The Weaver's Web: Book 2, Chapter 14

I sent little tendrils of “smoke,” really gnats and such around Alabaster. I was on a time limit here. He might not develop a brain and call for help, but I expect his minions would, as soon as they stopped panicking, call this in, and the moment the news got to one of the E88’s higher ups, well even a low tier cape like Alabaster justified a strong response.

“What shall I do with you…” I murmured. “Bury you, deep in the earth? Maybe tie blocks to you and let you spend the rest of your existence on the ocean floor?” While I was talking, I started some of my bugs making metronome sounds.

Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

I timed them to be close to his reset cycle, to make him aware of time passing. Make him wonder… What would it be like to reset in the dark, or under the ocean, again and again.

“Fuck you!” he said, a tinge of unease in his voice. “The Empire would get me.”

“And how is that? Do they have a Thinker?” I chuckled. “No, I see they do not, else you wouldn’t be in this position.”

Alabaster pulled a pistol and fired on Ungoliant. The rounds went through the cloud and I laughed again.

“Guns, little Nazi? Against me?” The spider rose up, glow bugs in its eight eyes. “Since when did guns kill a city?”

“You’re not a fucking city, you’re a cape with a gimmick.”

“And yet I merely reached out and plucked the threads of fate, and now… all of your companions are hiding. Save you. You who came out, quite by coincidence, to meet me. Almost as if I directed fate to bring you here.”

“You’re not the fucking Simurgh!” he said, and now he sounded, well, worried.

“As you say,” I replied. “But now, it is time for our conversation. I will offer you… a deal, one that befits a small-time thug, given power he never deserved. Though not the power you wanted at the time, was it? Not when your life collapsed and you looked out and saw nothing but despair, and this ability came to you.” A statement nearly universal among the higher level college interviews with capes, not the little puff-pieces done for the press. Some argued it was because the power new better than the person what would work, other’s just believed it was “grass was always greener on the other side” syndome, but I could use it.

Now Alabaster sounded like he’d been punched. “How—how do you know…”

“As I said, I see the threads of fate…” Above Ungoliant, I sent a swarm of bugs up, the dim light outlining a woman, with shears, and holding a thread. “And I am about to cut your thread. What you weave after this… Well, that is your destiny.”

Alabaster had let me talk. More importantly, he’d let my bugs get ready. The first webs weren’t noticeable to him. A power that prevented pain also prevented other sensations. Just fastening points for more webs, heavier webs, and by the time he saw something, I sent the entire mass of Ungoliant, dissolving into a cloud of buzzing, chittering horror, at him. And in that mass were the larger threads.

Alabaster snarled. “Do you think this—“ he cut off as hundreds of bugs crammed into his mouth. He tried to spit them out, but I held on and when his reset happened, they were still there. Evidently they didn’t count.

Probably a mechanism to allow him to eat and talk, but it did open a thought. If I sent them into his lungs, could that kill him?

A matter for another time. His death wouldn’t achieve my goals. More importantly, when he reset, the bugs on his skin, the attached webbing, didn’t go away. More and more strands were attached as he flailed around. To anyone watching, there was merely a vortex of bugs, nearly drowning out Alabasters gagging. Then the webbing started to restrain him. His arms and legs, even with his brute abilities, found it harder and harder to resists.

More webbing. Around his face, around his eyes. He squashed a thousand bugs. No matter, ten thousand replaced them. He started staggering around, trying to escape, but now his legs were bound and he fell over.

I felt… contempt. There were any number of things he could have done, starting with considering that any cape that had ambushed him in this way almost certainly knew of his weaknesses.

Not a soldier. Not a warrior.

A racist thug with a gimmick.

My bugs pulled back, revealing a squirming cocoon of spider webs. Some of my abilities would be known after this. But then my control over bugs and “vermin” had been revealed when I’d helped Aisha.

I’d left one ear clear so he could hear my message.

“Little Thug. This is my mercy to you. A chance to avoid the endless night of the deep ocean or the earth. You will know what to do when you see the fate I have arranged for you.” Meanwhile, my other bugs were gnawing away at years of grime on one of the walls, leaving the giant outline of the Orb Weaver in the heart of Empire territory, where one of their capes had felt safe.

Before I had arrived.

I tied web lines to Alabaster’s legs, and my bugs attached them to the rear bumper of one of the cars. This one I’d disabled in a way that several man-months of studying auto mechanics would let me fix. The key was still in the lock, and I opened the hood, sending a swarm of bugs down to remove the husks of the dead bugs that had detached the battery. A quick twist, and the car started. Even webbing wouldn’t last very long with this. Fortunately I didn’t have far to go. I got into the car, and started driving, Alabaster being pulled behind me. A normal human would quickly die. Fortunately, he wasn’t.

The web under him was being worn away, but not so fast I wouldn’t get to my destination.

Having to drive in person, I filled the car with insects so that anyone looking in would simply see a black mass. I did pass one car, an old lady staring at me before she turned off onto a cross street.

Behind me, I heard Alabaster’s muffled snarls as he was pulled over the asphalt. Then several minutes later, I stopped a half block away from a diner, one that had a few PRT vans pulled up by it.

A popular hangout for off-duty troops. I pulled out my shotgun mic so I could hear them, and prepared to deliver my message.

“Gentlemen,” I said as I sent my bugs, the voice filling the room. Everyone went still.

“Yes?” a sergeant said.

“I am Orb Weaver.”

“No shit,” someone muttered.

“Indeed. A half block down the street, Alabaster waits for your tender mercies. When he is free, relay him a message for me, will you?”

“And that’d be?” The sergeant said as a half-dozen men ran to a van, getting containment foam and other gear, while one urgently called Console for parahuman support.

“So long as he remains in your care, I have no interest in him anymore. A little thug, with little dreams. However…” I let the bugs buzz ominously. “Should he return to the streets, and especially if he conducts another initiation… We will meet. One more time.”

And then, I withdrew my bugs as I walked down to the Boardwalk. It was late but still busy, and a teenage girl wouldn’t be out of place.

I could have called the heroes, but this would also give me some credit with the troopers, and while I doubted they would tell secrets… you never knew what wasn’t a secret and yet was useful, if you could get people talking to you.

**** 

And Alabaster finds... the the Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit!