Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  That second half of his business had faltered as people learned of his ability to manipulate his students… and his clients.

  Teacher’s payment for Khonsu had been a partnership in Cauldron, as well as protection, should one of his enemies come after him. He’d sent some of his students to the Doctor in efforts to make himself indispensable, and Contessa had verified that there were no traps.

  One caveat to two-six-five’s ability to grant visions was that it left the recipient on bedrest for a week, dazed and weak. It was potent, capable of viewing wide areas or multiple things at once, viewing other universes, whole cities, anyone or everyone. But the drawbacks made it impossible for her to use the service.

  Until now.

  Screen was a means of absorbing the drawbacks, allowing communication between the people in two-six-five’s network. He took the brunt of the images, allowed her to focus more readily, a router of sorts. He allowed Doormaker to handle requests without it taking her attention off what she was viewing. It meant the Doctor was lucid, recovering with every second.

  She could spy on everyone.

  And with Scanner, she could read them. Draw conclusions as to their thoughts, their brain patterns.

  “Notepad,” she said. Contessa would be nearby. Need to take notes. The Simurgh… I could read her. Better than I should be able to. She’s trying something.

  No notepad made an appearance.

  She blinked, as if to get the afterimages of bright lights out of her eyes. “A computer will do.”

  Nothing.

  She paused, blinking, and then looked around.

  Two-six-five was pointing. He’d been the one to break the connection, so he’d seen something.

  She turned, and her eyes fell on a young man with metal skin, metal hair, and a six-foot sword in place of his left arm. A girl made of tendrils clung to him.

  “Ah,” she said.

  “Ah,” he replied. “Yes.”

  There were others with him. Branded with Cauldron’s mark. What Alexandria had termed Case fifty-threes, after the fifty third file in a series of unresolved, difficult-to-explain parahuman events, one of the only ones to truly develop in their records. The Doctor had termed them deviants.

  Hate in their eyes. Anger.

  “Let’s have a discussion,” Weld said.

  “That’s definitely something we can do. Would you like some tea?” the Doctor asked. “Coffee?”

  “You’re not afraid,” one of the other deviants spoke. A girl, muscular, with an overbite and teeth like tombstones. She made it a half-question.

  “I’m very afraid,” the Doctor said. “But the things I fear are things that dwarf you in scale. Scion among them.”

  “Cocky bitch,” another deviant said. “Your Contessa? We took her down.”

  The Doctor looked between them, searching for a sign of humor or amusement.

  “You let too many free,” Weld said. He almost sounded sad. “You see that guy over there?”

  She looked. It looked like a human manta ray, though his folds draped over the surrounding area. A tail coiled behind him.

  “Yes. Two-six-zero-one, if I remember right.”

  “Mantellum.”

  “Ah. We didn’t think his powers were developing.”

  “You do,” Weld said. “But he, we, found workarounds.”

  “Curious. Can I ask?”

  “No,” Weld said. “Bad form, to outline that sort of thing.”

  A tinker, perhaps, or the right power-boosting trump. “Well. You infiltrated, no doubt by baiting one of my underlings and using their door. You defeated Contessa. Dealt with the Custodian, I imagine?”

  “The ghost? Yeah. Sort of. She’s lurking around the edges of Mantellum’s power bubble.”

  “And so you’ve managed to blindside me. Congratulations. The offer for tea and coffee stands. We have good food stores, too.”

  “No. Not hungry,” Weld said. “Speaking for myself, I don’t really eat.”

  “I see. I suppose this is where I’m supposed to apologize?”

  “Hey, Weld. Boss-man. Enough talking?” A boy with red skin asked.

  Weld half-turned to look at the crowd. “What’s the problem?”

  “This is kinda fucked. You’re talking to her like she’s a buddy.”

  “No,” Weld said. When he looked at her, his steel eyes were cold. “Not a buddy.”

  “Then what? You’re going to talk her to death?”

  “We agreed,” Weld said. “We said we’d get answers.”

