“Dude! Wake up!” Mystikite shook Gadget’s shoulder forcefully, and Gadget’s eyes popped open. Thankfully. Oh thank God he was okay. The dude had had him seriously worried there for a second.
“Uh . . . where am I?” asked Gadget as he sat up. Mystikite extended a hand to him, and helped him up to his feet. “Oh yeah,” he said, looking around. “Con. What . . . what happened?”
“You passed out, is what happened,” said Zoë. “We told you not to push it. And you did. And, well . . . you passed out.”
“Oh,” said Gadget. He straightened his tweed coat and straightened the Dr. Manhatten Helmet on his head. “Well, remind me not to do that again, okay?”
“I will,” said Mystikite, relief flooding his veins that his friend was actually okay, and that he hadn’t been hurt, “but dude, if you ever scare me like that again, I swear I will smack you with my giant penis so hard it will knock you back in time to the moment I slapped you, and then you’ll get slapped with my salami a second time.”
“Uh, the image of that alone is enough to keep me in line,” said Gadget, cringing.
“Thank the gods you’re okay, Gadget,” said Dizzy. She wheeled herself forward and hugged him around the abdomen. “We can’t afford to lose our team’s technomage, now can we?”
“Are you kidding?” said Zoë. “You put him up to that! You egged him on!”
“Yeah,” said Gadget, “but I’m kinda glad she did. Guys, you have no idea how much fun that was! And now we know what the Helm can really do! And it’s amazing!”
“Yeah,” said Zoë, crossing her arms, “but I wonder what cost ‘amazing’ comes at.”
“So!” said Dizzy, clapping her hands together. “I think it’s about time you all met Misto! Zoë’s already met him, but you two haven’t. And you’ll be working with him quite extensively. And he’s here, after all, so why not introduce you? Problem is, I don’t know exactly where he is.” Dizzy cleared her throat. “Hey Astrid,” she said. A two-toned “ding” came from inside her motorcycle helmet. “Call Misto, on speaker.”
The computer-generated voice responded: “Fine. Whatever, Dizzy. Calling Misto, on speaker.” A series of rings came next. Then, a voice answered.
“Yo Diz!” came the voice. “Er, I’m kinda . . . busy right now. Whatcha . . . whatcha need.” A woman’s moan and giggle sounded in the background.
“Well can you pause the busy?” asked Dizzy. “I’ve got new friends I want you to meet.”
“Uh, well,” said Misto. “Um.”
“Meet me by the north-central elevators in five minutes, okay?” she said.
“Er, uh, well, um, okay, I, ah, but — ”
“Just be there, alright?”
“Well, yeah, but I’m — ” The woman with him moaned again, louder this time, and then laughed.
“Okay, cool,” she said. “See you there.”
“Yeah, but Diz — ” Another moan from the woman in the background.
Dizzy pressed a button on the side of her helmet and the call terminated. “Come with me,” she said. “You’ll love Misto. He’s epically cool.”
“He sounded . . . occupied,” said Zoë, and she stifled a snorted giggle.
“Um, yeah,” said Mystikite. “Kinda . . . busy singin’ ‘Paradise By the Dashboard Light.’”
“Well he does have a good singing voice,” said Dizzy. “I didn’t know they were doing Karaoke this year, though.”
“No, no, no,” said Mystikite. “Dizzy, I was trying to say — ”
“What he means, Dizzy,” said Zoë, “is that it seems your friend Misto is busy playing a game of ‘poke-her.’”
“Ooh, there’s actual gambling here this year?” she said.
“No, Dizzy, no,” said Gadget. “What they’re trying to say is that Misto is occupied with a member of the opposite sex, doing the horizontal mambo.”
“That’s physically impossible,” said Dizzy. She cocked her head sideways, like a curious parrot investigating a mysterious new toy that had just been placed in its cage. “But oh well. Never mind. All of you ready and set for Level 2? Save point checked? Yes? Good! On we go! Follow me!"
