Wonder City Stories

I am, perhaps, still a little bitter about grad school.





Got a Vision That No One Else Sees

Angelica was resolutely writing up her latest experimental results in her lab notebook over her lunch hour when her advisor, Professor Lydia Necessitas, came looking for her.

Lydia had gotten her PhD young, as one might expect from a scion of Mother Necessity's family, so she was only about ten years older than Angelica. Despite that, she already had deep crow's feet around her icy blue eyes and grey in her short black hair. When she sat down next to Angelica at the lab bench, she looked more tired and pale than usual.

Angelica looked up from pasting the printout of results into the notebook and said, "What's wrong?"
( Read more... )

Happy sixth anniversary to us! More things to be said tomorrow; for now, please enjoy this finale for Volume 3, with its special surprise just for you all.






Everything Dies

Angelica was changing into her new dress in Madame's bedroom—carefully, carefully, so as not to muss either hair or makeup, done professionally less than an hour earlier—when she heard the commotion out in front of the house. X knocked on the door a few moments later and said, "Our chariot is here."

"Come give me a hand?" Angelica said, after struggling with her dress halfheartedly and deciding she'd rather have a handsome helper. She deserved it for dealing with today.

X came into the room. Sie was wearing an exquisitely tailored black three-piece suit and a snow-white dress shirt with French cuffs and onyx rose cufflinks. The tie was deep blue silk with a pattern of pale grey gingko leaves, and was restrained by an onyx rose tie clip that matched the links. Angelica gave a low whistle.

"You're too kind," X said with a small smile. "What can I do?"
( Read more... )

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays—or not-holidays—were lovely and that your 2015 is better than your 2014!




For What We Are About to Receive

Angelica sat next to Lady Justice in the wood-panelled attorney's office. The leather chairs were deep and comfortable. There were some other people on their side of the room that Angelica didn't recognize at all; she was sure they were thinking the same of the tall Hispanic chick in dark glasses. She'd armored up that morning: patent leather pumps that boosted her to six foot two, knee-length black pencil skirt, red silk blouse with neckline that allowed her mightiest bra to serve the girls up front and center, black damask cutaway mock-tailcoat, and full-on femme face with lipstick that matched the blouse and her nails. She'd blown her black hair out to full supermodel-in-the-wind volume and clasped on her grandmother's best garnet necklace with the dramatic drop that pointed straight to her cleavage.

Lady J was armored up too, she was amused to note, but in her own way. The iron-gray bob was impeccable, and she was wearing the Lady Justice costume that was closest to an Army uniform, in navy blue with the stars-n-stripes "ladies" tie and the Lady J balance insignia pinned to her lapel. Lady J was even wearing makeup, the kind of nearly transparent makeup that took about ten years off her age and made her blue eyes even more piercing than usual.

An elderly white man in an expensive grey suit sat behind the broad antique desk. There was a much younger South Asian man standing unobtrusively to his right — his paralegal or intern, Angelica guessed. They handed a small piece of paper to everyone in the room that was a legal statement about Lady J's power and the necessity of having her in the room for the reading (stipulated by Jane's will, apparently) and that anyone could feel free to leave if they did not consent to her power, and the lawyers would contact them later.

No one left.

The lawyer looked over his gold wire-rim glasses at the assemblage and made Angelica feel like she was sitting in a BBC mystery series. "Thank you all for coming. I am Ms. Liberty's attorney, Charles Worthgate. Have been, for several decades now. You have all been asked here because you are part of Ms. Liberty's last will and testament, which, I will note, she updated only a few weeks ago."

"How did she do that?" asked a blonde, middle-aged white woman who looked like she'd bitten into a few thousand lemons in her time.

"By temporary sanity order, duly processed and certified," Worthgate smoothly replied. He'd probably been expecting the question. "Before we begin, I need to ask a question—" he turned and looked directly at Angelica "—of Ms. Luna here."

Angelica cleared her throat and said, "Yes?" in a voice that she hoped was unconcerned.

"Did Ms. Liberty find you before she died?" he said.

Angelica grimaced at the memory and said, "Yes, yes she did."

"And was she in her right mind, do you think, when she found you?" he pursued.

Angelica traded a glance with Lady Justice, and said, "Yes, I think she was."

"That's fine then," he said, nodding.

His assistant turned away and brought back a sheaf of papers to set before Mr. Worthgate. From Angelica's angle, she could tell that there were two distinct stacks of papers. Oho, she thought. That's the version for if she hadn't found me and dumped this on me. Well, maybe I'll get a few dollars at least.

Worthgate flipped through the first couple of pages and nodded. "Right, all right then."

He began to read the will. Angelica mostly tuned it out, because she expected some… set of collectibles or something, really. The sour blonde woman was a cousin of Jane's from her father's side of the family. The woman's face when she heard her legacy—Angelica thought, Oh, honey, 500 grand is nothing to sneer at—led Angelica to believe that perhaps she'd expected to get everything.

She perked up when Lady J's turn came though: "To Dorothy Sanderson, who has always been my dearest and most long-suffering friend, I know you will not permit me to leave you personally a sum of money. Instead, I leave you the control of the Lady Justice Foundation, which position will pay you a minimum annual salary of $100,000 for the rest of your life, and will enable you to create modest grants for whatever purposes you deem best."

Lady Justice laughed and hiccoughed around a sob. "Damn you, Janey," she muttered.

Angelica had already noticed a trend for Jane's legacies to draw out some form of obscenity.

Worthgate glanced up over his wire-rims in her direction and said, "And to Angelica Luna, whose affection and generosity I have repaid with great trouble, I leave the rest, residue, and remainder of my estate, to use or dispose of as she will."

Angelica blinked.

There was an eruption of outcries on the other side of the room.

Lady J took her hand and squeezed without looking at her.

Angelica blinked again.

The attorney occupied himself with assuring Jane's jilted next-of-kin that the will was entirely legal, yes, including the temporary sanity certificate. The next-of-kin was saying some things that she was probably regretting as soon as they came out of her mouth, since she wasn't used to the best way to avoid being influenced by Lady J's power: not saying anything at all.

