VELVETEEN PRESENTS TAG vs. Being Alive #2
“I filed the paperwork that allows me to patrol on a provisional basis,” said Tad. “Vel’s not here, and I don’t need to worry about running into her right now. I’m going to patrol.”
Yelena didn’t have a reply for that beyond an understanding nod and a small wave. “Have fun out there, and stay safe,” she said. “Don’t take on any robot armies by yourself.”
“After all the paperwork I just did? I’m not taking any chances.”
Yelena stayed where she was, watching him vanish into the kitchen. The smell of permanent marker wafted back through the doorway for a moment, and then she heard the back door slam, and she knew she was alone.
“Vel, I hope to fuck you understand what you’re doing right now,” she said, to the empty house.
But the house was never really empty, was it?
Vel’s toys were always there, stuffed into boxes and lining shelves.
Maybe they’d tell her what had happened while she was gone.
It was probably sad that she was hoping her roommate was spying on her, but she couldn’t think of what else to do, and this couldn’t go on.
“If you don’t want him anymore, tell him he can go, but if you do, this isn’t the way you keep the boy around. ”
The empty house didn’t answer her. Yelena sighed and stood, heading for the kitchen. If she was going to be dealing with this bullshit, she was definitely going to need more cake.
* * *
Tag wasn’t one of the heroes who only came alive on patrol.
They had always sort of worried him when he was still in training; those people who seemed less than fully human before they slapped on a mask and started shouting catch phrases.
Some of that had probably been due to the brainwashing he now knew The Super Patriots, Inc.
, had been using on all their trainees, but at the time, it had been deeply disconcerting.
He’d never wanted to become one of those heroes.
Heroes who shut down until they took to the streets were in danger of forgetting their civilian selves, losing touch with the world they were perennially supposed to save.
And despite that, Tag was a trained superhero, and he loved patrol.
He loved the feeling of brick and concrete under his thin-soled uniform shoes, loved the wind in his face when he raced along the rooftops, loved the smell of solvent and marker fumes that perpetually followed him, like an olfactory tag on his environment.
He even loved the fact that he was technically naked when he was patrolling—maybe it was weird of him, but his uniform was made of spray paint and Sharpie, sketched out on whatever flat surface he could find and pulled on in place of his street clothes.
As soon as he let it go, it would vanish.
He was far from the only superhuman to enjoy a little G-rated streaking, and a suit of ink was still a suit.
It was just ephemeral in a way that amused him.
Vel’s house was in a residential neighborhood, but there was a cell tower not far from the backyard, and it had been equipped with a crouching platform specifically for use by the local heroes.
Tag scaled it quickly and positioned himself gargoyle-style against the frame, resting comfortably on his toes with his knees providing a counterbalance.
As he settled, he thought that he could sit like this forever.
He couldn’t fly. No part of his powers was related to movement in any way.
But he could draw things that flew, hang gliders and shoes with wings, and sometimes that was the same thing.
This platform had a large enough footprint that he could use it to sketch multiple ways of getting down, and he was planning to do exactly that.
No one could deny that an aerial view was a useful thing to have when it came to patrolling.
He held his position until he saw movement near the skate park on the other side of the block.
The sun had set, the park was closed; no one was supposed to be in there.
Crouching a little further, he uncapped one of the paint markers he always kept at his belt and began to sketch.
Down in the skate park, the group of teens who had crept past the laughably ineffective closed gate—what was the point of a gate when your fence hadn’t been maintained in years, and was more gap than chain?
—were in the process of unloading their backpacks when a slim figure dressed in black spandex dropped out of the sky, standing serenely on some sort of hoverboard.
He stepped off the board and it dissolved into ink, melting into the air as he watched them from behind his rainbow swirl mask.
There was a long beat of silence before the teen at the front of the group straightened, dropping the can of spray paint he’d just pulled out of his backpack. It clattered when it hit the ground.
“Hey, man,” said one of the other teens. “No evidence, remember? They can get fingerprints off a can.”
“You’re Tag,” said the frontman. “I mean, you’re the superhero with the graffiti powers.”
