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The morning light in K’s apartment is the color of wash water. Once more he is awake. Once more, he undertakes the tediums of the day: showers, dresses, grinds the nutrition block into a paste under his molars. Arrives at the department half-drenched.
Fuck off skin job.
The day ahead of him is simple—he knows what he must do.
Droplets of blood arc through the air as his dagger skewers the heart of a replicant sheltering in the corner of an alley. He knows: don’t think about the job. Don’t listen to the frantic drum of his heartbeat.
He looks up to the rainfall, then down to his feet. The replicant’s blood seeps a red trail to the gutters. K makes a call, updates Joshi.
Later, in the baseline room—room of white, room of absolution—he recites the known words, the same ones he mutters each night until he falls asleep, cold under his thin white sheets.
Do you long for your heart to be interlinked?
Don’t think of them as words. He never does. Just syllables in the tongues. Recitation. Verse and chorus. White noise.
Later, in Joshi’s office, her hand on his shoulder, she tells him about a new assignment. Her hand on his shoulder—how strange the sensation. How strange to have someone so near. Something about it makes it difficult to breathe.
He finds himself nodding to her voice. Finds himself complacent as he marches away. He notices droplets of blood staining the cuff of his jacket.
He is on a train, K thinks. This life of his. A train, speeding away.
Later in the washroom, before he can interrogate the man in the holding cell, Marcus, Joshi’s superior, accosts him as he is bringing cold water up to wash his face. Shouldn’t have taken so long. Shouldn’t have zoned out. But too late—Marcus is here.
With me, says Marcus, and K follows after, head down because it’s the easier thing.
He is on a train. The train has long left the station. The train is hurtling along the dark, lightspeed and he can’t stop it; can’t help it. All he can do is ride along. Do as he is told.
In a small room along the archival halls of the LAPD, Marcus twists the key and opens a door. There’s a terrible sensation in K’s stomach—a twenty story drop. He closes his eyes, moves with the demands of the day. Setting his shoes by the door.
On the bed then. The single bulb of white light above him, the closest thing to the sun there is down here. He watches it. Words he can’t form into coherence crowd his head. The feeling in his stomach deepens.
He undresses now. Then, there’s skin on skin. The sick slick of heated bodies. He’s so cold, K thinks, so cold, so raw under the white light. Can’t see, can’t think. Verse and chorus. He moves his body. Programmatic. Yes. Easier to think of it that way.
This life of his is a train-ride without a stop. He has no choice but to ride along. Except—in everything there is a choice, isn’t there? The last choice.
Mutt, Markus hisses, impatient. His hands are frantic, all over K. His desire is written over his body. His shame in his eyes, his tongues.
K knows, but of course he does. He has to show a little life when they do this, has to keep it going. Follow the orders. Be good. Listen well. Do as he is told.
But K—K knows what he wants now. K wants to step off.
-
Later, at home, he spends too many hours showering in the dark again, and Joi is in the kitchen muttering sweet nothings.
Honey, I’ve made some tea for myself. I’ll leave you a cup on the table.
That would be lovely, Joi.
Let me know if you need anything. I’ll just be watching the news.
Of course, Joi. Thank you, Joi.
Something trembles in his voice.
The steel wool from the kitchen feels gritty in his hands. Nevertheless, he scrubs it furiously across his chest and bites back a hiss of pain as steaming water assaults the tender skin. He lets his hand fall away. He touches the wound of his ruined skin. He looks down to the white tiles of the shower floor. Brings the heel of his hands up to his eyes.
Then, he is far too tired. He sits down, unseeing in the dark. Counting down the hours.
Joi?
Yes K?
Sing for me. Whatever song you’d like. Can you sing something?
Verse, chorus, verse. The same day lived over and over again.
-
The train moves too fast. His head is in vertigo. Nausea has a vice grip on his stomach. But hasn’t he a choice in this, after all?
-
On the rooftop, unceasing rain clatters against the gravel. Beyond—the neon oblivion. Los Angeles, the technicolor sea.
K steps through the gravel, the crushed cans, the butts of cigarettes, until he’s standing right at the edge. He looks down: Neon oblivion. Uncountable stories up. A way out. Nausea curdles his stomach as he looks down. He won’t be the first replicant in the alley gutter. He won’t be the last.
His ribs ache where the wounded skin touches the fabric of the shirt. He wants to step off of that train, but he stands there for a long time. Long enough that his t-shirt is soaked through.
A distant billboard phases out. A new projection phases in. Joi’s dilated image holding a metal stick in her hand. Still ways off, but neon letters float over her head.
Take me outside with you! Emanator—available today.
He holds out a palm before him, watching the rain catch, then brim. He looks up to the dark haze of the sky and shivers.
How long has it been, this life? How many days? How old is he again?
Five, six, bonuses down the line, and he’ll have saved enough for the latest DiJi attachment.
He’s been on the job a long time. He’s known for a long time that he can choose to step off that train. Because here he is—the precipice. Here it is—the choice. He is always free to leave. He understands this. He understands that he has an exit strategy.
He has an exit strategy, so when he turns away from the ledge, walks back down the dim stairwell, opens the door to his apartment, and Joi’s gentle voice asks him where he’s been—he knows that he doesn’t carry on day after day because he has no other choice. Every day he is here with his heart alive and beating, he is choosing again to live.
In the center of the room, slow-dancing, he takes Joi's hand of air.
You wanna go outside, Joi? That would be nice, wouldn’t it?