The Process Read online

The Process

  Raymond Daley

  Copyright 27/1/12 by Raymond Daley

  Welcome to the twenty first century. For those of you who remember Earth during the twentieth it's still as much of a shit hole as it ever was.

  Yes we have flying cars, we make super humans and we travel in deep space.

  Yet we are unable to perform the most simple of tasks, to repair the damage we have done to our own planet.

  My name is Anson Clarke and although who I actually am is largely unimportant, what I am about to relate to you is the story of untold history.

  The truth is important.

  The large majority of the history of the Tyrell Corporation consists of classified files, many with redacted entries. Often what has gone into public record is apocryphal.

  Records clearly state the first Nexus 3 began its life on February 1st 2003. This, however is completely untrue. The Nexus 3 Prime unit had been in existence for ten months prior to that date.

  This simple fact I can attest to, I was present at the Inception.

  As was the great and mighty leader of our empire, Doctor Eldon Tyrell himself.

  We were put to our task by himself personally, we are the sharp end for all Replicants. We are the sharp end, they are the blade runners - Our lab mice.

  We educate them to certain parameters and we test them. They aren't aware of that. None of them have ever been aware of that. The only test they are aware of is the newest version of the Voight social test.

  It is the very loudly voiced opinion of Professor Voight that Replicants should be aware they are mere creations of man, nothing more. His test is no less than a basic negative reinforcement process.

  If a Replicant is able to recite the Declaration then Voight believes his methods are working.

  Tyrell has his doubts.

  As master of all creation here at the Corporation, his are the only beliefs and opinions that matter. Stay on the right side of the benevolent Doctor and you will remain in his good graces.

  Today we are back from The Shop.

  A minor retrofit that allows us to test the things Professor Voight dares not think about. Doctor Tyrells mind prefers to operate in the dark places where others prefer not to stray.

  Herr Professor likes his equipment, it's big, bulky and far too bloody obvious. When it's being used you can tell. And he likes that, it's important to him.

  It proclaims itself "Here I am! I am functioning! I am proof of my creator and his superiority". Professor Voight, the man, the scientist, the ego.

  Apart from the bleeps and beeps and bings its got that damned silly aeration unit that cools the main processor.

  Two such units are known to exist.

  Or rather one complete unit and the pieces of one.

  The one fully assembled unit sits in the testing area of Professor Voight's laboratory.

  The components of the other sit on a workbench in Doctor Eldon Tyrell's private suite. It was purchased privately, commissioned as a fully functioning display unit. Tyrell paid through a fake company where the device was delivered. It was then moved to Tyrell in complete secrecy.

  The device had come to Tyrells attention. That is a phrase you do not wish to hear. He wished to scrutinize it closely and ensured that happened.

  'Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets'.

  After several rounds of tests on Nexus 2 Replicants and the Nexus 3 Prime unit, Tyrell himself disassembled the Voight machine piece by piece and unlocked it's guilty little secret.

  It was as Eldon Tyrell had privately suspected, the device did nothing.

  It was little more than a reciprocal forced feedback loop, it's processor was a basic logic flip-flop capable of generating one of two random outputs.

  It had a single line display that lit one of two circuits.

  One would light up Replicant. The other, Human.

  Tyrell decided a real test was needed. As the sharp end we were asked to be the implementers of that test. Step forward, the knife edge of morality.

  Hence the trip to The Shop.

  The Shop is the most unassuming room in the Tyrell Corporation building.

  It's white, and looks nothing more than a basic first aid room.

  It is from here that Doctor Tyrell fitted our bio-mod.

  The implant itself is fully organic, no moving parts and mimics it's surroundings. It consists of nerves, sinews and bones.

  It is engineered to detect the genetic signature of a Replicant.

  We were tested on the same subjects Tyrell used during the examination of the Voight device, also included were random Tyrell employees and templant candidates.

  Unlike the Voight tests, our results proved to be one hundred percent accurate.

  Tyrell insists on our procedure because he wants his toys to appear as human as possible. This is why we teach them.

  We give them an insight into how to be more like us, less perfect, more fallible. The true measure of a man (or least a real, naturally born man) is that we are flawed.

  Although Tyrell's slogan is "More Human Than Human", a Replicant stands out as too perfect, too precise.

  Not Human enough.

  It is odd to see a Replicant interact with another Replicant, even more so when they are the same model. It is like a surreal convention for identical twins. The Nexus 3 Prime unit seems to have no reaction when he works with the Nexus 2 units. He has met hundreds, often a dozen at once when we stage a social group setting for him.

  Man can operate alone but must also know how to work as part of the group.

  No man is an island.

  An important lesson from us to the Replicants in our quest to "perfect" their humanity.

  Tyrell the genius had a crazy idea one morning.

  We turned up to discover George. We only ever knew him as George. No last name was ever given or offered, the look from Tyrell was enough to tell us never to ask either.

  George is the genetic templant for the Nexus 3 Prime. His cells were taken, analysed and engineered.

  They were not copied. No Replicant is a clone.

  It is constructed from raw materials, individually engineered from a master blueprint and grown to a specific design. Although a Replicant may be externally identical in appearance to its templant donor it is tailored internally to fix all the flaws of natural selection. Nerves work faster, muscles are stronger.

  God may have made man in his image but Eldon Tyrell made him better.

  The Nexus 3 Prime showed only curiosity at meeting his mirror image.

  "You look like me" the Prime said.

  "Actually no, you are mistaken. You look like me." replied George. That logical minefield kept the Replicant occupied in silence for the rest of the day. George didn't seem to mind that eventually there would be millions of him running around doing menial tasks.

  "It pays the bills" he told us before he left. It was also the only time I have ever seen that face smile.

  The following day we were back to school as usual.

  We teach them etiquette, it is the perfect cover for our covert examination.

  The actions of a friendly human are easily taught, a manly hug, an affectionate back-slap, a polite handshake.

  And this little civility is our Trojan Horse.

  Are we meeting a man or one of his creations? Obviously in this particular instance we know the Nexus 3 Prime by sight, he is unique - there are no other Nexus 3 units in existence at this time. Not even in vitro.

  Although we look the same, they are engineered to be faster and stronger than us - No mouse wishes to bell the cat.

  What a piece of work is man!

  When we meet and shake hands we have an instant ID.

  The bio-mod gives an instant outpu
t to the sub-auditory implant. The same one word output, the idea stolen from from Voight's bogus "detector".

  We simply hear one word through the bone speaker.

  Either the hoped response "Human" or the one that sets our nerves on edge, "Replicant".

  If the latter is the case we use our mod to ping a new target. It simply "paints" their skin with an invisible pheromone and they are now marked forever - Unclean.

  Replicant.

  We don't do tuition every day, maybe two or three times a week at most. The Replicant is encouraged to ask questions, all of which are logged and recorded. We are told to be free and open with our responses.

  The more a Replicant can learn about how a real human mind works, the better it can ape our behaviour. They may be multi-million dollar creations but their complex neural programming is still nothing more sophisticated than "Monkey see, Monkey do".

  February 1st 2003

  The worst has happened. After Tyrell saw off the last of the press men, we were doing normal interactions with the Nexus 3 Prime unit. The press had been present for his "Inception", Tyrell made the great dog and pony show of it - more P. T. Barnum than mankinds greatest scientific mind today.

  We had a short question and answer session with the Replicant then finished up the days