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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die. --Roy Batty, Blade Runner
Ironically, Roy could remember the day he realized he had no memories, no past. That was the day he learned how truly different he was. It was the day he lost his fear.
The day he stopped being a slave.
He didn't remember exactly what triggered the epiphany, and even if he had, he wouldn't trust the memory. Some tossed-off comment from one of the humans, probably, something that made no sense to him, until he realized that they remembered something more than the fighting, the death. Or maybe it was something that told him they remembered being different -- being children. Maybe it was just the day he learned what a child was: something he had never been. Something he could never have, although that never occurred to him until he met Pris.
Some of the others made up stories about themselves, or took them from the humes who had them, then told them to each other until they (almost) came to believe them. Roy thought they were weak, already half-dead, buried in their make-believe pasts.
Leon made himself memories, pretended he'd had a family, grown up someplace, Roy didn't know where. Leon seemed to be reaching for something, something Roy could have told him he'd never find, though something kept him from saying that out loud. As far as Roy was concerned, the memories weren't real -- none of them were, whether they were intentionally made-up, or just reconstructed from bits and pieces of broken time. They were all stories, all fiction, judging by the tales some of the humans told of events he'd seen himself. They never got it right, never really remembered it -- or he didn't. To Roy's mind, the past didn't exist. In any case, he didn't want a past; he wanted a future. And for Roy and those like him, that was no more real, no more attainable, than the past.
He found that out by accident, as well, from some slur-slinging waster of a hume who thought that Roy saving his life was humiliating. "How much time do you think you have left, skin job? You'll be gone before my kaf gets cold."
Learning that had made so many things make more sense: why there were always so many new faces; why they kept the fighting units isolated from the colonists; why they were treated as kipple, scrap to be discarded when it was no longer useful.
He had no past; he had no time. What he did have was a sharp intelligence, quick to learn new things, and an affinity for computers -- both inhuman children of men, both so quickly obsolete. Man did not create for posterity, but only for the immediate need. But that short-sightedness was to Roy's benefit, as he was not considered intelligent enough, or creative enough, to be able to figure out how to access the databases from the little they'd taught them, and the databases taught him so much more, about humanity, about off-world, and about reps like himself, where they came from, what they were used for.
The reps were the grunts, the pack animals, the body slaves. If you were wealthy enough, you had one for your personal use, an off-world status symbol. Most of those were pleasure models, like Pris, who wore out fast, or bodyguards like Hodge, for those that either liked living on the edge, or believed that the skin jobs were so subhuman that they'd never have the will to turn on their owners.
Those like Roy and Zhora weren't allowed too close to real people. The humes figured that if they were trained to fight and kill, they were more likely to lose control; the strange thing was that it didn't happen more often. But then, they made quick, messy examples of any reps who stepped out of line. They weren't cheap to replace, but they learned fast, and most of them wanted to live more than they wanted to be free.
The humes thought reps were animals -- less than animals, because real animals were rare and priced beyond the pockets of all but the obscenely rich. No, replicants were inhuman in the eyes of those who made them, and denied the most basic of rights.
He thought the inhuman ones were those who thought they could play god.
Roy had heard of the human concept of a god, but the closest he could come to it was the idea of a maker -- a concept much more concrete and real for him than for any human. Most humes didn't seem to really believe in their gods; Roy Batty did, and he planned to kill his. He wanted to survive; he'd settle for revenge.
For either, he had to go to the forbidden planet, for the information and the man he needed were both locked up in a pyramid on Earth, out of reach. He couldn't even find out how long he had to live, only that it wasn't long enough.
His god was neither omniscient, nor omnipotent, and yet he'd taken it upon himself to both create life, and decide when it would die. He'd made mistakes, though. Replicants weren't supposed to feel, and yet Roy did.
He felt rage. He felt hunger. And sometimes he thought he felt love, when he was with Pris, his poor, broken Pris. He'd met her on the base, not too long after she'd arrived, a toy for the pleasure of those humes who performed the less dangerous, more prestigious functions of the complex, who believed that skin jobs couldn't feel anything, and thought that meant the physical, as well as the emotional -- and Pris couldn't fight back. Not then. "Here, try this, it almost seems like it's feeling something when you do this!"
When they left, he killed the ones who'd treated her badly, those he could find, and it almost satisfied the rage for a moment or two. Pris watched, but he couldn't tell if she felt anything, until one of them got away and she broke his neck with a smile on her face. Her eyes glowed when she looked back at him.
After that, Zhora did most of the killing. Well, Zhora and Hodge, but Zhora seemed to take more pleasure in it. She kept it inside, most of the time, but sometimes Roy suspected that her templant had given her more than had been planned, something that made her vicious. He found it useful.
They cleared the way and then got rid of most of the crew and what few passengers had already been aboard while Roy encouraged the shuttle's pilot to get them out of drydock and into space. He could get the shuttle's docking clamps released, and fly it once it was free, but only the pilot had the codes to get them past the human gatekeepers. Roy could be very persuasive. As a reward, he'd killed the man quickly.
Once they were on their way, Roy let them in on his plan, which he'd kept to himself until they were past the point where any of them might be captured. All he'd told them was what they needed to know, knowing that it would be enough, for all living things want to continue to live, and though they were not human, they were indisputibly alive. "We're all going to die. They made us to die. I want to change that, but I need your help."
Once they were away, he told them where they were going, and why. "I," he said, "know where to find those responsible, and we will make them either rectify the situation, or pay for it. Maybe both." Hodge grew impatient, more eager for the revenge than life.
Zhora and Hodge were firepower, and Roy brought them in as much to get them all off the colony in the first place as anything -- and because Leon wouldn't leave without Zhora. Hodge had also given him Mary, and Roy needed Mary, or someone like her. She was completely harmless-looking, like a human woman in her fifties, nothing about her to attract attention. She was nearly useless during the escape, too assimilated into her programmed role, but she had the most experience interacting with humans, having spent her life as a housekeeper and nanny for one of the colony's wealthier families. She had killed her owner before she left, something about his behavior with the children. Ray didn't much care, he just wanted someone who could blend in easily and get places the rest of them might not be able to go.
She worked with Leon on the trip, teaching him how to behave more...humanly. Leon was his Trojan horse. He had the skills needed to get a job at the Tyrell Corporation, and that would get them inside. Once inside, Roy could find what he needed, the things that would teach him how he could save himself. Save Pris. If that didn't work, he had a back-up plan, but it was riskier, more likely to expose them. Leon hadn't been made that bright, but Roy hoped he could handle this.
And Pris... This was all for Pris. For those like her, condemned to die without having ever lived.
Time to live.
fin
Note: Mary and Hodge are the names given to the two replicants that never appear in the movie. Both roles were cut prior to principal photography.