by Rachel Ford
He fought to swallow the lump in his throat. “I promise, Nance.” She smiled, and then, in the blink of an eye, vanished, leaving Alfred staring at his empty lap.
He took a moment to collect himself. Then, he pulled out his phone and called Josh.
“Alfred?”
“I just got a visit from Nancy. From the future. From tonight.”
“What?”
“Someone knifed me in a bathroom.”
“You mean, they’re going to, right? They haven’t yet?”
“Right. Future me gets knifed in a bathroom. By someone in a Swell Dude costume.”
“And future Nancy told you this?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus. Garrity shouldn’t have trusted either of you with that thing.”
“You’d prefer I let Nance die?”
“No, of course not. Just…what else did she say?”
“It happens at the party tonight.”
“Well…don’t go to the party.”
“No sugar cookies, Sherlock.”
For a minute, Josh was silent. Then he said, “Don’t freak out, taxman. I found Barret.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I’ve been on his trail for about an hour. He’s with another guy. I think they’re partners. The other guy’s in a Captain Patriot costume.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There’s nothing to tell. I’m just keeping an eye on them both.”
Alfred scowled. “Not a very good eye, if I end up dead in a few hours.”
“But this is good news, in a way.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. It means they’ve moved on from targeting Nance. Now they’re after you.”
“Oh.” Alfred considered. In normal circumstances, that would be anything but good news. But considering that it meant that Nancy was in less danger, he had to agree. “I guess so.”
“Which means,” Josh continued, “that my work’s done.”
“What?”
“I signed on to protect Nance. She’s out of danger. I’m going home.”
“Wait,” Alfred hastened, “you can’t just leave. I’ll die!”
“Not my problem.”
Alfred was flabbergasted, and started to unleash a torrent of protestations when the marine laughed.
“Calm down, taxman. I’m just kidding.”
“You are?”
“Of course. As long as they’re still after you, Nance’s still in danger.”
“So am I,” Alfred felt it necessary to point out.
“Yeah, that too. I’ll keep following Barret. You make sure you don’t go to the party. We’ll catch this guy before he succeeds, sooner or later.”
“And what…I just wait in the meantime?”
“Unless you want to level with Nance.”
“No,” he decided. “She’s got a plan for the day. We’ll follow it, unless we get any more visitors from the future.”
“Okay. Listen, they’re on the move. I gotta go.”
The taxman hung up, staring at the hall and its ebb and flow of traffic beyond. He was, in truth, stunned. Somehow, he’d drawn the assassin’s attention. But, for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
“Finally,” a voice behind him said, and he started at the sound of it. “I’m out.”
“Nance.” He looked her up and down, searching for any sign of anxiousness, or giveaway that she was from another time period.
She, in turn, scrutinized him. “Babe, you look like you just saw a ghost. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said. “You just startled me.”
Now, she laughed. “You fall asleep or something? I was gone long enough, I suppose. It’s mobbed in there.”
The three-thirty program was the highlight of Nance’s afternoon. They got good seats, and so she was near the stage. “Oh my god, that’s Rick Ashworth,” she whispered as a turtleneck-clad figure stepped onto the stage and took his seat at the waiting table.
“Oh boy,” Alfred whispered back playfully. “The one and only.”
She nudged him. “And Kate Dallas too.”
A woman of similar age followed the comic book writer, taking a seat next to him.
It was the third reveal that practically sent Nancy into a dither, though. He was tall and broad shouldered, with the kind of physique and chiseled features that would have looked more at home among marble statuary than mere mortals. His light hair, blue eyes and square jaw seemed to have been peeled straight from the comic book pages. “It’s Chris Becket,” she said, “who plays Swell Dude.”
He grimaced, reminding her, “I have seen the movies, Nance. Unfortunately.”
She grinned up at him, but ended her narration.
One by one, members of the MDC universe took the stage. It was a who’s who of the dubious talent behind such masterpieces as Fire Fell. The crowd shared Nancy’s enthusiasm, erupting in applause with the appearance of each member of the panel.
