Meta (6 page)

  
The Magician didn't move either, and Starlight swooped on top of him in a blind rage, drilling him into the concrete. He demanded that The Magician bring her back. That he make her reappear.

  
The court case carried on for almost a year. 'Where did Lauren Richards disappear to?' was the question on everyone's mind.

  
When The Magician appeared on television, or at public events, he had a standard catch phrase whenever anyone asked where the object he’d made vanish went: "A magician never reveals his secrets." Now he was on trial in front of the entire world, pleading with them to believe that he did not actually know where the things he made disappear actually were. That it wasn't a secret. And that if he could bring back Lauren Richards, he would.

  
The media turned on him hard. Gone was the charming, affable everyman hero that the public could identify with. In his place was a vain monster of a man who made a woman the entire world loved disappear to a place he wouldn't reveal out of misplaced pride. A verdict was reached and The Magician was incarcerated for life.

  
Incarceration is an interesting thing when you're a meta. Obliviously, it's not like they can just throw you in a regular prison and expect that you won't use your powers to escape. That's why Silver Island was created. A special maximum security prison just for metas that had turned bad and refused to power down their metabands to surrender them. There were always at least two "good" metas on rotation at any given time. Part of their penance to the government for protecting their secret identities. Luckily for them, The Magician did not possess any type of extraordinary strength among his abilities, but his ability to teleport made for an interesting problem for the prison scientists to solve. Their solution was a type of metal mesh Faraday cage from which The Magician could never leave. It kept his abilities grounded to within that cage itself. He could still make himself disappear and reappear, but he was always confined to his cage.

  
I don't think I'll suffer the same fate as The Magician. Luckily the man I killed wasn't the type of person society cares about receiving a fair trial. But still. I'll always know that I killed him. Whether he deserved it or not isn't the question. The question is; whether or not I had the right to carry out his punishment.

  
It was near midnight now and still absolutely no sign of the woman with the glowing eyes. I could turn around and go home. That would be the smart option. After all, I'm in no rush. But still. I need to know who she was. I want her help. I have to try something.

  
I found a nearby fire escape that had its ground floor ladder broken loose. I jumped up to grab it and down it came. Counting the floors with my finger, it looked like an even dozen. Not exactly a skyscraper but certainly high enough for me to get a good enough vantage point, and more importantly, for the rest of the city to not have a good vantage point of me.

  
I quickly discover a dozen floors is more than you think when you have to climb them the old fashioned way. It's even more than that when the stairs are rust covered metal, and a wrong step will send you careening down to the concrete below.

  
Upon reaching the roof, I pause for a moment to take in the city. A distant police siren wails. Listening in on my police scanner app, I already know that it's just a minor traffic accident over on Franklin Street. I look down at my right wrist again and pull up the sleeve of my hoodie. The metaband was still there, attached to me like a second skin. Reaching into my left pocket, I pull out the other one and place it around my left wrist. Sure enough, just like the other, it melts before my eyes and encases my wrist.

  
Already the strange tingling sensation is working its way through my body. Not as powerfully as last night, but I could still feel a difference. It feels amazing. The dull pain in my right knee, where I had hit it up against part of the fire escape, instantly vanishes. The slight headache I had earlier tonight disappears.

  
But will this work? Would activating the metabands somehow alert the woman with the glowing eyes to my presence? Can these things feel each other, I wonder? Would I be able to control it this time? Being a dozen floors up wasn't quite as safe as being in the middle of a forest with no one around for miles. I'm as frightened for my own safety as I am for the people down below. The metabands might protect me from a high fall, although I'm definitely not entirely sure at this point yet, but I know for a fact that they won't do a whole hell of a lot for anyone that I might happen to land on.

  
I'd thought about it enough though. If I was going to do this, it was now or never. I can either activate these bands and hope for the best, or go home and try again tomorrow. Trying again tomorrow wasn't much of an option though, unless I wanted to wear a hoodie all day to cover up the two metabands firmly attached to my wrists. That wouldn't be so easy to explain, considering the forecast for tomorrow was about ninety degrees. No, if I was going to try this, it had to be tonight.

  
The ski mask comes out of my pocket and I place it over my head. Already I'm starting to feel extremely hot in the early June heat. I look down at my wrists. Even somewhat dormant, the metabands look alien. Like they shouldn't exist. Metal shouldn't be able to move this way. One last look and a deep breath. I pull my arms towards each other in front of my chest, and smash the two metabands into each other. The sound seems to echo throughout the city as I feel energy surge through my body.

  
Then nothing. Not even hovering above the ground this time. I'm just standing there. Looking the same as I had. Feeling great, but no other change. Scanning the city's skyline, I look for the woman with the glowing eyes. My eyesight is phenomenal. I've always had relatively good eyesight, never needed glasses, but this was different. Everything looks like it's gone from black and white to high definition color.

  
But still, nothing. I can see the entire city it feels like, but if the woman with the glowing eyes is in it, or at least flying above it, I certainly can't find her. I give it another fifteen minutes or so, before I start to feel nervous. What if I can't get these damn things back off of my wrists again? Hitting them together worked before, but maybe that was a fluke. It seemed like all the metas from before were able to turn off their powers somewhat at will, but that part never seemed quite clear. Probably because very few metas were stupid enough to ever power down their bands in front of prying eyes.

  
"Power down," I say out loud, to no one in particular, other than the metal wrapped around my wrists.

