Worm

by wildbow

  I nodded, absorbing the information. It sounded very underwhelming to me, but I was willing to admit I could be underestimating it.

  “Well,” I said, after a long pause, “I think I pretty much get what everyone can do, then. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Bitch can turn those dogs into those freakish monsters I saw the other night?”

  Sitting a few feet away, Bitch muttered, “They aren’t freakish.”

  Lisa answered my question, ignoring her. “Rachel can do it with any dog, actually,” she said, stressing the name, “And no codenames when we’re not in costume, ‘kay? Get in the habit of using the right name at the right times, and it’s that much harder to slip.”

  It was hard to think of Rachel by her real name. Bitch seemed really fitting given the stunt she had pulled. I apologized to Lisa, “Sorry.”

  Lisa gave a small nod in response, then told me, “She can use her power on any dog, but only Brutus, Judas and Angelica are trained well enough that they’ll listen to her when they’re pumped up.”

  Ah, so that was it. “And Brian makes that oily darkness that screws up your hearing. The Parahumans wiki said it was darkness generation.”

  Brian smiled, “I put that into the wiki myself. It’s not wrong, but it does catch people off guard when they think they know what you can do, and there’s something more to it.”

  Lisa added, “It’s not just hearing. It also cuts off radio signals and dampens the effects of radiation.”

  “That’s what her power tells her, anyways. I haven’t had much chance to test that part of things. I get by as is,” Brian said. He turned his hand palm up and created a handful of the darkness. It was like smoke, but so absolutely black that there was no texture to it. It was like someone had taken a scalpel to reality and the blackness was what was there when everything else was gone. I couldn’t even gauge the dimensions of it, unless I looked at it from a different perspective. Even then, with the way the darkness shifted and billowed like smoke, it was hard to judge the shape.

  More of it just kept pouring from his hand, climbing upwards to cover the top of the room. As the light from the windows near the upper edges of the room and the florescent bars on the ceiling was cut off, the room got a great deal darker.

  He closed his hand into a fist, and the darkness thinned out and disintegrated into strands and tatters, and the room brightened again. I looked at the light coming in from the windows and was surprised it wasn’t later.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Nineteen minutes before five,” Lisa said. She didn’t look at a watch or a clock as she said it, which was unsettling. It was a reminder that her power was constantly available to her.

  Brian asked me, “Do you have somewhere you need to be?

  “Home, I guess,” I admitted. “My dad will wonder where I am.”

  “Call him,” Lisa suggested. “Now that the introductions are over with, you can just hang out for a bit, if you want.”

  “We could order pizza,” Alec suggested. Then when Lisa, Brian and Bitch all made faces, he added, “Or maybe everyone’s sick of pizza and we could order something else.”

  “Stick around?” Brian made it a question.

  I glanced at Bitch. She was sitting on the table behind one of the couches and looking like a mess, with a bloody bandage over one ear, blood smeared below her nose and lip, and a bit of green around the gills that suggested she was feeling a little worse for wear. With her in that state, I didn’t feel particularly threatened. Staying meant I could work to get things more copacetic and maybe dig for a bit more information. I’d also missed socializing with people—even if it was under false pretenses with a group that included an apparent sociopath. It had been a sucky day. Just chilling out sounded good.

  “Okay,” I decided. “Yeah, I think I’d like to.”

  “Phone’s in the kitchen if you want to call your dad,” Lisa said.

  I looked over my shoulder as I headed across the loft. The others got settled on the couches, with Alec turning on the TV while Lisa and Brian took a second to clean up.

  I found the phone and dialed my dad.

  “Hey dad,” I said, when I heard the phone being picked up.

  “Taylor. Are you alright?” He sounded worried. It was unusual, I supposed, my not being home when he got back from work.

  “I’m fine, dad. Is it cool if I hang out with some people tonight?”

  There was a pause.

  “Taylor, if there’s anyone that’s making you make this call… the bullies or someone else, tell me everything is fine. If you’re not in trouble, tell me your mother’s full name.”

