Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “Any power to monitors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Video footage of exterior, stat,” Prefab ordered, cutting in.

  Monitors flickered to life. One in three showed only the ground beneath us, and another third were broken.

  “Change the focus of any monitor displaying only asphalt,” I said.

  “A.I. bank one is offline. Discrimination no longer possible.“

  “Monitors with video from any camera on the ship’s upper half.”

  “Restate, please,” the A.I. said.

  “Nevermind,” I said. “Um. Nine working cameras, four on port side, five on starboard, am I right?”

  “Yes.“

  I worked on unbelting myself, ensuring my legs were fixed in the bars beneath the bench, so I wouldn’t fall. “Label monitors with numbers from one to nine.”

  One by one, the monitors displayed numbers instead of the video feed.

  “Weaver-” Prefab said. “This isn’t helpful. We need information on our surroundings.”

  “No immediate threats nearby, according to my swarm,” I told him, checking with my bugs. “Ship, monitors one, three and seven weren’t displaying a usable feed. Restore a feed to each other monitor.”

  The videos reappeared.

  “Monitors two, six and eight are broken and are not displaying anything coherent. Display white instead, maximum brightness, on those screens and any ones not displaying any video.”

  Monitors lit up. It wasn’t much, but it was marginally better than what the Protectorate-issue phones were granting.

  “How the hell do you know your way around this thing?” Vantage asked. I could see him below me, one hand outstretched, the other held behind his back.

  “Defiant and Dragon have been ferrying me between the PRT and court, and between prison and these little field exercises, so I’ve gotten a sense of them,” I said. “And I fought a bunch of others back in Brockton Bay. You figure them out, kind of.”

  “I saw that bit about Dragon’s visit to Brockton Bay in the news,” Vantage said. “Here, fall.”

  I twisted myself around until I hung by my hands, then let myself drop from the bench. Vantage caught me with the one hand.

  The others were getting themselves sorted out. A few minor injuries, but it wasn’t as bad as it could be.

  My head snapped around as our opponent landed just outside the ship. She let go of her companions, setting them down on the ground beside her.

  “Hellooooo,” a girl’s voice sounded over the system. I had to turn around, checking all of the cameras, before I found the one where she was displayed, upside down.

  “Ship, flip monitor, um, monitor four, one-eighty-degrees vertical,” I said.

  It flipped the right way around. I could see a young girl on the opposite side. She was flanked by two other small children, one a male with a widow’s peak and a severe expression for his age, ten or so, the other a girl of about twelve, in overalls that ended at the knee, a star at the chest, and far too much makeup.

  “Fuck me,” Vantage muttered. “Bambina brought her team.”

  “Come out and plaaaaay,” Bambina called out. A second later, she leaped. The small detonation that followed in her wake was quenched by the appearance of Rime’s ice crystals.

  “Sniper’s active,” Rime’s voice came through the earbuds. She was panting. “Deliberate, accurate shooter. I’ve taken three bullets, ice armor took most of the force out of the shots. Bambina is accompanied by Starlet and August Prince, um. Shooter’s shots ricochet. Can’t dodge. There’s wounded just outside craft. Traffic caught underneath when you fell.“

  “Stop talking and get inside,” Prefab said.

  ”Can’t close the gap to the Kulshedra without getting shot again. He’s cutting me off.”

  “Use crystals to form a wall, get inside, damn it,” Prefab said.

  “Ricochets,” Rime stressed. “I- shit!”

  I found her with my bugs, setting them on her costume. “She’s okay, just fleeing from Bambina and Starlet. The shooter doesn’t seem to be targeting the kids.”

  “My power makes her immune to Bambina,” Usher said.

  “Maybe to the explosions,” I said, “But the impact? Or something else?”

  He frowned.

  “They’re not on the same side,” Arbiter said, “The shooter and the child villains.”

  “Good,” Prefab said. “Let’s-”

  Bambina collided with the Kulshedra again. It rocked, nearly tipping over onto one side.

  “Kulshedra,” Prefab said, “Open ramp!”