Angelica blinked a third time and found the very nice-looking South Asian man at her side. "If you would care to step into my office, Ms. Luna, I can help give you more perspective on this, as I can see that you are surprised."

Office? Angelica thought. She stood up automatically, and Lady J came with her because she hadn't let go of Lady J's hand. Lady J squeezed her hand again and accompanied her into the hallway and thence into another wood-panelled office.

They settled into the comfortable silence of his office and the identical leather chairs, and he leaned against his desk and smiled. "I'm Anirvan Das, one of the partners. Mr. Worthgate asked me to look after you, if you don't mind."

"No, of course not," Angelica said, taking a moment to actually focus on his face, rather than the blur of Life! all around him. He still looked too young to be a partner, without a sign of either lines at the corners of his eyes or grey in his very black hair. Well, maybe he was a child prodigy.

Lady Justice remained silent, just holding Angelica's hand.

"I expect you're probably wondering what, exactly, being Ms. Liberty's residuary beneficiary means in terms of dollars," Das said, smiling. His suit was at least as expensive as Worthgate's, Angelica thought, eyeing the custom cut that fitted his shoulders rather beautifully. His cufflinks—gold with tiny diamonds set in them—winked at her from under the cuff of his jacket.

"The thought had occurred to me," Angelica said, adding, "Not very much, I expect, given the size of some of the other legacies."

He pursed his lips and reached behind him for a sticky pad and pen. He wrote something on the top sheet, pulled it off, and handed it over to her. "That's according to an estimate our firm made at the end of last week."

Angelica looked down at the yellow square of paper stuck to her fingertip. That couldn't be right. There were so many zeroes. How many zeroes? She counted. Really?

She realized that she'd stopped breathing a few moments before, and let out a rush of air and inhaled.

"You have to remember that Ms. Liberty didn't touch her money at all for nearly a decade," Das said kindly. "She gave carte blanche to her very capable investors long ago, and only drew a relatively small monthly allowance when she was, er, at liberty. Her investors and media management arranged multiple licensing deals over the years, and many of those pay a significant regular fee. And so on, and so forth."

Angelica counted over the zeroes for the third time, then looked up at him over her sunglasses. "Are you sure about this?"

Das gave her a dazzlingly pretty smile. "Oh, yes, Ms. Luna. I did have my assistants triple-check their numbers. I wanted to give you the most accurate information I could. I note that we have seen a significant uptick in licensing income since Ms. Liberty's death, so this number could change by the end of the month, but only in terms of growth."

She slumped back in her seat and looked at Lady Justice with wide eyes. "I guess I'm… rich?"

Lady Justice patted her hand and smiled. "Rather ridiculously rich, I'm afraid."

Sorry for the late-in-the-week posting, but this one was a hard episode to write for various reasons. (Jane's death was hard to write, but it was one of the first episodes I wrote when I started this volume, continuously editing and revising as I got closer to it.) Hope you enjoy the longest ep we've had in a few weeks.


This Neighborhood Has Gone to the Dogs

Tinkermel and Tizemt brought a levitating gurney up from the lab and a blanket, and helped Lady Justice and Madame Destiny arrange Jane's body on it.

Angelica looked up at one point during this process, after the brief and lovely taking-down of Pastor Al. Apparently living things are just really fucking around with themselves constantly, because she kept getting dizzy on her new vision/sense/whatever the hell it was Jane had thrust upon her. The gravel was restful by comparison—still teeming with tiny life, but not as… busy as human bodies.

"I brought a stasis field too," Tizemt said. "Since we don't know how long it will be before we can get her, um, somewhere appropriate."

"She's going nowhere," Lady Justice said with a grim vehemence that startled Angelica into looking up again.

Angelica and Tinkermel traded glances (she was grateful she could see his face through the haze of !!LIFE!!). Tizemt nodded. "Why don't we go into the house?" she said.

A sudden panic seized her. She was heartbroken and devastated, and felt like she should help comfort Jane's oldest friend. But every time she looked at people, the rage at what Jane had done to her welled up. Jane had been really fucking vehement about her not telling anyone until she knew what she was doing. If she went into that house, it would all come out, will she or nil she.

Her brain flailed around for something else to do, and Angelica suddenly realized there were riots in her neighborhood, and her grandmother was right in the middle of it all.

"Watson?" she said, when Watson had stuffed her cell phone into her pocket. "Can you take me to my neighborhood?"

Watson and X stared at her for a moment, blankly, then glanced after the little trail of people going into the house.

X said, "We can turn Aloysius over to the cops."

Watson said, "If we can find any that are actual cops, as opposed to paramilitary troops."

X grimaced. "That's what I like about you, Watson: your unstoppable optimism."

Angelica summoned a smile, still looking at them despite the dizzying constant shift of their bodies, and said, "Guys? I just want to see my grandmother."

Watson and X swung into the Divine Sarah, and Angelica joined them. She spent a lot of time staring at the garnet-carpeted floor or walls. The Divine Sarah might have a personality all her own, and be older than either Angelica or X, but she wasn't ALIVE in the way Angelica's new power recognized.

It was a long, brutal drive across town as the sun set and darkness slid in over the city. Some areas were clearly without power, as people sat out on stoops with flashlights and candles and maybe weapons in complete darkness. Something was burning off to the east, possibly down by the river. Masses of people surged across streets from time to time, causing Watson to jam on the brakes (and Angelica always regretted looking up at those moments—LIFE!!!111!!!). Men in black ran pell-mell away from baseball-bat-wielding middle-aged white women. (Okay, she didn't regret looking up for that one.) A group of super-types in full colorful spandex ("Supervillains. They're called The Bloggers," Watson said. "You're shittin' me," Angelica said. "I wish I were," Watson replied.) strolled slowly down the street after a panicking trio of men in black, and Watson chose another street to take.

The drive that was normally 30 minutes took three teeth-grinding, stop-starting, nerve-frazzling hours.

