Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  She’d assured the psychiatrist that she had gotten over any of the trauma and any fear of the dark that had stemmed from that incident. It was her father that’d had a hard time dealing with the event.

  She’d been young then, and the event hadn’t really stuck in her memory. But she couldn’t shake the idea that the kidnapping might have left some lingering effect on her that would taint the process.

  “You haven’t eaten?”

  “Nothing since this time yesterday.”

  “You don’t have any colds, no aches and pains?”

  “No.”

  “That’s too bad. The sample we use to moderate and control the effects of the finished products has a short-lived regenerative effect. This is one of the selling points we offer to the clients we find in hospitals and the like. Some have even recovered or partially recovered from life-long disabilities. We’ve had reports from people who were mildly ill when they gained their powers, who found they never got sick again. It would be nice to verify this.”

  “You couldn’t have told me that before?”

  “It could easily be a placebo effect. Not worth a rescheduling. You’re comfortable?”

  “Sure.”

  The Doctor unscrewed the canister and withdrew a vial. It was no longer than a pen and no thicker than one of the Doctor’s fingers. “The faster you drink it all, the quicker and cleaner the transition is.”

  “You said something about a dream quest?”

  “Some experience it. Some don’t. Don’t be concerned if you don’t. Simply relax to the best of your ability and stay focused. The higher and more pronounced the physical reactions like your heart rate, sweating, adrenals, and emotional response, the greater the chance of a physiological change. I recommend that you keep from dwelling on any stressful thoughts or memories. Just stay calm and try to relax as much as you’re able.”

  “Isn’t that like asking someone to not think of a blue elephant? They’re going to think about a blue elephant.”

  “I stress, only a small percentage of people experience enough stress that they undergo any physical change.” The Doctor removed the stopper from the top of the vial and carefully handed it over, not letting go until she was sure Jamie had a firm grip.

  Jamie held the vial for several long moments. “Now?”

  “When you’re ready.”

  Jamie tossed it back like she’d seen people throw back shots of hard liquor. She coughed as it coated the inside of her throat, her saliva doing little to nothing to help it down. The Doctor reached out, and Jamie handed her the vial.

  It began to burn, the intensity increasing second by second, until she was convinced it couldn’t get any worse. It did.

  “Hurts,” she groaned, trying to push herself to a standing position.

  “It’ll get more severe before it gets better. Stay in the chair.”

  “Didn’t tell me,” she could barely speak with the way her chest felt like it was caving in on itself.

  “I didn’t want to alarm you before we began. It’s normal, and it does get better. A minute, maybe two, and you’ll be surprised at how fast the pain goes away.”

  She clutched the arms of the chair. As unfathomably bad as it had been just moments ago, it kept getting worse. She had to endure another two minutes of this? It felt like the burning inside of her was melting through the walls of her throat and stomach. She could imagine the tissue blistering and dissolving, expanding outward until it touched on her lungs and her heart.

  As it seemed to consume her lungs, her breathing began to dissolve into breaths too quick and small to bring enough oxygen into her lungs. Darkness began to creep in at the edges of her vision.

  “Relax.” The Doctor’s voice sounded far away.

  She was panicking, and the idea that she was panicking made it worse, because it could mean she’d change. She might look different. Scales, spines, metallic skin or something else.

  The darkness swallowed her field of vision and she felt as though it were creeping over her skin.

  What had she been thinking, doing this?

  Have to calm down.

  She’d taken up Tai Chi when she was thirteen, something one of her therapists had encouraged to deal with stress. She couldn’t move here, and it was impossible to stand, let alone do her exercises, but she could try to reach that mental state. She attempted to take deep breaths, but she couldn’t even tell if she had air in her lungs or if she was breathing in or out. She tensed the muscles in her fingers and toes, then forced herself to relax them. She did the same with the muscles of her hands and feet. She worked her way up through the entirety of her body, focusing on that simple action of tension, relaxation.

