Star Harbor Nights

Ray woke up with no idea where he was or how he'd got there. Then he remembered his night of passion with Perfect Jones the night before, which had begun on a rooftop high above the city and ended much later back at her place, an old-fashioned four story brownstone townhouse. Everything had kind of blurred together after that, as the flames within him had stoked his excitement to greater and greater heights until finally, emotionally spent, he'd let the flames expire and collapsed into a rare state of physical exhaustion.

Nothing about that explained the sight that greeted him when he opened his eyes. He knew that Perfect had sisters... but did she live with them? And was one of them much, much younger?

These questions ran through his head because the room he found himself in clearly belonged to a young girl. He dimly remembered thinking that the bed they'd ended up on seemed a bit small for an adult, much less two... but in the darkness he hadn't noticed its sheets and covers were decorated with smiling bunnies. The motif was repeated throughout the room. Everywhere he looked, there were bunnies... some ceramic or plastic, but mostly stuffed. Some were realistic, while some stood upright and wore doll clothes. A rabbit-shaped clock told him it was past eleven in the morning.

They weren't the only childish touch, either. A large Victorian dollhouse sat in a corner, and there was a shelf covered with children's books, some quite old and all obviously well-read.

He found his pants folded neatly at the foot of the bed and put them on. His cell phone seemed to have gone missing, but his slim billfold was still in the other pocket. He figured Perfect must have borrowed his phone for some reason, or just put it somewhere.

Any doubts about whose room it was were put to rest by the sign on the door, which said, simply enough, "Perfect's Room." He half-expected it to say "KEEP OUT!" underneath the name. Looking for the stairs, he came across other doors that were labeled "Conference Room" and "Crime Library"... apparently, she hadn't been kidding about that. He peeked in both of these... not snooping, of course. Just looking for Perfect. The conference room would not have been out of place in any Fortune 500 company's headquarters. The libary had probably been a very large master bedroom, but was now divided by several rows of shelves, all filled. He still didn't know what to make of the bedroom, but Perfect apparently took her calling very seriously.

The stairs led up to what he remembered being an open area with a skylight roof access, and down to the lower floors of the building. He went up first, and found it to be a gymnasium of sorts, with gymnastic apparatus spread out on the floor and weight lifting equipment lined up against the one wall, and various targets and practice dummies against another. The floor was covered in hard rubber. The room had to run the whole length and width of the building, and even then it seemed too far across. He realized from the odd seam in the wall halfway down that she must have knocked out the dividing wall between two attached townhouses, as well as any interior walls there may have been.

In any event, it was easy enough to tell Perfect wasn't there.

He took a quick look around the next floor down, which had a computer room, an infirmary, and an office, then continued down towards the main floor. There was a door at the landing, currently ajar, which looked like a bank security door on the inside and a normal home interior door on the outside. He stared at it for several seconds before shaking his head in a mixture of admiration and confusion, then continued down into the living room.

He wasn't sure what he expected, but he didn't see it. The living room was shockingly ordinary. The decor wasn't to his taste... a bit too much like something somebody's grandmother would have picked out... but not in any way unusual. Suddenly, the two-faced door made sense. It was camouflage, like the rest of the ground floor.

"Perfect?" he called out, though his senses told him the ground floor was as empty as the three above had been. He passed through a dining room and into the kitchen, which was clean. It was decorated with a bunny motif, as well, though in small ways: bunny magnets on the refrigerator, a bunny-shaped cookie jar, and a resin bunny holding a utensil basket.

There was a small door, also ajar, leading down into the basement. He could faintly hear music, as well a voice--Perfect's voice, in fact--coming from the open doorway at the bottom. He headed down cautiously. Did she have company? And if so, would she be able to explain his presence to them? Then he realized there was no other voice; she must be on the phone. He wondered if he should knock on the door frame, or otherwise announce himself.

"Well, he's definitely taller than I would have expected," she was saying. Ray froze in place as it struck him that she was talking about him. "And, um, bigger, too." She giggled. Ray made up his mind to stay outside the doorway a little longer. She was having a conversation, after all. It would be downright inconsiderate of him to interrupt. "But then again," she continued, "I've never seen one that wasn't on a cadaver before, so I really have no basis to judge. Are they all like that on live guys?"

Ray suppressed the urge to giggle himself.

