Watchdog

by Will McIntosh

  “They aren’t just some hobby thing people do in their garages anymore.” East wiped sweat from her forehead with the grease-stained back of her wrist. “Gangs are buying them up, even some regular people looking to protect themselves from the gangs. A bunch of little underground shops have sprung up. That’s how I got by, before I ended up here. Me and my friends jacked domestic bots and chopped them up to build watchdogs.”

  Vick struggled not to look surprised. This thirteen-year-old got by stealing robots and turning them into bodyguards?

  “Alba’s trying to drive all the little shops out of business, one way or another, and corner the market. Create a watchdog empire here in Chicago.”

  “Using hostages to build them,” Vick said.

  “Like I said, she’ll do whatever it takes. Ruthless is her middle name. She pretty much owns this part of the city. The police do what she tells them; the gangs don’t dare cross her. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of her.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t get out much,” Vick said. “We’ve been trying hard to keep to ourselves.” He looked around. “Not that it did much good.”

  In the other room Tara cried on, her voice growing hoarse.

  “You a Brumby?” East asked.

  “What’s a Brumby?”

  East gave him a look. “Street kid. Orphan.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Our mom died eight months ago. How about you?”

  “I’ve been on the street for three years. I grew up a couple of blocks from here. My folks kicked me out after Dad lost his job. They said they couldn’t afford to feed all of us, so they kicked out me and two brothers and kept my two sisters.”

  Vick fumbled and nearly dropped the miniature socket wrench he was using. “That’s harsh. How did they decide who went and who stayed?”

  East shrugged. “Just who’d been good and who hadn’t.” She said it matter-of-factly, but she had to look away when she said it. Vick bet it still hurt.

  In the next room Dixie shouted, “You want something to cry about? You don’t work, you don’t eat. How do you like that?”

  East must have seen him flinch. “You need to talk to your sister. If she gives them grief, they’re going to make her life miserable. Yours, too.”

  Talk to his sister. If things had been different, he might have laughed at that. “She’s autistic. When she gets like that, it’s like a switch was flipped in her head. She can’t help it. You might as well tell the wind not to blow.” Although, she’d managed to hold it off when they were in the dump with Tiny looming over them. Maybe she was getting control of that switch.

  A watchdog clinked past them, all jet-black steel except for yellow eyes, so big he probably couldn’t have fit through a normal-sized door. It didn’t look that much like a grizzly—its mouth was much bigger and wider than a grizzly’s, its limbs leaner, and it had no ears—but Vick had a habit of thinking about watchdogs in terms of the animal they resembled most.

  The grizzly disappeared through a double-wide doorway into the back of the shop. Vick wondered how many of them Ms. Alba had.

  Dinner was leftovers from other people’s lunches—ham sandwiches that smelled off, some half-eaten, and stale bagels. Vick stuffed his half bagel into his pocket when no one was looking.

  When they went to bed on the shop floor, on mattresses that looked and smelled like they’d been salvaged from the dump, he slipped the bagel to Tara. Her dirty face was lined with tear tracks, and her eyes were bloodshot.

  “I want potato puffs,” she whispered. “Chicken quesadillas with American cheese and bacon crumbles. Don’t cook them too long. The edges shouldn’t be crunchy. Corn on the cob. Butter, never margarine.”

  “For God’s sake, be quiet,” said the old man, whose name was Arthur.

  Vick squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t sure he could take this without losing his mind. He opened them and took a few deep breaths, trying to get himself under control.

  Something scurried across the floor.

  Vick bolted upright and yanked his feet from the edge of the mattress. A rat?

  “What the matter?” Tara asked.

  “Did you see that?”

  “What?”

  It scurried onto Vick’s bed. Shrieking, he leaped out of bed, his heart hammering. He got a better look at it by the dim light bleeding from the hall.

  It was Daisy.

  “How did she find us?” Vick asked in a harsh whisper.

  “I don’t know.”

  Somehow she’d unlocked both heavy steel doors, which had combination locks. Vick and Tara were free. Except for the tracking devices, and Tiny.

  “I don’t care,” Tara said when Vick reminded her about Tiny. “I don’t care. I want to get out of here.”

