“That’s a hell of a way to put it.”
“It’s the most accurate. He was sick and needed help. But what did your parents and Simon do? They turned their backs on him, and then they tried to kill him.”
“To keep thousands of others safe.”
“Fixing John would have kept them safe. It would have kept us all safe. You can’t even fathom how powerful he was. But that wasn’t the worst of their offenses.”
A far-off look enters her eyes as she thinks back to that time.
“I’d kept my abilities a secret from everyone except John. If the others had known what I was doing, they would have taken it away from me. Their idiotic adventuring took up all their attention. Since I wasn’t willing to join in, they quickly lost interest in me. Eventually, they forgot about me altogether. I moved to a tiny island in the South Pacific, far off the grid from the rest of humanity. There, I lived out my life with John. The remoteness meant I had more time during relapses. Even with his abilities, it took time to reach the mainland from such a far-flung place. I used that time to guide him back to me.
“But it also was where we both preferred to be, far from the society that was all but unrecognizable to us. On our own small island, we were able to replicate our lives from before and live in peace. In time, we even had a child.”
“Iris.”
Violet nods. “My Iris. Our miracle. We were living under challenging circumstances, but we were happy. That is until your parents learned about our arrangement. Despite having two children of their own in this new timeline, they decided we were not allowed to do the same. And so they took Iris from me and hid her away, making it impossible for me to find her. Can you imagine that type of cruelty?”
“That’s not true.”
“And how would you know, my dear? How would you know who your parents truly were? How would you know what they were truly capable of? Because of what Simon told you about them? He’s a man who lies as easily as he breathes, especially when it comes to his own needs. Once Iris learned the truth, she came back to me, as I knew she would. Who could choose to trust a liar over their own mother, after all?”
What she’s telling me can’t be true. My parents would have never taken a child from their parents, not without a reason. She’s right. Midnight can’t be trusted to tell me the truth, but that doesn’t mean she can either.
“Your parents caused John to do what he did. The grief was too much for either of us to bear. That was when his final rampage began.”
“That was when you lost control over him.”
“No. He was in full control of his action when he decided to destroy Empire City. He believed that if he changed the timeline significantly enough, it would cause it to reset. We would return home, and none of this nightmare would have ever happened.
“Eventually, it became evident it wouldn’t work, but the damage had already been done. I knew your parents and Simon would stop at nothing to get revenge. Undoubtedly, they would imprison me or worse. Never given the chance to see my daughter again. In my anguish, I resorted to a plan I knew was a long shot: teleporting myself to Volaris. Just get as far away from everything as I could to give myself time to regroup and reassess.”
“You could teleport too?”
“Yes, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time. The ability only manifested when I needed it most. My powers worked on Volaris for a short time, but eventually, they failed me. I later learned of what had happened on Earth, after your father had murdered my beloved. It seemed appropriate that your father’s hideous actions would impact all metahumans.”
“He was defending those who couldn’t defend themselves. Unlike your husband, my father took no joy in killing.”
Violet gives a sarcastic, tight-lipped smile. She didn’t appreciate that, and I’m glad.
“Despite the cold reception I was given on Earth, the Volarians welcomed me with open arms. They were grateful for my arrival and the help I was provided them in service of saving their way of life.”
“For those rich enough to buy a ticket, of course.”
“You’re young, Connor, but soon you’ll learn that this is just the way the world works, even on other planets.”
Forty-One
I can’t tell how long I’ve been in here. The lights went out after Violet left and have remained off ever since. I’ve walked the exterior and felt along the walls dozens of times. The dimensions keep changing. The number of steps it takes to walk from one end to the other is different every time. I’m not sure how they’re doing it, but it seems purposefully engineered to disorientate me.
Or make me feel like I’m losing my mind.
Maybe I am losing my mind.
I don’t know whether I’ve missed my rendezvous window with Robin. Even if I haven’t, there’s no way to get out of here.
Light appears on the other side of my glass cage. It looks like a blue sky, the edges fading away into blackness. A single wisp of cloud lazily floats by. It’s a hologram that looks so real I feel like I could reach out and touch it.
Why are they showing me this? Are they displaying a virtual sky to break up the monotony of darkness? Or are they torturing me by showing me a sky I’ll never see again?
I don’t have to wait long for my answer. A miniature Robin Clay appears, hovering in the sky. She scans the horizon frantically, looking for me. I can’t help but shout for her to go back to Earth. She can’t hear me, though. So she waits longer than we’d agreed upon. She doesn’t want to go back to Earth without me, despite her warning that she wouldn’t hesitate to leave me here if I wasn’t on time.
After a full minute, she gives up. She can’t hold the connection to Earth any longer and has to return. She closes her eyes and prepares to teleport.
She opens her eyes and sees she’s still on Volaris. Her eyes widen with panic. Something is preventing her from teleporting back.
Robin looks down at her metabands, searching for an explanation. I see it—an almost transparent black cloud. It darkens, concentrating around her metabands until they’re no longer visible. It’s a swarm of nanobots working diligently to remove the metabands from her wrists.
