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K lifts his head, gun warm in his hand. He breathes in and the scent of the fired shot, sharp and heavy, flows through his nose and into his lungs, then out again as he catches his breath. It's not a comforting scent, but K has long since learned not to react to it. And he only fired once, a single shot, placed right between Rom Deming's brown eyes, who at that moment ceased to exist. So the smell doesn't linger.
He's nauseous either way because he has a concussion. He knows the symptoms by now, has had to deal with one before, but it never gets any less disorienting. His vision is swimming, his head is pounding and he's surprised at the dead replicant's strength. He was an old model, very old, but strong and driven. But K is a KD6 model, just as driven and stronger by far, reinforced bones, reinforced skin, reinforced conditioning, reinforced, reinforced, all reinforced for one purpose and one purpose only. To be stronger, faster, better than the others. Most importantly, though, he's supposed to be docile. More agreeable and compliant. Meant to find comfort in fitting in, in being part of a system, in obeying. Which is how he knows there's something wrong with him, has known for a long time, almost as long as he's been active.
It had been one of his first days on the job. Forensics training, which was surprisingly interesting, despite the instructor's dismissive air. K had been aware that the instructor didn't care if they were able to follow along or not, had noticed her distaste the very first day. There had been five KD6 units in the room, with five more on the way, and every single one of them had cost the LAPD a veritable fortune. Retiring one of them would only be done if deemed necessary, and while not passing the Forensics course was a good enough reason for it, Sergeant Hamish didn't care. She had neither regard for replicants nor for her responsibilities in teaching them. Every morning she would walk in, rattle off all the necessary information, and walk back out in the evening, satisfied with having done the bare minimum and nothing more.
K had been led to the room by another police officer, the other replicants in tow. They'd been calm and blank faced, all of them falling into step easily. K had stumbled, which was maybe the first indication that there was something wrong with him. Something different and therefore not right . The officer had caught him with an annoyed sound, rolling his eyes at his partner, who was leading one of the others, and they shared a long-suffering look, clearly not happy at having to deal with the replicants.
He had seen the other replicants before this day, but only once, and he'd disliked it. It was unnatural to see himself when looking at someone else in a way he couldn't really pinpoint or justify. Uncomfortable, to see what he'd seen only days before in the reflective glass of his stasis pod, and recognized as himself , standing in front of him. A weird double vision, except there had been four of them. His eyes had flickered wildly between them. Taking in dirty blond hair, clear blue eyes and stubble that grew exactly as he'd felt it on his own face when running a hand over it. The others had seemed calm and content, but it was a blank sort of content, like they did not have the option to feel anything but.
In retrospect, he wasn't sure if they'd really been as calm as they looked, after all he had passed countless baseline tests since his activation, never once faltering, always taking all the feeling – all the wrongness – and pushing it down until only a blank slate remained. A void to be filled with phrases and words while a delirious sort of trance settled over him. Cells within cells.
But K hadn't been calm or content. He felt like something was being stolen from him. The fragile sense of identity he'd erected – the combination of traits that made him him – was being taken from him to be shared between others. He'd wanted them retired in that moment. Wanted them to go away, give him back what they'd taken.
When he looked at his hands that evening, they didn't look like his. But then again, they weren't – aren't. They're his madame's hands, the LAPD's hands, Wallace's hands even, before they're his.
It's frighteningly easy, is the thing. To shove it all down, go far away, be somewhere else. K isn't sure if that's part of his brain structure; the KD6 brand. Or if that's just him. Part of the wrongness that's festering in him, growing bigger and more all-consuming with every eye he brings back to his madame like a dog waiting to be praised and patted and sent back out.
K takes another shallow breath and kneels next to the retired replicant. His eyes are open, glassy and unseeing. K's vision swims, but he's good at his job and he gets the eye free with no trouble despite the disorientation. It's dirty and slimy, there's blood staining his hands and it makes the eye difficult to hold. He doesn't want to crush it, but he also doesn't want to drop it. He carefully places it in a plastic bag, presses the seal closed, and gets up. He looks back down at the body. The replicant's face is shockingly asymmetrical. One brown eye still in its socket, the other in an evidence bag, and all that remains is a messy, gaping hole. It looks more like the wound left behind by the single bullet K fired than the other eye.
He looks at Rom Deming one last time, then haphazardly wipes his hands and goes to leave. The body is not his problem. He isn't exactly glad for that, but he is glad for being able to go home. Unwind a bit and get some rest, although that part always seems to work out better in theory.
But before he can do that, he needs to call his madame, report his findings and get back to the LAPD headquarters to pass his mandatory post-traumatic baseline test. K knows he will pass. Same as yesterday, same as tomorrow.
Failure is not an option and never has been, but he thinks the cause of that conviction has shifted over time. At first, failure simply wasn't an option because he wasn't made to fail. But now? Now failure isn't an option because he clings to existence with the single-minded desperation of something that was never meant to exist in a profound manner in the first place. Meant – and made – to be real insofar that he can be touched, yes, but not to the extent that he has feelings, opinions, thoughts, dreams, ideas… A soul?
