“One of your postgraduate buddy bunnies, letting it all hang out?” Xander teased, grinning.
“Honestly? That’s healthier than the zombie crowd,” Libby said, and then, as one or two of the others lifted their heads at the comment, added, “Sorry, but they freak me out. Why would any living thing dress up as something half rotten and think that is attractive?”
“You’re more into wompires,” Xander said, lifting his arms up into a bad imitation of throwing out a cloak or maybe a set of batwings. “Just as dead, you know.”
“But way more interesting,” Libby retorted. “Hi, can I help you?”
“Carol Elliot,” said a woman who had just walked into the Green Room where the ConCom had congregated. “You have my badge up here?”
“Somewhere,” Libby said. “Elliot… E… it’ll be in this box…” She rummaged through a pile of manila envelopes and pulled one out with a triumphant flourish. “There we are. Your itinerary’s inside, we printed them on the back of the name tents this year.”
“Oh good, it’s always great to know where you’re supposed to be next,” Carol said, opening her envelope and riffling through it. “Um, and my husband’s badge…?”
“Eep. They might have that downstairs, but you don’t want to go down into that zoo. Let me call them and double check, in the meantime you can get Mike over there to just print you a temp one and that’ll be fine until we sort it out.”
“ ‘Kay. Thanks.”
“Do you have mine there, while you’re at it?” Another pro, wearing a pith helmet crowned by a pair of truly spectacular steampunk goggles, pushed forward past Carol Elliot’s retreating back. “I’m Bob Williamson.”
Libby reached for a different stack of envelopes. “Lemme see…”
She had almost a dozen of them turn up in quick succession, pros who were at the convention to work — writers who were on panels, artists from the art show, one of the musicians who were to give a concert later that weekend — they needed their badges, they needed information, they needed supplies and minions for setup work that needed to be done, they often just needed coffee. Libby had her head down and was waist high in manila envelopes when she lifted her head and smiled at the next person standing in front of her.
“Name?”
“Oh, no, no, sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude if you’re busy,” the young man said apologetically. It was only then that she noticed the shiny brass badge on the lapel of a waistcoat that was entirely unlike anything that a con — goer would be seen in. She squinted at the badge, and he offered up a preemptive hand. “I’m Luke, Luke Barnes, I’m the Night Manager, just come on duty — actually, it’s my first time in the hot seat, tonight — just wandered by to see if you guys were okay out here, if you had everything you needed…”
“How sweet,” Libby said, and meant it literally. In general they were not much given to receiving visits from the managerial staff up in the Green Room and Con Ops. Maybe it was just that ‘first time in the hot seat’ thing. The boy — and he didn’t look much older than someone who could still legitimately be called a boy — was still so very new at this, earnest, and eager to please. “I think we’re fine, really.”
“Good. I, uh, it’s my first time — and something this big — I don’t think this hotel has had this many people — I’m perfectly certain that we’re this close to breaking the fire codes…” He sounded a little nervous, and Libby gave him a wide and encouraging smile.
“You’ll be fine. I know it all must look weird, but…”
“Oh, no, I love sci fi,” Luke said. Xander, who had just come into the room, gave a theatrical eye roll at this, but Luke failed to notice.
“Ever been to a con?” Libby asked.
“Well, this one,” Luke said, grinning. “Let me know if you guys need anything.”
“Will do,” Libby said. There was something that she might have asked for but she couldn’t remember it, right there and then, and Luke ducked his head at her, gave everyone else a cheery wave, and wriggled out of the increasingly crowded room.
“Sci fi,” muttered Xander scornfully.
“Everyone has to start somewhere, Rat,” Libby said, using the nickname that he was far better known by in that crowd — in its entirety, LabRat, often shortened to just Rat. “You were a con virgin once, too.”
“Yabbut I was fifteen,” Xander said, crossing his eyes. “And look at me now… Hey, is there any more coffee in that pot…?”
Coffee.
Libby remembered that she’d overheard Andie Mae complaining about coffee, asking Al to bring some decent coffee when he came back with the posters which announced their star attraction. Andie Mae had scored the coup of getting two of the most famous androids of their genre — Data, from Star Trek, and the Terminator — to make a brief (but very expensive — this one item had eaten a lion’s share of their budget for that year) appearance at the con, with its theme of Robots and Androids. How Andie Mae had managed to even find a way to get in touch with someone like actor — turned — politician Arnold Schwarzenegger was beyond Libby’s comprehension — she herself wouldn’t have known where to start — but Andie Mae had been determined to make the first con she chaired something that would not be forgotten in a hurry. Somehow, through methods that might have involved a midnight summoning of demons, she had done it, and the two actors portraying the android characters, Brent Spiner and Arnold Schwarzenegger, were due to show up for a photo — op and a brief signing spot and fan meet — and — greet on Saturday afternoon, one of the crowning selling points of the con.
The demon hypothesis might not have been so farfetched, because once the coup was secured everything else seemed to go haywire. Libby, as the designated media and communications member of the ConCom, had been handed the publicity baton — and she had done fairly well in publicizing the presence of the two actors in outside media. Inside the con itself, however, things were a different matter.
That was why Al Coe was at the printers for the third time, for the final — and correct — version of the posters they had ordered for the con.
He should have been back with those posters by now.
The posters, and the coffee. To the best of Libby’s knowledge (and it would have been her business to know) the posters had not materialized. And neither had the good coffee; Andie Mae would have had a loud word to say on that if it had arrived, whether or not it had matched her own august criteria in the end.
No coffee. No posters. No Al.
And it was now getting on for Friday evening, and the queue of registrants had grown long, and a bunch of games had already started in the designated ballroom, with three tables surrounded by players throwing dice and blissfully divorced — for the duration — from anything resembling reality. The first scattered parties would be starting in a matter of hours. The con, to all intents and purposes, had begun — and Libby was woefully bereft in any material larger than an A4 sheet hastily printed on a local color printer, cobbled together by Libby herself to be inserted at the last moment into the glossy full color souvenir program books, letting those who had just been handed the booklets at the registration desk know that the famous androids would be coming.
But even those only announced their presence. It was the big posters to be plastered all over the hotel which were to announce a final date and time.