Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  Defiant stopped mid-stride, then glanced at Dragon and me.

  Without letting go of me he charged the very air with a current from his spear, frying each and every one of the bugs I had in the area. It included, unfortunately, the two groups of bugs that were following me, each group discreetly escorting specialized canisters from the grenade launcher. I could feel my hair shift in reaction to the strike, the little hairs on my arms and the nape of my neck standing to attention.

  I wasn’t sure if it would have worked, but my hope had been to possibly drop the grenades from overhead after we’d reached the roof. No such luck. I hung my head as we entered the stairwell, making our way up to the roof and the waiting vehicle.

  This was my escort, apparently. Heroes with the tools to disable and defeat my most common methods, sealed in suits that my bugs couldn’t touch, overloaded with firepower, while I had none.

  Unfair. All of it. On so many levels. Too many situations, all together, with no perfect, right answers. Over and over, being faced with lose-lose situations. Cutting ties with the Undersiders versus helping Dinah. Leaving my dad versus abandoning the people in my territory. Leaving the city versus letting the world blow up in some unknown, undefined end of the world scenario.

  And maybe I could have lived with that, could have accepted that things weren’t fair and the world was biased, but I wasn’t the one paying the price. All too often, it was others around me who paid the price. My dad had suffered for my decisions before. And now? This.

  Emotion was starting to creep back in. Anger, frustration, despair, heartbreak.

  I blinked rapidly, to keep my eyes as dry as possible.

  The anger, of all things, was comforting. It was something that pushed me to act, to move, when I wanted nothing more than to give up. I hurt everywhere, I had nobody left to rely on, and I felt drained. The fear, the hopelessness, it was seductive. It was urging me to give up.

  The lights in the stairwell died as the bugs severed the output from the generator. I tried to use the surprise to pull free, but Defiant and Dragon didn’t even slow down. Their grips were firm.

  I gave up when the struggling became too much of a chore with the pain in my shoulders. I still had the silk cord, if nothing else. Escape wasn’t a good option. Offense, then.

  When we stepped out of the stairwell and onto the rooftop, the light momentarily blinded me. Defiant’s vessel was a mechanized dragon painted in black and green, glossy, with gold framing the shield at the dragon’s forehead, at the ‘wings’ and shoulders. The sleek form focused the light cast by the reddening sun at the horizon’s edge. It felt like the design had all been engineered to direct a hundred gleaming daggers of light right into my eyes.

  To the people out there, barring those within a third of a mile who had been evacuated, this was a diversion. It was little more than something to discuss at the dinner table, or watch on the late night news. The area being evacuated, the fighting, the destruction. Even the demise of the PRT director wouldn’t have a huge impact on the average citizen of Brockton Bay. Spotting Dragon’s heavy vehicle-suit circling overhead would barely warrant twenty words in small talk. It wasn’t so noteworthy to the people down there, probably wouldn’t change the course of their weeks or evenings.

  To me, this was everything. It was the rest of my life, my friends, my father. I’d lost someone. Brian or Rachel. The only people who would fit the bag. I was doing what I could to avoid dwelling on it, glad that I hadn’t yet confirmed it either way, because it let me feel like it was Rachel when I was thinking about Brian, or vice versa.

  It couldn’t end like this. I didn’t want to get taken in. I had to find a way. My plan, as minor and feeble as it was, was easy enough to put into action, with him holding me like he was. My bugs moved down the length of his arm, then traveled around his midsection, twice, with the cord following them. There were only two people to tie Defiant to. Doing it to myself would be nearly useless. That left only Dragon.

  I bound the other end around her left foot. The slack trailed several feet behind us. A cord as thick around as two of my fingers put together, as strong as steel.

  “Before you take me in,” I said, “Could I have a word?”

  Dragon turned to look at me, but didn’t speak.

  “A word with Defiant,” I said. “I’m not going to try anything. He doesn’t even have to say anything. It’s sort of a last request.”

