Orb Weaver: Side story, Guardian Angel.

Keeping my mind on my surroundings was second nature. So one day when I was walking through Arcadia, I heard a girl crying on a phone.

“I—I need another shift! I know that I’m over my hours for today but could you just… I know… No, I understand. Do you know anyone who is willing to take someone part time? This Friday? Thank you!”

I changed my walk, slowing up as I headed to class. The bell had rang, and she would have… There she was. Wendy. One of the cheerleaders. Except… Wendy was a redhead, shapely, energetic, cheerful… but…

She was bedraggled. Hair undone.

And she wasn’t heading for cheerleading practice.

Something was up. At least enough for me to spend some time to investigate.

But not immediately. I could take the rest of the day to find out.

Meanwhile, Orb Weaver was terrorizing a would be mugger a few blocks away, so it wasn’t like the day was going to waste.

****

By the end of the day, I had information. Wendy had quit the cheerleading team last week. Her friends were talking about it, though not to me. I didn’t move in those circles. I just listened. She’d also stopped showing up at parties and movies.

But why?

I sent my bugs into her locker. No sign of drugs or paraphernalia.

The next step would be to examine her school records. That would be a little more difficult. Unlike Winslow, Arcadia didn’t just use passwords for their records—they logged the time of access. I didn’t know if they had an auto-alert set up, but it wasn’t unlikely, given the presence of the Wards.

Fortunately, secretaries were not PRT troopers and so stayed logged in when they went for lunch breaks or the after school meetings. Also, Wendy wasn’t a ward.

It wasn’t difficult to send in enough bugs to maneuver a USB into a slot, while using a crude, if effective method of calling up the records. The keyboard wasn’t modified for my bugs, so I simply had my larger flyers, rise up over the keyboard and slam into the keys, giving me enough force to enter the request. The ones that died from the impact were pulled out of the room by other bugs.

When the secretary came back, I was finished, the USB being pulled by spiders to me, using the space above the false ceiling.

I would examine it on the way home.

****

I didn’t make it home, not after I read the information. But I wasn't going out just just for this. Muggers had become somewhat more circumspect in areas I focused on, so it was time to focus on different areas.

But the information in the school…

There were notes. Wendy’s grades had declined in the last several weeks—months actually though that was well before I had arrived and the decline had been slow—then sudden.

But Wendy showed no signs of drug use. But great signs of stress. Internalized stress, which was only now spilling out.

When I got to her apartment building, a comfortable, if not luxury apartment complex, I noted someone heading to talk to Wendy. The super.

With someone smaller in his trail. Wendy had a little brother.

I stood on the other side of the street, a small alleyway concealing my shotgun mic—I could also use my ability to focus on single conversations to get more information than most users could get from it. It was enough.

The man knocked on the door and Wendy answered. I didn’t need any great skill at reading words to hear how distraught she sounded.

“I—Joey! You were supposed to come home from school.”

“I missed the bus, Wendy, so I walked.”

Wait, the records listed him as going to Lincoln, that’s…

“I saw him when he was walking back—right through the middle of E88 territory. He had a fan club. I need to talk to your mom, Wendy.”

“She’s um, still sick.”

“She’s been sick every time I come by Wendy, and you’re sixty days late on your rent. I can’t keep ignoring it.”

“I’ll have the money, I mean mom will. How much is it?”

“4500, I’ll waive the late fees.”

“I—“ Her voice sounded strangled. “I’ll tell Mom.”

A few blocks in the other direction, I was lecturing a would-be rapist about his sins, while waiting for the police to come pick him up. I had convinced him to turn himself in.

There was another woman in the house, in a bedroom. My bugs picked up signs of dirt, old food…

But I was also listening to them, crossing the street when they closed the door. In the walls and and spaces in their apartment, bugs collected, forming the artificial “ear” I had learned how to create.

“Why didn’t you call Mom?”

“She didn’t answer!”

“You should have called me!”

“Why, you don’t have a car…” Then with the shift only a child could come up with. “Can we eat out? I don’t wanna eat peanut butter. Can we eat at Fugly Bobs?”

“We don’t have the money—“

“But I wanna…”

I traced Wendy as she fled to the bedroom. Part of me felt dirty about listening, but one the other hand, I would need to know more.

“Mom? Mom, you gotta try and get work, please? I can’t keep—they won’t let me take any more shifts and even if I get an extra job we have to pay…” Her voice fell silent. “Please?”

