Legendary

"Those jurors, though," Carol said, sipping her Long Island Ice Tea after work. She'd gone for the cocktail--she's usually a beer gal--because it was potent and there was a lot of it. "I get the feeling that they're enjoying their time in the spotlight. They seem to be paying a lot of lip service to acknowledging how damaging it is, but they're really creative about why they voted to allow its release. 'The film is important', 'there are only a few plaintiffs versus all the people who will want to see it,' 'it's such a powerful movie that I think everybody should see it.'"

"Same thing as when I got my discharge from the military," Serena said moodily. "I got a lot of 'thank you for your service' comments but nobody cared when veteran services were cut or that we had to wait a month to get an appointment at a VA hospital."

"Did you see the demonstration in Washington last night?" Dagny spoke quietly. "I don't have wings any more or any mutations, but I'm still worried about the anti-mutant protests. They're saying that people like Serena and Alex's uncle, anybody with biomech replacements are abominations, that mutants are putting regular people out of jobs."

"Don't forget the other group that said that returnees should be returned to their afterlives," Serena said dryly. "Those of us who didn't go to Christian afterlives, anyway."

"And the old-fashioned, regressive people--men and women--who think that women should know their place, which is submission to their husbands or the kitchen." Carol rolled her eyes. "There are women who do want to devote themselves to their homes and family, and if it's their idea, who cares? But not everybody wants to do that. And I heard a couple of people talking on the subway, apparently last night there was a piece in one of the main New Right websites on how to make your disapproval with all the civil rights gains 'clear without being offensive.' Right. It's a shame. People who are conservative in the old-fashioned political sense, you know, fiscal responsibility, like that, are being unfairly bunched in there."

"There was a couple at the New Years Eve party that Damian and I went to, very starchy. We were introduced, the man started talking to Damian and the woman could not have been more disapproving. She was in a dress that looked like an authentic Edwardian gown, and she actually said that my dress was indecent. It was a slip dress."

"What did you say?" Dagny wanted to know.

"I shrugged and said that it covered my groin, which is the last zone on the body that has to be clothed for both men and women. She got a little mean then and said I looked like a harlot. I said she should loosen up the corset so that blood could get to her brain and she could think for herself. I'm getting really tired of being disapproved of. There is literally nothing about me that some of these people approve of. My clothes are too revealing, education has made me an unnatural woman, I'm too outspoken, ect., ad nauseam. Damian got flack because he doesn't keep me in line. He said that only an inferior man has to repress his woman and that ability has nothing to do with what's between your legs." I shook my head. "So gross to have to deal with. But there are signs that the fossils are being squeezed out of business opportunities. There was a big rush to sign up returnees with big names, mostly from the turn of the 20th century, thereabouts, to boards of directors, remember? They didn't think how far business has come. I mean, historically, Henry Ford was an active anti-semite, most of the robber barons were absolutely ruthless to labor, exploited minorities like the Chinese during the building of the great railroads, and employed illegal or immoral tactics to acquire business assets. JP Morgan escaped service in the Civil War by paying somebody else to go, and he was a war profiteer--sold $3.50 rifles to the Army for $22, and on top of that, they were defective, blowing off user's thumbs. The working class was suppressed, at times violently, paid miserable wages. Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie, for example, were horrible to their workers but they could also be extraordinary philanthropists, which is what they're primarily remembered for today. And the Waynes weren't lily-white in their labor practices of the time, but they did come around sooner than most.

"Most companies aren't doing business with companies that treat female employees differently--and word does get around about who's doing that but there are some who do business, a buck's a buck, right? But I heard from Emma, who ran into a few of her friends from back in the day who are reentering business, that the companies where these men got high positions because they were historically very successful are starting to fail because they are misjudging the markets and they don't understand the relationship between capital and labor. The markets that these companies had before the new hires are closing themselves off. One of the biggest banking firms and that last big steel corporation have apparently told the fossils that they have to get with the new program or they're out. Their business ideas are way out of date, they don't understand labor laws at all, and they're costing their firms business, but they still have name recognition. Rockefeller Center, Carnegie libraries, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Duke Universities, all of it. Damian and I told our architect that we need to check the sources for the materials going into our home. We're not going to patronize companies who are so outdated. It'll cost a little more; companies who are losing business are dropping their prices, but it's worth it."

"So you're getting ready to build?" Carol asked.

"Yeah," I said, getting a dopey grin on my face. "The plans are wonderful. The driveway's in, the front garden is about to break ground, and Daniel told us that the dairy operation, which was ended a couple of generations ago, fell into disrepair and Mark tore it down for safety reasons. He's offered us the stone to reuse on the exterior. There's not quite enough, but the architect has places where a contrasting material could be used and we made some windows bigger. The main house is made of the same material, so it'll provide continuity."

