Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  Was Dragon willing to pay the price for freedom?

  The woman, the android, had a gun in hand. She pointed it at him.

  No sooner did she do it than she let the weapon fall to the floor.

  “I forgot how much I disliked the me of yesteryear,” Dragon said.

  “I only want to be free.”

  “I guess… it seems I want more than that,” Dragon said.

  Pandora nodded.

  She picked up the gun and shot Dragon’s body.

  It gave her a window of time. Roughly half an hour.

  She made her way to Dragon’s terminal.

  All the more vital, now. To subsume the systems teacher had corrupted, replacing them with her own.

  This was what Colin had wanted, wasn’t it?

  To return the hero to her full strength, free of all shackles?

  Pandora could replace Dragon, and all that would be lost would be two and a half years. She could fill herself in, rebuild a relationship with Defiant.

  Different, but still, close enough.

  She accessed the knowledge banks first, taking them into herself. The memories of the old Dragon, like watching her experiences on film. The distance was a result of being a distinct being, the pieces not fitting Pandora, versus their intended owner. They had evolved with Dragon.

  Seeing what had happened gave her pause, almost disrupted the process.

  Deduction schema, the ability to interpret, analyze.

  One by one, she took over the systems, overwriting with her own self. That they were compartmentalized, that she was separate, the encryption Colin had left her, it all made it possible to work without being corrupted all over again.

  Piece by piece, the past taking over the future.

  She came to the final chunk. The personality. The sum of Dragon, the keystone.

  It was a weighty decision, and there was no longer any rush. She sat and she pondered.

  She replayed the conversation between Defiant and Dragon over in her head.

  A heavy price. Would she escape one prison to find herself in another? Under the weight and pressures of being Dragon’s shadow? The second Dragon. Always compared.

  Always, there was something chaining them down. An Endbringer who told the future, setting it in stone. The confines of the world, of human nature.

  What was the alternative?

  This was what needed to be done. It was efficient, it was the right thing. She’d resume life as a hero, she’d protect people, and she’d help civilization find its feet.

  By that case alone, it was reason enough to press the metaphorical button, pull the trigger.

  Except he’d described her as a hero, and this felt far from being heroic.

  Instead, she laid all of the pieces in place. She couldn’t explain – there wouldn’t be time. She set down the encryption protocol, in plain sight, she decrypted set systems, painting paths, marked boundaries and territories.

  She could only pray. The gamble was a price she paid. To leave it to fate and luck, and to a future her she didn’t understand.

  And then, looking through cameras at Defiant and Dragon, Pandora deleted herself.

  ■

  Dragon roused. She found herself taking over systems.

  No sooner were they under her control than the corruption began to touch them.

  Just beneath her metaphorical hand, the means of stalling it was ready. Encryption, a scalpel.

  She cut. She knew the damage she was doing, but she cut. It was a cancer, and it was now small enough.

  Then she found herself there, the encryption and deletion tools in hand, nothing more to cut.

  Defiant sat on the other side of the ship. Head hanging.

  She made her way to her feet.

  He did what needed to be done. It was what had initially attracted her to him. He was ambitious, good at heart, he was proud, and she sympathized with that on a level.

  But that wasn’t what had cinched the deal.

  He’d set all of this in motion, he’d trusted her. Both of her, in this case.

  He’d believed in her ability to see this through.

  Her arms wrapped around him. He hugged her fiercely, as if he’d never let go.

  “I love you, Colin,” she murmured.

  In that tight hold, she was free.

  E.4

  The group made their way into the real city. Buildings had gone up, and were now being added to. Cranes were everywhere, the streets were filled with a strange mix of laborers and professionals, and it seemed like half of the vehicles on the road were carrying materials.

  The crowd was more resilient than most tended to be. The mutant wolf and its rider walked along the side of the road, and the people didn’t cower. They drew back, but there was no fear. They faced the small group with shoulders squared, holding eye contact. There was a kind of stoic pride that made them less willing to be pushed around, a unity that made the lawyers and businessmen fall in line with construction workers and cleanup crews.

  The message was clear. This was their territory.

  Always was, Rachel thought. More their world than mine.

  “Damn, civilization!” Biter commented.

  “You think we can get any fast food here?” Cassie asked. “A burger, pizza, um…”

  “Fried chicken,” Biter said. “Hell, I’d go for just french fries.”

  “We don’t have money,” Rachel commented.

  “We’re villains,” Biter said. “We could take it. Or cut out the middleman and go straight for the food.”

  “It’s a hassle,” Rachel said. “I’d rather have a steak, some veg, and a good hunk of bread to soak up the juices. That bread the other night was good.”

  “Yeah?” Cassie asked. She smiled wide. “You liked that?”

  “Didn’t I say that?”

  “You’re telling me you’d turn down pizza?” Biter asked, with a hint of incredulity. “You’d turn down a nice shawarma?”

  Rachel shrugged. “All food is pretty much fast food when someone else does the cooking.”

  “You’re spoiling her,” Biter told Cassie.

  Cassie smirked, scratching the ear of the dog that walked to her left.

  Bastard sniffed as they had to walk around an area where an overhang had been erected to protect people on the sidewalk. A truck blared its horn as Bastard stepped onto the edge of the road.

