Page 124 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

“We’re artists,” said a girl from the back of the group. “Park’s closed, and that means we can do our thing without exposing little kids to paint fumes. We use quick-dry spray paint, so it’s all set by morning. You really going to bust us? I thought street art was like, your thing.”

“I’m a licensed superhero,” said Tag. “Technically, following the law is my thing. But no, I’m not going to bust you. I’m just going to suggest that you find another canvas for tonight, if that’s cool? I’m don’t want anyone to get in trouble here, and I really don’t want my first post-death fight to be with a bunch of non-powered teenagers.”

“Uh, yeah, we’d rather you didn’t do that either,” said the leader. “But if you’re doing the law-and-order thing, can you really just let us go to start painting somewhere else?”

“I absolutely can. For one thing, you haven’t done anything yet, beyond some light trespassing that I’m allowed to overlook if it’s better for the city. For another, whenever I get licensed somewhere, I immediately start working with the local authorities to try to improve the laws surrounding street art and graffiti. You should be allowed to express yourselves in ways that improve the place where you live. That means defining graffiti, and understanding the difference between spray painting a mural on a bank and writing a bunch of profanity on the side of a school. We’re never going to find a definition that fully satisfies property owners and leaves you with the creative freedom you need, but we can make it easier on artists. And finally…” Tag turned, looking around until he found a crudely drawn stick figure partially obscuring the lettering on a sign listing the skate park rules. He reached over and peeled it away, like it was a plastic sticker on a white board. He gave it a shake and it dissolved, the ink fading as it fell.

He turned back to the teens, who were staring in wide-eyed awe. “Once I’m operating in a region, the authorities tend to get a lot less aggressive toward artists, because they know I can be asked to remove anything inappropriate. I don’t mess with murals, but I will remove tags put on top of them, profanity from schools, and overly sexual drawings placed on other people’s property. The sort of thing that makes it easier for people to hate graffiti artists on principle.”

“That is dead sick, man,” said another of the teens. “Like, seriously. You’re a magic eraser?”

“Not quite, but close enough,” said Tag. “You guys got another spot you’d like to use?”

The teens exchanged a look. “We used to tag over at the old mall,” said their leader. “But we sort of filled up the available space before we got good, and now it’s just a mess. We’ve been hoping the cops would come and blank the whole thing so we could start over, but I guess it’s not in the budget this quarter.”

“You meet a superhero who agrees not to arrest you, and you want to use him to get yourself a clean canvas?”

The teens shrugged. “That’s about right,” said one of them.

Tag laughed. “All right,” he said. “Take me to this mall, and I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

What he could do turned out to be quite a lot. Piece by piece, he removed the graffiti from the brick wall they’d been talking about, shaking it until it crumbled away. Each of the teens was happy to identify their own art, and when he found a few pieces that showed actual promise, he moved them to the side for their creators, letting them keep the proof of their improvement. Laughter and sounds of appreciation rang through the night, and by the time the wall was sufficiently clear, he was feeling the pleasant burn that always came from putting his powers through a proper workout.

People had a tendency to forget that Tag, like Velveteen, was an animus: his powers tapped into the living energy of the world around him, allowing him to animate the inanimate, to move life from one point to another. If he could figure out how she’d done what she’d done to him, he could probably have raised the dead.

Not that he particularly wanted to, unless it was in the more socially acceptable “bringing your loved ones genuinely back to life, not powering them with your own life force” way. Which seemed unlikely. He peeled away another sheet of misspelled lettering, shaking it into oblivion. As an animus, he was more powerful than his power set appeared on the surface, but as someone who liked his little slice of the superhuman world, he was unlikely to ever push for much more than this.

The best heroes, in his eyes, were the ones who spent as much time serving communities as they did stopping crime. They weren’t cops, they didn’t have the social remit that the police did, and behaving like cops had never helped anyone feel more like they belonged among the people who needed them. He peeled another skewed tag off the wall, letting it wisp into nothing. If he didn’t belong among the people, he didn’t have any business where he was.

The teens cheered as this revealed the stretch of open wall they’d been hoping for, and they fell upon their canvas with hunger. Tag stepped back, smiling as he let them work.

This was better than being dead. This was worth living for.

* * *

Tag stayed with the teens while they worked, observing their art, making suggestions when they seemed like they’d be welcome, and keeping the authorities from breaking up the party, which was the absolute definition of not hurting anyone. The wall looked so much better after they repainted it that this whole evening could really only be called civic improvement.

“You okay, guy?” asked the leader of the group, nudging him with an elbow during a pause in painting. “You don’t gotta stay and babysit us, you know. We can take care of ourselves.”

“I know. But I’m enjoying the night, and it’s so nice to just smell paint and hear the cans going and know that I’m here, and I’m alive, and this is all really happening.”

“You were really dead, huh?”

“Yeah. I was really dead. It kinda sucked.”

“Did you like, go to hell or something?”

“Thankfully, not so much. I don’t think I ‘went’ anywhere. I died, and then I wasn’t dead anymore, and the middle was like a long, dreamless nap, but one of the ones where you wake up and your neck hurts and you don’t know what day of the week it is anymore, you know? I’m glad to be awake again, but nothing really happened while I was gone. I’m glad to be back.” He paused. “I’m not sure I’d said that in so many words before now.”

“How did you come back? If it’s not like, mad rude for me to ask. I’ve never talked with a formerly dead guy before.”

“I don’t know whether it’s rude or not. There are probably support groups in some of the bigger cities, but there isn’t one around here, so it’s not like I’ve asked anybody what should or shouldn’t offend me. Just please, no zombie jokes, okay?”

“Deal.”

“Cool. Well. I died, and you know Velveteen?”