The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue, Pt. 8.

Some sort of old auto plant.

Here are the previous episodes of The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7


The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue Pt. 8


Louis Shalako



Gene MacBride was barely at his desk. As a youth, he had never been a morning person, but as a mature man he saw the necessity. His grey eyes watered at the sight of his desk…notes and reminders all over the place.

Lately he felt tired a lot of the time, and he really couldn’t account for it.

There had already been a few calls, and most of the team was out investigating this dead body in an alley or that other dead body in a car…the desk phone buzzed.

“Hello?”

“Inspector MacBride?”

“Yes.” The voice seemed oddly familiar, and yet he couldn’t quite place it.

The readout on the phone told him this was Parsons from the 38^th.

Oh, yes.

His pulse quickened.

“So.”

“Yes. Inspector—”

“Call me Gene.” Parsons wouldn’t have called him back unless he had something real.

“Yes, sir.”

MacBride almost laughed but didn’t. It was helpful, though. Today might actually hold some promise.

“Anyway, we have some sightings on record. Can I send them over?”

“Sure.”

“It’s in your inbox.”

MacBride touched the icon. His internal memos popped up and he saw the Parsons one right at the top.

The file name was clean and sensible.

Possible Robot Sighting, and the date, the time, the officer’s name. Precinct and badge number.

“Okay, what am I looking at?”

“Shot one. A blind man in the station. According to a security guard, he was waiting for his girlfriend.”

“Okay.”

“Subject has been identified as Mister Scott Nettles.” Parsons read off an address. “Check that out, eh. That’s about six blocks from where our hot little robot lady disappeared.”

A further series of shots were all lined up in a row, stills from cameras along Nettles’ route. Point A to Point B stuff, the stuff convictions were made of. There was little doubt about the identification, or the point of origin. An apartment building squeezed in between other buildings, sharing walls with other apartment buildings, and a laundromat on the ground floor, with lofts and commercial offices above.

The windows without gold lettering were either residential or storage, some kind of sweatshop maybe…

"Okay."

There was a link to Nettles’ lifetime file, where his entire life would be laid out…from Point A to Point B.

“Unfortunately, Mister Nettles doesn’t have a mobile, and he was one of last children to be born without being chipped.” Parsons’ voice had an ironic tone.

Nothing they hadn’t seen before.

“Ah. Nice.”

“Okay. Next shot. Gang-bangers in the hospital.”

“So, what’s the significance?”

“They talk about the robot, and there’s just more there than I have time to give you over the phone. Next shot. This is one of the few cameras left in the park. It’s real heavy gang territory, and cameras don’t last long in that neighbourhood.”

Gene cursed gently under his breath.

They had taken the time, spent the money, found the political will, and wired up the whole planet it seemed, and yet, life being what it was, they had used thirty-cent cameras for all but the most prestigious locations.

“I’m always impressed when a jury of their fellow citizens convicts someone based on these…”

There was a snort.

Gene watched a man and a woman, a man with a long white stick, a small backpack, and the woman with two suitcases, striding along down a paved trail and into the inky blackness of the night. The male subject was tall and thin, wearing a long black trench-coat. He had a ball-cap and white running shoes, cheap-looking. The woman, their possible robot, certainly looked very athletic.

“Hmn.”

Shit.

“Not much to go on, I admit. But our perps, sorry, I mean victims, described her as wearing…”

“A slinky blue silk dress….and so was our missing robot, as I remember.”

Gene sat up.

“Anyway, these are our official suspects, the only ones, in the assault.” The victims had been, predictably enough, hard to find, but one of them had answered his phone.

From pictures, he had confirmed the suspects, seemingly very sure of it, and in the conversation, he was streaming curses and profanities. The gangstas wouldn’t give a hoot about charges and court, thought MacBride.

All they would want would be names…and addresses. The gentleman seemed quite perturbed by the polite notion that the police were working on it and had no further information.

“Okay, where could they go from there?”

He pulled his second screen into position.

Maps. He zoomed in and linked Parsons to his desk. Parsons took over and a red dot appeared.

MacBride sat back, blinked a bit, not really seeing much, and listened.

“Yes, sir. That’s where it gets a bit weird. That path goes to the north end of the park. Then it branches off to east and west in curving, winding trails. Theoretically, they should have either taken another trail, or they should have arrived at the street. Any street, sooner or later. The cameras along there are a bit spotty. However there are one or two left intact—on the tops of fortified buildings and such where the gang-bangers can’t get at them.”

