Velveteen vs. The Multiverse Read online

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  Every Inch A King by Harry Turtledove

  The Cunning Blood by Jeff Duntemann

  Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches edited by Mike Resnick and Joe Siclari

  Outbound by Jack McDevitt

  Finding Magic by Tanya Huff

  When Diplomacy Fails edited by Eric Flint and Mike Resnick

  The Shadow on the Doorstep by James Blaylock

  Assassin and Other Stories by Steven Barnes

  Aurora in Four Voices by Catherine Asaro

  Win Some, Lose Some by Mike Resnick

  Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots by Seanan McGuire

  VELVETEEN VS. THE MULTIVERSE

  Copyright © 2013 Seanan McGuire. All Rights Reserved.

  Introduction: “An Essential Ten Percent” Copyright © 2013 Tanya Huff

  Cover Art Copyright © 2013 Douglas Klauba

  Afterword: “McGuire Begins” Copyright © 2013 Paul Cornell

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written consent from both the authors and copyright holder, except by a reviewer who may want to quote brief passages in review.

  Published by ISFiC Press

  725 Citadel Court

  Des Plaines, Illinois 60016

  www.isficpress.com

  Editor: Bill Roper

  ISFiC Press Logo Design:

  Todd Cameron Hamilton

  Book Design by Robert T. Garcia / Garcia Publishing Services

  919 Tappan Street, Woodstock, Illinois 60098

  www.gpsdesign.net

  First Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-0-9857989-6-3

  e-book ISBN: 978-0-9857989-8-7

  mobi ISBN: 978-0-9857989-7-0

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  by Thomson-Shore, 7300 West Joy Road, Dexter, Michigan 48130-9701

  www.tshore.com

  This book is dedicated to Joe Field,

  who helped to nurture my love of comic books,

  and to Shawn Connolly and Wesley Crowell,

  who help me keep that love alive.

  You are my heroes.

  TABLE oF CONTENTS

  An Essential Ten Percent, by Tanya Huff

  Velveteen vs. Blacklight vs. Sin-Dee

  Velveteen vs. The Holiday Special

  Velveteen vs. The Secret Identity

  Velveteen vs. Martinez and Martinez v. Velveteen

  Velveteen vs. The Alternate Timeline

  Velveteen vs. The Retroactive Continuity

  Velveteen Presents Victory Anna vs. All These Stupid Parallel Worlds

  Velveteen vs. The Uncomfortable Conversation

  Velveteen vs. Bacon

  Velveteen vs. The Robot Armies of Dr. Walter Creelman, DDS

  Velveteen vs. The Fright Night Sorority House Massacre Sleepover Camp

  Velveteen vs. Vegas

  Velveteen Presents Victory Anna vs. The Difficulties With Pan-Dimensional Courtship

  Velveteen vs. Legal

  Velveteen Presents Jackie Frost vs. Four Conversations and a Funeral

  Velveteen vs. Jolly Roger

  Velveteen vs. Everyone

  Velveteen vs. The Epilogue

  McGuire Begins by Paul Cornell

  Appendixes

  An Essential Ten Percent

  by Tanya Huff

  PEOPLE WHO WORK WITH NUMBERS really dislike the phrase one hundred and ten percent. If one hundred percent is all there is, the whole enchilada, then, obviously, one hundred and ten percent can’t exist in the world as they know it.

  Obviously, they don’t know Seanan McGuire. Or the world as she knows it.

  When Seanan loves something, she loves it completely. Absolutely. One hundred and ten percent. As much as anyone else could love it, and then a little more. If you love it too, she’ll happily share her joy and if you don’t, well, that’s a little sad, but, with any luck, you love something else and, hey, that’s good too.

