Meta (Book 3): Rise of The Circle

by Reynolds, Tom

  "That's not true. He brought you into this world too, and you've saved more lives than you can keep count of."

  Iris is quiet, working hard to maintain her exterior and avoid showing anything even resembling an emotion.

  "Why don't you hate me?" she asks.

  "Why would I hate you?"

  "My father killed both of your parents. I almost killed you while at the same time making the world a much more dangerous place by letting so many of these monsters out."

  "What your father did isn't what you did. And you didn't do those other things, not really. That wasn't you," I say, my eyes wandering subconsciously toward Keane.

  He's sitting in a chair in the corner, reading a book and drinking a cup of tea as though he doesn't have a problem in the world. I don't think I've ever been as relaxed in my life as Keane is right now, a short time before we go into a fight that will put potentially millions of lives at risk. Just seeing him sitting like that, so calm when he's mostly the reason why we're all in this mess, begins to make my blood boil. I move to take a step in his direction, not even sure what I'm going to do or say, when the door opens. The others who had taken a break outside, along with Michelle and Midnight, return to the room.

  "All right, everyone. Please take a seat," Michelle begins. "We have a lot of information to disseminate and not a whole lot of time to do it."

  She moves to the front of the room as Midnight makes his way to the back, where he prefers standing to sitting and listening to talking. Michelle taps a few buttons on the screen of her tablet. The lights in the room fade down and the screen at the front is illuminated with a map of the world.

  "We have intelligence from Bay View City that suggests Alpha Team is gearing up for a public broadcast. While we don’t have any specific intelligence about the content of this broadcast, the timing is concerning. With the spate of recent missing journalists and metahuman sympathizers, along with the late hour of this broadcast, we have reason to believe that they may be planning a public demonstration of their power."

  "What does that mean?" Winston asks.

  "It could mean a few different things, but the one we are obviously most concerned about would be a public form of capital punishment to set an example for the rest of the world."

  "Like a beating?"

  "Like an execution."

  The room quickly fills with murmurs and talk. The blood in my veins turns cold.

  "Everyone, please. I understand that there are a lot of emotions in the room, but I need to ask you to put those aside. We have nothing to suggest that anything drastic has taken place yet, and if we do our jobs correctly, tonight we have the potential to end this once and for all. But that can only happen if everyone, and I mean everyone"—Michelle glances at Keane—"has their heads in the game and their hearts in their back pockets for now.

  "We’ll be launching a coordinated, five-sided attack against Alpha Team this evening before the broadcast is scheduled to occur. The purpose of this five-sided attack is to divide and separate the members of Alpha Team for the purpose of neutralizing them independently without human casualties, as well as preventing the transference of power from one to the next. From our understanding of their abilities, relative distance may play a significant role in the ability for one member to transfer their power to another. Even if this is inaccurate, we believe it will create a substantial tactical advantage if this unit is broken apart.

  "We don't like to talk about potential losses, especially in the lead up to something this important, but we also need to make sure that, even in the possibility of defeat, we've made every reasonable effort to at the very least weaken their position. If even one member of Alpha Team is brought down to reserve power and taken into custody, that will be considered an important victory."

  As Michelle finishes her speech, I can see her eyes becoming glassy as they fill with tears before her eyelids push them away. She knows how important tonight is to the world, but also to her personally, and despite what she just said, there's no way that a partial victory can be seen as anything other than a catastrophic defeat for us.

  "As previously discussed, minimizing civilian casualties is the most important part of this mission. Mr. Keane will be the first one on site with the assistance of August. She’ll be teleporting him inside the Bay View City limits and using her invisibility to cloak both Keane and herself while he initiates a mass evacuation of the city.

  "At that point, we estimate we have approximately five minutes before Alpha Team either notices the movement or senses that metahumans are inside the city. It'll be important to begin the rest of the attack before this happens while still evacuating as many people as possible beforehand. Timing will be very important here.

  “Once the attack begins, we will be separating the Alphas into different areas of the globe as quickly as possible. Ellie, you'll be taking up the first deployment with Jacob and Matt, who’ll be harnessed onto you."

  "Um, harnessed?" Ellie asks.

  "You, Jacob, and Matt will all be attached via carbon fiber harnesses that will be tethered approximately fifteen feet apart. Once inside Bay View City, Jacob and Matt will grab Delta and Echo. Once they have them secured, you'll run toward the west coast of America and over the Pacific Ocean. At three thousand miles off shore, Jacob's harness will detach. He will bring Delta to the bottom of the ocean floor, where we estimate the pressure will significantly reduce Delta's ability to put up a fight.

  “Meanwhile, after the leash detaches, you'll head south for Antarctica, where Matt will bring Echo. Again, we are counting on the decreased temperatures to hamper Echo's abilities, but I must warn you that we don’t anticipate this to do much. The primary reason for bringing Echo to Antarctica is simply to take him as far away from the others as possible.

  “Once both Matt and Jacob are successfully deployed, they’ll be joined by other members of the metahuman community to aid in the battle. Ellie, you will return to Bay View City to assist with any collateral damage prevention.

