Rick Deckard is a "blade runner", a special agent in the Los Angeles police department employed to hunt down and " retire " replicants. He is the protagonist of the film and the narrator in the original theatrical release. Agent Deckard was played by Harrison Ford. Gaff is a Los Angeles police officer who escorts Deckard throughout his mission. Jeter mentions that Gaff is killed in the line of duty.
At the beginning of the novel, Bryant has just returned from the funeral and expresses his distaste for the Cityspeak written on Gaff's headstone. Rachael , sometimes referred to as Rachael Tyrell , was the latest experiment of Eldon Tyrell, and the sole Nexus-7 replicant.
He believed that since the replicants had such a limited lifespan, they had little time to develop control of their emotions, causing difficulty in managing these emotions. He believed implanting the replicants with memories would create a cushion that would allow for emotional development, and make them more controllable. Rachael has the implanted memories of Lilith Tyrell, Tyrell's niece, and Rachael is then led to believe that she is human.
It is not revealed in the film how long she has been living, but Tyrell admits that he thinks she is beginning to suspect the truth of her nature. Tyrell refuses to discuss the issue with Rachael. In desperation, she turns to Deckard, who has been told by Captain Bryant to retire her.
However, he falls in love with her instead. At the end of the film, the four replicants Deckard had been assigned to kill are dead. Rachael and Deckard then flee and presumably go into hiding to have a future together. In Blade Runner it is revealed Rachael, as the sole Nexus-7, was given the ability to reproduce by Tyrell. During an apparently routine investigation, Blade Runner Officer K uncovers a box containing bones and hair buried under a tree.
