October 20, 2022

Maddy was reluctant, but sufficiently intrigued by the older woman’s promise of an explanation that they bitterly agreed. Maybe it was a trap, they considered; maybe they’d be kidnapped and taken to a secret facility at the top of the CN Tower, held down and brainwashed out of every deeply-held belief she’d ever had. Sunrise would be there, she was sure; the lioness would probably even try to seduce her to the dark side, grinding those gigantic tits in her face. Maybe they’d just interrogate her until she spilled her (admittedly limited) knowledge of OH tactical operations, then kill her.

Or maybe it was only a psych-out, an exercise in humiliation, and she’d be brought before dozens of Korps agents just so they could point and laugh at the silly, useless babytrans who somehow had the delusion that she was actually a decent person who helped her community, let alone a competent Hero. It hardly mattered, the sheep-bear huffed to herself; all Hagen thought she was good for was PR (and holy shit, had she ever whiffed on that front) or being a double agent (unlikely, as a laughably bad liar). But at least she could maybe find out something—anything—new about Dad, and maybe that would help her figure out what she wanted her own legacy to be. In any event, the two walked back to the corner of University and Adelaide together.

On their second trip to the 21st floor, Maddy realized something was different, but couldn’t place what, exactly. They’d passed the boardroom, and stopped just long enough in the doorway for the deer to vaguely gesture to Maddy, breezily noting to her fellow executives that everything was under control. It was only after following the doe a different direction through the cubicle maze that the sheep-bear twigged to it: they weren’t getting the stink-eye from anyone. Not the tinily intimidating receptionist, not Grace, and not even Mx. Gorgoni or the other senior staff.

Well, maybe still a little, from the anole.

Finally, the sheep-bear and their escort arrived at what seemed to be a back corner of the office, at a very ordinary-looking door signed with the placard FACILITY CONTROL B // AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Grace waved near a sensor, not even an ID badge or key fob in hand, and the door unlocked with a series of heavy clicks, hydraulic shifts, and mechanical creaking noises. She pulled it open, and waved Maddy in.

It was… just a room. Something like a security or IT office, with a series of small flatscreen displays clustered around one enormous one, at a long console desk with three workstations. Proprietary-looking hardware and peripherals were mounted to every surface, including a small rack of servers. The Hero looked around, and saw no signs of restraints or rayguns. But for a decor motif built around shades of magenta—and what she recognized as the Korps’ helix insignia—it could have been any kind of control room or small lab, or even a compact recording studio.

The doe noticed Maddy’s confused expression, and smiled gently. “It’s for real, Heartforce. No tricks.” She pulled two of the rolling task chairs out, took a seat, and gestured with one hoof-nailed to do the same. With a series of keypresses, the system booted up; a stylized rose icon flickered by quickly.

Grimacing, the Hero sat down and folded their arms defensively. They wouldn’t be fooled, at the very least; they’d hear the older woman out, and judge for themselves. Independently, they thought with a tinge of bitterness.

Working through an OS interface Maddy didn’t recognize, Grace quickly brought up a video clip with the touchpad. Rather than click on play, she turned to the Hero, folding her hands. “Now, I have to warn you. This is a cable news feed of your father, shortly before his death. It’s not a fight, and it’s not even exactly violent. I think it’s quite sad, actually. But it’s your father, and if you want to see that, the clip is right here.”

The sheep-bear pursed her lips, and looked downward. “Yes. I’ve… I’ve come this far.”

Grace smiled sympathetically, and reached back over to hit the play button. It was indeed from a cable network—CBC Newsworld—and the on-screen graphics indicated the date: Wednesday, August 3, 2005.

Maddy recognized the scene. It was a press conference on the steps of Prairie League (Alberta Division) HQ in Edmonton, PHL pennants strung proudly across the building’s central pillars. They’d watched a hundred press conferences just like it in Dad’s clippings, but had never seen one from this date. There hadn’t been any League media availabilities recorded for the week before his death, as far as they knew…

…And she did know, because Granddad had made certain of that. She—“the boy,” as he’d usually called her to her mother—would need to understand the legacy of the man she’d have to live up to, the martyred Heartwood. He’d drilled her on her father’s exploits every day, those summer weeks she and Brianna spent at the Oakes family cabin as children. In between swimming in the lake and playing in the woods, she’d been sat down on the dock and quizzed on Roger Oakes’ Hero career statistics. She knew her father’s life from front to back, Alpha to Omega; a closed circle, his whole life fitting inside. It was, therefore, freaking her out the tiniest little bit to peer up at the giant screen and see Dad lumber in from out of frame, to join a group milling around a podium, in a way that didn’t quite match any of the press conferences in her memory.

