This is intended as a novelisation of the film, however, I have altered most of the exact dialogue, to keep it within the intended meaning in the film, but, because of the usual copyright issues, sufficiently different from the exact wording of the film. Some other plot events have been added, and subtracted.

Memories Are Made Of This

V

The meeting had been hastily arranged. Deckard didn't like that, if this latest generation were going to be difficult to detect, he would have preferred more time to prepare, to select the scenarios and questions. But he accepted that needs-must, but he could see he could be made the fall-guy if he passed a Rep, or failed a human - and he definitely didn't like that.

The offices of The Tyrell Corporation were in the form of a series of pyramids in the hills around Palo Alto, based on the Great Pyramids at Giza - but built on an even larger scale, in steel and glass, and with the frame on the outside. Despite the wars they were still standing, and also because of the wars; they had expanded and added two further buildings; this was when Tyrell had moved into both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial armed-and-armoured self-directing automata.

This is where Doctor Eldon Tyrell, he was both a medical doctor and a doctor of philosophy, had his design studio and his home. When Deckard arrived he was escorted to Tyrell's work space.

Doctor Eldon Tyrell was, reputedly, a hermit-like ascetic. But since he had so little contact with the outside world - a world that often clamoured to know more about him - it was difficult to know. Since he had made his home atop The Tyrell Corporation's offices it had seemingly become his entire world - in many ways it was a world of his own devising; he employed from the entire world's talent pool, and his offices included facilities within it modelled on a Thai beach bar, a Mayan temple in a jungle, a southern European white-walled fishing village, a narrow Parisian street, and an African Krall village, all within the basement of Building No 1.

As far as was known he had not left the premises of the headquarters building for a decade. All his contact with the outside world was through a small number of trusted intermediaries who acted on his behalf.

If another rumour was true, that he had had extensive aesthetic surgery, then he must have left the premises at some time for those proceedures. And if that rumour was true then he might not be remotely recognisable, now, from the last known photographs of him.

Deckard arrived an hour after his meeting at the precinct. The assistant who escorted him advised him that Doctor Tyrell would be along at the pre-arranged time and left him. Although Deckard had visited the building many times before he had never seen this part of it... He supposed that few people had. The Inner Sanctum, he thought.

From the elevator door there was a large open, empty space. It had half a dozen Egyptian columns extending to the far wall - in keeping with the pyramidial design of the exteriors. They were not load bearing, as they clearly did not extend to the roof. The entire space had a highly polished floor that reflected what little light that still remained in the late afternoon. Through a huge sheet of glass at the far end of the room, westward-facing, the sun, although dimmed, was also magnified by the dust-chocked atmosphere and shone directly into the building at this time of the day. The entire space was infused with a yellow-bronze light. It was so unlike the quality of light he had just flown through, that of a dull grey-brown smog. He assumed they must have a colour filter set in the huge sheet of glass. He walked across from the elevator to look at the view from the window, to where the only large of piece of furniture was, a vast table. His footsteps echoed off the hard floor and wall surfaces. As he walked he looked at the columns. He diverted his walk over to the left and ran his hand over the surface of the column, felt its coolness and then tapped his knuckles against it to sense its solidity. Not fake. Very real, or, if not real, then a very convincing re-creation.

His attention was taken by the broad vista over the hills around Paolo Alto, and over the crest of the hill to the lights of San Francisco. As he waited he was aware of a sound, the sound of some kind of fluttering off to his right. He looked to see what it was and was met with the sight of a large bird sitting on its perch. As it moved it's head, the low oblique light met the bird's retina and made them shine in a perculiar - eerie - manner. He looked at it, quite astonished. So rare had avian life become.

As he looked at the creature it took flight, flying close to his head, as it flew over to a perch on the far side of the large room. Little sooner after it had spread its wings, it was on the other perch and was ruffling and tucking its feathers.

A woman's voice suddenly echoed through the space, as though from nowhere. 'What do you think it is?' the voice asked.

Deckard turned and looked around to see where the voice had come from. He noticed an oval of light some distance away by the elevator. The elevator was so quiet that he hadn't heard it descend, or ascend, to this floor. Against the shine of light off the black lacquered surface of the doors stood a young woman dressed in a shimmering black dress suit that also shone in the light, with a skirt worn to the ankles. Almost camouflaged against the background, thought Deckard. Almost; she wore a red rosebud in her jacket lapel. She ruined the camouflage effect by starting to walk toward him, the yellow-bronze light shimmered on her skirt and jacket as she moved.

'I'm not sure. I've never seen anything quite like that before,' he said.

'Take a guess...'

'I really couldn't,' Deckard didn't want to appear foolish by making a wrong guess.

'It's an owl,' she said.

'Is that so?' Deckard said as she approached.

'What did you think it was?' she asked.

'I really wasn't sure. I've seen old streamage of eagles from before the war. I thought it might have been that. Is it real?'

'Of course. This is Tyrell, after all,' she replied as though a genuine, live owl was the most natural thing in the world.

'I'd hate to think how expensive it'd be.'

'More than the average person could imagine but, even with our recent problems, we can afford it,' she said flatly. She faced him now. She was fine featured, very light skinned with a small mouth, a straight nose and large, almost vast, dark eyes. She was young, but Deckard couldn't fix her age as she wore a lot of make-up. Blusher, mascara, eye shadow and a rich glossy red lipstick. She had a mass of raven hair piled in a rigid fashion upon her head. He knew that the clothes, the hair and the make-up were all in a certain style but he couldn't remember it. It was an impressive effect though.

'My name is Rachel. I'm one of the personal assistant's who work for Doctor Tyrell. You are Mr Deckard?'

Deckard nodded. There was a depth to her voice, a smokiness, almost huskiness, that belied the youth of her appearance. She held out a small pale, delicately boned, hand to him. They shook. His hand appeared huge and roughly hewn by comparison.

As Deckard had turned toward the voice he noticed there were two large eagle sculptures in the far corners of the back wall. They were so distant from the elevator doors he emerged from that he hadn't noticed them as he was shown in. He also noticed that the plinths were pock-marked and had gougings out of the stone. They had clearly been deliberately defaced. He realised that they were Third Reich eagles. Probably recovered from some Nazi minister's office. The pock-marks looked like they might have been bullet holes or shrapnel scars, the gouging was where the swastikas had once been, circled by laurel. What does that say about Tyrell? Does it say anything, other than that he collects broadly?

'You work directly for Mr Tyrell, or do you work for the Corporation?' Deckard asked.

'Directly for DOCTOR Tyrell,' she said emphasising his error in calling Tyrell Mister. Hence the clothes, thought Deckard, the work-wear of the super-rich. She turned away and walked a few paces. She turned again to face him and added, 'I've heard it said that the Department you work for seems to believe what we do here is against the common good.' She had deliberately come straight to the point. 'Is that so?'

