Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  I collected the mail, wedging it into a space between two of the library books on the little table in my cell.

  Withdrawing a notepad, I started sketching out the designs I was thinking of. Alterations to the costume, weapon ideas, tools and concepts.

  Payloads for bugs? Something I can drop? Caltrops? Something toxic?

  Back to my roots, to where I’d been after my powers had manifested. Only then, I’d been writing in a black speckled notebook.

  Darker fabric? Must talk to Glenn about costume style. Butterflies are in, but can I complement them? Need official word.

  It was moronic to have a white costume. Equally moronic to have butterflies.

  What about containment foam? If Dovetail can use it what does it take for me to get permission?I’d pay homage to Atlas and push Defiant and Dragon to create something that would let me fly. Pay homage to Skitter and settle on a middle ground in costume design, in combat effectiveness, weapons and utility.

  I thought of Atlas, and added a note – jetpack? With beetle wings? Flight system?

  I was nearly through the pad, and it was pushing four in the morning by the time I had the sketches and outlines at an acceptable point.

  The costume Defiant and Dragon had given me was theirs, not mine. The fighting style that had been dictated was Glenn’s and Chevalier’s.

  This, this would be me.

  23.04

  “I’m so sorry I’m late. I never do this,” Mrs. Yamada said. She entered the office, a raincoat, boots and a messenger bag in her arms, her hair a touch damp, clearly flustered. “What a way to start us off. I’m so embarrassed.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

  I knew right away that it wasn’t her office. It just didn’t fit her, in any sense. She was average in height for a woman, which put her a little taller than most Japanese women, her hair cut short in what I took to be a utilitarian choice, but was styled enough to show a degree of effort. Her clothes and shoes were much the same.

  The room, by contrast, clashed with her demeanor. There was a level of care that went into it. Like, I couldn’t help but feel that the desk in the corner and the chairs were antiques, or at least very expensive. There were model airplanes on the shelves and pictures of airplanes on the walls, and Mrs. Yamada didn’t give me the impression of an airplane afficionado. The sheer heft of the chair and desk seemed out of proportion with Mrs. Yamada as a person.

  Was she borrowing a colleague’s office? For the last while, I’d been ferried here and there. Dragon and Defiant were my custodians, and between them, they were traveling all over America, making it relatively easy to schedule a pick-up and drop-off. It was almost easier for me to go to Yamada’s office than for her to come to me, but we’d come here instead.

  “It’s a matter of professional courtesy,” she said, more like she was talking to herself than to me. She was still getting herself sorted out, her raincoat hung up, rain boots replaced with slippers she’d been holding beneath the coat. “Being prompt, it indicates that I respect and value your time. You can’t confide in me if I don’t respect you.”

  Respect me?

  I looked down at the floor for a moment. She was looking at me when I raised my eyes to her. “With all sincerity, it was due to forces entirely out of my control, with complications at every turn.”

  “Bureaucracy,” I said.

  “You’re not wrong,” she said, “But it was something else. A patient of mine, institutionalized, she’s reacted badly to certain events in the last month. Someone she idolized left the Wards, and-”

  I could see her stop, composing herself, the stress and preoccupied attitude melting away.

  “-And this isn’t about that. This session is about you.”

  “About me. This could be a long session,” I said.

  “My instinct,” Mrs. Yamada said, as she settled uncomfortably into the large, somewhat ostentatious chair, “Would be to ask about the little details you’ve seeded into the conversation already.”

  “Details?”

  “How you seized the idea that it’s bureaucracy that would be holding me back,” she said. “Or your facial expression when I said I want to approach this meeting with respect. But there’s other points I think we should cover first. We’ll get back to that, if you’re interested.”

  I shrugged.

  “FIrst off, let’s start off with the basics. How are you?”

  Pretty basic. “Fine.”

  “You’re in prison, and will be for at least two years, maybe longer. By all reports, you’re chafing under the new restrictions you face as a member of the Wards. That’s without touching on the fact that, two weeks ago, you murdered Alexandria and Director James Tagg out of fear for your safety and the safety of your friends and teammates. In this room, or wherever we go to talk, it’s okay to answer ‘how are you’ with an admission that you’re not okay.”

  “I’m- I feel better, after talking to Glenn and Chevalier.”

  “How did you feel before?”

  “Restless. I still am, really. Very restless. If one feeling is taking hold of me, it’s that.”

  “How so?”

  “Before I was in jail, I ran every other morning. I can’t run now, but my body still wants me to, at the usual time and the usual pace.”

  She nodded, making a note. “When did you start?”

  “About a month after I got my powers. February.”

  She nodded.

  I went on, “And there’s the other stuff. You might not believe me, but I was helping people. Hurting people from time to time, but mostly helping. I was getting food out to people who were hungry, checking everyone had what they needed, laying long-term plans for the future, so that people who’ve never had a chance in their lives would finally get one. I’m helping people less now that I’m going out with the Wards.”

  “Do you think that maybe you’re hurting people less?”

