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.'
Silence. He couldn't make any reply. Deckard knew, in the pit of his gut, that the man on the other side of the battered desk was telling the truth. About the bone marrow analysis, about human or not
… about everything.
'Who…' He knew now that that was the right word. And not what. 'Who was she?'
'Like I said, duh-Deckard. She was a human. Beyond the blood marrow results, there isn't much more that I've been able to find out about her. Name really was Pris. That much was true. Born off-world, probably in one of the U.N.'s Martian colonies. They don't like to talk about it, but there's a fairly huh-high rate of muh-muh-mental breakdown out in those warrens. It's a good place to go nuts. And plenty of them do. There are others, the same as poor Pris was. They don't wuh-wuh-want to be human anymore. They're wanna-bes. They cross the line; they start hanging out with replicants, they act like them.. and then they cross another line. In their heads. Instead of replicants who think, who believe, who know they're human… people like poor dead Pris, they're humans who've come to think, to know that they're replicants. A psychotic break. With full-blown somatic conversions — they even take on the physical attributes of replicants. Increased strength, duh-damage resistance, the whole bit. They make a game out of picking up red-hot metal bare-handed, without getting hurt. That's how far their cracked minds can go to prove they're replicants and not human. The process is completed when, like Pris, they escape from the off- world colonies and come to Earth. Where they'll be killed. By people like you.' Isidore closed his eyes for a moment, the mechanical cat doing the same. 'Then they're not wanna-bes anymore. Then they're wanna-dies.'
Now he knew the exact reason for the sweat. What he had to be worried about. 'But… she tried to kill me first…'
'Self-defense. She's going about her own business here in L.A., some flipped-out cop shows up with a gun, starts tearing the place up
… hey, she was just trying to pruh-protect herself. Humans have the right to do that.'
The thoughts in his head squirmed, trying to find a way out. 'Yeah, but… she was already guilty of murder. The escape from off-world… people died in that…'
Isidore shrugged. 'There's no evidence that Pris did any of the kuh-kuh-killing. And even if she had, it doesn't chuh-change things for you. Cops — even blade runners — are supposed to arrest people — humans — and bring 'em in. Not blow 'em away before they get a trial. What, you're going to stand up in court and say you had a right to execute suspects before they're found guilty? Good luck on that one. Judges really huh-hate out-of-control cops. They won't even take you out of the courtroom; the judge'll just hike up his black robe and stand on your thuh-ruh- throat until you stop moving.'
'You're wrong.' The smug tone in the other man's voice infuriated him. 'The LAPD looks out for its own. There are ways. The department will cover for me. They do the investigating, remember? They can take whatever evidence they've got, make it look any way they want. Or they can lose it, bury it down in Internal Affairs, so deep it'll never come back up.' The fury tinged his own voice. 'I was doing my job — yeah, that's no excuse. But there's