“Okay. No one came out. What about the other paths?”

“As near as we can make out, most of the cameras on Basil Street were operating at the time of the incident. Nothing there. Some of the other side streets, not so many good cameras available, but again, you’d think sooner or later they would have to walk past one that was good. No such luck, uh…Gene.”

Gene thought about it.

“Where else could they have gone?”

“We’ve swept the park, and they’re not in it, unless they’re in a hollow tree or maybe we just saw some winos. But no one we spoke to answered to our profile.”

“What does that leave?”

“There’s a ravine there, and a culvert under the highway.” Parsons thought. “If they turned back and beat it southwards, strictly staying in the brush, sooner or later they would have to come out on a street. To the south and west, those are better neighbourhoods. Better lighting, more cameras. We can say with at least some confidence, that they probably didn’t do that.”

Parsons went on.

At the south end of the park, there was a heavy steel grating over the culvert, which went under Appleby Road. The grate at the north end of the park had been removed by vandals years before, as it was a quick way to get across the highway…typical enough in certain neighbourhoods.

“Okay. So we have an assault, and two people—or one person and a robot, unaccounted for.”

“Yes.”

“And if they disappeared, we must ask ourselves why.” And if they were the victims of an attempted robbery, why not report it?

Unless they had something to hide themselves. And how would they know just which way to get out of the park without being seen? Something smacked of real planning there. Some real knowledge. The punks were just a coincidence, and a lucky break for the police at that.

“That’s about the size of it.”

“All right. What about highway cameras?”

“Not if they went under it. And the other side is all post-industrial wasteland. Only major intersections have surveillance, mostly for traffic, people running red lights and such.”

Automatic robo-tickets, a valuable source of revenue for the cash-strapped city.

It didn’t actually slow traffic down very much, the ostensible purpose.

“I see.”

There was a silence. Parsons had done his job, and if there was nothing there, then there was nothing there. 

What they needed was a plan.

“All right. I’ll have a couple of our people check out this Scott Nettles.” Nettles lived in this precinct; as did Betty Blue, their missing robot.

The numbers onscreen showed a ninety-seven percent probability of identification in Nettles’ case, as the station was relatively well-lit, and had cameras intact. Their guard had ID'd Nettles PPP, the Public Profile Pic.

Yet experience showed that even an identification of one hundred percent probability could be mistaken—too many innocent civilians had been cut down by nervous or over-zealous officers, to place too much credence on the computer files and their biometric identification programming. Good old fashioned fingerprints, retinal scans and DNA were more reliable—although never really a hundred percent. Eye-witnesses were notoriously unreliable...

“Is there anything more we can do here, ah, Gene.” It really wasn't a question, neither was it a statement.

“Don’t know. Can I call you back? I’d like to study this guard’s statement.”

“Sure. Absolutely.”

MacBride got it then. Parsons would like to get out of the 38^th and into someplace a bit more civilized.

“So what’s on the other side of the highway?”

“Desolation, Inspector.”

Desolation.

“Do you guys go there?”

This was a good question. Since the city had started rounding up the homeless and sticking them in for-profit jails for vagrancy, squatters, shanty-towns, or unofficial settlements, had sprung up on the outskirts of every major city. While this annoyed the residents of gated communities and the suburbs to no end, there wasn’t much the big-city police could do about it.

A person with a tent by the side of the road, or sleeping in an alley, could be rounded up as a vagrant. 

Squatting was a civil crime, an injury of property, and civil and human rights came into play. Cops could go from door to door and knock, but without a warrant, asking to see a copy of the mortgage or lease was strictly a no-no. Proper squatters didn’t answer the door anyway, they all had peepholes and escape hatches these days.

“Yes. In daylight, and with proper orders and everything.”

“I see. Okay, I’ll get back to you. Other than that, good job. I'm going to call the makers and see just what the capabilities of that robot girl actually are…”

“If that’s her, she’s tougher than effing whale-shit.”

MacBride grinned from ear-to-ear.

“Thank you, Sergeant, for my first good laugh of the day.”

MacBride and Parsons rang off, Parsons to go home, long after his shift was officially over.

Looking at his watch, MacBride tapped his name into the computer.

Parsons was divorced, had two kids, and would have been considered overdue for promotion in almost any other precinct.

But the 38^th was definitely special.

From across the room, his partner Francine was waving imperiously, as was her fashion.

MacBride waved back and shut the machine down, as it sure looked like they had another body.

With his rank and experience, it was the only thing that really interested him these days; that and the four years, six months, nine days, and a few hours, until he could take early retirement. He swallowed the rest of his coffee hurriedly, made a quick note for later, and then got up out of his chair.

Detective Suleiman was the investigating officer of record, and this one was her baby. She gave the Inspector a wintry grin and then cleared her throat. That’s what you get for answering the phone sometimes.

Wait a minute. He nipped back to his desk. Grabbing a pen, he made a quick notation.

Drones. Flood the area with drones. Somewhere. Some area.

He really couldn’t think of anything else. It was like his mind went blank. He shook it off and joined the others.

They were all in the huddle, looking expectantly at Francine.

“All right people, listen up.”

***

Blind, alone, and carrying some money.

Scott awoke with a start.

While he hadn’t slept outdoors in years, the dampness in the air and the fitful chirping of robins told him that it was dawn or shortly before. With nothing but pitch blackness, and the place beside him cold, he knew instantly that Betty was gone.

“Fuck.”

His own voice startled him, and he resolved to shut up in any such future situations. It was a risk he didn’t have to take. The sounds of the wilderness were all around him. Betty had said they were in an old auto parts plant.

He had to accept her word for it, but the sounds said otherwise. The wind luffed in the treetops, and he imagined them in his mind’s eye, growing out of broken windows and holes in the roof. There were crickets and spring peepers—how many years had it been since he’d heard them?

There was always the sound of distant traffic off in the background.

Scott’s lower back hurt from sleeping on the ground. He had to go to the bathroom, and there was no sense in just lying there frozen in fear.

It was certainly no pleasure lying on the hard ground, but he was reluctant to show himself inadvertently.

He had money on him, he was alone, and he was blind.

The sounds were reassuringly natural. It was interesting not to hear voices, and in fact it was so quiet he could hear a solitary jet airliner coursing from east to west overhead at something like thirty thousand feet. It didn’t mean much, but it was something.

He sat up, carefully taking stock of his situation. If he wandered too far, he’d lose the blanket and the backpack, the food, the water.

“Damn.”

All right. Time for a pee. He got up creakily, and thought it through. Walk ten feet, pee and then return.

No stick. That was bad. There might be some obstacle directly in front of him. Tottering there on one leg, he poked with a foot. Nothing. He took a step, prodded with his foot again. Nothing there, and he cleared his throat. There was no real echo…

“Shit.” The thoughts of another fucking ravine, or a steep drop like a loading dock, made the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

Shuffling onwards as carefully as he could, he went about ten feet and then relieved himself. It sounded like it was splashing on concrete, but the ground under him was still soft, dead leaves, moss, maybe even grass and weeds. Something scraped his hand, and he felt leaves and shrubbery to his left.

Feeling a little bolder now, he turned and felt his way back carefully to their sleeping area.

A smoke, some water, and maybe some candy or something from his backpack would keep him going, at least for a little while.

Feeling around, the suitcases didn’t seem to be right there.

That made a lot of sense.

He began to feel better about things.

Betty had left him somewhere safe. He had to believe that. She had gone on, not needing sleep as he did. 

She must be scouting ahead and she’d be back as soon as she could. That didn’t do much for the fear.

Scott stretched and his jaw worked back and forth. His mouth tasted like a garbage can.

He’d poke the Devil’s eye out for a good cup of coffee right about now, that and an actual chair to sit on.

His sensitive fingers fished out a cigarette and the lighter was in his jacket pocket.

“Come on, Baby. Don’t leave me here waiting too long…please.” Oh, God.

Betty.

Where in the hell had she gotten off to?

They weren’t even really out of the city yet.

Travelling in daylight was going to be a problem no matter where they were.

END

 Louis Shalako's books and stories are available on iTunes. 

Start-Ups: Awesome, Inc.

The world is your oyster.

Louis Shalako

Four out of five start-ups fail within the first two years. 

The most common reason for that failure is insufficient initial capitalization.

But I started my business for free, so that wasn’t much of a problem.

In many cases, as little as $500.00 a month in additional revenue would have been enough to support the business through some early crises and it might have gone on to become successful.

However, the proprietors saw nothing but costs, bills piling up and no new and substantial sources of income looming on the horizon. Rather than take inordinate risks with their own or with other people’s money, (OPM), they choose to wind it down. Sometimes that is the reasonable thing to do.

I’ve operated a few small businesses, so small in some cases that Sir Richard Branson wouldn’t have been able to see them through a scanning electron microscope.

Four out of five start-ups fail within the first two years. The most common reason for that failure is insufficient initial capitalization.

