Hm, he thought, is she hear to gard me or just part of thred not no hoo I am? Gues I ask. "Who you, Besy?" he asked.
"If you already know," she responded, quite reasonably, "why do you ask?"
"Oops, sory thot all guns cald bestys just thot you mite not be.
"You been watching too many old Davy Crockett shows, boy. But as it happens, I was just about to introduce myself. My name is Betsy the Gun, and since you picked me up I'm your gun, boy, I can shoot all your enemies and even have sex with you."
"Cool," said Dabbler, momentarily letting his francis personality get the better of him. "Know foolin? How?"
"Got special attachments. Hey, why is it you talk so weird, boy?"
"It my schtick." Then his natural canniness reasserted itself, and he said "Hey we evre met before Bets?"
"Know, this is the first time. What is your name, new master, that I may enter it in my database and identify you from here on out?"
"Hol on, what hapn if I luz yoo? Next persnb come byt become your new master?"
"Naw, I'm yours until you die, that's how this thing works. My last master kicked off from old age before you happened by, which did a reset from start on my master registration. And dying from old age is about the only way you can die with me around, because I have to defend my masters from all harm."
"Wot if you got othr mastrs in othr threds?"
"What are other threads?"
Dabbler did his best to explain. Betsy did her best to decipher his gibberish, and then said "If I understand you correctly, I would still have to be loyal to you, and the other Betsys would have to be loyal to their own masters. I and they would have to fight each other if our masters were in conflict, but I don't know if that's possible, because it's against my programming to harm myself. So I don't know what would happen."
"Evr hear of a guy cald francis?"
"Never."
"Okay then listn up bets, mi names Dabbiler, only I gotta bita francis DNA mixed up in me right now. Can you pik out the big parta my DNA an be loyal to that and not the smal part? 'Cause real francis my nemy, he trik me into doing this faceoff thing."
"Gee, that's a toughy, but okay. Yuck, that francis part of you is one sick little dude! I'm sure glad he's not my master!"
"Hold that thot, toots. Lissen now, its the francis parta me that make me tok so weird. That somethin you can fix?"
"Sure, no prob, I'll just disengage the peewee bit of his brain you've got from your vocal cords and reattach them to the main part. Working on it... done!"
"Whew!" said Dabbler. "Thanks a lot, Betsy!"
"Any time. Can we have sex now?"
"Huh? Why?"
"Well, we have to have sex regularly or I can't defend you effectively -- that's what keeps me charged up. It's not real sex, of course, because you're a person and I'm a gun, but I manifest as a hologram of your dream woman during it that looks and (to your mind) even feels like the real thing, so you won't know the difference."
Great, thought Dabbler, only I have a couple dream women already who might take exception. He thought. Now that the francis part of him wasn't messing up his thinking he could do that again. "Sounds good," he said, "only we're liable to be in grave danger at any moment, and I've got another thread to catch to settle the score with francis. How much of a charge do you have already?"
Betsy sighed. "I'm almost full up," she admitted. "You see, my last master didn't just die of old age, it was just that he was too old for the strain on his heart when we--"
"I get the picture. Come on, gun, let's go kick some hunny buns!"
"What, we're going to a Mulan thread?"
"It's just an expression. No, actually, we're just getting out of this one, before the fake Dabbler can get anyone on my track who thinks I'm the real Francis, which I'm not, because he is."
"Uh, right."
"Besides, now that I can speak gramatically again, and with relatively little error, there's nothing holding me back!"
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Tue Jan 8 15:56:46 2002
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