Worm

by John McCrae

  “This is different from ignoring starving kids in a third world country or ignoring some homeless guy on the street,” I told him, “You’ve seen Dinah in person, you’ve looked her in the eye. You’re already involved, you’ve played a role in her situation.”

  “I’m not saying I like it, I am definitely less sure I want to work with Coil, now, but I’m saying it’s something that we should discuss and come to a consensus on.”

  I looked at the others, “You feel the same way?”

  Bitch gave me an annoyed look. Okay, I wasn’t expecting an ally there.

  Regent shrugged, “I’ve told you where I come from, how I grew up. I’ve seen similar stuff before, only it was my dad’s powers, not drugs. I’ve got a high tolerance for that shit.”

  I tried to convince him, “Didn’t you leave Heartbreaker because of stuff like that? Aren’t you just getting back into the same situation with Coil?”

  “I left my father because he was trying to control me and force me to be someone and something I wasn’t. It wasn’t even remotely interesting or fun any more. The day that happens with Coil, I’ll leave him too. For now, it’s a good gig.”

  These are the people I’ve been associating with? I looked to my last hope for a backup and support. Tattletale.

  She had her thumbs hooked into her belt, her shoulders hunched forward a little, where she leaned against the wall. She didn’t look happy.

  When she met my eyes, she gave a little shake of her head.

  “Coil’s not stupid,” Tattletale told me, “He knows what he just did, he had every reason to suspect that one or two people in our group might find his methods distasteful. He calculated this. He’s testing us, making sure we’ll stick around when it’s time to make the hard calls.”

  “If this is a test,” I spoke, feeling my heart sink, “I think I fail.”

  “Don’t say that,” Tattletale spoke. “Grue’s right, we need to discuss this as a team.”

  “Discuss what? Whether to stay with Coil?”

  “Yeah,” the word was a half-sigh coming out of her mouth.

  “That you guys even think it’s negotiable is pretty fucked up,” I replied. The anger and betrayal I was feeling made my tone harsher, harder.

  I don’t know what I expected, but I stood there for a few seconds. Maybe I was waiting for an apology, some sort of excuse, or an admission from them that I was right.

  None of them opened their mouths to offer any of that.

  I turned to leave, pushing the hatch open as I stepped back into the gravel lot that surrounded the high-rise in construction.

  “Come on Taylor,” Grue called out behind me. I didn’t listen.

  “Hey!” He raised his voice.

  I didn’t reply. I was too angry, and as moronic as it sounded, I didn’t want our parting words to be me cussing at him.

  I was three paces away from the hatch when I heard the crunch of gravel behind me. I wheeled around to see Grue closing the gap behind me, one arm outstretched, as if to grab me.

  My temper exploded at the same time my bugs did, spilling out from beneath my costume. At my instruction, they swept between Grue and I, creating a barrier of sorts.

  I was already thinking of how I’d deal if it came down to a fight – his costume covered his skin, but I remembered the vents on the edge of his mask, that redirected the flow of his darkness from his face out the edges of his mask, so the skull image would stand out. In a pinch, my bugs could get in that way. His power didn’t really affect me, but would a slow trickle of my bugs into his mask compensate for his obvious advantages in hand to hand fighting?

  I heard the growling of Bitch’s dogs. They weren’t full size, but they were bigger than normal, locked into the beginning stages of their transformations. In the dimly lit lot of the construction area, I could see their shadows through the haze of my swarm. Dealing with them would be hard, if not impossible.

  “No,” Grue spoke, on the other side of the swarm. “Fuck. Let her go.”

  I turned and fled.

  ■

  The loft was empty, with only Angelica present. Behind her, the TV had been left on, a low level of background noise and activity to reassure the dog, maybe, or just Alec being lazy about turning everything off.

  Angelica moved very slowly as she climbed down from the couch and approached to investigate me. Whatever her past experiences, she had never learned to like any humans other than Bitch, so I only got a cursory sniff before she turned to shamble back to the couch. Whatever energy she’d expended to get to me, check me out and return to where she’d been resting, it didn’t leave her with enough of a reserve of strength to hop up. She settled down under the coffee table, watching me with her one intact eye, a perpetual wink, if winks could be wary or threatening.

  Fog had done a number on her. It was hard to believe, but she was better than she’d been a few days ago. Bitch had intended to use her power on the dog, but Lisa had advised against it, warning about the threat of cardiac arrest. As a consequence, Angelica had spent the better half of a week so lethargic, weak and still that I’d frequently looked at her and wondered if she’d stopped breathing. I wasn’t so attached to her that I’d be upset if she died, but knowing how much the loss of a dog would gut Bitch had given me enough of a reason to worry about the critter.

  It was strange to think I was walking away from this: the loft, the dogs, and the others.

  I didn’t know how to parse what I was feeling or thinking. I felt angry, betrayed. Standing in the living room of the loft, the feeling of being lost was particularly keen. I didn’t have a plan, and I’d had a plan for a while, now. For my first year and a half of High School, it had been all about getting through to the end of the day, reaching the weekend. When the weekend came, it was about recuperating, rebuilding my mental and emotional strength to face the coming week.

