Meta (19 page)

  
And with that, we head into the storage room to grab our garbage pickers.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It's hot today. Really, really hot. My mood has quickly soured after being stuck in the sun for four hours, combing a crowded beach in search of cigarette butts. Not only does the heat mean nearly unbearable work conditions, it also means more people come down to the lake to cool off, which means more garbage. More garbage and hotter sun means stinkier garbage, which means unhappier Connor. I have to admit that it's still always nice to have a somewhat mindless activity that lets me give some thought to what happened last night.

  
I don't even know anything about this girl. Is she even a "girl" or is she a "woman"? It's almost impossible to tell with the suits on. She's definitely cute, whichever she is.

  
"Connolly!" Jeff screams at me.

  
Yup. I've definitely just been standing here
next
to a garbage can for a good ten minutes or so, instead of
emptying
the garbage, which is my job. My bad.

  
"Sorry! On it," I yell back to Jeff across the beach as I start tying up the garbage bag inside the can. There's another scream from across the beach. I begin to turn around to tell Jeff that I heard him the first time, when I realize the scream isn't coming from the same place. It's coming from the water.

  
I can see splashing about a hundred feet from the shore. It's a little girl who's gone out too far. Before I can even process the thought about whether or not I should do something, I see Sarah jumping off of her lifeguard stand and diving into the water. She'll get to this little girl way before I do, considering I can't exactly power up my metabands in the middle of a crowded beach.

  
"Call it in! I'm going!" Brad yells behind him to Jeff as he runs towards me.

  
Call it in? The rescue? No! It can't be called in. If it's called in, The Controller might hear it over the police scanner. This is too perfect of a target for him to pass up. The hottest day of the summer, a beach literally packed with people, and the chaos of a potential drowning victim.

  
I grab Brad as he comes past me.

  
"What are you doing? Sarah's got it. There's no need to call it in yet," I say.

  
Brad pulls his arm free from my grasp.

  
"Who the hell do you think you are? This is
my
lake and if there's a save,
I'm
involved. And if
I'm
involved, then I spare no expense," he says.

  
I ignore the fact that the expense of an ambulance actually falls on the taxpayer and/or victim, not him, and try to plead with him again.

  
"But if you make a big scene out of this, the news crews might show up, and if they do, this Controller guy might get the idea that this is a good place to stage an attack."

  
"You really think the news might show up? I gotta get in there then," he says with a wink.

  
That couldn't have possibly backfired on me worse.

  
And with that, he runs to the beach and dives headfirst into the lake. Sarah has already reached the drowning girl and is calming her down as she carries her back towards the shore. She just got in a little too deep over her head and needed help. That's all. Nothing to see here.

  
I spoke too soon, because now, there is in fact, something to see here. Something absolutely insane to see here. A twelve foot tall, half-fish, half-man emerging from the lake behind Sarah, Brad and the little girl and heading straight for them.

  
Looks like I am going to have to get involved after all.

  
There's absolute mayhem on the beach as everyone with half a brain runs screaming from the water. I turn and run with them, but my destination isn't the gate leading to the parking lot, it's the broom closet. On my way there, my right arm is grabbed. I look up and see Jim's face. He's terrified.

  
"Where are you going?" he asks me.

  
For a moment, I almost forget to lie to him.

  
"Where do you think I'm going? As far away from that thing as possible!" I say.

  
"But what about the three of them?" he asks, pointing to Sarah, Brad and the little girl who the Merman is quickly getting closer to. I don't know what to say. There's nothing Connor Connolly can do to help them, but there's also no way for me to not look like a complete coward right now.

  
"I'm going to call the police!"
 

  
"Someone's already called them!"
 

  
"Who?" I ask.

  
"I don't know, someone. I'm sure."

  
"That's what everyone always assumes in a crisis; that someone else called 911. Well, I'm not making that assumption!" I pull my arm back away from his grip and continue running up the beach. I look like the most heroic stickler for the rules the world has ever seen.

  
I can hear the surge of water the giant Merman is creating from behind me, even as I keep my singular focus on making it to that supply closet and away from the prying eyes of an old woman shuffling past. I turn to look to the sky for just a moment, wondering if Iris, or honestly, any other meta is going to show up to help. Nothing. I'm on my own.

  
I reach the supply closet and in one fluid movement slam the door behind me, thrust out my wrists to summon my metabands, and bring them together to activate my powers and my identity obscuring costume. To everyone outside, I look like a cowardly garbageman interested in nothing more than saving my own skin, and that's fine. It's not fine for Connor Connolly, but it's more than fine for Omni, if 'he' wants to stay anonymous.

  
Since it might be a little suspicious if I come right back out of this supply closet in full metahuman garb, I instead choose to teleport myself about a thousand feet above the lake. Just enough distance to get up to speed before slamming fists first into the Merman. And since he's just a creation of The Controller's mind, there's absolutely no need to not be running my metabands at full capacity.

  
It's almost reached Sarah, Brad and the child when I get to it. They're in waist deep water, and Brad turns to face the beast. I give him credit for having guts, even if it is massively, massively stupid to think he could stand a chance against this thing. He hits it in its belly with his fist, and it just laughs. A horrible, gurgling laugh. The laugh suddenly stops as it raises its fist to deliver what would surely be a deathblow to Brad. Luckily for Brad and unluckily for the Merman, we'll never know, because that is exactly when I strike from above, driving the Merman a hundred feet into the sand and mud below the lake.