  “Concurrently, Foxtrot will be teleported with the aid of Martha to the Sahara Desert. The environment will ensure that his abilities will be diminished at least slightly, while also giving us a sort of home field advantage. We’ll be depending on Turner to provide the primary assault against Foxtrot."

  "Using the same tactics?" Turner asks.

  "No. You'll be using your ability to control projectiles as a primarily offensive technique."

  "Um ... so where will I be getting the projectiles?"

  "You'll be in the one place on earth that has more potential projectile objects than anywhere else: the desert."

  "Ahhh, I get it. Sand."

  "Yes ... sand," Michelle says, seemingly thinking twice about how reliable this particular part of the plan is.

  "And what about Charlie himself?" Turner asks.

  "We anticipate that Charlie will remain steadfast within the city's vicinity and that any attempts to remove him will result in a game of cat and mouse as he fights to return. He's faster than many, if not all of you here, so even if we succeed in bringing him elsewhere, it's extremely unlikely that he will stay there very long. For that reason, we will be deploying Omni and Iris to Bay View City to confront Charlie directly."

  The previously quiet room is full of chatter and talk. I'm only able to catch snippets of it as I try to figure out if people agree with this part of the plan or think it's a one-way ticket to getting us all killed. Michelle struggles to regain the attention of the room.

  "That's enough. If there are any objections to this plan, now is the time to voice them, because once everyone is out in the field, I expect nothing but one hundred percent commitment. Even with that, we've got a very uphill battle," Michelle says.

  "I don't mean to be rude, but is Iris really someone we can trust in there?" one of the girls in the room asks as though Iris isn't sitting five feet away from her.

  "I have complete and total faith in Iris's abilities on the battlefield. The reason Omn
i and Iris have been chosen for this part of the mission is their experience with close-quarter fighting in Bay View City before. They know the city better than anyone else in this room, and we don't have time to have anyone else memorize the layout of the city. In the past, they've admirably reduced or eliminated civilian injuries and deaths.

  “Ancillary to that, we believe that these two will provide the most tempting opponents for Charlie. He is more likely to stay inside Bay View City and engage in the fight if it's against two metahumans he sees as his direct rivals. I mean no offense to the others in this room, but we fear that with any other matchup, we run the risk of Charlie potentially fleeing the city to join forces with another member of his team. We're hoping his pride won't let him leave Bay View City if he knows that Omni and Iris are there."

  "So basically, we're bait," I say.

  "Not if you do what you're supposed to."

  "And what is that?"

  "Beat him into the ground so hard that no one on earth will ever have to fear him again."

  * * *

  Getting close to Bay View City proves to be no small task. The media has gotten wind about the public broadcast and have promptly parked themselves all around the perimeter. I know that it's hypocritical for me to get mad at the media for covering the potential execution of my brother when his job is covering this kind of thing too, but it just feels different. He hates this kind of spectacle and has always gone out of his way to make sure that the kinds of metahumans who pulled stunts like this for attention didn't ever get it from him.

  Derrick has also fought hard to keep himself out of stories, even when a pair of metabands fell into his own brother's lap, technically wrists, or when his girlfriend turned out to be part of a private organization devoted to training young metahumans. Oh, and his parents were apparently metahumans his entire childhood, but he doesn't even know that yet. All things considered, he's done a pretty good job of not letting his personal life bleed into his work ... until today.

  The specifics of the plan have all been hammered out as well as they can be, but even still, a lot of this plan involves improvising as we go. It's the unfortunate side effect of having to react so quickly to something we're not entirely prepared to deal with, but we all have our parts to play in this.

  Midnight is the first part of the plan. We're working under the assumption that the hostages are being held in Keane Tower, where the Alphas have been holed up since this began. There's concern that the Alphas are on high alert and paying even more attention than usual to their senses that can pick up on nearby metabands. For this reason, Midnight elected himself to be the first one in, establishing a set of eyes from the building across the way.

  My part won't come until the very end, but that's little consolation. It's not easy to relax when you're waiting to jump into a situation practically blind, where it's more than likely you're going to get yourself killed. My brother's life being on the line doesn't help either.

  I take up position a mile from the city's “no meta zone” perimeter, hovering a few thousand feet in the air. Even with telescopic vision, there's almost nothing to see. The city looks like it does any other day. There are people going about their regular business, driving home from work, hanging out with their friends. I tell myself that they must have no idea what's going on in their city, because it's too difficult to accept that they know but just don't care.

  My earpiece clicks on, and I hear Midnight's voice.

  "Midnight to Circle. I have visual confirmation of Delta and Echo on the roof of Keane Tower. They're alone and hostages do not appear to be in the immediate area. Stage one team, acknowledge when ready."

  There's a second or two of dead air before there’s another click in my ear.

  "Ellie to Midnight. Intel received. Prepare for incoming in three ... two ... one."

  Before the microphone cuts out, I hear a small sonic boom over the earpiece. A couple of seconds later, the same boom reaches my ears through the air. The rooftop of Keane Tower is blocked from my view and my nerves are racked as I silently wait for something, anything, to come over the radio.

  "Targets acquired. En route to first location," Ellie says over the radio.

