Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen (3 page)

Michelle didn’t even try to hit me with her power bands. Tuyen didn’t try to control my mind, Robert didn’t use his ultrasonics, Tony didn’t use his strength, Jimmy didn’t teleport me out of there. They didn’t need to. The gym was too small, the music too loud, the lights too bright. I ran for the exit on my own pure instinct. I smashed the doors open, veered left into the hall, crushed lockers with my shoulders like a massive pinball of muscle and claw. I needed more space, and I felt like howling all the way to the stars. I ripped the door at the end of the hallway off its hinges, but I couldn’t fit through the frame. I pushed and tore, but the walls were concrete and wouldn’t give.

The next voice I heard was Stephen’s. I don’t know what he said. Sometimes I lose my human language skills. But his tone was cool and jokey and low-key. He could afford to be that way, even in this situation. His agility, strength, and super martial arts gave him even odds in a fight with the Grizzly. He leaned against a wrecked locker, arms folded loosely, making wisecracks about how his father was the head of the Separate School Board and would have to explain this to the parents. They already didn’t like the extra fees and insurance they had to pay because of us X-freaks. Stephen said, “But it’s not our fault we were freaks. We can’t do anything but be who we are, and the bushels around here aren’t big enough to hide our light.”

I slowly turned back into Patrick. I had lost my glasses and my clothes. Stephen gave me his suit jacket and helped me out the hall door and up the stairs to my locker, where I had my gym clothes. He asked if I wanted to call my parents to come get me. I didn’t. But my bus pass was in my wallet. He actually went back to the gym to get it for me. He found my glasses, too. He said he’d straighten everything out with his father. I’d be all right. There’d be other dances.

I said, “Thanks,” and went out the back door to go and wait for the bus to take me to my little, normal home. I never want to become the Grizzly again.

* * *

A couple of weeks later, I got a call from Stephen— or should I say, Man O’War. He, Rob, Tony, Tuyen, and Jimmy had decided to take on super-identities and see if the Justice Alliance, who were headquartered in downtown Calgary, would train them. But they arrived just as the Myth Masters had beaten the team and taken over the building. So now they were trapped— and Quanta was with them. The Grizzly went charging to the rescue, and it caused enough chaos and confusion to give the Alliance time to come back and send the bad guys running. Acidonna told us to give up superheroing before we got ourselves killed like her Justice Teens. Instead, Man O’War and I started meeting at lunchtime with Flying Fox, Lakyr, Mynde, and Transit to talk about how to become full-fledged superheroes. It didn’t last more than a year. Transit quit the first time he got hurt; all Mynde wanted was to get his learner’s permit and be a normal Alberta teenager; Lakyr was caught using his powers at a swim competition; Flying Fox’s parents grounded him; Man O’War decided that it wasn’t good for his long-term political career.

But I’d been thinking of Stephen’s “light under a bushel” comment. It’s from Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.” What right did we have to hide our powers and abilities? What right did we have to not help people? What right did we have to be so small and selfish?

So when everyone else whined or ran away or otherwise hid their lights, I continued to fulfil my Grizzly destiny. At least, until Professor Chronos came along with his own insane prophecies and used poor Quanta to destroy the Time Barrier. But that’s a whole other crisis.

* * *

Patrick T. Goddard is a Montréal writer, translator, and performer. His plays include the musical
Johnny Canuck and the Last Burlesque
.

Jessica and the True North

Kevin Cockle

He was telling her about how identity was a pattern; how his algorithm detected patterns, and detected patterns implied hidden patterns. She registered the pride in his voice more than the content— pride and delight. The math made him happy in an uncomplicated way, and if he’d just stuck with that — the math he’d formulated, as opposed to what he’d done with it — he’d have seemed almost harmless. But math wasn’t harmless, and neither was Rickard Acheson.

A mere lad when they’d apprehended him a dozen or so years ago; an attractive man in his late twenties now. Gone was the casual “start-up guy” style he’d once affected: now he looked as though consultants dressed him for television. Broad shoulders. Shiny black hair. Tailored suit. “Times change, Jess,” he said, smiling in triumph.