(Somewhere in there, they did, in fact, manage to find actual real Wonder City police and offloaded the swollen-faced Aloysius to them. Watson suggested that they fingerprint and book him while he was unconscious, as he was Faerie-touched, which made them just get on the horn with an urgent request for the Equestrian. As Watson drove the Divine Sarah away, she was smiling grimly.)

The power was out in Angelica's neighborhood, but little knots of people were standing around on street corners with 55-gallon drums that held fires, like it was the dead of winter instead of midsummer. Her stomach clenched when she saw that the groups around these fires were not her friends and neighbors, but little masses of armed white men with appalling emblems tattooed on various parts of them (like their shaved heads). One group pushed off from their "guardpost" and swaggered toward the Divine Sarah, assault rifles lazily resting on their arms.

Watson slowed to a drift as one of them walked in front of the van, and shook her head at the gestured command to roll her window down. Angelica felt unspeakably relieved that Watson's "soft butch" persona did not include so much macha as to try to talk her way past a bunch of armed racist fuckheads.

Angelica noticed that one of the guys with a gun in front of the van had something going on inside him that looked like what happened to Jane, only much smaller and less terrifyingly active. She allowed herself a tiny vindictive grimace and tried not to think about it too much right now.

The guns erected into full assault mode, and one of the men shouted, "Roll the fuckin' window down."

Watson, already humming like a struck guitar string, ran her gaze along the line. Her hands tensed on the wheel, her right thigh tightened slightly. Angelica started to slide down to the floor.

Just then two men were taken down by huge golden streaks from the darkness. The blurs of motion slowed enough for Angelica to see the glinting yellow eyes of Simon's wolf form, and to guess that the other was Ivy. The men yelled, the men around them yelled, guns slewed around wildly…

… And then a tsunami of yelping, growling golden-brown bodies poured into the scene. Half the men went down with bloodcurdling shrieks, and the other half turned and ran. The tide of lean, brown, hungry canines followed them. The men who went under weren't there when the canine-line retreated.

A few beats later, absurdly, a tiny brown dog ran through the headlights after the horde, yipping excitedly.

The three of them sat there, staring, for a long moment, before X said, "What the fuck?"

The two wolves flashed into their human forms, and Angelica clapped a hand over her mouth in a moment of terrifying vertigo. The act of transformation changed everything about their bodies in a few seconds.

After getting control of her stomach back, Angelica had to stifle her slightly hysterical laughter at Simon wearing nothing but tiny black briefs, and Ivy wearing a pair of black shorts and a bikini top. Simon walked to the driver's door, and Watson cranked down the window.

"They're all over," he said, and it wasn't clear whether he was talking about the supremacists or the dog tidal wave. "It's been a long night."

"Yeah," the three in the van said in unison.

"You keep going, we'll run an escort," Simon said.

Angelica looked away in time to avoid seeing the pair's switch, and just watched the shadows in the alleyways out the side window, trying not to dig her nails into her legs or arms in anxiety. What the hell had happened to bring a fucking militia into her home? What had happened to her grandmother, her grandmother's house? Was her mother all right? What about Kit? Her other friends? The bodega? Her apartment?

They made painfully slow progress, especially since the militia had dumped debris and other barricade-like things in the streets, when they didn't park cars across them. Watson, X, and Angelica occasionally had to stop and duck because men with guns were being taken down by wolves (and at least one more iteration of the mass of little yellow-brown dogs), and there were some shots fired. (Angelica hoped the guy who owned the van — Watson's landlord? — would be okay with a few new decorations.)

Just when she thought she was going to explode, she realized Watson had taken them around a twisting way through a part of the neighborhood she hadn't seen in a few years, and the alley they had crawled along had dumped them out right in front of her grandmother's house.

Sitting on the front steps, near the street, was the lean, lanky, familiar form of Kit Castaneda. He was cleaning his nails, from the motions of his almost-silhouette in the city glow.

They pulled up in front and Angelica leaped out of the van. Kit flashed a grin and threw his arms around her.

A second later, she was sobbing into his shoulder and saying in a low voice, "Jane. She… it was awful, IS awful. Oh my god, Kit? ¿Está bien?"

He murmured, "Está bien, she's fine, honest, I've been here the whole time."

Angelica hugged him hard, and pulled away to look up at the front door. She didn't remember pulling away from him or running up the steps, but the next thing she knew, she and her grandmother were hugging and crying and hugging some more.

After Angelica calmed down—much later, it felt like—she was suddenly terrified by the idea of looking at her grandmother, actually seeing her with the new eyes Jane had foisted upon her. Was she some sort of horrible Valkyrie now who could see Death coming for someone? She kept her eyes screwed shut for a few moments, then decided she had to find out.

In the dim light of Abuelita's glassed candles—she saw various saints represented on the candle labels—she looked at her grandmother.

Abuelita was tiny, under five feet, brown-skinned with wavy iron-gray hair cut in a bob. She was wearing one of her good dresses for Sunday Mass, a short-sleeved floral print, and none of her jewelry, not even earrings. Angelica guessed that she was preparing for someone to break in and kill her — wearing her Sunday best and having hidden her jewelry under that floorboard she'd shown Angelica a few years earlier.

Most importantly, while there was a haze of life over and around her, there was no horrible knot of mutation present.

"Your young man, he is very kind," Abuelita said, mopping her eyes with one of the tissues she always seemed to have in her dress pocket. "He brought over a couple grocery bags of food from your place, and something he'd cooked before the power went out. We had a nice dinner. He's a good cook, a very good cook. For a man."

Angelica laughed, partly from the relief and partly from the image of Kit and her grandmother, calmly having dinner while the world went to hell. She went to the door to invite everyone in.

Just then, the horde of little brown dogs ran, yelping and howling, up the street. Watson and X bounded up the steps as the wave came toward them. Kit, however, calmly watched them approaching.

Angelica raised the light level without thinking so she could see what was happening. She almost shouted to Kit, but then the dogs started merging together as they got closer to him and confused her. They went from a mass of little brown dogs to a pack of lean, sandy, pointy-faced dogs that looked like skinny, grinning wolves.

The pack leapt for Kit so fast no one had time to react.

