Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “Which is?”

  Newter glanced at the papers, “I’d really like to know.”

  “So you followed us.”

  “Something about the way that one moved,” Newter pointed at Jaw with his tail, “Reminded me of some other mercenaries I’ve come across. Don’t bother shooting, by the way, I’m too quick.”

  Lisa gestured, and the bodyguards lowered their weapons.

  Newter frowned, “I gathered you were mercenaries, decided to spy, but finding you’d taken the papers was a surprise. Who are you?”

  Lisa looked at me, without a ready answer for once. I looked over at Charlotte and sighed. She’d already put some of the pieces together. She could probably figure it out from here. I might as well control when that happened, so I wouldn’t get caught off guard further down the road.

  I raised the piece of paper, as if to hand it to Newter, and I directed bugs to cluster on it. In moments, the half of the paper closest to him was dark with various flies and creepy crawlies.

  Charlotte’s eyes widened. This was apparently her putting the last piece into place.

  “Ah, Skitter,” he said. Apparently my having saved his life once and gifting him a paper bag filled with money didn’t do much to ease his wariness. He wasn’t any less guarded when he asked, “Why are you here?”

  I pointed at the unconscious Bryce. “An errand. Didn’t mean to get in your way. I only grabbed the papers as a spur of the moment thing, and because they would’ve been ruined if they’d just drifted all over in there.”

  “That wasn’t much of a concern. One of my teammates is collecting the papers as we talk, and I expect she’ll find nearly all of them. The ones that she could find with some luck, anyways.”

  “We’re honestly not looking for trouble, and I have no problem with giving you these.” I banished the bugs on the paper and stepped forward to extend it towards him.

  Lisa followed my cue, offering the others, “Wouldn’t mind copies of whatever you’ve got.”

  Newter frowned.

  Before he could say anything, Lisa hurried to add, “I’m good at figuring stuff out. I’m a fountain of knowledge. I want to know more about this stuff, and I could help you guys in exchange for what you’ve already got.”

  “I’d have to ask Faultline. She doesn’t like you.”

  Lisa grinned. “And I don’t like her. But she’s not stupid, either. She knows this is mutually beneficial.” Lisa drew a pen from her pocket and scribbled on the back of one page. “My number, if you’re interested.”

  He took the sheets, looked them over, then rolled them up and stuck them in his back pants pocket.

  “We’ll be in touch one way or another,” he said.

  Then he was gone, around the side of the building and up to the roof in heartbeats.

  I looked at Charlotte, and she shrank back, as if I could hurt her by looking at her.

  Which was dumb. It was fairly obvious to anyone who considered my power that I didn’t need to look at people to hurt them. Not that I’d hurt her, anyways. She’d done nothing to deserve any such thing, beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Charlotte, Bryce and Sierra. The civilians. I still had to figure out how to deal with them. My heart sank. Social interaction: not where my talents lay.

  11.08

  I could see Dr. Q grow more irritated with every person that filed into the office.

  Ten people in total. There were the eight that we’d all packed into the car and fake ambulance Coil had sent. Lisa, me, Bryce, Charlotte, Minor, Senegal, Jaw and Brooks. Two more, our drivers, had stepped in to verify everything was okay before leaving to stand guard outside the front of the building.

  The good doctor took one look at our group, ordered us to put Bryce on the first bed, then sighed and said he’d patch the rest of us up when he was done with the boy. Lisa suggested me for the next in line, which means I was made to sit down on the bed in the far corner. It wound up working out on several levels, because it gave Lisa a chance to talk privately with Minor, and it gave me a chance to have words with Charlotte.

  Dr. Q ordered the remainder of Minor’s squad to leave until they were called in, which meant there were more people standing guard outside. I wondered if it was reaching the point where the guards would attract more problems just by virtue of drawing attention to themselves than we’d face otherwise.

  Charlotte looked spooked. Maybe rightly so. She had to be aware that she was privy to information and details to a degree that we couldn’t just let her go.

  I moved into a cross legged position on the bed, adjusting the pillow behind me to keep the headboard from rubbing against my back. I pointed, and told Charlottte, “Sit.”

  She obeyed, but she sat on the edge with her legs dangling, her body twisted to face me, as if she wanted to be able to run at a moment’s notice.

  After some consideration, I frowned and told her, “I don’t know what to do with you.”

  “You don’t need to do anything?” She made it a question, a request.

  “You’re the first person who knew me that knows about this.” I paused. “Or knew of me.”

  She looked down at her hands, “I- I don’t… I didn’t see anything.”

  “Charlotte,” I frowned, “Look up at me. Meet my eyes.”

  Reluctantly, she did.

  “I’m not stupid,” I told her. “And as cute as that whole cliche is, you and I both know you saw everything. This is serious.”

  She looked at the scene to our left, the doctor, Bryce, Lisa and Minor. Leaning towards me, she whispered, almost plaintive, “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Because you’d already seen too much. There was no avoiding it. We couldn’t hide it from you without leaving you behind, and neither of us wanted that to happen, right?”

  She shook her head with a glum expression on her face.

  Seeing that, I answered her question from before, “I brought you here because I wanted you to know that our group isn’t just a few kids in costumes running around. We’re an organization.”

  “I don’t want to know this!” she said, clutching her pants leg in her hands.

  “You need to,” I started. I was about to go on to say something more, but I was distracted as another group of soldiers entered the room. They carried a white cooler between them, and set it at Bryce’s bedside. I lost my train of thought as I watched to see if Bryce was okay.

  The cooler was opened, and bags of blood were hung on the wall beside Bryce. Once that was done, the soldiers wordlessly carried the cooler out the door.

  I sighed, “Look, Charlotte, I’m not your enemy.”

  “You saved my life,” she said.

  “That’s maybe an exaggeration. I saved you from being assaulted by those men, probably-”

  I could see her shrink into herself.

  “-I’m sorry.” I finished, lamely.

  “You’re a villain,” she said, and it took me a second to realize it was more of a non-sequitor than an admonishment for reminding her of what had nearly happened to her.

  “I’m a villain,” I agreed.

  “And you’re going to tell me that if I ever open my mouth, you’ll kill me.”

  “That is one option. Or, theoretically speaking, I could hurt you or your loved ones.”

  She deflated, which was pretty impressive given that she hadn’t exactly been brimming with vigor before I’d opened my mouth. It was like she didn’t even have the energy to be afraid.

  “I’m not going that route,” I told her, “I don’t want to be that kind of bad guy.”

  She looked up at me.

  “I’m improvising, and you’re going to have to forgive me if my ideas are a little rough around the edges… but two ideas spring to mind. Number one is that you leave. I’m offering you an out.”

  “Leave? The city?”

  I nodded. “Leave Brockton Bay. You have any family here?”

  “My mom. She’s doing the training to join th
e construction crews.”

  “You’d leave the city with your mom. Put all this behind you, the ruined city, what happened at the mall, me, everything.”

  “And I wouldn’t say anything,” she finished my thought.

  “Right. You’d keep your mouth shut. Because if you did start discussing stuff you shouldn’t know? Those soldiers, the hackers, the plants we have with police and FBI and government? My psychic friend over there? They’d find you.”

  I could see her clutch her pants leg a little tighter.

  “And believe me, Charlotte, I don’t want to hurt you. But it would be out of my hands. I’m not the top dog here. The person in charge? They would handle things after that. Understand? They would handle you.”

  “I’m not saying anything. Really.”

  “I know. And I know you wouldn’t say anything even hinting at what you know, unless it was to a therapist and you were absolutely sure it was confidential. That’s what I’m proposing.”

  Her head hung, “I… don’t think I can leave like that. I wanted to, before all of this, but my zaydee, my grandpa, he refuses to leave, and he can’t take care of himself when the city’s like this. It’s why we didn’t evacuate.”

