The Web of the Weaver Chapter 6

I didn’t go out the next night. The Protectorate would almost certainly be looking for whoever had brought Sophia to justice.

And I couldn’t be certain I hadn’t left something behind. I didn’t think so, but the Protectorate had decades' worth of experience.

The next day, however, Blackwell was gone. A new individual informed us that she had unexpectedly requested a transfer and that our new principal would tell us what was going on on Monday.

Also, Sophia, Emma, and Madison were all gone.

Interesting. Evidently someone had decided to take action, not just against Sophia but the others.

Over the course of the last day, the teachers were distracted. Men in suits, who didn’t give names, called them into the office for “interviews” and I noticed some of them making copies of the computer files.

Two of our teachers, the shop teacher and remedial English teacher vanished—my bugs showed them walked out of the rear, accompanied by several men, and placed into a car. I managed to get back to the window in time to see, resolving to find some way to see via my bugs.

They were being driven off in police cars.

They hadn’t been involved with my issues, so I wondered if they were the two “dealing” teachers Stan had mentioned.

But I had to go to computer class. Even Julia was quiet, looking to the empty seats where Emma and Sophia had been.

She was so concerned, her insults were more or less pro-forma, although Gladly didn’t do anything. As usual.

When school ended, I headed out the front. Today, I’d actually chosen to eat in the cafeteria, to observe everyone else.

It was a strange sensation. Nobody messed with my food.

When I got home, Dad was already there. For a moment, I stopped. There was nobody in the house with him, my bugs showed that. But why was he home early…

I walked in, and heard Dad’s voice.

“Taylor? Could you come here, please?”

I walked in, and saw dad sitting in front of some papers. He glanced up at me. “Taylor, I can tell you something about your bullies, but it has to stay in complete confidence.”

“Okay,” I said.

“The… PRT called me in for a meeting this morning, while you were at school. I had to sign NDAs, but they left it up to me if you were to be told.”

I don’t say anything.  Dad takes a deep breath.

“Sophia was Shadow Stalker. She’s been… removed.”

“Oh. That explains why she wasn’t at school today.”

“The other two…” Dad pauses. “As a result of what the PRT found, their cases were turned over to the District Attorney. Emma and Madison were arrested this morning.”

For a moment, I wonder at why I don’t feel… more.

Just a certain satisfaction that the school was finally doing its job, coupled with a dim anger that I had to dothis.

“And because of that, the school is willing to renegotiate our settlement. So I wanted your input on that.”

I knew exactly what I was going to say, what I wanted. I’d thought about this, after all, while researching things at the library. “No money.”

“What?”

“If they pay us money, morally at least, the school, the city, will consider this over and done with.” Now I feel a little anger, as the bugs under the eaves of the house start twisting. “That would be easy. I want something else. I want to be certain this won’t happen again. I want…” I took a deep breath. “A consent decree. I read about it, it’ll last even after I’m long gone from the school.”

Dad blinked. Opened his mouth, shook his head. “Are you certain?”

My bugs start to get even more agitated, and I take a moment to make certain nobody can see them. “I don’t know why Emma turned on me.” I had suspicions, but not proof. “But if the school had done its job, the locker would never have happened. We’d just have stopped being friends. I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.”

“I’ll… Okay. As part of their settlement, the PRT offered to let us use one of their lawyers to talk to the school, in addition to transferring Sophia’s college fund to us. I… Taylor, we can’t expose her identity. Not just because of the NDA, but because she has family here and…”

“If a black ward was outed, after doing this, there’s every chance the E88 would decide to avenge me.” I nodded.

“As for Emma…” Dad looked away. “The PRT really doesn’t want this to go any further, so they let me read some of the information from Sophia’s interview. It’s… Taylor, Emma may not be convicted of a crime because she’s mentally… very unwell.”

And you are? I remembered how Dad just shut down before Mr. Barnes came in and forced him to… Huh. Mr. Barnes may have saved Dad’s life, and his daughter destroyed mine. Where does that leave us?

