by K. W. Jeter
16
Deckard sighed wearily. "The hell I am." He had been hoping for something more plausible than that. "The authorities supposedly want me to carry this briefcase out to the replicant insurgents-because it's some kind of bomb? Get real."
"I am real." Marley's smile didn't change. "This is as real as it gets."
"Come on." Deckard pointed to the briefcase. "How much damage could be accomplished with something this size? And it came to me virtually empty; even if it were packed with high explosives-Christ, even if it'd been shoved full of fissionable materials-how much of a bang do you think that would amount to? Not enough to destroy a rebellion that's spread across all the U.N. colonies out in the stars. You're talking some big distances there, and a lot of replicants. If this so-called bomb killed thousands of them-even hundreds of thousands-that wouldn't change anything." He shook his head in disgust. "How about you figuring something out? Tell me-why would the authorities go to this much trouble just to enable me to carry one piddly bomb out there? Doesn't make sense."
"Oh ... it might." Marley shrugged. "Depends on what kind of bomb it is, doesn't it? Problem with you cop types, all you can ever think of are things that go boom. Little boom, you kill one person; big boom, and you kill lots. But that's as far as your imagination goes. There are some things that don't go boom at all, and they kill all the people you need to."
"For Christ's sake." Batty's voice came from the briefcase. "The guy's a liar, and he's not even a good one."
Deckard ignored the disembodied words. "So you'd like me to believe that there's some kind of biological agent in this thing. A virus, a bacterium... some kind of disease vector. And my taking it out to the insurgents would somehow introduce that disease into their population and wipe them out. Is that it?" He felt even more disgusted, considering the shallowness of the concocted story. "It doesn't wash. That makes even less sense. One, replicant genetics are based upon their human originals, like the way the replicant Roy Batty was based upon the human Batty who got stuck in this box. So the replicant population is as genetically diverse as the human population, so the chance of coming up with a disease that would cut a wide enough swath through the insurgents is just about zero. And second, even if you could come up with a disease like that, some kind of superbug, it would almost certainly be just as deadly for the humans out there in the colonies. The U.N. authorities aren't going to wipe out all their emigrants in order to take care of the insurgents- what would be the point?"
"You know, Deckard, you're kind of a wordy bastard. For a cop, that is."
"I get inspired," he replied sourly, "when I think somebody's trying to bulishit me. You want a third? I'll give it to you for free. Replicants have four-year life spans. You don't have to do anything to kill them off, let alone introduce some bio-engineered disease. If all the U.N. wanted to do was to eliminate them en masse, it would just have to outwait them, let 'em come to the ends of their own built-in ropes."
"Very good." Marley smiled and nodded in admiration. "Not bad arguments for somebody who's under the kind of pressure you are. You make some big assumptions, though. You're underestimating both how scared and how ruthless the U.N. can be. The insurgents have them in a panic; they'd happily kill off the entire human emigrant population if that's what it took to knock the replicants down. They can always get more emigrants; how much rottener does life have to get on Earth before everybody's lined up to go? There's already a nice little bottleneck full of 'em right here on Mars, just waiting for their tickets out. And as for the business about the replicants and their four-year life spans Marley shook his head. "Maybe that's not quite the issue that you think it is. But the main thing is that you're just wrong. You're wrong about what you think I'm trying to tell you. I never said the briefcase had some kind of disease agent inside it. You're just jumping to your own conclusions way too fast, Deckard. Maybe you should learn to just sit back and listen for a change."
"All right." Deckard leaned his shoulder blades into the booth's padding. "I'm listening."
"When I said you were carrying a bomb, I didn't mean the kind that goes boom, or something full of nasty little bacteria and viruses." The smile had evaporated from Marley's face. "I'm talking a memetic bomb. Pure information that changes what people do-in this case, what replicants do. When you were told that there was important data imbedded in the briefcase, that wasn't a lie. That's all there is inside it. And that's enough. Enough to take care of the insurgent replicants."