"Anyway, it was wonderful once I got past my nervousness. Everything I've read has told me that I shouldn't be disappointed if I didnt feel anything the first time... huh? Oh, I meant everything with a medical basis to it. Those were just for fun, they don't count! Anyway, it turns out I shouldn't have worried, because I came so hard..."

Ray had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. She sounded so damned earnest. Who was she talking to? He'd have given anything to know.

"What? No... no, I'm sure I'm saying it correctly. Came hard. I came hard. Well, how would you say it? 'Comed'? Well, that doesn't make any sense," Perfect said. Ray heard her arm swishing through the air as she punctuated it with some angry gesture. "I don't care how they talk on the internet, because I wasn't on the internet last night, thank you very much."

There was another pause, and Ray could actually hear Perfect fuming at whatever was said.

"Oh, like you say 'comed' all the time, either. I'll say it the way I want to say it, and that's... oh, honestly you still talk to me like I'm a child!"

"There is no reason to take that tone of voice," Perfect said indignantly. "All I'm saying is that I'm an adult now, and I think I should use language which reflects that."

Ray decided it was time to make his presence known. He'd been standing there long enough, and the conversation was as neutral as it was likely to get. Also, he wasn't sure just what he'd do if she worked herself up any more than she already was.

He quietly stepped backwards three stairs, then came back down them noisily. He found himself stepping out into another large combined space like the one on the top floor, but this one filled with work benches, power tools, and laboratory equipment... a full fledged machine shop and chemistry lab, apparently.

"Oh, hey, sorry," he said as he took in the scene. "I didn't realize you were on... the..."

He froze. There was no phone in Perfect's hand. There were several spread out on the workbench in front of her, but in this case "spread out" could have referred to any one of them; they were all in pieces. He couldn't immediately see his phone's distinctive red case anywhere among the bodies of the victims, though he wasn't looking too closely, because something else had grabbed his attention.
 
Seated on a wooden chair was a white ragdoll rabbit, with bright blue buttons for eyes.

Had Perfect been talking to that?

"Oh, hey, Ray!" she said. She was trying to sound cheery but had a deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes. "I wasn't sure when you'd wake up, so I decided to come down and... and... um, this is honestly less insane than it looks."

"That's good, 'cause I can't figure how it would be more," Ray said, chuckling nervously. He'd meant the comment as a joke, but he wasn't sure it wasn't also true.

"Um, well, sometimes when my mind is really racing I find it easier to organize my thoughts by vocalizing them aloud, because that forces me to follow one line of thought at a time instead of racing down a bunch at once," Perfect said. "But I feel weird just talking to myself, so I... uh... use Mr. Buttons here."

"Okay," Ray said, drawing those two syllables out into a sentence. He was doing his best not to comment any further. He breathed fire. Who was he to judge?

"You think I'm crazy," Perfect said.

"No, absolutely not! Well, maybe a little," Ray said. A thought hit him. "Just... if you're not crazy, how do I know that thing's not some kind of evil demon doll, or something?"

"Mr. Buttons is not evil!" Perfect said, aghast. She turned to the rabbit doll. "Mr. Buttons, tell Ray you're not... um, I mean, he just isn't. It isn't. The inanimate stuffed rabbit toy is not evil."

"Okay, honestly, I have known Darkwells who had some pretty unusual coping mechanisms," Ray said. "I kind of had you figured for one when we met, and I guess this confirms it."

"Do you think I am?" Perfect asked him, suddenly sounding very eager. "Daddy never let us get tested. He said he didn't want to put us under any more pressure, but honestly, I think he was afraid to find out that our family's successes all came from a freak gene."

"You don't think of yourself as a freak, do you?" Ray asked her.

"No," she said. "No, I don't. Those are his words, not mine. After I turned eighteen, I could have had the testing done myself, but I've gone all my life not knowing. I don't see how it would change things if I found out I was, or if I found out I wasn't."

"Good for you," Ray said. "So... you did, uh, turn eighteen at some point, then?"

Perfect laughed.

"Over a year ago, silly," she said. "You really did... all that stuff... thinking I might be underage?"

"No," Ray said. "In the heat of the moment, I was absolutely one hundred percent sure you were a grown, adult woman. When I woke up in your bedroom and saw what it looked like in broad daylight, that percentage slipped to... uh, let's say ninety-eight, ninety-nine."

