Four and a half hours later, Dizzy and her Technowizards had almost finished their latest project. Dizzy had the music down perfectly, and now noodled around on the guitar, trying to hammer out a decent guitar solo for the midsection. Gadget had rigged up a new set of circuits for her Evangeliojaeger, based on the zero-point field coils in his Mind-Weirding Helm; these, he promised, would generate a basic forcefield to help her withstand laser, phase-pulse, lightning, and other high-energy missile attacks. He wasn’t sure about bullets, though. That was a “fifty-fifty shot,” no pun intended. Well, maybe a little intended. It was a funny way to put things. Well, sort of. If you weren’t the one at whom said bullets were directed.
For their other big project, they’d had to take the Mind-Weirding Helm completely apart. Gadget, Darmok, Basil, and Mystikite had done most of the hard work, with an assist from Dizzy and Jetta, with Misto and Buffy contributing mathematical physics and advice on neurological interfacing, respectively. The Mind-Weirding Helm now looked even more ungainly than it had before: An old-style hemispherical hairdryer helmet from a beauty salon, with a dozen or so vacuum-tubes and wiring-coils mounted to it, sprouting off in every direction; a series of circuit boards mounted on small pylons here and there, with wires and cables criss-crossing between them. In the center, at the top, sat the Twizion Particle Emitter, which looked a bit like a handheld electric screwdriver and a fluorescent lightbulb made of glass and spindly wiring inside, aimed downward, a metal tripod holding them in place. Several cables connected the Emitter and the various circuit boards. Around the perimeter of the helmet sat a series of D-cell battery compartments, wired in parallel, the wires all tied into the circuitry. Silvery, segmented tubes interconnected various parts here and there; tiny clouds of liquid nitrogen coolant leaked from the valves, as well as the tiny tanks attached to the left side of the Helm. A small control panel on the other side sported a Thunderbolt computer-interface port, a ?-inch audio jack labeled “AUX IN,” and of course, a small, double-bladed steel power-switch marked “1/?.”
On the front of the Helm, mounted out away from the rest of it, stood the pieces of a NeuroBand Headset, with its temporal-lobe neuronal flux-inceptors positioned right at the level of the wearer’s temples, its other flux-inceptors positioned near the frontal lobes, the two optic nerves, and swooping backward in an arch toward the positions of the cochlear and vestibular nerves. The Headset’s wires and circuits now connected with those of the Mind-Weirding Helm, with several pieces of the internal circuitry exposed and rewired using micro-soldered connections. Finally, looping around the Twizion Particle Emitter was a metal torus with a blue glow to it — one of Basil’s Geist-Verst?rker devices — its power-couplers connected into the Helm’s longitudinal waveguides and its forward, forcefield projectors . . . which looked suspiciously like a set of old, metallic “bunny ear” antennas borrowed from some ancient, scrap-heap television set.
Gadget picked up the new Mind-Weirding Helm — and, only slightly worried about the weight of the thing snapping his neck — he tried it on for size. A bit ungainly — and it took some balancing to get the weight-distribution just right, too — he wobbled for a moment, steadying the thing on his head — and then finally let go of it tentatively, and let it sit there on its own. It waffled only for a moment, then steadied itself. Gadget fastened the chin-strap — which they’d replaced with a bigger, stronger version that used velcro instead of a buckle — and tried to balance himself . . . and wonder of wonders, the thing stayed on him, and he himself remained upright. Briefly, he tried out his maneuverability — he walked around the room once or twice, as everyone held their breath as they watched the awkward, maladroit thing upon his head wobble a bit as he did so. But, nevertheless, the thing remained fastened in place. Dizzy clapped, as did Mystikite; the applause soon spread to everyone. Not thinking, Gadget made a bow, and almost fell over from the weight of the Helm. He quickly recovered and his head rushed and swam with vertigo as he hurriedly stood back up on his feet and staggered for a moment. Then he sat down on the bed, woozy-headed.
“I think I can wear it just fine,” he said, after he had collected himself. “Now lemme see if it still works.”
“Okay, buddy,” said Mystikite. “Here goes. Read my thoughts.”
“You’re . . . thinking . . .” began Gadget, then hesitated. Then, he smiled. “Some bullshit about the NeuroScape and the A.I. you think you found ‘living’ there the other day.” Then, his eyes darted over to Buffy, then back to Mystikite again. “But, on a deeper level than that: You’re thinking that you really fucked up with Zoe, and you’re wondering if she’ll ever forgive you, or if you even deserve forgiveness. You’re wondering if Elphion here can ever love you as much as you know, in your heart, that Zoe did — and she still does, by the way. It’s coming off of her in waves. I can feel it, all the way over here. But you’re both too afraid to admit how you still feel. Because that might be too risky, in the face of . . . well, in the face of what you’ve become, now. What you are. Which she realizes is partly her . . . and my . . . fault. I’m sorry. We . . . we didn’t really know. Didn’t think it through. All we could think of was . . . life without you. And how much it would suck.”
“Damn,” said Dizzy, and blinked, taken aback. “He really pegged your ass, Mystikite.”
Mystikite’s eyes grew wide and he pulled away from Gadget. He swallowed, and turned bright red in the face. “Uh . . . okay, then. Dude. I so hate that thing sometimes.” He looked around, and uncomfortably met Elphion’s eyes, and then Buffy’s. Buffy merely arched an eyebrow at him, as if to say: He’s right, you know. Isn’t he? Do you still love me? Meanwhile, Elphion clenched her fists and frowned at him, shook her head, and then turned around and stomped out of the room. The door slammed shut behind her.
“Elphion, wait — !” cried Mystikite. “Goddamn it.”
“Oh, how sad,” said Buffy. “How very tragic. I think I’m-a cry.”
This was not going well. Gadget silently wished he had a way of blocking out not just Mystikite and Buffy’s words, but their thoughts and emotions, as well; it was worse than being in the same room as your parents whenever they fought . . . because here, you could feel the insane admixture of love and hostility; here you could feel the — painful — confusion of affection and anger, twisted-up into something altogether sharp and bristling and teething on your soul.
“And I thought I was a drama queen,” said Giova. “”
“Ah,” said Thrallia, approaching Mystikite and shaking her head. “One should never introduce the missus to the ex. It only causes one to become, indeed, a drama queen, like Giova says, and the other to turn high-maintenance.”
“Thrallia,” said Dana, laughing, “as I understand it, you haven’t had a ‘girlfriend’ since the year before your Maker made you. What would you know about relationships?”
