Worm

by wildbow

Then I backed away, flexing my hands, feeling how stiff they were, battered by my attempts at moving things, at pushing things aside. My gloves, too, were stiff, crusted with dried blood, layered with dirt and fresh blood.

  I looked at Rachel, and saw her gazing at the portal.

  I didn’t really have a home anymore. Knowing my old house was leveled, that the cemetery where my mother had been laid to rest was gone, and that I’d never really come back here to hang out with the Undersiders… it hurt in a way that was very different from a knife wound, being shot or being burned. A crushing feeling, more like. But it was tough for reasons beyond the fact that I considered it home. I’d relinquished Brockton Bay, and my concern right now was more to do with the residents than the place itself.

  I didn’t have a home in Chicago. Not in the jails, either.

  But Rachel had forged a home for herself, and it had been in arm’s reach since we’d arrived.

  Bastard and the dogs seemed to know I’d decided before I said or did anything. Rachel and I fell in step behind them.

  Rachel mounted Bastard before we got to the portal. The efforts to erect a proper support beneath the portal had been set back by Scion’s strafing run, which left the portal hanging in the sky. Train tracks extended out from the portal in every direction, twisted and broken where collapsing ground had pulled other sections away.

  There had been a tower erected around the portal, but it had collapsed into shambles as the ground dropped. Now they were using the pieces to form the general structure for a tower of ramps that would lead up to the portal.

  Bastard picked up speed as he approached the tower, then set his claws on one of the ramps. The tower wavered perilously as Bastard leaped up to a higher point, coming to a rest on the very top of the dilapidated structure. It didn’t look like there were nearly enough reinforcements, and I could see everyone present tense as they saw the mutated wolf’s weight come to rest.

  That tension redoubled as the wolf flexed its muscles, hunching down, and then leaped, more up than across, to get to the portal itself. A few planks of wood broke in that sudden, powerful movement, and one rail of the train track fell free as the wolf scrabbled for a grip on the ground beneath the portal.

  When she was gone, the people beneath simply resumed work, heads down, dirty, defeated.

  I took flight, entering the portal for the first time.

  Earth Gimel.

  The tower that contained the portal had a counterpart in Gimel, a matching tower, tall and riddled with train tracks, like a train station designed by Escher, tall rather than squat, with wide doorways for the trains to exit, and complicated reinforcements for the aboveground tracks, positioned so as not to interfere with the tracks below.

  I flew out through one of those gates, catching up with Rachel.

  Trains extended in every direction from the portal, on tracks that extended out into the middle of nowhere, into pristine forest and mountains. They were long, almost absurdly long.

  Then again, the whole idea had been to have instant evacuation. Rather than have people make their way to trains, they’d had eight trains that simply spanned the length of Brockton Bay, so any given individual had to find the nearest train car and make their way down the aisle to an empty seat.

  Around the tower, a small, odd settlement had sprung up. All of the sensibility of the city, but contained to a small area. Tall buildings, wide streets, and a look that matched up with a city proper rather than a smaller town. It was as though someone had cut and pasted the big city into the middle of this landscape.

  On any other day, it would have been energizing, the fresh air, the sunny day, the green and the blue water of the bay, subtly different from the shape of the bay I knew. But today wasn’t that day.

  People at benches were clipping the corners off of refugee’s drivers licenses and trading them for food rations and tents. Everything was prepped, set up in advance, and people were being orderly, even though the lines were so lengthy it looked like it might be hours before they got what they wanted.

  Those that already had their kits were setting up or settling into spaces they’d designated for themselves. Some clustered close to the settlement, while others spaced out, where they’d have more elbow room. The tents were identical, dotting the area. The kits, apparently, included signs, and these same signs listed family names and details.

  John and Jane Roe. 1 Diabetic.

  Hurles family.

  Two infants.

  Jason Ao. Looking for Sharon Ao my wife. A crude picture was drawn beside the message.

  I scanned the signs, looking for names I might recognize. I headed in the direction Rachel had gone, but I moved carefully, making a mental note of everything I saw.

  It was an extension of what I’d seen back in Los Angeles. People trying to cope against something where coping was a pipe dream. There were some breaking down in tears, people getting angry, those who had withdrawn into themselves.

  In each expression, there was something that echoed my own feelings. A part of me wanted to hide from that, but another part of me knew I couldn’t.

  It wouldn’t do any good, but I made a mental note of faces, of the pain, the loss. People who’d been removed from their homes and had all hopes for the future dashed. If I ever had the opportunity to get revenge, to get back at Scion for doing this, I wanted to remember these faces, find just a little more strength, make it hurt that much more.

  But I wasn’t one for simply wanting to help, paying lip service and promising vengeance felt hollow. Instead, as a token gesture, something that might not even be noticed, I gathered up every mosquito in range and proceeded to murder them with other bugs. I kept the biting flies.

  I wrapped the bugs around me. Fuck PR. The faint weight of the insects was reassuring, like a blanket. A barrier against the world, like Tecton’s armor or Rachel’s intimidating nature.

  A sign caught my eye. I stopped, looking over the people in the small campsite.

  Barnes.

  No further details, no requests. I almost hadn’t recognized them.

  Alan, Emma’s dad, had lost weight since I’d seen him last. He’d noticed me, and looked up, staring, his eyes red. His wife sat in a lawn chair beside him, while Emma’s older sister sat on a blanket at her mother’s feet, her mother resting one hand on her head.

  Zoe’s—Emma’s mom’s—eyes were wet. Emma’s sister looked equally upset.

  Emma wasn’t in sight. I could guess what they were crying about.

  Alan was staring at me now, and there was an inexplicable accusation in the look. His wife took his hand and held it, but he didn’t move his eyes a fraction.

  When Anne, Emma’s sister, looked up at me, there was a glimmer of the same. A hint of blame.

  Emma hadn’t made it. How? Why? Why could they all leave while Emma wouldn’t be able to? I might have thought Emma had been somewhere out of reach, but that didn’t fit. There would be no certainty she was dead. They’d be putting her name on a sign and hoping she turned up?

  And why would they blame me? For failing to stop this from happening?

  Fuck that.

  I turned and walked away.

  Once I was out of their immediate vicinity, I took a few running steps and let my flight pack lift me up. Better than zig-zagging between the campsites.

  I floated over a sea of people with their heads down, their expressions alternately emotional and rigidly stoic in defeat. Hundreds or thousands of tents surrounded the area, and string fences no higher than one’s calf bounded off each of the sites.

  Rachel had made her way outside the city limits, past even the tents that were set a five or six minute walk from any of the others. I followed her over the hill, to another small set of buildings. Cabins set on what had been Captain’s Hill in Earth Bet. I knew they were Rachel’s because of the dogs that were scattered around the premises, a small crowd milling around Bastard and the other mutant canines.

  The largest cabin had three lar
ge bison skulls placed over the cabin door. Bastard and the other dogs had been tied up outside like horses, left to shrink, with a trough of water to drink from.

  I landed, and I was struck by the realization that my flight pack might not be so easy to recharge, now. I still had the spare, fully charged, but Defiant might have his hands full, and the infrastructure or resources might not be available.

  It was a minor thing. Inconsequential, in terms of everything that was going on. It wasn’t like the flight pack was going to matter a bit against Scion. But it was one more reminder of what was truly happening.

  I stopped and turned to look over the landscape. I turned my head right until the small settlement and the sea of tents wasn’t quite visible, then turned it to the left to do the same. Focusing on the nature, the untouched wilderness.

  Is this what Brockton Bay will look like, if we can’t win this fight? How many years does it take for the last building to collapse, for dirt and grass to drown away any and all signs we were ever there?

  It was a daunting thought, a heavy thought that joined countless others.

  The dogs barked as I approached on foot. I kept calm and waited.

  I recognized the girl with the funny colored eyes and darker skin from Rachel’s hideout. I’d met her on my last week in Brockton Bay. With her presence alone, the animals collectively quieted. A single dog barked one last time, with two others reflexively following with barks of their own, but that ended it. The girl held the door open from me, and the dogs didn’t protest as I made my way inside.

  Rachel was sitting on a couch with dogs arranged around her. Angelica was afforded a bit of favoritism, and received a touch of extra attention from her master. She, in turn, was extending a gentleness to Rachel that went beyond Angelica’s poor health and the glacial movements that accompanied chronic pain. Rachel looked defensive, her eyes cast down at the ground. Something more severe than the whole Scion business.

  Charlotte, Forrest, and Sierra were present too, keeping their distance, keeping silent as we met again for the first time in over a year and a half, not moving from where they stood.

  The kids gathered at the far end of the room, silently occupying themselves with a mass of puppies. I recognized Mason and Kathy, and didn’t recognize Ephraim at first glance. Jessie was conspicuously absent, but nobody seemed to be reacting to that gap. She’d left on her own, maybe. Found family.

  Aidan sat off on his own, a pigeon sitting on his knee. He opened and closed his hands, and the bird hopped from the one knee to the other, then back again. Something had happened there, but it wasn’t a focus. Not right now.

  Tattletale sat in her computer chair, but the computer screens were dark, the computers themselves unlit, quiet and still.

  I didn’t like the emotion I saw on her face any more than I liked what I saw with the others.

  Pity. Sympathy.

  It wouldn’t be Grue. No. That didn’t fit. He’d been flying back, and he hadn’t been so far away that he’d be in the path of danger.

  Not Imp either. Parian and Foil had been fine the last time I’d seen.

  No.

  Tattletale was best situated to focus on Brockton Bay. Who had made it. Who hadn’t. And there was only one Brockton Bay resident who truly mattered, that hadn’t been accounted for.

  I felt a lump in my throat growing with every heartbeat, expanding every time I tried to swallow and failed.

  Without waiting for a response, for any words of pity, or even verification, I turned and pushed my way out the door, taking flight.

  I flew. Up over the bay, away from the city, away from this alien Earth. I blinded myself with my own swarm, drowned everything out with their drone, their buzz, their roar.

  All of this time, the sacrifices, the loss of security.

  The loss of me.

  To do what? To stop this?

  It had happened despite our attempts to the contrary.

  To reconnect with my dad?

  We had reconnected. I’d come clean about who and what I was. We’d built up a relationship that was new, accounting for the fact that we were changed people. Now, as I continued to fly, to put distance between myself and everything, I wasn’t sure it had been worth it.

  The wind blew my hair, and I let my swarm move away, revealing the open ocean all around me. There was only the wind and the sound of the water to hear. The smell of salt water I’d come to miss.

  My dad was gone, and I couldn’t bring myself to go back and get verification. I couldn’t handle it if there wasn’t verification.

  I was cognizant of the fuel gauge, of the dwindling power of the flight pack. I knew I’d have to go back. I knew there was stuff to do.

  But I’d spent the last age trying to build towards something, to prepare for the pivotal moment. I’d played my role, helped stop Hookwolf. I’d communicated with Foil to urge her to play possum, tracking where the enemy was and what they could see. It had led to us taking down Gray Boy and Siberian, trapping Jack.

  And now the death toll was climbing. Scion continued his rampage, and I hadn’t even had the guts to own up to the failure.

  I couldn’t bring myself to go back and do something minor. It was arrogant, proud, but I couldn’t bring myself to do search and rescue while the population was steadily scoured from the planet, the major cities wiped out like a human child might kick down anthills.

  There was nothing in the worlds that I wanted more than a hug and I couldn’t bring myself to ask for one. My dad and Rachel were the only ones I could trust to offer one without further questions, without platitude or commentary, and I couldn’t get to Rachel without going through the others. My dad was even farther from my reach.

  The mask I’d erected to see things through to this point was cracking and I couldn’t bear to show anyone my face.

  The fuel gauge ticked down. I noted it reaching a critical point, where reaching land before I ran out might be difficult, if not impossible.

  The sky was darkening. No clouds, no city lights. A cloud passed over sunset and the moon overhead, and it was startling just how dark things became.

  A fluorescent glare cut through the darkness. My hair and my swarm stirred. I could feel the breeze from behind me.

  I didn’t turn around.

  “Your call,” Tattletale said, her voice quiet. “I’d like you to have my back, but I understand if—”

  I shook my head, my hair flying out to either side. I turned around and floated over to the doorway that hung in the air.

  I set foot on solid ground, and felt weirdly heavy when I did. It took me a moment to find my balance.

  Tattletale caught me as the door closed beside us. Then she wrapped her arms around me in a hug. Odd, that she was shorter than me. When did that happen? I could remember her giving me a one-armed hug once, a long time ago. She’d been just a little taller than me then. Just the right height for a hug. Now we were like Foil and Parian. I was taller, receiving comfort from someone shorter than me.

  I’d underestimated her. She didn’t ask any questions or offer any sympathy.

  “They’re all here,” she said. “Ready?”

  I hesitated, then spoke. My voice was rough. “Ready.”

  We didn’t budge. She didn’t break the hug.

  “Fuck it all,” I muttered. My voice was still weird with emotion. Maybe I’d keep my mouth shut at this meeting.

  “Fuck it,” she agreed.

  That said, we broke apart, took a second to breathe, and then made our way into the meeting room.

  Extinction 27.2

  The setup was the same, but there were undeniable changes. More people, and just about everyone was showing up in force.

  Thirteen panels, glowing lightly to light the individual groups from behind. Each had a symbol on it, now, representing the teams.

  Rachel stood at the corner at the end of the hallway, her back against the panel. Her hair was a little out of sorts, and she wore her jacket with the heavy fur collar. Wi
th stray dog hairs sticking to every article of clothing, each individual hair and strand of fur seemed to glow luminescent. Bastard sat beside her, and his eyes reflected the same light.

  We entered the booth as a group, Tattletale leading the way, with Rachel falling into step beside me. We settled into a similar formation as we joined the others. The booth was framed by a railing, same as before, but there was a crescent-shaped desk on our side of the railing. Tattletale had already laid out handheld devices, a phone and several documents.

  She took her place at the center of the desk. Our spokesman, apparently.

  I glanced over my shoulder. The others were present, Parian and Foil included. Grue’s presence made for a dramatic effect, tendrils of his darkness coiling around the base of the panel. He was making himself larger, moving the tendrils more. It signaled a higher degree of emotion.

  The logo was the name of the team, drawn out like a gang tag.

  I took a deep breath, then looked over the rest of the room. The other booths were crowded as well. Every face was shrouded in shadow, the groups lit only by the glowing panels behind them.

  It pissed me off. I was surprised at how much it bothered me, at the vehemence of the emotion, the impulse to act, to react. To yell at them and call them all imbeciles, because they were busy trying to protect their identities and be secretive when that was the lowest priority right now.

  I managed to make myself stay still, instead. If I was a little unhinged right this moment, then I needed to be calm, logical.

  It wasn’t really working. I couldn’t keep that sense of outrage over this trivial thing contained. I settled for channeling it into my swarm, having them crawl in a slow rotation over me, flowing over and around one another. It was the equivalent of drumming my fingers or pacing, if somewhat more mental than physical.

  It barely helped.

  Cauldron was present. Doctor Mother stood behind their desk as Tattletale stood behind ours. Contessa and the man Tattletale had identified as the Number Man stood with her. Our god damned accountant, from our supervillain days, a major player in Cauldron. They’d managed our bank accounts, just like they’d controlled virtually everything else from the shadows.