See My Worm

March 22, 2011

“No. That’s an easy question.” I leaned back in the chair. “The first time it happened was on Friday, January twenty-seventh.”

“You’re sure?”

I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. Like anyone could forget the day they triggered. If I hadn’t have been locked in my school locker for as long as I apparently had been, I’m pretty sure I could have given the exact time, as well. “You’ve never Triggered, have you?”

The older man that sat across from me visibly started. “I… no. I have not.”

Nodding, I reached for the plastic bottle of soda that they had offered. Some off brand of Dr. Pepper. You’d think they’d spring for the good stuff considering. After taking a swallow, I sighed. “I know you’ve read the police reports. All of that was given over to the PRT once they realized I had gained powers, you know? You’re… what? The fifth guy they’ve sent to interview me since it happened?”

“I wouldn’t know…”

“I would.” I interrupted. “I bet every interview since the second one. Maybe even the first one. They’ve all been recorded. If not just audio. Video, too.”

My interviewer seemed to be slowly losing his cool. His forehead was gaining a bit of redness. Ears, as well. I started to wonder how hard it would be to make him lose his temper, but I really wanted to talk to my Dad at some point. The guy I had spoken to before this one had told me I would see my Dad if I cooperated… and I was, cooperating, that is. But I could only answer the same question with the same answer so many times.

“Taylor.” He said my name softly, almost like he really cared. The woman standing next to the door behind him was still, like a statue. “The bodies…”

“Right. You mean my corpses.”

He grimaced. “Yes, Taylor. You have to understand that, so far, there are seven corpses at the Brockton Bay Morgue, each that has been positively identified as being Taylor Anne Hebert, age fifteen.” He pressed a finger down on the photographs in front of him… each showing…well, me. Dead. “Who am I talking to?”

“As I was telling you, I am Taylor Anne Hebert. On Friday, January seventh, I was forcibly shoved and trapped inside of my school locker. I’m pretty sure it was Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes that did it, but I can’t say that one hundred percent. Maybe they got someone else to do it, but they were behind it.” I took a deep breath. “The locker was nasty. It’s there in the report, so I am not going to explain about that anymore.”

“Taylor…”

“What I will say, again, is that I hit my head really hard. I was dizzy and kept throwing up. I started gagging and couldn’t call for help… no one would help.”

“And then?”

I barely held back the laugh that threatened to come out. “And then? I blacked out for a moment and then I was in the school gym’s swimming pool. I had no idea how I’d gotten there or what time it was, but I was a few feet under the surface. After a minute, I collected myself to realize that I was naked as the day I was born. I got out of the pool and made my way over to the gym lockers where I broke into a few lockers to get something to wear and then used the coach’s office phone to call my Dad.”

“When did you realize that something was wrong?”

“Really?” I took another sip of the soda. “That three days had passed? Or that my Dad had already been down to the morgue to identify my dead body?” I reached over and pulled one of the photographs from the file. “Which wrong thing are we talking about?”

He ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “You know very well…”

“Please!” I nearly screamed at the man. As it was, my voice was loud enough that the woman adjusted her stance. I wasn’t restrained, but she wasn’t there for my safety. “Not so much worried about me, the girl that supposedly died due to school bullying? Or that my Dad was inconsolable? No, you’d rather hear how a couple of Wards attacked me coming out of the school… a school that had been closed off as a crime scene. My murder scene. You want to talk about how Shadow Stalker shot me in the chest with an arrow, killing me again.”

“Taylor, please.” He tried talking softly, but I was too pissed to care.

“And then I woke up three days later in that same swimming pool.” I continued. “I made it almost the entire way home before those gangbangers decided I was an easy mark for whatever. I got in a few good hits before I got blindsided, hit from behind. I guess I’d gotten far enough away from the school that the swimming pool was out. I found myself in some skanky, run down hotel’s pool.” I shuddered. “Ick.”

My interviewer nodded. He picked up three photographs from a different file. “David Monroe, aka, Deuce. Lee Faulkner, aka, Dusty. And Marvin Mako, no alias. Three low level Merchants. All found murdered. Their bodied looted. Items later found to be in your possession.”

I nodded. “Self-defense. Three guys came upon a naked girl alone in a nasty swimming pool in their territory. They didn’t want to take ‘no’ for an answer.”

“They had multiple signs of blunt force trauma, though no weapon has been located.”

‘Yeah. Just me and my fists.” I paused a moment to reflect. “I think I kicked them a few times, too.” I waited to just as he opened his mouth before moving on. “I’m pretty sure by this point I started to realize that I had Triggered and gained some power. Strength, at least, not counting the coming back from the dead.”

“I’m sure.” He offered wryly. I just shrugged. “And then?”

“And then I carefully made my way home.”

He snorted. I offered a small smile. “Where you then engaged two Protectorate members in a fight.”

“I didn’t want to fight them.” I argued. “They wouldn’t let me inside to see my Dad. They had no right to keep me from my home.”

“So, you thought throwing Dauntless over thirty feet across the street as an appropriate action?”

“I was hungry.” I hated how small my voice sounded. “To me, barely a couple of hours had passed since I’d been shoved into that locker. Nothing made sense. The snow from that Friday was melted. Daylight had vanished into darkness and back to day. I kept waking up naked and in water. I just wanted to go home.”

“And how did that work out for you?”

I sighed. “Armsmaster apparently killed me.”

The man across the table sighed loudly. “And one of the City’s best and brightest is under investigation for using excessive force on a minor that resulted in her ‘maybe’ death.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he kept talking. “Whether you are ultimately alive or not, we have a body, your body, at the morgue that is there due to his actions. Whether Armsmaster is convicted or not, he has lost his position as leader of the Protectorate here in Brockton Bay. His reputation is… well, he will most likely be moved to another city.”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “And then you woke up where?”

“A neighbor’s pool. About a block and a half from my home.”

“So, we now have your body from the locker.” He set the photo I’d grabbed earlier to the side. “And then your encounter with the Wards.” Another photograph. “And then the attack by gang members.” A third picture. “And now from outside your house.” A fourth photo went on the pile. “That’s four.”

I sat quietly. Waiting.

“Twelve days.” He took a deep breath before picking up the next photo. “What happened on January nineteenth?”

I considered my words carefully. I had already explained everything so many times. What more could I say? “That’s the day I…”