  
The Merman goes limp. It looks completely lifeless. That seemed almost too easy, but I guess I have had a lot more experience since the last time I had to fight one of these things. Plus, a Merman? Come on. That's hardly as terrifying as a dragon. I begin to make my way back towards the surface. There's probably going to be a lot of news cameras, photographers, journalists there now, I assume. Well, I guess that just goes with the territory. Something I, rather
Omni,
is going to have to get used to. I wonder if I can get paid for these appearances?

  
That's the thought going through my head when I feel a webbed, slimy hand grab my ankle and pull. It's not just pulling me towards it, it's pulling me along with it. Deeper and deeper into the lake. Turns out, this Merman wasn't dead at all. I'm as surprised as you are.

  
Wherever we're going, we're going there fast. This wouldn't be that big of a problem, save for one thing: as far as I know, I do not have the ability to breathe water. I might, but now would be a terrible time to figure that out.

  
As we travel deeper and deeper into the lake, it's becoming darker around me. I'm not sure if it's just because there's less sunlight penetrating the lake's surface at this depth, or that I'm slowly blacking out. My guess would be a little from column A, a little from column B. Whatever the case, this thing is faster underwater than I am, and I can't fight it, even if I were at full power, which I'm not, considering I'm about to pass out.

  
There's one chance. Teleporting. I look at my metaband and think "battery status". To my surprise that works. To my horror my battery is incredibly low. Like most electronics, they probably don't like water. It's good to know that some things never change. Actually it's not good to know, when that thing that never changes is about to get you killed.

  
If I can teleport still, which I'm beginning to doubt, it's not going to be far. I can't waste the little power I have remaining, trying to teleport me and this thing to the North Pole. It has to be closer than that. Teleporting to the parking lot of the lake itself is too risky. Everyone is still evacuating, and the chance of both of us ending up on top of and crushing someone's SUV, is just too great. So I think of the closest place that pops into my mind: the parking lot of the Italian restaurant that's not far from the lakefront's own lot.

  
The restaurant is a thinly veiled front for low level organized crime, which means they don't actually ever have any customers, which also means it's perfect. I picture it in my mind's eye, and suddenly we're there. Myself and Mr. Merman.

  
I gasp for air and start coughing, but I'm quick to get back onto my feet. I might have just saved my own skin but this isn't over yet. I still need to neutralize this very real threat, or else it's bound to head right back to where I brought it from. If anything, I've made the situation even more dangerous, since I've teleported this horrific monster right to the point where all the fleeing would-be victims will soon be pouring through.

  
With both fists up in a fighter's stance, I turn to face my opponent, ready for anything that comes at me. Instead what comes at me, is the last thing I expect.

  
The Merman is on its back on the hot black pavement which has just recently been tarred. He flops back and forth, gasping like, well, like a fish out of water. He must weigh eight hundred pounds, but he reacts to lying on the hot pavement the same way a goldfish would. Within twenty seconds it's over. He's dead and slowly fades away from reality, like all of The Controller's creatures.

  
While it's somewhat anticlimactic, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't relieved that I wasn't about to have to fight a mythical creature for the second or third time this week. Taking a quick look around, it's obvious that absolutely no one saw any of this happen. The Italian restaurant only opens for dinner (remember, it's not a
real
restaurant), and we're a couple of hundred yards across the parking lot from the lakefront itself, where all attention is turned towards the lake, not towards the closed Italian restaurant.

  
Before anyone notices what's happened, I bring my wrists together and power down my metabands. I take another quick look around. Nothing. Nobody. Then without warning, I'm doubling over and throwing up about a gallon of lake water. Whoops. Guess maybe I should have left my metabands active a little bit longer to deal with that. Wiping the remaining lake water away from my mouth with the bottom of my t-shirt, I start my walk back to the lakefront.

  
Once I reach the main gate, it's nearly impossible to make my way through the throngs of police and reporters. Satellite trucks outnumber regular cars in the parking lot. A police officer stops me at the gate. I point to the lakefront logo on my lake water soaked shirt and he lets me through. The place is an absolute circus, and at the center of it is Brad.

  
An attractive young female reporter from one of the twenty-four hour meta news channels is in front of him with a microphone. A cameraman is a few feet in front of both of them, his lens trained on the pair.

  
"We're here with Brad Turner, the brave lifeguard who, against all odds, rescued a young girl today from the clutches of one of The Controller's latest monstrosities," the reporter says into the camera.

  
What? Brad? Brad didn't save anyone! Sarah saved that girl, and if it wasn't for Brad's attempt to upstage her and put everyone's lives at risk, that monster wouldn't have even showed up! I'm not even thinking when my legs start to walk on their own towards the camera. A hand clamps down on my shoulder and stops me. I turn around and see that it's Jim.

  
"Don't man, it's not worth it," he says.

  
"What's not worth it?"

  
"Going over there and making a scene on camera. It's not worth it. We all know that Brad caused that thing to appear by making the situation worse, but you're never going to be able to convince anyone of that. All you're going to do is come across as a maniac on national television, attempting to deride someone who is now thought of as a hero," Jim says.

  
He's right. There's nothing I can do. There's especially nothing I can do if I'm intent on keeping my identity a secret. It's not worth it. Brad gets the glory for creating the dangerous situation in the first place. Fine. It won't last. The twenty-four hour news cycle will spit him back out when the next big story hits. I turn back to the reporter and Brad to listen to the sham of an interview.

  
"Now Brad, I know you're being modest here, and obviously you're the hero today, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't bring this up: some people on the scene here say that they believe they briefly saw the metahuman Omni appear..." She begins.

  
All right. At least
someone
has the common sense to realize that this bonehead didn't fight off a metahuman-created monster all by himself. I feel better already.