Worm

by wildbow

  The instant he finished, the Azazels and other Dragon-craft began opening up, doors sliding apart and ramps lowering.

  “The one time I do show up for one of these things, and no speech. I feel gypped.”

  I didn’t see who had muttered the comment, but I could guess it was Imp.

  “No dying,” I said, as everyone started moving.

  “No dying,” others echoed me. The voices of the Undersiders and the Chicago Wards were loudest among them.

  My teams gathered in the Dragonfly, while the Chicago Protectorate and Brockton Bay Wards made their way to Defiant’s larger ship, along with a contingent of the Dragon’s Teeth.

  Golem stood apart, until my ship was nearly at full capacity.

  “It all comes down to this,” he said, as I joined him at the base of the ramp, “All the training, all the planning and preparation, studying about the Nine backwards and forwards…”

  “Yeah,” I responded, as I stepped up to stand beside him. Our teams were getting sorted out, finding benches and seats. I reached behind my back to get the file folders I’d brought with me.

  “I’m sorry if I was harsh yesterday.”

  I shook my head and reached out to put my hand on his shoulder. It was support, and maybe a bit of a push. He made his way up the ramp.

  Stepping inside just behind Golem, I used the same controls that managed my flight pack to indicate that the ship could close the door.

  The Chicago Wards had seated themselves on one side of the ship, the Undersiders on the other. Something of a mistake, that, because it meant they sat facing one another as we made our way to our destination.

  A little awkward. I sat with them behind me as I took the cockpit. The thing flew itself, but it freed me to focus on other things.

  Chevalier had talked about making peace with the powers that be. I frowned, staring at the control panel as the ship lifted off.

  Passenger, I thought. Been a while, trying to figure out how to make peace with the fact that you’re there, that you’re affecting me somehow, taking control whenever I’m not in my own mind. I think we’ve made strides. I’ve sort of accepted that you’re going to do what you’re going to do, whether that helps me or hurts me.

  So maybe, just maybe, you could help me out today. Whatever it is you do, whatever motivates you, I can continue to play along, but I need a bit of backup here.

  My eyes fell on the bugs that crawled on the back of my hand. Not even a whisper of a movement.

  Yeah, didn’t think I’d get a reply. Guess we’ll see.

  The ship’s acceleration kicked in, and the bugs took flight.

  * * *

  My eyes scanned the screens in front of me. I had camera feeds from Clockblocker and Revel, from Chevalier, Imp, and the airborne Azazel. They all focused on a single area, each from a different direction.

  A thick white mist lingered throughout an area. It was early in the morning, and that might have played a role, but there were no people. Even for a smaller city like Schenectady, that wasn’t so usual. At nearly eight in the morning, there should have been people leaving for work, people running errands.

  Desolate. White fog.

  “Winter’s here,” I said, speaking over the comms. “Others to be confirmed. We’ve talked about this one, Golem.”

  I turned the computer off and strode out of the ship. Rachel was waiting for me outside, standing guard with her dogs and her wolf.

  “Winter means Crimson too, doesn’t it?” Golem asked.

  “Probably. Probably means—”

  “We see you,” The words were like a whisper, barely audible. “See you standing there. Oh, I do hope you’re not Theodore. Tell me you aren’t, because it means we get to play all we want.”

  “Screamer,” I informed the others. Early Nine member, psychological warfare, pressure, distraction. Sound manipulation. Her power meant her voice didn’t get quieter as it traveled great distances. That wasn’t the full extent of—

  “Nice weapon,” Her voice sounded in my ear, at a normal speaking volume. I didn’t flinch. I could sense my surroundings with my bugs, and I could hear things with them, hear how the sound panned out in a weird way over the entire area.

  “You’ve got friends, Theodore. I sure hope they aren’t planning on helping you.”

  It was a sinuous sound, seductive in how convincing it was. Every time she spoke, she sounded a little more like me. It would be the same for the others, hearing themselves.

