Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen Read Online Free PDF Page A

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