She attempts to swat the nanobots away. Then she tries wiping them from the surface of her bands, but it’s too late. They’ve already dug in, and there’s no stopping them now.
Pinholes of light shine through the swarm. It’s quantum energy being released as the bands disintegrate.
I can’t hear her screams as she falls out of the sky. The hologram turns off, and the room darkens once again.
They knew right where to expect her, and they were waiting. Robin didn’t deserve to die, certainly not like that and not while trying to rescue me.
I scream in anger. This is all my fault. I should have listened to Midnight. Robin is dead, and it’s all because I didn’t have a plan.
My knees buckle, and I collapse onto the cold floor of my cell.
I’m alone. There’s no one coming to rescue me. Robin Clay, the only metahuman powerful enough to teleport me back to Earth, is gone. Iris has turned against me. Midnight and every person I know are light-years away. They’ll never find a way to bring me home. And if it means another metahuman risking their life, I don’t want them to.
I’m hungry and tired. I’ve lost track of whether it’s day or night. Falling asleep makes it worse. Every time I wake up, I have no idea how long I’ve been out. It could have been five minutes or eight hours.
Occasionally, I sit very still on the ground and concentrate on my magtonium, trying to sense it. If only I could summon it back to me like I could back home, but the connection is lost.
I can’t feel any of the nanobots that were attached to me. They must have been removed before I was thrown in here. By now, Iris has likely destroyed the ones that survived.
“Would you like some water?” Violet asks.
The sudden sound of her voice startles me. I look up and see her standing just on the other side of the glass. She’s
illuminated perfectly, but I can’t find the light source.
“Since when do you care if I live or die?” I ask.
“Of course I care, Connor. If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you myself or had someone else take care of it. You’re only alive because I want you alive.”
“To torture me?”
“No, to teach you a lesson. I want to show you how narrow-minded you are. You possessed the greatest technology mankind has ever known, and you squandered it. But I hold no ill will toward you. You’re still a child. You’re living out your life the way you were told. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
“Iris told me what you did for her. It sounds like you were there for her more than most, and I thank you for that. You seem like a good person. Misguided but still good. As long as you’re not standing in my way, I have no animosity toward you.”
“Then let me out of here.”
“That would be colossally stupid for me to do, so in here you’ll remain, at least until we’ve safely reached Earth. Then this cell will open, and you’ll be free to live out whatever time remains for you here on Volaris. It’s not as bad as you might think. Over the past ten years, I’ve grown rather fond of it. Unfortunately I’m afraid the wormhole generator is only going to pull that revolving black hole toward Volaris even faster once it’s turned on. An unintended consequence.”
“Did you just come here to gloat?”
“Of course not. I came here to wish you farewell. The final preparations are in order, and we are ready to depart for Earth. I wish I could offer you a chance at redemption with a seat on the ship, but again, I’m afraid that would be a foolish chance for me to take.”
A large hologram of Earth appears above me. It’s got to be a hundred feet wide. It’s so large I can see it slowly rotating. There’s a hologram of the Volarian ship hanging above the western coast of America.
The hologram zooms in on the ship. It happens so quickly that it leaves me feeling dizzy. Three-dimensional clouds pass over it, giving me the impression that I’m looking at a live image.
The panels comprising the exterior of the ship pulse in a hypnotic pattern. With each pulse, they glow brighter and brighter, until finally the built-up energy is released. Light radiates out from the ship and races across the globe. Then it happens again. Wave after wave circumnavigates the surface of Earth at incredible speed.
The hologram zooms in to show a top-down view of Bay View City. Figures fall from the sky and crash onto the streets.
Metahumans.
Those energy waves just disabled metabands around the world. The hologram morphs to display top-down views of cities around the world. Everywhere it’s the same—metahumans falling from the sky.
It was a lie. The Volarians had the ability to wipe out metahumans all along. They were just waiting for the right time to do it. They waited until Iris and I were off-world and humanity trusted them.
Violet is showing me this to torture me. She wants me to know what’s happening and that there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
The metahumans are gone.
Iris is gone.
And it’s just a matter of time before I join them.
Forty-Two
I’m not asleep, but I’m not awake either. I feel as though I exist in a limbo between the two. The cell is so dark and quiet it feels like a sensory deprivation tank. When I feel the first rumbles, I think my mind is playing tricks on me, creating sensations where there aren’t any.
But then the rumbling intensifies.
The floor audibly buzzes from the vibrations. I place a hand on the hard surface. The movement is undeniable. It feels like a phone vibrating across a long table. This building is a fortress, but something is shaking it. That’s a little scary.
The vibrations turn into swaying, and I rise to my feet, only to find it’s hard to stay standing. The floor is moving back and forth, and I careen into a wall. The buzzing deepens into a foreboding rumble.
I steady myself against the wall and feel something I didn’t expect: a crack. It’s minor, only the width of a hair, but it’s undeniable in the otherwise featureless facade. I trace the path of the newly formed line in the wall. It’s growing wider.
