Web of the Weaver Book III: Financial Matters: Chapter IV

One problem was that most of the workers who had been on site were dead. There was very little evidence that there had been a larger conspiracy, but…

Money was missing. Or maybe, money was missing. Normally, if someone embezzled money, it ended up going somewhere. But here…

Fact. They were skimping on maintenance.

Fact. The holding companies had no idea.

Fact. There is no sign that anyone in the Bay benefitted.

A foreign power? The E88 or ABB?

I leaned back. Dad was sleeping, and tomorrow I’d have school. I’d be tired but…

The E88 and ABB didn’t make sense, at least not as this went. They both engaged in money laundering, but laundering fronts were usually well run. They didn’t have to make a profit, and they wanted to avoid doing anything that might call attention to the establishment or its backers.  An E88-affiliated diner always got cleaned up, and if anyone did hit them with a health violation, it was fixed the next day. 

Oh, there were some exceptions, but not this. This company would have been providing millions of dollars—easily important enough to have the higher ups take a look at it, and the consequences of the explosion had every criminal group in the Bay stepping very carefully. Faultline’s crew weren’t even in town.

The Dog that didn’t bark.

It could be that whoever handled this was just better than me. But that brought us back to why would they do something that eventually would lead to something like this happening. At the very least, the company was no longer useful.

But I had one other possibility. The DWA kept records on all their contracts. Dad had mentioned that. Even the ones that really weren’t their affair, so long as they were employing association members. A way of keeping track of good and bad actors, and actually one of more important services of the DWA, even in its decline—you could always get workers, but the quality of those workers went down if you got a rep for treating them poorly. I would check tonight.

I couldn’t involve Dad in this.

*****

At school, I wasn’t the only one tired. Amy looked like she was about to die. I didn’t know much about her, especially since spending time with her and Victoria in my civilian identity wasn’t exactly wise, but Aisha was with me.

“Man, she’s fucked up,” she said as a Number came by holding her plate of food.

“You know, I think using your powers to stand in line while also finding a table counts as abuse,” I told her.

“Nope, not illegal and the PRT does not forbid charitable services on the part of Capes, and a Cape can charge a nominal fee.”

“And?”

“And tomorrow I’m gonna start offering three places in line, five bucks a pop for anyone who doesn’t want to be in line while the good seats get taken.”

I stared at her. “Charitable.”

“What, you want civilians to suffer achy feet?”

“And the fee?”

“Goes to a charity fund. Gonna get you a spa treatment.”

 My bugs froze.

“What?”

“Hah! Nah, just funning you, you look fine.” Aisha glanced around. “Maybe buy some shit for Bro. He’s walking around on eggshells. You know our apartment, the one with all the security stuff on it?”

“Yeah?” 

“Middle of the night, he gets up and actually checks me, like I’m gonna run out.”

“He’s afraid,” I said.

“I made it.”

“But you might not have.” I didn’t know if the middle of a lunchroom was the place for this. “I… My mother left one day, as usual, only she never came back in. I expect your brother has that playing through his head. What if the last time he’d seen you he’d just casually waved or even not noticed?”

“Couldn’t let the kids, you know, die.”

“I didn’t say you should.”

“God, my trainer—you know they call him Death?

“Death?”

“Me in a room with a blindfold, and he throws stuff at me. Then I gotta do the rescue dummy, without my Numbers. This Friday, he’s gonna fill a room with tear gas and I gotta put a breather on, clear it, and then do a medical check on some Armsmaster dummy, without my numbers because they decided that I’m trying to pull someone out where Hatchetface is.”

“And?”

“And then he shows me all these nasty, NASTY films, you know, like The Man From Lox.”

“It seems like they want to be sure that you are trained.”

“They’re sadists. Which makes me a masochist.”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I can quit any time I want! He, like told me nobody would hold it against me…” She grumbled.

I tried not to smile. It was clear someone was playing to Aisha’s hot buttons and probably keeping her busy.

“I’m fine, Vicky!” Amy’s annoyed comment came across the air.

