The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue

by Louis Shalako

  Edwin faded in her attention as the ramifications whirled around and around in her head.

  The trail, so far as they had been able to reconstruct it—once they had the GPS data from recovered vehicles, (another neat trick, and only slightly illegal) showed an incredible zigzagging, back and forth, left and right and left and right again.

  “When they came to a bottleneck, they simply abandoned the vehicle.”

  “…and then they went across country?”

  “Yes, Missus Bennett. Or, they were using phony IDs, including a high-powered chip. Betty could simply hold it in her hand and maybe, well…all they would have to do is to interfere with the signal from her own transponder-chip. Let’s say they can’t shut it off. You can’t cut it out. You don’t have the skills, right? Just jam it, even though an alarm might sound somewhere. Once you’re over the wire—slum folks call it ‘going outlaw,’ they could just walk down the street until they were past the choke-point and then steal another car. Bugger off at a high rate of speed while technicians somewhere are still analyzing what happened.”

  While the penalties were high, so were the stakes. Some folks took the risk. Those were either the really dangerous ones, foreign and domestic terrorists, psychopaths on a mission, or folks with a lot to lose. Too many offences were capital offences these days, but no one was interested in Edwin’s opinion on that.

  In his opinion, it simply drove up violent crime statistics because there was nothing to be gained by surrender or cooperation. It was almost as if someone had a vested interest in promoting crime, and especially violent crime. It was strange, but the new capital-theft category the Justice System was now using had really been a mistake in Edwin’s opinion.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Mad as it seems, if you’re nervy enough, you can beat the chip-scanners. One case involved a person wearing a soft lead wrapper around their foot. That’s where they’re implanted in Eire. They’re not uniform around the world, which causes a few headaches when traveling. They had a fake chip in their hand and approached the reader with their arm extended. The reading device was presented with one warm body and one strong signal. In that case, they only needed to get through the one checkpoint. How long Betty Blue and this Nettles character can keep it up, is a very good question.”

  They were also heading out into far more open country.

  Letitia could hear their young team members chatting excitedly in the background, still following up leads and by the sounds of it enjoying the challenge immensely. They would all be convinced of their future with the company by this time.

  She chose her words.

  “Well. Our criminals, the subjects, must have some very good skills and equipment.”

  “Absolutely, Missus Bennett. It’s not easy to fake IDs, chips and vehicle transponders. The cars are the easy part, I’m told, but it really is a tough job—the usual method is to grab the car and chop-shop it within the minimum time-frame. Ten minutes and off, is their motto, no matter how many desirable bits and pieces are left behind.”

  And if the police didn’t find it within their own maximum time-frame, too much information was constantly being poured into the stream. They had to move on. They wrote a report and forgot about it. Items on their case list were constantly being ‘depreciated’ in terms of priority. The highest priorities got dealt with first. There simply wasn’t time to resolve all of them; and homicide had a higher priority than theft of a vehicle, or frickin’ vacuum cleaners, or expensive robots that reportedly walked off on their own.

  The subjects were gaming those algorithms very well so far.

  There was another crime always being committed, and cops spent the bulk of their resources in areas where they thought it would do the most good. Or at least some good.

  Unless a vehicle tripped a sensor with its transponder, it was as good as invisible—no one would be looking for it in the good, old-fashioned way, via radio calls, shift bulletins and vehicle descriptions. No one used their eyes anymore. Cops still pulled people over, routine traffic stops and the like. But Betty would take pains to see that it didn’t happen. All she had to do was to signal every turn and drive the speed limit. Make sure all lights and signals were working. More than anything make sure those transponder codes were all legit. It was a wonder they put license plates on them at all these days, but of course the department of motor vehicles had to sell the taxpayers something tangible and the license plate was a personal trophy of sorts, what with the cost of operating a vehicle and everything. The real tag was a string of data loaded into the car’s transponder. The real tag was read by a short-range system mounted on the cop car’s dashboard.

  “How come none of our SimTech products have spotted them?”

  “Either they’re very lucky, or I don’t know.” Edwin wasn’t particularly troubled. “I can only make educated guesses.”

  The existing systems should suffice, if enough machine time was devoted to the problem. In the middle of Iowa, there wouldn’t be all that many robots and cyborgs walking down the street at any given time. The odds were worse than Letitia perhaps properly understood. It was also the kind of material that Betty Blue would be able to access freely.

  “Sooner or later, they will be spotted. But it is much more sparsely populated out there, and it’s not exactly a high-income area.” There were only so many known SimTech products in the area, and most of those would be engaged in their regular duties. While it was technically feasible, it wasn’t very smart to try and hack the competition’s machines and use their eyes. Most of those unit’s duties were indoors, sales and service, waiting tables, housemaid duty, et cetera.

  Sooner or later they must be caught, Edwin told Letitia.

  Letitia nodded.

  “Very well. I’ll pass all this up the ladder. Thank our people for me, please. You’re doing some very important work.”

  ***

  Mister Scruffles, looking devastating as always in his jacket and ruff, scampered around everyone’s ankles and sniffed with particular interest at Betty’s feet.

