The oddly peaceful expression on his old partner’s face was the only thing he didn’t recognize. The gaping chest wound extruded broken bits of machinery, fragments of the artificial organs that had wound up being implanted in him some time after he’d first been blown away by Leon Kowalski-another one of the exact same Nexus-6 replicant model. From the looks of Holden, this replicant had completed the job its brother had begun. Irrevocably—there wasn’t enough left to bring back from the dead, let alone from any penultimate state of minimal pulse and brain functioning.
The video’s script had called for a scene where Dave Holden’s first encounter with Leon Kowalski, at the Tyrell Corporation’s headquarters back in Earth’s L.A., would be reenacted. Whether that scene had already been taped or was going to be taped later in the production, Deckard didn’t know—and didn’t care. Even before he’d arrived at the Outer Hollywood station, all he’d been concerned about was getting paid for this technical adviser gig and getting back to his unfinished business in the U.N. emigrant colony on Mars.
But Urbenton had told him nothing about Holden’s being brought up here as well. Which meant that the video director had been concealing that bit of the production plans— Why? Deckard wondered—or else it’d never been part of the plans at all. If that were true, then Holden had come to the orbital station on his own . . . or somebody else had sent him.
So maybe, thought Deckard, it wasn’t an act when Urben ton got all spooked about the other Kowalski replicant’s getting killed on the street set. As much of a conniving little sneak as the video director was, there still might be things going on of which he hadn’t been the prime motivator. Urbenton had clammed up, in true paranoid style, when Deckard had finally convinced him that a live round from a real gun had killed one of the Kowalski replicants; there hadn’t been time to pump the director for more info—just who it was supposed to be, that the possibility of their pulling stuff in the orbiting studio was so blood-drainingly scary-when the sound of more shots being fired had interrupted them.
He turned and looked back at the others in the room, the still living ones, human and replicant.
The Leon Kowalski replicant had the same uncomprehending expression in his small eyes as his twin had gotten when the bullet had penetrated his skull and leapt out through his forehead. This one held another gun, the weapon that had just blown away Dave Holden, extending it on his beefy palm toward the other men.
“I’m really sorry As big as he was, the replicant had the voice of an overgrown, frightened child, one who wasn’t even sure of the nature of the crime he might have committed. “I did it just like I was told to. But . . . I don’t know He shook his animal head. “D’you want me to do it again?”
“Don’t worry about it.” The taller man, calm and supercilious beside the video director’s perspiring, stubby form, reached out and took the gun from the replicant’s hand. “Like I said, you did just fine.”
“ ‘Fine’?” Urbenton screeched, goggling at the other man. “What the hell are you talking about?” He flung out one arm, pointing to where Deckard stood next to the corpse. “I don’t even know who you are. And you come around here and all of a sudden I’ve got a dead body on the set—a human body—plus a dead replicant somewhere else, and you say ‘Fine’?”
He started to turn toward the door. “That does it. I’m calling studio security.”
“There’s no need for that. Everything’s under control here.” The taller man didn’t look at Urbenton, but wrapped his hand around the grip of the gun and lifted it to eye level. He stretched his arm out straight. “I’ll take care of it.”
Deckard could see what the other man was about to do, was already doing as he stepped away from the corpse on the video set’s floor. He raised his own hand toward the gun, though it was yards away; he knew he would never reach it in time, as he pushed his way past the table with an unopened briefcase on it, the Tyrell Corporation chair that hadn’t been toppled over .
The Kowalski replicant knew as well that it was hopeless, that there’d be no point in trying to evade the bullet. The taller man squeezed his hand around the gun’s grip, finger tightening on the trigger— Deckard saw the tiny motion, heard the shift of metal against metal inside the gun’s workings. A tapered rush of flame broke from the circle at the dark muzzle’s end; the replicant had already turned his head away in anticipatory flinching, eyes shut as if he could prevent himself from seeing that quick, ragged, and fatal light.
