Issue 03 · Print view
16 pages · 63 panels
Recap Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Recap splash
[art pending]
Same composition as Issue 2 page 20. Jesse in the garage. Same lighting. But the next morning — pale dawn instead of work-light. He has not moved all night. He is asleep on his feet, hand still finding the chord. Allred — visualize the exhaustion in the slump of his shoulders.
Grid · 6 panels
Layout — 6 panels — small grid
[art pending]
Jesse's bedroom. He is asleep at last, fully clothed, face-down on top of the covers. Beat Pad on his wrist. The Beat Pad is silent — its LED is dark. It has not played all night.
No copy.
[art pending]
The Beat Pad blinks back online. A small green LED. Jesse stirs.
No copy.
[art pending]
The Beat Pad starts playing. Jesse's face, half-buried in the pillow, goes slack the way every face in Issue 1 went slack.
No copy.
[art pending]
He sits up. He looks at the Beat Pad on his wrist. He looks at it like it is a small, expensive lie.
No copy.
[art pending]
He pulls it off. Sets it on the nightstand. The LED keeps blinking. The room is very quiet.
No copy.
[art pending]
Close on Jesse's hand on the nightstand beside the Beat Pad. His fingers are tapping. The chord. Again. He stops them. They start again. He stops them. They start again.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Kitchen. Mom at the stove. She does not turn around when Jesse comes in. She is making coffee.
[art pending]
Jesse sits. Marisol puts a plate in front of him without looking at him. Eggs, toast, a small piece of fruit. She sits across from him with her own coffee.
[art pending]
Jesse looks at his plate. He has not picked up the fork. Marisol does not push him.
[art pending]
He eats. They sit. They do not speak for a long beat. Allred — let the panel breathe. Cooking-show silence.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Eventually, Jesse, without looking up.
[art pending]
Marisol sets down her cup. She does look at him now.
[art pending]
Jesse, quietly.
[art pending]
Marisol. The longest beat in the issue.
Page · 3 panels
Layout — 3 panels
[art pending]
Jesse, staring at his coffee.
[art pending]
Marisol shakes her head. Not angry — just done.
[art pending]
Close on Marisol. Her eyes are wet. She is not crying. She is holding the line. Allred — this is one of the most important panels of the volume. Make us love her. Make us understand that her refusal is the only refusal that ever mattered.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
Tram station. Morning rush. Jesse, dressed for work, Beat Pad back on. He boards the eastbound tram.
[art pending]
The tram passes the salvage yard. Jesse looks out the window. The yard, in the morning, is empty.
[art pending]
Tram passes a billboard. EVERY SOUND, LICENSED.™ A smiling family. Jesse looks away from the billboard.
[art pending]
Tram station, downtown. Jesse exits. Walks toward the DeciCorp Spire. The Spire fills the panel.
[art pending]
Jesse pushes through the revolving door of the Spire. His face is set. His face is not convincing.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
Jesse at his cubicle. The same as Issue 1. He sits. He puts his hands on the keyboard.
No copy.
[art pending]
The screen in front of him: a queue of audio violation reports awaiting his review. SECTOR 4-A — UNAUTHORIZED HUMMING — 2 INCIDENTS. SECTOR 7-E — UNAUTHORIZED HARMONIC CONTENT — INVESTIGATION QUEUED. Sector 7-E is his sector.
No copy.
[art pending]
Close on Jesse's face. He is staring at the queue entry for Sector 7-E.
[art pending]
His hand moves to the keyboard. He selects the report. He hovers over the option: DISMISS — INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE.
[art pending]
He clicks it. The report disappears from the queue. He has just used his DeciCorp credentials to cover up his own crime. A small, deeply satisfying corruption.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
He sits back. He breathes out. He looks at his hands. They are shaking.
No copy.
[art pending]
A polite ping. A new notification on the screen. Allred — show us the screen over Jesse's shoulder. The notification: HARMONIC EVENT — SECTOR 7-E — 14:47 — INVESTIGATION ESCALATED — REVIEWING ANALYST: NOT YOU. The garage was scanned again. By a drone he did not authorize. The report went to someone else.
