Sponsorship, 9/14 -- Lola!
Title: Velveteen vs. The Coffee Freaks.
Summary: The life of a retired superhero is definitely refusing to get easier. Especially when you're trying to hold down a day job and seem to have suddenly turned your freak magnet back on full-blast...
Today's installment of 'Velveteen vs.' was brought to us by the lovely Lola. Thank you, Lola!
***
After getting out of Isley, California -- home of the Isley Crawfish Festival, the least helpful police department Velma had ever encountered, and oh, right, roughly ten thousand pissed-off crustaceans bent on getting vengeance for the years of oppression and butter sauce -- the simple monotony of Interstate 5 had been something of a blessing. Hundreds and hundreds of miles of blacktop running straight the length of the West Coast, filled with drivers and roadkill and police speed traps and no crawfish. No crawfish at all.
Unfortunately, I-5 also ran straight through the some of the hottest regions of California. If Velma had been driving a car with little amenities like 'air conditioning' and 'recent maintenance,' it still might have been okay. But she'd been paying the bulk of the proceeds from her low-paying jobs to her parents for years, and automobile upkeep had just fallen by the side of the metaphorical road. Which led, perhaps inevitably, to the car breaking down by the side of a much more literal road, leaving Velma to kick the wheels and swear at it like she expected it to make a difference.
It did not make a difference.
"Fucked-up times five million," she muttered, when her (rather impressive) stock of expletives was finally exhausted.
One good Samaritan, a tow-truck ride, and a stop at the Red Bluff repair shop later, Velma was facing a two thousand dollar repair bill and another delay in getting to her increasingly delayed job interview in Portland, Oregon. The job interview that was supposed to save her from a life of temping and excuses...all assuming she could get there, of course. A trip that depended on somehow finding a way to pay a two thousand dollar repair bill when she was down to little more than the cash she needed for gas and convenience store hot dogs.
Six years of waitressing, working retail, and crappy temp jobs had left Velma with something verging on a sixth sense where job openings were concerned. Not the most useless superpower on the market -- not even the most useless superpower someone had tried to build a hero career on -- but at the moment, that was all she had. One of the coffee shops she'd passed on the way to the mechanic had a 'help wanted' sign in the window.
Begging. Pleading. Promises. And finally, she was set: she'd work at Andy's Coffee Palace and sleep in the room behind the mechanic's place until she'd paid off the cost of her repairs. Then she'd be free and clear and ready to grovel in Portland, far away from California, from Crawfish Festivals and engine trouble and The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division.
Two thousand dollars. That was all that stood between her and freedom.
*
Ask the average man on the street 'what's it like to be a superhero?', and all you're going to hear is how amazing it is. Superpowers. Everybody wants superpowers, right? The ability to fly, so that you never have to ride another public bus with shitty shocks. The ability to read minds, so you never have to worry about people lying to you. The ability to walk through walls, to move things with a thought, to teleport, to change shapes, to control plants -- at last count, the federally recognized list of superpowers filled over a hundred pages, and of those powers, maybe half were unique. Only one hero had ever demonstrated the specific power to control lamps. Only one heroine had ever appeared with the power to force people to speak in actual word balloons. The big powers had hundreds of entries, the little powers, maybe one or two. There was even a section for theoretical powers, the ones that should exist but hadn't shown up yet.
'Semi-autonomous animation of totemic representations of persons and animals, most specifically cloth figures, including minor transformation to grant access to species-appropriate weaponry' was listed under 'unique,' and contained no specific details as to the hero or heroine who had displayed that power. That would be entirely because the heroine who displayed it had been under the age of eighteen, and had not chosen to pursue a career in professional heroing when her majority arrived.
Because there's a dark side to superheroing, a side that's actually worse, in its own fucked-up little way, than finding loved ones stuffed into refrigerators and having costumed supervillains constantly trying to kill you. It's the side where most heroes don't actually do anything to wind up with superpowers. When Velma was first sold -- pardon, 'recruited' -- to The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, she'd gone through the standard barrage of tests. The scientists had determined that her powers were the result of cumulative mutation coming from both her parents, activated by exposure to a mysteriously irradiated stuffed bunny while she was home sick with the chickenpox. They figured the radiation from the television probably didn't help.
Most people who aren't born superheroes wind up with great powers and the attendant great responsibility because they met dying aliens, or found magic artifacts, or were exposed to some sort of toxic waste. Velma got hers from a childhood disease and a thrift store bunny rabbit with one eye missing. If anybody had ever wondered why she wasn't as committed to the cause of justice as some of her teammates, they should really have taken a look at her crappy origin story.
Tying her garish green apron around her waist, Velma bared her teeth at the mirror in what was intended to be a cheery smile. That was instruction number seventeen in the helpful Employee Handbook provided to her by Cyndi, the general manager. Cyndi dotted the 'i' in her name with a little heart. As far as Velma was concerned, that actually told her everything she would ever need to know about Cyndi. Still, this was the only job in town, and she was determined not to lose it over something as simple as refusing to smile when she was told to.
Even if it was hurting her cheeks and likely to frighten customers.
"Ve-el-ma!" called Cyndi merrily from the front of the store. Cyndi did everything merrily. Cyndi probably vomited in a merry fashion, with cartoon birds helpfully holding her hair out of the splatter radius. (That was an unfair thought, and Velma scolded herself accordingly. The Princess was a very effective superheroine, and one of the nicest people she'd ever worked with during her own short career as Velveteen. Since her powers largely manifested themselves as stereotypical icons of the 'princessing world,' she was forever tied to cartoon birds in Velma's mind. It was just that the cartoon birds in question were usually vultures.)
"Yeah, boss?" called Velma, turning away from the mirror.
"Come on, silly bunny! It's time to meet your public!"
Shrugging away the thousand horrible memories that came with the word 'bunny,' Velma gritted her teeth, forced her smile to stay in face, and turned to meet her fate.
