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Sheets tangled in legs tangled in legs. I’m naked, and I feel exposed – a primal fear I have no control over. I’m not alarmed, though. I’m so used to having control stolen out from under me, it has become a relief to not have it at all.
There’s a large landscape piece hanging on the right wall. It’s almost certainly the real thing. I’m no art critic, but I think it’s nice. It’s greenery and sea, or perhaps maybe a lake, painted in warm colors. An impressionist work, if high school art taught me anything, painted in dots and short strokes rather than a meticulous rendition of real life. Little polka dot cows sit under trees and a white city stands in the background.
He stirs beneath me. I’ll admit I hadn’t quite realized I was still on top on him, that I had fallen asleep against his chest. I’ve been focused on the painting, not ready to see him just yet. I need a moment to orient myself.
Several Months Earlier
“I need you to get me a job at Evil Corp,” Elliot said. His face dripped with rainwater, his hoodie too soaked to wipe anything away.
“Why?” Angela asked slowly. Her face was silhouetted by candlelight. With the brownouts still rolling, the candle wicks had sunk low in their wax. Bath and Body Works candles, presented as last-minute birthday gifts, were not meant for long-term use.
“I need an in,” Elliot replied. He looked at her for a long moment and she saw, saw with great clarity the desperation in his eyes. The guilt of 5/9 was eating him alive.
“I can try,” she said. “No promises.”
Elliot closed his eyes for a moment. He felt like his seams were coming undone. He hadn’t seen Mr. Robot in an unsettlingly long time, and this was the familiar sensation of his alter-ego clawing to get out. That was a terrifying thought, so he pushed it away. “Thank you,” he said.
Angela began to walk away, then stopped, her face half plunged into shadow. “Will you stay tonight? For me?”
“Sure,” Elliot said. Angela turned away again, feet shuffling, her door quietly clicking shut behind her.
You’re about the only person I can trust anymore, he thought after her.
Elliot stripped, weirdly comfortable in Angela’s high-rise apartment. Her couch was comfortable for being so expensive. He watched Qwerty intently, as he hadn’t realized how much he had missed the fish, before sinking into a dreamless sleep.
DAY ONE OF SUBORDINATION
Angela got him the job, and he didn’t ask how or why she even bothered. She did it for him, and that was enough.
He swiped through the Evil Corp security gate on day one, his employee ID still hot from lamination. The guards barely gave him a glance – just another reusable techie, overworked and underpaid. His business casual clothing itched, worn straight out of the shipping box.
Was online retailed clothing held to the same par at department store shit? Did it have the same washing recommendations? It’s all the same premise, looking a certain way for a certain situation. Like it matters.
Angela met him outside of the elevator, holding out a coffee to him. Unmarked, breakroom coffee that practically screamed corporate America.
“Welcome to E-Corp,” Angela said. There was a mocking tone in her voice, and for a moment Elliot could almost imagine her as she used to be, all joint-burn holes in her t-shirts and impressive Monopoly skill. She had become so smoothed out, it was hard to remember.
“Thank you, Miss Moss.”
“You’re welcome, Mister Alderson.”
Jesus Christ, it looks just like Allsafe.
If he was being honest, Elliot’s heart clenched when he saw how similar Evil Corp was to his previous place of employment. It made him nostalgic, if that was even the right word, for the year before 5/9. Before he was always looking over his shoulder, when things were more manageable, and Krista praised him for talking about his simple life. His self-contained life that he still, somehow, needed morphine to conquer.
He was being stupid. Of course, they looked the same – this was the cookie-cutter cubicle space. Where all the extremely vital and extremely unrecognized employees spent their working hours, before going home and jerking off to the idea of climbing the ladder. Or, if they were slightly more ambitious; punching their bosses’ lights out.
“This is you,” Angela said, and Elliot jumped. He had forgotten she offered to show him his floor.
“Thanks,” he said, staring at his sneakers. Do they break the dress code here?
“Seriously. For everything.”
Her tone went soft. “No problem, Elliot.”
He forced himself to meet Angela’s eyes before she started mothering him, asking him if he was alright and all that bullshit. “I’m gonna be late for my orientation,” he said, slinking away.
Orientation was what he expected. He could have easily skipped it, having been through similar classes before, but that’s not what this job was about. This was nose to the grindstone, dot the i’s and cross the t’s. This was honest work to right his wrongs.
