Meta (Book 3): Rise of The Circle (25 page)

Midnight hits another button, and the screen changes to show something that looks like a steel birdcage crossed with a bike lock.

"What is that?" I ask.

"That was his muzzle. While Chomp could bite through nearly anything, that was the limit of his abilities. In order to keep him from simply eating his way out of Silver Island, this headgear was designed to keep anything larger than a plastic straw away from his mouth."

"Why the size of a plastic straw?"

"That's what they fed him through. Shortly after the headpiece was found, a local liquor store was burglarized. The bite marks on the cash register match Chomp's."

"So how do we find him? There must be a reason he went to Seattle. Does he have family there, former business associates?"

"No. He did once, but Chomp owes a lot of bad people a lot of money. Going to any of them for help wouldn't get him more than a bullet between the eyes."

"So then why go back there at all? Seems a lot riskier than just finding a new city and starting over."

"He went back to Seattle because it’s the only city with these."

The screen changes again to show the interior of a fast-food restaurant. The angle and quality of the footage tells me that it's from a security camera. Before I have a chance to ask what exactly I'm looking at, I see a tall, bulky man wearing a scarf around his face enter.

"That's him. Did he rob this place too?"

"No. He bought a dozen hamburgers."

"Okay. So what's illegal about that? Ignoring of course that he most likely paid for those hamburgers with money he stole."

"That's not what we're concerned with. The name of this place is Hammy Hamburgers and it's Chomp's favorite. He needs a tremendous amount of calories every day for him to do what he does, and my guess is that he'll be back there tonight. There's a reason why he didn't just rob the place after hours: he wants them to stay in business so he can keep eating there. If my hunch is correct, he'll be back.”

T
he plan is relatively simple
, at least as far as Midnight's plans usually go. Although he's always quick to criticize me for underestimating enemies, the speed with which he has to react to Chomp's reappearance leaves very little time for his usual elaborate traps.

Soon after they took over Bay View City, Alpha Team made it their publicly stated goal to recapture and execute every escaped prisoner from Silver Island who hasn’t surrendered. Even the few who have surrendered haven't been seen or heard from since. Alpha Team insists that they're being kept in a secure, off-site facility far from any populated areas. They also claim that giving any more information about where this place is would jeopardize the security of it. At the end of the day, though, the simple truth of the matter is that most people just don't care. They see these criminals as less than human. Whether they live or die isn't something that concerns most. In their minds, they aren't privy to the same basic human rights the rest of us enjoy.

Alpha Team has placed bounties on each of the escaped prisoners' heads. Most of the escapees can't be caught by traditional means, though. Most can only be caught by another metahuman, and given Alpha Team's general attitude toward metas, few expect that they will actually keep their end of the bargain.

So here I am, sitting alone in a Hammy Hamburgers, slowly nursing a soda and waiting. My metabands are powered down, but still active around my wrists and hidden under the sleeves of a sweatshirt.

I'm here as a lookout, and it is
boring
.

Really, really boring.

I'm seriously kicking myself for having left the one party I've ever had fun at to come sit in a fast-food place all night by myself.

Midnight wants me here as backup, but it's hard to imagine a situation where he would actually ask for help. Instead, I have to just sit here, keep an eye on the line at the front counter, and send Midnight a message through my phone if I see Chomp. Midnight is lying in wait in a nearby alley with his own version of the headgear that previously kept Chomp docile.

Once Chomp steps back out of the restaurant, Midnight will ambush him and lock the restraint over his head. Easy. And if anything goes wrong, I’ll power up and get Chomp away from here immediately. But of course, Midnight expects nothing to go wrong.

After eight free soda refills, I can't wait any longer and decide Midnight would never know if I went to the bathroom real quick, even though he's given me explicit instructions not to take my eyes off the front door.

I swear I'm in the bathroom for all of about fifteen seconds, but when I come out, there he is, right at the front counter: Chomp. Even for Seattle in the fall it's too warm to be wearing a scarf tonight, and that's the dead giveaway.

I fumble around in my pocket for my phone, quickly opening the secure messaging app hidden three folders deep and get a message to Midnight right as Chomp grabs his two bags of takeout and heads for the door.

My instinct is to immediately follow him, but Midnight warned me not to come out until he gives me the signal. He doesn't want Chomp spooked, and he doesn't want a fight between two metahumans in the street, so I have no choice but to sit back down and wait.

It feels like an eternity, even though my watch says it's only been thirty seconds. I'm just about to break Midnight's rule and go outside to see for myself what's happening when the text comes through.

Target Captured. Rendezvous at rooftop of 14th and Lincoln.

T
he cargo bay
door of Midnight's jet unfolds from the body of the plane, making a ramp from the rooftop to the interior. Inside, Chomp sits on one of the parallel benches lining the opposite facing walls. His hands are bound together and attached to a galvanized steel hook bolted to the wall before his back.

