Worm

by wildbow

  “She asked me to turn out the lights on this end of her room. Said it would be easier if she can’t see us.”

  “Do it,” Coil ordered. He strode over to one of his squad captains and spoke in the man’s ear. Dinah thought she might have overheard something about night vision goggles. She closed her eyes, as if it could help shut out the pain that continued to tear through her skull.

  The pink of the light shining through her eyelids turned to black as the lights went out.

  “I’m sorry,” A girl’s voice whispered in Dinah’s ear. Sundancer?

  Dinah tried to answer, but her voice came out in a croak.

  “I’d help you if I could, but I can’t, you understand?” Sundancer whispered to her. She had her arms around Dinah. She smelled like barf, but that was Dinah’s fault. “It’s not just that my friends and I are in a bad spot, or having to help Noelle, or even that I don’t think I could save you on my own… We made a promise to each other, when everything began. Fuck, it sounds so stupid, sounds so lame, when I say it like that.”

  There was a crash nearby, the sound of metal on metal.

  Then a massive impact against the vault door made the room shudder.

  Sundancer kept talking, as if oblivious to the ongoing attack. “When you’ve been through hell and back again with a group of people, when you’ve all lost everything, and you collectively stand to lose more? I—I don’t even know what I’m saying. Maybe there’s no justification for letting you go through what you are. I just… they’re all I’ve got. I’m sorry.”

  Dinah reached up and fumbled around until she found Sundancer’s hand. She didn’t have a response, couldn’t speak if she’d been able to think of what to say. She just held the hand tight.

  A series of hits collided with the metal door. A roar rattled through the air, painfully loud despite the muffling effect of the intervening wall. It was a roar heavy with frustration and anger.

  There was the sound of guns cocking. She almost missed it in the midst of the steady, relentless crashes that came from the metal door.

  “I’m so hungry,” a girl’s voice echoed through the chamber. She’s close.

  “I know, Noelle,” Trickster answered. “Just a little while. Let’s go back to the other side, away from these people.”

  Noelle sounded like someone who was very, very tired. “Can’t wait. Can’t wait at all these days. I can smell them.”

  She wants food as badly as I want my ‘candy’, Dinah thought. The difference is that she can and will take what she wants, even if it means eating one of us. I don’t have that power.

  God, her head hurt. Worse, she knew this was the calm before the storm. Her head would hurt more with every passing hour until she wanted to die.

  “You can hold on,” Trickster said, his voice gentle. “You don’t want to come any closer than that. You know what your power does. None of us want that.”

  “No.”

  “And these guys, as good as they are, I can’t be positive that one of them won’t shoot you in a moment of panic. We don’t want that either.”

  “I’d live. Don’t want to, but I’d live.”

  “You would. But would I? Would Oliver and Marissa, if you went berserk? They’re in here too.”

  Sundancer spoke up, calling out, “Remember the promise we made together.”

  Noelle didn’t reply. The silence lingered, punctuated by the heavy blows on the metal door, echoing through the concrete chamber.

  “Come on, Noelle. Let’s go back, before you or someone else here does something they’ll regret,” Trickster urged.

  The banging continued.

  “Come with me, Krouse? We can talk alone?”

  “That sounds good,” Trickster said.

  Dinah felt the tension in the room ease. The pain in her skull didn’t get any better. She set about the tedious task of trying to reorganize the images in her head. Building a house of cards in an unpredictable wind. Every time the numbers changed, what she’d started to sort out fell apart.

  She’d have to wait until a period of calm before she made any real headway. The passage of time would help as well. Then it wouldn’t be so painful to use her ability.

  She got caught up in the painstaking operation, and it was some time before she realized the banging had stopped. Still, the gathered people in the room waited. Just in case Crawler was bluffing them, waiting until they opened the door.

  Long minutes passed before Coil gave the order.

  Dinah was blind. Her power too fragile and painful to use, so she couldn’t see the future that awaited them outside the door. Her heart pounded in her throat as the door was opened. The first squads moved out, fanning through the complex to find if Crawler was lurking in some corner of the underground base. They returned and gave the all-clear.

  Emerging from the gloom, she squinted in the face of the flourescent lights. Claw marks gouged the outside of the solid steel of the vault door, each at least half a foot deep. The catwalk had been torn down at one side of the complex, and innumerable boxes of weapons and supplies had been crushed or scattered across the floor.

  “Candy?” she asked. “My head hurts.”

  “You can have your candy, pet. Go to your room, I’ll call Pitter in and send him to you.”

  With her armed escort, she headed to her room. She collapsed gratefully on her bed.

  She knew she’d regret it, but she used her power. She had to know. It would be one more use, to hold her over, and she would stop using her power for the next few days, at least. Weeks, if Coil let her.

  She clutched her covers and bit her pillow as her head erupted with pain. More than half of the groundwork she’d so carefully laid in place over the past hour fell apart as she pulled the scenes into two groups. Minutes passed before she had her number.

  31.6%.

  More than four percent higher than it had been yesterday.

  Thirty-one point six percent chance she’d get to go home someday.

