Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “And I’m restless because I’m frustrated. There’s nothing for me to do here. I can’t handle the fire, can’t do anything if I’m with you guys.”

  “Search for Jack and Bonesaw so we can put them down,” Regent said.

  I shook my head. ”They disappeared. Literally. I’m not sure if they’re dead or if they found a hiding spot.”

  “That’s something we can work on,” Tattletale said. ”Siberian was heading to a destination, right? Heading southeast?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you see what direction Jack and Bonesaw were headed?”

  I nodded. ”Northeast from a point a few blocks that way.” I pointed.

  “Then I think I know where they went. It’s quite obvious when you think about it. A place they could have researched in advance, unoccupied by anyone of consequence, capable of withstanding hits from virtually anything, supplied with food and water…”

  Obvious? Maybe only to Tattletale. Still, with her hints, I could follow her line of thought to its conclusion.

  “The emergency shelters for Endbringer attacks,” I finished for her.

  14.07

  “Three places nearby they could have gone,” Tattletale said. “Two that fit with the direction they were running. The shelter underneath the central library, and the one near where Scion confronted Leviathan.”

  “I remember that one,” I replied. We were walking at a brisk pace around the perimeter of the bomb site. The area to our left still burned, and Sundancer was in the lead, clearing away the worst of the fires ahead of us. I was walking with Tattletale and Grue, Atlas following behind us. The others rode the dogs behind me.

  “If we’re going to check those locations, then…” Tattletale trailed off.

  “If I had a preference, I’d rather we check the library first. Bad associations with the other spot.”

  Tattletale turned her head at that. “I thought you’d be proud.”

  I shook my head.

  “I only heard secondhand, so I didn’t get the full story, but you stabbed Leviathan with Armsmaster’s weapon and distracted him from going after the civilians that were inside that shelter.”

  “Don’t know how many I really saved. He had a good thirty seconds to a minute to unload everything he had on the people in there, and we all saw how much damage he did to some of our toughest capes.”

  Tattletale nodded.

  “I dunno. I think of what happened back then, and I get this ugly feeling in my gut, like I did something wrong, or I didn’t try as hard as I could have because there was someone in that shelter who I sort of hate. Hated? I’m not sure if I should use past tense.”

  “One of your bullies?” She asked.

  “Teacher. I think that when I left the Undersiders, I guess I was thinking of considering becoming a hero or something. But with what happened at that shelter, I almost feel like it was the turning point. It was the first time I did anything that someone else could point to and call it heroic, and somehow I can’t find it in myself to be proud about it. And it’s like, that dream of being a hero that I always had just kind of faded away in the face of reality.”

  “We’re glad to have you, whatever your reasons,” Tattletale said.

  “Thanks,” I told her.

  I looked at Grue. ”You okay?”

  “I’m getting annoyed that people keep asking that,” he spoke.

  “Don’t be a dick,” Tattletale replied. ”She’s asking because she cares. We’re asking because we care. And you know that if it was one of us that went through what you did, you’d want to make sure we were in the right headspace to go up against the Nine.”

  Grue sighed, but he didn’t respond.

  “You’d tell us if you weren’t feeling right, yeah?” Tattletale asked.

  “If I had any idea what I felt, and it wasn’t good, yeah.”

  “Good enough.”

  We watched as Sundancer cleared away the flames with her flickering sun. Flames bent toward it as if being influenced by a strong wind, thinned out and disappeared.

  She cancelled out her power and turned back to us. ”One minute to cool off and we’re probably okay to go!”

  “We should decide where we’re going and how we’re going to make our approach,” Grue spoke.

  “If they’re waiting for their teammates, they’ll stay inside the shelter for the time being,” I said. “We’ll be in a better position if we don’t try anything overly complicated, like a pincer attack, if there’s more than one exit. We can hit them hard enough with Sundancer, Ballistic and my bugs.”

