#officer KD6-3.7

[tonyironstark]

"What happened to us Ken?"

Barbie Multiverse

Barbie and Ken AU (Harley Quinn and Officer K)

[drivinmeinsane]

Birthday Boy

※ Officer K x Joi ※

{ masterlist } ※ { ao3 }

※ Summary: Officer K does not often find himself surprised. He was made to be clearheaded and adaptable, able to get a read on most situations at a glance. Joi is a true wildcard in his life. She elicits feelings from him that he never could have predicted. As a result, he finds himself floundering in the wake of an unexpected gesture.

※ Rating: T for canon typical themes and implied violence. 

※ Content/Tags: Emotional Hurt, Implied Reoccurring Sexual Abuse by a Supervisor, Pre-Canon, Identity Issues

※ Word count: 3,838

※ Status: Oneshot/Complete

※ Author's Notes: Happy 43rd birthday to the man whose acting performances have resulted in characters that have bewitched me. I'd be living a very different, arguably less enjoyable, life if it were not for them.

A lingering chill permeates the room. No sunlight could ever dream of reaching down into the bowels of the LAPD headquarters to cast its rays inside the timeworn host. She devours her supplicants into her gullet each shift, only letting them free once they’ve completed their mandated labors for the greater good. Every cell has its function in the body. Officer KD6-3.7 supposes that his usage inside of the closest thing he’s ever had to a mother is done under buzzing, sterile lights and in out of the way corners, not amongst the rest of the cells that make up the innards. He is not interlinked with them. Will never be interlinked. His reward for his service is to be examined like a biopsy slide following the times he is sent outside of the internal workings to act as a neutralizer to infection. He is left undisturbed if the findings are benign, fully exorcised from the body if determined cancerous

The glare from the light on the desk is challenging the screen in front of him for which of them is going to give him the bigger headache. When he presses his forehead against his knuckles to try to elevate the building pressure, he is only reminded of how tired he is. His eyes are strained and feel as though they have been filled with sand. The replicant has been holed up in this subterranean room for hour after hour while he sifts through the backlog of evidence that had been allowed to pile up from other officers. Processing and cataloging are not amongst his favorite activities, but the monotonous tasks are a welcome alternative to chasing down a wanted fugitive in the outskirts of the city. It would have been especially brutal in this unseasonably cold weather. The mixture of snow and acid rain plaguing the city was ankle deep in many places, aggressively hungry and not reacting to the rock salt. This morning, it had piled back up again and he was left to fight every step of the way to the parking garage where he kept his work provided spinner. His boots were nearly sucked off his feet more than once during the predawn trek. His socks have been uncomfortably soaked through ever since. 

Sliding another piece of evidence under the desk mounted camera to be scanned into the database, he questions exactly what it is that his madam was hoping he would find down here by assigning him this duty. When he had stood in her office this morning, eyes more intent on watching the sun rising over the city’s horizon through the window than on her, he had acknowledged her remarks about the likely possibility of finding a new lead amongst the undocumented items. With no older models on the docket to retire, K was put to work processing information faster than any organic could ever have any hope of doing. There has been nothing out of the ordinary as far as he has been able to tell. He is beginning to be sure that she put him down here in order to save herself the hassle of paperwork. Keeping him from being underfoot in the bullpen is a wise strategy to cut costs. The presence of skinners reduces the quality and efficacy of work performance in non-replicant employees. It is also easy to extract your pound of flesh from someone who has been ordered not to engage in retaliation against fellow LAPD employees. All in all, it is better if he goes unnoticed and forgotten while on duty. 

Eyes up and to the left, he casts a glance at the clock. Just under half an hour left until he can leave the precinct. That is unless his madam makes him stay late. The replicant allows himself a groan as he rises to his feet in order to put away the evidence cluttering the desk. The muscles in his back are stiff from inactivity, He was not made to sit for long stretches of time. Once he is finished tidying the workspace and powers down the electronics, he pulls his coat from its position over the back of the chair that has been bearing the weight of his body since he settled into a routine hours ago. He folds the bundle of laminated cloth over his arm for safekeeping. The building is heated on the more trafficked levels and does not necessitate more layers than his thick, long sleeved shirt. He does not bother to turn off the lights when he exits the room. They will shut off on their own if they do not sense movement. Convenient.

