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Stories from the Verse
Multiverser: The Thirteenth Story
Chapter 20: Takano 163
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 202
By noon on Saturday Tommy, dressed and equipped as Truth, was seated on the front steps of the Presbyterian Church. She didn’t want to call too much attention to the idea that Truth lived in the manse, and in fact she brought her duffel to contain her outfit so she could return home as Tommy. Seeing Keller’s Cadillac approach, she stepped out to the sidewalk to be seen. He was not likely to miss her--in her deerskin jacket and rabbit fur cap with the mask, she did not look like the regular citizens of Berkeley. She soon was in the passenger’s seat.
“So,” she said, “any fresh ideas about how we do this?”
The driver was dressed in lederhosen with a cap that reminded her of Robin Hood; a crossbow and quiver sat on the seat between them. This was William Tell, Junior--actually William Keller, but that really was an invented persona.
“The only idea I have at the moment is to drive to the edge of the city and onto the highway, then watch for the armored car and follow it. Presumably our villains have set an ambush for it, but one which we are unlikely to detect before it is sprung, so our best hope is that we will still be following the target when the villains attack, and we can move into action then.”
“And the Eagle?”
“He’s promised to keep an eye on things, but as good as he is, he can’t stay airborne for hours.”
It occurred to Tommy that someone like Theian Toreinu Morach--Derek’s sprite persona--or perhaps Green Hawk would have been useful for this, but the former had been dispatched to another world by Mordenslice, and the latter considered himself retired. You work with what you have; that was all she could say. What about Sockajawea? She had all those powers, but Tommy couldn’t remember her saying she could fly. Star Miss could, but she was in Yellowstone, and this probably wasn’t a big enough deal to ask her to fly down here to help them.
It was probably half an hour later that Tell pulled over on the side of an onramp to a westbound highway very near the city limits. “Keep your eyes peeled,” he said, “for a Wells Fargo armored car. That’ll be the target, if we’ve guessed right.”
It occurred to Tommy to wonder whether they might have guessed wrong--that is, whether there might be more than one armored car passing through the northeast quarter today, and this just happened to catch Tell’s attention because it was a diamond shipment, and therefore obviously valuable. On the other hand, with Mordenslice and Gorillaxe both dead, there weren’t many evil geniuses at work who might want to steal some valuable piece of technology. Still, she hadn’t been privy to the list of potential targets.
Was that because she wasn’t trusted?
Probably not, she reasoned. After all, Tell had to persuade people to give him information that they certainly wouldn’t divulge to anyone they didn’t trust, and probably wouldn’t share with people they did trust, simply to keep the information as secret as possible. Indeed, it was entirely plausible that someone has a very valuable cargo moving today that is so protected no one would tell either William Keller or William Tell Junior, but Metalika had gotten wind of it. That, again, could mean they were protecting the wrong vehicle--but they couldn’t do anything about that. For the moment, all they could do was wait for the truck they thought was the right one, and hope they could keep it from being robbed.
They sat for about an hour. It was rather boring trying to stay focused on watching traffic go by. Tommy considered trying to make small talk, but nothing really came to mind. She could ask him about going to school in Switzerland, but probably going to college was never going to be part of her life, so it was kind of moot. She was tempted to play with her phone, but a lot of things on it just didn’t work without the internet and the cellular network. It didn’t even really keep time all that well.
Suddenly she started. There was a small truck passing on the highway ahead. “Is that it?” she said, probably a bit louder than necessary and pointing at the same time. Tell apparently had also lost focus, and suddenly reacted.
“That’s a Wells Fargo armored car. Time to go.” He was already starting the engine, and pulled off the shoulder onto the ramp to follow, not too closely.
Tell’s usual wild driving was moderated by the fact that they had to stay a bit of a distance behind the armored car. They were now entering the city, as the highway became a local main road, complete with cross streets and traffic lights, businesses and residences. It occurred to Tommy that Tell was going to keep track of the truck, so she should probably keep her eyes out for everything else. She wasn’t certain what she was seeking. There was a Good Humor ice cream truck selling treats to kids and grown ups down one street. She noticed a police car on routine patrol. One thing that struck her odd was a garbage truck parked along a side road; she couldn’t think of why a garbage truck would be parked in a downtown neighborhood.
A few minutes later, Tell said, “That’s it. The truck just left the northeast corner headed for the business district. Should we follow it?”
Tommy thought, but shook her head. “So, why wasn’t it ambushed?”
“It could be,” Tell said, “that the tip wasn’t any good, or that the villains got wind of us running protection and called off the job.”
“Or that we have the wrong truck,” Tommy suggested. “Hey, when you were finding out about armored cars, did you tell Wells Fargo about the tip?”
He bit his lip. “I probably did.”
“And they probably added a decoy truck to go ahead of the real one, so the robbers would hit the wrong truck.”
“And however Metalika is getting his information, he found out about the decoy. So what now?”
She thought.
“Turn around,” she thought. “Go back maybe three or four blocks. I saw something.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw a garbage truck parked on a side street facing out. I didn’t notice, but if they have another large vehicle in the street across, they could bring them both out and stage a mock accident in front of the armored car, stopping traffic and launching their attack.”
“Sounds good to me,” Tell said, and with very little signal he pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road and sped back to the corner. They reached it just in time to see a garbage truck pull out from their left and run directly into a dump truck coming from the right, blocking the intersection fairly completely.
“Go! Go! Go!” Tell shouted, as he started grabbing his gear from the seat between them, and Tommy hopped out the door into the street.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
