Page · 4 panels
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Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The Operative paces — slow, casual, perfectly choreographed. Allred — the menace is in the ease.
- OPERATIVEYour father was a brilliant man.
- OPERATIVEWe knew, of course, that he was Wave. We watched him for six years before he was even sure he was Wave himself.
- OPERATIVEHe built three Chrono-Nautic prototypes in his basement before he built the one that worked.
- OPERATIVEWe let him build them.
- OPERATIVEWe let him bury the green guitar in 2238. Why retrieve it ourselves when we could let him hide it for us — and watch?
[art pending]
Jesse, on the crate, very still.
- JESSE…Then why kill him.
- OPERATIVEBecause he wanted to take his sons to 1966.
- OPERATIVEHe'd built a family portal.
- OPERATIVEHe'd worked out a protocol where the three of you would jump together, in 2244, and play a show at The Dom that would catalyze a cultural correction before DeciCorp's monopoly closed.
- OPERATIVEHe almost did it.
- OPERATIVEWe caught him the morning he was going to take you both into the factory's freight elevator and use the equipment there for the launch.
- OPERATIVEWe invited him into a containment cell.
- OPERATIVEWe told him we'd consider his proposal.
- OPERATIVEWe did not consider his proposal.
[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.
- JESSEYou killed him so we couldn't play 1966.
- OPERATIVEWe killed him so anyone couldn't play 1966.
- OPERATIVEThat, as it turns out, was a miscalculation.
- OPERATIVEWe did not anticipate that his sons would assemble themselves into the same band, on their own, in a garage we had been monitoring for sixteen years.
- OPERATIVEThat was — frankly — embarrassing for my division.