Early in the 21st Century, the Tyrell Corporation advanced robot evolution into the Nexus phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant...

The Nexus-6 line of Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-world as slave labor, in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets.

After a bloody mutiny by a Nexus-6 combat team in an outer colony, Replicants were declared illegal on Earth - under penalty of death.

Special police squads – blade runner units - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant.

This was not called execution.

It was called retirement.

After a successive series of violent rebellions, their manufacture became prohibited on Earth and Tyrell corp went bankrupt.

The collapse of Earth ecosystems in the mid 2020s led to the rise of the industrialist Niander Wallace, whose mastery of synthetic farming averted famine on Earth

Wallace acquired the remains of Tyrell corp and created a new line of replicants who are more obedient and subservient, the Nexus-9, production of which, continued in limited amounts into the 2100s

Many older model replicants – Nexus 7s and 8s with open-ended lifespans – survived into the 2100’s. They are still hunted down and 'retired'.

Those that hunt them still go by the name... Blade Runner

 

-

Old Seoul,

Unified Republic of Korea,

Earth,

2137.

Jo Haseul, one such blade runner, now retired, looks up from the book in her hand as streaks of lightning flash across the sky, punctuated by the rumbling of thunder. Stashing the book back in her bag, she makes a beeline for the nearest restaurant across the street as the rain comes down in a light drizzle

She ends up in an izakaya-type joint. Small, cramped, with only 10 feet of space from the bar and the entrance. The former blade runner chooses a seat neat a window, and after arguing with the chef who insisted on selling her two pieces of sushi instead of the four she insisted on, she settles for a bowl of steaming hot ramen as the drizzle outside turns into a downpour.

Haseul feels a presence behind her. From the reflection on the bar’s gleaming countertop, she easily makes out who it is. Red hair, that megawatt smile. It was her old partner, Detective Kim Jiwoo.

Flashing her National Police badge, Jiwoo mutters a phrase as she turns to Haseul, the words sounding like gibberish to most people, but Haseul identifies it as cityspeak, a mishmash of various languages, most often used by polyglots to talk in code.

“Mademoiselle, azonnal kövessen engem bitte.”

Haseul ignores it, focusing on her meal as the chef starts translating, to her annoyance. She’d left the force for a very good reason and the last thing she wanted to do was to go back.

“Miss Jo… this detective here says you’re under arrest.”

Haseul merely rolls her eyes, scarfing down another mouthful of her noodles before she then dryly responds.

“She’s got the wrong person.”

“你在讲说什么鸟话? 你当然是个银翼杀手!” An exasperated Jiwoo snorts, her words lapsing into Mandarin out of sheer irritation at Haseul’s petulance. Stop bullting, you’re a blade runner!

And then Haseul turns to Jiwoo with a raised eyebrow.

“We’re buddies and all but seriously… buzz off, Jiwoo. I’m retired and I’m trying to eat here.”

Jiwoo sighs before leaning closer. “Captain Park wants to see you, Haseul. Now as your partner, I’m gonna have to ask nicely for you to come with me. Please don’t make me use force on you.”

The former blade runner merely scoffs in annoyance, wordlessly complying with Jiwoo’s orders as she gets up.

-

Name: Haseul, Jo

Rank: Inspector

Type: Human

Service: Korean National Police Agency (ret.)

Unit: Seoul Branch, KNPA Blade Runner Unit (ret.)

Assigned station: Seoul Gangnam Police Station (ret.)

 

The ride to the Seoul branch of the Earth Federal Police takes longer than Haseul is used to. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t ridden a spinner in ages or maybe it’s because of Jiwoo’s driving, preferring to cruise as if they were on a roadtrip instead of flooring the gas, like Haseul preferred to do. 

Haseul mentally curses herself for forgetting to bring her music player and earphones. Even with Jiwoo’s attempts at striking up a conversation, it’s hard for Haseul to not let her mind wander. To three months prior, before she retired from being a blade runner. For Haseul, what eats at her is why she retired.