But I started my business for free, so that wasn’t much of a problem.

In many cases, as little as $500.00 a month in additional revenue would have been enough to support the business through some early crises and it might have gone on to become successful.

However, the proprietors saw nothing but costs, bills piling up and no new and substantial sources of income looming on the horizon. Rather than take inordinate risks with their own or with other people’s money, (OPM), they choose to wind it down. Sometimes that is the reasonable thing to do.

I’ve operated a few small businesses, so small in some cases that Sir Richard Branson wouldn’t have been able to see them through a scanning electron microscope.

Gina Hughes at http://www.techiediva.com/

Yet in just one example, in a business I operated, which began with zero dollars in revenue, might have gone from $880.00 in profit the first year, to $4,400.00 in year two and over $12,000.00 the third year. That business died when two major clients either went out of business themselves, or sold out to someone who found other contractors, or whatever. Since it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing anyway, I wound it up and went on to other things. It was an opportune psychological moment.

So; I have some minimal experience in reckoning costs, accounting for spending, tracking earnings, reporting income and expenses, etc. I can also produce work.

Let us assume that my little writing business, or my little publishing business, is earning a measly $500.00 a year in total income. That doesn’t even cover the cost of the internet, book cover images, proper equipment, or anything really. It merely defrays some of the costs of what looks more like a hobby than a business.

Yet those revenues began at zero, on Day Zero, which was admittedly some years ago.

In that sense, we have made it through the big danger period—those first two years when most start-ups fail. 

Our costs and our bills have never gotten so high that we couldn’t continue.

This business is scalable. As revenues grow, we can get better equipment, get better book covers, hire out formatting and proof-reading. We can put an ad in a magazine or on a website, and if we wanted to, we could incorporate, and we could hire an acquisitions editor, or become one…some of our friends on Facebook, etc, are doing just that.

They’re building up their publishing businesses, and it’s entirely up to them how far it’s going to go.

The fact that I could sign authors with a fifty-fifty royalty split and no advance, doesn’t necessarily mean that I should start taking on other authors. This business model is out there, I’ve seen it with publishers listed in a few places.

***

The real question for me is not, “How do I write a best-selling novel?”

Too many people are chasing that dragon, and throwing quite substantial fistfuls of money at it in the process.

The real question for me is how to take revenue of $40.00 or $50.00 a month and grow it into a hundred a month. Then, having learned that, the question is how to make it two hundred a month, and then four hundred. Then, having learned that, you want to make it eight hundred a month, right?

There is no ‘snow-ball effect’ here. This puppy isn’t going downhill and it isn’t gaining momentum. It’s incremental. It’s cumulative over time.

It is not a zero-sum game.

It’s uphill all the way, but the same is true in any start-up.

We expected nothing less.

As things stand presently, we can afford to keep the company going purely as a vanity venture.

We can keep it running just to have fun with it.

We can keep it going for the foreseeable future.

And there’s more.

We never have to submit a book or story to a publisher ever again if we don’t want to.

And we can still make money from our writing.

We just have to be patient and work hard.

We just have to keep doing what we love, which is writing books and stories and getting them out there for 

people to discover, to read, and ultimately, to cherish.

We don’t need anybody else’s help at all.

That’s all there is to it.

But wait.

There’s more.

The Louis pen-name doubled income in the past quarter, and four out of five pen-names are now producing income. It’s only a matter of time before the fifth pen-name gets over the threshold and starts paying royalties. Total gain for the quarter: 340 %.

In the meantime, we’re working on our thirteenth novel, our system rebuild is pretty much complete, and all of our blogs have a clean new look.*

One of our authors just sold his first book in India, (through Amazon) and another just sold his first one in Australia, also through Amazon. At this point in time, it is pretty difficult for us to promote in India, so it’s hard to see this as anything other than through passive discoverability.

A platform that we opened up only this year will pay royalties, forty-five days after the end of the first full quarter of operations. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Yes, it took time to open up this platform. We had to do some trouble-shooting, and it took some commitment. We also got in early, but this is a sign of good things to come for OmniLit and All Romance Ebooks. We can also see what sells and what doesn’t sell on that platform and proceed accordingly, with our finely-tuned electronic publishing machine.

The results may be slower than chasing trends and trying to write the next Harry Potter.

We admit that we are thinking small rather than big. We’re thinking incrementally—we’re thinking about micropayments, and that’s not the sort of thing that automatically grabs the imaginations of the inexperienced, the immature, the lax or the uncommitted.

