Worm

by John McCrae

  We gathered at the picnic tables.

  “What’s the point of this?” one kid asked, a twelve or thirteen year old with hair draped over half his face. Never understood that hairstyle.

  “A break can be nice,” I said. “Whether it’s from school or saving the world.”

  “Inviting us here, I mean.”

  “You want the cheesy answer or the real one?”

  “Cheesy,” one heavyset girl said, with just a touch of snark.

  “Cheesy answer is you didn’t seem interested in going squee over these guys, you didn’t feel like chasing butterflies, so I figured I’d invite you to hang.”

  “It’s so fake, ridiculous,” she said.

  “It is,” I said. “Fake can be good. Reality sucks sometimes.”

  “What’s the real answer?” the guy with hair over his face asked me.

  “The real answer is that this whole thing is a ploy by the good guys,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “They want to get on your good side, just in case you get powers,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes again.

  “Powers?” another kid asked. He was shorter than all the others, and his eyes were disproportionately large for his face.

  “Powers,” I said. “And you guys, I’m thinking, are among the most likely to get them.”

  I was getting funny looks.

  “Do you know what trigger events are?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Um,” one of the boy heroes said, “Not sure this is approved.”

  I cocked my head, turning to the kid with the hair in his face, “See? It’s a ploy. Big secrets.”

  “Not that big,” Fox-mask said.

  “I didn’t find out about trigger events until months after I’d had mine,” I said. “It’s how you get superpowers.”

  Okay, that had their attention. Twelve or thirteen pairs of eyes were fixed on me.

  “It takes something pretty lousy to happen to you,” I said. “You get attacked, or you get hurt, or someone attacks someone or something you really care about, and you have nowhere else to turn, and you get powers.”

  “It doesn’t work if you force it,” Mrs. Yamada said, approaching the table, “so don’t try.”

  “Right,” I said, though I was digesting a tidbit of information I hadn’t had.

  “Why are we going to get powers when they won’t?” another kid in our cluster asked me.

  “Because you were alone. It’s a bit of a trend, I think, one I’ve noticed. I’ve seen a lot of powers, and I’ve seen a lot of people with powers who had similar things wrong with them. Labyrinth, Bakuda, Night, Fog, Mannequin, Siberian, Lung, August Prince… again and again, it’s their ability to communicate that’s missing, either because of their powers or because they chose to hide or mask their voices. I was thinking about it, and I think we parahumans tend to be loners by nature.”

  Which might explain why we struggle so much as a community.

  “So you’re here to make nice, just in case?” the boy with hair in his face asked me.

  “That’s the gist of it. I think the PRT’s cunning plan is to get you on board before you get powers.”

  “As if,” the boy retorted.

  “Hey,” fox-mask said, “Not cool. We’re trying to be nice here.”

  I could see a scowl, the glance away on the kid’s face. I was put in mind of Regent for an instant. A similar personality?

  “No, let’s be fair,” I said. “Being a villain’s an option.”

  “You did not say that,” Fox-mask said, incredulous, “It’s not an option at all.”

  The girl in blue looked at Mrs. Yamada, “Ex-villain’s corrupting the kids, and you’re not stopping her?”

  Mrs. Yamada was frowning at me.

  “I’m going somewhere with this, honest,” I said.

  “If you’re sure,” she said. “I can stop you at any time.”

  “You can.”

  I looked at the gathered kids. A few of the less successful butterfly catchers had drifted away and approached.

  “I always hated the speeches when I was in school, the preaching in auditoriums, the one-note message. Stuff like saying drugs are bad. It’s wrong. Drugs are fantastic.”

  “Um,” Fox-mask said.

  Mrs. Yamada was glaring at me, but she hadn’t interrupted.

  “People wouldn’t do them if they weren’t. They make you feel good, make your day brighter, give you energy-”

  “Weaver,” Mrs. Yamada cut in.

