The Superhero's Son (Book 1): The Superhero's Test (12 page)

“But—”

“No buts,” said Dad, holding up a finger to silence me. “I knew you would react this way, but that does not justify intentionally putting your life at risk just to defeat him. Stay here and train and learn how to use your powers; that way, if he does manage to get here, you will be prepared to defend yourself from him.”

Dad's logic was sound. As angry as I was, even I knew that I was no match for Master Chaos yet. It made more sense to stay here and train than to go searching for the man who killed my uncle.

But if I stayed and waited, then Master Chaos would eventually come here and harm not just me, but my family as well. I wanted to stop him before he ever even saw our house, but it was obvious that I couldn't.

So I nodded at Dad and said, “All right. I'll stay here and focus on my training, like you want me to.”

Dad smiled in relief. “Wonderful. Now I think that is all we need to talk about, so if you want to go to your room, you can. I have to speak with the NHA and find out if they have any new information on Master Chaos's whereabouts.”

With that, Dad stood up and left the living room, leaving me standing alone here.

But I didn't stand around forever. Hauling my backpack over my shoulder, I made my way back to my room, thinking about everything Dad told me. I hadn't been lying when I told him that I was going to stay here and not go after Master Chaos. I didn't want to create any unnecessary worry or fear for my parents, not after I learned about Uncle Jake's death and how that had affected Mom and Dad.

Yet neither could I just be a good boy and train like Dad wanted me. I wanted to do something, something that would ensure our safety. I didn't look forward to having Master Chaos show up on our front porch and break down our front door. I wanted to make sure that Master Chaos would not come to our house and harm us.

And I knew how to do it.

Chapter Ten

T
he plan seemed simple enough: Take one of Dad's gauntlets, go to the hospital where Robert was being kept, and then use Dad's gauntlet to alter Robert's memory of me punching him and convince him that he had been hurt by something else (probably that air bomb that Dad made everyone believe had harmed him). That way, Robert would somehow tell his own father, Master Chaos, that I hadn't punched him and that might convince Master Chaos to leave me and my family alone.

But it wasn't nearly as simple as it seemed. For one, Dad did not just leave his superhero equipment lying around for anyone (read: me) to pick up and use for whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. And, while Dad could be reasonable, he was also very protective of his equipment and never let anyone use it, not even his own family members. That was how Dad was with his computer and computer software and so I assumed that that was how he was with his Genius costume and gear.

Second, I didn't even know where Dad kept his suit. I knew he didn't have a suit-up watch like me—I never saw him wearing one—so I figured he had to keep it somewhere else. My first guess was that it was in my parents' room, probably in their closet. But I never went into my parents' room, mostly because, well, it's my parents' room, and how many kids ever voluntarily go into their parents' room?

Third, I needed a way to get to the hospital where Robert was kept. I found the hospital's address after a few seconds of online searching, but according to my maps app, the hospital was nearly an hour away from where I lived. If I took the car, my parents would immediately know and my entire plan would fall apart before I even left the driveway.

And finally, Dad most likely kept his suit protected. After all, I doubt he'd want some thief to break into our house, find the suit, and then take it and use it for his own criminal purposes. I didn't know the exact security measures Dad used to protect his suit, but that didn't matter, because I figured they were most likely extremely high-tech. And I wasn't a very tech-savvy guy, to be honest.

Still, I had to do it. This was my only chance of stopping Master Chaos before he got here. According to the news, Master Chaos's whereabouts were still unknown, but it was believed that he was still somewhere in New York. I doubted that, myself, because if he was as smart as Dad said he was, then Chaos was likely already on his way here. That was why I needed to alter Robert's memory of what put him in the hospital.

But I couldn't get one of Dad's gauntlets right away. Aside from the fact that I was at school most of the day, Mom and Dad were home fairly frequently. Dad did a lot of his work at home, while Mom was a housewife who only ever left the house to do grocery shopping or run other errands that Dad and I couldn't. The weekends were definitely out, because Dad was home on the weekends to train me and we usually trained all day.

