by Gentry Race
It wasn’t long before Ari came barging in, ecstatic beyond belief. I could tell why he was happy, and he only nodded his head in approval. In his hand, he held two tickets that read ‘Wire Cafe @ Comic Con’.
“Come on, champ,” he said. “You deserve a drink.”
The line on the sixth floor to get into the Wire Cafe Rooftop Party was long, but that didn’t stop Ari. He pulled me by the arm, past the ever-stretching queue, to a set of tables where people were checking in. He gave a head nod to the sharply dressed security guard and laid down his tickets.
“VIP. For two, please,” he kindly said.
The girl inspecting tickets smiled and gave us two press passes. We walked in, taking a photo together in the entry hallway lined with Comic Con’s yellow and black logos interlocked with bright blue ‘W’s for Wire Cafe. This was where a celebrity would stop to have their obligatory press photos taken, only to be marketed virally on the internet the day after.
The rooftop was quite the sight. On our left, an open bar serving up comic hero themed drinks was situated next to a plethora of cabanas, fitted and plush, with network logos printed on the pillows. I looked for celebrities, but could only see NPCs — regular people boozing it up, holding bright green drinks containing an upside down popsicle stick marketing the latest laser sword space opera series.
We grabbed some drinks, walked past a small embankment of fake snow, and ended up at a small cocktail table not far from the epic Diamond Dragon ice statue of the woman in a long cape holding a metal sword. The DJ played fantastical superhero movie soundtracks just in front of a glass-like pool.
“So, how was it?” Ari asked me.
I was quiet.
He couldn’t help but wonder about it. How that sexual milestone felt for me. But I wanted to tell him the truth: that my feelings were occupied by a much bigger deed. I was responsible for the deaths of those two men.
How am I supposed to live with myself now?
I noticed the crowd filling in more. Four girls were dressed in skimpy, different colored plaid skirts, each holding a plastic sword that was larger than them. Their pigtails bounced as they waited excitedly for the super exclusive cafe to open the pool. Next to them, their boyfriends wore blocky robot suits that supposedly transformed into cars. Despite what Ari told me about them, I doubted the janky costumes could actually do it.
It said on the tickets that the Wire Cafe was only open till five PM. An escape for the tired, ‘who’s who’ con-goers, where they could come to charge their gadgets, network, and fill up on hors d’oeuvres and free drinks. It was Wire magazine’s PR event, an effort to keep them in the eye of the public during the age of information when print was declining.
One bougie financial elitist, talking loudly on his phone, balanced a plate of cheese and fruit while he drank his sugary cocktail with an umbrella straw. I saw him from a mile away and had already judged his character, but it was that he paid so little attention to his surroundings and bumped into our table, trying to catch his plate before it fell, that really pissed me off.
These fucking assholes think they run the world. I felt my blood begin to boil. I could knock this cocksucker on his ass, and he wouldn’t know any better. I felt Ari watching me in concern. He didn’t know what was going on. Well, he could go to Hell, too, as far as I was concerned.
I pushed the pompous asshole from the back. He turned around, never taking his phone from his ear.
“Watch it, asshole,” I challenged. My eyes pierced into his soul, and I could see that his inner psyche was about to piss itself.
“What you gonna do about it?” he asked, trying to mask his fear.
Ari was quick to step in. “Hey, put your dicks away. This pissing contest is over.”
I snapped out of it, letting go of the building tension, when Ari told me to drink up. The ginger beer and vodka cocktail cooled me down long enough to hear what he was saying.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked.
I was quiet. He would never believe me if I told him the truth.
“You’ve been acting strange all weekend, man. What crawled up your ass and died?” he pressed.
I looked around to make sure none of the cosplaying heroes were too close, and leaned over to him. “I think I’m a supervillain.”
Ari paused for a moment and then took a slow drink of his ’superhero punch to the face’. After a small gulp, he belted out the loudest laugh I had ever heard him commit. I quickly tried to shush him, begging him to reel in his overdramatics.
“That’s a good one. I mean, I know you love villains, but…”
“I am serious. The night of the demo, I met Tessa, and she had her way with me,” I said, trying to not think about the fact that what I was saying was incredibly crazy. “She infected me with her Gatica.”
“Tessa, as in Quintessa? From the game?” he asked, and then raised his tone. “The A.I. that doesn’t exist in our fucking reality? Then why are you not full-blown villain, like in the game? Right now, you seem fine.”
“Remember last night? My so-called cosplay? That was real, man. I left you up at the tiki bar and killed those men. But it wasn’t my fault. I swear,” I whispered intently.
Ari eyed me carefully.
“I don’t know why I am not fully changed,” I continued. “It seems like it ebbs and flows. One moment, I am pissed off, and the next, I’m fine. Rinse and repeat.”
Ari sat back, trying to piece together the puzzle, to put two and two together. “Prove it.”
“What do you want me to do? Kill everyone?” I asked.
“Last night I saw a horrible accident. They said it was faulty construction, but if you, as a supervillain, made it happen, then that means you have the power of magnetism or telekinesis; I watched him float a microphone across the green, Michael. So show me.”
“It’s magnetism, I think,” I admitted.
