She remembered why she had come here. Unfinished business. To take possession—not enough to assume control of the Tyrell Corporation, to make it her own. Other stages in the process were necessary, each to be walked through in turn.
This would be one of the last. With only a few more beyond it.
“Instructions as follows.” She knew that the brokerage program would respond to her words now. It was on the same voice-ID circuit as the door security. “Terminate all portfolio activities. Close down all accounts. Cash out and deposit all proceeds in personal account, Tyrell, Sarah.”
The program sounded fretful. “Active account is in the name Tyrell, Eldon.”
“As I said. That account is closed.”
A few seconds later the program signed off and deactivated itself, going into its stasis with something close to gratitude. A slightly different bodyless voice read off a balance statement, which meant nothing to her. At the level of the heir to the Tyrell Corporation, money was an abstract force, like gravity. No one noticed it until it was gone.
No more voices spoke to her as she crossed the office, the columns’ shadows falling past. And the voices inside her head—those whispers had already started to die toward silence. The corner of her mouth lifted in a small indication of pleased satisfaction.
Past the bedchamber, Eldon Tyrell’s private world, were the public spaces of his office.
A larger space, acres of emptiness, designed to impress and intimidate. Sarah pushed the double doors open wider. Dust motes hung in the air between the bellied columns. The hot glare of the afternoon sun rolled toward her; a long-dormant sensor registered a human presence and considerately drew a polarizing filter down across the windows.
Heel clicks louder here, echoing like miniature gunshots. She had dressed for the occasion, as required by the invisible presences of money and power. That didn’t expire when their earthly incarnations died; they demanded a certain respect.
She walked past an empty T-shaped stand, the crossbar at the height of her shoulder.
Her one kindness, when she had ordered the suite sealed off: one of the flunkies had reminded her about the owl, her myopic uncle’s blinking totem animal. It would’ve starved to death or run down its batteries; she wasn’t sure which. Somewhere else in the complex, it was now being fed or otherwise cared for. When she had prepared herself for the flight up north, she’d had a vague notion of taking the owl with her, releasing it in the restricted-access woods where her own quarry had taken refuge. She’d thought better of the idea; this animal, at least, was too tame or ill-programmed to survive out there. The forest crows would’ve disassembled its hollow bones. Whether it was real or not.
She sat down at her uncle’s desk—hers now—a Louis XIV six-legged bureau plat by Andre-Charles Boulle. She had barely been a teenager when the only other known six-legged bureau plat of that period, the one that had been owned by both Givenchy and Lord Ashburnham, had arrived at her uncle’s suite in a crate full of wood splinters and sparkling fragments of brass and tortoiseshell marquetry. For Eldon Tyrell, it had not been enough to possess such a museum quality piece; he had to have the only one. The urge to take an ax to this desk had seized her from time to time. She’d resisted that urge so far, even though she knew, as she ran a hand across the richly polished surface, it was still there inside her.
Sleeping, not dead.
Sarah heard the doors open, the other ones, that led to the corridors outside the private suite. Looking up, she saw a figure walking slowly toward her. In the distance behind him, the doors pulled shut, but not before she caught a glimpse of Andersson, a gaze both suspicious and possessive on his face.
“I’ve been here before.” Deckard halted and looked around himself. A simple announcement. “A long time ago.”
Sarah leaned back in the chair. “It wasn’t that long.”
“Seems like it.” He didn’t sound especially pleased, or even surprised. “Like some other world. Some other life.”
She stood up from the bureau plat. In the suite that had been her uncle’s and was now hers, she walked across the layers of ancient Tabriz to the bar. “Would you care for something? I have it on good authority that you prefer the ones that taste like dirt.”
“The farther north,” said Deckard, “the better. But anything’ll do. I’ve gotten over being fussy.”
She handed him a small glass, its contents the same as the one she kept for herself. “Your health.”
“Wouldn’t have thought you were concerned about it.” He knocked back the shot in one toss. Every blade runner she’d ever seen drank in the same manner, as though trying to put out a small fire in the gut. “I was fine where you found me. L.A. doesn’t agree with me nearly as well.”
She nodded slowly as she reflected upon his words. “So I suppose I’d better make you a pretty good offer. To compensate for your . . . inconvenience.”
He reached for the bottle and poured out another quarter inch. “I don’t think you can. There wouldn’t be one good enough.”
“Let’s find out.” She carried her glass back toward the bureau plat and sat down. She gestured toward the chair opposite. “Make yourself comfortable. We have a lot to talk about.”
He brought the single-malt bottle with him. “Such as?” He sank low and resentful in the chair, legs sprawled out in front of himself.
“As I said, I want to make you an offer. A job offer. I want you to find someone for me. Some thing, actually. That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?”
“I was at one time. I’m a little rusty now.” He slowed his intake to a mere swallow.
“Maybe you should hire somebody else. With current experience.”
“You’re uniquely qualified.” She let herself smile, one corner of her mouth lifting. “For what I want done.”
“There are other blade runners. Real ones. The kind who like doing it.” Deckard rubbed his thumb across the rim of the glass. “There’s an ex-partner of mine who’s pretty sharp. Guy’s name is Holden, Dave Holden. Give him a call—he might be out of the hospital by now. He’d need the work more than I do—he’s probably got bills to pay.”
“That’s very interesting. Your recommending this Holden person to me.” She leaned back in her chair. “It’s not the first time you’ve done that. Not to me . . . but to your old boss Bryant.”
“Maybe.” Deckard shrugged. “I wouldn’t remember.”
“Oh, I can prove it.” She pulled open the bureau plat’s drawer. Beside a small folding knife was a remote control box. She took it out; a single button push, and a section of the paneled wall retracted. “Take a look.”
Sarah didn’t need to see what appeared on the video screen; she had seen it enough times already. Instead, she watched Deckard as he turned his gaze toward the dimly illuminated shapes, summoned from the tape and the past.
She heard the voices.
Give it to Holden. He’s good.
Deckard’s voice. Then Bryant’s.
I did. He can breathe okay, as long as nobody unplugs him—
With another button, she froze the tape and the images on the screen. “Now do you remember?”
“How’d you get your hands on that?” He looked at her with a mixture of suspicion and grudging respect. “That’s LAPD property. From the watchcams in Bryant’s office.”
“As has been said before, there are ways. The relationship between the police and the Tyrell Corporation is not quite as antagonistic as some people are likely to believe. Or at least, not all the time. There are some things that we can cooperate on. Or to put it another way—I can always find cooperative people inside the police department.” Her thin smile didn’t change.