped his hand around the grip of the gun and lifted it to eye level. He stretched his arm out straight. "I'll take care of it."
Deckard could see what the other man was about to do, was already doing as he stepped away from the corpse on the video set's floor. He raised his own hand toward the gun, though it was yards away; he knew he would never reach it in time, as he pushed his way past the table with an unopened briefcase on it, the Tyrell Corporation chair that hadn't been toppled over .
The Kowalski replicant knew as well that it was hopeless, that there'd be no point in trying to evade the bullet. The taller man squeezed his hand around the gun's grip, finger tightening on the trigger-Deckard saw the tiny motion, heard the shift of metal against metal inside the gun's workings. A tapered rush of flame broke from the circle at the dark muzzle's end; the replicant had already turned his head away in anticipatory flinching, eyes shut as if he could prevent himself from seeing that quick, ragged, and fatal light.
A single bullet; it caught the replicant at the corner of his brow. For a moment, he looked as if he had been graced with understanding, a shocked awareness flaring deep behind his eyes, their silent gaze turned toward and engulfing Deckard. Then Kowalski fell, his massive body lifted onto tiptoe by the shot's impact, the side of his head rocked against one blood-spattered shoulder. He landed in the angle of the room's floor and farthest wall, crumpled into a package of rags that no longer resembled a human being.
The hand at the end of Deckard's arm, that had been reaching for the gun, curled into a fist. He was close enough to the taller man now that he could read the name - MARLEY - on the ID badge pinned to his chest. Deckard planted himself, drew his fist back, and then launched it into the other's chin. The blow snapped the man's head back, staggering him against the door. He held on to the gun; when he'd regained his balance, he used his free hand to rub the bruise spreading along his jaw. A slow smile leaked out from behind his fingers.
"What are you so worked up about?" The taller man's amused gaze regarded Deckard. "It was only a replicant. And maybe you didn't notice-it'd just killed someone. A human. Replicants who do that sort of thing aren't supposed to live." The smile grew wider and nastier. "Maybe you're upset because I was just . . . doing your job for you." One of the man's eyebrows lifted. "Isn't that what blade runners are supposed to do? Kill replicants?"
"Fuck you." Disgust coiled Deckard's guts. He would've taken another swing at the man, this time to lay him out cold on the floor, but the notion of even that brief contact repulsed him. He turned toward the sweating, goggling figure of Urbenton. "Look-" His finger jabbed into the director's flesh-padded chest. "I don't know what the hell's going on around here. And as of now, I don't care. I'm leaving." He pushed past Urbenton and out the door.
"Hey, Deckard-" The taller man's voice followed him out to the corridor beyond. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the man still rubbing his jaw and smiling. The man gave a slow nod. "We'll run into each other again. And then we'll have a lot to talk about."
"Don't count on it." Deckard turned on his heel and started walking again, without looking back.
"Sooner than you think, man." The other's voice faded behind him. "Sooner than you think ..."
Halfway down the corridor, Deckard felt a tug at his elbow. He looked around and saw Urbenton trotting to keep up with him.
"Wait a minute..." Urbenton panted for breath. "Come on, Deckard. What're you talking about? Leaving-you can't leave."
"Watch me."
The director grabbed Deckard's arm tighter. "You can't- we're not done with the shoot!"
"That's not my problem." With the butt of his palm, he shoved his way through a wider set of double doors that led out of the orbital studio's offices and toward the landing
docks. "Tape your movie any way you want to. I'm out of here."
"Goddamn it, Deckard, you can't do this!" Urbenton's voice ratchetted higher and more emotional than when the Kowalski replicant had been killed in front of him. "You walk out of here, the money people down on Earth will be all over my ass!" He stopped and dug in, his weight yanking Deckard to a halt. "We've got a contract with you! Signed and notarized!"
"You know what you can do with it."
Urbenton's voice continued hectoring him, but he ignored it. Up ahead, through the segmented maze of container hoists and freight movers, he could see the smaller black ovoid of the skiff that had brought him to the Outer Hollywood station from Mars. The propulsion nacelles were streaked with corrosion, the rounded fuselage pitted with the wear of several years of interplanetary flight. His depleted finances had allowed for nothing newer or more serviceable than this craft; he'd checked it out as best he could, but the journey had still felt like travelling in a blind sarcophagus surrounded by cold vacuum. The whole time he'd been here at the station, he'd been dreading the flight back . . . until now. At the present point, Deckard didn't care whether the skiff's fuel and oxygen would last until he was in a closing orbit above Mars. Just as long as he got away at all.
He worked at strapping himself into the skiff's tiny cockpit, letting Urbenton's yelped squall pass over him like the buzz of a grossly enlarged insect.
"You're not getting paid, jerk-off!" Urbenton had gone into a vein-throbbing rage. His pink-ringed eyes looked as though they were about to jump out of his face. "That's the deal-payment's on completion of your contract. You were supposed to be on-set until principal photography's wrapped up-hit the road now and you don't get a penny, jack."
"Like I care." Deckard punched buttons on the control panel, programming the skiff's course. "That's not a problem for me." It was, though; portions of his mind, the coldest ones and first to regain their balance after witnessing these quick deaths, had already begun fretting about the money. Or the lack thereof-the whole point of taking the technical adviser gig on the production had been to pump up his dwindling account back at the U.N. emigrant colony. He thumbed the last button on the panel and got a confirming red flash in return. "See you in some other life."
"Don't bet on it." The director turned his wide, sullen face away. "I carry grudges for a long time."
As the skiff's cockpit hatch began to lower, blocking off Deckard's view of Urbenton exiting from the dock, he heard another voice calling him.
"Mr. Deckard! Wait a minute!"
He stopped the hatch and looked out the side
of the skiff. The bespectacled production assistant ran toward him carrying something pressed against her nominal breast.
"Anything I left behind," said Deckard, "you can keep." He'd come to the Outer Hollywood station with little more than a few changes of clothes. "I don't need it."
"Are you sure?" The heavy black glasses' rims had slipped down the bridge of the woman's nose; she pushed them back with one corner of the object she held in her hands. It was a briefcase, Deckard saw now, a plain black leatherette one. "I thought this looked like it was maybe important. You had it back there in the office, when you were having your little conference with Mr. Urbenton."
The woman was right; now he remembered seeing it, on the table with the two Tyrell Corporation chairs at either side, one chair overturned with Dave Holden's corpse bleeding away nearby. "That's not mine." He supposed it might've been brought to the station by Holden. It didn't matter to him, one way or the other.
"Really?" The little production assistant twisted her face into a puzzled expression. "It's got your initials on it." She turned the briefcase around to show him the small metal badge set in beneath the handle. "See?"
The initials RMD were engraved into the metal piece. Deckard said nothing, his own face a mask, as he listened to a small warning bell ring inside his head. Anything with his name on it, that had come to him by way of a dead man, was unlikely to be good news.
Another voice spoke, though there was no one but himself and the production assistant on the dock. Or at least no one human; it took him a moment to realize where the voice came from.
"Hey ... Deckard..." the briefcase whispered, just loud enough for him to pick up. "Don't blow this one. Just take it."
"What was that?" Looking even more puzzled, the production assistant glanced around the space. "Did you hear something?"