Rebel Without a Clue

by Kerrie Noor

  “We need to head off soon,” said Woody. “Bunnie’s called Don.”

  Pete sat up and waited for his head to catch up. Bunnie’s red wine . . . It had been her idea to open a bottle and her idea to open another . . .

  “WE NEED SOME LUBRICATION,” Bunnie had said, “to lubricate—get us thinking.”

  Three more bottles followed, sloshing everyone into a state of heroic bonding and facilitating DJ’s cornering Pete with a whisky-induced intensity that surprised Pete.

  “You have the face of a listener who knows how to hold a secret,” he had said.

  Pete didn’t get a chance to explain that all Androids were designed that way. Instead, with all escape routes blocked by a desk, a wall, and DJ himself, Pete had been forced to listen as DJ tried to unravel the mysteries of the generational gap.

  “Oh, aye, we Identities have them too,” he said, gesturing with a full glass of whisky. Pete watched as a few drops settled on an image of Johnny’s wig.

  “I mean Archie, he’s a good man, but some of my friends, they just can’t be bothered with him. I mean, take Nick—alls he wants to do is play at T in the Park. He has no interest in stories about Legless. In fact, he says the only interesting thing about Legless is the rumor that he once dressed as a woman to sing songs from the war—no idea which. But apparently he had the legs for heels and a voice that could reduce a newsreader to tears.”

  DJ sipped his whisky.

  “But then, as Nick says, Archie tells a tall tale. Hamish says Nick is disrespectful and that what Archie says is true, then Nick says, ‘If Legless is such a big shot, he can come and tell me himself.’ Some of the lads even wonder if Legless exists at all. ‘Just because we don’t know who our father is and can read minds,’ says Nick, ‘it doesn’t that mean Legless actually . . .’” DJ looked at his empty cracker. “You know . . .”

  Pete passed DJ the plate of cheese.

  “Archie says Nick’s a blowhard . . . but then Archie is a bit past it, starting to lose his mojo.”

  DJ slid a triangle of blue cheese into his mouth.

  “There was a time,” mumbled DJ, “when Archie could tell a story like no other, but not now; he’s lucky if he can remember his shopping list . . .”

  “I kind of like the idea of Legless,” said Pete. “Where I come from, the only tool a man has is a lace hankie.”

  VEGAS STRODE DOWN THE country road. At either side of her were fields of soya beans and hemp; Planet Hy Man had stopped farming animals years ago. And a woman of Vegas’s thirty-odd years would not even know what a burger looked like let alone tasted like. Her diet gave her extra estrogen, extra fiber, and no bloating . . . her idea of chocolate was the dusty cocoa powder that you dipped your fingers in followed by synthetic honey or a date. Binging on food was not easy on Planet Hy Man. Usually one mouthful of anything was enough.

  Vegas stared across the vast fields. In the distance, she could see the workers picking. They had no idea who she was or what she was there for—and they didn’t seem to care. The rain had started and they still had half a day’s work ahead of them; they were busy unfolding their rain-protection gear to put on.

  Vegas, like most women of her stature, had no idea such women existed, let alone that rain-protection gear existed. She watched, fascinated, unaware of the rain dripping onto the tissue paper and washing away her instructions. Vegas, not being an outdoor woman, hadn’t thought to make a copy or waterproof her instructions.

  Her map evaporated before her eyes.

  Vegas stared into the boggy fields. What should she do? Definitely not tell Hilda.

  She decided to try the shed; if it was empty she could go back, access the backup remote—it may have recorded something.

  DBO was prepared. In fact, she had never been more prepared in her life. She was waiting for Vegas to call and had practiced her answer more times than she’d clipped her granny’s toenails—and her granny’s toenails grew at a fast pace.

  “Who are you?” said Vegas. “And why are you answering? In fact, how are you answering? I thought the shed was all shut down and no one could get in.”

  “So why did you call?” said DBO.

  “I forgot and then remembered.”

  “I see. So what did you want?”

  Vegas, now not sure what to give away, paused.

  “I know more than you think I know,” said DBO.