The Vampire woman blushed. “I would know more than you, Dana Zulfridge. I have known both men and women. But only the best of both. You, with your strange religion and its odd rituals, have known many more than I have. Too many, I think.” She smiled at her triumphantly.
“Yeah, and just how do you tell the difference in those two things?” asked Mystikite, rounding on Thrallia. “Huh? How? The drama queen and the high-maintenance one, I mean?”
“That depends,” said Thrallia. “Which one are you interested in ever sleeping with again? Hint: I’d go with the one who’s still in the room right now, listening to this whole conversation.”
Mystikite rolled his eyes. “Just forget I ever asked.”
“Well, well, well,” said Buffy, sitting down next to Mystikite and Gadget. He really wished she’d stop baiting him. If she really wanted to work things out, she’d quit doing that. “It seems,” she said, “that Mr. Mystikite McKracken finds himself in quite the pickle! A quandary if ever there was one. He can either attempt to make amends to his shattered, heartbroken girlfriend and would-be fiancé of several years . . . Or, he can run to the waiting arms of his latest sexual conquest, a little girl named Elphion, whose real name I bet he doesn’t even remember learning.”
“For your information,” said Mystikite, with another heavy sigh, “her name’s Lynn Celeste. She’s cosplaying a cross between some sort of cyberpunk rebel and the Wicked Witch of the West character, Elphaba, from Greg Maguire’s novel, Wicked, and the musical it inspired, and of the same name. Her ‘nym is a fusion of ‘Elphaba’ and ‘Evangelion.’”
“Oh, well, gee,” said Buffy. “That’s might big of you, learning her name and all. You get a gold star.”
“Look — why are you doing this?” he asked.
“Because you don’t deserve to get off that easy, goddammit,” she said. “When Jetta Turned you . . . into one of what she is . . . I thought to myself, ‘That’s it. Our relationship is over. I can’t be pretend-Vampire-lovers with this guy anymore because now he really is one!’ I didn’t think it was safe for us to be together anymore — for me, or for you. So I had this plan in my head, that I would get you to break up with me. Only, guess what? You beat me to it, and I don’t like the way it tasted. Because maybe I was wrong. Because maybe, if these Vampire friends of yours — who seem to suddenly matter to you a lot more than any of us do — even me, even Gadget — maybe if they have this drug that can control the blood-thirst and that lets you walk in the sun . . . then . . . well, then maybe there’s still a chance we can be together. Maybe there’s hope for us, after all. Maybe we can win this thing. If we try. If we stick together.”
Gadget did not feel guilty for his role in his friends’ conversation thus far, even though he knew he probably should’ve. Throughout their dialogue here, he had been covertly broadcasting positive vibes at them using the Mind-Weirding Helm, focusing his love for the two of them right at them like a pulsating radio signal, so that it washed over them like a gentle ocean wave, chilling them both out and making both of them feel more sentimental and sensitive, echoing his own emotional tendencies. Maybe that was cheating. Maybe he didn’t care.
“I — I don’t really know, Zoe,” said Mystikite. He reached up and cupped her face in his hand. “I wish I did. I wish there was a way to know for sure. But there isn’t. And I’m scared to even try. What happens if I can’t — or the drug can’t — fully control it? The thirst, I mean? What happens if we make love, or try to, and I lose control and accidentally kill you?”
“Then it’s like the Klingons all say,” she replied, “‘Perhaps today is a good day to die.’ I don’t care at this point. I really don’t. We need to be careful, yes. But I won’t lose you to fear. Not the fear of what you are nor the fear of what you can do, or of what I can do, nor to the fear of the future and what it might hold for us.”
“And that’s another thing,” said Mystikite. “The future. Age. I’m going to live forever, and you’re not. I’ll stay the same, year after year, never changing, not getting any older. And yet, you will. You’ll grow old while I stay young, until the day that you . . .” He gulped and winced, as though in great pain. “Until the day you die. And that’s not fair. To either you, or to me. That’s a slow, torturous situation, and it’ll gnaw away at our love like a plague of locusts, until it destroys us both. We can’t be together, Zoe. We can’t. For that reason alone. It’ll be too hard on both of us. So it’s best if we just . . .” He grimaced, fighting tears.
Apparently, thought Gadget, what I’m doing isn’t enough.
Mystikite continued, his voice trembling: “It’s best if we don’t prolong the pain of just letting this go, Zoe.” He swallowed what Gadget knew felt like a dry desert consuming his tongue and throat. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Zoe. But it’s the only way to protect the both of us from even further, more horrible pain, later on. I just . . . I can’t do that to you, Zoe. I couldn’t live — ha, heh, listen to me; couldn’t live — with myself if I did that to you. It’s over. I’m sorry.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter either way, because you just don’t give a shit about even trying to stay together with me. Too busy ‘protecting’ the two of us, or more like protecting yourself from having to commit to taking a chance on us being strong enough to make it in the face of overwhelming odds. And too busy trying to make my fucking decisions for me. Thanks for the rocket-booster to my sense of agency, there, asshole. We’re supposed to be a team. But then again, maybe that’s why you like little green mint-berry-crunch girl out there; she’s probably a good little girl who always does what she’s told.”
“You’re not gonna let this go, are you,” said Mystikite. “You really aren’t. Look, I’ve told you. This isn’t about ‘taking a chance’ on ‘us.’ This is about risking your life. And mine. Don’t you get that? I can’t do that; I can’t let you do that. Not for me — not for anything!”
“Goddammit, quit trying to fucking tell me what’s ‘best’ for me!” she cried, and then, it happened: Her body — including her clothing — suddenly lit up with a rippling blue glow, almost like the flickering of a gas pilot-light — and then, she burst into flame. The fire curled up and around her body like a spiraling serpent, but did not burn her clothing or her skin; in fact, it seemed to project itself just outside her clothes, about an inch away from her skin, and seemed like a burning, iridescent blue plasma-like substance that flickered into actual, orange fire only at its edges. Mystikite backed up away from her and raised a hand to try and shield his face from the sudden heat, as did all the other Vampires, as did everyone else . . . but the Vampires especially so, sensing mortal danger if the flames got anywhere near them.
“Whoa!” cried Gadget, Misto, and Dizzy, all three at once. Buffy herself looked both terrified and surprised. She lifted her flaming hands before her and just stared at them, her face made of panic and fear, and then looked at Mystikite pleadingly, then at Dizzy, then at Gadget.
