October 29, 2022

“You can call me Volta,” said the wolf mildly, before turning to her partner with a sardonic grin. “God, Carm, you weren’t kidding about how tightly wound this one is.”

Every impulse drilled into Maddy Oakes by her training—the Prairie League Cadets, to the OH Junior Development Program, to the constant intel briefings she’d endured as a fully-fledged Hero—told her to keep her back up, and be prepared for life-or-death combat at any second. Suddenly, she was second-guessing everything Carmen had told her at the Taco Bell; was it all enticing lies, an attempt to seduce her into becoming like the monstrous figure before her, a brutal, unrepentant murderer? Had Grace been lying to her too? Was the doe’s kindness merely an act to get Maddy to let her guard down, and listen to… to the kind of cold-blooded puppetmaster who could love someone like Redline? Was she being used yet again, manipulated by the Korps just like her grandfather and Hagen?

Lost in spiraling doubt, heart pounding in their chest, the sheep-bear suddenly realized that someone was repeatedly calling their name.

It was Carmen, who had stepped directly in front of them, and was waving gently. “Maddy. Maddy. Come back to us, honey,” the cat said soothingly.

The sheep-bear cleared her throat, and peered around Carmen, sputtering frantically. “B-But—I mean—she…!”

“Maddy. I can make you calm down, but I don’t think you’d like it,” the tabby said matter-of-factly. “Anyway, just think about it. You’re surrounded by supervillains who have a wide variety of abilities, including a whole fucking lot who could take you down without powers, and without breaking a sweat. If the Korps wanted to hurt you, you wouldn’t have been invited to the party, believe me.”

Some of the tension in the sheep-bear’s body dissipated, and their stance relaxed slightly. The recruiter was right, of course – they wouldn’t stand a chance if they actually got into a real fight, here, in the heart of this secret underground base, festively decorated for Halloween though it might be. Swallowing, Maddy lowered their hands and cringed into their mostly-ursine bulk.

Carmen grasped Maddy’s shoulder. “I promised that you’d be in no danger here, and I keep my promises. If you gave it a moment’s thought, you’d realize that your physical, mental and emotional well-being are safer right now, in this room, than any time you’ve been within six feet of Caleb Hagen. Now come on, let’s try that again,” she said firmly, maneuvering the sheep-bear in front of her to face Volta. “Maddy, meet my girlfriend, Volta.”

“Never mind Hagen, I’m standing next to fucking Redline,” Maddy mumbled, teeth still gritted.

The giant red wolf shrugged, eyes narrowed, and downed the rest of her drink. “Yeah, and I’m in a Halloween costume. I have a drink in my hand. What’s your point? I’m not here to fight.”

“One more time,” Carmen whispered in the sheep-bear’s ear, more than a hint of menace in her low, honeyed tone. “You say ‘Hi! I’m Maddy,’ and then she says ‘Hi! I’m Volta.’ Can we please do that,” the tabby said, squeezing her shoulder hard. Maddy swallowed again, and looked up.

“H-Hi, I’m Maddy,” the sheep-bear forced out bitterly, offering an anxious wave.

“Hi. Volta. Seems like my reputation precedes me, though.”

“You! You—you killed—on live television, you electrocuted him to death—”

Volta huffed, clearly irritated, crossing her broad arms in front of her massive torso. “Look. I know what the media and Bradley Group and the PHL says about me. Somehow I’m both a mindless, unhinged beast rampaging around, and a calculating, cold-blooded mastermind, right? Well, I’ll tell you this: He had it coming. I gave that asshole every opportunity to realize he was beaten and should quit, every opportunity to stand down, and he just wouldn’t. So I made an example of him, and I’d fucking do it again.”

