done, the techs would lay the digital face over that of the actor who had gone through the paces on the set, who’d hit the marks and had the prop guns fired at him, taken the hits from the other actors, done all the hard stuff . . . and what the audience would see, when the video was broadcast, would be a reconstituted Rick Deckard walking those garish, milling, neon-streaked L.A. streets again, just as the real one had, gun in hand, eyes scanning for his prey.
That’s what they’re going to see, thought Deckard, right now. The only chance he’d had was based on anonymity, on being able to move through the emigrant colony’s crowds without being spotted, on hiding out in the open, his face hidden in the torrent of other faces. And now that was going to be taken away from him. They’re going to see me. My face.
On the monitor screens, the video’s opening credits had ended; the camera angle had dropped from the fire- laced night skies above L.A., crossed by the screaming flares of the police spinners, to street level; the reflection of a neon dragon, red tongue darting through a crudely animated sequence, shimmered on the wet asphalt. A figure in a long coat, shoulders hunched with fatigue, was seen from the back. As the real Deckard watched from the booth, the video’s all-seeing eye moved in on his taped double.
Then a quick cut, the shot going to a front angle, tight on the Deckard figure’s shirt beneath the open coat’s lapels, buttoned to the top with a costume department duplicate of the rough-woven tie he’d always affected back then. The shot moved up to the image’s face, a close-up in good lighting, a noodle bar’s bright fluorescents driving away any concealing shadows; the real Deckard winced, anticipating what he was about to see . . . He didn’t. In the booth, in a cheap dive somewhere in the Martian emigrant colony, Deckard stared in amazement and with an uncomprehending sense of relief-at what he saw on the monitor, echoed simultaneously on the screens throughout the bar.
“That’s not you,” said a small voice behind him. The Rachael child looked past Deckard and Marley, on either side of her, toward the nearest screen. “I thought this was going to be about you and everything, about stuff that happened to you before. But that doesn’t look anything like you.”
“No Deckard continued to watch the video image. The Deckard there, the figure reenacting the story of those nights in L.A., had moved away from the camera and into a medium shot; the face was still visible, though. “It’s not my face.”
“Now that is interesting.” No surprise registered in Marley’s voice. “You weren’t expecting that, were you, Deckard? I was getting kind of a kick out of watching you. Really thought your cover was about to be blown, huh?”
Deckard said nothing, but just nodded slowly, still watching the image on the screen, the Deckard that didn’t look like him.
“Something must have happened,” continued Marley. “For that Urbenton fellow to change his plans like that. I know that wasn’t the original deal. They were going to ceegee your face on top of that actor’s; all he had to do was go through the motions and it would wind up looking like you were doing all that stuff all over again. Hunting down those replicants like the bad ol’ blade runner you used to be.”
“I know.” Deckard felt a measure of tension easing out of his spine. The dismaying prospect that every other face in the bar would turn toward him, connecting him with the image on the video monitors, had vanished. If the police agencies were going to put out the net for him, they would have to do it without the advantage of having every person with eyes doing their spotting for them. “That’s a break.”
“You figure it’s just luck? The director Urbenton just happened to change his mind?”
He looked over at the other man. “No—” Deckard shook his head. “I don’t have that kind of luck. If I ever did. Nothing happens without a reason.”
“For anybody not in the kind of position you are, that would be considered paranoia. For you, Deckard, it’s the beginning of wisdom.”
Whatever relief he had felt over the broadcast of the video, and the absence of his face from it, was replaced by the suspicions he had for this character.
“I don’t have to be real wise, buddy, to wonder what it is you want from me.”
“What do I want?” Marley looked back at him with wideeyed, feigned innocence.
“Like I said, I want to help you. And the way I do that is by stopping you.”
“Stopping me from what?”
“Come on, Deckard. I’m way ahead of you.” The naive mask had dropped from Marley’s face. “I know what you’re up to. You’ve accepted a little job, haven’t you? The fact that you’re carrying around that talking briefcase only goes to prove it. If you had any sense—if all you were interested in was saving your own skin—you would’ve ditched it by now.” Marley tilted his head toward the other occupant of the booth. “Same with the little girl. Nice kid, but she’s only going to slow you down.”
“That’s my problem,” said Deckard.
“Oh, exactly.” Marley’s thin smile returned. “It’s your problem because it’s your job. The job you’ve taken on for the rep-symps of getting that briefcase and its data contents out to the insurgent replicants.”
Deckard stiffened. “If you know all that . . . and you want to stop me . . . then you must be some kind of cop. You’d have to be working for the authorities.”
“Not at all.” The smile grew wider. “I’m with the repsymps.”
For a few seconds, Deckard thought that one over, then slowly nodded. “Sure you are. You blow away that Kowalski replicant right in front of me, and then you come and tell me that you’re working on behalf of the replicants. You really think I’m going to believe that one?”
“Shooting the Kowalski replicant Marley shrugged. “Regrettable, but it had to be done. And not even all that much to be sorry about—he was pretty much at the end of the four-year life span that the Tyrell Corporation had built into that model. So he didn’t really lose that much. And besides, there are other Kowalski replicants.”
“That’s a pretty cold attitude.” Deckard studied the other man. “At least I had the grace to develop a guilty conscience over what I’d done.”
“Good for you.” Deckard’s words had left Marley unfazed. “That must be why you got picked for this job you’re doing. Guilty consciences screw up people’s heads, make ’em easy to manipulate. Like you. Otherwise, if you were thinking straight, you would’ve been able to figure out a few things about the situation you’re in.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Work on it, Deckard.” The other man leaned closer across the table. “You think because I’ve said I want to stop you—to make sure you don’t get that briefcase and its data out to the insurgents—you think that must mean I’m with the authorities. Have you ever thought that it’s exactly the authorities—the police, the U.N., whatever-who want you to get that briefcase out to where you’ve been told it’s supposed to be delivered?”
“Hey!” The voice of Roy Batty piped up from beneath the table. “Don’t listen to this guy! He’s trouble!”
Deckard glanced over to the monitor screen, where the Deckard of the video, still wearing the actor’s face, was talking to somebody in a set that was supposed to be the LAPD’s high-ceilinged main headquarters. He didn’t hear the characters’ words, concentrating instead on what the figure across from him had just said.
“Look at it this way,” continued Marley. “The cable monopoly here does whatever the authorities tell it to do—that’s why it gets to remain a monopoly. If U.N. security tells the monopoly to run this video or that one, or that one”—he pointed to the screen—“then it gets broadcast all over the colony. Same way with Urbenton and his little Speed Death Productions company; if he wasn’t in tight with the police before, it wouldn’t take much pressure, if any, before he’d do whatever they tell him to. Especially since he doesn’t owe you any favors. If they told him to cut the computer graphic effects, the dubbing in of your face over the actor who was playing you—he’d do it in a second. Urbenton wouldn’t care if it helped you or hurt you; just the kind of guy he is.”
Deckard had to admit that Marley was right, at least as far as that part of the analysis went. “I think I’m starting to see what you mean.”
“I bet you are. You’re not totally stupid, Deckard. If the police and the U.N. security forces and everybody else who should be after you, if all those people wanted to find you and stop you from carrying that briefcase out to the insurgents, they wouldn’t have let that actor’s face stay in the video that’s being broadcast. They would’ve told Urbenton to go ahead with his original production plans and dub your face in there. So that everybody in the emigrant colony would know what you look like; so they could put out a bulletin, offer a little reward, and there would’ve been no place you could hide. We wouldn’t be sitting in this cozy little hole having this conversation; the police would’ve hauled your ass away by now.”
