October 25, 2022

Maddy blinked open her eyes, groaning. The sheep-bear had fallen asleep in her clothes on top of the covers, surrounded by her pillows and plushies, Grace Dunlop’s business card in hand. The previous day, her boss had ordered her to make another contact with the deer—chief counsel of Helical BioSpectra, Inc., the Korps front company she’d been sent to investigate the previous week—and determine how she might be extended an invitation to be recruited by the supervillainous organization.

They were presently trying to square those instructions with the fact that they’d… already done all of that, without the short-tempered wolverine’s knowledge. They’d had an emotional conversation with the doe lawyer in a noodle shop, which had led to—well, learning some things. Things so disturbing it turned their stomach.

Maddy flipped the card over, to re-read Ms. Dunlop’s handwritten note. She winced at being reminded that she was, in fact, currently the “LGBTQ2+ Champion” for Ontario’s Heroes, supposedly tasked with promoting diversity and inclusion in the government-backed Hero force’s operations. In reality, her appointment had been no more than a public relations stunt, a way for OH to rehabilitate its homophobic image; Hagen had told her precisely that, in one of his trademark rages, just a week prior. It felt like years had passed since.

They’d tried to get behind the idea, despite their reservations. However, that was before realizing the contempt in which the director held them, considering Maddy valuable principally as a pawn in his various machinations. Under the circumstances, the sheep-bear had in fact grown intensely tired of being their champion.

She knew what she had to do. She had to call Ms. Dunlop—Grace, the older woman had insisted that the sheep-bear call her by her first name—and admit that she couldn’t handle any of this. She needed help. She wanted out. She didn’t want to be a Hero any more, least of all an Ontario’s Heroes operative.

Maddy gulped, uncertain. Whether or not that meant joining the Korps was… something they were trying to avoid thinking about, for the moment. They weren’t a criminal, or at least, they weren't inclined by disposition to be.

But the clock was ticking on her current assignment, regardless. Hagen would want results, or an explanation for her lack of results in infiltrating the Korps, soon enough.

They picked up their phone, and tapped in the number.

Later that morning, Maddy was again in the Financial District of downtown Toronto, again dressed low-key in their civvies. They’d parked their motorcycle underground, and after taking the skyscraper’s elevator up to the 21st floor, were ushered warmly to the HBS legal department for their appointment with Grace. The difference in vibe from the previous week continued to astonish… except with regards to Mx. Gorgoni, the firm’s CEO. When they passed Maddy in the hallway, the anole had nodded cordially, but still coolly at the Hero.

The deer looked up as Maddy knocked tentatively at her open door. “Ah! Come in, please. Grab yourself a drink if you like?”

The sheep-bear nodded, carefully closing the glass-fronted door of the chief counsel’s office, and once again took a Perrier from the minifridge alongside the near wall before sitting down in one of the guest chairs. “Thank you,” Maddy said hesitantly. “And—thank you for seeing me again. I feel like I’ve taken up so much of your time already,” she mumbled.

The doe shrugged. She was today wearing a pink pantsuit with a light mauve blouse, and took off her cateye-framed glasses to set them on the desk, rubbing at the sides of her muzzle before smiling warmly at the troubled hero. “Maddy. Please, don’t worry about it. I’m happy to; I know you must be going through a lot right now.”

Maddy sighed sadly. “Yeah… I am,” she said. “I’ve been thinking some more about, uh, the things we talked about last week. The ‘being compromised’ part.”

“Understandably,” Grace nodded.

“And, well, now—I mean, I told you part of this already—since I know you’re all part of the Korps here, my boss wants me to get inside and infiltrate you.”

Grace giggled, cocking one cervine eyebrow. She fluttered her lush eyelashes theatrically, and pursed her dark lips into a pouty moue. “Get inside me, in particular? I’m flattered, dear, but I think you might be a little bit young for me. What are you, 20?”

