Chapter Text
The sirens continued to blare above Gyro as he unscrewed the panels from his computer’s shell and peered at the circuit boards inside. What was wrong? How could he fix it? And why did Fenton have to be on vacation NOW? Sure, it was Ma Cabrerra’s birthday, and Fenton had wanted to take her to the seashore for the weekend, but Gyro needed help NOW!
“Why’s he gotta spend time with his FAMILY?” Gyro grumbled. “I haven’t seen my parents since…” He trailed off. There was a good reason he hadn’t contacted his family in years. Anyway, he was practically part of the McDuck clan now.
It didn’t matter. What mattered was the circuit board in front of him was perfect, and he couldn’t tell for the life of him what had gone wrong with the city’s power system. It had been a good idea, he was still sure of it, to collect the natural heat from decomposing garbage and redirect the energy into Duckberg’s municipal power grid. It was sustainable, and improved the life cycle of every product that every citizen used. The system had run flawlessly for the past month, and now, of course, as soon as he had no help in the lab, half the city had no electricity, there was some sort of wild signal coming from the main power system, and nearly all of the alarms in Gyro’s lab were blaring loudly.
Maybe it was something in the code? He replaced the plastic panel over the circuit boards and booted up the computer. A loading screen appeared, with a slowly rotating sand timer.
“Stupid machine. Load faster!” Gyro muttered, slumping down in his chair and glaring at the impudent hourglass.
Something knocked rhythmically on the outside window. Gyro jolted upright. That window was under the bay! How on Earth was someone knocking?
If he was surprised by the sound of the knock, he was absolutely floored when he turned to see the face and form of Mark Beaks, wearing what looked like a nineteenth-century diving bell and torn trousers, banging on the underwater window.
Gyro stared at him, open-mouthed. Beaks was gesticulating wildly with his hands, but Gyro had no idea what he meant.
“Look- I can let you in at the side door! Swim up there!” Gyro pointed, overaggerating his pronunciation. “I can’t let you in this window- it’ll flood!”
Beaks just stared at him. “The. Side. Door.” Gyro pointed upwards again. Beaks finally nodded and swam up, and Gyro quickly ascended the stairs, pushing the emergency exit door open. He stepped out onto a narrow wooden promenade just a few feet above the smooth water of the bay. A steep, narrow path led up to the Bin's main entrance and the bridge towards town . Beaks hauled himself up onto the dock, panting, and removed his helmet. A cascade of water poured out over Beaks’ already-soaked form. Gyro wordlessly handed him a towel, which Beaks took gratefully, rubbing it over his face and fluffing up his feathers.
“Don’t come in yet,” said Gyro. “You’ll get saltwater on the electronics.”
Beaks stood dripping on the dock, while Gyro rifled through the cabinets in the vestibule. “Here it is.” He pulled out something that looked like a small plastic cannon. He pushed a button and the front end began to glow red as he aimed it as the bedraggled parrot.
“Um, Gearloose? What are you going to---” Beaks was cut off as Gyro pulled the trigger and a burst of hot air blasted Beaks, causing his hoodie to billow out behind him and the diving helmet to roll off the dock back into the bay. Beaks looked startled for a moment, then patted his clothes as the air shut off. He was completely dry. “Oh. Thanks.”
Gyro gestured for Beaks to follow him down the stairs into the lab. A couple of Bulbs followed them, lighting the way. “What is going on out there? Half the city is out of power, and there’s no wifi signal anywhere in town! How am I supposed to get anything done?”
“You and everyone else.” grumbled Gyro. “What are YOU doing wearing an old-fashioned diving suit in the middle of the bay?”
“Glomgold’s idea.” Beaks ran a hand sheepishly through his hair. “He thought we could use his trained sharks to fix the power, but first we had to find some stinging jellyfish, because… well, I didn’t really pay attention to the whole slideshow” Beaks admitted. “Anyway, I lost him in a current, but then I noticed that your lights were still on so I swam over to see if you knew what was happening.”
