by Sam Maggs
“Stop it!” Alex, usually so quiet, now matched Cat’s tone. “You’re doing this for you—so you can hang out with Corwin Blake and be just as cool online as Team Dangermaker. Don’t lie to me, Cat. It doesn’t work.”
Cat swallowed around a huge lump that had just formed in her throat and steadied her voice. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But he did. Alex always did.
6. Volunteer to help at an Artist Alley booth that is definitely not yours. (35 points)
31. Post about your new favorite artist from Artist Alley on your social media. (31 points)
17
Alex
Alex rushed to catch up as Cat stormed ahead in a huff. Always so dramatic. He shook his head.
“You don’t care about the Quest at all, and I’m trying to help you get this big thing. I thought you would be grateful!” Cat said over her shoulder as she stormed down another aisle. Alex watched her cape swish back and forth behind her, like it was punctuating her point.
Well, her point sucked. Take that, cape.
“I’ve been working just as hard at the Quest as you have!” Alex shot back. How Cat could think otherwise was totally insulting to Alex. Hadn’t he won them the Hexforce Legends VR challenge? And even gone along with her horrible cheating plan?
Wait.
The cheating plan.
Cat’s horrible cheating!
Alex could feel the puzzle pieces sliding together in his head. It was like one of those slide puzzles he was really good at, except now he hated it. Alex stopped dead in front of a colorful booth almost ceiling high with weird drawings of anime girls. Cat didn’t notice at first and kept walking. She only turned back when she saw her brother wasn’t next to her anymore.
Alex watched her turn. Please don’t let this be true, Alex thought. Please, please, please.
“Cat,” he said slowly, “when you say you ‘lost’ our passes … did you ‘lose’ them … to Team Dangermaker?”
The words rang out into the din of the con and seemed to echo between the two siblings. There were a million noises around them—people laughing, artists chatting, videos blaring, the background roar of the con in full effect—but the only thing Alex could hear was Cat’s total and absolute silence.
It was deafening.
“Um.” Cat just swallowed and stood there, frozen. Alex didn’t move, either.
“Answer me, Cat.” He was being forceful now. That was something he could do. With Cat, at least.
“… Yeah.” She nodded, looking at the ground. That was usually Alex’s deal, yet here they were. “Yeah, I did. I gave them to Dahlia. I had to.”
Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t believe it. He needed a minute. He needed a minute to deal with this. Alex sat down on the floor in front of the weird anime booth, landing hard and ignoring the complaints of the people perusing the wares. They could walk around him.
“How—” he started to ask before being cut off. As usual.
“I had to,” Cat repeated quickly, kneeling down next to him. “I had to. It was the only way to stop them from disqualifying us.”
Alex covered his ears to block out the background noise. There was too much going on. This was too much. “You only had to because you cheated in the first place!”
“I know!” Cat slumped down onto the ground next to Alex and put her head in her hands. “I know. I messed up. But you have your signature—”
“Stop bringing that up! I helped with that, too; I got us to the front of the line!” Alex squeezed his ears harder. Cat was just making things worse.
“I’m sorry—”
Alex couldn’t handle it anymore. Cat couldn’t stop making things worse for herself and for them! Alex stood up abruptly and dropped his hands back to his messenger bag strap. “I can’t be here right now,” he said to no one in particular. Looking down at his sister, Alex added, “Don’t follow me.”
He’d never felt so betrayed in his entire life. Cat had messed up their entire day—their entire plan—and for what? A few extra easy points? He still couldn’t believe it. What was the purpose of any of this if it was just going to tear them apart?
Alex made a beeline for the floor exit and just kept walking once he was out in the corridor. He slammed his badge against a scanner and burst through the convention center doors into the midafternoon sunlight. It was oppressively hot but Alex barely noticed. He kept walking and walking, turning a corner at the edge of the building and finally coming to a stop, resting his back against the center’s concrete wall.
