Meta 2: The Second Wave

by Tom Reynolds

  I glance down at where my watch would be, before realizing that, of course, I'm not wearing a watch, just a slightly ridiculous-looking full body suit. It wouldn't look ridiculous if I were flying or fighting or doing anything cool, but it doesn't suit just standing around outside a loading dock.

  "Do you know when they're supposed to be bringing him out?" I ask Elastico.

  "Why, you got a hot date?" he asks back.

  I'm slowly starting to realize that I'm not going to get anything except smart ass answers back from this guy, so maybe I'd be best served to just keep my stupid mouth shut until this is all over. As if on cue, I hear a lock click behind me from one of the steel doors to the facility. It swings open and Desmond Keane emerges, still wearing his orange prison jumpsuit and shackles and surrounded by heavily armored security. Most of the guards immediately retreat back into the facility the second Keane is outside its walls, slamming the steel door behind them with a solid thud.

  One of the two armored guards who remain comes over toward us.

  "Henderson, right?" I ask him, thinking I recognize him from my guard duties.

  "Ha, yeah that's right, Omni. Good memory," he says back.

  I can't place a name to a face for the life of me without these metabands on, but along with being able to make me fly and punch through walls, they seem to help me remember names too. A great bonus in social situations, but unfortunately, I don't spend very much time just hanging out with my metabands on, so it’s rare they actually help. Behind Henderson, the other guard is using a key to unlock and remove the shackles keeping Desmond's ankles and wrists connected to a chain around his waist. These are fairly simple constraints like you would see on any regular prisoner since after all, Desmond is exactly that now that he’s been stripped of his metabands and powers.

  The only reason for the heightened security is the fear that something could go wrong during the transfer that could compromise the integrity of the entire facility. They don't really know what to expect and seem to have prepared for every situation, just in case. Desmond Keane might be innocent in the eyes of the law, or at least presumed innocent for the time being, but those working for The Agency and Silver Island think he's anything but, even if they can't prove it.

  "We'll have him out of those cuffs in just a minute. Then he's all yours, and we can get back to wrangling the other monsters inside," Henderson says.

  "Don't worry officer, myself and my companion here have your back. You're safe with us," Elastico says.

  Companion? Is he freaking kidding me? I can't wait for this morning to just be over already.

  "Are you quite done, guard?" Desmond asks the man unshackling him.

  He seems to be having a little bit of trouble with the last lock. Can't blame the guy; it's not that often that they even use these things. Once you're thrown into your cell here, you're pretty much in solitary confinement in order to maintain the security of the entire place. The sanity, comfort, rights, and everything else of the men and women imprisoned here is secondary to security. Always.

  "There you go, and it's still 'officer' to you, Keane," the prison official says as he releases the last cuff from Desmond Keane's ankle and pulls away the entire apparatus. "He's all yours now, boys. Have fun."

  "All right, let's just get this over with. Grab onto me," I say to Desmond and Elastico.

  "What?" Elastico asks. "Sorry, buddy. I don't go that way."

  I give Elastico a look of disgust. He's lucky I don't just throw him into the ocean right now.

  "You've really got a comment for everything, don't you?" I ask rhetorically. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not interested in you either. You're going to need to grab onto me so I can teleport you both out of here and to Keane's estate."

  "I'm not teleporting," Keane says nonchalantly, as though I’m the pool boy at his country club asking him to use the same public entrance as everyone else.

  "What do you mean, you're not teleporting?" I ask.

  "Yeah, I'm not teleporting either," Elastico says. This gains a nod from Keane, which in return causes Elastico to smile. Someone's already angling for a position on Keane's meta bodyguard staff.

  "It's emasculating," Keane says.

  "What is it with you two and the macho stuff? Are you both really that insecure?" I ask.

  "I'm not relying on someone else to use magical powers to get me where I need to go. I can do it on my own," Keane says.

  "On your own with us protecting your ass, is what you mean to say," I reply.

  "It's a rights issue. I have the right not to have a meta use their powers on me. That is a basic, inalienable human right, or do you think those types of rules don't apply to you, Omni? Do you think you have the right to just do as you please to anyone else?"

  "That's not what I said. Listen, you wanted me here to babysit you on your way home, and if you want me to protect you, then we do things my way," I say, surprising myself a little bit. I guess Midnight really is rubbing off on me. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

  The previously closed door to the Silver Island facility opens back up and the two guards reemerge.

  "Listen boys, as much as we enjoy watching you bicker on the security monitors, you all gotta get out of here," Henderson says.

  "I know. Come on, Keane. We're teleporting out of here right now," I reply as I begin walking over to grab him.

  "That's bett—" Before the officer can finish his sentence, a blast of blue energy slams into his chest and leaves a foot-wide hole. He falls to his knees before toppling over, face first to the ground, dead before he even hits it.

  I spin my head around to see where it came from, but my eyes can't believe what they’re seeing.

  It's Beta, from the Alpha Team. He's alive, and he's a hundred feet in the air with two shiny metallic cuffs around his wrists.

  Metabands.

  "What the ..." Henderson begins as he brings his gun up to aim at Beta.

  Before I can get in front of him, Beta lets another blast of blue energy loose from his fists, killing Henderson instantly.

  "Don't even think about trying to teleport. I'll blow Keane's head clean off his body before you have a chance to move a muscle," Beta says to me.

  Keane is too far away from me to get to him in time, even moving at supersonic speed. I have no idea how quick Beta is right now. It's not a risk worth taking. Yet.

  "What do you want?" I yell toward Beta.

  "I want Keane. Alive. That's all," he yells back.

  "Why? He's nobody. He's nothing," I respond.

  "I couldn't agree with you more. Which is why I'm going to need you to stand aside."

  "I can't do that."

  "I'm afraid you don't have a choice in the matter. You see, this man, this thing, he killed my wife. He killed her in cold blood as some sick, perverse sort of revenge."

  "I did nothing of the sort!" Keane yells out.

  "Liar!" Beta screams back before shooting a blast of energy in Keane's direction. I react without thinking and dive at Keane, pushing him out of the way of the blast.

  "That was foolish. What has this piece of human garbage ever done to deserve such compassion?" Beta asks.

  "All right ladies. I think I've heard about enough chit-chat. You want a fight buddy, bring it," Elastico says.

  His body begins expanding, rapidly. It grows in all directions, becoming longer and longer until he's stretched to the point of being as tall as the height at which Beta is flying. He’s maybe a hundred or so feet in the air. Although Elastico is gigantic now, he's literally stretched thin. It's as though his body gained no mass, but instead was just pulled in every direction like a rubber band.

  "This isn't a game, son. Stand aside, now," Beta demands of Elastico.

  "No way, José," he replies.

  "Fine, have it your way then," Beta says as he begins to glow a deep, bright blueish color all over his body.

  Even though he’s high in the air, the ground all around us is beginning
to tremble. There is a look of hesitation on Elastico’s face, as though he’s just had second thoughts about what he’s done and the challenge he’s thrown down. It was a very, very bad idea, and he's finally realized that a few seconds too late.

  With a primal scream, Beta's legs and arms are thrown out to his sides as the blue energy gathers at his outstretched hands before bringing them back together and shooting the energy at his target: Elastico's metabands. In the blinding blink of an eye, Elastico's metabands simply vaporize. They disintegrate right before my eyes, and Elastico reverts back to his human form, a teenage boy no older than me.

  I now have two problems. The first, and most grave concern, is that I just witnessed a pair of metabands seemingly be destroyed. Maybe they weren't. Maybe they were just teleported away somewhere or temporarily hidden, but even that has dire consequences.