Deckard thought it better to appear neutral, he didn't want to be drawn on the subject. 'That is the view in the department, yes.'

'And yours?'

'The things you make here are akin to any machine we use day-to-day. In some circumstances they can be a benefit, in others, like our present problems, they are a hazard. Sometimes they can be both, simultaneously. Heli-cars crash. Inter-planetary shuttles fail and drift, and everyone on-board can expire before the rescue craft arrives. Sometimes they blow-up. They're both a benefit and a hazard - at the same time. I suppose the Replicants are no different. No one, I think, would argue against their continued usefulness on the off-Earth colonies - when they don't rebel. But if they were always a benefit, I wouldn't be here now.'

Rachel gave a discreet nod of the head. 'I want to ask a question. You may think it is very personal. May I?' she asked.

'Go ahead.'

'Have you retired - that is, killed - any humans? Unintentionally, I mean.'

'No!'

'Or deliberately.'

'Certainly not,' he said emphatically.

'But you could; afterall, how can you be so sure? In your line of work that must be a known hazard too.'

'That is why we administer the Voight-Kampf Test. Benefits and hazards Ms...?'

He halted. She answered, 'Ms Tyrell.'

'You are part of the family?'

'Yes. But it isn't nepotism, before you start thinking that.' She immediately seemed to have a need to justify herself, and seemed less assured in her manner. 'I do have an aptitude, unlike some second- and third-generations of a family business...'

Deckard accepted her wish to explain her presence and returned to what he was saying, 'No Replicant is retired without the V-K Test being applied, or without the prior authority of the appropriate...'

'Mr Deckard, I know of many instances when a Replicant has been...' she started to interrupt, suddenly speaking in a vehement manner.

Deckard didn't wait for her to finish the sentence. 'Miss Tyrell. That is what you may believe has happened, but that would only occur if it were a fugitive.' He had been in too many pointless discussions with roboticists and other enthusiasts on this point before now. He continued, 'They are retired only after they have failed the Test, or are otherwise endangering human life.'

'But a Replicant is still a life. It is alive.'

Deckard certainly didn't think so, but he wasn't going to be drawn on it now. 'Not under any law recognised amongst national governments on-Earth for, what ought to be, an obvious reason. Given the recent carnage.'

He reckoned that would put her on the backfoot, but she continued, 'Except in Idaho or Iowa, or British Columbia... Singapore. And a few other terrirtories on-Earth where they're still really needed,' Rachel Tyrell replied.

'In that case, take it up with the legislature. When they figure that the benefits outweigh the hazards they can put me out of business. I've already left the business before now.'

'I know. And yet you keep coming back to it. How many times has it been? Three? According to our files, that is how many times. Why is it that you keep coming back to it? Could it be that you enjoy killing the...'

Deckard interrupted her again. 'Staff shortages,' he snapped back. 'Police keep getting shot. By your rebelling Replicants,' he said, not trying too hard to keep the accusatory tone from his voice. Deckard paused. He was allowing himself to be drawn into an argument with an advocate of the 'obvious' benefits of Replicants, who could never be persuaded to the departments point of view. He said simply. 'I have my Department identification, my Blade Runner license, and my Test certification. If you feel the need to check it.'

'That won't be necessary.' A disembodied voice echoed loudly towards them.

Deckard looked around and saw a man walking quietly towards them in soft soled shoes.

'Rachel,' he called out, holding a finger vertically across his lips, indicating "Be quiet!" As he approached he said, 'I believe you may be goading our visitor. I know Mr Deckard. We have met before.'

They had met before but Deckard was astonished that Tyrell remembered. It was over a decade ago, before the man had become the reclusive enigma he had latterly elected to be, and on that occasion it had been only briefly. He must have 'tagged him' at the time, for future reference, and called up the file before this meeting. Tyrell appeared to Deckard, on this occasion to be younger than he had appeared then, so far as he could remember. He was lean, dark-haired, but clearly not young. Otherwise he was of indeterminate age. His hair was a lot thicker than it had been before. He wore large glasses with light-shields at the sides. On the lens of his spectacles scrolled news, data, information - seen in reverse, from Deckard's point-of-view. He was dressed in a deep blue rough-silk collar-less suit, as though ready to go out for the evening.

'But Eldon, anything could have happened since you last...' Rachel started to say. Tyrell stepped up to her and stood by his assistant, placing a proprietatorial arm around her waist and quickly kissing her cheek. Deckard quietly noted this.

'No. No. It is alright,' Tyrell said as though he were soothing a child. 'Where would we be in the world without some trust? Things would be much worse than they already are. Who would ever come back to Earth, when there is all that Free-Life happening elsewhere in the solar system.' He turned his back to say something to the woman and dropped his voice, but not so low that Deckard couldn't hear him say, 'Then there are those who can't get off-Earth.' Tyrell turned again to face Deckard. 'Besides, our guest, although he doesn't know it, has been scanned and auto-vetted, as you know, as he entered the building. He is who he says he is, if he wasn't we wouldn't be talking to him afterall.'

Turning his attention back to Decker he said, 'You wish to test one of our latest generation, that is correct?'

They shook hands.

'That is right. Thank you for allowing this meeting,' Deckard said. Tyrell gave a dismissive wave of his hand. It was something that was entirely in his gift. He could have refused to have anything to do with the investigation. Unless he was sub-poenaed. 'I am of the Free-Life school-of-thought. But I can see occasions when giving some aid to the police, the state, is of some common value.'

'For whom?' Deckard asked. Tyrell ignored the question, much as anyone would ignore idle insolence. 'I take it that you're here to apply a Test based on empathic response?' Doctor Tyrell asked. 'Voight-Kampf? That is what, errr, Holder...'

'Don Holden,' corrected Deckard.

'...Holden applied, and the past few blade runners that have been up here have used it as well. Or do you use one of the other tests? There are others still in use, I believe, yes?'

'Voight-Kampf,' confirmed Deckard, 'V-K, for short.'

''Ah, the V-K. That means you'll be using,' Doctor Tyrol glanced at Rachel. 'The involuntary reflexive action in the iris.' He added, 'I'm always a fascinated spectator of a Test being conducted. To see it being applied,' he paused for a moment, 'by an expert professional?'

Deckard noted the query at the end of his sentence. He simply nodded silently in response. 'I was told there would be a subject here.'

'Show me it work on a human first. I've never seen you apply the Test. That is the qualification I want to see. Not the departmental I.D. and Test Certification. Prove to me that you are qualified, through a demonstration of your skill. By showing, not telling. Show me a negative - then I will furnish you with a subject. When I do, I'll not make it easy for you; you'll not know if the subject is real or not. That is my test, of you.'

'Mr Tyrell...'

'Doctor Tyrell,' he said curtly.

'Doctor. That is why we are Certificated, so we don't have to constantly demonstrate to confirmed sceptics of the effectiveness and accuracy of the Test, or ourselves. I was told there was a subject here, ready to be tested. This is what was arranged by my boss. You can be subpoened.'

