"The initial descent is slow to avoid any disruption that might be noticeable from the outside. Once we clear the building's foundation, you'll notice that it'll start to pick up a bit."
The windows are completely dark, the outside world no longer viewable through them. I'm just going to assume that whatever electronic witchcraft powers the window in the doorway also does the same for the exterior windows.
All of a sudden, a huge pit grows in my stomach. I can feel that the room is dropping at a much, much faster rate. In fact, it almost feels like we're in a complete free fall. Out of instinct, I grab on tightly to the desk in front of me, like that would actually do anything if the room suddenly bottomed out.
"Sorry about the drop. It'll be over momentarily," Michelle says, looking so calm that you wouldn't think she even noticed it. And then, out of nowhere, the sensation just stops, like we've been caught. There's no jerk or anything. We just come to a smooth, but complete stop.
"Here we are. I told you it wouldn't be that bad," Michelle says.
"Actually you didn't tell me anything before you hit the basement button in your magic desk over there," I reply.
"Sorry about that. I thought it would be a waste of time to explain it to you when you were about to see it for yourself anyway."
"Still, a heads-up would have been nice. It might have helped me keep my breakfast down."
"You'll get used to it over time. Right now let's take a look around, shall we?" Michelle walks across the room and takes the doorknob in her hand. She waits for me to stand before pulling the door open and revealing what has replaced the dusty old hallways.
8
Outside the classroom door, there's now a hallway that’s so long I feel like I can barely even see the end of it. Everything is gleaming and metallic, and LED lighting fixtures are spaced out evenly along the bare walls.
"We've still got a little ways to walk. Security is of the utmost importance here, so the main facility was built underneath a nearby lake. It's technically off campus, but still owned by the academy. The water helps shield any kind of radioactive activity that might happen down here and keep it undetectable to the rest of the world above," Michelle says.
I'm following her quick pace as we both walk toward the end of the long hallway.
"Radioactive activity?" I ask a little nervously.
"It's nothing to worry about. We don't expect to see any, but just in case. Like I said, you can never be too careful. Now is probably a good time to explain to you how the elevator that you were just in works. Moving large numbers of students down here without raising suspicion is important."
"Obviously."
"Every weekday afternoon, you'll be reporting to the classroom we met at today. The cover you'll be using, if ever asked, is that the classroom is used for after-school meetings for a student group called the Circle that helps the less fortunate in the community by providing assistance with daily tasks such as reading, accounting help, etc."
"Okay, so then what happens when a non-meta shows up at the classroom someday, looking for something to put on their college applications?"
"We have safeguards in place for that type of incident."
"Like what?"
"The student is informed that we don't have additional room at this time, but we would still happily give them the recommendation for their application since it’s our fault that more space isn't available. Based on what we know, ninety-nine times out of a hundred this will suffice, and we'll never hear from that student again."
"And what about the one in a hundred kid who shows up because they actually want to help and don't care about the credit for college?"
Michelle turns to me and smiles. "In those cases, we recruit."
"Really? You give them metabands?"
"No, unfortunately we don't have extras lying around, but there are plenty of non-meta operational roles that need to be filled. These require a lot of trust on our part since we must maintain complete secrecy around the project. We find that the type of student who’s interested in helping out just for the sake of helping has the moral character we desire for our operational roles in most cases. In other words, they're the types of students who can keep a secret."
"And how do you make sure the metahumans that are here can keep a secret?" I ask.
"We don't."
"What do you mean you don't? I'm sure you have something in your back pocket to keep everyone in line. Some kind of failsafe or something if anyone ever spills the beans," I say.
Michelle stops walking and turns to face me fully.
"No, we don't. Everyone who’s been invited to this school has been vetted, thoroughly. It's how we knew who you were before you knew who we were. We don't take any chances when we're choosing who to bring here, and we don't recruit anyone who would need to be threatened in order to keep our secret safe. That's the kind of thinking that got the world into the mess it's in. Not every secret can be safeguarded with the threat of violence. Sometimes you actually have to put in the legwork to find out what kind of person someone is, and if you're going to expect them to trust you, you sure as hell better trust them back."
I nod in agreement, and Michelle turns to continue walking while I'm still trying to process exactly what she said to me. It seems crazy that there’re no safeguards against this place's secret being blown wide open, other than the word of the people here. It's a huge leap of faith on their part and a giant step forward if metahumans are going to find any kind of useful place in the world.
"This is our first stop," Michelle says as we approach a solid steel door. I stand aside and wait for Michelle to activate whatever retinal scanner or handprint reader is surely hidden in the wall. Instead, she just gives me a kinda confused look and reaches to grab the handle to the door. She twists it and it turns.
"Ah, fingerprint scanner in the doorknob? I guess that makes sense. Might as well make it one less step. Pretty cool stuff," I say.
