Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “I wanted to say thanks,” Crucible said, “Appreciate the invite. Hundreds of superpowered lunatics, some of the scariest guys around, and that’s not even the scariest part of all of this! But Chevalier’s all, ‘Weaver specifically asked if you’d help.’ How the hell am I supposed to say no to him?”

  “You just say no,” Clockblocker said, before I could respond. “You’re team leader, I’d even argue it’s your job to say no when the situation calls for it. More than leading the team, more than strategy or handling double the paperwork or attending the meetings. You decide what jobs are out of your team’s depth and you tell the bosses to go fuck themselves, in the politest terms possible.”

  “It’s Chevalier. Important guy.”

  “And when we asked you if you were okay with me taking command, that was your opportunity to say no. His rank doesn’t matter. He’d probably respect you more if you told him your team wasn’t prepared and then stuck to your guns.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone to go fuck themselves,” Crucible said.

  “No. And I agreed to help out with this because this is important. My old teammates have been preparing for this in their own time, and-”

  “-And you’ve got a thing for Weaver,” the Ward I hadn’t yet met said. It was a girl, flanked by five shadowy silhouettes of herself, who were sitting around her on the other side of the hallway. I’d read up on her, and I knew her as Toggle. The ‘baby’ of the team, it seemed, at fourteen. She held what looked like a mace, but it, along with the layered body armor she wore, had circles of light glowing in shifting colors.

  There was a long, awkward silence. I glanced at Clockblocker, but he appeared unfazed. Not that I could really tell. His armor still had animated clock faces digitally displayed on the open spaces, and there was one in the middle of his face. Was the varying speed and position of the hands supposed to indicate something, or was I reading too much into it?

  “That was a joke,” Toggle said.

  “I’m not dignifying it with a response,” Clockblocker said.

  “Clocksie’s sweet on Weaver,” Imp said. “Aww.”

  “Clocksie,” Clockblocker said, deadpan, “Has been the target of a lot of criticism, because he was in charge of the Wards at the time a lot of stuff went down. Some dingbats online speculated that I had a thing for Weaver, and it took off. The people online like to find stuff that fills in blanks, and there were a hell of a lot of blanks around the whole thing with Weaver defecting, and our pseudo-truce with the Undersiders.”

  “They latched onto the idea,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “Sorry,” I told him.

  “Not your fault, not exactly. The city’s pretty peaceful, pretty safe, and nobody even hints about why, but people know. My bosses know why, and that means my career might never recover. The only thing keeping things remotely interesting is the challenge of trying to get to any new bad guys before the Undersiders do, to enforce real justice instead of vigilante scare tactics-”

  “We’re awesomely good at the scare tactics though,” Imp cut in.

  Clockblocker ignored her. “-Except we barely even get to do that, because Tattletale’s always a few steps ahead. Then, to top it all off, I hear about the Weaver-Clockblocker thing every single day, to the point that it’s sad. Salt in a wound.”

  Silence lingered.

  “Jesus, Clock,” Vista said, after that. “Pent up much?”

  “Fuck, you’re right. I’m stressed, ignore me,” Clockblocker said. “Like Crucible said, it’s a lot to manage. Sorry.”

  “I just wanted to make a funny,” Toggle said.

  “Don’t worry. Clockblocker used to be the funny one,” Vista said. “Now he’s the asshole grown up that tears the funny kid to shreds.”

  Clockblocker didn’t respond to that. Instead, he shifted the device he’d been wearing on his back against the wall and sat down between the elevators.

  Waiting on my lonesome was easier.

  My bugs crawled all around the exterior of our target. The buildings in this town were smallish, the tallest being five stories, and this contingent of the Nine had chosen it as their destination.

  Not a single gap. They’d barely had any time, but they had hermetically sealed the structure, containing themselves and every single resident within. The windows and doors had been sprayed with something red that trickled out of cracks only to harden. My bugs explored cracks in the foundation, and found that same vaguely tacky, amber-like barrier blocking the openings where they should have been able to enter the building.