  “But the sum total is worse. It’s like, if you go back to the very fundamentals of right and wrong, you have to ask, ‘if most people acted the same way I’m acting right now, would society be better off?’”

  “Okay,” she said. “And you think society would be better off if everyone acted like you?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “Yes, I hurt people, but I hurt people who deserved it. When I had the resources to do it, I helped a lot of people.”

  “In this hypothetical reality where most people think like you, correct me if I’m wrong, transgressions would be punished?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Guess so.”

  “Would it be fair to say they’re punished harshly?”

  She was thinking of Alexandria and Tagg, no doubt. Maybe Valefor. “Yeah.”

  “Kind of medieval, isn’t it?”

  It reminded me of my dad, that idea. “Guess it is. But capes are naturally violent.”

  “And what about the Wards? I wasn’t there at the time, but one of my colleagues started seeing the Brockton Bay Wards a short time after Leviathan attacked the city. Did they commit a transgression that warranted the pain they suffered at your hands? The ones that aren’t Shadow Stalker?”

  I didn’t have a ready answer to that. She waited in silence for long seconds before I shrugged. “There was stuff, the fact that they tolerated people like Shadow Stalker, but I’m not sure I could explain it now. Feels like a long time ago.”

  “A lot’s happened all at once. It might contribute to the restlessness you feel now that things are quieter. You said you felt better after you talked to Glenn and Chevalier. Why?”

  “I got a chance to talk stuff through. More of a sense of why they were putting obstacles in my way. And on my way over here, I gave Dragon some notes on an updated costume and gear. She’ll probably email it out, they’ll discuss the options and tear the proposal to shreds. If they accept any of it, though, I’ll bring me a step closer to being me, to being more comfortable with what I’m doing.”

  �
��That’s a good lead-in to the next big question I had in mind. Who are ‘you’? I make a point of asking all of my clients this, but what should I call you? Weaver? Taylor? Skitter?”

  “All of the above? Maybe call me Weaver. I’m still trying to get used to the name.”

  “Okay, Weaver, and my next easy question is whether I can get you anything? Water? I remember you had a coffee cup in front of you in the interrogation room in Brockton Bay.”

  “It was tea,” I said, “And not right now, thanks.”

  “Okay,” she said, making another note.

  “Writing down some profound insights?” I asked, gesturing towards the pad of paper she had in her lap.

  “Details about you, your tastes and priorities. Maybe I’ll have tea ready the next time we meet. Black, green, herbal?”

  “Black.”

  “Okay,” she said. Another brief note. “This is the first date, Weaver, if you’ll excuse the metaphor. This is when I get a sense of who you are as a person, the fundamentals of who you are. I then use that to help you and inform you. You aren’t obligated to take my feedback without question, or to take my advice as orders, but if we wind up being a good team, then hopefully you’ll want to, because you find it genuinely helpful.”

  I nodded.

  “I know only a little about you from context, but I don’t want to be one of the people who jumps to conclusions about you, so I’m second guessing every detail that you don’t personally share with me. I drew up a timeline, which was why I asked when you started running, trying to get a sense of what was happening for you and when.”

  “Any insights?”

  “Some, but we can talk about that another time. Later today, maybe. My point is, I’m trying to figure you out. So please forgive me if any of my questions seem too simple, or if I’m asking about things I should already know. The next set of questions are a little more serious. Do you want therapy?“

  “It’s kind of obligatory,” I said.

  “I’d change my approach depending on whether you hated this but were playing along, if you really did want help figuring things out, or if you wanted therapy but didn’t want it with me.“

  She let that last bit hang in the air.

  When I didn’t respond, Mrs. Yamada said, “I would understand if you felt like you had to be on guard against me. When you were dealing with the Protectorate and PRT in Brockton Bay, it might have looked like I was one of the enemies.”

  “You were pretty decent to me, all things considered.”

  “Good,” she said. She smiled a little. “Thank you. Let me pose the question another way. You’ve said you’re able to tolerate my presence?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay. Given that you’ve accepted me, I’m wondering what you think my goal is.”

  “You’re going to report back to the guys in charge of the PRT and the Protectorate and tell them whether or not I’m of sound mind, whether I can join the Wards team without snapping and murdering someone.”

  “That’s not it,” she said. “In fact, I may well do the opposite, depending on how this meeting goes, and avoid commenting altogether. My only goal is to help you.”

  “Help me?” I asked.

  “There’s two very different paths we could take. The first is simple. I’d act as your therapist. I would be an objective ear, and I could equip you with tools to handle things like stress, anger, or anything else that concerned you. Anything you said would be entirely confidential, and I would decline to comment when the time came for your placement in the Wards, so as to preserve that confidentiality.”

  “Isn’t that damning?” I asked. “If you don’t have anything good to say, they’ll naturally assume you know bad things.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve had upstanding heroes choose to exercise their right to confidentiality. If we started off by establishing this as therapy right off the bat, there would be enough forewarning that it wouldn’t reflect badly on you.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “The second route would involve me not being your therapist, but your advocate. We’d set you up with someone else as a therapist, and I’d focus on serving as a middleman, in working with the PRT, Protectorate, the Wards and the warden at Gardener. I could, for example, talk to the warden about you getting a chance to run in the mornings, testifying that it’d be a good, healthy release. When the time came for you to be placed with the Wards, I’d testify with all of the good and the bad, from what we’ve talked about here.”

