Meta 2: The Second Wave

by Tom Reynolds

  "I love them!"

  "I know you love them, that's why I remembered. Wanna go?"

  Sarah leans in and kisses me again.

  "I'll take that as a 'yes' then?" I ask.

  "Absolutely. See you later," Sarah says as she turns and heads down the hallway on her way to class.

  I'm still staring at her walking away and asking myself how I ever ended up with a girl like her when I feel a punch on my left bicep from behind. I turn and find Jim Young, my best, and for the majority of my time at Bay View City South, only friend. I make a mental note to myself about how easy it apparently is to sneak up on me when I haven't had enough sleep.

  He opens the locker next to mine and begins shuttling books between it and his bag. His actions remind me how we became friends in the first place. It was almost complete coincidence; the school just happened to assign me the empty locker next to his.

  Jim's let his dark brown hair grow out since the summer, and now it's well past his ears. He brushes part of it out from in front of his face and tucks it behind his ear. Jim and I have always been about the same size, both height and weight-wise, but I notice that he seems almost a little skinnier than before. I probably wouldn't have even noticed if it weren’t for the fact that I've barely seen Jim in the month since school started.

  "Stop staring, Connor. You're creeping everyone out," Jim says, teasing me.

  "Can you blame me?"

  "No. If I were as big of a loser as you, I'd be dumbfounded too at how I managed to become Sarah Miller's boyfriend. Hell, I'm dumbfounded anyway."

  "Thanks."

  "Don't mention it."

  "Well if you're done inflating my ego, I really should be getting to class," I say as I swing my backpack over my right shoulder and begin to turn.

  "Hey," Jim says, stopping me, "what are you up to tomorrow night? Want to come over and play the new Super Giuseppe Kart?"

  "Ah, I can't. I promised Sarah I'd hang out with her. Sorry."

  "Oh, okay. No problem." Jim turns to leave and says, "See you later."

  There's something not quite right here. Jim never gives up that easily. At the very least, I expect to be given crap for hanging out with my girlfriend instead of “being one of the guys” and hanging out with him. Jim's just kidding around when he says it, but he always says it.

  "ID, sonny," an extremely elderly man says to me.

  I'm so lost in my own thoughts that I haven't realized we've moved all the way through the extremely long line and up to the door of the club. The club itself is non-descript from the outside; something I’m told is common for this type of place. Apparently, this place is “too cool” to have a sign above the door. The man asking for ID is hunched over, wearing a newsboy cap and thick bifocals. His skin is so pale and paper-thin that I can see the blue veins bunching up around his hands and cheeks. If he's a day under eighty years old, I'd be shocked.

  "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you were the bouncer," I say, almost phrasing it as a question since he’s the last person I'd expect to be watching the door at a brand new venue. I fumble with my wallet while Sarah does the same with her purse. We present our IDs, and his shaky hand reaches out for them. He pulls them in close to his face for a thorough examination. I notice that his lips are moving, but no words are coming out of his mouth. I realize that he's doing the math in his head to figure out how old we are.

  "Sorry, young man. It's only eighteen and over tonight. I won't be able to allow you in," he tells us.

  Sarah sighs as she takes the IDs back, hands me mine, and begins to place hers back in her handbag. I feel embarrassed and humiliated. I can tell that Sarah is immensely disappointed, but too nice to say anything. I planned this whole night, and I’ve screwed up something as simple as making sure that we were even old enough to get in. I have to try something.

  "Are you sure?" I ask.

  The old man simply nods his head and motions for us to move to the side so the people behind us can get through. Nice smooth talking, idiot.

  "Come on, Connor. It's all right. We can see them another time. It's not your fault," Sarah says to me as she puts her hand on my elbow and gently moves me aside to clear a path for the couple behind us. They hand their IDs to the, man and he quickly waves them in.

  "Hold on," I say to Sarah before turning my attention back to the elderly man in desperation. "Isn't there something you can do? We're not looking to drink or anything, sir. I promise you. Her favorite band is playing tonight, and I already bought the tickets. We're not going to cause any trouble, I swear."