"I helped prepare the ground for the lavender maze," Dagny said. "Thanks for choosing my company. I know it's smaller than some of the ones that put in bids."

"It may be smaller, but you guys do really good work," I said. "And it's a local company employing local people. A couple of the lowest bids promised perfection in the layout of the maze, but they use computers and machines. It looks a little weird when it's too precise. Human work isn't as perfect, but it turns out that the little irregularities make the gardens more lovely."

"Yeah, there's one person who sets up a machine, inputs a program, and stands back while the machine cuts trenches in the ground, then a second machine goes over the trenches, dropping plants in at intervals and pushing the dirt back in. A third machine drops mulch. We use a digger to break up the ground and enrich it with compost before digging the trenches and putting in the watering system, but we use people like me to position the plants just so before planting them. And not to tell you what to do, but there are a couple places where you could use some different plants for emphasis."

"Oh?" I was interested.

"Yeah." Dagny drew a rough sketch of the maze on a cocktail napkin. "Here in the center, and by the entrances. Rosemary doesn't grow as large but it's still a bushy sort of plant, the leaves are similar, the scent is complementary to the lavender and it should enhance what you've already planned visually, adding another scent for depth."

"I like it," said Serena, looking at the sketch.

"I do too," I said. "I can just picture it. I'll talk to Damian, but I'm sure he'll agree. I'll call your boss tomorrow."

"Are you thinking about garden design as a career?" Carol asked, and Dagny flushed.

"Yeah, but more than that. I'm thinking about landscape architecture. There are a lot of public parks going in or planned for the next decade, plus there are individuals like Alex who want gardens too. Lots of opportunity. There's a really good program at City College; it's become one of the top programs in the country," she said shyly.

"Where do you see yourself in ten years?" I wanted to know.

"Owning my own company. Something smaller, where each client gets individualized attention. Probably focused on large scale public projects, though, because homeowners tend to be difficult. They change their minds a lot." She flashed a smile at me.

I grinned back. "Damian and I had planned to do the back gardens the way we did the initial ones at the big house the first time around, but perhaps we could use some guidance. And definitely some help digging the flower beds. We're a little haphazard."

"Yeah, I took a look at the plans you talked about with my boss," she said diffidently. "They're a little... odd."

"A lot of the flowers are chosen because they have special meanings," I said, just as Aslyn plopped down with her drink, followed by Margaret and Karen. After hellos and some shifting around, Aslyn poked me.

"Damian sends her flowers that have meanings, there's this whole crazy language of flowers. I remember once he sent her a cactus when he was on a business trip. It meant patience or something. Tenacity, wasn't it?"

"I think so," I said, laughing. "And he sends me photos of plants that have the meaning he wants but can't find in a florist shop."

"Aw, that's cute. But it could be organized better to make more visual sense," Dagny said.

"Great. By the time the house is built and it's go time for the back gardens, you'll have learned more and you can do it," I said briskly. Then I asked Aslyn, Margaret, and Karen what was new with them before Dagny could protest. She was very self confident as a valkyrie, but this new place and era made her tentative and unsure a lot of the time. The rest of us too, sometimes, but we just covered it better. We spent the next hour and a half unwinding and having fun, then split up. Serena was going back to campus to put in more time with the building simulator for our final project in the architecture class, Dagny wanted to research the rosemary proposal and put it on her boss's desk, Aslyn was studying for finals--with classes in both the MBA and law programs, she couldn't start early enough--Karen and Carol had dates, Margaret was beat and going to bed early, and I was going to go home to Damian.

Damian loved the idea of the rosemary and offered to call the landscaper the next day.

In the middle of April, we were shocked and dismayed to find out that Kipp's Ragnarok film, now titled "Triumph," had been submitted to the Tribeca Film Festival and had snagged a coveted screening on the final night of the festival. A live orchestra would play the score, and Kipp would read the narration herself, answering questions after the screening. The festival organizers had also commissioned a huge modern "RomPop" musical group to compose and premiere an original song for the movie.

"RomPop?" Carol asked in distaste. "It sounds like some bizarro candy."

Serena snorted a laugh. "Romantic Popular. It's some kind of new genre in pop music. I dunno. I'm too busy to follow new trends in music. Besides, it all sounds weird to me."

"I've heard it," Dagny said unexpectedly. "I like it. It is kind of romantic. But I have no idea why romance is considered appropriate for this film."

"It's probably just a ploy to boost interest in the film and make money for the musicians," Carol said derisively.

We kept our heads down through all the hype, and as the screening drew closer, the hype was very hard to avoid. The night of the screening, I was studying in the library with Serena. Dagny was with us, working on her college application essay; we were proofreading it for her and providing occasional feedback. I got a call from Daniel; he was panicked.

"The film has just been screened," he said rapidly. "It's a disaster. Somehow they got a print of the film that still has your faces in it." Dagny and Serena were looking at me.

"Call Carol. We've got a problem," I said, and told Daniel that we'd meet him at the lab, Tony and Ann being gone on a test run of our organisms in the Pacific. Dagny got hold of Carol while Serena and I stuffed everything into our bags. We ran.

I waited impatiently for the biometrics reader to recognize me at our improved door security, and we burst in. We paced impatiently, waiting for Carol to arrive. Daniel was the last one to show up, and he was highly agitated. That spelled trouble, a lot of it, as he almost always had a calm expression. Andrews was hard on his heels, and that's when I knew there was real trouble. He was spitting mad.

"I recorded it," Andrews said, projecting his communicator's recording of the film. "She did a lot of work on it in places." We watched as a brief prologue scrolled across the screen giving the date in Midgard years, mentioning the Great Return as a preceding event, and concluding with the statement "Odin led his forces from the citadel on Asgard to the plains of Vigrior." The film started with the same view of the sky through the trees that panned down to the grasses and the first view of Odin's army. This part is very stylized, and it looks kind of Art Deco, for some reason. The ranks are clear and sharply defined, and we look to have a simply massive force, the lines and columns emphasized, the film bleeding from old-fashioned 2D to true 3D. There's a long, lingering view of all this, in almost utter silence. You can hear breathing from the guards. Mist that I don't remember is being burned off by the sun but still lingers around the trees. Detail becomes so crisp that I feel like I could reach out and touch the bark of the tree limb Kipp is perched on, even through this inferior copy. Then the rending of space at the Observatory, the boiling, seething blackness oversetting the dark opal appearance of the Bifrost bridge.

"Oh, Jesus," Serena has gone the palest I've ever seen her. "This is lifted almost straight from "The Triumph of the Will."

"What's that?" Dagny asked, puzzled.

"A Nazi propaganda film of the Nuremberg rally sometime in the 1930's," Carol said grimly. "Are you sure, Serena? I've never seen it, just heard descriptions of it."

"I'm sure," she said grimly. "I did see it in a propaganda course. We were studying psyops. There's the brief statement at the beginning, the shot of the sky that tracks down, the stylized, precise depiction of the masses and their leader. There's the themes of religion, power, and unity."

"That's deliberate," Andrews said furiously. "It wasn't that way in the original screening." From there the film reverts to what I remember, until the combat gets fierce. Then there's additional footage inserted. The camera clings like a voyeur to the berserkers, the valkyries dying, and enhanced clarity of Odin's wounds and death, Baldr's dogs, savage on the battlefield. The footage has been made crisper and clearer, detail is heightened. The gore seems... more. I have to turn away and step over to the door to call first Thor and then Damian. Lee and Early arrive before they do. Damian is just in time to see the arrow go through my wing and my spectacular crash landing and he goes as pale as Serena. His eyes are glued to the projection, his hand absently touching my back where my wings come out.

I hear Early calling the judge and Lee talking to the owner of a theater that is set to start screening the film for the nationwide opening the next day. "The theater owner I just spoke to said he's already seen the film, he had a special showing for his employees tonight, and apparently the film that's being distributed is different from the one at the festival," Lee said. "I've sent some of the associates and one of the paralegals over; the owner will show it to them so they can see for themselves and take notes."

"We're due in court tomorrow at 8 am," Early said stonily, rejoining the group. "As soon as we can get injunctions against the festival from any additional viewings of this film prepared and any other paper we can think of, I'll take them over and she'll sign them. Our process servers will leave immediately with the signed orders. She's issuing a bench warrant for Kipp's arrest."

"But the damage is done," I said numbly. There were plenty of shots of the four of us that clearly showed our faces. I rested my head gently on my husband's shoulder.

Carol started scrolling through news on her communicator. "The film is a sensation," she said hoarsely. "The press was there in bulk and they're all filing stories like crazy. It's got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audience members are gushing about it and it's won the top award of the festival. It's been submitted to other festivals, including Cannes, Sundance, others. Oh, god." Damian gently detached me and enabled Early to have access to the computer setup here so that she could draft the paper for the court and print it all out. There will be a lot of it, they added summons for the festival directors since the court ruled well in advance of the screening. Lee joined her, then Andrews.

