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ninjathrowingstork · 6 months

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Blade Runner: Bitter Water

Hello I am back again with more heartbreak.

I'll probably update with my actual notes once I remember what I wanted to add for this.

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Chapter 3

A blood black nothingness.

A system of cells.

Within cells interlinked.

Within one stem.

And dreadfully distinct.

Against the dark.

A tall white fountain played."

He’d passed. He always passed.

Leaving the dingy white room, the rapid-fire questioning had left his mind feeling scraped raw, but he was still on his baseline and he had a job to do. It had been nearly a week, and he was running out of time. This hadn’t been the fight he was looking for, but hunting down where a fugitive replicant would go to ground meant finding other fugitives sometimes. Fugitives who fought back.

But they weren't designed to fight, to hunt, to kill, the way he had been designed.

The investigation was getting nowhere.

kD6-3.7 scanned through another day’s worth of surveillance recordings, fruitlessly looking for one, specific spinner.

While pursuing his other lead had resulted in the crash landing in a pile of slush, he’d eventually tracked down first a shop owner who’d recognized the lost heiress’s replicant companion and that had led to someone else who’d confirmed the woman’s daily route, and finally to the series of cameras along the streets.

Just for once, he wished something could have been easy. It took days to get some of the recordings back, from stores and private security cameras. Sure the Police Department could request the files be turned over, but tracking down the paperwork and waiting for permits to go through had already set him back, even before sitting and watching through the days and days of recordings. He’d eventually had to put each camera’s recording of the last day the replicant woman had been seen together in sequence, tracking her path along the usual route, and-

There.

One moment she was walking, head down under an umbrella, and the next she’d turned a corner and by the camera next in the sequence, she was gone. There was still one more recording, partially blocked by an awning, that had a viewpoint of the alley in between the two streets. It was slim chance, but-

He had it. The woman turned the corner onto the street, lined with parked spinners, speeding up slightly on the empty sidewalk. He watched as the door of one swung open as she approached, and with one last look over her shoulder, she’d slid into the dark, unmarked vehicle and it had pulled away and vanished into the flow of traffic around the next corner. But-

Zooming in. Another flick of the controls and the image of the spinner’s open door was magnified to take up the whole screen. He brightened it, and there. It was her mistress. The missing heiress was already in the vehicle, holding the door open for the replicant woman to join her.

He’d been told not to look into the human woman’s vanishing as well, and he’d surmised the two were connected, but their timing and circumstances for disappearing had stayed a mystery, until now. While finding the method of their disappearance solved several questions, it only raised more. If the two hadn’t been abducted, hadn’t been taken by force, that left the questions of who helped the pair, and why did they leave ? Answering those would be a start in finding where they went.

Wearily, he ran his hands down his face, it had been long hours sifting through the recordings, and it was getting close to dinnertime. That didn’t mean he was done for the night, though. With a few keystrokes, he sent the shots of the replicant Alice entering the car and a report of his progress to the Lieutenant, and put in a request for any ID on the spinner the system could find.. She’d given him a week, and he had one more day to work the case before she’d said it would be passed along, solved or not. He hoped he’d made enough progress to buy more time. Whether that was to work the case or to live, he wasn’t sure. It was the highest profile assignment he’d been given, and the family of the missing girl could easily ask for his retirement for not finding the pair. Still. Joshi had phrased it to sound like this was just a courtesy and a preliminary investigation before more important resources were invested in the case. He could still be retired and replaced over a courtesy, when dealing with a family with the money of the missing girl.

The only thing left was to go take a look at the street where the replicant woman had been picked up, if he could still find any evidence. If he could get any lead in the case from there.

Trudging through the station, he kept his head down as always. The past week had been. . . different. The other officers still either ignored him entirely, or else he had to endure the gauntlet of glares and the occasional curse flung as he passed, sometimes a shoulder slamming against him as he passed, but. But. No one had grabbed him, no one had touched him more than in passing. He wondered how long the sergeant’s influence would keep them off of him, but he would take whatever reprieve she’d bought him.

Sergeant Flint. He hadn’t spoken to her since that night, but he’d seen her at the desk in passing a few times. She’d looked up, nodding in recognition each time, but he’d been focused on the case, and it seemed wrong to approach her uninvited, with others around. There had been that one time he’d passed a hallway to see her red hair shining in it’s tight knot as the tall woman was speaking with the Madam. The conversation had seemed friendly, but there was the now-recognizable angry set to her jaw, and Joshi had been standing even more stick-straight than usual. Whatever the two women had been discussing seemed personal, and he’d turned and left them alone.

“Officer K?” As though summoned by the memory, there she was striding down the hallway as he passed. With barely a pause, she fell into step beside him as they entered the entryway together. “On a case tonight?” It was less formal, less restrained than she’d been at first but there was a new tautness to her words, and that set to her jaw that said anger had returned.

Best be wary then. “I am, ma’am.” Then, “the report is due tomorrow.”

She paused as they neared the desk, and he stopped a step later, looking back at the tall sergeant. “Think you’ll have time for dinner again?”

Dinner? Was this a regular thing for them now? There was a small flutter of - of something in his chest, a strange lightness, but still. . . “If this lead doesn’t turn up anything, I - I could meet you somewhere.” It was one of the longest sentences he’d said to her so far. He told her the neighborhood, and after a moment, she nodded.

“There’s a rail station there. Meet you there at seven?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“If you’re not working, officer, it’s not an order.”

The pitch of her voice shifted minutely, the tone softer as it had been when she’d reassured him before. Oh. Not an order. He could. . . he could say no, could say another time, if he wanted. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll meet you there at seven.” This was already too close. Too familiar. Before she could say anything else, he’d turned on his heel and headed out into the evening.

Within cells interlinked.

The streets on the way were as busy as they’d been on the day of the disappearance, but turning down the side street, it was quiet. The backs of a few stores, and crumbling brick walls. It was. . . nice, not a neighborhood a wealthy heiress would be walking through, but someplace her tutor and assistant replicant would be left alone. Stopping at the point across from the camera, still with an awning stretched over a door blocking a corner of the view, he looked along the empty stretch of street. A single spinner hummed by in the evening chill. Not for the first time, he recalled his instructions not to look into the missing girl, the missing human. Investigating her would possibly give more information about the spinner’s route, where she had boarded it, who was driving it behind the dark privacy-tinted windows. If anyone had been watching the street here that day, they wouldn’t have any more insight than the camera had given about the spinner or the two passengers. Between the tinting and the positioning of that awning, any identification of the vehicle or driver had been carefully hidden.

They knew someone would come looking.

They knew, and he’d get nothing else from here.

Once more, Officer KD6-3.7 turned, trudging into the evening. He might still make the station for seven.

By the time he reached the monorail station, he half expected she’d have gone. It wasn’t long after the hour, but she had no reason to wait for him.

But.

There she was, lights glinting off the damp on the shoulders of her coat. She peeled herself away from the wall when she spotted him, lowering the boot she’d propped up behind her. “Didn’t know if you’d make it.”

Didn't know if he’d make it alive, he realized. There never was a guarantee he’d come back. “I don’t have that much of a social life,” he shrugged. “Didn’t know if you’d still be here.”

That got an almost-grin from her. “Not much of a social life either, I had time to wait.”

The thought that a human would willingly spend her time just waiting for him, not knowing if he’d make it back, was. . . strange.

“And anyway, I was the one who asked to meet,” turning on her heel, she led him into the station and towards the monorail car. “Wasn’t about to leave you here, if you got held up on the way and happened to be late.”

As little as he could trust most humans, and even less those who held rank over him, whose orders he was bound to obey, he could feel himself actually trusting the sergeant. This was well beyond caring for his well being as department property, coming to this corner of the city just to meet him. The first night she’d led him from the station, had given him food and kindness, she’d said she didn’t want to use him, and his instincts were telling him this woman didn’t change her mind easily so he doubted that was her plan for the evening.

Ahead, his companion quietly slid by the kiosk where evening passengers stopped scanning passes with a soft chime before crossing the platform to board. “We’re not paying, ma’am?” He’d been on the monorail that wound through the black buildings and neon lights once before, in his first, disorienting days alive as he was learning his new life on the force. He’d been with another officer then, taking him through the city on foot instead of spinner for once, leading him along with a hand clamped painfully around his arm, and it had all been too overwhelmingly new for him to process if there had been any fare paid then. He hadn’t tried the rail system since, preferring either the privacy of a department spinner or the economy of traveling by foot.

