Orb Weaver: Plague Chapter 12

When Mr. Thomas left, I secured his weapons. I trusted him… but I would still have Armsmaster check them. He was no Tinker, and neither was I, and I had never encountered Marquis—so I didn’t know if he was the type to put little surprises in any tools that his minions might one day use against him.

There was a risk in trusting Armsmaster—but again, I was no Tinker, and if it was a choice between Armsmaster, and any other Tinker in the Bay… Well, other than Kid Win or Leet, and Kid Win was a Ward and…

Well. Leet. You needed no other words to understand why having him check out your gear wasn’t a good idea.

Dad looked like he wanted to say something, then shook his head. “A lot of things happened today,” he finally said. “We should probably take some time to think about them before we talk more. Be honest, I’m…”

“Tired?” I smiled. “Same. I think I’ll stay in tonight.”

Dad didn’t even try to conceal the relief on his face.

And I was telling the truth. I had a lot to think about.

****

Later that night, I was lying in bed. Not sleeping. Below, my bugs were working on some of my phones, each one with its own identity, bought for cash. Each one included spoofing software that I’d coded myself, in order to keep anyone from getting a location read on them.

Not foolproof. You could triangulate via cell phone towers and mesh units, and my unknown enemy had penetration into those areas—how much, I didn’t know. They might have actually burned any future access by revealing their hand. Or they might have other methods.

Which they burned in an attempt to get Madison on board.

On the one hand, it made sense. The Undersiders had no real brutes—they had Hellhound’s dogs, but they were strictly limited tools. And you could hurt them. Right now, Madison was the next best thing to Alexandria—or the Siberian. Possessing a brute like that…

Below, my bugs kept working. Information about the Undersiders was limited—I was certain Brian had been debriefed, but I doubted I’d be given unrestricted access to that. More importantly, Brian may have had some lingering attachment to them, and it’d be unfair to put him on the spot.

It didn’t look like they had been scrubbing data—just that they were not the kind of group people focused on. “Hellhound terrifies dogwalker” videos aside, there wasn’t a lot of detailed information.

Regent. Someone who could initiate spasms in his victims, barely a Master 2. Trainwreck and Chariot—new members, one apparently focusing on armored suits and the other one a transport tinker.

Tattletale. A Thinker.

Not a leader, at least not skilled at it. She’d never considered Regent dropping a bomb on her pitch, at least not until it was too late.

Brian stayed behind to handle Lung, and as Grue, was the leader…

And not long after they lost him, they launch a raid against the Empire.

Possibly a team struggling? No longer having a leader capable of standing up to some of their “Boss’s” demands?”

But if so, why go for Madison? Getting her on board would bring them to the attention of everyone from Lung to Alexandria.

Unless their boss has some form of control over them. Maybe they’re a Master?

I didn’t immediately dismiss the possibility but… It was unlikely. Tattletale’s warning to Brian via Aisha didn’t indicate the kind of influence a Master might have.

Lets think. 1. The Undersiders were a small time gang, until their attack on the Empire’s refrigerator game. Before that they antagonized Lung, but were laying low after losing Brian.

2. Lisa acted to contact Brian via Aisha.

3. They have a boss. A boss who is operating behind the scenes. As much as it is dangerous to make assumptions… I believe it is Coil.

None of the other groups acted this way. More importantly, their actions indicated the Undersiders weren’t an off-books group for any of the other major groups in the Bay,and the sabotage of the phones showed that whoever their boss was, they had been active for some time, but were also local.

And right now…

People were talking about how Orb Weaver hadn’t come to my assistance.

I went still in bed. From the attack on Aisha, people, especially those who focused on such things, were aware that Orb Weaver and The Investigator had a connection. I had fostered it. But now… Orb Weaver hadn’t saved me.

But nobody could have tested that. After all, Coil, if it was Coil, couldn’t know for certain unless I died and there was no retribution.

So presume that if it was a test, it was one that was inconclusive.

So what was I—

I blinked. Someone had entered the region where my bugs were under control. A figure moving fast—but not feeling like a normal…

Aisha? Moments later, a small pebble hit my window and I rolled up, thankful I hadn’t yet undressed. I opened the window—

“Coming through!” Aisha said softly, and suddenly her Number twisted leaving her standing right outside of my house and then another Number appeared in my room and there was another twist and Aisha…

“Aisha.” I stared at her. “Why are you here?”