Ari had a snide smile on his face. He believed me to be lying, but I could see, deep down, he wanted a show — to know that superpowers could exist. I looked over at the Diamond Dragon ice statue. The carved out fingers holding the shiny metal sword. I squinted my eyes and extended my fingers.
Ari skeptically watched in silence.
The metal sword began to vibrate a little. Ari widened his eyes in surprise.
“What the fuck,” he said, rising to his feet.
Thoughts of James came to me. I felt more anger swell inside, and threw my hand down. The metal sword came flipping into the air. Ari looked like he was going to shit his pants, as it barreled toward him. A few nearby spectators gasped in terror, and a tall girl clad in a brilliant red, high-waisted coat that cut back to a long cape extended her ranged weapon.
As if she could stop it, I maliciously thought. Then I snatched the flying sword by the handle right before it hit Ari square between the eyes.
The crowd cheered in amazement. Ari stood there with his mouth agape and the straw from his drink stuck to his lip. He was speechless.
I turned to the crowd. A small halfling dwarf dressed in fifteenth century attire crossed his arms, disarming his crooked stick of a wand back into his robe, and gave me a smug look. I gestured for them to all settle down.
“It’s all part of the show, everyone,” I said.
Slowly, they went back to guzzling their bright green drinks and stuffing their faces with free food. Ari shook his head slightly, trying to comprehend the situation.
“You know what this means?” he asked slowly. “Superpowers are fucking real.”
He was giddy at that thought. I had to hold him down from bouncing in his seat.
“Listen, this is serious. Tessa is out there, using the new ARMOR tech to project her code, and now she has the power to infect people for real,” I pleaded.
“Wait, no she doesn’t,” Ari countered, taking another drink. “Or you would be fully infected. I bet that rig is only letting her transfer her infectious code partially,” he concluded.
He had a point. That cou
ld explain why I was only experiencing my evilness in bursts, and why my thoughts were changing all the time.
“That could be it. Sometimes I think she is fucking hot, and then the next minute, I hate her guts,” I admitted.
“You are conflicted. The Dark Side, you have not fully embraced,” Ari joked, and then leaned over. “So what was it like, hooking up with Tessa?”
“I can’t remember,” I said. “But I’m sure she did evil things.”
“You bet your ass she did,” Ari said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Let me show you the Sexy-Evil Matrix.”
He reached over and grabbed a cocktail napkin printed in Wire Cafe logos. A server passed by, and Ari asked for a pen. Then he flipped over the napkin and began to draw what looked like a graph, with two axis numbered from four to ten and zero to ten, respectively.
“This is the Sexy-Evil Matrix. You have your evil axis, and your sexy axis. Sexy is, as usual, measured from zero to ten. We’re all familiar with that,” Ari explained. “Evil is measured from four to ten, because of course there’s no such thing as a villainess who is not at least a four on the evil scale.”
He drew a diagonal line from one corner to the other, segmenting the graph into two triangles.
“This is your Sexy-Evil line right here. It’s very important that you keep in mind where the Sexy-Evil line is,” he said, pointing above the segmentation. “As a rule, this is your no-go zone. We do not fight, form alliances with, or even challenge as an archenemy, a villainess who is not at least, in your mind, a five. You don’t go here. Life is better this way.”
He crosshatched the ‘No Go Zone’ block.
I chuckled at how absurd Ari was for thinking this out and then I remembered where it was from.
“Hey,” I interrupted. “This is just a rehashed version of the Hot Crazy Matrix.”
“No, fuck that,” he responded. “This is my own shit.”
I laughed and watched him continue as he pointed to the lower segmented triangle.
“Now, above a five Evil and to about an eight Sexy, just below the Sexy-Evil line, is your Quarrel Zone,” he said.
“You can hang out here and meet these temptresses and spend time with them, but keep in mind when you’re in the Quarrel Zone, that you’re going to want to move out of the Quarrel Zone and into a more permanent location,” Ari continued. “A villainess hanging out in this zone means they are most of the time… not evil.”
He then motioned to the seven on the Evil axis and started drawing, in pen, above the Sexy-Evil line.
“Okay, at about a seven Evil, and above the Sexy-Evil line, we have the Danger Zone,” Ari said.
“These are your Harley Quinns, your Cat Women, and any blue skinned villainesses named Mystique,” he continued. “This is where your favorite armor gets cut, you get poison in your chalice, your manna gets slashed in half, and you wind up in an MMO prison.”
I nodded my head in understanding.
“Now, moving on, you have this zone here,” Ari said, pointing to a small zone in the upper right-hand corner. “This is below the Sexy-Evil line. Above an eight Sexy, but still about a seven Evil. This is your Feud Zone.”
“You can stay in the Feud Zone indefinitely. These are villainesses that you introduce to your co-op players, your mission brothers, and any guilds you form. They’re sexy and they’re reasonably not as evil… most of the time.”
Ari drew another small section just below the ‘Fued Zone’.
“Now, above an eight Sexy, and between about a seven and a five Evil, this is your Archenemy Zone.”
“When you meet this villainess, you should consider a long-term relationship,” he continued.
