We’ve all been there; you post up an advert as a ‘Hero-for-Hire’ end up crashing on a Space Station, and then have to send out the inner workings of your robot companion to take over robotic animals in order to stay alive. Sometimes stuff just happens, but you learn to adapt. And in Dan Danger’s case, you learn to delegate.
‘I knew where I was up there,’ says Dan while sitting on a bench outside Meta’s Headquarters in Silicon Valley, a coffee mug bearing the Facebook logo in his hand and a screwdriver tucked behind his ear, ‘there’s a sort of order to things when you’re fighting to stay alive and save the universe. I mean I know Evo says that he was the one dealing with everything, and there was all that business with that Evil Brain that I think he blew out of proportion, and yes the Space Station colliding with New York could have been a lot worse, but I had everything under control.’
Dan looks dejected; he’s certainly not the cool go-getter with the funky moves we know from the short cutscenes in the game. ‘It’s all teraflops and social media down here,’ he said glumly, taking a sip of coffee, ‘no one wants a hero for hire when they can ask their phone to solve problems for them. I tried to get away from it all after New York, but now the ship’s lodged in the side of a giant apple logo, I don’t know how to fix it, and I’ve got people in skinny jeans asking me if I want to be on something called ‘Netflix’. Nothing makes sense anymore; just give me a hyena on wheels and a floating sheep, that’s the stuff I miss.’
When asked where Evo was, Dan laughed and shook his head. ‘ He’s long gone. When the team at Nvidia saw Evo jump down from the ship they hired him immediately to be their head of operations. He’s in that building over there working on chips for the new Nintendo Switch, he just gets this world.’
I’m unsure what lies ahead in Dan’s future, though there’s currently an Apple Genius lurking out of shot with a t-shirt that already has his name on it. Maybe it’s time to give up the Hero-for-Hire life for something more relaxing, something customer-focused, more ‘9 to 5’ rather than ‘fighting to stay alive’. Although from what I’ve seen of retail around Black Friday and the Holidays, they’re pretty much the same thing! Where’s that canon-wielding Polar Bear when you need it, ey Dan?