Maddy thought back to everything she knew about Redline, all the briefings and news reporting she’d taken in during the course of her brief Hero career, even the (clearly, bombastically exaggerated, and vilely transphobic) alt-right news clippings that Hagen had insisted the intel officers include, alongside more sober items from staid old institutions like the CBC. She’d known the red wolf was with the Korps—she was hard to miss, considering her size and the destruction left in her wake—but it had been so easy to put specific wanted criminals out of mind, when Grace and then Carmen had been so earnestly pitching her on switching teams. She’d wanted to believe there was a better option than her OH career, and hadn’t wanted to consider who in particular she might end up rubbing shoulders with, if she did.

And yet…

The sheep-bear frowned, and gazed up at Volta’s peeved lupine face, with what they hoped was an appropriately forceful, judgmental expression. “Why, though?”

Carmen raised a sleek feline eyebrow. “Volts? I really think you two should talk,” she said, gently pushing the red wolf and sheep-bear towards a nearby couch with an intense, sharp-looking grin. The two sat down, awkwardly. “Tell Heartforce about how you got here, and why. I’m going to go get another round… after I make sure the maintenance drones clean up that broken glass.” She gave the two a meaningful nod before disappearing back into the Dominion Club crowds.

“Heartforce? That’s… huh,” Volta said, sneering with bemusement as she lounged into her seat. “You pick that out yourself?”

Maddy grimaced, rubbing the sides of her muzzle with irritation, avoiding eye contact. “Fuck no. My dad was a PHL Hero, Heartwood. The Ontario’s Heroes marketing department came up with the name, to make sure everyone could see I was ‘upholding his legacy,’ after I refused to be Heartwood II. I never really wanted to be a Hero at all, but… family, eh?”

“Yeah, I fuckin’ know how that goes,” Volta sighed. “Let me tell you about family and legacy. I actually wanted to be a Hero, you know? Helping people, protecting people, all that. Shit, I idolized True North. Got made fun of a lot for that; Canadians don’t get much love in Texas. My parents put up with it as long as being a fanboy kept me quiet, and they could keep me and my powers under control at the academy. But y’know what they really wanted me to do, more than anything? The only real purpose I had for them? Breed. Make them a whole bunch of pure-blooded red wolf pup heirs, to take over the family business someday. So yeah, ‘Heartforce,’ I know something about getting manipulated by shitty family into upholding their ‘legacy.’”

Maddy’s jaw dropped. “That’s—that’s awful,” they choked out. They’d never seen that particularly eugenicist tidbit in any of Redline’s profile information, even the classified sections they were cleared for. “I didn’t realize…”

Volta nodded bitterly. “When they finally figured out I wasn’t getting with the program, that I was some kind of goddamned queer, they were about to send me to conversion therapy. Hell, they’d threatened to already, the first time I tried to come out to them. So right when I was going to be tortured back into being their perfect, obedient son, and giving them their legacy, that’s when Carmen saved me. The Korps saved me.”

Maddy’s fear and loathing of the giant wolf woman ebbed away, gradually displaced by deep fury and empathy at what she’d gone through. The sheep-bear swallowed, realizing how lucky she’d been to at least have Mom and Brianna in her corner when she was figuring herself out, even if she’d been dragooned into her OH career at the same time. She began to feel guilty that she’d listened to any of those briefings, even after discounting the more hatefully clickbaity press clippings—‘Redline and the Violent TRA Vanguard,’ for instance—for the propaganda they were. (To say nothing of that one ‘ripped-from-the-headlines’ docudrama Hagen had screened at their last team retreat in North Bay, Turned Against His Family: The Austin Travers Story.)

They could hardly blame the wolf for being angry, under the circumstances. Did Redline—Volta—actually have good reasons for what she’d done? If pressed, could they have done the same?

What if everything she thought she knew about the Korps was just as skewed as the parts she’d already learned were untrue, first-hand?

Maddy cleared their throat, and made an effort to look the wolf in the eyes. “But… the execution…?”

Volta paused for a long moment with an almost-imperceptible sigh; her gaze drifted away from Maddy’s, until catching herself, and pointing her muzzle back at the sheep-bear’s. When she spoke, it was as if from a very faraway place. “My parents are hateful assholes, but he was a bigoted shitheel creep. He hated people like us, but he treated us even worse. He had to prove that we’re beneath him. I did everyone a favour.”