As they arched toward Kit, in the split second before impact, they shrank. Several leapt for his arms, a dozen or more for his lean torso, two for his feet or knees, and one directly at his crotch. They all vanished as they touched him, looking like they were pulled inside him. The echoes of the yelping faded away.

Then Angelica realized something about Kit: he didn't register on her new vision. There was no cloud of changing life there, no haze, no glow.

She felt like she'd been punched in the gut.

Kit turned toward them with a lopsided smile. He seemed different somehow. Bigger. Leaner. Hungrier. Happier. Sadder.

Her grandmother crossed herself and said, "Madre de Dios," just as Angelica said it herself.

Kit's smile got more lopsided and uncertain, and he gave them a rueful little wave. "Heh," he said.

The silence was very awkward.

Then Simon cleared his throat and said, "Well, I guess we know who let the dogs out."

And we zing back to Jane Liberty and Angelica!

Remember, you can still click here to get your 5th anniversary thank-you gift! As I mentioned, you have a choice of two versions of the short story collection, depending on if you want an all-new NSFW episode or not.



Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing

Jane Liberty sat up suddenly, eyes gone wide.

Angelica grabbed her hand. "Jane? What's wrong? Jane?"

Jane looked at Angelica, her face pale. "Angelica, help me. I need to remember something: who was it whose power I took in the War? She was… dammit… she was a speedster?"

"Blitzkrieg?" Angelica said, racking her brain. Help me, Fangirl Powers! You're my only hope! she thought irrelevantly.

"No, I remember that one, I turned that power on already," Jane said, banging on the table with her free hand. "No, no, it was… dammit… she actually did time stuff…"

That rang a bell. "Blinken?" Angelica said. Blinken had been a tiny footnote in an obscure Jane Liberty biography, but it was one of the books Angelica had read over and over.

"That's her!" Jane said, squeezing Angelica's hand gratefully. "I have to go now. Renata will tell you why." She leaned forward and said intensely, "But you wait for me right here, all right? I'll be back. I promise that I'll be back."

Angelica, startled, nodded. "Sure. Absolutely. I'll be right here."

Jane nodded and peeled off the ill-fitting sweatsuit she had on, revealing the sleek black bodysuit underneath. "Borrowed from the Ultimate's stores," she said in response to Angelica's baffled look. "The sweatsuit wouldn't stand up to the friction, and these shrink or stretch to fit." Then, with a ghost of her trademark jaunty salute, Jane Liberty took off.

Angelica stared after her, watching her accelerate and blink along a high arc away into the sky. What the hell was that about?

Ping! We hit 10 comments this morning, and so here is your bonus episode for the week! Thank you so much! We'll do it again next week.


Cry Havoc

Angelica's phone buzzed, and she picked up without looking at the number. "Yes?" she said.

"Angelica, it's Simon," crackled the reply. Reception was breaking up. She wondered idly if it was because of their interference broadcast or because of something else. "Shit is breaking loose in the city, like, all over. We just saw a report of a riot near your neighborhood."

Anxiety clutched at her belly and adrenaline spiked into her veins. Abuelita! Also Kit and her friends -- hell, even her mother and sisters. They were not in a neighborhood that commanded a lot of protective attention from the authorities at the best of times. She forced her voice casual, though, because she knew there was nothing she could do. Oooh, she could glow at the riot. "You're staying at the Cosmics HQ then?"

Her eyes strayed to the dozing Jane Liberty in the recliner. Well, okay, there was something she could do, if things got bad.

Simon snorted. "No, Ivy and I are heading for your apartment. Your grandmother is a few blocks from there, right? Give me her address, we'll make sure she's okay."

Angelica leaned against a nearby lab bench with relief. Her voice shook as she gave him the address. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you so much."

Simon laughed a little, and said, "What, you think we were gonna hunker down all with our tails between our legs? We're Canises. We get into the middle of shit, even when we're trying to avoid it." She heard Ivy's voice in the background, and Simon added, "We'll go by and make sure Kit's all right too. If you want." His tone was so offhand—clearly jealous—she almost laughed.

"Yeah, please," Angelica said. "Call if you need support. We have a big gun we can send out if you get too deep into the shit."

"Will do, boss," Simon said, and hung up.

Angelica touched the cross at her throat and thought, Keep everyone safe. Please.

Materiel Girl

"And that is the last Nega Projector off the line," Tinkermel said, picking up the tiny box in his enormous hands. He spun it gently, checking the connectors.

The stacks of matte black boxes were lined up along the long lab bench in Professor Canis' Laboratory 5. Angelica, Simon, Ivy, and Tizemt, Professor Canis' lab manager, were standing around, drinking sodas, when this momentous announcement came.

Tizemt, an extremely tall, lanky woman with high cheekbones, medium-brown skin, and short natural hair, carefully set her soda can in a sink. She stepped around the bench to take the box from Tinkermel, apply a tiny bar code sticker, and scan it with a handheld scanner.

Simon leaned over to Angelica while this ritual was going on. "Where's your boyfriend?" he said out of the corner of his mouth.

Angelica smirked at him. "Kit is not, in his own words, mechanically inclined. At least not for delicate stuff. Also, he has a job this afternoon, and that's rare enough I didn't want to discourage him. Also, not my boyfriend."

"Is he still crashing with you?" Simon said, eyebrows rising.

"Yes, he is," Angelica said. "He cooks, and even does some cleaning. And he keeps Jane company when she stays there. Which does not equate to boyfriend."

"Is the security system doing all right?" Simon said. "Do you, er, need me to come by and check it?"

Angelica eyed him for a moment, then said, "You know perfectly well that you're always welcome, and if Jane isn't around, Kit is happy to step out for the evening." She kissed his cheek. "I miss you, you know."

Simon blushed a little and headbutted her shoulder. Angelica caught Ivy's gaze over his head and both of them shook their heads and rolled their eyes.

Tinkermel planted a kiss on Tizemt's cheek. "We couldn't have done this without you, sweetie," he said.

"Well, your design was brilliant," Tizemt said with a shrug and a smile, "and simple, for what it does. Scaling up and automating production was commensurately simple."