*
There was a single table in the darkest corner of Andy's Coffee Palace, an otherwise pleasantly well-lit haven for the caffeinated, the cool, and those who just wanted free wireless access. At the table, there were two chairs, each of which seemed to be located in its own pool of slightly darker shadow. And in those two chairs were two dark figures, both casting shadows twice as dark as they should have been, both jittering with the slow, constant vibration of people who have consumed far more coffee than the human body is really equipped to consume.
"Everything moves towards r-r-r-readiness," said the first of the two, voice dropped to an unnaturally low register that was probably meant to project an aura of menace. All it managed to project was the over-wired mania of a man who should really have logged off his MMORPG hours ago and given his body time to forgive him for the traumas of the day.
"Our G-G-Glorious Leader has confirmed that the final shipment will be arriving tonight, ready to b-b-b-brew and consume at the very stroke of midnight." The second voice was almost an exact mirror of the first. Only the most careful of listeners would have been able to hear the stutter for what it really was: not a speech impediment, but the slight delay of a speaker unable to process the amount of data it was receiving at a realistic rate. A listener that careful might also have had the perception to see the way the hands of the speakers trembled as they reached for their coffee mugs, fingers blurring in and out of visibility as they forced themselves to slow enough for those brief moments of contact.
"And then--"
"--at last--"
"--we will have a sufficient quantity of the sacred fluid--"
"--to baptize this Godforsaken town in the sacred name of the bean and the brew and the beginning of all things!" The two spoke faster and faster as their words began to overlap, until the artificial deepness had been shed entirely, replaced by a chittering buzz that sounded almost like a coffee grinder going into full deployment.
One of the shop's other patrons glanced over towards the table in the room's darkest corner. The table where no one was willing to sit, since the air conditioning never seemed to reach into that corner -- something about the air currents and the way the vents were configured -- and the wireless didn't really work. The table where cups would just spill for no reason anyone could see, where newspapers tore, where sugar packets disappeared at an unrealistic rate. Some of the coffee shop's patrons said that the table was haunted, possibly by the spirit of the coffee shop's missing owner. Andy. Andrew Frank, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances immediately following the receipt of a rare new type of coffee bean from somewhere in Central America.
Unseen, the two dark figures at the darkest of the shop's tables cast longing looks towards the brighter tables around them, their eyes lingering on the coffee cups they were unable to reach.
"Tonight," they whispered, with a single voice consumed by longing.
*
After six minutes, fourteen seconds in Cyndi's presence, Velma was starting to forget exactly why she had decided to quit the superhero business. Sure, the hours were crap, no amount of medical insurance would help you out after aliens from the seventh-dimension removed your spine, and bulemia was such a part of the status quo that most superheroines were essentially supermodels in capes, but the pay was great. Merchandising alone could make a hero or heroine with a salable power a multimillionaire. Assuming they lived that long.
They certainly didn't work minimum wage jobs for chirpy-voiced Barbie dolls who believed that Valley Girl culture was the ultimate expression of mankind's development as a species.
"And I just want to, like, say how totally and like awesomely delighted we are to have you working here at Andy's Coffee Palace, where we, like, revere the sacred bean in all its totally bitchin' forms."
And I don't believe you just said 'bitchin'', thought Velma, resisting the urge to puncture her eardrums with straws. "Well, I'm really grateful for the job," she said carefully. "Although I didn't realize this was a church. I'm not really a church-going kind of person."
"Oh, like, don't worry about it," twinkled Cyndi. "We don't require that you keep the faith before you've tasted your first cup of midnight coffee."
The crazy just kept upping the ante in this town. Forcing her smile to stay in place, Velma said, "Midnight? I thought we closed at eleven."
"Well, like, technically we do." Velma breathed a silent sigh of relief, only to catch Cyndi's next words and wish that she hadn't dared to drop her guard that far: "It's just that the local branch of the Midnight Bean Society rents the place every Wednesday, and they, like, really pay well, so it means we can keep offering free wireless access." She gave Velma a pleading, doe-eyed look. "You can stay tonight, can't you?"
"Well, I don't think that I can--"
"You'll be making double-overtime plus tips after you've been on the clock for eight hours."
Velma nodded so firmly she was afraid her head might fall off. "I'm absolutely staying."
*
Velma had worked in coffee shops before, and knew the basic routines the job required. Sure, the details changed from place to place, but except for that one New Age vegan coffee shop in Berkeley (which only served coffee brewed from cruelty-free beans), the big picture remained essentially the same. After an hour on the floor at Andy's Coffee Palace, she could probably have done the job in her sleep. She tuned Cyndi out -- as much as it was possible to tune out someone whose voice could probably have been used to cut glass -- and just served coffee, cleared tables, and wished that she hadn't broken her iPod a week before leaving the Bay Area.
"--ooOoooOoo!" squealed Cyndi. "My favorite show is on!" Grabbing a remote control from beneath the counter, she clicked the coffee shop's television into sudden, blaring life. A few patrons looked up, scowling, but settled once they saw the screen. Apparently, Cyndi's tastes were well known to the regulars, and tolerated because of her place in the circle of coffee. Velma had her back to the screen, and while she heard the set click on, she didn't see the channel, or realize what Cyndi was turning on.
And then the theme music flooded the room. The damnable, familiar theme music, with its bouncy major key and its easy-to-sing lyrics that burrowed into the brain like tapeworms. The theme that had haunted her dreams for years, and her nightmares for even longer. The theme that was like Pavlov's bell for middle school students all over the country, causing them to turn and start begging their parents for the latest toys, clothes, and tie-in novels.
The bane of Velma's existence.
"Welcome!" shrieked the announcer, sounding like he'd just been told that failure to show the proper enthusiasm would result in the execution of his entire family. "Welcome to the show you've all been waiting for -- the end of the annual talent search that introduces you, America, to the latest members of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division!"
