Here Be Dragons

by Bill Fawcett

  “There’s something you don’t see every day,” I muttered.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said the girl sitting below the sign that said Pre-Registration O-Z.

  “This membership has already been picked up.”

  Ms. O-Z was dressed in a tee shirt that bore a cartoon-looking figure of a big-eyed girl in a mini dress and pigtails. Her own hair was dyed black, but had blonde roots showing, and she had a spiderweb tattoo peaking around her neck.

  “Really?” I said.

  The girl nodded and looked back at the laptop in front of her. I watched as she moved the mouse around and pulled up several screens. I could see my name in a list of other attendees, and the column next to it indicated that the membership had been picked up.

  “Is there a problem here?”

  The young woman who stepped up beside Ms. O-Z didn’t look too much older than her. I did notice that her name badge, which featured a minipainting of a dragon curled around a rose, had the name Carla.

  “No problem,” I said. “Except your system says that they gave someone else the membership that was in my name.”

  “Indeed?” Carla stared at the screen over Ms. O-Z’s shoulder for a couple of minutes before she finally looked up at me. I had the feeling that Ms. Carla thought this was just a minor glitch, no doubt expecting much larger ones as the day progressed.

  “Can I see your ID?” she asked.

  “Certainly,” I flashed my driver’s license, voter registration and library card. I was careful not to show my PI license or gun permit; there are some things that people don’t need to see. “Okay, here’s the deal. They did apparently give away your membership to the wrong person. That’s not a problem. I can print and laminate a new badge for you. I’ll meet you at the Special Services area with them in fifteen minutes.” She gestured toward a desk in the far corner of the hall with a half a dozen people standing around it.

  “That sounds like a plan to me,” I said.

  Carla was as good as her word. Fifteen minutes later I had a badge that was still warm from the laminator and a manila envelope full of papers. I decided to celebrate this small victory with coffee from a vendor’s cart just outside of the hotel.

  I had just taken a swallow of a large double latte with triple chocolate chips, when she came stomping through a crowd of people in Star Trek uniforms, with an expression on her face that looked about Category Four angry and reaching for Category Five. The girl was maybe an inch shorter than me, dressed in a black tee shirt, cargo shorts and hiker boots, her hair tied in a ponytail.

  In no more than three seconds she was in front of me and growling something that sounded like “You son of a bitch” before she drove her fist into my chin.

  I didn’t go down, but only because I managed to grab the edge of the coffee cart. There were a few stars flying around my head and a flash of light that filled up the world for a couple of seconds, but I don’t think I lost consciousness. The next thing that I knew, a Good Samaritan had me by the arm, steadying me.

  “Easy there, mate,” he said with a distinctive Australian accent. “That’s not exactly the way to start the day.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of someone pushing my attacker up against the wall, pinning her between the cart and a big concrete planter. It took a minute or two for me to recover. When I did, I looked back toward where the girl should have been, but saw no one; the only thing next to the planter was a crushed up fast food bag.

  * * *

  “So, what the hell did you do to her, mate?”

  The pain in my jaw had faded into a dull ache. My newly-made friend, “just call me Reg” had suggested that we go find a good stiff drink, strictly for medicinal purposes, to help me deal with the pain.

  That sounded like an idea I could live with, but the rumbling in my stomach presented an argument for a different course of action. I hadn’t had anything to eat that morning; the free continental breakfast being offered in the lobby of my hotel had been less than appetizing. Since the main hotels where DragonCon was centered were in downtown Atlanta, there was no shortage of food possibilities.

  So Reg led me through a covered skyway bridge to a large food court, which suited me fine. From the size of the place, it seemed intended to serve the needs not only the food needs of hotel guests, but a good portion of the daily business population of downtown Atlanta. People in costumes ranging from Spiderman to SpongeBob Squarepants were mixing with tourists and shining examples of business casual dress.

  “I wish I knew what I did to her, or at least who she was. Maybe I would feel like I deserved that whopping,” I said finally.

  “Well, if you’ve forgotten her, then you must have done some heavy-duty drinking. She was a nice looking Sheila,” he said. Reg was an older guy, mid to late fifties was my guess. His pale hair and skin give him a kind of ethereal appearance. It sort of fit with everyone else I had seen at the convention.

  I grabbed a piece of pizza from an Italian fast food place, along with a replacement container of coffee. Reg did the same, taking a Dr. Pepper instead of coffee, and pointed toward some empty tables at the far end of the food court. Garish signs, announcing Coming Soon, covered over several unoccupied store fronts in that direction.

  Before he had a chance to sit down, Reg’s cell phone rang. After a few quick words he announced that the call had been from his office. Apparently, there was some kind of crisis that only he could solve. He apologized, suggesting that maybe we should meet for a drink later and then hit a couple of the convention parties tonight.

  So I dropped down into the chair and looked back toward the hallway. From the corner of my eye I noticed someone come through a maintenance door just to my left and up to my table. Just when I thought things were not going to be getting any weirder, I looked up into my own face.

  “I think we need to talk,” I heard myself say.

