Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  Dispatch, vice-captain of the Houston Protectorate team, zipped over to a group of wounded with accelerated speed, only to seem to pause, as though he and his immediate surroundings were only video footage. Color and space distorted violently in an irregular area around him as he hung there, just an inch over the ground, one hand at his belt and another reaching for someone with intense burns.

  A half-second later, the effect dissipated, and they were all moving. Dispatch was carrying one of the most wounded, gloves off and the sleeves of his costume pulled up, dried blood up to his elbows. Others were bandaged and sutured. His name, I knew, came from his ability to pick out targets in a fight, closing the distance to them and catching them in his temporal distortion effect. He’d have minutes or hours, however long it took the air within the effect to run out, to end the fight with his super strength, durability and the close confines of the bubble. To any observers, it appeared as though he’d won the fight in a heartbeat. Apparently the idea extended to medical care.

  Revel, leader of the Chicago Protectorate and official overseer of Tecton’s Ward team, was stepping up to the plate. Floating up to it, whatever. She rose into the air, and caught one full current of lightning inside her lantern. The sheer force of the blast knocked her back, and she struck a wall, pressed against it with her lantern held in front of her.

  She began releasing spheres of light from the lantern, each larger than a human head, slow-moving but numerous. Their trajectories were unpredictable, some striking friendlies, others carrying forward towards Behemoth. Where they struck friendlies, they only exploded in brilliant showers of sparks. When they touched Behemoth, they sheared right into him, cutting two or three feet deep before flickering out.

  When she saw it was working, she only intensified the assault, spending the charge she’d accumulated to create fifty more orbs, before hurrying forward to intercept another stream of lightning that was flowing from Behemoth’s claw-tip. It was impossible to actually get in front before the lightning appeared, to save the lives that Behemoth was taking with the initial moments the lightning appeared, but she was stopping the lightning from flickering to the fourth, fifth or sixth target.

  That was what I was waiting for. My limited experience with Endbringers had taught me one thing. When someone actually found a way to respond, to cancel out the attacks or to deliver a measure of real damage, they changed tactics.

  Some capes were already responding. Captains and leaders were giving orders, and various barriers were being reinforced or thrown back up. Some were trying to give the warning, but their voices disappeared in the midst of the chaos around us.

  “Take cover!” I hollered, and my swarm carried my voice.

  It was only two or three seconds later, as the second wave of spheres drifted to Behemoth and began to cut into his torso and groin area, that he responded. His ‘mouth’ opened, the craggy spikes of obsidian ‘teeth’ parting.

  And he roared. A sound that was slow at first, growing steadily more powerful.

  Sound was a bitch of a thing. It could be muffled, but blocking it entirely? We didn’t have Grue.

  I fled, cranking my antigrav to ‘high’ and risking unfolding my wings to use the propulsion systems as I made my way to for cover, putting as many buildings between Behemoth and I as I could.

  My swarm responded to my call, assisting the capes who weren’t fleeing fast enough. They rose as a singular mass, a wall of tens of thousands, and absorbed the worst of the scream. I wasn’t sure it was enough. Even with some distance and a dozen buildings between Behemoth and I, I had no defenses as it reached a crescendo. My sense of balance went out the window, my very bones hurt.

  Closer to Behemoth, capes were bleeding from their ears, vomiting, passing out. Organs and brains would be reduced to jelly as he continued. My bugs weren’t doing much to muffle the noise or soften the damage, if they were helping at all.

  But my focus was on the rooftop. I’d been waiting until he stopped using his lightning. There was nothing saying he wouldn’t use it now. He could use multiple attack forms at the same time. Still, he was more focused on picking off the defending capes, the ones who were suppressing the noise. Was Citrine among them? I could see the golden glow of her power in the distance.

  Director Tagg had given me an effective ranking of two for every single power classification. Ostensibly, it had been because he hadn’t wanted to underestimate me. Was there a note of truth to that, though? I wasn’t sure about the ‘brute’ or ‘mover’ classifications, but did my power over bugs afford me a versatility that let me cover the bases on other fronts?

