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Here Be Dragons

Page 2

by Bill Fawcett


  “Well, it took me another two hours to finish up in the Hall of Fame,” Doc said, flopping down in a chair. “Then I hit the Dealers’ Room like you told me. Man, that Dealers’ Room is really something.”

  “I notice you made a few purchases,” Max said, gesturing at the collection of stuff piled on the floor.

  “Okay, I’ll admit. I got sucked in a little,” Doc said. “But really, you should see the stuff they have down there. I figure I’m all set for Christmas. I picked up some T-shirts and a couple Anime DVDs for my nephew. I even scored the complete run of some of the old television shows my Mom and Dad like. I don’t know who I’ll give the jewelry to, but it’s nice enough to keep until the right person or occasion comes along.”

  “Of course, none of this is for you,” Max said drily.

  “Some of it is, sure,” Doc said. “They’ve got stuff down there that I haven’t seen for sale anywhere else.”

  “Did you manage to get any of the information I sent you after?” Max said.

  “Sure I did,” Doc said, acting slightly injured. “I’m not sure how much good it will do you, though. First of all, a lot of them go by nicknames like Big Buddha or the Dark Prince, which probably aren’t the names they’re registered under. I thought of trying to follow them back to their rooms, but with the crowds and the elevator situation, tailing them won’t be all that easy.”

  “Did you even try?”

  “I tried a couple times, but both times they headed for the bar and not their rooms,” Doc said. “What’s more, from what I overheard of their conversations, most of them have a pack of people staying in their rooms to run down extra inventory as needed, so I’m not sure that we’d ever find a time when the rooms were empty that we could crack them.”

  “Okay. That’s it,” Max said, getting to his feet. “I want you to man the Patch for me for a while.”

  “Where are you going?” Doc said.

  “I’m going to check out this convention myself,” Max said, gathering up the badge that Allen and Alexis had given him.

  “But I think the Dealers’ Room is closed now,” Doc protested.

  “I’m not thinking about the Dealers’ Room,” Max said. “I want to take a cruise through the whole convention and see exactly what’s going on. I still think there’s a way to make money of this damn event, and I’m going to try to figure out what it is.”

  It was early afternoon the next day before Max let himself back in the Briar Patch.

  Dropping a couple bags of purchases on the floor, he flopped down on the bed and heaved a deep sigh.

  “That,” he said, “is one hell of a convention going on out there.”

  “You’ll notice I’m not giving you the ‘Where have you been’ greeting that I got,” Doc said, looking up from the book he was reading.

  “Yeah, well, a couple of those bimbos Alexis was complaining about invited me to a room party,” Max said. “One thing led to another, and it took a while.”

  “I see you found the Dealers’ Room,” Doc said, glancing at the bags.

  “Yes, and you were right. They have some incredible things down there,” Max said. “Some of it is flat-out irresistible.”

  “Well, for your information, while you were out the team had a little pow-wow,” Doc said, putting his book aside. “The consensus seems to be that we should call it quits. There’s no real score here worth our time, and we seem to be spending more than we’re making. We’ll write it off to experience and know not to come back next year.”

  Max sat up on the bed and gave him a grin.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “I told you I’d find an angle, and I did,” Max said.

  “What’ve you got?” Doc said.

  “Well, at that room party I mentioned, I got to chatting with a couple of the convention organizers,” Max said, lying back down. “We’ll be back next year, all right, but working for the convention as Security Consultants. That gets us free memberships and rooms as well as a hefty fee. It’ll be a different kind of con job for us, but it gives us an excuse to come back.”

  Editor’s note: There is a sad aspect to this amusing story. The day after Bob emailed it he died unexpectedly. He was a regular guest for many years and we will all miss him greatly.

