Simulacrum

Questions. From the roof of the Tyrell building, LA seemed to be a city of answers; maybe it was, but they weren't the answers that Lee wanted to hear. Mapped out before him, he could pinpoint places in the city that had once meant something to him. Zoom in. There was the market where he'd bought his goldfish; there was the sushi bar where he'd met Jane. That was when he was himself- his real self, and not this abomination. He felt nothing for Jane now, and nothing for himself. The real Michael Lee lay face down in a filthy back street, amongst wet cardboard boxes and overflowing waste bins. Or perhaps he was rotting forgotten in an abandoned tube station. It didn't matter. All that mattered was what existed now, a simulacrum, a box for his profanely copied memories. Erase everything that went before. Lee took another step closer to the city.

"Michael! What the hell are you doing?" Lee hadn't heard the lift doors slicing open behind him, and Joseph's words were also lost in the wind's howling soundtrack. Mironova stepped out behind Joseph and quickly took in the scene. Lee, his associate of seven years was standing on the brink of self-destruction. His silhouetted figure looked impossibly calm as the wind buffeted him and threw his jacket whipping out behind him.

"Christ, you have to stop him."

"Michael…. Michael… we can do tests!" Joseph bellowed against the unforgiving barrage of air. "Why don't you wait? We can prove this once and for all!"

"This is madness!" echoed Mironova.

At this, Lee turned slowly around to face the two men. The genetic designer's expression, although calm, appeared altogether distant from its usual state of calculating intelligence. His hair snaked about him in the wind, and his eyes betrayed him; he was unhinged.

"There's no point in proving what I already know, my friends. I'm a replicant. They took everything, and they replaced me."

Joseph edged his way closer to Lee.

"Christ, Michael, I can get on the blower right now and have a blade runner come over and VK you… go through the whole official process. You know we could arrange a bone marrow test if you-"

"Don't come any closer!" Lee's right leg edged backwards, and his foot found the lip of the building. Beyond that the vast pyramid sloped down to the ground below. Pause. He swallowed.

Holding his arm up to shield himself from the flying dust, Joseph stopped and thought for a moment. "Look," he said, "why are you hesitating? Do you fear death? If you're a rep, then just do it… what have you got to fear?"

Mironova grabbed Joseph and shook him. "Good God, man, what are you saying?"

"Don't you get it? If he's a rep he can't feel any goddamn fear," Joseph replied hastily. He turned back to Lee. "Come on! What are you waiting for? Are you scared?"

Lee's expression was unchanged. He raised his arms, and his jacket billowed out like a sail; the wind hurled itself against him as he fell, slow motion. His imposing upright figure arced gracefully away from them, into the horizontal, into the night sky.

An age passed as Joseph and Mironova watched in horror; this image would replay in their minds a thousand times. Lee's feet were the last of him to disappear from the centre of the nightmare panorama, and all that remained was the belching refineries on the skyline behind him. Neither man wanted to imagine the long, tumbling descent to the street below, the repeated bashing against the sloping walls, the aerials, and the antennae…

Mironova winced.

"Shit," breathed Joseph.

Date: 2002-05-18 17:30