Overpowered

“Where’s the bacon?” I ask, padding into the kitchen. My face is crumpled with the texture of the couch pillows.

“We’re out,” he says. “I didn’t have time to go to the grocery store.”

“I noticed you haven’t had time to do much of anything.” My voice is one hundred percent snark and I one hundred percent don’t care.

“You’ll understand one day, Rookie.” He stabs a fork into his fried egg and shoves the entire thing into his mouth at once. “We save the world one problem at a time. Not all at once.”

“Is Dad awake?” I ask, choosing to ignore Max’s unsolicited advice. He shakes his head, consuming another egg. “He’s not here. Meeting.”

“How many frigging meetings does he have to go to?” I yank open the refrigerator door, grab the carton of milk and slam the door closed.

“A lot. They’re making him president again.”

This makes me look up from pouring my glass of milk. “Really? That’s amazing.”

Max shakes his head and plops onto the couch with his plate that’s piled high with a mountain of food. “Do you read any of your memos, Mace? Seriously. You’re in your own little world all the time.”

“I read the important ones,” I mutter, hoping he doesn’t ask any follow up questions. Truth is, the message center on my BEEPR has been largely untouched for days. I know I should keep up with current events in the Super community, especially if everyone has agreed to keep my depowered father as the president but I am a Hero now. I have important things to do. I help save human lives. Whenever news is important enough for me to know, it’ll come to me in the form of a Hero alarm.

“I went looking for the depowering machine,” I say, sitting next to my brother. “It isn’t there anymore.”

“I know. I looked, too.”

“Do you know where it went?”

“No, but that cute girl behind the counter? I think she likes me.”

I groan. “I hate you.”

He laughs. “What? I didn’t say I liked her! I was just making conversation.”

My fist soars through the space between us. I allow myself to prematurely feel the satisfaction of punching him in the arm, but before my fingers make contact, Max grabs my hand, stops it from hitting him and puts it back on my side of the couch. Jerk.

“Finish eating. We need to find the depowering machine and figure out who is stealing the power from it.”

“Chill out, okay? I investigated it already. They won’t tell me where it is because it’s been moved to a secure location.”

“So you’re just going to give up?” I’m yelling, and it wakes up Nova. I can tell because I feel her power awaken from down the hall. It’s still unsettling, trying to get used to being connected to her power and her emotions whenever we’re close to each other. It has to be a twin thing because I can’t feel this much of anyone else. I’ll research that later. Right now, Max has some answering to do.

He shrugs. “I haven’t given up. I’ve accepted that I won’t find the thing and now I’m waiting for Dad to get home because if anyone will have access to it, it’ll be the freaking president.” He takes a bite of toast and peels his eyes off the television to look at me. “So like I said...chill.”

Still wearing my pajamas from last night, I step outside and climb into our family KAPOW pod. The overhead light comes on when I close the door. A soft vibration from the pod means it’s just starting up for the day. “Good morning, Maci Might.”

“Destination depowering machine.” If this works, I’m a total genius.

The computer voice takes a moment to answer. “Destination undisclosed.”

“Go there anyway,” I say.

“Unable to complete task. Authorization insufficient.”

“You suck,” I mutter.

“Command unclear. Please try again.”

Defeated, I head to my room and change into my Hero suit, sans mask. I like wearing my suit when I’m not on a mission both because I look awesome in it and because it takes the guesswork out of finding something to wear for the day. I grab something to eat and ignore Max’s mumbles about my efforts being fruitless and how I should just wait for Dad. I flick the screen on my BEEPR.

“GPS coordinates to the depowering machine,” I say quietly, hoping Max is more focused on the television than me. He’s not, because he laughs. I roll my eyes and watch my BEEPR. It flashes red. Undisclosed destination.