When all the seats had been filled, Ashworth spoke. “Good afternoon everyone. You all having a good time so far?” The crowd responded with raucous cheering, and he grinned. “Good. That’s what I like to hear. Well, we’ve got a lot to cover today, and hopefully we’ll give you some more reasons to cheer.”
Of course, this comment elicited another round of applause, and Alfred grimaced.
“First,” Kate Dallas said, “we want to take a minute to highlight some of the accomplishments of the real backbone of Marvelous Detective Comics: our fans.” Rick nodded, and the screen behind them jumped to life. A slide displayed a figure: one hundred thousand dollars.
“Some of you may remember our presentation from last year. At that talk, Rick and I announced our plans for giving back. We said we were going to start by donating one hundred thousand dollars for each film in the universe to my Entrepreneur’s Children Fund.”
The numbers on the screen began to climb, racing up to nine hundred thousand dollars, and lackluster applause sounded here and there.
“That’s nine films, nine hundred thousand dollars.” She shrugged. “It was a starting point. But we could do better than that. Can’t we?”
“So we asked our stars to pitch in,” Rick said. Chris Becket and the other actors on stage grinned and nodded as the numbers started climbing again.
“That brought it up to five million,” Kate said. “Rick and I talked. We could still do better than that. So when Fire Fell came out, we made a pledge: ten percent of net to the ECF.”
The numbers raced wildly, speeding up to ten million, then twenty, then fifty. They continued to climb, and now the crowd’s approbation rose with it. When they hit seventy-five million, the room was practically deafening. At eighty million, the numbers slowed.
The final tally came to rest at eighty-four million, three hundred and thirteen thousand. People all around him got to their feet. Nancy did too. Alfred remained sitting, but forced himself to clap at least.
“That applause is for you, folks: without you, without our fans, Fire Fell wouldn’t have been the smash it was, and those numbers would be nowhere near what you see. So if you’re clapping, clap for yourself, not us. Because there is no Marvelous Detective Comics without our fans.”
Again, the actors nodded and applauded. Alfred sighed. There was an air of showmanship here that the cynic in him couldn’t abide.
“So here’s our first announcement of the afternoon,” Rick said as the noise quieted. “For every film from here on out in the MCD Universe-”
“Every single one,” Kate emphasized.
“We’re going to match that ten percent net donation.”
The announcement received a second standing ovation.
“And what’s more,” Kate said when the noise subsided, “is today we’re announcing a new public face of ECF: Chris Becket as Swell Dude.”
Chris Becket got to his feet, grinning and waving. The crowd ate it up. “Thank you Kate, thank you Rick.
“So you all know me. I�
��m more a pretty face than deep words kind of guy.” Nancy laughed out loud, and so, it seemed, did everyone else in the room – except Alfred, who just rolled his eyes.
“And I know you’re all really waiting for previews of the next movie. So I’ll make this brief. First, I want to say again: thank you Kate and Rick. You guys are amazing. Your vision, your compassion, it’s inspiring. You know, I play Swell Dude. It’s a costume, it’s a character. They really are superheroes though.”
Ashworth turned red as a cherry, and Dallas demurred the compliment. The taxman barely noticed the crowd’s enthusiasm this time. It seemed to him that Becket got applause just for opening his mouth.
“So when I say it is a huge honor to don the cape for ECF, believe me: it really is. Including our donations, last year ECF pulled in almost a billion dollars worldwide. What are we doing with that money? Well, here’s a breakdown.”
The screen behind the actor flashed to an image of a school. A bold set of numbers, beginning at ten, started incrementing. “We’re funding schools. One hundred and forty-two schools, across fifteen nations – including forty-five right here in the United States – either completely funded or partially funded last year by ECF.”
The image changed to a school lunch line while the crowd cheered. “We’re tackling child hunger. Last year ECF provided – are you ready for this, folks? One million meals to kids across the globe.
