Worm

by John McCrae

  “I wonder if you realize what you’ve really done. Pulling the shit you have in this city. Forget the PRT, forget me and the people I work for. Let’s talk about the grander perspective. The precedent this shit sets. You know there’s already been others who tried to do what you’re doing? Take over?”

  People have been trying to take over for a long time, I thought, but I didn’t say it aloud.

  “People are getting hurt, hurting others, trying to follow in your footsteps. You’re a fucking pioneer, aren’t you? Do you get that? That part of what we’re doing, here, is not just stopping you, dealing with you Undersiders, whatever your excuses might be. It’s the effects that reach across this entire country. The world.”

  I didn’t reply. My focus was on Mr. Calle, who was making his way downstairs in the elevator, accompanied by the same PRT soldier who had taken me to my cell.

  “What’s the name of the fellow who tried to take over that town in Alaska just a few days ago? You remember, Miss Militia?”

  “Hiemal.”

  “Hiemal. How many did his people kill?”

  “Three.”

  “Three dead,” Tagg said. He pulled a chair away from the table, set one foot on it, so he was looming over me.

  Mr. Calle appeared in the doorway. I’d looked him up prior to first contacting him, and I’d seen his photos online. I was caught off guard, nonetheless, on two very different fronts.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, putting his briefcase down before extending a hand to Miss Militia, smiling in a way that showed off his very white teeth. I’d assumed that his prim appearance in the pictures had been because he’d been anticipating having his photos taken, or because he’d been appearing in public. His black hair hadn’t just been cut, it had been styled, his eyebrows shaped. He had long eyelashes, I noted, and a small cleft in his chin. He was an exceptionally handsome Latino guy, in a light gray suit with a white vest beneath, and a red tie. He had a folder and a paper bag under one arm, in addition to the briefcase he’d put down.

  His immaculate appearance was the first thing that caught me off guard, and it set a stark contrast with the corner of one nostril and one of his cheekbones, where, apparently, one of his clients had done some damage. It was a cut, but puckered around the edges where it had been burned, either with fire or some kind of acid.

  He extended a hand to the Director, who glowered but shook it. He flashed another white smile at Tagg, “Quinn Calle, I-”

  “I know who you are,” Tagg replied.

  “Excellent. That should make the rest of this easier. I’d like some time alone with my client. I already have the bulk of the paperwork, but if you could give me anything that came up in the last short while, I’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll see what we have,” Miss Militia said. She and Tagg turned to leave.

  Calle brushed the seat clear where Tagg had stepped on it, then sat down just to my left. “And Director?”

  Director Tagg paused in the doorway.

  Mr. Calle pointed at the one-way mirror at one side of the interrogation room. “This is a confidential meeting with my client. I would never imply that anyone in the PRT would be so crass as to listen in, but… let’s leave that room empty until further notice, okay?”

  Tagg visibly bristled at the implication. Wordless, he turned to leave.

  “And cameras stay off!” Mr. Calle called out at the Director’s back.

  Tagg shut the door with a little more force than necessary.

  “Ms. Hebert,” Mr. Calle said, without looking at me. He set the folder on the table and began sorting out the contents. He waited until the paperwork was all arranged in front of him before he turned his attention to the paper bag, retrieving my sandwich, a small carton of six donuts, and a small thermos. He met my eyes and spoke, “We finally meet.”

  Again, that smile, the kind of smile someone could only really give if they were attractive and they knew it. He didn’t seem to mind the blemish on his face, acted as though it weren’t there, as if that dictated how others would react to it.

  “Can we cut out the charm and get to business?” I asked, as I reached for the thermos and sandwich. “There’s something of a time limit.”

  The smile dropped from his face, and he was all business. “A time limit. Can I ask?”

  “It’s twelve past one,” I said. “We have until eight-thirty.”

