//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Unwilling Recruit // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Jackie had been waiting for Portland Fancon for over six months now. On an emotional level, she understood that the rest of the world didn’t care about her efforts at best and would’ve mocked them at worst. Even so, Jackie Kessler had been waiting forever for a chance to show up. The con was packed with visitors in scores of different costumes. The pop-culture touchstones were there—Jedi, and Starfleet crew, and the latest popular videogame character. Jackie made her way through the dealer booths, scanning for interesting merchandise that wasn’t too overpriced. Only a fraction of what was offered here was anime related, but there were still enough booths to catch her interest. Fancon was great about wide appeal. Almost everyone who came to Fancon did so (at least a little) for the cosplay scene, and Jackie was no exception. She’d spent over a month of her spare time designing a painstaking recreation of Homura Akemi’s magical girl outfit, complete with a custom-sculpted time shield. She had the right build for it too, and every few minutes someone would ask to take a picture with her. Naturally Jackie always agreed, posing in her best impression of grumpy and disinterested. “Oooh, look over there!” Katie, her younger sister, pointed to a booth with surprisingly few people gathered outside it. It was one of the many My Little Pony booths in the convention, with a higher production quality than anything short of WeLoveFine. I guess there aren’t very many Bronies here this year. It’s about time for that fandom to die. Unfortunately for Jackie, her younger sister was one of those Bronies. So instead of cooperating and letting Jackie sew her Madoka’s matching outfit, she had insisted on dressing herself up as one of the stupid pony princesses (far less skillfully, too). Jackie groaned, though in truth it didn’t matter to her that much. They were going to be at the convention for two days, so a few minutes to see a dumb dealer booth didn’t matter. Checking out everything for sale in the hall was half the fun of coming to the convention. And the other half… didn’t start until after the convention was over for the night. “Fine.” She followed closely behind her. “You know the kids who will be in there, though. You want a bunch of sausage-fingered losers leering at you, fine by me.” “They aren’t like that,” Katie insisted, glaring back at her. “Not… that many of them.” “Yeah, exactly.” Jackie folded her arms, satisfied with herself. As they got closer, it became even harder to tell what about the booth would be scaring people away. The merchandise on the shelves looked about par for the course for pony fare. There were lots of unofficial dolls and posters and shirts. Even better, one of the girls running the shop was one of the prettiest Jackie had seen at the convention all day. Her stupid pony cosplay was much better than Katie’s, and the holes in her stockings and arm-warmers went all the way up. I don’t care if she’s a nerd, Jackie thought, I want her number. There was a craftsmanship to the black and green dress, and whatever bright blue contacts she was wearing were strikingly lifelike. Jackie could appreciate the work of a fellow craftsman, even more when the body underneath had so much to enjoy. They made their way into the invisible cloud surrounding the booth, and Jackie hesitated for a moment. She stopped in mid-step as her sister carried right on in, and was nearly yanked away from her. What was Jackie doing here again? Why wasn’t she already at the hotel bar? There would be unscheduled parties tonight, and she planned on being invited to as many as she could find. “Jackie.” She heard her sister, watching her with concern. “Jackie, what are you doing? Don’t you wanna see?” Katie’s voice cleared her momentary fog. She looked up, and she remembered why she’d planned to go into the booth. The attendant had not gotten less attractive in the last few seconds. “Oh, yeah.” She continued forward, fighting the unexplainable urge to look away. After a few seconds, the strange feeling had passed. Man, I need to be more careful. Did someone put something in my ramen? Katie made her way around the booth, the same as they’d visited plenty of others. She took her time appreciating the different items of clothing, holding up a few to check sizing. Jackie didn’t care about that, and made to talk to the girl working the shop. Unfortunately, it seemed she had other ideas. The girl tapped Katie on the shoulder politely, grinning at her “Excuse me, miss. I’ve got some great news!” “Really?” Katie spun around, frowning a little. “If you’re trying to sell me something… I already came in here.” “No, no. Nothing like that.” She extended a