Star Harbor Nights

"So, how's it going, Lena?" Broker asked his new night bartender. It was meeting night, and even though the after-hours business had just started, the place was already bustling with masked figures in capes and tights.

"No problems, so far," she replied. "It's not much different than tending the bar any place... on Halloween."

"Glad to hear it. It's hard finding good help," he said. "And by 'good', I mean 'trustworthy'... but my sister's kid vouched for you."

"Well, I don't mind picking up some extra money," Lena said. "And I had a hard time believing Danica when she told me what you were paying... though I guess I kind of understand that now."

"Yeah, crimefighters make lousy tippers," Broker said. "Go figure, huh? Anyway, it's only gonna get busier... we've got reports coming in of gang members dropping dead all over town from some mysterious 'spell.' I figure we're going to have a full house for the meeting tonight, and maybe even earlier than that. Nobody's seen anything like this before."

"I have," Perfect said, coming up from behind him. "Last night."

"Say what?" Broker asked, spinning around. He recognized the slim girl in her rather minimalist black uniform, with the concealing mask-and-beret combo. The stuffed rabbit in the carrier on her back was new, though. "Perf..."

"Black Rabbit," she said. "Let's not go splashing my 'unique' name around in front of anybody else."

"You pass on Mynx then call yourself Rabbit?" Broker asked, eyebrow raised.

"I like rabbits," Perfect said.

"Noted," Broker said, looking at the stuffed toy slung over her shoulder. "You know, that rabbit is white."

"Well, that's because he's not the Black Rabbit, I am," Perfect said. "Though maybe I should make him a costume, or something, so he won't be recognized if we get photographed or something."

"That's funny, I know I only met you the one time last week, but I remember you being tan... and not crazy," Broker said.

"Oh, that wasn't real. The bottle of bronzing compound kind of leaked all over the inside of my bag one night so I decided to skip it," Perfect said. "And, Mr. Buttons... the rabbit, I'm just concerned that my family would recognize... it."

"You could just leave it at home."

"Oh, yeah, and I probably will, from now on," Perfect said. "I just thought it would be fun to... and it's kind of my theme... and... um, I'm just dealing with some issues right now, so if we could please just not talk about the bunny, okay?"

"Oh, dear lord... why does every girl Vallenzio nail have to go batty?" Broker asked. "Is he really that good?"

"What makes you so sure he 'nailed' me?" Perfect asked.

"Because I know him, and I've seen you go from ready to take on the world to dragging around a teddy bear."

"He's a bunny," Perfect said. "And so, what, did everybody see this coming except me?"

"Hey, I did warn you," Broker said.

"You also told me he was a good guy," Perfect said. "I assumed that meant he wouldn't sleep with a girl he wasn't in love with."

"Somebody told me you were supposed to be a genius," Broker said. "But you really don't know much about guys, do you?"

"I'm learning fast, thank you," Perfect said. "Anyway, do you want to know what I know about the Bone Lords, or what?"

"I'm all ears," Broker said.

"Is that a rabbit crack?" Perfect asked. Without waiting for him to answer, she launched into her tale of the encounter with Bloodhound's Bone Lord crew and its grisly end.

"Huh... so you think maybe Bloodhound sacrificed his guys to get some kind of power?" Broker asked when she had finished.

"It seems that way," Perfect said. "Though I get the feeling he didn't know all the finer details. The vulnerability to fire thing really seemed to take him by surprise. Us, too, of course. The warehouse full of Bone Lords that I saw tonight were doing a big ritual with circles of candles and chanting, but they didn't seem to be expecting to die horribly, either."

"Why do I get the feeling you got a theory about that?"

"I think the higher-ups had been planning this forever," Perfect said. "Like, it's the purpose behind all their seeming mumbo-jumbo. They form a big street gang of believers, teach them the chants and the symbols, and then offer them up as unwitting sacrifices to whatever's behind it all. That also explains why the Bone Lords have been recruiting so busily... if we assume there's some kind of logic to these things, it would make sense that the bigger the sacrifice, the bigger payoff. They probably could have got even more if they waited. I think they went for it tonight because Bloodhound screwed up their timetable by going off early to try to get back at Ray... they had to go for it before the rest of the underlings learned what was in store for them."

"Could be," Broker said. "That could definitely be."

"Another thing... it could just be a coincidence of timing, but we had the mystical church fire a week before the mystic-themed street gang shows the first signs of actual magical power," Perfect said. "Maybe it was a multi-stage sacrifice... the church, then their own followers."

