“I’ll assemble the team,” said The Driver. “We’ll get your daughter back.”

  The smile in her eyes said that there was nothing to fear.

  The Man, though, had so many concerns. What if it was too late? What if The Doctor had already done something? Would she ever recover? And would she ever forgive him?

  There were those concerns, and there were others too. The look in The Driver’s eyes for example. What was she expecting; The Driver that is? Now that they had had sex, did that mean they were in a relationship? Should they hold hands and kiss more often? Should he tell her that he loves her, or should he act like he just doesn’t care? What if she leaves him too and he has to go through all of this again? Should he break up with her, or should he invite her to help him buy a new sofa?

  The Driver slapped him once; a firm stinging slap.

  “It’s gonna be fine,” she said. “Trust me.”

  A few hours ago she had said the same thing except she was wearing nothing but a corset and a pair of knuckle dusters. He believed her then so why shouldn’t he now?

  The Driver gathered her team. If she had a plan, she sure as hell wasn’t telling anyone. It’s not like the others had an opinion to voice. There was little doubt and even lesser dissent. Her every word and command was clear and precise like a hammer strike.

  “Where’s the robot?” she asked.

  It wasn’t so much a question as it was a clear directive; “Bring him to me.”

  “It’s Justice Man.”

  The worry in her voice needed no further explanation.

  “My friend?” said Mr. Robot.

  “He needs your help.”

  In that second, Mr. Robot remembered all the wonderful things they had done together; like that time they were taken hostage and he accidentally killed the girl he was trying to save. He felt guilty for a second until he remembered how quickly The Man had forgiven him; like any good friend would do.

  There was also the time he stopped his friend from killing himself. He felt terribly sad when he remembered his friend up there on the ledge and how weak and emasculated he looked. Then he remembered how he had saved his friend, and he terribly guilty that made him feel. And finally, he remembered the promise he had made; and promises could not be undone.

  “Anything for my friend,” he said. “And for my utility.”

  He imagined what his reward might be. He wondered if it might be tangible or not. Would his consciousness update? Would his components upgrade? If it were points, would they be written somewhere or kept in a log? Would there be a ding? Would there be a ribbon or a sash? Or would anyone even notice at all?

  “What about you?” said The Driver to Dave.

  “I would come, but I’m not that man anymore. Look at me,” he said, exposing his skeletal chest. “Look at what I’ve done to myself.”

  He looked old and tired. He looked withered and worn. More so, he looked scared out of is fucking wits. “I really would. But I can’t live up to those days anymore. And besides, he’s Justice Man, he doesn’t need anyone.”

  “Yeah well,” said The Driver inhaling loud and disagreeable, “that’s your hero.”

  On the floor by the bed, The Man rolled back and forth and from side to side while curled into a tight little ball – his head nestled firmly between his knees. He may have been trying to burrow through the centre of the Earth or maybe he was just ironing out his sore back; what was worrying was how long he had been doing this, and how difficult it was proving to get him to stop.

  “He’s gonna fight even though there’s fight left in him. And you, what are you gonna do? You’re only as good as the very next thing you do. So what is it? You gonna be a smackhead or are you gonna be Punition Boy?”

  He could hear his girlfriend in the background calling somebody a cunt.

  “Fuck it,” he said as if those words were a mantra for making the right choice. “If you’re gonna die; die a fucking hero.”

  The Driver turned to the robot.

  “Pick him up, would you?” she said.

  Though the order gave him a sense of purpose and utility, what Mr. Robot enjoyed the most was holding his best friend so close to his motherboard. It’s not to say he wasn’t fond of the midgets, it’s just they were so light and awkward in his arms; imagine if you will an infant trying to nurture and coddle a raisin. But The Man felt heavy in his arms. He had to adjust so as not to topple over. And it was this which brought him happiness. Anything for his friend.

  “What’s going on?” said The Man, sounding like he had just woken from a coma.

  Mr. Robot smiled.

  “We’re going find you a train,” he said, smiling how a shitty robot from the eighties might smile. “And I’m going to kill you,” he said, in a quiet and almost trance-like whisper.

  Mr. Robot rocked his best friend back and forth in his arms while the radio he didn’t know he had, played an old German nursery rhyme – in German. And as strange and as frightening as it all seemed, it worked. Within a minute or two, The Man was calm again and back on his feet; you could almost say he was relaxed.

  “Hold my hand,” he said.

  Almost.

  “He looks as if he may be in shock,” said Mr. Robot, helping The Man into his seat. “And according to Web M.D,” he said. “He may also have cancer, but this is debatable.”

  “He doesn’t have bloody cancer,” said The Driver, buckling The Man’s belt. “His kid has been taken by some fucking psycho, and we’re gonna help him get her back.”

  She stared back at the useless clump of flesh that she hadn’t so long ago fucked.

  “Hopefully we get him back too.”

  The other heroes were panicky and jittery; as usual.

  “Where are we going?” asked The Leader, sounding anything but.

