Worm She s Dead Jim Part Five

DISCLAIMER: Worm, Parahumans, and the characters and settings of Earth Bet (and other places) were created by John "Wildbow" McCrae. I don't own them. This story was written for my own amusement, not for profit. If you are enjoying it, please write and post a review.

ADVISORY: Foul Language. The setting is in Brockton Bay.

I had a pleasant early afternoon at the Lord's Market. It's a cool place to hang out even if you don't have a lot of money. The Market not only has food stands but also a jumble of second-hand stores and flea market stalls selling used clothing, so-called collectibles, and stuff left over from better days when the textile mills were open and the Bay was a working seaport. Not so many of the stalls were open, but it was fun to look anyway. Still, it's a great place to go people-watching, even during winter.

After a while I realized that it was time to go home and start cooking dinner. I could walk, but I saw a bus coming up. The route had stops near my street. I got on.

The phone rang shortly after I walked through the front door. I warily picked it up: Emma and her little band weren't above putting their admirers up to making obscene phone calls or making nasty phone calls themselves.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hello, is this the Hebert Residence?" said an older male voice.

"Yes," I replied.

"My name is Lieutenant Harry Ridley," he said. "I'm a detective with the PRT. We are investigating the death of Sophia Hess and would like to ask you some questions."

Do you, now, I thought bitterly. By now I was certain that Sophia had been Shadow Stalker. You guys let that bitch run all over me and other kids without lifting a finger to stop her. She's dead and now you want to talk to me.

"I don't want to talk to you," I said. "Not without my father and a lawyer present. I don't trust you guys one damn bit."

"I don't think there's any reason for concern, Miss Hebert," said Detective Ridley. "All we want to do is talk and maybe ask a few questions. You don't have anything to worry about."

"Not without my Dad present and not without a lawyer," I growled. "And if you guys call me again when my Dad's not home, I'm gonna hang up."

"Miss Hebert-," Detective Ridley started.

I hung up the phone.

Dad came home a little later while I was doing some housework.

"Hi, Taylor, how was your day?" he said.

"Pretty good, actually," I said. "I went to the library in the morning, I then went over to Lord's Market, then I came home."

"Any phone calls?" he said. Dad had an answering machine, but he'd gotten out of the habit of using it when some of Emma's friends started leaving hate messages.

"Yes," I said. "We got a message from a guy named Ridley. He said he was a detective with the PRT. He said that he wanted to ask me some questions."

Dad scowled at the news.

"What did you tell him?" he said.

"I told him I'm not answering any questions without you present and not without a lawyer," I replied.

"That's my girl," he said. "You said the right thing." He gave me a rueful smile. We looked at each other. We both remembered getting screwed over by "Uncle Alan" and Principal Blackwell after I'd been thrown in the locker. Our trust in the Cops and the school system had fallen through the basement and neither of us trusted "Uncle Alan" to drop another load of shit on our heads. "If the PRT wants to talk to us, they can come over here. If they try to scapegoat us for what happened to that girl, I'll tell them that the conversation is over."

"Dad, there's something else," I said.

"What?" he said.

"It's something really secret, something I don't want you to tell anybody," I said.

"What?" he said. "Did anybody touch you or put their hands on you?"

"No, Dad, it's something else," I said. "I've been thinking about what happened at Winslow for the last couple of days and I think I figured something out: one of the reasons why neither Blackwell nor the cops ever did anything about Emma and Sophia."

"What?" he said. "Why not?"

"Please don't tell anybody else, but I think Sophia was a Ward," I said. "I think she was Shadow Stalker."

Dad stood silently for a moment. "Do you really think so?" he said.

"I do," I replied. "I thought about it a lot and it all adds up. Emma might have Mr. Barnes on her side, but Sophia wasn't such a hot shit track star that Blackwell would let her run over everybody else. Not if she was just Sophia. But if she was also Shadow Stalker…"

"They would," Dad finished.

