Con Quest!

by Sam Maggs

  Rowan, who still had her phone out, lifted it a little bit higher. Fi heard the camera sound go off.

  “What are you doing?” Fi asked, flustered.

  “Item twenty-six,” Rowan responded simply. She looked back down at her phone to submit it on the app.

  Item twenty-six … Fi racked her brain. She’d looked at this like one zillion times today. What was item twenty-six?!

  Rowan looked back up from her phone and smiled at Fi’s unasked question. “‘Submit a photo of the most beautiful thing at GeekiCon.’”

  Before Fi even had a chance to register the blush that had surely spread from her hairline all the way down to her toenails, Rowan leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. Fi felt like the entire left side of her face was on fire. She was certain that Rowan could hear her heart pounding. Her hands were sweaty. Why did hands even get sweaty?!

  Rowan pulled back and giggled—actually giggled—at the stunned look on Fi’s face. “Yeah, even I have to admit that was pretty smooth.”

  That was enough to start Fi giggling, too. “It really was, what the heck!” Fi was laughing so hard now she was almost bent in two. Is this just what a day at GeekiCon did to you by the end of it?

  Rowan was already back to business and had started talking about the Mystery Item again. Collecting herself, Fi finally put her hands on her knees and straightened herself up. People were still wandering around the Lunar Soldier sales section—no one had even noticed Fi and Rowan’s little moment together. All the toys were so bright and colorful, and the posters—

  The posters.

  “Rowan,” Fi said, interrupting her friend—Friend? Girlfriend? Whatever, later—but Rowan didn’t seem to notice. “Rowan!” Fi repeated with more urgency. She tugged on the girl’s sleeve and pointed upward. “Look!”

  There, directly above the girls’ heads, was a giant Lunar Soldier poster hanging from the ceiling rafters and swaying in the breeze of the (very strong) convention air-conditioning. It showed five Planetary Soldiers all decked out in their finest, tiniest skirts, looking ready for battle or for a beauty tutorial, whichever came first.

  And if you looked at the poster just right—from just the right angle, say directly below it—you would notice that one side of Lunar Soldier’s crown was a little blurry.

  And it looked just like the Mystery Item photo on the app.

  “No way, dude,” Rowan breathed.

  “Yes way, dude!” Fi was jumping up and down now. “Get it! Get it!”

  “Cat and Alex are not going to believe this.” Rowan grinned as she snapped the photo.

  “Oh.” Fi grinned back. “You have no idea.”

  26. Submit a photo of the most beautiful thing at GeekiCon. (45 points)

  25

  Cat

  Cat.

  Could not.

  Believe it.

  First, she’d been like, We’re totally going to win. And then she’d been like, No, we’re definitely going to lose. But now, with Alex coming through like this at the last minute, she was like, We might actually, totally, definitely, absolutely be able to win.

  Maybe.

  Probably?

  Seriously. And there was only one way to be sure.

  Her hands shaking with nervous energy, Cat reached forward and pulled aside the black curtain separating their little hidden antechamber from what lay beyond.

  Cat was hit with a wall of sound as her eyes adjusted to the darkness ahead of her. The echoey reverb of people talking on microphones in a massive room combined with the chatter of thousands of people enveloped her. Alex shoved her forward so they could drop the curtain back behind them, calling as little attention to their position as possible. Cat squinted as the crowd erupted into laughter, and the room finally came into clear focus.

  Hall M. This was it. This was it. Cat had read about it for years online. This is where all the biggest announcements were made every single year at GeekiCon. It’s where all the biggest stars from all the best geeky movies and TV shows came to chat with their fans. It’s where any relative nobody could get up to the microphone and ask literal superheroes what they liked to eat for breakfast.

  It was everything Cat had imagined. It was more.

