Chapter 4

The first real morning of the convention, and already it seemed this was how life had always been.

The four awoke early, and not wanting to miss the first panels doubled up on the showers to save time and water. Rachel found herself soaping up Taylor, who insisted with a grin that every inch of herself be cleaned, including up her ass. Only when Rachel started to move soapy fingers into her nose did Taylor realize two could play at that game. They dressed quickly, although Fred and Rachel had a tough time picking out appropriate convention shirts (much to the amusement of the others). In the end he picked an Usagi Yojimbo shirt, and Rachel went with a black xkcd 'Maybe if this shirt is witty enough somebody will finally love me' ensemble. When they had a second, Taylor pulled Rachel aside.

"You know you're dressing for him the same way we are, right? There's more than one way to be sexy." Rachel nodded, smiling.

They hit the diner again, this time with no complaints from Taylor. She upgraded to French toast, eggs and bacon, Anita piled on the waffles and both Taylor and Fred munched down pancakes and home fries. Lunch would be a hit or miss affair, so they stocked up on calories early. They wandered into the convention center a bit before the first panels, so took a look around the message boards.

Worldcon is, at its heart, a geeky party. It's not about speakers, or promoting the latest movie or the like. It's a place where year after year people can come and meet again. In the world pre-internet world, this was where connections were made, friendships renewed, and authors and publishers got together to party and do deals. And the heart of all this was the message boards. Large free standing boards were set up in a hall with the names of everyone registered at the convention. Want to contact them? Put a pin next to their name, and leave a message in their spot in the box. Other boards had ads for all the parties. Oh, the parties. Parties to bribe you to vote for a city to hold a future Worldcon, parties to thank you for voting for them last year, parties for this small publisher or that fan group, parties for transgender vampire Xanth fans ... If you were looking for a geeky hookup or just a drinking crowd, you could find something different every night.

Taylor and Rachel were going over the party listings, laughing. Near them were some other early risers, of both genders, who were trying without success to pretend they weren't trying to hear if any of the parties caught the attractive female duos interest. Fred stood back, amused. Watching others try and pick up his women was always fun, as nobody ever figured he was involved in any way. He had taken Taylor to a Nightwish concert once at an old theater in Toronto. They had been on the balcony, with Taylor sitting on the floor with her legs dangling over the edge and Fred standing a a step or two away. This high school kid had come up between them, looked down at the waif of a girl, looked around to see if anyone was looking, then eased himself down next to her. Fred waited about five minutes then squatted down and talked to Taylor. The kid must have jumped five feet.

Rachel came up to Fred, and put her hand on his arm. The smile he gave made her, not so much blush anymore, but reflect his affection back at him. Step by step, she was transforming.

"Fred, what's your last name?"

He was startled for a moment, and then with a laugh realized that naturally that kind of thing hadn't come up yet. At least they were on a first name basis before sharing bodily fluids.

"Hunt. Why?"

"Well ... there's a pin next to a Taylor Hunt on the board."

She led a surprised Fred over, and sure enough someone had left a message for Taylor. Given they knew nobody here, this was rather interesting. Fred pulled the pin and went over to find the note. Digging it out, he turned to see Taylor and Anita coming over to see what was up. He held the piece of paper out to her.

"Someone left you a love note." Startled, Taylor grabbed it and scanned the lines. Her eyes widened, and trembling she dropped the note. Rachel knelt down to pick it up, while Taylor struggled to speak to her worried mates.

"It's ... it's a publisher! They like my paintings! They want to talk about commissioning pictures!" She started hopping up and down, and luckily she kept her long hair loose as if it had been in a braid someone could have gotten seriously hurt. Grinning, Fred took the note from Rachel and gave it a scan. He then cocked an eye at the still dancing Taylor.

"You know, this is Raymond Feist's publisher. Maybe you could show him your Carline series..."

Taylor froze, looked at him, then gave out a loud sound known the world over as "The Fangirl Squeal".

The question was going to be, what happens next.

Fred sat off to the side of the largest panel room, waiting for what should be an incredible discussion of upcoming space missions and updates on current ones. However, as he found himself without any of the trio next to him he felt free to think thoughts he otherwise would push out until later.

What were they going to do.

The future had been uncertain enough to start with. Anita was the only one with a good steady job, running a downtown hotel. He was unemployed, and his idea of trying his hand at writing seemed more foolish every day. Unless, maybe, if he could do something online that could work the way web comics do, but he doubted an analysis of the Battle of Yorktown would sell may t-shirts. Probably he should try for a local college position, even if it was a community college ... but, for now money was a problem. If Taylor, who had been staying home with the kids, could start bringing in even half what his old job had paid they could still be in good shape. Then again, they needed a new house so they could have more room and some privacy. Their family kept growing...

Which brought him to Rachel. Fred sighed. Rachel ... what were they going to do. What did SHE want to do. Well, she said she loved them and wanted to be with them forever. Which, she probably did ... but he wasn't stupid. He had screwed up and gone too fast. This poor girl was latching onto the first people to ever understand her, and not just Taylor and Anita but he himself was encouraging it. He expected that of the impulsive romantic Taylor, but he's suppose to be the adult here, damn it! You can't commit to a lifetime relationship within days of meeting someone!

Yet ... it had worked out twice.

