Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  This, Sveta, she thought, is why I can be around you and be so calm. Because I’ve been around monsters like this.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Eidolon said, sounding very normal, “because there are few I can trust to listen. I might have found a priest, but it’s late, and there are so few good ones out there. I’ve used psychometry to view the past few days of your life. You’ll do what I need you to do.”

  How am I supposed to respond to that? “I… okay.”

  “I’m losing my powers. Slowly but surely. If this goes much further, mankind may lose this war.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Against the Endbringers, there are really only two individuals who can stop them, drive them away. Scion is one. I’m another. Each of us is worth a hundred other capes, if not more. I’m not boasting when I say this. But my powers are getting weaker every day, little by little. Whatever vast, improbably deep well parahumans tap into to use abilities, I suspect mine is running dry.”

  “And only Scion will be able to stop them, after you’ve lost your powers? I’m sorry. I’m thinking slowly tonight. Been awake for a long time.”

  “It’s fine. You’re exactly right. They really only need two or three critical victories, and it all ends. And they will win more without me there.”

  Jessica nodded. I can’t process all this right now.

  “When I fight, Mrs. Yamada, I feel as though my lost power is somehow within reach. Reserves I have not yet touched, maybe. Or a fresh well. It is something, but it is there. The problem is that I rarely get to truly fight. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “I hope that tonight is one of those moments. I hope to fight, to fight seriously. With the information we have about this threat, I can feel confident that the situation would be salvageable if I fail. Even in the worst case scenario, this could be ended with a strategic missile strike. In my absence, the heroes would have weeks to adjust, to change their battle plans and compensate, before the next Endbringer arrived.”

  “You’re talking about dying?”

  “Here, at least, I can fight this monster, and where I might never make the gamble against an Endbringer, I hope to fight this thing to the death. Hers or mine.”

  To the death.

  He continued, “If I can find that untapped well of power, then it will be worth it. If I can’t, then there’s no point to me existing anyways.”

  “Surely you have something else to live for.”

  He gave her a look that was both incredulous and pitying. She felt a pang of sympathy for Vista, and how she’d reacted when she felt like she was being condescended to.

  Maybe life doesn’t offer anything suitably interesting or profound to a man who’s been as powerful as Eidolon is, she thought.

  “I…” Jessica said, “Why me? What am I doing?”

  “You know, now. If I die, you can explain what happened. But I’ve read you, and I don’t think you will tell others until the fight is over, and you won’t tell others what I planned if I succeed, tonight.”

  She stared at him.

  “If you were a priest,” he said, “I would have you say a prayer and bless my endeavor tonight. I will settle for having you wish me luck.”

  “Good…” she had to get her words in order, “Good luck.”

  He nodded.

  Then he took off.

  18.07

  “He’s talking to her about Cauldron,” I said. “And Coil.” I’d signalled the others to exit the van, and we were gathered around Bentley and Bastard.

  “Cauldron?” Tecton asked.

  “Cauldron worked out a formula that could give people powers, and the capes with monstrous features are the failed results,” I said.

  “The Case 53s,” Grace said.

  Tattletale nodded.

  I raised my finger to my lips. To where my lips were behind my mask, really. I wound up sliding my hands beneath the sides of my mask to plug my ears. I’d hoped to shut out other sounds and allow myself to focus. It wasn’t too helpful.

  Tattletale murmured something to Grue, and he surrounded us with darkness, leaving a clearing so we could communicate. It took me a second to realize why. Were he and Tattletale hoping to mask us from Noelle’s other senses?

  Rachel’s dogs could smell through the darkness, couldn’t they? It wouldn’t stop Noelle if she really was smelling us.

  “…saying he knew them…” Noelle said. Is that a question? I was having trouble discerning tone.

  “…m saying exactly that, Noelle,” Eidolon replied. “… … very beginning. Coil involved … … people who made you like this.”

  “I don’t believe… No.”