  “I was thinking answers in the thumbscrew sense,” one of the more villainous-looking deviants said. A man covered in spikes, like a cactus, with bulging yellow eyes.

  “Let’s see what she gives us willingly,” Weld said, “Before we resort to that sort of thing.”

  “Just saying, some of us came here for blood.”

  There were rumbles of agreement.

  “This isn’t what we talked about,” Weld said. “If you wanted to go this route, you should have brought it up earlier.”

  “We did,” the muscle-laden girl with the overbite said. “We talked about making it clear just how badly she hurt us. Then you said a lot of fancy, convincing stuff, and we agreed to shut up.”

  “I thought you agreed with me,” Weld said.

  “Because a few good arguments are going to change our minds? Convince us that we’ll take a nice, peaceful route, after years, decades of suffering?” the girl asked.

  “We can’t become monsters in action, Gully.”

  “Some of us already have,” the spike-boy said. “The rest? I imagine they’re working on catching up.”

  Weld turned around, his back to Doctor Mother and the others, as if he were shielding them.

  “Does everyone disagree with me?” he asked. “You’ve all been plotting this… mutiny?”

  “No,” the girl with the tendrils said. “But I won’t be any help to you. If you let me go, I’m pretty sure I’ll strangle her. I’m sorry, Weld.”

  “It’s okay, Sveta.”

  Slowly, a small group peeled away from the crowd. One particularly tall man pushed his way forward from the back, only for others to grab him, as if to keep him back. He pulled his way free.

  He’s collected more than half of the ones we released on Earth Bet. Fifty, easily.

  Ten, Weld and Sveta included, stood between the more rabid deviants and the Doctor’s group.

  “If you do this,” the Doctor said, “The capes who are fighting Scion won’t be able to mobilize. I won’t be able to put plans into motion. The things you’ve suffered will be pointless in the end.”

  “The world ends anyways,” one of the hostile deviants said. “We’re not going to win that fight.”

  Another, a girl, piped up, “Did you hear just how badly the first skirmish went?”

  “Yeah. Might as well get some justice before it all goes to hell.”

  The crowd advanced. Weld and his fellows drew together, shoulder to shoulder.

  “Door,” the Doctor said.

  There was a tearing sound, a wet crack.

  One of the deviants had appeared beside her. Yellow skinned, with bruising in the recesses of his face, arms and hands. He smiled, his teeth narrow like a fish’s.

  He withdrew his hand, and Doormaker crumpled to the ground, limp as a rag doll, blood running from his forehead where his head had been smashed against the wall.

  Two-six-five touched the deviant, forcing remote-views on him, then withdrew his hand. The deviant collapsed, unconscious.

  The crowd advanced further.

  The Doctor stood straight, backing up until she was pressed against the wall.

  She’d inured herself to hopelessness. She’d expected inevitable death at the hands of Scion, but this would do. Surprising, but hopeless all the same.

  “Gentle Giant,” Weld murmured. “Brickstone. We blitz them. Hit them hard. Rest of you make a break for the door. You have a place to run to, Doctor?”


  “Yes,” she said.

  A chance?

  It was hope, and with it, oddly enough, she felt fear. Something to lose.

  “Now,” Weld said.

  The group charged.

  Arc 29: Venom

  29.01

  Tattletale stirred. I could see the usual confusion that went with waking up in unfamiliar surroundings. She adjusted faster than most. There was no flailing about for a point of reference so everything could start to make sense again. Her power supplied it.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  “Think the world’s going to end today?” she asked, as she stretched, still lying down.

  “World already ended, if we’re talking about our world. Too much damage done.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Humans are resourceful. Resourceful and stubborn. But you kind of live that, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Guess so.”

  Tattletale picked a bit of grit out of the corner of her eye with a fingernail. “You didn’t sleep.”

  “Not so much.”

  “Idiot.”

  “I’ve learned to deal. Pulled enough stakeouts to adapt.”