The sheep-bear flushed, flustered, suddenly realizing her phrasing; the unbidden but inviting image of a soft, chubby transfem deer in lacy lingerie, lounging in a gently-lit boudoir with a glass of wine and just waiting for her, briefly invaded her mind. Gasping, she shoved the thought back down into her subconscious. “No! I’m—I’m 23,” Maddy sputtered defensively. “24 in a couple months. And, no! I’m—no, sorry. I mean, he wants me to infiltrate the Korps. To get recruited to be a double agent for him.” She gripped the bottle of water in her hands so tightly she was afraid it might shatter. “Sorry,” she said again. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

The deer leaned over her desk, gently chuckling. “Maddy. I’m teasing. Yes, I made the logical inference about what you meant, and we had assumed that was one of Hagen’s potential angles in sending you here in the first place.” She reached out and patted the sheep-bear’s hand, still death-gripping the Perrier bottle to her desktop. “I’m gathering that you’re not as comfortable about that idea as you might have been in the past? Are you having a bit of conscience weighing on you?”

Maddy relaxed, slightly, as the older woman comforted her. “I’m… not thrilled. And honestly, I’m not sure what I really know about you people, at this point.” She looked down, breaking eye contact with the deer. “But, I do know that you were telling me the truth when you showed me those videos of my dad. I asked my mom, and she told me… she told me a lot of things about him. Scary things.” The sheep-bear paused for a long moment. “He beat her. Every time he didn’t catch a bad guy, he’d take it out on her. Every time.” Her eyes began glistening with tears.

Grace frowned sadly. “I’m so sorry, Maddy.” She reached down to a desk drawer and took out what was soon revealed as a box of tissues, setting it gently on her desk near the sheep-bear’s hands. “Please, by all means.”

Maddy sniffed. “Thank you,” they mumbled, pulling out a tissue and dabbing it around their eyes. “But why, though? Why are you helping me so much? Aren’t we, um, enemies? What makes you think you can trust me?”

“I—we—could help you. And you needed it.”

That set Maddy off, and she began blubbering piteously. Grace looked on with concern, and patted her hand again.

“Where we go from here is up to you. What can I do?”

After several more moments of weeping—at one point, the sheep-bear began grasping the older woman’s hand, and squeezing tightly—they eventually collected themself. Pulling back their hand and folding their arms in front of their chest, they tried to resume a professional, cautious mien; the effect was somewhat undermined by the pile of crumpled tissues on the desk before them.

Maddy inhaled deeply. “Okay. H-Here’s what I was thinking: you clearly want to recruit me, and Hagen wants me to try to be recruited. I have complete cover to be here, and I want to hear you out before I decide what happens next,” she pleaded. “I’m… I’m done with being a Hero, one way or another. I know that. And I’m going to have to make a decision about what that means. But you’ve been kind to me, and I feel like I owe you something for that…?”

“We’re not actually going to let you spy on us for the PHL,” Grace said matter-of-factly. “You do understand that, right?”

Maddy nodded. “Of course. I assumed you haven’t shown or told me anything that Ontario’s Heroes doesn’t already know about. And I’m sure you wouldn’t, unless you think I can be trusted.”

“Very astute, dear. I bet Caleb Hagen’s never even noticed you’re so sharp.”

The sheep-bear shrugged. “So… I’m listening. How is it you usually pitch Heroes on abandoning their ideals, and coming over to the dark side?”

Grace chuckled, snorting. “Dramatic, aren’t we? You might just fit in around here better than you think.” The deer reclined into her high-backed executive chair, and gave herself a half-spin to look out the window. As she spoke, she gazed at the towering weather beacon of the sprawling old Beaux-Arts Canada Life Building, a few blocks up the street. “Look, Maddy. I’m not a recruiter. That’s not my field of expertise. I really am a lawyer, and this job isn’t a cover; this is genuinely what I do for the cause, as a member of the Korps Legal Affairs Wing, ‘K-LAW.’ Most of my work involves fucking with our enemies within the bounds of legality.” She paused, before turning her head back to the sheep-bear and smirking. “Of course, it helps that all our litigation and regulatory tribunal shenanigans are funded by the assets that other divisions liberate from hostile billionaires and corporations, and governments and churches, and what have you…”

Maddy made a faint noise of disappointment. She’d grown… not fully comfortable, exactly, but certainly somewhat less anxious, about the idea of discussing these things with the matronly, gently sardonic doe. Meeting with someone else would be different. “What does that mean for me?”

