And then The Assistant picked up.

  “I, uh, um, I uh.”

  Her expression was just as fraught and dumbfounded as her jumbling words.

  “I’m really sorry, mam, I didn’t mean to interrupt."

  The other women watched on, the word ‘Legitimacy’ on the tips of their tongues.

  “Yes, mam, I understand.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, mam, I understand.”

  “No, I don’t think you are an idiot.”

  “No, mam, I don’t know why I did.”

  “Yes, mam, you’re right.”

  “I promise I’ll never…”

  “No, don’t hang up…. It’s the robot.”

  For a moment, The Leader was without a pained look on her face.

  “We have it, mam. We have the robot.”

  “Yes, mam, the robot; The Singularity. It’s our prisoner.”

  “Yes, mam, we do. I’m certain. It is in the back of our van.”

  “Other team? I’m not sure about…Well, I didn’t see…”

  “No mam, we are not an official…”

  “No, we are not legitimate.”

  The other women’s eyes lit up.

  “We’re called Team….”

  “I’m sorry, you’re right, mam. That’s not important.”

  The other women were desperate now.

  “Legitimacy,” said one.

  “Yeah, what about it?” said the other.

  The Leader replied with a ‘fuck you’ kind of stare.

  “Yes, mam, thank you, mam. We can bring it to you now if you…”

  Her face now was weak and apologetic.

  “Oh, ok.”

  She sounded sad and deflated.

  “What did she say?” asked one of the heroes.

  The Leader immediately cupped the phone.

  “What’s going on? What did she say? Are we being legitimised? What’s happening?”

  “Shut the hell up,” shouted The Leader before putting the phone back to her ear. “Sorry, mam. We’re on Br-101.”

  “Yes, mam, heading East.”

  “There’s a motel not far from here I suppose. I thought we would bring the robot to the university and…”

  “Yes, mam, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have thought.”

  “Yes, mam.”

  “Yes, mam.”

  “Kilometre 24.”

  “Yes, mam.”

  “Motel Riviera? Ok, we will.”

  “My team? We’re four.”

  “Yes, mam, we’ll wait for you there.”

  The Leader hung up the phone and stared quiet and listless out the windshield. Her colour slowly returned to her face which now looked peaceful and flaccid. She looked like she had just woken from a coma or some violent epileptic fit. She looked as calm as she did confused.

  “What now?”

  The Leader took a minute or so to compose herself before starting the engine and pulling back onto the highway. It was quiet. Not a word was spoken; just the sound of the little engine struggling to maintain its speed. And when they pulled into the motel, finally, The Leader took a breath.

  “We wait,” she said. “They’re coming for us.”

  13.

  “Roll call, Hyenas! Let’s go, one by one.”

  And just like that, as if her voice were the hammer of the gods, there came a sudden and tremendous clap of thunder, and with it, a torrent of oppressive and miserable summer rain pissed down from the heavens above.

  One by one, each of the teams, either in the procession or en route to the motel, presented themselves in rousing fashion. All the while, raindrops the size of bricks beat down on their vehicles in a deafening roar. In spite of this, on their ham radios, the team chanted their anthem for war.

  There were sixteen in all, and each team was armed excessively and inappropriately. One of which, Team Zebra, a group led by a white radical hell-bent on transforming social stigma against black minorities, had already arrived at the motel. Their leader - a tall German man who had as much meat on his bones as he did, tolerance for things like ignorance, insensitivity, and white privilege - loaded ammunition into his weapon as he watched his target being unloaded from the back of a van.

  “There is no need for us to rush,” he said, stroking his weapon like a giant cock of death. “I have all of the time in the world.”

  He salivated as he stared through his scope.

  “This is Alpha-Zebra,” he said, his finger gently touching the trigger as he spoke into the radio. “Confirming that I currently have a visual on the target.”

  And though the lashing rain made a mockery of a common person’s vision, The German paid no mind. He followed each of the targets in his scope as they rushed from their vehicle to their room; pretending to shoot each of them in their legs and shoulders, and sometimes their heads.

  “Do not engage,” shouted The Assistant. “I repeat, stand down; do not engage.”

  She drove like a maniac, but one of unquestionable skill and precision. And the rain too was hardly any bother. She weaved in and out of traffic and did her best to avoid hitting babies in prams, but in this weather, it was hard to tell the difference between a speed bump and an unforeseen tragedy.

  “Alpha-Zebra, maintain your position and visual. Do not approach. We should be arriving in fifteen minutes or so. I repeat, do not approach. The target is volatile and dangerous.”

  The German had a bewildered look on his face. “This is Alpha-Zebra,” he said, “confirming the target as humanoid or...”

  “Mechanoid,” said The Assistant. “Do not approach.”

  “Mechanoid?”

  He eyed Mr. Robot with skeptical curiosity. The robot looked bulky and cumbersome. It moved on its own, yes, but it did so at a snail’s pace, and its body looked ridiculously out of proportion.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  The Assistant didn’t like being questioned, and she didn’t much care for The German.