  “Idiot,” Tattletale said again. She raised herself to a sitting position. “You need to be in top fighting shape.”

  “I slept for three days after getting cut in half,” I protested.

  “Only shows how much you needed the sleep,” she said.

  “The Simurgh was being eerie, singing you a lullaby. You really expect me to sleep after that?”

  “The lullaby wasn’t for me,” Tattletale said. “And I didn’t sense any hostile intent.”

  I turned my head. My expression was hidden, but she read my confusion anyways.

  “I mean, I think some of it was for my benefit, but it didn’t fit like that was the be-all and end-all of the singing. She was doing something else.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I. But she’s not exactly an easy one to get. Who knows what she sees? Maybe she’s singing for a reason that isn’t apparent yet?”

  That was unsettling. I thought of what the Simurgh had said.

  It didn’t serve to keep secrets right now. It’d be disastrous in the worst case scenario, and Tattletale was the best person to go to when I needed answers. “She apologized.”

  “The Simurgh?” Tattletale asked. She gave me a funny look.

  “Believe it or not. She said ‘I’m sorry’.”

  “She doesn’t talk,” Tattletale said.

  “I know. But I heard it.”

  “Anyways, she isn’t sorry,” Tattletale said. “I’d put money on it. I’ve got a lot of money to put on it, if anyone’s willing to take the bet. Couple million in liquid assets.”

  I shook my head. “I won’t take that bet. Look, just keep it in mind.”

  “Filed away,” Tattletale promised.

  “For now though, we should mobilize,” I said, as if I could distract myself. “Get everyone on the same page, start putting heads and powers together.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Tattletale responded. She pulled off a glove, then reached into her belt to get a small tin from one pouch. “Two minutes to get myself presentable. Could do with a shower, but I think people are a little past that right now.”

  I nodded. Most of the capes I’d seen were just a little rougher around the edges. The shine gone from their costumes, a little dustier, their hair greasier, chins unshaven. Psychologically, it was much the same.

  This had hit all of us hard. I liked to think I was rolling with it better than some, if only because I’d had two years to anticipate it. Then again, I was good at self-delusion.

  I thought about Clockblocker, his optimism. When I’d been talking about expecting the worst, he’d argued for the opposite. I didn’t want to diminish what I felt about him being dead in the general sense by thinking about something so petty, but a part of me was disappointed I couldn’t talk to him now, after the fact, and see how he was doing. If he was coping better than I had.

  It wasn’t that I was coping, exactly. I wasn’t happy, confident or unafraid. The only thing I could say was that I’d been able to brace myself. I’d bought into Dinah’s prophecy more than just about anyone else. I’d braced myself and I’d nearly broken, regardless. I could tell myself that the point where I’d been floating over the ocean by New Brockton Bay had only been a desire to get away, nothing darker, but I wasn’t sure I was telling myself the truth. I could think back to the point where I’d snapped after being cut in half by Scion and tell myself I was lucid, but I wasn’t sure that was true either.

  Hard to say I’d held my own when I wasn’t sure how much of it was me and how much was the adrenaline at work. Or other things.

  Any opinion, passenger? I asked. We’re going up against your maker. You going to hold back or are you going to go all-out?

  No response, of course.

  Tattletale was smearing black greasepaint around her eyes. She’d finished the hardest part, around the eyelashes, and spoke up as she filled the rest in, “You get in touch with everyone you wanted to talk to?”

  “Almost everyone.”

  “Ah. I can guess who you didn’t actively look for. This denial worries me.”

  I shrugged.

  “No use dwelling on it. Your decision in the end. Let’s move on to a happier topic. You ever think we’d make it this far?”

  “To the end of the world?” That’s a happier topic?

  “To the top of the heap. As far up there as we could hope to be.”

  “We’re not big leaguers, Tattletale. Not the most powerful capes out there.”

