Week 5.1 – Twain’s Story

Previously: Digger was abducted and forced to rob a bank by Twain, working for a mysterious someone. Twain has offered to help Digger bring that someone to justice. And now…

“Okay, no more stalling,” Digger said as they pulled away from the gas station. “Let’s get this thing done already.”

“How much money can you get your hands on?” Twain asked.

“What? Why?”

“We need gas money,” Twain said.

“Gas money? Where are we going?” Digger asked.

“New York.”

“New York?” Digger scrubbed at his face as if he could wash away the disbelief. “They took the hostage to New York?”

“No, the plan is in New York,” Twain said. “I have no idea where the hostage is by now. He may be on a plane to China for all I know.”

“Okay, back up,” Digger said. “Just what is going on?”

“Well, do you remember a while back when you helped me steal that mask?”

“Dude, when I said ‘back up,’ I didn’t mean that far.”

“This is relevant,” Twain said. “Look, the clues to what that mask did were there all the time.But as far as I can tell, nobody ever put them all together and made the mask work until I did it.”

“So?”

“So, that’s something I’m really good at,” Twain said. “I find an interesting legend, and then I dig and I put pieces together, and somewhere in there, I end up finding the truth that others have missed. Like finding that submarine with the Nazi gold.”

“Which you still owe me a share of,” Digger said.

“You don’t want that,” Twain said. “That money’s tainted. You’d never forgive yourself. The point is, I got on the trail of this other thing. I wasn’t sure what it would amount to, but I could feel in my gut that it was big. So I ended up going to Mongolia…”

“Wait a second,” Digger said, “you mean, when you said the hostage could be on a plane to China, you were being literal?”

“Of course,” Twain said. “Hyperbole’s not my style.”

“So what was the legend?”

“It was a bunch of things,” Twain said. “Hard to boil down without putting you to sleep. There was stuff about the Khans, and stuff about a magic cup that was like the Holy Grail or something, and stuff about the City of the Moon.”

“City of the Moon?” Digger said, shaking his head.

“You have to be able to look past the details and see the pattern,” Twain said. “I get there, and I’m talking to guides and studying maps and checking libraries, and one thing leads to another, I figure out where this City of the Moon is. I mean, it’s real. It might not be an actual city, but it’s a real place. So I go there.”

“And what do you find?” Digger asked. “Aliens?”

“Of course not,” Twain said. “No such thing. No, I found a military base, heavily guarded, with a village not far away. So I do my thing, try to bribe some information out of somebody, only these guys won’t be bribed. They’re too scared.”

“Of who?” Digger asked, though he feared he knew.

Who is everyone so scared of? Join us tomorrow to find out!

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