Orb Weaver: Within the Serpent's Coils: Chapter 5

The diner I chose was a nice one, not so nice that a group of teens would be looked upon oddly, but nice enough, and most importantly, it had deep booths, where I could observe the outside via my bugs, but where we could not be observed.

“I have to…” Dinah was looking around, like a hunted animal.

“What do you like?” I asked. “Soda… no, you’ve been running around. Water, and I think milk. Ham and Eggs, perhaps?”

She blinked, then nodded.

An important part of calming someone can be distracting them… one of my books. One of my tools, and Dinah wasn’t a master.

“I’m gonna have steak!” Aisha said. “You know how many times Mom just left me with some old cereal?”

“Won’t that make you fat?” I asked.

“Hah, I have a plan—gonna learn how to transfer weight to my Numbers,” Aisha said. “Then I’m going to lord it over every other girl in the Protectorate.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Isn’t that how people get kill orders?”

Dinah giggled. It was fragile, but it was there.

And once again as Aisha quickly glanced at Dinah, I was reminded that I wasn’t the only perceptive person in the room.

I kept my bugs out, and we waited until the waitress brought our meal. Outside, I detected…

Well. A truck. Five men in it, one at the wheel, four in back. A few bugs flew in… they didn’t notice them, but I noticed metal. Gun oil. Other devices, that I couldn’t parse from scent or touch, but…

A five-man team. Parked outside of the Diner. Waiting for Dinah. No other units around and we were with a Ward. After what had happened earlier, I doubted they were going through with any immediate plans, but who were they?

Not the Empire and not the ABB. I sent bugs swarming over the license plate, and ran it, using one of my programs.

Interesting. Registered to an out of town business. I had never seen a design like that on my trips around town. Not for the ABB and not for the Empire. For something like this, they would use a stolen car… or just a member’s car, expecting to bail them out if things went bad.

But as a few bugs built up an internal design, it was clear this was no simple stolen vehicle. It sat on its wheels, a little heavier than normal. Likely armored. The interior was designed more like an APC than a utility vehicle, and the driver, behind his tinted windshield, was watching the diner.

So. She was a parahuman, and she was being hunted. And hunted by an organization that had both resources and trained personnel, there was actually one group that filled in those requirements but… No. A powerful precog might bring out of towners. Best to not assume. Not yet. But we were safe. For now. The men weren’t moving quickly, one was smoking.

I could take them out with my bugs. One of my hives was not far away, a structure built into the earth, sewage feeding insects which fed other insects, some directly, some by simply dumping their bodies into fermentation chambers created by termites and ants, their leavings breaking down into the sweet faux nectar needed by wasps and bees. I had more than enough legions to take them down.

At the cost of definitely making it plain that Orb Weaver was involved.

No. That vehicle was expensive. The men inside were likely not simple thugs, and we were not immune to a missile. Nor were we immune to the possibility that they had other groups waiting, outside my range.

I would use another method. I put my phone out, turning the recorder on. This information would come in handy. I waited until Dinah had finished some of her food and looked… calmer.

“Very well,” I said. “Dinah, you used percentages. Tell us how your power works.”

“I… I see…” She said. “If I see too much it hurts, but I ask questions and I know, um, how likely things are to happen, In the future. Sometimes the numbers change, but not always.”

Well, at least we don’t live in a deterministic future, but…

“That is like crazy broken,” Aisha said. “I mean, there’s a guy in the Think Tank who tells you how things smell, and they got another guy who tries to figure out what he means.” She glanced at us. “What! I pay attention to lectures… sometimes.”

But she’s not wrong. That kind of power but…

“But there’s a limit,” I said.

“If I ask too many I get headaches. So bad I can’t think. If I lie… It really hurts. But I’m not lying! Someone wants me, and I—“

“I know. They have a truck outside of the diner, but they won’t attack, not here, not now.”

Dinah turned pale. “But we can’t leave!”

I smiled. “Oh, I think we will, but it hurts, you said. Can you give me a few answers?”

“Maybe… three? It’ll hurt. Two would be better.”

I pulled out a pad of paper, and started scribbling on it, thinking. Make them simple. “IF you fly to Los Angeles and remain there for the next week, what is the chance you will still be safe by the end of the week.”

She blinked, as if she’d never considered it. But Dinah had probably never been out of town. "80 percent chance.”

“Very well. If Danny Hebert accompanies you for the same length of time.”

“93.833333 percent chance.” She winced.

“Why don’t you ask longer?” Aisha asked.

“You heard her, Aisha, her percentages can change. I expect the further ahead she predicts the more unstable her numbers are, is that right?”

Dinah nodded.

“Very well.” I smiled. “Remember, our powers are tools, and how useful they are depends on how creative we are.”

“Like getting me out of town?”

I nodded. “More importantly, it proves that whoever is chasing you does not have a national or worldwide organization behind them. If they have some method of neutralizing the Protectorate here it clearly doesn’t extend to the rest of the nation. You can’t just get information from what your power says, but what it doesn’t say… Especially with thinker powers, you can “fill in the blanks”…” She looked a little confused. She’s only about 12… “Like a puzzle. Start with the pieces you know fit and go from there until the empty parts of the puzzle are easy to fill in.”

She nodded, her eyes widening with understanding.

Huh. Between this, tutoring, Bulwark and others… I could see why Mom liked teaching.

“That’s cool,” Aisha said. “But the dudes outside, how are we getting her to the airport?”

“Simple, Aisha… you’re going to have a little talk with the Diner owner, and everyone knows Krewe likes to party…”

And then Aisha started to smile, and Dinah joined her. It was a fragile thing, but real.