Form 8774-D, page 3
She stands and shouts through her doorway. “Hey!”
He turns to look at her. “This is a US Government facility, sir,” she says, in her most commanding tone. “You’re going to have to leave.”
For a brief moment, she thinks it might actually work. He stops. He takes a step back. He considers her as if he is making initial observations of a never-before-seen species of invertebrate. Then she realizes that there’s a long distance—a galactic gulf, a dimensional rift—between appreciation of chutzpah and actual acquiescence. What really brings this realization home is the beam of magenta energy that lances out and destroys her desk, sending Leelee flying and covering her with blackened bits of particle board. Her appointment ledger drifts in charred flakes around her.
III.d for sure, she thinks. Given the magenta color and the overall personality of the MH, she’s leaning toward arcane energy. So, he’s one of the occult types, and those are always tricky because of the otherplanar and otherdimensional claims. How exactly is a mid-level administrator in a tiny office on Naylor Court supposed to check up on who’s mentoring whom or siphoning power to whom in Limbo or Gehenna or some non-Euclidean beach resort on the shores of a fucking sunless sea?
“This is not how you optimize your certification process, sir!” she shouts over the general atmosphere of mayhem.
Louise and Reggie swing into action right about then. This isn’t an ordinary baby super throwing a tantrum, though. It’s a whole different threat level, maybe not Omega but not merely Eta or Theta either. Somewhere around Mu? More than any of the security people have handled since the last time they saved the world, which was a long time ago. Drogba bursts out of the break room. Before he can do anything, the rogue super knocks him flat. Reggie’s cyborg eye shoots an energy beam that scorches the rogue’s back. With a roar, the rogue spins around—straight into a haymaker from Louise. He crashes through another wall, and Leelee sees an opening. She runs like hell for the front door, but before she can get there the rogue explodes back into the ravaged common area, his skin crackling where Reggie’s eye beam keeps hitting him. He leaps and tackles Reggie. Both of them crash into the security screening gate. Louise comes flying in with another series of thunderous punches, but they’re overmatched. The rogue flings them both off and spreads his hands. Magenta energy slashes across the walls and ceiling.
Leelee has never heard a building collapse, but she’s hearing sounds that sure sound like what a building would sound like if it was about to collapse. And there’s no way out.
Until a super in a vibrant blue costume with a full mask punches up through the floor and leaps toward the rogue. The rogue tries to hit him with those magenta beams, but the blue hero is too quick. He ducks and feints and then he’s right on the rogue, staggering him with some kind of martial arts routine. With every blow that lands, blue energy crackles from his fists. The rogue reels back, blasting the front doors out of their frames as he tries to get away, but the blue hero is on him. They grapple out into the street, and Leelee follows, getting out the door just as the front of the building sags inward and collapses. A cloud of dust obscures the battling supers. Leelee doesn’t know which way to run. Occasionally a magenta beam lances out of the cloud. She does the safe thing and hits the deck near a parked car. The sounds of combat subside and the dust cloud dissipates. Leelee risks a glance over the hood of the car.
The blue hero is there. The rogue is unconscious at his feet. All of a sudden everyone for blocks around has their phones out. “That was scary,” Leelee says.
The super winks at her. “All in a day’s work, ma’am,” he says.
Ma’am? Leelee is thirty-three years old. What child—or what kind of cornpone con artist playing to the cameras—would call her ma’am? Also she does not recognize him, and she suspects he hasn’t been certified. He should probably be filling out Form 8774-D and meeting with her.
Before she can say any of that, though, the super is gone.
There’s a rumble and a crash and Louise appears in the rubble, digging herself out and then holding a slab up for Reggie and Drogba.
“We are totally going to need a new office,” Leelee says.
“Way things are lately,” Reggie pants, “they’re gonna move us to Silver Spring or some shit.”
They stand there for a while after the rogue super is taken away. Samir arrives, looking shaken, and pulls Leelee into a fierce embrace. “Sometimes I forget how dangerous your job can be,” he says quietly.