  They still hadn’t completely evacuated the roof. The people who might have helped them down were disabled or otherwise occupied. Getting them down was key, here. The flying capes were more focused on assisting the capes near the front lines, helping the ones who could deal damage escape Behemoth’s implacable advance and avoid the kill aura that accompanied him.

  The roaring made it impossible to hear. Even seeing was difficult, as my vision distorted and lost focus. I very nearly tipped over, until I turned to my swarm sense. Not perfect. Even they were suffering, scattered and dying, at close range to the roar. But it gave me an orientation, a plane to compare the tilt and angle of my body with.

  I looped to one side to intercept some of my bugs, collecting the strands of silk they’d woven in one hand, then made my way around to the back of the building the heroes were clustered on. Flying capes were settled on the ground, pausing to recuperate from the roar. I took a second, myself, to get my bearings. My back against the concrete, I could feel the building shuddering in response to the roar. But at least there was a small degree of reprieve, here.

  When I’d caught my breath and reassured myself my insides hadn’t been vibrated to pieces, I flew to the rooftop. My bugs swept over the crowd. No Tattletale that I could see. No Accord, either, for that matter.

  Two capes approached me, not quite Caucasian but lighter-skinned than the Indian capes. One had a costume with a spiral to it, the other wore armor with tiny faces that looked like baby’s heads. Was he a villain? They were rattling off something in French or Spanish as they reached out to take my hands. Their eyes were wide with fear and alarm.

  “I can’t carry you!” I shouted, raising my voice to be heard over the perpetual roar. “My flight pack isn’t strong enough!”

  They clutched at me, and one even pushed at another cape who’d gotten too close.

  A little too much. Too intense, here, too forceful. I just want to find Tattletale. I’ll find a way to help you once I’ve done that.

  “Back off!” I said, raising my voice.

  The guy with the faces on his armor shouted so forcefully that spit flew from his mouth, as he pointed to the ground beyond the building. He approached me, trying to hug himself tight to my body. I pushed him away and backed up, trusting the antigrav to hold me aloft.

  One of the capes on the rooftop approached me, pushing her way through the crowd. She wore a golden mask with a woman’s face, the mouth parted a fraction, with a black bodysuit. It was softened a touch by the loose black cloth that draped down from her golden shoulderpads and breastplate. The black didn’t look so dramatic as it might have, mottled a brown-gray by the loose dust that had accumulated on it.

  “Weaver,” she said, her voice melodic.

  “Arbiter,” I responded. One of Rime’s underlings. The one with the social danger sense, forcefield and sonic beam. I supposed her forcefield wasn’t quite large enough or versatile enough to offer a bridge down to the ground. “I’ve got other stuff I need to pay attention to. Don’t suppose you speak French? Or Spanish?”

  “Portuguese,” she said. “And no, but give me a moment.”

  She turned to the capes, but a heavy crash interrupted her before she could speak.

  A building had fallen, toppling, and Behemoth hadn’t done anything to precipitate it. Nothing except the roaring.

  Was that enough? Was this build
ing coming apart beneath us?

  Where the hell was Tattletale? My bugs flowed into cracks in the building, checking rooms only to find them empty.

  “Hurry!” I said. I turned my attention to my swarm. They extended out beneath me, forming into neat lines. My bugs were slow to move through the structure. I had to use the cracks that already existed in the walls, ducts and vents that just happened to be open.

  “Speak to me,” Arbiter said to the Portuguese capes.

  The one with the spiral costume chattered out something I couldn’t even guess at. Arbiter nodded. In very broken Portuguese, she asked a question. The spiral man looked at the one with him, gesturing.

  In less broken Portuguese, she spoke again.

  That prompted another burst of explanation, or what I took to be exclamation. They sounded desperate, afraid.

  When she responded, she spoke just as quickly and flawlessly as the two native speakers. She’d picked up the language in a matter of three exchanges.

