Worm

by John McCrae

  First menstruation, check.

  Might as well get it over with. She made notes on the computer.

  Auto-hysterectomy.

  Auto-masectomy.

  Limb shortening.

  Bone shaving.

  Plastic surgery.

  Bonesaw would approve. Maybe it would be better to be taller, to have more room for equipment. Still, she could reverse the procedure. It wouldn’t be her parts, but that wasn’t such a problem.

  But for Riley, this was essential. It was a matter of months before Jack woke. She needed time to recover. The clones were in a good state. Only the Bonesaw vats were empty. Each of the others had an adolescent or nearly-adult clone inside. A month or two before the others woke from cryo-stasis, she’d start doing the surgeries, adding the augments, combining a handful of them together.

  She laid out everything on the table next to her. Scalpels, blood bags, IV drips, screwdrivers, wire, staple, cauterizing gun, hammer, stapler… a mix and match.

  She hefted the bonesaw and frowned a little. The word had taken on a different meaning for her, in recent months. It had stopped being her name somewhere along the line, had become her passenger’s.

  Anesthetic? No. She needed optimal awareness of her own body. Anything that dulled her senses would spoil that.

  She had the ability to switch off pain at will. She wouldn’t use it.

  No. She wouldn’t say she felt guilty about the things she’d done, but she recognized that she was broken, now. She recognized that maybe she should.

  A part of her wished she could reach inside and find that carefree perspective, the innocence she’d enjoyed. Another part of her was glad. Everything about herself was modifiable, reversible, pliable. Pieces in the machine. But this? She wasn’t sure she could alter it, nor that she wanted to.

  This wouldn’t be a penance. That would suggest penitence. But it’d be just, as best as she could figure.

  She started cutting.

  ■

  January 24th, 2013

  “The sign’s down,” she commented.

  “Riley!” Eli looked startled. He glanced back at his dad, who was stocking shelves. “It’s been… a really long time. I was worried I said something.”

  “No. Went to live with my dad,” she said. The lie was smooth, effortless. She didn’t even feel bad.

  “You’re back?”

  “Stopping by, like the first time you saw me.”

  He nodded, still a little stunned. “Uh… they found the girl dead in the woods. Some dogs had chewed her up pretty badly.”

  “Oh,” she responded. She’d practiced the look of concern in the mirror. Even now, she didn’t really feel guilt, but nothing was reliable, like it once had been. “I stopped in to say goodbye, Eli.”

  “Goodbye?” He seemed more surprised than disappointed.

  Maybe he already said goodbye to me, she thought. She didn’t feel hurt. Growing up with the Slaughterhouse Nine had numbed her in many respects. It made sense, little more.

  “I wanted to give you a gift,” she said. “As thanks for the movie advice, and the conversation over the past while. You helped me, gave me a friend when I needed one.”

  He frowned. “After your parent’s divorce, you mean.”

  “Yes.” Another easy lie.

  “I get that,” he said. He looked at the card. “Can I open it?”

  “No. There’s a date on it. Wait, then read it on the date in question. Break that rule and I’ll be mad, understand?”

  “I understand,” he responded. He looked down at the envelope. “My birthday.”

  “Yeah. And I don’t think you do understand,” she said, “But that’s okay. Just don’t break the rule, and don’t lose the letter.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Um. I would’ve gotten you something, but… oh.”

  He rummaged in his bag, then handed her a video tape.

  “I… I rented it, but I’ll pay the fee to replace it. One of my favorites from the last year.”

  A horror movie. A child werewolf?

  A child monster.

  She glanced at him, but there was nothing in his expression. She’d become exceptionally good at reading people, and… no. He had no idea how ironic the gift was.

  “Thank you,” she said, holding it to her stomach. “It’s probably okay if we just say hi and bye like usual, isn’t it? Fits?”

  “You look different,” he blurted out the words, a non-sequitur.

  She’d hoped the winter clothes would hide any of the reversions she’d made.

