Star Harbor Nights

On the night that Ray and Perfect squared off against Bloodhound's Bone Lords, if you had been present at the fight and if you had turned your attention to the rooftop of the building nearest the unfolding scene, you would have seen... well, nothing in particular, really.

If you looked very closely--and had some sort of light amplification device--you would have just made out the figure of a cloaked man, tall and broad shouldered, watching... simply watching. He watched as Perfect strode up to and quickly downed the gang leader. He watched the gang members freeze in shock, but he knew before anybody else did the fight was far from over.

He watched three men throw themselves immediately at the tiny figure of the woman. He didn't need to see much more beyond the opening salvoes. His further attention was not required; barring an extraordinary occurence, the heroes would win without his intervention. In fact, he had known this from the moment Perfect made her move... but he believed in being thorough.

The Dock Shadow touched a stud hidden beneath the velvet-like cloth of his cowl, shutting off the magnification in his lenses. The material of the cowl was, of course, black... but to call it black was not to do it justice. There are degress of blackness, because every normal substance reflects some light, no matter how dark they may seem to be. There are black materials and pigments developed for industrial use, or in astronomy, that manage to absorb more than ninety-nine percent of the light that falls upon them. The outer layer of the Dock Shadow's cloak and cowl fell into this category, so that when he wrapped the cloak around himself and stood motionless he became practically invisible in darkness. When in motion, he presented a difficult target because his body had no clear boundaries to separate it from the shadows around him.

These advantages only gave one a slight edge when one pitted oneself against multiple opponents armed with guns and the willingness to kill, but a slight edge was all a man of the Dock Shadow's capabilities needed. They had also served to elevate the his status from that of a mere flesh and blood vigilante to that of a legend. He wasn't just human, the whispers said, but some kind of teleporter... a mutant with the ability to appear and disappear at will. Or, some said, he was a ghost... no doubt seeking to avenge his own violent death at the hands of the city's criminal element.

Or he was a vampire, using the excuse of a heroic crusade to surreptitiously prey on those least likely to be missed.

Or he was simply an urban legend, a cautionary tale for bad guys.

The man who was called the Dock Shadow had heard many such stories, and had probably spread a few of them himself. It was always helpful when a violent crook chose to throw holy water at him instead of simply gunning him down, for instance. It was also far easier to intimidate somebody who believed you when you told them you could get to them any time and any place... even if their reason for believing so was utterly fantastic and completely wrong.

As sensational as the legends were, there were, of course, true stories about the Dock Shadow that, if they were told in full, would strain the credulity even further.... but we are concerned with the events of this one night, when the Dock Shadow quit his rooftop vantage point and made his way across the city to the roof of another building, of a large factory situated near the harbor. Once again, he positioned himself motionless in the darkness, not watching this time... simply waiting.

"You might as well come out," he said, at length.

"Your legend does you credit," a woman's voice said from the darkness behind him.

 He turned to see her standing in a confident, easy stance on top of the brick chimney that she'd been hiding behind. His computerized night vision translated images into a very good semblance of their real color in full daylight, so he could tell that both the jeans and the short sleeveless denim jacket she wore were dyed a very unusual shade of green that clashed utterly with the blue tank top and running shoes... but he wasn't a fashion critic, and he'd certainly encountered more garish outfits.

"Unless you can see out the back of your head and through solid objects, you must have heard me," she continued. "And I would swear I didn't make a sound."

"You didn't," he said simply. "But I was told that you were punctual."

"So if I hadn't been on time, you would have just said 'You might as well come out' every so often until I showed up?"

"No, I would have said it once and then left," the Dock Shadow said. "If you're not everything I was told you are, then you're wasting my time."

"What else were you told about me?" she asked, with an almost icy casualness.

"I was told you were good," he said.

"I am," she said simply.

"How good?"

"Real good."

"Show me."

Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Her body seemed to both tense and relax as she shifted her legs slightly, centering her weight. Her gaze locked with his, though she could not see his eyes, hidden as they were beneath the blacked-out lenses. His own posture adjusted more noticeably into a battle-ready stance. They remained like that for several seconds, taking absolute measure of each other on a level both more and less substantial than any physical plane.

"Good," he said, finally. He let the tension out of his body and held his hands out to his side as he approached.

"I'm impressed," the woman said, leaping lightly down from her perch. Her name was Diana Peacock, but she was called the Parakeet. "Most men would have made me actually beat on them a little before they admitted I was better than them."

"I just said you were good," the Shadow said.

"Your body says I'm better," she said. "Anyway, you don't take Ibis at his word when he says I can take care of myself?"

"If I took anybody at their word about anything, it would be him... but I believe in being thorough," he replied. "What has he told you?"