In front of him, he saw a horde of people making their way over to the hotel next door—Alex heard that was where the press did all their celebrity interviews. To his left, the rest of the city. And to his right—
A door.
A totally unguarded double door.
Alex stared at it for a second before turning to his messenger bag. He rooted around in it for a couple of seconds—apple, sketch pad, comic, that guy’s heavier-by-the-minute book—before he found the GeekiCon guide. Flipping to the map in the center, Alex took a hard look at the convention center layout. Then he looked around. Then he looked at the map again. Back to the door. And back to the map again.
There was no doubt. Alex was certain of it. That was the press door to Hall M.
And no one was watching it.
Alex sidled over toward one of the handles and, super-casually, gave it a tug. It opened with no problem. There was a small antechamber inside, leading to a set of black curtains. Beyond that could only be Hall M. Wait until he told Cat—
Alex froze. He kept the door ajar in his hand.
Cat. Was he just going to forgive her for what she did? Could he? Or did he want to hurt Cat just as badly as she hurt him? Plus, if Alex let her in through this door right now, she might feel like what she did was right. Or like it didn’t matter.
But it did matter. It mattered to Alex a lot.
A lot more than the Quest mattered to him right now.
Alex dropped the handle, and the door shut silently in front of him. He needed more time to think.
18
Fi
Fi had been running.
She was a soccer player, so no big deal. But the twins hadn’t been at the Pixel Comics booth—Fi had missed the end of the signing by minutes. And she couldn’t go back toward the AC Comics booth for fear of James M. And so she just started … running, to every corner of the con, ignoring texts from her parents, in the hopes that she might find her siblings. And the worst part about it?
She was now …
As sweaty and smelly …
As everyone. Else. Here.
Fi finally slowed to a brisk walk in one of the more sparsely populated areas of the con and decided to just accept it. This was her life now. She lived here. She lived here in this nerd convention surrounded by smelly nerds and would just slowly become one of them. It was inevitable.
But, Fi wondered to herself, slowing her pace even further … was it that bad? She thought about Rowan again and swallowed.
Rowan was a nerd. And she smelled great.
How did she even manage that in here? Fi made a mental note to ask her later.
If Fi ever managed to find her again. Ugh.
All hope lost, Fi decided to stop looking into the faces of the people around her for her siblings and to start looking at where she was. She found herself in a couple of rows that a giant ceiling-hung sign identified as ARTIST ALLEY. This looked different from the rest of the con, Fi noticed; there was no corporate branding or flashy TVs, no gigantic lines or people in branded T-shirts trying desperately to shove a free bookmark in your face. Instead, there were rows upon rows of individual tables set up like a craft fair, each booth with its own unique flair. And so many of the people sitting behind the tables, Fi noticed, were super-stylish young women. They were selling prints and original sketches and pins and stickers; that one had Lunar Soldier–themed art, but all the characters were dre
ssed like cool tattooed biker babes; this one had a ton of Vigilante League art, but the boy Vigilante Leaguers were smooching. Cute.
“Here, you can have a card!” said the girl behind the Vigilante League booth. She couldn’t have been that much older than Fi.
“Oh, thanks,” Fi said, grabbing the business card from the girl’s outstretched hand. The card had all the artist’s social media info on it.
“No problem. You a Vigilante League fan?” she asked, tucking a long strand of purple-tipped black hair behind her ear.
“Not really?” Fi answered. “I was just admiring the art.”
“Thanks.” The girl smiled. “This is my full-time job now, so I’m always happy when people dig it.”
Fi just goggled at the girl. “This is your job?”
“Yeah.” The artist laughed. “I can’t believe it either, most days. But I travel to a lot of shows and put out a lot of new merch all the time. I feel equal parts lucky and exhausted.”
“That’s so cool,” Fi said, and really meant it.
“Seriously, thanks. Find me online!” The girl waved, sitting back down at her table. “We can stay in touch. The best part of the con!”
