The subject slouched a little, wormed his brow to one side. The Voight-Kampf had a deep breath, judging. The subject was sweating, his pupils blew up on the screen and, with a pistol holstered underneath the desk drawer, Lt. Smelt blew him through the wall.
He'd been out of the force half a year when he moved into his new office and listed himself in the papers, pinning up a cardboard sign above the office door:
F. Lyle Smelt
Private Detective / Blade Runner
He was little people, a little dick in the neon catacombs of L.A. He positioned his belongings upon the metal deskspace, possessed by some feng shui that he knew would very soon be buried in loose mail and delivery food bags. The inevitable made him slouch as if the future were crushing him. The desk drawer was open a crack, he pushed it flush and rubbed his hand over the face. His cigarette dribbled the smallest hint of ash and he used up half a bottle of cleaner dusting.
He fell asleep in his chair with coffee spilled on the desk and a chopstick lodged in his electric pencil sharpener. The radiator wheezed. "It isn't so unnatural." His final thought before he slouched out. He slept low in the chair snoring like a dog, with his hat down over his eyes.
The phone woke him. "Is it even plugged in yet?" It was dark outside and blowing rain. He was fevered and stumbling as he desperately ripped free of his jacket, as if the missing moonlight would send him into a mongrel rage. He frisbee'd his hat at the far wall and flung open a window, taking the rain with an open mouth, then he crawled blindly to the phone wiping his cheeks on his shoulders and scrubbing his eyes.
"Yeah?" He said on flat instinct, and then realizing it was his first business call, however suspiciously after hours, he added "Smelt, what can I do?" It sounded incomplete, unsure, but the voice didn't seem to notice.
"Either I'm an android or… I'd like to know which I am, see? One of those liverless off worlders or the real Florida oranges. You were a blade runner weren't you? So you have one of those machines that tell who's the real thing and who's a toaster."
Smelt groaned from deep in his throat "I am still a Blade Runner sir, and what if I found out it's true?" mumbling as he attempted to light a smoke, his eyes still getting dialed in "Why, I'd have to shoot you. It's like you said, Liverless."
"You'd shoot down your own paying client?"
"Well I'd say the warning should buy me some professional respect huh?" Already blowing his calm facade "You know I coulda just took the job honestly and blew you through the wall the second my lady called you out?" He was frustrated and in the same breath excited about the prospect of hunting down a replicant so early on the job.
"Aright aright, your lady? well..."
"How about you come in for a Voight-Kampf test, and if we find that your guilty, less human than is normal, why, I'll give you a day's head start. You machines are quick, a day and you could be across the state on foot. And it'll keep me busy half a week or so hunting you down."
A faceless noise, silence. "I'm.. Not so sure anymore that I called the right man." It sighed, and they both were quiet a while.
"Well" Smelt said in a smoke-choked voice "I'll give you a day all the same." and he flipped the phone onto its pedestal and crossed his legs on top of the desk.
He didn't wait a day. Was it someone from HQ? Some jerk who spotted his ad in the paper? Even if it was real, a 24 hour head start is far too generous for thing without real feelings, without gratitude. On top of that: he had no leads. He decided he would get breakfast.
The HotHouse was a sad sight during those hours, but Smelt was used to it. This place had been like a second office to Det. Smelt, with the first being his high class, night-black, Luxury Deluxe Tyrocar, which had been repod upon his firing and the third being his official office at the lower channel HQ. Smelt was NEVER at HQ.
Smelt's "Postman special" was untouched on the booth table. The waitress came by and Smelt frantically shot panic signals from his eyeballs. She left a second glass of water and was gone.
"She must be new." Smelt shrugged.
"Right." the stranger peeling a smile. "Eat your meal. I insist. Your office isn't far after all."
Ten minutes before, Smelt was staring into the menu and when he lowered it a man he had never seen before was seated across from him, tapping a gun barrel on his inner thigh.
"My appetite," he mocked rubbing his tummy "let's just go." When they came to the office the machine took the big chair
behind the desk, leaving a metal folding chair for Smelt. He walked past it and leaned on the wall near the window.
"Well," The Subject said, smiling, with the gun zeroed low on Smelt's guts "Where is it?"
Smelt glared at him and rolled himself off the wall "The closet" He grumbled. He tugged the dirty shade doors open, pulled out a dented metal cart with a covered mound on top of it.
He lifted the mound carefully from the cart and set it on the desk. The Subject clapped his hands together, savoring the moment. Smelt lifted the veil.
It was a Voigt Kampf all right, but it was wearing a red sweater over its lungs with its crane neck through one of the sweater arms and the other hanging limp, it had a set of plastic pink lips lodged just beneath its scanner and it was wearing a wig of lively blonde hair. The neck and the eye moved in on the subject's face, loose curls hanging down, the lungs heaving under the sweater.
"Alright, hold still and answer my questions. Can I have my chair? Fine, fine. Just hold still. Now.
You're walking through a forest in the snow… You're elderly aunt asks you for a favor… you dream of a so and so… something about a turtle… The Lakers…"
"Is this normal?"
"Normally I'm holding the gun. It's affecting my performance. To be honest, I do better in my own chair."
"So I'm passing the test then?"
"Human until proven guilty. Now shush. A merchant drops a diamond earring in the street… a wild dog stalks you across the fields… Two cats hang their tails from a tree… Three owls shit on your head…"
"What are you wasting my time for? And what the hell is with this wig?" The Subject swatted the blonde curls off the voigt Kampf machine. Smelt heaved as if a siezure were taking him.
"Fucking chrome-cock!" Diving across the desk toward the subject's throat. "You're retired!" Attacking with the sharpened chopstick, stabbing like a scorpion. "Bastard son of a bitch, you're Retired! You're retired!"
The blood on the floor was already reaching for the nearest corners. The smell of gunpowder burned his breath. He was hit. Broken ribs and profuse bleeding. The subject was dead. Smelt lifted the blonde wig off the floor a moment before the blood could soak it and placed it carefully back on the scanner. He lit a smoke. His eyes went bleary. He sat back against the wall.
"What good is a man anyway?" hashing out some terms with death, a tear running down the side of his nose, smoking as the voigt kampf gently leveled it's scanner with his face. He cranked out half a grin, laid a soft hand on the scanner: "Turn up the heat, baby. Your cheeks are freezing."