  “Very well. Let’s get moving. First off, I want to get some things clear. I’m an excellent lawyer, I’ve worked with more than a few big-name villains, as well as heroes who went astray. I have the rest of my firm backing me, and their talents are but a phone call away. But.“ He paused in a very deliberate way. “You should know that I’m not the lawyer you want at a jury trial. We’ve run simulations, and I don’t sell when it comes to juries. This little mark is a good part of that.”

  He touched his face, where the scar was.

  Mr. Calle continued, “If it comes to a serious trial, I’ll take the backseat and one of my senior partners would represent you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s fine. I don’t want this to go to trial.”

  “Alright. We can work with that. In the meantime, let’s see what we’re up against…”

  He turned the first page in one of the neatly bound sheafs of paper. “Charges… chime in, but don’t panic, alright?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “April tenth, criminal negligence with a parahuman ability, sixteen charges of assault, sixteen charges of battery with a parahuman ability.”

  I tried to think. April tenth? Early in my career?

  “Lung,” I said, “I attacked him and his gang. They’re seriously charging me for attacking Lung’s henchmen?”

  “They’re going to charge you with everything they think they can get away with and see what sticks. Depending on who they could actually find and convince to testify, they’ll drop charges after the fact. We can maybe use that, or we could, if circumstances were different and we were wanting to take this to trial. No need to worry. Gut reaction? Could they make it stick?”

  “The Lung part, yes, but the rest… probably not.”

  “Okay. Let’s run down the list. April fourteenth. Thirty two charges of willful felony assault with a parahuman ability. Thirty two charges of hostage taking, technically domestic terrorism, each perpetrated with a parahuman ability. Robbery with a parahuman ability. Willful damage to government property. Disturbing the peace.”

  “The bank robbery. I didn’t damage any property.”

  “Right. April twenty-fourth? One case of battery.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “An… Emma Barnes. She appeared-”

  “Right. No, I remember what that was. It happened, didn’t think anything would come of it.”

  “One of the girls who bullied you. Odd that they took their time filing charges on it. Only this past week.”

  Tagg must have talked to her. I shrugged.

  “Moving on, then. Incidents taking place at the… Forsberg Gallery, May fifth. Five cases of assaulting a law enforcement officer. Five cases of battering a law enforcement officer, three performed with a parahuman ability.”

  “That’s attacking the heroes?”

  “No. That’d be an entirely different charge, and…” my lawyer flipped through the papers, “Just double checking… there’s a conspicuous lack of charges involving your altercations with major heroes. It could be that they discussed it and didn’t feel it necessary. Things get complicated when capes take the stand, given the issues of identity and character, and they might not have wanted to dredge up old business. If not that, the only way I could imagine it is if the heroes in question withdrew all charges?”

  He pitched his voice to make the statement into something of a question.

  I thought of Armsmaster. Him? Maybe. But Assault? Miss Militia? That was harder to picture. The Wards? Harder still.

  “I don’t know which it is,” I admitted.

&nb
sp; “All right. Something to look into, if we have time. Still on May fifth, eighty-one charges of willful felony assault. Still at the fundraiser.”

  He raised one eyebrow. I only nodded confirmation.

  “Skipping ahead a month to June third, we’ve got… complicity towards one count of kidnapping using a parahuman ability. This was-”

  “Sophia Hess.”

  “One of the girls who bullied you. Extenuating circumstances, perhaps,” he said. He made a note in the margins of the document. “June fourth, you’re supposedly complicit in class two extortion with a parahuman ability, criminal negligence with a parahuman ability and false imprisonment with a parahuman ability.”

  “They… can probably make that stick.”

  “June fifth. Treason.”

  “Treason.”

  “That would be, in effect, declaring war against the government of the United States of America.”

  “That’s not what I did.”

  “It’s what they’re going to say you did when you took over the territory. I’d expect they already have strong arguments lined up on that front. On the same day, thirty cases of assault and battery. Six cases of aggravated assault with a parahuman ability.”

