Watchdog

by Will McIntosh

  Vick’s throat closed right back up.

  “I’m gonna need you to move clear, Rando,” the guy said.

  Rando stayed where he was. “You’re really taking Alba’s side in this, Pete?”

  “I’m not taking anyone’s side. You want to pay me twenty-one hundred to walk away, I’m happy to do business with you.”

  “You know I don’t got twenty-one hundred dollars.”

  “That’s why you need to move clear.”

  Vick wanted to turn and run as fast as he could back up the stairs. He knew that was a bad idea, that he was safer staying close to Rando, but it was hard to stand there.

  “Alba ain’t from around here,” Rando said. “She’s from California, or Florida, or some place like that. She comes walking into our neighborhood and wants to take over, and what are you going to do about it? Help her?”

  “I’m done talking, Rando. You better stand clear.”

  Rando talked faster. “Don’t try to act like it’s all just business, like one side’s as good as another, because you know that ain’t how it is. This kid took on Alba right out in the street in broad daylight—I know you heard about that—and he hurt her bad, which is more than either of us can say. He’s a hero. He’s the good guy. You really want to hurt the good guy?” He pointed at Pete. “You know what that makes you, if you hurt the good guy? It makes you the bad guy.”

  Pete lowered his gaze a few inches, and then wiped his mouth.

  “Don’t take her blood money,” Rando said.

  Pete cursed. “He’s already dead. You know that, right? It’s just gonna be someone else who gets him.”

  “They can’t get him if he’s not here.”

  “You better hurry up and get them on a bus.”

  “Thanks, Pete. I owe you one.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Some fourteen-year-old punk owes me one. Lucky me.” Pete pushed the front door open and disappeared.

  Vick sat on the stairs, his legs rubbery.

  Rando sat a few steps below Vick. He burst out laughing. “I can’t believe I talked him out of it.”

  “I can’t believe you tried.”

  Still chuckling with relief, Rando said, “My heart was going like crazy.”

  “I don’t get it. Why didn’t you just move out of the way and let him have me?”

  Surprised, Rando spun to look at Vick. “What would I have told your sister when I got back?”

  Vick didn’t know what to say. It had been a long time since anyone stood up for him, and the last person in the world he expected to was Rando. Well, except for Torch.

  Rando stood and ran his hand over his shaved head. “Let’s get out of here before he changes his mind.”

  “Yeah.” Vick stood, his legs still shaking. “Thanks. Thanks for saving my life.”

  “Yeah.” Rando said it like it was no big thing.

  Vick checked on Tara, who was sitting in a pew, her head on her knees, her arms wrapped around her head. He went and sat beside her.

  “I miss her so much,” Tara said.

  Vick put his arm across her shoulders as she started to cry again. “Me too.” He pictured Daisy loping around this chapel with North on her back, like she was a steel pony. She’d only been a machine—Vick knew that—but losing her hurt worse than he ever would have imagined. It wasn’t just that Daisy had been their protector. She’d been smart, like a person. She’d known what was going on.

  He watched North run along the balcony of the chapel, disappearing behind blue rafters, reappearing in front of cracked and broken stained-glass windows, laughing as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Vick worried that the balcony wasn’t stable, that North might get hurt. It was still safer than playing outside, though.

  Speaking of which, someone had left one of the big front doors open a crack. Anyone walking by could spot them through that crack.

  Vick pushed himself to his feet. “Be right back.”

  Rando must have left it open when he went to buy food from the convenience store. Vick could picture him trying to kick it closed with his hands full of bags, and not quite making it.

  Ever since Rando stood between Vick and that guy with the rope three days ago, Vick had been trying to figure him out. He’d laughed while scaring a crying girl, then risked his life to save a kid he barely knew. All Vick could think was, Torch had been the one banging on the fire escape, and Rando laughed along because sometimes you just went along with your friends even if you didn’t agree with what they were doing.