  “The University,” said The Driver.

  A wave of fear swept over one and all.

  “No fucking way,” said Dave. “That’s insane. No fucking way.”

  The Leader and The White Knight both gulped. It was obvious that neither of them was equipped for this. Outside the confines of their bedrooms and studies, the world was mean and dangerous; people actually got hurt. The Man on the other hand, while completely useless, was still accustomed to chaos and confusion.

  The Leader leaned over the centre console.

  “We can’t do this,” she said. “No-one goes into The University uninvited. And those that do; they never come out again.”

  The Driver was undeterred.

  “You can’t be a hero without a little danger.”

  “Haven’t you had enough for one day?”

  “Stop the car, stop the car,” shouted Dave.

  The van shuddered to a halt.

  There was a look of shame in his eyes as he unbuckled his belt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re all square; we are. I just can’t, is all.”

  He could barely lift his own head, let alone look anyone in the eyes.

  “I’m just a fucking junky,” he said, as he ran down the road.

  The drama of his exit was contagious. The Leader and The White Knight both stared at each other as if one or the other had the power to do something. Their silence was deafening. Their hearts were filled with so much fear; you’d think they’d be used to it by now. Seeing a damsel in distress, finally, The White Knight mounted his gallant horse.

  “Take us home,” he said, his voice sounding like a pre-pubescent vinyl.

  “Too late for that,” said The Driver.

  “But I don’t wanna die.”

  “There is no better inspiration to fight. ‘Tis better a noble death than no death at all.”

  The White Knight tried to summon all of his intellect and all of his masculine pride.

  “We’re driving straight into the heart of that black abyss,” said The Driver.

  Her stare was impenetrable.

  “If you stare into the abyss,” said The White Knight, finally raising his discord.

  But The Driver laughed as she planted her foot on the floor.

  “Nietzsche was a fucking pussy,” she said.

  23.

  “Did it work?” asked Mr. Robot.

  More than anything, he wanted to know how humans corrected themselves. He himself had sat through more than a dozen surgical or mechanical procedures, depending on one’s view of humanity. He was a robot so of course he never felt a thing; he had no nerves or nociceptors. That’s not to say that he didn’t panic hysterically, though, every time he was on the table. Though he couldn’t feel each cut and solder, the thought alone of what was being done was always an overwhelmingly negative experience. The other thing he hated was popping balloons.

  “I’m not sure,” said The Man. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  It seemed like nothing would get him his superhero powers back.

  “Do you feel different?”

  “A little, but not like I used to. It’s hard to explain. It’s just different.”

  “Different how?”

  It seemed as if Mr. Robot was trying to diagnose his own worries and bothers.

  “Different to how I thought I’d feel.”

  “Relieved?” asked The Driver, swerving through traffic.

  Mr. Robot very rarely felt relief. He felt panic quite often. He was constantly scared of things that most people took for granted. The worst was the fact that one day he would not exist. That idea alone haunted him. It echoed beneath every other idea that he had. He thought about it all day long and if he was to think about something else, it would be in spite of or as a result of this one hallowed truth. Whether or not there was an afterlife for robots brought him little comfort. What exhausted him was not only thinking about death and how scared he was of it, but also how no one else seemed to care. Was he the only one who could hear the hand of time ticking in his thoughts? Was he the only one who felt the sands of time eroding beneath his mechanical feet? Was he the only one who struggled to find meaning in life, and yet yearned for a meaningful death? Was he the only one who felt this way?

  “Yeah, I suppose,” said The Man; though he didn’t sound relieved.

  “What about superpowers?”

  “No, none at all,” he said, squeezing a clenched fist. “I really thought this would work. It was playing on my mind. I thought that was it, you know? Like some clump of pubic hair clogging up a drain. What if I can’t get them back, though? What if I’m no longer Justice Man? If I’m not someone’s husband, I’m not allowed to be anyone’s father, and I can’t be the hero I’m supposed to be; who the fuck am I?”

  “You’re thinking too much.”

  “I don’t know who the hell I am.”

  You were a hero before, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So you’ll be a hero again. You just need to chill out and stop focusing on the problem so much.”

  Stop focusing on the problem? Was she insane? They were about to confront a supervillain without so much as a superpower, let alone a plan. What the hell should they focus on?

  The White Knight thought about what his mother might be doing right now; whether she was wiping down the kitchen bench, folding his laundry, or shaking the last drop of wine into her glass. She always said that girls would get him into trouble and that he’d best just stick to the television shows and video games. He always thought she was being a little hyperbolic but as it turns out she was completely right. He wished he was home; safe with his favourite television shows, computer games, and his online girlfriend.

  The Driver-focused on her father. She had barely his image in mind; only what she could make of it from what she remembered as a child. Back then, all she ever wanted was get his attention and to show him; “Daddy, look what I did?” She believed in the bottom of her heart that if she was good enough, her father might very well come back home. Twenty years later and all she really wanted to say was, “Fuck you, dad, look what I did without you.”

