Archvillain (11 page)

Kyle grumbled. On TV right now, one of the “experts” was saying, “Maybe it was naïve of us, as a society, as a culture. We were so thrilled to have Mighty Mike among us, doing good deeds, that we never considered that there could be someone else like him, but without his benevolence.”

Click.
Kyle changed the channel.

“Superpowered punks trash the town of Bouring!” an announcer screamed into the camera. His face was so red that Kyle thought it might pop right off and splat against the camera. “Who do these kids think they —”

Click.

“— if someone can’t control them, then what are we — we poor, ordinary human beings — supposed to do to stop —”

Click.

“What we’re seeing here is proof that the universe always seeks balance. If there is a great and powerful force for good, then an equivalent force for evil rises up to challenge it —”

Gah!
Kyle turned off the TV. “Evil? I’m not
evil
! Why do they let imbeciles on TV?”

“Because if they didn’t, there would be no TV at all,” Erasmus told him. “In the words of my namesake: Fools are without number.”

“Grr …”

Kyle paced the length and breadth of his room. Lefty watched, his head cocked so that he could follow Kyle with one ruby eye.

Kyle dropped to his knees in front of the cage. “This is all crazy. I need a publicist. Or … No. I don’t need a publicist. What am I thinking? I just need to kick Mike’s alien butt off the planet. Then everyone will start thinking straight again. Right? Right?”

He poked a finger into the cage and let Lefty chin him. That’s how he knew Lefty loved him — when a rabbit rubbed the underside of its chin against something, it was like saying, “This is mine. I want it.” Lefty never judged Kyle. Lefty just loved him.

“What do you think, Lefty?”

“Why are you talking to a rabbit?” Erasmus asked haughtily. “He can’t answer you. He can’t do four-dimensional differential calculus. He can’t quantify string theory. He can’t calculate pi to ten duotrigintillion digits. He can’t —”

Kyle switched off Erasmus. Sometimes you wanted to talk to someone who couldn’t answer.

At school the next day, Kyle watched what had by now become a daily ritual: the Seating of Mighty Mike.

Everyone wanted to be at Mike’s table for lunch. Riots threatened to break out every day at noon when Mike marched into the lunchroom. So the teachers came up with a schedule. Each day, Mike would sit at a different table with a different group of kids.

It was, Kyle thought, a colossal waste of time and the very limited brainpower of the teachers at Bouring Middle School. They could have just ordered Mike to eat somewhere else, preferably the moon. Problem solved.

Today was the day he would sit at Mairi’s table. Kyle normally ate with Mairi.

Kyle went through the lunch line. The cheeseburger appeared to be the selection least likely to contain any sort of dangerous bacteria or germs, so he chose that. The French fries were probably okay, too, having been doused in boiling fat. He skipped the salad because it was wilted and looked like it had been sneezed on repeatedly.

Mairi’s jaw dropped in shock when Kyle sat down next to her.

“What — what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Eating lunch,” he said.

“Yeah, but …”

“What?”

Mairi glanced at the three other kids at the table. Kyle knew them all and smiled and nodded his head
pleasantly. They ignored him, watching the opening from the lunch line as if the answers to life would emerge.

She leaned over to him. “Today’s the day Mike eats at this table. I thought you would …”

“Would what?”

“I know you don’t like him —”

“Don’t like him? Where did you get
that
idea?”

Mairi stared at him.

“Oh, I admit I’m not some Mike worshipper like everyone else in this town, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like him. I like him fine. He’s —”

A cheer went up, drowning out whatever Kyle would have said next. Mike had deigned to manifest himself from the lunch line. When he wasn’t wearing his costume, he looked like any other kid, but they applauded and hollered like he was the president.

He sat down across from Kyle, the only remaining place at the table.

Just as Kyle had planned.

“Hi, Mike,” Kyle said, forcing himself to smile.

Mike’s eyes widened and he smiled back. “Hi! You’re Kyle, right? We haven’t talked since that day we played football.” He leaned across the table to shake Kyle’s hand.

Kyle kept smiling and shook that powerful hand, resisting the urge to show Mike his own strength. “Not football. Soccer.”

“Really? Are you sure? I think we used our feet. And I know there was a ball.”