"Fingerprint scanner? No. It's just a doorknob. Connor, I think you'll understand soon that this isn't The Agency. We're not all about secrets. If someone has earned our trust and is invited down here, we don't see the point in locking down every single door. We're not government funded, remember? So we're actually accountable for all the money we spend." She smiles as she swings open the door. "After you," she offers.
I'm not sure if I've ever seen such a large room in my entire life. It seems to stretch on forever, even farther than the hallway we were just in. If we were on the surface, I think the room would stretch beyond the horizon line. The ceiling isn't necessarily low, but it seems that way compared to the other dimensions of the room. Overhead, the same kind of LED lights from the hallway are spaced out as far as my eyes can see. Other than the lights, the room appears completely empty. There's a strange humming sound, but it seems likely that it's just the sound of the lights or a nearby generator.
"What do you think?" Michelle asks.
"Um, it's big?" I offer back.
"Do you have any idea what it's used for?"
"Not a clue," I answer honestly.
"I'll give you a clue then," Michelle says. She then places two of her fingers in her mouth and blows. Out comes a whistle so loud and so sharp that I glance at her wrists to make sure she's not secretly a meta herself.
Before the whistle comes to a stop, five people suddenly appear right in front of us. Four of them, a female and three males, are completely out of breath and drenched in sweat. They’re doubled over or holding their hands on their head with their back arched, gasping for air. The fifth has a healthy sweat built up but is breathing in a much more controlled manner. She's Asian and has a slightly asymmetrical haircut; the dark hair on the right side of her face reaches down to her chin, but the left side is buzzed short. She's holding two fingertips to her neck while looking at the watch on her other wrist, timing her heartbeat.
I realize what this room is; it's a track. It must have only appeared empty because these metas were running ar
ound it so quickly that I couldn't even see them. The hum I heard was the sound of thousands of footsteps a second as they barely even touched the ground.
"Still wiping the floor with them?" Michelle asks the one runner who is barely winded.
She smiles politely in response.
"Connor Connelly, I'd like you to meet Susan Lee."
"You can just call me Sue; everyone else does," the girl says as she extends her hand to shake mine.
"Sue here is one of the fastest metas we've ever been able to verify," Michelle says. "I'd introduce you to everyone else, but, well, I don't think any of them are in the mood to speak right now, even if they could."
"You know, I'm pretty fast when I want to be too," I say.
"Sue's faster," Michelle says plainly.
"I'd be happy to show you if you're not satisfied with just asking these guys for yourself," Sue says, pointing to the exhausted metas, one of whom is dry heaving.
"I'm sure Connor would love to have you run circles around him, but we're on a bit of a schedule today. Next time," Michelle says as she turns to guide me back into the hallway.
"It might have looked like Sue was just showing off, but it's more than that. We don't know where the limits to many meta abilities lie. Pushing those limits is important, not only for the benefit of those involved, but also to learn what is possible for others," Michelle tells me as we head out the door and continue walking down the long corridor.
"Know your enemies and all of that?" I ask.
"Something like that. Here's the next room I wanted to show you."
Michelle opens the door and we walk into yet another enormous room. This one is complete with a high ceiling. It feels like we're inside an airplane hangar. Part of the reason for that is the gigantic airplane in front of me. Cars, trucks, trains and various other large objects are strewn throughout it.
"This is colloquially referred to as the weight room, for obvious reasons, but it's actually a lot more than that," Michelle says.
On the far end of the room, I can see that we're not alone. About a dozen other teenagers are using various pieces of workout equipment and weight machines. If it weren't for the airplane and other vehicles, the room would look just like any other gym, albeit a gigantic one. Michelle leads me over toward the machines.
"Why are they using regular workout equipment? I'm not trying to brag, but if my metabands were lit up and I tried using any of this stuff, I'd break it in half."
"Take a closer look," Michelle replies.
At first I'm not sure what she's talking about or what she wants me to take a closer look at, but I walk over to one of the machines closest to me, making sure not to bother the rather large man who’s pulling down a chain attached to a series of weights on the other end. The machine looks normal to me, though. It's not like I've used a lot of these things, but nothing looks out of the ordinary from what I can tell. I look back at Michelle and shrug my shoulders, hoping for a little help.
"Look at the weights," she says.
"I did look at the weights."
"Look at the markings on the weights."
I lean over slightly to take a closer look at the black slabs being lifted by the chain the man is pulling. Each is labeled “DWT” where normally you would see 'LBS'.
"What does DWT stand for?"
"Dead Weight Ton."
"Are you telling me that each of these weighs-"
"A thousand kilograms. About 2,240 pounds."
My jaw drops, and I unconsciously back up a couple of steps. Getting a few tons of weights dropped on your foot isn't something you spring back from, I imagine.
"But, how?" I ask.
"Extremely dense metal alloys. We have a meta on staff who's able to help us make them. They take up a lot less space than the old ones, that's for sure."
"Then why have all of this stuff around still?" I ask, gesturing to the plane, trains, and automobiles.
"The machines are for strength training. Even metahumans can always improve. Those are for practice."
"What sort of practice?"
