Deckard kept his silence. There was nothing more to be said to the little man, to sell the point to him. He’d lied to Sebastian, raised his hopes, just to keep him from totally dissolving his private universe. There’s no Pris out there, thought Deckard. There’s not even an out there.
Beyond the building’s walls, the U.N. blimp drifted slowly overhead. The enormous viewscreen on the blimp’s side was reflected in the rows of intact window glass across the empty street. Deckard saw a fragmented image of the screen’s geisha face, the smile replaced by a somber, knowing pity.
“I’ve got to go looking for her!” Sebastian appeared ready to immediately rush out of the building and onto the street below. “Maybe she’s waiting for me—”
His manner became even more frantic and agitated. “She might be all alone somewhere, and wondering why I haven’t come to be with her—”
“Hold on.” Deckard grabbed hold of the other man’s shoulder as he started for the door. “Wait a minute. We’ve still got things to talk about.”
The room and the surrounding building, the fabric of the pocket universe, had resolidified. Or the illusion of it had—Deckard had to remind himself that the place wasn’t real. He wondered how much time he had left here; at some point the effects of the activated colloidal suspension would wear off, flushed out of his percept system by the constant, slow percolation of his own biochemistry. For all he knew, the spoonful of the Sebastian packet that he’d ingested had already worked its way through his kidneys and was, along with its various breakdown components, ready to be pissed out. At some other time, the notion that one deity or another could reside in his bladder might have wryly amused him; right now, he was in a hurry.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” The toy soldier, its nose still bent at an angle, tugged at Sebastian’s coveralls. “Right now!” At the other side of the room, the reanimated teddy bear had started rooting through the objects that had been knocked loose and scattered during the quake, as though it were assembling provisions for the journey. “Come on!”
“No, no, Squeaker—Mr. Decker’s right.” Sebastian patted the soldier on the top of its helmet. “He came all this way to talk with me; he’s our guest, so we should treat him right.” He glanced up with an embarrassed smile. “I’m real sorry for what happened just now. I got kinda carried away.”
“That’s all right. I understand.” The twinge of guilt sharpened underneath Deckard’s breastbone, though he was careful not to let any sign show on his face. Maybe—a small trace of hope moved inside his thoughts-maybe he will find Pris out there. Or something like her. “I know what it’s like.”
“Well, yeah . . . I suppose so.” Sebastian tilted his head, his wet gaze narrowing as he studied the figure in front of him. “You know, though . . . maybe it wasn’t Pris I got all wrong. Maybe it’s you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You shouldn’t have been able to just come in here and push me around like that.” Sebastian spoke without rancor—he had obviously gotten used to being pushed around, one way or another. “This is my world, remember; my little private universe. I’m supposed to be the deity here. If I’d wanted to bring the whole thing crashing down, I shoulda been able to do that. And you wouldn’t have been able to stop me. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. No . . . something funny’s going on.” He raised an eyebrow. “When we were wrassling around and all, I was trying to make you disappear-well, I was losing, wasn’t I?—and you just wouldn’t. You’re still here. That’s really strange, don’t you think?”
Deckard shrugged. “I’m not an expert on these places. This is the first time I’ve even been in one.”
“Yeah, well, I live here now. This is the only place I exist. So I should know what the deal is on ’em.” He slowly shook his head. “I don’t get it. What are you, Deckard?”
“I don’t know.” What the hell’s that supposed to mean? The question didn’t even make sense. “Is it important?”
“Maybe not.” Sebastian brushed his hands off on the front of his coveralls.
“Whatever.” All around him, the cracks in the walls’ plaster were slowly disappearing, the edges stitching themselves back together. He leaned down and pulled the ballerina doll clear of the crevice in the floor before it could close up on her leg. “So . . . what is it you came here for? What’d you want to find out?”
“You tell me. I was sent here. To see you.”
Sebastian nodded. “Yeah, like I said . . . I knew you were coming. The rep-symps told me you’d show up eventually. That was all part of the plan. With the Batty box and all.”
“The briefcase,” said Deckard. “If that’s what you mean.”
“That’s the one. You know that’s Batty in there, don’t you? Of course you do—it’s not like he’s ever exactly quiet about it. Not the one I first met—the replicant who came here—but the other one. The original, the human templant.”
“He was the one who told me to come here. He gave me the packet with your name on it; it was inside him, inside the briefcase.” Deckard glanced toward one of the windows as though some change in the night’s darkness might have indicated the passage of time. “And to get the stuff to mix it up. He had all the instructions. They must have briefed him pretty well.”
“In a lot of ways,” agreed Sebastian. “Those rep-symp guys they’re pretty sharp. Psychologically, I mean. They knew you’d take some convincing.”
“I still do.”
“They thought you’d trust me.” Sebastian’s guileless, ingratiating smile appeared again. “Do you?”
Deckard shrugged. “I don’t know that, either. Depends on what you tell me.”
“All I can do is tell you the truth. Or at least as much of it as I know about.”
“That’d be a novelty.” Deckard didn’t bother to smile. “The truth, I mean.”
“Well Sebastian fiddled nervously with one of the screwdrivers he took from his coveralls pocket. “You can start with this. Batty wasn’t lying—the Batty box, I mean; the briefcase-when he was telling you what the deal is.
Whatever he told you about . . . what was the fella’s name? Something Holder?”
“Holden. Dave Holden.”
“Yeah, that’s the guy. He’s probably dead now, huh?”
Deckard gave a short nod. “Pretty much.”
“It was kind of a risky job they stuck him with. Taking the Batty box out to you. He must’ve known what the chances were.” A troubled expression shaded Sebastian’s face. “I don’t think the rep-symps would’ve lied to him about that.”
“If that’s who he was working for.”
“Oh, no The teary eyes went round. “You don’t need to have any doubts about that. That’s one of the true things I’m supposed to tell you about.
Convince you and everything. That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? For me to tell you that, so you’d know it’s true—you believe me, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure.” He wasn’t going to admit any more than that. “You could be telling the truth. I just don’t know.”
“But you’ve got to believe me!” Sebastian’s voice went up in both pitch and anxious trembling. “Your old partner, that Mr. Holden—he’d gone over to the side of the rep-symps, and the insurgents out in the colonies, and all those people. He’d decided that was the right thing to do. Just like you did, when you quit the police department. When you stopped being a blade runner.”
Deckard barked a quick laugh. “When I quit the department, I didn’t exactly go out and sign up with a bunch of psychotics and traitors who’re all out looking to get themselves iced by the U.N. security squads.”