Velveteen vs. The Multiverse Read online

  “What happened a couple of weeks ago?” asked Yelena suspiciously.

  In for a penny, in for a pounding: “Santa Claus and Hailey Ween—you remember her, she’s the current Halloween Princess, she kidnapped me when we were kids? Yeah, her—decided I needed to start living up to my responsibilities, whatever that means, and they created a whole alternate timeline to show me what could have happened if I hadn’t left The Super Patriots. Only it turns out that for me to stay, you had to go, so in that reality, you were the one who walked out when we turned eighteen.”

  “And somehow, that told you I was…” Yelena stopped, seemingly unable to get the word out.

  It was odd. Marketing had been controlling their lives since they were children, and Velma could make a real case for them having practically ruined her life on several occasions. But she had never felt more like setting the entire department on fire than she did when she realized that Yelena couldn’t make herself finish that sentence. “No,” said Velma, gently. “You told me. After you introduced me to your girlfriend. Who hit me with a cattle prod. I guess no matter what world we’re in, we were always going to have a falling out.”

  “What makes you think what’s true for her is true for me?” asked Yelena. There was a sudden coldness in her voice, like she was just waiting for the blackmail to begin.

  “I know you, Lena,” said Velma. “Even if you never speak to me again after this, even if this ruins any chance we had of being friends, I know you. I knew it was true as soon as I saw your alternate with Vic—with her girlfriend. That version of you looked at her like she was the whole world. And you’ve never looked at Aaron that way. Not once.”

  Velma stopped talking. For a long moment, Yelena didn’t say anything. Velma winced, looking down at her feet. She wasn’t sure how many long silences one conversation could contain, but this one had to be approaching the limit, if it wasn’t there already.

  “I knew I was a lesbian by the time I was ten years old,” said Yelena. Velma’s head snapped up. Yelena kept talking. “My parents found out a year later, and sold me to the corporation, so that Marketing could talk me out of being ‘a sexual deviant.’ They tried. They’re good at talking people out of things, and talking people into things, but they couldn’t talk me out of who I was. I guess that’s why they decided I needed to be with a boy who’d hold my hand in public and smile for the cameras and not care when I only ever let him kiss me when people were looking. The worst part is, I wanted to do it. After what they told me you did…I was terrified of being outed to the press, and I was so mad at you. I hated you for betraying me. It was the best way I could think of to hurt you.”

  “It worked,” said Velma. “I hated you for years.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “Because I met that other version of you, and realized we’d both been played. We should have been best friends forever, Lena. It should have been you and me against the world. But instead, we wound up on different sides. They put us on different sides. I can’t hate you for that. But I can sure as hell hate them.”

  “I realized there was something wrong when they started telling us that you were a supervillain,” said Yelena. “I was willing to believe that you were a back-stabbing little bitch. Marketing worked hard, for a long time, making sure that I thought everybody was out to get the front pages. But I couldn’t believe that you were evil. The Vel I knew could be selfish and pushy—”

  “Hey,” protested Velma.

  “—but she wasn’t evil.” Yelena shook her head. “Aaron didn’t believe it, either. He helped me get to Oregon in time to get you over the state line. It’s easier when we work together. Neither one of us can stand up to Marketing on our own.”

  “I think they do something to your head when they get you by yourself,” said Velma. “I’ve been dating a guy who used to belong to the Midwest team, and he stopped buying the party line when they stopped getting him to counseling.”

  “I think you’re probably right,” admitted Yelena. “The longer I’m away from headquarters, the clearer my head gets. When I’m being Blacklight…I don’t know. It’s like she really is a different person. A smarter person. I think better, I react faster, and it’s not just because I’m working with you again.” She smiled. “Although that helps. It was never the same without you, Vel.”

  “That’s because I’m awesome,” said Velma, and laughed—only somehow the laughter translated into crying, and the crying into sobbing, until she was standing on the rooftop with her face in her hands, trying to make the tears stop. She didn’t hear Yelena’s approach, but then the other woman’s arms were around her shoulders, and they were both crying. Velma uncovered her face, put her arms around Yelena, and wept like her heart was breaking, when that wasn’t the case at all.

  After spending far too many years wounded, her heart was finally starting to heal. And so two heroes held each other in the shadow of a giant pink doughnut, and cried.

  When they were finally finished crying—and had the pounding headaches and aching eyes to commemorate the occasion—Yelena and Velma sat down side-by-side on the roof of Voodoo Doughnut, not looking at each other. Velma leaned back on her hands, looking up at the sky. Yelena looked down at her black-gloved hands.

  “So,” she said, finally. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know,” said Velma. “I just had to apologize for letting Marketing do that to us. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try.”

  Slowly, Yelena asked, “So you don’t care that I’m…that I’m gay?”

  “God, no,” said Velma, finally looking at the other woman. “Why should I give a damn about that? You were my best friend. You were an awesome roommate. I’ve missed you. What difference does it make if you’re gay or straight?”

  “It makes a difference to Marketing,” said Yelena bitterly. “They were pretty confident that it would make a difference to everybody else.”

  “Well it doesn’t,” said Velma. “At least not to me.”

  “I’ve missed you,” said Yelena, glancing up. “Everyone there is so fake all the time. Like they’re posing for the cameras even when the cameras aren’t on.”

  “I remember,” said Velma. “I’m sorry I left you there.”

  “I’m sorry I tried to kill you with a light whip,” said Yelena.

  “Don’t worry about it; I know you weren’t really trying to kill me.”

  Yelena blinked. “Really? How?”

  Velma smiled a little. “If you’d been trying to kill me, I would’ve been dead.”

  “You were always more powerful than you thought you were, Vel,” said Yelena. “It used to drive me crazy, the way you put yourself down all the time.”

  “I had people supporting my point of view,” said Velma. Marketing had always been more than happy to make sure she understood her place on the team, and that place was not on the front lines. “Anyway, that’s over now. I’m figuring things out. I’m getting it all under control.”

  “I know. I’ve been watching you.” Yelena paused, grimacing. “That sounded better in my head, I swear. I’m not stalking you or anything. I just wanted to know that you were doing okay, and then you seemed so happy, and I just wanted to fight with you again. That’s why I put on this costume. Because I wanted to fight with you, and know that everything was okay again. Like it should have been from the beginning.”

  Velma sighed. “And that, right there, is where Marketing fucked up. If they hadn’t tried to drive a wedge between us, I would have stayed with The Super Patriots forever. That’s where my friends were.” They could have kept all her merchandising dollars—and she and Aaron would probably have married by now, maybe even had a kid. Lots of superhero wedding and superhero baby gear for the fans to buy. But they threw that all away because they were worried about their light manipulator not playing properly in Peoria. Bitterly, Velma added, “Idiots.”

  There was no need for Yelena to ask who she was talking about; she already knew. “So what do we
do now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to go back to being enemies—”

  “I don’t think I could do that if I wanted to.”

  “That’s reassuring. I really don’t want you to hit me with another light whip.” Velma grinned. After a pause, Yelena grinned back. “But how much of this is Marketing going to figure out?”

  “None of it, if we don’t let their spies report back to them,” Yelena said. Then she turned, and directed a blast of brilliant white light at the shadow beneath the big pink doughnut. There was a shriek, a thud, and a woman’s outline was left where the shadow had been. The outline turned solid, and the body of a second-string shadow manipulator who went by the code name “Diffuse” collapsed onto the rooftop.

  “What the fu—” Velma caught herself before she finished the word. If she started swearing, she was never going to stop. “That was a spy! Watching us! Me! You! Here!”

  “I know.” Yelena walked over to Diffuse, prodding the fallen heroine with her toe. Diffuse groaned. Yelena responded by throwing a ball of glittery pink light almost the same shade as the doughnut at Diffuse’s head. Diffuse stopped groaning. “Marketing’s been monitoring your movements for some time now. I didn’t have a way to warn you without blowing my cover, and it’s not like they were coming back with anything interesting.”

