The Superhero's Origin (The Superhero's Son Book 5)

by Lucas Flint

  “That vision was the last straw for your grandfather,” said Dad. “He didn’t like the fact that your grandmother was losing sleep over her visions. So he decided to put an end to her visions once and for all: He cut out her eyes.”

  My hand flew to my mouth and I actually said, “What?” out loud.

  “I know you’re probably shocked by that, but it’s true,” said Dad. “He thought that your grandmother’s power came from her eyes, so he knocked her out and then took out her eyes. I didn’t see it, because I was at a friend’s house when it happened, but when I got back, your grandfather told me that someone had tried to break into the house while I was away and they attacked your grandmother, cutting out her eyes before he managed to chase the assailant off.”

  Dad shuddered. “And I almost believed it, especially since your grandmother did not contradict him. But then I found your grandmother’s eyes in the trash can under the bathroom sink, which was how I figured out the truth. I also noticed some blood on my father’s shirt, which he claimed was from when he beat off the attacker, but even back then I was smart enough to put two and two together and figure out what actually happened. I sometimes wish I hadn’t.

  “It didn’t even stop Mom’s ability. She still saw visions, even though she never described them to me. In fact, once she even told me that her visions became even more vivid and frightening without her eyes, though they did not become any clearer or easier for her to understand.”

  I shook my head. I was almost tempted to close the video and just go to bed, because I couldn’t stand hearing any of this, but I forced myself to keep watching, because if Dad thought this was important enough to record for me, then it was important enough for me to watch.

  “Your grandfather never admitted it, obviously, but I knew it happened anyway,” Dad continued. “That is why I left home as soon as I could. I didn’t want to lose my eyes or whatever it was that my father planned to do to me to ‘fix’ my powers. The only reason I even allowed your grandparents to see you when you were born is because they showed up when I wasn’t around and tricked Ashley into thinking I had invited them, even though I had never even mentioned them to her before. I managed to get them to leave, but I was worried that they had come to kidnap you and try to ‘save’ you from your own powers.

  “After that, I never saw them again. I made it clear to them that they could never see you or me or Ashley ever again. I’m actually surprised that they respected my decision; I thought for sure that they would not, but I guess that they knew just how serious I was about making sure that they didn’t have any influence over you.”

  Dad paused, like he was thinking of what else he wanted to say, and then said, “In any case, I hope you do not meet your grandfather. I would have preferred not to tell you about him at all, but I know how curious you can be and I know that you will no doubt go look for your grandparents regardless of what I say. Still, I hope you understand why you should leave them alone. You do not need people like that in your life.”

  I folded my arms across my chest, but said nothing, because I knew Dad couldn’t hear me.

  “But there is one last thing I want to tell you, Kevin, before I finish recording,” said Dad. “Although your grandfather is an awful man, you must not let him die. Do you understand?”

  I raised an eyebrow in confusion. Why was Dad telling me that Grandfather had to live? How was I supposed to ensure that I’m not supposed to meet him while also saving his life?

  “You might be puzzled by the seeming contradiction in what I just said,” said Dad. “In an ideal world, you would never meet your grandparents; however, the world we live in is not ideal, as you no doubt know by now. The fact is that your grandfather knows some important facts about neogenetics, facts that some people would rather see buried than known. If your grandfather is killed before he can share this information with the world, then our knowledge of neogenetics will be set back by many decades.”

  Dad leaned back in his chair, looking troubled. “As much as I hate the old man, I know I can’t let my personal dislike of him color the fact that he is very important. That is why I told Ashley to give you my parents’ last address after I died, so you can find and protect them from those who would want to harm them.”

  I wondered what Grandfather knew that was so important. Maybe I’d ask him the next time I saw him, if I ever did.

  “I hope, then, that you do not let your grandparents leave without you knowing their location,” said Dad. “They might not even be alive at this point anymore, I don’t know, since I haven’t spoken to or even seen them since your birth. Nonetheless, it is now your duty to find and protect them from their enemies, who are fairly numerous.”

  “The Test Subjects?” I muttered, though, of course, there was no response from the video.

  “Anyway, that’s all,” said Dad. “If you need more information, ask Valerie. Give her the password ‘MATTHEW.’ She will be able to tell you what you need to know. Good bye.”

  The video ended there and the screen went black. I stood there for a moment, hoping that maybe there was more, but the longer I stood there, the more obvious it became that the video was indeed finished.

  I shook my head and, tapping my earcom, said, “Val? Are you there?”

  “Yes, Kevin, I am present,” said Valerie. “What do you wish to know?”

  “The video Dad gave me said that if I told you the password MATTHEW, I would learn the information I needed to know about my grandfather,” I said. “Do you know what that means?”

  “Hmm,” said Valerie. “I think I do, but it has been a long time since I heard that password. Please allow me to search for the necessary files that the password is programmed to unlock.”

  “You have to search for them?” I said. “You mean you can’t just find them instantly?”

  “The files in question are very private and located in a remote server that Genius built prior to his death,” said Valerie. “It will not be easy or quick for me to gain access to the files, though I suspect that I should have it done in a few days at most. It doesn’t help that Genius wiped my memory of that recording you just watched, which will make it harder for me to locate the server in question.”