“Babe,” she says. “It’s all good. The blue guy, he was pretty impressive.”
It is decided that they should all go have a drink, since there’s no way to go back to work. It’s a good decision. They all relax together. To Reggie, Louise, and Drogba, the day’s events are old hat, and it isn’t long before they’re talking about it like a game they all went to.
“Hey, Leelee,” Drogba says. “I saw what you did in there. I was peeking out the break room door waiting to make a move, but you almost backed him down.” He glances at Louise and Reggie. “Did you guys see that?” They shake their heads. “Like a Jedi mind trick, you know?” Drogba turns back to Leelee. “Ever think you have a superpower?”
“Why is everybody always asking me that? No. God, no. At least I hope not,” Leelee says, and then she’s apologizing in case she’s offended him and buying another round of drinks.
“I’m telling you,” Drogba says. “Any intuition like yours, that ain’t natural.”
“Hundred percent,” Samir agrees. Leelee glares at him. “What,” he says, “you want me to lie?”
Leelee’s jaw is suddenly so tight she can barely get words out of her mouth. “I,” she says, “do not have a superpower. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Drogba says. Samir looks away.
* * *
That night she tells Samir she’s thinking about quitting. He nods and does what he always does when she talks about quitting, which is pack her a bowl. It has become something of a ritual, to the point where I’m thinking about quitting actually means Wanna get high? She says they should start using edibles like she always does, but there’s something in her that doesn’t want to let go of that burn deep in the lungs.
“You worried you’re going to get hurt?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says. “Did you see what happened today?”
He watches the smoke drift out of his lungs up toward the ceiling. “I saw,” he says in that singsongy way he has when he’s considering carefully what to say next, “a situation, and people responding to the situation the way their excellent training prepared them to respond. Including you, babe,” he adds before she can get mad.
“All in a day’s work,” she says bitterly.
“Yeah, that was kind of over the top. But seriously, you kicked ass today. For someone with no powers, faced with that situation?” He extends a fist and Leelee feels the profound obligation to bump it. “Fuck yeah.”
They’re both pretty stoned. It’s nice. Samir has a way of making her feel centered, like he believes in what she’s doing more than she does, and that makes it a little easier for her to get up in the morning and do it all over again.
e. Epiphenomena
In the space provided, note any unusual occurrences related to your exercise of your ability/power. (Examples can include flashes of light, changes in ambient temperature, destabilization of local space-time, appearance of dimensional apertures, etc. List as many as apply.)
__________
__________
__________
__________
f. Foci, Talismans, and Other Object Enhancements
Is your power dependent on or enhanced by a(n)
physical object, talisman, or focus? yes___ no___
animal familiar? yes___ no___
technological device? yes___ no___
If yes, describe the object’s, familiar’s, or device’s origin and capabilities in the space provided.
__________
__________
__________
__________
Thursday, 1:17 p.m.
The BMMOA office is rebuilt in an astonishing three days, thanks to the loan of a nanobot swarm from the headquarters of the Graviton Corps. Leelee enjoys the time off. Thursday morning she putters around in her office because the nanobots put some of her things in weird places. Putting a positive spin on this inconvenience, she takes it as a hint that it’s time to shuffle things around a little, freshen them up. She doesn’t have any clients until after lunch, which is chicken and rice from the halal food truck over by Logan Circle. Her mouth is still tingling pleasantly from the sauce when her one o’clock knocks on her office door.
“Hi?” the applicant says, peering around the doorframe. “So sorry I’m late.” She strides to Leelee’s desk, extending a hand. “Veronica Kirstein.”
Leelee shakes and takes in Kirstein’s presentation. Navy blue dress, knee-high boots with just a hint of heel. Nicely understated and confident…until you get to the six chunky gold rings, each with a different color stone. This sets off a little alarm bell in Leelee’s mind. “Nice rings,” she comments, to let Ms. Kirstein know she’s paying attention. “Security is supposed to scan potential alien or arcane artifacts.”
