Chapter Text
The blade runners arrive in a black armored spinner.
It comes straight down out of the over-cast skies, humming like a great insect as it circles the roof of the building. It’s a municipal library laid open along it’s flank by post-Black Out C-beams which sheared it open like a knife cuts the skin off a protein cube. The spinner headlights cut through the dust, throwing the ribs of the building into relief.
There’s a roof garden. Hanging pots heavy with greenery strung up from old stone gables that line a central pavilion. Synthetic crops of course, planted in nitrate-soaked nutrient beds. There are rice paddies in the fountain channels, a make-shift greenhouse built from solar-sheeting. A parked spinner is sitting on the west-side of the roof and it’s there that the black armored spinner makes its landing, parking directly between the garden and the vehicle.
It’s quiet.
Then three replicants in black tactical gear and wool over-coats step out of the spinner.
“Wow,” says one of them, a woman with black hair and dark skin. Her eyes shine with wonder. “It smells nice up here.”
“Because there are flowers,” says the man on her left. He’s got his hands in his pockets. His eyes are blue and his hair thick, dark, and pulled back off his forehead. He points. “See, M? Synthetic, but they still produce a form of glucose. Nature hardly knows the difference.
“He’s still just sitting there,” says the third blade-runner, a blond man, features so sharp they look engineered. “Why isn’t he running, L?”
“I dunno, Z,” says the man called ‘L’. “Let’s ask him.
The three manufactured murderers make their way through the hanging garden, along the gables, to the central fountain. The water bubbles gently from a central spout, long since broken open to a raw pipe, water pooling in a stone bowl at the base. A previous generation might have called it a birdbath. This generation has never seen a bird in the flesh, so they wouldn’t. Around this fountain are three stacks of blue boxes set on cinder blocks. The air buzzes around the boxes, the roof top filled with the lazy noise of insects coming and going. In the middle of this: a young man in work-boots, jeans, and a worn blue sweater. His hair is cropped close to his skull, the color of wet sand, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows.
He’s kneeling by one of the hives.
He’s got the top open, like you pop the lid off a shoebox and he is inspecting the inside. There are bees crawling on his clothes, on his forearms and hands, but it doesn’t seem to trouble him. LD7-1.1, MD7-1.1, and ZD7-1.1 all watch him for a moment, but he doesn’t seem to notice them. There’s a metal canister in his hand that smokes gently from a funnel at the top. It’s clear he knows they are there, but he just keeps working.
Eventually, LD7-1.1 steps forward, his hands still in his jacket pockets.
“We thought you’d run.”
The KD6 model doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. He pauses, briefly, while ‘L’ is talking but he doesn’t make a move to greet them. Instead, he pumps the small latch at the top of the canister. When he does, a concentrated puff of the smoke jets across the top of the box like a smoker’s breath. L, fascinated, makes no move to interrupt him. Officer K sets the tool aside and removes a hooked knife from his belt. He flips it in his hand, fast, inhuman smooth.
There are ten thin wood slats across the top of the box.
Officer K uses the hooked part of the knife to catch the underside of one slat, hooking the lip of the wood and levering it so the slat comes up – revealing a full frame caked in interlocked little cells of waxy almost organic looking masses. The frames are heavy with sluggish insects, the honey bees buzzing and crawling lazily, taking off with drunk stupor as their keeper gently brushes them away with his bare hand, bending his head to blow on them, knocking them loose from their place until the frame is clean of insects.
He finally turns, holding the frame at the edges. For a second, he looks directly at L.
“Excuse me,” their target says.
His voice is low, calm.
The assassin head tilts. He smiles a little – seemingly enthralled by the process, the insects, and their keeper.
L tilts his head the other way, like a new angle will make a difference. “What’s the smoke do?” he asks.
“Calms the swarm,” says the beekeeper. “I need to store this.”
He moves past all three of them to lie the frame down inside an empty plastic tub. They don’t touch him, M and Z following L’s lead and they, like him, watch their target kneel and store the little wood frame. He covers the tub with a towel, turns, and walks back to the hive. He palms the knife-hook again and pries another frame from the honey super. He does with this frame exactly what he did with the first. He inspects it closely, eyes searching the mass of creatures on the honeycomb for some invisible variable known only to him. He lowers his head again, blows the bees away. It’s… oddly intimate watching him do it and without looking, all three know individually that the other two are thinking something similar.
K brushes the frame clean with his fingers. He shakes his head to dislodge a few lazy insects from his hair. Then he turns around.
This time, as he passes, L catches his arm at the bicep. Not hard, just to stop him.
K looks L in the eyes, waiting.
“Don’t they sting you?” L asks.
“Sure,” K says. “It just doesn’t hurt.”
L smiles, tightening his grip on K’s arm. K doesn’t react.
“That didn’t seem strange to you? That synthetic creatures would attack their keepers?”
“No,” K says. “Not after being left too long without maintenance. Their self-defense parameters are likely too broad now.”
