Orb Weaver: Interlude, the Serpent

Coil sat down in his office, watching the video. Not one he’d had to retrieve using his normal methods. No, the—soon to be unemployed—intern had blasted the video to several newsgroups, and such juicy footage was not across the globe. The success of operation had also helped. Instead of a blasted no-go zone, the region looked like it had just survived a major hurricane. Well, less Galveston, but as Costa-Brown liked to say, the people had survived.

“What’cha want Boss?”

Tattletale. Being snarky as usual, concealing her fear under defiance. Coil hadn’t even had to harm her—a few conversations in dropped timelines, and then bring up a fact that he shouldn’t know to her, giving her power no clue how he knew it.

Thank god, Lisa hadn’t considered the Investigator’s solution—but no, she wanted to win, and fleeing the city for safe havens would be losing.

“The Investigator.”

“I’m still looking for ways to get her onboard. She’s not—“

“We’ll be contracting with her. Above board, not attempts to gain influence over her.”

There was a pause. Coil could almost hear the gears ticking away in her head.

“Okay… Why? You know she’s just an ordinary girl, physically.”

“True, and the Darling of the Bay, whether or not she knows it. I don’t want to risk bringing too much heat down on us. Also, she’s a Rogue and I expect she will understand that my checks clear like anyone else's, so long as I don’t push. Try to get closer to her, make friends, but don’t push.”

“Sure thing!” There was confusion in her voice.

Coil put the phone down without farewell. That pissed her off, and being pissed off would keep her thinking about the wrong thing.

She was just an ordinary girl. Physically.

He wandered over to a safe, unlocking it, and pulling out some photos.

Dangerous. He should have destroyed them long, long ago. But…

“The Boston Bastards,” Coil murmured, looking at a much younger Coil in PRT combat gear along with everyone else. Mary had named them the Boston Bastards, because they were the meanest of the mean…

Mary, who had been pulled into a storm drain, screaming for mercy, as her bones cracked and shattered as they were pulled through a too-small opening. Big Tom, who had been melted by some hideous creature. Little Jessica, who everyone joked had bribed the intake officer because she was too short—who had pulled the pin on every grenade she carried as she was pulled into a house.

On his other timeline, Coil made certain that various accounts were paid up. Mary’s daughter was just about to graduate from med school without any student debt, as were the others. Little things.  Gifts, inheritances…

He really shouldn’t have. They could be drawn to him. But he and Emily were the last of the Boston Bastards, and she didn’t have that kind of money, so it fell to him.

And hopefully, none of them will come to the Bay, especially if they’re in law enforcement. He liked to think he wouldn’t kill a child of a friend. But he knew the answer to that—Coil had killed already, before he bought his powers, because he would have slaughtered a thousand people for one more second of life, one more second away from those claws and teet—

Coil took a deep breath and put the photos back into the safe.

I would have killed a thousand. The Capes ran. His most important lesson when the PRT covered up both his murder and the cowardice of the parahumans. You had to be out for yourself—nobody else would be.

“But not you,” Coil murmured, calling up the image. The Investigator. Taylor Hebert, firing away with a pair of popguns. He had the AAR. She had made the plan, and then had volunteered—had commanded that she distract the Endbringer, Leviathan.  Sure she had an exit plan, only an idiot didn’t, but hadn’t let death drive her away.

Coil would have chucked Kanshi into the monster’s path.

The Plan was to find your weaknesses. Then use them, draw you in, intimidate you.

But now Coil knew the truth. You might kill  Hebert. But scare? Intimidate? No. Worse, she thought on her feet. No. Coil wasn’t stupid enough to try to succeed where the Goddamn Leviathan had failed.

And that meant going with the old plan, at best, ended up with the Investigator dead and of no use to him. At worst… Coil hadn’t forgotten how she’d neutralized  a plan months in the making, dozens of highly trained mercs and his own ability… neutralized it and made it look easy.

No.

“So how do I make use of you, Taylor Hebert?”  he asked. The ABB case, information provided by some of his spies, proved that she wasn’t completely reluctant when it came to working with criminals, although her price was… different.

And A price I can pay. Coil wanted to rule the Bay, but he didn’t want to Rule the Bay as it was. Making the local PRT look bad was necessary. But having a Thinker like Hebert…

Coil sent instructions to his people. First he would have to find criminals—events that the Investigator might be interested in. And then, a payment she would accept. Coil didn’t use prostitutes, so the payment would be something else than freeing a few.

Funding a drug clinic? A soup kitchen?

Unlike Orb Weaver, The Investigator didn’t actively go out and look for crime. So make a deal that would benefit them both… and leave The Investigator well inclined to him, especially when he took the city and needed help turning it into a jewel of the East Coast.

Coil nodded, and got to work. Paperwork didn’t do itself.

And in any case, he’d thought too much of the Boston Bastards and Ellisburg. He wouldn’t get much sleep tonight, so best put it to good use.