  “You look good,” he added.

  “Be fucking good, Eli,” she retorted, staring at him.

  Before, he might have protested, feigned confusion. He’d changed, much as she had.

  Now, he only nodded a little. “I will.”

  ■

  May 25th, 2013

  She sat with her feet propped up on the table, a bowl of Frooty Toots on her stomach, as the alarm went off.

  She felt a momentary sadness. She tapped her pinky with her thumb twice, and the embedded magnets noted the signal. She’d recorded her own brain activity and movements when contemplating the Bonesaw clones, and it was this that she drew on, manipulating her own body much as she had manipulated Blasto’s.

  Her body language wasn’t her own. Her smile, the way she walked, the gestures, all were fine tuned to match the Bonesaw of before.

  Her height, too, had changed. She’d cut her hair to match, had downgraded her body so the last year and a half of development had never happened.

  It was the burning of a bridge, in a way. It would retard her growth in the future, and that would arouse suspicion.

  In a way, she couldn’t carry on her relationship with the Nine. There would be too many tells, no time to herself to make changes in secret.

  The individual cases opened, and slowly but surely, the members of the current Slaughterhouse Nine stepped out. Jack, Hookwolf, Skinslip, Night Hag.

  She could see the conscious effort on Jack’s part to maintain his composure. He was barely able to stand.

  His eyes fixed on her.

  Somehow, she knew. She knew he knew. But that was no surprise.

  All she really needed was reasonable doubt. He would harbor suspicions, and he would pull something on her. Later.

  In the meantime, she’d have options.

  “You’re awake,” he commented.

  “And you’re nude,” she said, covering her eyes. “Where are your manners?”

  Like riding a bike. Back to her old self. Playing the role.

  “I’ll remedy that in an instant. Cereal?”

  “Made it myself. Took me a whole three hours to get it right. Felt like keeping busy.”

  “And the milk?”

  “Made it myself,” she responded. She grinned, and the device took over, gave it that width, that guilelessness she couldn’t manage on her own.

  “I won’t ask. My clothes?”

  She pointed him in the direction of the closet where she’d placed all of the roughspun uniforms, alongside the clothes Jack and the others had removed before stepping into the cryostasis chambers.

  He took a step, then stumbled.

  “I’m… not as coordinated as I should be,” he said.

  “Seems there’s trouble with the recovery phase,” Riley said. “Be a month or two before you’re on your feet.”

  “We have a schedule.”

  “I know. But I can’t fix this. Not my stuff.”

  He stared at her, brushed ice-crusted hair away from his face.

  But she wasn’t lying. There was no falsehood to pick out.

  “You could have woken us sooner.”

  “Nope, nope,” she said. “Would’ve mucked up the scheduling.”

  Still, that penetrating stare. This was the make or break moment.

  “Well,” Jack said, smiling, “Unavoidable. We’ll have to make it extra special.”

  “Triple special,” she answered. “Things h
ave been interesting while we’ve been gone.”

  “Interesting?”

  “I’ll show you later.”

  “And the clones?”

  “I was waiting for you to wake up before we greeted them.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “Excellent.”

  She smiled wide as he turned, covering his bare rear end on his way to the closet, even as she felt coldness in her heart.

  Hookwolf, for his part, only drew blades around his body, forming into a giant metal form. She wondered if he looked a little introspective, before his head was covered in the mass of shifting, skirring hooks and needles.

  She chewed on her cereal, and watched more of her movie.

  She did like it, after all. Eli had been right.

  She smiled, hiding the sense of loss as she deleted it from the system and cleaned up the evidence.

  One by one, the recently unfrozen members of the Nine rejoined them, dressed in their outfits and costumes.

  Jack gestured, and she hit the key on the keyboard. Lights.

  Spotlights went on beneath each of the glass chambers.

  Drain.

  The fluids poured out, draining into the openings in the floor. Blurry figures became more distinct, marred only by the residual droplets clinging to the interior of each chamber.

