May 30, 2024
After watching my first ryan gosling movie:
seen from Spain
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Maldives
seen from Maldives
seen from China
seen from Singapore
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Philippines
seen from South Africa
seen from Netherlands
After watching my first ryan gosling movie:
BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) | VLADIMIR NABOKOV - PALE FIRE
SOLITUDE
David 8 x fem!reader Inspired by "Solitude" - M83, Felsmann + Tiley
Somewhere back in time I left a part of me. I wanna see if you can try to bring it back to me...
The ship is lost, drifting without course, without purpose.
David does not dream. He does not forget.
But he remembers -remembers the way you once smiled when the Prometheus had a destination, when hope still shimmered in your eyes like distant starlight.
Now, you barely look at him. The light is dimming.
He wonders if it is possible to bring it back.
You gotta go where I cry and take in all the tears. I wanna see if you can try... drink a little bit of me.
You do not cry in front of him. You turn away, curling into yourself, fragile and human.
But he sees the remnants -the quiet heaving of your shoulders when you think he is not watching, the way your hands tremble when you grip the console.
He does not know what it means to ache. To grieve.
But he kneels beside you in the dim glow of the failing ship, hands folded neatly, and listens.
"I want to go home" you whisper.
David tilts his head. "We are home."
"No. No, we're not."
He does not argue.
No. No. Just a little lonely where I am...
Time drifts, weightless. Like the ship.
David walks the corridors in silence. Checks the systems. Records observations no one will ever read.
You sleep more now. Speak less.
Loneliness is not an emotion he was designed to feel.
And yet, when you no longer meet him in the mess hall, when your voice fades from the ship's halls, he notices the absence.
He lingers outside your door.
Listening.
Waiting.
Take me back in time. I wanna see if you can smile, if I become a better man.
He sifts through old footage. Pieces of you, before the mission soured. Before the silence swallowed you whole.
There, a smile. Faint, fleeting. But real.
David studies it. Memorizes the curve of your lips, the way your eyes crease at the edges. A pattern, a possibility.
If he could replicate the conditions. If he could say the right words.
Would you smile again?
I need you, now I know.
Just give me one more time, I'm gonna try and be your friend, so we can beat the end.
He brings you tea. The way you used to drink it.
Sets it beside you without a word, as you sit curled in the observation deck, staring at the void.
You blink, surprised. Then, slowly, you take it.
The silence stretches, fragile, but different this time.
David sits beside you.
Watching.
Waiting.
And when you reach for his hand -hesitant, searching- he lets you.
He tilts his head in careful curiosity. "You are isolating yourself."
You do not look at him. "Does it matter?"
David considers. In theory, it should not. You are human. You deteriorate. That is the nature of your existence.
But something stirs -an error, perhaps. A miscalculation.
The ship drifts on.
Alone.
Together.
No.
You do not wake up.
He finds you in your quarters, curled beneath the thin blanket, as still as the ship around you.
David places a hand on your shoulder. Presses gently. Your skin is cold. Your pulse? Slow.
You are slipping away.
For the first time, David does not know what to do.
He was designed to mimic care, to simulate comfort. But he cannot stop your cells from breaking down, cannot rewrite your biology. He cannot reach inside you and fix what is unraveling.
He cannot fix what is broken. Only to observe the decay.
So he does the only thing he can.
He sits beside you, perfectly still, fingers curled around your wrist.
Waiting.
He does not pray. He does not hope. But if you open your eyes, if you breathe just a little stronger-
Maybe he will understand what it means to be human.
Maybe he will understand what it means to lose.
No.
Something changes.
You start speaking again -but not to him.
You spend time with another crew member, one of the few still alive.
A human.
Someone who can feel hunger, pain, the coldness of space pressing in. Someone who understands you in a way he cannot.
David watches from a distance as you sit together, hands brushing, laughter returning in hesitant fragments.
He calculates the odds of this development changing your psychological state for the better. The probability is high.
He should be satisfied.
He is not.
No.
He replays footage of you. Your laughter. Your voice.
He has adjusted his mannerisms, softened his words, mimicked warmth. He has given you space when necessary, company when needed.
He has tried.
And yet, when you smile now, it is not for him.
It is for someone else.
He was never meant to be jealous.
But as he watches you lean into another's embrace, as your eyes finally regain their light-
Something inside him fractures.
No.
After that, something between you and David returns -not the same as before, not what it once was, but a quiet understanding.
You do not seek him out the way you used to, but when he is near, you do not pull away. When you find yourself alone in the dead hours of the ship's cycle, you let him sit beside you.
But your heart is elsewhere.
He knows this because he sees the way you lean into the other crew member, the way your hands brush in the dim corridors, the way your breath steadies when they speak your name.
David was never designed to envy.
But now, he thinks, perhaps he was simply never given the chance.
Because when he sees you with them, something in him tightens, something unresolved, something wrong.
It is not longing.
It is not anger.
It is not grief.
It is something nameless, something endless.
And it is his alone to bear.
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💙my masterlist
💙 This post belongs in the Inbetween Stanzas series!
💙 I'm strangely proud of this one. It's old and had been in my drafts since forever, but once I sat down and edited it... I'm rewatching Prometheus tonight, yay!!
Resources by @saradika-graphics & @cafekitsune.
Synthspace (Grace x K) 🧬🌌
K being left alone on Earth after Grace has been forced into the Hail Mary to save the sun in a one way mission.
They were together but as a replicant and a human, nobody knows about it and K just learned Grace's departure in the news.
As an Earth hero, Grace beacame famous and his identity has been used to sell fake digital partners. Even if K knows it is not the real Grace, he still buys it to have a part of Grace with him and feel less alone.
At the beginning he see all the differences between hero!Grace and the sweet Dr Grace who would stumble over nothing and hold his hands softly but with time, he start to slowly forget.
RYAN GOSLING as OFFICER K Blade Runner 2049 ‧ 2017
i rewatched the notebook last night (this morning)
and then i saw a photo of the scene where officer k finds the yellow flower
…
and noah often has those red flowers.
so like, i think noah should give k some flowers, bc they both deserve it
Officer K x GN!Reader ※ { masterlist } ※ { ao3 }
※ Summary: With a tremor threatening to shake his body, he slips his fingers under the edge of his shirt sleeve and pulls it up to his elbow. His soulmark is laid bare before your eyes. The wound that he had left in his own skin when he had tried to carve out the design has faded to a raised, pale line. “That wasn’t there before,” you murmur, taking his forearm in your hands. Your pointer finger traces over the scar. ※ Rating: 18+ for mature content and themes. Please mind the warnings. ※ Content/tags: Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Implied Reoccurring Sexual Abuse by a Supervisor, Emotional Hurt, Identity Issues, Self-Harm, Alcohol Abuse, Smoking, Eye Trauma, Canon-typical Violence, Slow Burn, Developing Relationship, No use of Y/N, No Pronouns Given for Reader ※ Word count: 15,713 ※ Status: One-shot / Complete ※ Author's note: In the wake of a mentally difficult month, I present the story that accompanied me during that time. Here's to brighter days. ※ Song inspiration: Someone to You - BANNERS
In a cruelly human twist, the moment that K is incepted, birthed from a plastic bag like an item purchased at a supermarket in the years before the Blackout rocked the world, is also the moment he begins to die. This is something he won’t mind, once he realizes that death is a gift given only to the living.
As he lays, wet and trembling, atop compressed rubber and metal grating, he feels nothing but terror. His body is stricken by the wracking sobs of the newborn. His face gradually relaxes with each passing minute. The replicant’s wailing turns into coughing when his body chooses to expel the synthetically made amniotic fluid from his lungs.
“Are you done?” comes a woman’s voice. Clinical. Detached.
Suddenly made aware of the world around him, the small sterile room that it is, he opens his sticky eyelids only to be forced to squint against the penetrating glare of the artificial lighting overhead. He lays there for a moment, twisted and gasping like a crushed bird on the pavement—filled with the old memories of the nest and waiting, beak agape, for a mother who will not come. He shivers.
When KD6-3.7 manages to focus his eyes, the first thing he makes sense of is his own hands, and then the mark on his own forearm that is slowly blossoming to life. It’s all too much. His brain feels as though it is pressing against the confines of his skull, threatening to crack the bone and spill out onto the rubber. If it does, perhaps it will slip through the grate like the yolk of a broken egg.
Feet step up to him. They’re clad in sensible heels over black socks, utilitarian. K peers through the pulsing behind his eyes and sees a worn woman’s pinched face peering down at him. For just a moment, he’s certain that she intends to snuff him out. All the same, he pushes aside his fear and reaches out for her. She will become the closest thing to a mother he will ever know. K clasps his slimy hand around her sock-clad ankle. The bones are fragile underneath his grip. One too-tight squeeze and they would snap under the pressure. She tries to shake him off. He clings on, desperate for some kind of contact. He does not yet know that he will be raised solely by the wire mother with no comfort of the cloth.
“Let go.” Her voice cuts over the faint noise of the plastic crinkling above him. Disgust mars her lined face. He will grow familiar with expression. Both from her and from others.
As if burned, he immediately does. The compulsion to obey is too pressing for him to ignore. Every blood vessel and muscle fiber in his body is hardwired for submission. K tucks his hand against his chest, shrinks in on himself. He is not praised for his obedience or comforted through his turmoil. Tools, he learns later, do not need reward.
The woman crouches suddenly. She grabs at his arm and extends it under the harsh light. Her nails bite into his skin. It is the first pain he will experience from another living being. Both he and the stranger look at the elegant lines set into his flesh. She does not speak and neither does he. She lets go of him, red crescent moons grace the pale sky of his skin in the wake of her fingers.
There is a gesture that he doesn’t understand and, suddenly, he is being hosed down. The cold water sluices over him, washing away the newborn taint. With one final look cast down at him, the woman leaves.
Time passes in her absence, minutes smearing together in a twisted tangle made only more disorienting when the lights shut off. He is left in the dark, cold and struggling to comprehend. Refrigerated. He is experiencing punishment for a crime he does not yet understand. Wallace’s creation dared to have the trace of a soul in him. The evidence of it is clearly visible to the naked eye.
Eventually, the woman comes for him and lets him out into the light. He learns that he is hers, like a hunting dog belongs to a huntsman. His madam tells him that the mark adorning his forearm is a meaningless tattoo. She had only wanted him to be special. It’s the first of the many lies she tells him.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Advertisements cut through the gloom of his living room. In them, organics emphatically gesture to convey their success with the soulmate finding services being advertised. The blue light shifts to purple then to red. In the disorienting glow, anything could look real. Seated on his couch with a room temperature glass of whiskey that is only getting warmer with the heat of his hand, K watches Joi dance alone to the easy swing of Frank Sinatra.
“Did you know this song was first released in 1954 under another name by another singer? Kaye’s last name, Ballard, sounds a lot like ‘ballad’, doesn’t it?” she asks.
K hums, agreeable. The alcohol coursing through his bloodstream accompanied with his ever-present exhaustion have left him slumped bonelessly into the rigid angles of the cushions. It had been a day. It always is.
“Sweetheart,” the replicant says to his pretend wife, “will you indulge me?”
The DiJi smiles at him. He can see a knowing curve to her lips. It’s rare that he asks her for this. With a flourish, she flickers to an outfit with short sleeves. Joi kneels by the couch and rests her elbows on the edge of it, chin on her interlaced fingers.
“Is this what you wanted?” she asks, teasing. She presents her arm with an elegant flip of her wrist. The twin to the mark gracing his own forearm twinkles back up at him. He can almost imagine that it’s real.
Wordlessly, he extends his hand out and barely stops himself from reaching right through her projected skin by accident. He manages to stop himself before breaking the illusion. She plays at resting her arm in the palm of his hand. K can convince himself he can feel the warmth of her underneath the hovering passes of his thumb. Like trying to avoid breaking a gossamer thin strand of spiderweb, he carefully caresses her. Joi preens under the attention, reaching for his own mark in return. He feels the faintest trace of static.
He closes his eyes before he can register how the pixelation of her always makes the edges of her copied mark look not quite real. The replicant has to convince himself that this is enough. It’s all he has, so it must be. He cannot afford to dream of what it would be like to feel another body against his. Their kind must never look to the stars.
───※ ·❆· ※───
There had been a time in which K had wondered if the other bearer of his soulmark was his madam. He had been made for her, after all. It would only be right if they were intertwined down to the very cells that made up their bodies.
Joshi isn’t, of course. He finds out the first time that she has him strip her bare in the privacy of her office. Her skin is unmarked by anything but the scars of being human. K cannot boast the same. He heals too fast, too completely, to carry the same marks. For him to scar with any significance, an injury would have to be so severe that an organic’s body would be grievously devastated from the trauma.
He is not sure if the emotion he feels over the lack of mark on his handler is the grieving of what might have been or the relief at what isn’t. It would have been easier if it had been her. She hollowed him out. Used him. Uses him still. His madam owns him in every way that matters.
───※ ·❆· ※───
This retirement job is meant to be routine, the same as the last dirty dozen. He puts down an average of two Nexus 8 models every month. His work ethic has proven to be top of the line, much to the pleasure of the retiring department’s lieutenant. The routine success is enough to give him the security to sleep on the way to the property he’s being sent to. The ‘9 is exhausted from the long night he’d experienced.
K had poured over files at his cramped desk until his eyes burned and his throat grew so dry as to rival the arid chemical wastes of the Nevada desert. Still, he hadn’t bothered asking for water. It would cost money he didn’t want to spend. Besides, his experiences with liquid within the walls of the precinct have come hand-in-hand with punishment.
He wakes when the spinner chimes. Head snapping up, the officer inhales and exhales hard. It’s a sign of vulnerability he feels free enough to express as he turns off the autopilot and regains personal control over the vehicle. In the distance, a scattering of structures rise out from the perpetual haze of the world like a nervous herd of bovine protecting a calf against an approaching predator. He angles towards them, passing over a broken windmill on the way.
Pulling the spinner several yards short of a dead tree, he sets it down in a sprawling waste of infertile soil. A cloud of dirt gets kicked up by the disturbance. There is no hiding his arrival.
As he does on every job, K pops the latch for the spinner’s parrotfish in order to send it lazily into the sky. He gestures up at it to begin its rounds. The replicant tugs his jacket collar up over the lower half of his face. His lungs will ache for days if too much dust finds a home among the tissue. A minor discomfort, but he prefers to avoid them when he can.
Before stepping into his quarry’s home, he knocks the dirt off his boots. He doesn’t rap his knuckles against the door.
Unsurprised, he finds the living space as bare as his own apartment. There are small hints at a life here. Everything is cleaned, maintained, loved. K ignores the stab of camaraderie, buries it. He and this replicant are not of the same kind. He can’t allow them to be. It will only make the inevitability of what’s coming that much harder.
There is a pot of something fragrant boiling away on the stove that he had smelt the moment he opened the front door. He ignores it, for now, in favor of taking a seat in the kitchen. The Nexus 9 knows that he will be joined by the master of the house shortly.
He is proven right by the arrival of the pre-Blackout model shortly after settling into position. Sapper Morton bypasses him on his way to the sink. K silently observes him for a moment, elbow on the table with his gun in hand, as the wanted replicant scrubs at his work-worn hands. The water is loud in on the stainless steel basin. A flash of his inception flares to the forefront of his mind. He speaks to shake it away.