Being a blade runner takes its toll on people.

For years after her first assignment, Haseul’s first ‘retirement’ of a replicant still haunts her. The older Nexus-3 models would willingly surrender when cornered, but blade runners had standing orders to ‘retire’ (a euphemism for killing) replicants, regardless of whether they gave themselves up willingly or not.

The image of the unfortunate Nexus-3’s expression before she planted a bullet in its face stays with her for a long time. Eternally burned in her memory is how its expression was a mix of fear, wordlessly imploring her to have mercy on it, and acceptance, at its inevitable fate.

Killing a replicant never gets easier for Haseul. Ironic as she was one of the best blade runners in her part of Earth.

And as Jiwoo’s spinner got closer and closer to headquarters, the image of that replicant’s final moments flashes over and over in Haseul’s mind.

“So which skinjob broke out of storage again?” Haseul finally regains the composure to speak, right after Jiwoo parked the spinner and led her down the hallway that would lead to Captain Park’s office.

“Not an escaped one. Supposedly this one is carrying some extremely sensitive information that needs to be…suppressed. I don’t know all the details but Captain Park will fill you in.”

-

‘Park Seonghwa’, as the name on the office door read. Captain rank. Commander of the Seoul branch of the Korean National Police Agency’s blade runner unit.

Seonghwa’s already waiting at his desk as Haseul steps in. Jiwoo remains silent, standing guard and locking the door as Seonghwa reaches under his desk, pulling out two shot glasses and a bottle of amber colored liquid.

“Captain Park.”

“Ah Haseul.”

Seonghwa pauses, breaking into a slight grin, noting the way Haseul clenches her fist as she plasters on a grim rictus of a smile.

“Sorry about that but I knew you wouldn’t have come over if I had just asked. Now come on, officer Jo, take a seat. Please don’t be so grouchy.”

Haseul complies, dropping into the chair with a scoff before taking one of the shot glasses and downing the liquid in it- immediately wishing she hadn’t as it burned , almost inducing a coughing fit in the former blade runner.

“Okay what is it. Jiwoo says you want me to hunt down a replicant? Something about it carrying sensitive info.”

Seonghwa chuckles, before leaning closer, pouring another shot.

“This is an order from Public Security Section 31. Also there’s actually two, not one. Going back on topic, I suppose you’re familiar with Laplace’s Box?”

Haseul nods. Laplace’s Box was a literal relic which was of great importance to the Terran Federation. The exact contents of it were known to only a select few people and from what Haseul knows, had the potential to destablize the Federation itself.

The various resistance movements on Earth, along with the Mars and Outer Colonies factions of the Federation would kill to get their hands on the aforementioned box.

Haseul herself didn’t know what exactly was in it and neither did she want to know, deciding she’d be better off not knowing at all.

Seonghwa then down his own drink before continuing.

“This particular skinjob somehow managed to get their hands on the box itself. Section 31 is still working out who gave to them, how they got it and why. We suspect a link between them and one replicant resistance movement based in East Asia as three of them stormed the Pyongyang branch to bail out our friend.”

“A bit embarassing isn’t it?”

Seonghwa laughs before pouring both himself and Haseul yet another shot.

“Nope. Not embarrassing, cause no one’s ever gonna find out about these skinjobs. You find them, retire them with extreme prejudice.”

Haseul then downs her drink while shaking her head.

“Forgotten I don’t work for you anymore? Also forgotten I failed the baseline test thrice before I quit? Besides, this is Section 31’s problem so why the KNPA? Why me specifically? Give it to Agent Ryu. She’s their best.”

“They did. Sent agents Pyo Hyemi and Ryu Sera after ‘er. Both of them got plugged by the other three skinjobs that bailed our friend out. One got tagged while our friend and the surviving two escaped. I need you, Haseul. The entire KNPA needs you. It’s bad one… The worst one yet. I need the old master blade runner back. We need your magic”

Haseul merely replies with a cold, hard stare before she gets up.

