Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “It wouldn’t even be a fraction of what any of us have experienced,” Sveta bit out the words. “Because you’d have had the choice, Doctor. The choice to do that to yourself. Because we’re all going to die when Scion comes down here and you would live minutes like that, instead of years.”

  “Then what do you want from me?” the Doctor asked, and the hardness in her voice had become anger.

  The structure rumbled.

  The rumble was followed by a heavy crash. With my bugs, I could tell it was in the room we’d just vacated. A virtual waterfall of debris, of metal slag and concrete.

  There was no order, no signal, but we broke into a run.

  “I want my name, Doctor,” Sveta said. She wasn’t running, so her voice was level, free of panting or anything of the sort. “Not even my old name, from before you wiped my memory. Tell me the name you gave me, after you sent me to the fourth floor. Because you do that for the ones you think are worth studying, right? Or tell me the name I took after you released me into the wild, as some kind of smokescreen for Scion. It starts with ‘S’, if that helps.”

  No response.

  We should be strategizing, I thought.

  But I didn’t interject.

  “You wipe our memories when you send us down to the third floor, Shamrock told us, so I just had a number for a while. Tell me you remember my number, even. Tell me that what you did to me had some merit, that you did all this for some purpose, and turning me into a killer with a triple-digit body count mattered enough for you to remember!”

  The Doctor huffed out the words, panting as she ran, “You can’t have any successes without failures. There was nothing of use in your case, nothing memorable but your durability, but it was one formula we could rule out.”

  “That’s not good enough!”

  The Number Man spoke, “He-”

  “Not you!” Sveta hissed. “You remember, probably, but-”

  “He’s here,” the Number Man said, talking over her.

  We stopped, turning.

  A golden light at the entrance to the corridor. A figure stood in the middle of it, darker in contrast to the light surrounding it..

  Scion.

  He advanced on foot. One step, then another.

  His eyes moved to the vials.

  He touched one, gentle, almost inquisitive.

  “Oh fuckballs,” Imp whispered the word.

  We backed away, slowly.

  Scion reached out and cupped his hands around the vial. I could see fragments of the wire that held the vial upright falling to the ground, glowing gold where his power had burned through the edges.

  He cupped the vial in his hands, staring down at it.

  “What are they?” Golem asked. “The vials?”

  “Powers,” the Number Man said, unhelpfully.

  Scion stared, his eyes roving over the rows of vials. He reached out for a patch of empty vials, without any color behind them, but he didn’t touch them.

  Sensing the traces of what they’d once contained, maybe?

  Nowhere to go. Gully might have been able to dig an escape route, but she had a hole in her shoulder I could have put my arm through, and she wasn’t conscious, let alone coherent. Either the impact with Cuff or the fight with the Doctor’s people had disabled her.

  She’d been with the group that had tried to lynch the Doctor, so maybe taking her out of action had been a preventative measure.

  The Doormaker, none of it worked.

  “Doctor,” I said. “You don’t have powers, right?”

  “I don’t,” the Doctor said. “But I have a corona pollentia.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “You have the potential for power?”

  “I do. I could theoretically trigger. If someone has the potential and takes the dose, there is a higher chance of deviation.”

  “But you were fine with doing it to others,” Sveta murmured.

  “Natural powers tend to fall more in line with the subject’s nature,” the Doctor said, ignoring Sveta. “Complimentary to their personality, their needs, and so on. Better to leave that door open, in case it comes down to it, or to retain the ability to take a vial at a crucial juncture.”

  “I believe,” Lung growled, his voice strangely thin despite his size, with his partially healed injury, “this would be a good time.”

  “He’s not moving,” Canary said.

  “His attention is consumed,” the Number Man said. “We’re insignificant, compared to… this.”

  “A healing power,” I said. I watched as Scion reached out for another vial. He held it next to the one he’d already retrieved.

  I could almost sense something from him. Confusion?

  “There aren’t any healing powers,” the Doctor answered. We continued backing away. “When they crop up, it’s a fluke, pure chance, an extension of another ability with a different focus.”

  “A tinker power,” I said.

  “A tinker power would take time,” Cuff said.

  “A tinker power would be flexible enough to cover multiple bases,” I said. “One of which could potentially get us out of here.”

  “Perhaps,” the Doctor said. “But I would like to remind you all what happens when someone undergoes their trigger event, natural or induced. You would be rendered comatose.”

  “My dogs can carry us,” Rachel said.

  “Point conceded,” the Doctor replied. We were moving faster now, with Scion not making a move. “But there is another concern. The trigger event might draw his attention.”

  Which would spell out our deaths, I thought.

  “Let us put some distance between ourselves and the being,” the Doctor said. “One thousand feet seems like the safest bet.”

  A thousand feet, I thought. “Is this safehouse even that big?”

  “Certainly,” the Doctor said. “William.”

  “Doctor,” Manton said.

  “I’m going to ask you to position Siberian up here. We’ll see if she can do any damage.”

  “Yes,” Manton agreed.

  The Siberian stepped forward.

