Chapter 67 – Comic Con

Everything went smooth for going to Comic Con, even if Willow finally decided they were going to have to drive from Alex’s house to San Diego in Alex’s mom’s SUV. Willow had too much stuff, and her little electric car wasn’t up for that long a trip without at least one, maybe two recharges. Fortunately, her mom was good with driving Alex’s car for a few days while Alex borrowed the SUV.

Willow and Jack were ‘out of touch’ from Friday afternoon until Sunday night, which was okay because Alex spent a lot of that time doing normal stuff. Talking with Ray and Robyn and Nicole and Louis, and Skyping with Hanna and Cindy and Grover and even Charlie, who was really nice, and probably looked a ton like Jack did when Jack was a hot, sexy teenager. It was no wonder Hanna liked him. Alex was going to be pretty surprised if Hanna wanted to come to Paradise Valley for a whole term and be away from Charlie. And Alex got in a ton of waitressing hours for Gloria. And a date with Ray Saturday night going to see a not-too-bad movie and then necking in Ray’s car before he took her home. And martial arts practice every morning plus a great Saturday morning with Sergeant Meadows, who said she was doing really well. And the first two units in the ‘learning programming using C’ course, even if C was still weird. And she got more reading done in her dad’s time management book, which was totally full of useful stuff, but was just incredibly long.

Tuesday, when she talked to Willow, Willow reminded her to have her gym bag along just in case, and a few changes of clothes, but not much else because she was going to be in costume all day. “Oh! And be sure to bring your cameras and everything, because I’ve got a surprise for you!”

And Alex Skyped with Jack, too. He didn’t want to talk about the trip to see Willow, except to say that it was great. But guys never wanted to talk about stuff if it was about feelings or romance or whatever. It was like they were still six and they were afraid they would get cooties.

No, Jack wanted to talk about the Tromaville thing. Alex immediately said, “Well, I know I really messed up …”

But Jack insisted, “No, I was the one who really messed up. We went in knowing something was weird, and I left the mayor’s office pretty sure he was a corrupt butterball. We set up a trap for the mayor’s men, and we weren’t ready for our monster to show up at the same time. Then I made a wisecrack about sicking Hanna on the monster if he didn’t put that cop down, and that was a good tactic but a bad strategy. I got the lieutenant, but I got knocked down, and Hanna took that as permission to engage. Finn couldn’t do much else, because a brick alleyway with five people down, one engaging the enemy, and one invisible? Finn was likely to hit one of us with a ricochet or a miss, and our monster was about as fast as Hanna. At least all we got were a few bruises here and there. After Hanna and Finn whomped up on him, that guy’s probably gonna be limping for a week.”

Jack added, “Now, when you messed up in the cavern and you didn’t tell me how big an object you could take in your morph, that was a problem. Or when you didn’t follow orders and nearly got yourself claymored to death. I yelled at you. When Hanna really screwed up, I yelled at her and gave her punishment detail. But I didn’t rat you out to my boss. Because I don’t do that. If you mess up, I protect you from the higher-ups, and I handle the punishment. Although it looks to me like you’re handling the self-punishing thing pretty well on your own, on this one.”

She told him, “But I really feel bad about beating him up when he’s not a badguy. I mean, is he? And now he’s probably never gonna want to join up with us.”

Jack said, “Oh, I think Melvin has some other issues to deal with long before we get to the ‘be all that you can be’ speech. And seriously, Melvin? Is this like Grover? Are parents all over the country going to start giving their sons beat-me-up names so they can get superpowers when they’re older?”

“Stop it, Jack.” He was not going to make her giggle when she was busy being upset.

Jack said, “Look, things would have been a lot worse without us. Without you. The National Guard would have turned the guy into Swiss cheese, and that mayor might have walked.”

Alex fussed, “But I’m not supposed to hurt other good guys! And now he hates me!”

Jack smirked and said, “Well, his girlfriend’s pretty pissed at you, but I don’t think he hates you.”

“Ooh!”