Without stopping, Flint glanced back at him, reaching to tap at the insignia pinned to her coat shoulder. “Not in uniform, officer, we ride free, department wants us to have a presence out here and the transit folks say it keeps the rides safer.” He caught the corner of her half-smile before she turned back.

As the lights of the city slipped by in the night, he glanced sideways at the woman standing still as a statue, gazing calmly out the window as she held onto the overhead strap for balance. Maybe her presence in her uniform-blue coat did make the other passengers in their car feel safer, maybe not, but if all he’d gotten from them was the occasional side-eye, he knew the weight of presence she carried around her was keeping him a little safer. They didn’t talk during the ride, despite the ease between them earlier Flint had slipped back into being the stone-faced sergeant beside him with the closeness of the other riders around them, and.

And.

And there was still that flicker of the suppressed anger in the set of her mouth and line of her jaw. Had something happened in the past week? Was this night with him for her to unwind for once instead of him? But there had been that something in how she’d asked to meet him, something masked behind the rare lightness in her tone. Either way, whatever her intentions, he reminded himself, it wasn’t his place to question her. Even if she had said it wasn’t an order.

Still in silence, they left the rail car, a jerk of her head the only signal it was time to exit before she led him out and back into the city streets. There were more holo-signs here, the city more dense than the area they’d just come from. High above them, a glowing pink woman was dancing on the side of one building, and he stopped, for once watching one of the myriad of advertisements he walked through daily. “Those digis really are something.” The sergeant had stopped, joining him again to stare up at the display. “Wonder if they really can be whoever you want, like she says.”

“Wouldn’t know.” The idea of just having someone around to talk to had been utterly alien to him until little more than a week before, but having someone, even a fake, digital companion had been so far above any wildest dreams, if he’d had any. “Probably costs a lot, though, so they must be worth it.”

“Probably right.” The rosy light slid over the orange of her hair, turning it a strange, murky shade, “ but I guess if folks really need someone to talk to. . .” she shrugged, before turning and leading him further through the streets.

Dinner that night was some kind of meat, likely vat grown also, but with a slight char to the corners and served on long skewers, and tonight, he didn’t protest her buying him food. Tonight, they ate quietly again, only commenting on the sauce on the meat, on the crowds. Tonight she wasn’t trying to distract him from anything, to save him from anything. There was no sharing of memories or stories of life- on the force and just of living . Just the company of sharing a meal with someone else as they watched the crowds pass by.

She was subtle. So subtle it took until they were both nearly finished eating for him to realize she was watching for someone , and as she quickly finished her food, he wolfed down the last bites of his, savoring the memory of the sauce and crunch of seared vegetables, trailing a step behind her as they crossed through the evening foot traffic to another table across the market from theirs.

The pair, a man and a woman, stood, talking over plates of food and something- something in the way they stood, the fit of their clothes, despite being nondescript civilian garments, said this pair were also police. Plainclothes, likely detectives-

Like the sergeant had been, he remembered.

“Roark and Nguyen,” Flint had stopped, just far enough the pair wouldn’t notice them, her voice just loud enough to be heard above the noise of the street. “I’ve known ‘em for a while. They ever give you any trouble?”

The question caught him off guard. Had they ever been among the ones he’d learned to avoid? Their faces were familiar, but just as another pair he’d seen around the precinct, never when his tormentors were around, never among the hands reaching to drag him into corners or rooms. “No, no, they’ve never bothered me.”

“Good.” She nodded curtly. “Knew I could trust ‘em, just had to be sure, you know?”

He didn’t know, but the realization she’d asked if her friends had ever. . . the thought she’d checked her knowledge of them was real against his experience was something he’d lie awake in his thin, fold-out bed thinking about in the night. But for now, he was following her again, straight for the pair.

“Evening, detectives.” There was a new wryness in her voice as she greeted them. It was almost. . . playful?

“Sarge, it’s been a while.”

“Hey, you.” The other woman, shorter, dark hair brushing damply against her shoulders, grinned up at the sergeant.

He was seeing their friendship, seeing the serious, hardened senior officers he passed every day as people, as friends. There was that pull, that twisting in his chest again for something he’d never truly be a part of.

“Hey back at you both. Been keeping out of trouble?”

“Nothing we can’t get ourselves out of, you know.” The man, average height with a fighter’s build, his instincts filled in, as the detective leaned his elbows on the table, a smile in his eyes despite an otherwise serious expression. “Who’s your friend?”

“Matt, Alicia, Officer K’s new around here.” A tilt of her head invited him to step into their circle, joining Flint and her friends at the table. “K, these two and I go way back. Went out drinking with them when I first made detective.”

And she still stopped to ask him if they’d ever hurt him.

“And the Sarge here has been kicking our asses in the shooting range since the academy days,” The man - Matt’s face finally cracked into a grin as he ran a hand through short, sandy hair, brushing out a scattering of snowflakes.

“He’s the new ‘runner, right?” Detective Nguyen - Alicia - eyed him curiously.

“Yeah, since they stopped partnering with human detectives, don’t think I’ve seen much of the last few. Well, uh, it’s good to finally meet ya,” finally looking past the sergeant to greet K.

Beside him, Flint’s jaw twitched with- with annoyance?

“That’s part of why I need to ask you two a favor.”

“Oh?” The shorter detective leaned forward to mirror her partner, curiously. “What kind of favor?”

“Have you two seen Walters and his pals much this week?”

She shook her head, as her partner drawled a slow “can’t say that I have.”

“Well, that pack’s been givin’ K here trouble lately, and L-T can’t do much through official channels to stop it.” Her voice had slipped into the nomad drawl as she spoke to her friends. “Try as I might, I can't watch everything at once-” that got another grin from the detectives, “so I’m askin’ if you two could help keep an eye out, run interference for him. Keep that pack of degenerates off his back. Leastways until they get bored and back off. It’ll save me the worry and keeps the L-T from coming down on me if he takes any damage in the station that’ll put him out of commission.”

This was. . . different, from how she’d been- been concerned for him, framing the request as a favor for her, for the department instead. Using her own friendship with them to shield him again.

Both detectives stared at him, she with a cool appraisal and he with a sharp curiosity, and he found himself wanting to shift uncomfortably under the new scrutiny. He’d learned this much attention from anyone not connected to a case was rarely ever good.

Roark straightened up, the sharp grin he’d greeted the Sergeant with almost returning. “Well. Never thought about the runners having trouble like that, but Walters and his guys are jackasses, so- K, was it?”

“Yes, sir.” His reply was too quiet, again, as he stared at the flickering light of a holo ad on a wall past the man's shoulder.

“K, you find me or Alicia here if there’s any trouble, those degenerates know not to mess with us.”

It wouldn’t help if he was ambushed in the hallways again, but it was a start.

“And I know this is already a big favor,” Flint jumped in, “but anyone else you can trust, who’s not been taking advantage of K here,” the muscle of his shoulder twitched as she dropped one hand onto the fabric of his coat, resting it with the slightest squeeze before dropping away,, “run this by them also, that the Sarge says he’s off limits.”

Off limits. He almost missed the two nodding in agreement as he processed what her words meant.

“Hey, Tam,” Nguyen reached across the table, tapping the surface by where the Sergeant’s arms were folded. “In exchange for this massive favor, you gonna come back out from behind that desk again? Joshi’s got that standing offer for you to join us in plain clothes again, I hear.

Beside him, Flint shifted minutely. Uncomfortably? “I’m fine where I am, Detective, you know that. ‘Asides, if she wants me back that badly she can make it an order.” She shrugged, barely a lift of her shoulders. “You never know, though. Someday I’ll get bored in the precinct maybe, and finally go outside again.”

The humor in her voice sounded forced to his ears, but the seriousness of the moment was broken. Making their goodbyes, Flint excused herself from her friends, and strode back along the street, with him following a step behind, the two of them alone in the crowds again.