"'Memetic bomb'? What's that supposed to mean?" Deckard gazed at the other man in disbelief. "You're talking about a meme? Just some kind of idea, and that's all? I suppose it's some really bad one-something like 'Why don't we all just commit suicide? It's fun and it's easy.' And that bad idea is just somehow going to infect the replicant insurgents, they'll kill themselves, and the U.N. 's troubles will be over. You must be joking. You have to be."
"No..." Marley actually looked sad. "I wish I were."
The shift in the other man's attitude made Deckard un easy. "What is it, then? What good is a meme as a weapon if the replicants could just come up with a countermeme for it? Because that's all it would take. Any idea, bad or good, isn't something that people have to obey without even thinking about it. It's not like a bullet-or a real bomb. You don't get to argue about those."
"Guns have triggers," said Marley. "So do bombs; the things that make them go off. That's what you don't argue with. When the triggers get pulled, things happen. Real bad things. When the meme is the trigger-a trigger for something that already exists inside the target-then that completes the bomb as soon as you bring the two together. And that's what you'd be doing by taking that briefcase out to the insurgents. The bomb that would go off isn't some bad idea, some little self-destructive notion, that they'd be able to argue with. It's something that's built into them, just like those false memories that the Tyrell Corporation implanted into them. It's already in their heads, Deckard, where they can't get at it. They don't even know it's there. But they would as soon as you showed up with that briefcase and the data inside it. What the insurgents out there believe would be a list of the disguised replicants on Earth, their fifth column that they could contact and bring in on their side-they'd have a big surprise coming. It wouldn't be any list. It'd be their death warrants that you'd delivered to them. And they'd take care of the killing by themselves." The smile, when it appeared this time, was a mordant twist in one corner of his mouth. "That's a pretty good bomb, wouldn't you say?"
More than one change; the other man's voice had gone deadly cold as well. "How does it work?" Deckard was almost ready to believe. "What is it inside the replicants' heads?"
"Remember what I said about the four-year life span's not being an issue anymore? That's got a lot to do with it." Marley leaned across the table. "The replicants have changed. Because of being out there. Out in the stars, so far away from Earth. That's what the Tyrell Corporation was afraid would happen, and what the U.N. authorities have found out to be true. That's what started up the rebellion, made the replicants think they had something worth fighting for. Their own lives. And not just some crummy little scrap with a built-in cutoff date. In the outer colonies, that's what started happening: the replicants began spontaneously living longer than the four years they were intended to live. They changed. They're still changing."
"If that's true," said Deckard slowly, "then it means... everything. Everything would be different. And not just for the replicants."
"You got it, pal. That last batch of replicants that escaped and came to Earth-the ones you hunted down-they weren't part of the insurgents. The Batty replicant and the others- they didn't know what was going on. The rebellion hadn't gotten hold of them yet. And they missed it." Marley shrugged. "Kind of ironic, don't you think? Cruelly so. The Batty replicant and the other ones with him-they all wanted more life. To live longer than four measly years. And they could've had that if they'd just stayed where they were. Out in the stars. Instead of coming to Earth. Th
at's where their death was waiting for them all along. And it didn't even have anything to do with you."
"What do you mean?" Deckard looked harder at the other man, trying to figure out the words.
"The spontaneous life extension-it's only happening out there." Marley pointed up to the bar's ceiling. "In the outer colonies, where the insurgents are. It doesn't happen anywhere near Earth. Actually, there are some indications that replicants who've changed, who've acquired a life span longer than four years, will revert if they get within range of their home planet, the place where the Tyrell Corporation put them together. Earth is toxic to them; the planet itself is the trigger for that life span bomb that Tyrell wired into each one of them."
"You said they were still changing. The ones out there..."
"That's right," said Marley. "Because there's more to life, isn't there? More than just extending your own. There's the cycle, the way one generation gives birth to another. That's a big part."
