The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue

by Louis Shalako

  There were more bands of wires bonded together in wide straps, brightly coloured and plugged in here and there.

  “Yes, this is all very interesting.” Interesting, it was fascinating as all hell, thought Gene. “But more to the point—”

  “Oh. Yes.” Burch cleared his throat and looked a bit uncomfortable.

  In accepting an appointment from two senior cops, out-of-towners, naturally his able (and fully robotic) secretary had asked what it was about.

  “Well, anything, really.”

  “Anything?”

  Burch was more confident now. Taking Francine’s arm in a proprietorial manner, he led them on.

  Standing there, the factory was curiously quiet, but all the stamping and welding were done elsewhere.

  They watched as the legs were attached to a ball-joint and actuator arms were attached to pins at gusseted hard-points.

  “Originally, our ‘droids were designed for military, police, and security use. Then we branched out into mining, nuclear waste handling, all kinds of hazardous occupations. Fire-fighting and forestry for example, when you need boots on the ground, ones with autonomous capability and not too large, if you know what I mean.”

  Francine piped up.

  “No. What do you mean?” She wasn’t necessarily being snarky, but the whole picture was overwhelming.

  What was fascinating was that robots could do such work, and yet some very highly-skilled humans couldn’t seem to find any work at all. It was a moral question, and one that didn’t reflect well on the servile classes.

  “Well. Nuclear plants were designed with doors and hatches for human access. Fighting forest fires can be done with thirty-tonne automated bulldozers, but our bots have less impact on the forest floor. There are all kinds of concerns.”

  They didn’t need to breathe, and could stand all kinds of heat and smoke.

  She nodded, and Gene noted the robot in front of them had no mouth aperture and didn’t look up from its work.

  “Yeah. What we’re interested in, are those autonomous functions. Especially as it pertains to our missing robot. They tell me that never happens, incidentally.”

  Executive assistant to Mr. Burch the plant manager, Felicia Emery, the picture of sternly-repressed sexuality, a nineteen year-old librarian in appearance, stared at Francine through her flat lenses.

  Standing slightly behind and to her left, Gene saw the multi-coloured display carets on the inside of her eye-wear.

  His own display had lit up with all of her relevant information upon entering the room. She was extremely well educated, but more of a surprise was the Doctor himself.

  Rudolf Piqua had originally conceived the PAL 9100 series of gynoids after seeing a need for sex toys that transcended currently available models. In the early days, the available products were crude enough. It was Piqua who had integrated chassis and skin, eyes and software, bringing the whole product up to consumer standards of appearance and utility. Taking sex out of the equation and putting the whole thing in terms of household usefulness had been a stroke of genius. They even made ugly robots for those families where one or the other partner tended towards jealousy and sexual peccadilloes.

  “Well.” This was the first time the doctor had spoken, up until now seemingly content to let lesser mortals speak for him. “Briefly, from the chassis, to the power systems, balancing gyros, awareness, autonomics, to the nominal IQ of each model, the goal was maximum adaptability.”

  This made sense. It was like a series of automobiles, outwardly different but sharing commonalities. A chassis and running gear might serve cars, and light trucks and vans, for example.

  Gene nodded in comprehension.

  “They are designed to operate independently for long periods, to extrapolate, to identify new tasks, to plan, to prioritize…”

  His eyes held Gene’s for a moment, and then he turned to Francine.

  “Betty Blue is the first malfunction of this magnitude in the history of our program.” The doctor stabbed the plant manager with a quick glance, and then went on. “All of that is worked out during the testing phase. Naturally, we are most eager to have her returned to us. Without making too big a deal of it, ah, there are concerns.”

  “Yes, public safety, among other things.” Francine found the pallid skin and dead eyes of un-activated gynoids unnerving, creepy even.

  The robot building robots in front of them was completely expressionless. This was another in the shiny chrome, a different chassis as this one was clearly not intended to have skin. It pressed coloured squares on a keypad and the neck and head of a 9100 model went through a series of facial expressions as the group sauntered past.

  “Ugh.” Francine shook her head and hugged herself as if she had a sudden chill.

  “All very fascinating, I’m sure. But it would be helpful to know a little more. Does Betty have military capabilities?” Gene was prodding, but gently.

  “Ah.” The doctor pursed his lips. “The basic programming, of course. She has no specialties, no weapons onboard, outside of her own very considerable physical skills.”

  “What do you mean, the basic programming?”

  “Well. It’s like you and me, Inspector. Neither of us a soldier, or a pilot—and yet we have the basic programming in our bodies to do it.”

  “Ah. Now I get it—I think?” Gene blew air out threw loose lips. “I got a weird one for you—do robots have fingerprints?”

  Gene had tried to hurriedly read up on the subject. If they did, one would think that he would have been able to find it with proper key word searches. Unfortunately he hadn’t.

  “Not in the sense you mean. Their skin has grain and imperfections. They don’t have whorls and such. As for the actual skin itself, it’s very soft, smooth and finely-textured.”

  Doctor Piqua grinned and patted Burch on the shoulder, giving him another of those quirky sidelong looks.

  “Felicia.”

  The young lady stepped forward and gave Gene a data-chip.

  “The 9100 series are designed to be one hundred percent autonomous.” Miss Emery’s bright blue eyes were on him. “For that reason, they have access to the entire internet, wirelessly.”

  A hundred percent autonomous.

  That one gave him a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. Gene didn’t want to give too much away, but he had to give them something.

  “So she would know the bus schedule, things like that?” That’s right, I’m just a dumb cop.

  Felicia nodded. According to her PPP, she was forty-three years old, and she would pretty much have to be, to have had the time to acquire all of those degrees and certifications.

  Gene could only conclude gene or glandular therapy, something else he’d never seen up close. The results were compelling. She looked, sounded and smelled just exactly like a nineteen year-old, a mixture of bubble-gum and hair-spray, new shoes and deodorant. It was the gravitas, that and the most swaggering walk he’d ever seen on a woman wearing high-heeled shoes. Her sternum was held high and the lower spine had the perfect S-curve. There was an implicit challenge here for any man. The attitude had always made him uncomfortable. The ankles weren’t bad either. Gene wondered who had served as the original model for the original model so to speak. Someone had to draw the thing. Some of those sex-bots had been drawn by fifteen year-old schoolboys with severe mammary-fixation. He was almost sure of that.

  “She would have city, state and national maps. She would be able to pinpoint any GPS point on the globe, and any LPS on the moon.”

  “I see.” Gene nodded and gave Francine a bright look.

  “Well.”

  Francine nodded. She couldn’t think of a damned thing to say. They’d all seen them on TV and marveled, but looking at row upon row of assembled products and rack on rack of parts lined up for the assembly line put the thing in a whole new perspective. They were stamping them out like so many hot rolls.

  ***

  He must have waited all day. The hours crawled, and
after a while, he wondered if going mad would be somehow preferable. Scott feared pain and death too much to give it a try. The temptation to smash his head in with a rock was strong. Sitting still was sheer hell, though. He’d eaten a little bit here and there, but water was going to be a problem so he was saving the last of it. He’d had to pee three more times and was just wondering about taking a shit. Sooner or later, it had to happen. To say he was pretty miserable would be an understatement.

  The suspense really was killing him.

  The sound, when it came, was unmistakable. In spite of the crackle of distant thunder, he heard it.

  Scott’s heart leapt, and then the fear came and his heart almost locked up in his chest.

  There was a vehicle, not far away. It was coming this way, and while it clearly went behind buildings, even fading out completely for a full minute by his internal reckoning, the next time he heard the tires crunching on gravel, it was closer. Much, closer.

  The vehicle slowed, creeping along now, as the characteristic whine of a power steering pump indicated it was turning. The deep, booming rumble that cut across the sky obscured the sound for the next thirty seconds or so, and then came rain drops hitting a tin roof. No water hit him, and he thought he was sort of half indoors at least.

  Scott lay flat on the blankets. It was more than any man could do to lie on his back. He rolled over onto his stomach, facing the threat, praying that it was Betty, or that whoever it was would just go on past. Scott had no idea of the surroundings, the locale. An abandoned auto plant, that’s all he knew.

  As usual, there was nowhere to fuckin’ run…

  Scott always stood his ground and, over the years, one or two people had told him how brave he was. Assholes. The vehicle stopped, and his heart-rate soared. He could literally hear the shifter cables pulling the lever on the side of the transmission into parking gear.

  Ka-chunk.

  It idled softly, just on the far side of a screen of brush, which he knew was there from the rustles and the chirps and the heavy, drowsy buzzing of bumble-bees. The rain came then, sweeping in from somewhere behind him in a wall of sound that closed off everything but the immediate world. There came the louder sound of a door opening, and yet no corresponding thunk of it being closed again. He was petrified in case it wasn’t Betty, and the scrape of something a few feet to his right sent barbs of pure, distilled adrenalin through his guts and his thoughts.

  “Scott.”

  “Oh. Jesus—”

  When she grabbed his left arm, just under the armpit, and began turning him over to see if he was all right—he figured that out, lying on his face wasn’t the best idea after all, it was all he could do not to gasp or even shout.

  Something snapped in Scott. He had a moment of stubbornness, refusing to get up in a childish reaction. Something let go inside.

  “So.” That was it, nice, and tight, or taut, and his jaw worked back and forth.

  Don’t say it.

  Don’t say it.

  Don’t even think it.

  She continued pulling on his arm.

  “What. Not even a, Honey, I’m home?”

  “I’m sorry, Scott. I really am. But we have a car now. Come on, let’s go.”

  He stumbled to his feet, rocking slightly, his head all woozy from the sudden exertion. His face tingled.

  “Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.” He sucked in oxygen.

  With her helping him, he grabbed his packsack and she led him to the car.

  He sat on the seat, his door open, as she went back and checked for anything they might have left behind.

  Her smell was right at the door again. She threw the blankets in the back. He wondered if she was nervous, but her voice didn’t give anything away. She patted him on the shoulder and he belted himself in as she slammed the door and went around to her side.