  “-until they don’t,” I said. “People hear the message that drugs are bad, that they’ll ruin your life if you do them once. And then you find out that isn’t exactly true because your friends did it and turned out okay, or you wind up trying something and you’re fine. So you try them, try them again. It isn’t a mind-shattering moment of horrible when you try that first drug. Or so I hear. It’s subtle, it creeps up on you, and you never really get a good, convincing reason to stop before it ruins your life beyond comprehension. I never went down that road, but I knew a fair number of people who did. People who worked for me, when I was a supervillain.”

  I had their attention now, at least.

  This was probably going to hit the news as something like, ‘Ex-supervillain Wards member recommends drugs to kids’. Whatever.

  Maybe I’d get a shit placement in the Wards, but I felt more like the Weaver I wanted to be.

  “It’s the same, being a villain. I went there, I did that for a few months. Risked my life, hurt people, made an incredible amount of money, but I look back, and it wasn’t worth it. I value the people I got to know and love far more than I do the money, the power, the fame. They’re the only thing I regret leaving behind.”

  “How much money?” the heavy little girl asked, grinning.

  “You’re missing the point,” Fox-mask said.

  “Fifteen or twenty million,” I said, ignoring him.

  “Shhh-ugar,” one of the heroes muttered, just behind me, deciding on a new word midway through.

  “That’s so worth it,” a kid said.

  “I think this is bordering on counterintuitive,” Mrs. Yamada said.

  “Do you have a piece of paper?” I asked.

  She only frowned at me.

  One of the young heroes, a boy with goggles, handed me a pad of paper.

  “Pen?”

  He handed me a pen.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the boy with hair in his face.

  “Ned.”

  I wrote it down. “Ned. And you?”

  I got the names of all of the kids I’d picked out. The stragglers. Maggie, Bowden, Ryan, Lucas, Jacob, Sophie… the list went on. Fifteen kids in all.

  I ripped off the sheet, then tore another sheet into squares. “More pens?”

  The goggle-guy handed me a handful of pens.

  “Each of you write down the most horrible thing you can think of, that you can reasonably expect to happen to you in the next few years. No need to get too complicated. Think of something horrible that would give you a trigger event. Write it down.”

  I waited while each of the kids wrote something down. Other kids were gathering now, but they’d be bystanders. It was the stragglers who were the focus now.

  “Hand your sheet to the person to your left. Boston Wards, help me on this score. We’re going to make up powers that sort of fit the trigger events, in a vague way. No need to be specific.”

  “If it helps,” Mrs. Yamada said, “More mental powers for mental stress, physical powers for physical stress.”

  “She’s the expert,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “I want to pick my own power,” Ned said.

  “Too bad. You don’t get to in real life,” I said. “You think I wanted bug powers?”

  By the time we’d finished, more of the butterfly catchers had come back. They were watching, now.

  “Ned gets the ability to fly.” I’d left him for last. “And some so
rt of ranged attack. Kind of like Legend.”

  “Sweet.”

  “But no power is really that simple. So… you fly by blowing. Like a balloon with the end untied, only with more control. You attack by blowing too.”

  “No! That sucks!”

  “Too bad,” I said. “It’s not all fun and games. What was your trigger event, Maggie?”

  The heavyset girl frowned, blushing a little. “Um. Someone chopped my wiener off. How does that-”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. Someone hurt you badly, and you got a more physical power?”

  “Reynard said I got super strength, and regeneration.”

  She looked at Fox-mask. I had his name now.

  A little boring, whatever. “Okay. Now, on the back of the sheet, write down whether you’re a hero or a villain. Your choice.”

  “This has got to be a trap,” she said, “So hero.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And do you join the Wards, or no?”

  “Join us,” Reynard whispered, urging her.

  “Kind of seems like a pain.”

  Reynard groaned. “I’m wounded!”

  “So you’re on your own, or you join another group?”

  “Another group.”

  “Okay. And… Bowden?”

  The kid smirked. “Screw that. I want fifteen million dollars. Villain.”

