thing I've learned. You should've learned it by now, too.'
'Maybe I did. Maybe I forgot.'
'Well, that's where you went wrong, then. That's how you got all screwed up, Deckard. Falling in love with replicants…' Another shake of the head. 'Trusting them. You're a fool. What you should've realized a long time ago is that the only person a blade runner can trust is another blade runner.'
'Then I'm off the hook. I'm not a blade runner anymore.'
'Correction. Once a blade runner, always one. There's no quitting this job-not while you're alive, at least. Look what happened when you tried.'
He could see where this was going. 'I get the impression you're about to ask me to trust you.'
'As I said-I'm the only one you can trust.'
'I don't know…' Seemed a grim prospect. 'If I'm going to break this trusting habit of mine, maybe I should go one-hundred-percent cold turkey. Starting with you.'
Holden peered around the edge of the kitchen's doorway, making sure that Sebastian or any of the others wasn't listening in, then turned back to give Deckard a hard stare. 'Joke away, asshole. Long as you don't mind laughing in your grave. Because that's what it comes down to. There's somebody who doesn't want us blade runners alive. Probably more than one somebody; a whole conspiracy. High-level and mean. Whoever they are, they've got the resources to take us out, one by one-until they're aren't any more of us.'
'Maybe you'd better get that gear inside you checked. Lack of oxygen to the brain can trigger paranoid delusions.'
'Equipment's running fine.' Holden dug out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, lit up, and took a drag. A moment later blue smoke hung in the kitchen's air; some filtering mechanism inside his chest could be heard revving up. 'What needs adjustment is your brain. You don't seem to understand yet: somebody's gunning for us. For all the blade runners. They set me up last year for a hit, they got our boss Bryant… and this whole business of you being dragged back here to L.A.; that's probably got something to do with it as well.' Holden's gaze shifted as he followed that line of thought. 'Probably because as long as you're running around alive, even up north in the boonies, you're still a loose end for them. The conspiracy isn't just to kill off the individual blade runners, it's to shut down our whole operation. Wipe it off the books completely.'
'Come on.' A wearied sigh escaped from Deckard. 'Easier ways to do that, Dave. Christ, every year Bryant had to fight to keep our unit alive in the departmental budget. If these conspirators are so high-powered, why couldn't they just pull the money plug on us? Every blade runner in town would've wound up washing dishes down at the nearest noodle bar. Not like we've all got exactly ace job skills.'
'Speak for yourself-' The cigarette nearly dropped from Holden's hand as he started coughing, a nicotine hack that doubled him over for a moment. He looked old and grey when he straightened back up, the pump in his chest visibly laboring for air. 'Look, that's all beside the point, anyway. How should I know why they want to kill us rather than just dumping us out on the street? Maybe there's something we all know, something that's part of the job, and as long as we're alive there'd be the possibility of us spilling it. Maybe they want to eradicate the blade runner unit right out of human memory, as though it never existed-they can't leave us walking around, then. Christ, Deckard…' The cigarette made a fiery comet trail as Holden angrily gestured. 'If I knew what they wanted, why they're trying to kill us off, I'd goddamn be in on the conspiracy.'
'There's something else you don't know, Dave.' During the other's rant, he'd looked up at what had been one of the kitchen's walls; now he brought his gaze back down. 'About me.'
'What's that?'
'I don't care.' Deckard looked him straight in the eye. 'I don't care if there's a conspiracy to kill off all the blade runners. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't; I don't know. But I've got my own business to attend to. I left this city with somebody-and it was easy to do it. Getting killed was just about the only thing left here for me. Somebody's still trying to kill me? I'm shocked, Dave, really shocked. Get real.' He folded his arms across his chest. 'I've been dragged back here, and I've got one more job to take care of. All I want is to do it and get the hell out of here again. Somebody's waiting for me.'
'A job, huh?' Holden studied him. 'The only thing somebody would want you to do is to hunt down replicants. That's all you're good for. This little job… it wouldn't have something to do with another one of that batch that escaped before, would it? A sixth replicant?'
'What do you know about that?'
'Oh…' Holden shrugged. 'Maybe all kinds of things. Things that you don't know, Deckard. That's why you should come in with me on this. You don't stand a chance, otherwise.'
'Forget it.' He shook his head in disgust. 'I've got a better chance of finding and retiring it than I would have with a patched-up loser like you hanging around.'
'Wait a minute-'
'No, you wait. Because I don't have time for your bullshit, Holden. You're not even interested in finding any sixth replicant. You've got this conspiracy trip-wired into your head now, and you can't get it out. That's not my problem. I'm not interested in breaking up conspiracies, saving the blade runner unit, whatever. That's all stuff in your world. Mine's not big enough for that sort of thing. Not anymore.'
'You stupid sonuvabitch.' A carrier wave of pity, mixed with a higher cutting frequency of loathing, radiated from Holden. 'It's not as if you have a choice about what world you live in. What makes you think they'll let you go crawling back to whatever hole you've dug in the ground? Even if you manage to ice their missing replicant for them. You'll know too much; they won't let you go.'
Deckard hesitated, then pulled back from the needle that the other man had inserted into his thoughts. 'I'll make it. Whether they want me to or not. Like I said: somebody's waiting for me.'
'Big talk, Deckard.' A sneer twisted the corner of Holden's mouth. 'And a long walk. The only spinner outside is the one I came here in. Don't-' His hand darted into the same coat pocket that'd held his cigarettes, this time extracting a small chrome gun. He smiled. 'Just in case you had some idea about-shall we say? — borrowing it from me.'
'Thought had crossed my mind.' Deckard looked closer at the weapon in the other's hand. 'Where'd you get that? Not your regular piece.'
'I'm making do with whatever I can find these days. It belongs to a mutual acquaintance of ours-the same one I got the spinner from. He left it in the cockpit.' Holden nodded slowly.
'You'd be amazed if I told you who it is.'
'Don't bother. I told you already. I'm not interested in this stuff.'
'You're screwing it up, Deckard. For all of us.' Holden's voice tightened. 'We've got a chance if we stick together. If we don't, we'll get picked off, one by one.'
He shrugged. 'You look out for your ass. And I'll look out for mine.'
'Okay, jerk-' The machinery that'd been stuck inside Holden sent an angry surge of blood into the man's face. 'Don't say I didn't warn you.'
Eyes closed, leaning back against the up-ended kitchen counter, Deckard listened to the other's racketing exit from the safe-house apartment. A few minutes later he heard the distant noise of a spinner lifting from the rubble outside the building. Then everything was quiet again.
For only a moment. The silence was broken by a knock at the apartment's front door.
No one came inside. Deckard waited until the knock sounded again. He pushed himself away from the counter. Making his way through the tilted rooms, he grasped the doorknob and pulled.
Rachael stood in the corridor outside, bending her head down to look past the top side of the doorway.
No — He pushed the memory trip out of his brain. It's not Rachael.
'I thought he'd never leave.' Sarah Tyrell turned her head to look down the dark, empty corridor, then brought her gaze back to his. She smiled. 'May I come in?'
13
They came to burn.
Nothing fancy; wood and rags didn't require anything more than a simple flammable liquid, an accelerant to
