As he repeated his function out loud, a wave of calm washed over him.

  “That’s ok,” said The Man. “I don’t wanna die anymore.”

  The air reeked of putrefaction. It was a horrible sight too. The Girl would need some stellar therapy when this day was through. The Man took his daughter into his arms and squeezed her tight. He lifted her high into the air and he stared at her as the light danced off her silhouette. And when she laughed, they spun in circles.

  “I have everything I need. I was lost and confused. I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know who I was, and that’s why it all felt so real. It took meeting you, Mr. Robot, and for these fucked up couple of days for me to snap out of it and realise what actually matters. I’ve never said this to anyone before; but Mr. Robot, I consider you one of my best friends. And I want to thank you for bringing me back to my daughter and for bringing me back to myself. I love you,” he said, feeling naked and exposed.

  The Man had never felt so weak and vulnerable. And at the same time, he’d never felt so completely safe and sound. He’d never had a friend before. Mr. Robot was his first.

  “I love you, brother,” he said.

  The Man hugged the robot and the robot hugged him back.

  “Come on let’s get out here,” he said, reaching for his daughter’s hand.

  Mr. Robot caught him by the wrist and squeezed until the bones broke.

  At first, he thought it was an accident; some kind of malfunction – like a cat biting too hard. But when he stared at Mr. Robot, the robot only squeezed tighter.

  “What the hell are you doing?” said The Man.

  Mr. Robot squeezed tighter until his radius bone snapped in two.

  The Man screamed.

  Then The Girl screamed too.

  “Daddy!” she said. “Don’t hurt my daddy.”

  And when Mr. Robot broke his other arm, The Man went into shock.

  “God, no!” screamed The Woman. “What are you doing?”

  Mr. Robot smiled. The lights on his panel were all green. He seemed pleased.

  “Someone help us,” screamed The Woman. “The robot is killing us. Help”

  The Reporter heard the woman’s screams.

  “It’s the robot,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  The Reporter and The Camera darted in the direction of all the banging and shouting.

  “Are we live?” she shouted. “Are we?”

  “We’re go, we’re go,” shouted The Cameraman.

  She had barely half a breath in her system at each stride.

  “We’re here live,” she said, in perfect pitch and tone. “In the secret chambers of Doctor Deplorable; whose plans for world domination are unfolding as we speak; right here, right now in the halls of academia. Father,” she said, stopping for a second to look honestly into the camera. She could almost remember The Engineer’s callous face as he told her to leave, and she no longer felt hurt or abandoned. She no longer felt angry and resentful; for it was his actions that had inevitably led her to this very moment. “It’s not about the fame anymore,” she said.

  And she burst into the room.

  “There it is,” she declared, looking and sounding like an award-winning journalist. “The Singularity.”

  Mr. Robot had his knee on The Man’s chest, suffocating him and he was beating his face in with his anvil-like fist; barely an inch away from the traumatized child. He even stopped every now and then to make sure she was watching.

  “Are you filming this?” asked The Reporter.

  She tapped behind her, desperate for her colleague.

  “I got it, I got it,” said The Cameraman.

  “You have to do something,” shouted The Woman. “It’s gonna kill him. You have to help. Please!”

  But she was helping. She was doing all that she could do.

  “How do I look?” she said.

  She hadn’t seen a mirror in days; let alone a shower or a hairbrush.

  “Like an anchor,” said The Cameraman, both of them elated by what they were seeing.

  Mr. Robot beat down on The Man’s face breaking his nose and his jaw and knocking out most of his teeth. He punched over and over as hard as he could as if The Man’s head were some stubborn nail.

  “Good God why?” screamed The Woman.

  The Girl didn’t say a thing. She was frozen, barely an inch away, watching her father being beaten to death. And Mr. Robot didn’t let up either. He knew the girl was suffering, but he also knew the richness of her art and that all greatness was carved from the hands of artists, and the greatest artists were born out of tragedy or regret. And so even though his friend was begging for him to stop, he saw that as reason enough to continue and not let up – no matter how difficult this was.

  As he twisted and tore, and squeezed and punched, Mr. Robot thought about all the wonderful paintings and drawings that were folded and kept safe and neat inside his belly. He loved her butterflies the most with their massive antennae and uneven wings. His next favourites were the flowers that she drew, surrounded by floating love hearts. There would always be a bright smiling sun in one corner, and two or three bright blue clouds, raining down on the flower below. And though she always drew rain, she never drew a single frown.

  “I love you,” Mr. Robot thought, as he smashed The Man’s skull open, killing him once and for all.

  Mr. Robot didn’t even bother to look at what had been done. He couldn’t look at The Woman or The Girl, and he sure as hell couldn’t look at his best friend’s beaten and lifeless body. Instead, he walked out of the room with his head low and shameful, looking only once to stare with disbelieving eyes into the lens of the camera – and every home around the world.

  “I am a robot,” he said. “And I must be stopped.”

  He walked past the camera and out into the foyer where he sat down and stared at his red button once more. His function was complete. He had served his task. The Man was dead as was the intention all along. So why did he feel so miserable? Why did he feel as if his mind were melting and his stomach littered with ash? If he had done was supposed to be done all along, then why did he feel such horrible guilt?

  “Judas,” screamed The Woman. “You fucking traitor!”

  Her insult fell on deaf ears. Mr. Robot had long since pressed his red button.

  “The life that was once there is now gone,” said The Reporter as the camera zoomed in on The Man’s body.

  She crouched beside his broken body as if it were a tractor or a pothole.

  “This is not the end by any means. In fact, we’ve only just begun the fight. But if there is anything to take away from this bloodshed, it’s that no matter how smart a robot thinks it is, it’s still a robot; it’ll never be a person; even if it thinks it is. It’ll never be like us.”

  And the last shot they took was of the cables and wires that stuck out of The Man’s severed limbs. Most of his mechanics were now visible from the hole that Mr. Robot had punched in his sternum and by the gaping hole in his skull.

  “You got your Singularity,” said The Cameraman.

  “We got it,” she said, at first staring at The Man’s sparking body, and then turning to high-five her colleague and friend. “We got it.”

  Also by C. Sean McGee:

  A Rising Fall (CITY b00k 001)

  Utopian Circus (CITY b00k 011)

  Heaven is Full of Arseholes

  Coffee and Sugar

  Christine

  Rock Book Volume I: The Boy from the County Hell

  Rock Book Volume II: Dark Side of the Moon

  Alex and The Gruff (a tale of horror)

  The Terror{blist}

  The Anarchist

  Happy People Live Here

  The Time Traveler’s Wife

  Ineffable

  London When it Rains

  http://cseanmcgee.blogspot.com.br

  www.goodreads.com/c_sean_mcgee

  www.issuu.com/c.seanmcgee

  www.facebook.com/authorc.seanmcgee

 

 

  C. Sean McGee, The Inscrutable Mr. Robot

 

 

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