Okay, this is an OLD idea that I never intended to write because it was so pieced together, but I've found my Muse! I'm really starting to roll with it, and I hope it's to your liking.
Disclaimer: I own only my OCs and the plot of my story. All background info on BR, its game, movie or characters belong to Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott and Westwood Studios.
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To Learn to Live
Chapter One: Wanted Dead or Dying
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(Transcript of an audio tape found in the Joleson apartment, December 24, 2019:
The sound of traffic is evident on the recording. There is a crackle of a radio being switched on.)
"(female computer voice) ATTENTION ALL UNITS. ALL POINTS BULLETIN ISSUED FOR …JUNE …JOLESON …FORMERLY BR-6-1-6-7-5. CONFIRMED ISSUING AID TO WANTED REPLICANT CRIMINALS. ARMED AND ACTIVE."
(Another crackle, then a woman's quiet laugh.)
"Armed and active. That was what they called you when you weren't considered dangerous. At least not yet. The way things were going on though, one tiny slip and they'd take you out. It almost happened to a buddy of mine. He was lucky I guess.
"How lucky are you when your escape plan includes blasting off in a wrecked moonbus to worlds away from this one?
"(a quiet laugh) Good ol' rookie Ray. Always getting my ass in trouble. Of course, I didn't have very much under my belt either. As obvious to my situation. I never thought years of training at the Academy would get me in as much shit as I'm in now.
"I know it's no good trying to tell my side of the story. Since Lieutenant Edison Guzza disappeared, there's been a big crackdown on the replicant population. No more room for grey areas; you either shot them, or you were labeled a traitor and a threat. And that's just how they saw me. No matter what I did or didn't do.
"You may think you're going to hear why I did what I did, or how it all happened. Well, tough shit, cause you're not. But to whatever profiler they've got working on me now, let me give you a little hint about my state of mind… The LPD is SHIT!"
(There is a metallic click. Some shuffling is heard. The sound of something heavy, then a struggle for breath. The strain of a rope is heard. Minutes pass and there is a snap. The tape runs until it ends.)
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June Joleson was a traitor. At least in the legal sense.
Replicants. It was only natural that she studied them. Eldon Tyrell was her great-uncle. He'd fronted her tuition to Androtech University in New Phoenix. After she graduated in the top of her class, she went to Los Angeles to train at the Police Academy in the forensics department. When replicant technology came into existence, she was ecstatic. She spent many hours with her brilliant relative, all the while dreaming of the contributions she could make to his achievements.
Unfortunately her degree and research went unused and untested.
After the Off-world rebellion, the top students in the Academy became Blade Runners. She was one of them. She remained a forensic scientist, applying what she knew about replicant anatomy to her job as a Blade Runner. Then the fallout came between her and Dr. Tyrell. The old man loved her, but didn't trust her. Before the rebellion, things might have been different; but she was a Blade Runner now. A dealer of death to her great-uncles "children." Not a very fitting employee at the Tyrell Corporation. Still, she went on in the tiny lab in her tiny apartment, researching replicants one night, retiring them the next. It was now no longer a study, but an obsession with no real purpose but to be sated.
Her big break came at the expense of another. Or rather, others. When Tyrell fired Luther and Lance, she finally had contact with the technology she needed for her research. She brought her problems to them and worked along side them when she could. Moonlighting as a researcher of replicant technology while keeping her status as a Blade Runner was one of the hardest things she ever did. Anyone would understand the toll it would take on one's sanity. She almost gave up trying.
But one night, her motto to protect and serve was put into a new perspective when her protection and service went out to the wrong "person."
She didn't know if she really saw them as people as much as hunted, oppressed strangers. Like the ones who fought for their freedom in the earlier days of America. But what she felt didn't matter. In fact, it got her into trouble. Her empathy and association with another traitor made her a target, like the ones she used to hunt.
But it didn't matter now. June Joleson was dead.
At least in the legal sense.
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Swathed in stinking rags, a pair of eyes peered out from a pair of round green goggles. The blue, almost teal eyes watched as LPD spinners landed gracefully outside the dark apartment building. Brown-coated detectives swarmed onto the street, blocking off access to the curious in ground cars. It didn't bother the ragged figure. She knew what the CSI unit was carefully examining on the pavement. It was a body. Her body.
She smiled as a badge was extracted from the decimated remains. A team of officers rushed into the building, presumably to the apartment of the late June Joleson, former Blade Runner. Good.
The time this ruse would buy her was short, but hopefully the corpse she'd hung and let fall was altered enough to distract her hunters. By the time the LPD came to the last dead end of her paper trail and realized the dead woman was a retired special, June Joleson would hopefully be Off-world.
Adopting the shambling gait of a toxin-ruined wastrel, she disappeared into the sewers.
It was time to pay a visit to a friend.
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Okay! First chapter, short I know, but the second chapter will be along shortly. If you haven't seen the Blade Runner movie or played the game, I suggest you do, because there will be information you'll need to know to understand this story. whew Reviews will help speed the chapter writing and uploading process!