Con Quest!

by Sam Maggs

  “You’re really talented!” Adrianna Tack herself brought Alex out of his starry-eyed stupor. “What’s your name?”

  Alex just stood there, stunned.

  “Alex,” Cat offered, from just beside him. “He’s a big fan. The biggest.”

  “Aren’t you a little young for Epic?” Steven J. Rhys laughed.

  “It’s—” Alex’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, his face going all blotchy and red again as he attempted to actually make coherent sense. “It’s the most brilliant space opera I’ve ever seen. It’s Romeo and Juliet, but if they were both aliens in an intergalactic conflict. It’s the most human story ever, even though none of the characters are human. It’s helped me understand a lot about people and how to interact with people and feelings, and I just … really love it,” Alex said, his words tumbling out in a rush, knowing that if he stopped he would never be able to start again. It was maybe the longest sentence he’d said out loud in ages. And Adrianna Tack was looking right at him.

  With a smile, Steven shook his head. “You know what, who am I to turn down a fan? Let me sign one of these for you,” he said, bending over an issue of Epic.

  “Can you write ‘Team DoubleTrouble’ on there, too?” Alex heard Cat whisper to Steven from beside him.

  “Hey, can I keep this?” asked Adrianna. She was holding one of Alex’s sketches.

  “You … want my art?” asked Alex, his shock overcoming his nerves.

  “Only if you’ll sign it for me!” She smiled back.

  Yep, he had definitely ascended. With a shaking hand, Alex reached out and grabbed the Sharpie Adrianna offered him, scribbling his signature onto the bottom of the paper. When he gave back the Sharpie, she handed him back his Epic, also signed.

  “Keep drawing,” Adrianna said, looking Alex right in the eye. “One day, you’ll be sitting in my seat.”

  And with that, the lead volunteer pulled them away from the line and back into the crowd with some quick thank-yous and goodbyes. Alex barely looked up from his shiny new signature even for a moment, his heart so full of elation that he completely forgot where he was, just for a moment.

  “You okay?” Cat asked.

  Alex tore his eyes away from his signed comic to look at his sister. “Are you kidding?”

  Cat pulled out her phone again, snapped a pic of the signatures, and uploaded it to the Quest app. She looked up at Alex with a triumphant grin before, suddenly, the expression on Cat’s face changed to one of pure terror.

  “James M., down the hall!”

  It was time to run again.

  But not before Alex carefully tucked the Epic comic back into its bag and board and put it safely away in his messenger bag. He had his priorities straight, after all.

  16. Get a real-life comic-book artist to sign your team name in their own comic. (76 points)

  23. High-five another Quest team. How high can you go, actually? (30 points)

  15

  Fi

  Fi would never say she was having a good time. Not out loud. Maybe, if someone were to threaten Fi with the worst thing imaginable—like, say, never being allowed to go camping unchaperoned again—then maybe. But under any other circumstances, she would never, ever admit it.

  But internally, totally secretly, between Fi and Fi … she was maybe, just maybe, having a good time completing Quest items with Rowan.

  Ugh. It was gross. But it was true.

  Fi had tried to convince a cosplayer she knew who they were even though she obviously had no idea (item twenty-eight, twenty-four points). Rowan got a good laugh out of that one. But Fi had gotten her cool vibe back by impressively bouncing her always-handy soccer ball knee to knee while ascending the con’s big main escalator (item eighteen, twenty points). Now they were sitting on the con floor—they’d found a booth with super-plush comfy carpets for their butts—and were working on item eleven: Write a poem for someone you see on the con floor who looks like they could use a pick-me-up. Rowan, feet flat on the floor, was digging through her fanny pack for a pen. They were planning on giving their poem to a very tired-looking AC Comics volunteer.

  Fi, exhausted, leaned her head onto Rowan’s shoulder. She had determined the nice smell was Rowan’s hair and was happy to use it to mask what Rowan called the “con funk” whenever she could. Fi sighed deeply and took a second to relax.

  “You know,” Rowan said with a small smile, coming up triumphantly with the pen, “you can admit you’re having fun.”

