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Mr. Robot hooked Flipper's collar to her leash, giving her a few scratches behind her ears. It was time for her walk, and while he would love to get some fresh air, Elliot and Mastermind were the dog walkers of the system (read: the boys fought over Flipper privileges and Mr. Robot was happy to step out of the way when it came to their possessiveness and subsequent pettiness).
So they had devised a schedule. The boys would alternate days for walking Flipper, barring emergencies. They had an equal amount of time with the pup, minimizing any jealousy between the two alters. Unfortunately for Mastermind, today happened to be Elliot’s day.
“Elliot,” Mr. Robot called, giving Flipper one last scritch. When he straightened up and turned to the sofa, both Elliot and Mastermind looked at him, completely attentive. Mr. Robot took a deep breath before sighing. “This isn’t gonna work, boys.”
Mastermind’s lips pulled into a frown. “I’ve been Elliot for a year, sorry I’m not used to my new dumbass name,” he grumbled, the word sorry acting like an afterthought.
“And I’ve been Elliot for 29 years,” Elliot cut in, crossing his arms. He leaned further back into the sofa, shifting his gaze to his lookalike. “You need a different name, man. You can’t use my name.” To add fuel to the endless fire that was Mastermind, he then added, “and Mastermind is a very dumb name.”
“It was your subconscious that called me Mastermind,” he bit back, glaring at Elliot from underneath his dark hood. “Why don’t you come up with something better, then?”
“Why don’t you?” Elliot shot back, sitting up to raise his eyebrows at his alter. After a moment, he sighed, slumping back into the sofa and offering a half shrug. “It’s your name, dude.”
Mastermind dug his fists further into his hoodie pockets, turning away from Elliot and Mr. Robot’s inquisitive stares. He liked the name Elliot. It was his name. Not his fault that someone else had it first. He closed his eyes, as if taking a nap. “Whatever.”
“Whatever,” Elliot echoed with a complimentary eye roll.
“Boys, cut it out,” Mr. Robot said, lacking any real heat. He focused his gaze back on Elliot, raising his hand with Flipper’s leash as an invitation. “You walking her or am I?”
Elliot pushed himself off the sofa, stepping towards Mr. Robot. He glanced back towards the end of the sofa. Unsurprisingly, Mastermind was gone, vanished back into headspace.
He took the leash from Mr. Robot with a small smile. “My day,” he mumbled.
Mastermind swung his feet, kicking lightly against the railing of Coney Island’s boardwalk. His hands wrapped around the metal, fingers tapping as he swayed in thought. The ocean breeze was cool against his exposed skin, competing against the sunshine’s warmth. If he concentrated hard enough, he would wake up, but he needed the solitude of the headspace right now.
“Elliot,” he said slowly, dragging out the name, figuring out the sounds and how easily they rolled off his tongue. He hated how familiar it was. How natural it felt. “Ell-i-ot,” he repeated, testing the syllables individually. “Ell….i? Elli?”
He leaned back with a groan, his hood falling from the crown of his head. “That’s still his name,” he grumbled to himself. “El, Elli, Elliot, ugh.”
He kept his head back, staring at the clear blue sky. While it was February in the real world, their headspace was always in a constant state of late spring. Again, if he concentrated hard enough, he could probably summon a rain cloud or two, but he had a feeling Magda would chide him for being melodramatic.
Mastermind sighed. Was a name really that important? It was just one way of referring to someone. It wasn’t like there were other ways of addressing a person. Hey, you or he or even a shove could work in place of a name. And Elliot was very adamant about minimizing Mastermind’s fronting time due to his… year-long stunt. So he wouldn’t be interacting with people outside of the system, so what did it matter?
The meaning of a person’s name is important, bruh, Vera’s words echoed in his head, haunting his thoughts just like the man himself. Back when he was Elliot, his name had meant brave warrior. A name’s meaning was supposedly important. Mastermind had an important meaning—and, evidently, a fitting one—but an actual name would be better than sounding like some 90’s movie supervillain.
Mastermind wasn’t even his name—it was more of a title, bestowed upon him by Elliot’s subconsciousness. Calling himself the mastermind was a bit of a mouthful, so the system had taken to calling him Mastermind for the time being. So, by all means, he was technically nameless; the only name he truly identified with was Elliot, but it was the only one he couldn’t have.
Leaning forward, Mastermind manifested a pack of cigarettes in his hoodie pocket. He pulled out a stick, creating a lighter to accompany it. With three clicks, he was able to light his cigarette. Returning the box and lighter to his pocket, he brought the stick to his lips and took a long drag before leaning back.
