Watchdog

by Will McIntosh

  Daisy nodded and set down the needle-nose pliers she’d been using. East unlocked and opened the door, and Daisy headed off.

  Vick perched on a stool beside the workbench. “What if she hurts someone?”

  “Anyone stupid enough to get in her way deserves to get hurt,” Torch said.

  Vick ignored the comment. “We’ll share anything Daisy brings back with you,” he said to East. He looked pointedly at Torch, hoping he got the message that the same wasn’t necessarily true for him. He might have to grovel a little first.

  They quickly ran out of topics of conversation, now that everyone couldn’t circle around Daisy and talk about her hip joints. Vick leaned against one of the workbenches and stared at a cupcake wrapper on the floor.

  “Do you like Dinotrux?” North, the little kid, asked. He was sitting on a mattress, looking at Vick. His dark, curly hair was short but uneven; it was pretty obvious East had cut it.

  “Me? I guess. I used to play the video game when I was about seven.” It had been old even then, but Vick could see why North was drawn toward a TV show about robot dinosaurs.

  “Who’s your favorite Dinotrux? Mine’s Revvit.”

  The name was familiar, but he couldn’t remember what Revvit looked like. It had been a long time since he’d thought about Dinotrux.

  The door swung open. Daisy headed straight for Vick, lowered her head, and opened her mouth.

  A pile of dead pigeons spilled out.

  Torch and Rando burst out laughing.

  “Mmmmmm, my mouth is watering, just looking at them.” Torch picked up one of the dead pigeons and held it in Vick’s face. “Eat up, sport.”

  Vick knocked the pigeon away, his face burning with embarrassment. “I told her to find food, so she found food. I didn’t tell her what kind of food.” He got right up in Daisy’s big silver face and looked into her big cartoon eyes, his nose almost touching the end of her long pointed snout. “We need food that’s already cooked. Do you understand?”

  Daisy nodded.

  “Don’t hurt anyone. Even if it means you can’t get the food. Understand?”

  Daisy nodded again.

  “Hang on.” Rando went to a plastic cabinet set on one of the workbenches, opened one of its tiny drawers, and fished something out. He slapped it onto Daisy’s haunch, then handed Vick a video card. “Portable camera. Now you can follow the action.”

  As Daisy disappeared up the stairs, Vick watched the card. She trotted through the church, turned right out the door without hesitating, and headed up North Noble Street.

  When she reached a sidewalk café on the corner, Daisy paused. Diners in the cordoned-off outdoor area, all khakis and black dresses and shiny shoes, eyed Daisy, their forks frozen in midair.

  Daisy turned back, then headed up the crossing street and down an alley that ran behind the café, where there was a door leading into the kitchen.

  Everyone was gathered around Vick, watching the screen. When Daisy clacked into the kitchen, a cook standing over a grill shouted in surprise.

  “What is that doing in here?” a woman who looked like she might be the manager asked as Daisy clinked past.

  Daisy took a plastic takeout bag from a pile, letting the rest slide to the floor. She went to a long counter where steaming plates of food were waiting to be picked up by waiters. As café workers looked on, dumbfounded, she dumped the contents of the first plate into the bag. Shouts of surprise and anger rose as Daisy went down the line until all the plates were empty, and the bag was full. No one tried to stop her, although the woman who might be the manager was on the phone, probably calling the police. Daisy put the handle of the bag in her mouth and trotted out into the alley.

  Ten minutes later she was at the door with the bag. Tara gave her a huge hug and a kiss. Vick was tempted to do the same as he accepted the warm bag from her. The food was a steaming stew of sandwiches, casseroles, vegetables, cake, and…quesadillas. No one complained, because there was a ton of it. Daisy had swiped about a dozen plates.

  As soon as she finished eating, Tara made a beeline to the workbench, where she took advantage of the wide assortment of tools to mess around with Daisy’s design, as Daisy looked on. North went over to watch.

  “We gotta get going in a couple of minutes,” Vick called to Tara. He didn’t want her to get too comfortable. Rando and Torch were standing off near the door, talking, watching Daisy with their bellies full. They would like nothing better than for Vick and Tara to get comfortable, while they thought of uses for Daisy, and ways to steal her away from them.