There’s a nagging sensation in the back of my head. Something has changed, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not fear, although there’s plenty of that. It’s something else.
The crack widens and deepens until I can stick part of my hand into it. This can’t be good. Are they powering up the wormhole for their departure? Could it be causing the planet to cave in on itself?
The feeling in the back of my head is no longer metaphorical; it’s literal.
A single nanobot.
One managed to stay attached to my body. It must have hidden itself under my skin and powered down to avoid detection. Whatever it did, it worked, because Iris missed it.
Now that it’s powered on and the cell walls are crumbling, I feel something else: the rest of my nanosuit. It’s nearby.
I concentrate on that feeling, trying to draw the other suit pieces to me. It feels hopeless, like the rest of the suit is a thousand miles away. The signal is too faint, but faint is better than nonexistent. I concentrate harder, picturing the individual nanobots in my mind’s eye, focusing on just one at a time.
There’s a tiny, almost imperceptible pinprick on the back of my neck. A second nanobot. It forced its way through the crack in the wall to join the other. Two of them together are stronger than one, but it’s still far too few to be useful. I need more. I focus again on drawing them back to me.
More push their way in and gather at the base of my neck. There’s a dime-sized collection of them back there now, all reaching out, bringing more into the fold.
The rumbling continues, punctuated by a loud crash. It sounds like part of the ceiling has collapsed. This building is going to crumble and bury me if I don’t find a way out.
I push my hand against the crack and feel more of the nanobots working their way through. With each one that attaches itself to the others, their power grows stronger.
A small group of nanobots break off from the rest and scamper across my shoulders to collect around my other hand. I place that hand against the wall, pleading for the remainder of the suit to force its way through faster.
More magtonium pours through the crack and up my arms and shoulders. The momentum is strong enough now that pulling the rest through is all but inevitable, but then the floor drops out from under me.
Daylight spills into the cell, but it’s quickly blocked again by falling rubble. The nanobots struggle to protect my body from falling debris.
I land on a pile of rubble as more falls on top of me. There’s no daylight anymore, just the deafening rumble of the building collapsing one floor at a time.
The nanobots reform into a helmet to protect my head. Meanwhile, my gloved hands push against the rocks to stop them from crushing me into a pancake. More nanobots filter through the cracks to rejoin their compatriots, but with each passing second, the weight overhead grows exponentially.
I’m buried under multiple layers of rock. The rumbling is muffled, but there’s another noise I recognize. A scratching. The nanobots are attempting to break through the rocks to find me, but they’re slow, and the load I’m forced to bear is increasing fast.
The rocks shift, but bits of light penetrate through the darkness. Falling debris quickly fills the holes, but I spotted a blob of black magtonium squeezing through the chaos. A lattice of nanobots assembles across my back, providing enough strength to lift the weight off me.
A shudder runs through the rocks, and my arms give out. Something else collapsed, and the weight becomes too much to bear. I’m driven to my knees, my shoulders straining to keep the large piece of what used to be the ceiling from crushing me completely.
I can’t hold out for long. I close my eyes and talk to the nanobots, impressing upon them how urgent the situation is.
They respond by tugging me
to my right. Going that way would mean allowing the ceiling to collapse and potentially trapping myself in here, but I have no other option.
As carefully as possible, I slip one shoulder out. The other shoulder holds back rubble as I dig a hole with my hand. More rocks slip, and the weight bearing down on my shoulder feels like it’s about to break it.
I take a deep breath full of dust and punch at the rocks in front of me with my free hand. They crack. I pull out as much rubble as I can grab before doing it again, and again, and again.
Eventually, there’s enough room for me to fit. I count to three and drop the ceiling as I leap into the space I created. More rubble rains down through the cracks, threatening to bury me under small rocks just as I’ve gotten out from under the big ones.
I keep punching at the debris, stepping into the newly created spaces as dirt falls to fill the space behind me. At this pace, it’ll take forever to get free, and I’m growing lightheaded from the lack of oxygen.
I reach into the debris again, and someone on the other side grabs my hand.
But it’s not a person; it’s the nanosuit. The nanobots flow through the rubble and down my forearm. They spread across my body, filling in the exposed spaces.
As the final nanobots slither their way to me, I feel rejuvenated. They’re working to provide oxygen and repair my injuries.
I take a moment to collect myself, soaking in the energy the nanobots provide. I don’t know what’s waiting for me above this destruction, but I need to be prepared for anything.
This might be my last chance to get off this rock.
Forty-Three
I thrust myself skyward, shoving through endless layers of hard building material and glass. The rubble is constantly shifting, but I keep pushing, striving to reach the top.
Through the collapsing debris, I hear other noises—a loud hum, yelling, explosions. What the hell is going on up there?
Desperate to find out, I pick up speed as I near the top of the pile. There’s not much weight above me, so I must be hitting the final layers of the collapse. I brace myself for whatever’s waiting for me on the other side and explode explode through the destruction, soaring a hundred feet into the air.
Meta (Book 5): New Empire Page 17