Fuck, man. Names were important. Maybe their meaning didn’t have to be groundbreaking, but everything needed a name. Even Mr. Robot was a name, for fuck’s sake.
Mastermind took another drag, exhaling and watching the stream of smoke rise into the beach air. Maybe he should have conjured up weed instead. He preferred the burn of marijuana over that of nicotine. Of course, it didn’t change the fact he wouldn’t actually get high. He frowned around his cigarette.
He wasn’t good at coming up with names. Elliot named Qwerty. Flipper was named by her original asshole of an owner. Sam Sepiol—did he or Elliot come up with that? He couldn’t remember—was always meant to be an alias, not a real name.
Another drag of his cigarette. Mastermind shut his eyes, wondering if he’d find the answer he was looking for anywhere.
He opened his eyes and he was back in Elliot’s apartment, sat at his computer. He blinked, regaining his bearings of abruptly coming to consciousness. He glanced around, finding no traces of Elliot or Mr. Robot anywhere. Had… had he accidentally pushed them aside to front?
Mastermind turned towards his computer, eyes catching on a blue sticky note marked up with Elliot’s neat handwriting. Pick one, it read.
He peeled the note off the screen, squinting at the two words as if it would bring any additional clarity. Pick one what? He glanced back at the screen with a scowl—
And noticed the multiple tabs open, denoting name lists, dictionaries, and meanings.
Elliot had willingly allowed him to front… to pick a new name for himself.
Mastermind’s fingers tightened around the sticky note in his hands before he placed it onto the desk. His hand slipped over his mouse out of second nature; it was like coming back after a long battle. A brave warrior, returning home.
Well. Who knew when Elliot would come back? Mastermind was on borrowed time.
“Any luck?” Elliot asked, shoulder pressed against his cabinet and his arms crossed.
Mastermind’s wide eyes snapped to him, as if surprised by Elliot’s appearance. He tended to get caught up in his work, oblivious to the outside world. After a moment of deliberation, he opened his mouth. “Sim.”
Elliot floundered for a moment. “Like… SIM card?”
After a few painfully long seconds, Mastermind nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
Elliot pressed his lips into a thin line. He had been gone for a few hours, allowing Mastermind to truly search for a name that fit him. It was what he wanted to be known as. Even if it sounded dumb, he should respect that. But…
“What about Sam?” he asked tentatively. “Like Sam Sepiol?”
Mastermind furrowed his eyebrows, ducking his head slightly. His eyes darted between objects in the room, never managing to stay on one. Eye contact was out of the question. Elliot nearly retracted his suggestion, fear of undermining Mastermind’s agency in doing something as simple as naming himself, but Mastermind finally said, “I don’t like it.”
Elliot recomposed himself, tightening his arms across his chest. “That’s cool, man. Just—just a suggestion.”
“Is Sim a stupid name?” Mastermind asked bluntly, honesty bleeding into his tone. If anything, he sounded… desperate? Like Elliot’s opinion mattered. When Elliot didn’t answer, Mastermind asked a bit more forcefully, “Is it?”
“Yeah! Yeah, it’s a stupid fucking name,” Elliot answered reflexively, frustration dripping into his tone due to Mastermind’s sudden intensity. Watching Mastermind’s face fall, Elliot did his best to put out the fire. “Shit, dude. You’re a person. You don’t need a code-related name.”
Mastermind pulled his hood over his head, a tell-tale sign of leave me the fuck alone. “Kinda fucking hard, dude. Nothing besides Elliot sounds right.”
Elliot opened his mouth to argue, something about how it was his name and how this was the one thing he refused to share—but a realization hit him like a bag of bricks. If he had split off like Mastermind had, he would be the one searching desperately for a name when all he wanted to be was Elliot. If Elliot had been the one to tear apart the server room that day, what name would he pick?
His comment from earlier this afternoon rang in his head. I’ve been Elliot for 29 years, he had said nonchalantly, uncaring about how it may have hurt Mastermind. You need a different name, man. You can’t use my name.
Were he and Mastermind not the same before last year? They were both Elliot up until a year ago.
Elliot ran a hand over his face, breathing a sigh. “I’m sorry, man. I know it must be tough.”
Mastermind huffed a laugh. “No shit.”
Elliot strode behind Mastermind, taking a seat on his bed. The mattress didn’t move, considering he had no physical body at the moment. It was still a weird phenomenon to get used to. “Come up with anything else?” he asked, doing his best to be supportive. The least he could do was hear out Mastermind’s other ideas.
