This short snippet was originally posted to the Space Battles forum. It's another take on the "Tailor gets another power" theme that's been making the rounds in Worm fanfic circles. This is my take. It's a quasi-crossover with Heroes.
EVOLUTIONARY IMPERATIVE
"I know what you're thinking. How did it all come to this? To tell you the truth, I can't really say. I guess the easy answer is to tell you that it all happened through a series of unfortunate and unrelated events. Isn't that how everything happens, though? Cause and effect?
"It wasn't easy, you know. Not at first. When I had gotten my ability, it really didn't serve me very well. I mean, being stuck in that locker for hours, in the heat, with the smell. Trapped in the dark, gagging at the foul air with the bitter taste of my own vomit in my mouth. All those ants and cockroaches crawling over me, on my clothes, on my skin. My fingers bled from how hard I tried to claw my way out of that metal coffin. I so desperately wanted to escape. In the end… I guess I did.
"It wasn't until I woke up from that coma that I realized I was different. That I had powers. The doctors had hooked me up to this machine to monitor my vitals. I have no idea what that machine was called, but one look at it and I knew how it worked. How the electricity passed through the wires, into the circuit boards, what the knobs did, even how to replace some of the components inside to make it run more efficiently.
"When I looked down at my hand, I could see the skin tissue, the muscle tissue, the bones, the blood vessels, as well as all the cells that composed them. I knew how they all fit together, how each piece assembled into the whole. In my head I could break anything down to its smallest component, then put it all back together in seconds. It was as easy as breathing.
"I was so excited. 'Finally,' I told myself. Finally, I had the means to stop being a victim. I had something that no one else had, an ability that would allow me to step away from my role as Taylor the loser, Taylor the pathetic nerd. I had a power, I could be a superhero. I could be… special.
"At first I thought that maybe I was a tinker. Since I could understand how pretty much anything worked, I figured I could build whatever I wanted. Planes, gadgets, laser guns. But of course, that proved to be just another disappointment life had in store for me. I found that even though I could intuitively discern anything in front of me, I couldn't create anything new.
"When I got home, the first thing I did was fix up an old antique clock that had been broken for years. It was a clock my mom bought before she died. She loved that old thing so much that my dad just didn't have the heart to get rid of it after she passed. Anyway, I took that clock apart, knew instantly how it worked, what each gear did, how they were supposed to move, and I found what was wrong with it, and I fixed it. It took five minutes. So simple, such an easy fix.
"But of course, when I tried to figure out how to make a new clock myself, I couldn't. I knew how to take one apart, how it worked on a fundamental level, but I couldn't actually build one from scratch. If I had the parts, maybe. But I couldn't create a new one from cardboard or other junk lying around like any of the true tinkers could. It was obvious that my power wasn't that of a tinker. I can take things apart, I can put things back together, I could even fix it if it was broken. But that was it. I was a glorified handyman. As useless as I ever was. I wasn't special. I was nothing.
"Everything at school was the same, as you know. Still got tormented, still got bullied. I even began to think that I deserved it. I was a loser, after all. Here I was, hitting the proverbial lottery and gaining super powers, but the power I did get was pretty shit. All but useless. I was like a bad cosmic joke. Pathetic.
"I began to lose myself at home, taking things apart and putting them back together again. It was strangely comforting, peaceful even, to see how those pieces fit and how everything came together in the end. I could almost believe that life could make some bit of sense, if I took it apart enough.
"Then one day, I killed a cat. I didn't mean to, at least I don't think I did. It was my neighbor's cat, and it had jumped out from their yard and into ours. I guess the poor thing was trying to bum some food from our house, since in the past my dad and me would feed it whenever it came around. I wasn't even planning on killing it. I led it into our kitchen to give it some milk like I usually do, and the next thing I know I'm using a butcher knife to carve it open. I'm not really sure how long I spent dissecting that cat, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. It was still alive through everything I did to it, as I knew how to take it apart, how to cut it open, without damaging anything vital. I don't have to tell you, I was pretty freaked out after I snapped out of my spell. I thought I was going crazy, and maybe I was. After putting the poor thing out of its misery, then cleaning up and burying its remains in the backyard, I swore to myself that I would never use my power again.
