Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  It was all about thinking a step ahead. I sent bugs into the room with the money and drugs and set them to destroying the plastic bags and eating through the paper bands of money. Wasps and other hostile bugs nestled in the gun cases and around handles. I didn’t have many bugs to spare, so I used the others from the building that I hadn’t deployed to make warning signs for the residents.

  All in all, I managed about five or six minutes of quiet, steady destruction before one of the underlings walked in and saw what was happening. I rewarded him by flying two capsaicin-laced insects into his eyes.

  “They’re sounding the alarm,” I said. The thug was hollering, and Topsy was shouting something about calling for the reinforcements, directing some swear words at the fact that nobody apparently had a working phone on hand.

  That swearing swiftly became a stream of curses aimed at ‘that fucking bug bitch’.

  “Annex, inside,” I said.

  “Good,” Annex said. ”Because I just stepped outside, and now I’m going back in. It’s a pain to move through walls this cold. Sucks the heat out of me.”

  “Warm up inside,” I said. ”Take your time, but try to move upstairs. Keep your head poked out so you can hear me. I’ll let you know what route they take.”

  “Right,” he said, reaching into the wall. ”Fuck, that’s cold.”

  Then he was gone.

  My swarm continued to plague Topsy and his people. I slowly escalated the intensity of the attack, until Topsy gave the order to retreat.

  “Get what you can and get the fuck out,” Topsy ordered, “Yeah, you too. I’m paying you, aren’t I? Go find the bitch.”

  Not so cheery for a guy with a playful name like ‘Topsy’. Then again, I’d caught him at the end of his work day. By contrast, I’d woken up, donned my costume and started my stakeout. Eight hours, starting at four, watching and following as Topsy and his men conducted their business. He was more tired than I was, and he was both a little drunk and a little high.

  It meant he was a little more likely to freak out when their outdoor clothing turned out to be festooned with stinging, biting insects, falling to pieces or too entangled in silk to use.

  “Bitch! That bitch!” the girl in the group cussed.

  They knew who I was, apparently. Fame had its disadvantages.

  “Get downstairs, carry everything. I’ll bring the rest. We’ll take the trucks,” Topsy said.

  I smiled a little, “Cuff, garage entrance. Spike strip.”

  “On it,” she said, disappearing out the front door.

  Once the majority of his underlings were out of the apartment, Topsy leveraged his power, reorienting gravity to shift the boxes and piles of stuff. They hit the wall, slid down the hallway, and finally tumbled through the open front door of the apartment in a heap. With money bands cut and bags chewed open, much of the merchandise in Topsy’s stock was scattered to the wind. My bugs could sense the clouds of powder filling the air. Evidence, if nothing else.

  He wasn’t screaming, now, which I found odd. Now that his underlings had gone ahead, he’d settled into a grim and quiet attitude. He turned to the sole remaining underling. ”Anything?”

  “Too far to see,” the man said.

  “Keep looking as we head down.”

  Topsy was tricky. Part of the reason for the surveillance had been to identify the other parahumans in his group. He hired mercenaries, paying well, and there was no sure way to tell who he had with him, short of seeing them in costume. Trouble was, his people were defaulting to heavier clothing over their costumes, due to the cold weather. Identities were doubly hard to discern, and Topsy wasn’t one to blab over the phone about who was working for him.

  “Annex,” I said, touching my earpiece, “They’re heading for the stairwell. Do what you can, but let them keep moving forward.”

  “Got it.”

  I sent bugs ahead of the group to check the way. Annex flowed up the stairs to intercept them. Some steps became slopes instead, others had the supports removed, so the stairs collapsed underfoot. Each of Topsy’s underlings fell at some point, their burdens thrown from their arms or crushed beneath them. An unlucky or clumsy few fell more than once.

  “Annex,” I said. No use. He was inside the stair’s surface. An unfortunate side effect of his power was the fact that his senses were limited while he was inside an object. He was blind, deaf, and his ability to feel was limited by the material he occupied. He could sense heat as much as the object could hold heat, could sense vibrations as much as the material could receive them.

  “Annex,” I tried again.

