White Rabbit Chapter 44

44.

Keyser Unites States Military Detention Center        

The chaos that led to the inevitable escape of Alex De Wolfe for a second time from KUSMDC began at the Victorian home of Warden Larry Deutchle. Warden Deutchle was a sentimental man and he fell in love with a Bettie named Kitty. Head over heels, madly, deeply, et cetera and so forth… She was a very popular rental and was a splendid cross between Marilyn Monroe and Ginger from Gilligan’s Island. Kitty’s description read like this on the secret website for KUSMDC employees’ eyes only: For those who like it hot, experience your own private blonde, red, blonde bombshell. This hot deserted island babe is eager to please and is sure to rock your coconuts. She may be a little out of her element but she will surely leave you feeling like a President. She is interested in watching movies, reading, older men, domination, multiple partners, hair pulling, or whatever you like. #2114. All you had to do was call the number and type in the code and an automated voice would give you a few prompts asking you when you want her. For now, press 1. For in about an hour, press 2. For a later time, please press 3. If you chose option 3 you would be prompted to put in a certain date and time using you telephone keypad. The person who wrote the smut was an FBI agent named Randall Fitzgibbon. He never dreamed he’d be writing alluring descriptions of robot women when he signed up but since he had a flare for writing there he was in a little cubicle doing his part to save the world and to protect freedom. Kitty’s hair color changed from blonde to red like a fluorescent Christmas tree. Maybe, it was something in that change that brought out the beast in Larry. He eagerly asked Kitty to marry him after a few nights of man-robot relations but Kitty wasn’t programmed to understand the concept of marriage. Who the hell would want to marry a robot?!

When she turned him down with her indifference; basically by repeating the line, “I do not understand your last command, please rephrase…” Larry went bananas. His heart was torn because although she was so lifelike he knew that she was a robot and would never be real despite the upgrades and all the technology she downloaded in that pretty little head of hers every night as he tried to sleep. He could hear her brain uploading information; the sound reminded him of the Wheel of Fortune wheel, like any other computer ticking and clicking. A fan came on so she didn’t overheat blowing heat and dust out of her ears. She was a GPS, a phone, an encyclopedia, a news channel, a translator, everything stuffed into one beautiful woman. In the morning she told Larry all the news around the world that he was concerned about, or sports news, anything he wanted to know. “The Oakland Raiders fired their head coach last night…” she said over a cup of coffee.

“Really,” Larry replied. “That is shocking.”

            “Yes, and in case you wondered, Andrew “Heavy Hitter” Hollis defeated Michael “Mayhem” Riggs at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada last night.”

            “KO?” Larry asked working on his French toast. She cooks, too.

            “Searching…” she replied quickly. She closed her eyes for one second then they popped open, “Yes. Knock out, round 7.”

            Larry smiled, “What would I do without you?”

            “Also, more unrest in Egypt…a dozen people killed in Afghanistan by a car bomb…and in Ukraine…”

            “I don’t give a damn about world news, Kitty,” he stood up tying his tie frustratingly. The rabbit goes round the hole…

            “Need help?” she asked sweetly. He began thinking about the botched wedding proposal from two nights ago. Candles still flickered in his eyes.

            “No,” he grumbled. “I can tie my own damn tie!”

“I know you can,” she replied positively. “I know you can do it!” Betties are consummate supporters of every harebrained idea and scheme separating themselves from overcritical real women. Larry usually let her help because she tied knots perfectly, thick or thin, any style he wanted. She made the perfect cup of coffee. She gave a perfect massage, blow job. She made love perfectly. She never passed gas or belched, and she never gained or lost a pound. She ate food and drank like a normal woman and she converted food and water into energy disposing of the rest by normal means. She was as faithful as a Golden Retriever, unless you wanted an unfaithful Bettie, some do, then she would be screw your best friend or the guy next door…

            Larry liked the faithful kind. “Kitty, will you marry me?” he asked again before leaving for work.

             “I do not understand your last command, please rephrase…” she said sweetly. Larry hung his meaty head.

            “I love you!” he shouted at her near the front door. He started shaking her. Her circuits rattled. Maybe she understood him perfectly well, he thought. Maybe she was playing dumb.

            “I love you, too!” she said sensing his passion. She was capable of replying just as passionately adjusting her enthusiasm based upon his.

 “No you don’t! You are just programmed to say that!” he replied bitterly. “I hate you!” he cried. He looked at her skeptically.

“I hate you, too!” she replied equally. She was smiling. Her hair blonde, red, blonde, red…

“See! I was lying! To test you!”

“I was lying, too,” she replied plainly.

“Fuck!” he screamed.

“Please don’t curse,” she replied. They were designed to make their humans into better people with little tips of etiquette now and then.

Larry removed a snub-nosed .38 from his waistband that he called Jo-Jo and without thinking shot her in the face. Kitty lied there in the living room not bleeding or moaning, doing nothing pretty much, twitching a little. She sounded like a pan of stir-fry. Circuits sizzled and sparked and part of her former face lied on the coffee table. A cheek, Larry thought. “My God!” he panicked. “What have I done?” He frantically dialed the Bettie customer care support number. The operator at the other end said not to worry just put her in the garage and someone will be buy to pick her up to salvage what they could. He asked if Larry would like to place an order for a replacement Bettie. Larry said no.

“In order to seek better customer satisfaction,” the operator, some young guy, began as though he was reading from a card, “we want to know if you were satisfied with your Bettie. Would you like to answer a few questions to assist us?”

“No! Didn’t you hear what I said?! I shot her in the face!”

“Well, we would like to know why you shot her in the face, sir.”

“Because she is fake! This whole goddamn world is fake!”

The operator seemed confused by Larry’s anger and lost his place. “There will be no charge today for the damage to your Bettie; however, damage to any subsequent Bettie could result in up to a 25,000 dollar fine. Is there anything else I can assist you with today, sir?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? I said I shot her! I shot her in the face!”

Long pause. “Sir, she is a robot. She isn’t real. You said so yourself. Everyone is replaceable.”

Larry wasn’t satisfied with customer service and hung up angrily as the young fellow was trying again to get him to answer some questions. But Larry’s mood changed and he went to work that day with a sudden spark of determination and happiness. He called Bronson Fillmore in to his office and gave him the story of a lifetime and then released him. Then he overrode the security system and released all the other inmates telling the staff that they were going to go in a different direction. He had never before felt more alive and liberated. He played Pac-Man on his computer which he had meant to do for fourteen years remembering how much fun he had playing it when he was a kid. Five minutes later, after all the prisoners were released and running wild through the woods of West Virginia, he shot himself in the head before CIA agents swarmed his office.

            After reports hit the air of the release of all inmates from KUSMDC, a wiseass radio disc jockey in Huntington played “Werewolves of London” every hour faithfully, overdubbing “London” with “West Virginia.” A hungry pack of wolves headed East in the dead of night. There was no moon.