“It means exactly what I said in my note: I know someone you can talk to. She’s a field agent, and a super, like you. When she’s not on, uh, other missions, she’s one of the Korps’ best recruiters. She’s trans too, and closer to your age, and she can give you that pitch for what ‘the dark side’ would mean in your particular circumstances. She can surely share some thoughts about ‘ideals,’ too. Much better than I could from my quiet little office job, frankly.”

The sheep-bear nodded, rubbing their arm nervously; that made sense, they supposed. “Field agent,” they said with some trepidation. “So I’d be expected to, like… use my powers to fight Heroes and help with those heists that fund K-LAW? Is that the deal?”

The deer tented her fingers and leaned forward again. “Not at all. If you wanted to help, though, there’s plenty of jobs that need doing and aren’t also indictable offences. I saw on Twitter yesterday that someone spotted you on the job from the highway, clearing an accident on the 403 off-ramp with your powers; the Facilities and Disaster Relief teams can always use telekinetics of your calibre for things like that. And that’s not to say you’d have to do anything at all, really! Ever heard the joke about ‘fully automated luxury gay space communism?’ The punchline is that the Korps actually does it. We take care of each other, since the world at large can’t, or won’t.” Grace’s expression changed slightly, a hard glint in her eye. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Huh,” Maddy mouthed, more uncertain than ever. “So, um, this recruiter. When could I talk to her?”

Grace turned to her laptop, tapping something gently into the keyboard and scrolling about with the touchpad. The deer hummed brightly. “She’s planning on being in Toronto on the weekend, actually,” she said in a surreally brisk tone, as if they were scheduling an ordinary business meeting rather than discussing the reluctant superhero’s potential defection to villainy. (Or possibly non-villainous following of one’s personal bliss, merely funded and logistically supported by villainy; Maddy was uncertain if that was a distinction without a difference.) “Is your schedule open?”

“I’m… off the team duty roster right now,” Maddy mumbled. “No public Heroing duties. This is my only assignment.”

“Keen,” the deer said brightly. “Then I’ll leave it to her to make contact. We know where to find you.”

The sheep-bear nodded, trying to put on a brave face. “Thank you. I really mean that.” Maddy inhaled deeply, and started gathering themself to leave, thinking about the rest of their day. They’d have to check in with their OH handler, the loathsome Slider, at some point. They weren’t looking forward to chatting with the rat.

As she stood up, though, something else occurred to her. “Can I ask something? You’ve been so kind to me, and I’m guessing I’m, like… under your protection, or something, so I haven’t been getting the cold shoulder around here any more. Mostly. But, um. What’s with Mx. Gorgoni?”

The doe leaned back, and sucked air in sharply through her teeth, wincing. “That’s complicated, and it’s not really my story to tell. It was a good year after I met them until they were willing to share it,” she said thoughtfully. “But… I think it’s fair for me to say that your father hurt a lot of people, in his career as Heartwood. A lot of people,” she emphasized, significantly tilting her antlers towards the executive suite, like an aircraft marshaller directing a jet to its runway. “Killed some, when he really got worked up. Others lived, but…”

Maddy’s heart sank. “O-oh,” they said in a small voice. Of course their father would have been a painful memory to his other victims, too. Mom wasn’t the only person he’d abused, and they and their sister weren’t the only loved ones of the survivors of that abuse. And here they were, just walking around as a living, breathing reminder of that violence, weren’t they? Especially—in this particular front company’s office, at least – as long as they were officially a government-licensed Hero with the PHL. “I see,” they mumbled.