"Maybe that was a bit naïve of me, but I honestly did believe that I could control it. You know that we can't though. The power… it's a part of us. It's like a lung or a heart or a kidney; we can't stop using it, it's engrained into us. It's like… a hunger that we need to feed, a thirst we need to quench. We need to use our powers. We have no choice.
"So I fed that hunger. I tried to keep myself from doing it, and lasted a week before I took apart my dad's TV. I put it back together again, of course. I also took apart our washer and dryer, my computer, even opened up the wall to get at some wires at the back of my bedroom. The more I used it, the more the hunger kept gnawing at me. It was a hunger for knowledge, for understanding. I needed to know how things worked. Isn't that human nature, though? To understand your surroundings, to try to explain how the universe functioned? So I kept doing it, and I didn't limit myself to appliances. I caught birds and took them apart, I did the same to flies and other bugs I found in my basement, even went down to the docks to catch some rats and cut them up. Not very hygienic, I know, but I had to feed that hunger. I promised myself though, that regardless of how bad I got, I would never hurt a human being.
"Like I said, I was pretty naïve.
"The first one was a gangbanger, a lowlife who worked with the ABB. I was walking home from the library when a bunch of them hit this jewelry store. There were about eight of them coming out of two cars, and they moved fast. At least two in the gang had powers, one guy was super strong while the other shot lightning from his hands. I didn't recognize those two, so I doubt they were anyone high up in the ABB. Anyway, it seemed that they picked the wrong store to rob, since members of Empire 88 came out of nowhere and started fighting them. As they started shooting at each other, I hauled ass and ducked into an alley nearby. I hid behind a dumpster and waited, watching the fireworks as the two vicious gangs fought each other, my heart pounding hard in my chest.
"The gunfire was still going on when one of the ABB, the guy who could shoot out lightning, stumbled out of the store. I could tell that he had been shot, since he was bleeding pretty badly from a hole in his chest. He limped across the street, obviously trying to get away, and staggered into the alley that I was hiding in. I almost shrieked when he tripped, falling down onto his face right in front of the dumpster I was hiding behind.
"I watched him for a few seconds, listened to him mumbling something as blood flowed out of him. It was obvious that he was going to die if he didn't get immediate medical attention. I grabbed at his jacket and tried to pull him behind the dumpster so I could help him. I had taken some first aid classes a few weeks back, so I was pretty sure I could at least staunch the bleeding while waiting for the police and paramedics to arrive.
"I want you to know that my intentions were not to hurt him in any way. I really was trying to save him. But, like I said, the hunger… you can't fight it. As I looked down at him, at this dying boy who looked two years younger than I was, I could see how his ability worked. It was like looking at a roadmap on his body. I could see how he was able to use static built up within him to launch bolts of electricity from his pores. The energy built up within his bones, then emanated through his blood vessels to wherever he wanted to direct it. And the source… the source for all this information led straight into his head. His skull.
"His brain.
"I wanted to know more. I needed to know more. It was like a puzzle to be solved, a question I needed to know the answer to. So I grabbed a nearby brick and smashed his skull in. I told myself that this was okay, he was going to die anyway. I told myself that he was just a thug, a lowlife scumbag. He probably hurt people, he deserved this.
"Then I dug into his brain, and I knew the answer. It was like a curtain was lifted, brightening up a dark room. With the final piece of the puzzle in place, with the question and mystery solved, I understood. I knew how to use his power. Now I could do what he did. Now I could channel static in the same way this gang thug could, no, I could do it even better than he could. I understood all the fundamentals of his ability; I saw its limitations and knew how to go past them. It was so easy when you knew how.
"At that moment, in that alley, squatting next to that young boy with his brains scattered all over the dirty floor, I knew I wasn't a loser. I knew I wasn't worthless. I knew I wasn't a victim.
"I was special.
"And I knew that even if that boy had been a saint, a regular guy who went to church, did his homework, helped old ladies cross the street and was nice to everyone he met, I knew that I wouldn't have done any different. I would still crack his skull open. I would still quench my thirst.
"I left that alley with a whole new perspective. I understood what I had to, no, needed to do. I needed more. I wanted more. I wanted it all.
"Heroes, villains. All of it was trite. I look back at my younger self and have to just chuckle a bit. Was I really so naïve back then? Did I actually, truly want to be a superhero, putting on some stupid rubber costume and running around the streets fighting crime? How childish I had been.
