Mr Hamburger Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3: THE DUM DUM TWINSOne of the Dum Dum twins. Humpty Dumpties with gym memberships and broadcast contracts. Buff, gross, potato-shaped, with neckbeards and chains. Popular with dumbasses across the verse.
When they were planning on having a lot of viewers, they would dress thematically for whoever they were about to jump. Their videos were popular with dumb fucks across the verse. When they killed Amaze-Woman, they had on high heels and wigs. When they had ambushed Cactus Jack, they had on hats and boots.
Right now, the pale potato heads with action-figure arms, blonde pubic neck beards, wore stupid hats from teams they didn't watch, stupid gold chains, tattoos, and clothing they had culturally appropriated. Huh, these two large dumpy shits couldn't find a single burger-themed accessory? Seemed a little disrespectful.
"Fuck," I thought.
I quickly rolled to the side as the giant egg-shaped mutant flew from my bathroom window, his feet crushing the spiderwebbed pavement where I had just been. He created a much larger crater. SMASH!
"Us?" I said. I wiped the rest of the soap away and saw Dumfrey's twin brother Deever in the middle of our street, holding Chris in the air by the throat. He was wearing the same outfit as his brother, just in complimentary colors.
"What the fuck?" The vid that kid made earlier must've gotten some traction, and they knew where I was. Chris didn't even fucking do anything besides being robbed by a junkie. These assholes didn't even fucking know Troy. They were just using it as an excuse to initiate this fight! They always had some bullshit excuse. Chris still wouldn't have his hound available yet. Dammit!
Deever could snap his neck without effort any second. Chris actually knew and liked these guys, always bet on them to win. He was a follower. I always told him they were assholes. I wonder what he thought about them now.
Earlier I told y'all I didn't like to fight. I have made exceptions plenty of times. This was about to be fucking one of them. My mind skipped back to a moment earlier when I was thinking about the different sayings and rules I would tell Al in our home growing up. Another one just popped in my head…
"DON'T START NONE, WON'T BE NONE!"
I paused for only a moment to assess this situation. A gust of wind blew the shower curtain into the air behind me. I wouldn't notice it in the moment, but when the edits were released later, it would be hard to miss. Honestly, it looked pretty fucking cool. Silhouetted superhero pose with soapy drippy bubbles covering my bits just enough to keep it PG. My head and neck had ripped through when Dumfrey tossed me out the window like a bag of soapy garbage.
The tweedles moved to surround me, their orbiting broadcast bots recording everything under clinical white HD spotlights. I thought of Al. I thought of my soon-to-be-born grandchild. I have only just begun to dig myself out of this fucking hole! I could feel the breath coming out of my chest. It was hot. Filled with rage. "Great, the verse is about to get a look at Burgerman's dick. This is probably gonna go systemic," I thought.
I didn't risk giving them the chance to hurt Chris. I hurled the freshly sharpened shower rod through Deever's big ole midsection. He screamed out in pain and dropped Chris.
"Chris! Get the fuck outta here!"
Chris dropped to his feet and was already hauling ass into a nearby alley. He knew what was up.
Back in my sponsorship days, everyone wanted a spectacle. Showmanship was important for views and PR. I had been trained pretty extensively on how to execute all kinds of flashy moves. Most were useless flourishes and poses I hated, but they were effective at driving up numbers and therefore driving up credit flow. I dashed at Deever and grabbed the shower rod as he was pulling it out. I was sprayed with a combination of whatever meals were being digested in his guts right now and gastric artery I had just pierced. I could taste the copper of his blood and maybe White Monster? Gross. It smelled like chitlins and Bourbon Street. I held it in place to keep him from pulling it all the way out.
As Dumfrey sprinted over to help his brother, I stopped holding the rod in place and instead used Deever's pulling momentum to assist me in quickly throwing it through his quickly approaching twin. Like when you play tug-of-war and just let go of the rope. The rod went from one brother into the other. One bleeding out and spilling guts on the sidewalk. The other looking like a crockpot meatball with a toothpick sticking out of him.
They were close enough now that I thought I could make this work. I quickly grabbed the rod and the back of Dumfrey's pack-of-hotdogs-lookin' neck. I pulled them right against me, as close as I could get them, and used the shower rod like a barbell bar and shoved my arms straight into the air. I was hoping it would be a clean-and-jerk-type scenario, lifting them into the air like I was an old-timey circus strongman. Maybe a cool pose and finisher at the same time. But it was just a shower rod. So instead, when I made the move, the Egg twins yelped and raged in pain as I shoved the bar up and it cut from their stomachs and up into their chests. I held the pose for a second too long, and that was enough for them to try to get their hands on me. Lucky for me, I was still covered in soapy residue and their greasy entrails. I was too slippery to get a hold of. I dipped, ducked, and dodged a few grabs and blows. They threw punches, headbutts, and kicks. They glanced off of me and into each other. I would've laughed if I wasn't so panicked and the smell wasn't so bad. I needed to get away from them a bit so I could--
"Whoaaaaaa!" I was finally grabbed around the waist and suplexed into the concrete. WHAM!
The other leaking egg man jumped into the air. Honestly, it was impressive form and height. He let out an "Oh yeaaaaaaah!" and hit me with an elbow. I felt the sensation of broken sternum, ribs, and internal organ damage. The wind had been knocked out of me. I rolled a bit, trying to breathe, but they were on top of me going to work.
Blows were coming in fast. Between the blood, limbs, and flashing lights on their broadcast drones, it was hard to see anything. I was exhausted from the fight already. WAY too out of practice for this shit. Every hit they landed felt like it *added* something. Not just pain—weight. Like I was carrying more and more, and eventually I'd just... stop being able to get back up. Their fat, heavy egg bodies were crushing the air out of me, this was not good. I was going to suffocate. But luckily for me, they knew the value of showmanship too.
They threw their arms into the air in celebratory poses, walking in circles with their backs to me, facing their cameras.I gasped for air choking.
"What up, Eggheads!!!!!? For those of you just joining us, boy do we have a treat for you! We found another old head out here doing dumb shit, so we brought him out of retirement to prove once again that we are the best, the beautiful, and the only DUM DUM TWINS!!!!"
"What assholes," I thought. "Dumb shit? Out of retirement? You greedy shit dicks are just trying to fuck up an old supe! AND they had stolen that line from an old movie, Ghostbusters. I get that there is nothing new under the sun, but they weren't the best, the beautiful, or the only."
While they were vamping, the damage they thought they did had left no traces. I was back on my feet and taking a deep breath. Popping my old joints and stretching out. Mental note: "Let's add yoga to my list for tomorrow."
These two dipshits that made a career of finding old supes and picking fights when they were well beyond their prime always had the same MO. Ambush, attack, and show how "badass" they were to someone who wasn't expecting it. And now here they were again, attacking a fucking grandpa… a motherfucking grandpa… they think they can take that away from me!!!!??
They had a poll up on their feed asking their followers: "HOW SHOULD WE DO THIS?"
"Fuck showmanship!" I thought. This is why I lost sponsorships back in the day. Something about taking all of the trauma of an accident at once and having it "heal" up on its own built up a feeling of rage in me.
I ran and scrambled onto Deever's shoulders. I grabbed his head by the jaw on both sides and stood up, one foot on each shoulder. I let out a roar and pulled with everything I had.
The events of the last couple of hours overflowed and spilled out like boiling water from a pasta pot.
I held Deever's freshly removed head above my own, screaming like an unhinged lunatic into the night. It felt cathartic. Before Dumfrey could react, I sloppily leapt from his brother's slowly falling corpse and planted my knees into his collarbones. I drove him to the ground and punched. I sort of zoned out for a minute. The rhythm reminded me of a roadbreaker machine. Boom. BOOM. BOOM! My heartbeat answered in double time boomboom boomboom boomboom. It was a violent synched up polyrhythm. 
When I stopped, I stood breathing heavy and fast, standing between the two corpses. I noticed every window of an occupied apartment was open, and devices all around were recording. The DUM DUM bros' orbiting broadcasters had me lit up like the Fourth of July. They had caught and shared every single bit of what had happened. I could see the holographic chat next to the drones circling around me slowly. The chat was going crazy, but I didn't have my glasses. I could only make out a few of the all-caps comments flying through the feed.
DAMN LOOK AT ALL THAT BLOOD! HOW IS HE STILL STANDING!
OLD BALLS OUT HERE WHOOPING THAT ASS
I KNEW THESE DUDES WERE FRAUDS.
SUCK-ASS BITCHES!                                                                                          THEYRE’GONNE BE PISSED WHEN THEY RESPAWN!!!!
BURGER!
IT'S THAT FUCKING BURGER MAN!?!
WHO'S HUNGRY?
I'M GONNA LOSE MY FUCKING HOUSE
MY WIFE'S GOING TO LEAVE ME!
"Oh well, fuck them," I thought. Still breathing heavily, I took a moment to look around. I knew the crowd and all the fans watching wanted me to say something. I hated this. I didn't want to do PR. They just picked the wrong dude this time. Grandpa, I remembered. I'd need some additional resources if I was going to get out of this system and be of any use to my family.
Their brightly colored outfits were soiled from blood and the contents of their intestines. I spit on the corpse of one of them. I couldn't really tell which was which. I made an effort to put a little extra gravel and bass in my voice. I looked up at the broadcast drones and quietly exclaimed:
"Don't start none… won't be none."
"Huh," I thought. "Well, that could've gone worse." Probably will when they show back up at some point. Odds are high that they had resurrection insurance. Their DNA and memories up to that point were probably being reconstituted right now. No doubt fully funded by thier idiot fans from across the verse. Whatever. I’ll fuck em again. I walked back inside my place to the sound of applause and shouts from the block, through I barely heard it, I was sort of in my head and sort of coming back from an adrenaline dump/ The sounds of the block were muted with a layer of buzz like tinnitus over them. Time to take a shower and go the fuck to sleep.





When I got back inside the apartment, Ziggy had brewed me a tea and patched up the window. I realized I no longer had a shower curtain or rod, and I was NOT taking a bath covered in this. I saw my reflection in the mirror.
"Good god," I thought. Not an hour ago, I had seen a completely different person in that mirror. Now I saw a student double from the movie Carrie staring back. I annoyingly stared at my reflection, running through my options in my head as slop continued to slip off me and onto the floor.
"COME ON, MAN! WHAT THE (moo cow) ARE YOU DOING TO ME HERE!!!! GO THE (chicken cluck) OUTSIDE! GOOD GOD (ding dong), DUDE, you think my only (duck quack) job is to clean up after yo ass. I have other responsibilities!" Ziggy continued bleeping at me.
I looked down and had accidentally tracked remnants of Dumfrey and Deever from the street all the way back up here. Whoops.
"Sorry, Ziggs. My bad."
I grabbed an old BM (Burger Man) hoodie from the hall tree and wrapped it around my waist and headed out the door.
My neighbor Anton was a Mechanical Intuitionist. He could look at machines and some technology and understand how to improve it almost instantly. He also worked VERY quickly. Unfortunately, MIs often got into contracts early on that sunset their earnings until later. That way, corps could forcibly hold onto them for years before they received any of the dividends from their patents. In a couple more years, his contract would end and he would be owed a middle-sized fortune. Enough for him, Dulce (his wife), and their kids to leave this place and retire somewhere nice.
Dulce's ability mirrored Tony's well. Same as him, she could taste any dish then make a better version. She could literally make your mom's best recipe better than her. I loved going over and sharing dinner with them from time to time. Currently, Dulce and the kiddos were away getting their Space Ed implants updated. They'd be old enough to fly System 1's soon. SYS1's were little training vehicles only really large enough to sustain travel inside of a single system—that's a large generalization, though, and with Tony as their dad, he would most certainly modify it enough for them to be able to do much more.
I knocked on his door. Tony answered wearing a no-ghost logo T-shirt, eating a slice of what looked like the best pizza I've ever seen. Dulce probably made it and left it for him. His eyes widened looking at me, cheese pull frozen briefly in time.
"Uhhhhhh," Tony paused.
"Hey, man, my shower's broken. Can I borrow yours?" I asked.
"Yeah. You okay?"
"Yeah. Just give me a couple minutes," I said as I tried to give him a tired smile.
I waited for Tony to wave his index finger like he usually did to disable his security system. He stared at me before it clicked.
"Oh," he said. "Wife and kids are outta town. I didn't turn the whole thing on. You're good."
Tony must've really been in the zone on whatever he was working on. He's not usually that careless.
I'd be lying if I wasn't blown away by Tony's shower. I knew about his skills and saw tons of his inventions and improvements, but I never really thought about his day-to-day use of them. When I got into the round marble cylinder, a calm relaxing voice with a thick north Mexico accent said:
MOOD DETECTED.
VITALS DETECTED.
CLEANLINESS LEVEL DETECTED.
SCENT CHOSEN.
INITIATING.
It was Dulce's voice. "That's so cute of them," I thought. "I'm gonna give him shit about his wife talking to me in the shower." I slightly chuckled at the immaturity of my own thoughts. Messing with someone the way a sibling would just to get a bit of a rise.
The shower walls appeared to turn translucent, and it looked like I was in the middle of a Pacific coast forest. Sounds and all. I knew it was an optical illusion he had preprogrammed, but it was hard to convince my brain of that. A lemon-scented mist sprayed from all directions at different pressures until the refuse on my body was gone. Like a morning truck on the streets of New Orleans. The shower changed its temperature and pressures automatically while it read my vitals. Robotic massaging tentacles came out of the floor and ceiling. In the place where suction cups would be were vibrating soap-dispensing loofahs. The tentacles massaged and scrubbed me clean. It chose eucalyptus and mint for my scent. I hadn't been this relaxed in a bit. I had completely forgotten I just murdered two giant egg guys in self-defense. I had forgotten… Al.
It came back to me. Grandfather. Way too young to be a grandpa. I thought I was barely even fifty. Well, I was barely even fifty-five. Where did those years go? Focus.
I finished the shower, and my soiled hoodie lay clean and folded with some shorts and underwear next to the shower. Tony was a good dude.
I dried off and walked out, joining Tony in his living room. He was playing a game with his feet up. When he heard me open the door, he just pointed to a glass of bourbon waiting for me on the table. Tony was a good dude. He was finishing up something from the inside of some VR room. I could see the light and hear faint sounds from around his visor. I plopped down and took a deep breath, relaxing. Tony pointed to the table in the middle of the room at an unmarked pizza box. Hell yeah. It was Dulce's. I grabbed a slice and watched a bit of the RFL. The idea was we could watch a more violent version of football, but without sentient life. Eventually, the robots became sentient, and now you felt bad for them sometimes too. It was still entertaining, though. I watched a robotic bull gore a robotic ninja for a turnover and a loss of downs while I slurped down the whiskey and pizza.
Anton finished his work for now and checked in.
"You're everywhere right now, man," Tony said, referring to trending posts and edits he had just seen in his visor. "I just wanted to get caught up while you showered."
"Everywhere like, ha that's funny, or everywhere like this is about to be viral in a bad way?"
"Most people would say viral in a good way," Tony quipped back, trying to get me to crack a little grin.
"But it's neither, man," Tony said. "It already IS viral. Galactic."
I closed my eyes and let out an exhale of frustration. Back in the Earth 21st century, when human content first started spreading like wildfire, there was only the term "viral." Post-Tumble, we learned there were levels of viral things could go. Galactic was near the top. I would be hounded daily now by people wanting to capitalize on the trend. Shit. I’m gonna need to find someone to help me blend in. I added that to the list for tomorrow on my holodeck. My holodeck bleeped at me as soon as I finished the entry.. It was Chris. "Hey, man, when I got to the corner, I made a bet on you to win! After seeing what you did this morning, I just felt it! Anyway, I've got a cut for you!" Damn, Chris always shows up in the clutch. 
The combo of the Dum Dum bros broadcasting their own demise and the post of me kicking Troy's ass an hour earlier. The current edits were showing me saying "never lost it…" and "don't start none, won't be none."
I had a mentor once. I could hear him: "When the universe brings you a wave, ride it." He didn't even surf.