day Shelly and I met in first grade and became joined at the hip. Most weekends it had been a tossup where we were sleeping, and when I’d been diagnosed with childhood cancer Mom relied on Shelly to let her know what was going on in my head. It didn’t bother me at all that she would certainly enlist Shelly again.
* * *
I flew out in the predawn light, using one of Vulcan’s chameleon-suits. A baggy, hooded jumpsuit with mitts and booties, it gave me amazing camouflage as I took off. Once west of Chicago, I peeled it off and stowed it in my travel bag before pouring on the speed. The first time I’d made this trip I’d been hanging onto Atlas’ feet as he’d taken us above Mach 4. I wasn’t nearly that fast yet, so it took me a couple of hours to reach LA.
Only four months had passed since the Big One flattened LA, San Diego, and most of Southern California, but I flew over busy freeways and the city looked clear of rubble. Downtown, where business buildings had fallen like dominoes, the skeletons of new buildings rose everywhere.
One of the advantages of the Post-Event world was how fast we could recover from hits like the Big One; South Cal had been flooded with superheroes and superhuman-staffed construction companies like The Crew. It didn’t make up for the reality that the Big One had been triggered by an insane superhuman, but it helped.
But it didn’t help me. I still saw the ghosts of collapsed buildings, the dust that had hung over everything, and I could almost smell the broken sewer lines and bodies of January. And Whittier Base, now Fort Whittier, still stood south of the reviving downtown. The military was turning the base into a memorial park and training center.
Fortunately my destination lay in north LA.
Lunette’s is on Santa Monica Blvd, along the old Route 66. It’s a club for superheroes, like The Fortress in Chicago, and I’d expected something the same when I got there. It couldn’t have been more different.
The low building squatted behind a strip-mall, out of sight of the street. It had obviously started life as something else, and its windows were covered and painted over. The sign over its steel doors was just a crescent moon, and both the doors and the sign looked old. The only splash of color came from a pair of low concrete pylons that stood sentry in front of the doors—obvious barriers to anyone who wanted to try crashing the gate with a car. Those looked new.
It was Saturday morning and I’d raced the dawn to the coast, so only a few forlorn vehicles huddled in the nearest corner of the fenced-in parking lot. I pushed through the doors and blinked. If not for my ability to see into the infrared spectrum, I’d have been blind till my eyes adjusted to the low interior light. The club had a long bar and an open dance floor surrounded by tall club tables, and I saw doors that probably led to private rooms. Everything looked cheap, purchased from timely bankruptcy sales, and hip-hop music played to a nearly empty room. Where The Fortress was filled with superhero memorabilia, Lunette’s was bare of decoration. It could have been any hole-in-the-wall club (not that I’d been in many).
Orb didn’t look like she had either. She sat at one of the club tables, wearing a cream colored business suit and lime green tie, legs crossed, one foot hooked on the rung of her chair, the other foot bouncing gently in its designer shoe. I joined her, ordering the club’s best bottled water while she watched me.
“Watched” didn’t quite describe it. I couldn’t see Orb’s eyes; her golden hair, swept around her head and curled on one side like a conch shell, as hard-set as a punk rocker’s mohawk, completely hid the top half of her face. A silver orb about the size of a softball floated by her shoulder. To most people the hovering sphere probably looked smooth, chromed and featureless, but I could see micro-tiny waves rippling across its surface. Shelly had briefed me during my flight; Orb was blind and deaf, the sphere her eyes and ears. I smiled at it instead of at her.
“Thank you for seeing me so quickly,” I said.
She sipped her drink and the ripples deepened.
“For Astra of the Sentinels? Anytime.”
The words, spoken in a pleasant, low contralto and with an edge of amusement,