“Sorry Cap, I quit the last time I came in here and I’m quitting again now.”

“Stop right where you are!” Seonghwa’s expression hardens as Jiwoo after a millisecond of heasitation, restrains Haseul by the coat tails of her jacket.

“You know the score, buddy. You blade runners aren’t cops like us. You’re all little people.”

Haseul turns around, rolling her eyes.

“No choice eh?”

To which Jiwoo shakes her head and then Seonghwa chuckles, his expression softening.

“No choice, miss Jo.”

-

 

Terran Federation Mars faction.

Martian Special Operations Force,

501^st Special Operations Battalion,

Camp Cydonia.

Mars.

 

In the wake of the fall of the Tyrell Corporation, the Mars faction of the Terran Federation managed to sieze some of the Tyrell Corporation’s assets before its acquisition by Niander Wallace, among them, several of the Tyrell corp’s replicant manufacturing equipment and facilities.

Seeing the potential use for replicants as soldiers instead of slaves, the Mars Defence Forces pursued further development of replicants.

Where the Nexus-8 and 9 series were engineered to be even more subservient to their masters, the MDF, specifically the Mars Aerospace Force and Special Operations Force, came up with the Nexus 10 and 11 series of replicants, which solved most of the original issues associated with the previous Nexus series.

Unlike the previous Nexus lines, the Nexus 10s and 11s were meant to be essentially a replacement body for selected military personnel that either died or were crippled in combat or various accidents, colloquially referred to as ‘sleeves’ by Mars Defense Force troops.

Humans for ethical reasons, would not be allowed to ‘upgrade’ to a replicant sleeve unless dead or critically injured, but replicant troops could, upon request, or by being selected by commanders, be eligible for a voluntary upgrade from their old Nexus 8 or 9 bodies into a Nexus 10 or 11 sleeve.

Selected soldiers and pilots would have an implant in the base of the neck called a cortical stack or just ‘stack’ for short, which would ‘record’ and ‘save’ one’s personality, memories and consciousness into the stack. In the event of the pilot or soldier’s death, the stack could be extracted and inserted into the new body which for obvious reasons, would be made to look exactly like the deceased.

The biggest issues with the Nexus replicants were empathetic ability and obedience/subservience, which the Martian Defence Forces easily solved. The level of empathy and subservience of a Nexus 10 or 11 would depend on the personality of the original soldier or pilot before the stack transfer. All issues with psychopathy, sociopathy and subservience to authority would have been dealt with during the original persona’s time in basic training and various psych tests.

Mars had taken a more egalitarian view towards replicants, which often put them at odds with the Earth faction of the Federation. Most Nexus 7, 8 and 9 replicants that managed to evade the blade runners on Earth and escape to Mars were welcomed into the military, where they were treated like any other human personnel, with most even going as far as to having the cortical stack implant installed.

-

Name: Bora, Kim

Rank: Sergeant First Class

Type: Nexus-8

Service: Mars Special Operations Force

Unit: 501^st Special Operations Battalion

Assigned base: Camp Cydonia

 

A group of medical staff in bright white surgical scrubs watch as the fluid is slowly drained from the glass tank in front of them. As the tank unseals itself, two members of the team reach in, pulling the female replicant inside out after disconnecting her oxygen mask.

The seemingly lifeless replicant is then placed on to a gurney and wheeled off into an operating room where another body, an exact lookalike of the replicant lies on one out of two operating tables.

Sergeant First Class Kim Bora. A Nexus 8 replicant. Formerly a refugee from Seoul who managed to escape the blade runners on Earth more than a decade ago on a cargo ship headed to the red planet, she was found by a group of Mars Aerospace Force pilots and pararescuemen on an exercise before being taken in. Working her way up the ranks, Bora was then selected out of a batch of 200 candidates for the Mars Special Operations Force where she had the fortune to be assigned to the 501^st, who worked quite closely with the Mars Aerospace Force.

