Meta (12 page)

  
Whoops. Turns out it's not a horrific monster or a meta-enhanced super villain. In fact, it's the girl I have an embarrassingly large crush on. And I've just scared the ever-loving crap out of her.

  
"You scared the ever-loving crap out of me!" she says.

  
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry," I plead.

  
"No, it's my fault. I was just trying to kid around. I saw you park, my car's right behind yours," she says.

  
"Ugh, I'm so embarrassed. I'm sorry again. I'm just on edge a little bit, you know. First day at the new job. Haven't really been sleeping all that much," I try to explain.

  
"Don't worry about it. I haven't been sleeping much lately either. I was absolutely glued to the news and ViewNow last night, watching all this new metahuman stuff. It's insane isn't it? I mean, we're barely old enough to remember that first wave of metas, but-"

  
She trails off. There's silence between us for a moment, before I realize that she's just remembered the story of my parents and how they died.

  
"Oh. Oh. No. It's fine. Don't worry about it. That was a long time ago. I don't really associate metas with... that. I wouldn't be able to function if that were the case. Hell, you should see my brother. He's absolutely obsessed with metas. I don't think he's slept this week," I try to reassure her.

  
"Whew. Okay. I thought I'd just stuck my entire foot in my mouth. I have a tendency to do that sometimes," she explains.

  
I already know she has a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth. It's not just sometimes, it's kinda all the time. It's also kinda adorable.

  
"Have you heard about this new meta that trashed downtown last night?" she asks.

  
There's a definite smirk on my face. Shit. Eh, whatever.

  
"Yeah. Yes. Yes. I have," I stutter.

  
We begin walking together towards the gate to the lake area.

  
"What's your take?" she asks.

  
"My take? Oh. Uh. I dunno. Seems like he's a pretty good guy. I saw some of that footage from last night, and it seems like he did a pretty good job taking out whatever that thing was," I say.

  
"Eh. I think he's over-rated," she nonchalantly replies.

  
"What do you mean?" I ask, almost choking as I begin. Over-rated? They're super powers! What are they being rated against?
 

  
"I dunno. The media's going all gaga over him just because he's got a bunch of powers. There's lots of metas that have multiple powers, what makes him so special?" she asks, and it's not a bad point.

  
"That's fair, but it's not like he has any control over how the media portrays him," I argue.

  
"Whatever. I'm sure he's feeling very pleased with himself and smug about all of this," she says. "Anyway, excited about your first day here?"

  
"Me? Oh yeah. Super excited. Can't wait in fact," I say.

  
"Awesome. You're going to love it here. I had no idea you were even a lifeguard," she says.

  
Dammit.

  
"Oh. I'm not a lifeguard actually. I'm cleanup crew," I say.

  
There's a few steps of silence.

  
"Oh. Well, that's fun too, right? You're still outside! Well, I mean not when you're cleaning the toilets and stuff, but still. It's better than digging ditches," she says.

  
"Yup," I reply.

  
"I mean, there is some ditch digging, I guess, when you have to help out with the fire pits, but that's like maybe five percent of the job. Tops," she says, not making me feel any better.

  
We approach the entrance gate together and head inside the facility. The lake itself is private and only accessible to members who pay a yearly fee. In exchange, they receive access to all the amenities on offer, which include separate men and women's locker rooms, showers, a playground for kids, beach chairs, towel service, an exclusive members-only restaurant, etc. It's basically a notch below a country club, and all in all, not a bad place to spend the day. Unless that day is spent picking up garbage and cleaning toilets, naturally. But hey, at least I'm making exactly one dollar above minimum wage!

  
Sarah sees some old co-worker friends as we head in through the gates together and excuses herself to say hi to them. That'll probably be the last time I get to talk to her, let alone any of the lifeguards since they basically see themselves as a separate class from us cleaners.

  
"What the hell are you doing here?" A voice laughs behind me. I turn around and see that it's Brad Turner. Looks like I was wrong. I will get to talk to another lifeguard here. Awesome. Great.

  
"Hi Brad. I'm working here. I have a job here," I say.

  
"As a lifeguard?" He asks incredulously.

  
"No, as a cleaner," I reply.

  
"I know as a cleaner, you ass. You thought I really thought you could be a lifeguard?" This question makes him laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. I turn to walk towards the group that seems to be gathering for orientation. As I do, Brad grabs my shirt and pulls me in close to his face.

  
"Look. I know everyone thinks you’re some kind of hero or something for that little stunt in the woods, but I don't buy it. You didn't do shit and honestly, I think the whole thing stinks," he says.

  
"What do you mean?" I ask.

  
"You know what I mean," he says.

  
"No. I don't, actually," I reply.

  
"Just know that I've got my eye on you, loser. I don't buy into everyone else's garbage about you." And with that, he releases me from his meaty hands and walks towards the orientation group.

  
Whatever Brad's view of me is, it certainly does not gel with how the rest of the city sees me. I was 'famous' for being the regular human sidekick that helped save that little girl for exactly three seconds before the credit was given to the meta, and the news cycle moved onto the understandably more interesting story of the return of metahumans. Pointing this out isn't likely to change Brad's opinion of me. He's not exactly known for having an open mind.

  
I make my way over to the rest of the group of roughly fifty employees and find a seat on a bench. Everyone seems to know each other and are already deep into conversations. Everyone that is except me, of course. The new kid who got the job through his new crazy, masked vigilante friend hacking into a computer. I sarcastically think to myself how this summer is going to be just fantastic, when I feel a punch in the arm and hear the question, "What the hell are you doing here?" This is starting to get old now.

  
But I turn around and it's Jim! What a gigantic relief and the first actual nice surprise I've had in weeks now. I completely forgot that he works at the lake every summer.

  
"Hey man! I'm working here," I tell him.

  
"Really? That's great. Maybe that means I'll actually get to, you know, see and hang out with my friend once in a while now," he replies.

  
"Ugh. Yeah. Sorry about that. I've been-" I get out before he cuts me off.

  
"Don't worry about it. I know what... happened in the woods was pretty traumatic. I wasn't sure if you blamed me for us getting split up there, or what, so I thought I'd just leave you alone for a bit. Give you some breathing room," he tells me.

  
I hadn't even thought about the idea that Jim would think I was mad at him. The reality literally couldn't be further from the truth, but I can't exactly explain how my entire life has been turned upside down over the past few weeks.

  
"Oh, dude. Forget about it. I never thought that," I tell him.

  
"Whew. That is a huge relief. I thought you just never wanted to even see me again."

  
"Not at all."

  
"Great! So in that case: where the hell have you been?" he asks.

  
Whoops.

  
"Oh, you know. Just busy. Just trying to get everything back in order. I'm sure you heard about what happened at Electrotown," I say.

  
Sure, that was only a day ago and doesn't explain why I dropped off the face of the Earth before then, but at the very least, it's bound to change the subject.

  
"Oh my God. You were there?" he asks.

  
"Yeah. I thought you knew."

  
"No! I had no idea. Holy cow, man. You're having a rough couple of weeks."

  
"Ha. Yeah. A little bit," I try to laugh it off.

  
"Seriously though. That's really strange," he replies back.

  
Uh oh. I can practically see gears turning inside his head. Of course it's weird that I've been in two different places, where not only have there been deaths, but deaths caused by metahumans. The first metahumans anyone has seen in a decade. Yeah, I'd say that ranks pretty high up there on the coincidence chart.

  
"Hey!" A gruff voice yells at us. I've never been so happy to have someone yelling at me in my life. "I know taking out trash and cleaning toilets isn't rocket science gentlemen, but if you want to start getting a paycheck, I need you both to shut the hell up and pay attention for a goddamn minute."

  
This elicits a chuckle from the rest of the employees, most of whom have less demeaning jobs than Jim and myself this summer. The man yelling at us, I gather, is the general manager of the place, 'Big Jeff'. I remember Jim complaining to me about him last summer. Although he is indeed quite a large man, both in height and rotundness, I hadn't actually noticed his entrance, or the fact that he had started addressing the group. I guess I was too worried about my best friend possibly deducing that I was a metahuman within all of two minutes upon seeing me for the first time in days.

  
"Sorry," Jim apologizes to Jeff on behalf of both of us.

  
"Who are you?" Jeff asks, his eyes directed towards me.

  
"Connor. Connor Connolly," I reply.

  
"Never seen you before."

  
"It's my first summer here."

  
"Well you're off to a bad start. I've got my eye on you," he threatens.

  
Great. Another person with their eye on me. For years and years,
no one
had their eye on me, and now when I need to be invisible, everyone seems to have their eye on me. Jeff strikes me as more bark than bite, but all the same, his attention is the last thing I need. I'm here to earn some money this summer, get into better physical shape and hopefully fly under the radar as much as possible.

  
In a world that is teeming with cameras monitoring every corner of the globe, the lake is refreshingly old fashioned in that respect. No need for much security, since there's not much to steal. Sure, kids sneak in at night to go swimming, which is dangerous, but it's a big lake. If they didn't do it on this shore, there are thousands of feet of lakefront they could go to instead, so there's no point to having much security.

  
The orientation is predictably simple. Most of the other employees have been here summers in the past. Even crap jobs like mine are desirable because, hey, at least you're outside in the summer, right? Once someone secures a job at the lake they don't give it up easily, even after they've gone away to college.

  
The caste system at the lake is pretty simple too and doesn't take too long to figure out. At the top are the lifeguards. They get paid more than everybody else and basically can get away with absolute murder as long as they sit on a lifeguard stand when they're supposed to, which is approximately one-eighth of the day.

  
Below them are the people working the ticket booth at the front. While this is an extremely boring job where you are essentially isolated from the rest of the lake and its employees, it is also by far the absolute easiest job on Earth. Since entering the lakefront requires a membership, they don't even have to handle money. Literally, all they have to do is look at membership cards as members enter and make sure they're the right color for this year. That's it. A monkey could do it if you could teach a monkey about colors. And if it could talk I guess, but that's barely a prerequisite.

  
Under the booth workers are the concession stand employees. Flipping burgers, frying potatoes and scooping ice cream all day is by no means a cakewalk, but there are some perks. First off, they're the only employees who get to enjoy air conditioning. Secondly, they essentially get all the free food that they want. Not only that, but they control the supply of free food. Nothing makes a teenager more popular in a controlled environment like the lakefront, than the power to give someone a free cheeseburger if they deem him or her worthy.

  
Below them, and everyone else, is me and the rest of the cleaning crew. We're paid the least, have the worst hours, are outside in the hot sun pretty much all day, have the hardest work, and have to deal with everyone else's garbage. Literally. We not only have to collect, but also dispose of, any and all garbage on the lakefront grounds. When you have a place where hundreds of people are coming through every single day, they're going to produce
a lot
of trash. We deal with that trash.

  
But honestly, it isn't that bad. For the first few days there, I'm happy to be doing something mindless that, well, helps me keep my mind off of things. The meta sightings haven't slowed down, if anything they've ramped up but, thankfully, they've all been in other cities. I haven't heard from Midnight in a while, but he's the last person I'll ever have to worry about. It makes sense that he's not around now that Bay View City has stopped being such a hotbed for meta activity. This has also helped me adhere to his whole rule not to use my powers while he's away.