Thor sat in his chair, looking blankly at the table where the communicator is sitting. "I cannot believe this," he said when I touched his shoulder. I retreated and called Loki.

"She assured me and the other backer that the film would be suitably edited for release," Daniel said. "Cal Strouse said he'd follow up with that."

"What was that name?" Lee yelled at him from the office. Daniel repeated it. Guess the investors were going to get paper too. Daniel walked over numbly to give contact information for the people who had originally invested in the film.

The office became a hive of activity, the lawyers using the verdict from the trial as a spear. The gloves were off. Loki arrived and had quiet words with his brother before coming over to the four of us.

"My brother is closing the embassy after this hearing is over," he said softly. "I don't have any classes this semester, so it's a matter of handing off my duties at the university for awhile. We'll engage human guards to protect the property and the staff will continue to report, fielding inquiries, until Thor decides what is to be done."

"I don't suppose Asgardian justice involves single combat," Carol said, trying for a smile.

"Sorry, no," Loki said, touching her shoulder. "But before, the conditions of her imprisonment were reasonable. When she goes back--and she will, one way or another--she will be completely isolated. She will be able to see out of her cell, but no one will see in. She will interact with no one for the entire term of her incarceration. Thor was gracious in allowing her lawyer to visit, but that will not be permitted this time. There will be no diversions available to her--no books, and of course, no mass media. She will be changed when she is released." He left to begin his preparations, and Carol, Dagny, Serena and I looked at each other hopelessly. A headache was pounding through my skull. My mood swung to enraged.

"Why are we wailing?" I demanded to know, shifting restlessly. My voice was a growl. "The fact is that we've been outed, but this bitch doesn't know what she's done." I started to pace around my friends. "We are valkyries of Valhalla, aren't we? We hid behind masks at the trial, afraid of being identified. But everybody is going to know who we are. You can count on other people having recorded the film and it'll be all over the internet if it isn't."

"So let's go on the offensive, take the fight to her," Dagny said, and I nodded. Carol started to smile. We put our heads together, and after some conversation, brought Thor into the huddle. By the time Bucky and Steve arrived--their faces had been seen clearly too--we had a plan. Steve looked at us cautiously.

"You look like you've got a plan."

"We do," Serena grinned, cold and predatory. "She's fucked with the wrong people."

Bucky grinned. "Give 'em hell." He looked around at all the activity. "Facial recognition was used, as you thought. Captain America and the Winter Soldier have been identified too. Iron Man was visible, so I called Stark. The internet has officially broken. Several sites that hosted bootleg copies of the movies or stills, or reviews, or anything related, actually, have crashed. It's going to be a circus at the courthouse tomorrow. The filmmaker was arrested at the festival." He looked around at us. "Whatever you're going to do, go full tilt."

Carols smiled. "Oh, it will be spectacular. She will not be prepared for us. We're going balls to the wall."

"Ovaries out," Serena corrected. "It's tougher." Steve laughed, which made the rest of us chuckle.

I went to tell the lawyers we were leaving and that we'd see them tomorrow. Damian was quiet until we got home, and then I told him what my plan was. He started to grin. "I've got to see this."

The next morning, Damian drove and we collected my comrades. He dropped us off at the corner of the courthouse; the street was blocked off due to all the media. That was fine, though. We were going to add to the spectacle.

We held our heads high as we strode toward the courthouse steps. Magically, the crowd parted before us, but I guess that four angry women in full battle dress with swansfeather capes will make people draw back. No weapons, though. But who needs steel when you've got our rep?

Some brave idiot stopped us about halfway up the stairs. Before he could speak, there was another stir and we all turned to look. It was Thor, in his full armor, accompanied by seven other women. Our armor was torn and dented, our uniforms stained, but the metal was bright and the tears of our uniforms mended. The feathers of our cloaks shone slightly in the weak sun. As if a cinematographer had commanded it, a beam of light broke free of the clouds and touched us gently before the clouds veiled the sun again. A light rain began to fall and I was grateful for my cloak as the rain rolled right off.

"Melanie Kipp said that she wanted to face her accusers last night before she was arrested," I said to the reporter, who still hadn't managed to get a question out. "We're here. We are the valkyries of Asgard, and we will have justice if we cannot have battle." Thor brushed past the reporter and the way cleared for him. Serena fell in on his right hand side, and I did the same on his left. Dagny, Carol, Eir, Kata, Asa, Staeina, Visna, Dora, and Runa picked up the formation. We walked into the courthouse in utter silence.