by Barry Lyga
“Unhand the Mad Mask!” the MadDroid cried out in a reasonable facsimile of the real deal’s voice. “The Mad Mask is not to be manhandled by lesser mortals such as you!”
“Wow, he even programmed it to be as obnoxious as he is!” Erasmus marveled.
“Go figure,” Kyle grunted as he wrestled with the MadDroid in the filth. The robot was incredibly strong. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to have a force field, so he was able to pummel it as much as he wanted.
“What kind of an egomaniac builds a robot that talks just like him?” Erasmus asked.
“Can we talk about this later?” Kyle asked, struggling to keep the MadDroid from choking him. He grabbed its wrists and pushed with his knees, trying to shove it away from him. The stupid thing wouldn’t let go.
“Such egomania reveals interesting things about the Mad Mask’s pathology,” Erasmus went on.
“Fighting for my life here!” Kyle kicked at the MadDroid, finally loosening its grip. He lashed out with his other foot and knocked the thing back several feet, then regained his footing and lunged at it. The MadDroid tried to fend him off, but Kyle managed to duck under its arms, tackling it in the gut and driving it back against the tunnel wall, where it split in two. The legs dropped into the muck and the top half collapsed onto Kyle’s back, then slipped off and joined the legs.
Kyle was so relieved that he barely noticed the filth and sewage streaming off his costume. He had expected the robot to be a much, much more difficult opponent. What the heck had the Mad Mask built this thing out of, anyway?
Kyle crouched down and rummaged in the sewage until he found the MadDroid’s arm. He knew he should be rushing to the Mad Mask’s lair, but he couldn’t help it — his curiosity just wouldn’t let it go.
He hauled the torso out of the slime — the shoulder joint snapped and the torso splashed back down, leaving Kyle holding only the arm. What kind of cheap stuff was the Mad Mask using to build —?
He examined the arm. It was …
That was impossible.
It looked like it was just a store mannequin’s arm! With some padding added, yeah, but still just a run-of-the-mill mannequin.
Kyle ripped off the mask. Unlike the Mad Mask’s, this one was made out of cheap plastic. Underneath, the mannequin’s face had been hollowed out. A rats’ nest of wires and cables sat balled-up in the cavity. When he pawed at the mess, it popped out. The wires weren’t attached to anything. They were just stuffed in there. What was the point? How the heck did something like this even work —
“Oh,” Kyle said out loud. “Oh.”
“What?” Erasmus asked. “Shouldn’t we get moving?”
“I just figured it out,” Kyle said in a soft voice. “Everything makes sense now. I figured out the Mad Mask’s secret.”
“I didn’t know he had a secret.”
“Everyone has a secret.” Kyle dropped the arm. “It’s time to go.”
Kyle tore through the tunnel as fast as he dared, dodging low-hanging pipes and scaring what looked like an entire army of rats. Who knew Bouring had so many rats? (Kyle filed that fact away — he would need to create some kind of rat-killing ray someday. Just because.)
Now that he knew the truth about the Mad Mask, nothing was going to keep him from doing what Mighty Mike couldn’t: stopping Ultitron and rescuing Mairi and putting an end to the Mad Mask’s scheme once and for all.
A platoon of MadDroids waited just ahead. Past them, Kyle could see a large archway filled with light. The archway was slightly elevated from the rest of the sewer, so it would be clean and dry. The Mad Mask would be there, Kyle knew.
He flailed through the MadDroids. They grabbed and scraped and clawed at him, but he kicked and thrashed and threw punches. Now that he knew they were nothing more than glorified dummies, he wasn’t afraid of them. He fought his way through them until he felt solid concrete under his feet, then forged ahead, a dozen MadDroids clinging to him and trying to bear him down.
Finally, he stepped into the light.
The chamber was large, with a concrete floor and a massive flagged stone dome. Tunnels ran in and out from all directions. In the center of the room was a gigantic HDTV screen, on which Kyle could see Ultitron fighting off the military and Mighty Mike. Standing in front of the screen was, of course, the Mad Mask — the real deal this time.