  Then I had gotten my powers. I’d reached my very limit, the moment I might have cracked, and my powers had given me something else to strive for; being a superhero. There’d been so much to do, so much to plan, prepare and research, that it had given me a reason. I was hesitant to define it as hope, but it had given me something to focus on beyond the next twenty four hours.

  Everything else had flowed from that point. Meeting the Undersiders, committing to a new plan as an undercover agent, with a new goal of getting info on them and their then-anonymous boss. When I couldn’t do that in good conscience, I changed my plan to getting to know the others, being a friend to Bitch, bonding with Brian. Admittedly, I’d had varying degrees of success, in the short period I’d traveled that road, but it had been enough for the present.

  And now I was adrift.

  I was, in a way, back to square one. I had to get through today, then get through this week. I’d figure out where to go from there. I headed to my room.

  My backpack sat beside my bedside table, and a quick investigation revealed it still contained a lot of what I’d stashed in there a week ago, back when I’d expected to spend a few days at Brian’s. Clothes, basic toiletries, cash, an unused disposable phone. I added more money, the card with the info for my supervillain bank account, and a few more things. Checking the room for anything I thought I might need, I found myself looking at my dresser. Resting on top were the katana I’d claimed as a prize from one fight, and the piece of amber Brian had given me.

  I stuck the amber in my bag, surrounding it with clothes to pad it, and then zipped it up.

  The alarm clock marked the time at 6:40 in the morning. If Coil hadn’t called for the meeting at this strange hour, if I hadn’t been packing, this would be about the time that I headed out the door for my morning run.

  Leaving like I was, hurrying to be gone before the others caught up with me, I was leaving a lot of stuff behind. Clothes, furniture, pictures. Without even realizing it, I’d sort of begun making this space my own, decorating and personalizing it. Settling in, in a way I hadn’t when I’d been planning to betray the group.
r />   I was putting clothes on over my costume when Lisa’s voice came from the doorway, “Where are you going to go?”

  I turned to look at her, and her expression changed. Was it the look on my face? I wasn’t sure what emotion I was conveying. Anger? Disappointment? Regret?

  “A motel, maybe,” I said. “Why? Are you going to have to hunt me down? Tie up a loose end?”

  “You know we wouldn’t.”

  “Sure. I suppose he’ll send the Travelers after me if he goes that route.” I pulled my mask off and put it away in the backpack.

  “This feels bad, Taylor. You really have to go?”

  “I don’t even want to look at myself in the mirror, right now. Even if we came to some sort of agreement, made a plan to save her together, go against Coil…” I trailed off, trying to find the words, “I can’t face everyone else and pretend like things are normal. Even if we were working to save her… it feels disrespectful. Dinah deserves better than that.”

  “Believe it or not, Brian’s as freaked out as you are. If he’s being weird or out of character, it’s just him defaulting to his core programming, you know what I mean? Like Bitch getting angry, or you going quiet and wary.”

  I shrugged, tied my sweatshirt around my waist, told her, “In hindsight, I don’t think it was that out of character for him. Part of the reason I’m leaving.”

  “Is this leave permanent or temporary?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Are you going to do something stupid like try to rescue Dinah yourself?”

  “Don’t know,” I repeated myself.

  “You’re aware that there’s an outside chance that if you try, we might have to try and stop you. Depending on what agreement the rest of us come to about the current sitch.”

  “Do what you have to, I’ll do the same.”

  “Alright, then.”

  I slung the bag over my shoulder, faced the door.

  Tattletale spoke, “I’m not saying goodbye, because this isn’t. I’ll resolve this situation with Coil and his captive myself, if I have to, if it means we can have another civil conversation in the near future. Stay alive, don’t do anything rash, and be open to hearing us out in the future? Surely our friendship is worth doing that much?”

  After a moment, then I gave her a single nod.

  Lisa moved out of the doorway to let me through. When I turned in the direction of the living room and the stairwell, Lisa almost deliberately turned in the other direction, toward the kitchen. As if following me to the exit constituted some vague sort of farewell, and she was sticking to the idea of refusing to say goodbye.

  I was halfway down the stairwell to the first floor when I heard it. A whining noise, like you might hear from a particularly large baby preparing to scream. The nasal ‘wa’ sound stretched out, so loud it was painful to listen to. A siren? An air raid siren.

  I reversed direction and ran back up the stairs. Tattletale was already in the living room. The TV was showing evacuation directions in a rotation of images: Leave your homes. Find the nearest shelter. Follow the directions of local authorities. Leave your homes…

  “Bomb?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the siren, “Bakuda leave something behind?”

  Lisa shook her head.

  I’d seen her in the presence of Lung, around Glory Girl, Bakuda, Purity, Night and Fog. Looking at her, now, I saw an expression on her face that I hadn’t seen in any of those scenarios. There was no trace of her vulpine grin, none of her characteristic humor or reckless abandon.

  “Then what is it?” I asked her, though I already had a dark suspicion. Even the Bakuda’s terrorism campaign against the city hadn’t warranted the sirens, and that left very few possibilities.

  Her response was one word, final. “Endbringer.”