  “I am not!” protested Fi, lifting her head up again and trying to snatch away the pen unsuccessfully. She couldn’t help but laugh as she said it, though.

  “You are!” Rowan jabbed Fi with her pen, and her purple bangs covered her eyes. “You are and you know it. So what’s the deal?”

  “There’s no deal.” Fi brushed her off, still smiling despite herself.

  “I’m serious, dude.” Rowan turned to face Fi. “Be real with me. I’ll be real with you.”

  “I don’t even know what that means. Give me that; I’ll write it,” Fi deflected, grabbing for the pen.

  Rowan moved the pen up and away from Fi’s reach. “I mean … okay, here. I’m going to trust you with something about me. And then maybe you can trust me with something about you. Okay?”

  Fi hesitated. Rowan had been great today. Like … really great, actually. But did she want to go there?

  Remembering that she really did need Rowan’s help to find the twins, Fi conceded. “Okay. Go for it.”

  “So you know how everyone at school thinks I was in a cult.”

  Fi was surprised. Rowan knew people said that about her? Fi must have sat there with her mouth open for just a second too long, because Rowan put two fingers under Fi’s chin and shut it for her.

  “Yeah, I secretly kind of love that people think that about me, so I don’t correct them. Reality is, natch, way less rad.” Rowan laughed. “My folks are musicians. We traveled around a lot, and I was homeschooled. Now we have a real house, so I have to go to a real school.”

  Fi shifted, pulling her knees up and resting her head on them. “That sounds so … exciting.”

  “Sometimes,” Rowan agreed. “But mostly it meant I didn’t really know anybody. I didn’t have any friends, you know? We never stayed anywhere long enough. Instead, I had…” Rowan gestured around her vaguely. “Comics and games and shows and movies. And fandom. I got totally obsessed with so many things. And then I’d go online and find other people who were just as obsessed with the same things. And it’s, like, instant friendship. You just get each other. Even if you’re not around each other, you know?”

  Fi didn’t know. Maybe it was like being fans of the same soccer team? Regardless, Fi liked listening to Rowan talk, so she nodded.

  “The thing about that kind of friendship, fandom friendship,” Rowan continued, “is that it’s just completely genuine. Everybody knows exactly who you are and what you’re into. You can just be yourself. No games. No garbage. It’s huge. Fandom connects people all over the world. And then once a year, if we’re lucky, we get to meet up IRL here. At GeekiCon. And it’s … kind of magic.”

  Rowan made it sound like magic. A magic Fi had been missing out on. And … for what? Why did all this make her so uncomfortable?

  “I never really thought about it that way,” Fi said. “I guess I never really thought about it much at all—”

  “No sitting in the booth!” A gruff voice interrupted Fi’s thought. Rowan and Fi scrambled to grab their notepad and pen and stood in a hurry. “I said, no sitting in the—”

  “We got it, we got it!” Rowan responded, just as rough.

  The angry guy stormed over to them. He was older, like Fi’s dad’s age, and had a big CON STAFF badge around his neck. It identified him as JAMES M. “What do you two think you’re doing here? Show me your passes,” he demanded.

  Rowan held out her badge, rolling her eyes. Fi followed suit. James M.’s examined Rowan’s badge first, then Fi’s. In an instan
t, he snatched it out of her hand, tugging her forward by the neck.

  “Hey—”

  “This is a GUEST badge. It says here you’re a publicist. You don’t look like a publicist to me,” James M. said accusatorily.

  All the blood drained from Fi’s face as she remembered—she had grabbed her parents’ publicist’s badge this morning in the rush to get out of the room. It didn’t really matter—nobody checked these things except to make sure you had a badge at all.

  Except for this guy, Fi thought with growing dread.

  “It’s just a mistake—”

  “What’s your problem, anyway?” Rowan demanded, knocking Fi’s badge out of James M.’s hand and stepping between them. Under her breath as she made the move, Rowan whispered, “Just go!”

  Fi froze for a second. Go where?