  “Eidolon just said Coil was involved with Cauldron. And that Cauldron is responsible for Noelle,” I informed the others.

  “Another of Coil’s schemes?” Grue asked. “But why would he make Noelle? What does that serve, really?”

  “He didn’t make her,” Tattletale said. “But the rest is very possible.”

  I’d spoken because I was worried I wouldn’t get a chance later, between fatigue affecting my memory and the possibility of an imminent fight. I’d missed some of what Eidolon said in the process. “…help you.”

  “I’ve had too many…” she said one word that was too complicated for me to make out. “…of help. Can’t get my hopes … …”

  I was disappointed in how limited these senses of mine were. They were useful, but the tactile nature of my swarm-sense left me blind as to people’s changes in expression, and listening in like this, I could only catch the individual speech sounds, working out how they fit together into words while trying not to fall too far behind. I wished I’d devoted more time to trying to figure out my swarm-sight and swarm-hearing.

  Eidolon said something, and I couldn’t decipher the word. He paused, so I grasped that there was some meaning there. Ended with -tive or -shiv… prerogative?

  Alternative. It connected just as he started speaking again. “Do you want to die…”

  “Yes,” Noelle’s answer was clear.

  “I’m …red to die too,” Eidolon said. There’d been another longer word in the middle there that I couldn’t afford to stop and work out. “My danger sense tells me you … alone.”

  “No,” Noelle said. She bumped into more of my bugs as she shifted position, moving one large leg that was likely so thick around that three people together couldn’t have reached around it with their hands meeting. The bugs disappeared from my power’s senses.

  “Why don’t you … us…” Eidolon said. Introduce. It only made sense as a question: Why don’t you introduce us?

  “Show my hand…”

  “Why not…” Eidolon said, and I missed the tail end of it. Another question? I was starting to get a headache, trying to process all this.

  Something peeled away from Noelle’s side, and when it bumped into my bugs, they weren’t absorbed. The stature, the length of the hair… another Vista.

  I thought maybe Noelle had produced another clone, but others started to emerge from the surrounding architecture, peeling away from nearby walls as if they’d been inside the surfaces.

  And they weren’t all Vistas. I noted the presence of what had to be a Circus, disproportionate and thin, with a hunched back, using her knuckles to walk. There was another Vista, two large figures who might have been Übers, and on the second floor of the building behind Eidolon there was a narrow young man, shirtless, with a gun bigger than he was. Leet.

  “…not expect you to … a trap,” Eidolon said. He hadn’t budged, and as far as I could tell, his tone of voice hadn’t changed.

  Noelle didn’t reply. From her vantage point, she had to be able to see through the open, glass-less window behind Eidolon, see the Leet silently setting up the gun.

  “Trouble,” I said.

  Grue banished the darkness. “Trouble?”

  “She’s ambushing him. There’s a Leet with a gun inside the building behin
d him. Tinker made, has to be.”

  “Eidolon knows what he’s doing,” Grace said.

  “And if he doesn’t?” Tattletale asked. “If that gun just happens to be able to punch through any invincibility or whatever it is he’s given himself?”

  “He’s better than that,” she said. “He’s Eidolon.”

  “He’s human,” I said. “Humans make mistakes.”

  “He’s Eidolon,” she repeated.

  “I’m with Grace on this one,” Tecton said. “Too dangerous to go. She has a vendetta against you guys. It’s not worth the risk that you’d throw his plan into disarray.”

  “Then why are we here?” I asked.

  “If things fall apart,” he said, “We can act then. Eidolon’s powers are weakest just after he changes them. If she creates a clone of him, the clone will be picking the powers for the first time. There’ll be a window of opportunity where we can take them out.”

  “Assuming we can get close enough,” Grue said.

  “And there’s a good half-dozen capes around her,” I said. “One Circus, one Vista that can apparently hide people in two-dimensional space, two Übers and the Leet with the gun.”

