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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 203: Takano 147
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 64
Everyone at work had several days off due to the fire, and the work of fire investigators, which had set Cutter to screeching at last night's company meeting. It had been a thing of beauty when the fire marshall pointedly told him that not only would it be illegal for the workers to go back right now, it would likely also void insurance claims as well.
Walking home from lunch at the deli with Uncle Brian, Tommy saw Robbie waving at her discreetly from across the street. She excused herself, and remembering her first day made for a crosswalk. Catching up to the supervillainess in their secret identities, she exchanged hugs and squeals of delight on the sidewalk. All anyone else saw was two cute young girls greeting each other.
"What brings you out here? Oh, you're going to rob my house?" Tommy kidded with a broad smile.
"Not unless you're a lot richer than I think you are. No, I thought I'd return the favor. You taught me a skill, and I thought I'd teach you one. Interested?"
Tommy thought for a moment, and then nodded eagerly. Her friend had grown up in the circus. Plus, her life of crime had her climbing buildings at night. Clearly she would have some useful skills for the superheroine Truth to learn.
"Follow me, then." Robbie led them down a side street, into an alley, and another alley, and across another street, and another alley until they came to a open square with one narrow gravel driveway between two tall brick buildings and the alley so that the whole area was well shielded from sight on all sides by the two- and three-story buildings. A stack of concrete blocks in the midst of the dusty concrete square went to the back door of one building.
"This is one of my current training spots. The building to our right is filled with noisy machinery, as it's the newspaper printing press, so no one can hear anything, and the back door over there leads to an empty warehouse which use to be a factory. In a few months once they get it fixed up I may have to find another location, but for now it's good. I put up some bells on strings so if anyone decides to wander by I'll be alerted."
Tommy looked around. It was a little haven of solitude in the midst of the city.
"Turn around," Robbie said, and began pulling off her outer clothes. Tommy spun, and heard Robbie add, "Change yourself as well." Blushing at changing in the open, Tommy did so, and became Truth. She turned back and saw Robinette facing away from her, and doing stretches.
"O.K., I've got a feeling you wanted to show me more than just a good training area."
Robinette finished her stretches, and nodded. She pointed to a brick wall that ran up to a flat roof.
"An important skill for supers like us is to be able to judge by eye how far things are. How tall is that wall?"
Tommy looked at it, and guessed as well as she could.
"Fifteen feet."
"Good. It's sixteen and a half. Now, watch," and Robinette ran full speed at the wall, leaping up, her feet driving into the bricks, and went up and over. Tommy stared with her mouth hanging open. Robinette turned back and smiled broadly.
"Now you know how I felt when I first read your mind." She lowered herself over the edge on her rope to the ground.
"I can't do that." Tommy objected. "I don't have wall climbing super powers."
"Neither do I. It's like that pattern you showed me. Once you know the pattern of actions to take, you'll be able to climb that wall as well. That poor weirdo Gorillaxe was right. We really can do a lot more than we think."
"O.K. Now what?"
Robinette walked over to the pile of concrete blocks that was eight feet tall in the midst of the area.
"I hired someone to drop these off," and she swarmed up and flipped to land on the top. "Now do that."
Doubtfully, Tommy ran at the three-foot wide pile of white concrete blocks with the solid side facing her. She remembered that Robinette had put a foot on the wall so she did as well, and reached for the top edge, and got it, and then stalled out to drop back to the ground.
"Watch again." This time Robinette did it without the fancy flip. Tommy tried again. No joy. "O.K., I'll go slower." She did, and it seemed harder for Robinette. Tommy got up, and had her face above the wall top which was covered with one solid sheet of concrete, and then dropped straight down. She might have hurt her knees but she instinctively went into a hard surface roll.
Robbie clapped.
"Now I know you can do this because that control damage roll you did is a lot harder than a wall jump."
Tommy thought. Part of the problem was she did not believe she could do it, but Robinette seemed certain. OK, she would trust her friend who was after all quite knowledgeable about this sort of thing. The other problem was that even slowed down Robinette was moving too fast for Tommy to decipher what she was doing, and she rather thought that maybe the idea of this being a pattern had not been a throwaway comment, but the key.
"Say Robinette, could I read your mind while you're doing it?"
"Huh. Yeah! Let's do that. I'll think real loud my steps as I do them."
Robinette got set up and Tommy listened in.
Five running steps from the wall--wall is eight feet, two inches--run, run, run, run, run--leap with right leg up and hands reaching above--catch edge with fingers, good catch--shove off with right leg not keeping close to wall to get traction--push up with left foot on wall--push up with right foot on wall--now shoulders level with wall top and hips moving me up--push down flat with both hands not using elbows or knees unless desperate--pull right leg up to top of wall, and keep on pushing with hands and right leg until left leg is up--rebalance--look back at my friend who is in awe of how cool I am.
"You're fairly cool." Tommy said, and laughed as Robinette pulled a face of a scowling monster with her tongue stuck out and her fingers pulling at her mouth edges. Tommy, or Truth, ran, and did the same. This time she had the pattern. The push out, if not too much, made her grip harder, and gave her traction, and that was the key that opened the lock. She had the pattern down, and got to the top.
"Now lets do this a few more times to make sure you've got it, and then we can go to the big wall." Tommy looked where Robbie was pointing at the wall the supervillainess had scaled before, which was all of sixteen and a half feet. Her doubts returned with inner shouts, but two hours later, bruised and scraped, she stood triumphantly on top of the big wall with Robinette pretending to be a cheerleader and going 'rah rah rah, go Truth!'.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #521: Versers Act. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