“Well for fuck’s sake, don’t just stand there!” she cried out, her voice shrill and trembling. “Somebody, please! For the love of God, somebody help me!” Her voice echoed in an invisible chasm, some other hidden dimension that no one else could see. The carpet at her feet caught fire and began to burn. Smoke curled up from where she stood. But, the fire did no burn her. It was as if the blue-glowing field of rippling energy surrounding her not only gave birth to the flames around her, but also protected her from them, as well, and from their disastrous effects.
Basil quickly grabbed the icy champagne bucket from beside one of the beds and threw its contents onto the rug at Buffy’s feet. The liquid passed right through the blue field of fire-energy swirling around her body and clothes and hit the orange flames current devouring the carpet, extinguishing them in a cloud of steam and smoke.
“Babe, listen,” said Mystikite, reaching forward to touch her but then thinking better of it. “I’ve — I’ve got an idea.”
“Oh, gee, great. What is it, Mr. Wizard?” she said, panicked, her voice still echoing as though she spoke through an amplifier with the reverb turned up all the way.
“ Concentrate,” he said. “Close your eyes, and focus on the blue glow that’s all around you. Concentrate on the idea of it going out. Focus all your mental effort on shutting it off. Try to — ”
“N?o!” said Gadget, standing up from where he sat. “Zoe, wait. Don’t do what he says. It won’t work. It’ll just make things worse.”
“Dude, what the hell — !” Mystikite turned to him, a pissed-off and bewildered look contorting his features.
“No offense, Mystikite,” said Gadget, “but this is my area of hacking expertise. Zoe, listen. Just . . . listen. You need to calm. Your. Mind. You’re having an emotional meltdown right now, and it’s causing what I call a ‘PK quake.’ It’s causing your whole system to freak out, hence the pyrotechnics. Somehow — I don’t really know how — the Helm’s given you pyrokinetic powers. Powers that don’t require the Helm to operate. The bad news is that you’re probably stuck that way. The good news is that you can control them, if you try. So, just listen. Listen to my voice, and try to calm yourself down. Breathe. That’s it — nice and slow. Big, deep breathes. Like my therapist showed me, and I showed you that one time. Big, deep, slow breathes. In, then out. In, then out. Right. Now, then. Close your eyes and picture a red number seven. Hold it in your mind for a minute, maybe for like two deep breathes. Okay. Now let it go. Now picture an orange six. Hold it. That’s it. Now let that go, too. Now picture a yellow five. Keep on going, with all the colors of the rainbow . . . until you get down to the violet two . . . and then . . . once you let that go . . . step into the darkness beyond it, and . . . just . . . let everything . . . go. Let go of the pain. Let go of whatever you’re feeling, just let it go, all of it. Like the song in Frozen says. That’s it. You’re doing good. Calm yourself. Let the colors talk to you. Let them ease you down, down into an alpha state. There. Now. Is that . . . better?”
The orange fireball surrounding Buffy shrank and diminished back into the rippling blue glow that extended from her body, and then those too extinguished, little by little, until the glow had faded entirely, subsumed back into her clothes and flesh. The odor of ozone, smoke, ash, and burnt carpet hung heavy in the room. Buffy took another deep breath, and then opened her eyes. She then sighed with relief, and plopped down onto the bed next to her, and cried into her hands for a moment, sobbing and trembling.
“Oh, god,” she said. “What now? Goddammit, I’m a freak, now. What the hell do I do? What in God’s name do I do . . .”
“Well on the upside,” said Dizzy, “you are still a smokin’ hot redhead, and now you have superpowers, too, so really, I don’t see — ”
“Diz,” said Misto, shaking his head, “not now.”
“Hon, babe — ” began Mystikite. “Listen, I — ”
“Oh don’t you dare,” she said, rising up from where she sat, gritting her teeth at him and shaking a finger at him. “Don’t you fucking dare call me that right now. After what you’ve sat here and said to me already! This is your goddamn fault! Your fault!” She got up, and stalked into the other half of the hotel suite, slammed the door behind her, and locked it. Mystikite simply stood in the same place he had been, closed his eyes, and shook his head. A single tear escaped his right eye. He simply stood there, breathing deeply for a moment, his hands on his hips, his brow furrowed.
“Goddammit,” he muttered. “Fuck.”
“See?” said Thrallia. “It’s as I said. Drama queen’s in there, high maintenance went out the door earlier.”
“Give it a rest, already, Thrallia,” said Dana. She looked at Mystikite with a mixture of pity and genuine concern.
“Mystikite — “ began Jetta. “Listen, I — ”
“That’s not my fucking name!” he roared. “My name is Mystikite. Mystikite Schmidinger, and I’ve had it with this whole fucking ‘nym thing!” He stood there, fuming for a moment, his eyes boring into her.
“Jeeze Louise,” said Dizzy, taking a step away from him. “Talk about touchy, touchy. Some people, I swear. One little thing, and ka-pow, they snap on you.”
Gadget put a hand on Mystikite’s shoulder. “Dude . . . I am so sorry. This . . . this sucks, what’s happening here.” He spoke in a quiet voice. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry — for what we did.” He sighed. “We just didn’t think. We didn’t know. We only did what we did — and Jetta only did what she did — because, well . . . the three of us . . . we couldn’t lose you, man. We love you too much, dude. Obviously in different ways — I mean, y’know — I’m so not attracted to you; even if I was gay, I’d still have standards — ” He laughed a little, trying to inject some levity into the situation, though it didn’t look like his friend was in the mood for jokes. Gadget squeezed his shoulder. Mystikite continued to just stand there, staring at nothing in particular, seemingly lost in his brooding. No one else said anything, though all eyes remained glued to the two of them. “Aw c’mon dude,” said Gadget. “Cut me some slack, okay? I’m sure this will all work out in the end. You and Zoe have had big fights before. Big ones. Fights that involved broken dishes and holes punched in the wall, by both of you. You both tend to vent your frustrations on inanimate objects rather than on each other. And hey — good on you guys for doing that. I think — ”
“My life,” said Mystikite, his tone even and calm, but his face registering the hollow melancholy he must’ve felt inside as he trembled, “has completely fallen apart. Totally . . . disintegrated. Everything I had worth fighting for, worth living for . . . is gone. I have no slack left to give anyone, Terry. I have nothing left in me, except the anger — the rage — at having everything meaningful ripped away from me.” He turned to face Basil and the other Vampires, and in that same measured, calm voice, he said, “We’re going to kill Vynovich and his New Cabal.” He turned to face Darmok. “We’re going to kill the alien.” He turned to face Dizzy. “We’re going to kill Ravenkroft, and his ‘Morganymuae’ thing. We’re not going to stop until all four of them are dead, until the aliens coming to invade are dead, and until the Elder Gods are dead and turned to ashes.” He turned to look at Gadget, then Basil. “Maybe then we’ll see about the whole ‘joining your Coven’ thing, Basil. There’s nothing left in the mortal world for me, now.”