  “That makes a lot of sense,” I said.

  “There’s a middle ground between the two options,” she said, “I could certainly be an advocate for you if you were coming to me for therapy, or offer you a listening ear if you were coming to me for advocacy.”

  “With the knowledge that anything I said could be used against me, in that case.”

  She nodded. “So long as you know.”

  “I could really use an advocate,” I sighed.

  I thought of how she’d composed herself, pulling herself together. It struck a chord.

  “But I think I’d rather have you for a therapist.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “And I respect that you’re willing to ask for help. That takes a kind of strength.”

  I shrugged.

  “Is there any particular place you’d like to start?” she asked. “We already touched on bureaucracy, you seemed a touch bewildered that I would respect you.”

  She paused, as if waiting for me to chime in.

  “There’s other things, but it’s hard to articulate them.”

  “Give it a try. It’s sometimes easiest if you start with the underlying emotion. I feel, followed by the emotion, then talk about why.”

  I nodded. “I feel… anxious, because I’m worried I’m not a very good hero.”

  “Assuming it isn’t inexperience, is that so terrible? Being less than stellar?”

  “Doesn’t it say something ugly about me, if I make a pretty excellent villain and a crappy hero?”

  “Maybe it says something about your power, or it’s simply past experience. I stress, you are new at this.”

  “When I was new at being a villain I took on established heroes and robbed a bank, walking away with a small fortune.”

  “You had a team with you.”

  “I felt a hell of a lot more effective, when I count everything that’s happened without teammates at my back. I dunno.”

  “So you’re restless and anxious-”

  “And genuinely afraid,” I said. I sighed. “I feel… afraid, because I’m starting to think that maybe my power isn’t entirely under my control. There’s a monster taking up real estate in my brain, deciding to use my power when I don’t want to, and I’m pretty sure it’s been getting more effective over time.”

  “Is this monster metaphorical?”

  “That’s a very good question,” I said. I leaned on my knees and stared at my hands. “Is it just me? Or is it my ‘passenger’, some inscrutable life form from a parallel universe that decided to give me powers, currently helping me manage those powers so my brain doesn’t overheat? Or is there even a distinction? Did my trigger event fuse us to the point that the line is blurred beyond recognition?”

  “I can see where the idea would be frightening,” she said. “I’ve heard of some of these things, though the particulars and names differed. We don’t know enough about them, about powers, even, and the unknown is daunting, especially when it affects you as deeply as your power seems to affect you. This lack of control, it-”

  “If I tell you I’m dangerous, that I’m going to hurt someone, intentionally or by accident, are you obligated to report it?”

  “Yes, if the risk is grave. Forgive me for asking, but are you going to hurt someone? Accidentally or otherwise?”

  I shook my head. “No. But it makes me wonder if something like that is a possibility.”

  “I’ve worked with a lot of young parahumans who had uncontrollable powe
rs. There are options.”

  “Like?”

  “It depends on the form this lack of control takes. Is it perpetual? Does it hinge on you losing focus? On your being tired? Illness? Anger?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes when I’ve been knocked out, I’ve found that my power keeps going without my instruction. It’s not brilliant, it makes mistakes, and the logic isn’t always there, but I’ve had my power keep working when I was unconscious, after a concussion, and when a cape used their power to wipe away my volition. When I was tranquilized, after setting my bugs on Director Tagg, they apparently kept going after him.”

  “Let’s start with the fundamentals, then. I almost always recommend relaxation exercises and meditation to my patients with control issues. There’s almost always a degree of improvement. The next trick is to find a way to track this.”

  “I’m getting a new costume. Maybe a camera? The most recent time I noticed it was when I was with Glenn Chambers, he showed me a video, and I saw myself using tricks I’d never taught myself.”

  “Perhaps a camera, then. Is it reassuring, to know that there are answers?”

  “I’ll be reassured when I see improvement,” I said. “No offense.”

  “None taken. But you raised two problems. Your lack of confidence about being a hero. That’s more immediate, if less ominous?”

  “It’s pretty ominous, honestly,” I said. “I staked a lot on this.”

  “You have options in mind, am I right? You said that you were suggesting a new costume and new equipment.”

  “But that doesn’t fix things if I’m a round peg in a square hole. I’ve thought about compromises, stuff beyond the gear and costumes, but I feel like I’m almost betraying myself. The me that spent three months after getting powers, with the idea that I’d be a hero. I had all of this idealism, all of these ideas of how I’d help, big and small, and I wind up doing more good as a notorious villain than as a hero.”

  Jessica Yamada made a note on her pad of paper, then set it on the small table to her right. She glanced at the window, then at me, “Are you still restless?”

  “All the time,” I said.