Orb Weaver: Wrath of God, 11

I felt it before I got near home. Two blocks away… and packed suitcases. Including ones with my clothing and Dad was sitting in the livin—nope, he was now pacing.

What the hell? I…

Oh.

Oh Taylor you absolute dumbass. I’d been moving everyone who had contacted Orb Weaver out of town, with the exception of The Investigator.

Because the Investigator was me, but Dad didn’t know that.

And he was obviously preparing to rectify that oversight.

Dammit, Dammit, Dammit!

Right. I could… fix this. I just needed a few days to fix the Empire. I could promise Dad I—nope, I was hearing his response to that, especially given the Teacher’s Pet, Madison and the E88, Uber and Leet, to say nothing of Leviathan.

In retrospect, I was really bad at staying out of trouble.

But I couldn’t go. This wasn’t just about swarming the Empire with bugs, it was about breaking them down.

Come to think of it, it was morning and the first… I pulled out a burner phone and checked one of my subverted cameras. The Iron Cross was opening, usually for the first gang members, but I’d also prepared it, so it should…

And in the grainy, stop motion images of the camera, I saw… people running out. The maggot bombs in the sewer must have gone off, and the sinks had suddenly produced a flood of wriggling little maggots—and the additions I’d put in, led to the flood turning darker, chunky red, the scent of decay, overflowing and spilling onto the floor.

Very good.

In a bit I’d lay the pheromone trails that could bring thousands of crickets and other insects out onto the street where so many E88 affiliated businesses were. Not enough to harm, or even block a driver’s vision, but enough to make Orb Weaver’s anger clear—just as more maggot bombs and bug reactors were about to go off at the other end of the city in another E88 front diner.

I smiled then tried to fight a yawn. Dammit. I was going to have to decide what to do with Dad.

I can tell him later. I can’t risk him pulling me out. Sheila deserves this.

So I would have Orb Weaver give him a call.

After that, this evening, after I’d arranged several other surprises, I’d be visiting the higher ups of the “respectable” members of the Empire. Hopefully just in time for them to start getting the news about Lebensraum.

Some I expected I would turn. Others would just flee.

Either would do well for me.

But now…

A disguised cell phone was dialed by insects, a larger number standing by to speak.

“Danny Hebert.”

“Ah, Mr. Hebert, a pleasure.”

“Where the fuck is my daughter?”

I paused. Dad had never talked to me like that, but then, he wasn’t talking to me…

“Safe. Cooperating with me to dismantle the Empire. I expect we should be finished in roughly five days.”

“No. She’s coming with me and we’re leaving. I’m not setting her up as a target for the Empire—“

“Calm yourself, Mr. Hebert. I value my helpers. Taylor will not be anywhere near an Empire soldier or cape. She is in fact, at a remote location, using her admittedly impressive thinker ability to analyze their movements. Her role is not to attack the Empire, but to alert me, especially if they seek to act out against innocents.” I paused. “Taylor and I are of one mind on this issue. And trust me, I treat her life as if it were my life.”

“I want to hear it from her.”

“And you will, she will be in a position to communicate with you at 6:30. I am keeping her communications to a minimum to ensure she cannot be traced.”

Oh. Wait a minute. Dad wouldn’t leave, not without me, but this could keep him safe.

“In fact,” I continued. “If you would go to the PRT building, she might be able to communicate with you on a more regular basis, since they have advanced tinker defenses that should ensure that the Empire is unable to trace any calls… and would keep you safe.”

“How can I believe you?”

“Have I ever lied? You know my acts, and as the Good Book says, can judge me by them.”

Dad knew about Maria, and some other events.

“Why Taylor?”

“She sees better than most.”

If I got on the phone, he might try to get me to come in right now, and I couldn’t. But if I kept it to Orb Weaver…

Dad will go to the PRT and see if they can track my phone when I call them. Armsmaster or the others can keep him from charging out into the city…

“If she comes to any harm…” Dad knew he couldn’t find Orb Weaver, so he was playing it smart, but he was still really pissed.

“You have my oath, Mr. Hebert. The only way Taylor Hebert comes to any harm is if I have come to harm.”

Dad hung up on me. I figured he wasn’t willing to risk what he might say next. It still hurt, but now I had other business to attend to.

And it might keep me from thinking about how our meeting would go after the Empire. I hadn’t, technically, lied…

But it really didn’t feel good.

I had other places to rest. Little rooms, my workshop, where insects had moved dust and webs so that the entrances looked like they hadn’t been accessed in years, large wasp nests full of ill-tempered insects… A perfect security system.

I napped for about three hours, and then woke up, drinking some energy drinks and eating a single bar of “Mark’s Tinkertech Nutrition Bar. (“Parahuman Power in Your Pocket!”)”

Ironically, it was about the closest thing you could come to actual “Tinkertech” without being independently wealthy. Mark was a tinker specializing in nutrition, gaining his powers after almost starving to death. His nutrition bars were engineered by him and while the best items, things capable of keeping someone running at full blast for several days on only one bar, were true Tinkertech and thus rare, his mass production bars were more affordable, at twenty dollars a bar and could keep you operating for a day, using a modified formula he had developed.

They were immensely popular among the military, members who would buy them to use in place of MRE’s since they did not come with the digestive consequences of MREs.

Then I checked PHO and the news on my phone.

Ah, Lebensraum had been discovered. The Brockton Gazette had a tasteless headline. SUSPECTED E88 CAPE’S WEIGHT LOSS PLAN DISCOVERED.

Rather… well, I suppose they knew about Sheila Cho and were responding in the best way they could—making the Empire look silly. Brave, all things considered.

The Bay Times, an E88-affiliated paper, at least in ideology, had a different headline. NEW VILLAIN IN BAY?

But their story seemed rushed…

Victor. He would have handled their supplied stories, letting them know how to spin things. And now, he wasn’t answering the phone.

Well.

But now it was time to introduce the good people of the Empire to the concept of consequences.

I put my disguise on, a bright pink dress that looked like something Emma would have picked, earrings, the big ringy types, and then put on more makeup than I normally wore in a month. A pink purse with cheap fake gems completed the look, as well as giving me a place to store some pepper spray.  A burner phone that I’d use to communicate with my network also went into the purse, a swarm of bugs descending on its screen.

Good. Now I was awake and refreshed as the sun went down on the second day. Time to get ready, and then call Dad as Taylor Hebert.

****

It was important to do this before the majority of my victims returned home. I had a list of low-level E88 soldiers, people who didn’t know much, but who were still part of gang Kaiser could call upon. As I took the bus, getting off now and then to look at stores, or just wander the streets with a vacant expression, my legions entered their homes. Under my command  house flies released pheromones, smearing them on pillows and inside AC systems. Masses would gather and when someone opened the door and came in, the disturbance would lead to hundreds or thousands of fat flies zipping around. I set other insects to eating through the protective plastic over loaves of bread, laying eggs and depositing maggots I’d harvested from other locations, and then still others marked ominous messages on the walls.

YOU ARE IN THE WEAVER’S WEB.

CONFESS YOUR SINS…

In other cases, slightly more detailed messages were left, naming dates and places.

And then a command.

IF YOU WOULD BE SAFE, LEAVE THE EMPIRE.

In a few other cases, it was simply one word:

LEAVE.

Some would leave, some would huddle up, and some… would call Kaiser or other E88 members they knew and demand they do something.

On the outside of the houses, I left nothing. As if some spirit which didn’t need to go through doors had visited them.

Other groups I dealt with differently.  I was surprised to find out how many E88 members, especially younger ones, kept their affiliation secret from their parents or spouses. Not, for the most part, serious members, but having Orb Weaver drop by for even wannabes was a good way to create the illusion that Orb Weaver literally knew everything. Also, getting some of them to reconsider their membership…

Especially since some of them, well I’d found information I could use. Not from Victor, but from the way people talked when they thought they were alone with friends.

One such house was a nicely done home, older, reminding me a bit of my home.

“Jake! Did you get the trash!?”

“Mom, I’m playing COD!” the worthy shouted back, focused on his computer game and shouting vulgarities at his teammates.

“If you don’t get the trash, that ridiculous game will be in the trash! And did you do your homework!?”

“I’ll get it!” he shouted in his room. I had bugs in the rafters, and behind him. His grumbling via my repeaters was clear. “I won’t have to worry about that when Kaiser shows everyone—on your left!” he shouted. “That stupid jackass is flanking you, don’t you know anythin—“

“Ah, Jake, may I have a moment?” I asked, my bugs coalescing into a humanoid form. I wasn’t putting enough to have any real physical strength. We were having a chat, after all.

“What?” he said. “Who said that?” Then he went back to his game.

A few blocks away, outwardly squeeing over a boy band magazine (and dying a little on the inside), while working on several targets, I rolled my eyes. I doubted Hookwolf or Cricket would be so clueless about their surroundings. In the house, I felt his body go rigid as a swarm of bugs rose up over the monitor, forming the words: LOOK BEHIND YOU.

He turned around, stared. His mouth opened, got wider, but no sound emerged.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“MOM!!!”

Moments later, the door burst open, and my “head” was hit by a frying pan, the insects swarming around it, as Jake’s mother, a matronly woman, put herself between my body and her son.

“What are you doing here?!”

“I am merely speaking. I mean no harm, but your son…I fear he has fallen in with the wrong sorts.”

“He’s lying Mom! He’s gonna eat me!”

“1021 4th Street. ‘Darkies go home’ on the door, and a pile of human excrement on their welcome mat.”

Jake’s mouth snapped shut, and his mother looked from me to him, and then in a voice that was closer to Orb Weaver’s than what I’d heard earlier said. “You did that?”

“No…”

“Look. At. Me.” He tried, failed.

“You did do that!” She said, her face going pale, then turning red. “You—“

“He has committed no other crimes that I am aware of,” I said. “But that is how they get you, Jake. Little jokes, mean jokes, until one day, you do something you cannot walk away from. Your mother is an honorable woman, and I would not risk such pain falling upon her house, so I am here to suggest you… reconsider your current association. The E88 is unlikely to be a factor in the future. But I have taken too much of your time. Farewell.”

“Wait!” Jake said, well, more like squeaked.

“Yes?”

“Aren’t you gonna take me to prison?”

“Why would I do that? Your mother and father, I feel, are better suited to this issue.”

Huh. I rarely got the feeling that people were more terrified of me leaving than they were of me staying. A thumb and forefinger lunged down, my bugs aware of the movement, and then Jake’s voice scaled up. “Mom, my ear! My game!”

“Oh, you’re not going to have to worry about your game for a LONG time, Mister! You come right out into the living room and I’m calling your father, and he’s coming home right now!”

I sent my bugs out of the building, unnoticed (again, unusual), and waited for a few minutes. About ten minutes later, a car stopped at the house and an older man marched in, the nearly invisible cloud of insects letting me note his angry stomping gait.

Yes, I’d leave Jake to the tender mercies of his parents. After all, Orb Weaver did have a reputation for merciless horror, and I expected at least to Jake, this counted.

And when he spoke to his friends, the idea that Orb Weaver had visited him, not a heavy mover, not a shaker, would remind them that the E88 was no longer any shield.

But enough of the small fry. I had the mid-range E88 members to deal with. And a phone call to make. It was almost six thirty, after all.

Soon the Second Day would be over.