She wasn’t told why or how, but with her recent promotion to Master Sergeant, it was decided by her commanders that it was time for her to receive some upgrades, in the form of a new body, which happened to be one of the new Nexus 11 sleeves. Knowing how the 501^st operated, usually a command-assigned sleeve upgrade for a replicant trooper usually meant that the higher-ups had some big mission planned.

Bora accepted it, without any argument or questions. Being stuck on Mars was beginning to bore her and the thought of a mission that involved her being sent off-world drove her to readily accept the promotion and ‘sleeve upgrade’.

The transfer procedure was extremely simple, to the point where some would consider it almost laughable at how easy it was. It involved putting Bora into a deep sleep through an injection that would cause her Nexus 8 body to slowly shut down. And as her new body was retrieved, the medical team had started to work on her old one.

An incision was made in the back of the base of Bora’s neck, with the stack being easily removed and then a similar procedure on the back of her new body’s neck, with a pair of doctors along with her squadmate, a woman with hair that went past her shoulders, dyed a rather garish shade of blue, who went by the full name Lee Yoobin, eyeing a monitor that was showing them the vital signs of the Nexus 11 sleeve.

The stack is inserted, the incision sealed. The flat lines on the monitor start to spike as Bora slowly stirs to consciousness, as the stack connects with the rest of the body, acting as an ‘on-switch’ of sorts. Bora awakens with a gasp, blinking as the flat lines on the screen start to spike, the patterns growing less erratic after a minute as the newly-awakened replicant slows her breathing in an attempt to calm down.

The doctors disconnect her from the monitor. Yoobin and the lead doctor nod in some sort of agreement as another doctor helps Bora to her feet, Yoobin then stepping over to offer a handshake.

“Congratulations on your promotion along with your upgrade, Sarge. How do you like your new body so far?” 

“I’ll be honest. I don’t really feel any different.”

“You’ll be able to feel the difference on this assignment. Minji says the Nexus 11 sleeve is supposed to be much more resilient to damage than the Nexus 10.”

Yoobin then hands over a back to Bora, containing Bora’s uniform and tactical gear.

“Get dressed, buddy. Then get back up to Medical. They want you, me and Siyeon up there.”

-

Bora soon finds out why she’s needed in Medical. Herself and Yoobin were then taken into two examination rooms, each with a Voight-Kampff machine on a table. Oh boy. Here we go.

Bora was pretty familiar with the Voight-Kampff tests. To determine if the interrogated subject was a replicant, the blade runner or officer administering the test would ask a series of pre-written questions that were designed to provoke an emotional and involuntary physical response, which was monitored by the Voight-Kampff machine that happens to look like a portable version of the device opticians use to examine eyes.  The test took into account response time, the choice of words and phrasing in the answer, along with bodily functions such as respiration, heart rate, blushing and eye movement.

However, on Mars, the Voight-Kampff tests were administered to replicants for a different reason. Mars Special Operations Force units had expected their replicant members to be forced to take the test during missions on Earth and the outer colonies, therefore the VK tests were administered as part of a psychological training regimen (developed with the supervision of rogue blade runners that had defected to the Mars faction of the Federation) that would allow MARSOF troops to easily pass the test and slip past detection.

“Welcome, Master Sergeant.” Bora sits down in front of the desk, ensuring her left eye is aligned with the machine’s viewfinder.

“Let’s get this over with.” 

To which the person, a random 501^st trooper who used to be a blade runner, behind the machine nods.

“Alright, I guess you already know that bs about reaction time being a factor and all that jazz. Let’s begin.”

-

“It’s your birthday, someone gives you a calfskin wallet.”

“If it was synthetic, I’d accept it. If it was real, I’d definitely not.”

The trooper nods in approval.

Bora remains stoic, attempting to hold back her growing impatience as the questions continue.

“You’re watching television. Suddenly you realize there’s a wasp crawling on your arm. How do you react…?”

 

“I’d swat it away…”

And it goes on, for over an hour.

“Okay… Final question. You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?”

