Issue 12 · Print view
19 pages · 65 panels
Recap Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Recap splash
[art pending]
Same composition as Issue 11's final splash, slightly closer. The Operative across the warehouse floor, weapon at their side. The brothers on the crates. The Amp Box 5000 behind them.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The Operative paces — slow, casual, perfectly choreographed. Allred — the menace is in the ease.
[art pending]
Jesse, on the crate, very still.
[art pending]
Long beat. Jesse processing this. Dev — beside him — eyes closed, listening, but in a way that is not just listening. His left hand is, very subtly, tapping the seven-over-four shuffle against the side of the crate he's sitting on. Allred — show it in the panel but don't draw attention. The reader who notices, notices.
No copy.
[art pending]
Jesse, quiet.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The Operative paces a few steps the other direction.
[art pending]
Jesse, sharper.
[art pending]
Jesse, quiet.
[art pending]
Dev. Listening. His fingers still tapping the shuffle. He is doing the math. Allred — close on Dev's face. He is not buying it. He is not buying it. But he is also keeping his face neutral so Jesse will not see him not buying it.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The Operative, smiling small.
[art pending]
The Operative spreads their hands — appeasement. The weapon hand lowers.
[art pending]
Jesse, leaning forward.
[art pending]
Close on Jesse. He is wavering. Allred — slow it. The reader can feel him wavering. The offer is too clean. But Jesse has wanted music to return for his entire life and a person is offering it to him.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Jesse, looking at Dev. Dev — beside him on the crate, fingers still tapping the shuffle, face neutral.
[art pending]
The Operative, across the floor, hearing this exchange. They have not heard Dev's qualifier. They have not noticed the tapping. They are smiling small.
[art pending]
Dev, leaning in, very quiet, so the Operative cannot hear:
[art pending]
Jesse, looking at Dev. Then at the Operative. Then back at Dev. He breathes out, very slowly. Allred — the panel where Jesse comes back to himself. The armor settling back into place — but a different armor this time. Steel, not fear.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Dev, whisper, very fast:
[art pending]
Jesse, breathing.
[art pending]
Jesse turns back to the Operative. Sits up on the crate. Composes his face. Asks a question.
[art pending]
The Operative. The question lands. They pause. They smile — slightly less cold this time. They consider the answer.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The Operative, talking. Dev, beside Jesse, very slowly moving his right hand into his jacket pocket. The Operative does not notice. They are mid-monologue.
[art pending]
The Operative pauses. Allred — for the first time in the issue, the Operative looks small. Just slightly. The vulnerability is real. The vulnerability is also dangerous.
[art pending]
Long beat. Jesse, on the crate, watching this. He genuinely cannot tell if the Operative is lying. Allred — slow the panel. Behind Jesse — Dev, very slowly, pulls the USB out of his pocket. Cups it in his palm. The Operative still does not notice.
No copy.
[art pending]
The Operative, recovering composure.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Jesse, very calmly.
[art pending]
Jesse.
[art pending]
The Operative, intrigued despite themselves.
[art pending]
The Operative considers it. The Operative wants it. Allred — the panel where loneliness almost wins. The flicker.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
Jesse, smooth.
[art pending]
Dev stands. He has palmed the USB into his sleeve. The Operative does not see it.
[art pending]
Dev crosses to the crate. Picks up two drumsticks from a confiscated kit. He turns. He walks back toward Jesse. Past the Amp Box, just slightly — close enough that, mid-stride, the USB drops from his sleeve into his other palm and his hand brushes the top of the Amp Box's input panel. The plug seats. The pilot light flickers. Allred — sleight of hand made visible to the reader, invisible to the Operative. Trust the reader. Dev's hand passes the Amp Box and the USB clicks in. Show the click in a single small inset panel.
No copy.
[art pending]
Dev arrives next to Jesse. Hands him no sticks — his sticks. Looks Jesse in the eye. Mouths a single word.