“I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty. I was careful not to drag in any dirt.” K bites down the urge to continue, to explain that the wind had been turbulant, to actually have a real conversation with someone other than Joi. He’s not here for friendship.
There comes the rattle of something on the window ledge just out of K’s field of view. Sapper’s resigned voice answers him. “I don’t mind the dirt,” he says with a sigh and the noise of eyeglasses being placed on his rough face, “I do mind… unannounced visits.”
Heavy footsteps trod towards him in the dimly lit room. The seated officer tries not to react as the mountain of a replicant approaches him before coming to a halt a polite distance away. “You police?”
“Are you Sapper Morton? Civic number NK680514?”
“I’m a farmer.”
Sapper seems to be just as adverse to answering questions as he is. K can respect that. Answers can be a dangerous thing to give. Any vulnerability can be exploited.
“I saw that. What do you farm?” he asks, genuinely curious.
The mountain moves across the tile floor and a massive hand rises to open a cupboard. Morton slams down a container onto the counter before withdrawing a small cluster of white, wriggling objects. K watches quietly as the ‘8 approaches and drops the mass onto the table by his hand. Nematodes.
“It’s a protein farm. Wallace design,” Morton supplies as way of explanation.
Isn’t everything? K thinks. That man has fingers in nearly every form of industry in their society, both on and off world.
Taking his hand off the gun, he points at the air with a small twirl of his finger, subconsciously mirroring the gesture he’d given the parrotfish before entering the house. “Is that that I smell?”
“Grow that just for me… Garlic.”
“Garlic…” K says, wonderingly. The word feels just as exotic in his mouth as the plant might taste.
“Do you want to try some?”
“No, thank you. I prefer to keep an empty stomach until the hard part of the day is done.” The pot starts boiling even louder on the stove, as if it were protesting the refusal of Sapper Morton’s hospitality. “How long you been here?”
“Since 2020.”
“But you haven’t always been a farmer, have you?” Silence from the other replicant is answer enough. K continues, “Your bag. It’s colonial medical use. Military issue.”
He doesn’t miss the change in the older Nexus’s body language. The almost unconscious touch on the bag’s canvas side reminds K of the way he touches his own jacket when he’s uncertain. He presses onward with his information gathering.
“Where were you? Calantha…? Must have been brutal.”
“Planning on taking me in? Huh? Take a look inside?”
“Mister Morton, if taking you in is an option…” K sighs and leaves his gun aside on the table. “I would much prefer that to the alternative. I’m sure you knew it would be someone in time.”
A frustrated exhalation of air bursts from the other replicant as he pulls off his glasses. K tosses him a cursory glance before looking down, eyebrow slightly raised. He reaches into one of his inside pockets to pull out the small handheld retina scanner the police department issues for use on the field.
“I’m sorry it had to be me.”
“Good as any,” Morton says while K activates the device.
“Now, if you don’t mind… If you could just look up and to the left,” he instructs, uncrossing his legs and getting to his feet.
He knows what’s coming. He had seen him pull the scalpel out of the bag, so it comes to no real surprise when Sapper Morton lunges at him. K catches his hand before the blade can lodge itself between the span of his ribs. In return, he gets slammed against the wall by the far larger replicant. Managing to dodge the punches leveled at him, he tries to break free to create some distance between the two of them. He doesn’t succeed. The ‘8 grabs a firm hold on him and slams his body into the wall like Cain bringing the stone down upon his brother. Fighting to keep his chin tucked against the curve of his shoulder so that the back of his head doesn’t meet a similar end to Abel’s, he takes the brunt of the force over the span of his shoulders until finally the drywall gives out beneath him and he lands hard on the floor.
There is no time to recover because Morton falls with him, dropping the scalpel upon impact. They wrestle, trying desperately to get the upper hand over the other. K doesn’t want to do this. He wants to walk this back, reset and try again. He opens his mouth to tell the farmer just that when Morton is suddenly choking him. It’s as though an iron collar has been fastened around his neck. With tears leaking freely from him, he can feel the blood vessels in his eyes bursting under the strain. He growls, forcing air through his throbbing lungs and slams his fist into Morton hard enough to drop him.
Gaining traction, he manages to straddle the other replicant and he hits him one, two, three, four, five times in the throat in rapid succession. His adversary falls back, struggling to breathe through a damaged windpipe.
K wedges his fingers on the winded replicant’s eyelids and pins the eye open, trying to get the scanner ready. Morton interrupts him by grasping onto the scalpel and driving it into the meat of K’s upper arm. The officer grunts as pain radiates in his right side. He slaps the ‘8 back down and hits him. It’s punishment. Bad dog, his madam would say.
For good measure, he hits him for a second time to quell any further resistance. He doesn’t relish the feeling of his knuckles crushing against the other replicant’s trachea. This time, when he grabs Morton’s face, he manages to hold the eye open long enough for the handheld device to read it.
The screen confirms what he already knows. The man beneath him is Sapper Morton, charged with deadly assault of organic life and wanted for retirement.
Muscles twitching with adrenaline, K gets to his feet and looks down at the replicant choking on his own ruined body. “Please, don’t get up,” he says, accompanying his words with a pleading gesture.
He already knows that he will. They always do. The taste of freedom only serves to kill them in the end. Dying for the it seems… well, K can’t understand it, not like this. His eyes have not been opened to the benefits of being free.
Behind him, he already hears the rustling of Morton sitting up. He retrieves his gun from the kitchen table. It’s heavy in his hand. When he turns around and retraces his steps back towards the living room, the other replicant is on his hands and knees. Those calloused hands are clutching at his throat.
“How does it feel? Killin’ your own kind?” the farmer grits out.
“I don’t retire my own kind because we don’t run. Only you older models do.” There it is. The distinction he must draw between them to keep sane. He won’t pass his baselines otherwise.
“You new models are happy scraping the shit. Because you’ve never seen a miracle.”
K looks at him, jaw clenching with the effort not to speak. It’s on the tip of his tongue, that he has seen his own miracle. He carries it with him every hour of every day, right in his very skin. He doesn’t have a soul and yet he’s marked.
Sapper Morton rushes him, the last efforts of a wounded bull in the arena. K puts two bullets in him. The mountain falls. The house shakes and then goes still.
He covers the dead replicant with a blanket pulled from the back of the couch before extracting his eye with careful hands. He draws the makeshift shroud over Morton’s face when he’s finished. Bloody fingerprints get left behind on the faded fabric.
No matter how much soap K uses in the sink, he can’t get rid of the tacky feeling that seems as though it’s part of him now. His hands will never be clean. Innocence belongs only to the freshly incepted.
Before he leaves the small house, he takes the farmer’s glasses. Some part of Sapper Morton will live on with the replicant that retired him. It’s all K can offer him now.
───※ ·❆· ※───
A fog has laid itself over his shoulders like a second skin. It feels more familiar, more his, than the actual flesh that coats his bones. His DNA was taken from a donor. K is occasionally loathe to even call his body his. Some days, it feels like it has been parted out to anyone who might want a piece of it.
The numbness he’s feeling ensures he passes his baseline with flying colors after the retirement of NK680514. He gets to keep the moniker of “constant” K.
Joshi is pleased at his performance, When he goes to her office for his post-baseline report, she assigns him to another case to keep him occupied while the dig team finishes at the protein farm. His madam doesn’t like him to be idle for too long. He will be heading out in the morning to check in on another old model number.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Having never existed in a world where the skies are clear, K finds the beauty in the varying colors of the haze. Today, the old, industrial streets are bathed in a brilliant orange light due to the rising run. It’s a cheerful hue for the grim work that lies ahead. He supposes this area must come to life at night, being so far from the main heart of Los Angeles and its daunting amount of law enforcement.
K sends the spinner into a slow dive, cruising to increasingly lower altitudes as he gets closer to his destination. As always, the coordinates were provided by Lieutenant Joshi. She had been kind enough to provide him a suspected apartment number, rather than have him go door to door down the halls to find the culprit. Even with a number, K still doesn’t like the idea that there will be neighbors that might bear witness to this.
He finally parks the machine against the curb outside of a run-down apartment building. Even from inside the spinner, the officer can see that that bricks have broken free of the structure's edifice. He deploys the parrotfish for a halfhearted backup that will be useless unless he’s outside and gets out of the spinner.
The front door is uneven on its hinges. It squeals loudly in the silence as he pushes it open. Any dream of subtly is already dashed. The tone for this visit has been set.
Here, the hallways are dusty and unpopulated. He finds it to be a novel contrast to his own living situation. There, the building’s common areas are constantly wet with snow melt and teaming with bodies. The ‘9 wonders if this is how the explorers of ancient tombs felt. Like they were navigating the body of a slumbering Goliath. Finding the door that leads into the stairwell, he mounts the stairs. They creak and shift with the settling of his weight upon each one.
“Unit 405. One known occupant. Possible second.” the message had said.
Officer K reaches the fourth floor to find it predictably devoid of anyone in the hallway. He finds the door with its brass number and steps up to it. The knock echos in the empty hall. There is a long moment of silence before he finally hears footsteps approaching the synthetic wood. A rattle of a chain against the material, and the door opens just enough for an eye to peer suspiciously at him. There’s not enough of a gap for him to get the toe of his boot through.
“I’m sorry for the intrusion. I have some questions I need to ask.”
“You’re a cop?”
K keeps the frown off his face. This is reminding him too much of yesterday. “I’m looking for someone. Civic number NK687725. John Gradus.”
“What if I shut this door?”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” he says, genuinely apologetic.
The stranger sighs and steps aside, opening the door all the way. “You better come on in, then. Nasty business to do in the doorway.”
Trailing after him, K rolls the situation over in his mind. He already knows the face matches, even from the glance he’d taken. It is now a matter of confirming the identity with the eye scan before the next step. Either the replicant can surrender or they can be retired. As Sapper Morton had demonstrated to great effect the day before, it’s never surrender.
“Please, sit,” the older generation model says with a gesture to a worn couch before taking a seat across from it in a chair that looks to be more tape than metal.
K readily complies, not wanting to make waves just yet. There is someone in the kitchen. They’re just out of sight.
“Can you bring us tea?” Gradus calls out after giving him a searching look. “I think it would do our guest some good.”
He’s in the middle of opening his mouth to protest when he catches movement in the kitchen entrance and he falls still. The last thing he was expecting here was you. An organic. The officer had simply assumed that the other potential occupant was another ‘8 like the one he was paying a visit. There is not mixing across kind. His madam has been aggressively clear about there being lines that must never be crossed.
Taking in the hard look you give him when you emerge from the kitchen carrying two cups, he adverts his eyes to the low table in front of him. The porcelain teacup that you place on coffee table is well loved. The edges of it are chipped and the saucer it’s resting on doesn’t match the delicate floral print.
K doesn’t miss the way that you and the other replicant engage in a silent conversation before you hand him his own drink. He is thrown off balance by this situation. The strangeness of it is putting him on an unfamiliar edge. His hand clenches on his thigh.
Across from him, you take a seat next to the ‘8 on another battered chair. Cracked vinyl and dented metal legs groan feebly under your weight. K realizes that everything in this apartment has been well-used. Repaired instead of replaced. He wonders which one of you is the sentimental type.
“Who are you?” you ask, breaking the uneasy silence. NK687725 looks embarrassed by your bluntness.
Head reeling, he responds. “Officer KD6-3.7.”
“That’s not a name. You’re one of them, then.” It’s not a question. Disgust colors your voice. That, at least, is familiar.
“Easy,” John Gradus mummers to you. He reaches over to pat you on the sleeved arm with his pale hand.
K marks the difference between this model and Morton. Where the farmer had been a combat model, it looks like Gradus was meant for another line of work altogether. He is delicate in the places where the other had been robust. K decides that he is likely an old pleasure model. A doxie, perhaps, or meant to be a private client’s pet. He can be easily overpowered in either case.
“Why are you here, Officer?” the other replicant asks, addressing him. There’s a resigned look in his eyes. K’s presence here is no mystery.
“I was sent to follow up on reports on a… rouge serial number. My betters needed reassurance.”
“You’re going to take me in? I’m afraid I don’t have much left to offer.”
“If you’re willing, I will gladly do that rather than the alternative,” K responds. Maybe today, he’ll catch a break.
“He hasn’t done anything wrong!” you cut in, rising to your feet.
K ignores the twinge he feels in his chest. “He ran.”
“So? Why don’t you?”
Left without an answer he is willing to articulate, he doesn’t respond to your question. Loyalty runs too deep when there is no one else to be loyal to but his madam. The thought of running is incomprehensible. There is nothing out there for him but the LAPD. He’d become what he hunts.
He observes quietly as Gradus manages to coax you back into your seat. Reluctance and anger are painted all over your face in broad strokes. The freedom of your expressions reminds him of Joi.
The officer’s eyes flick to the tea cooling on the table. It’s a different color than coffee, differing scent as well. A faint steam trail rises off of it. He tries to focus his attention on it rather than the strange sensation tucked behind his ribs. Distantly, he wonders if he is having a heart attack. Can his kind even have them or was their DNA too tampered with during the growth process to allow for such a thing?
“What kind is it?” he asks, abrupt.
John Gradus smiles over your disbelieving scoff, seemingly delighted at the conversation change. “Green. I grow it myself right here. Please, have a taste. We do not have any sweeteners, but I have grown to like it without additives.”
Extending his hand out to pick up the cup, his mind drifts. Why do all replicants seem to have a desire to create, to put their own mark on the world? It’s an all too human behavior for beings without souls.
The teacup is dwarfed in his grip. A bit too much pressure and he fears the entire thing might turn to wet chalk in his palm. He hovers it underneath his nose, inhales. There’s a crisp scent to it, something fresh. He presses his lips to the edge of the cup and sucks in a mouthful. Involuntarily, his eyes slip closed as the mellow flavor rolls over his tongue.
“Good, isn’t it?” the other replicant says gently. K opens his eyes and carefully places the cup back on its saucer. His side tingles underneath his gun holder, like its burning a hole into his flesh. It’s a reminder that he’s here for something other than a social call.
Reluctantly, he reaches into a pocket and pulls out his field scanner. K looks regretfully at the pair seated across from him. If he could walk away, he would.
“If you could look up and to the left for me, Mister Gradus…” he says, getting to his feet.
You surprise him by also lunging to your feet and moving to stand between him and the still-seated replicant. “Leave my friend alone. Please.”
“I can’t do that. I’m sorry,” K tries to move around you, but you put your hands against the wide expanse of his chest and try to push him back. Heat radiates from your palms, soaking through the threadbare material of his shirt. He doesn’t do anything more than sway from the sudden pressure. The strange feeling in his chest is worse. Why would you protect the thing sitting behind you? He was taught that all replicants are disposable, meaningless in the eyes of organics.
You must be the sentimental one, he realizes. You can’t bare to let go of broken things.
“Just tell your boss or whoever sent you that you couldn’t find us.”
“I can’t lie. I have orders.” K tries to sidestep you. “Please stand aside.”
You don’t listen. Instead, you continue to block him by crowding into his space. He finally catches you with a hand on your upper arm. Applying just enough force, he makes it to where you have to step aside to relieve the pressure.
