The Superhero's Son (Book 1): The Superhero's Test (22 page)

I didn't know what to do. I hadn't expected to meet him so soon. I just stood there, staring at him, unable to look away from his mad eyes.

Then Master Chaos pushed up the brim of his hat and said, “Disappointing.”

His voice was harsh and hoarse, very different from Robert's voice and not what I was expecting to hear.

That was why it snapped me out of my shock and caused me to say, “What?”

“You,” said Master Chaos. He shook his head. “So small and scrawny. I thought that was just how the pictures made you look. But I guess the camera must add ten pounds or something.”

Master Chaos seemed very laid-back, like we were a couple of Internet friends meeting in real life for the first time. I almost wondered if he had forgotten the whole reason I was even here, but I didn't let my guard down around him.

“How did I get here?” I said. I touched the device on my chest. “How did Robert get this device?”

“Robby?” said Master Chaos. He seemed to notice the star-shaped device on my chest. “Ah, yes. I remember. I gave that to Maria, who then smuggled it into the hospital to give to him. It can teleport a person to a pre-programmed location. I didn't expect him to actually use it so soon, though, but hey, I'm not complaining.”

“You mean you made this?” I said, glancing down at the device that was still stuck securely to my chest. “How?”

“I'm a genius,” said Master Chaos, tapping the side of his face. Then he suddenly scowled, looking very much like his son. “Well, not
that
Genius, who I intend to butcher like a pig the next time I see him, but I'm still brilliant. Mad, yes, but brilliant.”

“So you actually made this on your own?” I said.

“Oh, actually, I didn't really make it myself,” said Master Chaos. “See, I stole some weapons from the government recently and the prototype for that device was among them. I tinkered with it a little and made it more appropriate for my purposes.”

I tried to remove it from my chest, but it still wouldn't come unstuck. “So you gave it to Robert to teleport me here?”

“Of course,” said Master Chaos. “I believed that you would come to visit Robby at some point, maybe to ask for forgiveness or mock him. I wanted Robert to have this so he could teleport you directly to me so I could punish you properly.”

I looked up at Master Chaos again, whose smile revealed a row of crooked, blackened teeth. He really didn't seem to understand the concept of dental hygiene, or hygiene in general, based on how bad he smelled.

“So you never intended to attack me at my house at all,” I said.

“Of course not,” said Master Chaos. “Your house is too well-protected. The NHA and the G-Men expected me to do that. Because I am the personification of chaos, I can't very well do what they
expect
me to do, now can I?”

I looked around the area in which we stood. It looked like the interior of an old, abandoned warehouse, with sealed crates full of who-knows-what stacked all around us. The lights on the ceiling were weak, though the light streaming in from outside made it less dark than it would have been.

I had no idea where I was, but it didn't matter. I looked at Master Chaos again and said, “Well, this is exactly where I wanted to be. Say hello to my fist, Chaos!”

I ran at him, pulling back one of my fists. Master Chaos didn't move. He didn't even look alarmed. He just stood there, smiling, like he was amused. Well, he wasn't going to be amused when I punched my fist straight through his body and tore out his stomach.

With a yell, I punched Master Chaos directly in the stomach as hard as I could. But, even though my fist connected, Master Chaos didn't even flinch.

Instead, pain shot up my arm. It was like I had punched a brick wall. I yelled in pain and grabbed my fist, which felt broken into pieces. As a result, I didn't notice Master Chaos's own fist coming at me until it was too late.

Master Chaos's fist struck me in the abdomen, causing me to go down hard. I fell onto the floor and lay there, stunned, the breathe knocked out of me. I blinked several times before looking up at Master Chaos, who bent over, grabbed me by the neck, and lifted me off my feet.

I struggled to break his grip on me, but Master Chaos's grip was too strong. I tried punching and kicking his arm, but it was like I didn't even have any superpowers at all. He tightened his grip around my throat, causing me to gasp and stop punching and kicking at him.

“Why … can't … I … hurt you?” I said, barely able to speak.

“The device on your chest,” said Master Chaos, nodding at my chest. “Not only can it teleport you to me, but it can also negate your powers for an hour. Very useful when dealing with stupid kids like you.”