  I nodded.

  “June eighth, eight cases of assault with a parahuman ability. June ninth, we’ve got twelve more. June tenth, three cases of assault with a parahuman ability, one case of assault in the third degree.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  “Thirteenth, we have three more cases of assault with a parahuman ability.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Sixteenth of June, disturbing the peace, property damage.”

  I nodded. The days were starting to blend into one another, to the point that I wasn’t sure I could guess which charges were referring to which events.

  “Seventeenth, five charges of assault and battery. One charge of aggravated assault with a parahuman ability. One charge of criminal extortion.”

  “Attacking the mayor,” I said, almost relieved to be able to pinpoint the crime in question.

  “And his family, it seems.” Mr. Calle paused, then paged through the rest of the pad. “June eighteenth. Destruction of government property, four counts. Hostage taking, assault and battery of a law enforcement officer. June nineteenth, complicity in another count of treason. Complicity in manslaughter, nineteen counts.”

  I nodded. Dragon and fighting in the debate. Given Dragon’s response in the cafeteria, I’d almost expected her to drop any charges involved in the destruction of the suits she’d sent against me. Maybe people higher up than her had charged me anyways. Then there was the manslaughter. ”Apparently the murders were staged.”

  “We’ll have to look into that. And… that’s the last we have in our actual records. The PRT was slow in sending us the rest, but Miss Militia should deliver it soon. There’s been more in the last week, I take it?”

  “More assault and battery,” I said, feeling a touch weary. “Whatever charges come up with the thing at the school. I sort of arranged to have a psychopath kill herself. Um. However you’d charge putting maggots in someone’s eyeballs. In self-defense.”

  He didn’t even flinch at that. “I see. And any other charges that might catch us by surprise?”

  “Premeditated murder,” I said. “Of a law enforcement officer. Miss Militia knows, but she’s kept quiet on it.”

  “I see,” Mr. Calle said. He frowned briefly.

  “It was Coil. Director Thomas Calvert was Coil.”

  “Alright, then,” Mr. Calle said. He met my eyes, then smiled. “Believe it or not, I’ve handled worse.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved at that.

  “Now let’s talk about our goals. For the record, if we took this to trial, I think we could knock off most of these charges on a lack of evidence and degrees of amnesty surrounding your participation against the various class-S threats. They’re going to want to put together a jury that hasn’t heard of you, which would be difficult. To those people, it’s going to sound downright preposterous that a sixteen year old girl is being charged with treason and terrorism, especially after we reduce the number of assault and battery charges to single digits.”

  “I don’t want a jury trial,” I said. “I’ve said this twice now.”

  “I know,” Mr. Calle said. “Hear me out. I’m wanting to make sure our expectations are realistic. Theoretically speaking, I think we could get you charged as a minor. Paint a picture of a bullied teenager pushed to the limit, caught out of her depth and, following the Leviathan attack, ensnared in an ugly situation where she’s trying to protect people and the heroes are being unreasonable in how they interact with her. We could use the unwarranted unmasking to indicate just how aggressive and ruthless the PRT has been in regards to you.”

  “And if I decided to plea down, in exchange for certain considerations?”

  “We can still reduce the charges, which would help reduce the penalties you’d face, but where I’m confident we could get you off in a trial by jury, you’d face some consequences if you insisted on taking this route.”

  “Alright,” I said. “I can live with consequences. In terms of holding them to the terms I stipulate, is there any way to set it up so they can’t change their minds after they’ve gotten what they want from me?”

  “We can prepare a contract, but that only imposes financial penalties,” Mr. Calle answered me. “The PRT could theoretically get it thrown out of court, and that’s ignoring the possibility that you could be sent to the birdcage. It would depend on the penalties you’re able to levy against them…”

  He trailed off.

  I thought of Tattletale. ”I think I have some ideas.”