“Oh, security,” Kirstein says with an airy wave. “They saw what I wanted them to see.”
Leelee has an intensifying bad feeling about Veronica Kirstein. In her experience this feeling is never wrong.
“I’m afraid that’s not really how we do things,” Leelee says. “I’m going to have to ask you to return to screening and—”
In the next moment, Veronica Kirstein whips off her dress, revealing a charcoal-gray costume, high at the thigh and low at the bust, accented with a blaze of orange in a fiery V at one shoulder. The dress disappears before it can flutter to the floor, and Leelee’s hair stands up as some kind of ambient energy propagates through the room.
Veronica raises her arms, showing off some finely toned triceps and arching her back a little in classic Sexy Wizard Lady style. The rings leak a spooky radiance out into the room. Leelee can barely stop herself from saying, Hey, I also am in possession of boobs, so can you maybe show me something more interesting? Like a real actual filled-out Form 8774-D instead of pretending you’re in a Frazetta painting?
“I am Lady V, and you will hear me!” she cries. “Soon the world will hear me!” Leelee suspects theatrical voice training. A copy of Form 8774-D appears on her desk, filling itself out in a flowing and quite legible cursive.
Okay, she thinks. Pretty impressive, but still against the rules. “I will hear you, as soon as you return to security, check those rings, and start this procedure the way it’s supposed to be started.” Leelee’s voice is calm, but the demonstration of power right here in her office—especially right on the heels of last Friday’s disaster—has her alarm meter somewhere between nervous and terrified. The appearance of the form right after she was thinking about it is probably a coincidence, but still feels weird.
Drogba appears in her doorway, flanked by Louise and Reggie. Leelee sure is glad to see them. “We got readings of some kind of power being used,” Drogba says.
“You certainly did, you rent-a-thugs,” Lady V snaps. “My powers, which I used to walk right by you.” She turns her attention back to Leelee. “You have the form. By any reasonable standard, even a stupid bureaucratic one, I have amply demonstrated that I ought to be certified. Let’s get this done.”
“It’s not really that easy,” Leelee says.
“I’ve been working with the Vanguard Alliance,” Lady V insists, some of her bravado falling away. “Kind of teaming up, not officially as a member yet. And I fought the Apocalypse Battalion shoulder-to-shoulder with Captain Cosmic. I am legit.”
“What do those rings do?” Leelee asks. “Where did you get them?”
“That’s all on the stupid form!” Veronica shrieks. Visible energy is spreading from the stones, wreathing her arms. The colors get more intense. There are tears on Lady V’s face. She’s not in control.
“Mm hm,” Leelee says.
At that moment Drogba does what the media used to call the String Thing.
Maybe he couldn’t annihilate wormholes or rearrange space-time anymore, but he still has enough power to squiggle some particles around in Lady V’s mind and drop her to the ground in a brainwave state more or less akin to deep sleep.
“Sorry,” he says as Louise and Reggie drag Lady V to the holding cell in the basement. Two in one week, Leelee thinks. She hopes it isn’t the start of a trend. “I feel for her, actually. It’s hard to get people to listen sometimes.”
“I’m taking the rest of the day off,” Leelee says.
“On your first day back? Somebody else is going to be Employee of the Month for sure.” Drogba nods at her desk. “You have to process her still, though, right?”
Veronica Kirstein’s completed Form 8774-D is still on her desk. Leelee sighs and sits. Due to a scandal a few years back about backlogs and faked certifications, BMMOA regulations state that interviewers must process applicants into the system immediately at the time of their interview…apparently even if they are on the verge of losing their minds.
“Catch a beer later?” Drogba asks.
Leelee’s already typing, a slice of her mind also taking the time to admire Veronica’s handwriting. “Yeah. That would be good.”