“People don’t,” she said, keeping her voice level, giving him nothing to read.

“That’s funny, coming from you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do,” Rickard said. “Chthonic Sun” had been his online alter-ego in his rebellious teens. Now he just went by “Rick.” “We stay the same, and the world revolves around us. You guys were the big heroes back in the day, the Seer and the Rock. Now look at you.” Acheson gave her a sympathetic, almost parental smile. “There was this profile on one of those online dating sites last year— who the guy was, what he expected. Put his tax return online so people could see what kind of cheques he could write. Had a habit of hitting women, so he just led with that. Didn’t lie about it, didn’t try to cover it up. Said that being with him would be well-rewarded, and that prospective applicants should expect to get hit from time to time. Guess how many responses he got.”

Jessica said nothing, could tell she was being baited.

“Three thousand, Jess,” Rickard continued. “3482, to be precise. Dating service didn’t take his profile down. Police didn’t do shit. People bitched like they do online; other people bitched right back, like they do about free speech. In the end, guy got what he wanted. So did some girl. What we in the math biz call a Pareto optimal solution.”

Jessica stared out the window into dark clouds, thirty thousand feet above Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta. “What’s your point?”

“That’s the world now, Jess. That’s why I’m the hero now, and you and the rest of True North are the criminals.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“If by ‘asshole’ you mean
Wired
’s Man of the Year, then, yeah, I’m an asshole.”

Jess looked at her dim reflection in the darkened plexiglass porthole. Haunted, bleak eyes looked back at her from a nervous, patrician face. She’d been gangly-beautiful at eighteen — more willowy than frail — but approaching fifty now, the neurological stress of her Gift had given her a thin, brittle aspect. She looked like a woman made of fine china. Felt like one, too.

There was a gradual change in forward momentum, barely detectable by the plane’s occupants. Jessica marveled at the technology: the silence of the thrusters shifting to vertical descent; the businesslike opulence of the passenger cabin— like a well-appointed hotel room in the sky. She guessed that the plane was the civilian version of a military command jet, but it was so hard to parse what was military, what was corporate, what was government these days.

She turned her most arctic gaze upon Rickard, gave him those pale polar blues. Must’ve been an accusation in her expression, because after a while he said: “Hey, you made the deal, Jess. You came to us. I’m good, but the program never would have found
you
. Your identity isn’t well defined— it’s as much noise as it is signal.”

“Pareto optimal,” she breathed. That got a smile out of him.

* * *

The office was spartan, utilitarian, all hard edges and efficiency. Jessica lay down on the portable military cot and stared at the white ceiling tiles. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the ventilation system humming, circulating stale air throughout the complex. She guessed that it was an orphaned mine, repurposed. She guessed lend-lease: a special rendition site for uncooperative supers, foreign or domestic. There was a good buck to be made in special facilities management these days.

Your identity’s not well defined
. Bastard said that right to her face. It was true though— she drifted, Jessica Delaqua did. Came with the territory. She didn’t read minds exactly; she merged with them, changed them, got changed by them. As much empath as telepath. Life after True North was difficult— trying to find a straight job; trying to keep a job without drawing attention to herself; trying to be somebody in particular long enough to get traction in a world that just wouldn’t stand still. Without the team, without her structured role as the Seer… Jess crimped her lips, hardened her heart. She didn’t want to get emotional in this place.

“It’s going to take a while,” Jessica had told Rickard before he’d left.

“Like hours? Or days? Because we’d prefer hours.”

“He knows how to shut me out. He’s strong.”

“You don’t have to tell us how strong he is. You’re his weakness, though.”

It’d been a long flight, it was late, and Jess needed to rest. She doubted she would sleep — she hardly ever did — but she needed to relax, let her body recharge.