And off in a corner was …
“Mairi!” Kyle screamed. He couldn’t help it. She was slumped against the wall, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow.
Kyle moved toward her, but the MadDroids tangled him up in their grasp and held him back.
The Mad Mask turned away from his screen, his stance erect, his hands clasped behind his back as usual. “Ah. Azure Avenger. Your tenacity and will are more impressive than the Mad Mask had imagined. Ultimately, however, they are and always have been for naught! You have arrived only in time to witness the victory of Ultitron and the first of many triumphs of the Mad Mask!”
“If you’ve hurt Mairi …” Kyle strained against the MadDroids, but there were too many of them. And besides, he knew why they were so tough to beat right at this moment, compared to the one in the tunnel.
“Hurt her? She rests. I merely tired of her prattle. She is to be my queen. To be sure, a most appropriate and fitting disfigurement will be chosen for her. Once her beauty has been eradicated, she will be a fit queen for the Mad Mask.” He chuckled and picked something up from a table. “And once she’s been exposed to this, of course, her attitude will change quite dramatically….”
The brain-wave manipulator!
“And now here you are, Azure Avenger, come to save the day, you most likely imagine.” The Mad Mask shook his head and tsked. “Do your worst! The triumph of the Mad Mask is preordained!”
“Oh, shut up,” Kyle said. “I’ve got you figured out.”
“You? Have ‘figured out’ the Mad Mask? Ha! Your intellect is mighty, this is true, but it is a snowflake compared to the blizzard of the Mad Mask’s brainpo —”
“Shut up!” Kyle yelled. “You’re not a genius! You never have been. You’re an idiot!”
For a moment, there was no sound, no speaking, nothing. The Mad Mask put the brain-wave manipulator back on the table.
“Take. That. Back,” he said icily.
“No. I won’t. It’s the truth. You’re a moron.” Kyle flexed his muscles. The MadDroids gave … just a little. “And in a few seconds, I’m going to break free from your pets here and rip your mask off.”
If the Mad Mask was scared, he didn’t show it, though he did pause for a moment before responding. “My force field will —”
“Your force field? What force field? There is no force field! None that you built, at least. You couldn’t build a LEGO set if your life depended on it.”
“Brave words for someone currently held back by the Mad Mask’s genius in the science of robotics!”
“These aren’t robots, you moron! They’re just store mannequins that you messed with. You added some wiring and some electronics to make them look like robots, but they’re not. They’re nothing, Jack!”
“What did you call me?”
“I called you Jack. Jack Stanley. That’s your name.”
The Mad Mask took a step backward, as if a large, invisible hand had just shoved him. “Stop … Don’t use that name.”
“Why not, Jack? It’s your name, after all.”
Kyle noticed that the MadDroids’ grip on him had slackened. They were shutting down, for lack of a better word.
“Your gadgets don’t really work,” Kyle said, pushing forward. It was like walking against a blizzard … if the blizzard actually had hands that could grab and pull at you. “They only work because you think they work. That’s how these mannequins walk around. That’s why your special earplugs stopped working when you drove out of range at Lundergaard. Heck, even the bug you planted on me was probably just something you bought at a store — you were only able to track me because your receiver was near you.
”
“Stop it!” the Mad Mask screamed. He held out a threatening hand. “MadDroids! Crush him! Destroy him!”
Kyle shrugged off the MadDroids like lint. “That’s why I couldn’t make sense of your schematics — they were just garbage. The motivational engine didn’t work when I put it together. It didn’t work until you came over to my house! You just needed me as a distraction, a way to keep Mighty Mike off your back when you activated Ultitron.”
“The radiation …” Erasmus realized. “It didn’t give him a heightened intellect at all. It gave him the psychic power to control electronics.” Erasmus paused. “And drove him a little nutty, too, I guess.”
The Mad Mask took another step back. One of the MadDroids made a feeble attempt to grab Kyle by the ankle, but Kyle easily kicked it away, severing the arm in the process. Now that he’d shaken the Mad Mask’s faith in his own skills, his gadgets were starting to fail.
