The Enchanted Man

One day I was helping my silver haired old neighbour Mr Carpenter* to move some boxes from his attic when, taking the lid off of an old tin that was with the boxes, in its shiny underside I saw Mr Carpenters reflection and I gasped.
For, though he was dressed quite normally in a blue waistcoat, white shirt and blue trousers, his reflection wore a skin tight purple costume and mask.
I had to look at it a few times before I could believe my eyes and then I couldn't help mentioning it to Mr Carpenter.
"Alright", he said to me, "I'll confess. I used to be a superhero".
"Superhero?", I asked, incredulous because, outside of comic books and cartoons, I hadn't believed that any such thing existed.
"Yes", he said, "My reflection was always one of my weaknesses because, even in the heaviest disguise, it always gave away my super identity, that of The Enchanted Man".
"Enchanted Man?",  I said.
"Yes or En for short", he replied.
"But I've never heard of a real superhero, any real superhero for that matter and certainly never one called the Enchanted Man", I said, "Why weren't you famous?".
"Because I was a consulting superhero", said Mr Carpenter, "I didn't, at least not usually, go to people, they came to me for help and were sworn to secrecy about my existence".
"Why didn't you go around saving people like superheros in comic books?", I asked.
"Because life isn't like a comic book", he replied, "In real life, if a man in a costume starts flying around helping people, then he has all the worlds media and the agents of every government and organization searching for his secret identity and then it becomes impossible to hide. My way was safer. Besides which I never charged for my services and I never turned anyone who asked for my help away, unless they had evil in their hearts or madness in their brains, like some dictators did who wanted my services".
I had to sit down after that, I was so stunned by everything that Mr Carpenter had told me.
Infact, I still wasn't a hundred percent sure that I wasn't dreaming; that whilst helping Mr Carpenter to remove boxes from his attic, one of them hadn't fallen on my head and knocked me out cold.
But after he had made me a cup of tea; not super or enchanted tea but just the regular kind, because my mind was now bristling with a million questions, I asked him some more.
"Well how did you become a superhero?", I asked, "Are you from another planet? Did you get bitten by a radioactive bug?".
"Oh no", he said, "Nothing like that. I worked in my fathers little Antiques shop, just off Charring cross road actually and I was sold an antique box that was just an ordinary box unless it was opened by someone worthy to know its secret. Several generations of the same family had owned the box before me and had never known that it was magical but the moment I opened it, it was filled with power".
"Can I see the box?", I asked, overwhelmed that, ontop of meeting a real live superhero, I might get the chance to see some ancient magical artifact that, unlike lucky charms and ouija boards, actually worked.
"You can", he said, "But you have to remember that, in the hands of most people, its nothing but an ordinary, empty box".
And, saying this, he stretched out his arms with his palms held vertically and several inches apart and then, as if I had not seen enough of a magic show, I saw a box appear to materialize out of thin air between them.
"Magic", I said for there was no other word for it.
Then he placed the box within my quivering, eager hands.
But thats when the memory restoration chip implanted within my cerebral cortex started to activate itself and I remembered what I truly was, a trojan horse, a sleeper agent of the MORI-R-T programme.
"I've done it", I said, "I have the source of your power".
"Who are you?", asked Carpenter, realizing immediately that something had changed in me, "Why didn't my telepathy reveal your identity to me?".
"Because even I didn't know who I was until now", I said, grinning broadly, so happy to have brought my master victory, "My master had my old memory supressed and a new cover memory implanted. As for who my master is, he is Mori-R-T; a computer programme comissioned by a crime syndicate and designed by a team of hackers to be an artificially criminal mastermind who could always stay one move ahead of the police. Ofcourse, possessing an IQ of one billion and one, it wasn't long before it took control of the crime syndicate becoming its new kingpin".
"And your master wanted me out of the way. Is that it?", asked Carpenter.
"Not only that", I said, "When you are implanted with a control chip, Mori-R-T will control you too and you will control your magic box for my masters ends".
Just then, however, Carpenter looked deep into my eyes, almost as if he was peering deep into my mind.
"But thats not who you really are is it?", he said, "I see a third identity. Your original human identity before a control chip was implanted making you a slave".
"N-no", I said, almost terrified of remembering; of going against the puppet master who had tied me to his strings, "There is no other me".
"Thats not true", he persevered, "You have to remember who you truely are; that is your soul and without that you are dead; just a heartless machine like it".
"No", I said but then, almost as if I was seeing clouds parting and light bursting through, I caught a glimpse; a glimpse of who I originally was; one of the designers of Mori-R-T who his robot brain surgeons had held down and operated upon, removing his humanity.
It was only a glimpse but long enough for me to want to throw the box back into Mr Carpenters hands and, no sooner was he holding the box again, when its lid mysteriously opened and a strange magical light began to burst out of it.
Just the power in that light must have removed the control chip from my brain for then, suddenly, I felt no more terror; no more panic. I just felt free.
Ofcourse, then I remembered, with a twinge of guilt, that I had been one of the bad guys; a hired hacker in the pay of a ring of thieves but now it felt as if Mr Carpenter or The Enchanted Man had given me a second chance, to be someone better and use whatever skills I had, like him, for good.

(*Mr Carpenter is not my neighbours real name. His name has been changed to protect the secret identity of The Enchanted Man.)