L’s smile widens, his pale eyes searching K’s non-expression. “Yeah… you would think that seems normal, wouldn’t you?”
K says nothing.
For a moment, L starts to flex his arm as though to pull K toward him… but he stops. His fingers open. L inclines his head, indicating that K go back to what he was doing and the other two blade runners step back to let the KD6 pass. They watch K pull ten frames from the top compartment of the hive. Then he closes the hive back up, sets the smoker aside and switches it off. He puts the hook knife back on his belt and picks up the tub of capped frames. He puts it on his hip, under his arm, and looks over his shoulder at the three of them.
“I’m going to extract this,” he says, “in my apartment. You can come if you want.”
“Yeah?” L says, captivated. “Why would we do that?”
K’s expression remains empty. “So you can try some of it,” he says. “I changed the feed solution this time.”
L moves toward K, slowly, lazily, as if waiting to see if the older-gen will finally flinch but the former blade runner does no such thing. He just stares at him, monitoring his movements, making no move even when L leans a little too close to his face, near enough their noses almost touch, close enough L can pick out the bio-organic texture in the iris of K’s blue-green stare. This close, L can smell the smoke in his hair and clothes. See the fine imperfections in his skin. He puts on hand on K’s hip. K doesn’t move. He smiles wider… and takes the hooked knife tool from K’s belt. He steps back again.
“That sounds nice,” L says, pocketing the knife. “Thank you. Guys, doesn’t that sound nice?”
Z and M exchange a look.
“Sure,” says M.
Z shrugs. “Whatever.”
K leads all three of the blade runners to an elevator. He keys in a code, hits a button, and calls the lift. When it arrives, L gets in first and leans back against the wall, bracing his arms on the rusted handrail. Z and M stare at K until he gets in and faces forward. Then they enter the elevator on either side of him so he’s surrounded. If, again, this troubles Officer K… he gives no sign. He just hits the button for floor three and the door rattles shut. The lift is slow, powered by feeble solar reserves.
As they wait for it to crawl downward, listening passively to the groan of ancient machinery, L takes one step forward from the back of the lift. When he does this, it leaves him standing directly at K’s back. His boots inches from K’s heels, so close he’s almost touching him. K’s eyes flicker left, like he wants to look over his shoulder, but he does not move. M and Z pretend not to see. L leans forward a little, his nose and mouth ghosting near his shoulder. His eyes are on the side of K’s face, watching the lines of his jaw for tension, for a sign he’s going to look. When he doesn’t, L closes his eyes and inhales something from the fabric of his shirt. Then he moves to nape of K’s neck, leaning so close his breath is warm against skin.
On a whim, he blows gently on his neck, like K did to remove the bees from the hive.
This time, K’s spine tightens, his grip on the lip of the plastic tub clenching fractionally.
L smiles.
“K,” he murmurs, “are you nervous?”
“A little,” he says. “I’m worried this batch won’t turn out.”
L laughs. “Right. Of course.”
Then he moves his hands. He places them at K’s biceps. He uses the hold to keep K still as he leans in over his shoulder to whisper, “You know we’re here to take you with us, right?” When he gets no answer, L presses his lips against the shell of K’s ear, words vibrating warm into the complex coil of the cochlear nerve. “You’re still going to be a good host, right, brother?” He’s leaning up against the back of K’s body now. “We did come a long way to find you.”
K doesn’t react. He just stares forward.
“Sure thing,” he says.
The elevator dings and the doors open at the third floor.
K steps out of the elevator into a beautiful hallway. The walls are deep red brick, the hall lights a series of warm yellow ceiling lamps. There are faux-wood park benches clearly taken from outside now lined up along the walls. On them: stacks of physical books piled high. There are about four-dozen wind-chimes in various states of disrepair and style nailed to the ceiling. There are sections of the brick that are over-run with white chalk writing – Japanese mostly, a little English, a lot of math equations. The chimes near the vents ping gently as the four replicants pass, following K in a small tight formation.
K comes to a door at the very end of the hall. He unlocks it with a finger-touch, pushing his shoulder against it.
The apartment is bigger than your average city flat, but not much bigger. The floors are faux wood panels and tile. The walls lined in shelves, absolutely jammed full of books and brick-brack, work boots lined up by the door. The foyer gives way immediately into a wider living space – a couch on one side, a low coffee table messy with an electronics project and a forgotten coffee mug. There’s a bed against the wall. A single mattress. Unmade, clothes rumpled on the comforter. An old-world juke box by the window.
“Don’t track in dirt,” K says.
The trio of killers pause, temporarily confused by the assertiveness of the order. They peer dubiously at one another before ignoring him and following the older-gen replicant into the living space.
K moves directly to the kitchen.
His would-be-killers follow him. The kitchen is closed. No way out of it except back through them. A bar-style counter separates the kitchen from the living room, three stools lined against it. The counter space is crowded with small pots growing green things – peppermint, thyme, and garlic. M and Z take a seat at the bar and wait.