  Grue nodded. ”I don’t disagree. You two will have an idea if they’re making their way out the other exit.”

  “The two shelters are close to one another,” Tattletale said. ”But I’m still a little worried they’ll leave one location while we’re checking out the other. I almost want to split up.”

  “Is that worth the risk of having half our group caught off guard by the Nine before the other half can arrive?” I asked.

  “A better question,” Tattletale said, “Is whether we can afford to let them get away. If we miss this chance to go on the offensive and let them escape, they go into hiding and work out a strategy.”

  “And we’re not exactly in their good books,” I said. ”So we’d be a primary target.”

  Was I imagining it, or did Grue’s darkness expand around him by a fraction?

  “Sorry,” I told him.

  “Hm?” He turned towards me.

  No use making it worse, if I was prodding a sensitive area by raising the threat the Nine posed. ”Nevermind.”

  “Saddle up!” Tattletale called out.

  Sundancer turned and sprinted back to the dogs. Regent hopped down from his seat and grabbed Shatterbird’s wrists so she could lift him into the air. I climbed on top of Atlas.

  “What if-” I started. ”No.”

  “Keep talking,” Tattletale prodded me.

  “What if I scouted the library, while you guys checked out the other site? I can fly, it’s faster for me to get there.”

  “And we’d be one mistake away from you being killed,” Grue said. ”If not worse.”

  “Hear me out. Their only real long-range attacker is Jack, right? If I’m flying, the others won’t be able to touch me.”

  “You think.”

  “I think. But if Jack’s at the location, I’d be able to sense him before he got a bead on me. If that’s the case… I can just attack without exposing myself, and I can alert you guys.”

  “Assuming he’s not two steps ahead of us and waiting at some vantage point somewhere nearby,” Grue said.

  “He functions like a sniper,” Tattletale said. ”Ignore the fact that he slashes and stabs, he’s a long-range combatant with a good sense of what the enemy is doing and how his teammates move on the battlefield. He stays out of the way and makes surgical strikes, then relocates to another vantage point. The only thing that keeps him from doing that all the time is how he has to stay involved with his team and keep them under control. Can’t make it look like you’re in charge if you’re not there. With less teammates to manage, he’s liable to go on the offensive.”

  “But I have the ability to find him,” I pointed out. ”Before he finds me. Amy gave me bugs that increase my range. I’ll be taking on some risk, but it means we’re able to check both locations at the same time and keep an eye out for the Nine. It’s the best way to strike the balance we need.”

  “The balance,” Grue said. He was clearly unimpressed.

  “Minimal risk to maximum effect. Your group will be safe because you’re all together and you’ll vastly outnumber them. I’ll be safe because I’m airborne, and I’ll have the advantage of an early warning. Offensively, you guys will have the Travelers and Bitch. I’ll have my bugs.”

  “Bonesaw countered your bugs last time around,” Tattletale pointed out.

  I nodded. ”I have a few things in mind.”

  “If you’re sure.”
>
  “She’s not the only person who gets a say,” Grue said.

  “Name a better option, then?” I said.

  “We all go to the library’s shelter, then we all go to the shelter Leviathan attacked,” he said. ”Safer, smarter.”

  “If you’re worried about me being defenseless,” I suggested, “Regent could come with me.”

  “There’s a reason we’re keeping that pair close to us,” Grue said. ”If he gets taken down, you’ll have to deal with Shatterbird on top of everything else. We’re capable of handling her, I think. I don’t know if you are.”

  I frowned.

  Tattletale looked back at the others, then back at me. ”Go.”

  I looked at Grue.

  Tattletale pointed. ”Go! Stay in contact!”

  I turned and lifted off.

  I kept to the cover of nearby buildings, and I flew erratically, so Jack wouldn’t be able to hit me if he saw me coming. I was getting more used to flying Atlas. I wouldn’t have said he felt like an extension of my own body in the same manner as my swarm. He felt more like a prosthetic limb, or how I imagined a prosthetic limb might feel like. At first, it would be clumsy, every action requiring some level of careful thought and attention. Over time, it would become more second nature, a learned skill on my end. It would never match up to the real thing, but I could deal.