  “I repeat,” she said sternly; her patience wearing thin. “Do not approach the target.”

  For as far as she could see, a blur of red brake lights smeared the sky, disappearing over the horizon. Traffic was completely still now. There was no moving in any direction.

  “This robot I am seeing now is not looking sophisti…”

  “Stand down, Alpha-Zebra!”

  Her voice splashed against his ears like the rain on his windshield. It did little to stifle his focus. He was eye to eye with Mr. Robot through the round of his scope. He sat there for some seconds in sheer disbelief. Was this a joke? This didn’t look like an advanced technology. It sure as hell wasn’t The Singularity he had imagined. It looked like it had been engineered and assembled by a drunk on the basis of a dare alone. Still, though, like a trained professional, he kept his sight fixed on the robot’s square head.

  “Alpha-Zebra standing down,” he said.

  The Assistant screamed. As she did, she punched the horn over and over until it broke apart like a dry cracker. The rain was beating down, but that didn’t stop her from craning her neck out the window and continuing her vitriolic tirade. While in the back of her vehicle, the other Hyenas sat with shocked and stupid looks on their faces. They each had their heads bowed in such a way that you’d think all that spitting and cussing was some reverent prayer.

  “Move you, sons of fucking bitches,” she screamed.

  The driver of the car next to her, an overweight man with scruffy hair sticking out of a poorly fitted baseball cap, shook his head in disapproval. And the way he did, staring at her eye to eye with his face all scrunched up like a bruised elbow, he might as well have been screaming, and he might as well have been honking that stupid horn. It was just as loud and obnoxious. It was just as downright rude. And the look he gave her, it might have worked on his colleagues or his subordinates; hell, it might have even won him his wife, but tonight, on such a dismal fucking night, he’d be lucky if he walked away with even half of his teeth. He shook his head once, twice and then three times. But on the fourth, all hell broke loose.

  “What the fuck are you looking at?” screamed The Assistant, already unbuckling her seatbelt. “Do you know who I am?” she said, now opening her door and clearly escalating this whole situation. “Well? Do you?” she said, now leaning into the open passenger window. “Do you know who I am, you fat piece of shit?”

  This was only ever gonna go one of two ways, and it relied heavily on one person taking the higher road; namely The Man in the Hat. If that meant apologising then so be it. At the very least, The Man in the Hat needed only swallow his pride, and then quietly and almost seamlessly look away for a minute or so, just until everything died down; maybe think about kittens or baby otters, or how Lego was made.

  And I can’t stress this enough, this really could have gone any other way, but…

  “Yeah I know who you are,” he said, choosing his direction. “I’ve seen you on the television.”

  Still, at this point, it wasn’t too late; all he needed to do was be civil, diplomatic, and back down. “Go fuck yourself,” he said, spitting as he did. “You ugly femmo cunt.”

  And just like that, his nose was broken and his left cheek shattered.

  “We’re not gonna get there in time,” said The Assistant buckling her belt.

  She wasn’t even shaking; not a nerve out of place.

  “I don’t trust The German; I never have. He’s gonna take that robot for himself.”

  “What’s the deal with this thing? If it’s as dangerous as you say, why are we going after it? We protest. It’s what we do. We hold rallies, we wave placards, and we sign petitions. We take to the streets, sure; we even riot, but we only do so when there are more of us than there are of them, you know? But this…this is something for the police. It’s something for the army. This is not for…”

  “Are you a Hyena?”

  Her tone alone was unquestionable.

  Nervous and with a shaky voice, the girl replied; “Yes, yes I am.”

  “Then you’re more than a Social Justice Hero; you’re a god damned superhero.”

  Who could argue with that? It was quiet in the car – a beaten up old Beetle with a lightning bolt on each side, and a snarling hyena painted on the hood. It was quiet, yes, but amidst the silence, egos were transforming, growing into unimaginable size and strength. Heroes were being born.

  “Yeah,” said The Assistant, her voice filled with courage and inspiration. “We protest. We take to the streets and the internet. We shout and we scream, and we spit and curse. We fight for those that can’t fight for themselves. But as of today,” she said.

  She paused for a second to look back over her shoulder.

  “As of today, we save the world.”

  In the backseat, The Assistant’s most trusted allies, some might even say friends, sat with stupendous grins on their faces. One was short, overweight, and her I.Q could stretch around a man’s waist; while the other was blind, she had been since birth, and thanks to her bulimia and her poor self-impression, weighed no more than the very belt that fit loosely on her skeletal frame.

  But then, who didn’t want to be a superhero?

  Think of the acclaim. Think of the ticker tape parades. Think of all the people knowing your name. Think of the honour. And think of the sex; think of all that sex, free drinks, and after dinner mints. The two girls looked catatonic. Whatever thought was burning in their minds was surely magnificent. It was surely the greatest thing that could ever be thought.

  The Assistant pounded on the horn once more. “If The German goes in there first, it’ll be a bloodbath. We can’t let that happen. We have to get there.”

  And as the old beetle rattled and shook underneath the pouring rain, in a secluded part of a motel parking lot, The German loaded bullet after bullet into what could only be described as a ridiculous amount of guns; for any type of conflict really. He didn’t so much as take pride in his armoury as much as he did sheer pleasure. It might have been sexual or it might not, but it probably was.

  “Fuck it,” he said, stroking and fingering the business end of his favourite rifle.

  His team - made up of two women and two men; all black - sat expressionless in the back of the van. Like their leader, their weapons were locked and loaded. They each carried guns and grenades strapped to their legs and worn like wreaths around their necks. But more menacing were the knives and machetes they carried in their hands. Whatever their intention was, be it good or bad, it was clear that many people were going to get hurt.

  The German put his favourite cassette into his old radio. There was something about the sound a cassette made as it snapped into place; it reminded him of his rifle.

  “We are noble savages, my brothers, and sisters. We are like leopards. We are swift and agile, and we are no friend of the white man.”

  He said this, though he himself was white.

  “The very same white man who will take our language, before he cuts out our tongues; who will take our culture before he enslaves our children; and who will take our humanity before he takes our lives. He wishes these things, but what he does not know is that we are children of Africa, we are the leopard, the white man cannot see us from the reeds; he cannot catch us should we choose to run, and he cannot escape us should we turn and give chase. And tonight, my brothers and sisters, we are going to take some cracker scalps. Are you down with it?” he said, articulate, educated, and polite.

  The Zebras, as they were called, exited their vehicle and with weapons drawn, they walked slowly through the darkness, towards the room where the robot was being kept.

  14.

  There were two beds in the room. The Man collapsed on one, burying his face into the pillow, whereas at the far end of the room, Mr. Robot stood quietly, looking like some broken down ice contraption.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  The heroes all stared at The Man as he quietly sobbed into the pillow.

  “He has been emasculated,” said Mr. Robot.

  The heroes all stepped closer; intrigued and at the same time, a little disgusted. The Man twitched in uncommon parts of his body. He looked like an octopus, sprawled out on a desert rock; completely out of his natural environment and dying with every second that passed.

  “I can heal him.”

  The hero standing closest, and the only one seemingly unaffected by The Man’s mollusk-like state, was a girl called The Empath. Unlike The Leader, she wasn’t the least bit provocative. Her demeanour was as quiet and untroubling as the clothes that she wore.

  The bars on Mr. Robot’s panel all lit up bright yellow.

  “Really? You can heal him?” he said. “He is my friend. I have not known him any other way. It would be good, for him, if he were less inconsistent.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right, tin man. Double negatives are uncool.”

  By the looks of it, The Empath had already started her healing process; whatever that was.

  “Let me rephrase,” said Mr. Robot. “It would be best for him to die in good health.”

  The heroes all looked confused.

  “Turn on the news,” said The Leader.

  She already had a handful of devices spread out on the table in front of her. On each device was a website dedicated to that which sickened or offended her. For some of the sites, she had to search and scour the internet with all her might; but for those with differing opinions, there was nowhere to hide.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she wrote in the comments sections below each post and video. And she would follow it up with taunts of, “Go away,” “Find somewhere else to be,” and finally, “Meat is rape,” for no longer was meat just murder.

  Meanwhile, as the news blurted warnings and emergency reports about killer robots and celebrity lookalikes, The Empath straddled The Man, waving her hands about as if her patient were some unboxed treasure that was kept prisoner by layers of invisible smoke and cobwebs. She picked and pinched at the invisible cobwebs and pulled them away from his aura, and then discarded them on the floor.

  At the very least, she was a committed actor.

  Mr. Robot watched in curious wonder. He had only ever seen machines and humans being fixed, cured, and inevitably rendered useful with tools and appliances; and sometimes medications or coolants. In general, though, his knowledge of the human body and its ailments derived entirely from the game Operation. And therefore, seeing his friend being healed by a mere wave was enough to more than spark his interest, it turned his coloured bars from bright yellow to lime green. Such was the state of his wonder and amazement that even his eyebrows raised; and though they looked no different to the switches on a control panel, they were locked in the highest position possible.

  “Turn that up.”

  The Leader abandoned her devices. She ran to the TV and crouched as close as she could. The way she shook and rocked back and forth, it was clear that she was excited. What was hard to tell was whether her excitement was founded on fear and apprehension, or whether she was actually happy and merely unable to contain herself. Either way, she shook like a leaf in a thunderstorm.

  “The real question is,” said The Anchor. “Is this the end of mankind?”

  There was a dramatic pause while the camera zoomed closer to the seemingly nervous twitch of an army general. It might have been nerves or it might have been all the lights and the makeup, but either way, his calm, and complacent attitude were in no way convincing.

  “We don’t want to alarm the public unnecessarily. We’re not talking about the end of anything here. Let’s be rational.”

  “But this is The Singularity. Can you confirm that?”

  He may have only learned this word a day ago, but in his delivery and his demeanour, one would hardly think anything but. He sounded genuinely concerned as if he had been schooled in its perils and was a scholar in predicting when, where, and how this unfortunate event should come to pass.

 

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