  The pain didn’t stop, but she felt disconnected from it, now. She was calmer, focused. She felt as though she were adrift in a vast, empty space, aware of every part of her body, the wholeness of it, and nothing else.

  An incoherent image flickered across her mind. A landscape of twisted biological shapes that seemed to alter with every passing second, changing into something completely different. An archway of bony growths disconnected and became a bridge over a crevasse. Then a hill. Yet it all seemed to change with logic. It was just a logic she couldn’t comprehend.

  The ground split. Chasms tore into the surface, dividing it, and-

  Another image. Earth. It was as though she was looking at everyone’s face and every object and every living thing on the planet at once, from every angle, but then she was looking at a different everyone and everything, then another. It dawned on her that it wasn’t her doing the looking. She was a bystander. Before she could realize what this other was looking for, the scene changed again.

  Utter blackness and silence. It was only in this stillness and quiet that Jamie realized there was an undercurrent. An impression. She hesitated to call it an emotion.

  Reaching. It was the only word she could use to place it, and it didn’t quite fit. It was an action that was simultaneously frustrated and frustrating.

  The pain cleared away so quickly she thought she might have imagined it.

  She was on the ground, she realized. On her hands and knees. Tears ran down her cheeks. Not all were from the pain. Some were sympathetic.

  “What was that? What did I just see? It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t what you described.”

  “Roughly half of my customers ask questions similar to yours after they’ve transitioned. I always say the same thing. I don’t know.”

  Even in the daze she was in, Jamie’s instincts told her the Doctor was lying.

  “I expect you’ll retain the memory better if you don’t try too hard to hold onto it.”

  The strange things she had seen didn’t seem to matter anymore. “Did I… change? Is my body different?”

  “You glowed briefly, but that passed. You look the same as you did.”

  Jamie nodded, too worn out to feel relieved.

  “I’m going to leave, now, for my own safety. I recommend sitting and resting before anything else. When you’re prepared, stand and see what you can do to exercise your new abilities.”

  The doctor was halfway to the door when Jamie shifted her position and prepared to climb into the chair. Relief was surging through her. She hadn’t become a monster. She hadn’t lost her mind. This was for real. What she had seen, it was too profound to mean anything else. Even a hit of LSD wouldn’t have given her visions as clear as that. Not that she’d done LSD.

  Though she didn’t feel dizzy, she found she lacked the sense of balance to stand, and tipped forward. Between one heartbeat and the next, everything seemed to click. She felt as though she were floating in slow motion rather than falling, her body thrumming. She extended one arm toward the arm of the chair to catch herself, but she underestimated the speed and strength of the movement in the midst of this slow motion world. The chair was sent flying, skidding across the floor. She fell hard, the moment over, her fall no longer slow motion.

  On the other side of the room, th
e chair hit the wall and shattered.

  “Seems you have something. Congratulations,” the Doctor said.

  ■

  Madcap hit one of the armored PRT vans hard enough to make it roll. The driver of the second tried to steer clear, but Madcap stepped into the path of the incoming vehicle. It struck him and the vehicle virtually bounced off of him, the hood crumpling as though it had hit a telephone pole.

  He rolled his shoulders, and then kicked the vehicle. It skidded along the road and collided with the third truck, which had already pulled to a stop.

  Which left only the task of freeing his clients.

  “Stop!”

  Madcap turned. Jamie stood in the middle of the street, opposing him. Her low-budget costume consisted of a black bodysuit and a domino mask.

  “You’re cute. Nice body, and the costume is a nice mix of pathetic and adorable in a three-legged-puppy kind of way. But you don’t want to try to stop me. I hit pretty damn hard.”

  The mention of her costume embarrassed her. She hadn’t had the money after buying her powers. Still, three legged puppy?

  Madcap, by contrast, was wearing a customized costume that had cost no small amount of money. A faceguard covered the lower half of his face, and was imprinted with the image of a wide grin. Black facepaint surrounded his dark eyes, accentuating the whites, and a pointed black leather cap connected to the mask and his costume. His armor was more aesthetic than functional, and featured broad, spike-studded pads.

  “I hit pretty hard myself,” Jamie replied. A glance over her shoulder revealed that the two men who’d been driving the containment van nearest her were running. She knew it was empty, a decoy.

  She wrested the bumper free with a tug and then swung it at Madcap like an oversized bat.

  He blocked it with one hand, and the scrap of metal slipped from her hand and went sailing into the nearby cornfield.

  Then he slid forward and tapped the flat of one hand against her chest. She bounced off of the ground and fell in a heap. It took her one attempt at standing before she realized it was futile.

  Two PRT soldiers stepped forward to try to spray him with foam, but he dispatched both with a throw of something that looked like a thick frisbee. With nobody left to stop him, Madcap proceeded to tear doors off the containment vans until he found the prisoners.

  Jamie tried to move again. Everything hurt too much.

  “No,” Madcap said. “Leave her be.”

  She opened her eyes to see two villains, a male and a female standing nearby, with Madcap standing between her and them..

  “She looks like a right morsel,” the man commented.

  “Not saying she doesn’t,” Madcap said, “But hands off. You paid me to free you, and I can’t do that if you’re fucking around.”

  “Spoilsport,” the woman said, teasing. “Come on.”

  Then they were gone, and Jamie let her head rest on the pavement.

  ■

  “My power didn’t work. I was strong, and then I wasn’t.”

  “There are going to be nuances,” the Doctor said. “We could help you investigate the intricacies of your ability. But that would cost you.”

  “Everything costs something, here.”

  “I have another idea in mind.”

  “Another idea?”

  “Consider this your first favor to us. Cauldron would be much obliged if you could join the ranks of the Wards, and then graduate to the Protectorate as soon as possible.”

  “The Protectorate? Why? To sabotage it from within? Steal information? I don’t want to do anything like that.”

  “Just join. That’s all I ask. If nothing else, it would mean you had resources and training to develop your powers and achieve your own goals.”

  Jamie frowned, looking at her gloved hand. She had been contemplating joining anyways. It meant one favor out of the way, relatively harmless, which was good, but there was little doubt that Cauldron wanted her in place for a reason.

  ■

  “Round eight, puppy?” Madcap said, “Maybe you can finally win one!”

  Jamie charged him, and the rest of her team followed soon after.

  Madcap leapt to one side as Legend fired a series of beams at him. The villain plunged into and through the concrete wall of the jail, and Jamie was only steps behind him. She saw him rounding a corner and gave chase.

  He wasn’t in the hallway. There wasn’t even debris from where he’d torn his way through yet another wall.

  She activated her power. Time seemed to slow down as she sped up. She snapped her head to look up and saw him in the middle of a leap over her head. He’d timed it perfectly, so he would be above her when she rounded the corner.

  Except she was faster, and she could hit harder than he could. Given a chance.

  Her elbow caught him while he was still airborne, and unable to dodge. She slammed him into a wall, and followed up with a leaping kick while the effects of her power still coursed through her.

  Madcap rebounded off of the wall as though he were made of rubber and ducked beneath her incoming kick. Twisting around as he rose back to a standing position, he got a grip on her from behind in the same moment her foot hit the wall. Heaving, he hurled her down the length of the hallway.

  Calm. She had to be calm, concentrate. Even as she flew through the air, she let her power build up inside her, then released it. With the half second of effect it gave her, she contorted herself to touch the wall with one foot, then lightly kicked it to turn herself toward the ground. She landed in a crouch, sliding from the inertia, and began charging up for another go.

  Legend’s lasers tore into the spot where Madcap had been a half second ago. The villain sprinted toward Jamie, moving faster with each step.

  “Battery!” Legend called out, “Stop him!”

  She held on, concentrating. She let a deep breath pass through her lips.

  Sticking one foot out in front of him, Madcap changed directions, heading straight through the wall. Plaster exploded around him.

  She released her power, and for just seconds, she was strong, she was almost invincible, and above all else, she was fast. She ran forward, plunging through two walls in her pursuit. Emerging from the second wall, she came within a few feet of Madcap.

  He turned on the spot, reaching out to block her strike or grab her.

  But she didn’t give him the opportunity to do either. Instead, she spent the rest of her accumulated power in a single burst, pulling at the metal of a nearby chair. It fell over, sliding into Madcap’s path. The metal legs caught on his own legs, one sliding just beneath his descending foot. He stumbled. He exerted his power, causing the chair to crumple and explode before he stumbled any further and fell.

  She heard a brief chuckle from the man as he turned to make his escape.

  Legend had taken advantage of that momentary delay to get in position. He caught the villain with a laser blast. Madcap tumbled, got his feet under him and darted for cover. A laser blast turned the corner to follow and smash the villain into the ground. Legend shot him again while he was down, and the man was unconscious.

  “Good job, Battery.” Legend spoke with a smile. “Finally, huh?”

  “Finally,” she said.

  ■

  “I really don’t want to go to the Birdcage,” Madcap said. He was covered in containment foam from shoulder to toe.

  “You’ve committed somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred felonies,” Legend answered him. “I don’t think you have many options.”

  “Felonies, sure, but I haven’t killed anyone, and that’s got to be worth something. Now, this is just a suggestion, but what if I switched sides?”

  “Get real,” Battery replied.

  “I’m serious, puppy. You guys need more bodies on the field, I don’t want to go to the Birdcage, it’s win-win. I’m strong.”

  “You’ve spent nearly six years perverting the course of justice for others,” she replied.

  “And now I can
make amends!” They had removed his mask, but his real smile was almost more mocking than the one that had been styled into the mask.

  “You spent the last five and a half years getting people out of the Birdcage, claiming to be against it and everything it stood for, but now you’re willing to work to put people in there?”

  “Maybe you’ve changed me. Your good looks, your winning personality, and your diehard persistence in the face of so many defeats at my hand.”

  Battery looked at Legend, “Don’t suppose we can gag him?”

  “Sadly, no. And he raises an interesting idea.”

  “He’s going to run the second he gets a chance.”

  “There are options. Tracking devices, or perhaps Myrddin can put some countermeasure in place.”

  “I’m down for any of that stuff,” Madcap said, casting a sidelong glance at Battery. He grinned, “But I want some concessions.”

  “Concessions? You asshole. You should be glad that we’re even entertaining this asinine idea.”

  “I think you’ll find them pretty reasonable,” Madcap said, more to Legend than Battery.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “I think this would work best if I took on a new identity. New costume. My powers are versatile enough that I doubt anyone’s going to draw a connection. It also means I don’t have any enemies or any paranoid customers from my shady past coming after me.”

  “That could be arranged.”

  “And I want to be on her team,” Madcap said, pointing at Battery. He smiled. “Puppy changes to a new city, I go with.”

  “Hell no,” Battery said.

  “Why?” Legend asked.

  “It’s funny,” Madcap said. “It’s going to irritate the piss out of her, and I’ve got just a little bit of a sadistic streak in me. If I don’t channel it somehow, this just isn’t going to work out. Just give me this, and I’ll be a boy scout.”

  “Boy scout? You’ll be on your best behavior?” Legend asked. “This would be more than even regular probation.”

  “No.” Battery said.

  “Yes.” Madcap answered the man.

  “No,” Battery said, stabbing a finger at Legend. “I’ve been a damn good hero for you guys. My record is spotless, I’ve put in the hours, I’ve put in the overtime hours. I’ve done the jobs nobody else wants to do, the unpaid volunteer crap, the patrols at the dead of night when nothing happens. This is a punishment.”