The carefully-designed investigator’s mind they’d built in him was racing with questions as he followed, watching the sharp set of her shoulders in the blue coat. All of them led back to why . Why had she asked him to meet her and spend another evening out with her? Why go out of her way to meet him at the station, Why introduce him to her friends, and ask-

She’d known. She’d known the pair would be eating in this neighborhood, and for her own reasons had made the encounter and request appear casual. But. But that still left the question of why . She didn’t have to do this, didn’t have to protect him. He’d been built to endure the violence that came with the solitary life of a blade runner. He - didn't’ want, couldn’t want anything else - would have survived. But the sergeant had told him she’d used her position and influence to put the fear of real consequences, the fear of their sergeant into his - his attackers. Off limits , she’d said. She’d already done that for him. Now, she’d gone further and requested help from detectives . Human detectives. For him. If he could have felt shame, felt it even after what he’d been subjected to in his short life so far, he would have been ashamed of the request that the well-known and respected partners have to watch out for him, that they have to watch out for one replicant in the station who can’t-

But. There was, once more, that strange warmth in his chest that she was trying to protect him, and they’d agreed. He’d never spoken with the pair - still hadn’t beyond a few words, he realized, playing back the conversation - and, because she’d asked them, the two had agreed to help watch out for him and keep Walters and his cronies off his back. It wasn’t much on the surface, but, if they kept their word, then the number of humans in this world who gave a second thought for his life had just tripled. It seemed unlikely, but. . . but the memory of warm food and tea, of the blue-coated figure parting the crowds ahead of them, and of the rare, warm touches said it just all might be true.

That figure strode ahead, hand now shoved deep back into the pockets of her coat, and he followed as always, just a step behind her shoulder. With one long step, he caught up, for once walking beside her. She looked as she did that first night, that determination, that deeply hidden burning anger that only highly-tuned senses could have detected. “Thank you. . . thank you for doing that. You didn’t have to” He sounded too quiet in his own ears again, each word carefully measured out.

She shrugged one shoulder, “can’t always be around to keep those sonsabitches off you, already asked Bernal and Elliot to help keep an eye out also. They’ve never bothered you, right?” One eyebrow tilted, she glanced across him finally.

He’d seen the two men on occasion also, they’d maybe looked at him in passing but never longer than it took to recognize his approach before going back to their own conversion, their own lives. “No, they’ve never bothered me. “

“Yeah, those two are the last guys I’d ever suspect, and the last who’d be into whatever kicks Walters and the others get from. . . well, it’s just not their thing.”

There were several things she could mean, but right now it meant he had two pairs of respected, senior, human officers watching his back in the station.

“Thank you” His voice was even quieter this time. Falling back to his usual position at her back, he almost missed the quirk of a smile his thanks earned.

“It’s the least I can do, Officer K.” Her voice was that almost-gentle tone again, the current of anger she’d carried all night hidden deep. “Like I said before, you shouldn’t have to put up with how they treat you.”

Any other protests he might have made, if he’d been able to find it in himself to ever contradict her, were lost as he trailed her through the narrow, winding stalls of the night market she’d led them into. This was more closely packed than the one she’d brought him to before, smaller openings for evening shoppers to eat, and tighter lanes wrapping around the few, coveted stores hemming the packed streets. Long legs carried Flint smoothly through the press, sliding around crowds with the occasional person slipping out of the way upon recognizing her. Finally, she slowed, giving him the chance to catch up.

“Up there,” she gestured at a larger booth, selling what looked like fruit from a distance. It was set up against a wall, possibly connected to one of the permanent shops if he judged the large, semi-permanent structure right. They stopped, and he watched over her shoulder as the sergeant leaned in, ordering from the woman behind the counter, her sleek dark hair a contrast with Flint’s fiery copper. It was hard to hear, even with his heightened senses, but he could faintly make out “les vrais” before the woman nodded, vanishing into the darkness of her shop.

“When I was a kid,” Flint had turned, staring out across the market as she spoke, her nomad’s drawl slipping back into her speech, “sometimes we’d find berry bushes up in the mountains still. Scrubby lil’ things, but they’d be out there clingin’ to life.” His full attention was focused on the story, another memory of a real childhood she was sharing with him. “Sometimes we’d find berries on them, growing in whatever sunlight the things could get. Dusty, tart little things, but we’d pick any we could reach. Bring ‘em to the city, get good money for ‘em, even then.”

He could only imagine, produce that wasn’t grown in Wallace-made facilities was treated like gold, and-

The thought was interrupted as the soft rustling of paper containers sliding across the counter heralded the woman’s return. Two small, paper cups holding. . . holding blackberries.

“Since getting here, this is the only place I’ve found that still has a hookup with other dusties, can still buy the berries from outside the city.” Her almost-grin looked more like a grin than ever now. As she reached out, taking the cups from the woman, he almost missed the flash of a slip of paper passed along with one cup to the sergeant, vanishing behind her fingers a moment later. Strange, but her business was none of his, and questioning human officers, no matter how odd their behavior, was not his job.

The almost-warm almost-grin was back as she passed him one of the small cups, and for once, he barely noticed how her hand pulled away too quickly for their fingers to touch. The cup held barely a handful of small, dark berries, with a small swirl of . . . whipped cream? Slowly, carefully, he tried a berry with a bit of the cream, and-

For a heartbeat, it was as though a part of his brain froze and a wave of something ran through him as the thin membranes of the berry burst on his tongue. It was sweet , sweet in a way nothing he’d ever tried compared to. There was a tart earthiness to the berry, a burst of flavor and juice that no synthetically grown food could compare with, somehow more substantial than any fruit he’d tried before.

“Like it?” Beside him, Flint popped one of her own berries in her mouth, eyes suddenly distant as she chewed.

“It’s. . . it's real. ” This was real food, something more real than he’d ever had, ever be able to afford on his own and that ache behind his sternum was back, aching for everything he’d never know, never be able to experience, everything that was long-gone from the world even before he’d drawn his first breath. “They’re. . . really real. Ma’am I can’t-”

“Yeah, they’re real. They get sweeter when they’re on the plant longer, get to stay in the sun longer, but those don’t stay good as long to get em’ to a buyer.” She popped another berry in her mouth, savoring it for a moment. “And I know what you’re going to say, K, and you absolutely can . Your life doesn’t have to be shitty, leastways no shittier than any of ours down here, just because of what you are. You get a chance to enjoy some small, bright spot of joy down here, you enjoy what you can, you hear me?”

He did, and while most of what she said still sounded wrong to him, he took another bite of berries and cream, feeling the flavors burst in his mouth like nothing ever had before, feeling their realness and beauty. It was wasted on him, of course, since he was neither of those things himself, but . . . but for however long he had left to live, he’d remember the taste. “Yes, ma’am. And thank you, for the berries, for everything. If it’s an order, then I’ll. . . allow myself to enjoy things.”

That drew a snort of a laugh from her. “It’s not an order, just a suggestion. It took me a hellova long time once I got here to start livin’ like a civilized person, enjoying the stuff we never had out there,” she jerked her head in what was probably the direction of the badlands, “havin’ so much running water alone felt wrong. But, I adapted. Learned to take what little softness the city had. It’s different, but. . . you learn to live, understand?”

He did, a little. Remembering his curt, perfunctory showers framed her words over that being even more water than a nomad girl had in a new light. “I- I think so. I’ll. . . I’ll learn, eventually. Maybe get to do some living while I’m alive, right?” The dry humor was coming easier now.

Chewing the last of her cupful of the rare treat, Flint’s quirk of a grin showed it was appreciated. Eventually, regretfully, the last of the purple-black jewel-like berries he guessed to be more rare and prized than actual jewels these days was gone. The only trace was the lingering tartness on his tongue, and the rich, slightly-sweet oiliness of the cream coating his mouth.

He’d just eaten what was likely a small fortune in bootleg, genuine fruit. There was a strange mix of - not emotions he didn’t feel - from the delicacy. He knew he didn’t deserve them, that the rare produce grown on some far-off mountain that still had the faintest tang of dust clinging to them was far beyond the station for which he’d been made, been manufactured. They had been more real and valuable than he. But. But she’d told him he could eat them. Had wanted to see him enjoy them. If it had been anyone but Flint he might have suspected they’d wanted to see his reaction, if he reacted, to the taste as their own entertainment. She wasn’t like that and it didn’t take the heightened intuition and observational reflexes that had been carved into his nervous system to see that. She’d told him to eat, and even though the same deeply-carved and wired instincts recognized her as a superior officer, and something deep within his mind knew her as a registered user and her orders were law and there was never any question about obeying her commands. This hadn’t been an order, really. She’d given him the food, sure, but the closest thing to an actual order had been. . . to find what made him happy? He may not have been given the luxury of free will, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find peace in the small luxuries he was able to obtain.

It didn’t make sense, not with everything he knew to be true about himself, how he was created and what he’d been created to do. That he was a product, not a person. Maybe, though, maybe what the sergeant wanted him to hear was that it didn’t mean he had to endure what might be a short, brutal life entirely alone and empty. The idea was . . . new. As much as he could trust any human, and any who he’d been created to serve and obey, he trusted her.

