After Sparkler had been carried into the medical room, Leon sat in his lavish office, staring blankly for a long while at a cup of Geisha coffee that had already gone cold.
The way things had developed was a little beyond what he’d expected.
He’d originally thought that as long as he boxed John in with a strict set of “heroic codes of conduct,” he could turn him into a rule-abiding good person.
But today’s combat test had shown him a terrifying truth.
John was like a supercomputer with super-level processing power.
Leon had fed in the code named “justice” and “rules,” and John had executed it perfectly, even factoring in an edge condition like “don’t hit the face so the opponent can still go on TV.”
But he had no feelings.
He hadn’t held back out of any reverence for life.
He was only completing the “task” Leon had assigned.
If, on some day in the future, this supercomputer decided this code had a logic flaw, or decided this code was obstructing some ultimate goal he wanted to reach, he would tear the code, and the man who wrote it, to shreds without a moment’s hesitation.
“Empathy…
how am I supposed to teach that?”
Leon rubbed his faintly aching temples, muttering to himself in frustration.
Out in the world of ordinary people, teaching a child empathy was nothing more than raising a small animal, or taking him to volunteer at an orphanage.
But in this lightless Vought underground base, he couldn’t very well go grab some mutated test subject for the boy to keep as a pet, could he?
Wait, a pet?
Leon’s eyes lit up, and he slammed down the comm unit on his desk.
“Logistics?
This is Leon.
Go get me a dog.
Right, no military dogs, nothing mutated, just the most ordinary, dopiest, sweetest golden retriever puppy you can find.
Also, buy a full set of dog food, a dog bed, and toys.
Have it delivered to my office before end of day.”
Hanging up the comm, Leon let out a long breath.
For dealing with this empathy-deficient little super-freak, using a small, furry life to wake up the soft side of his humanity was the most classic, and most effective, “American therapy.”
At six in the evening, Leon pushed open the alloy door of the underground apartment, carrying a cardboard box printed with a pet store logo.
“John, come see what kind of spoils I brought you.”
Leon set the box down on the wool rug in the living room.
John immediately put down the comic book in his hands and leaned in curiously.
He’d assumed Leon had brought him some new novelty videotape or some tasty fast food again.
But the moment Leon opened the box, a little ball of meat covered all over in golden baby fur, only about the size of two palms, came crawling unsteadily out of it.
The little golden retriever let out a milky “woof,” then plopped down on its rump on the rug and looked up at the two people in front of it with a pair of round, black, utterly innocent eyes. This story is hosted at novelping(.)com.
John froze.
He stared at the furry little dog for a full ten seconds, then turned his head, his deep blue eyes full of confusion.
“Leon, is this a new flavor of reserve rations?
It looks like there’s not much meat on it.”
Leon slapped a hand to his forehead, on the verge of losing it.
“It is not reserve rations!
It’s called a dog!
It’s a pet, man’s best friend!”
Leon hurried to scoop up the little golden retriever, which had no idea how close to death it was as it got ready to chew on John’s shoelaces.
“Its name is Buddy.
From today on, it’s a new member of our family.”
“A new member?”
John frowned, seeming thoroughly displeased that this weak little creature had invaded his territory.
“But it’s weak.
It has no claws, no heat vision, even that fat guy Bob could stomp it to death.
Can it help us fight the bad guys?”
“It doesn’t need to fight bad guys.
The point of its existence is to teach you how to take care of a life countless times weaker than yourself.”
Leon stuffed the little golden retriever into John’s arms.
John went rigid in an instant.
He could feel the warm little thing in his arms squirming restlessly, and the puppy’s warm little tongue even gave the back of his hand a lick.
A trace of red light welled up in John’s eyes, his instinctive defensive reaction when he met an unknown stimulus.
“No superpowers allowed!”
Leon barked.
“Put away your heat vision and your super strength!
It’s like a ripe peach.
You only have to put the slightest bit of force into your fingers and every bone in it will shatter!”
Hearing the words “every bone will shatter,” John, frightened, quickly drew the red light back from his eyes, holding his two hands like he was carrying a time bomb that might go off at any moment, not daring to move an inch, even softening his breathing.
“Can you feel its heartbeat?”
Leon slowed his voice, coaxing him along.
“It’s fragile, so fragile that any little accident in this world could end its life.
But it’s also alive.
A hero doesn’t only have to face powerful enemies, he has to learn how to bend down and embrace these fragile things in the gentlest way.”
John looked down at the little golden retriever in his arms.
It whimpered, gave John’s chest a light nudge with its furry little head, then settled down peacefully, even letting out a contented little snore.
It wasn’t afraid of him.
Over the past six years, apart from Leon, every single person who came near John carried a fear they couldn’t hide.
They were afraid of his power, afraid of his volatile temper.
But this weak little “Buddy” wasn’t.
It didn’t know what Compound V was, didn’t know what a god among men was.
It only felt that this person’s arms were warm.
A strange feeling spread out from the bottom of John’s heart.
He tentatively extended one soft little finger and, extremely slowly, extremely carefully, stroked once down Buddy’s back along the fur.
Soft, warm.
“It doesn’t hate me.”
John looked up, a light flickering in his eyes that had never been there before.
“Because you put away your sharp edges.
When you choose to be gentle, the world will be gentle with you too.”
Leon smiled and ruffled John’s hair.
“From today on, feeding, scooping poop, baths, all of it is your task.
If it loses a single hair, or gets sick, this week’s burgers and Nintendo time are all canceled.”
John nodded as if facing a powerful enemy, carefully set Buddy down on the rug, and stared at it without blinking, as though carrying out a security detail more important than saving the world.
Watching John clumsily take up the bottle and chase the puppy around to feed it, Leon leaned against the bar, relieved, and took a sip of his goji berry tea.
This move had been the right one.
With this little thing to tie him down, the kid’s capacity for empathy could finally be cultivated, bit by bit.
What Leon didn’t know, however, was that when the night had gone deep and quiet and he was lying in the bedroom giving off even breaths of sleep, John, out in the living room, opened his eyes.
John climbed up off the couch on light, quiet feet.
He glanced at Buddy, sprawled out on its back fast asleep in the dog bed, tucked the kicked-off blanket back over it, and then walked toward the apartment’s front door.
The door’s retinal lock was an insurmountable obstacle for an ordinary person, but in front of John it was nothing at all.
The big boss, Edgar, had long since given the order to grant the boy the highest access clearance to everything except the company’s core classified vault.
The door slid open without a sound.
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