[art pending]
Jesse — without changing his expression — strums the green guitar. The cable is still uplugged from the Amp Box. The strum is acoustic-only. The Operative hears it. The Operative is mid-blink. The Amp Box's pilot light — green.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash
[art pending]
The strum. The Amp Box 5000 blooms. The pilot light green, brighter than green. The Amp Box has been waiting for nineteen years to fire and it is firing. Jesse, strumming — the cable still unplugged from the amp — but the green guitar's pickups connecting wirelessly to the Amp Box through proximity, through the cerium-iron-boron alloy and the Amp Box's prototype-receiver, through the destination chord that the USB has just unlocked. Dev vaulting across the warehouse toward the Amp Box, sticks in hand. The Operative — for the first time in the issue — moving. Weapon raising. Mouth open mid-shout.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
Dev at the Amp Box. Sticks in hand. He turns the volume dial — past 10. To the hand-painted 11.
[art pending]
Jesse, holding the chord. The green guitar's pickups blazing now — full power, full bloom. The chord ringing. The Operative fires the weapon. The pulse rips across the warehouse — and bends in midair, deflected by the displacement field building around the brothers.
[art pending]
The pulse lands in a crate of confiscated tambourines. The tambourines explode outward in a shower of jingles.
[art pending]
Dev hits the snare drum on the floor beside the Amp Box. Seven-over-four shuffle. The Amp Box reads it. The chord-and-shuffle combination unlocks.
[art pending]
The portal opens. Directly behind the brothers. Clean green. Wide. The biggest portal of the book yet — a doorway twenty feet tall, spanning the back wall of the warehouse, reflecting in the wall of hanging guitars. The Operative — eyes wide, weapon raised — sees the portal and understands. They missed the window. They have just been outplayed.
No copy.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash
[art pending]
Volume to 11. A full-page splash of the warehouse. The Amp Box 5000 at the back of the frame, dial at 11, blazing. Dev beside the Amp Box, sticks blurred, mid-shuffle. Jesse front-center, mid-strum, green guitar at full power, hair blown back by his own sound. The portal — behind the brothers — wide open, clean green, home. The Operative — across the warehouse, weapon falling from limp fingers — caught in the sonic wash. Their tailored suit shredding. Their hair blowing back. Their face — Allred, this is the panel — transcendent. They are being hit by the loudest sound they have ever heard in their life. Their eyes are wet. Their mouth is open. They are not in pain. They are listening. The Operative is, in this single moment, getting their wish. The rows of confiscated guitars on the walls behind the Operative are vibrating sympathetically — the cerium-iron-boron in the green guitar's pickups resonating with every alnico magnet in every confiscated instrument in the warehouse. The whole room is humming. *Allred — Brutal meets Cosmic meets Romantic all in one panel. The best splash in the book. Make every confiscated instrument visible. Make the Operative's face the second focal point after the green guitar. Make the reader understand that the villain is, for one moment, happy.***
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The Operative — picked up by the sonic wash — is lifted off their feet by the displacement. They drift backward, slowly, into a stack of confiscated speaker cabinets. The cabinets collapse around them in a slow-motion avalanche. The Operative does not resist. They are still listening.
[art pending]
Jesse and Dev, at the back of the warehouse, in front of the portal. Mid-chord. Looking at the Operative buried in the cabinets.
[art pending]
Jesse, into the portal. Dev one step behind him. The chord still ringing. The Amp Box still blazing at 11.
No copy.
[art pending]
The Operative, half-buried in the wreckage. Half-conscious. Hand reaching weakly out from under the speaker cabinets — not toward the brothers, toward the Amp Box, toward the sound. Their eyes are open. They are still listening.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash
[art pending]
Inside the green tunnel — going home. The brothers, mid-flight, the tunnel clean and bright. Behind them, the warehouse receding — visible through the portal mouth, the Amp Box 5000 still blazing, the Operative half-buried but reaching toward the light, the rows of confiscated guitars vibrating in sympathy. Ahead of them — through the tunnel — a glimpse of a familiar place. Their garage. The Vargas Drive garage. Marisol's outline in the kitchen doorway across the yard, just visible. *Allred — Cosmic register, clean. The tunnel rendered the way the good portals always were. This is the road home, and it is the right one.*
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
The brothers landing in the garage. Hard. Jesse on his feet this time — getting better at this. Dev rolling and standing. The new green guitar across Jesse's chest. The chord ringing out. The garage. Their garage. Vargas Drive. Empty. Exactly as they left it. Time of arrival: based on Alex's calibration, fifteen minutes after they left.
