Blaine trained the small beam of white light to shine directly into Kurt's left eye. He leaned in close to attach the wire-mesh disk, brushing his hand across Kurt's surprisingly soft cheek. Blaine let his fingers linger on Kurt's face, pretending to adjust the disk. Kurt licked his lips nervously and Blaine's eye's followed the movement of his tongue as it left a wet trail across his skin. Clearing his throat, Blaine forced himself to step back. “We're all set,” he said.

Seated where he could catch the readings on the two gauges of the testing apparatus, Blaine said, “I'm going outline a number of social situations. You are to express your reaction to each one as quickly as possible. You will be timed, of course.”

“And of course,” Kurt said distantly, “my verbal responses won't count. It's solely the eye-muscle and capillary reaction that you'll use as indices. But I'll answer; I want to go through this and – ” He broke off. “Go ahead, Mr. Anderson.”

Blaine, selecting question three, said, “You are given a calf-skin wallet on your birthday.” Both gauges immediately registered past the green and into the red; the needles swung violently and then subsided.

“I wouldn't accept it,” Kurt said. “Even if it was vintage Louis Vuitton,” Kurt added airily, with a nervous laugh. “Or am I not supposed to joke about this?” He peered up at Blaine, searing blue eyes framed by chestnut lashes. Blaine resolutely ignored him, training his gaze on the dials. After a pause, Kurt continues in a more sober tone. “Also, I'd report the person who gave it to me to the police.”

After making a jot of notation Blaine continued, turning to the eighth question of the Voigt-Kampff profile. “You have a little boy and he shows you his butterfly collection, including his killing jar.”

“I'd take him to the doctor.” Kurt's voice was low but firm. Again the twin gauges registered, but this time not so far. He made a note of that, too.

“You're sitting watching TV,” he continued, “and suddenly you discover a wasp crawling on your wrist.”

Kurt said, “I'd hold very still and try to capture it in a box or something. Insects aren't worth that much, but I have a little cousin who might like it as a gift.” He exchanges a brief look with Sue and smiles. The gauge, this time, registered almost nothing – only a feeble and momentary tremor. Blaine noted that and hunted cautiously for the next question.

“You're in high school. You're a popular kid with lots of friends. A new boy joins the class. He's small and weak, wears glasses, and wears unstylish clothes. You and your friends decide to welcome him to the school by dumping an icy drink over his head and throwing him in the dumpster – ”

“I would never do that,” Kurt said emphatically. “That's one of the most demoralizing things you can do to a person.” Both needles registered far into the red.

“You say that as if you've had personal experience with that kind of thing,” Blaine said, peering at Kurt curiously.

“Yes, well, let's just say I was never a popular kid,” Kurt replied.

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Blaine hunted for the next question. “Okay. You're dating a woman and she asks you to visit her apartment. While you're there she offers you a drink. As you stand holding your glass you see into the bedroom; it's attractively decorated with bullfight posters, and you wander in to look closer. She follows after you, closing the door. Putting a hand on your arm, she says – ”

Kurt interrupted, “What's a bullfight poster?”

“Drawings, usually in color and very large, showing a matador with his cape, a bull trying to gore him.” He was puzzled. “How old are you?” he asked; that might be a factor.

“I'm nineteen,” Kurt said. “Okay; so theoretically this woman closes the door and – for some reason – touches my arm. What does she say?”

Blaine asked, “Do you know how bullfights ended?”

“I suppose somebody got hurt.”

“The bull, at the end, was always killed.” He waited, watching the two needles.

“Wait,” Kurt said. “Am I supposed to be horrified that the bull is killed? Wouldn't it be worse if the bull killed the person?” When Blaine didn't respond, Kurt sighed. “I'm glad we don't do this bullfighting thing anymore. It sounds like rather pointless violence, don't you think?” The needles palpitated restlessly, nothing more. No real reading at all.

“Next question,” said Blaine, hunting carefully through the printed sheets. “You're in the hospital, visiting a friend who broke his leg. As you are walking down the hall, peering into the rooms to find your friend, you see a man lying in a bed, a tube down his throat, his chest rising and falling in time to the clatter and hiss of an artificial respirator. You see a woman in a nurse's uniform – ”

“No,” said Kurt his voice low and tremulous. “No, I – I can't…”

“I haven't asked the – ” Blaine stops mid-sentence when he looks up to see Kurt's stricken face, a tear running down one cheek. “What's wrong?”