  BEEN TO DragonCon, dude? Then you know how it happens. You’re suited up in your costume, having finished the masquerade. That night, I was strapped into the battle armor of a futuristic assault grunt, and bearing a mean-looking trumped-up beam weapon, designed as if it could take on a planet. The heat and the press had me sweating bullets, with my head a tad buzzed on cheap cola. As always, with the party hotel, the lobby was jammed past capacity with bodies and noise. The scenery also held its usual extraordinary: hot chicks wearing goth black and spikes and tattoos, or else elf ears, fluttery wisps of gauze leaves and fake wings over-well, you know-for each of the timid in leotards and wreaths, there’ll be a bold one who’s wearing paint and next to nothing. I was feeling the frisky spike of wishful sex, caught along with the rest of the pack trying to catch an overstuffed elevator up the tower to check out the night life.

  No need to keep notes on the times and locations of the various parties and gatherings. I’ve always preferred the lazier habit of tagging the flow of the crowd. Tall enough not to crane my shaved head, I spotted a guy with spiked blue hair and three green antennae shoving a push cart loaded with beer. When the right hand side elevator dinged and flashed an “up” light, people jostled in readiness to move as soon as the steel doors swept open. The anxious surge to pile inside the elevator opened a space just in front of me. A rank opportunist, I stepped close behind a guy in a silvery alien suit. He appeared to be friends with the antenna-man, steering the kegs and the stash of stacked six-packs. I saw Killian’s Red and some bottles of stout on his pile. No question which party I would crash, first. I’d follow wherever the lager went.

  If everyone else had the same bright idea, I was big enough not to be jostled. When the beer cart plowed through the next open door, joined by an array of still more bizarre costumers, I crammed in too, crowding the tail of the alien-dressed dweeb, and squeezing my mean-looking fake weapon inside as the door closed.

  Of course, the folks squished inside wished I hadn’t. A few blatted, annoyed at my pushiness. But they knew, as I did, that nobody leaves an inch of free space on an elevator.

  Packed closer than lovers, though not even friends, we were uncomfortable breathing each other’s air. With nobody eager to start conversation, we had nothing to do except stare. Every random batch on a ride’s a strange lot. You know the scene if you’ve attended a con. Jammed tight until you think you could suffocate, there’s no living way to keep your hands to yourself, or your elbows from gouging your neighbor. I’ve inhaled tips of feathers from exotic headdresses, had my eyes tear up from perfume or B. O., even worn patches of rubbed off spangles from some corseted cat lady’s mushrooming boobs. On the other hand, I’ll tell you straight off, no ride to the top floor ever became as crazy-making as this one.

  The guy with the beer cart was decked out in slime! It was green, and it oozed. In fact, greasy gobs of the stuff splashed and left steaming pocks on the hotel’s floor tiles. The woods nymph beside him wore contacts that mimicked compound eyes like a bug. She had twiggy hands with eight moving fingers that I swear to Jesus were covered with bark. Living beetles and what looked like animate fungus squirmed in and out of the burlap she had on for clothes. No babe I ever saw, either, had duck feet, stuck on the end of scaly stilt legs that were built like a wading shore bird’s.

  I edged sidewards, uneasy, and accidentally stepped on my neighbor’s toe. He—or she? —was suited up in gadgetry space gear and responded with an offended electronic bleep. As I said, “Sorry,” I noticed their badge holder had holograms and blinking lights. Really c
ool tech, actually, that buzzed and flickered purple with genuine static electricity. I admired the effect, ’til I brushed up against the flash suit, which delivered a real electrical shock.

  “Hey!” I said. “Nerd. Your gear’s got a short. I just got zapped by your genius costume.”

  The twerp bleeped back a robotic-sounding obscenity, then pushed the elevator button to stop us at the third floor. When the car paused, and the door rumbled open, he went on the muscle and shoved to evict me like he was a bouncer.

  Well, I said I was large. No way, in my fatigues and black battle gear, I was going to stand still for a twerp in a moon-walker’s get-up to push me around. Our tussle was causing a bit of a fracas. The twig lady glared with her beetle eyes, while a stalk-headed pair to the side turned their necks, stuck together down to their flipper feet like otherworldly Siamese twins. The wet sleeve that fused them appeared to be made out of scales cut from mother-of-pearl. They honked, I swear, and flapped purple gills in a fish-brained fit of disapproval.

  Me, I used my gun barrel and gave the jerk in the suit a warning jab in the groin. I suppose he wore a PVC codpiece, beneath. Or was frigid and female, since the hit didn’t faze him. Rather than sympathize with my unfair plight, the whole lot in the elevator ganged up and pushed back, joining the plot to toss me out on my backside.

  Now, if alien costumes give me the creeps, and ones that leak slime are just over the top, nothing, and I do mean nothing and nobody was gonna separate me from my mission to stick with the beer. There was stout on that cart, imported from Ireland. Before I’d settle for chugging down Schlitz, I was going to hang out with the brew and discover the room where that party was!

  Slime guy thought otherwise. “Get out!” he demanded in a mechanical voice that raised my eyebrows to gawking amazement.

  “Cool FX,” I said, honest in admiration. “No need to get ticked. I was only trying to inform your geek friend, his costume has a malfunction.”

  More electronic bleeps emerged from the suit dude. I returned what I thought was a peacemaker’s grin, and dammit, he gave me the finger! Oh, not the bird, but a prod with his glove that delivered a zing like a cattle prod!

  “What’s with the stunner?” I snapped, downright pissed. “I’ve a mind to report your rude game to the Klingon security. They confiscate badges. Toss cretins out of the con on their ass, who mess with weapons and threaten the public!”

  Next thing I know, the guy leaking green slime tried to eject me head first through the elevator door. I latched my fist on the beer cart, snaked my arm between bodies, and jammed my thumb down on the ‘close’ button. Then I jabbed an armored elbow to fend the interfering fool off my backside. The move accidentally brushed across the blinking lights surrounding the suit person’s badge.

  At that point, you may decide I went nuts. But I swear as truth, the entire scene went crazy at the same moment.

  The elevator banged shut. The car didn’t go up, but instead, impossibly, lurched sideways. A force that upended my stomach also made my ears pop as though set under pressure. If I didn’t shave my head like a soldier, I promise my hair would have stood up on end. Next, I was dazzled by a blinding flash. Before I could blink, the moving floor stopped with a teeth-rattling lurch that for certain shook up the six packs.

  Then the door opened up with a whoosh. I stared out, amazed. First I thought I’d landed amidst the craziest costumer’s hall party I’d ever seen at a convention. There were packs of guys dripping sticky green slime. More of those elongated females with the queer stick fingers and compound eyes. I saw other beings that looked like moving rocks, and at least a dozen of the Siamese-style fishies, striped and spotted in fluorescent colors. The weirdo in the shiny space suit was greeted by more of his cousins. As I yelled in surprise, every head stalk, tentacle, and bug eye in the place swiveled my way, inscrutably staring.

  This wasn’t the hotel I remembered, no way. The carpeting glowed, and it slurped as it swallowed the dripped slime that oozed from the skin of the creatures with the antennae. More lights shone overhead, haloed in violet, and a huge picture window offered a view of a cityscape that looked like a cross between a matte shot for a movie, and the random, splashed paint of an abstract.

  I shoved into reverse. No way was I planning to mingle with a bunch of real freaks, or abandon my spot on the elevator.

  But as I stepped back, I understood the elevator had changed also. Now, it had silver metal walls, rounded corners, and a silvered surface that reflected a distorted view of my frightened features. The beings who crowded to get out behind me were grousing, annoyed as my bulk held them up.

  “We’re forbidden to bring back earth specimens!” the guy with the flash badge-holder accused in his mechanical monotone. Throughout, the gizmo I’d mistaken for a pin to hold his convention badge winked and flashed and sizzled with electronic lightnings. I realized, shocked, the thing must be converting his speech to English from some lingo in Alien. Translators actually existed in this place! As that improbability raced my pulse to a gallop, I heard him conclude, “Now you know our secret! Since we can’t risk exposure or let you go, you’ll remain here as our living experiment.”

  Well, I freaked! Nobody in a tin foil suit, whose friends dripped repulsive green slime or had gills, was gonna jab their rude needles and probes into me! “I won’t be your caged lab rat, or sit still while some bug-eyed sadist pokes an electrode up my butt!”

