Orb Weaver: Plague, chapter 23

For the next few days, I kept Orb Weaver… quiet. 

Well, sort of. Occasionally, when people thought they were alone, I’d wait until I had enough information to name someone and then chuckle and talk to them. Evidently, “don’t talk to the Thinker” didn’t apply to Orb Weaver, and they usually gave me enough information via my sound-relay bugs or a remote microphone, to ferret out their “secrets”. Nothing deep, most of the E88 had become better at not talking about business in the open and I didn’t want to reveal the fact that talking about business behind locked doors was no impediment to me…

But it was almost better, especially when a camera showed the expression on a gangers face when Orb Weaver chummily congratulated him on his little brother’s soccer win, dropping the fact that soccer, or football as it was known in most of the world, was very popular in Latin America.

Minorities were starting to become a bit more willing to walk in places they hadn’t walked in years, while a few gangers were having to be educated about the new standards of behavior. Simply attacking them on the street wasn’t enough, I decided.

And my training of my rats was beginning to bear excellent fruit.

 *****

Tim wasn’t a coward. The rest of the guys might not let the lessers know they weren’t wanted, but not Tim. He’d followed that Asian Bitch, asking her if she wanted to “love him long, time GI!”

Not that he would. She was fat, and had to be at least fifty. She’d just grabbed her purse and ran off. He’d partied with the guys, including the ones who had crapped themselves at the dog fight. Even the fact that the fucking diner owner had put the new song on, “Der Fuhrer's Pants” causing a lot of the lessers to laugh, hadn’t been enough to dim his good feelings. He’d gone home, listened to his mom bitch about him not getting a job and then went to bed, after watching some porn.

“Hello, Timothy…”

Tim blinked. The blankets seemed tight, but he never liked that. Fuck, had the guys played a trick on him—He’d…

He opened his eyes. The room was pitch black, even the street lights dark. The windows…

Then two glowing eyes appeared, hovering at the end of his bed… and then… seeming to just appear out of the darkness…

Tim struggled to get out of the bed. He opened his mouth to scream, but no words came out.

It was a skeleton, little bits of meat clinging to the bones, and there were… rats. Oh, God, so many rats. Some of the guys claimed the rats at the ring had just been running, but not these rats, these rats were… controlled, looking at him. One peaked its head out of an empty eyesocket.

“Timothy. Do not worry, your mother is off shopping. A pity she has to pay for one who should be paying his own way, is it not?”

His mouth opened and closed.

“Afraid? Why Timothy, don’t be. We’re having a simple conversation. Like the one you had with that older lady today. She is a mother, do you know that? I think we should all be respectful of mothers, shouldn’t we, Timothy?”

“Uh…huh…” Tim said. It’s not gonna kill me?

“And yet…” the glow in the eye sockets grew brighter… “You were very disrespectful… I don’t like that Timothy. It makes me… itch when I feel someone being disrespectful in my city… And just imagine if some member of the ABB was doing the same to your mother as she walked home… You’d be angry, wouldn’t you, Timothy. Very Angry. Like me…”

Tim just nodded.

“But I think I have a solution… You would like a solution to our current problem, wouldn’t you, Timothy?”

“Y-yes.”

“Very good. From now on, you will be respectful to the fairer sex, whatever their color. That’s all I want. You don’t have to leave the Empire, though you might find some…heh, difficulties from now on. Can you do that, so I don’t have to return? I don’t want to have to return…”

Tim nodded ,then squeaked out. “Yes, Sir.”

“Then we have an arrangement.” And suddenly, the skeleton just seemed to collapse as once again the room grew dark, leaving only those two gleaming eyes, which then vanished. The light from the street came back and Timothy sat up in bed, the blankets finally letting him free, the room completely empty.

Maybe it was a nightmare, maybe I—

“Timothy.”

He screamed, falling out of bed.

“Really, you’re nineteen and your mother still pays all of your bills? You must find a job. After all, it’s important to respect our parents…”

Nothing more was said.

For the rest of the night, Timothy just sat in his bed and shivered.

 *****

Back three blocks away, I nodded. The rats were following the treat trail I’d led, the bits of tasty cheese the bugs carried onto my “bones” enough to help train them to stick around. I couldn’t control them, not like insects, but evidently rats were eminently bribable. I’d guide them to the little ranch I’d established in this part of town.

I couldn’t use them for my next move—interrupting a late night poker game, that would be the traditional “the walls are talking.” My requests would be about the same minor, requests I’d used on Timothy. But every request, every time Timothy didn’t hassle a woman, would remind him and his friends,  that the Empire couldn’t protect them. And if any backslid…well, there was a reason I had a list like this. I’d picked those easy to observe.  Easy to check up on. Easy to… remind that I was watching, if they backslid.

And well, one of the main reasons to join a game was the sense of power, of safety…

Take that away, and suddenly… a gang was just a bunch of people wandering around in some silly colors.

Heading home, I passed through part of the ABB’s territory. It was much safer now, and as much as I would like to take responsibility, it wasn’t me, but the new ABB cape, who by the word on the street, had quite an influence over Lung.

Some rumors claimed she was his mistress. I didn’t think so. The few shots of them together, showed Kanshi behaving in a deferential way, and Lung was careful to be polite to her. Whatever their relationship in private, he was clearly uninterested in exerting that kind of power over her in public.

Even E88 members, so long as they did not wear colors and were not making trouble, could walk through the territory unharassed, even eat and shop in the local businesses.

Some claimed it was weakness. But it wasn’t. It was a sign of power. Any E88 member who took them up on the offer was publicity legitimizing them and their hold over the ABB regions, without the ABB having to make a single threat.

I also had to be careful in the region. Watching Kanshi, she had some form of perception that went beyond human norms, and like me, she was careful to keep her full abilities hidden. I couldn’t casually use my abilities here.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. The new ABB rules cut several blocks off my walk to my next target, and time management was very important to me.