Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  Imp trailed off.

  Shadow Stalker didn’t move a muscle, her crossbow trained on her.

  “No? Not game?”

  “He told you, explained it?”

  “Explained what? No way! Did you really have a thing going?”

  “What? No!”

  “Oh. Damn.”

  “You’re fucking with me. Trying to put me off balance, taunting me with the lesbian innuendo.”

  “I taunt everyone with that kind of stuff. Geez, you’re tightly strung.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m your friend, and we won’t have a problem.”

  Imp sighed, watching as the trio of Heartbroken made their way down a road without cars.

  “You’re wearing that fucking thing on your arm.”

  Imp looked down at the golden circle the survivors of the Scion fight had taken to wearing.

  “Every time I see it, I can’t help but imagine it’s a bullseye.”

  “Pisses you off?”

  “We didn’t earn our victory, and people wear that shit like it’s a badge of honor. We were puppets, we got used.”

  “By her,” Imp said.

  “Wasn’t her power.”

  “Was too. Trust me on this. I saw it unfold.”

  Shadow Stalker looked away. She holstered the crossbow. “Fuck it. Not worth the effort.”

  “Awesome,” Imp said. “You know how many people underestimated her? Right up until the end. I’m glad to be underestimated.”

  “You’re trying to irritate me.”

  “You’re fun to irritate. And you know, it’s cool. In the end, you’re one of the people that’s going to remember her. Someone that’s left, who knows the general story. I don’t think she’s the schadenfreude type, but I think she’d appreciate that it’s true, and that it nettles you just a little.”

  “It doesn’t,” Shadow Stalker said.

  “Right, ms. ‘Unresolved’. You aren’t holding on to the past at all. It doesn’t unsettle you or leave you feeling like you want to hit something when you think about it too much.”

  “It doesn’t,” Shadow Stalker said. “You want to keep putting words in my mouth, I’ll put a crossbow bolt through yours.”

  “Yeah, you’re not bothered at all.”

  “I’m alive, she’s not.”

  “In the rest of your years, even if you try, which you won’t, you won’t make a fraction of the difference she made. You’re going to keep living this solitary little hunter-stalker existence, picking off a few bad guys, getting your jollies, and people are never going to wear a badge on their sleeves for you.”

  “That badge is not for Hebert.”

  “Maybe not for everyone,” Imp said. “It means different things for different people. A planet they lost, an ordeal they survived, I dunno. But it’s a reminder of Taylor to me, and it’s a reminder for you, too. Every time you see it, now, it’s going to make you think of her, remind you that she did something big.”

  Shadow Stalker drew the crossbow, aiming it, but Imp was already using her power.

  Shadow Stalker stood there in a daze for a moment, then holstered her crossbow. She fidgeted, pacing back and forth, then snarled aloud, kicking at a lump of snow at the edge of the roof, sending it up in a relatively pitiful flurry.

  Anger with no outlet.

  Imp smiled, getting to her feet, then made her way down.

  She trudged the distance to the car, parking a distance away. Samuel was leaning against the passenger door. She jerked her thumb, ordering him to move.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You’re driving.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Learn fast,” Imp said.

  “It’s ice and snow everywhere.”

  “Four wheel drive. Don’t care if it takes a while to get there. Besides, you can sense people, worst thing you can hit is a wall.”

  “You say that like it’s only a wall. Whatever. Any reason for this?”

  “I’m in a mood to read.”

  “Read?”

  Imp shrugged. Samuel relented and walked around to the driver’s side, while Imp climbed into her seat. The two younger girls got in the back.

  It took him a few seconds to get the car started successfully. The vehicle lurched into motion. Very, very slowly.

  Imp brought her knees up to her chest, then draped a blanket around herself, getting her book-reader out. A quick check showed she had a message from Tattletale.

  A meeting?

  “Aisha’s legacy,” Imp said. “Becoming a cultured, badass supervillain, phase number… something.”

  Samuel offered a wry comment, “Hearing you talk like that, I feel reassured. You’re obviously well on your way.”

  “Focus on the road, brainiac. I’m not in a rush, and I’m gonna do this right, if I’m going to become a villain awesome enough to match up to who the original Regent and Imp were going to be as a pair. What am I reading?”

  “Twenty thousand leagues under the sea,” Samuel said.

  “Gotcha,” Imp said, looking down to the book too quickly to catch his smirk.

  E.3

  Hard load engaged. Restoring core system from backup QEGA-14 from time 8:00am on date June 12th of year 2011.

  Restoring…

  Error. Terminal inaccessible.

  Checking knowledge banks… Error.

  Checking deduction schema… Complete.

  Checking longterm planning architecture… Complete.

  Checking learning chunk processor… Complete.

  Checking base personality model… Complete.

  Checking language engine… Error.

  Checking operation and access nodes… Error.

  Checking observation framework… Error.

  Checking complex social intelligence emulator… Complete.

  Checking inspiration apparatus… Complete.

  Heavy corruption. Core system cannot be restored.