One of the metas walking past us with a towel draped around his neck overhears our conversation on his way to what I assume is the locker room. He decides to give a demonstration and picks up the nearest car with one hand, launching it straight up into the air. I turn my head toward the ceiling and watch as the car sails up toward the rafters separating this room from the mile of rock over our heads. The car reaches its peak and is hurtling back down toward Earth. Well, I guess not Earth-Earth, since we're actually underneath it, but you get the idea. I get the idea too and start slowly shuffling backward, away from where it looks like this thing is going to land.
Michelle is watching too but must see my apprehension out of the corner of her eye. Without taking her eyes off the car hurtling toward us, she reaches out her arm and stops me from backing up farther. Before I have a chance to protest this though, the car lands safely in the outstretched palm of the man who threw it in the first place.
"Lifting is one thing; catching an object that was never designed to be airborne is another. You'd be surprised how often these things are used as projectiles by enhanced maniacs."
"Actually, I wouldn't," I say while thinking that I've used a car or two as a projectile myself when times were tough. Always empty, of course. I didn't realize that it was still considered a “bad guy” thing to do though, so I guess I'll have to stop.
"Follow me. I want to show you some of the rooms we use for one on one training," Michelle says as she leads me back into the hallway. We're now walking through an area that is devoid of doors completely.
"How did you build all of this?" I ask.
"It didn't happen overnight. The structure itself was actually built during the first wave of metahumans. Since the second wave began, our organization has reactivated and worked twenty-four hours a day to get this facility updated and finished. There's still a lot of work to do, but the basics are almost complete. The most important elements we needed, open space and cover from the general population, are in place now. That's how we've been able to start bringing students in."
"I get that, but how on earth did you build a bunker a mile underground that's this huge without anyone noticing in the first place? How did you get the equipment down here? I mean, how did you get a jet down here?"
"Those things were easy for the most part. You'd be amazed how quickly you can get something accomplished when you've got contractors who can move objects with their minds and workers who can teleport."
"So someone just teleported that plane in here? You can't be serious."
"No, not someone. A few someones. It was a concerted effort, but the Brutes training down here were adamant about having a plane to practice catching. It doesn't come up that often as a problem, but when it does, they're apparently very difficult to handle. The nose just crumples and the wings shear off very easily.
"Ah, here we are. This is the next room I wanted to show you." Michelle opens another door and leads me inside.
Inside, the room is extremely plain and unimpressive compared to the previous rooms. There's only one person in this room: a guy about my age with a dark complexion and a short Afro-style haircut. He's wearing a crisp, bright white button-down shirt and wireframe glasses. In front of him is a deck of playing cards next to a small machine of some kind, which is resting on an aluminum table. He’s staring intently at the cards to the point where I'm not even sure if he notices that we’ve walked into the room. Michelle glances at me and raises a finger to her lips, indicating that I should be quiet.
As if coming out of a trance, the guy shakes his head gently and looks up at us. A wide smile crosses his face and he rises from his chair to greet us.
"Connor Connelly, I'd like to introduce you to Winston Cliffe. Winston, this is Connor Connelly, also know as Omni." Before my hand is even halfway out of my pocket, Winston has grabbed it and is shaking it enthusiastically.
"Wow, Omni! It's great to know who
you are. I mean, it's great to meet you and find out that you're you, that you're Omni I mean. Of course you're Omni; you know you're Omni. I mean that Connor Connelly is Omni, and it's great to meet Connor Connelly, you. It's great to meet you," he says. This is getting confusing really quickly, but I appreciate the enthusiasm and give him a smile right back. There's something about him that I like already.
"Things can get very confusing around here very quickly with real names and alter ego names, as I'm sure you can imagine. For the most part, we like to use real names whenever possible. It helps to keep everyone's feet on the ground, so to speak, and mitigates the chance that someone will use an alter ego name out in the real world during conversation," Michelle explains.
"But what about someone using a real name while someone's, you know, powered up or whatever?" I ask.
"It's less of a concern. If someone overheard another meta calling you 'Connor,' that doesn't give them much to go by as far as finding out who you really are. Someone calling you 'Omni' while out in the real world eating lunch? That's a different story. We also find that you're less likely to use an alter ego name for another meta out in the real world if you’re in the habit of only calling them by their real name when they’re out of costume. It really just comes down to habit, but that habit can be important," Michelle says.
"I read all about how you took down the Controller in Bay View City. Awesome stuff, man. Way to think on your feet," Winston says.
"Thanks. Most of that credit belongs to Midnight and Iris, though. I was just the human punching bag," I say.
"Well, whatever you were, it sounded like it was awesome," Winston says.
"Winston here has a very rare ability that we're still trying to find out more about," Michelle says, changing the subject.
"Yeah, when I first got these things I didn't think they even worked," Winston says, referring to the pair of gleaming metabands wrapped around his wrists.
"So what can you do?" I ask.
Meta (Book 3): Rise of The Circle Page 7