Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “Sensible. But let’s not dwell on it. The thinkers are handling it, as best as they can, and we have to devote attention to this crisis. We’ve got all of the big guns lined up. The moment things fall apart and Jack decides the rules of his game, Dragon is going to try and jam communications, and each of us moves in for a quick decisive victory over the members of the Nine on site.”

  I nodded.

  We were just arriving at the perimeter of Killington. I could see some of the big guns Defiant had been talking about.

  Two Azazels had set up thick hedges of that blurry gray material just behind the barriers the heroes had erected to protect themselves and contain the fire. I also saw the Dragon’s Teeth.

  Soldiers was the wrong word, but it was close.

  Each wore armor in gun-metal and black, with parallels to the standard PRT uniforms I was more familiar with. Their helmets, however, had three eyeholes, with blue lenses glowing faintly from beneath. Two lenses for their eyes, a third for a camera. The armor was bulky, offering thick protection around the neck and joints, with a heavy pack on the back for both oxygen and for the computers they wore.

  They were, in large part, wearing stripped-down versions of Defiant’s outfit. Sacrifices had been made to account for the fact that their suits didn’t render them seven and a half feet tall. Each carried a sword and a laser pistol.

  I’d never liked the cameras. Heads turned as I approached, and I knew they were recording, tracking details about me and feeding them back to a main server, where they compiled information, discarded excess.

  The combat engines that the Dragon’s Teeth were wearing were still in early stages, the data patchy, depending on the target. The people in uniform had spent weeks and months training with the things, learning to shift fluidly between their own tactics and awareness of the situation and the data that was provided. Protectorate Capes and Wards that were just starting out were being trained with the things, but those of us that had experience fighting tended to find them a distraction.

  Useful? Yes. A bit of a boost, a bit of an edge. But not quite at the point where everyone could benefit.

  Not yet.

  Not that there was much room for developing any of it if the end of the world went ahead on schedule.

  I could see Narwhal, standing off to one side, two of the Dragon’s Teeth flanking her. Masamune wasn’t present, but from what I knew of the guy, he wasn’t even close to being a front-lines combatant. They’d recruited him from the ruined area of Japan, a somewhat crazed hermit, and gave him work in figuring out how to mass produce their stuff without the maintenance issues snowballing out of control, like tinker tech tended to do in large quantities.

  Thanks to him, they had the Dragon’s Teeth, they had the combat engines and they had top of the line gear for various members of the Protectorate and Wards.

  Of the other members of the Guild, the only other one who could theoretically be on the front lines of the fight would be Glyph. I could only assume she was somewhere close.

  The Thanda weren’t here. If Dragon had managed to get in touch with others, they hadn’t yet arrived. I could only guess as to what Cauldron might be doing. Faultline’s crew, the Irregulars…

  Too many maybes. With Endbringers attacking every two months, a lot of people were busy reeling from recent attacks or preparing for the next.

  I looked at the assembled capes. The Undersiders, two Wards teams, the Protectorate, the Guild. Clockblocker, Vista and Kid Win were in the other Wards team. A little older. Clockblocker had expanded his costume, adding some light power armor that seemed primarily focused on holding a heavy construction at his back. Vista, for her part, was a little taller, her hair longer, tied in a french braid that was clipped just in front of one shoulder. She was packing a heavier gun. Probably something Kid Win had made.

  And Kid Win was hardly a kid anymore. I hesitated to call him a teenager, even. His rig looked like it packed more artillery than any of Dragon’s craft. No neck, no arms, he barely looked capable of walking. Just two stumpy legs, a simple gold helmet with a red pane covering his face and enough gun nozzles that he looked like a hedgehog.

  “This is probably the last time we’ll all be standing here together before this ends,” Chevalier said. “I won’t do a big speech.”

  He turned his head to take us all in. “I’ve done too many of them over the past two years, I’d only repeat myself. Everyone here knows what we’re here for, why we’re doing this. We’ve talked this over with each of you in turn and you don’t need convincing, you don’t need a reminder of what’s at stake. You already know the role you’re going to play in this. Words aren’t going to change any of that. Good luck, be proud, and maybe say a little prayer to God, or ask for a little help from whoever or whatever you believe in.”

