Worm

by John McCrae

  I shook my head a little. “No dying. That goes both ways.”

  “Way I see it,” Imp said, “She’s gone soft. Real quick, too, getting affectionate, lovey-dovey.”

  “Alternate costume, too,” Regent said, “White, light gray, baby blue…”

  “Electric blue,” I said. I was smiling now. I used the flight-pack to slow my descent as I hopped down from the head of the craft. I pitched my voice lower so I wouldn’t be overheard, and poked Regent in the chest. “Fuck you guys. I’m as badass as ever. Recommending drugs to kids, strangling a ten year old, forcing bugs down my allies’ throats…”

  “Killing Alexandria,” Regent said.

  “Mm,” I said, and I could feel my heart plummet into my stomach. All at once, I was left wondering just how many capes here were secretly blaming me.

  “Asshole,” Tattletale told Regent.

  I folded my arms, feeling a chill, the summer warmth notwithstanding. “We may pay for that today.”

  “I think we’re fucked in general,” Tattletale said. “But no sweat. We’ll-”

  She snapped her head around. There was an uncharacteristic emotion as she swore under her breath. “Fuck. He’s up.”

  A second later, the ships each spoke in their identical voices, out of sync not because of any flaw in Dragon’s program, but due to their positions across the field, and the delay of sound traveling, a chorus, “Behemoth has surfaced. Return to your craft as soon as possible. Supplies will be provided while we are en route. Individuals on the ground may or may not be left behind.“

  “See you on the battlefield,” Grue said.

  “See you,” I answered. I felt a tug of worry. I had almost hoped he’d sit this one out. He didn’t tend to do well when it came to facing down the real monsters.

  I bit my tongue and started up the flight pack.

  “Don’t hold back now,” Regent said. I could see that he was watching the guy who was still training his camera phone on me. Regent turned back to me and extended his arms, injecting fake emotion into his voice, “You know we love you too!”

  I kicked off, just barely floating out of reach as he tried to fold me into a hug. “Jackass.”

  He was back to his casual, detached attitude in an instant, showing just a touch of swagger as he stepped back to rejoin the others. He gave me a sloppy mock salute. I shifted my ascent and set foot on the head of the craft that had been behind me.

  “Just remember,” Tattletale called out, “You’re officially Skitter today. Don’t be a hero. No point to all this shit if you do something brave and get yourself killed.”

  “Not sure about that,” I said. “About being Skitter, not the getting killed bit.”

  Heroes were rapidly retreating to the craft. I didn’t have long. There was so much I wanted to say, but… shit.

  “Rachel,” I said.

  She glanced up at me, her eyes almost hidden behind her hair. I could see the hurt in her expression, a raw feeling.

  “The letter, it helped. All of the letters meant a lot to me, except Imp’s. But yours especially.”

  She grunted in acknowledgement, setting Bastard on the ground, then stood.

  “And I’m probably going to get crucified for saying this, but I still consider you a friend. Someday, after all of this has settled down, when you don’t need to be a villain anymore to take care of your dogs, and I’m okay where I’m at, I want to hang out again. Throw the balls for the dogs, clean up dog shit, go for walks. Whatever works.”

  “Saying shit like that, you’re signing death warrants!” Regent said, his hands to the side of his head. “Stop it, you lunatic!”

  I shook my head, then turned and took flight.

  All around me, doors were shutting. If it weren’t for my bug sense, I might have lost track of where Defiant was. So many Dragon-ships, no two quite the same.

  I entered, and I could see Defiant standing in front of the monitors, his arms around Dragon’s shoulders. One of them must have acknowledged my presence, because the doors of the craft began shutting behind me as I made my way inside.

  Odd as it was, I hadn’t fully parsed that they were together before now.

  I approached, quiet, and watched as the drama on the monitors unfolded. The bugs from the field followed me inside, clustering around me.