  Metabands that have been powered up cannot be removed by anyone, except their users. On top of that, there has never, ever been a case of metabands being destroyed. The closest case there has ever been was when The Governor threw Jones into the sun, and even then, it's only assumed that his metabands were destroyed. There's no proof. For all we know, there's still a pair of metabands somewhere inside that huge cloud of gas without a scratch on them.

  The second, and more pressing concern, is that without his metabands, Elastico, or rather the guy who used to be Elastico, is now simply a regular dude a hundred feet in the air with nothing holding him there except for time, and that's only about a second or two. Instinctually, I bound into the air, carefully timing my trajectory so that I'm able to catch him and still give myself enough room to slow my descent. Catching him near the ground isn't going to be a much better option than just letting him hit the concrete, so I have to time everything just right.

  And I do. I time it perfectly, catching the person who used to be Elastico and who will likely never be him again, at least saving him from death by gravity. There isn't a second to celebrate before I realize what else I have done. I've left Desmond Keane vulnerable. I turn to look at Beta. He looks displeased that I've saved Elastico, but an instant later, I can see all over his face that he’s had same thought I've just had. He turns his attention back to Keane.

  I'm still at least twenty feet in the air. Far too high to simply drop Elastico and expect him to live after bouncing off the concrete below. Beta is already charging up again, his body bathed in a growing florescent blue glow. There isn't a need to summon this type of power, the type of power that can destroy a metaband, just to take out a single, simple human being. But this isn't a rational person. This is a person bent on vengeance. He has nearly limitless power. Why choose to limit it now when he's about to destroy his enemy?

  I allow myself to drop to the ground, knowing that I'll be able to absorb the fall with my knees while holding Elastico safely across the chest. Once I hit the ground, Elastico is placed on the concrete, unconscious but breathing, and I turn my attention back to Beta. Getting in between him and Keane is a surefire way to ensure my metabands suffer the same fate as Elastico's. I can't let Keane die on my watch, but I'm not going to do either of us any good if I don't have my metabands five seconds from now. Whatever is different about Beta that is allowing him to do this, I'm not sure yet, but I realize that his power is far from fully depleted from the energy blast that destroyed Elastico's metabands. If I block his next energy blast, it doesn't mean Beta won't have anything left in the tank to vaporize both of us two seconds later.

  My only hope is getting Keane out of the way of the blast. Time slows down and I begin running. There's a bright flash and the blue pulse begins gathering at Beta's hands and pooling there before arcing outward toward Keane. Even I'm not fast enough to outrun electricity, but I have to try.

  There are only a few feet separating me from Keane when in the blink of an eye, Iris appears in between the both of us. She's teleported in and is about to grab Keane, presumably to teleport back out with him, when the blue pulse reaches her.

  Time returns to its normal speed just as the explosion occurs in a brilliant combination of blues and whites. I'm easily thrown a hundred feet. My hearing and vision both become foggy, like they're rebooting and slowly coming back online. I try hard to regain my senses and assess the situation. There's debris and dust everywhere. I can't find Beta in the sky, but after scanning the horizon, I spot Iris on the other side of the loading docks. She's facedown, her body crumpled on the ground. The first thing I notice is her outstretched arms, and what they're missing: her metabands. She wasn't fast enough. Beta destroyed them.

  Keane's whereabouts are unknown to me, but my first priority is getting Iris out of here. She would do the same for me. I concentrate on teleportation, knowing that will be the quickest way to get to her since I can see exactly where she is. My body begins to disappear, but then blinks back into the same spot. I try again, and again I remain in the same exact place. Looking down at my feet I can see them begin to shift out of focus, but then snap right back into place with a digital artifact-like appearance, as though they're glitching or something.

  Soon, I notice a much bigger concern. My metabands. They’re almost down to zero power, and this isn’t a good time for that. My suit is intact, though, and when I take off running, time once again slows down around me. I reach Iris almost instantly. At least that’s still working, which means my metabands aren't completely depleted.

