San Diego 2014 Part 3

"Miss? Are you all-"

Kelly whirled, slapping her hand over the stall owner's mouth before she could really consider the inanity of a move like that immediately after she'd been thinking about teeth. Luckily, the scared little man who was now staring at her didn't seem inclined to attack. Faint, maybe. "Shhh," she hissed. "Don't attract attention." She glanced over her shoulder, in case even that much noise might have reminded her former attackers that she existed.

Once again, luck was on her side. The convention hall presented a target-rich environment, and with so many people screaming and running madly from place to place, there was little chance of a whispered conversation standing out. As Kelly watched the chaos, a chilling new factor introduced itself: One of the Jedi who had previously been sprawled on the carpet, eyes open, unblinking, and staring into nothingness, was back on his feet. That wasn't a bad thing...except that he had the same slack expression as the people who'd attacked her. His eyes still seemed empty-until a screaming girl dressed as Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony ran too close. Then he reached out with surprising speed, grabbing the girl and dragging her into biting range.

"I gotta get out of here," whispered Kelly. She turned back to the stall owner. "I'll take you with me if you let me take whatever I think we'll need."

"It's a deal," said the stall owner, eyes flicking to the girl in the Pony costume. The Jedi was gnawing on her throat now, and she was twitching helplessly. "Just get me the h.e.l.l away from these freaks."

"All right," said Kelly. "Here's the plan..."

7:20 P.M.

"Are they gone?" whimpered Patty.

"Where are we?" asked Matthew. He looked around the shabby little room in confusion, trying to figure out how they'd gone from the madness of the convention center floor to this...this office. There were desks and everything. It made no sense.

Elle mirrored his glance. Then, much to his surprise and dismay, she started to giggle.

"Do you mind telling me what's so funny?" he asked.

Her giggles turned into full-blown laughter, which she did her best to smother against the heel of her hand. Finally, shaking her head, she managed, "We're in my precinct."

"She's right!" said Patty. Her fear was gone, replaced by sudden delight. It was remarkable how quickly that woman could bounce back. Then again, that was part of what had attracted him to her in the first place. "We're in the Time Police Paradox Control Unit headquarters! Oh my gosh, that's Indy's desk! I mean, your desk. I mean..."

"The network built a full-scale replica for fans to tour and have their pictures taken in," said Elle. "We're supposed to do some video interviews here with bloggers later in the weekend. I just ran for the nearest door."

"Well, let's see. On the plus side, we now have four walls between us and the crazy people," said Matthew.

"On the minus side, those walls are made of plywood," Elle shot back. "At least the shades are closed. As long as we keep those down and don't make too much noise, they may not realize that we're in here. If they do, we're sitting ducks. There's nowhere left for us to run."

"Come on, Elle," said Patty. She smiled hopefully at the actress, every line of her body broadcasting the message that they were friends now, good friends even, since they were going through adversity together. "Indy would find a way out of this."

Elle bit back her first response, which would have been far harsher than the other woman deserved. "I know," she said. "But Indy has scriptwriters and a director to help her out. We don't have that."

"We have each other," said Matthew. "We're going to be fine."

Outside their artificial shelter, someone screamed.

7:20 P.M.

In her family's room at the small hotel reserved for visiting military personnel and their families, Lorelei Tutt slept and dreamt of the perfect convention. Every fan was enthusiastic and wide-eyed with wonder, not rude and shoving other people out of their way. The exclusives were plentiful, and freebies and swag flowed like water. It was wonderful. It was the kind of convention that could never exist in the real world but that a fan could spend her whole life dreaming of. It was...

It was...

It was slipping away as consciousness came oozing around the edges of her mind. Lorelei scowled, trying to force herself to stay asleep. It was no use; she was on the downhill side of waking up now, and momentum was taking over.

"-respond. I repeat, Lorelei, if you can hear me, please respond."

"Daddy?" Lorelei opened her eyes, squinting groggily into the dim hotel room as she tried to reconcile the dream she'd been having with the note of panic in her father's voice. He wasn't in the room; she was alone.

Lorelei sagged back into the mattress. "Stupid dream," she mumbled, and closed her eyes, getting ready to go back to her perfect convention.

"Lorelei Jezebelle Tutt, if you are anywhere near your phone, you will pick it up right now."

