John’s attention was instantly and completely captured by this colorful box that moved and made sounds.
He forgot all about the cola in his hand, staring at the screen without blinking, not even once.
“Is this the world outside?”
John pointed at Starscream and Optimus Prime trading laser-gun fire on the screen, a trace of wariness in his tone.
“Have the bad guys outside turned into blocks of iron?”
Leon was amused.
He walked over and rubbed his head.
“No, this is called a cartoon.
It’s a story that’s drawn.”
Leon sat down on the sofa and patted the spot beside him.
“Ordinary people outside make up stories like this to teach little kids what’s right and what’s wrong.
See that big red-and-blue guy?
He’s the hero of this story.”
John obediently sat down next to Leon and stared at Optimus Prime on the screen.
“Why doesn’t he just shoot that bad guy called Megatron dead, instead of going on talking nonsense?”
After watching for a while, John raised a question that cut straight to the soul.
In his logic, when facing a bad guy, going up and wrenching off an arm or stepping through a leg was the most efficient thing to do.
“Because he has to think about the safety of civilians, and besides, he’s a leader with a line he won’t cross.”
Leon patiently began his lesson in morals and character.
“John, do you remember the look the big boss in the observation room gave you that day at the testing floor, after you broke that monster’s leg?”
John thought back, then nodded.
“He looked very happy.”
“He really was happy, because you solved a problem for him.
But if you were outside, in front of a lot of ordinary people, and you twisted someone into a cruller in that bloody way, ordinary people wouldn’t be happy.
They’d just be afraid of you.”
Leon picked up the remote and pressed the pause button.
The picture froze on Optimus Prime’s tall, imposing back.
“A hero doesn’t only need the power to punish bad guys.
He also needs something called an image.”
Leon looked at John, his tone turning very serious.
“Image is the way ordinary people see you.
If your methods are too brutal, then even if the ones you’re beating are bad guys, ordinary people will still think you’re a monster.
They’ll run away screaming and won’t let you protect them.”
John frowned.
Ordinary people, afraid of him?
It gave him an odd, nagging irritation.
What he wanted was for ordinary people to obey nicely and accept the order he laid down.
“Then what do I do?”
“Learn restraint, and show your gentle side.”
Leon pointed at the leader of the Autobots on the TV.
“When you beat bad guys, be as clean and quick as an autumn wind sweeping away the leaves.
You have to make them feel that you’re as warm as the sun.
Only if they trust you can you carry out your justice better.”
John looked at the screen thoughtfully, then looked at Leon.
Then he worked hard to tug at the corners of his mouth, baring a slightly stiff, even somewhat unsettling smile.
“Like this?”
Leon looked at that smile, and his back went a little cold.
That smile was too much like the deranged Homelander of the world to come, the kind of grinning-but-not-really that was carved right into the DNA.
“No, no, no, too fake.”
Leon quickly reached out and pinched John’s baby-fat cheeks.
“It has to come from the heart.
Think about when you’re eating a burger.
Think about when you finish solving the Rubik’s cube.”
John closed his eyes and thought back.
When he opened his eyes again, the corners of his mouth lifted naturally, and his deep blue eyes carried a childish innocence too.
It was a sunny smile you couldn’t find a single fault in, one that could melt anybody.
“Perfect.”
Leon snapped his fingers.
“Remember that feeling.
This is your weapon when you face the public from now on.
Sometimes it works even better than your heat vision.”
Right above this apartment, in the vice president’s office on the hundredth floor.
Stan Edgar was looking at an encrypted budget report in his hand.
Madelyn stood across the desk, reporting on the construction of the new living area in Area B.
“Leon has already moved in with the test subject.
All the living facilities are top standard.
Also, the surveillance cameras in the medical room have all been concealed and installed,” Madelyn said.
“That young man called Leon, has he made any excessive demands?” Edgar asked without lifting his head.
“No.
He only asked for a fresh pizza delivery every Friday, and an unlimited supply of videotapes and books of all kinds.”
Edgar closed the report and let out a very faint cold laugh.
“It seems our researcher really does intend to be a good father.”
Edgar stood and walked over to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a glass of whiskey.
“Let him be.
We need something with human attachments to hold on to.
As long as that boy still cares about Leon, we can control the boy through Leon.”
Madelyn hesitated.
“But Mr.
Edgar, what if Leon teaches the test subject to be too…
soft?
We don’t need a model of virtue who hesitates even to kill.”
Edgar held his glass, and in his mind rose the image of that little boy stepping through the knee of the mutated gang boss, that look in his eyes as cold as if he were crushing an ant.
“Madelyn, you still don’t understand this product we’ve created well enough.
The blood that runs in his bones is absolute arrogance.
The rules and morals Leon is teaching him now are nothing more than a pretty layer of turf laid over an active volcano.
The volcano will erupt sooner or later.
I only hope that before that day comes, he’ll have learned how to gracefully control the flow of the lava, instead of burning himself and the whole company to ashes along with it.”
Edgar took a sip of the strong liquor, his gaze deep as he looked out at the bustling New York night beyond the window.
“Give him another five years.
Five years from now, we’ll have him stand before everyone as a flawless savior.”
Down in the underground apartment, Leon of course had no idea what those capitalists upstairs were scheming.
He was facing a huge challenge right now.
“So, you put this whole piece of raw meat into that iron box that breathes fire, and then it turns into a steak?”
John stood by the kitchen counter, watching with open amazement as Leon tossed a marinated sirloin into the frying pan.
With a hiss, the smell of butter mixed with beef burst out all at once.
“Right, this is called cooking.
It’s also one of the greatest inventions of human civilization.”
Leon fumbled with the tongs to flip the steak over, flicking his hand from the spitting droplets of oil that burned him.
In an era when even takeout wasn’t very developed yet, eating well meant either the cafeteria or doing it yourself.
To spoil this little tyrant’s palate, Leon was working his sorry hide off trying to recall the few cooking skills he had.
John watched Leon fumbling around, and his eyes suddenly went to the blue natural-gas flame at the bottom of the pan.
“I could actually help, Leon.”
The words had barely left him when two points of bloody red light welled up in John’s eyes.
“Shit!
Don’t!”
Leon was scared out of his wits.
He threw the tongs aside and clapped a hand over John’s eyes.
“My little tyrant!
One blast of your heat vision and there won’t be so much as ash left of this fine steak, and the gas line on our whole floor would blow sky-high!”
The red light in John’s eyes faded away in a sulk, and he pursed his lips.
“I only wanted to make it cook faster.”
Leon let out a long breath and wiped the cold sweat off his forehead.
“Listen, John.
In our territory, the kitchen is an absolute no-powers zone.
Whether it’s cooking or cleaning, you can only use your hands.
No superpowers allowed.
This is an ironclad rule, understand?”
John looked at the steak in the pan giving off its tempting smell, swallowed, and obediently nodded.
Leon relaxed and picked the tongs back up.
It seemed this road of raising a kid meant not only teaching him how to save the world, but also keeping him from blowing up the kitchen.
These days really were shaping up to be more and more of a sentence to serve.