The cold and distant way with which many people spoke of Bicentennial Man was alien to Jamie, who only ever regarded the film with the deepest, almost biological sense of familiarity. It was as much family to Jamie as a parent or sibling, something of which he had no real concept outside of what he'd learned from the movie itself.

Finally, Jamie decided to find out what they were talking about, or not talking about rather. It seemed that in the sea of films that had followed and preceded it, Bicentennial Man had risen briefly to the surface of popular culture only to sink down once and for all into irrelevance. How it was that such a story could have so little impact, Jamie couldn't work his mind around but was determined to find out.

He couldn't ask Lydia; the woman didn't coddle or shield him, but did behave strangely whenever Jamie brought up Bicentennial Man. Lately, she'd even begun declining when Jamie invited her over to watch it with him, saying only that she had other plans.

Because he could find few people who'd actually seen and remembered the movie, and fewer still whom he trusted, Jamie resorted to the internet. On a computer at the public library, he punched "Bicentennial Man reviews" into the search box and was hit with the biggest blow of his post-bunker life.

Instantly, his request was answered by an endless manifest of sources on the matter. He found that many of them were lists. There were headlines like, "Biggest Flops of the 90s," and "Movies You Forgot Robin Williams Was In," and "25 Movies That Were Totally Wrong About the Future." 

One of the kinder headlines Jamie found read, "Top 25 90s Films That Aren't as Terrible as You Remember."

The consensus was that casual film-goers quickly forgot about the underwhelming Bicentennial Man, and movie critics dismissed it as over-sentimental and pointless. It had received moderate praise for its practical effects, which, while impressive for the time, had since become outdated and unremarkable by current standards.

To sum up the current and historic impact of Bicentennial Man on the cinematic and cultural landscape, one man said it best; Jamie was sitting next to him on the bus on his way to the grocery store and, upon recognizing Jamie, the man had shrugged and muttered, "it was alright."

The film that had shepherded Jamie into adulthood in his tiny capsule underground had meanwhile, in the outside world, endured what had since been described as a "blasè reception" before ultimately fading into unfashionable obscurity.

The world went on.

Jamie felt something sinking in his chest. Even when he'd been buried away in his capsule in the ground, Jamie had never known such loneliness. At least down there, he'd felt content because he knew nothing else. His few links to the outside world— stories he'd read, ads in magazines, and, of course, Bicentennial Man—casually depicted relationships between people as if they were so natural a thing that they needed no explanation. While this had made Jamie eventually wonder why he had nothing remotely like it in his life, he couldn't feel the loss of something he'd never had.

Now, out of his solitary capsule and thrust into the populated world of crowded streets, honking cars, and shrugging men on busses, Jamie felt utterly separate. For the first time, he understood what it was to be apart.

In search of someone—anyone—to stand with this movie, to stand with Jamie, he finally turned to the man himself, the Bicentennial Man. Surely he would have some answer to these people. Surely he could offer some obvious rebuttal that would soundly correct and silence these obtuse and unfair reviewers.

But when Jamie typed the name and pressed 'Enter', he was met with a barrage of articles that not only bore no mention of Bicentennial Man, but seemed to have little to do with any movie in the actor's impressive filmography. Even the actor's most prominent works fell to the wayside in the face of one momentous event. Jamie's eyes fell from headline to headline, all similarly themed, until finally, he clicked on a link that took him to a news article from 2014. As he read, he felt the sinking mass in his chest take a final dive.

Jamie didn't take a bus but walked home from the library.

Once, Samson had invited Jamie to his synagogue.

Jamie knew little about religion but more than people guessed. Now that he was out of the confines of his bunker, he was free to explore any one he chose. Still, he found he had no interest. To Jamie, his living room was his synagogue, his couch his prayer mat. The television was Mecca, toward which he prayed—sometimes five times a day.

It was the Church of Bicentennial Man. He praised it and deferred to it. When someone spoke ill of it, it was blasphemous.

Once, a man had told Jamie that in the original story by Isaac Asimov, from which the movie was adapted, the overarching question was about what really constituted humanity. The man said that the filmmakers' choice to shift the focus to romance as the driving motivation of Andrew's transformation had bogged down the core message in unnecessary melodrama and so lost sight of the true power of the original story.

Looking back on it later, Jamie didn't know whether it was the words themselves or the plain and clinical way in which the man had said them, but something had propelled his fist forward. The impact sent the man backward into the surrounding passengers where he crumbled into a ball on the bus floor. Someone screamed and the downed man stared wildly up at Jamie, clutching his bloodied face. Everyone on the crowded shuttle was looking at Jamie.

Three officers had gathered at the next stop. Jamie didn't fight or try to run, but they cuffed and flanked him as if he might. The cop guiding his elbow eyed Jamie scrutinously for a moment, then smiled. "Hey, you're that Bicentennial Man, right?"

The officer tucked Jamie's head down as he fed him into the cab of the car.

"Wow, Jamie's first fight." Damien grinned at him, hands in his pockets. Beside him, Lydia sprung forward, her eyes wide and shiny on an otherwise wan complexion.

The officer who'd lead him out into the lobby uncuffed Jamie's wrists. Jamie didn't have anything on him but what he was wearing when they'd arrested him so he didn't need to collect any belongings.

"My God, Jamie!" Lydia said. "Are you kidding me?"

Jamie's eyes drifted from Lydia to Damian.