His head is completely encased, offering only an obscured view of his face through a steel mesh weave, allowing him to breathe and speak. When he sees me at the bottom of the ramp, I can hear him repeatedly slamming him teeth together in an effort to intimidate me. I almost jump when I first hear how loudly they clap together. My metabands are back on and activated to keep my identity obscured from Chomp. Even if I didn't have to worry about that, I still wouldn't want to be within ten feet of this guy without some kind of protection.

"Keep biting all you want. You're not getting through that," Midnight says as he comes from around the front of the jet and onto the ramp. "I just finished pre-flight checks. We're ready to take this garbage back to a secure facility where he belongs. He's not going to make for much of an engaging travel companion, but I need you to sit back here with him during the flight to make sure he remains detained."

"But he's locked up. There's no way he's getting that helmet off, right?" I say.

Midnight motions for me to step outside the plane.

"Something’s not right here," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure yet, but catching him was too easy. I wasn't expecting that much of a fight, but this was almost like he let himself get caught.

"There are over a dozen Hammy Hamburgers in this city. Why keep coming back to the same one when you know you're a wanted man? He won't tell me how he got the last head guard off, but if I had to guess, I'd say he had help. At top speed, the flight to the New Mexico compound is only fifteen minutes, but I still don't trust him."

"Got it. I'll stay back here."

Midnight turns and walks to the cockpit. Even though being a babysitter is only a little bit less boring than staking out a fast-food place, it's something. I take my seat on the bench opposite Chomp’s and buckle up as the cargo bay door rises.

W
e're only
a few minutes into the ride to the New Mexico facility, but already I don't like it. I can tell Midnight doesn't like it either. Everything is going too smoothly, and nothing ever goes smoothly in this line of work.

I'm seated in the back of the jet, still watching Chomp. He's sitting completely relaxed and motionless, but with his eyes fixated on me. Blinking comes about every minute or so.

"Two minutes out," Midnight says over the two-way earpieces hidden in each of our cowls. The cockpit is sealed off completely from the cargo area for security reasons. It has its own public announcement system, which Midnight could use to communicate with me, but he's playing it safe, using the earpieces instead. No need to give Chomp any more information than he needs.

"I've radioed ahead to the New Mexico facility, and they're preparing a cell. They're aware of his refusal to relinquish his metabands, so they're going to skip the usual formal processing procedure to get him secured and into a cell as quickly as possible. They don't like how easy any of this was either," Midnight says through the radio.

I feel a change in cabin pressure and airspeed. We're close and getting ready to come in for a landing. One of the nicer features of Midnight's jet is that vertical take offs and landings are no problem thanks to the main thrusters being on rotating swivels. This comes in handy when you've often got a roof to take off from instead of a runway.

It also means that we can come in high at close to full speed before rapidly descending into the compound, meaning we don't have to worry as much about an attack from the ground. And once we're near the facility itself, we can partially rely on their radar systems for increased visibility. No one is getting close to this thing without us seeing them coming.

"Do you know what my ability is?" Chomp asks.

It's the first time he's made so much as a peep since we picked him up, and it startles me. The jet is slowing to a stop. We're almost there, and he knows it. He's just trying to rattle me before he's put away forever. I ignore him.

"I asked you a question," he states plainly.

"Shut up," I say back, wishing there were windows back here so I could see how close we are.

"That's not very nice. It's that kind of attitude that's the reason no one's ever fully understood me."

"Yeah, I know what your ability is. You can bite through things. We're all very impressed. Right now the only way your ability is helping you is that it’s keeping us from stuffing something into your mouth to shut you up," I say, fidgeting in my seat as though that will somehow make us land sooner.

"But do you know
how
I'm able to bite through anything?"

"How far out are we?" I ask into my earpiece, ignoring Chomp and hoping for an encouraging answer.

The answer doesn't come from Midnight, but rather from the sound of the additional thrusters kicking in, meaning we're preparing to come down for a landing.

"I can bite through anything because I can control the density of my mouth, you see. That means I can make it harder and heavier than any element known to man."

"Fascinating," I reply sarcastically.

"I'm glad you think so. Maybe if someone with your sense of curiosity had caught me in the first place, they would have realized that the ability isn't just limited to my mouth."

I'm not looking at him when it happens, not directly. My gaze is still pointed at the front of the aircraft, where Midnight is, even if I can't see him. At first I almost don't even hear the sound over the jet's engines. It's the sound of straining steel and popping rivets, as if the jet’s engines are struggling to keep altitude.

"What's going on back there?" Midnight shouts into my ear over the radio.

I turn back to Chomp, but nothing's out of the ordinary. He's still just sitting there, still staring at me, except now with a smirk on his face. That's when I notice it. The bench he's sitting on, it's bowed, bending underneath his weight.

"Umm, I don't know, but we have to land now!" I shout back to Midnight.

"How about I race you there?" Chomp asks.

Before I can react, the cargo bay is ripped open. Air rushes in, sucking everything not strapped down out into the sky. The lights go out, and flashing red emergency lights come on, along with sirens. The jet tips violently to its right side.

My first thought is that we've been hit by a missile, but there was no explosion. I look back at Chomp again, but just as I do, he sinks through the floor of the jet, leaving only a huge gaping hole in the floor in his place. He's out.