  When I find Iris, she's still face down and still not moving. I kneel down and turn her over, afraid of what I might find. What I do find shocks me. While she's definitely hurt and parts of her clothing are torn and bloody, her suit is still intact. I’m momentarily confused as I try to wrap my head around what I'm looking at. The question of whether her suit isn’t a part of her metabands enters my mind, but it’s quickly dismissed when I see her suit begin stitching itself back together. Her wounds begin to heal right in front of my eyes. She opens her eyes and looks at me. They’re still glowing pure white.

  Her metabands are gone, but her powers remain. My head begins to hurt just trying to figure out what’s happening. I must be hallucinating.

  Keane. I turn back to find him confused and relieved that Iris isn't dead. Behind me, I see Beta approaching a wounded Keane who’s sitting up against the steel wall of the Silver Island facility, holding his gut as though he's been gravely injured as well. I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to stop Beta, but I have to try.

  Pulling myself back up to my feet, I start to run, except I'm not moving any faster than I would be if I didn't have my metabands on. I look down at them, fearing the worst, and find that I'm not too far off. The indicator light is blinking at me solemnly. They're used up. My limited power is being redirected, solely focused on keeping me alive and repairing my injuries. Still, I have to try. I have to do something, so I keep running.

  Up ahead of me, I can hear Beta talking to Keane as he approaches.

  "You're all out of friends, Desmond. This is the end of the line. It’s time to pay for your sins, and it’s time for you to pay in the only way you can't afford, with your life. Before I execute you, I'm going to give you the dignity that you never gave my family so you’ll know when you go to hell that I’m a better person than you. Any last words for the world you're about to leave?"

  "Yes," Desmond struggles to say as he hobbles to his feet, seemingly accepting of the fate he’s about to receive.

  My thighs and calves are burning as I run, struggling to get there before the deathblow is dealt. My powers are gone, but there's still a chance that maybe I can talk Beta out of this. That maybe, in the next few seconds it'll take me to reach them, I'll somehow magically come up with a plan.

  "Do you know the saying, 'The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making the world believe he didn't exist?'" Desmond asks Beta. "Do you know what the greatest trick I ever pulled is? Making the world believe I only had one pair of metabands."

  A look of confusion crosses Beta's face. He hasn't had time to process what Kea
ne has said, but he realizes very quickly that it wasn’t good. He lifts his hands to kill Keane, but's too late. Keane already has his arms spread and metabands have already materialized. In another flash, the metabands are together and an all-white suit materializes over Keane's body.

  Before Beta's energy can flow from his hands and outward, Keane’s already sidestepped the blast and moved behind Beta. There’s not a moment's hesitation as Keane wraps his hands around Beta's forehead and chin and twists. The snap echoes across the loading dock and over the bay. There’s no sound other than the reverberations of the crack that signifies Beta’s neck has been broken.

  The surprise at what I've just witnessed causes me to stumble and trip, falling to my hands and knees. Before I can rise up, I hear a voice, Desmond's voice, over me saying, "Don't get up."

  I can barely see him standing directly in front of the early morning sun above me.

  "I appreciate what you tried to do, young man. Don't think that will be forgotten, but today's battle is over. Go home. Lick your wounds. You'll fight another day," he says before turning and walking away from me.

  "What do you want?" I ask, not even sure if there’s anything Desmond Keane wants other than just his own interests to be served.

  Surprisingly, Keane stops dead in his tracks. Nice to know that a guy like him still has time for a little guy like me, especially since I just saved his life.

  "What do I want?" he asks me. "That's a strange question."

  "How is it strange? You just killed a man."

  "Yes, a man who was intent on killing me. A man who almost killed you, I might add."

  "Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself."

  "Yes, that seems apparent. Tell me, how is that broken right femur?"

  Well it looks like I'm not the only one with X-ray vision on this loading dock.

  "It'll be fine, thanks for your concern, though. Answer my question," I say.