  In Velveteen and the Multiverse, Seanan’s pretty clear about what she loves. She even spells it out a few times just in case you don’t pick up the subtler references. And trust me, this may be a book where the protagonist fights crime in a pair of rabbit ears, but it’s all about the subtle. Because Seanan doesn’t love blindly. She knows that roses have thorns, that the past is a patchwork coat you can’t ever get rid of, that friendship takes work, that actions have consequences, that holidays can take on a life of their own, and that deserving a happily ever after and getting one are two entirely different things but that everything’s possible. No, seriously, everything. Multiverse. Look it up. A choice can change the world—sometimes we need to be reminded of that.

  You know the phrase, it’s funny because it’s true? Seanan gets that. You know what the truth sometimes isn’t? It isn’t funny. Seanan gets that too. She knows that clever without substance is an SNL sketch—and Velveteen is very clever in very many ways where that very clever is used to support substance. And Seanan never forgets that everything, even funny and clever, throws a shadow.

  This is a book where the holidays are real places. And people. And sometimes not very nice people. This is a book where mundane evil, the kind of evil we all deal with every day, is all the more terrifying because it’s so well known

  One of my favorite bits out of many favorite bits of Velveteen is where Seanan pulls back to a more authorial point of view and essentially discusses with us, the readers, what’s going on. Well, not always so much specifically what’s going on but why what’s going on is going on. Why is this a hero and that a villain? Why is freedom valued less than security? Why don’t we listen when children cry in the night? This is the way this world works, she says, and holds up a mirror. Don’t get distracted by the bunny ears or the corsets or the bright lights or the frost patterns, that’s our reflection.

  (My other favorite bit, is where she doesn’t discuss the whats and whys and wherefores at all. She expects you, the reader, to be smart enough to figure it all out for yourself. Or to put it another way, she takes the risk—and it is a risk these days, in this market—of trusting her reader’s intelligence. But I digress.)

  One of the things Seanan loves is myth and, bottom line, it’s myth’s job to provide us with a way to explain the unexplainable. We know why the sun rises and sets, so we no longer need Apollo or Amaterasu or Lugh or Ra or Uitzilopochtli, but as we still don’t know why we, as a culture, make the choices we do, new myths are needed. Velveteen is myth, sometimes literally, and has myth, and, as with all good stories, provides us with a way to explain, well, us.

  Velveteen is about a young woman who fights crime in a pair of rabbit ears in much the same way Buffy was about a girl who killed vampires. That being, not so much.

  For those of you who’ve read Velveteen in her earlier incarnation on the web, welcome back. It’s pretty cool having her collected in one place, isn’t it? For those new to the Velveteen ’verse, or, strictly speaking, multiverse, I’m a little jealous that you’re getting to read this for the first time. Heading in, you may feel like you’ve skipped the long exposition ride up to the first drop on the roller coaster and you’ve begun instead with that first swooping, gloriously overwhelming plunge. You’re about to rocket around the track, heart pounding, lips pulled back off your teeth, tears in your eyes unsure if you should laugh or cry, and wonder when it’s over how it could possibly be over so soon. I suggest you raise your hands in the air and scream because you’re going to enjoy the ride. One
hundred and ten percent.

  VELVETEEN

  vs.

  Blacklight vs. Sin-Dee

  VELVETEEN CROUCHED ON THE EDGE of the roof and stared fixedly at the bank below her, feeling like some sort of perverse Easter-themed gargoyle. She’d received an anonymous tip informing her that one of the city’s less-than-brilliant criminal organizations was planning a heist sometime around midnight. While she wasn’t quite dumb enough to trust anonymous tips—Superhero Rulebook, Rule #18: An anonymous tip that sounds too good to be true is probably another way of saying “trap”—it had been a slow night in Portland, and she was bored enough to check it out.

  Sometimes being a city-specific hero sucked. She couldn’t even go bother her friends, since The Super Patriots, Inc. would have her arrested if she so much as set foot outside of Oregon. The Princess was off on one of her endorsement tours, and it was close enough to the end of summer for Jackie to be distracted by the various chores and pieces of paperwork required to usher in a successful winter season. How Santa kept her on task was a mystery to everyone, Velveteen and the Princess included. Vel was willing to bet that it involved threatening to cut off her credit cards.

