Chapter Text
Dec. 24-25
Alana arrives at the office block in a satin lavender dress and amethyst earrings, through which she bends and loops the light till they glow like little purple bulbs. It’s a tic. Not that it makes her stick out so much — the whole place is aglow at the moment. Red and green tinsel sparkles starlike from the ceiling. A tree sits tall and imposing in the corner, adorned with all sorts of novelty ornaments: light-up Triumvirate figurines, baubles decorated to look like something Dragon might make. . . .
She’s got on heels, too, which was a mistake. The Director told her it was all but mandatory to show up. Everyone’s going to be there, Alana. And in fact everyone is here. We’ve got a who’s who of local celebs, decked out either in ugly sweaters or sexy Santa-colored minidresses. From her vantage point she spots Master-9 Enmity with an eggnog mug in hand, flanked on all sides by starstruck bureaucrats. Over there a certain Spyglass is engaged in rapid-fire craft-talk with his gaggle of Tinker protegés. Mostly, though, Alana watches Cornix.
Cornix is dressed all in tactical clothes so she can Change without ripping anything. Presently she’s entertaining a small crowd by juggling empty cups with octopus tentacles. She’s not wearing shoes, instead she’s got on hooves. These bestial bits, though, don’t distract from her skin like smooth clay, her hair like onyx waves down bare shoulders. Alana can’t look away. She has to stifle laughter at the more absurd bits of Cornix’s routine so as not to appear insane. Why don’t you just go up to her, Alana? You’re colleagues now, after all. Why not, indeed.
Someone sidles up to Alana, says, “It’s great, right?”
She turns to find one Melvin Markey, the other recent inductee. “What’s great?” she says.
“It’s like we’ve been let into a secret society.”
“Or a fraternity.”
“You’re that type, huh? Wallflower?”
“It’s just all so much. So quickly.”
“It is, isn’t it? Maybe, you know, you should go ask Cornix for advice. I mean, instead of watching her from the bushes.”
“She’s my favorite. She’s always been my favorite. Since before I had powers, even. I have her merchandise, Melvin. It’s embarrassing. She’s supposed to be my Mentor1, actually.”
“Then you have an excuse to talk to her! Oh, c’mon. I’ll go with you. Aren’t we supposed to be, you know, courageous . . . ?”
Melvin presses lightly on Alana’s upper arm, and she winces but relents, and follows him, nearly stumbling, to the little circle around the one-woman zoo. Her arms are still tentacles, with red and bulging suckers like bloodshot eyes, and she goes, “Watch this,” and winks, and lifts all eight of them (each of their slimy tips curled around the stem of a wine glass) and from under her pseudo-armpits comes a gushing stream of black ink, which catches an accountant type toward the front in the face, and everyone cackles, Alana most of all. . . .
Accountant runs off, and Melvin pushes Alana toward Cornix. They lock eyes and Cornix takes a little sip from each of her glasses before going, “And who might this be?”
“Alana, ma’am.” says Alana. “Alana Schrieck. I’m, uh, new. I think you’re supposed to be my Mentor.”
“Right! Oh, I’ve been meaning to come find you. Don’t call me, ma’am, though — it’s Cornix.” And a (human) hand comes spurting from her chest to find Alana’s.
“Sorry,” says Alana.
“Hey, let’s find somewhere to talk. We should get to know each other, shouldn’t we?” She lowers one of her tentacles and extends the half-empty cup for Alana to take.
“I’m not old enough,” says Alana.
“I won’t tell anyone,” says Cornix, and winks. “Take it.”
And she accepts the wine as though it’s a loaded gun and takes a mousy sip and grimaces, and Cornix giggles. She giggles like all her animal forms live inside her throat. She flicks her head toward the door and starts walking, hooves’ clopping muffled by the soft carpet, and Alana follows. She takes her down a long hall (they’re in the administrative bit of the Wards HQ) while out the window snow falls glimmering through the amber glow of street lamps. They find a glass-walled conference room — the PRT’s all about transparency of course — and Cornix waves with her free tentacle a card in front of the sensor to let them inside. There are chairs but Cornix sits on the floor with her back to the far wall, which is glass as well, and overlooks the mountains, all frosted like donuts this time of year. Alana sits beside her.