Rickard was wrong about her and Josh. It’s not that she was Josh’s weakness and vice-versa— like some kind of Hallmark Card version of need. It was more biochemical and subatomic than emotional, though there had been plenty of emotion at times. His invulnerability and her openness fit together in some strange, cosmic way. He was so solid, so present, so much one thing; she was all differential, in constant flux, sliding in and out of sight. He was matter; she was energy.

There was no algorithm for what she and Josh were together. They weren’t two distinct parts when you put them in a room; they formed a thing that couldn’t easily be quantified. Rickard had not been merely wrong: he could never be exactly right.

Jess didn’t have line of sight, but she could feel the various entities in the building with her. Muted, shielded the way Rickard had been. Lacking in malevolence. Rickard may have been a supervillain of sorts, but the handful of technicians and guards in the complex weren’t what Jess would call “henchmen” or “minions.” They were probably civil servants. No more or less evil than that.

Her mind registered a crystalline ping deep below her. Had to be Josh. Cold and hard as a diamond down there, somewhere.

* * *

“Been a while, Jess,” Josh said, his voice amused, his cobalt eyes furious. “Looks like you’ve been off your meds.”

They had him in a full-body metal casing on wheels— like a combination canister/wheelchair. He could move his head: that was it. Jess knew they couldn’t hurt him without killing him outright, but Josh needed to eat, needed to breathe, needed to sleep, same as anyone else. They’d been at him, Jess could tell. Softening him up for her.

For all that he looked surprisingly good, and defiant. His silver-grey hair had grown long around his shoulders since she’d last seen him. His lupine face was lined, but still vital; the eyes still piercing. He had lost the friendliness of his youth— that kind of serve-and-protect charisma that had made him their spokesman. He looked angry now, and threatening, despite his captivity.

Jessica stepped to her right along the curved wall of the interrogation chamber. All along the curve, at a height of about ten feet, an unbroken pane of one-way glass encircled the space. Cameras and sensor equipment occupied hubs in the ceiling. A single chair and table occupied the middle of the room; she took off her parka and hung it on the chair back. The room was chilly, but she wore a long cream-colored cable-net sweater, heavy trousers, winter boots. She came round the table and sat against it, facing Josh in his holding can.

“It would be better if you just told them what they want to know.”

“Well, it would be smarter,” Josh grinned. “I don’t know if it’d be better.”

She reached out with her mind, probing the weird facets and angles of his. By default, his body possessed some baseline degree of invulnerability, but it was his will that was the source of his real power. When he set his mind just so, bullets would bounce off his skin. When he decided to relax, he could shave. He was all about conscious intent.

She could “hear” him framing his own thoughts in first-person, making himself opaque to her and deflecting her pulses up and out into space. She imagined her mental energy kaleidoscoping out of the room, at wavelengths invisible to the human eye.

Not being able to read him unless he wanted her to… that’s what had drawn her to him all those years ago. Having to trust him — to make the choice to trust him, rather than just read him and see — that had been intoxicating once.

“They want to know where everyone is,” Jess said quietly. She’d memorized the priority list. It was short.

“I’m sure they do,” Josh said.

“Where’s Jimmy Santana?” Jess stared as she asked the question, giving him what Josh used to refer to as her “gunslinger” eyes. “Where’s Cobain and his dogs? Where’s Donna Crow? Why aren’t they generating any data? Where did they go, Josh?”

“Where’d Jessica Delaqua go?” Josh countered.

“Where didn’t I go?” Jess said. “Montréal. Toronto. Calgary. Victoria. Points in between.”

“Was it easier in small towns?”

“Nope.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Josh said, his voice softening. “Truly.”

“What about the water installations? They know you’re planning to bomb them, or disrupt some of them, somehow. You wouldn’t poison reservoirs just to get at the water companies would you?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Josh.” That was honest truth, and she let him hear it.

“Water belongs to every Canadian, Jess. It’s not private property. People’re suffering.”

“They’re not interested in why you’re doing this. They want to know what you’re going to do, and when.”

“I know. That’s their whole problem when you think about it. Not caring about why we do what we do.”