In fact, it seemed like my plan to take Dad's gauntlet was just going to remain in my head when I got home from school Friday afternoon only to discover that the house was empty. I went into the living room, kitchen, and garage, but could not find Mom or Dad anywhere. That was odd. They were always home before me. Where were they?

That was when I saw a sticky note on the kitchen counter, next to a ham sandwich covered with plastic wrap. Confused, I walked up to the kitchen counter, plucked the note off it, and then looked closely at the note to read what it said:

KEVIN: Mom suddenly came down with bad sickness. Took her to the doctor to have her looked at. Sandwich is your dinner. Call me when you get home. No superheroics. Dad.

The note was hard to read because Dad had really bad handwriting, but having spent years reading Dad's handwriting, I managed to decipher it without much trouble.

I immediately reached for my smartphone to call Dad and ask him about Mom, but then I paused. While I did want to know how Mom was doing, a part of me realized that I was home alone and that both of my parents were probably going to be gone for several more hours at least. That meant I could go and get one of Dad's gauntlets without having to worry that I will be discovered.

Placing the note back on the kitchen counter, I made my way to Mom and Dad's room. The door was unlocked, so I opened it and stepped inside as quickly as I could, closing the door behind me as I looked around at my surroundings.

Mom and Dad had a bigger room than I did, although not by much. They had a big queen-sized bed in the middle, with a huge dresser on the left side of the room. A desk with a small lamp stood on the right side of the bed, which had Dad's tablet on it, while another a book—one of those romance novels Mom likes to read—lay on the bed on the side where Mom probably slept at night. The room smelled much nicer than mine, like lilacs, which was probably Mom's doing.

Then I spotted their closet on the right side of the room. It was closed, but did not appear to be locked, so I walked over to it as quickly as I could. I also moved silently, carefully walking over a pair of Dad's shoes on the floor. Even though there was no one in the house except for me, I still felt like I was sneaking through enemy territory, trying to avoid being caught.

When I reached the closet door, I did not open it right away. I quickly checked it to make sure that there wasn't some kind of security system hooked up to it, but as far as I could tell, the door was completely unlocked. That didn't seem like my security-obsessed Dad, but maybe Dad thought that it was unlikely that anyone would try to break into his closet. Or maybe his costume was hidden somewhere outside the house, although I wanted to make sure it really wasn't there before I searched elsewhere.

So I opened the door all the way, allowing me to see the interior of the closet. It was a walk-in, which didn't surprise me, because I entered the closet when we first moved in but before Mom and Dad unpacked all their stuff. On the right side hung Dad's clothes, while Mom's stuff was on the left, and their shoes were on the same sides as their respective clothing. Some of Mom's old purses were stacked on the upper levels, while the closet itself smelled like mothballs.

Walking inside, I looked at Dad's clothes, trying to see if his costume was hanging with his business suits. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. It looked like Dad didn't hang his super suit with his business suit, which made sense, because that would be a huge security risk if there ever was one. That meant his costume was elsewhere, but where?

My first thought was the basement, so I turned to leave and check there, but before I did, I caught a glimpse of a red light blinking behind Mom's dresses. Wondering what it was, I pushed aside a blue dress and a yellow dress to see a blinking red light on the wall. It was very small, so small that I wondered how I noticed it blinking, but that didn't matter because I figured the suit had to be behind that light.

I reached over and pressed my hand against the space just beneath the blinking red light. The space folded over suddenly, revealing a tiny keypad with all twenty-six letters and all ten digits underneath it. An even smaller screen was built into the area just above the keypad, with the words 'PLEASE ENTER SIX CHARACTER PASSWORD' glowing on it.

Uh oh. I hadn't expected to have to crack a password puzzle. I was awful at guessing passwords; hell, I barely even remembered the passwords for my own accounts. How was I supposed to figure this one out?

But I couldn't just give up and leave, at least not yet. My hand hovered over the keypad as I thought about what the password might be. If I was Dad, what kind of six character password would I use to protect my super suit from someone who might want to take it?