Lorelei's eyes snapped open. This time, there was no mistaking her father's voice for part of the dream: It was too loud and too tense to be anything but reality. And it was coming from her jeans, which she'd left discarded on the floor when she crawled into bed.

"Daddy?" Lorelei lunged for her jeans, forgetting the blankets that were tangled around her legs. They pulled tight and she went sprawling, smacking her elbow in the process. She yelped, pausing for a few seconds to rub her injury before she grabbed her pants and fumbled her phone out of the front pocket. She had no missed calls, but several missed walkie-talkie connections. A feeling of inexplicable dread built in her chest as she raised the receiver to her mouth, pressed the walkie-talkie b.u.t.ton, and said, "This is Lorelei Tutt. Mom? Dad? Are you there?"

There was no pause before she got her answer. As soon as she released the "transmit" b.u.t.ton her father's voice was there, demanding, "Lorelei? Are you all right? Where are you? Are you hurt?"

"What?" Lorelei sat on the floor of her hotel room and blinked at the phone, utterly puzzled. "What are you talking about? I'm in our hotel room. I was taking a nap."

When she released the b.u.t.ton, she thought she heard her mother sobbing in the background. Her father took a shaky breath and said, "I don't want you to worry too much, sweetheart, but we have a bit of a situation over here at the convention center."

"What kind of situation?" Lorelei finally boosted herself up onto the bed, grabbing her jeans at the same time. "Do you need me to come over there?"

"No!" The answer came from both her parents at the same time and was delivered with such immediate vehemence that Lorelei nearly dropped her phone. There was a pause while her father took another shaky breath. Then he said, "This isn't the kind of situation that gets better by adding you. It would get worse, because then your mother and I would be worrying about you when we need to be worrying about the entire crew."

The dread was solidifying now, turning into something concrete and real. "Daddy, what are you talking about?"

"I need you to be brave for me now, Lorelei. Can you do that? You've always been one of the strongest people I know-you'll never understand how proud of you I am for being so strong-and right now I need that strength more than ever. So can you be brave for me?"

"Daddy, you're scaring me."

Her father laughed unsteadily. That just scared her worse. Her father might say that she was strong, but she'd learned it from him. He had always been the rock in her life, and right now he sounded like he was on the verge of crumbling.

"I'm scared, too, Lorelei," he said. "Remember those blog posts you tried to make me read? The ones about the people going rabid and attacking each other?"

"You mean the ones about the zombies?" whispered Lorelei.

"I'm not quite ready to use the Z word, but yes, those are the ones. Honey, something like that is going on here. Some people managed to lock the doors to the exhibit hall before too many sick folks could get inside, but we're sort of stuck now, and we don't know how much trouble we're in. I want you to do me a huge favor. It's going to mean keeping it together and staying calm for me. Can you do that?"

"Yes, Daddy." Lorelei was still whispering. She couldn't seem to make her voice get any louder.

"I need you to go down to the base office and tell them that we have a situation here at the convention center. I'm not in any position to contain it; I have to worry about our people. If they ask why I didn't call this in myself, tell them that some idiot tried to play hero and shut off our wireless. None of us have signal. If we hadn't paid for the walkie-talkie feature, I wouldn't be talking to you now."

Shawn sounded totally calm. Somehow, all that did was make Lorelei feel even worse. She licked suddenly dry lips before asking, "Is-is Mom okay?"

"Your mother's fine, or as close to fine as any of us can be right now. She's currently helping Leita and Robert get the edges of our booth secured. The people next to us hadn't shown up when the doors locked, so we're expanding into their s.p.a.ce for the time being, getting things settled while we're relatively calm."

Lorelei took a sharp breath. She knew what it sounded like when her father was getting ready to go on a dangerous mission; there was a certain tension in his voice that spoke of knowing that he might be just a man doing a job, but that job could still turn deadly. "Daddy..."

"We're going to be fine, Lorelei. I promise. Now just go tell base that we need a.s.sistance here, and then get back to your room. I want you to stay put until all this is taken care of. You understand me?"

