Bionic Betty

15 years ago...

Catherine frowned; it was too soon, but this project was getting extremely costly for the entire lab, and they were going to lose funding if they did not cut corners on progress. Setting down her clipboard, the woman touched her fingertips to the reinforced glass with a heavy sigh. Where she left greasy fingerprints, dim yellow eyes followed. The first successful artificial woman lay suspended within the stasis chamber, arms hung limply beside her ears, as though she were trying to fly. The engineers had taken it upon themselves to deem her Bionic Betty- Catherine found it slightly disturbing, the size of her breasts and slender frame.

Men. When they finally get around to creating a woman, they build a porn star.

Catherine shook her head in disgust, and squatted to retrieve her keyboard and take down the routine readout of Betty's systems, thought patterns, and made sure that she was absorbing all programs fed to her completely and without confusion. The android had been acting up the past few sessions, kicking and screaming in her tube; they had had to replace the wiring about six times. She now lay still- frighteningly still, and Catherine suddenly got those shivers, like she was staring at some friend's dead mother at an open casket funeral.

Betty twitched- a normal reaction to coming in visual contact with another person, and those eerie yellow lenses adjusted to zoom in on Catherine's features.

"Betty, I am going to take you for your daily walk. Can you handle it, today?" She calmly asked of the android, who promptly cocked her head and replied with this recording of a Marilyn Monroe interview: "Yeah, hon," the machine moved those full scarlet lips in a seductive manner, before pushing her palms quietly against the inner glass.

"You won't act up, this time?" Catherine furrowed a brow.

Betty laughed, "no, sweetie. I'm a good girl."

Catherine couldn't help but shiver. Betty was beginning to feel too human to her.

"Okay, Betty. We're going to go see Doctor Houston today. He has a surprise for you." Catherine choked on her own nerves, and began the release procedures. On the previous walk, Betty had nearly strangled one of the janitors to death- his mop had been a threat.

The vacuum sealing unlatched, and Catherine quickly pulled a plastic oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, as the nitrogen exhaust filled the room in a frosty white cloud. Betty wiggled free of her wired binds, and Catherine got on her knees to help rattle heavy iron shackles from the android's ankles. The woman took the android's hand, to signal that it was alright to step out of the chamber. With a jolly skip to her bouncy step, Betty's bare, pale foot touched the chilled tile floor.

Catherine helped fit Betty into a stark white regulation smock, which hung just a few inches past the android's round hips.

"I don't like Doctor Houston." Betty blurted, lips curled into a pout.

"Well, Doctor Houston likes you, dear." Catherine consoled the android with a prompt pat on the shoulder, and a curt nudge.

"I don't like Doctor Houston." The android repeated, exactly as she had before, "I don't want to see Doctor Houston!" Betty grabbed at Catherine's arm with an unfinished, stiff aluminum hand. The woman attempted to rip her arm away from the android's grasp, but it was clamped with no intention of letting go, cutting off Catherine's circulation.

"Betty!" Catherine cried, lifting her other hand to tap the 'talk' button on her security transmitter. "I need security down here, right away! Bring a static baton! Fast!" Catherine couldn't feel her arm, and it was turning this veiny purplish-blue.

"I will not see Doctor Houston." Betty uttered in a severe tone, shoving Catherine to the floor. "You cannot make me see Doctor Houston." Just when Betty was about to proceed with her pattern strangulation, she whirred and the voice cracked a fizzled, before those glowing yellow lenses dimmed, and the android clattered to the ground beside a huffing Catherine.

A hand took Catherine's good one, and helped her back to her feet, followed by a "what happened?"

Collecting her breath, Catherine tapped her own throat a few times, and coughed an "I want to talk to Mac." She averted her gaze to the unconscious android sprawled at her feet.

"Take Betty to-" she coughed, "McColley for more-" the girl wheezed again, "diagnostic tests." This produced a quick nod from her savior, who happened to be a husky, young Latino man dressed in a gray lab security uniform, and a sparking black stick was clutched tightly in one large hand.

"Right away." He complied, reaching down to drag the limp figure of Bionic Betty to her feet. Tossing one arm over the android's shoulders, he nodded an 'I'll take care of everything' sort of nod, before turning his back and with the holstering of the static baton, began to walk deactivated Betty to the door.

