Page 44 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

“I know the law. Funny thing: it doesn’t make any exceptions for people being outside this temporal reality when the registration period was open.” Imagineer raised her right arm, displaying the metal band clasped around her wrist. “I am very intimate with the regulatory structure now in place for the animus power class and associated disciplines.”

Action Dude winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to seem like I didn’t…” He stopped.

“I know.” Imagineer smiled wryly. “I won’t even ask why you wanted to avoid seeming like, because I know you don’t have a damn idea, just like I know that trying to use a machine to keep tabs on me was one of the stupidest things the government could ever have done. I would have run otherwise. I’d be a supervillain now, like Yelena and her little girlfriend.”

That was all it took to wipe the apology from Action Dude’s face, replacing it with steely chill.

“We don’t talk about them.”

“Relax, Aaron. This room isn’t bugged. Believe me, I’d know.” Imagineer waved her wristbanded arm in an extravagant arc. “We are as clear and safe here as we’ll ever be anywhere. Although I wouldn’t put it past my handlers to ask me to plant bugs at some point, so I suppose your concern isn’t too misguided. We live in a new world, my friend. Your grade school girlfriend doesn’t get a pass just because she was in a different dimension when the rules changed. Hell, that’s why the rules changed. Maybe I should turn her in myself.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” said Action Dude coldly.

“I might. It’s not like you’re exactly giving us clear and present leadership here, buddy. I know they raised you to be a better leader in a recruitment poster than you were on the ground, but those days are done. You want loyalty, you need to do something more than remind people that you can punch us through walls.” Imagineer showed him her wristband again. This time, there was no levity in it. “This happened on your watch. Supermodel may have been an evil bitch who wanted to turn us all into villains when we weren’t looking, but at least she kept us safe. Just keep that in mind while you’re putting your ex-girlfriend above all the people who didn’t run away. At some point, you have to start rewarding us for staying, or we’re all going to go.”

Imagineer turned and walked out of the room. Action Dude didn’t stop her.

* * *

When Action Dude finally got up and walked out of the break room, he found the American Dream waiting for him in the hall. He stopped, and groaned.

“Look, Dreamy, I’m not available for patrol right now,” he said. “I took myself off all the rosters because I’m not available. Can’t you handle it?”

“I’m more super-fast than super-strong, so no, we’re not really interchangeable, but I’m not here about patrol,” said the American Dream. Their voice was calm and level, like they were getting ready to break bad news to a child. “Imagineer called. She says Velveteen woke up.”

“Did she also say that Velveteen went straight back to sleep? Because I think that’s relevant here. Dairy Keen v. the State of Wisconsin means we can keep her as long as she’s too unwell to be released to the relevant authorities.”

“Does it also mean we don’t need to tell the relevant authorities that she’s back? Because I’m not comfortable with this. We’re on shaky legal ground.”

“Dreamy, please.”

“I’m just saying, we’re responsible for a lot of people here. A lot of lives. People are scared of the government coming after us directly, rather than just sniffing around the fringes, and this sort of thing is what opens us to attack. You have to think about The Super Patriots, Inc. before you think about yourself.”

“You think I’m thinking about myself? That this is about me?” Action Dude laughed bitterly. “Oh, man, I wish this were about me. Do you have any idea how good I am at giving up what I want? I gave up the first girl I ever loved. Maybe the only girl I’ve ever loved, since it’s not like I could go falling for somebody for real when I was supposed to be in love with Yelena. I gave up the idea of going to college because my contract required me to do too many hours a week. I’ve given up having a secret identity and going to see my parents and every damn thing I’ve ever wanted. You really think this is about me? This isn’t about me. You can tell by the way I’m actually fighting for it. This is about her.”

“I’m sorry,” said the American Dream. “She was before my time, you know. I don’t even know why she’s so important that you’d want to fight for her.”

Action Dude paused and took a deep breath before he said, “I know you know that she used to be my girlfriend. I want you to understand that that has nothing to do with this.”

“Okay,” said the American Dream, with an expression that implied the exact opposite. Here, in these halls, Velveteen was always going to be the CEO’s ex.

She was going to hate that when she woke up. They just had to get her that far. “Velma Martinez was a child hero. The company bought her, the same way it bought half its recruits. They didn’t even have to pay very much.” That had been a shock, when he’d finally received access to the records. For all that her parents had always been there with their hands out, ready to take whatever they were given, The Super Patriots, Inc. had been able to purchase her for well below market value.

“So? The Super Patriots, Inc. bought a lot of people.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t let most of us down the way they did her. They tried to break her heart, and in the process, they broke her spirit. She walked on her eighteenth birthday. I used to think she had some sort of weird persecution complex. Every time I saw her, she’d have a story about the company not letting her go to school or hold a job or anything normal like that. Turns out she was exactly right. They wanted her to be a supervillain, even if they had to hound her into it.”

The American Dream blinked. “Wait, seriously?”

“Seriously.” Action Dude nodded grimly. “Supermodel had teams harrying her up one side and down the other. Technically, we couldn’t blow her identity, since she’d quit while it was still protected, but that didn’t stop the anonymous complaints about her work, or the evictions, or the revoked financial aid. Everything she ever tried to do, The Super Patriots, Inc. took away from her. Starting with me. Her whole life has been like one long, slow-motion chase sequence, and I’m not going to do that to her anymore. I’m going to let her wake up, and I’m going to let her choose, for once in her life, what she wants to have happen to her next. Maybe it’s turning herself in. Maybe it’s going back to the holidays. I don’t know. I just know that she’s going to decide on her own.”

“What if she decides she wants us to help her fight?”

“Then maybe we need to have a long talk about whether that’s exactly what we ought to be doing. When they said that there was legislation about the animus class coming together, we didn’t fight, because we didn’t want to scare people, and because there are so few animus around that it seemed better not to. Only now it’s also technopaths, and the plant-manipulators, and they’re talking about the psychometrists and the matter-manipulators, and I think we’ve lost.” Action Dude looked at the American Dream, wishing he were a better public speaker. Wishing anything in his training had prepared him for this. “They’re just going to re-categorize us, one by one, until we’re all animus, and we’re all under governmental control.”

“And you think hiding the last real animus in the world is the way to show them that they’re wrong?”

“I think it’s the last thing we can do to show that we did not stand idly by while we watched our children taken, one by one,” said Action Dude. “If you think I’m in the wrong, if you and Dotty want to vote to expel me, that’s cool. I just ask that you give us the courtesy of a day’s headstart before you tell anyone that she was here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some explaining to do.”