by Bill Fawcett
“What time would that be?” Dylan asked, drinking more orange juice. “I have a panel at five.”
“No problemo. Nine-ish. We’ll call Room Service for sandwiches, if you like.” The others nodded.
“I’d really like to,” said Dylan, thinking he’d be able to sleep in the following morning if the evening went on too late. He would pace himself, not get too exhausted. “Yeah. Okay.”
The receptionist appeared and told them their table was ready, and they made their way to a booth at the rear of the dining room.
* * *
For Dylan, Friday went by in a blur filled with presentations, panels, autograph lines, passes through the Dealers’ Rooms, and spates of excited conversations with other convention-goers. His own panel on the mixing of computer graphics with live action went reasonably well, though Dylan said very little on it, preferring to listen to the other members of the panel. By the time it was over, he was hungry, and eager for a break; he took a couple minutes to linger in the empty panel room, to phone home, telling Arian he was fine, had met some really interesting people, and found out a lot. She asked him how he was feeling, he reiterated he was fine, promised to call the next day, sent greetings to Uncle Perry, and hung up.
“Good panel,” said Mitch; he came up to Dylan as he left the room.
“Oh. Hey. I didn’t notice you were in the audience,” he said, feeling embarrassed for such an oversight.
“I was in the back,” said Mitch. “I know how it goes at these things.”
“I thought the guy from Disney was really interesting,” said Dylan as they made their way along the wide corridor.
“Me, too. And it shows what you can do with a huge budget. Most of us don’t have millions of dollars to spend on interfacing live action and CG, and hundreds of techies to work on it.” Mitch pointed toward one of the side-doors. “Let’s go this way. It’s less crowded.”
“Okay,” said Dylan, and stepped out into the blaze of the late afternoon. “Where to?”
“There’s a grill around the corner. You’ll like it. You’re looking a little pale around the gills.” He laughed. “Don’t poker up on me, dude. I’m not dissing you.”
Dylan couldn’t think of anything to say in response.
Mitch went on, “One of the things that brought the five of us together is that we all have something we have to deal with. Liam’s got diabetes—you know that. Nicole’s severely dyslexic. Kevin’s small, young, and hyper-bright. Last year Matt had a bad asthma attack the first day of the con—from allergies, it turned out—and we started to watch him, make sure he had his inhaler; still do. Liam’s the best at handling these things. You look a bit peaked. We see a lot of heat stress at this con. Something cool to drink and Parmigian-encrusted veggies would probably put you to rights.”
“I get worn out in the heat,” Dylan admitted. “It’s been quite a day.”
“And there’s a busy day tomorrow. So let’s get a couple of grill baskets and some ice-tea and relax.” Mitch pointed out the grill. “Did I hear you tell Kevin yesterday that you’re going to Cal Arts?”
“Next year, yeah. I got early acceptance.”
“That’s what Kevin told me,” said Mitch, and tugged the door open. “So tell me about what you’ll be showing tonight?”
“One thing more,” Dylan said.
“What is it?”
“You said all five of you have something to—”
“—deal with. Uh-huh, I have lupus.” As Dylan gave him a shocked stare, Mitch went on, “Don’t worry; it’s under control. But it’s always there.”
* * *
The five were draped over the two king-sized beds in Mitch’s hotel room, facing the TV screen where the end of Dylan’s most recent video was fading to sketchy credits. The noise from outside had abated a while ago, and the night seemed very still as the video ended.
“I don’t know what music to use; nothing seems to fit, Brian running up that hill, away from the shadow-beasts,” Dylan admitted, glancing at the clock, and astonished to see it was after 2:00 a.m. Five hours had gone by so quickly. “I thought maybe just the sound of Brian panting, but Theo, who plays him, says it won’t work.”
Nicole chuckled. “He’s probably right.”
Matt grinned. “It could be kind of sexy.”
“That’s what Theo said.” Dylan scowled; much as he did not want to, he had to agree with them. “It isn’t supposed to be sexy, it’s supposed to be scary.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive,” said Mitch. “Maybe you could, you know, blend them somehow.”
“I guess I could,” said Dylan, his mind already active. “Like something’s going to happen that could be really good, or really horrible.”
“Something like that,” said Mitch. “You got a good couple in your actors. You might as well make the most of them.”
“Yeah,” said Dylan.
“That scene in the trees at night—was that green screen or real?” Nicole asked.
“A little of both; we got the live action in the park around ten at night, and I added in most of the shadows later,” Dylan answered, rubbing his eyes. It would be three by the time he made it back to his b&b. He yawned and stretched. “Kevin, how long’s your video?”
“Thirty minutes,” said Kevin. He picked up his computer and held it out to Mitch to connect to the TV.
“You can sleep here, if you want to,” Mitch offered. “No one will notice if you wear the same thing two days in a row. Or care.”
Dylan had to admit he was tired. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Of course not,” Mitch said, working on linking Kevin’s computer to the TV.
“It’s tempting,” Dylan allowed. He had his meds with him; he could take his pills and go to sleep. He was pretty sure Arian would not approve, but he was here to learn how to handle himself alone. “Thanks. I will.”
“Then the bed nearer the window is yours. When we’re through here, you can konk.”
“Thanks,” said Dylan, feeling his fatigue well up within him; he stretched again and lay back.
“Holy shit!” Matt exclaimed as Dylan opened his eyes to see the five of them leaning over him.
“You awake?” Liam asked.
Dylan lay on the floor, his shoulder was sore, and the window was filled with the slanting rays of the rising sun. “Oh, God.”
“What was that?” Mitch asked; he crouched down beside Dylan.
“I guess I had an episode, didn’t I?” said Dylan, chagrin coming over him like a cold wind. “What did I do? How bad was it?” He braced himself for the repugnance he knew was coming.
“Do? Bad?” Kevin leaned over him, holding out a bottle of water. “You probably need this.”
“I’m sorry,” Dylan muttered as he reached for the water.
“Sorry?” Matt exclaimed, pushing himself off the bed. “Why be sorry? You were great!”
“Great?” Dylan repeated, certain he hadn’t heard right.
“Incredible!” Mitch seconded; he got to his feet.
“Better than the Incredible Hulk,” Liam assured him. “What—?”
“You mean I didn’t do anything ... bad?” Dylan raised himself on his elbow and looked at his arms and hands, and found only one small bruise forming above his left elbow.
Liam was more curious than alarmed. “Don’t you remember? Not any of it at all?”
“No. I don’t.” Dylan rubbed his face, trying to clear away the fuzziness of his thoughts. “I have narcolepsy,” he said the word as if it tasted rotten, “and when I fall into that kind of sleep, I don’t remember what I do.”
“That sucks,” said Nicole. “’Cause you were—amazing.”
“What did I do?” Dylan asked again, more alarmed than before.
Matt came toward him, almost bouncing. “It was ... it was like you chan
ged shape. Mom’s gonna freak when I tell her about this.”
His grogginess was fading to be replaced by dismay; Dylan sat up, and felt in his pocket for his meds. “Don’t. Please don’t tell her.”
“Why not, dude? You’ve got a talent! A big one.” Matt clapped his hands, and the others murmured agreement. “You’re a living special effect. You can ... you can morph yourself.”
“No, I can’t,” said Dylan, appalled.
“Sure, you can,” said Mitch. “We just watched you do it.” He watched while Dylan swallowed his pills. “Not big-green-monster morph, but your body changes a lot. How you move is entirely different. With a little CG sweetening, you could end up with a huge career, just doing the change.”
“You’re so flexible,” Nicole declared.
“I am?” Dylan strained to remember, and wondered if that was why his shoulder was sore.
“You want to see?” Kevin asked. “I got part of it on my videocam.”
“So did I,” said Mitch.
“Man oh man, I could use you in my next video,” Matt went on enthusiastically.