The woman, tracked by bugs and lice, a sign she wasn’t keeping herself clean, rolled over in the bed. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“But you said you’d do it tomorrow yesterday. You keep saying that—“

It didn’t take long for me, even away from my main research center, to get the information. After all, webcrawler bots were fairly easy to code—for me.

Wendy’s mother, Janice, had been let go from her work. That had come not long after a divorce—little information was available for that.

Behind Joey, I examined the bills and such spread out on the table. Numerous notices of late payment.

Which made sense. The mother must have been living on credit cards and the kind of money a 16-year-old could get—legitimately, was not enough to live on.

While Wendy was still speaking—pleading, really—with her mother, it was time to introduce myself. I couldn’t use The Investigator. People would assume that I had been snooping around school, ferreting out secrets.

Well, I had, but I didn’t want them to know that.

I commanded bugs to start to form under the apartment, in the vents. But this time… I reached out and commended butterflies and moths to join me. I would have to moderate my ‘voice’. Make it softer. I wasn’t intending on frightening anyone here.

“Hello, Joey,” I said. The boy looked around. “Have you ever met a cape?”

“Mom took us to see Armsmaster, and I got a halberd!” he said.

I could “see” it in his room, the cheap plastic toy kept clean and resting in a padded box.

“Would you like to see another one?”

“Are you one?”

“I am Orb Weaver.”

He gulped. “Jane said you eat people.”

“Only bad people must fear me, and you, Wendy and your Mother are not bad people. Tell me, how long has your mother been…” I paused, thinking to put it in terms a child would understand. “Sad.”

“Long time,” now he was looking at the ground, the motion clear to the tiny bugs I’d put on him.

“If you would let me enter, I might be able to help.”

“Like a Genie?” Even through my repeaters the joy in his voice was obvious… And heart breaking.

“I am not that powerful. But I will try to help you. My oath.”

“Okay…”

“Then I shall enter.”

First I sent swarms of moths and butterflies in, swarming in a shape that looked slightly humanoid. Obscured from his vision, wasps came in, linking their bodies, ants and roaches joining and forming a frame. This wasn’t one of my creations that could exert any real force, but it was enough to provide a support for the butterflies and moths that adorned the body, making it look…

Well. Not terrifying.

“Cool!” evidently, Joey agreed.

“Joey, what is—“ Wendy fell silent.

“I am Orb Weaver.”

“We didn’t do anything!”

“I know. I am here to help.” I paused. “How long has it been since you have had a good meal?”

“We eat at school.”

“A good meal at home.”

“Like forever!” Joey said.

Well, if that wasn’t cause to use a Number Man account, I didn’t know what was. “What would you like?”

“Pizza!”

“Very well.” The order was sent.

“Why—why are you here?” Wendy said.

“What do you know of me?”

“You eat people, or make them disappear.”

“I am the city, in a way, and I can sense sorrow, or desperation, and you, Wendy, are very desperate indeed.” Memories rose up, a man in a chair, staring at the TV, beer cans littering the room, ignoring anything I tried to say to him.

“I’m—“

“You are earning money, not enough. You will seek part time work, but it will not help. You are in the position of raising a younger brother and caring for a woman who cannot care for herself. Today, Joey missed the bus, but was found by a kind stranger. Can you always depend on that? You gave up cheerleading—“

“But you love it!” Joey burst out. I understood why. There were trophies on the shelves.

Wendy was looking around. I was using the same method I used for criminals, laying out the situation, guiding her. But I did not wish to frighten her. She was frightened enough.  Meanwhile, bugs were going through her books, including one… yes. The journal for the English class. My bugs detect the word at the start of every entry. “Don’t you read this, Ms. Jones.”

I, of course, read it, cockroaches pushing up the covers so that smaller bugs can swarm in and taste the difference between the paper and ink.

Behind the apartment, a tagger getting ready to add some ABB markers, heard the sound of a thousand demons clearing their throats and left.

“Mom will get better. We just need some more time—I could work for you!” Wendy says. “You gotta have spies and stuff!”

“No. The Powers I contend with are not ones a child should be exposed to.” I paused. “Wendy. Your mother will not get better. Not without help you cannot provide.”

“They’ll send us to an orphanage.”

“You have family. Your grandparents, yes, even your father.”

“He got married again, he sends presents and cards, but he moved…” Wendy waved her hand.  “Somewhere. And I have to take care of Mom.”

“And you have.” I said. “But tell me, has she gotten better?” The silence answered me. Then there was a knock at the door and I “stood” aside. The deliveryman didn’t see me, and soon Wendy and Joey were eating.