  “What?”

  “The cat is out of the bag.”

  “Are you on medication?” said Vegas.

  “Take me seriously and I can help you; take the pickle and you are on your own—facing Hilda.”

  “Who are you?”

  “DBO.”

  Pause.

  “Dash Board Operator.”

  “Oh.”

  “And your fairy godmother . . .”

  Chapter Thirty-Five—The Legion

  “EVEN HEROES GET BUNIONS.” —H2’s gran

  Hilda stood outside of the shed, listening with a glass to the shed vent like she had seen people do in the movies years ago. It didn’t really work, but she got the gist . . .

  Hilda knew who the missing one was the night she stood in H2’s gran’s kitchen and heard the crunching of gravel around the window. Hilda, a firm believer in regular ear waxing, had the hearing of a sheep dog—finely tuned to hear what many didn’t—and she decided to investigate. Hilda told the limo to drive around the corner and then she crept back and hid behind the bins put out for collection. She saw DBO enter Gran’s kitchen and take enough food to feed an army of stationary cyclists.

  Hilda called the youngest and rumored the smarter footman to her office. She looked at his feet. “How do you fancy a new pair of shoes?” she said. His face was unmoved. “And perhaps . . . a foot massage from my very own . . . therapist?”

  Hilda smiled to herself. If there was going to be any fairy godmother on this planet, it was going to be her, Hilda, and definitely not an Operator.

  “LACE HANKIES?” SAID DJ, confused.

  Pete nodded.

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Where I come from,” said Pete, “men, like robots, are not to be respected—it is the women who make all the rules.”

  “Women; can’t believe that. Woman don’t want to rule, do they?” said DJ.

  Mex and Bunnie glared at DJ with a “what do you think” look.

  He stuttered. “Archie says women are as complex as a Rubik’s cube and need expert handling.”

  “Aye, right,” said Bunnie.

  “He says it can take years for a man to work out how to handle one.”

  “Rubik’s cube or woman?” said Mex.

  “Your Archie sounds like my Johnny,” said Bunnie. “He says women are as easy to understand as a math book, but then he does make a meal out of things; I guess that’s the writer in him.”

  Pete wanted to know more about the man with the carpet wig.

  Bunnie talked of Johnny’s writings—sonnets, poems, letters. “He even composed a rap,” said Bunnie, “until I told him what he sounded like . . . I mean, his writings are ponderings of them that are women. That’s about as rap-able as the Lord’s Prayer.”

  Bunnie pulled out a box overflowing with papers and photographs of the women he had escorted. “He was so keen to please he even sent out questionnaires for escorting. ‘Aren’t these letters enough?’ I said. ‘All these photos with kisses?’ ‘I want to take women to another level,’ he said, ‘to a level they never dreamed of.’”

  “This whole level issue is confusing,” said Woody.

  “That’s what I said,” said Bunnie.

  Pete lifted a questionnaire and read a few comments . . .

  Sweet lips, this level is completely fine by me.

  He is a man who knew when to talk and when to listen, a rare breed.

  Looks are not everything, darling—which according to Bunnie was just as well, for Johnny, wig or no wig, was not “easy on the eye.”

  “He always wanted feedback,�
�� she said, “for me to clarify and condense; speak for women. ‘Why don’t you use the Internet like everyone else?’ I said. ‘Put all your writings in a blog?’ He said the Internet was bugged. So I ended up with drawers full of his stuff . . .”

  Bunnie lifted up bundles of paper. A few floated to the floor as she handed them around.

  “Some of these writings are straight from Legless’s blue period,” said Pete. “His most poignant: ‘A man’s vision, for all that—is just a dream,’ and ‘Life is like a stationary—pedaling nowhere fast.’ He was a man,” said Pete, “of thought—provocative, insightful, and yet, at times, incredibly . . . boring.”

  Pete tucked a triangle of blue cheese into his mouth and immediately regretted it. “Yes, it would appear that this Johnny has stolen Legless’s work.”

  “Or is writing for him,” said DJ.

  “He could be Legless,” muttered Woody.

