Meta (Book 5): New Empire

by Reynolds, Tom

“Ready?” I ask.

  Mom nods, still smiling.

  “Okay, then. Here we go,” I say nervously.

  Better to rip off the bandage than pull it off slowly, right? I raise my fists and smash the metabands together.

  There’s an explosion of light. Golden orbs pulsating with electricity hang in the air. The orbs stretch into light trails that encircle my body, wrapping around me faster and faster. I feel their energy coursing through my body. At first, it feels familiar, but as the seconds tick by, it’s apparent this is something different.

  I feel reborn. My senses are heightened, and I’m aware of everything around me. I hear the heartbeats of Volarians hundreds of miles away. I can smell them. My vision cycles through every spectrum of light until I can see them all at the same time.

  In the intensity of this moment, my gaze settles on my mom’s face. I want to remember how she looks while my senses are this heightened. Maybe if I focus hard enough, I can accurately describe this moment to Derrick and make him feel like he was here with me.

  The white light diminishes, and the surge of energy levels off. I bring up the image of the Omni uniform in my mind.

  Material pours out from both metabands and engulfs my body. I’m excited that my mom will get to see me this way, but it’s not exactly what I’m expecting.

  The familiar O emblem is emblazoned across my chest, but it’s different. The O is gray, contrasting with the uniform’s new color, bright white.

  The energy trails dissipate, and the transformation is complete.

  “Huh,” I say. “My uniform is usually red.”

  “Well, you aren’t using your usual metabands, are you? These are extenuating circumstances, and I think these metabands may have overruled you. Once you let some air out of the tires, I think they’ll fall in line. Right now, they’re too overstuffed to contain their energy. You’d better get going while you still have that extra edge. It may come in handy.”

  She pulls me in tight for another hug.

  “This isn’t our last hug, Mom. I’ll be back for you.”

  “I know you will, Connor.” She breaks off the hug and takes a few steps back to give me room. “Just remember Earth. Concentrate on the last place you were before you came here. Don’t overthink it. Just let it happen naturally.”

  I take one last look at my mom and close my eyes to focus. It’s hard to concentrate when I’m struggling to hold back tears, but I try my best. I think of Earth. The blue sky. Bay View City. Midnight’s water tower. I hold all these thoughts simultaneously for a moment.

  Then I let go of the fear and give in.

  Forty-Seven

  Something doesn’t feel right. I can tell even before I open my eyes. I’m not back in Midnight’s water tower or even in Bay View City. I’m floating in space.

  A few hundred miles in front of me is Earth. I didn’t hit my mark, but not a bad shot, all things considered. This is why I couldn’t take Mom with me. I undershot my destination and ended up in the vacuum of space. If it wasn’t for the metabands, I’d be dead already.

  “Connor?” Jim’s voice comes through my earpiece.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I say.

  “What? It’s really you? You just showed up on our communication system, but I thought it was a glitch. Where are you?”

  “Not far.”

  “Which direction?”

  “Um, up.”

  “Up? What? How?”

  “It’s a long story, and I imagine there’re bigger problems.”

  “You have no idea,” Jim sighs.

  “I have some idea.”

  “Another ship showed up out of nowhere right after they disabled everyone’s metabands. This one’s even bigger than the first. Your nanosuit would come in awfully handy right about now.”

  “I traded it.”

  “Traded it? For what?” Jim asks.

  “Metabands.”

  “Wait. You have metabands on? Where did you get them?”

  “Again, it’s a long story, Jim.”

  “Then you must be above the first ship, outside of the atmosphere.”

  Crap. I just realized I’m all the way on the other side of the globe. I orientate myself and fly east. The new metabands, combined with the vacuum of space, mean I’m flying faster than I ever have before.

  Within seconds, I’m high above the West Coast. I can make out the silver Volarian ships parked in the atmosphere. They look absolutely massive against the backdrop of Bay View City.

  “I am now.”

  “If your metabands are still working, you might be our only hope to take out the smaller ship. We think they had to reroute the ship’s energy from their shields to power the metaband dampener.”

  “Meaning the force field is down?” I ask.

  “That’s right. No metahumans, no need for a shield. But as far as we can tell, the dampening array is only powerful enough to jam metabands within the Earth’s atmosphere. They weren’t counting on someone sneaking up behind them.”

  “No one ever expects an attack from space. That’s why they work so well.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it working well, but there’s a chance. Just one though, and you’ll have to move fast. Once you’re close there’ll only be a small window of time before the ship’s dampeners affect you too. Any ideas on how to approach this?”

  “Yeah.”

  I tap the communicator off. I don’t want to be distracted when I do this. Like Jim said, I’ve got one shot. From this height, everything looks so peaceful down there. You wouldn’t even know the planet was under an alien invasion, except of course for the massive spaceships.

  Hovering high above Earth, I focus on my metabands and draw every ounce of strength from them. They take on a brighter golden hue. My suit begins glowing too. Let’s hope this works.

  I throw my hands in front of me and torpedo toward the surface of Earth. The air ignites from friction as I hit the atmosphere. I keep my eyes locked on the Volarian ship. Everything around me burns blue as I summon one final push.

