Web of the Weaver: Chapter 20

Worm is by Wildbow and The Shadow is created by Walter B. Gibson.

*****

Getting my new costume ready, preparing it took most of the weekend. First I had to work on the voice changer, which took some time, as I studied books and drilled myself. Dad would be in for the weekend, so I made up some excuses to go outside.

And that was important. Because the Investigator wouldn’t be tied to Orb Weaver. Not at all. Not a single bit of clothing or tools would be located where Orb Weaver used them.

Even if someone outed me in one identity, they’d have no way to detect the other identity.

My bank account was empty once again, when I finished. Unfortunately, not everyone was willing to pay and my service pretty well meant that anyone I worked with could keep their buildings clear with moderate effort. I might have to use more funds from my prey.

I suppose it was time to start checking out some books on the history of money laundering.

But a simple voice changer wouldn’t be enough. People talked in certain cadences, and accents. I’d have to practice that. Because the Investigator would haveto talk. That’s what detectives did. And that meant that if he… no, she. Everyone seemed to think that Orb Weaver was a he, so the Investigator would be a she. I’d add some padding, since I barely could pass as a female, which would let me put in some more armor.

That would be important. Orb Weaver was a mystery. Investigator would be seen more, because two capes using the same gimmick would be stretching the bounds of probability. Which meant I might get shot at.

The danger was acceptable—I wouldn’t be using Investigator all the time. I’d just be using her in a way that would keep  people uncertain, not knowing which direction the next blow would fall.

Besides, every town needed a consulting detective.

So the costume would be based off of Sherlock Holmes, with a mask. I could put my spare lenses in the mask, preventing anyone from realizing I needed glasses. The material itself came from a costume shop, but the underlayer was made of spidersilk and small ceramic plates over my vital parts.

Offensively? Extensible batons were useful and I spent much of the week going over my research material and the equipment I’d purchased before I made my walking stick. Painted in wood finish, it was a hollow metal tube with extensible prongs at the end, fitted to some capacitors I could trigger. I could even get several shots out of it—or one shot I’d better reserve for a brute. I’d done the same with the batons, but they only had one shot, about the same level as a normal Taser.

In addition, I’d worked on the hollow core, with a five pound plug of lead that could slide down the tube at the flick of a switch. I’d rigged it so it could stay in three places. At the top, bottom, or mid point.

That gave me weight, but without the problem of loading the entire cane up with lead, which would be too heavy to carry. If I needed a stronger blow, I could release the plug to go to the bottom and let inertia do its thing. Otherwise, I could keep it at the top of the cane, letting me use the cane with more dexterity than most would expect—especially if they didn’t know about the taser.

I wish I could say I had come up with the idea myself, but as my bugs pulled over another page in “Strange Weapons of the Cold War” I had to accept that I was just cribbing off of some very old books.

It wasn’t tinkertech, but it should be a surprise. I had other ideas, but right now, I wouldn’t have the money to put all of them together.

The flares, taken from fireworks would be useful—not smoke, that might make people wonder if they realized Orb Weaver used smoked, but most people would flinch from a flare…

Pity that I didn’t need to see. Because my last trick would be an invisible trick. My suit had pockets in it where small insects rested—if there weren’t enough around me, I’d sent them out—and know where everyone and everything was, especially after I fired my flares off, I’d be able to move without even needing to open my eyes.

But now, I’d have to start up building a new reputation.

Completely different from Orb Weaver. Fortunately, I knew where to start. I’d actually found it just a day before when I was doing another run as Exterminator. Not that anyone would associate this with Exterminator.

*****

My first work of detective prowess was, if I was being fair, cheating. I’d noticed several people moving items out of a closed business on my last swing through as Exterminator.  I’d checked a little closer and found out what they were moving.  The problem was, Exterminator didn’t arrest people or chase them. Orb Weaver did, but Orb Weaver didn’t get involved in places like this.

And the two of them coming together would raise… questions. And to be blunt, the other things I’d been doing were taking all of my time, and theft didn’t rise to the level of drug dealing and racist gangs.

Especially if someone was finally observant enough to notice that Orb Weaver used bugs—and Exterminator got rid of bugs.

