All the Time to Lose (Wormverse)

Ch 16: A Walk on the Dark Side

I have to blink several times just to process what I see before me. Everywhere I look, I see depravity, greed, and primal animalistic tendencies that we normally hide behind civility but which the Merchants display like animal mating rituals.

The Weymouth shopping center. Once a sprawling example of capitalism and consumerism, now a safe haven for the Merchants. I heard about this Merchant party from some punks I beat up earlier while walking Buck.

I had returned Buck to the Palanquin and talked to Faultline, agreeing to call in reports periodically so they knew what was happening. To be honest, I'm not sure I want to describe what's going on here.

I definitely don't want Labyrinth to see any of this. The amount of blatant disregard for human decency here is enough to make even my skin crawl. I glance around my surroundings once again.

Surprisingly enough, I did not come here to fight. I came here to find people who are not here by choice, and get them out of here. I've already extricated 3 girls, 4 boys, and 1 old man from their various circumstances.

This party disturbs me on a number of levels. Though I couldn't tell you why it bothers me so much. After all, I'd spent most of my career as a soldier hunting down terrorists and other scumbags the army couldn't deal with publicly.

You'd think seeing stuff like this before wouldn't faze me. Perhaps what did it was the fact that I had seen so many of these people on my daily walks before Leviathan came. Good, normal people, reduced to nothing more than feral, rabid dogs ready to snap at any moment.

I spot a teenage girl shying away from a crowd surrounding the broken display window she's standing on. Unlike the other two girls on the platform, who are giving everyone else quite a show by changing in front of them, she is cringing and shaking where she stands.

Another person who is not here by choice. I move to get in a better position to help her, but I am shocked by what I see next. A tall man, close to 6' in height, steps up, throws the girl over his shoulder, and yells something about buying her, tossing bills and pills into the crowd.

He then proceeds to make his way over to a small group that then goes off to a side hallway. I follow them so I can listen in. The men in the group stand guard at the entrance to the hallway while two teenage girls talk to the one I was planning to rescue.

After running through a few possibilities in my head, I come to the conclusion that they were doing what I was planning, only they were public about it. I decide to move on for now, but first I want to see if any of them are capes.

Neither of the two men are, but two of the girls are (not the one I was going to save). I like to reach out with my Trump power to see if the person I'm looking at has powers. As soon as those ghostly hands touch a person, I can see if they have a passenger.

That's how I know that those two girls are capes. They look familiar but in the horrid lighting and the crowd I can't tell from here. I'm about to leave, but then I hear the girl they rescued speak up. "Oh my god."

I turn back around, ready to help her, but what I hear shocks me even more. The girl describes how one of the girls with powers got shoved into a gross locker and had to be carted away by paramedics.

I can't hear anything, but I'm getting the sense of what happened. Then, the girl who, apparently, got shoved into a locker yells "Enough!" going on a rant about how the girl didn't help her back then.

I know what she's talking about even without having the full context...bullying. But not just any bullying. This was serious enough to probably trigger the poor girl. God I want to do something. To say something. But I can't, for so many reasons.

I step away before I do something I'll regret, making my way through the crowd and extricating 3 more people before I hear someone yell of the entire crowd "Hey Sisterfuckers!" All at once, the music dies down and a cheer rolls through the crowd, growing into a dull roar.

On a platform at one end of the mall stood all of the major players of the Merchants just behind a railing of metal bars haphazardly welded together. Skidmark is holding a microphone and it seems he's added a cape to his pathetic costume, making him look even dumber.

Next to him is his girlfriend, Squealer, holding a remote in one hand. On Skidmark's other side is Mush who looks far too much like Gollum from Lord of the Rings for me to take him seriously. There are 6 individuals behind him.

If rumors are to be believed, Skidmark's been recruiting new capes recently. That's a lot of new capes. Skidmark creates bands of, essentially, really fast moving sidewalks. He manages to make a crude square on the floor, with bands of energy hurling people into the ring.

Skidmark hollers "You piss-licking losers know what the red armband means! Bloodshed! Violence! We've got ourselves a free for all brawl! Last 5 standing in the ring get a prize! No rules!" My anger has reached a boiling point now as I resist the urge to kill him right now.

If I shoot him now, most everyone in the crowd will turn on me. I wouldn't survive. I'm good, but I'm not that good. The next thing Skidmark does though makes my blood run cold and my heart skip a beat. "Let me tell you cock garglers what you stand to win!"

A woman brings him a metal box. He pulls out five metal canisters. He withdraws a stoppered glass vial from one canister and practically screams "Superpowers in a can!" I can't tell if I'm angry or just shocked.

Apparently this is all the motivation that some people needed as the crowd explodes into action. I'd seen my fair share of bloodshed in my day...but this? This wasn't combat. This was murder. Plain and simple.

Skidmark was turning people into cold-blooded killers who would never be able to live with themselves after this...if they survived. I speed dial Faultline and slip in my Bluetooth as I draw my trench knife.

"Yes?" Faultline asks when she answers. I am both yelling and whispering as I quickly tell her where I am and what Skidmark just said. There's a silence on the other end. If I didn't know her better, I'd say Faultline had hung up on me.

Then, I hear the calm, calculating voice of my boss give me very clear instructions "Get the case and everything that was in it. We'll be there as soon as we can. In the meantime, feel free to kill the bastards."

I grin "With pleasure." I say as I hang up and work my way through the crowd towards the platform where Skidmark stands. The only reason I am not teleporting, is because it will draw too much attention.

I get sidetracked a few times protecting people as they run for the exits but I eventually find my way to an open spot in the floor. Just as I get there, my vision tilts as images flash before my eyes. Just as I start to register what is happening my vision returns to normal.

I lean against the wall and look around. I can see that all of the capes on the stage are also struggling to stand. The two teenage girls are nearby as well. One of them looks to be down for the count while the other seems to have her wits about her...sort of.

Now that they're in slightly better lighting, I finally know where I've seen them before. It's Lisa and Taylor. They were with Rachel when I adopted Buck. Making them Tattletale and Skitter of the Undersiders.

What on Earth are they doing here? This is no place for children. Well...this is no place for anyone, but especially not children. Not even superpowered children should be here. That's it...I'm killing all of the Merchant higher ups.

Speaking of, it appears that one child has triggered in the fight, shooting out white flashes of energy that eradicate anything they hit. Skidmark calls off the fight and demands that the child comes up with a name.

I want to help him, but I don't have a clear line of sight to shut down the kid's power from here. Thankfully, just as some guy named Doug moves to collect his 'superpowers in a can', the shopping center starts to morph and shift as Labyrinth works her magic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~