of the rep-symp groups recently.'
'Maybe they wised up.' Iris gave a shrug. 'Maybe the penny finally dropped for them, that replicants aren't anything to be sympathetic about'
'Maybe.' Vogel slowly nodded. 'Or maybe somebody wised them up. Did their thinking for them, in a terminal way. So they wouldn't be bothering anyone else with their crazy ideas. Get what I mean?'
'If anybody iced those solid citizens, it wasn't the blade runner division. We've got more important things to take care of. Like the escaped replicants this crowd was so nuts about. Not that they accomplished anything on the replicants' behalf.'
'That's the official line, huh?' Vogel smiled indulgently at her. 'The rep-symps were just nuisances? Maybe so, but you gotta admit, some of 'em did a good trade at that sort of thing. Quite a spectacle when they brought down this UN advertising blimp. It'd been cruising around above LA for years, so long that when it crashed it had pretty much become a regular part of the urban landscape.'
'Sorry I missed the fireworks.'
Vogel kept smiling. 'There'll be more. Come on.'
He led the way, out from the relative shelter that the buildings' exterior had provided. The rains had picked up again, the monsoon liquefying above the entire Los Angeles basin. With her hair plastered against her skull and the back of her neck, Iris sloshed across the poorly drained asphalt behind Vogel. Approaching the blimp's wreckage produced a chill under her skin several degrees lower than the water seeping through her jacket's seams. It looked less like some corrosion-ravaged techno-artifact than a ruined, Gaudiesque cathedral wrapped in night shadows, the glaring streetlamps substituting for the appropriate cloud-streaked moonlight. Its angular net of shadows fell across Iris as she stopped and looked up the framework's elliptic curve. The crossing lines were like a sketch of a cage, superimposed upon her own elongated silhouette.
'Come on in.' Vogel had used some of the crumpled framework's lower crossbars, the ones that had cut angled trenches through the street's asphalt, as a rough ladder to the dead blimp's midsection. He lifted a flap of the metallic fabric and gestured to the darkness inside. 'It's cozy. You'll like it.'
Both statements were inaccurate. When Iris had climbed up after him, then down into the blimp's partially collapsed abdomen, she found that cozy translated to claustrophobic . 'Like being swallowed by a whale,' she said aloud.
'Not that bad.' Using a vintage World War II military-issue Zippo, Vogel started setting candles alight; fastened by their stalactite-like drippings, the wax tapers were studded all over the metal ribs surrounding him and Iris. The flickering ambient light they provided slowly increased as Vogel moved around the ramshackle space, bearing the tiny flame in one hand. 'I call it home.'
'Charming.' With her fingertips, Iris tested the curved horizontal rib behind her back; its edge was as sharp as a honed knife. Falling asleep here would be like nesting among razorblades. 'You must get interesting visitors.'
'You're the first.' Vogel flicked off the Zippo's flame and restored the small metal rectangle to his pocket. 'I'm not by nature a sociable creature.'
'I'm flattered.' Iris supposed she and Vogel had at least that much in common. She looked up to the tentlike vault of the space. Someone, probably Vogel himself, had stitched together enough of the blimp's tattered sheath remnants to shelter this small area from the weather. The ,rain drummed against the metallic fabric, then gathered in its folds and valleys, forming thick rivulets that sluiced along the wind-billowed sides. In the massed, yellowish candlelight, the effect was primitive and cavelike, as though this small pocket of LA had devolved even further to archaic times. 'But don't think you have to go to any special effort.'
'For you, sweetheart, it's no trouble.' Vogel tugged at a section of the fabric, draped over some large
'Maybe they wised up.' Iris gave a shrug. 'Maybe the penny finally dropped for them, that replicants aren't anything to be sympathetic about'
'Maybe.' Vogel slowly nodded. 'Or maybe somebody wised them up. Did their thinking for them, in a terminal way. So they wouldn't be bothering anyone else with their crazy ideas. Get what I mean?'
'If anybody iced those solid citizens, it wasn't the blade runner division. We've got more important things to take care of. Like the escaped replicants this crowd was so nuts about. Not that they accomplished anything on the replicants' behalf.'
'That's the official line, huh?' Vogel smiled indulgently at her. 'The rep-symps were just nuisances? Maybe so, but you gotta admit, some of 'em did a good trade at that sort of thing. Quite a spectacle when they brought down this UN advertising blimp. It'd been cruising around above LA for years, so long that when it crashed it had pretty much become a regular part of the urban landscape.'
'Sorry I missed the fireworks.'
Vogel kept smiling. 'There'll be more. Come on.'
He led the way, out from the relative shelter that the buildings' exterior had provided. The rains had picked up again, the monsoon liquefying above the entire Los Angeles basin. With her hair plastered against her skull and the back of her neck, Iris sloshed across the poorly drained asphalt behind Vogel. Approaching the blimp's wreckage produced a chill under her skin several degrees lower than the water seeping through her jacket's seams. It looked less like some corrosion-ravaged techno-artifact than a ruined, Gaudiesque cathedral wrapped in night shadows, the glaring streetlamps substituting for the appropriate cloud-streaked moonlight. Its angular net of shadows fell across Iris as she stopped and looked up the framework's elliptic curve. The crossing lines were like a sketch of a cage, superimposed upon her own elongated silhouette.
'Come on in.' Vogel had used some of the crumpled framework's lower crossbars, the ones that had cut angled trenches through the street's asphalt, as a rough ladder to the dead blimp's midsection. He lifted a flap of the metallic fabric and gestured to the darkness inside. 'It's cozy. You'll like it.'
Both statements were inaccurate. When Iris had climbed up after him, then down into the blimp's partially collapsed abdomen, she found that cozy translated to claustrophobic . 'Like being swallowed by a whale,' she said aloud.
'Not that bad.' Using a vintage World War II military-issue Zippo, Vogel started setting candles alight; fastened by their stalactite-like drippings, the wax tapers were studded all over the metal ribs surrounding him and Iris. The flickering ambient light they provided slowly increased as Vogel moved around the ramshackle space, bearing the tiny flame in one hand. 'I call it home.'
'Charming.' With her fingertips, Iris tested the curved horizontal rib behind her back; its edge was as sharp as a honed knife. Falling asleep here would be like nesting among razorblades. 'You must get interesting visitors.'
'You're the first.' Vogel flicked off the Zippo's flame and restored the small metal rectangle to his pocket. 'I'm not by nature a sociable creature.'
'I'm flattered.' Iris supposed she and Vogel had at least that much in common. She looked up to the tentlike vault of the space. Someone, probably Vogel himself, had stitched together enough of the blimp's tattered sheath remnants to shelter this small area from the weather. The ,rain drummed against the metallic fabric, then gathered in its folds and valleys, forming thick rivulets that sluiced along the wind-billowed sides. In the massed, yellowish candlelight, the effect was primitive and cavelike, as though this small pocket of LA had devolved even further to archaic times. 'But don't think you have to go to any special effort.'
'For you, sweetheart, it's no trouble.' Vogel tugged at a section of the fabric, draped over some large
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