The anchorwoman spoke, offscreen. “Coming up in just thirty seconds, we’re waiting on the Prairie League spokesperson and two of their top Heroes, Heartwood and Reclaimer, discussing successful enforcement operations today against illegal logging protests in Kananaskis. Okay, I see now—thank you, Tony, yes, I have confirmation, we’re live with PL media officer Alexis Westerhaven now.” The audio clipped out abruptly as the feed zoomed in to the conference, where a blonde wolf in a pantsuit approached the lectern.

Grace looked solicitously to Maddy. “Still doing okay there?”

“Fine, thank you,” they lied.

After Alexis spoke briefly to the details of the day’s activities against the so-called “eco-terrorists,” including arrests handed over to the local RCMP detachment—Alexis who had come to Thanksgiving Dinner for years, Alexis who’d babysat for Maddy and her sister while the family grieved in Calgary, afterwards—it was Dad’s turn. The massive brown bear grew animated quickly, denouncing the activists as if they were plotting sedition, rather than merely trying to halt provincial approval for old-growth logging permits. This wasn’t quite like anything she’d ever seen before; he was beginning to rage like Hagen, for God’s sake, all jowly and spittle-flecked and white-hot incandescent with fury. A vein in his forehead throbbed rapidly in close-up 1080p.

“…AND I SWEAR TO YOU, NO COWARDLY GODDAMNED TREE-HUGGERS WILL BE PERMITTED TO IMPEDE THIS WORK, SO VITAL TO THE ALBERTA ECONOMY; IT JUST ISN’T, WON’T—”

At that point Roger Oakes began to pant rapidly, roaring and gasping. After a moment of apparent distress, his eyes rolled back; finally, he toppled face-first into the spray of microphone mounts, limp. Audible gasps arose from the crowd, with a faint yell to call 911 audible in the background as the audio signal blipped back to the unseen anchor.

“Ladies and gentlemen—Tony, cut away, cut away now—we’re going to come back to this in a moment, it appears one of the speakers may need medical attention.” The video changed again to show the anchor in-studio, a severe-looking hawk in a sober blue blazer. “Returning to our top national stories, reliable sources in the Prime Minister’s Office indicate that he will announce the appointment of a new Governor-General tomorrow…”

Grace paused the video a few seconds before the end. “It was a ruptured brain aneurysm. He worked himself up so much that he burst a blood vessel in his head, and died not long after being transported to Emergency at the U of A Hospital. The PHL pressured the networks to withdraw the footage, and go along with a cover story that your father died of injuries from a fight. Too embarrassing, you see; normally they could just bury it and move on, whenever your dad went off half-cocked on a hot mic, but raging himself to death live and on-camera? Well, that required extra effort to fix for public consumption.”

The sheep-bear said nothing, stunned.

“The next Prairie League press conference,” Grace continued, “And I’m betting you have seen that one, was the next day. Ms. Westerhaven announced that Heartwood had succumbed to wounds sustained in the previous day’s battle. And that battle was no longer just a beatdown of passively resisting protestors, but mysteriously now also included a local villain and his henchmen.”

Maddy stared straight ahead, gazing into the beady eyes of the avian anchorwoman on screen. “I don’t… no…? How can it have been like that? I’ve never seen him that angry when he wasn’t even in an actual fight…”

The doe shrugged sadly. “The PHL gets a lot of embarrassing shit buried. Easier to manufacture consent to law enforcement-by-Übermensch that way. Our Archive and Records Division saves as much as we can of what they try to memory-hole, and it usually comes in handy at some point.” She tentatively, gently patted the sheep-bear next to her on the shoulder. “Maddy? Are you going to be okay…?”

They took a deep breath. “There’s more like this? More of him being fucking terrifying? More that nobody ever showed me?”

Grace nodded.

“I want to see everything.”

Many hours later, the troubled Hero was in the kitchen of their mother’s Malton home, having called ahead to ask if they could come over for dinner. It was a quieter house than they’d remembered, between them being assigned their own apartment as part of their OH stipend, and their sister Brianna moving into the TMU residences for her sophomore year. Mom was always glad to have Maddy visit, and they worried that she was a bit lonely.

“Mom? Can I ask you something about Dad?”

Deborah Gillespie turned her wooly neck to smile at her daughter, who was sitting worriedly at the kitchen table, before returning her attention to the dishes in the sink. “Of course, honey!”

Maddy looked at the linoleum floor. “Um. How… how did he really die?”

They saw their mother tense up as they asked the question, her arms stiffening as she grasped the front lip of the sink. When the sheep spoke, her voice was faint, her tone stilted. “What… what do you mean, honey? He was in a fight with a supervillain—then at the hospital—I couldn’t make it in time…”

“Mom.”

“I, I tried to get there—the League, they called me, but I was too late, I—”

“Mom.”

She turned around, tightly clasping her hands, still dripping with dishwater. “I… I have to go lie down,” the sheep murmured nervously, wiping her hands on her jeans and scurrying out of the kitchen on delicate hooves.

Maddy followed her up the stairs and towards the master bedroom, and called at her mother’s retreating back. “Mom.”

