Random short piece I wrote.  Ten points to anyone who guess what
I was reading immediately beforehand.  (Zombie managed it.)

Django Wexler (khaine)
khaine@mindless.com

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
                        Douglas Adams

Sailor Stars

	The big black Mercedes rolled to a halt, engine sputtering.  I
loved that old car, the solidity of it and the smell, but even one so
mechanically uninclined as I could tell that it was on its last legs.
It looked as out of place, here, as a diamond in a sack of coal, flanked
by a station wagon with no windows and peeling paint and a Volkswagon
that looked as though it hadn't moved in years and might never move
again.  The rain blurred the edges of things, surrounding the rotting
cars with the faint mist of ricochets.  
	I opened the door, stepped out into a puddle, and was instantly
soaked from head to toe.  This was the kind of rain that fell as though
it wanted to conquer the Earth, like it would only stop when the waters
rose above the tallest skyscraper and everything was clean again.  I
didn't bother to shield my head with my hands -- not much point -- but I
kept my fingers curled around the scrap of paper until I found what I
was looking for, a guttering neon sign halfway down the block, flanked
by a heavy metal door.
	The bar was nicer on the inside.  The fa�ade was nothing but
crumbling brick, but within there was a kind of elegance.  Red-trimmed
seats, gold banisters, and polished wooden stools that had faded
gracefully with time.  I shook the rain off of my coat and left it with
my hat on an ancient, sagging hatstand.  The place was nearly empty,
only a few solitary drunks curled over their misery at the nether end of
the bar, so it was only a moment before the proprietor wandered over.
	"Well?" he asked, directly.  "What can I get you?"
	"Just a club soda," I said.  "I'm looking for someone."
	The man's face went blotchy red.  He was in his forties, with a
receding fringe of hair and the slight suggestion of a paunch under his
jacket.  I'm sure he'd been asked for people's whereabouts too many
times, by too many unsavory characters.  "Look--"
	"Grayson," I said, patiently.  "Is he here?"
	The bartender expression cleared with relief.  "Him?  He's in
the back.  You don't want to talk to him, though.  All he does is go on
and on about--"
	I cut him off again, this time to slide a couple of bills across
the countertop.  "Club soda.  And whatever he's drinking."
	I left for the back of the bar with a sparkling clear glass in
one hand a thick, yellow one in the other.  Only one of the tables in
back was occupied, so Grayson was easy to find.  On the way, I passed
the TV - the mayor was yammering mutely about something or other.
Probably replacing the chief of police, again.  I shook my head and
pulled a chair out from the table, setting down the two glasses with a
clink.
	Grayson sat up a little straighter and peered at me with bleary
eyes.  He looked ten years older than he had the last time I'd seen him,
but that had been on TV and under somewhat different circumstances.  Now
his once-glossy hair was thinning, and there was only a fading remnant
of the square-jawed hunk under a decade of booze and Big Macs.  He shook
his head, slowly.
	"I thought it would be you.  Or someone like you.  Jesus."
	I slid the sickly yellow concoction across the table, and he
stared at it morosely while I took a sip from my own drink.  Our eyes
met, and he stared for a moment more.
	"So," he said, finally.  "Now what?"
	"I don't know who you think I am, Mr. Grayson, but I suspect
you're wrong.  They say you have a story to tell, and I'd like to hear
it."
	"Would you."  He drained half his drink in one swallow and
slammed down on the tabletop, hard enough for a few drops to jump out
and crawl down his hand.  "Would you, now."
	"I would," I said, leaning back.
	"Nobody else wanted to.  Jim must've heard it a thousand times.
Haven't you, Jim?"  He raised his voice, and across the bar the
proprietor raised his middle finger without looking in our direction.
Grayson looked back at the table.  "So what's so different about you?"
	"It's an interesting story."
	"It's a depressing story."  He took another, more sparing
swallow.  "Sick, twisted, and depressing.  They're all dead now, you
know."
	"Dead?"
	"Dead, or close enough.  My little girls.  I created them."
	I stirred the ice in my drink with one finger.  "So I've heard."
	"It was a joke!  Did they tell you that?  It was a gag, a
fucking joke, but he took me seriously and after a while I started
