Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

On his way to work, Isidore thinks about his strange meeting with Pris. Isidore works for a repair shop that specializes in fake animals. Because clients do not want people to know that their animals are fake, the repairmen dress as veterinarians. Isidore drives to his first client’s house, and the client thrusts an electric cat into his arms and demands that he fix it. The client leaves in a hurry for work, and Isidore is left with the electric cat, which imitates the behavior of an actual dying cat. Before Isidore can fix the animal, it stops working. Relieved because the fake animal’s death throes troubled him, Isidore takes the electric cat back to the repair shop. In his car, he listens to Buster Friendly’s 23-hour-a-day broadcast and scowls when Friendly mocks Mercerism. Isidore decides that Friendly and Mercer are competing for the same audience, wrestling with one another for “control of our psychic selves” (44). Isidore believes that Mercer will inevitably triumph because he is caught in a constant, eternal cycle of climbing the hill and being struck down into the “tomb world” (45), only to begin his journey again.

At his workplace, Isidore talks to his boss, Hannibal Sloat, who realizes that the cat is actually real. Sloat is shocked that Isidore cannot tell a real cat from a fake cat. Cursing the “goddamn waste,” he tells Isidore to call the owner and tell him the bad news. When talking to the client’s wife, the nervous Isidore suggests that they replace the cat with an “exact electric duplicate” (47). The client’s wife agrees, believing that her husband will be dismayed by the cat’s death. Isidore is pleased with the way he handled the call.

Deckard meets with Bryant and is told about the best way to approach the missing androids on Holden’s list. He assures Bryant that the Voigt-Kampff test is still viable. Bryant says that “a Soviet cop” (49) named Kadalyi will accompany Deckard, much to Deckard’s displeasure. He prefers to work alone. Deckard searches for the first android on the list, Max Polokov, but learns that he fled town after shooting Holden. Polokov is now out of Deckard’s jurisdiction. Before meeting up with Kadalyi, Deckard receives a call from Rachael. She offers to join his search but Deckard declines the offer.

Deckard meets up with the Soviet cop, Kadalyi. However, Kadalyi attacks Deckard, prompting Deckard to realize that Kadalyi is actually Max Polokov. Deckard kills Polokov and, shaken, wonders whether he might need Rachael’s help after all. He calls his wife, but Iran is now emerging from a “six-hour self-accusatory depression” (54) and she does not care about Deckard’s conflicted feelings about killing another android. Deckard thinks to himself that female androids seem more human than Iran at times. With “gleeful anticipation” (55), he turns his attention to the next name on his list, Luba Luft. She is posing as a famous opera singer.

Deckard visits the San Francisco Opera, where Luba Luft is pretending to be a human singer. He arrives during a rehearsal for The Magic Flute by Mozart, an opera that Deckard knows and loves. The opera has always “brought tears to [Deckard’s] eyes” (56). After the rehearsal, Deckard visits Luba’s dressing room and tells her that he wishes to test her. During the Voigt-Kampff test, Luba confuses Deckard. She insists that he should take the test, suggesting that Deckard’s lack of empathy toward his targets is suspicious. She pretends that language and cultural differences prevent her from answering questions.

With Deckard distracted, Luba points a laser at him and calls the police, accusing him of being a “sexual deviant” (60). When a cop arrives, he insists that he knows “all the bounty hunters” (61) and he does not know Deckard, Bryant, or anything about Deckard’s assignment. The cop calls the Hall of Justice and is told that Deckard does not exist. The cop, Officer Crams, takes Deckard to the Hall of Justice; as they exit through the roof, he examines Max Polokov’s dead body in Deckard’s hovercar. Once they take off in the cop’s car, Deckard realizes that they are not heading to the Hall of Justice. Deckard raises this point, and Crams insists that they are heading to the new Hall of Justice. Deckard begins to suspect that Crams is an android, and he sits trapped in the hovercar as they travel to the supposedly new Hall of Justice.