Down on the Fake Farm...

Leon feels a chill as he listens to Phylicia's rather upset babbling, right at the end. Shit, they'd found him out it seems....

Leon

I'm not stupid.

Might look it, but I'm not. Not in the same class as say, Roy Batty, but I get by. Smart enough to act up the part I look. Acting stupid isn't the same thing as being stupid.

.....

Had, on the off chance, made plans on escape routes. Been a soldier as well as a laborer, you know. Might be what you'd call a "grunt", but at least this grunt remembers the old lessons of "evasion tactics".

Only....

If they're onto me, won't they have most of the normal ways out? I mean, really. If this Bladerunner I'd almost run smack into for an "interview" was on the ball.... Yeah, he may be a "mere" human, but he's bright. Better to be cautious than dead due to carelessness.

Sigh, better go on that assumption. Leaves me few options open, but still . . . better to get out alive, if late. Blowing it trying to rush things to make deadlines won't do me or the other replicants a damn bit of good! Will have to duck out in that new, weird section Tyrell authorized built. Was a place like where this . . . woman came from. A place he could go to slip away from all the stress in his life. Revisit old times, in a way....

Not like there are many real old fashioned places like that in this slagheap of a world, Earth.

....

But what of this woman who's warned me? Tipped me off?

Smart move would be to....

Kill her. Snap her neck and hide the body but when I look at her.....

....

I can't. I just can't!

I . . . just don't' want to. There's something about her that . . .

I just can't.

Well, there is another option, though. Risky and Roy's gonna have my hide for it, dragging a stranger into things. But at least she's a replicant like me (if not as near my "expiration date" I'm fearing I'm going to get to her soon).

"Okay, here's what we have to do to get out of here, alive and well...." I begin, slowly and quietly explaining as we stop in a supply closet.

At the end....

"You want me to dress like some peasant?" she says in a low voice, shocked at the very thought.

"Hey, not like the bastards who'll be hunting you down will expect that, I'm sure." I drawl. "You can strike out on your own in that getup. Might get outside, even, but I won't lay odds on you lasting long out there. Kinda rough...."

She looks ready to revolt, but swallows it and....

"Okay...I'll do it," she says softly. "I trust you."

....

She trusts me? We've just met and....

Boy, this newbie sure got her head worked over when they made HER, eh? Well . . . damn.

....

I . . . shit.

It's almost like kicking a puppy, really. That trust in her eyes. Wince at the thought of the learning curve ahead. But . . . I'm going to not introduce it to her . . .yet anyway.

She'll learn soon enough what this world's like, but right now....

"Time to get down onto the farm," I whisper as we take the back way into the ersatz farm facility. Complete with farmhands and hot and cold milkmaids amilking.

Hear that they even have created a few cows down there.

See "Rosie" rushing off to do yet another set of chores. Nice girl, if on the simple side.... Replicant or not, do believe the humans who made her were aiming more for looks than brains.

I'd gotten a few hanging clothes on a line, perfect to blend in for myself and Phylicia (gotta think of some kind of better name to blend in here, it's too fancy). It's almost a shame to see Phylicia in these . . . rather simple clothes. Gown was . . . rather nice, but still....

We, now disguised, are going over to the farm supervisor and introduce ourselves as new "farmhands". Have already a faked (for just this kind of emergency, Roy's thought ahead when he hacked into the computers here) a workorder clearing us for duty.

After that, Phylicia looks at me.

"So. . . what do us 'farmhands' do first?" she asks with her dainty hands thrown up slightly in exasperation.

"Well. . . . chores," I sigh. "Barn needs cleaning."

"You have got to be kidding me," she mutters to herself as we walk off.

That's when we almost run smack into another milkmaid who looks . . . confused. Like she's got no clue as to how she got here.

"Pardon me," she giggles. "Master Belboz the necromancer was trying to send me home when I ended up here. Uh, is this where my home is?"

"Yep," I say, after a few seconds of staring at her. "And there's your cow to milk. Have at it!"

Necromancers? What's this shit? Tyrell getting into fantasy stuff now? What next, dragons and fairys and shit?

Well....he's got enough money to throw around like that... Just look at some of the "toys" he's got running about. Like Phylicia (who I have a feeling she's not aware she's a replicant)!

Had heard rumors about stuff like that. Rumors that one of his own personal assistants was a Replicant but wasn't aware she was a replicant. Memory implants or something...

"Okay," she chirps, smiling a winning (if somewhat simple) smile.

"And . . .do I know you?" she pauses, looking at Phylicia (who's got an odd look of her own on). "Name's Ilsa! You family? Feels like it."

"No, 'fraid not," Phylicia smiles, acting up her own part as a simple milkmaid. Rather overdoing it, but then look who she's trying to fool! "Sorry, but never met, but sure's nice meeting ya. How about we talk after chores, eh?"

....

Hm, strange thought I just had there. Here I'm talking about being smarter than I look, only acting stupid and.....

Well, then again I've met enough of this milkmaid replicant series to know....not much up stairs.

The cow, meanwhile, is looking our way with . . . and odd look on it's face. Really odd.

Almost too intelligent for a simple animal, fake or not. Almost swear that....

"Something familiar about that cow," Phylicia mutters, lost in though. "Have a feeling . . . of kinship for it and that simple girl who'd just left!"

1. Oh boy, it's gonna be a really strange time down here on the farm until I find some way out of here safely to pass on what I've found....!

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