The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue (27 page)

“
Okay. Go on.” So the
bugger was listening then.

Gene took a breath.

“
What about their unborn
child.”

The chief interjected.

“
And the rights of those
who feel it is the anti-Christ…okay, okay. I’m starting to get it
now, Gene.” The chief settled back in his chair.

He picked up a stylus and made
notes!

Unbelievable.

“…
surely a state-ordered
abortion would be premature, and would possibly violate Mister
Nettles’ rights, and there are advocacy groups already on us on
that score.”

The chief winced.

“
Yeah—I hear
you.”

“
It might violate Betty’s
rights as well. There’s nothing illegal about a robot being a
surrogate-uterus for a human family. They used to do it in
test-tubes, you know what I mean, anyways, but this way is so much
more…ah, social. It’s not a frickin’ glass tube for conception, the
baby can hear the mother’s heart and all of that. But not one has
ever had custodial rights. They have, so far as we know, never
borne a child for their own sakes and on their own
initiative.”

It was a bit obscure, but the chief
knew what he meant. Gene was aware of Parsons’ ears twitching as he
tried not to stare too obviously over Gene’s shoulder at the
screen.

“
Congratulations,
incidentally.” The chief’s tone was priceless.

Gene grinned.

“
Don’t forget that they
are now married. That one makes my head spin.”

And Nettles had used somebody else’s
name, which was the same as his name. Only the address and the
birth date were wrong. On the other hand, people got married under
professional and new names all the time. But how in the hell would
it look in court? Mister Scott Nettles is charged with pretending
to be…(drum roll please)…Mister Scott Nettles. The jury would laugh
their heads off, the prosecution would immediately look foolish,
and the case would look frivolous, and everyone knew exactly how
that would go. Who cared, really? But identity was a serious
issue.

Francine was madly typing on her own
device.

‘
Uterus.’

Gene covered his mouth for a moment,
tempted to bite the back of his hand or something.

The chief was being patient, but it
wouldn’t last.

“
Gene.”

“
Ah, sorry, sir. Ah, the
uterus is another issue.”

“
What?”

Parsons, eavesdropping as best he
could, cringed at the tone.

“
The uterus is a human
uterus, grown in a lab, installed in a product, and owned by Mister
and Missus Cartier.”

The chief wilted, knowing the
implications couldn’t be good.

“
This, ah, raises another
whole can of worms. If there is a controversy about whether a woman
has control, or any sort of rights at all regarding her own uterus,
let’s just think about this for a moment. Whose uterus is it? Can
they have joint ownership, or just who exactly paid that
bill…?”

The chief was trying to follow along,
and at the same time appalled.

“
Whoa. Run that by me
again? You mean Mister and Missus Cartier, right?”

Gene nodded.

“
What if some jury decides
that Betty Blue has the right to do this? What if a jury decides
that Missus Cartier has the right to do it, and somebody else comes
along, and a trial by law determines that the thing is a threat to
humanity. Their lawyer will advise them to fight it every step of
the way. It is, after all, only their right to own an appliance
that is involved…”

He looked the chief straight in the
eye, although he was close to running out of steam.

“
I can’t help thinking
that the insurance company, I forget the name of the company, if
the claim had been settled, would…in my sort of opinion, own Betty
Blue as scrap. That might have turned out to be a real bargain for
them. At some point, a corporation would own that kid.”

Gene had just about had it, by this
point.

“
As far as I know, it is
still illegal to own another person. Even parents can’t do that,
chief.”

It would be precedent-setting law,
wouldn’t it?

“
This case is pure
lawyer-food, all the way, chief.”

Gene heaved a deep sigh and quit while
he was still ahead of the curve. If robots were unpredictable, and
had minds of their own, then they would either become uninsurable,
like life insurance for soldiers, or the rates would skyrocket.
This had vast commercial impact, now that the things were becoming
ubiquitous.

The chiefs hands went up to his head,
then they slowly fell again.

“
Gene. Only God can create
life. That’s a Constitutional issue, one that had already been
defined.”

Gene nodded as Francine exhaled in a
rush.

Shit. He was right. Score one for the
chief.

“
It’s better if we just
let everybody else do the talking for a while, sir. Let them define
the terms and the agenda.”

In the meantime, Gene would pray for
enlightenment.

The chief thought on it, and Gene
reflected that this was no time to bring up the issue of slavery.
Plantation owners with slave labour owned the children of their
slaves. A good lawyer might argue that while slavery was illegal,
the products of a self-replicating machine could be owned by
somebody or some corporate entity somewhere. Even then, they still
might cite plantation law as precedent for the legal concepts
involved. Law had to come from somewhere.

Were robots slaves?

No—they were machines.

Until Betty Blue came
along.

“
So what in the hell are
we going to do?”

Gene sighed deeply.

“
We’ll be back in a couple
of hours, sir. In the meantime—”

“
Yes?”

“
I could really use a good
cup of tea.” He needed that cup of tea very, very badly.

“
Hmn, hmn. What are the
suspects saying, if anything?”

“
Betty Blue just ignores
us and stares straight ahead. Yet I don’t think she’s catatonic or
anything like that. She has ruthless self-control. As for Mister
Nettles, he’s quite vocal. Nothing we can really use so
far.”

“
Vocal?”

“
Ah, yes, sir.”

One row ahead on the other side of the
aisle where he could be shot by both Parsons and Francine easily,
Mister Nettles’ ears and neck burned red. There was nothing wrong
with his hearing.