They’d thrown the empty containers away as they exited the market, Flint falling back a step to walk beside him, far enough away her elbows couldn’t brush his with her hands back in her coat pockets, face hidden inside the cavernous hood. They walked in silence that way for a few blocks, the sounds and lights of the city at night rippling around them.

“Bein’ a nomad, it’s not all that folks think it is.” Her voice broke the silence between them, and he half-turned to look at the sergeant beside him on the sidewalk, but the shadow of the hood hid her face as she spoke. “Folks in the Department jus’ know the dusties in raiding parties, maybe some that’ll camp outside the city, sellin’ anything that’ll sell. Anything we’ve found.”

We , she’d said. It’d been a long time since Flint had been with them, K remembered, but she still slipped and called herself one of them.

“But ridin’ together, stripping abandoned buildings, cities, looking for anything we can use, sure it’s a rough life but you’ve got the convoy, you know?”

He didn’t know, but stayed silent as she spoke.

“There’s scavenging yeah, but we weren’t scaveys, not like those almost-ferals down south. We work as teams, families sometimes, watch each other’s backs. You learn to turn junk into whatever we needed out there. Going on reuse and recycle runs to find supplies off old trucks, old machines. Clean it up, hammer out the dents, and cut it int’a what you need.”

They walked, surrounded by the darkness and grime of the city that was the only home he’d known, but. . . but her words conjured up memories that weren’t his, of a dirty, lonely childhood spent hammering trash for the few pieces of treasure. Of bleak, dusty stretches of parched land. What could a life out there have been with a convoy and family behind you? “I. . . I have memories of the ruins,” it was the first time he’d told anyone about the past that wasn’t his. “In an orphanage, they put us to work picking over scrap metal, breaking apart old machines.”

A small hum of what might have been sympathy sounded from the hooded woman. “Think I heard about places like that, never been near one from what I recall. Yeah the clan had kids around but if’n one lost their folks, we’d just keep ‘em and raise ‘em with the rest.”

A family, even in the harsh, wild life of the nomadic clans out in the badlands, it was more than he’d ever had. Ever have. “So, why’d you leave and join the Police?” There were notes in the file, and while he could put together pieces from her interview and records, there were also things she’d never said.

For a few steps, they walked together in silence again until he thought she might not answer. “Lost my ma when I was real young,” that much he’d already heard. “My brother and my Da were on a convoy with me, and one night raiders hit us. We got away but Da got hit and we lost him.” Her words were short, clipped. Rehearsed? Something nearly inaudible in her tone sounded rehearsed but then, he supposed, she must have told this story before. The Madam had been her partner in the past and he doubted the hard-eyed woman he answered to would have let Flint’s history stay a mystery to her.

“Brother and I stayed on the convoy together for a time after that, then one night we met up with another band, and knew the folks so we camped together that night,” she continued. “In the morning, he was gone. Hopped a truck in the other caravan and left.”

“He left you?”

She shrugged, one-shouldered. “Left the memories, saw a chance for a new band to fight with and took it. He liked to fight.” The last sounded almost sad. “Didn’t have anything keepin’ me there, so I packed whatever I had and came here. Knew the city was dangerous and all, but if’n I’m gonna get mine one day, I figured I’d do it somewhere I didn’t hafta forage for food and might get a hot shower first.” Beside him, she rolled her shoulders, head tilting back to look at the sky. It had begun snowing again, and the flakes settled on her lashes in the glimpse of her face he got before, lowering her head once again, she was lost in the hood.

“Why’d you choose to join the police?” You had the choice to join. He’d never have the choice to or not, only the preprogrammed memories of choosing that he’d been given, like a pile of clothing left folded on a chair for him.

“Why them? Well, as much as I can keep an engine goin’, things I was best at were fighting and shooting. Spent enough years guarding convoys I thought might as well get paid for it, not that the pay for a beat cop just startin’ out is that much, but it sure as hell was more than I’d ever had before.”

And it sure as hell had to be more than the small allowance he was given by the same department.

“Also, picked the Police over private cops because I’d heard they always needed fresh meat, and weren’t as choosy. Knew I could handle anything they threw at me after growin’ up how I did.” Her voice had dropped off at the end, and . . . and he could almost relate, almost understand with his fictional past. Fighting to survive in the orphanage had made the brutality, the isolation of his life here almost easy. But- but her past was real , her humanity stood as a chasm between them and their nearly parallel stories.

“And now here you are.”

“Here I am.”

“Ever think of. . . of visiting them, your clan?”

Another long pause. “Got no one left to visit. Some old friends, yeah. Might find my brother out there if I go asking around, if he’s still topside. Been so long though, don’t think I’d really know them that much. Anyway, got my life here now. Got work to do.”

They’d reached the platform for the monorail again, and, now silent, she led him back across the platform and onto the car. She was silent again as they soared through the night, the sleek metal capsule flying past spinners and signs, the smells of bodies and metal dust and late-night spilled alcohol drifting around them. Soon, they had stopped again, and he realized this was the station closest to the market and his own neighborhood.

Still in silence now, they walked together through the snow-dusted streets. Around them, the lights rippled off the powder in the moments before it melted to a cold grey slush, turning the streets a momentary shimmering rainbow of neon.

They were a few blocks from his building when she broke the silence. “I’m taking the promotion.”

Only his expertly crafted neurochemical system kept him from twitching at the jolt of surprise. “The promotion?”

“Back to sergeant.” She’d shoved her hood back, staring levelly ahead, face back to the stony mask. “Got an ultimatum from the L-T. Wants me to take it, join a new task force that’s being built for these kidnappings, or else I’ll be put on the nomad raids.”

He remembered that briefing, the events. . . after had made the report less important, and it wasn’t his work anyway, but he’d heard talk in passing of more disappearances in the week since. But that would mean. . .

“So I won’t be around as much anymore, K. Might be in the precinct for reports but can’t say it’ll be regularly anymore. I’ve done what I can and having detectives saying you’re off limits should keep those pieces of shit off your back.”

At least as far as anyone could see them, he knew. It might not stop the wandering eyes and hands, but he hoped, as much as he could hope for anything, it would keep them from going any further again. “I. . . I understand. Does this mean-”

“And these nights will have to end, yes.” The words were as cold as the snow beneath their boots. “I’ve had word from up above that this. . . association is frowned on. Might impact your effectiveness or something. Point is, I’ve been ordered to back off.”

It was back, that yawning pit inside his guts, knowing now how much it ached when he wasn’t supposed to feel it ache, feel anything. He knew now what it was to have someone being near him, to walk beside in the dark, to eat with, tasting flavors he’d never dreamed he could ever know. But now, now he knew . And because of what he was, who had paid for him, he was denied that life a second time. “I understand.” He swallowed around the tightness rising up his throat. “I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any trouble, sergeant.”

They’d reached his doorstep again, and she glanced away, the corners of her mouth turning down as the simmering anger she’d carried all night flared. She’d known. She’d planned this as a final night, he realized. Flint must have been told that week, been arguing with Joshi that day in the hallway, and had planned this night to be a farewell, to tell him others would be looking out for him and to give him one last taste of the life he could never know. A taste of the fruit he would never be worthy of knowing. She’d known it would always end like this.

“It’s no trouble, Officer K. And if the department wants to come down on anyone for this, they can take it out on me. I’ve been around long enough to handle it.” And for her, censure wouldn’t mean the risk of retirement.

A rapid flicker of emotions nearly broke her stone-like composure, nearly said something else before the faint click of her teeth killed the words. “Goodnight, officer.” Turning on her heel, she strode into the dark and snow.

“Goodbye,” his whisper followed her into the night.

On feet that felt as dead and heavy as lead from more than just the cold, he forced himself to climb the long flights of stairs up to his apartment. The jeers and hands reaching and groping for him that he usually had to endure on the path to his door all faded out as white noise tonight. Silently, he brushed past all of them, head down, ducking into the safety of his collar. Cans and debris crunched under his boots as he shouldered past figures outside his apartment. Someone called out at him as he unlocked the door, slipping inside as it shut behind him before any reaching fingers could catch the back of his coat (this time).

He was alone.

He’d always been alone. Now, he- he could almost feel how alone he was.

(He wasn’t supposed to have feelings opinions but still-)

Silently, as always, he moved through his evening routine. He was meant to be alone. The lukewarm water of his shower pelted skin. He’d known almost what it was like to have a friend. The packaged seasoning for the stovetop noodles smelled stale compared to the memory of flavors so sudden his eyes had nearly watered. The packaged food was better than the protein grubs, although less nutritious, but the meal earlier had been solid and warm and he wished he could forget how the background hypervigilance needed for a blade runner to survive had quieted some with the presence in the blue coat beside him. Harsh alcohol burned down his throat, washing the small meal down, but the memory of the taste of berries and cream still clung to his taste buds.

