Worm

by John McCrae

  “Oh god,” someone said. “Oh god, oh god.”

  With my bugs spread out over the area, I couldn’t feel a single telltale breeze of a portal opening around us.

  I closed my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Taylor,” Tattletale said. “I wish-“

  Her voice shorted out as the energy of Scion’s attack cut out the communications.

  27.05

  “Run!” I screamed the word. I took my own advice.

  The golden light around Scion had solidified, forming a sphere. The light dropped.

  Others were already scrambling to get away, but there wasn’t a place to go. No portals, no place to run. The speed and size of the orb made one thing clear. The people in the center wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to make their exit.

  I’d been standing in the direct center, to better observe those on the other sides of the portals. I was one of those people.

  I’d spent years running on schedule, interrupted only by injuries here and there, more hectic weeks and a spell in prison. Years of pushing my limits, pushing myself to move faster, strengthen my legs, build my stamina. I used it all, pushed myself as hard as I ever had. The wings on my flight pack extended, and I used the thrusters to give myself some additional speed.

  Lab Rat, who had apparently realized the futility of trying to move, wasn’t running at all, but was rearing back, a device the size of a baseball in his hand. He threw it, aiming to put it over the water.

  Not enough. Lab Rat wasn’t one of those prisoners who’d packed on muscle in prison. The ball fell short, then started rolling slightly back towards him.

  He swore in a language I didn’t know, started to run towards the object. Too slow. If he wasn’t going to make it over the edge and get to safety, he wasn’t going to reach the object.

  My bugs hit the object as a mass, rolling it. It tipped over the edge. Lab Rat stopped.

  The bugs around him caught one word. “Angel.”

  Lustrum used her power. It was like walking into a wall, but it wasn’t physical. My brain went blank for an instant, the heat and energy in my body seemed to disappear like someone had flicked a switch. My power, too, faded, the range zooming to a point close to me, my control momentarily going haywire. An instant later, it was back. I staggered, compensated with the antigravity, managed to not fall too far behind.

  The sphere above us shrunk a fraction. Maybe. Hard to make out, considering the size of it, and the speed with which it fell. Lustrum, for her part, grew.

  I didn’t get to see how big she grew. The orb made contact with the platform, shearing through everything it touched. My bugs died as the orb touched them, and I could sense the devastation spread as more and more of it came in contact with the structure.

  The outermost edges of the orb were still directly overhead, plunging towards me, towards us.

  I stepped off the rig, pushing myself off, letting myself fall as I continued moving out, moving away. Falling was good, because it put me further away from the orb. I’d sooner hit the water than let that thing touch me.

  Bugs that couldn’t fall as well as I could died as the orb made contact. Bugs that were close to me. Bugs to my left and right, bugs beneath me.

  I felt a momentary disconnect between what I was seeing and what I was feeling. I felt like I was plunging into the water, everything going numb, pain, my thoughts fragmenting. Yet I was still fifty or so feet above the water’s surface, my view shifting as I veered to one side, despite my instructions to the flight pack.

  Lustrum? No.

  I felt increasingly disoriented with every heartbeat. Couldn’t fly. Spiraling.

  Unbalanced.

  Blood.

  Injury.

  I tried to take in breath. Couldn’t. I felt pain instead. Right ribs, back, stomach, left buttock, left thigh.

  I was falling. I spread my arms out, trying to slow the descent, failed.

  Right hand gone. Blood, fragments of golden light eating away at stump, making the bleeding worse.

  Falling faster, spiraling more. Thoughts weren’t flowing. I jerked to one side with wind catching wing, spinning abruptly, felt something wrench, pulling from the center of my body.

  Fragment of a memory: Legend speaking. Talking about Leviathan. Hit water moving fast enough, worse than hitting concrete.

  Had to slow my fall. Most important thing.

  There were bugs on me. I moved them, to get a sense of where I was. Compare to surroundings.

  One wing on pack.