  “What’s my problem?” James M. repeated, now visibly angry. “My problem is you pink-haired social justice warriors taking up space in my convention, disrespecting the art by sitting on the floor of the AC Comics booth when you probably couldn’t even name a single AC Comics character—”

  “Now, Fi!” Rowan hissed under her breath while James M. continued his nonsensical tirade.

  Fi didn’t hesitate this time. She spun on her heel and took off down one of the con aisles, James M.’s frustrated yells swallowed up by the crowd behind her. Fi never thought she’d be grateful for this giant convention crowd—but she sure was now. Rowan would find her later. She was certain of it.

  She had to.

  Fi had no idea where to turn, so she decided to do the only thing she could think of in the moment: keep moving forward, and as quickly as possible. She motored around the corner of the AC Comics booth, desperately searching for something she recognized, something that could jog her memory. Fi scanned the room as best she could while continuing to avoid the crowds: super hero movie costumes, people live gaming, a girl wearing wings two times her height, a giant sign for Pixel Comics …

  Wait.

  Pixel Comics.

  Fi stopped dead in her tracks, barely noticing when someone collided with her back. Why did Pixel Comics sound so familiar?

  She racked her brains as hard as she could. She knew someone had mentioned it to her today. It wasn’t Rowan …

  It was Alex! That morning, while getting ready! The one thing he couldn’t stop talking about!

  Finally, Fi had a direction. She didn’t know for sure that she would find the twins there—but it was her best bet.

  Could Fi’s luck finally be turning?

  And was it all thanks to Rowan?

  11. Write a poem for someone you see on the con floor who looks like they could use a pick-me-up. Give it to them! (24 points)

  16

  Cat

  Not to exaggerate, but Cat was basically a hero.

  Yes, she had cheated on the Quest. And yes, said cheating had lost her and Alex their prized Hall M passes. And no, Alex did not know that yet and was definitely, positively going to absolutely murder her when he found out.

  But Cat had gotten Alex his Epic signature, and they’d completed another Quest item to boot. That was the most important thing of all to Alex, that Epic session, Cat reasoned. Maybe, since she was such a hero, he wouldn’t be that angry at her for losing their Hall M passes.

  Maybe.

  Right?

  Cat took a sidelong glance at her brother, tapping away on his console. They were seated behind a booth in Artist Alley, resting their feet while also doing a good deed (and totally coincidentally, a Quest item). After spotting James M., Cat had made a beeline straight for one of the less-populated areas of the floor. There were two big Artist Alley items on the Quest list—take a photo of your favorite artist and upload it to social media to spread the love, and then volunteer to help someone out at their booth. Cat had snapped a pic of Jess Carrell’s table to upload—her art looked like a rainbow-colored Lisa Frank catalog from the 1990s had exploded all over space, and Cat was totally obsessed with it. Cat had even bought one of her pins while she was there, a small purple cat connected to a speech bubble that simply said GO AWAY. Purrfect.

  For the next item, they’d found a gal sitting alone at her table who looked like she hadn’t moved in hours. Cat told her they’d be happy to man her booth while she got something to drink and hit the bathroom, and the artist had been super-grateful. They’d exchanged social media deets, and the gal and her cash-stuffed belt bag had run for the nearest ladies’ room. Now Cat and Alex were greeting any folks who stopped by with the promise that the artist would be back any minute.

  Seated, resting, alone. Alex had his Epic comic. Cat’s heroism was fresh in his mind.

  Welp. No time like right heckin’ now, Cat reasoned. Right?

  Oh, Miss Paradigm. This was going to be awful.

  “Sayyyyy, Alex!” Cat said, falsely bright. She turned to her brother with a huge smile on her face. “How about that Epic comic, huh?!”

  “Are you finally going to tell me what’s been up with you?” Alex said mildly, not bothering to look up from his game.

  Cat swallowed. Could the whole con hear that swallow? It basically echoed in her ears. “Oh, uh, yeah, totally! Can’t believe you knew something was up.”

  “You know I knew something was up,” Alex said, hitting the PAUSE button on his console. He looked up. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Okay, me too,” Cat lied. “So remember the thing with the Star-Troopers?”