Curled in his thin, cold fold-out bed, he thought ahead to what the next day might hold, his time on the case had run out, and depending on what was asked by the people even beyond his Madame’s sphere of power, he could be gone and another, new replicant in this apartment in the next few days. He’d been given a case with little to use and a short timeline, been given as little choice or consideration in this assignment as he’d ever been, and now the one person who’d cared enough to try to help him the least bit was gone. If the worst happened the next day, there’d be no one left to remember him. A deep curl of something by his heart almost ached at the thought. As he drifted off, the ghostly memory of a rough wooden toy in small hands that weren’t really his made his palms itch with the phantom touch, and the persistent whispered “ survive” slid through his mind, soothing away the thing that another might have called despair.

<- Chapter 2. Chapter 4. ->

#blade runner 2049 #blade runner #blade runner fanfic #fanfic #blade runner 2049 fanfic #officer kd6 3.7 #officer K. fanfic #ryan gosling #writing #cyberpunk

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firstaidspray · 9 months

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🎆🎏 Bianca and K at the Good Fortune Festival 🎏🎆

#my art #my ocs #bianca andretti #k #kd6-3.7 #officer k #blade runner 2049 #x: digital bath #please clap i worked hard on that background

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system-of-cells-interlinked · 1 year

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The character parallels between Detroit: Become Human and Blade Runner 2049... Machine!Connor's path is kind of similar to Luv from BR2049 whereas Deviant!Connor is similar to K's in this essay I will...

#i actually kind of want to write an essay lol #dbh #dbh connor #blade runner #blade runner 2049 #officer kd6 3.7 #br2049 luv

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rioshonore82 · 5 months

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Finest Cryptocurrency Asic Miners For 2022

An ASIC miner refers to a device that uses microprocessors for the only real objective of "mining" digital forex. Based in Italy, Casa Miners is a cryptocurrency mining hardware vendor. The firm deals with manufacturers like Bitmain, Innosilicon, Goldshell, Strongu,Canaan,IBeLink, MicroBT and tons of more. The advertisement says the machines can produce up to three gigahashes per second (the best GPUs produce roughly one hundred megahashes per second). Positioned as a SHA-256 algorithm-based mining apparatus, the ASICminer 8 Nano is supplied to mine all cryptocurrencies founded on the SHA-256 algorithm. There are several websites which you can use to match mining swimming pools. What matters is that the variety of shares being submitted to the pool. More the shares submitted to the pool, the upper the reward you’ll get which suggests more cash. The Bitmain Antminer D3 is an ASIC miner designed for mining cryptocurrencies that use the X11 hashing algorithm, similar to Dash. It was launched in 2017 by Bitmain, one of the leading manufacturers of ASIC mining hardware. The Antminer D3 is powered by Bitmain’s 16nm ASIC chip and has a maximum hash rate of 19.3 GH/s and power consumption of 1200W. It contains a compact and durable design appropriate for house or office use. The Parallel Miner Avalon 741 is an ASIC miner designed for mining cryptocurrencies similar to Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. The guarantee period of certain product is specified on the page of that product and commences on the date of delivery. Delivery service is provided by third parties such as the nationwide publish companies or worldwide specific delivery couriers corresponding to DHL, UPS, FedEx. The international categorical delivery couriers are usually door-to-door companies. Please observe that https://horizonminers.com/bulk-orders/ may select a special service (an optimum option on the occassion) quite than the option as displayed whenever you placed order. The Labyrinth Noise Reduction Box is aptly named for its intricate design that resembles a maze or labyrinth. By forcing the sound waves to navigate through a series of twists and turns, the box effectively dampens the noise emitted by the miner.

Whether you prioritize power efficiency, hash rate, or longevity and durability, there is an ASIC miner on the market that fits the bill. ASIC miners, standing for Application-Specific Integrated Circuit miners, are specialized pieces of hardware designed explicitly for mining cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. For this purpose, ASIC miners optimized for BTC are usually pointed at whatever SHA-256 coin is essentially the most profitable to mine at the moment. BeInCrypto prioritizes providing high-quality information, taking the time to research and create informative content material for readers. While companions may reward the corporate with commissions for placements in articles, these commissions do not influence the unbiased, sincere, and useful content creation course of. Any motion taken by the reader primarily based on this data is strictly at their very own risk. 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Get the best mining efficiency out of your Antminer L3+ by utilizing the best software program. The two corporations plan to collaborate on the development of a line of SHA-256 BTC Thor miners. Sino-Global pledge to speculate $50 million into the project in coming years, as properly as reach out for buyers. At this time no further news concerning the Thor bitcoin miner is discovered. Like Whatsminer, AvalonMiner takes extra energy per terahash than an Antminer. Please do not interpret the order by which merchandise appear on our Site as any endorsement or advice from us. Finder.com compares a broad range of merchandise, suppliers and companies however we don't present information on all available products, providers or companies. Please recognize that there could additionally be other options out there to you than the merchandise, providers or providers lined by our service. While we're independent, we may receive compensation from our partners for featured placement of their services or products. Sign up beneath to get entry to our Bitcoin Future Value spreadsheet, based on historical data. Whilst mobile phone firms and other tech industries bin bad high quality chips, bitcoin ASIC producers deploy them in lesser efficient fashions like the Antminer T19. Take notice that Antminer T-models are as a lot as 40% much less environment friendly than S-models. S-models are thought to make use of the absolute best quality chips from a wafer, whereas the T-series use slightly less secure chips. The high quality of the ASIC is mirrored in the T-model’s lower price and efficiency. Efficiency, shown to the right of the desk, is a ratio of watts (joules) to terahash. Power effectivity is an important factor in figuring out the profitability of a mining operation. ASIC miners devour a big quantity of electrical energy, and the price of power can shortly eat into your mining earnings. Therefore, it’s essential to assume about the power efficiency of an ASIC miner, often measured in J/GH (joules per gigahash). ASIC miners, or Application-Specific Integrated Circuit miners, are at the coronary heart of Bitcoin mining. These specialised units are designed for one function and one objective only – to solve the complicated mathematical problems that underpin the Bitcoin community. Their single-minded efficiency has made them the go-to choice for Bitcoin miners worldwide, outperforming different kinds of mining hardware by means of speed and energy consumption. The Bitmain Antminer S7 is an ASIC miner designed for cryptocurrencies that use the SHA-256 algorithm. The Antminer S7 is powered by Bitmain’s 28nm ASIC chip and has a most hash price of up to 4.73 TH/s with a power consumption of 1293W. It was one of the highly effective ASIC miners out there at its launch, making it a preferred choice for industrial-scale mining operations. Now its reputation will not be quite to the extent as most others on this list of prime ASIC miners yet, but it is still one of the most environment friendly. The Jasminer X4, one other of the best ASIC miners, is an ASIC miner designed for mining cryptocurrencies that use the CryptoNight algorithm, such as Monero (XMR) and Bytecoin (BCN). The firm focuses particularly on ASIC Miner sales, and buyers can select to buy from the company’s web site via listings or by filling out a wholesale type for bulk orders. American Mining Warehouse carries new and subsequent generation hardware from Bitmain and MicroBT and serves the US market primarily. Digital Currency Group’s mining arm, Foundry, runs a Bitcoin mining pool as well as an ASIC Miner brokerage desk. Kaboomracks lists a mix of new/used old, mid, new, and next technology machines, largely Bitmain and MicroBT. Kaboomracks just isn't an open market – Kaboomracks sells its personal inventory, brokers for other sellers, or brokers immediately with Bitcoin Miner producers. This is the method through which Etherium 2.zero — the model new version of Etherium that strikes away from mining and proof of work — and Web3 will function on. The odds of single-handedly fixing a proof-of-work puzzle is incredibly small, even when you had several ASIC miners operating. The Bitcoin community has a hash price of 190 exahash (one million terahash). So should you had an ASIC miner with an 18 terahash per second functionality, you'd nonetheless solely have a one in 10.fifty six million likelihood of being the first to solve the puzzle.

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drivinmeinsane · 7 months

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Thoughts on Officer KD6-3.7 as a romantic partner

It takes K a long time to confront his own feelings about you, much less say it out loud. He was worried that if he acknowledged the love he feels for you, he would be irreparably changed, never close to baseline again. He wasn’t wrong. To love and to be loved in return is to be changed.