He needs to brief Lieutenant Joshi on his findings, or lack thereof. Failure to report to his madam leads to unwanted results if she feels snubbed by his lack of consideration. The last time that he made her feel that way, she had made her displeasure clear by arriving at his apartment and drinking herself into believing that he was attractive. She had started drunkenly groping at his stomach and thighs while he had to sit beside her on the narrow couch and take it like a good dog. He had been spared from anything more invasive by the sound of an empty bottle shattering against his graffitied front door. Joshi had remembered herself, realized what it was that she was coming onto, and sobered up enough to put a halt to her attentions. She had cracked a joke about the replicant leading her on before she excused herself. He had been fortunate that time and took her leering interpretation of the situation with an impassive face. He had learned very early on to turn Joi off when he heard the lieutenant at the door. He did not enjoy her questions about why he silently let his madam use him as she wished. 

There is no baseline test today, and K is grateful that he does not need to sit through the interrogation. His job is laced with enough hazards without worrying that it will not be a rogue replicant that retires him, but his own employer. In the depths of himself where he shoves down everything that he does not wish to acknowledge, he envies the older models for having the free will to run and seek their own fates. He despises being sent to drag their dreams crashing back down to Earth. 

He does not take the elevator. It does not offer easy escape from hateful hands should he be cornered by someone with an active vendetta against what he is. Instead, he makes the arduous climb up the flights of stairs between the general evidence storage room and the floor that harbors his madam’s office. One small comfort lies in that the roof will be just overhead, his spinner easily accessible.

K knocks after reaching Joshi’s office. He stands, patiently waiting for the woman to look up from the screens in front of her. While he waits, he thinks about how he, as on most mornings, had not wanted to get out of bed. Joi seems more real when he is lost in the space between dreaming and waking. It is easier to convince himself that her presence in the bed beside him is tangible, that the layer of padding serving as the mattress for his fold-down cot is indented and contoured to the curves of her body.

After several long moments, Lieutenant Joshi finally registers his presence and beckons him into the room. He does not close the door behind him. Subconsciously, he is trying to leave himself an exit, even if he will never take the out. He is a good dog. Loyal to the bitter end.

“What did you find?” She asks him, irritation lacing unwittingly through her voice. She is still upset over the other night and it is casting a shadow over each of their shared interactions.

“Nandez turned in some old photo scans. Might be worth looking into ID’ing the individuals in them. They could be part of the resistance movement.”

Her expression tightens and she waves a dismissive hand at him. “Go on home.”

"Yes, madam,” he tells her, ducking his head in a subservient goodbye.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Keeping his stare low and focused on the slurry of snow and runoff prohibits him from locking eyes on the brilliantly projected advertisements that try to entice passing pedestrians into shallow interactions. He does not like to think about the DiJi units. It draws his relationship with Joi into the daylight, the playacting at domesticity exposed for being just that. K would rather not contemplate what she is and what he is. What they are. It makes his existence less palatable. 

The conditions on the streets have the stairwell teeming with more than just the building’s residents. He wades through the jostling mass of bodies as he ascends the eighty stories to the floor that contains his unit. They do not let him pass undisturbed. Grasping hands reach out and take hold wherever they can. He lets them paw at his body, ignores the venom being spat at him in a dozen languages. Word spreads faster than any disease. The crowd is aware of what he is and what he represents. He is too numbed by it all to care. There is no point in resisting.

The broken glass outside his door crunches underneath his boots. It will stay there until someone other than the replicant clears it away. The shards serve as a deterrent to the artists that like to decorate the door and the wall that it is set in. He stopped scrubbing away the graffiti months ago. More would just appear in its place, and maybe he can pretend that it helps Joshi remember what he is when she graces him with her company outside of work hours. The disgust might keep her hands off of him.

K finds the right angle for his hand on the sensor lock and wastes no time in letting himself into the apartment once the latch clicks free. He does not turn his back on the hallway as he shuts the door. Learning from that error had been a hard lesson. He does not believe any of his newer neighbors would be so bold as to try teaching him another, but it never pays to neglect precautions. As his madam was fond of reminding him, he had not been a cheap acquisition.

Once inside, he begins his after work routine. He turns on Joi’s in-home emanator so that he can start pretending. No music today. K retraces his steps back to the entryway and shrugs off his coat. He hangs it up on the peg by the door. His eyes catch on the old model number stamped down the back of the green cloth. Not his. From another replicant.