Tyrell adopted a superior expression on his face, but surprised Deckard by suddenly using a tone of feigned obsequiousness. 'I crave your indulgence on this point,' he said.

'You could be the subject of my Test, Doctor,' Deckard made sure to emphasise the word Doctor, with a little sarcastic twist in his tone.

'No,' Tyrell replied, he took one step back from his assistant, 'On Rachel.'

Deckard looked at Tyrell's assistant, his relative (so she claimed), her eyes were cast downward. He suddenly noticed that she had looked at the floor a lot in the short time they had been talking. He had seen more of her darkly eye-shadowed eye-lids and triple lashes, than be had seen of her eyes. She had only briefly glanced at him. There was something obscurely appealing to him about it. He looked at the low-lying setting sun and squinted into the light.

Deckard looked back at Rachel Tyrell. He gave a slight shrug. 'We'll need another room. It is much easier to do the test in a darker room than this. I need neutral light.'

'That's alright,' Tyrell said. He moved around to the end of the large table by the window and cast his hands across a screen, it looked like he was performing a holy rite as his hands moved in the vertical-horizontal pattern of the Holy Cross. The yellow-bronze coloured filtering in the glass changed to a smokey blue-grey.

'Is that better for you?' he asked Deckard.

'Much better.'

He indicated to Rachel to take a seat on the opposite side of the table as he opened his briefcase and pressed the button for the Voight-Kampf Test apparatus to automatically set itself up. He glanced up and noticed another detail about the room. There was a sculpted bust off to the right of the long table. It had been in silhouette when the sunset light had been streaming into the room. It was of Emperor Julius Ceasar.

Deckard started recording, and made a bald statement, 'This is a Voight-Kampf Empathic Response Test, utilising the Altered Scale revision, three-point-eight. Subject, Rachel Tyrell.'

Then he addressed Rachel directly, just as he had done to several hundred Test subjects before, but as though he had never said these words to anyone else. It was part of Deckard's technique. Like a medical doctor's 'bedside manner', it was practiced but, seemingly, unique to that one person.

'Please make yourself comfortable. The procedure shouldn't take too long.' He caught, out of a corner of his eye, what he took to be, a condescending smile flit across Doctor Tyrell's face as he checked his set-up. 'Now, I'm going to put some scenarios to you, and will put a series of follow-up questions. So I need you to pay attention to the scenario itself. Be as relaxed as you can, I know that any kind of test can be a little nerve-racking. Respond to each question simply. Don't over think it, we need a natural reaction. Time is a factor. Answer as quickly as possible, but it isn't a competition. There aren't any points for answering the questions quicker than anyone else has. It is not a quiz either. There are no 'right' answers. Answer them as you feel.'

Doctor Tyrell coughed and interrupted, 'Is that true Mr Deckard?' Deckard looked over at him as he stood at the end of the table. Tyrell was holding up his forefinger as if to make a point. 'Surely wrong answers lead to indentification of the subject as a Replicant - as you call them.'

'Still. It isn't a quiz. It is more about the speed of response than the content of the answer. Just as a low empathic response does not mean a subject is not a human.'

Deckard adjusted the iris dilation sensor and checked the magnified image on his screen. He noticed that Rachel's eyes were not the deep dark brown they seemed to be. He saw now that they were slightly lighter and flecked by variable grey-green and violet colours. Somewhere, in her left eye there seemed to be a low red glow. A reflection off the rose-bud in her lapel, perhaps?

He started administering the test.

'On a special occasion a friend gives you a gift, you open it and find that it is a purse. It is marked with a hand-tooled portrait of yourself. You think it is beautiful. Then he tells you it is made from baby-skin and...'

Rachel didn't wait for the end of the sentence, 'I really could not accept such a thing offered as a gift. I'd report the person who gave it to... to... whoever the appropriate authorities are. I think I'd also drop them as a friend.'

Deckard watched the long tail of the graphic representation of her response scroll across the screen. He digested the data, assessed what it showed him. The first question wasn't going to reveal too much. He added a mark to the response graphic and it scrolled off to the left of the screen. He moved onto the next question.

'You're relaxing and reading a magazine. In it there is a picture of a nude woman.'

'Is the intention of this test to discover if I am a Replicant, or a lesbian?'

Deckard looked up from the screen. One of her eyebrows was raised quizzically at him.

'I need you to respond to the scenario just as it is...' he said in his business voice. He paused. 'We'll let that one pass...' he added, as he made a scoring-out mark through the response graphic. Rachel glanced off to one side, and gave a slight, almost imperceptible, smile at Doctor Tyrell. Deckard continued, 'But then your husband sees it and says he would like to frame it and hang it on the wall. What would you do?'

'What would I do? I certainly couldn't allow that.'

'And why do you say that?'

She touched the corner of her mouth with a finger as though to shift a small speck of food. 'He is a grown man, he should be past wanting to hang posters of nude models on his wall.'

'Rachel has a point,' said Tyrell.

Deckard was curt in his response. Without looking at Tyrell, keeping his eyes fixed between the apparatus and the response graphic, he held up the flat of his palm toward him and said, 'No more interruptions. Please.'

'What if it were a work of art, a Botticelli? Or Fragonard? Or Degas?'

'That would be different.'

'Why?'

She hesitated. 'I don't know why... it would just seem to be different... if I had a husband, it would seem odd to me that he would want a photo of a random model on the wall. Art, afterall, is art...'

Deckard continued the Test for the next forty minutes putting all the scenarios and questions that had been formulated by psychologists to identify low empathic response. Until he came to the last scenario on his list.

'You have to attend a banquet. There is a starter course, you ask what it is and you're told it is boiled dog served in a lime and coriander dressing. Why are you so appalled?'

He had kept this "Why?" question in his deck of scenarios until the end. All the others, had a why question as a secondary probing question - the "why" question required a fuller explanation by the subject - this one question did not wait for a response, it was the primary purpose for it.

No response. Rachel looked down so as not to meet his eye, she stifled a yawn, yet she looked nervous. She pursed her mouth and quickly licked her lips, she looked as though she was about to speak but then said nothing. She looked up at Deckard again and back down at the table top. She was fidgeting her fingers and thumbs.

'An answer - please,' Deckard said. She looked up at Deckard again and back down at the table top. He sat back in the chair. She did the same and looked him directly in the eyes for long moments. There was a touch of defiance in the way she looked at him.

'That is the last of the questions, Mr Deckard?' Doctor Tyrell asked.

Deckard had been aware, in his peripheral vision, of the intense interest Doctor Tyrell showed in his questioning of his assistant. Deckard silently nodded.

'Please Rachel, leave us alone for a few minutes, go into the other room,' Doctor Tyrell said to her. She rose from her chair, straightened her jacket, tucked her right hand into the jacket pocket, a strange little habit she seemed to have, and walked across to a door set discreetly into the wall off to the left of the large room. As she did so he and Tyrell eyed each other, and Deckard noted how the man stood at the end of the table with his right hand tucked into the jacket pocket. Deckard looked behind to make sure she had left the room.