He uses terms of endearment for you more than he uses your name. It helps to make his dreams of serene domesticity more of a reality. “sweetheart”, “darling”, and “honey” are his go-tos. The first time you called him by a pet name, he stopped dead in his tracks, completely overwhelmed. It gives him a sense of humanity, of belonging, when you call by something kind.

K would never miss a special date. He’ll even go so far as to make up his own milestones and celebrations as an excuse to do something nice for you when the mood strikes. It’s your anniversary today? Sure, of the twentieth Tuesday you’ve known him.

The replicant is touch starved. Even simple brushes of your hand against his or grazes of your bodies together when you move past one another is enough to bring him leaning into your space, chasing the sensation. It is not something he seems to have control over.

He's more comfortable being touched than being the one to touch. He’s not accustomed to being allowed to initiate contact with no orders or with implied permission. Once K overcomes that barrier, he can hardly keep his hands off of you. He places lingering hands on your arms, brushes his fingers over your palm, winds your hair around his fingers, anything at all to feel something tangible and remind himself that you are here with him.

He wants so badly to be real for you. In his worst moments, he’s worried that he won’t ever be enough, that his status as a replicant makes him lesser, not worthy of your affections. His fears lead him to believe that you would prefer an organic partner.

K often tells you that you don’t have to be nice to him, that you don’t have to treat him with the care and tenderness that you do. He can’t seem to fathom that you actually want him. He doesn’t have anything to offer you but himself and that’s hardly worth having, isn’t it?

He would do anything within the realm of his capabilities for you. You are the most important thing in his existence. He wishes he were not a despised pet tethered to the LAPD. He wishes he could leave without becoming what he retires.

He reads to you. It takes his mind off the work day. The apartment isn’t filled with many books, but you enjoy each of them because the time he spends reading out loud is soothing for the both of you. His steady voice lulls you into a relaxed state from where he reads in his chair as you sit on the couch with his feet resting on your lap. His voice gets rougher and deeper when you trace nonsensical patterns over his legs.

While he’s not supposed to take items from crime scenes, he does it anyway, slipping them into the pockets on the inside of his coat. He comes home and shows what he has taken to you with the earnest hope that you will enjoy the meager offering. He can’t afford to give you much, but he can do this.

He always looks at you like you’re going to disappear. His eyes scan you like a data screen any chance he gets. He’s memorizing everything about you with each pass of his eyes. He holds those observations close for fear they’ll be all he has left of you. He doesn’t get to keep things. He doesn’t get to own anything that can’t be taken away. He’s a possession himself.

18+ content under the cut.

His cum is bio-luminescent. In the dark, it glows a pretty blue to match his eyes. It's another reminder that K is not quite human.

He's nervous about sexual contact due to past experiences and trauma. You're one of the very few people that he's actually wanted to be intimate with. He’s firm, almost aggressive, in bed. He’s starved for physical intimacy for so long, that he longs to feast, to make up for the absence.

K firmly believes that he is a tool. He is made to give, not to receive, so it surprises him every time when you want to bring him pleasure for the sake of it. The novelty of receiving a blow job or something that focuses solely on him never wears off.

He has a breeding kink. He knows it's impossible for him to get anyone pregnant, but it's nice to occasionally lose himself in the fantasy of being real enough to make it happen.

If Joi is an active participant in your lives, one thing that really gets him off is engaging in sex with you while Joi is activated. Her being there to murmur encouraging things to the both of you, dictating how you should touch each other, gets him cumming embarrassingly fast.

{ m a s t e r l i s t }

#blade runner 2049 #blade runner #br2049 #officer k #kd6-3.7 #officer k imagines #blade runner 2049 headcanons #officer k headcanons #ryan gosling character #my posts #my work #just to put it out there. i've been referring to k's uh.... release as glozz (glow jizz)#it's been knocking around in my head ever since wrote the driver/ken fic that mentioned ken's glizz (glitter jizz)

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rogerscrouch07 · 5 months

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Asic Miner

An ASIC miner refers to a tool that makes use of microprocessors for the solely real function of "mining" digital foreign money. Based in Italy, Casa Miners is a cryptocurrency mining hardware seller. The firm deals with brands like Bitmain, Innosilicon, Goldshell, Strongu,Canaan,IBeLink, MicroBT and lots of extra. The advertisement says the machines can produce up to three gigahashes per second (the best GPUs produce roughly a hundred megahashes per second). Positioned as a SHA-256 algorithm-based mining apparatus, the ASICminer eight Nano is supplied to mine all cryptocurrencies based on the SHA-256 algorithm.

Mining hardware is specialised computer systems, created solely for the aim of mining bitcoins. The more powerful your hardware –and the extra vitality efficient– the extra profitable will most likely be to mine bitcoins. Yes, it is value mining Bitcoins contemplating some details like easily obtainable hardware, decrease electricity prices, higher Internet velocity, and so forth. Most of the costs and complexities of working a profitable mining setup, particularly if consisting of a couple of ASIC miner, contain cautious planning and regular maintenance. Some of it can be automated, but because of the excessive depth of the work concerned, ASICs are susceptible to hardware failure when improperly configured and maintained. New ASIC miners devour much less electrical energy and generate more hashpower, but the worth of electricity in your area remains to be critical if you want to mine Dogecoin profitably. Electricity is important to power the ASIC miners, but in addition to keep the room where they are housed cool sufficient for them to function correctly. But the one that is listed right here as greatest many not carry out nicely on your mining rig. At the identical time, S19 models usually are not available now, so in fact, the Antminer T19 is the most productive gadget from the fashions officially obtainable in the marketplace in the meanwhile. The hash rate won’t be as excessive as you want it to be like on the new miner, but it can be a great way to strive mining cryptocurrencies. There are several prime bitcoin miners out there, primarily the Avalon 1246 and the Bitmain s19. This model was launched in November 2021, and is considered one of the greatest ASIC miners due to its fantastic ASIC mining hardware efficiency, which is as excessive as 2.5 Gh/s. According to outletminers honest review mining equipment evaluations, it is considered one of the topmost profitable Ether miners out right here. Depending on the power prices, you'll be able to anticipate the machine to generate a revenue of about $34.seventy eight per day, $1,043 per thirty days, and $12,521 per year. On prime of that, make certain that your air flow does not permit rain or snow to come inside, like happened to the unfortunate miner within the tweet beneath. Last however not least, Antminer R4 is almost as environment friendly as Antminer S9, just a bit more modest. Compared to its elder brother, Antminer R4 is bigger, however a great deal less noisy with fifty two dB noise level. The progress of the speed, interest in mining returns, and the unsuccessful period out there left many used devices within the secondary market.

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stupidfuckingwindow · 8 months

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Going to read Officer K smut for research. I feel like a scientist studying (horny) monkeys.

#KD6-3.7 #Robots are just kind of hot

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ninjathrowingstork · 6 months

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Bitter Water: Prologue

SO HERE IT IS. I've been planning this whole thing for over a year now on the Goose Babes discord, and what started as a prologue introducing a few characters and plotlines turned into a whole novella.

Anyway.

Before that dusty farm and the tree, before the wooden horse and the questions that would tear his world apart, before Rick and Ana and Joi and the dream of being real and being loved, KD6-3.7 began his life as a Blade Runner alone. Caught between the programming coded into his cells and the other officers in the Department, he was alone and aware of how expendable his life was, until one other human in the LAPD stepped in, showing the replicant that maybe, maybe he could learn to find a way to live in the harsh world where he'd been placed.

_______________________________________________

Chapter 1.

He’d heard about the tall sergeant before that day, of course. He’d known enough about the station workings by then to stay unseen in the locker room, so the group of human officers didn’t see him.

“Flint? Yeah I was here when she joined, tall bony strip of a girl with hair that looked like it’d been hacked off with a bread knife. Walked in one day, demanded a job right there.”

“And they just-”

“‘Course they weren’t gonna, then a perp broke loose and I swear she didn’t blink clotheslining the sunovabitch and slamming him to the floor. Sarge at the time was impressed enough to recommend her to the academy and. . .” a pause K assumed the man was gesturing to make a point, “she’s been here since.”

“Damn. Really a nomad like they say?”

“That’s her story, and the getup she was in looked rough enough.”