  Defiant’s mask opened with a barely perceptible noise.

  “A last request,” he made it a statement rather than a question. “We can talk in the Pendragon. There’s no need.”

  “I spent the day in a cell, I wanted some fresh air. Sue me for thinking you actually meant something when you apologized, that you were sorry for not being fair to me back then,” I sounded more petulant and bitter than I liked.

  He glanced at Dragon, and the silence suggested there was a dialogue happening.

  “It’s rude to whisper,” I said. Again, more petty than I wanted to be.

  “She can’t speak out loud,” Defiant said. “It’s complicated to explain. She’s under certain restrictions, many related to the PRT, and we’d agreed we didn’t want to win like that, back at the school. The only way for Dragon to stop was if I stepped in and made her stop, and she was hurt in the process. The recovery is slow.”

  Only if he made her stop? Because the PRT would be harsher with her, with whatever leverage they had over her? I thought. Was that something I could use? What did they have on her that they didn’t have on the hero-on-probation?

  “Thank you,” I said, to Dragon. “For doing that.”

  She gave me a curt nod in response.

  “I’ve been trying to grow as a person, with Dragon’s help,” Defiant said. “I’m willing to listen, but it’ll have to be fast.”

  “Okay,” I said. I glanced at Dragon. I almost hated to do this, but I’d already started, and I couldn’t go to jail. Not with things as they stood. “Can I talk to him in private?”

  Defiant and Dragon exchanged a look. He nodded once, and she took flight, heading towards her airborne vehicle-suit.

  The cord went taut, and Defiant’s grip on my arm was wrenched away as he was dragged back. Heavy as he was, Dragon’s jet was powerful, and he wasn’t on his guard. It took him seconds to realize what was happening, to get his footing and shift his center of balance lower to the ground.

  I was already moving, chasing him. There was no point to trying to escape if they were right on my heels.

  He came to a stop at the edge of the roof, but I was already arriving, taking advantage of his lack of balance to throw myself into his upper body.

  Not the first time I’ve fought a dragon-man on a rooftop, I thought, as I felt Defiant move in response, all of his sturdiness and armor nothing with a strong push at the right moment. One to mark the start of my career in costume, the other to mark the end?

  If he’d had a mind to, he could have grabbed me and taken me down with him. Maybe Armsmaster would have.

  But Defiant twisted as he tilted backwards, drawing his folded-up spear and striking out in the same motion. It bit into the concrete of the rooftop’s edge, the head expanding for a more secure grip.

  I kicked the spear, as if I could dislodge it, but only succeeded in hurting my foot.

  Dragon caught me a moment later, pushing me away. She offered Defiant a hand, and he used both her grip and the spear to right himself, pulling himself back from the edge.

  He stepped forward and gripped me by the front of my oversized prison-uniform t-shirt. “Stop that.”

  I only glared.

  “Stop trying things,” he repeated, as if he thought repetition would get through more than articulation.

  “Fuck you,” I said. I didn’t like how I sounded. The guise of confidence I was so used to wearing was slipping away. “Fuck you and the people you work for.”

  “I don’t know why I-” he said, then he stopped abruptly. Was Dragon interrupting?
<
br />   “You bastards,” I said. I could feel the veneer starting to crack. The tears that had threatened earlier were now promising to overflow.

  “You don’t have any conception of what you did, do you?” he asked.

  “I have some,” I said. “But no, you assholes knocked me out. I don’t know anything that’s been going on. I attacked Tagg and Alexandria-”

  “They’re dead,” Defiant said.

  Dead. I hadn’t believed Alexandria would die like that. She’d flown away. Surely there were methods.

  “A family man-”

  “A bully,” I said. “Twisted by the Simurgh, probably-”

  “He was vetted,” Defiant said. “But he’s not important. You killed one of the strongest recognized heroes in the world, at a time we needed her most. Her image, her courage, her help. Do you know what’s going to happen, now?”