  “Okay. Ryan?”

  We went around the circle, until everyone had their affiliation.

  “I don’t suppose you’d have any dice?” I asked the Wards.

  The goggle-hero handed me a handful of dice.

  “Oh shit,” Ned said, “You conned us into playing dungeons and dragons!”

  “Nothing so complicated,” I said. “Roll, Ned. A three is bad luck about your powers, a two is bad luck about your life as a cape, and a one is really bad luck.”

  He rolled. A three.

  “Aw, what? No!”

  “Okay,” I said. “Your powers came with a drawback.”

  “I blow air! I already got screwed.”

  “Your power came with the ability to understand air currents, which you need to fly,” I said. “But they erased something else. Your sense of direction is gone, unless you’re using it to fly. Wherever you go, you get lost. It’s bad enough that you can’t do anything on your own. Unless someone here asks you to join their team, your life is ruined.”

  “What?” He asked. He glowered. “Fuck you.”

  “Language,” Fox-mask warned.

  “It happens,” I told the kid. “Let’s hope others have more luck.”

  We went around the table, there were a few more with bad luck. I found it interesting when the Boston Wards volunteered penalties. One involved a trigger event so public that a kid had to abandon the idea of a secret identity. Another was traumatized by theirs, and wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep for ten years.

  “Now let’s talk about what you do with your careers,” I said. “Ned? You found a team, and your power’s pretty good, so let’s say you win a fight against the heroes on a two or better.”

  He rolled, “Six!”

  “Now you fight other villains, who want to steal the money you just got. Roll.”

  “I’m a bad guy, I’m not fighting them!”

  “Bad guys fight villains and heroes,” I said. “But you can give up the money if you want to run.”

  He scowled, shaking his hand in anticipation of rolling, dragging it on far too long.

  “And because bad guys don’t always play fair, these guys kill you if you roll a one, and they win on a two,” I added.

  He rolled. A two.

  “Money gone, you’re hurt, embarrassed, but still alive. Maggie, your turn.”

  The exercise continued. Once we had a general system in place, crude rules or no, the Boston heroes took up the job, until each of us had three ‘capes’ and a small crowd of spectators.

  “I’m not sure I get the point,” Maggie said, after a few rounds. She looked a little nervous with a crowd looking over her shoulder.

  “Okay,” I said, clapping my hands. “Villains, raise your hands.”

  They did.

  “If you’re dead, maimed or in jail, lower your hands.”

  More than half of them did.

  “Heroes, raise your hands if you’re okay.”

  Most of the other kids raised their hands.

  “Sophie chose to be a rogue,” Fox-mask said, “She’s been in one fight, but she came out okay.”

  “You’re screwing the villains,” Ned said. “It’s not really one fight after another.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but was interrupted.

  “Being a villain is hard,” Mrs. Yamada said. Odd as it was, she seemed to have a measure of authority I didn’t, here. Weird, that the kids would listen to her because she was an adult, and not someone who’d actually been in the thick of it.

  Weird and frustrating.

  “One in twenty might make it in the long run,” I said. “If they’re lucky, if they’re good, if they have friends they can count on.”

  “Pat yourself on the back a little more,” Reynard said, a little sarcastic. The girl in blue elbowed him.

  I made sure to look each of the participants in the eye as I spoke, “I wasn’t satisfied doing what I was doing, as a villain. I switched sides by choice. Think about that. Even after all of that, after everything I had, even though I felt pretty good, spending all of that money on helping people in my neighborhood, being front page news, I gave it up.”

  I knew it wasn’t time for it, that I should let that sink in, but people were talking more in the back of the crowd, jostling or getting restless.

  “So let’s say there’s an endbringer attack,” I said. “Time to decide. Do you volunteer?”

  Nobody moved.

  “We need volunteers, or it’s over,” I said. “Hero or villain.”

  Maggie put her hand up.

  “One,” I said. “Not enough.”

