FBP: Federal Bureau of Physics #6

"There's Something About Rosa," Part One
written by Simon Oliver
art by Robbi Rodriguez

They may not know it yet, but Agents Adam Hardy and Rosa Reyes are a partnership made in heaven, if perhaps by a God with a wicked sense of humor, or a supervisor possibly with mild Asperger's.  She's quiet, maybe a bit haunted, and a bit of a sledgehammer socially, but she speaks her mind with biting eloquence and laconic concision.  She's also an unassuming bad-ass.  Adam may still be smarting from the death of his partner and Jay's part in the FBP's failure managing the bubbleverse, a failure which precipitated the passing of the privatization bill which in turn devastated the resources and personnel of the FBP and relegated the remaining agents to the most undesirable cases, but he's the type to (ultimately) appreciate Reyes' no-bullshit disposition.

So, when Adam, Rosa and Cicero hear the same commercial for Atom-Craft Industries on the radio twice, is it because (1) advertisements for private physics insurance are so prolific that they monopolize the airwaves, or (2) the time dilation experienced in the apartment building has, in fact, set them back on a timeline, inconsistent with Einstein's prediction but perhaps possible in the world of FBP?  After all, it suggestively coincides in the same panel with Hardy's narration block—"And my head was still in the past" (FBP #6: 14)—and ironically next to Cicero's statement—"Things are changing" (14).  Although I incline to the former, the possibility that FBP's wonky physics could intrude on Oliver's storytelling is enticing.  Although it progresses at different—sometimes uneven—tempos, the labyrinthine series is already showing itself to be a densely imagined, highly wrought puzzle that rewards study.

In its brief depiction, Rosa Reyes' birth is shrouded is as much mystery as Caleb Hardy's disappearance.  During the middle of an intense thunderstorm in Honduras, Rosa's mother, apparently at the delivery point of a particularly ugly and bloody birth, and the midwife disappear...or perhaps her father, having gone to fetch water, disappears.  Rosa's evasive non-answers to Adam's questions would similarly suggest there's more to be told.

[February 2014]