  “I’m here.“

  “Back off. They’re catching up to you, and Topsy’s on his way down with an avalanche of stuff.”

  “Right.“

  I could see Cuff returning. She saw my hand at my ear and didn’t speak, giving me a thumbs up instead.

  Annex spoke, his voice low, “Okay. I’ll take a detour, fix the damage I did to the stairs, then rendezvous.“

  Very calm. Assured. It wasn’t even something we’d plotted out beforehand, but there was no urgency here, no panic or distress.

  Not on our end, anyways.

  Topsy’s crew reached the first floor of the basement, which included the parking garage. Topsy followed right after with the piles of goods, abused by their rough tumble down a dozen flights of stairs. The packages of powder virtually floated in the air, with Topsy batting them in the direction of his people.

  “Everything with red tape is highest priority,” Topsy said. ”Load it into the trucks first. We can take a loss on the rest, pay the fucks back and claim intervention of bug bitch.”

  “Two trips,” the man I took to be Topsy’s lieutenant said. ”Bug girl can see what her bugs see. She’ll be on our heels.”

  I’m not even fifteen paces away, I thought. I’d worried they would exit at the ground floor, but it was safe. I made my way inside to grab my insulated box. Heavy.

  The lieutenant continued, “Mockshow, open the garage doors. Get some cold air in here.”

  “I’m already freezing,” the girl of the group said. ”We left our jackets up there.”

  “Don’t fucking care. Bit of cold will deal with these bugs faster than it hurts us. Move.”

  Mock obeyed, while the others loaded up the trucks.

  “Be advised,” I reported, my hand to my ear, “They’re attempting retreat in vehicles. Original plan may hit a snag. Topsy’s got a newbie supervillain working for him. Mockshow. If I’m remembering right, she’s a master-slash-shaker six.”

  “Roger,” Tecton said.

  “Hold on,” Grace said.

  Mockshow touched the garage door, and the mechanisms shifted to life. Cold air flooded into the garage. I was forced to pull my bugs back, drawing them into the stairwell and through the vents to the box I held. Only the bugs nestled in the villains’ clothing remained.

  I could barely hear as the lieutenant spoke to Mockshow, “See?”

  “Bosses are advising we try plan as detailed,” Grace said. ”If it fails, orders are to abort.“

  And there was our first bit of interference. The Director didn’t want us to succeed. Topsy wasn’t a likable guy, was dangerous in his own way, even, but he was a known quantity. Manageable.

  Fuck that, I thought. I didn’t sit in the snow for eight hours, bored to tears, to have this mission end at the first excuse.

  I didn’t say it aloud. I focused on what our targets were doing.

  The trucks had apparently been loaded up, because the villains were gathering into three vehicles. They peeled out with a squeal both I and my bugs could hear.

  No less than ten seconds later, they ran over the chain that Cuff had laid in the snow just past the garage door. She’d reshaped it so spikes jutted out, I knew. I could hear the tires pop, and pieced together the scene from the movements of the people and boxes within the trucks. The second truck had made it halfway across the spike strip losing its front tires, but the coll
ision of the third truck ramming it from behind drove its rear wheels over the strip.

  Two of three trucks disabled.

  I stayed where I was, letting the last of my bugs finish gathering in the insulated box, then carried it outside to Cuff.

  “Spiked chain worked,” I commented, my voice a murmur.

  Cuff pumped a fist.

  I touched my earpiece. ”Two cars disabled and a third trapped behind. They-”

  “Watch,” Topsy said, as he climbed out of the truck.

  Not a statement. A name. I felt my heart sink a touch. Of all the motherfucking people he could have hired-

  “What?” his lieutenant asked.

  “They’ve got to be close. Take a second, look for them. Mockshow? Get us moving.”

  It didn’t take Watch two seconds to turn and face the alley where Cuff and I were hiding.

  “It’s Watch,” I whispered, “They’re on to us. Go.“

  Cuff nodded and reached for her left ear. I seized her wrist to stop her.

  She gave me a funny look. ”Mission’s a bust.”

  “Mission is on,” I hissed the words. ”Go.”

