What Happens at Con
A Fandom Hearts Novel
Cathy Yardley
RYW Publishing
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Contents
The Fandom Heart Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright Page
THE FANDOM HEART SERIES
LEVEL UP (Book 1)
HOOKED (Book 1.5)
ONE TRUE PAIRING (Book 2)
GAME OF HEARTS (Book 3)
WHAT HAPPENS AT CON (Book 4)
Chapter 1
Ani Choudhary took a deep breath, hurrying across the grassy quad, her cell phone to her ear. “You didn’t have to call me,” she said, trying not to sound out of breath.
“It’s my fault that you have to meet your new adviser, just a month or two before your proposal defense,” Dr. Delilah Kantor said. “I just feel bad.”
“It’s not your fault you got breast cancer,” Ani said, trying to sound reassuring. “You need to rest up, take care of yourself.”
“I should be able to take you on after I get through with all this,” Delilah said, but her voice did sound tired. “Anyway, Dr. Peterson is one of the best in immunology at the Maple Valley campus.”
Ani sighed quietly. “I’m sure he’ll be great,” she said, not so much lying as trying to be optimistic. She knew he had a great reputation. It was why she’d gone with him. But rumor had it Dr. Peterson was old-school. He was very set in his ways, in his methods. In his beliefs.
He also had very few women on his research teams, and he advised very few of them. That, she worried, was going to be a problem.
“All right. I’m here,” Ani said as she arrived at the office. “Take care of yourself, and I’ll visit soon, okay?”
“Ani, you’re going to be working on your proposal defense and doing your RA work. You’ll barely have time to bathe,” Delilah said with a weak laugh. “Don’t worry about me, all right? I’ve got Richard here. I’m fine.”
Richard was Delilah’s husband, and a registered surgical nurse. Delilah would be fine, Ani knew. Or at least as fine as she could be, considering. “Well, hang in there,” Ani said, feeling at a loss.
“You, too.”
Ani hung up, then squared her shoulders. She had a lot riding on this. Dr. Peterson was supposed to help carry her through her proposal, the last time a student could really fail before working towards her PhD. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be working her ass off for a couple of years after the proposal defense — it just meant that if they wanted to get rid of her, her advisory board would probably choose that time to do so, rather than have her go through all the work of a dissertation and pull together the entire board at the same time just to fail her. She’d already worked over the project concept with Delilah ad nauseum over the past two years while she finished her generals and got all the foundations of her career. She’d then gone off to Helsinki for nearly a year, at Delilah’s request. She trusted Ani to do the research and capture the information necessary.
She could’ve chosen Dr. Peterson when she’d first applied to Washington Sound University, but Delilah was another woman in the field, and Ani knew that Delilah would understand the difficulties better. Also, Delilah’s research team was a good mix of men and women who were diverse as well as solid researchers and students.
When Ani stepped in, the research team was just assembling. “Ready to meet him?” her friend Linda said with a smile. Linda was a transplant from Delilah’s research team, as well. “I’ve heard he used to be a Marine or something. He’s supposed to be like Atilla the Hun.”
“Oh?” Ani had heard that, too, but she didn’t want to confirm or deny anything — she didn’t want to influence Linda, not yet. Still, she felt her stomach knot. “What specifically makes you say that? What have you heard?”
“Not a lot I can confirm, but stuff that makes me worry. You with your specifics,” Linda teased, but Ani heard the nerves behind it.
“We’re grad students. And lab researchers,” Ani said, nudging her. “We’re supposed to be all about specifics.”
Linda’s voice dropped. “I heard he’s only had one other woman on his research team. She wore a miniskirt to the lab, and he brought her into his office and talked to her. She left crying.”
“What the hell?” Ani’s eyes widened, and her fists balled. “Did he… He didn’t…”
Linda caught on. “No, he didn’t touch her. From what I heard, he just told her that—”
The door opened, and Linda’s mouth snapped shut. Dr. Peterson was tall, and he looked like Josh Brolin’s father… the guy who was married to Barbara Streisand, all salt-and-pepper dignified, with broad shoulders. He looked like a military guy, ramrod straight. Maybe because of the stick up his ass, Ani thought, then struggled to choke back a nervous laugh.
She shouldn’t be so judgmental. Maybe the rumors were just that, rumors. She knew better than anyone not to judge by appearances.
Another man, shorter, with sunshine-gold hair and sort of Abercrombie and Fitch good looks, trailed in Dr. Peterson’s wake. He was carrying a notebook and looked eager, like a puppy. Dr. Peterson’s puppy. That must be one of his teaching assistants, Ani thought. Linda had been one of Delilah’s TAs, and she wondered if she’d transfer to Dr. Peterson’s team. Ani was lucky enough to have joined on as one of Dr. Peterson’s RAs — research assistants — so she still got a stipend.
Although given the crying woman rumor, lucky might be a slight misnomer.
“I’ve agreed to be your adviser while Dr. Kantor is indisposed,” he said without preamble, all business. “You’re going to notice that I run the lab a bit differently than Dr. Kantor. What are the two traits I value above all in my research team, Jeffrey?”