“And you know what else?”
Alfred sighed. “You cured cancer while you’re at it?” he wondered. Nancy nudged him, but the taxman couldn’t help his cynicism. It was, he told himself, a byproduct of his profession. He’d been in law enforcement for long enough to see the dark side of humanity. Nothing was ever free. People gave to charity because they got something out of it: tax breaks, usually. Sometimes, respect or public standing was incentive enough. But there was always an incentive.
And while he readily acknowledged that self-serving reasons for giving were better than not giving, the gratuitous self-congratulation was a little much. “All I’m saying, Nance,” he whispered, “is he’s going to pull a muscle if he keeps patting himself on the back so hard.”
Chapter Eighteen
Becket wrapped up the list of ECF’s good works shortly thereafter, and the rest of the session was devoted to reveals about new movies, a handful of exclusive preview clips, and some never-before-seen footage from the production of Fire Fell.
“Well,” Nancy grinned as they waited in line to exit the ballroom-turned-conference-room, “you have no excuse to skip Fire Rain. In fact, it’s practically a duty to see it with me now.”
Fire Rain was the follow up to Fire Fell, and the next movie in the MDC universe. He frowned at the prospect. “Why?”
“Well, ten percent of their profits are going to ECF. Skipping the movie is basically refusing to feed hungry kids. You wouldn’t starve kids, would you?”
He rolled his eyes. She was joking, of course, but she’d hit on exactly the incentive he imagined fueling Dallas and Ashworth’s sudden philanthropic bent. “See? That’s why they’re doing it. A little bit of generosity on their part means the fans will be even bigger suckers.”
She laughed. “That’s a pretty big gamble,” she said. “Especially when their films are already blockbusters. Maybe…” Here, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, although, to be heard above the roar of the crowd, it was not much of a whisper. “And bear with me, because I know it sounds crazy…but maybe they actually want to make a difference.”
Alfred shook his head. “No one cares about making a difference, Nance. Not eighty million dollars’ worth of difference, anyway.”
She flashed him a bemused smile. “Oh Alfred.”
“What?”
She only shook her head though and hugged him.
“So we’re headed to the game thing now, right?”
“Yup.”
They’d only just exited the ballroom when a young man with a camera approached. “Hey,” he called, “I love the Spock and Jadzia thing.”
Nancy grinned. “Thanks.”
“Couples costume? Or just favorite show?”
“Oh, no, it’s a couples costume. Reference to Trials-”
“And Tribble-ations,” he put in, grinning ear-to-ear. “I figured. Brilliant. I always kind of shipped Jadzia with Spock myself.”
“Yeah, that’s totally my head canon.”
Alfred heard these words, but it seemed to him they were speaking a different language. Trials and Tribble-ations, he guessed, was an episode of Star Trek. But as for the maritime references – the head cannons and ships – he hadn’t the foggiest notion what any of it meant.
The stranger, meanwhile, grinned. “I’m Caleb, by the way, Caleb Lang.”
“From Caleb’s Coollery?” Nancy’s eyes widened as he nodded. “I knew I recognized you. Great to meet you. I’m a big fan. We’re Nancy Abbot, by the way, and Alfred Favero.”
“Nice to meet you too, Nancy and Alfred. Hey, you mind if I get a picture? I’d love to put you guys up on my site.”
“Of course. Wow.” Alfred shot her a grimace, but she ignored him.
“Great. You want to just step over here?” Caleb led them out of the main press of the crowd, to a little nook, and posed them in front of a wall. “Alright,” he said, “you ready?” Nancy nodded and Alfred tried not to grimace. “Hey, Spock, you want to give me a live-long-and-prosper salute?”
Again, this sounded like Greek to the taxman. Nancy intervened, flashing him a hand sign that he vaguely recognized. The fingers of her hand were grouped to form a kind of v-shape, with the thumb extended to the side. “Oh,” he said, attempting to recreate the sign. This was easier said than done, though, because his fingers seemed to have a mind of their own – as soon as one would cooperate, the others would either separate or close again.