"God." Catherine settled into her particularly uncomfortable chrome chair, and rested her broken wrist on the brisk metal surface of her desk, "Mac, get your ass down here!" The woman called into the transmitter, before just allowing her face to plant onto the desktop beside her numb, floppy hand.

"Ye rang?" Catherine was addressed by a middle-aged Scottish man, stout with a slightly chubby build. His shaggy red hair was puffed out by the straps of his safety goggles, and his clumsy feet kept tripping on the tail of his over-sized lab-coat.

"Betty went haywire again." Catherine managed to raise her hand for Mac Houston, "care to shed a little light on why that reaction would be linked to you?" This caused him to shift uncomfortably after he had taken a seat on an identical chair. The Scot scratched his forearms, and blinked a few beads of sweat from his eyes.

"A dinna ken!" He blurted, and Catherine growled. "You're lying. Look, I'm not trying to get on your case, but seriously, tell me. I need to know, so that I can tell McColley to tweak her programming." Catherine grated her teeth, "I'm not going to play with you, Mac." A nostril flared, and Mac Houston inhaled a long, deep breath, before proceeding to confess:

"Steve hae me change Betty's treement." His eyes narrowed, "jus' fallowin' orders." Mac Houston casually shrugged it off, but Catherine insisted, "to what?" Mac Houston sighed,

"muckley needles. That lass 'ates tings pokin' at her." Catherine was still suspicious.

"She broke my wrist, Mac." The woman was not convinced, watching the Scot lounge back in his chair, propping sparkly clean white shoes up on her desk.

"Sum folks jus' dinna like needles," he grunted, and then leaned in to face her eye-to-eye, "ye 'ccusin' me a'sumthin'?" Mac Houston wore this 'don't go there' look. "Can I talk to Steve about it, then? I'm not going to find out anything from him, will I?" Catherine leaned away from him.

"Nae, nuthin'." Mac Houston playfully raised a hand, scout's honor, before pressing his palms onto the arms of his chair. "Cin I gu now?" the Scot inquired, and Catherine reluctantly nodded, "yeah, sure." The woman signaled, spinning around in her own chair, so that her back was to him upon his leave, and eyes focused on Betty's empty tank.

"What's going on...?" Catherine contemplated aloud to herself, good hand rested flat underneath her chin. An aged copy of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' sat under a stack of Betty's performance charts and daily tests, which she moved aside to retrieve the novel. Flipping through it without much of a conscious thought, the book simply served to take her mind away from the eeriness of being all alone in a freezing lab with only Betty's empty, gurgling cell to keep her company. She checked her plastic-wrapped watch- it was only noon; she still had eight hours left to do nothing. Catherine was almost wishing Mac Houston had stayed a bit longer, just for the sake of company.

Suddenly, the echo of her generic ragtime ring-tone filled the emptiness. It's Dan.

"Hey Dan, what's up?" Even over the phone, Catherine girlishly swept a little auburn hair from her ocean-green eyes.

The voice on the other end of the phone seemed to light up, "hey, yeah- I was wondering if you'd like to catch some lunch with me; get out of that dungeon?" The voice chuckled heartily, and Catherine jumped to her feet in relief,

"I'll meet you up there in like, ten minutes?" She questioned, and the voice responded with a "sounds good," and then clicked off.

Grabbing her purse from the last desk drawer, Catherine made it a point to get out of there as fast as humanly possible. She sealed the heavy lab door behind her with the swipe of a pass card, and stripped off her lab coat and plastic contaminant poncho, followed by the toss of her mask in a bio-waste receptacle.

Every hallway in the facility reminded Catherine of a hospital. White walls, white ceiling, white tile floors- no windows, and perfectly set with these plain paintings of flowers in even intervals. Adjacent to each painting was the door to an office or laboratory (Daniel's office was between Human Relations and Lab G-21 on the ground floor- Betty's chamber was on the fourth level of the sub-basement in B4-16.)

The elevator was occupied by a janitor, his cleaning trolley, and two stiff young soldiers. No one talked, and everyone looked away from each other; Catherine pressed the starred 'G' button, and stared directly ahead, tapping a foot impatiently. The lounge music quietly humming on the elevator speakers, like the flowers, did not settle her, but made her more uneasy- she shifted her weight to either foot, until the silver doors slid open for Ground floor.