Golden Retriever Boy — Jeffrey, apparently — spoke up. “Rigor and repetition, sir.”
Sir? Delilah had been fine with being called by her first name.
Dr. Peterson nodded. “You need both if you’re going to achieve your doctorate. Some of you have proposal defenses coming up…”
Ani swallowed hard. He wasn’t really looking at her, though.
“If that’s the case, I’m going to make sure you reach a level of competence that perhaps you wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“Dr. Kantor upheld high standards of competence,” Ani blurted out, feeling offended, both for her own sake and the sake of her mentor.
He turned on her like a velociraptor, as if he’d deliberately baited the team to get just such a reaction. “Aha! What’s your name, miss…?”
“Choudhary. Ani Choudhary,” Ani replied.
“I take it you’ve got a proposal defense scheduled soon?” he said, shaking his head. “I hope you’re not too sensitive. We’re not like the humanities, Miss Ani. We’re more about the data than feelings, so I hope you realize that we can often be more brusque in our manners of speech.”
And apparently condescending, she thought, but held her tongue.
“Meet me in my office after this,” he said, and she felt her stomach drop. “Oh, and I wanted to tell you that Jeffrey here is my TA and another grad student I am advising. He will
be joining your research team. If you have questions, please run them through him… odds are better that he can help you with smaller-level details. I hate being bothered by minutiae.” He turned, heading toward his office, then looked over his shoulder. “All right. Get on with your work. And Miss Ani, please follow me.”
Ani did as instructed after shooting Linda a quick, worried glance. Linda looked apologetic. She walked into the man’s office. It wasn’t much to look at, but some of the knickknacks looked expensive, as did his clothes. She got the feeling he came from money, even if he was no-nonsense about it. He probably wasn’t snobbish that way.
“What are you studying, Miss Ani?”
She wondered what his reasons were for calling her Miss Ani. She thought about correcting him to Ms., but again, it seemed like the wrong time. The fact that he called her Ani, her first name, rather than her last, put her at a slight disadvantage — she called him his last name, or “sir” if she followed Jeffrey’s example, and now she was supposed to answer to her first name?
Subtle power imbalance. Gah.
“Is focusing is a difficulty for you?” he said when she didn’t answer immediately.
“I just wanted to make sure I was answering as clearly as possible,” she said quietly, playing for demure. “Rigor, as you say.”
He raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see,” she heard him mutter.
She felt the room squeeze her. “I’m studying immunology…”
“Obviously,” he said. “That’s the best you can do? That took five minutes to come up with?”
She gritted her teeth. “Specifically, I’m studying—”
“In a nutshell. I’m not here to listen to your dissertation proposal.” He frowned. “At least, not for some weeks, if I remember correctly.”
Deep breath, Ani. “I’m studying natural killer cells — their activation and contribution to—”
“Huh. Saw that done before,” he said, and it was all she could do not to jump over the desk and throttle him. “You’re really going to need to impress with this proposal. You want to get your doctorate, don’t you?”
“Yes.” When she saw that he seemed to be waiting impatiently, she added, “Sir.”
“This is a difficult pursuit,” he said, his light blue eyes looking unnatural — and off-putting. “I don’t have time for hand-holding, and I’m not interested in listening to excuses. You’re going to have to do this largely on your own, and you’re going to need to do it perfectly. I don’t coddle my mentees.”
And thank God for that. Any more time in his cheerful company and she’d be wanted for murder.
“And I’m not interested in dealing with sulking or crying, so don’t try it,” he warned. “You wouldn’t be the first, and I’ve got no patience for it.”
Could he be any more insulting?
“That said, if you can survive the program, if you get through your proposal defense, it would have the imprimatur of quality on it. I’m known as a tough professor for a reason, Miss Ani,” he said, his voice just this side of sharp. “I expect students to pull their weight and prove to me that they deserve the doctorate.”
“I have six weeks left until my proposal defense,” she said. “Most of the work I did with Dr. Kantor, under her express supervision. I feel that I’m ready—”
“But it doesn’t matter if you think you’re ready, does it?” he cut in. “If you don’t meet my standards at the proposal defense, then you’re done, do you understand? I don’t care what your previous adviser told you. From now on, you’re my student, my research assistant, and one of my teaching assistants. I expect you to produce a worthwhile presentation. And I expect that you’re able to maintain the standards and fulfil the duties I outline for all my TAs and RAs. Got it?”
She blinked. TA? That was news to her, but she’d admit she could use the extra money… if she could carve out the time. She nodded.
He looked at her, tilting his head a little, staring at her. “Do you, really?” he said. “Say it like you mean it, please.”
“Yes. Sir,” she added, with just the slightest bit of sarcasm. Which was a Herculean effort, she had to say.
His damned eyebrow quirked up again. “We’ll just see how this goes,” he said, and his tone was dark with foreboding.