"I guess it's nice to know you care about that," Perfect said. "I always wanted for my first time to be with an older man, but not one who's not just looking for some hot, barely-legal action."

"Is that you talking, or is that some more of Mr. Buttons's salty internet lingo?" Ray asked.

Perfect's blush when she realized how much he'd overheard was priceless, but Ray mercifully turned away and looked for something else to turn the conversation to. There was a CD player on the end of the workbench, along with a pile of CDs. He realized he knew the song... a bassy, grungy track from a bassy, grunge band... but hadn't heard it on the radio in ages. He flipped through the CDs and realized that was a common thread among them.

"Man, I haven't thought about some of these songs in ages," he said.

"Are you kidding?" Perfect asked. She grabbed the case for the disk that was playing out of Ray's hand. "This is my favorite band... I hear them played all the time." She cocked her head to the side and appeared to think about it for a moment. "At least, I used to. I guess it's been a while since I've really listened to the radio, except for news and stuff."

"So, is your love of bunny rabbits only exceeded by your hatred of phones?" Ray asked, gesturing to the components on the bench.

"Oh! No, um, that's just something I've been working on," Perfect said. "Well, several things. Remember when I said I was working on getting a clean cell phone number? I've got it all worked out now... I've made a protocol for a spread spectrum rotation that piggybacks through all the available networks in the area, more or less hiding in the blind spots of the existing cellular phone systems. When I call somebody using it, the caller ID information is meaningless garbage and if the phone company tries a trace, they'll end up chasing their own tails."

"So what if somebody wants to call you?" Ray asked.

"Well, I can requisition or cancel a new number at any time using a phony device ID," Perfect said.

"How exactly did you get that worked out?" Ray asked.

"I didn't... exactly," Perfect said. "When I was poking around the telcos' computer networks, I found three hidden programs already running that did that, and I just copied what they did."

"You've been a busy girl this morning," Ray said.

"Oh, I didn't do all this just now," Perfect said. "I usually work on a bunch of different stuff all at once, until something inspires me to finish it."

"And I inspired you?" Ray asked, feeling a flush of pride.

"Oh, big time," Perfect said. "My eyes just flew open this morning and I knew I had to rush down and finish my ball blaster."

"Um, I'm not sure you need any device to help in that department," Ray said, wincing at the visual memory of what had become a sort of signature move for his partner.

"No, I mean this," Perfect said, rushing down the row of work benches to pick up one of her gloves. The wrist guard had been upgraded into something more gauntlet-like, with a wide black tube running down its length. She slipped her hand through and into the flexible glove, pointed her fist at the wall, and then jerked her hand down sharply. A dark projectile shot out of the tube with an audible twang and bounced off the wall with a pronounced thunk. "It's similar to a riot round... good for taking out runners. I wouldn't want to use it on a normal's head at close range, though. For supers, I've got the other glove loaded with liquid core metal rounds. I'm working on ideas for a repeating mechanism, and other ammo loads, like gas rounds and explosive ones."

"Nice," Ray said.

"Oh, and here's something I did make this morning..."

She held up a square piece of fabric, the same rusty color and texture as Ray's voluminous pants. She turned the edge to him so he could see it was two layers stitched together.

"It's a bandanna, with a cell phone and ultramobile computer built in," she said.

"It's... cool," Ray said. "But I can't wear that in the field. When I'm using my powers, the temperature of my brands can spike hundreds of degrees. The only reason I don't end up burning my pants off is they're treated to be fireproof."

"Yeah, I was curious about that so I borrowed your pants for a bit while you were sleeping," Perfect said. "And I figured out how to extract a bit of the chemical treatment and played around with it until I figured out how to reproduce it."

"It's called 'impervion'," Ray said. "The big superteams use it in the shielding on their ships. Aside from being fireproof, it's supposed to be completely insulated against heat, electricity, and radiation. In fact, I can't get a signal if my cell phone's in my pocket."

"Yeah, that was a bit of a problem," Perfect said. "I figured out how to make it porous to radio waves, though. So, um, if we fight any radioactive monsters, forget about using your hankie as a shield."

"Perfect, the first batch of impervion was created in a lab accident that killed twenty-five people," Ray said wonderingly. "And the man who invented it is certifiably insane. It's not something you should be able to whip up in your basement in a few hours."

