The game room was one of the Renaissance Regency's conference halls that had been turned into a bustling place filled with Magic: The Gathering tables, one-shot Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, and board games of all stripes; there were Chrononauts adventures, Star Wars: The Card Game tables, a Yu Gi Oh tournament going on; there was Legend of the Elder Scrolls, a few Doomtown: Reloaded games happening, a game of Epic Card Game over in one corner, several Pathfinder games, a couple pf Fluxx competitions, and even the rattle of Jenga could be heard. The music and sound effects of video game stations — some home to more involved, single-player games like Skyrim, Dark Souls, Undertale, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Arkham Knight, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, while others hosted classic arcade games like Qbert, Donkey Kong Junior, Tron, Swordquest, Galaga, Joust, Burgertime, Adventure, Centipede, Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, and 3, and the entire Legend of Zelda series , while at others, players worked their way through remasters of the classic Lucasfilm games: Loom, Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Indiana Jones, and The Secret of Monkey Island. The bleeps, bloops, dings, blings, dragon-roars, sword-clangs, magic spells going off, quicktime events, and musical score cues all jumbled together into a symphony of sonic madness that swept over the conference hall in an ocean wave of sonic fury. And on top of that, the whole place hummed and buzzed with the crackling electricity of gobs of people in costume all having uproarious fun and laughing and talking and whooping and cheering at Viktory and defeat, clapping and “awww!”-ing at loss and gain.
And Gadget sat across from his opponent at a small table in the center of all this, trying to think of his next move.
Damn, he was clever, or so he prided himself by thinking; he had set this up trap so perfectly. We’ll just see how she likes a Flying attack when she doesn’t have any goddamn Flying creatures to defend with! That'll teach her to win three games in a row!
He glanced over his Magic cards and then at his opponent. Still steely-eyed and poker-faced, just as she had been the last three games; but what of it? She wasn’t going to intimidate him, by God. Sure she had a mean blue and red deck, and yeah, he’d suffered some setbacks, but this next move was sure to decimate her defenses and put her on notice that the end was damned nigh. Sure, he supposed he could just reach up and switch on the Dr. Manhatten Helmet and read her mind, know what she was planning, and beat her that way . . . but that would be cheating, and he didn’t cheat, by God. No. He would win the honest way. By sheer grit and wit. He put his fingers on his cards — four of them inscribed with red paintings of mountains, the rest with white snow-covered landscapes — and twisted two of them sideways; then he twisted five more sideways, then five more after that. Then he put one finger each on four of the cards bearing the likenesses of powerful, Angelic warriors armed with shining swords and glimmering wings. He pushed the Angels onto the Battlefield.
“I’m attacking you for sixteen!” he said, confident in his move. “And you only have twelve Life left, if I recall correctly. So there. Eat me, Dizzy! Ha!” He smiled wryly at her. He was going to do it! He was actually going to win!
“Ew, no. And nope, you ain't attackin’ me for squat, mister,” she said, grinning. She twisted around five of her blue, water island-inscribed cards and revealed a card from her hand. The card was called Riverworld Peaceforge. He had never seen it before. The artwork on the card showed several mer-people swimming toward a large conch-shell-like city underwater; they were all armed with bolts of flame and lightning in their fists. The “Type Line” of the card read: Instant. The Text Box read: All attacking creatures must be returned to their Controllers’ Hands. All Players must then shuffle their Hands into their Libraries and draw new Hands. No damage may be dealt to any Players this turn.
What the shit is this!” he cried, and burst out laughing in disbelief, but not without a wince of pain. he started to do what the card said. Oh man, this stung. “You and those freakin’ blue cards! I swear, I’m gonna find the guy at Wizards of the Coast who came up with blue cards, and stuff him into a closet somewhere. You just watch me.” He put the four Angels back into his Library, shuffled his Hand into his Library and drew a new one. Goddammit! He remembered the wise words of Han Solo: Don’t get cocky, kid. “I don't ever remember seeing that card in any of my years of collecting them!”
“That’s because I came up with it myself.”
“You what?”
“I came up with it myself,” said Dizzy, beaming with pride. “I even printed it and laminated it just so, so that it would mimic the feel, cut, and and printing of an actual Magic card. You can’t tell the difference, can you. Here, weigh it in your hand, feel it, tell me if you can tell the difference!”
Gadget did so. And no, he couldn’t tell the difference. At least, not right off the bat. She had done an excellent job of forging her own Magic card. And where there was one . . .
“And just how many of these do you have in that deck?” he asked, squinting at her suspiciously.
She grinned. “A few.”
“But you can’t just use your own cards!”
“And why the frell not?” she asked, indignant. “I’m building on the Magic format, just like it says you can in the rules.”
“But you can’t do that unless the other person knows you’re doing it! It’s not fair!”
“Can I help it if the other person isn’t as much of a genius as I am?”
“Well, no, but first of all, who said you were such a — ”
“The MENSA society, TIME, Nature, New Scientist, Scientific American, Wired, Gadgetdo, Ars Technica — ”
“Okay, okay, fine,” he said. “But you need to at least warn me before you pull a stunt like that, okay?”
“Okay, jeez, fine,” she said. “But still, behold my craftswomanship! Look at it. It looks like a regular Magic card. Feels like one, too, doesn’t it? Looks just like it came from Wizards of the Coast themselves. Got the proper amount of matte and lamination and everything. The right fonts, the right kind of artwork . . . Even the little details, like the mana graphics, and the logo. See? Totally works like any other card.”