  Another minute ticked past on the bank’s large decorative clock, and Velveteen resisted the urge to go looking for something more interesting, like a jaywalker or a kid out tagging city property. The thought of taggers just reminded her that Tag was out of town on business—with “business” being code for “off fighting crime in Vancouver, yet another city she couldn’t visit without being arrested”—which made her even crankier. What was the point of finally acquiring a maybe-possibly-sort-of boyfriend if half the time he was working outside of the area she was legally allowed to operate in? Not that she was absolutely certain of their maybe-possibly-sort-of status. They’d had three dates, all of which ended with a satisfying amount of kissing, but nothing beyond that. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to signal her desire for anything beyond that. It had all been so natural with Aaron. Everything just happened. With Tag…

  There really wasn’t a good dating guide for the super-powered set. Was it rude to sleep with somebody before you knew their secret identity? Maybe that was the missing step. First date, first kiss. Second date, heavy petting. Third date, heavier petting. Fourth date, reveal secret identity, and then you can have wild, crazy sex all over the secret lair of your choosing. Not that she had a secret lair, although she could probably make a case for her bedroom, since it hadn’t really been seen by anyone but herself, the movers, and the toys, and the toys didn’t count.

  Something was happening on the street below. Velveteen snapped into the present, thoughts of her potential sex life dismissed as she focused on the bank doors. Come on come on come on, she thought, with surprising eagerness. Don’t make me regret sitting up here for the last two hours. If I made my ass numb for nothing, somebody else is getting their ass so kicked—

  Before she could finish the thought, a man in the dark clothes and ski mask that seemed to be the “in” attire of the modern bank robber came flying through the bank window, impacting heavily with the brick wall on the other side of the street. Two more followed after him before Velveteen had a chance to move. They didn’t appear to be flying through the air because they wanted to—more because they were somehow being thrown. If it was another hero working in Portland without filing the proper paperwork, they could finish the mop-up together. If it was a villain who’d just decided to rob the same bank, well…there was nothing wrong with getting a little workout. Velveteen launched herself from her crouch, grabbing the side of the nearby fire escape and half-sliding, half-rappelling down to street level.

  One of the robbers groaned when he saw her coming and stretched out a hand in what looked less like a fending-off and more like a plea. “Velveteen!” he croaked. “Thank God you’re here! She’s killin’ us!”

  Well, that answered the hero question. “She who?” Vel asked, already reaching out to activate her toy soldiers and start moving them into position around the fallen robbers. Inwardly, she ran through a flip-file of her active supervillains—a pathetic list, unless you wanted to count the entire Marketing Department of The Super Patriots, Inc. Definitely no one who could sling a full-sized man across a city street, except for maybe the Claw, and he was, well, distinctly not the sort of person you’d refer to as “she.”

  “Her!” said one of the robbers, voice dripping with terror as he raised his hand and pointed back toward the bank. Velveteen turned to see a female figure framed in the open—scratch that, broken—window, her costume a shade of black so dark that she seemed to actually swallow the light around her.

  “Me,” she said, and launched herself at Velveteen.

  Several studies have been done on the tendency of superpowered individuals to fight the first time they encounter one another. While conflict is not guaranteed, it happens often enough that multiple names have been put forward for the syndrome. “Team-Up Rage” may be the most commonly used, although the more prurient tend to prefer the simpler, more visceral, “Superhero Bitch-Fight.” Casual sexism aside, the syndrome is not limited to superheroines, nor is it restricted to those on the “hero” side of the spectrum. Heroes or villains, seasoned heroes or rookies, the facts are clear: when two superhumans meet for the first time, someone is probably getting punched in the face.

