Behind the Mask

by Link, Kelly; Rambo, Cat; Vaughn, Carrie

  She really hates her creators for it. It’s distracting. It’s dehumanizing. It’s objectifying. She understands the intent behind it, to have her engage in enthusiastic, frequent sex, hopefully with them. She doesn’t understand, though, why they chose to then give her free will, to force her to perpetually struggle between that pull and the business of being a patriotic superhero, a cybernetic woman: super strong, super fast, super durable.

  Even now she feels the firmness of the bench under her ass, the smoothness of the table’s wood against her forearms. She glares at Dr. Arcane.

  “What. Is. Bugging. You?” she says, spitting out each word like a bullet.

  “We don’t have the right dynamic.”

  “What?”

  “The four of us—you a cyborg, X a genetically constructed being, alien Kilroy from four galaxies away, and myself, a pan-dimensional sorceress—”

  “Sorcerer.”

  “Magic-user. At any rate, we need some more human people. To add a few more facets to our toolbox.”

  “You mean interview some new members?”

  “An open call for facets, yes.”

  Ms. Liberty eats another piece, exploring the hot rush of grease, the intensity of cheese and tomato and basil. New members. It’s not a bad idea.

  • • •

  The interviews are held in the Kiwanis hall. Ms. Liberty, X, Dr. Arcane, and Kilroy go through their clipboards while two dozen candidates wait out in the hall.

  “If you’re going to be our leader, you need to look like you haven’t time-traveled here from the 20th century,” Dr. Arcane grumbles to Ms. Liberty. “You may have been built with the blueprints from the Stepford wives, but you don’t have to keep looking like one.”

  “It’s a little late to be thinking of that,” Ms. Liberty says. Her internal chronometer says 14:59:05. At 15:00:00, she’ll signal Kilroy to open the door.

  Dr. Arcane says something under her breath, glances back down at the clipboard. “What sort of grrl-power frenzy name is Zanycat?” she asks.

  Zanycat, as it turns out, is a super-scientist’s kid sister, pockets full of gadgets, gizmos, gee-whizzeries. She demonstrates flips, moves through martial arts moves like a ballerina on crack, and does quadratic equations in her head. She’s a keeper, all right, although she’s very young. Her certificate pronounces her barely at the legal age to be a sidekick: fifteen.

  Pink Pantomime, a former reality-show star turned hero, doesn’t do much for anyone but X.

  Kilroy and Zenith like Bulla the Strong Woman, but her powers are too close to Ms. Liberty’s.

  Rocketwoman is vague about her origin; perhaps she’s a villain gone good? Her armor is like something from the cover of a 40s SF magazine, but bubble-gum pink, teal blue, like a child’s toy. Her gun is similarly shaped: it shoots out concentric rings of brilliant yellow energy that contract around a target.

  They have gone through twenty-two candidates, making notes, asking questions. The twenty-third arrives, dressed in black and steel.

  Dr. Arcane dates women by preference but believes that everyone exists on a continuum of bisexuality. She has slept with demons, mermaids, aliens, shape-shifters, ghosts, the thoughts of gods (and goddesses), robots, and super-models. But she has never seen anything like the sexuality of the woman who steps forward next: the Sphinx. She smells of sweet amber and smoke, her accent is sibilant and smoldering.

  Ms. Liberty does not date, has not slept with anyone since discovering how thoroughly her sexuality is hard-wired. The resultant level of frustration, constant as a cheese grater on her nerves, is preferable to knowing that she’s giving in to their design. But she also has never seen anything like the Sphinx, her languid power, her lithe curves, her eyebrows like ebony intimations.

  Kilroy couldn’t care less. X just sings of carrots.

  According to her resume, she’s a computer hacker and ninja-type. Competent and low-key. She doesn’t talk much, despite their best attempts to draw her out.

  At one point she looks up, meets Ms. Liberty’s eyes. They stare at each other as though hypnotized, but it is impossible to tell what the Sphinx is thinking.

  Less so with Ms. Liberty, who goes beet red and looks away.

  “Why an all-woman superhero group?” the Sphinx asks.