“K? Is that you? I didn’t hear you come in.” Joi’s artificial voice is a soothing balm on a burn. 

“Sorry, sweetheart. I’ll be louder next time.” He forces himself to sound happy, slipping into the role of the old fashioned husband arriving home from a hard day in the office.

Joi laughs and starts clattering around in the kitchen. He hears what sounds like the oven opening and shutting. “It’s an important day, you know.“

“What’s the occasion?” He unzips his sodden boots and puts them under his coat by the door. He peels his socks off too for good measure. They should have been removed and replaced with dry ones hours ago.

“Go get cleaned up. I’ll tell you when you’re out.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says amicably and retreats to the bathroom.

He undresses himself with steady hands, not letting himself hiss when his still chilled skin comes in contact with the air of the unheated apartment. The bureau was magnanimous enough by providing housing for something like him. That magnanimity, however, did not guarantee safety or warmth. He is merely grateful to not be shoved into a storage closet at the end of each shift. 

The movement of pulling his shirt over his head causes pain to bite into his senses. In trying to get ready for his shower, he had strained the glued laceration across his chest. It cut through a bed of mottled bruising from an accident he had earlier in the week. A replicant on his retirement list had punched him hard enough in the sternum that his skin had split open from the force. He still couldn’t draw in a full breath without it catching in his lungs. He had not informed his madam. He had not wanted his paycheck docked, not when he was on the cusp of being able to afford Joi’s anniversary present

He folds his clothes and puts them on the concrete shelf placed in the wall. K will be putting them back on shortly once he is dry. A second day’s use can be wrung out of them before they need to be cleaned. He does not want to wear out the fabric prematurely. His woven shirt is real cotton. 

Scrubbing a toothbrush over his teeth once he is fully stripped down, he avoids himself in the mirror. He does not want to be reminded that other replicants wear his face. He has not yet come across another Nexus 9 of the same make but he knows that he will someday. 

“How was your work?” Joi calls from the other room. She is setting a timer. He can hear it clicking as she adjusts it. He wonders what she is making for dinner.

“It was easy. Just desk duty. How was your day?”

“I’ve been busy. I’ve been waiting for you,” she tells him warmly.

The replicant smiles around his toothbrush before taking it out of his mouth. He spits into the sink, does not bother to rinse. He crosses the few feet to the shower and braces himself for the torrent once he is situated under the metal halo. He tries to not flinch when the water hits him. It stings for the five seconds it runs. His platelet jelly survives the downpour, his injury does not reopen. It is a small mercy.

He dries off and redresses before retrieving his boots from the front door. The tile is cold against the bottoms of his feet even though his socks. He hates the feeling of it about as much as he allows himself to hate anything. There are bad memories associated with the sensation. Real ones. Not implants.

The dinner he makes himself is the same as always when he eats in. Prefab noodles with powdered grubs as a protein source. It is nothing special, only meant to keep him functional. Joi is a much better cook than he is. She is mostly silent while he prepares the meal, though he can still hear the sounds of her moving around in the main room, heels clicking against the floor. She does not often go barefoot either. 

He almost asks her if she wants a drink but refrains. He wants to save it for the hard days. The ones where he comes back to his apartment with the unacknowledged wish that he had been the one retired at the hands of someone not all that different than him. Replicant snuffing out replicant. He fills his whiskey glass with water from a bottle instead before taking his meal to the table. He sits down facing the window as he does every night. Across the street, his more distant neighbors, a couple, are dancing together. The taller of the two women lifts her companion into a raised twirl. He muses if Joi has picked her spontaneous urges to dance from observing them.

“Here’s your dinner. I’m sorry it’s a little late, babysweet,” she apologizes as she comes from the kitchen to set the bowl she’s carrying over his. It clips though, steam rising off of it. It looks like a pre-blackout recipe. Something fresh he would never be able to acquire outside of a fantasy.

“You didn’t need to fuss,” he reassures, pausing, “What is it, darling?”

The telltale static tingle of her projected form is the first clue that she is wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind. His spine almost itches from where she presses into him. He is almost relieved that she does not have a physical form. The weight of her arm across his wounded chest would be difficult to bear without giving away traces of discomfort.

“Potato soup with freshly picked herbs.”

“Well, honey. It looks wonderful. Thank you,” he tells her. He feels the ghost of her mouth brush against his cheek before she flits away, more wishful thinking on his part than actual sensation.

