Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  I took the blade, and I could swear it reacted, vibrating.

  “It’s alive.”

  “Yes,” Miss Militia said. “It’s a part of me.”

  A part of her, as in… a part of her mind? Or is it her passenger?

  I felt like there was something more I should say in response to that, but I decided to focus on the matter at hand. People were watching from the sidelines.

  “Flechette. Your arbalest,” I said.

  She looked far less agreeable than Miss Militia had been. She glanced at her superior, received a nod in response.

  Flechette placed the arbalest on the ground halfway between us, then backed off.

  I was willing to bet she had other weapons, but it wasn’t worth the effort to get them from her.

  “You owe me,” Flechette told Parian. Parian didn’t respond, staring down at the ground.

  “She owes you?” I asked.

  “I was home. I came back because she asked, and it’s probably coming out of my time off. And you weren’t even here when we arrived. We waited twenty minutes.”

  “I would have been if I had any notice,” I said.

  “I don’t want something ugly to happen on my vacation day,” Flechette said. “That’s all I’m saying. Not happy-cool about this as it is.”

  “Were you shopping?” Miss Militia asked, as if she were trying to change the subject or distract me from Flechette. When I looked, her eyebrows were indicating mild surprise.

  “I can’t go shopping anymore,” I said. “I don’t want to sound hostile, but reminding me of that isn’t going to help anything.”

  “You’re upset,” Miss Militia said. Before I could think of a retort, she added, “You deserve to be.”

  I shut my eyes briefly. When I asked my question, I sounded almost exasperated, “Why are you here?”

  “The first reports came back from inside the portal, and they’re promising.”

  I nodded.

  “Fresh water, lumber. Geological surveys suggest there’s mining, and that’s all in close proximity to the portal. Plant, animal and insect life seem to have evolved in rough parallel to our own. Worldwide, there’s few signs of pre-existing human civilization, and no human life that we’ve been able to detect. The deviation point seems to be nearly five thousand years ago. Several teams are working on analyzing the sites where humans settled, looking for the cause of extinction. We’ll have reports back soon, and we expect to make a statement to the world at large in a few days.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. I didn’t mention that Tattletale had her own teams present. If she weren’t nursing a bad migraine, I suspected she would have already informed me of the details.

  “Even if it turns out there’s a plague, parasite or hostile agency in this other world, the sheer value of the resources on the other side are going to make this portal very valuable. I think it’s safe to say Brockton Bay stands to become a rich city, and that begins the moment the news gets out.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “You don’t look surprised.”

  “Expected something like that,” I said. “I suppose this means you want to talk to the villains that are currently controlling this soon-to-be-rich city’s underworld.”

  “Dragon and Defiant came to Brockton Bay with the interest of setting up a plan, drawing a truce between your group and ours. I suspect Dragon already had suspicions about this other world and everything it entailed.”

  “Except things got screwed up along the way,” I said.

  “Yes. And on the other side of things, particular events came to light, validating things you’d said, on several fronts.”

  I glanced at Flechette. I’d given her directions to find the armband. There was also the business with the leading heroes of the Protectorate being complicit in the Cauldron debacle. I wasn’t sure Flechette was up to date on that one.

  “You checked out the armband?” I asked Flechette.

  It was Miss Militia who answered, “I was informed about possible tinker material being passed around and investigated, possible contraband. It was Flechette investigating the device. We contacted Defiant together and got the answers we were looking for, in a much more direct manner.”

  “He was your friend.”

  “A colleague and a friend, yes. We were very good at different things. He told me he was sorry he couldn’t attend this meeting. He’s… preoccupied at present. Flechette, Defiant and I had a long series of discussions that led nowhere in particular. It only pointed to an increasingly ugly situation without an easy resolution. Until Parian contacted Flechette about a meeting.”

  “With me,” I said.

  “With you.”

  I glanced back at Parian. She wasn’t moving, still sitting in a chair, not looking our way.

  “Okay,” I said. “We can talk.”

  “Good. Let me start off by extending an apology. I’m sorry things turned out as they did. I don’t agree with the way that incident played out.”

  That incident. The thing at the school.

  “We looked back at what happened with your history at the school, the allegations of bullying-”

  “Stop,” I said.

  She did.

  “If you’re going to say anything on the subject, don’t mince words. You know who Shadow Stalker was beneath the mask. You probably have an idea of the kind of things she did. Don’t pretty it up by using words like allegations.”

  Flechette stared at me.

  “Not allegations then. The bullying, the abuse you endured. I don’t like that it happened. I don’t like that we were complicit in it. It fills in quite a few blanks, helping me make sense of what happened after you uncovered Shadow Stalker’s secret identity. Defiant knows too, now. I recognize that it might even have pushed you to take a different direction with your newfound powers.”

  “I got my powers because of her,” I said.

  Miss Militia fell silent.

  “Early January, followed by a hospital stay. You can look it up.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I suspected it was your mother’s passing that caused your trigger.”

