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Stories from the Verse
Multiverser: The Thirteenth Story
Chapter 41: Takano 170
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 209
Chewing the cud as it were of her latest design problem at work, she leapt from one rooftop to the next. Nineteen feet, but it was not a problem anymore. The seven story drop bothered her less with each leap as she grew to know the town. Better, she grew more at ease with every leap.
Running across the rooftop, she dove off the side, and went down three stories in a swan dive. Her kawanaga played out behind her, catching the edge of the Ford Motor sign atop the Lansing Building, and slowing her fall. Still, she hit the gravel faster than she liked, and went into a tumble to bleed off more of her speed. The fall and dive and slow was still a work in progress. Shaking off the ache from the landing, she made her way back to the rooftops to continue her exercise program.
It had been a month since Brian and Derek and Vashti left her in this world of superheroes and supervillains. Looking over toward the Hecate Tower, she saw a man atop it. He was breaking in. Well, speaking of supervillains, or just ordinary robbers, it seemed she was on duty.
Leaping down to the right to get around the man and come up from behind him bled some height. She ran and swung the kawanaga to get the thirty foot distance to the fire escape on the next downtown building. Climbing the fire escape as light-footedly as she could to the top, she ran to another corner, and dove off. Just one story and fifteen feet so she did not bother to use the kawanaga, but just went with a roll and tumble and back to her feet and running. She had not seen the man in a bit, so she assumed he was inside the Hecate Tower or still on the roof.
She leapt across, and into a side window she knew from experience stayed open. Inside the tower, in some executive s office, she opened the door and crept down the thickly carpeted hallway. Given that she was five stories up, the executive leaving his window open was not that a big security risk as he did not have a fire escape on that side of the tower. Or so you would think, but with heroes like Truth and villains like Robinette and others prowling the night in Berkeley, Colorado, one might be advised to reconsider.
Truth came to the moonlit lobby with its five-sided skylight and looked up to spot the man breaking in. He was standing there, and so she slid back into the darkened edges of the marbled lobby. He opened the skylight a bit wider, and leapt down. It was a forty foot drop, and he did it without fear. Definitely superhuman, she decided, and rushed forward to catch him off-guard as he landed.
He hit the ground, and went under her kawanaga and her left hook, all the way down to his knees which popped as he almost sat his butt on the floor. Overextended, all she could do was begin to gasp in horror as he rose like a jack in the box, his right fist slamming her in the breadbox, driving all the wind out of her, and folding her like an accordion. His leather gloved left did a perfect hook that at the last second altered and hit her cheekbone.
Pain wobbled in her head, and nausea raced about her stomach as she heard a distant male voice.
"Kid. You okay? Truth? Yeah, Truth, come on." She cracked open one eye, and saw a broad shouldered man leaning over her. Following the first instinct, she lashed out with a kick, and he laughed, and crossed one leg in front of the other. Her kick hit his thigh.
"Good, you're okay." The marble floor under her hands, and the light of the skylight behind him, outlining and shadowing him, left her relieved. She had not been moved.
"What?" She felt teeth in her left cheek were loose.
"Yeah, sorry. I saw you rushing me, and I thought you were a villain. I'm Fisticuff, by the way."
"I'm Truth," she said sitting up, and wincing as her stomach reported in. She was going to have a bruise there tomorrow.
"I know. I pulled my head punch when I saw."
"Pulled?" She felt her cheekbone, and checked in with the powerful headache.
"Yeah, sorry again. I was going too fast to stop it, so I slowed it, and changed to hit the cheekbone instead of the temple. Really sorry."
She thought to herself. It was reasonable. She had known that Berkeley had the superheroes The Eagle, William Tell Junior, Sockajawea, and Fisticuff. She had never met Fisticuff, well, until now. Which left the question of what he was doing now. Why was he breaking into Hecate Tower? Was he actually a villain?
"So why are you breaking into Hecate Tower?" She got slowly to her feet. Now standing up, she could see that his stubbled face and large jaw sat below a nose broken more than once, and his ears were showing signs of having been hit more than once, too. His domino mask would be enough for this world, but she was confident she could recognize him elsewhere. He was six foot four inches, and looked as if he lifted heavy iron regularly.
A tight shirt and pants of some material that looked very durable were finished off by a pair of leather gloves that flared just above his wrists. He stood well-balanced and ready to fight, and looked at least ten years older than her, which she regretted because if not, she might have hoped for a smile. He did not have the pure good looks and the athletic musculature of William Tell (who was married, she reminded herself), but he looked like a dump truck in human form.
"Let me ask you another question first? Please." He looked insistent so she shrugged.
"When was the first time you saw Hecate Tower?"
"What?" Her face crinkled up at this nonsense. "When I first came to this world."
He raised an eyebrow.
"A very interesting answer, off-worlder. However, are you sure?"
"Of course, I'm sure, I was working with Mister Justice and--" She frowned. "I--" Her stomach churned again for a different reason. "First time I remember it is one week ago when I spotted the side window open."
"I first spotted it nine days ago. Thing is, I've wracked my brain, and all I can remember was there was some sort of smaller tower here before. I can't remember what."
She felt a sudden rage flush her, and hatred, and a desire to run off, but this was not her. God--she began to pray, and the sensation fled. He nodded.
"You felt a strange urge, right?"
"Yes."
"I think it's magic. Look, the first thing that clued me in was the name. Hecate, odd name, so I went to the library. Goddess of magic among the Greeks. I cannot see our local community being happy to name a downtown tower after a witch. So I started pulling on that thread, aware something was off. I then realized the building was new. So I told a few people. They yelled at me, or ran off, and forgot what I said. I checked the public papers in the city office. There are none. This plot is empty, which makes no sense as it's right in the downtown."
"So you decided to sneak in here."
"This is my fourth time." He grinned ruefully. "I usually work alone, but you resisted the spell, and I owe you for those punches. Maybe you can spot something I haven't. I"m more of a boxer and a street brawler than a smarty pants."
Slowly, she nodded. Her quest to find a way to pin Aceeydeecy was not yet working, despite her having read his thoughts over ten times. She still had that question as to who had killed Gorillaxe in the local jail. Maybe she could find out what strangeness was behind Hecate Tower, and ask Fisticuff about the others as well.
"This is my first time being a burglar."
He grinned.
"Breaking and entering for a good cause is like kissing a girl for the first time. Very exciting. But the second and third times are very good, too."
Blushing and grateful for the dark hallway they entered off the main lobby, she followed him as they went searching for what they knew not.
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 #542: Verser Initiatives. 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:
