Mach: The Super Hero

1.4 Mind over Matter

Acceleration was roughly eighty meters per second. With mass calculated at around 62 Kilograms. The force of the punch directed at Max’s heart, since he had covered his face, would be around 4960 Newtons.

Max’s super-strength was well beyond that, Michael knew, but it didn’t matter. His frustration, and his hate, and feeling so little and so powerless. It all fueled his attack, charging him forward without restraint. Michael needed to prove that he wasn’t weak.

Michael had to prove that he was super.

He couldn’t help but close his eyes just before contact so he didn’t immediately realize how it didn’t happen. It wasn’t that Max dodged, but rather, that Michael’s movement was slowed into a stop. By some ethereal force.

He opened his eyes to see Max hovering in front of him, and looking around in confusion. In front of him was right, since Michael was also in the air. The force tugged at Michael, invisible and yet more solid than the air could ever hope to be.

“What the hell?” Max demanded, angrily.

Michael did so too, in his head. His assumption was the existence of another one of them. It had to be. Forgetting everything else, Michael searched around the hall until he found him. The student was standing still, holding each arm aimed up at them, palms opened. It was the chubby black kid who had unknowingly kept Thomas and Michael’s argument from getting worse.

“What do you think this is?” the kid barked angrily.

The ceiling lights were reflecting off his headphones, which were still sitting over his hair and around his ears, but that was nothing compared to the angry gleam on his vividly dark eyes. “A comic book?” the boy protested.

The hoodie he had on was floating slightly. In fact, Michael could also see dust levitating next to his feet.

Telekinesis? Or air manipulation? Michael wondered. Gotta be telekinesis, right? I’m not feeling wind.

“Lemme go, you! You--” Max wiggled around, moving as if trying to break his hold, but the kid just stared them down amid the silenced hall.

Everyone was dumbstruck before the reveal of another student with supernatural abilities, but it wasn’t just that. It was the boy’s demeanor.

He had a ruthless stance, and he was big when compared to most other kids. Wearing his baggy jeans and hoodie, he looked imposing. Last time, he had seemed like a joke, but now, the boy looked like a college student, and one who was beyond furious with all the stupid children around him.

“That move would have probably killed both of you idiots. What were you thinking, Michael? And you, Max? You just push him like that?!”

“Man, he won’t back off, what am I supposed to do?!” Michael asked.

“Me?!” Max protested.

“LISTEN TO YOURSELVES!” his voice boomed, loudly and with such authority that Michael couldn’t help but freeze like it was his father yelling.

Just thinking about his father was instantly sobering. Both his parents were going to give him hell for what had happened there. Their disappointment was predictable, and it was already hurting. With his mind spawning guilt and generating shame, his muscles began to relax and his temper to simmer down.

The voice of reason wasn’t done, though. “You’re acting like kids, man. You idiots’re super-human now, get it? Means you can kill! And you can die! A lot more easily. Putting up this animalistic territorial bull ain’t helpful. To no one.”

Michael winced. His parents were going to choose their words more carefully, but he could see that their point was going to be the same.

“Now this is what’s gonna happen,” the kid went on, not offering much choice. “I’m gonna put both o’ you down, and both o’ you’re gonna change up your fool attitudes. Starting now! Max, you’re gonna ease up on pushing people around. And Mac, you’re gonna mind your own damn business, a’ight? So nobody gets hurt? A’ight? We agreed?”

Sighing regrettably, Michael nodded. Max sniffed, as if swallowing his pride, and waved his hand dismissively like he was above what was happening. “Yeah, whatever.”

As promising as that wasn’t, the guy scoffed, truly above what was happening, and then slowly brought his arms down. Michael and Max began to descend.

“We’re just going to spend the rest of our normal school days laying low and being normal,” he continued, in a protesting tone of voice. “Experiment with your powers all you want, but leave your fool-a*s super-hero super-villain nonsense back in your bedrooms with all the comics and cartoons.”

Landing calmly on their feet, they were both still a bit dumbfounded. Michael was just staring at the kid. Not that Michael could do much else, still heaving from the exertion and pain that he had incurred from the fight.

He watched the boy look straight at him. “Also, get to the infirmary already,” he told him, and then looked Max’s way. “You too, Max. Whatever’s wrong with your head, it’s making you twitch your right eyebrow every few seconds. That ain’t good.”

Michael looked around himself to try and see what everyone felt about the revelation that there was a third guy like them in that school. Yet, all his colleagues were just glaring at them. At all of them.

The boy noticed the same, but while Michael was bent over and cowed, not really wanting to address it, he was just pissed.

“Yeah, who the hell am I, right?” he asked, glowering. “Tafari. I got here a couple o’ months ago. Nobody’s cared so far and nobody’s got any reason to change that. It’d be great if you all could forget about all of this.”

And at that, Tafari put his hands in his pockets, turned around, and just left.

The sound of his backpack brushing against the back of his hoodie, and of his steps, as well as the low-volume beat coming from his headphones. That was the only thing anyone could hear with how quiet everyone had become.

Well, and also Michael’s awkward breathing.

Once Tafari turned a corner, voices began to slowly surge. Comments and talks crept into existence all around them while Max’s friends came to him. In turn, Michael’s friends came to him, and all the while, the two just traded stares.

Max seemed angry and showed no realization or regret that Michael could tell. There was nothing in those blue eyes but bitterness beaming back at Michael. It made him feel like Tafari had accomplished nothing with Max. Michael still didn’t want to cower to Max, so he faced the scowl with scorn, not offering any apologies. He wanted to make it clear that Max better stick to his end of the agreement, or Michael was going to be stupid again.

Utterly unsatisfied, they both turned their backs to each other and walked away.

Michael went to the school nurse, but Max never actually went there, he just went home, skipping the rest of the classes.

While the nurse hesitantly looked to Michael’s wounds, making him wince every time she squeezed or disinfected whatever she was cleaning and disinfecting, he found himself fixating on Tafari’s existence.

Michael was faced with the realization that anyone could be a super. There could be thousands of supernatural people, in the big world, being discrete about it. Maybe there were more in his own school.

That would mean that he wasn’t that unique after all. Tafari and his telekinesis could beat both Michael and Max with little more than a thought. Additionally, it was not that unlikely that there would be more people with super speed. He had heard of more kids around the world that had super strength like Max.

Eventually, Michael was allowed to go back home, but the damage had been done even if none of it was physical.

No, Michael didn’t feel very super that day.

In fact, on that day, he hung his head low. And he took the bus.

Back home, his parents threw the expected fit. As usual, his mother opened the floor for judgement.

“I understand you feel like you’re the only one who can protect your friends, but this isn’t the way.”

“Then what else am I supposed to do?” Michael asked, sad.

“Well, it’s not your responsibility, Michael. Max has super strength, it’s best to just stay out of his way,” Sonia stated.

“Hey now,” his father interrupted, all the way from his comfortable armchair. “It’s not that simple. Risks are to be weighed, not just avoided altogether.”

Michael looked at his dad but he wasn’t even looking back. Mark had a hand over the forehead in thought, while the other moved around the track-pad on his tablet pc. Which was on his lap.

“Are you saying our boy should be fighting, Mark?” Sonia asked, judgingly.

“’Course not, honey, but I don’t want him to be a coward who puts his own well-being ahead of other people’s safety,” he firmly stated, and then finally looked over at Michael. “Still. Your heart may be in the right place, son, but never disregard the risks. If your goal was to protect your classmates, fighting in the middle of them might not be the best of ideas.”

Michael winced and looked down ashamed. His father was right, and it occurred to him that that was why he had said “might” instead of just saying that Michael’s heart was in the right place.

His father wasn’t sure that it was. That stung more than anything.

“Look, son, we’re here for you if you need us,” his mother said, caressing his cheek. “If there’s something you want to talk about, you know you can come to us.”

Michael didn’t want to talk about anything, though. He just wanted to go to his room. “I don’t right now. Can I go?”

“Not yet,” his father said with an easy sigh. “Look, the government’s finally addressing this super-power issue. We have to talk about it.”

Michael just peered up at his father, squinting in doubt, but his mother actually voiced the question. “What do you mean?”

“They’re planning on raising three federal schools. Says here these schools will have curriculum specially designed for the ‘empowered youngsters’, as they call them. I’m seeing here they’re also going to have all kinds of counselors, psychiatrists and psychologists. All their teachers will be hand-picked to deal with this new education. They’re to be very well compensated volunteers, apparently. That’s good, nice to see teachers getting a break.”

