Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  A boy. A teenage boy, clean-shaven, if he even needed to shave, wearing a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up the forearms, his blond hair slicked back, and black suit pants. He backed away a step as Golem and I appeared.

  His appearance, the way they’d fought… like Contessa?

  Each of the boys were identical.

  Lung and Huntress were pinned by Alexandria. Or by Pretender wearing Alexandria’s body, in a way. Lung was changing, the canines swelling in size, and yet she didn’t look worried. Bastard was still on the ground, one of the boys looking as unconcerned as one could look while holding down a half-ton animal.

  Behind the boys, a small crowd had gathered.

  Doctor Mother, a Manton with the Siberian… or a Manton clone with the Siberian, a claw pressed to Gully’s throat. There were three more case fifty threes, all burly, all bound with heads hanging. Rounding out the group was the Number Man, who had a pen pressed tight against Cuff’s jugular, her costume already torn open at the throat to expose flesh. His foot was propped up on a sphere.

  I could see the resemblance between the Number Man and the boys in dress shirts. Twenty or more years of difference, and the Number Man was dressed in a full suit, which somehow made him more imposing, pocket protector or no, but they were too similar to be anything but related.

  Was Cauldron cloning? Another contingency plan?

  At the very back of the room, separate from the group, were two pale young men, laid out on desks that sat on either side of a reinforced door. A twenty-something guy with flat skin stretched over where his eyes should be, and a guy that was maybe ten years older, with enough bloody bandage around his head and face that I couldn’t make out his features. Doormaker, I could assume, based on what I’d heard upstairs, along with the clairvoyant the Doctor had mentioned in the past.

  The boy in the suit closed the distance, and Rachel struck out. He batted her fist aside. She kicked, and he casually caught it and leveraged it to throw her off balance, tossing her to the ground.

  Maybe a little harder than he had to.

  I saw how she fell, saw her back arch, the way she held her arm as she rolled over. She didn’t cry out, didn’t make any sounds of pain, but the degree of pain was clear.

  A lot harder than necessary. Had she broken something?

  He turned his head towards Golem and I, and he smiled a little. A tight, narrow, mocking smile.

  “I’m not your enemy,” I said.

  “You came out fighting,” Alexandria-Pretender said. She looked down at Rachel. “Or she did.”

  “Bastard was acting like there was fighting going on, ears, hackles up. You attacked us.”

  The Number-Man clone kicked her. Casually cruel.

  I tensed, but I didn’t act. The fall had knocked the wind out of me. Catching my breath, then-

  “Disable her,” the Doctor said.

  The young man closed in. Still smiling. Fuck me, was that smug smile irritating. I felt a moment’s sympathy for people who’d had to face down Tattletale. I sicced my swarm on him.

  He moved through the incoming insects, eyes open and unblinking as he closed the distance to me. Only a few landed, and they landed in spots where they couldn’t target more vulnerable areas.

  That he wasn’t closing his eyes was telling. I used my bugs to try and blind him, to keep him from seeing how I was moving, and I reached behind my back, going for the pepper spray.

  He blocked my wrist with his palm, keeping me from aiming at him. Not just sight. Or his sight was more acute than I’d realized. Hearing? Something else?

  Be unpredictable.

  Pepper spray killed bugs. I didn’t aim for him, but for the pair of us, spraying into open air, into my swarm.

  I’d hoped to make him back off, but he didn’t. He ducked low, simultaneously bringing one foot up, catching me in the chest. In the same movement, he rolled to one side, getting away from the mist of pepper spray that was still hanging in the air and simultaneously avoiding Golem’s reaching hand of concrete.

  For just an instant, my feet left the ground. I landed, but I landed with one foot on Rachel’s calf. I fell.

  Too much like fighting Contessa. Everything winding up positioned just right. Damn it.

  On my back, I was vulnerable, but Golem was covering me. This kid with the dress clothes was slippery, efficient, but the way his movements played out… maybe not quite on Contessa’s level. Contessa would have found a way to attack and defend at the same time, instead of being stuck evading Golem’s power.

  I tried to haul air into my lungs and coughed instead. If they killed us before we got far enough…

  Stupid, all of this, so stupid.

  “Stop,” I spoke through my swarm.

  The kid drew knives from his pockets. Small knives, with blades no longer than a finger.

  Still confident, still sure of his victory.

  A connection formed in my head. I knew, in an instant. Harbinger.

  Cauldron had collected some of the remaining clones from Jack’s army.

  The Number Man used to be in the Slaughterhouse Nine?

  No, couldn’t get distracted. I was up against a kid with an analysis power that was off the charts, he’d dodge whatever I threw at him.

  I used my pepper spray again. This time, I aimed at the two boys who had Bastard pinned. Opponents who couldn’t dodge, not without giving up an advantage. They moved out of the way, and in the process they let Bastard climb to his feet. He was half-again as large as he had been, a ridge of stegosaurus spikes along his spine, more spikes and barbs framing his face. He growled, and it wasn’t a dog sound. It wasn’t a wolf sound either.

  Bringing two more of the kids into the fight, but now I had Bastard for backup.

  Up until Alexandria-Pretender grabbed Huntress and hurled her at us. Me, Golem, Rachel, and Bastard were slammed into the far wall by Huntress’ bulk.

  Lung was still growing, still changing, and his throat was broad enough now that she couldn’t do more than dig her fingertips into the front of it, but he still couldn’t break free of her grasp.

  He opted for a second option, leveling a hand at the Doctor, Manton, the Number Man and the crowd of boys. Fire erupted forth. A half-second’s worth, before Alexandria threw him down and kicked him full-force into the wall beside us.

  No use. The Siberian had saved them with her ability to grant her own invulnerability effect. Thankfully. If he’d torched them, all of this would have been for nothing.

  Had to account for Lung’s behavior. Keep it in mind. He had a kind of pride, and it had nearly fucked us on two occasions so far.

  “We’re-” I started to speak.

  But Lung roared, drowning me out as he pulled free of Alexandria’s grasp. Not breaking her grip, but rending his own throat, tearing jugular and vein, windpipe even, in his furious attempt to get free.

  Alexandria turned as Lung fell into a fighting stance. Less a martial artist’s stance than an animal, low to the ground, chest heaving to pull air through the gushing wound in his throat, a glare leveled at his opponent.

  “Stop!” Imp called out.

  It took me a second to place her. Behind the Doctor, a knife pressed against the Doctor’s throat. She pulled the Doctor back, away from Siberian. “If any of you move, I cut. This is-”

  The Number Man fired something from hip level. A spark marked the bullet’s contact point at the mouth of the hole we’d come through. The weapon flew from Imp’s hand.

  “-pointless,” Imp finished.

  The Siberian crossed the distance, then stopped beside the Doctor. She put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder.

  More fighting. I clenched my fists. Stupid.

  “Scion’s here,” I said, taking advantage of the momentary pause in the fighting.

  Two and a half words to cut through the tension. I could see the change in the Doctor’s demeanor, the Number Man, even the Manton clone. One of the most powerful groups in the world, in every sense of the
word, in raw powers, in political power, influence, knowledge, and they were spooked.

  I hadn’t wanted to win, only to buy a chance to talk. Now this was it, and I had to get them to listen. Simpler was better. Straight to the point.

  “We don’t have reason to trust you,” the Doctor said. “We’ve interacted, Weaver, I have a level of respect for you, but that doesn’t extend to equal measures of trust. You’re dangerous, and I can’t rule out that this is an assassination attempt.”

  Translation: pure denial. You don’t want to believe me.

  “He’s upstairs and he’s coming now,” I said.

  “That-” the Doctor started. She paused, as if reflecting, taking in the implications, then shook her head a little. “That doesn’t change anything. I still can’t take your word for gospel.”

  That sounded less like pure denial and more like outright suspicion. A step forward, I was pretty sure.

  The whole structure rattled. I felt things sway a touch.

