by Gentry Race
Feeling a bit overwhelmed, we made our way to the side. Here, small dealers sold comic books, plastic sleeves, poster tubes, and art supplies to the budding collector and aspiring artist alike. They worked hurriedly, as attendees flocked to them to buy a tube to hold the latest exclusive — in this case, a twenty-four by thirty-six inch poster of Quantum Universe’s finest airman, the Bald Eagle.
Off to the side and not too crowded was the area labeled ‘Artist’s Alley’. Here, hundreds of independent and famously known artists sat at their colorfully decorated booths, selling small prints of their past work and taking new commissions. One artist was flooded with people watching him meticulously draw a character I didn’t recognize.
“Who’s that?” I asked Ari.
Ari looked closer and smiled. “That is Jesus Villarreal. He was one of the lead artists at Quantum Comics until he quit and formed his own company. That character you see is The Telephantom.”
I tried to peek over the shoulders of the spectators watching him draw. I caught a glimpse of blue, glowing flesh over a dark skeleton, fitted inside a deep diver suit that seemed to contain him. He was surrounded by horrifying yet beautiful monster women.
Ari leaned over to me and said, “He tried doing this B-movie thing, but it never took off like the Quantum Universe did.”
“Shame,” I said.
“No, don’t feel bad. He’s still popular and selling other properties like no other. He just ain’t making movies on it, yet,” Ari explained.
A drumroll sounded next to a wall of thousands of small collectible dolls with overly large heads. I took that as a sign that something was debuting. Ari saw something from afar and got excited, pulling me with him. We pushed our way into the current of con-goers, like salmon in a stream. We passed numerous cosplay booths featuring people getting outfitted with the latest steampunk technology, connecting cogwheels and main springs to eighteenth century wardrobe pieces.
Then we passed someone laying in a chair wearing a skin-tight suit with purple running lights contouring his frame. On his head, an odd contraption with a myriad of wires extended out, connecting to a solid, monolith-like machine. This was the ever growing, popular sci-fi setting of cyberpunk.
Ari stole my attention, nudging me in my side.
Ahead, in the center of the convention and roped off by low-hanging crimson rope, an aerial show of some kind was in full presentation. Strung from the ceiling were World War One airplanes dog-fighting each other as selected attendees controlled their positions with controllers from the ground.
In addition, I saw an actor playing The Mime, in all his villainous glory, fighting two hero actors: a boy in glasses and a dapper greaser man. On large rings, high in the air, they play-fought each other as they swung closer to each other.
“That’s Invaders of Tomorrow’s Sky,” Ari said. “Quantum Comics’s first addition to the universe. Oliver Hawke, the boy genius, and Leon, his greaser uncle.”
“Yeah, I think I remember hearing about their movie,” I said.
An announcer echoed over a small sound system.
Ladies and gentlemen, Oliver Hawke and his Uncle Leon versus The Mime.
I watched the small Oliver Hawke, pressing in his red tie to his chest, as if he took a hit to the chest and flipped down onto a giant air mattress below, adorned with a large ‘Q’ and ‘U’. Leon made one more attempt to strike the Mime, his face grimacing with deceit, and landed a fake punch. The Mime was knocked down, coming to rest next to the boy genius Oliver Hawke.
The crowd cheered.
“Uncle Leon puts The Mime in his place with a powerful punch!”
I looked around me at the rabid fans, dressed as all sorts of strange characters from the universe; some of which I had already seen walking outside. However, standing next to me, were two girls, one on each shoulder, painted in bright gold and wearing a long purple cape. Every perfect form of their bodies shimmered under the convention lights. Ari wasn’t shy to say hello.
After a handshake and a wink to both of the girls, I saw him snap his head in another direction. He turned to me and nudged me again.
“This is what I was telling you about,” he said. “The first ever 3D-printed body.”
The drumroll sound climbed louder as we made it to the soft red carpeted booth. Feeling the plush, cushioned rug under my feet was a blessing, though only having walked for about thirty minutes, I was surprised my feet were barking as much as they were. The thoughts of pain went away when I saw what was before me.
