Kismeta © 2006 by Rowan McBride. All rights reserved. This story may not be reproduced in whole or in part without author's permission.

*****

Conspiracy theorists believe it was a military experiment gone wrong. Most historians, however, believe that it was just an accident of nature, that the virus mutated on its own and then spread across the continents. Everyone was infected; the global pandemic left no one untouched.

But, at the time, no one really cared.

The symptoms were milder than that of a common cold. Some people missed a day or two of work, but no one died. After a few weeks, the pandemic resolved itself, and life continued as it always had.

No one noticed the subtle change the virus had wrought on the Y chromosome and, even if they had, there was no going back.

About four years after the virus, a new race of men emerged. We began to notice that a small percentage of children were maturing at extraordinary rates, both physically and mentally. They were so few that we didn’t view them as a threat, but these…meta-men, would come to rule everything.

They were stronger than us, so they dominated almost every sport imaginable.

They were smarter, so they got better jobs, were able to amass vast corporations.

When this was accomplished, they decided it was in the world’s best interest if they ran everything else as well.

We resisted, of course. War engulfed the planet. But the meta-men already had control of most computer systems, communications, resources. And their only weakness was water: something in their molecular structure caused them to suck them under when more than thirty percent of their bodies were submerged. Otherwise, they were totally invulnerable. Their impenetrable skin and the density of their muscles made sure of that.

We never did figure out how to use water against them.

I remember watching one of the more famous clips of the war over and over as a kid. A meta had arisen on a small island in the South Pacific. The dictator would not give up his people or his island. The official records state that the man was an insane tyrant who detonated those nuclear warheads in a desperate, mad effort to kill a single being.

That’s not right, you know. Yes, he was a dictator, but his people adored him. They begged him to push that button.

The news copters were there before the smoke even cleared. As the cameras zoomed in on the irradiated island, a single individual stood amongst the rubble.

Tall, proud. His clothes had burned away, but he was unharmed. His arms were akimbo as he stared back at the newscasters, utterly fearless. Other metas came, flew him off the island in planes designed to hold the added weight. In that moment, we all knew that they were unstoppable.

Three months. That’s how long it takes to lose a world.

My great-grandfather was just a boy, then. But he remembered a lot, told me all kinds of stories before he passed away, and linked me with his friends. To protect me, he’d said. If I ever needed it. Truthfully, I didn’t think I needed protection. As much as Pops would have hated to admit it, our lives were smooth. Safe. The metas were frightening but it was easy enough to stay out of their paths.

“Brian?”

I glanced up. “Yeah, Johnny?”

His dark eyes were filled with concern. My best friend since the second grade. “Why do you look so down? Today was a big day for you.”

I was supposed to be celebrating. One of my sculptures had been accepted into The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’d stood in front of it for hours, just taking it in. Steel whipped into an abstract vision of fluid power. There were no speeches, no fan fare. Art wasn’t exactly…an esteemed use of time anymore. But then, maybe it never was. If it weren’t for the endorsements I had earned as an athlete, and the meager investments I’d made after that, I wouldn’t have been able to pay my rent this month. “Was thinking about Pops. He always loved the Met.”

Johnny, along with the other three guys at the table, fell quiet. They were all my friends from way back, but Johnny was the only one who’d known my great-grandfather.

Not wanting to bring them down, I broke into a grin and raised my bottle of beer. “To the Met.”

They laughed, clinked their bottles with mine.

Trent, who was sitting right across from me, slowly lowered his bottle. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

We all followed his gaze; I twisted around in my chair. My breath stalled and my heart slammed into my chest trying to get it going again.

A meta had walked into Sam’s Tavern.

Instinctively, I leaned forward. We were on the mezzanine, and I gripped the railing until my fingers turned white.

I’d never seen one so close before. They were everywhere in the media—papers, magazines, TV. But the average human avoided them if they could, even on the street. It was just common sense.

God, he was beautiful.

Jet black hair, fathomless dark eyes. He wore a pair of black tailored slacks, but his bronzed chest was completely bare. Metas never wore shirts—they didn’t need the protection from the elements—and their developed torsos had become a universal symbol of masculinity.

He had to be just over seven feet tall. His shoulders looked broad and powerful, even though his hands were tucked into his pockets. One of the physical anomalies of a meta were their abdominal muscles. Instead of a six- or eight-pack, they had ten. My great-grandfather had thought the trait freakish, but I—like the rest of my generation—couldn’t tear my gaze away from all that carved muscle.

“Jesus,” whispered Trent. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“Shhh,” hissed Mark, another of my friends. “You know how good their hearing is. You don’t want to get busted for disrespect.”

Failing to show proper respect to a meta could land you up to five years in jail. But really, I was with Trent. Sam’s Tavern was a hole in the wall bar. That was its chief appeal. Metas did not frequent hole in the wall bars.

Patrick, the last guy at the table, spoke softly. “He’s looking for something. You don’t think… You don’t think he’s hunting down his mate?”

“What are the odds of that?” asked Mark. “He’s probably just looking for sex.”

Mark was right. Reluctantly, I turned around, went back to nursing my beer. I knew I was safe from being taken as a mate, or from any sexual interlude with a meta. Attractive was big. Attractive was tall. Attractive was a body bursting with muscle.

I was not attractive.

“Stop staring,” I told them, although I knew such a thing was very, very hard to accomplish. “We’re here to sing my praises, right?”

They grinned, went back to their nachos and beer. We talked about safer things, tried to ignore the meta in our midst. In minutes they had me laughing again, and the sadness of Pop’s passing slipped away.

Trent had just ordered us another round when everyone at the table stiffened.

I looked up. “What’s—”

A pair of long, thick arms slipped around my body, engulfing me in their hold. The sheer size of them told me it had to be the meta, and I stopped breathing again. The tip of his nose glided up the curve of my neck, and I could hear a smile in his voice. “There you are. I’ve spent half the day tracking you through the city.”

My eyes rounded as I realized I’d forgotten one, vital fact about metas.

They chose their mates by scent.