  And then, contact.

  It happens so quickly I think I missed it. I slam on the brakes and hover a few feet above an office building. I gaze back at the ship, preparing to lunge at it again. But then I notice something.

  My suit is still on. My powers are still active.

  Their dampening technology isn’t affecting me.

  The sound of the explosion reaches my ears. It shakes the skyscrapers and shatters their windows to pieces. There’s a bright white flash from the center of the ship, and it falls apart, divided cleanly into two equal pieces. I hit it so hard that I actually cleaved it in half.

  The two halves fall from the sky. I hover in midair, watching them fall safely into the bay below. Shouts of celebration ring out from the street, but the fight isn’t over yet.

  I turn my in-ear communicator back on.

  “Did … did you do that?” Jim asks.

  “Yup. Everyone’s metabands should come back online.”

  “That’s great, but we’re not out of the woods.”

  “Get me up to speed.”

  I rise back into the sky high over Bay View City.

  “They’re getting ready to launch another doorway,” Midnight interrupts.

  “Another doorway?” I ask.

  “While you were gone, we got to the bottom of why the Kaldonians were collecting metabands,” Sarah says over the comm. “It wasn’t just for the magtonium suits. They were also working with the Volarians to build another wormhole generator here on Earth. It’s how the Volarians are planning to reach their ultimate destination—after they’ve taken what they want from Earth.”

  Everyone is online again. Everyone except Iris.

  “Where’s the wormhole generator?” I ask.

  “It’s in Kaldonia, close to the crash site of the first ship,” Midnight says. “That ship has been stripped for parts and used to build the generator.”

  “Is it just as powerful?” I ask.

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nbsp; “They’re not traveling as far next time, so they don’t need the power. They couldn’t get it from a few dozen metabands even if they did. Based on the evidence, I didn’t expect the generator to be spun for a few more weeks, but it appears you’ve sped up their timeline.”

  “To when?”

  “To now.”

  “Isn’t this a good thing?” Jim asks. “The sooner they power up their wormhole, the sooner they can get off our planet.”

  I turn in the air, orientating myself in the direction of Midnight’s hideout.

  “It’s not that simple,” I answer. “The wormhole generator creates a feedback loop. If it’s allowed to power on, it will keep growing larger and larger until the entire planet is pulled into it.”

  “That sounds bad,” Sarah says.

  “It’s very bad. I destroyed the one on Volaris, but only by sacrificing my nanosuit.”

  “So, that explains the fancy new threads,” Jim says.

  “No, that’s a whole other story we don’t have time for. Maybe we can hijack the magtonium that the Volarians are already using on Earth and use it against them? If we set it loose on the wormhole generator, it should destroy it before they ever turn the thing on.”

  In the distance I hear a low, soft rumble. It’s the sound of the destroyed ship splashing down into the bay. From this distance it looks like it’s falling in slow motion. It’s going to be a heck of a job for someone to have to pull it back out of there.

  “Negative,” Midnight answers. “They’re aware of the exploit Kyle used and have patched it. Breaking the new encryption might be possible, but it would take more time than we have.”

  “There might be another way,” Kyle’s says over the communicator.

  “Kyle?” I say. “Are you serious? Who else is on this call?”

  “I’m booting him off now,” Jim answers.

  “You’ll want to hear what I have to say,” Kyle states calmly.

  “Wait, Jim.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Do you have any other ideas? Kyle’s probably just as worried about the planet being sucked into a wormhole as we are. He lives here too.”

  “Thank you, Connor,” Kyle says. “There is a way to stop the generator, but I’m afraid it’s not easy.”

  “We’re all ears,” Sarah says.

  “The Volarians transmitted the plans for the generator to the Kaldonian government in exchange for their word that we would be excluded from their plans to enslave the human race.”

  “Oh, real nice,” Jim says. “You literally sold out the entire human race. That’s fantastic.”

  “Would you like to hear how to stop the wormhole, or would you rather hold on to your pride as you watch the planet be pulverized into the size of a basketball?” Kyle asks.

  “Let’s hear him out,” I say.

  My focus is now locked on the Volarian mothership. It remains perfectly still, like it’s permanently attached to its position in the sky. Its size makes me wonder if anything would be able to take it down. Even if I could destroy it, allowing it to fall from its current position would destroy half the city.

  “As I was saying, the Volarians gave us the information necessary to construct the wormhole generator. However, the unit built in Kaldonia is crude by Volarian standards. It’s essentially a circular structure designed to hold metabands in a specific pattern. A series of routing canals controls the magtonium’s interaction with the bands.”

  “How does this help us?” I ask.

  “There’s no central computer unit,” Midnight says.

  “Bingo,” Kyle replies. “The amount of computational power the portal requires to pinpoint where the other end of the wormhole needs to open is immense, far more than all the computational power on Earth combined. As such, this job needs to be done in the cloud.”

  “The cloud?” Sarah asks.

  “The ship,” Midnight replies.

