Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots

by Seanan McGuire

  Past the Oregon state line.

  *

  Velma opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by armed security guards, and a diminutive blonde woman in a dusky gray business suit standing about ten yards away, shouting—yes, openly shouting—at . . . Velma squinted, pushing herself up onto her elbows. Shouting at two men from the Marketing Department, flanked by Action Dude, Dewpoint, and Uncertainty. The sight of Action Dude was enough to make Velma close her eyes again, briefly. If she was going to get apprehended, she would have preferred it not be at the hands of her one and only ex-boyfriend.

  Then the actual words of the woman in gray began to register. “—telling you, she’s in Oregon, and you have no actual charges to bring against her! Now unless you can provide me with actual proof that this woman has been involved in a superheroic crime, I’m afraid that, by Oregon law, I cannot allow you to remove her from my custody.”

  “Harboring an unlicensed superhero is against national, not merely state, laws,” said one of the men from Marketing. Velma didn’t recognize his voice. She didn’t need to. “Now, if you would just allow us to—”

  “She’s not unlicensed,” said the woman.

  “WHAT?!” said the man from Marketing.

  “WHAT?!” said Action Dude.

  “WHAT?!” demanded Velma, sitting up and opening her eyes.

  “I told you this was a potential outcome,” said Uncertainty, and yawned.

  “Velveteen is a fully licensed and authorized Oregon superheroine,” said Celia Morgan, smiling sweetly and imagining her fist grinding deep into the face of the man from Marketing.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me? My superhero appears to have been damaged. I want to get her to the hospital.”

  Smiling dizzily (as much from head trauma and blood loss as from actual delight), Velma offered a little wave to the men from Marketing, blew a kiss to a startled-looking Action Dude, and passed out cold.

  Welcome to Oregon.

  VELVETEEN

  vs.

  The Eternal Halloween

  Twelve years ago . . .

  IT WAS HALLOWEEN MORNING, AND for some reason she couldn’t quite identify or name—“couldn’t put her finger on,” as David always said, usually while looking mournfully at his own massive claws—Velveteen was uneasy. She walked through the back halls of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division housing compound with strange shivers dancing up and down the back of her neck, and waited for some unseen other shoe to drop.

  The public halls had been decorated for Halloween since the first of the month—actually, the decorations went up at the stroke of midnight on September 30th, like Marketing was afraid they might miss a few precious retail dollars if people didn’t realize it was time to go costume shopping the second the calendar turned. Black, green, and purple streamers draped the walls, while comically leering masks and cartoon spooks peeked from every corner.

  The Super Patriots, Inc. was officially a secular organization, holding no allegiance to any religion, faith, or creed, but it was still considered impossible for anyone to object to their cheery observance of Halloween. After all, Trick and Treat were two of the most well-known and well-loved members of The Super Patriots, and Halloween was their home holiday. Every year they were booked on every talk show that would have them, and a few that weren’t entirely sure they’d asked for the privilege. They were even scheduled to host a special Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live. Halloween’s dream team, flying the home flag for every country in the world.

  The Junior Super Patriots had filmed their Halloween special at the beginning of August, squeezing into their special “Halloween costumes” before putting on their little idiot dumbshow about the wonders of the holiday. This was the first holiday special for the new lineup, but even Yelena hadn’t been able to stay starry-eyed with wonder for more than the first few hours of filming. Marketing had been there every step of the way, adjusting lines, demanding retakes, and tweaking, tweaking, tweaking as they pursued the best possible ratings. Trick and Treat were also there, of course, but Velveteen couldn’t remember exchanging more than three unscripted words with them. Trick used to give her nightmares when she was little, before she became a superheroine in her own right.

  If she was being honest with herself, he still did.

  It was Halloween morning. Velveteen had a special appearance with Yelena—sorry, with “Sparkle Bright”—scheduled for two o’clock, she was due in makeup in half an hour, and something was wrong. She just knew it. The trouble was that she had no idea what it was.

  Rubbing her arms in a vain effort to stop the goose bumps, Velveteen shook her head, and kept walking.

  *

  The existence of the Spirits of the Season has been widely debated for years within both the superhuman community and the somewhat larger, more academic community of scholars dedicated to the study of those same superhumans. There are points to support both sides of the debate. Majesty, Supermodel, and Jolly Roger were the first officially known superhumans: this is unarguably true. But there have always been stories of people with powers beyond the norm, and there have always been strange rumors and legends attached to the points where one season slid into another.

  Oak Kings and Holly Kings; Summer Queens and Goddesses of the Spring. Jack Frost. Persephone. All those strange seasonal figures cropping up again and again throughout the mythology of the world, gradually shifting to suit each culture’s understanding of and beliefs about a season. Were they simply stories, or were they based on something more? The existence of the magical heroes made the question difficult to ignore, even before Trick and Treat’s mysterious appearance in the middle of a haunted corn maze in Huntsville, Alabama. Had the magical heroes always existed, simply waiting to actively involve themselves with the affairs of an unpowered world until that world was ready to deal with them?

