DOWNTIME - Day 1, Evening

[Telcontar]

The ride back was quieter than the trip out.

Wylde eased the spinner into the crime scene and set it down with practiced precision. The turbines wound down with a familiar whine before the cockpit settled into silence.

Crowe unbuckled, gathering the evidence satchel from the footwell.

"Appreciate the lift, Detective Wylde."

He gingerly climbed out onto the landing pad and paused before shutting the door. For a moment it looked as though he was about to head for his own spinner.

Instead, he turned back.

"I'm buying dinner."

The words came out flat, almost sounding like another assignment.

"There's a place a few blocks over."

He glanced between Wylde and Elly.

"Chinese-Mexican fusion."

A brief pause.

"It sounds questionable."

Another pause.

"It isn't."

The restaurant sat wedged between a synth-noodle stand and a pawn shop whose windows had been painted over decades ago. The faded neon sign buzzed stubbornly in three languages, half the letters burned out. Officially it served Chinese-Mexican fusion. Unofficially it served cops, dockworkers, and people who wanted to disappear into the background for half an hour.

Crowe pushed through the door.

The owner looked up from behind the counter and gave a single nod.

"Usual?"

He paused, glancing between Elly and Wylde.

"No...Three."

It wasn't a place he'd ever brought coworkers before.

The smell of star anise, grilled peppers, soy, garlic, and cilantro filled the room. A battered spinner rotor hung from the ceiling beside faded paper lanterns. Someone had decided those decorations worked together years ago and nobody had questioned it since.

Crowe slid into the back booth, his back against the wall and eyes naturally settling on the entrance. He winced with the shift of his torso.

"The dumplings are worth ordering. The Five-Spice Carnitas tacos aren't authentic to anything, but they're excellent. Don't ask for substitutions. Mr. Liu takes it personally."

He picked up the menu, though he clearly didn't need one.

"Detective Wylde."

Crowe looked over the top of it. He spoke with unusual confidence.

"Try the margarita. They age the tequila in oak with Sichuan peppercorns and smoke the citrus before mixing it."

A slight shrug.

"I've worked my way through the menu over the years."

He looked toward the counter.

"Mr. Liu claims it's the best margarita in Los Angeles."

A pause.

"The bartender says it's only because they ignore his recipe."

Crowe's expression barely changed, but there was the hint of dry amusement behind it.

The waitress arrived with a pot of jasmine tea. Without thinking, Crowe poured a cup for Elly before filling his own and sliding the last toward Wylde.

Only after he'd done it did he seem to realize it wasn't something he normally did. He leaned back.

For perhaps the first time since meeting Elly, Crowe wasn't scanning every exit or measuring every word. He still sat facing the entrance—old habits survived explosions—but the tension that usually lived in his shoulders had eased or maybe the concussion was still at work.

He looked toward his partner.

"You handled yourself well today."

The compliment came awkwardly, as though he'd had little practice giving them.

"I've worked with officers who would've folded after that blast."

A faint smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

"You didn't."

He lifted his teacup.

"So... congratulations."

Another pause.

"You've survived your first crime scene explosion with me."

For Crowe, that was about as close as anyone got to being welcomed to the team.

Elly lifted the small porcelain cup, the steam curling across her face. She paused before taking a measured sip.

Her expression softened.

For a long moment she said nothing.

"...Interesting."

Crowe looked up from his menu.

"Good?"

Elly studied the pale gold liquid, not as evidence, but as though trying to remember where she'd tasted it before.

"The jasmine is delicate."

She took another sip.

"The water is soft. Whoever brewed it knew exactly when to stop."

A faint crease formed in her brow.

"It reminds me of..."

She stopped.

Another pause.

"I don't know what."

Crowe waited.

"I've never been here before."

"No."

She looked into the cup again.

"But it feels familiar."

Crowe regarded her for a moment before returning to his menu.

"Most people just say it tastes good."

That drew the smallest smile from Elly.

"It does."

She cradled the warm cup in both hands.

"It also..."

She searched for the words.

"...makes everything feel a little quieter."

Crowe looked over the rim of his own cup.

"I was going to say it takes the edge off."

Elly noticed his cup was nearly empty before he did.

Without interrupting the conversation, she reached for the cast-iron teapot and carefully poured until the tea settled just below the rim.

As she set the pot back down, Crowe's fingers lightly tapped the tabletop twice beside his cup.

Tap. Tap.

She looked at him.

"...Did I do something wrong?"

Crowe shook his head.

"No."

He glanced at the cup.

"It's a custom."

He tapped the table once more with two fingers.

"When someone pours your tea, you thank them like this."

Elly studied the gesture for a moment, her eyes lingering on his hand rather than unfocusing in calculation.

"A gesture instead of words."

Crowe nodded.

"My grandfather did it."

She considered that for a moment before a memory surfaced.

"I've heard of something similar."

A brief pause.

"The Qianlong Emperor, traveling in disguise. His attendants couldn't bow without revealing him, so they thanked him by tapping two fingers on the table."

Crowe smiled faintly.

"That's the just of it."

"They are not mutually exclusive."

"No," Crowe admitted, lifting the cup. "They aren't."

She refilled Wylde's cup next.

Before she withdrew the teapot, Elly extended two fingers and gently tapped the tabletop.

Tap. Tap.

She looked to Crowe.

"Like that?"

Crowe nodded once.

"Exactly like that."

It was the first tradition they'd shared that required no explanation beyond the gesture itself.

Wylde looked around at the place and only barely at the menu.

"How about that famous margarita?"

[Eclecticon]

Yes indeed!  I love the detail of Crowe being 'administratively deceased'.  Tom has obviously had plenty of contact with a large bureaucracy. 

One thing I really need to get across, in case anyone's unclear, is that replicants are fully biological.  They're bioroids, not human bodies with electronic brains or anything like that.  Otherwise, there'd be no need for a Voigt-Kampff test because you could just x-ray their heads.  It may be that some Nexus-9s have their brains configured to think in terms like Elly's above, so no need to rewrite anything.  But we're talking about beings made of meat, bone and goop here, same as humans. 

[Eclecticon]

Los Angeles is a great city, in the way that people would have understood that term back in the Bronze Age.  It casts a shadow in all directions, utterly dominating the country around it.  And like all truly great cities, it's become over time so indispensable to that country and the people everywhere that its tendrils touch that it's outlived the civilisation that built it.

Across Sector 12, the caustic fog gives way grudgingly to the measly rain that's blown in.  A brief seaborne invasion that will, by morning, have assimilated so thoroughly with the fog it displaced that no trace of its coming will remain.  Such is the way of great cities. 


We'll end the Downtime shift here and move into the next one tomorrow. 

[Telcontar]

I guess we have been painting them more as androids.

[Telcontar]

I edited my earlier post to tie it more to memory then AI.