  The instant he finished, the Azazels and other Dragon-craft began opening up, doors sliding apart and ramps lowering.

  “The one time I do show up for one of these things, and no speech. I feel gypped.”

  I didn’t see who had muttered the comment, but I could guess it was Imp.

  “No dying,” I said, as everyone started moving.

  “No dying,” others echoed me. The voices of the Undersiders and the Chicago Wards were loudest among them.

  My teams gathered in the Dragonfly, while the Chicago Protectorate and Brockton Bay Wards made their way to Defiant’s larger ship, along with a contingent of the Dragon’s Teeth.

  Golem stood apart, until my ship was nearly at full capacity.

  “It all comes down to this,” he said, as I joined him at the base of the ramp, “All the training, all the planning and preparation, studying about the Nine backwards and forwards…”

  “Yeah,” I responded, as I stepped up to stand beside him. Our teams were getting sorted out, finding benches and seats. I reached behind my back to get the file folders I’d brought with me.

  “I’m sorry if I was harsh yesterday.”

  I shook my head and reached out to put my hand on his shoulder. It was support, and maybe a bit of a push. He made his way up the ramp.

  Stepping inside just behind Golem, I used the same controls that managed my flight pack to indicate that the ship could close the door.

  The Chicago Wards had seated themselves on one side of the ship, the Undersiders on the other. Something of a mistake, that, because it meant they sat facing one another as we made our way to our destination.

  A little awkward. I sat with them behind me as I took the cockpit. The thing flew itself, but it freed me to focus on other things.

  Chevalier had talked about making peace with the powers that be. I frowned, staring at the control panel as the ship lifted off.

  Passenger, I thought. Been a while, trying to figure out how to make peace with the fact that you’re there, that you’re affecting me somehow, taking control whenever I’m not in my own mind. I think we’ve made strides. I’ve sort of accepted that you’re going to do what you’re going to do, whether that helps me or hurts me.

  So maybe, just maybe, you could help me out today. Whatever it is you do, whatever motivates you, I can continue to play along, but I need a bit of backup here.

  My eyes fell on the bugs that crawled on the back of my hand. Not even a whisper of a movement.

  Yeah, didn’t think I’d get a reply. Guess we’ll see.

  The ship’s acceleration kicked in, and the bugs took flight.

  ■

  My eyes scanned the screens in front of me. I had camera feeds from Clockblocker and Revel, from Chevalier, Imp, and the airborne Azazel. They all focused on a single area, each from a different direction.

  A thick white mist lingered throughout an area. It was early in the morning, and that might have played a role, but there were no people. Even for a smaller city like Schenectady, that wasn’t so usual. At nearly eight in the morning, there should have been people leaving for work, people running errands.

  Desolate. White fog.

  “Wi
nter’s here,” I said, speaking over the comms. “Others to be confirmed. We’ve talked about this one, Golem.”

  I turned the computer off and strode out of the ship. Rachel was waiting for me outside, standing guard with her dogs and her wolf.

  “Winter means Crimson too, doesn’t it?” Golem asked.

  “Probably. Probably means-”

  “We see you,” The words were like a whisper, barely audible. “See you standing there. Oh, I do hope you’re not Theodore. Tell me you aren’t, because it means we get to play all we want.”

  “Screamer,” I informed the others. Early Nine member, psychological warfare, pressure, distraction. Sound manipulation. Her power meant her voice didn’t get quieter as it traveled great distances. That wasn’t the full extent of-

  “Nice weapon,” Her voice sounded in my ear, at a normal speaking volume. I didn’t flinch. I could sense my surroundings with my bugs, and I could hear things with them, hear how the sound panned out in a weird way over the entire area.

  “You’ve got friends, Theodore. I sure hope they aren’t planning on helping you.”