  I lifted the box, as Watch and Topsy made their way up the snow-covered ramp to us, underlings following them. An adjustment of gravity removed the issues the slope posed. Watch was saying something I couldn’t make out over the rush of wind. Something about our location. We didn’t have long.

  Watch was a package deal like Grace or Circus. A lot of powers, flexible. His specific powers weren’t on record, but it was fairly well known that he was capable of short bursts of intense, short-ranged clairvoyance. He could see people’s biology, ignore the issues of light, darkness or intervening objects, and he had a limited super speed coupled with what had been dubbed ‘phantom hands’. The ability to reach through people like Shadow Stalker might, targeting particular aspects of people’s body to shred arteries or tear through nerves with his fingers and fingernails.

  He was a monster who left his victims dead if they were lucky, quadriplegic if they weren’t. Maybe that was ableist, but I didn’t fancy being left to rely on the care of others for the rest of my natural life, suffering what was, by all accounts, an indescribably painful case of phantom limb.

  It said a lot about Topsy and the direction he was taking his enterprise, that he’d hire this bastard.

  I nearly dropped the box, slick as it was with the snow that had melted while it sat in the lobby. Cuff helped me catch it. A moment’s delay, but enough time for Topsy, Watch and the others to crest the top of the ramp that led from the basement level to the street.

  As we ducked behind cover, taking our steps into the alley, the snow that had accumulated on the ground began to fall in reverse, in thick, wet clumps. I felt the same kind of lift that accompanied a use of my flight pack, and both Cuff and I were lifted off the ground as well.

  The weightlessness ceased, and we fell. Only we fell up.

  My flight pack kicked to life, and the wings unfolded so I could use the propulsion. I reached for Cuff with one free hand, nearly grabbing one of her braids, but found her wrist instead, felt her hand clasp my wrist in return. Snow and ice pummeled us as it broke free of the sidewalk and flew skyward.

  It also, I noted, helped to obscure us. Some gunshots sounded, though we were safe around the corner.

  With the flight pack, I managed to steer us towards the fire escape, throwing the box down -or up- and seizing a handhold. I found a grip and started to swing Cuff towards the railing when gravity shifted again. Cuff jerked, and I found myself half-folded over the railing, trying to keep her from falling through the open mouth of the alley and into Topsy and Watch’s sights.

  Her legs dangled towards the street we’d just left, and I couldn’t muster the upper body strength to lift her. Worse, her grip was too tenuous for her to risk letting go to climb up my arms and shoulders and reach safety. Her right arm still wasn’t as strong as it should be.

  The arms of my flight pack reached out to try and grip Cuff, but the angles of our bodies didn’t offer anything substantial to grab. Her braids? No. Nothing on her costume either.

  The chain looped around her back? Yes.

  “Chain,” I gasped the word in the moment her gauntlet slid from my grip. The insectile arm at the side of my flight suit snagged the chain and passed it to my hand in a sudden, jerky motion. She caught the lower half of the loop and jolted to a stop, her lower body dangling out in sight of Topsy and his men.

  They opened fire, and Cuff shrieked in alarm.

  Not quite so calm, leisurely and confident, now. Damn it.

  Still, we managed to reel her in, her climbing, me hauling the chain in, inch by agonizing inch. The men with the guns rounded the corner, still shooting, as they kept out of the way of Topsy’s power. I had to duck low to take some cover behind the insulated metal box and the metal slats of the fire escape. More bullets ricocheted off of Cuff’s armor.

  She found the railing, and I gripped her armor to help pull her over.

  “Getting reports of shots fired,” Grace said. ”Bosses are worried.”

  Fuck the bosses. “All good,” I responded, injecting calm into my voice. ”We weren’t in danger. They’re ticked and shooting indiscriminately.”

  “Roger,” Grace said. ”Be safe.”

  “Not in danger?” Cuff practically snarled the question at me. It was out of character for her, but that was excusable considering she’d just been shot at.

  “You’re bulletproof. I’m bulletproof, even. Between the new Darwin’s bark spider silk costumes, and your armor, you were safe.”