(As if it were really a contest. As if most of the 'hopeful applicants' weren't paid actors faking super powers through special effects and cunning bluescreening, to make it seem like the latest products of the Marketing Machine had actually done something to earn their places on the team. Hell, as if most of those new members had actually volunteered to be there. Velma wasn't the only kid superhero essentially sold to her handlers. She was just one of the only ones where the conditioning didn't take, and there was nothing she could really be blackmailed with. Threatening her parents made her giggle, and threatening to suppress her powers did much the same.)
"We've had a great run this season, with everything from the awe and terror of the aerial battles -- all supervised by our very own Sparkle Bright, current co-leader of The Super Patriots, West Coast Division! -- to the mind-boggling intellectual battles conducted under the watchful eye of String Theory and Uncertainty. But now, at the end of our journey, only six contestants are left standing to compete for the three precious slots available on this year's lineup! We've taken a moment to talk with our judges, and see what they have to say about the matter."
Sparkle Bright's familiar, dulcet tones, more annoying in their own way than Cyndi's squeaking: "Well, Brian, we haven't had a selection like this in years. As you know, we've sometimes been forced to take special-needs supers by a lack of available talent. Not this year. This year, it's all gold."
Sparkle Bright was talking about Velveteen, of course. They served together, and they would have been archrivals if only Vel had been able to stir herself to give that much of a crap. Shoulders locked, Velma kept clearing tables, not even glancing at the screen.
"It is probable that one or more of the remaining contestants will be elected to join the team," said Uncertainty, with his usual vague air of 'I am doing eighteen things at the same time, and you need to just stop irritating me.' "It is equally probable that all three positions will be filled. The probability that a giant monster will attack the arena is eight point three percent. The probability that you are about to cut away from me is--"
"Uh, hi, Brian." The voice was deep without being pretentious, hesitant without being unsure, commanding without being arrogant. It was, in short, perfect. "Yeah, this is the last lap of the contest. I like some of the new kids. They're okay. Mobius has some neat powers, and I think the Candy sisters would be a total asset to the team." Hastily, he added, "Oh, and The Loch. I mean, when was the last time we saw a power set like that?"
"Action Dude always does that," said Cyndi conspiratorially. "He totally spills the winners during the pre-show interview, because they always film it after the contest is over. It's a little treat for the fans."
"No, they don't," said Velma numbly. Her fingers were locked so tightly on the coffee cups she'd been collecting that she couldn't really feel them anymore. Gangrene. That would be a change. "The interviews are filmed before the show."
"What are you talking about?"
"I have to take my break now," Velma said hurriedly. Turning, she shoved the coffee cups at a surprised Cyndi, and then bolted for the back room, hoping that she could make it before she broke down crying.
She almost succeeded.
*
Seven years ago:
They'd just finished battling Dr. Dodo, a mad scientist bent on returning the planet to its pristine, pre-pollution condition. A goal which seemed to involve cloning vast numbers of previously extinct animals and unleashing them on unsuspecting population centers. It seemed sort of inefficient to Velveteen -- messy, too -- but since she wasn't the supervillain, she supposed she didn't get a vote. Anyway, they'd come through mostly uninjured, at least in part because Velveteen's powers extended to animating the robot dinosaurs from the local science museum and sending them out to smash some sabertooth skulls.
"You shouldn't let her get to you," he said, standing with his arms crossed between Velveteen and the door. Someone who didn't know them might have thought he was holding her against her will. Someone who knew them at all would have realized the truth: he was protecting her from whatever was on the other side, ready to play living wall if it was required. "She just does it to upset you."
"She does a good job," muttered Velveteen, wiping viciously at the tears that had managed to escape beneath her brown velvet domino mask. "I shouldn't be here anyway. I'm not a real hero."
"You're hero enough for me," said Action Guy. Putting a finger beneath her chin, he raised her head, leaning towards her. Velveteen closed her eyes, leaning towards him in turn, and--
*
"I thought that was you," said Cyndi, shattering Velma's flashback into a thousand pieces. Startled, Velma turned towards her, blinking. The manager was standing in the break room doorway, almost echoing Action Guy's pose from all those years ago. "I had the poster when you were still with the team. It hung right over my bed. So I thought that was you."
Shit, thought Velma. "What do you mean, Cyndi?"
"Do you have any idea how much free wireless I could provide with what the tabloids will give me for pictures of you? I mean, the Super Channel has a reward out! They've done six 'where are they now' specials begging for any word on your identity." Cyndi smiled. Velma wondered how she could ever have thought this woman was guileless. "You'll totally be able to get your car fixed after this. It's going to be awesome."
"I think you're mistaking me for somebody else."
"I think you're mistaking me for an idiot."
Velma took a deep breath, finally forcing a smile. "Okay, you got me. Just...can we talk about this maybe? After we get off shift?"
"Sure." Cyndi glanced at the clock. "It's time to start preparing for the Midnight Bean Society, anyway. We'll talk after."
Granted a temporary stay of execution, Velma followed Cyndi out of the room.
*
The coffee for the Midnight Bean Society didn't look like any coffee Velma had ever seen before. For one thing, it was black. Not dark brown; not almost black; black, like the deepest pit of a supervillian's loveless heart.
Velma shook herself. One little television special, a flashback, and a blackmail threat, and she was falling back into the dangerous habit of thinking in metaphors. That way lay capes and action figures and talk show appearances. Better to think in literal terms, and leave the shitty poetry for the comic books.
The coffee was black.
"Where did you say these beans were from?" Velma asked dubiously, eying the pot as Cyndi reverently began pouring its contents into the Midnight Bean Society's 'special mugs.' They appeared to be made of obsidian, even blacker than the coffee. Probably not a good sign.
"Oh, they're specially cultured in the natural caverns beneath an Aztec temple and sacred burial ground," chirped Cyndi.
Velma sighed. "Of course they are."
