Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

10

The Mission Street Hall of Justice building, onto the roof of which the hovercar descended, jutted up in a series of baroque, ornamented spires; complicated and modem, the handsome structure struck Rick Deckard as attractive—except for one aspect. He had never seen it before.

The police hovercar landed. And, a few minutes later, he found himself being booked.

“304,” Officer Crams said to the sergeant at the high desk. “And 612.4 and let’s see. Representing himself to be a peace officer.”

“406.7 the desk sergeant said, filling out the forms; he wrote leisurely, in a slightly bored manner. Routine business, his posture and expression declared. Nothing of importance.

“Over here,” Officer Crams said to Rick, leading him to a small white table at which a technician operated familiar equipment. “For your cephalic pattern,” Crams said. “Identpurposes.”

Rick said brusquely, “I know.” In the old days, when he had been a harness bull himself, he had brought many suspects to a table like this. Like this, but not this particular table.

His cephatic pattern taken, he found himself being led off to an equally familiar room; reflexively he began assembling his valuables for transfer. It makes no sense, he said to himself. Who are these people? If this place has always existed, why didn’t we know about it? And why don’t they know about us? Two parallel police agencies, he said to himself; ours and this one. But never coming in contact—as far as I know until now. Or maybe they have, he thought. Maybe this isn’t the first time. Hard to believe, he thought, that this wouldn’t have happened long ago. If this really is a police apparatus, here; if it’s what it asserts itself to be,

A man, not in uniform, detached himself from the spot at which he had been standing; he approached Rick Deckard at a measured, unruffled pace, gazing at him curiously. “What’s this one?” he asked Officer Crams.

“Suspected homicide,” Crams answered. “We have a body—we found it in his car—but he claims it’s an android. We’re checking it out, giving it a bone marrow analysis at the lab. And posing as a police officer, a bounty hunter. To gain access to a woman’s dressing room in order to ask her suggestive questions. She doubted he was what he said he was and called us in.” Stepping back, Crams said, “Do you want to finish up with him, sir? “

“All right.” The senior police official, not in uniform, blue-eyed, with a narrow, flaring nose and inexpressive lips, eyed Rick, then reached for Rick’s briefcase. “What do you have in here, Mr. Deckard? “

Rick said, “Material pertaining to the Voigt-KampfF personality test. I was testing a suspect when Officer Crams arrested me.” He watched as the police official rummaged through the contents of the briefcase, examining each item. “The questions I asked Miss Luft are standard V-K questions, printed on the—”

“Do you know George Gleason and Phil Resch?” the police official asked.

“No,” Rick said; neither name meant anything to him.

“They’re the bounty hunters for Northern California. Both are attached to our department. Maybe you’ll run into them while you’re here. Are you an android, Mr. Deckard? The reason I ask is that several times in the past we’ve had escaped andys turn up posing as out-of-state bounty hunters here in pursuit of a suspect.”

Rick said, “I’m not an android. You can administer the Voigt-Kampff test to me; I’ve taken it before and I don’t mind taking it again. But I know what the results will be. Can I phone my wife?”

“You’re allowed one call. Would you rather phone her than a lawyer?”

“I’ll phone my wife,” Rick said. “She can get a lawyer for me.”

The plainclothes police officer handed him a fifty-cent piece and pointed. “There’s the vidphone over there.” He watched as Rick crossed the room to the phone. Then he returned to his examination of the contents of Rick’s briefcase.

Inserting the coin, Rick dialed his home phone number. And stood for what seemed like an eternity, waiting.

A woman’s face appeared on the vidscreen. “Hello,” she said.

It was not Iran. He had never seen the woman before in his life.

He hung up, walked slowly back to the police officer.

“No luck?” the officer asked. “Well, you can make another call; we have a liberal policy in that regard. I can’t offer you the opportunity of calling a bondsman because your offense is unbailable, at present. When you’re arraigned, however—”

“I know,” Rick said acridly. “I’m familiar with police procedure.”

“Here’s your briefcase,” the officer said; he handed it back to Rick. “Come into my office I’d like to talk with you further.” He started down a side hall, leading the way; Rick followed. Then, pausing and turning, the officer said, “My name is Garland.” He held out his hand and they shook. Briefly. “Sit down,” Garland said as he opened his office door and pushed behind a large uncluttered desk.

Rick seated himself facing the desk.

“This Voigt-Kampff test,” Garland said, that you mentioned.” He indicated Rick’s briefcase. “All that material you carry.” he filled and lit a pipe, puffed for a moment. “It’s an analytical tool for detecting andys?”

“It’s our basic test,” Rick said. “The only one we currently employ. The only one capable of distinguishing the new Nexus-6 brain unit. You haven’t heard of this test?”

“I’ve heard of several profile-analysis scales for use with androids. But not that one.” He continued to study Rick intently, his face turgid; Rick could not fathom what Garland was thinking. “Those smudged carbon flimsies,” Garland continued, “that you have there in your briefcase. Polokov, Miss Luft … your assignments. The next one is me.”

Rick stared at him, then grabbed for the briefcase.

In a moment the carbons lay spread out before him. Garland had told the truth; Rick examined the sheet. Neither man—or rather neither he nor Garland—spoke for a time and then Garland cleared his throat, coughed nervously.

“It’s an unpleasant sensation,” he said. “To find yourself a bounty hunter’s assignment all of a sudden. Or whatever it is you are, Deckard.” He pressed a key on his desk intercom and said, “Send one of the bounty hunters in here; I don’t care which one. Okay; thank you.” He released the key. “Phil Resch will be in here a minute or so from now,” he said to Rick. “I want to see his list before I proceed.”

