Mad Mask

by Barry Lyga

  Kyle blinked. It was definitely Ultitron. It looked like a ten-story-tall replica of the Mad Mask, right down to a black-as-night face mask with a white tear-shaped blemish. He had spent so many hours poring over the schematics that he couldn’t not recognize the robot for real. He had always known that Ultitron would be gigantic, but seeing it in real life, towering over the trees, was another thing entirely. It was awe-inspiring. A thrill of pride ran through Kyle — he had helped build it!

  Yeah, and then the guy you helped betrayed you….

  Ultitron lurched a bit but made its way steadily toward the lighthouse. Kyle remembered how the Mad Mask had called the lighthouse beautiful….

  I thought it was a compliment. I’m an idiot! He hates beauty. He’s going to destroy the lighthouse! Mairi’s mom’s whole life is in there!

  And what about Mairi herself? What had the Mad Mask done with her? Or to her?

  Just then, Mike exploded up through the rooftop, blowing out a new hole as he did so.

  “You could have just used mine,” Kyle said wearily.

  Mike paused for a moment, glancing down as if realizing that, yes, he’d just caused more property damage than necessary.

  Kyle snapped his fingers. “Hey, look!” he said. “Big robot! Fetch, boy!” He pointed.

  Mike looked. For the first time ever, he actually seemed scared. For just a moment. Then he grimaced and set his jaw. “Just because I’m going to stop that robot doesn’t mean I’m through with —”

  “Right, right. Gotta go. Bye.”

  Kyle sped off. Checking over his shoulder, he watched as Mike sped off, too, at a different heading, bulleting straight for Ultitron. He knew Mike wouldn’t let Ultitron go too far. And in the meantime, he had to figure out what had happened to Mairi. For that, he needed Erasmus.

  Within seconds, he was home. It was getting dark out now, so no one saw him approach his house from the back, the side that faced the woods. He had started leaving his window unlocked, so it was easy to open and then glide into his room.

  As he did so, he caught a glimpse of himself reflected in one of the giant TV screens. His costume was torn from being thrown around by Mighty Mike, big rips up and down his arms and torso, his cape in tatters. Fortunately, his mask was still intact. Through the holes in the fabric, he could see bruises forming. Yeah, he was invulnerable, but not to someone just as strong or stronger.

  He checked on Lefty quickly — he remembered the Mad Mask saying something about eating Lefty. But his pet rabbit was fine, snoozing in his cage as though nothing had happened.

  So Kyle snatched up Erasmus from the desk, took out the Mad Mask’s now-useless earplugs, and slipped in his earbuds.

  “Talk, Erasmus. You said things were worse than just kidnapping Mairi. How can they be worse than that?”

  “He also took the brain-wave manipulator.”

  Kyle’s heart froze in his chest. “Oh, God. My parents —”

  “They weren’t home from work yet. But, Kyle, here’s the thing —”

  “Talk on the way.” Kyle flew out the window, arched his back, and shot straight into the sky.

  “On the way? Where are we going?”

  “Ultitron’s on the loose. I figure when I tear into that thing like a chain saw opening a can of soup, the Mad Mask will surrender Mairi.” He flipped around and flew north, using cloud cover to conceal his arrival.

  “Kyle, you have to listen to me. About the brain-wave manipulator —”

  “As long as he’s not around my parents, it’s fine.”

  “Listen! I fixed it! It’ll work on anyone now. And the Mad Mask has it.”

  Kyle paused, hovering in midair. “You fixed it?”

  “That’s what you told me to do!”

  “But now … He has the brain-wave manipulator. And he has Mairi!” Kyle shuddered. He didn’t want to imagine what the Mad Mask could do to Mairi with the brain-wave manipulator at his disposal, but his imagination surged forward and painted a series of vivid pictures anyway: Mairi, brainwashed into becoming the Mad Mask’s sidekick. Mairi, her mind erased … Everything that made her unique and special and Kyle’s only real friend, evaporated like dew under the hot morning sun.

  “You can’t just go blasting in there and take on Ultitron,” Erasmus pleaded. “You have to think.”

  Erasmus was right. Of course he was right: He was based on Kyle’s own thought patterns. And right now he was telling Kyle exactly what he needed to hear.

  “Okay.” He took a long, deep breath. It made him feel a little better. “What do we know?”

  “According to the police band, Mighty Mike is keeping Ultitron from knocking down the lighthouse. But it’s not easy.”

  At least Mike had his uses.

  “What else do we know?” This is why he’d created Erasmus — talking out loud helped his thinking.

  “Earlier today, I researched the Mad Mask.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I conducted a web search of missing fourteen-year-olds from nearby towns, cross-referenced to the dates shortly after the plasma storm.”

  “Excellent,” Kyle murmured. “And what did you come up with?”

  “Strangely enough, there were five disappearances of fourteen-year-olds in the days after the plasma storm. I eliminated three of them based on gender.”

  “Girls.”

  “Duh. Then I compared the other two to what we knew about the Mad Mask, deducing his height and weight based on his appearance. That gave me a match. Check it out.”

  Kyle removed Erasmus from his pouch and looked at the screen. On it was a lanky, laconic-looking teenager with watery blue eyes, a sharp little chin, and a chaotic thatch of dirty blond hair.

  “This kid isn’t disfigured. The Mad Mask is —”

  “The picture predates his exposure to the radiation. It’s before his disfigurement.”

  “Right. Who is he?”

  “Meet Jack Stanley, fourteen years old. Parents Jerome and Johanna reported him missing a week after the plasma storm. Police found no signs of foul play, no note, nothing. He was just gone.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There’s a reward for him. Ten thousand bucks for information leading to his safe return home, quote-unquote. So maybe you can make a little dough while you’re saving the town.”

  Kyle chuckled. “Not a bad idea. Okay, cool. Now we have some information. Good job, Erasmus. I’m impressed.”

  “Of course you are.” Now that he’d imparted his information, Erasmus was back in full-on snark mode. “I’ve done my part, with consummate professionalism and impeccable timing, I might add. Now what are you going to do?”

  Kyle only had to think about it for a moment. Not even a full moment, really — he had plenty of time left over in the moment to enjoy his plan.

  “Me? I’m going to tear Ultitron to shreds. That’ll definitely make the Mad Mask come crawling out of whatever hidey-hole he’s sneaked away to. Plus, it has an added benefit: The whole town will see me defeat the robot that’s threatening them. This time, it won’t be like with the ASE — Mike won’t get all the glory. I’ll show them.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Kyle grinned. “Good. Let’s go make some scrap metal.”

  Kyle dived through the clouds, his fists extended in front of him. He followed the sound of screams and emerged close to Ultitron. A huge ditch had been gouged out of the ground nearby, the spot where Ultitron had lain, buried and hidden, until activated by the Mad Mask. Kyle thought it looked like a grave for a ten-story-tall robot and promised himself that he would be burying Ultitron there soon enough.

  The massive robot lurched toward the lighthouse, its huge feet kicking up tons of dirt and grass and the nice topiary Mairi’s mom had paid way too much money to have planted around the grounds.

  Kyle liked the topiary. Now he was even more ticked off.

  Mighty Mike was a tiny blip circling Ultitron, lashing out with his black eye lasers, nudging the robo
t along. Every time Ultitron raised its arms to strike the lighthouse, Mike would zap it, causing the robot to swing around and thrash its enormous arms at him, forgetting about the lighthouse for the time being.

  Safely stashed in a belt pouch again, Erasmus said, “Kyle, I’m picking up the police band. The Army and the National Guard are both on their way to Bouring. We’re going to have a major shoot-out soon.”

  Great. That would make the exploding parking meters on Major Street look like a water balloon fight. The last thing Kyle needed was the military shooting up his hometown.

  “Mike’s clueless. I’m going to take out Ultitron right now.”

  “How do you plan on doing that? It has a force field almost as strong as the Mad Mask’s.”

  Kyle rummaged in his belt pouch for some wires and batteries. He always kept basic electronic components in stock just in case. He also grabbed the Mad Mask’s earplugs, which no longer worked but still had electronics he could scavenge.

  “What are you doing?” Eramus asked.