  No legs. Half of stomach left.

  The pulling feeling was organs sliding out of body.

  Thoughts blurring.

  Help, passenger. A plea, an order.

  Move arms of flight pack that aren’t broken. Brace against injury.

  Wing retracting, propulsion canceled.

  Focus on bugs, on antigravity.

  Time activation to break spin. Left, right, match to speed.

  Disorientation getting worse. Two, three seconds where I can’t remember where I am.

  Focus on bugs. Only bugs.

  Flight pack pulsing. Rely on intuition. Starting to feel more pain. Burning sensations. Pulling in middle of body. I start timing flight pack to heartbeat, waves of pain, instead of where I am, direction I’m facing.

  Focus. Focus.

  Fix position, facing sky, see Scion hovering. Great smoky shimmering figure stands on water, holding ten or twelve people against arm, tall as oil rig was.

  Oil rig collapsing. Only two legs remain, slumping into water.

  Focus.

  Facing sky. What was I doing?

  Flight pack.

  Gravity, push against direction of fall, slow my descent.

  Not enough. Falling too fast. Need to slow fall just a bit more.

  I extended the wing. Propulsion.

  Started spinning again, feel wrenching get worse, spreading through entire upper body.

  Hit water while spinning.

  No breath left in lungs for impact to take. Wing breaks, flopping over and over across water’s surface.

  Stopped.

  Sinking. Use antigrav to try and stay afloat, but system isn’t meant to be used underwater. Can’t float because no air in lungs. Slowly sinking.

  I opened my mouth to draw in a breath, had to struggle to manage it, felt intense pain, a crushing in one side.

  But I managed to get some air.

  Small bubbles spilled out of my side, from beneath the water.

  The water around me was murky with blood.

  No chance I’d live like this. Nobody nearby. Scion was attacking the giant, cutting her to pieces. Capes she was holding fell.

  The rig was collapsing, two pillars slowly falling in opposite directions, one left, one right. The platform itself was twisting, splitting apart.

  So was I. Half of me gone, the remains slowly leaking out into the water around me. Blood, fluids, intestine.

  I didn’t want to die. Not like this.

  Not at all.

  I thought about my tools, as if there was an answer there. My pepper spray?

  Delirious, I almost thought about using it on my wounded lower body, some broken connection between burning sensation and burning and cauterizing.

  My taser was gone, obliterated by the damage to my side.

  My gun?

  I couldn’t manage a laugh, but I would have if I could have. Thoughts of amusement crossed my mind. Shooting myself would be one answer, but it wasn’t one I wanted to make.

  I wasn’t ready to die. Even hovering over Gimel’s version of Brockton Bay, I’d tested the limits, stayed out too long.

  But now, like this, I knew I wouldn’t have let it happen. I would have fought to swim back, would have called or signaled for help, pride be damned.

  Damn it all, I wanted to fight.

  Ironic, that I’d be so idiotic when the fight had been taken out of me, but I’d feel so compelled to fight when there was little option besides making peace with t
he end.

  I managed a little breath.

  Just let yourself sink. Tell the antigravity to cut out, take in one mouthful of water. That’d be the end of it.

  I couldn’t. I didn’t.

  But the pain was getting twice as bad with every heartbeat.

  Wristband. Dark.

  I didn’t have a right hand to press the button with anyways.

  Lab Rat’s device?

  I thought about it, and in that same thought, I recognized a sensation that had been drowned out by the pain. A repeated pressure. A poke, a pause, another poke.

  I raised my arm over the water, shifted my orientation with a use of one of the antigrav panels, and I briefly heard a beeping in the moment the device was raised above the water level.

  A part of the platform fell. The resulting waves rolled towards me.

  I didn’t have it in me to hold my breath, so I closed my mouth, prayed water wouldn’t flow up my nose.

  I was drowned, swamped by the water, rolled. I felt a dull, indistinct pain in a place that felt disconnected from my real body, something tearing. The body parts that were spooling out in the water beneath around around me.