He could already see where Marley was going. "But that's something replicants can't do. Give birth. Have children. Replicants are sterile; they can't reproduce. They were designed to be that way. That's how the Tyrell Corporation built them. The only way you could get another replicant would be to have Tyrell build it for you." Deckard regarded his own hands for a moment, then looked back up to the other man. "That's the way it's always been..."
"But that's not the way it is now. Now, things have changed. The replicants have started to reproduce. On their own, without the Tyrell Corporation; there are replicant mothers and fathers, and replicant children." Marley tilted his head toward the Rachael child sitting next to him. "And guess what? They look just like human children, the way replicants look like adult humans. And they grow up and become like their parents, just the same as human children do."
"Then what's the difference?" It was the Rachael child who spoke, peering at Marley. "What's the difference between them? Between humans and those other people?"
"Ah." Marley nodded. "That's a good question. A real good question."
"Then answer it," said Deckard. "I'd like to know."
"All right. Here's an answer for you." Marley regarded the girl for a moment, then looked back up at Deckard. "The replicants aren't the only ones changing out there. So are the humans. Or what used to be the humans. This is what the U.N. doesn't want people back on Earth to hear about; it would put a real crimp in the emigration program if it got out that going to the stars has some real hairy effects on the human species."
"Like what?"
"Sterility, for one. The colonists are in danger of dying out just from lack of reproduction. There hasn't been a human infant born in the outer colonies for a nearly a decade." With his thumb and forefinger, Marley made a zero. "Nada. No kids; the end of the line, unless the U.N. starts sending out more colonists. Who will in turn go sterile, from all indications; nobody's found a cure for what's happening. But that's not the only change. The mass reproductive failure is just the most obvious sign that something is going wrong, at least for the humans out there. There's other changes, which are a little more subtle but just as bad."
"And you're going to tell me about them." Deckard felt a wave of foreboding pass through him. "I'm beginning to be sorry that I asked."
"Too late for that," replied Marley. "It's why I'm here. To clue you in. Here's the deal on what else is happening with the emigrants in the outer colonies. Psychological changes; a decrease in that faculty usually known as empathy. You remember that one, don't you, from your blade runner days- the ability to feel what another living creature is feeling: its pain, its suffering, its joy. Well, the colonists are showing lower and lower marks on the standardized tests that measure that sort of thing. To the point where, if they were administered empathy tests with a Voigt-Kampff machine, they'd flunk. Some of them have already been given the V-K tests, and they didn't make it; the machine registered them as being below the cutoff point for the empathic response that characterizes human beings."
"Then they're not human." Deckard saw the cold logic of what he was being told. "They're not human any longer."
"Well, there you go." Hands grasping the edge of the table, Marley sat back in the booth. "Life's a bitch, isn't it? Things just happen, and then you have to deal with them." He shook his head as though in wry amusement. "Of course, the U.N. authorities have their own way of dealing with the situation." One hand patted the briefcase's lid. "Thus, you and this bomb you were told to carry out to the replicant insurgents."
"But if what you're saying is true Deckard no longer doubted it. "Then they're not replicants anymore. They're the human ones out there."
"Matter of semantics, isn't it? It's all in how you define the word." Marley's hand gestured lazily toward Deckard. "Now you, given your background-being a blade runner and all that-you just naturally tend to think that anything that passes a Voigt-Kampff test is human, and anything that doesn't isn't. And maybe you're right. But what it means is that the U.N. emigration program has been successful, but not in the way they intended. There is a human presence in the outer colonies, way out there in the stars, but it's not us; it's not the things that used to be human beings. It's those other ones, that were the replicants. They're the humans now."
"Why ... why is it happening?"