  Doors, windows, cracks, vents, all protected.

  I could estimate seven apartments per floor. One on the ground floor, for the building manager. Assuming they weren’t bachelor apartments, that suggested fifty-five to sixty people in total, trapped within, along with hostages and an unknown number and composition of the Nine.

  “I have to ask,” I said, not looking in Clockblocker’s direction, “This end of the world thing. The way you talk about the future, life beyond this supposed apocalypse event. Can you do that because you’re optimistic, or because you don’t think it’ll happen?”

  “I do it because I have to. You can’t stay sane, thinking it’s all going to end soon. There has to be something beyond it. If you get to that point and then we figure out a way to resolve it, then what happens after that? You need a real life.”

  “If you get to that point and you’ve plotted out the rest of your life, and we lose, then aren’t you going to be devastated?” I asked.

  “I’m good at handling devastation,” Clockblocker said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  I shrugged.

  “I can’t really believe it,” Crucible said. “World ending situation?”

  “Oh, I believe it,” Clockblocker said. “The crazy powers we get? One of them’s bound to break something somehow.”

  “The wrong power in the wrong hands,” Kid Win said. He’d reconfigured the outside of his suit so the armored upper body folded down into a pair of gauntlets, allowing him to walk forward like a gorilla, the two halves acting as massive fingerless gauntlets. It wasn’t pretty, and it left his head and upper body more exposed, but it let him maneuver inside. He seemed to muse a second, then agreed, “Yeah.”

  Interesting to see the divide, I thought. The veteran members vs. the newer ones.

  “See, I don’t think it’s the wrong power in the wrong hands,” Clockblocker said. “I think it’s a joke. Humanity destroys itself, and all these powers, they just open the door to let it happen. It’s not going to be some villain overlord or even a monster like Jack who does it. I’m more liable to believe the world ends because of some deluded, fat, pimply faced punk kid that lives off pizza and mountain dew. There’s no damn point to it, but sometimes I look at the idiots, the selfish assholes and the maniacs that fill this world and I think that’s all we deserve.”

  “I like your line of thinking,” Imp said. “The world gets destroyed by some loser who jacks off twelve times a day to the freakiest, nastiest parahumans.”

  “Thank you,” Clockblocker said. “For so eloquently demonstrating what I was saying about us deserving it.”

  “No problemo,” Imp said.

  “That doesn’t exist, does it?” Toggle asked. “Case fifty-three porn?”

  “Everything exists,” Kid Win said.

  “Um, it just hit me. When you were saying we deserve it, were you talking about pimple-face the world destroying freak-fetishist or were you talking about me?”

  I shut my eyes and tuned out the conversation. It was good that they were talking, staying calm, more or less getting along.

  Grue and Rachel arrived from the stairwell.

  “Anything?” Imp asked.

  “No,” Grue said.

  “The Red Hands leave already?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Grue said. “Listen, about all that, it’s-”

  I raised my hand to stop him. “Not important. Not a big deal. I was only going to
ask if maybe Crucible or Toggle could be taken along. It’s a way out, now that things are getting heavier.”

  “No. It’s fine, I’ll stay,” Crucible said.

  “Ditto.”

  I nodded, then looked at Grue, shrugging. “That’s all.”

  “We’re okay?”

  “Copacetic,” I said, turning my attention back to the file. Skinslip.

  I reread the page four times before I was sufficiently distracted and able to register what I was reading.

  Rachel directed her dogs to watch the stairwell, then crossed to the middle of the hallway to me. She sat with her back to the same pillar I had my back to, her shoulder pressing against mine, squishing me a little bit further into the crevice I’d settled in. Not uncomfortable. Or it was, but the body contact was comforting enough that it didn’t bother me. It was reassuring without being in my face or distracting me from my study of the folder.

  All stuff I’d read backwards and forwards, but I couldn’t focus on a book, and refreshers could only help.

  I turned the page. Night Hag.

