Indelible
Memories (PDF download link)
Gaff and Bryant hurried through the wide open, echoing police station heading toward the office ahead. Bryant fumed, slapping the folder in his hand against an open palm as he walked, “Damn. This happened to Off-World Transports almost a week ago and they just decide to let us know now? Six! Six of them on are their way here, or are here already. How difficult is it to pick up the goddamned vid-phone?”
He threw open the door to his office and entered the disheveled room, pulling off his hat as he circled the cluttered desk and sat down in his creaky, wooden chair. He slapped the file folder on top of the small stack on the desktop as Gaff ambled into the office and closed the door.
A heavy metal fan oscillated back and forth, circulating the dust in the musty air. Bryant was shaking his head, “We can’t keep this information from him, we can’t; he has a right to know; and we’re gonna need him for this one. Holden’s good, but not like him. Damn Tyrell . . . and his skin-jobs. Sure, they make colonizing easier and less risky, but they’re nothing but trouble for us back here; nothing but trouble. Talk about your illegal aliens. Those things are the perfect slave labor; especially the older, cyborg models. They don’t think independently, they don’t have families . . . they just do what they’re told. If the spec sheets on those new ones here are right, they’re rolling off the assembly line over there at the Tyrell Corporation with memories and emotions now! What are skinnies gonna do with emotions and fake memories?”
Gaff settled himself in the chair opposite Bryant saying nothing as he folded a small piece of paper. He quietly noted the yellowed shade of the desk lamp between them. Images of a much younger and slimmer Bryant standing over his kill on some big game hunting trip adorned each of the four panels making up the sides. They were clearly old photos from when there were still real animals left to hunt. “Why do you keep these pictures?” he said, continuing to fold his paper.
Bryant looked up at him, “Huh?”
“These pictures . . . on your lamp”, Gaff indicated with a nod of his head, “Why do you keep them on display for everyone to see?”
“Aw hell, I sit in this office working right next to them every day and you know, I haven’t really seen or thought about them in a long time.” Bryant smiled, calming a bit.
“Those were taken on a hunting trip my father and I took. Hell of a trip that one was. I got a bear, an elk, and a wild boar. He came away with a bear and several deer. . . and died the following March. Those are the last pictures I have of him with me. Why?”
Gaff finished folding and placed a paper origami bear on the edge of Bryant’s desk. “It seems that we humans have the need for memories and emotions in our lives to give us depth and understanding of who we are. If Tyrell is the genius we all think he is, he certainly would have wanted to figure out a way to give them the same mental support structure we have . . . to help stabilize them.”
Bryant scowled. “Huh. Yeah I guess I can see that.”
He opened the file folder he had thrown on his desk and raised his eyes to peer over at Gaff, “Paperwork says the new ones, the Nexxus Sixes, have a four year lifespan . . . so they can be controlled. I guess old Tyrell hasn’t perfected his stabilizing support structure just yet. Command is wrong on this one” said Bryant, shaking his head as he closed the folder. “Deck has a right to know his wife died on that shuttle.”
* * *
Off toward the horizon, the faint hint of a moon obscured by thick, foreboding clouds hung silently in the black sky. They cast little to no light on the pitching waters below as the shuttle flew low through the storm. Roy was jolted awake by a cracking bolt of lightning and the immediate percussive blast of thunder as the white-hot bolt of energy arced across the cockpit window of the shuttle. Angrily swirling, heavy black clouds lay ahead, sporadically illuminated from within with the glow of wild, erupting lightning. White bursts of spray blew from the crests of the waves below.
Leon was gripping the controls firmly as the small ship was buffeted by fierce crosswinds. He glanced over to Roy, “We had almost made it to Los Angeles when some auto-drone beacon hailed us asking for codes and landing permissions. I didn’t know what do say, so I pulled away, back out here over the water.”
Roy stared off into the fury of the storm ahead. The bright lights of LA were barely visible along the shoreline through the heavy rain and haze. His mind raced. “We’re going to get wet. Let me warn the others, then we need to ditch into the water. Get us closer to shore; about 200 yards out, that way the current will pull the ship south, down the coast and away from town.”
Leon’s eyes widened a bit and one began to twitch as he listened. “Ditch in this? I hate water, especially water at night.” He looked over to Roy, the pallor of fear smeared across his face.
Roy smirked a bit as he stood up, pausing with a hand on Leon’s shoulder. “We ditch. Facing your fears will help you overcome them. Is your fear real or imagined?” He paused a moment. “Don’t trouble yourself searching for the answer. The answer while find you while we’re swimming to shore.” With that, he turned and exited the cockpit to tell the others.
The ship slipped sideways with a jerk as it was caught in a powerful gust of wind. Everyone seated in the main passenger area was thrown jarringly sideways. Roy was pitched up against the bulkhead as another shuddering blast of air from the raging storm outside tracked across the shuttle, shaking it violently. He regained his footing and addressed the others. “Everyone needs to be at or near the main hatch when we set down” he said pointing toward the door. “We’re putting down in the water.”
“What?” said Mary. “In the water?”
Roy held on to the wall as he responded, “Yes, Mary, in the
water. We have to be smart. We can’t land legally at the shipyard. Not that
that bothers me in the slightest, but they would match the ship’s identifier
codes with that of the missing shuttle and we would be caught. We’ll be fine.”
- - - -
“We were told you were the best in the aftermarket” said Roy to the man behind the partially opened door.
With yellowed eyes deeply set into a frail face, the man peered from behind the door then pulled it open a bit further, stepping out to the sidewalk, quickly glancing one way and then the other as he pulled his sweater closed. “Come in quickly, both of you.”
Pris followed the old man inside as Roy looked up and down the street himself, and then followed, closing the door.
The narrow foyer was intolerably dim and smelled of the ancient books and mildewed newspapers that were stacked along the left hand wall, but it was out of the cold air blowing outside. A narrow staircase led up, twisting around for several flights to levels above, but Pris had followed the good doctor into a closet beneath the stairs, through a door in its back wall, and down roughly hewn steps to a room cut from the solidly packed soil and stone beneath. A sterile smell washed over Roy as he descended the curved steps to the small room where they were.
“Have a seat” said the old man to Roy.
“Thank you, doctor” whispered Roy as he settled into a chair that creaked under his weight.
“You, my dear, come sit up here” he said to Pris, patting the end of an examining table. “How did you find me?” he asked.
Pris flicked her eyes to Roy, who spoke up immediately, “A friend . . . suggested we contact you. She said you had been able to successfully render her sterile, but also possibly had the ability to take our existing organs and connect the dots, so to speak, to make . . . reproduction . . . possible.”
“For you two?” asked the old man looking a bit bewildered.
“Yes” said Pris.
“I know your friend Mary, and yes I did help her. She didn’t want what Tyrell was trying to give her, and was tired of the endless testing, so she escaped and found me. She knew I had worked on the reproduction issue for Tyrell for years to possibly do such things, and was on the verge of a breakthrough. Then I learned another team headed by a colleague had been secretly working on ‘Project Mary’ for some time without me. I was deflated, and wanted nothing to do with it. Also, there were too many religious implications with the name Mary for my liking. Tyrell was taking all the glory as usual, and I’d had enough of being one of the men behind the curtain of his “brilliance”, so I left.”
The doctor rubbed his temples as his thoughts raced. “Replicants reproducing introduces a whole new series of issues . . . ripples in your synthesized gene pool, if you will. That’s one of the issues I was working on. Each of you has only your own DNA strand and no others, just like humans, but a cross-pairing of your engineered genetic code? I’m inclined to think that might be problematic at best, if they merged at all. There could be hideous birth defects.”
“But could it not also possibly take the best characteristics of each of us and merge into a superior, unique sequence?” asked Roy, with eyes opened just a bit too wide.
“Yes” began the doctor, “but why would you . . . “
Roy cut him off, grabbing the aging physician firmly by the arm, “There is no why. We’re running out of time. Can you alter us both to make it possible? WILL YOU DO IT?”
The elder man’s eyes were wide with fear, not only of Roy, but at what his tinkering might possibly unleash. He nodded his head rapidly, “Yes. Yes, I’ll do it.”