But then Dad told me the whole sordid story, and I found myself giving thanks for one thing.

I didn’t want to start my career with killing or seriously injuring a ward.

If I’d known what I knew now, it is very unlikely Sophia would have walked out of that warehouse.

*****

That weekend, I went out on patrol. I told Dad he can handle the meetings, that I don’t want to go there, and he accepts that I’ll just want to spend some time in the safe parts of town.

The main reason, of course, is that I don’t want to risk someone making connections between Taylor and Orb Weaver, and I have no idea what kind of surveillance the PRT would use during the meetings. As for the other, I’ll be allowed to read the consent decree before it’s signed off on, and I have better things to do than sit in a room where nobody will be listening to me.

When I had been first thinking of how I could help the city, I’d done some research.

It was odd, that the closest thing I found to the Bay wasn’t from the age of parahumans, but before—Detroit, Michigan. A place known for “Devil’s Night” where gangs would set the city on fire, as the wealthy and white fled for the suburbs, leaving the city center to die.

Very much like the Bay, in fact, since most of the good neighborhoods were actually outside of the Bay proper—and didn’t pay taxes to the city.

And that was in a city without parahumans, without rage dragons. Not only that… I glanced down at my reading list. I’d considered myself literate, better in fact than the other kids in my class.

And I was. But now I was trying to read and understand books with titles like “Politics of Corruption: Organized Crime in an American City”. No cop wanted to arrest Hookwolf, that was easy enough to understand, but Hookwolf didn’t collect his dogs. He didn’t buy them from shelters, even though shelters were supposed to do follow-up checks.

No Empire cape went with the city inspectors when they focused on non-E88 businesses.

I couldn’t go after the capes, not at first. But… I could go after the people who let them do their business. I could make the politicians more afraid of Orb Weaver than they were greedy for bribes. I couldn’t fight them head on…

But I didn’t need to fight them head on. Not if I was smart. Not if I knew where I could hurt them.

But I needed practice. The Empire, the ABB, were both large, organized, and capable of quickly responding to a threat. Me going after them right now would be like a new student trying to take down a black belt.

Fortunately, there was another group in town, one that arguably did nearly as much damage as the other two.

The Merchants.

They would give me practice. Training.

Allow me to establish a persona, and spread fear through the underground.

Which was why I was walking into the kind of neighborhood that would have Dad ground me for eternity if I knew he was here.

I sent my bugs out, and they could pick up the people huddled around. There were shipping containers in empty plots of land, stacked several containers high, with narrow pathways between them. I could sense people in them. It was illegal, but for some people, a shipping container was the best they could do. I paused by one.

A mass of maggots, roughly human-sized. For someone, their home had become their tomb. I would call it in, from a payphone, later.

More people were starting to come out. I was in Skidmark’s territory, as an M with two lines through it helpfully informed me. The street was full of abandoned businesses, a single bar holding on. I could smell urine and other scents from its door way, and as I passed, my insects let me know I’d neverwant to eat what it was serving. But it was the closest to a gathering place here, and there were a pair of pay phones by it.

Strange that payphones would be working here, almost as if someone was protecting them, someone who wanted a way for people without cell phones to contact them. I paused by the phone.

Someone whistled at me. I didn’t respond. The air was cold, but I had enough bugs I’d brought, flying down the warmer sewers, to keep me safe if I needed more than my pepper spray. I put a single one of my walkie-talkies under the phone, my spiders webbing it to the metal before they disguised it with more webs. I’d tested these at home, and I could get 100 feet, easy with the reception, even after I’d dismantled them so they wouldn’t be as obvious. After all, there was no need for a speaker if all I needed was to hear.

Then I went down an alley, empty, or so my bugs told me. I quickly put my uniform on, the coat, hat and scarf concealing me. I’d worn my armor under my street clothes. Scambling up a fire ladder, I made it to the roof or a nearby building, an abandoned hotel, most of its floors rotted out, the few inhabitants far back from me.