Cornix sets down all her glassware then retracts her tentacles, and out pop two long arms in their place. She says, “So what do you do? I mean in terms of powers?”
“It’s like a sort of photokinesis. . . .” says Alana.
“Show me.”
Alana performs that aforementioned tic till Cornix is squinting at her earrings, at which points she wills the light to make them disappear entirely. Cornix claps. “Beautiful,” she says. “Not quite sure how combat viable it is, ha ha, but we can work on that. This is the first time I’ve been a Mentor.”
“I’m honored,” says Alana.
“Don’t be honored. I’ll be awful, I’m sure. Have some more wine. It’s Christmas!” Cornix kills the rest of the glass she’s on and moves to another just as quick. “One of the many upsides of this power,” she says, “is the ability to control just how drunk I get. Right now I’ve got the liver of a bear. But any moment it could be the liver of a chihuahua, and I’d be wasted beyond belief.”
Alana follows instructions. She holds her breath and lets the sour stuff tumble down her throat. A grapey warmth slides fiery along her insides and rushes straight to her head. More, more. It’s a Holiday. Soon the conference room begins to shift slightly when her focus lapses. Soon she can no longer feel the white chill at her back. She says, “I don’t celebrate Christmas. I’m Jewish.”
“Fashinating,” says Cornix, liver likely down to wolfhound size by now. “Not sure we’ve had a — a Jewish person on the team before. Mazel Tov! ”
“Thanks. Thank you for talking to me, Cornix.”
“I’d rather talk to you than those slime-people we call ‘PRT employees’.”
“I mean it. No one’s talked to me here who hasn’t been forced to, definitely not like this.”
Time passes. Heat kicks into high gear and its staticky sound seems to fill Alana’s head with cotton. She finishes two more glasses while Cornix’s organs continue to shrink, little by little. . . . At one point she switches her neck to a giraffe’s in order to grab one of the plush office chairs with her teeth and bring it back over for a pillow.
The last thing Alana remembers is Cornix going: “. . .Comics. Comics. . . . I love to read those old comics. Pre-Scion stuff, I mean, from the Forties a-and Fifties. Bet you can’t guess my favorite. It’s Wonder Woman. Of coursh! Think about it. I mean really think about it. There’s a girl who really knew what it all meant. Right? Because seriously think about it: she comes from that island that’s all women. An enviable position to start, you know what I mean? But she doesn’t stick around. She helps worldwide, Alana! That’s what heroism really is. We think it’s so — so nebulous. But it isn’t. That’s all it is. And think, too, right — why does she adopt the whole American aesthetic? Stars and stripes skirt. A lasso for Chrissake! Because she understood. She understood what it all meant. . . .”
She dreams that night of Cornix as the 50 Foot Woman, torn white dress clinging tight and covering little. She reaches into a skyscraper window and pulls out a screaming salaryman and crunches his skull between her tall white teeth. She beats her chest and howls, and all the nearby water shivers in fear.
She wakes to the light made blinding by the sea of snow outside, and all the anxiety deferred races back. She rips her head from Cornix’s furry backward knee and nearly vomits. Booze comes oozing from her pores. She stands and smooths her dress, and Cornix groans and mutters, “I’ll come find you later,” and grows a greasy coat for warmth and is soon snoring once more. . . .
Which Alana takes as a cue, and heads for her barracks.
1 The Denver PRT/Protectorate/Wards apparatus is a pioneer of the so-called Mentor Program, wherein members of the Protectorate proper become, depending on the case, trainers, life-coaches, or simply older/more responsible/“put together” friends. Mentors are assigned based on background and power-type. Does it work? Well. . . . What does “work” mean, anyway? Supporters of the Program might point to the drop in incidents of improper use of force by Wards, as well as an overall increase in self-measured mental health for all parties involved. Critics, however, might attribute these statistics to a relative dearth of crime in Denver and the surrounding area, compared to, e.g., the E.N.E. or Chicago branches.