Con Quest!

by Sam Maggs

  Well, the entirely-chaperoned-not-a-big-deal camping weekend that she was shocked to have been deemed chill enough to be invited to, considering she was just a ninth grader.

  And if she didn’t go, that would be it. The end. Coolness killer. Deleting-Instagram-level social-status destroyer. Babysitting her nerdcore siblings this weekend was supposed to prove to her parents that she was responsible enough to go, and Fi was willing to put up with the extreme body odor and even-extremer weirdos all weekend if it meant going on that camping trip.

  “What would Ethan think of that shirt, anyway?” Cat asked, in a way that would have been innocent if not for that annoying-as-heck little smirk on her face, illuminated by the glow of her phone.

  Fi looked down as she stepped off the escalator, panicking all over again about the coffee-stained leopard-print blouse she had literally taken off her mother’s back to save her a day of extreme embarrassment. She looked like a hundred-year-old mom who didn’t know how to hold a travel mug. It was her least cute look of all time, a world away from her big, soft tees. She didn’t throw this term around lightly, but Fi was basically a hero, thank you very much. More of a superhero than any of the costumed nerds at this con.

  Still, it was certainly not the epitome of cool she was hoping for today—and would definitely not be ending up on social media (unless it was, like, artfully shot from the collarbone up, or she stooped to using that extremely nerdcore con filter to cover it up).

  “At least I’m not wearing those shoes,” Fi shot back. The only part of Cat’s outfit that wasn’t all costumey were a pair of loafers that she’d stuck comic-book pages all over with craft glue. Incredibly uncute.

  “They’re a Quest item.” Cat waved her off. “And thank you for reminding me to upload a pic of them; that’s nineteen whole points.”

  “Are you even still getting signal in here?” Fi looked quizzically at Cat’s phone.

  “I better keep getting signal,” Cat replied, hurrying to catch up with their parents and Julie. “The Quest updates all day, and we have to stay on top of it.”

  “The Quest?” Fi asked, rushing behind her.

  Cat looked back with that look Fi hated, the one where Cat obviously thought that she was the smartest person in the whole world. “The Quest, Fi. The Quest. We’ve talked about it for weeks? Do you ever pay attention to me when I talk?”

  Okay, so maybe Fi didn’t always pay attention when Cat talked.

  Their gang had to turn around and annoy everyone in the hallway behind them by quickly flipping directions—Julie had just realized they’d been walking the wrong way. Cat sighed. “The Quest. The biggest scavenger hunt in the world? Run by Paranormal’s Corwin Blake?”

  Fi blinked in a way that she hoped conveyed just how little she knew or cared about any of this. It did not, unfortunately, deter her younger sister, who threw her arms in the air in frustration.

  “Corwin Blake?! Hottest actor in maybe the entire world? Plays a deeply troubled and lovingly rumpled ghost on Paranormal? The show about the ghost-hunting brothers? Which has been running for eleven seasons? And the one brother is probably in love with the ghost even though they’ll never say it?”

  Fi shrugged. “What does this have to do with your scavenging?”

  “Agh!” Cat was really laying it on thick now. “Corwin Blake runs the world’s biggest scavenger hunt every year at this con. Without GeekiCon’s permission, but still. All the items on the Quest list are posted online right before the convention, you can only compete in teams of up to four people, and you upload pictures and videos of all your completed items to the Quest app.” Cat waved her phone in Fi’s face.

  Fi batted it away. “But why, though?”

  “Because.” Cat sighed. “The people who complete the most items and win the Quest get to hang with Corwin and his Paranormal costars for a week doing charity work, building houses for families in need.”

  “And,” Alex interjected, surprising his sisters, “there are potential mentorships on the line with the TV show’s crew. Your career … or your art, for example,” he added, conspicuously casually, “could get a real boost.”

  “And that.” Cat nodded aggressively. “And also it really can’t be stressed enough that we really absolutely must win it at all costs this year or else what is even the point of anything ever anymore—”

  “Okay, whoa,” Fi interrupted her younger sister. “Got it. So this little game is, like, your whole thing this weekend?”