"Something to look into, anyway," Broker said. "So, did you actually take on a warehouse full of Bone Lords, then?"

"Not by myself," Perfect said. "I... uh... the Dock Shadow asked me to help him out with a case."

"He was going after the Huntsman," Broker said. "Last I heard he was supposed to have the Parakeet with him."

"He mentioned someone doing recon, who, I quote, 'does not play well with others,'" Perfect said.

"That would be her," Broker said. "No offense, kid, but if he had her, why did he need you?"

"I... had some unique skills to offer in the particular situation."

"Oh, right, he saw how badly Ray'd messed you up and wanted to do the big serious mentor thing," Broker said. "He's done that before."

"You know, I suddenly remembered some place I've got to be," Perfect said irritably. "Some place not here."

"You should stick around for the meeting, share your info..."

"You do it, you are the information broker," she said. "I don't really feel like hanging around here. Not my crowd, not my scene... and despite certain promises that certain people made, I don't think I'm going to see anybody I know here tonight."

She turned to storm off, but instead bumped into a woman who'd been approaching, drawn by the sound of her voice. Perfect stared at her face, which held the same expression of shocked delight as her own.

"D.J.?" Perfect said.

"Perfect, is that you?" the woman asked, peering down at Perfect's masked face. "It is!"

"Oh my God!" Perfect cried.

"Did you cut your hair, or something?"

"No, I just hide it inside my hat," Perfect said. "God, I have't seen you in ages! Since you... uh, left school."

"Yeah, I know... and oh my God, is that Mr. Buttons?" D.J. exclaimed. "I can't believe you still have that old thing... and you're taking him crimefighting. That's just adorable." She started to reach for the stuffed bunny, but Perfect turned her body away, a stricken look on her face.

"Oh, right," D.J. said. "I forgot, you don't like people touching your things."

"I'm sorry, I know you don't mean any harm," Perfect said. "I've just had to save my toys from being thrown out so many times, I have a hard time believing that everybody's not trying to take them away from me."

"So you still have all that stuff?"

"Yeah, I took it with me when I moved out," Perfect said. "Mother still kept after me about it, though, so I moved it from my apartment and into my headquarters."

"So you finally moved out of your parents house? That's awesome," D.J. said. "I know you said you felt suffocated. Well, of course you know what I've been up to..."

"Not really, no," Perfect said, puzzled.

"You haven't heard of D.J. Harmony?" she asked.

"No, just plain old D.J. Harmon," Perfect said. "My former college roommate... and best friend."

"I'm still her! I've just got a musical career now. I started off doing the music for a few parties and stuff, and when I started getting a reputation I recorded some of my own stuff," she said. "I actually just put my name on the flyers when I first started mixing, but somewhere along the line somebody assumed that a 'y' had been cut off... so D.J. Harmony was born. I'm... uh... not to sound all full of myself, but I'm really surprised you haven't heard of me. I've been getting a lot of airplay lately. I kind of mix styles and genres. Some of my stuff's a little 'out there' for mainstream radio, but I do enough of the commercial stuff to keep my name out there, you know?"

"Sorry, I don't really listen to the radio, or watch a lot of TV," Perfect said. "I did wonder what happened to you, after your accident... when I never heard from you, I kind of thought the worst. I mean, I knew you survived, but I figured you must have been... well, I'm glad I was wrong."

"Yeah, well, when I first got up and about again, I wasn't ready to see anybody for a long time," D.J. said. "There was a lot of physical therapy, and psychological counseling, and after that, stuff just kept happening..."

"I heard about your accident, of course... but I couldn't find out any details about what happened or where you went afterwards," Perfect said. "It must have been pretty bad if you needed a synthetic body."

D.J. gasped.

"You... you can tell?" she asked.

"It's not easy, but yeah," Perfect said. "I met another synth a while back. He was a bit more obvious."

"Oh, that would be Adonis," D.J. said. "He's got a slightly earlier version of the technology... that, and his body was designed from scratch. Mine's an exact recreation of what I looked like before. Incidentally, what gave it away?"

"The pores on your nose," Perfect said. "They, um, used to be a lot bigger."

"Ha... okay, so it's not an exact recreation," D.J. said, laughing. "I do have a little vanity, after all. Anyway, the crash... it was pretty horrific, yeah. It's doubtful I could have lived without a full cybernetic transplant, and even then, I wouldn't have had much of a quality of life. My dad ultimately made the decision to go ahead."