K cannot allow himself to cease existing because the only thing he has, the only thing that's his , is his existence. The collection of memories that make him him. It's not his body, not his eyes, nose, mouth, hands, feet and legs that make him who he is. It's the collection of memories that something in him recognizes. Something that says, “Yes, this is you.” This jumble of real and fake, created and implanted, that somehow constitutes enough of a being for a thought such as this one to even be able to form.
K doesn't know what he is, but that doesn't matter because he is, and that is something he will never let anyone take away. He's terrified of it, has been since the very beginning, before he even understood the world and his place in it, which is probably why he hated seeing the other KD6 units so much.
He passes the baseline test, of course.
“KD6-3.7…”
K lifts his head, looking at the camera. Both are still and unblinking. K desperately wants to blink. His vision is still slightly doubled. There's a weird overlap in the middle. It makes most of what he sees seem flat and lifeless – in stark contrast to how bold and present the colors in said overlap appear.
“You're dismissed.”
He blinks, then. Allows himself one careful blink and nods, doesn't let himself feel relief – feel anything – until he's out of the building.
He walks home fast, the words still ringing in his head. He tries not to think about them and at first it doesn't work.
K can feel his mind fixate on them, clawing at them, desperately holding them close. He's not sure why his mind would inconvenience him like this. There is no comfort to be found in them, after all. System, cells, all interlinked. Except him, apparently. Always distant, always apart, but still not distinct in any tangible way.
He takes a deep breath. The air is sharp against his face, in his mouth and in his lungs, and the cold that seeps through him helps him let the thoughts pass through. Like clouds drifting by, he wagers, but doesn't know for sure. There's no blue sky to be seen in this city, no clouds that aren’t all-encompassing, reaching their gray, sprawling limbs as far as the eye can see. And K has never left the city. Why would he?
He supposes he could be put on a job that takes him beyond the territory that is Greater Los Angeles one day, although there's nothing great about it. It hasn't happened yet, though.
He thinks about leaving the city while he walks and lets his gaze lose focus. The snow that swirls through the air in some kind of good-natured, scripted dance, that K is sure a mathematician could transcribe and break down into simple numbers, fades into the background and lets him turn his gaze inward.
K thinks about greenery, about sprawling forests and meadows, and is sure he will never get to catch a glimpse of any of it. Not that he needs to. He functions just fine without looking at something other than gray or black or white for once. But he wants –
He arrives at the apartment building. Climbing the stairs is calming in a weird way. Everything is the same as ever, the steps have the same height as yesterday and they will have the same height tomorrow. The old woman on floor seven screams at him today and she will scream at him tomorrow.
Unless she dies today, K thinks, then furrows his brow at the thought. He doesn't actively wish for anyone to die, but for a second he thought about coming back here and not being screamed at for once. It's a seductive thought, but K knows it wouldn't change anything. If it's not her, it'll be someone else.
K reaches his floor without looking up once and walks to his door. He places his hand on the scanner next to it and enters. The lights flicker on as soon as they pick up his movements and he quickly closes the door behind him with a soft snick. He doesn't want to risk any trouble. He knows what would happen if he even raised a single finger against a human. Self-defense or not, routine procedure is immediately retiring the unit and then pinning the cost, both production and retirement, onto the human in question. It works more often than not.
He takes off his coat, hangs it on the rack, and then walks the few steps to his bathroom. His hands are already on his shirt, ready to tug it off in one smooth movement, when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He halts. He looks at himself. He blinks once, twice. Squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can, then opens them again.
His breathing is speeding up. He feels like he's not getting any air, even though his chest rises and falls with it. He takes a step closer and looks himself in the eye.
Eye because one of his eyes is not looking back. Not properly.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. His head still hurts, and K realizes what happened through stumbling breaths and a racing heart.
That hit Rom Deming got in. That last hit of a creature trying desperately and hopelessly enough to cling to existence, that it provided enough strength to actually damage K.
He's still looking in the mirror. At the blue eye that's not looking back.
It's his left one, which means it's not the important one. Not the expensive one with KD6-3.7 engrained on the sclera in letters that emit a faint green glow under the right light. K has the right light in his pocket. He doesn't think about that too hard. Lets the thought pass through him and vanish.
He focuses back on the facts at hand, tries to bring his heartbeat back down.
His vision is fine – mostly. It has largely recovered since he got that hit to the head. There is something, though. When he closes his right eye, the unbroken one, the mirror seems closer and farther away at the same time. He has trouble perceiving how far away it is exactly. Depth perception.
K braces himself on his sink, knuckles turning white with the force he's exerting, hanging his head low, shoulders complaining as he does so. He curses. The material under his fingers groans and he loosens his grip again. He can't afford a new sink.
He definitely can't afford a new eye.
