Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Chapter 12 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • At the opera house, Rick and Resch are told Luba Luft has gone to the Edvard Munch exhibit at the museum.
  • Art Snack: Edvard Munch is the Norwegian artist who painted The Scream and a bunch of other wonderfully symbolic Expressionist works that no one bothers to remember because everyone is crazy in love with The Scream and because it's been the target in several high profile art crimes. And if there is one guaranteed way to make a painting famous, it's to steal the heck out of it. Looking at you, Mona Lisa.
  • Bonus snack: Munch composed four different versions of The Scream and one lithograph. So, while people talk of it as a single painting, that's not technically the case.
  • They search the museum for Luba Luft as Resch worries over whether he is an android.
  • Resch spies—what else?—The Scream. He believes the painting expresses what the androids must feel.
  • They find Luba Luft checking out a Munch painting, Puberty.
  • They escort Luba Luft to Rick's car, but on the way, she asks Rick to buy her a print of Puberty. Rick pays for a compilation book out of his own pocket.
  • On the way, Luba Luft confesses she's an android, saying she always wanted to be a real boy. Er, human.
  • She also harasses Resch for being an android, which… big mistake. He retires her right there.
  • Rick takes the laser tube from Resch and burns the book. Distraught over her death, he feels the world could have used Luft's beautiful voice.
  • He calls in a patrol car to transfer Luft's body to the station for a bone marrow test.
  • Resch agrees to take the Voigt-Kampff test.
  • The test results read Resch as human. Rick suggests a defect in the man's ability to empathize with androids. Resch notes it's not odd as they don't test for that.
  • Rick takes the test himself and realizes the truth: He is able to empathize with certain types of androids. He's the one with the "defect."
  • Resch, ever the gentleman, says it's just sex, theorizing Rick wanted to bed Luba Luft.
  • For the first time, Rick wonders if he is a good bounty hunter.