“The test-”

“Oh they ran her through the old VK test sure enough, I got to watch for that one. Face as cold as that, anyone’d think she’s a skinner. Girl strides into the room like she’s hunting something, spins the chair around and slides down. Stared at the chief with this look like she’s seeing straight through him. Remember clear as day when they got to the question about eating a dog, and, I shit you not, kid’s got this expression that’s serious as a heart attack, and goes ‘if you’re down to eatin’ dog meat, you sure as fuck ain’t callin’ it a feast or sharin’ more ‘n you hafta.’ Think she scared the chief we had then, he didn’t run the test too far after that.”

There was. . . something, something uncomfortable about this story of the woman he saw commanding the dispatch desk at the precinct nearly every day having to prove her own humanity, and the rawness of her reply and all its implications. Before he could be discovered, KD6-3.7 slipped away.

He’d been new in the station then. He’d still been new, period, despite what his memories tried to tell him. It was a strange paradox, being new to the world and to oneself, with full knowledge of what that world held and that, in fact, he wasn’t his own, and barely a self. Having the memories of a childhood and a life, but knowing they were all, in fact, a lie. He’d been new, but not so new he didn’t know all too well what it meant to be a replicant in this world. What it meant when the eyes of the human members of the force lingered on him a little too long or sneering smiles curved a little too suggestively despite the muttered “skinjob” thrown at him. He’d known that he shouldn’t - couldn’t - fight back when rough hands dragged him into a closet or storeroom or empty corner. And he’d known that, no matter what they did to him, the only thing that mattered was if he could still do the work he’d been purchased for. All that mattered was to work the cases given to him, pass the tests they made him take in the little white room, and somehow make it back to the safety of the tiny, barren apartment he’d been given with the words of the mechanical voice still buzzing in his head.

Another day, another case wrapped up with him somehow still alive. Which, of course, meant another replicant was dead, and he was still breathing. It didn’t- couldn’t bother him. They were both just things, after all. Designed and created for a purpose and between the two of them, he was still following orders and was still alive because of that. The Lieutenant was happy about this and the marginally larger bonus he’d collected reflected that. It still wasn’t much, but added to his regular stipend it did slightly increase the small luxuries he might afford, like some real fruit or eggs or-

“Hey skinjob, where you going?”

Fuck. He was so close to escaping safely. Picking up speed he kept his eyes down and tried to make it to the doors out to the street.

“Slow down, just wanna have a chat with you for a minute.”

No good, Walters was making a beeline to cut him off and no one would look up or interfere as he was dragged back off into the station and he could still feel the man’s hands on his body and breath on his neck and the sting of the slap on his face and he couldn’t do this again, not today, not when he was still sore from the last time and the new layer of bruises from the fight today and the man was about to reach him no matter how fast he walked and no-one would look at them or meet his eyes because he barely ranked above a piece of gear to them and did they even know and-

“Officer K, a moment?”

The new voice snapped his attention off the door and his approaching ambusher, over to the dispatch desk and the tall redheaded woman. Off to his other side, across the lobby, Walters stopped, freezing under the cool gaze of the desk sergeant. With the slightest tilt of her head, she summoned him over and KD6.3-7 obeyed. Whatever she wanted from him had to be better than the other man’s intentions.

“Sergeant. . .Flint?”

“Officer, if you-”

“Heeey, Sarge!” The loud voice and beefy hand clapped on his shoulder would have made a human jump in surprise, instead K only winced internally. “My buddy here and I were just gonna have a word so if you don’t-”

“Actually, Officer Walters, I do mind. Officer K, If you wouldn’t mind waiting a minute, I just need to wrap up here and grab my coat, then I can join you as we’d planned. ”

As they’d planned? But they hadn’t-

The cool, flat gaze intensified with some meaning as her eyes found and held his and-

Oh. That she was helping him registered a heartbeat later, and there was a twinge as something behind his sternum twisted at the revelation. “I- I can wait. Thank you.”

“Over here,” another jerk of her head, the deep orange of her hair catching the fluorescent lights as she indicated the corner behind the desk, by the door to a small office. Wordlessly, he slipped from under the heavy grip on his shoulder, circling the desk to stand well out of the other man’s reach. The tall woman didn’t move, staring down Walters, challenging him to follow. For a long, tense moment, it seemed the larger man would push the subject, would try to drag him off again, but finally he backed down. He tried playing it off as a joke, but there was still a promise in his eyes before turning to leave. The tall sergeant beside him followed Walters out with her eyes, staring silently as he left. Then, with only a curt “wait here”, turned to duck into the small corner office. He was grateful she’d waited until the other man had left the room before stepping away, but said nothing as the woman returned, slipping on her long uniform-blue coat, shutting down the computer terminal with a few quick taps of the screen, then gesturing with her head for him to follow as she led the way out into the damp evening.

Silently, they wove through the busy city streets. He realized, numbly, that this might be the first time he’d ever made this walk with someone, though with hands shoved deep into pockets of a coat he’d have bet cost far more than his, considering the pay of a human and a sergeant, and a set to her chin, head high as she strode through the crowds as smoothly as a ship sliding through the waves, there was very little inviting or friendly about the stone-faced woman. Flint, he remembered . And she did live up to her name.

Her name. It hadn’t technically been her name before arriving here, he remembered. After that day in the lockers, he’d been curious about this woman, barely more than a girl when she’d walked in from the vast, dusty wilderness, who’d been so alien when she’d arrived, so different from the other recruits her age with her cold eyes and blank history that they’d thought she might be a replicant like him. He’d looked up the recordings of those interviews from when she’d arrived, scarcely a dozen years after the blackout. They showed the wiry girl with roughly cut hair falling choppily around her chin, the sharp angles of her face still reddened with windburn sitting in the stiff metal chair like she owned it. While the other officer had said she’d stared right through the old chief, had sounded like the young woman with mismatched, mended clothes and dirty boots, mouth set in a grim line had scared him, K only saw the defiant set of her chin and squared shoulders, and what had been described as empty eyes staring back at her interviewers he read as shuttered . Something nameless carefully hidden behind the set jaw and expressionless gaze as the interview began.

“So would you begin by stating your name?”

“Tamsin. Tam.” Her words were clipped.

“But do you have a last name? A family name?”

The ragged orange hair slid as she shifted on the chair. “Family name? Never had one, nor much of a family anymore, but my clan got called the Flints on account of our keepin’ to that area. . . so guess you can say my name’s Flint.”

He’d watched in curiosity as she just chose and had a name, like that.

“The Flints? Where might that be?”

“You know where Elephant Knees is?”

“Can’t say that I-”

“Then you won’t know where the Flints is will you?”

In the recording, the man across from her wrote something down, before reaching over and switching on the machine sitting between them on the desk. By now he knew what the old test was for - who it was for.

The young woman looked almost bored as the questions began.

“Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind. . . about your mother.”

The woman in the recording leaned back. “My Ma’s dead.”

“And is that a good thing?”

“She went down fightin’, so I guess it’s a good death. Saved my Da and a whole bunch’a others.”

“That’s not-”

“So ‘brave’ and ‘dead’, that good enough?”

The next question was about the dog, and the interview, again, ended soon after. By the time the recording ended, though, he’d put a name to whatever it was she’d shut away

Anger.

Only eyes that could read the most fractional second of expression would have seen it, that seething well of rage smoothed over by the mask as stoney as her chosen name.

That trace of anger was back now, still masked by the proud lift of her head and straight back as she led him through the dark, damp streets and post-work crowds.

But was she angry at him, or at Walters? Having her angry at him for having to help, to keep him from being damaged while not on duty was bad, but he’d take whatever the grim woman might be planning over what he knew would have awaited without her intervention. There was no choice either way; he’d do whatever she ordered regardless of any personal opinions or feelings regarding the commands (he wasn’t a person, and his makers had seen fit to not allow him feelings either, after all)

They walked in silence for several blocks, sliding through the evening crowds and the damp and the ambient glow of the holo-signs projected into the air. Walking with her was different, he was beginning to notice; where before he’d be at best ignored and at worst stared at or harassed in the streets, the throng of people unconsciously parted for her, and as they entered the market street a few even glanced over at her, nodding in recognition.

She’d been around for a long time and she must get recognized a lot around here. She was distinctive, standing scarcely a few inches shorter than his own height, and despite the severe twist holding back her hair, the coppery red was a vivid contrast against the dreary streets.

“You hungry?”

