Worm

by John McCrae

  “Not that we’re stabbing anyone through the heart?” I made it a hopeful half-question, half-statement.

  “No. Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to stab Aegis through the heart just to slow him down. If you did it with something big enough. The guy’s like a zombie, he gets back up within seconds of you beating him down, keeps coming at you until you’re too tired to fight back or you make a mistake.”

  “And he’s super strong?” I asked.

  Brian shook his head, “Lisa, want to field this one?”

  She did. “Aegis isn’t strong, but he can abuse his body in ways that makes it seem like he is. He can throw punches hard enough that they’d break his hand, mangle his joints and tear his muscles, and his body just takes it. He has no reason to hold back, and he doesn’t need to waste any time protecting himself from you. He can also draw on adrenaline… you’ve heard stories like how little old grandmothers lifted cars off the ground to save their grandkids?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s adrenaline at work, and Aegis can do that for hours at a stretch. His body doesn’t run out of steam, he doesn’t get tired, he doesn’t exhaust his reserves of adrenaline. He just keeps going.”

  “So how do you stop him?” I asked.

  “You don’t, really,” Brian said, “Best bet is to keep him occupied, keep him sufficiently distracted or stick him somewhere he can’t escape. Trap him in a dumpster and throw it in the river, you can get a few minutes of relief. Which is all harder than it sounds. He’s the team captain, and he isn’t stupid. Rachel? Sic your dogs on him. A two ton canine or two should keep him out of our hair until we’re ready to run.”

  “I don’t need to hold back?” Bitch asked, her eyebrow quirked.

  “For once, no. Go nuts. Just, you know, don’t kill him. Alec? You’re the backup there. Keep an eye on Aegis, see if you can’t use your power to throw him off. Buy enough time for a dog to get its jaws on him and he’s probably out of action.”

  “Sure,” Alec said.

  Brian extended two fingers and tapped the second, “Number two. Clockblocker. Let it be known, I fucking hate people who mess with time.”

  “He stops time, if I remember right?” I inquired, as much to stay in the conversation as to get the clarification.

  “More specific than that,” Brian said, “He can stop time for whatever he touches. The person or object he touches is basically put on ‘pause’ for anywhere from thirty seconds to ten minutes. Only good thing is that he doesn’t control or know how long it’s going to last. But if he gets his hands on you, you’re out of action. He’ll either stand next to you and wait until you start moving, then touch you again, or he’ll just tie you up in chains and handcuffs so that when his power wears off, you’re already in custody.”

  “Long story short, he touches you, you’re boned,” Alec said.

  “The upside is that whoever he touches is also untouchable. Can’t be hurt, can’t be moved. Period. He uses that defensively, and he can do stuff like throw paper or cloth in the air and freeze it in time, making an unbreakable shield. You don’t want to run into something that’s frozen. A car that drove into the side of a piece of paper that Clockblocker had touched would be cut in two before it budged the paper.”

  “Noted,” I said.

  Brian continued, “The third heavy hitter on the Wards is Vista. You know that myth about how the capes that get their powers young are exponentially more powerful? Vista’s one of the kids who keeps the myth alive. Clockblocker is sort of a one trick pony, his trick involves screwing with one of the key forces of our universe, but it’s just one thing. Vista also messes with physics on a fundamental level, but she’s versatile.

  “Twelve years old, and she has the power to reshape space. She can stretch a building like taffy, so it’s twice as tall, or squeeze two sidewalks closer together so she can cross the street with a single step.”

  “Her weakness,” Lisa added, “Is the Manton effect.” She turned her full attention to me, “You know what that is?”

  “I’ve heard it mentioned, but I don’t know the details.”

  “Wherever our powers come from, they also came with some limitations. For most of us, there’s a restriction about using our powers on living things. The reach of powers generally stops at the outside of a person or animal’s body. There’s exceptions for the people with powers that only work on living things, like you, Alec and Rachel. But the long and short of it is that the Manton effect is why most telekinetics can’t just reach into your chest and crush your heart. Most people who can create forcefields can’t create one through the middle of your body and cut you in two.”

  “Narwhal can,” Alec cut in.

  “I said most,” Lisa said, “Why these restrictions exist is a question nearly as big as where we got our powers in the first place. The capes that can get around the Manton effect are among the strongest of us.”

  I nodded, slowly. I wondered if that had something to do with why Lung didn’t burn himself, but I didn’t want to get further off topic, “And Vista?”

  “Vista can stretch and compress space. She can also do funny things with gravity. Thing is, the Manton effect keeps her from stretching or compressing you. It also makes altering an area a lot harder for her if there’s more people in that space. So if all of us are in one room, chances are she won’t be able to affect the whole room.”

  “But,” Brian added, wiping a string of cheese from the corner of his lip, “Every time we’ve run into her, she’s been faster and overall more powerful with her power, and she’s had new tricks. Every second she’s on the battlefield is a second things become harder for us. We take her down sooner than later. Aegis, Clockblocker, Vista. Those are the ones we’re most likely to run into, and whoever else winds up coming, they’re the ones we have to deal with, or we’re fucked.

