Orb Weaver: Plague Chapter 18

Sitting at home, I had to consider my plans. I still wanted to find Rune, and draw a line to Kaiser that way. For one thing, one line wasn’t a certainty. If Kaiser was indeed Max Anders, he’d be protected, and I could not risk any chance of being wrong.

For the second thing, Rune might be one of lower-ranked members of the E88, a teenager…

But she was also vital to their parahuman mobility. One of Lung’s great advantages was Oni Lee, who was deployed when needed and could reinforce the ABB at any point. Rune was no Lee, but she could transport ground bound members of the Empire without worrying about police road blocks or being intercepted.

Without Rune, the Empire would become considerably weaker against both the Protectorate and the ABB. And that would impact Kaiser.

Even falling, he can do damage. So it’s important to back him into a corner, strip his allies from him… make him weak in his own mind.

And if worst comes to worst, the more identities I know, the quicker I can destroy the entire Empire.

If I was right, Purity was Kayden, and removing her from the board, along with Rune would cripple their ability to quickly deploy.

So, tomorrow identify Purity, if possible. But tonight, prepare to reveal Rune’s identity.

The problem with a flier was that, well, following them was fairly obvious. Attempting to use anything she left in a cache ran the risk of being detected. I couldn’t be certain that Rune’s phones weren’t secured. If Kaiser was Max Anders, then the monetary resources he could bring to bear would certainly allow for tinkertech systems, or just the best counter-intrusion software money could buy, and I expect he'd consider his capes worth the investment.

I was lucky so far. But my attempts to interfere technologically, pitting my self-trained skills against the Empire…

No. I had been very, very lucky.

And only an idiot wouldn’t check herself for technological bugs and locator beacons. Fortunately, I didn’t need anything so… crude.

Rune flew.

If I found her cache, I would apply some pheromones to it. Some species of moths could detect female pheromones from over a kilometer away. In the summer I couldn’t pull this off—I doubted even the densest Empire soldier would miss one of their capes being mobbed by moths, but right now, the only really active moths in the Bay were the ones in my care, kept safe in warm hives I’d scattered over the city along with my other minions. Once I applied my marker, I would use them, and find out where Rune went after her missions…

But that required locating Rune. From PHO, Rune tended to fly patrols starting at 4:00, but they were deep within Empire territory. Her last patrols were usually around 8-9 at night, earlier in the winter.

It made sense. Unless Rune had some kind of parahuman sense, she would be hideously vulnerable at night or dusk.

But she always was seen down 7th Street, close by where the Empire often held their rallies. According to PHO, she flew over, as a show the flag exercise, then vanished behind the buildings, at least two or three times a week.

I could provoke the empire, force her…

No.

Remember the Thinker, Taylor. Someone might wonder why the Empire had been provoked, especially if there was no good reason for it. And someone might start to consider why someone might provoke the Empire without following up.

I wrapped up my work, checking on one of my newest ideas before I went to bed.

Maggot bombs. I’d had termites create a “reactor” style system where flies lay immense numbers of eggs, and the eggs then hatched fed by the termites, far more than could exist normally. But the bomb part was a lower chamber, where decaying matter produced gasses—and at my command the termites would seal that, which meant it was only a matter of time before a geyser of writhing maggots resulted. I hadn’t yet found a use for it, but it would probably be a useful tool of demoralization.

I even had an entire little speech ready for it. After all, it wasn’t just maggots, it was the sins of the city, come to haunt those who did evil.

Even better, I could, given enough time, hook it up to waterlines.

Yes, this would be quite useful, under the right circumstances.

****

The next morning at Arcadia, the school was abuzz with the newest videos on PHO. Someone had taken a video of Assault at the New Mexico test site, playing… catch with Madison? Madison was in her changer form, tossing a three foot diameter metal sphere to Assault, who caught it and redirected it back to her with his power.

Unlike an earlier video of Madison throwing a decommissioned tank several miles, this one hadn’t been taken down.

Of course. It isn’t threatening, at least not outwardly, but anyone thinking of seriously attacking Madison would consider what else she could do. The Protectorate is not ignorant about PR, after all.

The conversations were mixed. Some talked about Locker Girl and asked why she wasn’t in the birdcage, others thought she should be given a chance, and some just thought she was ugly.

Many of them fell silent when I came through, a few looking with curiosity, others looking away and shushing other students. Whether out of embarrassment or a desire to not hurt me, I didn’t know.

And irrelevant. I had more important things to dwell on than the past.

“Empire assholes are pissed off,” Aisha said as she sat down by me. She wasn’t just in my tutoring class—they’d moved her up to my English class.

According to Aisha, I could now qualify as a villain, since she had to do a lot more homework.

But she’d been smirking when she’d said it and followed up with asking if she should contribute an article to Winslow’s school newspaper.

I’d leave that particular issue for her brother.

“And you know this how?” I said, looking around as the rest of the students got into the seats waiting for homeroom to begin.

“You know, official meetings. Then private meetings. ‘Don’t go off on your own, Krewe. Don’t seek out fights, Krewe…’ It’s like they don’t trust me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And you’ve given them no reason to ah, not trust you?”

“Nah.” She paused. “Okay, maybe… I might have asked Armsie to figure out how to put my Krewe in white face, and I might have… asked about ordering some fake Nazi uniforms and okay, did you know Der Fuhrer’s Face is like fucking funny, and works great as a skit?”

I stared at my friend. “In the Bay?”

“It was an idea.”

“I’m not certain what would be worse, the E88 going on the warpath, or Kaiser dropping dead from a heart attack.”

Aisha laughed, and after a moment I joined in.

After all, it’d be a hell of a way to show up Orb Weaver, even if I expect Director Piggot, Armsmaster, and Brian’s blood pressure had gone up while they were listening to her…

And then the teacher came in, and it was time to focus—for some on study in class, for me studying via the books and phones I’d set up for my bugs.