  
Of course that does absolutely nothing, so I stretch my arms out again, pause for a moment, then bring them flying back towards my chest. They meet with a much quieter clang now, and I feel the energy leave my body. Whew, at least I figured out for certain one part of how they work, and the most important part at that: turning them on and off. I breathe a small sigh of relief.

  
That is when a hand grabs my shoulder and spins me around on my feet. Before I'm even fully turned around, I feel a searing pain from my nose and my eyes begin filling with tears. My mouth feels wet too, but the wetness is coming from my nose, which is now gushing with blood. I reach up to feel my face when I feel pressure on my arms that stops them for moving at all. I can vaguely feel the cool metallic bracelets that had been on my wrists slide down my hands. I don't understand what is happening, but in that moment, all I care about is the excruciating pain emanating from my face.

  
Finally I'm able to grab part of my hoodie and wipe away the tears from my eyes enough so that I can see who or what is in front of me. The figure of a man stands before me, but he's covered almost entirely in darkness. The only exception is the two white spots floating about six feet in the air, right where the eyes would be on a man who was about six foot, three inches tall. There's one other things I can see: my two metabands being held by hands covered with black gloves.

  
"If you're planning on learning how to use these, I suggest making a more careful observation of your surroundings before turning them off," A gruff voice says to me from the darkness.

  
I rip off my ski mask. It doesn't matter if this person knows who I am now. If they are going to kill me, there's nothing I can do to stop them anymore, anyway. All the mask managed to do was encumber my view even more than the tears already had. In a move of desperation, I lunge for my metabands. It might seem stupid, but whoever this is, intends me harm and getting back those bands is my only hope.

  
Less than an instant after I feel my muscles constrict in preparation to lunge, something heavy smashes into the left side of my face. I hear a loud noise and the left side of my face is numb. My jaw is broken.
Obliterated
might be a better word to describe it, actually. I drop to the ground, doubled over in pain. I feel the world slowly close around me for the second time in twenty-four hours and wonder if I will wake back up this time.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Upon regaining consciousness, I've completely forgotten what has happened before. It's that feeling of waking up in a strange place, and your brain spends what feels like an eternity trying to piece together where exactly you are and how exactly you got there. The first memory that floods into my mind is back when I'm in the woods. For a long moment, I believe that is where I am now, until I think about my back and feel no pain. That is when the memories of tonight come flooding back. I was up on the roof of a building.

  
Looking for someone.

  
I can't remember who.

  
The metabands were activated though, weren't they? They were. But I remember pain. Could it be that the bands didn't work?

  
No. I powered down the bands. Now I remember. The bands were powered down right before the pain began. The pain. My nose and jaw. Almost certainly they were broken. But now they feel... fine. I don't feel any pain at all. In fact, I feel remarkably good. My arms are outstretched again though, just like they were in the woods. I move to lift my right arm to sit upright but it won't budge.

  
Turning my head towards it, I can see that I have my metabands on. That explains the lack of pain. I was injured but somehow my metaband is back. That's how I've healed, and why I feel fine again. I strain to move my right arm but nothing. That's strange. These bands felt heavy the first time I lifted them, but they've never felt heavy since. I turn to my left side and try to move that arm. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  
That is when I notice a second metal band. A band that seems like it's part of the metal table I'm on. Why am I laying on a metal table? And why is it almost pitch black in here? With that thought, almost as if on cue, I hear a click above me and a whirring electrical sound, right before I'm blinded by light from above.

  
My eyes are squinting as tight as they can but it's no use, I'm still blinded. A feeling of horror comes over me as I realize what's happened: they found me. The government. I'm in some lab, tied down. Completely in the dark, while they prepare to figure out how these metabands really work. Or to run
tests
on me and see what my weaknesses are. It makes sense. Somehow, they were following me all night and waiting for their one opportunity. The one moment I was vulnerable, and they seized it.

  
So here I am. Alive, but completely defenseless. If my metabands were activated, I could leave this table without any problem. I could just rip these other metal bands holding me down right out from the table itself. But they're not activated. And while I'm strapped down here, I may as well not be wearing them at all, because there's absolutely no way to turn them on in this position. Now I wait. Because there's nothing else that I can do.

  
Suddenly, I can feel eyes on me. They've been there the whole time. Someone is standing beside me. I can't see them but I can sense their presence. Considering my condition, it's hard to believe that they would be friend rather than foe.

  
"I take it by now, you've figured out where you are," a voice says to me.

  
I don't respond.

  
"Did you not hear me?" the voice says.

  
"Yeah."

  
"And where is that?"

  
"A government lab."

  
The figure beside me laughs. At least I think it's a laugh. It sounds more like a gravely grunt, but it's still lighter in tone than any of the words that have come out of his mouth so far.

  
"If you were in a government lab, they would have had those metabands far away from you by now. Trust me."

  
"How am I supposed to trust someone who broke my nose and my jaw, so they could strap me down to a table in a dark room?"

  
"Good point, but not my concern. Where did you find those?" he asks, presumably referring to the metabands and not the new sneakers I happen to be wearing. The voice is now coming from a different part of the room. Whoever is speaking to me is pacing around the outside of the perimeter where the light meets the darkness.

  
"What does it matter to you?" I say in an act of uncharacteristic defiance. Maybe getting a few bones broken knocked something loose in me.

  
"Why wouldn't it matter to me?" The voice is directly in front of me now, as it steps out of the darkness and into the light from above.

  
I can't believe what I am seeing.

  
"Midnight," I say out loud.