“Counterfeit card, is more like it.” He shuffled his hand back into his Library, and then shuffled that, and drew seven new cards. Then he shuffled his Library again, and put it back down on the table. He sighed again. “Okay, happy now?” He muttered under his breath, “Frickin’ includes her own custom cards and doesn’t tell me. And a frickin’ blue card, at that.”
“She giggled. “Hey, it’s not my fault you can’t see into the future and predict which cards I have. And hey, quit pickin’ on my all-powerful, beautiful blue cards. You’re just jealous, is all. Talk nice to me and I’ll build you a blue deck, too. I might even show you how to fabricate your own cards, like I did.”
“Well,” he said, truly tempted by this last offer, “Maybe.” Then, a stray thought struck him. “What if you could, I wonder? See which cards someone was going to dry. See into the future, I mean.” He looked over his new Hand. Drat. No Land cards or anything eminently playable. “Your turn, by the way.”
“I know, I know,” she said, her eyes darting across the cards in her hand. “Gimme a second, okay? Jeez. So. What if we could. See into the future. The . . .” She lowered her voice to almost a mutter. “The Tesseract Reactor might one day make that possible. If I can figure out how to power it properly. And figure out how it actually works. And prevent Ravenkroft from getting his hands on it.”
“Don’t worry,” he muttered back, leaning closer to her. “We will help you stop him. But yeah . . . just thinking about what you told Zoë. . . the sheer possibilities of it . . . it takes me back to when I was a kid. My favorite show was — still is — Doctor Who. My favorite Doctor was Capaldi. The grumpy old man.”
Her eyebrows went up and she smiled at something she saw in her cards — or on the Battlefield. She drew a card, then discarded a card. Then she twisted around seven of her Land cards and then pushed forward three cards that had creatures on them.
Wow, said the Beast in his head, I really have to hand it to you. Here you are, playing Magic with a hot girl, and you haven’t totally fucked up the conversation. Yet. Way to go. But of course we know it’s just a matter of time before you say something stupid.
“I’m attacking you for twenty-three,” she said. “And you only have fifteen Life left, buster. Oh and mine too, by the way. Doctor Who, that is. My favorite growing up. Yeah, Doctor Who, all the way. It was Matt Smith for me. My big crush. I loved him because he was, like, this eternal child.” She smiled. “And you might’ve loved Capaldi, but Smith is one you’re dressed as, I might notice.”
Egads, she was right about his Life points! He looked at his Battlefield cards in desperation. Maybe if he used one of his Demons to fend off her biggest monster . . .
“Okay, this little scumbag dies,” he said, sacrificing the Demon, “and I take the brunt of . . . well, no, that won’t work. Shit. I guess that is game.” He sighed heavily and slumped in his chair. “Okay fine. I’m out of Life points, and you win. Again.”
Dizzy laughed. She made an L-shape on her forehead with her thumb and forefinger, and stuck out her tongue at him. “La-hoo, za-hur! But I kid, I kid. You’re a good sport, Gadget. And an excellent Magic player. You really gave me a run for my money. I wasn’t sure I was going to survive for a while there. Good game.”
“Yeah, you too,” he said. “And gee, you don’t gloat at all, which is nice.” He stuck out a hand meant for shaking. “Good game, Dizzy, good game. And by the way . . . I really wanna thank you for rescuing Zoë last night. The way she tells it, it was . . . amazing. Just freakin’ amazing. You fought Vampires. Vampires are real. So that’s . . . that’s a thing, I guess.”
“It’s . . . no problem, really. It’s . . . what I do. When I’m not managing the Special Projects Division and being your new boss. And fighting Ravenkroft. And making breakthroughs in science and technology. I lead a busy life. Can you tell?”
“Jeesh, yeah,” he said with a little nervous laugh, and he smiled sheepishly.
Wow, said the Beast again. But aren’t you the sparkling conversationalist.
“I even have a superhero introduction monologue all worked out now,” she said. “You wanna hear it?”
“Sure!” he said.
Her wheelchair suddenly activated — was she controlling it through a neural interface in that motorcycle helmet? She had to have been — and wheeled her a short distance away from the table. She rolled back about a foot or two, then spun her wheelchair a bit sideways at an angle and thrust out her arms to her sides, and said, with dramatic intonation:
“Hear ye, villains, and — discuss! A dazzlingly demented dominatrix! A Discordian avenger! A whirling-dervish of derangement, her demeanor drastically different from the ditzy debutantes of the dominant, domesticated paradigm! A dare-devil who deftly deconstructs de-cohering daydreams with a dire determination, in an attempt to deliver the denizens of this dimension from the dismal darkness of their day-to-day depravity and debauchedly dramatic feelings of despair! I discover new paradigms of science and technology. I dive into the depths of the underworld to deliver justice unto the damned. I dedicate my life to rescuing those in distress. I do whatever must be done, and I defend . . . for I . . . am Dizzy!” She slumped down in the chair and punctuated all this with: “Whew!”
Gadget laughed and applauded. “Wow. Cool,” he said. “Really cool. That was amazing!”
“Why, thankee sai,” she said. “I aim to impress, ya know. And speaking of impressive . . . What did you think when Zoë told you.”
“Told me . . . what?”
“The Truth.”
“About?”
She returned to her previous steely-eyed look. “Gods you suck at implications! About everything. About my company. About what we have there, goofy!”
“Oh! That! Right. About . . . what you have there, you mean? Yeah. She told me. I . . . I don’t know. At first I didn’t really believe it. But this was, y’know, Zoë telling me. And Zoë is a stone-cold skeptic. About everything. You can’t get anything pseudo-sciency or anything else past her without undergoing a strict scientific review. So I believed her when she told me. It’s just . . . I almost can’t process it all. That and the thing about the Vampires. I mean, fuck . . . actual, real-life Vampires. Here, in Boston. At home, in Cambridge. Everywhere, if what she said is true. What, they have like, their own society?”
