Meta (21 page)

  
"Sarah?" I ask.

  
Still nothing.

  
"Okay. I can see you want to be left alone. Sorry," I say and turn to leave.

  
"Do you think this was my fault?" she asks. I turn back.

  
"What?" I say.

  
"Do you think this was my fault? That maybe if I had been paying closer attention, I would have seen that little girl having trouble swimming sooner and gotten out there faster? That maybe then Brad wouldn't have come in after me?" she says, her bottom lip starting to quiver.

  
I take a few steps back towards her.

  
"No. I don't think that at all. What Brad did he was going to do regardless. Would that make it his fault in your mind?" I ask.

  
"No, of course not," she shoots back.

  
"Then how on Earth could it be yours? There's only one person whose fault it is, whatever that thing was that went after him last night," I say.

  
"Do you think it went after him because he bragged about possibly being Omni?" She asks.

  
"I don't know, it could have been anything. It could have been that monster from yesterday trying to finish the job," I say, but I know the truth. It was because he insinuated that he was Omni. The Controller's probably smart enough to realize that was just talk, but he decided he had to make sure. And why not? It's not like he cares if he's wrong.

  
"I just still can't believe it. He might have been an asshole sometimes but he didn't deserve this. And his poor sister especially didn't," Sarah says before becoming quiet again.

  
I couldn't have put it better myself. Brad didn't deserve this. No one does. And I need to find a way to make sure that no one ever has to again. At least not at the hands of The Controller.

  
I put my arm around Sarah, mostly because I've run out of things to say. It's not until she turns into my shoulder to cry that I don't feel slightly weird about doing it. I've liked her for so long, but these weren't the circumstances under which I'd always wanted to put my arm around her.

  
Looking over towards the rest of the employees gathered near the entrance I see now that they're all huddled closely together. Something has their attention. Jim's head pokes out from the cluster and looks around to find me. We lock eyes, and there's a quick look of surprise on his face at where I am and who my arm is around, before he waves frantically for me to come over and join the group.

  
"Hey," I say to Sarah, "it looks like something's going on. I'm gonna go check it out. Wanna come?"

  
"Sure," she sniffles as we both get up from the rock and start walking towards the group. As we approach there's a lot of commotion and people talking over one another. I ask the first person I see what's going on, a nice guy named John that works the concession booth sometimes and gives me extra fries.

  
"It's that Controller guy. He just posted a new video on ViewNow," John tells me.

  
"Start it over!" Yells a voice from the back. There's someone in the middle of the group huddle with their phone out. He drags the video scrubber back to the beginning and starts the video over. Everyone tries shushing each other to hear until someone yells, "Everyone shut up!" at the top of their lungs. That works and the video starts.

  
It's another video that consists of just a close-up of The Controller's masked face and darkness behind him.

  
"Poor, poor Brad Turner. He wanted the world to think he was Omni. He wanted to take the prestige of being America's newest, hottest metahuman didn't he? Unfortunately, there was only one way to really, truly find out if Brad was who he said he was. We tried beating it out of him, and he denied it. Said he was just trying to impress everyone. That sounded legitimate, but how can you ever really tell with these metahuman types, ya know? Maybe he was just bluffing so he could get to his metabands and take on my latest creation? That's when it hit me like a ton of bricks: Why I don't I drop a ton of bricks on his sister and see what he's really made of? Turns out, he's made of flesh and bone, just like she was, unfortunately for her," he says, before laughing maniacally at his own horrifically dark joke.

  
There's a whimper amongst the crowd. We hadn't heard the specifics of how Brad's sister had died. I swallowed hard to fight back the tears that had started welling up in my eyes.

  
"Believe me, it gave me no relief to kill that poor girl and maim that boy. No more pleasure than a little boy gets from pulling the wings off of a fly. Sure, it's fun, but it's not really fulfilling, ya know? Not like ripping the wings off of the real Omni. That's why I'm asking Omni to come out of hiding and be a man. Why let these innocents keep taking the fall for you? How many people have to die before you're brave enough to actually admit to the world who you really are?"

  
The screen goes black. The crowd starts murmuring amongst themselves. Many are furious at the video and the nature of The Controller's taunts, but others think he has a point. They ask why Omni doesn't reveal himself. How he lets someone like Brad pretend to be him. Maybe he didn't even have to reveal himself, just at the very least he could have let everyone know he wasn't Brad. That would have been easy enough, they argue. Brad didn't know any better, but Omni is a meta, he should have, they say.

  
And maybe they're right. Even with Brad hogging the spotlight, part of me was happy that the world thought they had Omni pegged. That would at least mean, they wouldn't keep looking for me maybe. Maybe that would mean Connor Connolly would be safe, and more importantly so would Derrick.

  
It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to have just walked back over to the lakefront yesterday with my metabands still active, still in costume, and prove that Brad wasn't Omni. Knowing what I know now, I would have done that in a heartbeat, but at the time it didn't make sense. This is all so confusing to me and it feels like the entire world is spinning.

  
"Are you okay?" Sarah asks me. I forgot that she was even next to me.

  
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just didn't get much sleep last night."

  
"I don't think any of us did. Tonight's not going to be any better," Sarah says.

  
"I think I need to go. Are you okay though?" I ask.

  
"Yeah, I'll be okay. My mom's coming to pick me up," she says.

  
"Good. Listen. Don't beat yourself up over any of this. It wasn't even remotely your fault. Okay?" I say. She doesn't respond and looks away from me.

  
"Okay?" I say louder.

  
Sarah's surprised at my assertiveness. I am too.

  
"Okay. Yeah," she says.

  
"If you need anything,
anything
, you know how to reach me," I say as I turn and walk back towards my car.

  
"Actually, I don't. I mean, I don't have your phone number or email address or anything," she says.

  
I turn and jog back, "Oh, right, yeah. Here, let me give it to you."

  
This wasn't how I hoped to finally get Sarah's phone number.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Upon getting home, I find that Derrick basically hasn’t moved from where he was yesterday, fixated in front of every media device he could find in the house.

  
"Day off?" I ask.

  
"I called out sick," he says.

  
Sigh. Of course he did. This is the kinda stuff he's obsessed with.

  
"How come you're not at work?" he asks before realizing why and answering his own question in his head. "Oh, right. Sorry. Is he a friend of yours?"

  
"No, he wasn't," I say. There's silence for a moment. Derrick has his back to me, and I can't tell if the silence is intentional, or if he's just engrossed in whatever the latest conspiracy theory is.

  
"Actually, he was an asshole to me," I say. This gets Derrick's attention, and he swivels his chair around.

  
"Oh?" he asks, looking at me for the first time since I came into the house.

  
"Yeah. A huge asshole actually. He's spent my entire time at high school here, trying to make my life hell. He went out of his way to do it. And why? Because I was different? Because I was an easy target? Because Mom and Dad died and that made me easy pickings?"

  
"Connor..," Derrick starts.

  
"And I warned him. I warned him! He went running into the lake when Sarah had that rescue one hundred percent under control. He was the one who told the lifeguard on shore to call it in to the police and EMTs. And why? For what? So he could have his name printed in the local paper that no one reads anyway!" I scream as I kick over the cheap composite board coffee table in our living room. I don't realize it, but I've started crying.

  
"Whoa. Calm down, Connor. Relax," Derrick says to me, as he rises out of his chair with his hands out. I've scared him.

  
"I'm sorry. Sorry," I say as I pick up the coffee table, place it back upright and begin picking up the items that were on it.

  
"It's alright. You're upset," he says.

  
"He didn't deserve what happened to him. And his sister especially did not deserve what happened to her. What gets me is that I know no matter what, he's going to blame himself for this. He didn't know what he was doing. He was just being cocky. There's no law against that. If The Controller wants to try to kill metahumans, that's fine, they can fend for themselves. He knew before he even got to that house that Brad wasn't Omni. He just wanted another excuse to kill. Another excuse to keep everyone afraid. To keep the chaos going."

  
Derrick comes over to help me pick up the items that flew off the coffee table. We both reach for the same picture frame. It's of the two of us, with Mom and Dad.
 
There's a moment of quiet recognition between the two of us before I let go and let him place the photograph back on the table. I get up off my knees and sit on the couch, my head resting between my hands.

  
"So, what are you going to do?" Derrick asks.

  
"What am I going to do?" I ask back.

  
"Yeah, what are you going to do?" he says.

  
"What am I supposed to do? The lake's reopening tomorrow, something about 'not letting the bad guys win' and opening as a show of patriotism. I'll probably go visit Brad in the hospital. I don't know," I say.

  
"No," Derrick says as he looks me dead in the eyes, "what are
you
going to do?"

  
He hasn't even said it yet and I know that he knows. The look in his eyes can mean only one thing, and that one thing is that he knows what I am. That he knows that I'm Omni.

  
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, but somehow this comes out more as an admission than a rebuttal.

  
Derrick's doesn't break eye contact with me. He can see right through me. He always could. I don't know why I ever thought this would have been any different.

  
"You do know what I'm talking about," he says.

  
I sit quietly, unaware of what to say. Unaware of how to not only convince him otherwise, but also not further incriminate myself. He starts laughing.

  
"Do you really think I'm that dumb?" he asks.

  
I don't respond.

  
"I'm obsessed with this stuff. I have been even before Mom and Dad died. You know all of that. I know more about metas that probably ninety-nine point nine percent of the people on Earth. Did you really think I wouldn't notice if one was sleeping twenty feet away from me every night?" he says. I'm speechless, but there's an overwhelming need to say something, anything.

  
"Derrick, I..," I begin before I'm cut off.

  
"It's fine. I understand. I mean, I don't fully understand, and I'm dying to know a million different things, and I know that families are always the first ones targeted. I know that you were trying to protect me by keeping this from me," he says.

  
I still don't have a response, but for the first time in the conversation, I feel like one isn't necessary.

  
"But I am going to ask you again, Connor: What are you going to do?"

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It's embarrassing how many tries it takes us, but eventually Derrick and I are both happy with the way the video's turned out. I kept flubbing my lines, or going off prompter and getting lost in what I was trying to say in the first place. Not to mention the fact that Derrick made me power up and back down five times just to watch how it happens.

  
In the end, we take the least worst of the bad takes and hit the upload button on his computer. The video we've made, or rather that he's 'directed' and I've 'starred' in, is a direct response to The Controller's latest. We tried to keep it short and sweet: If The Controller wanted me, he could have me. Just name the time and place. The only catch: I wanted him there. Not his creations, or monsters or whatever. Just him and me.

  
It was a public calling out I hoped he would take. All of his power came from the fact that he didn't have to actually ever put himself in danger. He could have been literally any place on Earth when he unleashed the horrors he turned on the world. Derrick agrees with the theory that the size and ferocity of the creatures The Controller creates is somewhat determined by his proximity to them. The further away the creature he created was from his physical location, the smaller and less complex it was bound to be.