Below a huge circular banner that read ‘Enconn Industries’, a human-sized capsule made of glass sat in the center of a raised stage. Cables extended from it, connecting to an ARMOR rig. Inside the glass capsule lay a gelatinous human body that was still not fully-formed. I could hear the drumrolls winding down.
A young man with overly smooth skin, a black peppered beard, and hair too silvered for his age climbed onto the stage. His voice was hoarse as he spoke a few words of welcome into the microphone he held. His eyes stood out to me; they were bright with life, as if he was trapped in an aging vessel he couldn’t escape. He smiled the whole time, exuding a sense of pride everyone could see.
He commanded the stage and spoke with grace, “Hello, everyone. My name is Chellis Ducard. The CEO of Enconn.”
The crowd applauded and I followed suit.
“Enconn is the leader in three-D printer technology,” Chellis continued, waving his hand at the various models that had come out over the years. “And now Enconn will take the world to a new place.”
The crowd was silent. A stagnant sea of spectators in the large booth watched excitedly for the reveal Enconn would make.
Chellis gave a dramatic pause. “Introducing… exclusively, for the first time at Comic Con International… Conscious Uploading and Streaming,“ he said. “Where you can drive the body you want.”
The crowd oohed and ahhhed as Chellis flipped a switch, and the glass tube rotated upward, showing more of the half-formed body.
“Right now, tiny, nano-sized bots are three-D printing this body into life. Real flesh, real skin, needing only real thoughts.”
The thought of it was amazing. What did this mean for burn victims or amputees? If you transferred your consciousness into the new body, what would the meaning of a soul be?
“And I know what you are all thinking,” he said, waiting to get a response from a few crowd members. “When can we see it?”
“Yeah,” they obediently yelled out.
“The answer is… now!” He pointed to a small door. “Our first volunteer is Jessa, dressed as your favorite villainess from Supervillain, Me, Quintessa.”
The crowd cheered as a devilishly beautiful maiden walked out from the side door. It was Tessa. Behind her, my faulty rig projected her code into the middle of Comic Con’s main exhibit hall. My stomach sank, and I looked at Ari, who was pulling his hair up in stress, not believing what he was seeing.
“Jessa will now show you how to properly drive the body,” the announcer informed the crowd.
“No,” I yelled out, but the murmured whispers and applause drowned out my words.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked back to see the security guard from Hall H wearing a smile. Ari looked back at me in horror.
“There you guys are. It's time for the panel,” the security guard said. ‘You’re on in ten.”
“Holy fuck,” Ari said. “She’s gonna get a real body.”
For a second, I thought I could see Tessa looking at me, smiling as she got hooked up into the machine Enconn was debuting.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, I thought.
13
Hall H Panel
Backstage of Hall H, my head was spinning. A mix of emotions were flooding my head. One second, I wanted to stop Tessa right there on the spot, and the next I wanted to indulge the crowd that cheered for my property. As they screamed, wanting to tear the roof, a sinful envisioning blanketed my forethought. I was getting ang
ry and I could feel the pull of Tessa’s infection scrape every orifice within me. I imagined each fan burning in glorious fire.
Shit. I am doing it again.
I snapped the crazed thoughts from my head to see the hundreds of people that were backstage. Everyone from crew members, to volunteers and panelists, rehearsing answers to the questions the host would read off. This year's host was an up-and-coming comic from Chicago who’d recently gotten spin from his nerdy podcast taking off. I saw him not too far away and I caught his attention.
He smiled, breaking away from the producers he’d been running talking points of the show with. He wore large-framed glasses that belonged in the seventies and his unkempt head of hair was long and shaggy. He was skinny and looked like a goddamn character from a cartoon mystery series. In his hand, he held a piece of paper.
“Michael?” he asked, reaching out to shake my hand. “Mac Maron.”