  Vick slowed as he approached the open door. There was something on the ground, jammed in the doorway. Vick thought it was a brick, or a piece of trash, but as he got closer he saw it was caked in dried and cracking mud. And it was moving. It was trying to claw its way through the door.

  It had to be a rat, Vick realized, disgusted. He took a step back as the door creaked open another inch and the thing dragged itself inside, claws digging into the filthy tile floor.

  Vick studied the thing’s mangled back half. It was no rat. “Tara.”

  He stood frozen, afraid that if he moved he’d see it was just a rat after all, that his wishful thinking had created an illusion.

  Tara stood up from her pew. “What?”

  Vick pointed across the vestibule, where a mangled, mud-covered Daisy was dragging herself toward them.

  Tara shrieked. She raced to Daisy, lifted her gently, and carried her broken body in cupped hands. “She’s alive,” she breathed.

  Everyone huddled around Tara, staring down at the front half of Daisy.

  “How did she know to come here?” Rando asked.

  “She wasn’t going to climb three flights of stairs,” Tara said. “She must have thought if she made it here, you’d know how to reach us.” Tara ran her finger along the top of Daisy’s head, petting her like she was a miniature puppy dog. “You’re so smart.”

  Vick had almost forgotten just how smart she was. He was so glad to see her.

  “I still can’t believe you hid your watchdog’s brain in her butt,” Torch said, snickering.

  “We should get moving,” Rando said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  No one had said it out loud, but they all knew what they needed to do now: build Daisy a new watchdog body.

  “Where are we going to get parts?” Vick asked. They’d used the best of the parts on the roof to make the first Daisy watchdog.

  “You’re going to steal them,” Rando said, staring right at Vick, daring him to disagree. “You, East, and Torch.”

  Vick started to argue, but Rando spoke over him. “Because you’re good at locating the right parts, but you suck at building watchdogs. Is that about right?”

  All Vick could do was nod.

  “Then get going.”

  “What about the dump?” Vick asked.

  Rando looked annoyed. “No junk parts. Alba’s army tore her apart once, and I’m still not sure how we’re going to keep them from doing it again, but for starters we can make her as big and bad as possible.”

  “Wait, what about the bounty on me?”

  Torch grabbed his sleeve and tugged. “I got that covered. Come on.”

  Vick studied his new look in the bathroom’s broken mirror. One side of his head was bald, the hair on the other side bright red. Even with the sleeves cut off, Torch’s purple Ghost Rider T-shirt just about swallowed him.

  Torch looked pleased. “No one’s going to recognize your punk face now.”

  That was true, and Vick would rather look bad than be dead. He went downstairs to find Tara. If he was going to locate the right parts, he needed to know what Tara had in mind for Daisy the Third.

  When Tara saw him, she clapped her hand over her mouth. Her shoulders bounced with silent laughter. “Mom’s going to kill you.”

  The comment wiped the smirks off both their faces.

  “She would, wouldn’t she?” Vick said. He tried to shake off the sadness. “What do you need me to get for the new Daisy?”

  “Argon-
injected clamp. Her jaws are going to work like a bear trap.” She clapped her hands together to demonstrate. “Magnesium alloy teeth, so the tips don’t bend when she bites down on something hard.”

  Argon-injected clamp? Vick had no idea what that was, let alone where to find it. And he only knew what magnesium alloy was because…

  Because the barbershop robots that replaced Mom had magnesium alloy scissors and clippers built onto the ends of their limbs. Guaranteed to stay sharp for fifty years. Vick broke into a grin. Now, there was a robot he would love to hack up for parts.

  “Who needs a haircut?” he called.

  At three a.m., Versacci’s Beauty Spa was deserted. They’d counted on that—who would want a haircut at three a.m.? Two shiny silver salon bots stood at attention by their chairs, each with a clean, neatly folded barber smock across one arm. They had four arms, an attractive but basic metal face that could make about three expressions, and wheeled bottom halves. What use did they have for legs, since they never left the smooth floor of the barbershop?

