Betsy Visits River City.
CHAPTER 2
Betsy crept noiselessly into the old abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of River City. It was fairly easy to find the place and Betsy wondered about the police around here. Why hadn’t they done something about this?
She was a tad more skittish than usual. There were no pixies here. Not here in the warehouse, well, there weren’t any here either. She meant there were no pixies in the whole of River City. Betsy was used to pixies. She knew how to deal with them and she knew you can never get rid of the little buggers. So, how come there were none here? Betsy didn’t like that. It wasn’t natural.
She didn’t like River City either. She nearly got run over a couple of times because they all drove on the wrong side of the road. And they all talked funny.
And what about her leeks? She was well on the way to winning the National Leek Growers’ Association competition and then she had to leave them to come here. There was no justice in the world. She used pig’s blood as a feed and only went out at night to feed them, as was the proper way to grow leeks. Booster feeds were at the nights of the full moon, naturally. Not a lot of people know that and now she was in great danger of losing her advantage this year. There were lots of mantraps around them as well—you can’t be too careful with those Welsh bastards, or the bastard in the allotment next to hers either. He was a suspicious character if ever there was a suspicious character. He must be over a hundred, so how come he wasn’t in a home drooling somewhere? He must use black magick—that’s the only answer. Betsy resolved to be more careful around him. Perhaps she ought to find out exactly what black magick was? After all, she used magick herself didn’t she. So, why hadn’t she been taught to defend herself against black magick? Even that kid had been taught the Defence Against the Dark Arts, and there was nothing darker than black was there? And that kid was taught DADA in school for God’s sake, so why hadn’t she been taught that? Was she absent that day? She may have been. It depended on what was playing at the Odeon and who was available to take her. She may have been at school though, daydreaming. She hadn’t been as attentive back then as she was now.
It had taken her four days to find this place from scratch and that included finding and renting an apartment as well as setting up her backups. The police here must be on the take. She didn’t like the backups. They were expensive and cumbersome and a bugger to set up. But ‘She’ told her to use a local backup as well, so, of course, Betsy did. Betsy always did as she was told. She was known for that. She just didn’t like interference and nannying.
Betsy entered through a roof window and carefully made her way to an upper observation floor where she could see the well lit people on the ground going through their efficient and highly illegal tasks under the control of some woman dressed in leather and heels and carrying a crop. She wasn’t a nice woman and didn’t hesitate to order and humiliate the people working for her. The men didn’t tell her to fuck off either, they just took it and carried on. Didn’t they have unions here? Those men needed a good union to help them.
And those tasks they were doing. They were illegal in Britain but here? Betsy wondered about that. This was a weird country. Good job we got rid of it after we stuffed it full of our religious nut jobs.
She settled down in a comfy hidey place to watch for a while. Get the lay of the land and size up the opposition. She practised her muscle control while she watched, forming a ball of muscle on her wrist and ran it up her arm, across the back of her neck and down the other arm. It got the kinks out of her shoulders something wonderful without any need for a strange man or woman touching her. How could anyone relax like that? She certainly couldn’t. A stranger trying to pummel her while she just lay there and did nothing about it? Who on Earth would put up with that? Well, black magickians would, obviously. But they didn’t count cos they were black magickians.
She had rolled the muscle ball three times around its circuit when her eyes opened wide. A presence eventually insinuated itself onto her brain. She was being watched. How had they managed to do that? She had been so careful.
She looked to her left and saw two figures in the shadows looking at her. One of them, the tall one, held her finger to her lips. Betsy decided to obey that request so she gave a thumbs up sign. She wasn’t going to make a noise anyway. It was dark up here but the dawn through the skylights was beginning to disperse the darkness. Vague shapes were visible.
Betsy focused to a greater level despite the energy drain and tried to detect any more people watching her. People she should have known were there before she entered. There were none. These two were there though, she could detect them properly now, but it took a far greater focus than she was used to for the general public. They had somehow managed to evade her initial mental probing. At least one of them was using magick or that American mind control she had heard about. This wasn’t good. She resolved to sort it out herself and not tell anyone about it. It would just worry them unnecessarily and they would interfere and send backup and Faeryfaye was on backup duty right now. Not saying anything was the kindest thing to do—really.
She still couldn’t see their faces, but the hand gestures were easy. They wanted her to stay put. She gave them another thumbs up. She wanted to see what they would do.
Betsy watched as the two others quietly slithered from their positions and made their way down, close to where all the action was taking place.