  * * *

  “So, are you my evil twin Skippy?” I asked Alright, I know that remark scored rather high on the flippant and stupid meters. It was honestly the only thing that I could think of to say right then.

  My other self grinned. I’d like to think it was because he understood my reaction. Hey, coming face to face with your identical twin brother, especially when you don’t have any brothers, is not business as usual.

  He took the seat opposite me with his back to the wall, keeping an open path to the doorway he had come through, and laid a canvas messenger bag on the table between us.

  “Why don’t you call me Bucky? That will keep things from getting even more confused than they already are,” he said. Nobody had called me Bucky in more than twenty years. To the best of my knowledge, there was no one alive who even knew that had been my nickname.

  Now that I got a closer look at him, I could see that Bucky had a black eye, some cuts, and, I suspected, a nice collection of bruises. Obviously I was in better shape than my “brother.” Damn, even with the nickname, terminology was going to be a bitch.

  “Okay,” said Bucky. “Let’s get down to it. The easiest way to explain this is to be up-front with the fact that I am you, and you are me.”

  “And we are all together,” I said. “Right?”

  Bucky chuckled at the reference. It was reassuring to know that my “brother” was a fan of the lads from Liverpool like I was.

  “The long and the short of it is that somewhere along the line I made one choice and you made a different one,” he said. “We don’t have time to compare personal histories, just know it happened and has happened thousands of times. There are a lot of us, a lot of everybody when you get down to it.”

  At the other end of the food court someone dressed as Hellboy had been deep in conversation with a rather anorexic looking girl in a Wonder Woman costume. Apparently, the lady did not like what the big red guy said, since she dumped the contents of her drink
over him and stomped away.

  At the sound of the ruckus, Bucky’s hand pushed inside his jacket, exposing the butt of a pistol. I’ve never cared that much for guns; the results of using them are far more final than I like. After a moment, he relaxed and turned back toward me.

  “So how did you end up here?” I asked. “And what am I doing here, anyway?”

  “About two years ago I discovered I could slip between possibilities. I’ve developed a little sideline of handling cases in different timelines. Only problem is, one of them has gone more than a bit wrong,” he said.

  Just then a racking cough shook Bucky. I had a feeling that, in addition to the bruises, we were dealing with some broken ribs, not to mention a possible punctured lung. Bucky boy there was going to need to get himself to a doctor as soon as possible.

  Once the coughing jag was over, he reached inside of the messenger bag and pulled out a long wooden box that he laid on the table between us. The workmanship was highly-detailed with inlaid ivory designs in swirls and geometric patterns. Obviously a lot of time and skill had gone into making it.

  “What’s in it?” I asked

  “Not my business. This was supposed to be strictly a courier job. Pick up the package and get it to my client. Unfortunately, someone took umbrage at the idea of my possessing it; otherwise, I would have taken this thing back home, pocketed my fee and then headed to Bora Bora for the weekend.”

  “Would, by chance, one of those people who got in your way be a good looking girl with dark hair and a hell of a right cross?” I asked.

  “You met her, did you?” Bucky grinned. “She’s a bit of a hellion, I’ll give her that. I’m surprised you didn’t notice the family resemblance.”

  “A family resemblance?” I didn’t like where this was going. “Are you saying she’s another version of the two of us, from some other timeline?”

  “Nope, though I have run into female versions of us, but she’s not one of them. She’s our sister, Elaine.”

  Oh, damn! I felt my stomach twist in a dozen different directions. My older sister Elaine had been killed in a hit-and-run accident when she was in the sixth grade.

  “Let me make an educated guess,” I sighed and pointed at the box. “She is one of the crew that tried to stop you from getting that.”

  “Give the man a gold star for getting it right on the first try. Not only is she part of the crew, she’s their boss. I stung them badly, but,” he shrugged painfully, “they gave as good as they got. Unfortunately, during our little ‘family reunion,’ the compass unit I use to find my way home to ‘my’ exact world got smashed.”

  “And without that you can’t go home again?”

  “How very Thomas Wolfe but, unfortunately, accurate. I could go ‘home,’ but the odds on it being the exact timeline that I came from are pretty slim. The thing is, that is where my client knows to find me. I would like to get paid.” Bucky said it all with the same faux Boston accent that used to drive one of my ex-wives bonkers when I did it. I was beginning to understand her point of view.

  “I’m not exactly a mapmaker.”

  “That’s alright, because I had a spare unit. Unfortunately, during our little commotion, I had no time to use it. I had to hide it to keep Elaine from getting the thing. It’s none of her business who I’m working for, client confidentiality and all that. Problem is, even though I got away from her and her bully boys, I’m in no shape now to try and get the compass unit back.”

  “So, that’s where I come in,” I said.

  “Yep. It wasn’t hard to arrange for your membership and plane ticket. I’ve visited this time line before, so it wasn’t a problem to call in a few favors and lay a trail to get you here. You’re the only one I could trust with the truth.”

  “Thanks, I think. So where is it?”

  “You’re going to love this; it’s on exhibit in the convention art show.”

  * * *

  It was time for me to come out of the closet.