“You asshole!” cried Gadget, the look on his face belying the wound that his friend had just dealt him, twice now in just a few minutes. It hurt, it stung, and it had been a cruel blow to strike. Yes, Gadget understood he was upset and angry, and sad. Yes, he understood he might say things he didn’t fully mean. But to say that . . . with him standing right there . . . and with him trying so hard to comfort him, too . . .
“What?” said Mystikite, stopping in his tracks and turning around. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said, you asshole,” repeated Gadget, a little louder this time.
Mystikite stalked toward him until they stood only a foot apart, and loomed over Gadget, towering above him, his fists clenched. “Excuse you, dude?”
Gadget trembled, and his hands shook, but nonetheless, he gathered his courage and stared upward into the taller man’s eyes. He had never really done this before, at least not with his best friend.
“You say you’ve got nothing left,” he said. At the same time, he opened a conduit between his mind and Mystikite’s, using the Helm, and let the emotional energy flow. “Well what the fuck about me? What am I, chopped liver? Or am I ‘just’ your best friend? The guy you’ve known now for something like sixteen years, who’s stuck by you no matter what, through thick and thin, who’s always been there whenever you needed anything? Granted, I’ve probably needed you a few more times than you’ve needed me, especially the past few years . . . but for fuck’s sake, I have been there for you. I’ve been your counselor, your confidant, your cheerleader, your . . . Fuck dude, pretty much everything that Zoe’s been — except for the sex, obviously! Like I said, I have standards. But. The point is, I’m your best damn friend, and the fact that I’m here, and that I’m part of your ‘mortal life’ really ought to count for something other than jack-shit! I’m getting pretty sick and tired of you — and Zoe! — talking like the two of you are the only two who matter to either of you! You think that does anything but make me feel like a third wheel? A useless, vestigial appendage that neither of you need anymore? Well, it doesn’t. And it does make me feel that way. And I’m tired of listening to it, because it’s crap. Totally self-centered, Romeo-and-Juliet crap. Just because you’re in love with someone doesn’t give you the right to treat the entire rest of the world — including the other people who care about you — like second-class citizens. So fucking get over it. And yeah, I’ll tell her the same damn thing in a minute, right after I wake up from passing out after this. You love each other so much? Fine! Decide to be together. Or decide to be apart. Whatever. But just get on with it, and whatever you do — try to remember that there’s a whole fucking world beyond just the two of you, okay? Think you can handle that?”
He cut off the flow of emotional energy through the conduit, and Mystikite staggered backward suddenly. A single tear spilled out of Gadget’s left eye. He breathed rapidly, heavily, as he continued to stare up and into Mystikite’s eyes and tremble. Mystikite uncoiled a bit, his fists unclenching, his body language and posture relaxing. He blinked, and shrank back a little from Gadget.
“Dude,” he said, and gasped. “Dude what . . . what the fuck did you just do to me . . . inside my head . . . what . . .”
“The same thing I did earlier, with Zoe and Elphion,” said Gadget. “I made you feel what I’m feeling right now. So you know what someone else is going through besides just you.”
“Damn, dude,” said Mystikite. He stumbled backward a pace or two, his hands clutching either side of his head. He hit the edge of the nearest bed and fell backward into a sitting position. He began to cry, softly. Jetta moved to sit next to him and put her arm around him. “Jesus Christ dude,” he said, his head lowered. “How . . . how do you stand it?”
“Uh, stand what?” asked Gadget.
“The voices. The images. The racing thoughts . . . I can’t even — I can’t articulate them, they’re so — damn — they’re fast. And the way your mood goes up and down in just . . . freaking minutes . . . Dude, I can’t handle this. I’m sorry, but I can’t. How the hell do you stand it with all that in your head . . . all the time? And I’m not talking . . . about all the telepathic feedback from the Helm. I mean just . . . just the stuff pertaining to you and your bipolar.”
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“The meds help a lot,” said Gadget. “Plus, you get used to it, after a while. It becomes background noise that every now and then erupts into something horrible. But never mind that. Do you get it, now? What I’m talking about? Do you understand the way I feel, now? And how Zoe feels right now?”
“And how we all felt?” asked Jetta. “It wasn’t an easy decision. For anyone. Least of all me. Don’t ever think that I didn’t think very carefully before I offered them the choice of saving you. I did. I know what I am. And I know the darkness in which my kind must dwell — both literally and figuratively. The decision to save you by making you one of us wasn’t made frivolously or lightly, Mystikite. It wasn’t. It came at the cost of great sadness. And for what it’s worth, Buffy — Zoe — knew the cost in advance. She knew you couldn’t be together anymore if I made you into one of what we are. She knew. She did it anyway, to save you.”
“Your friends did a very hard thing, Mystikite,” said Basil, approaching him from where he stood, listening, watching. “They had to choose between definitely losing you forever — your death as a mortal — and potentially losing you as a friend, a lover, and whatever else you were to them as the cost of saving you. It was difficult for them, but they chose your salvation rather than their own interests. You have it wrong, I’m afraid. Letting you die would’ve been the selfish thing to do, for then, they would’ve been able to remember you however they wished. But saving you . . . that required the risk of real sacrifice, because it involved the unknown future, a true uncertainty. And a dangerous one, at that. Your friends took a great risk in saving you. Don’t repay them with cruelty. As for your girlfriend? I cannot offer any advice except this: The serum works. It controls the thirst. And you can live on just animals, or butcher’s blood, if you choose. That’s what we try to do, in our Coven. There are ways to control your Vampiric strength, as well — meditation, certain herbs, mindfulness. All of which can help you should you pursue the love of a mortal. The aging problem, though . . . I’m afraid there is no cure for that. She will grow old, she will die, and you will remain forever young as you watch it happen. And there will be no children, I’m afraid. As a Vampire, you are sterile. Your seed will not take root in her, nor in any other woman. And even if it did . . . you would outlive all of them, as well. Just as you will outlive all of your mortal friends here, lest injury or illness, fire or silver should take you. It is not a happy projection of future events. But it is a true one. My best advice, I suppose, would be to live for now, the present moment. For in the end, now is all we really have that isn’t either imaginary, or already dust.”