  “Send that darned thing away and get in bed,” Arthur said from his mattress. “They’ll kill you. They’re not fooling around.”

  “Shut up and mind your own business,” Tara snapped at him.

  East, who’d been hovering nearby, watching quietly, stepped closer. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’m out of here. It was nice meeting you both.” She headed for the door before Vick could reply.

  A few others followed East’s lead, but not all of them. Not even most of them. Vick wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t want to stay, not another minute. But what about Tiny?

  Would Tiny come after them immediately, or would they get a head start? Maybe he was locked up somewhere and wouldn’t be sent after them until Dixie and Ms. Alba discovered they were gone.

  Tara raised her head and looked just to Vick’s right. Not a few feet to his right, more like six inches. As far as he could remember, it was the closest she’d ever come to looking him in the eye. “Please. I can’t stay here. I’ll die.”

  Daisy hopped off the bed, walked halfway to the door, and then spun around and returned.

  “Okay.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” one of the kids called from the darkness on the other side of the room.

  “Let them go,” Arthur said. “They’ll learn.”

  They headed for the door. Daisy followed them up the stairs, through the silent garage, and out a side door that had a ragged Daisy-sized hole in the glass.

  As soon as they got outside, they ran.

  “We need to find a police station,” Vick said. Would the police protect them, though? East had said the police did what Ms. Alba told them to do.

  Daisy darted ahead, then veered to the left. She looked back to make sure they were following. She was smart—smarter than any robot Vick had ever seen, even on TV. What sort of robot understood you were in danger and figured out how to save you? If only she were ten times bigger, they wouldn’t have to worry about Tiny.

  Vick stopped running. “Hang on.”

  Daisy stopped, too. She looked around, evidently watching for danger.

  “Tara? Can you build a watchdog? Like Tiny?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Vick tried not to let his disappointment show. He wasn’t exactly surprised by her answer, but he’d hoped—

  “I mean, I can,” Tara went on, “but I wouldn’t. It’s a terrible design. I’d do it way better.” She shook her head. “Way better.”

  Vick burst out laughing. “Fine. Make it way better. Can you give it Daisy’s brain?”

  Tara looked startled. “That’s a brilliant idea. You’re a genius.”

  “Daisy,” Vick called. “Take us to our roof. You’re getting a makeover.”

  Vick stood behind Tara, shifting from foot to foot, waiting. Tara opened and closed the jaws she’d fashioned from air conditioner blades and the hinge from a Ford Sol’s trunk. Most of the main body was made from domestic bot parts. Suddenly the piles of seemingly useless parts they’d accumulated on the roof might save their lives, and while Vick sucked at designing and building, he rocked when it came to finding just the right part.

  “What do you need?” he asked.

  “Quiet.”

  Vick shut his mouth. It was hard,
not knowing how long they had before Tiny showed up, and whether the steel bars he’d wedged across the door to the roof would keep him out.

  Since Tara didn’t need him, he went over to where Daisy was working diligently on what would soon be her own hind legs. They looked good—they were bowed, lean yet powerful-looking. Daisy had finished the front legs, which had sharp claws, but hands like a squirrel’s instead of a dog’s. Vick couldn’t quite believe this little robot was helping design her own new body. Robots didn’t design. A high-end domestic robot couldn’t decide what brand of coffee to buy unless you told it exactly. It would stand in the coffee section of the supermarket for eternity, trapped in a decision-loop.

  Daisy set one leg down, then picked up the other.

  Vick wasn’t surprised that Tara was making it look like a dog (a dog with squirrel hands and a pointed snout, but it still looked more like a dog than anything else). She’d always wanted a dog. Mom would never get one, because a lot of apartments didn’t allow them, and it was hard enough finding an apartment in Chicago when you didn’t have a pet.

  From the looks of it, it wasn’t going to have a tail. Most watchdogs didn’t, because tails served no purpose on a robot. Most also had at least four legs, because that made them faster. Plus, two-legged watchdogs tended to tip over.

  On the roof beyond Daisy, Jack and Chloe were still at work, moving the parts in the green bin to the red bin and vice versa.