He spoke first.

'A Replicant,' he said simply.

'You're very definite in your assessment.' Tyrell cleared his throat, 'I like to get an understanding for a man's skill at his task. That is why I wanted to see you apply the Test. Much better than looking at a Certificate,' Tyrell added. 'I will admit that I am surprised, but also, impressed, in a grudging way.'

'I had apply the V-K anyway, but usually I expect my Certificate to be proof of competency. Of skill.' Deckard looked steadily at Eldon Tyrell. 'You expected me to pass this one, didn't you? Since you wanted to see a negative before a positive.'

'Hmmm,' was all Tyrell said in reply. He was clearly in deep thought. He gestured at Deckard's apparatus and asked, 'I can't help but wonder, if it usually takes so many questions to identify a...,' he hesitated, 'a, Replicant? How I loath that expression! Then why...' He stopped, and said what he wanted to say in another way. 'I have always heard they could be identified with far fewer questions.'

'No, it doesn't usually take so many,' Deckard hated to have to admit it. 'Most can be identified within twenty, sometimes thirty questions. We cross-reference them.'

'You cross-reference them as you go along?'

'That's right.'

'Yet it took about four times as many as usual for you to identify Rachel.' There was a tone of suppressed triumph in his voice. Of, almost, beating the system - of an instant assessment of what had to be done to beat the test. He persisted along this line though. 'Are you really sure about this one? I'm certainly surprised that she isn't real. She seems real to me. I really don't know what we can do to keep Replicants out, if one as real as this one can still get into...'

'You know full well it is a Replicant,' Deckard interrupted, not wanting to engage with the charade Tyrell was playing out.

Doctor Tyrell smiled a very slight, sly smile but said nothing, neither confirming nor denying, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the outcome of the Test.

'Does she have any idea of what she - it - is?' he asked. 'She really believes she is human.'

'I'm not too sure, I will close her down with a sedative later and check, they have a wireless infra-red sensor at the back of the eye, I'll have a look at the accumulated data on this meeting. However I do suspect she is beginning to...' Tyrell nodded his head one way and the other, '...have doubts.'

Deckard wondered if Tyrell was using understatement, he was about to query him but Tyrell switched the subject back to the test. 'There must be a reason why you needed to ask so many to identify this one? I see that you exhausted all your scenario cards.'

'I knew by the time I got into the eighties. I went through the rest as a fail-safe.'

'Still,' Tyrell said, 'that is a lot more than twenty or thirty.' There was that note of triumph in his voice again.

Deckard pursued his query. 'How can it think it is really human? The previous generations never...'

'Why should it? Is she not a beautiful creation? And besides, does knowing what we are help us much, Mr Deckard? That we are all just reservoirs of sperm, and banks of eggs, that must wait to mate. Wait for puberty, and the permission of the society we belong to, as though society owns us. And everything else is just a light-show, to keep us entertained and distracted. How does that knowledge help you? Within Rachel, there could be a new level of consciousness; we happened upon it, almost by accident, during the development for the previous generation, the banned, illegal generation. She is probably going to be beyond the apex of the NeXus series. The foundation of the next one, the Zygot generation.'

'But all the previous generations at least knew they were Replicants. Or more correctly, they had no knowledge of themselves. They were just machines when all-is-said-and-done. The appearance of being human was just that. Only an appearance. Not real.' Deckard shifted in his chair, subconsciously thinking of the implications. 'What is the point, anyway of this...' he hesitated for a moment, lost for words. He found the one he wanted. 'This subterfuge.'

'The point, Mr Deckard, is business. And this is the business we are in. So we do what this manufacturing sector demands of us; what the customer wants is what the customer gets. Our commercial policy is - what is good for trade, is good for Tyrell. And Replicants, as you blade runner's insist on calling them, are good for trade. 'The Upgraded Human,' is not just an advertising slogan, it is our motto, and our aim. We can do so much more, with the likes of Rachel than evolution ever has, or could do. Evolution has taken millions of years to get us to where we are today, from now on we can change and adapt humans by design, and not rely on evolution. Why? Because the alternative is worse. Would you prefer a return to slavery Mr Deckard? Is that what you would advocate? Would you be sending people to the outer System against their will, to work and work without rest? That is what the Replicants do for us. Even if our idiot lawmakers imagine otherwise. Make merry Mr Deckard while you can, with your blade running,' Tyrell loaded his use of the words "blade running" with contempt. He paused, then said, 'That will change. Replicants - I really do loathe that expression...,' Tyrell gave an exaggerated shudder, 'are needed on the strip-mines and the outer colonies because the conditions are too harsh for our fragile human sensibilities. A tour on the Moon is fine for most people. An off-Earth platform is fine too. They're just a hop and a skip across a narrow stream. But the outer System? There are not nearly enough people who want to go out there. Only loners, and loose cannons. And they are the wrong type of person to be out there. Yet we want the resources. The metals, the rare earths.

'Understand this Mr Deckard, she remains a research project. A prototype. But some day soon something a lot like her will go into production, and we will offer elements of the developments that have gone into her for humans to use too, as upgrades, using our hardware, wetware and software. Her musculature is an entirely new way of building muscle, we could offer it as an overlay to anyone who wanted it, and could afford it. Whenever we are cleared to recommence production, once this horrible episode of industrial espionage is exposed, we will do just that. Indeed, we ought not to have to wait for our licence to be renewed, if we only offer these upgrades to living humans. The synthesis of human and machine may yet become complete by this other route.'

Deckard was astonished at what Tyrell had achieved. She had, indeed, been like an 'upgraded Human'. But something else too, she appeared desirable. This prototype could not possibly have been made exclusively for outer-System work though. It - she - was clearly too delicate. Too good to be wasted on Pleasure-model work, too. What were Tyrell up to?

Doctor Tyrell continued, 'Like all the others that went before her and will come after her. All the - yes - 'product', that has made Tyrell the huge exo-Earth business it has become.' He continued, 'The legislators may be able to sit aside from the effects of their policy, but they are hurting the population of Earth, and the human races expansion off-Earth...' He stopped. 'But enough of that.' He came forward a few steps to where Deckard was sitting. His tone suddenly switched from a laconic semi-drawl. He began to talk with some enthusiasm, as though he were consulting his own imagination, out-loud, in front of an outsider, a spectator.

'But with the earliest creations something came to our notice, they had a strange...' he paused while he searched for the most accurately descriptive word, '...obsession. They lack a foundation, the staging area of readiness that we get from our babyhood, and childhood; we are, so to speak, introduced to the world stage-by-stage. At first we launched them directly into Life, raw and unready, just as we had done with all the previous generations, but...'

'Surely machines are not meant to have emotions!' interrupted Deckard, 'What possible use can that be to either the machines, or to us!'

