Star Harbor Nights

Despite her earlier protestations, it was already pushing noon when Allison stepped off a CAT bus in front of the 1901 Building, home of Stan Glenn Images. She owned a car, but parking in the city was hard to come by and the Crescent Area Transit system was clean and efficient. There was a rail stop just up the road from her house that connected to the major bus lines. She enjoyed the morning commute, as it gave her a time to organize her thoughts for the day ahead... effectively shelving any "super business" until the ride home, when she could similarly put away her thoughts of layouts and color schemes.

On this day, she was having a harder time than usual clearing her mind for work. The excitement of the previous night mixed with the prospects for the evening were simply proving too much to just push away... and the few hours of sleep she'd stolen had only brought her exhaustion into sharper focus. She needed something to give her a boost, like a jolt of caffeine or...

"Sam!" Allison said cheerfully, seeing her favorite co-worker coming up the sidewalk. Though she referred to herself as "Samantha D." when dealing with clients, she was almost always addressed as "Sam", rarely "Samantha"... and never "Sammy."

Sam had her own take on the office policy of dressing professionally: as her profession was artist, she insisted on dressing "artistically." Today she wore a pair of plastic, ladybug-spotted horned rim glasses that seemed too big for her face. She had about a dozen different frames, but these were her favorites. She also wore bell-bottom jeans with faded butterfly appliqués and an aquamarine sweater that was definitely too big for her body. Her relentlessly curly black hair peeked out from the edges of a knit wool hat.

When Allison had first come to work for SGI, Sam had decided that her habit of wearing amber-tinted sunglasses even inside the office made them kindred spirits. When she eventually learned the truth--that Allison actually wore them to blend in instead of stand out--she'd expressed some consternation, but ultimately respected Allison's choice.

"Boy, girl... you look like hell warmed over!" Sam said.

"I think you mean death," Allison said with a grin. "Hell, traditionally, is warm enough already."

"Yeah, her, too," Sam said with a mock-dismissive wave. "So, what's the story?"

"What story?" Allison asked. "I just overslept a little."

"You never come in late," Sam insisted. "What happened? New man? New woman? New batteries? I want to hear all the details, including a product number, if applicable."

"Nothing like that," Allison said, smiling indulgently despite her deep fatigue. Sam's exuberant nature could bring a smile to anybody's face. "I was just, uh, out celebrating being given my first big project and got a little carried away."

"...which is when you met...?"

"Nobody," Allison said. "I met nobody."

"And you fell in love with nobody and now you're pregnant with nobody's baby," Sam said. "Good thing you can count on nobody to do the right thing these days."

"Has anybody ever told you that you're a grade-A goofball?" Allison said.

"Only 'cause they haven't discovered a letter higher than A," Sam said.

"So, uh, is something wrong with the Corner Cafe?" Allison said, pointing to the cardboard cup in Sam's hand. "Please say no, because I desperately need thirty-two ounces of hot caffeine, and I really don't have time to to be running down the street."

"Oh, this? Nah, I'm just doin' a little market reconnaissance for the big project," she said, holding the cup up and indicating the familiar Apollo's wood nymph symbol. "I'm trying to get to know the product, in all its subtle undertones... turns out this shit doesn't have any subtle undertones, though. Just a nasty-ass aftertaste. If you ever want to replicate that famous Apollo's flavor with a drip-style coffee maker, just take the toilet paper out of your bathroom and leave a few coffee filters in its place."

"And yet, you're still drinking it," Allison noted as Sam took another sip.

"I'm supposed to be working closely with the company bigwigs on this, and they drink nothing else," Sam said. "I think it's in their contracts or something. If I can't keep a smile on my face when I drink it, or at least keep it down, I might cost the agency the account. After we both worked so hard to impress them at that meeting, that's the last thing I'd do."

"Yeah, I meant to congratulate you," Allison said. "You really deserve it... they picked the best artist for the job."

"Oh, girl, please," Sam protested. "Like a company that thinks a picture of a naked girl spreading her legs somehow screams 'Hey, this is some good coffee, right here.' knows anything about art. They wanted me because if they say their new cups were designed by 'noted commercial artist Samantha D.,' they'll get free write-ups in artsy magazines. It had nothing to do with talent or skill."

"You're just being modest," Allison said.

"Modest, hell!" Sam said. "I would've got it based on talent, too... but are we going to stand out here in the cold all day?"