At exactly eleven fifty-nine, the doors of the coffee shop swung open, allowing fourteen black-clad people to file inside. They ranged in age from 'grandmotherly old woman' to 'goth kid who should probably have been in bed already,' and approached the counter without making so much as a sound. Cyndi beamed at them, passing one cup after another into their crowd.
When she was done, there were two cups remaining on the tray. Cyndi picked up one, giving Velma a meaningful look.
Velma, faced with the possibility of being forced to drink a cup of pitch-black coffee worshipped by a secret society and grown under a burial ground, responded in the only sensible manner:
"Oh, hell no," she said.
Cyndi sighed. "Well, poop," she said. "Then I guess we kill you."
*
Andy's Coffee Palace offered little to no opportunities for Velma to use her powers. Unlike Imagineer and Mechamation, she couldn't animate things that weren't at least partially shaped like living creatures -- a class designation that didn't include espresso machines or slightly stale biscotti. Her emergency bunny was locked in the trunk of her car inside the mechanic's shop. And the Midnight Bean Society was closing in around her, looking confident of their seemingly-inevitable victory. Why not? They had a cornered second-string superheroine, they had plenty of the sacred fluid...life was going pretty good for them, really.
"It's so simple, Velma," said Cyndi, cradling her cup against her chest and watching as the black-clad figures surrounded Velma. The room was getting darker, filled with flickers and flashes of motion in the corners. "Andy, he was a visionary. He always knew that coffee would be the key to elevating man to a higher plane of being. When he found the Sacred Bean--"
--a sigh ran through the room, like the adoring whisper of a church congregation--
"--he opened the door to his own recreation. He's with us now. Always with us. And soon, when we ascend, we'll have enough power to take this whole town to a higher plane. We'll be gods! We'll be heroes!"
"I thought you were going to sell me to the tabloids," protested Velma, casting frantically around for anything she could use to save her own ass. Sadly, she'd mostly slept through her improvisational heroing classes. At the time, she'd never gone anywhere without a small army of animated plush, and there hadn't seemed like much point.
"Oh, no. That was just to distract you." Cyndi dimpled. "See, we've never managed to elevate a superhero. Once we have, I guess we'll be just about unstoppable. The world's going to be ours! We'll be bigger than The Super Patriots!"
...bigger than The Super..."Wow," said Velma, stopping in her attempts to escape and simply looking at Cyndi as she calmed herself and cast her mind outward, searching, searching. It took her almost a year of training to learn to do this; she hadn't even tried in almost six years. "You're a major super-fan, aren't you? I mean, super-major."
"I am," Cyndi confirmed proudly. "That's how I knew what we'd need to do to exploit the amazing properties of this bean. I just brewed it at ten times regular strength and the super-ability awakening qualities totally started to manifest themselves."
"Right." One of the coffee cultists grabbed Velma's arm. She didn't resist. Her questing mind had found was it was looking for. It was barely there, but she was almost certain that it was in range. "So you totally have the action figures, right?"
Cyndi froze.
Velma closed her eyes and pushed.
And the entire action figure lineup of the last ten years of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, and The Super Patriots, West Coast Division, burst out of the break room and swooped down on the bad guys like a tiny avenging horde.
Opening her eyes, Velma commanded, "Go for the coffee!"
"You can't do this!" shrieked Cyndi. Velma could almost see a second shadowy form behind her, a man's form, looking suspiciously like the picture of Andy hanging on the break room wall.
"You people need to get some new dialog," Velma snapped, and slapped her palms together over her head. "And lay off the coffee."
Cyndi never saw the tiny Mechamation swooping down behind her. She just felt the suddenly animated wireless router as it rose up and smashed her against the back of the head. The Midnight Bean Society let out a despairing wail, dissolving into shadow.
Velma wobbled.
The action figures fell.
"Wow," she said, somewhat distantly. "I didn't know I could do that."
And then she collapsed.
*
Velma woke up in 'her' bed -- technically hers, at least for the moment, at least until the mechanic realized she'd gone and lost her job by attacking her boss with a squadron of animated action figure versions of her former teammates -- with a damn washrag against her forehead. She sat up, catching the cloth as it fell, and looked bemusedly around the room.
The mechanic (Paul? Mike? Chris?) was sitting in a chair off to the side of the bed, watching her with a measuring expression. "Andy's got sucked into another dimension last night," he said. "Pete saw it go, says it looked like the place was shunted off into a world of eternal shadow."
"...oh," said Velma faintly, unsure what sort of reaction was expected from her. She was equally unsure of how she'd managed to get out of the coffee shop before it got 'shunted off into a world of eternal shadow.' That would probably have put a damper on getting to Portland.
"Guess that means you can't pay your repair bill."
Guess not.
"Guess I won't charge you."
"I can get -- what?" Velma blinked at him.
The mechanic shrugged. "Them damn shadow cultists have been threatening the town for months now. Guess it was about time some masked man swept in and took care of 'em. Can't charge you after that."
"I'm not masked. And I don't think I'm a man."
"Ma'am, you got carried out of the place by an army of tiny plastic superheroes. You get your repairs for free."
Velma decided not to argue, electing to go back to sleep instead. The mechanic laughed.
"Superheroes," he said wryly, and stood, walking straight through the wall.
*
A deep pool of shadow had formed at the center of the vacant lot where, until recently, Andy's Coffee Palace had been located. The shadow appeared to be moving. That probably would have worried people, if anyone had been there to see it. It was almost midnight again, twenty-four hours after the coffee shop's collapse, twelve hours after Velma 'Velveteen' Martinez got into her car and got the hell out of town.
At midnight exactly, the center of the shadow writhed, and a floating figure made of darkness shot through with blue glimmers of light shot up into the air.
The creature that had previously been Cyndi Davis, superhero wanna-be, looked down at itself and began to laugh hysterically. Then it turned, diving smoothly into the nearest unsecured wireless network, and was gone.
