“Here goes nothing,” she said. “Are your guys in place?”
“Helen and Bob are out there,” Boss said, using the names that Xander had tacked onto the androids. “Zach is at the back of the hall.”
“Right, then.” Andie Mae hiked up the tight purple — sequined skirt and stepped delicately out onto the stage. A wireless microphone had been left lying on a wooden block to the side of the stage, and she took it up, toggling it on and tapping on it with a fingernail to make sure it was on.
“Hey,” she said, and her voice boomed out across the room, “I’m Andie Mae Wilkinson, and I’m your con Chair. Glad to see so many of you out there tonight, tell everyone who wasn’t here what they missed. Although… some of them will already know. Because we’ve got something to tell you. Change of plans. Like the sign out there in the lobby says, don’t panic… there’s newsletters out there, pick up a copy if you haven’t yet, you need to read this one, we’ve got a couple of, er, folks handing them out right there in the audience… hold up your hand if you haven’t seen one yet… by the way, take a good close look at the folks who are handing them to you. Trust me, Just do… We’re in for quite a wild ride together. But before we get to that — let me introduce your Guests of Honor. Vincent J. Silverman, author of Cyberdome!” Vince stepped out onto the stage, wearing a dark polo — neck and black jeans, looking preposterously younger than he had any right to, and waved at the audience.
“Rory Grissom, Captain James Fleming of the Starship Invictus!” Rory Grissom loped out, clad in his skin — tight red — and — silver Invictus uniform and wearing a huge grin, waving both arms like windmills above his head.
“Artist Guest of Honor Elizabeth Vail! Fan Guest of Honor Brian van Buuren!”
The named individuals dutifully made their appearance.
“And last but by far not least, and not even on your original programs — but you’ll read all about him in that newsletter that you just got — here’s a guest who kind of invited himself along… and then invited us, in a manner that couldn’t be refused, to join him on a magical mystery tour. We’re all going on a trip! You couldn’t pronounce the name he claims as his own, nor would you remember it, and he is not… quite what we would call Homo sapiens. We had to call him something, so we just call him the Boss — and it’s pretty much in his honor that we’ve renamed the con, just as you see on your newsletters.”
Andie Mae lowered her voice, even as Boss stepped out onto the stage behind her and a murmur began to build in the audience. “As for that trip… I’m serious. I’m serious. Your instructions are in the newsletter you’ve just been handed, and please, for your safety and that of your fellow travelers… obey them. We’re shooting for the Moon, chickens. We’re taking you to the Moon. Welcome to Abducticon.”
SATURDAY
WELCOME TO ABDUCTICON.
The signs were up by Saturday morning, with the con attendees mostly responding to the stunning news of their current whereabouts by taking the bit between their teeth and running with it. By the time the ConCom members, after a very late night and a bare handful of hours of sleep, gathered again in the Con Ops room, it was to reports of posters and banners all over the hotel, messages (hard copy on actual scraps of paper, since voicemail and email seemed to have evaporated altogether) asking for everything from an interview with one of the androids to requests for permission to throw Abducticon parties that night, and only a few more realistic (and more panicked) souls asking (with commendable restraint) for more information.
“We’d better be honest about it,” Libby said. “We can’t spin them a yarn.”
“Until our android overlords deign to let us in on the whole picture, we’re pretty much stuck with saying ‘We don’t know yet’ to any and all questions,” said Simon, the head of security and the one facing the huge headache of how to prevent rubber — neckers from crowding out onto the portico outside the main entrance, just to ‘take a look’. There had been a number of such hovering in the lobby, leaving Simon and his troops, as well as the hotel security people, with their hands full.
“Do we just go on with programming as planned?” one of the volunteers asked carefully.
Xander, head of programming, roused like a Halloween cat. “What? Of course we do! I worked too damned hard on this for us just to drop everything and drool into our beer!”
“When’s the first official panel?”
“In about an hour,” Xander said. “I pasted up the program sheets onto the walls of the main corridor. And I plan on being out there with a loudspeaker to announce things if I have to. And I’ve actually had a bit of a brainwave, at that.”
“Being?” Andie Mae, who hadn’t slept much that night, said while trying to smother a jaw — cracking yawn.
“I’ll get the damned ‘bots to go on the panels,” Xander said. “They owe us that much.”
“They don’t owe us zip,” Dave said morosely. “All they want are some nebulous ‘answers’, and anything else — ”
“They do so,” Xander interrupted. “If they’re actually doing the ‘boldly go where no man has gone before’ move and taking us on an unscheduled freaking outing to the Moon…”
Dave snorted. “It’s hardly the final frontier, Xander. We’re just retracing some ancient footsteps. Or engine burns, anyway. To the Moon and back — once a small step for man — ”
“Engine burns,” said Lester Long, one of the volunteers, thoughtfully. “Er, just how are we performing this magical mystery tour, if one may ask? This is hardly — if I understand what you’ve said correctly — the most aerodynamic of shapes to sail around the cosmos in.”
This was an old argument. “Neither was the Borg cube,” Xander snapped. “Aerodynamic doesn’t matter where there isn’t, you know, air.”
“Fine out here — but how did we get out of our air — and if we plan on coming back, how do they intend to accomplish that little miracle? We’re a hank of rock, no better than a meteor, and we’ll probably do a spectacular re — entry. Come back in with a bang. A big bang. Tunguska will be nothing on us.”
“Boom,” Libby said faintly.
“Big badda boom,” Lester said helpfully.
“You’re still applying our physics to any of this?” Dave asked incredulously. “We’re just as likely to come back in and turn into a bowl of petunias on re — entry as we are to flame out.”
“A very warped Infinite Improbability Drive,” Libby said.
“Hell, yeah!” Xander said. “To Infinity, and beyond! That might be entertaining all by itself. But when we come back — if we come back — whatever that schedule is — we still have a con to run, and a bunch of people who paid good money to be here. Our responsibilities didn’t end just because we got hijacked, and I’m damned if I’m going to let the android crew just sit back and ignore us now. They have to entertain us. Seriously. I plan on having Sim’s guys stand guard on the panel rooms if necessary. But they will play.”
“Do they know that yet?” said Andie Mae sharply. And then relented. “Oh, Xander. I’m on your side. I’m on my side, on my con’s side. Of course I’ll back you. I just don’t know how it’ll work out. The only one with the gift of the gab in that sense seems to be Boss — the rest have been pretty monosyllabic thus far. But it’s worth a try and there will certainly be a measure of increased attendance because people might just come along to gawk and point. Fine with me. Go do.”