Orb Weaver: Plague: Chapter 5

The alarm hit just after I got notification via one of my buried “bug phones” outside of school. I’d been whiling away the math period, since I would be going half day relatively soon, training some rats in an underground arena. Just sending them out as a mob would lead anyone who was observant to notice the difference between rats and a swarm under my control.

Thus, I’d had my bugs excavate some chambers, and had herded rats in and was training them, using a mixture of bugs biting then for punishment and food for reward. It still wasn’t ready to go, not fully, but having several bugs on the rat, ready to tug as its ears to direct it, was letting my rat swarms look somewhat more “controlled”.

I should probably drop an ominous comment about how the “souls I have taken” were sometimes a little resistant to my punishments.

Yes, that would explain any lack of control. Smart people might discount it, but well, it was important to keep up appearances.

ALL STUDENTS, ALL STUDENTS. A LOCKDOWN IS NOW IN EFFECT. ANY STUDENT CURRENTLY IN THE HALLWAYS, MOVE TO THE NEAREST CLASSROOM, IMMEDIATELY.

That was fast. I kept up on current events via some planted phones outside of Arcadia. Normally, an event on the other side of town wouldn’t see this happen.

But a trigger event at a juvenile detention facility?

No wonder they were locking down all the classes. There was a chance that the event could be related to someone who knew students at Arcadia.

THE FOLLOWING STUDENTS, PLEASE REPORT TO THE OFFICE TO MEET YOUR PARENTS.

My name was among the rest.

What is going on… They were calling the Wards in, that much was clear, but myself? Interesting.

Someone posted an image on PHO, my bugs could read words and image pictures, but color was still difficult. Even so, a slightly larger than human form, sprinting down the road, carrying someone and—

The fuck? It had just belted Vicky, sending her flying through a building. Strong. Very strong. Then I was being hustled into another room, where a PRT trooper waited to drive me down.

“You’re possibly related to this incident, Ms. Hebert,” he said. “Another car is being sent for your father.”

Why would I be—we would be out of range of the units I had around the school, but I had time. Bugs went into a frenzy of searching, especially the public data bases.

It didn’t list individuals going into the Juvenile system, because as minors much information was restricted.

But the place… That was where juvenile inmates who might be at risk from the E88 or ABB and who were not violent offenders were sent. That was where they had sent Madison.

I had barely thought of her. She’d loomed less, after Emma and Sophia, and after the trial, I had other things to worry about. Madison would do her time, emerge, hopefully better, but I never expected to interact with her again.

She is the only person in there who might have cause to go after Taylor, not Orb Weaver or the Investigator. And they got my father.

Madison has just triggered.

The reason made sense. Madison already had hostile interactions with me, and it wasn’t uncommon for a newly triggered cape to go after those she blamed. And yet…

We were beyond the range of my school adjacent bug-terminals. I’d have to do something about that. Scattering them across the city raised the danger of discovery, and yet, I had to accept that I might not be able to remain in range. Something to think about, later. A few moments later and we were at the PRT. Several vans drove out, and I noticed a pair of VTOLs heading into the city.

Once inside, I was quickly directed to the Director’s office.

“Ms. Hebert,” she said. “I have little time, so I would like your assistance here.”

“Ah, if you would provide me with a domino mask, there’s no need to hide.”

“Are you certain?”

Yes. The Investigator was always an identity that might be unveiled, and now that Chris knew my identity, any serious investigation would probably reveal it. Ignoring facial features, Armsmaster wasn’t the only cape in the world capable of building body and gait analysis systems.

And by reducing the issues facing Director Piggot, I would earn a bit more good will.

“Yes, I’m certain. I take it Madison has triggered?”

“The driver told you?”

“No. Before I left there was rumors of an issue at the detention center Madison was located in and well… Me and my father, speak to a danger, and since the PRT is involved…”

“Yes. She triggered. Possibly a Brute/Changer Combo, but I’d like your evaluation.”

Putting the mask on, I followed her into the command center.

Several monitors were playing images of an inhuman figure, running down the street, crashing through a reinforced glass and steel frame, holding a girl.

“It’ll be okay, Rosita—HELP!” the voice was Madison’s but burbling… The figure looked dangerous, armor plates surrounded by an oily skin, or perhaps liquid, a distorted face, even a tail with a blade-like spade on it…

And yet…

I watched for a moment, then nodded. “A Shaker or Master effect?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Look at their expressions,” I said. “Not just terror, but disgust. I could see some fear, but there’s something…” Then there were several pops and the video showed the bullets hitting Madison’s flesh and just falling off.

A steam-kettle shriek sounded and she vanished off frame, just in time to show Vicky hoisting the gunman.

“Where did she go?”

“Into the sewers,” Another image appeared, this one showing a gaping hole in the ground, Armsmaster analyzing it.

“Director,” he said. “We have some information about… the parahuman’s abilities.”

“What?” He held up the manhole cover, or rather one half of it. I hissed and Director Piggot’s eyes narrowed. The cover had been cut in half, and the cut shone with a mirror finish.

“The cut is… As close as I can see it’s equivalent to my tests with the nanothorn blade, at least, at the most, equal to The Siberian. She showed no signs of slowing when she hit the I beams of the detention facilities, so she isn’t just strong, her body had an impact out of line with what her simple mass should be able to do.”