  "Huh?" the man says to me, cupping his hand behind his ear. "I didn't hear a word of that. You're going to have to speak up, young man. You're mumbling."

  I open my mouth to begin pleading my case again, even though I can feel Sarah's grip on my arm tighten and begin pulling me away. Before I can say a word, there's a loud crackle from the walkie-talkie attached to the old bouncer's belt. He holds a finger up to my face, telling me to wait while his other trembling hand reaches down to retrieve the walkie-talkie.

  "Mortimer, where are you? We've got trouble at the bar. We need you in here, now!" says the voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie.

  It's only as the old man lifts the walkie-talkie to his ear, straining to hear the voice that is almost deafening to everyone else in line, that I notice his wrist and the bright silver metaband around it.

  Without another word, the man I now know as Mortimer, because of course a guy this old has a name like “Mortimer,” heads inside the club. As the door swings open, the sound of men arguing escapes out into the street. The door closes behind the old man, and it's quiet once again. No one in the line moves since they all seem to be just as confused as me, including Sarah, who has stopped trying to pull me away. She’s as interested as I am at seeing where this thing with Mortimer goes.

  In an instant, the metal door to the club slams open and into the brick wall it's attached to. The crowd lined up against the outside wall of the club gasps as a blur flies past, missing Sarah and me by maybe six inches. The blur crashes into the street and tumbles down the road. The tumbling slows down, and it becomes apparent that the blur is a man. Not just any man, but a man at least twice as wide as me. He’s covered up to his face in tattoos and looks like he could be an MMA fighter, if he isn't one already.

  The door swings open once again, and Mortimer emerges, slowly shuffling out into the street and toward the man who was just literally thrown out of the club. He feebly reaches down, grabs the man by the throat, and lifts him into the air over his head, where he holds the man while looking straight into his eyes.

  "Now, I'm going to ask again, you son of a gun. Do we have a problem here?"

  The man's face is turning purple from the lack of blood and oxygen, but he manages to quickly shake his head “no.” Mortimer releases his grip, and the man falls flat onto the pavement.

  "That's what I thought. Now, run along, you hear. Get!" The tattooed man doesn't wait to be asked twice and tears off down the street.

  I'm still stunned by what I've seen when Sarah shakes me out of my stupor by telling me she thinks she's going to head home.

  "Are you sure?" I ask.

  "Yeah, I'm tired. It's a school night anyway."

  "I'm so sorry. I wanted this to be a fun night. Let me walk you home at least?"

  "Don't be ridiculous. We're around the corner from your place, and I've got to head all the way across town," she says as she raises her arm, causing a passing taxi to pull over to the sidewalk. Grabbing the door handle, she turns to me and says, "Seriously, it's okay. We'll try this some other night. That place looked a little insane anyway."

  "What gave you that impression? It wasn’t the ancient doorman who just threw a meathead ten times his size clear across the street, was it?"

  "Heh? What did you say?" Mortimer asks behind me, again cupping his hand behind his ear in a vain attempt to improve his hearing.

  Sarah giggles and quickly pecks me on the cheek bef
ore sliding into the back of the cab.

  "See you tomorrow, tough guy."

  Chapter 7

  "It's a night off kid, take it," Midnight says to me over the communicator in my cowl.

  Five minutes after putting Sarah in a cab, I decided to activate my metabands and see what, if anything, I could salvage out of the now wasted night. The nice part about being a superhero is that you make your own hours. Sure, the pay sucks, but you only work when you want to. The sucky part is that you're always on call, obviously. The really sucky part, which a lot of people don't think about, is that when you've got a night completely and totally to yourself, you often have no idea what to actually do with the time.

  That's me right now as I'm arguing with Midnight while hovering about two thousand feet above the city.

  "Come on, there has to be something going on right now," I whine over the communicator.

  "Nope. Quiet night," Midnight says back to me.