  Already, I was getting more used to correcting orientation and keeping him level in the air.

  We set down on a rooftop a distance away. There was a shed with a doorway that led into the building’s interior, and we headed there to take cover.

  I chained relay bugs together so one connected to the next, then extended them well beyond the range of my power. Their progress was relatively slow, but it did allow me to sweep over an entire region around the library. Bugs stirred into action at my order, and they crawled or flew within a few feet of every horizontal surface that Jack or Bonesaw could be standing on.

  No sign of them. The vault door beneath the library was closed and sealed.

  I was about to return to the others when an explosion of dust and rock fragments ripped through a group of bugs a few blocks away from me.

  A woman, no clothes. My bugs slid off her skin. Even the slightest abrasion on the surface of the skin served to tear through the legs and bodies of the bugs. Had to be Siberian. If the general shape of the large object she was holding was any indication, she still held the truck.

  A handful of my bugs were wiped from existence a fraction of a second before more explosions of varying size ripped through the area around her. Legend was somewhere up in the air.

  I drew my bugs together around Siberian’s head, in the hopes that I could distract her. It was pretty thin, but there wasn’t much I could do. Even a direct hit with Legend’s lasers wouldn’t affect her.

  I shifted locations, flying half a block before landing again. I could just barely make out the pair of combatants with my swarm sense.

  Something about what Legend was doing seemed odd. He wasn’t firing constantly. Rather, his shots seemed to be strategically placed. He ripped apart the side of a building a moment before Siberian landed there, then tore through the five or six floors beneath her so she had nowhere to go except straight down. The instant she stepped free of the building’s ground floor, he tore into the ground with a series of laser blasts that expanded outward, thinning as they went. It created a bowl-shaped indent, with rubble covering the storm drains that had been exposed by the lasers.

  Carrying the truck, Siberian headed for the storm drains anyways, tearing through the piles of debris. Legend unloaded on the entire street, collapsing them around her. Some of my bugs descended with the pieces of the shattered street, and they could feel the warmth of the outside air mingling with the cold, stagnant air of the storm drains. He’d exposed her.

  I’d seen Legend go all out, and this wasn’t it. Why was he holding back? Granted, there was little point in hitting Siberian with everything he had, and it was easily possible that trying to drill a hole in the ground around her could theoretically give her the chance to escape, if she found some underground cavern or tunnel, but it could just as easily drown her. So long as she had the truck, Siberian had to stay places where there was oxygen. She couldn’t, I was assuming, dive beneath the water and make her escape from there. Legend seemed to be going out of his way to keep her aboveground and exposed, attacking only when he had to.

  He was conserving his strength. As much as both he and Siberian were powerhouses with more offensive capability than ninety-nine percent of people on the planet, this was a strategic battle. It was easily possible he was planning to keep this up for hours, harrying her, keeping her from getting her feet under her.

  And with Siberian’s master or controller in that truck, she was forced to move more carefully. If Siberian’s creator didn’t have food and water, this could turn into a battle of attrition. One Legend might even win. He was fit, healthy, athletic. Siberian’s master, according to Cherish, wasn’t. Added to that, being in that truck as Siberian leaped around couldn’t be fun.

  I felt like I was still missing something. Why was Legend fighting here, of all places? Whatever else was going on, they were causing pretty horrific property damage, and it had to be hard to fight Siberian in a place with this many high-rises. She could disappear into building interiors, and even if he lowered the height he was flying at, Legend was probably having to penetrate three or four stories of building to get to her.

  I kept my distance from the fight as I directed Atlas toward the library. With my bugs, I was able to more or less follow the fight. I couldn’t touch Siberian directly, but I could sense where Legend was directing his attacks, and how he was positioning himself.