She left the office, her blood on a solid boil. Her new adviser was an asshole, no question. And she got the feeling when she showed up for her duties as his TA and RA on Monday, he’d be scrutinizing her every breath.
She got in her car, and headed for Snoqualmie,, and the Frost Fandoms bookstore. Because after a day like today, what she really needed was her best friends and a multitude of drinks, in that order. With luck, they were both in the same place.
Video game night should’ve been a lot more relaxing, Abraham Williams thought with a growl. It used to be a lot more relaxing, anyway. But tonight, it was turning into just a pain in the ass.
“What’s going on with you, Abraham?” Jose asked when Abraham got killed and let out a blue streak of cursing.
“Other than I fucking hate losing?”
“Well, obviously,” his other friend Fezza noted, his slim shoulders shrugging. “But you seem edgy, boss.”
Even though both Jose and Fezza technically worked for him — he was their supervisor at Mysterious Pickle Games, or MPG — they were still his friends. While some would think that a boss-subordinate relationship shouldn’t work, it did in their weird case, probably because they spent a lot of time together, especially when they were under stressful deadlines. Also, the guys were bonded through their mutual love of video games, movies, and assorted geekery.
Besides, if anybody got disrespectful at work, he’d shut them down. If they got disrespectful outside of work, there was a good chance he’d knock them out.
Tonight, though, his discontent wasn’t a matter of disrespect, so he couldn’t yell at anybody or hit anybody.
It was just that everybody else was so… so…
God. Damned. Happy.
“Tessa’s going out tonight,” Adam, a producer at MPG and host of tonight’s game night, said with a small smile. “Headed over to the bookstore.”
“Oooh, the bookstore,” Jose said, his eyebrows wiggling. “Hell, why don’t we head on over there too? All those sisters. Is Rachel going to be home?”
“Don’t be a dick about my girlfriend’s friends,” Adam said absently. Jose’s horndog comments and behaviors were so ingrained they were largely ignored. “Besides, tonight it’s girls only. Sounds like her friend Ani is having a tough time, so they’re doing some secret female rituals to help her feel better.”
“Like what? Witchcraft?” Fezza asked, genuinely curious.
“If by witchcraft you mean watching Practical Magic and getting drunk on lime margaritas, then yes, I imagine some sort of sorcery is involved,” Adam replied.
Abraham could feel the scowl on his face. “Damn it. Tessa’s one of the best Overwatch players we have,” he said, feeling petty but still disregarding it. “I wanted her on my team.”
Dennis, one of the new guys at the company, scoffed. “Hey, I’m good. I’ll play on your team, help you kick some ass.” He’d only been working at MPG for a few weeks, but he seemed to fit into the culture like a Lego piece, snapping right in. He was also ex-army, something that Abraham appreciated. He hadn’t met a lot of military guys in game development. Dennis was young, like twenty-three, and he was still relatively low-level. Still, he seemed to like being there.
“I still like having Tessa on my team,” Abraham groused.
“You didn’t want her on your team less than a year ago,” Adam said, his voice a little tight.
Adam was having a hard time letting that one go, probably because Tessa was his girlfriend. “I didn’t want her on my software design team,” he said, staring Adam down. “It was different, and you know it. And she’s more than proven herself. I wouldn’t trust her with her own game now otherwise.”
Tessa had impressed the hell o
ut of him, with her coding and her initiative. Recently, she’d come up with a small game on her own, using the engine she’d been building in her spare time before she’d gotten the promotion. He’d given her the okay to run with it. Which meant she was going to be under the gun with the team for the next few months while he advised her. It was going to be interesting, standing back and handing off the reins for a bit.
“She deserves the chance,” Adam said, nodding with satisfaction. “I’m glad you’re giving it to her.”
“Yeah, well, let’s see how much you thank me when she’s pushing sixty- to eighty-hour weeks in the final stretch,” Abraham said.
“And when all your laundry is dirty, and you have no food in the house,” Dennis added with a laugh.
“What is this, the fifties?” Adam said, rolling his eyes. “I help when I can. We take turns with household chores. And when she was sick, I made food for her.”
“You are so pussy-whipped,” Dennis said, and Abraham laughed.
The door swung open. “Good God, I’ve stepped back in time,” a British voice drawled. “To think, I used to spend every waking hour with you lot.”
Abraham arched an eyebrow at the Rodney, who had just stepped in. “Another whipped one,” he said. “Your girlfriend know where you are? Did you escape out a window or something?”
“I just dropped Stacy off at the bookstore,” he said. “And I’d rather be whipped by that beautiful woman than scowling and flogging my own rod, if you get my meaning.”
The remark set off a bunch of laughter from the other guys. Abraham clenched his jaw. The guy might have a point. It’d been a while since he’d hooked up with someone. The women he met at bars or clubs… well, there was often a sheen of desperation there. Either an eager hopefulness — “maybe this guy will be The One!” — or a bedraggled hopelessness, as if they knew there was no way he could be, but they had to go through the motions on the off chance, or because they had nothing better to do.
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