Deborah cringed, and stumbled to her neatly-made bed, where she sat unsteadily on the hand-sewn quilt. She held a hand over her mouth, and looked at her daughter—standing in the doorway, their arms folded and jaw set—through watery eyes. She choked down a sob. “I’m…I’m sorry, honey. They thought it’d be better this way…”

“Who? Who’s they, Mom?”

Maddy sat down beside their mother, and hugged her tightly. They stayed like that, silent for a few moments, until finally Deborah spoke with a cracking voice.

“The League. And—and your dad’s family. Grandma Patty, God rest her soul, and Granddad Garth, and Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Gary and Aunt Joan. They didn’t want…” she cleared her throat, sniffling. “How did you find out? Did someone tell you? Is that what happened?”

Maddy considered lying. She chose not to. “Yes. Someone thought I should know the truth, and showed me the cable news clip of the… the press conference. A friend, I think.” I hope, she silently added to herself.

“I didn’t want to keep it from you. I didn’t. But you were so young, and we’d just lost him, and then… he was your hero, honey. Everyone’s hero, back in Grande Prairie, I guess, even before he was a real official Hero. But especially yours, and I didn’t want to take that away from you. You were just a little b—” The sheep caught herself. “You were so young, Maddy.” Deborah hugged her daughter tightly, and wept.

“Was he… was he like that a lot?”

The sheep looked up, wincing. She took a deep breath, and held her chin high. “Madison. You should know. Your friend, please, thank them for me. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to tell you myself.” She paused, peering away. “Your dad was a giant piece of shit, honey.”

The sheep-bear hugged her mother, chagrined. “That wasn’t the only video I saw today. I’m figuring out that part.”

“He hit me,” Deborah said flatly.

“Mom…!”

“It’s true. Every time one of the bad guys got away. He’d drink, and he’d hit me. It was bad enough when he was just working around Peace River Country, dealing with burglars and biker gangs. Shoplifters, even; once, a Safeway manager refused to press charges against a pregnant woman who’d taken some baby formula, and he got so mad… and then, when he got called up by the PHL… well. There was this time, about a year before he died. Your dad and I went to Ottawa by ourselves one summer for this big oil industry party. You were staying with your grandparents for a couple of weeks, remember?”

Maddy nodded, recalling. “I was five. They said he was going to see some big men in Ottawa, and I got it mixed up and thought that meant, like, giants…”

Deborah chuckled sadly. “He ended up chasing one of those… Korps… people. It was the only time he ever went up against one alone. He never cared for them much, but back when we first met, it wasn’t personal, you know? He got obsessed, though, after he was with the League. He’d talk and talk about how much he hated them, how disgusting they were, what he wanted to do to them, but it wasn’t really about them, exactly; really, what he meant was—”

“—People like me,” Maddy said with a sudden, stomach-churning clarity. “He wanted to be able to hurt people like me and still be the ‘good guy.’ That’s what being a Hero really meant to him, in the end.” They shuddered.

“Oh, honey,” Deborah said, holding them tightly. “Yes. I think… I think it was. And when that man got away, the lizard, it made him look bad. I remember him coming back to the party afterwards, and he was just so furious; he would hardly say two words to the bigwigs before we left. He dragged me by my arm, and grabbed a bottle of rye from the bar. And then, when we got back to the hotel, he…”

Tears filled Maddy’s eyes. “Mom, you really don’t have to—”

The sheep looked down into the deep-pile bedroom carpet. Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “The hotel called the police. And when they got there… he gave them autographs, Maddy. They were fans. I was sitting in an ambulance with the paramedics, and he was just standing around with them ten feet away, joking about how… how… h—”

“Mom, please—”

Her mother nearly shouted out her next words. “How rough I like it,” she said, her ovine eyes blazing with fury. She clenched her fists, and took several deep breaths before continuing, more calmly. “Like I said. Roger Oakes was a real piece of shit. I would have left, but with you and Brianna, I mean… the League would never let me get custody. Who do you think an Alberta divorce judge is going to believe?” She clasped Maddy’s hand tightly, and began to sob. After a moment, Maddy joined her, her composure crumbling.

“Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“This stuff… this is part of why we moved from Calgary too, isn’t it. Not just that Granddad didn’t like that you let me start transitioning.”

She nodded.

“I think I’m going to go get a legal name change after all.”

“Why? I thought you liked Maddy?”

“I do. I just… I think I’d rather be Maddy Gillespie than Maddy Oakes.”

Maddy stayed the night in her old bedroom; she and her mother ordered a pizza, broke out the ice cream and wine, and had the girls’ night they needed.

When the Hero returned to their own apartment, there was an HBS business card slipped underneath the front door. It was Grace’s, and had a handwritten note on the back:

WHEN YOU GET TIRED OF BEING THEIR CHAMPION —

I KNOW SOMEONE YOU SHOULD TALK TO