*
“—and bearing this in mind, it is my pleasure, as Governor of the State of Oregon, to announce that Velveteen, formerly of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, has chosen to come out of retirement and turn her powers toward protecting this, her new chosen state of residence.” Celia Morgan looked entirely at home under the glaring lights of the gathered media. Velveteen gave serious thought to turning tail and running for the hills. Early training in how to behave during a press conference forbade her from doing so. It didn’t remove the temptation. “Velveteen will be operating out of Portland for the time being, but will be available for rescues, team-ups, and public events anywhere in the state.”
Still smiling, Celia ceded the microphone to an uneasy-looking Vel, who cleared her throat, leaned forward, and said the first thing that came to mind:
“Uh. Hi.”
The applause was thunderous.
*
Several hundred miles away, in the headquarters of The Super Patriots, Inc., an emergency meeting of the Marketing team was called to order. Field agents were recalled, leaving junior teams unchaperoned for the first time in living memory. Secretaries were brought back from vacation. Husbands and wives were informed that they wouldn’t be seeing their loved ones for the foreseeable future.
The little bitch wanted to have herself a war?
Well, she was going to get one.
VELVETEEN
vs.
Patrol
THE LIST OF THINGS VELMA had conveniently forgotten during her years of self-imposed isolation from the superhero community was long, and the more time she spent staring at the paperwork required to get a permanent license in the state of Oregon, the longer that list seemed to become. Catch-phrase registration. Code name revival. Even costume design protection. Luckily, she’d left The Super Patriots, Inc. before her eighteenth birthday, which made it illegal for them to refuse to let her use the name and persona she had supposedly “helped” to develop. Many former child heroes weren’t as lucky. They went freelance sometime in their twenties, when the pressure from Marketing got to be too much to tolerate, and had to give up their entire personas. That was why you got transformations like Liberty Belle’s, who suddenly went from red-white-and-blue girl next door to wearing black and gray and calling herself “Dead Ringer.” (Actually, even Velma had to admit that that change was for the better. Dead Ringer’s merchandise sales were ten times what they’d been when she was Liberty Belle. Her Hot Topic T-shirt sales alone were enough to drive Marketing out of its collective mind.)
After four and a half hours of filling out forms, signing waivers, and having her picture taken for the half-dozen photo IDs her new position required, Velma was beginning to believe that most supervillains chose their career based not on any real desire to break things, but simply to avoid the heroing paperwork. If she had to have one more blood test, she was going to punch something. Her lack of super-strength meant that it probably wouldn’t do any real damage to anything besides her knuckles. And that would be worth it for the catharsis.
“—free to go, Ms. Martinez.”
“Huh?” Velma shook herself out of a pleasant fantasy involving piles of paperwork, a flame-thrower, and a whole lot of glorious destruction. She blinked at the man on the other side of the desk. “What do you need me to sign now?”
“Nothing.” He offered her a thin-lipped smile before passing a piece of laminated plastic across the desk. Even upside-down, the official photograph of her in her official mask was officially awful, providing more support to Velma’s private belief that some supervillain’s machinations had been behind the DMV being hired to take the photos for superhero licenses. “Welcome to the state of Oregon. We’re grateful for your service.”
Velma took the license with suddenly-numb fingers, flipping it around to stare at it right-side-up. The picture was horrible; her signature was an illegible sprawl; her heroic name looked even sillier than usual when presented in a true-type font on something official, instead of being printed in Comic Sans MS on the back of an action-figure box.
She’d never had an adult hero license before. She had to blink surprisingly hard to keep herself from crying.
When she looked back up, the man who’d been assigned to shepherd her through the re-registration process was actually smiling. “Thank you for being willing to protect us, Ms. Martinez,” he said. “After this, no member of the state government will refer to you by anything other than your code name while you are in costume. Your paychecks will be delivered via coded transmission to one of three rotating bank accounts—and, of course, your state taxes will be waved for the duration of your time in the civic super-service. The state of Oregon owes you a debt of gratitude that we can only make these small gestures toward repaying.”
“Um,” said Velma—said Velveteen, because wasn’t that what sitting in this surreally ordinary little office was all about? Making the choice she’d always said she was never going to let them force her to make? Only in the end, it felt almost like she was making it entirely on her own. She blinked owlishly at the man who’d been assisting her through the registration process.
“Did you have any questions for me before the end of our meeting?”
Yes, she thought, frantically. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? But she didn’t trust her voice, didn’t trust the words to come out the way she wanted them, and so Velveteen merely shook her head, clutching her adult hero license to her chest like it was some sort of sacred talisman.
“In that case, you’re free to go.” He reached across the desk and shook her hand before rising and leaving the room. He didn’t dawdle—few people dawdled in rooms with stunned-looking superheroes, even if those heroes had no recorded history of spontaneous explosions—but he also didn’t move with the hurried goosestep common in normal humans when dealing with the super-powered. He wasn’t afraid of her. He was just giving her some space. And oh, God, she didn’t even know how to feel about that.