hand, presenting a bright red coupon to Katie. “You’ve just won a ticket to our private panel later tonight. We’ll have…” She listed off some voice actors, probably important to the show. Jackie resisted the urge to yawn. “That includes a free piece of merchandise from the booth. Go ahead and pick anything you like.” What did Katie do to win when I didn’t? Jackie found herself thinking, though she didn’t say it aloud. Can they tell I’m not one of them? Her sister squealed with delight, selecting an expensive-looking backpack looking like a comically cute purple and green dragon character of some kind. “Even this?” “Sure.” The girl pulled a small pair of scissors out of her pocket, clipping the zip-ties holding the backpack to the wall of plain wire mesh. “It’s yours. I hope we see you later tonight.” Katie looked down at the ticket, turning it over in her hands. Even from ten feet away Jackie could tell it was premium—printed on thick red paper, with sparkling gold leaf on its surface. What kind of company is this? First giving her free stuff, then a private panel? Jackie was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice as the girl left her sister and approached her instead. “What about you?” She held up another ticket. “See anything in here you like?” Jackie took the offered ticket, mostly out of politeness. “Only one,” she said, before she could get too shy to stop herself. “Maybe I could get her number?” The girl blushed, though it was hard to see through the thick makeup she was wearing. More importantly, it wasn’t the awkward “I don’t want to be mean but I’m not into chicks” expression Jackie got most of the time. “Oh.” She grinned mischievously, pulling a pen out of her pocket. “Here, gimmie your hand.” Jackie did so, and the girl pulled it close, right up to her chest, writing up her arm. “I’m Harley, by the way. I hope I’ll see you at our panel tonight...” “Jackie,” she answered. “And you will. If you let me buy you a drink after.” She let go of Jackie’s arm, nodding slightly. “Sounds fun. I hope you’re local—I don’t really know any of the local places. There’s got to be somewhere more fun than this hotel.” She didn’t stay to chat though—another group was coming in. She had more tickets to give away, more free merchandise. And unlike her and her sister, the next pair were both male, and weighed at least four times what each of them did. Probably not some shady human trafficking thing then. But the chances of that had always been remote, right? Fancon would vet all its vendors. “Come on, let’s go.” Katie looked a little embarrassed as she gestured out of the booth. She always got that way when Jackie was… being herself. Katie never would’ve admitted it, but Jackie could tell her sexuality made her sister upset. “Well now we should go,” she said, glancing down at the ticket in her hand. The panel was scheduled for seven, in one of the hotel’s ballrooms. But it’s on the second floor. I didn’t know the con was renting the second floor. “You would say that.” Katie secured the backpack on her shoulders. “Now that you’ve found a… friend for the con.” “Don’t start.” Jackie glared, pulling out her phone and snapping a picture of her arm. Didn’t want to risk smearing the numbers off before she got a chance to get in touch with Harley. “Oh, I’m starting.” Katie took her hand, pulling her closer. “Jackie, she was dressed as a changeling. Don’t you think that says something about her love life?” “Nope,” Jackie said. “Because I have absolutely no idea what that is, and I don’t care. She pulled off a great ‘changeling.’ I’ll have to ask her where she buys her contacts.” Katie groaned, but didn’t argue further. “Whatever. Let’s just…” She pulled the backpack off her shoulders again, hugging it to her chest. “This Spike is really nice. We should go to their panel… whatever they think is cool enough to just give stuff away like this must be really awesome.” “Sure,” Jackie agreed. “Let’s just… stop by the room before it starts. I want to grab some mace, just in case.” Jackie didn’t think for a second she would need it—even the second-floor ballroom was still a super public place surrounded by people. Probably this was some huge scam… which was a shame, because she really wanted to have a night with Harley. Maybe it doesn’t matter if she’s a scam artist. She’s still the hottest girl at this con. They spent the next several hours enjoying Fancon as they always did. Jackie was a little surprised at how few people were mentioning the booth giving away free stuff, and whatever the “private panel” was. Such crazy marketing stunts should’ve been the talk of the con, but they weren’t. Not even Katie’s dumb brony friends were talking about it. They did make sure to stop into the hotel room for Jackie’s pink can of mace, which she concealed somewhere nobody would