“Negates my powers?” I said. “How?”

“I don't know,” said Master Chaos with a shrug. “The government has apparently been trying to figure out how to de-power superhumans for a while. This isn't the only weapon I stole from them that can negate superpowers, but it is the only one I'll need to kill you.”

“Are you going to kill me here and now, then?” I said.

“No,” said Master Chaos, shaking his head. “Granted, it would satisfy my desire for revenge to do that, but you see, it wouldn't be very fun or dramatic. Let me show you how you will die.”

Master Chaos carried me over to the center of the warehouse. His grip loosened around my neck slightly, probably so I wouldn't fall unconscious on the way there, but his grip was still impossibly tight and there was no way I could break free from it. So I let him carry me around like a doll, knowing that each moment could easily be my last.

In the center of the warehouse was a strange set-up that looked like it came straight from a bad comic book. There was a large metal sheet with thick steel clamps for my arms and legs, while next to it was a vat of some kind of bubbling acid that looked like it could eat through titanium. Opposite the vat and metal sheet was a camera that appeared to be off, which stood next to a table that had a laptop on it, and sitting behind the laptop was a middle-aged Hispanic woman: Maria Candle, Master Chaos's wife and Robert's mother. She was typing away on the laptop, though I didn't know what she was typing.

“Oh, honey,” said Master Chaos as he walked over to the metal sheet and the acid vat. His tone became sickeningly sweet. “Look what I found.”

Maria looked up at us and actually smiled, though it was not a very comforting smile in my opinion. She stood up and walked around the table to us, moving very fast like she did not want to waste even one second.

“How wonderful!” said Maria, putting her hands together as she drew closer to us. “I didn't know we'd catch him so soon. I thought for sure that it would be another week or two before we got him.”

“Well, honey, you clearly underestimated my genius,” said Master Chaos. He leaned over and kissed her briefly, which was the most disgusting thing I'd seen in my life. “But I really couldn't have done it without you. Or Robert. I am the luckiest man in the world and couldn't ask for a better, more supportive family.”

“You should take more credit for your success, Bernie,” said Maria, her tone every bit as sickeningly sweet as Master Chaos's, if not more so. “After all, you were the one who devised this brilliant plan to avenge our son. I couldn't have come up with it on my own.”

If Master Chaos hadn't already been choking me, I would have been gagging. I would never have thought of Master Chaos as a family man. I mean, I knew that Maria and Robert loved him, but it was hard for me to imagine one of the most vicious supervillains in the world being a family man. It felt like I had walked into some kind of alternate universe, even though I knew I hadn't.

“Well, you know what they say,” said Master Chaos, “behind every great man is a woman. And you, Maria, are that woman, both to me and to Robert.”

Please, God, just take me away from this mortal coil. Mom and Dad would understand.

“Anyway,” said Master Chaos, his tone serious again. He looked at me and gestured at the acid vat with his free hand. “See that vat, Kevin? It is full of acid. And not the kind that makes you high, but the kind that will eat you alive. It's quite painful. I should know; the stray cat I dipped into it made some funny sounds.”

“So that's what you're going to do to me?” I said. I glanced at the metal sheet. “Lower me into the acid slowly so my death will be painful and agonizing?”

“Slowly? Of course not,” said Master Chaos, shaking his head. “What a waste of time that would be! No, we're going to dunk you into it. Like I said, the device on your chest has a time limit and we are certainly not going to let it run out and give you an opportunity to escape. We're not stupid.”

“What's the camera for, then?” I said, glancing at the large, unwieldy camera set on a tripod.

“We're going to livestream your death on the Internet, of course,” said Master Chaos. He frowned and then looked at Maria. “Did I say that right?”

Maria nodded. “Yes, dear, that's the correct terminology.”

“Good,” said Master Chaos. He shook his head. “I am just not all that good with this modern technology. That's why I'm glad I married you, though, because you are.”

Maria blushed, while I just wanted Master Chaos to dunk me into the vat and get it over with.

Nonetheless, I said, “Why are you going to livestream my death online? Why not just kill me right away?”