  “You could tell your mom and grandpa some of what happened. That the Merchants got you, that you got away, that you don’t feel safe here.”

  She buried her face in her knees. “No.”

  “Okay. So that leaves option two.”

  “I-” she started. She stopped when I raised one hand.

  “Don’t say anything until I explain it. I’ll forget what I want to say if I get distracted. You’re going to work for me. And every doubt and possibility that just made you tense up at that idea? It’s not going to happen. You’ll be safe. Safer than you were before. You won’t have to do anything illegal unless you’re willing.”

  “I’d still be helping you, I’d be helping a criminal, indirectly.”

  “You would. But I think you’d be surprised at my approach. I’m not looking to hurt innocents. I’m not pushing hard drugs, I’m not demanding protection money.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  Funny, how everything always seemed to tie back to the beginning. I was put in mind of the conversation I’d had with the Undersiders on our second meeting. The same conversation that had led to me joining them.

  “I’m afraid the full details only come with membership,” I echoed Lisa’s words to me from back then.

  “I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?”

  “You do. More than you think. Don’t give me a response just yet. Think about it for a bit. You’re staying at least until you get those scrapes and scratches looked at.”

  Charlotte looked at her hands. Her knuckles and fingertips were torn up, and she had a shallow cut on the side of her neck. “This isn’t anything worth worrying about.”

  “The way this city is right now? You’ll get an infection if you don’t get that taken care of. Relax. Believe it or not, you’re safer right here, right now, than you’ve been for the past few weeks. Breathe, think about what you want to do.”

  She glanced around, and I could tell she didn’t believe me. Still, she met my eyes and offered me a nod.

  Well, I hadn’t solved the Charlotte problem just yet, but I’d at least addressed it. If I was honest with myself, part of the reason I told her to wait on her answer was to buy myself a reprieve, give myself time to think.

  Maybe that was a bad idea, because being left to ponder let the anxiety build up. I was worried. Not just about Charlotte, but about my territory. Had the Merchants attacked it in the meantime? Lisa had said they would mostly be at the party, but I couldn’t be absolutely sure. Grue would have been watching it for me, but he’d be tired, and he didn’t have the same awareness over the area that I did.

  I almost regretted leaving for this, for Bryce, even though I knew I’d do it again.

  If anything calmed me down, it was seeing Lisa with the two squad leaders. She laughed a little, and put her hand on the arm of the other squad captain, Fish. When she caught me looking her way, she smiled and gave me a wink.

  When Dr. Q had done everything he could for Bryce, he turned his attentions to me. I got more stitches, in my arm this time, which was fun. I also got to see every single one of my cuts and scrapes fizz with foam as he disinfected my injuries, which stung like hell.

  He was nearly done when a knock came at the door. Jaw was on the other side, and he was escorting Sierra, as I’d requested. She went immediately to Bryce’s bedside.

  “His hand,” she said.

  “Things got violent,” Lisa said, stepping towards her. “We didn’t start it, but they got ugly.”

  Sierra nodded mutely, then turned to Bryce. She knelt at the side of the bed and held his intact hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Lisa said.

  Sierra shook her head, her dreadlocks swinging, “No. I understand. The hand isn’t your fault. He’s here and he’s alive because of you.”

  “No. I’m sorry because I have something to tell you that’s going to be hard to hear. But you need to know this.”

  Sierra looked up, her brow creased in concern, “Did they drug him? Dirty needles? Did they… was he-”

  “They didn’t touch him,” Lisa reassured Sierra, “But that’s because he wasn’t one of their victims. He was one of them.”

  Sierra shook her head, “No. You must have misunderstood.”

  “The people who attacked the church? He was with them. He got hurt helping them fight to win some prize the leaders were offering.”

  “No,” Sierra shook her head again. “He wouldn’t!”

