Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “Nilbog’s creatures!” I spoke, raising my voice. I spoke through my bugs outside. “We mean no harm! We will bring you back your king!”

  Nothing but cries of rage and hate in response. No use.

  Thirty seconds, now.

  The holes in the exterior opened enough for the creatures to start pushing through. The acid burned them where they made contact, but that same contact opened the holes wide enough for others to follow.

  The charger lunged, charging again. There was really only one rider it was listening to, but that pilot was a tough one to hurt.

  The thing screamed one word in English, twice in quick succession, its voice high,

  “Jump! Jump!”

  The charger leaped. The result wasn’t graceful, nor was it particularly on target. What it did do was allow the charger to get one foot up on the side of the Pendragon, its upper body partially on the roof. It kicked and struggled in its attempts to move forward, and found one leg caught in the tear it had made on its last charge.

  It placed the foot on top of the hands Golem had raised to block the gap, and sheer weight tore them down. It slumped, falling, and then brought the end of its nose inside the ship, dragging it against the tear in fits of thrusting, struggling to free both it and its leg, succeeding only in doing more damage. Reinforced shafts and beams held against the damage, but could see how each wiggle was bending the thick bars.

  “I thought you said this thing was tough!” Foil shouted.

  “It is,” Defiant said.

  “Forcefield might be a good idea!” I called out.

  Defiant didn’t respond. Hoyden had made her way down the ramp and was dishing out the hurt close-range. She was keeping the melee threats on their heels with a constant, aggressive offense, while her secondary powers rendered her resistant to the damage that came from a distance. Defiant was left to defend the opening himself.

  I drew my knife and my handgun and advanced until I was just behind and to the left of Defiant. He shifted position a fraction, allowing for the extra assistance.

  Who knew we’d get to this point, Armsmaster? I thought.

  Fighting side by side. I used my knife to impale one creature in the neck, then kicked it back down the half-ruined ramp.

  Two of the countdown clocks had hit zero. The one clock remained. The high end of Defiant’s estimation on the decoder’s progress.

  “One minute,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Defiant said.

  “Maybe?”

  “We took the time this past year to find Dodge’s old exit points, talking to ex-customers of the-” he stopped, grunting as he swept the spear at one persistent spine-spitter, “-Toybox group. Used it to get readings, test the decoder. But this portal has different metrics, updated technology. More recent tech.”

  “It’s not a guarantee?” Hoyden shouted the words, as explosions continued to rip out around her, tearing through the assembled creatures. They were keeping a healthy distance, now, which meant her very presence was keeping a whole area clear of the blighters.

  Nothing’s a guarantee, I thought.

  “I never guarantee anything,” Defiant grunted, echoing my thoughts. “Except for a select few promises I make to people I love and people I hate.”

  Rachel’s dogs were tearing into the goblins as they made their way through the gap beneath the charger that had wedged into the gap, each dog biting their mouths down once or twice in quick succession before flinging the things away just so they could have their mouths free to bite others. Their paws swept out to club and claw at the creatures. Tecton and Foil guarded the space between dogs, striking out to catch the ones which slipped between the dog’s legs.

  I plunged my knife down to stab one of the softer looking targets, then danced back to avoid the spatter of acid that flowed from the wound.

  “I’m getting buried!” Hoyden shrieked. She’d been targeted by some critters that were dissolving into a slurry as they burned, with tendrils extending out to draw in the wounded and dead.

  They’re reincarnating, feeding on themselves to make more.

  “Stop using your power!” Defiant ordered.

  “I can’t! They’ll kill me!”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the clock, then whipped my head back around as a creature pounced, trying to wrap itself around my head. I shot it, feeling a flare of relief that I hadn’t just been killed, mingled with a regret over the loss of the bullet.

  “How is it not done yet!?” I shouted. “Zero on the clock!”

  Defiant didn’t respond.

  “Defiant! Do we take off!?”

