Con Quest!

the big fancy statues

Alex: come find me

Alex put his phone away, hopeful that Cat would find him in time. There were so many people on the floor, half of them in incredible but extremely large costumes. He hated getting separated from Cat even for a moment—it was always nearly impossible to find each other again. Plus, they were almost late for the signing, but at least he was guaranteed a spot if he made it in time—his parents had made sure he had a wristband.

Wait. Alex suddenly felt something was wrong—a disturbance in the con. He turned to see a sign held aloft in the distance by some volunteer.

EPIC SIGNING—LINE CAPPED.

Line capped.

Line capped?!

The Epic signing was full, and his life was utterly and completely over.

“No, no, no,” Alex whispered

to himself. The one Quest item he’d told Cat he could handle, and it had literally slipped from his very hands. This wasn’t going according to plan. Alex liked things when they went according to plan. He liked when things felt right. When things felt wrong, it was almost like he had a full-body itch that he couldn’t scratch. He got that wrong feeling occasionally; like when he saw a cosplay that wasn’t quite accurate (itch), or when someone quoted a line from Wormhole incorrectly (double itch), or when plans didn’t work out (triple mega-itch!). And now he was one big itch, and he’d lost the chance to meet Adrianna Tack …

“What?” asked a far-too-cheerful voice from beside him. Alex was too caught up in his dread over missing the signing to feel grateful that Cat had finally managed to find him on the floor. “Check it out.” Cat held her phone out proudly. “I crowd surfed the zombie horde! Somebody managed to snap a pic. That’s totally for sure going to count for those twenty-five ‘I believe I can fly’ points—I definitely felt like I was flying—”

Why wouldn’t she stop talking?! Didn’t Cat understand how important this was?

“Cat,” Alex interrupted her, frustrated. “The line for Epic, for the signing,” he said quickly, running his hands through his hair. “It’s closed. Closed!”

Cat blinked. “How?!”

“The—the zombies,” Alex stuttered, frantically looking at the floor in their area. “We’re never going to meet Adrianna Tack. Never! We’ll be a Quest item down with no way to fix it, and it’s all my—”

“Stop. It’s okay,” Cat said, but Alex could hear in her voice that she was trying to convince herself as much as she was him. “Take deep breaths like Dad says. It’s okay.”

When Alex was spinning out into everything he was worried about and felt like he couldn’t breathe, his parents told him to just take deep breaths. It was so hard to remember to do unless someone told him to. Alex nodded at Cat and dropped to the floor, crossing his legs. He had to keep busy and keep feeling like he was making progress in the right direction and, and …

“I’m being serious, Alex—stop and breathe.” She squatted next to him so they were facing each other.

Alex concentrated on Cat’s face and nothing else, his eyes wide. He breathed in as Cat counted to five and breathed out on the next count of five.

Cat smiled as Alex breathed. “I’m going to get us that autograph.”

Alex’s heart rate was dropping; his vision was coming back into focus. “How?”

“This is GeekiCon,” Cat said, pushing herself up to stand. She held out her hand for Alex to take. “This is where magic happens.”

Alex felt a little less shaky. He took Cat’s hand with a nod and stood up. “Do you still have the Hall M passes?”

“Yes,” Cat insisted. On seeing Alex’s skeptical look, she added, “Don’t worry. I checked.”

He nodded and followed his sister as she marched toward the Pixel booth, dodging a stroller and a massive pair of brown, feathered wings on a cosplayer in the process.

In what felt like no time, distracted by the colorful cosplay all around him, Alex suddenly found himself nearly colliding with his sister’s back once again.

“That keeps happening…” Alex rubbed at his forehead.

“Well…,” Cat said, looking back at him. “We’ve made it.”

Alex looked up at the lime-clad volunteer next to them and the END OF LINE sign she had in her hand. “This is the end of the line,” the volunteer drawled.

Alex stared straight ahead. He had no idea what to do.