“His father was in a coma for a week when he was sixteen,” Blaine whipped around, startled by the sound of Sue's voice. She had been so silent, he had nearly forgotten she was in the room. “He had already lost his mother, and he and his father were really close, so that was a really hard time for him.”

“I'm sorry,” Kurt sniffed, wiping at his eyes. “Go on with your question.”

“That's okay. We can skip that one,” said Blaine, noting Kurt's look of relief. “What happened with your father? Is he okay?”

“He pulled through,” Kurt smiled wistfully. “That was the worst experience my life, but that day that I squeezed his hand and he squeezed back – that day was definitely among the best.”

“Do you think you could avoid any other medical questions?” Sue asked, a rough edge to her voice.

“Of course,” said Blaine. “Let's see – okay. You're reading a novel in the old days before the war. The characters are visiting Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. They become hungry and enter a seafood restaurant. One of them orders lobster, and the chef drops the lobster into the tub of boiling water while the character's watch.”

“Oh god,” Kurt said. “That's awful! Did they really do that? It's depraved! You mean a live lobster?” After a pause, the gauges moved into the middle of the red. Blaine furrowed his brow. The reading could indicate an appropriate response, but it didn't quite match the vehemence of Kurt's verbal reaction.

“You rent a mountain cabin,” Blaine tried, “in an area still verdant. It's rustic knotty pine with a huge fireplace.”

“Yes,” Kurt said, nodding impatiently.

“On the walls someone has hung old map, Currier and Ives prints, and above the fireplace a deer's head has been mounted, a full stag with developed horns. The people with you admire the décor of the cabin and you all decide – ”

“Not with the deer head,” Kurt said. The gauges swung past the green, just barely registering into the red.

After searching carefully for the next question, Blaine continued. “Your best friend has her heart set on attending a prestigious musical theater school. She has spent years working on her audition song and you have supported her every step of the way. Each time she sings it for you, it is flawless. On the day of her audition, she gets up on stage and the spotlight is on her. She begins her song and she sounds better than she's ever sounded. But two bars in, she flubs a note. She gets permission to start over, but she makes another mistake and the admissions officer stops her and tells her she'll never get into the school. Her dream is crushed.”

“How horrible,” Kurt breathed in a hushed tone. The dial swung into the red, the reaction time nearly nonexistent.

Unsure how to proceed, Blaine flips the pages and starts to read a question at random. “In a magazine you come across a full-page color picture of a nude man.” Blaine paused, the skin on the back of his neck flushing hot.

“Is this testing whether I'm an android,” Kurt asked tartly, “or whether I'm a homosexual?” The gauges fluctuated wildly.

“W-what?” stammered Blaine.

“Homosexual. Gay. Is that what you want to know? If I'm gay?” Kurt fixes Blaine with a piercing gaze.

“Um, no.” Blaine stared at Kurt, rubbing his sweaty palms against his thighs. Lost in those blue eyes, he almost blurted out the question that popped immediately into his mind. “Are y– uh – I mean, I wouldn't… I'm not finished.”

Blaine looked down at the typed words, concentrated on slowing his breaths, and continued. “Your wife,” Blaine put extra emphasis on the word wife, “likes the picture.” This time, the gauges failed to indicate a reaction. “The naked man,” Blaine added, resolutely avoiding eye contact with Kurt, “is lying spread-eagle on a large and beautiful bearskin rug.” The gauges swung a bit on the word ‘spread-eagle' but became inert at the end of the sentence. Possibly a homosexual response – and Blaine's feels a rush of heat at this idea. But the swell of his attraction is tempered by his next thought. Whether or not it's a homosexual response, it most definitely is an android response. Failing to detect the major element, the dead animal pelt. His – its – mind concentrating on other factors. “Your wife hangs the picture up on the bedroom wall,” Blaine finished, and this time the needles moved.

“I certainly wouldn't let her,” Kurt said.

“Okay,” Blaine said, nodding. “Now consider this. You are watching an old movie on TV, a movie from before the war. It shows a banquet in progress; the guests are enjoying raw oysters.”

“Ugh,” Kurt said; the needles swung swiftly.

