Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “Fourteen years from now was the breaking point,” Dinah spoke up.

  “Fifty-three to two percent of the forces available, then,” Number Man responded.

  “Yes,” the Doctor said. “We weren’t helping it along, but we’re not overly upset. In fact, we consider this a best case scenario.”

  I saw Contessa tense even before my swarm moved, expanding, drawing out lines of silk-

  A slam interrupted me, jarring me back to reality. I turned to look at Chevalier. He’d struck the desk in front of him.

  “Don’t,” he said. It took me a second to realize he was talking to Doctor Mother.

  “A poor choice of words,” the Doctor said. “What I mean to say is that a very large number of powerful capes remain active and alive, ready to combat the threat. We’re situated to respond to this somehow, both offensively and reactively. At this very moment, we are managing a large-scale evacuation. We consider it a priority to keep Scion unaware, so we are evacuating the landmasses on the opposite end of the globe in hopes he won’t be able to respond or act.”

  “Evacuating people like you did in New Delhi?” Tecton asked.

  “Mm. No. Different earths, closing portals behind us as we go.”

  One of the Thanda spoke, “Then you were capable of this evacuation before? Moving hundreds of millions to safety?”

  “Yes,” the Doctor responded.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because of Scion.”

  “Because you knew,” I repeated myself for the third or fourth time. My fists were clenched. “You had an idea this was going to happen.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Everything we’ve done has been to build towards this eventuality.”

  A silence hung in the air.

  I looked over the room. Moord Nag and the South American capes had interpreters rattling off the particulars of the conversation. The Protectorate, the Irregulars, Faultline’s crew, the Suits… all bristled with anger.

  Hell, I did too.

  Faultline spoke, “So. It all comes down to this. Millions or billions die and you get to step in now and be the big damn heroes.”

  “We have no intention of doing so. In truth, as much as we’ve stockpiled countermeasures, gathered information and planned ahead, we fully expect to fail.”

  “Fuck,” Tattletale muttered, just beside me.

  “All of the war crimes, kidnapping people, human experimentation, creating monsters, creating psychopathic monsters, letting millions die… and you think it’s for nothing?” Faultline asked.

  “It’s very, likely,” Doctor Mother said, unruffled.

  “Then why?” Weld asked.

  “Because we decided in the very beginning that we don’t want to be left wondering if we could have done more, in the moments before humanity ceases to exist,” the Doctor said. “Why did we make you into what you are, Weld? Because it was an option, a step forward. Why did we keep it secret? It improved our chances. Why did we not tell you about Scion? Because it improved our chances.”

  I stared down at the roughly circle-shaped patch of darkness in the center of the room. “You made sacrifices, you made sacrifices on the behalf of others, and you made the hard calls, but it was all for something greater. I bet you think you won’t have any regrets at the end.”

  “It’s been some time since I lost sleep because of a heavy conscience,” the Doctor said.

  Weld gripped the railing hard enough to make the wood splinter explosively.

  “I know what that’s like,” I responded. “I’ve walked down that road. Maybe not so ugly a road, but I’ve gone that route. All the way along, I told myself it sucked, but I wouldn’t do it differently. I did everything I did for a reason. Except now, having reached the point I was working towards, I finally do regret it all. The last two years, the way I treated my teammates, leaving the Undersiders… I’d change it all in a heartbeat.”

  I turned my eyes to Golem, then the Undersiders, and then to Doctor Mother.

  “Maybe I will regret it,” the Doctor said. “But I’ll run that risk. If the world ends regardless of our efforts, the only one left to judge me will be God.”

  I shook my head a little, but I didn’t answer her. We’d dragged this on long enough.

  She seemed to agree. “Let’s talk about the situation. Tattletale, if you would?”