  The room itself was a “room” only in the sense that it had four walls and a ceiling. Really, it was more like a sports stadium. Over six thousand folding chairs covered the concrete floor in neat rows, separated by aisles for people to enter and exit as calmly as was possible in a place like this. It was as dark as a movie theater. At the front of the hall was a raised stage set with a loooong table. Movie stars sat along it, each with their own microphone, in front of GeekiCon’s iconic backdrop. Usually, some awkward bro wearing a blazer over a T-shirt who wanted to look cool by association stood at a podium next to the table and asked the stars questions. For the six thousandth person in the back of the hall, gigantic screens on either side of the stage magnified the stars’ faces. In the aisles, two microphones stood proudly on stands, guarded by lime-shirted volunteers. Excited fans lined up for hours—for days, even—for the chance to ask their faves a question.

  “It’s Wormhole,” Cat breathed in disbelief. The cast of her very favorite Star franchise were right up there onstage. She couldn’t believe her luck.

  “C’mon,” Alex hissed in Cat’s ear, jarring her back to reality. “We should move!”

  Cat shook her head. She had to remember why she was here. It wasn’t to admire the cast of Wormhole, even though they were right up there, holy Hannah—it was to win the Quest.

  Alex reached out his hand and Cat grabbed it. Ducking to keep out of view, Cat sped as fast as she could toward the back of the hall. This far back, there were tons of empty seats—there might have been a huge line outside, but it was likely for the next panel or the one after that. Wormhole just didn’t have the same audience it did while it was on the air.

  Cat understood. It didn’t bother her.

  … Much.

  Cat and Alex slid into two seats at the end of a row and put their heads together.

  “I can’t believe you got us in here,” Cat whispered excitedly. She kept popping her head up to see Bradley Dan Anders up on the big screen. BDA was really here!

  “Cat.” Alex snapped his fingers in front of her face. Right. Quest. Right. Hall M.

  “Right, sorry, yes.” Cat pulled her phone out. “Okay, item eight: ‘Cartwheel down the center aisle in Hall M.’”

  “One hundred points,” Alex finished for her.

  “One. Hundred. Points,” Cat confirmed. That was huge. Even if they weren’t able to complete every item on the list—and it was getting late in the day—having a one hundred point–item in their pocket would go a long way toward launching them toward the top of the standings. So few people at GeekiCon actually got into Hall M to begin with—over 130,000 people came to the con, and the 6,500 who got into Hall M usually sat and refused to leave, which is like … math that Alex could probably do in his head. But the point was that not many people who go to GeekiCon got into this room, let alone people who were doing the Quest.

  Or people who had the courage to do cartwheels down the center aisle.

  “Can you cartwheel?” Alex asked, sounding suddenly panicked. “I can’t believe I didn’t ask that before. I didn’t even think about it. What if neither of us can—?”

  “Yes.” Cat cut Alex off before he could start spiraling too hard. “It’s okay. I can definitely, totally cartwheel. I’ve been practicing,” she added proudly. It hadn’t been going, like, well. But Alex didn’t need to know that part. She was passable at the cartwheel game, and that’s what mattered.

  “Okay.” Alex breathed out. “Okay. So I’ll tape. And you cartwheel. Good.”

  “When should we do it?” Cat poked her head up again. The room was about half full. That was still many thousands of people. But it could have been worse.

  “Between panels?” Alex suggested.

  Cat shook her head. “The aisles will be full o
f people coming and going. You won’t be able to get a clear shot. And I’ll probably get trampled,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Okay, before that.” Alex thought for a second, tapping his fingers on his jeans. “What about final question?”

  “Yes!” Cat agreed, just a little too loudly. She clamped a hand over her mouth and reverted back to a whisper. “It’s perfect. When the moderator says ‘last question,’ I’ll get up. As soon as they’re done answering and the cast starts leaving the stage, when everyone stars clapping, I’ll do it. It’ll be like my own standing ovation!”