“I concur,” said Jetta. “We’re all born. And we all die. Even Vampires. The only question you can ask yourself is, in the end, whether or not you enjoyed the moments — and made the most of every moment — you were given in-between.”
“I once loved someone, too,” said Viktor. He hadn’t said anything for a while. Why he chose to pipe up now was anybody’s guess. “But fate took her away from me. Time took her from me. I tried to go back. To fix it. To make it right. Over and over again, I tried going back there, to change it, to put things back they way they should have been. But every time, something stopped me, time stymied my efforts, and she was still ripped away from me. I concluded, eventually, that Time Itself didn’t want me to have her. It appears Time has no opinion on whether you have your great love. Because it appears you’ve been given a choice. Either embrace what you’ve become and embrace the one you love without reservation or fear . . . or let fear rule you and abstain from the one you love. Do not make the wrong choice. Do not take it lightly when Time gives you a choice. Because it may not give you another. Some things are set in stone, my friend. Some things, Time gives you no say in. Some things are forever, and some things, we are given a choice in. This is one of the latter for you. Make the right choice. Make it soon, before Time takes it from you.”
Mystikite stood there, slack-jawed for a moment, simply staring at Basil, Viktor, and Jetta with a dumbfounded expression on his face. Gadget didn’t need the Mind-Weirding Helm to see the gears in his head turning. “So what you’re saying,” he said, turning back to Basil, “is that — basically — you wouldn’t advise me commit to a life with Zoe because eventually, she’ll grow old and die on me, and losing her to the slow march of time will ultimately destroy me and poison me with grief. But, then again — on the other hand — you would advise to go ahead and commit to a life with Zoe, because hey, why not, seize the moment, carpe-motherfuckin’-noctem, and you only live once, right?”
Basil smiled at him and nodded. “Something to that effect, yes.”
“You people are fucking terrible at giving advice,” said Mystikite, and shook his head.
“Hey, at least we try,” said Jetta.
“And though I hate to be an antagonist to the bohemian virtues of truth, beauty, freedom, or worse yet, love,” said Viktor with a sigh, from where he sat on the edge of the other bed, reading through Gadget’s Another Philosophy of Time Travel book, “we have a pair of aliens to track down and destroy, an invasion plot to foil, and a cabal of evil Vampires that needs slaying. Just trying to keep everyone on track, here, lest we lose sight of the bigger picture.”
“Amazingly, Viktor is right,” said Dizzy. She took her Electro-Mesmeric guitar, hoisted it by the neck, and flipped it up and over and onto a special holster they had designed that sat on her back, in the manner of a medieval sword. “Mystikite, quit making that face. He is right. As Freddy Mercury once sang, ‘the show must go on.’ Jetta, go see if Zoe — Buffy — has calmed down any. We need her — Seven Hells, we need all the help we can get — and make sure the Gravity Pulse Cannon she has is all charged-up. Mystikite — you go fetch Elphion, and each of you take one of the Geist-Verst?rker devices. Basil — tune Elphion’s Geist-Verst?rker unit so that a Human can use it. Also, give her and Mystikite a brief tutorial on how to use the device before we set off. Viktor — make sure you turn off the safety on the Lightning Gun I gave you. Gadget and Mystikite — double-check the Mind-Weirding Helm’s psychokinetic functions, and make sure it’s still working. Misto, Darmok — make sure your weapons are hot and that the safeties are off. Like, uh, like they were a minute ago. Nice shooting, by the way. I’m sure a pyrokinetic will come in handy in the battle to come. Hey — don’t look at me like that; I’m just thinking strategically. And now, a word from our sponsor.” She cleared her throat, then sighed a deep sigh, and said:
“Well gang, this is it. We’re headed into combat, and some of us might not make it back. Sons and daughters of the millennium, the eighties, and the nineties . . . my brothers and sisters in fandom . . . I see in your eyes now the same fear that would take the heart of me were it not for having you on my side! A day might come when the courage of nerds fails . . . when we forsake our fellow geeks and abandon our cons and our game tables, and forsake all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! There may come an hour where we will all become Mundanes and see our dreams shattered on the cold pavement of reality, a time when this golden age of geekdom comes crashing down around us, and all has been for naught! But that is not this day! This day is a sure day, a red day, a day we ride forth for wrath and ruin and for Viktory — for today, we stand and we fight! By all that you hold dear on all these Infinite Earths . . . I bid you stand, geeks of FantazmagoriCon! Stand, and let intellect and romance once again triumph over brute force and cynicism! On this day of all days, today we celebrate . . . our Independence Day!”
At first, no one said anything. Then one by one, they all broke into wild applause, with even Basil’s gang of Vampires joining in, whistling and shouting their approval. Dizzy took a deep bow, and from across the room, she locked eyes with first Misto, who threw up the sign for the rock ’n roll devil-horns. And then, she turned toward Gadget, and smiled at him. He smiled back, applauding, and as he looked into her eyes from across the room, he couldn’t help but think: She’s so awesomely beautiful when she’s all fired-up like that. His other immediate thought was: Oh man, what the actual fuck have I gotten myself into? We are so epically screwed it’s not funny! But it’s a little too late for that kind of thinking. You’re in this now, for better or for worse. Might as well give it a shot. ‘Cause this can only end in one way or another . . . either we win the day and I wake up tomorrow with no worries other than a really bad hangover, or the aliens win, and tomorrow the whole human race rises to a world in ashes, shackled and in chains.
The clock rang out 6 PM on April 10th, 2027, the second day of FantazmagoriCon XVIII. The merest hints of the shadows of twilight had just begun to fall around the Renaissance Regency, the con now back in full swing, almost fully recovered from the fiery débacle at the Executive East Inn the day before. Pizza, sandwich, and gourmet delivery drivers came and went through the hotel’s front entrance, and cavalcades of cosplaying con-attendees flowed in through them as well: Jonah Hexes, Captain Mals, Taarakians, Judge Dredds, a few Commander Sheppards from the old Mass Effect video game series, a couple of Leeloos and Ruby Rods from The Fifth Element, clones of the infamous sex-slave Zev from the Canadian-German science-fantasy series Lexx, and one or two Selenes and some Lycans from the Underworld film series.