  “How’s life on the dark side?” Kid Win asked.

  I turned my head. He was talking to Foil, who sat at the furthest point from the stairwell.

  “More wholesome than you’d think,” Foil said. “Playing into every stereotype ever, moving in before we’d even been on a date, but it’s nice.”

  “Nice?” Clockblocker said. “Not what I expected. Not that I’m not happy for you, but-”

  She shifted position, resting her head on Parian’s shoulder. “It’s… free. Pleasant. The times between the fights with the brain-shatteringly terrifying god-monsters, anyways. Cooking breakfast, having breakfast cooked for you, going on walks with the dogs, maybe a bit of bodyguard duty while Parian handles a meeting, whatev, picnic for lunch, patrol the territory, do stuff for my University course, whoever didn’t cook breakfast makes dinner…”

  “They’re like a newlywed couple! It’s so sweet,” Imp said. “Of course, they’re skipping the-”

  “No,” Foil said. “We don’t need to go into any detail about my personal life with Parian.”

  “But I was just going to say-”

  “No,” Foil said again.

  “-they’ve got crazy good interior design, what with Parian and all,” Imp finished. She made a smug little sound, like she was very pleased with herself.

  Foil flicked a dart at Imp. It sank into the wall just to the left of Imp’s head.

  Vista leaned back, smiling, “This is the second time in four minutes where she’s alluded to rude stuff. Feeling lonely, Imp?”

  “I’m offended! Unfair accusations!”

  “Now I’m going to start wondering what someone with pseudo-invisibility powers gets up to in her alone time,” Kid Win said.

  “She’s gone there,” Grue said. I looked at him, and saw he was glancing my way.

  “Lies and slander!”

  “Wait,” Clockblocker said. “I thought I heard something at some point about you being her…”

  He trailed off.

  “Hm?” Grue asked.

  “Train of thought derailed. What were we talking about?”

  It was a puzzling change in the ambient tone, and I almost gave the word for people to switch to high alert.

  I was distracted by the vibration of my phone.

  A quick check and I verified that it was what we’d been waiting for.

  Golem engaging. 3x Burnscar, 3x Shatterbird, 2x Winter, 1x Skinslip, 1x Psychosoma identified.

  You’re clear to go.

  “We’re moving,” I said, hopping to my feet.

  Just like that, the mood shifted. Everyone was standing, picking up the equipment they’d put down. The joking atmosphere was gone, the… not peace, but the stillness, it was broken. Nerves were suddenly on edge, the opportunity to joke and comment gone.

  “Scouting with the bugs didn’t turn up anything,” I said. “Place is sealed. Vista, we’ll be counting on you to give us an in.”

  She nodded.

  “We’re going in blind. We suspect there’s at least two Mannequins, but that’s it. Mannequin specializes in indirect attacks. Catching people off guard, while being durable and flexible enough that he can escape from any situation that doesn’t go his way. I hope the rest of you have read up on the other members of the Nine, past and present.”

  There were nods all around.

  “Parian, Foil, Kid Win, you’re staying here. Set up, keep an eye out and an ear out.”

  “Will do,” Parian said. She was already inflating a stuffed scorpion. Cloth bound around one of Foil’s bolts to help form a tail.

  “Grue,” I said. “Hit the building, inside and out, but leave the inside clear. With luck, we can shut off their communications. With more luck, you can get a bead on what powers we’re dealing with.”

  He nodded.

  With that, we were down the stairs and out the front door.

  A joint attack maximized the chaos and minimized the chance of reinforcements. Golem was attacking the other location. Ten members of the Nine there. Ten here?

  If so, that was a big step up from the last fight. From four or five to twenty.

  Grue used his power, surrounding the area. Slowly but surely, the area was consumed in darkness. Not just Grue’s power, but the fact that the massive cloud of darkness was blocking out the ambient light. Though he kept the smoke out of the center of the area, it grew darker with every passing second.