  The Man, for a moment, thought about unending violence. It wasn’t the upsetting kind, those adrenaline packed thoughts of anticipated violence, no; this was the whimsical appreciation of violence from the past. If it was a colour it would be yellow.

  And he remembered every villain he had ever put behind bars and every tattooed thug he had beaten with a stick or his fist. And he remembered too, every nod, wave, and salute he’d ever gotten from the folks he had saved, from those that watched on, and from those who were scared to death of they, themselves, ever being caught.

  But that colour quickly changed from yellow to blue when he thought of the last face he would ever see. Hers was like staring into the sun. Her eyes were bright and blinding. And her smile was warm like a December night.

  Hers would be the last face he would ever see; for the second he saw her, everyone and everything in the whole universe up and disappeared. And it was just her for so long, and nothing else at all mattered.

  Before long he had hung up his costume, fired his sidekick, and started cultivating jars of kefir and ridiculous pet names for the woman he loved. Pretty soon he was no longer Justice Man; he was just an ordinary guy with an unimpressive life.

  He was you or I, or anyone we know.

  He’d been reckless with his past; in discarding it so effortlessly. His only grace was his girl. He may have abandoned his true self once upon a time but, at least with her, he had a tiny mirror. Though he wasn’t able to remember who he had once been, every time he looked in his daughter’s eyes, he saw who he truly was. She was the point of every discussion and the reason for every choice he ever made. She was his moon when she was gone, lighting up the darkness in his thoughts. The further she was, the more she pulled on the tides of his sadness and yearning. And whenever he saw her again, she was the sun.

  But as he sat in the van, The Man thought of his daughter bound and gagged in some rat infested boiler room. As he imagined her crying on the floor, alone and scared, his blood turned caustic and a rage quaked in his stomach; the kind that could lead a man to resort to wicked and indefensible actions.

  Mr. Robot, on the other hand, had only recently discovered his Wi-Fi function. The internet was so vast and overwhelming. He had the entire history of the human race at his metal fingers. With little effort, he could download and decrypt any file that he wanted. He could move satellites, bring down airplanes, or just erase the entire internet all together just to see what would happen. He could do anything. He could access everything. And yet he found himself looking only at porn.

  The Leader handled her anxiety by taking hundreds of photos of herself; and from all sorts of complimenting angles. Her expression didn’t look half as fraught as she felt inside. She looked determined, unrepentant, and totally hot. She also stamped her location of each shot so it was only a matter of minutes before every helicopter in town was buzzing about, shooting their blinding floodlights onto the surging traffic below; and it was maybe a minute more before The Assistant picked up their trail; and behind her, The Reporter.

  “Keep on them,” she screamed, almost running lipstick across her entire cheek as their van darted this way and that. “I’m gonna get that god damn award if it’s the last thing…”

  “What award?” said The Cameraman. “Are you ok?”

  It was now that The Cameraman really started to worry. The Reporter no longer looked determined; she looked demented. And he himself looked pale and sweaty as if some viral infection had taken hold.

  As he drove, he thought about all the decisions he had ever made in his life; and for every decision, each of the terrible and unfortunate outcomes. Like an epiphany, he had a moment of clarity where he lightly pondered on how many of those decisions had been championed by some undiagnosed and self-destructive, mental condition. He had never been a miserable bastard and he had never once written a poem, but this wasn’t the kind of thing that stable people did.

  “Watch out,” screamed The Reporter.

  The Cameraman slammed on the breaks and the van slid, almost smashing into the back of The Assistant’s angry beetle.

  “You idiot,” screamed The Reporter, running lipstick ran across her cheek. “Watch the god damn fucking road.”

  The Cameraman started to cry. It wasn’t much at first, just some wet sniffling, but as soon as The Reporter made a point of it, he wept like a lost child.

  There was a camera set up on the dashboard and scores of thick wires strewn about the front seat leading to some computers in the back and a satellite strapped to the roof. The Reporter made some quick adjustments to her blouse before a voice in her ear shouted; “On in five, darling.”

  She hated that name. One real story, though, and she’d never hear it again.

  “How do I look?” she said.

  She had lipstick smeared across one cheek and her eye shadow was so thick that it looked like someone had tried to teach her a lesson. She was desperate, though; she had to make the right impression.

  “My therapist was right,” said The Cameraman, barely legible.

  The Reporter was blowing kisses to the camera; oblivious to anything other than herself. She looked like a well-dressed puffer fish.

  “You just feed on low self-esteem; it’s like your plankton.”

  It didn’t matter if she responded or not; The Cameraman had opened Pandora’s Box.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “It’s mine. I put myself here, but you know what? I can get myself out. A leopard may not be able to change its spots, but it can sure as hell change where it hunts and sleeps.”

  He was still crying and it was almost possible to pick one word out from the other. That didn’t take away from the power of his message. He could change if he wanted. He could get out of this van right now and go anywhere he wanted. He could, but he probably wouldn’t.