Mystikite followed Dizzy right behind Gadget with Zoë by his side, their hands linked. Ever since Zoë had gotten home the other night, she had seemed different — charged, on fire. Spitting nails and taking no prisoners. More alive than he had seen her in months. Maybe even a year or two. Maybe it had been coming so close to death in that Vampire attack. (Man, actual, real-life fucking Vampires. What the fuck! But if Zoë said they were real, then they were fucking real. End of story. He trusted her word, her scientific mind. So if she said they were real goddamn Vampires, then they were real goddamn Vampires, by the gods.) Or, maybe it was Dr. Weatherspark's job offer. Dizzy's job offer. (Damn, he would have to get used to calling her that. Wow. First name basis with the boss; that was weird.) Or maybe it was that she’d learned that holy shit, aliens were real! Goddamn motherfucking aliens from other fucking planets were motherfucking real and on this planet! And the company he worked for actually had one of their crashed alien ships on ice! And he was going to get to study it! Hoh-leee SHIT!
Whatever it was that had lifted Trill’s spirits, he was glad for it. He had been worried about her for a while now. That job at that hospital . . . being a doctor . . . it had stolen something from her; the light in her eyes . . . he had watched it growing dimmer with each passing day for the past year or so. He knew she wanted her degree in Medicinal Biotechnology more than anything else in this world — more than she wanted him, more than she wanted life itself, and hey, that was cool — but sometimes he wondered if getting there was worth the price it was extracting from her. That, however, was ultimately her call. He could not interfere. It was her destiny, her life, not his. It was her decision to make.
And as far as the intimate details of their relationship went — no more Vampire stuff; that shit was over and done with. Well, hey, he was cool with that too . . . he guessed. He’d always known one of them would grow beyond it eventually; she just happened to get there first. Kinda sad, but oh well. Nothing to do but accept it, and move on. He couldn’t allow anything to get in the way of their relationship, though. Not ever. Maybe it was time for him to get over the whole Vampire scene, too. He had to admit, the scene itself had grown a little stale, as of late. Too many poseurs and tweeny-boppers in Hot Topic gear. Yeah, maybe time to give it up. He was not gonna change his NeuroScape Avatar, though. Not no way, not no how. Nope, Mystikite Elric would stay just the way he was, thank you very much.
They approached the elevators in the center of the next hallway to the right, surrounded by other chattering con-goers standing about. The familiar “ding” of the elevator arriving sounded, and the doors of the middle of the three elevators opened . . . and Mystikite's jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe it. Man, there were some things you just couldn’t unsee. Hoots and applause went up from the crowd and a grinning girl dressed as the blue-skinned, cybernetically-enhanced “Nebula” from Guardians Of The Galaxy immediately stuck her foot in the elevator door to keep it open, the goods inside on display for all to see. There, in the elevator, was a large hefty black man dressed as the Marvel Universe’s “Thanos”: A golden crown and helmet; big golden shoulder-brace pieces of armor; an armored spine, curiass, and chest-piece (otherwise, naked from the waist up); golden, armor-plated belt and Egyptian-like skirt; gold-plated vambraces, greaves, and boots; and one golden gauntlet with six glowing colored jewels mounted to the knuckles and the back of the palm . . . all in all, an a impressive cosplay. The large, hefty black Thanos had his arms around the waist of a woman dressed as a Vulcan science officer, pointy-ears and pale skin and all; blue tunic and black miniskirt . . . which was currently shoved up around her waist and thighs. She had bright red hair. And her face was scrunched up into the familiar grimace of orgasm as she and Thanos bumped and ground and he thrust his pelvis in and out. Thanos’ golden Egyptian skirt was on the floor . . . displaying his shiny black buttocks to the world. And that butt was moving — in and out, in and out, his hips thrusting, his buttocks rudely flexing — as were the writing, shapely legs of the Vulcan, which were bent and halfway wrapped around Thanos’ legs as she herself leaned back against the handrail in the elevator and moaned, groaning with pleasure. Wow. Just . . . wow.