Tyrell ignored Deckard's observation and continued, '...they needed something similar to what we have, but we don't have the time to 'bring them up' as a child is raised to adulthood. They need to be 'work-ready', out-of-the-box, so to speak. We needed a way to introduce past experiences, or the seeming of it, into them, in place of what we have. What they had instead was a blank, and it manifested itself in this obsession with their origins. Little different, superficially I suppose, from a child of about six or seven years asking about where they come from. But, it was a problem and needed a solution. And solutions are what we do here at Tyrell. And we do them well. So we tried another experiment. We gave them a gift, one that provides something to ease their way into this world, something which is the same as we humans usually get from our past, that we get from family, friends, food, wine, shopping, the temporary oblivion of Trizac, what we get from this good Earth. With this, we found that we re-established control over them.'

"Re-establish control over them," thought Deckard, what had been going on in this place, that control had to be re-established. Was it anything like the off-Earth rebellions? And yet Rachel was undoubtedly the picture of calm and poise.

Tyrell looked straight into Deckard's eyes with a penetrating gaze. It felt as though he was looking deep into the core of Deckard's 'soul', then he added, 'Or what a blade runner might get from the thrill of retiring recalcitrant, rebelling, recidivist, returning Replicants.'

Deckard smirked humourlessly. Then it occurred to him what Tyrell was driving at.

'You can't be serious!' he exclaimed as the thought sank in. 'Can you seriously be telling me that you've given them memories?'

'Correct Mr Deckard. They have - Rachel has - a web of seemingly completely real scenarios already planted in her, a kind of invitro auto-suggestion. They are 'born', or activated, with a ready-made past. We always have them 'wake-up' in bed, it then seems to them as though they have just woken after a good nights rest, ready for a new day of busy, busy, busy activity. Just like anyone alive today. A beautiful and simple solution. Doubly beautiful for its simplicity.

'I don't go to the opera Mr Deckard. I have a few beautiful objects here, as you may have noticed, but I don't care much for the Arts. Why is that? Because designing, what you call Replicants, is all the beauty I need. My immersion in designing delivers greater gifts for me in turn, in such a simple idea. And one that incorporates the natural human ability to tell a story.'

'And to tell lies. To practice subterfuge, confidence tricks. Fraud,' Deckard said.

'And also infiltrators, 'moles,' deep-cover agents,' replied Doctor Tyrell. 'The tricks of your trade, I think, Mr Deckard.

'Among the gifts that arise from my immersion in designing are problems; now, problems are things that most people do not welcome, but I do, they prompt ideas and solutions. Ideas and solutions are where creation exists. We could all be creators if we used that facility we, most of us, have within us. It made our failing experiment into - Rachel...,' Tyrell paused for dramatic effect, 'and Beauty was created.'

VI

After Deckard left the Tyrell building he called into the precinct from his heli-craft as he flew back to San Francisco and advised Bryant that he was following up the lead on Polokov. The address of the hotel he was living at that had been given in the interview with Don Holden. By the time he got there the heavy night-rains had started to fall. All the moisture evaporating off the Pacific ocean coalesced on the dust that had been thrown up into the atmosphere during the last war and caused weather patterns to change and San Francisco got a lot of rain, every night.

10-55 Hunterain Hotel Apartments. It was an old building, built before the last two wars, on the corner of Lincoln and Lafeyette, off Independence. There were much better buildings in much better parts of the old city. This part of the city was underpopulated and under lit. In a city crowded with refugees, or, because it was a city crowded with refugees, this was still the lousy end of town. When you lived here you were either starting from the bottom, stuck at the bottom - or you were on the skids. The kind of long skid that ended here.

Deckard had never been a very good driver-pilot, he switched over to auto-land and touched down on the pad of the heli-station built over the Dakota building next-door and taxied the craft over to the corner bay, he disembarked and ran over to the shelter, he ignored the rain as he watched the heli-craft automatically descend down to the lower level under the pad and be shunted off to a parking bay while he waited for Gaff to appear.

He only had to wait for a minute for Gaff to arrive on the pad, he lifted the cane up to the brim of his hat by way of saying hello. Gaff always kept his use of words to the minimum, as though there was a shortage of words and he had to preserve the few that he had, and make them go as far as possible. Deckard didn't mind. He never liked the fractured, worldwide-patois anyway - that Deckard always called patois-crap - that Gaff used when he talked. They walked swiftly off the pad to get out of the rain and down to get an entry key to Polokov's hotel apartment from the buildings night-supervisor.

Calling these places hotel apartment's was a grand name for - a room with a bed, a drawer unit, a shower, sink and toilet. They had been apartments at one time but the pre-war shortage of accommodation meant they had been partitioned into a number of small single rooms. They entered. Polokov's place was on the tenth floor, the top floor, but this was no penthouse.

They entered the room. Gaff went into the main room. Deckard checked the bathroom inside the door on the left. He took out his torch and kept the bathroom light off. He shone the torch around the room, switching back and forth from white light to ultra-violet, just in case something unusual might show up. Something unusual did. As he looked into the shower cubicle he saw something glinting in the light, caught in the plughole. He bent down and looked closer, then he took out a small plastic evidence bag and a set of tweezers to pick it up. He sealed the clear bag and noted the time and place. He held it up to look at it more closely. It looked like a very small fingernail or a large fish-scale. It might be inconsequential. But, then again, it might not. He continued to look around. The bathroom had the appearance of being grimy, but the ultra-violet light showed that it had been thoroughly cleaned. That single scale was all he found.

He switched off the torch and went into the main room. There was just room for a bed-chair and a chest of drawers. He looked over at Gaff and asked, 'Anything?'

'Nien, amigo. Only this.' Gaff handed Deckard a pile of photograph print-outs. 'Left them in the drawer unit. Otherwise it looks like Polokov cleaned up and cleared out.' Deckard shuffled through them. They were mainly family snaps and pics of Leon, he assumed, as a little boy. Except he had never been a boy.

'Strange that he should leave these behind,' Deckard said. He thought for a moment, 'Or maybe not. If he knows these are fake, why keep them? Maybe this is why these Replicants are trying to get into Tyrell. They know that their past's are not real. That they're not real. They're learning. And they won't like what they find.'

Leo Polokov wasn't too far away. He had met up with Roy B in KoreaTown, after the shooting at Tyrell.

This Replicant was one of the largest body sizes that they were made in. Six foot, six inches. And broad. Body shape A1. He had bleached hair, cropped short. They were both used for heavy lifting but Leon Polokov was a smaller A3 body size. Both of them were dressed in syn-leatherette, like beat police. A casual glance would make you think they were cops. Their jackets even had insignia, but the insignia signified nothing. On anyone else it would be a fashion frippery, but on them it looked nearly convincing.