“Impossible …” the Mad Mask said. If Kyle could have seen his eyes behind that mask, he imagined they’d be wide with terror.
The Mad Mask spun around to look at his screen. “It’s impossible!” he screamed. “Impossible! I am the Mad Mask! I am —”
“You are Jack Stanley!” Kyle shouted.
The Mad Mask flinched as if he’d been bashed in the back of the head with a shovel. At the same moment, on the screen, Ultitron wavered and staggered, suddenly no longer potent. Two Army Sidewinder missiles fired from Apache helicopters exploded along its chest. An instant later, Mighty Mike rocketed past …
And ripped off the thing’s arms.
Kyle couldn’t help it — he wanted to cheer for Mighty Mike.
“No!” screamed the Mad Mask. “It cannot be! It will not be!” He spun back around to Kyle. “I am the Mad Mask! I am the Mad Mask!”
The horde of MadDroids suddenly came to life, pummeling Kyle. He swiped at them viciously with fists and feet, not holding back. They were powerful, but not nearly as powerful as before — the Mad Mask’s control was slipping. On the viewscreen, Kyle could see Ultitron moving again, staggering away from the lighthouse but right toward a big shopping center. Its force field was back up, and Mike couldn’t get near it again.
“Jack Stanley!” he shouted again. “You’re just Jack Stanley!” A MadDroid sank its hand into Kyle’s mask and tore away most of the face covering, but he kept shouting the Mad Mask’s real name.
The Mad Mask looked from Kyle to the viewscreen and back again. Then, in a panic, he bolted for one of the tunnels.
“No way!” Kyle said. “You’re not getting away that easily!” He shook off the remaining MadDroids, even as one of them stripped away the rest of his mask. He dived for the Mad Mask, missed, ended up near the table with … with …
The brain-wave manipulator.
Kyle grabbed the manipulator. “Hey, Jack!” he shouted.
The Mad Mask spun around. Kyle grinned; he could imagine the look of sudden horror under that ebony mask.
“No!” the Mad Mask yelled, but Kyle had already triggered the device.
“You’re Jack Stanley. You’re not a robotics genius. You don’t even remember building Ultitron. Or my real name. Forget it all. Forget your powers. Forget —”
The Mad Mask cried out and collapsed, pointing behind Kyle. Kyle turned to see Ultitron, frozen on the screen, balanced precariously on one foot, the other one raised, ready to stomp on the shopping center.
Truthfully, Bouring would probably be better off without another shopping center, but Kyle was still psyched that he’d managed to save the day.
He dropped the brain-wave manipulator on the table and advanced on the Mad Mask, who cowered against the wall. “No, please …”
“All of your so-called ‘technology’ is failing,” Kyle said. He reached down and grabbed the Mad Mask by the front of his shirt, dragging him up to his feet. “Even your force field. It’s all failing you. Now we’re going to see what you’re hiding under that mask!”
“No!” the Mad Mask whimpered. “Please!”
“Oh, be quiet. You lost. Deal with it.”
The Mad Mask wriggled and struggled, helpless in Kyle’s grasp. “I beg you! Please! You cannot reveal this heinous visage to the world!”
But with his free hand, Kyle grabbed the chin of the mask and pulled it off …
… and …
“You’re kidding me!” Kyle yelled, shoving the Mad Mask away from him. “It’s just a pimple!”
The Mad Mask curled into a ball on the floor and covered his face.
“Don’t look at it!” he cried. “It’s hideous! I’m hideous!”
Kyle couldn’t believe it. “Oh, for God’s sake …”
“It’s all white and crusty on top!” the Mad Mask went on. “And … and … I think there’s a hair growing out of it!”
“You’re kidding,” Kyle said again.
“Wait,” the Mad Mask said, sniffling. “We can work together…. Just give me back my mask and we can —”
“Are you insane? No, wait, don’t bother — I already know the answer to that question.”
Kyle tossed the mask aside and turned to the viewscreen.
Just then, a new voice: “Kyle?”
Mairi was awake!
“I … I can explain everything …” Kyle said, hesitating at first.