For a long while, Mastermind was silent. His screen had gone into power-saver mode, leaving the apartment dark besides the lamp Elliot had turned on before switching. He had a feeling Mastermind would hyperfocus on his search and forget to turn on a light. He always got caught up in his work, his endless thoughts, that never-ending itch to act.
But now, he was unmoving—listless in a way Elliot only caught in fuzzy, detached memories of the alter. Memories Elliot could slip into with a reluctant familiarity: closed in on himself, pushed between his dresser and the corners of his wall. The all-too-familiar feeling of a man burdened with the loneliness that came in the absence of love.
“Null.”
Elliot froze, eyes widening when Mastermind finally spoke. “N—”
Mastermind’s shoulders were raised to his ears, arms pulled close to his chest, making himself as small as possible. “Null,” he repeated, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
Elliot rose slowly from his seat, taking deliberately telegraphed movements to stand by Mastermind’s side and not scare him. He knew better than to place a hand on his shoulder or offer a hug—Mastermind would only accept physical comfort from Mr. Robot and no one else in the system. Trust was earned with Mastermind, not easily given.
“Let’s… let’s give it a break for today, yeah?” Elliot said quietly, softening his voice.
Mastermind threw his head back, his face tight. His body was wracked with tremors, fingers tight around his forearms. “Rootkit, Virus, Malware,” he murmured, clear eyes glazed with tears, “those are real fuckin’ fitting, aren’t they?”
“You’re not a robot,” Elliot countered, realizing belatedly he would need to apologize to Mr. Robot the next time they spoke, “so let’s get you a—a human name. One that you like. Something that… something that isn’t Elliot, but feels like yours.” He watched as Mastermind’s trembling began to die down, his iron grip on his arms loosening. Elliot swallowed past the growing lump in his throat, keeping his composure in front of his alter. “Okay?”
Mastermind managed a nod, his voice shaky. “Y-Yeah,” he whispered, “yeah.”
He was back at Coney Island, but this time, he sat inside fsociety’s old base. The arcade games buzzed their idle screen sounds, blips and beeps white noise dissipating in the background. The cool reds and purples always felt like coming home. A simpler time of existing—when he was simply Elliot Alderson, no longer just dreaming of saving the world, but taking responsibility into his own hands and turning if into then.
Mastermind slumped heavily into his usual chair. No terminal sat in front of him. Even if there was, it wasn’t like there was any hacking he could do.
He tilted his head back, staring at the dusty support beams and the dimming artificial lights. No code-related names, as per Elliot. And no Elliot… as per Elliot. So what was left?
“You really gonna let something like a name trip you up?”
Mastermind shut his eyes, allowing his shoulders to drop. “I save the world and somehow have more trouble deciding on a word,” he mumbled, “pretty pathetic, huh?”
Footsteps sounded towards Mastermind’s right, and then the creaking of a chair being moved. Before long, his guest sat down, lighting a cigarette if the flicks of a lighter meant anything. “Like it or not, kiddo, it’s just something you need to do.” A long exhale, and Mastermind could picture the smoke rising from Mr. Robot’s lips and into the rafters. “It’s not gonna be easy, but you’ll be happy once you’ve got something of your own. And you know that, too.”
“It’s not easy.” Mastermind leaned back in his chair, keeping his eyes shut. “Elliot and I—we both called you Mr. Robot. You didn’t need to come up with something that somehow was meant to encompass everything that makes you you. That’s…”
“Sheesh, kid. Don’t need to make it all philosophical,” Mr. Robot huffed. He took another drag of his cigarette before continuing. “I didn’t take to my name right away, y’know. My job came first. I didn’t need a name to protect Elliot. I didn’t need a name to protect you either.”
Mastermind offered a small shrug. “It grew on you, didn’t it? You didn’t spend hours looking up regular names and propose them to us like we were in a conference meeting.”
Surprisingly, Mr. Robot sighed. “Because, as stupid and sappy as it sounds, you two gave me that name.” The man took another drag, probably with a complimentary eye roll. “So fucking sue me.”
Mastermind opened his eyes, still staring at the ceiling. “I don’t like the name Mastermind,” he said simply. Elliot gave it to me, went unsaid, even if Mr. Robot could hear it very clearly.
“Kiddo,” Mr. Robot began, adopting his I may not be your father but I’ve been around the block a few times tone, “people change their names all the time. Sometimes it comes with growing up and becoming a different person. Like—” his voice hitched for a moment— “your friend, Carla.” Then, he barked a laugh. “Or, hell, even Leon! That kid changed his name, too!”
