Meta (Book 5): New Empire

by Reynolds, Tom

  “Okay, so I’ve told you my secrets,” Iris says. “Time to tell me yours.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “You already know all of my secrets.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you sure there isn’t anything else you aren’t telling me? There’s nothing more about that ship up there in the sky that you aren’t sharing with me?”

  I hesitate, and that’s the only confirmation Iris needs. I let out a long sigh. I’m busted.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Connor. I don’t want to force it out of you, but considering the circumstances, I think it’s better to be open with each other.”

  Telling her what I know, which isn’t much, is a surprisingly hard decision to make. I trust Iris, I really do, but she can be unreliable. She disappears without a trace constantly. She’s nearly impossible to find unless she wants to be found. But she’s also been there for me when I’ve truly needed her, and I don’t want to alienate her. I want her involved in this. I look around out of habit to make sure no one is listening, even though we haven’t seen another soul the entire time we’ve been walking the campus.

  “Midnight found another ship,” I whisper.

  “He did? When?”

  “Not long ago. It’s a scout ship from Volaris, the same planet that thing came from.”

  “Wait, how do you know the name of the planet?”

  “Because there was a message left inside the ship.”

  “And Midnight was able to translate it?”

  “He didn’t need to. The message was in English.”

  “Hold up. It was in English?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re telling me these aliens traveled here from another planet and they happen to speak English?”

  “Do you think I didn’t realize it was weird?”

  “I dunno, Connor. You miss stuff like that sometimes.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “The message said something about a queen. They were mad at her and blamed Earth for some reason. That’s why they sent the magtonium here.”

  “Are you serious? Magtonium comes from Volaris, and you didn’t think that was an important detail to mention right up top?”

  “Oh, yeah. Magtonium comes from Volaris.”

  “Do you see why I say you miss the big details sometimes? Why did they send it here?”

  “They sent it to destroy all the metabands on Earth. That’s what it was originally programmed to do, but when the scout ship crashed, it threw a wrench into the plan. The Kaldonians found the ship and reprogrammed the magtonium for their own use. Kyle took that programming even further, obviously.”

  “You didn’t mention that the ship crashed in Kaldonia either. Any other hugely important details you’re leaving out?”

  “Nope, I think that’s about it.”

  “Hmm.”

  We continue our destination-less walk in silence. She’s thinking, and I’ve learned it’s best not to interrupt her.

  “How do aliens on another planet know about metabands?”

  “You’ve got me.”

  “What else did they say about this queen?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “It all seems too coincidental.”

  “How so?”

  “They’re mad at Earth, but we didn’t know they existed until they showed up on our doorstep? They somehow already speak English and know about metabands too? Nothing you’ve told me so far explains that.”

  I’ve been so wrapped up in the fact aliens exist that I haven’t taken a step back to think about all these strange coincidences.

  “Hey, do those look like students to you?” Iris asks.

  Up ahead near a large fountain is a group of five individuals, all dressed in dark clothing. They’re moving in a tight group but aren’t talking to one another.

  “No, they don’t.”

  I try to remain calm as the group approaches, even though my gut is telling me that something’s up. They pass under a light, and I get a better look at them. It’s a group of men too old to be walking around on campus at this time of night.

  I reach into my pocket and grab hold of my disk. I want to be able to form my suit at a second’s notice, but if there’s a reasonable explanation for their presence, I don’t want to blow my cover. This is the type of control I’ve been practicing, but the disk isn’t responding to my conscious commands.

  “Connor Connolly!” the burly man at the head of the group shouts.

  He unholsters a weapon from his belt.

  Screw subtly, these guys already know who I am.

  I give the magtonium the order to activate, but nothing happens.

  “Come on!” I think.

  Still nothing.

  The man fires his weapon, and two sharp steel barbs plunge into my chest. An electric current flows from the weapon, causing my knees to buckle and my body to seize up. I drop to the ground, and the magtonium disk rolls out of my hand and across the grass.

  “Target neutralized,” the lead assailant says into an ear-mounted headset. “Ma’am, please stand back.”

  I recognize his accent as Kaldonian. Of course. Kyle must have done something to my magtonium while I was in the embassy. He couldn’t take control of it, but he did something to cause it to fail when I tried to activate it. It’s the same thing I’d planned to do to him a few weeks ago, so I shouldn’t be surprised he used the same trick against me. What he didn’t count on, though, was who would be with me.

  One of the men grabs my magtonium disk from the ground.

  “Put that down,” Iris growls.

  Twelve

  I lie paralyzed as two of the Kaldonian men approach Iris. The first grabs her wrist and tries to pull it behind her back.

  It doesn’t work out too well for him.

  She reverses the hold, and I hear the bones in his fingers snap. The man screams. Another twist flips him onto his back with a hard thump. He won’t be getting up anytime soon.

  Iris’s foot smashes into the chest of the man approaching from behind. She doesn’t even have to look. He doesn’t see the kick coming and falls to the ground, clutching his chest and gasping for air. He won’t be getting up anytime soon either.