  “We compromise,” Tattletale said. “Skitter, draw arrows on the ground, discreet but easily readable. Point the way to the Leet, okay? The rest of us hang back, and we wait to make sure we can get Eidolon out of a bad situation if one crops up.”

  I started to draw the arrows. I was going to ask why, but I realized I was missing what Eidolon and Noelle were saying.

  “…think you can win…” Eidolon said.

  “I hope I don’t,” Noelle replied.

  “… … want to die, why fight…”

  “Can’t think straight. My … wiring is all screwed up. Won’t let me give up. Too angry, too …less.” Ruthless? Restless?

  Leet was still setting up. He’d had to find a point where there was an open door, just so he had enough space behind him that the weapon could be positioned horizontally. The design was crude, hodgepodge. It resembled Squealer’s work, just going by what I was interpreting with my swarm-sense. That meant there was an excess of openings and gaps. The part that burned hottest had to be the power source. It was at the very back of the gun, at the point furthest from the mutant Leet.

  I sneaked cockroaches in through the gaps in the weapon’s exterior and started them chewing through the wiring.

  “… … you so sure that you’ll be any calmer when they’re dead?” Eidolon asked.

  “I’m not. … I’m angry, and it’s like the … have been taken off my emotions. My anger, my …tion, the pain, the hate, … so much deeper. … it’s not mine. Not my emotion, so I can still think … .”

  “They’re both stalling,” I said.

  “Eidolon’s picked the powers he thinks will win the fight,” Tattletale said, “And is waiting for them to get up to full strength. Noelle’s waiting for her evil-Leet to shoot.”

  “I’m trying to sabotage the gun,” I said. “But it looks like he’ll be ready to shoot any second now.”

  Tecton and Grace simultaneously looked at one another, but they didn’t speak. What was that about? Was their faith in Eidolon faltering as I described the situation, or was it more about me?

  “Less than a minute,” Tattletale said.

  “I’m pretty sure we don’t have that long,” I retorted.

  The words had only just left my mouth when Leet dropped to a position at the side of the gun, putting one eye to the scope. The entire weapon shifted on the tripod mount as he aimed.

  Eidolon’s head turned slightly, as if he were looking at Leet out of the corner of one eye.

  Leet pulled the trigger.

  “There we go,” Eidolon said. The gun wasn’t firing. He pulled the trigger again, and an arc of electricity ripped out from a space by the power supply, toasting half of the bugs I’d positioned on Leet and sending him sprawling to the ground. He was back on his feet seconds later, tearing one panel away to get at the sparking power supply. Tougher than a normal person.

  “Attack!” Noelle screamed.

  Her minions started to move on Eidolon, but it was Eidolon who acted on the command. He swept one arm out in front of him, as though he were brushing a curtain aside or waving away some bugs. There was a crash we could feel where we were huddled together, making the ground shake.

  In that very instant, Eidolon had killed the vast majority of the bugs I’d placed in the area. It took me a second to process what he’d done.

  The bugs that were still alive were unable to move, pressed hard against the ground to the point that they were sinking into the soft earth. Even the more durable cockroaches had died where the ground wasn’t soft enough for them to be pushed down into it.

  Through the few surviving bugs, I could get a sense of what was happening. Tufts of weeds that had stuck up between slats in the pavement now laid flat against the ground, as though they’d been starched and ironed in place.

  The effect only lasted a few seconds. I tentatively moved more bugs into the area to do an inspection, found the air both dense and strangely warm. The ground had shifted, and both the pavement and the concrete panels of the sidewalk had cracked. Chunks of rubble had been pulverized, piles of debris pancaked against the ground. Plywood, siding and wood paneling had been torn from the faces of nearby buildings, rendered into unrecognizable fragments of wood and plastic. Each fragment had been mashed flat or shoved into cracks and crevices.

