Orb Weaver: Storm, chapter 1

I was sitting at my desk at Arcadia when my phone went off, along with several others. Everyone tensed.

Popular wisdom was that Arcadia had a faraday cage that blocked cell phones.

Popular wisdom, as in so many other cases, was actually wrong, as I’d found out. The fact that such a cage would interfere with emergency coms, to say nothing of teachers who very much had not signed up for that, would have exposed the school to a multitude of issues. No, the “Faraday” cage was far more complex than the students were told .

While the school was isolated, internal repeaters inside the structure provided full wifi and cell connectivity—if you had the right code, which students did not. Nor did I. My bugs provided me with access to phones outside the school, and the Investigator would be the first person they’d look to if someone picked up unauthorized coms.

Well, possibly second. I was fairly certain Chris also knew about the system.

But that meant that you could make emergency announcements, and allow the phones to access the 911 network.

And right now… I looked at my phone.

UNANNOUNCED CLASS S DRILL IN PROGRESS. DO YOU WISH TO PARTICIPATE?

I went cold. There was no such drill. What there was, was a code that I’d been given indicating that…

An Endbringer attack was imminent. I glanced around. Chris had turned pale. Aisha, who had been in the middle of chatting with some of her other friends was staring at her phone before she put it back and rolled her eyes, muttering something about a lottery scam.

“ATTENTION, ATTENTION, WILL THE FOLLOWING STUDENTS PLEASE PROCEED TO THE OFFICE.”

I was moving before they started listing the names, and nobody stopped Aisha when she joined me.

The benefits of being a nearly, or fully open cape, I supposed.

Around me, under the earth, bugs twisted. None of my mind games would work against…

No.

Deep breath, Taylor.

We weren’t there to fight Leviathan. We were there to get people out. They wouldn’t be calling us if he was already attacking…

“The warning system must have worked,” I muttered to Aisha.

“Yeah, but how fucking long?” Aisha said. “Moving everyone in a city out ain’t like a school assembly.”

“The Fourth Horseman?”

“Yep.” She paused. “Shit, he’s gonna be in there as well.”

“This isn’t his first Endbringer fight.”

“Yeah, but he may be an asshole, but… he taught me a lot of stuff. Reminds me of you.”

“None of us will be fighting Leviathan.” I reminded her.

Aisha stopped and looked up at me. “I wasn’t exactly gonna take a swim with the E88, or almost get my lungs dissolved. Don’t get killed.”

“You’ll miss me?”

“Fuck that, with the way Youth Guard is talking, they might make me take on your tutoring job.”

I chuckled. “Aisha the teacher?”

“Only if I get to train ‘em in doing heists.”

I laughed. It wasn’t super funny, but… Aisha was right.

We passed through the office, the other kids who were there to maintain the threadbare pretense that no Wards went to Arcadia waiting for their parents to take them home.

I stopped by the bathroom to put on the Investigator’s mask from where I’d secreted it. I also sent a message via my bugs to Dad to bring the items I couldn’t store at the school to me. Despite my worries about incorporating Tinkertech from an unknown source I couldn’t help but think about how much Toybox’s teleporting storage unit offerings would simplify my day.

The good news was that it was unlikely that anyone would interfere with me. The Truce was, as much as anything was in this world, sacred. Everyone knew that one day, the sirens might howl in their city, and they would be utterly dependent on the idea that anyone could show up without fear of being outed or arrested. The few criminal groups that had attempted to break the truce had… been turned into object lessons.

On the way down to the PRT building, we were informed of what was going on.

“We expect Leviathan to attack somewhere on the Gulf Coast in the next 5 or so hours.” Renick was the one doing the briefing by radio. “Protectorate and independent capes intending on attacking Leviathan are being staged remotely and prepared. But they can’t be deployed until we know with greater accuracy where landfall will be. Wards, non-combat parahumans and evacuation teams are being deployed first, to move the most vulnerable out of the way. Remember, when you get the order, you are to immediately withdraw. Mover support will be provided.”

One of the PRT troopers handed me my armband, and I accepted it, as well as the PRT issued tablet—one that had far better range and connectivity than any civilian system I had been able to obtain.

“Your area of Operations will be the Galveston/Texas City region.  Galveston has no shelters capable of withstanding Leviathan, and Texas City is similarly vulnerable.” I listened to the voice in my ear while flicking through the map.

Over 35,000 people.  The fact that the city was vulnerable to Leviathan hadn’t gone entirely unnoticed, which slowed growth but…

Only two major land access points. Highway 75 and Interstate 45.

“The PRT will suppress online warnings of Leviathan for as long as possible, but that won’t last. When people find out the possibility of an Endbringer landing…”

“They’re gonna freak,” Aisha said.

The plans mostly accounted for hurricanes, I saw, allowing for a 36 hour or longer window for evacuation. Until now, nobody had really planned for 5 hours warning—you either got a lot more, or no long-term warning at all.

An oversight. I shook my head, as the van stopped and everyone bailed out. The PRT was buzzing, troopers equipping, V/TOLs landing and taking off. At PRT VTOL speed, they’d be in the region in about two hours.

Weird. Time enough to send people in, but not enough to evacuate.

No. This is a problem. Fix it.  

“This is Investigator,” I said into the armband, my fingers flying over the tablet. “Galveston has a large number of individuals with access to boats. We need them.”

“Investigator, we are not to inform them that this is—“

I kept flipping through the information. “It looks like there may be as many as 500 private boats on the island. If we assume we can pack in 10 people per boat, that’s five thousand for every trip, and once they’re on the mainland, our ability to evacuate becomes far easier. Inform them that the PRT will compensate them 1,000 dollars per trip in return for their assistance on this drill.”

“We can’t—“

“Lie.” I cut them off. I wondered if I was going to be dropped from the network, for my presumption, when there was a click and a new voice sounded.

“This is Costa-Brown. Agreed. Investigator, you will assist in coordinating at the Galveston EOC.”

“Understood.”

And then I saw Dad’s truck stop, and once again, keeping to the pretense that he totally wasn’t the father of The Investigator, went to the front office to drop off my goods. I wished… that it didn’t have to be so. I wanted to talk to Dad. 

I would do it later.

But there was one other man waiting for me.

Armsmaster.

“Investigator.” He said. “Here.” He handed out my explosive rounds. “I do not expect you to need them, but…”

“Better to have and not need, than need and not have.” I said, nodding. “I’ll have to get equipped and hopefully will not see Leviathan. But you… Good hunting.” That had been another thing I’d read. Nobody said “stay safe” in an Endbringer fight, unless they were terminally clueless.

“I have prepared for this,” he said.

“Very well.” Then I nodded and turned to prepare, as the announcement stated that our Mover support would arrive in thirty minutes.