He eats his protein noodles and tries to imagine what the soup would taste like if it were real. He has no real frame of reference. He had read about cream once. The book had described it as thickly coating the tongue in a wealth of rich tasting fats, almost pillowy in the mouth. All together, it would be earthy and fragrant. Decadent.

Once he is done eating, he stands and takes his dishes to the kitchen. He puts them into the refresher where they get restored to usable status in seconds. The projection of the now empty soup bowl fades away the moment his back is to the table. His chores done for the day, he embarks on the rest of his post-work routine. 

Joi is on the couch, enthralled in some sort of textile project when he passes by her to stand at the table housing some of his possessions. He picks out a cigarette from the box and is putting it between his lips when his wife flickers to his side, hand already raised towards his face.

“Do you want your surprise now?”

He had forgotten about their fleeting small talk that had taken place a while ago. Joi had neglected to follow up after his shower to explain exactly what was so special about today. K does not recall any occasion that would prompt the extra hints of attention she has been trying to bestow on him since he came home, but he indulges her all the same. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

He allows her to light his cigarette with a fingertip. The concentration of light generates a spark on the end and he takes a slow, even pull to encourage it to catch. It does. He savors the lungful of tobacco, ignoring the pinching in his chest. Smoking is a part of his small collection of vices. It makes him feel more human.

Relaxed, he turns around and comes to an abrupt halt. Briefly frozen as he takes in the sight in front of him. Joi is standing by the table, a smile on her face. She is holding a small cake in her hands. Chocolate with candied dots sprinkled over the top. It reads ‘Happy Birthday K’ in neat lettering, blue on brown. Lit candles are casting a wavering glow over her face. The cake looks homemade, messy. Real.

“What’s this?” he asks. He’s hoarse, blindsided. The cigarette in his mouth nearly slips free as he tries to process the surprise. 

“It’s a birthday cake for your birthday.” Joi sounds proud of herself.

He remembers having to input a date when he set her up for the first time. He should have known something like this would occur. He supplied the date carved on the underside of the wooden horse in his memories. October 6th, It was not his wakening date. That would be November 12th, but it had felt… right to have that nod to his nonexistent childhood. It better sold the dream his false memories hinted at.

“I was never born.” It slips out intentionally, but it is the truth all the same. He does not possess a soul. He was never drawn from the warmth of a mother’s body.

The DiJi's face falls for a moment, processing the bitterness in his voice. She had miscalculated and upset him. He feels regret at her reaction. She looks back up at him. A smile spreads earnestly across her face.

“Let’s pretend,” she says hopefully. She is echoing something back that he has said to her before. He swallows hard. He has to hold onto this. He has to maintain the idea that he has something approaching a baseline of normality in his existence. Humans have birthdays and if he wants to be treated as a human within the confines of his home, then he needs to accept this moment.

“Alright, honey, let’s pretend.” 

He tries to not think about sliding free of the bag that he had been grown in. Like a baby bird hatched from an egg, he had been left, dazed and trembling, to make sense of the world on an impersonal tile floor. The drainage grates had cut into his newly exposed flesh. He remembers the sensation of his pseudo placental fluids drying on his skin. He thought his bones would shatter into pieces from how hard he was shivering.

Loneliness and biting cold were his first real sensations in the world. He wonders if they will be his last. Would that not be poetic? Wet, frozen, and afraid all on his own. Beginning and end like the boards encasing the pages of a book. The first warmth he received was a towel thrown impatiently on top of him. Joshi’s eyes were not fond. They did not yet contain the clouded heat they would eventually come to hold in the dark hours of the day.

With burdened steps, he follows Joi to the table and sits back down in the purple chair. He braces himself in his seat. He feels weak in a way he has never felt before. She places the cake in front of him, breezing her hand over his arm before she withdraws from his space. 

“Make a wish,” she encourages, launching into a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. It is an uncomfortable experience, sitting there while trying to look content for her. He does not want to see that disappointed look on her face again.

Silent, the replicant leans forward and ‘blows’ out the candles. They extinguish, smoke trailing towards the ceiling. Even in his artificial memories, he did not experience any birthday celebrations. The orphanage in which he grew up did not provide them. He and the other children were used in place of sophisticated machinery. You do not celebrate the aging of tools. The countless hours spent sorting scrap in the outbuildings come to mind. Their hands had been chilled to stiff, waxy things, almost too cold to bleed when nicked by a sharp edge. Their breath had turned to frost in the air. Their eyes had clicked like marbles rattling in their skulls. None of them knew their ages. 