Mystikite couldn’t help it. First he sniggered a little, then he cracked up into a guffaw and burst out into a belly laugh. Damn he was glad he had come to con this year! And it was right at that moment — right at that moment! — that Thanos realized that he and Commander T’Pol had an audience. This was too good!
Dizzy rolled her eyes, and muttered — mostly to herself, Mystikite could tell — “Misto, gawh! I leave you alone for three frakkin’ hours, and the crap you get up to. Whatever happened to theoretical physicists being mild-mannered milquetoasts?”
“That’s Misto?” Gadget and Mystikite asked at the same time.
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“That’s Misto,” replied Dizzy and Zoë together, in completely different tones of voice. One was smiling; the other, grimacing.
“Shit!” Thanos stopped screwing T’Pol, withdrew — his junk was only visible for a quick flash, thankfully — and quickly grabbed his gold-plated Egyptian skirt from the floor and whisked it upward, covering his buttocks and junk; he buckled the belt, and then the Vulcan shoved her miniskirt down just as she herself registered that they were being stared at by about thirty people.
“What. The. Fuck!” she cried, and ran a hand over her lips as she stormed out of the elevator, past Misto, and out into the crowd, disappearing.
Okay, shows over!” cried Misto. “Move along, move along! Nothing to see here! Just a . . . a biology experiment! Yeah, that’s it! A biology experiment!”
And wonder of wonders, people did start moving along. It appeared that you just didn’t argue with the big burly black guy, no matter what the context was. Cries of “Awww” and “booo!” went through all assembled as people began milling about again, going to and fro, clearly flustered that the show was, indeed, over. Misto shot the girl dressed as Nebula a look. She was still standing there with foot in the elevator door.
“Well?” he said.
She exchanged a long glance with him. Finally, she removed her foot and, glumly, slunk off to join the bustling crowd. Misto gazed after the Vulcan and sighed longingly.
“There went the new love of my life,” he said wistfully.
“She wasn’t ‘the new love of your life,’” said Dizzy, as she and Mystikite, Gadget, and Zoë all approached him. “She was probably just some skank who probably thought your prank of screwing on an elevator was a good way to kill a half-hour or so.”
“Wait a second!” cried Mystikite, rounding on Dizzy. “We just force-fed you three different sex metaphors and you didn’t get any of them! Now you’re talking about ‘skanks’ and ‘screwing’ as though you wrote the book on them!”
“I was being pointedly obtuse as a joke,” said Dizzy. “Didn’t you get it?”
“No,” said Mystikite with a heavy sigh. “No I guess I didn’t. Your Andy Kauffman anti-humor is lost on me.”
“Well that’s why it’s called anti-humor,” said Dizzy. “If it were funny on the surface it’d just be regular humor.”
Mystikite sighed again and shook his head. “I guess so . . .”
“I thought it was funny, looking back on it,” said Gadget, nodding his approval.
“You’d think it was funny if she puked on you!” whispered Zoë.
“That’d depend on the texture and color,” Gadget whispered back. “And the smell, probably.”
“Anyway,” said Dizzy, ignoring them, “Yeah, definitely a skank if she’s screwing you in an elevator.”
“Don’t say that about T’Pring!” shushed Misto. “Spock might be listening! And you don’t fuck with Spock! And hey — half an hour or so? First you insult my taste in pointless dalliances that I use to take my mind off my grief . . . then you insult my lovemaking skills. Is this ‘pick on Misto’ day? Is it? Oh — I see you brought the Inventor and the Hacker with you. So tell me, which is which?”
“The Inventor, Gadget, is the one wearing the cybernetic-and-Tesla-tech Dr. Manhatten Helmet, duh,” said Dizzy, jerking a thumb in Gadget’s direction. “This one — ” she said, jerking her other thumb in his direction, “is Mystikite, the Hacker.”
“Hey, I’m not sure I’m comfortable being referred to in the third person,” said Mystikite. He was not going to let them get away with that shit. No way. “But yeah, I’m Mystikite. At your service. Well, depending on the serviced, I guess.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Gadget. He stuck out a hand toward Misto. “I’m Gadget — well, Terry Anders, but everyone calls me Gadget. I’m an inventor. Well, you know that already, I guess. So you’re . . . Misto. Uh, I’ll say this at least . . . That girl was pretty hot. You’ve . . . got great taste? So tell me, what’s your secret?”