"All right, kids!" Tinkermel said, snapping on purple nitrile gloves. "Time for quality assurance!"

They all donned purple gloves and joined Tinkermel and Tizemt at the bench.

"Step one!" Tinkermel said, plucking a box from the pile. "Pick a box. Step two! Push the battery into the connector." He picked up a tiny battery from another box and pushed it into the box. "Step three! Check the monitor." He pointed to the modified StarSeeds on the benchtop. When he waved one over his chosen box, it displayed a sparkly purple icon that said, FABULOUS. "This one is good, so it goes into the good pile." He unplugged it and set it in one of the cardboard boxes on the bench behind him. "If it's not good, put it in the to-be-checked pile, there."

"We have fifteen hundred of these tinkertoys to get through," Tizemt said to a collective groan. "So let's get plugging."

Tinkermel started up his own StarSeed to boom some Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Pointer Sisters, and similar artists helping them along with remarkably speedy and singable disco/80s pop.

"All right!" Tizemt said several hours later, when they'd worked their way through the entire bench of boxes. "We've got a less than five percent failure rate, which I say is pretty bloody good. Now we distribute."

Angelica raised her hand. Tinkermel looked at her with a raised eyebrow and nodded imperiously. "I was just wondering," she said, "how we're going to accomplish that distribution. Because fifteen hundred little boxes, spread in a precise configuration all over this city? Is gonna take weeks with just the five of us."

Ivy, Simon, and Tizemt all nodded agreement.

"Aha!" Tinkermel said with a grin. "I have a secret plan, you see." He opened up his pink sparkly Star laptop, clicked something, and, when a low tone sounded, he snapped, "Sparklebutch Posse, Form UP!"

The other four exchanged amazed and baffled looks.

Voices started to come in over Tinkermel's speakers. "Acknowledged," said one. "Affirmative," said another. "Right on!" said a third. And then there were too many voices to parse individually.

"Eat some pizza," Tinkermel said over the noise, beaming at them. "Drink some beer. Cause the Posse is gonna take it from here."

Tizemt shooed Angelica, Ivy, and Simon upstairs. "You've been in the lab for hours and hours, and there are no windows. Go see the great outdoors while you eat."

Angelica got into the elevator gratefully. Simon leaned his forehead against her shoulder. She scritched him behind the ear absently.

"He'll thump if you do that," Ivy said.

"I know," Angelica said.

"My back is killing me," Simon whined.

"That's because you haven't been exercising," Ivy said. "All your human muscles have gone wibbly."

"No, I think it was the lab bench," Simon said.

"If that were so, Angelica's back should be killing her because she's a bunch taller than us," Ivy said.

Angelica said, "I'm pretty good at ignoring pain. After all, I wear high heels regularly. But you said that I and I noticed that my back hurts like a bitch."

"Well, okay then," Ivy said. Just then, the elevator stopped and opened onto the back hallway of Professor Canis' house.

They picked up a hot pizza from the temporal kitchen safe and a six-pack of beer and carried it all out onto the deck, where they settled down. It was a silent summer evening, just a hint of a breeze starting in the slanting golden rays after what had patently been a hot, still day. Simon took a long swig of beer and looked around.

"I hate to say it," he sighed, "but I miss Jasmine's kids."

"They're sweet kids," Ivy said. "What you don't miss is Jasmine, I imagine."

"I… actually kind of miss her too," he said, plucking irritably at his shorts.

"Well, they're doing just fine," Ivy said. "I checked on them when I was driving down from Boston. They're safely ensconced in western Mass," she said to inform Angelica, "Jasmine took them all there when she realized what was going on here."

Angelica vaguely remembered that their sister Jasmine had had a litter of wolf pups. Superintelligent talking wolf pups. She just nodded and drank her beer.

"I miss Mom," Ivy said, grimacing. "I wonder where she is."

"She's probably with the rest of the Gold Stars," Angelica said. "In that… place Renata apparently sensed them. Or something. I don't really understand it."

The siblings exchanged a glance. "Yeah, she's probably fine," Simon said. "She probably just talked too much and the aliens shoved her in there to shut her up."

Then the sound of a motorcycle engine distracted them.

"Coming this way," Simon said, standing to peer down the long driveway.

The motorcycle turned the curve at this point and roared up to the house in a cloud of summer dust. The rider parked it neatly to one side of the drive facing them, then swung off in a creak of black leather, pulling off the helmet and stowing it on the back of the bike. Six feet plus of solid muscle with an iron-gray flattop and a weather-lined face gave them a brief nod and a laconic, "Mel?"

Simon pointed at the door and said, "Through the kitchen, then turn right and the first door on the right is the elevator. Take it to level E."

There was another nod and a, "Sir," followed by a very slight smile, nod, and, "Ladies," before the rider turned to follow Simon's directions. The back of the jacket was emblazoned with the Dykes on Bikes logo—Oh, thought Angelica, trading impressed looks with Ivy, I may not be as straight as I keep telling myself—and a reflective rainbow pegasus.

And then they just kept coming, dribbling in one at a time at first, and then arriving in groups. Motorcycles stacked elbow-to-elbow in the driveway, pickup trucks lining the drive and then, with Simon and Ivy directing them, parking on the front yard. Angelica was dazzled by the metallic glitter helmets, the rhinestoned jackets, the pink and purple lights along the running boards, the glitzy motorcycle saddlebags. Every one of the riders or drivers were definitely on the masculine end of the spectrum, but oh, what a shiny spectrum it was. Most of them greeted Angelica and Ivy with some level of cheer, and all were respectful and polite to Simon.

At one point, Simon sat down, after directing a butchly horde indoors, and said, "You know, I'd seen some of these people around town at one point or other, but I had no idea that there was… this!" He gestured at the enormous variety of vehicles in his mother's yard.

"Have you been counting?" Ivy said. "Because I've been counting."

"I gave up at 74," Angelica said, mopping her brow with a handkerchief from her purse. "I have to say I've never been privileged to see such a parade of fine, fine people as I have tonight."

