The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual.

Opening theme song by Rui Nagai

THE BIG O:

ACT 30: PRICELESS

Big-O!

Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!

Big-O!

Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!

Cast in the name of God!

Negotiator

Ye not the guilty!

Android

We have come to terms!

Butler

Big-O!

Officer

Big-O!

Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!

Big-O!

Big-O! Big-O! -O! -O! Big-O!

Chapter One: Roger's Mentor

My name is Roger Smith, I perform a necessary job here in the city of Amnesia. Over forty years ago every human and every robot lost all information on what had happened prior. But humans are adaptable creatures. If they're smart enough to figure out how to get electricity, they can still have a civilization. The only ones who regret this loss of memory are the city's elderly.

"Danny Kirk," said the voice on the telephone.

"Danny Kirk is not here," The slender teenage girl called R Dorothy Wayneright replied. "You must have the wrong number."

"No, I'm Danny Kirk," the voice said with mild amusement. "I know that's hard to believe, but it's really me! I'm calling to see Roger Smith. If I know him he's sleeping his life away instead of seizing the day. Tell him that I'll be dropping by in the next half hour will you?"

"Very well," the pale girl with the red pageboy haircut acknowledged. "I shall inform him of your arrival."

Sleeping in was one of the few pleasures that Roger Smith indulged in, aside of a good meal. The man named Roger Smith ran his life by a number of rules designed to keep his life in order and enforce self-discipline. The time that he got up was the sole exception, or at least the only exception he admitted to. Left to his own, he could get up at six o'clock in the morning or six in the evening. It all depended on how he felt that day.

For the past year or so, it hadn't been left to him. Since R Dorothy Wayneright had come to live him she had been waking him up with frightening regularity, her preferred method was playing a sprightly piece of classical music from the piano in the parlor outside his bedroom. The particular tune had just the right combination of liveliness and audacity combined with the somber elegance that Roger Smith preferred for his home.

"Unh, have a heart won't you?" A bedraggled Roger Smith groaned as he staggered out the door in his pajamas carrying a pillow. "I know that you're an android, Dorothy but surely you can't be so heartless…"

"You have a visitor," Dorothy interrupted as she looked up from the piano. "A Daniel Kirk. From the sounds of things you two have met before."

"Danny Kirk?" Roger smiled. "Well I'll be! Thanks for waking me up, Dorothy. I better go make myself presentable."

Dorothy frowned as her eyes became narrow slits. As an android she was able to maintain a neutral expression whether being granted her fondest wish or being lit on fire, so why was she expressing an emotion now? Was she trying to be 'more normal' so she could fit in?

"Daniel Kirk to see you sir," the tall elderly butler named Norman Burg announced when Roger had finished breakfast.

"Great!" Roger smiled. "Show him in, will you?"

"That's impossible, because I'm already here!" a stocky fireplug of a man announced as he strode into the room. "Roger!" he extended his hand.

"Danny!" Roger seized the shorter man's hand and shook it as if he was pumping for oil.

Dorothy Wayneright took the opportunity to compare the two men. Roger Smith was young, apparently in his mid-twenties. His white shirt was nearly hidden by the double breasted polo jacket he wore, but his black dress slacks and matching shoes were visible. A black tie bisected by a gray stripe was knotted around his throat. Roger's broad shoulders and trim waist indicated both strength and agility. His jet-black hair, strong jaw and high cheekbones on his boyish face made him the definition of 'tall, dark, and handsome'.

Danny Kirk was an older man but it was hard to tell how old he was. Grey peppered his rust colored closely cropped hair and his red face wore its wrinkles well. Yet in spite of his advanced age and his portly build he was still a handsome man. He wore a blue business suit in the same style as Roger Smith.

"How's it been, Roger?" Danny clapped him on the shoulder. "I hear you took the Paradigm Corporation for all it was worth!"

"They deserved it," Roger laughed. "I squeezed every nickel I could out of them!"