  It was a sinuous sound, seductive in how convincing it was. Every time she spoke, she sounded a little more like me. It would be the same for the others, hearing themselves.

  She was somewhere in the area. The question was how she’d gotten a sense of our voices so quickly. There was supposed to be a limit to how quickly she could pick up on that stuff just from overhearing us.

  “Confirm, team leader,” Golem said, over the channel. “And can we use the password system we talked about?“

  “Queen. Password system is a go. What do you need confirmation on?”

  “Ring. Enemy headcount.“

  “Stag. No headcount given, I think that’s Screamer fucking with you. Others include Winter, probably Crimson, and probably Cherish, if she’s finding us like she is. All allied capes, be advised, we’re putting passwords into effect. Stay calm, don’t panic.”

  “I do like it when they make it challenging,” Screamer’s whisper hissed in my ear. It had changed in tone, pitch, cadence.

  The Dragonfly took off as I made my way closer to the site. Outside of the area, there were people reacting. Some fled, others were taking cover, followed by disparate voices.

  “Haymaker. I’m engaging,” Golem said. “Recommendation?“

  Screamer interrupted, “Getting advice is against the spirit of this challenge, isn’t it, Theodore? You are Theodore, aren’t you? I think you should confirm for us.”

  “Mantis,” I said, voicing the password, “Don’t respond to her. It’s what she wants. Take out Cherish ASAP, if she’s here, Screamer after that.”

  “I’m hurt. I rate second after the new girl who barely lasted a month?“

  “Have to find them first,” Golem said.

  I’ll help with that, I thought. Then I stopped. “Golem, the password? Horsefly.”

  “Steeple. And gauntlet, to reply to the last one,” his voice came over the comms.

  I stopped. We’d agreed on a simple password set. There was a pattern, each corresponding to our powers and the various pieces on a chessboard. Mine were related to bugs, his to hands. It was abstract, something that tended to only make sense in retrospect. The chess ones we knew off by heart, because they were the first ones we’d practiced.

  And steeple wasn’t one of them.

  “Steeple?” I asked.

  “I’m drawing a mental blank,” Golem responded. “It works, doesn’t it? Pinkie.“

  Screamer wasn’t stupid, but was she that smart? The ‘stag’ should have thrown her off regarding our pattern.

  “It works,” I said. “Ant. I’m close.“

  If that was Golem, he wasn’t as focused as we needed him to be.

  I could feel the effect as my bugs entered the radius of Winter’s power. She wasn’t concentrating it, so it was mild at best. Slowing the movements of molecules, cutting down the ambient temperature, to the point that the moisture in the air froze. It also affected my bugs. Torpor.

  For anyone within, it would include a mental torpor.

  If the only members of the Nine who were present were Crimson, Winter, Cherish and Screamer, then this was a fight that involved attrition. Attacking Russia in the wintertime. Psychological warfare, emotional warfare, the effects of Winter’s power… it meant that Winter’s guns and Crimson’s power were the only physical threats.

  They were going easy on him at the outset.

  Golem was walking on rooftops at the edge of the effect, and he was surrounded by a nimbus of whirling material. By Wanton. We’d already altered all of the data on the group, to imply by news reports and Golem’s powers on the websites that Wanton’s telekinetic storm was Golem’s power.

  The vantage point put him high enough that he could stand above the mist without being in it. From the moment he engaged, he’d have to move fast. He’d have to be indirect-

  “Weaver,” Golem said, interrupting my thoughts. “Iron fist. She’s offering to tell me where Jack is.“

  “We expected this,” I answered. Iron fist was the ‘king’ in our chess sequence of passwords. “Crab. Get the info and go.”

  “I’m not that foolish,” Screamer whispered, her voice extending throughout the entire area. “Underestimating me, for shame. I give up the information, and you leave me for your clean up squad to execute. I want concessions.”

  “Concessions?“ Golem had left his channel open.

  “Let’s ensure your friends aren’t in a good state to mop up. We’ll start with this Weaver. Why don’t you cut off your toes, Weaver? Keep you from running after us.“

  I frowned.

