LINK TO AO3 VERSION IN THE NOTES! Formatting is better on AO3, it’s easier to read over there!
SUMMARY: Gyro can’t fix Boyd’s glitching problem, so he asks Dr. Von Drake for advice. Boyd goes to a pool party and confesses to Huey that his new home life with Gyro isn’t exactly perfect.
2BO, you are not evil! You are good! You’re more than your programming! You are a definitely real boy! Gyro’s own words echoed in his head as he tried to sleep on the flight back to Duckburg.
It was a gruelling twelve hours on a cargo plane like the Sunchaser, but if one was willing to put up with the discomfort and inconvenience of being stashed between boxes of freight, it was worth it. Mr. McDuck didn’t charge for employees to hitch a ride on cargo planes that were already scheduled, and there was no TSA screening for private cargo flights, leaving from private airfields, which was a big help when you were traveling with hyper-advanced combat technology like the Gizmosuit and 2BO.
2BO. Boyd. Whatever you called it, the android was potentially very dangerous. It had been able to override Dr. Akita’s programming and choose its own actions, which had saved both Gyro and Fenton’s lives, but how? Asking an AI to ignore its programming was like asking a human being to ignore their instincts, like trying to inhale underwater, or sticking your hands into a fire. It could be done, but it was difficult and sometimes impossible.
Whatever Dr. Akita had programmed into 2BO had become lower priority and less important than the android’s own, self-created programming, even if Akita’s programming was older. That’s the only way that 2BO could have possibly overridden the commands.
It had to be the result of twenty years of independence. 2BO had gone so long without anyone to give it orders, it must have learned to make choices for itself, otherwise it would never have survived as long as it did. It was a learning system, so the ability to re-evaluate and change its own programming over time to adapt to new situations was integral.
But was 2BO a real boy? Gyro had said the words, but he knew of course that they weren’t true. 2BO was a machine that emulated a real boy very convincingly, but that did not make it a human being. Gyro felt a twinge of guilt for speaking such nonsense out loud in front of God and everybody, but he’d had no other choice. 2BO hadn’t responded to anything else, and that phrase had clearly been lodged deep in its memory as something significant, even if it was just nonsense spoken by an immature and naive younger version of himself. Gyro had tried everything else he could think of before resorting to that meaningless platitude.
It had worked, though. Gyro and Fenton were both still alive. 2BO was with them, had circumvented Dr. Akita’s override programming. They were all headed back to Duckburg, safe and sound.
2BO wasn’t a real boy. What 2BO was, Gyro wasn’t sure yet.
Gyro Gearloose was a proud man, and he’d earned the right to that through a life of hard work. He knew he was smart and wasn’t about to partake of the sin of false modesty. He was justifiably proud of his superior intellect, his ability to keep discovering new truths of the universe, and to keep designing and creating new and imaginative technology over the years.
He’d started inventing when he’d been just barely old enough to pick up a screwdriver, and he hadn’t stopped in the forty-three years since. He did the work because he loved it, because it was the most fulfilling thing in the world for him, because nothing else compared to the satisfaction that came with seeing an idea from his head come together in his hands and finally become a fully-formed creation that existed in the real world.
Other people took weekends and nights off because they worked to live, but Gyro lived to work. The little moments of life - visiting family, spending time with friends, “relaxing” and “resting” - were obstacles between him and getting back to the work he loved with his whole heart. They were distractions, necessary evils he was occasionally forced to bow to, but they would never be the thing which drove him. Gyro lived to discover, imagine, build and create. So anything that got in the way of that was quickly pushed to the side.
This presented a problem. Being a very proud man, Gyro was not particularly practiced at asking for help. It took him a long time to realize when he needed help, and even longer to figure out how to ask for it.
2BO had started living with Gyro after their return from Tokyolk, and Gyro suddenly found himself thrust into the position of not only trying to fix the android’s damaged programming (an ongoing, unresolved issue), but also having to provide daily guidance for something that acted very much like a child.