  “See,” I told her. “There’s one thing that’s really grating with you heroes. You keep saying sorry. Oh, you guys are sorry your top members were kidnapping people and turning them into freaks. You guys are sorry that some of your members bought their powers. You’re sorry that your bosses crossed a line, trying to drop bombs on our team members after we did the grunt work of facing the Slaughterhouse Nine. You’re sorry that you went to such extremes to rehabilitate your group’s sociopath that you let her get away scott-free with the abuse she was inflicting on a bystander. But you don’t change. You don’t do anything about it.”

  There was enough venom in my voice that Flechette had started eyeing her arbalest, where it sat in the rain. One of her hands was poised in the air, as if she were preparing to reach into a pouch at her side. She was looking at the crowd around us, and I couldn’t tell if it was because she was worried they’d respond if she attacked me, or if she was double checking they were out of earshot.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Miss Militia said, calm.

  “That’s why we’re here,” I echoed her. “Yeah. Well said. All those events I just mentioned, they’re part of why I’m here. I’d say you have nobody to blame but yourselves for the fact that you have me to deal with, but I’m willing to admit I’m largely at fault for the decisions I made. You guys… you just greased the wheels, I suppose.”

  “We’d like to change that dynamic. Defiant, Dragon, myself-”

  “You want to change, but you’re still working for them. For the Protectorate,” I said.

  “We have to.”

  I frowned, forced myself to relax. “Dragon said the same thing. Tattletale filled me in on the reasoning. You think we need the Protectorate.”

  “We do. And if everyone with enough of a conscience to feel regret over these events were to leave, I don’t think anyon
e will be happy with the group of those who stayed behind.”

  “There’s another route,” I said. “Accept that it’s broken, accept that it needs to change, and do something about it. Recognize that what Tagg did was fucked up, act on that.”

  “It’s dangerous. Things are sensitive. There’s only an eighteen percent chance of success in the upcoming fight if we face Behemoth. Twenty-nine percent if it’s the Simurgh, with… a great deal more fallout after the fact. Without the Protectorate, chances drop to an even lower number than they are, and the damage gets worse.”

  Dinah. The only way they’d have these numbers would be Dinah.

  “You’re afraid of rocking the boat when the ship’s sinking,” I said.

  “Something like that.”

  I sighed.

  “But…” Miss Militia hesitated. “In light of revelations over this past month, keeping recent events in mind, and perhaps because we have more of an insight into who you are, Taylor Hebert, I think we might be more open to more discussion than we were.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “The Protectorate, the Wards.”

  “The PRT?”

  Miss Militia shook her head.

  It wouldn’t be enough if the PRT wasn’t on board. There was some argument I wanted to make, something I wanted to say, but I couldn’t articulate it, couldn’t quite form the thought in my head.

  “What do you think of this?” I asked Flechette, to buy myself time to think, or maybe in hopes of rounding out the half-formed thought.

  “It doesn’t directly affect me,” she said, glancing away. “I’m still trying to decide if I should trust you.“

  “If it doesn’t directly affect you, why does this matter?”

  “Because I got home and saw my family, and they said I was different, angrier. And they were right. Because I’m hearing about everything that’s happening, all these secrets coming out, and I can’t even look at my teammates without wondering if there’s something nefarious about them. Because Parian was the one good thing I found in this city, and you recruited her,” Flechette said.

  Parian looked up.

  “That costume, it’s like a slap in the face. Like, it wasn’t obvious enough you corrupted her. You had to take the playfulness away? The joy?”

  “Hey,” Parian said, standing. “It was my decision.”

  “She was following advice I gave,” I said. “She wanted to stand up to the people who are trying to attack her territory, and she wanted to do it without our help. Being a little more intimidating doesn’t hurt.”

  “You-”

  “Flechette,” Miss Militia cut her off.

  Flechette went limp, the fight gone out of her, just like that.

  “I don’t know anymore,” Flechette said. “I don’t know where I’m going. Everything was all laid out, a career with the Wards, a career with the Protectorate. Except I’m not even sure there’s going to be a future anymore… and I’m not sure what happens if there is.”

  “I think you and I are very similar on that front,” I said, my voice quiet.

  She looked at me, her lips pressed together in anger, then looked away, unable to disagree, as much as she might want to.

  “I guess… I guess what it comes down to,” I said, “Is that you have to decide what you want. What you’re willing to fight for and make sacrifices for.”

  Flechette’s eyes flickered over to Parian, then down to the ground.

  Ah.

  “I’m… alone,” she said. “I’ve never been alone, never been good at being by myself. Last few days I was here, I wanted nothing more than to go home. And when I finally got to… I’ve never felt more disconnected from everyone around me. It wasn’t what I wanted, or what I needed. I can’t trust my team, can’t talk to my family, can’t confide anything in my friends. Sounds stupid when I say that. Sounds weak.”

  “I’m fully aware I don’t have much stock with you, so maybe what I say isn’t worth much to you, but I don’t think less of you for saying that. The prospect of being all on your own is scary. It’s harder, and things are hard enough as it is.”

  Miss Militia was staring at me. I met her eyes.