  “Oh, you’ve got an alternative? Something you can cut off or throw away? Yes. Let’s put off the self-mutilation and have you throw that off the edge of a building.“

  Chances were good that she was in Cherish’s company, getting information from the source.

  “What if she tosses it, then walks into the mist?” Golem suggested.

  No, not Golem. Her. Screamer. An easier suggestion to acknowledge if I thought it came from a teammate.

  “Not buying it, huh?” he asked. She asked.

  She’d narrowed down my location, was refining her voices. That had been convincing. I had to move, make it harder for her.

  I advanced, but I didn’t step into the mist. The closer I got, the more of the affected area I could sense. The torpor forced me to be efficient, to manage where bugs went and how, to check areas in a cursory way. There were a number of people still in Winter’s area of influence. People were standing utterly still, slowly dying as the cold ate away at them.

  I want to kill myself.

  My own voice, indistinguishable from the one in my head. Fuck me. She had a bead on me, now.

  It’ll be painless, a way to avoid all of the horror, so I don’t have to watch my friends die. So I won’t have to watch Bitch or Tattletale or Imp die the way Regent did. So I don’t have to watch Grue die.

  No, a moment’s consideration and the spell was broken. I’d stopped thinking of Rachel as ‘Bitch’ some time ago.

  “Aw,” Screamer whispered. “Golem’s refusing my deal, and Cherish says you’re not playing along with the rest of it, so I’m gonna have words with some of the others.”

  I raised a hand to my ear, opening my mouth to warn them, “…”

  My lips moved, but my voice didn’t come out. Bare whispers of sound formed, instead, even as I raised my voice to a near shout.

  That would be the next stage in her tactics. Isolate. She had a sense of my voice, the way I spoke, and was canceling it out.

  I signaled Golem with my bugs. I drew a smiley face in the air with my bugs, crossing out the mouth with an ‘x’.

  He nodded.

  So he was on mute as well.

  There.

  In the midst of a small duplex, there were two young women huddled together on an upper floor. There were computers arranged around them, and
each was playing a different video. In some cases, it was the same video playing, just from a different point in time. Me in the lunchroom with Defiant and Dragon. The New Delhi Endbringer fight. Golem on the news with Campanile.

  She had to be almost as good a multitasker as me to take all of that in.

  “Tattletale here. Wormtongue. Doing damage control. I’ve got your video feed, so you can spell things out for me if you want to give the signal.“

  I spelled out the word ‘thanks’.

  My bugs had died inside the area of cold. The people inside wouldn’t be doing much better. I had to send another batch in. This time, I knew the destination.

  Cherish was acting as the eyes, Screamer as communications. No doubt Screamer -all nine of the Screamers- was providing communications between this group and the nearest group of Nine. She was talking, in a low and steady voice, but her voice wasn’t more than a murmur. No doubt someone in a more distant location was receiving the intel at a normal volume.

  And all of that raised the question of what Winter and Crimson were doing. I scanned the building. Nothing on the top floor, or the next lowest. Further downstairs, a number of people were in the sway of Winter’s power, their thoughts slowed to a crawl.

  The basement of the same building. Winter, Crimson, and their hostages. Some would be the ones from Killington. Others were ones that had fallen into the sway of Winter’s torpor. Crimson was feeding on them.

  His schtick was a little bit of a vampire one, but the end result was more Mr. Hyde. Big, muscular, fueled by rage and impulse.

  The ones lying on the floor, cold, they’d be dead already.

  I spelled out basic instructions for Golem, pointing the way to the building, drawing a cloud over the building to mark it. He gave me a thumbs up.

  Another arrow pointed him to the concrete rooftop behind him. There, I drew out a basic layout.

  And in that same moment, Cherish cottoned on to what we were doing.

  “They’re attacking,” Cherish said.

  Screamer’s voice reached all of us. “Cocky, cocky.“

  Screamer turned her head, swatted at the bugs that crawled on her face, and then spoke, silent to the insect’s hearing.