“ ‘Memetic bomb’? What’s that supposed to mean?” Deckard gazed at the other man in disbelief. “You’re talking about a meme? Just some kind of idea, and that’s all? I suppose it’s some really bad one-something like ‘Why don’t we all just commit suicide? It’s fun and it’s easy.’ And that bad idea is just somehow going to infect the replicant insurgents, they’ll kill themselves, and the U.N.’s troubles will be over. You must be joking. You have to be.”
“No Marley actually looked sad. “I wish I were.”
The shift in the other man’s attitude made Deckard un easy. “What is it, then? What good is a meme as a weapon if the replicants could just come up with a countermeme for it? Because that’s all it would take. Any idea, bad or good, isn’t something that people have to obey without even thinking about it. It’s not like a bullet—or a real bomb. You don’t get to argue about those.”
“Guns have triggers,” said Marley. “So do bombs; the things that make them go off. That’s what you don’t argue with. When the triggers get pulled, things happen. Real bad things. When the meme is the trigger—a trigger for something that already exists inside the target—then that completes the bomb as soon as you bring the two together. And that’s what you’d be doing by taking that briefcase out to the insurgents. The bomb that would go off isn’t some bad idea, some little self-destructive notion, that they’d be able to argue with.
It’s something that’s built into them, just like those false memories that the Tyrell Corporation implanted into them. It’s already in their heads, Deckard, where they can’t get at it. They don’t even know it’s there. But they would as soon as you showed up with that briefcase and the data inside it. What the insurgents out there believe would be a list of the disguised replicants on Earth, their fifth column that they could contact and bring in on their side—they’d have a big surprise coming. It wouldn’t be any list. It’d be their death warrants that you’d delivered to them. And they’d take care of the killing by themselves.” The smile, when it appeared this time, was a mordant twist in one corner of his mouth. “That’s a pretty good bomb, wouldn’t you say?”
More than one change; the other man’s voice had gone deadly cold as well. “How does it work?” Deckard was almost ready to believe. “What is it inside the replicants’ heads?”
“Remember what I said about the four-year life span’s not being an issue anymore? That’s got a lot to do with it.” Marley leaned across the table. “The replicants have changed. Because of being out there. Out in the stars, so far away from Earth. That’s what the Tyrell Corporation was afraid would happen, and what the U.N. authorities have found out to be true. That’s what started up the rebellion, made the replicants think they had something worth fighting for. Their own lives. And not just some crummy little scrap with a built-in cutoff date.
In the outer colonies, that’s what started happening: the replicants began spontaneously living longer than the four years they were intended to live.
They changed. They’re still changing.”
“If that’s true,” said Deckard slowly, “then it means . . . everything. Everything would be different. And not just for the replicants.”
“You got it, pal. That last batch of replicants that escaped and came to Earth—the ones you hunted down— they weren’t part of the insurgents. The Batty replicant and the others—they didn’t know what was going on. The rebellion hadn’t gotten hold of them yet. And they missed it.” Marley shrugged. “Kind of ironic, don’t you think? Cruelly so. The Batty replicant and the other ones with him—they all wanted more life. To live longer than four measly years. And they could’ve had that if they’d just stayed where they were. Out in the stars. Instead of coming to Earth. That’s where their death was waiting for them all along. And it didn’t even have anything to do with you.”
“What do you mean?” Deckard looked harder at the other man, trying to figure out the words.
“The spontaneous life extension—it’s only happening out there.” Marley pointed up to the bar’s ceiling. “In the outer colonies, where the insurgents are. It doesn’t happen anywhere near Earth. Actually, there are some indications that replicants who’ve changed, who’ve acquired a life span longer than four years, will revert if they get within range of their home planet, the place where the Tyrell Corporation put them together. Earth is toxic to them; the planet itself is the trigger for that life span bomb that Tyrell wired into each one of them.”
“You said they were still changing. The ones out there.”
