The Dare
For the last year, ever since they were declared ready for their first mission, Chief Anderson had, with a diligence that bordered on the religious, donated a tenth of the G-Force team's earnings to charity on their behalf. A tenth of everything: their basic pay, their per diem allowances for the maintenance of their cover activities, their combat pay, test pilot fees, racing winnings, bar tips, pet-sitting earnings, wages for semi-casual labour down at the docks, boat charters, everything. Gross.
The Chief's rationale for this when first pressed for an answer ran thus: "Considering that you have come to enjoy your incredible privilege and fortune as a result of the contributions of others, the least you can do as a token of your personal appreciation would be to give others the opportunity to rise above their circumstances." The notion of additional sacrifice didn't exactly please ('Our money *and* our lives', as Jason put it) and 'fortunate' and 'privileged' weren't exactly the terms that they'd have chosen for their current situation, but the Chief was unmovable on the issue and they did come to resign themselves to it. His only concession was to allow them to nominate which charity to donate to and so it was that one charity dedicated to helping children displaced by war and one animal rescue (the latter at Keyop's insistence) came to benefit.
It'd come to a surprising amount of money. So surprising that Mark, out of the sense of initiative with which he was abundantly cursed, decided to go it one better: to canvass the staff of Center Neptune for voluntary donations and round out the year with a truly amazing sum.
Thus far, Mark had not been getting very far: some small change, some vague pledges, some promises to 'think about it' and he had begun to entertain the notion that it wasn't the brightest idea he'd ever had. Things changed when he got to the Maintenance Department. More accurately, things changed when he asked Jim Zhao for his contribution.
Jim stroked the collection of hairs he was trying to nurse into a goatee and said, "D'you know what would help, Mark?"
"What?"
"A gimmick, a challenge, something to grab people's interest. You'll be surprised at how much folk'll agree to donate in return for you pulling a stunt."
"You mean something like running the Los Angeles marathon backwards?" Mark asked.
"A bit too obvious, but something like that."
Someone else ambled by and suggested: "How about 1000 back flips, one right after the other?"
"I don't think so," Mark said.
More people crowded round, offering suggestions in varying degrees of feasibility and good taste and arguing the relative merits of their proposals amongst themselves, to Mark's increasing confusion and alarm. He was on the point of quietly sneaking off when Robert O'Loughlin, the department head, brought it to a rapid end with his suggestion: "I would pay good money to see you spend a day with 7-Zark-7."
"But wouldn't that mean taking Zark away from his duties?" Mark asked.
"Not necessarily. We could install a secure access point in your home so Zark could continue monitoring Nerve Center Control remotely. Plus you'd be doing us a favour."
"How so?"
"We've been needing to finish testing of the Meta-2 system and the Zark unit interferes with it."
"You mean they're not compatible?"
"No, I mean it interferes. Twice we've had to do major repairs to the Meta-2 because Zark hit it so it shorted, once it nearly overheated because its coolant was leaking out of a pipe 1-Rover-1 had gnawed on. It gets loaded down with billions of requests -- Zark calls it a 'little friendly chatter' -- just makes it impossible for it to properly work. We're weeks behind schedule and QTL is getting antsy at the delays. You don't have to make our problem yours but if you did take on this challenge, you'd be doing a good thing in more than one way."
"Well, if you put it that way. . ." Mark said it doubtfully, but Robert grabbed his right hand and started to pump it vigorously in gratitude and that was that.
It took a few hours to work out all the details and contingency plans and a little while longer to get Chief Anderson's approval, but it was sorted out in the end and the pledges started coming in. At first they dribbled in, $10 here, $20 there, but as engineers went round to Mark's place to reseal the windows, upgrade the air-conditioning, install HEPA filters, install CCTV in tasteful locations to verify the challenge's completion, fix all the things Mark had been after his landlord to deal with and lay down the matting Zark travelled on, they started to flow in in earnest, in their $50's, $100's and by-the-hours. Mark's landlord was a) pleased at all the work he no longer had to do and b) decided Mark could afford to pay more rent. About this Mark was a) displeased and b) determined to make the best of the situation. When all was ready, he said: " With all the trouble you guys have been through, I feel I'd be cheating if Zark stayed for just 24 hours. Let's make it 48."