Dizzy nodded.
“Yep,” she said.
“So it’s like in Vampire: The Masquerade? Or the movie Underworld? Hey, incidentally, did you know that White Wolf Publishing sued the producers of Underworld because of its similarity to the characters, theme, and story of Vampire: The Masquerade? It’s true, they did. I never heard what actually happened, but I heard a rumor that they had settled out of court, in White Wolf’s favor. I was happy about that. I love White Wolf games. Some of the best RPGs ever published are set in the original World of Darkness. Now, you take the revised second edition of Mage: The Ascension, for example. It — ”
“Gadget?”
“Yeah?”
“Focus.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“You were talking about what it felt like when Zoë told you — ”
“Oh yeah, yeah. Anyway. Yeah, it’s like, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around actual extraterrestrial spaceships, actual real-life Vampires, and actual real-life superheroes and supervillains. I mean . . . where does the rabbit hole end, Dizzy? I mean, what’s next? Where is all of this going? And what does it all mean? I’m just . . . having a little trouble accepting all of this at once, I guess. It’s . . . it’s a lot to take in. I mean, yesterday, I was an ordinary college student — well, not ordinary; I mean, c’mon, I did invent a machine that gives me psionic abilities, after all — but I was living a quiet little life, happy not knowing about all of this weird, world-changing, paradigm-shifting shit. And now . . . I know about it. Shit, just yesterday I was a tech support agent in the college computer lab . . . and now I work for you, actually handling all this weird shit? My head is spinning. Like literally, if you could see what my head looks like on the inside, it would be spinning around and around, and around — ”
“Gadget.”
“Oh. Well. Yeah. I mean, now I know all this, and I can’t . . . un-know it. It’s like my books and movies are coming to life all around me and my sense of reality is . . . all bonkers. My whole world has . . . shifted to the left. Been turned upside down. And I don’t really know what to do about it. It makes me feel . . . off-balance. Off-center. And a little dizzy-headed, no pun on your name intended. Y’know? No, I guess you don’t. Never mind. I’m stupid.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Whoa boy. This was it. This was the conversation he had been dreading having with her — with anyone — most of all his therapist, who wouldn’t believe a word of what he was saying — but yes, with her, probably, second-to-most-of-all. And now they were actually having it, and he could feel like anxiety, like too much electricity shooting through his brain cells, burning them out one by one. He was sweating, and his hands were shaking. But dammit, he had a right to some sense of freaking reality, didn’t he? His breath felt warm in his nostrils as he waited for her to reply.
“You’re not stupid,” she said, and sighed. “Listen. The thing is, reality is like a cake. No, not a cake. Strike that, reverse it. An onion. Yeah, like an onion. Like Shrek. It has layers. You peel back one layer, and surprise, there’s another one. And what’s there is almost guaranteed to make you weep, either with ecstatic joy or with pants-peeing fear. Each layer reveals new information, secrets hitherto unglimpsed. Your Helm lets you see a new layer of reality. It peels back one layer to let you glimpse another. One that probably scares the heckin-balls out of you and thrills you at the same time. Well, with my job offer, and with what I let Zoë to tell you . . . and what she told you about the Vampires . . . welp, Gadget ol’ pal, congrats, you’ve just been witness to a peeling of the layers. Your reality has gotten deeper. And what’s oh-so-much worse is — you can’t ever put skin back on an onion. Nope, ‘fraid not. This isn’t like The Matrix where you can take the blue pill and just wake up, back in your old life like nothing ever happened. Gee, sorry, big old freight train of nope. No, see, you’re right — you know things now. And that knowledge changes you. Makes you different, inside. Makes you look at things a little cockeyed. Makes you see things through different-colored lenses. It puts up an invisible barrier between you and other people. Because now you’re one of the ‘Know Somethings’ while they’re all on the other side of the fence in the ‘They Don’t Know That’ crowd. And they will never understand what it’s like to be in your shoes, to know the things you know, to understand the things you do. Because they can’t. Your eyes become yours and yours alone more so than before, because now only you can see what you see. Yes, there is such a thing as real, actual Vampires. They hunt and stalk in the night; they take those who they think won’t be missed. And yes, they have their own society that exists just below the surface of our Human one. And they’re out on the streets right now, hunting. Heck, there might even be some right here, at this con, just waiting to suck the blood from innocent necks. And yeah, there really are aliens out there in the cosmos. Other intelligent beings, other lifeforms, other civilizations. And once upon a time they sent a ship here, to investigate Earth, or maybe to meet us, thirty thousand years ago . . . and it crashed in the Arctic . . . and my dad fished it out of the ice in 2001 during the company’s first major oil expedition. And yeah, I’m a superhero. I fight a supervillain. So yeah. Your reality onion has just been peeled back, Gadget. Several new layers have been revealed. Now you either pee your pants and run away screaming — though that won’t really change what you know now, or what you can see with those big, lonely, chocolate-brown eyes of yours — or you embrace your new reality with gusto, and move forward. It’s yer call. It’s your choice. But I need to know . . . And I need to know now . . . Can you handle the smell of peeled onions? Or can’t ya?”