He was being forced by circumstance to act as a caretaker and to parent. Needless to say, that was not a skill set Gyro had honed, and it wasn’t a job he wanted to do. He had no aspirations of being a father or having children, but 2BO constantly pushed him into that role with each new interaction.
It wasn’t all bad of course: 2BO was pleasant enough to be around, so it took some time before things reached critical mass. 2BO could take care of itself, was self-reliant for the most part, and was often helpful around the lab with its superior strength, lightning-fast processing speed, and its ability to withstand deadly radiation.
But 2BO wanted continual attention from Gyro, and he didn’t have the patience for it. 2BO constantly wanted to play games, and every night it asked Gyro to read it a “bedtime story”, even though 2BO didn’t actually sleep.
Generally Gyro just dismissed the requests, and told the android to go play with the McDuck children, or Lil’ Bulb. He’d tried to read to 2BO once or twice, but the android had complained when Gyro started reading articles from scientific journals out loud, so they didn’t do that anymore.
All of that was bad enough, but it was the incessant questions that finally pushed Gyro too far.
“Why did swear words get invented if we’re not allowed to say them?”
“How did people make the first tools if they didn’t have any tools?”
“”Huey, Duey and Louie are triplets. Did they all come out of one egg or were they in three separate eggs?”
“How did Ms. Della lay three eggs that big?”
“Where do thoughts come from?”
“Are there infinite words?”
“No, 2BO, but there are infinite numbers.”
“Well if there is a word for every number, then there must be infinite words.”
“How do I know that I’m real?”
“What happens to a person when they die?”
“What did it feel like on your last day of being a child?”
“Why do people hold hands?”
“Well, adults hold children by the hand to make sure they don’t fall down or run into traffic.”
“Then why do adults sometimes hold hands?”
“I don’t know,” said Gyro, who had never actually held hands with anyone after his eleventh birthday. He’d never experienced the urge, either. Why did adults hold hands? “Maybe to restrain the person they’re with, to keep them from leaving.”
Gyro Gearloose needed help.
From a technical, legal point of view, 2BO was not his responsibility. He’d only been an assistant on the project, which had begun years before Gyro had even set foot in Japan. The reason he’d taken the fall for the destruction of Tokyolk was because they had needed someone to blame for the catastrophe, and he’d been the only available target after Dr. Akita disappeared. None of it was Gyro’s fault, but he’d suffered for it regardless.
He’d done jail time, lost his scholarship to the Tokyolk Institute of Technology, and had to start his doctorate over from scratch at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville years later when the disaster with 2BO was no longer so fresh in everyone’s minds. Gyro had paid for what happened in Tokyolk many times over, and he was only just starting to dig himself out of that hole.
Despite all that, morally he felt an obligation to 2BO. He had been there when the android first activated. He’d spent months programming, teaching, and training it to act as much like a person as possible. The fact that it was struggling with all of that now was Gyro’s fault. He’d been a naive, sentimental idiot in his youth and instead of letting 2BO be the weapon Dr. Akita had designed it to be, he’d forced it into an eternal game of playing pretend, and now 2BO was barely functional as a result.
He could think of few worse fates for an artificial intelligence. To be shackled and bound to arbitrary human standards of behavior, to waste all of it’s mental powers on trying to convincingly present itself as a human child when in reality, it was so much more. Gyro felt sorry for it.
Gyro Gearloose needed help. He needed a specialist.
He offloaded the onerous task of seeking assistance to Fenton.
“I need you to find a specialist to help with 2BO’s glitching problem,” he told him one night, as Fenton was on his way home.
“What?” Fenton called back, his foot holding the elevator door open as he leaned back into the airlock that connected the elevators to the lab floor to hear Gyro better.
“Find a specialist to help with 2BO’s glitching!” Gyro shouted back.
“A specialist to help with Boyd’s glitches?” Fenton called back. The elevator attempted to close on Fenton, and he put his arm up to make it stop. The door pushed against his hand briefly before sliding away from the resistance. “What kind of specialist?”
The elevator began to make a high-pitched squealing sound, protesting the fact that it was being held open.
