Reality Bites Worm

6.0

"Skitter, Dodona, all units are in place."

"Roger, knockout in five seconds." Taylor watched the world through her bugs, super coons, and the few birds she had gotten to work.

Ravens if you could believe it. Specifically, Northern Ravens. Five mated pairs of them since she had gotten the first one, a female of one of the mated pairs. The young ones were a bit too mischievous. She could connect to them, but they preferred hanging out in the dump in a kind of gang. Though they did pair up and then wander off to establish a territory and Taylor stayed connected. They also made better relays than the white oak beetles. Amy had managed to befriend? Make into pets? The first pair and had walked around with them on her shoulders for a couple of days then boosted them. After that the mated pairs stopped by Amy one pair at a time. Taylor wasn't even directing that.

Unfortunately, Northern Ravens preferred undisturbed forest or mountains for habitat, somewhat limiting the population. Though locally they could become large populations if they had enough food and nesting places. The females could lay up to seven eggs, and with five pairs, good sources of food, plenty of abandoned places to nest, and the mild local climate, that was thirty-five young ravens a year, which then took a couple of years to become breeding pairs. Which then lived another eighteen to twenty years. It ramped up pretty quickly. As things in Brockton Bay seemed wont to do. The first pairs had shown up at the dump ten years ago, or so local lore had it. Very few young were lost to predation as the Ravens were very intelligent, hugely aggressive, large enough, and well-armed by mother nature, enough to back that aggression up. They were in fact omnivorous predators. The youth gang in the dump terrorized the seagulls, killing and eating the young, sick, slow, or sick ones, rats, mice, and other small animals as well. Roadkill was no longer a problem in the area either. The dump provided the omnivorous raven pairs with plenty of easy food. The Brockton Bay ravens were on their way to pest status. The seagulls were hating life. The rats moved to the boat graveyard.

Taylor sent in the paired knockout and monitors. The monitors were really just a knockout that stayed with its stinger inserted after the original knockouts target hit the floor unconscious. She kept swarms ready as the four brothels, one casino, and one dogfighting building were searched. She winced "Let's move over to the dog fighting building Leslie. I am going to have to help Amy." There were both human and canine casualties at the dogfighting area. The other dogfighting areas they had found were empty, at least of people. They were still searched however. Leslie was one of the medically retired PRT veterans they had recently hired, and Amy had healed, then augmented. She was the leader of the Watch truck section.

Leslie nodded and the truck along with its wing truck moved out. The two trucks of the other section of the headquarters platoon set in over watch. Purity came up on the net "Dogfighting building as bad as you thought then?"

"Yes. Worse even. OK we got this. Everybody start inventory and recording." Taylor nodded at everyone going to work.

Armsmaster was at the casino looking for Lung "Well some of our political problems are over, or just got way worse." Taylor looked at the screen and heard Legend and Dragon start analyzing what the result of three senators being in an illegal casino would be.

Lisa snorted "Don't they have brothels in DC? I got two, no three, more politicians over here. Not local, national, oh and a couple of state ones too."

Lucy came up on the net "You think that's interesting? I just froze eighty-three accounts linked to these dog fighting people's computers. Millionaires to billionaires, what the hell. Aren't there like MMA leagues and tournaments and stuff? I know I saw something about it on the state gaming commission web site."

Amanda added "The security on these computers at the casino should have been better. I'm up to seventy-six and the worm just started."

Taylor smiled at Purity's cheering as they stopped at the building the dogfighting had been in. She came up on the net as she got out of the truck. She couldn't tell whether some of these people were males or females from her sources. "OK bring the girls, the trafficked people, from the brothels I guess, here, Physis and I will look at them. Any bangers you find as well. We will sort them out while we get this crap inventoried. Let the cops take the prisoners away after pictures. We got lucky here and put the capes down at the same time as the other people."

Thy replied "These, or most of them, will be out on bail shortly. It will take years for them to work through the court cases this brings up. Holy cow this is a lot of cash. That alone is going to be a setback for the ABB and E88."

Legend was on the net along with Alexandria and Dragon "Yes, not to mention all of their capes ending up arrested. Good thing the seizure is going to be so lucrative or we would run out of money prosecuting these."

Taylor frowned under her mask "Are these capes going to get the revolving door treatment?"

Alexandria answered "No, Not the ABB anyway. Not after that crap in New York. He was, they were on their, past their last chance really. Lung won't fight Endbringers, Oni Lee never has. The E88 always has but we are going to make a different arrangement. Endbringer fights and their participation in them, will reduce their sentences. If they fight ten times, their sentence for less than murder will be commuted to time served. If they are convicted of murder using parahuman powers they are probably going to the Birdcage. They may get the deal, if they aren't Kaiser. The prosecutors want him pretty bad."

Danny came up on the net "That new prison we are building will be finished just in time for these then."

Taylor sighed "It's going to be a zoo around here this summer. You just know the idiots will try to fill in where the Empire and ABB used to be. Or be idiots and try to break these ones out."

Athena came up "Trucks two one through three four stand by for fire mission. I have control of your guns."

Taylor looked at her HUD unfocusing on the patient she was treating "Seriously, a whole crowd of them? What do they think they can do? And ABB mixed with Empire? What the hell?" It was nice to know her subconscious, or something kept feeding the command net information even as she was busy doing something else.