“Got it,” I said, noticing the zones getting smaller as we made our way to the level ten of Sexy and level five of Evil, but there was still room for more zones.
“Now, below a five Evil and above an eight Sexy, this is your Unicorn Zone,” he said.
“These things don’t exist,” Ari continued. “If you find a unicorn, please capture it safely and keep it alive. We’d like to study it and maybe look at how to replicate it.”
I laughed and shook my head in disbelief. He was totally ripping off Hot Crazy Matrix. I remembered the next joke to come and played along. “Wait a minute, I’ve met villainesses that were smoking hot. Like, at least a nine Sexy and super chill. They were totally cool. And not even like a three Evil.”
“So, you’re telling me that you’ve met a villainess that was a nine Sexy, and only a two or three Evil?” Ari asked.
“Yep.” I confirmed, waiting to see what he would say for the punchline.
“You should be careful, because that’s a dude. You’re probably talking to a villain,” Ari said with a smile. “Below a four Evil and above an eight Sexy is always a guy villain.”
I laughed and looked down at all the zones he’d outlined.
“Wait, where does Tessa fit on this graph?” I asked.
Ari’s eyes widened, and he thought for a moment. He began to draw a third axis, making a three-dimensional graph.
“Tessa is on a whole other axis, man. The Psychopath axis. Another dimension,” Ari said. “She’s the type of villainess that would grind her enemy into chili and feed him to his parents.”
I thought on that disgusting visual for a moment and then remembered the reference. “Wait a sec, that’s from South Park.”
“No fuck that,” he quickly said. “They stole that from me.”
I shook my head to his ignorance and contemplated our next steps. I watched Ari get excited as he came to an epiphany.
“Dimension. That’s it. There’s only one thing to do now,” he said. “We have to form a posse and burn the witch’s rig. Then she will be sent back to her dimension!”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” I told him.
Ari got distracted by a beeping from his pocket. He looked down at his phone. “Oh shit.”
“What now?”
“They are texting us for Hall H. We need to go.” He gulped down his drink.
I followed suit, gulping down the rest of mine. I needed all the liquid courage I could get.
12
The Main Exhibit Hall
Across the street at the convention center, the amount of people was startling. Around one hundred thousand people were amassing. Hordes of attendees, fans, and professionals were pushing their way in, bending over slightly and scanning badges on their chests to get into the event. Outside I could read the large letters that indicated the various halls starting at ‘A’ and ending at ‘H’. Just past that was a switchback of lines where the attendees for Hall H were camped out, waiting to see their favorite stars.
Ari handed me my official badge and we made our way in. We entered near Hall D, and he hung a left. I followed him through what was a lobby stretching the whole length of the convention center. This separated the outside street and the hundreds of booths being swarmed by fans in the main exhibit hall. I caught sight of the numerous shipping venues, boxing, taping, and scanning packages from toy buyers from all over the world who were attending just to get the exclusive merchandise for that year.
The Hall H VIP entrance was just ahead, next to the longest escalator I had ever seen, extending three stories up beneath the Comic Con furrowed female eye, held up high like a cherished religious icon. I was dumbfounded to see the scale and looked outward at the hundreds of people swarming the hotels, restaurants and exhibits just outside. It was quite the sight to see.
Ari pulled me with him to the security team checking badges and schedule times for Hall H panels. One security guard was serious as he was hefty. Ari flashed his badge and watched the guard thumb through the list of Hall H panelists.
“You got bumped to two o’clock,” he said.
“What do you mean we got ‘bumped’? We are Iconoclast Games,” Ari said, and then pointed to me. “This is the creator of Supervillain, Me. I’m sure you have heard of it?”
“Heard o
f it. My kid loves that game,” the security officer said. “But you are still bumped to two. Kevin Smith goes on before you, and he offered the whole crowd a free viewing of the IMDB boat outside. Gonna take an extra hour or so, and that’s if anyone makes it back.”
“What the fuck?” Ari said. “Why would he do some shit like that?”
“It happened to him last year. Star Wars took the whole hall out to the symphony followed by a fireworks display. His panel was supposed to be after that, but barely anyone came back.”
Jesus. I sort of felt relieved, thinking I wouldn’t be in front of as many people, but it also would suck if no one showed up to see the panel we’d put together for the game.
I motioned to Ari. “Come on, show me the exhibit, and we’ll wait in there,” I said.
We flashed our badges again at another volunteer that was too young for the cheesy blazer he wore. Inside, a pop culture orgy was commencing. Grandiose movie studios had built large, colorful, two-story stages adorned with their logos, and a metal stairway that linked across and led down to the long lines of fans waiting to get their chance to go up.
Nestled in between them, smaller network studios advertised their latest creation, offering a VR sneak-peek into the studio’s newest show. Similar to what Iconoclast did, yet more contained, and usually involving a clunky VR helmet. Again, the lines seemed to dogleg every which way without an end in sight.
As we walked, making our way into the con without an idea of what direction to go, I saw replicas of famous movies of the past and what was coming soon to theaters from a small New Zealand production company. This included magical rings held by creatures smaller than a dwarf, and gnarly looking orcs brandishing jagged blunt swords that looked like they would bruise more than cut.
