Mach: The Super Hero

1.2 New Talents

Max shrugged the hostility away and just smiled, surprisingly excited. “No way! What power you got, bro? Is it really super speed?”

“I ain’t your bro, Max. And we don’t have to do this!” Michael said loudly. He wanted to make sure he would be considered on the side of right, no matter what happened next.

“No, we don’t,” Max said, smirking again. He slightly shook his head to bounce back the threat, and pretended it wasn't said. “But what is it?”

“It’s super speed, yeah,” Michael conceded, growing anxious by Max’s unusual show of restraint.

Max whistled, impressed. “Pretty cool one, huh? How fast you think you can go?”

Michael was just disarmed. He managed not to choke, but his voice waned as he looked aside, made slightly uncomfortable by the sudden familiarity. Max was acting like they were friends.

Or worse, like he wanted them to be friends.

Michael watched Max carefully, but it was as if he had asked the one question that could diffuse months of pent-up frustration.“Faster than anything on wheels,” Michael answered, trying not to smile.Max chuckled. “Even trains?”

Michael hesitated. Thinking back to his previous day, he recalled the exhilaration. That got him feeling it all over again. He finally smiled even though he didn't want to. “The ones on wheels. Fastest dash, I needed about a hundred meters to reach.”

“Meters? This brainiac over here, how many’s that in feet, bro?” Max asked.

Michael rolled his eyes, “I dunno… three hundred and some. I was so fast I brought a lamp down,” he added.

Max chuckled again, louder. “I can bring one down easy. All it takes is a spit.”

Michael frowned, remembering who he was talking to. There was no fun to be had, let alone camaraderie. He dropped the smile. “I doubt that,” Michael said, accusingly.

Max brought his arms up and crossed them, shrugging it off. “Nah, tried it the other day. Was a weak lamp but… Hey, you wanna go sit with us?”

The friendliness finally finished throwing Michael off. It killed his aggressive mood, but not at all his distaste for Max and his group. The fact Max would value Michael differently just because he now had a superpower was beyond insulting.

“Uh… No, thanks,” Michael said coldly. “I’m with my friends, actually. As always.”

“C’mon, we supers gotta stick together, right?” Max asked, nudging Michael.

Michael shook like he had been punched. However, it was so clearly accidental that Michael let it slide, preferring to pretend that he had hardly felt it.

Max added. “There’re few of us out there, right? C'mon."

A bit disgusted by the superficial nature of it all, Michael failed to hide the judgmental spite in his voice. “I like my friends. I like spending time with them. My speed doesn’t change that.”

“Well fine, whatever Mac,” Max said with a shrug. “Anyways, I don’t wanna take advantage of a fellow super, you can keep the chair.”

“Wow, thanks,” Michael replied, making his sarcasm as evident as possible.

“Don’t worry about it,” Max said with a smile, knowingly or unknowingly ignorant to Michael’s meaning.

He then walked away.

Michael watched him go, all but confused, not to say frustrated, by the friendliness and the patience that Max had never exhibited. Or at least, Michael had never witnessed it.

“Wow, guy’s clearly afraid of you, Mac,” Richie said, once Max was out of earshot.

“Yeah, gotta be that. I never see him reacting like that, guy’s a hothead.” Thomas concurred.

Michael clicked his tongue and slouched back against his chair, staring at his soup. “I guess that’ll work. There’s more than one way to make him stop bullying people, right?”

“Yeah,” Sarah mentioned, her voice sounding concerned. “A fight between you two is gonna be really dangerous. I mean, did you see about that thing at that school in England?”

“The soccer fans that got into a fight in school?” Richie said, a bit doubtfully.

Sarah blew at her soup, sad. “Yeah... They had scary powers, too, and they ended up really hurting some people. One of them almost died, and the other’s on the run. We don’t want something like that happening.”

“Well, of course not,” Michael said, hiding his anxiety with a bit of outrage. “What am I supposed to do, though? There’s no one keeping us in check. I can’t just let Max have his way with everyone. What? Are the teachers gonna do something? They’ve had months to try.”