The amount pledged doubled.
So it was that at 6pm one Friday, just after dark, a moving van pulled up on the tarmac in front of Mark's house and two men unloaded a large crate, which once wheeled inside, opened to reveal a smaller Lucite crate containing a very excited 7-Zark-7. At 7pm, the men left, satisfied that all was as it should be and the challenge officially started.
Young man and robot regarded one another in silence for a while and to break it, Mark gestured round the interior of the place and asked, "So what do you think of my humble abode?"
Zark's diodes flashed up and down his face while he consulted his vocabulary for the best word. "It's. . . cosy. Cosy but adequate."
"Well, we're going to be sharing it for a while, better get used to it. There's a couple of things I'd like you to not do: first, no peeking out of the blinds and no speaking or moving if there are visitors over unless I specifically ask you to. Matter of fact, I might have one soon. The guy who delivers the aviation fuel often drops by when he's done."
Zark said, "That would be Peter Dawson. 46 years old. Married, twice divorced, currently contesting paternity of a child by another woman. Called 'Toots' by his first wife_"
Zark would have continued but Mark asked him to stop. "I don't need to know any of that."
"Which corner would you like me to go to?" Zark asked. "He's on-site now."
Peter dropped in fifteen minutes later. He looked round and whistled. "Wow, this certainly looks a lot better. What'd you do to make the old Skinflint finally pony up?"
"Long story, Pete. Why don't you close the door so you stop letting the cool air out and go grab a root beer?"
"One day Mark, you're actually going to have grown-up drinks in that fridge of yours," he said as he went to do so. On his return trip, he noticed Zark standing immobile where a tacky novelty umbrella stand would normally have been shoved. "What's this?"
"It's a wireless jukebox," Mark said. "Only I haven't gotten round to setting it up yet."
Peter crouched before Zark. "I don't see any plug outlets, means of putting in any media or control panels. Definitely a new design."
"It accesses songs from a server and it's voice-controlled."
"You mean if I asked for Beethoven's Fifth Symphony_" Peter didn't get any further for that very work started playing from the loudspeakers on the other side of the room. "Thought you said you hadn't set it up."
Mark disguised his feeling of astonishment behind an expression of mere surprise. "I guess it's more seamless than I thought."
"Cool. How about Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' ?" That started up with a second's delay.
For an hour, while Mark watched with a mix of worry and amazement, Peter tried a wide variety of music, both common and obscure, to test the new jukebox's abilities. It didn't get one thing wrong and when Peter rose to leave, he said to Mark: "If you ever get tired of this thing, sell it to me."
"That was fun," Zark said once they were alone again.
"How did you do that?" Mark asked.
"Just the way you said."
Mark stretched and yawned. "Well, I'm afraid I've had a very long day, so I hope you don't mind my turning in early. Goodnight Zark."
Saturday, 7am. "Wake up, Mark."
Mark raised his head from the pillow to goggle blearily at Zark. "Huh? Oh go away Zark, it's Saturday."
"Nevertheless, it's very important to keep a regular sleep-wake cycle. Wake up, Mark."
"Look. This time yesterday, I was on a planet where their idea of a day was one Earth week. That whole concept doesn't apply to me."
"On the contrary. It's more important to re-establish proper sleeping patterns after a disruption. Wake up, Mark."
"Is there anything I can say to make you go away?"
"I'm afraid not."
Mark sighed in exasperation and flung off the duvet. He broke out in goose pimples. "Zark, do you mind if I turn down this air-conditioning a bit? This is a little hard to take in the morning."
"I'm afraid I do. This is my optimum operating temperature."
As far as most people know, Mark almost always turns down offers of coffee and this has led them to conclude that he doesn't like the beverage. That's not quite true. The case is Mark loves coffee, so much so that he prefers to savour a good cup on certain occasions, such as when he's in a good mood, felt relaxed and wanted to ease into the day. Despite the rude awakening, this morning qualified overall, so he unearthed the airtight container of roasted kona coffee beans (purchased directly from an estate on Hawaii when he'd been on a trip there) from the freezer, measured out just enough for four cups and ground them in a mill designed not to crush or overheat the beans. His main concession to convenience was a percolator with unbleached filters that collected the extract in a thermos flask so it kept the coffee hot without burning it.