  I joined the Brockton Bay Wards as they switched on flashlights, both handheld and gun-mounted ones. Each of us flicked on the smaller lights that were part of our masks or helmets. The latter were feeble at best, but it was still light. Mine came from smaller lenses that sat around the larger ones that covered my eyes. They filtered out as a faint blue. The pattern and color would hopefully make me more identifiable.

  “It’s kind of dumb that we don’t have those things,” Imp commented.

  “Perk of being a hero,” Clockblocker said. He handed her a spare flashlight.

  I gave one to Rachel, but she didn’t turn it on. Instead, she slid the loop over her wrist, hopping onto her dog’s back.

  The walls of darkness that surrounded the structure connected at the very top, and we were plunged into the deep sort of darkness one might expect from being a thousand feet underground. The headlamps and flashlights were the only real light, making it look almost as if the exposed pavement, sidewalk and the foot of the building were the only things that remained in the world.

  Vista used her power as we got closer. I could see a depression appearing in the wall, as if a giant, invisible finger were pressing into it.

  A hole appeared, and a small explosion tore out through the space, opening the hole wider. We staggered, and some of our smaller members were even thrown to the ground.

  Pale mist cleared slowly as we got to our feet. My bugs scanned the area, searching for threats who might have been alerted to our presence.

  Nothing. Apparently they didn’t want to engage. They were happy hunkering down, staying eerily quiet.

  And the explosion… there was a byproduct. Or maybe it was the source. A small glacier had formed around the hole, jagged, as if water had spewed forth and immediately frozen.

  “The hell?” Clockblocker muttered.

  Good thing it wasn’t Tecton knocking down the wall, I thought.

  Vista tried again, higher up, on the fourth story, off to the far side.

  We were braced for the detonation this time. I kept bugs close to get a sense of what was going on. The moment there was a gap, the air rushed out, cold and wet, and was followed soon after by a crushing manifestation of a small iceberg.

  It creaked, a long, drawn out sound, then cracked abruptly. The iceberg came free, and the resulting gap was almost instantaneously filled by a third detonation. A chunk of ice the size of a large car dropped to the street and shattered into a million individual fragments.

  Or maybe Tecton would
be an asset here. How the fuck do we break into this?

  “Has to be Mannequin,” I said. “Or Sphere. Used to specialize in closed systems. It makes sense, on a level, but this isn’t in Mannequin’s usual repertoire. Maybe they stole it from… what was the name? Toybox tinker, Gelid? Glace, that’s it.”

  “A cloned tinker is the smallest threat,” Clockblocker said. “Takes them time to build, and if you figure Jack didn’t exactly save anything of his, and… well, I don’t even know how they replaced memories, but there’s no way he’s just going to pick up where he left off.”

  “Mannequin in a different vein,” I said. “Same psychosis, different direction taken?”

  “Looks like, doesn’t it?”

  I frowned.

  “We could wait for the ice to melt,” Imp suggested. “Warm out.”

  “Would take forever,” Vista said.

  “And it would only get replaced, probably,” Clockblocker said.

  “Go big?” I suggested. “Whatever’s producing the ice, there’s got to be a limit in terms of materials.”

  Vista nodded.

  This time, rather than a depression, it was a line, running from one corner at the bottom of the building to the opposite corner on the top.

  It took ten or fifteen seconds, and then the ice blasted out, barely visible with only our flashlights to illuminate it.

  Nothing. Ground to roof, the ice remained.

  “I could do it again,” Vista suggested.

  “Faster to get Kid Win to just tear the outside of the building apart,” Clockblocker said. “Not like they don’t know we’re here, now.”

  “I’m thinking,” I said. “You know that draft of cool air you feel when the automatic doors of a big-name store swing open?”

  “Sure,” Clockblocker said.

  “It’s designed like that, to use air pressure and air flow and whatever else to keep bugs and debris out.”

  “Of course you know that,” Imp said. “Because of the bugs.”

  “I looked into it when I started paying attention to places where there aren’t a lot of bugs, to see why. There’s sonic countermeasures, and there’s that.”