“They’re going to just gather them all up in one place?” Sonia asked, disapproving. “Why would they do that? Tear them away from their regular friends? Basically their society?”

“Because society is clearly not ready to co-exist with them right now,” Mark said bluntly, if not a bit saddened.

This hurt Michael to hear, but it was true. Considering how his friends reacted to him, who they knew would not hurt them, and how everyone treated Max, it couldn’t be denied. It reminded him of how Jay, the school’s track champion, had spoken to him.

“Anyway, the alternative is to home-school them. These schools will be offering online services for those who can’t physically attend,” his father explained, “or don’t want to, anyway. Looks like they’ll be barred from going to… what do I call them? Normal schools?”

“Barred? They won’t have the choice” Sonia asked, appalled.

His father coughed a laugh, and looked at Michael intently. “No, poor them will not be allowed to attend all these terrible, boring schools. They will have to adventure in this new movie super-schools and learn from the new super-studied and super-modern curriculums.”

“It still… it’s weird,” Sonia said uncomfortably. “I hope they know what they’re doing… they’re going to do this how soon? Next year?”

“Next semester,” Michael’s father corrected, reading his tablet. Sonia gasped silently into her hand, but Mark just glanced over to Michael. “Look, this is really good. It’s going to be different, but it’s going to be better, if you let it. There’s something really important you need to do, though, and if you don’t do it, I’m afraid there’s a real chance that you will be considerably damaging your life.”

Michael widened his eyes in surprise. It was usually his mother who liked to be tragic with his academics. His father always chose to be very mellow and easygoing about it. He cared less about grades and much more about Michael’s everyday attitude towards his work and studies.

“What do you mean, dad?” Michael asked.

“I mean you need to grow up fast, son.” His father’s hands hugged themselves, sitting calmly yet distinctively on they keyboard. “Truth of the matter is that these powers are like walking around with a g*n in your hand. That’s why it makes others so nervous. That’s why Max made you so nervous, because you feel if he wanted to, he could easily hurt someone very much.”

That was true. As frustrated and unnerved as he was, the tension of what Max was capable of was a constant weight on Michael’s shoulders. It was a constant worry hanging far away in the background, but in no way irrelevant or negligible.

Like a storm in the distance.

Michael nodded, and so his father continued. “Now. These schools will most likely employ very strict security measures, much like a school would if its students were walking around with guns. There will be military. They will frisk you, they will bother you, they will bar you entrance despite the fact they know you, if you don’t have your id card or whatever they’ll be using. It’s very easy to get offended at all the stuff they need to do to make sure the school stays safe for everyone. It’ll be very easy to feel that they’re treating you like a criminal. And with your power, it will be very tempting to lash out. But son, you need to be bigger than that.”

Michael just listened. These were warnings, but they weren’t being given in the parental tone that he was used to. They seemed more serious. Something being said man-to-man rather than tutor to pupil. The tone of voice made Michael want to be more responsible. Or rather, more capable of taking up responsibility.

“You need to be an adult about it, and be understanding. Beyond that,” he paused.

Meaningfully, Mark leaned closer to emphasize his words. “You need to work hard and study well. You guys are going to be a whole new thing in society. No one has any idea where you will all fit in terms of workforce. Do you put your abilities in your resumes?” he asked, looking up in thought. “Only if applicable, one would imagine…” His father shook his head, bringing his focus back. “My point is, take your studies very seriously, because new rules are going to be made and nobody’s sure of how important high-school grades will be in the grand scheme of things.”

Michael sighed, not understanding that part. Grades? How can grades be important in -- I’m going to go to school and it’ll be full of people like me. How can I even think about grades?!

“Don’t look away from it!” his father said abruptly, calling Michael to attention. “It’s important. A man looks to the risks of what he needs to do. A man looks to the future. A man does not belittle the opportunities given to him. And your speed? Just like with these schools -- with the school that you’ll be attending. They’re all opportunities, Michael, opportunities that you need to respect, value, and take advantage of. And you’re not going to do it for my sake, or your moms’. Got it?”

Mark smiled at his son. “You’re going to do it because you’re Michael Chambers: a grown-a*s man.”

And like that, Michael’s chest filled again. And he grinned.

And he nodded once.