Summary: The life of a retired superhero is definitely refusing to get easier. Especially when you're trying to hold down a day job and seem to have suddenly turned your freak magnet back on full-blast...
Today's installment of 'Velveteen vs.' was brought to us by the lovely Lola. Thank you, Lola!
***
After getting out of Isley, California -- home of the Isley Crawfish Festival, the least helpful police department Velma had ever encountered, and oh, right, roughly ten thousand pissed-off crustaceans bent on getting vengeance for the years of oppression and butter sauce -- the simple monotony of Interstate 5 had been something of a blessing. Hundreds and hundreds of miles of blacktop running straight the length of the West Coast, filled with drivers and roadkill and police speed traps and no crawfish. No crawfish at all.
Unfortunately, I-5 also ran straight through the some of the hottest regions of California. If Velma had been driving a car with little amenities like 'air conditioning' and 'recent maintenance,' it still might have been okay. But she'd been paying the bulk of the proceeds from her low-paying jobs to her parents for years, and automobile upkeep had just fallen by the side of the metaphorical road. Which led, perhaps inevitably, to the car breaking down by the side of a much more literal road, leaving Velma to kick the wheels and swear at it like she expected it to make a difference.
It did not make a difference.
"Fucked-up times five million," she muttered, when her (rather impressive) stock of expletives was finally exhausted.
One good Samaritan, a tow-truck ride, and a stop at the Red Bluff repair shop later, Velma was facing a two thousand dollar repair bill and another delay in getting to her increasingly delayed job interview in Portland, Oregon. The job interview that was supposed to save her from a life of temping and excuses...all assuming she could get there, of course. A trip that depended on somehow finding a way to pay a two thousand dollar repair bill when she was down to little more than the cash she needed for gas and convenience store hot dogs.
Six years of waitressing, working retail, and crappy temp jobs had left Velma with something verging on a sixth sense where job openings were concerned. Not the most useless superpower on the market -- not even the most useless superpower someone had tried to build a hero career on -- but at the moment, that was all she had. One of the coffee shops she'd passed on the way to the mechanic had a 'help wanted' sign in the window.
Begging. Pleading. Promises. And finally, she was set: she'd work at Andy's Coffee Palace and sleep in the room behind the mechanic's place until she'd paid off the cost of her repairs. Then she'd be free and clear and ready to grovel in Portland, far away from California, from Crawfish Festivals and engine trouble and The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division.
Two thousand dollars. That was all that stood between her and freedom.
*
Ask the average man on the street 'what's it like to be a superhero?', and all you're going to hear is how amazing it is. Superpowers. Everybody wants superpowers, right? The ability to fly, so that you never have to ride another public bus with shitty shocks. The ability to read minds, so you never have to worry about people lying to you. The ability to walk through walls, to move things with a thought, to teleport, to change shapes, to control plants -- at last count, the federally recognized list of superpowers filled over a hundred pages, and of those powers, maybe half were unique. Only one hero had ever demonstrated the specific power to control lamps. Only one heroine had ever appeared with the power to force people to speak in actual word balloons. The big powers had hundreds of entries, the little powers, maybe one or two. There was even a section for theoretical powers, the ones that should exist but hadn't shown up yet.
'Semi-autonomous animation of totemic representations of persons and animals, most specifically cloth figures, including minor transformation to grant access to species-appropriate weaponry' was listed under 'unique,' and contained no specific details as to the hero or heroine who had displayed that power. That would be entirely because the heroine who displayed it had been under the age of eighteen, and had not chosen to pursue a career in professional heroing when her majority arrived.
Because there's a dark side to superheroing, a side that's actually worse, in its own fucked-up little way, than finding loved ones stuffed into refrigerators and having costumed supervillains constantly trying to kill you. It's the side where most heroes don't actually do anything to wind up with superpowers. When Velma was first sold -- pardon, 'recruited' -- to The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, she'd gone through the standard barrage of tests. The scientists had determined that her powers were the result of cumulative mutation coming from both her parents, activated by exposure to a mysteriously irradiated stuffed bunny while she was home sick with the chickenpox. They figured the radiation from the television probably didn't help.
Most people who aren't born superheroes wind up with great powers and the attendant great responsibility because they met dying aliens, or found magic artifacts, or were exposed to some sort of toxic waste. Velma got hers from a childhood disease and a thrift store bunny rabbit with one eye missing. If anybody had ever wondered why she wasn't as committed to the cause of justice as some of her teammates, they should really have taken a look at her crappy origin story.
Tying her garish green apron around her waist, Velma bared her teeth at the mirror in what was intended to be a cheery smile. That was instruction number seventeen in the helpful Employee Handbook provided to her by Cyndi, the general manager. Cyndi dotted the 'i' in her name with a little heart. As far as Velma was concerned, that actually told her everything she would ever need to know about Cyndi. Still, this was the only job in town, and she was determined not to lose it over something as simple as refusing to smile when she was told to.
Even if it was hurting her cheeks and likely to frighten customers.
"Ve-el-ma!" called Cyndi merrily from the front of the store. Cyndi did everything merrily. Cyndi probably vomited in a merry fashion, with cartoon birds helpfully holding her hair out of the splatter radius. (That was an unfair thought, and Velma scolded herself accordingly. The Princess was a very effective superheroine, and one of the nicest people she'd ever worked with during her own short career as Velveteen. Since her powers largely manifested themselves as stereotypical icons of the 'princessing world,' she was forever tied to cartoon birds in Velma's mind. It was just that the cartoon birds in question were usually vultures.)
"Yeah, boss?" called Velma, turning away from the mirror.
"Come on, silly bunny! It's time to meet your public!"
Shrugging away the thousand horrible memories that came with the word 'bunny,' Velma gritted her teeth, forced her smile to stay in face, and turned to meet her fate.
