Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human

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Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (1995) is a novel by K. W. Jeter, and a continuation of both the film Blade Runner, and the novel upon which it was based, which was Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

[edit] Plot

After retiring the four replicants shown in the movie, Deckard retired to an isolated shack north of the city, taking the replicant Rachael with him. He now keeps her in a Tyrell transport container, a sealed box that can slow down a replicant's vital processes, normally used when transporting replicants through space so that the transport time does not count against their four-year lifespan. Deckard is using it to keep Rachael alive for as long as possible, only releasing her for brief regular intervals to be with her.

Deckard is approached by a woman identical to Rachael; she explains that she is Sarah Tyrell, human niece of Eldon Tyrell; the human template (templant) for the Rachael replicant, and heiress to the entire Tyrell Corporation. Sarah explains that she wants Deckard to hunt down the "missing" sixth replicant, as mentioned by Bryant in the movie. Sarah explains this was part of a conspiracy against Tyrell: Bryant had removed the data on the sixth replicant from the files himself. It was the U.N. - organiser of the colonisation program - who demanded that Tyrell make replicants more and more humanlike; with the Nexus-6 they finally made them too humanlike and they rebelled. Now the U.N. and the police are working together to shift the blame to Tyrell and gain public support to destroy the corporation. Part of that effort involves arranging the deaths of the blade runners, so that the public believe that their last line of defence has failed.

Sarah sends Deckard to meet John Isidore, director of a "pet hospital" which repairs replicant pets. Isidore attacks Deckard for depending on the VK test to identify replicants, and describes several cases where it has failed. Isidore also claims that Pris was actually an insane human woman who thought she was a replicant - and thus Deckard is guilty of murder. Deckard protests that she was too strong to be human, but Isidore replies that he only knows that she was stronger than Deckard. Isidore ejects Deckard onto the city streets. After receiving a report on this, Sarah has Andresson - one of her security squad - murder Isidore, then herself murders Andresson when he returns to the corporation.

Abandoned on the streets, Deckard attacks a police officer and steals his uniform and pass, in order that he can enter the main LAPD headquarters in search of Bryant. In Bryant's office, he finds Bryant replaced by a video monitor, claiming to be relaying Bryant's image from a hospital where he is held with an infection; but Deckard realises that the image is really a persynth, a simulation of Bryant derived from archives of his behaviour, and that the real Bryant is dead. Police officers start to burst into the office, shooting at Deckard; Deckard is forced to flee through the police station, eventually breaking out via an underground tunnel leading to the wastelands.

Deckard heads for an old apartment building, now destroyed - but previously a safe-house for blade runners, where he hopes to be able to obtain equipment. There, he is attacked by a bizarre creature: a half-completed, skeletal, replicant Pris. Sebastian, the replicant engineer from the original film, is also hiding out in the safe-house with the creatures he has created; he has made an attempt at rebuilding Pris, believing that she loved him. Sebastian is not hostile to Deckard, and orders the incomplete Pris to leave Deckard alone, which she does. Deckard and Sebastian then briefly discuss Eldon Tyrell's death.

Meanwhile, Dave Holden - a blade runner from the film, shown to have been shot by one of the four replicants Deckard hunted down - is kidnapped from hospital by an unknown man. He is terrified to learn that the man is Roy Batty. But Batty arranges for him to be implanted with an artificial heart and lungs that keep him alive, even though the hospital surgeons had said this would be impossible. Batty explains that he is not the escaped replicant; he is the human templant used to produce it - and used to produce others; Roy Batty is a production-line replicant, so there are many copies in use at the colonies.

Batty has also been hired as a mercenary to hunt down the sixth replicant. Batty is aware of the conspiracy as well, and tells Holden he was a victim of it: without the police's help there should have been no way that Leon could have carried a gun into the Tyrell building - Holden was set up to fail. Batty also claims that Holden is a replicant - in fact, all blade runners are replicants; replicants had always been used to supervise and control other replicants and the blade runners are an extension of that. Batty shows Holden that the fifth replicant from the film - the one that was killed by a security system in the Tyrell building - was a female replicant version of Dave Holden. Holden still resists, claiming that even if replicants of him exist, he could be the human templant for the line.