  “It’s our whole thing today,” said Alex as they all finally came to a stop in front of what Fi assumed must be their parents’ panel room. “It’s one day only. And you can do whatever you want.”

  “Right,” Fi said under her breath as they all filed into the room, grabbing a few of the reserved seats near the front as their parents rushed onto the stage. “I wish.”

  4

  Cat

  Cat’s foot bobbed up and down against the concrete floor. Her parents’ panel had started late, and as predicted, it was absolutely, positively going to go over the allotted time. Her parents had spent the last hour dodging questions about the reboot they were obviously (but secretly) working on, and now the Q and A had turned into people pretending they were going to ask a question but really talking about themselves. The worst.

  “This is never going to end,” Cat groaned to Alex. He was seated next to her, just a few rows from the front of the room. The folding chairs were hard and uncomfortable, as usual. Cat just wanted to get on with the Quest and their next list item, and they were stuck here. It was so frustrating!

  Alex just shrugged. “Why don’t you look over the Quest list again? We can never be too prepared. Do you have the Hall M passes?”

  “Yes, Alex, again, yes.” Cat jiggled her knee harder. “Okay. Yeah. Good idea.”

  She pulled out her phone—signal still strong. Thank the glorious goddess of GeekiCon. She opened the Quest app and waited for the list to load up. And there it was.

  Corwin Blake was known for being kind of an eclectic oddball—a super-handsome dark-eyed scruffy-haired eclectic oddball with a wide, goofy smile and flawless deep brown skin and just the right amount of beardy stubble in the same deep shade as his messy curls and with a following in the millions, but still. He’d helped so many people by doing the Quest—each participant paid a small entry fee that went to charity, and winning the grand prize meant hanging with Corwin and his friends for a week building houses for underprivileged families.

  Cat shoved daydreams of home building with Corwin to the back of her mind and refocused on the list in front of her, leg still bouncing.

  Cat closed the app with a sigh—it seemed like so much. Every item looked so simple at first glance, and yet the more she thought each of them through, the more they seemed to grow horns and tails and swing at the twins with the ferocity of a monster on a particularly bad night. How did Team Dangermaker manage to win three years in a row? How did they always manage to complete every item?

  To win, you had to complete as many items as possible to get the highest score. Plus, certain people who impressed Corwin and the judges the most even qualified to be considered for special mentorships—Alex cared way more about those. Not only did you have to complete as many items as possible to receive points—awarded by a super-secret Quest judging committee—but you were also awarded extra points for style. Taking a photo with your biggest fan was fine, but taking a photo with a ceiling fan the size of a football field somehow would definitely net a team the full eighteen points. There was a lot of creativity and on-the-spot thinking involved. It definitely wasn’t easy. And the team with the most points won.

  And the Q and A was somehow still going, with yet another “this is more of a comment than a question, but…” from the crowd. In desperation, Cat threw her hand up in the air. Her mom, spotting it immediately, laughed and waved for Cat to stand up. “Everyone, my daughter, Catalina,” she said in her characteristic accent.

  “Um, hi, everybody
.” Cat stood up, holding her phone out in front of her in selfie video mode. She could feel Fi’s eyes boring a hole into the side of her head, but whatever. “I wanted to ask, like, an actual question, actually. Can you talk a little bit about what it was like moving from writing comics scripts to writing TV scripts? Like, what the difference is?” She sat back down with a hard thud and started jiggling her knee again. She hit stop on the video with a smile.

  Fi reached over Alex and pressed the palm of her hand into Cat’s bobbing knee. “Can you not?” she said, glaring at Cat. No, Cat could not not. She just needed to get out of here, stat. They really did have to get to their next Quest item and soon. Plus, there was a special, exclusive screening of her most favorite cartoon of all time, Igor!!! on Skates, an anime about a boy figure skater who falls in love with one of his boy figure skater friends. They were showing a brand-new episode in just ten minutes, which wouldn’t have been a problem if her parents’ panel had ended ten minutes ago like it was supposed to! Plus, obviously they were missing out on precious time for completing Quest items elsewhere. This was a total and complete nightmare.

