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Above him, fractals of snow fell from an endless haze of gray. As he laid on the steps, he waited to die. He let the cold take him. His bare fingertips grew numb in the snow. Frost needled his back. The wound in his abdomen pulsed pain, but the pain, too, had grown dull in the winter wind. He was terribly tired. The colors of the world swelled as he took in its abundance. The snow was beautiful. The sky was beautiful. That was enough. That was all he needed. He was thinking of this when he let himself close his eyes.
And at last, the darkness took him.
***
The sharp smell of antiseptic. He blinked. The glare of overhead lights. The fluorescent hum. He must be in the baseline room, yet he didn't remember how he came here. His head throbbed with pain. Something was off. The room was warm.
“He’s waking up,” a voice said. It belonged to someone older than he was. There was an edge to his voice, and urgency in his tone. Did the operator always sound like that?
His heart rate spiked. He willed it to slow. He couldn’t fail baseline. Failing baseline meant they would retire him. That was bad. Surely that was bad.
Why was that bad again? He—he tried to remember. What was it that he learned? He had no soul. He was doing well for someone without a soul. He protected the replicant child. He saved her father who was drowning at sea—he imagined her held within his arms. He imagined her loved, like any human child who was born into the world.
He had fulfilled his purpose. He was ready for retirement. He will fail baseline, but that’s okay. He was so tired. The words came to him, the way the color of the sky came to him.
And blood-black nothingness began to spin, a system of cells interlinked within cells, interlinked within cells, interlinked within one system.
“Joe?”
And dreadfully distinct, against the dark, a tall white fountain played.
“Kid? Do you know where you are?”
He did. He was in the baseline room. But it was warm, wasn’t it? He wasn’t shivering like he was used to. Wasn’t something—off?
What’s it like to hold the hand of someone you love?
What was it like? He never let himself wonder this in the four years he’s worked in the force. Overhead, in the ceiling, the blemish of a moving shadow upon the bleach white.
“Let him rest.” This was a second voice. The voice of a girl. Joshi? Joshi observing his baseline that he will fail because—because he has nothing else to give. He was a rag wrung dry. He was wood sanded to dust. He was weightless. He was nothing.
Do they teach you how to feel finger to finger?
What did it ever mean? To feel? Was he ever capable of such a thing?
“He looks cold Ana, is there anything—“
Do you long for having your heart interlinked?
He thought of Joi, he thought of the girl that was Joi’s body. He thought of her gentle touch upon his bare chest, her soft voice as she told him, without judgment, this is safe, we can stop anytime, just say stop and I’ll stop—
“Here. Don’t fight it. Just sleep, alright?”
What’s it like to hold your child in your arms?
He felt a blanket being pulled to his chin by a stranger's hand. He felt the weight of the hand upon his bruised shoulder. The touch was a starburst of warmth. He hadn’t realized he was shivering. He hadn’t even realized he was cold. His head spun. There was something wrong with his assessment. He didn’t remember a kindness such as the one he was given.
What’s it like to hold your child in your arms?
He would never have children—and he was never a child. He was never a child, and yet some part of him, some wretched, irreversibly broken, part of him longed for—
A hand, upon his shoulders, rubbing circles against the fabric of his shirt. Warmth interlinked with warmth. Touch.
Where was he? Why was he held?
“You can rest, kid. You’ve earned it.”
The lights above him dimmed. He was so tired. He closed his eyes and drifted. Even then, the warmth upon his shoulder stayed.