"There's different explanations." Marley shrugged. "Little hard to get a definitive answer right now; the U.N. authorities want to keep a lid on what's going on, and the replicants are busy fighting for their lives and their freedom. All that sort of thing. But there's basically two schools of thought on the issue. One is more or less scientific, having to do with a hypothesized morphogenetic field centered on Earth itself, a field that determines, in addition to the genetic code carried in our DNA, the essential characteristics of the human species. The outer colonies are beyond the range of that morphogenetic field. Once that happens, there's slippage for both humans and replicants. Their outward physical appearance might not change, but other things will happen, like the shift in fertility and the empathic faculty." Another shrug. "As good a theory as any."
Cold, abandoned vistas opened inside Deckard's thoughts. "I knew," he murmured to himself, "we should never have left home." He found himself inside a seedy bar in the Martian emigrant colony, wrapped in darkness, an image with his name but not his face on the scattered video monitors, an image in a long coat like the one he used to wear, moving through neon-laced streets and endlessly deep shadows, none of which were real but all a simulation, far from home, far from L.A. And this isn't even as far as those other ones went, he mused. They went so far, and got so lost, that they even lost themselves.
He wondered what they were like now, those things with human faces that used to be human. A bleak memory came to him of riding back into the colony on the shuttle filled with the native mine workers, the grown-up children that had been born here on Mars. And of feeling alone among them, more alone than he had ever felt, even in L.A., where aloneness had pretty much defined the human condition in the thickest of crowds. The stage beyond alone, that of disconnected; he had looked around the shuttle and seen faces like his, human faces, but had felt no kinship with them. In turn, their unfathomable gazes had swept past him with no spark of recognition. They'd changed just by coming this far. Not so much evolved, which implied some better state, but at least adapted. They'd shed their skins, all the excess baggage that came with being human; they didn't need that stuff anymore. "Maybe nobody does..."
"What was that?" Marley leaned toward him, trying to catch his whisper.
"Nothing. Just thinking." He let the uncheering vision drain away, like water poured on the red desert sands. "You said there was some other explanation. What's that one?"
"Simple enough. There are some more mystical types who believe that being human isn't an inherent, genetically based condition at all. Humans don't decide who's human and who's not; that's taken care of by something outside them. Way outside." Marley looked uncomfortable, as though he were speaking of t
hings not meant to be revealed. "There's supposedly an aspect of God that's called the Eye of Compassion . . . and it can only see suffering; it's blind to everything else. And those things that it sees, the suffering ones, those are what are fully human. Anything else is . . . something less. So there may have been a time when the things that we consider to be human may actually have been that way . . . but not anymore. The Eye doesn't see us; you and I, Deckard, we're part of that which causes suffering. The ones who used to be the replicants-the ones we made-they suffer at our hands. They suffer, and the Eye of Compassion sees them and judges them to be human. They become human. It's the gaze of the Eye-its ability to empathize with other creatures-that determines who's human. It's nothing we do. There's nothing we can do about it." He gave a nervous shrug. "Anyway ... that's what some people think."
"More human than human-"
"What was that?" Marley peered at him. "What did you say?"
Deckard had closed his eyes while listening to the other man. He opened them, then slowly shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing important. I was just thinking of that slogan that the Tyrell Corporation had. 'More human than human.'" A grim half smile appeared on Deckard's face. "Eldon Tyrell didn't know how true that would be."
For a few moments of silence, Marley studied him. "You know, though. You know it's true, don't you?"
He made no reply. He looked at the image of himself on the nearest monitor; that Deckard had a gun raised in one hand and was picking his way carefully over a field of shattered glass. "I don't care," he said at last. He looked back around to the other man. "Human is as human does, I suppose. It doesn't make all that much difference to me. There was a replicant that I fell in love with, and it didn't matter to me if she was human or not. Like you said-I'm not the one who decides about that sort of thing."
"That might be, Deckard. But there are still other things that you do have to decide about. That nobody but you can decide." Marley tapped a finger against the briefcase. "Like what you're going to do with this thing. Whether you're going to go ahead and try to carry it out to the replicant insurgents. Or whether you're going to bag that whole notion, because you know what kind of a weapon it is."
