Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “You didn’t tell them about our long-term goals,” Alexandria spoke.

  “No. There’s issues that have to be addressed first. We’ve already discussed several.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “You have your end of the project. I feel they’ll come around. Focus on that. I’ll handle the projected issues on my side of things. Just need to find the right individual. Someone I can groom, perhaps. Between you and I, one of us is bound to succeed.”

  Alexandria nodded.

  “Your two years are up in three months. Will you be returning to your family?”

  “I nearly forgot. I’ve been so busy.” Alexandria frowned.

  “It might do you good to see them.”

  “Maybe.” Why did she have her doubts? Why didn’t she want to go home?

  “Good. I do expect you’ll return?”

  “Of course.”

  Maybe, she realized, it was because every memory of her family was tinged with the feelings of despair, of loss. With the Doctor, she had hope.

  ■

  December 13th, 1992

  Big.

  The clawed hand speared toward the sky, followed by an arm the size of an oak tree. When it turned to slam against the ground, bracing for leverage, she could feel the impact rippling through the air. The dry ground shifted, bulged and cracked as he shouldered his way up and out from underground.

  Really big.

  Forty-five feet tall at the very least, he climbed forth from underground. His skin was crusted with black stone that might have been obsidian, layers of what might have been cooled magma sloughing off of him as he planted his feet on the ground and stood straight.

  ‘Straight’ might have been too generous. He was built like a caricature of a bodybuilder, or a bear-human hybrid. He rippled with muscle, his skin gray, thick and leathery like the hide of a rhinoceros or elephant. His black obsidian horns were so heavy his head hung down. They weren’t rooted in his forehead, but in the middle of his face, a half-dozen curved shafts of black crystal twisting their way out of his face and back over the top of his head, some ten feet long. A single red eye glowed from between the gap in two horns, positioned too low. His mouth was a jagged gap in his lower face, twisting up to a point near his temple, lined by jagged horn-like growths that were too irregular to be called teeth.

  His claws were the same, not hands in the conventional sense, but mangled growths of the same material that made up his horns, many of the growths as large as Alexandria herself. He could flex them, move them, but they were clearly weapons and nothing else.

  The rest of the Protectorate was present, and the local heroes, the Mythics. Rostam, Jamshid, Kaveh, Arash.

  It somehow didn’t feel like enough. They’d come anticipating earthquake relief. Not this.

  The creature roared, and as invulnerable as she was, it almost hurt. A whirlwind blast of sand ripped past them. Kaveh stumbled back, collapsed, blood pouring from his ears, one of his eyeballs obliterated.

  The fight hadn’t even started, and they’d lost someone.

  “Hero,” Legend spoke with the smallest tremor in his voice, “Call for help, as much as you can get.”

  The creature, the Behemoth, stepped closer, raising one claw and pointed at Kaveh. Kaveh the Smith, the builder, the forger.

  The man ignited from the inside out, flame and smoke pouring from every orifice as he was turned into a burned-out husk in a matter of seconds. His skeleton disintegrated into fine dust and ash as it crashed to the ground.

  He can bypass the Manton effect. She thought, stunned. She flew forward, trying to draw his attention, interjecting herself between the Behemoth and the others.

  He pointed his claw once more, and she braced herself, gritting her teeth. Time to see how invincible I am.

  But it wasn’t fire. A lightning bolt flashed from the tip of Behemoth’s claw, arcing around her and striking one of her subordinates in a single heartbeat, before leaving only the smell of ozone. She flew in close, slamming her hands into his face, driving him back, throwing him off-balance.

  He struck her and drove her into the ground. His flame burned through her, the sand was turning to glass around her, burning her costume, but it didn’t burn her.

  But she couldn’t breathe. She flew back and out of the way until she had air again. She stared at the scene that was unfolding, the heroes beating a hasty retreat as that thing advanced, slow and implacable.

  “Shit,” Hero’s voice came over the communications channel.

  “What?” she responded. Legend was pelting the thing with lasers that could have burned buildings to the ground, and he was barely leaving a mark. Eidolon was manipulating the sand, creating barriers while simultaneously drawing sand out from beneath their enemy, while pelting it with laser blasts that he spat from his mouth.

  At least he’s too slow to dodge or get out of the way of trouble.

  “Guys back home say we’re close to some major oil fields.“

  She shook herself free of glass and dirt and threw herself back into the fray. A bad situation was suddenly critical. The creature roared again, and the force of the noise threw her flight off course. Eidolon’s makeshift walls collapsed and more heroes fell, bleeding from heavy internal damage.

  They’d been right after all. Dumb luck had created a parahuman as dangerous as what the Doctor could create by design.

  Fire, sonic, lightning. And he hit me harder than he should have, even being as big as he is. Kinetic energy, too.

  Her eyes widened. Not individual powers. Those were all the same power. She pressed one hand to her ear, opening communications to the rest of her team. ”He’s a dynakinetic! He manipulates energy! No Manton limitation!”

  How do we even fight something like that?

  But she knew they didn’t have a choice. She threw herself back into the thick of the fight.

  ■

  January 18th, 1993

  “I, Alexandria, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the director appointed over me, according to the regulations of the PRTCJ.”

  Applause swelled around her. As far as the eye could see, there were crowds and flashing cameras. President Griffin extended a hand and she shook it.

  He leaned close, “You do us proud.”

  “Thank you, James. I’ll give my all.”

  He squeezed her hand and moved on.

  “I, Eidolon, do solemnly affirm…”

  She gazed over the crowd, saw her mother standing there with eyes glistening. The lesser members of the Protectorate were in the front row as well, her subordinates among them.

  Turning further right, she saw Hero looking at her, almost accusatory. She turned and faced the crowd. Regal, unflinching, dressed in an updated costume.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” the Vice President spoke into the microphone, “Let me introduce the founding members of the Protectorate of the United States of America!”

  Invincible as she might be, she thought her heart might burst as it swelled with pride, the crowd cheering with such force that the stage shook.

  ■

  September 15th, 2000

  Alexandria and Hero were last to arrive on the scene, entering through the window. Legend pressed one finger to his lips.

  “We’ve got her cornered?” Hero whispered.

  “Think so,” Legend replied, his voice as quiet. ”We’ve got teams covering the drainage and plumbing below the building, and the entire place is surrounded.“

  “She hasn’t tried to leave?” Hero asked. ”Why not?“

  Legend couldn’t maintain eye contact. ”She has a victim.“

  Alexandria spoke, stabbing one finger in Legend’s direction, “You had better be fucking kidding me, or I swear-“

  “Stop, Alexandria. It wa
s the only way to guarantee she’d stay put. If we moved too soon, she’d run, and it would be a matter of time before she racked up a body count elsewhere.“

  I’m in this to save lives. Sacrificing someone for the sake of the plan? She knew it made sense, that it was even necessary, but it left her shaken, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Then let’s move,” she responded, “The sooner the better.“

  “We’re trying an experimental measure,” Legend spoke, “It’s meant to contain, not kill. Drive her towards main street. We have more trucks over there.“

  They operated with a practiced ease. Legend blasted down the door and Alexandria was the first through.

  Siberian was there, kneeling on the bed, her body marked with stripes of jet black and alabaster white, her arms slick with blood up to the elbows. The man who lay on the bed – there would be no saving him, even if Eidolon manifested healing abilities.

  She looks familiar, Alexandria thought, even as she soared across the room.

  They’d underestimated their opponent. Alexandria’s fists collided with Siberian and didn’t budge a hair. She flew out of the way before Siberian could claw at her with long fingernails.

  Legend fired beam after beam at Siberian, but the striped woman didn’t even flinch. She was invincible on a level that surpassed even Alexandria.

  Eidolon cast out a cluster of crystal that exploded into a formation around Siberian on impact, encasing her.

  Siberian shrugged it off like it was nothing, lunged forward, going after Hero.

  Alexandria dove to intervene, to guard her teammate, but Siberian was faster. She reached Hero first, her hands plunging through his chest cavity. When she pulled her arms free, she nearly bisected him.

  Eidolon screamed, flying close to scoop up the two pieces of Hero, carrying them outside.

  Siberian leaped after them, missed only because Legend shot his comrades with a laser to alter their trajectory.

  Their enemy plunged to the street, landing on both feet as though she were light as a feather.

  The ensuing moments were frantic, filled with screamed orders and raw terror. Alexandria chased Siberian to try to scoop bystanders out of the way, to catch the PRT vehicles that Siberian flung like wiffle balls.

  And they were losing. Eidolon was trying to heal Hero, to teleport people out of danger when Alexandria and Legend proved unable, and changing up his abilities every few seconds to throw something new at Siberian in the hopes that something would affect her. She waded through zones of altered time, through lightning storms and force fields, tore through barricades of living wood and slapped aside a projectile so hyperdense that its gravitational field pulled cars behind it.

  Alexandria moved in close, hoping to stop Siberian, to catch her and slow her down, saw Siberian swing, pulled back out of the way.

  Her visor fell free, clattering to the ground. Then she felt the blood.

  Saw, in her one remaining good eye, the chunks of her own face that were falling to the ground around her, bouncing off her right breast, the spray of blood.

  It had been so long since she’d felt pain.

  Legend called out the order and buried her in containment foam, hiding her from sight.

  ■

  September 16th, 2000

  Alexandria sat in the hospital. Eidolon’s healing had only been able to do so much. She held a glass eye in one hand, the remains of her other eye in the other.

  She looked up at the Doctor. ”William Manton?”

  The Doctor nodded.

  “How? Why?”

  “I don’t know what predicated it. His daughter’s in our custody. One of our failures.”

  “He gave his daughter the formula? Without the usual preparations and procedures?”

  “I suppose he thought he was qualified to oversee all that. Despite my strict instructions that staff weren’t to partake. Or he had other motivations. It could have been a gift from a father trying to buy his daughter’s affections.”

  “Or her forgiveness,” Alexandria looked down at the glass eye, then back up to the Doctor.

  The Doctor’s eyebrows were raised in uncharacteristic surprise. ”Did you see anything suspect?”

  “No. I only met his daughter twice, and it was brief, her father wasn’t around. But I know the divorce between Professor Manton and his wife was pretty bad, as those things go. He was angry, maybe did some things he regretted?”

  The Doctor sighed.

  “So that was him?“

  “Almost certainly. He gave his daughter one of our higher quality formulas, and she couldn’t handle it. When he realized what he’d done, realized that he couldn’t hide it from us, he took one formula for himself and fled. I didn’t know what it had done for him until tonight. The resemblance between Siberian and Manton’s daughter is subtle, but it’s there, and the footage from Hero’s helmet-camera has been run through every facial recognition program I could find.”

  “What did Legend, Eidolon and…” Alexandria stopped when she realized that she’d been about to say Hero. ”What did they say? About Manton?”

  “They don’t know. I suppose we should tell Eidolon. He reacted badly when his powers informed him of our other plans and projects.”

  Alexandria hung her head. ”How do we stop him? Manton? If he’s transformed into that…”

  “The sample he took, F-one-six-one-one, it tends to give projection powers. I suspect his real body is unchanged. But I’m wondering if we shouldn’t leave him be.”

  Alexandria stared at the doctor, wide-eyed. ”Why?“

  “So long as he’s active, people will be flocking to join the Protectorate-”

  Alexandria slammed her hand on the stainless steel table beside her cot.

  Silence rang between them in the wake of the destruction.

  “I will not condone the loss of life for your ulterior motives. I will not let monsters walk free, to profit from the fear they spread.”

  “You’re right,” the Doctor said. ”I… must be more shaken by Manton’s betrayal than I’d thought. Forget I said anything.”

  If Alexandria saw a hint of falsehood in the Doctor’s body language, she convinced herself it was the strain of one eye compensating for the job she’d used to perform with two.

  “You realize what this means, don’t you?” The Doctor asked.

  “That we’re no longer doing more good than evil?” Alexandria replied, bitter.

  “No. I still feel we’re working for the forces of good. Manton was a selfish man, unhinged. The exception to the rule.”

  Alexandria couldn’t quite bring her to believe it.

  “No, this means we simply need to step up our plans. If we’re going to go forward with the Terminus project, we need to advance the overall efforts with Cauldron. And we need the Protectorate effort to succeed on every count.”

  “Or we need your project to work out,” Alexandria replied.

  The Doctor frowned. ”Or that. We still have to find the right individual. Or make him.”

  ■

  April 10th, 2008

  Mortars, bombs and air-to-ground missiles rained down around her. It had been a decade and a half since she had really felt pain, and she still couldn’t help but flinch as they struck ground in her immediate vicinity. Still, she continued walking, her cape and hair fluttering behind her.

  Two people lay face-down on the edge of the street, a teenage boy and girl holding hands. She knelt and checked their pulses. Dead.

  But she could see others. She quickly strode over and kneeled by a young man. His stomach was a bloody mess, and he was gasping for every breath.

  “To gustaria livir?” She asked, in the local’s anglo-spanish pidgin. Do you want to live?

  His eyes widened as he seemed to realize she was there. ”Eres an gwarra engel?”

  “No,” she replied. She brushed his hair out of his face with one hand. ”No an engel.” Not an angel.

  “Livir,” he breathed the
word before slumping over.

  She swept him up in her arms, quickly and carefully. Keeping an eye out for any falling mortars, she quickly ascended into the air.

  She was at the cloud-level when the door opened. She stepped into the brightly lit corridors of Cauldron’s testing laboratory and strode down to the cells.

  Thirty cells, filled with subjects. Thirty-one now. The cells didn’t appear to have doors, but the individuals within were all too aware of the dangers of stepping beyond the perimeters of their cells, or of trying to harass Alexandria as she strode by.

  Only two-thirds of them were monstrous, affected by the formulas. Others would go free with alterations to their memories. Some would have fatal weaknesses inserted into their psyches, reason to hesitate at a crucial moment against a certain foe.

  But they would be alive. That was the most important thing. They had been destined to die, in places where the wars never stopped, or where plague was rampant, rescued from the brink of death.

  Entering one cell, she brushed the hair from the young man’s face once more, then propped him up while she administered the sample the Doctor had left for her.

  She stepped back while he convulsed, his wounds filling in, his breathing growing steady enough for him to scream.

  His eyes opened, and he stared at her, wide-eyed, still screaming as sensations returned to him and pain overwhelmed every sense.

  “Eres okay,” she said, in his language. ”Eres livo.”

  It’s okay. You’re alive. She forced herself to smile as reassuringly as she could.

  So long as they lived, they could have hope. Living was the most important thing.

  And here I am, administering poison with a smile on my face.

  She turned and walked away.

  ■

  June 18th, 2011

  “…I guess we have another unanswered question on our hands,” Eidolon said.

  Legend sighed, “More than one. William Manton and his link to Siberian, the tattoo on his right hand, our end of the world scenario and the role Jack plays as the catalyst. Too many to count.”

  “None of this has to be addressed today,” Alexandria said. ”Why don’t you go home? We’ll consider the situation and come up with a plan and some likely explanations.”