  “I like it, but…” Alex looked his sister straight in the eye. Cat swallowed. “Cat, just promise me you’ll be careful—”

  “Okay, we’ve got time for just one last question!” Cat’s and Alex’s heads snapped toward the screen on their side of the stage. The panel moderator’s larger-than-life grin while stating something so obviously panic inducing made Cat dislike him more than she already did in principle.

  “Get your camera out!” Cat gave Alex one last supportive thumbs-up before darting out into the aisle.

  “Be careful!” she heard him whisper behind her—but Alex still followed her out into the aisle.

  Cat stood at the back of the hall, opening and closing her fists at her side. As she danced from foot to foot, she noticed that her blisters weren’t even hurting her anymore. She was officially too nervous to feel pain. Is this what it felt like to be Alex all the time?

  Hall M stretched on and on in front of Cat, the aisle impossibly long and growing longer by the second. In front of the stage, the last fan asked their question at the microphone staffed by a volunteer. Cat’s ears were roaring—she didn’t hear the question, but the crowd and the panelists laughed. The moderator started wrapping up the panel. People were standing up and clapping as BDA and her beloved Wormhole cast got up to leave the stage.

  This was it.

  This was her moment.

  The aisle was clear. It was now or never.

  Cat threw her arms over her head and launched herself forward. The darkness of Hall M made the floor and ceiling almost indistinguishable from one another as Cat tumbled down the aisle, the room flying from upside down to right side up in seconds over and over and over again. Cat ignored the sounds of surprise from either side of the aisle. She just had to hope that Alex was catching her in all her glory. Seven cartwheels—now eight—now nine—how far was she from—?

  “Cat!” She heard her brother’s shouted warning but couldn’t stop herself—her momentum was too strong. Cat’s hands landed on the concrete in front of her, her legs swung over her head—and she crashed right into the microphone stand.

  With the loudest amplified clatter ever heard in the history of humankind, Cat landed on her butt on the hard concrete floor, tangled in wire and mic stand. The lime-shirted volunteer stood next to her, and when Cat got her dizziness in check long enough to peer up, she saw that the volunteer looked horrified.

  Cat grinned. “Sorry about that!”

  The volunteer just stared.

  Cat shrugged and stood up, rubbing her tailbone—ouchhhhh—but she was still caught in the mic wires. Cat hopped up and down on one foot while trying to unravel herself.

  She heard Alex yell out for her again. “It’s okay!” Cat called back, still distracted by the wire. “We did it! Upload the—”

  “You won’t be uploading anything.”

  Cat froze, still on one foot, her hands still tugging at the wire tangled around her midsection. She looked up slowly, catching herself just as she was about to tumble over.

  James M. marched down the aisle, the back of Alex’s shirt in one hand, her brother’s phone in the other. Last time James M. had managed to capture Alex, her brother had looked distraught. Now, Alex just looked furious.

  “Let him go,” Cat said with as much menace as she could muster.

  “You two,” James M. spat out, reaching Cat while Alex still struggled to escape his grip, “are the worst part of GeekiCon.”

  “Did you mean you?” Alex shot back. James M. ignored him.

  “You’re both coming with me to the security office right now,” James M. said, tucking Alex’s phone into his back pocket. “And I am banning you from this convention. For life.”

  “Ah, that sounds great, really,” Cat snarked, “but I’m a little tied up right now, so—”

  “Enough!” James M. was turning bright red. He lurched forward and began yanking at the cords around Cat’s shoulders, the mic itself swinging back and forth wildly across the floor. The commotion and the noise, projected over the hall’s massive speaker system, was drawing a crowd. As Cat struggled to escape from both the mic and James M., people were gathering around them, standing between the seats on either side of the aisle.

  “Get off—” Cat finally managed to spin herself free of the cord in James M.’s hand. Behind James M. and Alex, Cat saw a familiar figure burst from the ever-expanding crowd of gawkers. Late, as usual—the Gallo family way.

  “Let him go!” Fi shouted, stopping in the aisle a few feet behind them. “Rowan, help—” Fi looked quickly from side to side. But she was alone. Her new friend was gone.