"Excuse me, Taylor," he said. He turned away, walked towards the back door, then went outside. I knew why he did that: back when Mom was still alive and Dad was really, really angry about something, he'd go outside to unload and emit all the curse-words he tried not to use around me and Mom. I tried not to listen.

He came back in about ten minutes later. He'd had some catharsis but he did not look happy. He'd been given insight as to why Blackwell had cheated him and had vented, even though he was still baffled and angry that his oldest friend had turned on him.

"Let's do something about dinner," he said. "Do you want to cook or should I?"

"I can cook but I want to check what we've got in the pantry and the refrigerator," I replied.

By luck we had enough for a casserole. Some of the vegetables looked wilted but they were still edible. We cooked and ate quietly. Neither of us talked about Sophia. Outing a Ward was still a federal crime and neither one of us wanted trouble with the PRT or with the Justice Department.

There wasn't any further news about the skull-masked guy that evening. There was news about Winslow though: the Director of the PRT ENE gave a press statement concerning why they closed Winslow High.

The screen changed to a room used for giving press briefings and a woman identified by a chyron as Emily Piggot, Director of the Parahuman Response Team ENE walked carefully to the podium. Ms. Piggot was an overweight woman around my Dad's age with a bowl haircut wearing a pants-suit. She looked someone who only smiled every other blue moon. Classic bureaucrat.

"We have finished our preliminary investigation of the events that caused the disappearance of Julia Jankovic and have determined that Ms. Jankovic had the misfortune to pass through an interdimensional portal. Our scientists and technicians determined that the portal appeared mere moments before Ms. Jankovic passed through it and started disintegrating moments later. The portal was detected only split-seconds before Ms. Jankovic went through it and there was not enough time to give warning. The portal is now effectively closed. While our techs are still monitoring the site for any lingering effects, we have determined that the portal will not re-open and that it is now safe for the students and staff at Winslow High School to re-enter the building and resume their education."

"We are maintaining our search for Ms. Jankovic in hope that she will be found and will be able to return home. We ask you to give her family your best thoughts and your prayers in hopes that their daughter will be found and be able to come home."

"I repeat, the Protectorate has determined that Ms. Julia Jankovic's disappearance was caused by an interdimensional portal that came into existence moments before Ms. Jankovic passed through it but has since closed. We have determined that the portal will not re-open and that it is now safe for the students and staff at Winslow High School to re-enter the building."

A reporter asked her if the Protectorate could have detected the portal before it swallowed up Julia.

"No," said Ms. Piggot. "Even if we had people in the building, and we did have people in the building, we would not have been able to prevent Ms. Jankovic from walking through the portal."

Another reporter asked her if the PRT could set up some sort of monitoring system to detect new portals before they swallowed up other students.

"We are investigating such options," Piggot replied. "I would also advise concerned parents and students that interdimensional portals are extremely rare and rarely form in heavily-trafficked locations even in urban areas."

So there, I thought. A freak portal formed in the hallway, Julia walked through it, and boom, Julia was gone. It was something like one of the shootings the year before outside the school. It happened and nothing could be done about it.

I wondered where Julia had gone to. Julia had been another one of my bullies. I didn't hate her as much as I'd hated Sophia, but I didn't have any kind feelings for her. I felt a little sorry for her family, but that didn't stop me from hoping that Julia went someplace unpleasant.

Author's Comments:

Julia's mishap with a dimensional portal sprung from a lively discussion on another web site as to might happen if Emma walked through such a portal and found herself at, say, Hogwarts. I won't elaborate on the discussion, save to say that Emma would find herself in trouble very fast. Even if she'd been allowed to stay and the Pureblood Supremacist argument was set to aside, Emma would not only be facing peers and older students knowing hexes, charms and jinxes, she'd also be facing a lot of younger students who also know them. If she tried to do what she did to Taylor, things would have become extremely unpleasant for her.

I'm not going to say whether Julia found herself at Ilvermorny or some other Wizarding school or even if she's in another magical world at all. But it's fun to imagine what might happen to her if she tried to bully her new schoolmates.

Please feel free to let your own imagination guess where Julia went.