“The entrée,” he continued, “consists of boiled dog, stuffed with rice.” The needles moved less this time, less than they had for the raw oysters. “Are raw oysters more acceptable to you than a dish of boiled dog? Evidently not.” He put his pencil down, shut off the beam of light, and pulled the adhesive patch from her cheek in a swift, businesslike motion.

“You're an android,” he said. “That's the conclusion of the testing,” Blaine informed him – or rather it – and Sue Sylvester regarded him with writhing worry; the woman's face contorted into an angry mask. “I'm right, aren't I?” Blaine said. There was no answer, from either Sue or Kurt. “Look,” he said reasonably. “We have no conflict of interest; it's important to me that the Voigt-Kampff test functions, almost as important as it is to you.”

Sue rolled her eyes and said, “He's not an android.”

“I don't believe you,” Blaine said.

“Why would she lie?” Kurt said to Blaine fiercely. “If anything, we'd lie the other way.”

“I want a bone marrow analysis made of you,” Blaine said, voice raised. “It can be organically determined whether you're an android or not. It's slow and painful, admittedly, but – ”

“You will do not such thing!” Sue cut in angrily. “Legally, Kurt can't be forced to undergo a bone marrow test. That's been established in the courts; self-incrimination. And it would take a long time – time that none of us have.”

Kurt sneered, “You can give that damn Voigt-Kampff profile test because of the specials; everyone has to be tested for constantly, and while the government was doing that you police agencies slipped that ridiculous, faulty Voigt-Kampff through. But what you said is true. That is the end of the testing.” He rose to his feet, paced away from Blaine, and stood with his hands on his hips, his back to him.

“The real issue here,” said Sue heavily, “is that your empathy delineation test failed in response to my nephew. I can explain why he scored as an android might. Kurt grew up aboard Salander 3. He was born on it. His father became the resident mechanic for the ship shortly after Kurt's mother died and Kurt lived on that ship for almost fourteen years, living off the DVD library and what his father and the nine other crew members, all adults, knew about Earth. Then, as you know, the ship turned back a sixth of the way to Proxima. Otherwise, Kurt would never have seen Earth – anyhow not until his later life. As it is, his father joined the family business and Kurt spent his last two years of high school here in Seattle. And now he's joined the business as well.”

The bullying, thought Blaine. Yes, Kurt would certainly have been a target given his penchant for vintage fashion and the gaps in his knowledge about Earth and its social norms.

“You would have retired me,” Kurt said over his shoulder. “In a police dragnet I would have been killed. I've known that since I got here four years ago; this isn't the first time the Voigt-Kampff test has been given to me. In fact, I rarely leave this building unescorted. I have documentation, but the risk is still enormous, because of those roadblocks you police set up, those spot checks to pick up unclassified specials.”

“And androids,” Sue Sylvester added. “Although naturally the public isn't told that. They're not supposed to know that androids are on Earth, in our midst.”

“I don't think they are,” Blaine said. “I think the police agencies across the world have gotten them all. The population is small enough now that everyone, sooner or later, runs into a random checkpoint.” That, anyhow, was the idea.

“What were your instructions,” Sue asked, “if you wound up designating a human as android?”

“That's a departmental matter.” He began packing the testing gear into his briefcase. Sue and Kurt watched silently. “Obviously,” he added, “I was told to cancel further testing, as I'm now doing. If it failed once there's no point in going on.” He snapped the briefcase shut.

“We could have defrauded you,” Kurt said coldly. “Nothing forced us to admit you miscategorized me. And the same for the other nine subjects we've selected.” He gestured vigorously. “All we had to do was simply go along with your test results, either way.”

Blaine said, “I would have insisted on a list in advance. A sealed-envelope breakdown. And compared my own test results for congruity. There would have had to be congruity.” And I can see now, he realized, that I wouldn't have gotten it. Jake Puckerman was right. Thank God I didn't go out bounty hunting on the basis of this test.

“Idiot,” Sue barked. “You never asked for a sealed-envelope breakdown, yet you jumped right into the testing.”

