by Tom Reynolds
The roar of the audience is deafening, even from the hallway outside the arena. More of the people waiting in line are now deciding that this is something they just can't miss and start rushing back to their seats. As the line thins out, I'm able to keep moving closer and closer to my date with destiny: a Burger Shack burger with cheddar and bacon. When I die, I won't regret that I didn't get to see a new type of meta displaying his abilities for the first time, but I will probably regret not eating more Burger Shack burgers when I had the chance, even if they’re just as likely to kill me as another meta, if I ate them as often as I'd like.
"Please welcome to the world's stage for the very first time: The Multiplier!"
The crowd roars again, louder than before, which I didn't think was possible. A man walks out from the darkness before another spotlight catches him on his way to center ring. He's a tall white man, probably in his early thirties, with a thick mop of black hair that’s been parted to the side, and is so long, he has to brush it out of his eyes. He's wearing an outfit not unlike the ringmaster's, but in black instead of red. It's an elaborate tuxedo that probably looks ridiculous up close, but it works when most of the people looking at you are hundreds of feet away. The Multiplier meets the ringmaster in the center ring and stands there, expressionless.
"I ask for total silence now as The Multiplier attempts his first multiplication."
The crowd obliges, and you could hear a pin drop as he closes his eyes and concentrates. For the first few seconds, nothing is happening at all. I begin to feel nervous for him, being in front of all these people, trying to demonstrate your new superhuman ability. It's enough to give anyone a bit of stage fright.
Just as I'm starting to really feel sorry for him, his entire body starts shaking from side to side. His posture remains completely upright, but he’s moving faster and faster, sliding from side to side within a three-foot radius. The vibrations are happening so fast that he becomes a complete blur, and gasps can be heard throughout the crowd. Slowly, the blur grows more distinguished. There are now two identical versions of the man standing side by side in the same position. The vibrations slow down, and the blur becomes clearer, until it stops completely. Two separate, identical men stand in the center ring.
He really did it. He's a new type of meta. Wow. I guess this circus really is all it's cracked up to be. The cheer of the crowd breaks my concentration, and I stop staring at the television and turn back to the Burger Shack line, except there is no line. The entire line has disappeared since everyone ran back to his or her seat but me. The Burger Shack employees are all watching the same TV monitor and have their mouths hanging open in disbelief. They're used to watching basketball games in this arena, not men violating the laws of physics. So, it's understandable that no one called out to let me know I was next.
"Hi, sorry about that. Welcome to Burger Shack. Wasn't that incredible?" the young female employee asks me when I finally snake my way through the now empty, zig-zagging rope lanes.
"Yeah, it really was," I reply.
"Yeah. Wow," she says, still staring at the television monitor, even though all it’s showing is The Multipliers, plural, taking their synchronized bows.
"Umm ..." I say.
"Sorry," the employee says, shaking her head. "I've just never seen anything like that. What can I get for ..." Her eyes slowly drift back to the monitor.
I turn around and see that The Multipliers have walked to opposite ends of the arena and are entering the audience, much to the delight of the many screaming and applauding fans. Each Multiplier stands in front of an audience member in the first row and begins shaking again before once again splitting in two.
"Holy cow!" the Burger Shack employee exclaims.
"Yeah, that's really something. So can I have a ..."
"I mean, that is just incredible!" she says, completely ignoring me again
At this point, I decide to just let it go and join her in watching the show. Hey, at least I got to basically cut the entire line, right? After ravenous applause, the four Multipliers split again, now becoming eight. The crowd applauds even louder. The audience members in the front rows are now all grabbing at The Multipliers in front of them, wanting to touch a part of them. I'm not sure if it's to make sure that they're real, or if it's a rock star type thing. Before I have time to figure it out, The Multipliers split again.
And again.
And again.
He's splitting faster and faster now, only taking occasional pauses for a handful of his clones to step up to the next row to begin the process all over again. In mere seconds, there are enough Multipliers that there is one of him standing in front of every single audience member in the arena, thousands and thousands of copies.
"Wow, that is nuts!" I say over my shoulder before turning to look at the Burger Shack employee.
She's gone, though; there’s just a headset on the counter. I catch a glimpse of her out the side door as she runs toward the main area of the arena.
She looks back and says, "Sorry! I've just got to see this! Wait right there. Your burger's on the house when I come back!"
I begin walking back to my seat, having given up any hope of a Burger Shack burger, but find myself slowing my pace as I struggle to pull my eyes off the TV monitor.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen," the thousands of copies of The Multiplier say in unison, much to the delight of the audience, "don't move."
All at once, The Multipliers reach into the waistband of their costumes and pull out large, identical, curved knives. In one fluid movement, every copy yanks the audience member in front of him to their feet and puts the knife up against their throat. Screams ripple through the audience, but no one moves. Everyone is frozen in place, the steel of the knives pressing into their flesh hard enough to make an indent, but not hard enough to draw blood.