The wolf grumbled, shifting in her seat with a shiver to fold her arms again, and seemed to become more present. “Look, Maddy. I understand, okay? I know how it feels to suddenly realize that, like, the whole Hero establishment was never actually on your side. I was tricked into thinking that maybe it could be a place for someone like me there, but really, I was all alone.” She sighed again, but her expression became a happier one. “At least, until Carmen showed up.”

The sheep-bear winced, looking away, afraid that a twinge of jealousy showed on their ursine face. What they wouldn’t have given for a beautiful, intense, powerful woman to parachute into their own life, and decide out of the blue that they were worth saving, and worth loving. That, however, felt like it might not be the healthiest thought to dwell on, and Maddy pushed it aside, sighing.

“They… they really got into me, yeah. Be visible, be positive representation, be the face of the new, modern, inclusive Ontario’s Heroes. A PR fix, after Sunrise. Is she here tonight, actually…?” With a shake of her horned head, Maddy pressed past the temptation to fangirl. “But that’s all Hagen ever wanted me for. Well, that and infiltrating… um… you know, I’m still not sure exactly where I am, other than ‘underground…?’”

Volta nodded sadly. “Some people are fine with being nothing more than tools. Fuck, I know a few who like it. But they’re getting a choice.”

Maddy huffed. “Anyway, it was plausible, at least? It’s Canada, we have to at least pretend we’re oh-so-progressive and benevolent and better than Americans; why wouldn’t the PHL have a trans Hero? I tried to believe it could be real for so long; you have no idea how hard I tried. But you know who’s had my back? Nobody. So I’ve… I’ve been all alone, too.” The sheep-bear snorted, a sound equal parts anguish and derision. “And I’m so fucking sick of trying to fit in where I’m not wanted.”

It was at that moment that Carmen emerged from the crowds behind the couch, to lean over the back and hand each of Maddy and Volta a new drink. “So? Have you figured out how much you two have in common yet?”

The sheep-bear shrank from the looming tabby, but gratefully accepted the cocktail glass and took a swig, wetting her dry mouth. She looked down at the floor. “Yeah. Yeah, I get it; thank you, and I’m sorry you had to talk me down from that freak-out. And I’m, uh, also realizing that I might have gotten some bad intel,” she mumbled.

“No shit, hon,” the tabby smirked. “Fuck, just think about how the media and the PHL covered up how your dear old dad bit it. They lie. They lie all the time, about shit that hardly even matters in the grand scheme of things. Roger Oakes would have still had a Hero’s funeral either way, but they still lied, just to keep his myth alive. Just so you wouldn’t doubt that you had to carry on a ‘family tradition’ for his sake.”

Maddy fidgeted uncomfortably in their seat. They… needed to talk to Granddad, they realized. They needed to understand why he’d taken part in the deception as he had. The sheep-bear closed their eyes and downed the rest of their drink in a few brief gulps.

She then took a deep breath before she turned back to the supervillain on the couch next to her. “I’m sorry, R–Volta,” the sheep-bear said, sheepishly. “Even for how much trying to be a Hero has fucked me up, I’ve never had to face the things you have. And it was stupid of me to still believe that you were uniquely dangerous, already knowing how much I’ve been lied to by… well, everyone.” She tentatively extended a hand to the towering wolf. “So, uh. Sorry I, um, called you a murderer. Truce…?”

Volta reached out, nodding, and shook just a little more roughly than necessary. Her giant hand dwarfed the sheep-bear’s. “Truce. Heartforce,” she snickered.

“And with that,” Carmen sniffed, taking Volta’s hand as the wolf rose from the couch, “We ought to be turning in for the night. We’re heading out to New Jersey in the morning, to fill in on a KDARC extraction op. Quick in-and-out, probably not even a fight if we play our cards right.”

