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Saturday at Comicon
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The biggest day of the comicon I awoke with renewed hope that I could thwart whatever plans for disaster Mistress Miraculous and her band of henchmen had in mind. When I opened my bedroom door, I found a silver gift-wrapped package in front of it. My heart sank. Had Eric bought me yet another mistress gift? Until now, I hadn’t even realized that’s what he’d been buying me all along. Jewels, clothing, a roof over my head, dining out. Mistress gifts. A toaster would have said something entirely different.
Reluctantly, I picked up the box and opened it.
Inside were two silicone oven mitts.
*
After modifying the mitts with the kitchen shears Eric had thoughtfully provided lying under them, I set out for the convention center. Dressed in my temporary superheroine uniform, my gloves reinforced with silicone, I was ready for trouble.
Nothing exciting happened. My panel was on webcomics and how and whether they were taking over from conventional newspaper comic strips. We had a decent attendance of about forty people, but it was a minor event taking place in a side corridor, far from the big fan events. I’d passed the long line of people waiting to get into the large hall. They hoped for a seat when a panel of television actors were to discuss the finer details of their zombie-and-vampire modern dystopia show. Getting in wasn’t easy. Conventioneers had figured out that to see an 11 a.m. panel, they should line up and get a seat for a 10 a.m. panel and never leave the room when that panel was over. At least the audience for our webcomics panel had come to see us, not the next people who would sit behind our microphones.
When my panel was over, I walked back toward the larger auditorium and bumped into Jason again.
“Do you have time to see my next panel?” he asked. “It would help you get a sense of what you’ll be working with when you come out to L.A.”
He was so confident that I’d say yes. He was right, too, but I smiled a little, teasing him. “Don’t you mean ‘if’?”
Jason’s expression warmed, and his eyes seemed to encompass me in a way he hadn’t shown before. “Come on, say yes. I want you very much.”
His wording sent a shiver through unmentionable lady parts. I couldn’t stop my answering smile. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Fantastic!” He swept me into his arms for a hug.
It felt curiously right. Uh-oh.
Jason pulled back. “Now come sit in on this panel.”
“Uh, look at the line,” I said, pointing at the hundreds of people waiting to be allowed in. “They’ve probably been waiting for hours.”
Jason smiled. “No problem. I’ll square it with whoever. You can sit on the podium with us.”
“Sweet.” I followed him to the door. The people lined up nearest the entrance started squealing when they recognized him.
“It’s Jason Dellon,” one girl shrieked. “Would you sign my zombie shirt?”
Jason signed several items before the door guard said the panel would begin in a minute. Then he and I hustled inside the massive auditorium that seated a thousand. Nearly every seat was already filled, but people were filing in to grab the remaining ones. Security pointed to empty seats and used portable broadcast mics to tell people to remove all items from all seats, and not save seats for anyone.
As I dutifully followed Jason to the stage where the long panel table was set up, I wondered if I’d been hasty agreeing to work with him. I’d be the newbie again, the one without background who was feeling my way. I was bound to make mistakes. I might bomb out. I didn’t want to screw up this time around, but it wasn’t entirely up to me. Many other aspects of the business and the personal feelings of my new boss would factor into whether I had a successful stint with his company.
For now, I was moderately happy to watch one of the mammoth panel events comicons were famous for. The lineup of television stars included Max Schwartz, Sheila Wolverton, Jeremy Craig, Samuel Robinson, and of course, Jason. Max was the dark-haired young hottie all the teens—and their moms—swooned over. Sheila, a flaming redhead with dead pale skin, brought out the tiger in men of all ages. Jeremy Craig, the only Asian on the show, played against his heroic looks and was working up to be a major villain as the series continued. Or at least, that was how the previous season had left him. He was sure to be questioned on that score. Samuel Robinson, a very tall and muscular Black man, was anybody’s guess. His character was impressive, but nobody knew on whose side he was on. Did I mention this was a zombie series? The most popular of many on television.
The moderator asked each of the actors a short list of predetermined questions about how they liked playing their character and what they saw as their character’s strengths and weaknesses. Jason was asked about the direction the series would take in the new season. He teased and evaded, managing to whip up crowd enthusiasm without telling much that was concrete. Then audience members lined up behind standing microphones and asked questions. I watched carefully how each actor handled the alternate gushing and probing, and how Jason subtly but definitely handled the actors. They knew their roles, but they also checked with him before answering the more pointed questions from serious geek fans. The display of seeming openness was merely that, a display.
What did that tell me about working with Jason? That he put himself out there as offhand and spontaneous, but he’d created that persona as a calculated crowd-pleaser.
As the showrunner of television’s most popular zombie series, was Jason a target of the comicon’s secret enemy? He was a known comic book fan, but otherwise he’d never had a comic book connection until recently. He wasn’t one of the people involved in grabbing creative rights from uninformed teenagers for pennies and then making a fortune. Although, he was doing a new television show for CP Comics.
