Meta (16 page)

  
Beach duty means meticulously combing the beach for garbage and making sure the beach is clean enough that you could eat off it. I mean, you couldn't really ever eat off it, because of the sand and whatnot, but you know what I mean. In reality, beach duty really means lazily meandering around the beach with a garbage picker and occasionally putting a cigarette butt in the bucket you carry along with you. It's still far from glamorous, but all in all, it's not bad for what is otherwise a pretty terrible job.

  
The other main perk of this otherwise thankless job for a lot of the guys, is that it affords you a near perfect opportunity to ogle half-naked girls sunbathing on the beach. You'd be amazed at how diligently some of the other guys will work to find cigarette butts that just happened to be within a five-foot radius of an attractive young woman wearing a very small bikini.

  
"Nice butt," I hear a voice say behind me.

  
I turn around. It's Sarah. Luckily I'm pretty sunburned from working outside all day, so she can't tell that my face has immediately become completely flush. She's wearing a bikini, because of course she's wearing a bikini, that's the only way to make me possibly feel more awkward and stumble over every single word I say.

  
"That's a really gross one. Pink lipstick on it and everything. Yech," she says.

  
Ohhhh. She's talking about the
cigarette
butt that I'm picking up for minimum wage. Whew. For a second there, I thought I was being hit on by the girl I have a pathetically huge crush on! How horrible that would have been.

  
"Yeah, it's a good one all right. I think I'll keep it for my private collection," I say.

  
Okay. That was a little too creepy. Reel it in a little bit, Casanova.

  
"How's it going?" she asks.

  
"Pretty good. I was cleaning toilets earlier, so this is kinda like a mini-vacation for me."

  
"Ha. I have to go up in the chair in a little bit, but thought I'd try to get some sun in the meantime. I see you're ahead of me on that front today," she says, referring to my red face. "Hey, did you see that video of this Omni guy from yesterday?" she asks.

  
"No, I haven't," I tell her honestly. "Wait, 'Omni'?"

  
"Oh man. It's insane. Hold on, let me show you."

  
She pulls out her smartphone and taps the screen a few times.

  
"Look," Sarah says as she hands me her phone.

  
It's a shot from a helicopter but very far away. I don't remember a helicopter being anywhere nearby but from the looks of it this one stayed a good safe distance from the fight. Plus, I was a little too preoccupied at the time with the gigantic dragon to notice something as pedestrian as a helicopter. Presumably it was in the area and came to get a closer look when the airline pilot called in the meta sighting.

  
At first, you can barely see anything other than two dots falling through the air, but then the lens changes. Suddenly you can see both of us clear as day. Whoever was operating this camera did a hell of a job following us all the way to the ground, capturing my teleportation and inevitable defeat of the winged beast. I'm unable to contain a smirk watching the footage. It is pretty badass, I have to admit.

  
"Isn't that badass?" Sarah asks me.

  
"Yeah, totally. I thought you said he was overrated?" I ask her. I should win an Oscar for this performance. "And since when did they start calling him Omni?"

  
"You haven't heard the name Omni? What have you been living under a rock or something?"

  
"Did you not hear before when I mentioned that my life currently consists mostly of maintaining toilets?"

  
"The news kept referring to him as some type of 'omni-meta', since he seems to be able to harness more powers than usual from his bands. Eventually, it just started getting shortened to Omni," she says.

  
Omni? What kind of name is that? I don't even get to pick my own superhero name? I don't like this deal. This is what I get for putting a big dumb 'O' on my chest.

  
"Wow. Okay. Yeah, I just hadn't heard they'd given him a name yet. I guess that's a pretty cool name though.
Omni.
Sounds like a name you'd give to someone that incredible I guess," I say, possibly laying it on a little too thick.

  
"Plus, now that we've got a better look at him, I gotta say he's pretty hot," she says.

  
"Yeah, he is pretty hot," I say. Wait. Too far.

  
There's an awkward silence.

  
"I mean, if you are into muscle guys. I'm not," I say. I'm not helping my case. "Or guys at all. If you're into guys at all, then yeah I could see how he's hot. I'm not into guys, but if I were, I could see how you would think he's hot. I mean, I know you're into guys, I'm just saying I'm not into guys."

  
This is getting away from me. Me think thou doth protest too much.

  
"What I mean to say is that yes, he's an attractive man and I'm secure enough in my own masculinity to admit that, but personally I prefer women. I find you very attractive, for example."

  
Ugh. What am I doing? I need to just shut up. Shut up, mouth. Sarah blushes.

  
A scream rings out across the beachfront, "Connolly!"

  
I spin around instinctively. It's Jeff. I'm so happy to see him and have him save me from this situation, that I could kiss him. Obviously I wouldn't because that would just confuse the matter even further with Sarah.

  
"Duty calls," I say to her. "Get it? Duty. Doody. Because I clean bathrooms. Okay, I'm gonna go. See you later.”

  
"Bye," Sarah laughs. It's a friendly laugh. A flirtatious laugh?

  
"Connolly!" Jeff yells again, even louder this time.

  
I run over towards him.

  
"Sorry Jeff, I didn't hear you," I lie.

  
"What, have you got shit in your ears? Because I'll tell you another place that's full of shit, and that's the third stall in the men's room. It is absolutely clogged to the brim. Whoever was in there really should see a doctor, but that's not my concern.
My
concern is telling you about it so you can go get a plunger and take care of it," he tells me.

  
Ah, the joys of this job never cease. Jeff turns and walks away from me to go do whatever it is that Jeff does when he's not yelling at me. Yelling at someone else I guess? It doesn't matter. The plungers aren't kept in the bathroom with the other supplies of course, because some kid suctioned one of them onto another kid's face one day, which means I've got to go to the tool shed on the other side of the lake.

  
I reach the shed and unlock it, using the key from the office. There's a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling to light the tiny shed. I reach for it and pull the string. It clicks, but nothing. Great. Now I've got to try to find a plunger in the pitch darkness of this dank, musty shed. Maybe I can use my phone to at least give me some light, I think and I reach into my pocket to grab it.

  
As I pull the phone out of my pocket I'm grabbed from behind and thrust headfirst into the wall. Fight or flight kicks in as I instinctively thrust both of my arms out and my metabands appear. Without a second's thought I bring them together as hard as I can to activate them. Just as they are about to meet each other, an arm reaches past my face from behind and a hand blocks the two bands from meeting. A black gloved hand. A hand I know.

  
I turn around and ever so faintly in the dark can see the two white lights of Midnight's optically enhanced eyes.

  
"Oh God, it's you. You scared the hell out of me. You can just call you know? Wait, did you clog that toilet just to get me out-" I begin to say before I'm interrupted.

  
"You were going to activate your powers. You had absolutely no idea who I was and you were going to activate your metabands and give up your identity without a moment's hesitation. What if I were just a mugger? Someone trying to steal your wallet? A co-worker playing a prank? I would have known your identity. Then what?" he asks.

  
"It was instinct," I say.

  
"Instinct," he scoffs, "is that what you're calling it now? That instinct can get you and everyone you've ever cared about killed."

  
"Yeah well it didn't," I reply and move to turn away from him.

  
"Hey," he yells as he grabs me, "what the hell has gotten into you? Huh? You think you're above the rules now?"

  
"What rules? Your rules? I never agreed to your rules. You abandoned me in the middle of my training while metas are out there getting killed by this Controller guy, and I'm supposed to just sit here cleaning and waiting for you to come back, hoping that he doesn't come to kill me in the meantime? I need to figure out these powers, and I don't have the luxury of doing it on your timetable all right?"

  
There's silence.

  
"You don't know what it's like. Hearing all of these reports on the news. What am I supposed to do? Just wait around until I'm in the middle of it and hope that I can learn how to use my abilities on the fly? Or worse, just ignore a crisis because according to you 'I'm not ready'?"

  
"If that means preventing you from getting yourself killed, then yes. That's what it means," he tells me.

  
"Well I don't think I can agree to that," I say.

  
"Fine. That's the way you want it, you've got it. You're on your own kid. Good luck."

  
The two white eyes I was speaking with close and there's nothing but darkness.

  
"Midnight?" I ask to no one. I pull my phone out of my pocket and turn on the light to shine it around the shed.

  
It's empty.

  
He's gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I get home later than usual that night thanks to the clogged toilet which meant falling behind on everything else I was scheduled to take care of at the lake that day. There's a note on the kitchen table from Derrick:

  
"Went out. There's pizza in the fridge. Don't eat all of it."

  
I take two slices of pizza out of the fridge and put them in the microwave. I'm so hungry that they spend more time in the microwave than on the kitchen table I think. After gorging myself, I peel off my sweat stained t-shirt and head for the shower. It feels good to wash off that day's grime and it gives me a chance to be completely alone and think.

  
Maybe Midnight is right. I'm anxious to learn all of the new abilities that the metabands grant me, but maybe there is something to be said for taking my time. Every time I'm seen in public as Omni, is another chance for The Controller to learn more about me. If I'm not careful he might learn enough to hit me without warning, and before I'm fully prepared. I'm not sure what he wants, but I have a bad feeling that whatever it is, it is eventually going to come down between the two of us.

  
I finish my shower and wrap myself in a towel, still deep in thought about the past two days. Midnight is a lot of things but above all, he's smart. And calculating. I might be technically more powerful than he could ever hope to be, but he's got more than a decade on me as far as knowledge about this kind of stuff. If he doesn't think I'm ready then maybe there is actually a reason. He's not exactly the most forthcoming person though.

  
At the end of the day, he's my strongest ally. Actually he's my only ally. The only person on Earth, or anywhere else for that matter, that knows Connor Connolly and Omni are one and the same. And even though he can be a huge pain in the ass, he's also doing everything he possibly can to help me make sure that he remains the only person on Earth who knows that. He owes nothing to me, yet he took me under his wing without a second thought. Well, first he threatened to torture me I guess but after that, it was all pretty much smooth sailing, until I stopped following his instructions.

  
I owe him. More than owe him. I need him. I don't know how to do any of this and learning it on my own through trial and error will ultimately take me even more time, not to mention be infinitely more dangerous.

  
I pull a t-shirt, underwear and shorts out of my closet and put them on. I feel fresh. My mind feels clearer. Without any thought my metabands appear on my wrists almost on their own. I strike them together and become Omni, and teleport to the rooftop where I first met Midnight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

There's no sign of Midnight here, but I didn't expect there to be. He can't actually, really be gone. Can he?

  
I pace the rooftop trying to come to grips with the idea that I actually truly am alone now. I've pushed away the one person who knew my secret and had even the remotest idea of what I'm going through. Stupid.

  
The night seems so peaceful up here. It's late now and the streets are empty. The freeway in the distance and the hum of the street lights provide the only ambient noise the city has to offer tonight. That and the footsteps of a drunk twelve stories below me, stumbling home after last call.

  
"Have you got the time?" A voice asks through the quietness.

  
"I dun haf ah watch," the drunk replies.

  
"That's all right, I'll just take your wallet then," the voice says, with the click of a gun's hammer being pulled back.