“I want to do a story about a shape-shifter, but all the CG effects I’ve experimented with are whacked. But you! You could just do your—”
“No, I couldn’t,” said Dylan, very seriously. “I can’t make it happen, and if I do fall into a narcoleptic state, most times I just sleep. I don’t know what makes me sleepwalk. I can’t begin to guess.”
“What about staying off your meds?” Mitch suggested.
“Or using some kind of mental thing—maybe yoga or martial arts?” Liam remarked.
“What about hypnosis?” Nicole asked.
Mitch began to set up his videocam with the TV. “Have a look at what you did last night. I wish this room had a higher ceiling.”
“Why?” Dylan felt a sinking sensation in his gut; he rose from the floor and looked toward the bathroom. “I’Il be back in a minute,” he said, and went to use the toilet and to restore a little order to his appearance. When he returned, an image of him in the process of vaulting to the top of the TV armoire was frozen on the screen. He stared at it as the image began to move. Astounded by what he saw, Dylan sat on the end of the nearer bed, all but mesmerized by the incredible gymnastics his narcoleptic self was performing.
“Pretty cool, hmm?” Matt said, grinning.
“Um,” said Dylan, seeing himself extend his arms and torso beyond anything he thought would be possible, and then launch himself at the wall in a way that would do Jackie Chan proud, ending in a turning back-flip to land on his feet. Mitch once again froze the action.
“You see what we mean about shape-shifting?” Liam remarked.
“Yeah,” said Dylan, “I do.” Maybe, he thought, all the scrapes and bruises he had acquired in the past had come from similar athletic feats, and were not the result of violence and mayhem. Maybe Matt was right, and his rare form of narcolepsy was more a gift than a curse. As his image moved on the screen once more, a panoply of possibilities began to take form in his mind, and a future he would never have imagined a day ago opened to him.
“Do you think you can learn to control it—get so you can do it on demand?” Kevin asked, pointing to the complex series of actions displayed on the screen.
For the first time since he had thought about coming to DragonCon, Dylan felt free of any trace of anxiety. “I don’t know,” he said, trying to get used to seeing his condition as an asset, “but I’m damn well going to try.”
“OH, GOD, help me!”
“Which one?” I said. “They’re kind of loath to do anything if you can’t get more specific than that.”
She just stared at me with a curious mixture of terror and blankness.
I grinned and shrugged. “Geez, lighten up. I’m only here to kill you.” She apparently was not comforted since she wordlessly darted off into the crowd of wizards, aliens, and elves. I heaved an unnecessarily heavy sigh and followed after her, grimacing as I jostled past a robed teenage boy with a fake scar in the shape of a lightning bolt that zigzagged across his pimply forehead and who probably had never been within two feet of a woman unrelated to him. My blonde hair, laced with hissing vipers, was generally sufficient to deter the boldest of men, but I was gone before the wannabe Harry Potter could do anything slimier than gawk.
I hadn’t bothered to cloak myself here. Frankly, it was easier to blend in wearing a micro-mini Grecian gown, bleeding eyes, serpent hair, and scaly wings. If I wore my usual tee-shirt, jeans and notable absence of wings, I’d attract way too much attention. Still, I had to admit some of the participants creeped me out, and I’m supposed to be the monster. Not but ten minutes earlier I had bumped into a gargantuan man dressed in a loin cloth and sporting a single eye. I chuckled at an inside joke regarding the inaccuracies of the costume (after all, I had seen a real Cyclops), but was quickly smacked back to earth by the accuracy of the smell. Not pretty.
Wanda spun around to see if I was still nipping at her heels. Surprise. I gave the condemned a small three finger wave. She opened her mouth in horror, working her jaw open and closed like she was gnawing on gristle. Finally, some words escaped those lips. “Your eyes ... they’re bleeding.”
“Only sucks when I wear contacts.”
“Cool FX,” said a lycra-sheened alien who ogled my sporty bleeding eyes.
