The Inscrutable Mr. Robot Read online

  “What?”

  “Get over here! It’s you,” said The Cameraman again.

  Finally, he broke The Reporter’s stare.

  “What are you on about?”

  “Here,” shouted The Cameraman. “This picture. It’s you.”

  When she turned, her stomach sank; and with it, the colour in her face washed to the floor. It was if she had just discovered a lump in her breast.

  “What the fuck?” she said, seeing her I.D dangling from a light fixture.

  “This is not good,” said The Cameraman.

  There were no articles, just her misplaced I.D dangling beneath the amber light.

  “Do you know this guy?”

  The Reporter didn’t respond. She felt divorced from all her bodily functions.

  “Have you ever met him before?”

  All she could do was breathe, and so her words sounded like exhaustion.

  “Why you?”

  Finally, she had the nerve to shrug.

  “And you’ve never met him before?”

  “No.,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m fucking sure.”

  The Cameraman pulled the I.D from the fixture.

  “Give it to me,” said The Reporter, snatching it from his hands.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “You’re not…”

  He struggled for the right words.

  “I’m not what?”

  “You’re not…serial killer type.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I didn’t mean that in a bad way, just, I wouldn’t ever pick you as someone who…”

  “As someone that you’d want to rape and kill?”

  It was clear The Cameraman had somehow dug himself an unwinnable trench.

  “How did he get your I.D then? Where did you lose it? Maybe it is random.”

  “At home,” said The Reporter. “I left it on my dresser, and when I went back for it, it was gone. Jesus Christ,” she said, “he was in my home.”

  The Reporter clutched her I.D to her chest.

  “Are we rolling?”

  “I haven’t stopped,” said The Cameraman.

  “I feel so sick,” she said.

  “Say something,” said The Cameraman, zooming in on her gaunt, pale expression.

  She looked like she was about to cry at any second.

  “Holy shit,” said The Cameraman. “Check it out. It’s Justice Man.”

  There were a handful of articles and even a scrapbook that was kept on a table in a well-lit corner of the room. Most of the stories regarded Justice Man’s conquests and triumphs with pictures of him bloodied and bruised, receiving accolades and public applause. But there were also articles and stories from the end of his career; those of drunken and drug-fuelled debauchery.

  And then there was the scrapbook – pictures of his family; his wife and the daughter he had come to know as his own. There were pictures of holidays and getaways and sweet family traditions, but most of the book was made up of drawings of butterflies and rainbows and families holding hands.

  “I’d totally forgotten about him. Fuck, that’s going back a while. I met him once, you know? Didn’t have my camera or nothing. It’s the weirdest thing. I always had something on me, and the one day I didn’t I run into Justice Man. He was a different kind of hero.”

  The Cameraman wandered around the room. He had lost his fear and instead, it felt like he was in a record store, seeing all those classic albums from his youth.

  “Look at this,” he said.

  The Reporter was frozen stiff.

  “What does this mean?” she thought, over and over again.

  “Isn’t that The Doctor?”

  The Reporter snapped out of her daze. Her instinct was for trouble and clues.

  “Holy shit,” she said. “You’re right, that’s him.”

  There wasn’t just one photo; there were scores of them. He was a man of great accomplishments, but more so, he was a man that epitomized controversy; and the evidence of such was everywhere that they looked.

  “You’re in stellar company at least. What do you think this means?” asked The Cameraman.

  The Reporter’s thoughts went wild and conspicuous; as did her colleague.

  “You think this is why they took him away?” he said. “You think he knows something? You think The Doctor is involved in something?”

  The Reporter’s brain just couldn’t compute any of this.

  “Maybe he’s a terrorist or something. That’d explain The Singularity, right? If all this shit is true then what is this; a hit list? I get The Doctor, but why all these other people? They’re all nobodies.”

  He could see no pattern; no obvious link.

  “Why you?” he said, turning to his colleague.

  The Reporter clutched the I.D in her hand.

  “I told you this was gonna be big,” she said, almost sounding as if she wasn’t scared to bloody death. “Nobody believed me.”

  She almost sounded like her old self.

  “We gotta get out of here,” said The Cameraman. “If the cops catch us here…”

  He was already half out the door before The Reporter cut him off.

  “We’re here to tell a story, right?”

  There was no arguing with her.

  “So… let’s tell it. Start recording.”

  It was funny, how, for The Reporter, a red light meant go.

  “I’m coming to you live from what appears to be the headquarters or strategy room of what looks to be the greatest terrorist threat that has ever presented itself. This room is filled with what looks like targets or hits as the mafia might say. We’re on the premises of the engineer, responsible for the manufacture of The Singularity. It warms me, only just, to say this; but I think we may just be in time to save the world.”

  The Cameraman moved like a tear down a cheek. There were so many faces, and from all walks of life too. There were teachers and lawyers, actors and athletes, and there were mothers and first responders too. There were the young and the old; and with them, every race, religion, and creed that ever was.