  The charger, still caught in the gap, found the leverage to strain against one of the reinforcing girders that maintained the craft’s structure. It began to slide down, and Golem raised a stainless steel hand to keep it from stomping on the decoder.

  The hand wouldn’t be strong enough. If that thing shifted its weight any more-

  “Defiant!” Tecton shouted. “What are our priorities!? Can we take off?”

  “No,” Defiant responded. “We stay. Wait, cross our fingers.”

  I glanced back to see Golem and Tecton exchanging a glance. The creature struggled again, sudden, and the beams shifted further. One more struggle like that, and the little hand wouldn’t hold it up.

  A big hand, though, might cement our fate, take away our maneuverability.

  “Saint,” Defiant said.

  I glanced back at him.

  “Don’t fuck us on this. We need those Azazels. We need an escape route.”

  Saint?

  The fact that Dragon was debilitated was another trick, an extremely ill-advised play against the heroes, capitalizing on our distraction with something greater.

  “I’m going to fucking kill Saint,” I said.

  “If we survive this fucking-,” Tecton said. He grunted and fell on his armored rear end as a dog jerked to one side, accidentally body-checking him.

  “Not a suicide mission,” Defiant said, carrying out only one half of a conversation we weren’t entirely privy to. “Back us up, now.”

  A pause.

  Defiant spoke, and his tone of voice had changed. He wasn’t talking to Saint.

  “Toronto, Ontario. Canada. Yonge Street. Just behind a place called Greenway. I’ve commissioned a thinker-investigator calling himself Gleer to track them down. If only some of us make it, do me a favor, and remember that Saint is the one who fucked with one of our biggest truces yet. Saint took down Dragon, and he just left us to die. The Azazels are apparently better deployed elsewhere.”

  The charger bucked, and Golem created a large hand, not to catch the descending foot, but to divert its direction. It crushed my empty bug box.

  This much weight on the craft, the loss of so many external components… we wouldn’t be able to fly.

  The roof came partially off. More streamed in through the resulting gap, dropping down into the middle of the cabin.

  Revel unleashed her lantern. Spheres of light and flame flew out in every direction, burning through the ranks of the smaller creatures, zig-zagging to maximize contact between them. The charger died, going limp.

  A moment’s reprieve.

  Defiant used a grappling hook from his glove to try to catch Hoyden, only for it to fly off in another blast of flame.

  He tried again, but this time, he whipped the chain, so the length of it wound around her, then yanked her inside. He signaled, and the forcefield went on. In seconds, we cleared the few that had survived from the Pendragon’s cabin.

  Creatures died as they made contact with the field.

  Defiant dropped his spear, turning to the device that Dodge had set up. Data appeared on the monitor.

  “Give me a connect to Alcott,” he said.

  Tattletale’s voice sounded through my earbud. “You sure? You know-”

  “Time is of the essence. Now.”

  “Righty-o.”

  The rest of us exchanged glances. Rachel was tending to her dog
s, Parian was binding wounds with spare cloth and creating more constructs, and Golem was patching up the damage. Not fixing anything, but barricading.

  “She’s on the line.“

  “Top half of the list, success?”

  “Zero,” Tattletale said.

  “Last quarter?”

  “Yes.”

  Defiant typed on the keyboard. “That’s it. Narrowing down possibilities. Thank you.”

  We waited, looking through the spaces where the barricades hadn’t yet gone up, at the creatures that waited. Hoyden submitted to some bandaging on Parian’s part.

  I watched the forcefield flicker. It seemed to coincide with what Defiant was typing on the keyboard. A strike of the enter key, and it flickered and went out.

  “I’m taking it down early,” Defiant said. “We need the power.”

  Barely a minute.

  The creatures approached hesitantly, then broke into a run. I could see the dogs tense.

  “Back up,” Defiant said. “Now. Huddle!”

  We did, swiftly retreating until we were clustered around the center of the cabin, shoulder to shoulder, our backs to the device. My bugs filled the gaps. The creatures, in turn, gibbered, squealed, screeched and roared. They howled and stomped and drummed fists on chests.