It was time to wait.

I didn’t have long.

“Yeah, man, I need two bags!” My recorder was taking down all the information. Some of it useful, but not what I wanted. I needed to hear a location.

More talk followed as people walked up to the phone, called someone…

I mentally kicked myself. I needed to find a way to see what they were dialing. I—

“Yeah, Skids dropped off the goods at our place on 5th and River! Good stuff Tom! I’ll get it, and you meet me back here, and I’ll give you a discount if you bring Maria… yeah, she’s a cutie! Just off the bus!”

I tagged him with a bug, and moved off the roof.

Come to think of it, why had I bothered with the roof? I shook my head. I was thinking too much like a hero. I could have just stayed in the alley and saved myself having to come down.

Fifth and River was just four blocks away in the heart of Merchant’s territory.

I kept off the main road, heading down the alleyways. Not many people here, although a rat lunged out at me, only to be driven back by a swarm of bugs emerging from a drainage grate. As I moved, I also commanded bed bugs to leave their beds, and fleas and lice to abandon their human hosts.

It wouldn’t last long, but I figured these people needed all the help they could get.

It didn’t take me long to get to Fifth and River, and in fact, I was faster than the man I was following. When I got there, I stayed in the mouth of the alleyway, obscured by a pile of stinking garbage. The man I was following looked like…

Well, looked terrible. He had sores, and when he opened his mouth, I could see the missing teeth. But he walked up to the front of an abandoned diner, a faded sign reading PARADISE HAMBURGERS. There were nearly a dozen people on the first floor, and several on the second floor, all of them infested. I guessed the ones on the second floor were sleeping—or high.

I could short out the power by jamming the circuit breakers with my bugs, but if the place caught fire… No. I was here to watch, not take action. Not yet.

This was one of their clubhouses, and Skidmark evidently dropped by. No, I needed to use this place, not simply burn it down so they’d move to find another but…

My subject left the building, tucking bags into his pockets. He set off along the road, and I followed.

They don’t even care to stay secret. They must expect no police will come down here.

And evidently, they were right. I hadn’t seen a single police unit in the area.

But I followed the man pulling my scarf off of my face, the longcoat and hat looking non-descript in the area, sometimes in the alleyway, sometimes on the street, far enough behind that he didn’t notice me.

One man moved to intercept me—I sent a pair of flies up his nose, and he stopped sneezing and cursing and not, at all linking me with his poor fortune.

Finally, after several blocks, my quarry was gasping and puffing, as he came to a small apartment building. Bars on the windows, doors locked, save for those that had been kicked open. It advertised daily and weekly rates. He walked to the back and knocked on the door. I was close enough to hear and see from the corner.

“So, here’s the stuff! How’s Maria?!”

I blinked at the girl who was in the doorway. Even from my distance, she looked younger than me, good clothes, already stained.

Fresh off the bus. She’s probably a runaway. Why they would come to the Bay, I didn’t know.

Something else to think about, and study. But now…

There were bugs and insects all through the hotel, benefitting from the warmth and…abundant food.

“Maria’s great! Remember hun, if you wanna stay here, you gotta pay the rent, and Jim here’s good practice.”

The girl practically flinched back.

“C’mon, honey don’t be like that. Besides, we give you a hit, and everything will be great!”

“No. I don’t think so…” my ‘voice’ echoed from the walls.

The two men looked around.

“Who the fuck are you! This is Merchant—“

“This is my town. My territory. The Merchants are nothing. And by the end of this month, they will be gone from my town… you will be a warning.” I sent bugs up to cover the lights, turning the room and hotel black. The three were looking around wildly, not noticing that the darkness came from bugs, not any other power. Some would be more observant, but… Merchants. “Tom, you have bartered something that was not yours to give. Jim, you have sought to commit an unspeakable crime…” Maria was pressing herself into the doorway. I didn’t like this, but I couldn’t reassure her. Not with the other two by her.