  The ramp opened, and I sent the butterflies out. Nothing substantial, but it was something.

  Okay, not really. But it was an opportunity to lay out some silk. I emptied the reserves I had contained in my costume.

  Prefab began working on a structure, forming it out of the same flashes of light and sparks of darkness he’d used before. It took time to pull together, and the way it joined with the wall next to it, it didn’t seem like he was designing it on the fly.

  Similar to Labyrinth, but it was only natural that powers might run in parallel.

  The shooter wasn’t in my reach. Bambina was horrifically mobile, bouncing off of walls and the street, creating explosions with most of the impacts. Her teammates were along for the ride, apparently unscathed by her power. Going on the offensive would be hard, even if I was using my full complement of bugs.

  I was having a really hard time justifying Glenn’s rule on pretty bugs only.

  Prefab’s wall appeared around the craft. “Priority one is the wounded!”

  We made our way out of the craft. Odd as it was, I felt a mixture of relief and… an emotion I couldn’t place, at the realization that I didn’t have to fight to convince my teammates that we had to help other people.

  Three cars had been caught beneath the wings of Dragon’s craft, another smashed by a chunk of ice. The passengers of one car had fled, another two cars had people trapped inside, and the people in the fourth were unconscious.

  I helped Arbiter with the unconscious ones.

  “I alerted Dragon,” Prefab said. “The Vegas teams know too. This is a waiting game. We help Rime, and we keep the prisoner contained. If he gets loose, or if Bambina destroys the containment vessel, this gets a lot more complicated.”

  The prisoner, I noted the word choice, not Pretender.

  “If I can get closer to the shooter, I can disable him,” I said.

  “Too dangerous.”

  An explosion against the exterior of the wall Prefab had pulled together marked another attack from Bambina.

  “I can do dangerous. Let me take the kid-gloves off, and-”

  “No,” Rime’s voice came through my earbud. “No. Stay.“

  I grit my teeth. “You’re underestimating me.”

  “We’re well aware of what you’re capable of. I’m doing you a favor,” she said, and her voice was strained. “Stay, follow Prefab’s orders.“

  I considered running, then stopped. “Okay. I’m giving you some backup, Rime. Best I can do.”

  With that, I sent butterflies her way, clustering them into human-shaped groups. When one group reached her, they surrounded her. Decoys.

  “Hard to see,” she said. I didn’t even need the earbud to understand, with the butterflies near her.

  I kept the bugs away from her face. I wasn’t sure that was ideal, but it was her call.

  Arbiter and Prefab had enough medical training to check the civilians over before we moved them or moved them further. With my power, I tracked Bambina as she ricocheted through the area, causing innumerable explosions across the landscape. Rime struggled to evade both Bambina and the detonation, while maintaining some degree of cover against the gunman.

  “Last one,” Prefab said. “Weaver, help.”

  I helped him get the older woman to her feet, and keep her standing as we led her into the back of Dragon’s ship.

  I stopped abruptly, as Bambina�
��s trajectory swiftly changed.

  “Trouble!” I called out.

  Bambina landed atop the wall. Her teammates landed beside her, each holding one hand. They looked a little worse for wear. Starlet was firing darts of light at Rime, the darts exploding mid-way through the air to block Rime’s path when she tried to advance. Between Starlet and the sniper, she wasn’t able to advance.

  ”You were there for the Leviathan fight,” I spoke to Bambina.

  “Can’t really bounce on water, it turns out,” she said. “Wasn’t worth the trouble. Ducked out.”

  Prefab let go of the older woman, leaving me with the burden as he faced Bambina square-on. “Lots of attention on Pretender all of a sudden.”

  “Paying pretty well,” Bambina said, “And he promised a favor, too. He set some rules, but considering how we’re going above and beyond the call of duty, I’m hoping he’ll bend them. You know how fucking awesome it is to have a favor from a body snatcher? He zaps himself into some hunky celeb that’d never touch me otherwise, then…”

  Bambina launched into a lewd explanation of what she’d have him do to her, and vice versa. I averted my eyes and did my best to turn off my ears. I’d started out spending months suppressing my powers to varying degrees, and I’d learned to ignore some sensations from my bugs. I wasn’t so lucky when it came to my hearing.

