Star Harbor Nights

At the end of her long night, Allison made her way back to the beachfront condo she shared with her roommate Amy, known to the world as Amphitrite, Goddess of the Waves. It took the last bit of her energy to fly herself to a secluded spot on the beach half a mile away, where she had a long coat stowed away in a waterproof bag.

When she reached her home, she checked hurriedly to make sure the curtains were drawn in the front windows... her downstairs neighbor, a middle aged widow named Mrs. Juszczyk, was an insomniac and a bit on the snoopy side. If she was awake, and she happened to look out now, she'd see nothing more suspicious than Allison returning at five o'clock in the morning with her coat wrapped around her... and maybe a slight glimpse of the outlandish outfit underneath.

At worst, she'd probably think Allison had taken a second job as a stripper... or hooker. Either impression would fit with some of the remarks Allison had heard her muttering, about young women these days and the things they wore in public.

Allison was halfway up the wooden steps to the deck which wrapped around the second story of the three story building when the lights came on in her own living room and the front door opened. Allison smiled apologetically at Amy, the gorgeous green-haired woman who shared her home.

"Uh... hey," she said somewhat lamely. She hadn't meant to be out so late, but she also hadn't meant for her roommate to stay up worried.

"Are you alright?" Amy asked, coming down to meet her on the stairs. "What happened? You've never been out so late..."

"Got into a bit of a situation," Allison said, not wanting to discuss it in the open air. She gave a significant downward glance. "We should probably talk about this inside."

"Oh, right," Amy said, her hand flying up to her green locks. She had a wig that she wore for her comings and goings, as well as for her day job. "I wasn't even thinking."

They hurried upstairs and through the open door, which Amy shut and locked behind them as Allison hung up her coat, giving Amy her first look at the distinctly-shaped marks that had burned through her outfit and seared her skin.

"Your costume... you're hurt!" Amy cried.

"It's nothing, surface burns," Allison said, wishing she'd kept the coat on. She knew she wasn't seriously injured... she was more fatigued than hurt... but she also knew Amy would cluck over the wounds anyway.

"Wait a minute, I know that burn pattern... that's Diamond's laser," Amy said.

"Yes," Allison said. "But it's not what you think."

"Don't tell me the Technologist's escaped again?" Amy asked, aghast. "Or is somebody else going around collecting heroes' weapons?"

"Neither," Allison said. "This was Diamond herself... but it's okay, she was mind controlled."

"How is that okay?" Amy demanded. "Did she hurt anybody else? Are the other Aces okay? She didn't hurt them, did she?"

"No, but I did," Allison said, feeling a stab of guilt. "They were... they were all being remote controlled. I had to rough them up pretty badly before I figured out how to shut it down. Look, I've been dying to tell you all about this but now that I'm home, what I really need is a shower and a change of clothes."

"Oh, right," Amy said, a guilty look crossing her face as she stepped back to give her roommate some space. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Allison said. "Be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

Despite her fatigue, she took the stairs up to her room two at a time; their condo was two stories, and her upstairs bedroom had its own attached bath. Under the welcoming sensation of hot water pulsating across her back, two shakes turned into twenty, but the heat and steam was exactly what Allison needed to revive her tired muscles and exhausted mind. When the shower was over, she found she had the energy to dry herself telekinetically, brushing the water off her skin with a thought before wrapping her hair up in a towel... she had yet to find a way to dry her hair mentally that didn't leave it all frizzy. She slipped on her favorite red robe... it was so well-worn that it was faded almost to pink, but she tried not to think about that... and headed downstairs.

Amy was waiting for her in the living room with a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a plate upon which a ring of cracked wheat and peppercorn crackers surrounded an almond-studded cheese ball that almost certainly had begun its life sometime after Allison had headed up to her shower.

"Is it too early to be drinking, or too late?" Amy asked, handing her a glass. "I can never tell."

"I think it's just the right time," Allison said, taking it gratefully and sinking equally gratefully into the couch. "If superheroes got overtime, I think I earned it tonight."

"Call the Super Human Resources department and tell them they owe you time and a half," Amy joked with a giggle.

"More like double time and a fifty percent raise," Allison said.

"Done!" Amy cried.

"And I want a corner office," Allison said, ticking off her fingers, "and stock options, and a personal assistant named Buck--Australian, preferably, and a flat screen TV, and a pony..."