I nodded. That made sense. No matter how strong you were, if you hit steel and only weighed a hundred pounds, you wouldn’t break through.

“And yet she fled,” I murmured. “Madison was never one for physical confrontation, but here… she was panicked. The girl she was with?”

“A friend from Juvenile Hall,” Director Piggot said. “She is in surgery now, and Panacea will see to her…”

“Why not now?” I asked.

“There are strict regulations on how often Panacea can leave school for medical work, most of them having to do with disaster relief and individuals who are about to di, and the girl isn’t at risk of dying.” She shook her head. “Inconvenient, but if seriously injured was enough to justify bringing her in, she would never leave the hospital.”

Now the screen was playing the confrontation in the dining room. It was obvious someone had set up the fight to get to Madison. E88, obviously. Then the larger girl got infront of Madison, before she bent over, the grainy camera footage showing the blood spilling on the ground, and then Madison swelled and changed, casually slicing a chair in half, before pinning the boy to the ground and reaching out to caress his face, leaving it a bloody ruin, before she jerked up, looked around and grabbed the injured girl, before vanishing off camera. Another camera, this one an exterior shot, showed her coming through the wall, steel and break parting like balsa wood.

“Run back to her attack on the E88 member, please.” I asked.

Director Piggot did so, looking at me with a knowing gaze. I watched. She bent down, reached out and… flinched back as the blood spilled under her talons. “There!” I said. “Do you see it?”

“What?” Armsmaster asked. “She’s marking him.”

“No. She reached out, but didn’t realize how sharp her talons were. She flinched back.”

“Are you certain?” Director Piggot asked.

“Yes. Has she harmed anyone else?”

“No. She struck Glory Girl, but she wasn’t harmed”

Someone with that kind of strength… And the only person she hit was the Bay’s Alexandria Package.

“She was focused on getting the other girl to the hospital. Then she panicked when shot and fled.” I glanced at the Director. “But you knew this. Why ask me?”

“She was one of the ones most responsible for Taylor Hebert’s treatment,” the Director said. Keeping up the pretense, at least among the men and women in the center, that I was not Taylor Hebert. “I wanted to see how you would respond.”

Ah. “If I would color her actions negatively. No, Director, Madison was fairly sentenced and punished. But an attempted assassination or being forced to trigger is not fair.” I shook my head. As much as I didn’t like Madison, the sheer hopelessness, the desperation… No, I wouldn’t wish that upon her. “And she appears to have learned something, at least from her actions regarding her friend. Now, what do you need?”

“We have no social thinkers on staff and I’m unlikely to get one. You have a talent for resolving issues without fighting, and in a satisfactory matter for all, and given that she—“ Emily gestured at the image of the figure sprinting down the street, “—might be able to give Alexandria a run for her money, I would prefer to avoid violence. I am prepared to offer standard contractor compensation.”

“I see… I would need to speak to her friend and any counselors that spoke to her. It is certain that while the attack was the tipping point, more happened.”

Two years more, in my case. I suppressed my annoyance. “And—“

“Director? We’ve got an announcement, from Kaiser.”

Moments later, we were listening to the voice.

“Once again, Madison Clements has harmed this fair city, not simply by assaulting a white girl, by assisting a madwoman and a black thug, but by becoming a monster and attacking helpless children!” his voice rolled over the speakers. I clenched my fist.

That fucker is using my trigger event. He was using what had been done to me to… Bugs tore each other apart under the HQ. I calmed myself down. But he couldn’t know that Madison would trigger. If the E88 knew that, how to do that, the last person they’d use it on would be a Jewish girl… “The boy, E88?”

“Yes. Orb Weaver’s work led to an overflow and they had to move people into the center who would normally be kept apart.”

I meditated on the law of unintended consequences for a moment. “So he went in, with a knife—“

“Ceramic blade, wrapped up in paper.”

“Not something he might normally have, but something that gets past the detectors. The Empire has been on the backfoot. Striking a blow for the ‘white race’?” Put up a PR campaign, maybe some shots of the locker… An enraged boy, furious that such a monster… yes.

“But the Empire stands firm against the threat to the Bay, that once again A Jewish girl is free to harm others, under the cover of her ‘religion’ which she used to deflect blame from her actions.”

Madison never even talked about—but it’s not about what she did.

“And we will send out teams to protect our neighborhoods, equipped to bring this thug to justice!”

Then I cursed. I wasn’t the only one. Emily was as well. She wasn’t an idiot. Kaiser would consider some of this thugs a fair price if he could panic a Jewish cape into striking back and red misting them, showing that he was telling the truth about the threat to the Bay.

“Renick, I want an immediate news conference, and we’re going to publicize her abilities.” Emily shook her head. “Maybe we can convince some idiots with baseball bats that they don’t want to get into a fight with a Brute 8.”

And hopefully keep from Madison panicking and starting to flail away.

“I—“

“Director, BBFD just reported. There’s a fire at the Clement’s residence. They’re asking for BBPD escort before they go in.”

“It won’t be the only ones, send Velocity to the Clement’s residence. Both of her parents work, so bring them in for protective custody.” Emily stared at the screen, seething. “Investigator, if you can get us a way to bring her in, peacefully, do it as quickly as possible, because if this ends up with a body count...”

“I understand. You are having a press conference, correct?”

“Yes, do you want to be there?”

“No. I will be busy. But Taylor Hebert needs to make a statement.”