Meta (Book 3): Rise of The Circle

by Reynolds, Tom

  "What do I do?" I ask.

  "Don't worry about anything. The elevator will take care of it. Just remember to act natural when you reach the surface. I'll see you tomorrow," Michelle says, closing the door.

  I can't manage to get out the word “wait” before she closes the door on me completely. As soon as the door clicks shut, I can feel that I'm already gently accelerating. The small room quickly reaches its top speed before gradually slowing down before we reach what I assume is the surface.

  The ceiling above me silently slides open and I see white tile and a florescent light overhead. I'm still staring up at it when the ground clicks into place, and I look around to try to figure out where I am. It's seemingly another small room, just like the elevator itself, but then I turn around and see it.

  A toilet.

  A second later I hear the sound of another toilet flushing and then running water.

  They have a secret toilet elevator, and of course that's the one Michelle would put me on to re-enter the real world.

  9

  My first semi-conscious thought for the day is that there is no way the alarm clock can be right. It definitely not only feels like I just set it, but that I hadn't even fallen asleep yet before it started blaring. The last thing I remember is entering my room, thinking how insanely tired I was, and the next thing I know, this stupid alarm is going off.

  I roll over and find out pretty quickly that the alarm clock isn't faulty. The harsh sunlight hits me in the face before I even have a chance to turn the damn alarm off. Eventually the alarm falls to the floor, and in the process some button must have been hit because it finally stops. It might have stopped because it broke, but at this point I really don't care.

  Every fiber of my being wants to go back to sleep right now. It would be so easy too. Just roll over, close my eyes, and let the rest take care of itself. It would certainly be a lot easier than what I know I have to do instead, which is get up and make sure that I'm not late for my first day of classes. I'm already behind on the year, so sleeping in on day one would probably earn me a swift butt kicking from Michelle or someone else.

  One leg at a time, very slowly, I pull myself out of bed. Realizing that I'm not the only inhabitant of this tiny room, I do my best to keep noise to a minimum, but when I look over at the less-than-twin-size bed on the other side of the room, it's empty. It seems like my new roommate was up and out the door before me this morning, which offers me a nice little bit of privacy, something I feel is probably going to be in short supply in the coming weeks and months.

  The communal showers in the restroom weren't one of the perks I was looking forward to in living here, and I'm even more disappointed when I find there's a line waiting for free stalls. That explains why Tyler was up so early. I see him a few people ahead of me, waiting in line, and give him a wave, which he doesn't return.

  By the time I've showered, changed, and gotten myself all the way across campus for my first class, I'm at least five minutes late I figure.

  "Ah, you must be Mister Connelly?" the older man with gray temples and a receding hairline standing at the front of the class room says. "Tell me, do you have a good excuse as to why you're fifteen minutes late for my class?"

  I could have sworn it was only ten. Maybe his watch is fast.

  "I'm sorry about that. There was a line for the showers this morning, and I didn't realize the classroom was all the way on the opposite side of the campus," I offer.

  "Mister Connelly, you and the others lucky enough to be offered housing in the dormitories here have been offered this with the explicit understanding that this is meant to aid in your studies. Almost all the other students in this classroom drove, walked, or took public transit to campus today, yet you, a student who actually lives on the campus, was later to class than all of them. How do you explain that?"

  Okay, I guess he's not letting it go. So much for taking it easy on my first day.

  "It won't happen again," I say.

  My words aren't acknowledged. Instead, the teacher turns his back to me and goes back to writing on the chalkboard. I take this to mean our conversation is over and quickly move to find the nearest desk I can so everyone will stop staring at me.

  The rest of the day goes more or less like this in every classroom. I'm already behind on coursework and showing up late to most of them does little to win me any sympathy from the teachers. All of my classes are scheduled back to back, starting as early as possible so I can finish as early as possible and get to the training facility. This campus is gigantic, though, and whoever designed my schedule, my guess would be Michelle, gave very little thought about how much time it would take to get from class to class without using my metabands.

  After getting out of English class at 2:00 p.m., I have just enough time to grab something for lunch from the dining hall before I'm expected to meet for my “after school activities” at the Blair Building. It's the closest thing I have to a break all day, and I start to feel like I'm getting a second wind as I trek up one of the many, many rolling hills toward the cafeteria.

  I might be exhausted, but I'm still very curious and excited, honestly, for my meta training. I've had these metabands turned off more in the past week than any time since I found them. Blowing the dust off of them and stretching my legs a bit has quickly become the light at the end of the tunnel for my first day here on campus.

  As I approach the dining hall, I see what looks like another light at the end of this crappy day.

  "Sarah?" I ask.

  The blond girl talking with a group of students near a piece of bronze art outside the hall turns around.

  It is her.

  She glances around at first, not quite sure who called her name. Then her eyes catch mine. At first she looks confused, no doubt as surprised to see me on campus as I am to see her.

  "Connor?" she says as I get closer. She squints her eyes as if she isn't completely sure that it's me.

  "Yeah, it's me," I say.

  She turns to the group, which hasn't noticed me, and tells them that she'll be right back. She walks to meet me halfway, jogging a little at one point to save me a few extra steps. It's only been a couple of days since I've seen her, but she hasn't seen me, or me as Connor rather, since we broke up more or less.

  "Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?" she asks.

  "Going to school, duh. Why, what are you doing here?" I reply.

  "Smart ass," she says as she punches me in the arm. Things feel like they haven't changed between us for a moment, but that couldn't be further from the truth, and I need to keep reminding myself of it. "When did you get here?" she asks.

  "Derrick just brought me up yesterday. What about you? I didn't even realize you were here."

  "Yeah, sorry about that. Me and my dad had to leave Bay View City pretty quickly. Something about the board at his company being nervous about operations being based there with everything that’s going on, I think," she lies. "It all happened pretty quickly. I meant to text you once I got settled here."

  "You seem like you're settling in pretty quickly," I say, motioning toward the group she just walked away from.

  "Oh, them? They're in my physics class. We're meeting for a study group during lunch."

  I'm not surprised to see Sarah making friends so quickly. It's one of the things I've always liked about her. The fact that she and her dad were almost killed a week ago is something you wouldn't believe, even if someone told you. That's just the kind of person she is. Resilient. Whatever is going on inside her head doesn't stop her from keeping up with the outside world. It's a skill that I've been envious of since even before I had to worry about juggling two different identities.

  "And what about you? Are you fitting in here okay so far?" she asks.

  "Me? Oh yeah, of course," I lie.

  "Connor Connelly, you know that I know when you're not telling me the truth still, right?" she asks, completely oblivious, I hope, to just how wrong she is about that.

  "
I'm getting there. Just a little burned out after my first day."

  "You'll be fine," she says.

  "Hey, Sarah, come on. You're holding us up again," one of the guys in the circle of study buddies waiting for Sarah yells over to her. He's taller and looks older than me, and I'm immediately jealous.

  "I better get going. I'd offer you to join us, but I wouldn't want you to try killing yourself with a spork while you listen to all of us going on and on about physics."

  "Oh yeah, sure, of course. I have to get going anyway. I just stopped by to grab something quick before I headed off to my next class," I say, glancing down at the time on my phone to see that once again, I'm already late. "On second thought, it looks like I don't have time for that. I'd better take off before they suspend me for being late so many times on my first day. I'll see you around, though?" I ask.

  "Yeah, I'm sure of it."

  "See you later, Sarah."

  "Later, Connor," she says before heading back to join the group of students who are beginning to enter the dining hall. A few look back at me, and I can see them asking her who I am. I can't hear her response, and I wonder what she told them. It doesn't matter now, though. We're not together. Both of us have secrets we're hiding from the rest of the world, and it's not like the world has been getting any less complicated lately.

  Just worry about getting to training, I tell myself. Everything else takes a backseat to that.

  "Who was the hottie?" a voice behind me that I don't recognize asks.

  I turn around and see that it's Winston, the meta with the ability to control luck that I met yesterday.

  "That hottie, as you put it, is my ex-girlfriend."

  He winces in embarrassment at what he just asked.

  "Sorry about that."

  "It's no problem. You didn't know. Unless you did know. In that case, you're a real jerk," I joke.

  Winston smiles and slaps me on the back, happy that I'm not mad at him.

  "Well, look man, there's no need to cry over it, right? Plenty of fish in the sea and all of that. You don't want to be tied down when you're here with literally thousands of other potential future ex-girlfriends."

  "That's easy for the guy who can control luck to say."

  "Hey, I can tip luck in my favor, but not people. That's free will. I can't control what folks think."

  "Sucks to be you."

  "No way. Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to control someone's thoughts and actions? That's too much power, too much responsibility. How would you use that? How would you know when it was right and when it was wrong? Nope. Those aren't the kind of decisions I want to have to deal with, thanks. So what's your girlfriend doing here? Is she a meta too?"

  "No. I thought she was for a little while, but she's not."

  "That's lucky. It's best to keep this whole meta business and real life separate, I think."

  "Well that wasn't the case either. She wasn't a meta, but she was involved."

  "She knew you had powers?"

  "No, it wasn't like that. It was ... complicated," I say, realizing that I have to watch my words. Sarah's secret isn't mine to share. Hell, Sarah doesn't even know that I even know her secret.

  It feels strange to be able to talk to someone like this. Only a few people knew my secret before, and even they couldn't really put themselves in my shoes. You might find this hard to believe, but Midnight wasn't the best at listening when it came to my girl problems. This is different, though. Winston might not have the same powers as me or have gone through everything I have the exact same way I did, but we're more alike than we're different.

  Who knows, maybe it'll be nice to talk to someone like this who understands, as long as I'm careful to make sure that the only secrets I spill are my own.

  "Yeah, I know complicated. Listen," Winston begins, "I've got an idea. Why don't you come hang out tonight. It's just a small group of us, but we can make it into an official welcome party for you."

  "You don't have to go through that kind of trouble," I say.

  "It's not trouble; it's a good excuse. Better than the current reason we're using to have it."