She had to swat away an aptly-named throw pillow, which caused her wine to slosh dangerously around in the glass. She clamped down over the opening with her mind, preventing even a drop from spilling.

"Anyways, we have a flat screen TV, you goof," Amy said, gesturing across the glass-topped coffee table to the immense screen where a large-as-life image of Champion was angrily pushing away a reporter's microphone.

"I meant to hang over my bed," Allison said. "In case Buck's stamina exceeds his prowess."

Amy said nothing, but her nose crinkled... a sure sign that the conversation was heading somewhere she wasn't comfortable following. Allison wasn't going to press it. She was thankful, after the bizarre and unsettling events of the night, to have a chance to relax and goof off in her own home, in the company of her best friend.

"Are they still running that story?" Allison said, turning her attention to the TV. The Global News Channel had been replaying footage of a plane crash and Champion's reactions for almost twenty four hours.

"Yeah," Amy said. "Champion's been refusing to talk to the press any more, so they keep just showing the same footage with new commentary. I don't think such a tiny amount of film has ever been subjected to more scrutiny since the Kennedy assassination... and I know Starshard is the hero of the hour, but I think maybe people are afraid to be the first person to say that she could have transported the whole plane safely to the ground if she'd thought of it."

"Champion's always struck me as an arrogant jerk... better he gets tarred and feathered than her," Allison said. "But it must have been a really slow news day if they're still beating him into the ground."

"Actually, there was a church bombing in Star Harbor and a break out of some kind in Nebula City," Amy said. "I've been staring at the screen for the last three hours... but enough about that. If I got everything right, you actually beat all four Aces tonight?"

"Yeah, but I'm not exactly proud of that," Allison said.

"Well, you shouldn't be overjoyed about fighting them, but I'd be a little proud," Amy said. "Those four together are devastating. And if they were mind controlled, you've got no reason to feel bad."

"I just feel bad for putting the hurt on them to keep them down when it turns out I could have ended the fight any time I wanted," Allison said. "It turns out electricity shorted out whatever it was that was controlling them... I tried to get more information from the 4B agents afterwards, but if they knew anything they weren't sharing."

"They didn't know anything," Amy said. "They never know anything... and if it involves technology they're not familiar with, they'll end up going to an outside expert."

"Which in California, means either Thoth or Dr. Day," Allison said. "And since Thoth is practically family to you..."

"...we've got a fifty-fifty chance of knowing their expert's findings before he officially reports them," Amy said. "Especially since we're going to Olympus Island tomorrow."

"We are?"

"Yes, to pick up your new body armor," Amy said.

"My what?"

"The new body armor I made Thoth make for you," Amy said non-chalantly. "Uh, happy early birthday."

"Amy!" Allison said, slightly scandalized. Even though Allison had been welcomed by the extended family that was the Pantheon of Heroes, she still couldn't help thinking of them as larger-than-life figures into whose world she was allowed to intrude. She was an aspiring superhero... they were the real deal.

"You said you needed a new outfit," Amy said, shrugging.

"I meant something that would express myself more artistically," Allison said. "I didn't mean to bother the Pantheon with my little concerns."

"I just don't like you flying around the city without adequate protection," Amy said. "Diamond doesn't intend her weapons to be lethal to begin with, but you could just as easily have been hit by something deadlier tonight."

"That was my own fault," Allison said. "She hadn't got into the fight yet, and I got careless."

With that Allison launched into the story of her confrontation outside the jewelry store. Amy listened attentively, nodding approvingly each time Allison described how she'd used her powers to fight off her opponents and gasping at the mentions of her wounds. Allison then recounted the bizarre encounter that had taken place afterwards, deep within the bowels of the Department 4B office building. Agent Suzie Velvet, a seemingly disgruntled psi-agent, had made her an offer she had to refuse: if Allison would help her get a position working with the Pantheon, she would spin the incident to make Allison look like a bigger hero... at the Aces' expense. When Allison declined, Velvet claimed the whole thing was a test... though Allison hadn't believed her.

"The really strange part is what happened next," Allison said. She was a little hesitant to mention this, but only a little... Amy was her best friend, and had no reason to doubt her sanity. "When the dampeners turned off, everything started to get fainter... sights and sounds... and then I was waking up on a stretcher, outside the jewelry store. Like the whole thing was a dream."