  According to my watch it was 10 p.m. The art show had been closed for two hours. I, on the other hand had been in the maintenance closet for just over five hours.

  I twisted one way, then another to work out the kinks in my leg and back muscles. Squeezing my five-ten frame into a small, smelly space for an extended period of time was not fun. For around the hundredth time since I had left Bucky, I found myself wondering what the hell I was doing. Why should I believe him? This whole thing sounded like something from a bad drive-in movie. Okay, he did look just like me, but they do say that everyone in the world has a double. He just happened to be mine.

  The art show took up two large ballrooms, crisscrossed by pegboard and wire frame walls that formed a complicated maze winding hither and yon. I had wandered around the place for some time, trying to orient myself on what was where, and how best to get out once I had secured my prize.

  I spotted the compass unit as soon as I walked in the main door, exactly where Bucky had told me it would be. A small metal tube, marked with gauges and dials on the surface, lying with a number of other items in a very large treasure chest. That chest was wrapped by the tail of a large metal dragon sculpture.

  There were too many people walking in and out, not to mention more than a couple of rent-a-cops prowling the area, so just grabbing it and running was not an option. So, instead, I hid out in the maintenance closet for five hours.

  Outside of the room, I heard a mixture of laughter, conversations and that low ambient sound that crowds of humanity seem to make anywhere and anytime. I didn’t see any sign of closed-circuit television and it was more than reasonable to guess that there weren’t any high-tech alarm systems or sensors waiting to be tripped, not on a temporary show like this one. I knew that there would be security of some kind. More than likely it would be the rent-a-cops, probably checking the place every couple of hours. That would be quite long enough for me to grab the unit and retire to my hiding place to wait for the show to open up tomorrow morning. Then I would just walk out with the regular visitors.

  “I’d hold it, right, there, if I were you,” said a muffled woman’s voice from just behind me. I took a deep sigh and turned. I’d been dreading this moment ever since Bucky enlightened me as to who had busted my chops that morning.

  After all, as far as I was concerned, she had been dead for two thirds of my life. I turned and looked at into the face that I could sort of see my twelve-year-old sister’s features in.

  “Evening, sis,” I said.

  “Good evening, little brother.” She held a Styrofoam cup in her hands, and lifted it in salute to me. “I think we need to talk.”

  * * *

  Bucky found me around noon the next day.

  I had spent an hour wandering around the convention dealers’ room; there were a hundred and fifty merchants set up, if there were a dozen. They had everything that the sci fi geek could dream of: an endless supply of toys based on everything from comics to movies, computer games, fantasy jewelry, has-been actors hawking their photos, and even one or two dealers selling, of all things, books.

  I was looking at collectable trading cards when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “I thought we gave up baseball cards when we were fourteen,” said Bucky.

  “Please,” I tried to put the right sort of irritation in my voice. “These are the ones that my girlfriend’s son is nuts about. I score major points with her for keeping him happy, especially since he may be my future stepson.”

  Bucky chuckled, glancing nervously around the room. He was wearing a leather motorcycle jacket, along with wraparound sun glasses. Not my idea of the best disguise, especially in late summer Atlanta, but who am I to criticize.

  “Shall we,” he said gesturing toward the room’s entrance.

  Just outside the door, where two escalators brought a continuing flow of people up and down, there were several large ban
ks of pay phones. Thankfully, no one was using any of them, but in this age of cell phones, how many times do you actually see anyone using a pay phone? I’ve always been an advocate of hiding things in plain sight; if you’re careful, major secrets can change hands in the middle of a crowd.

  “You got it, then?” he asked.

  “Of course, I did. Let’s just say it was easy and leave things at that,” I said. Instead of going back to my hidey hole after I had retrieved the item in question, I had slipped out through the hotel employee’s hallway; easy and simple. Complicated causes trouble.

  I pulled out the compass unit, holding it up in my best Vanna White imitation. The look of relief on his face was major. He twisted his lip in the same way I did when I was contemplating a check from a satisfied client.

  “I was seriously wondering if I would see that again,” he said.

  “Happy to oblige, ‘brother,’ ” I said. “Now, you haven’t gone and misplaced the box, have you?”

  Bucky shook his head and reached into his messenger bag to show me.

  “May I?” I asked.

  He shrugged and passed it over, as I handed him the compass unit. I trailed my fingers along part of the design, pressing down on an inlayed piece of ivory and on the corner of the box. Something moved and a drawer slid open.

  “I’Il be damned,” Bucky said. I had a feeling that he had tried to open it but had failed and that was why he had been feigning indifference to the contents.

  “I wouldn’t move, gentlemen, and I would drop that box, if you please,” said a tall figure in Star Wars storm troopers armor, standing a dozen steps away. Only, instead of a standard issue Imperial blaster, he held a .38 caliber police special.

  Since I had no desire to add lead to my diet I did exactly what I was told. In the process I slid the drawer closed on the box and turned slowly toward our intruder, positioning my self so I blocked Bucky’s view of him. In the process, I pushed the box back toward Bucky with my foot.