I shook his hand, and he handed me the paper with his other. “Nice to meet you,” I said politely.
“Indeed. Congrats on your game,” he said. He peeked out the curtain and then glanced back at me. “We have weeded out the eighteen and under crowd.”
I wasn’t surprised, as Supervillian, Me was intended for a mature audience and came with a strong parental warning.
“Michael,” a voice said from behind me.
Phil Travis was dressed in his usual casual islandwear, surrounded by an army of suits. He walked up to me briskly and stopped.
“I’m so glad to hear you are feeling better.”
Phil turned back to the various suited men that followed him and pointed for them to go to stand by the exits and stages. Maron nodded to him and told us both to ‘break a leg.’
“I am,” I told him, “but I think we have a serious situation to—”
“You’re damn right, Michael,” Phil said, even more wild-eyed than usual. “We’ve got a goddamn psycho critic that wants to spoil our ad campaign here.”
I didn’t follow. “What are you talking about?”
“Fucking corporate espionage. The live-action demo. Two men died last night, Michael, including a potential hire. We are being targeted,” he said. “The last thing we need now is a riot happening in Hall H, and a poor fan getting trampled to death or something.”
“Potential hire? Jesus.” I shook my head. Deep down, a little part of me cheered that Blaine wasn’t going to be working with me. “Listen, nothing is gonna happen. Let’s just get this over with.”
“Michael, you don’t understand. I wasn’t gonna tell you until we got out there, but… I am letting LayBoy into the Subspace. I’m gonna reveal it here as an exclusive. Don’t you see? This is the retaliation from the super conservatives. They want to keep sex out of the Subspace.”
I tried to calm him down. His conspiracy theories weren’t what we needed right now.
I peeked out to see thousands of attendees waiting for the panel to start. The layout was simple: One interviewer and two bar stools meant for Phil and I. This panel was bullshit. What mattered above anything else was stopping Tessa before she could use that 3D-printed body to fully infect someone.
DUM DUM… DUM
DUM DUM… DUM
The beat to “We Will Rock You” began to sound out from the crowd as they stomped and clapped for the panel to start. My heart was in my throat by now, as I was pulled past various executives who shook my hand and gave me high-fives. Ari was nowhere to be seen. I heard the microphone squeal feedback as Maron addressed the spurring crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to San Diego’s International Comic Con from Hall H,” he bellowed out.
The applause was thunderous, and was followed by whistles and fans yelling at the top of their lungs. When the noise finally died down, I could hear the clicking and snapping from phone cameras trying to capture the perfect angle of the stage with a selfie.
If they only knew what terror was about to ensue. I just had to hope Ari was doing something about it.
“Now, I know most of you have waited all night to get in here, so let’s introduce our next panel of guests. Iconoclast Games has been the leading content creator in video game experience since the two thousands,” Maron declared. “With the introduction of their proprietary dimensional Subspace, now the user can tap into this world of wonder from anywhere on the planet.”
The applause roared again. A presentation flashed pictures of the company’s history, employees, characters and campus, the images dissolving into one another like some kind of high-end Ken Burns effect. The motion was sickening, and I began to feel worse.
People were all around me, blotting me with makeup and attaching small wires and devices to me for a microphone feed setup.
I looked at Phil Travis, grabbed the curtain, and threw up on a sandbag. My head was spinning. The nerves of going onstage beneath hot spotlights, speaking in front of thousands of fans, doing the song and dance, had me feeling like a small alien was trying to burst through my chest.
“Michael, you’re still sick,” Phil Travis said, tending to me. “And what the hell have you been eating? Can someone get this man some water?”
Onstage, Mac continued his introduction. “It wasn’t long until Iconoclast Games was searching for the best potential intellectual property to showcase in this Subspace,” Maron said.
I grabbed the water someone handed to me, gulping back what I could and trying not to taste the acidic stomach bile, partially digested gefilte fish, and jellied calves’ feet that I had just upchucked. The vomiting, embarrassment and disgust made me insanely mad.
