Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

What was he up to?

  My lawyer had reached the top floor, and was striding between cubicles and desks. He raised his voice to ask a question I couldn’t make out, and someone answered him. He altered his course slightly in response, walked with more purpose, directly for Tagg, Miss Militia and my father.

  “I’d like to talk to her alone,” my dad said.

  “We can arrange that,” Tagg said.

  I clenched my fists. Using my dad as a pawn? Damn right I was going to escalate. Which, I suspected, was exactly what Tagg was aiming to achieve. This was something to put me off balance, just like we were looking to do to him by way of leveraging control of the portal.

  My lawyer knocked on the door and then opened it without waiting for a response. “My client would like a word.”

  “Of course,” Tagg said. As the four of them exited his office and made their way to the elevator, I turned the two words around in my head. Had he sounded sarcastic? Did he simply expect me to interrupt?

  I couldn’t say. I could only wait as they made their way downstairs. I was stuck, my back hurting where my arms were in a more or less fixed position. I stood, stretched as well as I was able, tossed my head to one side in an attempt to get my hair out of my face. When that didn’t work, I bent over and lowered my face to my hands to tidy my hair.

  Then I sat, stewing in unidentifiable emotions. Trepidation, dread, fear, guilt, shame, anger, relief… none I could put a finger on.

  “Did you know?” Miss Militia asked.

  “Me?” my dad asked, by way of response.

  “Who she was? What she was?”

  “Yes,” he said. I could feel alarm sing through me, inexplicable, but jarring. Then he seemed to change his mind, “No.”

  And the emotion that hit me at that was just as strong as that misplaced sense of alarm.

  Damn Tagg. Damn him for bringing my dad into this.

  The four of them stopped outside of the cell. Miss Militia used her phone to unlock it, and Tagg gestured for my dad to enter.

  I saw him hesitate as he stepped into the room, dark sheet metal, a reflective pane of one-way glass, the metal table bolted to the floor, my handcuffs, locked to the table in turn. Me, with my hair in some disarray, a touch damp from the shower and ineffectual toweling, from sweat, in my black uniform with the word ‘villain’ marked clearly across it.

  I could see it, his expression changing, the disbelief he’d professed to becoming something else entirely.

  His feelings were as mixed as mine. I could tell just by looking at him, by imagining what he’d been through, the person standing by, dealing with the aftermath of everything I’d done. His frustration, his confusion, pain, and embarrassment. His loneliness, disappointment, his fear.

  And, somehow, as though it were too much to bottle in, it seemed to boil over in the form of one singular emotion. I could see his jaw shift as he clenched his teeth, met my eyes and looked away. The sudden agitation that seemed to grip him, as he opened and closed his fists.

  Tagg and Miss Militia had reached the interior of the room on the other side of the one way mirror, while Mr. Calle stood in the hallway, speaking on the phone. I stood from the chair as my dad approached, his body language making it all too clear what he was about to do. Miss Militia took one look and reacted, turning around to hurry back out of the room, to intervene. Tagg said something, two words I couldn’t be bothered to decipher, and she stopped in her tracks.

  My dad raised his hand, palm open, and I closed my eyes, lifting my chin to take the hit.

  It didn’t come. My dad wrapped his arms around my shoulders instead. I squeaked, and I couldn’t say whether it was because he was squeezing me too tight or if it was because of an overflow of emotion similar to the one he’d just displayed. I stood there, unable to return the hug with the way I was cuffed to the table, unable to speak around the lump in my throat.

  When minutes passed and we hadn’t exchanged a single word, Tagg and Miss Militia stepped out of the observation room, signaling Mr. Calle.

  “Let’s talk,” Tagg said.

  I broke away from my dad. Blinked where there were tears in the corners of my eyes. I didn’t care if Tagg saw.

  “I’m waiting on a response from my colleagues,” Mr. Calle said. “There’s no reason to speak further, unless you’re capitulating.”