  “…with my feet,” Bambina finished.

  Starlet, still firing on Rime, glanced over her shoulder to look at us, cackling at Bambina’s audacity, while August Prince didn’t seem to react.

  I’d backed away, helping the older woman hobble forward on her bad ankle, and we were close enough to the ramp for her to make her own way up. I stepped forward, my eyes still on Bambina.

  “Worst thing ever,” Vantage murmured from behind me. “Fighting kids? You win, you get zero credit, no matter how good their powers are. They’re children, after all. But if you lose, well, they’re kids, your reputation is fucked.”

  “Focus,” Prefab said. “We know who these three are. We’ve got a Mover-shaker six, a blaster-shaker four, and a master-stranger three.”

  “Hey, Weaver,” Bambina called out. “You’re that supervillain-turned hero, right? Offed Alexandria?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Odd, how I felt more at home in this situation than I had fifteen minutes ago. Or even helping the civilians. I’d liked helping civilians, but this was where I felt most able to reach into myself and be strangely calm.

  “You fucked up my rankings for a straight week, worst fucking time, too. I’d planned an escapade, was supposed to rise to number thirty, but your news took the front page instead, and I dropped to forty-five instead. I haven’t been that low in a year!”

  “Rankings?” I asked.

  “Rankings! Don’t you even pay attention? It was embarrassing. My mom’s still giving me a hard time over it, and it’s like, that’s less money from our sponsors. So I’m going to make you deepthroat my fist, okay? Break your arms and legs and make you suckle it.”

  She stamped, and fire rippled around her. Both August and Starlet flinched.

  Worse, it destroyed the silk I’d been tying around her leg.

  She leaped down, holding August Prince’s hand, and Arbiter took action. The heroine directed a sonic blast at Bambina with one hand, but Bambina kicked the wall, changing the direction she was moving. Arbiter blocked her with a forcefield, then raised a hand to shoot again-

  And stopped, standing still instead. A look of consternation appeared across her forehead, above her mask.

  Bambina ricocheted off of Dragon’s craft, hitting it hard enough that it shifted, then flew at Prefab. One hit, and he was out of action. The explosion hadn’t even been that large.

  Prefab, who had his cannon raised and hadn’t even pulled the trigger once.

  Bambina whipped around, rotating crazily before touching ground, her feet skidding on the ground. She set the Prince down. Starlet, up on the wall, laughed.

  “Can’t touch the Prince, can you?” Bambina asked. “Go, August.”

  The little boy advanced. He held a scepter, different from Regent’s. More of a mace.

  Arbiter was backing up rapidly as he advanced, and I-

  I thought briefly about what the heroes had said about Alexandria, about how she’d wanted them to act like the person they wanted to be.

  I’d done that, in a way. It reminded me of how I’d formed my identity as Skitter. I’d acted fearsome, acted as if I expected people to be afraid, expected them to listen, and they had. Even Dragon had, at one point.

  But maybe I didn’t need to be feared here. I could do something as Weaver. Confidence. I didn’t back down as the August Prince approached. I sent butterflies his way. No problem.

  Tried to move them so he would be blinded… and found they didn’t listen.

  Tried to bite and sting with the nastier insects I’d hidden inside the butterfly swarm, and again, no response.

  He closed the distance to me, swinging at my knee with the mace. I ducked back out of the way.

  His fighting style was graceless, without any particular fluidity. He held the mace with two hands and swung it, and then took seconds to recover. An opening to strike, and my body refused to follow up on it.

  That would be his power then. Something in the same department as Imp’s ability.

  My bugs continued past him, and I sent them straight for Bambina.

  She only laughed as the butterflies landed on her, stomped hard to kill most of them. “No way. You offed Alexandria. I’m not- Ow!”

  Bees, wasps and hornets stung simultaneously, targeting her eyes, mouth and earholes.

