Patreon or PayPal Me keeps this site and its author alive. Thank you. |
Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 81: Cooper 26
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 310
Seeing a low stone outcropping alongside the road, Brian sat on it. He had walked quite a few miles, what with switchbacks on the mountainside, but parallax told him that his possessions were quite near now, up the hill a short distance off the road. He was above the treeline, and the air was a bit thinner up here, but the view of the river and the city below was stunning. He wondered why this hadn’t been a national park.
He heard the sound of a motorcycle, and his first thought was that someone from the Blackmasks had pursued him to take revenge; but as he listened he realized that the sound was coming from the slope above him, that someone was perhaps dirt-biking in the mountains.
He watched as the vehicle came into view. He would not have called it a dirtbike; it was a rather impressive machine which he bet could easily have caught those crotch-rockets ridden by the villains in the city below. But it was the rider that really caught his eye. He was wearing a ridiculous costume, mostly brown with a fringed feathery look, and a hood that was white but for two features, one a prominent beak-like nose, the other goggles that appeared to be rather high-tech.
The rider slowed, stopping directly in front of him, and then said with a distorted voice, “Mister Justice! What brings you up here?”
Brian deduced that the distortion was an effect built into the beak to disguise the voice, and that this must be a superhero--he could hardly imagine a villain stopping to chat with him, although he supposed it might be possible. He answered, “It’s a bit difficult to explain. How do you know me?”
“How can you not remember? Has some villain stolen your memory?” the superhero asked.
“Not exactly. I’m afraid Mister Justice died, but the sword summoned me to take his place, so I’m the new Mister Justice, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do. And you are?”
“I am sorry to hear about that; he was a good man. I’m known as The Eagle.”
Brian thought that there was a poetic absurdity to it, and had difficulty keeping a straight face as he responded, “So you roost up here and keep watch over the city?”
“Something like that. I have transponders down below that forward police band radio to me up here, so I know when there’s something really serious and can fly down to help. We’ve worked together before, sometimes with Tell.”
He can fly? Of course he can; that’s why he’s The Eagle. “Tell?” he asked.
“William Tell Junior? Says he’s the descendant of the famed Swiss crossbowman. I don’t know whether that’s true, but he’s a crack shot with the crossbow.”
Cooper realized the foolishness that he had not merely met William Tell but was a guest in his home for a few weeks, and never once got him to show him how to fire a crossbow. That was a lost opportunity he would never recover. As his mind went back to them, he hoped they escaped, and that the priest actually did investigate Geisler; but right now he had to bring his mind back to the present. It also struck him that it was beyond absurd coincidence that he should have been with the real Wilhelm Tell a few hours ago, and now he was in a world with someone claiming to be his distant descendant. He wondered again whether maybe this entire experience might be some kind of dream; but then, when he was in Nagaworld they told him that there were other versers who thought that, and ultimately it didn’t matter, because even if it were a dream you would have to make choices and take action.
“To answer your first question,” he said, “before the sword summoned me I was a dimensional traveler, of sorts; I came from a different universe. The way I travel, some of my possessions also travel to the next world, but are as far from me in the new world as they were in the previous one. So I have hiked up here from the city because I’m aware--and I can’t easily explain how I am aware--that something of mine is just behind me up this slope a short distance. I’ve come to pack up and then--well, then I’m not at all sure. I left a couple bags of Mister Justice equipment in a bus locker at the railroad terminal down there, but from the look of things it will be dark before I can get back to them, and I’m going to need to find a place to stay tonight, which probably means money, and all I have is a few gold coins I’ll probably have to sell or exchange for cash.” He had not really considered all that before this moment. He was probably going to end up on the street tonight. “Sorry to burden you with all that. Just sort of thinking aloud.”
“Wow. Well, welcome to the Rio Grande Valley.” Although without being able to see his face it was impossible to gauge an expression, something about his stance suggested The Eagle was thinking. Then he said, “Go, get your things, and come back. I’ll give you a lift back to the city, and we’ll figure it out from there.”
He did not need to be told twice. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be a few minutes; I probably have to pack a few things,” and he wearily rose and made the last scramble over the loose rock and scrub pine to find the contents of his former bedroom in the Swiss chalet now transferred to the Rockies.
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 #509: Character Challenges. 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:
