medical advice. You want to believe this or not, fine, it's no skin off my nose. But the truth of the matter is that all the blade runners have always been replicants, from day one. Even before there were any replicants being manufactured in the U.S., back when the industry was located in Stuttgart, and the original developers of the technology-people like Paul Derain, and Sudermann and Grozzi, the ones that Eldon Tyrell eventually ripped off- knew they were dealing with dangerous stuff and they put the first safeguards in place.'
Holden had to admit that the other man knew his stuff. Those were names from the ancient history of replicant manufacturing.
'From the start,' Batty went on, 'those companies had replicants on-line whose sole purpose was to keep other replicants from escaping and trying to pass themselves off as human. That's where the name 'blade runner' comes from; those enforcement replicants were originally called Bleibruhigers. Bleib ruhig is German for 'stay quiet.' And that's what they did, they kept everything nice and quiet; most people around the turn of the century weren't even aware that the replicant technology had been developed. Then when Tyrell and the U.N. brought everything over to the States, and the catching of escaped replicants became a police function, that's when Bleibruhiger got Anglicized to blade runner. The term doesn't make any sense, otherwise.'
'That's a nice etymology lesson, Batty, but it doesn't prove anything. Why use replicants to hunt down other replicants? You'd always be risking them realizing that they had their own interests in common. Then they'd conspire back against you.'
'Only if the blade runners knew that they were replicants.' Batty pointed a finger at him. 'You didn't know. And you were one of the best that the LAPD had in the squad. That's the whole point of having replicants do the dirty work. The nature of the blade runner job is nothing but licensed killing-for most thinking, feeling creatures, whether they're human or replicant, that's a corrosive way to live.'
Holden shrugged. 'I never minded it.'
'You know, that's funny, when you think about it-' Batty's eyes glistened in full enjoyment mode. 'The whole business of being a blade runner drains the human nature out of the people who do it. People like you. And at the same time, the replicants you're tracking down are trying to be human. Don't you think that's hilarious? The hunter is continuously in the process of turning into a mirror image of the very thing he's hunting. And vice versa. That's what makes it so great
… from sort of an ironic point of view.' He shook his head, still smiling. 'I love this universe.'
'You would.' Holden found it easy to resist the other's happy mood. 'Right up your alley, obviously.'
'Yes, well, the system does work, in its own grinding, soul-destroying way. That's why it's so valuable to have the blade runners be replicants themselves. You know that whole bit-Bryant probably told you about it-about these Nexus-6 replicants having only a four-year life span, as a safeguard against their getting away and on their own? That's nothing new. The blade runner replicants have always been built that way. Four years is just about the optimum time that a blade runner can stay on the Curve and operate at max efficiency, before the burnout starts setting in. You got that four-year window of opportunity, you stuff 'em with some implanted memories so they'll think they're human, give some basic hunting and tracking skills… bam, you got'em right at the peak of the Curve. And then even better-they crap out and die before they go weird on you and become dangerous. Haul the bodies away, bring over some new units of the same models from the Tyrell Corporation, program 'em the same way you did the previous ones, and you're off and running. It's a great system.' He shrugged, in a pretense of embarrassed apology. 'Except. of course, you die. Over and over, actually. But you're usually not aware of that part, so that's okay.'
Holden glared at the other. A chill, deeper and more exhausted than before, had started to settle into his bones.
'Like I said before…' He turned away from the corpse with hi face; it was getting on his nerves. 'This is all great talk, but you haven't proven anything. There are other explanations possible for all this. You really haven't shown me any reason to give up believing that I'm the human templant for any Dave Holden replicants. There's no proof'
'There can't be.' Batty pulled the sheet back over the dead body. 'Not the way you want. That's another problem with you blade runners-you've got it in your head that the difference between human and replicant can be demonstrated. You take it as an article of faith-you couldn't do your job otherwise-that the Voigt-Kampff machine and the empathy tests show who's human and who's not. But at the same time, you've already admitted that we could put the machine on each other, run the tests, and the results would be completely meaningless.' He turned an intense, unsmiling gaze on Holden, 'You gotta think about what that means. There's a lot of implications. Take that Roy Batty replicant, that copy of me, that you and then Rick Deckard were assigned to retire. Suppose either one of you had managed to catch it, put the Voigt-Kampff machine on it, and run the tests. Would it have flunked because it was a replicant or because it was such a good copy of the human original? If I couldn't pass the empathy tests; and I'm the original, and the copy of me doesn't pass either, then what's the difference between us? The whole premise of the blade runners-the whole methodology by which they operate in this world, going around saying this person's human and this one's not-that whole thing is bogus. Fallacious. It doesn't work because it can't work.' Batty glanced down at the shrouded corpse. 'Maybe what you should ask yourself is how much of this you've known to be true all along. And you just chose to ignore it because it would've gotten in your way too much.'
He didn't care about that. All this arguing about who or what was human and who or what was not, and how you could tell or could never tell-his brain was starting to ache from the convoluted, seemingly endless labor of picking his way through the branching corridors. A maze, thought Holden. That's what it is. The basic mental pattern of the clever psychotic. Contagion the danger; Holden knew he had to be careful. In his weakened state, still getting over the effects of having an entire new heart-and-lung set shoved into his chest, it'd be easy to get sucked into Batty's ideational construct. If nothing else, it showed why the Roy Batty replicant had become the leader of the band of escaped replicants: the original was a natural scoutmaster, an organizer of fun and games. Play hard, die hard.
'Let's get out of here.' Batty laid a hand on Holden's shoulder, steered him toward the morgue's door. 'This can't be all that cheerful for you. I mean, finding out you're a replicant and all-that must be hell on your self-image. I know I'd take it hard. Plus seeing some corpse who's the exact same thing as you… sort of.' He gave a little shudder. 'The symbolism is really kind of morbid, you know?'
10
Shift change over, banks of grey steel lockers closed, the wooden benches between them polished to a smooth luster by generations of bare cop buttocks and the black serge of uniform trousers; in the close atmosphere hung the scent of sweat and fungicide. He knew that smell, could remember it from his own tours of duty before he'd promoted up and out. With each panting breath pulled into his lungs, Deckard ran further into his own past, one that he'd rather have forgotten. His shoulders barely cleared the narrow space, the black uniform's sleeves torn by collision with hinges and corners of metal.
'There! Take him down!'
He heard the shout and the clatter of jackboots hitting the bottom of the stairs behind him. Without a glance over his shoulder, he dived with arms reaching out straight, the weight of the gun gripped tight in his fist. He hit the bare, damp concrete as a line of automatic rifle fire stitched across the locker doors. Still sliding, he rolled onto his back, getting his other hand onto the gun and firing blind, the recoil from three rapid shots pushing him along another couple of feet.
At least one shot had struck flesh; he heard a gasp of shock as the auto fire went wild, raking the locker room's ceiling and bursting the light fixtures into sparks and glass splinters. In darkness, he scrambled to his feet, staying low and close to the metal doors to his left. His hunched shadow leapt in front of him, outlined by each red muzzle flash back at the stairs.
His own boots splashed into water a quarter-inch deep. That and the humid air in his nostrils told him he'd reached the showers. Deckard reached to one side and touched wet tile; he steadied himself, breath laboring, as his eyes adjusted to the dim illumination from the one bulb left unbroken. His mind raced, trying to dredge from memory a way out of the sub-basement levels below the police station.
'You're not going anywhere, dickhead-'