“You think I might be on his list?” Rick said.

“It’s possible. We’ll know pretty soon. Best to be sure about these critical matters. Best not to leave it to chance. This info sheet about me.” He indicated the smudged carbon. “It doesn’t list me as a police inspector; it inaccurately gives my occupation as insurance underwriter. Otherwise it’s correct, as to physical description, age, personal habits, home address. Yes, it’s me, all right. Look for yourself.” He pushed the page to Rick, who picked it up and glanced over it.

The office door opened and a tall fleshless man with hard-etched features, wearing horn-rim glasses and a fuzzy Vandyke beard, appeared. Garland rose, indicating Rick.

“Phil Resch, Rick Deckard. You’re both bounty hunters and it’s probably time you met.”

As he shook hands with Rick, Phil Resch said, “Which city are you attached to?”

Garland answered for Rick. “San Francisco. Here; take a look at his schedule. This one comes up next.” He handed Phil Resch the sheet which Rick had been examining, that with his own description.

“Say, Gar,” Phil Resch said. “This is you.”

“There’s more,” Garland said. “He’s also got Luba Luft the opera singer there on his list of retirement-assignments, and Polokov. Remember Polokov? He’s now dead; this bounty hunter or android or whatever he is got him, and we running a bone marrow test at the lab. To see if there’s any conceivable basis—”

“Polokov I’ve talked to,” Phil Resch said. “That big Santa Claus from the Soviet police?” He pondered, plucking at his disarrayed beard. “I think it’s a good idea to run a bone marrow test on him.”

“Why do you say that?” Garland asked, clearly annoyed. “It’s to remove any legal basis on which this man Deckard could claim he hadn’t killed anyone; he only ‘retired an android.”‘

Phil Resch said, “Polokov struck me as cold. Extremely cerebral and calculating; detached.”

“A lot of the Soviet police are that way,” Garland said, visibly nettled.

“Luba Luft I never met,” Phil Resch said. “Although I’ve heard records she’s made.” To Rick he said, “Did you test her out? “

“I started to,” Rick said. “But I couldn’t get an accurate reading. And she called in a harness bull, which ended it.”

“And Polokov?” Phil Resch asked.

“I never got a chance to test him either.”

Phil Resch said, mostly to himself, “And I assume you haven’t had an opportunity to test out Inspector Garland, here.”

“Of course not,” Garland interjected, his face wrinkled with indignation; his words broke off, bitter and sharp.

“What test do you use?” Phil Resch asked.

“The Voigt-Kampff scale.”

“Don’t know that particular one.” Both Resch and Garland seemed deep in rapid, professional thought-but not in unison. “I’ve always said,” he continued, “that the best place for an android would be with a big police organization such as W.P.O. Ever since I first met Polokov I’ve wanted to test him, but no pretext ever arose. It never would have, either … which is one of the values such a spot would have for an enterprising android.”

Getting slowly to his feet Inspector Garland faced Phil Resch and said, “Have you wanted to test me, too?”

A discreet smiled traveled across Phil Resch’s face; he started to answer, then shrugged. And remained silent. He did not seem afraid of his superior, despite Garland’s palpable wrath.

“I don’t think you understand the situation,” Garland said. “This man—or android—Rick Deckard comes to us from a phantom, hallucinatory, nonexistent police agency allegedly operating out of the old departmental headquarters on Lombard. He’s never heard of us and we’ve never heard of him—yet ostensibly we’re both working the same side of the street. He employs a test we’ve never heard of. The list he carries around isn’t of androids; it’s a list of human beings. He’s already killed once—at least once. And if Miss Luft hadn’t gotten to a phone he probably would have killed her and then eventually he would have come sniffing around after me.”

“Hmm,” Phil Resch said.

“Hmm,” Garland mimicked, wrathfully. He looked, now, as if he bordered on apoplexy. “Is that all you have to say?”

The intercom came on and a female voice said, “Inspector Garland, the lab report on Mr. Polokov’s corpse is ready.”

“I think we should hear it,” Phil Resch said.

Garland glanced at him, seething. Then he bent, pressed the key of the intercom. “Let’s have it, Miss French.”

“The bone marrow test,” Miss French said, “shows that Mr. Polokov was a humanoid robot. Do you want a detailed—”

“No, that’s enough.” Garland settled back in his seat, grimly contemplating the far wall; he said nothing to either Rick or Phil Resch.

Resch said, “What is the basis of your Voigt-Kampff test, Mr. Deckard?”

“Empathic response. In a variety of social situations. Mostly having to do with animals.”

“Ours is probably simpler,” Resch said. The reflex-arc response taking place in the upper ganglia of the spinal column requires several microseconds more in the humanoid robot than in a human nervous system.” Reaching across Inspector Garland’s desk he plucked a pad of paper toward him; with a ball-point pen he drew a sketch. “We use an audio signal or a light-flash. The subject presses a button and the elapsed time is measured. We try it a number of times, of course. Elapsed time varies in both the andy and the human. But by the time ten reactions have been measured, we believe we have a reliable clue. And, as in your case with Polokov, the bone marrow test backs us up.”

An interval of silence passed and then Rick said, “You can test me out. I’m ready. Of course I’d like to test you, too. If you’re willing.”

“Naturally,” Resch said. He was, however, studying Inspector Garland. “I’ve said for years,” Resch murmured, that the Boneli Reflex-Arc Test should be applied routinely to police personnel the higher up the chain of command the better. Haven’t I, Inspector?”

“That’s right you have,” Garland said. “And I’ve always opposed it. On the grounds that it would lower department morale.”

“I think now,” Rick said, “you’re going to have to sit still for it. In view of your lab’s report on Polokov.”