"That's my boy!" Danny gushed. He seemed to notice Dorothy Wayneright for the first time. "Why Roger, who is this lovely young thing? Where have you been keepin' her you sly dog you?"

"I assure you, it's nothing like that," Roger blushed. "Dorothy Wayneright, I'd like you to meet an old friend of mine."

"Danny Kirk," Danny seized her hand and put it to his lips. "Paradigm City's top negotiator! At your service. Any service." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"I thought Roger Smith was Paradigm City's top negotiator," Dorothy deadpanned.

"Ah, you only think that because I trained him so well," Danny retorted. "In the past forty years, no negotiator has ever held a candle to Danny Kirk!"

"I see," Dorothy replied in a bored tone.

"Never failed a negotiation yet!" Danny bragged. "In my entire forty year career I've always found a way to come to terms!"

"Always?" Dorothy raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Always," Danny smiled smugly. "Danny Kirk! It's a famous name. I'll say it again so you don't forget it!"

"I shall try not to," Dorothy said condescendingly, "but I find that very hard to believe. No one can succeed every time."

"I can," Danny insisted. "That's why you should remember my name. Danny Kirk! Remember it!"

"It's true, Dorothy," Roger nodded. "I've never known him to fail to bring two parties together."

"Never?"

"Never," Roger shook his head and smiled. "Of course, he picks his negotiations a lot more carefully than I do."

"Never let a challenge get in the way of a perfect record!" Danny bragged. "That's Danny Crane's Rule Number One!"

"So you also have rules then?" Dorothy asked. "Is this an occupational hazard of negotiators or…"

"You don't understand, Dorothy," Roger interrupted. "Danny Kirk is my mentor. He's the one that got me into negotiations in the first place."

"When I met this kid he was a lieutenant in the military police," Danny pointed his thumb in Roger's direction. "I was called in to settle a hostage negotiation and they put the kid here on phone until I arrived. I got there just in time to hear him convince the gunmen to release their hostages. I couldn't believe it. It was amazing! Of course I had to convince them to actually give themselves up, but Roger had already done all the work for me. Afterwards I told him to stop wasting his time as a Paradigm lapdog and let me train him in the fine art of negotiation."

"There are other negotiators in the city then?" Dorothy asked skeptically. "I thought that Roger was the only one."

"Of course there's more than one negotiator," Roger teased. "Otherwise the reputation of Paradigm City's top negotiator wouldn't mean anything, would it?"

"No, it wouldn't," Dorothy said dryly.

"Ooh!" Danny punched himself in the chest. "She got you, Roger! She got you! There's no way I'm going to match wits with this lady sober. Alfred!" he shouted to the doorway where Norman Burg was standing. "Get me and the lady a drink! Gin and tonic! Unless you'd rather have something different…?" he looked quizzically in Dorothy's direction.

"I don't drink," Dorothy told him.

"You don't?" Danny gasped in disbelief. "Roger, you pervert! This girl is underage! Do you want to get arrested? Do you want to get me arrested?"

"Danny, R Dorothy is an android," Roger explained in exasperation.

"Little cutie-pie there?" Danny pointed at Dorothy. "You're kidding! I thought that she just had an artificial hand or something."

"My entire body is artificial," Dorothy explained, "but I can eat and drink a little for decorum's sake."

"Can you do… anything else?" Danny asked gleefully.

"Danny behave yourself," Roger scolded. "R Dorothy is my guest!"

"Keeping her for yourself huh?" Danny shrugged. "Well I don't blame you. I wouldn't share this cute little thing either! Danny Kirk!" he shouted at Dorothy. "Remember that name in case things don't work out here."

"The name will be difficult to forget," Dorothy assured him dryly.

"So what brings you over here?" Roger asked. "Norman, put some chairs out on the patio. Danny you look great," he said to his older friend.

"You too, Roger," Danny smiled. "You haven't aged a day since I met you!"

"Here is your gin and tonic, sir," Norman handed Danny a full tumbler. "And in the future, my name is Norman, Mister Kirk."