It always struck Gadget how, even in 2027, fandom seemed to look to the past for its obsessions, its inspirations, its passions and its favorite things, particularly to the late-eighties, the nineties, and the early aughts; it was as though time didn’t really exist when it came to fandom and its delights . . . as though all the Greats of TV shows, books, movies, comics, and cartoons somehow existed inside a forcefield, one that protected them from the ravaging, onward march of history, and that preserved them, granting whosoever experienced them for the first time — no matter what age they lived in — the same love and affection for them as their foregoers had possessed, and never any less. It was truly remarkable, the way these storytelling artifacts withstood the test of time, the way they cast their spell upon generation after generation, the optimistic magic in them enduring no matter how cynical people became. Dizzy, when she’d spoken earlier — or maybe it had been Craig Ferguson, that long-ago late-night host on TV — she had been right about the geek ethos and what it boiled down to: The idea that intellect and romance could — would — one day triumph over brute force and cynicism . . . and that these shows, these movies, these four-color worlds of wonder . . . these touchstones were the fuel that would propel those ideals toward their eventual Viktory over Mundanity.
In fact, it had already begun to happen. The amazing glut of sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero films in the two-thousand-and-teens, for example, almost turning those genres into mainstream mainstays. The mainstreaming of comics and urban fantasy, and sci-fi concepts, also about ten years previous to this. And while that sort of made Gadget somewhat happy, it also depressed him . . . because now, it meant that geekdom — geek culture — was no longer entirely his. No more was it an elite “Country Club” that belonged only to those who had survived the traumas of outcastness, those whose love of the weird and the “out there” had made them outliers and had brought them together under a flag of camaraderie and mutual passion, those who had suffered the slings and arrows of the mainstream just for being different, and those who had known a kind of social poverty, only to discover vast riches of the imagination awaiting them in comic books and movie theaters, and late-night Dungeons & Dragons sessions with their precious-few friends. It was so sad. All of that was going away, little by little, as geek culture got absorbed into the mainstream and made “cool” by people at whom, once, it would have thumbed its countercultural nose . . . but whom now it grudgingly accepted as honorary members, despite their resemblance to those who had, once upon a time, given its constituents wedgies, swirlies, and “kick me” signs in the hallways of their high-schools. Yes, a very sad thing indeed. And Gadget — along with many others — quietly grieved for that which had been lost in translation, even if they only acknowledged it subconsciously. It felt as if some surgeon had carved some vital organ out of geek culture’s soul, though no geek could put his or her finger on which part, precisely, or why they felt this way . . .
Oh well, thought Gadget. It was nice while it lasted, I guess. I suppose this is the “Third Age” of geekdom. The first Age, we came together, an oppressed, outcast people with no home socially to call our own. Then we became strong, became a cultural force all our own. Then we got turned into a commodity . . . a marketing gimmick, and got absorbed into the larger, super-culture around us. The Age of Geeks is at its nadir. The Age of the Semi-Enlightened Mundane has begun. Right now, though, as much as that concept hurt to think about, he found himself far less concerned with the survival of geek culture . . . and more concerned with his own survival and that of his friends, as they marched down the hallway with Gadget nervously in the lead, using his Mind-Weirding Helm to try and root-out the alien’s location via “sniffing” its thought-waves and patterns.
“I think it’s on the roof,” he said, turning to Darmok and Dizzy, both behind him, and walking backwards for a moment. He turned back around just in time to dodge a Klingon twice his size. The Klingon threw him a dirty look. “Just like at the Executive East. That’s where it’s ship is parked, and that’s where we’ll find it. I hope. But hey — hang on — wait a second . . .” He stopped in his tracks, sensing something odd in his head. It was as if . . . Huh, that’s weird, he thought. Darmok and Dizzy almost bumped into him, as did everyone to one another in line behind them — the blue-furred, seven-foot Misto, the cat-like Darmok, then Mystikite, Buffy, then Viktor and Elphion, then Jetta and Basil and his Vampires.
“Gadget, what the frak!” said Dizzy. “I’ll have you know, you just derailed the love train! And that, my friend, is a party foul!”
“I’m getting a confusing reading,” he replied. “It’s like the alien is in two places at once. Very weird.”
“Could the quantum interferometry sensors be out of whack?” asked Mystikite. “You want me to take a look?”
“Nah,” said Gadget. He smacked the side of the Mind-Weirding Helm. In his mind, the twin “pings” of the alien’s unmistakable telepathic signal, like a sound and its echo, disappeared, the signal scrambling for a few seconds, then static . . . and then the two different signals blended into a single, stronger one that came from only one of the two sources. “There, that’s better. It’s working now. I dunno . . . the signal I’m getting says that he’s on the roof. But I don’t know how far we can really trust that.”
“We have no choice,” said Darmok. “We must go where your Helm leads us . . . we have no other source of information.”
“Ah, but we do!” said Mystikite, snapping his fingers. He rummaged around in the large duffle-bag he’d brought with him and pulled out the Khaototronometer. He turned it on and held it up in front of him, and adjusted the “bunny ear” antennae. “This thing,” he said, “tracks synchronicities. Patterns of events that amount to amazing confluences of probability. If there’s one of those in our immediate future — like, say, the tremendously good — or perhaps tremendously bad — luck of just happening onto Ravenkroft and the alien — then this device will tell us how close we are to that encounter!”
“Brilliant, as always, Mystikite,” remarked Elphion. Gadget saw Buffy — just ahead of Elphion — roll her eyes and shake her head slightly.
“Um . . . okay,” said Mystikite, arching an eyebrow as he looked at the bizarre little device’s display. “Uh, Basil? Would you care to interpret this for me? I’ve never seen it do this before.”
“Let me see,” said Basil. He moved up in line and looked over Mystikite’s shoulder, gazing at the Khaototronometer’s display. He frowned perplexedly as he stared at it. “I didn’t expect to ever see this. This . . . doesn’t really make any sense. Unless . . .”
“What doesn’t make any sense?” said Dizzy. She grabbed the device and looked at its display. “Wow. Okay, yeah . . . Eris’s kittens, that’s bizarre.”
“Here, let me have a look,” said Gadget, and turned around so he could see as well. The device’s entire display pulsed a solid blue color, with waveforms dancing all over it, their frequency and amplitude bouncing them everywhere as they morphed and changed constantly, the previous images fading as newer ones took their place, but none of the newer ones matching up to those that came before. Random alphanumeric characters appeared here and there, as did bits of computer code, as though the device had malfunctioned, its integrated circuits overheating . . . except that it was cool to the touch, and responded when Mystikite worked the controls. Gadget didn’t have much of a clue either . . . until all at once, he did. In a single moment of epiphany, he knew what the device had tried to tell them. “It’s all a synchronicity,” he said, looking up from its display.
“What is?” asked Mystikite.