I grew restive with observing. Shouldn’t I be outside on the concourse or in the dealers’ room, looking for any sign that trouble was brewing?
No. Scratch that. Where had I gotten the idea that the safety of every single attendee at this massive event was my personal responsibility? Next I’d be doing nightly patrols of the city like that dark knight guy. So not my style.
Jason took the mic and said, “I have a special announcement. Comic book artist and legend Jerry Fine is here with us today.”
The crowd went wild. Jerry was an icon, having successfully parlayed a career as an FC Comics artist into a multimedia career in Hollywood. Roland escorted Jerry from the wings to the podium. Jerry was up in years, with the white hair to prove it, but wiry and strong. He still liked to make a few unscheduled appearances at important comicons. Roland and I had met him last year during my first stint as a superheroine.
“Chloe, good to see you,” Jerry said, taking my hand. He slapped Jason on the back and thanked him for inviting him on this panel.
“Are all you fans behaving yourselves for this whippersnapper?” Jerry asked, holding a mic and addressing the crowd.
The fans roared. Jerry said a few more words, promising to do a short autographing session at the FC Comics booth later. He posed for a couple of photos with Jason. Then, with a trademark wave, Jerry moved to leave the stage.
The PA system suddenly blared, “Exterminate! Exterminate!”
Smoke billowed into the auditorium from all corners.
As the smoke enveloped the room, people started coughing and shrieking.
Could it be poison gas? What kind of smoke was in a typical smoke bomb, anyway? Was it tear gas? This was not a moment to Google the answers.
“Exterminate! Exterminate!” the voice shrieked. A female voice. Mistress Miraculous, of course.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roland hustle Jerry off the podium and back into the wings. Meanwhile, the rising smoke set off the sprinkler system. Water sprayed down on everyone. People squealed and cursed.
Jason yelled into his mic, “You’re a coward. Stop trying to spoil our happy place.”
The smoke and rain continued, with more, “Exterminate! Exterminate!”
Jason kept up his rant. “Show yourself. Stop hiding.”
The voice said, “Exterminate! Exterminate!”
“Come out and state your beef, or leave us alone,” Jason shouted.
The drenched crowd took up the cry. “Come out! Coward! Come out!”
The smoke stopped. A few seconds later, the sprinklers shut off. The voice said nothing.
In the sudden quiet, Jason spoke again. “I’ve heard that Chicago has dramatic weather, but that was ridiculous.”
The crowd roared. His instinctive ability to keep control of the large crowd was impressive. He’d kept Mistress Miraculous from creating another panicked crowd. Jason had turned the smoke bomb attack into a battle of words. His lines of dialogue were better than hers, too.
“We’re not done here, so if you people aren’t too wet,” he rubbed the water off his almost bald head, giving the crowd a genial smile, “Let’s continue our panel.”
The audience cheered. A few people left the hall, but others came in to fill their seats immediately. The panel continued for fifteen more minutes, long enough to calm everyone despite all the excited tweets people were sending.
The panel ended, and the crowd gave the panelists a standing ovation. Jason in particular was singled out for applause. A staff moderator took over the mic and announced, “We do have to clear the room now, so please if you hope to speak to any of the panelists, go to their regularly scheduled meet-and-greets and autographing sessions. Thank you.”
The moderator kept reminding the crowd that this was not the time or place to cluster around the panelists. Then she led us all out by a separate exit door.
“I am in awe of you,” I said to Jason. “You saved the situation from turning into chaos.”
“Who the hell is pulling this crap?” he replied. His expression was more baffled than angry.
“Somebody who doesn’t like comicons,” I said. “Do you think the voice was prerecorded or live?”
Jason turned to Max, who was walking with Samuel. “You two have the most experience with voiceovers. What do you think? Was the voice live, or digital?”
In his sonorous voice, Samuel Robinson said, “Live. Or at least, not on a loop. Even though the voice attempted to say the words exactly the same way each time, they came out differently.”
“It’s hard to say anything exactly the same way twice,” Max said.
“Why get people coughing and then make them wet? It’s July. Nobody’s going to catch pneumonia from a drenching.” I was fed up with the saboteur.
“Someone wants to destroy the happy feelings these cons are known for,” Jason said.
“Mistress Miraculous has bad memories of comics, and wants the rest of us to share those feelings,” I said, thinking out loud. “Attacking the crowds hasn’t made sense up until now.”
Max asked me, brow furrowed, “Are you personally trying to solve this problem?”
“I’m friends with the guy running special security for the comicon. Sometimes I do a little security work myself, too,” I said, in a vast understatement of what being a superheroine was like and how deeply I was involved.
Jason made a point of introducing me to Max, saying, “Chloe’s going to come to the coast and work with us developing the next movie.”
“You’ll love working with Jason,” Max said. “He’s a crazy man, but all the crazy is good.”
I smiled in as noncommittal a manner as I could. I’d find out for sure in two months.
A text from Roland buzzed me.
Jerry got grabbed
Then another text.
Meet west door