In the end, it required the use of his other hand, to mold his fingers in place. “Perfect,” Caleb nodded. “Ok, Jadzia, give me a cheeky grin. Perfect.”
Alfred again had to fight not to roll his eyes. He heard the camera click a few times. Then the head of Caleb’s Coollery nodded. “Awesome. You guys look amazing. Thank you so much. These’ll go up later tonight.”
The young man moved on to find other victims, and Alfred frowned at her. “Who the hell was that?”
“Caleb Lang,” she said.
“Well I know that. I heard him say it. I mean, who is Caleb Lang?”
“He runs Caleb’s Coollery. He’s kind of famous in the fandoms. He makes videos – song parodies, game parodies, you name it – and comes to events like this and gets amazing pictures of the cosplayers.”
“So ending up on his website is a good thing?”
She grinned. “Yeah, babe.”
“Okay.”
The Station 49 session was every bit as boring as Alfred anticipated. But, also in keeping with his expectations, Nancy loved it. She loved the previews of cheesy cutscenes and laughed with delight at the over-the-top banter therein. She loved the new weapon previews, and ate up details about the expansive world of Station 49.
It was a mystery to him how someone as brilliant as Nance could be entertained and intrigued by such nonsense. Despite his mystification, though, he did find himself smiling at her unabashed joy. She was a giant nerd, he thought. But she’s my nerd.
As the session was nearing the end, the lead developer – a gangly man named Brett-something, who seemed only now to be relaxing in front of the crowd – said, “Okay, so now we’re at the part you’re all really waiting for: the giveaways.”
People cheered. Alfred was, he decided, thoroughly sick and tired of hearing cheering crowds.
“Okay, so I’m going to call off row and seat numbers. You all know where you’re sitting, right?” A murmur of confusion, as people scrambled to find their placement, ran through the crowd. Brett waited until this quieted, then continued, “I’m going to call out a number, and ask you a question. You get the question right, you win
the prize. You get it wrong, we play this.” A video clip played on the screen behind him, depicting a skull and crossbones.”
For reasons that Alfred couldn’t explain, people around him laughed. Nancy did too. He scrutinized her curiously, and she leaned over and whispered, “It’s the death cutscene. From the game.”
He was no more enlightened by this revelation than he had been before, but he just nodded. “Oh.”
Brett, meanwhile, started calling out letter-number combinations, and asking his questions. They were queries like, “Where was Captain Green born?” and “What was the name of the virus-bearing starship in the second installment of Station 45?” and “Who was the highest-ranking sharpshooter in Union history?”
Alfred listened only because there was no other choice. These were all questions for which he had no answers, and no interest. Even if he had been a fan of the game, he couldn’t imagine clogging his brain with trivia about made-up characters in a made-up world.
“D-13,” Brett was continuing, “who was the lead scientist on the failed Genesis project? Answer correctly and win a limited edition, collectable Station 49 replica.”
The taxman yawned.
“That’s you, Spock.”
The crowd laughed, and Nancy nudged him. “He means you, babe. We’re D-12 and 13.”
“Me?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “It’s Dr. Cordon.” When he made no effort to do anything with this intel, she urged, “Well, tell him.”
“Uh…Dr. Cordon?” he said.
The crowd laughed again, and Brett nodded. “Right. Are we allowing phone-a-friend here?” He grinned, handing a box to one of his assistants. “You owe that one to the lady, I think. Alright, next up is K-16.”
Alfred felt his face flush, and he was glad that the attention of the crowd moved on to whoever was in K-16. Nancy, though, squeezed his arm excitedly. “You won.”
A few moments later, the assistant arrived at their seats, box in hand. “Congratulations,” he whispered.
Alfred took the box dubiously. “Thanks.”
Nancy was craning her neck to see it. “Oh my God, that’s awesome. You can’t even get one of these yet – they’re preorders.”