But now, I wasn’t Orb Weaver orExterminator. I was The Investigator. Granted I was using the same power—my ability to keep track of everything, multi-task, but now I was using it differently. I was focusing on using my own senses, my bugs in the background. They’d protect me from being surprised, but there were Thinkers in the world who might notice the similarity if they ran into me.

I would have to use my power differently.

People stared at me as I walked down the sidewalk. Under me, some bugs went nuts in the sewer.

This was the first time I was out, publicly, in the daytime, as a hero.

Nobody was running—unknown heroes might be some lunatic in a costume, someone with a minor gimmick… or the Fairy Queen. Until an unknown quantity was known, ‘cautious politeness’ was the rule of the day, especially since I was wearing a mask and costume.

Except at Halloween, most people accepted wearing those meant that if someone assumed you were a cape—like, say, Lung—and you weren’t, it was on you for being an idiot.

I looked up at the jewelry store and nodded. Time to go in. This was risky, but The Investigator’s identity had to be more public than the others.

As I walked in, silence spread out around me, well-dressed individuals staring at me. A man came out from behind the counter and frowned.

“May I… help you?”

I gestured for him to come with me and whispered. “Your night manager has been removing jewelry,” I told him, hoping the light accent I’d practiced wasn’t too bad. “I was working on another case when I got some information.”

The way his eyes went wide made me believe he wasn’t aware.

“Impossible!”

“Check the jewelry in cabinet A2.” Reading bugs were soawesome, especially since the night manager hadn’t closed the door until he was finished moving things.

He went behind the counter, smiling at the customers, before he opened it, glancing at me before he put on a monocle and stared for a moment. He nearly cursed, then stared at the light crowd, before he put a smile on his face and whispered to me.  “Fakes. High quality, but fakes. How did you know?”

“I am The Investigator.” I put both hands on the top of my cane and adopted a relaxed posture. “Shall we speak in your office? I believe the night manager will be arriving in an hour or so.”

*****

When the night manager arrived, the day manager was already gone, leaving a clerk behind. I didn’t trust his ability to act. I waited for him to close the shop and lock up. I was using my bugs, but focusing on my own senses, as I stood in a dark doorway in the alley behind the shop.

The car that pulled up behind the building had its license plates obscured, not that it helped with me. And it…

Had a child seat? An occupied child seat?

And the night manager opened the door. I sighed. I’d made a little bet—the night manager could open the safe and shut down the alarms, but I hadn’t been certain how he’d do it this time.

My bugs went out, just a few, invisible to human sight, and ran through their clothes, carefully avoiding the skin.

And…

Huh. Neither one had a gun?  The night manager had a canister of pepper spray, and the other guy had a Taser. That was…

I guess white-collar crime did run under other rules.

“You have it?”

“You have the fakes?”

“I—“

“Gentlemen,” I said, stepping out from the doorway. “So good of you to provide the proof I need.” I walked forward, the cane striking the ground. “Stealing from your boss.” I shook my head. “Greed?  Debts?”

“Oh shit… get HER!” the two men charged me. My bugs went berserk, and for a moment, I nearly unleashed them.

I hadn’t considered that a real fight was a bit more nerve-wracking than practicing. But I’d sent my bugs out, and where they saw a barely visible form in the dark, I had a complete wireframe view of them.  Not that they knew it. For all they knew, I could see in the dark.

“Really?” I asked as I leaned back just in time to evade a wild punch. I snapped one baton open and smacked the driver on the knee. He screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his knee. Then the night manager sprayed me with the pepperspray—which didn’t get into my eyes, and even if my face was stinging, I could hold my breath.

Him I stabbed with the baton, flicking the switch and sending the Taser’s electricity into him. He convulsed, urinated and fell to the ground.

Backing off from them, I checked the toddler—who was fast asleep, clutching an Alexandria doll to her chest.

Now it was time to talk to the two criminals…

“…are you crying?”

Yes. The driver was. Crying, no sobbing. “Please! I have money, just let us go! I’ll do anything! I can’t go to prison.”

“Really. Robbery…”

“I have to!” he said. “If not, I’ll lose my house.”

I holstered the baton. “Really?”

“I… I was doing some gambling, and I was doing reallygood! But then I had a run of bad luck, but they…”

“The people you were gambling with?”