"Dan, you're a life saver." Catherine calmly chimed when she spotted the Englishman with one sole planted under the elevator panel, on her way out. Daniel Acheson wore a tanned leather jacket, military-grade olive undershirt, and tatty blue jeans with firmly laced army boots. A cigarette hung out from the corner of his sly smirk, and while then allowing it to rest between his fingers, he blew a puff of smoke into the lobby air.

"Looks like I really was." He acknowledged Catherine's wound with a concerned look, "what happened?"

Catherine's unease heightened, "Betty. It's fine, though... don't worry about it." She tried to keep up a non-chalant facade for the man.

"Looks serious," he continued, and Betty flared a nostril, "it's under control. McColley is looking into it. Anyway, what's new with you? Last I heard from you, it was to discuss pulp sci-fi novels, what with the Martians and giant alien bugs." Catherine managed to succeed at changing the subject.

"It must be bloody fantastic to work with the first intelligence prepping for a Martian landing." He skipped the facts regarding coffee-stained penny sci-fi novels, and long nights spent reading them with but a dim old book light.

"Not when that intelligence is trying to rip your arm off," the woman grumbled as they started walking.

"Any ideas as to what set her off?" Daniel made casual conversation, making sure to stay relatively close to Catherine as he strolled.

"She flipped when I mentioned Mac. He claimed it was just Betty's getting jittery around needles, but I'm thinking there's something more that he's not telling me." She seemed certain, and Daniel perked a brow, "didn't even know machines could get nervous like that." It seemed as though he was caught between shock and intrigue.

"Betty thinks that she's a person. Well, I mean... she thinks she's more like us than my computer, that's for sure. I don't think she even knows what an android is." Daniel flinched at this statement,

"what's going to happen when she finds out that her common ancestor's the Z1, and that the neanderthals are her adopted ancestors?" He asked this in, an actually, very serious tone, "heritage isn't in her programming." The woman simply replied, "she wouldn't understand, or care." It was Catherine's turn to show Daniel a shrug.

"Let's get to the cafeteria before they run out of the good stuff." Catherine tugged on Daniel's arm, and he hesitantly complied, catching a pace directly beside her. His hands fisted deep into his pockets, and cigarette back between his thin lips, she was relieved to have some courteous silence until they arrived at the cafeteria, tucked at the end of the hall.

It was relatively empty. Most residents were putting in extra hours to assure that this flight would be a flawless success. Sat towards the back were Bionic Betty, and a tall, lanky Scottish man garbed in an oil-stained mechanic's jumpsuit, and a red bandanna was tied securely in his shaggy, dirty blond hair. Fingal McColley had been long-standing most sought-after cybernetics expert on site, despite his tender age of twenty-three. McColley and Houston had been scouted from the same facility back in Scotland, and therefore had a work history, but more importantly, one of rough-housing and working plenty of drunken nights together.

"Awrite!" McColley waved the two of them over, and Catherine breathed a deep sigh of hesitation. She was not fond of Fingal McColley,not being able to stand his arrogance and brash attitude for too long.

"He's a regular blighter, but it can't be helped. Plus, he's got Betty." Daniel had leaned in and whispered to Catherine upon their approach. The woman smugly plopped down in a red, plastic chair beside Daniel, who had taken a cautious seat next to Bionic Betty.

"So, did you manage to get those diagnostics run?" She retrieved a sealed ham and cheese sandwich, and a can of Coca-Cola from her purse, popping the top and proceeding to sip quietly, her eyes never leaving McColley's person.

"Ay, I din. Turns out someun's been havin' a wee too much fun wit' Betty, 'ere." McColley produced a ziploc baggy from his breast pocket, sliding it across the table for Catherine. "Found it un the lass' legs while runnin' sum servo checks." Catherine's face contorted unpleasantly.

"Looks like semen." She involuntarily shivered when McColley announced that her implications were correct, "that it is. Houston's." He patted Bionic Betty gently on the forearm, as Catherine, wigged, tossed the sample back to the mechanic.

"Foul! Wait, so Houston's been screwing the android... well, no shit she's flipped." Her realization was followed by the frustrated palm-on-face.

"Her programming must be a nightmare to rework. What are we going to do?" Daniel took a bite of his own brie and ham sandwich.

"Wipes. Lots'a nasty wipes." This triggered a response in Betty, who promptly raised her head, yellow lenses now menacingly focused on McColley, and she prodded an aluminum finger directly between his eyes and barked, "no!" before shoving off from the table, and vanishing through the cafeteria doors.