Gadget simply sat, staring at her for a moment. God, she was beautiful. Like the Elf Queen, Lady Galadriel of Calas Galadhorn, ring-bearer, beautiful and terrible as the dawn. But he tried to focus on what she had said and not how she freaking looked. Gawd, what kind of an objectifying misogynist was he? (It was difficult, though, with his hormones waging a full-scale war on his parasympathetic nervous system and his prefrontal cortex.) But, what she had said . . . about reality having layers . . . Huh. He’d never thought of it that way before. In a way, that way of looking at it made it a lot less frightening; hell, it even made it sound exciting . . . Because when you looked at it like that, you were always waiting for the next “big reveal,” the next big secret to come tumbling out of the next layer as it was peeled back before your waiting eyes. And you were always yearning for it to be peeled back, so you could see the next miracle unfold, and maybe one day glimpse the real truth buried at the center of the onion. Maybe she was right. Turning down her offer wouldn’t change what he already knew, would it? It wouldn't change the burden of knowing, either. And it wouldn’t provide any more answers than he already had. If he turned her down — if he changed his mind and said “no thanks” — the trail went cold here; the adventure ended once and for all. If he backed out now, if he peed his pants and ran away, he would never know if there were greater secrets to learn, more mysteries to unravel. And the scientist in him kicked, screamed, and punched and kicked, mad with frustrated rebellion at that.
“What, are you kidding?” he said, and affected what he considered a particularly suave and dashing grin. It probably wasn’t. “I love onions. Sautéed, grilled, onion rings, fried, on salads — ”
“You’re stretching the metaphor beyond all reasonable tolerances.”
“Oh,” he said, and shut up. “Well, the point is, I get your point. I mean, yes. I can handle the smell of onions. Figuratively speaking. Even freshly peeled ones.”
At least, he thought he could. And he wanted to.
“You’re sure,” she said. “Gadget, I have to know. Can you handle the mind-frakkiness of it all, or can’t you? If you can’t, that’s fine. I’ll find someone else. No one could ever be quite as good as you at what you do, I’m afraid, no one quite as right as you for the job . . . but I’ll manage, I suppose. Now tell me, once and for all. Can you deal with having your reality onion peeled, or not?”
See? said the Beast. This is the point where you fuck this whole thing up, my friend. Your once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity. Your crack at the mysteries of the universe. Your chance with your beautiful boss. All down the drain because as usual, you just can’t tie your shoelaces together without drooling all over yourself first. You’re better off saying “No” to her, you know that? Stay home where it’s safe. Where you know you can handle what you already have on your plate. With the known, with the safe. Just say “no.” It’ll be easier than all the disappointment and heartache that will follow, won’t it? Yes, it will. Just say “no.” Come on, it will be easy, and it will all be over in a moment . . .
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Fuck, had he been quiet for almost a full minute? He had, hadn’t he. Well, time to do some talking, then. He screwed up his courage one more time and focused his determination. Not this time. No. He wouldn’t let his illness — the fucker — cheat him out of this. And that’s what was going on here. His illness, his Weird Passenger, fucking with him this whole time. Well, he wouldn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t stand by and let this opportunity be stolen away from him by the gremlins in his brain. No, not this time, by God.
“Yes,” he said at last, nodding. “I can handle it. You can count on me. For realz, yo.”
“Egggg-salaaaant,” she said, and grinned. “I was hoping I could. Because you’re not just an inventor. You’re an honest-to-gods technomage, Gadget.”
He grinned too, and quoted: “‘We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ, and we know . . . many things.’”
“Ooh, I love that line!” she said, and again, her wheelchair activated, and began to wheel her away from the table, toward the room’s exit. Gadget followed. “I wanted to use that line as the company mission statement — y’know, our actual official corporate slogan — but Warner Brothers wouldn’t let me.” She pouted.
Wow, she had actually gotten a kick out of something he’d said! Cool!
“Yeah, Hollywood can be so touchy about that whole ‘copyright’ thing,” he said. He stood up too, and walked beside her. He let her lead him as they walked out of the game room and out into the hallway amid the throng of aliens, monsters, knights, heroes, and villains who made their way there between the game room, dealers’ room, and various conference halls where the con’s guests of honor and panels were busy addressing packed houses of full of fans and amateur writers and would-be nostalgia critics.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said as they walked along toward the elevators.
“Um, okay,” he said, suddenly nervous. He certainly hoped she didn’t know he was fantasizing about just leaning over right now and sloppily French kissing her, declaring his undying love for her, and asking her to run away to Sweden with him where they could open a small sci-fi memorabilia shop and raise two adorable daughters, Harmony and Svelga.
“You’re thinking you can’t trust me,” she said. “Because of what I did to Astrid. Because I’m corporate. And because, well, I have to be crazy to put on that Evangeliojaeger and fight Ravenkroft.”
Well, those thoughts had also crossed his mind.
“Well, yeah,” he said, relieved to have it out in the open. “Yeah, that is what I’m thinking. I mean, how can I trust someone like that? How can I trust someone who would do that?”
Dizzy bit her lip. “I want you to trust me, Gadget. More than anything, I want you to trust me. I just . . .”
“Howdy space cadets! And what brings you two crazy kids to this neck of the galaxy?” cried Mystikite, suddenly arriving from out of nowhere. He strolled up and put his arm around Gadget. He wore his cosplay well: Black biker boots with spikes on them; black leather pants, studded belt; black tuxedo shirt, with black leather tie; long black leather trench coat, with spikes on the shoulders; black, fingerless leather driving gloves with spikes on the knuckles; pale white face-paint, purple lip-stick and eye-shadow. Blonde hair spiked out in every direction.
Gadget blinked in surprise at his arrival. “Dude! Where’d you come from? Where’s Zoë?”
