Rick Deckard and Harry Bryant

Rick Deckard and Harry Bryant are a bounty hunter and his police inspector superior in the San Francisco Police Department, whose relationship is defined by Bryant's strategic management of Deckard's assignments, his insistence on testing the Voigt-Kampff scale against Nexus-6 androids before deployment, and his role as the bureaucratic authority who both authorizes and monitors Deckard's lethal work.

Authority and Assignment

Inspector Harry Bryant, jug-eared and redheaded, sloppily dressed but wise-eyed and conscious of nearly everything of any importance, is the superior who controls Deckard's assignments. When Dave Holden, the department's chief bounty hunter, is hospitalized with a laser track through his spine, Bryant summons Deckard and informs him that Holden will be out for at least a month. Bryant has Holden's notes in his desk but does not immediately pass them to Deckard; instead he taps the bundle of notepaper, frowning and working his tongue around the fringes of his mouth, weighing how to proceed. Deckard offers that he has nothing on his agenda and is ready to take over in Holden's place, but Bryant does not immediately agree. He reveals that Holden used the Voigt-Kampff Altered Scale in testing suspects and that no test is specific for the new Nexus-6 brain units. Bryant then orders Deckard to fly to Seattle and talk with the Rosen Association, to have them supply a representative sampling of types employing the new Nexus-6 unit and to put them through the Voigt-Kampff test. He tells Deckard he will discuss with the Rosen organization the possibility of including several humans as well as their new androids, and that Deckard will not know which subjects are which. This is the first time Deckard will be acting as senior bounty hunter, and Bryant emphasizes that Holden has years of experience behind him.

Testing and the Nexus-6 Problem

Bryant is deeply concerned about the reliability of the Voigt-Kampff scale for the new Nexus-6 androids. He tells Deckard about a memo from the Soviet police, W.P.O. itself, circulated throughout Earth plus the colonies: a group of psychiatrists in Leningrad have proposed applying the Voigt-Kampff scale to a carefully selected group of schizoid and schizophrenic human patients who reveal a flattening of affect. Bryant explains that these psychiatrists think a small class of human beings could not pass the Voigt-Kampff scale, and that if tested in line with police work they would be assessed as humanoid robots and killed. He warns Deckard that this could go wrong either way: if Deckard cannot pick out all the humanoid robots, then they have no reliable analytical tool and will never find the ones already escaping; if his scale factors out a human subject and identifies him as android, it would be awkward. Bryant tells Deckard he will take his word for it, but there cannot be even one slip-up. When Deckard asks to take Holden's notes with him to read along the way, Bryant refuses, saying they should wait until Deckard has tried out his scale in Seattle, his tone interestingly merciless.

Operational Direction and the Final Assignment

After Deckard returns from Seattle and retires three androids, Bryant calls him at home with a tail on two of the remaining androids. He tells Deckard that the androids have left the address Holden gave and can now be found at Conapt Building 3967-C, and orders him to get over there as soon as possible. When Deckard protests that he needs to rest, Bryant insists they will be gone by tomorrow and that Deckard should move in fast before they get dug in. Deckard asks if he has the shakes because of Polokov, and when Deckard denies it, Bryant presses him on what is wrong. Deckard finally agrees to go, and Bryant tells him to let him know as soon as he gets results, saying he will be in his office. After Deckard retires the final three androids, he calls Bryant's office to report. Bryant says "Good" and tells him to go get some rest, that they will send a patrol car to pick up the three bodies. The relationship is thus one of command and execution: Bryant assigns, tests, and monitors; Deckard performs the lethal work under Bryant's authority and reports back to him.