  In the background, I can hear some kind of struggle happening. No one thought it'd be easy to grab those two, but they’ve done it, so far at least.

  "First location reached and target disengaged. En route to second location," Ellie says.

  Her voice is strained as she pushes herself faster and faster. In the background, I can hear what at first I think is static before I realize it's the sound of her feet hitting the water over and over again so quickly that the sound has become unrecognizable.

  "Foxtrot spotted on the rooftop.. Engage now," Midnight shouts into the microphone.

  "Wait, what? We haven't even gotten the all clear from Ellie yet," I say into my earpiece.

  "He’s on the rooftop looking for the other two. We need to engage now. This may be our only chance before they're all alerted to our presence."

  There's nothing but silence for what feels like an eternity before the earpiece clicks on again.

  "Ellie to Circle, location two reached and packages delivered. Returning to home position."

  Not what I was waiting to hear, but good news all the same. I consider clicking in to ask what's happening with the other two but stop myself. As soon as there’s news, I'll hear. Asking right now will just jam up the channel with uselessness. I can only hope that everything is working and wait. I'm almost up.

  "Dammit. They're on to us," Midnight says over the air, "Foxtrot has been teleported away. The rest of the building is going on full lockdown. We're not going to be able to get anywhere close. Blanks are surrounding the building as we speak."

  "We'll just have Keane send them away," I suggest.

  "Negative. Charlie will see that coming from a mile away and execute the hostages if he knows we're working with Keane."

  More silence as everyone thinks the same thing: What the hell are we supposed to do now? I try to think faster and outrun the word that I don't want to hear come out of Midnight's mouth: abort. There has to be another way.

  "I have an idea," I say before the idea is even fully formed in my head, but I need to buy time before we give up. "I can get in there. Jim, my friend from Bay View, he's in there. He's a Blank. He's gotta be close to all of this. He can get me in. He can get me close."

  "There's no way," Midnight says. "Before you're even over the bay, Charlie will be able to sense you coming."

  "What if I don't have my metabands on, though?"

  "Then what's the point? Just going in there to get yourself killed?"

  "No. We don't know the layout of the interior, which is why we can't just teleport ourselves in, right? But if I went in there and found Charlie, I could relay my coordinates to one of you and you could teleport in with my metabands. It'd happen so quickly that even Charlie wouldn't have time to react before it was too late and I was powered up."

  "I don't like it."

  "I don't like it either, but we're out of options here. If we give up now, everyone inside that building is as good as dead. We have to at least try."

  "I'll teleport him in," Iris says over her earpiece.

  "Then you'll both get killed," Midnight growls.

  There isn't much time, and Iris's plan sounds as good as anything else I could come up with, meaning one way or another, it's going to be the plan. I push myself down through the air feet first, only easing up from my rapid descent when I'm a few feet from the ground. A few yards away there's a line of cars moving along the road as they pass over the bridge to leave Bay View City. I'm behind a few dense bushes, far enough out of sight that I can power down my metabands without worrying about being seen.

  "I'm the fastest teleporter there is. I can have Omni in there and myself out before Charlie even notices. I'm the only one who knows that city well enough to get him close without killing either of us and you know that," Iris says.
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  "Fi-" I hear through the earpiece. In a literal flash, Iris is in front of me and reaches out to grab my hands. "-ne."

  Now we're both standing in an alleyway in Bay View City.

  "Power down," Iris whispers to me.

  I do as she says, and in another blink, she's gone with my metabands. I almost feel naked without them. Usually, when they're on me, I can't see or feel them if they're in hibernation mode, but somehow in the back of my mind, I always know that they're there, and there's a comfort to that. I just hope wherever Iris is, she's keeping my metabands safe, because I have a feeling I'm going to need them again real soon.

  Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I quickly fumble through my recent call log to find Jim's number and hit dial. It rings five times, and I start to worry that he's not going to pick up, but on the sixth ring, I find his voice on the other end.

  "What?" he asks, not bothering with any kind of formalities.

  "You need to get me into Keane Tower," I say.

  "Are you out of your mind?"

  "Maybe, but that's not relevant. I need you to get me in so we can stop this once and for all. Can you do it?"

  40

  The Blank mask is a lot more comfortable than I expected, I think as I walk toward Keane Tower with Jim. The mass evacuation has all but emptied the city streets. A few stragglers walk past us as we climb the steps leading up to the entrance. Their eyes are empty and their gaze is focused straight ahead. I don't turn to look at them, though, mostly out of fear of standing out in any way.

  My earpiece is still in place and over the open channel I hear the sounds of a war being waged across multiple continents all over the world. Delta is the first to fall. The crushing pressure of the Pacific Ocean weakened him even faster than we thought it would. Within minutes of being pulled to the ocean floor, he blacked out. Jacob had to work quickly to couple the restraints to his wrists and bring him back up to the surface before he regained consciousness.

  Ellie returned to pick up both Jacob and Delta, taking Delta to the New Mexico facility before dropping off Jacob in Antarctica, where the struggle to take down Echo is proving to be tougher than expected. Matt wasn't letting up any of his ground, though, and with Jacob jumping into the fray, it’ll only be a matter of time before Echo is going to be put on ice. Pun intended.