Velveteen sat silently in the quiet little government office, staring at her license, and trying to suppress the burning urge to cry.
In the end, Velveteen lost the first real battle of her adult career.
*
“Your report, please.” Celia Morgan leaned back in her seat, leaving her hands folded on the desk in front of her. It was the only thing that would keep her from starting to fidget, one of the few bad personal habits that had managed to stay with her during her ascent to the state government. It looked bad when she folded origami cranes during meetings, and worse when she steepled her fingers against her chin like some sort of cartoon villain, so she’d learned to keep her fingers stiffly interlocked. It was the best of all possible evils.
“Her psychiatric profile is surprisingly stable,” said her assistant, who looked substantially less comfortable here, dealing with his boss, than he’d seemed when locked in a series of small rooms with a potentially dangerous super-human. He knew where the real risks were. “She’s been working among, ah, ‘normal humans’ since leaving her original team, and that’s left her with a much more balanced view of humanity than many powered individuals in her age range. She has some parental issues, and some issues with authority, but they seem largely focused on, ah, ‘authority that’s being stupid.’”
“So if she’s not ordered to go hand-to-hand with the Caldera, she’s likely to follow instructions?” Celia asked. Her assistant nodded, and she smiled. “Good. That’s very good.”
“Ah, Governor Morgan. . .”
“Yes?”
“What is the plan with Ms. Velveteen? She seems pleasant enough, but I’m not sure she can supply an entire state’s hero needs by herself, and as long as she’s here, The Super Patriots—” Too late, he realized what a dangerous train of thought he was riding, and tried to stop. Too late: the words were already out. All he could do now was wait and hope the blast radius would be small.
To his surprise, Governor Morgan shook her head, and said, “She’s
not the only one they’ve disappointed. I’m not counting on her to supply all our heroing needs. She’s not a figurehead, but she’s also not here to be the new Majesty.”
“Then. . . what is she here for?”
Jennifer, twelve years old and so excited, so excited to have passed the membership exams for The Junior Super Patriots; Jennifer, who became “Jory,” who was going to save the world so many times that the supervillains would get disgusted and just go home. Jory, who died on some mission that was never fully revealed to the public, in some quiet little hell-hole where she should never have gone in the first place. Jory, who was never even mourned by anyone outside her family.
“She’s here to provide a choice, Arthur,” said Celia, voice dropped to a quiet, reflective register. “She’s here to show them that there’s another way, and that maybe the way they’ve been counting on wasn’t the right one.”
“You can’t force people to see sense.”
“No. But I can make sure they understand that it’s possible.”
After that, it seemed like there was nothing else that really needed to be said.
*
While it is true that The Super Patriots, Inc. continues to maintain its stranglehold over the superhero community of North America, and many locations elsewhere in the world, there has never been any concrete proof that the organization is truly dedicated—as some of their critics will insist—to becoming the sole controller of the world’s superhuman population. “We simply want to allow our super-powered brothers and sisters to have the freedom to stretch their capabilities to their limits in a safe, nurturing environment, one which allows the public to enjoy their adventures without endangering the ordinary men and women just trying to go about their daily lives,” is the official party line, delivered with varying degrees of plastic sincerity by a seemingly-endless succession of representatives from the Marketing Division of The Super Patriots, Inc.
Despite this noble mission statement—or maybe because of this noble mission statement, which made it sound like they were trying to be the Care Bears of Corporations, and really, who wants that?—none of the pieces of back-door legislation making it illegal for superheroes to operate outside of corporate control have ever successfully been able to pass. When objections have been raised, the response has been less sympathetic than might be desired, boiling down to “nobody likes a monopoly.”
Just because The Super Patriots, Inc. were the only game in town, that didn’t mean they would be allowed to maintain that status forever. (Attempts to cite Santa’s Village and other such isolated super-communities as competition were summarily laughed out of court.) As for how The Super Patriots, Inc. would respond to an actual rivalry, well . . .
That was really anybody’s guess.
*
By the time Velveteen made it out of her various meetings, photo sessions, and other sanity-stretching exercises, the first envelope had been inserted into her official City Hall mailbox. According to the contents, her belongings—such as they were—had already been removed from her temporary quarters at the hotel and taken to her new residence: a small house on the east side of town, which would be hers so long as she was contractually connected to the state of Oregon, and which she was absolutely free to purchase at a reasonable percentage of market cost, should she ever wish to transfer the title into her own name.
This time, she managed not to cry. She continued managing not to cry for as long as it took her to gather the rest of her paperwork, request a driver from the motor pool, and be escorted to her new house. Her new house, where no one would harass her in the hallways, or threaten to evict her for being half an hour late getting her rent check to the office. Where she wouldn’t have to share walls with people who blasted heavy metal after midnight, or call the police on her neighbors for fighting in the parking lot. Hers.
She cried for the second time while standing in the tiny attached laundry room, stroking the dryer with one hand and feeling like her heart was going to break. By the high standards of the heroes employed by The Super Patriots, Inc., she might as well have been moving into a cardboard box, but compared to where she’d been living, this was better than anything in the world, even the Princess’s fairy tale castles or the ice palaces of the Winter Country. This was home. Her home, where she got to stay just as long as she wanted.