  “Now what?” asked The Cameraman.

  Never in her life had she ever been both so scared and at the same time so desperate to find out the truth. She felt, for the first time, as if her life actually mattered.

  “I wanna see where they took him.”

  “And what?”

  “We follow The Doctor.”

  “Are you mad? You know where he’s taking him, right?”

  “The University,” she said smiling; a crazed and worrying kind of smile.

  8.

  “This city has gone to shit.”

  Mr. Robot and The Man had been walking for a long while. They had seen many things.

  “What is your function?” asked Mr. Robot.

  He had guessed every machine correctly. He was happy for himself but he was happier for the machines. But in the end he was sad; the poor robot was no closer to guessing who or what he was.

  All the windows and even the trees in the park were littered with old placards and leaflets from hundreds of different groups. They were all so over the place and yet they were entirely the same. Everyone had a different take on a different thing, and they were all speaking up about it. Not one of them was happy.

  “Kids used to play here,” said The Man. “That was then I suppose. Now it’s just university types; loitering around and looking homeless. They’re no picnic to be around either. They’re like insects; they just keep popping up and attacking you; sucking your blood. Once upon a time kids were kids; now they’re all fucked in the head. They’re all upset for no good reason; like a dog that howls because its bowl is red. Fuck the bowl. Eat your bloody beefy treats.”

  Mr. Robot repeated every single word in his head as if the story were his own.

  “When I was a kid,” said The Man, “you could get away with being a smart prick for only so long before someone gave you a split lip. You kept your mouth shut, though. A few black eyes and you learned where that line was, the one you’d never cross again. A punch in the face did good for a growing boy’s character. There used to be lions in this concrete savannah. Now there’s just lemurs, and they’ve all go annoying shrills.”

  Mr. Robot had sounds he didn’t like too.

  “And because of those lemurs,” said The Man, determined to make his point. “Everyone is scared of everything. And the whole world’s gone…strange. You look around anywhere, they’re all walking round scared to bloody death of offending each other. These kids are fucked up; who could blame them really? Music is shit. People still make it but what they are making is shit. Music stopped being good in the 90’s; most things did. There’s nothing to rebel against anymore. Everything’s already been said; everything’s already been done. All that’s left then is for everyone to tear each other apart. To these kids, nothing is fun.”

  He was right. This was once a place of festivity – of passion, colour, and charge. Now, though, it looked lifeless; on the last days of some terminal disease. There was no energy whatsoever. It looked pale and despondent. Were it a person, its last rites would surely have been ready by now. Were it a guinea pig or a pet cat, one wouldn’t hesitate on putting it down.

  “I used to see bands here. Now, look at it.”

  The bar had its door taped shut.

  “No-one can do anything anymore.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Mr. Robot was more inquisitive than he was frightened.

  “I don’t know. I know I don’t want to be the way I am now, but I’m scared to death to be anyone else. I’ve forgotten how to be anyone else, but there’s definitely no way in hell
I’m going back to her.”

  It was as if they were best friends; at last, that’s what Mr. Robot thought. Mr. Robot knew that The Man was leading him towards asking about the object of that sentence. He asked The Man what he wanted regardless.

  “What is your function?”

  He didn’t sound angry saying it the second time.

  “My function? I used to be useful, I used to make a difference; now I turn off the lights just so I don’t get bored. I don’t know what my function is. I know what it was. I know who I am, I’m not nuts. It’s just… I don’t have a clue anymore. I stopped doing one thing to do something I thought would last forever. Then, when I was least prepared, something else happened and now everything’s changed. Now I’m tryna do what I used to do but I can’t. I’m fucked in the head or something. My therapist says it’s because of the divorce; that and…. I’ve got no idea. She’s probably right. She also said I have an uncomfortable ease of telling the truth. I could never tell how to take that.”

  And then a thought popped into The Man’s head that said; “Let the robot speak.”

  “What’s your function?” he said, labouring with his focus.

  Mr. Robot had a concerned look on his face. It was like any other expression except one of his metal eyebrows raised; only slightly;

  “Are you fine?” he asked. “You look pale.”

  He had a point. The Man looked like he had overdosed.

  “I miss my girl,” he said. “I should be with her today.”

  His voice sounded bleak.

  “I didn’t have a function,” said Mr. Robot. “Not until I met you.”

  If they were friends, Mr. Robot was keen to tell the whole world.

  “How did it feel? You know, having no function, no purpose, and no direction?”

  Mr. Robot started thinking hard. It sounded like a dial-up modem.

  “It was quite disorientating without a function,” he said. “I felt like I was surrounded by darkness and I couldn’t see what my next choice was or where it would take me; it felt like a black abyss of nothingness. As scared as I was, I felt like I had no choice but to dive into the black void. It seemed like the safest thing to do. And then, when you asked me to kill you, I was relieved.”

  The Man nodded as if he was listening.

  “You know I’m a superhero?” he said.

  Mr. Robot became very excited.

  “At least, I was.”

  “Did you save anyone?” he asked.

  “Not at first, no; but that was to be expected. After a while, I got the hang of it. Then, in the end, I was the best there ever was. I cleaned up this whole city. There was not a lick of crime before I hung up my hat.”

  He looked like he was going to cry at any second.

  “Why don’t you return to your function?”

  If he was trying to distract The Man, it was working.

  “It’s a different place now. It’s noisy as hell, for one. It was easier back in the day. There weren’t as many cameras so you could get away with all kinds of torture – far worse than what the average person can imagine so as to save them from the filth and scum that they can’t stand. I did the bad things that had to be done. Nowadays, you can’t go anywhere without someone pulling a camera on you. You so much as hurt someone’s feelings and it’s a hate crime. In the olden days, you were judged on what you did, not what you said or thought. You judged a car by its pole position, not the sound that it made as it crossed the finish line. A lot was done in the past; cities were built, swimming pools were dug, plagues were wiped out, technologies were invented, world wars were fought, and satellites were sent to the edge of our galaxy. Back then, if you wanted to be someone, you had to have done something. These days you just need an opinion.”

  “Do you miss your function?”

  “How so?”

  “The sentiment of it. Do you miss the function itself or do you miss having a function?”

  Now that he had a function, Mr. Robot couldn’t imagine ever being without one.

  “I miss knowing who I was.”

  “Who were you?”

  “I was Justice Man.”

  “How did you know?”

  “It’s what everyone called me. It was under every picture ever taken of me. I even had a license and I.D specific for fighting crime. The city gave me that name, and every day they reminded me of who I was.”

  “Are you Justice Man?”

  “No,” said The Man.

  He didn’t sound weak all of a sudden.

  “Now I’m just a nothing,” he said. “Nobody’s hero, nobody’s husband, and nobody’s father. I am the void.”

  Mr. Robot had seen the void many times and he knew just what to do.

  “Would you like a hug?” he asked.

  Before The Man could even respond, Mr. Robot already had him in his arms, high off the ground. The first thing The Man felt was a sheer and sudden relief.

  “Does that feel good?” asked Mr. Robot.

  The Man had no words for how he felt.

  “We can stay here a while if you like or if you need.”

  He hadn’t felt so disconnected from his problems since he was a child.

  “That used to be a record store over there,” he said, climbing down from the robot.

  “What is a record store?” asked Mr. Robot.

  Mr. Robot had never seen a record store before, but he had heard music, and he quite liked it. What stood there now was yoghurt shop, though you couldn’t tell just by looking at it.

  Mr. Robot looked at everything with childish wonder. He had never seen the world any other way so he couldn’t imagine how it could be any better than it already was. It must have been wonderful, though.

  “There’re no heroes anymore; no real ones anyway.”

  The Man had changed his tone; even the way he walked. He didn’t look sad and deflated like a week old balloon. He looked ire; on the verge of some indefensible act. He didn’t brush past pedestrians, he walked right through them. And he didn’t offer a single apology. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who only moments before was barely consolable, slumped in a pathetic heap of tears and self-loathing.

  “What the hell happened?” he said. “These kids, they’ve all been milked of their venom. The world has changed so much.”

  “Everyone says that I’m going to change the world.”

  “Who? Who says that?”

  “Everyone. In the newspapers and magazines; and on the television news too.”

  “And what do they say?”

  “That I’m going to destroy the world.”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “They call me The Singularity.”

  “And are you?”

  “I don’t know. My name is Mr. Robot.”

  “Well, what do you plan to do?”

  “I plan to help you kill yourself,” said Mr. Robot politely.

  “After that. What’s your big picture?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mr. Robot. “I don’t have one I suppose. I try not to think about the future, I get panic attacks when I do.”

  “What have you done then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You haven’t tried to take over the world?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “No. I was made. I read the internet. And now I’m here.”

  “Relax, you’re not The Singularity. You are not the good or bad opinions people have of you. You’re you.”

  “I’m me?”

  “You’re you,” said The Man.

  “Then who are you?” asked Mr. Robot.

  9.

  “Where is it?”

  “It?”

  The Doctor was on the verge of frenzy.

  The Engineer, on the other hand, was bound by his neck, hands, and feet.

  “The robot, where the hell is it?”

  “Which one?” said The Engineer laughing.

  Several of his teeth had already been knocked loose.

  “Don’t be smart with me. You know what I’m talking about. The Singularity; where is it?”

  “He,” replied The Engineer. “Where is he?”

  “What the hell does a pronoun matter? Where is the god damned robot?”

  The Doctor was not a patient man.

  “Mr. Robot is not The Singularity if that’s why you have me here.”

  “You know this robot is different to all the others.”

  “Every robot I have made has been different in one way or another.”