*
There was a single table in the darkest corner of Andy's Coffee Palace, an otherwise pleasantly well-lit haven for the caffeinated, the cool, and those who just wanted free wireless access. At the table, there were two chairs, each of which seemed to be located in its own pool of slightly darker shadow. And in those two chairs were two dark figures, both casting shadows twice as dark as they should have been, both jittering with the slow, constant vibration of people who have consumed far more coffee than the human body is really equipped to consume.
"Everything moves towards r-r-r-readiness," said the first of the two, voice dropped to an unnaturally low register that was probably meant to project an aura of menace. All it managed to project was the over-wired mania of a man who should really have logged off his MMORPG hours ago and given his body time to forgive him for the traumas of the day.
"Our G-G-Glorious Leader has confirmed that the final shipment will be arriving tonight, ready to b-b-b-brew and consume at the very stroke of midnight." The second voice was almost an exact mirror of the first. Only the most careful of listeners would have been able to hear the stutter for what it really was: not a speech impediment, but the slight delay of a speaker unable to process the amount of data it was receiving at a realistic rate. A listener that careful might also have had the perception to see the way the hands of the speakers trembled as they reached for their coffee mugs, fingers blurring in and out of visibility as they forced themselves to slow enough for those brief moments of contact.
"And then--"
"--at last--"
"--we will have a sufficient quantity of the sacred fluid--"
"--to baptize this Godforsaken town in the sacred name of the bean and the brew and the beginning of all things!" The two spoke faster and faster as their words began to overlap, until the artificial deepness had been shed entirely, replaced by a chittering buzz that sounded almost like a coffee grinder going into full deployment.
One of the shop's other patrons glanced over towards the table in the room's darkest corner. The table where no one was willing to sit, since the air conditioning never seemed to reach into that corner -- something about the air currents and the way the vents were configured -- and the wireless didn't really work. The table where cups would just spill for no reason anyone could see, where newspapers tore, where sugar packets disappeared at an unrealistic rate. Some of the coffee shop's patrons said that the table was haunted, possibly by the spirit of the coffee shop's missing owner. Andy. Andrew Frank, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances immediately following the receipt of a rare new type of coffee bean from somewhere in Central America.
Unseen, the two dark figures at the darkest of the shop's tables cast longing looks towards the brighter tables around them, their eyes lingering on the coffee cups they were unable to reach.
"Tonight," they whispered, with a single voice consumed by longing.
*
After six minutes, fourteen seconds in Cyndi's presence, Velma was starting to forget exactly why she had decided to quit the superhero business. Sure, the hours were crap, no amount of medical insurance would help you out after aliens from the seventh-dimension removed your spine, and bulemia was such a part of the status quo that most superheroines were essentially supermodels in capes, but the pay was great. Merchandising alone could make a hero or heroine with a salable power a multimillionaire. Assuming they lived that long.
They certainly didn't work minimum wage jobs for chirpy-voiced Barbie dolls who believed that Valley Girl culture was the ultimate expression of mankind's development as a species.
"And I just want to, like, say how totally and like awesomely delighted we are to have you working here at Andy's Coffee Palace, where we, like, revere the sacred bean in all its totally bitchin' forms."
And I don't believe you just said 'bitchin'', thought Velma, resisting the urge to puncture her eardrums with straws. "Well, I'm really grateful for the job," she said carefully. "Although I didn't realize this was a church. I'm not really a church-going kind of person."
"Oh, like, don't worry about it," twinkled Cyndi. "We don't require that you keep the faith before you've tasted your first cup of midnight coffee."
The crazy just kept upping the ante in this town. Forcing her smile to stay in place, Velma said, "Midnight? I thought we closed at eleven."
"Well, like, technically we do." Velma breathed a silent sigh of relief, only to catch Cyndi's next words and wish that she hadn't dared to drop her guard that far: "It's just that the local branch of the Midnight Bean Society rents the place every Wednesday, and they, like, really pay well, so it means we can keep offering free wireless access." She gave Velma a pleading, doe-eyed look. "You can stay tonight, can't you?"
"Well, I don't think that I can--"
"You'll be making double-overtime plus tips after you've been on the clock for eight hours."
Velma nodded so firmly she was afraid her head might fall off. "I'm absolutely staying."
*
Velma had worked in coffee shops before, and knew the basic routines the job required. Sure, the details changed from place to place, but except for that one New Age vegan coffee shop in Berkeley (which only served coffee brewed from cruelty-free beans), the big picture remained essentially the same. After an hour on the floor at Andy's Coffee Palace, she could probably have done the job in her sleep. She tuned Cyndi out -- as much as it was possible to tune out someone whose voice could probably have been used to cut glass -- and just served coffee, cleared tables, and wished that she hadn't broken her iPod a week before leaving the Bay Area.
"--ooOoooOoo!" squealed Cyndi. "My favorite show is on!" Grabbing a remote control from beneath the counter, she clicked the coffee shop's television into sudden, blaring life. A few patrons looked up, scowling, but settled once they saw the screen. Apparently, Cyndi's tastes were well known to the regulars, and tolerated because of her place in the circle of coffee. Velma had her back to the screen, and while she heard the set click on, she didn't see the channel, or realize what Cyndi was turning on.
And then the theme music flooded the room. The damnable, familiar theme music, with its bouncy major key and its easy-to-sing lyrics that burrowed into the brain like tapeworms. The theme that had haunted her dreams for years, and her nightmares for even longer. The theme that was like Pavlov's bell for middle school students all over the country, causing them to turn and start begging their parents for the latest toys, clothes, and tie-in novels.
The bane of Velma's existence.
"Welcome!" shrieked the announcer, sounding like he'd just been told that failure to show the proper enthusiasm would result in the execution of his entire family. "Welcome to the show you've all been waiting for -- the end of the annual talent search that introduces you, America, to the latest members of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division!"