  “Can I touch her?” North asked Tara.

  “Sure,” Tara said.

  North ran his hand along Daisy’s side. “Can you play with her?”

  Tara looked around, grabbed a filthy welcome mat from under the workbench, and dropped it onto Daisy’s back like a saddle, covering a section of her jagged steel armor. She patted the mat. “Climb on.”

  East grimaced, then shouted, “Be careful!” as Tara helped North mount the ragged, fierce-looking watchdog. Once North was on, he leaned forward and grasped Daisy’s neck.

  “Can you give him a ride?” Tara asked Daisy.

  Daisy took a few tentative steps. North cackled gleefully, so Daisy took a few more, moving more quickly.

  “We’re in the same boat, you and me.” East was standing beside Vick, arms folded. She and North had the same dimples, the same sharp cheekbones.

  “Which boat is that?”

  “We both have family to take care of.”

  Vick couldn’t argue with that, although in some ways it was Tara who was taking care of him. “Sometimes when I talk to her I hear myself saying things my mom used to say to us.”

  East laughed. “ ‘Don’t jump on the bed.’ ‘Wash your hands.’ ‘Stop picking your nose.’ ”

  “There’s no room here,” Tara called. It was true—Daisy was doing her best, but there wasn’t much space for her to run. “Let’s go upstairs. Come on, Daisy.” Tara ran to open the door.

  East stood. “Come on, Mom, we better keep an eye on the kids.”

  Vick followed her out. At least upstairs they’d be closer to the exit. North could get his ride; then they could say goodbye.

  Up in the main chapel, Daisy cut loose, racing around the pews, her movements so smooth North barely bounced on the makeshift saddle.

  “Listen,” East said as they watched, “I know you have good reason to hate Rando and Torch. They can be idiots. But the whole time I was in Alba’s sweatshop, they took care of North. They fed him, even paid for a doctor one time when he got a respiratory infection. When you strip away all the immature antics, they’re good guys.”

  Vick pictured the pair, who’d been watching some show about a psycho clown trying to escape from a prison circus when they left. He tried to imagine liking them, but all he could see were two guys who would be school bullies if they were still in school.

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  East nodded. “Like I said before, we’re on the same side. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ you know? You’ve got a big-time beast who can protect us. We know the streets, and we know Alba.”

  Vick didn’t say anything. He had no interest in teaming up with these people, or anyone else. He just wanted to be left alone and have nobody bother them. Now that they had Daisy, they could count on those things.

  East was watching him, studying him. “If Alba comes at you for messing up Tiny, she’ll come at you like a wrecking ball. You’re going to need friends.”

  “Okay.” He’d had friends, when his mom was still alive and he was in school. He wasn’t sure where they were now…probably playing video games and munching on chocolate-covered pretzels in their air-conditioned bedrooms. He waved a hand to get Tara’s attention. “We better get going.”

  Tara put her hands on her hips. “Going where?”

  “To find a new place to live. We need to get set up so we can get some sleep.” Which would entail dumping th
eir laundry on the floor and lying down on it.

  Tara helped North down, and they said goodbye.

  “Remember what I said,” East said as Vick and Tara headed for the street, with Daisy following.

  A knot of tension in Vick’s neck and shoulders relaxed as they reached the sidewalk.

  “Why couldn’t we stay there?” Tara asked.

  “Because (a) they didn’t invite us, (b) they’re criminals, and (c) those two guys were looking at Daisy like she was a Christmas present someone left under their tree.”

  Tara stared at a billboard advertisement for a new action movie plastered on the side of a passing bus as if she hadn’t heard him.

  “You can count on me, I can count on you, and we can both count on Daisy,” Vick said. “We can’t count on Uncle Mason and Aunt Ruby, or our friends, or those thugs carving up stolen robots. We watch out for each other, and we keep to ourselves.” He choked up, because that was the truth. All he had was Tara and Daisy.

  “I’m glad Daisy’s one of the people we can count on, because when we only had each other, we ended up in a sweatshop.”