However, some kind of result is at least achievable.

***

Don’t be fooled by the slow start.

Each and every new book or story that I produce will begin life with the benefit of four or more years of learning, in terms of publishing, and promotion, and cover design, and of course I’ve been writing for thirty years now. The cumulative and incremental effect of all those efforts will begin to take on a life of their own. 

That’s simply because there are so many titles now, and there’s more to come. I plan to write and publish as much as possible, certainly for the next few years.

Speaking purely from the business viewpoint, if I could buy a thousand bad manuscripts and get them out there for a thousand, or even ten thousand dollars, I’d be strongly tempted to do it. Now those writers would be like the painters of those ‘starving artist’ sales that come around from time to time. Let them remain anonymous, bad as that art mostly is, but someone is still making money off of their work.

***

Anyhow…

We have learned much in the last few years, and now the world is our oyster.

Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but I’ve been saving that line for a special occasion.

And this is it.

END

(*We’re using Blogger’s AwesomeInc. template in grey. Yes, we see the irony.)

The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue. Pt. 7.

Under the highway.

Here are the previous episodes of The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue. Pt. 7.

Louis Shalako

Things could have been worse, although they were wet, and Scott for one 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 a bit.

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, 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.

“Well. So can I. Big deal.”

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

"Scott. I can have babies."

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, followed by the entrance into the culvert, and then across under the highway, along the deep ditch, half a mile or so of that, and then some more fields, woods, 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 parts were inside of her, they were real 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, and all 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, in fact 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…

She held his head, kissed him on the lips, and then he saw a flood of warm light in his eyes as she worked. 

Betty’s eyes were good enough for most purposes in low light, but for this job proper illumination was best.

“This is an earpiece.”

Her warm, gentle fingers pushed it firmly into place.

She took off his ball cap and threw it away. She took his sunglasses for safekeeping. He changed coats, finding the thing a bit short in the arms. It smelled of another man’s aftershave.

“You look a bit like him in the photo on the driver’s license.”

“If we get asked for I.D. we’re done anyways.”

She ignored it. It was obvious enough. The odd light in his eyes went off.

“So what’s going to happen, George, is that you are going to walk out of here. All on your lonesome.”

His jaw dropped.

“And you’re going to talk me through it?”

Scott shook his head.

“Nah. I mean, I don’t think I can do it.”

He didn’t think it was humanly possible. It sounded pretty damned crazy up there.

“Scott.”

He sighed.

“Of course I’ll do it. Anything for you, dear.” It made a weird kind of sense. “Hey. It’ll be fun.”

The logic was good. The cops couldn’t care less what happened to him.

But if Betty was spotted on camera, anywhere, they were both goners. And they’d be watching this place like a hawk. In that sense, they were coming out of the Trojan Horse. They were coming out openly, out of the ass end to be sure…but it was the wrong guys, from the cops’ point of view. It made a weird kind of sense.

“So…ah, how is this supposed to work?” Scott pulled her in close. “Don’t worry, Baby. I ain’t skeered a nothin’. But…”

“I’ll be right with you at all times. At least until you get outside the gate. Here’s your ticket stub, here’s your wallet and I.D.” The real problem with the lapel cameras was the small lens, and in low light, with a lot of distractions, Scott had better be prepared for anything.

He might be on his own, all too unexpectedly.

The wallet felt fat and heavy in his hand. He could literally smell the thing, even in here. He opened it up and had a quick riffle through it.

There was some money in there, a couple of hundred at least.

“Nice.” Scott wondered what the guy's credit limit might be.

“Put it away.”

He stuck it in his pocket. He gave her his wallet. She’d have all of their luggage to deal with. What he had in the small backpack wouldn’t get him very far.

Scott nodded in contemplation. The plan would get him out the gate. They were safe enough at this exact moment. 

The cops wouldn’t come on private property without a complaint, for one thing. And for another, they would probably just let the party go on. 

They would sit down the road and pull over cars coming out, looking for drugs, booze, contraband of all sorts…but he, and Betty as well, would be clean. Betty had boundless energy and could go across country for days.

It had interesting possibilities.

“So who’s this George guy?”

 “He’s sleeping off a good drunk, quite the chemical cocktail, actually.”

"Can he dance?"

She laughed. The humour in her voice belied her own worries.

If the cops knew her and Scott were together, they’d pick him off by retinal scan or remote facial recognition via the ubiquitous overhead cop-drones, flying pigs people called them. And if they had Scott, then they had her. But they would only go in for the retinal scan if something triggered their suspicions. 

There were civil liberties and privacy issues involved, as Scott recalled. They were still taking a chance, going out right past their noses.

“I’ll believe it when pigs can fly.”

She slapped him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, George. I promise not to tell your mother about all this.”

Scott snorted.

“All right. I go up the ladder…”

“That’s right. I’ll lift the cover for you, or at least help lift it. You step out. You’ll turn exactly eighty-seven degrees to your left.” She had pinned a miniature cam-phone-GPS pin to his lapel.

All the kids had them now, that and the Googgles. Apparently they could play games and drive in a never-ending Disneyland, shit like that, as Scott knew.

Betty would follow the drainage tunnels, the ditches, and meet him somewhere away from all the cameras. If only he could get there on his own.

Not being sighted himself, the whole subject of gaming had always been a crashing bore to him. He’d been walking around in front of those cameras for his entire life. He figured he was pretty much invisible, as long as he had the stick.

“And then I just walk out the front door.”

“Yes. The cab will be waiting when you get there.”

By her own information, streaming in constantly over the net, the car was a scant six or seven blocks away.

“We’d better get going.”

She took his hand and the pair straightened up. Scott allowed the stick to fall from his hand and the current, slight as it was for the fairly dry season in this part of the state, carried it off.

She lifted his left hand and put it on a rung, half an inch thick and with the paint worn off from the tread of a thousand work-boots. His right hand found the rung above it.

“Twenty-seven rungs, straight up.”

Scott, or George now, lifted his right leg.

“In for a penny, in for a pound.” He began to climb. “What the fuck, eh? Life is beautiful.”

“Scott.” She was climbing right along with him, so close that if he fell back, he was essentially trapped by her body. “Everything is going to be all right.”

There was no way she was going to let him fall. She was strong enough to make it work. She’d just wrap an arm around him and carry him back down, one-handed. The funny thing was, he really wasn’t scared.

This was necessary.

It was even a pretty good plan, although he had no real idea of what came next. They’d talked about it, of course, his ideas wilder than hers. She was the one with all the information.

His heart rate settled and he had to be about six rungs from the top. Even the sound of his breathing was different. He was right there.

“It’s okay, Baby. Can you back off a bit? You’re crowding me.” He climbed another rung.

He supposed it didn’t pay to get too cocky, but—but.

The truth was, that they were really doing this.

Scott Nettles and his girlfriend Betty Blue were really doing it.

They were escaping. 

Ha!

Would you imagine that?

Me. With a fucking girlfriend.

Escaping.

“George. I have to be able to help you lift it, it’s really heavy—” Ninety kilos of high-grade bronze is what it was, the city sparing no expense when it came to sewers in suburbia.

This was no inner-city outreach program for the disabled, the mentally-ill, the homeless and the permanently unemployable.

***

Some kind of rave party going on. > Rave is King. (Wiki.)

“Holy, Jesus! Where in the fuck did you come from, man?”

At his feet, the manhole cover settled quietly back into place.

The noise, perhaps music was too kind a word, was horrendously loud. He cringed and grimaced.

Scott straightened fully. He waved his arms a bit and shuffled his feet as much as he dared. He made his head go back and forth like a chicken.

The shoes were squishing with water, which could be a dead give-away if anyone really looked.

He had to blend in. Composing his features as best he could, he pondered the question.

“Yeah. Where did you come from?” The voices were everywhere, but he seemed to have popped up right in a clump of dancers, mostly female.

This one was a guy.

The rushing as of winds was all around him, and the smells, of cannabis, alcohol, perfume and sweat and piss and shit and candy-floss, if one might believe it, were all mixed up into one unforgettable fog.

“I’m not Jesus, although your mistake is a natural one.”

Those nearest or paying any attention at all laughed. Scott, or rather George, practically had to bellow to be heard.

"Yeah, really, it happens all the time..." More laughs.

In his ear, Betty’s clear voice was calm but insistent.

“Don’t get distracted. Just say excuse me and try and go north…to your immediate left.”

“Excuse me.” He raised his voice. “Excuse me…coming through...”

Trying desperately not to fall on someone, making inevitable body contact here and there, with flailing arms and limbs moving the air in tight little zephyrs, and even with the odds and ends of someone’s hair in his mouth as he opened it to speak again, he tried to force his way through.

“Hey, man!”

“I am so sorry.”

 “Watch where you’re going!”

“I am really sorry. You have my deepest apologies…”

The tone of that voice was really angry.