“Thanks.” I turned back to the condemned. “Okay, sister, let’s get a move on. I’ve got things to do and people to kill.”
“I don’t want to die!”
The alien dude swept his gaze between the two of us. His mouth trembled between a smile and grimace.
“And I don’t want to have snakes coiling around in my hair, but do you hear me complain?” I winked at the alien. “This ’do gives new meaning to the term ‘bad hair day,’ don’t you think?”
He smiled, relieved to think my little exchange with crazy girl was all an act. Did I mention how much I loved DragonCon?
“You’re crazy!” Wanda’s voice was loud and shrill, but no one paid her heed. As the alien returned to the river of pirates and other creatures, it was apparent that my little victim’s rant was not going to elicit anything more than an arched eyebrow.
“No, but you will be in about ...” even though I didn’t wear a watch I lifted my wrist like I was gauging time, “ ... three minutes. Time to find a rooftop.”
Wanda reached for a guy who made the mistake of passing too close to her. He was dressed as a Cyberman from Dr. Who. “Please help me; she’s trying to kill me.”
I grinned toothily at him and gave him a cheerful thumbs up. “She really gets into the role.”
“Cool,” he said behind his mask. I offered him a smile designed to cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but since he thought I was just role-playing creepy, he was good with it.
Wanda clutched her head and moaned. I sent her a montage of creepy crawlies. Sometimes I get such a kick out of making a mind snap. It actually has a harmonious quality to it. I kid you not.
“Nooo,” Wanda keened. Her eyes did a loop-de-loop in their sockets. “Make it stop!”
“Not until you take your own life.”
“I had to—my grandfather was evil.”
She was right. The guy had been a bona fide sociopath. For a split second, I hesitated. But the feeling passed almost as quickly as it arrived. I wasn’t the judge or the jury, just the executioner. “And that’s supposed to make a difference to me how?” I pointed toward the stairwell and nodded my head toward it. “This is America. Land of the free and well-medicated. No excuse for homicide when you have access to the happy pill.”
I turned to the stairs, confident that I had fragmented her rationality enough to take my suggestion, but when I glanced back, I saw her actually cant toward the elevators.
Hey, at least the girl was thinking up. It was a start.
&
nbsp; The teeming masses parted for me. I’d like to think I had Moseslike qualities, burning bushes and parting the seas. But, really, wouldn’t you get out of the way of a snake-headed chick with really bloody eyes?
The elevator dinged right as I nestled behind Wanda. When the doors swooshed open, an impossible number of people jostled their way out of the box. Arms, antennas and wings folded and unfolded in a flurry to exit. I resisted the urge to crawl into Wanda’s thoughts so I could tool around with her sanity in private, but it wasn’t often I could let my hair, or rather serpents, down and just be out there as a Fury.
“Are you the Grim Reaper?”
“I prefer to think of myself as a Happy Harvester,” I said brightly. Pretty much every species of weird occupied the interior. If we wedged ourselves in, we might have a sporting chance. I pushed her forward. “Could somebody please press the highest floor for me? Thank you!”
“You’re sick,” Wanda screeched, right as the doors closed.
“Sticks and stones.”
The elevator door closed. Everyone got really quiet and I felt eyes staring at the girls. “Okay, everyone, chill. They’re actually all quite tame.”
“They can’t be real. Those are poisonous,” some chick with fake vampire teeth said.
I rolled my eyes. “Of course they’re real. I mean, because it’s both possible and intelligent to surgically connect snakes to my head. Or perhaps I was born this way?” Vampire-Teeth blushed, and one of my pets hissed and shook a rattle. A kid dressed as a princess yelped and clutched the hand of what must be her older sister. About ten seconds later, Vampire-Teeth had mustered up some kind of response.
“Are you dressed up as Medusa?” I suspect she wanted me to be impressed at her stunning intimacy with Greek mythology. I wasn’t. I really, really hated Medusa. She got all the attention, and really she wasn’t that important when it came down to it. Besides, she was ugly as sin to boot.