  While the guys twitched their triple antennae, and the ones with stalks popped their eyes in revulsion, other ones jostled toward me with what seemed too much like lip-smacking eagerness. Something with hot breath and tentacles groped my arm with intent to yank me where I refused to go. The only way to prevent my abduction was to get into their alien faces. So I yanked my fake zapper gun from the holster strapped over my armored shoulder.

  “Look here!” I yelled. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with! The bigwigs who run the Galactic League have rules and regs for the taking of prisoners, and last I heard, trespassing’s not on the rap sheet! I am not what I seem, and you’ve got trouble coming if you think you’ll arrest me without any warrant! I’ve got friends in high places, and armed buddies who like bug hunts, and if you don’t return me to the place where we came from, I’ll vaporize this party, and take out every innocent bystander!”

  The guy in the suit blatted back in monotone surprise. “You are not an earthling?”

  I smirked, and tried not to let anyone see, that under my sweaty camouflage, my knee caps were shaking. “I did a nice job blending in, don’t you think?”

  “Could be faking,” objected the slime-dripping geek.

  “You gonna take that chance?” I waved my futuristic assault weapon in what I hoped was a menacing gesture, then kicked on the switch that made it whine as if it was charging its firing pack. “You have twenty seconds to send me back before I rake you with a plasma charge!” Then I added, for effect, “Don’t think I won’t be missed! You’ll have an interstellar war on your hands, uglier than you ever bargained for.”

  Although no one seemed impressed with my threats, well, no hero rushed to take action. I figured I had nothing to lose. While the hesitation lasted, I waved my costume weapon, shouted, and barged backwards into the suited man with force enough to crush him against the beer cart. Before anybody found the aplomb to react, I grabbed hold of the flashing frame on his badge, jerked until I snapped the lanyard, and shouldered past before he recovered his staggered balance. Then I yelled like a madman, brandished my fake zapper, and jerked my thumb to indicate the suited guy had best take a quick hike and restrain his fellows.

  “Mess with me,” I told him, “and my people will make sure that you and every other crawling thing in your star system gets crisped to toast!”

  One of the fishy thingies fainted at the thought. While its friends bent in attempt to revive it, and all the eyes and eye stalks within view swiveled to catch
the drama sprawled on the carpet, I upped the ante and created mayhem.

  Did I say before, I’m big? I can throw an impressive tantrum, and beer bottles make wicked ammo. Though it hurt my soul to lay good stout to waste, I chucked several bottles into the ranks of the enemy. Brown glass exploded into fragments and the foamy gush made the fluid-sucking carpet gag and gargle. The suited guy back-pedaled fast as he could, abandoning me inside with the beer truck. Jammed while rushing the door, his xeno pals began to fume, shriek and whistle in a clamoring frenzy. Me, I’m not an idiot. I used the suit man’s fancy badge-holder. Punched its blinking buttons like a lunatic, all the while swearing under my breath. I kept that up until finally the transport unit shut its doors and flipped through its flash and shimmy sequence in reverse.

  Next thing I know, I’m back in the real hotel elevator, all alone with a loaded cart of kegs and the best bottled brew. Figured, with that stash, I’d become the hero of whatever party I chose to crash. But a more important thing had to come first. I dropped the suit man’s badge. Stomped the alien bit of tech beneath my heel until the static frame and flashing lights were crushed into smoking powder. No way was that thing going to send another person sideways across the galaxy, or hijack anymore of earth’s beer who-knows-where, for some group of whackos whooping it up in the next dimension.

  As I punched the up button and the elevator resumed its interrupted course to the fun waiting on the top floor, I reholstered my fake assault weapon and curled my lip at the reek of the other-worldly slime left splotched on the floor tiles.

  Plenty of folks may claim I’m drunk. Tell you honestly, I don’t give a flip. You bet I’ll give warning that we’ve been invaded to anyone who’ll listen. I’ll repeat what happened to me, throughout the entire convention. They walk among us, dressed up as others. If you don’t want to risk getting slobbered or abducted, you’d best keep a sharp eye out on the costumers who strut their stuff in the hallways. Take my advice, don’t barge your way into crowded elevators at night without first making sure the company inside is really from earth, and bona fide human!

 

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