  I felt momentarily embarrassed. Was it so unusual for me to hang out with people? I knew my dad was just trying to keep me safe, but it was bordering on the ridiculous.

  “Annette Rose Hebert,” I told him, “Really dad, it’s cool.”

  “You’re really okay?”

  My gaze roved over the kitchen, taking in the details, as I gave him my assurances.

  “Better than ever. I kind of made some friends,” I said.

  My eyes settled on their dining room table. There was a stack of money, wrapped with a paper band just as the money in the lunchbox had been. Beside the money, plain as day, was the dark gray metal of a handgun.

  My attention caught by the gun, I only barely caught my dad’s question. “What are they like?”

  “They seem like good people,” I lied.

  Interlude 2

  There were very few things, in Victoria Dallon’s estimation, that were cooler than flying. The invisible forcefield that extended a few millimeters over her skin and clothes just made it better. The field kept the worst of the chill from touching her, but still let her feel the wind on her skin and in her hair. Bugs didn’t splat against her face like they did against car windshields, even when she was pushing eighty miles an hour.

  Spotting her target, she whooped and plunged for the ground, gaining speed where anyone else would be slowing down. She hit the asphalt hard enough to crack it and send fragments of it into the air, touching ground with her knee and foot, one arm extended. She stayed in that kneeling position for just heartbeats, letting her platinum curls and the cape that was draped over one of her shoulders flutter in the wake of air that had followed her descent. She met the eyes of her quarry with a steely glare.

  She’d practiced that landing for weeks to get it right.

  The man was a twenty something Caucasian with a shaved head, a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans and work boots. He took one look at her and bolted.

  Victoria grinned as he disappeared down the far end of the alley. She rose from her kneeling position, dusted herself off and ran her fingers through her hair to tidy it. Then she raised herself a foot off the ground and flew after him at an easy forty five miles an hour.

  It didn’t take a minute to catch him, even with the head start she had given him. She flew just past him, grazing him. An instant later, she came to a dead stop, facing him. Again, the wind made for a dramatic flourish as it stirred her hair, her cape and the skirt of her costume.

  “The woman you attacked was named Andrea Young,” she spoke.

  The man looked over his shoulder, as if gauging his escape routes.

  “Don’t even think about it, fugly,” she told him, “You know I’d catch you, and trust me, I’m already pissed off enough without you wasting my time.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” the man snarled.

  “Andrea Young!” Victoria raised her voice. As she shouted, she exercised her power. The man quailed as though she’d slapped him. “A black college student was beaten so badly she needed medical attention! Her teeth were knocked out! You’re trying to tell me that you, a skinhead with swollen knuckles, someone who was in the crowd watching paramedics arrive with an expression bordering on glee, you didn’t do anything!?”

  “I didn’t do nothing worth caring about,” he sneered. His bravado was tempered by a second look over his
shoulder, as though he’d very much like to be elsewhere right that moment.

  She flew forward, her fists catching him by the collar. For just a moment, she contemplated slamming him up against a wall. It would have been fitting and satisfying to shove him hard enough against the brick to crack it, then drop him into the dumpster that sat at the wall’s base.

  Instead, she pulled up a little, bringing the two of them to a stop. They were now just high enough above the ground that he’d feel uncomfortable with the height. The dumpster, mostly empty, was directly below him, but she doubted he was paying attention to anything but her.

  “I think it’s a safe bet to say you’re a member of Empire Eighty-Eight,” she told him, meeting his eyes with a hard stare, “or at least, you’ve got some friends who are. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to either tell me everything the triple-E’s have been up to, or I’m going to break your arms and legs and then you’re going to tell me everything.”

  As she spoke, she ratcheted up her power. She knew it was working when he started squirming just to avoid her gaze.

  “Fuck you, you can’t touch me. There’s laws against that shit,” he blustered, staring fixedly over one shoulder.