  Manton leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  Out of sync. Doesn’t fit. Like Number Man was complaining about with his clones.

  But I was happy to have someone expendable standing guard.

  We turned to leave, and I used my bugs to watch the scene, perching them around the Siberian, turning their cloudy, distorted senses on the golden man.

  I could infer, rather than see, that he dropped a vial. It hit the ground and shattered, the contents splashing out onto the ground and the walls. He reached for another.

  He held it for only seconds before letting both of the vials in his hands fall and shatter on the concrete floor. He rose in the air to float over the mess, reaching out for more vials.

  “Here,” the Doctor said, as we reached the next floor. “These were the vials we were trying to find. I sent Contessa to find recipients for each of them. I kept only three.”

  There was a table with the vials set in what appeared to be a centrifuge. The liquid inside was nearly black..

  “Why these?” I asked.

  “There is a foreign agent in them. The entity altered each power he granted to give them certain restrictions. No power would be able to truly affect him, no power would cross the boundaries he set in dimension, or in affecting other powers. There are no alterations to the elements in these, only to the accompanying abilities, or complimentary powers. The powers granted from these vials don’t cause the recipients to forget the visions they see. Eidolon was one such case. The extreme deviant cases on the special containment floor make up much of the remainder.”

  “Extreme deviants,” Sveta said.

  “I’ll need to dilute this, or I’ll be no use to anyone. The Balance formula, Number Man?”

  “Where?” he asked.

  “The fridge,” she said. She leaned over the table, gazing at the vials. “Extreme deviants. Some had only a tr
ace of the foreign element, which we discovered later, others had known quantities. Others… perhaps they received some and we weren’t aware or able to check after the fact. Deviants like our friend in the ball here-”

  “Sveta,” Sveta said. “Garotte was the name you gave me, when I refused to take one for myself. I was recipient one-six-one-six. And I’m not your friend, Doctor. I like to think the best of people, but I think you’re far, far gone.”

  “-Sveta,” the Doctor said. “Deviants like Sveta are a rare thing, particularly with the Balance formula in the mix. Extreme deviants form a subset within a subset, with physical mutations that go well out of bounds of any solid reference point we have here on Earth.”

  “Why?” Golem asked.

  The Doctor took the vial from the Number Man. It was clear. She used a funnel and tongs to pour the contents of the clear vial into the darker vial. Though both vials were nearly full, the mixture didn’t cause any overflow. The color found a middle ground. A deep red.

  She turned it around, then clamped it in between two rubber bumpers. She hit a button on the side of the table, and it began shaking, like a paint machine. “Two minutes. Best freshly shaken, so the layers don’t separate. William? Status?”

  “He’s floating down the hallway, knocking the vials to the ground.”

  “Time?”

  “Rate he’s traveling… I’d say a few minutes. Three or four.”

  “We’ll finish the mixing and then run,” the Doctor said. She stared at the vial. “This may be the closest you get to your revenge, Sveta. I’m left with no choice, and chances are good I’ll change physically, even with the Balance formula.”

  “You keep referring to that,” I said. “What is it?”

  “I’ve come to believe it’s the opposite of what we had with the foreign agent. One power, or a collection of powers, calibrated in advance by the entity, with humans in mind. By mixing it into other vials, we borrow this particular quality, at the cost of having more physical changes with any such power we grant. We retain humanity more easily, safeguarding against deviant cases.”

  “You found a way to collect powers,” Golem said.

  “In a sense,” the Doctor said. She sighed heavily. “You came for a reason.”

  “I did,” I said. “We did. For answers, for insights on the entity, and because we need Doormaker if we’re going to win this fight against Scion.”

  The Doctor looked at Doormaker, who was being held by two Harbingers. “We’d hoped to use Doormaker in conjunction with Khonsu, for a mobile force that could safely pressure the entity. A last measure.”

  “You had an awful lot of plans,” I said.

  “We did. I can tell you about them, or I can answer your questions. What information do you desire, Weaver? What insights on the entity could win this for us?”

  I swallowed.

  “Second Triggers,” I said.

  The Doctor frowned. “Too many people have come to me about that. It’s a promise of more power that manifests just often enough to tantalize, infrequently enough to leave countless disappointed.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “When powers manifest, they come with safeguards. The same programmed safeguards that I seek to circumvent or ignore with these foreign agents.” She tapped the desk. “The agent, the power, seeks to protect the host, so it prevents the host from harming itself. It’s a crude measure, one the agent applied with broad, general strokes. Not every agent can receive individual attention, and the ones that do, I believe, were more hampered than not. With the second trigger, the agent reaches out, makes contact with others, networks and draws on collective information to refine the restrictions and save its host.”

  “Is it always around other parahumans, then?”

  “Not always, but frequently. Circumstances tend to mirror the original trigger event. The resulting power ignores restrictions that were previously set.”

  The shaking of the machine began to slow.

  “You’re involved with a lot of powerful parahumans,” I said. “Do you have a means of causing second triggers?”