  It was too bad Mister Nettles was blind, thought Rose Downie, her little doggy was a prime attraction, one that set this establishment off over a hundred others on this street alone.

  “Yap! Yap!”

  “Shush.”

  The animal came over and fell on its side beside her piano bench. It lay there with its tongue hanging out, knowing the routine very well, only looking up from time to time as if to check on how things were going.

  The chapel was larger, and emptier than expected. They should have brought their own audience. Yet the tone and the atmosphere, the sounds and the smells, were loaded, like long wet branches bearing some heavy fruit.

  Scott was beginning to catch on, having to fight for calm and for air. Scott forced himself not to breathe for a while. He was hyperventilating. He swallowed convulsively, trying to stand up straight and look right, and at the same time wishing he could see this for himself.

  It was the moment of a lifetime, and Betty’s hurriedly-whispered instructions didn’t give the full flavour of the thing. Clad in glowing white chiffon, Betty stood in stark contrast to Scott in his rented dark grey tuxedo. She searched his face. No sign of fear and that was good.

  The Reverend Fallon Downie was brutally handsome, with a dimple on the chin, long, thin black hair slicked back with some kind of pomade, and a pencil-thin mustache. The other half of the dynamic duo that ran the place was gently playing the wedding march, looking over, head back, wearing an inane grin that Scott couldn’t benefit from and Betty ignored. Rose was a slender blonde lady of indeterminate age, with a breathy, whispery voice, wide cheekbones and a pointed chin. She had big, velvet-painting-children blue eyes. She gave the impression of hanging on to every word, with not a thought of her own to contribute.

  Her questions had all been asked a million times. Someone had once said Rose had no unexpressed thoughts.

  Everything in the world was all new to Scott and
Betty.

  They faced each other, holding hands. She had eyes only for him, and Scott was listening for all it was worth in case he made some bone-headed response.

  “…blah-blah-blah…blah-blah-blah…blah-blah…richer, poorer…sickness and health…blah-blah…”

  Tall, and wearing a Colonel Sanders white suit and black shoestring tie, the only thing missing was the monocle. It took but a moment for each party to place a ring on the other’s finger; a good sale and one the Reverend would have liked to have seen every day. Every so often it happened, and he was wise to stock a few rings.

  “Do you, Betty Blue, take this man, Scott Nettles, to be your lawfully-wedded husband?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you, Scott Nettles, take this woman, Betty Blue, to be your lawfully-wedded wife?”

  “I do—I do.”

  The lone spectator, apparently waiting for their partner to show up going by the black tuxedo and creamy white ruff, coughed quietly and wiped a tear from his craggy, eighty year-old face, a lived-in face, a face that could hold a three-day rain. He reached for his big yellow handkerchief.

  “You, sir, may now kiss the bride.” He turned to Betty with a big smile and threw his arms up and out. “And you, my dear, you may now kiss the groom.”

  Scott and Betty proceeded to do just that.

  “God Bless you, my children. For you, Mister and Missus Scott Nettles, this is the beginning of a whole new life.”

  The organ music swelled, the lady playing it swayed from side to side and the Reverend beamed at the happy couple in unfeigned approval.

  “Yap! Yap!”

  They ignored Mister Scruffles, who uttered a profound sigh, wagged his tail and looked on in hope and wonder.

  ***

  Not unnaturally, Gene MacBride wanted to be in on the kill.

  While the Vegas cops were pretty good about such things, nailing enough credit for his own department was a valid consideration these days, and when had it ever been any different?

  Armed with state and federal warrants for the arrest of Scott Nettles and the robot known as Betty Blue—that one was like pulling teeth from the judge, Gene, Francine, and Parsons hovered above Las Vegas. The lights of the city stretched out all around down below, off to the distant horizon.

  The helicopter had a characteristic vibration, the noise was insane, even with the headgear and hearing protection. They were strapped in and the pilot was throwing the thing around like a fighter jock as they tried to pinpoint the location.

  Francine peered out the side window with her high-powered Googgs and Parsons was in behind the pilot and copilot, talking a mile a minute.

  Gene wasn’t nearly as excited as he should have been. First, the odds of them getting out of the desert city without being spotted were nil, secondly, it was almost like it was too easy. A bird in the hand is better than two in the bushes, he thought. It was like he wasn’t quite ready for them yet.

  Gene had developed a sneaking affection for Betty Blue, and Mister Nettles, for that matter.

  They had made his life interesting, if only for a little while.

  “Ah, we’ve got some kind of action.”

  Gene’s pulse picked up on Dave’s words.

  “Oh…?”

  He sat up as straight as he could in his seat, and taking his scope, took a look out the window at the wedding chapel.

  “What kind of action?”

  Vegas police were having a busy night, or they would have vectored them in on the chapel already.

  There were no good landing places nearby, and Gene wanted to make this arrest personally.

  “We have three parties getting out of a vehicle—no, wait, there’s more over there. This doesn’t look good, boss.”

  Gene spotted them.

  “Fuck.”

  He grabbed his com device, already tuned to dispatch downtown where they awaited his word.

  “Emergency! I repeat, emergency! Roll all available units, destination, Made In Heaven Wedding Chapel.” He blurted out the address as well as he remembered it.