The plan had worked with the exception of Lung had stayed put in the casino. He went down to the knockouts like everyone else. Albeit fifteen of them. Armsmaster had found him in an office on the upper floor and added a dose of a special tranquilizer. Taylor was paying attention to that monitor hornet. Whatever that stuff did it put Lung barely alive.

The guns opened up and Emily laughed "Find out what Watch foam looks like from the inside?"

Athena replied "Nope that is PRT foam. We wanted to use it so we could dissolve them out one or two at a time. We weren't sure how many assets we would have for how long."

Two blocks of streets disappeared under eight feet of foam. Emily cackled a bit "So that will keep the little bastards from getting away. We can dissolve them out one at a time and process them. Nice. I am so glad we got you all that. Glad to see it worked too."

Danny laughed "Look at all of us working together. Another five years of this and it will be a nice place to live again."

Alexandria snorted "In five years we can have most of the Protectorate working like this, I hope. So, Thy, what is the estimate?"

Thy answered a bit stunned "Thirty-seven million dollars, cash and frozen assets so far. We got the right end of the string. We keep pulling and stuff keeps unraveling. I think we got all the E88 capes aside from Victor and Othala. We for sure got all the ABB capes."

"Victor and Othala texted me. They want to talk terms." Bia offered.

Purity sighed "Anyone besides Storm Tiger, Hookwolf, and Cricket, we can probably arrange terms for. Well, not Krieg or Kaiser, but they wouldn't ask for terms in the first place. Night and Fog either but they left. Victor is going to do time though, hard time, in that new prison Union Man is so proud of."

Lisa, who had walked up to Taylor, and at Thy's estimate had rubbed her temples, said "That isn't all their money. A lot of it is other peoples. It's like they were running a laundry somehow."

Dragon spoke up "That's exactly what it is, one stage in a money laundry. A big one. Seven hundred million dollars so far and now we are getting into large national and international organization. It's growing exponentially. We just put a serious hurt on most of the organized villains. The Elite especially. I have a list of names and am sending it to Chief Director Costa Brown. If we move fast, we can roll up a lot of the illegal operations."

Legend smiled "Finally. Now maybe I can pin something on Bastard Son while the others aren't providing cover for him."

Thy added "The IRS is going to compete over these assets, this keeps growing. It's, touching billions of dollars now, two major banks, insurance companies, venture capital firms. In just the last seconds we touched another nine million dollars. It's like we took out an under layer and the other layers are collapsing into it."

Dragon supplied "The dollars involved in crime just in America, well, it's in the trillions. This has already gone international. It's going to be a feeding frenzy among the governments."

Amanda asked "So, if we freeze all their money and the IRS confiscates it, does that mean they are going to be using public defenders instead of their normal top gun lawyers?"

Thy and Brandish conferred for a moment then Brandish offered, "After the first check bounces, probably. Though a judge may make them keep the case. This would overwhelm all the public defenders. The smart firms will pull out tomorrow morning. Some of the less reputable firms may try asset recovery. That won't help the villains much though, mainly it will go to the firms.

Taylor snorted "So, I don't have to be a thinker to figure out Bastard Son will be heading this way. Lucy let's get some brain bugs into New York City. Last report had him softening up the opposition there. We still have the ones on the high-speed avenue to Albany. I'll let them spread out a bit and start cutting off the secondary routes. The ravens can move some for us. Good thing we don't have an airport."

Legend nodded "I'll be chasing him anyway. I think I want to have a talk with him."

Alexandria added "So do I. But I may be a bit busy rolling up the operation on the west coast. What the hell, how were they all tied together and we didn't know at all?"

Lisa laughed "They didn't know either. Number Man tied it all together in some complex scheme. They are going to go after him first. Rightly so actually, as this should not have collapsed an adequately backed up and prepared plan. Even though it was attacked by multiple thinkers and tinkers.

"One good thing, we have the politicians by the balls. Even if they didn't participate directly they accepted campaign donations from these people and organizations. All the way down to local politicians it looks like. The worm is finding them all. Damn. I know we worked hard on that design but it is relentless. As long as the parameters we programmed into it hold up in court, well this is going to be bad."

Thy sighed "They will hold up. The people that checked them are thinkers who are forensic accountants and lawyers. The IRS even gave them a look. Let me amend that, they will hold up in tax court."

Danny laughed and laughed "Isn't that how they sent Al Capone to jail? They got him on taxes and then piled on a bunch of other stuff once they had him."

Lucy asked "Who, oh never mind, I Googled him. Crap, yes they did." Danny was still laughing on the net.

Alexandria and Legend were having a side bar over Triumvirate communications provided by Cauldron. Contessa came into this conversation "Number Man is unconscious. What happened?"

Legend informed her and the channel went silent. Finally, Contessa sighed "Yes, this will be a problem. The path has changed. Radically. We need to meet as soon as you can."

Alexandria chuckled, then laughed, then laughed a bit hysterically really. Contessa peevishly asked, "Perhaps the rest of us could share your good humor?"

Alexandria snorted "What are you a teacher? I'm not your unruly student. The Watch just became the single wealthiest organization on the planet. Their fifteen percent is untouchable by law, its fifteen percent of the gross. The IRS is going to dig in and find every penny and seize it. The amount will be public record. We can't stop it and can only tap it after the fact.

"It's a good thing Number man is off the planet. He can never come back here I think."

There was a shocked silence then a groan from Contessa. Legend was chuckling "I think we have to add to Skitters rating. Breaker, ten plus, Luck."