Eyes
He stood silently at the window of his office in Tyrell Tower 2.
His solid, upright, 6-foot frame spoke of a strong, fit man, but
the freckled dome of his head with its small, neat patches of remaining
grey hair betrayed his advancing years. His black microfibre suit
absorbed what little light filtered through the haze outside. Even
blacker, his obsidian eyes framed with deep wrinkles gazed impassively
at the familiar landscape.
He had chosen not to take up residence on the top floor, but from
his window he could still see Tyrell's office over at the top of
Tower 1. Spinners bisected the space between the buildings. A short
distance to fly, but a world between them.
Barely audible words escaped his lips, "Soon, Eldon. Very
soon now."
The steel nameplate on the door of his office stated that he was
Dr. Hermann Schlecht, Senior Vice President. A title they'd agreed
on right at the beginning. He turned away from the window and settled
into the soft leather cushioning of his aluminium-framed chair.
Picked out of an office catalogue decades before, it was a relic
of a time when animals were farmed for food and skins. He picked
up the glass of Schnapps from his sleek Bauhaus desk. He didn't
drink; just observed the thick liquid slide around the inside of
the smooth, curved surface as he rolled the glass between his dry
fingers.
His office was large by most people's standards, but nothing like
the ostentatious temple where Tyrell met visiting dignitaries and
questionable business partners. Schlecht glanced across at the array
of plasma screens fitted subtly amongst the old bookcases. That
was how it was always meant to be - the technology merging quietly
into the best of the old world.
His eyes glazed as they defocused, seeing instead back in time
to the early days. The fun and glory days. When he and Eldon were
in it simply for the excitement of doing what nobody else had. Their
first success prompted them to drop out of college and form their
own little company. There had been no question that the smooth-talking,
slick American Tyrell should be the figurehead. Schlecht's heavy
German accent and lack of any interest in the money and business
side wouldn't have got them very far in this New World.
They were young then, but only Hermann had been innocent. Once
he had jokingly said, "With the way technology is going, one
day we could create a whole robot labour force that looks and acts
human!" At the time he hadn't given any thought to Eldon's
quiet smiling, "Yes. Why don't we do that?" After all,
it was just a joke, wasn't it? It was many years before Hermann
realised his friend had been deadly serious.
He couldn't remember when L.A. hadn't been polluted, but back then
it was easy to find somewhere to breathe. Not that he had really
spent much time outside, always working away in his laboratory trying
to make their creations better, smarter, more human. Never looking
up from his work to take much notice of the changing world. Global
disaster - it didn't matter to him in the depths of the old Tyrell
Corp building. The huge funding that came with the push to move
Off-World just meant more resources for him, new buildings, new
laboratories, better replicants.
Had he really not noticed? Or had he chosen not to look? Not to
see what Eldon had created - this huge dominating corporation. His
one-time friend becoming more distant, their irregular talks limited
to technical discussions. The ever-thickening glasses obscuring
Tyrell's thoughts. Could he have stopped it? Reality had woken him
up a couple of years ago when a renegade replicant had returned
to see his Maker, demanding more life. Schlecht had watched the
discs. Recordings from Tyrell's own separate network of security
cameras.
He might have admired the Batty's physique, power and grace - results
of Schlecht's genius, if he had not been so disgusted at how Tyrell
had programmed the replicants. Better. More human. Too human. And
sentenced to early death.
Schlecht had woken up on that day.
It had been a simple matter for him to patch in to both the main
security and also Tyrell's own security system. Nobody noticed.
Nobody would have even suspected him. Cameras everywhere. But all
blind to loyal Hermann.
His eyes snapped back into focus at the single screen perched on
the clinically ordered top of his desk - his access to the corporate
eyes. Silent alerts had been triggered. A distant external lens
focused in on a familiar face. The face of Michael Lee.
Options
Option 1 - The body of Michael
Lee
Option 2 - Glenn Mironova
Option 3 - Rep-Detect
Pages in white continue the story. Pages
in yellow are yet to be written. Note that the unwritten
options are just suggestions for how the story might continue
- you can add something completely different if you like.
Each page in the story ends in a five letter
code. If you want to return to this page in the future, make
a note of the page code and you will then be able to change
your URL to take you straight back to that page.
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Date: 2002-06-11 23:50
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