Orb Weaver: Wrath of God 3

One does not casually scream "Master!"...

****

When Amy arrived, she was frowning. “I was helping Vicky,” she said. “But what is it?”

“There is a woman in there, suffering from odd symptoms.” Armsmaster gestured. “I would like you to examine her.”

“Nothing else?”

“This is an investigation. I don’t want to risk you prejudging the case. I’ll also be recording this.”

I was content to stand back, since holding my temper was proving to be a bit of a challenge.

Amy walked in and stared at Cho. She reached out her hand and touched her. “I’m not providing healing,” she said, evidently for the recorder. “Just analy—holy shit!” She held her hand there for several minutes, slowly going pale.

“Huh!” Cho said, and then her eyes closed. Amy stepped back, eyes wide, actually trembling a little bit.

That was not good. Amy was called in for the worst cases. Anything that had her…

“What is it?” I asked.

“What the fuck happened to her?!” she said. “I had to put her under because…”

“Yes?” I asked. “She is Ms. Sheila Cho, a reporter. The diagnosis was stroke.”

“Bullshit!” Amy burst out. “It’s like her brain… the memory patterns are gone. Most of them. The others seem to be… broken.”

“Why did you put her out?” Armsmaster asked. “The hospital said she was suffering some pain but—“

“It’s not pain.” Amy said. “It’s memory, or habits. Fuck I…” She shook her head. “Babies cry a lot because it’s new. It’s like the first time you cut yourself, and it hurts like hell, but after the fiftieth time…”

“And Ms. Cho?” I asked. My voice was surprisingly steady.

“It’s like the first time.” She took a deep breath. “Hang on.” She put her hand back on Cho’s hand, and Armsmaster and I remained still. He was typing something into a virtual keyboard.

“Right,” Amy said. “Fuck, okay, some of the memories are… still there. Fragmented, but you could get them back. But others, it looks like they were… pulled out, is the best term I can use. They’re gone. And that’s not the worst, there’s a… blockage, something keeping new memories from forming. That’s another reason she’s…” Amy took a deep breath, “like she is. She can’t get used to anything. Short-term and long-term memory doesn’t work for her anymore. Not beyond say, a 30-second window. She’s trapped in that 30 seconds… like a fucking mental Gray Boy loop.”

Armsmaster clenched one fist, his armor creaking. “I see. Could this be by any natural or non-parahuman cause?”

“No.” Amy shook her head. “This has to be some kind of parahuman.”

“She can’t retain memory…” I shook my head. “Amy, I know you don’t do brains, but you said something was keeping her from remembering. Is there any way to pull that out, without affecting her mind?” I knew enough about Amy to know that even hinting about working on brains would cause her to leave.

There were many rumors in the Bay. Some of them claimed that Amy had once been offered a very substantial sum to adjust a boy out of his “sinful lusts for men.” The rumor, as all rumors were, had many variants, ranging from Alexandria threatening Amy with a kill order, to the much more likely truth of the adults of New Wave securing a court order to prevent the individuals from ever contacting her again, as well as contacting the authorities. Regardless, even jokes about “making someone happy” was a good way to get on her shit list, even if she might not be able to do that. Beyond “healing” Amy’s power was vague. I had to be very careful here.

“Because if it’s a parahuman attack…” Armsmaster nodded. “You might be able to at least enable her to start relearning…”

“I…” Amy looked back to the room. “I can try, but I have to think about this, I have to really think about this.”

I wasn’t going to get any more. Best to stop while I was ahead, but… “Is there any way a doctor could misdiagnose this as a stroke?”

“No way in hell.”

“Ah.”

It depended on nobody caring. The Nurses might wonder, but they’d defer to the doctor and once you moved Cho to a long-term convalescent home…

The assumption would be that she was incurable, and without any immediate family…

But why? I beat the rage down. Rage came later. I needed to understand.

“We should interrogate the doctor,” I said. “He’s possibly been exposed to a Master.”

“Do you think—“ Armsmaster cut Amy off.

“Agreed. For his own safety, we should remove him and place him in protective custody.”

“Some Masters can leave triggers,” I mentioned.

“Correct. It would be incredibly risky to his health to allow him to contact any outside groups.”

Amy looked between the two of us and Cho and nodded. “Right, I’m gonna head home and think about what I can do. I’ve… deadened some of her receptors, but I can’t remove all feeling and it’s still gonna be bad.”

“Thank you,” I said as Amy left, looking disturbed.

Idiot! I berated myself. I could have done this quietly. But now, the Doctor knew something was up. In M/S confinement or free, anyone observing him would make some painfully obvious conclusions, especially after not one, but two, capes got involved.

“Especially after the incident with the Teacher’s Pet,” Armsmaster said, “We can access all of his files and financial transactions.”

“Her skills were destroyed. No Cape in the Bay does that.” Not that we know of. That kind of power… but… “Victor of the E88 is a skill copier. What if he was hiding some aspects of his power?”

“We cannot even hint that, not without proof.” Armsmaster paused. “Nor can your associate.”

“The consequences.”

“Yes.”

People will go about their daily business in the face of bladewolves and a rage dragon, but even hint a Master, let alone someone who can do… this? A man who forgot his keys might end up murdering his annoying neighbor. People would flood hospitals, even the simplest issue being proof in their minds that they had been mastered. Masters, after all, took the most precious thing from people, and it didn’t help that entire cities had been walled off in terror of the greatest Master on Bet—the Simurgh. Worst case, we could see something like the Sacramento Master Riots.

The Protectorate and PRT would want this ended in a way they could say the Master was dealt with.

I could handle that. Orb Weaver would handle that. But first, we needed to know who he was.

Whoever this is, they don’t target parahumans. They don’t target major figures. Missing skills and memories would immediately flag an M/S alert and the PRT kept major figures under observation.

“We need to go to Ms. Cho’s apartment. Can others secure the doctor?”

Armsmaster nodded. “We have a team in place.”

“Merely because I was called?”

“Orb Weaver tends to prefer convoluted plans, showmanship, and working behind the scenes. The fact that he abandoned that to publicly and directly contact you immediately put this event at a higher level of scrutiny.”

“Ah.” PRT. Not. Stupid. “While we are doing that, may I suggest using your resources to look for any cases of lost skills, missing memories, and atypical behavior?”

“We have that authority under Master-Stranger regulations.” He frowned. “Another Master in the Bay.”

“And one that may have been operating here for some time.” I looked to the door, the husk of a woman I’d known behind it. “We will have to change that.”