Orb Weaver: Wrath of God, 18

Outside, my bugs observed, clustering on the computer monitor as my commands were answered. Geysers, only formed of insects, not water, exploded across the city, rising and coiling into the air.  Underneath, the sewer lines were filled with other legions. I had to guide them slowly, using pheromones and drone dispensers, sending bugs out from my control radius with set orders.

I could not keep them from stinging people who slapped them, so they had to rise high over the buildings, a carpet of insects whose rumbling thrum filled the air. Some so dense that insects actually died and fell in a rain of bodies. Police sirens started sounding and I sent my messages to everyone.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”.

More prosaically, I warned them that while not hostile, my anger was such that attacks might be met by stings and bites.

But around the building, I kept my other legions, save for those trying to test the barrier, hidden.

The problem was simple.

Orb Weaver was invincible.

Taylor Hebert was a second from death. A gunshot, one of Kaiser’s blades, and that would be it for me.

And call me greedy, but I really wanted to live. So what to do…

God, I hated trying to think on the fly. I was bad at it.

“Well, Investigator?”

“Orb Weaver knows you’ve kidnapped me, soon he will know where, and he will come here. But kill him?” I tilted my head, blood from my shredded cheek dripping down onto the tile floor.  “I’ve never begun to explore his full power, but…”

Think, think think! Taylor Think…

Then I had an idea. It came to me. I hadn’t just read the Shadow, Mom had a big collection of old books, some I read to get ideas, some because it just made me feel closer to Mom. I read them the old fashioned way, but one…

The Thing on the Doorstep.

A Lovecraft book and come to think of it…

Kaiser was a narcissist. It was all about him.

So make it all about him. The easiest answer, to ignore what I was about to say, would go contrary to his desire.

“But then, I’ve never had to.” I said. Below, the 90 wasps were getting ready to attack the crew around Mr. Thomas and his students. I’d have to time this. The barrier didn’t stop sound and…

I stood up, right in front of the table, safely out of reach of my tools. But I stood up… Wrong.

Slightly out of balance.

“No. I’ve never had to. Poor, poor, Taylor Hebert.”

“What the fuck?” Menja said. “Are you nuts?”

“Not at all.” Outside, I started insects swarming up on the outside of the building, moving their bodies, making a sound that seemed to echo with my words. “Shall I tell you a story?”

“I am losing patience,” Kaiser said. “I—“ Suddenly, every cell phone in the room started blatting a sound that caused anyone who knew what it was to immediately tense.

Class-A alert. One step below sounding the Endbringer Sirens.

“The fuck?” A soldier said, pulling his phone out.

But I knew what it would say, I was seeing it in that empty office down below.

CLASS-A PUBLIC ALERT.

THE PRT-ENE HAS DECLARED A CLASS-A ALERT FOR THE BROCKTON BAY AREA AND SURROUNDING REGIONS. ALL PUBLIC FACILITIES ARE TO GO ON LOCKDOWN. ALL CIVILIANS ARE ORDERED TO SHELTER IN PLACE AND STAY OFF THE ROADS. IF YOU FEEL YOU ARE IN DANGER CALL 911.

THE CURRENT PARAHUMAN ACTIVITY IS BELIEVED TO BE NON-HOSTILE UNLESS ATTACKED. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE PESTICIDES OR OTHER METHODS TO HARM THE SWARM—IT HAS BEEN KNOWN TO ACT WITH LETHAL FORCE IN RESPONSE TO ATTACKS.

REPEAT: SHELTER IN PLACE. DO NOT TAKE HOSTILE ACTION AGAINST THE SWARM. CONTACT 911 IF YOU FEEL YOU ARE IN DANGER.

Everyone looked to the window, and beyond the blocks where I was keeping my bugs quiet, there was a rising mass of insect against the setting sun and dusk light, looking like massive, twisting thunderheads.

There were other reports. An E88 demonstration attack against several apartment buildings in the ABB region had been quite effectively smashed by the Undersiders, Kanshi, Lung, along with Velocity and Tattletale. Other groups were acting, but most of the official channels appeared to be more interested in panicking about Orb Weaver’s actions.

“We have little time,” I said. “So, shall I tell you the most important secret about Taylor Hebert?”

“If you don’t start talking sense I’m going to—“

“She screamed and begged and then…” I’d have to time this right. If I was wrong, if Kaiser saw through me… I was dead. “Taylor Hebert died in the locker.” I locked eyes with Kaiser and suddenly pulled my smile inhumanly wide, ignoring the agony in my shredded cheek. And then I relaxed all my muscles and fell, slamming face first onto the table, my nose cracking as I broke it, even more blood spouting from my face and then I slid back, making no attempt to control my fall, looking like a body. I was even holding my breath. Hopefully, nobody would notice.

Down below, I sent my ninety wasps at the E88 thugs shoving the hostages down the hallway. Stings sought out eyes, noses, ears, and suddenly the E88 thugs were screaming and wailing in agony. Mr. Thomas kicked several of them over, but one, more determined or stupider, pulled his gun, aiming it at the students and suddenly…

The hell?  Mr. Thomas struggled with him, and in the struggle, grabbed a knife, a kukri blade that the ganger had and brought it up in a brutal slice, nearly decapitating his enemy. Then without hesitating, he grabbed the gun from dying ganger, motioning the kids down the hallway behind him, while he backed up, keeping the thrashing forms of my victims in sight.

I couldn’t do anything else for them. I didn’t have enough bugs to directly talk to them.

Up above, Kaiser was staring at my body and I needed to distract him before I had to breathe. The bugs outside started rumbling, the words forming, made even more eerie by the way they had to penetrate the walls and windows of the building.

“I can only use a body for so long, Kaiser, Max. Taylor was a good choice, compatible, but all things come to an end. That’s why I had to make you think it was your idea to kidnap poor little Taylor. Nobody will wonder if you stay here a while, and the process does take some time… and extra food.”

“Fuck this—fuck this, I’m out!” one gang member shouted and turned to run, being impaled by a sword before he got more than a few footsteps away.

“He’s lying!” Kaiser shouted. “This is his game!”

“Oh no, Max, the games are over.”  My vision was graying out, and I was keeping the sound from above, but not everyone had looked away from Taylor. “Why did you think I learned so very much about Kayden, Theo, Aster… Why did you think I eliminated Victor? He could have noticed the difference. Why did you think I worked so hard to become friends with the PRT…”

Finally, my bugs showed everyone was looking up or at the dead gang member.  I couldn’t make it too obvious, but I let some life giving air into my lungs.

“Boss!” someone on the phone, the speaker panicked. “They got Crusader! Tattletale, Velocity and that Asian bitch! The PRT had some fucking special foam that blocked his soldiers and—“

“Such a lovely distraction. Thank you, Max,” I said. “I was honestly a bit uncertain on how to distract the PRT…”

I held my breath again, while a few people looked down. I prayed nobody thought to ask why a corpse was still bleeding like a living person. Nobody did, and now… Now it was time. I sent my bugs up, even as the first waves of my numberless reinforcements entered my radius. And now… I started soft, and grew louder and louder.

“Let me in, Max… Let Me In, LET ME IN, LET ME IN!” And with that as a few other E88 members turned to run, Kaiser’s power no longer terrifying them more than I did, I sent the ten wasps down to attack Fenja and Menja’s eyes, even as my legions covered the windows, while others, a block away, shorted out the transformer, plunging the building into darkness. The Tinkertech system was still operational, but I had a plan for that. But meanwhile, loud enough to hurt, even through the walls, and audible from here to the Boardwalk, I continued my hellish chant.

LET ME IN! LET ME IN! LET ME IN!