The wide-eyed glare on Roy’s face receded a bit as he
looked back over to Pris who smiled impishly and lay back, resting her elbows
on the sterile, cloth-covered table.
- - - -
“You okay?” Mary asked, leaning closer and holding Pris around the shoulders.
Pris blinked, coming back to reality. “I’m fine. Just remembering someone Roy and I knew.”
Roy watched her closely for a moment as the ship shook again. “Okay everyone, get ready. I’m going to tell Leon to put her down.”
Mary’s eyes grew wide as she snapped the buckles of her restraint and braced herself against the bulkhead. Pris strapped her restraint on and grabbed a pipe that ran down the side wall behind her with one hand, holding tight.
Andy and Zhora, in seats that lacked restraints, quickly moved down to the floor, wedging themselves between two cargo containers that were tightly cabled to the deck. Andy didn’t care to be so close to the snake draped around Zhora’s shoulders, but he also didn’t like the idea of being thrown head-first into a bulkhead when they hit the water.
Roy disappeared into the cockpit as they prepared for impact. He slipped beside Leon, into his seat and strapped in. Leon’s intense focus had taken on the air of tunnel vision as he put aside his instincts and his fears. His right eye twitched relentlessly as he fought the controls that wrenched his hands this way and that. The winds outside blasted persistently against the shuttle, rain coming down in sheets.
He eased the bucking shuttle in the direction of the shore, racing into the wind as lightning sliced through the sky above them, cleaving the night into two halves, searing all raindrops in its path instantly into steam. The bottom hull of the small ship barely skimmed the wave crests, spraying water to either side.
The lights of the marina ahead on the shore were lost as a large wave suddenly swelled up in front of them. The nose of the ship plowed headlong into the wave in a sudden and violent stop hurling everyone inside violently forward against their harnesses. Roy’s head slammed hard against the side wall of the cockpit as he and Leon were thrust under the water into absolute blackness as the shuttle pitched forward and flipped over. Leon’s fear encompassed him now, and he began to scream as Roy blacked out.
There was silence after the abrupt stop, as the shuttle came to rest on her top. Steam flooded out of her rear engines as the water boiled away from the hot metal into the night air.
The Interior lighting that had been lost on impact, and the darkness that followed, was replaced by dim emergency lighting that flickered on. The brutal shaking had finally stopped, giving way now to the slow up and down rolling motion of the waves.
- - - -
Roy ran with the others across the meadow, heart pounding in his chest and ears like a war drum; his eyes darting across the dark, uneven ground ahead. They were almost to the gate. A chorus of nocturnal insects chirping and clicking filled the thick, humid air. He cut a glance to the right and saw a group of ten or so other men from the transport moving on ahead through the dim moonlight.
He stopped running and caught his breath. To his left, twenty or more was also advancing toward their contact and his awaiting unregistered ship. After two years of torturous servitude, their slave status and his own would be liberated tonight. He whispered to himself in the dark, “Let the enchained soul shut up in darkness and sighing, whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years; Rise and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open.”
The crowd of fifty or more behind him quickly pushed past toward the ship as he stood motionless and stunned, watching them go. He had been working the better part of the last four years nearly alone with a small group of other replicant soldiers, moving into and securing the frontiers of more planets than he could remember, setting up military terra-forming facilities and clearing the way for off-world colonization from Earth.
He knew he was a replicant, a product churned out to fill the perilous needs; the boring or dirty jobs, so that humans might have a better life. Knowing that however, had not prepared him for this moment, with so many in one place. They all looked like him. He touched his cheek; ran his hand through his hair. They ALL looked like him.
Unexpectedly, the silence was broken by the sound of small arms fire ahead, and an abrupt, explosive ejection of a thick liquid spewed across his face and neck, as the replicant beside him was violently thrown into him, only to slide to the ground; a gaping, jagged wound in what was left of his skull.
Roy’s eyes grew wide as others around him fell. His face was covered in blood and brain matter. Then from somewhere overhead, blinding floodlights switched on, driving back the night and illuminating a horrific scene.
They had been set up. The crew member they had trusted to lead them to freedom had instead delivered them to hell. Hundreds of projectile and accelerated energy weapons of every sort now erupted in a deadly discharge storm, stabbing through the night as police guards from the Tannhauser Gate colony opened fire on them from rooftops, behind the protective corners of their awaiting freedom ship, and from the top of the massive Tannhauser Gate itself.
Ahead, through the smoke, he could see mangled bodies being slowly plowed into a huge mound by an enormous bulldozer. His mind raced, searching for a way to survive this. All around him bodies fell where they stood, their engineered blood soaking the ground. He ran through the smoke filled horror, watching himself being gunned down everywhere he turned; piles of his body on the ground; his own lifeless eyes staring back from the fallen corpses. He tripped over another version of himself on the ground and fell headlong into the pile, smearing the blood and brain tissue already on his face. He was terrified, like a frightened child caught in a night terror from which he could not awaken.
The guards were advancing now, moving into the thinning crowd, killing those that remained standing and fighting back. Roy lay still, eyes open wide and motionless, staring up into the crystal clear night sky as guards moved past him. One stepped on his hand as he made his way past. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he focused his attention far overhead, in the thinnest part of the atmosphere, to an iridescent shimmering against the starry backdrop. Way up high, C-beams were sparkling, ignited by solar radiation. It was a beautiful show; a peaceful glittering show that few took the time to notice, much less appreciate.
The guards were now moving back through the dead, their task completed. Roy lay deathly still, taking in the beautiful display far above. One guard whistled loudly, and motioned the dozer driver this way. The heavy, clanking machine rolled over the ground, lowering its bucket to scoop the bodies out of its way. When the bucket was full, it rose up and turned to where Roy lay, before dumping the bodies on top of him. His view of the sky and the comforting C-beams disappeared as a cascade of corpses fell from above, their weight crushing down. He closed his eyes, picturing the C-beams in his mind, making an indelible memory of them.
After what seemed an eternity, the ‘dozer shut off, the floodlights winked off. Two guards talked as they navigated the site of the massacre heading back into the colony. One shouldered his rifle and laughed as he spoke to the other, “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll use the standard smokescreen bullshit story to cover this up. You mark my words, tomorrow we’ll hear about how we defended colonists from a bloody Replicant mutiny at the Tannhauser Gate, not about how we gunned down escaping Replicants.”
The other guard nodded. “Yeah. History is always written by the victor. Who knows if any of it is true or not.”
Roy lay still, fighting to breathe under the pile, buried in a stack of bloody, mutilated bodies that looked like him. The symphony of nocturnal insects chirping and clicking in the dark slowly resumed. When nearly an hour had passed, and he was sure no one was left, he pushed with all his might. Using every bit of his strength, he shoved the heavy corpses aside as he dug his way to the edge of the pile. He moved the last corpse aside and he broke into the air. Crawling out, he managed to get to one knee, breathing freely again. He was filthy. His hair was matted down; leaves and dirt stuck in the dried blood. The heavy smell of iron from all the blood, and the stench of death was everywhere. He took a breath, looking around at the victims of the massacre. He was alone.
- - - -
Roy’s eyes fluttered open as Leon shook him. He was hanging upside down, pulling against the restraints in the cockpit of the shuttle. “Come on, the ship’s upside down. I’m terrified, but we’ve got to get the others out of here before she sinks. Hopefully the shore isn’t far. I think I got us pretty close.”
*
Leon trembled uncontrollably as he knelt on the beach, water dripping from his hair and clothing. He had made it to shore, but his fear of being smothered in the black waters at night had been too much to process, and he had partially shut down. Clutched in his right hand was a stack of photos safely wrapped inside a small plastic bag. It was dark, and the moon was completely obscured by the dense clouds of the storm they had flown through, allowing only a faint silvery glow through.
Behind him, Roy helped Pris out of the crashing waves onto the sand and put a hand on the trembling pilot’s shoulder. “Did you answer the question?” Salt water dripped from the end of his nose as he listened for a response.
Leon replied slowly without moving, “The question?”
Roy smiled slightly. “Were your fears real or imagined?”
Leon slowly raised his head to look up at Roy, and his
trembling began to calm a bit. “I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was
dying. The black of the waves . . I couldn’t see anything . . .”
