The Title

by David Caldwell

When Shiva Starts to Dance: Part 11.

Emotional responses

Rolf rolled over to face Rick, placing his hand on Rick's cock, gently stroking the head of the soft member with the tips of his fingers.

"Michael said that you had been given human memory implants and that you hadn't been aware of what you are."
Rick opened his eyes and looked at Rolf.
"That's right, this is all new to me. After I met Rachael I always new it was a possibility, but we never talked about it." He turned away and looked up at the canopy of the bed high above them.

"What was being with Rachael like? Could you fall in love? What does love feel like?" Rolf blurted out the questions and then continued on without leaving space for Rick to reply. "We're told that we're incapable of empathetic responses and therefore incapable of caring for another being. I know I don't want anything bad to happen to Opal or Michael or you, isn't that caring?" Rolf's voice had increased in volume. Rick placed his hand on Rolf's lips.

"Look Rolf, I don't know about this stuff. I don't know if Rachael and I were in love or we just needed one another. All I do know is that after she died I couldn't think properly, I couldn't think about my own life. Who knows what we can learn over time now that we don't have to "stop" after four years. Humans aren't born with fully developed emotions and some never develop them. Whoever's memories I was implanted with sure hadn't."

Rolf made to speak but Rick clamped his mouth over Rolf's lips triggering an ardent response which was part of the replicant's original programming. He rolled Rick onto his belly and slithered into a position that placed his hard cock in the cleft of Rick's ass, rubbing it with force up and down.

Gaff steered his Spinner towards the building that had been the central office of the City Police Force including the Blade Runner Unit. As he was setting down on the rooftop pad the on-board announced that he had energy reserves for thirty hours more operation. Thirty hours more in which to achieve his mission to annihilate the skinjobs. He made his way through the abandoned headquarters towards the Police armoury.

He searched amongst the containers of discarded weaponry and found what he had been looking for. He said aloud, "Time enough."

Rolf and Rick made their way back to the lab where Michael and Opal had been developing the nanites. They had been gone overnight and Rick wondered about Michael's reaction, was he capable of jealousy?

Michael was standing next to a stranger who was seated on one of the lab tables. Rick could see that Michael was removing a catheter from the man's arm. Opal was standing at an ESPER console next to a seated woman.

Rick and Rolf lay down some of the equipment they had salvaged. Michael turned around at the noise.
"The scavengers return. I trust you had a fruitful expedition," he said looking at Rick with an ironic grin on his face.

'Humour and sarcasm are dependent on empathy,' thought Rick. 'Perhaps Michael was capable of complex emotional responses such as love and jealousy.'

"Rolf, Rick, I'd like to introduce you to Shig and Odile." The man Shig jumped to his feet and bowed, the woman Odile rose and walked across to the two men and kissed both of them on the cheek and then said something in French a second later repeating in perfectly unaccented English that she was glad to meet two more of her brothers. Rick looking at Odile's face was reminded of a picture he had once seen of a dark skinned Egyptian Princess and in fact everything about her bearing supported this reminiscence.

"Shig and Odile arrived yesterday. They had been Terra Formers for the Monde de Nippon Corporation, but I'll let them tell you their story, Opal and I have to go and greet some more arrivals."

Rick and Rolf sat down and Shig began to relate their story.

"As Michael said, we were both assigned to a Terra Forming group, setting up initial atmosphere and climate control centres on new planets. There were thirty Replicants in the team all with the same incept dates with two years left to run. We'd completed our last designated mission and were to be shipped back to the corporation headquarters on Mars, or so we were told."

Odile took over the story. "One of the guards got drunk and told one of the pleasure units that the corporation intended to dispense with our services by taking off and once out of the atmosphere opening the cargo bay doors and blowing us out into space. Quick, clean and no risk of having to openly confront us. We killed them all, took the ship and headed back to Earth. The corporation attempted to intercept us but we escaped. Once we'd landed outside of Vegas we picked up the signal that Michael had been sending out over the ESPER. Shig and I came to Los Angeles to scout things out and here we are. The others are coming in today."