First Draft of Mr. Hamburger Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1: THE ROBBERYBlueberry City. Inner-city gas station. Small-time robbery in progress.
Fluorescent lights hummed over the cracked asphalt lot, painting the dusk in sickly yellow. Everyone's been in one of these places—the kind of gas station you only pull into when you're lost, on fumes, or one bad burrito away from disaster, because you sure as hell wouldn't stop to go number one. Ads plastered every window, some corporate slick, others Sharpie-scrawled on water damaged neon poster board. Trash littered the concrete. Inside, the products were old, the aisles were narrow, like the store had been designed by a sadist who hated claustrophobics.
They had good burgers, though.
Tonight, Chris was getting robbed by Troy. Everyone on the block knew Troy. Called himself T-ROY—real clever, right? He was Acid Class, the lowest rung of the ladder. Spit, smoke, jets of burning green—you know, acid guys. Odds were he was after cash to score some boom sticks or maybe a neutralizing inhaler to calm the reflux.
Troy was lucky. If Chris hadn't already used his summon earlier in the day, he would've been nothing but an acid stain in the parking lot. Chris could call up one hellhound per day—weak compared to other summoners, who could stack creatures like Pokémon trainers on meth. But this morning, someone mouthed off to him on the subway, and he burned his summon chasing them back underground. He laughed it off then. Now, not so funny.
Troy hadn't seen me yet. Good for me. Good for Chris. Bad for Troy. Normally we all kept it cool, but sometimes people were assholes and emotions are messy. Tonight's real problem? I hadn't eaten since yesterday. This whole "intermittent fasting" thing wasn't working. Chris's gas station might've been a dump, but he made a decent burger for cheap, and it was right down the street from my place. Now here I was: starving, cranky, and watching a friend get robbed by an acid-spitting "acquaintance."
I wasn't going to enjoy this. First, I didn't hate Troy, but you don't shit where you eat. Second, he looked like he was using. Acid leaked around him in a green, smoky haze, dripping down his chin like he'd bitten into a radioactive apple. I'd feel a little guilty blindsiding him—not much, but a little. The real problem was fighting acid still burns. My resilience doesn't mean I don't feel pain. Punch acid? Feels like punching acid. I could kick him, but I didn't want to ruin my slippers.
I crept in just out of his eyeline. But I forgot the dumb convex mirror in the corner. He didn't.
Troy turned. I reacted. Goodbye, slippers. They were replicas from that old True Genius movie with Val Kilmer—little pink bunny flats. Well, now one flat.
I Spartan-kicked Troy away from the register, through the doors, past the pumps, and into the street. Bad timing. A dump truck nailed him, and a street sweeper pushed the smoking mess into the gutter. He'd probably re-congeal later.
A kid at the door live-streamed the whole thing.
"Fuck me, not again," I muttered, burger in hand.
Before the kid even said it, I knew the words.
"MR CHEESEBURGER!"





It's been three generations since "The Tumble." Nobody agrees on what caused it. Particle reactors? Fusion? The Singularity? Some say it was spiritual, some say cosmic—doesn't matter. The gist is, EVERYTHING is real. Your favorite cartoon character? Yup, here, now, tangible, exists. Then just apply that idea toward everything. Every food, every god, every device, every imaginative force, parallel versions of you, teleportation, interstellar travel, low-interest banking, all-you-can-eat buffets. All of it.
As far as how people manifest powers, we aren't really sure about that either. No observables could explain abilities or biological changes. Some people say it's "purpose." Others say it's random. Not that it really matters, because if you can get the means, you can be changed into anything you want. Find a wish, or get a djinn to grant you one—although that's usually a monkey's paw sort of thing. You could find a bio-engineer or robotics care center and have yourself operated on to achieve the same effect. So really, anyone could become anything with enough luck and opportunity.
For me, it is what it is. My defined class was hero. I can lift a ton or so, probably more if I worked out, but that wasn't really my thing. There were guilds and ranks all around the planet and verse, but I was never really interested. I liked to teach. History specifically. I had been doing it for almost two decades.
From what I read, teachers used to be paid very little back before the overhaul. Compared to what they were paid now, it was a fortune. Makes sense. Information uploads were relatively cheap. Especially the universal basic. A week of uploads to your brain and implants and you'd be good to go. I really enjoyed the storytelling portion of it. I always felt like context was lost by relying only on uploads.
"Ayyyy! Cheeseburger!"
Ah fuck. Another "fan." Through a set of circumstantial coincidental horseshit, my name had become "Mr. Cheeseburger." Mr. Hamburger. Cheeburger. Cheesy Burgers. Hamburgers. Burgerman… you get the idea.
Most of the population streams everything. Attention and sharing is something that sort of keeps the cosmos spinning. After the overhaul, Earth was now on the universal map. New and entertaining beings from all over tuned in. In the grand scheme of things, we were still the new kids on the block, so attention was relatively easy if you wanted some.
I never liked the idea of fifteen minutes of fame. I wished I could find fifteen minutes of peace.
As for the burger moniker—when I was more of an active hero, a streamer created an edit and realized more times than not there was a burger present somewhere. A sign, in my hand, someone else happened to be eating one. After they created the edit and pushed it out, no one remembered my superhero name anymore. I just became Burger Man.
I hated it at first. But once people started buying me lunch and I got a corporate sponsor, it wasn't so bad. Turns out I wasn't the corporate type. I was let go from my contracts after violating their "code of conduct." Whatever, fuck them.
Back then I was better about going to a gravity gym. Really, the most effective way for supes to push strength training. I could bench over two tons then, but there is very little use for benching in peacekeeping. Some people used the term "crime fighting." But I liked the idea of avoiding fighting altogether. You only have to misjudge how strong you are once to realize the far-reaching impact of the power you have.
I was a fairly low-tier strength supe compared to the big dogs. But to normal people, I might as well have been Captain America. Not to be disrespectful, but I met him once. I think I could take him... Punk-ass cop wannabe.
I always felt my real strength was my resilience. If I was Captain America-tier at strength, there was basically no limit to the damage I could take. Downside was I could still feel all of the pain associated with an injury and the healing aftereffects. So if I was hit with something that would break someone's leg, my pain receptors would feel the break, the swelling, the mending, and whatever else came along with it all at once. It sucks, but it makes me indestructible, so I guess my real power is that I can get back up more times than anyone else.
Other than that, everything about me seemed to function normally. No crazy improved memory, I still need glasses for things far away, and male pattern baldness is still a thing.
After my fall-off years ago, I took up teaching full-time trying to escape the burger mania. I dress down and try to blend in. It works most of the time. Sometimes I still get recognized like a celebrity past their prime, but usually it takes the correct context. Like Spartan-kicking an ODing acid class 150 feet into a gutter while holding a hamburger.
I sighed to myself frustratingly. I pursed my lips and smiled at Chris.
"Fuck yeah, dude! Thanks for the assist. This one's on me!" Chris proclaimed, gifting me the burger as a thank-you.
"Why do you like these things so much? They aren't even that good."
He was right. They weren't. His burgers tasted like the old Cisco burgers from grade school. Precooked, mostly steamed, probably some soy and liquid smoke in 'em. But the seasoning of nostalgia goes a long way. I liked 'em, and I didn't mind a free dinner from a buddy for helping him out.
"I just do, man. I'm gonna go catch up with Al. I'll holler at you later!"





Al was my daughter. Alexandra. But I had called her Al since she was born. Taking care of her got me through a lot. She was very smart. A side effect of her class, but I always thought she would be that smart anyway.
After I went back to teaching, Al had grown old enough to make her way in the verse, and she tired of Earth. I couldn't blame her. The rest of the Verse seemed cool, and the world—or kosmos, or whatever—was her oyster.
Universal instant communication existed, but calling plans were cheaper and easier for family members. I had become too clingy a couple of years ago, and she changed her plan. Now I had to call her using a holodeck. It was about the size of a deck of cards and could project holographic images into a space in your proximity. The size and color of the projection could be altered and edited depending on which model deck you had.
She was right to put me at arm's length for a while. I was a bit too intrusive and involved in her life and not enough in my own. She tried to explain it to me many times. It wasn't that I didn't listen. I was just dumber than her. It's like she had a giant box of crayons and showed me the lime green color, and I only had yellow and green. It took me a few years of self-reflection and understanding before I got it.
She was independent now, and she loved me, but her life was her own now. And mine was mine.
Still, catching up with her on our monthly call was always the best part of my month. My favorite 12 days of the year.





I headed back to my apartment, picking up trash as I went. There were plenty of street cleaning robots and creatures, but it always just seemed like I should help pick up anyway. You know what I mean? Leave it cleaner than you found it, like the Boy Scout saying. It always just made sense to me. If you like a place, treat it well and it will treat you well. I picked up a trash can, threw in my wrapper, then picked up the little cleaner bot, set him right, and sent it on his way.
The overhaul had given opportunities and resources to everyone who had neither before. Housing was affordable, and homelessness could be gone entirely. Though some rejected the idea of homes and liked living outdoors for a whole variety of reasons, and they were allowed to. Why wouldn't they be? Whole universe full of possibilities, but not everyone wants adventure. Some people just want to be left alone and chill out. So they did. Mostly.
My place was an old Brownstone. It reminded me of old pictures of New York or a Sesame Street set or that one Sherlock show that was in New York with Lucy Liu. Nothing crazy with today's resources, but I loved it. I got a pint of ice cream out of the freezer, grabbed a quick shower, put on my jammies and a show, and waited for Al's call.
Ziggy blared "Hey Jessie!"—the theme from a classic old TV show Al used to like for some reason. Maybe because she was motherly and organized, she always liked the idea of taking care of others. It's the real reason she joined LifeUnited™.Anyways. The theme was her ringtone. She preferred using Ziggy’s custom communicator versus the holodeck. Something about her using two photons that moved the same way made it better.  
Al had what was called Advanced Hyper Focus. For all of the abilities that existed out there, hers was rare. After the reconditioning, civilizations from all over were able to make contact, establish contact, or fully discover other civilizations and life forms they were previously unaware of. Because of the introduction of previously fictional means of travel into reality, there really was a place somewhere for everyone. But different races and cultures had different priorities. Some always knew where to go, others (like us here on Earth) had a more difficult time understanding purpose and meaning. Eh, we were working on it. We were a millennia behind others out there. Give us a break.
LifeUnited™ was basically a galactic Peace Corps with better funding and occasionally controversial methods. They'd existed long before the Tumble. After, they had more resources and personnel available than ever. They would find planets and systems that needed help and deliver medicine, set up transportation, technology, education. They were really cool in theory.
Al's AHF ability allowed her to see things in most subjects others could literally only imagine. She had created many useful devices to help us when she was young. Most of them still worked. Before she left a few years back to run the universe with LifeUnited™, she’d created a gift for me. Everything she did was over my head.
Once she studied something, she had a photographic copy of the concepts, which she could refocus toward other subjects and connect missing bridges in information. Well, that's how she explained it to me once. It basically meant she was so smart that she could create anything.
The gift was a small box, that through some mix of science, tech, and/or magic (she studied everything—books, kinetics, you name it) had the ability to give you back an object you had lost at some point. The box was small. About the size of a regular tissue box, not the cube kind. She was very clear with me not to waste it. That I would need it someday.
Hyper intelligence was technically a "side effect" of her AHF, but the real side effects weren't given the same attention. Anxiety. Depression. Social isolation. And sometimes bipolar mood swings. To me, those were the real side effects.
Al had found ways to mitigate those through various means and had essentially cured herself with her own inventions. Tech, magic, medicine, combos of both. She couldn't fully get rid of them, or her AHF wouldn't be as strong. Or so she said, and who was I to argue. I knew she knew more than me, and she had made that clear. Oh well, not much I can do about that.
"Hey, girl! What's up? Gimme the deets!"
"Hey, Dad! It's all good here. We spent the last month out in Peles—one of many Dungeons & Dragons-themed worlds that had appeared from the Tumble. My data was correct, and they needed help stopping a lich from trying to ruin the universe. Every step of our plan went off without a hitch.”
 She looked tired. More than tired—wired. Like she'd been awake for days and was running on adrenaline and caffeine. Her eyes kept flicking to something off-screen. "You okay, kiddo?" I asked. "Yeah, yeah. Just... long mission. We're wrapping up soon." She forced a smile. "How are you?" It felt rehearsed. But I let it go.
Having an AHF class on an exploration vessel was basically the safest, most efficient way to operate in the galaxy. Having one on a combat vessel was bad news for everyone. There's this one book from the 20th century on Earth about a boy that commits a genocide on an entire alien race because of his advanced intelligence. It was pretty much the same thing here. Luckily Al wasn't a psychopathic lunatic and instead wanted to help people. She probably got that from her mom… me too, I guess.
I didn't like thinking about her mom. She had fallen off a cliff in a car. She died. I stalled on that thought for a moment. Nope. That's just what I had wanted to happen. The truth is she left because I wasn't available. Emotionally. Physically. But she had started that through years of neglect and... I caught myself starting a spiral. We just weren't supposed to be together. Didn't fit. She was a teacher too and had chosen someone else..After the Tumble, they left. Chased their purpose somewhere else. I didn't ask where. Didn't need to know. Big universe out there. 
"Proud of you, girl! Always am! You look great!"
"What happened to your slipper?"
I looked toward the door at my one pink slipper intact and the other had almost finished melting into a glop of sludge.
"Oh. Acid class. It was over quick. I was just helping out Chris."
"Tell Chris I said hey! Were you over there getting one of his gross burgers again?"
"…No."
"Dad."
"What? I like 'em!"
"When you have a heart attack, your power is really gonna make you feel it."
I shrugged. "Oh well."
"Dad. You need to take better care of yourself. Have you found a job?"
I, uh... "I'm still looking. I substitute teach sometimes." (That was a lie.) "And I still have plenty left from the burger franchises." (Also a lie.)
"Plenty?"
"Yeah." (Lie.)
The truth was I picked up odd jobs when I needed scratch. Sometimes people just needed some muscle. Never anything nefarious, usually like moving heavy things or standing guard somewhere. I really liked reading at the public library, but that didn't pay, and it was rare people showed up anymore. When I was younger, it was still a thing. Now about halfway through life, culture had changed, and the world didn't look like it used to post-Tumble. And I DID like to substitute teach, but the market for teachers was so small, opportunities no longer really existed. I could've tried streaming and monetized myself, but that seemed like a fate worse than death.
"Well, I have some news…"