  There was the deep, cold burn of fear, possibly even anger, in Scott’s lower abdomen. It was like a puddle of something in the trough at the bottom of your innards sloshing around like the bilges of a fishing boat in the perfect hurricane.

  It was all he could do not to puke. He fought for calmness.

  Come on, no big deal. His thoughts raced then slowed down. The vehicle moved along, Betty’s situational awareness helpful as she had a picture of everything articulating in a wide radius through passive means.

  Scott felt heat on his face. It was warmer for some reason and a lot brighter around him now. The vague shapes of buildings and vehicles weren’t much reassurance.

  Shit.

  “We’re outdoors now…”

  “Yes. The sun’s finally come out. It won’t last long.”

  “Ah.”

  He felt the machine accelerate.

  “What about drones?”

  “They have a terror alert uptown. We should be all right for the moment.”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah, the drones will be all over that like shit on a baby’s blanket.”

  Another pissed-off dad of a homeless family, making a crank call. They’d catch him, and he’d spend the rest of his life in a recreation camp. That was Scott’s assessment.

  She reached over and gave him another little pat on the shoulder.

  “There’s a cold beer in the bag at your feet.” Her scent washed past him and he heard the rustle of the bag.

  She placed it on the seat beside him.

  He nodded.

  “Thank you. That was very thoughtful of you, Honey.” He pondered the significance. “Did you call it in?”

  He meant the terror plot.

  She made no answer. He shrugged.

  I wouldn’t put it past her.

  Now that he had time to actually comprehend it, there was a hot roast beef submarine in the bag as well—and going by that smell, she had remembered to load it up with extra onions and the juice, that thin, runny pale juice that the Greek boys always squirted on there just before they were done.

  Everybody liked the juice. They never would tell you what was in it. Scott hadn’t seen it lately, nor even tasted such a thing in years.

  He heaved a deep sigh and reached for the bag.

  Who knows, maybe it was all worth it.

  Up until then, he’d never really thought his life worth risking for anything. Anything at all.

  Or anyone. Maybe that was what he meant to say.

  This was a whole new way of looking at things.

  Scary shit.

  He turned to face Betty for a moment.

  “My life is worth risking. That means something, Betty.” Then he turned away. “It means something.”

  Throw that into the mix.

  She gave him a look, of which he was distinctly oblivious.

  He snapped the can open.

  “Oh, Lord.” He slugged it back, almost half a can on the first drink.

  He thought about it for a minute.

  She obviously thought there was something worth risking. There was something worth running away for. Or maybe he meant to say there was something worth running away from. Not that that made any sense at all.

  It was all he could do, just to try and gag down that first bite, and maybe try and get some kind of a handle on all of these sudden and rapid mood-swings.

  “Hold onto your sandwich there, Scott. We’re entering the traffic stream.”

  “What kind of a car is this, anyway?” There was a crack of thunder and then another sound, a distinct roar, drumming on the roof of the vehicle.

  Their timing would appear to be impeccable. She turned down the radio a bit. It was raining heavily now, and their faces would be obscured for the traffic cams. As for the vehicle, he was afraid to ask, although he certainly meant to.

  They had about twelve minutes on the freeway going by the weather radar, and then she had another place to go to ground all picked out. She took it up to one-thirty-five.

  “It’s a Ford, a station wagon. A nice medium blue colour—there are a million of them out there, and that’s just this model year
.”

  “Station wagon? When did they come back?”

  “Yeah. They’ve been popular for four or five years now, Scott.”

  “Well, you learn something new every day. So…ah, what else? It’s obviously stolen, right? I mean, you didn’t use my credit card…?”

  She snickered.

  “No, you’d never get that paid off, would you?” She went on. “It’s a stolen car, Scott.”

  “See, I knew that.”

  There was a long silence.

  “There’s more.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Scott slumped up against the window. After sleeping on the ground, and going hungry for eighteen solid hours, all he wanted was to feel safe, to be in a room. To be indoors.

  “There are fifteen Filter King vacuum cleaners in the back, Scott.”

  He snorted.

  Scott reached over and gave Betty’s knee a squeeze.

  “I sense a story.”

  “Well, I saw a guy stealing it, and then I kind of took it off of him.” Her voice was warm and mellow. “He was very good with security systems. I’ll give him that much.”

  “Well. That sucks.”

  Her laugh made up for one or two things.

  Maybe not everything, but one or two things.

  Chapter Ten

  At one time Gene and Francine had been as thick as thieves. That was before his promotion and the pull of higher administrative duties. They had gone through a lot of doors together, and while the bond was still strong, as friends they had drifted apart.

  The conversation was lagging. She looked tired more than anything, although there was still a chance she could get home by six-thirty or so.

  In which case, why call a babysitter at all? Gene could sympathize, but no real harm done.

  “The chief thinks I’m sort of dispensable.” Gene chuckled self-consciously. “It’s like, you’re just sitting there watching the people work. I swear, it was on the tip of his tongue.”

  The chief wasn’t exactly known for tact in the department, and all press announcements were carefully crafted. All but the most sensational announcements were made by junior press officers, but every once in a while a hostile journalist got the chance to ask the wrong question of Old Blood and Guts. It didn’t take too much to set him off.