He took another drag of his cigarette, allowing the moment to drag on. After what felt like a millennia, he concluded, “Point of the matter is, you don’t need to be Mastermind forever. Just like you weren’t Elliot forever.”
Mastermind’s lips pressed into a heavy frown, his chest heavy. “What if I don’t want to change? I wanted the world around us to change, not me.”
“Well, kiddo,” Mr. Robot sighed, the hiss of a cigarette being pressed into smoldering cinders filling in the gap, “sometimes you just gotta change along with it.”
When Mastermind finally dared to raise his head, Mr. Robot was gone. Probably back with Elliot, out in the real world. With people with real names with real lives. Without him.
He pressed his face into his hands, finally allowing his mask to drop. In the solitude of his abandoned sanctuary, he hissed, “Fuck me.”
“You must think you’re so funny,” Carla said, eyes never leaving the fire in front of her, “contacting me after all the shit you pulled in prison, E.”
Mastermind pulled his leg closer to his chest, resting his chin on his knee. “Sorry if I came across as,” he paused, choosing his words carefully, “controlling. In prison. I—I don’t really know when to stop.”
Carla frowned, flames reflecting against her fair skin, painting her face a golden orange. “Woulda kept us out of so much trouble if you just minded your own business. But whatever. Can’t change that now.” She glanced towards him, her dark eyes all-knowing. She was always so good at reading him. “You said we were the same. That’s why you were so obsessed with me.”
His eyes shifted to the fire. The charred page from Catcher in the Rye with Holden and Phoebe at the zoo lay somewhere in the flames. Mastermind had kept the page when she returned it to him in prison, waiting for the day they could burn it together. It was oddly sentimental. Distantly, he wondered what his journal must have looked like once she was done with it. All those words, all that strife—now a forgotten pile of ashes, blowing somewhere around Queensboro Correctional Facility’s premises.
“You’re—you’re free,” he managed. His words were caught in his throat, or maybe they were still buried in his chest. Wherever they were, they felt impossible to reach. The truth wouldn’t come to his lips. “You’re you.”
“For being such an avid reader,” Carla quipped, a small smile evident in her lilting tone, “your vocabulary is a bit lacking.”
He knew she was teasing him, of course. He wasn’t that dim. It was a playful type of teasing—the type of joking that came from friendship. With no prison gangs to worry about and their time in jail long gone, maybe Carla’s ill will had simmered down. Just like his final words in his journal: This only belongs in the past.
“Was it difficult?” he asked instead, refusing to look at her, “Realizing you weren’t Jack.”
Silence fell between them, Carla caught off-guard by Mastermind’s sudden topic shift. She had told him the story back in jail: Jack’s parents rejecting Carla. Jack being kicked out of his home, Carla taking him in. Jack taking the name of the only person to accept him.
Carla watched the flames, rising from that old red wheelbarrow she had brought for old time’s sake. Catcher in the Rye was far gone. “I always knew,” she said. “It was realizing everyone would see me as Jack and not Carla that was hard.”
Mastermind’s gaze flicked to their fire, a heavy frown tugging at his lips. The other prisoners—Mr. Robot included—had plenty to say about Carla being transgender. Sometimes it seemed that he and Leon were the only ones to see Carla as Carla.
“But you got over it,” Mastermind continued, gripping his arm, fingers tight around the black fabric of his hoodie. “You’re you,” he repeated.
“And that’s what matters, isn’t it?” she asked rhetorically. “I’m me. And I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks.” Then, she turned to him, giving him a knowing look. “So, E. Who are you?”
Mastermind breathed a laugh, wishing he had brought a joint with him. It was so much easier to bare his heart when he was higher than a kite. The anxiety, the paranoia—it all seemed to vanish, masked by an all-encompassing sense of liberation. The burn of the fire’s smoke coated his throat, no semblance of a cigarette’s pleasure. “I don’t fuckin’ know,” he answered honestly. “Thought you’d have some advice. Been there, done that. Y’know?”
“That dream you wrote about,” Carla said. “The one with all the girls in the kitchen and all the dudes in the living room. You in the hallway, happy to be a part of neither.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “You ever think more on that?”
She was prodding him. Pushing him towards an answer he already knew. Showing him the door, knowing he had the key.
Mastermind shrugged. “I’ve always been an outsider,” he said. “Hated binaries. Hated rules. Hated that people expected me to be normal.”
“Sounds like you,” Carla murmured, nodding to herself. She sighed, but it seemed more content than anything else. “This is something you need to decide for yourself. Don’t need me or him breathing down your neck about it.”