  Eventually, that initial conflict will die down, replaced by the normal human responses to making a new acquaintance: the only question is how much property damage the combatants will manage to do before they can calm themselves. Why this happens—some animal urge to protect territory, or merely delusions of invincibility brought on by actually being effectively invincible—Team-Up Rage is the reason most normal humans choose to spend a few extra dollars on a superhero-inclusive insurance plan.

  (Some sociologists have put forth the theory that the very existence of Team-Up Rage would be sufficient justification for the otherwise morally questionable tendency of The Super Patriots, Inc. to form and train child hero teams. After all, when two heroes have their first meeting at the age of eleven, they will generally restrict their lashing out to hair-pulling and name-calling. If those same two heroes meet for the first time at the age of twenty-one, there’s a reasonable chance of one or more city blocks being reduced to rubble. It may be important to note that none of the sociologists to subscribe to this theory have children, or come from families with a history of expression of superhuman powers.)

  It does seem apparent that the initial burst of Team-Up Rage serves two major purposes: first, it immediately resolves the question of which of the clashing heroes is more powerful. While this may not seem important to the owner of the newsstand the combatants have just flattened, it allows them to establish and maintain a stable hierarchy. Second, in the case of hero/villain encounters, it allows the hero a chance to potentially end a reign of terror before it gets truly underway. The number of supervillains eliminated in the first throes of Team-Up Rage is high enough that this benefit really can’t be dismissed.

  In the years since the discovery of superpowers, only six individuals have died during or due to injuries received from a fit of Team- Up Rage. Given the number of clashes, and the average power rating of the superhumans involved, it must be assumed that they are, on some subconscious level, pulling their punches to avoid killing each other. Clearly, there is some social benefit to these impromptu battles, one which escapes the eye of the unpowered human. Regardless, when two superhumans meet for the first time, it’s a good idea to get the hell out of the way.

  The black-clad woman’s fists slammed into Velveteen’s stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of her. The impact sent her flying backward, on a collision course with what promised to be a very hard brick wall. Summoning as much focus as she could manage when she couldn’t breathe and her stomach felt like it was on fire, Velveteen commanded the largest of her stuffed bears to move into position. She wasn’t sure it had worked until the point of impact, when
instead of brick, she hit a wall of plush. Plush with hard glass eyes that bit into the skin of her back, but that was still better than hitting anything harder, especially at the speed she’d been going.

  “That’s going to leave a mark,” Velveteen muttered, bouncing back to her feet. Teddy bears pattered to the ground behind her, but she couldn’t take the time to assess the damage. She’d repair them later, assuming she didn’t wind up needing more stitches than they did.

  The black-clad woman was advancing on the robbers, hands clenched into fists and surrounded by coronas of solid darkness. Velveteen’s eyes narrowed, while a small part of her brain began cheering and pumping its fists in the air. She’d been waiting to lay the smackdown on a photon-manipulator since before she left The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, and now it looked like she was finally going to get the chance. In her city, no less, where her license allowed for the use of any force she deemed necessary in stopping and subduing a potential supervillain.

  This one was clearly going to require the use of a lot of force.

  Ignoring the ache in her belly, Velveteen raised her hands, calling down a squad of toy helicopters and stealth bombers from the nearby rooftops. They were joined by reinforcements as the summons spread through the city, awakening the caches she had been tucking away here, there, and everywhere. The first wave caught the woman in black by surprise, forcing her onto the defensive. She threw up a screen of solid darkness in front of herself with one hand, the other groping behind her, like she was trying to grab a weapon out of the air.

  “Oh, I so don’t think so,” said Velveteen, and dropped her hands hard, amending the summons. A herd of brightly-colored plastic horses came stampeding out of the alley, each carrying one or more toy soldiers on its back. Rainbow manes whipping in the wind, they circled the woman in black, and the soldiers opened fire. She shrieked, less with pain than with anger, and dropped her shield, using both hands to send a ring of spreading darkness across the ground. It scattered the horses and soldiers like the toys that they were, throwing the formation into total disarray. Velveteen’s growing smile died as quickly as it had come, replaced by a scowl.