Instead of answering my question, Master Chaos brought me over to the metal sheet and slammed me down on it. The blow made me gasp in pain, but before I could do anything, Master Chaos was already tightening the clamps down on my arms and legs.

“You do have a point,” said Master Chaos, without looking at me as he tightened the clamps around my wrists and ankles. “It would be easier to kill you, but I want the whole world to know that I am
back
and mean business.” He finished tightening the clamps and then stood up, looking down at me with a scary grin on his face. “Maria tells me that lots of people use this thing called the Internet to watch videos and get their news, so I decided to use it to show everyone my triumphant return to the superhuman scene.”

“How many people will be watching?” I said.

“Hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions,” said Master Chaos. “Enough people who will share the video on their social media accounts and tell their friends in real life about it. By the end of the hour, the whole world will know that Master Chaos is still as dangerous as ever.”

Master Chaos sounded positively giddy about it, while I said, “How did you get such a large audience already?”

“Maria is a skilled computer hacker,” said Master Chaos, nodding at his wife, who was typing away behind her laptop again. “She's using her skills—along with a few government devices I stole—to make sure that the video of your death will play on every computer, tablet, and smartphone screen in the world.”

“All this, just for me?” I said. “But I'm just a teenager.”

Master Chaos wagged a finger at me. “No, no, no. You're not just a teenager. You nearly killed my one and only son. Not only that, but I also know who your father is.”

My eyes widened. “You do?”

Master Chaos grinned. “Of course. Your father is Genius, that idiot who separated me from my family so many years ago now. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have inherited his intelligence.”

“How did you figure that out?” I said. I struggled against the clamps, but the device on my chest must have still been active, because the clamps didn't even budge.

“When my robot attacked you and Genius while you were training last week,” said Master Chaos. “You see, the robot was recording footage of its fight with you two and sending it to me to watch in real time. I realized that Bolt had to be you due to your similar powers and appearance and I deduced that Genius had to be your father, because why else would a retired superhero train a newbie if there wasn't some sort of relation between them?”

“Wow,” I said. “Dad was right. You really are clever.”

“Of course I am,” said Master Chaos. “But don't worry. I'm not going to reveal your identity to the public. There's no need. All the world needs to know is that anyone who harms my family will suffer the same fate as you, no matter how insignificant they may be.”

Then Master Chaos walked over to a lever in the floor and pulled it down.

Suddenly, the metal sheet I was clamped down to was jerked up into the air. I would have fallen to the floor if I hadn't been clamped so tightly to the sheet. The sheet slowly moved to the left until I was hanging directly over the bubbling vat of acid below. I could smell its acidic scent, which made my stomach upset, but I was too terrified to even throw up. I didn't know what it felt like to be eaten alive by acid, but I didn't want to find out.

Master Chaos walked away from the lever, looking very excited. “How does it feel? Are you comfortable? If you aren't, don't worry, because soon you won't feel anything at all.”

“Let me down,” I said. I tried to hide the fear in my voice, but it was impossible. “Please, I didn't mean to almost kill your son. It was an accident.”

“Do I look like I care?” said Master Chaos with a snort. “You are the son of my worst enemy. When I heard that Robert was at death's door, it caused me so much pain and sorrow, pain and sorrow I hope that Genius will feel when he loses his own son.”

Then Master Chaos looked at Maria. “Maria, is the camera ready to start filming?”

Maria nodded, her eyes fixed on the laptop screen. “Yes, dear. I will get it started as soon as you are ready.”

Master Chaos stood in front of the camera, with the vat and I behind him. He spread his arms and said, “Maria, you know that I am
always
ready to be filmed. Let's get the show rolling!”

Maria nodded once again and typed on the laptop. “All right. We start filming … right … now!”

A green light started flashing above the camera's lens as spotlights flashed from the ceiling and focused on us. I looked around in surprise at the spotlights, while Master Chaos looked directly into the camera.

“Welcome, one and all, to the greatest show on the planet,” said Master Chaos. He gestured behind himself. “I am Master Chaos, your host for this show. Today you will get to see a very special event: The death of Kevin Jason, the teenager who nearly killed my son. Why don't we start? I'm sure it will be fantastic.”