“Well, I’m just saying! A fight between you two is bound to hurt people a lot more than a few stolen chairs will,” Sarah pointed out, quite sarcastically.

“Yeah, I get it, nobody wants us to fight,” Michael said, holding up his spoon defensively.

Still, deep-seethed spite was bubbling within Michael. He hated bullying. Every time he saw that look of fear people gave Max. The tension, the nervousness. “But it’s a matter of principle. I won’t push it, but I can't let him just push people around."

Michael paused to nod sagely. “I mean, I can push him back, now, you know?” he stated, dramatically.

“Damn right,” Thomas said, nodding in agreement.

The rest peered at them in silence. Michael left it at that and turned his thoughts to more interesting places. Namely, gym class.

That week, the United States record for the hundred-meter lap became two point one seconds, albeit unofficially. Michael was the talk of the school and the focus of many eyes.

 For better and for worse.

“Yes! I won!” Jay celebrated, after crossing the finish line.

“What’re you talking about?” Michael asked, sitting on the floor at the end of the race track. He smiled. “I’ve been waiting here forever, now.”

“Well yeah, but you don’t count, man, you know that,” the official track champion told him, very casually. Michael frowned and didn’t say anything in return as Jay turned to go celebrate with his friends.

Jay was right, really. It was unfair to compare Michael with everyone else. At the same time, it was difficult for Michael to tell the difference between his new-found aptitude and Jay’s own talent for running.

Truly, one would never expect life to go on as casually as it did during those first days, but having super speed only made Michael more susceptible to how boring school could really be, and by consequence, how mundane his daily life really was. He spent all day sitting still, having to daydream through math, history or geography. He used to think he didn’t care about those things, but during that first week, Michael felt it more keenly than ever.

What Michael really cared about was running.

Speaking of mundane, Michael was constantly surprised, if not a little disappointed, but how little attention he was getting.

And what little he got was not always positive.

“Mr. Chambers? How about at least keeping those eyes open, young man? Or are you now too important for my class?”

Michael shook his head, both awake and in response, utterly embarrassed by the comment. “What, no, of course not, teach!”

Michael did his best not to be Max and be his usual self. It was hard. Everyone had gotten to calling him “speedy” and other such nicknames. Everyone treated him differently now that he had the superpower. He had expected a change, sure, but his expectations had apparently been pretty optimistic. After all, the most noticeable change was the resentment he just could not avoid anymore.

Even from his own friends.

“I think we got the time, no? A quick pass by the mall, get some ice cream!” Michael said, excited to hang out.

“Can’t, man, I need to catch the bus, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Geez, forgot about the schedule, already,” Michael admitted, absent-minded.

“Ha ha, yeah,” Thomas laughed ironically. "Yep. Some of us still need to catch the bus, ya know?”

“Yeah, I know that pain,” Michael said, laughing along. “Well, see ya around, then.”

“Dude, don’t do that!” Thomas protested.

“Hm? What?” Michael asked, at a loss.

Thomas faced him, truly angry. “That! Don’t make fun of me because I don’t have super speed, that is not cool!”

“What?” Michael asked. Glancing around, he saw other students watching them and already jumping to conclusions. He shook his head, slightly panicked that people might think he was that type of person. “What’re you talking about? I didn’t, I’d never do that!”

“Oh, c’mon, you do it all the time! Ever since you got these powers, you can’t shut up about them,” Thomas complained.

Michael tried not to stutter, and he almost failed. “I-I thought you guys… You always seem so excited, like I am--”

“Well, I’m not, ok?” Thomas asked, very upset. Michael got the impression that the sentiment had been there for a long while. “You even remember what it’s like? Seeing Max all powered up and walking the halls like he's some god? You even remember what it’s like to be normal?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Michael said, taking a steep turn from being defensive to being angry. “You don’t want me to talk about it, sure, I understand. And it sucks that you guys don’t have powers, yeah! For me too! I wish you had them too, ‘cause then we could--”

“Oh? We’re not good enough for you??” Thomas asked, crossing his arms insulted.