She immediately snuck up behind him, smiled, and kissed him on the cheek. “Ah, I see you’ve met Dizzy! In the flesh, this time.”
“Uh, yeah,” said Gadget. “She’s . . .” He swallowed a lump and grinned sheepishly, “really awesome in person, in fact. We’ve been playing Magic. She just finished kicking my ass several times in a row in Magic.”
“Wow, she must be out-of-this-world good, then. There are days when even I can’t beat you.” Zoë smiled. “Though I dare her to challenge me in Fluxx. I’ll wipe the walls with you, Dizzy.”
Zoë wore dark, tight-fitting black jeans, red leather cowboy boots, a long brown duster, a scarlet silk vest over a black chambray shirt, had a red kerchief tied around her neck, and wore a pair of six-gun ray guns on her hips — to Gadget’s eye, they looked like Star Wars blasters. She smiled at Gadget wryly and raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, Are you working here? Should we leave?
“Er, fancy meeting you here, Dr. Weatherspark,” said Mystikite, grinning. He stuck out a hand. “A pleasure, as always! Tell me — dig up any new alien ships you want to keep secret from the American public? Torture any innocent virtual lifeforms recently? I can’t say enough how much I’m looking forward to working for you, by the way. It’s gonna be one hell of a ride.”
“Oh puh-lease,” said Dizzy, waving away the formalities and pumping his hand up and down with one mechanized arm, “just call me Dizzy . . . Mystikite. And no. None today. That might change, though. Ya never know, y’know? And I’m glad to hear you’re looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to working with you. Anybody who could help Gadget with the software side of what you two have accomplished is a code-hacker I definitely want on my team.”
“Er — what do you mean?” asked Mystikite, suddenly guarded.
“I mean,” she said, “what you made Gadget’s Helm capable of doing. After I logged off last night, I took a quick peek at the code you two injected into the NeuroBand Headset circuitry he’s outfitted his Helm with. The modifications were . . . wow, frakkin’ impressive, guys. What you’ve enabled it to do . . . Pull visual data out of the brain and use it to map the environment, and the whole idea of mapping virtual constructs onto psionic power conduits . . . Nothing like that has ever been done before. Well, I mean, duh, of course it hasn’t. Tell you what. How about a demonstration?”
“Uh . . . what? Here?” said Zoë. “Gadget, no — ”
“Dude, wait a second — ” said Mystikite.
“Uh,” said Gadget, “here? Dizzy, there’s people around. It’ll cause panic if I do anything . . . majorly telekinetic here. No . . . no, I don’t want to risk it.”
“Awww,” said Dizzy, smiling, waving away his concerns. “C'mon, it’ll be funzies. Go on, do it. Levitate some unsuspecting cosplayer! Or that umbrella stand over by the doors. Or blast that couch over there with some kind of . . . ray of vacuum energy! Or shoot some lightning up the ass of that guy over there dressed as Hellboy! Or . . . actually conjure something, if you can. Doesn't have to be big. Maybe just a glow of firefly lights above our heads, to make it prettier in here, and make everyone ooh and ahh. C’mon. It’s time to take the Helm out of your apartment and see what it can really do, Gadget. Out in the world. C’mon, man! What happened to ‘dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers?’ Go on, do eet!”
“Dude,” said Mystikite, “don’t listen to her. This is dangerous. Someone could get hurt if you fuck up. Maybe even you.”
“Yeah Gadget,” said Zoë, “this could get ugly. We’ve never tested the Helm’s telekinetic abilities outside the apartment. We don’t know what might happen. C’mon Gadget hon. Use your noodle and just say 'no.'”
“Yeah, but, guys . . .” said Gadget, and he trailed off, thinking. They were both right, of course. But then again, Dizzy was right, too. She had a damned good point. And she looked like sex poured into the perfect mold. Besides. It was time, wasn’t it?
You will never accomplish anything, said the Beast.
But I want to, he replied.
He was tired of just sitting there, day after day, using the Helm for doing the dishes, or cleaning the living room. Or making his bed. Or any of the same old boring mundane shit. He wanted to actually flex his psionic muscles.
Don’t bother trying, said the Beast. Everything you do ends in disaster.
He was dying to try out the Helm’s new abilities on a larger scale than just blowing up a coffee pot; he was ready to show the world what it could really do. Hell, if those bastards at the American Physical Society wanted tangible proof of his discoveries, then by God, why not give it to them? In spades! Yeah. Give it to them in fucking spades, by hell.
Besides, like Dizzy said . . . it would be fun to cause a little havoc . . . wouldn’t it? Maybe play a few psychic pranks on one or two unsuspecting con-goers. What would be the harm?
You’ll just get in trouble, warned the Beast.
I’ll show you, he protested. I’ll show all of you. Just watch this.
He reached up and switched on the Helm, and grinned.
“Dude — ” warned Mystikite.
“Gadget,” said Zoë, putting her hands on her hips.
You can’t do anything, whispered the Beast. You’re not powerful. You are what everyone says you are — a dork, a wimp, a fool. You’ll just embarrass yourself if you try anything.
I’ll show you most of all.
“C’mon guys,” he said, and smiled, “like Dizzy said. For funzies.” He put two fingers to his temple and concentrated, working to shut out the rising tide of voices. There were thousands of them this time . . . the onslaught was overpowering, overwhelming . . . He had to exert physical effort, tensing his muscles, to push back against the rushing wave of alien thoughts and visions, emotions, and sensations. He closed his eyes and visualized the glistening rope amid the thrashing rain . . . the storm of voices . . . He grabbed the rope, the thread of his own thought. Held tight. The crash and roar of the voices subsided. He opened his eyes again, and looked around at his surroundings.