No copy.
[art pending]
The garage door — outside — slides up. MARISOL in the doorway. Hands floury — she was making bread when she heard a noise. She sees her sons. She has not seen them since the morning. To her, it's been forty minutes. To them, it has been four weeks.
[art pending]
Jesse and Dev — sweat-streaked, dust-covered, exhausted, holding the wreckage of their lives — look at her. Jesse breaks first.
[art pending]
Close on Marisol. She drops the bread.
No copy.
[art pending]
She crosses to them. She hugs them both. All three of them, in the open garage door, the sun setting behind them.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The kitchen. The three of them at the table. Marisol with a tea towel in her hands. Jesse and Dev across from her, telling her. Allred — montage panel. Multiple beats compressed. Jesse talking. Dev talking. Marisol's face cycling through wonder, terror, love, and finally a smile.
No copy.
[art pending]
Marisol, eventually:
[art pending]
Marisol, holding the tea towel like a life preserver. She breathes out. She breathes in.
[art pending]
Long beat. Allred — slow it. Marisol stands up. She crosses to a cabinet. She pulls out a bottle of something Jesse and Dev have never seen in this house — mezcal. She pulls out three small glasses. She pours them.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The three of them, glasses raised, drink.
No copy.
[art pending]
Marisol sets her glass down.
[art pending]
Jesse, looking at Dev. Dev, looking at Jesse. They have not discussed this. But they have not needed to.
[art pending]
Marisol, calmly:
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
The kitchen. Marisol, hands on her hips. She thinks for one second. She decides.
[art pending]
The boys, moving. Jesse out the front door with a stencil and a can of paint. Dev out the back to the garage to grab gear. Allred — split panel of both brothers in motion.
No copy.
[art pending]
Outside. Jesse, on a street corner, spraying a wave-symbol stencil on a wall. Underneath the symbol — in his own hand, dripping paint — SCOUTER · TONIGHT · 9PM · CRESCENT SALVAGE YARD · BRING EVERYONE. A passerby — Beat Pad on — pauses to look. The Beat Pad gives the passerby a jolt of static — Jesse's chord still echoing through the Quiet Grid. The passerby looks at the stencil. Reads it. Looks at Jesse.
[art pending]
Dev at the salvage yard, climbing the shipping containers, dragging gear up by rope. His industrial kit being reassembled. A second amplifier being wired in. A friend from the yard — a guy with a wrench in his hand who Dev has known for years — climbs up beside him.
[art pending]
The city — a montage of small panels of word spreading. A flyer being handed off. A tram passenger taking off their Beat Pad to read it. A teenager texting it to a friend. A grandfather, the one from page 14 of Issue 11, walking out his front door with a battered guitar case in his hand.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash — final page
[art pending]
The salvage yard. 8:55 P.M. A high wide shot. The shipping-container stage at the center, towering ten feet above the yard floor. Dev's industrial kit at the back, gleaming, repositioned by a small army of yard friends. Jesse plugging the new green guitar into a borrowed tube amp on the lip of the stage. A bank of Christmas lights strung from the salvage-yard cranes overhead. Two amplifiers — Dev's Amp-Sim Mark IV from the 1966 warehouse, somehow still working, and a borrowed prototype scavenged from a city repair depot — on either side of the stage, stacked. And the audience. Hundreds — thousands — of people, packing the salvage yard. Beat Pads removed and pocketed. Some are carrying their own instruments — battered acoustics, hand-built things, salvaged things. Some are carrying food. Marisol — visible at the edge of the crowd — is overseeing a row of folding tables piled with tortillas and rice and beans, an army of neighbors helping her serve. The crowd is every kind of person: cubicle workers in their button-downs, kids in hand-painted t-shirts, an old couple in formalwear like this is a state event, a row of teenagers with their parents, a small group of off-duty DeciCorp uniformed Compliance Analysts — including Holt from Issue 4 — standing at the back, awkward, having decided not to report this. The wave-symbol — stenciled, painted, scrawled — is on every other surface. T-shirts. Faces. Signs. Allred — Romantic register turned all the way up. This is the homecoming-show panel that the entire book has been pointing at since Issue 1. Make every face count. Make the reader want to be there. End the issue on the held breath — Issue 13 is the song.