“Yeah, I've got lights on." Gyro gestured to the array of Lil Bulbs that stood glowing on the various countertops of the lab. It was still dimmer than usual, but they could see well enough. "Though the computers are drawing from the backup batteries.” Gyro directed Beaks attention to the flashing alarm lights all over his desk. “It’s something with the sustainable energy network. I’m already trying to fix it.”
Beaks cocked an eyebrow at Gyro suspiciously. “Did the AI turn evil?”
Gyro sighed and put his face in his hands. He didn’t want to admit his greatest flaw to his biggest rival, but as Beaks had already guessed it, there was no use hiding it. “Probably. I can’t find anything wrong with the hardware.”
“Allright, probably the code then.” Beaks pulled a chair over and perched in front of Gyro’s screen.
“Hold up, Beaks. I’m not going to just let you look at my code.”
“How am I supposed to help you fix the problem, then?”
“How am I supposed to know that you aren’t here to steal my ideas? Or my equipment? Or my intern? ”
“Cabrerra’s not even here. His mom posted a picture of them at Swan City Beach an hour ago.” Beaks held up his phone as if to show the post, but no image appeared. “Boo, the seawater must have killed it.” He pulled out another phone, but it was likewise unresponsive. He shrugged and set them aside.
“Yes, I know where Fenton is.” Gyro glowered at Beaks. “What makes you think I need your help anyway?”
Beaks laughed. “There are,” he stopped to count, “Sixty-seven alarms and warnings currently going off in this lab. Your tie is undone, your hair looks like you’ve been banging your head against the wall, and your desktop is still stuck on the loading screen.”
“Ok, so maybe I could use a hand. What’s in it for you?”
“I like a challenge?” Gyro gaped at him, disbelieving. If Mark Beaks liked a challenge, maybe he would have created a worthwhile program by now. Something that advanced humanity, rather than just spun the money-spinner.
Beaks sighed. “Look, if you must know, I need the electricity back on A.S.A.P. We’ve just launched a new product. Making flip phones cool again!” he pulled a flip-phone from his jacket pocket, but, like the others, it was thoroughly impregnated with seawater, and began to smoulder in Mark’s hands when he pressed the power button. He tossed it away. “Big party this afternoon. Everybody who’s anybody in tech will be there. Including,” he dropped his voice a bit, “My mother.”
Gyro froze. He had met Mark’s mother, once or twice, back when the two of them were at university together before Mark dropped out to found Waddle. She was socially graceful, and popular even then, when she ran a magazine instead of a blog, and Gyro had found her utterly intimidating.
Mark’s eyes had a soft, almost pleading look. “I won’t touch any of your circuits, or machinery. Just let me take a look at your code.”
Gyro sighed. Fenton was gone, and Mark Beaks was here, and it was all to impress their mothers. Birth families weren't everything. Why did people put such importance on them? He looked back at Mark, the wailing alarms, and the hourglass loading screen on his desktop that seemed to have gained about three whole grains of sand since Beaks had gotten in here. “Fine. Don’t break anything.”
Mark tapped a few keys and the hourglass disappeared. “Why are you still running Doorways 7? You should really upgrade to version 9. Much less buggy.”
A few more keystrokes, and the compiler was onscreen. Mark started to scroll through it. “What programming language did you use?”
“Espresso. I know a lot more modern programs are using Boa, but I never really got the hang of it.” Gyro admitted.
Mark nodded and pulled up the hood of his jacket, staring intently at Gyro’s screen, scrolling rapidly through lines and lines of code. Gyro sat back and watched him, feeling a little awkward. It wasn’t just that his rival was looking through his work. It was that his rival looked so… enthusiastic. He wondered why Mark never seemed to apply himself with this level of determination at his own company, why everything was always a scheme to take credit for someone else’s work. He was obviously clever enough, and clearly dedicated to the challenge in front of him.
Gyro’s eyes wandered over Mark’s thin form and he shook his head. Yes, he found the Waddle CEO physically attractive. He had come to terms with that inconvienient fact a while ago. But he had also vowed to never act on his feelings. Sure, Mark was handsome, in a nerdy way, but he was also selfish, egotistical, and petty. Fortunately, Mark was too focused on the code to notice Gyro’s wandering eyes. He let himself dwell on the smoothly swept hair, the little dark-gray spots… Mark was shivering a little, he noticed. The underwater lab was always a little chilly. Or maybe the heat-ray hadn’t completely dried him off.