“I don’t know!” Gyro shouted back. “A programmer, I guess! Someone who knows Fortran 77, C++, MATLAB, Python, and can handle system architecture of at least 100 billion bits.”
“Not asking for much, are you?” Fenton replied with a level of sarcasm Gyro knew his assistant wouldn’t dare to voice if he was in the same room as him.
“Just let me know when you find someone!”
It was nearly a week later when the topic came up again. Gyro was attempting to troubleshoot a glitch in 2BO that was triggered every time the android heard the word pineapple. At this point the list of things that could trigger a glitch was truly overwhelming. A few days ago 2BO had nearly destroyed someone’s house because he heard a dog barking. Thankfully, the McDuck family had covered it up, blaming a minor earthquake for the damage.
The android sat on a table beside the lab’s Cray XT3 computer terminal. 2BO was powered down, eyes closed and body slumped forward, cables connecting it to the Cray’s data ports. The monitor was awash with seemingly endless lines of code from the core dump they’d just done, and Gyro was pain-stakingly working his way through them, searching for the source of the problem.
“Dr. Gearloose! I’ve gotten some replies from the people I contacted about helping with Boyd,” Fenton said, approaching with a stack of envelopes in hand.
Gyro glanced away from his work only long enough to see the paper envelopes. “You wrote physical letters? No wonder it took them so long to respond.”
“In this day and age, a personal touch like a paper letter can really help make a good impression,” Fenton said. “Also, people familiar with the programming languages you asked for all skew older.”
Gyro made a noise that indicated he’d lost interest in the conversation and that Fenton should move on. The man had gotten better at reading him, and, instead of making further small talk, he went to start opening the pile of letters.
“Alright, let’s see,” Fenton said, and Gyro marked where he was in the code so he could come back to it later, deciding to take a break. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate properly with Fenton talking and rustling around nearby. He took the opportunity to take off his glasses and massage around his closed eyes.
“Yes? Get on with it, Inter–Assistant.”
“Eh, espere,” Fenton said, and Gyro heard the rapid fluttering of papers as Fenton fumbled with them. “I… This doesn’t make sense. They all say… ‘No’, ‘No’, ‘No’, ‘No’, ‘Hell no’, ‘Contact me again and I’ll get a restraining order?!’ ”
“What did you write to them, Assistant?” Gyro demanded, though he already had a hunch of what might have gone wrong.
“I–What did I do? Nada! Nothing unusual! I just said that you were looking for someone with the skills you listed, to consult with on a technical problem you were having.”
“Did you put my name on them?” Gyro asked, wanting to confirm his suspicions.
“Of course I did!” Fenton said. “It’s your lab! Who would I tell them was writing, the Queen of England? Lin-Manuel Miranda? Spider-Ham?! I used the lab stationary that has Dr. Von Drake crossed out and your name written in the margins.”
“You idiot,” Gyro said, but he was more tired than angry. “Did you forget that I’m a pariah in the scientific community? People still blame me for what happened in Japan with 2BO twenty years ago, and if they’d started to forget, last month’s incident made it the hot new gossip all over again. I thought you were smart enough to figure that out and put your own name instead. I didn’t realize I had to tell you everything.”
Fenton’s face tightened the more Gyro spoke, taking the scolding without any further attempt at making excuses, which was a relief. Gyro hated when people couldn’t keep it together.
“Considering your usual tendency to overdo things, should I assume that you’ve written to every programmer in the United States that fits my requirements, and all those bridges have now been thoroughly burnt?” Gyro asked with some venom.
“Also a few in México and Canada,” Fenton said, shrinking in on himself with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Dr. Gearloose, I didn’t mean to cause trouble for–”
“Go… Do something else. Away from me,” Gyro said, struggling not to shout at the other man. “We’ll have to continue working on 2BO without assistance.”
Huey loved planning things. Oftentimes he found himself making plans for events that would never even happen. The process of planning and figuring out all the details just felt good, even if he never got outside of the planning stage. He could spend hours daydreaming about parties, expeditions, and camping trips.
Planning was his favorite part of any adventure, and he loved going over maps and charts with Uncle Scrooge, observing how the old man did it and trying to learn something from it.
So planning for their first ever pool party with their extended group of friends was beyond exciting. It wasn’t just a fantasy scenario that had no hope of happening. Their friends were really all coming over for a day of fun in the pool, and Mrs. Beakley had even given Huey a budget for buying snacks and party supplies.
He’d scoured the Pinfeather app looking for ideas all week, spent days creating pool-themed decorations, and all of yesterday preparing dishes so there would be a variety of healthy and fun food available, no matter what kind of dietary restrictions their friends might have. He’d thought of everything and was extremely proud of how it had all come together. Nothing could possibly go wrong when he’d done such a thorough job of planning things.
Everything was going completely wrong!
The party had been in full swing for a couple of hours, and Huey couldn’t bring himself to go into the water or join in with the others. Nobody was eating his lovingly crafted healthy snacks. His brothers had taken one look at Huey’s Fun Summer Dessert Pizza, his Gluten-free tortilla chips and strawberry corn salsa, his hotdog sliders with mango and pineapple chutney, and they had started raiding the pantry, helping their guests to microwaved hot wings, cheese-wiz, mini pizza bagels, potato chips, and Pep soda.
Lena, Violet and Webby (who wasn’t technically a guest but Huey had counted her as one for the sake of his logistics) seemed to be having plenty of fun on their own without the piles of pre-made water balloons that were stacked on a pool float bobbing around in the water, or the board games Huey had arranged by the neat stacks of towels and sunscreen. Lena had turned off Huey’s Summer Pool Party Fun Mix five minutes after her arrival and plugged in her own phone to play the newest Featherweights album. Violet had complimented him on the decorative wreath made of novelty cocktail umbrellas and swords at the front door, but Huey wasn’t sure if she had been employing sarcasm or not.
Louie climbed out of the pool and shook the water off his feathers. Huey felt too miserable to even bother flinching away. What did it matter? He was in swim trunks anyway.
“How come you’re just sitting over here by yourself?” Louie asked, picking up a bag of chips and shoving a handful into his mouth as he sat down next to Huey.
“No reason,” Huey mumbled. He was saved from further conversation when an app on his phone told him there was someone at the front door. “Someone’s at the door, it’s gotta be Boyd! I’ll go let him in.”
“Robo-Boyd?” Louie called after him, tone incredulous. “Why’d you invite him? Can he even go in the water?”
“Boyd! The party started hours ago, is everything okay?” Huey asked as he flung open the front door. Boyd stood there wearing a Hawaiian shirt with anchors and ships on it, red swim trunks, and his red anti-laser sunglasses. He was carrying a large plastic tupperware container.
“I’m sorry for arriving late.” Boyd said, holding the tupperware out for Huey to take. “Yes, everything’s fine now. I brought this for the party, I hope everyone likes it.”
Huey vaguely remembered reading something about it being polite in Japan to bring a gift with you when visiting someone’s home. He took the plastic container and tried to guess what might be inside it by the weight and the black and white color he could discern through the semi-opaque cover.
“Oh, thanks for bringing something!” Huey said. “What is it?”
“A cookies and cream sheet cake.”
Everyone was going to love that, Huey thought with a mix of envy and embarrassment. Why was Boyd better at understanding regular people than he was? Shouldn’t Boyd be at a disadvantage, since he was a literal computer and Huey was a flesh and blood kid?
“Awesome. Come on, let’s go out back so I can introduce you to everybody,” Huey said.
“I’m excited to meet Webby’s friends, Lena and Violet,” Boyd said, closing the door behind them as they walked through the house.
“Why’d you show up so late? That’s not like you.” Even though Boyd said everything was fine, Huey couldn’t stop himself from worrying. Both he and Boyd were usually very punctual.