  Interlude 11g (Anniversary Bonus)

  A teenager with a red streak dyed into her dark hair strode down the street in rubber boots. Three hours past curfew, alone.

  She drew a smartphone from the pocket of her jacket, then set to untangling the earbuds. How did the damned things always get so knotted together? They were like Christmas lights. Not that she’d ever untangled Christmas lights, but she’d heard how Christmas lights got tangled.

  Popping the foam-covered buds into her ears, she began thumbing through the music as she walked.

  J’adore—

  Sweet Honey—

  Love me, love me, you know you wanna love me…

  Love me, love me, you know you wanna love me…

  Her head nodded in time with the beat, and she slipped the phone into her pocket.

  She supposed she could have bought something to coil up the cord of the earbuds, or replaced the music playlist instead of deleting everything that didn’t appeal. It wasn’t like she didn’t have money. It was an option. What stopped her was the fact that she had a pattern going. Everything she owned and everything she used day-to-day was stolen. The shirt on her back, her shoes, the music, her laptop. She kind of wanted to see how far she could get before she caved and actually bought something.

  Love me, you?

  Love me, true?

  Her boots splashed as she danced a little circle, murmuring the words. The light drizzle had wet her hair, and she pushed it back out of her face, stretched her arms out and let the raindrops fall against her closed eyelids.

  It wasn’t as though she was in a rush.

  She’d walked long enough for six songs to start and finish before someone stopped her.

  “Miss. Miss!” He was barely audible over her music.

  She turned and saw a man in military gear, forty-something, his face heavily lined. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, he had a short buzz cut, a bit of scruff on his cheeks and chin, and his face was beaded with droplets of water. She pulled out her earbuds. />
  Crazed, kooky, cracked, crazy,

  Nutty, barmy, mad for me…

  The crooning sounded artificial coming from the earbuds that dangled from her hand, nasal.

  “What’s up?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m excellent.”

  “There’s a curfew during the state of emergency. I don’t want to scare you too badly, miss, but there’re rape gangs, murderers and human traffickers on the street. All people who would prey on a pretty young woman.”

  “You think I’m pretty?” She smiled, stepping closer.

  “I have a daughter about your age,” he replied, smiling tightly.

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Do you think I’m pretty?” She stepped even closer, ran her finger down his chest.

  “Yes, but—” he paused, gripping both sides of her jacket. He pulled the jacket together, then did up her zipper all the way to the top, around the heavy box that dangled around her neck. “That’s all the more reason for you to be careful, understand? Do you have a home or a shelter you’re staying at?”

  She didn’t reply. Her brows knit together and she undid her jacket and stepped away from him.

  He went on, “I can give you directions to the nearest shelter if you want. It’s new, just a little ways up Lord Street here. There may be space.”

  “I’m staying with some people.”

  “Do you need directions?”

  She didn’t reply. She studied him instead.

  “If you’re willing to wait, I can give you a ride when I’m done here. I’ll get relieved in five or ten minutes, but we could talk in the meantime. You can sit in my jeep, and you’ll be dry.”

  She hesitated. “Fine.”

  The man led her back to his jeep. She sat in the passenger seat while he stood outside, his eyes on the surroundings, occasionally exchanging words with the person or people on the other end of his walkie-talkie.

  After a few minutes, he climbed into the driver’s seat. “The men who were supposed to take over the watch are late. Something about fires downtown.”

  She nodded.

  Crazed, kooky, cracked, crazy,

  Mental, dotty, whacked, loopy…

  “Do you mind turning off your music?”

  “I like it,” she said. “I hate silence.”

  “Well, I’m not about to deny someone their coping mechanisms. Where do you live, or where did you live, before the attack?”

  “Out of town.”

  He raised one eyebrow, but he kept looking out the windows for possible trouble. He put the key in the ignition and started the car so he could use the windshield wipers. “Sounds like there’s a story there. People don’t just come into town at a time like this, and if you were just visiting, you would have evacuated already.”

  “Oh, we’re visiting because it’s a time like this,” she smiled.

  “Thrill seeking?” his voice hardened. “That’s not only stupid, it’s disrespectful.”

  “The people I’m staying with? They’re the Slaughterhouse Nine. I’m one of them.”

  “That’s not funny.” His voice went hard, any gentleness gone.

  “It’s really not,” she agreed with a smile.

  He went for his gun, but he didn’t get that far. She closed her eyes for a moment, listened for the music that came from his mind and body. The jangling, dissonant noise of alarm, the throbbing percussion of mortal fear, every part of his body shifting into fight or flight mode. The underlying notes spoke to his personality. His love of his family, his fear that he was about to leave them behind, anger towards her, a momentary anxiety that he was overreacting. She grasped this in the fraction of a second.

  Reaching for that mortal fear, she wrenched it. When that wasn’t quite enough, she pulled at it and twisted it until everything else was squeezed into the far edges.

  He screamed, throwing himself as far away from her as he could get, his weapon falling between the seats.

  Crazed, kooky, cracked, crazy,

  Nutty, screwy, mentally diseased…

  She twisted other parts of his emotional makeup until he was compliant, adrift in apathy, obedient. “Stay.”