  “No,” Tagg answered. “But I’d like to go over the main points.”

  This was why he wanted my dad here, I thought.

  “You’ve informed me that your teammates, many of whom are known murderers, are going to declare war against the PRT in three hours and twenty minutes, without word from you.”

  My dad took a seat to my left, watching me carefully.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You’ve described them as unpredictable. They’re undeniably dangerous. You think they’ll hurt people. They’ll pull out all the stops, to get you back, and to hurt us. The good guys.”

  “Yes,” I said, not taking my eyes off Tagg. “But I don’t think you’re a good guy, Director.”

  “I don’t think you’re a good person either,” Tagg said, “and the court of public opinion is likely to agree with me before they agree with you.”

  “Let’s not resort to name calling this early in the discussion,” Mr. Calle said.

  “Right,” Tagg said, “It wastes time, and you have very little.”

  “Neither of us want this to happen, Director,” I said. “Neither of us have time, and neither of us want a war. Except maybe you do. Maybe you think you’d win, and it’d be a bump in the PRT’s ratings.”

  “No,” he said, “I think, like any altercation, both sides would lose something. But let’s talk about your terms. You want amnesty for your criminal friends?’

  I was acutely aware of my dad watching me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You want to depose me, raising Miss Militia to my place, and in the doing, force the PRT to relinquish all ideas of humans governing parahumans, to help keep those with incredible power in check.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you wanted me to allow you to become an official vigilante, leaving your group behind while you worked to hunt down psychopaths with powers. I’ve explained why that can’t happen. I’m not sure if you intend to change your demands, or-”

  “I’ll go to the Birdcage if I have to,” I said. “Because the rest of it, I believe in it enough to make the sacrifice.”

  “Taylor,” my dad said. The first words he’d said to me since the breakfast we’d had together, on the day I’d been outed. “Why?”

  “Because we’re losing. We’re so focused on the little things, on petty squabbles and factions and vendettas, that we’re losing against the real dangers. The Class S threats. The fact that the world’s going to end in a year and eleven months. Did you hear about that?”

  He shook his head. “I… I read the letter you left me, at Annette’s grave. Realized it was probably what you were trying to write, the night you left. Before you changed your mind.”

  The night I left, so long ago. When I’d first met Coil.

  “A lot of what I did, it was to stop the man who really wanted to take over the city. Who would have been far worse than any of us Undersiders. And I did that because he had a little girl captive. Dinah Alcott. She could see the future, and she says the world ends in two years.”

  My dad shook his head, “No.”

  “Yes. The heroes know it. It’s a big part of why the PRT is falling apart. You’ve heard about that on the news?”

  “I… some. But I haven’t paid much attention since I found out that you-”

  “That I’m a supervillain,” I said.

  He flinched visibly at that.

  “Interesting,” Tagg cut in. “That you call yourself that. You say you’ve had justifications for what you’ve done, but you call yourself a villain.”

  I wanted to hit him, for cutting into my conversation with my dad, for polluting my attempts to explain
things.

  “I am,” I told him. “I’ve done bad things.”

  “Left a trail of devastation in your wake.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And I’m willing to pay the price. I’ll go to the Birdcage, a place you described as a literal hell on Earth. A place where people just as scary as the ones I’ve spent the last few months fighting stay. A place where some of those very people are currently imprisoned. Lung, Bakuda, Trickster. They probably want to inflict fates worse than death on me. But I’ll do it. Because I really truly believe the world needs the PRT, or a PRT, one without lunatics like you in charge, and maybe bringing me in helps keep a handful more capes in the roster, keeps my friends secure where they are, so they can help.”

  I was heated, my words angry.

  “Your friends,” he said.

  “My friends.”

  “That’s the rapist, Jean-paul? Alec? A murderer.”

  “Regent. He was the son of a supervillain, screwed from the get go, and yeah, maybe some shady stuff went down, way back then. I think he’s… not in love, but he’s close to Imp. Somewhere between love and friendship, maybe.”