Batty believes that Deckard is the sixth replicant, and Holden believes that Deckard could be in on the conspiracy, since Deckard benefitted most from Holden's hospitalisation. Holden travels to Deckard's apartment, and while there, attacks Batty and handcuffs him to a pipe in the bathroom. While Batty is immobilised, Holden travels to the safe-house and meets Deckard and Sebastian there. Holden tries to convince Deckard to team up with him, but Deckard refuses and Holden leaves. A few moments later, Sarah Tyrell arrives at the safe-house; the incomplete Pris reacts to her, believing that she is Rachael. Sarah shoots it in the head, destroying Pris's brain and any further hope of repairing or reincarnating her. Sarah demands that Deckard leave with her, and he does so as Sebastian breaks down in tears. Meanwhile, Sarah's security goons are burning down Deckard's shack, and removing the transport container containing Rachael from it.

Outside the safe-house, Holden has been watching from his spinner. He identified Sarah Tyrell via police records from her spinner, and he heard the gunshot, but at first assumed that Sarah shot Deckard or vice versa; when he sees them both leave, he wrongly reasons that one of them shot Sebastian, and that they did this because Deckard really is the sixth replicant and Sebastian - being a replicant engineer - knew this. With his artificial heart and lungs failing, he realises he cannot go on without help, and is forced to return to Deckard's apartment to confront Batty. Batty is enraged at Holden's attempt to abandon him, but Holden correctly guesses that Batty was only acting on a hunch when he claimed Deckard to be the sixth replicant - and now, Holden has proof.

Sarah takes Deckard back to the Tyrell building, where she allows him the use of her spinner and clearance to access the building. She had nothing more to say to Deckard; she was only checking on him. Deckard uses the spinner to return to the safe-house where Holden and Batty are already waiting. Holden and Batty attack Deckard; Deckard attempts to flee, but Batty pursues him. During their fight, Batty jumps over a large gap, leading Deckard to claim that Batty must be the sixth replicant because a human could not have done that; Batty replies that he's simply good at what he does, and then begins to show signs of doubt, before declaring that he means to kill Deckard and get paid, regardless of which of them is the replicant. Holden overhears the conversation, and shoots Batty, believing him to be the sixth replicant. Batty slumps to his death, and the half-complete Pris, with her last few moments of life, approaches Batty's body and touches him; it was always him she truly loved. Deckard refuses to confirm or deny Holden's belief that Batty was the sixth replicant, and returns to the Tyrell corporation in Sarah's spinner.

In the corporation building, Deckard at first believes he sees Sarah lying sleeping on a bed, a gun near to her hand; he is about to shoot her when Sarah's face appears on a video screen, telling him that the sleeping woman is the replicant Rachael, who Sarah was using to confirm Deckard's intentions. Deckard confronts Sarah with his beliefs: there is no sixth replicant. It was a lie calculated to create paranoia among the blade runners. Sarah killed Bryant herself, because she is the one behind the conspiracy: she wants the Tyrell corporation destroyed. Sarah confirms this: an act of vengeance against her uncle Eldon, who had the Rachael replicant made of her, then loved the replicant while ignoring the real Sarah. The report that no blade runner could find the sixth replicant causes the U.N. to trigger explosive devices, planted in the Tyrell building since it was built, expressly so that they could destroy it; Deckard flees from the burning building together with Rachael, and Holden rescues them both in his spinner.