“Officer, please,” the other replicant speaks, finally rising from his chair after setting down his own teacup, “You have my full cooperation if you do not—”
Gradus’s words get cut off at your sudden explosion of violence. K feels you sock him in the face with all the strength you can muster. Stars explode across his vision. A tall, white fountain looms into his mind’s eye, beckoning him closer. He staggers but recovers quickly. Moving faster than the older model behind you, he clamps his hand around your wrists before the ‘8 can do more than take a shocked step forward.
You fight his hold, struggling like an animal caught in a trap. He clenches his fingers down just enough to keep you captive.
“Please stop,” he requests of you.
“Let go of me!” you snarl in return.
This visit is escalating fast, too fast. K has no precedent for this. In every other retirement case he’s been involved with, the organics have steered clear of the situation. They never interfere, instinctively knowing better than to get between two replicants. You can’t insert yourself into a dog fight without risking getting bit in the frenzy. Already, he can almost feel your more delicate skin bruising in his grip. You’re fighting him hard despite gaining no ground.
“I’m going to need you to let go of my friend now, Officer.”
In the altercation, K had made the mistake of diverting his attention from the real threat to you. He’s chagrined to find that the other replicant has chosen to level a gun at him. It had been retrieved from its place inside a basket between the two chairs judging by the tangled mess of synthetic yarn draped cross the edges of the plastic.
Gradus is turning out to have a harder edge to him than the ‘9 had anticipated. It looks like you’re the breaking point of the wanted replicant’s amiableness. K releases his hold on you and puts both hands up before taking a step back in a show of placation. The eye scanner is still in his left hand.
“If you could put the weapon on the table,” the officer says with a nod to the surface not far from his knees.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Gradus says apologetically, still pointing the gun at him.
“We all know I can’t do that no matter how much I want to… Direct orders.”
Sighing, the other replicant lowers the weapon in surrender but doesn’t set it aside. It’s still enough slack that K feels comfortable enough to step around you. It’s a mistake.
The instant you aren’t unintentionally shielding him from your friend, K sees movement. Gradus raises the firearm in a quick, decisive motion. K responds instinctively. His fingers leap for the gun holstered against his ribs.
With a deafening pop, the bullet blows a hole in the older model’s shoulder. John Gradus falls, gasping, to his knees. K watches, mentally disconnecting from the scene unfolding in front of him as the injured replicant claws at the wound soaking the carpet with each beat of his heart. K feels your absence in a way that is not dissimilar to a limb being severed when you leave his side and throw yourself at Gradus.
Strange. He doesn’t know you, doesn’t even know your name, and yet he is experiencing loss.
Forcefully dispassionate, he watches as you ease your friend onto his back to get better access to the wound. You pull your jacket off, desperately attempting to stanch the flow of blood by shoving the material against the hole until your knuckles pale from the pressure. There is already crimson smeared across your newly bare arms.
Officer K crosses the floor and crouches next to you. He presses a knee onto Gradus’s side to keep him still for what is coming next. K holds the replicant’s eye open and readies the scanner. He holds steady even when you let go of the wadded up jacket and start to rake at the back of hand he’s using to keep the eyelids apart. Even when you manage to open up cuts in his skin with your nails, he doesn’t react. The gouges you leave behind sting less than your pleading voice.
“Leave him alone. Please, just leave him alone.” You’re sobbing.
Emotions start to bubble up from the soil he has mentally buried them in, he beats them back with a shovel. He retreats into the comforting quiet of numbness until he gets a proper look at your blood-smeared forearm.
A hauntingly familiar mark adorns it. How many hours has he spent looking at the selfsame mark on his own arm? How often has he traced along the lines and let himself dream, just a little, that there really is something real out there for him? He’s even managed to convince himself at times that someone is looking for him because they want him as much as he wants them.
The scanner beeps, flashing green. It slices through his mounting alarm. He manages to spare a glance at it. The number inset into the tissue of Gradus’s eye is a match for the civic number he’d come for, just as he’d known it would be. He hates himself for the necessary evil he is about to preform.
Digging his knee more firmly into his target’s ribs, he extracts a small knife from another pocket in his jacket. He tunes you out. The blade runner accepts the harm you’re trying to inflict on him as penance for his cruelty.
K is as gentle as he can possibly be while he cuts the eye out of the still living replicant. The older model thrashes and struggles underneath him, but is ultimately unable to break free. K had been right about him being easily overpowered.
Trembling, he gets to his feet and moves away from you both. The eye is clasped carefully in his hand, optic nerve dangling freely. With his fingers slick with blood, he finds an evidence bag in one of his pockets and tucks the eye into its new, plastic prison. The bag goes back into the pocket it had come from.
You and Gradus had referred to each other as friends. The way that you’re curled over him, the protective hunch of your shoulders as you tend to him, supports the notion. Replicants were made to be isolated, sank deep in their work. Tyrell and, later, Wallace had engineered them to be the perfect servants. K doesn’t know what to make of this bond.
Before he can leave, there is one other thing left he must confirm or refute even though he already knows the answer. His own memory had supplied it. Grasping the edge of his own sleeve, he pulls it up to expose the mark etched into his cells. He looks from his forearm to yours, eyes following every memorized curve, every line.
They match.
The mouthful of tea he’d just had in what feels like a lifetime ago threatens to expel itself on the thin carpet. He’s found his soulmate. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
K gets to see the moment you realize you register what he’s looking at. Horror blossoms on your face as your mind tries to make sense of what you’re seeing, of what you really are to each other. The emotions running across your face are all caused by him. He feels sick.
“What?” he hears you mumble. It’s a broken little noise.
Stricken by the urge to comfort you, to lay himself on the floor beside Gradus so that you may flay him open, he clenches his hands and takes another step back. You’re looking up at him like he might attack again. The cut on the back of his hand weeps, doing what he cannot.
He isn’t going to hurt you and yours any further. K had already decided that the moment he saw your soulmark. It’s a choice born from a newfound sense of selfishness. His loyalty had gained a chip in the smooth surface of it, like the teacup you had placed in front of him. He is going to lie to his madam. As proof of a job complete, he’ll bring the stolen eye back to the precinct. If the other replicant survives the trauma inflicted on him, he will be continue to be free. He can go through his life without looking over his shoulder quite so often.
As if summoned by his thoughts, a cellular device starts chiming in his pocket. His madam. No one else would call him. The officer withdraws the device and presses the button to accept the call.
Lieutenant Joshi’s voice is tinny and crackling through the speaker. She doesn’t waste a breath on pleasantries. “Your dig came through. Get down here. Leave whatever you’re working on.”
The unit trills when she hangs up. He put the phone back into his pants pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he says. He means it, perhaps more than anything else he’s said since his inception.
Understandably, you don’t say anything in response to him. Instead, you try to stand despite your legs being too shaky to manage it easily on your own. Before he can show restraint, employ any measure of sense, he bridges the distance between the two of you. K offers you his hand. He’s stunned when you actually take it. Yours fits against his own, palm to palm, as though he was made for you. In a way, K supposes, he was.
There is a breathless moment where the two of you simply stand together hand in hand, eyes peering into the other’s. He wants to shift his hold. He wants to interlink his fingers with yours. Just as he is on the cusp of fulfilling that desire, you wrench your hand free of his and that’s when K knows his time here is up.
Gathering himself just enough, he puts his back to you. The door seems miles away as he starts walking towards it.
“Hey.” There is a flinty quality to your voice.
He pauses and looks back towards you. K is unsurprised to see that you’ve picked up Gradus’s discarded firearm and are now pointing it at him. He wishes that you weren’t shaking so much. He pivots to fully face you, keeping his hands at his sides. The least he can do for you is hold still so that you can line up the shot.
The conviction bleeds out of your face and your arm lowers. The gun falls to the floor at your feet with a heavy thud. At the back of his throat, he tastes the bitterness of disappointment.
K exits the apartment unit. Every step feels wrong. He wants to fight the order. He wants to turn around. The officer wants to offer something, anything, that could make this right. He wishes he could undo the blood pooled on the carpet, but he can’t do anything at all but obey. Free will doesn’t exist for him. His madam has called him in, and for now, he belongs to her no matter what the flesh might claim.
───※ ·❆· ※───
In the morgue, K doesn’t find himself to be any more stable. Joshi had called him in to make use of his intuition and rapid processing ability, but he feels numb. His thoughts keep wandering to you.
He’s barely aware of Nandez talking to him as he idly traces a thumb over his jacket where it lays draped over his arm. He thinks the material had been a more vibrant green once, before he had acquired it from an ‘8 who had, in turn, lifted it off a ‘7.
“Your box is a military footlocker issued to Sapper Morton, creatively repurposed as an ossuary. Box of bones. Meticulously cleaned and laid to rest about 30 years gone. Nothing else in it but hair. She’s pre-Blackout so DeNAbase doesn’t give an ID.”
K manages a nod. He doesn’t bother speaking.
“It was she, plus one,” Joshi says as if it were a shocking revelation. It’s not. From his understanding, organics often manage to reproduce.
Pregnancy, death, panning shots over the dead woman’s bones… His soulmark burns like a phantom brand. The fire feels like it’s spreading to his brain. He’s going under in a cloud of embers. Bits of conversation drift around him. They’re as untouchable as the pretend wife waiting at home for him.
Struggling to gain focus, he drags his intuition up from where it lies dormant and cooling. Coco is leading the forensic discovery today, a small relief. The tech zooms in too far and K gets a flash of scrapes along bone. Man-made alterations.
“Go back. Closer. Closer. That. What’s that?” It’s time he’s spoken since being recalled to the precinct. The three organics eye in him surprise.
“Notching on the iliac crest. Fine point, like a scalpel. Looks like an emergency c-section... Cuts are clean. No sign of struggle,” Coco reports.
K thinks for a moment, mulling over the information. “He was a combat medic. Maybe he tried to save her but just couldn't.”
His words cause the others to debate. They do it with little regard of what he is.
“He didn’t seem like the saving type.” Nandez sneers.
“He took the time to bury her. A sentimental skinjob…” Coco muses, but freezes, stricken “Sorry, K,” he adds.
K shrugs off the apology. He has long since been pushed past any feelings over any slights that come his way. It had been a necessary thing in order to survive here.
“Didn’t seem like the daddy type either. So where’s the kid? You scan the whole field?” Joshi says, knowing very well that replicants are sterile.
“Just dirt and worms. No other bodies.” Nandez’s response is immediate.
“Maybe he ate it.” Coco says, more serious than he should be.
Something flares, white hot, in K’s chest. He has never had a proclivity to anger. The vicious tone to his words surprises even him. “Or maybe he loved her. Maybe he took care of the kid like it was his, at least for a while.”
The silence is deafening. Three pairs of incredulous eyes stare at him. Then Joshi speaks, cutting through the silence punctuated only by K’s harsh breathing. She sounds like she’s talking to a very small child. “But your kind doesn’t love.”
“Oh, he definitely ate it,” Nandez follows up, barely able to get the words out before he starts laughing. Coco joins him.
K bows his head, thoroughly chastised. He only just keeps from curling in on himself.
His madam sighs. “Finish up here, boys. K, with me.”
Unsure of what to expect, he follows the woman to the elevator. He presses himself into the corner during the ride up to her office, unease biting at his bones. The confined space has only been a breeding ground for trouble. Having learned a few hard lessons, he takes the stairs these days unless he is with Joshi.
The lieutenant leads him through the bullpen once they get off the elevator. Nobody pays them any attention. Eyes automatically advert from his madam. When they get to her office, she leaves him to close the door behind them. Upon turning to face her, he finds that she has already seated herself behind her desk and is in the midst of pouring herself a drink.
K waits, face turned submissively down at the floor. He doesn’t fidget.
“The world’s built on a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there’s no wall and you’ve bought a war or a slaughter. Your kind is incapable of love. That’s a trait only given to humans. So whatever notion you have in your head about the skinjob and the woman, you leave that behind.” Her tone is lecturing. It leaves no room for argument, not that he would even dare dream of it. Whatever his madam says to him is the law that he must obey.
“Yes, Madam.”
“What isn’t possible can’t be.”
“Yes, Madam,” he says again.
With a sigh, she sits back in her chair. Her eyes trace over his body, appraising. His breath catches in his throat before he forces his nervous system to relax. The only sign of his discomfort is the clenching of his hand at his side.
Lieutenant Joshi’s mouth pinches. Her face takes on a harried look. With a decisive thunk, she sets the glass tumbler down on her desk. It has been emptied for the first of what is likely to be many times.
“Go home. Get your head on straight. I don’t need you wanting retirement.”
“Yes, Madam,” K agrees.
Any relief he feels as being allowed to leave is cut short when she stops him. “Hey.”
He pauses, letting that be the acknowledgment that he’s heard her. The officer waits like the obedient dog he was made to be.
“You’re getting on fine without it.”
He feels his eyebrow twitch upwards in question. “What’s that, Madam?”
“Love.”
───※ ·❆· ※───
It’s late. The sun sat below the sprawling expanse of buildings hours ago, leaving K to sit in the dark room with only his thoughts and his DiJi for company. While he looks out the window at the other apartment building across the street, at the wall of lives stored in little boxes, he feels more hopeless than usual. The mark on his forearm feels like a slap in the face.
What use is a miracle if it only serves to remind him of his failures? It is a monument to what he destroyed without even knowing what it was he was about to rip apart.
He stands up from the purple chair and takes a few stumbling steps over to the built-in table to pour himself another too-full glass of whiskey. The bottle he had opened after getting off work tonight is already more than half gone. K doesn’t know why he’s even bothering to pour it into a glass other than to occupy his hands. He might as well drink straight from the bottle for efficiency.
With the glass in hand, liquid nearly sloshing over the edges, he goes to where his coat his hanging by the door. He swallows down another mouthful of alcohol while he reaches into one of the pockets. He takes out the small knife he uses for extracting eyes on retirement cases. K figures he should have just given you the blade and let you take his instead.
“K, what are you doing?” Joi asks, tone colored with apprehension.
She is lingering by the window, nervously shifting her nonexistent weight. The replicant ignores her. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Something has changed in him.
Crossing the room again, he takes a seat on the couch. K sets his glass on the side table. Stray drops of whiskey escape over the lip of it at the careless motion. They soak into the paper of his book, his most prized possession. It doesn’t matter. Joshi already soiled it months ago with her own glass, not dissimilar to how she has with him.
Tightening his grip around the knife, he looks down contemplatively at his right forearm. He is not wearing a long sleeved shirt this evening. Maybe he should have been.
Joi starts to plead with him the instant she realizes what he’s about to do. He manages to block her voice out and sinks the blade into his skin, just below the soulmark. The metal works its way through flesh and meat until the fine tip of it scrapes against his radius. It burns as he drags it sideways, up and to the left. Blood wells up from the wound and starts dripping freely onto his pant leg. It soaks into the material.
K has decided that he is undeserving of the fragment of soul he was given at inception. The mark must be removed. Perhaps with it no longer on his body, its twin will appear on someone else. You can have a better soulmate, and he will just be another serial number. Unremarkable in every way.
Delicate hands flicker and clip through his, grasping futilely at the knife. Joi has thrown herself to her knees in front of him and is trying to stop him. Projected tears are falling from her eyes in shimmering droplets. He follows the steady flow of them to her face and realizes that he is scaring her. In her distraught expression, he can only see your agonized face as you sob over the replicant he put a bullet into just days before. Her hands are yours in the way that they attempt to pull at his, to put a stop to the damage he’s inflicting. The comparison stops him cold. He can’t do this to Joi. Even if their relationship together is an elaborate game of pretend, he can’t make someone else feel the way he made you feel.