  “What- but-” I turned toward the stairs, then back to Tattletale, “My dad. I’ve got to-”

  Tattletale cut me off, “He’ll evacuate or get to a shelter like everyone else. Taylor, look at me.”

  I did.

  “The others and I, we talked about this possibility. It came up before we met you. You listening to me? You know what happens, the usual response.”

  I nodded.

  “We all decided we’d go. That we’d try to help, however we could. But you weren’t a part of that talk, and there’s tensions in the group. You’re pretty much not on the team, right now, so if you don’t want to-”

  “I’ll go.” I didn’t even need to think about it. I would never be able to forgive myself if I walked away, knowing there was something I could have done to help.

  7.x (Interlude; Hannah)

  the soldier barked in Turkish. He jammed his gun between her shoulderblades, hard. He was twice as tall as her, far stronger than her, so there could be no fighting or resisting even if he wasn’t armed. She stumbled forward into the shrubbery and trees, and branches scraped against her forearms and face.

  One foot in front of the other, Hana told herself. Her feet were like lead weights as she trudged forward. The needles on the trees and shrubbery scraped against her skin. Even the twigs were coarse, almost thorny, catching on her dress and socks, biting through the cloth to scrape her skin and stab at her shoeless feet.

  the soldier threatened. He said something else, longer and more complicated, but Hana’s Turkish wasn’t good enough to make it out. She looked over her shoulder and saw the man back the way she’d come. He made his meaning explicitly clear by waving his gun toward the other children, who were corralled in the midst of a half dozen other soldiers. If she didn’t move faster, someone else would pay for it.

  Seven years had given her village false confidence, let them believe that they were far enough away, secluded enough in the valley and forest, that they could escape the worst fighting of the ongoing war. That illusion had been shattered just hours ago.

  She had been hidden in the cellar beside her house. She had heard the screams and gunfire. Too much gunfire, considering how few working guns the men and women of her village had. Guns and bullets were too expensive when you lived off your garden and what you could hunt, and a trip to the nearest city to buy such things was dangerous. What they had were the leftovers, the handful of weapons taken off enemies by the guerilla fighters and left behind or traded in barter when they passed through the village for supplies and medical care. Those who had the guns lacked the skill or training to use them. The fighters were supposed to defend them against people like this, stop them from getting this far.

  She hurried to take another step forward and flinched as a twig broke underfoot. The smallest of whimpers escaped through her lips.

  When the enemy soldiers had found her in the cellar, dragged her into a group with the nine other children of her village, she’d known that her parents were already dead or dying. As the soldiers had marched them through the village and into the woods, she’d stared hard at the ground, tears streaming down her cheeks, unwilling to look at the blood, the bodies, that littered her hometown. People who she had seen every day of her life.

  Her eyes scanned the forest floor, but she had no idea what to look for. A hump of earth? Twine? A dense patch of dry, brown needles? She took another step forward, waited for disaster. When it didn’t come, she stepped forward again, paused.

  Only a short while ago, she had watched from a distance as Kovan, the fat older boy that had once called her names, stepped forward and had his leg fall into a hole. He’d screamed, and when Hana and the rest of the children had rushed forward to try and lift him out, they had only increased the volume of his shouts and the ferocity of his thrashing. With the Turkish soldiers watching silently behind them, Hana and the others had used their hands to scrape at the hard, rocky earth, revealing the wooden stakes that were lodged in the sides of the hole. Each was set in the earth so they pointed downward at an angle, with some at the bottom to pierce his foot. Supple, the wood had bent enough to let the leg fall down deep into the hole, but attempts to raise Kovan
had only pulled his leg and foot up into waiting wooden points.

  It was, she knew, one of the traps that had been placed by her village’s hunters or by the guerrilla fighters that defended their village. They were all over, set throughout the woods, around her village, near roads and other important places. She had overheard one of the fighters describing this very trap to her father. She had been told, over and over, that she wasn’t to play in the woods for much this reason, that if she had to travel into the woods for any reason, she needed an adult to guide her. The full reality of it hadn’t registered until she saw what had happened to Kovan.

  They had tried for a long time to dig the boy’s leg free, knowing as they uncovered more and more of his pierced leg, saw the injuries and the quantity of blood, that he wasn’t going to be able to walk very far. It was hopeless, they knew, but Kovan was someone they had gone to school with. Someone they had seen every day.

  A soldier put an end to their efforts with a bullet through Kovan’s head, making Kovan the second of the children to die.

  Hana was picked to go next. To test the path.

  She clutched the front of her dress, balling the fabric up in hands that were still covered in dirt and scrapes from her efforts to dig Kovan free. One foot in front of the other. Every single one of her senses was on edge. She was hyperaware of the rustle of dirt underfoot, the scrape of pine needles against the fabric of her dress. She could feel the warmth of the sun heating her skin when she stepped into a spot where the light filtered through the pine trees.

  She blinked hard to clear her eyes of tears. So stupid. She needed to be able to see. Any clue. Any at all, to see a trap. Crying was the worst thing she could do.

  One foot in front of the other.

  She stopped. Her feet refused to go any further. Trembling, she looked around.