by Nancy Werlin
Flashback!
It was the start of my junior year. Simon and I had been together only a few months and everything was feeling sooo right. I was still incredulous to have a boyfriend, let alone such a hot, smart, kind, and emotionally mature boyfriend. I was basically radioactive with happiness. Maggie would elbow me and say, “Zoe? Take that look off your face. Now, I said now. You’re with me. Be here.”
I’d try.
Bleeders was newly out in the world, but I hadn’t heard of it until one evening when Simon’s younger sister, Josie, she/her, then thirteen, slid into her chair late for the Murawski family dinner. She got a frown from Ms. Murawski, but Josie acted oblivious. Anyway, a frown is as far as Simon’s mom ever takes it—which Josie knew. Simon had told me how his sister shamelessly manipulated their mother, though he also said Josie was basically a good kid, if a little headstrong.
“I was watching my new show again.” Josie waved her fork. “I am hooked! I can’t wait for the second episode tonight!”
Ms. Murawski shuddered. “I’m not watching anymore.”
“The blood’s not that bad,” Josie said earnestly. “Really, Mom. It’s not like it’s gushing, there’s only a few seconds when Captain goes to examine that guy. They give you plenty of warning, so you can look away before the virus makes their skin completely dissolve. Also—”
Simon said, “Josie, we’re having dinner here. And we have a guest.”
“Oh, Zoe doesn’t count as a guest!” Josie turned to me excitedly. “You have to watch! Bleeders! It’s streaming on SlamDunk, and it’s free if you watch the commercials. Have you heard about it? It’s about women doctors! In space! There’s this terrible virus.”
Simon made a little sound.
I shook my head. “I don’t have time for a lot of TV.”
“Zoe’s bookish,” Simon said. We smiled at each other. We’d spent an hour yesterday talking about a serious book called Infinite Jest that he loved, and a science fiction series by N. K. Jemison that I had successfully talked him into reading the first book of, once he understood that it was at its core about institutionalized racism. We talked about how some books were hard going and complicated but repaid your attention.
“You’d love the show,” Josie insisted to me. “It’s intellectual and feminist and science-y.”
“It’s fantasy science, space opera, not realistic science.” Simon turned his face so his sister wouldn’t see him roll his eyes at me. But she must have sensed it anyway.
“The virus,” said Josie dangerously, “is totally scientifically plausible.”
“I’m guessing you read that in some PR release?”
“So what? How can you even have an opinion? You haven’t watched Bleeders.”
“You haven’t shut up about it for the last week, that’s how. I draw my own conclusions.”
“Which are totally wrong. I can prove it. I’ll send you links about real viruses!”
“I know about real viruses, Josie. I happen to think that’s where we should focus our attention. On reality. Not fantasy.”
Josie’s eyes flashed.
Ms. Murawski intervened. “Don’t you find it disturbing, Josie? You had nightmares for days after watching the Red Wedding.”
“Oh, Game of Thrones,” Josie said. “At the time, it was upsetting, I suppose, but I was younger. That kind of thing doesn’t bother me at all now.”
“Now you’re a year older and so wise.” Ms. Murawski mimed banging her head against the table, but she was grinning.
Simon told me, “Josie wasn’t actually allowed to watch Game of Thrones. She was sneaking it on her laptop, under the covers, by dead of night. I caught her.”
“But then Mom let me watch it,” Josie said coolly. “With her.”
“There was,” Simon explained to me, “a carefully negotiated truce.”
Josie went on excitedly—unstoppably—about her new show. By the time dinner ended, I had heard all about Season 1, Episode 1, of Bleeders. Her mom smiled at her and participated. Under the table, Simon held my hand, his face carefully neutral except for a compressed mouth.
So until Simon walked me home afterward, I didn’t realize how truly worried he was about his sister.
Simon knows he can’t take his father’s place as an authority for Josie, and he doesn’t want to, and he also understands he’s a kid too. But still, he tries to do whatever he can to lift some of the burden of being a single parent from his mother.
