So fragile, I thought. The little girl’s arms clung to me, a complete stranger. Her grip was weak, her hands tiny, and her very life as brittle as a dried leaf barely hanging on. What could one with such little experience in life possibly do to anger fate this much? She held not the power necessary to incur such wrath, such misfortune. How could life be this cruel?

Noon’s harsh sun hid behind an overcast sky, giving a chilling atmosphere when coupled with the glaring carmine lights of the ambulances and firefighter trucks lining the street. A large section of the street was blocked off, caution tape running as much as blood did. Something of this magnitude hadn’t happened many in years.

I landed and handed over the child to a paramedic, then looked back at the burning skyscraper. For years this building stood, a landmark by its very size, but today it was ablaze. Rescue efforts were next to nil because all emergency exits, stairs, and elevators were somehow destroyed. According to the firefighters, there were multiple explosions reported. It wasn’t hard to think that this was caused by the sinister plots of someone with an agenda. That child was the third person – all children – whom I rescued. I rued going back into the building in fear that my PTSD might rekindle itself, but I felt like a worse mental state would afflict me should I ignore an emergency so close to UGO.

After a deep breath, I entered the death trap again and continued my search and rescue efforts. For the adults who could hold onto me, they would piggyback on me whilst two other people would dangle from my arms. This way, I got multiple people on the higher floors to safety in one go. I wanted to focus on the children, since apparently it was bring-your-kid-to-work day at the organisation, but I’d take who I could get. Even with enhanced strength and boots that allowed me to fly, I only had two arms. It was hard to pack on more than a certain number of people.

Some parents even fought against my rescue efforts in favour of me saving their children first, but I simply forced them to safety because of how time-sensitive the issue was. Searching blindly for missing kids while neglecting those right in front of my eyes made no sense in my head, so I took the occasional berating.

Eventually, a couple dozen or so of my Trainable Servants helped me rescue those trapped on the lower levels. Unfortunately, the TSes weren’t equipped with anything like my Z-21 sword to cut through the glass panes, so my Trainable Knights that were weaponised helped make multiple holes for the TSes to use as escape routes. These holes also helped the smoke – which was the biggest immediate issue – escape outside. Once there were enough escape points, the TKs also helped rescue people.

I flew back into the building for the umpteenth time, looking around for those who needed help, then heard some explosions that got louder as time went on. Suddenly, the floor above me fell and took me down with it. I could hardly make sense of what was going on.

Ironically, the very firefighters who told me not to enter the building because it was far too dangerous, were the ones who pulled me from the rubble. I was impaled right through the abdomen by a piece of steel, so they didn’t immediately try to rescue me, but once I woke up, I grit my teeth and simply yanked the metal out.

Vasc, a drug that gave me superhuman regenerative abilities patched me up in a few seconds. They were able to clear most of the rubble that allowed me to get out eventually.

Some of my gear was damaged, but I made it out without a scratch. The same couldn’t be said about those who were still in the building when the last of the explosions went off.

UGO, the company I worked at, granted me a couple weeks leave and I used that time to repair the gear that got damaged. Three days into that leave, the authorities finally had their numbers right. Thirty-seven corpses were found, some with scattered body parts. That number aligned with the people who were said to be missing after the fire. Even with twenty-five TSes and seven TKs, there were still thirty-seven people we couldn’t save. What a haunting experience. Sometimes I’d bury my head in the sand and pretend the world didn’t have men cruel enough to stage an attack just when employees brought their children to work. Sometimes I thought feigning ignorance and blinding myself from the harsh realities was the only way to maintain some semblance of sanity – and sanity, I desperately needed to keep.

My phone rang for the hundredth time that morning, making me groan with irritation. “Hello?”

“Stop being a bitch!” the voice on the other end yelled.

I palmed my face. After hearing something as mortifying as the body count on news, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for his shenanigans. “What do you want, Jack?”

The cameraman for a reporter crew and also a good friend emotionally assaulted me for ignoring his calls for an interview. It was something I promised quite a while, even before the skyscraper incident. Now that I was involved in the rescue of civilians in a burning death trap, he was even more fired up to get that interview.

I bemoaned internally. “That’s a really hard thing to do, man.”

“C’mon! C’mon, Jared! Help me out here, buddy!” he pleaded. “Hana’s losing her shit and I don’t want to be a casualty. Also, I’m pretty sure she’s on her period.”

