Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  I’d seen all the people working for me, sensed them with my bugs. I’d read about myself on Parahumans Online, and in news articles. At the same time, high school was sometimes described as a microcosm of the world at large. There was something else about being in the midst of a three-dimensional model of it all, seeing it have a concrete impact on a place that was more familiar.

  Four teenagers were sitting along the side of the hallway as I walked by. They stared at me as I passed.

  I had to work to reassure myself that there was no connection between what I was thinking and the fact that they were looking at me.

  It did remind me that the Wards were here, and whatever else had happened, they might have seen my face. Not my face, but they could easily have seen a deformed evil clone of me.

  There was that surreal sensation, again. Was it weird that I felt most like Taylor at school? That I was all the more cognizant of the weirdness of all the cape stuff?

  They were still looking. I gave one a curt nod, and she nodded back.

  I quickened my pace as I headed to the office. I wanted to be gone.

  There were a lot of students in the office, and I was soon aware of why. There were capes present. Ones I only barely recognized. Adamant and Sere.

  “Listen!” a woman behind the counter raised her voice to be heard over the general babble. She had more authority than I might have expected of a secretary. ”Get in a line! If you’re here to look at the superheroes, you can do it later! They’ll be here all week!”

  Nobody listened, of course, and the secretaries weren’t really helping, taking requests and giving out information to whoever was closest to the front. It only encouraged the press of bodies.

  I headed to the other end of the room, hoping I’d be able to work my way around the end of the crowd.

  I glanced at the clock. Ten-forty. I had maybe twenty minutes before my dad called me, and getting back in time would be difficult, even if I was lucky enough to have the bus show up at a convenient time. I could postpone, plan a late lunch, but I really didn’t want to.

  “Please,” Adamant spoke, and his voice was filled with confidence, “Do as Principal Howell is asking and form lines.”

  That worked, but not all that well. People elbowed and pushed against me as we arranged ourselves into loose columns. I’d never liked the feeling of being in a press of bodies, and it made me think of other unpleasant situations: Bonesaw straddling me, being drawn into a massive, monstrous lump of flesh. It made me exceedingly uncomfortable, and being uncomfortable made me instinctively reach for my bugs.

  That was another reason to not be in classes. How long would it be before my power did something while running on autopilot and drew attention?

  I studied Adamant and Sere while I waited. Adamant, naturally, wore a metallic costume, featuring metal bands and panels that were loosely linked together by chains, fit over a black bodysuit. He’d been at the fight against Leviathan, if I remembered right. He was a member of Legend’s team in New York. Or he had been. Legend was gone now.

  Sere wore cloth, in contrast to Adamant. He wore a kind of nomadic, desert-tribe style of robe, all in pristine white with a fine pattern embroidered onto it. His mask was more stylistic than representing anything, a solid white plate with light blue lenses for the eyes and no opening for his nose or mouth. What made him stand out was the moisture that flowed from the gaps in his handwraps and from around his mask. It swirled around him like a breath outdoors in winter, pale. Almost an inverse of Grue.

  Powerwise, I knew Adamant was a bruiser, though I didn’t know the specifics. Sere, I did know about, but only because I’d once come across a cell phone video of him brutally taking down a number of thugs, posted online somewhere, months ago. Some capes shot fire from their hands. Sere was the opposite – he could draw moisture to himself with surprising speed and violence. It didn’t matter if a foe was armored or behind a forcefield, he could dehydrate them in a flash. It was the kind of power that might have earned him a villain label if he hadn’t had all of the Protectorate’s PR at his back.

  I idly wondered what had made the pair stick with their employer, in the wake of the recent events that had so many leaving the Protectorate with little to no explanation, Legend among them.

  More than that, I was wondering how I’d fight them if it came down to it. With the way the armor and chains of his costume were arranged, Adamant was just begging to be tied up. Sere would be trickier.

  “You’re next, black curls,” the secretary closest to me spoke.

  I focused my attention closest to her and approached the counter.

  “What do you need?”

  “I need to get in contact with someone.”

  “We can’t give out personal information.”

  “Not even if it’s an emergency?”

  “If you need to inform a student of something critical, we can make an announcement.”

  “No. That’d be the opposite of what I need to do.”

  “You could always look for them during the lunch break.”

  I frowned.

  “If there’s nothing else, there are others in line.”

  “What’s the procedure for signing up for classes?”

  “You tell us your old schedule. We slot you in as well as we’re able. Core classes are in classrooms. We’ve adopted another system for non-core classes.”

  “Non-core?”

  “Anything besides maths, science, phys ed, and all those. Non-core classes are held in the computer labs. You’ll have a rushed curriculum, alternating reading assignments with quizzes and worksheets on the computers. There are teachers at the front of the lab if you have any questions.”

  “I don’t suppose you could tell me all the classes that are second period?”

  She gave me a stern look.

  I was feeling the pressure. This maybe wasn’t the brightest move, but I wanted to find Greg, get this solved, then return to life as normal. Lunch with my dad, in an ideal world.

  What classes did Greg take?

  I could remember him talking in Spanish. God, it felt like years had passed, not months.

  “World issues-”

  “Grade?”

  “Ten. World Issues, Spanish…”

  Not English. Charlotte’s in that class and she probably would have slipped out to send me a text.

  “…History and Music,” I finished, picking two more that weren’t likely to be on the computers.

  “World issues is a non-core class. That’ll be your fourth period. You have History now.”

  She struck a key and the sheet began printing.

  “You don’t need my name or ID?”

  “We have zero notice on who’s going to be here or not. For now, everyone is to go to classes. Do your best to catch up for the tests in one week, where we evaluate where everyone is. We’re adding students to the system on a priority basis.”

  I nodded. Something of a relief, that this wasn’t set in stone. She handed me the paper and I took it, turning on my heel to head out of the office.

  Computer labs first, I thought. I hated to do it, but I drew on my bugs to find the labs in question. With my luck, Kid Win would have put something together something to track unusual bug movements, and I’d get found in a second.

  The first lab was a bust. Nobody got in my way or spoke up as I entered the room. There was only an older teacher who pointed wordlessly at a space where computers were unattended.

  I walked up between the rows and looked at the students. No luck. I left through the back door at the other end of the class.

  Halfway through the second lab, I saw Emma, clustered with a group of others. Her hair was dyed blond, done up in a french braid, and her clothes were brand new. Their eyes were on a computer screen where they were watching a video on a streaming site. I wasn’t surprised that she’d drawn people to her so quickly. She had that magnetism to her.

  She looked up and noticed me, no doubt expecting to see a teache
r, and I could see her eyes widen a fraction in recognition.

  But I was already walking, moving on with my search. She wasn’t a priority. I deposited a single fly in her bag so I could keep out of her way and headed out of the room.

  Ten minutes passed as I moved from area to area. I was aware of the moving timeline, and felt a knot of anxiety in my stomach that had nothing to do with school.

  Fuck him. Seriously.

  By the time I found him in the smaller gymnasium, where long tables and computers had been arranged to form an impromptu computer lab, it was past eleven. My dad would call any minute.

  I walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

  The change in his expression when he saw me, with the spreading smile of a child that had torn open the wrapping paper to find the very present they’d wanted… fuck me. I could see where Charlotte had been concerned. There was zero subtlety to him, and a bare minimum of restraint. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  He pointed at the door, and I nodded once by way of reply. I headed in that direction without waiting for him.

  At least he didn’t blurt out ‘Skitter!’ in front of everyone.

  “I can’t believe you came, you-”

  Seeing his awe, the unrestrained excitement, I decided on a strategy.

  “Are you stalking me?” I asked, cutting him off.

  I could see his expression change, shifting from enthusiasm to confusion. He looked decidedly deranged for the split second he was midway.

  “No,” he said. ”The reason-”

  Can’t let him get going or it’s all over. He’ll keep talking until he says something we’ll both regret. ”Then you have a grudge against me. Some vendetta or something?”

  “No!”

  “Because you barely know me, and a friend said you were being seriously creepy with the way you were trying to get info on me.”

  “I wasn’t! I was trying to help!”

  Help?

  I fumbled for a question that wouldn’t give him an excuse to say anything vital aloud. I felt like I was channeling Rachel as I spoke, “I don’t need your help.”

  “I-”

  “In fact,” I cut him off. ”I’m offended you would say it.”

  “I know!” he strained the words at me, two words said in a way that was too excited to be a successful whisper. He wasn’t talking about me being offended. He was talking about my secret identity. Fuck me.

  “Greg,” I said, reaching out to put the flat of one hand against his shoulder, as if pushing him away, “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “We’re not that different,” he said. He’d shifted gears to bewilderment.

  “In what way are we the same?” I asked. Safe question, unless his answer included a confession that he had powers.

  “We’re… not social people. We like reading,” the answers were weak, and from the look on his face, he knew it. There was a benefit to him being this transparent, and I was counting my blessings that he wasn’t very good at articulating what he was thinking. ”We like computers.”

  And, fuck me, I couldn’t help but admit that he was nice. Part of the reason he was struggling to provide an answer was that he was couching his statements to avoid hurting my feelings. The answer was short: we’d both been the losers, but he wouldn’t say it outright.

  I let him flounder for a little bit longer. I didn’t want to tear him down, but every second that his confidence wavered was an advantage to me.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I repeated myself for effect, then quickly added, “You kind of messed up my day doing this.”

  With the reaction I got, someone might have thought I’d slapped him.

  “I wanted to help,” he said.

  “I was spooked,” I said, feeling like shit even as I continued to leverage his better qualities against him. ”All I got was a friend texting me to say someone’s looking for me like they have a vendetta.”

  “That’s not it…” he said, trailing off, but his enthusiasm was crushed. He was visibly sagging, as though someone had let the air out of him.

  “And I found out it was you, and all I could think was that you were angry and you wanted to hurt me, or maybe you had some crazed infatuation with me and you were stalking me.”

  I could see the look on his face. Horror mixed with panic.

  “Fuck, Greg-”

  “No. That’s not what it was-” he said, breathless. His face betrayed the lie. It was at least part of it. ”It wasn’t like I was crazy over you, it was a little thing, a while back. That’s not-”

  “I have a boyfriend,” I blurted out the words in my haste to cut him off again.

  It was like kicking a dog.

  He went silent, and I took the opportunity to get my mental footing and plan out what to say next.

  A boy stopped in his tracks on his walk way down the hall. A little shorter than me, red haired. Apparently our atmosphere was screwed up enough that he’d noticed. ”Problem?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. ”We’re in the middle of resolving it. Personal stuff.”

  “That’s-” Greg started, then he stopped, looking at the boy. Even he wasn’t so clueless as to say something in front of a stranger.

  The boy looked between us, and then gave me a curious look. He was one of the ones who’d stayed, I could tell at a glance. Unlike some, though, unlike me, he hadn’t gotten much sun. Odd. Maybe he’d holed up in a house or a shelter for the last few months. Staying indoors would have been safest.

  From the way he was looking at me, I wondered if he saw something like that. Difference was, I had a secret to keep.

  “Thank you, though,” I told him, before he could figure anything out.

  He took it for what it was: me saying ‘go away’ in the politest way I could manage. He left.

  “Greg,” I said, “I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want to be your enemy. You have to understand, the last while has been scary. I’m guessing you didn’t stay in town?”

  “I did,” he said, then he stopped, breaking eye contact. ”I was on the outermost edge of the city. Other side of Captain’s Hill.”

  There’s a mountain on the far side of Captain’s Hill, I thought. Which meant he wasn’t close enough to matter. I would have hesitated to call that area a part of Brockton Bay, but I could see where maybe Greg had convinced himself it was close enough to count.

  “You didn’t stay in town, then,” I said. ”That’s fine. Smart. But maybe you don’t get what it’s been like here. All I want is peace and quiet. I want to spend time with my dad, who I very nearly lost. I don’t want trouble. I don’t want complications.”

  “I was trying to help!” he protested.

  “Greg-”

  He bowled over me this time, “But I was thinking, you know, if I could figure this out, others could too.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to ensure there was nobody in earshot. A few fruit flies ventured out of a locker and checked around the corners.

  “Greg, what is it you think you know?”

  “You’re Skitter,” he whispered.

  “No, Greg,” I said, calm, quiet.

  “I was reading online, and it’s like, there were people wondering if you were an adult, and it got me thinking what Skitter must be like in real life, and then it clicked.”

  That was just about the most horrifying thing he could have said, barring near-impossibilities like, ‘I got powers and I ate your hair to get pregnant with your child.’

  “A feeling, Greg?”

  “It’s more than that! It all makes sense!”

  “I was going to spend time with my dad,” I said. ”That was my whole goal for the day, it’s my only goal. I just want to unwind and relax after weeks and months of living in this hellhole of a city. And you pull me away from all that because of a hunch?”

  “It makes sense. Your age, your location, your attitude. Even with the bullying, your trigger event-”

  I cut him off, �
��Trigger event?”

  “Yeah, you-”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He stopped, trying to think of a way to parse the answer, and I could even see a flicker of enthusiasm, as he imagined explaining the concept.

  The enthusiasm drained from his face.

  “You’re playing dumb,” he said, but the confidence had taken a hit.

  “You know that capes hurt my dad?” I asked. ”Both times he got hospitalized. Shatterbird the first time, the explosion at the town hall the second. Superpowers are really the last thing I even want to think about. We can talk, but I really don’t want to talk about the superhero stuff.”

  Fuck me, I felt slimy, playing him like this, using my dad for leverage.

  “I can’t talk about this without talking about capes.”

  “About me being one of the villains? Isn’t it kind of insulting? No, Greg. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.”

  “But the proportions, the appearance-”

  “You’re wrong,” I repeated. I was feeling enough sympathy for him at this point that it wasn’t hard to inject some into my voice.

  “Everything fit,” he said, his voice small.

  Fit, not fits. He’d already come to the conclusion I’d wanted. I kept my mouth shut. I wanted nothing more than to be gone, to arrange things so I could meet up with my dad with a minimum of questions, but I stood there and waited for Greg’s response.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, in the end.

  “You’re not a bad guy, Greg,” I said. ”Sorry I’m not the person you wanted me to be.”

  He nodded, mute.

  “Take care of yourself. Good luck with school. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  “I hope your dad’s alright,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I answered him. Then I turned to leave.

  God damned people. I felt like crap, both for manipulating him and the way I’d manipulated him, but there’d been no other choice. What the hell had he even expected? That I’d admit it and be bursting with gratitude that he’d let me know I needed to take some extra measures with my secret identity?

  Probably.