(As if it were really a contest. As if most of the 'hopeful applicants' weren't paid actors faking super powers through special effects and cunning bluescreening, to make it seem like the latest products of the Marketing Machine had actually done something to earn their places on the team. Hell, as if most of those new members had actually volunteered to be there. Velma wasn't the only kid superhero essentially sold to her handlers. She was just one of the only ones where the conditioning didn't take, and there was nothing she could really be blackmailed with. Threatening her parents made her giggle, and threatening to suppress her powers did much the same.)
"We've had a great run this season, with everything from the awe and terror of the aerial battles -- all supervised by our very own Sparkle Bright, current co-leader of The Super Patriots, West Coast Division! -- to the mind-boggling intellectual battles conducted under the watchful eye of String Theory and Uncertainty. But now, at the end of our journey, only six contestants are left standing to compete for the three precious slots available on this year's lineup! We've taken a moment to talk with our judges, and see what they have to say about the matter."
Sparkle Bright's familiar, dulcet tones, more annoying in their own way than Cyndi's squeaking: "Well, Brian, we haven't had a selection like this in years. As you know, we've sometimes been forced to take special-needs supers by a lack of available talent. Not this year. This year, it's all gold."
Sparkle Bright was talking about Velveteen, of course. They served together, and they would have been archrivals if only Vel had been able to stir herself to give that much of a crap. Shoulders locked, Velma kept clearing tables, not even glancing at the screen.
"It is probable that one or more of the remaining contestants will be elected to join the team," said Uncertainty, with his usual vague air of 'I am doing eighteen things at the same time, and you need to just stop irritating me.' "It is equally probable that all three positions will be filled. The probability that a giant monster will attack the arena is eight point three percent. The probability that you are about to cut away from me is--"
"Uh, hi, Brian." The voice was deep without being pretentious, hesitant without being unsure, commanding without being arrogant. It was, in short, perfect. "Yeah, this is the last lap of the contest. I like some of the new kids. They're okay. Mobius has some neat powers, and I think the Candy sisters would be a total asset to the team." Hastily, he added, "Oh, and The Loch. I mean, when was the last time we saw a power set like that?"
"Action Dude always does that," said Cyndi conspiratorially. "He totally spills the winners during the pre-show interview, because they always film it after the contest is over. It's a little treat for the fans."
"No, they don't," said Velma numbly. Her fingers were locked so tightly on the coffee cups she'd been collecting that she couldn't really feel them anymore. Gangrene. That would be a change. "The interviews are filmed before the show."
"What are you talking about?"
"I have to take my break now," Velma said hurriedly. Turning, she shoved the coffee cups at a surprised Cyndi, and then bolted for the back room, hoping that she could make it before she broke down crying.
She almost succeeded.
*
Seven years ago:
They'd just finished battling Dr. Dodo, a mad scientist bent on returning the planet to its pristine, pre-pollution condition. A goal which seemed to involve cloning vast numbers of previously extinct animals and unleashing them on unsuspecting population centers. It seemed sort of inefficient to Velveteen -- messy, too -- but since she wasn't the supervillain, she supposed she didn't get a vote. Anyway, they'd come through mostly uninjured, at least in part because Velveteen's powers extended to animating the robot dinosaurs from the local science museum and sending them out to smash some sabertooth skulls.
"You shouldn't let her get to you," he said, standing with his arms crossed between Velveteen and the door. Someone who didn't know them might have thought he was holding her against her will. Someone who knew them at all would have realized the truth: he was protecting her from whatever was on the other side, ready to play living wall if it was required. "She just does it to upset you."
"She does a good job," muttered Velveteen, wiping viciously at the tears that had managed to escape beneath her brown velvet domino mask. "I shouldn't be here anyway. I'm not a real hero."
"You're hero enough for me," said Action Guy. Putting a finger beneath her chin, he raised her head, leaning towards her. Velveteen closed her eyes, leaning towards him in turn, and--
*
"I thought that was you," said Cyndi, shattering Velma's flashback into a thousand pieces. Startled, Velma turned towards her, blinking. The manager was standing in the break room doorway, almost echoing Action Guy's pose from all those years ago. "I had the poster when you were still with the team. It hung right over my bed. So I thought that was you."
Shit, thought Velma. "What do you mean, Cyndi?"
"Do you have any idea how much free wireless I could provide with what the tabloids will give me for pictures of you? I mean, the Super Channel has a reward out! They've done six 'where are they now' specials begging for any word on your identity." Cyndi smiled. Velma wondered how she could ever have thought this woman was guileless. "You'll totally be able to get your car fixed after this. It's going to be awesome."
"I think you're mistaking me for somebody else."
"I think you're mistaking me for an idiot."
Velma took a deep breath, finally forcing a smile. "Okay, you got me. Just...can we talk about this maybe? After we get off shift?"
"Sure." Cyndi glanced at the clock. "It's time to start preparing for the Midnight Bean Society, anyway. We'll talk after."
Granted a temporary stay of execution, Velma followed Cyndi out of the room.
*
The coffee for the Midnight Bean Society didn't look like any coffee Velma had ever seen before. For one thing, it was black. Not dark brown; not almost black; black, like the deepest pit of a supervillian's loveless heart.
Velma shook herself. One little television special, a flashback, and a blackmail threat, and she was falling back into the dangerous habit of thinking in metaphors. That way lay capes and action figures and talk show appearances. Better to think in literal terms, and leave the shitty poetry for the comic books.
The coffee was black.
"Where did you say these beans were from?" Velma asked dubiously, eying the pot as Cyndi reverently began pouring its contents into the Midnight Bean Society's 'special mugs.' They appeared to be made of obsidian, even blacker than the coffee. Probably not a good sign.
"Oh, they're specially cultured in the natural caverns beneath an Aztec temple and sacred burial ground," chirped Cyndi.
Velma sighed. "Of course they are."