taking myself seriously.  That was the fucking problem."
	"Who?"
	"Pendleton.  He's dead now, too.  Not that it'll stop anything.
There's too much money behind it now."
	"Who's Pendleton?"
	"He was the head of the studio.  I was in charge of the project,
I dreamed up the whole damn show--"
	"You mean you stole it," I said, without rancor.
	"Fine, stole it, whatever you fucking want.  Nobody on this side
of the ocean had ever heard of it, so I said it was my idea and who was
going to stop me?  And then one fucking night, we were drinking, and I
said to Pendleton, 'Let's make it fucking *real*.'  I mean, why not?  It
was a joke.  I knew just the girl.  Sixteen, looked younger, smart as a
whip, and she'd never say a word."
	Grayson took another pull, leaving his glass nearly empty.  I
sipped my club soda and held my peace.
	"I didn't really mean it," he said finally.  "Or maybe I did,
but not like this.  Pendleton loved the idea.  I mean, *loved* it.  The
studio could do it, too, they owned the cops and the networks.  So we
bought her in, dressed her up in the stupid costume, and had her fight
some stagehand in a monster suit."  He closed his eyes for a moment
before continuing.  "God, she was beautiful.  Usagi.  Sometimes I have
trouble remembering her real name, 'cause we all called her that.  My
little rabbit."
	"A guy in a rubber suit?"
	"Not after we were done with him.  You haven't seen what they
can do with computers these days.  When we showed it on TV, on all the
networks, it looked *real*.  That was the trick.  That was what
Pendleton wanted, you see.  It had to look real.  The biggest fucking
publicity stunt in history."
	I snorted.  "It's a miracle you got it onto the news."
	"The studio fucking owns the news, I told you.  Guys like
Pendleton *make* the news.  When President fucking Nader wants to bomb
some dirtball country, first thing he does is call up Pendleton and ask
whether there's an open timeslot.  And it worked.  Seven o' clock, and
it's science fiction.  Eleven o' clock, and we had some guy from MIT
debating another guy from Princeton over where the big guy with the
claws came from.  What a fucking joke."
	I waved a finger at Jim, who brought over another glass.
Grayson drained the dregs of his old one and accepted the new without
really noticing.  I took another cold sip.
	"Afterwards," said Grayson, "Afterwards I went to Pendleton and
said alright, we did it, high-five.  Now lets bring her out here, make
her the spokesman, hawk the toys and the games and everything.  But he
wouldn't hear of it.  'Over?' he said.  'We've just fucking started,
Marty.  Now listen to this�'  And I listened, and coming out of him it
all sounded so damned reasonable.  All we had to do was find four more
girls, and come up with something for them to fight.  We started having
witnesses come forward, company people at first.  But before long they
were doing it on their own.  They'd watch that idiot show and get drunk,
and swear they saw some girl jumping from roof to roof.  It had a
momentum all its own.  And then�and then..."
	The atmosphere in the pub grew darker, somehow.  Grayson hunched
forward, becoming more conspiratorial.  I raised one eyebrow and took
another sip.
	"She came to see me one night."
	"Usagi?"
	"No."  He laughed, hollowly.  "I'd been fucking Usagi for months
at this point.  I mean, we were constantly on the move, all over the
country, just me and her in company buses and planes and whatever.  What
do you expect?  She didn't have any friends -- she couldn't talk to
anyone, except for me.  So what was I supposed to do?  But no, not her.
The other one."
	"The other one?"
	"You know, from the show.  Her opposite.  Usagi and...you know."
	"The Dark Queen."
	He hissed.  "Not so loud."
	"It's just a television show, Mr. Grayson."
	"Fuck if it is.  She showed up in my hotel room.  Locked room,
but she was there when I came back."
	"What did she say?"
	"She said, 'I have to thank you, Mr. Grayson.  I've never been
real before.'"
	I chuckled.  "Who was it, some wacko?"
	"That's what I thought.  I said -- I was a bit drunk -- I said,
'You shouldn't thank me, Your Highness.  You have to wear that
ridiculous costume.  I drew that staff for you because the toy
department said you needed an accessory.  If anything, I screwed you
over.'"
	This time I laughed, long and loud.  Jim the bartender looked
over at us and shook his head, but Grayson just stared at the table.
	"It was a joke," he said.  I was startled to realize he was on
the verge of tears.  "Just a fucking joke.  I didn't mean any of it."
	We sat in silence, for a moment.  
