Androids and Their Sheep: A Blade Runner 2049 Epilogue

Androids and Their Sheep: Part 1

~ Foreword ~

The characters are not my own. Those belong to the indomitable Philip K. Dick, Hampton Fancher, David Webb Peoples and Michael Green, along with the directorial prowess of both Ridley Scott and Denis Villenueve. Gentlemen, to the extent you disagree with any choices I've made, please forgive the creative liberties I've taken with your own angels.

~ 1 ~

[As They Sleep – 2021 - Sapper]

Sapper Morton stood over the fresh earth, newly packed over the tear-stained grave. The tree, which once had flourished with life now stood as dry as the bones it presided over. Even with his experience as a field medic, his skills weren't enough to save her. Perhaps, he thought, he had run out of his allotment of miracles for one lifetime. Perhaps, if there was such a thing as God, His miracles were in greater supply for those born, not made. Sapper had done what he could with his two hands and that scalpel that saved so many lives before. He had witnessed a miracle that day, even if he could not save her from death. She hadn't even cried or hesitated when he had to cut into her abdominal wall to rescue the child.

As Sapper brought the baby into this world, he could at least take comfort knowing that Rachael witnessed the miracle birth, saw the baby girl with her own eyes, gave her a name before succumbing to the blood loss. She died with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. This was the memory Sapper would cherish for the rest of his days, however long or short. He had done his duty as had been agreed so long ago. Deckard had done his part. Freysa, hers. So why did he alone have to watch her die and bury her? He packed the dirt tightly and went back to his protein farming, knowing one day someone would find him. For a Replicant who witnessed the miracle of the impossible, a baby born of Replicant womb, Sapper knew his time was a gift and that when, not if, a Blade Runner shows up, he would die in peace. No one could take that away from him.

[The Dream Maker – 2049 - Deckard]

She looked just like Rachael, Deckard thought. He couldn't believe his eyes. His part in the great opera that was agreed to so long ago was to flee and never look back. "To truly love someone", he had told Agent KD9-3.7, "sometimes you have to be a stranger." Agent K, Joe, as he self-identified back during the raid in Las Vegas, was just outside his daughter Ana's lab. Deckard knew Joe didn't understand the sacrifices Deckard had to make in the name of a miracle, didn't understand what it felt like in his soul to be forced to abandon the woman he loved and their unborn child, how could he? No one but Deckard was forced to carry that pain and loss. Deckard did, though, catch a glimpse of the loss in Joe's eyes right before they both lost consciousness during the raid in Las Vegas. That was when Luv, Niander Wallace's murderous Replicant servant, destroyed Joe's emanator, the sole vessel of what Joe knew as love, the AI he called Joi.

Seeing Ana face-to-face created in Deckard a curious reaction. Together with overwhelming happiness and relief, Deckard felt an eternal sadness for the 28 years lost between him and his daughter. Deckard also knew that, even though Luv was dead, killed at Joe's hands and lost to the ocean, Niander Wallace would not stop until he either found Deckard and his child or was assured that they both ceased to exist. Wallace had descended into madness seeking to create Replicants capable of birth and could not explain the phenomenon of Rachael, an older model created by the Tyrell Corporation before the blackout of 2019, no less, being fertile. Wallace had Rachael's bones but needed the child's tissue samples to unlock their mysteries and create life itself in his new models of "angels." Deckard knew madness when he saw it and knew that Wallace would not stop hunting him and Ana. Deckard wondered if Joe's survival was more liability than either one realized.

As he watched Ana create memories that to be bought by Wallace and implanted within the Replicants, all for the sake of stabilizing their emotional reactions and providing a modicum of humanity, Deckard shuddered. What was it Joe had told him? It felt like years ago. Right... 'All the best memories' were hers.