"Well, first of all, I didn't have to do nearly as much work as he did, because I was just copying someone else's work," Perfect said. "Second of all, it's not an exact match, even before I modified it. I don't think the original would burn at anything less than an atmosphere-igniting temperature. This isn't quite as resilient, but it should do the trick. Oh, and third, I got up really early."

"She got up really early, she says," Ray echoed... in the direction of, but most certainly not to... Mr. Buttons.

"I was originally thinking you could wear it on your head like a bandanna or a hat," Perfect said. "But then I realized that would make it hard to put in any kind of useful interface... and I kind of like the smooth look. Um, on your head, I mean," she said, giggling again. She rolled the fabric over a few times and then tied the strip around his arm, a little bit above the elbow. "Like a knight of old carrying a token of his lady's favor."

She kissed him on the cheek, and smoothed the fabric over his bicep. Ray felt a sudden, heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Perfect, we should talk about..."

The bandanna on his arm vibrated violently. It shocked him doubly, because it was completely silent. Perfect must have realized where the look of surprise on his face came from, because she immediately pulled back a long flap to reveal a small, flexible screen.

"You have to squeeze it to turn on the backlight," Perfect said, demonstrating. "So you don't accidentally give your position away... what's this mean?"

Ray looked at the text message on the screen: "h3y r00b".

"How do I send one back?" he asked her.

She grabbed a small silver rectangle off the table and slid back a panel over the front to reveal a miniature keyboard with all the letters arranged in the QWERTY configuration, with numbers and symbols superimposed over them.

"You can keep this in your pocket," Perfect said. "It automatically syncs up whenever it gets a signal from the armband."

"How do I do symbols...?"

"Hit the button that looks like an ink smudge."

"Thanks," Ray said. He quickly tapped out a return message, "*** & = 4ever".

"Circus friends?" Perfect asked curiously as Ray received another message: "whats up?"

"Yeah," Ray asked, turning away as he typed out a longer reply. "How did you guess?"

"'Hey, Rube' is carny slang," Perfect said. "And your response... 'Stars and Stripes Forever'? The circus fire code... that's you, right?"

"You're sharp today," Ray said, maneuvering to keep his back to her as he finished up his electronic conversation. "And you know your circus lore."

"I guess this doesn't have anything to do with our case," Perfect said as casually as she could while trying to peek around his body.

"As a matter of fact, it does," Ray said, snapping the keyboard shut and turning around with a broad smile. "You remember when I said I thought I recognized the rune letters in the church from somewhere?"

"Yes..."

"Well, the other day I remembered where I'd seen them," Ray said. "Even better, I realized I knew somebody who would be able to recall them from memory and explain their significance... and... he happens to be in town today."

"And now you're going to run off to meet this mysterious 'him', I suppose," Perfect said. "And I'm not going to be able to talk you out of it, or find out any of the details, because you don't think I should be mixed up in 'magic stuff.'"

"Well, if that's what you want me to do, I can," Ray said, his eyes twinkling. "And it is true that I do have to go out and get a few things done today, but I actually invited him here so he could give the information directly to you."

Perfect just stared at him.

"I mean, you are the information specialist of our group, right?" Ray said. "You'll probably be able to do more with the information he has than I ever could."

She flung herself at him and threw her arms around him in the best approximation of a bear hug someone her size could give someone his.

"I love you, Ray!" she squealed.

The heavy weight in the bottom of Ray's stomach somehow found a lower level to drop to.

"Right," he said, extricating himself from her arms. "Look, I really do have stuff I need to get done today... non-hero stuff, you know, that I've been neglecting. I need to go out and get that taken care of. My contact should be here around one... at one, actually. He's never late."

"Oh, alright," Perfect said. "If you have to... I can work on my equipment some more. But don't forget, we've got the meeting tonight. And since we're going to be at Broker's anyway, why don't we go a little early? I think I'll take you up on those drinks that we, um, didn't get around to last night."

"Fine, great," Ray said, smiling as wide as he could. "Just, I don't know how early I'm going to be able to get away... so... why don't you just plan on meeting me there?"

"Great," Perfect beamed. "It's a date!"

"Yeah, a date," Ray said, holding his smile as he backed towards the door. He took the stairs up three at a time, barely noticing that he hit his head on the sloped ceiling above.

"Shit, shit, shit."