“You fuckin’ doof!”

“It’s just that I’m blind, you see, and I dropped my cane, and I just want to find the gate.”

“You’re what? What, are you fucking blind…?”

The tone was incredulous, and Scott wondered just how fucked-up this person was.

The time for bellowing was now.

“Yes. Yes, sir. I’m fucking blind—now do you get it…Buddy?” Scott almost said ‘asshole’ but stopped himself in the nick of time.

There was no such thing as silence to be had in such a venue, but Scott had the impression the guy hadn’t gone away.

“My name is George…can you please help me get to the gate?”

A hard hand clamped on his upper bicep.

“All right, Bud. Sure, no problem.”

In his ear Betty was encouraging him, and the music was much too loud, and for a moment Scott did feel real fear.

“My name is George.”

“Yeah, I’m Sluggo. I’m real glad to meet you, George.”

They must have gone fifty or sixty yards, with Sluggo, what kind of a name was that? Sluggo leading him along, friendly enough now that he understood the situation. Drunk as a skunk, high on everything, smelling of sweat and a few other things, but helpful nonetheless. The guy’s breathing was still loud enough, he must have been dancing up a storm.

“I really am sorry about that.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you don’t look the type.”

Scott couldn’t help but smile. Sluggo was referring to the fact that Scott had inadvertently patted him on the bum while trying to negotiate a way through the frenzy of drug-fueled whirling dervishes, several hundred or even a thousand of them between him and the exit to the park.

Betty was right there in his ear.

“George. You’re right there. Say thank you to the nice man.”

“Okay, Bud, here we are…this is the gate. These guys—” Presumably he was referring to security, of which even raves had some, as tickets and alcohol were sold and things could get rowdy sometimes. “These guys will take care of you, okay, Mister?”

“My name is George. Thank you ever so much—” He stuck out a hand but the other guy didn't take it.

That's life, eh?

“Yeah, whatever. I’m Sluggo. And stop grabbing people’s asses—that sort of thing will get you in trouble someday.”

Scott grinned. Something poked him in the chest and he figured that was just Sluggo’s way of saying goodbye.

There were people right there, he could hear them talking.

“Excuse me. I’m a blind man and I’ve lost my cane—”

“Oh, dear! Yes, sir, what can we do for you?" Again, someone took him by the upper arm.

He sensed he was the centre of attention, out there on the fringes of the insanity, where the music was a little more bearable in terms of volume and somebody had to stay sober, or relatively sober in order to justify their wages…as opposed to merely partying with the rest of them. That’s not to say they weren’t dancing, or just grooving to the music a little, because for some reason Scott rather had the impression they were.

He smelled several different kinds of dope here too.

“Just point me to the door, my good fellow.”

“Actually, I am a trans-gendered individual.”

Scott grinned in appreciation.

“See—I knew that, I just wanted to hear you talk.”

The small crowd there laughed and made a few comments which they both ignored as best they could.

“All right, sir, we’re just going to take your hand. The exit is right this way.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I call someone for you, sir?”

“I believe I have a taxi coming.”

Betty was right there.

“Central Cab, Car Eighteen. The number’s on the door.”

Scott relayed the information as confidently as he could.

“All right, sir, we’ll just stay with you until it arrives.”

There was a crowd outside the gates as well, which served as something of a distraction to his benefactors. 

This was a good thing. They answered questions from youthful voices pretty good-naturedly and their attention was elsewhere.

All Scott wanted was to hear the sound of a car arriving.

“It’s got to be right on you, Scott.”

He lifted a wrist and pretended to check a non-existent wristwatch.

“Where is that pesky fellow?”

No one laughed, or even noticed, judging by the response.

“Ah. Here we are.” The hand squeezed his arm and led him forwards.

“Is that number eighteen? Because somebody else might have called for a taxi.”

“No, this is yours, sir. Have a pleasant evening.” The security guard opened the car door and helped him find his way in. “We certainly hope you enjoyed the music.”

Scott paused on the brink of slamming the door closed.

“May I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“What…what do you plan to be?” It was obscure, but the guard knew what he meant.

“I hope to be a girl someday. Have a pleasant evening, sir.”

It was absolutely deadpan and absolutely perfect as well.

“Ah. Well. Good luck and all that sort of thing.” He paused again. “Who’s your friend?”

“Dave.” This was a new voice, one even deeper than the first guard.

“Dave? How come you never said anything before?” It was weak stuff, but presumably, he was drunk, stoned and just being silly.