  As if punctuating my statement, a gun went off below, making the railing sing with the impact.

  “Annex,” I said, communicating using the earpiece. ”I can sense your location. Climb two stories and give me an exit on the north face of the building.”

  “Which way is north?“

  “Your left.”

  “Gotcha.“

  “The way you worded that…” Cuff said.

  “You’re not coming with,” I told her.

  Gravity shifted again. Our backs slammed against the side of the building, the two of us grunting in unison. My metal box scraped against the metal of the fire escape to land beside me. We were now more or less lying down on the building’s face.

  Watch and Topsy’s men were making their way along the side of the building, walking on it.

  I pulled off my flight pack and handed it to Cuff.

  “I don’t know how to fly this,” she said.

  “I’ll fly it,” I told her. I noted the hole Annex was making. ”Go over the top of the building to the roof. Fall. It’ll take you out of range of Topsy’s power, you’ll be returned to a normal orientation. Drop again, off the other side of the building, sneak around and stop Mockshow. If she gets the group moving, we won’t be able to intercept and carry out the plan.”

  “We’re supposed to report if we run into trouble, cancel the mission. This is a lot of trouble.”

  “Trust me,” I told her. ”Please. Go fast, before Watch catches up.”

  She nodded, and I gave her a boost with the flight pack to move her along as I dropped into Annex’s hole. I made it ten feet into the hallway before getting out of range of Topsy’s power and skidding to a halt on the carpeted floor.

  Cuff sprinted for the ledge that was the rooftop. She fell only three or so feet before gravity reasserted itself, driving her into the snow and gravel.

  I noted Mock, but I couldn’t see much of what she was doing. Her power, though, put her in the same general category as Rachel. She empowered minions. They even fit into the same general weight class as Rachel’s dogs. The difference, though, was that they were inanimate. Loose, telekinetically animated servants, typically with the size, clout and general strategy of a grown rhino. Charge things, hit them hard, repeat.

  I had no doubt she’d be working on the truck. Maybe multiple trucks. Bugs were still inside the vehicles, and I could
sense things shifting and lurching as she reconfigured it into a more or less mobile form.

  Watch was suffering with both the winter weather and his lack of proper footwear. He was fast, but the terrain was slowing him. Ice and snow had been thrown against the side of the building by Topsy’s power, and every other step threatened to send Watch tumbling. His super speed wouldn’t help him much when he had to plot his movements like this, but it still made him incredibly dangerous if he did get one of us in reach.

  He crested the top of the building as Cuff reached the other side of the roof and jumped down.

  Propulsion and antigravity together weren’t enough to slow her fall. A miscalculation. She was too heavy, with her armor.

  I promised myself I’d owe her one and slowed her the only way I could – I used the flight pack to push her against the side of the building, using friction and drag to slow the fall.

  She hit the alley on the far side of the building at a speed that was probably too fast to be comfortable, not so fast she was gravely hurt. I used the propulsion in the flight pack’s wings to help speed her along as she stumbled, jogged, then sprinted towards the front of the apartment building.

  Cuff rounded the corner just as Mockshow led her quadruped truck-minion outside. I folded the wings in just as she made contact.

  Cuff could use her short range metallokinesis to manipulate her armor, effectively granting herself increased strength. She could, it seemed, also use it to impact the metal she was hitting. She wasn’t moving that fast, but everything my limited senses could tell me suggested she delivered a hit like a freight train striking a car that had stalled on the tracks.

  “No! Fuck no, fuck damn!” Mockshow shouted.

  Cuff threw out a chain with an audible clatter, then caught the end, moving like she was winding it around the villain. She reconsidered as Topsy and his minions reacted to the noise of the collision and came after her. She was nearly at the far end of the street when Topsy used his power. He reoriented gravity, and she veered to one side, striking the wall beside the alleyway rather than disappearing inside. The tilt continued, and she turned away, moving with the tilt.

  He leveraged his power further, only this time, it was his namesake topsy-turvy ‘up is down’ variant. It was his most offensive power, the ability to hurl large numbers of people or objects into the city’s skyline, then revoke his power to let them fall.