  But an attitude wouldn’t get Cat anywhere with Fi, who was going through a moody phase and could out-attitude anyone in her sleep. Cat needed her big sister on her side. “Fi,” she whispered, learning over, “can we just—?”

  “Shhh!” Fi hissed, and a man in wolf ears directly in front of them spun around, shushing her right back. Fi shrank back and Cat smiled to herself. Served her right, thought Cat. Fi had been way louder than she’d been.

  Turning back toward the raised stage, Cat pulled at a strand of her curly hair, currently blue tipped, her foot still bobbing. Alex was sitting between his sisters and, of course, didn’t look concerned at all. He probably hadn’t even noticed the time; he had moved from his console to his sketchbook. Cat knew sometimes it was the only way Alex could keep calm. But she needed someone to complain to. Cat reached out to grab his pencil.

  “Hey!” Alex wrenched his pencil back from his sister’s grasp. Wolf Ears spun around in his chair again to glare at him. There was no way they were escaping without this guy complaining to their parents after the panel. Ugh.

  Cat thought fast. “It’s twenty after!” she whispered, jabbing a finger at Alex’s calculator watch. “We’re never going to make it. We’re getting foiled by this panel.”

  They were completely almost late now. Would they be stuck here until the bitter end? Cat let out an even louder sigh and sunk back into her seat. Alex was never the take-action guy. That was all going to be on Cat, which she was fine with—it meant she got to do things the way she wanted them done.

  But still. It would have been nice to have some help.

  Cat felt weighted down, like she might slide off her chair and melt directly into the floor. At least then she’d be able to ooze her way across the patterned carpet, out the door, into the hallway, and on to her freedom. The Quest awaited!

  Cat shook her head and pulled herself upright. Now was not the time for daydreaming. Now was the time for decisions. If there was anything anime had taught her, it was that sitting around and waiting for things to happen to you was absolutely not the way to get stuff done. No, actually, that was how you invited giant, terrifying titans into your city to eat you and everyone you love.

  Not today, titans. Not today.

  It was time to make things happen. As casually as humanly possible, Cat peered over Alex’s head to sneak a glance at Fi. She seemed engrossed in the never-ending panel, but a second look showed Cat that her sister was actually staring hard at a guy farther down the reserved row—totally her type (messy curls, disinterested stare)—and compulsively tucking and untucking her flat-ironed hair behind her ear. Cat almost rolled her eyes before she realized that this particular Teenage Moment™ had provided her with the perfect momentary distraction. It was now or never. Cat got Alex’s attention and jerked her head toward the aisle.

  Checking one more time to make sure Fi wasn’t looking her way, Cat grabbed hold of her cape, ducked, and slipped right out of her aisle seat. Success! Crouching and praying to as many magical girls as she could think of, Cat imagined some epic movie score playing as she made the bid for her escape. Half-bent as she ran, Cat arrived at the back of the room and stood up straight, nodding at the girl with braces in a lime-green con T-shirt staffing the door. The girl narrowed her eyes and pushed the door open just an inch.

  But an inch was all Cat and Alex would need. That was their out. They’d almost made it. Cat took a step toward the door before freezing dead in her tracks, the back of her neck prickling with a really bad feeling. She turned slowly.

  Her brother wasn’t behind her.

  Alex.

  She couldn’t just leave him here to suffer. They were in this together. It was dangerous to go alone. Cat stood on her tiptoes at the back of the room to try to get a good look at her brother near the front, crossing her fingers that Fi didn’t choose this moment to turn around. She quickly pulled her phone out of her circular Alora Florals purse and swiped until she found Alex’s name in her text message list.

  Cattails: You were supposed to follow me!

  Alex, trying to be as casual as possible, brought his phone to his face and quickly typed something. Cat felt her phone buzz.