"But I could-"

"Stay away from the convention center. That is an order, Lorelei. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Yes, sir," she said. She finally pulled on her jeans. "I'll get your message to base. Be careful. I don't want to pay for this hotel room out of my allowance." The comment was made jokingly, but there was an air of desperation behind it, as much a part of the conversation as Shawn's tension.

"We'll be fine," said Shawn. "Call me as soon as you've spoken with base. I need to go help Rebecca."

"Daddy-"

But it was too late. He was already gone.

7:27 P.M.

Shawn lowered his phone, looking at it with a stomach-churning mixture of panic and pride. Thank G.o.d she was already outside the hall when things went bad. Thank G.o.d she was going to be okay. Even if the rest of them wound up stuck inside for days-and at the moment, that was the worst scenario he was willing to entertain-Lorelei would be safe at the hotel, running up a big room service bill and getting mad about being left out. She'd be fine.

"Shawn..." He turned to see the tears streaming down Lynn's normally calm face. "Did I hear that right? She made it back to the hotel? She's okay?"

Lynn's worst fear-Shawn's too, although Lynn had been more vocal about it-had been Lorelei getting distracted on her way out and somehow winding up trapped in the lobby. She would have had no way to get back into the exhibit hall, and if those doors were locked, the doors to the street were probably locked as well.

But they didn't need to worry about that. Lorelei was safe. They could worry about everything else, like how to keep themselves safe, now that they knew they didn't have to worry about her. "She's in her room," Shawn said. He put a hand on Lynn's shoulder, trying to block out the distant sounds of screaming. "She's fine. She didn't even know we were having problems over here. She was taking a nap when I called."

"Oh, thank G.o.d," whispered Lynn.

"Lorelei is on her way to the base office now to notify them of the issue here. a.s.suming local law enforcement isn't already on the way, it may help if they know that we have some military personnel inside."

"Did you tell her to stay on the base?" Lynn's eyes widened. "Please tell me you told her to stay on the base. Please tell me she isn't going to try coming back here."

"I told her to stay put, but that doesn't mean she's going to do it."

Lynn sighed. "I know."

Shawn squeezed her shoulder before pulling his hand away. "It's going to be okay, Lynn. She's a smart girl. She won't come back here unless it's safe, and we'll all be back at the hotel getting on each other's nerves before you know it."

"Maybe faster than that," said Dwight from behind him. Shawn turned. The ex-Marine was holding a heavy Maglite-brand flashlight, the sort that could be used just as easily as a club when the situation demanded it. He smirked a bit at the look on Shawn's face. "It's not the size that counts; it's how hard you're willing to swing it."

"What are you talking about?" asked Lynn.

"Rebecca and I are going to go check the parking garage. All the locks here are manual, and whatever s.h.i.+t's going down started at the front of the hall. We may be able to get out the back if we're real careful about it."

Shawn straightened. "That's a great idea. I'll get Robert and-"

"No, boss. This is a scouting mission. We don't know whether the garage has been compromised, or what might be going on back there. It's best if we don't risk the entire crew on something that might not pan out." Dwight's smirk faded into something much grimmer. "You know s.h.i.+t in here is going to get worse before it gets better."

Someone in the distance screamed, punctuating his words. The screams seemed to be getting less frequent. None of them knew whether this was a good thing. None of them wanted to be the one who guessed wrong.

"All right," said Shawn finally. They all knew that his consent was just a formality-his leaders.h.i.+p was always conditional on the other members of the group wanting to do what he told them to do, and getting a bunch of fans to do anything was a lot like herding cats-but formalities can help a lot, when you let them. "Take Rebecca and anything you think you might need. Report back here."

"All right. And, boss?"

"Yeah?"

"If we don't come back in half an hour, don't send anyone looking for us. Either we've made it out and we're coming back with help, or we didn't make it and we're not coming back at all. There's no sense in you throwing good people into a meat grinder for our sakes."

For a long moment, Shawn didn't say anything. Then he nodded and saluted the other man. "Good luck, soldier."

"Oorah," replied Dwight solemnly as he returned the salute. Somehow, the strangeness of the moment did nothing to rob the traditional battle cry of the United States Marines of its efficacy. Then he turned and walked away, off to find Rebecca.

Lynn Tutt stepped up next to her husband, watching Dwight go. "Is it silly of me to be afraid that we're never going to see him again?" she asked.

"No," said Shawn. "You're not the only one."