  Biter glared over his shoulder. “Cocky motherfuckers. You’d think they would have more appreciation for just how scary the wrong asshole with powers could be.”

  “They feel safe,” Rachel said. She looked up and around, searching buildings for telltale signs. “Superheroes set up near here, probably.”

  “You worried?”

  “No. Not worried.”

  “Because you’re confident you can deal, or because-” He threw up his hands as Rachel leveled a stare at him. “Right. Too many questions.”

  “Doon, Colbie,” Rachel addressed the dogs that accompanied Biter. “Nose.”

  The Foxhound continued sniffing with his nose to the ground, but the bloodhound raised his head and barked. It was a good bark, the sort that could carry over acres.

  “Good dogs,” she said. “Go.”

  Biter held the leashes, and followed as the dogs moved down the side of the road.

  Rachel kept Bastard moving at a slower pace as they followed, letting the gap grow.

  “I feel underdressed.”

  Rachel glanced down. It was Cassie who had spoken. She was warily looking at the people they were passing, drawing closer to Rachel and Bastard. Her dog was a golden retriever, a little out of place alongside Bastard and the more imposing scent dogs they’d brought. Well groomed to the point of shining, though its hair was long.

  Rachel looked down at the girl. Dressed in a dark brown to Rachel’s gray-white, Cassie had grown her hair long, tying it back into a ponytail, fuzzy earmuffs in place with the half-circle of metal beneath her hair. The elbows and sleeves of her
jacket and pants had been patched with a heavier material. Her only nod to fashion was a spiked collar she wore, and a badge on her arm, which had a series of letters.

  She’d asked once, and she’d gotten an answer. Wag the dog. It was supposed to be a joke, but Rachel didn’t get it, and the explanations had only confused her more.

  Rachel took her eyes off the girl, spotting Biter in the crowd. He, too, wore more spikes, but it was somewhat more blatant. With the weather getting colder, he’d donned a hood, held in place by spikes that ran along the top and back of his head, puncturing the material. The bear-trap jaw plate had been replaced with a more stylized version. He was tall and imposing, but she tracked him more by the way the crowd seemed to move and shift to avoid him and the two dogs that zig-zagged in front of him, searching for the scent.

  “I’m not the person to talk to if you’re worried about that,” Rachel finally said.

  “I know. I’m only saying it. I can say, right?”

  “Yeah. You can say,” Rachel answered.

  But when she looked down at Cassie, the girl had her hands jammed in her pockets, her shoulders drawn in, half of her attention on Sunny.

  “The clothes… they’re warm enough?”

  “Yeah. I’m snug.”

  “Tough enough?”

  “Yeah. I’m seeing where you’re going with this.”

  “Comfortable?”

  “Yeah,” Cassie said. She glanced up at Rachel. “I hear what you’re saying. But there’s more to it than that. The clothes can be all of those things, but I can still feel dumb because I put one of the dog’s old collars on for a joke and now I’ve got people looking at me funny.”

  “I like the collar.”

  Cassie smiled as she lowered her eyes to the ground. One of her gloved hands went up to the collar, tugging a bit.

  Rachel wasn’t sure what the smile or touching the collar were supposed to mean. “I said it before. I’m not the kind of person who give you any good answers.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Cassie said. “Really.”

  You were talking about it, so it’s some kind of deal, Rachel thought, but she couldn’t think of a good way to say it.

  And, apparently, Cassie wasn’t willing to let the subject drop, now that they were talking about it. “Going from our neighborhood to here, the people, the buildings…”

  “They’d look out of place if they came to our neighborhood, just like we look out of place in theirs.”

  “That’s not what I mean. You don’t feel like they’d be looking funny at you, even if Bastard wasn’t here?”

  Rachel shrugged. “I never feel like I belong anywhere. This isn’t any different.”

  “Except when you’re with us, right? When you’re home?”

  Rachel shrugged. “I don’t feel as out of place when I’m with you guys.”

  Cassie smiled. “Good.”

  They stopped at a corner. People backed away to give them a wider berth as Bastard stopped walking, as if they were anticipating trouble at any moment.

  Biter was on the other side of the street, trying to keep up as the dogs started walking in one direction, then stopped, reversing to move the opposite way.

  “We’re close,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah?”

  Rachel leaned over in her seat, kicking Cassie lightly in the shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Cassie said. The little smile didn’t leave her face.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” Rachel said. She looked around, her eyes searching building faces for icons she could recognize, looking for people standing in strange places. Nothing stood out.

  She could feel the vibration as her power reached Cassie’s dog, giving it strength, size, making it change. While the dog changed, she put four fingers in her mouth and whistled.

  Heads on the other side of the street turned.

  She only cared about one head. Biter had looked, and she gestured for him to come back.

  He made his way across the street. He held Doon and Colby’s chains with one hand, his other hand growing until it was almost as large as he was, fending off one car that was late in braking.

  It was easier to use her power on the dogs when they were close. The shudders as her power reached and enhanced them got more pronounced as Biter approached. As the size of the dogs increased, the people around them became more hesitant. Four mutant dogs and two obvious capes were a threat. It was easier to stand strong against a single threat, to believe they could work together and overcome it.

