Mad Mask by Barry Lyga & Barry Lyga

Author:Barry Lyga & Barry Lyga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The next evening, Kyle was killing time in the basement, making a chart of Mighty Mike’s latest exploits. He was looking for patterns to Mike’s behavior, analyzing when and how he used his various superpowers, which mistakes he made when. And why. Anything that would give him an edge. He lost track of time, absorbed in thought, when — true to his word — the Mad Mask arrived as darkness fell, slipping into Kyle’s basement silently.

“Since your workspace is pleasing,” he announced, causing Kyle to blush with pleasure, “we shall commence our work here, rather than at the Mad Mask’s lair.”

Kyle flashed back to the enormous size of Ultitron from the schematics. “But — but there’s no room for something that big here!”

“Do not cloud the conversation with petty details. We need no significant amount of room. The major construction on Ultitron is completed already. We merely need to develop, assemble, and perfect specific control modules. Those tasks can easily be accomplished here, with the finished components moved to my lair and installed once tested.”

Well, that made sense. Kyle was a little concerned about working with the Mad Mask in his basement, though — his parents could decide to come downstairs. He asked the Mad Mask to work in regular clothes and without the mask.

“The Mad Mask’s deformity shall never be revealed to the open air!” the Mad Mask cried. “This mask shall conceal the grotesquerie that was once a pleasing visage ’til the end of time itself!”

So, yeah, Kyle figured he wouldn’t have any luck talking his ally out of that.

He decided to attack the problem from the other direction. If he couldn’t get the Mad Mask to look normal for his parents, he would fix his parents instead. This meant going back to the brain-wave manipulator, one of the very first gadgets Kyle had built after receiving his amped-up intelligence from the plasma storm that brought Mighty Mike to Earth.

The brain-wave manipulator made Kyle feel a little nervous … and more than a little bit guilty. He’d used it on his parents without testing it and now they both had side effects. He didn’t really want to use it again, but he didn’t see how he had a choice. Marching up the stairs with the brain-wave manipulator tucked under his arm, he resolved to spend some time working on perfecting the device so that he could remove the side effects.

“Hey, guys,” he said. “Got a sec?”

Both of his parents looked over at him from the kitchen table, where they were enjoying dinner. Kyle pointed the brain-wave manipulator and triggered it.

“You won’t notice anything strange about my friend Theodore. He just seems like a normal kid to you. You don’t mind that he wears a mask.”

“Why — why would that bother us?” Dad asked, now stuttering on why, too.

“We love Theodore!” Mom chirped, and then made a clicking sound with her tongue.

Oh, boy. If he didn’t fix the machine before he needed to use it again, he was going to turn his parents into total rejects.

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