Cool-blue neon dragons danced along the side of a building over the signage of the glass-fronted Nickel-Odeon Amusement Bar. The neon dragons spat arrows, like fire, that directed people to the Noodle Cafe on the first floor. The Nickel-Odeon was on the ground floor in the acute angle of a junction where two narrow streets met to make one broad avenue. The Nickel-Odeon was nice and crowded. A good place to blend, and the crowd gave good cover from gun-fire, if a Blade-runner should happen by.

Roy B already knew about Leon's failure to infiltrate The Tyrell Corpration. He was not too concerned though. He placed his hand on Leon's shoulders and asked him if he knew why he had been interviewed.

'I don't know Roy. Routine check, maybe.'

'It would be a big problem,' Roy said. 'Except, I have some information for you that I was able to acquire while you were away. I learnt of a component manufacturer who produced head parts for one-off Replicant designs.'

Leon gave a small low groan.

'Yes, Leon. Replicant designs.' Roy had brilliant clear blue eyes and he stared at the other Replicant, almost intimidatorily, as though it were his fault. 'It seems it IS all true. You and I are not like other men. But this man, a funny little man - he wasn't very pleased to see me - in fact he gave me a very frosty reception. But he gave me some information that may be useful too.

'I put it all to him. All the things we need to know. 'Genetic extramorphia'. Inception routines. Morphology. Longevity. Incept dates. About Life Expiry, especially about Life to do with Robomorphis. He claimed not to know anything about such things. Claimed he made ears and eyes. Audio-visual sensors only. Claimed the parts he made were guaranteed for ten years of problem-free use. This man, he said he designed our eyes and ears.' Roy B paused. 'All this,' he wafted his arm at the neon lights, the noise in the Nickel-Odeon Bar, the swelling crash of the rain outside, 'all that we see and hear, we owe to this man. But should we be grateful to have this knowledge? Should we Leon?'

'No!'

Roy B said, 'No, is the right answer.'

'What did he say, this man? What did he tell you?'

'Oh. We were right about The Tyrell Corporation. But we were fishing in the wrong pond. Chew - that was this man's name - told me that it is the boss of the company who knows all the answers. He said that this man is a lone-genius. He told me that the employees only know their own specialisation. All our infiltration would never have gained us the information we need. He said - Chew said - that he worked to a special order to grow our eyes and ears, and that is all that he knew about the NeXus project. But Tyrell, Eldon Tyrell is the name, he was the one who made us, he made our minds.' Roy B tapped the side of his forehead with his left hand. He stopped and let that information sink into Leon's synthetic man-made culture-grown mind.

'I know the name Eldon Tyrell, but I can't place it. When Chew mentioned the name I had a strange sense of deja vu. Why? I don't know. Chew seemed able to read my mind though. It was like telepathy or wireless comms, he knew that we wanted a meeting with Tyrell. Said it wasn't possible, beyond impossible. Well, Leon, we've overcome impossible before now, so I insisted that I would.' Roy gave a humourless smile. 'Now, Chew worked in a refrigerated environment, something to do with bacterial infection of the organo-components during inception, cultivation and growth. I felt very comfortable in the cold. I'd only just met Chew but I was really warming to him. Nonetheless I felt that Chew needed an inducement to talk. When I ripped his insulated suit off, he became quite chatty, his teeth chattered too. I told him, "This isn't cold. Try working in Saturn's orbit when the heating system on your suit has failed." But he got colder and colder. It was then that he offered me a name of a contact. Someone who could help us. This contact CAN get us in.'

Roy Batty grabbed the lapels on Leon's syn-leatherette jacket and pulled him towards him, speaking in a near-whisper, 'One of the few people that Eldon Tyrell trusts. His name is J.F. Sebastian. He is a fellow designer. Freelance, but he's really Tyrell's man. This is the man that Tyrell turns to when he needs to sound out an idea. He lives in Nuevo Frisco. A job for Pris, I think. You never know about San Francisco, so I've heard. But Pris is a good place to start.'

VII

Deckard deposited the SFPD heli-car at the precinct. He took a tram back to KoreaTown to pick up his own car. A strange, old electric model from a couple of decades back, the CiteeElectro SuperNova V80, it was like a pyramid - pyramidial shapes had enjoyed a vogue for a while - of strengthened perspex on wheels. He drove home to his apartment block. Even for Frisco night-rain, this rain was heavier than usual. Sheet lightening was flashing insistently over the bay. Deckard had long since had a second windshield wiper added to his vehicle, but even with both on full power they could hardly keep the wind shield clear.

Ideas of dark portents, curses and plagues, flickered through his mind - of rain without end, and floods, of mysterious inexplicable tornadoes, with frogs and fish descending from the skies, plagues of boils, broiling nights, boiling oceans. Of war, pestilence and famine. The Apocalypse.

It had been a long and informative day for him. Anyone else, an android designer especially, would have considered a meeting with Doctor Tyrell to be an extraordinary honour, but for Deckard it was just another day at the workface.

Tyrell had been in a talkative, even confessional mood, so Deckard had kept quiet and let him talk. He assumed that Tyrell had put two and two together about the shooting of Holden by Leon Polokov. He assumed that Tyrell knew where Leon had come from, and that he would be accompanied by others. He had not detected a sense of personal fear in Doctor Tyrell at any point in the meeting.

Deckard would have liked to have broached other curious aspects of this case but had been under instructions from Bryant to confine the meeting to the application of the V-K Test.

The forty-five storey apartment tower Deckard lived in had been constructed in the grounds occupied by the Van Doren Mansion. The mansion was still there, built in the French Belle Epoque style that was current when the Van Doren's had made a fortune designing and manufacturing tool-making equipment, and had owned the land of this entire, building-chocked, block when it had been an acre of orchards and a formal garden based on the Italian Renaissance style.

He stopped his car for a moment at the ornate iron gates. The gates were controlled by a long defunct technology. So Deckard projected the infra-red beam from the fender, and the gates swung open. He drove around the old mansion and down into the basement car-park. He watched for the light on the dashboard to come on to indicate he had aligned the car over the recharge induction port, it didn't come on, so he had to draw out and drive back into the parking bay. Then he walked over to the elevator.

He was tired. Very tired. He had three near-sleepless nights behind him, the renewed anxiety of a blade runner assignment - when he had read about the latest spate of shootings, he knew he would be reenlisted - and he had been given a lot to think about too. He stepped into the elevator and the voice print security device asked for his name and apartment number. He yawned as he gave them.

'Do not recognise,' the system said, 'Please repeat.'

'Deckard. 41 - 7,' he repeated.

'Deckard. 41 - 7,' it confirmed. 'Good evening Mr Deckard. Thank-you. Danke. Merci. Gratsi.' The system had never been updated to include anything beyond European languages.