"I see now that good, evil, none of it really mattered. All that mattered was understanding. Knowledge. Taking apart the universe to see how it… ticked. All of us, all of this, it's all just a big giant clock in the greater scheme of things. Everyone in the world… you, me, our parents, your friends. All just a cogs inside the machine. I'm just taking pieces out of people to make myself a better cog. A special cog.
"I went after the rogues first. They were the easiest to get to. They didn't belong to teams, didn't have the protection of the PRT or henchmen to get in my way. The first one I took on was that doll girl. You know the one, she was in all those commercials. Putting her down was a lot… harder than I thought it would be. She could telekinetically control these huge stuffed animals she made, and I found out the hard way that my new electric powers were pretty much useless against them. Thankfully, the doll girl wasn't as immune to being zapped. I shocked her unconscious, carved her head open, and took what I needed. Because of my ability to understand her power and the full nature of it, my use of her telekinesis wasn't limited to cloth or small, miniscule objects. I could move anything, from rocks to cars to furniture to people. It made hunting down and taking out parahumans much, much easier. Also much cleaner since I could cut through their skulls with just a wave of a finger.
"Time passed, of course, and my arsenal grew. You probably heard something in the news or the internet about my… activities. What was it they called me? The Brockton Bay Hero Killer? Weird that they called me that, since I haven't killed any heroes. Well, not yet, anyways.
"There aren't very many rogues in this town, but I managed to snag enough powers, enough to go after the villains. The Merchants were easy to take down. Managed to take out Skidmark, Squealer and Mush all at once. Uber and Leet were a surprising challenge, it's just too bad Leet blew himself up before I could cut his head open. Then there were those Empire 88 goons, Othala, Victor, Cricket. I even managed to take down Hookwolf, though it took a while and I almost died. His abilities were worth going through all the trouble, though.
"And of course, that brings us to you."
I smiled, glancing up at Sophia. She was, and had been for the last twenty minutes, held aloft by my telekinetic grip, her back pressed hard against the side of the brick wall before me. She struggled furiously, her feet swinging wildly from where they dangled three feet off the floor. But such exertions were futile as I had a firm grip around her throat, arms and jaw, though that last bit was more to keep her quiet than to hold her in place. She had cursed up a storm when I caught her. It was quite the surprise to realize that the fearsome Shadow Stalker, the black sheep of the Wards, was in fact one of the bullies who had tormented me at school. Life was funny sometimes.
I had knocked off her metal hockey mask so that I could see her face, and all the myriad emotions that twisted it: fear, disgust, rage. I wish I could have said that having her here, this girl who had tortured me for so long, at my mercy gave me some sort of satisfaction, but to be truthful it did not. I thought that maybe I would feel a little bit of pleasure, maybe joy, or perhaps the opposite and be burdened with guilt or horror at what I was doing. But none of these emotions filled me as I watched Sophia, Shadow Stalker, twitching on the wall like a bug impaled inside a specimen case. I felt nothing. Perhaps just a bit of anticipation at taking her power, but as for terrorizing Sophia herself… not a damn thing.
I guess I really wasn't supervillain material after all.
"I want you to know, Sophia, that what I'm about to do I do not do out of any malice or revenge for how you treated me in the past. I don't feel any hate for you, nor do I get joy out of killing you. Everything I do is for the pursuit of knowledge, to better myself." I looked up into her fierce angry eyes and gave her my kindest smile. "I thought you might take a small manner of comfort in this. After all, what was it you told me before? When I asked you why you kept harassing me? Oh yes, you said that the strong destroy the weak. That it was the natural order of things. Well, that's exactly what I'm doing now. It's nature. Survival of the fittest. This is just the lion taking down the gazelle, simple evolution."
I saw tears begin to drip from Sophia's eyes. Tears of frustration, hatred, and fear. "Shhh, it's okay, Sophia. It's almost over. I just wanted you to know that I forgive you. And I know that you understand what I'm trying to accomplish here. Maybe… maybe you're the only person who truly does understand what I'm doing. All this, all the killing? Taking these powers for myself? It's nature, a simple fact of life. What I do is an evolutionary imperative. I can't fight it. It's pointless to even try."
I gave Shadow Stalker one last smile, then raised my hand, the index finger pointed at her forehead. As I began to cut through skin and bone, as her screams echoed throughout the abandoned warehouse around us, I felt content. This is what I was meant to do. This was who I was.
It's a nice feeling, knowing what you are.