  The leading theoretical view of things is somewhat more interesting, if a little more disturbing: Trick and Treat, it says, are being entirely literal when they call Halloween their “home holiday.” Further, it puts forth the notion that their interactions with the everyday world are a matter of convenience, not necessity; they could return to the land of Halloween at any time, leaving the world they currently inhabit behind forever. The notion of an entire parallel world of literalized seasons is something few people choose to consider for long. And yet . . .

  There have always been stories of people who embodied the very best elements of certain seasons, certain seasonal festivals. Moreover, since the emergence of the first superhumans, more than a few magical heroes with seasonal or holiday-themed powers have been found, several of them with no known point of origin. Sometimes when Marketing says “mysterious foundling,” they actually mean it. If there are Spirits of the Seasons, what does that mean for the reality of the rest of the year? What does the fact that Trick and Treat are essentially cheerfully vapid reality star contestants say about American culture?

  And what happens when the less savory aspects of the holidays start finding a way to break through?

  *

  Aaron was in the training room, playing catch with himself. He would stand at one end of the room (which was the length of a regulation football field) and pitch the ball as hard as he could. Then he would fly to the other side of the room and try to catch it before it could hit the wall. He was getting better. The first time Velveteen saw him play, he was only been making the catch one time in five. Now he was making it two times out of three, and he’d confessed to Vel that the misses were more a matter of aim than speed.

  Velveteen stopped at the spectator’s rail, where the force field would prevent her from being damaged by any accidentally mis-flung footballs, bursts of cosmic radiation, or other casual by-products of superheroes at play. (Interestingly, Yelena’s color-blasts went through the force field like a hot knife through butter. She had been excused from indoor training until Research and Development could figure out what she was doing, a fact that was giving Imagineer
fits of rapture, and Marketing, well, just plain fits.) Leaning on the rail, she plucked at the side of her glove, and watched him play.

  It was always costumes-on at the compound, unless you were in your room, but Marketing had long since seen the wisdom of allowing each hero to have several different daily costume designs. It was a functional decision—gym clothes and formal wear and flame-retardant fabrics for those trips into the Hollow Earth—but it was also a financial one: you sell more action figures when they have visible differences. Aaron always did his workouts in his default costume, all skin-tight orange and blue spandex that somehow made every hormone in her thirteen-year-old body stand up and pay attention. She thought she might be halfway to being in love with him. She thought that might be a really bad idea. But then she saw him flying across the field, all concentration and serious devotion, and she really thought she didn’t have a choice.

  Aaron was on his fifth dive across the field when he saw her, lost control of the ball, and went crashing, shoulder-first, into the tungsten-and-astroturf floor of the training room. Velveteen stiffened, clapping one gloved hand over her mouth. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until he picked himself up, dusting powdered tungsten and bits of green plastic off his uniform, and offered her a sheepish grin.

  “Uh. Hi, Velm—hi, Vel.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, scuffing the ground with a toe and digging another deep divot in the tungsten. “I, uh, didn’t see you there.”

  Velveteen’s cheeks turned a brilliant red as she tried to come up with a reply that would make her sound cool. Or, if cool wasn’t an option, at least not seriously mentally deranged. Not seriously deranged would be awesome. “I was just on my way to makeup,” she said, finally.

  Was it her imagination, or did Aaron look slightly crestfallen? “Oh. Well, I’d offer to come with you, but I have another half hour of self-training before I’m supposed to report to the gym.”

  “Ugh,” said Velveteen, before her brain had a chance to interfere with the functionality of her mouth. “Who did you piss off this time?”

  “The gray one.”

  “Ewwwwww.” Velveteen wrinkled her nose. The men and women from Marketing never seemed to have actual names; maybe they thought they’d have more trouble viewing the kids they worked with as “valuable commodities” if they were humanized even that far. So all the men were “sir,” and all the women were “ma’am,” like they were some sort of hive superhero in their own right. Secretly, Velveteen couldn’t wait for the day she graduated to the adult team, when all the men and women from Marketing would have to start calling her ma’am.

  “You’re doing it again,” said Aaron.

  “Doing what?”

  He tapped his nose rather than answering verbally. Velveteen reddened again, resisting the urge to clap a hand across her own nose and hide it from any watching cameras. Marketing had been encouraging her to play up the “cute and cuddly” aspects of her costume and code name, recommending she do things like twitch her nose when she was thinking hard and eat carrots whenever she felt like a snack. As far as Velveteen was concerned, Marketing could go and shove their cute and cuddly up their collective cute and cuddly ass. She’d be damned before she got a reputation as some kind of human plush toy, even if the Velveteen soft toy line was one of the season’s top sellers.

  Anyway, she didn’t wrinkle her nose to look like a rabbit, she did it because that was what her nose wanted to do when she heard something gross. But if Marketing wanted her to do it more, she was going to do her best not to do it at all.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Um, so. . .”

  “Yeah.” Cheeks growing redder by the moment, Velveteen took a step backward. “I should get . . . I should get to makeup.”