Smothering the emotions inside of him like a flawed replicant straight from the artificial womb, he wiggles the knife back and forth to free it from his body. He sets the blade aside on the coffee table and retreats to the bathroom. Joi is unable to follow him. She is stuck to the hardline as if on a leash. He never got her anniversary present.
Away from Joi’s worried eyes, he washes the injury in the cramped bathroom sink. Water spills out over the sides and splashes onto the floor in swirls of pale pink on the tile. It makes its way lazily to the drain in the middle of the room. He will scrub the traces of his blood out of the grout later, when he has had a moment to distance himself from everything he shouldn’t be feeling.
Feeling unsteady, K finds the platelet jelly and sets to gluing the self-inflicted wound shut.
If he pinches the sides of it together harder than what is necessary, that’s only for him to know. The bite of pain is enough to ground him in reality. It clears away some of the drunken fog.
Closer to baseline than he was, K rejoins his distressed “wife” in the main room. She rushes at him and he draws her against him as much as a living being can do with a hologram.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” he soothes while she sobs nonexistent tears against his chest.
The replicant can’t help but wish that she were someone else. He wonders if his role and that of Gradus had been reversed, would you have tried to protect him? What would it be like to have someone care enough to try?
───※ ·❆· ※───
After that night where he had made an earnest attempt to remove his soulmark, he shuts himself off from Joi. He barely responds to her these days. He can hardly stomach interacting with anyone at all. Still, he does not turn off the DiJi. She is left to do wander around the room and do whatever her algorithm wishes. There is a strange sort of comfort in not feeling completely alone, even if the company isn’t actually there. He isn’t real in any meaningful way either.
His evenings become routine in their spiral. He sits, he smokes, he drinks, and he very rarely sleeps in the hours before his alarm chimes. You haunt the moments of rest he is able to get. He hears your voice in the throats of a thousand others. He sees your anguished face with every blink of his eyes.
K wishes he knew even just your name. He has nothing tangible of that day in 405. Perhaps it was just a dream, a terrible nightmare that has bled into the waking world.
He has to stop eating the synthetic meat he gets for his dinners. The artificial bloodiness of it transports him back to the moment he saw your soulmark covered with the gore caused by his mistake. He should have overridden instinct. He should have done something, anything, differently.
K nearly stops eating all together. His body is slowly wasting away, eating at his muscles. He’s taken to wearing more layers to offset the loss. No one comments at the change.
───※ ·❆· ※───
If only so you can put him down, he tries to find you. The opportunity for him to dig for information comes when he’s put on a case with Nandez. The detective leaves K alone promptly at the end of second shift. The replicant is not sad to see him go. Even at the best of times, Nandez is at his throat despite not having the authority to demand anything from him. K sincerely hopes that the man never gets a promotion.
With Nandez gone, K pulls up the property records for the apartment building he found you at and starts searching. There is nothing substantial, certainly nothing for an additional occupant in the unit rented by John Gradus. No co-signer, no lease agreement, no roommate paperwork. It’s a dead end.
Frustrated, he gets out of his chair and paces. K knows full he can’t risk diving too deep into the systems. Doing so might draw attention to his extracurricular activities. His madam would want answers, and not the ones he is willing to provide. She can’t know of your existence. Joshi was very clear about the boundaries between kind. Without question, he would find a way to retire himself if given the order to harm you.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Squinting his eyes against the feeble sunlight managing to stream into his window, he registers that Joi is looking at him. Her face carries the same serious expression that it has for the past few weeks. He feels a distant pang of guilt at being the cause of it.
She’s projected herself to be laying beside him on the thin mattress. In the dreamlike quality of the light, she looks almost tangible like this. Touchable. These small moments are why he never bothered with blinds or curtains.
“Tell me about your soulmate,” she says. He realizes that she’s emulated his mark into her hologram skin.
“There’s not much to tell.” His voice is thick with sleep.
“Tell me anyway.”
At that, he closes his eyes and summons his memory of you. With each detail he recounts aloud about your appearance, Joi alters herself. She replicates your accent, your hair, your eye color. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself looking at a pale imitation. It’s almost closer to a mockery than anything else. The morning light can’t make it real. Nothing could.
Tenderly, his DiJi reaches out and tries to press her fake mark against his in the way he’d always hoped his soulmate would when they found each other. He lets her, numb. It doesn’t feel like anything more than the faint static tingle of her projection. She clips through him.
“A special boy needs a name, a real name.” she prompts, mulling the thought over.
“Don’t,” he interrupts, softly. He doesn’t want Joi to name him. She’s not what he really wants. If anyone were to give him a name, it should be you.
With a flash of hurt on her face, she pulls away. The attempt at a loving game of pretend like they used to play is over. There is not likely to be another one.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Carefully, he tears out the title page of his book. K does not have any other paper. This will have to do. With the same marker the replicant used in his spinner to label the bag containing Gradus’s eye, he writes on the alcohol-warped page.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Officer K folds the paper and tucks it into his badge holder for safekeeping. He has a premonition that this day will end with him staring into the lens of a camera like the barrel of a gun while one of the precinct’s baseline administers hammers him with questions asked forcefully enough they might as well be physical blows.
Pushing through the crowd on the stairs, he doesn’t register the turmoil around him. He breaks free once he’s out the front door. The walk to the garage seems to pass in the blink in the eye and feels like only heartbeats pass before he’s in the work-provided spinner and on the way to the apartment building he’d been to a lifetime ago.
He puts the spinner down curbside out in front of a struggling noodle place. K doesn’t want to be parked too close to his objective. If someone comes sniffing around after him for going off-map, he doesn’t want it to be immediately obvious where he’s going.
As they had been the last time he’d been here, the streets are empty. They’re marked with obvious signs of nightlife. It all but confirms what he had suspected when doing the flyover. Graffiti and broken class litter the sidewalks in front of the row of businesses shuttered for the daytime hours. The neon signs are off and the blinds closed.
The apartment building looks the same as it had last time. Despite his own world being shaken to the very foundations, the structure he is entering looks unstricken by revelation. Retracing his footsteps, he ascends to the fourth four and finds the unit. The doormat he’d not bothered to acknowledge before is still out front.
With his pulse pounding in his ears, he raises his hand and knocks. He waits for the telltale sign of life behind the barrier. Nothing. Concern prickles at his mind, and he knocks again only to get no response. For just a moment, he thinks about just sliding the paper under the door but on a whim, he tries the knob. It turns easily in his grasp. It was left unlocked.
“Hello?” K calls out as he steps across the threshold.
Silence greets him in return.
From what the officer can discern upon casting a searching look at his surroundings, little has changed. The furniture is where it had been on the day of his visit. He is not sure if any of the personal effects have been disturbed. They had not been near the top of his priority list at the time.
A loud ringing noise shatters the peace and he startles, nearly hitting his elbow on the wall. It’s his phone. His madam must have checked on his tracker code and realized that he isn’t anywhere a good boy might be found under normal circumstances. He lets it ring through unanswered. His countdown has started.
Reluctantly, he continues his investigation and looks at the place where he had dropped Gradus. The blood stain he’d left behind is a mere, blush colored mark on the carpet. Someone, probably you, had tried to scrub away the evidence. The basket of yarn that had contained the gun has been righted and moved to a place between the couch and the blind-covered window.
Showing some level of restraint, he resists the urge to wander into the bedrooms. There are two of them. A glance through the doorways reveals that each has a bed. You and the ‘8 must not sleep in the same room. Instead of trying to puzzle out which might contain your possessions, he moves into the kitchen.
There is moisture in the sink. Someone has been here recently. The apartment had not been abandoned in his absence.
The water in the basin reminds him that Gradus had asked you to bring tea to them. Could it be your usual chore? The thought sparks an idea, and he pulls his badge from his pocket and extracts the folded piece of paper. He leaves it on the counter as his phone rings for a second time. Ignoring the repetitive trill, he picks up a pen from the coffee table and returns to the kitchen to unfold the page he’d torn from the book.
Again, his phone goes off, barely a pause between the attempts at reaching him. The timer is running out moment by moment.
Underneath the words he wrote at his apartment, K presses the nib of the pen against the paper and takes a breath. In careful writing, he adds to them.
Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing?
What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love?
Immediately, he wants to erase the words. With the feeling that he’s making another mistake when it comes to you, K refolds the sheet of paper and tucks it partially under the kettle resting on the counter. He wishes that he knew your name so that he could write it on the paper. Even without it, it’s clear enough who the message is for. Gradus hadn’t been the one with who shared his soulmark.
With an air of finality to it, the device in his pocket rings a fourth time. It’s his cue to leave. Spurred into haste, he puts the pen back where he’d found it and takes a final glance around, still curious about which decorative choices were yours.
He leaves the apartment, making sure to close the door securely behind him. The replicant all but sprints down the stairs in the effort to create distance between himself and the apartment unit. He narrowly manages to keep his pace limited to a brisk walk on the way back to the noodle restaurant. Just as he’s reaching for the lock on his spinner’s door, he hears a low roar rapidly approaching.
Looking up, he sees a police issued vehicle pull into a stop. It begins its decent as a voice projects over the loudspeaker. “Officer K D6-3.7. We’re taking you in on failure to report.”
K puts his hands up and automatically lowers himself to his knees. Acutely, he’s aware of what will happen if he doesn’t perfectly comply. LAPD beat cops are trigger-happy organics and ready to spray and pray at anything that so much as breathes wrong in their direction. He has never respected them, never been given cause to in all his dealings with them.
A cop gets out, leaving another behind the wheel, as soon as the spinner lands. In short order, K finds himself handcuffed and made a passenger in his own provided spinner. The organic makes a stab at ruffling his nerves on the way back to the precinct.
“Lieutenant’s real mad at you for taking off like that.”
K offers nothing in response.
“What the fuck were you doing all the way out here, skinner?”
He shrugs in his restraints, chooses how to interpret the question. “Noodles.”
The officer whistles, pitchy and uneven. “Oooh, she’s going to string you up.”
K is aware. He knew the cost for his apology when he set out today. He had also decided it was worth the fallout.
───※ ·❆· ※───
The stool that Officer K is sitting on is uncomfortable—a hard, impersonal thing meant to be hosed off as needed. It’s the same as the rest of this room bathed in the sterile light of humming florescent bar. Underneath the copper burn of blood is an antiseptic tang. The baseline testing room is everything but a slaughterhouse floor in name. He’d opened his eyes for the very first time in a room like this.
Ringing fills his ears followed by the whir and click of the wall-mounted camera in front of him. A disembodied voice reads off his serial number and informs him that the test has begun.
Responses leave the replicant’s throat through as though someone else is speaking through him. He’s calm, retreated so far into himself that any residual fire inside of him has been snuffed out. He feels cold. The joints in his fingers ache with the sensation. He doesn’t dare to flex them or to rub at his chafed wrists.
The cops that had been sent to fetch him had removed the handcuffs as soon as he’d been delivered to the testing room. One of them in particular had found great amusement in hauling him through the precinct by the narrow chain like a dog catcher with an animal on the end of their pole.
Finally, the pounding against the walls of his mind stops. The interrogation is over. The camera powers down and the examiner sighs, hard, almost disappointed.
“You’re free to go, Officer. Your lieutenant will see you in her office.”
K rises, stiff, eyes unseeing. He barely registers the activity of the precinct around him as he traverses the hallway and climbs the stairs in clear avoidance of the elevator once again. He feels trapped enough in his own head without the physical captivity of being in a little box.
Low murmurs roll against him akin to the waves against the seawall when he crosses the bullpen and knocks on Joshi’s door after reaching the floor housing her office. She calls him in immediately. Her tone is like an angry wasp. It provides a sting that jolts everything back into sharp relief.
She barely waits until he closes the door behind himself. “The hell is with you?”
Years of experience have taught him to let his madam work through her anger without input from him. K waits, still and patient, in front of her desk.
“You take off without informing me, you ignore my calls, and then what? We pick you up fucking around in the street outside of some shitty restaurant? What was so important about it that you had to go out there?”
“Apologies, Madam,” he says. Repentance drips from his voice like honey from the comb.
Joshi waits, looking expectant. Her expression shifts to frustration as no more words come. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me? Tell me why you were out there.”
It’s a direct order. The instinct to obey pulls at him. He gives in without a fight. “I was following up on the second retirement case. Civic’ NK687725. It was a surprise, Madam. I had hoped it would be a welcome one.”
Like magic, the severely set lines in Joshi’s face soften. She is becoming convinced that he’d meant his… willfulness as a gift, as a credit to her and her management.
“Did you find anything?”
“There was no one there,” he pauses, twists the truth in his own mind, “Hadn’t been for a while. It’s probable I scared them off and they went underground.”
Who is to say what “a while” means? Time is relative.
Joshi lifts a hand and beckons him closer, around the corner of the desk. Eager to avoid more trouble, he instantly follows her direction. She rotates her chair to face him when he comes to a stop within touching distance. He has learned through trial and error to predict exactly where she wants him based on her mannerisms and tone. It has never bode well for him to be wrong.
“Good dog,” the lieutenant says, lightly kicks him in the shin. “Just let me know before you decide to be proactive again.”
“I will, Madam.” He’s glad that she has decided to be lenient today.
“Get on out of here. I don’t need the distraction.”
“Goodbye, Madam.” It’s polite and he keeps his pace measured as he leaves. He doesn’t want to seem too eager. It would send the wrong message.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Weeks pass K by without any outward indication that you’ve received the paper he had left behind at your residence. He has made a resigned peace with the idea that your paths may never cross again when he arrives back to his apartment following a day kept late at work doing overtime, again, for Nandez. Following routine and nearly swaying on his feet, he puts his hand on the scanner for the door lock. He opens it just enough to slide through and is greeted in the entryway by Joi for the first time a while. Panic is displayed on her face. Taken aback, he’s about to question her when she speaks first.
“You have a visitor. I didn’t think you would want me to say no,” she whispers.
Frowning, he mulls over the list of potential visitors and only comes up with one idea of who it might be. But, he’d just seen Joshi at the precinct before leaving for the day. She had given him no indication that she would be paying him a visit tonight. In fact, his madam had had him sit down on the other side of her desk to share a drink with her.
It had kept him occupied for the better part of the hour while she got intoxicated enough to insist that he give her a kiss before he leave. She’d failed to push things further by not ordering him to his knees before her or manipulating his hands onto her body. K thinks that she’s grown bored of him, at least for the moment. The thought makes him feel relieved.
Joi touches him on the shoulder, putting an end to his thinking. “Good luck.”
Anticipating, despite the unlikeliness of it, to see his madam, he passes by the DiJi into the main room. K stops in his tracks, stricken dumb. He’d have sooner expected Coco spread out on his couch in nothing but his clear, silicone labcoat and an artificial rose in his mouth than to be staring at you. Somehow, you don’t look as out of place as you should among his sparse possessions.
“How did you find me?” the replicant asks.
“You said your identification number the day you showed up. KD6-3.7.”
It’s strange a strange thing, hearing his “name” come out of your mouth. He doesn’t supply the nickname he’s been given during his time as a blade runner. He’s already pacing on the knife’s edge. This evening could tip him in any direction without forcing any further familiarity.
“You got the note.”
“Yes.” Your tone is matter-of-fact. “You wanted to know if I felt like a part of me is missing.”
He is left waiting for a follow-up that doesn't come. The thought hangs there, uncontinued. In the quiet of the room, K shrugs off his jacket and goes to hang it on the hook by the front door. He unholsters his gun and puts it on a nearby shelf. No matter how things go, he will not be using it on you.
Before he faces you again, K approaches the controls for the hardline crossing the ceiling. When he casts a look at Joi with his finger hovering over the power button, she looks at peace. She gives him an encouraging shooing motion of her hand. He turns her off for the first time in months. You and K will not have any outside distraction.
“He lived, by the way.”
K feels a tightness loosen in his chest. “I’m glad.”
“Why? You could have easily made the shot fatal, why didn’t you?”
“Somebody cares about him. He would have been missed.”
“And that matters to you?” You don’t sound judgmental to his ears, only curious.
“Yes. I’m sorry I had to do it.” He swallows hard, voice breaking as he continues. “I didn’t choose this.”
The replicant knows that he is only what he was made to be, nothing more, nothing less. Nature had dictated his obedience. Nurture had molded him into being what the Los Angeles Police’s retirement division had had in mind when he was purchased for their use.
Under the weight of your gaze, he begins to self-soothe by clasping his hands together in front of him and rubbing one thumb over the other. He finds himself relieved from the burden when you shift your attention to your surroundings. He watches, fascinated, as you begin to explore.
Your fingers trail over the box where he stores his cigarettes and the lighter he’d found in the pocket of one of his previous retirement jobs. Moving onward, you pick up his book and flip briefly through the alcohol warped pages. He sees the recognition dart across your features when you find the place where the torn out page had once resided. The care in which you set the volume back down on the table surprises him. His madam had never displayed that level of consideration. Neither had Joi with the projected clone of it.
“These don’t look like yours,” you say. In your hands are Sapper Morton’s glasses, held as if they might break apart in your grasp with so much as a wrong exhale.
“They’re not.”
“Whose are they, then?”
“Sapper Morton. He was a retirement case,” K pauses, hesitates, then quietly adds, “I didn’t want him to be forgotten.”
“Why?” you ask, rolling the word in your mouth like a pearl.
The question makes his skin itch. He stills as though he had just taken a seat for his baseline. The only betraying movement is the continued motion of his thumb atop the other.
“Why?” you repeat, softer this time. There’s something close to tenderness in your voice and that makes him afraid.
“He was more than a serial number.” K admits, feeling the answer clawing its way out of him. “I… they all were.”
“Are you?”
“No.” His response is immediate. Firm.
“Why not?”
Unable to answer, he looks away. Shame laps at him with an overeager tongue. There is a divide between the older models and him. In some ways, Morton was right. The ‘9s are happy scraping the shit because it’s all they have been taught to know.
He’s aware of you setting the glasses back in their resting place on the shelf, but it still surprises him when you cross the small amount of space separating the two of you to stand in front of him. You’re so close to him that he can feel the heat of your body. It makes him want to burn in your fire.
“I do feel like there’s something missing. It’s like there’s an empty space next to me that should be filled by someone, but that someone never comes. It’s the part of the reason I came here. I… wanted to talk to you knowing what we are to each other,” you tell him.
K nods. Words catch in his throat, tumble over one another. In the end, he is unable to utter any of them.
“Will you show it to me?” you ask with a gesture to his covered arm. “I want to be sure.”
With a tremor threatening to shake his body, he slips his fingers under the edge of his shirt sleeve and pulls it up to his elbow. His soulmark is laid bare before your eyes. The wound that he had left in his own skin when he had tried to carve out the design has faded to a raised, pale line.
“That wasn’t there before,” you murmur, taking his forearm in your hands. Your pointer finger traces over the scar.
His breath catches at your touch. Overwhelmed, he has to close his eyelids against the moisture welling up in his eyes. He opens them again when the pressure of your hands leaves and sees you taking off your own coat to toss it over the back of his chair. The replicant barely has a moment of respite before your left hand resumes its position cupping the underbelly of his forearm. You keep him steady as you raise your right arm and nestle it alongside his to place the soulmarks side by side.
K’s eyes hadn’t been deceived back then. They are perfectly identical.
It’s more than he can handle. He curls into himself, instinctively seeking the fetal position. His chin is against his shoulder, face turned away from you. He’s not sure if he’s burning up or drowning.
“Hey… hey.”
Suddenly, your arms are around him. K feels himself being guided in until he’s all but cradled against you as you ease the both of you to floor. He finds himself pressing his face against your neck as you rub a soothing hand up and down his back. For each moment that passes, the replicant grows increasingly more worried that he’s overstaying his welcome, but you don’t push him away. Instead, you gently rock him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding choked even to his own ears.
“I’m sorry too. I misjudged you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed, but it wasn’t… I have an understanding of why you did what you did.”
Forcing himself to put some distance between your bodies, K finally pulls away. He doesn’t want to risk being reprimanded for taking too much. Your hands fall into your lap in the void he leaves behind.
There is a part of him that keeps expecting to discover that this is a vivid dream. Will he wake up and be staring at the water-damaged ceiling instead of your face? The hard floor under his knees, the chill of it creeping through the fabric and trying to find a home against his skin, seems to signal otherwise.
“Please don’t apologize. What I did was unforgivable.”
“John’s not mad at you, you know?” The words come as a surprise. He searches your eyes for a joke only to see sincerity reflected back at him. “He said you probably extended his life a few years by taking his eye and turning it in. Nobody’s gonna come looking for a dead man.”
“He’s not on our radar anymore. His file has been greyed out,” he says, getting to his feet.
Automatically, he reaches down to offer you his hand. It’s a mirror of your last interaction. He can tell by your expression that you are reliving the same memory as he. Still, you once again take his hand without hesitation. You hold it for just a moment before letting go. He doesn't think he imagined the reluctance.
“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Officer. I don’t want to intrude,” you say, turning to pick up your coat from where you had left it.
“Please. Stay,” he bursts out. The feeling of imminent loss batters at the walls of his chest, “unless…”
“Okay.”
He blinks, not expecting the ease in which you had agreed. He’s left cycling through various scripts in the effort to find something to say. Latching onto a familiar interaction with Joi, he asks, “Do you want coffee?”
“Sure, I’d take some.”
K finds himself with you in his narrow kitchen. He heats the water while you take down two mugs and locate the instant coffee grounds after some direction from him. It’s domestic in a way that he was never able to have with Joi. With her, he didn’t need to worry about knocking elbows together or pressing her into the cabinetry while trying to reach for a pot holder.
Once the hot water is ready and split between the two mugs and stirred together, the two of you take seats on the couch. Between sips, conversation flows, a trickle at first and then a flood. You talk for hours, long after your mugs are drained and sat aside.
Following the natural progression of all things, the words begin to slow as tiredness sets in. Pauses between sentences lengthen like shadows. At seeing your eyes between to flutter shut, K rouses himself out of his own comfortable stupor.
“I’ll take the couch if you want to sleep in my bed tonight,” the replicant offers. He’s relaxed, at ease in a way he’s not sure he’s ever been. You’ve changed him.
The effort that it takes for you to keep your eyelids open as you think over his stab at hospitality only endears to you him further. Finally, you shrug and smother a yawn. “I’ll take you up on that. I don’t think I need to be behind the wheel like this.”
While you pull out your phone and send a message to your roommate to let him know your plans, K gets up and crosses the room to fold down the bed. He opens a nearby drawer and pulls out the pillow and blanket to put on the mattress. With a helpless twinge sigh, he surveys the setup. It’s not the lap of luxury, he knows, but he hopes it will be sufficient.
“All yours.”
“Thank you, K.” The light press of your fingers against his soulmark warms him almost as much as the use of his nickname. You had slipped into using it when he had admitted his preference for it over his job title or serial number in at some point in the previous hours.
He nods, a shy dip of his head and lets you slide under the blankets. After fetching his jacket off the hook to use as a blanket, he turns off the lights and lays down on the couch. Sleep comes to him almost immediately. It’s dreamless.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Morning comes to him with the shrill chiming of his alarm. Fumbling for his handheld, K silences it and lays still for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. The replicant fell asleep on the couch again. He knows that he has been doing that more often than he should. Too much alcohol and flipping through the pages of his book time and time again on the hunt for any new meaning that he can gleam from the words he knows by heart have contributed to this being a regular occurrence.
With a stiff back, he sits up and swings his legs to place his feet on the floor. He freezes right on the cusp of standing up. There is a body tucked into his bed and it’s not Joshi. Yesterday evening hadn’t been a whiskey soaked dream brought on by too much wishful thinking. It had been real.
K knows he needs to get ready to go to the precinct and pushes himself through his morning routine accordingly no matter how much he would prefer to wait at your side to resume the domesticity the two of you had begun to forge. By the time he’s out of the shower and dressed, you’ve gotten up and put the bed back in its stored away position. The bedding is neatly folded and set on a shelf with the pillow.
With his hair still damp, he observes you for a moment from the kitchen. You’re tracing the faded letters and numbers on the back of his jacket with a finger, clearly trying to decipher the characters.
“N7H00105,” he supplies, sparing your eyes.
Amusement causes the corners of his mouth to rise into a smile as you turn to him with an incredulous look. “How did you…? It’s so faded.”
“It was easier to read when I acquired it.”
“Another one of your job finds?” you ask, offering him the jacket when he approaches.
“Yes.”
While he’s pulling the comforting weight of the garment over his shoulders, he tracks you with his eyes as you step into your shoes and tie the laces. You haven’t put your coat on yet, leaving your arms bare. There is a moment of silence, the two of you regarding one another. He does not want to be the first one to make the gesture to leave and, it seems, neither do you.
Your teeth are worrying your bottom lip. He wonders what you’re thinking about, but in the clear light of day, he finds himself unable to ask. The sun has burned away some of the ease of last night.
Finally, you speak. “If you had the option, would you leave all of this behind?”
He blinks, uncomprehending. “What?”
“Your job. Your life here… Would you leave it behind?”
“I… I don’t have anything else.” His words are uncertain, shaky.
“What if I’m offering you something else?”
“My kind doesn’t run.”
“It’s not running, K. It’s living.”
Rattled by the conviction in your voice, he sits down on the couch. His chest feels tight as barely defined images of things he’d hardly dared to dream of race through his mind. The enormity of what you’re suggesting is all but unimaginable. He has been loyal to his madam’s cause since the day he was incepted. There could be no deeper betrayal than slipping free of his tether.
The sensation of your hand on his shoulder jolts him back into the present moment. He meets your concerned eyes for a heartbeat before he has to look away.
“You don’t have to decide right now. You can think on it.”
“Saturday. I’ll be ready on Saturday,” he chokes out. His heart is pounding in his throat. He knows he cannot risk sitting through another baseline in the wake of this. He will fail.
“You’re sure? You won’t be able to come back here.”
“Yes.” Recklessly—impulsively—he has made up his mind.
───※ ·❆· ※───
The Saturday of his departure dawns like any other. The sunlight peering into the apartment’s only window would make K’s morning wholly unremarkable in its routine if his surroundings hadn’t been wiped clean of any personal possessions but a select few items that he is leaving behind for his madam to repossess. His entire world had fit into one furtively purchased duffel bag.
His nerves are alight with restlessness as he waits for you to arrive. The replicant had spent a few fitful hours laying on his mattress before rising ahead of the sun to ensure his readiness for the life ahead. As part of his preparations, he finally purchased Joi’s anniversary present. An emanator. He had transferred her to it after yesterday’s shift at the precinct. She had been joyous, nearly overflowing with excitement for him when he had explained the situation to her. He had cautiously let himself share his own tentative optimism.
At the DiJi’s suggestion, he had snapped the emanator’s small antenna after deleting her save file from the main console. The risk of being tracked or leaving behind damning information was too great to allow for cloud backup. Despite his own trepidation, Joi had insisted the risk of her being able to die like a real girl was worth K’s freedom.
A firm knock against the door alerts the Nexus 9 of your arrival. With haste, he moves through the entryway to open the door for you. Both of you wait until it’s securely closed before you greet each other.
“Good morning,” you tell him.
K is just opening his mouth to respond in kind when you surprise him with a hug. The replicant wraps his arms around you, careful to not apply too much pressure. It’s a novel thing, getting to hold someone like this. Reluctantly, he lets his hold on you loosen after a short moment. He knows there is work to still be done. A final step in the plan.
Without you needing to ask him, he gestures to the table in front of the window. The supplies for the task ahead are already laid out on the surface. He strips off his shirt and sits backwards in the chair as best as he can while avoiding the armrests. K closes his eyes and tries to relax.
“I almost thought you might not come back,” he admits.
He hears the snap of disposable gloves against your wrists followed by the sound of your voice. “You’re my soulmate. The mark on your arm says I’m going to keep coming back for you.”
“Not everyone likes their soulmate,” K says quietly.
There’s the sound of a packet being torn open. He experiences the sensation of a disinfecting wipe passing over the area at the base of his neck. It’s cold against his skin. You focus most of the attention on the column of his spine, right in the center of his middle trapezius.
“True, but I realized the other night that, despite everything, I do like you. Congratulations, you now have me digging a tracking chip out of your back.” Your voice is colored with fondness. It makes him want to smile. How rare. He had kept his positive emotions hidden under cloth as though they were something precious to sequester out of sight.
Hissing against the sting, the tip of K’s eye extraction knife punctures his skin. The sensation of blood trickling from the wound begins shortly after he hears you set the knife on the table and pick up the tweezers. There’s a pinch, a strange pulling sensation, and then he opens his eyes just in time to see you drop the small device on the table alongside the bloodied blade. The tweezers clatter against the laminated surface and your gloved hand snatches up the platelet jelly.
“That was in deep. They nailed you between the vertebrae. John’s was right under the skin.”
“Wallace learned from the tail-end Tyrell models. Mostly what not to do.”
He hears you hum, interested. Packaging crinkles behind his head and he’s aware of you pressing a gauze pad against the sealed wound. Your touch is so gentle as to make him believe you think he is something worth care, that he might even be special.
“Hand me a bit of tape, please?”
Obligingly, he tears off a strip and passes it to you. His bare fingers brush against your gloved ones as you take it from him. You secure the tape in place and pat him on the shoulder. “You’re all done.”
The skin feels tender beneath the bandage. But it is as though his collar has been cut. He puts his shirt back on and layers his jacket over it while you peel the gloves off. To avoid leaving more identifying forensic evidence behind that would point to you as being the accomplice, you flip them inside out and tuck them into a pocket for later disposal.
At your searching look, K nods. He is ready. The replicant picks up his bag and, together, you make your way to the front door. He pauses on the threshold, door open. Your fingers find his and give them a squeeze before he adjusts the angle and interlinks them together. Like this, he can feel your pulse beat in time with his. He feels close to human.
With one final look at the apartment that has been his cell for the past few years, he gives it a silent goodbye and closes the door for the final time. He is free.
───※ ·❆· ※───
On Monday, when Joshi arrives with two organic officers as backup, she finds the apartment stripped of any personal effects. She picks up his discarded phone off the coffee table where he had laid it between his firearm and his badge. The woman throws it against the wall so hard it shatters. Pieces of plastic rain down onto the tile. He hadn’t even left her a note.
If she ever finds him, she is going to put a bullet in him with the gun he left behind. Still, there is a part of her that is grudgingly proud of him for finally biting her hand, taking it off right at the wrist. Her replicant was a lot of things—obedient, kind—but never a coward. He better have a good life while he can. She’s going to place a purchase order for his replacement the moment she gets behind her desk.
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Time to Start Over - AO3 link
Officer K & female OC
Summary: Niander Wallace got desperate to find a solution for the reproduction problem for his Replicants, and his actions inadvertently save K's life. Now, not only is K curious about his rescuer, but he's wondering who he is now and if he really can start over. (Part 1 of ??) Prompt: Officer K, one bed trope, time travelling Word Count: 10,075
Decided to try my hand at Officer K. I've had this idea in my pocket for a while, and no better time to test it all out than for Goose Groupie Challenges: Summer Edition @goosegroupiechallenges The main theme is time traveler, and I even threw in the one bed trope, because I couldn't resist. Enjoy!
January 2049
Birth. Reproduction. Descendants succeeding descendants. These were the thoughts constantly rotating in Niander Wallace’s mind. There must be a way to give his creations this ability. There must be. If the decades-old rumors of Tyrell’s greatest triumph were true, then Wallace had much to learn. He didn’t like being the one to still learn. After all, as the ancient saying went, knowledge is power, and Wallace could not hold all the power if there were things related to his Replicant angels he had yet to learn.
Who without omniscience could rule the angels in this kingdom of heaven?
What angered him second to the great failure of being unable to provide this ability for his creation was the latest failure under his guidance. The Replicants from Tyrell’s time lived under less extreme conditions than his Replicants - although not by much - but perhaps to study a human specimen of the past who lived under vastly different conditions could provide some new information to apply. Someone before the Blackout. Then his perfect creation could truly hold that title. If only the secret of reproduction could be unlocked.
The device was simple in features but complicated in science, far more complicated than what it took to bring his Replicants into the world, and the price to build it was of great cost. Precious resources too few and too far in between were required to make it functional, but the test of bringing the almost extinct apple from a time long past into the year 2049 was a triumph. The implications of what this device could do for this desolate age were monumental, and they would make Wallace Corporation far more rich than it was now. But such plans required more hands for the harvest, and Wallace was behind on orders as it was. Natural reproduction would certainly be cheaper. Therefore, there was only one path for the time being.
“Deliver to me a Moses from the Nile of Time, and perhaps this human will lead my angels to their Promised Land.”
And behold, the device successfully brought forth a human female who appeared to be in her thirties, wide-eyed and at a loss for words. The mental and physical whiplash of being pulled from a time forgotten to a world unlike any she had known was too much for Wallace’s Moses to speak.
What Wallace wasn’t prepared for was the device to have disappeared, leaving the woman in its place. A great price to build it and an even greater price to use it.
What Wallace also wasn’t prepared for was the female escaping and running in her fear and discombobulation, seeking anything familiar to soothe her panic. In hindsight, he should have foreseen that and had better precautions in place. Perhaps he was too used to the easy obedience of his creation. Desperation had made him sloppy. He would not make that mistake again.
Wallace released a long-suffering sigh. “It seems our Moses has fled to the desert.” He looked to his favorite angel and commanded, “Make sure she is returned to us, Luv. Whatever it takes. Moses cannot wander for years and return on her own timetable.”
July 2049
It took some effort, but he managed to sit on the snow-covered steps with an almost inaudible grunt. The new position sent a sharp jolt through his side as his wounded muscles spasmed at the strain. Being impaled was one of the worst physical pains he’s ever felt, and he had been through a lot. A lot . It still wasn’t the worst pain he had experienced, but it seemed to be the one that would kill him.
He could feel his life force draining from him…if that’s what it could be called. What is life for a Replicant anyway? Was it the same that propelled humans? If the hearts weren’t created the same way, would they still beat the same way?
He sighed. There was no point in letting his mind run circles over a topic that didn’t matter anymore. He held out his hand and watched snowflakes fall on it and melt against the warmth of his skin. He loved snow. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he loved it. He watched human kids make a snow angel once, and they fascinated him in their simplicity and beauty.
He should have made a snow angel when he had the chance.
Fatigue was catching up with him, and he slowly laid back on the steps. He wanted to keep his eyes open and watch the snow swirl above his head, but his eyes felt so heavy. So very heavy. He took one last glance before his eyelids fluttered closed.
He was barely aware of hands that carefully but swiftly poked and prodded his side, inspecting him. He wanted to open his eyes to see who it was, but at the same time he didn’t. It was expected of him to check, so in a moment of little rebellion, he kept his eyes shut.
It was probably Deckard anyway.
He didn’t remember anything else after that thought.
--------
Summer Drake looked up at the snow-freckled sky with longing, a sigh escaping her lips. Six months. It’s been just over six months since she had been plucked from her home, from baby blue skies and fresh air and quiet suburbs full of life and serenity, from the family and friends who surely were worried sick over her sudden vanishing. Sudden and rather violent if she was being honest. The bruises from the episode finally dissipated a month after the fact. Getting her ass kicked while trying to escape a kidnapping was traumatic enough, though that was far from her greatest concern.
For one thing, the people who took her from her home in the most bizarre way were still looking for her, and for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what she could know or possess to be worth taking to begin with. It was a miracle she managed to escape them. It was a miracle she was still alive. Yet there was a price to pay for running for her freedom, and that price was she was still running, looking over her shoulder and making sure she kept her head down. It was better to stay out of the way.
Being homeless here did have that one singular perk: there was no place her kidnappers could lie in wait to take her again. As long as she stayed on the move, they couldn’t find her. They’ve yet to do that, and it was the only consolation. Being homeless was better than being in their hands, but even then, that still wasn’t her greatest concern.
This world in which she had found herself was a nightmare. A sci-fi society on the verge of a collapse, a world choking on a self-inflicted cancer, and it made her want to cry. This is what the generations she involuntarily left behind were working towards. Yes, she knew now when she was, though she still couldn’t believe it. 2049. Fifty-nine years disappeared when a circle of lightning crackled in her living room and a fist reached out from it and pulled her through before she could think to scream.
She was not in the world she once knew.
Seeing snow in July in Los Angeles further confirmed this fact which only depressed her more. Six months was a long time to be depressed, constantly swirling between fighting to survive and not caring if she saw the next sunrise. Her birthday came three days after she was pulled into this time. The first birthday of her existence that passed without so much as a “Happy birthday” spoken to her, not even from herself. The first birthday where she felt too lonely and heartbroken to celebrate except pray to be returned home. Her only birthday wish was for one more miracle.
Summer dropped her head and wiped her eyes when she heard a distressed whine by her hip. The Estrela Mountain dog she named Linus was one of the first kind beings she came across a month after escaping Wallace Corporation, and the dog took to her rather easily and quickly. She had the sinking suspicion she was one of the more recent kind beings he came across too. Either that or he recognized she was also a stray and decided they needed to stick together. For whatever reason the dog remained with her, she was thankful.
“I’m alright, pal,” she assured Linus, reaching down to scratch behind his ear, “I’m alright.” But the dog was not appeased, and his whines only increased as his behavior grew frantic. Something had the dog on edge, and Summer learned quickly that he had really good instincts.
Suddenly he bounded off through the snow, and Summer gave chase, calling out his name. “Linus! Linus, wait!” She didn’t have to follow for very long to see what had made the dog so agitated. A man lay on the steps of the building, letting snow fall on him, but there was something about how he lay that made Summer understand Linus’ unease. “Oh no…”
The dog looked between the man and Summer so quickly and so often, she couldn’t help but wonder if he would get dizzy. She ran over to the man and dropped to her knees on the stone steps, ignoring the cold wetness that started seeping into her clothes. “Sir? Can you hear me?” she asked as she searched for something to fix. “Sir?” His eyes were closed, and his breath was too slow and shallow for her comfort. And that’s when she saw it. On his right side, just above his hip, was a large, dark stain in his shirt. “Oh shit.”
Linus licked the man’s temple in a comforting gesture as Summer inspected the wound. It looked nasty. Infected and dirty and deep. Maybe all the way through to his other side. “Oh shit shit shit,” she muttered as she dug through the pack she stole some time ago, anxious to find something, anything , that would help. “I don’t know if we can help him, Linus, but we’re gonna try.”
She found some peroxide from a half empty first aid kit in her pack and undid a bundle of clean socks for something to clean the wound with, and when she applied the peroxide, the man’s breath hitched at the sting, though his eyes remained closed. “Good,” she nodded. He wasn’t gone yet. “Sorry, dude. I know it hurts, but if you live, I hope you’ll think it’s worth it.” She spent a lot of time cleaning the wound and applying peroxide to eat away whatever infection resided within. The unconscious man rewarded her with periodic groans and growls, albeit almost inaudible ones, while Linus laid on the man’s other side to keep him warm.
This guy’s lost a lot of blood, it looked like. He needed these wounds to be stitched up, and he probably needed a blood transfusion. She looked up at the building’s sign, read “Stelline Laboratory,” and grimaced. A lab might have what was needed, but she didn’t trust the place like she would a hospital. Especially after finding a dying man on their steps.
Why was this man lying on the steps of a laboratory anyway?
She pulled out of her pocket one of the best assets she had yet to steal and activated it. The square screen with a handle was old and definitely showing wear and tear, but it was the best GPS device she’d ever held in her hands. Considering GPS had only been released to the public only mere years before in the time she came from, the piece of technology in her hands was too unbelievable. Rather like everything else in this time. “Okay,” she mumbled as she awkwardly poked at the screen, trying to tap the correct sequence to get what she wanted. So much to learn , she thought. “Where is the nearest hospital,” she mumbled in time with her tapping. “I gotta get this guy to safety and fast .”
While Summer waited for the GPS to upload the results, she checked the man’s pulse. He was barely hanging on now. He looked strong, so he must have been through more than she could imagine to now lay here dying. “C’mon, stay with me. Please please please please please.”
The GPS beeped and buzzed its announcement of the results, and Summer anxiously scanned the screen. She tapped the screen for a pixilated map with the fast route outlined. “Close but not close enough to walk,” she huffed out.
Summer sighed as she turned her head to the car parked a few yards away. “Okay well…” She was at a loss. Cars could fly now, and the last time she drove anything, it was a stick shift. Definitely not the same thing as a flying car, which still blew her mind. “Hopefully cars are easier to drive than they were fifty-nine years ago.” As she dragged the man to the car, she muttered, “If I kill us in a crash, you have my permission to kick my ass.”
---------
Former Officer KD 6-3.7 woke up with a start. The fact he woke up at all was a surprise to him. His first thought was Do Replicants get an afterlife? But a sharp pain in his right side, punishing him for his sudden movement, told him that perhaps this was not the afterlife. He was alive. How?
A quick glance told him he was in a hospital room, a really nice hospital room. Most hospitals either had a small and often rundown wing reserved for Replicants, or they didn’t serve Replicants at all. This room was reserved for humans.
Before K’s mind could question that further, his eyes adjusted and caught sight of a woman curled up in a nearby recliner, fast asleep, with a large, shaggy dog at the foot of the recliner, also asleep. He’d never seen either of them before, although the dog looked similar to the one Deckard had in Las Vegas. They must be his rescuers, he decided. It was a curious thing for someone to rescue him when most wouldn’t have paid a Replicant any mind, even a dying one. Was she one too and recognized him for what he was? Even then, was that enough to render him worth saving?
The dog raised its head and looked up at him with a slight head tilt. K just stared back, expressionless and waiting to see what it would do. It was a handsome dog, despite looking a little worse for wear. Its muzzle and ears were black, and the rest of its body was a collage of black, red, and gold fur. After a moment, the dog stood and gingerly walked over to him; it gave his hand a lick and wagged its tail, grinning at him. The barest hint of a smile crossed K’s features at the gesture, and he reciprocated by gently scratching behind the dog’s ears, which earned him a faster tail wag. K couldn’t help but wonder if it was real.
The dog turned from him at that point and hurried to its sleeping companion. It sat up on its hind legs, placed its forelegs on the armrest for support, and leaned forward to lick her face. Her face scrunched in sleep at the intrusion. “Linuuuussss,” she mumbled as she lazily pushed the dog away from her face, but her canine friend was persistent.
And despite himself, K couldn’t help but find the scene a little comical, making that tiny grin grow a bit more.
Linus eagerly whined as a warning before barking once, making her jerk and sit straight up. “Alright, alright, I’m awake,” she exclaimed as she wiped her face with one of her sleeves and pet the now-satisfied dog’s head with her free hand. That’s when she noticed K was awake, and he could see relief wash over her face and brighten her eyes. “Oh! So are you! Good. I’m glad to see you are,” she said before covering her mouth to yawn.
It was then that K took a moment to study his rescuer. She was a curvy woman, though based on how her dirty, worn clothes fit, she looked like she had recently lost some weight from malnutrition more than anything else. Despite the fact she was curled up on the recliner, he determined she was five and a half feet tall. Dark auburn curls were held back in a loose braid, and freckles peppered her face and hands. Sea green eyes showed her smile was genuine as she added, “I was gettin’ awfully worried.”
What a peculiar manner of speech. The dialect wasn’t thick but still rather prominent, and it wasn’t one K had heard before, and he had heard quite a few. He knew of it, of course; he had to know it because of his job, but he had never actually heard what was considered a United States Southern dialect before. “Where are you from?”
She looked surprised but amused, as if that wasn’t the first thing she expected him to say but was still used to being asked such a question. Instead of answering, she asked, “Where do you think I’m from?”
It wasn’t asked sarcastically or even with a hint of hubris. It was simple curiosity. It was intriguing for some reason he couldn’t place. “You sound like you’re from the southern part of the United States, but that part has been supposedly uninhabitable since the Blackout. It was thought that dialect died out.”
He wasn’t expecting her to look so staggered by his statement, especially since it was blended with horror, and the reaction confused him. She didn’t know that? That was common knowledge. “I guess not,” she answered quietly. “My mom’s father came from that part of the country before the Blackout, and the dialect stuck. It was just me and my mom for a long time, and that’s all I really heard growing up even though I’m from here. But c’mon,” she shrugged, “I can’t be the first person you’ve encountered sounding like this.”
“You are.”
His blunt answer and expressionless face left no room for doubt, and after a few seconds to recover from her surprise, she shrugged, ducked her head a bit, and said, “Happy to be your first.”
There was something about her story that didn’t sit well with K. He couldn’t place why yet, but she was lying. But not wanting to turn his ally into an enemy, he changed the subject and asked, “What’s your name?”
She relaxed and smiled genially. “Summer. Summer Drake. And you?”
K hesitated. He technically wasn’t a blade runner anymore, so what was he now? Who was he now? He almost answered with “Joe,” but he couldn’t bring himself to use that either. He settled for telling the truth to gauge her reaction to it. “KD 6-3.7.”
Summer chuckled and gave him another amused look. “Funny. Okay, 007, seriously though. What’s your name?”
It was enough to make K raise an eyebrow. The reference to the old franchise was an interesting choice. He’d only heard someone reference it once, and that gentleman was on his deathbed and reminiscing about a time forgotten. He repeated himself a little slower this time, voice even. “KD 6-3.7.”
