“He was right about that, at least.” Batty shook his head in disgust. “That sucker crapped out. Just died. The fouryear life span the Tyrell Corporation built. into their Nexus-6 models-that’s four years under normal operating conditions. It’s like buying a new spinner: you put any stress load on at all and your warranty’s invalidated. You got a pile of dead meat on your hands, is what you got.” His face set even grimmer. “You know, it’s embarrassing to have a shoddy buncha products like that walking around with your face on them.”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying there’s more than one?”
“Of course.” Batty tilted his head to one side, studying Holden for a moment. “I’ve noticed this before, that you blade runners just aren’t hip to the realities of modern industrial practices. Economics and stuff—I would’ve thought you’d know this, just to get a handle on what you’re doing. The nature of the beast, so to speak.
“Of course there’s more than one Roy Batty replicant. You think the Tyrell Corporation would tool up for a whole production run and then just make a single unit? Christ, they’re probably making more of ’em right now. And shipping ’em off-world to the colonies, all packed away in their transport module boxes, like big of Ken dolls or something. I understand it was a pretty popular model—the Roy Batty replicant, I mean. Lot of orders came in for it.”
His face darkened to a scowl. “Not that you’d know it from the royalty statements that I get from the Tyrell Corporation. I tell you, man. That reserve against returns they hold back . . . it just gripes my ass.”
Holden stayed silent for a moment, trying to get his thoughts started up again. He felt the emptiness of the desert’s vast unpeopled spaces, just beyond the building’s thin walls.
Unfamiliar territory, a long way from the Los Angeles that he was used to moving around in.
Same way with the stuff that Batty was telling him. “Let me get this straight. You get royalties?”
The only question he could think of to ask. “On what? Your personality or something?”
“Hell, yes.” Spine going rigid, Batty looked offended. “On my personality, my expertise-my experience. Everything I’ve got up here.” He tapped his forehead. “I’ve got nearly half a century of smarts, what I was born with and what I developed the hard way; I went into this business when I was barely old enough to shave. And I got my ass handed to me, plenty of times, right off the bat. You become a mercenary, a military combat specialist, as young as I did, they’re signing you up to be nothing but cannon fodder. You’re a minimum-wage corpse, man.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Some of these fuckin’ replicants think they got it so bad; they ain’t seen shit. I did some tours where the survival rate was one in twentySchweinfurt, Provo, Novaya Zemlya. Hell, at Caracas the rate was one in fifty. But I was that one.” Setting his hands on his knees, he leaned forward, eyes radiant diamond points. “And you know why?”
Inside Holden, one of the bio-mechanical heart valves trembled. “Why?”
The thin edge of Batty’s crazy smile appeared. “Because . . . part of my brain’s wired in backward. I was born that way. Unique. Way inside.” He gestured with a fingertip pressed above his ear, twisting it like a drill bit. “Neural malformation, calcium deposits on both the right and left amygdala. That’s the brain structure that creates the emotional response of fear. Usually, people with this condition—it’s pretty rare—they just don’t feel fear. There’s no physiological or emotional response. My head’s better. The amygdalae are webbed through a whole batch of my major serotonin receptor sites. Situations that scare other people shitless—I get off on them. I like ’em.” The corners of his smile lengthened, his eyes glittering. “Nothing can scare me. The more people try, the worse things get . . . the happier I am.”
“Sounds handy.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Batty shrugged, looking pleased with himself. “It’s like with people who don’t have pain responses-you know? They have to be real careful not to hurt themselves accidentally. There’s no feedback for them to adjust their behavior. It took me a long time—most of my life—to develop an intellectual understanding of fear. Just so I could recognize it in other people’s faces. And so I wouldn’t go waltzing into situations where I’d be sure to get killed. But yeah, it’s handy. Makes me a cold motherfucker. Just think what it’d be like if you chicken-hearted blade runners had heads built that way; you could really get some major damage done.” His expression turned to pity. “As it is, it’s why you guys don’t have a chance against the Tyrell Corporation’s Nexus-6 models . . . especially the Roy Batty replicant. All the Nexus-6 types have a little bit of this, but that model in particular—’cause it’s an exact copy of me—all of the Roy Batty replicants are in serious kick-ass mode. You guys are just lucky if one of them ups and dies on you. That’s the only way you’d survive an encounter with a Roy Batty replicant.”
The other’s boasting irritated Holden. “That Batty replicant didn’t run into me.”
“Just as well, for your sake. You got iced by that Leon Kowalski model, and that thing’s a goddamn moron by comparison. If you’d hit on the Roy Batty one, there wouldn’t have been enough left of you to stick an artificial heart into.”
“Maybe.” Holden kept his own voice level and cold. “I wouldn’t mind having the chance at one.”
“You’re not likely to get it. The Roy Batty replicant that was running around in L.A. was the only one that ever made it back to Earth. The UN. authorities know what a loose cannon one of them can be—I’ve worked for U.N. security, so they’re hip to what a version of me is like—so they keep them under wraps or way out in the far colonies. How that one got close enough to make a break for Earth . . . that was a screwup. Somebody wasn’t paying attention.”
“You’re with the U.N.?” He was still trying to piece together what the deal was.
Batty shook his head. “Not right at the moment. And I never was officially hooked up with them. I was always more of a freelance operative, you might say. Mercenary. That’s how I built up my rep. Then I hired on with the Tyrell Corporation-old Eldon Tyrell recruited me himself. That was because he wanted the best, and he could afford it.”
The picture was starting to get a little clearer. “What did you do for the Tyrell Corporation?”
“Eh, some troubleshooting, some industrial strong-arm stuff-there were still a couple of other companies turning out replicants back then, and Eldon decided he didn’t want the competition anymore. So they got . . . kind of eliminated. One way or another. And then I was on retainer for a coupla years, while they were checking me out in the corporation’s labs. Doing the brain-scan thing—that’s when they found out about the cross-wired amygdala. That was pretty much the kickoff for the Nexus-6 development program.” Batty shrugged. “After the production line started rolling, I moved over to personal bodyguard stuff, covering old man Tyrell’s ass.”
He decided to risk a needle probe, just to see how Batty would react. “You must not have been doing a very good job. They told me in the hospital how Tyrell got killed.”
“Not on my watch. I quit months before that went down. Man, I’d decided long before then that I wasn’t going to work for those’bastards anymore.” Batty’s face turned dark and brooding, gaze fixed on some inner vision. “I’m telling you-there’s some sick people over there. Eldon Tyrell might’ve been the worst of them, but they’re all fuckin’ nuts. Some of the things I’ve seen . . .” He shook his head. “You know, there’s a big red button over in the Tyrell Corporation headquarters—the U.N. made ’em put it in when the place was built. Just a little safeguard, in case some of the stuff they were dinking around with ever got out of hand.” His voice twisted with bitter loathing. “I’d love to push that red button, and just stand back and watch the whole friggin’ place come down. It’s be just what those sonsofbitches deserve.”