EdgeOfHuman by Unknown Page A

tests; that muh-muh-machine you guys haul around with yourselves. It was something else. Something inside you. That could suh-say, 'This one's human and this one's not.' That's the essential thing, isn't it? About being a buh-blade runner. That ability to muh-make the distinction between what's human and wuh-what's not. What just goes around and walks and talks and acts like a human."
    He shifted in the chair, as though trying to avoid the probe of the other's words. "I suppose so."
    "That's vuh-very interesting, Mr. Deckard." With a forefinger Isidore tapped one lens of his glasses. "You know, I see pruh-pretty well -- at least, with these I do -- but that's wuh-wuh-one thing I've never seen. This difference between human and not. Between the ruh-real and the fuh-fake. I don't think I could, even if I had one of your fuh-fuh-fancy Voigt-kuh-Kampff machines." He gave a tilt of his head toward the office's door. "It comes with the territory, I guh-guess. My territory, that is. Like out there with the animals. You said the fuh-phony ones gave you the creeps . . . the ones you could tell were phony, because they were broken or something. And for a minute there, I couldn't even tell what the huh-huh- hell you were talking about." He still looked perplexed. "I mean, I understand -- I can tell the difference between one and the other -- up here . . ." A finger tapped the side of his head. "But I can't tell the difference down here ." The same finger prodded at the chest beneath the white lab coat. "But I guess that's fairly common, huh? Otherwise we wouldn't have Voigt-Kampff machines. Or blade runners."
    The guy had started getting on Deckard's nerves. The soft sarcasm ignited a defensive spark inside his own chest. "You're forgetting something. The Voigt-Kampff machines, the tests, those blade runner skills . . . they all detect and measure something that actually exists. That's empathy . You know what that is?"
    "I got an idea."
    Deckard leaned forward, drilling his hard level gaze into Isidore's, "It's the ability to feel. To feel what another living creature feels. Humans have it. Replicants don't. Not to the same degree; not enough. That's what makes them dangerous."
    One of Isidore's eyebrows lifted. "This empathy . . . Rachael duh-doesn't have it?"
    The spark burned hotter inside him; he could've killed the man on the other side of the desk. "Maybe not," he said finally. "Or she wouldn't have let me fall in love with her. She'd have known better."
    A sigh, a shake of the head. "See how much you complicate things? With all this buh-business about what's fake and what's real. Your big-duh-deal Voigt-Kampff machines . . . what do they measure? Really measure. A millisecond's difference in pupil dilation times; a blush response that's one shade less puh-pink than the prescribed norm. You know what you were like, when you were running around being such a buh-bad-ass blade runner? Like a Rassenprüfer ; something else right out of the Third Reich." The stammer evaporated as Isidore's ire rose. "Remember what those were? Racial examiners. Going around Berlin with calipers and measuring people's noses, right out on the street. A millimeter too big, not quite the correct shape, and boom, you weren't defined as human anymore. Your ass was off to Auschwitz. At least the Nazis preferred doing their killing somewhere out of sight -- guess that makes them a class act compared to you guys."
    Deckard stayed silent, letting the other's words hit him in the face and drop away like the sharp crystals of an ice storm. He knew all this shit. It was in the books. He'd even thought about it, in those long night hours, shirt bloodied and bottle at hand. Until it couldn't be thought about anymore, not without falling off the Curve. And landing somewhere at the bottom, with his hand resting on the gun above his heart. thinking over and time for action. The last one possible . . .
    "Look. I told you already." He felt a thin sheen of sweat on his