“If she was just going to watch this new show once a week until the season is over, I guess I wouldn’t worry. But with her, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She likes, you know, fandoms. I’ve seen this before. She’ll rewatch. She’ll analyze. She’ll spend hours and hours online with the freaks, obsessing. It’s not good for her! And she’s wasting time that should be spent on better things.”
“What does she do online? Talk about the show?”
“Yes. But also, there’s fanfiction, which as far as I can tell is written by people who have nothing better to do with their lives. Josie can spend hours and hours reading fanfiction. Which isn’t good, serious literature like what you read, Zoe.”
I smiled and said nothing. Simon didn’t know that my reading tastes were . . . eclectic. That good and serious wasn’t always what I was in the mood for.
My dad jokes that most people don’t date each other directly; their ambassadors date each other. I suddenly understood what he meant. It was helpful to know that this was normal and what everybody did.
We had arrived at my house. It was a beautiful late-summer evening with school due to start in three days. Junior year was going to be wonderful, together. I had no intention of doing or saying anything to put that at risk.
And yet . . .
“You think fanfic is always badly written?” I asked.
“By definition, it’s got to be crap, right? No originality. Derivative. But that’s not really what bothers me. Or, not only that.” Simon moved his shoulders uncomfortably. “A lot of it is porn. I was suspicious, so I checked and I actually found some Harry Potter fanfiction on her laptop. Hermione and Bellatrix—” He blushed. “Never mind. You can probably imagine. I’m sorry.”
I could imagine. Hermione and Bellatrix Lestrange. Hm. Interesting . . .
Simon was looking everywhere but directly at me.
And then I realized: He checked his sister’s computer. Behind her back. And read her private stuff . . .
“Listen, you’d worry, too, if you had read what I did,” Simon continued gruffly, eyes on the sidewalk.
I tried to think of what to say.
Simon’s and my relationship was progressing at an appropriate pace, for us both being sixteen and being each other’s first boyfriend and girlfriend. He was very considerate, and we’d decided together to go slow sexually, with lots of talking. This was unlike, for example, Maggie’s ex-boyfriend from last year, who’d been both inarticulate and seriously pushy for the two weeks he lasted. Simon felt and said that I should set the pace. So we were in complete agreement. We could talk about us and how we felt and what we wanted.
It was comfortable. In contrast, this conversation felt uneasy. Maybe because it was his sister we were talking about.
I finally said, “Could you say more about it? I’m listening.”
“Just that I don’t think Mom really gets it about what Josie sees online. Even though I showed her! She says she’ll intervene if she needs to. But I don’t think she’s all that worried about the—the porn. I don’t get it! I actually showed it to her—well, I told you that—but she said she’d take it from there and it wasn’t my business, it was hers and Josie’s.”
Whew. That sounded exactly right to me.
“Good,” I said. “Your mom’s on it. It’s not your—our—business.”
“Yes, only Josie’s still reading that . . . stuff. I know it, Zoe. I looked again. And this . . . stuff . . . I can’t even tell you . . .” He actually blushed. “You would be shocked. I w
as. Josie is only thirteen! I want to protect her!”
I didn’t think I would be as shocked as he thought.
Also, I wondered, at Josie’s age, would I have appreciated having an older brother who looked out for me? Made decisions for me? Advised me?
Checked my laptop?
No.
I might not want to, but I absolutely had to say something. “Simon. You shouldn’t look at Josie’s computer ever again. Never. Or at anything of hers that you know is private.”
“I know. My mother said that too. And she’s right. You’re right. I won’t.”
“Good.”
I was relieved! So relieved! I said, “So can we stop worrying about Josie and focus on us instead?”
Simon grinned. “Gladly.”
We kissed good night for a long time. Our practice was definitely paying off.
I wasn’t intending to watch Bleeders that night, or ever. But I was thinking about Josie, and what she said about the show and how enthusiastic she’d been, and I found myself searching for it. And then, well, I watched.
Episode 1 begins with the crew finding out that Celie has programmed the ship’s computer to supply constant encouragement, like You feel energetic and alive! and You love challenges! Meanwhile, Captain is contacted in secret by someone who wants to sell her information about her husband and kids, and she arranges to meet them on the planet they’re orbiting on a medical mission. Except Lorelei says they can’t go down now—out of nowhere, the Bleeder virus has infected the planet and it’s on a rampage. Captain goes down anyway—and that’s where we first see the virus in action.