  “Chloe, that’s enough. Stop,” Vick called. “Jack—”

  A low metallic squeal rose from behind the door that led down from the roof, filling Vick with a sick dread. It was the same noise Tiny had made when he’d trapped them at the dump. A sharp bang on the door made him flinch. Another followed almost immediately.

  Vick took a few wobbly steps until he could see the door, which was made of thick steel, the hinges rusty but anchored into the frame on heavy steel plates.

  Another bang. Tiny must be hitting the door from the inside. He squealed louder.

  “The longer you make me stand here, the angrier I’m going to get,” Dixie yelled. The doorknob jiggled. “Unlock this door. Right now.”

  Vick turned to Tara, who was working to attach the jaws to the rest of the head while whispering to herself. “Tara, just make it good enough. You can make it perfect later.”

  Tara didn’t answer. She was so absorbed in what she was doing it was possible she hadn’t even heard Tiny or Vick. He studied the scattered pieces of their to-be watchdog, trying to guess how close they were to finishing. He had no idea. Maybe less than an hour, maybe six.

  He jogged over to a gutted refrigerator lying on its side, got behind it, and pushed, rolling it over. He kept rolling it until it was pressed against the door.

  “Get ’em. Go get ’em,” Dixie urged from behind the door.

  The door shuddered as Tiny hit it, squealing furiously. He hit it again, and the center bowed slightly. Vick glanced around. He picked up a disemboweled domestic robot torso and set it on top of the refrigerator, then ran to find something else that was heavy.

  As dawn broke an hour later, Vick raced to pile anything and everything against the door. The top hinge had snapped all at once with a dull, brittle thunk. The next time Tiny hit the door, it made a different sound, a looser, rattling sound.

  Vick spun to face Tara. “Are you almost done? Just put together something that moves.”

  Tara swallowed hard, but otherwise didn’t respond.

  He turned to Daisy. “Hurry, Daisy. There’s no time.”

  Daisy seemed to understand. At least, she stopped messing with a front shoulder joint and moved on to something else.

  Tiny hit the door again; the top buckled out a half inch.

  “Come on, come on.”

  The next time Vick checked on their progress, Daisy was gone. Vick opened his mouth to ask where she was; then he realized: Tara had merged her into the watchdog. Daisy was the watchdog.

  Daisy the watchdog’s left front knee flexed. Then her right. She was testing her joints!

  Tara circled her, adjusting, tightening, fussing over her like a proud mother. Daisy’s new body wasn’t pretty. Now that she was finished, she looked more like a wolf than a dog, if a wolf had powerful back legs and smaller, more nimble front legs and could sit up on its haunches like a squirrel. She was the size of a German shepherd and covered in scratched and dented steel plates in a variety of clashing colors that didn’t fit neatly together the way Tiny’s did. In spots you could see right into her inner workings—a forest of joints, wires, steel supports, and electronics. Her eyes were ridiculously large and bright, like a cartoon animal, set on either side of a long snout packed with steel teeth.

  Tara looked at the door, maybe noticing for the first time that it was being battered down. “You might as well open it.”

  Never in a million years would it have occurred to Vick to help the metal beast get through that door, but if Daisy was ready, what was the point of waiting?

  Vick squatted. “Are you ready, Daisy? Do you understand what you have to do? You have to protect us.”

  Daisy nodded.

  Vick pulled a vacuum cleaner off the top of the debris piled in front of the door. He tossed it aside. As he turned to grab something else, Daisy stepped in front of him, gripped the end of the refrigerator at the bottom of the pile, and lifted, sending the entire pile cascading across the roof. She shoved the refrigerator, sending it tumbling into the scattered debris.

  Tiny hit the door, and the middle hinge snapped. The only thing holding it now was one of the steel bars Vick had wedged across it. He reached for it.

  “Here we go.”

  Tara took a dozen steps back, positioning herself directly behind Daisy. Vick lifted the bar, let it clatter to the ground, and ran to join Tara.

  The next time Tiny hit the door, it slammed to the ground.

  Tiny stepped through, followed by Dixie. Dixie’s smile faded as she got a look at the new-and-improved Daisy.

