Chapter 4

When I talk to people about being a HypeEx, they often think that training is just sparring and target practice, weight lifting, cardio, etc. To be honest, that’s what I thought at first, and there is a lot of exercise, but the first thing we worked on was sowing. Right after dinner Keegan handed me a needle, thread, and a pair of ripped jeans.

“What’s this about?”

“My pants are ripped. They need sewing.”

“I see, so what does this teach me?”

“To sew.”

“Which is useful for…”

“Fixing clothes.”

Blinking, I looked back and forth from the tool and the hero. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, what’d you expect?”

“I thought you were going to teach me to be a superhero.”

With a chuckle and a shrug my mentor continued. “Lemme tell you what a Hyper Exterminator is, because there seems to be some misconceptions. A HypeEx is not just a superhero, we’re repairmen, farmers, musicians, delivery men, chefs, warehouse workers, electricians, firemen, EMTs, and yes tailors.”

“Really, all that? Why?”

“Well for starters, we’re mostly volunteers. We get some support from the state, but that’s contingent on how much action there is.”

“You mean they pay us less if there’s less crime.”

“Welcome to being state affiliated, lad.”

From the other room came “DAD!”

“Sorry honey! Anyways, Baltimore’s surprisingly a low Hyper Criminal area, so you won’t get a huge pension, and you’ll be constantly pestered to move your powers elsewhere, that is ‘til they need something from you.”

My heart sank. “Like training a rookie?”

“One that will be trained to do the job the right way, like dual wielding and knitting.”

Strange heat emanated off of the Irish hero. Not a heat of fire, an emotional heat. A heat of respect, of pride in teaching me. I smiled as I looked down at the blue pants.

“But knitting’s so girly.” I said.

“Hell yeah!”

“Mackenzie!" Keegan shouted. "We don’t need your running commentary!”

“Sure you do!”

“Mack!” Came the mother’s voice from upstairs. “You’re going to lose your TV privileges!”

She went silent as Mr. Keegan explained. “Girly, shmirly. We used to teach soldiers how to sew and cook for themselves. Relying on others is perfectly natural of course. But out there in the big wide world, you need to rely on yourself. You need to be able to work a job to pay for food and shelter. The state won’t provide it for us unless we’re gonna be of use to them. Even then they’ll be meager unless you're an elected official.”

“I got it. Makes sense.”

“Good, oh right. Remember that story I got off the internet?”

“That weird math problem? What about it?”

“How much did the broken window cost?”

Without even thinking I answered. “Seven hundred dollars.”

“What color were the shoes thrown on the telephone wires?”

I scratched my head “Black?”

“Who sold the pies?”

“Mrs. Brislan.”

“How much did they cost each?”

“Between two point nine one or two point nine two.”

Mr. Keegan scratched his chin. “You were looking at my daughter a lot during dinner.”

My skin flushed in panic.

“Tell me, what was the color of the second hand on her new watch?”

“Light blue.”

“Ah yep. Not a moment's hesitation. Wait, let me check.”

He ran into the kitchen for a few seconds and came back out.

“Correct, just as I thought.”

“What is?”

“Have you noticed that you’re remembering numbers, names, and faces better since you got that chip in?”

Something clicked in my brain, my eyes widened. “Yeah.”

“Your bug there’s capturing data and doing calculations.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I've seen this behavior before when I was involved in a cyborg war. It seems to understand honorifics, or at least your understanding of them, hence why you can retain names.”

“Then why can’t I remember the color of the shoes, but remember your daughter's watch's-face?”

“Well, to be honest, that test was a bit flawed. I never mentioned what color they were.”

“Fascinating.” I stared into the distance marveling at my own mind. “Should I update my power listing?”

“Let’s say we keep this to ourselves for now.” Keegan winked. “They don’t need to know everything just yet. Now the jeans”

And so training continued. Of course we did akimbo target practice at the local gun range on Reisterstown road, whereas most of the melee combat could be done in his basement, except simple hand to hand which took us back to the range's gym, so I could train against people of various skills, sizes, and tactics. It was exhilarating but brutal, and I always felt tired whenever we got back to practical training.

Keegan taught me most of the survival and job stuff, though his wife insisted on joining in with her harp during the music lessons. The one skill he didn’t teach me at all was cooking.

“It’s Mackenzie’s kitchen,” He told me. “So Mackenzie's the boss.”

This seemed to suit her just fine, until I accidentally substituted baking powder for baking soda in our cake, then she got mad but managed to save it with a bit of lemon juice. Throughout my training, her emotions towards me seemed in constant flux. One minute she was perfectly affable and noticeably flirtatious. The next she pretended I wasn’t there, like a rotten egg she just had to accept as part of the kitchen. Was she playing a game? I’m that easy, hard to get? Well I could play games too.

One day, she was having me egg and bread some chicken cutlets for fried schnitzel. By this point I’d learned she didn’t have a boyfriend. She was holding the frying pan over her palm for better control of the heat. We were on the last two cutlets when I made my move.

“You’re pretty good with that flame huh?”

“Sure am.” She answered absently, her eyes focused on keeping the oil off her wrist.

“Your dad isn't even that good with his powers.”

“Because he gets excited.”

“Hm, maybe you should be the one to take the mantle.” I thought this was a good line. After all, if books, movies, TV, and comics taught me anything it’s that girls want to be the hero now. Mackenzie's whole hand burst into flames, the oil in the pan bubbling over. She turned her head towards me, her mouth and nostrils leaked black smoke, her irises turned magma red, her hair burst into flames.

“Take it back!”

“What?”

“Never say that again!”

Her anger was rising as evidenced by the heat and smoke. I was choking in there and worse, she was crying.

Through my dry throat I mustered; “I’m sorry.”

That calmed her down, maybe also pity for the state she was putting me in. Mackenzie put the pan on the edge of the stove and sunk to the floor blubbering. I wanted to ask her why ‘superhero’ hurt her, but I felt like that would make things worse. Instead she took issue with my stance on the subject.

“Why do you have to be a stupid superhero?”

“To help people.”

“Why not an animal exterminator or a doctor or something other than a HypeEx?”

My heart was struck. For a second I’d forgotten that she was in a sorry state. “Being a superhero has always been my dream, ever since I was a kid. Every kid I know wants to become a Hyper Exterminator at one point or-”

“Not everyone.”

“Why not?”

Tears were streaming all over when she looked into my eyes. “Think, just think about it for one second! He’s a third generation Irish immigrant, the Sixth Son of Brigid. Do you know how many uncles and aunts I’ve never met? Grandad was gone sixteen years before he ever got to hold me. Oh, but I get to hear dad go on and on about their adventures, how they all got to die being so damn noble!”

She crushed her hands to her face sobbing uncontrollably.

All I could do was respond quietly. “Yeah, it really sucks not getting to see them.”

Her sobbing waned and she looked back up at me, a feeling of embarrassment, plain on her face. “I’m so sorry I forgot, your…”

“It’s okay.” I went down to hold her, to calm her down. As we sat there I saw two pairs of guardian eyes just as they yanked back out of the doorway. She hugged me back for who knows how long.