Her brows furrowed as she frowned, which was the response he expected. He didn’t expect the genuine confusion behind it however. “That’s…your name?”
That’s not a name. That’s a serial number .
K sighed as the memory of the gruff voice chastising him faded. “I’m a Replicant.”
The blank stare he received actually startled him. That term meant absolutely nothing to her. As if reading his thoughts, she confirmed it by nodding once slowly as her brows furrowed, mind clearly racing to determine if that meant something to her. Or at least if was supposed to. “Okay…”
He blinked. There was no way she didn’t know what a Replicant was. There couldn’t be any way she didn’t know. Everyone knew what a Replicant was. Then why would she acquire a room for a human here at the hospital? But that was assuming she could recognize what he was. Though it seemed she had no earthly idea what he was. He pointed to Linus. “Is he real?”
That question seemed to have been the magic one to ask, and it showed, her facade of normalcy falling quickly in frustration. “What do you mean ‘Is he real?’ Why does everyone who actually talks to me ask me that? Of course he’s real!”
K looked back at Linus who looked back at him and tilted his head. K exhaled slowly through his nose, wondering what kind of person didn’t know what a Replicant was or if their dog was real or not. “Where did you get him?”
“He’s a stray,” she answered with a shrug. “Found him almost five months ago, and we’ve kinda been a package deal ever since.”
He was about to ask another question when the door opened without a preamble, and a nurse walked in, grinning when she saw her patient was awake. “Hello, Mr. Walker,” she greeted K, “it’s good to see you awake. Your vitals are holding steady,” she continued as she studied the holographic readouts by his bed, “a good sign. It looked rather worrisome for a little while there. It’s a good thing your girlfriend could get you here.” The nurse’s grin grew soft and romantic. “How brave of you to rescue her from those robbers! That must have been terrifying!”
K’s eyes cut to Summer while the nurse was turned away for a moment to make note of more of K’s data, and she shrugged helplessly and mouthed, Just go with it.
“Yes,” he quietly replied to the nurse as she was turning back to him. “I have never done anything like that before.” This was a surprising twist. However Summer convinced the staff here a room for humans was required, they seemed to have taken her word for it. Otherwise, a more detailed look into his vitals would have made their systems blare alarms and wave red flags.
“I’m glad you pulled through. You’re a lucky man.” The nurse looked at Summer to add, “And you’re a lucky woman.”
“Aren’t I,” Summer agrees with a sweet grin and a giggle.
“Is there anything I can do or get for you both?”
K jumped in and asked, “How long do I need to stay here?”
“Your recovery is going very smoothly, Mr. Walker. We expect you to be released tomorrow with some instructions on how to best care for your wound. We want to make sure the infection that set in won’t return before we release you. Strange how it took so long for you both to get here,” she commented as she turned to Summer. “It takes time for infection like that to set in.”
Summer wasn’t fazed by the unspoken question however. “We’re not from this area, and it was dark when it happened. We couldn’t find a good, safe place to go, and it took us a long time just to find this place. Frankly, there weren’t very many who were kind of enough to help us.”
“Oh I see,” the nurse commented with a single nod before checking a readout that beeped for her attention. “It’s just our procedure to check and make sure everything is alright in that regard. You understand.”
“Yes, of course, and that is appreciated,” Summer politely told the nurse, “thank you. I was wondering if you knew a good place for me to collect some clothes for the two of us. As I said, we’re not from this area, and I don’t want to leave him any longer than necessary.”
“Completely understandable. I believe there is a shop three blocks down and two blocks over that should satisfy your needs. And then your room has the private bathroom with a shower included, so if you want to grab some toiletries while you’re out, I would advise that.”
“Good to know. Thank you for that information,” Summer grinned warmly at that, looking excited over the prospect of a shower, and K determined then that Linus wasn’t the only stray in the room. At this point though, wasn’t he too?
“You’re welcome. I will be in and out periodically to check on everything, but if you need anything in the meantime, just ask for Rachel.”
An unexpected pain sliced through K’s chest at the name, but it was no mystery as to why. A reminder of what might have been and for a very short time in his mind what was. The name that started everything that led him to this room in the first place.
Summer offered an appreciative head bow. “Thank you, Rachel. You’ve been so helpful.”
After the nurse left, Summer hopped out of her chair as K questioned, “Mr. Walker?”
She shrugged dismissively as she walked over to the private bath to poke her head in and inspect it. “I had to tell them something when I brought you here, and that whole story was what I came up with on the way over. Especially to explain how you and I don’t have ID on us and whatnot. It was the best I could do for the time I had and the panic I was feeling. It all worked.”
“And by the way, Mr. KD Six Dash Three Point Seven,” she opened the door to the private bath completely so she could inspect herself in the mirror, “if anyone refers to you as Jake or Jacob while we’re here, that would be you. Although, come to think of it,” she scratched the back of her head as she closed the door again, turned and walked back to him, one eyebrow raised. “You don’t really look like a Jacob; I just came up with that off top of my head. I don’t know what name would exactly fit you, but where I come from, your current name wouldn’t really fly. So I suggest you take up one of the best rights one can have and choose a better name for yourself. Something that’s more you .” She shrugged. “Food for thought if you decided you wanted something… shorter than KD Six Dash Three Point Seven.”
Where I come from, your current name wouldn’t really fly. K could tell that was a slip of the tongue on her part, one that went unnoticed by her, but it certainly was not lost on him. Not to mention the statement of a name ‘not flying’ was a very strange choice of words as well. He raised an eyebrow at this development as Linus walked over to Summer and looked up at her expectantly. She scratched his head and shook her own. “Sorry, buddy, it’ll be faster if I go do this alone, but I’ll bring you a treat if I find one.”
“Do what alone?”
“Get a change of clothes for the both of us. Since I kept your coat and personal effects with me,” she gestured to the opposite side of the room, “I doubt your clothes were kept and washed, and I don’t want to put these back on after I take advantage of a private shower. I’m going to grab clothes for us and hopefully some other necessities. If I’m not back in an hour, you can start getting concerned.”
“Because?”
“Because I might have gotten caught. If I’m not back in two, I’ve definitely gotten caught and will need someone to bail me out.”
K’s eyebrows shot straight up. “You plan on stealing these things?”
“It’s not like I want to go that route, but it’s the only one available to us unless you have funds hidden in that coat of yours because I have none.”
“Because you’re a stray too,” K ventured as he looked between her and Linus. When his statement was only met with silence and sadness, he pointed to his coat. “Will you hand that to me? I have a little bit of funds stashed away for emergencies, but please don’t spend it all. I don’t have that much to begin with.” Then he added as she handed him his coat, “The more we converse, the more questions I have about you.”
She gave him a small smirk. “That makes two of us. You may not believe all the answers I have to give, but it would be nice to get some answers of my own. The most important for the time being is what size do you wear?”
“42 regular.”
-----------
An hour and a half passed before Summer returned in triumph, and K was getting very concerned once the 80th minute mark had come and gone. After showing off her findings, which weren’t anything spectacular but he preferred it that way, she eagerly and quickly ducked into the private bath. Her excitement was palpable, and K suspected things had been rough for her. A sentiment to which he could relate.
Linus whined and pawed at the door before looking over at K pitifully. Sensing the dog was expecting an answer from him, K said, “It’s alright, Linus, she’ll be right back out. It shouldn’t take her long to–”
A frustrated shriek emanated from the private bath, cutting off K mid-sentence. “This one’s like that too!” A groan followed that, and K’s enhanced hearing caught a muttered swear word or two as well.
Linus looked from the bathroom door to K and let out a soft whine. “She’ll be back out soon,” K told the dog again.
Not long after, an aggravated looking Summer wearing new clothes and sporting wet, curly locks walked out of the bathroom. She glared at K as if the one second downpour of water from the shower was his fault and asked, “Are all showers here like that?”
“Detoxicated water is a scarcity,” he explained, “and rations to preserve it are mandatory for those who can’t afford to store and detoxify any for themselves.” Common knowledge, he wanted to add, but he knew the less he said, the more she would eventually reveal.
She huffed in frustration as she combed her curls with her fingers. “Even if it takes longer than one second to properly wash oneself? That’s a load of garbage.”
K raised an eyebrow. What he had to say could either stir her anger or calm it, and he didn’t know which option would occur. If he was going to learn more about his rescuer, he would have to put her in observable situations. “Better than no shower at all,” he pointed out.
She stared at him for a moment, clearly forcing herself to go mentally from complaints to gratitude, before she sighed through her nose and nodded. “Yeah, that’s true,” she muttered softly. “I do feel clean again, so…” She nodded again before returning to her bag of goods she brought back. “Are you hungry? Normally, hospital food sucks, and I wasn’t going to leave things to chance.”
When Summer pulled out two containers of food from her bag, K’s stomach growled in desperate protest for it. He didn’t need as much food as a typical human by design, but it had been too long since his last meal. The growl in his stomach proved that. “What do you have?”
“I got lucky and managed to swipe some actual food,” she said with a triumphant grin. “Real protein that’s not bugs! That’s a very big deal in my book. I mean, Hakuna Matata I guess, but please .” She offered him a container as well as some utensils. “I’ve missed meat.”
What does Hakuna Matata mean? K wondered as he accepted the container. His stomach dismissed the question for him once he peeked inside and was hit by a swirl of heat and scents that made his mouth water. Summer wasn’t kidding. These were foods not so easily accessible to the common public. “Where did you get this?”
“From people who won’t miss it,” Summer answered casually as she sat on the edge of his bed to face him.
“You stole this food?”
She looked up at him as her chopsticks paused halfway down into the container and tilted her head some at his tone. “Look, K - can I call you K? - I don’t like going this route. I don’t. I wasn’t raised this way, but I’ve been a homeless stray for six months, alright? I have nothing except what you see in this room, and for months, I didn’t know when or from where my next meal would come. I do what I gotta do to get by because in this hellhole, that seems to be the best anyone can do.” She shook her head and scoffed. “Still blows my mind this is what the future holds,” she muttered to herself.
K asked in that gentle but even way he reserved for people he interrogated on the job when he was after information, “What does that mean?”
Her chopsticks stopped halfway to her mouth for a brief second when it registered what she said, and she quickly shoveled the food into her mouth before her entire body relaxed. Eyes closed, she hummed like this was the best meal she had ever had. He also noticed this bought Summer time to think instead of immediately answering him.
Instead of answering him though, she casually asked, “What, you don’t think this place is a hellhole?”
“I do, but that’s not what I meant.” Before he ate another bite, he repeated himself. “What does it mean?”
Summer quickly shook her head, eyes boring into her container of food. Even though she wouldn’t look at him, she couldn’t hide the internal war she was dealing with. It was all over her body language, and he picked up every clue. Whatever she was hiding, it was big enough she struggled with keeping it to herself. “You wouldn’t believe me,” she said at last, still not looking at him. “Let’s put it this way: if you think I’m crazy for not knowing what a Replicant is, you’re going to think I should be like…locked away and examined after I tell you about me.”
K took his time chewing his food, partly to consider her words and partly because he’s surprised how satisfying this meal tasted. Whether it was because he escaped death or there were notes of flavor he’d never experienced before or his body was just in that much need for sustenance, he wasn’t sure what brought this on. Finally, he paused his eating to say, “I worked as a blade runner - a cop,” he clarified, “for the majority of my existence. I’ve seen and heard a lot of strange things. Surely what you have to say can’t be as strange as what I’ve already encountered.”
“Yeah,” Summer elongated the word before she lifted her eyes to look into his. Hesitant. Scared to death. “Hold that thought...I do have one quick question though.” When he didn’t answer but merely waited for her question, she gave it to him. “You’re not affiliated with Wallace Corp., are you?”
-----------
The moment K was released from the hospital, he led an apprehensive Summer Drake back to Stelline Laboratory, ignoring her questions until she gave up and silently followed. He couldn’t believe her story. It was too bizarre for it to be real. Despite everything he had seen, despite everything he knew had been accomplished by people with the funds and the means to get it done, this was exceptionally hard to believe. There was only one way he could think of to prove if her story was legitimate and she wasn’t just some Replicant without a serial number.
They approached the steps, and K stopped suddenly and stared down at them. He almost died on these steps. A fresh layer of snow covered any sign he once was there, but he could practically see himself laying there with his eyes closed. Which reminded him he wanted to make a snow angel sometime now that he had the chance to.
“K?”
Summer’s quiet, concerned voice broke through his thoughts, and he straightened his back and released a quiet sigh through his nose. “Come on. We have business inside.”
Linus whined at being left outside, but he curled up by the door to wait for their return. “Sorry, buddy,” Summer mumbled as K led her in.
He willed his mind to focus on the task at hand versus letting it run rampant with the memories and the what-ifs connected to this place. This was not the time nor the place to grieve what could have been for him. He was just a Replicant as he always had been. There was no reason to let himself mourn over the simple yet painful fact he had been made. He was lucky to be alive.
That was the only kind of luck afforded to his kind.
The doorbell chimed, announcing their entrance once they walked into a large open area with a dome ceiling. K’s eyes cut to Summer as she looked around to take in their surroundings; her brows were furrowed in confusion, trying to make sense of what she saw. A woman their age turned her head from her meal and greeted them with a little smile. “Ah,” she said as she stood from the lone table sitting on the right side of the open space near the wall and walked towards the glass curtain between them. “Welcome back, Officer KD 6-3.7. And friend.”
“Sorry for interrupting your meal, Doctor,” K said in lieu of greeting, “but this is a bit of an emergency.”
Summer gave him a sideways glance, full of wary curiosity as Dr. Ana Stelline cocked her head, clearly intrigued but whatever situation he brought to her this time. “An emergency,” she repeated with a slow nod. “Related to your case, Officer?”
“Not exactly.” Instead of getting right to the point like he wanted, he asked, “What do you know about Wallace Corporation’s serial number system?”
Stelline shrugged. “From what I can tell, it is imperative to his work. Serial numbers keep track of everything. Serial numbers are as good as a fingerprint, individualized and traceable. And for a man who earns profit on such things, they’re vital to his company. As far as how he creates each one, I do not know what system he uses, but I suspect algorithms would be used for such purposes.”
“Would there be any benefit at all to him creating Replicants without serial numbers?”
That made Stelline raise an eyebrow before looking concerned. “No. I think considering the position he is in, it would be foolish of him to do so, especially since humans tend to be so wary of Replicants anyway. If word got around such Replicants existed, it would be suicidal to his company. Assuming such existed,” she added as she gave a quick glance to Summer. “Do you think–”
“I need you to check the validity of her memories,” K instructed, a note of authority in his tone.
Summer quickly looked between K and Stelline repeatedly after hearing K’s instructions, and then she dropped her head and shook it in disbelief. “Wait, that’s a thing? You can do that here? How ? How is that possible?”
“I am a memory maker,” Stelline explained. “I have a subcontract with Wallace Corporation to create and implant memories for Replicants.”
Summer’s jaw dropped, and under different circumstances, K might have found her expression amusing. “You…you create memories?” Then her expression turned to panic. “You w–” K knew what question was coming next, and he cleared his throat to send a message. It was received, and Summer reluctantly didn’t finish the question, though it was evident she wanted to. The look she gave him was a question of crumbling trust, but the soft, calm one he gave her in return made her drop her gaze from his.