  They’re down to three men, including the one using the stun gun to incapacitate me. The two other men approach cautiously after having watched Iris dispose of their compatriots with ease. They have their hands up in a fighter’s stance as they shuffle toward Iris, neither wanting to throw the first punch.

  Both are nervous and with good reason.

  Finally, the larger man throws a haymaker that Iris ducks so easily it looks like slow motion. His swing throws him off balance, and Iris stomps down on his knee. His face contorts in pain, and he crumples to the ground, his knee shattered.

  While the other assailant is debating whether to run or fight, Iris decides for him and uppercuts him in the jaw, sending him into the air. He’s unconscious before he hits the ground.

  I suddenly feel a sense of physical relief. My muscles aren’t spasming anymore. The person hitting me with the stun gun has turned tail and run. Not a bad idea after seeing what happened to his buddies. Or maybe the weapon ran out of juice.

  I regain sensation in my limbs, but I’m too weak to stand. A large black boot steps over my head and continues toward Iris. There was one more, hiding in the shadows.

  “You made a huge mistake, little girl.”

  He thrusts his arms out to his sides, and a pair of metabands appear around his wrists. Iris’s eyes widen, but she can’t react quickly enough. He brings the metabands together and activates them.

  In a flash of light, he transforms and towers over us. He’s three feet taller, and his skin is gray and jagged, like it’s made out of rock.

  Iris isn’t deterred. She launches into the air and lands a kick where the metahuman’s belly button would be if it weren’t covered in rocks. T
he strike lands hard, but the rocky metahuman doesn’t flinch, and Iris bounces off him.

  My hands regain feeling. The magtonium disk lies nearby, dropped by one of the men when he turned his attention to Iris. I reach out for it, but it’s too far away. Propping myself up onto my elbows, I drag my uncooperative body behind me. I glance back to see if anyone has noticed me, but the meta is marching toward Iris, who’s still lying on the ground.

  The nanosuit is my only hope of stopping him in time.

  “Sorry, missy. The big guy isn’t interested in you,” the rock man hisses.

  He reaches down and picks Iris up by her foot. He dangles her in front of his face to take a closer look, then flings her across the courtyard. I hear her crash into branches in the distance, but I don’t risk turning to look. I need to reach my magtonium before it’s too late.

  Satisfied that he’s disposed of Iris, the meta turns his attention back to me. I hear his heavy footsteps approaching.

  “Where do you think you’re going, you little twerp?” he asks.

  The muscles in my shoulder burn as I reach for the small, shiny black disk just out of reach. The metahuman’s fingers wrap around my ankle just as I make contact.

  Whatever Kyle did to disable my magtonium, it’s wearing off. The disk awakens and activates. It wraps around my hand as I muster the strength to flip over—just in time to see a boulder of a fist hurtling toward my face.

  My magtonium-wrapped hand catches it right before contact and struggles to hold on. The magtonium is still suffering from Kyle’s attempt to neutralize it and vibrates as it crawls over the rest of my arm.

  Seeing what’s happening, Rocky pulls his hand free from my grip and steps back. Then he lifts his right foot to stomp down on my exposed torso.

  “Hey!” Iris yells.

  Rocky turns, and while he’s distracted, I scurry out from under him. I glimpse Iris and realize she’s not playing around anymore.

  Iris’s powers activate and burn through her clothes, revealing the purple uniform hidden underneath. Her hair lights up like a candle, and her eyes turn bright white, giving her an unearthly appearance.

  “Oh.”

  That’s all Rocky gets out before Iris fires an energy blast that rockets him deep into the surrounding woods. I hear the faint sound of trees falling in the distance long after the energy blast has stopped. Who knows how long the momentum will carry him before he comes to a rest.

  “We should get out of here,” Iris says.

  The flames around her body simmer down, and her appearance returns to a somewhat more normal state. I say somewhat because she’s still wearing a head-to-toe purple jumpsuit and her eyes are pupilless. She couldn’t walk down the street without attracting attention.

  “You don’t think we should take Rocky in first?” I ask.

  “It’s not worth the risk. You’re their target. The longer we stay here, the likelier they are to send reinforcements. The best thing we can do for the safety of the campus is to leave.”

  I look around to see if we’ve attracted any onlookers, but if anyone came to see what the fireworks were about, they’re staying out of sight.

  “I need to make sure Jim and Sarah are okay,” I say. “If they’re still on campus they might be targets.”

  My magtonium is stuck halfway up my forearm so I focus on making it retreat back into disk form.

  “Is that a good idea?” Iris asks.

  “It’s better than walking into my dorm wearing half an armored alien suit. Besides, it needs time to repair whatever Kyle did to it.”

  “I’ll go find Midnight. He should know about what happened here and especially that the Kaldonians found a way to defeat your armor.”

  “They didn’t defeat it.”

  Iris stares at me.

  “Okay, they temporarily defeated it, but I got it back under control.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to risk it.”

  “Do I have another option?”

  She’s quiet again, probably because she knows I’m right.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” I ask. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  “I don’t have a change of clothes.”

