VELVETEEN PRESENTS POLYCHROME vs. The Court of Public Opinion and Not Punching Anyone #2
The bat unfurled its wings and flew through a gap in a pair of storm shutters.
Those alone would have been noticeable enough to attract attention, had they not been on a window two floors above the ground.
Most people didn’t look up, especially not when there was a chance that they might see a superhero getting ready for the night’s patrol.
Pictures of superhumans at work were no longer worth money: they were a quick ticket to a police summons and a long night of matching costume details against known powers, trying to keep the databases up to date and accurate.
No one was paying the hero insurance anymore, after all. Someone had to be accountable.
Polychrome managed to pull up before she overshot the window, trading her semi-controlled descent for a much less stressful hover. The air around her sparkled with sprays of pink and gold, the colors brought on by her exhaustion. She wiped the moisture from her eyes before focusing on the window.
The shutters were open wide enough to allow the mechanical bats to pass through; no wider.
Whoever had calibrated the little machines had been making them to an exacting standard.
Carefully, she reached out and tested the shutter.
It swung toward her when she tugged. Good.
People who couldn’t fly often didn’t consider the need to actually lock their windows, considering them secure by sheer virtue of height above the ground.
Moving slow and easy, Polychrome worked the shutters open wide enough for her to slip through, and slid into the darkness beyond.
The room on the other side of the shutters was small and empty, the sort of featureless expanse of real estate that she had encountered in a hundred urban lairs, the sort where you didn’t expect to get your security deposit back, but you couldn’t afford anything nicer.
She had looked at a few extremely similar apartments during her brief spate of house-hunting after leaving The Super Patriots, Inc.
, before Torrey had told her to stop being a bloody fool and just move in.
Maybe they had rushed things a bit. Maybe they had gone from “first kiss” to “living together” too fast. Maybe there were moments they should have savored, things they could have lingered over and enjoyed more if they had taken them slow.
But in the end, they’d both been willing to sacrifice a little maybe for a whole lot of definitely.
She was definitely waking up each morning with the woman she loved; she was definitely happy. That was all that mattered.
One nice thing about being able to fly: if there were pressure plates or tripwires at floor level, she didn’t need to worry about them.
Polychrome hovered across the room to the open door, peeking out into the hallway on the other side.
The lights were out, which made her faint natural glow a disadvantage: she dimmed it down as much as she could without losing the light that lifted her, and moved into the hall.
There was one source of light that wasn’t her, seeping around the base of a closed door.
Polychrome floated closer, pressing her ear against the wood.
Someone was typing on the other side, their keystrokes loud enough to indicate that they were using outdated equipment.
She clenched her left hand into a fist, summoning as much solid light as she could, and turned the knob, pushing the door gently inward.
A slim silhouette appeared, black against the glow of a computer monitor the size of a wide-screen TV.
The person sitting in front of the computer was typing madly, hands flashing back and forth across three keyboards.
Wires extended from the person’s temples into the guts of the machine.
Polychrome hung where she was, trying to decide on her next course of action.
Punching, she was good at. Punching, she had been prepared for all her life.
Stealth and secrecy weren’t things the company had ever wanted from her—while black light was essentially shadow, allowing her to move unseen through any dark environment, she had been their showpiece girl, always dressed in white, symbolizing their bright future for mankind.
Put into a position where she needed to choose between hitting and keeping quiet, all her training said to start swinging.
Somehow, in this situation, it seemed…wrong.
“You can come in,” said the typist. They had a light, high voice.
A teenager’s voice. Polychrome still wasn’t sure whether she was talking to a boy or a girl, but she was sure that whoever it was, they were under eighteen.
“I knew you’d show up eventually. Which one are you, anyway?
The Princess? Jack O’Lope? Uncertainty?”
“Polychrome,” said Poly, finally letting her feet touch the ground. She allowed her natural glow to brighten at the same time, until it filled the room. “You’re going to have to come with me.”
“Did you know that they actually let superhumans join the police force in Hong Kong?” The typist kept typing.
“It’s probably way easier on everybody when the heroes can just say ‘you’re under arrest’ without worrying about getting sued later for acting under false pretenses.
You’re not the cops. You have no actual civic authority.
Technically, I think you’re trespassing right now. ”
“Portland has an exception for registered heroes in pursuit of criminal activity,” said Polychrome, her cheeks flushing blue with embarrassment.
She hated this part of the job. Where were the defiant shouts and exploding light fixtures when she needed them?
“I can’t be trespassing. You used robot bats to rob the city. ”
“It’s amazing what they’ll use to take our rights away, isn’t it?” The typist kept typing.
Polychrome frowned. “Stop that,” she said. “You’re being detained because you committed a crime. Stop doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
“I’m updating my social media feeds so that nobody worries about me,” said the typist. “If I don’t post at least once an hour, people tend to freak out.
And no, my friends don’t know that I’m an extra-legal superhuman.
I’m telling them that one of my cousins had a medical emergency, so I need to go offline for a few days.
Internet people are like cats. They can be super-needy sometimes, but mostly, if you go away long enough, they’ll get on with their lives.
And they’ll be happy to see you when you get back.
In my case I figure that’ll be what, five to ten?
Unless the government decides to draft me.
Have you read some of the bills they’ve been passing lately? ”
“I’ve been busy,” said Polychrome. That wasn’t entirely true.
She’d read most of the superhuman control legislation, the things proposed by frightened senators who wanted to protect their larger “normal” constituencies; the somehow more terrifying things proposed by politicians who were virtually salivating at the idea of living weapons who carried no development cost, who would do as they were told and make “friendly fire” a thing of the past. She just didn’t like to think about the picture those people were painting of the future—a future she would have to live with.
“Maybe you should be a little less busy, before you’re a lot more drafted,” said the typist, taking their hands away from the keyboard and removing the wires from their temples before turning the chair around, revealing themself as a skinny, flannel-clad teenager whose gender was no more clear—and no more relevant—than it had been a moment before.
“They’re only leaving you alone because you’re a symbol of the old way of doing things, and because your girlfriend is loco.
You know that, right? Ditch the crazy girl and see how fast they snap you up. ”
“Victory Anna is from a different timeline; she’s perfectly sane for the world where she originated.”
“Oh, I know,” said the typist. “She’s also smart, funny, easy on the eyes, and a talented technopath.
I was honestly hoping she’d be the one who followed my bats.
I figured there was a good chance she would listen to me.
You’re just a corporate shill who got out.
You’ll go crawling back.” The teen stood, holding out their hands, wrists together. “Cuff me. I’m bored.”
“I’m not a corporate shill,” protested Polychrome, even as she sketched a figure eight in the air with one finger. A loop of light appeared around the typist’s wrists, binding them together. “I have a job to do and I do it. That’s all.”
“You’ll have to pick a side sooner or later,” said the typist. “Do yourself a favor. Tonight, when you get home, look up a bill called ‘Animus Regulation and Control.’ I think you might be surprised.”
“What are you talking about?”
The typist didn’t answer. The typist didn’t say another word as Polychrome called the police and waited for them to show up.
When she handed the typist over, the teen was still silent.
There was something unnerving about that.
Polychrome couldn’t put her finger on exactly what…
but the job was done, the crime was thwarted, and it was time to go home.
* * *