Soul Heist - The Missing Mentor

Chapter 39 - Superheroes

Naoto parked the car in a dimly lit side street not far from the Faculty of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, then pulled a big duffle bag out of the trunk. It contained a shovel, flashlights, and some Halloween stuff.

Danian pointed at three rubber masks. "Is that really necessary?"

Naoto pulled an Iron Man mask over his face, locked the car and mumbled, "CCTV."

Hesitantly, Danian fished the Batman mask out of the bag, which left Indira with the Incredible Hulk—a not quite so flattering choice. Danian couldn't shake off the feeling that he needed to score some points with Indira. Their still strictly platonic relationship had seemed a bit strained recently.

"Why is there no Black Widow or Wonder Woman?" Danian turned to Indira and suggested swapping masks. They could pretend she was Cat Woman, after all.

Indira pulled the Batman mask over her face and shadowed Naoto to the university complex.

Even in the darkness, the statue at the corner of the AI research wing was strikingly surreal: Its greyscale metallic body vaguely resembled a humanoid, built by a self-denying cubist. It stood on a square of neatly cut lawn with buildings on three sides. There was still light behind two windows, making Danian feel a lot more uncomfortable than sneaking around campus wearing a Hulk mask.

Naoto whispered this was a dig-and-run job, strolled over to the patch of grass, pulled a water bottle out of his bag and poured it over the statue. Caught between the various interlacing shapes, the water disappeared momentarily, then suddenly gushed out of a hidden spout. That cast the piece of art into a completely new light: An artificially engineered mannequin piss, thought Danian by himself and giggled until Indira clapped him on the shoulder.

"How about Mr Hulk here does the digging whilst we stay guard?"

Before he knew any better, Danian held a spade in his hands. He cut out a patch of grass right at that same spot where the artistic water fountain had hit the ground. Then the real digging started, and with it, sweat quickly began to form under Danian's mask. He coughed loudly and swore silently. But eventually, the shovel hit something hard.

When Indira came back from patrolling the buildings, a comparatively tiny version of Hulk performed a victory dance on the grass in front of the statue. He held an object in his right hand, raised to the sky. It had an uncanny resemblance to a stainless-steel thermos flask.

"Keep it down a bit, will you?" Indira ordered in a low voice. "Let's close the hole and make a move. Quick!"

But Danian was just getting started. He pulled off a decent moonwalk, followed by an energetic robot dance. Meanwhile, Naoto had grabbed the shovel and filled the dirt back into the gaping hole. Now, he leaned onto the tool's handle to watch his dance-crazy friend trying himself on some breakdance moves. Eventually, Indira lost it and grabbed Danian's arm.

Whilst Batman dragged him from the made-up dance floor, Hulkian Dianian quickly clutched his phone from the statue. He hit the stop button in the BoBo app's video recorder and was quite content with himself.

That was before the ensemble of superheroes ran into two robot pooches turning around one corner. The metallic bodies of the dogs reflected the moonlight; their flashy green eyes pierced the three friends.

They weren't exactly Dobermans, a bit gangly, and with their bright yellow security vests, they looked like poodles on stilts, which was also how they moved.

"Run!" Naoto shouted. "Their noses are tasers."

Luckily, it turned out the robot dogs were no match for the speed of even pretend superheroes. After running around two buildings, Danian was sure they'd lost his tail, and he stopped at a large bush for an overdue pee break.

"What are you doing now?" Indira asked, catching her breath.

"Leaving my mark. Too much tea. I meet you at the car."

Danian saw his friends jogging off, then looked back at the bush in front of him. Where, all of a sudden, two bright green eyes appeared. A metallic dog nose poked through the leaves. Not more than two hand widths away from his zipper.

Danian jumped back and almost bumped into the other robotic canine that blocked the path his friends had taken. Both dogs growled, which sounded surprisingly realistic. Then they barked orders at him with the same voice that made the announcements at Tokyo train stations. Danian didn't understand a word. His pulse was beating in his ears. And he didn't speak Japanese. Half a dozen words, at most, was all he'd memorised from a two-week extra-curricular Japanese course at university.

To be frank, he'd only attended because of that cute Japanese exchange student holding the lecture. Danian briefly wondered how his life would have turned out if he'd ever asked her out. But then his mind threw up a more imminent thought: how it would likely feel to get tasered?

"Catch this." Danian heard Naoto shout.

His friend had come back and flung a small object into the air towards him. Danian caught the projectile the moment one of the watchdogs geared up to pounce.

"Aim for the eyes!" Naoto yelled.

"How did you know that would work?" Danian asked Naoto whilst they were hustling back to the car.

"I read it on a security blog during my research. You need the right frequency, though."

Danian was once again dazzled by how his friend, STEM wonderkind, always seemed to be on top of things. They arrived at the car where Indira was waiting. She looked a lot less impressed—and sounded as if she was gearing up to strike.

"You know, you put us all on the line out there with your silly dance-off."

Danian swallowed and mentally downgraded his would-be relationship score, which made him angry with himself. But being put on the spot also prevented him from honestly acknowledging his mistake. Instead, his tough-to-tame monkey mind desperately searched for some wriggling space.

"I had absolute trust in Naoto."

Putting his saviour in the best possible light would hopefully help to discharge this slightly tense situation.

Naoto coughed disapprovingly and stuttered something about them being lucky that nobody had patched the security vulnerability yet. Great.

The car beeped twice; everybody slid in. Indira tried to open the thermos can. It took a while for the lid to come off.

Danian held his breath.

Indira gave it a good shake. Nothing.

She peeked inside. "I think it's jammed."

When Danian asked if he could give it a go, Indira reluctantly passed the capsule to him. He picked up the finished sushi set they'd purchased from a vending machine on the way to their mission after Danian had repeatedly complained about being utterly food-deprived. Now the chopsticks came in handy. He poked a stick into the bottle and rattled until two yellow plastic figures fell into his lap.

Naoto was the first to recognise them as Homer and Bart Simpson from the classic animated sitcom.

"Here's a bit of trivia," he said whilst flipping Homer's head over to reveal a USB port. "Did you know The Simpsons correctly predicted the future many times over?"

"That's bizarre." Danian grimaced, slouching back into the car seat.

Indira pickup up Bart and scrutinised him like a precious piece of jewellery. "Maybe this time you save the future." 

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