Meta (8 page)

  
My mind begins to wander. I think about how I used the bands to save that little girl from that monster. He might not have had powers and abilities, but in those woods, it didn't matter. It didn't matter, that is, until these bands appeared on my wrists out of nowhere. If they hadn't, I certainly would have died that night, and so would she. This is the first time the weight of the situation is fully being digested, but it's not long before my brain moves onto darker places. Like the idea that things may have happened differently if I had these bands the day my parents died. Obviously not much would have been different if I had these when I was so young, but what if that happened to them today? Would I be able to save them?

  
Work! I completely forgot. A few weeks ago, I'd interviewed for and received a summer job at the local Electrotown. Today was, no
is
, supposed to be my first day. I look at the clock. It's 9:48. My training shift starts at 10. Dammit. I don't remember very much from what they explained to me about the job, honestly it seemed like any idiot could do it, but I do remember one thing: they did not care for tardiness. There's some type of point system, and that's about as far as I had listened. I'm always surprisingly punctual, so I didn't imagine this part of the job description would really matter to me. Of course, what I didn't imagine at the time, was that I'd be in possession of metabands, which would kinda throw my life for a little bit of a loop this week.

  
Twelve minutes to make it to Electrotown. There's no way I can make it in time. Being late on the first day is almost certainly the type of thing they'll frown upon enough to just tell me to forget about coming back tomorrow. I really need this job. While me and Derrick received a little bit of money from the government after our parents' deaths, that will end once I reach eighteen. I need to start pulling my own weight if I want anything other than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at every meal. I can't be late, but no bus on Earth is going to get me there in the next twelve minutes.

  
Then it hits me: there are other ways to get there besides taking the bus. I look back down at the metabands lying in my hands. I don't quite understand how to control them yet, but they'd already teleported me at least twice: once back to my room after finding them and again last night at Midnight's base. I seem to be able to somewhat reliably control the ability to get me
back
to my room, but what about somewhere else?

  
It seems risky but what is the worst thing that could happen? Well I could teleport myself into a wall I guess. Or accidentally teleport myself a mile
above
Electrotown and enjoy the rest of my trip there, hurdling back towards the Earth.

  
Now that I give it more thought, I guess the worst that could happen is actually pretty terrible. I have to risk it though. I mean, I don't, but I feel like I do. I need to have a healthy amount of respect for my new powers, but right now, all I feel for them is fear. Fear will be my undoing. If I am ever going to start getting a grip on these powers, I need to start getting used to them.

CHAPTER TEN

The first thought that crosses my mind after I've arrived is: "Why does my foot feel wet?" I look down and find my answer: because it's in a toilet. At least the person before me had the decency to flush.

  
I'm in a handicap stall inside a men's room. Or at least I hope to God it's a men's room or else I've got two problems. I recognize it as the rest room inside the Electrotown that hired me (I was a little nervous before the interview and became intimately familiar with the facilities.) I pull my foot out of the toilet and shake it off then pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time. 9:52. I made it.

  
The relief is only temporary though, as I realize now that I need to find a way to hide my metabands. I don't have a bag with me because that would have been smart. I look all over as I power down the bands and slip them off my wrists before realizing the answer is above me. The bathroom's drop ceiling.

  
Back in the handicap stall, I stand on top of, rather than in, the toilet and push the ceiling tile up. It moves with ease and I'm able to pop my metabands up there for safe keeping. This is stupid, but I have no other choice. There's no other place to hide them. Tomorrow, I'll be certain to bring my bag.

  
After spending about four minutes precariously balancing on one leg under the hand dryer while trying to dry off my toilet water soaked right foot, it's time to give up and meet up with the assistant store manager. I tried my best but at this point, I'm going to be late anyway if I don't hurry.

  
Stepping out of the bathroom, I see the back of Gary, one of the managers, waiting for me. He's checking his watch and doesn't look happy.

  
"Hi Gary," I say. This startles him as he wasn't expecting me to come up behind him since he's facing the main entrance of the store.

  
"Connolly! You're late.”

  
"Sorry Gary, I went to the back of the store first, thinking you might be there. I was here on time, I promise."

  
"Fine. Sheila called out sick today so it looks like your training is going to have to wait. You're on inventory duty."

  
"What's that?"

  
"You go in the back, and you count. And when you're done counting, you count again," Gary tells me.

  
Sounds like a blast. In less than twelve hours, I've gone from learning how to save the world to mindlessly counting video games over and over to make sure none have been stolen. Truth be told, I kinda enjoy the mindless task. It gives me an opportunity to finally slow down and begin to process what's been going on.

  
These bands are tied to me for life now. No matter what happens, they'll never work for anyone else. I can't stop thinking about the permanence of it all, and how much different my life is going to be from how I thought it would be. This line of thinking is what keeps causing me to lose track of the games that I'm supposed to be counting.

  
I finally manage to keep track of a count higher than a hundred when I heard a loud bang and a scream. My stomach drops. I'm not sure what had happened, but my blood turns to ice in my veins. This isn't good.

  
I'm all alone in the back stockroom, frozen in fear. Afraid of what I'm going to find on the other side of the door to the main sales floor. After what feels like an eternity, I walk slowly towards the stockroom door and peer out.

  
A man, with a black mask covering his face, has his left arm tightly around the neck of a young woman, a customer. In his right hand is a silver handgun pressed up against her right temple. She's crying. The rest of the store's customers and employees are kneeling on the ground, their hands over their heads.

  
"Don't anyone move, do you hear me!" the man shouts. "Who's in charge here?"