It went as well as it could have. An appropriately dressed, conventionally attractive woman appeared on the projector, crooning about the wonders of working for them. A fellow employee passed out on his open laptop. A 401K agreement was signed. One and a half hours of his day was wasted.
Elliot followed the parade of new workers out of the converted office space and ducked into his new cubicle. A little Elliot Alderson, security analyst name card had already been installed, and he forced himself to feel neutral about it. This was no place for typical anonymity, that was obvious by the “make friends” encouragement from orientation. He’d have to find solace in being a single number in the thousands that made up Evil Corp.
DAY SEVEN OF SUBORDINATION
Elliot popped his third Zoloft on the train to work. They may as well have been sugar pills, just a prop in his carefully conceived plan to stay focused, stay sane enough to salvage any scraps in the wreckage that was 5/9.
His collar still itched, because he couldn’t be bothered to find a laundromat not run by the wives of drug smugglers or something equally terrible. That was thing about being the kind of hacker – hell, the kind of person Elliot was – it was crazy hard to stay ethical when you were good at seeing through the ruse.
Nike was run by child laborers. Apple products were put together by unmarried Chinese women, some as young as fourteen, working twenty-hour shifts. New York was ruled straight down the middle, half by drug lords and half by corporate overlords.
The people around him, the unaware, the people easily reduced to emoji caricatures in Elliot’s mind, didn’t have to pick their poison. They didn’t have a choice, and therefore didn’t have to choose. Not for the first time, Elliot wished he were among them.He popped another Zoloft.
DAY SEVENTEEN OF SUBORDINATION
Elliot woke up with pains in his back and neck. Unpleasant and familiar, like he had been leaning over a computer all night. But he hadn’t – he’d been going to bed at a respectable time since his employment at Evil Corp. Another piece of the corporate pie he had to swallow: the unbearable shift hours.
Mr. Robot had never really left.
The thought came immediately. It pushed past Elliot’s teeth and left a bad taste in his mouth. He didn’t have to question himself, he didn’t have to look through his computer or for clues from Robot to know it was true. He had gotten smarter, stealing Elliot’s nights instead of his days.
It wasn’t even a question of why, either, because Elliot knew how to peel back the layers. Stage Two, whatever it happened to be, was on.
He took his first Zoloft of the day and pulled on another fashionably conformist work shirt. He fed Flipper and took her out before leaving. He watched the emoji people go through their shallow emotions on the train to work. He passed Angela’s nice office on the way to his cubicle. She was obviously busy but found a second to wave to him. Good old Angela.
The gears in his head whirled so fast there just may have been smoke pouring out of his ears.
Mr. Robot never left. I thought I pulled one over on him this time, or maybe he’d given up, but no, of course not. I was naïve. I’m always so fucking naïve. Is he working with Dark Army? Darlene? The FBI? Tyrell? All of them? None of them? Do you know anything? Help me out here!Elliot slid into his cubicle, his pulse pounding in his ears.
“Elliot! My dog, you look like shit. You get laid last night?” To his coworker, Samar, vulgar pillow talk was the best way to start the day. He looked like someone who never had sex – boyishly long curls and thick glasses – but it was all he ever talked about.
“It was that blonde exec, wasn’t it? What’s her name? Angie? She’s a fox, bro,” Samar went on. Elliot chewed on the inside of his cheek, not hard enough to draw blood, but borderline painful.
“When people talk like this, they’re either insecure or full of shame,” Elliot muttered, distracted. “Which one do you think it is?”
Samar gaped at him, his glasses slipping down his nose bridge. He stammered, looking for words, completely taken back by Elliot’s sudden interruption. Usually, he was allowed to go on in graphic detail.
Elliot didn’t even pretend to listen, but Samar was so alone in the office that he took it as friendship. Too much was going on in Elliot’s head to deal with it today.
Shit. That was meant for you.
Samar was red in the face, still spluttering after being called out. “Hey man, fuck you,” he mustered. “I’m just trying to brighten up your day with my dope-ass stories…”
Elliot got up before the guy could get in his face about it. It was the truth and they both knew it – but Samar was going to act like Elliot was the bad guy, like any confronted liar.
He had forgotten to shed his hoodie, and he was grateful. It had become a comfort item, a security blanket, and he couldn’t afford to feel any more vulnerable at the moment.