  Behemoth, nearly fifty feet tall, was still standing in the midst of a collapsed building. The structure had no doubt fallen on top of him as he emerged, and the debris was ablaze, casting his gray skin in hues of red and orange. He didn’t seem to care about the building.

  Dragon’s A.I. were already attacking him, each from the greatest distance possible. The camera shook, out of sync with the timing of the strikes, as the vibrations took time to travel to the distant cameraman.

  Heroes were fighting, contributing pitifully little to the assault. They were too distant to make out.

  “Locals?” I asked.

  Defiant turned, reacting as if he were surprised I was present. “Yes. Don’t ask me to pronounce their names.”

  “Sāhasī Pān̄ca,” Dragon said.

  I glanced at her in surprise. “You can talk, all of a sudden?”

  There was a pause. “…Little.”

  “She felt she needed to be able to communicate,” Defiant said. To her, he said, “And this is the last time we make a last-minute fix.”

  “I’m sort of in the dark here,” I said.

  Defiant declined to fill me in, staring at the screen. His voice was almost pained as he muttered, “They’re too close.”

  One Dragon suit was unleashing what looked like a freeze ray at the Endbringer, while another of the Dragon suits was turning a laser on the ground beneath Behemoth’s broad feet. It wasn’t enough to take away his footing. He set one ‘claw’ -a growth of obsidian-like black shards- onto solid earth, then half-loped, half-hopped forward. With his claws and feet now on firm ground, he leaped. The shockwave of his departure toppled the slipshod buildings around him in his wake.

  The landing as he arrived flattened another set of buildings. The heroes started to run. They were too slow, when compared to the length of Behemoth’s legs, the sheer power he was capable of putting into the simple act of walking. One by one, they fell within his kill range. Two were scorched from the inside, a brawny-looking cape seized up with smoke billowing from his corpse as he struck ground, his arms and limbs still twitching in death.

  One managed to escape, taking flight. He got a full four city blocks away before Behemoth reached out. He was struck out of the air by a visible arc of lightning that extended from a claw’s tip.

  Four A.I. were continually bombarding him now, three using what looked to be freeze-rays. The fourth alternated between destroying his footing and blasting burning buildings flat with some sort of concussive laser-drill, stifling the spread of the fires. Heroes here and there contributed some inaccurate ranged fire, but seemed preoccupied with fleeing.

  Behemoth hardly seemed to care about any of it.

  Our ship lifted off. Outside, the surroundings were taking on a rosy tint. I could hear the cumulative thrum of the twenty-seven Dragon-craft’s propulsion systems operating in unison. My bugs could track them all, the late arrivals included.

  There was a shudder, and the rosy tint of our surroundings intensified, filling the cabin. We started to move, and it wasn’t the ship moving us. Dragon stepped out of Defiant’s embrace to approach the ship controls.

  An instant later, the propulsion system kicked into motion, and we were moving far faster than before. The shuddering of the cabin was so intense I had to sit down.

  “India’s capes fall into two categories,” Defiant said, not taking his eyes off the screen. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the movement of the craft. “They term their capes ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, with very strict rules on who falls into a category. Walk between the two groups, you get the worst of both. Hot, it’s about flash, color, appeal, and engaging the public. Villain or hero, they’re cap
e celebrities. Cold, it’s… bloodshed, violence, assassination and secrecy. Capes of the underworld. The public doesn’t see or hear about the cold capes. The media does not speak of them.”

  On the screen, Behemoth wasn’t even slowing down. Another arc of lightning lanced across the cityscape, setting a dozen fires. The houses looked shoddy, dirty, and were apparently very flammable. The flames spread quickly, and plumes of smoke were streaming towards the overcast sky.

  “The capes that are getting killed, they’re-”

  “Garama,” Dragon said. “…Hot.”

  “We need the ones with killer instinct,” Defiant said. “The ones who fight for real, not for play. The cold capes.”

  “Thanda,” Dragon supplied the translation.

  “Question is whether the Thanda think it’s worth breaking the rules and emerging from the shadows,” Defiant said.

