The rain made every footstep he took an almost-fall, and it didn't help that his dominant hand was useless from the stabbing he'd took from the crazy Replicant.
It didn't help he was still being pursued by the android. The howling got closer, and the wild look in her eyes was horrendously blood-curdling. His gun was long gone, and the emptiness in his leg-holster just made the panic running through his head much worse.
With his instincts running ahead of his brain, Kai took the leap of faith across the gap between the buildings and ended up nearly falling to his death. He was holding onto a jutting piece of metal on the roof, but just barely.
A heavy thump, and the female Replicant's insane eyes watched him flail and slip further off the metal lifeline.
He was going to die.
"Quite an experience, isn't it? To live in fear… that's what it means to be a slave."
His fingers scrabbled, and then he was grabbing onto nothing—
A vice grip caught his wrist, and slowly dragged him back up onto the roof.
The woman gave him a curious look, and then tossed him over towards the middle of the roof.
Kai sputtered and scrambled back, dazed.
She… saved. Him. He wasn't dead. She saved him.
The Replicant walked over to him, the madness in her eyes gone and replaced by an odd calmness. She stopped about a foot away and then sat down, cross-legged.
"I've seen… things… that you people wouldn't… believe…" The broken whispers were directed towards him, but her empty gaze was fixed at a point beyond his shoulder.
There was a white dove in her hands.
"All these… moments. My moments. They'll be lost in time, like tears… in rain." There was a wistful spark in her eyes as she looked through Kai, as if he wasn't even there.
Her face turned to the sky, as if the water had the power to wash away her sins. "Time to die."
The dove flew off from hands that no longer had life in them, free and unburdened. Pure.
Kai wiped a hand across his face to get rid of the blood that was sticking to his eyelashes.
"You've done quite the job, Blade Runner." Gallagher's nasal sneer echoed through the noise of the rain, and Kai forced himself to his feet.
Where the hell did he come from? When did he get here?
"I guess you're through with retiring…"
Kai glared at the other man, whose expression was grim and hardened for once. "…I'm finished. Tell the Captain to fuck off. He won't get any more favors from me."
Gallagher threw something over, and the object slid across concrete with a loud scrape.
It was his gun. Kai picked it up with his good hand and set it back in his holster.
Kai watched Gallagher walk back to the police cruiser, but after four steps he turned back around.
"It's too bad he won't live!" Gallagher's shout didn't sound haughty in the least; in fact, it was as if he almost pitied Kai. "But then again, who does!"