  He stopped retreating. He was still breathing hard from his momentary panic, but that would pass.

  She leaned towards him and ran her hand along the top of his head. It was like rubbing a toothbrush, spraying minuscule bits of water onto the wheel and dashboard.

  “Good.”

  He stared at her. There was fear in the look, and she didn’t have the heart to erase all of it. A little was good.

  “I want to drive. Switch seats with me.”

  He nodded dumbly and climbed out of the jeep. She made her way over to the driver’s seat, then waited for him to climb in before she peeled out.

  The jeep cut through the shallow water that covered the roads. Others had noticed her leaving, she knew, and were following in their own vehicle. She could sense them, each a fingerprint of emotions in deeply individual configurations. The mix of personal pride and confidence that she sensed in them suggested they were military. The soldiers that had been taking over for this guy?

  Not much time to do it. She searched through the feelings of her passenger, found the networks of brotherly love, trust, camaraderie, and adjusted each until the music was one of tension, suspicion, paranoia. Then she set his fight or flight reflexes into high gear.

  “Get the gun.”

  He fished for it between the seats, picked it up.

  Then he pointed the gun at her.

  “No, stop,” she said. Too unspecific. Fuck. Still need to work on that. She hit him with as much doubt and indecision as she could manage to keep him from shooting her. Then she stalled all of the ‘music’ that flowed to and from that one point in the very front of his brain. She knew the music was her way of understanding and interpreting the biological processes that drove people’s emotions. By listening for it, she knew what they felt, knew what the emotions were tied to, vaguely.

  There would only be one thing in his short-term memory that was that important right now. Her. With that link severed, he would now feel nothing towards her, couldn’t summon up any self-preservation, anger or hatred. Another tweak, redirecting the flow of emotion from his family to her, and he would feel an extreme aversion to the idea of shooting her, wouldn’t be able to shoot her any more than he could his own daughter.

  He pulled the gun away, dropped it into his lap. He crumpled over, his hands to his head, then moaned, “No.”

  She was close to her destination. She pulled the jeep to a stop and hopped out, the other jeep pulling up just a ten or so yards away. Two soldiers got out.

  “Hey!” someone shouted at her.

  She turned her back to them, slipping her ear buds in. The music had looped back to the first track. She got her phone out and skipped forward a few times, pausing to delete one song. She sang along, “Love me, love me, you know you wanna love me…”

  “Hey!”

  She could sense her passenger climbing out of the jeep, hear the garbled murmurs of warning, questions. There was a burst of fear from all three, then the sound of multiple guns firing. She smiled. The authorities would have a hell of a time figuring out what happened there.

  She’d had her doubts about coming to Brockton Bay. It had been a turn off to know that areas lacked power, that still more areas lacked working plumbing. But Burnscar and Bonesaw had both been excited to come, and Jack Slash had bent to Bonesaw’s wishes, pushing for the group to come this way. Crawler, Mannequin and Siberian had seemed fairly indifferent. Not that Crawler or Mannequin showed much emotion. She’d thought she had an ally in Shatterbird, at least, but the woman hated her, and the uptight bitch had gone along with the plans to visit Brockton Bay just to ruin her day.

  But it was interesting, she had to admit. The landscape of people here was so different. So many people here were so insecure, so worried. Most were on the brink of some kind of emotional breakdown, nee
ding just one event, one piece of bad news before they broke down completely. Others had already been broken, or they’d turned vicious and started preying on their fellows, seeking out vengeance on those who had wronged them in a past life. In their pre-Endbringer life.

  People here were so deliciously fucked up.

  This kind of situation, ordinary citizens were doing things they’d never even have considered before. Stealing, hurting their neighbors, bartering things they once considered precious for clothing, food, toilet paper and other essentials. Emotions were raw, far closer to the surface, easier to manipulate.

  Her music cut off. She checked the phone. An alert on the screen notified her that the battery was dying.

  She swore. No more time to waste. She dialed a number, but didn’t hold the phone up to her ear. Good. Now she had fifteen minutes.

  She reached out and started feeling for the outliers. The emotional fingerprints that stood out from the rest.

  The other seven members of the Nine were out there. Not hard to find. One or two were interacting with some other outliers. The most fucked up people in this fucked up city. She’d studied each of these unknown outliers over the course of a week, watching their emotions shift as they went out about their lives, sometimes visiting the areas they tended to hang around, to get a sense of their environments. Slowly, she’d pieced them together, created profiles, discerned which ones had powers and described them to the other members of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Each had made their picks:

  The buried girl. The arrogant geek. The dog lover. The daydreamer. The warlord. The scaredy cat. The broken assassin. The crusader.

  And all she wanted was a few minutes to pay a visit to hers. She didn’t have to name that one. He was familiar enough. She smiled.

  Two men sat on the steps outside the building. She knew immediately that they were soldiers, but they weren’t official. They wore black, and they wore body armor that she hadn’t seen before.

  “No,” she stopped them from reaching from their guns with a mixture of doubt, apathy and anxiety. Complementing her words with a heavy surge of depression, guilt and self loathing, she ordered them, “Kill yourselves.”