Fred shook his head, noticing that the room was about full and it looked like they were about to begin. The future relationships between him and both Taylor and Anita had been all but settled after an intense short ... trial courtship might be one way to put it. Nobody had known that was, in fact, what it was at the time, but when they parted at the end it was with the knowledge of where things were going. There had been a month of dating with Taylor and 5 months of immigration fun with Anita to delay things and give them time to make sure they knew what they really wanted, but ... they could have just as easily come home with him that day. Would it be the same with Rachel?

Did she want to come with them?

That guy kept staring at Rachel.

She was sitting against the wall outside one of the rooms, waiting for the previous panel to end. She did NOT care about poetry in science fiction. What she DID care about was Greg Bear, and planned on being front row in the panel he was doing with some biologist. She had a battered copy of 'The Infinity Concerto' with her, and as she hadn't seen Bear listed for an autograph session later in the week hoped to get up the nerve to ask him to sign it. And maybe ask why his best work was out of print...

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the guy sitting against the far wall looking at her again. He looked away quickly as soon as he thought she had noticed, but soon was back at it. Rachel looked down at the pocket schedule and thought. What the hell was going on?

Wait ... was that guy ... INTERESTED in her?!?

The very idea blew her away. She glanced over again. He was cute, sort of. Tall, skinny, with a scruffy goatee. Probably college aged. A COLLEGE guy was into her! A few days ago she wouldn't have believed it!

And ... a few days ago she wouldn't have noticed. Thinking, Rachel considered that this was the main point. She hadn't changed much. Same look, maybe some new self confidence, but over all outwardly she was identical. Thus, it's possible lots (or at least some) guys had been trying to get her attention and she never picked up on it. After all, nobody wanted her, so why look to see if anybody wanted her? Once she had been isolated she helped raise the walls higher all by herself.

Which, now that the walls were down, raised the issue ... did she want to take a look around before settling with Fred, Taylor and Anita?

She could talk to this guy. To others. See what people were like. Explore. Date. The world was open to her. Why limit herself now that there were no limits...

Rachel caught the eye of the staring stranger, and smiling shook her head 'no'. Looking back down at the schedule, she thought of her new family. She wanted nothing else.

Anita had expected not to like this place. Oh, she had agreed easily enough to the vacation, when Fred had proposed it. He cheerfully did things she wanted, so the return was only right, plus when they were together it didn't really matter what they were doing. However, she didn't care for science fiction, or science, and very little fantasy slipped into her reading list. A good mystery or thriller was more her cup of hot chocolate. Originally she was delegated the task of taking care of the kids while Fred and Taylor played at the convention, and she had been looking forward to that. She didn't get as much alone time with them as Taylor did, although as a result by the fourth day her temper with the little ones might have gotten to the breaking point. Now here she was going to all these talks about subjects she would have said would be incredibly boring or stupid...

And she was having the time of her life.

So much of this applied to any type of fiction. The talk on how men write females, and vice-versa, for example had related directly to any number of books she had read and was incredibly interesting. And there was so much humor! Often by the end she was laughing hysterically, about something an hour earlier she had never heard of or considered. If they had the money, she was going to make them come to this every year.

This current panel was a perfect example. The subject was on how to create magic systems for a fantasy story, and three female authors she had never heard of were up behind the table talking. The first two went on for awhile giving their views, on how you can create the story then come up with the magical rules that let you do what you want to do, or you can create the limits of the magic and let those dictate how the plot played out, etc. While they were saying this the woman at the end, who had a bit too much jewelry for Anita's taste, seemed to be getting more and more upset. When they turned to her, she had paused, composed herself, and half glared at them.

"Well, since magic is obviously real I look at the various books on it and pick out the aspect of that system I want to base my story on."

Anita settled back in her chair. This was going to be GOOD.

Taylor skipped down the hallway.

They wanted her to paint for them. They would pay money for something she was doing for the love of it anyways. Oh, sure, they'd want her to paint things that showed, somewhat, what they wanted them to show, but she'd seen enough book covers that had nothing to do with the actual contents to not be too worried about that. Besides, she was more mature now and creating art that followed someone else's vision didn't seem as evil as it had in college.

Plus, they wanted the rights to use some of her existing paintings that were all her. That right there stroked her ego something fierce.

Taylor stopped at an intersection, and leaning against the wall removed the water bottle from her waist and took a swig. Fred had been so right to insist they all carry one, as it made this place so much easier to deal with. She shook it, noting that she was down to about two swallows worth. Time to think about refilling it...

"Taylor?!?!"

She swung around, startled.

The apparent speaker was a tall redheaded guy, maybe college aged. He was looking at her with unbelieving wonderment, as if she was a ghost. She cocked her head at him. Didn't look familiar. Just some guy in kakis and an Eagles shirt with red hair ... her eyes widened. Her step brother.

"Nathan?!"

The young man in question quickly walked up to Taylor, towering over the slim woman. He had to be a good six inches taller than Fred, and he smiled down at his long lost sibling.

"Taylor! It's ... it's you! My God, it's you!" She stepped back a half pace to give herself some more personal space, and got an uncertain expression on her face.

"Nathan ... what ... why are you here?"

He grinned and cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Well, I'm in Philly because we moved here a couple years after you left. Specifically, I'm here because I wanted to see what it was like." His grin got a touch of a harder edge, and he looked her body over, noting the thin strapped sundress and all the exposed skin. "What about you? Are you 'working' this convention?"

Her hand was slapping his face before the sentence was finished. The sound stopped all conversation in the hall, and her face was pure fury.