How It All Goes Down
- Rick returns to the office to tell Bryant he got what they needed from the Rosen Association.
- Bryant orders Rick to start with Polokov since he knows he's on the hit list. He adds that the android is posing as a special for a trash collecting company.
- Rick's superior also tells him that a Soviet cop, Sandor Kadalyi, will be joining him to help with the next Nexus-6, Miss Luba Luft.
- History Snack: The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and the novel takes place in the year 1992 or 2021, depending on which edition you own. Writing in the 1960s, there was no way Philip K. Dick could have known the end of a world super power was fewer than 20 years away. With that said, other science fiction novels featuring a future with the Soviet Union, such as Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, were updated with the ever-changing times. We'll have to wait and see if new editions of Do Androids Dream? make this change or not.
- Rick stops at the Bay Area Scavengers Company, but Polokov didn't come into work that day.
- He heads to the android's listed apartment next. Playing it safe, he sets off a remote Penfield transmitter, paralyzing everyone in the building.
- But no Polokov. Rick fears the android wised up and skipped town after shooting Dave.
- Rick radios in and informs Bryant he's going after Miss Luft.
- Bryant tells him that Kadalyi will meet with him on top of the apartment building.
- Rick reads the poop sheet on Luba Luft—we're not being juvenile; poop sheets are an actual thing. He plans his attack on the opera-singing android.
- Rachael Rosen phones Rick and offers her Nexus-6 services in tracking down the renegade androids, but Rick refuses.
- A hovertaxi arrives, and the Russian police officer emerges.
- Kadalyi shows Rick his tricked-out laser weapon and gives it to Rick to fire. Nothing happens.
- Kadalyi reveals himself to be the android, Polokov, and Rick reveals that he's triggered a sine wave to cancel out the android's tricky gun.
- With the mention of "sine waves," our brains temporarily shut down. (We're the humanities model of Shmoopdroid.)
- Okay! Back on track. Polokov attacks Rick, and the bounty hunter draws his old school .38 to "retire" the android. And by retire, we mean shoot in the head.
- Rick radios in his success before calling his wife.
- He tries to tell her what he plans to do with the bounty money, but she dialed depression on the Penfield anyway. He hangs up in frustration.
- His hunter's hunger anticipating the next one, Rick flies to the opera house to find Luba Luft.