“Yeah, uh, they offered to give me a loan, if I put up the house.”

“And you lost the loan.”

“Yes, but I… I can get it back. See, there’s another game, and If I have a stake, I can just—“

“Stop. Are you married?”

“Y-yes?”

“Does she know of this?”

“No—she’ll divorce me!”

“Maybe. But what about the night manager… he’s associated with you, isn’t he?”

“He’s my brother-in-law.”

Well, any hope of getting a reputation for breaking a deep conspiracy just went out of the window… This is just… Sad.

“Call the owner,” I told the night manager, who was holding his hands over his stained pants. “I will discuss this with him.”

The discussion turned out to be more curse words than I’d even heard from the Dockworkers, and the owner knew both men and by the time he got there he’d worked himself up into a…

Okay, more curse words than I’d ever heard from the Dockworkers, and they were creative curse words.

Fortunately, my mask and the darkness prevented any betraying blush as I wiped the pepper spray off of my exposed skin, leaving my mask on.

“You could have asked for a loan, but NO, you had to rob me!”

I cleared my throat. The three turned to me. “Perhaps a method to resolve this presents itself. All the stolen jewels will be returned. You”—I pointed at the gambler—“will inform your wife of this mess, and after this is resolved, will turn the house’s finances over to her.” I glanced at the owner. “Unless you wish to involve the police?”

“Hell no, I don’t want people to know everything. This town is crazy enough as it is.”

“But… they have my note.”

“Are they affiliated with Lung or the E88?”

“Do I look like a moron?”

I didn’t reply to that. “I will solve your issue. There is someone I know who might be able to convince them to release your note.”

“You?”

“No. The individual…” I pulled out a phone, and called, waiting until the answering service started. “Orb Weaver. I believe I have something you might be interested in.” I paused, as if listening to another voice. “Of course you know where I am…”

The three men stared at me.

“I will,” I told the owner, “be grateful if you could mention that my assistance brought a potentially damaging matter to a satisfactory conclusion.”

“Who the fuck is Orb Weaver?”

“Someone I did not wish to bother,” I told him, and then a rumbling sounded around us.

“If you did not wish to bother me, you should not have called. I am not at your beck and call, little detective.”

“The Investigator, if you please. I thought you enjoyed hunting the unrighteous.”

“And I thought you enjoyed playing games to show how very smart you were,” the voice rumbled, and the toddler burst into tears.

“Uh… is he gonna help me?”

“Why should I? I see your past. This isn’t the first time you lost money based on your gambling. This is just the first time you brought another into your circle. If not for the owner’s mercy, you and your brother-in-law would be suffering the tender mercies of the legal system, leaving your wife to try and keep from becoming homeless.”

“How… how can he know that?” the owner asked.

Unnerving laughter sounded through the air.

“I know more than you expect. I don’t need to play-act like the so-called detective.”

“Investigator,” I said.

“I will help you. I have other issues to deal with, and the future is clouded, so give me the address of those you owe money too. Oh, but you will owe me, little man.”

“I’ll do anything!”

There was a silence, and suddenly the voice dropped. “That is how you ended up in this position, little thief. So the first part of your payment is to think before you speak or act. If I have to save you from the consequences of your actions again… Well, who knows what I’ll do. The matter in question will be resolved in a week. Do not make me regret it, and Investigator?”

“Yes?”

“You are in debt to me for this.”

I sighed. “Yes.”

There was no answer.

“What the fuck was that?”

“A being who you would do well to not antagonize. Go and calm your child, and are we all agreed?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, hell yes.”

“Good. If you don’t mind, there’s no need to mention the… antagonism Orb Weaver holds for me. It is not much, just a regrettable misunderstanding.”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

I turned to walk for the alley mouth. I’d change and get home before curfew. And if the Brockton Bay gossip mill played true to form, by the end of the week, one of them would talk about how Orb Weaver didn’t like Investigator and how they were two different people.

If the day hadn’t worked out quite as well as it had, well, now I had several witnesses noting that I and Orb Weaver were not on the same side. It would also give an excuse for Orb Weaver to give some gamblers a bad day and possibly add to my resources.

Of course, I would have to be careful about one thing.

Playing too many different roles might see me start to talk in the third person—and comics and history books both agreed. That was nota good sign.