  She was somewhere in the area. The question was how she’d gotten a sense of our voices so quickly. There was supposed to be a limit to how quickly she could pick up on that stuff just from overhearing us.

  “Confirm, team leader,” Golem said, over the channel. “And can we use the password system we talked about?”

  “Queen. Password system is a go. What do you need confirmation on?”

  “Ring. Enemy headcount.”

  “Stag. No headcount given, I think that’s Screamer fucking with you. Others include Winter, probably Crimson, and probably Cherish, if she’s finding us like she is. All allied capes, be advised, we’re putting passwords into effect. Stay calm, don’t panic.”

  “I do like it when they make it challenging,” Screamer’s whisper hissed in my ear. It had changed in tone, pitch, cadence.

  The Dragonfly took off as I made my way closer to the site. Outside of the area, there were people reacting. Some fled, others were taking cover, followed by disparate voices.

  “Haymaker. I’m engaging,” Golem said. “Recommendation?”

  Screamer interrupted, “Getting advice is against the spirit of this challenge, isn’t it, Theodore? You are Theodore, aren’t you? I think you should confirm for us.”

  “Mantis,” I said, voicing the password, “Don’t respond to her. It’s what she wants. Take out Cherish ASAP, if she’s here, Screamer after that.”

  “I’m hurt. I rate second after the new girl who barely lasted a month?”

  “Have to find them first,” Golem said.

  I’ll help with that, I thought. Then I stopped. “Golem, the password? Horsefly.”

  “Steeple. And gauntlet, to reply to the last one,” his voice came over the comms.

  I stopped. We’d agreed on a simple password set. There was a pattern, each corresponding to our powers and the various pieces on a chessboard. Mine were related to bugs, his to hands. It was abstract, something that tended to only make sense in retrospect. The chess ones we knew off by heart, because they were the first ones we’d practiced.

  And steeple wasn’t one of them.

  “Steeple?” I asked.

  “I’m drawing a mental blank,” Golem responded. “It works, doesn’t it? Pinkie.”

  Screamer wasn’t stupid, but was she that smart? The ‘stag’ should have thrown her off regarding our pattern.

  “It works,” I said. “Ant. I’m close.”

  If that was Golem, he wasn’t as focused as we needed him to be.

  I could feel the effect as my bugs entered the radius of Winter’s power. She wasn’t concentrating it, so it was mild at best. Slowing the movements of molecules, cutting down the ambient temperature, to the point that the moisture in the air froze. It also affected my bugs. Torpor.

  For anyone within, it would include a mental torpor.

  If the only members of the Nine who were present were Crimson, Winter, Cherish and Screamer, then this was a fight that involved attrition. Attacking Russia in the wintertime. Psychological warfare, emotional warfare, the effects of Winter’s power… it meant that Winter’s guns and Crimson’s power were the only physical threats.

  They were going easy on him at the outset.

  Golem was walking on rooftops at the edge of the effect, and he was surrounded by a nimbus of whirling material. By Wanton. We’d already altered all of the data on the group, to imply by news reports and Golem’s powers on the websites that Wanton’s telekinetic storm was Golem’s power.

  The vantage point put
him high enough that he could stand above the mist without being in it. From the moment he engaged, he’d have to move fast. He’d have to be indirect—

  “Weaver,” Golem said, interrupting my thoughts. “Iron fist. She’s offering to tell me where Jack is.”

  “We expected this,” I answered. Iron fist was the ‘king’ in our chess sequence of passwords. “Crab. Get the info and go.”

  “I’m not that foolish,” Screamer whispered, her voice extending throughout the entire area. “Underestimating me, for shame. I give up the information, and you leave me for your clean up squad to execute. I want concessions.”

  “Concessions?” Golem had left his channel open.

  “Let’s ensure your friends aren’t in a good state to mop up. We’ll start with this Weaver. Why don’t you cut off your toes, Weaver? Keep you from running after us.”

  I frowned.

  “Oh, you’ve got an alternative? Something you can cut off or throw away? Yes. Let’s put off the self-mutilation and have you throw that off the edge of a building.”