  “Me? I’m flattered. Let’s see… Scion isn’t human. All of our powers stem from the same source. It’s this big alien bastard that we keep seeing when we have our trigger events. Except each of his cells is coded with just a fragment of his brain and a technique he uses to manipulate his environment, protect himself or attack others. He spread powers around Earth as part of a way to stress test them. He wants to leverage our brains and imagination to figure out ways to make the most of these abilities or innovate new ones. With me so far?”

  “No,” Gully said, from her spot beside Weld, “Not at all.”

  I nodded my head in silent assent. Not that I didn’t understand. It was just a lot to take in.

  “Okay, well, it gets worse, so follow along. After distributing all of the powers he could, he left a chunk of himself still active, still alive, and he kept all of the good powers, the abilities he needed to ensure this whole process continues. Except something went wrong, and the process is fucked. How am I doing?”

  “Minor errors,” the Doctor said, “But roughly on target.”

  “Great!” Tattletale’s grin was visible in the gloom. She rubbed her hands together, clearly enjoying herself, despite the circumstances. She wanted a scene where the detective reveals it all. This is just… a little weirder. “Okay! Let’s see. The process is fucked, and he’s a daddy with no little ones to take care of. They’re dying or dead or something else went wrong and he’s been looking for a purpose. He got that purpose when a guy called Kevin told him to go help people. He got a new purpose when Jack told him to start murdering.”

  Murdering.

  My dad’s face crossed my mind.

  The dead I’d had to ignore while rescuing others were a jumble, too numerous for me to even piece together in my mind’s eye.

  “If it were mindless destruction,” the Doctor said, “It would be acceptable. We could convince him to abandon this, or hope he burns himself out on this Earth’s remaining inhabitants, after we evacuate everyone we can. There’s another problem.”

  She touched something on her desk, and the various panels behind each booth changed. They were video screens, three times as tall as they were wide, and each showed the same clip of Scion’s rampage.

  “United Kingdom, first target struck. Obliteration,” the Doctor said. “Eastern coast of Canada and the United States, damaged, but casualties were a third of what they were in the initial strike.”

  She paused. Faultline took the opportunity to interject, “Not following.”

  “The third attack was against Mali, followed by Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, and all down the coast of Africa. In this attack, he selectively murdered specific individuals.”

  I watched the scene. Scion flying with a speed like an arrow shot from a bow, narrow lasers blasting from each hand. He came to a stop a short distance from the camera, canceling the laser assault. The image panned over to look at the city as Scion hovered there in the sky. A major population center. Capes were already taking flight to stop him. No, not capes. People in civilian clothes with powers, many heavily tattooed.

  He glowed, and the glow flared.

  The camera dropped a short distance and struck something solid.

  “That blast we just saw,” the Doctor explained, “Was a calculated strike. The city was left mostly intact, but Scion killed specific people, targeting anyone who had already hit puberty.”

  “How?” Tattletale asked.

  “His perceptions are finely tuned,” the Doctor said. “He’s aware of his immediate vicinity, and in absolute control of how his power is expressed. He left… what was the number?”

  “An estimat
ed four hundred and thirty thousand,” the Number Man said.

  “Four hundred and thirty thousand orphans.”

  He didn’t kill them all.

  Why is that scarier than the alternative?

  “In Russia, his beam started fires. He cut off every escape route, then began setting fires from the outside in. It took him thirty-five minutes to start the fire, and he waited for fifteen minutes while the flames spread and everyone within was cooked. Heroes that attempted to stop the attack were killed.”

  “He’s experimenting,” Tattletale said.

  The Doctor nodded slowly. “Following a very distinct formula. He’s reversing what he did at the outset. Saving children, stopping fires. The man who initially gave him the orders is hospitalized, or we’d ask about the instructions he provided. It might give us an idea of what Scion is going to do and the patterns that might emerge in the course of this… experimentation.”

  Experimentation.

  He didn’t have to learn to be dangerous. He was capable of obliterating us all in a matter of days.

  “We’re bringing the girl who was in contact with Scion here,” the Doctor said. “Provided she survives. Scion is too close for us to access her at the moment.”