	"What did she look like?" I asked.  "The Dark Queen?"
	"Nothing like the show.  The same outfit, of course, but she was
just some girl.  Pretty.  Black hair, nice body, dark blue eyes.  She
didn't look much older than Usagi."  He sniffed.  "Poor fucking Usagi."
	"Did you ever see the Queen again?"
	Grayson's eyes opened wide, then he shook his head slowly.  "One
more time."
	"Tell me."
	"I've never told anyone."
	"Tell me."
	He nodded.  "They were all dead by then.  Usagi -- she was on
her was to some planned battle when this gang of kids jumped her.  You
must have seen it in the papers.  That broke me up pretty badly.  And
then the rest�just sort of went.  Ami disappeared, Mako fell from a
penthouse, Rei was killed by guns that were supposed to be firing
blanks.  Minako quit pretty quickly thereafter, I never saw her again.
And Pendleton...we found him torn to bits in his own bedroom.  He had
this dog, a mean old Rotweiller, and they said it had gotten rabies from
somewhere.  His own dog."
	"The Queen."
	"Right."  He finished the second drink in a single swallow.  "I
was at a club, downtown.  Just drinking, looking at the girls, you know.
And there she was."
	"The same girl as before?"
	"The fucking Dark Queen."
	"Are you sure, Mr. Grayson?"  I gave him a half-smile.  "You
were drunk.  Couldn't it have just been someone who looked like her?"
	"Look."  He leaned forward.  "She had her hair different, cut at
the sides inside of long.  She was dressed different -- jeans and a
tank-top instead of that ridiculous robe-thing I made for her.  But I
looked in her eyes and it was *her*."
	"The wacko."
	"The Dark fucking Queen.  And she stared at me, and I could hear
her in my head.  'I have to thank you, Mr. Grayson.'"
	I dug in my pocket for enough money to cover the drinks.  "Thank
you, Mr. Grayson.  I think I've heard enough."
	"None of them understand," he said, as though he hadn't heard
me.  "Not the police, not Pendleton, not Usagi, not any of them.  It's
belief.  Reality fucking television.  People believe that show is real."
	"Nobody really believes it."
	"They won't admit to it, you mean.   But when you see something
on the news, it's real -- that's how this country works.  They think the
show is real.  They *believe*, and that's what matters.  You think I
don't know what's going on?"  He gestured at the television.  "Three
chiefs of police in three years.  More murders every day, and people
just disappearing off the street.  Always at night.  They loved the
night.  I fucking *wrote* them that way, so our heroines could pose
against the moon.  But they're all dead, and now-"
	Grayson reached across the table, grabbing my arm and staring
into my eyes.  It was a mistake.  He stood frozen for a long moment.
	"Oh...oh Jesus," he said, finally.
	"You knew," I said, carefully removing his hand from my arm.
"But now..."
	He squeezed his eyes closed, tightly.  "Jesus.  Can..."
	"Yes?"
	"Can you answer on question?"
	I shrugged.
	"Was I right?  About the belief?  Is it really my fault?"
	I smiled.  "Yes."
	"But..."  He opened his eyes again.  "The show.  In the show,
the heroines always win.  What happened?"  His voice dropped to a
whisper.  "Why did my girls die?"
	I glanced down at the barkeep, who wasn't paying us any
attention, and then lowered my own voice.  "On television, the heroes
always win.  But nobody really believes in heroes, Mr. Grayson.  Real
life proves you wrong too quickly.  But on the other hand..."  
	I straightened up, and he followed me with his eyes.
	"Everyone believes in monsters."
	Grayson sank back down in his seat with a sigh.  "God."
	Power flowed across the table, soft as breath, and the life and
soul of this man streamed from his eyes into mine.  When I was done,
Grayson collapsed limply to the table, face first.  I walked away, back
to the bar, and thumbed another few bills onto the scarred wood.  Jim
looked up at me, then over at Grayson.
	"Let him sleep another couple of hours, then get him home," I
said.
	"Sure."
	I pushed the swinging door aside and stepped back onto the
street.  The rain had abated to a light mist, and I pulled on my coat
and hat and opened the door of the big black Mercedes.  I swung into the
driver's seat, and felt the car roar satisfactorily with the first turn
of the key.  I pulled away slowly, craving grooves through the puddles.
	From the back seat came a voice as smooth as oil and as black as
sin.  "Did you talk to him?"
	"I did."
	"And is he..."
	"Yes."
	"Good work."
	The car drifted silently away, into the rain.
	"Yes, my Queen."


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