Meyer: Blade Runner Division Head In Eye And Talon
Meyer was the head of the LAPD's entire blade runner division in K. W. Jeter's 2000 novel Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon. After Captain Bryant's death he took over Bryant's wrecked office in an emptied police station, ran Iris Knaught as a runner in that unit, and sent her after Eldon Tyrell's living owl, Scrappy, rather than after another replicant. He later fired her from the department, raided a desert lab, and killed both Carsten and Vogel.
Biography
Taking Over The Division
Meyer was working in Captain Bryant's wrecked office when Iris came to him. The police station around them was empty except for pigeons, and the office was littered with paper, empty bottles, old kill lists, and dried blood, with small machines moving over that debris. A cracked porcelain sake cup on the desk held paper clips. When Iris asked for a double bounty on the impersonator Art Enesque, Meyer ignored the claim and treated that kill as the first useful one in a long dry stretch. When she said she had expenses, he told her they all did, and called her cupcake.
The Reorganization
Meyer told Iris that a big reorganization was coming, and his face turned sour and cynical as he said it. He called it a perfect opportunity for the U.N.'s Pacific Rim Tactical Command to raise its profile with the local Chamber of Commerce. If that went through, he said, he and Iris and the rest of the LAPD would be out of their jobs. Runners who failed a coming review, he had already said, were to be retired the same way replicants were.
The Owl Assignment
Meyer told Iris the owl was real, and that its band read Property of the Tyrell Corporation. He gave her an unlabeled data-tab, and said that turning the assignment down would put her with the runners about to be cut. She told him she hunted replicants, not birds, and that a living owl in Los Angeles would be a fake from the animal market. For a later raid on a theater, he passed her two heavy armory cases at an abandoned warehouse on Traction Avenue, gear he had taken from the armory lockers.
The Hospital And The Firing
After the theater raid, Iris woke in an LAPD hospital with the owl gone, and Meyer standing over the bed. He was angry, and treated the loss as her failure. Iris backhanded him across the jaw and knocked him against the bed's metal end rail. He terminated her from the blade runner division and from the department, then handed her the owl's broken leg band. When she said she did not know how much it meant, he told her not to go overboard.
The Desert Raid
At Carsten's desert lab, Meyer was already waiting when the chamber door opened, and he cut Carsten down before the old man could raise a gun. Carsten's dying shot smashed a fluorescent fixture and dropped the lab into darkness. Outside, Meyer told Vogel that he had found Iris and that he did not care what had happened, only that it had, then shot Vogel in the doorway for earned pay. The raid left committee men and caged owls dead at the compound, and Iris took her gun from Carsten's hand.
Personality And Traits
Meyer had a boyish face that could turn sour and cynical, and a smile he used when he told Iris not to worry. He talked like a police official under pressure, fatalistic about a dry stretch of work, weary more than angry when Iris called him a liar on the phone, and sarcastic when he handed over heavy cases from the armory. He called her cupcake, and still used her as the best runner he had. At the end he closed the hunt himself, killing Carsten and Vogel at the desert lab.
Famous Quotes
- "We all do, cupcake." Meyer, to Iris, in Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon
- "Big reorganization coming down." Meyer, to Iris, in the emptied police station
- "Don't go overboard." Meyer, after firing Iris and handing her the owl's broken leg band
Behind The Scenes
Meyer appears in K. W. Jeter's Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon, published by Gollancz in 2000, the fourth novel in Jeter's Blade Runner sequence and the follow-up to Blade Runner: Replicant Night. He is the official who inherits the blade runner division after Captain Bryant's death, and he is one of the main figures around Iris Knaught's hunt for Tyrell's owl. He does not appear in the earlier Jeter books, and he is not a figure from Ridley Scott's 1982 film.
Conclusion
Meyer inherited the blade runner division after Bryant, sent Iris after Tyrell's owl, fired her when the hunt went wrong, and closed it by killing Carsten and Vogel at the desert lab. He was a police official with a boyish face and a sour streak. He used Iris as his best runner, then finished that hunt himself.
Appearances
- Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon by K. W. Jeter (Gollancz, 2000)
Tag Categories: Blade Runner Lore | Blade Runner Characters | Blade Runner Detectives