But one look at the shock and hurt and betrayal in Mairi’s eyes forced him to question his confidence. There was no way he could explain this that would make it all better. The expression on Mairi’s face communicated more than just surprise or anger or any one emotion. Any single emotion he could have handled, but the combination of them all was too much.
He was busted, plain and simple. His greatest secret was out, and to the one person in the world who had always believed in him. For the first time in a long time, Kyle felt ashamed of himself.
He was going to keep talking — he didn’t know what he was going to say, but somehow it had just become enormously important that he keep talking, no matter what. Maybe if he kept blathering on, Mairi would never get the chance to yell at him or tell him how angry and disappointed she was. But before he could speak, a scurrying sound caught his attention.
Kyle turned just in time to see the Mad Mask rabbiting, that long cloak vanishing into one of the multitude of tunnels that intersected the lair. Kyle moved to follow but stopped when he caught sight of the big viewscreen: On it, Ultitron, still frozen in mid-stomp, teetered, totally unbalanced (probably because Mighty Mike ripped off its arms, the chump — when would Mike use his brain and realize that you can’t just rip limbs off of giant robots without thinking through the consequences? Like always, Mike only did half the job).
A ten-story-tall creature made of metal and who-knows-what kind of dangerous materials was about to collapse on the town!
Kyle spun back to Mairi. “Stay here,” he told her. As if she had a choice — where would she go? “You’ll be safe for now. I’ll be back. I promise.”
The last thing he saw before darting into a tunnel was the look on Mairi’s face: the rage. The disbelief.
The total and complete lack of trust in Kyle.
He sped through the tunnels as quickly as he could, once again ducking and dodging pipes. There was probably a shortcut to the surface, but Kyle had decided to simply reverse the path he’d taken to the lair because he knew the route already. Rats ran before him like a vanguard, and Kyle allowed himself for a moment to imagine how cool it would be to create a gadget that would make rats do his bidding….
“Nearing the opening,” Erasmus reported. “Time to mask up.”
“Right.”
Kyle’s own mask had been shredded by the MadDroids, but he’d snatched up the Mad Mask’s ebony-and-ivory mask right before leaving the lair. Jack Stanley, in his panic, had fled without it, leaving it on the floor where Kyle had dropped it.
Now Kyle slipped the Mad Mask’s face over his own, then popped up from the street into the chaos of Bouring.
It was
worse than he’d imagined, worse than he’d seen on the viewscreen. The town was a disaster movie happening in real life, people running every which way as Army tanks and platoons of soldiers marched through town, helicopters and Predators buzzing overhead. And there, just off in the distance, the massive form of Ultitron, the most useless robot in history, tipping precariously. Any second now it would collapse. Kyle quickly calculated azimuths and trajectories and triangulations. It was going to crush not just buildings but also people! He had to move quickly —
But even as he started toward Ultitron, the robot creaked to a halt in midair, poised shakily on the tips of its toes but not falling anymore.
Mighty Mike.
When Kyle focused, he could see the tiny figure of Mighty Mike against the enormous bulk of Ultitron. The entire town went silent. Even the Army guys shut up. It was, Kyle had to admit, pretty amazing to see — Mighty Mike single-handedly (well, with both hands, but by himself) bracing the entire weight of Ultitron.
And then — after that silent moment — Mike heaved. Even from here, Kyle imagined he could hear Mike grunt, see the strain and the bulge of his muscles as he did the impossible and lifted Ultitron entirely off the ground.
A cheer went up from the crowd. Kyle snorted. They were applauding too soon. If Mike dropped Ultitron now, the devastation would still be —
After a hovering moment, Mike put on a burst of strength and speed, hauling Ultitron up and away from Bouring. The applause intensified. Kyle watched him go. Mike would probably go dump Ultitron near the old coal mine, where it could later be dismantled without causing harm to anyone. He sighed. His help wasn’t needed after all.
“Blue Freak!” someone shouted, and Kyle looked around just as the same voice shouted, “All units! Open fire!”
The next thing Kyle knew, he was in a cloud of ammunition. Bullets. Rocket-propelled grenades. The real stuff. Nothing fake here. This was the Army.