He took his first cupful to his office window and watched the airfield come to life. He would rather have been doing his watching from the patio, but going outside would put him too far away from Zark for the challenge to stand, so this was the next best thing. He'd rather have had the latest weather report in one hand as well but he could see it was going to be a very nice morning at least and as he wasn't going to be going anywhere today, it wouldn't be useful.
The first cup went down well, but when he went to refill it, Zark tried to pull it out of his hands saying, "You've had enough, Commander. My sensors indicate that if you have more, it will affect your reflexes and concentration adversely."
"Okay, okay. I'll pour it away. Just let the cup go before you splash coffee over yourself."
Zark let go and Mark discarded both the cup's contents and those of the thermos flask. He had a lighter breakfast than usual, owing to a disapproving robot reminding him of the dangers of over-eating.
9am. The ordeal of breakfast over, Mark decided to tackle the backlog of his paperwork, which currently threatened to form overhanging mountains on his desk. Mark picked up the first stack of papers, looked at the top sheet, rifled through them and set them down again. "Zark, did you do any rearranging here?"
"Why yes, I'm so glad you noticed. I put all the papers in alphabetical order staring with the first word on the paper."
"I see."
Mark got his desk back in its proper working chaos about noon. As he started to transcribe the first of his notes into a more legible format, Zark, who'd read Mark's mood accurately and had accordingly made himself scarce, came up to ask: "So why do you keep the ancient 3Ghz computer that's in the corner?"
"Because it does its job just fine."
"What would that be?"
"Printing out weather reports, typing up reports I've finished writing and not talking back. Why don't you make yourself useful and bug someone on Center Neptune?"
"I am. I'm multi-tasking," Zark said, but shuffled further away. He picked up one of the reports in Mark's 'to-type-up' pile and read it.
"What is it now?" Mark snapped as Zark came up a minute later with the original sheet and a page from the printer. He snatched both sheets and glanced at them, then started to read more slowly. "Hmmm," he said.
"I didn't understand all the short-hand you used but I hope I haven't taken too many liberties with the text," Zark said.
"No. Actually this is pretty good. Very good. Go ahead and draft the rest of that pile for me. Just so you know, the c with the dash over it means 'because'.
The job Mark had feared would take until Sunday evening to do got finished that afternoon. Including the invoicing. And finishing and submitting the last mission report. At half past five, Mark rose from his desk and said, 'Thanks Zark. When you retire, I definitely want you for my secretary."
Zark tittered. "It's nice to know that there's an alternative to the Robot's Retirement Home, but I won't be considering your offer anytime soon."
The phone rang. It was Princess. Mark asked Zark to excuse him, went to his bedroom and closed the door. They'd been having a nice conversation for a while when loud and clear as a foghorn came Zark's voice: "I wonder, Commander. Do you really intend to do that to her or is this part of what you humans call pillow talk?"
A few moments of shocked silence followed from the humans then Princess, who had a better sense of humour about this than Mark, recovered enough to laugh and say, "I guess I'll leave you two to have fun," before hanging up.
Mark walked out of the room white-faced and silent. He went by Zark without acknowledging his presence, found his toolbox and walked back by Zark still without glancing in his direction. He opened the door leading to the garage, paused to turn on the lights and went through, slamming the door behind him.
Zark opened the garage door a few minutes later and found Mark laid flat on the ground by his motorcycle, trying to undo a bolt. There being no special matting to walk on -- not that it would have done any good on the stepped entrance -- Zark flapped his way over to where Mark was. The latter did not acknowledge his presence. Zark started to quote:
"In Part One of formal scientific method, which is the statement of the problem, the main skill is in stating absolutely no more than you are positive you know. It is much better to enter a statement “Solve Problem: Why doesn't cycle work?" which sounds dumb but is correct, than it is to enter a statement "Solve Problem: What is wrong with the electrical system?" when you don't absolutely know the trouble is in the electrical system. What you should state is "Solve Problem: What is wrong with cycle?" and then state as the first entry of Part Two: "Hypothesis Number One: The trouble is in the electrical system." You think of as many hypotheses as you can, then you design experiments to test them to see which are true and which are false."
"You know Zark, I *do* read my own books. Tell me something I don't know."