  “Imp. She’s the one who makes it a game, to psychologically and mentally torture gang members who step foot in her territory, until they have mental break downs.”

  “Yes,” I said, through grit teeth. “It’s more complicated than that, she’s been through a lot, but yes. And I heard directly from people who were grateful to her for scaring off the real rapists and murderers.”

  He didn’t pay me any mind. “Who else is there? Hellhound.”

  “She prefers Bitch,” I said. “But she’s Rachel to me.”

  “Who had her monster dogs chew up innocents who’d gotten in her way.”

  “It was a bad time for her. Weren’t you just excusing Flechette, because we’ve all been through some shit? I know Rachel as the person who takes care of wayward souls, grown men and children who are lost in a way even we can’t fathom, with the things we’ve been through.”

  “And Grue? Do tell me how you see him.”

  “I liked him,” I said. “If I’d stayed with them, maybe he and I would have tried to make it work.”

  “Romance.”

  I met my dad’s eyes. His forehead was creased with worry. My power was buzzing around the periphery of my consciousness.

  I found refuge in the bugs, paid attention to their movements as they avoided the remaining drones, found my center, so to speak. Calm. He wants me upset.

  “Romance,” I said. “He was my rock, when I needed a rock. And I was his, when-”

  “When he snapped,” Tagg cut in.

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “He was the stable one, until he wasn’t stable,” Tagg said. “Until he killed Burnscar. Yet I suspect he’s the one in charge, now that you’ve left?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And with the dozens, hundreds of people I’ve tried to take care of or whose lives I’ve saved, I trust Grue to look after them and keep the peace. I wouldn’t give him that responsibility, with all the time and effort I’ve invested in them, if I didn’t trust him.”

  “Very generous,” Tagg told me. “And Tattletale. Where do I even start?”

  “With the fact that she was my best friend. That she’s maybe our best bet at understanding what’s going on? Understanding the Endbringers and what they’re doing? Understanding powers? Finding the Nine before they bring about the end of the world? Understanding how the world ends?”

  “All of this, from the girl who used her power to convince her brother to kill himself, before fleeing, spending years on the streets, stealing wallets and using the account numbers to take whole fortunes?”

  “All wrong,” I said.

  “And who planted the seeds that led to Panacea breaking down and mutilating her sister.”

  “Those seeds were planted a long time before we talked to Panacea,” I said.

  This was what Tagg had wanted. He’d devastated my defenses, bringing my dad into this.

  “Nonetheless,” Tagg said, leaning back. “So, Danny Hebert, what do you think about your daughter’s friends?”

  My dad glanced at me, then looked at the Director. “I know less about them than either of you.”

  “That’s not important,” the Director said. “I just want you to answer one question for me. Assume we’re both right. Me and your daughter. Assume that they’re everything we described them as. Do you really want them in control of this city’s underworld?”

  Again, my dad looked at me.

  “No need to double-check with your daughter. I’m wanting your honest opinion, as a man on the streets, from someone who has to live in this city without any real say over what happens in the cape-on-cape fights and politics. Do you really want them in charge?”

  “No,” my dad said.

  I did my best not to show it, but the word was like a punch in the gut.

  “I’m sorry, Taylor, but-”

  “Are they really that much worse than the ABB? Than Empire Eighty-Eight?”

  “With them, we…” my dad trailed off.

  “With them, we could pretend things weren’t bad!” I said, “But they were worse. You know they were worse. The people you worked with, the addicts, the people without money…”

  “Does it matter?” Tagg asked. “You don’t have your dad’s support, what makes you think you’d get anyone else’s?”

  I grit my teeth.

  “No,” my father said.

  “Hm?” Tagg raised his bushy eyebrows.

  “No. I think you’re wrong there,” my dad told Tagg. “She has support. When you attacked her in the school, there were people who stood by her. If I’m being honest, I don’t get it, I don’t want those people in charge, but I don’t want any villains in charge. I don’t understand the politics behind this, or the context, but I trust my daughter.”

  “Of course you trust your daughter. The curse of being a parent, I know it well.”

  “You wanted my opinion,” my dad said, his voice a little firmer, “You get my opinion. Others believe in her. I trust her, even if I don’t know enough to follow what this is all about. Even if I barely feel like I know her right now, I can look her in the eye and know that’s the same girl I’ve spent the last sixteen years with. With some of the worst qualities of my wife and I, and a lot more of the better ones.”

  “I wonder how long that opinion will hold,” Tagg said. “Because we have, what is it? Three hours and a handful of minutes? Then the war she set in motion hits this city.”

  “It can be avoided,” I said.

  “If we cave in to your extortion,” Tagg said. “Except you think too small, Skitter. It’s a common flaw among teenagers, however powerful they are. They attend high school, and all they can see is the school, their peers. Tunnel vision. You’re the same. You’re focused on this city, but you don’t see what happens elsewhere. You don’t see the ramifications.”

  “Which are?”

  “You’d be strengthening the PRT a little in the short-term, but the long-term? Letting villains take charge, taking the humans out of the PRT, condoning villainy? It would doom us all. What you’re threatening us with? It’s only one fight. And maybe it’s ugly, but it’s one fight. If they kill us, if they become monsters of the Slaughterhouse Nine’s caliber to defeat us, then we win. Your side wins the battle, loses the war. If you don’t go that far? If you leave us in a state to recover? We pick ourselves up and we lick our wounds, and then we rebuild.”

  Tagg cupped his hands, moving them as if balancing a scale. “One fight, one set of casualties in one area of one medium-sized city, compared to consequences that reach across North America? Across the world? It doesn’t measure up.”

  I glanced at my lawyer.

  “You don’t have an answer for me?” Tagg asked.

  “I have one,” I said. I hope.

  Mr. Calle looked at his phone, then gave me one curt nod.

  “What?” Tagg asked.
r />   “It’s in the news,” Mr. Calle said.

  Tagg and Miss Militia simultaneously reached for their smartphones. I was probably as tense as they were, as they thumbed past the security screens and found news sites. Miss Militia was a few seconds faster than Tagg.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “It’s all legitimate,” I said. “I’m pretty sure. Legal enough.”

  “What is it?” my dad asked.

  “Property,” I said. “I expect a great amount of property just changed hands.”

  “Who’s Sierra Kiley?” Miss Militia asked.

  It was all I could do to keep from smiling with joy. Of all the people to serve as a public face, Tattletale had found Sierra. Someone I owed, in many ways. Someone who’d, maybe, followed recent events and rethought her initial doubts.

  “No idea,” I said, maintaining my poker face.

  “I don’t understand,” my dad said.

  “Quite simple,” Mr. Calle told him. “I believe the PRT has become aware that properties in a wide area around the portal in downtown Brockton Bay, previously under the control of various individuals and groups, just exchanged hands, finding itself in the hands of one singular individual.”

  “And that one individual is in thrall to the villains who control this town,” Tagg said.

  “I resent the notion,” I told him, and I allowed myself a small smile. “But it would be amusing, if it were true. You might even have to rethink what you were saying about how narrow my worldview is. I mean, that’s a whole other world. Anything but narrow, when you think about it.”

  “You’re not as clever as you think you are,” he said.

  “Probably not,” I said.

  “You’re playing out your hand.”

  “And you’re bringing my family into this. Remember how our little feud started? You crossed the line. You made the call to out me, because you wanted me in custody. Congratulations, you got me in custody. You broke the unwritten rules, because you think that you don’t have to obey them, since you aren’t a cape. Except you’re forgetting why they exist in the first place. The rules keep the game afloat. They keep everything afloat, at the core of it. We all know the PRT is a sinking ship. You don’t agree with what I’m doing? Fine. But at least I’m trying to keep it afloat.”