"So it's his technology... I guess I should have recognized his handiwork when I saw Adonis," Perfect said.

"Yeah, it's mostly his work," D.J. said. "Adonis's father helped him with the neural interface, in exchange for using the end result to help his son. I heard he had one of those immune disorders, where you have to live in a plastic bubble? I never met him before the transfer, but it would certainly explain a lot about his social skills."

"Ha, yeah," Perfect said, laughing and wincing at the memory of Adonis's attempt at picking her up. It had been equally awkward and arrogant... a rare combination. "So, um... I guess you're a superhero now?"

"Kind of," D.J. said. "You?"

"Well, I fight crime," Perfect said. "I'm not so sure about the 'super.'"

"Hey, come on. My dad said you were probably one of the highest functioning double Darkwells he's ever met, and he's met most of them," D.J. said.

"I don't even know if I am a Darkwell," Perfect said. "Much less a double. I mean, you met my mom. Does she seem like Darkwell material to you?"

"You mean Botoxia, Queen of the WASPs?" D.J. asked. "Girl, I don't think a brain can go through as many contortions as hers without genetic help."

"Yeah, she never really liked you," Perfect said. "But then, she doesn't like anybody."

"I could never take it personally, because I knew she never took me as a person," D.J. said. "Remember when she met my dad at that honors program parents' night thing? The world's leading authority on cybernetic reconstruction and advanced robotics, and she felt the need to tell him he was very articulate. I almost died laughing. I didn't think people like that existed any more outside of cheesy sitcoms and stand-up comedy routines."

"I'm glad you can laugh about it, because I was mortified," Perfect said. "I'd been dreaming of meeting your father ever since I found out who you were. Um, I mean... God, I hope you don't think I was just being your friend to suck up to you, or anything."

"Perfect, you wouldn't be able to suck up to anybody if your life depended on it," D.J. said. "You just don't have an insincere bone in your body. That's why you didn't get along with anybody else in the program. You're your father's daughter way more than your mother's."

"Nobody's ever called my dad sincere," Perfect said. "Every chance he gets, he's pulling out one of his, uh, bullshit stories or another."

"He's a big fat liar, but he's a very sincere one," D.J. said. "Even if none of his stories are true, he means each and every one of them. That's what makes them so fun. And when exactly did you start cussing?"

"What? I've always... cussed," Perfect said.

"You got the exact same look on your face when you tried saying 'bullshit' that your momma got when she told me 'Welcome to our home,'" D.J. said. "The words just don't fit right in your mouth."

"Okay, so I've recently decided to expand my vocabulary," Perfect said. "I'm an adult. I can talk like one."

"Hey, your mouth... you do with it what you want," D.J. said. "But like the Bard said, 'To thine own self be true.' You don't have to prove anything to anybody."

"I know that, but..." Perfect trailed off. All around the bar, the conversations had died to be replaced with a low, interested murmur.

Perfect and D.J. followed the gazes towards the night entrance, the stairs coming down from the roof. A tall... inhumanly tall... woman with wavy blonde hair had entered. She was built like the most unrealistic girl's plastic fashion doll crossed with a boy's muscle-bound action figure, and dressed in a star-spangled red, white, and blue body suit. She was all smiles, beaming and waving at people around the room.

"I know you said you don't watch TV," D.J said, "but that's Pummella. She was..."

"She won American Hero. I'll admit, I did watch that," Perfect said. "I mean, I didn't care for the backstabbing and insults and stuff, but anything that's got to do with real life superheroes interests me, and I thought, one day I might be working with these people, and if you paid attention there was a lot of information there about how their powers worked, which is always good to know. But, God... Pummella... here!"

"You a fan?"

"That speech she gave when she won... that was what motivated me to actually get out here and do this," Perfect said. "I mean, I'd been planning it forever... but I probably would have kept planning it forever, too. There would always have been one more thing I could do to get ready. But then Pummella got up on that stage, and talked about how she'd had her abilities all her life and never used them for anything positive... it was the same stuff I've always heard from my dad, but it felt different hearing her say it. I felt like she was talking to me. Or for me. It's hard to explain."

"Aw, you're a little star-struck," D.J. said. "Why don't we go over and say hi?"

"I can't just go up to her! She's famous."

"You went right up to me," D.J. said. "And I heard you say you already met the Dock Shadow tonight. Meeting some cheesy reality show celebrity should be nothing compared to that."

"She's not... oh, you know, you're right," Perfect said. "What have I got to lose?"