The Web of the Weaver: Chapter Two

Sometimes I get stuff done a little faster, so rather than just wait, I'll put them out when ready. As always, if you don't want to or can't afford to have a membership, all fanfic will be fully available four days after the chapter drops.

With thanks to Wildbow, who owns Worm and Without whom this story would never be. 

****

I didn’t have a lot of money. But the good news, I guess, about a city like Brockton Bay is that there were plenty of thrift stores, plenty of places that took the overflow from foreclosures, moving sales, or estate sales. And there were a lot of those. Once, the Bay had been host to a half-dozen synagogues. Now there was one, defiantly hanging on, the aging staff cleaning off the semi-regular graffiti.  But most younger families had long since decided that their kids didn’t need to run into an E88 member out to make his initiation exciting. The same went for other minorities, not just directly. Shopkeepers in certain neighborhoods, even if they weren’t affiliated or sympathetic to the E88 or ABB, were very careful who they employed.

After all, if you employed the wrong sort, you might suffer a run of bad luck.

I paused and shook my head as I walked down the street. It was strange how I’d never really thought about that before. I was just going to go out and beat up bad guys, but that wouldn’t help things. Not unless I made certain there were no more bad guys.

The day passed, and I found myself rooting through the bins of one of the smaller thrift stores a few blocks away from the tourist district. My half-completed suit would serve as armor, but I needed something… A long coat would fit, with some changes, and I found some material I could use for a cloak.

Use velcro so nobody can grab me by it… And if I made it the right color, it would help conceal me, and I could weave spider silk into the material to make another layer of armor, for myself or any bystanders who got caught in the crossfire. I could wear my mask, but I’d add…

I held up the floppy hat and nodded. Another part of my disguise. With luck and the fact that I literally had no body, nobody would really notice I was a woman. On impulse, I picked up a dark scarf.

The entire bundle cost me ten dollars. That left me with a little bit for lunch and…

I stared at the items behind the glass. “How much is the recorder?” I asked, pointing to the little voice-activated audio recorder.

The woman looked at me, then at the goods I’d bought. “Five,” she said.

“I’ll take it.” I’d have to have a light lunch, but this would help me.

Because I wanted to know why Blackwell let Sophia, Emma, and Madison get away with near murder.

****

The sun was going down as I headed home. Dad wouldn’t be happy if I stayed out too late, and I didn’t need to start making him suspicious.

Not that he’d ever notice, a quietly angry part of my mind said. I shook my head, it didn’t—

“Get your limp-dick hands off of me!” the voice was young, angry, coming from an alley.

“Oh, the jungle-bunny has some spirit!” Coarse laughter joined them.

I should keep going. I didn’t have my costume. If anyone outed me, I’d risk my career ending before it got started.

I should keep going, just like everyone kept going when I’d been in the locker. After all, if the Trio took offense, they might be targeted. Better to just leave me knowing that nobody cared.

I paused for a moment. Nobody was out on the street, and most of the stores closed. No cameras. I pulled out the long coat, hat, and scarf. I wrapped the scarf around my lower face. I could just send the bugs in, but I couldn’t see through them—so I had no idea who was in danger.

Moments later, I turned the corner. There was a pretty black girl, pressed up against the wall. She looked a little younger than me, but the guy pushing her into the wall, one hand on her breast while he fumbled at his belt was in his twenties. Around him there were several others. Tattoos let me know who they were.

E88.

I sent for the bugs and they came at my command, but I paused.

Do I want to let them know what I can do?

In that moment, the girl looked up into the man’s face. “So, you gonna rape me?”

“I—“ Then her knee came up, fast, and slammed into his crotch. The man screamed, the sound high and shrill, as the girl pushed him away.

“Like I said, keep your limp-dick hands off of me!”

“Fucking bitch!” Another man said, and he pulled a knife. “Maybe you need an attitude adjustment. Just another black whore who—“

I moved.

The ear is a very delicate organ, it can let us hear things from miles away. So when I sent bees into each one of their ears, the sound was like a triphammer hitting the ground right next to them. I didn’t have to sting them, and incidentally leave any evidence behind. Suddenly, the men were staggering around the alleyway, as the girl started kicking and punching them, taking advantage of their disorientation.

I blinked as she grabbed one, and started slamming his head into the ground, again and again. She was surprisingly strong, and a few moments later, there were four unconscious men in the alleyway.

“You probably shouldn’t kill them,” I told her.

“Yeah,” she said. “You a cape? What’d you do, blast them with a ray?”

“Maybe,” I told her. “We should call the cops.”

“Tch,” she said. “Where are you from? Cops in this part of town are all E88. I’d get arrested. I got a better idea.” She picked up the knife, and I tensed…

And then I bit my lip to keep from laughing, as the girl used the knife to cut their belts and pants. If they couldn’t get a ride, they’d be running home holding their pants up. For people like that, the humiliation was probably as bad as the beating. But now they were moaning, and it was time to leave.

“Ain’t gonna ask you who you are—“ she gestured at my dress. “Bet you weren’t planning on a fight.”

“No.”

“I could have fucked ‘em up, but thanks. Name’s Aisha! If you want any help in fucking up nazi pricks, just give me a call.” With that, she winked and took off down the street, vanishing into an alleyway. She hadn’t given me her address. I shrugged.

It was probably better that she did not see what was about to happen. I also left the alley. I didn’t have to be here, after all.

I had been gathering bugs, but they were all in the buildings around the alleyway. I didn’t want anyone to see what I was going to do.

When the men started to get up, cursing their fortune, I spoke. I pulled the insects out of their ears and tagged each one with some gnats.

“Gentlemen,” my swarm said, the rumbling sound somehow more eerie for being muffled, coming from all around them. They jumped up, save for one man who lost his pants and landed In an untidy heap as he tried to move with them down around his ankles.

“Who the fuck are you! Do you know who we are?”

“Scum. Cowards. Unable to even handle a little girl, one on one…” Now they were looking around, trying to localize my voice. I gave it let a little chirring rhythm.  “Wade Green, Mark Wright… I know your names. I know where you live. I know who you are…” I paused. “I have other matters to attend to, so you should feel happy. I will let you leave. This time. The next time I hear of you assaulting a child, you and I will meet. Just once. Good day, gentlemen…” They started shouting threats, but I didn’t respond, sending my bugs back to their normal haunts.

I was already at the edge of my range, and the last sense of the bugs on my quarry was that they were moving—quite rapidly—in the opposite direction. I smiled. Maybe it hadn’t been taking down Kaiser, but one girl had benefitted, and I’d put the fear of… me, into some thugs.

Now, for the next stop at Winslow. The school was deserted, and I would just put the recorder into one of the exterior vents, and have a mob of spiders pull it until it was sitting just over Patricia Blackwell’s desk. I had checked it, and it had enough of a charge to last for at least three days of use. Even if it was found, I’d wiped it down so there were no fingerprints. She might say much, she might say a little, but she’d always taken the Trio’s side, and it was time to find out why.

When I got home, there was a message from Dad that he was working late. I shook my head. He wasn’t. He was sitting in an office going over papers again and again. If they couldn’t even keep him on for forty hours a week, he didn’t need to do overtime.

He was staying away from home. I looked around and sighed. We hadn’t repainted anything since Mom had died. The desk where she graded was still there, some books on it, a little dust coating the wood. I closed my eyes and outside, some insects tore into each other. Dad hadn’t been there when I needed him. He still… wasn’t. Even when he was angry.

And Mr. Barnes had been the one to shake him up after Mom died, get him moving, and then he’d backed up Emma.

I wonder if he really didn’t believe us. Or if he knew what Emma was doing and protected her anyway?  I shook my head. Did it matter? He’d still backed her up and I think that was the biggest reason Dad had accepted the school’s settlement, hadn’t gone to any other lawyers. Alan had been his friend, had helped us after Mom died, and he’d…

Turned on Dad, just like Emma had turned on me.

I shook my head as I brewed some tea. The house was cold and silent, and all my excitement from the fight had fled. Tomorrow, I’d keep working on my costume, and prepare myself for another week at Winslow… and on Monday night, I’d retrieve my recorder, and hopefully, Blackwell would have said something incriminating. As bad as Winslow was, she had to be corrupt.

But now…

They weren’t just brawlers, my mother’s voice whispered in my memory. They were detectives…And she had some books on detective work downstairs. I knew, Mom had talked about using real cases to illustrate how the stories did and did not conform to real life.

I glanced at my homework. The Trio would just figure out a way to wreck it. It was time to do some real homework.

I worked late, going to bed with Dad still out.

When I woke up the next morning, there were two bits of news waiting for me when I logged on to our old computer.

Firstly, a small-time gang called the Undersiders had stolen from Lung, and as a result several buildings had been burned down, before the Protectorate and, oddly enough, some mercenaries from a villain named Coil had run into each other. One of the Undersiders had been badly injured and was in custody.

The books had emphasized how you needed to know the situation. I had been planning on going out, and I barely knew the local villain scene. I’d have to do better.

Thank you, Mom.

And the next bit of news was even more interesting. A message to the email drop I’d set up. There were two hundred and fifty dollars in my account, so I was invited to pick my card up at a locker down on the Boardwalk.

I blinked for a moment. How the hell could they move so fast? I shook my head. Fast or not, it seemed that I was going to be doing some more buying today.