K goes to the sink.
He sets the tub down by an odd metal cylinder on the floor. He opens a drawer and takes out a heat knife. None of the blade-runners stop him. K, like-wise, ignores them and picks up one of the frames. The heat from the knife melts the wax, shears it like butter as he scraps the wax caps from the face of the honeycomb. As he cuts, the interior of the cells glisten gold and begin to run. K idly sucks a bit of honey from his thumb and places the frame inside the cylinder. He does this with three frames, then flips a switch. This sets the interior to spin, throwing liquid gold into the collection at the bottom of the canister.
K picks up a glass from the counter, fills it with water, and takes a drink. Then he picks up a small mason jar from a tray by the stove.
He fills the jar from a spout in the base of the cylinder and puts it on the counter in front of M and Z.
“That’s yours,” he says.
L is going through the cabinets and the drawers. He finds a weapon, a standard pistol, in a knife drawer. He empties the magazine and puts it back. He makes no comment on it. M and Z just stare, watching K with rapt interest. With intent so specific it must have a weight on K’s skin, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. He gets bread, actual bread, from a sealed bag in one of the drawers. He uses the heat-knife to cut it, toasting four pieces which he puts on a gray plate with a chip in the rim.
“Wow,” says M, when he puts the plate down near her.
K picks up the mason jar and dumps honey on a piece of toast, then hands it to her.
L moves to stand at K’s back when he’s doing this.
K keeps doing what he’s doing.
M eats her toast immediately, a little smile warming her lips. “I like it,” she says. “It’s really good!”
“Glad to hear it,” K says in a tone that could be sardonic. He pushes the plate toward her. “You can have mine.”
L loops his arms around K’s stomach, gripping his own wrist and pulling K back against him.
“Why are you so calm?” L asks. His hands press low, just under K’s belt and this time K closes his eyes and his hands stop moving. L smiles, whispering again close to his ear. “Not complaining, but it’s not going to stop us.” His hand closes over the buckle of K’s belt. “We can take our time if that’s what you’re trying to do though.”
“I’m not doing anything,” K says. His hands are flat on the counter top now.
L laughs. “Stop being so fucking calm, K.”
“Why do you care if I’m calm or not?”
“Because it’s more fun if you panic.”
“They made your lot to like that kind of thing?”
“You bet, brother.” L’s touching his stomach, his hand moving up his chest. “Life’s good when you like your job, isn’t it?” He presses his nose and mouth into K’s shoulder, inhaling. His skin still smells like smoke. “They got it all wrong with your line, Constant K. Wrong kind of emotional. You last longer on a job if you’re looking forward to it, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sure,” says K. His hands curl on the counter. “But I’m not the one you’re looking for.”
L laughs. “Oh? Okay. What’s your name, then?”
“It’s Joe.”
L laughs again. “Just a regular joe.”
K says nothing.
“Definitely not a blade runner,” says L, leaning against him. “Definitely not Officer K D Six Dash Three Dot Seven of the LAPD. Five-year tenure. Fifty fucking retirements on his record. Ten skinners a year you put down. Almost one a month. That’s fuckin’ amazing. Never seen numbers like that, but then again… group killing was a specialty of yours. Right?”
K closes his eyes. “I’m not him.”
“You were good,” says L, ignoring him. “You were going strong too before you went off your baseline and, wow, that’s a first. A Nexus Nine blade runner off his fucking baseline. You ran. That’s… honestly, it’s so interesting. I was so happy when they gave me your file, K. I’ve wanted to bring you in so, really, thank you for making all this possible.”
When K does not answer, L goes on.
“Real honey’s been extinct for decades. How long did you think you could sell it and not draw attention?”
That gets a reaction. K’s brow knits and he give L a look like he’s an idiot.
L smiles. It’s a jackal’s grin. “You didn’t know?”
K’s confusion dissolves into something – exhausted comprehension, resignation like ‘of course, stupid’. His eyes close.
“Who gave you the hives? They didn’t tell you?”
“Synthetic life is almost indistinguishable from natural life,” K says. “No one would know at a glance.”
“So true,” L says. He pulls something from his pocket and then shows K the eye-scanner. “Don’t fight us, KD6. You’ll lose.”
K ignores L’s comment. He’s looking at Z, the angular blonde one who hasn’t touched the honey-bread yet.
He says, “You can have some, you know.”
“Z doesn’t like to eat until mission’s over,” M says.
“Easier to keep an empty stomach,” K says, “until the hard part of the day is over.”
Z just stares at him. Then he moves so fast, K barely sees it when the blade runner’s hand snaps forward and closes like a vice around his wrist. K freezes, wary, but doesn’t pull away. Z leans across the counter a little, his almost colorless blue eyes fixed on K’s features.
“How’d you run?” Z asks.
K’s brow knits. “What?”
“How’d you run? How did you do it?” Z pulls him forward, so hard his hip hits the counter. “Your model was weak. So how’d you do it?”
