| |
The King’s Strategy extravaganza was scheduled for Comiskey Park. King’s Strategy was the wildly popular pseudo-medieval fantasy television show. Comiskey Park was the original name of the ballpark that had been torn down. The new field had a different name, but Chicagoans were stubborn. They still called it Comiskey.
Given the popularity of the King’s Strategy creator, Fred F. Binder, all forty thousand of the available seats would soon be filled by comicon attendees headed for the park right about now. To get there, I could try to hail a cab, or I could take the METRA commuter rail—the IC, as Chicagoans stubbornly still called it—south to the Sox-35th station. Or I could use my magic carpet, the Dimensional Diamond, except I wasn’t sure it liked me hanging out anywhere for long. No, wait. The comicon had a shuttle bus. Problem solved.
Not quite. I stood in line outside the center for a while as shuttle buses came, filled up, and left. Apparently, everybody else at the comicon had the same bright idea as me. I got quite chummy with the people before and after me in the line. The three guys ahead of me were frat boys doing summer school at Northwestern, the big university north of the city in Evanston. Although none of them could have been older than nineteen, they each tried to get me to agree to a date. A date? Really? I didn’t think so. I kept telling them I had a boyfriend, but they were drunk enough to forget that inconvenient fact several times, and try again. Harmless, though.
The three guys immediately behind me were the real deal, hardcore geeks, serious comic book fans. They didn’t notice I was female, except to broadcast their disdain that I was here at all. Hardcore King’s Strategy fans also, they kept quizzing me about the plotline, a quiz I failed on purpose. I’d read the books, but so what? When they couldn’t pin me down as a television fan, they started quizzing me about the FC Comics universe. I got pissed off.
“Wait, so you three are the admissions testers for this comicon? Don’t be dicks.”
The bravest of them said, “We don’t like how media fans—essentially, anyone who only sees a superhero movie—have invaded our world.”
Roland didn’t like it, either, but he wasn’t trying to eliminate people through some arcane test. I had a fantasy of showing off my knowledge of comics to these three. I also thought, no, I shouldn’t have to. They should prove their knowledge to me. Fitting the typical physical profile of a geeky guy didn’t prove they were comics fans.
I interrupted their flow and said, “Can you recite Lord Raga’s chant for the Amulet of Life?”
That stopped them cold. “Can you?” I repeated. “Because if you can, maybe I’ll accept that you have any right to be at this comicon. Come on, do it.”
The three guys looked at each other. Finally, the one who had been the most obnoxious to me started, “Uh...great spirits...”
The other two managed, “let us fly...”
I shook my head. “No, that’s the second verse. You have it all wrong.”
I folded my arms across my chest and stared at them with as condescending an attitude as I could project. “You say you’re the real deal, real comic book fans? How come you’re stumbling over the simplest little proof?”
They looked embarrassed. They shuffled their feet awkwardly and one continued trying to say the words but kept getting tangled up. The second boy got a distinctly sheepish expression on his face. The third had more ego in the game. He got miffed, and said, “As if you could do better.”
I should have acted more like a grown-up, but I couldn't resist. I rattled off, “Great spirits, let us pass, as if through a mirror glass. Great spirits, let us fly, as if into the blue sky.”
Suddenly, everything shifted.
Michigan Avenue and Grant Park beyond it vanished. For a hazy second, I was nowhere, in a gray nothingness. Then I stood on a Manhattan street in a totally different universe. The instantly recognizable canyons of New York surrounded me. Men on the sidewalk wore seersucker summer suits and lightweight hats. The women were clad in dresses puffed out with petticoats. Some sported pillbox hats. Many wore wrist-length cotton gloves.
I took it in with one glance, and then launched myself into the air. I flew. I rose steadily, surely, up beyond street level and then ten, twenty, thirty stories high. Once I’d attained fifty stories high—more or less, I wasn’t counting—I paused in midair and gazed around me. Yes, there was the Sky Tower. I was definitely in my father’s universe.
I flew to the top of a nearby building and landed on a roof with a penthouse garden. No one was there, so I could think this through.
My stupid attempt to act superior by reciting the Amulet of Life chant had somehow combined with the powers of the Dimensional Diamond. Had I even been touching the jewel when I’d said the words? No.
Holy mackerel.
It was the wrong moment, but I couldn’t help laughing at myself. I’d never said “Holy mackerel” in my life, but this was the universe that didn’t allow swear words.
For the heck of it, I raised my fingers in the classic position of Lord Raga and aimed at a weed that dared to grow in a nearby pot. Yellow bolts came out of my fingers and zapped the weed to burnt ash.
Yep. I was a total superheroine again.
I could fly around midtown Manhattan and enjoy the scenery. I could take a ride on the sky highway, whose elevated ramps were visible beyond the Sky Tower. Or visit my father in his futuristic offices and watch him ruling this universe. I could even visit my mother’s doppelganger, if I wanted a dose of sarcastic disdain.
But I’d left behind kids in Chicago who now would think they’d experienced a paranormal event. Kids who might even be hauled away to mental institutions for a day or two because nobody would believe what they’d seen. Or who would think they’d gone nuts. So not good.
I had to get back to my world to before the moment I said the chant. I put my hand on the Dimensional Diamond and specified exactly how it would be.
A moment of grayness again, and there I was, standing in the shuttle bus line once more. The third boy had just challenged me to prove I was a true geek by reciting Lord Raga’s chant. My mouth was open as if I was about to spew the words, but I snapped it shut.
At that moment, two teenage girls came up to me. One said, “You’re Chloe Cole, aren’t you?”
“We saw you at the women in comics panel,” the second one said. “I read Swoonie and 'Average Chloe,’ too. I’m a huge fan.”
Now it was my turn to look embarrassed, while the geeky boys’ eyes practically popped out of their heads.
I dealt with my earnest fans as honestly as I could, saying, “You do know that Leslie Evans is taking over Swoonie, right? She’s a fantastic artist and I’m sure you’ll like her work.”
One of the girls started talking excitedly to one of the geeky guys. At first he looked overwhelmed, as if a girl never had spoken to him before. Maybe one hadn’t. The conversation became more general, with the geeky boys slowly getting enthusiastic about talking to the girls.
At that moment, before my drunk frat boy friends decided to invite the girls to party with them, I got a text from Eric.
Need ride? Where R U?
I texted him back. It was like an Uber, only better. Eric had a limo. The driver pulled up illegally in the bus lane. Then Eric opened the passenger door. He leaned out and called my name.
The fanboys around me recognized him and started to squeal, as did the girls. “Do you see him? Omigod, it’s Eric Wood. He runs FC. He’s totally famous.”
“Here I am,” I said.
“C’mon,” Eric said, in his usual masterful way.
I hopped in, and we left the younger set to find their rocky way to adulthood and tolerance.