  “We’ve done it for several clients in the past, with varying degrees of success. Because of the time it takes, and the arrangements involved, we put a high premium on it. We’ve had more clients die trying to collect the funds for this premium than we’ve had clients go through with the procedure,” she said.

  “A catch twenty-two, if you will,” the Number Man said. “If you’re powerful enough to have the necessary funds, then you don’t need a second trigger to thrive. If you need a second trigger, you lack the funds.”

  “I get the feeling you didn’t devote much attention to this,” Golem said. “Why not?”

  “Because reducing the restrictions that are in place only gives us a power that has less restrictions, when we need powers with none. We needed to luck into a formula that had an applicable power as well as a whole, untainted foreign power within, and we needed it in a vehicle we could use, an individual without crippling mental, psychological, emotional or physical deviations. Eidolon was that, and Eidolon had a fatal flaw in the end.”

  I nodded, biting my lip.

  “We should go,” the Doctor said. “Where is Scion?”

  “Still upstairs,” Manton said, pointing at the ceiling, off to the right. “He’s gone still. He’s got vials in his hands again.”

  The Doctor nodded. “This way. Just a little further down, and I’ll ingest this. With luck, we’ll have a weapon or a way out.”

  “What about these vials?” I asked.

  “The powers wouldn’t help.”

  “If they’re special, if they could give us an answer-”

  “The powers are poor,” the Doctor said. “Foreign, yes, but poor. When we tested these, we got a defensive power utilizing warped space and a power that allows one to take over a nearby parahuman’s mind, body and powers automatically on death. The one I hold should have attack or mover capabilities, if not both.”

  She input a code by the door, and William Manton set about opening it. Another wheel-lock.

  “What would happen if a person with powers drank one?” I asked.

  “Nothing at all,” the Doctor said. “Believe me, we’ve tried hybridizing natural and Cauldron capes. You might as well drink water, for much the same effect.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t take my eyes off the table.

  “You hoped for a way to increase your powers? Or the powers of everyone here?” The Doctor asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Downstairs,” she said. “We’ll see.”

  I nodded. I used my flight pack to travel down the stairs more quickly.

  Ever downward. Descending.

  “He’s coming,” Manton said. “There’s nothing left between us to slow him down. I’m- the Siberian will fight now.”

  The Doctor nodded.

  I could sense the two meeting. The Siberian dashing forward. Scion apparently uncaring.

  The Siberian cleaved deep. The way her body intersected Scion, it was like ghosts fighting.

  Tattletale says he closes wounds as fast as they appear, so fast our senses can’t perceive it.

  If that was so, the Siberian was doing horrific amounts of damage. She passed bodily through him, and glowing motes followed her as she emerged on the other side, landing and wheeling around.

  “Intersect him,” I said. “It’ll burn through his reserves.”

  Manton nodded.

  “Number Man,” the Doctor said. “The-”

  “EM readers?”

  “EM readers.”

  The Number Man ducked into a side corridor.

  “This is it,” the Doctor said. She pointed down. “The last room. Lowest room in the complex.”

  I could see it, a flight down. A heavy door, vaultlike.

  “Then it is a dead end,” Lung rumbled.

  “Fuck,” Imp said. “Fuck it, fuck damn shit.”

  We reached the door, and Lung set his
claws on the wheel to open the door. He’d just started turning when the Number Man appeared, a paddle-like wand in each hand.

  Manton took one of the paddles.

  The Siberian was standing in the middle of Scion, their bodies overlapping. If her presence tore into him, then every passing fraction of a second was a good one-hundred and some pounds of flesh being eaten away. Depending on how fast he regenerated, it could be vast quantities. Turning a strength into a weakness.

  But he didn’t seem to care. He floated there, his back turned to the doorway we’d used to travel to the next floor down, staring at the rows of vials. Uncaring about the Siberian’s sustained assault.

  “He doesn’t care,” I murmured.

  The Doctor and the Number Man looked up from the paddle the Number Man had in hand. He was apparently calibrating it.

  “Scion doesn’t care that Siberian’s tearing him up,” I clarified.

  “Of course he doesn’t,” the Doctor said. “He’s alien. He doesn’t have human feelings.”

  “He’s a force of nature,” Number Man said.

  I shook my head. “No. Human feelings are why he’s a danger. Without them, he’d be some nebulous threat, three hundred years in the future. But he’s lashing out, trying to find himself, and that’s why he’s dangerous.”

  The Number man waved the wand around my head, then frowned. He waved it around his own head, read the digital display, then tried the Doctor. He tried waving it at Lung, but Lung swatted at it.

  “He’s alien above all else. Abstract.” the Doctor said. Her eyes fell on the vial. “It’s through alien, abstract methods we’ll defeat him, if it’s even possible.”

  “The door is stuck,” Lung said.

  “The way the column has settled may have put undue stress on this part of the architecture,” Number Man said. “If you’d let me-”

  “I know,” the Doctor said. “If I’d let you have a hand in designing this… but you were new to the team. I didn’t yet trust you with sensitive matters.”

  Number Man nodded, taking it as something matter-of-fact.