  “Let’s quickly go through the rest. Kid Win.”

  “Tinker,” Lisa said, “Flying skateboard, laser pistols, high tech visor are staples for him. Expect something new, depending on what he’s come up in his workshop. He’s mobile but not that threatening.”

  “Triumph?” Brian said.

  “He turned eighteen and graduated to the Protectorate. Don’t have to worry about him,” Lisa said.

  “Gallant.”

  “Glory Girl’s on and off boyfriend, he pretends to be a Tinker in the same vein as Kid Win, but I think he just runs around in secondhand armor with a fresh paint job. His thing is these blasts of light. Getting hit by one feels like a punch in the gut, but the blasts also mess with your feelings. Make you sad, make you scared, ashamed, giddy, whatever. Not that bad unless you get hit by a bunch in a row. Don’t.”

  “That just leaves Shadow Stalker. Bloodthirsty bitch,” Brian scowled.

  Alec explained to me, “She’s got it in her head that Brian is her nemesis. You know, her number one enemy, her dark opposite. She’s been going after him every chance she gets.”

  “She was a solo hero,” Tattletale said, “Vigilante of the night, until she went too far and nearly killed someone, nailing him to a wall with one of her crossbows. The local heroes were called in, she got arrested, and made some sort of deal. Now she’s a probationary member of the Wards, with the condition that she uses tranquilizer bolts and nonlethal ammo for her crossbow.”

  “Which she isn’t,” Brian growled, “At least, not when she comes after me. That arrow she shot through my side had a fucking arrowhead on it.”

  Tattletale shook her head, “Her powers and Brian’s sort of have a weird interaction with one another. Shadow Stalker can sort of transform. She becomes extremely lightweight, can pass through glass and thin walls and she’s nearly invisible. Only thing is, while she and the stuff she carries are all wispy in her transformed state, the stuff she shoots with her crossbow only stays that way for a half second. Then the effect wears off and it’s a regular arrow flying towards you. So she can leap between rooftops, almost impossible to see, hard to even touch, and all t
he while she’s shooting very real arrows at you.”

  “So what do you do?” I asked.

  “Her power doesn’t work well while she’s inside Brian’s darkness, for whatever reason. She isn’t as fast or agile, he can see her better, and she can’t see him in the darkness,” Tattletale told me, “So it becomes something of a very intense game of tag, with one very fast person that’s essentially blind and deaf but carrying lethal weapons, while Brian, the other, is trying to take her out without getting shot.”

  “Let’s avoid that,” Brian said, “It’s too time consuming and she may want to use that kind of scenario to delay us. Just don’t get shot, and if you see her or see the opportunity, inform the team and do your best to take her down without losing sight of a priority target.

  “So that’s the plan, then?” I said, “So many maybes.”

  “That’s the way these things go, Taylor,” Brian said, his tone a bit terse, “I think we’ve done a pretty good job of covering all the bases.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to sound like I was criticizing your plan-” I said.

  “Our plan,” Brian interrupted.

  I didn’t want to think of it that way. Instead, I said, “I’m a touch nervous, is all.”

  “You don’t have to come,” Bitch said, her tone a touch too casual.

  “In all seriousness,” Brian told me, “If you’re having second thoughts…”

  “I am,” I admitted, “as well as third thoughts, fourth thoughts, and so on. But I’m not going to let that stop me. I’m coming with.”

  “Good,” Brian replied, “Then we’ve got the rest of today and tomorrow to prepare. Taylor? You can meet me on your run first thing. I’ll have a cell phone for you. You can text Lisa with anything you think you’ll need, like those weapons you were talking about. Look up models and brands ahead of time if you want something specific.”

  “What’s her number?” I asked.

  “I’ll put it in the phone before I give it to you. Lisa? You confirm the job with the boss, talk to him about the other stuff.”

  “Got it.”

  “So unless there’s anything else, I think we just planned a bank robbery before noon,” Lisa said with a grin. I looked at the digital clock displayed under the TV. Sure enough, it was half past eleven.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a good thing.

  3.04

  “I’ll be there. Yes-” I saw a light in the living room window and put my hand over the lower half of my cell phone while I briefly investigated. Damn, my dad was home. I put the phone to my ear, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to run. No. No. Look-”

  As I heard the front door open, I snapped the phone shut and jammed it into my pocket. I’d apologize for hanging up later. I definitely didn’t want my dad to see the phone. I didn’t think he would stop me from owning one, but ever since my mom’s death, cell phones had carried strong negative connotations. That, and I’d have to explain where I got it and how I’d paid for it.

  Brian had given me three identical cell phones – all disposables – first thing in the morning, and I’d decided to go with him to the loft rather than head to school. The way I figured it, I didn’t have much of a chance of focusing on classes with Thursday’s bank robbery occupying my attention on top of the stress of just being there and waiting for the other shoe to drop as far as my skipped classes. Besides, I rationalized, it didn’t make a lot of sense to go if I knew I would be skipping again to go rob the bank. I’d promised myself I would go the day after tomorrow. Face the music.