I guffawed at that statement, because I knew she could be a raging lunatic when it came to her work. Sad to say, but eventually he talked me into reluctantly agreeing. We agreed for an early interview that very morning, mainly because I wanted to return home early to continue work on my latest project.

The city life felt as though there wasn’t a huge fire a few days ago – indifferent. Life went on as usual; the sun beat upon us like it did every day. It was much the same for a coffee shop that opened up recently.

I landed outside and pulled my goggles down to hang around my neck. A TS pushed the glass door open for me. Living alongside my android creations desensitised me to how strange it was for something like that to be seen. People’s reactions would always remind me that it wasn’t normal. Their keen eyes would stare in awe, amazement, or perhaps suspicion every time a TS accompanied me somewhere in public.

“Ask Hana and Jack what type of coffee they want,” I instructed the TS whilst getting in line. It used software to access my phone and sent texts, then it would read out their replies to me.

“Cappuccinos, sir,” the TS said after Hana and Jack quickly replied.

I shrugged, and figured I’d make my order simple to word. “Three cappuccinos, please,” I answered the girl at the counter after she greeted me.

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“Name?” she asked of me.

Right then, my mind did a nosedive into the events that happened three days ago. It jogged my memory, because the EMTs would simply ask the name of the victims whom they treated to make sure they were in a good enough condition to answer basic questions.

“Huh? Cappuccinos,” I repeated, earning a giggle from her.

She shook her head. “No, I meant your name.”

“Oh,” I snapped out of it, “it’s Jared. Sorry, mind’s a bit far today.”

A mischievous grin adorned her, contrasting the warm and welcoming look in her bluish-grey eyes. “Jared, huh? You’re a bit distracting, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t get the spelling right.”

I shrugged. “You’d be distracting too if you walked around with a robot.”

A snigger escaped her. “Wasn’t referring to the robot, Jared.”

“Oh…”

“So, three cappuccinos. Be with you soon.”

“Ah,” I took that as my cue to move out of the way, “thanks,” and squinted my eyes at her nametag a little, “Calanthe.”

After waiting for a while, it was time to receive the coffees. When I finally looked away from my phone’s screen to collect them, I found that Calanthe in front of me again. A quick glance over made me realise she switched places with the other girl that gave customers their beverages. “Long time, no see! How’ve you been?” I asked, acting excited. My prospects as a comedian must’ve been really promising to get a cachinnation like I did from her.

“I-I’ve been great,” she replied, hardly able to talk properly without laughing. “And you’re right, it’s been too long! We should catch up sometime!” She scribbled something on the bill and gave me my coffees, two of which I handed off to the TS to hold.

I thanked her for the coffee and opened the door for my TS this time.

We had a very slow flight across to the studio that Hana and Jack worked at. Thankfully, the interview didn’t take too long. They weren’t exactly trying to push the envelope on debate or discussion, neither were they trying to be creative. They were your run-of-the-mill questions, but one question did stand out to me.

“Now, much of the nation is convinced that the fire wasn’t an accident. What do you think of that?” Hana’s bait flaunted itself at me.

The question was so jarring and unexpected that I couldn’t blurt a word for the first few seconds. She was indirectly asking about terrorism, and if I wasn’t careful with how I answered, I’d be admitting to thinking it was terrorism as well. As a public figure for my past misadventures, it would be irresponsible of me to suggest something such as terrorism being the cause, and even slightly hinting towards that could very well sway the populace’s opinions on the matter. This was it; this was the question that sparked the topic that this interview was really about.

Oh Hana… “It’s unclear whether the fire was intentional,” I replied and outed Hana’s own journalistic fire. It was damn obvious that the fire was intentional. Hell, several explosions placed at strategic points of the building’s structure and a fire that spread that ungodly fast? Any idiot could figure out that someone out there wasn’t particularly fond of something or someone in that building.

“Do you think the fire service should’ve been more responsive to the matter?” The witty reporter leaned her body in ever so slightly, unconsciously paying heed to the importance these questions posed. “There seems to be rumours of incompetence on their end.”

Again, she was delicately cornering me, and I came to know her little mind tricks the more I did interviews with her. If I answer and say they did their jobs and try to defend them, she’ll ask why I think they couldn’t go inside and do the rescues. That’s when she’ll bring up the compromised emergency exits that makes it very clear someone sat and planned this entire thing out.