  Chances were good that she was in Cherish’s company, getting information from the source.

  “What if she tosses it, then walks into the mist?” Golem suggested.

  No, not Golem. Her. Screamer. An easier suggestion to acknowledge if I thought it came from a teammate.

  “Not buying it, huh?” he asked. She asked.

  She’d narrowed down my location, was refining her voices. That had been convincing. I had to move, make it harder for her.

  I advanced, but I didn’t step into the mist. The closer I got, the more of the affected area I could sense. The torpor forced me to be efficient, to manage where bugs went and how, to check areas in a cursory way. There were a number of people still in Winter’s area of influence. People were standing utterly still, slowly dying as the cold ate away at them.

  I want to kill myself.

  My own voice, indistinguishable from the one in my head. Fuck me. She had a bead on me, now.

  It’ll be painless, a way to avoid all of the horror, so I don’t have to watch my friends die. So I won’t have to watch Bitch or Tattletale or Imp die the way Regent did. So I don’t have to watch Grue die.

  No, a moment’s consideration and the spell was broken. I’d stopped thinking of Rachel as ‘Bitch’ some time ago.

  “Aw,” Screamer whispered. “Golem’s refusing my deal, and Cherish says you’re not playing along with the rest of it, so I’m gonna have words with some of the others.”

  I raised a hand to my ear, opening my mouth to warn them, “…”

  My lips moved, but my voice didn’t come out. Bare whispers of sound formed, instead, even as I raised my voice to a near shout.

  That would be the next stage in her tactics. Isolate. She had a sense of my voice, the way I spoke, and was canceling it out.

  I signaled Golem with my bugs. I drew a smiley face in the air with my bugs, crossing out the mouth with an ‘x’.

  He nodded.

  So he was on mute as well.

  There.

  In the midst of a small duplex, there were two young women huddled together on an upper floor. There were computers arranged around them, and each was playing a different video. In some cases, it was the same video playing, just from a different point in time. Me in the lunchroom with Defiant and Dragon. The New Delhi Endbringer fight. Golem on the news with Campanile.

  She had to be almost as good a multitasker as me to take all of that in.

  “Tattletale here. Wormtongue. Doing damage control. I’ve got your video feed, so you can spell things out for me if you want to give the signal.”

  I spelled out the word ‘thanks’.

  My bugs had died inside the area of cold. The people inside wouldn’t be doing much better. I had to send another batch in. This time, I knew the destination.

  Cherish was acting as the eyes, Screamer as communications. No doubt Screamer—all nine of the Screamers—was providing communications between this group and the nearest group of Nine. She was talking, in a low and steady voice, but her voice wasn’t more than a murmur. No doubt someone in a more distant location was receiving the intel at a normal volume.

  And all of that raised the question of what Winter and Crimson were doing. I scanned the building. Nothing on the top floor, or the next lowest. Further downstairs, a number of people were in the sway of Winter’s power, their thoughts slowed to a crawl.

  The basement of the same building. Winter, Crimson, and their hostages. Some would be the ones from Killington. Others were ones that had fallen into the sway of Winter’s torpor. Crimson was feeding on them.

  His schtick was a little bit of a vampire one, but the end result was more Mr. Hyde. Big, muscular, fueled by rage and impulse.

  The ones lying on the floor, cold, they’d be dead already.

  I spelled out basic instructions for Golem, pointing the way to the building, drawing a cloud over the building to mark it. He gave me a thumbs up.

  Another arrow pointed him to the concrete rooftop behind him. There, I drew out a basic layout.

  And in that same moment, Cherish cottoned on to what we were doing.

  “They’re attacking,” Cherish said.

  Screamer’s voice reached all of us. “Cocky, cocky.”

  Screamer turned her head, swatted at the bugs that crawled on her face, and then spoke, silent to the insect’s hearing.

  Winter and Crimson reacted.

