Meta (Book 3): Rise of The Circle (28 page)

F
or 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."

"
Y
ou 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.

"What is he doing here?" I ask when I get close enough.

"That's just what he was about to tell us," Midnight says.

"Please, just put me back on the ground, and I can explain," Keane asks.

"Explain from up here," Midnight says.

"I want to talk with you. If I were here to do harm, don't you think I would have already done it? If I wanted to, I could take control over you and just be done with it. I'm refraining from using my powers as a show of good faith," Keane says.

Midnight doesn't move and continues to hold Keane by the throat. He never breaks eye contact with Keane, but he seems to be mulling over what his next move should be. Then he suddenly and abruptly drops Keane to the ground.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask.

"Talk," Midnight says, ignoring my question. "You've got thirty seconds. If I don't like what I hear, you're going to wish you were back in New Mexico. I know places where even you can't escape, and you wouldn't like them very much."

"I know what Alpha Team is trying to do. I know what their plan is," Keane says.

"And how could you know that?" I ask him.

"In case you've forgotten, I can literally read minds, Mr. Connolly."

"Not theirs you can't. They're too powerful," I reply.

"No, you're correct, but I have been able to search the minds of some of those that they're holding hostage."

"Who?" I ask, immediately thinking of Derrick.

"I'm not at liberty to say, unfortunately."

Before I'm able to open my mouth, Keane is doubled over in pain, clutching his stomach, the result of a knee from Midnight.

"I told you, we're not playing games here," he menacingly whispers into Keane’s ear.

"Not anyone you know. People whose minds I've interfaced with previously. That's the only reason I was able to connect from such a long distance. The stress of their kidnapping made them more susceptible. It's the only explanation I can think of, at least.

"How I acquired this information isn't important. It's the information itself that needs to be acted on as quickly as possible."

"And you want us to do your dirty work? We're not your butlers, Keane. You can't just have us do your bidding because you want us to. We can't be bought and sold like that," I snap.

"I have no intention of buying or selling anyone. I just want to see Alpha Team taken down. Saving people is important to you, I understand that, but I’ll be honest and say that I imagine saving these people is something you're much more interested in than I am."

"Yeah, I'd imagine that too."

"Yes, well, the problem here is that Alpha Team is surrounded by Bay View City itself. Those people aren't just potential collateral damage to Alpha Team. They're a shield. They know that anyone who dares to try to oppose them and fight will have to do so without harming the citizens, a nearly impossible proposition. Fighting them and costing lives would only prove the point that Alpha Team is trying to make: that metahumans are dangerous."

"Then what's your point?" I ask.

"My point is that I think I might have a way around that for you."

A
lthough we don't discuss
it on the way down, Midnight and I both know Michelle isn't going to like this. She doesn't even like the idea of us doing
anything
in regards to Bay View City right now, except waiting for more information. The only reason she might yield is the lack of other options in this situation and the prospect that Derrick may be in danger. That said, the idea of doing something about it is one thing, but bringing Keane into the facility is another.

"I must say, it really is quite a feat you've pulled off here. Were the classrooms retrofitted with the elevator equipment or were they built to be elevators from the very beginning?" Keane asks. The question could be pointed at either Midnight or me, but neither of us is feeling particularly chatty. "I only ask because I'd be quite interested in getting myself something similar after all of this is over."

"After all of this is over, you're going back to prison," Midnight says.

There isn't anger in his voice anymore. He just states it plainly as fact.

"Well, we'll talk about all of that once this is over with. Everything's negotiable," Keane says.

Keane had already been aware of the elevator before we brought him into it. He'd seen into the mind of one of the workers responsible for the original construction of the building all those years ago. Those workers were given specific tasks in relation to very specific pieces of the facility in order to prevent outside knowledge of what was really going on here. Much of the construction was fabricated off-site and assembled later.

After Keane saw bits of what was being built from the memories of the worker, he was able to piece the rest together himself. He figured out what the facility actually was, who had built it, and, most importantly to him, who is here. There isn't much he doesn't already know about all of this.

While it's extremely risky to bring him down here, these are desperate times. As Keane pointed out, if he'd really just wanted access to the facility, it would have been much easier to just take over my or Midnight's mind and make us let him in than try to convince us using logic.

We reach the bottom and the elevator locks into place. Before Midnight or I can reach the door, it opens on its own. Michelle walks in, her eyes looking down at the tablet in her hands.

"Finally. I was starting to think that the two of you got lost somewh ..." she trails off as she sees Keane and, in an instant, lunges for one of the emergency alarms back out in the hallway.

"Michelle, wait," I say. She temporarily freezes. "He's not here to harm us. He's here to help."

"Are you out of your mind! You brought an escaped metahuman convict into our facility!?"

"I know. I know. If we had any other choice, we would have taken it, but we don't, and we're running out of time. He already knew about us and about all of this. All I promised him is that we'd hear him out. That's it. If we don't like what he has to offer, then we send him back out and on his way."

"No, we send him right back to prison where he belongs."

The entire time this argument is happening, Keane stays silent. It's not out of respect or anything even resembling that, though. He's standing there with a smirk on his face, enjoying the argument. He's only staying out of it because he likes to watch the conflict. I'm beginning to doubt bringing him down here was anything other than a stupid idea.

"I only ask for a few moments of your time, Miss ... Adams, is it?" Keane says as he steps forward.

"Stay right where you are, asshole," Michelle says, taking a step back herself as a precaution.

"Miss Adams, as I've explained to your colleagues, if I were here to harm you, I could have done so by now."

"And what if you're just controlling their minds?"

"If I were, why would I not do the same to you? Why even waste the time to explain myself if I wanted to use that shortcut?"

"We're running out of time and options. We should hear him out," Midnight adds.

"Why thank you, Midnight. I never expected someone who spends their nights jumping around on rooftops dressed in their pajamas to be so levelheaded. Maybe all of those people who said you're crazy are wrong after all."

Midnight scowls at Keane, and the look actually seems to work. Keane is momentarily and uncharacteristically flustered.

"Right, so," Keane says as he clears his throat. "The plan ..."