"You're using the wrong size Allen key for one."
Mark threw it down and found the correct-sized one.
"I form the impression that you are doing this as a displacement activity."
Mark ignored him.
"Am I correct in deducing that I have committed a faux pas in participating in your conversation?"
Mark gave Zark what could be well described as a dirty look.
Zark sighed, succeeding in sounding put upon. "I am programmed to note and record whatever conversations of yours I can. If there are exceptions to that rule, logically it would be better for you to set them for me than to pull that poor vehicle to pieces."
"Right. I'll keep it real simple. When I talk to someone using my bracelet, it's public conversation. It's good to keep a record of that. When I talk to someone over the phone, it's private conversation and they are not for you to listen in on or record or participate in in any way. Understood?"
"Yes. And I think I know what is wrong with your motorcycle."
"Other than it being in pieces?"
"Other than it being in pieces."
Zark did too and it ran better than before when Mark put it back together.
Cleaning up and dinner passed entirely without drama as Zark was taken up with monitoring a 'little' situation out by Jupiter. Mark settled down behind the TV set and channel-surfed for a while before being captured by a less-stupid-than-usual thriller movie.
Engrossed in it, Mark failed to notice when Zark got done with his monitoring and ambled over. He failed to do more than shush Zark when the latter tried to engage him in conversation, only paying attention when Zark pulled out his boomerang and started playing with it.
"Hey, be careful with that!"
"Don't worry, Commander, I'm really good at this now." If Zark had been a better student of human nature, he would have recognized that statement as one of the famous last words. As it was, only the TV died, bursting into flames when it found the boomerang buried within its innards.
As Zark shuffled to safety, Mark yanked out the plug and went for the fire extinguisher. A little later, surveying the smoky, foamy pile, Mark let the empty extinguisher drop and buried his hand in his hair as if he were going to try yanking a fist-full out. "Oh God, I can't believe you Zark. And I'd just finished paying for it too."
Zark was silent, which Mark took to indicate some shame on his part, but then Zark spoke. "God: any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or aspect of life or who is the personification of a force. I fail to see what that has to do with the context in which you used the word, Mark."
" That does it. I am going to bed. And Zark, if you wake me at seven tomorrow, I will kill you. That is a promise."
Sunday, 6am. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. . .!
The sound shattered Mark's sleep, sending him right out of bed and into a defensive crouch on the floor, boomerang in hand. He found the source of the racket standing shamefacedly at the foot of his bed.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. . .
"What's with this noise, Zark?" he half-yelled.
"I'm sorry but my dust filters have clogged up."
"Okay, okay! Turn off the alarm!"
"I can't."
"Stay here!" Mark staggered past Zark and closed the door behind him. It didn't do much for the noise. He called Maintenance's emergency line.
He didn't need to explain the problem. "Yeah, we know," came the voice over the phone. "We're on our way. Expect us in ten minutes."
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. . .
Mark leaned against the wall by the front door and covered his ears with his hands. For him, the sound gave no quarter -- it drilled into his teeth, rattled his eardrums, made his skin prickle, sent his heart dancing and his blood pressure soaring. His strongest impulse was to stop the noise by applying a little high explosive to Zark, but that would mean failing the challenge. His next strongest one was to run outside, but that too would be a failure. He would have loved to transmute and gain relief in the form of the noise-cancelling helmet, never mind the risk of someone looking in to investigate but that would have meant getting dressed, which would have meant going towards the noise.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. . .
Nine minutes later, the helicopter landed on the tarmac outside.
It took the engineers less than a minute to turn off Zark. Mark collapsed into the sofa with relief when blessed quiet filled the house. They were nice enough not to remark on Mark's clothing. The air-conditioning had forced him to dig out his fuzzy teal pyjamas instead of going to bed in just his boxers as was his preference, so it wasn't too bad.
One of the engineers perched on the sofa's armrest and asked Mark, "How you doing now?"
"Better now the noise is gone," Mark replied. "What kind of earplugs have you guys got for that?"
"None. It's not that bad," came the reply. "Just a bit irritating. 'Course, some people might be more sensitive to it," he added as he took in Mark's expression. "More seriously though, I thought we did make it clear that Zark needed to be protected from dust. What happened here?"
"It was probably the TV that did it," Mark said, gesturing to the wreckage of the TV and the large patch of soot on the ceiling. Zark threw his boomerang through it."
"No, that couldn't have helped."
"Or it was the garage."
"You let him into the garage?"
"He *let* himself in. Flew over to me."
One of the engineers working on Zark looked up and said, "Lay off him, John. What's really gunked this system up is this mass of white powder."
"I don't think I have any white powder in the house," said Mark.
"I'm sure we'll find out what it is soon enough."
"So," said John. "Do you want to end this challenge?"
"No, no. I'll see it through. I've put up with Zark for thirty six hours; twelve hours more won't kill me."
"Suit yourself. We'll fix Zark up and see about reducing the particulate matter load then."
"That works."
John pushed himself off the sofa and went to work. A few minutes later, from the kitchen, he asked, "got any coffee?"
"In the freezer if you don't mind grinding the beans. Help yourselves," said Mark.
They did.
Mark started awake and realized that he was still in his pyjamas on the sofa, that he'd been asleep for a few hours, that it was blissfully quiet and that he was very hungry. The quietness was due to the engineers having left and cleaned up the messes of yesterday behind them and to Zark minding his own business elsewhere.
The hunger was no surprise. What *was* a surprise was finding his fridge bare of anything other than a few sticks of celery. In the freezer he found only his container of coffee beans, nearly empty. The dry goods space was completely clean and bare; the only thing on the counter top remotely resembling food was the thermos, still half-full of lukewarm coffee. There wasn't a crumb on the floor, a speck in the sink and the bins were empty. It might as well have been a display kitchen for all the evidence of food there was.
"Zark? Come here a minute?" he asked.
"Yes Mark?"
"Did you… rearrange the kitchen?"
"Yes Mark. I was shocked by how much of your food was old. It's very bad for you to eat anything over a week old."
"I bought the eggs and milk three days ago."
"When I looked the eggs were *three hours* over their due date and Maintenance drank your milk. It was a really tough job -- there was this bag of flour you hadn't properly sealed. It went everywhere."
"I see," said Mark. He felt too tired to be annoyed. Instead, he had a shower, found his clothes and called Jason.
"I'm on my way out, so this'll have to be short," Jason said by way of greeting.
"Could you do me a favour?"
"Depends."
"Could you pick up some groceries for me? Zark jettisoned every scrap of food in my place."
Jason made a snorting sound that could have been ill-concealed laughter with a dash of schadenfreude. "Well, you're the one who wanted to shack up with the rust bucket. Go yourself or get a delivery."
"Be serious. I can't leave this place without losing the challenge and I don't want any delivery man coming over -- there's no telling what Zark would do. Are you going to help me or not?"
"Not. No time. Bye."
"Zark, did you hear what Jason said?" Mark asked.
"No Mark. You specifically asked me not to monitor phone calls."
"Good, you remembered."
Mark found a far more sympathetic audience in Tiny and when he showed up an hour and a half later with Keyop in tow, he brought with him everything Mark had asked for -- and enough cooked food for a family of six to picnic on with plenty of leftovers for the next day. "Thought you might be too hungry to cook dinner first," Tiny said by way of explanation.
"I love the way you think," said Mark. "Keyop, come through and help me set the table."
Zark was also delighted to see company. "It's such a pleasure to finally meet the two of you. I do appreciate Princess and Marks' visits but I do think of all of you."
Tiny dissembled. "Oh you know how it is… with one thing or another, there never seems the time to get round to it. Anyway, how are you finding it here?"
That was a mistake for Zark took it as invitation to describe all he'd seen and surmise on them. The minutiae of a person's personal habits are rarely pretty and Tiny found himself increasingly embarrassed for Mark's sake. Keyop drifted away from laying the table to listen avidly which egged Zark on. Mark came into the room to drag Keyop back to work just in time to hear Zark say: "… and he has this most peculiar bathroom habit_"
What that was would never be known, for Mark hit him then.
It wasn't a hard blow: more of the open-palmed slap given to an old malfunctioning television set in the hopes of jolting it to more favourable behaviour. It had the desired effect in that Zark stopped what he was saying. It had a less desirable consequence in that Zark was more pleased than shocked by it. "A surprise attack! I always wanted to try my hand at sparring!" Zark said and before Mark could consider the implications of that statement, punched him square in the solar plexus, then followed it up with an uppercut to the chin as Mark bent double.