“Fuck you!” Jim pulled a knife from his jacket, and waved it around. “You think you’re tough! I’ll fucking cut you!”

“Very well…”

I couldn’t reveal my power, not without risking someone dealing with it. But I didn’t have to. First I sent gnats swirling around, my bugs pulling back from one light, the effect seeming to be something coalescing out of the darkness. Then larger bugs followed them, making it look like something was steppingout of the night. This wouldn’t work, I expected, on an experienced cape, but well… those three weren’t. Lastly, I left the “eyes” empty of bugs, so the dim street lights shining through seemed to be  a pair of glowing orbs. Then I “crouched” down before sending the entire mass up and onto the roof, seeming to hang down, looking at them.

Jim whimpered and backed away.

“I thought you were going to cut me… But maybe… I’ll just devour you…”

The two men were standing, and neither one noticed the spiders I’d sent swirling up from the sewers.

“Or give you a lesson…” With that, I sent them up through their pants, running around between the skin and fabric, everywhere. I didn’t bite. A bite would leave too much evidence, but now, they felt like a million tiny claws and fingers were tearing at them.

“Oh God!” Jim screamed, dropping the knife. “What is happening!”

“Tasting you. After all, I don’t like eating bad flesh…”

Outside most of the few people on the street had left. Evidently, this part of the Bay wasn’t big on humanitarian impulses.

“Now be still…”They all fell silent. Maria had her hands covering her mouth, eyes wide as she stared at her ‘friends’. “Take another child, and I will be back. I will devour your eyes, your teeth, your heart, and I will use your hollowed-out body to walk and protect my city… Do you understand?”

They nodded.

I let my bugs chuckle, a chirring sound. “But there is a penalty. The drugs you have. Take them out. Tear the bag and let them blow away…”

“But we haven’t paid for it, Skid—Ah!”

My bugs started moving, earwigs pinching, and a few beetles biting. A reminder. “Who are you more afraid of?”

Moments later, a white powder was scattered into the air. Then Maria took off, running away.

“Our business is done… Don’t worry about the girl. You won’t see her again.”  I would let them draw their own conclusions about what I meant.

Then I sent my bugs running back down, and started jogging after Maria. Huh. Both men had crapped themselves I hadn’t expected that. But now I needed to follow their victim. I kept a bug on her as she ran. She wasn’t in the best of condition, and I’d been jogging, so I kept up with her. I waited until she stopped in an alley.

“Oh God, Oh God…”

“No. I’m not.”

She turned around, arms flailing, only to see another shadowy form rising between her and the exit to the street, the lights silhouetting it, and incidentally making it impossible for her to see what it really was made of.

“Please… “ She fell on her ass and started scrabbling back. I could see that she wore what had once been a good blue jeans skirt, jacket, and dark shirt. Now they were stained. Her hair had been cut and dyed blue and brown, but the dyejob was starting to fade.

“Do you know what they were going to do to you?”

“I… Tom… When I ran out of money he—“

“He was going to turn you into his whore. This was your first time being  used as a prostitute, wasn’t it?”

She didn’t say anything. Looking at her, I realized she was a little younger than I was.

“He’d ask you, and then when you refused, he’d badger you into taking just a few drugs to make you compliant, and you would have been his. People like Jim would be who you would service, and you would keep taking more and more so you could forget. Until you would be a Merchant. Until you weren’t… fresh anymore.”

“I can’t go anywhere else!” She said.

“What about home?”

She shivered and looked frightened. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have a real home. My foster dad… I’m… I’m not a virgin. I had to go. Everyone said that Brockton Bay didn’t care where you came from and…It was the furthest I could afford on the bus. Then I ran out of money.”

“Do you have proof?”

“No. They’ll just send me back. Nobody believes me. Nobody listens to me. I won’t go! I won’t go! I’ll kill myself first!” She had tears on her face.

Evidently, there were some things more terrifying than parahumans. And I didn’t think she was lying. But it made sense why she’d end up with the Merchants—someone with nowhere else to go.