Elliot needed to get out of there. Not necessarily the building, as he still had to work, but the floor at least. He needed to put himself in danger, whether mental, physical, or something that would destroy Mr. Robot’s reputation. They needed to talk, and it needed to happen now.
What could he do? Start a fire? Hack upper management? Call the FBI on himself? Provoke Dark Army somehow? The gears in his head spun and quaked and squealed trying to find a solution. The little rabid animal called fear had wormed its way back into his belly, chewing on his exposed wires.
Do you have any ideas? Please, I can’t do this by myself…
Elliot had been focused on nothing but the sound of his own voice. He was so distracted, he failed see the pale figure emerge from its office.
“Bonsoir, Elliot.”
Tyrell Wellick. Evil Corp’s newest CTO. Acquitted of murder. Staring down at me with a smile on his face.
Christ.
Tyrell, once the menace of the country, the one everyone hurled their anger and fear and blame at, had regained his popularity and social status. Somehow, while Elliot wasn’t looking, he’d reemerged from the woodwork – no doubt at generosity of Dark Army. He’d even been appointed CTO, the very position that got him into his predicament in the first place.
The murder of Sharon Knowles had been pawned off on her husband, Joanna Wellick was dead by her estranged lover’s hand, and Tyrell was beaming down at Elliot.
“Join me for a moment, won’t you?”
Elliot’s spine tingled, his breath caught in his throat, he swallowed thickly. Behind him, Mr. Robot tutted like a mother hen. He appeared in front of Elliot suddenly, stubbing his cigarette on Tyrell’s transparent office door.
“Better go in, son.”
Tyrell was still smiling. As much as Elliot hated to admit it, it was a good look for him. Much better than his too-innocent confused face, or the electric anger that distorted his face like a virus run through OS.
“It won’t take long,” Tyrell pleaded, his voice an octave too friendly. Elliot couldn’t remember ever having a real conversation with the guy, but his tone implied they were best buddies or some shit.
Elliot glared at Mr. Robot, who had already disappeared behind Tyrell. “Alright,” he said.
“I’m not Elliot,” Robot said. Tyrell closed his eyes tightly. When Angela tried to explain it all to him, he didn’t understand, and now that not-Elliot was trying, it seemed even more complicated.
“Then who are you?”
“Elliot calls me Mr. Robot, but I think that’s stupid as shit. Call me whatever you want, pretty boy.”
The words ‘pretty boy’ leaving Elliot’s lips – if they still counted as Elliot’s – warmed Tyrell’s gut.
“Well,” Tyrell cleared his throat. “Mr. Robot. Are you in?”
Mr. Robot grinned, all teeth, and it was strangest thing Tyrell had ever seen. It left him feeling hollow, wishing for the real Elliot’s gently sloped smile.
“I invented ‘in’, kid,” not-Elliot said. “Literally.”
“Nice office,” Elliot muttered. It was nice. The furniture had a luxurious feeling to it, plush leather and golden accents across muted oak. Tyrell’s desk stood in the far corner, bathed in morning sunlight from his large, floor-length windows. A lovely seascape piece hung in the far corner.
It was more than an executive’s office, it was more than a VP’s office. It was a CTO’s office, and it cried prestige from the top of its lungs.
It’s what Tyrell had wanted for his entire career.
Tyrell’s thin brows knit together. “You’ve been in here before. Many times, actually.”
A moment of quiet passed between them. Elliot could see Tyrell’s own gears turn as his stood still.
“You don’t remember,” Tyrell said softly. “God, I’m sorry, Elliot. I thought you were him.”
Him.
“That’s right, buddy boy,” Robot said. He’d sprawled across Tyrell’s office couch, a nicely designed thing, all perfectly arranged angles. Edward Alderson hadn’t been in the best shape when he died, and Mr. Robot’s mimicked frame looks out of place.
“He knows your dirty little secret.”
Elliot’s feet had seemingly found a mind of their own, and he was running away from Tyrell and Evil Corp and his cubicle, rushing down flights of stairs with Mr. Robot trailing him. The animal called fear had burrowed under his ribcage and bit down hard. Bile surged from his throat the second he was out of the Evil Corp building.
Mr. Robot watched on as Elliot emptied his stomach contents onto the sidewalk – nothing but half a coffee from his shitty home pot and two undigested pills.
“Such a drama queen,” Robot said, lighting himself another cigarette. “So what Tyrell knows? I was just fucking with you, with the whole 'secret' thing. God forbid I have any fun."
Elliot wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Suddenly he was fuming, hotter than the bile still caught in his throat.
He grabbed Robot by the collar, fist full of computer service with a smile. He didn’t care what this looked like from the outside, he didn’t care that trying to intimidate his delusion was a fruitless practice. He was pissed.
“Don’t you get it?” Elliot spat, flecks of spit staining Robot’s glasses. “Tyrell Wellick – one of the most important figures in the world right now – knows that I sometimes have no control over what I do. Doesn’t that seem a little dangerous to you?”
Mr. Robot pushed Elliot away. “You poor bastard.”
Then, as frustratingly as he appeared, Robot was gone. Elliot shook his head wildly. He was going to kill that fucker.
DAY TWENTY-THREE OF SUBORDINATION
Elliot tried, with carefully executed actions, to stay away from Tyrell.
Go to work early. Keep my head down. Stay away from that fucking corner office. Leave early.
He didn’t understand what was going on yet, even after doing a complete search of his apartment, hacking himself, hacking Tyrell, hacking anything Mr. Robot left behind. Nothing. No trace of 5/9, of stage two…. It even sometimes looked like Elliot didn’t work at Evil Corp with the Allsafe shit still hanging around his apartment. He was getting absolutely nowhere, and he couldn’t afford to confront Tyrell until he had all his ducks in a row.
To make shit worse, Mr. Robot had been doing his magic act, his here-again gone-again routine. Elliot felt fuzzy in the head, his Zoloft had stopped even being placebos, and Krista’s office was becoming a thing of the past. He needed to straighten shit out for himself before anyone outside of his little world could know anything.
Elliot sat at his cubicle, thinking, his Linux terminal open on his desktop and his head between his knees.
I’m being sloppy. I can’t even be bothered to look like I’m doing real work. I look like a noncompliant worker. I’m ruining my own plan. And I don’t even fucking care.
“Elliot?”
Angela’s soft voice, the voice she used when she thought he was fragile. He gritted his teeth and raised his head.
“Angela.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Angela asked. Her face was painted in concern, the corners of her round, blue eyes crinkled up with the question.
She was always so beautiful. Even when we were kids, she was always the prettiest girl in class to me. But I don’t want her like I used to – and that’s a good thing. I just need to trust her now, and I need her to know that my trust is real. I need her help, even if I don’t want to ask for it.
Even if she doesn’t want to give it.
Elliot ignored the question. “Can you drop by the apartment tonight?”
Angela blinked at him, surprised. “Yeah… sure. Any particular reason?”
“I need you to do me a favor,” Elliot said.
“What is this about?” Angela asked as Elliot let her into the apartment. It looked terrible – clothes strewn across the floor, bits of mechanical this and that coating practically every available surface. It was almost as bad as Elliot himself, with the dark circles ringing his large eyes.
This was bad news, and Angela was about to make it worse.
“I need you to keep an eye on me,” Elliot said. He thwumped down on his flimsy bed. He couldn’t remember being this tired in his life, and there had already been some pretty exhausting times.
But with Robot coming and going as he fucking pleased, the Tyrell mystery, stage two looming on the horizon…. Elliot’s mind was turning to jelly. He just wanted to rest for a while.
“On him,” Angela amended. Elliot nodded.
“I’m so sorry, Elliot,” Angela said. “But I can’t do that.”
Elliot blinked slowly. Was his lack of sleep really eating away at him that badly? Did he really just hallucinate Angela – good, reliable Angela, the person he could always lean on – refusing him something she’d done in the past?
Why?
He couldn’t even open his mouth to ask, before Angela had slipped back out of the apartment, taking all explanation with her. Elliot fell backwards onto his bed and hoped for sleep, so he wouldn’t have to sort out whether or not that really just happened.
DAY TWENTY-FOUR OF SUBORDINATION
Elliot woke with a start. He was in his bed, in his apartment, his dog lapping at his cheek, but he felt like a stranger in his body. Robot had been there, and recently – his mouth was sour with the taste of Newports.
Elliot rolled out of bed, carefully depositing Flipper on the floor. He floated through his routine, popping his Zolofts and triple checking his locks. He shuffled down the apartment steps with his hoodie secured over his ears. New York was rapidly falling into winter, but he couldn’t be bothered to wear anything heavier.
He had dreamed of Tyrell. Tyrell and his pretty, pale face. His crazed eyes in the calmest shade of blue. Nimble fingers – pianist’s fingers, hacker’s fingers – tracing the gentle curve of Elliot’s collarbone, jawline, even the shell of his ear. His touch left pinpricks on the surface of Elliot’s skin.
In the background, blurred in Elliot’s mind, there was a lovely landscape piece, all mostly seascape, a little city dotting the coast.
Elliot boarded his train, lost in fog of antidepressants and a lack of sleep. In his mind, he thought he dreamed of Tyrell. In his heart, he knew it was a half-recalled memory.
Stage Two, Stage Two, Stage Two...
The mantra went through Elliot’s head as he rode to work, the emoji people dancing and swaying in the edges of his vision. He was truly going to lose it, finally snap, if he couldn’t put the pieces together. Robot had been distracting him, and to his utter dismay, it had been working. Keeping himself together, or keeping the planet together,
were not both doable tasks.
I’ve been picking the wrong one.
Who was he in the grand scheme of things? If Dark Army was involved, people were going to get hurt or killed. They didn’t care. Whiterose was ruthless, one of the most dangerous human beings Elliot had ever met.
I need to stop being selfish. He’d been avoiding Tyrell, because Tyrell knew too much about him. Tyrell made him nervous. Tyrell tugged at the darkest corners of his guts….
But Tyrell might be the only person who knew anything about anything. It was time to put his insignificant self to the side and focus on the real issues. Elliot didn’t yet understand what was on the line, but if it was anything like Stage One, it was gonna suck.
DAY FORTY OF SUBORDINATION
Elliot sat at his terminal at Evil Corp, Samar droning on about some sexual conquest in his ear, trying his damnedest to figure out Stage Two. All he had was a decrypted file sent by Tyrell to an unknown address – and somehow, he figured it hadn’t been too terribly hidden. Tyrell was no amateur. If it wasn’t supposed to be found, Elliot wouldn’t have been able to find it.
For the past two weeks, Elliot had broken his promise to himself.
I’ve been a pussy. Every time I try to confront Tyrell, my heart drops to my stomach and I lose my nerve. I don’t get it. He’s scary, yeah, but I used to be able to handle it.
It’s getting in the way, and every second I don’t demand answers we get closer to some unknown cataclysm.
Elliot slammed his hands down on his desk, startling Samar. At least it quieted him for a moment.
What do I do? What do I do? What DO I DO?
“First of all, you calm down.”
Elliot’s head shot up. Mr. Robot leaned against the far wall, eating an apple – of all things. “Tyrell doesn’t find the whole ‘mess’ thing attractive.”
“And why would I care what Tyrell finds attractive?” Elliot grit.
Samar blinked. “Tyrell Wellick? The big boss?”
Elliot groaned inwardly. He stood up quickly, mumbling some excuse about needing the bathroom. He started down the hall where repairs were being done to the building, somewhere private. Mr. Robot followed behind.
“You keep disappearing,” Elliot said miserably. All his fight was gone. It’d been an exhausting few months, and Mr. Robot, as much as Elliot hated to admit it, had made it worse by going MIA.
“You keep pushing me away.”
Maybe that was true, but Elliot was too proud to admit it. Proud wasn’t the word he would use, something more along the lines of ‘I have enough dignity not to bow down to my delusion just yet’, but the fact stood.
“You still don’t understand, Elliot,” Robot said. He clasped a hand to Elliot’s shoulder. “I’m here when you want me. I’m you. You’re me. We’re not different people, however much you pray to the god you don’t believe in that we are. Get a grip, son.”
Elliot frowned. It was the truth, and it stung. “What’s stage two?”
Mr. Robot shook his head. “What does it matter? You don’t want me to tell you, you want to remember for yourself. So go find Tyrell, that pretty bitch, and remember.”
Elliot stared at Mr. Robot. Mr. Robot stared back, though he had no venom in his stare the way Elliot did.
“You’re right.”
“No,” Robot said. “You’re right.”
Elliot pounded his fist against Tyrell’s office. He wasn’t mad, exactly, but if he let himself be civil, he was going to lose his nerve. He watched Tyrell’s silhouette rise from his desk in a graceful, fluid motion.
Like a deer. Do they have deer in Sweden? They must…
“Elliot!” Tyrell said, before the door was even open. His eyes were shiny with admiration. Elliot had to resist the urge to squirm. “Come in. Whatever you need, just name it, min kärlek.”
Elliot blinked. He didn’t speak a lick of Swedish, but he recognized those two words.
My love.
“I feel like we never see each other anymore,” Tyrell went on, ushering Elliot inside. He turned back to Elliot for a moment, looked him over, and nodded to himself. “Yes. You and I – not him.”
Tyrell spat the word like it was dirty. His beautiful brows knitted together. Suddenly, he looked too sorry to have done anything wrong in his life. Elliot doubted, for a split second, that this man could have committed a crime such as murder when his face was capable of looking so forlorn.
“I’m sorry. He is your father, in a way. You must think more fondly of him than I do.”
What the fuck is going on?
“It’s just…” Tyrell took a step forward. Elliot could smell the morning coffee on his breath, mixed with the expensive musk of his cologne. It was a pleasant smell. Elliot could feel himself relaxing into it, like he was comforted by it.
…He wasn’t freaked out by the closeness, either, his body wasn’t going into shock when Tyrell came close enough to touch him. He should be backing away by now, but his feet stayed planted firmly to the floor. Even as Tyrell took his hand.
“I know you’re busy – hell, I am, too. It’s just, I miss us.” Tyrell leaned all the way forward, entwined his fingers with Elliot’s. His other hand came up to the side of Elliot’s face, pulled him upwards to his own, and ever so slowly, gently, softly, Tyrell pressed their lips together.
“Do you like ice cream?”
Elliot looked up from his laptop at Tyrell, who was grinning like an idiot. In his hands was a bowl of gelato – not ice cream, but Elliot wasn’t one for semantics – expertly positioned over his junk. Aside from the bowl, he was completely naked.
Elliot made a show of licking his lips and nodding his head. He had never done something so ridiculous before, not with anyone, not even with Shayla, his closest thing to love since this. Something about how Tyrell shed his work persona, his scary-evil-Swede character for Elliot made Elliot to loosen up, too. In more ways than one.
“I’m not gay,” Elliot moaned into Tyrell’s mouth. It was three AM in the Allsafe building, Tyrell had come on executive business. The company would be going under soon, if recent analysis had any bearing. In Tyrell’s mind at least, it definitely did.
Elliot, the techie Tyrell had met a little over three months ago, was sitting at his terminal, hacking away at Kali Linux like the first time they had met.
“Excuse me,” Tyrell said, voice narrow with business-speak. “It’s Elliot, right? ‘Just a tech’?”
He expected a smile from Elliot, at least a polite, respect-to-your-superiors smile, but the man just stared with his large, calf-like eyes.
Tyrell cleared his throat. “Do you know where I can find Gideon Goddard?”
“Gideon went home for the night,” Elliot said, his voice crackling with sleeplessness. It did something to the front of Tyrell’s pants – he knew he had to have this strange, quiet cybersecurity technician.
“Oh? I was told to meet him here.”
“Don’t know what to tell you, man,” Elliot said, his eyes flicking back down to his computer screen.
Tyrell swore in Swedish, something about fucking your mother sideways, and Elliot responded in Arabic. Tyrell didn’t speak Arabic, it wasn’t anything close to his mother tongue, but the two foreigners locked eyes with one another and for a cold, smooth second, nothing moved.
Then Tyrell had Elliot’s dick in his hands, Elliot babbling about not being gay. Tyrell stuck his tongue further down his throat to shut him up.
“I’m so sorry,” Elliot sobbed into the crook of Tyrell’s neck. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”
It was the mantra often heard after one of Elliot’s nightmares, the cruel ones where he had some twisted hand in letting his father die, or where he let the whole world crash and burn – Tyrell had come to know that Elliot felt guilt about everything. Especially the things out of his control.
“It’s alright,” Tyrell whispered into tufts of Elliot’s hair. He was going to need it cut again soon. “It’s going to be alright, älskling.”“Barak allah fik,” Elliot replied, still weeping. “Bless you, bless you.”
Elliot, his ass sore from quick fucks between work shifts.
Tyrell nursing hickeys when Elliot got too handsy.