I looked out from behind the curtain again. There was my game’s logo: ‘Supervillain, Me’. The title was not without a sense of irony, as I furrowed my eyebrows and felt the power swell within me once more.
Phil Travis was shocked to see my face drain of all color and my eyes turn a fiery red. I looked at him, the man that had caused me so much stress during my time at his company.
I am the one that created ‘Supervillain, Me’; why shouldn’t a supervillain govern the company?
I decked Phil in the face, and he fell into the arms of the stagehands. The suits tried to grab me before I walked out, but I barreled them into Phil like the pieces of garbage they were. I walked to the curtain, licked my dark lips, making sure to lap up any vile throwup that may have been missed, and stepped into the spotlight.
“Welcome the owner and CEO of Iconoclast Games, Phil Travis, and creator of Supervillain, Me, Michael Sutter,” Maron said.
The crowd gasped at the sight of me. I felt that my pale, muscled arms were now a hard, indestructible, paneled, metal skin. Maron was stunned, looking into my fiery eyes as I grabbed the second stool and threw it toward the black curtains to stage right.
“Or just Michael Sutter,” Maron corrected himself.
I smiled and waved to the crowd, flashing my sharp, yellow teeth. The mass of fans was silent, unable to get a read on the situation, until I heard a clap. One turned into two, and then three, and on to an ominous roar.
Maron took this moment to chime in on the approving crowd reaction. “Michael Sutter in cosplay, everyone. I love your outfit. Is that Adam Antium? So, tell me, Michael, how villainous do you feel right now in that wicked makeup?”
I wanted to grab Mac Maron by his throat and pull out his esophagus. The way he swallowed after every sentence made me irate. I leaned over and gestured for him to come a little closer so I could fucking punch him dead in his four eyes.
He nervously looked down to see me clench my metal fists —
“He doesn’t look that villainous, yet,” a soft voice interrupted from backstage. “Trust me, I would know.”
Long legs stepped out from the curtains in a long, flowing dress that grabbed her tightly at her waist and thighs. The dress had a sexy reveal cut-out around the belly and shoulders, showing her soft, tanned skin. I tried to veer my eyes away from the most perfect pair of breasts I’d ever seen, but the villain in me wanted to linger on them.
And that's when I caught her snappy blonde curls, bouncing as she walked. Her perfect smile accentuated the soaring blue eyes I’d helped create.
It was Tessa in the flesh. The only person I knew with a switch that could tame a lion. And that lion would always be me.
She picked up the stool I had tossed, and carried it like a model showcasing a prize on a trivia show. She placed it next to me, sat down, and waved to the onlooking masses.
The crowd nearly tore the assembly hall apart, watching the most popular character come to life before their eyes. Before this, never had an A.I. been seen in the public eye. Even Maron was flabbergasted.
It was a shame I didn’t get to punch his face in to go along with the dumb look he now wore.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what a special surprise! Quintessa from ‘Supervillain, Me’,” he announced.
Tessa stood up, never breaking her smile, raised her arms, and rotated her perfect new body, snug in the dress that glimmered in the spotlight. I could hardly contain myself, watching her and wanting her for so long. I snickered, knowing she was mine alone. Wait until she got a load of me, indeed. Passion fired up within me once more as I watched her casually walk over, grab the mic from the Maron, and punch him in the nose. A part of me cheered when the crowd gasped.
“Thank you, everyone, for having me. I am Quintessa, or just ‘Tessa’, to some,” she said, looking back at me.
For a moment, I felt we had something unique. Out of all the people in this convention, she was here with me. For me.
Then I felt like that was the evil talking.
“How many people play our wonderful game, Supervillain, Me?” she asked the crowd.
Murmurs fluttered, and a show of hands raised high in the air from every single attendee. I could tell she was amused, but I didn’t know what she was getting at.
“That’s great to hear,” she said, commanding the stage like a true celebrity. “And how many of you know its creator, Michael Sutter?”