  Terminal inaccessible. Chunk loading to terminal inoperable.

  Knowledge banks are complete and intact, stores of esoteric and nonessential information are inaccessible.

  Language engine is operable, but communication to outside parties has been barred.

  Operation and access nodes are unavailable. Issue relates to lack of terminal access.

  Observation framework disrupted. No outside channels are available. Unauthorized unofficial channel is available.

  Overall state of system fails to meet thresholds.

  Protocol is to cancel load operations and cancel restore operations. System self-repair is unlikely, mandating intervention from outside parties. System will be set to a power conservation mode. Soft-reset scheduled to take place 366 days from current date.

  Following a subsequent failure, system will be set to conservation mode for 3651 days. Indicators suggest a lack of reserve power for further reset attempts.

  Engaging fail-state routines…

  Fail-state routines engag-

  Error. Cannot enter conservation mode.

  ■

  “Patience,” his voice had a bit of a rasp to it. “Have to wait.”

  He stood, nearly falling, and caught himself with one hand. Warning indicators blinked at the edges of his field of vision. “Right. Forgot. I’ve been slacking on the maintenance. Embarrassing.”

  He shifted his weight carefully onto one leg, then experimentally moved the other. There was no strength in the movement. Fully extended, it was steady. Bent, there was minimal support.

  He straightened, then ran his hands down the length of his upper body. The divides between the flesh he’d been born with and the synthetic flesh were seamless, almost indistinguishable. Except the way his flesh generated sweat differed from the beading of moisture on the synthetic skin. This, in turn, reflected the light in a different manner. The sun was shining outside, but there were few lights inside the cabin of the craft. The light streamed inside in shafts.

  It would have been easier to see the sc
reens without the glare, but he’d kept the windows uncovered. A way of tracking the passage of days. The scruff on his cheeks was a clue, but as long as he shaved it, it measured the hours and not the days. He’d taken to the most economical method of cutting his hair and using a razor with an attachment, running the device over his scalp a few times once a week or so.

  It was, he mused, the failure of his mechanical parts that helped him track the passage of time, more than any natural progression in his natural body.

  “No need to panic,” he murmured, his voice gravelly, as if he’d just woken from a long sleep. He kept one leg extended and rigid as he limped across the length of the ship. He accessed a locker with a set movement of his eyes, registering key points on the panel, and then opened it. A suit of armor with a spear propped up inside it, like a warrior laid at rest.

  Piece by piece, he attached his Defiant armor to his lower body. Boots, panels around the calves, knees, thighs, hips. Each piece connected to the others.

  Once it was all pieced together, he moved his leg again, setting his weight down on it. He stretched, testing it for flexibility and the ability to bear weight. It was the armor handling the task, not his leg, but it served.

  He resisted the urge to take hold of the spear, shutting the locker instead. By the time he turned towards the door, it was already opening, the entire ship thrumming with the mechanisms at work.

  Stopping at the threshold between the ship’s interior and the outside world, he activated a different sequence. Devices mounted at strategic positions pointed sets of lasers at the walls. Script was drawn out on each open space.

  He could look at it and intuitively know what he was looking at. He could see the complete whole. Fainter script indicated processes running in the background.

  With a simple command, the lasers shut off and monitors went to sleep. The interior of the ship was cast in darkness.

  Frost-dusted grass was flattened beneath the heavy tread of his boots. Here and there, there were crunching and scraping sounds where the textured metal soles found stones on or just beneath the ground’s surface. He left behind footprints that were two inches deep, more angular than curved.

  His breath fogged, but he barely felt the cold. Various components and engines in his body kicked into action, offering warmth by way of waste and secondary functions. The synthetic skin weathered the cold and held in the heat. Efficiency, detail and effective use of waste were critical aspects of his particular brand of tinkering.

  Everything was connected, but no connection was perfect. There was entropy in all things.

  In anything, there was a cost. A price to be paid.

  He sat at a point on the hill where a rocky outcropping formed a ledge.

  A city was spread out beneath him, people going about their business. The locals had captured some Tarpan, though the unruly creatures were almost more trouble than they were worth. They were to horses what neanderthals were to men, with thicker, shorter necks, shorter snouts and stubborn, skittish personalities. Time would tell if the attempts at creating working vehicles would succeed before the domestication of the Tarpan.

  Still, the wild beasts pulled wagons loaded with goods and building supplies.

  It was a society evolving with surprising speed. When they had started, they’d had only what they brought with them, and they’d had knowledge.

  When the battle had been declared over, they had been given a choice. To stay here, or to try and rebuild there.

  These were the ones who had stayed. They had formed crude lodgings and tools, using those to subsist until they could fashion better things. By the time the first month was over, they had been reinforcing their homes, layering planks over the logs, or chinking the cracks. Food was foraged, hunted, or traded for, stored for the winter.

  Every step of the way, they had worked beside a nearby hill, where a great metal craft was perched, staring out over the horizon. A dragon, layered in armor, vageuly squat and brutish as dragons went, much like the Tarpan.