A single bullet; it caught the replicant at the corner of his brow. For a moment, he looked as if he had been graced with understanding, a shocked awareness flaring deep behind his eyes, their silent gaze turned toward and engulfing Deckard. Then Kowalski fell, his massive body lifted onto tiptoe by the shot’s impact, the side of his head rocked against one blood-spattered shoulder. He landed in the angle of the room’s floor and farthest wall, crumpled into a package of rags that no longer resembled a human being.
The hand at the end of Deckard’s arm, that had been reaching for the gun, curled into a fist. He was close enough to the taller man now that he could read the name—MAILEY—on the ID badge pinned to his chest. Deckard planted himself, drew his fist back, and then launched it into the other’s chin. The blow snapped the man’s head back, staggering him against the door. He held on to the gun; when he’d regained his balance, he used his free hand to rub the bruise spreading along his jaw. A slow smile leaked out from behind his fingers.
“What are you so worked up about?” The taller man’s amused gaze regarded Deckard. “It was only a replicant. And maybe you didn’t notice—it’d just killed someone. A human. Replicants who do that sort of thing aren’t supposed to live.” The smile grew wider and nastier. “Maybe you’re upset because I was just . . . doing your job for you.” One of the man’s eyebrows lifted. “Isn’t that what blade runners are supposed to do? Kill replicants?”
“Fuck you.” Disgust coiled Deckard’s guts. He would’ve taken another swing at the man, this time to lay him out cold on the floor, but the notion of even that brief contact repulsed him. He turned toward the sweating, goggling figure of Urbenton. “Look—” His finger jabbed into the director’s flesh-padded chest. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on around here. And as of now, I don’t care. I’m leaving.” He pushed past Urbenton and out the door.
“Hey, Deckard—” The taller man’s voice followed him out to the corridor beyond. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the man still rubbing his jaw and smiling. The man gave a slow nod. “We’ll run into each other again. And then we’ll have a lot to talk about.”
“Don’t count on it.” Deckard turned on his heel and started walking again, without looking back.
“Sooner than you think, man.” The other’s voice faded behind him. “Sooner than you think .
Halfway down the corridor, Deckard felt a tug at his elbow. He looked around and saw Urbenton trotting to keep up with him.
“Wait a minute Urbenton panted for breath. “Come on, Deckard. What’re you talking about? Leaving—you can’t leave.”
“Watch me.”
The director grabbed Deckard’s arm tighter. “You can’t—we’re not done with the shoot!”
“That’s not my problem.” With the butt of his palm, he shoved his way through a wider set of double doors that led out of the orbital studio’s offices and toward the landing docks. “Tape your movie any way you want to. I’m out of here.”
“Goddamn it, Deckard, you can’t do this!” Urbenton’s voice ratchetted higher and more emotional than when the Kowalski replicant had been killed in front of him. “You walk out of here, the money people down on Earth will be all over my ass!” He stopped and dug in, his weight yanking Deckard to a halt. “We’ve got a contract with you! Signed and notarized!”
“You know what you can do with it.”
Urbenton’s voice continued hectoring him, but he ignored it. Up ahead, through the segmented maze of container hoists and freight movers, he could see the smaller black ovoid of the skiff that had brought him to the Outer Hollywood station from Mars. The propulsion nacelles were streaked with corrosion, the rounded fuselage pitted with the wear of several years of interplanetary flight. His depleted finances had allowed for nothing newer or more serviceable than this craft; he’d checked it out as best he could, but the journey had still felt like travelling in a blind sarcophagus surrounded by cold vacuum. The whole time he’d been here at the station, he’d been dreading the flight back . . . until now. At the present point, Deckard didn’t care whether the skiff’s fuel and oxygen would last until he was in a closing orbit above Mars. Just as long as he got away at all.
He worked at strapping himself into the skiff’s tiny cockpit, letting Urbenton’s yelped squall pass over him like the buzz of a grossly enlarged insect.
“You’re not getting paid, jerk-off!” Urbenton had gone into a vein-throbbing rage. His pink-ringed eyes looked as though they were about to jump out of his face. “That’s the deal-payment’s on completion of your contract. You