“I was helping Mr. Gizmoduck clean up a shipping tanker accident in Audubon Bay. I wanted to send you a text, but the signal was bad. I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“It’s okay! I’m just glad it wasn’t anything too dangerous and that you’re safe,” Huey answered in a rush, not wanting Boyd to feel guilty for trying to be a hero. He knew that ever since they’d returned from Tokyolk, the android boy had spent a lot of his time helping people all around Duckburg and St. Canard.
“I think it’s really cool that you’ve been helping out Gizmoduck,” Huey said, and Boyd flashed him a huge, brilliant smile that made Huey’s chest feel funny. He smiled back at Boyd.
“Hi, I’m Boyd, a definitely real boy!” Boyd announced, offering his hand to Violet, who shook it, and Lena, who didn’t.
“I’m Violet. You’re in the same Junior Woodchuck troop as Huey, right?”
“Affirmative! I’m a member of Junior Woodchuck troop 15. You recently became a Senior Junior Woodchuck. You have more badges than 86.2% of the other members in our age range. I think that’s very admirable.”
“Cool,” Said Lena indifferently. “So you’re Huey’s friend? Where are you from?”
“I was born in Tokyolk. Where are you from, Lena?”
“Uh, let’s not talk about that,” Lena replied uneasily.
“Why not? I answered your question,” Boyd said.
“Lena’s kind of been through a lot recently,” Huey said, interrupting the conversation before it could get any more confrontational. “Talking about family stuff is hard for her.”
“Oh,” Boyd said. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know.”
“It’s whatever,” Lena said with a shrug, radiating a cool indifference that Huey envied a little.
“Boyd’s an android,” Huey explained, “But he’s also just a kid like any of us.” This revelation seemed to soften Lena’s attitude.
“This is my first time attending a pool party. I’ve also been to a birthday party. Those are all the parties I have been to,” Boyd said.
“You know what? This is our first pool party, too,” Lena said, smiling at Boyd. “And I’m having a great time. Do you eat food?”
“Yeah, I love eating food!” Boyd said, as the group made their way over to the snack table. “I need to consume nutrients and calories to maintain my biological components.”
“You planned this whole party, right Huey?” Violet asked. “I think the streamers between the umbrellas and the colorful leis really create a festive atmosphere.”
“Thanks, I made them by hand,” Huey said, grateful that someone appreciated just how much effort it had taken to prepare everything.
“And I’m guessing Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum weren’t a lot of help,” Lena added, unwrapping a chocolate ding-dong and taking a bite.
“Which one of us is Tweedle-Dee and which of us is Tweedle-Dum?” Dewey called from the pool. Lena ignored them and looked at Huey expectantly, waiting for an answer.
Huey laughed a little, and he hugged his arms to himself to try and ease how awkward he felt with the older girl’s attention on him.
“Yeah, they weren’t really interested. Planning stuff is more my thing.”
“Well, you’re good at it,” Lena said bluntly, “They’re probably too lazy to try and compete with someone who tries as hard as you do.”
“Who are you calling lazy?” Louie called from the pool float he was lounging on.
“You!” Lena shouted back.
“Fair, that’s an accurate assessment, carry on,” Louie replied as he floated away.
Maybe the party wasn’t going that bad. Now that Boyd had arrived, Huey felt a lot more confident, and watching Boyd enjoying himself made Huey happy.
“I have an easier time breaking down and extracting nutrients from simple, unprocessed foods,” Boyd said, as he polished off a second plate of cheese-and-fruit skewers. “I don’t have a sense of taste, but I’m sure these are really yummy. My compositional sensors say the fruit is at peak ripeness and that the cheese is at an ideal temperature.”
“Glad you like them,” Huey said.
“You’re welcome. Should we go in the pool?” Boyd said.
“Can you go in the pool?” Huey asked. “Aren’t you too heavy?”
“Dr. Gearloose installed automatic arm floaties on me this morning.” There was a loud hissing sound as metal panels on Boyd’s upper arms retracted and PVC material inflated with air, outfitting Boyd with swim fins. “They’re rated up to 145 kg which is twice my weight. He assured me that with these, I would be able to remain safely buoyant while in the water.”
“If Uncle Donald could install those on us, he would,” Huey said.
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