Deckard finds himself reflecting on his actions, and how he fits into the world as an autonomous cog in the machine. Each set of eyes he saw shutter their last blink, each memory he took from the world, each nail in the coffin. How and why was it like this, he wondered. He understood the pragmatic reasons for the way of the world, but him, why was this what he did?
He hadn’t ever administered the Voight-Kampff Test on himself, maybe for fear he may not like the result, maybe for apathy. He drank the last of his glass of whiskey and turned his phone toward his face, aligning the camera roughly with his eye. His finger maneuvered to press the button that would initiate the scan.
Deckard turned the phone back around to see the result, but the screen was black. His phone was dead.
[[He puts the phone away and decides to leave his apartment.]]
[[He charges his phone and decides to face the truth]]
Deckard walks out of his apartment, letting the door swing shut behind him. He calls the elevator, and it slowly ascends the elevator shaft. While waiting, he struggles in his head to suppress the urge to have proof. It doesn't matter. He should live the same life either way. The elevator arrives.
[[Deckard enters the elevator and descends to ground level.]]
[[Deckard turns back around to once again enter his apartment.]]The black and white home page of the government-endorsed app once again fills his phone's screen. He presses the button that directs him to the test page, the floor in front of him filling the camera feed. He aligns his thumb with the button that would initiate the scan of his pupil and turns the phone around, in roughly the same position as before. He begins to recite in his head the questions he has asked so many times before. Does he actually want to know, he wonders.
[[He administers the test. It reveals what was already clear.]]
[[He administers the test.]]Los Angeles used to be sunny, Deckard has heard. The rain pours from the sky, and he's soaked before he even has the chance to decide where he's headed. Cars fly by on the road in front of him and above him. He wonders if they look at him as they pass, or if they won't afford him the simplest dignity of recognition as a fellow human being. I could leave this place, leave it all behind, he thinks as he begins walking down the road.
[[He continues strolling around Los Angeles, shoving down the impulse to leave.]]
[[He walks until he reaches his car. He gets in.]]
He enters the apartment, once again letting the door swing closed behind him. He pours another glass of whiskey, looking out on Los Angeles through his half-shuttered window. It's wet and cold out there. At least it isn't that wet in his apartment.
[[Deckard's impaired state persuades his mind to ponder identity and morality.|home]]Deckard finds that the city is reflective of mankind in a certain sense. It teems with life, there are hordes of people in its every corner. But none of them are particularly well, even those at the tops of the highest towers. They still have a kind of illness, a slight depravity, an ailment that prevents them from really seeing anyone else as they are.
The smell of sewage bellows out from drain covers, its polluted fog filling the air. He doesn't like it here very much, he thinks to himself. There is a general unkindness to this place. He continues walking for quite some time, his mind wandering hazily from thing to thing.
Deckard starts the car without any issue. It lifts up into the air. Is he really going to leave? He can't just leave, right? His car glides through the buildings of Los Angeles, like an ant through blades of grass. Maybe I'll finally be able to see fields of grass, he thinks.
His car disappears beyond the city skyline.Deckard is obviously a cold, callous human, just like the rest of them. The inhumanity in the manner he performed his work was, indeed, quite characteristic of humanity. Every replicant he'd ever retired was just another task he had to follow through with, he thought. He never wanted to do it, but he did anyway.
He dozes off in his chair, the phone slipping off his knee and onto the floor. In Deckard's poorly lit apartment, a faint red glow flashed slowly onto his face. He shouldn't have taken the test.