There isn't time to think, only react. I dive through the hole after him amid the wailing emergency sirens and flashing red lights.

Head down, I plunge through the dark night sky with my eyes fixed on my target. He's making himself as aerodynamic as possible, and he has a few seconds’ head start on me, but there's no doubt in my mind that I'll catch up with him. It's stopping him that's another story.

"Midnight, are you okay?" I ask into my transponder.

"Don't worry about me. Just stop him," Midnight yells back to me through the noise on his end.

I glance back for a moment to check the condition of his jet. It's in a tailspin, black smoke pouring out from the hole I just dropped through. I consider turning around and getting Midnight out of there, but stopping Chomp is critical right now.

He must have an ejection seat or something along those lines,
I think to myself. That's when I see portions of his jet being jettisoned clear. Two at a time, damaged pieces of the jet are ejected from the core until there's little more than the cockpit left.

A twin pair of blade-like wings shoot out from either side of the cockpit area, and it begins to right itself, no longer plummeting toward earth and instead slowly pulling itself up into a horizontal glide.

He'll be fine, and I feel stupid for even worrying about him in the first place. Now back to the problem at hand.

When I turn back to Chomp, I have to quickly readjust my trajectory. He's changed his in the few seconds since I took my eyes off him, and now he's barreling directly toward the New Mexico facility. This is a new power to me, the ability to change the density of your entire body. I've never dealt with it before, and there are a lot of unknown variables. The faster I can catch up and get in front of him, the better position I'll have.

I yell in Chomp's direction for him to stop, but I'm wasting my breath. The only way to stop him is to get in front of him, so that's what I do. I push myself harder to rocket toward the earth as fast as I can and manage to get past him. I prepare myself as best I can for the impact, hoping that if I'm not strong enough to stop him, I can at least knock him off target. If he misses the facility, he'll be out of other options, and he's not going to want to see how pissed off Midnight is that his plane is broken.

Chomp hits me so fast and so hard that everything goes fuzzy. By the time the few seconds it takes for me to regain my bearings pass, it's already too late. My back smashes through the concrete and steel roof of the New Mexico facility. It sounds like a balloon being popped. There's barely a millisecond in between hitting the roof and hitting the ground. We tear through the facility like it was made out of wet toilet paper.

It isn't over yet, though. We're still falling, down through the Earth itself. I feel dirt and rocks pelting my shoulders, but only for a few seconds before it all turns to rock. I'm wishing I'd paid more attention in Earth science so I’d know what exactly we were hitting and how far down it goes.

I just barely manage to reach over Chomp's shoulder and get a look up at the tunnel the two of us have bored through the ground. At the end of it is a pinhole of light, and it's very far away.

"You have to stop!" I yell into Chomp's ear, but it's no use.

His eyes have gone vacant, and I don't think he can even hear me anymore. More earth pelts me on all sides. The pinhole of light isn't visible over his shoulder at this point.

I need to get out of here.

The rocks and debris smash into the back of my head as I struggle to get around Chomp's body so I'm no longer the one on the receiving end. It's pitch black and hot. Even without having paid much attention in science class, I know we're heading for trouble. I'm pretty sure that we're not just going to pop out on the other side of the planet and go get Chinese food for dinner.

Suddenly, there's light and open space all around us. The air is burning my lungs and smells like rotten eggs. Below me I see where the light is coming from: molten lava. Or is it magma when it's still underground? I always forget. Whatever it is, I'm pretty confident that I won't be able to withstand it.

I shout at Chomp one last time. This time I get his attention, but not in the way I'd like. His eyes snap open and he wraps both of his arms firmly around me, squeezing my body like a vise.

"If I'm not getting out of here, neither are you," he screams into my ear over the noise waiting for us below.

"Let go of me, and I can help you," I scream back.

"No, thanks," he says before he pulls me in tighter.

We're both heading for the molten rock and whatever's underneath it if I don't think of something quick. In an act of desperation, I twist my body with all my might and turn the tables on Chomp. Now it's his back that's heading straight for the magma. He just laughs, knowing that it won't matter much who hits first when we both splash down, but he forgets how quick I am.

I have to time it perfectly, but the instant Chomp's back hits the liquid fire, his grip loosens. There's only the blink of an eye between the loosening of his grip and when my body will hit the lava too, but I find it and push myself out of Chomp's hold.

Once it's over, I don't look back. There's no need to. And even with my powers, I'm not sure how much time I can spend down here. Better to focus on flying as fast and as high as I can instead of turning around, just in case.

Without light, I can't find the tunnel we made on our way down. I'm kicking toward the surface like I'm at the bottom of a pool rather than miles underground. Luckily, I can still sense which way is up and that's what I'll have to go by.

The rocks give way to rubble, and the rubble turns to dirt before, finally, the dirt turns into dry desert air. I fill my lungs with it, thinking for a minute there that I almost never had the chance to do it again. The fresh air quickly becomes tainted by the smell of smoke, though, and I turn around to find where it's coming from.

The New Mexico facility.