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"This is not good! This is not good!" muttered Artie as he burst into the office. Pete, Myka, and Claudia were sitting on the floor around a Trivial Pursuit board, which Claudia tried unsuccessfully to hide under the desk before Artie could see it.
"Aahh!" He jumped back. "Didn't I tell you not to play with things?"
"Dude, it's cool!" said Pete.
"Yeah," added Claudia, "Would you rather we got out Marie Fox's ouija board? Kasparov's chess set?"
"Not funny," said Artie.
"Artie, what's not good?" asked Myka.
"Huh?"
"You were muttering."
"Oh! Yes! This is terrible!" replied Artie as he rummaged in his bag. "UltraMegaCon is coming to Chicago this weekend!"
He was faced with three blank looks.
"Wow, it's confirmed," said Claudia. "You actually hate fun."
"No!" sputtered Artie. "I mean, it gets worse. They're having a charity auction on Sunday!"
"So... you hate charity, too?" said Pete.
"No, no, I get it," said Myka. "An auction, which means lots of stuff, tied to famous people, all in one place--"
"And it's at a sci-fi con, so it's all extra-awesome stuff--" added Pete, beginning to catch on.
"Well, I'd say weird," said Myka, "but either way--"
"Artifacts," said Claudia. "Lots of 'em."
"Thank you!" said Artie with extravagant sarcasm.
"Now that we're all on the same page, we can stop accusing each other of hating fun--" (he shot Claudia a look) "--and get to work containing the inevitably disastrous convergence of artifacts that is bound to happen in Chicago this weekend!" He began handing out garish yellow badges with a scowl. "We're all going to UltraMegaCon. We leave tomorrow. Batman costume optional."
Pete and Claudia shrieked and exchanged a giddy high five. "Aw, man!" exclaimed Pete. "I haven't been to this in years!"
"Sweet!" said Claudia. "The entire cast of The Guild is going to be there! And, uh, representatives from a certain video game company I might have hacked a while ago and we have diplomatic immunity, right, Artie?"
"Wow," said Myka, examining her badge. "Press passes. Apparently, I am a blogger for something called GeekWire... ok, a bit of a stretch..."
"Well, Mykes, looks like you might need my expertise for this one!" gloated Pete.
"Just avoid the Trekkies and you'll be fine," said Artie. "But as for the rest of you, we are here to work. Snag, bag, and tag! If I catch you with an autographed first-edition copy of The Left Hand of Darkness, it better be an artifact!"
--
Artie called them together after they passed the registration tables and entered the main hall of the convention center. Myka was busy committing the map to memory and Pete was distracted by a group of Xenas walking by ("Barking up the wrong tree, buddy," was Claudia's commentary), but Artie eventually got them all to focus.
"Whoa, look at this!" said Claudia as she and Pete looked over the list of artifacts and potential artifacts that Artie had hastily scrawled on their way from the airport. "Alice Sheldon's typewriter--"
"Otherwise known as James Tiptree, Jr," said Artie. "She published science fiction under the pseudonym and the typewriter may cause some kind of... identity split." He shuddered.
"As always, thanks for the exposition," said Claudia. She turned back to Pete. "Dude, look! Grup #3 is an artifact! Come on, Artie, lemme keep that one! Whatever it does, it's gotta be good."
"I have no idea what it does," admitted Artie. "I, uh, don't know what it is."
"Danger, Will Robinson!" whooped Pete. "Artie admits he doesn't know something!"
"Come on!" said Claudia. "It's one thing to be the biggest nerd in the institution, but now I'm the biggest nerd in the Warehouse?" She smiled. "It was a fanzine in the 70's, and this is the issue that published the first Kirk/Spock slash."
"Slash?" Myka looked alarmed.
"You know, like fanfiction?" explained Claudia. "About a same-sex pairing--"
"Yeah," interrupted Pete, "like that one about how the Iron Shadow hides a passionate love for his arch-nemesis, the Ice Baron, or that one where an intrepid young reporter tries to uncover the Iron Shadow's secret identity by luring him into a supply closet, where--" he glanced at the three astonished faces around him. "What? I'm an open-minded guy!"
Artie looked very confused. "So, this is a thing? That people do with their time?"
"Oh, I get it!" said Myka, nodding. "Like-- oh, like in Pride and Prejudice! I always thought that Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Lucas had something else going on." She smiled mischevously.
"Mykes!" laughed Pete. "Join us in the twenty-first century sometime! Nobody slashes Jane Austen!"
"Sure they do!" said Claudia. "I mean, it's not the biggest slash fandom out there, but it exists... and I'm still the biggest nerd in the Warehouse, aren't I?"
"Ok, it's settled!" answered Artie. "Claudia, you track this one, as you obviously have the, uh, expertise. Pete, you're going after the typewriter, I will seek out Neil Gaiman's leather jacket, and Myka, you will go after Suzette Hayden Elgin's dictionary. Questions? No? Good! Let's go!"
--
Ok, thought Claudia as she pushed through a gaggle of Sailor Moon cosplayers and passed at least four separate booths selling the exact same chainmail jewelry, how do you find a slash artifact at a sci-fi con? And what would a slash artifact even do? Would it just turn everyone gay? That sounded pretty awesome, and she had to admit she would be kinda into using that one on Todd and Doug sometime... Anyway, unprofessional ambitions aside, she was a little uncertain about the politics of the Warehouse locking it up as if turning gay were a bad thing. But maybe it made you go into pon farr instead? That would be a problem. There were already enough creepy geekboys who thought they'd die if they didn't "mate." It would definitely be bad news if that were literally true...
Her train of thought was interrupted as she overheard--was that Nathan Fillion? It was! And he was agreeing with some fangirl who was insisting something about how "the aliens want to see us do it."
