Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  But it meant he moved slower and got tired more easily. It was only a matter of time before he made a mistake, lost a fight.

  “It’s a given?” she asked. She pressed the button, and the lights started to flicker again.

  “I think so,” Jack commented. “But I almost hope things do turn out well.”

  The flickering steadily increased. The progression had to be slow, or they could set off a cascade cycle and overwhelm the power cell they had liberated from Toybox. If that happened, then the shell that was keeping this reality together would break, the holding grid for the pocket dimension’s substrata would become fluid and leak out into other hardened realities. They would likely be crushed by the air, pulped as gravity twisted into eddies and condensed points of hyperconcentration.

  Which would be funny, really. A reckless, violent, unpredictable death would be awfully ironic, really. An artful death, almost, in an anticlimactic way. It would be better if there was an audience, if anyone could even know and tell the story. But art wasn’t art without an audience.

  “Makes for a greater fall?” she asked.

  “Exactly,” Jack replied. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the whine of the generator. “I guess we find out soon!”

  She laughed in response, giddy with the idea, with possibilities, ideas.

  Then she pulled the switch. In a heartbeat, Jack was frozen in stasis, contained.

  She walked over to the computer. Flowers, rainbows and gray-green smiley faces with the eyes crossed out in death bounced around the screen. She moved the mouse to end the screensaver, giggles still periodically finding their way out of her mouth.

  She set the timer, the alarm clock for the stasis to end.

  The giggles trailed off.

  Silence.

  The lights slowly flickered back to life, and Bonesaw found herself standing in front of the keyboard. The smile fell from her face.

  Jack had assumed she would freeze herself. The empty pod reinforced the idea.

  Except… she was telling herself she had to be there to wake them up, and that wasn’t wholly true. It was smart, but it wasn’t true. She wasn’t one to be afraid of something, but she felt a touch of trepidation at the idea of entering stasis without someone to handle the exit process, without assurance she would wake up. That was without touching on the issue of the power cell, watching that things didn’t go tilt with the pocket dimension.

  No, that wasn’t wholly true either. It was a one percent chance. Five percent, if she counted her lack of knowledge about other tinker’s stuff. But she hadn’t touched it, even to move it. It should be safe.

  Her eyes tracked the rows and columns of incubation chambers. They weren’t her field either. A different row for each member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, past or present.

  King

  Screamer

  Harbinger

  Breed

  Crimson

  Gray Boy

  Nyx

  Psychosoma

  There were ten of each in various glass chambers. The original members.

  With many, many more besides. She looked down the length of the room. Most members of the Nine had lasted only weeks or months. She could count the ones who’d lasted longer than that on the one hand.

  Her, Jack, Mannequin, Siberian, Shatterbird.

  Crawler had managed pretty well, too.

  He’d been a doofus in the end, though.

  She smiled. It would be a family reunion, really. But there was work to be done.

  They’d come out blank. Wouldn’t do. She had access to some of the toys they’d liberated from the Toybox. She’d have to put the new Slaughterhouse’s memories together herself. Brains. Memories, or things close enough to memories. She had notes and records, all of the bedtime stories Jack had told her as she drifted off to sleep these past few years. There was information saved on the computer. She could hodgepodge it together.

  This would be real art. How well could she rebuild them?

  Cranial had been selling memories on the black market, selling skills. She’d kept bad memories too, took them from people, even gave them to some people. Silly, really. A lot of them had wanted trigger events, except the trigger events didn’t work like that.

  This computer was only an access point. The other computers took up vast amounts of space, out of sight, out of mind. If something failed, she’d have to go fix it, but she would spend most of her time here, surrounded by her family, some she’d never met.