“Childish curiosity. I want to see it try to turn itself over. Since it can’t, I’d flip it right side up and then find the nearest watering hole or oasis to release it at.”

And then Bora exhales slowly, the trooper from behind the machine raising a thumbs up. She’d definitely passed the test.

-

 “So how’d you do?” Yoobin enquired as Bora breaks into a smug grin.

“500.”

“Impressive.” Bora’s own record stood at 497 questions, before the tester could determine she was a replicant. One dropship pilot, a Chief Warrant Officer Lee Siyeon who was an acquaintance of Bora’s, held the record at 550 questions.

By coincidence, Siyeon would be their pilot for the coming mission. She was the first to stand to attention when the two operators entered the hangar, making their way to a table where their unit commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Kim Minji, also a friend of Siyeon’s and Yoobin’s, awaited.

“Master Sgt. Kim. SFC. Lee, good to see you both. Now let’s get this started.”

There were three other people beside them. Siyeon’s co-pilot and two crewmen for Siyeon’s dropship. Minji presses a few buttons on the holo-projector in the centre of the table. Immediately, a holographic projection of Earth appears before the image zooms in on a country, the Unified Republic of Korea. And then the image zooms in even more on the capital of Seoul, before a somewhat blurred picture of a girl with dark hair and doe-eyed features appears next to the map of the city.

“We have just received word from a mole in Earth’s Public Security Section 31. This lady here, is a Nexus-8 replicant. Working a side job as a courier. Name is Viian Wong. Inception date was in 2130. Our little replicant friend here somehow came into possession of Laplace’s Box. Not a copy, ladies and gents. This is THE actual Laplace’s Box itself.”

The silence that followed was broken by a series of whispers. Laplace’s box was supposed to be heavily guarded on the titular space colony that was on Earth’s moon. The fact that it had gotten into the hands of seemingly random person had sent shockwaves through the Federation’s intelligence divisions.

As if she knew what her troops were thinking, Minji nods before continuing.

“How it got into the hands of this Person of Interest is the job of our mole in Section 31 and the spooks in Section 9 to find out. Our job now is to perform a snatch and grab operation on her and bring her back to Mars. The police forces on Earth are sure to be aware of her and every blade runner in the UROK will be after her. While we do know she's still in Seoul, we do not have a confirmed fix on her exact location so you’ll have to seek her out yourselves. The box is the main objective. Extracting Miss Wong is more for humanitarian reasons. If somehow Miss Wong dies or is captured, just focus on getting the box off Earth.”

The image then changes back into the map, with a red cross marked on the mountains that used to be the former demilitarized zone for that era when the Unified Republic of Korea was still divided into two along with a red circle on a patch of green in the centre of the city.

“You will perform a HALO drop from one of our new stealth dropships and make your way into the city and then search for Viian.  Once you have located and secured Miss Wong, you will take her to the former DMZ, which is 60 kilometers from the capital. There, CWO Lee, callsign Warwolf will pick you up. Try not to blow your cover until Warwolf comes for you. If anything happens, only you can un yourselves. If you get captured or killed, we cannot acknowledge that you were working for MARSOF..”

Turning her attention to the two 501^st operators and the dropship crew, Bora switches off the projector.

“Normally we’d send one person for the sake of maintaining a minimal presence but with how risky and critical this operation is, Master Sergeant Kim will join SFC Lee on this mission due to her familiarity with the city. I will reiterate this; If happens and our PoI dies, just bring the box back. This operation will be codenamed Snatcher and commences now. Time is of the essence. I will be monitoring your progress from here.”

And in response, the two operators and the dropship crew salutes, before turning and marching towards their ship, a sleeker, more angular-looking version of the dragonfly-esque dropships used by the Mars Aerospace Force. This one had the phrase ‘Fortunate Son’ painted right under the cockpit, as a reference to one of the crewmembers’ favourite songs.

And as they board the craft, Minji throws them a salute, which Bora turns to return before the hatches close and the dropship lifts off.