For several seconds, robot and humans regarded Mark's prone figure, Tiny and Keyop aghast, Zark bemused. Zark straightened up to regard them, set his arms akimbo and said, "You know, I'm almost disappointed by how easy that was. I've always felt that I could fill a more active role in G-Force and I'm sure Security Chief Anderson would promote me to the team if I could prove myself against you as well."
Tiny and Keyop were up and considering their best response long before Zark finished. Keyop had an idea. "Hide and seek!" he shouted.
Zark was pleased. "What an excellent idea, Keyop! I suppose it's only fair to give you a head-start."
" …only fair …count to 1000."
As Zark shuffled obediently to the nearest corner to do so, Tiny picked Mark up and carried him to his bedroom while Keyop disappeared.
Tiny laid Mark out on the floor and checked him over. His colour was good, his breathing was steady, his pulse was strong and nothing went crackle that shouldn't, so it looked like despite being caught unawares, nothing was ruptured. He put Mark in the recovery position and listened.
"310, 311, 312, 313…"
The robot was counting fast. _And we always thought Zark was harmless,_ Tiny thought. Tiny took out his gun and flipped off the safety. He had no idea if Zark's chassis was armoured, but he was willing to take a chance that it wasn't or that a good shot would shock Zark's systems enough to allow him to get close and dismantle him. No point in getting hurt unnecessarily. If only he was sure of where Keyop was…
"699, 700, 701…"
Zark was counting faster now. Not much time to deliberate. He couldn't risk raising Keyop by bracelet anyway: it'd be as good as telling Zark. Tiny moved Mark against the bed so he would not roll over onto his back when he started coming round and went to the door.
"998, 999, *BZZZZZT* *CRACK*"
Tiny inserted himself into the living room with a speed and flair that would have impressed the most demanding SWAT team chief to find a smouldering Zark standing in a pool of fluid and Keyop perched off the ground on a chair holding the now empty coffee thermos. Keyop looked at Tiny and shrugged a 'this-seemed-the-easiest-way' shrug.
Tiny smiled. "Good man. But I sure don't look forward to explaining this to the Chief."
Keyop shrugged again to indicate that he didn't really care about that.
"What's going on here?"
They turned to find Mark standing unsteadily in the doorway, one hand to his head.
"Let's just say you might wish you were still out cold," Tiny said.
It caused a bit of a controversy, but most people agreed that the challenge could be considered completed despite its unconventional ending and whether from pity, amusement or admiration of pluck, far more donations than pledged flowed in from Center Neptune staff on seeing the CCTV footage. A lot of donations came from QTL after those staff with sufficient clearance were given copies of the footage by way of explanation for the Zark unit's untimely demise.
The doctors found nothing broken and so the only remaining ordeal for Mark was the meeting with Chief Anderson two days later (for the Chief had been away earlier).
"Chief, I accept full responsibility for everything that happened. It was reckless and foolish and I understand if you dock my pay to offset the damage I've done. The only thing I'll ask of you is not to take it out of the charitable donations. That'd be punishing people who don't deserve it. "
The Chief said nothing for a minute then said, gently, "Mark, I instituted the obligatory donations as a constant reminder to you guys of who you're really working for, not as a means of punishment. You've suffered enough. Besides, you have also done us a favour."
"How so?" asked Mark.
"The Zark system was always intended as a stop-gap measure and keeping it patched up and running has been increasingly expensive. By destroying Zark, you've forced QTL to finish implementing and testing Meta-2 ahead of schedule and it's now fully functional with Susan as a back-up system. The Accounts department estimates that you've saved us $500,000 up front."
Mark considered this. "Five hundred thousand saved is five hundred thousand you would otherwise not have had and is thus as good as earned, right?"
"You could consider it as such. You want a tenth of it."
Mark nodded. "To charity."
Galaxy Security's direct contribution of $50,000 to the kitty brought the total raised from the challenge to $70,000 and brought the total amount donated by G-Force that year to $250,000.
It did a lot of good.
_________
Bibliography:
Passage quoted from. Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Definition of 'god' from The Visual Thesaurus: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/index.jsp