Michael choked and again shook his head. Helpless. “Oh, c’mon! That’s not what I meant, man, don’t be like that!”

“No, you don’t be a--”

“Hey, what’s going on here?” someone asked from the side.

Michael looked to find someone he didn’t know. It was a short chubby black boy with black curly hair and dark, judgmental eyes.

“A conversation,” Thomas said, in a passive aggressive way.

“Sounds like makin’ out to me,” the boy said, in all seriousness. “Why don’t you take this romantic tantrum to a more private place, huh?”

And at that, the guy left them behind. He seemed to be heading to the school library, which was itself remarkable.

“Wow, what a nice guy,” Michael said, derisively.

“Effin’ nerds, seriously,” Thomas concurred, shaking his head in disappointment.

Michael laughed towards him. “Damn, man, you’re just in a really good mood today, huh?”

Thomas looked at Michael, angry. He flipped him off, at which point Michael burst out laughing. Thomas then laughed as well.

Yet, as much as they patched things up, what Thomas had said stuck with Michael enough that he couldn’t help but want to talk about it. During dinner that night, when pressed by his parents about how the day had gone, which they always did whenever they found Michael being unusually quiet, he offered no resistance.

“I feel like everyone’s treating me differently now,” Michael started.

“Well, you are different, buddy,” his father said, without much hesitation.

His mother threw a napkin at him. “Don’t say that! He’s the same good boy he’s always been!”

Mark smiled and rolled his eyes. “Oh, you know what I mean. Son, if you had… For example, if you could hack computers, would they treat you differently?”

“Hum… Yes,” Michael said.

“If you could play an instrument, would they treat you differently?” his father asked.

“Well, lots of people can do that.”

“So, less differently?”

“I guess,” Michael said with a nod, not knowing where his father was going.

“So people will treat you differently based on how different something about you is, right? The more unique your talent, the more differently they will treat you.”

“Oh, I see,” Michael nodded in understanding, “but it’s like… Why not better?”

His father sighed while his mother faced him with compassionate eyes.

“Look, Michael,” his father started, sounding apologetic. “You may be too young to understand this, but it’s the way of the world. People have a hard enough time coping with someone having a magnificent talent. Harder even to do that knowing the person didn’t earn it.”

“Mark!” Sonia called to attention. “That’s not what he meant, sweetie, nobody knows yet how these abilities show up, or why. That means people will assume that, well, it’s random.”

“And what if it is?” his father asked.

“It’s not, Mark. Just because we don’t understand His purpose--”

“Doesn’t mean we need to,” he said with a nod, and she chuckled at that.

“I guess you’re not wrong,” Sonia said, and again caught Michael's eye. “It doesn't matter whether we know where our talents came from, Michael, what matters is that we know what to do with them.”

Mark turned to Michael, agreeing with a nod. “Exactly. What matters is what you do with it, son. No matter who you are, or what you do, there will be people who think you don’t deserve whatever you have. They will hate you. There will be people who will love you. And the vast majority that is the rest will be somewhere in between.”

“No, I-I actually understand my friends. I mean, I only got this last week, right? So I know the feeling…just less. Inferior,” Michael added, sadly.

“Wait, do you feel superior, son?” Mark asked, near glaring at Michael with a level of seriousness that was quite surprising.

Yet not unfamiliar.

Michael looked back at him, thoughtfully. He weighed his true feelings on the matter versus his understanding of his father, and of the right thing to answer with.

And then he lied, “not really?”

“That’s what matters, son,” his father said, nodding in approval. “Just deal with each day as it comes.”

“And be thankful for this blessing,” his mother added, caressing his hair, “we’re very proud of how well you’ve behaved, aren’t we, kids?”

His little brothers excitedly nodded, giggling away, clearly not really aware of what they were nodding at other than their mother’s approval, motivated only by making her happy.

Still, Michael did feel better.

At the end of the day, he had super speed. At the end of the day, Michael truly felt like something more. Much more than he was before.

How could he not?