  “Why not?” Dr. Arcane says even as Ms. Liberty replies, “That was somewhat accidental. X and I both wanted to leave our old group and we knew Kilroy was looking for work. X and Dr. Arcane were old friends.”

  “Is it a political statement?”

  “It’s like this,” Ms. Liberty says. “One of the reasons we left the Superb Squadron, X and I, was because we were the only females on there and we were getting harassed. I’m sure there are good guys out there, who would make a swell addition to our team. Maybe we’ll explore that somewhere down the line. But for now, it’s more comfortable to be all women.”

  The Sphinx nods. She and Ms. Liberty exchange looks again. Ms. Liberty imagines the Sphinx as the heroine of a comic book, a solitary wanderer, aloof and sexy and unpartnered.

  • • •

  “Get a haircut,” Dr. Arcane tells Ms. Liberty on the way out of the hall.

  “Stop nagging me. Why should I be judged on my appearance?”

  Dr. Arcane pauses, considers this. “Valid point,” she admits. “But here it’s not about the group’s appearance. It’s about getting you laid.”

  “Artificial beings don’t need to get laid,” Ms. Liberty says.

  “The hell they don’t,” Zenith retorts.

  In the end they take on three provisional members: Rocketwoman, the Sphinx, and Zanycat. Three months trial membership, no health coverage until that period is past, but they’ll be on the accidental damage rider as of tomorrow. Rocketwoman tells them all to call her Charisse, but everyone keeps forgetting, and the Sphinx and Zanycat prefer their hero names.

  “What’s the name of the group going to be?” Zanycat asks.

  “We haven’t been able to agree on one yet,” Dr. Arcane admits.

  “What are the candidates?”

  “A corporate logo, Freedom Flight, an unpronounceable symbol, and Gaia’s Legion.”

  X projects the symbol in turquoise Lucida Sans on her flank, bats cow-lashed eyes enticingly at Zanycat.

  “A friend told me fast food companies are looking to sponsor teams, and there’s good money in it,” Kilroy says.

  Arcane shakes her head. “We don’t need to worry about that. I’m independently wealthy.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that, you mean,” Kilroy says. “Some of us are trying to make a living, put aside a little for retirement. Or a ticket back home.”

  “We need some sort of name for press releases, at least,” the Sphinx says. They all stare at her.

  “Press releases?” Dr. Arcane says incredulously.

  “We need name recognition,” the Sphinx insists.

  “We need a fluid interpersonal dynamic!” Dr. Arcane shoots back. “Actually, what we need is training that allows us to respond efficiently and effectively to threats,” Ms. Liberty says. She adds, “In my opinion.”

  “How about a working title?”

  “Like what?”

  “Female Force?”

  “UGH. Just call us Labia Legion and shoot us in the collective forehead.”

  • • •

  The Sphinx and Ms. Liberty are sharing breakfast, the two of them up earlier than the rest for a change.

  “I have a question,” the Sphinx says.

  “Go ahead.” Ms. Liberty butters her waffle.

  “Are we even really an all-female group?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Zenith, Charisse, Zanycat, myself, X for sure. But Kilroy’s an alien—do they even have genders like ours?”

  “She lays eggs, I believe, but she’s been pretty cagy about it.”

  “And X—well, X is a construct. Not even built to be female, she apparently just decided it—but based on what? Attitu
de? Self-identification? Class? Power relationship to her creator?”

  Ms. Liberty has had this conversation before, in the Super Squadron Headquarters.

  “If she says she is, who am I to say no?” she says.

  “That brings us to you,” the Sphinx says.

  Ms. Liberty says, “If I say I am, who are you to say no?”

  “You’re a construct too.”

  “Constructed to be female.”

  “Something you could change or reject as easily as throwing a switch.”

  Ms. Liberty says, “I have to be something more than superhuman. I’m female.”

  The Sphinx shrugs, drains the last of her coffee, slides from her chair.

  “Going on patrol,” she says.