K tries to curl his arm back but Z is strong. Stronger than him. Bigger than him. Z is the tallest of the new-gen trio. His fingers on K’s wrist are adamantine. At least three grades up in muscle density, built on bones made to handle the strain. K braces himself against the counter with his other hand, but Z starts pulling his arm forward, drawing his hand relentlessly toward him. L lets go of K’s waist to lean against the counter and watch. M quietly steals the last of the honey-bread for herself.
Z studies K’s hand. He bends his head down.
K’s jaw tightens.
Z brings K’s hand to his mouth. He drags his tongue across his thumb, the same one K licked honey from, and closes his mouth on it, closes teeth and –
K yanks his wrist free of Z’s hold (is let go from Z’s hold) and falls back against the far counter by the sink, smacking his elbow into the cabinets. He stares. The three new gen blade runners all turn toward him, like they’re parts of a single thing, and K backs away toward the corner.
“We just want to ask you some questions,” L says.
“Yeah,” K says. “Sure.”
Z is coming around the counter. All three of them are coming around the counter. K presses back into the corner.
“Remember what you said… about my specialty?”
L laughs. “You gonna group-kill us?”
Something like… regret crosses into the older model’s face. He closes his eyes, covering his ears like he’s afraid of what’s coming and for a moment the blade runners stop to admire that. K breathes. Then:
“Yeah,” he says.
Then he whistles and that sets off the trap.
The flash-bang goes off from a ceiling node, blasting the plaster apart and all three of the new-gens scream, their retinas burning and strobed with fire. K though… K is moving. He has the cold heat-knife in his hand and before they’ve finished staggering, he slams it through Z’s throat and grabs his handgun in the same motion. He immediately shoots M in the gut and hooks his arm around Z’s neck, whipping his face into the counter. Then he really gets a grip and slams his skull through the tile counter-top, shattering the tile and plaster like he hit it with a hammer. This happens in the span of a single second.
K pivots, aims, and shoots L directly in the chest. L slams into the wall, stunned, the body armor under his shirt smoking.
“You…” He’s gasping. “You… fucking…”
K levels the gun at L’s head – sure as sunrise – and pulls the trigger.
The weapon jams red. Bio-lock in the grip.
“Shit,” he says.
K vaults the bar and hits the ground in a flat-out sprint for the foyer. K reaches door, rips the latch open, is almost through when L shoots him. The bullet punches through his thigh and knocks K against the doorjamb. Blood splatters the faux-wood paneling. He gets the door open. The second shot hits him in the same thigh, cracking his femur and K goes does with a scream but falls through the door into the hall. The carpet smells like dust and old books. K kicks the door shut like that will do any good. Like it’s going to make a fucking difference.
Then, for a moment, K’s possessed by the pain – he lies there, clutching the pulsing wound in his leg, letting it glow through him. His vision swims. Blood is saturating his pants. It’s hot and the pain is relentless even as his superior coagulation closes severed arteries. He tries to get his feet under him but there’s a bullet burning in the meat of his thigh, grinding into bone and even replicants don’t walk on cracked femurs. Despite this, he manages to pull himself up on a park bench, to stagger another six feet before he hears the door open behind him.
Move, says the part of him that sounds like his memory maker, Move, K. You need to run. Please.
Sorry, he thinks. I did try.
Someone is standing right behind him. K smells gun discharge and blood. He waits for the bullet, for one of the blue-eyed mercenaries to do what they were built for. He feels something touch the back of his head. But before he can decide it’s the muzzle of the gun that’s going to kill him, the touch spits along five points of contact running through his hair, then along his jaw and before he can react, the new-genner kicks him in the shoulder blade and floors him.
“I did know it,” L says.
A hand closes K’s blood-slick ankle like you grab a carcass to drag and yanks him backward. K thrashes, grabbing at the floor but his assailant is… so much stronger.
“I knew you had a trick,” L is saying, his fist tight on K’s boot. “I knew you were still dangerous. And I was right. If we didn’t have bio-locks on our PKD’s, you might have retired all three of us, huh?”
L drags him back into the apartment, leaving a long smear of blood all the way into the living room where the blade runner leaves him lying, bleeding, in the middle of the room. K pants, face pressed against his bloody forearm. He hears L close and lock the door, hears his boots on the floor coming toward him. For a second, L just stands in front of him, waiting. His boots are bloody and stuck with dust. K can feel his empty blue stare on the back of his head.
“Look at me,” L says.
K pushes himself onto his knees, sitting back on his heels. He doesn’t look up.
“Look at me,” L says again and K feels the gun muzzle hot against his jaw.
K does not look at him.