"That I was to be on this rooftop, at this time," Diana said.

"And just like that, you're here."

"Just like that," she said. "Some people have earned my trust. I don't give it lightly."

"You asked for this meeting."

"Marina West," she said. "Who is she to you?"

"To me? Nobody. She's a damned fine investigative repoter, though. Her recent promotion to anchorwoman was for her own protection... it was 'suggested' to the Channel 7 management that she'd get into less trouble behind a desk," the Dock Shadow said. "Being a damned fine reporter, she took the attempt to stifle her investigation as an insult and redoubled her efforts, privately."

"Investigation into what?"

"She believes there's a new figure at the heart of Star Harbor's criminal power structures," the Dock Shadow said.

"Isn't there always?"

"So far, yes," he said. "But for years... ever since the Harbor Master's downfall... it's seemed like there was going to be a permanent vacuum. Many have been content to think that organized crime is finished in the city, that nobody's willing to follow in the Master's fatal footsteps... but I've never been satisfied with that line of thinking. The longer the position of kingpin of the city stayed open, the more attractive a prize it had to seem. Somebody would have tried to claim it by now. Marina thinks somebody has."

"But how could it be pulled off without anybody noticing?"

"Stealth and misdirection... and not even much of that. The years of the Harbor Master's reign, and of all the lunatics that came before him, have conditioned everybody to expect a criminal mastermind to behave a certain way," the Dock Shadow said. "Hijacking TV broadcasts to make frivolousdemands, holding the city for ransom with an experimental bomb, publically challenging heroes for ego-inflamed grudge matches... things like that. If somebody more practical moved in and set up shop, they could consolidate their power before anybody ever knew they were there."

"Somebody without ego, then," Diana reasoned.

"Or somebody of such pure ego that they don't require outside reinforcement," he said. "That's the more dangerous possibility, and also the more likely, given that we're talking about a man who would dominate the criminal activities of a major metropolitan area."

 "So you think it's true, then."

"Why else the attempts on Marina West's life?" the Shadow retorted. "You questioned Samson, I presume."

"He didn't know anything," she said. "Said he got word that 'somebody' wanted to put a hit on her, and wanted it done circumspect."

"That fits. This organization appears to be highly compartmentalized. Most of its members don't even know they're part of a larger organization... they just know who they owe their loyalty to, who they get their supplies and their orders from and who they kick money back up to. Normally, the big boss's name would be on everybody's lips because he would demand their personal loyalty and respect... but this boss is content to let the middlemen pose as the lords of their own fiefdoms. The bosses at each level demand respect from their immediate underlings, and in turn they give it to their immediate superiors... everybody thinks they're dealing directly with someone in the inner circle, but when you shake down the supposed head man, he just fingers somebody else above him."

"How far have you followed the chain of bosses?"

"High up enough to realize it was fruitless... you can only chase down one avenue so long before the mystery man sees what's happening and eliminates that particular strand of the web," he said. "So I decided another tactic... start in the middle instead of the bottom, high enough up that the individuals involved would have to have some sense of the larger shape of things, some means of communicating with other parts of the organization, even if only blindly."

"Sounds like a good plan," the martial artist said. "You make it sound easy."

"It would be easier if I had somebody else to front for me," the Shadow said. "After what happened to the Master...  the man or men in charge will be on their guard against me specifically. If I take too direct an action against them, it could turn into open warfare... and the rank-and-file vigilantes aren't accustomed to war. They don't know how bad it can get."

"But we do," the woman known as the Parakeet said, and she knew that this was as true of him as it was of her. It was one of the things that had passed between them in the moments when they had locked their gazes.

"Yes," the Shadow agreed. "We do. Are you in?"

 She closed her eyes; took a long, slow breath.

"For now," she said. "What have you got?"

 "His name is Guzman... Fernando Guzman. He was just a mid-level flunky, but he got his first taste of the big time... and choked on it. Now that he suspects just how deep he's in it, he's had a change of heart."

"He told you this?"

"Not me personally... he was feeling a little confessional, and lacking a priest, he turned to his bartender, who happened to owe me a few favors. I need you to talk to him, and follow up whatever information he gives you."

"Do you want me to report back to you?" Diana asked.

 "I think I can keep tabs well enough myself," the Dock Shadow said.

"I'll be in touch," Diana said.

Nothing remained to be said. The two warriors stood unmoving on the dark, cold rooftop with no sound but the wind.

"Well, this is... awkward," Diana said after the silence had stretched on. "Usually, the other person would have looked away or blinked or something by now... do you think we should just, I don't know... count to three and vanish at the same... fuck!"

She had just realized she was talking to empty air.