  I found the surface again.

  My lungs were burning for air as I opened my mouth to try and draw air into my lungs. My lung, considering the other might have collapsed.

  Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, my thoughts simultaneously chaotic and focused. I had nothing left but adrenaline.

  Water flowed into my mouth. I shut it, moved my tongue to help force that same water out between my lips. Needed to get higher.

  Everything was going dark.

  The prodding in my arm continued.

  Lab Rat’s device. Whatever it was trying to do, my costume was getting in the way.

  I couldn’t reach up to move it because I was missing a hand, couldn’t twist my left hand to move it, because of the limitations of my body. The attempt at even moving my left arm made me acutely aware of the damage to my hand. I might have fractured or broken it as I hit the water.

  I took in a small breath, forced myself to take in another. I could hear the wheeze of my lungs and throat straining to work.

  And then I used the flight pack to rotate myself, turning myself so my face was in the water.

  I floated there, arms extended out to either side, rocking as the waves continued to shift me.

  My bugs descended from the air above, landing on me.

  The strap that attached the device to my arm wasn’t spider silk. Cockroaches began to chew it.

  My lungs burned. Every moment, even the smallest movement, it redoubled the pain.

  I’ve dealt with worse, I told myself.

  I couldn’t quite believe that, couldn’t think back to that, compare, and convince myself.

  The water rolled over me. My cockroaches were washed away.

  Again. More. Hornets, more cockroaches.

  They hovered for the ten or twelve seconds it took me to raise my arm up above the water again. I let bubbles of air leak out between my lips, as if I could convince my brain that I was breathing, convince my body to hold on just a bit longer, forestall that involuntary gasp.

  The device came free. Strands of silk helped to hold it as the swarm descended, hurried to carry it.

  Shoulder. Back.

  Nape of the neck.

  Over the hill that was my hood.

  They reached the point where my mask stopped, my hairline began.

  Vanity. I’d held on to my long hair, wore a costume that let my hair free.

  When I’d been filled with self loathing, when I was so focused on the individual imperfections and the overall ugliness of my features, in the midst of the bullying campaign that had defined my early teen years, I’d still liked my hair.

  The skin was exposed there. No costume to get in the way.

  Please be healing, I thought, lowering the device until it was against my back.

  Pause… and then a prod.

  A needle, piercing the skin.

  A pressure, as something pumped into my body.

  Heal me.

  It wasn’t healing.

  Flesh knit together, but it wasn’t healing.

  The pain faded as quickly and dramatically as it had taken hold, but, still, I wasn’t healing.

  Not exactly.

  My thoughts became clearer.

  Water churned where it came in contact with my blood. Where my flesh closed together and trapped water inside me, the effect intensified. It was soon the only pain I felt.

  We’re eighty percent water, or whatever the number is, I thought. Resources have to come from somewhere.

  Water was seeping into my throat, despite my efforts to keep my mouth clamped shut.

  I turned myself over. I breathed, and it wasn’t as hard as it had been before. My mouth opened, but it wasn’t just the lips parting, or the jaw moving up and down. Things separated and stretched open on a horizontal plane as well. The soaked cloth of my mask stretched.

  My legs kicked, but they weren’t good legs for swimming. I kept kicking anyways. Something about the way they moved, they were designed so that the motions shifted my abdominal cavity, pumped it, forcing air in and out with the rhythmic activity.

  I had to use my hands to paddle myself forward. Well… one hand and one other limb. The shape was still nebulous, the growth warring against the steady deterioration of the burning golden energy that still lingered here and there. It blackened and flaked off, and a little headway was made.

  The digit extended, broadened, flattened.

  It wasn’t fully formed, but it served as a paddle. I began inching myself closer to the platform. Easy enough to manage, considering the steady movement of the water. Things were flowing into some sort of narrow, tight whirlpool, where water was flowing into some hole in the ocean floor.