“C-Aegis said she’d been working 16-hour shifts until today,” Aisha said in a lower voice. “A lot of people were fucked up, and she had to go through and pull out the stuff. You know, so they didn’t get cancer.”

I nodded. I’d studied Amy, of course, and her power didn’t act instantly, save for the most minor injuries. With that, we went back to eating.

I wondered though, what would the Protectorate do when Aisha finished the course and got bored again?

*****

Later that night, my bugs were out and about. Orb Weaver had intervened in two muggings and an attempted rape as I’d walked to the closed DWA.

Orb Weaver was not as active as I’d like. After this was solved, I’d have to make certain to find some criminals to make a public example of.

Getting into the DWA building was easy.

I had a copy of Dad’s key. It wasn’t like the building was secure—the only money on the premises was petty cash, and that was taken home every day. The rest of the building was just old meeting rooms, dusty floors that had once been busy, and the records room.

I didn’t bother to read the records. I just pulled them out, every record having to do with the DWA’s interactions with the chemical company or its predecessor. The index files let me know where to go, and I just took pictures of them. I could read the files back home, where someone showing up to grab something they had forgotten wouldn’t raise awkward questions.

It took nearly an hour, hundreds of pages, but I felt satisfied as I headed home. When I got in range, I saw Dad’s truck in the driveway, but I’d told him I’d be out. Walking inside I saw that he was preparing dinner, and I waved as I came into the room.

“How did the day go, Taylor?”

“Less chaos than usual. Aisha is bemoaning safety training.”

He snorted. “She’s lucky to be around to get it. Is she taking it seriously.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He paused. “You know we have a… certification program, if you wanted it. Never know when you might…”

“I’ll think about it. This is good,” I told him. Normally I cooked but… Huh. When was the last time Dad had cooked like this?

Meanwhile, in my basement, in the underground chambers where I’d had my legions bury cheap cellphones, their lights only falling on endless insects moving in the chamber, I was going over the records. Forty pages at a time.  It was—I paused, fork full of pasta nearly to my mouth.

“Dad, Mark Reynolds. The old lawyer. Did he do much?”

“Mark. Real bulldog. He’d push even if the case was weak, because sometimes they’d just give in to make us go away. Died of a heart attack oh…”

“About a month after the old company went bankrupt.”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“But a real bulldog, right?”

“Yeah.”

And he sounded like that when he first sent memos to the DWA. Then he goes and has a meeting and tells everyone they can’t do anything.

I started checking other files. The DWA wasn’t involved in everything of course, but members could request legal assistance and…

People went to meetings, and both lawyers and employees came back, saying… Nothing could be done.

Even if they claimed they had clear evidence.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“What you told me. Did you ever… directly deal with either chemical company?  Meet their representatives?”

“No. That really wasn’t in my bailiwick. Why?”

“Did anyone who did seem… different?”

“No more than you get when you realize that you don’t have…”  He trailed off. “Taylor?”

“I’ve been doing research, and it just clicked over in my mind. Talking to Mrs. Dallon, I don’t think Lawyers just come back and say they don’t have a case. But Mr. Reynolds did. You said he was a bulldog.”

“Even a bulldog has to give in, sometimes.”

“Maybe.” I kept running through the documents. Documents including who was at the meetings. Different men, different people from the DWA and other groups and…

A secretary. Achilles G Landon.

My bugs went berserk, using every search engine I could find. I had a few images. A forgettable man at a company picnic. A graduate photo at a high school. A dating profile…

Aggressively normal. But the only person who was at every meeting where this occured. And I have an address.

“Dad, I have to go,” I said. “I just thought of something. I’ll be back a little later.”

“Does it involve your business?” Dad asked.

“Just asking a few questions. Nothing serious.”

I couldn’t scream, “Master.” I just couldn’t. 

People had been lynched for less. Entire communities had been torn apart by the mere possibility, families turning on each other, uncertain if they could trust their own minds…

I had to check. I had to be certain before I sent up the call.

And I would be.