  Mannequin had lost his wife and children in a Simurgh attack. How to approach it? A file here, with a woman who had lost her spouse and children in a car accident she’d driven. Close enough. She could leave gaps and it would fill in all on its own. Build it all on a foundation of an academic background, a doctor with confidence to spare, an architect in the same vein, a celebrity singer who’d come in wanting inspiration at the press of a button… run everything in parallel, with the ideas of the former two and the experience of the other…

  But that wasn’t enough. He’d been driven, haunted. How was she supposed to put it all together? Could she make it a recurring idea, so this Mannequin-clone would see the events flashing before his eyes with every waking moment? Something he could only quench with a quiet, cold rage? Or was it something he’d put behind him?

  Winter had been an arms dealer, sadistic, ruthless, cold.

  Bonesaw giggled at the private joke. The noise echoed in the utter silence. It was quiet enough that she could hear her own heartbeat and the blood rushing in her ears, the creak of her muscles shifting, even. That wasn’t anything she had enhanced. Humans simply never experienced true quiet. Those that had come close tended to go insane.

  Another giggle, smaller. No worry on that score.

  How to model Winter? She wasn’t truly a person who created or manipulated cold. It was a different power. A dampening power, causing objects and people both to lose inertia. The ambient effect was one of altered physics, the effect on people was one of will. The woman had gained power, money and more, and she’d found she liked tormenting people as much as anything else. She’d turned to the slave trade, then crossed paths with the Nine.

  How to make the Winters with the materials she had? A child that had a gun in her hand before she could read, someone who had found the drive necessary to rise above her roots, meeting all expectations. She’d taught herself numbers and business, she’d ruthlessly eliminated competition, and then when she had everything she’d wanted, she had stagnated, rotted like an overripe fruit.

  Searches for keywords in Cranial’s notes failed to turn up any of the necessary elements.

  “Hey, Blasto, buddy,” she said, and her voice sounded artificially chirpy, even to her. She looked at her minion, who stood at the other end of the desk, staring off into space, his entire body rigid. A tear was running down his cheek.

  Would have to cauterize his tear ducts, maybe.

  “Speak,” she ordered. She tapped a key to open a menu, then released the lock on his lung control and breathing. “Try now.”

  “Ungh,” he rasped. “Ugh.”

  Would have to exercise his vocal cords, or he might lose the ability to speak.

  “It’s too quiet. Let’s see… do you know the theme song to Love Bug?”

  “Ugh. Guh. Fuh- fuck-”

  She hit the key to lock him down, feeling irritated.

  “Swearing is so crass! Okay. Guess you don’t know them. Let’s see. I’ve got something in my backpack…”

  It took only moments to rig. Her spider boxes ran on interconnected lumps of gray matter, basic impulses, motor control and storage, with some computer chips to handle functions that were more trouble than they were worth to implement. One of those chips managed rote movements. She removed a defunct spider box from the backpack she was keeping beneath her desk and attached it to Blasto’s spine, between his shoulder blades.

  Overriding motor control, rote movement operation, hook it to the lungs and mouth, tongue, jaw
…

  Her hands were crimson halfway up to the elbow by the time she was done setting it all up. She handed the task over to a spider box to handle stitches and cauterizing the bleeds. A quickie job.

  Would be better with a real eyeball, but she’d settle for a camera.

  She set a video to play. Furry cartoon bugs with hearts, peace symbols and other icons on their backs began to dance with cartoon children.

  “Love bug love hug! A, B, C, D!

  There they are, coming to say hi!

  Love bugs are here, no need to cry!

  When you’re feeling lonely, when you’re alone,

  Who can you count on, to be in the zone?”

  “Get a love bug love hug!” Bonesaw sang along, pulling up a chair. She used a pencil to press the buttons on the keyboard so she didn’t get it mucky. Few things were quite as fun as letting the blood dry and then peeling it all off in one congealed strip.

  Behind her, Blasto watched the video. She set it to repeat, and the bug box kicked in the second time around. Blasto’s reedy voice sang along. It was so pathetic and mournful that she laughed aloud.

  Better give him some exercise too.

  By the time the fourth repeat had finished, he was all set up. He started dancing along with the fifth, mimicking characters on the screen. Each repeat would be a little more precise, as the camera captured the necessary elements.

  There.

  Something to occupy herself with, for the next year and a half.

  ■

  September 28th, 2011

  “I’m going to take over the world!”

  “Wonderful,” Bonesaw commented, feigning a cultured voice. “More tea?”

  “Tea, yes! Obey, serve me. Give me tea.”

  Bonesaw dutifully poured a beakerful of hot water into the cup, then set a spoon by the saucer. “No milk? You’re sure?”

  “Milk is for weaklings and children. I’ll drink it black,” Damsel said.

  “We are children, Damsel.”

  A biologically seven year old Damsel of Distress glared across the table at Bonesaw as she took a sip, then had to momentarily steel herself to keep from making a face. Her face was gaunt, but that was her natural appearance. Her pale blue eyes deep set, platinum blond hair simultaneously fine and thick, matted together. The chemical stew the clones were growing in didn’t make for typical looking hair growth.

  “I could end you, for that insult.”

  “Yes,” Bonesaw said. “But then you wouldn’t have anybody to pour you tea.”

  “This tea is too hot anyways.”

  “I’ll strive to do better,” Bonesaw said. “World domination, hm? Sounds like a bother.”

  “It’s my natural place.”

  “Maybe,” Bonesaw said. “Well, I don’t envy you. You’ll need to hurry, too. World’s going to end soon, I think.”

  “I’ll rule the ashes.”

  “I see. That’s even harder, isn’t it? If there’s no way to communicate, then how do you manage it all? There won’t be phones or internet after everything else is gone.”

  Damsel’s forehead furrowed in concern. “I’ll delegate.”

  “Can you trust the people you delegate to?”

  “No. I trust nobody.”

  “Well,” Bonesaw said, pausing as she took a sip of tea. “That’s a problem.”

  “Yes,” Damsel agreed. She swayed in her seat for a moment, then gripped the table with foot-long, clawed fingers to steady herself. Bonesaw’s design, replacing the skeletal structure. A way to channel Damsel’s power and -if needed- briefly shut it off.

  “I put a little something in your tea to help you sleep,” Bonesaw commented. “Best to see you off to bed.”

  “I’m not…”

  “Not sleepy? You’re going to faceplant in your tea.”

  Damsel’s confusion became a swift, violent anger. “You poisoned me, wretch!”

  “Yes. I thought you didn’t trust anyone. What a shame that you couldn’t be constructive in that distrust,” Bonesaw said. She stood and walked around the table, then took the little girl’s hand, leading her back to the incubation chamber. The girl obeyed, though she spat epithets.

  “I’ll flay your skin from your bones, irrevocably destroy everything you cherish,” Damsel said, her voice fainter. “You’ll cry your rage to the heavens until your torment subsumes everything. Madness will be a refuge.”

  She was virtually whispering by the time she was done.

  “Yes, sweetie,” Bonesaw answered, dropping the fake accent. She leaned forward and gave Damsel a kiss on the cheek. Damsel blinked, as if in slow motion, opened her eyes briefly, then shut them.

  A press of a button and a flick of a switch bid the glass case to rise and surround Damsel before she could tip over. The tube rapidly filled with a soupy liquid, rich in nutrients. Damsel was fully asleep before the fluid raised her from the ground to float buoyantly in the middle of the tube. Her tea party outfit billowed out around her, making her look like a jellyfish in the pale lighting. Her hat, a wide-brimmed, shallow-topped hat with a false flower on the ribbon, drifted off her head and gradually sank to the base of the tube.

  She sought out the other clone, finding him at the far end of her lab. He was a boy, narrow, with long blond hair and a very worried expression. A complex pyramid of beakers and glass measuring cups was arranged around him.

  He was muttering to himself, “Wall them in. Wall myself in. Wall them in. Wall myself in.”

  “Come on, A.G.,” Bonesaw said. She reached through the structure and took his hand. “Out through the door.”