  Sure hope your boy can fight. Screamer was talking in my head again. Not telepathy, only hearing a voice that sounded damn close to the one in my head.

  “Fuck off, Screamer,” I muttered.

  “Grue no!” Imp’s voice. I flinched despite myself, before I remembered they weren’t anywhere nearby.

  Screamer laughed, her voice floating through the area.

  Crimson made his way outside. His flesh would be engorged, purple-red, the veins would be standing out. He’d be as hard as iron, strong. His sword was as long as he was tall. I couldn’t get a good measure of its appearance or quality.

  Winter hung back with the hostages.

  I wrote out the information with bugs. Tattletale relayed it. “Crimson Incoming. Quisling. Got confirmation and you’re good to go. Six stories, elbow deep.”

  Golem turned his head, no doubt in response to the warning, then turned back to my diagram.

  I’d given it a title, words running along the top. ‘Slap them down.’

  Golem’s uniform was roughly the same as the early incarnations, though solidified into a more solid color scheme, dark iron and silver. The materials differed, but it matched.

  There had been one or two additions, though. The rigging of different panels included a frame that looped over the shoulders, much like a rollcage. Golem paused, then drew out a panel, attaching it to the right. He began to reach inside.

  And a hand emerged from the center of the street, large enough that it could hold a car inside it. Crimson paused as he watched it appear.

  Then he moved. It was the kind of movement that came with super strength, a bounding, powerful stride that could have carried him through a wall. He had to pause before he reached the base of the building Golem stood atop.

  The hand had emerged up to the second knuckle.

  “Abandon the fight,” Tecton’s voice. “Run! Move! You’ve got six Siberians headed your way.”

  No password?

  “Tecton, confirm.”

  “Confirm what?”

  And a chuckle from Screamer, just in my ear.

  Crimson ascended, climbing the outside of the building while holding his six-foot blade in his teeth, blood trickling down from the corners of his mouth where the blade was cutting into flesh.

  My bugs died of the cold before I saw what happened next. I was forced to send in a second wave to see.

  The bugs were too slow, but the upper edge of the roof was outside of Winter’s realm of influence. I could sense Golem reaching out with a hand of brick,
a gentle push on Crimson’s collarbone with his left hand, pushing him away from the roof, away from any point where he could get a grip.

  Crimson reached out and up for the hand, but the material broke apart as he put too much weight on it. He dropped. I’d bemoaned the effectiveness of rooftop combat, but Golem made it his own.

  Golem advanced to the edge of the roof and created more hands, trying to bind the villain to the street. An arm lock, a headlock…

  Crimson pulled his way free of the asphalt shackles through sheer brute strength. More appeared, but he destroyed them faster than they could be created.

  Screamer and Cherish had to know what we were doing, yet they weren’t moving. Cockiness?

  No. They had to have an escape route.

  Except they didn’t have a teleporter. That left only a few options. Siberian wasn’t one I could do a whole lot about, but she’d be fighting if she were anywhere nearby. The others…

  I drew out silk thread in their direction. Only so much to spare. I knotted it between their necks and the computers that surrounded them.

  Theo’s massive hand was still growing, the wrist exposed. Almost halfway there.

  Crimson ascended the building once more. This time, he had support.

  Together, we’d gone over the various members of the Nine, past and present, we’d detailed battle plans, the techniques we knew about, even contacted heroes who had encountered them in the past, for stuff that might not have gone on record.

  But Screamer was called screamer for a reason, and there wasn’t a lot we could do to stop it, not unless we wanted to deafen ourselves.

  Crimson was three stories up the side of the building when Screamer used her namesake power. She could ensure that everyone within a mile’s radius could hear her voice as if she was right next to them, and she used it now, producing a high-pitched, full volume scream, right in my ears. In Golem’s ears. Everyone’s ears.

  I joined Golem in doubling over, using my hands to try and ward off the sound. It didn’t help as much as it should have. It was loud, deafening, and it was leaving Golem vulnerable as Crimson closed the distance. He wasn’t recovering fast enough.