Web of the Weaver Interlude: Analysis and Deals

“The serial numbers on the refrigerators dead end,” the FBI agent told Emily the light of the screen fighting against the evening light of the Bay beyond her window. “Bought at an auction, cash only. Everyone knows it was probably dirty money but there are enough cut outs…” He shrugged. “But know and prove, especially without witnesses, are two different things.”

“And the drugs?”

“Now that’s better. That’s muchbetter.” He gestured at the DEA agent. “Tom can let you know.”

“We managed to track them to Connerstone Research Institute.” The slim woman smiled. “The people who were going to be bringing Tinkertech drugs to the common market, any day now.”

Armsmaster snorted.

“Yeah,” she said. “Turns out, investors start to demand results after the tenth batch of crap, and so… they were padding their inventory and sales by putting stuff on the black market. Someone got greedy, sold a batch to a middleman, and well, here we are.”

“But no directl links to the Empire,” Emily said. “We know they had the drugs, but not the routes they used to get them.”

“Monetarily, no. The funds came from the middle man and it dead ends there, but…” The FBI agent trailed off.

“They’ve been burned, and I bet they won’t be very happy, or have other people happy with them. From the records we’ve seized and going over financials, I’d say about a half percent of the drug trade on the East Coast may have been disrupted, at least until they find another middleman.

Not much, not until you think about how many people there are. And the Empire is to blame for this.

Criminals didn’t need to prove things in a court of law, and Emily had a feeling that the Empire would be paying a stupidity surcharge for some time to come when they tried to get more goods.

“Which brings us to our benefactor,” the DEA agent said. “Normally this’d not be in our wheelhouse, but normally parahumans do more punching than detective work. What do you know about him?”

“Very little. He first came to our attention during a bullying affair…”

“Where one of your wards was implicated.”

Emily frowned, then nodded. “Not implicated. The evidence was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“If you can get him to join up…”

“The PRT has always offered membership to non-criminal parahumans,” Emily rattled off the boilerplate by memory. “But Orb Weaver has shown no interest.”

“Hm. Pity. Well, we’ll keep you up to date with any future events.”

“Thank you.”

Moments later, the screens were dark and Emily turned to Armsmaster and Assault. That wasn’t normal, but she’d asked for Assault.

Because God help us, he’s one of the few people on staff who have experience on the other side.

“What do we know?” She said.

“The Think Tank still hasn’t opened up enough time to look at our situation,” Armsmaster said. “Something going on in Seattle.”

Which we won’t hear about because the more people know, the more noise in the system, and the less accurate predictions are. If the Think Tank called you,it was generally a sign something terrible was about to happen, so Emily took vague comfort in the fact that Orb Weaver was low priority.

“Profilers have a bunch about him,” Assault said. He opened up his notebook, behaving like an adult, for once. “Probably about 40 years old, but younger than 50, with experience in covert operations, focusing on psychological warfare. Possibly has a master component, explaining the fear many of his enemies have mentioned. Possibly a member of law enforcement moonlighting as a hero, or someone who has lost a relative to the E88, or even a former E88… where the hell do they get this?” He tossed the papers down.

“What do you think?” Emily asked.

“I think that they should be willing to say ‘We don’t have a clue’ instead of inventing all of this.”

“You disagree?” Armsmaster asked.

“Yeah. I disagree. We’ve never seen him, we’ve never heard him except when “he” wants us to. I can tell you three things about our guy. One. He’s sneaky. Two. He’s Smart. Three. He’s not overly trusting. That’s all we know.”

“And yet he’s been focusing on low level actions,” Armsmaster murmured.

“Really? You heard the cops,” Assault said. “He just cost the Empire a lotmore than kicking the shit out of Hookwolf would.”

“And according to our sources, Hookwolf backed off.”

“Because Hookwolf didn’t know.” Assault nodded. “In the business, you don’t worry about the loud guy, you worry about the quiet guy.”

“I’m aware,” Emily said.

“Yeah. Because you don’t know what the quiet guy can do.” Assault gestured at the papers. “Have we seen the most he can do? Or is he holding back?”

“And then there’s Mush,” Emily said. “He talked to him, and now a former Merchant cape is working in the docks, and keeping his nose clean.”

“There are still outstanding warrants,” Armsmaster pointed out. “But…”

“Yes?”

“Free, Mush gives us a point of contact with Orb Weaver. One wecan initiate.”

“Agreed. Which is another point. We’ve had plenty of vigilantes who beat up villains and leave us with the mess to clean up. Orb Weaver cleans up his mess.” Emily touched a button and an image appeared of a gigantic hybrid between a bulldozer and a firetruck advancing into a raging fire. “Squealer’s newest toy. It has limited tinkertech, I’m told that she was annoyed they wouldn’t let her add a teleporter, but the NYFD is veryhappy with it.”