“The con,” said Gadget. “The whole, entire convention. FantazmagoriCon XVIII. According to this, the whole thing is now one big, huge, amazing confluence of events. One big synchronicity, one giant, probability-defying synchronic stroke of improbable confluence. As if, in this one spot in space and time, the universe tied fate into a knot, and we’re all a part of it now. I don’t know how or why . . . but according to this — if it works the way you said it works, Basil — that’s what this has to mean. I’m not exactly sure how I know that . . . I just do.”
“Well, so much for that lead,” said Darmok. She sighed. “What does your telepathic scan tell you, now? What does your Helm lead you to think?”
Gadget thought for a moment, and tried to concentrate on the thought-streams around him as they flowed through his mind. The “ping” he felt from the alien’s thoughts — like someone lightly, rhythmically flicked his earlobe as he eavesdropped on the cryptic, alien whispers, except that it was a mental sensation, not a physical one — told him to continue onward and upward, toward the roof of the building. Then again, the distant “echo” of the “ping” — it felt like someone flicking the other earlobe, or maybe just brushing it with a feather — told him to look behind them, beneath them, and his “bullied kid instincts” told him to run; run in the other direction, right now; run away this instant, and find a place to hide, because the tough kids are right around the corner, and they’re just waiting for you to walk by, unprepared and unsuspecting. The more he thought this, the more nervous he became. Nonetheless, the “echo” was just that — an echo, probably just some kind of telepathic mirage, some weird kind of “doppler effect,” that applied to psychic currents. So, he squared his shoulders and shook off the nervousness — as best he could; worrying was his natural state — and said:
“I say we go to the roof. That’s where the alien’s thought patterns are the strongest.” He started walking again. “C’mon, gang. Don’t worry. I think I know what I’m doing here.”
‘Yes, and once we’re there,” said Darmok, “we will need to draw the Visitor — and this Ravenkroft character it has merged with — out of its ship, and get it to face us.”
“And what about the Vampires?” asked Mystikite. “Vynovich, and his lot? They’ll probably be there, too. Seven Hells, they’ll probably be there standing guard.”
“Let me deal with Vynovich,” said Basil. “He’s my problem; so let me solve my problem. I may need your help in a pinch, Mystikite, but for the most part . . . leave the bastard to me. This isn’t just about the future of the Vampire Nation. I also have a private score to settle with him, as well.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” said Mystikite, and snapped-off a salute. “Yousa da boss.” He turned and grinned at Dizzy. “Yousa da boss too. But yousa da boss lady, who’s-a da boss atta da day job. He-sa da boss atta da night job. Meesa wanna to keepa da big bosses happy, but meesa havin’ no clue as-a to why meesa turn-ed into da Jar Jar Binks just now.”
“Yeah, and yousa gonna getta moui-moui punch-ed in the crotch,” said Misto, “if’n yousa don’t-a stop it.”
“Fine, fine!” said Mystikite. “Jesus H. Christ driving a dump-truck, can’t a guy inject a little levity into these proceedings? Do we have to be so stone-cold serious all the time?”
“Dude,” said Gadget. “We’re on our way to maybe get our asses killed while fighting an evil alien monster, an evil scientist who’s bent on world domination by way of the Elder Gods, and a pack of evil Vampires who all come armed with the same reality-bending tech that I have on my head. Not exactly a perfect venue for stand-up.”
“On the contrary,” said Mystikite. “Comedy is a necessity in times of hardship, grief, and massive anxiety. It helps us move past the shock and terror at living in a universe that’s seemingly hostile to our very existence, and to the existence of life itself. I like to think of myself as a stand-up philosopher. One who helps us distill the rivers of life’s rich experiences into their purified metaphysical and epistemological essences, which mankind can then drink from in order to replenish his wisdom and his resolve to continue to fight against a patently absurd existence such as our own.”
“Oh . . . so you’re a bullshit artist,” said Trazeal in a loud voice, from the back of the line. The other Vampires laughed, even Basil.
“Okay, fine, whatever,” cried Mystikite. “Twenty points to House Asshole for getting my slick Mel Brooks reference and following it up with the right quote. Kinda mean, though. Let’s remember we’re a team here, okay?” He muttered, “Prick.”
“Well, I thought it was funny,” said Elphion, and gripped his arm.
“Well I thought it was funny!” mimicked Buffy under her breath, in a high, wispy falsetto.
“You people really have issues,” said Dizzy. “Remind me to refer you and Mystikite to Human Resources once this misadventure is over. You guys need coaching on how to work with romantic partners in the field. Believe it or not, dad’s company actually offers a training course on that via the HR department. Mjolnir Propulsion is very progressive.”
“Oh, gee, I just can’t wait,” said Buffy, and rolled her eyes again.
They had reached the entrance to the stairwell. Gadget opened the door, and held it open for the others. Dizzy, Misto, Darmok, and Mystikite — and everyone else in their entourage — filed through before him, of course garnering the attention of every con-goer around them due to their amazing “cosplays”; from Dizzy’s amazing, functional Evangeliojaeger to Misto’s blue-furred, muscular giant, and from Darmok’s trench-coated cat-woman to Basil’s subtle fangs and pale skin, they were a hit with the crowd. People applauded here and there, and Dizzy took a bow before entering the stairwell.
“Out of curiosity,” said Gadget, “how many flights of stairs are there?”
“A lot,” said Misto. “It’s a ways up to the roof.”
“I knew I should’ve exercised more prior to coming here,” said Gadget. “Having better cardio would’ve sure come in handy this year.”
“You should exercise more anyway,” said Buffy. “You’re too sedentary, dear. Having better everything would come in handy for you all the time.”
“If we don’t hurry,” said Darmok, “then your lack of a workout routine isn’t going to matter for shit, Gadget, because you’ll likely be dead. So come on, guys, let’s move.”
“Why are we not taking the elevator, again?” said Jetta.
“Uh,” said Dizzy, “right. Okay. New plan, guys. We take the elevator to the top floor, then the stairs to the roof. Good thinking, Jetta.”
“And you’re the one getting the doctorate in theoretical physics. Uh huh.”
And so they made their way to the elevators, headed onward and upward toward the hotel rooftop — and toward the time-twisted synchronicities that would inform each of their ultimate fates, for better or for worse.