  
Gary slowly raises his hand. He's a few rows back from the others.

  
"I am."

  
"Get up!" The robber yells.

  
Gary rises.

  
"Yes, of course. I'll do anything you say. Please, just don't hurt anyone. I'll go to the back and open the safe for you."

  
"What do you think I'm stupid? A big chain like this doesn't let some pathetic, minimum wage manager open the safe whenever he wants. That thing's on a timer and I know that. What I also know is that there's probably a silent alarm back there that you were planning to trip, wasn't there, smart guy?" the robber says with a sneer.

  
"No, no. Of course not. Look. I just want everyone to get out of here safely."

  
"Good. Then you can start by opening the cash registers and emptying everything in them into a bag."

  
"Okay."

  
The robber gestures towards the registers and Gary begins moving. He takes his employee swipe card and uses it at each register to open their cash drawers. With twenty-six registers, this is going to take a little while.

  
That's when I remember my metabands. They're still in the men’s room, hidden above the ceiling tiles. Is it worth the risk? Is it worth risking my life, and the lives of everyone here to get them when all this man wants is money?

  
But what if he doesn't want just money? What if he wants to send a message? What if the police arrive and there's a siege? What if innocent people die because I was too scared to sneak into the bathroom and end this myself? I might not have full control over my powers yet, but I'm certain I can use them to at least move quickly enough to disarm the robber before he's even aware it's happened. That much, I am sure of.

  
I have to risk it.

  
The men's restroom, where I've hidden my metabands, is less than one hundred feet away. There are store displays with laptops on top of them along the way, mostly obscuring the line of sight between myself and the robber. I can make it.

  
I gently push the door and it swings open, silently. I'm crouching down on my hands and knees, moving very slowly and deliberately, making certain not to make a sound. I can feel my ears are hot and can hear my own heartbeat. Fifty feet. I'm almost there. I can see the door. All I can see is the door. All I care about in the world is just making it to that door. I care about the door so much, that I don't notice the robber is next to me until I hear him pull back the hammer of the gun, which is now pointed squarely at my left temple.

  
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The robber growls at me.

  
I can't speak. I was so close. So close to ending all of this. So close to winning. I'm barely able to stammer out, "S..s..s..sorry."

  
"You're goddamn right you're sorry, because now I'm going to make an example out of you."

  
I close my eyes for what I expect will be the last time.

  
A shot rings out.

  
I open my eyes.

  
I'm alive.

  
But Gary is not.

  
His body lies in-between the cash registers that the robber had ordered him to empty. His lifeless eyes stare at the ceiling as a pool of blood forms around him.

  
"That's what you get for trying to be a hero," the robber whispers into my ear, as he picks me up by my bright yellow Electrotown polo shirt and drags me towards the rest of the hostages.

  
"You see what happens when you try to show off?" he screams at the group. "You get people killed! I am not messing around here, dammit! You!" He pushes me towards Gary's dead body. "Congrats kid. You just got a promotion. Now finish the job your old boss didn't get a chance to, and fill that bag full of money. Now!"

  
I stumble towards Gary in shock. Just hours earlier, this man was chastising me for being late, and now he's dead. And it's my fault. I pull the bag half filled with money out from his still warm hand. There's blood on it, and I feel sick for a moment but manage to keep it together. I can't imagine what this psychopath will do next if I do something like throw up.

  
Suddenly, the front doors to the store fly open so hard that they almost come off their hinges. The robber immediately grabs the woman closest to him and puts his gun up to her head. She yelps in pain at the still hot muzzle being pressed up against her bare skin.

  
"Back off! Back off or I start killing more people, pigs! I'm serious!" The robber yells at the doors.

  
That's when he walks in.

  
If the fact that he almost blew the doors off didn't tip you off to the fact that he was a metahuman, the head to toe blue spandex would have told you. The uniform was unadorned with any type of logo or symbol, something that was uncommon during the first metahuman period. The meta wore no mask either. His blond hair and blue eyes looked like they belonged to a catalog model more than a metahuman.

  
"Let her go," he commands the robber.

  
"Sure thing," the robber says as he turns the gun on the meta and fires. The shot hits his chest and falls to the ground. In an instant, the meta is across the store, with his hand clamped tightly around the robber's throat.

  
"That was a silly thing to do," the meta says before casually twisting his wrist and snapping the robber’s neck so loudly that half the hostages audibly gasp. Whoever this meta is, he doesn't seem big on the idea of second chances.

  
He walks over to Gary and places his hand on his neck to make sure he's dead. Then he walks over to me. I'm still holding the bloodied bag of money. He puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "It's all right. He won't be hurting anyone else, ever again,"

  
And with that, he's gone. A blue blur that flashes through the crowd of former hostages and out the front doors. The room of over a hundred employees and customers is completely silent. The moment hangs for what feels like an eternity before the SWAT team rushes in through the same front doors and brings with them the reality of the outside world.

  
I failed. I worse than failed. I caused a man's death. A man who did no harm to anyone. A complete innocent. This is my second murder within a week, and even though this one was not at my own hands, it feels like it was. It feels like a three hundred pound man was standing on my chest. No, not standing on it. Jumping on it. Trying to see if he could land hard enough to make my heart explode out through my yellow Electrotown polo shirt.

  
A member of the SWAT team pulls me outside. An EMT wraps me in one of those silver tin foil looking blanket things. I'm handed a bottle of water and brought to an ambulance. All of this is happening in slow motion. I'm stunned.