The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue (8 page)

Scott imagined the puzzled faces all
swinging to him.

“
Huh? What?”

“
This.”

The cane hummed through the
air.

Thwack.

“
I wasn’t always blind,
you know.”

You fucking bastard.

Scott’s wicked, up, over and
around-hand swipe with the cane must have caught the punk smack-dab
in the chops. He went right down, although Scott heard him getting
up again, too. There were unmistakable sounds.

He couldn’t help but smile.

“
Fuckin’ son of a bitch!”
There was blood in that mouth, if Scott wasn’t mistaken.

Scott stepped forwards, following the
squeals of rage as the guy scuttled backwards on his butt. He was
swinging straight down from high overhead, two-handed, giving the
man a good caning or at least giving all he had in the
attempt.

If nothing else, put on a show—make
them think twice about it.

He connected with something fleshy
more than once and was hoping pure blind luck would give him
another face shot on the guy.

The fellow bolted as grunts and gasps
came from the other two. Betty didn’t seem to make much
noise.

Whatever she was doing over there sure
sounded appropriate. Thuds and soft whumps pretty much said it
all.

Yelps and gasps and cusses in an
unfamiliar voice came from over there.

Scott’s breath was ragged and his
emotions were all over the place when he turned to help.

There didn’t seem to be much he could
do.

He didn’t think he could do much
damage to her. Feebly poking away was only going to do so much. One
man said fuck, and then repeated it several times.
Someone was groaning and gasping now. He heard a kind of a crack
sound.

If only he could get a clue from the
sounds of the scuffle. One of them was cussing, on the ground a few
feet away, just a bit to his left.

As for the other one, he might be made
of sterner stuff.

There was a snap, a crackle and a pop.
There was a scream and then a thud, like when someone drops a bag
of cement onto a wheelbarrow. Whoever that was, that boy
hit metal when he landed.

It was all very quiet now. Someone
warm and soft in the grip took his hand and led him rather quickly
away.

Walk, don’t run, right?

“
Betty?”

“
It’s okay, Scott.” Her
voice was distant and unperturbed.

He sucked in air. He smelled her, and
then she paused. She was taking him in her arms.

She gave him a quick peck on the
lips.

“
Are you okay?”

He cracked a wry grin.

“
Yeah. You should see the
other guy.” Now that he thought about it, there was a stinging
sensation on the left side of his neck.

He put his hand up there but couldn’t
find anything wet.

The other guy, or somebody, had
managed to connect after all, and Scott dimly recalled feeling
something like that in his berserker rage. Something had definitely
brushed up against him.

Her soft fingertips touched the
wound.

“
Am I
bleeding?”

“
It’s not bad. Just a
scratch. A scuff, really. But we’d better go.” She didn’t mention
that it looked like a very sharp blade had missed his jugular by a
millimetre or two.

She picked up the pace. They walked
for five or six minutes. She was taking him to a dark and very
narrow trail leading down into a ravine. She briefed him in a
cautious voice. All he had to do was to wait.

His neck burned along in a stripe. He
dabbed at it gingerly, exploring. Now it was definitely sticky. His
pulse soared. It was all he could do to be silent. What a horrible
feeling.

“
I’ll just go and get our
suitcases. I’ll only be a minute or two—they’re right there, okay,
Scott? I promise.” 

"And I really am sorry about before— ”
She would explain later.

“
Yeah.” He listened
intently.

The wind in the trees covered a
multitude of sins, and that was a good thing sometimes. He was
getting his breath back now. The adrenalin would subside, or so he
hoped. He was a bit wobbly in the knees, perhaps more so. It was
best to think about something else.

It was a good idea to pay
attention.

He had the impression there was no one
about, at least for fifty, or seventy-five metres. Their would-be
assailants had been easily tracked, with his not particularly
exceptional hearing, back out to the streetlights and some other
solace. First-aid of one kind or another would be in order, at
least for one or two of them, but the yelps and heartfelt curses
indicated that the body count was low.

“
What did you do to
them?”

He heard an adult woman calling a dog,
and more barks as if in answer from somewhere behind him. That one
lady was off in front somewhere. The highway must be nearby. There
was the constant thrum from the northwest, or so he
thought.

He heard a creek or rivulet down
below, directly in front of him.

He could always turn and pretend to
stare off in another direction.

It was like getting on an elevator and
facing the back.

What difference did it
make?

Betty had slipped off and wherever she
was, she wasn’t answering. He had the impression there was a fog
rising. Whether or not it was starlight, or moonlit, what
difference would it make?

A bit of fog would be good
cover.

Scott stood there, with the end of the
cane firmly planted as an anchor against an uncertain Fate and
listened to the sounds of the night, both up close and personal,
and far off. There was something funny going on. He lifted the end
of this constant companion and felt it. It seemed like a couple of
inches was shredded, and maybe a bit of it was even
missing.

Hopefully someone had that embedded in
them. This complicated matters. He relied on that thing, at least
when out of doors. Now the length would be all wrong.

That was the thing with robots, no
heavy breathing.

“
Scott.”

When she spoke, a short, sharp burst
of adrenalin went through him. His heartbeat subsided, and then she
was talking him along a path through the park. They were still in a
patch of forest and brush of some kind.

He had to listen hard, as she had both
hands full with the luggage. She was quiet enough, just sort of
muttering encouragement as they went.

He walked along at her right
side.