“
And where do you plan on
holding them, Gene?”

“
Oh, Lord. Some place
where nobody can get at them, chief. Any ideas on that score would
be greatly appreciated.”

The chief gave a short, sharp bob of
the chin.

“
I’ll put my thinking cap
on.”

Gene nodded. The chief meant it quite
literally, but Gene had never been able to overcome the squeamish
thought of plugging a nine-volt battery into your head.

Whatever gets you through the night,
he thought after signing off.

***

The cat-shot was a kick in the lower
back as always, and the climb out at seventy degrees, hanging
upside-down in the straps, along with the usual buffeting, only
made his mood darken.

They were cruising through the night
sky at ninety thousand feet, thankfully, right side up now. They
had the back row of the cabin all to themselves thanks to
experienced and cooperative flight attendants, only one of which
was a robot.

Parsons was eyeing up Francine’s
leftover steak, and the half of a baked potato still sitting in her
tray.

“
Go ahead.” He took the
platter and she put up the in-flight table and then adjusted her
seat in the reclining position.

“
Gene. Are you sure that’s
a good idea?”

“
Honestly, if they made it
through airport security…”

“
With the sniffers and the
dogs and all the frickin’ human security, we’re lucky we made it on
the plane.”

Gene and Francine laughed. Parsons had
a point.

Gene kept his voice down.

“
Mizz Blue. Are there any
weapons, sharp implements, or explosive devices, fireworks,
anything at all, that maybe I should know about in these
suitcases?” Mr. Nettles’ knapsack had been curiously
disappointing.

She ignored him. Nettles turned to
bellow.

It was the first class compartment,
about a third full of passengers, so anyone could hear
him.

“
No, asshole.”

There were a few chuckles from other
passengers, male and female, (mostly human beings but one or two
robots to be observed as well). No kids in there, and thank the
good Lord Almighty for that.

“
Don’t mind him, ladies
and gentlemen. He’s just having a bad day.” There were more laughs
and whispers back and forth.

“
Dave.”

“
Ah, yes, sir.” Parsons
reddened slightly and settled more firmly back into his seat as
unobtrusively as possible.

“
Thank you, Mister
Nettles.”

Nettles shut up too.

Passengers had initially been curious
to see Nettles chained in the aisle seat, but it wasn’t so
outlandish. Pretty much everyone had heard of the U.S. Marshalls
and how they transported federal prisoners. It was actually pretty
common fare in film and television, so they knew all about
it.

Having gagged down at least some of
his own meal, after the service robot took his tray away, Gene’s
boredom and curiosity got the better of him. Betty and Scott’s
suitcases were on the seat beside him. On an impulse, he took that
seat and with one bag on the floor, he put the other on the seat
between him and Francine as Parsons goggled at it.

Shouldn’t they wait for the lab? But
the things had to be secured. What with finding a secure facility,
body-searching the prisoners, signing them in, signing them out,
then airport security, it had been just go-go-go for the last hour
and a half. He glanced at his watch.

Crikey!
But it really was like that sometimes.

“
You can take some
pictures if you like.”

She just grimaced.

He snapped on a pair of rubber
gloves.

Gene opened the first one, and quickly
rifled through it.

“
All clothes. Toothpaste.
Shampoo. Oh, look.” He held up a box clearly labeled theatrical
makeup. “Hmn. I wonder if that was used in the commission of an
indictable offence.”

“
Nice.” Francine noted the
presence of some grubby-looking rubber masks.

They were underneath
everything.

“
Hmn.” Gene put it all
back for later analysis and then set that one aside.

He put the other case up.

“
It’s not even as heavy as
the first one.”

On opening the bag, he began pulling
out what were clearly tools or instruments of a kind.

One of them was a simple, phone-sized
device with a glass bead seated in a round orifice, and a big slot
on one end.

“
Huh!” Parsons nodded
sharply. “That’s what all the best car thieves are using these
days. It’s infrared. There’s probably a small, serrated bar on the
other end---here, let me show you.”

Gene passed it over.

Parsons squinted, eyeing up the back
side of it, and then with a small click they saw it
extend.

“
What’s that?”

Dave handed it over.

“
You shove that into the
door-lock, and tiny sensors reconfigure the metal in the probe to
resemble the original key. All the while, the device is
interrogating the car’s chip, hacking in through that avenue, and
it’s, ah, pretty amazing what they can actually do. One way or
another, they’re getting in.”

According to Dave, the probe would
open anything that accepted a key or had a simple, consumer-type
code access. You only got so much security for your dollar. There
was a slot on the other end for reading cards, and then a fake card
was created using the same ID codes. This could be inserted into
certain card readers, but all the major bank machines and ATMs were
apparently wise to them. Smaller retail operations would be the
targets. If a thief opened a car, and found a purse, they were
smart enough not to steal the card. Hence, the victim often didn’t
know the car had been entered and the card copied. It was only when
they got their end of the month bill or checked their balance that
the shocking spend was revealed.

That’s what the fraudsters called it—a
spin or a spend, depending on what part of the country you were
in.

The creative criminal just found other
ways, he said. These days everyone’s device accepted data from
cards, sticks, probes, and once you got into the home computer, or
their personal account somewhere, all you had to do was to hack the
passwords and PIN numbers. The average person didn’t pay enough
attention to that sort of thing, Dave explained.