Jack sighed. “Look, Alex, Ol’ Melvin there isn’t gonna make a good crimefighter for a while. We’ve got to get him through the court system and figure out what will happen. And he’s still pretty prone to handling crime by ripping guys apart instead of arresting them, which is a really massive problem.”

Alex said, “Well, yeah, because dead guys in pieces!”

Jack said, “And it could have really bad implications for the whole superhero deal. I need superheroes I trust to do the right thing, not loose cannons who might go postal on some jaywalker. Hanna’s a big enough problem right now, and we still haven’t even dealt with all of her issues, even though she’s been seeing Janet’s friend a couple times a week since before she got out of the hospital. If Melvin was a little less resilient, by Finn’s count Hanna would have broken about two dozen bones in his body, wrecked his knee and elbow, given him about three concussions, crushed his testicles, ruptured a few internal organs, and maybe knocked out half his teeth. On the other hand, if Hanna was an ordinary girl, when Melvin threw her into that brick wall she would’ve been roadkill. All you did was hit him with one lightning bolt.”

“That could’ve killed him!” she insisted.

“So? Finn was about to have to open up on him at short range with an M4. That would’ve done a lot more than give him a nasty shock.”

Alex didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, I still feel bad.”

He told her, “Then just concentrate on taking care of Willow. And I want lots of pictures of her in those outfits! I’ve only seen one of them.”

Despite herself, he had her cheered up before he signed off. Stupid entertaining guy. It wasn’t fair. She’d really wanted to be upset. And he had her agreeing to put together two more complete Terawatt uniforms. He wanted her to have an emergency backup around Paradise Valley, and he wanted to have one on hand so she didn’t have to lug a ton of junk out to Camp Atron every time. But that meant she needed her dad to make duplicates of the plastic ‘makeup’ she used and the mask, too. And she needed her mom to buy two more wigs, and two more pairs of those shoes, and two more pairs of those gloves. And two more sets of gel breast inserts. And she needed her mom to make two more of the white leotards. Oh, crud.

At dinner, when she brought it up, her folks thought it was an awesome idea, and they both thought she needed backup uniforms already. Her mom pointed out a couple of times she had needed to rush through washing a uniform or brushing out that wig. Her dad pointed out a couple of times it would have been handy if she already had a costume tucked away somewhere else, like on that Cessna. Alex still thought it would be better if her mom got Jack’s people to buy the gloves and boots and wigs and gel pads and that kind of stuff, just so there wouldn’t be any traceable stuff.

Then Tuesday night at bedtime, Alex packed. She already had her gym bag ready to go, so she just packed a smaller tote bag that had a few changes of clothes and stuff for her. After all, she already had things like her undies and her jammies and her dopp kit and her computer stuff and her camera gear already in her gym bag. And it wasn’t like she needed a lot of clothes when she was going to be in a costume all day.

Every time she thought about walking around in a costume all day, she just kept reminding herself that she did that kind of thing for real on a pretty regular basis, so it was silly to be worrying about it. And this costume would have no high heels and no fake boobs and no mask. That had to be better.

*               *               *

Wednesday morning, Willow drove up in her cute little electric car a few minutes before nine. And she brought another chocolate zucchini cake! That was always good. Or ‘of the good’, as some people said. Alex helped Willow plug the car into an outlet so it could sit in the driveway and recharge before Willow drove home Sunday night. Then they had to get all of Willow’s stuff out of the car and into the SUV. Willow had a huge folding suitcase that took up pretty much her whole back seat. Then she had six boxes in her trunk that pretty well filled the little trunk space. Then she had two rolling suitcases wedged together in the shotgun seat of the car. So there was about enough room left in that car for Willow and maybe a box of Kleenex. It was a really good thing they were taking the mom car instead.

They piled their stuff into the SUV. Alex also had a small cooler of drinks and snacks, because she got hungry and Willow would probably get thirsty. It was pretty easy. It was just a five hour drive down I-5 (assuming nothing went wrong like an interstate-clogging car accident in the middle of Los Angeles), and then the hotel and convention center were right off the interstate.

Okay, five hours, plus time because of the L.A. traffic, plus time for the San Diego traffic, plus enough time to drive through a MacDonald’s while they were in L.A. and get Willow a medium vanilla milkshake she could drink while driving, and to get three Big Macs, two large fries, and a large chocolate milkshake for Alex.

In between Paradise Valley and Los Angeles, Alex did the driving. She let Willow talk about the romantic birthday weekend with Jack. It sounded pretty amazing, and Willow kept the sex talk down, so Alex really liked hearing her story. Jack had even taken Willow dancing in fancy clothes, and he did know how to waltz and stuff like that, and Willow said it was the most romantic thing ever.

Then after they talked about Jack for a while, and Ray, too, Willow wanted to know how the second computer course was going. Alex admitted, “It’s going pretty okay so far, but C is weird, and it has some weird rules, and it has some weird keywords.”

So she got a lecture from Willow on why C was the way that it was, from ‘why computer scientists start counting at 0’ to ‘using pointers to find other stuff in other parts of the RAM’ and ‘using symbols and words from other popular languages back then’. It really made a lot more sense when Willow explained it all in terms of computer science traditions and computer architecture and stuff. Boy, was Willow all kinds of smart!

And Willow had an Integrated Development Environment for her to use that Willow had downloaded to her tablet just the night before, so now Alex had C and C++ and Java and C Sharp and an IDE for all of them, all set up for Windows. When they switched drivers in Los Angeles, Willow had her pull out her tablet and try the new program out. It was pretty much just as awesome as she was expecting, with all kinds of context-sensitive help and programming forms and templates and other useful stuff.

While Alex worked on the next unit in the course and tried stuff out in her new IDE, Willow drove toward San Diego and told her all kinds of useful things about basic structured programming. It made way more sense when Willow said it than when Alex read it for the first time in the course materials.

Willow said, “Ooh, and I want you to convert your laptop to linux, but I want you do it with another online course, so you’ll get everything right, and you’ll also be able to get college credit for linux systems management. I found three potential online courses we could go with, and I’m just checking them out now to make sure none of them tell you something stupid that you shouldn’t really do, because there are some things in unix systems management that used to be really common but aren’t really the best thing you could do.”

Alex just sort of blinked as she thought that over. Because it would be freaky if she started college with like five or six computer science courses credited already. Holy crud, if she started college with six computer science courses, and a couple years of Spanish credits and a year of calc and a year of English and a year of AP science, too, she’d be like … She’d be a college sophomore who was nearly a junior. That would be insane! Even Annie didn’t manage to do that!

Well, a college probably wouldn’t really let you do that, anyway. And a college major with a ton of special courses would still need you to take all the special courses. Still, it would be nice to get some of the yucky requirements out of the way so she could take the really awesome courses.

So Willow drove into the valet parking area of the San Diego Marriott Hotel. Alex thought that was a bit much, since there was also regular parking and stuff. So she was really surprised when Willow tipped the valet parking guy a fifty and asked him to take really good care of the car, and then let bellhops unload the car and all.

Willow led her into the lobby and over to the concierge’s desk instead of the regular check-in area. And then Willow calmly said, “Willow Rosenberg, CEO of Red Tree Software. I believe you have a suite for me, and you’re holding the keycards already?”

Alex sort of gulped, because she was totally not expecting to get the ‘rich people’ treatment, but it was pretty obvious Willow was not only used to it, she kind of insisted on it. This was so not like other-Willow. Or was it? Other-Willow had been kind of insistent on some things, and was one of the people who ran the Slayers. But Alex was already worrying about what if Willow was different away from her house.

The concierge looked at the bellhops with all the luggage and said, “We only need the information on your car in valet parking, if you have one.” But Alex had to fill that stuff out, since it was her mom’s car and she was the one who knew the make and model and license plate and all that.

