They’d seen the Igor!!! on Skates episode, they’d checked off another Quest item—how many other challenges could they complete today? Was there still time to get in line for the limited-edition Dwarves & Drama figure? Could they try to sneak into the Voltage: Defenders of Legend panel? Only one way to find out—and that was to move.
Cat pushed Alex toward the curtains. She didn’t trust him to follow this time.
“Wait!” She could hear James M.’s angry voice behind her, but she didn’t stop—and didn’t let Alex stop, either. Together they dove into the massive crowd that had surged toward the stage with phones held aloft. The twins disappeared, anonymous in the nerdy masses.
24. Ask a question at a panel without making it about yourself. (12 points)
5
Alex
“I can’t believe we haven’t run into Fi yet.”
Alex’s eyes darted away from an awesome piece of Whom, M.D. fan art at a table in Artist Alley. He was so sure his older sister was going to pop up right behind the artist’s booth and give him that look he hated. It was going to happen. It had to. He was going to be in so much trouble, and he would never be able to ask his parents to get him that Whom print and they were never going to get to come to GeekiCon again and they definitely were never going to win the Quest and—
“Relax,” Cat coaxed behind him. Alex turned quickly, shaken out of his thoughts, to see her holding up a pair of earrings next to her face. “What do you think of these?”
Alex shook his head. How could Cat concentrate on accessorizing at a time like this? Still, he turned back and took a business card from that Whom, M.D. artist anyway. She was really, really good at drawing his favorite M.D., and he wanted to remember to come back to her, even if he wasn’t able to concentrate on anything else today.
“Okay,” Alex said to his sister, looking down at his watch. Nearly noon already. “The Epic signing is soon. If we want to make it, we need to start moving now.” Cat sighed, but Alex knew that she knew that he was right. It was absolute chaos on the floor, a crowd that was going to take the two of them a while to maneuver, let alone getting into line and hoping that they hadn’t arrived too late. Epic was Alex’s favorite comic book in the entire world. The artist on it, Adrianna Tack, blew him away every month with the way she lovingly rendered the heroic space opera. Alex couldn’t miss this signing.
“So where to, O wise one?” Cat asked in mock seriousness. She put the earrings back down on the table, thanked the artist, and linked elbows with Alex.
Alex looked down at their linked arms for a moment before accepting that this was a thing that was happening. He popped out his phone to check the map on the GeekiCon app. “Looks like … Pixel Comics, booth 2729.”
Cat’s eyes got wide. “All the way past the gigantic AC Comics setup?”
“No, right before it,” Alex clarified. “What number is their autograph on the Quest list?”
Cat whipped out her phone again. “Shoot, already low battery. It’s … ‘Get a real-life comic-book artist to sign your team name in their own comic.’ Item sixteen. Seventy-six points! This might put us in the running with Team Dangermaker!”
Alex nodded firmly. Good thing they picked a respectable team name. Team DoubleTrouble. Because they were twins. And because it kind of felt like Dangermaker, in a way.
They could do this. He could do this.
“We got this!” he said uncharacteristically, and momentarily filled with the confidence and excitement you get from being surrounded by all of your favorite things, bright colors, and even brighter lights.
But as Alex stepped from Artist Alley into the main aisle beside it, he suddenly found himself moving way faster than he thought he would be. Way, way faster.
“Caaaaaaat!” he yelled, his arm slipping through hers. “We don’t got this! We don’t got this!”
Was this what it felt like to be trapped in your worst nightmare? Because this might just be Alex’s worst nightmare. He’d had a lot of nightmares, and this was definitely, absolutely one of them.
All around Alex, completely surrounding him, were swarms of the undead. Pushed along by a mass of rotting arms and limping legs, all Alex could see and hear were flashes of blood dripping from gaping mouths and the constant, unending stream of “Rrraaaaghhhh!!” coming from every side. His vision was filled with reds and browns, grime and guts. Too many strangers, too close …
This is the zombie apocalypse, thought Alex. This is how I go.
Alex knew about fight or flight. He’d read all about it and the chemicals that flooded your brain. Were they flooding his right now? Channeling the power of ten thousand lens flares, Alex disentangled himself from the shuffling limbs and shot sideways, flattening himself against the nearest booth. He let the horde pass him by. A zombie stampede. In the middle of the con floor. You never knew what you were going to find at GeekiCon. Which is why Alex both loved and hated it in equal measure at all times.
“Cat!” yelled Alex, flailing his arms as high as he could reach, trying to peer above the crowd. “Cat, where are you?!” Catching the disapproving stare of one of the booth workers, Alex dropped his hands and turned red, reaching for his phone instead.
Alex: almost became one of the
walking dead
Cat: lol me too
Alex: by the booth with all