I decided to start inputting random passwords. So I started typing on the keypad and pressing 'enter' after every password, only to see the words 'PASSWORD INCORRECT. ACCESS DENIED' whenever I did. This went on for five minutes before I gave up and shook my head.

Okay, this was getting stupid. I didn't have all the time in the world to figure out what kind of super secret password Dad used to protect his suit. It was probably some kind of obscure reference to mathematics or science or maybe, if he was feeling cute (which Dad rarely did), some kind of dumb in-joke between him and Mom that was really embarrassing.

At this point, I probably should have just turned around and returned to my room. Or maybe just call Dad like the note said and find out how Mom was doing, but I couldn't give up just yet. I knew what I needed to do to protect us from Master Chaos and I was going to do it no matter what.

So, like the good son that I was, I activated my super strength and broke the keypad straight off the wall. Yeah, I knew Dad was going to be pissed at me when he found out, probably rant about how much money it was going to cost to replace it, and then maybe kill me, but once my plan worked and Master Chaos was no longer a threat to our lives, Dad would understand.

As soon as I broke the keypad, the wall pulled back and slid to the side, revealing a set of metal stairs that spiraled down into the darkness below. I figured that was where the suit was kept, so I made my way down the steps as quickly and carefully as I could. There wasn't much light to see by, so I had to be careful about where I stepped, but I still walked fast because I wasn't sure when Dad was going to get home.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I found yet another door, but this one was unlocked. It slid open at a touch, revealing a small, office-like room. On one side stood a desk, along with about a dozen monitors and four servers. The monitors were currently off, which made me wonder what Dad used them for. There was also a half-drunk cup of cold coffee at the desk, along with an overflowing waste paper basket under the desk and an unfinished burrito. It looked almost like Dad's home office, except darker and more technologically advanced, like Dad had gone into the future and brought back some technology with him.

On the other side stood Dad's super suit, which was in a glass container against the wall. His suit was on a mannequin of some sort, which looked kind of creepy, but I didn't care because I noticed that both of his gauntlets were attached to it. I walked up to the glass container and found a button beneath it that seemed to open it.

Pressing the button, I watched as the glass slid away, allowing cool air to rush out of the container. Shivering slightly, I reached up for the gauntlets. I took the right one, since I'm a righty, and found that it came off the mannequin's hand without any trouble.

Looking at the gauntlet in my hands, I couldn't believe how advanced it was. It looked like something out of a science-fiction movie. It had a large touch screen on it, in addition to dozens of small buttons and keys that were unmarked, probably because Dad most likely had all of their abilities and features memorized. I didn't, however, so I didn't know which one did the flashy memory-wipe thing and which ones didn't.

In fact, turning it over in my hands, I didn't even know how to turn it on. I didn't see a big red button that said 'ON' or anything else to suggest how it is supposed to work. I slipped it onto my hand to see how it would feel.

As soon as I did that, the gauntlet suddenly tightened and the touch screen suddenly activated. The words 'WELCOME, GENIUS' appeared on the screen briefly before they were replaced by what looked like the desktop screen (if a technological gauntlet can be said to have a 'desktop' screen, anyway). Actually, it looked more like a smartphone's main screen, displaying what appeared to be dozens and dozens of different apps, none of which were labeled or had any images to suggest what they might do.

“Uh …” I was hesitant to touch the screen, if only because I didn't want to accidentally blow my arm off. “Siri?”

“My name is not Siri,” said a feminine, monotone voice from the gauntlet. “It is Valerie.”

Startled, I stepped back and said, “Uh, okay, Valerie. Did Dad create you?”

“Dad?” said Valerie, sounding slightly confused. “What do you mean? You created me, Genius.”

“What? No, I didn't,” I said. “I'm not Genius.”

“Oh,” said Valerie. “But your DNA signature is similar to his. Who are you, then?”

“I'm his son, Kevin,” I said. “But you can call me Bolt.”