  “I helped build that thing. I especially helped with the motivational engine. I know how to disrupt its operations with a specific radio frequency.” Kyle floated in the air, rapidly assembling pieces. “I’m going to build a transmitter.”

  “A remote kill-switch? Really?”

  Kyle snorted. “I’m about to teach the Mad Mask a lesson in humility. Ah! Ha! Done!” He held up his newest creation — it was crude and slapped together quickly, resembling nothing so much as a ball of copper threads and small lights with a tiny, kinked wire sticking out of it like an antenna.

  “Doesn’t look like much, but it’ll pack a wallop,” Kyle said. “Ready to be a hero, Erasmus?”

  “No one’s going to know what I did,” Erasmus sulked.

  “Oh, don’t be that way. When they throw me a parade for saving the town, I’ll tell everyone you were instrumental in defeating the Mad Mask.”

  “Sure you will.”

  Kyle flew ahead. To his pleasure and amusement, Mighty Mike had just been struck by Ultitron’s fist. The force of the punch, combined with the power of the force field, knocked Mike for a loop, sending him spinning off into the distance.

  A crowd had gathered a safe distance from the lighthouse, commuters in stopped cars, Bouring residents rushing out of businesses and homes to watch the giant robot as it took a final menacing step. Nothing could stop it from swinging those powerful arms and destroying the lighthouse.

  Nothing except Kyle.

  He timed his approach perfectly, coming in from the south, where the big lights from the middle of town would backlight him very dramatically. No one could possibly miss him, and sure enough, people started pointing as he sped over town. They looked afraid, which made perfect sense because all they knew so far was what people like Mighty Mike told them. But once Kyle took care of Ultitron, they would stop being afraid. And when he showed up with the Mad Mask in custody and Mairi safe and sound, then — finally! — all this “Blue Freak” nonsense would stop and Kyle would be the Azure Avenger to one and all!

  Total win-win scenario. Kyle couldn’t lose.

  Ultitron’s head spun, blasting out with crisp red lasers. But Kyle knew they were coming — the motivational engine’s programming was designed to try the lasers first….

  “Red wind is next,” Kyle mumbled to himself.

  Sure enough, a moment after he dodged the lasers, Ultitron opened its mouth and the fierce “red wind” blew forth, a potent combination of poisons and special nerve agents designed to paralyze and knock out anyone who inhaled it. But Kyle was ready for it, holding his breath and spinning rapidly in the air like a corkscrew, whipping up a savage wind of his own that dispersed the “red wind” harmlessly.

  “Now!” he cried, kicking in the speed and pretending to punch Ultitron in the face as he triggered his kill-switch. To the people of Bouring, it would look like he had knocked out Ultitron with a single punch, doing with one blow what Mighty Mike had been completely unable to do!

  But nothing happened.

  Kyle pulled up just before he slammed into Ultitron’s force field. The air around the robot crackled with electricity and smelled faintly of ozone.

  “What the heck …?” Had he not hit the button? Sometimes it was tough to tell with his gloves on. He tried again.

  Ultitron turned back to the lighthouse, still upright and functional.

  “What’s going on here?” Kyle wailed. He pressed the button again and again, floating in the air not far from Ultitron. It should have been working. “The motivational engine should be an inert piece of junk!”

  “You were trying to break something,” Erasmus said. “Given the usual efficacy of your gadgets, maybe you should have tried to improve it and then it would have broken.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kyle demanded, indignant.

  “Pants Laser, anyone?”

  “Shut up, Erasmus.”

  Mighty Mike blew past Kyle just then, his mouth set in a grim line. He blasted Ultitron with his eye lasers once more and blew at the robot with his Mighty Breath. Ultitron swatted Mike away.

  “At this rate,” Eramus went on, “Ultitron really does seem to be completely unstopp — Oh.”

  Mighty Mike tumbled past them, nearly colliding with Kyle. Kyle dashed aside, then soared in closer to Ultitron’s head. Maybe he’d miscalculated the range on the kill-switch. Maybe he had to be right up against —

  Ultitron’s head swiveled toward Kyle again. Kyle braced himself for the lasers, but instead the robot’s mouth opened. Kyle held his breath, ready for more “red wind.”