[art pending]
Close on Jesse. He has gone very still.
No copy.
[art pending]
He logs out of his terminal. He stands. He walks toward the bathroom — exactly the way he did in Issue 1, exactly the same beat.
No copy.
Grid · 6 panels
Layout — 6 panels — small grid
[art pending]
Bathroom. Jesse at the sink. He pulls off the Beat Pad. He sets it on the basin.
No copy.
[art pending]
He stares at himself in the mirror. The same stencil — the wave symbol — is on the tile behind his head.
No copy.
[art pending]
He puts both hands on the sink. He bends over it. He looks like a man trying not to be sick.
No copy.
[art pending]
The fluorescent light overhead flickers. Once. Allred — same flicker as Issue 1 page 14, same flicker as Issue 2 page 19.
No copy.
[art pending]
Jesse looks up. He has felt it. He looks at the light. The light is fine. He looks back at the mirror.
No copy.
[art pending]
In the mirror, just for a fraction of a second, there is a second figure behind him — a glitchy, jittery silhouette of a man in a workshop apron. Then it is gone. The mirror just shows Jesse.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Jesse spins around. The bathroom is empty.
[art pending]
Nothing. Just the bathroom. The wave stencil. The flickering light.
No copy.
[art pending]
Jesse, slowly, turns back to the mirror. He looks at himself. He laughs — a small, wrong laugh.
[art pending]
He puts the Beat Pad back on. The pad pulses. His face does not go slack this time. Something has changed. Allred — give us his eyes still alive behind the music.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
End of the workday. The lobby of the Spire. Jesse walking out with a hundred other commuters. He looks like all of them and he does not look like all of them.
No copy.
[art pending]
Tram home. He looks out the window at the salvage yard.
[art pending]
The salvage yard, lit by late-afternoon sun. Dev is not on the containers. The kit is there. The kit is unmanned.
No copy.
[art pending]
Close on Jesse. He frowns. Dev is always at the kit at this hour.
No copy.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
Home. Jesse comes in through the kitchen door. Marisol at the table, mending something. She looks up.
[art pending]
Jesse crosses the yard to the garage. He keys in the code. The door slides up.
No copy.
[art pending]
Inside: Dev, at the workbench. He has not opened the trap door. He is looking at it. He has been sitting in front of it, possibly for hours. The crate has not been moved. He has not violated Jesse's request. He is just looking.
No copy.
[art pending]
Jesse enters. Stands behind him. They are both looking at the floor.
[art pending]
A long beat.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Jesse sits down next to him. The two of them on the garage floor, side by side, backs against the workbench, looking at the spot where the trap door is buried under the crate.
[art pending]
Dev, slowly.
[art pending]
Dev, very quiet.
[art pending]
Long beat.
Page · 3 panels
Layout — 3 panels
[art pending]
Jesse, looking at the floor.
[art pending]
Long beat. Allred — let it land. The brothers on the floor of the garage. The buried guitar under them. The city closing in around them.
No copy.
[art pending]
Dev, very quiet.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Jesse stands. He walks to the wall of photographs. He stops in front of the photo of Alex Cruz holding the boys.
No copy.
[art pending]
He puts his hand on the photo. He looks at his father for a long beat.
[art pending]
The work-light flickers. Twice this time.
No copy.
[art pending]
Close on Jesse. He is staring at the light. The light steadies. He is breathing very carefully.
No copy.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash — final page
[art pending]
The garage from above. Jesse and Dev seated on the floor against the workbench, small in the frame. The crate over the trap door. The Simulated Guitar on its stand, watching. The wall of photographs. The single overhead work-light. Everything in its place. Everything wrong. But — in the lower-right corner of the panel, where the reader's eye finishes — a faint, glitchy, RGB-split silhouette of a man in a workshop apron stands in the corner of the garage. Watching the boys. Watching the floor. Not yet present. Not yet absent. Allred — pull the Cosmic register for the apparition. He is barely there. Half the readers won't see him on first pass. That's correct.