Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen Read online

  Friday, September 23, 1983

  We had to change places in Special Studies class. The move put me even further away from Michelle, but I can feel her slipping away anyhow.

  Saturday, September 24, 1983

  This morning, I took off with my friend Ron for Chinook Mall. Boy, is it ever big! It seems to be even bigger than Northwood back in Edmonchuk! When we were done shopping, we noticed a bus at the stop. We ran to catch it, but it left without us. We were fuming mad! We decided to walk home. On the way, we passed another bus stop. I know the routes, so I coaxed Ron into waiting to grab this bus. It took us up to Eaton’s on 8th Ave. My plan was to take my regular bus home from downtown. Ron followed, reluctantly. But we ran into the Grey Goliath!

  The Grey Goliath was a bank robber who could become a giant made of stone. There was no way the normal police could capture him! Ron whined and tried to get me to run away and go home, but I had to help the police. So I got him to hold my records and my glasses and I thought hard about how much I hate people who whine and run away, so I turned into the Grizzly!

  We had a pretty big fight, but I won. Good thing I remembered some of the moves from Danger Gym! I don’t think there was too much damage, and nobody got hurt (except for the bad guy), and the police were really nice to me. I wanted to turn back into Patrick, so I sang to myself. That calmed me down, and I turned back.

  The police took me and Ron home. Ron was frazzled by the experience, and I had missed my choir practice. It’s a good thing my dad’s not the type to ground first and ask questions later.

  Monday, September 26, 1983

  The jig’s up! Someone finally figured out the Michelle connection! What shocks me most is that it was that idiot dumyuk Tony who guessed! The scene: our school library. I walked over to Michelle and asked her to explain why she’d been mocking me by using fancy vocabulary whenever she talked with me. Ol’ barnacle-brain there* said to me, “You like Michelle, eh?” I wanted to kill him, but what he said next really enraged me. Quote: “Hey, Michelle, Patrick likes you!” I said that was ridiculous. Then, Tuyen started ribbing me, too, but he stopped after I asked him to.** After lunch period, I became very self-conscious: did she really suspect the truth? Does she like me? Did Tony blab to anybody else? Who? What? When? Where? How? Aagghh! I’m going nutso! Now I have to tell her how I really feel, maybe this week.

  * This is in reference to Tony’s aquatic powers.

  ** Tuyen, being a telepath, knew everything, but he was a nice guy and very calm and collected for his age. I think his immigrant background helped him: he’d been trying to pass as a normal Canadian kid since he got off the boat from Vietnam when he was five.

  Wednesday, November 16, 1983

  It’s been quite a while since I wrote last, but here’s a quick rundown: at the Halloween Dance I very nearly broke down, but Stephen helped me out.

  I’ve been having a hard time controlling my transformations into the Grizzly. It often happens in the mornings, when I’m fighting with my bratty youngest brother to get him out the door. My parents both work, so I’m responsible for the morning routine. I can’t talk to my parents about it: they just tell me I have to get my act together, since we can’t afford to be constantly buying me new clothes. We talk about our powers in Religion and Special Studies class, but it’s usually about not using them or making sure no one knows we have them. Most weeks recently have been the same. On Saturdays, I head to the comics shop in Bridgeland, then go downtown to the library or the 8th Avenue Mall or the Devonian Gardens. On Sundays, it’s church, where I sing in the choir, and chores and babysitting.

  The rest of the time, there’s school. That first dance wasn’t bad. Miss Mind and Maiden Might from 9X asked me to dance with them and their friends, and one of the girls in class taught me the Time Warp.

  And then there was the Halloween Dance. It had a ‘50s theme: for example, skirts with construction-paper poodles. I didn’t have a costume, but I did have a mission. “The Chantal Syndrome” was all about a girl I liked in grade 7, who was really friendly and sweet with me until I told her my feelings and she turned ice-cold. I didn’t want this to happen with Shel. I still hadn’t seen her with a boyfriend, and we’d once run into each other downtown as superheroes, chasing a guy called the Green Dragon through Chinatown. Her bracelets gave her power blasts, so she called herself Blast, but I thought Quanta was a better name, and she adopted it. I thought that, if Grizzly and Quanta made a pretty good team, so could Patrick and Michelle. I really built it up in my mind.

  Notre Dame has two gyms: Danger Gym is in a separate building across the street, but the normal gym is on the second floor of the school, where we have our assemblies and air bands and dances. I spotted Michelle as soon as I walked in. She was with the other girls from our class; the guys were all clustered together further down, with Miss Mind and the 9X girls across the dance floor on the other side.

  I spent quite a while not dancing and chatting with Tuyen and Robert. Rob was starting to find the idea of being a real superhero very cool, mostly because you could beat people up if they were bad guys. I was sort of trying to ignore him and talk to him at the same time, to distract myself while I was doing reconnaissance on Michelle. I had decided that I was going to tell Michelle how I felt. But I had to wait for just the right moment. I had to be sure that she wasn’t dancing with anyone else.

  Finally, I decided to make my move. To keep myself calm, I hummed under my breath. I went over to where she was sitting, with Beth and the twins. She was gorgeous when she was laughing. I’d never known anyone more beautiful to me. She looked up at me and smiled. And I asked her to dance.

  She kind of hiccupped a laugh and shot a wide-eyed look at Beth, who shot back a sideways You’re on your own— I told you this would happen glance. Then she and the twins gave Michelle some space. Beth was a precog, so I guess she had told Michelle what would happen, because Michelle’s reaction looked like she’d been practicing it. She closed her grey eyes and, still smiling, shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t think so,” she said politely. Then she turned away.

  I walked back to Robert and the guys, like a robot in ‘50s B-movies. My legs were stiff, my feet were too big. Then I started crying. First, a trickle. Then a torrent. I needed a bigger body just to contain the heartbreak and rage. I began my transformation into the Grizzly.

  Even as I was changing, I remember being angry and then feeling guilty for being angry: angry at being so stupid and clearly missing some obvious signal; at setting myself up the way I always did for rejection and pain; at hoping that someone would see past my scrawniness, thick glasses, and crooked teeth and just take me for who I really was; at having so many feelings and not being able to just be normal for once; at scaring all these ordinary kids who just wanted to go to a junior high dance; at not being able to stop at my transitional form the way I’ve recently figured out; at the knowledge that I was the Grizzly, that the Grizzly was my true, deep-down self— a shaggy mountain beast that was realer than I could ever allow Patrick to be, and the Grizzly roared to life under that mirrorball while Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” faded out.

  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. Hi
s 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.