Page 3 of All Superheroes Need PR
“While there was a robbery in progress ...”
“Everybody knows there’s no money in that place. The robbers were morons ...”
“Androbbers. What they were doing was illegal ...”
Margerie’s raspy whisper rises up into a high squeak when she says, “He lit them on fire!”
I ... hesitate, snapping on gloves as I prepare to rearrange the croissants for the second time. I long to throw out three of them that are smushed or broken, but I force myself to move on to the fruit tray. “Well, I guess that’s true.”
Margerie coughs to cover her laugh. “Okay, I’m officially a bad person. I should not be laughing at that.” She looks up at the projector as the screen saver changes slides to a different historic landing spot—this one is Pele’s. She landed in Hawaii, fitting given that she can control lava with nothing more than her mind.
She was the fourth member of the forty-eight superbeings who crash-landed on Earth as children. With no memory of where they came from but with extraordinary gifts, the Forty-Eight were welcomed by humanity with surprising civility. After the initial arrival, they were placed within host families under the care of the SDD, the Supernatural Defense Department. They were studied, but overall an attempt was made to integrate them into our world.
It worked ... for the most part. But when the kids started to get older, some of them showed troubling signs. Some became ... destructive. The Meinad was then officially termed avillain—a young boy who clawed apart his host parents. He went on to join with the Marduk, whose power over thunder was used to wreak havoc on the city in which they lived—not far from Sundale, actually.
Together, only in their early teens, the two of them formed what’s now known as the VNA, the Villains Network of America. They have branches all over the world now, with seventeen supervillains contracted to cause chaos. They rob, steal, and take contracts to kill. They are indiscriminate in the kinds of mayhem they engage in. But why?
No one really knows. In a historic interview two years ago that my team would have done terrible things to be a part of, the Marduk was asked why he had formed the VNA and what its purpose was, and he’d just smiled at the camera, all cavalier and beautiful, and said, “I’m looking for something.”
“What?” the journalist had followed up.
“You’ll know when I find it.”
The landscape on the projector screen changes to Sundale’s very own Memory Park, where Taranis landed. The Champions of Earth Coalition was formed as a counter to the villains soon after the Marduk and the Meinad teamed up. That’s where capitalism came in, with the COE paying forty-eight members to join the heroes team. In his midteens, Taranis became the first to sign up. Some of the Forty-Eight have remained holdouts all this time, like the Pyro, but ...
“He’s here,” I say, clenched, eyes catching on the glass. People have started stirring. There’s some commotion outside. Jeremy and Dan are doing a power-suit sprint over to us—an event I decide should most definitely be entered as an Olympic discipline. They’re both huge comic book nerds, and meeting one of the Forty-Eight has been on their collective bucket list for years.
“You still want me to lead the presentation, Madame President?” Margerie whispers in my ear.
“Of course.”
“You sure?” She huffs quietly, “This is our biggest bid, and nobody knows his feelings on trans women yet.”
My nerves are disrupted by what she’s just said. I blink up at her. “Nobody said anything to you, did they?” If they did, I was fully ready to take a page out of the Pyro’s notebook and set the building on fire.
Margerie gives me a flat look. “No,Mom. Nobody’s been anything but nice and professional.”
“Good.” This wasn’t always the case. A Black woman–founded corporate consulting firm with a white trans woman CMO wasn’t always met with open arms. Don’t even mention the fact that the rest ofthe C-suite’s members were either minorities, queer, or both. A couple times, we’d even won blind bids and still been denied the contract, the client preferring to go with someone who had the kind offacethey wanted to represent their firm.
“Then we go as planned.”
“You, our mysterious brain? Me, the face?”
“That sounds like the plot of a horror movie.”
Margerie laughs as we’re separated by Dan’s and Jeremy’s jostling bodies. Dan grabs my shoulders and shakes me.
“He’s here!” His voice is a squeal. He’s older than I am by a couple years, but right now he sounds like he’s six instead of that plus thirty. Dan grabs my arm too hard, pinching me above the elbow until I make a sound. “Sorry, sorry!” he whisper-shouts.
“Shush! And don’t bruise her damn arm.” Jeremy pushes me from behind, tugging down on the short cap sleeves of my white button-up. I paired it with navy pants that I think make my butt look gigantic and accentuate the pouch below my belly button, but Dan and Jeremy and Margerie said it looked good, even if they did try to convince me to wear the lavender two-piece—lavender. Maybe Margerie can pull off pastels, but I like the dark colors. They help me blend in to the wallpaper better.
“Would y’all stop it?” Margerie hisses.
Dan and Jeremy don’t stop it, and soon my entire team is crowded near the swinging glass double doors. I’m somewhere in the middle, Garrison on my left, Jem up in front of me, Vanya at my back.
“Y’all, assume the position! Not this position!” Margerie quickly shoves everyone back. “Not you!” She grabs my shoulder and wrenches me forward just as Mr. Singkham’s assistant comes bustling down the hall.
She opens the door and looks at me. “Ms. Theriot, the Pyro has just arrived. While we clear him with security, Mr. Singkham will be arriving shortly to greet you. When the Pyro comes up, your team can begin your presentation.”