  “You didn’t do yours,” Jack commented.

  “Didn’t work out.”

  “I see,” he said.

  Every line of dialogue felt like a nail in the coffin.

  But that coffin wasn’t a concern today, or even tomorrow.

  For now, Jack needed her. For now, she had options.

  She smiled, wide, with a glee she didn’t feel.

  The woman in the suit had options. She would come to Riley and claim the remote.

  Countless enemies would be mustering their forces, ready to deal with this.

  Eli had the letter. He’d find a plane ticket inside, along with an urging to leave and stay gone. To drive the point home, she’d revealed her identity.

  Yet Riley still felt a moment’s doubt.

  Some rose from their knees. Others had managed to remain standing from the moments the fluid left the chambers. As they roused, powers flickered into action.

  Siberians flickered into being near the Mantons. Six like the daughter, three more like Manton himself, all in black and white.

  Chuckles, tall, fat, with arms that zig-zagged, her own addition. Thirty-one elbows, and arms that dragged behind them as they moved. Here and there, one of them would twitch, a tic. The clown makeup was a series of scars, tattooed on. One activated his speedster abilities experimentally, crossing the room in a flash.

  Nostalgic, in a way. Chuckles had been around when she’d joined.

  Murder Rat. Not stapled together as the original had been. She’d taken the time to do it well. When membership had been down, Bonesaw had made Murder Rat as a created addition to the Slaughterhouse Nine. She’d passed the tests, but degradation in mental and physical faculties over time had seen to her demotion.

  Winter, white-haired, with white irises edged in black, nude, her eyes peering. Madeline’s eyes, Riley thought. Winter would need guns, of course.

  Crimson, Winter’s brief-lived lover. Riley had taken the time to program their relationship into them. Crimson had been one of the first members in the group, Winter one of the more recent ones to die. Winter had been followed by Hatchet Face -there he was, over there, nine of them- and Hatchet Face had been followed by Cherish.

  Nine Cherishes, gathering in a huddle. She’d forgotten to give them the tattoos. It didn’t matter. A glance suggested they were discussing different ways to do their hair.

  The smile on her own face was so wide it hurt, but it wasn’t her smile.

  King, tall and blond, unabashed in his nudity. All nine Kings were broad-shouldered, each half a foot taller than Jack.

  Their interaction would be an interesting one. She’d wondered if she should program King with the knowledge that Jack had been the one to kill him, reconsidered.

  Oh, and there were others. Some were harder to recognize. Nine Alan Grammes, who lacked his armor. Nine Neds, narrow shouldered and only five and a half feet tall. When the others had done some damage and given him a chance to regenerate, he’d resemble his true self a little better. He’d be Crawler.

  “And the last one?” Jack pointed at the remaining chamber.

  She hit a button, and for a moment, her expression slipped. She closed her eyes, a brief moment too long, as nutrient soup drained out of the chamber and the glass lowered.

  But nobody was looking at her.

  The boy stepped out, and there was no sign of any difficulty. He didn’t struggle as others had, nor have trouble finding his feet. He was prepubescent, to look at him, older than ten but younger than fourteen. His hair was neatly parted, and he wore a private school uniform, complete with glossy black shoes. Dry.

  Even though he was naked in the tube.

  Then again, that was sort of his thing. One of them, anyways.

  Visually, the most notable part of him was the effect that surrounded him. He was monochrome, all grays and whites and blacks, with spots of light and shadow flickering around him. Here and there, he flickered, a double image momentarily overlapping him, ghostly, looking in a different direction.

  As far as parahuman powers went, his was as unfair as they got.

  “Jack,” Gray Boy said. His voice was high, clear as a bell.

  “Nicholas.”

  Jack extended a hand and Nicholas shook it.

  Riley felt her stomach sink.

  It would be like Gray Boy to use his power and take out someone in the room, just because he could. Jack had only wanted one, and the unspoken reality was that he only wanted one because he could only control one.

