The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue Read online

  They had plane tickets and everything. It was their wedding anniversary, their twentieth.

  Boyd shook his head.

  “One maybe later tonight. After that, we have two or three possibilities. One or two of them might work out.”

  “Nothing we can’t handle.”

  He inclined his head politely.

  “There’s no art any more.” The lady didn’t seem particularly incensed, although her eye roved over the rack, the tongs and the pokers most longingly.

  The fire wasn’t even lit, and the room was deliciously cool after being outside. What she wouldn’t give to pull a fingernail or a couple of teeth. He nodded and grinned, raising his eyebrows.

  Without bidding, they unbound the head for him. They made a good team.

  Grabbing the man’s wet forelock, he pulled the face up to have a look. White-rimmed, staring eyes begged his mercy.

  “Hey—aren’t you the guy who invented the double-click virus…?” He laughed harshly, dropped the head, and then lovingly restored the muslin around the face as the wet round ‘O’ of a mouth sucked and gasped like a wounded carp against the thin fabric. “I still have that on my personal machine, at home, you bastard.”

  The wheezing, sucking sound was music. Real music. The boy-hacker whimpered.

  Boyd stood on a patch of concrete that was drier than the rest of the room, harsh shadows dancing in the glare of a single, powerful overhead spotlight. That painful light would be all their prisoner would be able to see through the thin and soaking muslin. He wiped his fingers dry on his pant legs.

  The prisoner shivered and moaned.

  “Mister Khan.”

  “I—I don’t know anything. Please, oh, please. Oh, God. Please.”

  “Ah, but you do, Mister Khan. You were found in unauthorized possession of one of our products. You can’t make the payments, you return the item, Mister Khan. It’s not such a difficult concept, eh? This is a very serious offense, Mister Khan. How did you break our security protocols?”

  “I've already told you—”

  “You’ve been inside and around, all around inside of our systems. You know all about our systems, Mister Khan.”

  You’re a little too good at what you do, Mister Khan.

  Cooperation was not ideal, for how could you ever trust the information if it wasn’t wrung out of them? At best, you would get just enough to satisfy you—and then a lot of bullshit about how somebody else made them do it…but SimTech wanted the truth.

  And he had been truthful, too, only they needed to be thorough. Mister Khan had been engaged in a little sexual role-playing, of a distinctly anti-social nature, but he must have had the software package all written and ready to be loaded. The time-frame was too short. He made two bi-weekly payments, and then hey, presto!

  He and the little lady went off the grid.

  Once he had his robot lady friend all tied up with clothesline wire, it was a simple matter to duct-tape her head to the table, switch her off with some kind of universal infrared keying device, and then cut in. The lab boys and girls would have the chance to study all of Khan’s work, but Mr. Boyd was really more into the soft sciences, a nice way of saying he was a people person.

  Every once in a while, you had to lean on somebody, and he was at least properly trained.

  Somebody had to write that kiddie-fuck program as well. Mister Khan had all the essential qualifications.

  Having broken swiftly, Mister Khan was insistent that no one else knew about what he was doing and that he hadn’t had any help at all. Keeping a secret was his best defense—he said that more than once. Mister Khan had done any number of things in the unit’s programming, including the stoppage of payments, moving to another jurisdiction, and somehow evading detection, all the while still maintaining the usefulness of the device. All of this was troubling to upper management, and Boyd could see their point. It might even relate to the Betty Blue disappearance, the original rationale for Plan Nine’s invocation. Mr. Khan was extremely talented—and he didn’t work for the company. This alone was troubling.

  Their unit, another 9100-series model, was now secured. Testing and forensic analysis were underway.

  Honestly, a few red flags should have been raised when Khan ordered such a youthful model, and his store-front down-town wasn’t much of a blind when an actual person took a look at it. The business was a hole-in-the-wall, in a location that at least sounded prestigious.

  What they had discovered, was that their programming was less than secure when faced by a sophisticated programmer such as Khan. It was the sort of thing that could not go into a written report, and hence his role as facilitator here today.

  He nodded at the others and they set to filling up another bucket of ice-cold water.

  Mister Khan sobbed and moaned, thrashing wildly against the restraints.

  “Goodbye, Mister Khan.”

  “No! No! Please…”

  “Fucking hackers.”

  The door thudded firmly into place behind Mister Boyd.

  The poor man didn’t even have the breath to scream.

  Should have thought of that first, eh.

  You should have stayed home.

  As he walked from the ravine lodge, set well off from the main campus, the sky overhead was a brilliant oxygen-blue and the air crisp and clean after their recent spate of early June rain-showers.

  There was a spring in his step.

  Birds sang, one or two robotic bees buzzed in the decorative border plants along the walkway and it was all very well to be alive.

  ***

  Boyd had an office, a big corner one down low on the north-east side of the main administrative building. The smoking area lay down below and all he could see were treetops.