Two hundred and forty thousand miles beyond the Earth, the Moon hung quietly in space in its orbit, just as it always had. Lifeless, its craters and dunes paid no mind to the enormous shadow creeping up on them from out of the blackness of space. The shape looming toward Luna from out of the deepening darkness floated silently toward it, the vacuum of space carrying no sound from its mammoth engines. The ship itself measured almost a thousand miles in diameter, a disc-shaped obsidian monolith that rotated about a central axis, a swarm of smaller spinning disc-shaped ships surrounding it — roughly a thousand of them, each one a mile in diameter itself — that kept close to the monstrosity as it slowed, firing its braking-thrusters, its peaceful-seeming blue-and-white navigational target now looming large within its sights. Aboard the Mothership, deep within its central command core, the Zarcturean Queen stood inside a cylinder of holographic indicators and solid, spinning three-dimensional images, touching her tentacles to flashing blips of code and various glowing, virtual buttons and indicators, steering the ship, piloting it toward its goal, taking over manually now as they made their final approach. In her mind, she poured over the flowing reams of information that flashed through her neural-network interface with the ship and with her many Children, all of whom had prepared themselves to die for her if necessary . . . and who would soon storm the planet below, the planet known to its ape-like inhabitants as Earth . . . They would capture the Planet and enslave the apes, destroying their civilization and its infrastructure at the same time, securing the surface and readying it for colonization.
The Queen had received a telepathic report from one of her Scientists on the planet that the Eidolon themselves had arrived here, and that they, too, had plans for this small planet. The Queen had greeted this news with great joy — and with trepidation. The Eidolon were immensely powerful cosmic beings; they had shed their physical bodies Ravenkrofts ago, when the Zarcturean brood had been but tadpoles swimming in evolution’s general direction; so what did they want with Earth? And, could they, the Zarcturean, truly coexist with their Elders here on this tiny rock floating through space? They owed the Elders their very existence, so there was no thought of fighting them over the planet; no, that would be impossible . . . and besides, the Eidolon could’ve wiped them all out in a heartbeat, if they so chose. No, the only option was to share the planet with them.
The Queen had also received news, from this same one of her Scientists, of a peculiar Human scientist who had — of all things — offered to help with the transition of power from the Humans on the planet now and the Eidolon and Zarcturean forces; to use his knowledge of Humanity for their purposes . . . If they agreed, that was, to spare his life and give him some modicum of power over his fellow Humans, and to give him the technology he needed to conduct experiments upon them as he wished. Fine, done, the Queen thought. It could possibly be a boon to have another Human taking charge of the Human population. After all, one of their own kind might know their needs and idiosyncrasies best. What both thrilled and disturbed her, though, was that this Scientist of hers had told her that he had somehow found a way to merge himself — and his consciousness — with this Human scientist’s body and mind; that he had achieved a kind of symbiosis with this Human as the host organism, and that the two now functioned as one. This thrilled the Queen because it held the promise of allowing her kind to achieve greater utility on the planet below — instead of having to adapt to its atmosphere and terrain, her kind could simply take over the bodies of Humans, and live inside them as though they were environmental Evangeliojaegers — and, it disturbed her, too, because it meant that on some level, the Zarcturean and the Humans had some sort of commonality, some deep compatibility with one another; somehow, they shared some sort of cosmic evolutionary link that permitted that sort of deep interface with one another. She tried not to think about it too deeply. (The problem with being a race of geniuses was that their kind thought about everything deeply, all the time.) For if the Zarcturean and the Humans shared such a deep link, what they did to the Humans, they also did to themselves, in a certain manner of thinking . . .
No. She would not permit that thought to rise to the surface of her consciousness. For if she did, then the hive could start thinking about it as well, and they could potentially lose their resolve for the invasion that lied ahead. Thoughts — even subconscious musings and idle daydreams — could trickle down through the Great Link that she shared with her many Children and poison their thinking, dilute their morale, and confuse their sense of purpose. So, no . . . she would permit no contamination of their consciousness with any doubts, fears, or second thoughts about colonizing the Earth. Her Children had to go on, had to survive, had to have this new home that lay before them. Yes, the Humans had somewhat spoiled the riches of the planet, had driven it halfway to rack and ruin with their recklessness and clumsiness, and had toxified its environment in their ignorance and stupidity. But they could reverse most — if not all — of that damage, with the proper technological tools, which they had already — with the help of their cosmic parents, the Eidolon — developed ages ago. This “Earth” would be a good place of respite, a good home for her many Children, a new “Eden,” as the Humans might say, a place to begin again and thrive once more. A place where Humans would worship them as Children of the Gods, as Children of the Eidolon . . . who, as it happened, would also soon walk among them there on the sands of this wonderful, newfound blue-marble jewel of a world.
The Mothership slowed further as it grew closer to the Earth, its colossal main engines going dark, its braking- and maneuvering-thrusters firing as it eased itself into Earth-orbit, careful to choose a distant enough orbit so that its own main gravity field did not distort the Earth’s. The fleet of smaller saucers buzzing around it transformed their flight-pattern into that of a protective whirlpool that rushed around the Mothership in circles, and then branched off into forks of mile-wide discs that poured away from the Mothership and headed downward and around the planet in wide, swooping arcs, surrounding it and penetrating the atmosphere.
They fired their weapons at any satellites or anything else that got in the way of their descent; they obliterated the old International Space Station, killing two Russian cosmonauts and three American astronauts, the debris tumbling downward toward Earth. Down their ships came, blazing with atmospheric friction as they dove Earthward, aiming themselves at New York, Washington D.C., Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Los Angeles, London . . . Balls of fire, roaring in the clouds over every major city on Earth as the saucers drifted lazily into place, emerging from the flames at last and anchoring themselves over the pyramids in Egypt, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Chinese Theatre in California, the Kremlin, the White House, Parliament. People gathered to watch in fascination as a long-held dream of mankind came finally to fruition and life . . . especially those who had gathered at FantazmagoriCon XVIII in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the Renaissance Regency. For them, this was holy scripture, prophecy coming to pass at last. Many of them poured outside there to “ooh” and “ahh” and point to the sky in awe and wonderment as the titanic shadow of the saucer fell over the city and buildings, the ship’s meteor-like storm of fire upon arrival generating both fear and amazement.
As for those gathered on the roof, facing off against Vynovich Karishniknov and his troupe of evil Vampires of the New Cabal, the one named Dizzy raised her head and looked up at the flaming saucer as it slowed to a halt, the fire around its perimeter dissipating as it ground to a stop and hovered there, its very center directly hovering over the building upon whose rooftop she now stood.
“Yep,” she remarked to no one in particular, and nodded. “This is kinda what I was afraid was gonna happen. Egads, but I hate being right all the time.”