  “Well, I hope you are quick about it,” I said, “because Dad made it sound urgent that we get those files.”

  “I will not delay, though I will not be available to talk to you because I will have to put all of my focus into locating the server in question,” said Valerie. “Genius had set up many private servers in his life for security reasons and this is one of them.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But just tell me about it as soon as you find it, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Valerie.

  With that, I heard a click in my ear that indicated that my earcom had gone off and that Valerie had left. I hoped that she would be able to find and access the server quickly, because the situation with Grandfather and the Test Subjects was starting to look a lot more complicated than I thought.

  Chapter Eight

  I have to admit, I found it hard to focus on my duties as leader of the Young Neos over the next few days while I waited for Valerie to find and access the server with the information about Grandfather on it. I didn’t really know what to expect when Valerie found it, but I figured it had to be important, otherwise Dad wouldn’t have left me that video telling me about it.

  Speaking of that video, I was thinking more and more about what Dad had said about Grandfather on it. If Dad was telling the truth—and I didn’t see any reason for him not to be—then Grandfather was an absolutely crazy guy. He might have even been evil. I mean, gouging out his wife’s eyes in order to take away her powers? That was not your normal kind of crazy.

  It just seemed so strange, because Grandfather had appeared like such a normal guy when I met him. Okay, he had seemed a little mysterious, maybe even a little strange, but I would never have suspected him of being that level of crazy. It made me wonder just what Grandfather was reall
y hiding from me and what other kind of dark secrets he had. It also made me wonder if Grandfather had been lying about Grandmother being sick; what if there was another reason she wasn’t doing well and couldn’t talk to me?

  In fact, I was actually kind of afraid of Grandfather now. That seemed kind of silly, of course, given that I was much stronger and more powerful than Grandfather, but that didn’t change the fact that Grandfather clearly had a screw loose or two. I was almost ready to just let the Test Subjects have him; whatever knowledge Grandfather may have had about neogenetics did not seem worth risking my life to protect, given how crazy he obviously and clearly was.

  On the other hand, I had no idea what the Test Subjects were actually after. Sure, Twinfist and Sight had told me that they wanted revenge, but I suspected there was more to their plans than mere ‘revenge.’ Maybe they even wanted to take over the world. Who knows? I certainly didn’t.

  Regardless, I put that thought aside in order to focus on the most important issue in my life at the moment: My date with Blizzard.

  Yes, I had actually asked her out. I had done it the day after I watched the video. Why did I do it? Because I had gotten sick of not asking her out. And I wanted to focus on something a bit lighter than the knowledge that Grandfather was apparently completely insane and had gouged out Grandmother’s eyes when Dad was a kid. It helped that Carl informed me that there were no restrictions against dating teammates in the Neohero Alliance Constitution, which got rid of some of my last reservations.

  It really hadn’t been as hard as I thought it was going to be. I just went to her room, knocked on the door, waited for her to answer, and then asked her as soon as she opened it. She seemed really surprised when I asked her, but she accepted the date anyway. We were going out to a movie next week. Which movie, we hadn’t yet decided, but that was irrelevant. The fact was that I was actually going out with her, which still amazed me whenever I thought about it.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t until next week, which meant I had to wait for that whole time. That meant I had two things to wait for, and I hated waiting, which meant that I was going to have to find something else to do until Valerie got back to me with her findings and my date with Blizzard happened.

  Then again, it wasn’t like I had nothing to do. There were my tutors hired by the NHA to teach me, who gave me homework to work on while I was at the base. And, of course, there was also a whole bunch of day-to-day things, too, like training, doing whatever missions Mecha Knight assigned to us, and so on. We didn’t have very many interesting things happening this week, however; like I said, I had noticed a slowdown of major supervillain or super criminal attacks over the last month since Robert Candle’s death.

  But then something happened two days after I asked out Blizzard that meant I wouldn’t need to just sit around and wait for the things I was looking forward to.

  It was after a training session in the Training Room, shortly after lunch, that I was returning to my room to take a shower and rest. I also planned to get to some of the homework that my math tutor had left out for me; I hated math, but it was something I needed to get to anyway and I couldn’t put it off forever.

  But as soon as I entered my room, I realized that I was not alone.

  I wasn’t talking about Carl. I had asked Carl to stop monitoring my room after Valerie went to find the server, because I wanted to keep my privacy and I didn’t think there was any need for Carl to monitor my room all day every day.

  Nor was I talking about Valerie; again, she hadn’t come back yet and I had not heard from her since she went to look for the server.

  No, I meant that someone else had been in here. Or maybe still was in here. How did I know that?

  Well, I noticed that the door to my bathroom was open. I had closed it earlier when I got up this morning and took my shower. There was no way I could have left it open accidentally when I left. That meant that someone had been in my bathroom, but when I looked around my room, I didn’t see anyone in here besides myself.

  Of course, if there had been someone in my room who shouldn’t be here, that wouldn’t make sense. None of my teammates ever entered my room without my permission. And if someone outside of the team or NHA had entered the House, Carl would have alerted us right away.

  I considered just leaving my room and alerting the rest of the team that someone had gotten into my room without me noticing before a voice said, “Hello, Bolt.”

  I looked over my bed, where I had heard the voice come from, and as soon as I looked over, a person materialized into view. She was a young woman wearing ninja clothes, a young woman who I had not expected to see so soon.

  “Emma?” I said. I tensed. “How did you get into my room? And what are you doing here?”

  “I’m a ninja,” said Emma, as if that was all the explanation she needed. “Getting in here was easy. But it doesn’t matter how I got in here. What matters is why I am here.”

  “To kill me?” I said. I took a step back, intending to fake out running away only to attack her when she let her guard down.

  Emma frowned. “Kill you? Why would I do that? You are my employer’s grandson. I would never harm you, not unless you were a threat to my employer, anyway.”

  “So why are you really here, then?” I said. I lowered my hand and covered my suit-up watch, pressing the button on it that would allow me to record our conversation without Emma noticing, because I had a feeling that it would be helpful to have a recording of it for later.

  “Because I need your help,” said Emma, putting her hands together like she was a beggar. “Actually, I should clarify that: Your grandparents need your help.”

  “Why?” I said. “I thought they had run away and didn’t need my help. Has something happened since I last saw them?”

  Emma nodded. “Yes. Your grandmother was captured by one of the Test Subjects and they are now holding her hostage. They are demanding that my master give himself up in exchange for your grandmother’s life.”

  “What?” I said in shock. “How did they get grandmother? Weren’t you protecting her?”

  Emma’s head fell onto her chest. “I tried my hardest to protect her, but the man they sent was too powerful. He managed to find us when we were on our way to our next safe house and he kidnapped your grandmother before we could stop him. He would have killed my master, too, but I managed to fight off the man before he could harm my master. The man fled, but he still managed to take your grandmother with him, despite my best efforts to stop him. That was a couple of days ago.”

  “Do you know where he went?” I said. “Where he and the other Test Subjects are hiding?”

  “Yes, because I managed to track him down while he was escaping,” said Emma. “But I can’t save your grandmother on my own. The Test Subjects are too powerful. I am a skilled fighter, but I cannot match their sheer strength and I am also outnumbered. They have at least four powerful superhumans on their side, while I’m just on my own.”

  I nodded. “I see. I’d love to help, but I need to tell my team and supervisor first. They need to know where I’m going to be.”

  “No,” said Emma. “You must not tell anyone where you are going or what you are going to do.”

  I paused, my hand on the door. “What? Why not?”

  “Because this must be done alone,” Emma insisted. “My master does not want the NHA to know about him or his whereabouts. He only trusts you to help.”

  “If you want me to keep this a secret from my team, you’re out of luck,” I said. “You should have gone to Triplet instead. He doesn’t mind keeping secrets from everyone else.”

  I was just about to turn and leave, but then something flew past my face and struck the door. It was what looked like some kind of metal clamp, its sharp tips sinking into the door’s surface and also covering my hand, which made it impossible for me to remove it from the door. Well, I probably could have ripped it off the door if I wanted, but the sudden appearance of the clamp had taken me by surprise.
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  I looked over at Emma again. She was standing now, her hand already reaching for another metal clamp.

  “I cannot allow you to do that,” said Emma. Her voice was tense and serious. “I know what my master wants and he does not want anyone else to know about this.”

  I thought about just ripping my hand out of the clamp, knocking Emma out in one blow, and then telling Mecha Knight and the team about what Emma wanted me to do. I could do it pretty easily; Emma may have been a ninja, but I was a speedster, and I could probably easily take her out with no problem if I wanted.

  On the other hand, it sounded to me like time was of the essence. I knew, from experience, just how brutal the Test Subjects could be towards their enemies. And that was how they treated me and my friends, who were all strong superheroes in our own right; given that Grandmother was likely a frail old lady, even with her own powers, I couldn’t imagine what they’d do to her if we didn’t save her right away.

  So I looked over at Emma and said, “Okay, Emma. I’ll go with you. I want to save Grandmother.”

  “Finally,” said Emma. “All right. I will tell you where we need to go.”

  Chapter Nine

  You didn’t think I was just going to leave without telling my team, did you?

  Of course I didn’t. I mean, sure, Emma and I managed to sneak out of the House without being seen or noticed, but before we left, I had tapped a button on my suit-up watch that sent a message to Carl containing the audio file of my conversation with Emma that I’d recorded. I then sent it to Carl when Emma wasn’t looking, complete with a small message telling him to tell Mecha Knight and the team about where I was going.

  Did that mean I was lying to Emma? I suppose you could see it that way, but honestly, after watching that video from Dad, I didn’t think it was very prudent to trust anyone associated with Grandfather. Emma seemed to be telling the truth about Grandmother’s kidnapping, but it was equally possible that Emma was hiding some important information from me. I wished that I could read minds like Cadmus Smith; then I could determine whether or not she had left out any important facts in her story. And anyway, if it was a trap, I was strong and fast enough to protect myself.