  Vick eyed the bot at the farther chair. That had been Mom’s station for eleven years. If it was still hers, she’d still be alive.

  “Can I help you?” the bot closest to the door asked, smiling brightly. The smile was so bright it made the bot look a little deranged.

  Torch was waving through a 3-D catalog that showed how he would look sporting different hairdos, an aluminum bat clutched in his other hand. Vick ignored the station by the wall opposite the far chair, where images of him with various haircuts had materialized as soon as he walked through the door.

  “Yeah, I think I want this one.” Torch pointed at an image of himself with long, golden locks like the Mighty Thor.

  “Sure, I can help you with that.” The robot unfolded the smock with a crisp snap. “Have a seat. How about that Cubs game? Are you a baseball fan?”

  Torch stayed where he was. “No.”

  “How about movies? Have you seen One Blue Two White?”

  “Nope.” Torch folded his arms.

  “How about that Dow Jones Industrial Average? Are you an investor?”

  “I’m fourteen. What do you think?”

  The bot switched from that big, crazy smile to a frown. “Do you want to tell me your problems?”

  “I don’t have any problems. My life is just peachy. Couldn’t be better.”

  The bot’s mouth flattened into a thin, straight line. “Gardening? Popular music? Current events?”

  “Uh-uh.” Torch slapped the bat with his palm.

  “I’m afraid that’s the extent of my conversational repertoire. I can still cut your hair, though.” It patted the back of the barber chair.

  Torch swung the bat. He nailed the bot in the side of the head. Sparks shot from its eyes as it toppled.

  This got the attention of the other bot. It raised its scissor arm. “I am legally authorized to defend the property of Versacci’s Beauty Spa from vandalism or theft. These scissors are razor-sharp, and can be lethal if—”

  Torch wound up and whacked that bot, too, knocking it to the ground. “Yeah, see, the problem with that is, you’re on wheels.”

  Vick unslung his backpack, and then pulled out the laser cutter Rando had given him. East was already standing on the wrist of the bot’s scissor hand, pinning it to the floor. Vick hurried over and sliced the hand off with the laser cutter.

  Then he went to work on the rest of the bot, starting with the arm.

  “I’m recording this. Every bit of it,” the bot said.

  Vick set aside the severed arm. “That would be a real problem, if we were going to leave your head behind, or if barber bots could send messages. But who’s going to spend money connecting a barber bot to the Internet?”

  He sliced off another arm, leaving a gouge in the white floor.

  “A microscopic tracer chip was inserted into me by my manufacturer. No matter where you take me—”

  “Roll it over,” East said.

  Vick rolled it over. East ran the chip-deactivating wand over its spine.

  “If only you had one to deactivate its mouth.”

  “Here. Give me that.” East held out her hand.

  Vick handed her the cutter. She sliced across the bot’s neck.

  “Wait,” the bot said. “Please, don’t do that. There’s a great deal of complex circuitry between my head and torso. If you sever my head—”

  The bot’s eyes went blank as the head dropped to the floor with a leaden thunk.

  “Oh, man. I was looking forward to that part,” Vick said.

  Torch grinned at him. “So there is a little mean streak in you after all. I was starting to wonder.”

  “When it comes to these bots, I’m nothing but mean streak. That bot took my mom’s job.”

  Torch glanced up at him, surprised. He pointed at the bot’s head. “This one right here?”

  “That one.”

  Torch nodded. “Which is why you picked this salon. I get it.”

  Vick finished cutting the bot up, then stuffed the pieces they could use into the big, roomy backpack Rando had also supplied.

  “We all set?” East asked, hefting her backpack, which was stuffed with pieces from the other bot.

  “Let’s go.”

  They headed for the door.

  The pack got heavy in a hurry. Vick struggled to keep up as they crossed Ashland Avenue at a brisk walk. He’d expected to run all the way home, but East explained that running drew unwanted attention.