  I bit my tongue as the roar abruptly intensified, jarring me enough that my jaw was slammed shut. It wasn’t that he was roaring louder; one of the capes who’d been keeping the worst of the noise at bay had fallen.

  Focus. My bugs extended lines of silk to the ground, while others held it aloft and kept it more or less straight, allowing the lengths to be carefully measured, the amount of slack controlled.

  “Weaver!” Arbiter said, raising her voice so I could hear her.

  I turned around.

  “I don’t quite understand, there’s a gap in translation, but he says he’s pregnant with his dead teammates,” she said. Her voice cut through the noise, “They’re asking for him to be rescued next.”

  Pregnant with dead teammates?

  Suddenly the little faces on his armor seemed twice as creepy. I really hoped that was a tragically bad translation. Parahumans could be so fucked up sometimes.

  “He gets rescued with everyone else,” I said. “There’s no way to prioritize.”

  “Right,” Arbiter said.

  I secured the lines of silk on the roof’s edge and on the ground. I then pulled off a shoulderpad and retrieved the strip of silk that had held it in place. I folded it over the cord and stepped over the edge, letting myself slide down the length of the cord. Both ends were tied, and the slack was enough that it should ease people to the ground. I was okay with doing the test run, as my flight pack could handle the fall.

  It didn’t break. Good. Better than nothing. I flew back to the rooftop, and I could feel the roar rattling me as I made my way up past the more solid cover.

  “Should be fairly safe,” I said, “Silk cord got warm, from what my bugs are feeling, but I’ve got six arranged. One person at a time, delay by about… twenty seconds, at least, between trips, so the heat and friction doesn’t wear through the silk. It’s not the strongest thread I’ve ever made.”

  Arbiter glanced over the roof’s edge. I followed her gaze. The silk was barely even visible.

  “You’re sure they’ll hold?”

  “No,” I said. I glanced over at Behemoth, “But I’m less sure this building’ll be standing in five minutes. If a cape falls and dies, I’ll take the blame. Better than having everyone up here die.”

  “You’re not convincing me,” she said, but she said something to the cape with the spirals on his costume. With gestures and careful explanation, she got him to step up to the front, pulling his glove free of his fingers, using the excess fabric to slide down the silk line.

  My bugs checked it after he’d passed. Warm, but not so much that I was worried it’d split.

  “Go! Go!” Arbiter said, grabbing the attention of the capes who’d been standing back and watching.

  In seconds, we had capes sliding down the lines. Arbiter was careful to keep them from overloading or applying too much friction too fast to the makeshift ziplines.

  Behemoth had stopped his endless roaring. He was using fire, now. There was none of the uncanny precision the lightning had, but the fire moved with intelligence, spread easily, burned hotter than it should have, and it was virtually impossible to stop all of it. It slipped between force fields, between the fingers of Golem’s stone hands, and it ignited any fabric and wood it touched, set grass alight.

  I had to pull back my bugs. I’d managed to keep the vast majority from dying, some fires and casualties from the roaring excepted, but this wasn’t a place where they’d help.

  Six more capes made their way down the line. Arbiter used her forcefield to block some more agitated capes from making their way down before it was time. She spoke in one of the local languages to the group.

  “Thank you,” I told her. “For helping keep this sane. If it comes down to it, and the cords don’t hold, I’ll lend you my flight pack. I can control it remotely.”

  “Give it to someone else before you give it to me,” she said, without looking at me.

  “Right,” I answered. “Listen, I’m-”

  A cape gripped the cord for his turn, only to turn out to be far heavier than he looked. Arbiter placed a forcefield under him, but it didn’t do much more than slow his descent as he crashed through it.

  Five cords remained, and there were too many capes here.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “He’s okay,” Arbiter observed.

  But the others seemed more reticient now.

  “What the hell is going on downstairs? Are stairs too difficult?”