“Kay-dark…?”

Carmen smiled that fierce, cryptic Cheshire Cat grin once again. “You’ll learn about them later. Assuming you want to, that is.”

Maddy nodded nervously, biting her lip. She did want to; it wasn’t just the second Cosmo talking. (Maybe.) She was onboard; she wanted to be part of all this. (Probably.) At that point she spotted Grace and Rin again, making their way through the crowd, and waved; the two waved back, and changed direction to approach the trio by the couch.

“You’ve already made some friends here,” Carmen said with satisfaction, looking at the K-LAW agents as they approached. “Good. Stick with them.” She called out to the anole and deer. “Hey, Backchannel! Grace! I can leave the hero with you, right? I’ve made my pitch, but I think they could use some ‘local liaisons’ right now.”

“Of course, hon!”

“Oh, yes, by all means!”

“Cool, cool,” Carmen murmured. “Be seeing you,” she said with a wink of an amber eye and a tip of her broad-brimmed red hat, as she and Volta put their arms around each other’s backs and began to walk off.

The red wolf looked back over her shoulder as they moved. “Hey, Heartforce?”

Maddy swallowed. “Y-yes?”

“Good luck with making the right decision,” she said with an easy lupine grin. The pair walked off through the crowd, which parted with respect—and not a few affectionate nods and waves—to let them pass.

As the night wound on, Grace and Rin introduced the sheep-bear around to many more people, all of whom were just as enthusiastically friendly about the potential recruit. They had another Cosmo, and another, along with a quite good cinnamon appletini (before the anole insisted, in a kindly but avuncular tone just slightly discordant with their Madame de Pompadour costume, that that was quite enough for the evening), and began venting at length to their companions about their plans. Maddy would ride out to Alberta first thing Monday morning, they tipsily explained. They’d talk to Granddad, confronting the old bear where he lived, and demand an explanation… even if they were afraid of what the answer might be.

Laughing, smiling, aching with the joy of feeling more connected to a community and alive than she had in… well, ever, frankly… she didn’t want the evening to end. Eventually, however, Maddy drunkenly drifted off to sleep while sitting in one of the Dominion Club’s plush booths, leaning against Grace. The soft bulk of the deer’s body felt safe, somehow.

Maddy woke up with a start, and looked around in a daze. She was at home, in her own bed, wearing the camisole and shorts she’d had on underneath the YA novel heroine’s costume. She smiled weakly despite a splitting headache; she’d had so much fun the previous night, notwithstanding that she’d gotten (at least) one or two drinks too deep.

Sunlight was streaming in through the bedroom window. Beneath it, stacked neatly, were the breastplate, greaves, bracers, and the rest of the lightweight armour pieces. The bow and quiver leaned against the wall, next to a manila envelope.

The sheep-bear shakily stood up, hungover, and leaned on their dresser to peer outside. Sure enough, parked in their space, six stories down, was their bike; they chuckled, quietly appreciating they wouldn’t need to take an Uber back out to Yorkdale just to retrieve it. Their new friends were downright thoughtful, they mused through the pain in their temples, right behind their horns. Yawning, they scratched themself, blinking still-bleary eyes, and lumbered out to the living room for parts beyond; they were halfway to the kitchen when they heard a pointed cough behind them. Panicking, they spun around in a defensive posture, heart racing, now wide awake.

“Hey, pally. You didn’t check in yesterday,” sneered the rat calmly sitting on the couch, legs crossed. He was picking underneath his claws with the point of a pearl-handled pocket knife, and contemptuously avoiding eye contact.

“WHAT THE FUCK,” Maddy roared at Slider furiously, spittle flying from between her bared teeth. “GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE, NEAL…!”