Roy patted him twice on the shoulder. “But you didn’t die . . . did you? The fear you had built up in your mind was far worse than the water ever could have been.” He removed his hand from Leon’s shoulder and looked briefly up to the dark sky overhead. Lightning sliced jaggedly across it, momentarily illuminating the boiling clouds; his eyes widened with the delight of a child watching wild animals at the circus.
He walked Pris a few steps further up the beach and lowered her to down sit. He dropped his long coat to the sand beside her, then turned and walked back into the freezing waves to help Mary and Andy to shore.
The water was cold by human standards, but Roy waded in and began swimming back out to the others without a second thought. He was strong, superior to mere human limitations. Salty water washed over his head as he swam. The night sky suddenly illuminated with the plasma-light of a lightning crack, and in the split-second illumination, Roy could see the underbelly of the overturned ship being pulled away down the coast by the relentless current.
Andy was helping Mary as best he could, but he was not designed for this kind of thing, and he was not nearly as strong as Roy. They swam together toward the shore as Batty made his way to them. He shook his head to clear the water from his eyes, and blew the salt water from his lips as he reached them.
“Give me Mary, and you go on ahead of us.”
Andy nodded, removing his arm from under Mary’s and handing her off as he swam away toward shore. Roy reached around her holding her firmly, then rolled onto his back and began paddling with his free arm. He glanced back once to make sure he was still heading in toward the beach. The dim harbor lights of Marina Del Rey pierced the blackness and cold rain from beyond the beach sand.
A few moments more and he helped Mary out of the surf onto the sand. She dropped to her knees, water streaming down her wet hair. Pris came over, helped her up and moved her over to be with the others. Roy followed closely behind.
“Goddamnit!” cursed Zhora as she paced back and forth.
Roy glanced her way as Pris turned to him, “She lost her snake on the way in.”
He nodded, salt and rainwater running off his face as he bent down to grab his coat. He slapped Leon on the shoulder.
“Let’s get moving.”
Leon nodded, then stood up to help herd the others along.
*
Having made their way through the marina, the small band of skin-soaked replicants approached the streets of the city beyond. They stayed back as Roy carefully stuck his head out around a blind corner, peering up and down the street, checking for any hazards; rain spattering on his face.
Several young children walking under umbrellas in a small pack on the far side of the street stopped at a restaurant’s door. It opened and an Asian man wearing an apron stepped out to the sidewalk, bathed in the red neon light from the flickering sign in his window.
The little girl was dressed as a witch and several of the boys walking with her wore the grey face makeup of the undead, the others the sheets of a goblin. “Trick or Treat!” they all chimed in unison. He reached inside the door, retrieving a medium sized bowl, and then turned back to the children, their smiling faces faintly illuminated by the glow rods of their umbrellas.
Roy watched in absolute fascination as the man dropped a handful of candy into each of their sacks. The old man watched carefully as the kids made their way along the sidewalk to the next shop before returning inside.
Leon, growing impatient, moved closer to Roy. “Everything OK?”
Batty turned slightly, eyes cutting sharply toward him; rainwater running off his brow and down his face. “It is now. Tell the others to stay here, and you come with me.”
He started across the street as Leon motioned back to the others, and then followed across to the restaurant. As he caught up to Batty, the two stepped up on the curb into the red glow of the sign. As they drew near, the man with the apron opened the door, bowing slightly and motioning for them to come in. Roy went through first, looking around, as Leon closed the door.
The restaurant owner grabbed two menus from the stand beside the door. “You eat?”
Leon moved past them heading toward the kitchen. Roy shook his head no slowly, a slight smile creeping onto his face. “Trick or Treat.”
He grabbed the man’s head and spun it hard around, shredding the spinal column inside. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped like a stone to the floor as Leon entered the kitchen to take care of the rest of the staff.
Roy turned to the window, grabbed the pull chain of the neon sign and switched it off. He then grabbed the COME IN, WE’RE OPEN sign and flipped it slowly over to the SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED side. The others across the street saw the store window go dark. They looked both ways to make sure they were alone, and then hurried through the rain toward him.