  Vick barked a laugh. “Smart aleck.”

  He asked Daisy to scout around and find them a place to sleep, maybe an apartment in an abandoned building. Daisy took off.

  Before they’d had Daisy they didn’t dare sleep indoors where people like Rando and Torch could stumble on them, but with Daisy watching over them they could sleep wherever they wanted.

  “Now that we have Daisy, things are going to turn around.”

  “Because she can steal food for us?” Tara asked.

  The question made Vick sting with guilt. “That’s only for emergencies. We need to figure out ways we can use her to earn money legally. Enough to rent a real apartment.”

  “With royal blue carpet and shell tile in the kitchen. And a white concrete birdbath in the backyard in the corner by the water recycler?”

  “Yes. Just as good as the one we lived in with Mom.” It felt good to be able to say that.

  “Only, without Mom.”

  Vick’s throat tightened. “I can learn to cook all the foods you love, and we’ll have movie nights where we throw all the pillows and couch cushions on the floor and lie in them, the way we used to.”

  “I’d like that.” She looked a few feet to Vick’s right. “You’re a good brother. A lot of brothers with a sister like me would have ditched her at a shelter by now.”

  “You know I’d never do that to you. You’re stuck with me.”

  Could kids rent an apartment? Vick didn’t know. Maybe he could pay some homeless adult to pretend to be their parent. First, though, he had to figure out how Daisy could make them some money.

  On a Saturday afternoon, the sidewalk outside the Planet Lucky Gambling Emporium was like a street fair, with vendors selling everything from fedoras to super-caffeinated fruit juice, and card tables set up by small-time operators offering every sort of game of chance, most of them probably fixed.

  There weren’t many kids around, but the looks they got as they crossed the street were probably because they had a watchdog with them, not because they were kids. It seemed like everyone was suddenly interested in watchdogs, the same way some people were fascinated by jacked-up trucks and sports cars with flames painted on the sides. Something about custom machines got people’s blood pumping.

  As soon as they took up a spot along the sidewalk and Vick told Daisy to sit down, people started coming up to look at her. He’d been awake half the night worrying about how two kids would get a bunch of grown-up gamblers’ attention. It turned out to be no problem at all.

  A guy with slicked-back hair wearing an old white suit leaned in close to Daisy’s face. “What sort of programming does she have?”

  “It’s all custom work,” Vick said, trying to sound older than he was.

  “You looking to sell her?” the guy asked. He said it like he didn’t care one way or another.

  Tara huffed and started to speak (even though Vick had asked her over and over to let him handle this). Vick spoke over her. “We’re just showing her off a little.”

  “I’ll bet you fifty dollars my watchdog can clean up all the trash around here,” Tara blurted.

  Vick wanted to scream. He’d planned this all out, how he was going to move the conversation around to the trash and lead up to the bet, all the time acting like a dumb sucker kid.

  The man chuckled at Tara and ran his hand through his greased hair. “That’s a nice piece of work, little lady, but as far as I can see it’s still a robot.”

  Vick had thought long and hard about what sort of bet he could win with Daisy. Clearing trash was easy for people, but impossible for a bot. Too many decisions without clear rules to follow. You could tell them to throw out everything on the ground that was not a person or a chair—they could do that just fine, but don’t ask them to figure out what was trash and what was someone’s coffee they’d set on the ground beside their chair between sips.

  Vick pinched his chin, trying to look like a sucker. “I don’t know, I think she might be able to. She’s awfully smart.”

  Laughing, the man turned to an older guy sitting behind a nearby table. “Hey, Jay, you hear this? Their watchdog can clean up all the trash for us. What do you think?”

  “Bud, I think I’d better hang on to my shoes or they’ll end up in the trash.”

  Others nearby laughed at the crack.

  “Oh yeah?” Tara said. “I’ll bet you she can do it. A hundred bucks.”

  Bud stopped smiling. “Let me see your hundred dollars.”

  Vick folded his arms to keep his hands from shaking. “We’ll put up our watchdog against your hundred.”

  Jay, the old guy behind the table, stood. “I’ll take that bet.”

  Bud took a step toward Jay’s table. “It’s my bet. They offered it to me.”

  Jay raised his hands and sat back down. “Fine. It’s your bet.” He didn’t look happy about it, though. He was going to feel a whole lot better about it in a couple of minutes.

  “We need a moderator here,” Bud called, while he waved like he was flagging a taxi.

  A large woman with graying hair hurried over. “I’ll do it. What are you betting?”

  Bud tilted his head and smiled. “These young people here believe their watchdog can clean up all the trash, and only the trash, in this area. I’m betting a hundred dollars against their watchdog that it can’t.”

  The woman looked at Vick. “You sure you want to make that bet?”

  “Yes.” A hundred dollars. Man, could they use a hundred dollars.

  The woman tilted her head and gave Vick a long look. “All right, then.” She put one hand on her hip, and then pointed out the area that would be included in the wager. No one seemed to notice that Daisy was watching with interest, acting nothing like a dumb bot. “My word is final on whether something is trash, and my fee is five dollars, paid by the winner.”

  Vick nodded. So did Bud.

  “Here you go.” Jay held out a plastic bag to put the trash in. He gave Vick a look like You poor little stupid kid as Vick thanked him.

  “Let’s go, then.” The moderator folded her arms.

  Tara took the bag from Vick and squatted next to Daisy. She handed Daisy the bag. “You know what to do. Sorry we couldn’t think up something more dignified to bet on.”

  Daisy accepted the bag. This being Chicago, the ground was littered with wrappers, Styrofoam cups, a smashed phone, even a ratty sneaker with half the sole gone. Daisy started in one corner of the area the woman had pointed out. As she approached Jay’s table, Vick could see Bud grin. Jay had set his beat-up phone down beside his chair.

  “I want you to remember this,” Jay said to Bud. He’d done it on purpose.

  Daisy picked up the phone, sat on her haunches, examined it to see that it worked, and set it back down.

  “Wait a minute.” Bud was scowling, suddenly not enjoying himself so much.

  Daisy s
canned the surface of Jay’s table, then lifted a Styrofoam coffee cup and looked into it. There was a half inch of coffee in it. She set it back down, then picked up the Snickers candy bar wrapper sitting beside it and tossed it in the bag.

  “Go, Daisy!” Tara jumped up and down, her arms raised in the air.

  When the discarded sneaker went into the bag, Bud had seen enough. He pointed at Vick. “They’re cheating.”

  “How are they cheating?” the moderator asked. She didn’t sound skeptical, more like she desperately wanted to know how Daisy was doing what she was doing.

  Bud sputtered. “I don’t know exactly. No watchdog can do what that one is doing. Maybe one of their friends is hiding in there.”

  A small crowd had formed. They muttered in astonishment, and cried out in surprise as Daisy tossed the smashed phone into the bag.

  “Hundred dollars. Hundred dollars,” Tara sang.

  Daisy paused at a piece of gum partially stuck to the pavement. She looked up at Vick.

  “No coaching!” Bud shouted. “It’s a forfeit if you coach.”

  Daisy looked at Bud before plucking up the gum and dropping it in the bag, just to be safe. Vick was certain if Daisy could make facial expressions she would have been glaring at him.

  When the area was spotless, Daisy handed the bag to Vick.

  “Hundred dollars. Hundred dollars,” Tara sang louder.

  “Hang on,” the woman said. “I want to take a look at your watchdog.” She bent close to Daisy and moved her head from side to side, trying to see into Daisy’s seams to make sure there wasn’t a kid crouched in there. Finally she straightened. “It’s a robot.”

  “Then how can it do what it just did?” Bud asked.

  “You got me. But you owe them a hundred dollars.”

  Bud folded his arms, making no attempt to reach into his pocket.

  “Daisy, that man owes us a hundred dollars,” Tara said.

  Daisy walked over to Bud, and then rose on her hind legs until her face was inches from his. The awful metal-scraping-metal sound of her growl rose from deep in her throat.

  Bud took out his wallet, counted out a hundred dollars, and handed it to Vick.