"Norman?" Danny seemed confused. "What the devil are you talking about? What did I call you?"

"You called me 'Alfred' again, sir." Norman fiddled with his moustache.

"I did?" Danny blinked. "Sorry about that, my mind was wandering. Won't happen again Alfred."

"I'm sure it won't sir," Norman groaned. Norman Burg was a tall elderly man whose thin white hair clashed with his bushy eyebrows and full mustache. The black eyepatch concealing his left eyesocket could make him appear intimidating at first glance, but the elderly butler's kind and genial nature quickly dispelled such a notion. Strangely, Norman appeared rather intimidating right now though.

"So Danny, what brings you to my door?" Roger asked conversationally. "I'd think that after all that's happened you'd have your hands full with all those hotel deals."

"Hotel deals?" Dorothy repeated.

"That's right," Danny nodded. "In my old age I've confined myself to getting people better deals on hotel rates. With those giant robots leaving people homeless I'm in big demand! I perform a much needed job here in Paradigm City. If it wasn't for me, entire families would be on the street!"

"Can your clients afford you?" Dorothy asked.

"I don't charge them that much," Danny shrugged. "To be honest, I've been so successful that I could have retired years ago. I only negotiate now to pay for my liquor… and a little recreation," he winked.

"It's true," Roger nodded. "I'm surprised you're still working."

"I'll keep working as long as people still need me," Danny retorted, suddenly becoming serious. "At my age, sometimes it's important to feel needed."

"Dorothy, you don't mind if Danny and I borrow the patio do you?" Roger smiled politely, but his eyes were alert.

"Not at all," Dorothy replied stiffly, "I have chores to do anyhow."

"Thank you," Roger nodded as he and his old friend left the room.

At the top of the white tower that was Roger's home was a rooftop patio, decorated with marble columns. Norman was placing two lawn chairs near the balcony with a little table in between that held two bourbons on the rocks. He nodded to Roger and Danny before he left.

"Now out with it, Danny, what are you doing here?" the young negotiator asked.

"That's it?" the older and shorter Kirk snorted. "No foreplay? No dinner and dancing first? You sound like a P.I. Roger, not a negotiator."

"I guess I've taken too many investigation jobs," Roger shrugged as he sat in the left lawn chair. "I've gotten so used to dealing with tough guys and lowlifes that sometimes I forget how to treat my friends. But are you ducking the question?"

"Hell yes," Danny snorted as he sat in the right chair. "You bet your life I'm ducking the question. You got to feel things out before you close the deal, Roger. You just can't ask them to make you an offer. That's not how it's done."

"It is if you're not getting any younger," Roger chided. "If I want to close the deal, I need to know what the other party wants. Sometimes you need to ask."

"Point taken," Danny sighed as he picked up a glass of bourbon. "I need a favor, Roger. I'm really stuck. It's hard to ask you to do this."

"It's okay, Danny," Roger assured him. "Even the great Danny Kirk needs help sometimes. You wouldn't believe how many times the great Roger Smith has to ask for a favor. Go ahead, what is it?"

"You remember that conversation we had a while back?" Danny asked him. "The one on the balcony?"

"We've had a lot of talks out on the balcony," Roger shrugged. "You'll have to be more specific."

"It was the one about mortality," Danny shifted in his chair uncomfortably. "Do you remember when we asked each other how we wanted to go out?"

Roger downed his drink in one long gulp. "It's coming back to me."

"Good," Danny nodded. "Then you know what I want."

"Nothing doing, Danny, I'm not going to do it," Roger grunted.

"Come on, Roger," Danny whined. "You promised!"

"I only promised just to make the conversation end," Roger snorted. "You know that I never intended to go through with it for one minute!"

"A deal's a deal," Danny smiled mischievously. "Sometimes you have to wear down the other party to close the deal."

"Come on, Danny, knock it off," Roger grunted.

"A deal's a deal, Roger," Danny insisted. "When the time comes, you promised to shoot me! Well the time is now!"

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

Next: Danny's Dilemma