John leaned his little head in curiously, staring at the glowing screen.
The video started playing.
It was a somewhat blurry piece of surveillance footage, showing a busy street.
All at once, several people dressed in onmyoji robes broke into a brawl in the middle of the street, lights of every color flying through the air, ordinary people around them running in a panic, the street battered into a pockmarked mess.
“Look at these people.”
Leon pointed at the onmyoji on the screen casually wrecking buildings.
“They have great power, but they’re fighting on a street full of ordinary people, not caring at all whether they hurt anyone.
What do you think, are they good guys or bad guys?”
John stared at the chunks of stone spraying everywhere on the screen, his face slowly darkening.
“They’re bad guys.”
The little boy’s voice had no rise or fall to it, yet it carried a cold that was chilling.
“They created chaos.
They don’t protect the weak.”
Leon nodded and reached over to turn off the video.
“That’s right.
This world needs order, and order needs someone to keep it.”
He looked at John’s eyes, which were gradually growing deeper, and mused to himself that the seed had finally been planted nice and firm.
After clearing the things off the meal cart, Leon pushed it slowly toward the door.
“Think carefully about what you just saw.
I’m going to get you some afternoon tea.”
Leon pushed the cart down the metal corridor, bright to the point of glare, and flipped over the work badge on his chest.
The mid-level researcher access really was a lot more useful than before.
The most obvious sign of it was that he could now swipe into the core lounge in B Block.
He pushed open the glass door of the lounge, and the smell of fresh-ground coffee beans drifted out, mixed with some high-end scent of aromatherapy.
A few colleagues in white coats were gathered in twos and threes, chatting in low voices.
Compared to the lifeless atmosphere among the lower-level researchers all day, the air of gossip here was noticeably thicker.
“Did you hear?
Things kicked off again over in San Francisco.”
A young researcher in black-framed glasses was gesturing vividly to his companion.
“Word is it was a few ronin who smuggled themselves in from Japan, fighting some local gang over turf.
They even cut loose with blade energy, shattered all the glass on the whole commercial street.”
“How’s the company’s PR going to spin it this time?”
A middle-aged man with a receding hairline beside him held his coffee cup and shook his head.
“They can’t say it was a gas line explosion again, can they?”
“How else would they spin it, pay to shut the media’s mouths.”
“I hear the higher-ups are already putting pressure on a few of those superheroes, telling them to hurry up and show their faces, take some shots in uniform to reassure the public.”
Leon walked up to the self-serve counter, picked himself a slice of Black Forest cake that looked decent, and poured a cup of black tea.
He kept his ears open to his colleagues’ grumbling, his sense of just how surreal this world was gaining a new dimension.
It seemed Vought wasn’t having an easy time of it these days either.
Those superpowered types flying all over the world didn’t treat the rules of ordinary people as worth anything, and the superhuman heroes Vought took such pride in looked, next to the real heavyweights, a bit like a ragtag outfit good only for posing.
No wonder Supervisor Madelyn was in such a rush to get John, that ultimate weapon, into use as soon as possible.
“Leon?”
Someone patted his shoulder.
Leon turned around and saw Doctor Sarah.
For once she wasn’t busy in the medical room today, a can of sugar-free soda in her hand, the dark circles under her eyes seeming even heavier than yesterday.
“Heard you got promoted.”
Sarah looked him up and down, a bit of teasing in her tone.
“How does it feel, climbing up on those three pieces of Bob’s broken finger?”
Leon swallowed the cake in his mouth and gave a helpless smile.
“Doctor Sarah, quit making fun of me.
That’s a hot potato.
You think the mid-level researcher’s allowance comes for free?
I’m walking a tightrope every day now, scared he’ll get a whim one day and crack my head open like a walnut too.”
“Good that you know it.
The kid didn’t stir up any trouble today, did he?”
“Quiet as anything.
He even ate a whole steak earlier.”
Leon picked up his black tea and took a sip.
“I’m trying to teach him some common sense about the outside.
Can’t keep him locked in a box and raise him like an idiot forever.”
Sarah sighed and leaned against the edge of the counter.
“No matter how you teach him, deep down he isn’t a normal human.
You’d better be clear about that, and don’t actually start thinking you’re his dad.”
The two of them were still talking when the TV screen mounted on the lounge wall suddenly cut to a piece of breaking news.
The picture was full of rolling smoke, a commercial tower dozens of stories high collapsing.
A few blurry dark shapes collided rapidly in midair, every clash accompanied by a shockwave visible to the naked eye.
The news anchor’s voice carried an obvious tremor, reading out some unconfirmed report of a terrorist attack.
The discussion in the lounge vanished in an instant, everyone staring at the screen, faces pale.
Leon watched the picture on the TV and narrowed his eyes slightly.
That was definitely not some ordinary superhero cracking down on crime.
Destructive power like that looked more like two monsters out of control tearing down a building.
He shoved the rest of the cake into his mouth in a couple of bites, picked up the cup of black tea, and turned to walk out.
“Not watching?” Sarah asked from behind him.
“Nothing worth watching, nothing but a pile of messes.”
Leon waved a hand without looking back.
“I’ve got to go check on my little tyrant.
The more chaos out there, the more I’ve got to keep a close eye on his worldview.”
Back at the door of the sterile room, Leon swiped open the airlock.
Inside, John wasn’t playing with the blocks.
He was standing in front of that one-way bulletproof glass, his little hand pressed against the surface, looking at something or other.
Hearing the door open, he turned his head, the pure white lights of the room reflected in his deep blue eyes.
“Leon.” The little boy’s voice was calm.
“The outside world, is it all bad guys?”
Leon walked over to his side and looked out along his line of sight.
Beyond the glass was an empty corridor with nothing in it.
But he knew John’s hearing far surpassed an ordinary person’s.
He’d maybe heard the news in the lounge, maybe heard all the hidden panic and whispering throughout the entire underground base.
“Not all of them.”
Leon sat down on the floor and patted the spot beside him to signal him over.
“There are a lot of ordinary people out there.
They get up early every day to go to work, buy bread, watch TV.
When they get sick they go to the hospital, when it rains they put up an umbrella.
They have no power, and when they run into danger all they can do is hide in fear.”
John walked over and sat down beside Leon.
“What about the ones flying around up in the sky, knocking down the buildings?” John asked.
“Those are what I told you about, the people who have power but don’t follow the rules.”
Leon handed him the black tea in his hand.
“They don’t care whether ordinary people live or die.
They only care about their own winning or losing.
So they’re bad guys.”
John cupped the warm paper cup, looked down at the red-brown liquid inside, and frowned slightly.
“Then when can I go out?”
John looked up, a chilling fixation in his eyes.
“If there are so many bad guys out there breaking the rules, why keep me locked in here?
I should go deal out justice to them.
I’ll break their legs, so they can never knock down a building again.”
This blunt and violent sense of justice gave Leon a bit of a headache, but at the same time he felt it was a lot better than that giant baby in the original plot who only wanted to drink milk and kill people.
“You’re still too little right now, John.” Leon reached out and ruffled his blond hair.