Worm

by wildbow

  “I spent the day in a cell, I wanted some fresh air. Sue me for thinking you actually meant something when you apologized, that you were sorry for not being fair to me back then,” I sounded more petulant and bitter than I liked.

  He glanced at Dragon, and the silence suggested there was a dialogue happening.

  “It’s rude to whisper,” I said. Again, more petty than I wanted to be.

  “She can’t speak out loud,” Defiant said. “It’s complicated to explain. She’s under certain restrictions, many related to the PRT, and we’d agreed we didn’t want to win like that, back at the school. The only way for Dragon to stop was if I stepped in and made her stop, and she was hurt in the process. The recovery is slow.”

  Only if he made her stop? Because the PRT would be harsher with her, with whatever leverage they had over her? I thought. Was that something I could use? What did they have on her that they didn’t have on the hero-on-probation?

  “Thank you,” I said, to Dragon. “For doing that.”

  She gave me a curt nod in response.

  “I’ve been trying to grow as a person, with Dragon’s help,” Defiant said. “I’m willing to listen, but it’ll have to be fast.”

  “Okay,” I said. I glanced at Dragon. I almost hated to do this, but I’d already started, and I couldn’t go to jail. Not with things as they stood. “Can I talk to him in private?”

  Defiant and Dragon exchanged a look. He nodded once, and she took flight, heading towards her airborne vehicle-suit.

  The cord went taut, and Defiant’s grip on my arm was wrenched away as he was dragged back. Heavy as he was, Dragon’s jet was powerful, and he wasn’t on his guard. It took him seconds to realize what was happening, to get his footing and shift his center of balance lower to the ground.

  I was already moving, chasing him. There was no point to trying to escape if they were right on my heels.

  He came to a stop at the edge of the roof, but I was already arriving, taking advantage of his lack of balance to throw myself into his upper body.

  Not the first time I’ve fought a dragon-man on a rooftop, I thought, as I felt Defiant move in response, all of his sturdiness and armor nothing with a strong push at the right moment. One to mark the start of my career in costume, the other to mark the end?

  If he’d had a mind to, he could have grabbed me and taken me down with him. Maybe Armsmaster would have.

  But Defiant twisted as he tilted backwards, drawing his folded-up spear and striking out in the same motion. It bit into the concrete of the rooftop’s edge, the head expanding for a more secure grip.

  I kicked the spear, as if I could dislodge it, but only succeeded in hurting my foot.

  Dragon caught me a moment later, pushing me away. She offered Defiant a hand, and he used both her grip and the spear to right himself, pulling himself back from the edge.

  He stepped forward and gripped me by the front of my oversized prison-uniform t-shirt. “Stop that.”

  I only glared.

  “Stop trying things,” he repeated, as if he thought repetition would get through more than articulation.

  “Fuck you,” I said. I didn’t like how I sounded. The guise of confidence I was so used to wearing was slipping away. “Fuck you and the people you work for.”

  “I don’t know why I—” he said, then he stopped abruptly. Was Dragon interrupting?

  “You bastards,” I said. I could feel the veneer starting to crack. The tears that had threatened earlier were now promising to overflow.

  “You don’t have any conception of what you did, do you?” he asked.

  “I have some,” I said. “But no, you assholes knocked me out. I don’t know anything that’s been going on. I attacked Tagg and Alexandria—”

  “They’re dead,” Defiant said.

  Dead. I hadn’t believed Alexandria would die like that. She’d flown away. Surely there were methods.

  “A family man—”

  “A bully,” I said. “Twisted by the Simurgh, probably—”

  “He was vetted,” Defiant said. “But he’s not important. You killed one of the strongest recognized heroes in the world, at a time we needed her most. Her image, her courage, her help. Do you know what’s going to happen, now?”

  “I do,” I said. “It’s going to crush the morale of our defending forces, and it’s going to break the hearts of billions of people around the world. I knew it when I made the call, but I did it anyways.”

  “And you doomed us all.”

  “She doomed us all. She was the one who did it, her and Tagg.”

  “Maybe. Probably. They forced your hand. I understand that, and I’ve been trying to be lenient. Gentle, even, though it’s not familiar to me.” His tone changed, “You’re making it hard, you keep trying things. Trying to kill me.”

  “You would have survived,” I said. “A six-story fall in armor like yours? I could have run while Dragon looked after you. Gotten my hands on another weapon or something.”

  He didn’t answer right away, but there was nothing indicating an exchange between him and Dragon. His voice was tight with restrained anger when he said, “You could make this easier.”

  “I don’t want to make this easy,” I said. “As long as you work for them, I’m going to fight you. You want to know what Alexandria did? She and Tagg convinced me that the PRT is more trouble than it’s worth. If we have to rely on them to win this, then we don’t deserve to win.”

  “That’s a choice you just made for a whole planet of people,” Defiant said.

  “A choice I’m making for me. I think we can find a way past the end of the world, it can’t be impossible to survive the meantime without the PRT.”

  “This isn’t going to work.”

  The voice was female, and it came from Dragon’s direction.

  “I’m having my doubts as well,” Defiant said.

  “We’re low on options,” the voice sounded. It wasn’t Dragon, but someone communicating through a speaker on her shoulder. I recognized the voice. Miss Militia.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  Defiant pointed at Dragon’s airborne craft.

  “You’re not just here to arrest me?” I asked.

  “No,” Defiant said. “Or we weren’t, until you decided to try to push me off a building. Now I’m reconsidering.”

  “Tell her the plan,” Miss Militia said, through the speaker, “We don’t have any more time, for reconsidering or anything else.”

  Time?

  I glanced over my shoulder at the sun on the horizon. It was still twenty or thirty minutes from sunset. I must have been out for an hour or so.

  But… the deadline didn’t matter anymore, did it? The Undersiders should be attacking already, after being attacked, it was almost inevitable, if Grue or Rachel…

  I shook my head. “No. No, no, no. No.”

  “Skitter—”

  Too many things that hadn’t made sense.

  The fact that the Undersiders hadn’t gone on the offensive, or rescued me here after the PRT left me in my cell.

  Alexandria keeping to her schedule, the little clues she’d given, like reminding me she could be drowned. The baiting, the pressure, even from the moment Tagg was introduced.

  Even the way she’d avoided stopping Coil, avoided stopping us. The way she hadn’t stepped in against the Nine, or against Echidna, at first. There had been something bigger going on.

  “Why? For what?” I asked. “A ruse? Playing me?”

  “Yes. With one tragic mistake that we’re all about to pay for.”

  Cell 22.6

  Dragon’s craft closed the distance to the rooftop’s edge, using precise adjustments to almost freeze in mid-air as it hovered. It was gentle and graceful in comparison to Defiant’s squat, durable tank. I wondered how intentional that was. Just looking at it, I had little doubt that it was even longer range than any of the other models I’d crossed paths with. I was put in mind of a sniper rifle, long, narrow, sleek an
d focused in its almost singular design. The stability it had fit with the idea. A stark contrast to Defiant’s craft, which seemed more like the type to be in the thick of a fight, fighting alongside him and complementing his fighting style.

  Not that the aesthetics of Dragon’s work was really a priority right this moment.

  “A mistake,” I said.

  “We know how she operates,” Defiant said. “Dragon, Miss Militia and I have each worked directly under Alexandria at some point. It’s something of an unofficial policy to have anyone that’s being considered for a leadership position working under each member of the triumvirate for a time.”

  “Must have been real fun for you guys when you found out what they’re really like, last month.”

  “Not fun at all,” Miss Militia said. She had to stoop to exit the ship and step onto the roof’s edge.

  “We’ve seen how Alexandria handles interrogations,” Defiant said. “She reads microexpressions. Shapes every statement and action to get the responses she wants.”

  “And she wanted this?” I asked.

  Defiant shook his head. “Knowing her, this was a gambit. It wouldn’t do to have one workable outcome. She pushes you, and if you attack, she has cause to finish you off or send you straight to the Birdcage without a trial. If you don’t attack, she knows she has leverage against you and the Undersiders. She’d see which way you were leaning, then refine her approach further.”

  “And here I was,” Miss Militia mused, “Thinking you didn’t have a head for this sort of thing, Defiant.”

  “I’ve had help,” he said, glancing at Dragon.

  “But she didn’t get either of those results,” I said. “At least, not like she wanted. For all her brains, for all this apparent ability to read me, she… didn’t understand what my friends mean to me.”

  “I think she understood well enough,” Defiant said. “But the mistake, the tragedy in all of this, was that she didn’t get an accurate read on you. Much, I expect, for the same reason my lie detector could never seem to. She was working with bad information, and she pushed you too far, too fast.”

  An eerie parallel to mistakes Tattletale had made in the past. And I killed Alexandria and Tagg because of it.

  “And… my friends? Just to make sure. They’re okay?”

  “Alexandria didn’t touch them. The ones she brought into the building were body doubles, and the real Undersiders are poised to attack in—” Miss Militia reached for her phone.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Defiant said.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Miss Militia said. “In the meantime, we’re trying to deal with your lawyer, who got his hands on the footage of the interrogation and is threatening to bring hell down on our heads—”

  Earning his pay, I thought.

  She continued without pause, “—and we still have to find a way to handle this without a complete PR catastrophe. Once the media gets hold of this, we lose the ability to control the situation.”

  “Dragon is managing the details as we speak,” Defiant said. “She can isolate and track digital communication, but she can’t stop the spread of word of mouth. Chevalier’s doing what he can on his end, but the PRT agents that confirmed Alexandria’s death won’t be able to keep their mouths shut forever, not with something as grave as this.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” Miss Militia said.

  “Fourteen,” Defiant cut in, correcting her.

  “Fourteen minutes,” she said. “That’s our working timeline. Even if Skitter were to call off the Undersiders, we have information leaks.”

  “Then what if we let it leak?” I asked. “We say ‘fuck it, the PRT is fucked, Alexandria is a monster, let people figure it out for themselves.’”

  “You don’t really want that,” Miss Militia said.

  “The system is fucked,” I said. “Everything that’s happened, it’s taught me a few things. People are fucked up, for one thing. And any organization that has people in control is going to be fucked on an exponential level. But for all that, people are a hell of a lot tougher than we give them credit for. We survive. We innovate. So yeah, I’m seriously thinking along those lines. I wouldn’t mind seeing the PRT burn, damn it, because I think we’ll make it regardless.”

  “Why?” Miss Militia asked. “What changed your mind from the moment you decided to surrender? Your friends weren’t at risk, you already knew something about Tagg and Alexandria.”

  “You,” I told her. “You were part of it.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You can’t blame me for standing out of the way. You had a plan, Alexandria told me she had a plan, and nobody shared anything substantial with me. I couldn’t take a step without risking that I’d get in someone’s way.”

  I frowned.

  “You’re hurt, you’re angry, you’re still reeling from what you thought happened,” Miss Militia said. “Fine. That’s fair. But we don’t have time to work through that. You said you wanted to work together, to compromise. Do you stand by that? Are you willing to at least try a workable solution? Or are you going to keep fighting us?”

  I glanced at Defiant. “I’ll hear you out.”

  “We need you to call your team and get them to stand down. We can’t have bloodshed, and we can’t have Tattletale divulging critical information.”

  I folded my arms. “Meet me halfway.”

  “Twelve minutes,” Defiant said. “This isn’t the time to be hard-nosed. You don’t want this fight any more than we do. If this happens, your team will be at a very real risk of death or arrest. Three of the A.I. models, Dragon’s, mine, the Brockton Bay heroes and no less than ten visiting heroes.”

  “This is exactly the time to be hard-nosed. The Undersiders get left alone. Those are my terms. Figure it the fuck out.”

  There was a pause, an exchange of looks between Defiant and Dragon.

  “We’re talking to Chevalier and the Chief Director,” Defiant said.

  “Good,” I answered him.

  A few seconds passed. I glanced at the sun, dipping beneath the mountains to the west.

  “Miss Militia will fill in as an interim PRT director,” a male voice sounded from the speaker at Dragon’s shoulder. Chevalier. “I’ll arrange it. We have leverage, with the current state of emergency and the issues that are liable to come up with the announcement that we can make use of the portal.”

  “And I’ll remain hands off, unless I’m replaced or I have no other choice?” Miss Militia said.

  “We’ll keep you in position for as long as we can, postpone any changes or replacements until people get more comfortable with the idea. With luck, we can segue into keeping you in position on a permanent basis. Failing that, we tap someone sympathetic to our aims.”

  “Damn it,” Miss Militia muttered. “I feel like my lifespan just got cut short. Double the work, too.”

  “We’ll figure out a way to make it work,” Defiant said. He looked at me. “Satisfactory?”

  “Yes. Phone?”

  Miss Militia tapped out a password, then handed me hers.

  I dialed Tattletale’s number.

  When Tattletale didn’t pick up on the first ring, I felt my heart jump into my throat. She’d never done that.

  “‘Lo,” Tattletale said. I let myself breathe a sigh of relief. She continued, “Call display says PRT Phone server. Who am I talking to?”

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “You! You wouldn’t believe how worried I’ve been. Or the headache I have. You know they gave you bad info?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “The stuff you were writing, it didn’t match up. Tried to tell you, but you couldn’t understand me.”

  “I know,” I said. “Just tell me… everyone’s safe?”

  “Everyone’s accounted for. Shit, what did they do?”

  “Tattletale—”

  “They tried something. What happened?”

  “Tattletale,” I said, raisi
ng my voice a notch. “Time’s short. Call off the hounds, literal or otherwise. Delay.”

  “Delay?”

  “They’re making temporary offers,” I said, eyeing the heroes, “We can make some temporary concessions.”

  “Okay. But I can’t hold back some of the bastards we put into play. I can stop them, but that’s it. They’ll leave, and we’re that much weaker.”

  “That’s fine,” I told her. “These guys are at a bit of a disadvantage too.”

  “Okay… let’s see… alright. Holding off for… half an hour? Adding fifteen minutes to the clock?” Tattletale asked.

  “Longer?” I asked.

  “Any longer and more mercenaries start walking away, deciding to take the half we paid up front.”

  “That’ll do, then, I guess.” I said, giving the heroes a thumbs up.

  “You said they’re weaker, huh? So it’s true. I didn’t want to use my power to verify… but the rumor mill is right? Alexandria bit it?”

  “Yes. I—” I stopped.

  “You? You did it?” Tattletale asked. “Guys—”

  Her voice faded as she turned away from the phone.

  “Don’t tell them,” I said, once I realized what she was saying.

  It was too late. I could hear jeers and whooping from Regent and Imp in the background. I couldn’t make out everything Grue was saying, but I caught something along the lines of ‘Jesus H. Fucking Christ.’

  “It’s too late to matter, honey bear,” Tattletale said. “I don’t have much juice powerwise, but I don’t need any to know this much. Word’s already out about Alexandria.”

  “Word’s out about Alexandria,” I said, for the benefit of the heroes.

  Defiant folded his arms.

  “Anything else I can do?” she asked.

  “Stay near a phone. Thank you,” I said. And keep the jailbreak specialists on hand, I thought. Not that I could say that with the Protectorate members around me.

  “One disaster averted,” Miss Militia said.

  “Held at bay,” Defiant said. “The word’s spreading. It’s starting to pop up on isolated channels.”

  “We’ll need to get our official word out first,” Miss Militia said.