  “Did last… time,” Dragon said, her words bearing an odd cadence. She approached me, holding an armband and a silver packet.

  I accepted them, turning both over in my hands. “Radiation pills?”

  She nodded, holding up one finger.

  “Take one?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Still.”

  “Still?” I asked.

  But she just touched one side of my face. One finger was under my chin, and I raised it, looking up at her, confused.

  She let me go, leaving me momentarily confused. I touched my face where she’d laid her hand and felt two bumps.

  A camera?

  “Dragon,” Defiant said, before I could ask any questions. “Look.”

  She approached his side, her arms wrapping around his armored left arm, metal scraping against metal.

  “They’re not supposed to be here,” he commented, his voice low.

  I turned my attention to the monitor. “Who aren’t?”

  “The Yàngbǎn.”

  The focus was on a formation of capes. They were lined up like musketeers, rank and file, each a set distance apart from the others. The ones in front were kneeling, the ones behind standing. Each wore a mask that covered their faces, flowing costumes with loose sleeves and pants, somewhere between a martial arts uniform and a military uniform, each crimson with a black design of horizontal and vertical lines at edges of the sleeves and pants. There were nearly thirty of them.

  All together, they directed lasers at him, aiming for his one red eye. He blocked the concentrated laser-fire with one claw, and the flesh at the base of the obsidian claw began peeling away.

  “Who are they?”

  “The C.U.I.’s military parahumans.”

  “Isn’t the C.U.I. xenophobic?”

  “Yes,” Dragon said. Her voice sounded funny. It wasn’t emotion, but something was somehow off about it.

  “Excepting diplomatic functions, this is the first time in over a decade that any of the Yàngbǎn have set foot outside of China,” Defiant said. “We’ve tried to arrange for their aid in the past, but relations between our side and theirs are sour. For years, they’ve alleged that the PRT and the Protectorate are fundamentally corrupt, the source of the problems currently plaguing the world.”

  “They were right,” I said.

  “Yes,” Defiant said. He didn’t sound happy about the admission.

  Behemoth slammed his claws together. The Yàngbǎn responded by creating forcefields en-masse, one for every person, overlapping with those to either side of them. The shockwave of the clap ripped through them, shattering the first two rows of forcefields and virtually liquefying the unfortunate capes who no longer had protection.

  The Yàngbǎn in the back rows were already dropping their forcefields, extending their hands forward, open palms aimed at their comrades.

  The shockwave’s effects reversed in an instant, and the injured were whole, holding the positions they’d been in an instant before. Here and there, the reaction had been a fraction too slow, and the Yàngbǎn members were only reversed to the instant the shockwave made contact. They were thrown back and caught by the ones in the back row, blood streaming from their eyes, noses and ears. One was saved much too late, and the process of being liquefied was only repeated, splattering the Yàngbǎn soldier who’d failed to react in time to rescue him.

  Behemoth unleashed a rolling tide of flame, and the remaining twenty-eight Yàngbǎn fled, using a combination of enhanced speed and flight. The remains of the dead member were left behind.

  “I can’t tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing,” I commented.

  “With luck, they’ve changed their minds and we have much-needed allies,” Defiant said.

  “And if they haven’t?”

  He didn’t reply.

  More of Dragon’s craft were arriving, adding their attacks to those of the others. I could recognize the wheel-dragon, using some sort of tuned electromagnetic pull to draw away the loose rubble from beneath Behemoth. He sank nearly ten feet as the ground shifted around him.

  He struck the wheel-dragon with a bolt of lightning, flaying off a few plates of armor and destroying the wheel. It opened its mouth and launched cannon-fire at him. The shells exploded into blobs of containment foam, fireproof, sticky, virtually impossible to remove.

  But not capable of holding back something like Behemoth.

  More lightning was unleashed, each doing successively more damage to the craft. By the fourth blast, it wasn’t operational. The fifth split it down the middle. Insulation was little use against a dynakinetic that could redirect the natural course of electricity.