Yet.
My heart and mind are racing, and I feel a lump in my throat as my mouth begins to dry out. This can’t be real, can it? It must be part of the show. The look of terror on the faces of the people in the audience indicates that it isn’t part of the show, though. This is very real.
I look around the empty corridor and consider my options. There aren't many. Security cameras record every inch of the arena. If I light up my metabands, I'll show up in the security footage for sure. My identity will be exposed, and people like Sarah and Derrick will never be safe again.
"This will all be over shortly. Which camera should I speak into?" The Multiplier in the center ring asks, looking around at the various live cameras covering the event for pay-per-view.
Those who couldn't get a ticket are paying exorbitant fees just for the privilege of watching the circus on TV and the Internet. Now, they're getting a show that they weren't counting on.
From the hallway entrance leading into the main arena, I see one of the cameramen raise his shaking hand to indicate that he’s controlling the camera that is currently live. A copy of The Multiplier has a knife to his throat as well.
"Good," the original Multiplier says as he walks closer to the camera. "Hi there everybody at home. I hope you're enjoying the show so far. No doubt you're certainly getting your money's worth now, getting to watch all of us metahumans dance around and entertain you. I guess we're not so scary when we're safely behind your TV screen, but here's the problem. The people here aren't so safe, especially not right now. Luckily for them and their loved ones at home, there's a way to save them."
The Multiplier reaches into his pocket and pulls out a smartphone and a piece of paper, which he unfolds and holds up in front of the camera. Glancing up at the monitor in the hallway, I can see that it is a long string of seemingly random letters and numbers.
"This is a ByteCoin address. My ByteCoin address, coincidentally enough. Now we're going to do a little experiment. I'm going to demand one hundred million dollars be deposited into this account in the next five minutes, or I’ll begin slitting throats. One at a time."
There's a gasp throughout
the arena, and various audience members begin squirming. All are held back by the copy of The Multiplier in front of them as the steel blades press more firmly against their throats.
"Now, here's the really fun part. I don't care who pays the ransom. There's over twenty thousand people here tonight, so let's do some quick math," he says as he pauses and looks upward, presumably doing the necessary division in his head. "Wow, that’s only five thousand dollars per hostage. Really not that bad when you think about it. Here's the problem, though. I don't want to deal with all the logistics of accepting payment for and releasing individual hostages; so it's all or nothing. If you know someone who’s here tonight and you think they’re worth saving, start sending your money, and maybe between the twenty thousand of you, there're enough people out there who think you're worth five grand each. But don't wait, because the executions will be randomized to try to make sure this goes as quickly as possible. I've got places to be, and I'm sure you don't want this little diversion interrupting the rest of tonight’s scheduled programming.
“Oh, and if there's some disgraced billionaire out there looking to win back some of the public's popular opinion, I think you could do a lot worse than putting up the entire ransom and saving twenty thousand people tonight. Even the most popular metas would have a hard time beating that number for saves in a day," The Multiplier says into the camera in front of him.
The corridor is still empty since I'm the only person who thought to try to get food during the biggest act of the night, but the security cameras rule out any possibility of activating my metabands, unless I want to unmask myself. If it comes to that, I'll have no choice, but in the meantime, I have five minutes to think of something else.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see the name “Martin Northcott” on the caller ID. I don't know anyone named Martin Northcott, but I didn't even have to look at the phone's display to know who would be calling. I tap the answer button and put the receiver up to my ear.
"I'm working on it," Midnight's voice says through the telephone.
"Good, because I'm all out of ideas, as long as these cameras are on," I reply.
There's a commotion in the arena, and I glance up at the monitor suspended in the hallway to see what's happening inside. A man is being brought down the stairs of the arena's seating area by four copies of the Multiplier, each holding one of his limbs. The man is thrashing and struggling to break free from them, but it's no use. As soon as one limb breaks free from a copy, that copy splits in two and uses the new copy to help regain control of the freed limb.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here? The night's first hero," The Multiplier says. "There's always one, right? Bring him down here."
The camera, presumably being controlled by either a cameraman with a knife to his throat or directly by one of The Multiplier's copies, zooms in on the man. He's at least a few years older than me, muscular, and with a fresh crew cut.
"So, you thought it was a good idea to disarm one of my copies and slit its throat before it could do the same to you, huh?" The Multiplier asks rhetorically.
I can see now that the man's hands and white t-shirt are covered in blood.
"And what exactly did you think taking out one of my copies would accomplish in an arena full of thousands more?"
"We're not going to be terrorized by monsters like you," the man defiantly states, still struggling against the copies holding him.