To their left was the registration desk with umbrella stands next to it. To their right, a couch for guests to sit on, next to a set of a columns that held up a glistening chandelier over a wide open space, where dozens of con-goers gathered, talked, mingled, and laughed. Then off further to the right was the entrance to the game room; beyond that stood the entrance to the hotel and convention center’s Grand Hall, which led to the conference halls and the main auditoriums, and the smaller hallways that branched off from that and led to the elevators and the wings of guest rooms on the main floor, as well as the pool, coffee shop, gift shop, bar, and lounge. The crowd of con-goers they stood in the middle of joked and laughed and whirled all around them, some dancing to the music piped in over the speakers, some talking excitedly amongst themselves, some gathered in small crowds. Others walked hand in hand, ignoring everyone else. And everyone was in glorious cosplay. Doc Browns with white hair and in lab coats; Captain Mals with brown dusters and silver six-guns; Doctor Manhattans in blue body paint; Neos in their black trench coats; Caprica Sixes in slinky red dresses; Narns in exotic latex makeup and leather battle armor; Wolverines with tin-foil claws; Gandalfs in grey (and white) with staves at the ready; Freddy Kreugers with peacebonded gloves; and even a few neon-blue-lit programs from the Tron universe. (Wow; those costumes looked really hard to assemble. He bet they used those neon lighting strips you used on the sides of cars to do the lighting on their arms and chests. A lot of work had gone into those cosplays. There were Blades with their sunglasses and black trenches; Highlanders with their (peacebonded, of course) greatswords; every regeneration of the famous Doctor, every one of his guises from the first to the thirteenth, male and female, and each costume spoke of a different personality, from the whimsical to the dark and brooding. And also, hither and thither, there roamed Martians, Vulcans, Klingons, Elves, Cardassians, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, Hunchbacks, Frankensteins, Vampires, Wolfmen, Wolverines, Professor Xs; and Falcons, Captain Americas, Flashes, Storms, Magnetos, Scarlet Witches, and Supermen. And more . . . a cornucopia of alternate identities.
But anyway. He was about other business just now than admiring fancy cosplays. He focused his concentration, and two undulating tentacles of energy flowed out of the sides of his head, perfectly visualized. No one else could see them, of course; just him. He concentrated on them hard, and they spread out from his Helm and to either side of him, writhing through the air like ghostly tentacles. They spread out — there were now five of them — and those branched out into eight. Ethereal fingers of energy, touching and caressing the heads and bodies of the people around him . . . as well as the walls, the couch, the registration desk . . . Gadget could feel through them, somewhat. Tactile sense. Emotions. Sensations. Fleeting impressions that he got as the tendrils touched various people, raced through them, shot across them.
“Astrid, activate Augmented Reality Mode,” he said.
A disembodied voice he of course recognized — and that he presumed only he could hear — whispered, “Sure thing, sweetie.”
The world around him instantly transformed. The Grand Hall of the hotel, and all of the fannish con-goers — and his friends — became 3D-rendered versions of themselves, pixelated and polygon-modeled, though extremely detailed and much like their real-life counterparts. Reflections and shines were a bit too perfect here, and fabrics swooshed and glided a bit too smoothly; skin tones were too even, and eyes glistened too deeply, too much like jewels. But, this virtual world was but an onion-layer over the real one, an electric dimension in which to work magic. He was his Avatar, Gadgorak Prime, again. He reached down beside his leather pants, and swept aside his brown cowboy duster, to get to the Ray Gun in his six-gun holster. He pulled it out and considered the settings on the dial for a moment. He switched the large, central rear dial to Storm, and then the smaller dial next to it to the second-to-lowest setting.
He then aimed the gun at the largest, most ornate chandelier hanging in the center of the Grand Hall of the hotel, high above them . . . and fired.
He felt a tiny pulse of pain go through his head — man, it was like somebody shoving an ice-pick into his forehead! — and he winced for just a second or two as the beam of light projected from the gun shimmered and sparked like a lasso made of electricity; it wrapped itself around the chandelier and then broke in two. The bolt of lightning coming from the Ray Gun ceased to exist, but the one wrapped around the chandelier stayed there, glowing brightly, a halo made of electric fury. Then, the lightning suddenly exploded outward, and in its wake, clouds began to form on the ceiling. Small clouds at first, then larger ones as the air in the room got noticably drier and drier, all the moisture condensing into the clouds above. Con-goers all around them began to look up and point in wonder and awe at the cloud formations bubbling into existence across the ceiling. Then the clouds above grew dark, like bruised pieces of fruit, and a rumbling sound echoed throughout the Grand Hall. People began to “ahh” and “ohh,” and the chatter in the room — and all eyes — were suddenly on the clouds above, as lightning flashed within them.
And then, as one loud clap of thunder burst forth from the clouds, the downpour began. Rain started to fall from the clouds, pitter-pattering onto the totally amazed and utterly confused crowd of con-going fen. Shouts of “WHAT THE FUCK!” and “OH MY GOD!” and “HOLY SHIT!” and screams of “WOW!” and, of all things, huge bursts of applause broke out. It took him a second to figure it out, but then — Ah, okay. They thought this was all a show of some kind. Right. Some kind of special effects wizardry to wow the crowd. Well, cool. As long as they thought that, then fine, let them. The important thing was that he had successfully conjured up a goddamn indoor thunderstorm!