find even if they had to go back through con security. They didn’t, though. As it turned out, only the first floor had been rented. The second wasn’t deserted—dozens of congoers lounged in the comfortable chairs, or goofed around in the hotel gym. A few ordinary people were up here too, staring in abject confusion at so many strangely-dressed people. There were four additional ballrooms—two adjoining with the lobby, and another two that were a little further removed. Getting into either one required taking a hallway past the gym, then to scan a hotel key before finally getting access to a much more secluded sitting area. I don’t like this. Jackie’s bullshit meter was going off like crazy—which was a tragic shame, considering how pretty that Harley girl was. I really hope you’re not part of some shady criminal thing. At least the lights were on, in both ballrooms. One looked like it was setting up for an expensive catered meal—half a dozen restaurant staff were there, setting up big metal trays. Jackie touched her belly with the back one hand, feeling her stomach rumble at the smell of meat. Like many congoers, they were saving money. Jackie had already spent ten times as much money buying merch than she had buying microwaveable ramen meals. They weren’t terribly filling. There was a tall, gruff-looking man at the door taking tickets. It seemed like he’d made half an attempt at cosplay himself, though Jackie couldn’t tell what he was trying to be. “Is there someone on that show you like who looks angry, wears roman armor, and carries a magic wand?” she whispered to Katie, as they made their way to their seats. “It must really be going downhill in the later seasons.” “No,” Katie answered, whispering harshly back. “He’s probably from anime or something.” There were only fifty chairs set up in the hall big enough for two hundred. Even then, it looked like less than half of those seats were occupied. Jackie glanced at her phone, wondering if maybe they had come too early—but it was already five past seven. At least there was nothing shady in the room itself. Just a few plastic crates of merch in a pile by the presenters table. “Alright, let’s get started,” Harley said, from up at the table. She wasn’t alone—there was a man beside her, taller and bulkier than she was. They were both dressed in cosplay. Harley looking sexy, and the man with a comical horn poking out of a stupid wig. “First thing’s first, let’s set some expectations.” She hopped up onto the table, grinning at them all. “I don’t expect everyone to stay for the whole thing. Those of you who do stay, we’ve got a surprise waiting for at the end.” She seemed to look right at Jackie, winking at her. “I promise it’ll knock your pants off. But don’t feel any pressure.” She gestured across the hall. “The other ballroom there has refreshments. Hopefully you guys like Cafe Rio.” There was general cheering from the audience—though since there weren’t very many of them, it wasn’t terribly loud cheering. Harley shut them up quickly with a gesture. “There’s one catch, kids. You leave this room, and you can’t come back. Smell that?” Jackie could. Sweet meats, spicy ones, everything. “I don’t know if we have enough for everyone. Just keep that in mind—you’ll have to choose between listening to what we have to say and enjoying that delicious meal.” Katie groaned, whispering into Jackie’s ear. “Too bad it had to be meat again. Why is that the only thing everyone’s serving?” “Huh?” It certainly wasn’t. Jackie hadn’t eaten a catered meal this nice since the Microsoft recruitment dinner last semester. But Katie had been eating strangely for weeks now. It’s normal for tastes to change when you get older. Unless she’s getting tapeworms or something.” A few of their fellow congoers got up immediately. To Jackie’s surprise, neither Harley nor the silent man beside her looked even a little bit annoyed or disappointed they were already losing part of their audience. What the hell is this thing even about? Harley started to talk about the show. At some point, a few other panelists arrived, doing some voices. Jackie couldn’t be assed to remember what anyone had said, because it was the most aggressively boring thing she had ever seen. It looked like someone had cast a magic spell on the clock, because each one moved painfully slowly. As her apparently insane sister listened with rapt attention, people trickled from the room one by one. Jackie envied them—she didn’t even know what Harley could be saying that was dull enough that she wanted to claw out her ears, but it must be awful. Her stomach was an ache in her chest, twisting painfully every time someone opened the door and the scent of delicious meat came drifting in. I can’t give up, Jackie thought, staring up at Harley with a glazed expression. It can’t be that long.