Poor Gadget. He was always so sincere in everything he did. One day, that was going to probably get him in a lot of trouble.
Misto laughed. “My secret? Why, whatever do you mean, dear boy?”
“Y’know . . . your secret,” said Gadget. “To attracting such beautiful women.”
“Oh, that,” said Misto. “Pfft. It’s hardly a secret. I’m a devastatingly charming fellow. And a disarmingly good conversationalist. I guess the key is to have self-confidence. After all, if you believe in you, other people will have no choice but to follow suit. It’s physics. And believe me, I am an expert in physics.”
“Also an expert in skanks,” said Dizzy, grinning. “What the heckin’-balls were you doing screwing in an elevator, anyway?”
“Well, it’s a long story. It involves the two of us pretending we were in the TARDIS, y’see, and she pressed the ‘Emergency Stop’ button, and I was unawares that the elevator had started moving again, y’see. And just as I was about to, well, y’know, and she was about to, well, y’know, the doors opened, and we — ”
“And that’s when I shot him, your honor,” said Dizzy, rolling her eyes. “I swear, Misto, you are incorrigible.”
“And indefatigable,” he said. “Pleased to meet you, Gadget. Hmm. Gadget ‘Gadgorak’ Prime. Tell me . . . which was better. Ready Player One the book, or the movie?”
“Oh the book, by far!” said Gadget. “The movie . . . well . . . it was a good movie, on its own, so long as you divorce it entirely from the book. And I mean, as long as you pretend that the book doesn’t even exist. Because in my opinion, they blew it. By not including enough of what made the book great. Which was its obsession with geek culture, its fascination with video games and pop culture iconography . . . What really made the book tick was the lead character, Wade’s, total obsession with Halliday’s Egg, and how it led him almost to total self-destruction, and how it led him to a kind of redemption . . . and how his friendship with Artemis — and his friendships with Aech, and Shoto — helped him come to grips with reality in the end. Ooh, sorry, spoilers if you haven’t read it. But, yeah, anyway. That was all totally absent from Spielberg’s movie. Just, like, not even there. And in order to have it there, they would’ve had to do a deep dive into Wade’s psychology, and that would mean a deep dive into 1980’s pop culture, which the movie just wasn’t that committed to. It just wasn’t. It was more interested in just nod-and-a-wink references, and stuff like that. They really oversimplified the screen adaptation, and they really threw away what made the book so special, and what made people love it so much in the first place. That’s probably why the movie didn’t do so well at the box office. People went to see it, and saw that Spielberg had left the book’s heart and soul there on the cutting room floor and they said, in the wise words of Nostalgia Chick — ‘Thanks, I hate it,’ and then walked away.”
“In case you’re wondering,” said Mystikite, “I get to hear some version of this lovely little speech on an almost yearly basis. Thanks for making sure I had to listen it yet again today. You’re a peach, Misto.”
“Hurm,” said Misto, appearing to size Gadget up, and nodding to himself. “I like your analytical and critical style. A bit of the New Criticism there; a longing for the objective correlative, I can tell. Heh. I’m satisfied. You’ll do nicely. As for you — ” He turned toward Mystikite. He blinked at the sudden attention and scrutiny. “‘What. Is Kiri-kin-tha's first law of metaphysics?’”
“Uh . . .” His mind raced. Dammit, he knew this. Knew the answer to it. It was so familiar, so — ah ha! He knew the quote. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He smiled and answered: “‘Nothing unreal exists.’”
“Correct,” said Misto, and he grinned. “Now riddle me this: Where do you stand on the question of Star Trek: Enterprise. Is it a lost gem, or a total failure?”