"Well, you aren't any longer," The Multiplier says before slitting the man's throat in one fluid movement.
There are cries of horror throughout the stadium that are only broken a second later by all twenty thousand copies of The Multiplier, in perfect unison, commanding the audience to be quiet.
"Anything?" I plead into my phone at Midnight.
"I'm still working. Five minutes."
"Five minutes? Sarah’s in there! Someone’s already dead. He's going to kill more in five minutes!"
There's nothing but silence on the other end. I don't have to explain the situation to Midnight. It's not like my whining will make him work any faster, so I decide to just shut up and wait.
"All right, I have a better question," I begin, receiving a grunt on the other end of the line, indicating that it's okay for me to continue, but the rapid fire keyboard taps in the background are a reminder that I don’t have his full attention. "Once you disable the cameras, then what?"
The brief hiccup in the sound of Midnight's typing doesn't reassure me that he has a real plan either. "Right now, we have to work on getting those cameras down. With them online, there's nothing you can do," he says.
"But what can I do when he's got a knife to the throat of every person in here? I'm not fast enough to take them all out."
Midnight pauses before answering, like he's accessing some type of database inside his head and searching for the answer. "He's a replicator. His power is entirely dependent on the health of the original. Cut off the head and the rest wither away. Take him out, and the rest are vapor."
"How can you be sure? And how can I be sure that I can take him out quickly enough that he doesn't have a chance to use the clones to hurt anyone? He might have super strength, but I just don't know it."
"He doesn't. If he did, that man wouldn't have been able to take out one of the copies so easily. If we don't do anything, these people are dead."
He's right, but there has to be another way. A safer way. As I stare down the corridor leading back to the Burger Shack, trying to figure out what exactly this better way could possibly be, I suddenly hear more commotion inside the arena. I peer up at the TV monitor and see what looks like a meta, covered in a tight yellow and purple suit and bug-like eyes bulging from his masked face, wrapping his arms around The Multiplier. In an instant, the nearby copies of The Multiplier spring into action and pull him off of the original, restraining him a few feet away.
"What's the matter?" The Multiplier asks. “You were able to teleport in here, but you couldn't teleport out while taking me along for the ride, could you?"
The new meta struggles to break free from the grip of the doppelgangers holding him down, but it's no use. There are too many of them. No doubt this meta has seen what happened to the last would-be hero and is now terrified of suffering the same fate.
"That's not going to work, you see. There's just too many of me. They're my anchors. Let me reiterate that to any other Teleporters who might be watching and thinking this is a great chance to play hero. It's not going to work," The Multiplier says into the nearest camera, almost as though he's looking straight at me through the monitor suspended above my head.
"That's it," Midnight says through my phone's earpiece.
"What's it?" I ask. "He just said that he's anchored to his clones. How does that possibly help the situation?"
"If he's anchored to his clones, that means they're also anchored to him."
"Right. Still not seeing how this is a good thing ..."
"You get him far enough away from those copies, and they won't work."
"Are you not watching the same thing I am? That Teleporter just tried to get him out of here; it didn't work."
"That's why you're not going to teleport. You're going to use two powers the other meta didn't have: your speed and your strength."
"Huh?"
"All you need to do is get him away from those copies before he has the opportunity to react. You're strong enough to break those bonds. If you run at him at full speed you, might be able to carry him far enough away from there that by the time he's able to react, he'll be too far from the copies to keep them stable."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Right, might be able. How do you know for sure that I'll be able to do that?"
"I don't."
"Then why the hell would I even try? It's just money. Who cares? Give it to him."
"There're two minutes left until the next execution, and he's only got a quarter of the ransom he's demanding. Are you willing to watch another person get executed when the
re's a chance you could do something about it?"
"I don't want anyone to be killed, but how can I risk the lives of all of these people just to possibly save a few?"
"By taking the risk out of the equation. You can't just try to break the connection; you have to break it."
Midnight's right. Of course he's right. He's been doing this a lot longer than I have. This is an arena full of completely innocent people. People with friends and families who care about them. Not one of them deserves to be killed, let alone on live television. No one deserves that, but especially when the reason is money.
"There's something else," Midnight begins. "I'm running a background analysis on The Multiplier. Apparently, he's not who he told the circus he is. His real name is Charles Bennington. He's a war criminal and profiteer accused of killing thousands of innocent civilians during the Kurdistan civil war during the first wave of metas."
"Well, I was already convinced he needed to be taken down, but that just cements it."
"I'm not telling you this to convince you of what you need to do. I'm telling you because he started a war based on the rumors that a pair of metabands was being hidden in the northern part of that region. He's been looking for powers for a long time, and he's not afraid to kill. Connor, everything I'm reading in his profile and seeing on television leads me to believe that he's going to kill those people, even if he does receive his ransom."