  “Good point. All right, then, I guess I’ll see—”

  Iris looks up at the sky and soars off into the distance.

  “—you later. Good talk.”

  Thirteen

  Most of the dormitory’s windows are dark. Everyone has either left or is lying low. The light is on in the dorm I share with Jim. I didn’t think Jim would go back to the city in the middle of all this.

  Inside the building, I take the stairs. I don’t want to chance getting stuck in an elevator if the aliens take down the power grid before launching a full-scale invasion. That’d just be embarrassing.

  The magtonium is wrapped around my right hand like a glove now, but I keep it shoved in my jeans pocket. I need to stay incognito, but I also want to be ready, just in case. If I were the Kaldonian government sending in reinforcements, I’d point them to my dorm room.

  I stand outside my room and listen. All is quiet. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Since I can’t wait outside all night, I fish my keys out of my pocket and unlock the door.

  The lights are still on, but I don’t see any sign of Jim. I step inside. Something like intuition kicks in, and I instinctively raise my magtonium-covered hand in time to catch a large metallic fist on its way to bash my head in.

  “Sarah?”

  “Connor? What the hell are you doing here?”

  I let her fist go, and she presses a button on the gauntlet to release it from her hand. There’s a commotion on the far side of the room as a dust-covered Jim pulls himself out from underneath his bed.

  “This is my room. What are you doing here?” I ask Sarah.

  “She came over to help me,” Jim answers for her.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “We assumed that was you fighting something big over by the fountain?” Sarah asks.

  “You saw that?”

  “No, but we heard it,” Jim says. “Figured we’d take that as our cue to hide , as if the spaceship wasn’t a big enough reason already.”

  “Why haven’t we been able to get in touch with you?” Sarah asks me.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been busy trying to figure out what to do about all this.”

  “And you didn’t think we could help?” Sarah asks.

  “It’s not that. I just…”

  I struggle to think of what to say, but Jim figures it out before I can come up with a lame excuse.

  “You already knew about this, didn’t you?” he says. “The ship, the aliens, all of it.”

  “No, not all of it.”

  “What? You knew what was happening and you kept it to yourself?” Sarah asks.

  “I didn’t. I mean, I knew some of it, but not all of it. The ship wasn’t supposed to show up this quickly.”

  “You knew there was an alien spaceship heading toward Earth and that wasn’t worth sharing sooner?” Sarah asks, raising her voice.

  “It wasn’t supposed to arrive for hundreds of years. That’s why I didn’t say anything. Midnight didn’t want you to panic.”

  “Midnight. You know you don’t need to always blindly go along with whatever he tells you, don’t you? You realize you do have a mind of your own, right?” Sarah asks rhetorically.

  “Look, I’ve only known about this for a short time, and I don’t fully understand what little I know.”

  “You might as well spill the beans, then, Connor,” Jim says. “Who knows how much longer we’ll all be around to hear it.”

  “There’s a planet called Volaris. It’s where that ship came from. It’s where this stuff came from,” I say, holding up my magtonium-covered hand.

  “So, it didn’t come from Kaldonia?” Jim asks.

  “No. But also yes. It came from a ship that crashed in Kaldonia.”

  “When did that h
appen?” Sarah asks.

  “We don’t know. Years ago, at least. The ship was sent here to eradicate all the metabands on the planet. The magtonium on board was supposed to spread like a virus, absorbing metabands and growing in power until it became unstoppable. We think it was meant to act as a precursor to an invasion.”

  “Eliminate all the metabands on the planet first, then take it over,” Sarah says. “That would make an invasion a lot easier.”

  “That might also explain why our visitors have been sitting in their ship with the doors locked since they got here,” Jim adds. “Earth’s too dangerous to invade if there are metahumans flying around.”

  “The magtonium was damaged on impact. That’s how Kaldonia and Kyle were able to reprogram it to do more than eat metabands.”

  “If they’re from another planet, how do they know about metabands?” Sarah asks.

  “We’re not sure. Midnight found a short message on their ship. Most of it was about some queen they’re furious with.”

  “How’s their queen our fault?” Jim asks.

  “You got me.”

  “Have you asked Derrick about it?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because these Volarians seem mad at metahumans for something that happened a long time ago, and if anyone could find out why, it would be your brother. He’s a walking encyclopedia of metahuman history,” Jim says.

  I want to kick myself for not thinking of it sooner. This is one negative of keeping things like this so close to the vest. Bouncing ideas off Jim, Sarah, and Derrick often results in one of them figuring something out that I never could have on my own. They’re right to be mad at me for not realizing that and unquestionably following Midnight’s orders to keep this a secret.

  “That’s a good idea, Jim. I’ll message him right now.” I pull out my phone and tap out a message to Derrick, asking if he can talk.

  Sarah pulls a diagnostic wand out from her backpack pocket and plugs it into her phone. She runs it over the magtonium covering my right hand.

  “Looks like they caused it to lockup temporarily. Your magtonium is still rebooting, but it should be fine after that.”