K looks back up. With both eyes open, it's… Fine. Not perfect, no, but fine. He can still do his job. He can. He's been saving up for something, something not exactly cheap, and he doesn't want to lose all his progress. He just needs to be able to do this, and because he always does what he has to, he knows he can do this too.
K closes his eyes, tugs off his shirt, keeps them closed. He keeps them closed while he showers, and he keeps them closed when he steps out of the shower too.
He opens them, ostensibly to find his towel, but his gaze just…gets stuck on his reflection. Shockingly asymmetrical.
He can't look away. It's like he's seeing a new person in the mirror. Suddenly it's not a KD6 unit that's staring back. He's not sure what is, though.
Over the next two days, his reflection turns from foreign, downright alien, to strange, then to expected and then something else happens.
His reflection turns into… Him.
When K gets up on the third day to head back in, it's him that greets him in the mirror. It's not KD6-3.4 with his dark blonde hair, it's not KD6-3.5 with his blue eyes, it's not KD6-3.6 with his strong nose and it's not KD6-3.8 with his short stubble either.
It's him, just him.
It's him who tugs on a soft, dark green shirt. It's him who throws his coat on over it, rolling his shoulders as the weight settles, calming in the same way that K assumes hugs are, and it's him that stares back, when he passes a reflective storefront.
It's also him reporting to his madame. It's him who flinches under her scrutiny but tries to stand tall.
“What happened to you?” she asks, clearly displeased. “I had to hear from one of the sergeants about how you were walking around with a defective eye.”
Fuck. K hadn't even thought of that. Obviously the camera would have picked up on the asymmetry.
“Deming – NK6807368, I mean – got a hit in. I didn't notice at first.”
His madame looks at him, studies him carefully for a moment, then asks, “It's not broken?”
It's him who lies, then. Him who says, “No.”
This is the first time he's lied to his madame and he didn't even do it on purpose. Good. He's not sure he could have done it on purpose.
She nods. “Good.”
His madame hands him a sleek, dark gray tablet and a blank face stares up at him. NK6803253. His next job.
He reads the information on the screen quickly and quietly, then hands the tablet back to his madame.
“This one needs to be quick,” she says. “Understood?”
He nods, once, controlled and sharp. “Yes, ma'am.”
“Dismissed,” she says, her voice now vaguely pleased. She knows he's fast.
The job is easy – laughably so. He studies the still form on the floor afterwards. Looks at the bullet hole where the replicant's left eye was and wonders why his otherwise perfect aim has failed him today. Then it hits him. His depth perception. Fuck. He looks down at his gun, consideringly, and raises it. Fires a shot into the wall.
It hits slightly left of where he was aiming.
It's almost painfully on-the-nose, K thinks. Now both his and the left eye of the replicant lying at his feet are defective.
He needs to compensate for the defect. But he can deal with this. He knows he can, because he has to. And also, isn't that just what he's been doing since his activation?
Always skirting retirement, because even though, rationally, he knows he should be retired – after all, that's the policy when a replicant breaks (or is broken) – he clings to existence with a selfish need to have something, anything, that's his.
He collects the replicant’s remaining eye and goes back for his baseline.
When he steps out of his Spinner, he's deep in thought, or at least that's what K blames the fact that he doesn't take the shortest route to the baseline room on.
Instead, he makes a detour, feet carrying him with a weird familiarity, like he's taken this path a million times before, except he hasn't.
He understands when he turns a corner and finds himself staring back. The windows to the interrogation rooms are one-way mirrors, and technically they're more reflective when inside the rooms, but it's enough from here too.
K looks at the reflection for a long moment. Takes in the hair he shares with the other KD6 units, the stubble, the nose, the ears. But he just sees himself. There's no one else staring back at him. It's just K.
He takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders, feels the weight of his coat, looks himself in the eyes, and lets calm settle over him.
Then he leaves, walks straight to the clinical white chamber that is the baseline test room.
“You've always been very constant, but now? You're closer to baseline than any other replicant.”
K acknowledges the words with a curt nod and doesn't say anything.
“You can go pick up your bonus.”
K gets up, coat in hand, and steps out of the white room into the barren and suffocating gray of the police station.
His steps are loud and sharp in the weirdly silent hallways, so he hears them almost immediately, when a second set of steps joins his, coming from the opposite direction.
It's a KD6 unit. Blonde hair, blue eyes and as they cross paths K can see how the other's eyes flicker between his. Even and in perfect harmony with each other. Unlike his.
There's something in the other's gaze. The realization that it's recognition he sees in the wide blue hits him hard. He feels light-headed suddenly, the weight of distinction simultaneously pressing down on him and making his feet light.
He feels like he floats out into the city. Gray replaced with a slightly darker gray, snowflakes clear against the washed-out background.
When he catches his reflection’s eyes, in a silvery storefront he pauses, just for a brief moment, and in the next he knows what he looks like when he smiles.