Meta (4 page)

  
I don't throw a punch, like you would expect I would. Like a hero would. I honestly just don't know how to punch. Even if I did, it wouldn't have come as second nature quickly enough in that moment. Instead, I do what any kid on the playground who doesn't really want to fight, or doesn't know how to, would. I push him.

  
The difference here though as opposed to the schoolyard is that when I push him, he doesn't get a chance to push back. He flies about three hundred feet backwards through the woods instead. Bouncing between trees like a pinball. In retrospect, a punch probably would have been much more humane.

  
I stand for what seems like an eternity, desperately trying to catch my breath. It's not the running, or the shove, that has me out of breath. It's the adrenaline coursing through my veins at the idea that this little girl almost died. And that I almost certainly just killed a man. Finally, I snap back into the real world and catch eyes with the frightened little girl. I pull the dirty rag out of her mouth.

  
"Everything's going to be all right now, okay?" I say.

  
She nods, but is still trembling with fear.

  
The knots are even tighter than they were before. I start fumbling with them again but have the same amount of luck. It occurs to me that I could use the same strength that just rocketed a man through a dozen trees to pull the ropes loose, but I'm afraid to. What if I pull the wrong rope and inadvertently suffocate this poor girl?

  
"What's your name?" I ask, trying desperately to keep the girl's mind off of what just happened until I can get her free.

  
"M...m...egan," she stutters.

  
"It's nice to meet you Megan. We're gonna get you out of here," I say.

  
I hear footsteps crunching leaves in the distance. Dogs barking. Authoritative shouts from men coming towards me. It's the police. They've traced my phone. I need to get out of here. There's no way I can explain how I did all of this without revealing the truth. I don't even understand how I got these metabands, so how could I possibly explain it to them? What if they throw me in jail? What if I'm interrogated?
 
Metas are supposed to be extinct. They might not be thrilled that at least one of them is back.

  
I wipe the tears from the girl's cheeks.

  
"I'm sorry. I have to go. The police are here now. They'll take care of you. Everything is going to be all right," I tell Megan.

  
"What the hell is this!?" I hear a police officer scream.

  
They must have found the tangled corpse of the man. I turn and the entire world grinds to a halt once again. It's time to get out of here, and within what must have been seconds, I'm home.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Connor?" Derrick asks from the living room.

  
I wake up in my bedroom. It seems like only seconds ago I was in the forest. I'm not exactly sure how I even got here. I look behind me, half expecting to see a cartoon-style cutout of my silhouette in the wall. Luckily there is none, but then how did I get in here? Can I teleport? Walk through walls?

  
"Connor?" His footsteps are coming towards my room.

  
I can't tell if I've been asleep for ten seconds or ten hours. A glance over towards the window and the sunshine streaming into my bedroom confirms that it's more likely the latter. I look down at my arms and see that I'm still wearing the metabands. That might cause some suspicion. Oh, and I'm also floating about a six feet over my bed. Dammit.

  
"Are you in there?" Derrick asks from the other side of the door.

  
Shit. This is not going to be easy to explain to anyone, let alone a conspiracy nut like Derrick. I have to get these things off of me, but they won't budge an inch. How do you turn these things off? Think. I must have watched a million metahuman videos online. Two million, if you include the really crazy ones that Derrick's shoved down my throat over the years. What I never saw in any of these was how to actually turn these damn things off. Surely there must be a way. Most of the metas were suspected to have had secret identities. Day jobs. 'Normal' lives. That's when I realize I am over thinking all of this.

  
How do you turn a computer on? Hit the power button. How do you turn a computer off? Hit the power button. How do you turn metabands on? Click them together. How do you turn meta bracelets off? Bingo.

  
I collapse onto my bed just as Derrick turns the doorknob and walks into my room. The metabands are tucked under the sleeves of my sweatshirt, and Derrick doesn't seem to notice them. Either that or he's too mad to.

  
"Where in the hell were you!?" He's pissed.

  
"I was here. In bed."

  
"Here!? No you weren't. You were gone all night! No one could find you. The cops-"

  
"Cops!?"

  
"Yes genius. The cops. The ones you called to report the insane kidnapper that you ran into in the woods? Remember? They've been looking all over for you."

  
"Oh my God," I say out loud. I hadn't even thought about how I would explain all of this. Granted, when I called 911, I didn't expect to become a metahuman soon afterwards and be able to take care of the situation myself.

  
"So?" Derrick asks.

  
"I don't know," I tell him. At least that's kinda the truth. I actually don't know.

  
"You don't know? You're at the center of one of the biggest stories in the last decade and you 'don't know'? How the hell did you even get in here past all of the reporters?" Derrick asks.

  
"Reporters?" I ask.

  
"Yes, reporters. The one's who have been on the front lawn for the last hour demanding to speak with you, so you can tell them all about the world's first metahuman that anyone's seen in almost ten years.”

  
Oh no. I haven't even had these metabands for a full day yet and already my "secret" identity is blown. It's not my fault; I'm new at this. I should get a do-over, but I somehow doubt that option is on the table. Wait. Maybe these are the type of bands that some fringe theorists suspected allowed for some type of limited time travel into the past? Nah, I'm never that lucky.

  
"Hello?" Derrick says.

  
Oh. Right. I was talking with him. Got lost in my own mind.

  
"So?" he asks.

  
"I don't know what to say, Derrick. I can't lie to you. It's true," I say.