“The String Thing? Love that,” Samir comments later that night, when they’ve gotten him caught up. “Hey, what happens if someone actually does have powers but they don’t want to fill out the forms?”
“Well, it’s technically illegal,” Leelee says, “but rarely prosecuted. The way my supervisor explained it, if they’re still good guys what’s the point of jamming them up, and if they’re bad guys they’ve got worse charges against them once they’re brought in.”
Samir nods. “Good practical perspective.”
“I never woulda filled out that form if I didn’t have to,” Reggie says. His cyborg eye burns bright yellow, an artificial glare incongruous against the backdrop of dark wood paneling and softly clinking glasses. Leelee doesn’t like this place very much, but Reggie and Louise love it. They like to parade their sacrifices in front of the masses. Especially the rich, self-satisfied, insular DC masses.
Reggie is a retired cyborg soldier from an alternate future Earth. He was catapulted through timelines by a process Leelee has never quite understood, and then drifted through various superhero associations before having some of his hardware burned out in the Battle of Saturn’s Rings. Not many people know his whole story, but with the cyborg parts and all the scars, Reggie doesn’t really fit in among the loosened-tie crowd at this place.
“I think the certification process can also help people who are having trouble with their powers,” Leelee says. She’s thinking of Lady V, but also Emmaline Brooks. “I know sometimes people come into my office nervous or afraid, and by the time they leave they have a little peace of mind, you know?”
“If there’s a government form for it, it can’t be that weird, right?” Samir’s chuckling as he says it, but Leelee thinks that’s exactly it. “Yeah. Plus you get a tax credit if you fill it out and work with a government-certified hero group.”
Louise is shaking her head. “Maybe, but I think there’s probably a lot of people out there who haven’t gotten certified. I mean, a lot.” She leans toward Leelee, a twinkle in her eye. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” Leelee says primly. Samir is watching her with a pretty intense expression on his face, and she wonders why.
IV. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES AND AFFILIATIONS
Do you have any known enemies? yes___ no___
If yes, list their names/known monikers/aliases. __________
Are you a member or affiliate of any metahuman group? yes___ no___
If yes, list names and registration status of each. __________
Do you benefit financially or materially from the use of your powers? yes___ no___
Are you engaged full-time in the practice of maintaining the public order or combating existing and emergent threats to life, property, and/or civilization? yes___ no___
Does your job or profession depend on your use of your powers? yes___ no___
If you answered yes to any of the previous four questions, do you maintain Metahuman/Occult Practitioner Coverage pursuant to established state and federal laws? yes___ no___
If yes, list insurer, group number, and policy number. __________
If no, attach Form 8805-PW, Waiver of Metahuman/Occult Practitioner Coverage.
Have you received valuable items as a result of your membership in a group, league, or association of other metahuman individuals? yes___ no___
If yes, describe each item and estimate its value5 in the space provided. __________
Tuesday, 6:14 p.m.
On Tuesdays Leelee often works late because she has a book club at seven anyway, so it’s not worth the trip home just so she can get back on the subway. She nods at the evening security guy—Alonso is his name, but she remembers seeing him in the papers when she was a kid as Viridian X. His superpower has something to do with intense expressions of the color green, which doesn’t sound like much, but Leelee has been at BMMOA long enough to know that verbal descriptions don’t always do a super’s power justice.
The book is supposed to be really good but Leelee dislikes books about rich people and their ennui and how they rediscover their love for life by doing things Leelee will never be able to afford. As a result, she doesn’t have much to contribute to the discussion. She has a strong sense that several of the other women in the group—there are no men—also hated it but don’t want to say so. After book club she calls Samir. He’s out with friends, subbing in for an absent member of his buddy Duncan’s trivia team. “Come meet us!” he shouts over the bar noise. They’re at the Alibi, which is more Leelee’s kind of place than the stuffed-shirt place they were at the other day. Big windows, upbeat music, people having fun instead of making deals.