Well, as long as she wanted, and as long as she was doing her duties as a “recognized and licensed member of the Oregon superhero community.” (A community which consisted, according to the official state register, of her, her, and, oh, right, her. No other heroes had been active on the state-specific level for at least ten years. That was fine. The last thing she wanted to do was get into a dick-waving contest with some super-dork who thought their territory was being challenged.) Her duties included, according to the handbook, regular patrol.
“Well, I’ve been meaning to get more exercise,” she said reflectively, and went off to find the bedroom. She was going to need to get changed, and she was going to need an army.
*
The costume made for Velveteen by the Princess’s mice was going to have to do until she got her first paycheck and could start requesting the specialty gear, like the flame-retardant leotards and the anti-frostbite tights. Fortunately, she had a few months before weather was going to become a real issue, and those mice could sew. Velveteen studied herself in the mirror, unaware that she’d switched back into the hyper-critical mode that her handlers from Marketing had always worked so hard to drill into her. She was about to face the public. She needed to know what the public was about to see.
The V-neck on her leotard was a bit more ambitious than she necessarily liked, although she had to admit that the fact that it formed a literal “V” was a nice touch; the main body of the leotard was chocolate brown, and all the burgundy accenting made it seem both very warm and very heroic. How the mice had done that, she really had no idea. Her burgundy gloves and boots were faux-velvet burgundy, matching the domino mask that covered her face and pretended to conceal her identity. She could have done without the rabbit ears, but she had to sadly admit that they were necessary, both to maintain a recognizable silhouette—utterly essential when one wanted to strike fear into the hearts of evil-doers—and to make her “secret identity” a little more secret. Why do so many heroines wear push-up bodices and stupid headdresses? Because it means that no one’s looking at their faces.
The mice hadn’t been able to make her a new utility belt. That was okay. She’d never been able to bring herself to get rid of the old one, a gift from Santa Claus on her thirteenth birthday. It still fit. Of course it still fit—Santa’s gifts were made to last, which was a good thing, because the fat man didn’t give receipts—and it hugged her hips like she’d been a grown woman and not a gawky teen when it was made for her. She ran automatically through her pre-patrol check of the pockets. More than half of them were empty, having lost their stash of concealed toys during the intervening years. Velveteen’s hands faltered as they checked a clasp, and for a moment, she stopped, simply staring at her reflection.
Who is that woman? she wondered. Who is that woman in the bunny ears and the skin-tight spandex, with the mask that everybody knows doesn’t hide her face worth a damn, getting ready to go out there and do it all over again? Who is that woman who didn’t learn her lesson the first time she almost died, or any of the times that came after? She felt very exposed, almost naked in her costume, and very, very Velma. The girl who got out.
Something tugged at the fabric behind her knee. Vel looked down and saw the battered plush bunny from the Isley Crawfish Festival looking up at her. For a moment, she thought she even saw concern in its dirty plush face and glossy glass eye.
“I guess if you’re going to go crazy, you may as well do it with a place to sleep and major medical insurance,” she said, and bent to scoop the bunny into her arms. It went instantly limp, the animation leaving it as she stuffed it into the appropriate pocket of her utility belt. It wo
uldn’t carry anything but toys. It would let her carry enough of those to have a fighting chance. “Well, I guess first, we go shopping.”
*
If the staff of the Downtown Portland Goodwill thought it was strange when the state’s newest superhero walked into the store, offered them a polite nod, and made her way straight back to the children’s section, they didn’t say anything about it. They just stared after her, frozen in the act of ringing up customers or folding donated sweaters. Then, as if a bell had been rung that only people with a sense of self-preservation could hear, they began quietly evacuating the store. The safest place to be around a superhero in uniform was nowhere near the superhero.
Velveteen didn’t notice. She was preoccupied with carrying on a one-sided conversation with the stuffed animal rack, waving her hands in punctuation as she explained the score to the discarded bears and unloved plush dinosaurs of the world. “You’ve been thrown aside once, and that’s terrible,” she said. “I won’t throw you away, but you won’t get a good retirement package if you come with me. I’m the last stop. I’ll take care of you for as long as I can, but I won’t lie to you; toys that come with me don’t live forever.” The plush was starting to stir as portions of the pile—a bear here, a one-eyed turtle there—sat up and paid attention. “You’ll do good things. You’ll take care of children like the ones who loved you. I’ll love you. And you’ll die heroes.”
More stirring, spreading to the action figure bins and the racks of Barbies with bad haircuts and missing shoes. Velveteen kept talking; the toys kept moving, the animation working its way through them like dye spreading through white cotton. She’d never been able to explain why she felt it was necessary to call them this way, although Marketing had managed to get some lovely news footage the first few times she’d done it; she just knew that it felt right to give the toys a choice before she took them out and threw them to their deaths.
Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots Page 16