“What did you wish for?” Joi’s voice breaks into his reminiscing.

“You know I can't tell you that or it won’t come true.”

[ninjathrowingstork]

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.

[dwynartist]

I hyper focused and drew my sad replicant son

[stupidfuckingwindow]

Alright, gang. I've got to get back into the habit of trying to write in my free time. It's gonna be smut and will take a little while, but I need input from yall for help.

[firstaidspray]

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

[system-of-cells-interlinked]

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...

[frecklystars]

Things I plan to draw Ryan Gosling characters wearing:

Sierra Six: "I outpizza'd the hut and now the CIA is after me" shirt

Holland March: "Trophy Wife" crop top and booty shorts

Officer KD6-3.7: my "Joe Cool" red Snoopy shirt with sunglasses

Luke Glanton: that meme of the person smoking a cigarette with "get off my dick" written on the back of their shirt

Ken: absolutely nothing except my bracelet and the faux mojo mink

Colt Seavers: absolutely nothing, period

[drivinmeinsane]

Hot Chocolate ※ 12 Days of Goosemas

Day One ※ Officer K / Reader

{12 Days of Goosemas Masterlist} ※ {Regular Masterlist} ※ {ao3}

※ Summary: It has taken months of trading and seeking but you finally have all the ingredients for a special surprise just in time for the winter holiday.

※ Rating: No mature content.

※ Content/Tags: K survives, Fluff, Established Relationship, Generic Winter Holiday

※ Word count: 1480

※ Status: Oneshot/Complete

Gnawing on your lip, you examine the careful line up of ingredients on the counter in front of you. Cocoa powder, honey from K’s bees, salt, milk, vanilla extract, and marshmallows. All real, not fabricated, and painstakingly collected. You’re all too aware of the cost of the items. Everything has to be perfect and it has to rely on your faded memories of a paper recipe card from your childhood. It, along with the rest of the recipe cards in your family’s possession, had eventually been used as tinder for a fire. You sigh, more of a growl than a quiet exhalation of air. 

“I told you not to fuss,” K says from the other room, his voice gradually getting louder as he comes to stand in the doorway. He leans on the frame, finger marking his place in the paperback he’s holding.

You look over at him and are about to lean to block his line of sight to your kitchen project when you realize that his eyes are solely focused on you. Warmth bubbles up in your chest. “And I asked you to stay on the couch.”

He shrugs, unbothered. You approach him, knowing that he will be a silent observer until he gets a scrap of attention. K never asks for it directly. You’re barely to him before the replicant extends his arms and pulls you to his broad chest. You encircle his waist and find comfort in his warmth. Heat is a rarity this time of year. Central heat belongs only to the wealthy. He allows you to turn the two of you so his back is to the kitchen and to the surprise that you’re so worried about. Thankful for his patience, you press a kiss against his collarbone where the neck of his shirt has loosened up enough with age to expose it. K shivers and his arms tighten around your body, but one of his hands comes up to cradle the side of your face. His fingertips gently trace the shell of your ear.

“What are you working on, sweetheart?”

“It’s a surprise,” you say, closing your eyes contentedly.

K is all but petting you. His fingers leave trails of heat in their wake as they course new paths over your skin. The weight of his gaze bores into you, equally heated. He always looks at you like he cannot believe you’re present, tangible, able to to be touched. Filled with regret, you extract yourself from his embrace. His hand lingers, sliding across your jaw as you take a step back to gain much needed distance. If you weren’t careful, you would spend the rest of the holiday in his arms. Not a bad thing, but you want to give him even a small token of your affection in the form of a new experience. You’ve spent many hours discussing the flavors of different foods with him. He had been limited to the tasteless, synthetically produced excuse for food from his inception date to the time Deckard gathered his body off the stairs outside Satelline Labs.

Catching his free hand as it falls from your face, you give it a firm squeeze that he returns, careful to not crush your considerably more fragile bones in his grasp. His eyes are darting, examining every facet of your features. You bring his hand to your lips and give it a soft kiss across the scarred knuckles before letting it go.

“I won’t be long, honey. Put something festive on?”

He nods, relieved to have a task. You retreat back to the kitchen while he starts to flip through the collection of records that you and K have slowly been building together since he came into your life all those months ago. As with most of the objects in your shared home, they were scavenged from defunct buildings or traded for.

