Velveteen vs. the Junior Super Patriots (24 page)

Her breath caught.

She couldn’t have said exactly what she expected his costume to look like. Probably something brightly-colored and garish, which would explain why he was a second-string hero, instead of a front-man for one of the Super Patriot teams. Instead, he stood on his rooftop in form-fitting black spandex, the line of it broken only by the utility belt clasping his waist. A dozen cans of spray paint were clipped to the belt, ready and waiting to be used. He was still wearing his swirling painted-on mask, and its vibrant colors were somehow exactly right, perfectly matched to the darkness of the rest of him. He met her eyes, and smiled, shouting across the alley, “So who goes to who?”

“Show me what kind of hero you are,” she called back, half-laughing, still half-breathless. He looked like a superhero. He smiled like the kind of boy the men from Marketing always told her to stay away from. And she wanted him to come to her. She realized, rather surprisingly, that she hadn’t wanted anything that badly in a very long time.

“Be right there!” he called, dipping a gallant bow in her direction before pulling a can of spray paint from his belt, shaking it briskly, and bending to paint something on the rooftop in front of him. Velveteen frowned, interest flagging slightly as she realized that he was actually
writing
on the rooftop. Graffiti wasn’t particularly heroic—in fact, stopping people from vandalizing public property was a common training mission for the junior heroes.

Then he clipped the can back onto his belt, reached down to the spot where he’d just been painting, and straightened. . . bringing a full-length aluminum ladder with him. Grinning triumphantly, he walked to the edge of the roof and lay his ladder down flat across the chasm. Stepping onto the edge of the makeshift bridge, he spread his arms for balance and strolled calmly across the space between them, bowing again when he got to the edge of Velveteen’s rooftop. “As my lady wishes,” he said, grinning as he stepped down from the ladder.

“Semi-autonomous animation of graphic representations of persons and animals, including minor transformation to grant access to species-appropriate weaponry,” said Velveteen, wide-eyed. “No wonder the Princess thought we should go out.”

“I take it you approve?” Tag snapped his fingers. The ladder wisped away into thin air, disappearing like it had never been there at all—without, Velveteen noticed, leaving any marks on either rooftop.

“I definitely approve,” she said, matching his smile with one of her own. “Well, then? Are you ready for me to show you the heroic side of Portland?”

“You know,” said Tag, offering her his arm, “I was starting to worry that you were never going to ask.”

“The night is young, and evil waits for no man,” Velveteen said, laughing as she took the offered arm.

“Or bunny.”

“True. Evil waits for no bunny.”

“Not the best battle cry ever.”

“We can work on it.”

*

One of the things Velveteen had missed most in her short time working as a solo hero on the streets of Portland was the exhilarating feeling that only came from working in a team, that little ribbon of exciting unpredictability running through every otherwise ordinary encounter. Would they have your back? Could you drop your guard long enough to pull off something fancy, or did you need to stay braced and on your guard at all times, treating this like a solo run with an annoying sidekick? How far could you push the team dynamic before it turned into a contest instead of a genuine meeting of equals? Working in a team was exciting and terrifying and frustrating and effortless and incredibly hard, and she hadn’t really thought about how much she’d missed it until she was out there with Tag, thwarting a bank robbery, her teddy bears helping the hostages to safety while his spray paint dragon held the terrified robbers in place, occasionally roaring when they seemed to be getting ready to run. Their powers were beautifully suited to one another. Sure, he could only manage one creation at a time, and he had to draw them, or at least “touch up” the existing art before he could command them, but he could whip out much bigger guns than she could, leaving her free to command her larger, if less immediately intimidating, army of toys.

Then the police showed up to take custody, and the pair went racing back into the night, giddy with success, and with the night that still stretched out in front of them like an endless playground filled with muggers, car thieves, and ne’er-do-wells too stupid to believe that a city not under official Super Patriots protection could actually be defended by a genuine superhero. . . or, on a certain beautiful night, two superheroes.

Two convenience store robberies, a car chase, and one purse-snatcher later, Velveteen and Tag leaned up against the brick wall of a downtown warehouse, trying to catch their breath through the joyous laughter that was threatening to overwhelm them both. Tag’s mask—which, Vel had realized, changed to suit his emotions, shifting slowly but continuously, like a mood ring turned tattoo—was a rich sunset combination of red-pink-gold, and she could tell that her own rabbit-eared headband had been knocked slightly askew during the last encounter. And none of that mattered. None of that mattered at all.

“—did you see the way that guy—”

“—and then, with the stuffed rabbit! That was inspired, that was just—”

“—was so sure he was going to hit you square in the face, but—”

They shared a wide-eyed look, finally realizing that they were both talking at once, and broke down laughing. Deep, unrestrained laughter, the kind that stand-up comedians would die for. Slowly, they slid down the wall, until they were sitting, Vel with her legs splayed broken-toy akimbo, Tag with his knees knocking together as he struggled not to lose his balance.

Finally catching her breath, Velveteen reached over and took Tag’s hand in hers, squeezing his fingers lightly. “Thank you for this,” she said. “I mean, I thought it was a really terrible idea when the Princess suggested it, but this has been fantastic. I think I’m going to owe her a pretty major apology.”

“You know, there’s one way you could avoid bowing and scraping
too
much.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, if I agreed to take on half the penance, since it was my evening, too. . .”

“And how would I persuade you to go along with that kind of hare-brained scheme?” asked Velveteen, shooting him an amused look. He met it squarely, no shadows or secrets hiding in his eyes. They were a lovely shade of brown, with little hints of green and hazel brought out by the swirl of colors surrounding them. Nice eyes. The kind of eyes she could spend a lot of time looking into.

“If you were willing to try this again—say, with that rare and frightening event known as the ‘second date’—I could probably be convinced that I should do my share. Just this once.”

Velveteen tilted her head, studying him for a moment more. And then, slowly, she smiled. “I think I’d like that,” she said. “I think I’d like that a lot.”

“Now, since your secret identity means I can’t walk you home, can I at least walk you to the rooftop of your choice?”

Velveteen squeezed Tag’s fingers again before letting go. “Race you there.”

*

Anyone looking at the rooftop of the Dash-o’-Danger steak house at a little after two o’clock that morning would have seen the sort of shot guaranteed to make the cover of superhero magazines across the country. Two heroes, recognizable because of their sleek spandex-and-velvet outlines (and, in the case of the heroine in the pair, the bunny ears rising proudly from her head) standing wrapped in one another’s arms, their kiss silhouetted against the slowly setting moon. If anyone had bothered to look. As for Velveteen and Tag, sharing the ceremonial first kiss to end the not-so-ceremonial first date, they weren’t looking at anything at all.

There are good sides to the superhero life after all.

I ♥
SUPERHEROES

by Carrie Vaughn

W
HAT A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW
. I’d be better off throwing up my hands and walking away. I mean, Seanan can speak for herself, right? She does so very well! But I discover, I do have a few things to say. An Earth-shattering monologue, in fact, on the level of the fiercest arch-villain taking over the Times Square Jumbotron to announce plans for world domination. Okay, maybe not that Earth-shattering. Not worthy of the Jumbotron, but maybe worthy of the afterword to a collection of stories by an award-winning author.

Before we get too much farther, I have a confession: I’m a sucker for superhero stories. I really am. If I lived in a world that really had superheroes, I’d be president of the fan club. I blame Lynda Carter and Lindsay Wagner, except that blame is the wrong word. I worship Lynda Carter and Lindsay Wagner. There, that’s better. With my full-on mainlining of
Wonder Woman
and
The Bionic Woman
as a small child, I imprinted on superheroes early. And not just superheroes, but woman superheroes. I took it absolutely for granted that a woman in a satin star-spangled bathing suit could bend steel bars with her bare hands and kick lots of ass on her own terms. I’m sad that 35 years later, we still have to convince some people of this. Like, oh, Hollywood. I’m still waiting for a live-action Wonder Woman movie on par with
The X-Men
or
Iron Man
. Still . . . waiting . . . In the meantime, I can read Seanan McGuire’s tales of Velveteen. Thank you, Seanan!

And now, I am going to reveal to you the two secrets of writing about superheroes.

The First Secret of Writing About Superheroes: We’ve always had superheroes. Gilgamesh and Enkidu are superheroes. So are Hercules and Theseus, Achilles, Lancelot, Robin Hood, Zorro, the Lone Ranger, all the way down to Superman. One of the things that superheroes do is tell us what the cultures that created them were afraid of, because superheroes can take that fear and turn it into something powerful and helpful. Thus, Enkidu gets his power from the wilderness, at a time when the first cities were starting to push back against the wild unknown. The Greek heroes are demi-gods—the power and irrationality of the gods given human form and tamed for human benefit. The twentieth century superheroes? Genetic mutation, radiation, aliens—all the twentieth century fears, made human, approachable, and even useful. Superheroes have always been with us, and their origins and identities tell us a lot about ourselves.

The Second Secret of Writing About Superheroes: It’s not about the powers, it’s about the people. This should go without saying, but how many recent superhero movies have been ruined in editing because some Hollywood shmoo decided to cut out the deep character moments in favor of extending the gut-punching FX battle? How bored have I gotten listening to someone pick apart inane details of human flight as it’s affected by atmospheric density and yadda yadda, it doesn’t matter. One of the things I loved about
Captain America: The First Avenger
, was the discussion it generated: Everybody had a favorite scene, and the favorite scenes were always character moments: the conversations between Steve and Dr. Erskine, Steve’s trick with the flagpole, his grief over Bucky. I’ll say it again: it’s not about the powers, it’s about the people. Give me a great character, and I’ll go along with whatever powers she has.

But you already know these two secrets, because you’ve been reading about Velveteen (at least, if you’ve gotten this far I assume you have) and Seanan’s already told you the secrets. Her twenty-first century heroes’ powers come from irradiated food, mutated diseases, and pop culture obsessions. And of course they have to grapple with bureaucracy and reality TV, and will face the terrors of marketing and litigation as well as the expected hosts of mad scientists and crustacean rebellion.

And she’s not really telling Velveteen’s story, she’s telling Velma’s, and the question of Who Will Save Us Now isn’t nearly as important as getting that next day job, finding a home that’s really yours, and keeping your friends close. Superheroes have to hang up their tights at the end of the day (or in the morning after an all-night patrol), and the people they are in their pj’s usually determines whether we like them or not. Whether we even care if they can save the world or not.

So yeah, speaking as an avid fan of superhero stories—
good
superhero stories, mind you—Seanan gets it. And it’s awfully nice, in our modern twenty-first century age, that a set of stories that started as a whim on the often ephemeral format of the Internet, can find a second home in a book. Though in true comic book superhero fashion, she’s left us on a bit of a cliffhanger, hasn’t she?

Onward, True Believers!

APPENDIX A:

VELVETEEN AND ALLIES

Despite our best efforts (see action reports A through N), Velma Martinez, code name “Velveteen,” has continued to refuse offers of renewed employment. It is unclear what, if anything, could be done to entice her. Despite her public presentation as a minor asset, she is currently assessed as a level four power. Because of this, we cannot permit her to continue acting outside The Super Patriots.

Velveteen is to be recruited or killed within the next six months. Failure to achieve one of these goals will result in termination.

VELMA “VELVETEEN” MARTINEZ

Assessed power level 4/informed power level 2

Age: Twenty-four
Age at time of power discovery: Unclear; presumed twelve
Height/weight: Unknown

Power set: Semi-autonomous animation of totemic representations of persons and animals, most specifically cloth figures, including minor transformation to grant access to species-appropriate weaponry. No known secondary powers.

Profile: Velveteen was acquired as a corporate asset following a display of her powers in a public area. Early examination showed her power levels to be limited only by the resources available to her. One researcher commented that, with access to a large enough pair of googly eyes, she could potentially animate the moon. Focus groups did not respond well to the idea of a powerful animus, but found a hero who could animate toys to be “charming” and “highly appropriate for children.” Velveteen is thus officially classed in all publicity material as a level two support heroine.