The next thing I knew, Episode 1 was over and Episode 2 was going to be available in fifteen minutes.
My bus was inching south in traffic in New York. I texted the Bloodygits:
ME: I’m in Manhattan! We’re close!
LIV: We’re waiting for you!
I bounced out of my seat when the bus arrived. The Bloodygits were right there, and I fell into them, all of us hugging and screaming ( Todd screamed in a fake falsetto, ugh). It was the best arrival I’d ever had in my life!
Meldel, Cam, and Liv were cosplaying the same as at Dragon Con: Captain, Tennah/Bellah, and Torrance. (Liv had a lightweight frying pan this time, and four scarves—I understood by now that Liv didn’t consider themselves dressed without at least two scarves.) Todd was looking good as Celie, with his hair teased high and sprayed and wearing thick smoky oversized glasses, a frilly dress over olive green leggings, combat boots, Celie’s white medical backpack, and a stethoscope-garrote.
Cam had made stethoscope-garrotes for all of us. I put mine on right away.
Sebastian, like me, wasn’t in costume yet. He didn’t want to risk wasting the “blood.” He also had a bag with all the Lorelei stuff that I’d ordered online and had sent to him.
“To the Javits!” Sebastian pumped a fist and pointed.
The Javits Center is an enormous convention hall on the west side of Manhattan. Walking there wasn’t like being in Atlanta for Dragon Con; the streets were filled with regular people, not other cosplayers. Some people stared at us and smiled, but even more people didn’t pay any attention to us, because—Sebastian explained—New York is where you go to be invisible.
Still, I felt self-conscious walking in public with cosplayers. I didn’t start feeling at ease until we were waiting in line at registration. Then, among all the fans (costumed and not), I remembered being at Dragon Con all by myself. And suddenly all I wanted was to get into my cosplay and fit in with my new people.
I pulled out the white wig I’d ordered and looked it over. “I was hoping to make a bun out of this. It’s shorter than I thought it would be.”
Meldel eyed it. “I can make it work, once you put it on. I have Todd’s hair spray.”
“You think? I just couldn’t find the exact right thing online, not cheap enough anyway,” I apologized. “I hope I’m not letting you Bloodygits down. Your cosplays are so amazing.”
“No problem! You’ll clearly be Lorelei just because you’re with us,” Liv said encouragingly. “Even if you don’t look exactly like her. And cosplay is about playing with the character representation just as much as it’s about being the character.” They considered. “Maybe more.”
“Nobody’s tall enough to really be Lorelei perfectly anyway,” Meldel said. “Except Todd, who really wanted to be Celie.”
“I don’t have the complexion to carry off white hair,” said Todd. He twirled clunkily. “I feel pretty!”
(I don’t quite know what to make of Todd. In fact, when I explained all the Bloodygits to Maggie, I said that Todd didn’t seem like a real person to me. “A poser?” Maggie asked. And I said, “I don’t know, maybe?” I was supposed to report any further conclusions to Maggie after the weekend.)
We got our badges, and then Liv and Meldel came with me into the ladies’ room and I turned myself into Lorelei.
Lorelei is the chief surgeon on the Mae Jemison. She’s the oldest person in the crew, in her sixties at least. She is very tall and very thin and very silent. While she refuses to carry any weapon except for the regulation stethoscope-garrote, she is not a pacifist like Torrance. We have seen her fight only once—in the Season 1 finale—but in another sense, we’ve never “seen her fight.” What we saw was a close-up of Lorelei’s eyes, which went entirely opaque and silver, and then we saw the aftermath, with three dead that she had somehow killed, no mess, no fuss, and then the season was over without any explanation of how she did it—until we saw the crystals in her arm in the Season 2 opener. Which explained nothing either, really.
There is a growing fandom taboo against shipping Lorelei with anyone. I think it’s ageism, but Liv says no, it’s aro/ace representation.