  Arbiter shook her head. “Government building, it’s set up to lock down in a crisis, which it did. A rogue cape turned on the people inside, so the metal doors closed to protect others. We’ve been reeling since. Command structure’s down, our battle lines collapsed-”

  “You’re talking about Chevalier.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then where’s Tattletale?”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Teenage girl, dirty blond, costume of black and light purple. She would’ve been with a short man wearing a suit.”

  “I saw them. They went downstairs with Chevalier.”

  I could feel my heart in my throat. “Where are they now?”

  “With other wounded. We’re relaying them a half-mile that way,” Arbiter pointed. “Far enough away that Behemoth won’t be endangering them anytime soon.”

  Behemoth generated a shockwave, and one forcefield at the front of the roof flickered and died. A tinker moved forward to try to restart it, and was struck down by a bolt of lightning before she could.

  A wave of capes mustered the courage and slid down. There were only eleven of us on the rooftop now, myself and Arbiter included.

  I checked the lines, then cut one that was too frayed. Four left.

  “Four lines left,” I reported, before someone reached for one that wasn’t there. My thoughts, though, were on Tattletale. Injured or dead.

  “Go,” Arbiter said. “To your friend, your teammate, your partner, whatever she is to you, she’s important.”

  I shook my head. “You need me. I can use my bugs to check the lines are okay.”

  “There won’t be any major difference if you’re here or not. Three more trips-”

  A flying cape touched the rooftop only long enough to take hold of one of the people on top, then took off again.

  “Maybe two trips, and we’re clear. I’ll go last. Go.“

  Another shockwave knocked out another forcefield panel. A tinker was working on the generator, best as she could while hunkering down behind the sole remaining panel. She said something frantic. I couldn’t understand her, whatever her language, but I could guess. It wasn’t her tech.

  I hesitated, wanting to take the offer to escape. Then I shook my head. “I’ll stay. Tattletale’s important to me, but so is doing what I can here. I can check the lines in a way nobody else here can.”

  Arbiter only nodded, her eyes on the ongoing fight.

  I drew up decoy-swarms, placing them across the rooftop, and stepped off the rooftop, hovering a
nd using the building for cover. Arbiter raised her forcefield to fill some of the gap in the tinker-created field, crouching in the crowd of swarm-people. Others followed suit. I covered them as much as I could without obscuring their vision.

  Seconds passed before Arbiter gave the go-ahead. Capes evacuated the rooftop.

  Behemoth’s lightning strike flashed through our ranks, right over Arbiter’s squatter forcefield, through two decoys and striking a cape.

  The crash of thunder seemed almost delayed, synced more to the cape going limp than the flash itself. The body struck the roofop, dead before it touched ground.

  Had the decoys spared two people from being hit, or was it chance that the bolt had made contact with them? Fuck. Having more information would be key, here.

  Behemoth was continuing to suffer blows. His progress had all but stalled, but he wasn’t changing tactics. Why?

  Did he have a strategy? The Simurgh was supposed to be the tactician, Leviathan had the brute cunning. Was Behemoth harboring a certain degree of intelligence?

  I didn’t like that idea, but I couldn’t think of a good way to explain just why he was willing to stand there and take abuse.

  Flying capes evacuated two more. Arbiter gave the go-ahead for more to use the ziplines.

  That left only the two of us here, and I had cover, at the least.

  Lightning lanced past us, burning much of its initial charge on the forcefield. It danced through the ranks of my decoy bugs. Arbiter was left untouched.

  “Damn,” she muttered. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  “Fuck waiting for heat to dissipate, just use the zipline,” I said. “Hurry. Second one, it’s least worn, coolest.”

  She half-crawled, half-ran to me. I handed her the strap that I’d used for the test run, and she looped it over the line.

  I followed her to the ground, my hand on the armor at her collar. I probably didn’t have the lift to keep her from falling, but I might have been able to soften the blow.

  Not that it mattered. The zipline remained intact, and she touched ground with a grunt.

  I found Rime, casting wave after wave of crystals at Behemoth. He was using shockwaves and fire to prematurely detonate or push away Revel’s spheres, and Rime’s attacks were suffering from a similar angle.