  He could rarely be found there, and it was a barren space with little more than a French grey carpet, a brown desk, and the usual modern amenities, plug-ins, screens, and access ports. With no real need for secretarial help these days, the only other entities who ever came in the office were the cleaning robots. Purposely of low IQ and equipped with only the simplest of attachments, they couldn’t turn on his machine or get into his drawer even if they wanted to—which they were incapable of even imagining.

  Mister Boyd sat in the leather executive chair and glanced at an icon on his primary screen.

  Missus Bennett was in her office. The thumbnail status showed her alone but on the computer.

  He beeped her and the form looked up, a hand reached, and then she was with fully him. It was a nice little feature of the firm’s in-house network to be able to see if someone was busy or if they had someone with them.

  “Yes, Mister Boyd?”

  “I just wanted to tell you that while negotiations are ongoing, the Indian contract should be resolved shortly.”

  “This is a secure line, Mister Boyd.” Her eyes glistened and there were some signs of stress in her posture.

  I know, I know.

  The trouble is, I don’t trust anybody.

  Especially not you, nor anyone else involved with this company. Most companies, in fact…

  “I won’t keep you long, Letitia. But that previous matter has borne some results.”

  “Okay, I’ve got a minute.”

  “The product was compromised, but it was outside interference. The only real liabilities to us are perceptual.”

  “It’s our machine, after all.” And if the story hit the news feeds, the company might look bad for a day, unless one of the nine-day media wonders went on a witch-hunt.

  “Yes. But it was definitely hacked. The lab people are looking it over now, but it is clearly not the result of a malfunction.”

  “Ah. I get it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what are our Indian friends saying about that?”

  “Pretty much the same story. We have to analyze the systems a little more thoroughly—our Indian friends are definitely a little more talented than we thought.”

  “Meaning?”
r />   “He, ah, wreaked havoc in there.” It was the first time he had ever used the expression. “Yet my feeling is that there never was a problem with the machine itself.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Mister Boyd.”

  He nodded.

  “Letitia. How are our students doing?”

  “They’re following car thefts and looking for anomalous, one-time, one-card-one-purchases, burner phones, purchases that are small but leave no fore and after trail.”

  Boyd nodded again.

  She gave him a wry look.

  “Any suggestions as to how we could narrow it down a little?”

  "Sooner or later they have to go through one of our bottle-necks."

  Boyd wasn’t a tech guy. He was a soldier and thought in purely tactical and strategic terms.

  He might even be good at it.

  “Let assume the worst case scenario. Betty Blue had a major malfunction—and we don’t know what it is. Her movements appear supremely logical, and yet there must be some underlying motivation behind it.”

  “So what are you saying?” She knew exactly what Boyd was saying.

  “For want of a better term, what if Betty goes postal?”

  She stared at her screen and hence into his bland and ingenuous mien.

  “I’m sorry. What do you mean?”

  “What if Betty is not simply reacting to some stimulus, internal or external, but is behaving proactively, according to some plan?”

  Letitia looked away from him.

  “She wants something, Letitia. If only we knew what that was.”

  Letitia Bennett’s eyebrows rose, her eyes fell to her keypad and the security chief was suddenly one troubled individual. Boyd broke off and stood up to get his briefcase and an untraceable weapon.

  He had another raid this evening, hopefully leading to another subject to interrogate. Water-boarding, because it didn’t leave any physical marks or verifiable evidence, was strictly legal and that was always handy.

  But the odds were this was just another hacker and other than some unique and peculiar skills, as often as not they didn’t know a thing otherwise. He still hadn't broached his biggest concern. How was it possible for the runaways not to have been spotted, with all eyes on the lookout, and almost universal coverage?

  That one was his idea as well.

  Boyd hated wasting everybody’s time like that.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Scott was drunk.

  The booze wasn’t helping. It was like his skin just wanted to crawl off of him and run away and hide somewhere. He knew the sensation.

  Here it was again—and that thought alone was enough to rekindle the turmoil. Because he knew exactly what it could do to him.

  It was just fear, and fear alone won’t kill you—or at least it shouldn’t. Simply knowing that didn’t seem to be of much help right then.

  There was nowhere to run because they were already running.

  There was nowhere to go because there was nowhere to go.

  What was shocking was that Betty must have known that.

  The realization was too much for him.

  Scott hadn’t had a serious anxiety attack in twelve or thirteen years. The thing was not to let it revolve around in your head.

  But he was awfully close to having one now.

  He felt sick to his stomach all of a sudden. His heart and respiration surged.

  “Oh, God. Oh, Baby. How in the fucking hell are we ever going to get out of this?”

  “I don’t know, Scott.”

  In spite of all odds, they were still at large. Betty had the feeling the noose was closing tighter, and yet she would be hard-pressed to explain why. Scott expected a hard hand to clamp onto his neck at any second, and yet he would be hard-pressed to explain why too.

  It was just a feeling they had. They’d been too lucky so far.

  They had simply stolen car after car and driven clear across Middle America with nary a hitch.

  It could not be that easy. It just couldn’t.

  “We really ought to do this more often.” Even the joke sounded sick.

  She smiled absently and went over to the window. They were on the nineteenth floor of a major hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

  Scott sat in an upholstered chair, listening to the TV news. It was the usual litany of house fires, traffic incidents and unarmed peaceniks going postal, becoming unruly, or losing control of their demeanor and having to be shot at their workplace, or in a school, sometimes a mall or a theatre somewhere. It’s a good thing the Volunteers and their fanatical counterparts, the Vigilantes, were everywhere.

  “They always say the same thing.” Her voice was pensive, far away.

  “Huh. Yeah. He was polite, kept to himself and never gave anybody any trouble.” Scott laughed. “Until now!”

  “No. I meant Mars. This is a giant leap for humankind…” She understood Scott’s point well enough. “But really just a lot of hoopla about a money-pit that will never bring any benefits to the poor, tired, huddled masses.”

  But the fact was; that it was always a similar kind of profile. If he wasn’t blind, Scott might have fit that profile a little too well himself, and so he never really joined into the conversation.

  What was he supposed to do?

  Condemning them seemed superfluous, and if they really were mentally ill, why was it so hard to spot the syndrome? Some guy goes into the departmental office, spends half his weekly income on the penalties for not buying guns, you know what? Somebody somewhere should be asking a few questions.

  In his experience it was just too easy to slip through or be hammered through the cracks in the system.

  A forgotten man himself, he had to be careful not to extend too much sympathy, at least in conversation with other people. Besides, all that had changed now.

  His life meant something now that he had taken the outlaw trail.

  Something real.

  The news was all about the landing on Mars, which always seemed breathlessly imminent judging by the commentators, but still hadn’t happened. It was the longest segment so far, he noticed, but then it was all hot and positive news, a bit of a rarity these days in spite of persistent spin and creative editing.

  At one time, Scott would have been enthralled. Right now he had bigger fish to fry.

  “Baby.”

  “Yes, Scott?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  Her laugh tinkled out and cut through his gloomy mood in a way that only she had.

  It was something special that they shared.

  Scott flushed. A tired smile crept over his face.

  “Well?”

  “I’m sorry, dear. It’s just that you caught me by surprise—of course I’ll marry you.” She heaved a sigh and came over and sat on the arm of his chair. “But we need some kind of resolution here. We need to get out of this bloody predicament, the good old U.S. of A.”

  “When?” He didn’t want to say that would be never. “Let’s do it now—while we’re right here.”

  In Nevada, they took on all comers, and just over the border in Colorado, people could marry in threesomes and multi-role relationships, which Scott had heard of but didn’t pretend to understand. But a man could marry two women, or two men would marry three women. One of those women could be married to another man, and one of the men, or more, might have outside attachments. Each of their roles was clearly defined before going into it, with some rather wordy prenuptial agreements in place. In Colorado, you could marry three men and a dog.

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Come on, Betty. Look. If that doesn’t throw a fuck into their minds, I don’t know what will—”

  Her jaw dropped.

  Of course.

  “Scott. My mad lover…my man. My boyfriend! My real, live boyfriend. You, sir, are a genius.” She leaned in close and began kissing his neck and his ear.

  She couldn’t believe she just said that. He wasn’t putting up much of a struggle.


  “All right, all right.” His arm slid up and he pulled her down onto him. “But don’t think you’re going to distract me, not for a minute.”

  The attitude didn’t last long, but he didn’t feel too hard done by it.

  ***

  “What?” Olympia Cartier was incredulous.

  “I’m afraid it’s true, Madame.” Mister Carlson acted unsurprised.

  Yet he was as surprised as anyone. When he discovered the discrepancy, he’d been quite shocked. Arithmetic was such a simple little thing, and it just seemed so unlikely.

  It was only upon deeper inquiry that he found the problem was quite extensive. He mentally reviewed the pages, something not difficult for one of his job description. It didn’t take long to get a few answers, none of which eased his mind or settled his worries. Somehow the entries had been blocked, but sooner or later the system had to balance.

  In the end, there was only one conclusion to be drawn. Betty Blue had been cooking the books.

  Olympia was in her chair, with Mister Carlson looking over her shoulder, a shaky and slender finger pointing out each and every entry. This room was austerity itself, with none of the gilt and rococo of the rest of the house. This room was strictly business. Personal, household business, but business nevertheless.

  “Here’s one. Here. Here and here.” He was thoroughly nonplussed by it.

  There was no rational explanation. None of their system intruder alerts had gone off, and the series seemed to go back a couple of months.

  “Oh, my, God.” Olympia was shocked.

  Her colour rose. She’d sent Betty off on some of these errands herself.

  While each entry didn’t seem to be for all that much money, it was never in round figures. It was one-thousand-ninety-four-dollars here and eight-thousand-forty-four-sixty-one somewhere else. Betty must have been sneaking out on her own; making unauthorized purchases, and keeping the change. There were just too many of them, and at all different times of day.

  Mr. Carlson pointed at an unfamiliar symbol.

  “What’s that?”

  “She’s done some online transfers.” He swallowed, standing upright now and looking over her head into a kind of infinity.