  She turned up her power another notch. Her body thrummed with current—waves of energy that anyone in her presence would experience as an emotional charge of awe and admiration. For those with a reason to be afraid of her, it would be a feeling of raw intimidation instead.

  “Last chance,” she warned him.

  Unfortunately, fear affected everyone differently. For this particular asshole, it just made him dig in his heels and become obstinate. She could see it in his body language before he opened his mouth—this was the sort of guy who reacted to anything that spooked or unsettled him with an almost mindless refusal to bend.

  “Lick my hairy, sweaty balls,” he snarled, before punctuating it with a spat, “Cunt.”

  She threw him. Since she could bench press a cement mixer, though it was hard to balance something so large and unwieldy, even a casual toss on her part could get some good distance. He flew a good twenty five or thirty yards down the back road before hitting the asphalt, and rolled for another ten.

  He was utterly for still for long enough that Victoria had begun to worry that he’d somehow snapped his neck or broken his spine as he’d rolled. She was relieved when he groaned and began to pull himself to his feet.

  “Ready to talk?” she asked him, her voice carrying down the alley. She didn’t move forward from where she hovered in the air, but she did let herself drop closer to the ground.

  Pressing one hand against his leg to support himself as he straightened up, he raised his other hand and flipped her the bird, then turned and began to limp down the alley.

  What was this asshole thinking? That she would just let him go? That, what, she would just bend to his witless lack of self preservation? That she was helpless to do any real harm to him? To top it off, he was going to insult her and try to walk away?

  “Screw you too,” she hissed through her teeth. Then she kicked the dumpster below her hard enough to send it flying down the little road. It rotated lazily through the air as it arced towards the retreating figure, the trajectory and rotation barely changing as it knocked him flat. It skidded to a halt three to five yards beyond him, the metal sides of the dumpster squealing and sparking as it scraped against the asphalt.

  This time, he didn’t get up.

  “Fuck,” she swore. “Fuckity fuck fuck.” She flew to him and checked for a pulse. She sighed, and then headed to the nearest street. She found the street address, grabbed her cell from her belt and dialed.

  “Hey sis? Yeah, I found him. That’s, uh, sort of the problem. Yeah. Look, I’m sorr—okay, can we talk about this later? Yeah. I’m at Spayder and Rock, there’s this little road that runs behind the buildings. Downtownish, yeah. Yeah? Thanks.”

  Victoria returned to the unconscious skinhead, checked his pulse, and listened intently for changes in his breathing. It took a very long five minutes for her sister to arrive.

  “Again, Victoria?” the voice disturbed her from her contemplations.

  “Use my codename, please,” Victoria told the girl. Her sister was as different from her as night was from day. Where Victoria was beautiful, tall, gorgeous, blonde, Amy was mousy. Victoria’s costume showed off her figure, with a white one-piece dress that came to mid-thigh (with shorts underneath) an over-the shoulder cape, high boots and a golden tiara with spikes radiating from it, vaguely reminiscent of the sun’s rays or the statue of liberty. Amy’s costume, by contrast, was only a shade away from being a burka. Amy wore a robe with a large hood and a scarf that covered the lower half of her face. The robe was alabaster white and had a medic’s red cross on the chest and the back.

  “Our identities are public,” Amy retorted, pushing the hood back and scarf down to reveal brown frizzy hair and a face with freckles spaced evenly across it.

  “It’s the principle of the thing,” Victoria replied.

  “You want to talk about principles, Glory Girl?” Amy asked, in the most sarcastic tone she could manage, “This is the sixth—sixth!—time you’ve nearly killed someone. That I know about!”

  “I’m strong enough to lift a SUV over my head,” Victoria muttered. “It’s hard to hold back all the time.”

  “I’m sure Carol would buy that line,” Amy said, making it clear in her tone she wasn’t, “But I know you better than anyone. If you’re having trouble holding back, the problem isn’t here—” she poked Victoria in the bicep. “It’s here—” she jabbed her sister in the forehead, hard. Victoria didn’t even blink.