At exactly eleven fifty-nine, the doors of the coffee shop swung open, allowing fourteen black-clad people to file inside. They ranged in age from 'grandmotherly old woman' to 'goth kid who should probably have been in bed already,' and approached the counter without making so much as a sound. Cyndi beamed at them, passing one cup after another into their crowd.
When she was done, there were two cups remaining on the tray. Cyndi picked up one, giving Velma a meaningful look.
Velma, faced with the possibility of being forced to drink a cup of pitch-black coffee worshipped by a secret society and grown under a burial ground, responded in the only sensible manner:
"Oh, hell no," she said.
Cyndi sighed. "Well, poop," she said. "Then I guess we kill you."
*
Andy's Coffee Palace offered little to no opportunities for Velma to use her powers. Unlike Imagineer and Mechamation, she couldn't animate things that weren't at least partially shaped like living creatures -- a class designation that didn't include espresso machines or slightly stale biscotti. Her emergency bunny was locked in the trunk of her car inside the mechanic's shop. And the Midnight Bean Society was closing in around her, looking confident of their seemingly-inevitable victory. Why not? They had a cornered second-string superheroine, they had plenty of the sacred fluid...life was going pretty good for them, really.
"It's so simple, Velma," said Cyndi, cradling her cup against her chest and watching as the black-clad figures surrounded Velma. The room was getting darker, filled with flickers and flashes of motion in the corners. "Andy, he was a visionary. He always knew that coffee would be the key to elevating man to a higher plane of being. When he found the Sacred Bean--"
--a sigh ran through the room, like the adoring whisper of a church congregation--
"--he opened the door to his own recreation. He's with us now. Always with us. And soon, when we ascend, we'll have enough power to take this whole town to a higher plane. We'll be gods! We'll be heroes!"
"I thought you were going to sell me to the tabloids," protested Velma, casting frantically around for anything she could use to save her own ass. Sadly, she'd mostly slept through her improvisational heroing classes. At the time, she'd never gone anywhere without a small army of animated plush, and there hadn't seemed like much point.
"Oh, no. That was just to distract you." Cyndi dimpled. "See, we've never managed to elevate a superhero. Once we have, I guess we'll be just about unstoppable. The world's going to be ours! We'll be bigger than The Super Patriots!"
...bigger than The Super..."Wow," said Velma, stopping in her attempts to escape and simply looking at Cyndi as she calmed herself and cast her mind outward, searching, searching. It took her almost a year of training to learn to do this; she hadn't even tried in almost six years. "You're a major super-fan, aren't you? I mean, super-major."
"I am," Cyndi confirmed proudly. "That's how I knew what we'd need to do to exploit the amazing properties of this bean. I just brewed it at ten times regular strength and the super-ability awakening qualities totally started to manifest themselves."
"Right." One of the coffee cultists grabbed Velma's arm. She didn't resist. Her questing mind had found was it was looking for. It was barely there, but she was almost certain that it was in range. "So you totally have the action figures, right?"
Cyndi froze.
Velma closed her eyes and pushed.
And the entire action figure lineup of the last ten years of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, and The Super Patriots, West Coast Division, burst out of the break room and swooped down on the bad guys like a tiny avenging horde.
Opening her eyes, Velma commanded, "Go for the coffee!"
"You can't do this!" shrieked Cyndi. Velma could almost see a second shadowy form behind her, a man's form, looking suspiciously like the picture of Andy hanging on the break room wall.
"You people need to get some new dialog," Velma snapped, and slapped her palms together over her head. "And lay off the coffee."
Cyndi never saw the tiny Mechamation swooping down behind her. She just felt the suddenly animated wireless router as it rose up and smashed her against the back of the head. The Midnight Bean Society let out a despairing wail, dissolving into shadow.
Velma wobbled.
The action figures fell.
"Wow," she said, somewhat distantly. "I didn't know I could do that."
And then she collapsed.
*
Velma woke up in 'her' bed -- technically hers, at least for the moment, at least until the mechanic realized she'd gone and lost her job by attacking her boss with a squadron of animated action figure versions of her former teammates -- with a damn washrag against her forehead. She sat up, catching the cloth as it fell, and looked bemusedly around the room.
The mechanic (Paul? Mike? Chris?) was sitting in a chair off to the side of the bed, watching her with a measuring expression. "Andy's got sucked into another dimension last night," he said. "Pete saw it go, says it looked like the place was shunted off into a world of eternal shadow."
"...oh," said Velma faintly, unsure what sort of reaction was expected from her. She was equally unsure of how she'd managed to get out of the coffee shop before it got 'shunted off into a world of eternal shadow.' That would probably have put a damper on getting to Portland.
"Guess that means you can't pay your repair bill."
Guess not.
"Guess I won't charge you."
"I can get -- what?" Velma blinked at him.
The mechanic shrugged. "Them damn shadow cultists have been threatening the town for months now. Guess it was about time some masked man swept in and took care of 'em. Can't charge you after that."
"I'm not masked. And I don't think I'm a man."
"Ma'am, you got carried out of the place by an army of tiny plastic superheroes. You get your repairs for free."
Velma decided not to argue, electing to go back to sleep instead. The mechanic laughed.
"Superheroes," he said wryly, and stood, walking straight through the wall.
*
A deep pool of shadow had formed at the center of the vacant lot where, until recently, Andy's Coffee Palace had been located. The shadow appeared to be moving. That probably would have worried people, if anyone had been there to see it. It was almost midnight again, twenty-four hours after the coffee shop's collapse, twelve hours after Velma 'Velveteen' Martinez got into her car and got the hell out of town.
At midnight exactly, the center of the shadow writhed, and a floating figure made of darkness shot through with blue glimmers of light shot up into the air.
The creature that had previously been Cyndi Davis, superhero wanna-be, looked down at itself and began to laugh hysterically. Then it turned, diving smoothly into the nearest unsecured wireless network, and was gone.