Bec’s camera is rolling.
As more fans in costumes and logo shirts flood the Q&A room, Abel motormouths about some tragic new Cadsim fic called “The Passion of the Droid.” I’m only half listening. We’re here. And when you’re a weird and awkward and paranoid person at all times, CastieCon is the happiest place on the planet.
It’s like, a baseline level of freakiness is expected here, right? So unless you’re disemboweling goats in the vendor hall, no one gives a damn who you are or what you’re doing. You want to spray your hair blue like Sim’s? You’ll fit right in; ten others beat you to it. You want to dress like Xaarg at a biker bar? Girls will take photos with you, fondling your black studded jacket. You can talk to vendors about bad paint apps on action figures; you can openly geek out when two writers sign your second-season finale script; you can join a panel debating if Castaway Planet is a real place or all in their head. And when you’re waiting for a Q&A and you see a fanvid on the screen—set to “Hallelujah,” for crap’s sake—no one will judge you if you get a tiny bit choked up.
“Bran.” I jump. Abel’s poking me. “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“We’re taking bets on why Bree LaRue’s late to her own Q&A.”
“She burned her hand on her curling iron,” says Bec.
“She couldn’t find the down button on the elevator,” says Abel.
“She’s pissed she got no screentime in this fanvid,” I grin.
Abel glances up at the pull-down screen and glares at the clip they’re showing. It’s from this season’s cliffhanger. Ed Ransome as Cadmus, bloodied and bitten, buckling beside the giant spider he’s just killed. Sim runs over in slo-mo, drops to his knees to check the fresh bite marks on Cadmus’s neck. The music fades slightly to lift up the line: If I die, Tin Man, you’re the new me. Promise. Abel performs a shudder and screws one eye shut.
“I can’t look,” he groans. “This whole scene like, wounds me.”
“Whatever. Xaarg’ll save him—”
“DON’T EVEN.”
“—because he’s his daa-aad.”
Abel facepalms. “I hate that theory.”
“We know.”
“Super-lame. Super-derivative.” He vacuum-breathes like Vader. “Cadmussss…I am your fatherrrr…”
“It’s foreshadowed, though.”
“Don’t you dare bring up 2-17.”
“Xaarg’s been watching him his whole life?”
“Clearly a lie! Intimidation tactic.”
“I dunno.” I shrug, basking in the indignant-fanboy back-and-forth. “I’d be happy if my TV boyfriend was a possible demigod.”
“He’s already a demigod. FYI.”
Abel sticks out his tongue and we bust out laughing like a pair of fourth graders. Onscreen, Cadmus is using the spider corpse as a grim translucent footrest, telling Sim knock-knock jokes about Xaarg and his henchmen to prove he’s totally fine and definitely not at all almost-dead. Ed Ransome’s great in this episode, so great I almost get why Abel loves him.
“Brandon?”
“Yeah.”
Abel blinks at the vid. He leans in and whispers, “I don’t really love cinnamon jellybeans. I just eat them to, ah…feel like him.”
“You do stuff like that?”
“Kinda sorta constantly.” Abel peers down at the smiley face doodled on his left shoe. “Sometimes when I do something brave I feel like I’m cheating because I was being him in my head the whole time. I get so into it that I’ll catch my reflection in a window and for a second I’m surprised I look like me instead of him.” He side-eyes me. “Did I say that out loud? God, I swear I’m not a nutbar!”
I nod with quiet reverence. It’s like when I was five and found out Danny Zurick liked peeling glue off his hands, too. “S’okay.”
“You won’t tell?”
“I’ve got four Sim playlists on my phone.”
“Dork.” He smacks me, laughing. “You know, I had this horrible dream the rumors were true and they killed off Cadmus.”
“Don’t even worry.”
“But just the idea.”
“I’m the same. Like in 3-11, when the Henchmen took Sim apart—”
“—and he kept saying Status: All systems destabilized in that creepo Exorcist voice? Oh babe. I know.”
“I needed counseling. Ask Bec.” I turn to her, but some jerk in a Cookie Monster t-shirt is chatting her up. He has these super-sincere liquidy blue eyes and his dark hair is flat and shaggy at the same time, like the plastic hair on those Lego people. I want to step in and save her but then Abel’s hand is squeezing mine and I have to keep my face Sim-still and pretend I’m a regular human who has tons and tons of casual palm-to-palm contact with guys who share my specific fanboy neuroses.
“Bran.” Abel smiles sideways like Cadmus.
Smile back. Don’t be a freak.
“Yeah…?”
“Dude in the TEAM ANDROID shirt is eyeing you up.” He leans close and cups my ear. “Glance to the left and be subtle!”
“I—”
Some guy in a dark suit saves me, shoving through the crowd with headset clutched to ear. People start whispering. The weird Hell Bells thing makes a sinister ting in the back of my mind. I try to breathe myself calm. We’re not assassination candidates. No one takes shipping that seriously.
Right?
Father Mike, tossing me marshmallows at the youth group campfire. Okay, poll time, guys: If you died today, do you think you’d go to heaven?
The worried guy’s onstage now, hands locked behind him, introducing Bree LaRue with a film of sweat on his forehead. Everyone’s chattering, grumbling, pulling out cameras. Abel grabs Bec’s cam from her and hits record.
“Okay, people! This is it.” He holds the camera too close. “Cadsim ladies, hold your gloating till the end, mmkay? I know Bree-Bree’s on record as a shipper, but it’s not over till we get her on video, and plus she’s all moony-eyed over that Cash Howard guy from Husband Hunt so she’s not exactly the brightest bulb on the—”
“People!” Worried Guy makes a time-out gesture. “Here she comes, okay? Let’s be a little quiet for her.”
The pull-down screen rolls up, and someone female comes stalking out from behind the black curtain when the audience cheers and hoots for Bree LaRue, but for a good ten, fifteen seconds my brain thinks there has to be a mixup.
Because the person onstage? That can’t be her.
***
Bree LaRue plays Defense Officer Leandra Nigh, and if you’ve ever seen an episode of Castaway Planet, the thing you remember about her is her hair. It’s shiny and blond in a synthetic, display-only kind of way, like the loose curls presented for worship in shampoo commercials. The person onstage has something entirely different on her head. I’m not sure how to describe it. Did they ever make black shag carpeting back in the seventies? It’s like someone cut a circle out of that and made themselves a skull cap.
Abel pokes me, his mouth an O.
“I think it looks kind of good,” whispers Bec.
Bree LaRue is wearing wrinkly jeans and tall black boots and a St. Tropez t-shirt with an orange stain on it. Her eyes are bloodshot. She steps up to the lip of the stage, yanks the mike off the stand, and starts twisting the cord around her wrist.
“Heyyy, kids,” she mutters.
No one breathes.
“So what’s new?”
Silence.
“I got a haircut. Like, obviously.” She ruffles it with one hand. “Certain people aren’t gonna be happy with me, but I say fuck it. You know? Wigs exist.”
Worried Guy edges closer to Bree, rubs his thick hands together. “Okay, guys, let’s start with some questions. Who’s got a good one for Miss LaRue?” He turns to her. “Is that okay? If they ask?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
A whisper runs through the audience. Then a red question paddle goes up, slowly, to the left of the stage.
“What’s your favorite color?” some girl says.
Bree LaRue stares at the base of the mike stand. She screws up her mouth and hocks a wad of spit at it.