  • • •

  Zanycat finds Zenith Arcane in the library, slouched over a couch reading, with three cats laid at intervals along her body. The group has been using Arcane’s Manhattan brownstone, which is much much larger on the inside than on the outside, to the point where Zanycat has taken to spending mornings exploring the wings and passages, trying to map them on graph paper. She intends to ask Dr. Arcane about that, but she finds the older mage intimidating.

  Right now, though, she has a different question, and Zenith seems like the best to tackle on the subject.

  “So what is X?” she asks.

  Dr. Arcane slides her reading glasses up her nose and closes her book. She gathers herself up, displacing the cats, and regards Zanycat. She steeples her fingers in front of herself in a professorial fashion.

  “What categories do you want me to use?” she says.

  “Is X an alien? A human? A manifestation of some cosmic force?”

  “Ah. She was created by a human scientist who died when she was only a few years old. He kept her entertained with television and the Internet, so she tends to draw on pop culture forms.”

  “What’s her real form?”

  “She doesn’t have one.”

  “Doesn’t have one? How can that be?”

  “I’ve known her for a few decades now, and I’ve yet to see her repeat a shape,” Dr. Arcane said.

  “Then how do you know she’s a she? She doesn’t just take on female shapes. I saw her do Invader Zim this morning.”

  Dr. Arcane beams as though a prize student has just won a scholarship. “Excellent question! Because she identifies as such.”

  “She said so?”

  Arcane nods.

  Zanycat presses further. “How do she and Ms. Liberty know each other?”

  “From Superb Squadron. Ms. Liberty had been a member for a couple of years when X joined. She had been a member of the Howl, the shapeshifter group before then, but she was just a little too non-traditional for them.”

  “Aren’t they villains?”

  “You’re thinking of the Pack. They’re all shapeshifters as well.”

  “How many shapeshifter groups are there?”

  “Four,” Dr. Arcane says with the immediate decisiveness of someone who knows every facet of the supernatural world. This is her main power, in fact. Not that she can do that much, magically, but that she knows everyone, can connect you to a source on ancient Atlantean texts or a circle of star worshippers or even the Darkness That Crawls on the Edge of the Universe. “The Howl, the Pack, the Changing— which is a loose affiliation of generally good to neutral supernatural beings—and Clockwork Flight, which has a lycanthrope as a leader.”

  Zanycat makes a face and Dr. Arcane laughs. “What?” she says.

  “There’s too much to learn about all of this,” Zanycat says. “That’s okay,” Dr. Arcane tells her. “Most of the time you can go by your instincts.”

  • • •

  Ms. Liberty has never talked about why she left the Superb Squadron before. She and the Sphinx stand side by side, watching an alleyway where giant radioactive battery-powered centipedes are emerging. Ms. Liberty says, out of the blue, “You know what bugged me? X always made it clear she thought of herself as she, but they couldn’t take that at face value. They called her it, or that thing. And I thought—how far away is being female from being an it? And so I left, even though I forfeited most of my pension doing it.”

  The Sphinx says, “Do you and X—”

  She pauses, as though trying to pick the next word, and Ms. Liberty suddenly realizes what she’s going to say and says, “No! Nothing like that. We’re friends.”

  The Sphinx looks at her. Ms. Liberty’s heart is racing. A person doesn’t ask another person that sort of question unless another sort of question is on that person’s mind.

  • • •

  Twin menaces, Prince Torpitude and Princess Lethargia, rampage through downtown, smashing store windows, taking whatever pleases them, draping themselves with sapphire bracelets, fur stoles, shoving iPods and bars of shea butter soap in their pockets.

  Everyone acquits themselves well. Kilroy shadowwalks behind the duo, distracts them while Rocketwoman swoops in and Ms. Liberty comes at them, Zanycat cartwheeling after, from the opposite side. The Sphinx cuts off their communication gear, keeps them from calling for back-up. Within twenty minutes they’re contained and the cops are processing them with shots of hyper-tranquilizer and ferro-concrete bonds.

  No press shows up, except for a blogger who interviews them, takes a couple of pictures with his pen-camera.

  “What’s the name of the group?” he asks, glancing around.

  “It’s unidentified,” Zanycat says in a shy whisper, and he peers towards her, says, “Unidentified, all right. And your name?” Behind her, Dr. Arcane hears Rocketwoman give out a gasp, a happy little fangirl gasp that takes Arcane a moment to process.

  He punches info into his Blackberry, takes a few more pictures of the scene of the struggle, and interviews two bystanders.

  Ms. Liberty thinks later that she shouldn’t be surprised when the post appears calling them the Unidentified.

  “It’s not a terrible name,” Dr. Arcane argues.

  “It sounds like a Latin American human rights movement,” Ms. Liberty snaps.

  X shrugs and moonwalks down the wall. She wears a purple beret and angel wings—no one is quite sure what the shape is, including Dr. Arcane, until Zanycat identifies it as pulled from a recent Barbie video game.

  “What do you think, Rocketwoman?” Dr. Arcane says, rounding on her. “How’s it stack up for you?”

  “It’s fine,” Rocketwoman stammers. Dr. Arcane steps closer, “But how’s it stack up against whatever we end up with?” she pursues, and is rewarded by seeing Charisse pale. “A-HA, I knew it!” She thumps her fist into her palm triumphantly.

  “Knew what?” Kilroy asks.

  “She’s from the future.”

  They all turn and stare at Rocketwoman. Time traveling is the most illegal thing there is; there are corps of cops from a dozen cultures that will track a time-fugitive down.

  Rocketwoman raises her chin, stares at them squarely. “I don’t care,” she says, “it’s better than going back.” Another realization hits Dr. Arcane.

  “Goddess,” she says, “not just any timeline but one of the Infernos at the end of Time, is that it?”

  “I don’t know,” Rocketwoman says. Everyone can tell she’s flickering between relief at finally being able to talk about it and worry that someone’s going to come find her.

  Dr. Arcane is unstoppable. “And what was our name, in the history books you studied?”

  “The Unidentified,” Rocketwoman admits.

  Dr. Arcane’s stare sweeps the room, nails each of them with its significance. “Ladies and ladies,” she says, “I think we have a name.”

  It’s hard to argue with that, although X wistfully expresses her symbol a few more times before Ms. Liberty finally tells her to give it up.

  • • •

  Ms. Liberty has taken a front bedroom for her own. It’s not that she really sleeps: she can activate a program that is intended to be a simulacrum of sleep, which her creators assure h
er is far better than the real thing, but it has a disturbing slant toward erotic fantasies that makes her leave it off.

  She doesn’t sleep. Instead she writes. Romance novels. It’s how she keeps herself able to buy cybernetic parts that are very expensive indeed. Let’s not even talk about the cost or possibility of upgrades to her very specialized system. Her creators are gone, blown up long ago under highly suspicious circumstances, and she’s never been able to track down the malefactor who carried out the deed.

  Why romances? There’s something about the formulaic quality of the series she likes. She writes for Shadow Press’s superhero line, amuses herself by writing in the men of Superb Squadron, one by one, as bad lovers and evildoers. She has little fear they’ll ever read one and recognize themselves. She also writes superhero regencies, daring women scientists and explorers, steam-driven plots to blow up royalty, Napoleonic spies and ancient supernatural crystals quarried by emerald-eyed dwarves from the earth’s heart.

  She works on one now, pausing on the love scene. She writes a kiss, a caress, and stops. She thinks of the feel of lips on her own skin and gives way to the urge to trigger her programming, leaning over the desk, feeling orgasms race along her artificially enhanced nerves.

  She touches her face, feels the tears there.

  Downstairs in the Danger Room, she works through drills, smashes fast and hard into punching bags, dodges through closing barriers, jumps and leaps and stretches herself until she is sore.

  The door whispers open and the Sphinx enters. Without a word, she joins the practice.

  Is Ms. Liberty showing off or trying to escape? She moves in a blur, demonically fast, she moves like a fluid machine come from the end of Time, she moves like nothing she’s ever seen, forging her own identity moment by moment. And feels the Sphinx’s skin, inches from her own, fever warm, an almost-touch, an almost-whisper.

  “Is this the thing,” Ms. Liberty says to the Sphinx, “that it matters because you will only sleep with females?”