So L flips the blaster in his palm and pistol-whips him. The butt of the weapon cracks across the side of K’s skull, hard enough that it would have cratered a regular human’s head in, but merely stuns K for a moment. His hands hit the floor and blood runs down his neck. He feels L wind up to hit him again –
K’s hand snaps, blocking the blow and he grabs the gun with one hand and slams the heel of his hand into L’s throat, driving up from his kneeling position on his good leg. L staggers, but his throat does not collapse. He just snarls. He rips his arm free of K’s grip and grabs him by the arms. Then he hurls K’s into the wall with enough force that his head smacks the brick. L grabs his neck and slam’s K’s skull into the wall. He does it again and again, until there’s blood, until the brick and mortar craters, until K is moaning and slack.
Then he shoves K to floor.
L stands over him for a moment just staring at the older replicant – letting him catch his breath, start to recover – then he hikes his leg up and drives it down into K’s stomach. Once. Twice. Again. Then he winds up and bicycle-kicks him directly in the ribs, snapping two of them like kindling in the cage of his chest. K doesn’t scream. He can’t. He lies there, curled up, gasping. L kicks K in the head so hard blood splatters all the way to the coffee table. K goes down, his vision black, the inside of his head strafed with stars and static.
L is pacing.
He’s saying, “Didn’t I fucking tell you that he was dangerous?”
M’s voice comes, distorted by distances and head-trauma. “Z will be fine. He didn’t cut an artery.”
“I don’t think he was aiming for one.”
K rolls onto his stomach. He spits blood. There’s blood in his eyes and in this throat. He can’t – L kneels behind him and hooks an arm around his throat, takes his own wrist into his opposite hand and crimps K’s airway shut in to bend of his elbow. K immediately grabs at L’s arm, fingers fastening at L’s bicep and forearm, but he can’t break his hold. He thrashes, but L barely registers it. K bucks, drives an elbow back into L’s solar plexus but he takes the hit without flinching. L is murmuring something in his ear, but K can’t hear it through the rising panic. He chokes, fighting to breathe but nothing gets through and he thinks, suddenly, of the sea wall. Of Luv. Holding her head underwater. Her fingers clawing at his arm and neck and –
L lets up just a fraction and K’s lungs go cold with the first rush of air. He sucks a massive gasp and coughs, violently, panting.
“Shhh,” L says, his mouth against K’s ear. “Shh, stand up for me. C’mon.”
He gets up off his knee, pulling K up with him.
“Do you know how hard it is not to kill you?” L’s breath is hot against K’s skin. “Do you have any idea how much stronger we are than you? Huh?” He makes a low sound. Frustrated. Full of teeth, like a dog, like he’d rip K’s jugular out of his neck but -- He presses his face into the older replicant’s throat, inhaling against his skin – smoke, peppermint. “You smell good,” L says.
K’s entire body goes taut, his breathing rapid and afraid finally.
L immediately grabs him and throws him against the kitchen counter. With full military-grade strength behind it, K hits the lip of the counter so hard it cracks against his waist, driving the breath out of him all over again. He folds at the hips, pain terminating out from the point of impact all along his bones. His hands press against the tile. He’s aware, vaguely of two other figures on the other side of the kitchen island – L and M, silent, staring. Z has a strip of surgical tape across his throat. M is smiling. K gets his palms under him, tries to push himself up…
L grabs him from behind.
“Nah,” he says, grabbing the nape of K’s neck, “just stay there.”
He slams K’s forehead into the counter and everything whites out. The world winks out. K catches awareness in fragments: A palm spread against the back of his skull, pinning his head to the counter, someone’s mouth against his ear, their hips pushed against the back of K’s thighs. He feels two hands grab his wrists and pin them to the far side of the counter, holding them so tight his bones ache, the tendons in his arms straining. Flat against the counter top, he has no leverage and someone, a woman, murmurs to him:
“Do you feel desired, yet?”
K feels L pushing the hem of his shirt up his back. K can’t... focus. The world tilts on a sickening axis, his own apartment rolling sideways. His throat’s knotted with the roots of a scream. He feels teeth. Breath against his shoulder blade as L bites gently at the scar where his LAPD tracker was cut out from the under-side of his scapula and K shudders.
M’s fingers around his wrists are steel. Like fine titanium cuffs set around his bones. L’s right hand is sliding between K’s legs, touching him through his clothes and he can’t – he can’t –
K loses consciousness again.
When he comes back, someone is touching his neck, running fingers through is hair, hands on hips. He groans, realizes they’re rolling him over, his back flat to the tile so they can lean over him. K torques at the waist and slams his knee into his attacker’s ribs, hard enough to put a dent in an armored car, but L just catches his leg under his arm and pins it there. He yanks K across the counter, hip-to-hip, smiling.
“I need you to look up and to the left for me.”
Then he grabs a fistful of K’s hair and slams his head back against the counter, cracking the tile and the back of K’s skull. K’s out. He lies limp, unresisting for a moment while L pulls an eye-scanner from his belt. K moans, fingers twitching slightly. L leans over him and presses his thumb gently against K’s lower right eyelid, exposing the vitreous humor along the underside of his iris. Under the scanner light, he can see the faint glow of the serial number embedded in soft tissue. The device scans the band of numbers like a barcode. It beeps and L stares at the scanner.
“It’s really him,” he says.
L pockets it and turns back to K, leaning over him once more to take his jaw in his hands.
“Hey, Officer K? C’mon, it’s just a concussion.” He slaps K briskly to focus him. “Shake it off. Okay? Are you with me?”
K’s eyes flutter, unfocused for a moment, before he seems to revive.
“There you are. Come back. I need to tell you something. I have this memory of asking you a question.” He adjusts his grip, cupping K’s head, his thumbs hooked along the hinge of K’s jaw. “I asked you, ‘Do you enjoy your work, officer?’” He leans closer, smiling because he can see K’s entire body slowly go cold with recognition, his eyes focus suddenly and go wide. L’s face is so close, he can feel K’s breath against his lips when it catches in his throat. “It’s real isn’t it? That’s a real memory.”
“Luv,” K says.
L tilts his head. “Love? I don’t think so.”
K jerks away.
L lets him, laughing. He leans his weight against the counter, one hand on either side of K’s hips. K’s knees dig against his ribs, reminding him that he can pull K closer whenever he wants. His eyes are very blue framed in the white of his eyes and L reaches up and gingerly wipes blood from older model’s cheek.
“Now you’re scared of me?”
“Don’t,” K says through his teeth.
“We’ve been looking for you, K. For a long time.” L’s palm is on K’s leg, pushing along up toward the back of his thigh. “You look… exactly like I remember.” He pushes his mouth under K’s jaw; his pulse is racing hot under the skin. L takes his hips in his hands and there’s a dull stab of heat driven into him briefly, pleasurably, when K flinches in his hold. “Relax.” He runs one hand up behind K’s head. “You can’t stop this. So… let it happen.”
K’s breathing fast and shallow.
“Just… wait.”
“No,” L says and kisses him.
His tongue is warm and bitter in K’s mouth, insistent. He grabs K at the hips, shoves him up against the counter and presses his face into K’s throat, his collarbone.
“You feel good,” L says.
“I thought,” K says, only just keeping his voice level, “you wanted to ask me questions.”
“How does this feel?” L says. His hands push up under the hem of K’s shirt.
“Stop,” K says.
“Stop me.”
K squeezes his eyes shut. He feels additional hands close on his shirt, on his wrist, smooth along his jaw into his hair. The other two are on him now. His heart’s racing, his body hot with adrenaline as the three blade runners move on him. His skin feels raw – hyper-sensitized. He wants it to stop.
“Don’t do this,” K whispers.
L pulls his belt open. Z has his right arm, M has his left. They’re all standing in front of him, L forcing him to straddle his hips while the other two touch him. Z leans in and presses his forehead against K’s temple and in the same moment M moves in, getting one knee up on the bar so she can press her lips to the corner of his mouth. K turns his face away so she just kisses his cheek. She tries again, and this time Z closes a hand around K’s throat. When he gasps, M digs her fingers into his skull and pulls his head to one side. She puts her tongue in his mouth and pushes his lips open against hers. They still have his arms and L is standing between his thighs, so his body is pressed into K’s and K…
K makes a noise somewhere between a moan and the word, ‘no’.
“Shhhh…” L’s hand is under his shirt, pushing it down one off his shoulders. He kisses his bicep. “Relax.”
L pulls him forward at the hips, tugging him a little farther across the bar and rocking a slow and lazy push into K’s body. K goes rigid, but L just moans. He holds K still and grinds once, hard, into the join of K’s thighs and nausea rises in him like dissociation but faster. His head pounds. He’s breathing too fast. It’s been too long since someone did this to him. He’s had too long away from this. He can’t— he doesn’t remember how to withstand –
“Don’t move,” L murmurs. “Okay? If you resist, I’ll cut your fucking eyes out. Understand?”
K doesn’t move. He lets L and M pin his arms at his sides, staring blankly into L’s empty, vicious eyes where he can’t see anything – nothing familiar, nothing he can speak to and that ... fills him with a dread he hasn’t known. L leans in, touches K’s jaw – so gently, so fucking carefully, like he’s rice paper – and kisses him. K shivers. His jaw clenches. His breath shakes. L doesn’t mind. He tilts his head a little, so their mouths fit more easily and K… lets him guide his lips open, lets him ease his tongue into his mouth and suck warmly at his lower lip. K shakes so hard his shoulders knot.
L withdraws, his thumb running along K’s temple. He smiles.
“Put him on his knees.”
K’s expression breaks along an ancient fault line.
“Wait,” he says.
L and M ignore him and grab him by the wrists and biceps, yanking him off the bar so he’s on his feet again. K jerks, hard, pulling back from his captors, resisting as M and Z pull him around to face L. K shakes his head, spine curling the other way but the other replicants have him held fast. K’s head is throbbing, his whole body a geography of abrasions and bleeding and hairline fractures. His pants are sticking to his thigh where the blood’s started to dry. There’s still a bullet in his leg. He breathes through his teeth.