“Insulting me isn't going to help this matter any,” said Blaine levelly. “This problem stems entirely from your method of operation, Ms. Sylvester. Nobody forced your company to evolve the production of humanoid robots to the point where – ”

“We produce what the colonists want,” Sue Sylvester said. “We simply follow the time-honored principle underlying every commercial venture. If our firms hadn't made progressively more human types, other firms would have. We knew the risk we were taking when we developed the Nexus-6 brain unit. But your Voigt-Kampff test was a failure before we released that type of android. If you had failed to classify a Nexus-6 as an android, if you had checked it out as human – but that's not what happened.” Her voice had become hard and bitingly penetrating. “Your police department – others as well – may have retired, very probably have retired, authentic humans with underdeveloped empathic ability, such as my innocent nephew here. Your position, Mr. Anderson, is extremely bad morally. Ours isn't.”

“In other words,” Blaine said resignedly, “I'm not going to be given a chance to check out a single Nexus-6. You people dropped this schizoid on me beforehand.” And my test, he realized, is wiped out. I shouldn't have gone for it, he said to himself. But it's too late now. Blaine thought of the possibility of actual humans testing mistakenly as androids and being killed. He felt sick.

“We have you, Mr. Anderson,” Kurt agreed in a quiet, reasonable voice. He turned toward Blaine, then, and smiled.

Blaine wondered how the Sylvester-Hummel Association had managed to snare him, and so easily. Experts, he realized. A mammoth corporation like this – it embodies too much experience. It possesses in fact a sort of group mind. And Sue and Kurt were spokesmen for that corporate entity. His mistake had been in viewing them as individuals. In getting lost, once again, in Kurt's mysterious eyes, his dazzling smile, the tragic parts of his life story.

“Your boss, Mr. Puckerman,” Sue said, “will have difficulty understanding how you happened to let us void your testing apparatus before the test began.” She pointed toward the ceiling, and Blaine saw the camera lens. His massive error in dealing with Sue and Kurt had been recorded. “I think the right thing for us all to do,” Sue said carefully, “is sit down and – ” She gestured grandly. “We can work something out, Mr. Anderson. There's no need for you to get your panties all in a wad. The Nexus-6 variety of android is a fact. We here at the Sylvester-Hummel Association recognize it and I think now you do, too.”

Kurt, leaning toward Blaine temptingly, said, “How would you like to own an owl?”

“I doubt if I'll ever own an owl,” Blaine said dryly. But he knew what Kurt meant. He understood the business the Sylvester-Hummel Association wanted to transact. Tension of a kind he had never felt before manifested itself inside him. It penetrated every part of his body. He felt the tension, the consciousness of what was happening, take over completely.

“But an owl,” Sue Sylvester said, “is the thing you want.” She exchanged a serious look with Kurt. Silence hung in the air for a moment before Sue shook her head. “Oh damn it, Kurt. I can't do this. I'll never be as good an actor as you are. I really don't think this idiot has any brains left after using all that hair gel. He has no idea – ”

“Of course he does,” Kurt contradicted smoothly. “He knows exactly where this is heading. Don't you, Mr. Anderson?” Kurt leaned even closer toward Blaine and this time he could smell a mild, spicy cologne. He could feel Kurt's warmth like a palpable thing between them. “You're practically there, Mr. Anderson,” Kurt purred seductively. “You practically have your owl.” Without missing a beat he added, in a normal voice, to Sue, “He's a bounty hunter, remember? So he lives off the bounty he makes, not his salary.” Purring again, and stroking Blaine's arm slowly, Kurt asked, “Isn't that so, Mr. Anderson.”

Blaine could barely breathe, his heart pounding with anxiety and confusion and something else – something more pleasant – as Kurt stroked his arm and huffed gently puffs of breath over his cheek. Unable to speak, Blaine nodded.

“How many androids escaped this time?” Kurt asked.

Forcing himself to focus, Blaine answered. “Eight. Originally. Two have already been retired, by someone else. Not me.”

“You get how much for each android?” Kurt asked.

Shrugging, Blaine said, “It varies.”

Kurt's fingers resumed tracing patterns up and down Blaine's arm. His voice was lilting, almost soothing. “If you have no test you can administer, then there is no way you can identify an android. And if there's no way you can identify an android there's no way you can collect your bounty. So if the Voigt-Kampff scale has to be abandoned – ”

“A new scale,” Blaine said, “will replace it. This has happened before.” Three times, to be exact. But the new scale, the more modern analytical device had been there already. No lag had existed. This time was different.

