The 217th Performance on Our Voyage to Mars

CHAPTER 1 (3)

The audition notice was issued by two partners, a genius and his sidekick.

The sidekick was Leo Arbinger, a forty-three-year-old songwriter who had never made it to the top over the past two decades of his career.

The genius was a lot more special. He was a robot, and not even an android, but a robotic dog. His name was Marsalu.

Arbinger met Marsalu at a 2ndgalac, a secondhand electronics chain store. He had just received a long-awaited payment and was shopping for a new cooking robot. The old one, which had been programmed to cook six hundred dishes, had broken and could conjure up nothing but pasta now. For the past three months, Leo's meals had been an endless repetition of three pasta recipes, which had made him simply loathe noodles these days.

An average middle class family would long have had this household necessity replaced. Arbinger had been sticking to his malfunctioning machine because of not only thrift but also an emotional attachment. It had been with him for fifteen years, after all.

Arbinger had been browsing in the vast store for twenty minutes before roaming into the pet department and serendipitously picking up a silver miniature bulldog from the top of an enormous pile of mechanical pets. It was one of those enduring classic models, first launched onto the market three decades ago, primitively designed but cheap and likeable, and thus still occupied a market niche. It'd bark properly and execute simple instructions such as "Run," "Sit," and "Fetch the bone."

Arbinger pressed on the power button on its stomach and put it on the floor. He ordered it to run, sit, beg and roll over. The dog's left hind leg was broken, which caused it to limp. Leo played with it for a few minutes, and then the phone part of his watch computer rang up. It was a music producer, calling to commission him to compose a song for a small-time singer. The pay would be meager, but Arbinger needed business and so readily took the job. The producer hung up, and Arbinger picked up the robotic dog and shut it off.

Right after being placed back onto that huge pile of robotic bunnies, kittens and hamsters, the mechanical dog talked.

"What is your dream?"

Arbinger was naturally taken aback.

His first reaction was to double-check the pushbutton on its stomach.

"Get your hands off my belly! Shoo!" warned the robotic dog, moving its jaw up and down, in a gruff male voice that'd suit a cantankerous middle-aged chainsmoker. "The power button is a disguise! I'm automated! You wanna answer my question or not?"

Arbinger was a curious man.

"Um, sure. My dream is...well, to write a hit song."

"That's all?"

Arbinger wasn't sure how to respond and so pondered more seriously.

"Maybe more than one hit song, then. I'd like to become a top music producer, making money along the way. Big money, preferably."

This begins to feel exceedingly surreal and foolish, Leo thought. I'm actually confiding my dream to a robotic dog! He considered ignoring the machine and walking away, but it went on.

"Do you want it to come true?"

"Huh?"

"Your dream, dummy. Do you want to make it happen?"

Arbinger stared in amazement at the robotic canine and suddenly realized that he was intrigued. Yes, this still feels surreal, he thought, but perhaps not that foolish after all. Rather, it was getting uncannily rousing.

"I do."

"Then take me home. Buy me."

Leo came to his senses.

"You mean you will help me make my dream come—but you're just a...robo-dog!"

"I'm super intelligent. I'm just trapped in this body. Listen, this is your lucky day if you're smart enough to recognize one. And I'm giving you one last chance. Buy me now or bye."

Being a true artist, Arbinger tended to follow his heart. Screw it, he thought. I'll just stick to pasta for another few months.