Fi nodded and tucked the girl’s card into her back jeans pocket. Between that girl and Rowan … Fi was starting to understand what people found so appealing about all this. Just a little bit, anyway. People could really, genuinely celebrate the things they loved. And they could do it together.
Her phone dinged again, bringing Fi back down to Earth. She opened her texts—her mom. Again. Thank goodness she didn’t have read receipts turned on. Fi knew she would have to answer them soon, or they were going to think she’d died somewhere on the con floor.
Mamička: are you having fun
Mamička: are the twins having fun
Mamička: are the twins with you
Mamička: is Alex engaging
Mamička: Fiorella answer me
Mamička: I hope you are in line for something very good right now
Mamička: we will talk about your phone habits later
Mamička: I think I just saw Criss Angel
And so on and so forth for hours. She was still going to be toast if she couldn’t find the twins. She was—
“Guess who?!” Fi’s whole world went dark in an instant. Someone was covering her eyes from behind. Was it Cat?! No, she wasn’t that tall yet (thankfully). Fi took a deep breath and her heart sped up—and she grabbed at the hands on her face.
“Rowan!” Fi ducked and spun, keeping her hold on Rowan’s hands. They wrestled for a second before Fi broke free and punched Rowan’s shoulder.
“Ow, you’re strong!” She laughed.
“I’m a jock,” Fi explained.
“Are you also from the eighties?” Rowan laughed even harder.
“Shut up.” Fi punched Rowan again playfully, even though she wanted the exact opposite. “How’d you find me?”
“I just looked for the person who stood out most in the crowd,” Rowan said with a smirk.
Fi, still a little red from her interaction with the cool artist, flushed harder. She spent her whole life trying to fit in. Was she really the weirdo here?
“At least I’m not a big nerd,” Fi said halfheartedly.
“Your loss, dude.” Rowan shrugged. “No luck on the twins front, I take it?”
Fi shook her head. “They’re monsters. It’s hopeless.”
“It’s never hopeless,” Rowan encouraged. “Superhero movies taught me that. You’ve got to keep your chin up.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Fi said. “My parents are going to kill me. I’m totally screwed. Just let me be angry at the twins for five seconds, here.”
“Are you sure you’re angry at the twins?” Rowan asked pointedly.
Fi blinked. She had never felt more confused about who she was or what she wanted or what she was supposed to be doing. She was angry at the twins but grateful she wasn’t alone; frustrated to be at the convention but kind of on a weird adventure now; missing her friends but admittedly sorta kinda enjoying Rowan’s company, too. There was just a lot going on in her head.
And Rowan was right; it wasn’t all about the twins. Not anymore.
“I don’t know.” Fi sighed. “Let’s check social one more time.”
Both Fi and Rowan hopped onto their phones, scrolling through every app, hashtag, and account they could think of. Life-sized animal cosplayer … huge crowd … TV show panel … definitely Criss Angel …
Fi looked over at Rowan’s phone and grabbed her thumb before she could keep scrolling. “Wait, there!”
“There?” Rowan asked, centering the previous pic.
“There!” Fi said excitedly. It was a photo of a gigantic line outside—it looked like it went on for miles. People had lawn chairs and sleeping bags even. And there, toward the very back of the line, was Cat’s unmistakable blue hair.
“That’s the Hall M line!” Rowan said excitedly. “And this was just posted a minute ago!”
Fi was already running.
“You don’t know where you’re going!” Rowan said with a laugh, bypassing her.
“You take the lead!” Fi answered.
But she didn’t slow down.
19
Cat
Cat was totally flabbergasted. She did not know how to spell that word, but she definitely knew how to say it and what it meant. And that was what she was feeling at that exact moment.
Alex had abandoned her. In her time of need. She’d basically been the one moving this Quest thing forward the whole day—she’d even been willing to break the rules to win!—and all it’d gotten her were lost Hall M passes and an angry brother. And an empty stomach. Eating healthy at a convention was so, so hard.