And every building fire it stops is a gift from Orb Weaver. I wonder if he knew that? Assault was right, Emily knew, but not entirely right. Orb Weaver wasn’t just sneaky—he was political.

“Dragon and I believe we know why Orb Weaver is targeting the Empire.” Armsmaster gestured and a holograph came up, graphs and lines flickering. “The Empire holds power by its strength, but also its… legitimacy. Lung doesn’t feel the need to distribute appliances. And the leadership of the Empire is not as secure as Lung is.”

“Trying to destabilize the Empire?” Emily asked.

“Possibly.”

Assault whistled. “And if they can’t even find him… yeah, bad times for them.”

“And the Bay. They’ll act out.” Paused. “I want all troopers warned that there may be attempts to spark incidents and be on their watch. Remind them how many media outlets in this town are friendly to the Empire.”

And not just them.Emily did her best to keep racism out of the PRT, but someone who just saw his friend taken to the hospital with an arm burned down to the bone because he got in Lung’s way was vulnerable to E88 propoganda, and she couldn’t toss someone for just being angry.

And if Orb Weaver did weaken the Empire, Lung would take advantage.

But at least they wouldn’t have the Empire in that case.

Emily glanced down at her desk, where the overall orders for the PRT ENE were, orders she, and scarily enough, Tagge agreed were a bad idea. But orders were orders.

While crime is to be fought, you are to take no action that, in your view, would lead to widescale civil disorder.

And evidently, taking down a bunch of Nazis would lead to civil disorder.

Emily was too much of an old hand to make the mistake of openly pointing out to her bosses that there had been plentyof civil disorder the last time the Nazis had tried to be a thing, and was that too bad given it had ended, well ending the Nazis? Sometimes you had to bite the bullet and just start punching.

Well, if I wanted easy, I could have always taken early retirement.With that, Emily turned back to talk to Armsmaster and Assault, this time about Uber and Leet who had decided to run a holographic “hentai battle challenge” in Theodore Roosevelt Park, which had many, many unamused families screaming at the PRT, even though the idiotic duo had kept the images to mostly soft-R.

Some people really need to get a sense of scale, she thought.

****

Detective Daniel Harding was many things. As one of the only black detectives in the Bay, “suicidal” came up. He didn’t use a locker, and always checked his car before and after he used it, which was why he’d never been successfully hit with a drug possession charge.

On the other hand, ‘mysteriously missing backup’ was a thing, and it didn’t matter if it was against Lung or the Empire—as far as the people gunning for him cared, getting killed to the Asian cape was a double plus.

Don’t bitch. Asian cops have it worse.  Most of them got out of the Bay as fast as they could when they realized that they were stuck between Lung and the E88.

And here he was standing in an empty parking structure, and the only reason he didn’t think it was an Empire attempt was that Sheila had helped him more than a few time—

“Detective Harding. So good of you to meet me.”

“Jesus!” He jumped. The voice was… everywhere. Some kind of rumbling, amusedvoice, like what the devil would sound like when he mentioned that you really should have read the fine print. “Warn a guy.”

“Maybe.”The was a pause. “But I find myself in  need of assistance. An honest man, to be precise.”

“What makes you think I’m honest?”

“You’re not on the take. From Lung. The Empire, of course, wouldn’t pay you.”

“Nah. I could be on the take from someone else.”

“I think not. I do my research.”

And that’s not terrifying, nope, not at all.

“Many of those who might pay you see the BBPD as a joke. Why worry about it when there are capes to be faced.”

“And what do you think?”

“This city cannot be what it should be, not until the police serve the people.”

“We get guys that talk like that. Lucky ones get busted with drugs. Unlucky ones have fatal accidents.”

“I am not a guy…”the chuckle was reallyunnerving. “But the Empire, and other groups are about to come into a period of very bad luck. If you will assist me, we can work together.”

“Sounds like you’re just wanting to buy me off.”

“No.”The rumble was threatening. “I will not ask you to betray your oath. Rather, I shall help you fulfill it.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“You know other honest officers, ones who fear to speak up. But as the corrupt suffer… the fruits of their labors, there will be openings.”

Daniel took that under advisement.

“And we go up against Hookwolf?”

“That is the PRT and Protectorate’s duty. You shall simply do what you have always done.”

“Great. I—“

“There is a USB on the hood of your car. It contains information I found. The Empire is storing weapons at an affiliated bar. It would be a pity if someone found them. Good day, Detective…”

And then there was that rumble, and Daniel turned to his car, and son of a bitch there it was.

And nobody else was up here but me.

But he knew Deputy Chief Kimmel. He wasn’t an E88 stooge, hated them in fact even if he had gotten to the top by not rocking a boat. But he’d be willing to back a request for a search warrant.

And we’ll see if you’re good at your word.