K opens his hands, palm out. “Please… don’t do that. You don’t have to do that…”
L looks at him. “No. I just want to.”
Z pushes K to his knees, keeping one grip on his elbow, one hand closing in his hair. L’s pulling his jacket off, draping it over the back of a chair. K tries to pull free, but M has his arm in two places and Z feels like he’ll rip K’s scalp off if he tries to move. K watches, helpless, panic rising in his throat as L rolls his sleeves up and comes to stand in front of him, stand over him. L is, objectively, beautiful. Somehow, that makes it so much fucking worse when he touches K’s mouth with two lazy fingertips, just… admiring. Taking his time.
“Open your mouth, K.”
“Fuck you,” K whispers, hopelessness manifesting in words, Deckard’s words.
L just smiles.
K feels his hand loop around the nape of his neck, frame the base of his skull, and then L pulls his face up into the heavy material at his groin. K goes tense. He breathes slowly, his mouth pressed into the cloth, against the body underneath. For a moment, L doesn’t move. He just… stands there. Looking. Then, slowly, L’s fingers drag up the buzzed scalp at the back of K’s head, into his hair and grip tight, but he can’t do anything about it. L starts to move. He’s rock hard, hot even through the fatigues and K clenches his eyes shut, his teeth grit.
“Relax or I’m going to break your jaw, K.”
L unbuttons his fatigues.
“Don’t,” K says again.
His wrists are aching, tight where his captors hold him. They’re using unfathomable force to hold him.
“You know how to do this,” L murmurs. “All of us know how to do this. So… just do it.”
L’s fingers are on the back of his skull again, pulling gently, but not quite forcing him. There’s a scream in the back of K’s throat but he won’t let it come. There’s… familiarity here, suddenly, and it makes him want to throw up. L uses his other hand to stroke K’s jaw, gently, coaxing, brushing the edge of his lips with a warm thumb until he eases K’s mouth open. K’s spine goes tight. His throat locking up. He can’t stand to look so the closes his eyes when L tilts his face up. He doesn’t… resist. He lets L push his lips apart, guide his head forward, close his mouth around the mercenary’s body.
“Good boy,” L whispers. He strokes his jaw again. “There you go.”
K chokes. His wrists flex, but the others just hold him. Too late now. L has both hands at the base of his skull and he starts to rock forward, slowly, giving K a second to relax his throat. It doesn’t help. K’s eyes burn. The muscles in his throat clench and spasm around L’s cock and K hears him moan, feels his fingers dig into his scalp. He stops going slow. He starts thrusting in earnest, forcing K’s head up, one hand on his jaw, the other on his neck. K chokes. He can’t breathe. His eyes are blurred and running over. His jaw aches from the force of it and the angle and it hurts.
K wants to stop. He wants to stop. He wants to stop.
The other blade runners just… hold him still and keep going. L fucks his mouth for a full minute before he stops. He pulls out of K’s throat and K immediately pukes bile, gagging. L and M let him go, let him fall on his hands and knees where he can double over and retch. He coughs, feels L run a soothing hand across the back of his head and that makes him want to scream. K spits on the floor. L didn’t… finish but still.
“You forgot didn’t you?” L says. His combs his fingers though K’s hair, pushing his sweaty bangs from his forehead. “All this time out here… living like a person. You forgot how to think like we need to think.”
K glances up at him, looks at L through the corner of one eye.
“That’s a look. You’re so off kilter,” L says. His smile is warm, almost concerned. He makes K look at him, forces his head back while M and Z keep his arms pinned to his sides. L says, “You need to calm down.” He leans in, puts his mouth against K’s ear. “Why don’t you recite your baseline?”
K’s eyes go wide, go empty, then come back to focus.
“No,” he says.
“Say it with me.”
“No.”
L smiles, cups his jaw, and kisses him.
K makes a wretched noise against L’s mouth, tries to shove him away, but it’s like drive his hands into a wall. And in the same moment, Z and M grab him. They seize him by the elbows and yank him backward, like they’ve been waiting the whole time for L to give them permission to join in and everything… it comes apart.
They grab him everywhere, push in against him. K is trapped between them, their super-dense bodies pressed in around him and he can’t move. His broken ribs flare, pulsing white phosphorus pain down his flank. There are hands on his body, running down toward his stomach, in his hair, on his throat, touching his face, his mouth. He yells when one of them grabs his wounded thigh, but they just move up his leg and press their fingers into the join where his leg meets his groin. They grab him there, hard. K’s hyperventilating. M has her tongue on his throat. Her hands on the waistband of his pants. L is unfastening his pants and Z is biting his bare shoulder, pulling his shirt off his collarbone.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” L tells him.
K starts swearing at them in Japanese (the default settings) so Z punches him in the temple.
He goes out instantly, stunned, and they all three let him fall to the floor.