And I noticed how hungry they were. School breakfast and lunch wasn’t enough for active people and Wendy had been shorting herself for her mother and brother. She looked up at me.

“Are, um, you hungry?”

“No. It is not the kind of food I consume.”

“Right…” I sent the butterflies fluttering their wings, causing the form to break out in a rainbow of colors. Joey clapped.

“I can’t,” she said, between bites. “This is our home.”

“I spin the destiny of your mother forward, Wendy, and I can tell you. Without help, and soon…” I let my voice trail off. “But I understand.”

“You’re Orb Weaver.” Joey shook his head. “Heroes aren’t afraid!”

“Not always. Once, I was trapped in a small place, every day a cage, the cage getting smaller and smaller, until I could see no way out. Hopeless, helpless.” I let a rumble enter my words. Wendy stopped, staring at me.

After all, parahumans didn’t tend to confess to being helpless, ever.

“Do you know what happened?”

“What?” Joey asked.

I “lowered” my body until it looked like I was facing him at head height, butterflies covering my form. “I passed through. The passage becomes narrower and narrower, until you feel you are being crushed and then you’re free. The nightmare gets worse and worse—and then you wake up to a bright day.” I ‘looked’ at Wendy. “If you do nothing, then this will end—Joey will be picked up, but not by your landlord, but rather a police officer. Your landlord will no longer be able to ignore the rent. Someone will call a police officer for a wellness check.” I tilted my head. “There are good people in this city, Wendy, who will aid you. Like Ms. Jones. Why would you pour out all of what is happening here, then hide it behind ‘don’t read this’ if you were not thinking that one day, you might reach out. She is a good woman. A woman who kept faith with your request to not read your journal. Maybe it is time to trust her in other matters.”

“What if… What if they separate us?”

“I will take my own measures to assist you. I cannot promise you, not one hundred percent, but my voice has some sway.” In any case, the fact that she hadn’t communicated with her grand parents or father, hadn’t been due to what I had feared initially. Looking at the cards sent to them, bugs swarming in rooms Wendy couldn’t see, they appeared to be affectionate. Not wanting her mother to be seen like this? Pride? I didn’t know. But…

“If I do that, I can’t, you know, undo it.”

“As you say.”

“But… I can’t… Mom just doesn’t do anything.”

“Depression is like that. I have seen it in my time.”

Wendy stared at my body, then walked back to her bookbag, my bugs clearing the book just in time, and pulled out her journal. She stared at it, and nodded before she crossed out the front notice and replaced it.

“Ms. Jones, Please Read This.”

“Good. I will leave you two, but do not fear, for tonight, I will be on watch.” I moved to where I could send my “body” into vents behind the couch without Wendy or Joey noticing.

“You are courageous, Wendy, and have done righteously. Let nobody tell you otherwise. Joey, farewell. You are a good little brother, and are lucky to have Wendy as a sister.”

“Bye! I’m gonna tell Jane that you don’t eat good people, so she’d better watch out.”

“Joey!” Wendy’s eyes widened.

“I’m uncertain, Joey,” I told the boy, “if that is a way to make friends with a girl like Jane.”

“Oh.”

“Farewell.” And then I dissolved the form, fluttering moths and butterflies concealing the way bugs moved down. I didn’t worry about information getting out. Everyone knew I used bugs. They also knew I used rats, birds, and the hollowed out bodies of the dead.

I sent a text to dad, telling him I’d be very late. There was always the danger that Wendy might change her mind or do something foolish. She was very fragile right now. So I would stay in the area, patrolling as far as I could while keeping the apartment under watch. I’d catch a catnap in one of the several places I’d scouted out, and I had enough bugs for a warm blanket.

****

The next day, I was sitting in class, when the SRO was called to the office. Wendy had handed in her book and Ms. Jones hadn’t gone more than five pages, before I saw her eyes widen and her skin go a little pale. She left with Wendy, having another teacher come in to watch us. I set up bugs to listen in on the conversation, sending it to a repeater set of bugs in my bag, where I could dimly hear them. Her father had been called and was on the next flight out and social services had been directed to their apartment to take her mother in charge. I would watch them, but it appeared that Wendy’s father, as the evidence in the apartment had shown, would take care of them.

But I would keep up on their case. Maybe offer an address for Wendy to write Orb Weaver from.

After all, she had fallen into my web, even if it was a different kind of web. I felt satisfied.

Not all battles required you to defeat evil. Some just required you to help the good.