Mastermind found a laugh escaping him. “I think he’d be okay with it.” He smiled. “With me.”
Carla stood, offering a hand to Mastermind. He took it without a second thought, allowing Carla to pull him up. “You let me know when you figure out who you are. Okay?”
“I will,” Mastermind said, his smile stubbornly stuck on his face with Carla’s hand in his. “Thanks, Carla.”
“A name’s a name,” Leon said with a shrug. He offered the blunt to Mastermind, who took it after a moment. “Just another thing to put on paper, ya feel me, cuz?”
That was the thing about Leon, Mastermind mused as he took a long hit. Everything to him was temporary. His allegiance to the Dark Army wasn’t allegiance at all; it was a temporary agreement. Another way to make money and keep a roof over his sisters’ heads.
Mastermind passed the joint back, his head a fuzzy mess. Elliot would wake up totally stoned tomorrow morning. “What made you pick Leon?” he asked slowly, his words slurring together.
Leon put the blunt to his lips, taking a long inhale. He should have coughed from such a long intake, but perhaps it came with practice. The burn was rewarding once it was mastered. “Leon Robinson,” he said once he exhaled. “Dude was in everything. Actor… singer… even a producer. Shit’s hard to do.”
Mastermind nodded slowly. He’d probably forget this conversation once he was clean. For now, though, he nodded along. “S’cool,” he managed. “I can’t pick one.”
Leon nodded too, as if they were sharing the secrets of the world while getting absolutely baked on Elliot’s couch. “You’ll always be my boy, Elli,” he said, never losing his chill, “doesn’t matter what your name is.”
“I like the name Elliot,” Mastermind sluggishly said, resting his head on the back of Elliot’s couch. He felt completely loose, body as light as a feather. “I like when you call me Elli.”
Leon passed him the joint. “So pick a name that sounds like Elliot,” he said like it was the simplest thing in the world. “Not like Elliot, but like Elliot. You know what I mean?”
Mastermind, completely plastered, took another hit. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I gotchu, man.”
They sat there for the rest of the night, passing the blunt back and forth. Mastermind had no idea when the sun rose, or when Leon had left, or when he had ended up in bed, but he had a feeling someone else had fronted during his trip.
On a blue sticky note stuck to his hand, he managed to read, You can deal with the afterblaze in Elliot’s handwriting.
Mastermind laughed, even if it hurt his lungs. He didn’t expect anything less.
Later that day once Mastermind felt like his head wouldn’t fall off his shoulders, he took a seat at Elliot’s desk. The brightness of the screen still hurt his eyes, but it was manageable. He’d dealt with worse crashes. Hell, he’d dealt with fucking morphine withdrawals before. The lows after the highs were nothing new to him.
He opened a name dictionary, one with meanings listed under each moniker. He immediately jumped to the E section and worked his way down to names beginning with El.
A name like Elliot’s, but different enough to be his. A name with meaning. A name that made him feel like him.
It would be his last time being Elliot’s shadow. He would have a name for himself, and thus, an identity of his own. He could finally throw the mask away.
No more Mastermind.
An hour later, Elliot appeared by his side. “Better luck today?” he asked, smile evident in his voice.
Wordlessly, Mastermind reached a hand behind his screen, turning it to face Elliot.
Elias, the screen said. Derived from the name Elijah, the Hebrew prophet and miracle worker. The person to confront one of the earliest corruptions—idolatry of a wicked god. After his work was done, the savior was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire. A man as justice-driven and melodramatic as Mastermind himself.
“I like it,” Elliot said earnestly. “Are you happy with it?”
After a moment, Elias nodded. “Yeah,” he confirmed, allowing a small smile of his own. “I like it.”
Elliot could feel Elias’ mirth as if it were his own. His alter was truly happy with his self-decided name. It was close enough to Elliot to feel familiar, but it was different enough to be his own. Eli instead of Elli. A similar beginning, a shared foundation—but a completely different ending. Plants born of the same seed, but rising from the soil and blossoming into something completely unique.
Flipper ran towards the two of them, pawing at Elias’ legs with a few yips. Elias leaned down, picking the dog up and enveloping her in a hug. “You’re such a smart girl, Flipper.”
“She is,” Elliot said, crossing his arms. He shrugged, gesturing towards the door. “Looks like it’s your day today, Elias.”
Elias blinked owlishly at him, eyes wide. Flipper yipped again, crawling up his chest to lick his chin, shocking him out of his reverie. “My day,” he said with a laugh.