“That’s right,” said Marley. “Because there’s more to life, isn’t there? More than just extending your own. There’s the cycle, the way one generation gives birth to another. That’s a big part.”
He could already see where Marlev was going. “But that’s something replicants can’t do. Give birth. Have children. Replicants are sterile; they can’t reproduce. They were designed to be that way. That’s how the Tyrell Corporation built them. The only way you could get another replicant would be to have Tyrell build it for you.” Deckard regarded his own hands for a moment, then looked back up to the other man. “That’s the way it’s always been .
“But that’s not the way it is now. Now, things have changed. The replicants have started to reproduce. On their own, without the Tyrell Corporation; there are replicant mothers and fathers, and replicant children.” Marley tilted his head toward the Rachael child sitting next to him. “And guess what? They look just like human children, the way replicants look like adult humans. And they grow up and become like their parents, just the same as human children do.”
“Then what’s the difference?” It was the Rachael child who spoke, peering at Marley. “What’s the difference between them? Between humans and those other people?”
“Ah.” Marley nodded. “That’s a good question. A real good question.”
“Then answer it,” said Deckard. “I’d like to know.”
“All right. Here’s an answer for you.” Marley regarded the girl for a moment, then looked back up at Deckard. “The replicants aren’t the only ones changing out there. So are the humans. Or what used to be the humans. This is what the U.N. doesn’t want people back on Earth to hear about; it would put a real crimp in the emigration program if it got out that going to the stars has some real hairy effects on the human species.”
“Like what?”
“Sterility, for one. The colonists are in danger of dying out just from lack of reproduction. There hasn’t been a human infant born in the outer colonies for a nearly a decade.” With his thumb and forefinger, Marley made a zero.
“Nada. No kids; the end of the line, unless the U.N. starts sending out more colonists. Who will in turn go sterile, from all indications; nobody’s found a cure for what’s happening. But that’s not the only change. The mass reproductive failure is just the most obvious sign that something is going wrong, at least for the humans out there. There’s other changes, which are a little more subtle but just as bad.”
“And you’re going to tell me about them.” Deckard felt a wave of foreboding pass through him. “I’m beginning to be sorry that I asked.”
“Too late for that,” replied Marley. “It’s why I’m here. To clue you in.
Here’s the deal on what else is happening with the emigrants in the outer colonies. Psychological changes; a decrease in that faculty usually known as empathy. You remember that one, don’t you, from your blade runner days—the ability to feel what another living creature is feeling: its pain, its suffering, its joy. Well, the colonists are showing lower and lower marks on the standardized tests that measure that sort of thing. To the point where, if they were administered empathy tests with a Voigt-Kampff machine, they’d flunk. Some of them have already been given the V-K tests, and they didn’t make it; the machine registered them as being below the cutoff point for the empathic response that characterizes human beings.”
“Then they’re not human.” Deckard saw the cold logic of what he was being told. “They’re not human any longer.”
“Well, there you go.” Hands grasping the edge of the table, Marley sat back in the booth. “Life’s a bitch, isn’t it? Things just happen, and then you have to deal with them.” He shook his head as though in wry amusement. “Of course, the U.N. authorities have their own way of dealing with the situation.” One hand patted the briefcase’s lid. “Thus, you and this bomb you were told to carry out to the replicant insurgents.”
“But if what you’re saying is true Deckard no longer doubted it. “Then they’re not replicants anymore. They’re the human ones out there.”
“Matter of semantics, isn’t it? It’s all in how you define the word.” Marley’s hand gestured lazily toward Deckard. “Now you, given your background-being a blade runner and all that—you just naturally tend to think that anything that passes a Voigt-Kampff test is human, and anything that doesn’t isn’t. And maybe you’re right. But what it means is that the U.N. emigration program has been successful, but not in the way they intended. There is a human presence in the outer colonies, way out there in the stars, but it’s not us; it’s not the things that used to