So then Alex got her own keycard, and Willow took one, and Willow let the bellhops escort them up to a really nice suite that was just one floor below the penthouse suites, which would’ve been way too much.

Okay, this suite was already way too much.

One guy opened the door for them and let them walk in first, and then both guys wheeled in the luggage carts and asked Willow where to put stuff. So while Willow told them which things went where, Alex walked over to the window and gasped.

The main room was a big living room/den/dining room/kitchen thing with its own half-bath. There was a giant TV on each side wall, and the kitchen looked fancier than Willow’s. The sliding glass doors opened out onto a fancy patio and had a view of the marina and the convention center and a huge sweep of San Diego. And this wasn’t even all of the suite. There was a big bedroom on each side of this room.

Alex was sort of in shock as she walked into ‘her’ bedroom. There was a huge, king-sized bed and a massive bathroom with a big tub and a separate shower and a sink that looked like real marble. And the bedroom had a fancy view and a sliding glass door onto that same huge patio. She walked into Willow’s room, and it was even bigger, and it was a corner room so it had huge windows on two sides, and there was even a huge window in the bathroom, and the bathroom had a jacuzzi, too, and there was even a hot tub right outside Willow’s room on the patio!

Willow gave the bellhops huge tips and closed the door. Then she flopped down on a couch and grinned. “When you’re CEO Rosenberg, you have to be different from when you’re just you.”

To be sure, Alex asked, “So we’re getting special service because you’re a famous CEO?”

Willow said, “That, and most major hotel chains have special arrangements for big spenders who stay at their hotels on a regular basis and join the hotel’s special ‘rewards’ programs. I’m in the Elite Lifetime rewards program at the platinum level, so I could get this suite and get the perks. It also means they have all my info and they know my American Express card number and all that, so check-in and check-out’s a breeze. It’s really handy. Jack was kind of freaked when I got one of the penthouse suites at the Marriott for the two of us last week.”

Alex asked, “Doesn’t this cost like a mint?”

Willow shrugged. “I did tell you I have way too much money now, didn’t I? I had more than enough before Larry stole my company, and now I also have a totally ridiculous ‘golden parachute’ that Oracle has to pay for. So I never would have spent money like this before, but now every time I do, I just remind myself that it’s coming out of Larry Ellison’s wallet. Okay, that makes me want to do really stupid stuff like ask if they can fill the hot tub with really expensive champagne, but it’s not really his money now, so I don’t do crazy stuff. Even if I did buy a bunch more RAM for my Silicon Graphics workstation.”

Alex flopped down on the opposite couch. “I don’t think that’s what people mean about going crazy with money. You didn’t go out and buy twenty Lamborghinis, or a hundred-foot yacht, or an island, right?”

Willow said, “Of course not. That would be stupid. Although I did spend a lot of money getting your costumes made, and I did invest in half a dozen companies that should be great in a few years.”

Alex was pretty sure that investing in really good companies didn’t count as going crazy with money. Unless you invested in a loony company that wanted to build houses out of chocolate, or something just as goofy. Maybe those guys who wanted to sell socks over the internet as their whole business. How was that supposed to work, anyway? She pouted, “It’s just … All I bought you for your birthday was a book!”

Willow said, “But it was a really good book. And I love books.” She looked at Alex’s face. “Oh. Look, you’re not supposed to spend a zillion dollars on presents for me just because I have a lot of money. My mom and dad only bought me a DVD set.”

Alex asked, “What? The Simpsons?”

Willow blushed and said, “Umm, don’t laugh, but it’s this show I used to watch even if my mom said I was too old … You promise you won’t laugh?” Alex nodded. “The Fuzzy Family.”

“I love that show!” Alex squealed. “My dad and I have seen all the episodes, and we watch it on reruns, too!”

“George likes it, too? Wow, now I don’t feel so silly.”

So they ended up talking for maybe two hours about The Fuzzy Family while they put stuff away. And it took nearly two hours to put everything away, because they had to iron about half the costumes and then hang them up properly. But this was a really fancy hotel suite, so they had fancy padded hangers and stuff in the closets. And an iron and ironing board and clothes steamer, even though they also had a valet cleaning service and stuff like that.

