Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen (4 page)

Jess took a deep breath. “Where’s Donna Crow?” She said.

* * *

Two days later, Rickard confronted Jess in her room. Somewhere, she reflected, the man must have a huge closet on base. He wore another sharp-looking Bay Street special— suspenders and all. Great looking shoes with little tassels.

“This isn’t working,” Rickard said, pacing hands-in-pockets in the cramped space.

“I told you it would take time,” Jess said, sitting on her cot, looking at the linoleum floor.

“It occurs to me that we could probably make him talk by torturing you in front of him.”

Jessica looked up sharply, giving fear and disgust a tangible, flesh-and-blood expression. Her stomach plunged at the thought of some as yet nameless atrocity, and she made sure Rickard could see her distress — made him feel it — in her eyes, in the set of her lips, in the rising color of her cheeks.

“Jesus— I’m kidding,” he stammered. “God’s sake, Jess— when’re you going to realize that we’re the good guys here?”

“I don’t have to read your mind to know that you believe that.”

“Can you read opinion polls? Every time he blows shit up, investors sue the government— putting taxpayers on the hook. Bond yields jump; the currency tanks. Approval ratings for the True North are at all-time lows. We’re talking, it’s you guys and Ebola Prime: neck and neck.”

“Say the readers of the
Financial Post
.”

Rickard pulled up a chair, sitting close enough that his knees almost touched hers. “No, Jessica, that’s the thing. People don’t want to be saved by Captain Crusty anymore. They don’t want to be lectured on right and wrong by some circus freak. Maybe you should tell him that. Maybe you should tell him how much you’re getting paid.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah. When it came down to a choice between being homeless and being safe, you took the latter. We all do. Except for him.”

“He’s getting tired,” Jess said quietly. “I’ll get what you want.”

* * *

Jessica squeezed the bridge of her nose between her eyes. Eight straight hours today— maybe nine.
Push him hard
, Rickard had said.
You get to rest, he doesn’t.

“You okay?” Josh said.

She chuckled without mirth. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Is that it then? You done?”

Jess put her hands on her hips, set a nonplussed expression on her face. “I don’t know who’s a bigger jerk,” she said. “You, or him.”

“Pretty sure it’s him.”

Jess smiled at the odd break in tension. “This is serious, you know,” she said.

“Yeah,” Josh nodded.

Jess stepped closer, eyes staring into Josh’s. Summoning her power. She felt his mind rising like a sheer cliff above the crashing waves of a midnight ocean. He kept up the internal babble in first-person, his concentration just as strong now as when they’d started. “Where’s Jimmy Santana?” she whispered.

“You tell me,” Josh whispered back.

“Where’s Cobain?”

“Keep sayin’ the names, darlin’.”

“I am. I have been. I don’t know if I…”

“Listen,” Josh hissed.

Jess frowned. Then she heard it.

A dull thump from somewhere above.

Dust spilling down from the ceiling of the interrogation room.

A low-frequency thrumming through the floor.

The pop-pop-pop of semi-automatic weapons. Inside the complex.

Running footsteps outside the room: military boots hard on concrete.

Jess whirled as the door to the interrogation room crashed open. She stood in front of Josh on instinct, as though shielding him would make any difference.

Two men in black combats rushed into the room. Jess reached out with her mind, but the men had the same jamming implants that Rickard was using. She couldn’t push through the static.

Shooter One raised his C7, while Shooter Two took up a flank position.

And the room heaved as though it were at sea.

Jess hit the floor as electronics crashed down from the ceiling. A huge crack opened in the far wall; glass shards cascaded to the floor, revealing the observation gallery above.

“Run!” Jess cried to the soldiers as they struggled to regain their feet.

“That would be Donna Crow,” Josh gloated. “Welcome to hell, fellas!”

A claxon sounded: the panicked wail of a sinking ship.

Jessica fell again, hurting her wrist. The soldiers reeled out of the room, self-preservation overriding their mission parameters.

Josh’s chair tipped over; he hit the floor with a clang. His head was close to Jessica’s. He laughed. “You did it! It worked!”

Jessica grinned, though her head felt as though it would split. Bouncing signals off Josh’s angled mind always worked eventually, but it had taken so damn long this time, taken so much out of her. She had begun to worry that she’d grown too old, or perhaps become too broken inside to muster the requisite focus.