“Trust me. It’s soccer.”

“I don’t remember there being any socks.”

“Seriously. Just trust me.”

Mighty Mike sat back, a thoughtful look on his face. “I believe you,” he said at last.

“Well, I’m right, so that’s good.” Before Mairi could chide him for being sarcastic, he said, “I hope you’re liking things here in Bouring.”

“I am! It’s a very friendless town.”

“I think you mean ‘friendly,’ ” Mairi chimed in.

Mike tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, then nodded triumphantly. “Yes. Friendly. Thank you.”

The other three kids at the table didn’t bother talking — they just stared at Mike in rapt adoration.

“Have the authorities had any luck finding your parents?” Mairi asked, her voice so full of concern that Kyle wanted to tell her to cough it up before she choked on it.

“Not yet. They’ve been very busy. My printerfinger is not in the system, apparently.”

“Fingerprints,” Kyle said helpfully.

Mike frowned for a moment, thinking. “Yes. Fingerprints. Of course. That makes more sense.”

“How’s that brain damage coming along?” Kyle asked.

“Kyle!” Mairi smacked his shoulder and he had to pretend to feel it. “I can’t believe you!”

“What? He’s got brain damage. Everyone knows it.”

“It’s rude to say it like that. He’s not brain damaged. He’s just …” She pursed her lips, trying to think of a better word. “He’s just not in his right mind. Oops.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “That’s worse!”

“It’s all right, Mairi,” Mike said gently. “My brain is, in fact, not totally up to velocity. It’s a cider feck of the meteor radiation. But I’m getting better every day.” He smiled at Kyle. “Thanks for asking.”

“I think you meant ‘side effect’ back there,” Kyle said, trying to sound helpful. The fact that Mike could take an insult and just blink and pretend it hadn’t happened was driving him nuts. He wanted to get under this kid’s skin, but Mike was so nice it was creepy. “So, your fingerprints are no good, but have they tried DNA?” He wondered what alien DNA looked like.

“Also not in the system,” Mike said. “Oh, look. That’s a cool Poddy.” He pointed to Erasmus, which Kyle had positioned on the table.

“It’s not a Poddy. It’s …” Kyle sighed. Mike’s brain damage/amnesia was exhausting. “My parents gave him, I mean it, to me,” Kyle said.

“Can I see it?”

Kyle’s brain raced. He had made some modifications to Erasmus last night. In fact, that was the only reason
he had voluntarily plopped into a seat with an unobstructed view of Mighty Mike.

Because right now, Erasmus was sending out an invisible beam that was scanning Mighty Mike’s body.

If he let Mighty Mike actually hold Erasmus, Erasmus could glean even more information. But it was risky. What if Mike realized there was something abnormal about Erasmus?

“Sure,” Kyle said. “Go ahead.” He handed Erasmus over, thinking,
You better behave, Erasmus!

Mairi couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Kyle shrugged at the expression on her face, then kept on smiling as Mike slipped Erasmus’s earbuds in and turned him on. Fortunately, Erasmus had the good sense to pretend to be nothing more than a music player.

But the whole time, Kyle knew, Mike’s brain was being analyzed….

Mike tossed his head back and forth in time to music that only he could hear. “I love the hoppity-hip music!”

“Hip-hop,” every single person at the table (even the quiet kids) said at the same time.

“Kyle!” Mairi said. “Why are you giggling?”

Oops. That was out loud? “Nothing. Just … thought of something funny.”

As he watched his hated enemy rock out with Erasmus, Kyle thought of a great many funny things.

All of them involved Mighty Mike … gone forever.

The risk was worth it! Oh, what a glorious day this has been!

Ever since the fiasco that was Mighty Mike Day, I’ve been spending most of my time in the basement, converting it to my own permanent laboratory. (It’s coming along quite well, BTW. The miniature nuclear reactor is almost online, and my biochemical forge plans look good.)

But as much progress as I’ve made down there … I haven’t come any closer to destroying Mike.

Until now.

Erasmus scanned every last inch of that brat’s alien physique. While Mike was listening to music and rocking out, Erasmus was recording samples of his alien brain waves.

Now, unfortunately, I don’t yet have a computer system that can decode all of this information. But I’m working on one. In the meantime, I at least have
some
information.