"Sixty degrees isn't cold, you weenie," Allison said. "You should've tried growing up on the plains."

"The TV said it's a sunny seventy-two in Minnesota today," Sam said, ushering Allison before her into the revolving door. "So don't even."

Allison loved working in such a beautiful and historically storied building. Though converted to offices, the 1901 Building had originally been a grand hotel, and following a long campaign to preserve the building the lobby had been restored to its original state. Its elaborate tile floor, brass fixtures, and crystal chandelier looked exactly the way they had when the hotel had first opened, as period photographs on the richly veined marble walls attested.

Sam prattled on about the weather while Allison purchased her drink. The Corner Cafe occupied the former spot of the hotel's restaurant and lounge, complete with a cappuccino bar inside the lobby. Allison smiled at the security guard and the building receptionist as they headed towards the elevator.

Just before they reached the elevator, the chime sounded and the doors slid open. Bob McCarty, SGI's systems administrator and web designer, came bursting out.

"One side, Junior," he said, pushing past them.

"Junior?" Allison said to Sam, raising an eyebrow. She couldn't tell who the remark was aimed at. Bob's eyes had been on Allison as he said it, but that didn't mean anything except that her green moleskin pantsuit was more form-fitting than Sam's shapeless sweater.

"Five years of working alongside me and Bob finally noticed that my last name was Davis," Sam said, slipping into the elevator. "He thinks it's hilarious."

"I still can't believe he's managed to hold down this job for five years," Allison said, following Sam and hitting the button for the seventh floor, the "ground floor" of SGI. "He's probably got some dirt on Stan."

"Girl, that man gets dirt on everybody around him," Sam said. "He's like Pig Pen. I can't stand next to him for five minutes without thinking about a shower."

"Five minutes and he's thinking about you in a shower, too," Allison said.

"Oh, hit nine for me, babe," Sam said. "I've got another meeting with 'the executives' to discuss their vision for the new logo design. The last time, they sent me home with a gift basket of espresso beans and biscotti... which is apparently Italian for 'stale cookie.'"

"You're supposed to dip it in the coffee," Allison said.

"In this coffee? There's got to be something in the Geneva Conventions about that," Sam said.

"Well, this is my stop," Allison said. "I'd say see you at lunch, if I hadn't already slept through it."

"That's okay, I ate for you," Sam said. "It wasn't that good. I'll talk to you later, hon."

Allison made her way through the open workfloor to her desk. Artists at SGI had big drafting-style desks with personal computers. Allison used her computer less often than most, prefering to work with her hands, so her desk was often a little cluttered. Today, it was a lot so.

Because of the energy she'd brought to the early stages of the Apollo's project, she'd been given the other most coveted assignment of the moment. The luxurious and traditionally staid Genevieve Body Spa was giving itself an image make-over to help themselves appeal to younger and more middle-class clientele. The catch phrase for their image, which Genevieve had supposedly come up with herself, was "The New Woman."

Apparently, The New Woman was into much the same things as The Old Woman: pink and frilly things. Though Allison's project didn't involve direct client contact like Sam's did, she had been given a copious volume of notes as well as an official company style guide and color palette to follow. When she'd got her first look at how specifically detailed these documents were, Allison had wondered why they were bothering with an outside agency at all before deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

After an hour and a half of trying to find an allowable variation on the color scheme that would be remotely appealing to anybody outside the six-to-eight-year-old-sparkle-fairy-princess demographic, Allison was feeling a strong urge to check the nag's teeth.

"Damn, girl, did a flamingo explode in here? I haven't seen this much pink outside of a drunk tank," Sam said, coming up behind her. Her sudden presence provided a welcome interruption. She plunked a cellophane-wrapped wicker basket overflowing with Apollo's merchandise down amid the clutter. "Here, have a gift basket."

Allison looked dubiously at it.

"You know, I don't know if I can use any of this... Amy brings home a really good coffee blend from work," Allison said. "She mixes it with this really rich chocolate..."

"Well, maybe you can do something with the basket," Sam said. "Something tells me this isn't the last one of these I'm going to be seeing. So, what you been working on?"

"Oh, well, they want this stupid half-inch pink border... excuse me, 'minimum' half-inch pink border around everything," Allison explained, proferring some of her sketches. "As it stands, it just sort of catches the attention and holds it... everything they want in the actual ad is so muted and tame, your eye just kind of slides off it and falls back to the border. So I'm trying to make it less boring by incorporating some tasteful semi-abstract nudes sort of flowing out of the border and into the ad copy. My first attempt was a little busy, but here's what I've come up with. It's not very good..."

