Web of the Weaver: Chapter 26

Look for the dog that doesn’t bark.  I walked through E88 part of the city after school, my bugs checking things around me, but I was focusing on what I could see.

The problem with depending on any one thing, is that there was a counter to anything. I wasn’t Alexandria, so I couldn’t just power through any obstacle.

I had to go around them.

So now I was observing the street. Some businesses had gang markers on them, others were pristine.

Mostly white-owned businesses.  It made sense. People went to clean businesses, and so any minorities or non-E88 members who didn’t get the hint soon found themselves losing business—in a way that the PRT or BBPD, even if they were inclined to do so, couldn’t directly attack.

And yet…

The amount of money flowing through the E88 was immense. Green handled tens—hundreds of thousands of dollars on a monthly basis and he was small fry in the order of things.

I walked through a store, looking at the fine clothes and rolling my eyes at one counter with a 14.88 sale.

Green collected money, but not enough.

And drugs didn’t explain it either. The E88 sold drugs but only the “higher class” drugs.

The E88 had an income gap. They ran dog fight rings, held rallies, and even paid unemployment to members in good standing.

Add in bribes, supporting their higher-ups, purchasing drugs… They were spending more money than their income could support. At least the income I knew about.

What am I missing?I only had the low level, the street records, but going above Green risked running into their capes.

And in this world, only a fool would assume they didn’t have someform of Thinker working with them. You only had to look at how Thinker-aided prosecutions had utterly demolished conventional organized crime in the golden age of heroes to understand that.

As I walked, I noticed a group of E88 gangers, well-dressed, patrolling the street. They stopped one person and talked to him before he left, moving a little faster than normal.

A way to show that the E88 ruled here, not the city.

I frowned. Then shook my head as I passed a bar.

The Iron Cross.

I rolled my eyes. Someone wasn’t interested in being subtle, but this was where the “middle class” of the Empire hung out, at least some of them. No street level skinheads, the prices were a bit much, but PHO had claimed to see Hookwolf in now and then.

And under me, where the sewers were, my legions were pulling my newest toy.

Now that I could separate out conversations, I had decided to try something else. A single shotgun mic, set up in the vents, would hear everything at once.

And I could tell the difference. Behind the bar, a swarm of insects pulled the small mic out of the drainage grate and went swarming up the side of the building. Nobody was in that alley. I’d checked. But doing this at night would be too dangerous—the Empire patrolled this neighborhood very heavily after dark.

The exhaust grate was designed to  keep out rodents and birds, not my bugs. Why bother—the air was flowing out.

But now they swarmed in, spiders pulling my little fabricated mic and recording system with them. I couldn’t listen to it live—it’d butchered some USB sticks so that their memory chip could be pulled out and flown to me with a beetle or wasp.

I didn’t want to risk transmitting after all.

And every day, I’d come down here to look at these nice, whitestores.

While I gathered the information I needed. But now it was time to investigate Ms. Laborn.

****

The apartment complex Aisha’s mother stayed in was not clean. It was on the edge of the old Merchant territory and I could see why.

I kept a very large swarm at the ready. Just in case.

Room 202, second floor. I didn’t have to enter it. My bugs swarmed through filling the room, giving me a full 3D image of it.

After all, Ms. Laborn wasn’t there, so I didn’t need to worry about frightening her.

That would come later.

I found drugs. Not hidden, unless you considered putting them in a breadbox hiding them. Some money, under the bed. Filth was everywhere. I  kept walking, not slowing down.

In this part of town, hanging around sent out very dangerous signals.

Then I found her mail, and a horde of roaches, ants, everything I could send up, swarmed over them, tasting them, examining them.

LAW OFFICES OF MICHAEL TIMMIS III.

The letter itself was talking to Ms. Laborn, including thanks for notifying him about Aisha’s older brothers ‘part time’ employment.

The hell? Did she out Brian? Or was the lawyer simply not wanting to risk a third party picking up on it…

No.

If this had been authorized by the PRT, he wouldn’t need to be coy. In fact, I doubt he’d put it in writing at all.

My bugs froze.

On the other hand… I’d have to check the laws, because Brian had been a parahuman before he became part of the Wards.

I wasn’t the only one smart enough to think about parallel construction. If the lawyer could claim he knew nothing of Brian’s current situation and was just talking about his earlier career…

While I was thinking, I kept examining the letter.

My office can assist you in receiving proper compensation for surrendering your claim, due to the pain and suffering of giving up your child in the face of a biased CPS and other organizations.

There was more, but…

But the lawyer evidently didn’t believe she could hold on to Aisha, and so this was… an attempt to extort money out of Brian, holding his sister…

In the sewers, a rat died thrashing as it was swarmed by thousands of insects.

My expression didn’t change.

My respect for Aisha went up. She was many things. Irritating, irreverent, sometimes angry… but she was never malevolent.

It was easy to be a good person if you never had to pay for it, if you had parents who rewarded you for it.

Aisha hadn’t.  Her mother didn’t care about her. No. Worse. She only cared for the money Aisha might bring in.

So I would make certain she ended up with someone who did care for her.

I turned down the street. It was time to research a lawyer.

For his sake, I hoped he was just doing his job.

*****

Later that night, I leaned back and frowned. I’d done some work at the library, then returned home. I wasn’t as skilled as I should be, but I’d spent some time learning how to obscure my footprint, at least enough for minor work.

I’d have to get some more money. The best ways to hide your presence took money and knowledge.

But for now…

Mr. TImmis, you are a very bad person. Behind the cheery webpage was a man who had been reprimanded by the state Bar association, who was known to most of the family law judges in the city…

And was mainly skilled at taking people who had no hope of actually securing custody, telling them a story and talking about the various one-in-a-million cases that happened, and then… extracting money from them, until they were unable to pay any further, always staying just short of the line that would see more official sanctions coming along.

My deep dive into family law left me…

Well. I’d known that not all tragedies involved capes, but this was more evidence. Family law was complex, and many of Timmis’ ads… were not outright lies, but they definitely were misleading. It’d taken me most of the night looking up online resources on how the law worked, along with various cases, to get a clue of just how misleading it would be.

Especially to someone who was desperate.

Ms. Laborn was the other side of his business. “Fighting” until the other side paid him off to go away. You could tell the difference, in that those were the cases he took “contingency fees” It was hard to tell how many of those were examples of him working in collusion with people who just wanted some money and how many were taking advantage of the desperate where he thought there would be a larger payoff than demanding his money upfront.

I started to understand why so many police and judges were cynical in literature. Even if most people were good… you didn’t tend to meet good people.

Not a problem for me.

I followed up the law firm on various online forums. Plenty of angry people. Plenty of sob stories.

I bet some were even true.

But…

A suicide. A woman who had lost her daughter, claimed she’d been swindled and then killed herself.

I followed up the news stories. Pity I couldn’t make use of Orb Weaver’s sources for this, but Orb Weaver taking interest in a crooked lawyer would be another point of connection between Orb Weaver and Taylor, with Aisha being the shared link.

No. That was too risky.

But I didn’t need that.

The Investigator was known, granted, not famous, but she had been photographed and put on PHO.

I quickly verified the information from the obituary. Followed it up with a search of the events surrounding her death.  Not much to say, mainly because there had been an attempt on Legend’s family that week.

And… Huh. Mr. Barnes law firm had provided the Guardian Ad Litem for the child in question. Carol Dallon Wasn’t she…

Huh. Interesting. A Guardian Ad Litem didn’t have to be an attorney.

And that case had been the one where a complaint had been registered with the state bar. Filed by Carol Dallon for misleading business practices. The complaint had been dismissed.

Well. Well. Well.

And it made sense. A new parahuman with a thinker-based power oriented towards solving crime?  Nobody in the world would be wondering why I was interested in speaking to the cape lawyer.

I grabbed the burner phone I was using as The Investigator and quickly left a message on her machine at work.

“Mrs. Dallon. I am The Investigator, a parahuman who, well, investigates.” I let a little laugh enter my voice. “I’m new, and very inexperienced in this field, but I believe I’ve ran into an individual attempting to abuse the family law process for his own gain, and I would like your input on how to continue. His name is Michael Timmis the Third.  I’m available at this phone number or you can message TheBaysInvestigator on PHO. Thank you.”

I disconnected the phone and leaned back. When she called back, or if she did, I’d be certain to arrange for Orb Weaver to be active somewhere else… Just to ensure nobodydrew any unfortunate connections.