  The Doctor looked up, then looked down at me, her gaze level, eyes narrowed slightly. It was the first time I’d seen her with her hair down, rather than pinned up with chopsticks or some ornate pin.

  “I don’t know what to say, except that things are pretty fucking dire,” I said. “Satyr’s dead, for one thing.”

  Alexandria flinched as though I’d slapped her and she had felt it.

  I looked at her. “His team, dead. The prisoners you guys had on the second, third and fourth floors, all dead or dying as we speak. Read my expression, use Alexandria’s power, tell me I’m wrong.”

  When Alexandria replied, the voice wasn’t quite Alexandria’s. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to study that in depth to the degree she did.”

  “It’s fine,” the Doctor said. “I’m willing to believe it, if this is an assassination attempt, I’ll take the risk.”

  “If it was an assassination attempt,” Imp said, appearing at the far end of the room, “I’d have offed you.”

  The Doctor glanced her way. “And you are?”

  Imp sighed.

  “We’ll make our way downstairs,” the Doctor decided. “William, please rotate the column while our… guests pick themselves up.”

  Manton approached a computer terminal set into the wall and began typing.

  Pick ourselves up. As if they hadn’t just bludgeoned their way through us.

  Manton’s work at the computer produced results. The swaying feeling I’d experienced a moment ago hit me again. Everything I could see was still, but for people trying to catch their balance, but my non-parahuman senses told me we were moving.

  It faded. Rachel ordered her dogs to stand, and the pile of us got ourselves sorted out. Lung was just at the midway point between human and monster, covered head to toe in overlapping metal scales, his neck a little too long, his shoulders too broad, had a claw pressed to the bleeding throat wound. By all rights, he should have been dead, but regeneration and an inhuman constitution went a long way.

  Huntress got out of the way, and I made my way to my feet. I could feel the dull pain where bruises would emerge. If I lived that long.

  There was another rumble, and a feeling like I was swaying, my sense of balance not quite right. Not Manton, so it had to be Scion. Had the steel column moved a fraction? Had it been intentional on Scion’s part, or a result of the action upstairs?

  The Number Man gave Cuff a hand in standing, and she began folding up the metal around her neck, repairing the armor. She withdrew the wickedly sharp spikes at the knee and the base of her wrist, where she’d been shaping weapons in case she needed to fight her way free of his grip.

  He only smiled, tapping one spike with his pen before it slipped into her costume. Cuff’s expression, where her lower face was visible beneath the layered visor she wore, wasn’t the slightest bit amused.

  The boys with suits tended to the three prisoners and the two wounded. Alexandria tore off a thick metal table leg and wound it to bind Gully’s hands behind her back, before hoisting the unconscious case fifty-three up, carrying her.

  “I’m sorry,” the Number Man said, to Rachel. “For the behavior of my clones. They’re inaccurate, based on hearsay and speculation more than fact. I was more polite, back then, more efficient.”

  Rachel just gave him a funny look and shrugged her way past him.

  I was tense. It wasn’t just the fight we’d left behind. Here, we had answers available, but so little time.

  I held out my hands. Floret’s crystal with my knife inside dropped from the hole in the ceiling.

  The Doctor typed a code into a keypad at the end of the room, and the Siberian opened the door beside it, turning a wheel to unlock it, then pushing the thick metal door open with a disconcerting ease. Clone or not, she was still the Siberian in power.

  With the door now open, we were faced with a corridor, wide enough for my group to walk side by side, the Doctor’s group leading the way in front of us. Vials lined the walls around us, set into an arrangement of metal wires that kept them lined up, multiple vials of the same color lined up beside another arrangement of vials. Except nearly every vial was empty. There was only glass, no fluid inside. Where fluid did exist, the light filtered through and cast dark blotches of color on the gray walls behind.

  But if I counted them, if I used my bugs to note the ones that had contents…

  One or two hundred, maybe, with fluid still inside.

  “Our stock,” the Doctor said. “Nearly depleted. We gave the formulas out for free, in hopes of turning out parahumans that could do damage to Scion. We retained only the volatile ones.”