"Not good? Girl, considering what you have to work with, it's positively brillig!"

"Thanks, but you're just saying... wait, did yuou just say 'brillig'?"

"Those borogroves at Genevieve are gonna be all mimsy when they get a load of this," Sam went on. Somewhere on the floor, a phone started ringing. "The old bandersnatch herself'd be absolutely frumious..."

"Sam, what the hell are you talking about?" Allison demanded, while the unanswered phone seemed to grow louder. Another phone rang, closer. Wasn't anybody working?

"What? I said your work is brilliant," Sam said defensively. "I used to think you were on some false modesty trip, but maybe you actually don't realize how good you actually are."

"Oh... I thought you said... well, never mind," Allison said. The phone on her desk started ringing, too. How long had she had a phone? "Too much pink on the brain... I must be going mad."

"You must be," said Sam, "or you wouldn't have come here. I've gotta scoot back upstairs, but you look a little peaked... you should maybe take a break, or get some rest, or I don't know, wake up or something."

"Yeah, probably, you're... what?"

"Wake up, Allison. Wake up."

Just like that, the ringing of the phones came together into a single insistent buzz, and Allison sat up in bed, throwing the white covers aside and stabbing the sleep button with her mind. She took in a few gasping breaths, and then laughed... she'd dreamt of going in to work before, but always it had been the more menial, repetitive parts of her job that were included.

But since when were her bed covers white?

There were no lights or windows, but the room was uniformly bright, and everything was white, even the pictures on the wall. There was shape and texture, but no color. And her bed...

Her bed was the wrong size. It was vast, the size of a banquet hall table. She hadn't noticed it before... and now that she looked down its impossible length, she noticed something else, too.

Perched on the far edge of it was a little man, sitting like a frog. He came sharply into focus as she stared, his image rushing towards her like a far-off object viewed through a telephoto lens. He was wearing a battered top hat and a suit of crushed velvet, the jacket of which had been put on backwards. His face was lean and sharp in places, but with saggy, flap-like jowls, a drooping nose, and pendulous ear lobes that lent an overall appearance of melting wax. His thin lips stretched themselves thinner, pulled as if by hooks into a ghastly caricature of a smile.

She stared transfixed in horror at that smile, aware that at the edges of her vision the room was changing. Colors were being filled in. Strange symbols, letters she didn't recognize, were appearing on the wall behind the man, but she couldn't tear herself away to look at them more closely.

The mouth opened, and again the movement seemed completely unnatural. It came not from the muscles beneath the skin, but from some invisible force pulling the lower lip down to reveal a horrifying black rictus opening into nothingness.

"Hello, Alice," the man said. His voice echoed cavernously from deep within the blackness. "I'm waiting for you."

Fire blossomed from the words on the wall. The mouth gaped wider...

...and Allison sat up with a start, knocking color guides and assorted papers off her desk. The back of her head collided with the face of Sam, who had evidently been standing beside her trying to gently shake her awake.

"Oh, my God, Sam... are you okay?" Allison cried, jumping to her feet, and scattering even more papers. Her concern for her friend--and the growing awareness of people staring from all over the open floor--pushed the details of the bizarre dreams from the front of her head.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, but girl, you're burning up," Sam said. "You're sweating right through your clothes... and I can't think of the last time I saw you pop a bead of perspiration."

"I must be coming down with something," Allison said. She knew she wasn't... she was just tired. She read her own internal temperature as 106 F, a potentially lethal fever for a normal human but a simple side-effect of stress for a pyrokinetic. She shifted it downward to a more reasonable level.

"Must be," Sam said. "I was just popping down to see if you'd join me in a non-corporate coffee break, and I found you first basin'-it with a sample layout. When you didn't wake up at first, it damn near scared me to death."

"Yeah, sorry," Allison said. "I wonder what Stan would say if I left early after coming in late."

"You shouldn't have come in at all if you're going to be passing out at your desk," Sam chided. "You get your butt home and let me worry about Stan."

"Yes, 'Mom'," Allison said. She spotted the basket in Sam's hand. "That's not for me, is it?"

"Hell no," Sam said. "Holidays are just round the corner... think of all the time I can save buying presents for people I don't like."