The True North had been summoned.

* * *

Fire blazed from the superstructure of the complex and the outbuildings, melting snow, casting long shadows against the distant treeline. The smell alternated with the breeze: now a bonfire at a bush-party; now burning rubber at a landfill. They had Rickard tied up, not that he’d have tried to escape. One of Cobain’s hounds stood guard on Acheson, eyes glowing like twin ruby-colored embers, night-black hackles raised. Cobain himself was barely visible in the shifting light— just one more shadow among many. Donna Crow flickered on and off, gradually growing more and more insubstantial, as if drained by the tremendous energy-expense of the eldritch earthquake she’d wrought. Jimmy brought up one of the base’s black Silverados, then dematerialized. And Josh was free, dressed in a denim shirt and jeans. He’d made himself impervious to the elements.

Rickard sat on an overturned plastic bucket, teeth chattering. Jess assumed it was mostly nerves: with a debris fire nearby, it wasn’t unbearably cold, and there wasn’t much of a wind. He looked up at her, miserable and terrified in his ruined suit.
His costume
, Jessica realized.

“They’re… the True North’s not real?”

“I don’t know,” Jess shrugged. “They’re real-ish, I guess. They’re like… figments of my imagination, or parts of my personality, fractured into reality when my mind crashes against Josh’s. They talk. They’re objective to us, when they’re around. They have life of some kind. We don’t really understand the mechanics.”

Rickard struggled to comprehend. In the distance, Josh swung easily up into the pickup’s cab. “You planned this?” Rickard croaked.

“Contingency. We figured if Josh ever got captured, it’d be a good way of turning the tables. Catching you in the bargain was a bonus. He does that: turns defense into offense. You guys underestimated him.”

“We underestimated you.”

“Well. That goes without saying.”

“He didn’t allow himself to be captured on purpose, did he?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

Jess considered the question. “What you do is important,” she said at last. “I’m guessing Josh’ll put you to work. We don’t have the expertise to counteract these search algorithms of yours; you do. Josh’ll need money; he’ll want to cause mischief— you can help with that. When you think about it, he’ll probably want you to be a bit more of the old Chthonic Sun, a bit less of the new Rick Acheson.” Jess paused, letting sympathy creep into her tone. “If you don’t cooperate,” she continued, “he’ll probably give you to Cobain. It’s your call, but I would avoid that if you can.”

The truck pulled around in a wide circle, then stopped. Josh got out, pulled Rickard to his feet, threw him in the back with the practiced ease of a sanitation worker heaving a glad-bag. The fuligin-colored hound leapt into the canopied bed as well, maintaining hideous eye contact as it hunkered down. Josh slammed the gate on Rickard’s panicked whimpering, trapping him in the dark with that monster.

“All set?” Josh smiled as he opened the passenger door. Jess stepped around, leaned in to kiss that stubbled cheek.

“I’m not going with you.”

“Like hell. I’m not leaving you out here.”

“There’s a road. It’ll be daylight in an hour. I’ll get by.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Why the hell would you leave?”

“Because nothing’s changed for me,” Jess said, making the kind of eye contact that spoke louder than words. “We’re not arresting bad guys and being parade-marshals at the Calgary Stampede anymore. I might not always know precisely who I am, but I’m pretty sure I know who I’m not. And… Rickard’s right, Josh. Maybe not about everything, but on a lot of things, he is. Right enough, anyway.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m not going to have this argument with you again. I’ll survive, Josh. I was surviving. And maybe I’ll do some good my way.”

“You’re spreading yourself way too thin, Jess. Your way is killing you.”

“How do you think your way is going to end?”

That caught him up short. They both smiled as they realized it was the first time she’d ever stalemated him like that.

“Go,” she said, drawing her piano-player’s hand down his chest. “I’ll be okay. Don’t get captured again.”

Josh crimped his lips, unconsciously mimicking Jess with the gesture. Then he addressed a nearby shadow: “Watch out for her.”

A piece of darkness nodded; a shaft of moonlight smiled.

Jess stood with arms crossed, feeling Cobain looming beside her as they watched the truck bounce along open ground, then turn onto rough-hewn trunk road.