Elliot helping Tyrell forgive himself.
Tyrell easing Elliot out of his delusions.
Both of them feeling supported in a way no one had done for them before - they were similar enough to understand, and different enough to help the other.
Months and months of memories hit Elliot hard. He felt like a twisted version of Sleeping Beauty, that one press of his lips against Tyrell’s decoding his memories.
Robot must have known this would happen. God, he knew about us and he didn’t say anything.
Finally, as if it had been holding off, the overstimulation of touch, sound and memory hit Elliot all at once. Tyrell was still inches from his face, breathing in hitched breaths, like he was unsure how Elliot might react.
“Please tell me you remember,” Tyrell whispered. Elliot slumped forward into the other man’s arms, unconscious.
“We’re going to be gods,” Tyrell said. “All of us.”
“Yeah,” Angela replied. She, too, was a little dazzled. The empty warehouse may as well have been a castle in the sky. She felt like a kid again, the bubble of excitement unfurling in her chest.
She had wanted revenge on the rich for as long as Elliot had – just not the same way. She wanted Phillip Price, the man whose hand she was currently eating out of, and all of his cronies to pay for what they did to her family. If toppling a few buildings was how it had to be done, so fucking be it.
“And Elliot knows? That we use…. Him?”
Angela threw Tyrell a bright smile. She’d always been good at deception – whiterose had even commended her for it. “Of course,” she said.
Tyrell was perched on his desk when Elliot came to. He wrung his hands together as Elliot tried to make the two images in his eyes make one picture.
“Do you remember?” he asked again. His voice was too soft. Elliot turned his head into the side of the plush couch.
“Water,” he croaked, and Tyrell went to fetch it.
“Look at him, heeding your beck and call,” Robot said, reappearing. It was like a never-ending magic act with him. Elliot half expected him to start pulling scarves out of his ass.
Elliot spat in Robot’s direction. His head swung from side to side. He felt like he might pass out again.
Tyrell returned with the water. Elliot took it with shaking hands, raising it carefully to his mouth. Water splashed down the sides of his chin, wetting his hoodie and soiling his dignity. He wished for a cigarette.“Do you remember?” Tyrell asked again, his beautiful face pinched with despair.
“Tell him the truth,” Robot said.
“And why the hell should I listen to you?” Elliot asked Robot. Tyrell knew by this point, and knew well, because his stressed expression didn’t falter when Elliot addressed someone who wasn’t there.
“Because I’m here,” Robot said. “And we both know that means something.”
“You lied to me,” Elliot moaned. “I’m so tired of this shit. Just tell me the truth.”
“The truth?” Tyrell asked. “Don’t you know?”
“I didn’t lie,” Robot said. “I omitted. Big difference.” He had lit a cigarette, mocking Elliot’s tremors.
“I’m so tired,” Elliot muttered. He was close to tears.
Tyrell had sat between him and Robot, his large, warm hand finding a resting place on Elliot’s knee. By some wonderful force of habit, Elliot curled into Tyrell’s larger frame. They fit perfectly.
“Then sleep.”
Elliot awakes in a bed that isn’t his own.
He stirs beneath me. I’ll admit I hadn’t quite realized I was still on top on him, that I had fallen asleep against his chest. I’ve been focused on the painting, not ready to see him just yet. I need a moment to orient myself.
Tyrell opens his electric blue eyes. They’re mellow, somehow, without losing their edge. Elliot’s heart does a little flip.
“I remember,” he says.
“Angela, that bitch!” Tyrell howls. He smashes the painting into a million pieces, throws his liquor bottles across the floor.
“She lied to us!” he roars.
Mr. Robot leans against the wall where the painting used to be. It’s a lighter color than the rest of the wall – something of Joanna’s, maybe?
“She did what had to be done,” Robot says, but it comes out of Elliot’s mouth. Tyrell realizes this, and he screams in frustration.
“I hate what he does to you, älskling,” Tyrell said, his voice hollow. Elliot stands on tiptoe to kiss him.
“I hate everything about this,” Elliot whispers. “But you and me… we can stop this. We can stop her, Dark Army, whoever. You and me, Tyrell. Against everyone. Anyone.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but we’re going to damn well try.
Tyrell takes Elliot’s hand and kisses his fingers.
“I love you,” he says.
DAY ONE OF INSUBORDINATION