“Eventually, of course, the Voigt-Kampff scale will become obsolete,” Kurt agreed. “But not now. We're satisfied ourselves that it will delineate the Nexus-6 types and we'd like you to proceed on that basis in your own peculiar work.” Kurt released his hold on Blaine's arm and stepped back, gripping his own elbow and staring at Blaine intensely as though trying to gauge his reaction.

“Stop your damn flirting and tell him he can have his owl,” Sue said impatiently.

“You can have the owl,” Kurt said, still eyeing him. “Armani. But we want to mate it if we can get our hands on a male. And any offspring will be ours; that has to be absolutely understood.”

“Armani is a female? Unusual name.”

“It's a last name. Besides, you can name the owl anything you want when it's yours.”

“I'll divide the brood,” said Blaine.

“No,” Kurt said instantly. Behind him, Sue shook her head, backing him up. “That way you'd have claim to the sole bloodline of owls for the rest of eternity. Not going to happen. And there's another condition. You can't will your owl to anybody. At your death it reverts back to the Association.”

“That sounds,” Blaine said, “like an invitation for you to come in and kill me. To get your owl back immediately. I won't agree to that. It's too dangerous.”

“You're a bounty hunter,” Kurt deadpanned. As he continued, his voice took on a flirtatious lilt and Blaine's stomach swooped in spite of the words Kurt spoke.  “You can handle a laser gun. I'm sure you're carrying one right now. If you can't protect yourself, how are you going to retire the six remaining Nexus-6 andys? They're a good deal smarter than the old model.”

“But I hunt them,” he said. “With a reversion clause on the owl, someone would be hunting me.” And he did not like the idea of being stalked. He had seen the effect on androids. It brought about certain noticeable changes, even in them.

Kurt relaxed his posture and said in a bored voice, “All right; we'll yield on that. You can will the owl to your heirs. But we insist on getting the complete brood. If you can't agree to that, go on back to San Francisco and admit to your superiors that the Voigt-Kampff test, at least as administered by you, can't distinguish an andy from a human being. And then look for another job.”

“Give me some time,” Blaine said.

“Okay,” Kurt conceded. “We'll leave you in here, where it's comfortable.”

“Half an hour,” Sue said. “I can't be expected to waste the rest of my day on this nonsense.” She strode out the door and turned, waiting for Kurt to join her.

Kurt leaned down, his breath ghosting Blaine's ear deliciously as he whispered, “I can give you an added incentive.”

“What?” Blaine asked slowly.

“You can spend the night with me. I know you want to.”

“Excuse me?” He must have heard that wrong. There was no way that Kurt could mean that the way it sounded.

“Think about it,” Kurt whispered. He gave Blaine's shoulders a gentle squeeze and it seemed as though Blaine's entire being was concentrated, for those few seconds, on those two points of contact, an electric thrill coursing through him from his shoulder blades down to his toes. Before he had fully experienced the feeling, Kurt was already walking away.

“The answer is yes, by the way,” Kurt said from the doorway.

“To what question?” Blaine asked.

“Am I a homosexual?” He said it so casually, as if it wasn't a statement that could get a person thrown in jail or classified as a special.

Blaine wasn't sure how long he stared at Kurt, slack jawed, before his anger at this entire predicament caught up with him and he snapped his mouth shut with an audible clack.

As Kurt started to close the door after himself and his aunt, Blaine set starkly, “You managed to set me up perfectly. You have it on camera that I missed on you; you know my job depends on the use of the Voigt-Kampff scale; you offer me that; and you own that goddamn owl.”

“Your owl, sweetheart,” Kurt said. “Remember? We'll tie you home address around its leg and have it fly down to San Francisco; it'll meet you there when you get off work.”

It, Blaine thought. Kurt keeps calling the owl it. Not her. “Just a second,” he said.

Pausing at the door, Kurt grinned. “You've decided already?”

“I want,” he said, opening his briefcase, “to ask you one more question from the Voigt-Kampff scale. Sit down again, please.”

Kurt glanced at Sue uncertainly. She nodded and he grudgingly returned, seating himself as before. “What's this for?” he demanded, his eyebrows lifted in distaste – and wariness. Blaine perceived his skeletal tension, noted it professionally.