  Alinator: go without me

  Alinator: save yourself

  Cat bit her lip, smearing some of her blue lipstick in the process. It was tempting. Freedom, and their next Quest items, and Igor, were so close. But if she left Alex here, they wouldn’t be their Quest items. They would be hers.

  Cat sighed. Sometimes Alex would freeze up, and it was up to Cat to get him to move. She really didn’t want to resort to this, but there was no way around it. Pulling up the GIF keyboard on her phone, Cat sent Alex one thing: a looping video of their two favorite Wormhole characters grabbing hands and running through alien chaos.

  From the back of the room, Cat could see her brother’s head pop up to look for her. He twisted all the way around in his chair and caught Cat’s eye—which was enough to gain Fi’s attention, too.

  Her older sister bolted up and out of her seat so fast it was like she had a jet pack on her butt.

  Cat knew she had to act fast. She lunged past the lime-shirted volunteer, slamming the double doors of the panel room open all the way. Before the crowd in the room could turn to fully see what was going on, Cat ducked down behind the last row of seats and yelled as loud as she possibly could: “Listen, I just think the prequels are better movies than the original Star Worlds trilogy!”

  The room exploded. The panelists, Cat’s parents included, sat in shock as the crowd of Ducky McFowl fans turned to see who had caused the disruption. But Cat knew people loved arguing about (sorry, “having a spirited debate” about) Star Worlds, and in no time the crowd had devolved into a massive group argument.

  As the panelists tried to regain some order over the crowd, Cat ran the length of the aisle she had snuck down before and grabbed her brother’s hand from behind. Cat pulled Alex away just as Fi made a grab for them. Instead of heading into the crush of people, Cat bolted to the curtain that acted as a makeshift backstage area for the panelists and flew through it, dragging Alex behind her.

  “Cat?!” Alex shook his hand free from hers but kept pace with his sister.

  She turned a corner, slammed through a set of double doors at breakneck speed, and skidded to a stop near an alcove. Alex almost ran straight into her back.

  “Watch it!” she whispered, dragging Alex back into the shadows.

  Cat took stock of where they’d ended up. Instead of running into the main hall, she’d taken them backstage into the brightly lit corridors and service tunnels that served the convention center, the ones the very stars themselves used to get around during con weekends without being mobbed.

  Totally on purpose, Cat thought. Completely planned out. Yup.

  While Alex put his hands on his knees and tried to regain his breath, Cat attempted
to figure out how far they’d run.

  “This was a terrible idea,” heaved Alex.

  Ignoring him, Cat counted the doors behind her—one, two, three … wait.

  Wait.

  “This way,” Cat insisted. Passing a wall of catering dishes, a cageful of golf carts, and what looked like a weird open garage, they came to a halt in front of another door identical to the one from which they’d escaped.

  “Don’t. Say. A word,” Cat whispered to her brother.

  “You’re the one who can’t stop talking,” Alex whispered back as Cat slowly pushed the door open.

  Slipping through, Alex just a step after her, Cat silently closed the door behind them. They were in a dark room behind another set of curtains, next to a giant stage. There was no one on this side of the backstage area, but through the semi-sheer curtains Cat could see a crowd of hundreds seated in uncomfortable chairs, staring toward the stage.

  “Holy Danica McKellar, Cat,” Alex breathed. “We did it.”

  Slowly, Cat turned. There, projected up on the screen onstage: the Igor!!! on Skates opening credits.

  They’d made it.

  Trying to stay chill and quiet and failing miserably, Cat hopped around in joy and got Alex to join in, too. They had barely missed a second of the episode! And they’d lost Fi in the process! It was a GeekiCon miracle.

  Cat and Alex sat on the carpeted floor behind the stage with a prime view of the whole new episode from the sidelines. Cat’s love for this show was so deep. Igor had these amazing roller-skating dancing moves and a cute boyfriend! There was nothing better in life.

  Cat was so caught up in the episode that she almost forgot the other reason they’d had to make a break for it: the Quest. Hurriedly, she whipped out her phone and uploaded the video she’d taken of herself asking an actually good question at her parents’ panel to the app. Another one down.