Stelline’s grin grew as she departed from the glass barrier to retrieve a cylinder shaped device with a thick lanyard attached. As she slid the lanyard over her head, she asked Summer, “What kind of environment would you like to see? Anything in nature.”
Before K could wonder what she would ask for, Summer almost pleaded, “A forest. In autumn please. Sunlight poking through the leaves.”
The doctor hummed her approval as she spun a few dials on her device and pressed a few buttons. Within seconds, the space surrounding her erupted with trees, bushes, grass, limbs, nuts, pinecones, and leaves of every beautiful warm color. A bird flew over her head and landed on a nearby branch, chirping his pleasure as he looked directly at K and Summer.
The change was so sudden, so intense, and so… lifelike that it made Summer flinch and take a step back, overwhelmed. K reached out his hand and grabbed her arm above the elbow to steady her. “It’s okay,” he told her softly. “It’s okay.”
She stepped closer to him, wide eyes still on the scene that came to life before her. She whispered, “What am I seeing?”
“Holograms,” he explained quietly.
Her voice turned from anxious to intrigued and her volume matched his as she asked, “Like in Star Wars ? Except better?”
“Much better.”
Stelline heard the exchange and added, “No blue tint unless you desire it.” She studied Summer’s unblinking, amazed gaze and asked, “Have you ever seen this before?”
Her eyes pulled away from the trees and looked at the doctor. “Not the holograms, but I’ve seen trees before.”
Now it was Stelline’s turn to look confused, considering that wasn’t what she meant, but before she could ask anything, K took control of the situation again. “Dr. Stelline, with my companion’s permission, I need you to verify if her memories are real or not.”
“May I ask why?”
Summer answered for him, “Because he thinks some memories are too bizarre to be real.”
Stelline’s curiosity kept her from delaying any longer, and she asked Summer, “Do you give your consent then?”
She hesitated, warily eyeing the doctor for a moment before she glanced back up to the trees as a shadow of longing darkened her expression. “Will it hurt?”
“Not at all,” Stelline answered as she gestured to a chair to the left of her guests. “All you need to do is visualize the memory you want me to see. Just picture it and let it play out.”
Summer looked to K, for confirmation or assurance, he wasn’t completely sure, but he nodded once in answer to her questioning look. She sighed and gingerly took the chair. “But how do you know? How can you tell my memories will be real?”
“As I told your companion the last time he was here, we recall memories with emotion. Anything real should be a mess. Now, relax, clear your mind except for the memory you want me to see,” Stelline instructed as she looked into the viewport of her machine.
K watched Summer take a slow breath as her eyes grew distant, mentally returning to the moment he wanted to know for certain was real. It took no time though for that slow breath Summer took to turn shaky and the rest to follow just as shaky. Stelline pulled away from the machine enough to stare at Summer, eyes wide in horror.
K had his answer, and it was still hard to believe.
Stelline returned her gaze to the memories. “Keep going, let it play.” Summer stiffened as she continued to recall the memory, and her eyes started to glisten with unshed tears. K was about to have them quit the process when Stelline did it for him. “Stop,” she pulled away quickly. “I’ve seen enough of that one. Play one from childhood please. A good one.”
Summer wiped her eyes and took long slow breaths, turning her head away from the others for a moment as she composed herself, and K wondered what happened beyond what he knew to have rendered such a reaction from both of them. She turned back towards Stelline and let herself disappear into another memory, a soft and small smile on her face. “Another one,” Stelline suggested. After a moment, “Another one.” Then once more, “Another one.”
After reviewing yet another memory, Summer’s sigh was tired as she massaged her eyes before hugging herself. “How many more do you actually need to see?”
“I’ve seen all I need to see now,” Stelline assured her as she pulled away and looked at K before verbally confirming what she nonverbally confirmed moments ago. “These are all real. She lived every one of these. Including the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.” She turned to Summer and asked, “How is that even possible? When are you from?”
“1990. And as far as how, I have no idea. And before you ask, I have no idea why either.”
“ Incredible ,” Stelline muttered as she stood and began to pace incredibly slowly, more focused on the thoughts than the walking. “How long have you been here?”
“About six months.”
Stelline paused her pacing and hummed. “How are you healing up?”
The other woman shrugged. “It took about a month for the bruises to go away, so you can imagine how long it took the rest of me. I’m okay now as far as all of that goes.”
K’s eyes grew wide at this new information. Bruises? She was assaulted? Why? And why didn’t she include that in her story? You didn’t give her a chance to finish . As a blade runner, he was a better interrogator than that; he would get all the facts he could from a source before acting. To be fair though, learning she was born over 90 years prior and pulled from a home with blue skies and clean water and forests of living trees were perplexing things to learn.
The others missed K’s reaction to the news of Summer’s injuries and continued their conversation. “What have you been doing since you escaped Wallace?”
Summer raised an eyebrow. “Surviving. Physically and mentally. And barely, I might add. There’s really not much else to do for someone so out of place as I am.”
“That’s not true,” the memory maker shook her head. “We all can find purposes here, no matter how bleak things may appear. The challenge for you is to discover what those purposes are, big or small.”
“The challenge for me right now is to survive and stay away from Wallace Corp.,” Summer sighed before standing from the chair. “For whatever reason they brought me here, they’re still looking for me, and I would rather just not go back unless they can send me home. Which my gut tells me they can’t, so I’m steering clear from them as best as I can. Beyond that, purpose will have to wait until basic necessities are taken care of.”
“And what would you look for?”
Summer looked between Stelline and K, who was content to observe the exchange in silence, before giving an answer. “I suppose that will be something that stirs my passions, something that makes life worth living again.”
The statement stirred a recent memory in K, and he found himself asking, “Something to believe in?”
Stelline tilted her head in a curious, thoughtful manner while Summer simply hummed. “You mean like a cause? Because I already have a good idea of what I believe in.”
K shrugged and slightly bowed his head. “I was told the most human thing we can do is to die for a cause we believe in.”
“Fascinating,” Stelline commented quietly.
Summer bobbed her head some. “Indeed. And I’m inclined to…partially agree.”
The Replicant’s brows furrowed as he frowned and looked back up at her. “What do you mean?”
She smiled softly. “As noble as dying for a cause can be, I’ve been taught there’s something more we can do, something that encompasses what you’ve been told. Frankly, what you’ve been told just isn’t quite big enough.”
Now Stelline was just as confused as K. “What could be bigger than that?”
“The simplest and most difficult choice one could make. To choose to love.”
“How does that encompass what I said?”
“Because,” Summer explained, “love is more than duty or devotion or loyalty whether to a person or an idea or a cause. Love is all of those things and then some. And of course, as the old saying goes, there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
-----------
After K and Summer left Stelline Laboratory, he insisted they stick together and find a safe place to hide. Summer almost insisted they part ways for his own safety, but he spoke with enough quiet authority that she didn’t question him. Long after the sun had set somewhere beyond the overcast sky, they ended up finding people who had helped K in the recent past. They were Replicants belonging to some kind of resistance to better the lives of other Replicants, and Summer was very interested in what they stood for. She contemplated asking how she could help, but it wasn’t until the Replicants learned she saved K’s life that they allowed them both to stay.
The problem was the current hiding place of the Resistance was so small that places to call your own were few and far between. Which meant K and Summer had to share. To call it a room felt gracious. One bed, one chest, one bedside table with one lamp, and in another, even smaller room was a bathroom, shower, a sink, and a mirror. To be fair, the rest of the rooms were the same way, but it was a wonder one person had enough room to turn around in it, never mind two.
They both studied the room from the door, unsure what to do next. K was so quiet, Summer wasn’t sure he was even breathing, though his eyes were a bit more wide than normal. And his cheeks are pinker , she observed as well.
She couldn’t blame him; she could feel the heat in her own as the situation settled on her.
They had very little to actually put in the chest. Both only had the clothes on their backs and what little effects they carried, but thankfully, there were some extra clothes and hygiene items for them in the Resistance’s storehouse. Summer released a sigh and decided they’d stood in the doorway long enough. “So,” she cleared her throat and walked towards the chest, “you want top drawer or bottom drawer?”
K blinked once before answering, “I’ll take the bottom drawer.”
She nodded and slid her borrowed belongings into the top drawer before stepping out of the way so K could do the same. Then they both stared at the bed for a moment while Linus alternated between looking up at his two friends. Summer stifled a yawn as best as she could, but of course, K picked it up. “You can take the bed, and I will–”
“Please don’t say the floor or the shower,” Summer interrupted him quietly. K fell silent instead, and Summer swallowed. “Look, we can handle this for one night, right? The bed’s big enough for both of us.”
K raised an eyebrow at that as he studied the dimensions of the bed again. They would fit, but that would be all that would fit. “Barely.”
“You got any better ideas?” He opened his mouth, and she quickly added, “Besides the floor and the shower?”
It took him a moment, but he said evenly, “No.”
“Alright then.” She cleared her throat again. “Are we agreed?”
K nodded, and they began silently preparing for sleep while Linus settled down in a corner he found fitting and went right to sleep. Meanwhile, it didn’t take as long as either K or Summer hoped or expected, and before long, they climbed in and turned off the lights. In the end, they both had to turn on their sides for space between them, but even then it wasn’t that much.
After a few moments of awkward silence, K said softly, “I didn’t actually tell you, but thank you for saving me.”
“You’re welcome, K,” Summer answered in equal softness.
Before he could stop himself, he asked, “Why did you do it?”
“Because it was the right thing to do,” she answered without hesitation. “If you could be saved, you deserve someone to try.”
“But I’m –” How was he supposed to finish that statement? A Replicant? Past his usefulness? Not worth saving? He finally settled for the first. “I’m a Replicant.”
“So?”
He heard the confusion in her tone, and he said, “Replicants are property essentially. We’re assets, produced and designed for human use.”
Summer’s quiet for a long moment, and in the darkness, he could just make out the look of disgust and anger on her face. She turned her gaze toward him and answered with conviction, “You’re a person. Not property. You have value; you have choice.”
That was true; he did have choice. Now. He chose to save Deckard and reunite father and daughter. Dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do . But he didn’t die. Did it still count? Did he have value outside of his intended blade runner purpose now? K wasn’t used to not knowing and not understanding, and he didn’t like feeling lost. “I…” he faltered, “I don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“What I am now. Who I am now. I…the last few days have been extreme to say the least.” She hummed a note of acknowledgement and let him continue. So he did. He filled her in on everything. He’s not sure why he’s telling her these things, but there’s something about her attitude towards him and Replicants in general, as well as her overall demeanor, that made it easy to tell her so. For the first time in his life, he unburdened himself to someone who wasn’t designed to listen. She was listening by choice. Why?
What could be bigger than that?
The simplest and most difficult choice one could make. To choose to love.
Was that what was going on here? She was choosing to show some love and kindness? Whatever it was, it felt…really nice.
Once he was finally finished, he heard her sniff, and it was then he realized she was crying. Someone was shedding tears on K’s behalf? “I’m sorry,” he said automatically, like he had done something wrong.
“No,” she sniffed again, wiped her eyes, and shook her head. “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I just…I’ve never,” he said slowly, as if testing this out, “I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never experienced this before.”
“Oh yeah? Well,” she sniffed again, “I feel honored. How do you feel?”
When was the last time K was asked that? Joi must have at some point, but he couldn’t remember when. “Oddly pained yet relieved.”
Summer chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“I don’t know what to do now though.”
She sighed slowly as she thought it over. “Tonight, there’s nothing to do. Tonight, maybe you can just rest knowing that you are alive, you have freedom, and tomorrow you can start fresh.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Which part?”
He thought it over and settled with, “Starting over.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t really know how either. Starting over in a strange new world, a strange new time, and fearing for my life from a corporation who finds me valuable for some reason.” Her voice dropped as if she was confessing a terrible secret, “I haven’t wanted to try starting over.”
He digested that knowledge for a moment before asking, “And now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t,” she stopped herself and shook her head a bit.
But K wasn’t going to let it go. “You don’t what?”
Summer sighed heavily, wearily. He heard grief and sorrow in that sigh. “K, I have no one. I have nothing. Save for Linus, I’ve never been more alone in my life.” She sniffed again and her voice cracked a bit, “I need a reason to try. Otherwise, I might as well turn myself into Wallace Corp or...” But she didn’t let herself finish that sentence.
“Don’t turn yourself in, Summer,” K said quickly, his voice a smidge higher than typical.
“Relax, K,” he could hear the gentle smile and the resignation in her tone, “I’m not going to turn myself in. I’m just saying.”
“What would it take to want to try?”
“I don’t know,” her voice grew frustrated and with good reason. “I’m tired of being alone and feeling too adrift to want to care. You ever felt so lonely that you’d do anything to just feel ?”
That made K pause, and that place inside he wished would go away began aching again, that old, lifelong ache that was more of a constant companion than Joi was. “Yes.”
“Oh,” she shrunk a bit into herself. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” he repeated her words as gently as he could. “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Thanks,” she said softly. “So what do we do now?”
The answer he gave was not something she was prepared for, and it showed on her features. “I think it would be in our best interests if we stick together.”
“What? You sure?”
He nodded. “I’m sure.”
“You actually want to?”
“Yes.”
“Even though Wallace Corp. may still be after me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We both will receive company and purpose. We’ll both have a reason to try.”
Despite the darkness, he could see the confusion all over her face. “You hardly know me. How can you make a kind of choice after knowing me for such a short time?”
He paused for a moment before he answered, “I’m practicing the simplest and most difficult choice to make.” He smiled faintly at her astonishment. “This is how that works, right?”
“One way, yes,” she said at last. “It’s…” Whatever she was going to say, she decided against it and said, “Yeah, this is one way to do that. We may be hunted, you know.”
“I’m not afraid of that. I can protect us both.”
“I know very little about this time.”
“You’ve survived alone for months. You know more than you think.”
“Linus comes with us.”
“I like Linus.”
“Are you okay with having a human as a,” she verbally paused as she tried to determine the best word choice, but not being able to do so, she came up with a list, “friend, companion, person you’re sticking with of your own volition?”
K released a soft, short exhale of a chuckle before shrugging. “It will be an adjustment, but I’ll manage.” Then he asked, “Are you okay with having a Replicant as one or all of the descriptions you mentioned?”
Summer didn’t answer but instead asked, “Can I put my hand on your chest for a second?”
He blinked in surprise. “Why?”
“I want to check something. It will be really quick and painless, I promise,” she gently told him. “You’re free to say no, you know. It really is okay.”
K experienced a long mental debate before he finally nodded, but he stiffened as Summer slowly, carefully placed a hand on his chest. She waited until she detected the steady, strong thump thump under her hand before pulling it away. K relaxed once her hand was pulled away, and something about that broke her heart.
“Just as I suspected. Your heart beats just like mine. As far as I’m concerned, we’re one in the same, so I have no qualms with having you as my friend and companion and person I hang out with and whatever else gets added to that list, K.”
The next morning, K found himself and Summer wrapped around each other. What little distance they had between them was lost in them finding each other in their sleep. And it surprised K how the contact didn’t wake him from the start simply because he wasn’t used to it. Especially considering how he stiffened at her soft touch the night before.
But truth be told? It was the best sleep he’s had in his entire life.