  The Übers and the Circus were dead, pulverized against the ground with their limbs broken in multiple places, their chest cavities and skulls cracked like eggs. The Vista was nowhere to be seen.

  Eidolon hadn’t moved, and a tentative search told me that Noelle was still standing. My swarm noted the presence of blood dripping to the ground beneath her massive body.

  Eidolon said something, but I didn’t have enough bugs in the area to hear him.

  “He just crushed everything around her,” I said. “Almost as if he dropped a house-sized, invisible anvil around her.”

  “Around Imp?” Tattletale asked, gripping my arm.

  “Around Noelle,” I said. “What do you mean, Imp?”

  “The building where Leet was-” Tattletale started, grabbing my arm, “Did he hit it?”

  “No.”

  “Turn the arrows around! Give every warning you can! We just sent Imp in there to deal with Leet!”

  I did as she asked, using every bug I could to draw warnings, turning the arrows to point to a retreat.

  “Damn it!” Grue said, “Why did we send her in there!? We need to get in there, in case anyone-”

  “Stay,” Tecton warned, “Evacuate your teammate, but don’t get in Eidolon’s way.”

  There was another crash. Once again, the vast majority of my bugs in Noelle’s vicinity disappeared. Only a small few who were lucky enough to be in the right place and tough enough to endure the pressure survived. The bugs who had been flying above Noelle sank into her flesh.

  Through them, I could sense her advancing, moving one massive leg forward, relaxing and letting the pressure Eidolon was generating slam the limb into pavement with enough force to crack it. Then she moved another leg forward.

  Eidolon floated higher, maintaining the same relative distance between himself and her.

  She dropped lower to the ground, as though she were succumbing to the pressure, then leaped in the same instant the last of the bugs who’d sunken into her flesh were absorbed. I couldn’t follow what happened next.

  There was another crash, another earth-shaking rumble, and even the bugs who’d survived before were obliterated, leaving me utterly blind. I moved a few bugs closer, to gauge if the effect was still active, and they died as though they’d moved beneath a falling hammer, going splat against the ground at the effect’s edge.

  Behind Eidolon, Leet had finished fixing the gun, helped by the fact that the electricity had killed my saboteur-cockroaches. In the same instant he moved to tak
e position by the trigger, Eidolon turned around, raising one hand in his direction.

  And Imp was there. She drew her knife across the psycho-Leet’s throat. Eidolon froze as Leet staggered and slumped against the windowsill, blood pouring from the open wound.

  I felt a momentary confusion. Leet was dead? Eidolon seemed to be reeling as well, but he recovered faster. He wheeled around to strike out with the effect again.

  “Leet’s dead,” I said.

  “How?” Tattletale asked.

  “Throat slit.”

  “Imp. She’s not listening to instructions. Did Eidolon attack Leet?”

  I shook my head.

  She released my upper arm from the death grip she’d been maintaining since Eidolon had attacked.

  It wasn’t like her to get that upset. She usually had more information to work with, so she had a better idea of what was going on, but that couldn’t account for her full reaction. I wished I could read her expression.

  Leet slumped almost entirely out the window. In a dying gesture, he feebly reached out for the end of the gun, gripping the barrel. When he fell from the window, he kept hold of the gun.

  The tripod skidded, and momentum coupled with Leet’s weight pulled the gun after him.

  Eidolon glanced over one shoulder at the body falling from the second floor window, then soared straight for the sky.

  I was already sliding from Bentley’s back, heading toward the ongoing battle. The movements, Eidolon’s reaction, everything spoke to something deliberate, something devastating on Leet’s part.

  The weapon’s power supply detonated on contact with the ground. I didn’t have many bugs in the area to track it, only experienced a momentary sensation from the bugs in the area, much like I sensed when they were burned or electrocuted. When the sensation disappeared, they were gone, dead.

  I could see the actual explosion, a flare of white that I could most definitely make out with bug eyesight and with my own damaged eyes, a glow that rose above the buildings around us.