Since there were six costumes, and every costume had a wig, they needed to get the wigs out of the boxes and fix them on the wigheads Willow also had, and get them brushed out and styled and stuff. And every costume had accessories, which Willow also had in the boxes. And some of them had to be ironed, too. And some of the stuff Willow had couldn’t be ironed, either, but had to be folded with special padding so it wouldn’t wrinkle. Alex was pretty sure the Psylocke costume was made of rubber. And all of Willow’s costumes had high-heeled boots. Alex was glad her costumes had low heels.

Alex asked, “Have you practiced in all these boots? Because when I started ‘taking pictures’ I had to practice for a long time to get the hang of five-inch heels.”

Willow nodded. “Oh, sure. But it would be a lot handier if I could fly around instead.”

Alex firmly said, “No one’s going to be flying around. I’m strictly Alex this week.”

Willow smiled. “Good. Because I want you to get your cameras out for when we go over to the registration desk.”

“Why?”

Willow smirked. “Because you’ll probably find a ton of cool things to photograph, and some of them might even make for stories your TV station or your newspaper might pay you for. And maybe something else …”

So Alex got out both cameras and her photography fanny-pack and made sure all the gear she’d brought except her wheel steadicam was in it, before they walked down to the convention center. The Marriott had a level that led right into an elegant restaurant area and that led to a fancy area with really high vaulted ceilings that were mostly glass, and that led into the convention areas.

They had no problem finding the registration area for Comic Con, because there was a ginormous crowd of people waiting to get their passes. Willow led Alex off to the side, where there was a separate desk for picking up special badges. Willow led Alex up to the desk and said, “I think you have a press pass for A.L. Mack? Alex? Show her your ID.”

Alex managed not to gulp or freak, but she was totally not expecting Willow to pull this out of her hat.

The lady looked at Alex’s ID and said, “We do have a late press pass for you, but you look rather young.”

Alex said, “I am rather young. I’m seventeen. But I’m still a working photographer.”

The lady looked at a post-it note on the form and said, “Ooh! You’re the photographer who got Terawatt! You’re perfect for Comic Con!”

Alex pointed out, “Terawatt’s not in a comic or an anime or anything.”

But the lady eagerly insisted, “Yet! She would be awesome in a comic book! Marvel’s had real people in comic books before. I have every issue of ‘The Human Fly’. I’m volunteering today and tomorrow, but I made a Terawatt costume and I’m going to the Terawatt get-together on Saturday!”

Willow asked, “The Terawatt get-together?” Alex was glad she did, because Alex really wanted to ask but she thought she’d look stupid if she did.

The lady smiled. “Sure! We have get-togethers all through Comic Con. It’s in your program.”

Willow said, “Yeah, I’m going to the Marvel one. I just didn’t know there was a Terawatt one.”

The lady said, “Well, obviously there never has been before, but there’s probably gonna be a lot of Terawatts here this week. Every convention this summer’s had a huge turnout of Terawatt cosplayers.” She turned to Alex. “And you’re like our convention’s Terawatt expert! Maybe when you see my Terawatt costume you could give me some tips on making it more realistic.”

“Umm, yeah. Sure. I guess.” Alex was a little freaked by the whole ‘Terawatt craze’ thing, even if she was trying not to show it. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen YouTube and Instagram pictures of Terawatt cosplayers, but this seemed like a whole other level to it.

But Willow was already pulling her computer tablet out of her purse and working away on it. “Ooh! Here we go. See Alex? Videos of cosplay Terawatts at four different cons in the last two months.”

And there were way more pictures and videos of girls and young women dressing up as Terawatt than Alex had thought there were. Which just made Alex feel kind of … uncomfortable. Proud that so many people liked her, but still, this was kind of embarrassing. Okay, the two big, fat, hairy guys dressing up as Terawatt were just ooky. And the lady dressed as Steampunk Terawatt with a little skirt and bustle and goggles was really kind of funny.

