Worm

by wildbow

  The golden man hovered in place, so still it looked like he was frozen in time, standing in the air.

  “My god, golden man, I’m praying you understand. Took me a year to get up the courage to do this, because I was afraid of this. If that was the problem, and you kill one of those bastards, then I just—I just saved countless people, and the blood of every person they’ve killed in the meantime is on my hands.”

  “Kevin,” Lisette spoke, her voice quiet. Her hands settled on his shoulders.

  He ignored her, “The other important topic? I’ve run out of time. Middle aged, and my liver’s done in. Never really drank, because I had to feed that dog over there. Never did any drugs, besides smoking fags. But I got the hepatitis somehow. Bad blood in a hospital, or someone else’s infected blood got mingled with mine on a night some kids decided to pick on a homeless man and I fought back. Running into you the way I did, golden man, and having you stop to listen to me? That was a one in a gazillion chance. Getting this disease was another, might be. Meeting you was the best and scariest part of my life, maybe it’s the same with the disease, a blessing in disguise. Maybe it was, aside from this young lady’s help, the only reason I was able to find the balls to come here.”

  The rain wasn’t as violent or as heavy as it had been. It made for an audible change in the patter of water on stone and water on water.

  Kevin sighed. “I’m here to get my affairs in order, and you’re most important after Duke. I want you to keep doing what you were doing. Help people. Try to communicate with the good guys more. I told you to do that before and you didn’t listen, but you should. And if there’s a problem, if you need someone to listen to, someone to visit from time to time, look for this young lady. Lisette. Because she’s good people. She’s a better person than I am. Braver. Has to be braver, if she’s stopping to talk to a homeless motherfucker like me, following him someplace.”

  “No,” Lisette said, “I couldn’t.”

  “Shitty thing for me to be doing,” Kevin said, turning to look over his shoulder at her. “This burden. But I somehow feel better about this than sending him to go obey you than telling him to go listen to and obey the Suits, or the Protectorate, or Red Gauntlet, or whoever. You think about it, figure out what you need to, decide what he needs to be told.”

  “You think he will? He’ll come to me?” Lisette asked, her eyes were wide.

  “Don’t know, but I think he might. Don’t know why he picked me to listen to, but he did. I could’ve reminded him of someone he used to know. Or he just up and decided we were friends, maybe. With luck, he can be your friend too.” Kevin sighed, “You two got it? You’re partners now.”

  Lisette couldn’t bring herself to speak. The golden man didn’t respond either, didn’t even move to glance at Lisette.

  The golden man hovered in place for long, silent seconds, and then took off, faster than the eye could see. Only a golden trail of light was left in his wake, quickly fading.

  In mere seconds, Scion was gone.

  “We have to tell someone,” Lisette said.

  “You can try. They’ll look at you the way you looked at me. Like you’ve lost your mind.”

  “But—but…”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said. “Not so easy, is it? Maybe if you’re lucky, he’ll show up when others are around, and they’ll believe you when you talk about it.”

  He sighed. “Come on, Duke.”

  Lisette didn’t resist as he grabbed Duke’s leash. Kevin started walking away.

  “I don’t understand!” Lisette called after him.

  Kevin didn’t turn around or stop walking as he raised his voice to respond over the sound of the pouring rain. “Good deal, isn’t it? Ten pounds to become the most powerful person in the world.”

  Queen 18.3

  Miss Militia didn’t respond. She stared down the length of her gun at Tattletale. I could believe that if we gave her cause, any of the rest of us were an instant away from getting shot. We had bulletproof armor, but there wasn’t anything saying she wasn’t using the fanciest armor-piercing rounds. Her power supplied whatever hardware she wanted.

  “We didn’t take Vista,” I told her.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Tattletale said. “We’d take her, do that sort of damage, and then come back? Approach you guys peacefully?”

  “I’m beginning to see why Armsmaster was so frustrated with you, Undersiders. Every time we run into you, we’re left in the dark, vast amounts of information missing from the overall picture. There’s always surprises. So I’m paying very close attention to what you are saying. Case in point, you say Vista was taken, and not murdered.”