  “That’s right,” Kyle says. “The Volarians had us connect the antenna array from their crashed ship to the wormhole generator. They didn’t explain why, but it’s obvious that the antenna is needed to receive instructions from the mothership. Those instructions tell the generator where to open the other end of the wormhole.”

  “So if we knock out the antenna, we knock out the generator’s ability to receive instructions,” Sarah says.

  “Correct, but doing so won’t be easy. The Volarians are aware of this weakness and instructed the Kaldonians to hold back some of their magtonium supply as a security deterrent. Any metahumans who come within a mile of the generator will have to deal with a few trillion nanobots looking to make a meal out of their metabands. And if the footage I’m seeing of your arrival back on Earth is accurate, it looks like you’ve got a pair of metabands that those nanobots would love to destroy, Connor.”

  “He might, but I don’t,” Sarah says.

  “Neither do I,” Midnight chimes in.

  “I don’t either, but to be clear, I’d still like to take a backseat during this,” Jim says.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?” Midnight asks.

  “That’s everything I know,” Kyle answers.

  “Jim, boot him off the line,” Midnight says.

  “Are you serious? I helped you and this—” Kyle says before his line goes dead.

  There’s a brief silence. I remain hovering above Bay View City, still able to hear the celebrations of the people below in the streets. I hope they realize that this isn’t over just yet.

  “Do you think we can trust him?” Sarah asks.

  “No, but we’re already facing our worst-case scenario,” Midnight responds. “Connor, we picked up strange energy readings over Kaldonia yesterday, so we’re already in position above the border and ready to respond. You heard Kyle. I want you far away from here. Leave this one to us.”

  “But the fate of humanity is at stake,” I say. “These aren’t normal circumstances.”

  “We only have one chance at catching them off guard. If their magtonium senses you coming, then that’s all out the window. We can’t take the risk.”

  “So what should I do in the meantime?”

  “Standby. Even if we shut down the receiver, we’ll still have many problems to deal with, including the mothership perched above Bay View City. Sarah, power down your comms unit. I want radio silence until this is over.”

  “Good luck,” I say.

  “They’ve already powered down their comms, Connor,” Jim says. “I’m switching mine off too. I don’t want Kyle to hijack my transmission again. I’ll be back in touch soon.”

  The line goes dead, and I’m left hovering above Bay View City as the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, and there’s nothing I can do to help.

  Unless there is.

  “Kyle, are you still there?” I ask.

  After a few seconds of silence, there’s a quiet click in my earpiece.

  “Yeah,” Kyle says.

  I knew it. If he was smart enough to get himself into our heavily encrypted communications system, then he would also be smart enough to keep himself on the line even after Jim kicked him off.

  “Is it possible to break the link at the transmission end?” I ask.

  “You mean breaking off the connection by destroying the transmitter inside the mothership? Yeah. I mean, technically, it doesn’t matter which end of the link gets broken, just as long as the two aren’t able to communicate to each other. I just assume it’s easier to break off the link on the side that’s not protected by a literal force field.”

  “I wanted to make sure. Second question, whatever you did to break into Midnight’s communication system, can you do it again for another receiver?”

  “What are you asking?”

  “Can you override and remotely turn a communications receiver back on?”

  “I suppose so, but why would you want to do that?”

  Forty-Eight

  I tap my comms unit and ask, “Iris, can you hear me?”
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  There’s no response.

  “Are you sure this is working?” I ask.

  “About as sure as I can be,” Kyle says.

  “And how sure is that?”

  “Not very. From my end, it looks like the receiver is activated, but this isn’t my system. I was able to hack some of it, but I can only give you my best guess.”

  “Not what I was hoping to hear, but it’s better than nothing.”

  I rise to match the mothership’s altitude.

  “Iris, I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, please listen. I don’t know what happened—if Violet is controlling your mind or threatening you or what—but I know this isn’t the real you. The real Iris would never stand by and watch as Earth was destroyed. That’s what will happen if we don’t do anything. I can fix it and get us out of this mess, but I need your help. I need you to lower the mothership’s shields so I can board and destroy the transmission device. If I don’t, that wormhole generator in Kaldonia will destroy Earth. I know you don’t want that to happen. I know you don’t want anyone to get hurt. You’ve hurt people in the past, but that doesn’t have to define you. That isn’t the real you. I trust you, Iris, so please, trust me, just this one time.”

  The rest is up to her. I tilt myself toward the mothership and fly. I’m scared and imagine myself bouncing off the force field, but I need to trust her.

  I increase my speed, pushing myself harder toward the mothership. The gold metabands respond by giving me more power. It courses through my body, and I remember that this energy is available to me all at once. Maybe if I push myself hard enough, I can break through the shields with pure momentum and won’t have to rely on Iris.

  But that’s wishful thinking. It doesn’t matter how fast I’m going, if that wall is up, it’s going to hurt.

  I push the thought from my mind and concentrate. I’m traveling fast enough that their radar can’t detect me. I look for the force field, even though it’s invisible, then shut my eyes and brace for impact.

  And then … nothing.

  No impact. No pain.

  I remain still and hesitantly open my eyes. The ship’s gleaming chrome exterior is six inches from my face. The shields are down. I made it.