  “I only want to know two things,” the Dog King said. “What do we do, and how do I protect my people?”

  There were nods from around the room. I found myself joining them.

  At the simplest level, that was what we all wanted.

  Those of us that weren’t monsters, anyways.

  “We run,” the Doctor said. “Save as many people as we can. Muster your forces. Strategize, think outside the box. If you have ideas, run them by the group.”

  “Let me start, then,” Faultline said. “Simple answer. Talking to him got him to be a hero before, and talking to him made him do this. Let’s talk to him again.”

  “And say what?” Tattletale asked. “Stop, pretty please?”

  “No,” Faultline retorted. “I want to find another option. We’ve got a planet full of thinkers and tinkers, let’s gather intel, figure out just what it is he wants, and see if we can provide it. Get him to leave.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Tattletale said. “That faerie kook who’s going on about queen administrators and all that crap? She was a big hint in me figuring this stuff out, and she’s under the impression that this all ends with this Earth and every other Earth being obliterated. We don’t want to give him what he wants.”

  “Then we trick him,” Faultline said. “Before he gets too clever and before he wipes us out. Tell him to, I don’t know, fly to the edge of the known universe and back?”

  “You try that,” Tattletale said, injecting a note of sarcasm into her voice. “That sounds brilliant.”

  “Any idea is a good thing,” Chevalier said. “We’ll emphasize protecting and preserving the people we can save. Can you give us access to your portal network?”

  “Yes,” Doctor Mother answered. “Of course. We’ll be observing you at all hours. You only have to ask for a door and we’ll connect you to our central hub, provided you aren’t on the same continent as Scion.”

  She took a deep breath, then sighed audibly.

  “I don’t ask you, any of you, for your help. I don’t ask for your assistance or cooperation. I only want us to share resources, provide solutions. Contessa, if you’d please ungag Bonesaw?”

  Contessa nodded, then strode across the room. She worked something away from Bonesaw’s face, then returned to Cauldron’s booth.

  “Hello,” Bonesaw’s voice was eerie, childish in a way Dinah’s wasn’t. She craned her head around, clearly unable to move anything below the neck, looking at the panel behind her. “I’m not with them. Honest to gosh.”

  “There’s no reason for her to be here,” Defiant said.

  “There is,” the Doctor said. “Contessa believes it is the most economical way to get what we need. Tattletale?”

  “I’m really having mixed feelings about that whole ‘Tattletale’ thing you keep doing,” Tattletale responded. “It’s like calling for your dog, which is irritating, but you keep giving me chances to do awfully fun stuff. You want me to dismantle Bonesaw?”

  “Feel free,” the Doctor said. “Our goal is a remote.”

  “I’m playing nice now,” Bonesaw said. “Promise.”

  “Gotcha,” Tattletale replied to the Doctor. She turned to the little girl. “So.”

  “This is cheating,” Bonesaw said. “I’m not trying to be tricky or anything. I just want to stay alive, help out. I don’t want the world to end. The remote’s just collateral. Once I give it up, you have no reason to keep me around.”

  “Which is,” Defiant commented, “Exactly what you’d say if you were Jack’s sleeper agent, biding your time to deliver the worst possible attack at the worst possible moment.”

  “No,” Tattletale said. “She’s being honest.”

  “Honest?”

  “The murderous little tot had a change of heart. A partial change of heart. Let’s be honest. You’re not going to turn away from the art of your powers that easily, are you? You’ll still crave to do something interesting, and maybe that interesting is at the expense of others.”

  “It can be at the expense of bad people,” Bonesaw said. “Does that work?”

  “No,” Chevalier said, Defiant echoing him by a half second.

  “Besides,” Tattletale said, “The only bad person that concerns us is Scion, and you can’t touch him.”

  “Phooey.”

  “Drop the act,” Tattletale said.

  There was a pause.

  A voice that wasn’t nearly so childish, so perky, sounded across the room. “Okay.”