  Impacts made Golem’s hands bend, and I could hear a dozen points where they were grabbing at the plates of metal and straining to bend and peel them. That horrible sound, in innumerable places around the craft.

  And then silence. Darkness. Air rushed around us, equalizing throughout a vast, empty space.

  Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I thought.

  We broke the huddle, our headlights and flashlights going on. Rachel’s dogs could be seen in the darkness, their eyes glowing red and orange in the reflected light.

  “It seems we have company,” Jack said.

  I could see the others startle.

  “No, I’m not standing next to you. Borrowing Screamer’s power to broadcast, to have a little chat.”

  No. Couldn’t afford to listen to him. If any of us were problematic, or if it was someone listening in, anything he said could be the catalyst for the end of the world.

  Problem was, Screamer was a bitch to shut down. Ear plugs wouldn’t be any guarantee. If she was forced to, she would use the vibrations of people’sbones to transmit words.

  Jack continued, “I confess, I do like this part. The chatting. It’s safe to keep my distance, but it’s boring, really. You challenge somebody, pit mind against mind, but how much do you truly get to know them?”

  “Move,” I said. “Fan out, find Screamer as soon as possible.”

  My bugs flowed out in advance of the group.

  “This, the conversation, it’s what turns a mindless killing spree into something more, an art. Bonesaw is fond of telling me that true art speaks for itself, but really, there needs to be a relationship between the artist and audience, if only because there’s a lot of idiots out there. Some people need it spelled out for them. Hi Theodore.”

  Golem clenched his fists.

  The area was vast and empty. Every surface was granite, rough but not so much so that it would be painful to walk on with bare feet. The wiring was crude, small floodlamps strung out in strings, like oversized, colorless, exceptionally boring Christmas lights. Wires had been stapled against the walls, fixing them in straight lines, but the excess draped loose at the bases of those same walls.

  The lights were bright, but they only covered two-thirds of the area. The spaces between those same lights were dark to the point of being almost pitch black, the afterimages in my vision making it look like things were moving in the shadow.

  “Gray Boy is retrieving your sister this very moment, Theodore.”

  Golem stopped in his tracks.

  “Yes,” Jack said. No elaboration. Answering a question that hadn’t been asked.

  “Can’t communicate with our people while we’re here,” Defiant said.

  “Keep moving,” Chevalier gave the order.

  Jack spoke, his voice smooth. Or Screamer spoke, mimicking what he was saying, quite possibly in the exact tone and cadence. “We got video. I thought about having it be silent, in black and white, but Gray Boy wanted color.”

  My scout-bugs found no signs of life. Only bizarre constructions. Crystal pillars with more wires stringing to them? Where was Jack? We passed through a room with what looked like a dentist’s chair. Tools and pieces of the mechanical scalpel-spiders littered the room.

  Bonesaw’s operating room.

  “I like to think this is a win-win situation for me,” Jack said. “Wait until you hear. We’ll get the video up in a moment. Play it on the speakers, maybe, or show it on the computers, if you can find one soon. Does this break you, or does it give you that burning fury that drives you to go the extra mile and try to kill me?”

  We entered the main area, and I stared.

  “Oh god,” Foil said.

  There was a crunching sound as Chevalier let his sword drop, the metal biting into the floor.

  The crystalline pillars were vats. Cloning vats. Each marked with a name of one of the Nine.

  They were full. Babies floated within each.

  “Cherish says you found the clones. Yes. We’re doing another batch. Didn’t take much time to prepare, and it was bound to be either a nice follow-up or a good surprise for you if you happened to catch up to us here. You know I’m close. Do you take the time to eliminate each of these things, or do you come after me and leave them behind?”

  “We can have someone stay behind, clean up,” Chevalier said.