  “I do,” I said. “It’s going to crush the morale of our defending forces, and it’s going to break the hearts of billions of people around the world. I knew it when I made the call, but I did it anyways.”

  “And you doomed us all.”

  “She doomed us all. She was the one who did it, her and Tagg.”

  “Maybe. Probably. They forced your hand. I understand that, and I’ve been trying to be lenient. Gentle, even, though it’s not familiar to me.” His tone changed, “You’re making it hard, you keep trying things. Trying to kill me.”

  “You would have survived,” I said. “A six-story fall in armor like yours? I could have run while Dragon looked after you. Gotten my hands on another weapon or something.”

  He didn’t answer right away, but there was nothing indicating an exchange between him and Dragon. His voice was tight with restrained anger when he said, “You could make this easier.”

  “I don’t want to make this easy,” I said. “As long as you work for them, I’m going to fight you. You want to know what Alexandria did? She and Tagg convinced me that the PRT is more trouble than it’s worth. If we have to rely on them to win this, then we don’t deserve to win.”

  “That’s a choice you just made for a whole planet of people,” Defiant said.

  “A choice I’m making for me. I think we can find a way past the end of the world, it can’t be impossible to survive the meantime without the PRT.”

  “This isn’t going to work.”

  The voice was female, and it came from Dragon’s direction.

  “I’m having my doubts as well,” Defiant said.

  “We’re low on options,” the voice sounded. It wasn’t Dragon, but someone communicating through a speaker on her shoulder. I recognized the voice. Miss Militia.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  Defiant pointed at Dragon’s airborne craft.

  “You’re not just here to arrest me?” I asked.

  “No,” Defiant said. “Or we weren’t, until you decided to try to push me off a building. Now I’m reconsidering.”

  “Tell her the plan,” Miss Militia said, through the speaker, “We don’t have any more time, for reconsidering or anything else.“

  Time?

  I glanced over my shoulder at the sun on the horizon. It was still twenty or thirty minutes from sunset. I must have been out for an hour or so.

  But… the deadline didn’t matter anymore, did it? The Undersiders should be attacking already, after being attacked, it was almost inevitable, if Grue or Rachel…

  I shook my head. “No. No, no, no. No.“

  “Skitter-”

  Too many things that hadn’t made sense.

  The fact that the Undersiders hadn’t gone on the offensive, or rescued me here after the PRT left me in my cell.

  Alexandria keeping to her schedule, the little clues she’d given, like reminding me she could be drowned. The baiting, the pressure, even from the moment Tagg was introduced.

  Even the way she’d avoided stopping Coil, avoided stopping us. The way she hadn’t stepped in against the Nine, or against Echidna, at first. There had been something bigger going on.

  “Why? For what?” I asked. “A ruse? Playing me?”

  “Yes. With one tragic mistake that we’re all about to pay for.”

  22.06

  Dragon’s craft closed the distance to the rooftop’s edge, using precise adjustments to almost freeze in mid-air as it hovered. It was gentle and graceful in comparison to Defiant’s squat, durable tank. I wondered how intentional that was. Just looking at it, I had little doubt that it was even longer range than any of the other models I’d crossed paths with. I was put in mind of a sniper rifle, long, narrow, sleek and focused in its almost singular design. The stability it had fit with the idea. A stark contrast to Defiant’s craft, which seemed more like the type to be in the thick of a fight, fighting alongside him and complementing his fighting style.

  Not that the aesthetics of Dragon’s work was really a priority right this moment.

  “A mistake,” I said.

  “We know how she operates,” Defiant said. ”Dragon, Miss Militia and I have each worked directly under Alexandria at some point. It’s something of an unofficial policy to have anyone that’s being considered for a leadership position working under each member of the triumvirate for a time.”

  “Must have been real fun for you guys when you found out what they’re really like, last month.”

  “Not fun at all,” Miss Militia said. She had to stoop to exit the ship and step onto the roof’s edge.

  “We’ve seen how Alexandria handles interrogations,” Defiant said. ”She reads microexpressions. Shapes every statement and action to get the responses she wants.”

  “And she wanted this?” I asked.

  Defiant shook his head. ”Knowing her, this was a gambit. It wouldn’t do to have one workable outcome. She pushes you, and if you attack, she has cause to finish you off or send you straight to the birdcage without a trial. If you don’t attack, she knows she has leverage against you and the Undersiders. She’d see which way you were leaning, then refine her approach further.”

  “And here I was,” Miss Militia mused, “Thinking you didn’t have a head for this sort of thing, Defiant.”

  “I’ve had help,” he said, glancing at Dragon.

  “But she didn’t get either of those results,” I said. ”At least, not like she wanted. For all her brains, for all this apparent ability to read me, she… didn’t understand what my friends mean to me.”

  “I think she understood well enough,” Defiant said. ”But the mistake, the tragedy in all of this, was that she didn’t get an accurate read on you. Much, I expect, for the same reason my lie detector could never seem to. She was working with bad information, and she pushed you too far, too fast.”

  An eerie parallel to mistakes Tattletale had made in the past. And I killed Alexandria and Tagg because of it.

  “And… my friends? Just to make sure. They’re okay?”

  “Alexandria didn’t touch them. The ones she brought into the building were body doubles, and the real Undersiders are poised to attack in-” Miss Militia reached for her phone.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Defiant said.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Miss Militia said. ”In the meantime, we’re trying to deal with your lawyer, who got his hands on the footage of the interrogation and is threatening to bring hell down on our heads-”

  Earning his pay, I thought.

  She continued without pause. ”-And we still have to find a way to handle this without a complete PR catastrophe. Once the media gets hold of this, we lose the ability to control the situation.”

  “Dragon is managing the details as we speak,” Defiant said. ”She can isolate and track digital communication, but she can’t stop the spread of word of mouth. Chevalier’s doing what he can on his end, but the PRT agents that confirmed Alexandria’s death won’t be able to keep their mouths shut forever, not with something as grave as this.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” Miss Militia said.

  “Fourteen,” Defiant cut in,
correcting her.

  “Fourteen minutes,” she said, ”That’s our working timeline. Even if Skitter were to call off the Undersiders, we have information leaks.”

  “Then what if we let it leak?” I asked. ”We say ‘fuck it, the PRT is fucked, Alexandria is a monster, let people figure it out for themselves.’”

  “You don’t really want that,” Miss Militia said.

  “The system is fucked,” I said. ”Everything that’s happened, it’s taught me a few things. People are fucked up, for one thing. And any organization that has people in control is going to be fucked on an exponential level. But for all that, people are a hell of a lot tougher than we give them credit for. We survive. We innovate. So yeah, I’m seriously thinking along those lines. I wouldn’t mind seeing the PRT burn, damn it, because I think we’ll make it regardless.”

  “Why?” Miss Militia asked. ”What changed your mind from the moment you decided to surrender? Your friends weren’t at risk, you already knew something about Tagg and Alexandria.”

  “You,” I told her. ”You were part of it.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You can’t blame me for standing out of the way. You had a plan, Alexandria told me she had a plan, and nobody shared anything substantial with me. I couldn’t take a step without risking that I’d get in someone’s way.”

  I frowned.

  “You’re hurt, you’re angry, you’re still reeling from what you thought happened,” Miss Militia said. ”Fine. That’s fair. But we don’t have time to work through that. You said you wanted to work together, to compromise. Do you stand by that? Are you willing to at least try a workable solution? Or are you going to keep fighting us?”

  I glanced at Defiant. ”I’ll hear you out.”

  “We need you to call your team and get them to stand down. We can’t have bloodshed, and we can’t have Tattletale divulging critical information.”