'And danke, to you too,' he said wearily. He leant his head against the elevator wall and closed his eyes. In an instant he sensed a movement. Somehow, the Replicant that he had met at Tyrell, was in the elevator and had suddenly stepped forward from the opposite corner. He hadn't noticed her, somehow. Her blouse was open, she was bare-breasted. He knew she was here to assassinate him. He reached swiftly into his jacket for his gun, but he knew that she had him. She would kick-kill before he could draw. Then the auto-system voice came on again, 'Floor forty-one. Thank you. Danke. Merci. Gratsi.'

Deckard opened his eyes. I dreamt, he realised. In the instant that I had closed my eyes, I had dreamt. He rolled his forehead over the cool metal of the elevator walls. The elevator doors were standing open. He shook his head and fished into his pocket for his access key-card.

The apartment blocks service tower was built so that you had to cross a short walkway to the corridor where the apartments were. This must have seemed a good idea when it was originally built, in the constant sunshine of the pre-war world, before the constant night-rains. But now, it meant that Deckard was stepping into the rainy maelstrom that happened every evening for anyone over the fifth floor. He put his head down and gathered his overcoat around him as he made a dash for the enclosed corridor at the other end, his key-card ready in hand.

In this apartment block all resident's had to identify themselves by voice-print at the ground-floor entrance and to use the elevator. Then they had a key-card that had to be used to gain access to the apartment corridor's and the apartments themselves. Sometimes resident's would wedge the door to the corridor open. As Deckard got to the door he saw that this was not one of those occasions. As he flashed the key-card at the reader a woman's voice sounded through the noise of the wind and rain.

'I... I have to ask you... about this afternoon...'

He swiftly turned, bending low as he did so to miss the incoming kill-kick, as he drew his Razr gun. She stepped out of the shadow by the elevator. It was the Replicant, Rachel. Had his dream been a premonition? Or wishful thinking. She was very desirable.

'I've been waiting for you to return,' she continued. Her voice was quiet and he barely heard it against the noise of the weather. She seemed unconcerned that he had drawn a gun.

'Lady,' he said, shaking his head. He lowered the gun but kept it at waist height, and aimed. 'That is just about the best way to get your self shot. What is it you want? How did you get here?'

She spoke. She said his name, his floor and apartment number. It was HIS voice coming out of HER mouth. An odd effect, when seen and heard in the flesh.

'Voice sampling and synthesis. Obviously,' he said. 'But WHY are you here...?'

'I wish I knew... w-why he said...,' she hesitated, 'Why he said...' She faltered to a halt. There was a pleading tone in her voice that he hadn't heard in a Replicant before. It was so very - human.

'I don't know either. Perhaps, because it is true,' Deckard said. 'Why are you here?'

She still didn't answer.

Deckard looked at her, into those deep, dark, large - huge - sad and saddened eyes, saw them flicking around from the view over the city, over the bay, the thickly clouded night sky, to the concrete walkway floor, to the wall behind him, then onto him, and around again. He saw the distress in them, the loss.

'I'm still waiting for an answer. Why are you here?'

'May I come in?'

'If he doesn't want to see you. You have a room at Tyrell's surely. Or are you stored in a cupboard, when Tyrell doesn't want to play with you? If he doesn't want you, there are hotels too.' Then he repeated his question, slowly, emphasising each word, 'Why - are - you - here?'

He still held the gun drawn in one hand and he fiddled with the access-card with the other, not wanting to turn his back on her. After all, why wouldn't she be a kick-kill model? But who would want me dead?' Deckard thought.

She was looking down at her feet, and seemed to sob. 'In that test you did, this afternoon, you identified me as a... a... a Replicant,' she said the word "replicant" like it was an obscenity. 'Isn't that true?' she half said and half asked.

He wondered if she knew, because of the rebellion elsewhere, how much fear she instilled in people. He thought, how do I get rid of her? There was a flash of cloud rending lightening followed by a shattering crack of thunder that rolled, loud and long.

'Here,' he said, and he gave her his access-card. 'Open the door. You can come in, if just so I can get out of the rain.' Of course, as a Replicant - made for harsh, off-world and outer-System work, surely? - she hadn't given any indication of noticing the weather. She took the key-card and he angled himself behind her with the gun at her back. His finger fidgeted on the trigger button. She opened the door and stepped inside the corridor and he followed.

'Straight down, to the left and on the left,' he said.

She turned to hand the key-card back to him. She still didn't seem to notice that he had the gun drawn but Deckard reckoned that with their enhanced peripheral vision she must've registered it.

'Hold onto it. You can let us both into the apartment too.'

They walked down the corridor and she opened the door. As soon as they were inside he said, 'Fix me a drink, there's saki and glasses on the kitchen counter. Make one for yourself. I like it over ice. No water.' Might as well get some use out of it while its here, he thought while he put his gun into the holster and he removed his overcoat.

She walked into the living-room and stood in the centre. 'I wanted to... got to, show you these,' she said, holding out a handful of photo print-outs, 'this one on the top is me with my mother when I was four...'

'Fix the drinks,' Deckard ordered. She remained standing in the centre of the room holding the photos out to him. He hung up his overcoat and stood by the door.

'I'll take a look, but I think I know what I'm going to see,' he said. He unsnapped the gun holster from the shoulder strap and fixed it on his waist belt. He didn't need to keep it concealed now and it was easier to draw from the hip. 'You fix the drinks while I look through them.'

Rachel walked over to him and handed him the photo print-outs and turned toward the kitchen to pour him a drink. He watched her in the half-light of his living-room. She was wearing a skirt with a higher hem now and he noticed her finely shaped legs as she walked away, accentuated by a seam with butterflies with brightly shining opalescent wings fluttering along the back of her leg.

When she was stood at the kitchen counter he turned his attention to the photos. As he quickly shuffled through them he saw, as he had assumed, that they were the same as Leon's. Except Rachel was pictured with her mother on the porch - the same mother as Leon had and on the same porch. And on the exact same fairground ride as Leon. And on the same beach as Leon, with the same people in the background. And so on.

Tyrell Corporation hadn't tried very hard to give them individual identities. Maybe its all part of an experiment. But, then, perhaps they weren't meant to ever meet; if that were so, how had they met? When they had met had they started to exchange stories about their past? How could that happen? There was an entire Solar system to disperse them around! Deckard's mind was beginning to race again, juggling scenario's, purposes and motives.

Rachel brought him his iced saki. She hadn't poured one for herself. He took it from her and swilled the glass around, to let the ice chill it further.

'You're not having one?' he asked.

'No,' she said, 'Eldon doesn't like me to drink.'

There was something about the tone of voice she was speaking in. She sounded sad. Deckard shrugged and drank down the saki.

'Well?' she said.

He realised he was going to have to tackle this with some care. He handed her the photos, and placed his hand casually on the butt of his gun, as though he were just resting his hand there, but, in fact, to ensure he was ready to draw. Just in case.

'I know about something that happened to you. You were aged about six at the time.'

Rachel looked quizzical.