The lady said, “I’m Andi.”

“Alex.”

“Willow.”

They shook hands and chatted until someone else came over and needed assistance from the ‘special badges’ desk. It was some distributor who wanted badges for his two booth babes. And he even called them ‘booth babes’. Alex thought the whole idea of booth babes was yucky, and Nicole would have called it ‘degrading to young women’, but Comic Con was more for young guys who read comic books and watched sci-fi and played video games than it was for her, even if she played video games and she liked sci-fi some of the time, so booth babes probably sold more merchandise than anything other than having Stan Lee personally autographing stuff for you.

So Alex took her press badge and her press packet and press gift-bag back to their room to look through stuff. Willow was spreading her own stuff on the dining table and checking through it, since she already had her badge and everything mailed to her weeks ago.

Alex pulled out of the gift-bag a couple of cool t-shirts, and some fancy stuff like an infrared USB connector to hook up a high-end camera to a laptop.

Wow. A real Optimus Prime collectible in a sealed case. Ray and his dad would go gaga for that.

A set of six mini-bottles of liquor, ranging from a fancy scotch to a fancy vodka. Alex gave those to Willow right away.

She said, “Willow, I need to know how much that press pass and the convention badge and all that cost you, so I can pay you back.”

“Nuh-uh,” Willow grinned. “It’s a birthday present for you. Your mom said I can’t buy you a new car.”

Alex paled. “A new car? You can’t buy me a new car! That’s way too much money to spend on me!”

Willow just smiled excitedly. “Sooner or later I’m going to buy you something like a car. Terawatt needs a car that’s extra burglarproof and has a secret compartment in it for the uniform. And a secret tunnel from the driver’s seat out to under the car, for fast Terawatt escapes. And if you won’t let me buy you one, I’ll bug Jack until he gets the SRI to get one for you.”

Alex smiled a little then. “If the SRI gets me something, I guess that’s okay. Maybe a hybrid with a special battery I can charge from the driver’s seat?”

Willow gaped. “Can you charge batteries without, like, blowing them up?”

Alex admitted, “Well, I did wreck a bunch of rechargeable AA batteries before I figured out how to charge ’em. But now I never need new batteries for my cameras and stuff.”

Willow said, “Wow, when we get home, you have to come up and let me run some tests so I can figure out a Terawatt-to-home-current transformer so I can build a step-down transformer you can use to recharge all your electronics stuff.”

Was that even possible? Well, she had to figure that if Willow thought she could build one herself, then it was extremely possible.

But Willow had an entire schedule already mapped out. Wow. When Willow wasn’t going to panels or meetings or get-togethers, she had scheduled herself in for playing video games and looking through the distributor and retailer areas and ‘artists alley’ on the convention floor. Alex had to read through all the stuff, including the extra stuff for the press, like the ‘press lunches’ and special press access for some of the things like actors hyping new movies and TV shows and comics, or guest speakers.

Holy crud, she could abuse her press pass and go meet Hollywood superstars! Yeah, like she could do that and act professional and not squeal like a twelve-year-old. Not!

She looked over everything Willow marked, and everything she wanted to do … Ooh, she absolutely had to try out some of the new video games, and there was even a pressroom where most of them would be available! And she totally had to go to the Terawatt get-together and talk to some of these women. Oh, and there was a panel on Terawatt and superhero concepts. She HAD to go to that!

It took her almost an hour to work out what she was going to do when, even with Willow’s help. And Willow had gotten both of them Wednesday night preview passes, which Willow said maybe a few thousand people were going to, so it wasn’t like it was exclusive or anything.

There was a ton of ‘preview’ stuff happening starting at six, including some screenings of some fall TV shows she really wanted to get sneak peeks at, and a chance to run amok in the dealer areas. So she and Willow ate a quick dinner at a really nice Mexican restaurant just down the street that Willow had the hotel shuttle drive them to and pick them up after. Man, Willow was really milking those CEO perks.

