Page 30 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

Torrey bit her lip, a tear escaping to run down her cheek before she pulled back, turning her face away. “I know,” she said, in a careful voice, “I know that you have never been reluctant to love me because of my origins. I’ve always considered myself doubly blessed, to have found and lost a version of you, only to find another who could see fit not to be jealous of herself. You are my miracle. But please, consider what you’re offering me. A reputation, once besmirched, can never be truly clean again.”

“Oh, I know. Believe me, I know.” The Super Patriots, Inc. had run a decades-long smear campaign against Velveteen. They had painted her as a drop-out and a waste and finally as a dangerous supervillain. They had been doing it to protect themselves, and in their process, they had lain the groundwork that was now being used to justify every abuse of power in the book. If there were only two animus in the world at the time of Supermodel’s defeat, and they were both bad, how could it be wrong to put more controls in place to keep things like that from happening? If Vel hadn’t been treated the way she had been, more people might have seen her for the hero that she was, and this might not have been happening.

But it was happening. All the regret in the world wasn’t going to change that. Carefully, Yelena said, “My girl and my best friend have both been supervillains. I can handle a few stains on my reputation if it means I get to stay with you.”

Torrey turned back to her, searching her face for a moment before she asked, very seriously, “Do we have time to make one last use of our bedchamber before we flee into the unending night?”

“Yeah, we do,” said Yelena, and reached for her. “And then, I have the perfect first act of villainy.”

“What’s that?” Yelena told her. Torrey smiled.

* * *

Sunrise chased the shadows from the front of the police station. Sleepy-eyed cops lingered on the steps, some heading home after a long night’s work, others preparing for a long day of protecting and serving. None of them batted an eye when Polychrome and Victory Anna walked by. The two women made no effort to hide themselves. They were familiar here, part of the extended family of Portland law enforcement. It was better if they came in openly, and didn’t make a fuss. Less chance of someone getting in their way and getting hurt.

The cells designed to hold superpowered prisoners were protected by a special door, thick enough for a bank vault, meant to be proof against all attempts at access. Polychrome and Victory Anna stopped when they reached it.

“This is it,” said Victory Anna. “This is your last chance to back out.”

“No, it’s not,” said Polychrome. She produced a slim phone from under the sash that circled her waist, breaking up her outline and concealing the lumps of her pockets. “My last chance came and went a long time ago. Get to work.”

Victory Anna smiled, and pulled out her lock picks.

* * *

Governor Celia Morgan was at breakfast in her home, eating a waffle and watching her sister read the paper, when her phone rang. She checked the caller ID, then picked up. “Polychrome. I wondered when I’d be hearing from you. I want you to know that it wasn’t my idea.”

Jennifer looked up, suddenly alert. Governor Morgan waved for her to be still.

“I understand,” she said finally. “No, really, I do. It’s the same choice I might have made, if our situations were reversed. Was anyone hurt?” A pause. “That’s good. Thank you for being so careful. And thank you for letting me know. I genuinely do appreciate it. I’m sorry you’ve been forced into this situation. I won’t try to call you back.” She hung up and looked at her phone for a long moment before holding it out toward Jennifer.

“Celia?” said Jennifer, warily.

“It seems I’ve had an accident and destroyed my phone,” said Celia calmly. “I can’t imagine how it happened.”

“What a pity,” said Jennifer. She took the phone, looking at it quizzically for a moment. All the dust and dirt that had collected on the keys flowed together into a thin stream of particles that wormed under the edge of the screen. The phone threw off some surprisingly bright sparks and went dead. “I don’t think it can be fixed.”

“Good,” said Celia fiercely. “That was Polychrome. She wanted to let me know that she and Victory Anna had broken the young technopath they caught yesterday out of prison, and that the three of them were now officially on the run. I’ll need to report them as supervillains. By now, I’d be surprised if they hadn’t crossed state lines.” Her hand was shaking as she reached for her coffee. She forced herself to complete the gesture. She was going to need the caffeine.

“I see,” said Jennifer. “It’s really too bad I was off on a training exercise when you heard about this. I might have been able to stop them if they hadn’t been given such a good head start.”

“Yes,” said Celia, before taking a sip of her coffee. It was too hot; it scalded her lips. “It’s too bad.”

“I thought…” Jennifer stopped, gathering her thoughts, and tried again: “I thought things were supposed to get better after we got rid of The Super Patriots, Inc. I thought we were going to have a world where people were allowed to just be people, and no one had to fight, and no one had to die. Where we could be happy.”

“Sometimes I forget that you’re the idealistic one,” said Celia. She took another sip of her coffee, staring off into space. “Do you think an hour will be long enough to wait?”

“The phone’s dead,” said Jennifer. “No one can reach you until you move.”

“That’s good. Thank you, dear. Well.” Celia stood, still holding her mug in one hand. “I suppose I should get dressed. It’s going to be a very long day.”

VELVETEEN vs. The Melancholy of Autumn

Velveteen opened her eyes to find herself staring up into the rafters of a house that should probably have been condemned five minutes after it was built, just to prevent this inevitable future. The wood was dark with water damage and mold, rotted cleanly through in spots. Thick, filthy cobwebs covered the entire edifice. Velveteen was more than reasonably sure that they were holding the whole place up. Clean the house, watch it fall down around your ears.

This was the Autumn country. There was no place else that it could be. The slant of the roof and the single small, round window, like a ship’s porthole, told her that she was probably in the attic of this particular haunted house, which made sense; attics were where the broken toys went. She had visited Autumn before, usually in the custody of Halloween, which was the season’s dominant holiday. She knew their sense of humor.

Breathing slowly and evenly, so as to keep herself from freaking out, Velveteen lifted her hand off the bed and raised it to the level of her eyes. As she had expected, she no longer had skin in the human sense; instead, she had threadbare brown velvet, patched with swaths of brighter fabric. One of her fingers was gone. Not missing: gone, leaving her with a four-fingered hand that would have been easier for a seamstress to stitch together. Her arm was more of the same.