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Stories from the Verse
Multiverser: The Thirteenth Story
Chapter 5: Takano 158
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 197
“Tell’s phone. Can I help you?”
Tommy was surprised by the woman’s voice that answered when she called the number listed for William Tell, Junior. She was calling from the office during lunch, hoping that the place would stay vacant long enough for her to do this without being recognized by anyone, so she pushed forward.
“Um--this is--this is Truth? Is William Tell Junior there?”
“He’s not available right now. Can I help?”
She wanted to ask to whom she was speaking, but it was already confusing enough, so she decided this must be someone who worked with Tell, and went forward.
“I received a fairly reliable tip, that someone called Metalika is planning to rob an armored car somewhere in the northeast quarter on Saturday, but I thought I’d better find out what I could about him before I looked for him.”
“I see. Well, I can’t tell you much, but I know that Metalika has the ability to dissolve metal on contact. Also, he usually works with someone known as Aceydeecy, who does something to electricity. The Eagle tried to explain it to me once, something like if he can touch the circuit he can stop electricity from moving. Somehow that means he can stop cars by touching them, but I don’t know why that would work.”
Tommy understood automotive electrical systems well enough to answer that for herself: the body of the car was itself part of the electrical circuit, every electrical device attached to the positive side of the battery and then to the body or chassis, which in turn was connected to the negative side of the battery. She thought perhaps paint might act as insulation, but there were a lot of exposed metal surfaces on a vehicle, such as the chrome bumpers.
“That’s helpful. Anything else?”
“I’m afraid that’s all I know, but I’ll tell William when he gets in.”
Thanking the woman, Tommy hung up, sat for a moment collecting her thoughts, and then realized that she had to get back to the manse to get a quick lunch before returning to her desk. It was Thursday, so paychecks would come out this afternoon, and tomorrow her lunch break would have to include a stop at the bank and probably a quick slice of pizza for lunch (although Luigi’s was sometimes crowded on Friday). Billy would probably join her there.
She grabbed her duffel in which she kept her superheroine outfit and gear, and walked quickly toward the exit to get home.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with ten other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #538: New Adventures. 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:
