“That looks good.” Marley nodded admiringly. “Real spooky and dramatic.”
The title appeared on the screen, blanking out everything but the darkness behind it. Two words: Blade Runner.
“What the hell.” A surmise weighted with dread started to form inside Deckard.
A crawl of other words, smaller than the video’s title, moved upward across the screen. Broken phrases lodged in Deckard’s head-based on a true story . . . from actual LAPD case records-with their meanings slowly adding up to the realization of what he was seeing. The final piece locked in when he saw his own name listed in the opening credits as technical adviser.
Marley pointed to the words. “That was nice of that Urbenton fellow, don’t you think? Considering that you voided your contract with him—he didn’t have to leave your name on there.”
“This . . . this is the video he was making.” With a sick feeling, Deckard gazed at the screen. “That he hired me to go out there and help him with.”
“Come on—he hired you for more than that,” chided Marley. “Urbenton bought your life story—or at least that part of it that went down in L.A., when you were tracking that last bunch of escaped replicants. Well, here it is.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the nearest monitor and all the other identical screens mounted in the bar. “This is the premiere showing. Right now, on the entire Martian cable network.” Another smile. “See? I knew you’d dig it.”
“Shit—” Deckard stared at the video monitor in dismay. The fury of his own thoughts drowned out anything coming from the audio track. “Everybody’s going to see this. Everybody on this entire planet.”
“That’s right, pal.” Marley’s hands made an expansive gesture, as though in congratulation. “There’s only one channel, and you’re the star. It’s your fifteen minutes, Deckard; enjoy it.”
Deckard didn’t have time to respond to the other man’s sarcasm. This was something he hadn’t counted on. Now Fm really screwed, he thought. In a few minutes, once the video got past its opening sequence, with all the artsy Los Angeles location shots that Urbenton had faked from the Outer Hollywood street sets-once the story got rolling, Deckard’s own story—then it would be his own face up on the video screens. Not just here in this bar, but everywhere. Nice, big close-ups, all zoomed-in and personal; he had watched Urbenton directing the cameras during the video shoot, bringing them in tight on the actor in the distinctive long coat carrying the police-issue gun through the city’s dark and rain-soaked streets. There had been some full-on shots that would very likely fill the monitor screens. And it’ll be my face, he thought. Not the face of the actor playing me. But my face. That had been the other thing that he’d sold the rights to, that Urbenton and his Speed Death Productions had bought. Spelled out in precise contractual language: . . . the undersigned contracting party, in consideration of the financial remuneration specified above, grants as well the right to use a full and accurate facial depiction of self—along with any associated physical mannerisms consistent with an identification of the portrayed individual as the former Los Angeles Police Department special agent known as Rick Deckard .
That was what he’d agreed to, the contract he’d signed, back when he’d still been under the impression that the money from Urbenton would be enough to get him and Sarah Tyrell off Mars and heading out to the U.N.’s colonies in the stars. Deckard hadn’t anticipated being on the run, with Christ only knew what kind of police agencies breathing down his neck. It was a wonder he hadn’t been nabbed already; the suspicion had started to grow in him that the cops were giving him a long rope, seeing if there was anybody else he’d entangle before they picked him up. Eventually, they’d tire of that game, get tired of waiting for him to contact his nonexistent accomplices, and then Deckard would find the rope around his neck, where it’d always been.
It was going to be a lot easier to tighten that noose now, or as soon as this video had finished airing over every cable-linked monitor in the emigrant colony. When Deckard had been there, at the Outer Hollywood station, orbiting above Earth, Urbenton had even shown him how the special-effects people were going to digitize his face, from the bones up through the web of muscles, to the skin and every whisker stubble and freckle on it, every little detail that made up the world-weary, tired-of-killing but still deadly gestalt that Deckard saw when he looked in a mirror. Standard practice in the modern video business: in postproduction, once the principal photography was done, the techs would lay the digital face over that of the actor who had gone through the paces on the set, who’d hit the marks and had the prop guns fired at him, taken the hits from the other actors, done all the hard stuff . . . and what the audience would see, when the video was broadcast, would be a reconstituted Rick Deckard walking those garish, milling, neon-streaked L.A. streets again, just as the real one had, gun in hand, eyes scanning for his prey.
That’s what they’re going to see, thought Deckard, right now. The only chance he’d had was based on anonymity, on being able to move through the emigrant colony’s crowds without being spotted, on hiding out in the open, his face hidden in the torrent of other faces. And now that was going to be taken away from him. They’re going to see me. My face.
On the monitor screens, the video’s opening credits had ended; the camera angle had dropped from the fire-laced night skies above L.A., crossed by the screaming flares of the police spinners, to street level; the reflection of a neon dragon, red tongue darting through a crudely animated sequence, shimmered on the wet asphalt. A figure in a long coat, shoulders hunched with fatigue, was seen from the back. As the real Deckard watched from the booth, the video’s all-seeing eye moved in on his taped double.
Then a quick cut, the shot going to a front angle, tight on the Deckard figure’s shirt beneath the open coat’s lapels, buttoned to the top with a costume department duplicate of the rough-woven tie he’d always affected back then. The shot moved up to the image’s face, a close-up in good lighting, a noodle bar’s bright fluorescents driving away any concealing shadows; the real Deckard winced, anticipating what he was about to see . . . He didn’t. In the booth, in a cheap dive somewhere in the Martian emigrant colony, Deckard stared in amazement and with an uncomprehending sense of relief-at what he saw on the monitor, echoed simultaneously on the screens throughout the bar.
“That’s not you,” said a small voice behind him. The Rachael child looked past Deckard and Marley, on either side of her, toward the nearest screen. “I thought this was going to be about you and everything, about stuff that happened to you before. But that doesn’t look anything like you.”
“No Deckard continued to watch the video image. The Deckard there, the figure reenacting the story of those nights in L.A., had moved away from the camera and into a medium shot; the face was still visible, though. “It’s not my face.”
“Now that is interesting.” No surprise registered in Marley’s voice. “You weren’t expecting that, were you, Deckard? I was getting kind of a kick out of watching you. Really thought your cover was about to be blown, huh?”
Deckard said nothing, but just nodded slowly, still watching the image on the screen, the Deckard that didn’t look like him.
“Something must have happened,” continued Marley. “For that Urbenton fellow to change his plans like that. I know that wasn’t the original deal. They were going to ceegee your face on top of that actor’s; all he had to do was go through the motions and it would wind up looking like you were doing all that stuff all over again. Hunting down those replicants like the bad ol’ blade runner you used to be.”
“I know.” Deckard felt a measure of tension easing out of his spine. The dismaying prospect that every other face in the bar would turn toward him, connecting him with the image on the video monitors, had vanished. If the police agencies were going to put out the net for him, they would have to do it without the advantage of having every person with eyes doing their spotting for them. “That’s a break.”