Sparks blew from panels in the ceiling; he had just blown out the wiring in the ceiling. The lights flickered. The air conditioning in the Grand Hall kicked on whirring at full-blast. Ceiling tiles fell in flames after a loud “pop” blew from the chandeliers above. Oops. There went part of the hotel’s electrical wiring, as well as some of its heating and air conditioning system. The maintenance boys were going to be really fucking busy this next week.
As he thought this, another panel exploded in a dazzling shower of yellow sparks.
Wow. Or the next few months.
Gadget grinned so widely his face hurt. He had done it. The new-and-improved Dr. Manhatten Helmet had, thanks to its fusion with the NeuroScape and Augmented Reality Mode, been able to transmute his telekinetic force into a manipulation of the quantum vacuum and other natural forces such that he had created a momentary disruption of local weather and climate topographies, calculated just so that it would cause this cloud to form right here, and, for a few minutes, pour down rain. The NeuroScape — though more specifically, Astrid — had done all the math; the Helm’s telekinetic force, together with its energy channeled into the quantum vacuum and the resulting vacuum energy being channeled back out of it, was what had actually created the phenomenon and was powering it. In other words, the indoor rainstorm was the toy. He was, in effect, the battery that had jump-started the zero-point reaction.
And already, he felt tired. As though there were a concrete block on a chain, tied to his waist, and it were dangling off a bridge beneath him, and some evil force was making him stand there, on the side of the bridge, until his legs and back just gave out, and he fell . . .
But right now, he didn’t care how tired he felt. He shrugged it off, and filed it away for later. Dizzy had been right. This was awesome. He grinned even wider and put his hands out to catch the raindrops, finally relaxing. Dizzy grinned as well. All around them, con-goers ran to and fro to get away from the sudden indoor rainstorm, shocked and surprised at having to do so. Hotel security guards ran to and fro as well, looking up in consternation and barking into their walkie-talkies, demanding to know what was going on in sector-whatever. A sense of chaos reigned as the cloud above continued to rain and thunder.
“Told you it would be funzies,” said Dizzy.
“Dude,” said Mystikite, smiling a little. “Okay, I gotta admit. That’s fucking awesome.”
Zoë laughed, and caught a few raindrops in her mouth. “Yeah, okay, fine. Successful test, Gadget.”
“And I haven’t even done a full-scale test of the Helm’s new abilities yet,” said Gadget. “Let’s see. Lemme try something . . . bigger.”
He took a few steps back. In the real world, his friends probably saw him just backing away from them, holding his fingers crooked in front of him. That was okay. He backed up until he was near the registration desk, and could see the entire Grand Hall. He raised the Ray Gun, and aimed at the entire crowd of con-goers gathered there.
“Gadget,” said Zoë, “the last time you tried out the Helm’s new features you wound up freaking unconscious for six hours straight, trapped in some weird lucid dream state we couldn’t pull you out of. Hon, listen to me. Impressing your future employer is one thing. Impressing a hot chick is one thing. This . . . this is bonkers. Don’t do this.”
“Yeah dude,” said Mystikite. “Dizzy, you seem to have an undue amount of influence over my young padawan here. And he tends to get carried away anyway. So please, tell him not to push his luck, here.”
“Go on, Gadget,” said Dizzy, smiling, a maniacal — yet altogether charming — gleam in her eye. “Punch it. Let’s see what your Helm can do.”
As he stood there, his mind whirled with possibilities. Hmm. Wait just a second . . . The Helm made him capable of telepathy, right? Which meant sharing thoughts, sensations, emotions, right? So could he share entire experiences? Or parts of experiences? Could he share his imagination? Or elements of it? Could he conjure etheric objects into existence in the Augmented Reality and then share his experience of that Reality with everyone here? And could he add other sensations — like music, maybe? Could he do that? Hmm . . . The last time he’d tried to use the Transilience Beam — with Mystikite — it hadn’t gone so well. It had turned out he had mis-coded some of the variables in the NeuroBand Headset circuitry firmware; he thought he had fixed it, but wasn’t entirely sure. He hadn’t tested his fix yet.
“Dude,” said Mystikite, shaking his head, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Small reminder. You’re pointing that at us. And your future employer.”
“Gadget — ” began Zoë, in a warning tone.
Oh well, why hell not? Why not try it out? The worst that could happen was he would fry his brain, right? And maybe blow up his friends or kill a few con-goers. But what the hell, he was feeling dangerous. Being around Dizzy made him feel . . . he didn’t have a word for it. Powerful? No. Reckless? No, that wasn’t exactly right either. Carefree and a little less worried about everything. Maybe, but that didn’t quite feel right, either. Whatever it was, it felt marvelously freeing. He sucked in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly.
“Astrid,” he said, “load the MP3 file, ‘Dead Man’s Party,’ by artist Oingo Boingo, off the flash drive connected to Transmitter Node ‘Gadget001.’ Then play it. Pipe the music through Augmented Reality Mode. And turn it up loud.”
“Will do,” answered Astrid’s disembodied voice.
He was suddenly deafened by the sound of trumpets and other horns announcing the opening of Oingo Boingo’s 1985 hit dance song. The funky drumbeat and the groove came in next. He tapped his foot to the beat, closed his eyes and concentrated hard for a moment on what he wanted to happen, then dialed the Ray Gun to Transilience Beam, and pulled the trigger.
Waves of undulating blue-glowing energy shot out from the Ray Gun and blasted across the 3D-animated crowd of con-goers, as wispy tendrils of energy exploded from Gadget’s temples and arced across the thunder-and-lightning, stormcloud-laden ceiling of the hotel’s grand hallway, and burst into a cavalcade of fireworks. And then the music was everywhere — coming from every surface, echoing every nook and cranny.
“Whoa!” shouted Mystikite, startled.