  And then Ultitron spoke….

  Deep within his hidden lair, the Mad Mask stood before a gigantic HDTV screen connected to what looked like three computers and a game console that had been caught in a blender. The screen fed directly from Ultitron’s eyes, showing what the robot saw, overlaid with a heads-up-display (HUD) that scrolled telemetry like distance to objective (in this case, the Bouring Lighthouse), fuel consumption (which was fine), and general maintenance parameters. Ultitron was — as expected — performing at, if not beyond, all projections. Truly, this was the single crowning achievement of robotics on the planet Earth.

  As he watched, the costumed interloper designated “Mighty Mike” by the substandard popular media attempted to use his laser eyes on Ultitron’s face. The Mad Mask touched a control and Ultitron blasted Mike away.

  The Mad Mask chuckled under his mask, then remembered that he was in his own hidden lair and he could do whatever he wanted, so he laughed out loud, a hearty, sustained belly laugh that echoed up and down the concrete tunnels.

  “You won’t win,” a small voice said.

  The Mad Mask turned to see the girl — Mairi — behind him, still safely bound with heavy, flexible cables that had been left over from completing Ultitron. She could struggle, but she couldn’t possibly escape.

  “Oh? And your evidence for this unlikely scenario?” The Mad Mask decided to humor her.

  “You’re insane,” she said, her green eyes flashing with resolve and anger. “Mighty Mike will stop you.”

  “Perhaps one in your particular position should find a kinder, gentler way of getting a point across,” the Mad Mask said. He strode over to Mairi and took her chin in his hands, tilting her head so that she had no choice but to gaze into the eye slits cut into his mask. “One in your particular position, indeed, might consider inveigling oneself into the good graces of one’s captor, rather than antagonizing said captor.”

  Mairi blinked. “I — I think I understand …” she said.

  “That would be welcome and, in truth, quite surprising.”

  “You mean that I should —” and then she stopped long enough to hawk and spit a wad of saliva into the Mad Mask’s face.

  In disgust and rage, the Mad Mask reared back and — before he could think about it — flung out one hand. A noxious gas jetted from a hidden nozzle behind his gauntlet. Mairi gasped, inhaling the gas. Her
eyes rolled. She slumped in her restraints, her body slack and relaxed, unconscious.

  With a corner of his cloak, the Mad Mask wiped her spittle from his mask. How dare she! How dare she spit in the face of the Mad Mask! He would — he would —

  Just then, the screen caught the corner of his eye. He turned around to see none other than the Azure Avenger speeding toward Ultitron.

  So. The security team at Lundergaard and Mighty Mike had not sufficed to eliminate the Azure Avenger.

  The Mad Mask picked up a unit made from the fusion of a game console controller, a mouse, and a touch-screen cell phone. He slid his fingers across the controls, then held the device to his lips and said, “Attention, Azure Avenger …”

  “… the Mad Mask has someone in his possession whom you care about very much!”

  Kyle froze in midair at the sound of the voice. That was the Mad Mask’s voice, broadcast through Ultitron!

  “She is feisty, this one. Of that there can be no doubt.”

  Kyle smiled. Yeah, he couldn’t picture Mairi going down without a fight. He figured she had already given the Mad Mask a tough time.

  “In truth, she presents a dilemma,” Ultitron/the Mad Mask went on. “What to do with her? Her strength could be … tempered, with proper psychological conditioning and overwhelming, muscular therapeutic intensity….”

  “You won’t be able to brainwash her!” Kyle screamed. “She’s too strong!”

  A low chuckle came from Ultitron. The Mad Mask’s chuckle had always been unnerving, but coming from the ten-story-tall robot, amplified by any number of speakers and woofers and tweeters, it was downright spine tingling.

  “Everyone has a breaking point,” the Mad Mask said, his voice so confident that Kyle could scarcely argue with him. “What makes you think she is any different?”

  The Mad Mask had the brain-wave manipulator. Changing Mairi’s personality would be almost trivially easy.

  “I won’t let you hurt her!” Kyle swore.

  Again, that low chuckle that made the hair on the back of Kyle’s neck stand up.

  “You are willing to try, of course. You would, naturally, have to find her first….”