  Gene shouted at the pilot, drawing a startled look.

  “Put this damned thing down on the ground. Now, Mister. Or I’ll have you on guard duty at a homeless people’s recreation camp for the rest of your life.”

  “But sir!”

  “Do it!”

  The pilots engaged each other in a look and then turned away, looking for the biggest parking lot they could find. A rooftop would do, if that’s the way the man wanted it.

  Let that son of a bitch drop the last three or four metres on his own, for all they cared.

  ***

  After their kiss, Betty unglued herself from Scott.

  “Honey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  “You’re pregnant.” He turned to where the Reverend was. “I’ll bet you didn’t see that one coming, eh, Bud?”

  A quick sob ripped from deep in her gizzard and then she was clinging to Scott, almost knocking him over backwards in her need.

  “Oh, my children.” Reverend Downie stepped in for a quick group hug, and even his wife, the tip of her nose quivering and hastily throwing back her piano-bench, came over to get in on all the free emotions going around.

  “Oh, dear.” Missus Downie took Betty by the shoulders and led her over to a pew as the Reverend pumped Scott’s hand in delight.

  “You hear that? She’s pregnant!” With their deep and abiding love of the unborn, Mister and Missus Downie were right in love with their latest blessed couple. “Well, don’t that beat all.”

  “I—I’m going to be a dad.” Scott choked up for a moment.

  Reverend Downie stepped back, still holding Scott’s hand and looking for his reaction—it occurred to him that Betty’s pronouncement was a bit unconventional.

  Scott’s face lit, even as the first tears sprung from the ducts.

  “I’m going to be a dad! I’m going to be a dad!” Yanking his hand free, Scott, barging around like a drunken cow in a ladies’ shoe store, began dancing a jig, an imbalanced rendition still reminiscent of a Highland Fling, but dangerous enough to onlookers for all of that and the Reverend stepped back.

  Betty and Missus Downie were having girlie hugs and lots of whispering on the front pew, and he beamed at them, quickly grabbing Scott when he hit the top step of the low stage that was their marriage platform.

  “Whoa, young fellow. You’re no good to anyone if you break your neck—”

  It was right about then, as the lone spectator in the back row applauded with an exaggerated golf clap, that the door burst open and men in long black coats, dark glasses and carrying some of the finest assault shotguns that money could buy, and then one of them fired a shot into the ceiling. In dramatic counterpoint, a puff of white ceiling tile dust fell from above.

  Everything came screeching to a halt and there was a shocked silence.

  ***

  Boyd and his apprentice hatchet-people Amity Sloan and Bengt Armitage had Betty Blue and Scott Nettles in custody. The pair were slumped side-by-side on the front pew, and the other three were face-down on the highly-polished tiles in front of the marriage platform.

  The dog, one Mister Scruffles according to their sources, came racing out from under the pews where he had initially hidden in panic and with a quick lunge, bit Amity on the ankle.

  “Wa, yew danged sun of a be-atch!” With a quick squeeze of the trigger on her S.P.A.Z. 12 Mark III automatic assault shotgun, she blew the indignant dog’s head off.

  What had been intended to solve the problem, left the headless dog zinging around the room, bouncing off of things and leaving a big red squelchy mark everywhere it hit. She fired again, and this time the thing was flung sideways and slammed into a wall.

  Rosie was crying unashamedly, and Fallon and the other gentlemen were cussing and swearing and declaring undying vengeance.

  Again, the doors burst open.

  Again, someone fired a shot into the ceili
ng. (And again, a puff of dust came down from the ceiling.)

  With the back-up perps outside in custody, Gene MacBride strode masterfully into the room as the trio froze. With the room flooding with bulky people in scuffed blue armour, resistance was clearly futile.

  Gene looked over at the dead dog. He looked at Amity.

  “Right. You’ll pay for that.” Proffering a hand, he accepted her weapon.

  The other two didn’t put up a fight.

  Gene turned, and Francine took a quick step to avoid being bowled over. Parsons merely looked vindicated—but a promotion looked very promising right about then.

  He looked at the unhappy couple on the font pew, holding hands and with Mister Nettles clearly in shock and wondering if the end of the world had come.

  Her eyes met his.

  “Betty Blue, I presume.”

  Her eyes fell and it was all he could not to crow.

  Chapter Seventeen

  An employee of one of the more prominent nationwide ambulance chasers, holding a white plastic-board placard, struggled through the cordon. Gene thought he saw a credit note slipped into an officer’s side pouch. The man peeled off, raced through a gap in between the two cars, with Gene and his immediate circle standing there at Betty’s door. Theirs would be the second vehicle, with Mister Nettles and a uniformed officer all ready to go.

  The law firm’s name and number were on the card as Betty stared straight ahead and Gene was reaching for a weapon in his surprise.

  They stood out front in a press of officers, armoured and unarmoured, plain-clothed and uniformed.

  The suspects, the subjects, and Betty Blue, unclassifiable by any of the crime manuals written so far in all of history, each had the back seat of a cruiser to themselves. Three heavily-armed citizens detained outside the building had been questioned and then released.