Turning on the burner, you place a pan with milk on the slowly heating element. You let the milk reach a near simmer before turning it off and slowly add the cocoa powder and salt to the liquid. You whisk it thoroughly, breaking up any clumps, and stir in the vanilla extract and then a reasonable dollop of honey. You scoop up a little bit into a spoon, blow on it, and sample. You add another pinch of cocoa powder before gathering up a second shallow spoonful and having checking it again. It tastes good, real.

From the other room, you hear music start to play. It sounds like the opening notes to Jingle Bells. You smile. Of course he chose the Frank Sinatra album. 

You move the pan to a potholder on the counter and take a mug down from the cupboard. You’re careful when pouring the hot chocolate into it, not wanting to waste a single drop. It is just enough to fill the mug with a finger’s width of space left for the marshmallows. You pick up the pillowy shapes with your fingers and gently deposit them on the surface. They float on top of the concoction like the seabirds you and K saw over the edge of the sea wall during a calm morning not so long ago.

Before making your way to the living room, you pick up the mug. Its chipped porcelain is warm against your knuckles when they brush against the side of it. K is sitting on the couch, drumming his fingers on his knee. He’s watching the record leisurely spin.

“Honey,” you say, coming to a stop in front of him.

He looks up at you with a crooked smile. “Darling.”

“Happy Holiday,” you say, offering him the still steaming mug, “Here. Be careful. It’s hot.”

The replicant takes it from you with a steady hand. He peers curiously into the vessel and pokes at one of the marshmallows with an exploratory finger. “What did you make?”

“Hot chocolate,” you tell him.

K brings the mug to his face, inhaling the scent deeply. He presses his lips to the edge of the cup and takes a pull. He doesn’t swallow right away and insteads lets the hot chocolate sit in his mouth for a brief moment, savoring the flavor. His eyes slip closed when he swallows but when he opens them, he looks dazzled. He rushes to take another drink of it. 

“Thank you,” he says once he has swallowed the second sip.

“Anything for you.”

The former LAPD officer reaches out with the hand not holding the mug and draws you to him, not standing. You come to rest on your knees between his spread legs. He leans forward and tips your head up with a still calloused hand, once from a firearm, now from farming a few select crops and tending to bees. You meet his gaze and hook your arms around the outsides of his thighs. You’re waiting for him to make the next move and he doesn’t disappoint.

He leans over further and presses a kiss to your mouth. His lips are hot against your own, and he tastes of sugar and chocolate. You can’t help but brush your tongue against the seam of his lips, swiping your tongue against his when he willingly opens for you. You’re fighting to not pant into his mouth and instead force yourself to withdraw, consoling yourself by sucking on his bottom lip. His grip on your chin tights slightly, just on the edge of too tight. He pulls away. You rise onto your knees to chase after him but he sits up just enough that you can’t capture his mouth in another kiss 

His blue eyes scan your face, tenderness etched onto his features. His lips are kiss-swollen and glossy. “What can I do for you?”

“Read to me?” You ask. You get to your feet, using his sturdy legs as an aid. You take a seat on the couch next to him.

“Such a simple request, sweetheart,” he says softly, picking up the book he was holding when he sought you out earlier. He shows the cover to you and you nod your approval before shifting so that you’re pressed against his side. You are all but curled up in his lap. 

K puts one arm around you, holding you close. His body temperature runs slightly higher than yours and you sigh into the warmth of him. He parts the pages of the book with his free hand. The book is splayed open on his knee. He seeks out the first page and upon finding it, he begins to speak.

“‘And still I dream he treads the lawn, Walking ghostly in the dew, Pierced by my glad singing through,’” K reads steadily. The soft tones of the album playing on the restored record intertwine with his voice. He reads long after the needle reaches the end, long after you’ve dozed off against him.

[ninjathrowingstork]

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.

______________________________________________________________

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. ->

[maekar76]

K and Joi, Blade Runner 2049

[brokenbendyb0t]

Ugh...

“You’ve been getting on fine without one.”

“What’s that madam?”

“A soul.”

That sucks to hear...

[sleepdeprivedchicken]

Watched Blade Runner 2049 earlier this month, such a great movie. Easily one of my favorite movies of all time.

[wendydoodles]

Blade Runner 2049 was beautiful and tragic and sad, etc but...what if instead, it had ended with some found family. ;___;