  “Yeah, I should get back to—”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bye.” Turning, Velveteen scooted out of the training room as fast as her legs could carry her. She might not have superspeed, but it’s never a good idea to underestimate the speed of an embarrassed teenage girl.

  Aaron watched her go. When she was gone, he watched the door, maybe a little bit longer than he needed to, expression going dreamy. After a few minutes, when he knew for sure that she wasn’t coming back, he turned. Time to get back to work, and she’d be back. Velveteen always came back.

  That was one of the best things about her.

  *

  Makeup was horrible, as always. The appearance with Yelena—sorry, Sparkle Bright—was okay, since it was primarily a photo shoot. They’d been taken out to a local park that was closed off for their use and allowed to play around for almost an hour while the photographer took candid shots of them. It hadn’t taken long for them to completely forget his presence and relax, playing on the swings, chasing each other around the monkey bars, and playing a variant of tag that involved flight and tiny toy helicopters in addition to all the usual things. When the free play time was over, they’d been presented with a variety of photogenic targets to “fight” against. Balloons for Sparkle Bright, mostly, and little engineering puzzles for Velveteen to take down with squadrons of animated toys. It wasn’t as fun as the free play, but it was still better than the normal daily exercises.

  The obligatory interview was conducted in the park, and the part of Velveteen’s mind that was spending more and more time assessing the world noted cynically that the pair of them, grass-stained and grinning on a park bench as they answered questions, was the sort of image that kept the superheroes human in the public eye, and kept the public loving them. It was all smoke and mirrors. She knew that now.

  She really wished she didn’t.

  The interviewer was young and pretty, which meant whatever magazine this was for was probably aimed at young, pretty people. It wasn’t one of the hero magazines, she knew that much; the hero magazines never staged fights against balloons. Young and pretty as she was, sitting with real live superheroes didn’t seem to bother the interviewer in the least. Maybe she’d done this before. Or maybe she just couldn’t be afraid of preteen girls with grass stains on their knees.

  Most of the questions were soft, easy, and almost cliché. What was it like to have super powers? Did they ever miss going to regular school, with regular kids? Did they feel like they were better than the regular kids? Was there ever any fighting amongst The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division? (The correct answers were, of course, “it’s wonderful,” “sometimes, but I know this is for the best,” “no, not at all, just different,” and “no, never, we’re like a family.” It was okay to change the wording enough to keep the interviewers from realizing just how well-coached the kids were; that didn’t mean it was okay to go off script completely. Once, Velveteen said that having super powers was better than Christmas, and got a long lecture on maintaining the proper image, followed by two weeks of extra lessons with Marketing. She wasn’t planning to do it again, but boy, it had been worth it for the look on the interviewer’s face.)

  The questions got harder toward the end of the interview, and Velveteen found herself taking Sparkle Bright’s hand, as much to comfort herself as to comfort Sparks. The man from Marketing who’d been monitoring the entire process from the discrete distance signaled for the interviewer to wrap it up, probably sensing that something inappropriate was about to be asked. The interviewer ignored him, leaning forward conspiratorially as she asked, “So, girls, tell me—are the rumors true? Does one of you have a crush?”

  Sparkle Bright turned an immediate and vivid red. Velveteen squeezed her hand, and the red shifted to an equally vivid purple as panic made Sparks turn her powers on.

  “I believe this interview is over,” said the man from Marketing. And then it was back into the van and back to the compound, with Sparkle Bright staring resolutely out the window the whole way, refusing to talk to anybody, even Velveteen. Vel watched her friend, worried. She hadn’t known Sparks had a crush on anybody, much less on
e that big.

  What if it was Aaron?

  But before she could dwell on that strangely, deeply upsetting idea, it was time to change into the special Halloween versions of their costumes and spend the night handing out candy to wide-eyed kids who couldn’t stop staring. The whole thing made Velveteen’s chest ache. Maybe her home life hadn’t been the best, but she’d been able to spend Halloween nights in a costume that she chose, not one designed for her by a committee and approved by a series of focus groups, and she’d been able to go from door to door, asking strangers for candy, without a news crew following her every step of the way. She was a superhero now. She liked being a superhero.

  She just didn’t like anything about it.

  *

  Even on Halloween, lights-out was set for nine-thirty, no argument or negotiation. For once, Velveteen went willingly, grateful for the chance to get away from the rest of the team, from Marketing’s constant assessments, and from the way Sparks had been watching her own feet all evening long. Things were weird, and Vel didn’t like weird. She liked it when things stayed the way they were supposed to, and all the enemies were ones she was allowed to hit.

  She brushed her teeth while the teddy bears made her bed and put her laundry into the hamper. They put themselves back on the shelf when they were done, and Vel crawled under the covers, pulling the pillow over her head. There was a click as one of the toy soldiers flipped the light switch, and everything went dark.

  After a little while, Velveteen slept.

  *

  It was Halloween morning, and for some reason she couldn’t quite identify or name—“couldn’t put her finger on,” as David always said, usually while looking mournfully at his own massive claws—Velveteen was uneasy. She walked through the back halls of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division housing compound, almost coming into sight of the training room before she stopped, frowning.