sport, even a long-term champ would feel her step slowing by a fraction of a second, the gun in her hand weighing a fraction of an ounce more, coming up and aiming a hair's-breadth too late and a sliver of a degree wide of the fatal mark on the chest of its target — all of which would give that faster, harder and younger target the micro-second gap in time for turning, aiming and firing before she could get her own shot off
That was the unfair thing about replicants, and why hunting them was, eventually, like betting against the house. They were always, de facto , at their prime; their four-year lifespan, as much as some of them griped about it, meant they were always at the top of their own efficiency curve, at their fastest and smartest and deadliest peak. At least , thought Iris, they don't have to worry about losing a step as they get older . And many of the replicants, especially the ones designed for military combat, had a lot on the ball to begin with; they were to humans as the owl was to the small furry creatures that it seized in its scything talons and tore apart with the cruel machinery of its hooked beak. It was no wonder that the authorities tolerated having blade runners, the next step up in the prey-and-predator chain, running around the streets and firing off cannon-sized weaponry in the midst of the taxpayers and citizens; the alternative was even bleaker. Fat chance of getting the human race to pack up and move out to the stars, with the negative advertisement of escaped replicants, who were supposed to be mankind's slaves and servants in the far colonies, proving how much tougher and more dangerous than their masters they were. In that regard, there was a real PR value in blade runners blowing away the escapees in as public a manner as possible: it showed that everything was still under control, that the gone-bad replicants would be eliminated before they could crush too many people's heads like eggshells. As long , mused Iris bitterly, as they let us do our jobs . Which, as her boss Meyer had indicated to her, was a matter up in the air for the moment.
That was just more shit destined to come down someday, like the oil-dark rains burdening the black clouds above the city. With any luck, Iris figured, she'd have made her wad by then, rolling up the bounties and socking them away in her retirement accounts, and she'd be able to chill out in her comfy apartment, reminiscing about how good a bullet-warmed gun had felt in her hand, back when she'd been in the game, and watching on the broadcast news as the city's streets filled with blood.
'So much for the bird.' Iris spoke aloud. From the corner of her eye, she spotted her pet chat creeping out a few inches from its hiding place and regarding the frame-stalled image with acute suspicion and loathing. Iris turned her attention back to the surroundings that the surresper had summoned up, a ghost-walled room now more brightly lit than her own.
Expensive, as she had figured it would be: wood paneling from some close-grained tree species that was probably reduced to a few acres in New Guinea by now. If in fact the last of the breed hadn't been leveled to provide the board footage for the illusory chamber in which Iris stood. Common knowledge that a lot of high-level corporate execs, with money to burn, indulged in the luxury of species extinction, giving their material comforts a true Après moi, le déluge thrill. It wasn't a complete wipe-out unless any surviving genetic material was taken from deep cryo storage and destroyed, to make sure nobody came along later and recreated one's unique and private possessions. That was probably what had happened to bubo virginianus's DNA samples as well: nothing enhanced the collector's market like scarcity, and nothing enhanced scarcity like death. For animal collectors, extinction — or as close to it as one could get while still leaving a specimen or two alive — was a desirable quality.
And for the rich, the dead
That was the unfair thing about replicants, and why hunting them was, eventually, like betting against the house. They were always, de facto , at their prime; their four-year lifespan, as much as some of them griped about it, meant they were always at the top of their own efficiency curve, at their fastest and smartest and deadliest peak. At least , thought Iris, they don't have to worry about losing a step as they get older . And many of the replicants, especially the ones designed for military combat, had a lot on the ball to begin with; they were to humans as the owl was to the small furry creatures that it seized in its scything talons and tore apart with the cruel machinery of its hooked beak. It was no wonder that the authorities tolerated having blade runners, the next step up in the prey-and-predator chain, running around the streets and firing off cannon-sized weaponry in the midst of the taxpayers and citizens; the alternative was even bleaker. Fat chance of getting the human race to pack up and move out to the stars, with the negative advertisement of escaped replicants, who were supposed to be mankind's slaves and servants in the far colonies, proving how much tougher and more dangerous than their masters they were. In that regard, there was a real PR value in blade runners blowing away the escapees in as public a manner as possible: it showed that everything was still under control, that the gone-bad replicants would be eliminated before they could crush too many people's heads like eggshells. As long , mused Iris bitterly, as they let us do our jobs . Which, as her boss Meyer had indicated to her, was a matter up in the air for the moment.
That was just more shit destined to come down someday, like the oil-dark rains burdening the black clouds above the city. With any luck, Iris figured, she'd have made her wad by then, rolling up the bounties and socking them away in her retirement accounts, and she'd be able to chill out in her comfy apartment, reminiscing about how good a bullet-warmed gun had felt in her hand, back when she'd been in the game, and watching on the broadcast news as the city's streets filled with blood.
'So much for the bird.' Iris spoke aloud. From the corner of her eye, she spotted her pet chat creeping out a few inches from its hiding place and regarding the frame-stalled image with acute suspicion and loathing. Iris turned her attention back to the surroundings that the surresper had summoned up, a ghost-walled room now more brightly lit than her own.
Expensive, as she had figured it would be: wood paneling from some close-grained tree species that was probably reduced to a few acres in New Guinea by now. If in fact the last of the breed hadn't been leveled to provide the board footage for the illusory chamber in which Iris stood. Common knowledge that a lot of high-level corporate execs, with money to burn, indulged in the luxury of species extinction, giving their material comforts a true Après moi, le déluge thrill. It wasn't a complete wipe-out unless any surviving genetic material was taken from deep cryo storage and destroyed, to make sure nobody came along later and recreated one's unique and private possessions. That was probably what had happened to bubo virginianus's DNA samples as well: nothing enhanced the collector's market like scarcity, and nothing enhanced scarcity like death. For animal collectors, extinction — or as close to it as one could get while still leaving a specimen or two alive — was a desirable quality.
And for the rich, the dead
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