The Weaver's Web Book II: Chapter 4

Arcadia was everything the pamphlets said it was. The teachers were attentive, the student body was mostly well behaved, and if there were Wards—they weren’t obvious.

Nor did I go looking for them. The customs regarding identities, especially in places where said identities wouldn’t normally come up, tended to assume that people getting curious had bad intentions.

Then there was Victoria and Amy, the blazing light, that let you know she was coming (and the reason for the ‘no flying or floating in the halls’ rule), and well… her Grumpy sister. I’d seen them twice, and Amy seemed to be uninterested in talking.

Vicky had given me the third degree, ending with an offer to take me on a tour of the best places near the school to eat during lunch.

I… honestly felt a little winded after that conversation, ending with her darting off to see another friend who had been sick on the weekend. If she was still sick, she’d suggested that Ames might be able to help her.

That got a grunt.

But the problem with my time at Arcadia could be summed up on what I was doing after school.

Interviews.

The Investigator wasn’t well known, but enough that people expected I was a parahuman, not a poser, and that opened doors. And I had a list of Timmis’ former clients and I was going down them.

It was not… Pleasant.

[hr][/hr]

“Look, a kid mouths off, and he gets the belt!” the man speaking to me was fat, the house unkempt. “And then The Bitch leaves and she’s getting all the money for the brat!”

“I see.” I’d been offered a beer, but I didn’t accept. Not just because I was underage. I was not about to accept a gift under this man’s roof. “And Mr. Timmis helped you.”

“Sure did!” he grinned. “The Bitch ended up paying me 10K, sweet, and giving up any claims she might make about, well you know—“

“When a woman mouths off?”

“You got it! I mean, parahuman like you, you know people gotta learn their place.”

Black widows and roaches, centipedes and wasps coiled and uncoiled in the walls.

“Indeed. Didn’t he promise you custody?”

“Nah, that was the great thing. The Bitch thought I was going for it, but you know, daddy needs a payout, and Timmis knew just what to go for.”

“I see.”

The recorder was on the table. It hadn’t taken much to get him to agree. I had just had to mention that there might be more money in it for him.

Others had been smarter. They’d closed doors in my face.

Not this man. And when I left I had thirty minutes of recording and thirty minutes I’d prefer to forget.

But not enough. The implication was there, but Timmis could play it off as a man reading more into the relationship than there was… and I doubt Carol would consider putting this man on the stand as a witness a wise move.

Oddly, he wasn’t the worst meeting.

*****

The weekly hotel was ratty. Paint peeling off the walls with a few pictures slapped up by the current inhabitant. Cheap hotels were pretty common in the Bay. From the empty fire-extinguisher holders and flickering lights, it was plain that this place was dodging the fire inspector.

The woman in front of me looked old, wrinkles on her face, thin.

She was actually 20.

“I’ve been clean for almost a whole year,” she said, her motions abrupt, jittery. “I mean, I know I made some mistakes, but I had to get clean to get my baby back.” She held up a little photo, for the third time. “See, here’s his first birthday! We went to Fugly Bobs and I got him the birthday cupcake.”

“And Mr. Timmis?”

“Oh he’s helped me so much. I mean, when the money ran out, and I had to come here, he said he’d have to do some research, and he’s…not been available, but he said he was still working for me!”

“The money ran out—that’s when you were evicted.”

“Yes, but he needed the money to help. To help get my baby back.”

The one thing that could get your child back would be secure living arrangements. By letting her spend herself out of an apartment, Timmis had done more to ensure she never would get the child back than any court had.

She gave me letters. Some from the CPS group, discussing her lack of secure facilities and the fact that the child was bonding with her foster family.

Other’s from Timmis. Encouraging letters, letting her know he was “exploring new options.” Promising her work. Asking her if she had the ability to secure a loan…

A lawyer has a moral duty. This wasn’t, not completely, cut and dried, but at the very least it would prove that Timmis had misled his client.

“But if you help Mr. Timmis, you’re a cape—a hero, they have to listen to you.”

“I am not…” I paused. “I can make no promises. None at all. At most I can discuss your case with others.”

“Oh thank, you, thank you!”

I haven’t promised anything…

But somehow, despite my attempts to explain it, I ended up leaving with a little toy she’d bought from the 99 cent store, her request that when I saw her child to give it to her to tell her that Mommy loved her.

For a moment, outside the hotel room, the stench of urine in the hallway, I considered just unleashing Orb Weaver. Then I shook my head. I had another meeting on my list.

*****

And with him, I struck gold.

“Yeah, I worked with Timmis, the bastard,” the man was an auto mechanic. I could see… E88-tattoos on his arms.

Or rather, badly effaced E88 tattoos.

“Why?”

“I had an ugly divorce with Patricia. She was on drugs and I…” the man shook his head. “I was with E88.”

“Was.”

“Was. When Tom was born I could… be a good E88 member or a good father, I chose father.”

“Ah.”

“But Patricia… She didn’t want to get off. Whatever shit was good that week she was on, so I went for a divorce and custody, hired Timmis, ‘cause he was cheap.”

“You got your son.”

There were toys in the apartment.

“Yeah. Then I found out that Timmis had been double dipping. He’d been taken money from Patricia to string out the case. Promised her she could get Tom, and the aid. I told him. He… asked me what the court would say about an E88 member with a kid. Before I got out… Assaults, robbery, I guess Patricia had told him. Ended up taking out a loan on the shop to get him to stop stonewalling.”

“And Patricia?”

“OD.” Jake looked away for a moment. “Wish I could say Patricia had been knocked off by Timmis, there’d be some meaning to it. But no, she just shot herself up, misjudged the dose and died in her apartment. Didn’t hear about it till the cops came by, three days later.” He chuckled. “Typical… I never—“ he opened up his wallet, a picture of a younger man and a blond woman. “God, she was a looker when I met her. Not just that, but sweet. Then she got into the drugs and I… I guess when you’re a part of the Master Race you miss things like your wife dying on the inside.”

“It can’t be easy.” I said gesturing at his arms. “Why stay here?”

“Dad’s old shop is here, and I guess I’m stubborn.”

I really couldn’t say anything to that. Not and be anything other than very hypocritical.

*****

When I got out, I fought the urge to sag. Orb Weaver was easy. But how… A woman living in a weekly hotel, hoping that a miracle would happen. A man who seemed to only care about what money he could get, and another man who had made a break with his past, that if my sources were any good, put his life in danger so he could give his son a life.

How many more were there?

And what could one person do? Even if I was Alexandria what could I do.

“You know the answer,” I said to myself, out of earshot of the people who wondered what a cape was doing here, away from the boardwalk, in the part of town the tourists didn’t go to.

It was a simple answer.

Be stubborn, Taylor.

That. I could do. One meeting with Brandish, and then Aisha was due back at school on Friday… and that afternoon I’d have my meeting with Timmis. And then, well, it would depend on what he’d do.

I felt the toy in my pocket. I’d speak to Brandish about it. I doubted there was much to do. But…

I had made a promise. I would not break that promise.

I guess I was very stubborn.

****

Well the vote went for everyone to see this early, so here you go!