I also have some data on the radiation in Mike’s body, the same radiation in my body. The radiation from the plasma storm.

I’ve built a machine that just analyzes this radiation. Maybe, in time, I can learn how to remove Mike’s powers. Or increase mine. Or both.

You have to know your enemy to defeat your enemy, after all.

By the weekend, Kyle was more aggravated than before. And considering how aggravated he was earlier, that was a whole new level of aggravation. (He still hadn’t invented a word to describe this new level of aggravation. It was on his to-do list, though. Right under “travel through time.”)

He spent all of his free time in the laboratory he’d built in the basement. The time machine sat half finished in the corner. (It didn’t look like a time machine; it looked like Dad’s old motorbike. That’s mainly because it
was
Dad’s old motorbike, with lots of special, hidden modifications.)

His MiMiRDAA (Mighty Mike Radiation Detector And Analyzer) sat on a corner of the workbench, quietly grinding away, thinking to itself. He’d built it into an ancient cell phone that was almost as big as the cordless upstairs. (How had people ever carried those things around? Where did they keep them? Did they have gigantic pockets back then?)

But even though he was making progress, he still felt no closer to destroying Mighty Mike. He needed something big. He needed …

He needed the World’s Most Perfect Prank.

That was it! That’s what would finally destroy Mighty Mike! Kyle had been spending so much time trying to think of ways to hurt Mike that he’d forgotten the easiest way. He had to go back to basics, back to the pranks that had made him so successful in the past. Mike loved the adoration he received from the world. But if Kyle could pull a prank that would get the public to see Mike for what he was … If he could push Mike to the edge and make Mike lose his cool …

If he could manage that, then Mighty Mike would self-destruct. He would show his true colors and the world would turn against him.

Only with the World’s Most Perfect Prank would he push Mike to the limit, tormenting him beyond his superhuman endurance. And so the world would learn that Mighty Mike was just as mundane and boring and unworthy of attention as everything else out there. He had to play to his strengths.

But Kyle couldn’t come up with anything. Nothing. No one could find Mike’s real family (and only Kyle knew they never would because his real family was from some other planet), but the people of Bouring had gotten
used to having a real-life superhero in their midst. No one was looking very hard anymore.

Meanwhile, every day that Kyle didn’t develop the World’s Most Perfect Prank was a day when Mighty Mike made more and more friends at school. A day for Mighty Mike to patrol the skies of Bouring, saving kittens from trees, stopping car accidents, helping little old ladies cross the street.

“Kittens in trees …” Kyle mumbled. He was sitting in bed with Lefty on his lap, stroking the rabbit’s soft fur. It relaxed him. “Kittens in trees …” Erasmus was playing some soothing music. Tibetan chants. Or something like that.

“Wait a minute!” Kyle shouted, sitting upright, scaring Lefty, who hopped off of him and retreated to the other side of the bed. “Kittens in trees! That’s it!”

“What is it?” Erasmus interrupted the peaceful chanting.

“I’ve got the World’s Most Perfect Prank! It’s so simple! So obvious!” He rolled onto his stomach and pulled Lefty over so that they were nose-to-nose. “Listen, Lefty — it’s easy. Mike’s always out there saving people, right? And just the other day he rescued a lost dog out by the lighthouse. And last week he swooped out of nowhere to get a cat out of a tree.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Shut up, Erasmus. I’m talking to Lefty. Look, this will be easy. The best plans are usually the simplest ones, right? So I’ll get a cat. Then I’ll
clone
the cat. And do some genetic modifications. Change its DNA, you know? I’ll make a cat that sticks to trees no matter what! No matter how much Mike pulls, that cat isn’t going
anywhere.
He can pull all day and all night. Eventually, he’ll just pull up the tree by the roots! He’ll look like an idiot!”

Kyle started laughing — it was loud and sustained. Lefty hopped off the bed and ran back into his cage. Mom opened his bedroom door and poked her head in. “What’s so funny?” she asked, her left eyelid twitching like crazy.

“Nothing!” Kyle said between gasps, rolling on the bed. “Nothing!”

Mom left, her eyelid still twitching, her shoulder occasionally jerking for no reason at all.