  “I don’t think she was killed,” I said. Tattletale nodded.

  “That’s good to know,” Miss Militia said. She sighed, “When you’re going on the offensive, there’s nothing held back, you don’t pull any punches, short of murder… and you apparently came damn close with Triumph, Skitter.”

  Triumph folded his arms.

  She continued, “If you’re not trying to kill us, you’re approaching us with open arms, asking for help, putting us in a situation where we can’t accept without breaking our rules, but refusal comes at a cost.”

  “It’s that second bit,” Imp said. Some of the heroes wheeled around to find her standing on the opposite side of her group. I managed to hide my own surprise. Imp added, “We’re here because we need help. This is a nasty one, too.”

  Miss Militia turned back to me, and her voice was a little harder. “I thought so. It’s your pattern. Except there’s always information missing. Information withheld. You said you were indirectly responsible for this?”

  “You caught that,” Tattletale said. She looked at me. “Should we dish out the dirt?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Have to anyways.”

  “Full disclosure,” Tattletale said. “We were working for Coil. The Travelers were too.”

  Miss Militia didn’t move a centimeter. Some of the other heroes did.

  “He’s dead, in case you weren’t aware,” Tattletale said. “And the Travelers are a little upset, because they were counting on him to help them out.”

  I could imagine Tattletale smiling. She’s misdirecting them. They think he died at the debate, but she’s talking about the real death. The death at my hands.

  Miss Militia shook her head. “I doubt this was the Travelers. We heard howling, and this wasn’t Genesis. Analysis of her file by some of our top guys suggests she has limits to the strength of whatever forms she’s chosen. Strong, yes, but not enough to tear half the wall off the front of a building in the time the witnesses described. I would, however, believe Hellhound’s dogs could do it. Besides, Genesis has never been on record shapeshifting to resemble someone or something.”

  Never? I thought. She crafted her bodies in a dream state. I knew she’d made a body that resembled her real self, but the rest… Did it take too much effort to get the aesthetic details exactly right, to the point that it cost her in other departments?

  “When the Slaughterhouse Nine attacked,” I said, “do you remember who they targeted?”

  “Armsmaster, Regent, Hookwolf, Panacea. Two more. With the appearances Mannequin and Burnscar made in the Boardwalk, we belatedly discovered Hellhound was another, and we were theorizing you were the last of them, Skitter.”

  “I got in their way too many times,” I said. “But they didn’t want me. But the last one was Noelle.”

  Her gun shifted a fraction towards me. I wasn’t sure she was aware she was doing it. “Noelle?”

  Tattletale spoke up, “The Travelers have two other members who don’t see much action. Oliver handles their day-to-day stuff. Finds and prepares places for them to settle down, gets food, looks after Noelle. Noelle…”

  “New York,” Miss Militia interrupted. “She’s the one that’s responsible for the disappearance of those forty people?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Tattletale said.

  “The reason
the Travelers have been operating like they are,” I told Miss Militia, “Going for the quick and easy cash grabs and constantly moving, it’s been for her sake. Trying to find someone who can help. They found Coil, or Coil found them, and they thought they had the answer they needed. Except now Coil’s dead. Noelle’s snapped, and it’s very possible Vista was her first captive.”

  “What does she—” Triumph started. He stopped as Miss Militia raised one hand.

  “You’re good at this, Undersiders,” she said. “But I do learn my lesson. I won’t get caught up in your story, I know you’ll have to give me the details, if this situation is as serious as you say. But let’s postpone that for a minute. Why don’t you start off by explaining how you’re indirectly responsible for this.”

  I turned to Tattletale. She gave her head a small shake.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” Miss Militia asked.

  “Stuff,” Tattletale said. “Surrounding the circumstances of Coil’s death. But getting into the particulars would create more problems than it solves, for you guys and for us.”

  “I dunno,” Assault said, from behind Miss Militia, “I doubt staying quiet is going to help you much.”

  “Did you have something to do with the explosion at the town hall?” Miss Militia asked, and there was a note of anger in her voice, “The way things went wrong? The deaths of those reporters, the injuries sustained by the retired Director and the candidates?”

  “No,” I said. “I swear on everything I stand for that I, we, didn’t play any part in planning or setting that in motion.”

  “You can understand if we don’t take you at face value on that, nice as it sounds,” Assault said.

  “If it helps,” Tattletale said, “get your hands on the evidence from the scene, some of the blood and bits from the bodies. Send them out of town. Discreetly. Get another lab to run DNA tests.”

  “Why?”

  Tattletale shrugged. “It’s pig meat. Almost all of it. Glued together with transglutaminase. Human bone, and human blood, probably, but if you look for it, you’ll find antifreeze.”

  “Antifreeze?”

  “Glycerol. It’s how they store it at blood banks.”

  “You’re saying it was staged,” Miss Militia said. “Despite the fact that we had Wards on scene, innumerable witnesses.”

  “Despite that.”

  Miss Militia straightened a fraction, “And of course, we can’t check it now. So you’re expecting us to work with you in the meantime, help you with whatever problem you’re suggesting you’re partially to blame for setting in motion, and when the lab tests come in, long after the situation’s resolved, we’ll find you were lying.”

  Assault added, “And somehow, conveniently, you come out ahead when all’s said and done. A handful more of your enemies injured or dead.” There was a hint of emotion punctuating the end of the statement. Battery.

  “Telling the truth,” Tattletale said.

  “This situation’s serious,” I told Miss Militia, “And if you do what we’re suggesting, I can assure you, we don’t wind up in a better position at the end of this.”

  “Why’s that?” Miss Militia asked.

  It was Grue who answered her, breaking his silence with his deep, eerie voice, “Because we’re recommending you call in the big guns. Call in everyone.”

  “Class S threat,” Tattletale said. “Or damn near.”

  The tip of Miss Militia’s gun wavered as she started to react and then stopped herself. Neither she nor any of the heroes moved or spoke for long seconds.

  When she did speak, she said, “There’s six class S threats active in the world at large. The Endbringers make up three of them. The Slaughterhouse Nine as a group are a fourth. You’re saying this Noelle is on par with one of them?”

  “She’s a nascent Endbringer,” I said.

  “Bullshit!” Triumph shouted, not a half second after I’d said it.

  “Fuck me,” one of the Wards said. It was only after he opened his mouth again that I saw it was Weld. “Please tell me this is another one of Tattletale’s mind-games.”

  “Explain.” Miss Militia demanded.

  “She’s maybe a nascent Endbringer,” Tattletale said. “It’s one theory. Her powers are transforming her, and she’s getting less human, getting tougher and more desperate every day. Coil was keeping her contained, with heavy vault doors and promises of a fix. Now she’s free and she’s pissed.”

  “And this hypothetical individual has Vista?” Clockblocker asked.

  “It’s very likely she has Vista,” Tattletale confirmed. “Coil’s precog said she wouldn’t cause any real damage until dawn. That’s… one hour and twenty-nine minutes from now. I guess this kind of incident doesn’t count as anything serious.”

  “You have Coil’s precog in your custody?” Miss Militia asked. “Dinah Alcott?”

  “I took her home,” I said. “Her powers are currently disabled, so resist the urge to go to her and ask her for help with this situation. Everything she’s been through, she deserves some peace.”

  “Assault,” Miss Militia said, “Let’s get some confirmation that at least some of what they said is the truth. Get in touch with the Alcotts.”

  “On it,” he said. He drew a rugged smart phone from his belt and put it to his ear.

  “I think it’s time you guys offer the particulars on this ‘Endbringer’,” Miss Militia said.

  “She’s as strong as Leviathan, physically,” Tattletale said. “She’s not as tough, based on what I’ve seen. Have you read the notes on what I told Alexandria after Leviathan’s attack? About the density of Leviathan’s body?”