  I’d spent the day with the group. Rachel had been out of the apartment, the others weren’t specific on why and I wasn’t interested enough to risk looking too curious by asking. So it had just been me, Brian, Alec and Lisa. We’d hammered out the fine details of the robbery and I had decided what weapons I wanted Lisa to ask the boss for. I had elected for both a combat knife and a telescoping police baton. The knife would serve for emergencies and those people who were just too tough to hurt with the baton. The baton, twenty one inches long when fully extended, was for more general use, offering more clout than I’d otherwise get with my fists. Lisa had promised I would have them for tomorrow.

  After that, we kind of avoided the subject of the robbery, by some unspoken agreement. It wouldn’t do to overthink it or risk getting too nervous. Either way, I had felt a need to burn some nervous energy, so I had helped clear out the storage closet around lunchtime, with Lisa and Brian’s help. We’d sorted out the stuff, found a place for it all, and set up the room with odds and ends they had lying around. The stuff included an extendable clothes rack, a dresser, an inflatable mattress and a bedside table with a lamp attached. It was enough space for me to keep some toiletries, a spare change of clothes or two, my costume and my equipment. Lisa spent a lot of time talking about what I could do to make the space my own, what I could buy, how I could decorate, but I was happy enough with what we had there. I kind of liked that it was a bit spartan, because it sort of fit with how I didn’t plan to be around that long while still feeling weirdly appreciative at being accepted as a part of the group.

  Having tired ourselves out, we’d all collapsed on the couches and watched some of Alec’s movies from Earth-Aleph, the alternate Earth that our Earth had been communicating with since Professor Haywire tore a hole between realities. Media was one of the few things that could be traded back and forth through the hole. Long story short, you could get books, movies and DVDs of TV shows from the other world, if you were willing to accept the price tag. The benefit? I got to spend the afternoon seeing how the other universe had handled episodes one and two of the Star Wars films.

  Fact: they were still pretty disappointing.

  By the time my dad got in, I had pork chops defrosted, dusted with lemon and pepper and sitting in a frying pan, with vegetables in the microwave. Cooking was sort of something you started doing when you had only one parent, unless you really, really liked takeout.

  “Heya,” my dad greeted me, “Smells good.”

  “I started dinner a bit early because I have somewhere I want to be, tonight, If that’s cool?”

  He tried to hide it, but I could see a bit of disappointment. “Of course,” he said, “Your new friends?”

  I nodded.

  “Let me get changed and then I’ll ask you all about them,” he promised as he headed upstairs.

  Great. I hadn’t had to answer these questions last night because my dad had been working late. My mind started racing to anticipate questions and come up with plausible details. Should I use their real names? Or at least, the names they had given me? I wasn’t sure if that would be a breach of trust. I decided to use their real names for much the same reason I’d decided to use my own with them. It just prevented disasters if my dad ever happened to meet them, which was a terrifying thought, or if they called for me.

  I didn’t need to worry about my dad hearing about four kids being arrested, all of whom had the same name as my ‘friends’, since most or all of them were minors and their names would be kept from the media under the law. I was also under the impression that the courts didn’t always unmask capes when they arrested them. I wasn’t entirely sure what was up with that. It seemed like something to ask Lisa about.

  By the time my dad had come back downstairs, I’d resolved to try and keep my lies as close to the truth as possible. It would be easiest to keep everything straight that way. That, and I hated lying to my dad.

  My dad had changed out of his dress shirt and khakis, into a t-shirt and jeans. He mussed up my hair and then took over the last bit of the cooking. I sat down at the table so I could talk to him.

  “So what’s going on?” he asked.

  I shrugged. I hated feeling this tense around my dad. He’d never bugged me about the bullying, so I’d always been able to come home and sort of let my guard drop. I couldn’t do that now, because I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop as far as my skipped classes, and my new ‘friends’ brought a whole
mess of secrets and lies into the mix as well. I felt like I was on the verge of a terminal breach of trust. One mistake or a single concerned phone call from the school, and my dad would probably flip, and things wouldn’t be the same between us for a long time.

  “Are you going to tell me their names?” he asked. He set the food on plates and brought it to the table.

  “Brian, Lisa, Alec, Rachel,” I confessed, “They’re alright. Get along with most of them.”

  “Where did you meet them? School?”

  I shook my head, “I wanted to get away from school for a bit, so I caught a bus downtown to catch a bit of a break. I ran into them at the library.” Partial truths. You couldn’t really catch a bus downtown and back during the lunch break – I’d tried, when I was avoiding the trio – but I doubted my dad would research that. I did sort of cross paths with the Undersiders at the library, though.

  “They go to the library at lunch? What are they like?”

  “Brian’s pretty cool. He’s the one I’ve talked to the most.”

  “A boy, eh?” My dad wiggled his eyebrows at me.

  “Dad, stop! It’s not like that,” I protested. I doubted Brian had the slightest interest in me, not least because I was two or three years younger than him. Besides, well, I was me. I opted not to mention the age difference to my dad.

  Changing the subject, I said, “Lisa’s alright too. Really smart, though I haven’t talked to her all that much. It’s nice being able to hang out with another girl again, even if she’s pretty different from me.”