  James M. twisted to look back at Fi. “How did you get in here?” he demanded, shocked.

  Fi waved her badge in the air. “Amazing what having an important-looking badge and a smooth-talking friend can do for you.”

  James M.’s eyes narrowed. “You’re next,” he growled, before turning back and lunging for Cat’s shirt. Cat danced back out of his reach. With a frustrated yell, James M. tugged on the cord one last time, the microphone sailing through the air and falling into his grip. Cat had never seen someone look so much like a supervillain in real life as this guy did right now. Especially since he still held on to the back of Alex’s shirt with an iron grip.

  “You listen to me, you little twerp,” James M. hissed. He spoke quietly—the kind of angry quiet that was the most scary in parents and teachers alike. But it didn’t matter; James M.’s voice came from all sides. The microphone in his hand made sure of that. Cat thought of the scene in the Wormhole finale when one of the angry gods came through the wormhole to destroy the Earth, voice booming. The Wormhole team had stood their ground then.

  She would be just as brave now.

  “You are the problem with this convention,” James M.’s vitriol boomed, spit flying from the corners of his mouth. He kept stepping toward Cat, and she kept backing up.

  “You don’t understand what GeekiCon is about,” James hissed. Cat was very aware that the stage was only a few more steps behind her—she was running out of places to run.

  “You think it’s about scavenger hunts and shipping and politics.” He was getting closer.

  “Real fans don’t want that. This is my convention. I’m a real fan. And real fans don’t like forced diversity and cancerous feminism. Real fans…” Cat’s back hit the stage. This was it.

  “Real fans like—”

  “Soccer.” A voice even louder than James M.’s took over the speaker system. “And I like Ducky McFowl, even though I would rather die than tell my mom that.” Cat took her eyes off James M., just for a second. She knew that voice. “I like running to true crime podcasts even though that’s totally creepy.” Cat swung her head from side to side, searching for the source. “I like my ridiculous siblings, even if they make me so, so angry.”

  Fi. Of course that was Fi’s voice. But Fi was right in front of Cat—staring up at the stage above Cat. How was this…?

  Taking a chance, Cat pushed her back off the stage wall and spun around. Sure enough, there was Fi again—her face magnified on either side of the stage to several hundred times its actual size. It was not her sister’s best angle; it looked like someone had shot her from below with a shaky cell phone. But there was no doubt that the person on-screen was Fi.

  “What is going on—?!” roared James M. But his microphone no longer worked, and his voice was drowned out by Fi�
�s.

  “I was so set on hating everything here that I didn’t even bother to see the good in it,” this giant version of her sister continued. The crowd was transfixed by it.

  “Fi!” Cat yelled. “How are you doing this?”

  “I’m not!” the real-life version of her sister shouted back over James M.’s head.

  “This convention is about being exactly who you are, and about finding the people who love you for you,” continued giant Fi. “No matter what you love, someone else here loves it just as much. Probably more, actually.”

  Cat caught Alex’s eye in front of her. She winked at him. He winked back.

  “I’ve never been someplace where I can be sure that I’m not the weirdest person in the room,” giant Fi boomed. “But also that all the other weirdos are probably kind of awesome.”

  The video cut off.

  The people in Hall M stared at the blank screens, stunned.

  And then they erupted.

  Every nerd in the room burst into cheers and applause. The crowd that had been gathering around James M. and the twins surged forward. Someone—Cat was sure it was the lime-shirted volunteer—ripped the microphone out of James M.’s hand. Someone else pushed between Alex and James M., severing their connection. In the massive, supportive crowd, Cat was able to become anonymous. The tidal wave of geeks swept James M. from the hall, shrieking. Cat raced through legs to grab her brother’s hand—he didn’t seem to mind, in this instance—and then Fi’s. Together, the three of them ran for the curtained area to the right of the stage. In the crowd, no one noticed them slipping through.