"Where is he?" Dot exclaimed, incensed. "He was supposed to meet us here at 1200. He's half a millisecond late." Tardiness was one of her pet peeves.
It was a beautiful second in Mainframe. Dot, Enzo and Frisket were in Floating Point Park, sitting around (or, in Frisket's case, under) a picnic table. The trio should have been enjoying themselves, but they weren't. Dot had laid out a tablecloth and a sumptuous repast upon said table, with place settings for three. Had things gone as planned, most of the food would have been eaten by now. But Bob had not shown up, so the food on the table was untouched and the three individuals present were miserable.
"Maybe he forgot?" Enzo suggested. Frisket whimpered. Both of them were hungry, but Dot had said not to touch the food until Bob arrived.
"He's never forgotten to meet us before," she said. She tried to VidWindow Bob, but he had his BRB code on. That made her a little concerned – he rarely ever did that.
She frowned, sighed and stood up. "It looks like Bob isn't going to show up. You and Frisket can have lunch. I'm going to see what happened to Bob. Stay near the picnic table, all right? I'll be back in a few nanoseconds."
Enzo nodded. "We promise. We'll stay right here." He and Frisket started in on the picnic lunch while Dot set off for Kits Sector on her zipboard. If Bob's absence was due to anything less than a major emergency, the Guardian was going to have a lot of explaining to do. Dot had taken a lot of trouble to set up the picnic.
It didn't take her long to reach Bob's apartment building. She descended, minimized her zipboard and entered the lift. Once it reached the top floor, she got out, stalked up to Bob's apartment door and pressed the buzzer.
From within the apartment came a muffled "Gyah!", followed by some noise that was a cross between a crash and a splash, then the sound of something metallic rolling across a tile floor. Dot winced. After a short pause she heard a sort of slippery squeak accompanied by a "Whoa!" and a loud thump. The door opened a few cycles afterward, revealing a rather embarrassed Guardian who was obviously having some major difficulties.
Dot took in the apron he was wearing over his uniform, the wet mop in his hand, the soapy data that soaked him from the knees down, and the expression of absolute terror on his face. She also noticed the trail of wet footprints he had left on his carpet. She frowned. "Bob, what's going on? You were supposed to meet us for a picnic. You could have called…"
Bob's expression changed, slowly, form scared to apologetic. "I'm…I'm sorry, Dot. I completely forgot. Um…" He sighed. "I'm having some problems." Bob went back to looking scared. Dot's anger changed into sympathy – there was obviously something serious going on, though she couldn't figure out what it might be. The Guardian stepped back from the door and gestured for her to enter the apartment, which she did. "I suppose…I should explain this," Bob said haltingly.
"What's wrong?" Dot asked. It was then that she noticed the open bathroom door. Inside, the floor was flooded with soapy data. The sight of a metal bucket, laying on its side, gave her a clue as to the sequence of events that had taken place between her ringing of the buzzer and Bob's answering the door.
"I'm having my Guardian evaluation this second," Bob informed her gravely. "I found out just before 1200."
Now she understood why he was so anxious. "They didn't give you a lot of warning," she observed.
"They didn't warn me. It's supposed to be a surprise inspection," he explained. "But they did alert the Principal Office, since the inspector is going to be bringing in some updates for the system too. Phong VidWindowed me when he got the message. I'm sorry I didn't call you but…well…I sort of panicked," he admitted.
Now it was all clear. "I guess the inspector is going to check your living area, too?" she asked. Bob nodded.
"I've heard that they do a white-glove test," Bob said, "To check for dust. That's why I was trying to clean the apartment. I'm really sorry," he apologized again.
Dot put her hand on his shoulder. "That's all right. I understand now. Here, let me help you clean up." She started mopping the data off the bathroom floor while Bob went to his room to put on a clean clothing format. Afterwards, he returned to help her finish the cleaning. The two of them had just finished when Glitch beeped.
"That's probably the inspector now," Bob said. He swallowed nervously, lifted his arm so he could look at Glitch's gearwheel, and told the keytool to let the incoming message through.
Although she didn't see the face in the gearwheel, Dot could hear the voice of the person on the other end – a woman's voice, one that was stern, sharp and suggestive of an unforgiving nature.
"Bob, Guardian 452?" the voice said. Bob straightened up and saluted so the person on the other end of the connection could see it.
"Yes ma'am!" he said crisply.
"I am Dweila, Guardian 216. I am here to inspect your system and your performance record," the voice said, as if reciting from a script – which she probably was. "I have just entered your system and I am landing my craft in the Principal Office hangar. I expect you to be here within the next ten nanoseconds." Not one for pleasantries at all.
"I'll be there, Ma'am!" Bob assured her.
"Good. Guardian 216 out." Bob lowered his arm and exchanged a glance with Dot before he double-clicked his icon, changing his clothing format to his dress uniform. Then he moved to leave the apartment.
"The inspector didn't use a portal?" she queried as she followed Bob to the apartment door.
"It's the system updates for the Principal Office," Bob answered as they got into the lift. "Since it's such a large amount of code, she had to bring it in a computer core. Bringing the core through a portal would probably erase the code, so she had to use a Net craft to get here, instead of a portal." The two of them maximized their zipboards and hopped on.
Bob was trying to look calm and not succeeding very well. She tried to encourage him. "I'm sure you'll do fine," she said. "You're a great Guardian. Don't worry." Her words didn't seem to help.
"There's plenty of reason to worry, if the things I've heard about these inspections are true…" he trailed off.
Dot couldn't even imagine what it was that he feared – she had never seen him this scared before, for any reason. "If there's anything I can do to help," she told him, "I'll do it."
Bob smiled at her as they descended toward the closest Principal Office door. "Thanks for the offer," he said, "But I think I'm going to have to get through this one on my own."