“Um, uh,” began Mystikite. “Well. It’s neither. It was a good show. It had its moments. And it got really good in seasons three and four, with the Xindi war, and the Temporal Cold War coming to a head. In fact it had moments of pure awesomeness in season three. Really great stuff there. And I felt Archer really grew as a character. He started out as totally racist against Vulcans — and it took the writers a really long time to get him to grow beyond that — but in the end, he overcame it. But the problem with doing a show about a racist character who eventually learns the error of his ways is that in the meantime, the show reinforces his racism — and the way he treats those he’s racist toward — as being the ‘right thing to do’ because duh, he’s the hero, so he has to be right. So yeah, the show fails in that regard. But overall, it was a good show. Like I said, it had its moments. And I really liked the fourth season episodes where they traveled back in time to the alternate history where the Nazis had won World War II, and they had to get help from the mafia to beat the aliens who had teamed up with the Nazis, and you had the Enterprise cruising over New York City, firing phasers at the Luftwaffe planes that were, also, firing ray guns at the Enterprise. That was some tee-totally classic shit, right there. So, yeah. That’s my opinion on Enterprise.”
“And a well-rounded, fair opinion it is,” said Misto, nodding his approval. If that had been some sort of test, then Mystikite assumed he had passed. What the hell kind of interviewing technique was this, anyway? Didn’t they already have the jobs? What was the point of all this? Was Misto just asking them these questions just for the hell of it? To try and get a feel for who they were as people? What was his deal? So far he liked the guy okay; he seemed jovial and friendly enough. And weird enough. Y’know, how often did you get to see a dude banging a chick in an elevator? Mystikite liked that about him. Misto continued, “Your knowledge of the series is impressive, young padawan. You’ve done well.”
“Of course it’s impressive,” said Mystikite, straightening his shoulders. “I’m impressive. And I’ve got a huge penis. So big. Like, you have no idea how big it is.”
No reason not to introduce them to his favorite running gag right here and now, he thought.
“Uh, dude,” said Zoë, “they don’t know that in-joke.”
Well, they did now!
“Er, let’s move on,” suggested Gadget, laughing. Zoë grinned and pinched her nostrils, and shook her head. Gadget asked, “What do you do on this team, Misto?”
“Management and physics work,” said Misto. Gadget looked slightly confused, and then looked at Dizzy. Misto laughed and continued. “Oh Dizzy is the leader of this new team . . . but I’m gonna be the general manager. I’m also our second-in-command theoretical physicist, next to Dizzy herself. I’m here to make sure that everything runs smoothly, that everyone gets along, that everything stays running. Like you, I am a part-time employee. I’ll spend much of my time teaching physics at Morchatromik University down in Cambridge. And when there’s a mystery to unravel, or Dizzy needs help figuring something out, or one of you lot gets out of line, I’ll be there to sort things out. I’m also there, much to her chagrin — but, at her insistence — to reign her in, as well.”
“I sorta get kinda . . . out there, at times,” confessed Dizzy. Zoë’s eyebrows went up. “Nothing for you guys to worry about, of course . . . I mean, I can handle it, it’s just . . . well . . . I, uh, yeah.”
“Plus,” said Misto, “I also help Dizzy out, of course. I drive her around. And help her out with other things. Though she’s mostly gets around on her own. Mostly.”
“Heh. ‘Mostly,’” grumbled Dizzy. “I’m going to get my foot around on its own and up your ass in a minute. I’m not handicapped; I’m handi-capable.”
“That you are,” said Misto, nodding. “I apologize for insinuating you’re anything less.”
“Your chagrin is duly noted,” said Dizzy, nodding to him. “Now, then. Who wants to go see the Firefly panel?”
“Er, just one question first,” said Mystikite. “When do we start our jobs? Right after con, or what?”
Dizzy suddenly looked past him, and toward the main entrance of the hotel, and then she went pale. Her eyes got wider.
“I’d say right about now,” she said. “Look who’s coming to dinner.”
Mystikite turned to look, saw what she saw, and said, “Ah shit. There goes con!”
Misto turned to look next. “Dear God. He’s here.”
“Who?” asked Gadget, turning to look.
“Ravenkroft,” said Dizzy, “has just arrived.”