  If he wasn’t going after Jack, then… she was the only other person in the room without clones surrounding her.

  He approached her, his expression placid.

  For a brief moment, she felt stark fear.

  It was perhaps her salvation that the fear was buried under the expressions that her system pasted on her face. The false smile that spread across her face was the push she needed to hop down from her seat, approaching him. She leaned in close to kiss him on the cheeks, her hands on his shoulders, one leg cocking upward like she’d seen women in older films doing.

  “Little brother,” she murmured.

  “Bonesaw,” he said, voicing a name she hadn’t programmed into him. His hand found hers, and he held it. She felt a chill. “We’ll be inseparable, I think.”

  “Inseparable,” she answered, smiling falsely.

  The others from rows further down in the chamber slowly approached. She watched Jack taking it all in. Two hundred and seventy-five in all. Two hundred and seventy regulars, five special makes. Snowmann, Nighty Night, Laughjob, Tyrant, Spawner.

  The names had never been a strength of hers.

  I’ve given you everything you want, she thought. Now we see who comes out ahead. Succeed, and Bonesaw comes to the fore. Fail, and Riley wins.

  She wanted Riley to win, but that wasn’t as simple as making a decision. She had to bury her life with the Nine. Bury Jack, and see him defeated.

  Gray Boy squeezed her hand. She would have jumped, if her body language wasn’t in the system’s control. She looked at him, and he winked.

  Her expression hadn’t wavered, she hadn’t allowed herself the slightest tell, but somehow he fell in the same category as Jack.

  He knew.

  Staring out at the gathered crowd, Jack seemed to reach a conclusion. He glanced at her, as Gray Boy was doing.

  “Good,” he said.

  Arc 26: Sting

  26.01

  One of Rachel’s dogs growled, long and loud, an alien, unsure sound.

  She shushed it, setting her hand on the side of its head.

  “Ugh,” Cozen mumbled, “The smell.”

  The smell. Summer heat, the mingled
scent of blood, shit and overripe bodies, with traces of other things in the wind. Caustic chemicals, ozone, smoke, burned flesh and plastic.

  It wasn’t unfamiliar. Not an exact combination of smells I’d smelled before, but it put me in mind of Brockton Bay in the days soon after Leviathan had attacked.

  I looked up at the man who’d been strung up overhead, spread-eagled. Chains stretched from his wrists to buildings on opposite sides of the street, and more chains extended from his ankles to the bases of the same buildings. A number was carved on his chest. One-seventeen.

  Beneath him, the sign from outside the town limits had been slammed down onto the hoods of two cars so it stood upright.

  Welcome to Killington. Heart of the Green Mountains.

  They probably thought it was funny. Especially with the bloody handprint on the word ‘heart’.

  “They got the children too,” Cozen whispered, as she averted her eyes from a mother who had died holding her child, both burned black. The only parts of their body that hadn’t burned were patches of skin in the shapes of numbers. Two-fifty-four. Two-fifty-five.

  Two of the Red Hands, Getaway and Rifle, had come along for the ride. They were sticking close by her, and formed a small contingent with Grue as a consequence. Getaway wore a cowl with a hood that peaked in the front, to the center of his mask. His costume had straight, clean lines, as though he’d modeled it after a car.

  Rifle, by contrast, didn’t look like he wore a costume. He was dressed like a special ops agent, complete with a complicated night-vision mount around his eyes, a number of scopes with lenses glowing in hues ranging from blue to red. Violet scopes were currently fixed over his real eyes. He carried a weapon, a modified gun that wasn’t, as far as I could figure it, an actual rifle. It looked like it was set to fire specialized loads from canisters.

  Of course they got children, I thought. I had to bite back a retort. Why was she here, if she wasn’t ready for this?

  But she wasn’t a fighter. None of the Red Hands were, really. They were professional thieves. Break in, get out, sell the goods.

  They were, maybe, what the Undersiders might have been with a little more luck, slightly different personalities, and a quieter existence.