  Miss Militia nodded. “Higher density as you penetrate deeper to the core, to the point that it bends the rules of how molecules and atoms should work. It makes sense. Armsmaster had a molecule-severing weapon that couldn’t cut through all of Leviathan’s hand, and it explains why nearly all the damage we do is so superficial.”

  “Noelle doesn’t have that yet. I’m not sure if she ever will. We don’t know if she’s really becoming an Endbringer or not. What I’ve seen of her was only partial, a camera feed with dim lighting on the other end,” Tattletale said. “But everything she eats gets added to her biomass, and I think she’ll probably reach a critical point and stop growing, start fortifying what’s already there instead.”

  “She’s big?” Weld asked.

  “She’s big,” Tattletale said. “And if she gets her hands on you, she’ll eat you whole. Spit you out along with a copy. Copies with powers like yours. Stronger, tougher, meaner. Understand? When this fight starts, it starts for real.”

  “She duplicates people,” Miss Militia stated.

  “And the duplicates aren’t on our side,” Tattletale replied. “You’re going to have to call for backup at some point, it’s just a question of whether you do it before shit goes down or after. When you do get in touch with the PRT heads and get the A-okay to call a red alert or whatever it is you do, you’re going to want to be very careful about the kind of cape you request, because we might wind up fighting them.”

  Assault had finished his phone call and was waiting for Tattletale to finish talking. Miss Militia turned her attention to him, and he said, “Story checks out. Kid’s at the hospital, recovering from a long stint of drug abuse.”

  “The situation they’re describing is too dangerous to be ignored. We’ll move forward with this. Tentative cooperation,” Miss Militia announced. “In exchange for our trust and our assistance, the Undersiders will give us one hostage.”

  “How about me?” Imp offered. Her tone was light, joking.

  “Someone who we can keep track of,” Miss Militia said. “Rachel Lindt. Hellhound. If you’d please step into the van?”

  “Fuck that,” Rachel replied.

  “That’s a disaster waiting to happen,” Grue said. I couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

  “You, along with Skitter, are problematic due to the sheer amount of damage y
ou could do in the enclosed space of a van. Tattletale’s more damaging in other ways. It would help if we knew exactly what her powers were…” Miss Militia trailed off, inviting a response.

  “Not sharing,” Tattletale said. “And I just had my turn at being a hostage. Not sharing the details on that either, for the record.”

  “Regent’s too dangerous. We don’t know exactly how long it takes for him to achieve full control, and our records suggest he can regain control instantly. Even if we assume it takes an hour or more, we can’t trust that we won’t end up in a crisis situation where Regent’s being kept in custody for an extended period and gets the opportunity to use his power on someone. Not to mention the possibility that he could call Shatterbird to his location. Separated from her dogs, Rachel Lindt is the least threatening and most vulnerable member of your team. The optimal hostage, if you will.”

  “And she won’t accept being separated from her dogs or being kept in custody,” I said. “I will. I can hand you my weapons and send my bugs away.”

  “Skitter,” Grue said, “no.”

  Miss Militia folded her arms, unconvinced.

  I reached over my shoulder, slowly, and unbuckled my utility compartment. Tattletale grabbed it for me as it came free, and the straps fed out through the rings beneath the shoulder panels. She handed it to me, and I drove away the bugs I’d gathered inside. When they were gone, I sent away the bugs that were nestled in the midst of my hair, beneath each of my other armor panels and the ‘skirt’ of my armor, where it covered the scorched leggings of my costume.

  “So many fucking bugs,” Clockblocker said. “They have to weigh as much as she does.”

  “No, not as much as you’d think,” I said. I turned to Miss Militia. “Satisfied?”

  She extended a hand for the concave, spade-shaped piece of armor, her gun turning into a handgun in the meantime. “Triumph, pat her down. Everyone else, get ready to mobilize. Assault, you’ll be riding my bike. I’ll sit in the van. Weld, Clockblocker, Flechette, and Kid Win, with me.”