The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue (25 page)

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.