  “Look, can you just fix him?” Victoria pleaded.

  “I’m thinking I shouldn’t,” Amy said, quietly.

  “What?”

  “There’s consequences, Vicky. If I help you now, what’s going to stop you from doing it again? I can call the paramedics. I know some good people from the hospital. They could probably fix him up alright.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Victoria said. “That’s not funny. He goes to the hospital, people ask questions.”

  “Yeah, I’m well aware,” Amy said, her voice hushed.

  “This isn’t, like, me getting grounded. I’d get pulled into court on charges of aggravated assault and battery. That doesn’t just fuck with me. It fucks with our family, all of New Wave. Everything we’ve struggled to build.”

  Amy frowned and looked at the fallen man.

  “I know you’re not keen on the superhero thing, but you’d really go that far? You’d do that to us? To me?”

  Amy pointed a finger at her sister, “That’s not me. It’s not my fault we’re at this point. It’s you. You’re crossing the line, going too far. Which is exactly what people who criticize New Wave are scared of. We’re not government sponsored. We’re not protected or organized or regulated in the same way. Everyone knows who we are under our masks. That means we have to be accountable. The responsible thing for me to do, as a member of this team, is to let the paramedics take him, and let the law do as it sees fit.”

  Victoria abruptly pulled Amy into a hug. Amy resisted for a moment, then let her arms go limp at her sides.

  “This isn’t just a team, Ames,” Victoria told her, “We’re a family. We’re your family.”

  The man lying just a matter of feet away stirred, then groaned, long and loud.

  “My adoptive family,” Amy mumbled into Victoria’s shoulder, “And stop trying to use your frigging power to make me all squee over how amazing you are. Doesn’t work. I’ve been exposed so long I’m immune.”

  “It hurts,” the man moaned.

  “I’m not using my power, dumbass,” Victoria told Amy, letting her go, “I’m hugging my sister. My awesome, caring and merciful sister.”

  The man whined, louder, “I can’t move. I feel cold.”

  Amy frowned at Victoria, “I’ll heal him. But this is the last time.”

  Victoria b
eamed, “Thank you.”

  Amy leaned over the man and touched her hand to his cheek, “Slingshot break to his ribs, fractured clavicle, broken mandible, broken scapula, fractured sternum, bruised lung, broken ulna, broken radius—”

  “I get the point,” Victoria said.

  “Do you?” Amy asked. Then she sighed, “I wasn’t even halfway down the list. This is going to take a little while. Sit?”

  Victoria crossed her legs and assumed a sitting position, floating a half foot above the ground. Amy just knelt where she was and rested her hand on the man’s cheek. The tension went out of his body and he relaxed.

  “How’s the woman? Andrea?”

  “Better than ever, physically,” Amy replied. “I grew her new teeth, fixed everything from the bruising to the scrapes, and even gave her a head to toe tune-up. Physically, she’ll feel on top of the world, like she had been to a spa and had the best nutritionist, best fitness expert and the best doctor all looking after her for a straight month.”

  “Good,” Victoria said.

  “Mentally? Emotionally? It’s up to her to deal with the aftermath of a beating. I can’t affect the brain.”

  “Well—” Victoria started to speak.

  “Yeah, yeah. Not can’t. Won’t. It’s complicated and I don’t trust myself not to screw something up when I’m tampering with someone’s head. That’s it, that’s all.”

  Victoria started to say something, then shut her mouth. Even if they weren’t related by blood, they were sisters. Only sisters could have these sorts of recurring arguments. They had gone through a dozen different variations on this argument before. As far as she was concerned, Amy was doing herself a disservice by not practicing using her powers on the brain. It was only a matter of time before her sister found herself in a situation where she needed to do some emergency brain surgery and found herself incapable. Amy, for her part, refused to even discuss it.

  She didn’t want to raise a sensitive issue when Amy was in the process of doing her a major favor. To change the subject, Victoria asked, “Is it cool if I question him?”

  “Might as well,” Amy sighed.