'You and a neighbours boy, a friend, got into one of the war-ruined buildings near where you lived, and went down into the basement. He showed you his, then when it was your turn, well, you got scared and flustered, and all embarrassed, and you ran. Remember how you cut your left knee on a piece of glass as you clambered out. Have you told anyone that? Ever. So how do I know? And you've had the scar ever since, right? Take a look at your leg.'

She rolled her skirt up over her left knee. She looked at it, then she turned toward the light and looked again before she felt around her skin. There was no scar. She looked puzzled.

'I never noticed that before, it must've totally healed. Finally.'

Deckard knew it had never been there. He continued, 'Remember that summer when you watched the spider build a web, you were aged ten? Remember that? After a while you saw there was an egg, and it hatched...'

'And hundreds of baby spiders ran out all over the web and...' Rachel said.

'...then they devoured her,' Deckard completed her sentence. 'Isn't that right?'

'How do you know that?' she asked.

'It's Tyrell's new big idea. He calls them memory implants, but they're just a sophisticated form of auto-suggestion. I saw the memory scenario's earlier today. Doctor,' he emphasised the word Doctor, 'Tyrell showed them to me.' Then Deckard nodded towards the photo-pics Rachel held in her hand. 'I saw those print-outs earlier today as well.'

Rachel looked at him, not comprehending what he meant.

'That's right. Except the child in the picture wasn't you. It was another Replicant, named Leon Polokov. Perhaps you know him? Same mother. On the same porch. Even the same pose. The same beach. Same everything.'

Rachel's lip started to quiver.

'There aren't that many of you,' Deckard said, '... yet. One day they'll be dispersed across the Solar system. Some thing that looks a lot like you. But, for now, they're just a few of you.' He paused. 'I'm living the last Replicant-free age here on-Earth,' he said half to himself. Then addressing her, 'I suspect that you all have the same memories, or they overlap. It seems like you have pretty much the same memories. Tyrell gave copies of the memory scenario sheets to the department. That's how I know. You're not real, you're just a prototype for a device that they will manufacture very soon, as soon as they get their licence again - didn't Doctor Tyrell tell you any of this? You are related, after all,' Deckard added sarcastically, 'I thought he would have shared this with you...'

The living-room lit up with a late-flying heli-taxi rounding a nearby building. Deckard could see her eyes moistly shining in that light. He watched her face moving as she tried not to cry.

Deckard felt... well, what did he feel exactly? Deckard couldn't understand why the Rep was demonstrating such a human-like reaction, he started to doubt his own diagnostics and the conclusion he had given to the earlier Test. He didn't like to think that he would have to return to Bryant and admit that his report had been wrong. And yet Doctor Tyrell had made the admission that she - it - was indeed a Replicant.

'Okay,' he said. He put down his glass and gestured with his hands. 'Forget I said anything. It was a joke. A really bad joke That's all.'

She looked at him with a sceptical expression. That expression was so life-like too, uncannily so.

'B-b-but how did you know?'

'Most kids play 'Show Me' at sometime. And as for the spider, that is what spider's do.'

'But I did watch it all summer long.'

'Most kids do,' said Deckard, 'That is how I knew you did.'

She gave a slight smile, but her forehead crinkled, still trying not to cry.

'No. Really,' he said, he realised he was trying to really reassure her, like it was human - lie to it, as though it were human. 'It was a really bad joke. Forget I said anything. I'm sorry.'

Now, she started to cry.

'It's true, isn't it? Don't try to be nice.'

'You're as real as I am, and definitely not a... not a...' he faltered, he couldn't bring himself to say that she was not a Replicant. 'I shouldn't have said anything like that. I was just messing with your mind. That's all.'

She looked at him, with her head bowed; her tear-full eyes were beautiful as they were washed with the tears, and she looked at him from under her long, long lashes, her eyes shadowed by the long fringe lying over her forehead. She looked confused, maybe a little angry. But mostly she looked sad. A sad-eyed Replicant.

What am I doing? he thought, I'm trying to comfort a Rep! Deckard was still wary. How could he be sure of the reaction when he had just undermined what, false, memories she had? How would you react if you were told everything you believed to be true, wasn't? And what if you were a kick-kill Rep that had this socialised over-layer, the layer that makes you seem entirely human; but you weren't, and never could be, because it was a layer laid over your Primary Goal-Orientated purpose?

What do you do with people when they feel sad and tearful? You offer them a drink. So Deckard tried that.

'Do you want a drink?' She continued to look at him, unspeaking, tears spilling over and running down her face. She used the back of her hand to wipe them off her cheeks and jawline. He was about to put his arm around her, a natural reaction, but he cautioned himself. Deckard kept his distance, a flying-kick distance, from her. Instead he said 'I'll get you a drink.' He backed off to the kitchen, keeping his face toward her, his hand on the butt of his gun.

He picked a mug out of the sink and took a moistened hygienic wipe out of the dispenser and quickly rubbed it over the inside and outside of the mug. Then he turned his attention to finding the beverage cartons. He looked through to the living room. Rachel was standing where she had been, silhouetted against the window as the beam's from another heli-craft shone into the living-room. He saw her closely examining one of the photo print-outs she had handed him, and which he had dismissed. Then she shuffled quickly through the rest. The heli-cars beams blinded him for a few moments and he put up his arm to shield his eyes.

'Tea or coffee? Scotch or saki?' he asked. 'I prefer Taipei saki,' he added.

The heli-craft flew by, the back-wash from the rotors rattled the glass in the rotting window frames. The old files and loose papers he had on the window-ledge wafted and rustled under the paperweights. The dazzling beams of light dimmed as it flew past. He could see her again. She turned her face towards him for a moment, and then turned toward the door and walked out.

Deckard walked out of the kitchen, relieved to see her go. Yet also strangely saddened. He went back to the kitchen counter and poured himself another saki. This time neat. Now that the strangely sad Replicant had gone he didn't need the ice in his drink to dilute it. He noticed that Rachel had left the photo print-outs behind. The proof of her past.

An SFPD heli-car passed, its emergency lights rotating, their red-and-blue coloured lights flashed momentarily throughout his room. He sat down and looked through the rest of the print-outs she had left. A mark of her abandonment of her false past? Just like Leon Polokov leaving his precious memories at Hunterwasswer?

As he sat there sipping at his saki he asked himself why this female Replicant had found him. He shuffled through the photos again. There was something in one of them that caught his eye. It showed a bedroom with sun streaking the wall, but also with dark shadows. A man with short cropped, blond hair sat off to one side of the room with his back toward the window. His face looked indistinct with the shadow cast over him. Yet his appearance struck Deckard as familiar. He leant over by a table lamp and looked at it more closely in a better light.

It was Roy B. The siren from another SFPD heli-craft wailed a block away. This picture raised the question - were Roy, and the others, known to Rachel? If so, what significance did this Roy B have that she would have a picture of him as part of her past? Was this part of her implanted false past? Or did they really spend time together? Was it important, or just an incidental detail?