* * *
Throbbing sounds and strobing lights leaked from the smoky entrance to the Taffy Lewis Online bar, and were reflected in the wet sidewalk as the front doors were flung open. The bouncer, standing outside in the rain, looked over his shoulder toward the door. Rick Deckard pushed his way through the crowd of costumed Halloween patrons and out the opening into the cool of the night. He turned up his drink, finishing the last of it before placing the empty glass in the unbelievably large man’s hand. “Happy Halloween.”
“See ya later, Deck.”
As he stepped down to the sidewalk, the clearly intoxicated Blade Runner stopped a moment, squinting glassy eyes as he turned back. He barely noticed the steady rain as his face effortlessly drew itself up into a lopsided smile. He remembered having said ‘See you later’ once to his grandfather, and the joking reply that followed, as he finally was able to focus on the bouncer. He pointed at the large man, still smiling.
“Not . . . Not if I see you first.”
The big man chuckled as Deckard pulled the collar of his coat up against the back of his neck and managed to point himself in the direction of his car. The fogged exhalation of his breath drifted silently away on the cool night air as he walked.
Taffy’s wasn’t far from Animoid Row, and he soon found himself absent-mindedly window shopping as he made his way through crowds. Every synthetic animal imaginable could be found here. A tiger paced back and forth within one Indian storefront window while chattering monkeys swung from vines overhead.
A higher end Moroccan store specialized in llamas, elephants, sheep, goats, cows and horses. They could be purchased through a Vid-screen ordering kiosk, but delivery would be made several days later. They also offered smaller animals like dogs and cats, and for all of their products, batteries were not included. However, most of the stores carried a fine array of long-life batteries and memory cards for an additional fee. Special order animals, such as rare or exotic snakes and birds took a bit more searching to locate among the Brazilian, Dominican and Egyptian dealers, but they were all there for the having if you had the means.
The lure he had felt for a new beginning had been powerful, but he now realized that the romantic thoughts he had of dealing in these creatures off-world were a knee-jerk reaction to Iran’s sudden departure. He stood with his palms and forehead pressed to the thick glass pane, rain washing down in rippling waves that splashed against his skin. One of the synthetic monkeys on the other side threw a paw full of feces at the glass. He couldn’t imagine the bottom of the barrel being any further down than this.
A large group of six pushed past him, stepping off the curb and crossing the street as he faltered for solid footing. One of the women in the group stopped several shops down, admiring the exotics in the window of the Egyptian dealer, and disappeared inside with the other two women. The three men waited outside. One of them pulled a carton of Chinese food to the top of a bag he was carrying and popped it open, eating from it with chopsticks while they waited outside.
Deckard was busy trying to keep his sea legs as things suddenly decided to pitch and roll again like the open ocean, and had taken no notice of her or the rest of her group. The alcohol had taken the edge off his irritable mood, but had also served to magnify his depression. He held on to the brick frame beside the window as the world took another sudden dip to the right. His drunken laughter imperceptibly transformed into silent weeping that shook him. Raindrops and tears streamed down his face as others walked by, not noticing the pain of his destroyed world. Everything he thought he had known was gone.
Swallowing his pain and pulling himself together, he pushed away from the window, angry at himself for letting it out, and walked on through the rain until he spotted the car. He fumbled with his keys as he moved around to the driver’s side and stopped short, looking up. Dave Holden was leaning against the front fender waiting for him.
He put one hand on the roof of the car to stabilize himself and wiped the rainwater from his eyes with the other to make sure Dave was really there. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I went by your place and when you weren’t there Bryant figured you might be down here, so I came hoping to find you. I saw your car, so I waited. Deck, we need to talk. Look, you’re in no shape to . . . Give me the keys, let me drive you home.”
A dispatcher’s voice squawked out of the small radio on Dave’s belt, alerting any available police unit of a reported multiple homicide.
Deckard bent down to the car door, trying unsuccessfully to get his key in the lock slot. “What’d you want to talk about?”
Dave took the keys from his friend’s hands and walked him to
the passenger side. “Bryant got some news he thought you should hear, but it
can wait buddy. It can wait. Let’s get you home.”
* * *
(text edited 2-24-2023)
No comments:
Post a Comment