  “Pete, how do you know all this . . . Legless rubbish?” said Mex.

  “Ma’am, it is an Android’s place to know everything,” said Pete.

  “My Johnny’s no Legless—he’s just an ordinary guy who took lonely women out. Just because he’s writing a boring book don’t make him Legless . . . he’s not someone from another planet planting his seed everywhere like some sort of . . . seed planter.”

  “I am one of those seeds,” said DJ. “Is that such a bad thing?”

  “Ma’am, the blue period of Legless is a classic expression of man’s longing . . .”

  “And besides,” said DJ, “this Johnny is short.”

  “Short can be heroic,” muttered Woody.

  “You, an android,” said Mex, “what would you know about artistic blue men and their periods?”

  “This man is our key,” said Woody. “And we must find him.”

  Bunnie, flushed with wine, pulled out her finest malt. “Good idea, Woody, Let’s drink to that!”

  And for Pete, everything went to a new level of blurry . . .

  Chapter Thirty-Six—Sheila’s Diner

  “THE END OF THE BEGINNING or the beginning of the end?” —Pete’s log

  Don’s car, unlike his taxi, was big and plush with a seat for everyone. Don hardly had a chance to knock on Bunnie’s door and she was out ahead of everyone. She took one look, made an impressed “Oh” followed by “I’m in the front,” and jumped in. She had only ever been in his taxi before.

  Johnny lived across the Clyde, but as he didn’t trust technology, there was no phone, no email address, just the name of a plot somewhere near Benmore Garden. A place no one had heard of but knew it involved either a trek across the Rest and Be Thankful or a ferry crossing across the Clyde.

  Bunnie, in a “let’s make the most of things” mood, pressed for a ferry crossing. “You’ll love it,” she said. “Being on a ferry is like . . . well . . . being a ferry.”

  Not exactly an impressive argument, but still, without Bunnie where would they be? So no one argued; instead, they gave Bunnie the front seat and stared out of the windows at the endless cars passing by.

  Don had, so it seemed to Mex and Pete, gone all out to impress Bunnie with a holiday atmosphere. He had blankets, coffee, and little bite-size biscuits to dip into the coffee and performed a running commentary of each area as they drove by.

  “This place was full of shipyards; it was busier than Primark. Heaving, so it was . . .”

  And if Mex or Pete knew what heaving was, they would have asked, “Was the place not heaving now?” But as they didn’t, they watched the coastline as Don’s car turned into the Gourock Ferry Terminal.

  They had never seen such an expanse of gray water; the only expanse of water they saw back home were the bubbles of an extra-large bath, or the fountain of opulence in the center of the courtyard of greatness. A fountain that spurted forth in the evenings under the stars of the Milky Way.

  Don, spurred on by nostalgia, played Bunnie’s favorite music, from a time when “she,” to quote Don, “used to pay for her taxi fares.” Not that DJ or Mex were impressed—Mex hadn’t even heard of AC/DC . . .

  Don bumped onto the ferry, turning up the volume on “Highway to Hell” that was pumped through Don’s retro car stereo as they crossed the choppy waters of the Clyde.

  “This is your favorite, Buns, remember?” said Don.

  “Don’t call me Buns,” shouted Bunnie.

  Don laughed. “That’s right, Buns, they are brilliant, aren’t they.”

  “I said don’t call me Buns.”

  “No, you’re fine, I’ve had plenty.”

  Bunnie let out a long sigh.

  No one noticed the return Dunoon ferry pass the other way.

  Beryl was on that return ferry. She was outside Archie’s car, taking in the fresh air. She was leaning against the wall watching the waves flop against the high walls of the ferry, clutching her espresso from Sheila’s Diner. Archie had insisted on taking her and H2 for a proper slap-up breakfast to brush away the morning cobwebs. He even, continuing his theme of cobweb brushing, bought a takeaway surprise: a sweet the size of a basketball called a meringue. H2 had eaten most of it, spreading as much as she ate across the back seat. Beryl escaped as quickly as she could outside while H2 cleaned up . . . sticky hands were never her thing.

