Doyle, trying to persuade himself that none of Ashleigh’s juvenile inspirations had had any real influence on the outcome of the case, cut them dead.
Pandora’s Box
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
We stood in the center of the second-floor lobby, staring down at the beautiful handmade box, sitting on top of another box not nearly as fine.
“Told you,” Paladin said, her muscular arms crossed.
No one looked at her. No one dared.
There were six of us — two members of hotel security, two members of convention security, Paladin, and me. The “told you” was for me.
“I think we should call the bomb squad,” said Phil, the youngest, thinnest member of con security, so thin I had no idea how anyone could ever feel threatened by him. He was new. They were all new, even the hotel security guards, although not for the same reason.
The hotel had been finished just before the Great Recession started — maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe months before, depending on what you counted as the beginning of the recession — whether it was former Presidential candidate John McCain’s declaration that the economy was “tanking” and he needed to shore it up, or whether you counted it from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, or whether you counted it from the first signs in what I call the Canary States, the ones that don’t have the economic base that allows them to thrive in good times, let alone survive the bad.
The hotel needed business, and CrapCon was business, although not very good business, which is why I’m calling it CrapCon instead of its real name. I’m not even going to give you the name of the town where CrapCon was held because that would help you figure out which con it was. Even after a debacle as big as this one, I’m still protecting fandom and science fiction conventions and all things Geek.
Protection is part of my job, although it’s not in the job description. Not that I have an actual job description. By IRS standards, I’m no longer employed, choosing to manage my investments — which were nicked during the rundown into the Great Recession, but not really harmed, since unlike most people (including the so-called experts), I actually saw this thing coming — and I moved my millions with months to spare.
That’s right. Millions with an “m.” I’m what is still sometimes called in the Pacific Northwest a Microsoft Millionaire, being one of those early employees of Microsoft who got stock options in addition to a salary, and who divested before Microsoft became — also in Pacific Northwest parlance — the Evil Empire. I left the job with millions and unlike so many of my Microsoft Millionaire colleagues, I invested wisely, turning a small fortune into that rarity, a large fortune.
But that wasn’t the job I was doing at CrapCon. At CrapCon, I was doing what I consider my real job. I’m a SMoF — a Secret Master of Fandom, fandom being, but not limited to, Science Fiction Fandom, which in my opinion involves anyone who likes, has read, or watched sf. But true fandom, the kind I’m protecting here, involves the fen — the hardcore fans who like to socialize with their sf heroes at places like Worldcon or Comic-Con or CelebCon. I fly across the country, setting up systems at young conventions or helping conventions like CrapCon get back on track.
Although by this point, “on track” was pretty close to “not too far off the rails.” CrapCon wasn’t even twenty-four hours old and already stinking to high heaven. The organizers hadn’t even issued a programming schedule, at least not one people could read, so attendees were wandering the halls, peering into conference rooms to see if there was anyone worth listening to. The program participants got a schedule, but no one else did.
And now this.
Marvin, the other member of con security, hovered over the box. He looked like he wanted to touch it, but he knew better.
We all knew better.
The hell of it was that, that box was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. It was carved out of porcelain or resin or pottery clay or glass or something. I couldn’t get close enough to make a real examination. It had been painted blue, purple, and gold, which wasn’t as gaudy as it sounded. The handcarved figure of a beautiful woman who looked astonishingly like Paladin (only with long flowing hair and wearing a long flowing gown that I knew — without asking — Paladin wouldn’t be caught dead in) lounged on the top of the box, looking like she wanted to seduce all of us. Little boxes littered the area around her, all of them replicas of the box itself, done in miniature.
Work so fine that I hadn’t seen anything like it in a Worldcon Art Show or in a Comic-Con dealers room where they have the truly, truly, truly high-end stuff.
This box was stunning and startling, and just by its very beauty, enticed you to pick it up. Which, fortunately, none of us had.
“What do we do now, Spade?” asked Marvin.
Spade isn’t my real name, but it’s what everyone calls me. Only a few in Fandom even know my real name and that’s because they worked with me all those decades ago at Microsoft. I prefer Spade most of the time — it’s fannish recognition of my peculiar talent: I can solve crimes like the great detectives of old. Most fen think I’m like Sam Spade, but I’m not that thin or that cynical. If I resemble any of the great fictional detectives of the mid-twentieth century, it’s Nero Wolfe. I’m six six, four hundred pounds (give or give), and horribly overeducated. I just venture out of my brown-stone a heck of a lot more often than he ever did.
“I think we should call the bomb squad,” Phil repeated, his voice shaking nervously.
Paladin crouched, her slender hand reaching for the box.
“Lady, don’t,” one of the hotel security guards said with great panic.
First, I’d never call Paladin “lady.” She’s tiny and beautiful, but there the resemblance to a lady ends. She also has more muscles than all of us combined, and she has that thin Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer kick-butt heroine thing going for her. What endears her to me, besides her toughness and her sharp tongue, are her ears, which are ever so slightly pointed, giving her an elfin look. Strap a broadsword across her back, put a knife on her hip, and add a little dirt along her chin, and she’d look like one of the good guys heading to Mordor in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Second, Paladin knows what she’s doing. She’s not someone whose work you question even if it is... questionable.
“Ma’am,” the security guard said louder. “I don’t think you should touch that.”
She leaned farther in, craning her neck so that she could see all sides of the box. “It’s not a Chinese Puzzle Box,” she said.
I could have told her that from my vantage up here, but I let her talk.
“It’s more like one of those medieval lock boxes, although it’s not really one of those either.” Her hand still hovered over the box, too close for my comfort.
“Lady,” the security guard said, panic so deep in his voice that it made my heart pound harder. “Please. Don’t.”
“I think we have to turn or depress one of those little boxes,” she said.
“Don’t!” All four security guards said in unison.
She raised her head and gave them all a withering look. “I’m the one who called this in, remember?”
“I still think we should call the cops,” Phil said, this time to Paladin, showing more toughness than I expected.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “I already did.”
Sadly, it’s not that unusual to see cops at sf conventions. Ideally, the cops are off duty and carrying an armload of books. But every now and then, they’ve been called in by a member of the hotel staff or some other patron who, upon seeing a Klingon in full dress uniform, gets scared and thinks some kind of invasion is going on.