“Can I get you a coffee?” Gyro asked before he could stop himself.
“Triple-shot caramel macchiato latte, brewed at 189 degrees, full whip but no syrup.” Mark said automatically, without looking away from the screen.
“Um. Mr. McDuck doesn’t provide those sorts of frivolities for lab staff.”
Mark glanced up. “I’m not frivolous!”
“Says the guy with a trampoline park in his office.” Mark glared at him, but Gyro crossed the room to the coffee-brewer and started it up anyway. “Look, I can get you coffee, cream, and sugar. That’s it.” He pulled a milk jug out of the mini-fridge and opened a small cardboard box full of sugar packets. “Oh, or there’s probably still some cans of Hi-Energy Pep stashed under Fenton’s desk, if that’s what you’d prefer.”
Mark blinked at him. “Ok. One milk, two sugars.” Gyro handed a steaming mug back to Mark, then fixed a cup for himself before sitting down again. Mark, he noticed, was trying very hard to conceal the look of disgust on his face every time he sipped the drink, but soon he was absorbed in the lines and lines of code again.
“Ah! There’s your problem,” Mark said suddenly. “Come look.” He pulled Gyro’s chair closer so that Gyro’s chin was very nearly perched on Mark’s shoulder, and Gyro had to try very hard to not notice the soft fruity scent of Mark’s cologne. Or do parrots just naturally smell like that?
“It’s right here.” Mark pointed to the screen. “You’ve left a line break out of this if-loop. He pressed a key and the alarm sirens finally stopped wailing. “And you’re missing a set of parentheses here--” Mark added them and a few more warning lights blinked out. “And a close-bracket in the for-loop.”
Gyro heard a buzzing sound as the regular city power came back on, bringing the lab’s fluorescent ceiling lights back to life. Both blinked in the sudden brightness of the room as the Lil Bulbs dimmed themselves automatically and returned to their cabinet.
“I can’t believe it was a line break and some parentheses.” Gyro grumbled, slumping down in his chair. “Stupid mistake.”
Mark turned around slowly in his chair. “It happens. And honestly? The rest of it was brilliant. There’s not many birds in Duckburg who could construct a program like that.” He spoke softly, and tentatively reached out a gentle hand towards Gyro’s shoulder. Gyro, who was still staring angrily at the floor, jumped at the contact, and Mark pulled his hand back as quickly as if he had been burned. Whatever softness had appeared in his face was quickly replaced by his usual sarcastic sneer. “Of course, if you got with the times and learned Boa, your code might be cleaner. You might even come close to being as good a programmer as I am”
Gyro scoffed, and turned to his other monitor, which displayed a map of the city’s power grid. Most of the residential and commercial power appeared to be back online. The main transmission station was still surrounded by warning lights, as was… Waddle Headquarters?
Gyro raised an accusatory eyebrow at Mark. “Ah. That might be a… little side project of mine.”
“A side project.” Gyro pulled off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose.
“It didn’t really get along with your power-grid upgrades.” Mark admitted. “I tried to hook it in, but I guess a fuse blew somewhere in the building. I’ve been running on backup generators for two weeks, but…”
“But if my system’s AI has turned evil, it may have taken out your backup generators.” Gyro glanced at the now-updating activity log beneath the power map. He found an entry from about an hour ago, just before Mark had shown up at his window. Sure enough, there were a series of outages and electrical shorts centered around one of the buildings at Waddle. “Care to explain, Beaks?”
Mark looked embarrassed and shuffled his feet. Gyro sighed, then stood up, grabbing a few tools and stuffing them into his backpack. “Well, it's almost certainly a hardware problem. We’ll need to get over there before anything else shorts out. I’ll get Launchpad to give us a ride.”
He was surprised that Mark didn’t argue, but silently gathered his things then followed Gyro up the stairs out of the lab.