  I swear in the background I can hear him fire a grappling gun followed by the sound of Kevlar rope being reeled in through a gas-powered pulley. Midnight's out on patrols and lying to me about it.

  "I just heard your grappling gun," I say to him.

  "My what-ling gun? Sorry, I think you're breaking up," he lies to me again.

  "Come on. I've got nothing to do tonight, and I'm bored. Throw me a bone here."

  "Listen, you've got a night off. Enjoy it. Go home. Relax. You can't keep going at the rate you are You're going to burn yourself out."

  "Don't worry about me."

  "I'm not worried about you. I'm worried about the people who'll need you when you haven't slept for more than four hours a night in weeks. Rest is important. You're no good to anyone if you're not sharp."

  "Fine," I say with a sigh and tap the side of my cowl to deactivate my connection with Midnight.

  Maybe I shouldn't, but I take it as an insult. Midnight barely sleeps from what I can tell. He doesn't take "nights off," but he thinks I need to. After months of him drilling into my head the idea that this isn't just a job, but a life that I'll lead full-time from now on, I'm more than slightly perturbed that he's telling me to just turn all of that off and head in for the night.

  I'm trying to keep a balanced life. I'm trying to make time for Sarah, Derrick, and even Jim, not to mention school, but none of them need my attention tonight. None of them need me there to keep up appearances. Is that all I'm doing, “keeping up appearances?” Spending time with the people I care about shouldn't be a chore. It shouldn't be what I do just to fill the space between my work as a meta. Maybe Midnight's right. Maybe I do need some time to myself, my real self, Connor, not Omni. Maybe I am starting to lose the connection with my day-to-day reality.

  My communicator beeps into my ear, and I give it a quick tap, assuming it's Midnight.

  "Well, well, well, look who's calling back. I assume you changed your mind about needing a hand tonight?" I say.

  "Connor, it's me," Derrick replies back. Whoops. There's only two people that have this number, and Derrick's the other one. Although, I did get an annoying telemarketing call the other night. You can keep a number unlisted, but that doesn't mean a robo-caller won't randomly dial it.

  "I told you to call me Omni when you use this number. You never know who could be listening in," I quickly shoot back, somewhat annoyed.

  "Omni," Derrick sighs, "where are you? Are you home?"

  "You mean my headquarters?"

  "Knock it off, Connor. Where are you?" He's not playing along.

  "I'm ... around," I reply, gliding over to the nearest gargoyle perched on the roof of MorganTech Tower to give myself a break from hovering. "Where are you?"

  "I'm on a date at—"

  "Wait! You're on a what? For a second there, I almost thought I heard you say you were on a date for the first time in like two years!"

  "Would you shut up for a minute, Connor! Are you watching the news?"

  "No, why?"

  "I'm sending the link to your phone," he says a few seconds before I hear another beep indicating that the message has arrived.

  I concentrate on my suit and force part of it open to allow me to reach into the pocket of the jeans I’m wearing underneath this crimson-colored suit, and retrieve my phone.

  Tapping the link brings up a ViewNow page, showing a live stream of a close-up of a terrified man's face. The camera tilts down, and the image reveals that the man is dangling high above the city. On the right side of the video is a heading with the question, "Does this man deserve to die?" Underneath is a running tally: over five hundred thousand votes for “Yes” and less than ten thousand for ”No.” I also notice there’s a timer counting down from less than three minutes.

  "What am I looking at, Derrick?"

  "He's calling himself Sentencer. He claims the man he's holding above the city is a registered sex offender who got a reduced sentence for turning on his cellmate in prison and providing information about terrorist activity. He's live streaming video and letting the Internet decide what should happen to this guy. Connor, he's going to drop him."

  "Where is he?" I ask without a moment's hesitation.

  Regardless of what this person has done, it's not up to an anonymous mob on the Internet to decide his fate. History has shown that usually doesn’t turn out well.

  "I can't tell. He turned off geotagging on the live stream, but from the background, it looks like he's somewhere near downtown. He’s at least a few hundred feet above any of the skyscrapers."