  “Better,” Tattletale said. “You’re in the middle of a metamorphosis. Something triggered that change. Love? No. Friendship? Friendship. Someone outside the Nine.”

  “Yes. It’s not that big a deal. I realized Jack’s been playing me because that woman,” Bonesaw jerked her head in the direction of the Doctor, “fucked with my head.”

  “Which is why I’m handling this and not her, I guess. And because this little show builds the idea of solidarity between our factions. Multiple goals, I’m sure.”

  “An illusion that’s strained when you mention it to everyone present,” Doctor Mother commented.

  “Whatever. Bonesaw. Boney. Bones.”

  “Riley.”

  “Riley. You’re going through some changes. Let’s-”

  “Can we cut the jokes?” Chevalier asked. “There’s a lot going on out there. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

  “Then go,” Tattletale said. When he didn’t budge, she added, “I’m having a conversation with Riley here. She’s figuring out who and what she is, and we’ve got a bit of a snarl. Her art.”

  “My power. That’s all it is,” Bonesaw said.

  “You’re attached to it. You feel a bit of pride in what you’ve made, even now that you’re apparently turning over a new leaf. I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell you to get real.”

  “I’m not that attached. Or proud,” Bonesaw said.

  “Sure you are.”

  “No. I mean, like, I think about my friend and I imagine messing with him and it’s like… I don’t want to do that. I enjoy his company. So I think about the other people and put his face over theirs and-”

  “And you still do horrible things. Let’s not pretend you weren’t screwing with Nilbog or palling around with the rest of the clones. You made them possible.”

  “I had to. I-”

  “Chevalier was right. We don’t have a lot of time. Stop equivocating and listen. You’re a monster. Maybe the worst one out there. But when it all comes down to it, you’re just like that big golden bastard out there. You’re Jack’s pawn. Everything you ever made, everything you ever did, the strongest parts of you, the little vulnerabilities, custom tailored by him.”

  “No,” Bonesaw said.

  “Yes.”


  “The friend I made, this new me, it’s-”

  “Calculated. By Jack. Don’t tell me he doesn’t plot things for down the road. Hey Golem, talk to me.”

  Golem’s voice sounded from the other end of the room. “What?”

  “You thought Jack had a thinker power. Why? What?”

  There was a pause.

  “Because he’s like Weaver. He reacts like someone that is way too aware of what’s going on.”

  Acts like me?

  I’d made the comparison myself, but I’d tempered that, held back as I formed that conclusion. Hearing it in such a blunt way stung as much as a slap in the face.

  “And you sent in the D.T. guy because-”

  “Because Weaver surrounds herself with bugs, and Jack surrounds himself with capes. The non-cape is the only variable we haven’t seriously tried. The competent non-cape.”

  Tattletale nodded, “Thought so. So let’s think about that. He’s got a thinker power that lets him manipulate parahumans, or read them, or gauge how they’ll react. He uses it, probably unconsciously, to constantly maintain the edge. And he gets bored. You’ve seen him get bored, haven’t you, Riley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes. And when he gets bored, he sets up scenarios like the game in Brockton Bay, the test with Golem coming after him, whatever else. It usually falls apart before it comes to a head, because Jack is chaos incarnate, people cheat, Jack cheats, and so it goes. So tell me, do you really think he wouldn’t let you have a little slack to see how you’d operate?”

  Bonesaw didn’t respond.

  “Yeah. Exactly,” Tattletale said. “Your art? It’s his art. Your power and everything you do with it, it’s stuff he’s shaped.”

  “That’s not true. I come up with my own ideas,” Bonesaw sounded almost defiant. She’d also, I noted, forgotten the original message, saying her art wasn’t important to her.

  “His ideas. Everything’s tainted with Jack. And you know it better than I do. You can think of all the little scenes and conversations. How your favorite projects were the ones your family applauded. The ones Jack praised, above all.”

  Again, Bonesaw was silent, unable to retort.