  I continued to do what I could to help Legend, sending bugs at Siberian in the hopes of distracting her or finding some way into that truck. They searched the windows but failed to find a gap. Some crawled into the exhaust, others into the undercarriage-

  She fell into a trench as Legend leveled another series of blasts at her, and the movement of the truck coupled with Siberian’s power and its rough texture murdered a solid ninety-percent of the bugs I’d used. The remainder made their way deeper inside.

  The bugs could scent something they registered as food. A heavy smell, fetid, like garbage. It was rank in there. They crawled through the air conditioning vents and into the truck’s interior.

  The driver’s seat was empty. I sent the bugs into the back. Nothing.

  The truck was empty?

  With my bugs, I drew out words in mid-air high above me, informing Legend: ‘TRUCK EMPTY – SIBERIAN BLUFF.’

  Had she assessed what Legend was doing, turned it around on him? If her real self was somewhere safe, somewhere with food and water, that meant Legend would lose any battle of attrition, if that’s what he was aiming for.

  I couldn’t think of another reason her creator would leave the safety of the truck.

  Hovering over the library, I got my phone out and dialed.

  “Tattletale?”

  “Sup?”

  “Legend’s fighting Siberian here, but the maker isn’t in the truck. I think he’s in the vault with Jack and Bonesaw.”

  “Someone’s sealed over this door with a heavy pad of metal, because Leviathan or someone tore it down. My gut’s telling me the Nine didn’t gather inside and weld it shut behind them, but I can’t ignore the possibility that Bonesaw’s spiders did it. One in twenty chance, I’d guess? We’ll know in about thirty seconds, after Sundancer burns through.”

  “Right. A few more things that are bugging me. Can I use your brain?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Legend’s fighting Siberian here. It feels wrong. He’s working to pin her down, slow her movements as much as he can. I know he’s probably buying time, trying to wear her other self out, but why not a place with flatter terrain? Why not a place where there’ll be less cover for her and less collateral damage? I know Siberian goes wh
ere she wants, and if her other self is in the shelter, that’s probably a big reason she came, but-”

  “Your gut is saying something’s off.”

  “My gut is saying something’s off.”

  “Okay. I’d guess the Protectorate have more of a plan than the one firebombing.”

  “They’re going to do it again?”

  “No. The first one, going by what you’ve said and what I’ve picked up, hasn’t done much for our side. It’s going to be something else.”

  “And we don’t know what?”

  “No clue. What else?”

  “Minor, but if her other self is in the shelter, where are Jack and Bonesaw? And if they’re in the shelter, where’s Siberian’s real body?”

  “She’s spent years with them, they have a rapport, and they’re dependent on one another. Maybe he felt it was safe to approach them.”

  “Maybe. Nothing more specific?”

  “Don’t have much to work with. What else is going on?”

  “Legend’s holding back. Conserving his strength. I get that he’s trying to win a fight of attrition, but as far as I can tell, he hasn’t changed his tactics or the pacing of his attacks much since I informed him that the creator isn’t in the truck.”

  “He’s buying time for something? Someone? Maybe Scion is headed this way? No. Don’t get that vibe. Hmm,” Tattletale mused. ”We just got inside. They aren’t here.”

  I looked down at the library. ”Vault door, how do I open it?”

  “Can’t say until I see the control panel myself. The shelters are supposed to open with a command from the PHQ-”

  “Which was annihilated,” I said.

  “Right. Or the PRT headquarters, on the Director’s order. There’s bound to be another code that can be used in case those places get knocked out of commission.”

  “How did they get in?”

  “They have a tinker,” Tattletale said. ”She may work primarily with biology, but that’s not going to be the full extent of Bonesaw’s knowledge. Look at those spiders. Some basic hacking isn’t out of the question. Anyways, I can figure it out when I get there. Unless you want to take the brute force route.”