  She stomped, and soared up to the top of the wall. “My face, fuck you! This is going to swell! This fucking…”

  I didn’t hear the rest. I was more focused on the little kid who was striving to cave in something vital.

  The Prince swung at me, and I caught the mace.

  It was a mistake. He let go and tackled me, gripping my leg, hauling on it to put me off-balance.

  I couldn’t fight to pull him off, couldn’t use my bugs.

  This was annoying.

  Then I saw Bambina point, saw Starlet stop taking potshots at Rime and turn my way, reaching.

  If the Prince was the master-stranger hybrid, and Bambina the mover-shaker, then that left the blaster power to Starlet.

  “Arbiter!”

  Arbiter threw a forcefield between us. It didn’t matter. The dart of light she fired exploded against the forcefield, and the ensuing implosion pulled me off the ground. August Prince held on as I tumbled, then climbed up me before reaching around my throat.

  I tucked my chin against my collarbone, preventing him from getting a decent hold, and he started clawing at me, struggling to get fingers, a hand, between my chin and my neck.

  If this goes any further, Clockblocker’s never going to let me live this down.

  The second thought was a little more grave.

  If this little bastard kills me, the Undersiders will never forgive me.

  The others were helpless to assist me, due to the peculiarities of the Prince’s power, but they could direct their focus to Bambina and Starlet. Leister thrust out his trident, and it distorted, stretching the distance between himself and the two kid villains on the wall. He struck Starlet in the face with the shaft of the trident.

  Bambina kicked him, and he went flying to a point on the other side of the wall. His spear distorted and brought him to the ground, but the kick- it hit too hard. He didn’t rise.

  Seeing one of her Wards get taken out of action, Rime made a break for us, my decoys moving parallel to her.

  The sniper fired, and she went down. One guess, and it was accurate.

  Tumbling through the air, she used her power in one singular burst, and was encased in a two-story high tower of ice.

  Vantage leaped onto the top of the craft, then onto the top of the wall. Starlet’s blast nearly moved him. Bambina leapt,
bouncing off a nearby building, then flying towards Vantage. He teleported out of her way, then threw a bola, catching her. She fell from the wall, landing hard.

  One down. Two to go.

  I’m better than this.

  The rules about interacting with the Prince were strictly defined. I could hold him, but I couldn’t hurt him. Which category did silk fall under? I had some on my person. Twenty feet in all. Twenty feet disappeared fast when it was wound around something.

  I chose his neck. Not hurting him, not directly. His power allowed it.

  One of Starlet’s implosions sent Prince and I tumbling. Too far from anything I could hold. He found the opportunity to seize me by the neck.

  “Someone!” I said, “Come closer!”

  Usher approached, and Starlet blasted the ground behind him, pulling him off his feet. He was mere handspans from where I needed him.

  “Rime’s out of commission!” I said, my voice strangled as Prince did his best to choke me. “Your power isn’t affecting her. Give it to me!”

  Usher focused his power on me. I felt it ripple through me, felt something, but it didn’t break the spell. I still couldn’t turn the slightest amount of aggression towards the kid.

  “No,” I said.

  Usher focused his power on Vantage instead, and Vantage flared with light.

  Starlet’s power hit him, and it didn’t do a thing. He punched her in the gut, then caught her as she went limp.

  And Prince… was harder to deal with. Usher approached, and I tied thread around his leg.

  I tried to tell Usher to run, knowing what would happen with the thread around Prince’s neck. My voice wouldn’t come out, and it wasn’t due to the feeble but persistent attempt at strangulation.

  So many heroes around me, and they couldn’t touch this little bastard.

  Move, I thought. Move, move, move.

  “Your power immunity isn’t making me immune to the kid,” Vantage said, helplessly.

  Don’t talk, move.

  In the midst of the Kulshedra, I could sense moving air currents. A woman emerged from thin air, from a place cooler than the interior of the ship. The civilians we’d rescued shrieked and backed away from her. She didn’t respond, barely reacted. Someone with long, dark hair and a suit. She fixed her cuffs, then moved with purpose.