  I shifted my arms in movements that were jerky, not quite muscular. The motions were strong, but hard to control, to moderate. It was fine. I didn’t need control or moderation here. I made my way towards one of the intact legs of the platform. A circle of concrete, cracked by strain, with rebar visible in the cracks.

  I pulled myself up, but the attempt was spastic, spasmodic. I managed to haul myself up, moved a little too far, then fell.

  Another attempt. This time I focused on holding on, bringing my legs up. One leg in one crevice, another leg into a crack, another set on a ledge where the concrete above wasn’t quite seated properly.

  My right hand opened, and the motion was more like metal tearing than anything else, tissue parting violently and unwillingly, creating a gap that was as much wound as it was design.

  The flesh joined together, forming ridges that faced one another.

  I closed it, felt the ridges meet. The flesh was still tender. I left it alone.

  My flight pack provided additional lift as I climbed. It was overly heavy, the antigrav weak, but it gave me lift. I found footholds, handholds for my one hand, and used the arms of my flight pack where I saw opportunities.

  I found my stride, scaling the surface with increasing speed, until I was moving faster than I might have covered the same distance running. My swarm climbed over the surface and provided a map of the places I could find footholds.

  I tested my right hand. The flesh wasn’t tender. It was hard. There were studs at regular intervals along either half, like teeth. Very like teeth.

  A claw.

  I raised my claw over my head, then drew it down violently, driving it into a crack.

  I was able to climb faster. I reached the point where the concrete ended. A shaft of four steel beams reinforced by criss-crossing beams set at diagonals loomed above me.

  It was an even faster climb than the concrete. My legs ended in points, and those same points slipped off of the metal beams, but I had seven limbs to work with. Even if half of my limbs were reaching out for holds, I still had three or four solid points of contact I could maintain at any given point in time.<
br />
  Rage bubbled inside me, but it wasn’t mine. I’d experienced my own anger, I knew how it influenced my own body, how it was connected to my emotions. This was something else. Hormones kicking into overdrive, compelling my body to react. Other parts of my body being designed angry, designed so they were primed for fight or flight, driving me to act and refuse to let me sit still.

  Lab Rat’s stuff was geared towards turning people into weapons, making them take whatever forms he keyed into the formula and then act. I knew it. My awareness of what was going on wasn’t stopping it. I was riding a tide of emotion, moving towards a fight where I couldn’t possibly do anything to stop Scion, putting myself in danger.

  Had I chosen to, I could have turned away.

  But I liked being emotional, liked coming out of my shell, acting.

  Some of my finer moments had been when I was doing just that.

  I reached the top of the pillar and paused. I wasn’t out of breath, and my limbs weren’t really built in such a way that they got tired. Still, I had a barrier overhead, now, and I didn’t trust my flight pack to hold my weight. I glanced down, and the individual waves were too difficult to distinguish. Here and there, there were flecks of white where they crested.

  Water still trailed from gaps in the pack as I reached up, folded two tarsus -two ‘feet’- around a beam over my head, and then swung myself up, grabbing another beam with my claw. I experimented, testing the security of my grip. It looked like it could hold all of my weight. I wouldn’t make it do so, but it was a good option.

  Movement across the underside of the platform was swift enough. It only required a different kind of thinking, an abstract sort of grasp of how I moved my legs, found leverage with only one opposable thumb.

  A beam came loose as I tried to hang my weight off it, and I nearly fell. I found leverage on one beam with my third leg, reached out with my hand to grab elsewhere. Neither hold was secure, but I still managed to swing myself over and seize another beam, securing myself.

  I reached the edge of the platform, looked up and over, to see the fighting underway.

  Less fighting than systematic elimination. The only ones who were truly holding their own were Legend, Glaistig Uaine, Pretender and Eidolon. Even then, they were more focused on avoiding Scion’s attacks than dealing damage. Here and there, Eidolon or Glaistig Uaine would try something.