She reflexively reached forward with one hand, instantly lashing out with her telekinetic power at the couch; it tipped over backwards with a loud thump, but the conniving rat had anticipated the move, and hopped forward to neatly land on his feet. Maddy panted, enraged, and once again tried to telekinetically swat Slider to the ground. The rat tumbled forward from the space Maddy was focusing upon, dodging again, and strode towards her. He calmly folded up the knife and stowed it in one of the many pockets of his sleek camo-patterned gray tunic, sniffing derisively.

The sheep-bear didn’t like using their telekinesis directly on people (rather than on their surroundings) if they could help it, or pushing around waves of force through the air— there was always a risk of causing more bodily harm than intended—but Slider’s audacity pushed their buttons past their usual restraint. Maddy grasped the rat’s ankles with their powers and held them together tightly. Off-balance, as if the victim of a tied-shoelace pranking, he tripped forward and landed on the carpet with a yelp and a groan.

“You motherfucker,” she growled with anger, gesticulating wildly. “It is the weekend. How the fuck am I supposed to tail a target at her nine-to-five office job on the fucking weekend…?”

Slider looked up. He attempted to get to his feet, but the sheep-bear was still mentally gripping his ankles tightly together, and the rat could only kneel; he tried to make it look dignified, largely unsuccessfully. “C’mon, Oakes,” he taunted from the floor, as Maddy panted and shook with rage. “Hagen never said you could have weekends off with this bullshit assignment, and it’s not like you’ve even accomplished anything yet. Right…?”

Maddy took a deep breath, and spoke coldly and abruptly, when they did. “No. No I haven’t. Not a thing. Been a little bit preoccupied with some family stuff lately.” They released Slider, scowling. “Go ahead and tell Hagen that on Monday if you want, Neal; I won’t be there for it. I need some time off. Urgent. Got to go see my grandfather in Alberta. In the meantime, please get the fuck out of my home.”

The rat scoffed as he rose from the ground, and began walking towards the apartment’s front door. “Don’t think I won’t,” he said with a sniveling leer. “But how could you possibly blame me for being concerned about the safety of a teammate, when—entirely out of the kindness of my heart, and my profound sense of duty—I drop by to check on them, after they don’t answer their secure comms or civilian phone. For all I knew, you could have been murdered in your bed! We’ve got intel that a top Korps assassin from the States is in town. Not that you bother to keep up to date on that kind of thing,” Slider smirked cruelly, his chin held high.

The sheep-bear bared her teeth again. “You were sitting in my living room watching me sleep, you goddamned creeper.”

Slider sniffed again, shrugging, and nonchalantly scratched at his whiskers. “Just where were you last night, bud?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I was at a Halloween party. You know, a party? Those things that people with friends go to?”

“Oh? Didn’t realize that was a category that included you, but hey, kudos. And your friends got you home safe to sleep it off when you overdid it, eh?”

Maddy’s jaw set, and she stared down the rat. “Yeah. They did. They’re good friends like that.”

Slider nodded with evident suspicion, making a low chitter of disgust. “Fuck, go to Alberta instead of actually doing your stakeout mission. See if I goddamn care. Just more proof that diversity hires can’t get the job done. But,” he added, “Since I’m such a nice guy, and I believe so strongly in the importance of family, I’ll cover for you with Hagen… just so long as you actually check in every day. And you give me a nice detailed update of what you’ve done to infiltrate the Korps that day, as well as everything you haven’t.”

Maddy grunted, pursing her dark lips. “Fine. Sure. Whatever. Just fucking get out. And don’t you dare pull this shit, ever again, or I’ll show you exactly how a ‘diversity hire’ owns your skeevy ass.”

The rat opened the front door, and seemed as though he was about to walk through it, when he suddenly looked back at the sheep-bear and spoke again.

“Funny thing, Madison. I happened to be taking a leak while I was waiting for you to wake up, and noticed something on your bathroom counter. Those psi-blocker pills Doc Gallant hands out, the ones that are supposed to stop the Korps’ hypno-goggles or high-powered telepaths from getting all up in your head? Bottle’s full.”

A chill ran through Maddy’s bones as the door slammed shut behind Slider.