Then ‘Preview Night’ was insane. When Alex wasn’t squeezing into a super-crowded, too-small room to watch a special preview of a TV show that wouldn’t be out for several months, she was running around on the floor seeing if there were cool things she could look at or cool games she could play or cool merch she could still snag. It wasn’t until about eight or so that she spotted a familiar name on a big banner. Someone had a ‘Terawatt’ booth. She stomped right over there. And there was a booth babe, but at least she wasn’t dressed like Terawatt. In fact, she was a brunette who wasn’t massively endowed and wasn’t wearing a superheroine suit.

In fact, it was Marsha. And Louis was in the booth, too. Driscoll Enterprises was selling Terawatt merchandise at Comic Con! Alex ran over and held up her video camera. “I’m the press, and I’d like to know why you didn’t tell us you were going to be here.”

Louis laughed and asked, “What are you doing here? I thought you were working for Gloria this summer waitressing.”

Since Marsha was right there, Alex explained, “Well, my friend Willow really wanted someone to go with her, and she swung me a press pass, because I am a photographer and everything.”

Marsha said, “At least you get to go see everything. I can’t leave unless it’s one of my breaks, and Louis doesn’t have anyone else here besides me and him, and he wants both of us here most of the time, just in case.”

Louis insisted, “It’s just way too easy to shoplift stuff like shirts if there’s only one person running the booth and you get at least two people asking questions or wanting to look at stuff.”

Marsha smiled. “Louis’s dad has him going all up and down the coast checking on Terawatt merch pirates, and doing a couple cons and things, too. So Louis talked him into hiring me as a booth babe for the cons. And Louis said I didn’t have to dress up like Terawatt. Isn’t he great? After all, it’s not like I’ve got the chest for it. She’s got like casaba melons, and I’m like a couple pears.”

Really, Marsha was about the same cup size as Alex. And she was dressed sexier than Alex had ever seen her, in a low-cut sexy dress with a ruched waist and a big slit up one thigh. And she looked pretty good in it.

Louis explained, “So I was patrolling a few state parks and stuff down here. I picked Marsha up at the airport late last night and got her to her room, and we did the set-up this morning.”

Alex told him, “They think there’s gonna be a lot of Terawatt cosplayers here, so I’ll tell people about your booth. And there’s a Terawatt get-together Saturday one of you should go to, with a bunch of merch to sell.”

Marsha said, “And Louis took me out to a fancy brunch this morning, and it was the best date we’ve had yet.”

Alex checked, “No hornets? No flat tires? Nothing?”

Louis said, “Well, a guy did spill his orange juice in my lap when we were ready to leave, so I had to walk out looking like I peed my pants.”

Marsha gave him a one-armed hug and said, “But he was really funny about it.”

Louis said, “I think maybe just being here in the booth tonight is our best date so far.”

Marsha said, “You have to wear one of our shirts.”

Louis said, “Yeah! As advertising! So we won’t charge you, we’ll just bill it under marketing.”

Alex was wearing a nice t-shirt already, but it was nothing special. So she pulled on a really cute Terawatt t-shirt in teal that had a Terawatt mask above the breasts, and below that it said ‘TERAWATT’. Then Willow came over, and Louis introduced her to Marsha, and Willow bought a t-shirt that had what looked like a big rip, a letter ‘A’ and a glowing lightbulb, so it spelled out ‘tear-A-watt’ like a rebus puzzle. She pulled it on over her sweater top. There were a bunch of other shirts, none of them naughty, although she thought the ‘What Would Terawatt Do?’ one would get a lot of Christians mad.

Since Willow bought stuff, Louis made her put a card in their fishbowl for the drawing they were having Sunday afternoon for everyone who bought something during the conference. Then Alex and Willow walked around, showing off their shirts to everyone.

By the time they got back to the hotel suite, it was time to make sure that their costumes and makeup and accessories were ready for the next morning. And call her folks and let them know everything was going great. Then she thanked Willow again, and went to bed.

 
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