I put on tight black leggings and a black turtleneck and flat black boots with very pointed toes, and the white lab coat with the red insignia on the pocket, totally simple, and a heavy silver pendant. I had a laser pointer that was supposed to represent Lorelei’s surgeon’s laser scalpel. I had my white wig, which Meldel styled somehow into a tight bun. We rubbed makeup onto my face to turn my skin tone blueish. Finally, on one arm, I pulled a beaded crystal elbow-length glove that I got on Etsy for twenty-five dollars.
I had obviously had to spend some of my Mrs. Albee’s kitty soap earnings to pull all of this together, but it was worth it.
Captain, Torrance, and Lorelei stood in a line and looked at ourselves in the mirror. I snapped a photo for Maggie. Behind us, an Elastigirl said, “I don’t know who you are, but you all look fantastic!”
“We’re from Bleeders!” Meldel said. “Streaming on SlamDunk!”
Elastigirl gave us a thumbs-up on her way out.
Meldel remarked thoughtfully, “I could choreograph a dance for us.”
Liv slid their eyes to me for a second. “Like, an interpretive dance?”
“Yes!”
“No,” I said, alarmed.
“Why not?” said Liv impishly.
“Because I said no,” I said. “Also, and more to the point, nobody on Bleeders dances. Why would they dance? They’re on the run! They’re doctors!”
“But art,” Liv said, and giggled.
“You’re goading me, Liv,” I said. “I get it now, and I refuse to react.”
“It would be like a pantomime,” Meldel said dreamily. “Like a medieval masque, and we would sort of mime out our roles—”
“No,” I said.
“Coward!” Meldel said.
“Finally, you understand my character,” I said.
The six of us positioned ourselves just outside one of the doors to the con’s show floor. Things didn’t start well. Our giant sign said BING WATCH BLEEDERS ON SLAMDUNK! When I pointed out Todd’s spelling error, he shrugged. I had to squeeze in the missing e with my black ultra-fine Sharpie. We had two giveaways: an informational flyer about the show, which Meldel had written (her spelling is perfect, what can she possibly see in Todd?), and Meldel and Cam�
��s newest story, located under another sign that said FREE! NEW BLEEDERS FANFIC BY MELISANDE DU LAC AND ORPHAN SHORTBOTTOM!
However, the passersby expressed no interest in the giveaways.
We’d pinned our hope on the skit, an abbreviated version of Season 1, Episode 1, written by Meldel and starring Meldel, which was fair enough because even though the show opener introduced the entire crew of the Mae Jemison, it centered emotionally on Captain. Besides, Meldel could act.
So she had claimed.
“My husband betrayed me!” she cried, and smote (there is no other word) her breast with one fist. “He stole our daughters from me! And now, our universe is threatened by a virus for which there is no cure! The entire universe quakes in fear! The government has unleashed deadly robots to hunt down carriers. They are out of control! We are doctors! We are female! Except him [points to Torrance]! We seek a cure, and personally, I seek the return of my daughters! Here, see their pictures in this hologram!”
She thrust a snow globe into the path of a surprised Rey from Star Wars.
“My daughters!” insisted Meldel as she shook the snow globe in Rey’s face. Inside the globe, fake snow fell around the Golden Arches and a hamburger.
“Uh, delicious,” said Rey.
Meldel went nose to nose with Rey. “See the clever look in my daughters’ eyes?”
Rey exchanged a look with a little person in a Darth Vader mask, who was accompanying her.
Meldel shook the snow globe anew. She pointed at me, yelling, “Lorelei!”
I used an outdoor voice. “Our small crew of doctors has stolen this broken-down spaceship!”
“We have banded together in rebellion!” yelled Celie/Todd.
“Sounds like a Firefly rip-off,” observed the little Darth Vader.
“Now we are fighters, we are lovers, we are healers, and we are mothers and sisters,” Tennah/Bellah/Cam said tonelessly.
“Are you also cousins and aunts?” asked Rey with a snicker. Whereupon Darth Vader suddenly sang, using a carrying baritone, “I am the monarch of the sea, the ruler of the Queen’s Naveee!”