“The fire service chose to be cautious instead of impetuous, which is always welcomed in times we would usually panic.” I sipped the coffee, looking directly in her eyes. She knew very well the situation she was putting me in, and she knew that I knew her games.

A faint, short-lived smirk crept upon her, disappearing as fast as it appeared. “At the scene, onlookers reported hearing multiple explosions going off in tandem. Many are worried those explosions aren’t just flammable things in the building.”

At that point, I was shooting daggers at her with my eyes. She knew very well she was crossing the line. In essence, she asked a question that could easily warrant a controversial answer and immediately after asking, provided a follow-up that basically removed a simple and go-to answer. “I think many of our worries are misplaced. Until the cause of the fire is determined, we can do nothing but speculate. It’ll be counterproductive to look for something without first ruling out other possibilities. What you’re suggesting, Hana, is not something to take lightly. Investigating blindly could end up doing nought but making things even harder for the families already suffering from loss, as they would be the ones that the authorities turn their sights to first.”

“And if it is what everyone thinks it is, but the authorities refuse to investigate merely because it puts a grieving family in an inconvenient spot, would this not prolong justice?”

“Yes, it will. However, I very much doubt they’re wasting time dawdling around. If it’s reported that the fire wasn’t accidental, I’m sure the law will jump right on it.”

“I see. Jared Ugo, thank you for your time and input on this matter,” she said, closing up the interview.

Once the recording stopped, Hana looked at me wryly, knowing the hell she raised. She placed a hand on my shoulder and diverted the attention to me. “Are you sure it’s okay for you to be in the spotlight again like this?”

I guffawed. What a ludicrous question from a reporter. But she was a friend first and foremost, so I knew her concern was genuine. “I’ll be alright. It’s not as bad as before.”

“Good. We’ve got your back, but don’t do anything crazy, alright?” She lifted my chin up. “Alright?”

“Yeah, I gotcha,” I said, standing up and hugging her goodbye. I fist-bumped Jack and left the studio after. My entire day was free, and I didn’t feel like being productive.

On my way out of the building, the receptionist called me over to her desk. “Mr Ugo, you dropped this when you came in this morning,” she said, handing me a piece of paper.

“Ah, good looking out. Thank you,” I said, and finally left the building. What she handed me was just the bill from the coffee shop, but thanks to her, I noticed some writing on the it. Wow! Well, that flew over my head… I thought, looking at Calanthe’s phone number on it.

I chuckled, looking at it. If Anna found out, she’d tease me about it all day. The noon sun was merciless, yet I hardly noticed it as my mind swayed to Anna, my once best friend and second mom. Ah, man. It never got easier, huh? I stretched my arms upward and inhaled deeply, letting out a slow breath of air.

The city’s midday traffic was as horrendous as ever. Luckily for me, my sneakers, Grav, had boosters in them that allowed me to fly. With time off work, therapy sessions over, and no ongoing projects to seduce me, I became deathly bored at my pier-side lab. I flipped a pen between my fingers, wondering what was there to possibly pique my interest. My TKs were all lined up, on standby mode. My eyes latched onto the coffeemaker. Ugh, I just had coffee. What to do…

At times like these, friends were nice to have. And sure, I had friends, but they were all going about their lives in faraway cities. The people who were actually available to me had long since passed my age. Backslash? But he’s been real damn busy these days. I regretted my lack of inclination to socialise at times like these and palmed my face in irritation. The little space through my fingers narrowed my vision to the coffee bill; that girl’s number was on it. Should I?

Honestly, I wasn’t going to, because I knew nothing of what other people my age usually conversed about or were interested in. I sat there, contemplating. Well, I’ve survived worse, a lot worse. The numbers were on the dial, and now I was but a light tap away from doing something I’d never done. It was hard to tell if I was nervous or not; my anticipation sat in a weird position on the fence. Ah, Rissy would smack me for hesitating like this.

“Hello?”

“Hey, what’s up? I’m the robot guy from this morning,” I greeted her. “This a good time?”

“Oh, Jared, the distracting customer. Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Are you calling me to catch up?”

I let out a chortle; she seemed to be a humorous person. “Yeah, it’s been too long! I’m on vacation from work now, kind of, so I have an incredible amount of nothing to do.”

“So, tonight?” she read my mind.

“Uh, y-yeah,” I replied, only realising I had no idea what we would even do. Too late to back out now…