“Tag is correct,” said Tag, feeling obscurely smug at being recognized.
“I heard you died, man,” said the teen. “Like, everyone said they saw you get crushed, and then you didn’t come around anymore. Where’ve you been?”
“Dead,” said Tag, shrugging. “The people who said they saw me die were telling the truth. Superheroing is hard work. I recommend an office job, if you can get it. Or become a plumber. They always make good money, and they have strong hands. They can open pickle jars. That’s a surprisingly valuable skill, post-high school. ”
“Welcome back to the land of the living, man,” said the lead teen. “What’s up? What are you doing here?”
“The sun’s down and the park is closed,” said Tag. “I’m busting up some trespassers. What are you doing here?”
“We’re artists,” said a girl from the back of the group. “Park’s closed, and that means we can do our thing without exposing little kids to paint fumes. We use quick-dry spray paint, so it’s all set by morning. You really going to bust us? I thought street art was like, your thing.”
“I’m a licensed superhero,” said Tag. “Technically, following the law is my thing. But no, I’m not going to bust you.
I’m just going to suggest that you find another canvas for tonight, if that’s cool?
I’m don’t want anyone to get in trouble here, and I really don’t want my first post-death fight to be with a bunch of non-powered teenagers. ”
“Uh, yeah, we’d rather you didn’t do that either,” said the leader. “But if you’re doing the law-and-order thing, can you really just let us go to start painting somewhere else?”
“I absolutely can. For one thing, you haven’t done anything yet, beyond some light trespassing that I’m allowed to overlook if it’s better for the city.
For another, whenever I get licensed somewhere, I immediately start working with the local authorities to try to improve the laws surrounding street art and graffiti.
You should be allowed to express yourselves in ways that improve the place where you live.
That means defining graffiti, and understanding the difference between spray painting a mural on a bank and writing a bunch of profanity on the side of a school.
We’re never going to find a definition that fully satisfies property owners and leaves you with the creative freedom you need, but we can make it easier on artists.
And finally…” Tag turned, looking around until he found a crudely drawn stick figure partially obscuring the lettering on a sign listing the skate park rules.
He reached over and peeled it away, like it was a plastic sticker on a white board.
He gave it a shake and it dissolved, the ink fading as it fell.
He turned back to the teens, who were staring in wide-eyed awe.
“Once I’m operating in a region, the authorities tend to get a lot less aggressive toward artists, because they know I can be asked to remove anything inappropriate.
I don’t mess with murals, but I will remove tags put on top of them, profanity from schools, and overly sexual drawings placed on other people’s property.
The sort of thing that makes it easier for people to hate graffiti artists on principle. ”
“That is dead sick, man,” said another of the teens. “Like, seriously. You’re a magic eraser?”
“Not quite, but close enough,” said Tag. “You guys got another spot you’d like to use?”
The teens exchanged a look. “We used to tag over at the old mall,” said their leader.
“But we sort of filled up the available space before we got good, and now it’s just a mess.
We’ve been hoping the cops would come and blank the whole thing so we could start over, but I guess it’s not in the budget this quarter. ”
“You meet a superhero who agrees not to arrest you, and you want to use him to get yourself a clean canvas?”
The teens shrugged. “That’s about right,” said one of them.
Tag laughed. “All right,” he said. “Take me to this mall, and I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
What he could do turned out to be quite a lot.
Piece by piece, he removed the graffiti from the brick wall they’d been talking about, shaking it until it crumbled away.
Each of the teens was happy to identify their own art, and when he found a few pieces that showed actual promise, he moved them to the side for their creators, letting them keep the proof of their improvement.
Laughter and sounds of appreciation rang through the night, and by the time the wall was sufficiently clear, he was feeling the pleasant burn that always came from putting his powers through a proper workout.
People had a tendency to forget that Tag, like Velveteen, was an animus: his powers tapped into the living energy of the world around him, allowing him to animate the inanimate, to move life from one point to another.
If he could figure out how she’d done what she’d done to him, he could probably have raised the dead.