  "And what is that?"

  "That we're bored."

  This makes me laugh.

  "I'm serious," Winston says. "You don't even know yet. It sounds like a great idea, living on campus, not having grown-ups around and everything, but the reality is that when everyone else on campus goes home for the night, and after we're done with meta training, it is boooooring here. Plus, it'll help you keep your mind off of old what's her name."

  "Sarah."

  "See, I've forgotten all about her already. You will soon too. Trust me."

  10

  If I thought that the center was out of the way from the rest of campus, the place I'm heading to makes it seem like it's the center of the universe. I'm currently trudging through an undeveloped, heavily wooded part of campus that I actually needed Winston to show me on a map in order to find.

  The reason this particular area is so far out of the way is that it was originally intended to be part of the meta training facilities, except it never got even close to finished. The underground tunnel was dug and cleared out, but nothing was ever built on top of it. Since it would look really suspicious for students to be walking out into the middle of the woods everyday and seemingly disappearing, the decision was made to abandon this part of the facility. There's talk of one day linking it to the rest of the training grounds, but for right now, there's really no need for it. There aren't enough metas here to fill even half the current training areas as it is.

  As I continue my way through the woods, I check my phone again to see what time it is. It's already close to eleven, and I'm hoping that the rest are still actually here. Sure, ten isn't that late, but the hours here are brutal. Classes start at 7:00 a.m. and go until 3:00 p.m. Then from three until seven every day, we're expected to train. After that, we can eat dinner and spend our free time however we want, as long as we remain on campus.

  Apparently I'll get used to the schedule, but I was dead on my feet by the time dinner rolled around tonight, and I wound up sleeping right through it. Tonight's gathering would have started hours ago, so considering everyone else has to get up early too, part of me expects to not find anybody. I'm kicking myself for sleeping through dinner and not tagging along with everyone else up here. Out of every school I've been to throughout my childhood up until now, this is the one that I'm the most desperate to fit into, because if I can't fit in with a bunch of other metas my age, I don't even know what else to try.

  Finally, after what seems like an eternity of searching, I find it. I'd be lying if I said that the idea that this was all some kind of initiation prank hadn't run through my head a few times, but here it is. Since there's no building to disguise the entrance to the underground facility here, the powers that be decided to use the next best disguise they could think of: a gigantic boulder.

  Keep in mind, of course, that the people who made this facility in the first place didn't count on the building above it never being built. But when it wasn't, they didn't want to just flood the tunnel with cement or collapse it with a controlled explosion, just in case they later changed their minds and decided the tunnel would be useful for something. After all, building massive underground tunnels isn't exactly easy, or cheap, even if you're using a meta labor to dig them. You still need engineers to make sure that the structure itself is viable, otherwise you'll find yourself trying to rescue people stranded a mile underground one day.

  The nice thing about using a boulder to cover up the entrance is that it's really pretty easy for a metahuman with enhanced strength to get in, though. According to Winston, none of the faculty knows that any of the students know this place exists. Actually, according to him, most of the faculty doesn’t even know it exists. The only way the students stumbled upon it in the first place was through echolocation. One of the metas here apparently heard this place from miles away and could tell there wa
s something hollow far underground where it shouldn't be.

  Winston warned me that if I was late I'd have to pick up the boulder by myself, which really wouldn't be an issue unless I didn't happen to have enhanced strength, but lucky for me, I do. I bring my hands out and flick my wrists to make my metabands appear back on my wrists before tapping them together to activate. I consciously decide not to activate my uniform since I don't want to be the guy that shows up to a party wearing his work clothes unless I'm sure everyone else is doing it.

  I push my shoulder into the boulder and dig my feet into the damp earth underneath me. The boulder moves with little effort and rolls slowly over to one side, exposing a shaft plummeting straight down into the earth. It's so long that the end of it is represented by just a pinhole of light. There's a ladder, thankfully, for those who can't fly or just those who are invulnerable but don't feel like taking a mile-long free fall. On the underside of the rock, I can also see a simple, crude metal handle mounted to the rock itself. I take it that this is there to pull the rock over yourself when you descend down the ladder, which takes care of my question about how I'm supposed to get the rock back in place once I'm inside.

  For a moment, I wonder again if I've already missed the party with my stupidly timed nap, but when I focus I can hear the faint sound of music wafting up from the tunnel below. It sounds like people are still here, so I swing my legs into the shaft and grab onto the boulder's handle to pull it back into place on my way down.

  Geronimo.

  11

  "Hey, Connor! You actually made it," Winston says as I approach.

  I'm walking down a monstrously huge cavern toward a group of maybe about a dozen people. They’re quite a ways away from the entrance but easy enough to find since there's really only one way to walk once you get down here.

  Winston wasn't kidding when he said they never finished the facility down here. Aside from the ladder and the fact that the tunnel itself looks to be almost perfectly circular, you wouldn't know that it was manmade. Everything is exposed and dark. The ceiling is at least fifty feet above me. The ceiling, walls and floor beneath are all just exposed rock and dirt.