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…
'All right.' Deckard wiped his mouth with the flat of his hand. 'I'll take the job. I'll find your sixth replicant for you.'
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.
The spinner dropped toward the landing deck atop the building. 'Why we going here?' asked Deckard. 'You got a kitten with ear mites or something?'
'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.
'You suh-see? It must be real.' Isidore managed to open one of the empty cages and off-loaded the tabby into it. 'There you go, tuh-Tiger.' The cat complained for a moment, then curled nose to tail and closed its eyes. 'Come on. My office's juh-just over here. I'll close the door… so you won't huh-have to see anything you don't want to.' The gaze behind the glasses narrowed, then he turned and started walking again.