  “But we’re talked about around the world. We’re on speaking terms with some of the biggest and scariest motherfuckers out there.” Tattletale gestured towards the window. Towards the Simurgh. “We’d be front page news, if the news still existed.”

  “I’m not sure being news would be a good thing,” I said. “Which isn’t to say word isn’t getting around, you know. Charlotte knew.”

  “Charlotte’s connected to Sierra and the rest of our infrastructure in Gimel. That doesn’t really surprise me,” Tattletale said. She pulled her hair out of the loose ponytail she’d had it in, then combed her fingers through it to get it more or less straight. It still had kinks and waves where it had been braided. Something she would have fixed before going out in costume in more ordinary circumstances, for caution’s sake.

  “Mm,” I acknowledged her. Maybe I was tired. My thoughts were wandering some.

  “I tried to set things up so we’d have some way of maintaining communications and getting some information in, getting information out. Like, I told people about what you said about Scion hating duplication powers. Anyways, only the very high tech and very low tech have really survived. Satellites and hard copies.” She lifted one of the files I’d stacked on the floor, as if to give evidence to the point. “Reading up?”

  I picked up a file as well, leafing through it. “I wasn’t sleeping, so while you were out, I got in touch with Defiant and one of your minions, arranged for only the most essential status updates to come in on paper. I figured I could update you after you got up. The deliveries stopped a good bit ago, but one of the last status updates was about Dragon, so I guess she’s handling her old duties while Defiant recuperates from the last few days.”

  “Guess so,” Tattletale said. I turned my head to see what she was doing, but she was already crossing the room.

  “Doormaker is napping as well, I guess,” I said. “He just decided to leave one open, and he hasn’t been responding. I double checked the portal, making sure he wasn’t trying to tip us off to anything important, but it opens to a pretty remote area of Earth Bet.”

  Tattletale went still, “Doormaker doesn’t sleep.”

  I raised my eyebrows, realized Tattletale couldn’t see them, and cocked my head quizzically instead.

  “There’re lots of capes who don’t sleep. About
a year ago, I started digging into the PRT files. Hired the Red Hands to steal a more up to date set, even. I was looking into clues for understanding this whole thing, y’know? Best leads at the time were memories and dreams. Clues popping up here and there, relating to people’s dreams, or gaps in memories. Dreaming differently, seeing things instead of dreaming, case fifty-threes suffering from their amnesia… Well, there are a number of ‘Noctis’ cases. Named after a vigilante hero that was up at all hours. The opposite of what I was looking for, but a good data point anyways: capes who don’t dream because they don’t sleep. PRT confirmed a few members of their own, Miss Militia included, as examples. Others have only been marked down as guesses. Doormaker and Contessa were among them, they said, going by the times the ‘bogeyman’ was showing up.”

  “So if he doesn’t sleep, why leave a door open and ignore us?” Tattletale asked.

  I shook my head a little.

  “Doorway,” Tattletale tried.

  There was no response. No portal, no door.

  “Door? Portal? Open sesame?” I tried.

  “That’s worrisome,” Tattletale said, keeping her voice low. She clipped on her belt, tapping each of the pockets, as if to check the contents were still there. She drew her gun and checked it for bullets.

  “We should go,” I said.

  “We’re definitely going,” Tattletale said, but she didn’t budge as she double-checked her gun, pulling the slide back. I resisted the urge to comment on just how useless a gun was, considering what we were up against; I could remember how she’d fared when the assassin targeted her, Accord and Chevalier.

  There were other threats.

  “Right,” Tattletale said, finally finishing, grabbing her laptop and tucking it under one arm.

  That was our go signal. We broke into stride.

  We passed a soldier, and Tattletale signaled him, raising a finger. He stopped and wheeled around, following.

  “We’re going,” Tattletale said. “Ship up, move out. If we come back and settle in here, then so be it, but let’s not plan on it.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Get someone to collect my things. All the files, the computers, the food. Everything. Get it all to the far side of the little doorway…” Tattletale looked at me. “Where’s the doorway?”