  “Excellent. But the best way, I’m thinking, is to make it all common knowledge. Let the rest of the country hold them to it. It would depend on whether we could share the details with John and Jane Q. Public.”

  “Can we talk about the terms, then?” I asked.

  “We can. I got the impression you were able to tell time?”

  “It’s one twenty-seven. Six hours and three minutes left.”

  “Right then,” he made a pained expression. “A good thing I told my wife I wouldn’t make it to dinner. I’ll get a few of my coworkers on the line. They can pitch in and put an intern to typing things up while we hash this out. You don’t have much ground to stand on, but we can make the legal ramifications as ugly as possible for them if they throw you under the bus.”

  ■

  It took one and a half hours, roughly, to get everything worked out and organized. After that, I had to put up with twenty minutes of waiting while Mr. Calle’s law firm typed it and emailed it to us. It took ten more minutes for my lawyer to run to a nearby print shop and get the paperwork we’d put together. Mr. Calle then insisted on reading the entire thing through. The wait was almost intolerable.

  Fifteen more minutes passed as he went through it page by page, with agonizing slowness. I winced a little every time he stopped and went back to check earlier details against whatever it was he was reading.

  “It’s bare bones,” he finally said.

  “I didn’t expect much else,” I said.

  “We could have done better with more notice, I have to say.”

  “Too many variables to lay anything out ahead of time,” I said.

  “Very well. Let’s bring them in.”

  More minutes ticked away as we waited for the others to arrive. Director Tagg, the Deputy Director, Miss Militia, Clockblocker, and Mrs. Yamada… they were gathering in force. Tagg took a seat opposite us, Miss Militia to his left, his second in command to his right.

  “Let’s hear it,” he said.

  Mr. Calle stood, then walked around the table, handing each person present a copy of the document. I was the only one who didn’t have one in front of me.

  “My client, Taylor Hebert, is offering official surrender to the PRT, for a select handful of crimes. This surrender a
nd an admission of guilt would be televised locally, nationally and possibly internationally, dependent on which outlets were prepared to cooperate. In exchange, my client, Taylor Hebert, known by the alias ‘Skitter’, requests some concessions from the Protectorate, PRT and Wards.”

  “Televised?” Tagg asked.

  “It serves as insurance for my client, and it serves to signal the Undersiders to stand down, should they be considering any sort of aggression for the capture of their leader and friend.”

  “Right,” Tagg said. “Let’s pretend she didn’t plan for that. Go on.”

  “To begin with, the remaining members of the Undersiders will be given leniency for past crimes. With the understanding that the Undersiders are serving to police this city’s underworld where the Protectorate is unable, the group would cease to be the target of any aggression or harassment on the part of the PRT, Protectorate or Wards. This fact would not be disclosed to the public, but would serve as a truce to allow both sides to carry out their respective duties in the service of Brockton Bay.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Clockblocker said.

  “You want us to play nice,” Tagg said.

  I watched Miss Militia. We’d already discussed this point. I’d gauged her response. Now I was putting it out there in simple, clear terms, making it official. I couldn’t be sure if she’d hold to her word or if it would collapse under the bureaucracy.

  I’d tested her once, and she’d informed Tagg of what I was planning. This would be a second test, of sorts.

  “Special allowances,” Mr. Calle said, “Would be made for crimes committed in the future, within specific limits detailed on page three of the paperwork you have in front of you.”

  “You want to neuter us,” Director Tagg said. “Stop us from policing the criminals who run this city.”

  “As my client phrased it, Director, we’re hoping to free you to focus your efforts on real targets.”

  “You can want it and begin again,” Tagg said, “But I won’t stand by and watch it happen.”

  “Quite alright,” my lawyer responded. He flashed a smile, “I expect that’s why Ms. Hebert has asked that you retire, Director Tagg. Her colleague, known by the alias Tattletale, has apparently confirmed that you’ve put in the requisite number of years. You could collect your pension without issue.”