She was about to tell Cobain that, where Josh was going, he would need Cobain more than she would. That the things Josh would need to do, he wouldn’t be able to do by himself. That she knew she looked fragile, but she was stronger than they realized. That in the coming storm it would be Josh who would be broken, not her.

She was about to say those things, when Josh opened his mind to her one last time, and let her in.

* * *

Born in British Columbia, Kevin Cockle now lives in Calgary.

Pssst! Have You Heard… The Rumor?

D. K. Latta

My full name? Anthony Samuel DeMulder— Tony “Spats” DeMulder to those who know me, on account of my keen dress sense. I haven’t actually worn spats in ten years or more — got to keep with the times, eh? — but the nickname stuck.

I’m whatcha might call a businessman who engages in the sort of activities that don’t always get reported in their entirety to the Revenue boys up in Ottawa.

The truth is— I’m a racketeer. I don’t mind admitting to it.

Not now anyway.

And I was pretty good at it, too. I ran most of the east side and parts of the docks. I had a couple of dozen guys directly under me with another hundred or so who, one way or another, were working for me— even if they didn’t always know it themselves. I had a girlfriend and two mistresses. Or maybe I had two girlfriends and a mistress. I lived in a penthouse apartment and had another place in Petawawa for my ma.

Yeah, I was on top of the world.

And then it all fell apart— because of him.

Who him?
you ask. That guy, that actor— Ken Anton. Though I guess his real name was Antonowicz or something. He was a Polack but changed his name when he got into showbiz. Y’know, the radio actor. Some say he was one of the best in the world, if you like that sort of thing. Me, I like that guy with the dummy— what’s his name? Well, don’t matter. Anyway, Ken Anton— that’s when it all started to fall apart.

I know what you’re thinking. How could that be? Didn’t something happen to Anton? It was in the papers and the papers don’t lie— right?

Sure. But they don’t always know the whole story, either.

Let me tell you how it went down.

The first time I saw Ken Anton was at the Palais Royale down by the harbour. I didn’t really understand the music— “jazz” ain’t my thing. But for a man of my, y’know, civic standing, you don’t go places to see things, you go to be seen. So I used to entertain my cronies — I mean, my business associates — down at the Royale. And Anton was sometimes there. For a radio actor he was a good-looking Joe, with slicked back black hair and a lip mustache— broad at the shoulders, too. Someone told me he used to be an athlete or something. Anyway, there’d usually be a dame or two with him, and other stars dropping by his table. Lorne Greene, John Drainie, the comedian, Johnny Wayne, that coloured musician, Oscar Peterson. I didn’t know most of them to look at, but people would point ‘em out to me.

Anton kept to his tables and I kept to mine.

Except then one night— he didn’t keep to his.

It was a Friday and the Drummy Young Band was on the bill.

I’d seen Anton cut a rug on the dance floor, as they say. He was a decent hoofer, I guess, light on his toes. So I didn’t think too much about it when I saw his head appearing and disappearing through the bodies, even as he seemed to be getting closer and closer to my table. I only got suspicious when I noticed he was alone, no dame in his arms. I realized he wasn’t dancing, but walking— toward me.

He stopped at my table, a mad glare in his eyes.

One of my boys stood up, to put himself between me and the Fancy Dan. But I waved him down, at that point more amused and curious than anything.

“Are you Anthony DeMulder?” he asked, pronouncing the “th” as a “t” like some boarding-school priss.

I took a long puff on my cigar. “I might be.”

“We have a mutual acquaintance in one Marie-Josette Bouchard.”

“Who?” I asked, genuinely confused.

Then one of the dames beside me, Bessy, giggled, and leaned toward my ear and whispered, “He means Josie.”

“Oh, Josie!” I said. “Yeah, I know Good-Time Josie.” Then I frowned and looked around. “Say— where is she? She went to powder her nose a few minutes ago and ain’t come back.”

“Nor will she, you Neanderthal,” fumed Anton.

“What’s with you and not pronouncing ‘th’?” I asked. “You got a speech impediment, buddy?”

“That’s how it’s supposed to be pronounced,” said The Book idly, seated on the other side of Bessy and sanding his nails with an emery board. The Book looked at the world through wire-rim glasses and was lean and always well-tailored— he made even me look like a slob. He was smart, too. If he said something was so, dollars to donuts it was so. He was good with my ledgers— and even better sliding a stiletto between someone’s ribs.