  “Interesting to have a conversation with you,” she said, “With a greater understanding of the girl behind the mask. What do you want, Taylor?”

  “I’m not Taylor,” I said. “In costume or out, I’m Skitter, up until I decide on a new name.”

  “Skitter, then.”

  “Compromise,” I said. “Give me compromise.”

  “I can try.”

  “You can, the Wards can, but the PRT won’t. You said as much.”

  “They have other burdens to bear.”

  “And until they work with us, they’re going to be a bucking bull in a china shop,” I said. “Strutting around and doing catastrophic damage to a delicate situation. Tagg said this is a war-”

  I could see a look flash across Miss Militia’s face.

  “-and you can’t reason with people like that,” I said. “Not people who are hungry for conflict, willing to fight until someone’s too beat up to fight back.”

  “No,” Miss Militia said. Her tone of voice had shifted. “You can’t. I’ve heard him say something along those lines before. A small part of the reason I’m here.”

  “Then you agree. He can’t be leading the PRT if we’re going to reach any kind of consensus.”

  “I can speak to some people, but I don’t think I’ll be able change anything. The very structure of the PRT is built around the idea that the unpowered call the shots, and the capes follow them.”

  “We both know that it’s not that cut and dry,” I said. I glanced at Flechette. Did she know about Alexandria?

  “I’m sorry,” Miss Militia said. “It’s not in my power.”

  “It’s in mine,” I said. “I think. I hope.”

  I could see the furrow in between her eyebrows. “What are you thinking? More violence? You won’t be able to twist Tagg’s arm to get what you want out of him.”

  “I’m still not entirely sure,” I said. “I think I can twist his arm. It’ll be easier if you’re willing to compromise. I need your help to make this work.”

  “What sort of help?”

  “A mixture of support and passive resistance. Nothing that hurts the PRT as a whole. Nothing that hurts the result against the Endbringers.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Specifically?”

  “For starters, we treat every situation like you treated the ABB, back in April. We address threats, tag team them. Only we communicate more this time around. The Teeth are a problem, but others are going to arise when word about the portal gets out.”

  “Done. The PRT may not play ball, but we can communicate by other channels.”

  “The heat’s off the Undersiders and Ambassadors both. We can’t do anything constructive if you guys are after us.”

  “The PRT will continue to order us to engage you.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Then that’s when you apply passive resistance. You return to your bosses and you say the mission against the Undersiders was unsuccessful. Bitch ran, Grue used his darkness, Tattletale must have passed on information. We do our best to avoid giving you cause to come after us, you don’t attack when the bosses order you to.”

  She frowned. “This is giving you amnesty for past misdeeds, in practice.”

  “Yes. But it ensures we’re all in fighting shape when the next Endbringer fight goes down.”

  “Accord remains a problem.”

  “We’ll keep him busy, put him in the background. Tattletale has a sense of his motives. We can keep him occupied while keeping him from having a direct hand in things.”

  “Our passivity would hinge on his.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  “And you can’t keep pushing things like you have been. The degree of aggression you’ve been demonstrating, with the attack at the PRT head offices and Valefor, it tests our patience.”

  “They noticed
, then? Valefor’s eyeballs.”

  “That’s the kind of event that provokes a response from the PRT.”

  I nodded. “It’s supposed to, just a little. It was a message to Tagg as much as a way of dealing with Valefor.”

  “It’s not the sort of thing that will get him to abandon his position or back down.”

  “I think it is,” I said. “But that’s only one aspect of a greater plan.”

  I could see her frown. Not that I could see the lower half of her face, but I saw it in her eyes.

  “A day or two,” I said, “Then I stop. I’ll fill you in on the details as soon as I have them.”

  She frowned.

  “Flechette,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Is this satisfactory? If we call a truce, the local heroes will be free to assist Parian. I suspect she’ll be willing to accept their help where she’s less accepting of ours.”

  “I will,” Parian said.

  “Would that make things easier between the two of you?”

  “I’m not local,” Flechette’s words were a whisper.

  “You could be,” I told her. “Or you could visit. I can’t do a lot, but I can maybe help give you your friend back.”

  “We can use all the help here we can get,” Miss Militia said. “If you wanted to join the Wards team on a permanent basis, I could see about arranging something.”

  “Let- let me think about it,” Flechette said. “It’d mean leaving my family. Or moving them, depending.”

  “Then that’s as settled as it’s going to get,” I said.

  “I still have concerns about your continued swathe of destruction,” Miss Militia told me. “If your vendetta against Tagg gets any uglier, this idea won’t hold.”

  I’d hoped the distraction of talking to Flechette would keep her from returning to that topic.

  “Give me the benefit of the doubt,” I said. “Please.”

  I could see the lines around her eyes deepen as she frowned.

  “Just this once. It’s all I’ve been asking you guys for, from the beginning. Trust that I’m doing what I’m doing for a good reason. I just need you to maybe turn a blind eye here and there, support me when the situation calls for it. I’ll fill you in where I can, and I’ll make a leap of faith and trust that you’ll know what to do otherwise.”