And she might be right. And I could not risk that. I would never risk sending someone back to anything like what I had endured, trapped in hell and nobody believing you.

“Get up,” I said. “I may have a place for you to stay.” It’d be risky, not the least to my identity, but well… I didn’t have much of a choice. “What is your full name?”

“Maria Gonzales.”

“Why are you in foster care?”

“My parents died. It was a car wreck.”

“I see.”

I wanted to be more comforting, but I couldn’t, not and keep my persona. Also, I had a feeling that comforting was not easily achieved talking through the bugs in the walls.

“I will give you an address to go to. If they will not let you stay, we will find out some other place. You will not abuse their hospitality. But I may… demand a service for this favor, Maria Gonzales, and I do not expect to see you on the street again.” I told her the address and then withdrew. “There is a card at the end of the alleyway. Take it. I will keep watch over you. You will go to the bus stop and take the 15…”

I felt her get up, and move to the end of the alleyway where I’d had some bugs drop an orb weaver card. I would beat her to the bus and sit in the back. If she went somewhere else… I’d steer her back.

I just hoped the people at the end of her journey would understand. Fortunately, I had their number.

*****

Kurt was tired after a day of work. Granted, it was because they didn’t have money to hire enough people, but hey, it was work.

Then there was a knock on the door. He glanced over at Lacey and shrugged.

Who could it be?He looked through the peephole—second nature for most residents of the Bay and…

A Hispanic girl, looked like a runaway, standing on their front porch.

What the hell is she doing out at this time of night?

He opened the door, keeping an eye out to make certain she wasn’t the stalking horse for a gang.

That wasn’t unknown, after all.

“Hello?”

“I’m… Orb Weaver said you might be able to help?”  She held out a playing card with an orb weaver spider on it.

Who?

Then the phone rang. Lacey got it.

“Hello?” Kurt heard her. “Who? I… okay.”

She walked up to Kurt and handed him the phone. “It’s about Maria?” she said.

Kurt took the phone and… The voice was a nightmare, a legion-like sound, with a deeper rumbling undertone.

“Hello, Kurt. I am Orb Weaver. I was investigating the Merchants when I encountered Ms. Gonzales. She is a runaway who the Merchants… took. She also claims that she faced abuse at her home and came to the Bay.”  There was an ominous-sounding chuckle. “Why she thought that was a good idea…”

“What do you want?”

“If you are willing, give her shelter for a few days, no more than a week while I make my investigations. After that, I will either have concluded my work, or I will have found other housing for her.”

Kurt looked down at the kid. If she was a day over thirteen, he was a blind man, but she had a body that had matured early. Which made sense both for her story and why the Merchants would want her.

They like the ones that blush, he remembered talking to a cop about what happened to runaways.

She might take half your stuff and vanish into the night. But she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. You could tell that by her look. And everyone felt very bad about it, and shook their heads and said if they could do something about it they would. And then found every reason why they couldn’t do anything about it.

“I’ll watch her, but what if CPS comes looking…”

“In the Bay?”

The scary-ass man with the demon voice had a point.

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Excellent. If any ask who did this… just give them the card.”

The phone went dead. Kurt looked at the girl.

“When did you last eat?”

“Um… this morning?”

“We’re about to have dinner, and I think we need to talk. What happened to you?”

“Someone listened to me. Someone scary listened to me.”

Kurt had to agree with her.

But he had one other thought. What the hell kind of Parahuman would know his name and be able to guess they’d take the girl in?

*****

I walked home. I wasn’t certain if I’d done the right thing. There was a risk. But… But I wouldn’t let that stop me.

And the Merchants were going to go. There would be those with power, who would victimize others, but the Merchants seemed to fly under the radar. So I’d put them on myradar. I had one location. I’d find more. I’d destroy their resources, find their stashes, and…

I would destroy them.

I didn’t smile much anymore. But that last did put a little smile on my face.