  “Not a door. Trap. Safest way to ward off attackers. Used my hair, made a tripwire, tying ends together. Maximum devastation if intruder breaks perimeter.”

  “Through the window, then. I’ll wall you in. Promise.”

  He nodded. With excessive care, he climbed on top of the jars that were precariously balanced on one another and slipped out through another aperture in the arrangement, higher up. He stumbled as he landed.

  “This way. We’ll wall you in.”

  He followed obediently. “Where’s my Catherine? She’s my…”

  “Your mom, silly billy.” Cognitive dissonance would be bad. He could lash out. Not that he was that dangerous, like this.

  “I was going to say wife. And I have two children. They’re seven and five. Except I’m…”

  “You’re seven. You’re thinking of your sisters.”

  “I’m confused,” he almost mewled the words. “It hurts, so much of it hurts to think about. I- I let a lot of people down. I can feel their disappointment like… like it’s pressing in on me from all sides. I can’t hide from it and I can’t stop myself from caring. I-”

  “Hush,” she said. “It all gets better when you wall yourself in, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded mutely.

  “Walling you in,” she said, as she put him on top of the stand. A press of the button raised the glass enclosure. She could see him relax a fraction at that.

  A bit of a problem, Bonesaw mused, as the container filled with the nutrient fluid.

  Various elements that were unique to every individual served as a signal that the passenger could reach out to in an attempt at reconnecting with a host. DNA, electromagnetic patterns, patterns she could barely measure with instruments, all contributed, none was absolute. Once the connection was established, powers were possible as well. A moment of trauma sped the process along considerably. Her initial assumption had been that coming to life would be enough for the clones.

  But the clones were dreaming, and those dreams were founded in the fabricated memories she was providing. It was something of an art, an interesting experiment, to strike all the right notes, to get geography and birthplace right, culture, custom, habit and every other detail, along with the major, defining moments of their lives.

  The Corona Pollentia was developing as the originals did, drawing from DNA to form as a lobe in the brain, right from the outset. The d
reams formed the connections between the corona and the clone. The bonds were forming too quickly and easily.

  It was interfering with the cloning process, as the passenger’s typically indistinct and subtle influence on the subject was becoming rather dramatic. The brain was too pliable while the clones were in their formative ages, the passenger too insistent.

  She’d have to scrap everything. Wipe them clean, grow a new batch of clones. Nearly three weeks of work down the drain.

  Already, she was figuring out how to solve the problem. She’d have to stagger it, introduce memories in phases, starting with earliest and working her way forward. Maybe it would be easier, organized. She could consider each member of the Nine in turn and decide if they had been treated well as babies, if their home and school lives were comfortable… that would be a yes for someone like Mannequin, less so for Ned, for Crawler.

  She typed on the computer for a minute. Special disposal procedures for Crawler. The rest could be boiled to death.

  She watched until the bubbles started to rise. One or two woke. It didn’t matter.

  She returned to her makeshift bedroom. There hadn’t been a mattress, so she’d made a hammock instead.

  Blasto lay on the floor. His voice was barely audible. He couldn’t stand, and his attempts at trying to dance were scraping his arms against the floor.

  “Bug… hug. I, J, K, L.”

  “Forgot to turn the music off,” she said. She found the smartphone and switched off the music. “Have a bit of an errand. Sleep for now, I’ll patch you up when I get back.”

  Her hair dyed black, a bit of makeup and clothes made the same way she’d made her mattress, creating a lifeform that could spin and ink fabric.

  A touch roughspun, but it would do.

  She found the remote and hit the button. There was a quiet whoosh, and she was on the other side.

  Back in Earth Bet.

  Her heart was pounding. If Jack found out about this, he’d be furious. The risk, the idea that someone would be checking this one spot for a signal, or using a parahuman ability to search for her here…

  But, she thought, she needed supplies she couldn’t make on her own. Resources, information, materials.