Web of the Weaver: Wrath of God, Interlude 1a

Emily Piggot stared at the screens. Victor was being interviewed. Othala and Rune were in the infirmary. Both had been given tranquilizers. She had authorized it when it was plain that any attempts at an interview…

Rune seeing an ant on the ground and trying to use Armsmaster as a tree to climb might be funny, but it pretty much put an end to the interview.

No. It really wasn’t funny. Outside of groups named the Slaughterhouse, Emily had never seen someone so destroyed emotionally. Her sympathy was lessened by Rune’s preliminary confessions, which had cleared up a few hate crimes.

“And Victor?” She turned to their FBI liaison, standing next to Armsmaster.

“The computer was full of booby traps. Just to start, it had a 256 character password, a completely random chain of numbers and letters that wasn’t written down anywhere, and a sarcophagus recorder.” The FBI agent shrugged. “Completely safe until…”

“Victor provided us with the pass code, not just for that, but for everything.” Armsmaster frowned. “Not everything about the Empire but…”

“Drug connections, West Coast and East Coast. Connections with racist groups all over the nation and even beyond. Right now, the State Department is talking with the British and Germans.” He shook his head. “Nothing is… spelled out clearly. Victor wasn’t stupid, so even with the password there were no bits about “we ordered a hit,” but even so, this opens up a huge number of options for future investigations, as well as enough information to start getting the IRS involved in a big way. Legal thinks that we can have a solid case for bringing RICO action, not just against the Empire, but a number of their associates. This could be bigger than The Mafia Commission Trials.”

“So the Empire is desperate.” Emily nodded. “I want to respectfully ask that you hold off on any immediate action. We can’t risk them going berserk.” Not until we are ready to handle Lebensraum. A mob of brute 3+ individuals, even if you ignored the rumors about other powers, could set off the kind of mass casualty event that lived in her nightmares. And Lebensraum was stupid and wouldn’t consider that was the kind of stunt that had Alexandria show up. He’d been a stupid thug when he triggered, and since then, he stayed a stupid thug, only with a higher body count. That was one reason he’d generally stuck to the rural areas, playing big shot with various racist groups, perfectly happy to go after the odd traveler. Kaiser must have been very desperate to bring him in.

The unofficial order, backed up under “danger to others” was that if you had a lethal shot, you’d take it if he didn’t immediately surrender.

But we can’t find him…

“Director,” Armsmaster said. “We may be missing something.”

“What?”

“It is the second day.” The hero shook his head. “Granted, Orb Weaver qualified it with ‘beginning’ but even so, why specify the second day after only committing one act?” He called up an image, Brockton Bay, with dots of green, yellow and red. There was one red dot—over Victor’s house. “I put this together, using components of the Endbringer prediction software. Red is confirmed to be Orb Weaver, due to communication with outside witnesses. Greens are reports of anomalous activity, but occurred with little evidence. Yellows are signs of Orb Weaver’s activities, without full confirmation. In the last 24 hours, while Orb Weaver only spoke once but…” he gestured to the yellow dots, an in-frame image of a traffic camera showing twisting shoals of bugs and a swarm of rats running out from under a grate. “As you can see, he is very active, and some of these events have occurred at opposite ends of the city—at the same time.”

“You think something else happened, that we’re not aware of yet.”

“Yes. I believe that Orb Weaver provided us with these three because he was otherwise busy and didn’t have the time to deal with them.”

Emily leaned back and shook her head. “I don’t think so, Armsmaster. I think this was a peace offering, or a bribe.”

“Director?”

“I don’t think he was speaking metaphorically when he said he was going to destroy the Empire in six days.” Everything agrees, what happened with Aisha shows, that Orb Weaver takes attacks on his allies  and associates personally, very personally. And you just HAD to go and crib from the Slaughterhouse when you told Victor to murder Sheila Cho’s mind, didn’t you, Kaiser?

Emily could care less about the E88, save for the enjoyment that watching them die would bring, but… Nobody knew Orb Weaver’s limits, save that his range was greater than all but a tiny number of parahumans, most of them with “Class A” or “Class S” behind their names.