  Others raised their hands in turn. Five volunteers out of the eight who were still in the game. Ned was among them.

  “Roll,” I said. I handed over the dice, “One in four chance you die.”

  The kids rolled, one by one.

  Three dead.

  “You rigged the system,” Ned said, a little petulant.

  “I’m being a little harsh,” I said, “But this is it. It sounds dumb, but being a cape means beating the odds, again and again. If you’re a villain? The reward is pretty damn good, but the risk is bigger. You saw how few villains actually survived intact. Even then, a lot of them lost their money, or got hurt.”

  I glanced around the group. “That’s my pitch. Take it from someone who’s been on both sides. Being on the side of good? It’s safer, a hell of a lot smarter. Know that there’s always going to be someone out there that’s stronger, and-”

  The ringing of phones interrupted me. Multiple phones, all at once, both the Wards and Mrs. Yamada.

  A sick feeling welled in my gut. The Wards looked at their phones. Mrs. Yamada was the only one to raise hers to her ear. I closed my eyes.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Yamada said. “You’re coming here? Okay. Yes. Of course. The Boston Wards are here. Yes.”

  I felt like my chest was clenching around my heart. The kids had fallen silent.

  “Weaver,” Mrs. Yamada said.

  My voice was quiet, “I’m not ready. My new stuff, it’s not prepared.”

  “Defiant says he has your old costume, he can spray it white, if you want, swap out the lenses. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll be better than what they gave you.”

  I opened my eyes. The kids were wide eyed.

  “Which one is it?” I asked her.

  “Behemoth. Seismic activity building in New Delhi. He hasn’t appeared yet.”

  I nodded.

  “You don’t have to go,” she said.

  I shook my head. I thought of the Undersiders. “I’ll go. Have to.”

  “Can I hitch a ri
de?” Reynard asked. “At least to the HQ?”

  I nodded, glad for the solidarity. I wasn’t in this alone. “Probably.”

  I looked at the Wards, could see how some were standing taller, grim, fatalistic, but confident in their own way. Others averted their eyes. Shame, that they weren’t coming.

  “Hey,” Ned said.

  I glanced at him.

  “Is it really a one in four chance?” he asked.

  “Those are the numbers they gave me when I fought Leviathan,” I said. “They probably won’t be so generous this time around.”

  “They call him the herokiller,” Reynard added.

  That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. We’re not ready. None of us. We’re still reeling from Echidna, from Alexandria.

  The kids who were still in the field fled as three Dragon suits set down, crossing the park to rejoin the teachers who’d been sitting in the shade. Doors opened and ramps lowered to welcome us into the dark interiors.

  Defiant and Dragon were inside the Pendragon, waiting for me, Defiant carrying my Skitter costume, Dragon holding a new back compartment, wings extended, two mechanical limbs sticking out each side.

  It wasn’t everything I’d asked for, but it was something.

  I glanced back at the kids. The ones who hadn’t cleared the way for the crafts to land in the park were still at the tables, along with one or two Wards who apparently weren’t coming.

  “Still owe you that prize,” I said. My voice sounded funny. “Was going to con Defiant here into giving you a ride.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” a girl said. She had the most butterflies. “Really.”

  I nodded.

  It had meant something to me after all, getting the chance to do this. I met Mrs. Yamada’s eyes, nodded.

  She nodded back.

  Gathering the Skitter costume and the lightweight jetpack into my arms, I watched the kids as the doors slid closed.

  None of them wished us luck.

  Maybe we didn’t need any further reminders about our chances.

  23.05

  The waiting was the worst part.

  My restlessness was cranked up to eleven, cooped up in the craft with Defiant and Dragon, waiting to cross half the world. Dragon was focused on piloting the craft, unable to speak, in any event. Defiant was busy communicating, which translated to being inaudible as he kept the vents of his mask closed. From the images on the monitor, he was clearly tracking who was coming, our forces, the Endbringer and the high-risk areas.