"The lab must be bursting," Simon said, picking up his pizza slices and eating half of it at a bite.

Ivy snorted into her beer. "All the butch is rubbing off on you, Simon."

Angelica smiled at him fondly and wondered if he wouldn't mind taking her off to his childhood bedroom for a romp.

At that moment, the door opened and a stream of dykes, bears, and othergendered/otheridentified butches began to stream out, talking, laughing, high-fiving, punching, hugging, wrestling, kissing, voices filling the night so loudly that Angelica feared briefly, ludicrously, that the aliens would overhear them. Pinks, purples, greens, yellows, satins, silks, jewels, leather, lights, and bells flashed and turned and crowded, and then the motorcycles and trucks and cars started coming to life, headlights flicking on and engines purring into the cacophony.

Then the din faded, leaving only a trickle of hearty hunks still chatting, exchanges news or phone numbers, pausing to compare paper maps to maps on phones. At last, Tizemt and Tinkermel emerged from the house, carrying their own pizza box and a six-pack of beer each.

Tinkermel went to hug one of the motorcycle dykes before joining the crew on the deck. Tizemt threw herself into a padded chair and looked around wild-eyed. "What a bloody great crowd!" she exclaimed.

Angelica smiled and said, a little dreamily, "Yeahhh," which got balled-up napkins thrown at her by the siblings.

The last motorcycles rolled down the driveway and Tinkermel came up to take his seat, like a king taking his throne. "I told you," he said to their wondering expressions, "I got this."

Dancing, So As Not To Be Dead

Angelica made her way homeward carefully and casually, hoping that the God Squads weren't out in the neighborhood. She carried her heavy grocery bag in the crook of one arm and her purse slung across her chest messenger-bag style, just in case she needed to run. She'd taken to wearing sneakers when outside the house, especially since the warmth of spring had settled in and her heels were now strappy and easy to compact into her purse.

She had been embarrassed that morning when she realized her sneakers were covered in tiny Jane Liberty logos—the stars particularly prominent—but Jane hadn't seemed to notice.

As she rounded a corner, Angelica could hear Kit's voice saying, "So this Raven guy hacked into the company database..."

"That's not what a database looks like, man," said a young male voice that cracked over his adolescent protest.

Angelica peered up at the stairs at the side of the house next to her and saw Kit and two vaguely familiar hangers-on crouched against the worn brick wall.

"How would you know? Have you ever seen one?" asked Kit, angling what looked like the flat screen of a StarLeaf tablet. From her position, she could mostly see a bright reflection, although there appeared to be some sort of animation under it. She wondered vaguely where he'd gotten it; she didn't have a tablet and hadn't ever seen the need for the expense.

A second boy punched the first in the shoulder. "Shut up! This is the good part!" The first subsided reluctantly.

Kit smiled and glanced down at the square object he held. "ANYway, he hacked in and had to get through all the mazes and fight all the defenses they'd set up." Angelica could just see pixellated swoops and arcs under the reflection of the sodium vapor streetlamps, bright swashes of color glowing. "He knew the code he was looking for was in there. But when he found it, it changed his icon..."

Kit glanced up and saw Angelica watching. The glowing screen between his hands resolved, focused, and became a picture of a black bird holding something bright in its beak, revolving slowly. "You'll have to wait to see the rest of it. My date is here." The picture blinked out, and Kit was left holding a pane of window glass.

Angelica reminded herself that he'd already admitted to being para. Just because she'd never seen him do anything with his powers before shouldn't freak her out now.

The two teenagers looked over their shoulders. One of them grinned and muttered something to Kit under his breath. Kit smiled easily and said, "Yeah, she is pretty gorgeous isn't she?" The boy flushed brick-red and fled past her, his companion laughing and running after him.

Kit set the glass down in the grass next to the stoop, stood, and stretched. Angelica sighed happily at the sight of his brown belly peeking out between t-shirt hem and waistband, and the long, denim-clad legs that led to his impressive derriere. He kissed her, his sparse four-day-old stubble scratching at her chin, his warm and slightly beery breath washing over her as he laughed at her silly grin. "You look like a woman who's enjoying herself."

"Just reflecting on my luck," she said, glancing away from his amused gaze. "Come on home and make dinner for me."

"And your guest?" he said, taking the groceries and falling into step next to her.

"Yes, and my guest," she said. "How is she anyway?"

"I left at lunch, and she was flipping through channels," he said. "She waved and told me to have a good day at work."

"And did you?" she inquired. She noticed that the knuckles of his right hand were skinned and scabbed, and that he had a cut over one eye.

He laughed. "Oh, sure. I helped out at the shop."

The chop shop, Angelica knew, was one of the more consistent employers of less discriminating individuals in the area. He usually avoided it because the guy who ran it had a grudge against him. "Manny wasn't there today?"

"I didn't think so, but he came in," he said with a vaguely sheepish glance at his knuckles.

She unlocked the front door of the building and let him in. "What did you do to him anyway?"

"Oh, this 'n' that," he said, holding the stairwell door for her as she made sure the front door was locked again. "Might've had something to do with a lady. I don't actually remember."

Angelica snorted and they fell into companionable silence as they climbed the narrow steps.

The security system opened for Angelica and the two of them stepped into the living room, where the television was turned up to an ear-shattering volume and the whole place smelled of Lysol.

Kit and Angelica exchanged a bewildered look before turning to look for the houseguest.

Jane's tousled grey head poked into view over the sofa, and then she stood up from the kitchen floor, her sleeves shoved up. "Hi, there," she said, almost but not quite trying to hide the scrubbrush in her hand behind her.

"Were you…" Angelica began, advancing a step or two.

"Yes, I was scrubbing the floor," Jane said, somehow sounding irascible and embarrassed at the same time. "I got bored."

Kit slouched into the kitchen past her with the groceries and managed not to slip on the wet linoleum.

Jane dropped the brush into the bucket at her feet with a plop. "Sorry," she grumbled.

"No, it's awfully kind of you to do it," Angelica said, hanging her purse up and smiling to hide how baffled she was. "I just never seem to have the time to… do much of anything around here. I vacuum. You know."

