Meta (Book 3): Rise of The Circle

by Reynolds, Tom

  "Obviously it didn't work?"

  "No, it didn't. And even if it had, the end would have never justified the means."

  "So that was the beginning of him becoming a psychopathic murderer?"

  "Yes. Time is a lot less flexible than people think. The laws of quantum physics allow for travel through time, but that doesn't mean they allow for time to be changed, at least with any ease. The universe isn't stupid enough to allow itself to become unraveled so easily. Things like the butterfly effect, they're all nonsense. Over a long enough timeline, the universe always finds a way to course correct. It's unconcerned with short-term changes. But long term ... that's a different story.

  "When faced with temporal abnormalities, the universe will always attempt to set things back to the way they were heading before the time traveler arrived. But if enough damage to the time line is done, if enough changes happen to significantly alter the known future to the point of no return, then the universe has no choice but to take drastic action.

  "Jones's idea was that if he killed enough people, he could alter the entire path of the human race in the future. He believed that if he were able to alter it dramatically enough, metabands would never be invented, or it might mean he would never be born, and in that case, the universe would have no choice but to snap into an alternate path to avoid the paradox. The universe would find a way to prevent him from ever having traveled back in time in the first place in order to prevent the changes that would result, and that's exactly what he wanted.

  "He wanted to stop himself from ever coming back in the first place and from ever being trapped in that cage for thousands of years. And as far as he saw the situation, killing random innocents in order to 'save' the universe was not an issue. To him, everyone here had already been dead and buried for a long time. Why should he mourn their deaths any more than you would while studying the bones of a mummy in a museum?"

  35

  REPORT, the text message from Michelle reads.

  Midnight set her up with the same app he uses to securely communicate with me. I was starting to wonder if she couldn't figure out how to use it. The stuff Midnight uses isn't always very user friendly. It's possible she's just testing it out, but something in my gut tells me that isn't the case. Something in my gut tells me that she's finally using it because it's important.

  "Hey, did you get this message from Michelle?" Winston asks as he unburies his head from the book he's reading. "Looks like it’s important."

  Okay, both my gut and Winston are telling me that this is something important. I get up from the couch, acknowledging that this nap just isn't going to happen, and grab my bag. Winston closes his book and does the same, and we both head for the door.

  "What do you think it could be?" Winston asks as he walks alongside me, looking around beforehand to make sure we're out of range from any eavesdroppers.

  "I'm not sure. I checked all the news I could find on my phone but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary happening really. Something about a teleporter getting himself stuck on top of the antenna of some skyscraper in Dubai, but other than that, it seems pretty quiet. I tried calling my brother to see if he'd heard anything that hadn't been reported yet, but I couldn't get through. Usually that means he's busy, so maybe there’s something big going on."

  "Either way, I guess we'll find out pretty soon."

  "What are you guys talking about?" Ellie asks from behind us, so close to our ears that it makes both of us jump.

  "Ellie, what are you doing? Didn't Michelle already warn you about not using your abilities on campus, especially when you're using them to startle nice people like us?" Winston asks her.

  "Relax, dummy. I didn't use my powers to sneak up on you. I saw you coming and hid behind that statue over there," she says, gesturing to a statue of a frog, the unfortunate mascot of our school. "Do you guys know what this is about?"

  "We were just discussing that before you scared the two of us half to death. No, we don't," I say.

  "Jeez, give it a rest already. Some big tough heroes you guys are, practically afraid of your own shadows," Ellie says, giving Winston a jab in his side, causing him to flinch again.

  "After you," I say to Ellie as I hold the door open to the Blair Building.

  The three of us walk down the empty hallway toward our normal classroom-slash-elevator. Outside the door, there are a few others waiting. I ask them why they aren't inside yet and learn that Michelle wanted them to wait for the rest of us before allowing the elevator down. Whatever it is she wants to tell us, she wants us to all learn about it together.

  The ride down to the training area is tense. It can take a little while, so usually people find a place to sit at one of the desks, but not today. Winston is pacing back and forth at the front of the classroom while most of the rest of us stand. We make it past the halfway point, and I can hear the secondary elevator moving out of its resting position to return to the ground floor. Once we're past it, our elevator accelerates its descent.

  When we reach the training area and exit the elevator, we see that the halls down here are empty. That's not completely surprising considering there's no training regularly scheduled at this time, but it's still a little eerie. Down the hall, in the distance, I can hear two voices having an argument. Even from this far away I can pick them out as Michelle’s and Midnight’s. They must hear our collective footsteps because the arguing quiets down as we get closer to the briefing room. Michelle steps outside before we reach the door. The stony look on her face doesn't give me hope or fear about what we're about to learn.

  "Come in, everyone," she says as she steps aside from the doorway to make room for us to pass. Midnight has his back to the doorway and is reaffixing his cowl. He almost never takes it off, especially here, where only Michelle and I know his identity. When he does, it's usually serious.

  I almost don't notice at first, but all the way in the back of the room, sitting in one of the standard school-style desk-chair combos is Iris. I consider walking to the back of the room and sitting next to her, but the look in her eyes tells me that's a bad idea. There's anger. It's not directed at me, that much I can tell, but it's intense enough that some will undoubtedly spill over onto whoever makes the mistake of trying to talk to her right now.

  We find our seats, and Michelle reenters the classroom, closing the door tightly behind her even though there's no one else down here but us, and it's unlikely anyone else is going to accidentally stumble on us a mile beneath the earth.

  "Thanks for coming so quickly, everyone. It's important that all of you have time off to rest and do whatever normal things people your age do nowadays, so I hope you understand the circumstances it takes to call you are very serious," Michelle says.

  She moves to the front of the room and picks up a remote. Midnight stands with his arms crossed near the door, watching. The screen in the front where a white board would normally be flickers on. On the screen is what looks like a map of Bay View City. It isn't until a plane flies over it that I realize the image is live.

  "It hasn't exactly been public knowledge, but we've had a satellite positioned over Bay View City for some time now to monitor the situation there. As you all know, Alpha Team has declared themselves protectors of the city and forbidden any other metahumans within the city limits. This has limited our ability to monitor activity on the ground, but luckily, we do still have some active operatives in the city. This morning we received word from one of those operatives that The Blanks, a vigilante gang who also opposes metahuman activity, have been responsible for a string of disappearances over the last twelve hours. From our analysis, we believe these abductions are connected and that the Alphas are behind them in some way."

  "What makes you say that?" Winston asks.

  "I was just about to get to that. The reason we believe Alpha Team is involved is because all of the missing people have some tie or connection to the metahuman community. They are either business connections, demonstrated metahuman sympath
izers, or have ties to the press," Michelle says.

  She looks directly at me when she says that last part, and without having to say a word, I know why. It's Derrick. They have him.

  36

  For a long time it seems like there's nothing we can do except wait. At first I tried to leave. I wanted to go find Derrick. I tried to assure everyone else that I'd be fine. When they warned me about what would happen if I entered the city with my metabands again, I told them I'd leave them behind. Even as the words were leaving my mouth, though, I knew that wasn't a good plan. I don't care if something bad happens to me, but if anything bad happens to Derrick because I wasn't prepared for a fight, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

  So I agreed to wait. We still have no real idea where Derrick and the others are or what Alpha Team even wants with them. At the same time, Michelle has become increasingly concerned with the fact that there are no confirmed sightings of the other members of Alpha Team in at least the past week. It isn't like them to all stay so low when they have an entire city to keep in line. Michelle's sitting on the far end of the room with her phone, pressuring any and every contact she has to try to find more information about what's going on. She's worried, and she's not the type of person who you see that way very often.

  The rest of us scour social media for any clues, but nothing promising is found. The quietness of the room starts getting to me. Rationality stops feeling welcome, and I can feel myself getting overwhelmed. My brother, the only family I have left, is missing, along with who knows how many others. I should have fought him harder on staying in Bay View City once the occupation began. I can throw a city bus over a skyscraper, but Derrick's my big brother, which means I still think of him as indestructible. That was stupid of me, and if something happens to him, it'll be my fault.

  "Hey," Midnight says as he slaps a hand on my back. "Come with me."

  I’m about to protest, tell him that I need to stay on my computer and try to find clues about where Derrick is, but I know that it would be a lie. I've been at it for hours and haven't found anything. I push away from the table and follow Midnight, who didn't wait for my response. He's already in the hallway, walking toward one of the gyms. I follow him to one of the rooms where he's waiting for me next to the punching bags.

  "You were looking a little tense in there, and that's understandable. But the time will come for action soon, and that tension and anger can't be what drives you. It can fuel you, it can keep you going when everything else in your body tells you that you can't anymore, but it can't be what you use to make your decisions. That's how people get killed and not just you. The lives of a lot of people might be at stake here."

  "I know that, but Derrick's gone and who knows if he's even alive still? What am I supposed to do with that?" I ask.

  "There isn't much you can do except try to get rid of some of that anger, because when it's time, there isn't going to be much advance warning. Since you've got nothing else productive to do, you might as well put some time in with one of the heavy bags here. You'll feel better, trust me."

  The heavy bags in the gym are all lined up together, far enough apart to make sure you don't bump into the person next to you. They're color-coded to indicate their material composition. At one end hang the heavy bags you might find at a normal boxing gym. At the other are the bags made of iron mesh, filled with steel railroad ties, and held in place with electromagnets that can be adjusted for different intensities.

  I flick out my wrists to summon my metabands, intending to try my hardest to knock the iron punching bag across the room, but before I can bring them together, Midnight places his hand on my shoulder.

  "Keep 'em off. You'll feel better beating the crap out of something when it's all you doing it," he says.

  I hesitate for a moment then realize he's right and dismiss the metabands.

  "Plus I don't feel like spending my weekend fixing holes in the drywall around here," Midnight says dryly.

  I laugh at the rare joke from him, forgetting how mad I am for a second. He moves around to one of the regular heavy bags and braces up against it with his shoulder. I follow him over and start hitting the bag with my bare fists.

  "Sure you don't want to tape your hands up?" he asks.

  "No. If I injure anything, I'll just patch it up later with my bands." I take another swing with my right hand.

  The truth is that I like feeling the pain in my fists. It's a welcome distraction.

  "Keep your head back," Midnight instructs me as I throw a left.

  "If Alpha has them, how are we supposed to take on anyone that powerful?" I ask Midnight.

  "No one said we're taking on anyone just yet."

  "If he has Derrick, then I'm taking him on, even if I have to do it alone."

  Midnight doesn't say anything for the next few punches. I can't tell exactly what he's thinking, but I can tell that he’s sufficiently convinced that I'm pissed off enough to mean what I said, and he doesn't challenge me on it.

  "Did you know I was at The Battle?" he asks.

  The question seems to come out of left field, but when he asks, I realize I never really thought about it and that I didn't know he was there. I always assumed I knew everything about it back to front—who was there, who died, and who lived—but now I know that I didn't know the first thing about it. I had no idea that my parents were there for any reason other than lunch. It makes sense to me now that Midnight was there, despite never having heard that reported publicly. I just haven't had enough time to process the information to have even started thinking about his role in all of this back then. Of course he was there, though. That's obvious now.

  "I'll take your silence as a negative then," he says. "It never made the papers or anything like that. So many metahumans died that day, and the rest all lost their abilities. That was the big news of the day, not someone like me being there."

  "I didn’t realize you fought that day."

  "I didn't fight. I was there trying to help save people, as many as possible. In the end, I wound up only helping a few and almost getting killed myself. The building I was evacuating a few blocks from midtown collapsed while I was inside of it. Your mother was the one who saved me. If she hadn't swooped in to grab me when she did, I would’ve been vaporized. There wouldn't have even been a body to identify.

  "It was the last time I saw your mother, when she placed me back on the street and told me to run, to find cover. Then she turned and ran back into the fray. I never saw her again.”

  The story hits me like a punch to the gut. Out of all the things going on today, learning the reality of how my mother died wasn't what I was expecting. The toughest part is the story doesn't even explain how my mom died; it only gives a hint. Moments later, everyone's metabands failed for the last time. Wherever she was when that happened was likely what got her killed. I think back to the images of metahumans literally dropping from the sky that day and a chill runs through my spine thinking that my mother possibly suffered the same fate.

  "I think I need some air," I say as I stop hitting the bag.

  "There's plenty of air down here," Midnight says.

  "Real air. Not this recycled stuff."

  "You know that I can't let you go back up to the surface right now."

  "Why the hell not?"

  "Because Michelle doesn't trust you to be on your own. She's afraid that you'll take off to try to find Derrick on your own."

  "Do you think that too?"

  "I think I trust you, but you still can't go alone."

  37

  "You look absolutely ridiculous," I say to Midnight as we walk out into the unseasonably warm evening air.

  The sun is setting on the west side of campus, casting long shadows everywhere. Midnight is dressed as a teacher, or what he thinks a teacher would dress like. He wears a boxy, ill-fitting dress shirt with a clip-on tie. His grayish blond hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and a pair of silver wireframe glasses completes the ridiculous-looking ensemble.


  "No one asked you," Midnight growls back at me. "Don't worry about what I look like. Go get your air."

  I stick my hands in my pockets and start walking in the general direction of the rest of campus. I don't have any intention of walking that far, but the opposite direction is nothing but woods until the highway.

  I'm about fifty yards away when I stop and look at the sky. I'm not sure what I'm looking for, maybe just a metahuman flying through the air to give me a sense that not everyone is scared of Alpha Team, but I know that's not going to happen. We're too close to Bay View City for anyone to even take the chance to fly through here. The skies are completely clear.

  After a few minutes of staring into the slowly darkening sky, I decide it's time to turn back. Relaxing for a minute and catching my breath was nice, but I'm already starting to feel anxious that Michelle might have heard something while I'm up here.

  When I turn back around, Midnight is nowhere to be seen. Under normal circumstances, this would be expected. He likes to make his exits when no one else is looking, but I'm surprised that he'd do it when everyone else is so concerned that I'll run off. I start walking back toward the Blair Building to find him.

  When I round the corner, I can barely believe what I'm seeing. There, up against the brick wall, suspended by his throat via Midnight's hand, is Keane.

  "You've got exactly three seconds to tell me what you're doing here!" Midnight yells at him.

  I rush toward the pair, summoning my metabands on the way. Midnight has improvised a disguise for himself out of some kind of lightweight black mask, almost like a mix between a ski mask and the type of pantyhose bank robbers wear on their heads. I assume he must have had it with him this whole time, just in case.

  I have no need to pretend I'm not who I really am since Keane already knows.