Betsy started to get bored after a few minutes. She could wait patiently for hours, or even days, on her own projects, but waiting for others?—boring. She forced herself to wait some more though. One or both of them used magick after all. Best to be careful.
Suddenly, the smaller one attacked. She now had some sort of a whip in her hand, which she whipped onto an overhead spar so she could swing down on them. Where had that whip come from? Was she Indiana Jones’ daughter. No, she must be his granddaughter, Betsy amended. She had seen that last film. The one with the skulls. It was an unrealistic farce, obviously American. Indiana Jones was a geriatric.
Indiana Jones’ granddaughter took out four men before they even had time to react. Betsy took a great interest now. She wanted to see how these two operated, just in case, but the tall one was nowhere to be seen. This woman swung down and landed her heels in two of the baddies’ backs.
‘Heels’? thought Betsy. ‘Who the hell wears heels to do this?’
She was effective though. Somehow, Betsy couldn’t work this bit out either, she had, with a flick of her wrist, unhooked her whip and was using it on the other men. It wasn’t really a whip, Betsy eventually noted. It looked like a string with white bubbles on it. It looked, frankly, pathetic, but it worked. As soon as it touched bare skin, the man went down, twitching and retching.
A couple of men raced to the back where their weapons were only to see the weapons being thrown away by nobody. What the fuck? Betsy focused her mind even further and saw the second one, the tall one, throwing the weapons out of reach.
And the tall one was her friend Vicky. She recognised Vicky straight away even though she now had longish hair, a new face and had grown some impressive boobs. Her arse was now worth investigating again as well. She hadn’t seen Vicky for over a year now. So this was where she got to. Betsy smiled. She liked Vicky. She didn’t know Vicky could make herself invisible while multitasking either. That was more advanced mind control than she had given her credit for. Of course Betsy could do that as well, that was simply controlling the opposition’s minds to not see her, but she couldn’t move or do anything useful while invisible. Vicky could. Impressive. What else could Vicky do she couldn’t? Betsy resolved to keep her own tricks to herself while around Vicky. She didn’t want Vicky to get the upper hand. After all, Vicky was only an Essex girl.
Betsy turned her attention to the other one. Vicky’s friend—or colleague. Vicky was promiscuous (she was an Essex girl) but, even so, Betsy knew she mustn’t make assumptions.
Betsy watched the other one for a while. This one was good. She was fast and aggressive and wore some sort of weird costume and had a face that didn’t move at all. It took Betsy a while to realise the face was a mask. Oh God, she must be one of those super heroes that infest this place.
These super heroes were an American phenomenon Betsy didn’t approve of. They got in the way of her own lawful work as well as being really weird. This one was dressed like one of them old fashioned girls from the twenties, boobs, obviously full but flattened down, a short, fringed dress, bobbed hair and heeled shoes—small heels, but, still heels. Betsy still didn’t approve of that. One thing she didn’t have, was the traditional pearl necklace.
Some of these super heroes even flew—without brooms. How did they do that for God’s sake? Betsy had tried to work out how much they ate based on their obvious energy use and got stupid answers. They just couldn’t eat that much food in a day. They weren’t obeying the laws of physics were they? They should stop that at once. That was obvious. Why didn’t they? And what the fuck was Vicky doing with one of those weirdos? She might be an Essex girl, but, even they had limits, didn’t they?
Then Betsy saw it. One of the baddies had been thrown against a half opened crate which had overturned, spilling its contents across the floor. Jewellery mostly and other costly stuff Betsy had no interest in. But there amongst it all was a package that was identical to the package she was looking for. That must be it. She crept slowly and carefully down to where the action had been until she was hiding behind a crate and very close to her goal. She had to be careful now. She knew what Vicky could do. She ignored the other one. Vicky’s friend was good in a fight and had some gadgets but she showed no enhancements at all—except strength and agility. Betsy was confident about that one. And she was confident about Vicky as well. Well, as long as Vicky didn’t know what she was doing that is.
Betsy was searching around for that leather clad woman but couldn’t see her anywhere. It didn’t matter though. Betsy had scanned her and she wasn’t much so Betsy opted to conserve energy and not scan for her any more. Vicky was the worry here. Betsy was about to move for her prize when the doors burst in. What the fuck was going on here? She hadn’t detected this one either. It was obvious Vicky was taken by surprise as well. And that American super hero was even more obviously taken by surprise because the doors fell on top of her. She collapsed under the wood and lay still, blood oozing out from somewhere.