Before the girl could verbally slap him for being a weird idiot who just jumped down from a building, Deathlok heard sirens. Sirens meant generally bad things. Either the police got to a crime before he did, which sucked, or they were after him, presumably because he was a teenager dicking around out of school and beating people up. Also he was a robot, kinda made you want to at least question him. You didn't see robots everyday, did you? Probably not. Maybe not. With a panicked expression gracing his face, Matt quickly flew off into the distance, leaving her with little more the jet fumes and a hurried "I'll seeya later!"

[b]Chapter 1 - Rising Action
[New Metropolis, August 31, 2058][/b]

The next two weeks, things returned generally to normal for Deathlok, or DL, as he commonly initialized himself as. Crime fighting had returned to normal, no cute girls, no dating antiheroes, just pure action. He had also figured a solution to the money problem he was having; freelance bounty hunting. He obviously wasn't old enough for a license, so instead he simply gave the escaped convict to a legal bounty hunter, for a price. It wasn't the most legal practice, nor did it pay the most, but he was still pitching in and fighting crime technically, so he was sure it got him some brownie points. And, hey, he needed money from somewhere, right?

With a grunt, Matt powered on at the time he set last night. A glance at his battery told him he was at full charge. Good. He was planning on getting a particularly high bounty criminal today. Hopefully nothing would get in his way, the cops interfered last time he had got close to one this big. Sure, he hated criminals, but the cops were kinda stealin' his thunder and money too. Rent was important, and so was power. (Both electrical and social, in this case.) He kinda needed that stuff to live, since, robot. He hated that crap, being a robot. He was still adjusting to it, even after all this time. It'd been, what, a while, he guessed, and occasionally he'd just lie down on the couch, thinking he would fall asleep and have his body recharge with his mind. Nope, he needed to plug himself in first to wake up in the morning. Ugh.

Back to business, he quickly emptied the dryer and clothed himself in his favorite outfit, brown jacket and all. He had polished himself last night, no need for that today. He was prepared for crime fighting! He quickly checked for all of his stuff. Gun, sword, actual freaking rope this time you dumb idiot, yes, all here! He grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter and locked his door on the way out. After slipping his keys into his back pocket, he descended the stairs of the apartment building. He was surprised no one made a fit about there being a robot in the building. Sure, not many people had seen him... Had any people seen him at all? He couldn't quite remember... Ah well, wasn't an issue now. With that thought on his mind, Deathlok exited the building, spirits high for a day of badassery and heroism.