He nearly missed the question, between the noisy dinnertime foot traffic and his own thoughts. “Hungry? I’m-”

“Never mind, I don’t expect you to have to answer that much. C’mon” Twisting on one boot heel, she turned suddenly, ducking into a corner restaurant as he took a quick step to catch up. Restaurant was an exaggeration, since the place was barely more than a space out of the rain to stand and order food from the counter, but it was still a step up from his usual automat meals. K silently eyed the menu, calculating how much of his last bonus a meal here would leave him with or how to tell his rescuer this was more than he could spend on one meal, with what his normal stipend was before bonuses for cases closed when the sergeant leaned in as she ordered at the counter in perfect Japanese. That hadn’t been in her file. The moment of surprise distracted him just long enough to miss what she’d actually said and he was prepared to make his excuses from ordering when she turned back a moment later, holding two paper containers of teriyaki chicken over fried rice.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry but I-I cant-”

“Hey, just shut up and take this” and he reflexively accepted the shallow tray shoved in his direction.

“Thank you, but I can’t pay-”

“Already paid, it’s on me.”

Before he could argue, she strode out the door, leaving him to follow in the wake of her coat hem.Outside, they stopped at a recently-vacated standing table tucked in the corner under an awning. He felt that strange sensation behind his sternum as before; he felt like he’d been hit, except not. . . As Flint dug into her food, he waited a moment, expecting her to say something, wondering if he was supposed to, then the smell of the synth-chicken made up his mind and he dug in as well.

Officer Kd6-3.7 couldn’t remember when- or if- he’d ever had food so good

Together, they ate in silence, and the whole time he waited for the woman to get to the point, to finally say why she’d intervened and stood up to protect him, to protect a skinjob when no one had before. He waited for the other shoe to drop, for her to say what she wanted from him, but the food was warm and for once he wasn’t alone and if she’d said she planned to take him home, take him somewhere private and use him like all the others had, for once, he might actually enjoy it. With the dinner she’d bought him, it might feel like a real date (He might feel like a real person).

But she said nothing, and still in silence they finished their meals and disposed of the containers, and in silence she led him back into the swirl of the crowds. They walked, still in silence, but something between them had shifted; the angry tension she’d carried before had vanished, and instead she walked alongside him, hands shoved into her coat pockets. She was careful not to touch him, he noted; even back in the restaurant she’d pulled her hand back from his before their fingers could brush, and now with hands buried in her pockets she kept a careful distance from him so even their elbows couldn’t brush, and he wasn’t sure if he should be grateful or disappointed.

At last, she led him up onto a bridge over a sunken road, elevated above the street around it. It wasn’t much of a bridge but just the smallest break in the press of the city around them. Silently, she stopped them, leaning back against the old, pillared railing.

“I come up here in the evenings sometimes, when I just need a minute with my thoughts.”

It was the most casually she’d spoken, and the casual tone caught him off guard. He waited for the sergeant to continue, but she only gazed out over the opposite bridge railing. Carefully, he tried read her expression in the glow of the streetlights and neon signs, but while she was more relaxed than he’d ever seen, her face was a still, angular mask.

“Why’d you help me, back there?” It was more direct and bold than he’d been with any human that he could remember, but he needed to know.

She stared off at the gleaming, dirty buildings, the lights reflecting on the hazy night sky, and for a moment he thought she might not answer.

“I’m. . . not,” it was slow and each word considered, “not from here, didn’t grow up in this city either.” It was right, he hadn’t grown up really, unless you went by his synthetic, false childhood.

Her speech had slid back into the rougher drawl of the girl in the recording as she spoke. “There were times in my early years here when assholes tried’t corner me also, and my jus’ bein’ a wild nomad from the badlands weren’t enough to keep ‘em away. Didn’t know shit about me, just that I was alone, with’n no folks or connections to protect me. Then I had to fight, threaten to break bones a few times ‘afore they wised up and backed off.” At last, she pulled her gaze off the distant sky, looking sideways at him. “But I know that ain’t gonna be an option for you, can’t raise a hand against another officer or defy orders from a superior. Some shit in your programming, conditioned obedience and that.”

That wasn’t it, really, but he wasn’t about to correct her.

“Not like that bastard wouldn’t play it up if you could fight back, say how you went psycho on him or something, get you ‘retired’ and try it all again on your replacement.” Her voice had dropped, low and even as she stared straight out over the busy market.

Maybe, he realized, she did understand. But knowing and being able to do more than buy him dinner were different.

“Point is, you’re on the force to do a specific job and that’s not whatever their sick power trip fantasy is.

There was more to it, some deeper motivation in her kindness, his detective skills, so tightly coded and honed in a far-off lab and specifically engineered into him were screaming, but she was human and he had no call to press the question. It was enough for tonight that he’d gotten out of the station safely, and the company, her protection, were enough that he wasn’t going to push too far into her motives. She might still lead him off somewhere, maybe a rented room, but after her story that seemed less likely.

Belatedly, he realized he’d been silent too long. “Thank you.” His own voice still felt strange and too-quiet sometimes.

“Jus’ doing the right thing.”

A hand landing lightly on his shoulder nearly made him twitch away from the contact, but the fingers didn’t dig in or try to shove him to his knees, she merely rested her hand on the shoulder of his thick coat, his barrier against the world.

“You don’t deserve havin’ to just let them do that to you. Don’t deserve that shit, and don’t deserve not bein’ able to fight back or say no.”

She was wrong, he knew. He let his gaze slide down to his hands, resting on the grime-covered concrete of the railing. He wasn’t really a person, after all, only an alphanumeric designation for a tool that came with preprogrammed limiters and safety features to keep him from going crazy like older models and turning all his carefully designed skills against his owner, the LA Police Department and any of its officers. Not a person at all.

Still, the warmth of her hand was seeping through the fabric of his coat, and it was an effort to not lean into the touch as they stood together in silence.

Eventually, again in silence, she led him off the bridge and back into the press of bodies on the darkened streets. The light misting of rain when they’d left the station picked up, and together, he pulled up the high, warm collar of his coat, and she, the deep hood on hers. The silence between them had changed again, the earlier tension gone and they walked close enough for elbows to almost, but not quite brush. He still questioned why she was even bothering to look at him, much less feed him and be kind to him . The things she’d said on the bridge, things he’d never been told much less could even allow himself to believe (he’d known what he was since the hour his gestational sac had been slit opened, and learned what all came with that life in the disorienting, terrifying days that followed), he knew he didn’t want the way the world treated him, but he also knew it mattered very little what he really wanted. Still, as they walked through the rainy night, it seemed that he might not have to worry too much what someone wanted from him, judging by how the evening had gone so far.

If his reflexes had been any slower, he’d have stumbled over her as they stopped beside a doorway, and, he realized in surprise, she’d led him to his own building. Of course she’d known where he lived, he realized. This has to be it, she’s decided where she wants me. The little apartment was his refuge, where he let himself finally relax and maybe feel safe for once in his facsimile of a life, but if she wanted to take him back to his home and use him there, he’d go and tell himself it was just a normal date like normal people do and she’d bought him dinner and been kind if she wanted the fantasy of going home with someone else then who was he to object?

“Officer, I believe this is your building?”

Her question took him aback. “My. . .? Yes, this is it.”

“Ok, then this is where our paths split.” And with that, she half-turned to leave.

Just like that? “You don’t-” the words were out before he could second-guess them.

Half turning back, she gazed at him questioningly, the dark of her hood showing little more than her eyes. “I can walk you to your door, that is, if you don’t think you’ll be safe?”

Safe? He could have laughed, if he’d known how. He never was really safe, but it was also grimly ironic that he, a blade runner, might actually need someone else’s protection in his own building. But still. . . “I- I thought you might. . . after tonight. . .” It sounded foolish, saying what he’d thought she’d intended after how she’d treated him.

“Officer,” and there was a new warmth in her voice, “whatever you’re thinking I want from you, I promise all this was to make sure you made it out of the station and home in one piece. Now are you gonna be ok getting up to your place from here?”

He thought of the jeers and sidelong looks, of the writing scrawled on his door most nights. Still, they’d never gone beyond that. “I’ll. . . I’ll be alright from here, thank you, sergeant.”

For a moment as she looked back, there was something complicated and unreadable in her eyes, then she nodded, the corner of her mouth twitching in the approximation of a smile. “Then good night, officer.” And she was turning again, her shape soon lost in the dark and the rain.

She’d said it was only getting him home safely, but as the door to the small, bare apartment slid shut behind him and he allowed himself to finally relax as he started his usual, solitary evening routing, he couldn’t shake the thought that it had meant so, so much more.

#blade runner #blade runner 2049 #officer K #officer kd6-3.7 #kd6 3.7 #cyberpunk

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