  "Good, that ought to make him easy to find. He should stick out like a sore thumb."

  "In this fog?" Derrick asks.

  He's right. It is unusually foggy tonight and finding anything in the sky won't be easy, especially when it's someone who doesn't want to be found.

  "All right, I'm going to see if I can find this guy," I begin to say as I will my suit back open and return the cell phone into the pocket of my jeans. "Let me know if anything—"

  Before I can finish, I hear screams in the background on Derrick's end of the line. Before he even says it, I know that Sentencer has dropped the man he was holding.

  I don't have time to think, only to react. Everything slows to a crawl as I fly into the center of downtown as fast as I can, concentrating on trying to see through the fog. My ability to see through objects does little good at this distance, and I decide to change tactics. Instead, I focus on what I can hear. It's faint, but the screams of a man falling through the sky finally pierces through the cool night air and reaches my ears. He's far away, but not far enough that I can't get to him.

  The speed the sound travels to my ears is much faster than the speed at which he is falling, but I'm still far enough away that I need to compensate if I'm going to catch him.

  The windows of a nearby skyscraper are accidentally blown out as I fly by at high speed. Whoops. Oh well. The city will just have to put it on my tab.

  I'm flying down 4th Avenue when I finally see him. He's reached terminal velocity and is only hundreds of feet from the ground. I have four seconds, if I'm lucky. Catching him at the speed he's falling won't be much different from him hitting the concrete below, especially when you factor in how fast I'm flying. I need to think fast if I’m going to save the doomed felon from being killed by blunt force trauma.

  My timing is perfect. That's not bragging. It has to be perfect or else he's dead. Just as I wrap my arms around him, I stop flying and let myself drop too. Only fifty feet, but it's enough to concentrate on the sky above and teleport both of us there. We're still falling when we arrive an instant later, and the man is still screaming in my ear, but within a few seconds, I've slowed our descent and carefully placed both of us back on solid ground.

  Before the man has a chance to catch his breath and say anything to me, three police cars come sliding in from around the corner with their lights flashing and sirens blaring. They'll take care of this from here. I need to go take care of the thing they can't: the metahuman flying thousands o
f feet above the city, letting the Internet decide who should be executed on live video. The ground beneath me rumbles, and I hear a faint "thank you" in between gasps and uncontrollable sobbing before I leap into the air.

  Flying straight up into the air, spinning as I rise, I pass the roofs of skyscrapers and scan the horizon for any sign of Sentencer. I reach what looks to be the height he was hovering at when he dropped the man I just saved, but there's no sign of him. This isn't entirely surprising, considering he likely saw what just happened and didn't think it would be a good idea to wait around for me to find him. This is the first time I've heard of Sentencer, and it's impossible to know what powers he possesses beyond flight. Even if he does possess other powers, it isn't the smartest idea to pick a fight when you're a new meta. Even though I'm hardly what you could consider a “veteran,” I've still got a few months experience on him and that'll ensure he gets a one-way trip to Silver Island.

  "Lose something?" a voice behind me asks. A voice I recognize but haven't heard in what feels like a very long time.

  "Iris," I say before I even turn to confirm that I'm right.

  Iris floats twenty feet from me, holding what looks like a pair of glasses. Her eyes glow a pupil-less white behind her black domino mask, which is partially obscured by the curly, platinum blond, shoulder-length hair whipping around her face thanks to the air currents up here. Her black and dark purple suit covers her from neck to toe and hasn't changed except for one notable addition.

  "Nice cape," I tell her, referring to the short, almost waist-length cape flapping in the wind behind her. The cape is black with a purple lining. It actually does look pretty good on her, and for a moment, I'm jealous that she can pull off a cape and I can't. Granted, she's good looking enough that she could probably wear an oversized black plastic garbage bag for a suit and no one would question it.

  "Thanks. I thought it added a nice touch," she replies.

  "Where have you been?" I ask.