"Like it never happened?" Amy said.

"Yeah," Allison said. "Like that. Just like that."

"Wow," Amy said. There was a brief silence where the two friends sipped their wine thoughtfully.

"But..." Amy begain again. "You totally know it did, right?"

"Oh, absolutely," Allison said. She'd never doubted it... she was just glad her friend had come to the same conclusion so quickly. "It was so obvious. But I checked with the agents at the scene, and the night receptionist at the 4B offices... they say there's no such agent as Suzie Velvet."

"If she was trying to go behind her bosses' backs, they may be telling the truth... now," Amy said. "Imagine someone trying to sleaze their way into the Pantheon of Heroes..."

Amy trailed off into a series of vicious-sounding imprecations in her native Portuguese. She sounded personally affronted by the idea, which made Allison feel a twinge of sympathetic anger as well as a tiny surge of pride... she knew she had done well in how she had rejected the offer. Though Amphitrite was not a full-fledged member of the Pantheon, she had plenty of reason to feel protective of the organization that was both literally and metaphorically her family... and from her reaction here, Allison knew Amy would have approved of Allison's conduct.

"So... how was your day?" Allison said, knowing how anti-climactic it sounded.

"Oh, I had a little excitement," Amy said. "I was doing an evening patrol of the bay and I ran into the weirdest thing. I was swimming around one of the big piers when I heard a disturbance overhead... you'd be surprised how sounds can carry underwater... so I launched myself out of the water and onto the pier. At first I thought it was just a big octopus that had somehow got stranded and couldn't pull itself over the side, but that was when I noticed it had a sixteen arms, horns, and a giant beak that it was using to break open a crate of dried fish."

"Wow," Allison said. "So what'd you do?"

"Well, I tried communicating with it first but there was just no response... and while I was doing that it inked me in the face and got away," Amy said. "I have no idea where it came from or why it was breaking into crates of fish."

"Maybe just for the halibut?" Allison said, giggling.

"Funny," Amy said. "Anyway, you call your work and tell them you're not feeling well..."

"I can't," Allison said, with a sudden feeling of profound fatigue at the realization that she'd need to get dressed for work soon.

"I don't think you want to tell them that you're flying to Pantheon HQ to pick up your new supersuit..."

"No, I'm serious, Amy," Allison said. "I'm starting a big job tomorrow and I can't afford to slack off. Remember when I told you about the Genevieve contract?"

"I believe you used the phrase 'lace-choked horror' to describe their sample layouts," Amy said. "You'll hardly be missing out."

"Yeah, well, it's still a national campaign, and even if I don't have a lot of room to stretch my legs creatively, it could lead to bigger things," Allison said. "You know I can't neglect my obligations, even to hang with the Pantheon."

"I know," Amy said, sighing. "I just don't think this job is good for you... you've got so much talent. You should be making art for yourself, not designing pamphlets and magazine inserts for some snooty spa chain. You working for an ad agency would be like me... working as a fry cook in a truck stop."

"Someday, I'll put my talent to better use," Allison said wistfully. "But everybody's got to start somewhere, right?"

"I guess... but anyway, first thing after work we're heading to Olympus, and no complaints, okay?"

"Oh, I suppose I can force myself," Allison said with a grin. "But I've really got to get to bed and try to steal at least a little shut-eye."

"Alright, goodnight."

"Goodnight."

One floor below the living room of the two heroines, a woman with hair the general color and texture of rusty barbed wire looked over the e-mail she'd composed, reading it through in its entirety to ensure that it contained all the salient information in a form that would not be recognizable to anybody who didn't know what to look for. She gave a little nod in satisfaction... what seemed like a bland and banal recitation of a day's worth of soap opera plots contained coded references to the time of Allison's arrival and the major points of her conversation with her roommate, with special attention to her impressions of her earlier interactions with Department 4B.

She hit send, and then shuffled to the bedroom and readied herself for a long-delayed sleep. She took special care to recite the mantra-like series of mathematical formulae that would make her sleeping brain patterns less susceptible to psychic eavesdropping.

Finally, she drifted off into pleasant, dreamless blackness. Sharon Juszczyk was, in her mind, a faithful public servant who did a thankless job and did it well, and so she slept the sleep of the just.