Deckard and Rachael use assumed identities to leave for an off-world colony where they will be untraceable. Holden, still unsure if he is a replicant or not, returns to the police force where he is given better, more reliable implants and resumes work. In the course of his work, he visits Deckard's old shack, and finds the transport capsule still there, with Rachael inside it, although the capsule has been switched off and Rachael killed. Rachael was never brought to the Tyrell building: the woman who appeared to Deckard on the video screen was a persynth, and the woman lying sprawled on the bed, whom Deckard rescued, was the real Sarah. She finally achieved her goal: she has replaced Rachael as the one being loved. Holden is left wondering whether Deckard was unaware of this, or if he knew, but played along because he also got what he wanted.

[edit] Characters

Rick Deckard: The Tyrell Corporation finally locates him, residing at a cabin in the woods with the frozen Rachael. In exchange for getting Rachael back, Deckard agrees to hunt the missing sixth replicant.

Roy Batty: The man which Tyrell used as the template for his combat replicants is in fact a man of considerable instability, suffering from a brain disorder that prevents him from experiencing fear.

Sarah Tyrell: The niece of Eldon Tyrell, Sarah locates and hires Deckard to eliminate the final replicant in order to retain her corporation's hold over the market.

Dave Holden: Starting off bed-ridden after his attack by the replicant Leon, Holden is rescued by Roy who in turn leads him to some startling revelations.

J.R. Isidore: A lowly employee of a vet's office, Isidore also works as an underground replicant sympathizer, having made modifications to replicants in order to help them escape detection.

[edit] Relationship to other works

The book's plot draws from other material related to Blade Runner in a number of ways:

• Deckard, Pris, Sebastian, Leon and Batty all appeared in Blade Runner. Holden was also mentioned in Blade Runner, but only appeared very briefly.

• Many of the parts of the "conspiracy" are based on errors or plot holes identified by fans of the original movie, such as Leon's ability to bring a gun into the Tyrell building, or the reference to the sixth replicant.

• The character John Isidore, and his "pet hospital", is drawn from Dick's original novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, although that book contained no suggestion that the shop ran a sideline in modifying replicants.

• The idea of replicant models being mass-produced, and in particular a woman identical to Rachael existing, is also from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; although in that book, Pris was the replicant double of Rachael, and there was no suggestion that replicants were constructed based on human templates.

• The etymology of the term "blade runner" is revealed to come from the German phrase bleib ruhig, meaning "keep quiet." It was supposedly developed by the Tyrell Corporation to prevent news about replicants malfunctioning.

However, it also outright contradicts material in some ways:

• Sebastian was stated as being dead in the movie (he did not appear in the original novel), yet he is alive in the book.

• Pris was clearly stated as being a replicant in both the movie and the original novel, yet this book claims she was human.

• Pris was clearly destroyed by Deckard in both the movie and the original novel. Sebastian's ability to bring Pris back to life as a replicant introduces numerous problems: the book implies that Sebastian somehow was able to do this without realising that her original body was human. It is likewise unclear why Deckard would have left her, or any suspected replicant he retired, in a state from which they could be repaired.

• The Final Cut of Blade Runner removed all reference to a sixth replicant, as it was normally considered a filming goof.

[edit] Criticism

Many Blade Runner "purists" are polarized in regard to Jeter's contributions to the Blade Runner universe^{[citation needed]}. Among these contributions are:

• The revival of characters, such as J.F. Sebastian and Pris, when stated as dead in the film.
• Calling into question whether or not characters established as human/replicant in the film are human/replicant in the novel (i.e., Pris).
• Numerous attempts by the author to reconcile the film with the novel on which it is based.

On the other hand, there are some that have praised it for the following:

• The writing is comparable to Philip K. Dick's own style, in keeping with the tone of his own novels.
• It addresses and answers certain elements from the film that could be regarded as plot holes (i.e., Leon being able to bring a gun into the Tyrell Corp., Roy Batty's expiration taking place sooner than the listed date in the film.).
• It delves further into the workings of the Tyrell Corporation and the police department. In turn, this explains more about the other characters (Deckard, Tyrell, etc.).

[edit] See also

• Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night
• Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon

[edit] External links

• Review by Tal Cohen