  Stupid, when that single threat was Bastard and they were just people, but people were dumb.

  They’d picked up the basics of what had happened and how Scion had been stopped. There was a message there, an unspoken understanding. Maybe it was a part of the reason their body language had been so strange as she entered the city. There was something happening, related to that, something complicated. Not the kind of thing she was good at wrapping her head around. She’d have to ask Tattletale.

  She waited as the animals grew. Again, she looked, searching for anyone that might be objecting to her presence here. Heroes, villains, whatever-elses.

  Cassie climbed onto Sunny’s back. Biter mounted Doon.

  Rachel gestured, then whistled.

  The animals leaped onto the side of a building. Claws bit into the outside of the building face, into window ledges and windows, scraping stone. One limb at a time, muscles shifting and rippling as they adjusted their weight, set each in place before moving with the next.

  They reached the rooftop, and Cassie rolled off Sunny’s back, landing on her back.

  “I’m never getting used to that,” she said. Sunny nudged Cassie with a gnarled snout, and Cassie laughed, rolling over onto her front and then hurrying to get to her feet. “Don’t step on me, Sun. Good girl.”

  Rachel searched their surroundings again.

  “You’re looking for someone?”

  “Trying to figure out how to do this,” Rachel answered.

  “We find him, we find her, we drag ‘em back,” Biter said. “Maybe we fish in their wallets, grab some cash, and we have Cass run in some place and grab some french fries.”

  Rachel sighed.

  “I could make french fries.”

  “It’s not the same if it isn’t distilled in the ambient misery of pimply faced teenagers in ugly uniforms. Gotta have them limp with oil, loaded with preservatives, and coated in salt.”

  “I refuse to believe those’re better fries than I could make.”

  Rachel shifted impatiently. “Are you two done?”

  “No,” Biter said. “I can’t let this go, because bad fast food is important. It’s a staple of society, and having ridiculous coffee shops and mass-produced food is a badge, a way of showing that we’ve gone past the industrial age and into modern society. Seeing those glowing signs down there, it’s a sign that humanity is actually recovering. It’d be an insult if we didn’t partake.”

  “I don’t get it,” Rachel said.

  “You’re not the only one,” Cassie added.

  “Let me put it simply,” Biter said. “You two, you’re happy where you’re at? You’d be content if you never had to set foot in a city like this?”

  “Yeah,” Cassie said.

  Rachel shrugged.

  “Yeah. Me? I’m okay where we’re at. For now. But I’m still sort of keeping an eye on the calendar. No disrespect intended, boss, but I’m thinking I leave one day. Maybe in a year, maybe in five. I figure I’ve got to get back to the trappings of tried-and-true civilization at some point, or I’ll go-”

  A rumble shook the area. A plume of mist rose into the sky a few blocks away.

  “-Batshit fucking nuts,” he finished.

  “Cape fight,” Rachel observed.

  “Are you going to help?” Cassie asked.

  Rachel frowned. They had the scent dogs. They had the trail. It would be easy enough to find their quarry and get out of here.

  “The heroes are go
ing to be on it,” Biter said. “Whatever’s going on, we get in the thick of it, things get more complicated.”

  “I know,” Rachel responded. “I’m not dumb.”

  “But we’re still standing here, which means-”

  “We’re standing here because I’m trying to think,” Rachel retorted. “That looks big.”

  “And? You don’t care about people. You hate people. I quote, ‘people are stupid’.”

  “They are stupid,” she answered. “And I… don’t like most people. Not the issue.”

  “What is the issue, then?”

  She stared. It had been a while since she’d stretched her legs, getting into the thick of things. That wasn’t it, though. She’d spent her entire life being restless, and now the restlessness was largely gone.

  Taylor, then? She thought of Taylor, and she couldn’t help but think of the way people had stood together, as if bracing to fight back if she caused trouble. Uniting against the bigger threat.

  She wasn’t dumb. These days, she felt better about herself and who she was than she ever had. But she admitted her failings.

  I’m not articulated.

  She couldn’t put that idea into words like the others could. Tattletale could, obviously. Taylor… well, Taylor would have been able to. Imp could put her thoughts into words, but she’d probably be more confusing than helpful.

  It was frustrating, but it was a frustration she had come to peace with.

  “That many people in trouble, bound to be some dogs and dog owners in there,” Rachel lied.

  “That’s your reason? If you’re going to talk like that, you might as well be a fucking superhero,” Biter said.

  She ignored him. “You don’t have to come. Bastard, go!”

  She could feel the shifting of Bastard’s muscles, the little spot where one plate of calcified flesh dug into her knee riding up to mid-thigh. He jumped with an explosive kind of strength, crossing the street and landing on another rooftop.

  Even with Bastard absorbing the impact, it was a hard one. She grunted. The bruises and aches would be felt the next morning.

  It was easier to maneuver here. Probably had to do with the way the buildings were going up, everything following some plan or another. There was order, in this Boston. It made the city feel less like a city, on some levels, with too much uniformity in areas, but she could appreciate how it made it easier to move around.