  The wind took her breath away . . .

  Bunnie sipped her coffee. If she, as planned, had taken some fresh air, she would have looked across the Clyde to see, in the flesh, what she had seen on the now-debunked H-Pad—the pyramid hair of a Mex’s pickle-swearing aunt withstanding all that the Clyde could blow at her.

  Instead, Bunnie spent her time asking Don to “turn it down” and “turn the child lock off, and can you put some sugar in the coffee?” And by the time all that was accomplished, Beryl had taken her fresh air, and, clutching her empty espresso cup, returned to the taxi, oblivious to those who stared at her with a “do I know her?” look.

  Beryl’s walk shouted I am worth a second look, but you’ll never guess why.

  DON DROVE OFF THE FERRY and headed for Benmore Garden. They drove around the Holy Loch. It was sunny and the beauty of the hills had Mex and Pete mesmerized. Hills in their world were covered in mud and best avoided by all. Here they were lush-looking with a silky veil of mist magically suspended around the base. Mex and Pete had never seen anything like it before.

  “I never thought it possible,” muttered Mex.

  “Me neither,” muttered Pete.

  “It’s a hill,” said Woody. “Some people climb them.”

  “Climb them?”

  “Yes, to get to the top.”

  Mex and Pete looked at him.

  “For the view . . .”

  BERYL SAT IN THE BACK of the taxi listening to the stilted talk from the radio and finally gave up; trying to make out what they were saying was as easy as trying to explain to a Voted In that interior design was not the be-all and end-all. They drove off the ferry and into the town of Gourock, passing shops on the ground with what looked like anyone and everyone walking into them.

  In Beryl’s world, the limo had tinted glass, which prevented any looking out unless you shouted “clear now” for the glass to become see-through. In Beryl’s world, the planet was gray and flat and the only time one would want to look out the window of a limo was at night to view the Milky Way. Or in the early evening in the city center to nose about who was walking where or see how many tributes lay at the bottom of the statues in the courtyard of greatness. Beryl stared outside at the shops. In her world, shops were for the elite and high up in buildings, not on the ground where the masses shuffled.

  “Sheila’s Diner,” said Beryl, stirring the grinds of her espresso. “Anyone can go there?”

  Archie threw his heroine a look in the rearview mirror. “It’s a café—of course.”

  “I’ve nothing against anyone, per se, but it’s a bit familiar, is it not, this ‘anyone for anywhere’ lark?”

  “People are free to go wherever,” said Archie.

  �
�As long as they can pay,” chipped in H2.

  Beryl, ignoring H2, continued with her “a place for everything” speech, which H2 could mouth word for word.

  “We are not home,” muttered H2, “and we must remember what we are here for . . . not get sidetracked.”

  Archie looked from one woman to another in his rearview mirror. He had a feeling in his bunions; they always played up when things were amiss.

  “So what are you really here for then?” he said.

  H2 stared out at an odd-looking couple holding hands, mildly wondering if walking holding hands was at all comfortable. “You could call it digging up the past,” she muttered.

  DON DROVE PAST SHEILA’S Diner, where they stopped to reconvene—or, as Woody insisted, to ask for directions to this so-called address.

  Mex looked at the address, Pete looked at it, Bunnie snatched it from him and looked at it, and then Don looked at it.

  “Never heard of it.”

  Woody took the address off Don and headed to the café. His small figure strode with purpose across the car park as the others watched with an “I didn’t think of that” sigh.

  The café was full; there was a bus tour of elderly people, a couple of families, and several staff standing around. They all looked up and stared at the entrance as the door swung open with a creak—then, realizing it wasn’t right to stare at a dwarf, turned away, only to stare at the door again as a bright orange transvestite filled the doorway—then, realizing that that too wasn’t PC, turned away.

  “Why is that robot orange?” shouted a small child.

  “It’s rude to stare and he is not a robot,” snapped his mother.

  “But his face is funny,” said the little boy, who was now standing by Pete and looking up into his nostrils.

  “I’m an android,” Pete whispered to the boy.