  “I wouldn’t say that, Chevalier,” Jack responded, his voice carrying through the vast chamber with two or three hundred vats spaced evenly throughout. “See, we mixed things up a little. There’s a specialized cleanup area that can kill the Crawler clones. We gave them their powers right off the bat. Mixed them in with the others. You’ll have to be fairly discerning, and devote manpower to the task.”

  I thought about using my power, but there weren’t any bugs native to this area. I was limited to the ones that I’d brought with me. Not enough to cart two or three hundred children off to some special device.

  “A distraction,” Defiant said. “There’s another option. A bomb. If we track down the device Dodge used to create and maintain this dimension, we can collapse it.”

  “How fast?” Chevalier asked.

  “Fast,” Defiant answered.

  “Poor sportsmanship,” Jack rebuked them. “Let’s try a different distraction then.”

  A computer monitor on the desk flickered to life.

  “I’m excited,” Jack said. “Gray Boy is working on getting the video up. Funny thing. The real Gray Boy wouldn’t be able to do this, but we gave this one the memories of a real child. Came with the necessary skills. I’m almost disappointed. People are so much more interesting when they’re flawed, aren’t they? Oh, here we go. I haven’t even seen this. Let’s see…”

  The video started playing. The camera wiggled and wobbled as Gray Boy ascended a staircase.

  He came face to face with PRT officers.

  “Best not to watch,” Revel said, her voice gentle. “It’s not worth it.”

  Golem didn’t take his eyes off the screen. Revel approached him, putting one hand on his shoulder.

  Others turned to keep scouting the area.

  I joined them. This place was massive, but my power had range. I needed to find Jack, and that was a bigger priority than seeing the scene as it played out. Rachel walked between the rows and columns of glass vats with me. Her dogs trailed behind, their spikes and spurs occasionally tapping or dragging against the glass of the vats.

  “There we go,” Gray Boy said, his voice high, as he spoke in the video. I could barely make it out with my own ears, but I had my bugs to help. It didn’t hurt that the ones who’d remained behind were utterly silent as they watched.

  I’d already seen, in a sense. I’d
figured out what was behind the tarp back in Killington. Gray Boy’s victim. The only one, as far as I was aware, who was still alive.

  But Gray Boy didn’t kill.

  “Let’s adjust… there,” Gray Boy said.

  “Please… don’t… please… let…“

  The voice was halting, cut short at steady, regular intervals.

  “Me… go… please… oh… god…“

  “Shhhh,” Gray Boy’s voice was a hush, but it carried through the speakers that were planted throughout the area.

  “I… don’t…“

  “I said be quiet,” Gray Boy said. “I’ll do you a favor, even. I can make this painless. I just need you to talk to me. Tell me a story.“

  “A… story…?“

  “I’m sure you can come up with something good. Let’s start with your partner.“

  There was a scream. I tensed.

  The scream didn’t stop. It continued, a steady, constant loop, the beginning the same, the ending varying.

  “What… story?”

  The scream changed, intensifying. It continued looping, just a little louder, a little less usual.

  “Don’t be a baby,” Gray Boy said. “That’s only a pocket knife I cut you with.“

  “Trucks… vampir… dragons… what… do… you… want…“

  “Think about it,” Gray Boy said. “When I come back, I want to hear it. If it isn’t a good one, I’m going to light a match. They say a burn hurts more than any other kind of pain, inch for inch. Look, see! I’ve got a whole matchbox here. A whole matchbox just for you two, and all the time in the world.“

  The man’s oddly rhythmic screaming continued, dropping in volume. It was barely audible as a door shut.

  I forced myself to keep walking, exploring with my bugs. Tunnels, side-rooms, many occupied with old devices, things belonging to the Toybox residents that had apparently claimed spaces in here for themselves.

  “Can your dogs pick up a scent?” I asked.

  Rachel shook her head. “Wrong breeds. They’re not trained in tracking people.”

  I swore under my breath.

  “Kayden.”

  Golem’s voice, from far away.

  Gray Boy had found Theo’s family.

  “Move your hand,” Gray Boy said. “You know it won’t work. I’m too hard to kill.“