  “Volatile can be good,” I said. My eyes noted the sheer number of vials. Tens of thousands, even, virtually covering the walls on either side of us.

  “Volatile can kill three quarters of the people who ingest it,” the Doctor said. “Or generate case fifty-threes we can’t use.”

  “Right,” I said. “Nevermind, then.”

  Each was marked with a combination of letters and numbers, and a title. I read the names of the ones that still had fluid inside.

  Abel. Abbatoir. Access. Ace. Aegis. Air. Alchemy. Alias. Alpha. Amaze…

  “So many,” a voice said.

  The ball with Sveta inside.

  “Quite a few,” the Doctor said.

  “All tested on people?” Sveta asked.

  “Yes,” the Doctor said.

  “I remember, you know,” Sveta said. “I dream of home. I was a fisherman’s daughter. There were these beautiful little huts with flat roofs, orange clay brick against gray mountains, with green-blue grass and ocean. It was cramped, and I had to share space with my family, my siblings… but I was okay with it. There weren’t any boys my age to marry, and I didn’t want to move to another town to look for a husband, so I just stayed by myself. I’d draw, and there was a peace in it. I still like to draw, I find it helps me relax… but it’s hard because my tendrils break the brushes and pencils. And then I don’t feel relaxed anymore.”

  “We’ve caused you difficulties,” the Doctor said, not even looking at Sveta. She walked quickly, her eyes roving over the rows and columns of vials.

  “I can’t remember my mother tongue, Doctor. I can’t remember my daddy’s face, or my mommy, or either of my brothers. I’ve just got the faces I see in dreams. Every morning I was in the asylum, I would wake up and I scramble to draw something, to put words in a diary, and I’m so excited and panicked and desperate I’d break things.”

  The Doctor wasn’t reacting.

  “I know I used to draw, but I can’t find the style I used to draw in. I dream about the night you took me, you know.”

  “Not me, surely. I sent others.”

  “You sent people like me to take me. Case fifty-threes. Branded. Abominations. Demons. There’s names for us all over the world. It was storming, I was delirious, and they came, they grabbed me, and I all I could think was that the old stories were true, and I said something I can’t rememb
er. You took me to a lab and you unraveled me with that drug of yours, and then you dropped me in the middle of nowhere, with just enough memories to know that I should be human.“

  “We gave you a second chance.”

  “I didn’t ask for one.”

  “It’s very possible your town stood to be destroyed by a storm-”

  “If you’d asked, I would’ve wanted to weather it.”

  “Or by plague, starvation. It could be the cause for your delirium.”

  “I would’ve stuck it out. You’re not listening to me, Doctor.” A flare of anger. The ball bucked with the movement inside.

  “There are more immediate problems to focus on,” the Doctor said. “I understand where you’re coming from, but this isn’t the time to play ‘what if’.”

  “I’m not playing,” Sveta said, and the anger was gone, just as fast as it had appeared. “I’m- I’m telling you that if you’d asked, at any point along the way, I’d probably have told you I’d rather be dead. I’d rather be dead than live this new life you gave me, where I spent years killing people by accident, unable to sleep, killing stray animals for food because my body decides when I eat, not my mind…”

  “I understand,” the Doctor replied. She sounded a little impatient. “Then damn me. Curse me. Tell me I will go to hell for what I did. At the end of this, I will face any and all punishment that I’m due, alive or dead. For now, we see our way through this.”

  “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to get off with… words and sentiment. Gully told me she’d break down in tears all the time, because moving her arms, being strong enough to break things, it reminded her of what she is, every time she did anything. Her power reminded her, being constantly aware of the ground around her. Weld… he told me once that he felt like he was going crazy. All he had was music. It was the onlyhuman thing he could enjoy, because he couldn’t taste. He couldn’t feel, even when I squeezed him hard enough to dig into him. And Gentle Giant-”

  “Are you going to run down the entire list?” The Doctor asked. Her voice was a little harder. “Do you want an apology? You said you don’t want words. Would a gesture do? Should I take a scalpel to my face? Carve myself up so I could experience what you have?”