Velveteen vs. the Junior Super Patriots (21 page)

“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 wouldn’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.

In the end, more than thirty toys climbed down from their racks and out of their bins, “choosing”—if toys can choose—to give up the chance at a second owner in favor of following Velveteen into battle. She led them to the break room where the staff had gone to hide, sticking her head in past the curtain, and asked, “Can you send a bill to the city?” One of the cashiers gave a little shriek, following it with a louder shriek as she saw the army of plush standing around Velveteen’s ankles.

“That would be . . . fine,” said the manager tightly. The city would never see that bill. Better to just put this incident aside as quickly as possible, before some fool supervillain decided to level the place as some sort of perverse arms dealership. “Great, thanks,” said Velveteen, and withdrew. Mercifully, the toys followed her. Even so, no one dared to breathe until they heard the bell over the door jingle to signify her exit.

*

Velveteen crouched on a rooftop in Observant Observer Observation Position Number Sixty-Two: The Gargoyle, one hand resting loosely against her knee, the other braced down between her ankles to provide her with a third point of balance. She wasn’t sure the stealth lessons really applied in her case, given the whole rabbit-ears thing, but it was always a good idea to stay in practice. Not that she
was
in practice, or
had
practiced in the last way-too-many years. It hadn’t been all that important to remember how to impersonate a brick wall when she was concerned mostly with how to make a perfect latte every time.

Her thighs hurt. Her knees hurt. Her ankles hurt. Hell, her
ass
hurt, and if she managed to sprain her
ass
her first time out at solo patrol, she was going to be so incredibly pissed off that it wasn’t even funny. Her utility belt, heavy with toys, felt almost like an accusation.
If you were a real hero, you’d have used me by now,
said the weight of it.
If you were a real hero, you’d have found the crime.

So totally untrue. Finding crime had nothing to do with whether or not someone was a “real” hero, and everything to do with whether or not someone had acquired a talent for wandering into trouble with their eyes wide-open and their heads filled with a total lack of the concept of self-preservation. “Advanced Going Into the Big Spooky House at the Top of the Hill” was one of the most popular training classes for young heroes, and not just because it included a whole bunch of horror movies in the classwork. You had to
study
to be that pigheadedly stupid.

The trouble was, those were the sort of lessons that can get a body killed when you’re living in the “real” world, away from supervillains and epic battles. Walking straight into trouble is only a good idea when the trouble has a death ray. And since Vel had been living in the “real” world for years, she was getting very confused by her own instincts, which couldn’t seem to settle on which direction she wasn’t supposed to be walking in. “This would be a hell of a lot easier if there was
actually
a creepy house on top of a geographically implausible hill,” she muttered, and settled a little deeper into her position. Did it still count as going on patrol if she didn’t fight any crime because she hadn’t been able to
find
any?

Fortunately, she was saved from further contemplation of that particular philosophical question by the sound she’d been waiting all night to hear: a woman’s scream. Delight flooded over her, followed immediately by shame over her excitement. “Right,” she said, straightening up and turning to face the commotion. She was cold, she was cranky, she was conflicted, and she knew the best way to deal with all three of these situations.

She was going to hit somebody until they stopped hitting back.

*

The sound of screaming led Velveteen to a narrow alley—one which, blessedly, was lined by stage dressing fire escapes, thus solving the question of “how the hell am I supposed to get down to floor level without breaking an ankle or something?” The rooftops were the best place to watch for crime, but if you didn’t happen to have one of the flight-based power packages, you could wind up shit out of luck when it came to actually
reaching
the crime you’d been watching for.

Down in the alley, two hulking figures had almost backed a svelte young woman into a corner. She was holding her purse out in front of her at arms’ length, pleading through her tears for them to take it, take anything they wanted, only please, let her go. The figures weren’t listening. They also weren’t varying their speed, continuing to advance on her with the same slow, methodical strides. Scaring the prey was apparently a part of the night’s entertainment for them, and they weren’t allowing that prey to interfere with their plans by doing anything as silly as being
reasonable
.