We have Victor, so can I bring the Wards back? Emily shook her head. No. Not if the Empire was as desperate as she expected it was—or would become. Targeting the Wards directly would be a death sentence, and yet if the Empire was already facing death…

“We need to find Lebensraum. Given the situation in the city, and the possibility of Mass casualty events, I’m going to see if I can convince Costa Brown to get authorization for a Neutralization Order.”

Armsmaster tensed. A Neutralization Order was one step below a kill order, and rarely used. It accepted that a cape was so dangerous that lethal force could be used without warning or an initial call for surrender. The main difference was that it kept things in house, so you didn’t have to worry about an influx of trigger happy vigilantes and villains.

“Gentlemen, that will be all for now. Armsmaster, I want you to brief everyone. Remind them that Orb Weaver is not hostile but has shown a tendency to escalate and play mind games. Be very careful.”

“Yes, Director.”

Emily spent the rest of the morning writing reports and sending a request to have Eidolon move to the Bay for the next several days, at least.

It was getting close to midmorning when Renick burst into her office. “Director, you need to see this.”

The scene from the PRT helmet cams was of a street, a five story apartment building there, doors open. Velocity and Triumph were at the scene, and in the background, Emily saw a police officer throwing up.

That’s not good. The Bay tended to weed out those with weak stomachs.

“Report.”

“Director, the BBPD got reports of a disturbance. Several suspected E88 members entered the building this morning, apparently because the occupants hadn’t answered their phones. We got the call when half of them ran out into the street, screaming.” He paused. “And there was another call, according to dispatch a woman living behind the building claiming she heard “soft laughter” this morning. The BBPD entered the building and called us when they saw what was inside. ”

“What did you find?”

“This.” And then the images appeared. Skeletons. Skeletons in chairs, in beds, skeletons that looked like they were… No sign of a struggle. No sign of an attempt to escape. And in each mouth, held between the shining teeth, was a playing card. With an Orb Weaver on it.

Another shot showed the walls and ceilings, names on them, repeated.

“We ran the names—they’re victims of Lebensraum, and well, the ME says he’ll have to check dental records and DNA, but… I think this is Lebensraum and his gang.” Velocity shook his head. “Also, it may not have gotten up to us officially, yet, but one of the beat cops claims that his sources said that Orb Weaver crashed a rally, showed up Kaiser, and told Lebensraum to leave town if he wanted to keep breathing.”

“I’m sending Armsmaster down. Tell them to not disturb the bodies. I want to find out what killed them.”

This just keeps getting worse. Is it another power? Does Orb Weaver have an ally? Or just a flair for the dramatic? The Rally wasn’t an attack—it was a warning. Then at some point, he kills Lebensraum, and makes it look easy… Then he goes and emotionally breaks Victor, Rune, and Othala and gives us more information on the E88 than we’ve ever had, as well as two parahumans… Emily didn’t give a damn whether or not Victor could help with his victims. After they had finished using him, he was going to the cage. The list of people he had temporarily harmed that he had provided the PRT had already cleared up several use of force complaints against the PRT as well as cases of unexpected sexual harassment, one which had ended in a suicide.

And yet… “Farewell, and if you make the right choice, you may never see me again…”

He terrified Rune and Othala literally out of their minds, and then gave them an out.  One that would help the PRT, but he included it with a phrase that reminded anyone who knew about the Shadow Stalker fiasco that the PRT and Protectorate had dropped the ball. A gift, along with a warning?

Emily shook her head. If the power of being a terrifying spirit of vengeance, at least according to the street, wasn’t enough, Orb Weaver was unnervingly political.

So where would he strike next?  Emily had an unpleasant feeling that neither the Empire nor the PRT would know until it happened.

Just started, and four capes are already off the board…  As miserable as the next days were going to be for her, she couldn’t keep a small smile off her face as she considered Kaiser’s situation, because his day was undoubtedly going to be worse…