"No, no, I used to hate it when my mother would show up and clean my apartment while I was off, you know," Jane said, drying her hands on her sweatpants. "And here I am, doing it."

Angelica said, "It's really all right. My grandmother would thank you."

Kit grinned at her over Jane's head as he unpacked the bag. "Okay, that's enough work outta you today, ma'am," he said, chivvying Jane out of the kitchen. "I hafta cook here." He picked up the bucket and dumped it into the sink.

Angelica said, as she headed for the cabinet where she kept her booze, "Would you like a drink, Jane?" She was suddenly feeling the need of one herself.

"Oh, sure," Jane said, lowering herself onto the couch. "Got whiskey or tequila?"

"Both," Angelica said, after a quick glance over her supply. "Though the whiskey's better. The tequila's cheap stuff, and I don't have any mixers."

"Whiskey and soda is fine," Jane said, rubbing her wrinkled forehead with the heel of her hand. "So I guess you're kind of a fan, huh?"

Angelica spilled whiskey on the tabletop and restrained herself from drinking straight from the bottle in embarrassment. "Yes! Yes, I guess I am."

"I like the glass case of the kitsch you've got over there," Jane said, waving a hand toward Angelica's little collection. "I remember most of those things. That doll was such a goddamn hoot, and so was the decoder ring."

"I just pick things up when I see them, you know," Angelica said, adding soda, mopping up the spill, and bringing Jane her glass. "I've been a fan since I was really little."

"I remember that poster too," Jane said, gesturing toward the framed print on the wall with her glass. "That was during the time they made me change my eyes blue, you know."

Angelica's hand twitched at this, but she managed to keep her beverage in its glass. "Really? I didn't know you could do that."

"I always thought I should study medicine or science or something," Jane said, examining the contents of her glass. "It might've made my power more useful. But I never had time."

Kit was deep into food preparation in the kitchen and didn't notice the look Angelica sent his way. To cover the fact that none of the histories or biographies of Jane Liberty had really covered the exact mechanics of her power, Angelica said, "I'm studying biology. Well, was studying biology. Genetics. I'm trying to save up enough money so I can go back to graduate school."

"You can't get a loan?" Jane asked, looking up and seeming suddenly very interested.

"I got caught up in a lot of red tape," Angelica said, sitting down opposite Jane and considering all the paperwork she had already filled out and would have to fill out again. "And my parents, uh, opted not to help me out." She waved a hand in a way she hoped was elegant and expressive. "It was a mess."

"You want to be a doctor?" Jane asked.

"Not… not a medical doctor," Angelica said. "A PhD. A researcher. You know, trying to cure cancer and all that."

Jane stared at her with an intense, disquieting dark gaze for a long moment, then looked down into her glass again.

"Dinner!" Kit sang, just when the silence was getting strangely ominous. "Hope no one minds rice 'n' beans 'n' some fish."

"Hah, sounds like something my mother would've made," Jane said, levering herself upright.

"Where was your mother from?" Kit asked, serving out dinner onto plates.

"Mexico," Jane said, "but no one was ever supposed to know that." She set her glass down on the table, then settled into the chair Angelica had put a pillow on for her comfort.

Angelica blinked. "You did a good job of keeping that quiet. I never saw anything like that in the biographies."

"It was easy to pass herself off as Italian, if anyone asked," Jane said, picking up her fork. "She didn't have an accent, and it was New York in the 1940s, after all. And then she died young, poor thing, so once I got famous, no one could pester her."

"Why break the habit now?" Kit said, falling to his meal while watching the old woman.

"Because everyone who wanted it kept quiet is dead," Jane said, picking out a piece of spiced fish. "And I'm as good as." She put the morsel in her mouth and chewed carefully.

"Aw, come on now," Angelica said with a horrible sinking sensation in her stomach.

Jane smiled at her briefly, lips pressed shut against the food she was chewing. After a moment, she swallowed and said, "It's a brief enough resurrection, kiddo. Take advantage of the weirdness of paranormal miracles. Do you have any questions you've always wanted to ask me?"

I'm afraid that rather a lot of titles I've been coming up with lately are punny...



Love in the Time of Choler

When Angelica opened the door, the last thing she expected out of Kendis' mouth was, "What the fuck has she done to me?"

"What?" Angelica said, frowning.

Kendis shouldered past her into the apartment, her crutches thumping loudly on the hardwood floor. Kit emerged from the bedroom, pulling a t-shirt on. "Hey, Kendis," he said cheerily.

Angelica shut the door and listened to the locks throwing themselves a moment before turning to the room. "What the fuck are you talking about?" she inquired sweetly.

Kendis scowlingly lowered herself into a chair. "I'm talking about fucking Jane Liberty," she snarled.

Angelica sat in the chair opposite her, knees carefully pressed together under her silk dressing gown. "What has she done? Sorry. What has she fucking done?"

"I've been going to work," Kendis said, mopping her sweaty brow with a bandana handkerchief. It was the first really hot day of spring, and it looked like she'd been in a hurry. "As you do. But the thing is, everyone at the home is a fucking genius the whole time I'm there. I was suspecting that something was going on. Everyone was sharper than usual, even the staff. But then…" She lost her coherence in a growl of rage and made helpless little grabby gestures with her hands.

Kit pressed a glass of icewater into one of them and Kendis gave him a grateful look. She drained half the glass at a go, and then continued. "Then Betty, who's been demented and almost completely nonverbal for a fucking decade, out of nowhere starts lecturing one of our elderly Libertarian jackasses on history. Complicated political history about the fucking Harding administration. I didn't even know she was a political history professor before the Alzheimer's." She finished the glass and mopped her face some more.

"So you think…" Angelica began, but Kendis cut her off.

"I know that woman had to've done something to me," she said. "When I saw her last, she patted me on the hand and said that she couldn't thank me enough, but she'd try. I think this is what she fucking meant."

"She amped you up," Kit said, refilling the glass with the pitcher he was holding.

"Like fuckin' crazy," Kendis said, taking another long drink.

