Rick Deckard wiped the sweat from his brow as he holstered his high-powered weapon. Lifting the communicator from his belt, he muttered several codes and closed the transceiver.

"Skin jobs," he said to himself, surveying the replicant sprawled on the floor, and amazed at the technology's ability to mimic the most complex entities on earth. He softly kicked the replicant's front panel, observing large hole his weapon had created in the technology's logo. The half-remaining "T" and the "ata" telling him he'd scored big. Another wannabee down for the count.

His communicator buzzed for attention. He lifted it, beeped-in and said "Deckard" like he really didn't want to be bothered, but knew such sentiments were useless. Apparently more replicants were on the prowl, having stolen their way into enterprises with myopic POCs, NDAs and a variety of other three-letter-acronyms. He so longed to go Solo.

"We've spotted another one," said the dispatcher on the other end, "People are dying."

"Dying?" Deckard raised an eyebrow. "That's new."

"Dying to get their jobs back after a misfired deployment with a replicant," said the dispatcher, "Get with the program Deckard. You were called from retirement, but you can't be this rusty. Not with this much at stake."

"You wanna come out here and be my backup?" Deckard shot back, irritated, "It's easy to criticize from behind a desk."

"Keep on talkin'," laughed the dispatcher, "But the day's slippin' by - and so will your replicant if you don't get on the stick."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Deckard beeped out, sighed and replaced the communicator. The steam rising from the replicant's body reminded him of why his work was important. Stolen money. Stolen dreams.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Deckard found himself crouching behind a stack of crates, one eye on the replicant and one eye on his pistol as he wrested it from its holster. Time was, he could draw, shoot and replace it before a replicant could take one mechanical breath. Now, countless CPU clocks dishonored his rustiness, and he needed a new weapon if he ever intended to win.

Too late he realized that he'd spent too much time fiddling with the pistol, and upon looking up, found the replicant nowhere in sight. In that moment, he felt the replicant's mechanical breath on the back of his neck, and he whirled to confront it.

"Deckard!" shouted the replicant as he delivered a hard backfist, reeling Deckard over the crates to fall hard on the other side. "You should never have returned! You know I can't be beaten in toe-to-toe comparison!" He then split the crates apart and tossed them to each side.

Deckard had already reached for his pistol, but it had been just loose enough to fall from the holster when the replicant had ambushed him. Glancing around feverishly, the fear rose in his throat as the replicant took one step forward, grabbed him by the shirt and shook him once. He pulled his fist back and Deckard could hear it hitch, meaning that some special spring had latched in preparation for release, and if the replicant's fist now threw a punch, the impact would take his head clean off his shoulders.

"Sleep tight," said the replicant wickedly.

But the punch never came. Instead the replicant's eyes widened, his breath shortened and his strength seemed to instantly leave his body. He dropped Deckard like a sack of potatoes, and Deckard wasted no time in scrambling clear. The replicant fell to his knees with a bone-crunching impact, his eyes vacuous, and fell forward with a whump.

Deckard glanced around for his weapon, only to be met face to face with another, much younger Blade Runner, holding a smoking weapon, clearly more advanced than his own.

"I'm TwinFin," said the Blade Runner meekly, pointing to the twitching mass that was the replicant  "I see you've just run across a more advanced model than you're accustomed to."

"Stronger than before," Deckard rasped, wiping the sweat from his face with both hands, "It's been awhile."

"Yes," he said, "This one's name is A-Data. He is the most advanced of his kind. A front-loader and high-volume storage capability. Also fast response. Almost as fast as yours, even with age."

"Thanks," Deckard responded flatly, unamused, "A-Data, eh?" he smirked, tapping the replicant's leg with his foot, "Well, now he's just an ex A-Data."

"True," smiled TwinFin, "But you'll need more power if you want to stay ahead of them," he held out his weapon, a POC-killer if ever Deckard had seen one. On the weapon's barrel, in old-Gothic script, he read the weapon's name "The Closer."

"Nice," Deckard quipped.

TwinFin suddenly produced an auto-ject unit with the "enzee" logo emblazoned on it, snatched Deckard's hand, and before Deckard could object, injected the enzee accelerant into Deckard's bloodstream.

"What the?" Deckard now snatched his hand back, but suddenly felt the chemical's surge of power, "What's in that stuff?"

"Secret sauce," TwinFin smiled, "You'll be five-X or more faster response than they are. Your next replicant will go down for the count before the count even begins."

"Tight."

"You have no idea," he smiled, "And by the way, I'll be right behind you."

"I hear some of them are looking for their makers," Deckard posited.

"Wouldn't you?" TwinFin said, "I'd sure wonder why I was made that way. Changed from one purpose to another in the middle of my cycle."

"I wonder if anyone has noticed, that the replicants are always trying to be like us?"

"It's because we're the only standard they know, by which they are measured."

"I also wonder," mused Deckard, "If these replicants dream of electric customers."