Cat tugged at one of her loafers, adjusting the heel so it stopped rubbing on her fresh blister. She shifted her weight to her other foot—and adjusted her other loafer, because of another blister. These decoupaged shoes were going to be the end of her, Cat knew it.
Well, blisters or no, she didn’t need Alex, Cat decided. She could do this without him. She could and would win the Quest alone. Help was for the weak. Brothers were jerks. She could do this. She was in the right.
Right?
She would just have to take matters into her own hands. If she didn’t have a pass, she’d get into Hall M like everyone else. It was easy. All she had to do was brave the line.
The gigantic line.
That people sometimes spent full days in. And slept overnight in.
And she was definitely, absolutely at the very end of it.
This is fine! Cat repeated over and over in her head, hopping from one foot to the other, wincing away in her pain. Totally fine! For absolutely sure!
Car tried to count the number of people in front of her in line. One, two, three, six, six hundred, sixteen thousand … yep, definitely about sixteen thousand million, no question. Then she tried to count the seconds until the line started moving. One locomotive, two locomotive, three, oh, Dark Spider, she was so bored and there was nothing for her to do and no one for her to talk to!
Cat flopped down on the cold ground, taking the pressure off her aching heels, and eyed the blankets and chairs of the folks around her with great jealousy. Alex probably would have thought to bring a cushion.
Minutes ticked by.
Then more minutes.
Then still.
More.
Minutes.
This was taking …
Forever.
After easily at least ten hours (how had it only been fifteen minutes?!), Cat stood up to stretch her legs.
“Catalina Gallo!” she heard a voice bellow.
Cat immediately crouched down again. She knew that voice. It was scarier than even James M. It was …
“There you are!” Her sister Fi’s head popped around the person standing in line in front of her. Fi hopped over the barrier keeping people from cutting into line without so much as
a second thought.
Cat sighed. She supposed getting caught by Fi was pretty much the least of her worries at this point.
But she wasn’t standing up. Her heels were in too much pain for that.
“Your sister?” a new voice asked. Cat looked up and saw someone following Fi into line. She had shaggy purple hair, dark roots artfully showing through near her scalp. (Though Fi’s friend looked like she could be a boy or a girl—or both or neither!—Cat took her cue from the SHE/HER! pronoun sticker hanging off the bottom of the badge around her neck.) Cat was surprised but also stoked to see the girl was wearing Voltage: Defenders of Legend leggings. What was someone so obviously cool doing hanging out with her sister?
“Are those Jess Carrell pins?” Cat had noticed the rainbow of happily violent pins affixed to the girl’s denim vest and scrambled to her feet to get a better look. Now this was worth suffering through blister pain for.
“‘Oh, hello, older sister; sorry I put you through a living nightmare today and forced you to run through nerdtopia for literal hours in order to find me.’” Cat heard Fi’s sarcasm but was too busy examining pins. She was dying for that one with the pink cat holding the spiky baseball bat. It was a mood.
The purple-haired girl laughed. “Jess Carrell’s stuff is the best,” she confirmed. She stuck her hand out, forcing Cat to take a step back in order to shake it properly like a cool adult or whatever. “I’m Rowan; you must be Cat.”
Cat went to grasp Rowan’s outstretched hand but opted at the last minute to go for a sideways high five instead. Always keep ’em guessing.
“That’s me,” she replied. “Do I know you?” The more Cat stared at the girl, the more familiar she looked. Was it the purple hair…? Cat could have sworn she’d seen her before, though she had no idea where. Maybe in line somewhere…?
“Nope!” the girl responded cheerfully, pushing a hand through her bangs. “But I’ve been helping Fi look for you. She’s been worried, like … a lot, dude.”
Cat took a deep breath—she’d have to get it over with sometime, so it might as well be now, right?—and turned to face her sister. Fi had been standing to the side, watching this whole thing between Cat and Rowan go down in silence. Fi’s face was a fun shade of purple that Cat didn’t know the name for. She’d have to look it up later.