  She wagged a finger at Vick. “If that walking junkyard so much as scratches Tiny’s finish, you’re going to be sorry.”

  Vick’s throat was so dry and his heart racing so fast, he wasn’t sure he could speak. Tiny was twice Daisy’s size, his mouth big enough to swallow Daisy’s entire head. Vick brushed his hair out of his eyes and waited.

  “I want to know how you got those shop doors open,” Dixie said.

  “And I want to know where you got that ugly face,” Tara shot back.

  Vick laughed nervously.

  Dixie pointed at Daisy. “Tear it apart.”

  Tiny charged.

  Daisy ran.

  “No. Daisy, you have to fight!” Vick shouted as Tiny chased her half a turn around the roof.

  Suddenly Daisy stopped, scooped up a three-foot length of water pipe in her squirrel-like front paw, and turned to face the charging Tiny. She swung the pipe and hit Tiny on the side of the face, leaving a big dent. Tiny’s eye was sunk deep inside the divot, shattered and unmoving.

  Vick punched his fist in the air and whooped with joy.

  Tiny lunged at Daisy again; Daisy whacked him in the same spot, further caving in the steel there, then ducked as Tiny swung at her with one of his huge clawed front paws. Daisy spun out of Tiny’s reach and landed on all fours, still clutching the pipe.

  This time Tiny knew better than to charge. The side of his head was a train wreck, and there was a gap in the seam between the two halves of his head.

  “Get her, Tiny,” Dixie urged.

  Daisy charged right at Tiny. It looked as if they were going to collide headfirst, but at the last instant Daisy jumped, soaring over Tiny’s big body lengthwise. She twisted, landing facing Tiny’s tail end. Lashing out with one clawed paw, she raked the inside of Tiny’s back leg, then retreated out of reach as Tiny spun awkwardly, the leg Daisy had attacked dragging.

  Daisy circled the lame watchdog, racing in one direction, and then abruptly changing direction as Tiny tried to keep his goo
d eye on her. Daisy found an opening on Tiny’s blind side and struck again, this time at the seam between the inside of Tiny’s front leg and his torso. She jumped out of the way just as Tiny’s big jaws snapped closed on empty air.

  With two limbs damaged, Tiny staggered clumsily. Daisy spun to Tiny’s blind side, lunged forward, wedged her claws into the split seam on top of Tiny’s head, and pulled as Tiny snapped his jaws, trying to reach her. The seam widened, widened, until the left side of Tiny’s head snapped off, exposing a motor shield, orange wires, computer chips, capacitors, and a solar battery. It was the most beautiful sight Vick had ever seen.

  “Tiny. Back. To me!” Dixie shouted.

  Tiny surged backward, dragging Daisy with him.

  “Daisy. Stop. That’s enough,” Tara said. Daisy let go of Tiny’s head and backed toward Vick and Tara as Tiny retreated to where Dixie was standing in a corner of the roof.

  Vick couldn’t believe Tara had called Daisy off. “Why did you do that?”

  “She would have killed Tiny.”

  “Tara, it’s a machine.”

  Tara just stared past him, her eyes half lidded. Why was he even trying to convince her? When Tara wore her green T-shirt, she was afraid her white one felt lonely and rejected. Whatever. Maybe sending Tiny back to Ms. Alba limping and mangled would make their point better than having him not come back at all.

  They stared across the roof at Dixie, who would have to pass them to reach the door.

  Finally Tara broke the silence. “Looks like Tiny’s finish is going to need a good buffing.”

  Vick burst out laughing. Tiny looked like he’d been hit by a train.

  Dixie stood frozen, knowing if they sicced Daisy on her now, she’d never make it out of the building.

  “We don’t want a fight, but if you don’t leave us alone, we’ll send our bodyguard after you, and Ms. Alba, too,” Vick said. “And the dude with the stripe.”

  Dixie opened her mouth to say something, then eyed Daisy and thought better. “Tiny. Come.” She stayed close to the edge as she circled toward the doorway, staying as far from Daisy as she could. Tiny staggered after her, one useless back leg banging the steps as they hurried down the stairwell.