Angelica and Kit traded a slightly baffled look. Finally, Angelica said, "So what's the down side here?"

Kendis stared at her. "What's the… she fucking messed with me, that's the down side. Without asking."

"Oh," Angelica said, light dawning. "Oh! Yeah. When you put it like that… yeah, that's fucked up."

Kendis thumped one of her crutches on the floor irritably. "It's seriously fucked up. But… I can't ask her to turn it off! That's the really fucked part!"

"Wait, why not?" Kit said, topping up her glass again.

Kendis sighed and rolled her eyes. "Because… you didn't see their faces, dude. The people at the home. They were so happy, most of them, when they realized they could recognize their kids or grandkids or just their fuckin' nurse. They could talk, mostly. They're not all there -- there's a bunch of shit that's frustrating, like not having words, or having huge holes in their memories, or not being able to do something. But I heard one lady telling a nurse that it was what she'd prayed to happen when she was first diagnosed, it was this enormous gift from God. And…" She scrubbed at her face irritably with her free hand. "If I can give these people a few scraps of joy in what's left of their lives, I can't give that up. I would be the shittiest excuse for a human being ever if I did."

Kit looked at Angelica with his eyebrows raised, then said, "They'll figure out it's you, eventually. Someone will notice that they don't do as well on your days off. And then what will you do?"

Kendis shrugged. "I'll… I dunno. I've gotta think about it."

Angelica was about to say something when she heard scratching at the door. She leapt up, flustered, and hurried to the door, saying, "Sorry, sorry," over her shoulder. She barely glanced at the identification panel before throwing open the door.

The great golden wolf was skinny and drooping as he slunk in the door. He didn't even look up at the people in the room, but let Angelica lay a hand on his neck and hurry him toward the bathroom. "We'll be a few minutes," she said to Kendis and Kit's surprised faces, and shut herself and Simon into the bathroom.

"It's been a long time," she said, pulling towels from the closet as he shifted shape.

"I know," he mumbled, climbing into the shower and turning on the water.

"She still locking the door on you?"

"Yeah, but Watson lets me out every day," he said, and she could smell her chocolate shampoo already. "I just... didn't have the energy to leave."

"Oh, baby," she said, and got the sweatpants and t-shirt she always kept for him out of the closet as well, and plugged in the clippers and put down newspaper, and all the preparations she kept ready for his intermittent visits. She set out the T and syringe for him on the sink, next to her own various medicine bottles.

He finally mustered, "How have you been?"

She thought about the meetings in Madame Destiny's living room, about the fact that she knew what was wrong with him and why it was happening, about the fact that she had no idea whatsoever how to fix it... and said, "Doing all right. Work's been busy. No men in black on the streets around here lately."

"TV says they're mostly at the big tent revival thing," he said, emerging from the shower and rubbing himself all over with her fluffiest towel.

"Huh," she said, plugging in the clippers and setting to work on bringing his hair and beard under control. "I guess they're all shiny brothers or whatever it's called."

"Yeah," he said, standing still and naked and dripping on the newspapers while she made short work of his excess hair. "Job still busy?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'm applying to new jobs to replace the shitwork I got fired from, but that's pretty soulsucking."

He stepped back into the shower to wash the bits of hair off. "I'm sorry. I could talk to Mom about that lab job?"

"No, still not desperate enough to jump into her field." She bent and folded up the hair cuttings in the newspaper. "Still, if she's got a need for a bookkeeper or something like that..."

"Okay," he said, drying off again and reaching for the sink. "I'll let Tizemt know. She's pretty much running the lab now."

She politely turned her back, busying herself with making sure she managed to get all the hair into the trash while he stabbed himself in the ass.

It was only half an hour later that she emerged with Simon, having scrubbed, shaved, and clothed him in the meantime. Kit was telling Kendis a story, but he stopped when the door opened and both of them looked up.

Kendis broke into a grin. "Simon, man, it's been a dog's age!"

Simon smiled wanly and scratched at his beard. "Yeah, things've been kinda fucked up. You're lookin' good, Kendis."

"More'n I can say for you, man," she said, bluntly enough to make Angelica wince. "You look like hell. Not workin' out?"

"No," Simon said.

Kit had somehow managed to slouch to his feet without Angelica noticing, but now he stood up straight and was watching Simon closely.

Angelica half-smiled, half-grimaced, and said, "Kit, this is Simon, one of my old friends. Simon, this is Kit. He's been… staying here." She did not want to try to explain that.

Simon looked up and stepped forward automatically, the well-trained little gentleman, but when his gaze struck Kit's, he straightened right up, shoulders back, looking up into Kit's face while they shook hands. The handshake went on for a little too long, and both of them stood taller, legs locked and braced, staring intently into each other's eyes.

Angelica glanced at Kendis, who put a hand over her mouth to hide a smile.

"Nice to meet you," Simon said, baring his teeth.

"Likewise," Kit said, showing his suddenly long and pointed-seeming choppers.

"You from around here?" Simon asked, and Angelica could almost see the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

"Nope," Kit said, and added, with a faintly pitying air, "Guess you are, though."

"Yep," Simon said, bracing his hands on his hips, which made his still-admirable pecs stand out in the tight t-shirt. "That means I've known Angelica for a long time."

"Bet so," Kit said, with a stiff dip of his chin that suggested he conceded that small point. "I've travelled a lot. Seen a lot. She's one of the finest folks I've met in a long time."

Angelica noticed that Kendis' shoulders were shaking. While she agreed with Kendis that this was comedy gold, she had to admit that she didn't mind having this kind of macho posturing happening between two extremely hot men over her.

"I agree with you there," Simon said, offering a stiff little nod of his own.

The two men continued to stare at each other until Kendis finally snorted laughter out loud. Then they both turned looks of such outraged dignity on her that Angelica started to laugh too. And then the boys turned sheepish, Simon rubbing the back of his head and Kit barking a laugh.

When Angelica recovered finally, she said, "We've got the makings for a big dinner, you two want to stay?"

"Oh, hell, yes," Kendis said, chuckling and reaching over to punch Simon in the arm. "I haven't laughed this much in forever."