  Ten craft were around him now, concentrating fire. Cryogenic beams, containment foam and more served to slow him down. Not stopping him. No, that was too much to hope for. His pace was roughly two-thirds the speed it might otherwise be, at a glance, his attention focused on the A.I.

  Behemoth brought both hands together, but it wasn’t to clap. Instead, he directed a stream of lightning at the nearest craft, easily twenty feet across. It was splintered in an instant.

  A second craft perished a second later.

  Before he could turn his attention to a third, the stream of lightning shifted, curving off to one side. Drones, the annoying little bastard spheres that had electorcuted me on multiple occasions, the same ones that had been built into the ceilings of the cells and prison hallways in the PRT headquarters, were in flight, deployed by a drone-ship like the one I’d fought in Brockton Bay, and they were channeling the lightning along a different path.

  Behemoth wasn’t one to roar, but I could see the effort at work as he began to draw the lightning away from the remote drones, forcing it to take another path, beyond the route of ionized air or the electromagnetic charge that they were using to catch it and harmlessly redirect it into an area that was already rubble. He was taking abuse from the airborne craft, unable to move without giving ground. More containment foam and more ice built around him, tearing and melting, respectively, in response to his lesser movements.

  They moved closer together, strengthening the bond, and the lightning was caught once more.

  He gave up on the lightning and blasted the drones out of the air with a wave of heated wind. An instant later, he resumed destroying the craft. Three in as many seconds, and then a slam of one claw against a building. The shockwave that followed leveled a whole row of buildings.

  I belatedly swallowed a radiation pill and attached the armband.

  The screen displayed text: ‘Name?’

  “Weaver,” I said.

  The letters appeared on the screen. I confirmed with a press of the button.

  A map of my surroundings appeared, a landscape rushing by. In one corner, the distance to Behemoth was noted, rapidly counting down.

  I could see the runway an instant before the ship touched down. The rosy glow was still present as the ship cut back on forward thrust. The craft touched the runway belly-down, skidding to a near-stop.

  The red tint that surrounded everything disappeared, and Defiant caught my arm with one hand, holding on to a bea
m in the ceiling with the other.

  The ship activated one thruster, and the craft swung around. The other thruster kicked to life, and we took off, still bearing some of the forward momentum from earlier. We were moving in a near-perpendicular direction to the one we’d been traveling earlier. Defiant let go of my arm.

  When I looked back at the screen, nearly half of the city was on fire. Black smoke choked the skies, a stark contrast to the cloudy sky of only minutes ago.

  “Were they able to evacuate most?” Defiant asked.

  “No,” Dragon answered.

  Our craft touched ground, and I glanced out the window to see a sliver of what the monitors showed. A sky choked by darkness, a city aflame.

  The glow of his single eye cut through the smoke, and I was reminded of Lung. Of that first night, on the rooftop, when one of Lung’s eyes had been swollen shut, the other open. Lung, like Behemoth, had been virtually untouchable.

  This was that same scenario, that same fight. I couldn’t hope to win. At best, I’d manage a distraction, a momentary handicap, but he’d recuperate, and given the chance, he’d murder me with a casual ease.

  This wasn’t a rooftop, but there wouldn’t be an easy means of escape. And just as I’d acted to stop Lung from hurting what I thought were innocent kids, I was acting here to save lives.

  The same thing, but on a far greater scale. The danger, the stakes, all scaled up by a thousand times, a million times.

  The back of the craft opened, and Defiant led the way as we made our exit. Spotlights cast much-needed light on the immediate surroundings. The ships had settled in a ring formation, some posed above the others, as if providing a protective enclosure. Weapons were directed outside, and one craft loomed overhead. For now, we were as safe as we could hope to be.

  Chevalier, Rime and the rest of his new Protectorate were all in one group, backed by their respective teams.

  A nearby crash made half of the people present, myself included, nearly jump out of their skin. It was somehow reassuring that Chevalier managed to retain his composure.