  Lisa shrugged, unable to find the words to convince her.

  Sierra sounded angry now. She stood, confronting Lisa, “No! Where’s Skitter? Where’s your boss?”

  I hesitated. My secret identity, such as it was, was already falling apart. It wasn’t that I was that committed to it, since I wasn’t ‘Taylor’ that much of the time these days, but there was always that worry in the back of my mind that I was burning my bridges as far as being able to go back home, or that I was possibly giving out clues that someone could use to trace back to my dad and hurt him.

  On the other hand, I could see how Sierra was on the verge of losing it. I couldn’t tell if she was going to cry, hit Lisa or say something she shouldn’t, but I couldn’t let her do anything that would get her in trouble with the soldiers. I stood from the bed.

  “Sierra,” I called out.

  She wheeled on me. I watched her expression change as she stared at me and realized who I was.

  “You got hurt,” she said, looking almost stunned by that realization. How bad did I look, that my injuries distracted her from her brother? Or was it the realization that a supervillain could get hurt?

  “Things got ugly,” I said. Then I added, with emphasis, “Lisa wasn’t lying.”

  She shook her head, “It doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t do that. It doesn’t fit with the guy I grew up with, ate dinner with.”

  Lisa spoke from behind her, “His parents were in the hospital, his home and school was gone, and he was a scared, confused kid that was offered a community and the power to change things. It’s like what cults do. They prey on people who are at their most vulnerable, people who are lost, with no attachments, who are hungry and weak. It’s easy to underestimate how readily they can get to someone.”

  “Fuck!” Sierra turned to kick the side of Bryce’s bed. “Is that supposed to be an excuse? No way he gets off that easy! He joined them, you said! He wasn’t brainwashed when he fucking decided to go with him!” She kicked the bed again, hard enough that it shifted an inch or two away from her.

  I could see the Doctor start forward in response to the assault on his furniture and patient, but Minor, Jaw and Fish moved first.

  “Guys, stop,” I ordered.

  They did. It was kind of strange, to have people listening to me. Sierra turned and saw the sold
iers, and I could see emotions flicker across her face.

  “He’s not getting off easy,” I said, “He lost most of his hand. I’m not a doctor, but he might lose the rest, depending on how the circulation is.”

  “He’ll lose his remaining fingers, keep the thumb,” the Doctor spoke.

  “So he’ll have the rest of his life with that as a reminder of his bad call,” I told her. “The real question is what we do with him.”

  Sierra was so focused on the responsibility, the blame and the betrayal that I think it took her a few seconds to process the problems that came with getting her brother back. I could see it hit her, the idea that she might have to repeat the experience of losing her brother, with all of the same pain and worry, the moment he got a chance to slip away.

  Dr. Q apparently didn’t care about the drama. Once he was more or less confident that Sierra wouldn’t be disturbing his patient, he got up and walked over to Charlotte to start patching up the girl. I walked over to Sierra and led her away from her brother’s bedside to the far corner of the room, next to Charlotte and the doctor, where she wasn’t getting in anyone’s way.

  “Can you keep him?” she asked, as we stopped.

  “Can I offer him a bed? Theoretically. But he’s just going to run. Not that there’s anywhere for him to run to, but-”

  I stopped as I saw a confused expression on her face.

  “The Merchants may be done for.”

  “Because of you?”

  I shook my head, “Someone else. The leaders got pretty badly embarassed, they may have trouble getting their followers to respect them after getting their asses kicked like they did. The actual criminals would still be on the streets, probably, but they won’t be as organized. Add infighting, rival groups, greed… they won’t be as focused.”

  “But that girl said my brother was with the people from the Church, he could find them, or they could find him.”

  “They’re not a consideration any more,” I told her.

  Her eyes widened. “Because of what I asked you to do?”

  What was the proper response, here? I felt like anything I told her might offend her. If I said yes, would she be horrified? If I said no, would she see it as a failure on my part?