  “We still haven’t figured out how one watchdog is going to beat an army,” Torch said as they walked. “As soon as Alba sees Daisy in action, she’s going to figure out what happened, and this time she’s going to send everything she’s got after her.”

  Vick didn’t have an answer. All he could think was for Daisy to get them out of Chicago to somewhere safer. But where would they be safe, with a contract on their heads? Ms. Alba could spread their photos and her bounty offer to gangs and criminals all over the country using the Net. All over the world, if she wanted. If they gave her the chip, he could only think that she’d kill them, and if they didn’t, she’d probably kill them, too. Daisy gave them some protection, but Ms. Alba had an army of watchdogs, and an army of thugs. The only way they’d be safe was to beat her, but they’d need an army of their own to do that.

  “An army,” Vick said out loud.

  East, who was a few paces ahead, glanced back. “What?”

  They needed an army. “Daisy’s a soldier. She was designed to be part of an army, to lead other bots.”

  “So?” East said.

  “Let’s build her an army.”

  Torch stopped walking. His mouth open, breathing hard, he grabbed Vick’s shoulder and shook it roughly. “You mean, just keep building them. Stop Alba for good.”

  Vick nodded.

  “Wow,” East said. “That’s a gutsy idea.”

  When they got back to the church, Tara had cleaned up Little Daisy and rebuilt her back end. As they began unloading the parts from the salon bots, Tara jumped up and down, clapping her hands. She’d never had shiny or new parts to work with before.

  Little North, eager to help, took an arm from Vick and carried it to the table.

  “The scissors are magnesium alloy,” Vick said.

  “Teeth.” Tara tapped one of the scissors.

  “Now, what’s an argon-injected clamp, and where do we find one?” Vick asked.

  East pulled out her phone and tapped on it awhile. “They’re in big air-conditioning units. Any made in the past ten years, anyway.”

  “Piece of cake,” Torch said. “Shoot me some specs. I can handle that one myself.”

  Vick turned back to Tara and Rando. “What else?”

  “Okay, confession time,” East said as they left the church. “You know how I said I grew up a few blocks from here?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t. I’m from the suburbs. Naperville.”

  “Naperville?” That was
a surprise. East seemed like the model Chicago city girl—tough, street-smart, someone who would have zero interest in makeup and heels, even if she could afford them. She did not seem like a Naperville girl. Naperville was an upscale suburb.

  “Yup. Soccer every Saturday, neighborhood swim team in the summer, the whole deal. Rando knows, but Torch doesn’t. And don’t tell him.”

  “Don’t worry.” So that’s what Rando had meant when he’d said Is that what she told you?

  “Why do you tell people you’re from the city?”

  “If people know you’re from the suburbs, they think they can take advantage of you. They think everyone out there is too green to cross the street without a GPS and their momma.”

  Vick had to admit, that was how he thought of Naperville kids. Although deep down, he’d always felt he was meant to be a suburb kid. He’d lived in the suburbs until his dad took off when Vick was six.

  “Did your parents really kick you and North out of the house?”

  East gave him a sheepish look. “I tell people that to build my street cred. Mom died right after North was born. Dad lost it a few years ago, started dressing in sheets and claiming he was a king from the lost city of Atlantis. Social services took us away from him, and we ran away from social services.” They paused at the corner to let a car pass. “I want you to know the truth, since it looks like we’re going to be friends after all.”

  Friends seemed like the wrong word. You played video games with friends, you didn’t fight to stay alive. Vick couldn’t think of a better word for what they were becoming. All he knew was, it was a whole lot more than friends.

  East peered around the corner, then quickly pulled back and pressed up against the brick wall beside Vick.

  “Here it comes,” she whispered.

  Vick felt so strange, lurking in a dark alley like some thug getting ready to mug someone. The domestic bot passed the alley where they were hiding, oblivious, pulling a wheeled cart filled with grocery bags. East sprang off the wall and strode to catch up, with Vick right behind, each of them holding one end of a rope.

  East looped the rope around the front of the bot.