  “You cheated.”

  “Yes, cool, okay, you totally remember.” Cat couldn’t make her leg stop bouncing up and down. Why did it always do that? “So Dahlia noticed me. Doing that. Cheating.”

  “I figured as much.” Alex shrugged. “I’ve been trying really, really hard not to think about what that meant.”

  “I understand.” Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. “Well, and it’s not even a big deal.” Cat tried her best to sound casual. “It’s, like, it’s basically nothing. It’s like nothing happened, really, at all, actually.”

  “You want to tell me that nothing happened?” Alex was not having this.

  “No.” Cat shook her head. “One tiny thing happened. I had to—”

  “I’m back!” said a cheerful voice from across the table. Oh, right. The gal. Who owned this table. And all the art on it. Was back!

  “Great! Oh, great!” Cat stood up so fast she knocked her chair over. Alex just stared at her for a second before tucking away his console and standing up, too. He set Cat’s chair back upright.

  Cat climbed out from behind the booth and wiped her sweaty palms on her cape before shaking the gal’s hand. “Thanks so much.”

  “No, thank you! I can’t tell you how much I needed the break. Take a pin,” she offered, holding out one of her cute Whom, M.D. designs. Alex took it immediately, thanking her.

  Cat and Alex walked out into the main aisle of Artist Alley. Cat’s leg was bouncing even though she was standing up now. Her brain was just one giant scream. She couldn’t keep doing this. She had to get it out. She had to—

  “So what were you going to—?”

  “I lost our Hall M passes!” Cat blurted out so fast she barely registered it was happening.

  Cat slapped her hand over her mouth and stared at her brother in horror. It was out there. She’d had to admit it. He knew. He knew.

  It was going to be fine. He wasn’t going to be angry. Alex never got angry—

  “You what?!”

  Okay. Alex was angry. Cat registered that Alex had continued talking (definitely angry) but started running through options in her head. What was the best damage control in this scenario? And were things really so bad, anyway?!

  That was it. She just had to help Alex see logic; that was all. Alex loved logic.

  “I know!” Cat interrupted her brother, who was still on his very angry mile-a-minute tirade. “Okay, I know. I messed up. I’m sorry. But look!” Cat gestured toward Alex’s messenger bag. “I figured out how to get your Epic comi
c signed! You met Adrianna Tack!”

  Alex swung his messenger bag away from Cat’s view and looked at her like she’d just committed the worst sort of betrayal. “Are you really going to use Adrianna Tack to try to make me feel better about this?”

  Yes? “No?”

  “Because it’s not going to work!” Aaaaand there he went again. Cat knew everything Alex was spouting had an element of truth to it—she did need to be more organized and responsible; it was only on, like, every report card she’d ever gotten—but it wasn’t helping anything.

  “I just think”—Cat cut her brother off again and tried to sound like one of the “wellness influencers” she sometimes came across online—“that what we really need to focus on right now is positivity.”

  “Is that going to positively bring back our Hall M passes?” Alex demanded.

  Cat stared at him. “Maybe?”

  Alex just shook his head. “I can tell you’re not even listening to me.”

  “I am!” Cat insisted loudly. She could tell the artists in the booths near the aisle were starting to look at them weird. Usually that wouldn’t bother Cat at a con, but … it kind of did, right now. “I am,” she said again, quieter this time.

  “Good. Because … because you know what, Cat?” She could tell Alex was struggling with whatever he was about to say next by the way his hands kept fiddling with the bag strap.

  “What?”

  Alex took a deep breath, his hands clutching tight around the woven strap across his chest. “Even since before the Vigilante League thing, you’ve been just telling me what to do. You haven’t asked what I want to do even once. And actually, the Quest just isn’t any fun anymore.”

  Cat couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Telling you what to do?” she repeated, shocked. “I’m not telling you what to do; I’m just trying to get our Quest items done! I’m fighting for both of us here, since you don’t seem interested!” Cat was getting louder and louder and she couldn’t stop herself—she was so angry now! “I’m doing this for you—so you can get that mentorship!”