  
What choice do I have at this point? He's caught me red handed. Lying isn't an option any more. Even though he's my own brother, I didn’t think I’d be able to trust him with a secret this big. It's too dangerous for him to know. Hell, I can't even trust myself with a secret this big. He'll try his best to keep it a secret, I know he will, but eventually he'll slip. It'll be an accident of course, but that doesn't mean everything won't change. The first metahuman in ten years? Something tells me that the government will be more than a little interested in talking with me. Keeping me in a cell. Dismantling the world's only working metabands, even if that means cutting my arms off to get to them.

  
"So what did he look like?" Derrick asks.

  
There's no use in lying, so I tell him the truth.

  
"He was disgusting. Sweaty and dirty. Greasy hair and thick glasses. He looked exactly like what you would think someone capable of that would look like," I tell him.

  
"What? No! Not the pervert, I don't care what he looked like. No. What did the meta look like?" he asks me.

  
"The what?" I reply confused.

  
"The meta! The meta that saved the kid, and not to mention your ass, obviously. What did he look like? Was he here? Is that how you got in here undetected?! Oh my God, I can't believe this. An actual real-life meta! This is insane!" Derrick practically screams.

  
"So you're not mad at me?" I ask.

  
"I'm furious at you, but I'll deal with that later. What did he look like? Was he wearing a suit? Wait! Was it a she?! What powers did they have? Obviously they can teleport, that's how you got here. And they must have some type of super strength based on the number of pieces they found that sicko in."

  
He's pacing around my room. I've never seen him so excited.

  
"I'm going to go let the reporters know that you're here. They cannot
wait
to talk to you," Derrick says as he leaves the room.

  
I feel the back of my sweatshirt and it feels dirt-crusted. I grab it and twist my torso to look at what it is. Oh, right. It's about a gallon of my own dried blood. Almost forgot about that. The whole 'almost dying' thing. I peel the sweatshirt off and throw my t-shirt under the bed. I'll deal with it later, I'm certainly not going to try to explain it now. After fishing through my dresser, I find a clean long sleeve shirt and quickly throw it on.

  
As much as I was not prepared for the experience I had in the woods the night before, I am even less prepared for what greets me as I step out my front door. There must be at least a hundred reporters from all around the world. Satellite trucks line the street outside for at least two blocks in either direction. Some of the news organizations have even built scaffolding, just so their camera crews could get a shot of my house over the absolute sea of people crowded outside. Even though it's still early morning, I'm blinded by the lights attached to all of their cameras. Microphones are thrust into my face as my eyes struggle to adjust to the daylight and flashing bulbs.

  
"Mr. Connolly. Can you tell us what the meta that saved the young girl looked like?" Shouts an unseen reporter, somewhere in the mass.

  
"Uhh, I'm not really sure. It was pretty dark out."

  
"Mr. Connolly! Do you consider yourself a hero for standing up to that monster in an attempt to save the little girl before the metahuman arrived?"

  
"Oh, uh, no. The meta was definitely the hero. I just called the police."

  
"Connor. Is it true that this new meta considers you his human sidekick now?"

  
"What? Uh, no. I mean, I have no idea."

  
Sidekick? I almost laugh with relief but manage to stifle it. I'm having an amazing run of good luck, well, aside from the whole almost getting killed thing.

  
"When can we expect the meta to return? Do you have the ability to contact him whenever you want?"

  
"No. I mean, I'm not sure. I'm sorry, I'm very tired."

  
"No more questions everyone, thanks," Derrick tells the disappointed reporters as he pushes me back into the house and slams the door behind us. I can still hear the reporters trying to shout their questions through the wood.

  
"Wow. Good job out there," Derrick tells me.

  
"Really?"

  
"No, of course not really. You sounded like you barely spoke English."

  
"Well sorry. Maybe it'd be easier for me if I hadn't spent all night in the woods thinking I was going to die."

  
"What are you talking about? By the time the cops got there, you were long gone. Where were you all night anyway?"

  
"I don't remember."

  
"What do you mean you don't remember? You saw the first metahuman anyone's seen in a decade, and you can't remember any of it? The most important thing in the world happened last night and you were there, but you can't remember any of it?"

  
"I need to go to sleep. I'm tired," I say. I don't know how I'm still so tired, but I'm guessing the overwhelming nature of the previous night's events probably have at least a little bit to do with it.

  
"Fine."

  
Derrick storms off into the kitchen. I don't understand why he is so mad at me. I assume part of it was some type of jealousy that it happened to me and not him. 'If he knew the half of it' I think to myself as my head hits the pillow.

CHAPTER SIX

I sleep all day. It isn't until around eight o'clock that night that I awake from my dreamless sleep. It feels as though no time had passed at all again. The constant hum of activity that had been outside my window all day is gone. The house is quiet once more.

  
I sit up and enjoy it. In that moment I wonder if everything that had happened was real. The man in the woods. The metabands. His death at my hands. It takes a few moments for my brain to reboot from sleep and slowly bring these events back to the forefront of my mind.

  
Reaching under my bed sheets removes any of my remaining doubts. There are the metabands, still wrapped around my wrists. I pull them out from under the sheets for a moment and examine them. They are so plain. So ordinary. Dull metal that weighs almost nothing in my hands. Yet these are the most amazing devices the world has ever known.

  
No one knows where they actually came from. My brother is a big proponent of the "intergalactic missing shipment" theory. As in these bands came from an advanced alien civilization and were bound for another planet, perhaps a new one they had colonized. Somehow this particular package fell off the back of the intergalactic truck and crash landed onto Earth. That explains why they seemingly were all found around the same time, all those years ago: they were all a part of the same missing shipment.

  
There are arguments about what these supposed aliens actually used the bands for. Some claim that they were used the same way we use them here on Earth: to gain incredible abilities. Maybe they were used by the police. Or maybe they were used in war.