  “Says you,” said Velma. “It’s my privacy that they’ve been violating.”

  “At least you got to have privacy,” Yelena snapped. “I haven’t had any since The Super Patriots bought me. She never found out anything too sensitive. If she had, Marketing would have tried to send us after you, and I would have found a way to warn you about what was coming.”

  Velma took a deep breath. “Wow,” she said, finally. “I never really got out of the superhero life, did I? I just put it on hold for a little while.”

  “No one gets out until they’re dead.”

  “Maybe not even then,” said Velma, thinking of Jory. “What do we do with her?”

  Yelena looked tired. “I have no idea.”

  Velma paused. Then she reached for her mask. “I have an idea,” she said. “But you’re going to need to trust me on this…”

  Anyone observing the scene would have seen something which seemed to make no sense at all: a doorway made of twisted black corn stalks rising from the ground at the graveyard’s edge. Two figures, one all in black and one dressed like a cross between the Easter Bunny and a modern jazz dancer, supported a third figure between them. She was limp, and her arms and legs seemed to trail off into shadow. Then the doorway lit up, showing a moonlit pumpkin patch where no pumpkin patch was (not unless you were looking through the door, something which was not to be advised), and a blonde teenage girl stepped into view.

  Anyone observing the scene would have needed the sense to stay out of hearing range, but they would have seen the discussion punctuated with nods and vigorous gestures, and ending when the woman with the fade-out arms and legs was dumped unceremoniously through the door, which closed behind her. Then the other two turned, shoulders slumped in exhaustion, and made their way into the night.

  “Now what?”

  “I can’t go back. They’ll know someone had to tell you about Diffuse.”

  “It’s a little crowded at my place right now. But I bet Jackie will let you come and stay with her, for a little while.”

  “And what happens after that?”

  “After that? We take the bastards on, and we win. There isn’t any other option left.”

  “If you say so,” said Yelena.

  “I do,” said Velma, and took her hand.

  Together, they walked on into the Portland night.

  VELVETEEN

  vs.

  Bacon

  JACKIE FROST, PRESUMPTIVE HEIR TO the role of Snow Queen and guardian-in-training to the season of Winter, stood framed in the crystalline glitter of her mother’s magic mirror, staring at her friend and sometimes ally, Velma “Velveteen” Martinez. Opening her mouth, the blue-skinned girl uttered four words, each weighted with the strength of prophecy:

  “You cannot be serious.”

  “Trust me, I don’t believe it either, but yeah, I’m serious,” said Vel. “Yelena needs a place to crash for a few days, until we can figure out our next move.”

  “Okay, just ignoring the part where it’s borderline impossible for me to get past you saying ‘Yelena needs a place to crash’ when you’re not talking about shooting her out of the sky, why does it need to be the North Pole? We’re busy up here! We’re doing important things! Secret Christmas things! Do you want to be responsible for getting the entire East Coast accidentally placed on the Naughty List? Well? Do you?”

  “She’s allergic to pollen, which puts the Princess’s place out of the running, she can’t go back to the dorms or she’ll wind up re-brainwashed before she even finishes getting un-brainwashed, plus there’s the whole part where she told me about their spies, I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to stay with Hailey, and my place is full of Torrey,” said Vel calmly. “You remember Torrey, don’t you? Dimensionallydisplaced time travel girl who, oh, right, dated a parallel-universe version of Yelena for years and might not take very well to me announcing that she’s coming to stay with us? Sorry, Jackie. I don’t care how much you hate the idea. Yelena needs a place to stay, Santa said I could always ask the North Pole for help, and I’m asking.”

  Jackie’s lower lip wobbled. “You hate me and want me to be miserable,” she said, in an accusing tone.

