Orb Weaver: Wrath of God, 6

Day 1

I had to prepare. As much as I wanted to start now, I had to prepare. I was not a spirit of darkness, whatever I led people to believe. I was a very squishy teenager, and the Empire would be in the fight for its life. I couldn’t give them time to think, or plan, or start considering WHY Orb Weaver always arranged the ground before appearing.

I was fairly certain they already had thoughts along that line. Brad for one, Victor for another. Hookwolf was all about the show, and he recognized it. Victor…

Victor had God knew how many stolen skills. He might even use Sheila’s investigative skills.

Bugs contracted and coiled, and then I pushed the volcanic rage down. That could come later.

I could not afford to fall into a pattern. So…

I sat in my room, closing my eyes, the Email from Arcadia informing me that I would be excused for the next week due to an unspecified trauma.

Still pretending they didn’t know who I was. Not that I minded. Looking at them… Had Wendy’s mother walked past Victor? I knew intellectually that it was almost impossible, and I doubted Victor would risk doing it for what skills he might gain from a woman like her Mother. But the niggling idea was in the back of my head. I found myself re-examining my own actions.

Victor deserved to die, but he could not die.

I had no idea if he had any way to return his skills. Granted, there was no sign of it—a Victor who could both take and give skills would be an immense force multiplier for the Empire, but even so, if there was a chance, if Amy or the Protectorate could find out how to cure…

No. Victor had to live.

Not mind you, in comfort. But then, death wasn’t the only way to make an object lesson of someone, while leaving them…useful.

My original plan had been to strike at the low and mid-level Empire soldiers and managers. But now I’d do it, but move much, much faster. The hammer blows had to come so fast that Kaiser had no chance to respond. No chance to sit down and think.

Find Lebensraum, kill him. Do so in a way that… I thought about it, considering how my bugs  moved. A dead mouse in the yard was being devoured…

Right, museums used bugs to remove the flesh from bones. I could do that much, much faster.

Right, definitely a thought, but I’d have to wait to see where he was staying. The neighborhood I’d tracked him to was E88, and had a fair amount of security. Low key, but enough to be a risk and my nearly open identity as The Investigator worked against me here. Only an idiot wouldn’t consider the coincidence of the Investigator showing up in a neighborhood where a new E88 cape had just gone to ground in.

I’d go at night, fewer people out. And it wasn’t just him I’d find. It was odd, but many criminals concealed their actions from their families. The E88 was no different.

It would be a terrible shame if those connections came out suddenly. Why, the Empire might lose access to a huge number of people now facing children and spouses who knew of their actions.

Though I’d have to be careful. I couldn’t risk that with spouses who might become violent. But to remind them Orb Weaver knew, and their families now knew and maybe the safest action they could take would be to confess to the authorities—especially as they watched Orb Weaver demolish the rest of the Empire… yes. Yes.

A parahuman might call the might of the storm, or strength to rival Alexandria, but RICO was even more terrifying to a criminal conspiracy.

Now, how to start. I would give Lebensraum a warning. But after that, I would have to add  something ominous…

God Created the World in six days and rested on the seventh. I am not God, for I shall merely destroy the Empire in six days and rest on the seventh…

Good enough. 

Now, to the businesses…  My bugs could disable refrigerators, gnaw through waterpipes, and clog drainage and sewer systems. Enough maggots could form a… maggot bomb. I’d already worked on it, but…

Through the water, or kill the refrigeration, and use bugs to pull the doors open during the night. Not enough time to naturally reproduce, but I can send enough insects in to burrow down… they’d be safe and then turn the refrigerators back on and close the doors just before the first workers arrive…

The bugs would go comatose, but once they were brought out, they’d come back, probably just in time for the maggots to start wriggling out as they cut into the meat… Yes. A nice surprise for the various E88-affiliated hang-outs.

Not to mention a slurry of crushed bugs, water and other things exploding from the drainage.

And rats. Yes. Rats.

I paused. Carmine was produced from Cochineal insects. Granted, I couldn’t get them in time, but diluted…

Yes, it’d look like Orb Weaver used his power over vermin to make them, if anyone noticed.  But for someone just looking, the crushed bugs, maggots, and other stuff would be a thick slurry, and add the carmine and it would look, feel, and smell like congealed blood.

Yes! I laughed.

And your people in the good neighborhoods will be screaming, your thugs’ hangouts will be nightmares, and where, oh where, will you send out your capes, Kaiser…

I would have to prepare.

I left the house. I’d be riding around the city. Maybe a few jobs by the Exterminator, which would explain where the bugs were going…

Near my targets, I’d increase the size of my underground hives. Ants and termites worked in unison, excavating great galleries.  I couldn’t have them work together, not without directly controlling them, but once the galleries were finished, they’d be blocked off, with pheromone markers. Into those galleries, I’d move more insects from outside the target region into the galleries.  They’d have enough food to last until they were needed, after which I’d disperse them back to their natural haunts. Coupled with the growth I’d been fostering… Hmm….

About a billion or so useful insects per city block. Enough.

And coupled with my various remote activation systems, I could make it seem like “Orb Weaver” was active all over the city. Planned right, and people would assume he was functioning at  a range that my research indicated only the Sleeper rivaled.

I turned at the light, paralleling a gated community owned by Empire-friendly groups. Bugs moved into the houses. Most were empty, it being a working day, with mothers and wives out shopping… Bugs moved in, looking for paper, finding locked boxes, and in more than a few cases, able to wriggle through the key holes, one after another. In other houses, they were simply in locked drawers. No obstacle.

I stopped and had an early lunch, enjoying a tuna salad sandwich. In some rooms, piles of bugs grew, working in unison to turn on computers. A cat hissed at one group of bugs and then ran to the top of its cat tree.

I removed the fleas from it.

Not everyone was foolish enough to leave their password written down, but enough…

Thirty minutes eating, a leisurely ride, and I had A good look at who was E88 affiliated, especially combined with my earlier intelligence.

These were not Hookwolf’s gangs. These were the respectable members of the Empire. Who could jump from one side of society to the other.

Well, soon they’d find their secrets outed…

Medhall had tours, but I couldn’t take them. Again, I might not be known as Orb Weaver, but The Investigator was already too close.

But Medhall was a responsible member of the community, and so there was a little park at its base. The building was fifty stories tall…which meant that sitting in that park, I would have full access to the building.

Not to attack, but to observe. Most of the people working there were not members of the E88. In fact, more than a few minorities worked there, some in supervisory positions. But that changed the higher you went up. Nothing obvious, but… yes.

I couldn’t send my bugs up to put in microphones, or send up enough to create my bug receiver. This was the center of the Empire’s economic power, and even legitimate businesses of this size often invested in Tinkertech security systems. What I could do was arrange for people I was interested in to have certain insects get into their clothing and start putting out the proper pheromones to track them.

I enjoyed the people moving around, watching as the sun slowly sat.

When the people started leaving, I’d have to choose who to follow.

I’d also have to make time to drop by the university. They had a very nice arboretum, including sections from Australia.  Which included a Dendrocnide moroides, or as some called it, the  gympie-gympie plant.

I could use that. After all, while stronger than me physically, most of the Empire’s capes wouldn’t enjoy having a bug with a fragment of the most painful plant in the world target their eyelids or other sensitive parts. Once the university was closed, I’d just go by and send some bugs in to cut what I needed.

I shook my head. I wonder if the PRT would get Victor before I did.

Now that would be funny, all my preparations and short-circuited by him tripping in front of Assault.

I laughed. It felt good.