Presently he had the pencil of light trained on Kurt's right eye and the adhesive patch again in contact with his cheek. Kurt stared into the light rigidly, the expression of extreme distaste still manifest.

“My briefcase,” Blaine said as he rummaged for the Voigt-Kampff forms. “Nice, isn't it? Department issue.”

“It's no Prada,” Kurt said haughtily.

“No, but it's better. It's babyhide,” Blaine said. He stroked the shiny black surface of the briefcase. “One hundred percent genuine human babyhide.” He saw the two dial indicators gyrate frantically. But only after a pause. The reaction had come, but too late. He knew the reaction period down to a fraction of a second. The correct reaction period. There should have been none. “Thanks, Mr. Hummel,” he said, and gathered together the equipment again. He had concluded his retesting. “That's all.”

“You're leaving?” Kurt asked incredulously.

“Yes,” he said. “I'm satisfied.”

Cautiously, Kurt said, “What about the other nine subjects.”

“The scale has been adequate in your case,” he answered. “I can extrapolate from that. It's clearly still effective.”

“So it showed me to be human this time?” Kurt asked.

Blaine snapped the briefcase shut and looked appraisingly at Kurt for a moment before he turned to Sue and asked, “Doesn't he know?” Sometimes they didn't. False memories had been tried various times, generally in the mistaken belief that through them, reactions to testing would be altered.

Sue sighed heavily. “No. We programmed him completely. But I think toward the end he suspected.” She looked at Kurt fondly. “You guessed when Mr. Anderson asked for one more try, didn't you?”

Pale, Kurt nodded silently. Arms crossed, he dug his fingernails into his arms, knuckles white with the pressure, his breathing labored.

“Don't be afraid of him,” Sue told Kurt. “You're not an escaped android on Earth illegally. You're the property of the Sylvester-Hummel Association, used as a sales device for prospective emigrants.” She walked over to Kurt and put her hand comfortingly on his shoulder. At the touch, Kurt flinched.

“She's right,” Blaine said gently. “I'm not going to retire you, Mr. Hummel.”

In a strangled voice, Kurt squeaked, “I guess I'm not actually Mr. Hummel. Am I?” He looked at Sue, eyes wet with betrayal. “All those memories – my mother's funeral, the tea parties, learning to ride a bicycle, the Salander 3, my dad  – ” the last word was a squeak followed by a choked off sob.

“All fake, I'm afraid, kiddo. The memories are from my actual nephew, who is Burt Hummel's son. But he doesn't look anything like you. He's bulky, and balding, like Burt.”

Kurt's face twists into a pained knot before he buries his face in his hands, sobbing silently. Blaine tried not to be affected by the sight, but even knowing that Kurt was an android, a thing and not a person, didn't make it any easier to watch him fall apart as his entire world crumbled.

After standing there for a few moments, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot and swinging his briefcase slightly to and fro, Blaine started toward the door. At the threshold he halted briefly. “Is the owl genuine?” he asked Sue, who was rubbing a hand up and down Kurt's back.

“It's artificial,” Sue said. “There are no owls.”

“Hmm,” Blaine muttered, and stepped numbly out into the corridor. So that's how the largest manufacturer of androids operates, Blaine thought. Devious, and in a manner he had never encountered before. A weird and convoluted new personality type. No wonder law enforcement agencies were having trouble with the Nexus-6.

The Nexus-6. He had now come up against it. Kurt, he realized. Kurt must be a Nexus-6. I'm seeing one of them for the first time. And they damn near did it. They came awfully close to undermining the Voigt-Kampff scale, the only method we have for detecting them. The Sylvester-Hummel Association does a good job – makes a good try, anyhow – at protecting its products. And they came awfully close to getting Blaine to reveal his own deepest secret. In fact, he thought with an embarrassed shiver, Kurt had achieved this – had somehow detected Blaine's desire and longing for the beautiful man. In fact, if the android manufacturer had specifically set out to design the man most likely to reel Blaine in with a single look, they couldn't have done a better job. And he seemed so human, so warm – smarter and shrewder and more empathetic than any android Blaine had ever faced before.

And I have to face six more of them, he reflected, before I'm finished.

He would earn the bounty money. Every cent.

Assuming he made it through alive.