  “If that’s what you have to think in order to sleep at night, you go right ahead and think that,” said Vel amiably. She turned her back on the mirror, walking to the door at the front of the room and opening it to reveal a tired-looking blonde in an obviously borrowed sweatsuit. The legs were too short and the shirt was too large, making her look like she’d been the victim of a terrible laundry day prank. “Hey, Lena. It’s all settled, and you’re good to head for the North Pole.”

  “Really?” Yelena looked past her to the mirror, where Jackie’s reflection was standing with arms crossed and nose stuck ostentatiously into the air. “The North Pole doesn’t look like it’s feeling the love here.”

  “The North Pole is totally feeling the love,” said Vel, shutting the door again. “The North Pole is practically turning cartwheels. Jackie, on the other hand, is a stone cold bitch.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” said Jackie.

  “This is me, not caring. Do you see my ‘I don’t care’ face?” Vel walked toward the mirror with Yelena close behind her. “Jackie.”

  Jackie didn’t turn.

  “Jackie.”

  “What?”

  “She has—”

  “I have nowhere else to go,” said Yelena, cutting her off. Jackie finally turned, blinking at the pale heroine. Yelena sounded…not defeated, exactly, but worn-down, and vulnerable in a way that she hadn’t allowed herself to be since the day when she attacked her own best friend in the locker room. “I can’t go back to The Super Patriots. Even if I wanted to, even if I was stupid enough to think that I could somehow play off the whole thing with Diffuse and infiltrate them from within, they’d change my mind.”

  “She means that literally,” said Vel. “You know that. Come on, Jackie. Marketing is basically the definition of the Naughty List. Help us defy naughtiness.”

  “That’s a low blow,” grumbled Jackie.

  “I learned to fight from The Super Patriots,” said Vel. “I only fight fair when somebody’s aiming a camera at my face. So will you do it? Please? For me?”

  Jackie groaned. “Oh, sweet Claus, I am going to regret this…” Her reflection turned to Yelena, stabbing a finger toward the other girl. “You will not touch anything you’re not given permission to touch. You will not harass, bother, interact with, or even talk to the elves. You will not go into my room.”

  “Anything you say,” said Yelena.

  “Want her to hold her breath the whole time, too?” asked Vel.
>
  Jackie paused, shooting a quick glare at Vel before sighing, looking back to Yelena, and saying, “The North Pole is happy to extend you the hospitality owed to all who come to us with open hearts, honest souls, and a healthy interest in hot chocolate. But so you’re aware, if you fuck up, they’re never going to find your body.”

  “I understand,” said Yelena. She turned to Vel, hugging the other woman as she whispered, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me; we’ve got a long way to go before we’re anywhere near out of these woods,” said Vel, hugging her back. “Now go get some sleep. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “Sleep,” said Yelena, laughing a little unsteadily. “I remember enjoying sleep…”

  “No one will mess with your dreams here,” said Jackie. “Whatever nightmares you want to have, they’ll be your own.”

  “You have no idea how happy that makes me,” said Yelena. She brushed her hair out of her eyes with one hand, leaving a sparkling trail of glitter hanging briefly in the air. Then she stepped forward, and pressed her hand against the mirror. Jackie’s fingers slid through the solid glass, lacing with Yelena’s.

  “You owe me,” she mouthed, eyes on Vel. Giving a single sharp yank, she pulled Yelena toward her, and into the mirror. The glass rippled like water, and both of them were gone. The only reflection remaining was Vel’s own: a battered, slump-shouldered girl in a burgundy and brown superhero costume, with a slightly askew rabbiteared headband holding back her hair.

  “I owed her more,” said Vel, reaching up to adjust her headband. She looked like she’d been put through the wringer, and technically, she had…but there was something new in her expression, something that it took her a moment to recognize.

  She looked hopeful.

  “I’d better know what I’m doing,” she said to her reflection, which didn’t respond. Then she turned and left the room, shutting off the light as she went. She needed to go home, and explain the situation to her roommate before some inevitable wacky coincidence took the explanation out of her hands. That was never a good thing, and she couldn’t imagine that it would be any better when the person she was trying to explain things to had a ray gun.