“Hey, moral support. Also…” She held up a pair of store-bought pastries. “Celebration time! This is the second time someone’s tried to kill you!”

I raised an eyebrow. “Pastries?”

“Yeah, drinks are on you.”

“What is your brother going to say?”

“He doesn’t know, and he won’t be back until tomorrow. He got grabbed for a PRT thing.”

“Thing?”

“Yeah, turns out Armsmaster figured out that his smoke blocks radiation. So…” She shrugged. “They got a little issue with a Tinker who fucked up and he got dragged out to keep some radiation from turning the disposal squad into goo.”

“And nobody is watching your apartment?” I asked.

“Probably, but it doesn’t matter, see, I got sneaky. I drilled a little hole in the back wall, so I can see it, and there’s another little place in the alley, got blocked off by some building, and nobody can get in there—unless you put a Number in there, and from there…” She grinned. “I can go where I want.”

“Nice.” Poor Brian. “But why are you really here?”

“Well,” Aisha said, taking a bite of her pastry as I unwrapped mine. “Figure it’s time we fuck up Coil.”

“Why would we want to do that?”

“Cause he’s the one that sent the E88 after me.” Aisha glanced at me. “I’m not stupid.”

“Only an idiot would say that about you.”

“Yeah, but some people still do. Here’s the thing. Brian leaves the Undersiders. Lisa talks to him, via me, so that her boss doesn’t know. Or maybe he does. A day later, I get the totally useless panic button, and then the E88 tries to kill me. Then, she shows up and tries to recruit Locker Girl out from under you, only the E88 shows up, again. Oh, and all the phones fail. And you almost get killed right after you and the best Ward in the city keep Dinah from getting grabbed.”

I leaned back. It wasn’t a bad theory, but… “Why kill you? To retaliate against your Brother?”

“Nah,” Aisha said. “Make him go nuts. Bro is like super overprotective. If I—“ She paused. Swallowed her mouthful, then swallowed again. “You know, he’d go bonkers. It’d make the Protectorate look super bad.”

I froze. My bugs froze.

“Not the Protectorate.” I finally said. “The PRT.” Aisha had nailed it. The attack on her, the attack on Madison—they made the PRT and Protectorate look bad.

And the jokes about how many times arrested parahumans got away… I wondered how many of those were due to…

Well, if someone could crack the PRT’s codes, dropping a dime to the local gangs would be easy…all while obscuring their own hand in the affair.

Coil’s men hit an Empire front… Emily Piggot’s words right before the cell phones cut out. A hit, just in time to block any aid from interfering with the Undersider’s pitch… And then the E88 showed up. I wonder, had that group gotten a convenient call?

“But he didn’t when we were helping Dinah,” I finally said.

“What?”

“If this individual—almost certainly Coil—had been able to, he would have pulled everything in to get Dinah. He didn’t, so he needs to…prepare the ground.” Like Orb Weaver. “A Thinker like Dinah is important.”

So he’s limited, but he’s using my own tactics against the PRT, make them look bad, gradually wear away at their rep…but why? What does he have to gain from it?  The end of that route just likely saw the Protectorate escalate, rather than risk losing control over an entire city. In fact…

“Aisha, you need to be very careful.”

“Why?  If the Empire tries to hit me again, they’re just gonna be obliterated.”

“Precisely,” I said, staring at her. “Coil, Mr. X, whoever this person is, likes indirect schemes. What if at some point he needs to smash the Empire? If Krewe, beloved new Ward, was to be killed and it was tracked to the Empire, after their last attempt…” Complex, but I’m not underestimating this villain.

“The Protectorate would go crazy,” Aisha said. “Okay, when do we do it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Take the asshole down? I know where the Undersiders hang, we can start with them.”

“How do you know?”

“Not dumb, duh, a few nights ago, I just used my Numbers. Bro would always bring me left over pizza from the same place on Friday, so I just hung out by it. And then Lisa came by and grabbed some. I followed her from a few blocks away.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment, then started to chuckle. After my bugs, my cameras… and Aisha had just done the simplest thing. “Are you trying to steal my look?”

“Nah, I’m fine with Watson,” she said. “He’s a lot smarter in the books.”

“You…”

“Hey, figured if you’d scammed the ID from the books, they couldn’t be too bad. They weren’t.”

I couldn’t help it. I smiled. “Right, well, then, let’s start planning…”

It was a good thing Brian didn’t come back until later. Because Aisha and I spent over an hour in my room planning to End a certain snake…