"Oh, good. I'd hate to be silly right now."

Shawn took her hand, and the two of them stood there for a moment, and neither of them felt silly in the least.

7:30 P.M.

"The worst of it is, Unis, I don't even know how we got up here." Lesley Smith, British journalist and sudden shut-in, gave the chair she was perched on a little kick. It spun in another lazy circle, carrying her with it. Her view of the room remained the same: almost total blackness, broken here and there by smears of light. "It's a b.l.o.o.d.y joke." Her chair drifted to a stop. She didn't kick it again.

Unis lifted her head off her paws, ears c.o.c.ked inquisitively upward. The Woman was speaking. The Woman was using her name. Perhaps that meant that something was about to be requested of her-but no, the Woman had returned to scowling at the big flat place. As long as the Woman wasn't scowling at Unis, all was right with the world. Unis yawned and put her head back down.

The big flat place that Lesley was scowling at was a control panel of some kind. She'd been able to work that much out by feel, running her fingers over the dials and b.u.t.tons with labels she couldn't read. As for what it controlled...no one had thought to label anything in braille. Why would they? It wasn't like there was any chance a woman with severely impaired vision would ever be locked in their little control room, unable to figure out how to turn the d.a.m.n lights on. That would just be silly.

The room they were in had two large gla.s.s windows looking out over the convention center's main exhibit hall. Thousands of people were locked in down there, and Lesley was locked in up here, along with her guide dog, half a bottle of water, and a granola bar. And no bathroom. And no lights.

"I'm so glad I came to Comic-Con," Lesley muttered bitterly, giving the control panel another spiteful glare. She could still hear the madmen who'd chased her up the stairs milling about in the convention center outside. The door between them was thick enough that she wasn't worried about anyone breaking in-well, she wasn't worried much, and that was the best she could say at the moment.

Unis thumped her tail once against the floor, acknowledging that she'd heard the Woman speaking, but didn't otherwise move. Unis was resting. Unis had already had a long day.

If Unis had been able to speak, she could have told the Woman how they reached the small, safe room with no other people in it, the one with the door that could be shut, and locked, to make safety where there had been only danger. She could have told the woman that when she'd been given the command to get away from the bad people who smelled like blood and sick-and "Unis, away!" was such a rare command, a danger command, that she obeyed it even more fervently than she obeyed all the others-when she'd been given that command, she had followed it to the letter. She had led the Woman to this safe place, this good place, because she, Unis, was a good dog.

Unis let her tail smack the floor again. Lesley glanced over toward the flat-coated retriever and smiled despite her anxiety.

"Silly dog," she said. Then she went back to glaring at the control board.

8:03 P.M.

It had taken longer for Dwight and Rebecca to reach the back of the hall than they had expected. Preview Night had barely begun when the doors closed, but thousands of people had still managed to cram themselves inside, and many of them had fled for the walls when the chaos began. Several of the display booths looked more like armed encampments now. The jokingly named "webcomic district"-three half aisles of semi-affiliated booths manned by the teams from popular online comic strips-was already completely shut off to outside traffic. A surprising number of webcomic artists turned out to be pretty good with tools; they had constructed barriers over the mouths of the aisles in record time and were in the process of shoring them up with chairs and sheets of plywood scavenged from the booths at the center of their territory. It would have been impossible for anyone to get in without a crowbar. Anyone who wanted to use a crowbar would find themselves facing some stringent resistance from the a.s.sembled artists and their respective staffs, all of whom watched pa.s.sersby with wary, narrowed eyes.

"It's starting to look like a Mad Max film in here," said Rebecca, as they finally reached the wall. Between the detour around the sealed-off webcomics district and the detour around the seating area in front of the snack bar-which had turned into an impromptu babysitting creche and gathering place for the wounded-they had already been gone longer than either one of them wanted to be.

Dwight nodded grimly. "It's just going to get worse from here, you know. If we don't find a way out....how many of these people do you think remembered to bring food or water? How many people with medical conditions didn't bring an extra dose of their medication?" He hooked a thumb toward the snack bar, still being manned by anxious-looking employees. "If those people had a brain in their heads, they'd lock up and run. There's going to be a riot when folks start getting hungry, and this place is going to be the epicenter."