Then it’s quiet again for a moment. The three new generation blade runners standing over the unconscious KD6. None of them move. For a moment, they just watch him roll his head, his eyelids moving as he tries to come out of it. M uses the moment to kneel and touch K’s face, his eyes, nose, and mouth with her fingertips. He doesn’t wake. Z takes a knee besides K and takes his wrists in both hands, pinning them over his head
M kisses him until he comes back around. Until he, confused, kisses her back for a second then remembers where he is and jerks away. She laughs.
“And blood-black nothingness began to spin…” she says. “A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem…”
L straddles K’s legs. He grabs K’s jeans at the thigh and pulls them down off his hips, dragging denim across the bullet wound and K would scream except M has her mouth on his and she is saying, “… dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played.”
K slams his head into her nose, breaking it.
She just grins through the blood and kisses him, hard, biting his lip and cutting it open on her teeth. “Cells,” she hisses at him, her teeth slick with blood. “Say it, K.”
“Fuck you,” K whispers.
L grabs his wounded thigh and grips his broken leg until he screams and red runs streaming from under the blade runner’s fist. The other two just hold him down until M says, again, “Cells.”
And K, relenting, chokes, “Cells.”
L stops squeezing his thigh… but he pulls of his boot, grabs his pant leg and yanks it all the way down.
“Have you ever been in an institution?” M says. “Cells.”
K stares, horrified up at her. When he feels L start to grab his leg again he quickly says, “Cells.”
“Do they keep you in a cell? Cells.”
K’s jaw is tight, his breath ragged and fast. “Cells.”
“When you’re not performing your duties do they keep you in a little box? Cells.”
“Cells,” K says and tears break over the corners of his eyes.
“Interlinked,” M says, kissing his cheek.
“Interlinked,” K says blankly.
M’s grip on his wrist is crushing. Z is kissing his shoulder and neck, his hand on K’s throat in a way that’s so unbearably gentle it makes his entire body cold with the fact of it – the genuine softness of it in the midst of the violence. M’s tongue is silk and salt in his mouth and his jaw is starting to ache from how she’s kissing him. Z kisses his hair. L is kneeling between his knees. L’s palm is between his thighs, is hot wrapped around him – blood-slick but slow, guiding him by hand toward an arousal that is not going to come because there is a fucking bullet in his leg and dread in his throat and –
“What is it like to hold the hand of someone you love?” M says, touching his cheek. “Interlinked.”
“Don’t do it like this,” K says, breaking the script. “I can’t stop you but don’t –!”
Z’s fingers close on his throat, crimping his airway shut. L pulls K onto his lap, forcing his to straddle his hips and K can feel him through his clothes. That he’s hard, that he’s getting harder as he rocks against K, that he’s reaching between them so he can –
M has her mouth against his ear. “Did they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked.”
“Interlinked,” K says automatically.
“Do you long for having your heart interlinked?” M says and when she says it, she ghosts her lips against his. “Interlinked.”
“Interlinked,” K says.
“Do you dream about being interlinked…?”
K forgets, momentarily, how to speak at all. L is pressing… against him. Skin-to-skin. K breathes fast, ragged, hyper-aware and at the same time disconnected, the still air in the apartment cooling the blood and sweat on his bare skin. Panic is battery acid in his lungs.
“Say it,” L whispers.
K clenches his eyes shut.
“Say it,” L repeats, “or I will fuck you with my gun, K. I prefer this.”
“Interlinked – ah!”
M muffles his scream with her mouth.
K’s entire body is tight, a single uninterrupted line of tension disrupted only by L whose got him by the hip, is holding his back up off the floor while he pushes slowly forward. K does not scream. He holds the scream between his teeth and does not let it go, until L is pressed body-to-body with him. His fingers slide up K’s hips, toward his ribs. Then L starts moving. K moans, but M grabs his jaw and kisses him.
She says, “What’s it like to hold your child in your arms? Interlinked.”
K chokes, but says, “Interlinked.”
“Do you feel that there’s a part of you that’s missing? Interlinked.”
K thrashes, but they hold him. It hurts. He’s dizzy with the hurt, splitting up his spine into his belly. A baseline being set into him like a high G-tone penetrates the skull.
“Interlinked.”
K presses his head back, his spine coiling, gasping now with every thrust. There’s blood pooling on the floor. K’s eyes aren’t focused on anything, just somewhere across the apartment as M kisses his mouth and Z touches his throat and L moves on top of him, inside him. The pain turns to static. Like the sound of a baseline machine.
“Within cells interlinked,” M says.
“Within cells interlinked,” K says.
“Why don’t you say that three times?” L says, his fingers sticky on K’s hips, his mouth on K’s ribs. “Within cells interlinked.”
“Within cells interlinked.”
L snaps his hips into him and K doesn’t scream but his hands shake.
“Within cells… interlinked.”
He’s losing it. The static is in his head. Someone kisses his mouth and it doesn’t matter who anymore.
“Within cells interlinked.”
K slips into static, the buzzing like a swarm in his ears.