On the drive back to his apartment, Jamie rode in the backseat. Damien was in the passenger's seat, beside Lydia.

"Are you in love with him?" Jamie asked suddenly, interrupting Lydia, who'd been speaking rapidly and in stern, impassioned tones.

"What?" She said after a pause.

Damien snorted. "Jesus. Imagine if he'd been locked up down there with a comedy."

"Why would you say that, Jamie?" Lydia asked finally, and Jamie couldn't help noticing the defensive edge that had crept into her voice. The car was silent for the first time since they'd pulled out of the police station parking lot.

Jamie didn't have any reason and truthfully didn't know why he'd asked it. There was just something in seeing both of them there at the police station. Without thinking, the words were out of the safety of his mouth and hovering nakedly in the compact space of the car, bouncing off the enclosing walls. It was a similar phenomenon to the way his fist had earlier left his side and traveled to the middle of that man's face. He felt as ill-equipped with an answer now as he'd felt then when the police officers had asked him why he'd hit the man. So Jamie turned instead to stare out the window.

When they arrived, Lydia walked Jamie up to the door of his apartment building.

"We were hanging out when you called," She said lowly, referring to Damien who was waiting back in the car. "He wanted to come along."

"You don't have to explain it to me."

Lydia hugged Jamie briefly but tightly before turning to walk back to the car.

Jamie was a victim of Bicentennial Man, and Bicentennial Man the captor he had grown to love.

The conversation started during another intermission when Dana, a young Communications student who interned with Lydia's network, had posed the question to the group: if they were locked in a bunker for twenty years and could only watch one movie, what would it be?

Samson hadn't hesitated before answering The Lion King, a Disney film that was released in the 1990's. Jamie had seen most all of the Disney films now due to an unironic marathon that they'd had to split across three Fridays to complete.

Damien said Reservoir Dogs.

A few others called out movies, all released before 2010; Jamie had learned that, aside from a few exceptions, it was a sign of poor taste to like anything created after that time. Alternately, liking anything made too far before 1960 was considered snobby and elitist. Jamie, who was well-versed in the films from neither era, was given a pass from both pretension and vulgarity.

Jamie had expected Lydia to say Kiki's Delivery Service, an animated film by Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki, because she'd already told him that it was her favorite movie, but then Dana cut in.

"Wait—this isn't a question of what your favorite movie is," she elaborated. "But what movie you'd be able to watch for twenty years."

“Wait, like, on repeat for twenty years?" Damien asked.

"Well, no," Dana said. "You can do other things—"

"We have to just watch this movie for twenty straight years?" Someone else chimed.

"Well, you're not strapped to a chair—"

"Is death an option?"

"No, listen—"

"How about not being trapped in a bunker for twenty years?"

"Alright, alright, listen. Shhhh," Dana said when the laughter and chiding had finally been exhausted. "It's just a movie that you have and you can watch it if you want to, but it's the only one you have. So it behooves you if it has a bit of everything—romance, comedy, drama, action—whatever you might be in the mood for."

"So. Okay," Damian began again. "Okay, we don't have to watch it. It's just something we can do if we get bored with the..."

"Magazines and books," Samson said, nudging Jamie.

"Magazines and books."

"And if the pens and pencils run out," someone else helped.

"And if the pens and pencils run out," Damian finished.

"Correct," Dana said, interweaving her fingers on top of the coffee table.

"Alright," Damien concluded. "Then I pick—wait, can it be a series?"

"One movie!"

"Well, then I pick Reservoir Dogs."

A few people laughed and Dana rolled her eyes.

Samson changed his pick to Kurasawa's The Seven Samurai and someone threw a pillow and called him a snob.

"What do you pick, Lydia?" Dana asked, turning the room's focus to the woman beside Jamie, who'd been oddly quiet.

"I'm not playing," Lydia said.

"What? Why not?"

"I'm good. Just not playing. Pass."

"I guess we all know what Jamie would pick," someone said.

Upon hearing his name, Jamie turned from the woman beside him.

"Wait, that's not fair,” Samson said. “Jamie didn't pick Bicentennial Man. It was just there. He wasn't given an option."

"Oh, yeah. Well, now that you've seen other movies, Jamie, if you could pick, what would it be?" Dana asked brightly, and the group all turned to Jamie, waiting.

Jamie thought over the multitudes of films he'd watched over the past few months of his friendship with Lydia and even when he'd experimented on his own. They were all diverse in theme and story. There were good movies, sure, some even great. But there was still just the one.

He looked around at all the intent faces, all waiting for his answer. "The Mask Returns," he said. And then, when everyone had stopped laughing, he answered honestly.

A brief moment of stillness passed before the group erupted again. Samson was elbowing him and others were putting their fists to their mouths to keep their drinks in. Lydia was staring at him.

"Really, Jamie? Still?"

"Yes," He said, looking around at everyone as their laughter slowly faded.

"You're not being funny?" Samson asked.

"Damn. Stockholm,” Damien said.

As a few people went to the balcony to take a smoke break and others went to the store to get more drinks, Samson explained to Jamie what Stockholm Syndrome was.

That night, after Lydia and Damien had driven him home from the police station, Jamie took the movie from the VHS player and put it in the microwave. All but one of the smoke alarms in his apartment went off. As the apartment manager helped him fan out the plumes, Jamie apologized to her. Rubbing at her eyes, she told him to get a battery for the dead alarm and shuffled back to her room.