Grace tilted her head upwards, pondering. “What’s that line from the Jimmy Stewart movie? ‘Each man’s life touches so many others, so if he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole in the world?’ Some people are… the opposite of that. Some people would have left the world an awful lot more whole if they hadn’t touched anyone else’s life at all.” She stood up, and walked around her desk to open the door, patting Maddy gently on the shoulder as she did. “Anyway, please don’t dwell on it. You’re not responsible for what he did, and Rin doesn’t really think that either. They don’t hate you, I promise.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” she sighed.

“It was lovely to see you again, Maddy,” the deer said with genuine warmth. “Give me a call if you ever need someone to talk to, eh?”

The sheep-bear weakly smiled, melancholy. “G-Grace? Can I ask just one more thing?”

“Yes, dear?”

She pulled a slip of thermal printer paper from the pocket of her hoodie. “I’ve, uh, got my motorcycle in the parkade downstairs. Could you validate my parking…?”

Maddy ended up wandering over to the Eaton Centre after departing the HBS office with a friendly wave. They passed the great neoclassical heap of Osgoode Hall, the sweeping space-age towers of City Hall, and the stolid Romanesque-revival bulk of Old City Hall in turn as they walked down Queen Street to the downtown mall. Eventually, they browsed the stores for a few hours before giving up, proceeding to the sub-basement food court to chow down on a trio of burritos as big as their head.

Much as she gazed with curiosity at the selection of dresses that might actually compliment her bulky frame in the Torrid, or the vast panoply of makeup filling every brightly-lit square centimeter in the Sephora, she felt frustrated by her lack of savvy in the ordinary business of… well, being a young woman. Mom and Brianna had tried to help, and so had her (brief!) high school girlfriend Emily, but she’d never felt she had the time to learn how to be… pretty? Not that she was unhappy with her appearance generally—she could rock the butch look very well, all things considered—but it would just be nice to have those skills handy, if she ever needed them.

There’d always been too much pressure to train, to prepare to be a Hero and carry on the Heartwood legacy. First Granddad’s unbearable drilling on her father’s career trivia, then the doctors who assessed and tested her powers once they manifested, and then the after-school and weekend obligations to the Prairie League Cadets. It didn’t leave much bandwidth for thinking about anything else, especially once the sheep-bear had graduated high school, and had to channel full-time attention into the OH junior development program.

Maddy was idly people-watching, zoned out, as they sipped their fountain Coke, when their phone vibrated on the food court table. Glancing at the screen, there was no caller ID listed. The sheep-bear answered cautiously, holding the phone up to one fluffy ear. “...Hello?”

A sullen, nasal voice emanated from the tiny speaker; it was Slider. Of course it was Slider. “Why aren’t you picking up on your secure communicator, Oakes? Why am I having to call you on your fucking civilian cell phone to get your attention…?”

She groaned, rolling her eyes, and set down her half-eaten third burrito. “Neal, how do you think it would look if I was trying to play nice with our friends on the 21st floor—I’m supposed to be making them think I want to be on their side, if you recall—with my… usual… gear on me? Should I just walk in wearing my full costume? They’re not stupid! They’d scan me for standard-issue bugs and trackers.”

The rat growled peevishly. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Whatever. You infiltrate the gay anarchist weirdos your way. What do you have to report?”

Maddy was reflexively about to share the events of their morning, when they suddenly remembered: as far as the sheep-bear could tell, neither Slider, nor the Director, nor anyone else in the OH chain of command seemed to be aware of their activities in the previous week. That could be an advantage, later. “I, uh… I staked out the building from across the street. For like six hours. I left when the cafe staff started getting suspicious. No luck making contact today, so I’m getting a late lunch.”

Slider huffed, dismissive. “What’s your plan for tomorrow?”

“More of the same, until I can talk to Ms. Dunlop again. I mean, you just said I can do this my way, right?”

“One week. I’m entertaining this for one week until I tell Hagen you can’t fucking get the job done. Better make the most of it, pal,” he sniffed dismissively, before ending the call.

Maddy shoved the phone into her pocket, and picked up her burrito briefly before setting it back down, staring off into the crowded food court. Suddenly, she wasn’t that hungry.