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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 186: Takano 141
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 59
Immediately after work, Tommy took a cab to Robbie’s place. Brian did not want to learn psionics, and Robbie was the only other person she knew in this world whom she trusted at all. Granted, her friend was technically a supervillain, but there was something noble in the Robin Hood notion of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, whatever percentage Robinette kept for herself.
Still, she hesitated on the doorstep, wondering whether this might be a mistake, before ringing the bell. Robbie answered quickly.
“Hi!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Tommy laughed it off. “Well, I would have called, but we don’t really have a phone.”
“Don’t have a phone?”
“There is one in the house, but it’s an extension off the church’s line, and so we don’t use it. We could probably make an emergency call from it, but Uncle Brian doesn’t think we need our own. After all, we only know a few people in this world, and don’t have much reason to call them. Anyway, can I come in?”
“Oh--sure. I was getting ready to go out tonight, but I’m not in a hurry. What’s up?”
“This might seem weird,” Tommy began; “O.K., maybe in this world it won’t sound weird, I don’t know. I recently learned how to read minds.”
“That sounds like fun. I hope you didn’t come over to practice on me.”
“No, nothing like that. I was also taught how to teach someone else to do it, but I won’t really know whether I can teach someone else until I actually try. You’re probably my best friend in this world, with the benefit that you already know my secret, so I thought I would try to show you how to do it, and then I would know that I could do that, too.”
“Seriously?”
Tommy shrugged. Robbie hesitated.
“Is it dangerous?”
Again she shrugged, and said, “I’m told it can be. So far it seems to have worked all right.”
Her friend pondered a moment, then said, “All right, what do I have to do?”
“You have to relax, I think, and I have to find your mind and give you the pattern. After that, you have to try the pattern, probably by trying to read my mind.”
“Wow, I’ll be able to find all kinds of secrets.”
“I don’t know. As far as I know I can only read surface thoughts--what someone is thinking right now--but I know that there are a lot of other things people do with it. I just haven’t learned them. Ready?”
Robbie closed her eyes. “Ready.”
Tommy first read her mind; she was thinking that this would be really cool and useful if it worked, which was not much different from what she herself had thought when she was about to learn. She turned over the patterns in her mind, and projected the read minds pattern to her friend. Robbie’s eyes opened.
“Got it?” Tommy asked.
“I think so,” Robbie replied.
“Try it,” she said.
Her own mind wandered to wondering what she would learn next. Then Robbie asked, “So, what do you think you’ll learn next?”
She smiled. “I guess it works.” A nod confirmed this. “I’m not sure. I might learn to summon butterflies.”
Robbie laughed.
“Well, I won’t keep you,” Tommy said. “I gave up my cab, and need to get home, and you’re going out tonight.”
“Later,” Robbie said, and escorted her to the door.
Still, she wondered whether this might have been a mistake.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