He’d never been in that particular
park before and it was all very well.

It was better than sitting at home
listening to the boob-tube. Scott would have given his left nut to
see the look on that guy’s face.

The cane came around and he realized
what was happening.

Chapter Seven

Things could have been worse, although
they were wet, and Scott was getting ravenously hungry. He was
thirsty as hell and kept dreaming of a cold beer, which she had
promised him at some point to keep up morale when he flagged. The
water gurgled all around them.

Scott was getting tired, and he told
her so.

She digested that bit in
silence.

“
Scott. There’s something
I want you to know.”

“
Sure, Honey. What is
it?”

She was lost in thought for a second,
but Scott wasn't going anywhere.

“
I can have babies,
Scott.”

That was right—it was on the TV and
everything, all about artificial wombs and how robots could be
surrogate mothers for folks who were infertile, or sterile, or
perhaps couldn’t see their way to adoption. There was a big demand
for certain types of babies. Adoption was tough because demand was
high. Everyone wanted the blue-eyed, blonde-haired archetypes with
plenty of ambition and an IQ of a hundred and forty.

“
Well. So can I. Big
deal.”

She tried to chuckle but it didn’t
come off very well.

“
But underneath, I really
am just a robot. Scott. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want
to. I mean, really, Lover.”

Scott thought about that for all of
thirty seconds.

His words, when they came, were oddly
serene, calm, even.

He grinned crookedly.

“
Oh, no, Baby. This is the
perfect revenge.” He bit his lip, and bit back some tears as
well.

The perfect revenge for a forgotten
life.

A couple of spasms went through him,
and he took a big breath.

Fuck the world, anyways.

 “
Where in the hell
have you been all my life? Wild horses couldn’t drag me away at
this point, Baby…Betty Blue.”

He sang a little tune.

“
Betty Blue, where are
you? Get it, Honey? Betty Blue!” He laughed. “Baby, baby baby…Betty
Blue, where are you?” It had a kind of ship-shap, retro-doof beat
to it.

“
Boy, you
really are getting tired. Anyway, we’d
better…”

“
Yeah.”

The sounds of an unfamiliar location
were all around. They had followed the paths to the end of the
park. 

Scott had endured a terrifying descent
into the ravine, hanging onto saplings and roots all the way. Into
the water, slipping on rocks and sinking into the ooze, followed by
the entrance into the culvert, and then across under the highway.
First, they had followed along a deep ditch, half a kilometre or so
of that, and then some more fields, woods, and brush. It was all
wasteland and industrial decay.

Pop open the nearest manhole cover and
you're home-free, Baby.

He was taking it all on
faith.

They were in the warehouse district.
Whether on her own, or when they were together, they had to avoid
cameras and drones. While Betty’s transponder was switched off, she
could still be pinged passively at almost every street-corner, and
she couldn’t shut that part down. It was a fail-safe from the
manufacturer. The pingers were mercifully of very short range. The
trouble was that there were billions of them.

The parts were inside of her, they
were very small, and Scott obviously couldn’t do the work of
cutting the fine wires even if they did get a chance to get her
access panels open.

His mind reeled when she said that.
Betty would block out the pain, or so she said, but under her
natural skin was a chassis.

And a very nice chassis it was, too,
or so he assured her.

But there was just no way, and hence
their stealth. All of this creeping about in dark
sewers.

According to Betty, they were in a
culvert. Also according to Betty, there was some kind of rave party
going on up above. It was on private property, but the cops were
all around. She’d spent twenty minutes or half an hour scouting the
place while he rested as best he could in ankle-deep
water.

“
So. What do we
do?”

He sensed her quick grin.

“
I’ll bet I’m going to
love it.”

“
Of course you
are—George.”

“
Huh?”

“
George, and from now on
my name is…” She hesitated a moment too long.

“
Giselle—no,
Gigi.”

She chuckled, the sound sepulchral in
the enclosed tubular space.

The whanging and banging up above, the
sweet and saccharine sounds of some real oldies, Agnes L. Dildoe,
and Beyond Belief, and Baby Goo-Goo or whatever her name was,
dispelled any fears that they might be overheard.

“
I would
prefer Sushi, or almost anything, rather than
that.”

“
Okay, what name do you
want?”

“
Lori.”

He laughed. Somebody somewhere was
missing a purse.

“
Sure. Why
not.”

Scott, now George, sort of saw where
this was headed.

“
So—we pop up and then
just walk right out the front door. Right?”

“
Better.”

“
What?”

“
Better.”

“
I’m
listening.”

The pair squatted in six inches of
unpleasantly warm sewage. Luckily, this was a storm sewer, but even
so. 

There would be everything in here,
everything from gasoline, motor oil and brake fluid, to dead
squirrels, dead birds, rotting debris, all kinds of stuff coming
down off of the streets.

Considering human propensities, and
the inevitable dogs, cats and urban wildlife, no doubt there would
be some piss and shit in there as well. It didn’t smell all that
bad, and unlike a film version, there were no shrieking, squeaking,
highly-aggressive rats to be heard in the wings. Also unlike the
film version, no one threw a cat at them at an opportune moment, of
which there were one or two. It was best to be grateful for small
mercies. Conveniently, there was a smaller, dry culvert coming in
right there at waist level, or the bottoms of the suitcases would
have been soaked. The smell was fetid, but not quite enough to make
a person gag. That was mostly the imagination.