“Holy monkey balls!” cried Zoë, laughing despite herself — again.
Everyone could hear it, not just him. Dizzy was bobbing her head to the beat and smiling. The other con-goers all looked around at each other, amazed and stunned. Some already danced. More started to as the music grew in volume and the sparkling fireworks above glistened and folded on each other and illuminated the Grand Hall along with the lightning from the storm clouds, and the rain continued to fall upon the reveling crowd.
Gadget grinned even wider. He hadn’t even exerted himself yet. Well, he had — he was sweating, and he trembled a little, the tremors starting to set in — but he tried to suppress it. He was having fun, goddammit! The joy and ecstasy and exhiliration rushing through him made him feel powerful, god-like, and he even felt a brush of machismo wash over him. Mystikite extended a hand to Zoë, shrugged, and smiled. She bowed and took his hand and they began to dance in the rain as the fireworks and lightning beamed above them. Meanwhile Dizzy sat off to the side, nodding her head in time to the beat, her arms folded, looking on with a self-satisfied smile on her face.
Gadget dialed the Ray Gun to Mordy’s Faithful Hand and took aim at his friends first. He was fairly confident this wouldn’t hurt them. Mostly. Unlike the tendrils that reached out from his Helm and drew upon his own latent telekinetic power to lift objects and move them around, the Mordy’s Faithful Hand setting of the etheric Ray Gun sort of “cheated”: It used his telekinetic power to siphon energy from the quantum vacuum to power the effect, creating force-fields and kinetic force from Dirac power.
“Dude, what are you doing now?” asked Mystikite as he whirled Zoë around by the hand.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got this. I know what I’m doing. I think.”
He pulled the trigger and fired. He felt a brief wave of tiredness wash over him — that was expected, though; he had guessed it would take a lot out of him to use telekinesis to draw upon the quantum vacuum like this — as the wave of blue-white energy blasted out from the Ray Gun and washed over Mystikite and Zoë.
They began to float upward, levitating toward the ceiling.
“Whoa shit!” yelled Mystikite, tumbling in midair.
“Holy Jesus!” cried Zoë, flailing her arms. “Gadget, you turned off the gravity!”
“Ha! Yes!” Dizzy grinned. “Now ‘that,’ to quote Will Smith, ‘is what I’m talkin’ ‘bout!’”
The crowd of con-goers reacted with oohs and ahhs and gasps of shock and wonderment. Awe and excitement, and applause amid the partying. Whoops and cheers and shouts of approval and “Encore, encore!” Hollers of “Awesome!” and “Fuck yeah!” and “Badass!” and “Whoa!” To them, this must’ve been some kind of special effects presentation, some kind of theatrical display put on by some improvising cosplayers or theatre troupe. Well, let it be that, then! Gadget laughed. And laughed, and laughed. He grinned until his face hurt. A thrilling zing went through him and warmed him to his bones. The rain came down, the lightning flashed, the fireworks sizzled in the cloud above, the music grooved and jammed and blasted, and all around him, people danced and laughed and reveled . . . and he had done it. He had done it all. He had made this momentary miracle happen. He and his Helm.
But Jesus, he was tired. Tired as fuck, in fact. His muscles hurt; the tendons in his legs and arms felt stretched and they were starting to burn. He was drenched in sweat. It was time to end the party, sadly. He sucked in a breath, and set the switch on the side of the Ray Gun to the “Inverse” setting, and fired at his friends. They began to drift back toward the floor. The storm cloud dissipated, and the rain vanished. The thunder ceased. The music faded away. The fireworks vanished as well. The crowd of con-goers let out a loud, audible “Awwww!” of disappointment at the sudden end to the party. The laughter and the dancing both trailed off as the volume of the chatter in the grand hall shot up immensely as people began talking about what had just happened. The roar of the voices behind the Wall in Gadget’s head increased in volume as well. He had to exert extra effort — pushing with all his mental will — in order to force them back, back, back . . . pushing with all his might to contain them, shove them back where they belonged, lest they overwhelm him.
“Astrid,” he said, “deactivate Augmented Reality Mode, okay?” He felt unsteady on his feet.
“Sure thing,” came her disembodied voice.
The world melted back into ordinary reality around him, and he was once again just himself, and not Gadgorak Prime. He reached up, and switched off the Helm, and controlled the urge to collapse, breathing heavily.
“Aww,” said Zoë, as her feet settled back onto the tile, “I was just beginning to enjoy that. I’ve never been weightless before. Y’know I always dreamed of being an astronaut, of knowing what that felt like.”
“Well, now you know — ” said Mystikite, helping her steady on her feet as he himself stepped back down onto the ground.
“‘And knowing is half the battle,’” chimed in Gadget and Dizzy at the same exact time. “Yo Joe!”
Dizzy smiled and shook her head. “I just love that. It sticks with you, even after childhood.”
“Are you okay, Gadget?” asked Zoë, seeming to eye him carefully. “You don’t look so good. Your eyes look all red and you seem pale. And you’re breathing like a landed whale.”
“I’m good!” he said, trying to control his breathing. “Nah, strike that. I’m great!”
That was the last thing he remembered before he collapsed.
Zoë, Mystikite, and Dizzy stared at him for a moment.
Zoe looked huffing mad. “Well, Dizzy, since this was your fault, do you wanna help carry him back up to our room? Or shall I tell the paramedics that you egged him on?”
“Um yeah,” said Dizzy, looking at Gadget with genuine worry on her face. Over what, Zoë couldn’t tell. “Yeah, sure . . . Look . . . Myy bad, okay? I’m sorry.”