He sensed the tolerant looks they exchanged, how he knew that was pure cliché of course.

“Dave’s the strong silent type. Anyhow, thank you.”

“Thank you, too.” Scott closed the door.

Yeah, good luck with that, Buddy.

"Where to, sir or madam?" The car's voice sounded like someone had poked holes in the speakers with a piece of wire or a knitting needle or something. "It's a pleasant evening, isn't it?"

Betty was right there in his ear, and she had an answer for that one, too.

***

Inspector MacBride was at home, in bed, with his wife sitting upright, propped up by pillows, reading beside him. He was just in that fuzzy state where he was convinced that sleep was indeed possible, this in spite of fifteen cups of coffee over the course of the day, and a flaming row with the eldest son on the inspector’s arrival home from work.

It was the end of a long day and he’d earned his rest, and it was right about then that the telephone buzzed. 

It was on her side of the bed.

“Shit. Honey.”

Inspector MacBride opened his eyes, sighed deeply and rolled over.

He took the phone.

He was used to such calls, never welcome but usually important.

“Yes. MacBride.”

“Dave Parsons. Thirty-Eighth Precinct.”

“Yes?” Gene MacBride struggled with his one free arm to sit up in the bed.

He snapped on the bedside light on his side and reached for his pen and note-pad.

Parsons. 38^th.

“We’ve got a funny one here. Assault in a park. Victims say it was a blind man—and a robot.”

“Huh.”

“A robot with long, sexy legs.”

“Ha.”

They were getting all kinds of crank reports on this one.

“Yeah, well, eh. I just thought you’d like to know.”

Up till now it was mostly just sightings.

An assault. He liked it.

“So what happened? I mean, allegedly?”

Parsons laughed.

“Yeah, I hear you, man.” The voice, a man Gene had never met, although he might know the face to see it, went on. “Apparently these three punks were innocently minding their own business—which in my humble opinion, involves petty drug sales, petty theft, assault, petty extortion if there is such a thing, not above the odd dope-fueled date-rape, making bad porn and grand theft auto. Gang-bangers, anyway, you get the picture. But they say they were jumped by a blind man and a robot, who beat them up pretty bad. Oh, yeah. All for no reason at all.”

“Really? How bad?”

“Broken collar-bone, broken humerus, broken wrist, fingers, two victims there, a broken orbit over the left eye, broken cheekbone, broken jaw, broken noses, two, ah, fat lips, black eyes, cuts, scrapes, abrasions and contusions—the one guy says, ‘she’s real strong, almost strangled me to death’…it goes on, mostly nonsense about how they weren't doing nothing to provoke it.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…how many victims?”

“Three, sir. Apparently the blind guy can fight too. They say he’s like fucking Bruce Lee—sorry, sir, that’s a direct quote from one of our, ah, victims…sir.”

Parsons went on.

“This is straight from street intelligence. They had to find a doctor and like the fools they are, they went straight to the nearest emerg and started making a lot of noise.”

He digested that thought. A blind man and a robot with long, sexy legs, beating up three hardcases for no reason. 

But that was the story.

Yeah, sure they did. I'll just bet they did.

If nothing else, it was unusual. And the victims couldn’t help but talk about it, of course.

That was their turf and they ruled it. They'd be going around making a lot of loud  talk now, wouldn't they?

“Where did this happen, exactly?”

“A park across from a subway station. The incident happened earlier this evening. It was around eleven o’clock, a little after, maybe.”

“Okay. Any leads?”

“I can ask around. You probably don’t remember me, but you did me a favour a couple years back…”

“Well, I sure owe you one now.” Such promises were easily enough made, and kept surprisingly often.

Otherwise you would be a fool to make them.

“Other than that, it’s worth checking out. It’s a quiet night, I can have a couple of my people ask around. We’ll roll all the recordings from the immediate vicinity.”

As far as MacBride was concerned, this was his only real lead in some days, and that made Parsons his best friend of the moment. He also seemed willing to do a little work.

“Thank you, I would appreciate that very much. Where are you again?”

“Patrol Sergeant Parsons. Thirty-Eighth Precinct.”

“Give me a call, okay?”

“Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Sergeant.”

Gene thoughtfully hung up the phone. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a hundred cases ongoing and a thousand more unsolved if he cared to think about it.

Which he didn’t at this exact moment. But this one was just a little bit different.

That made all the difference in the world sometimes.

‘…she’s real strong…almost strangled me to death.’ Gene Macbride bit his lip.

Hmn.

Interesting.

END