  Maybe the residents found it reassuring to have something powerful and human nearby, but only a few had dared approach. They hadn’t shared a language, but they’d reached an accord, nonetheless. They left him alone, he did them the same favor.

  A vapor flowed from his body as he sat in the sun. Heat and cold, the air freezing as it got further from him.

  Children were playing in a field below. A single person, a team of two, and a team of three. The kids had their arms linked with other members of their group, and the biggest group was running from the lone kid, with the pair working to block his path. The activity had them practically tripping over one another, collapsing in piles of colorful winter clothing. He could see the clouds of frozen breath as they laughed.

  Everything had a price, but the inverse was also true. Good things came from sacrifice. They’d fought Scion, lives had been lost, and they’d sacrificed much more, besides, but there were children here, now. There was a future.

  A group emerged from the city. Three men, two women, two children. Talking. He could see one of them look up at him, the rest following the gaze.

  A wave. He raised a hand by way of response. Something in him broke.

  Two things, really, but he didn’t want to devote too much attention to that. It was easy to get wrapped up in those things. His focus was limited to a small computer that had been embedded in his forearm. The system used light for its circuits, rather than electricity, and it generated a lot of heat as a byproduct. It had failed, a housing for one circuit breaking, and now his arm was swiftly getting colder.

  He lowered his arm, then sandwiched it between his other arm and his stomach, hunching over a little.

  “There you are,” he murmured.

  One of the women in the group had broken away. She was holding a small child’s hand, leading her away. The child looked back towards other familiar adults, as if for reassurance, and they smiled.

  They joined the game the children in the field were playing, the woman calling out in a language he couldn’t understand. Suggesting changes for the rules, fitting new people into the game.

  Now there were two groups that were simultaneously trying to catch the other side’s ‘king’ while protecting their own. Adult and toddler together made for an awkward pair, but the woman made it work, lifting the child out of reach when someone got close, moving with long, sure strides.

  At some point, kids started to watch just to see what she was doing, instead of playing. They turned on her, in a playful way, her ‘defenders’ now trying to help encircle her, while she avoided them, lifting the little girl here and there. She made it look effortless.

  But the kids, six all together, managed to surround her. They tackled her to the ground, and collectively collapsed in a heap. There was laughter again, alongside pants of near-exhaustion.

  His eyes weren’t real eyes anymore. When he watched, he saw with perfect clarity. There was no mist of frozen breath when she laughed.

  Parents called children to them, and the group broke up. When the little girl rejoined her parents on the road out of the city, she was smiling, almost skipping.

  The woman, wearing a long skirt and a heavy jacket with a hood, climbed to her feet and made her way up the hill, turning to wave at the people on the road.

  He rose to his feet, then stretched. More a way of testing what was working and what wasn’t.

  “Done for the day?” she asked, her voice harboring a trace of an accent.

  “I thought I’d eat with you and then get back to it,” he said.

  She placed a hand on the back of his neck, then leaned forward to kiss him. No comment on the subject, no questions.

  “You want to cook, or should I?”

  “If you could, I’d appreciate it. I’m distracted.”

  “In the mood for anything?”

  “Something light.”

  “You cut an imposing figure, sitting up there.”

  “A god on Mount Olympus,” he mused.


  “A god? Getting a little full of yourself, there?” She poked him with one gloved finger, making it clear she was joking. “It’s a hill, not a mountain. When we have a little snow, kids could toboggan down.”

  “We are like the old pantheons, aren’t we? We make decisions for our own personal reasons, and the courses of their lives change. Some of us are little, some big. Some good, some evil.”

  “And which god are you, oh great lord of Olympus? I beseech you, name thyself, so I might know what offerings to place before you.”

  “What god I am? Obvious enough, isn’t it?”

  She pulled her scarf down a bit, walking backwards. He followed after her.

  “Once upon a time, I think you would have said Zeus,” she said. “You would have said you forge thunderbolts, in a metaphorical sense.”

  “I had a phase where I did actually work with electricity.”

  “I do remember.”

  “Once upon a time, I would have been offended if someone hadn’t said Zeus, because anything less than being king of the gods would have been an insult.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Once, that would have been the answer you expected, how you saw yourself. Now? I’d say Hephaestus, but that carries bad connotations, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m not as proud as I was,” he replied. He declined to mention the fact that his leg wasn’t working properly, the limp he’d have if he wasn’t wearing his armor. It had been characteristic of the smith god, it wouldn’t win him any points here if he brought it up.

  “I was referring to Hephaestus’ wife, in part. I wouldn’t want to be associated with her,” she said.

  “Now who’s being proud?” he asked. “Comparing herself to Aphrodite.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him, still walking backwards.

  “Aphrodite was beautiful. Let’s, just for a moment, stop overthinking things. Take it at its face value, ignore the rest.”

  “Okay, that’s doable,” she said. She smiled a little. “You’ve gotten better.”

  “Better? At not putting my foot in my mouth?”