Yeah, Claudia thought, that better be an artifact talking, because as a pickup line, that was inexcusable. She followed the pair towards the elevators.
"Excuse me!" she said as she cut in front of them, mentally cursing the Warehouse for yet another humiliation she was about to endure for its sake. "I'm so sorry, but could you help me find something?" They both looked a little distracted, but nodded. "I was looking for the Crystal Ballroom--I think the Feminism in Fandom panel is in there. Do you know where it is?"
"I think maybe the second floor," answered the woman, "but we really have to go."
"Yeah," echoed Nathan Fillion as he kept pressing the elevator button. "We have to get upstairs. Uh, to save the Earth from peril. You know."
Claudia nodded, eyes wide. When the elevator arrived, she followed the woman in, then spun around and kicked Nathan Fillion to the floor. As the elevator doors closed and he looked up at them in wounded bewilderment, Claudia silently thanked Myka for all her lessons in Secret Service ass-kicking but also silently apologized to the entire Firefly fandom. The woman turned to Claudia as the elevator began to move.
"What are you doing?" she yelled. "The aliens--" she looked dazed for a moment. "Wait, how did I get here? I was waiting in line for an autograph, and then... oh no..." She had obviously just remembered what she had said while under the influence of the artifact.
"Hey, it's cool," said Claudia. "I... heard there's actually a flu going around the con, so people are getting fevers and stuff, and saying all kinds of crazy things, so you're not alone there! Oh, I'm Claudia, by the way."
"I'm Maria. Nice to meet you." She smiled as she met Claudia's eyes. Suddenly, the elevator jerked to a stop. The lights dimmed, and the doors wouldn't open.
--
Pete had planned to go straight to the silent auction room, which was somewhere on the third floor, but he got lost along the way (Myka would totally make fun of him for that later) and then he got hungry, so instead he started his search for Alice Sheldon's typewriter while waiting in line for "hasperat" (which kind of just looked like a burrito) and "jumja sticks" (which looked suspiciously like ordinary rock candy) at an establishment calling itself Quark's (it was definitely not Quark's). The two people in front of him in line, he noticed, were dressed in matching brown coats, hats, and cartoonishly long scarves... didn't Artie say something about an identity split?
"Hey, nice scarves!" he said. They turned around--the two women were wearing the same costume, but they didn't look like clones or split personalities or anything.
"Thanks!" said the one on the left.
"We dress as the same Doctor each year," said the one on the right.
"Sort of a couples costume.This year it's Four," explained the first woman.
"Oh, yeah! I see it!" said Pete. Ok, probably no artifact here. But it was totally real work to ask a few questions anyway, he reasoned. Maybe they'd seen something! And so as he spent the rest of his time in the (annoyingly long) line comparing notes with Kate and Ranjana (those were their names) about who sold the best-quality reproduction lightsaber and debating which Star Trek captain would win in a fight (Kate's money was on Sisko, while Ranjana and Pete agreed that nobody could mess with Janeway), Pete got some intel on the artifact (well, he got directions to the silent auction room, which was a start), so going to Quark's seemed like a great use of time and Artie's discretionary fund. He wolfed down his food and went to find the stairs to the third floor.
This mission was awesome.
When he got to the silent auction room, he came this close to bidding on an original orc helmet prop (If it was an artifact, Pete reasoned, it was probably pretty dangerous, and it should probably be kept in the Pete-cave, just to be safe), but he finally decided that if Artie demanded itemized receipts when Pete bought a five-dollar lunch with the discretionary fund, he probably wouldn't survive Artie's reaction to a five-thousand-dollar helmet. He sighed and moved on.
Finally, in a locked case in the corner, Pete saw what he was looking for: Alice Sheldon's typewriter.
"Excuse me," he said to the person who appeared to be in charge. "I'm interested in the typewriter. Any way I could, uh, get a closer look?"
"What?" The harried man whipped around. He was kind of like their Artie, Pete thought affectionately. "Oh! No! Absolutely not. Sorry, it's just very fragile. Hence the locked case." He turned, abruptly, back to organizing a set of Avengers figurines. Definitely their Artie. But this was good. The locked case meant that the typewriter couldn't whammy anyone until the auction was over. Pete headed back towards the stairs--but stopped in his tracks when he saw a huge crowd gathering around a table.
"Uh, excuse me," he asked a woman at the edge of the crowd. "What's so popular?"
She looked back at him with wild-eyed excitement. "The first Kirk/Spock story ever! I mean, it's in a glass case, but the pages are open, so everyone's reading it. You know, it's surprisingly hard to find a full transcript- I hope whoever wins it puts it all online..." she trailed off with a dreamy look in her eyes.
Pete backed away. He wasn't sure if this was the artifact talking or just run-of-the-mill fandom. Not that he judged. After all, who in the room won the local Iron Shadow costume contest when the movies came out a few years back? The trophy occupied a special place of pride in the Pete-cave. Now Pete was starting to get a dreamy look in his eyes, remembering the look on Brett Newman's face when he saw that Pete had beat him in the costume contest. Dude had made his life hell in basic training. Revenge was sweet.
He snapped out of it and got out his Farnsworth to call Claudia.
"Sorry, I'm a bit busy," she answered. "Uh, stuck in an elevator," she added sheepishly. "I mean, we're ok. I'm working on it."
He got the message- she wasn't alone, so no Warehouse talk. "Just wanted to let you know that the zine you're thinking of buying? Well, it's pretty popular here at the auction, so you should probably bid soon."
"Cool, thanks for the intel," she answered.
"Sure you're ok in there?" he asked.
"Yeah, I got my computer, so I'm just gonna hack into the power grid. I got this one!"
"Ok," said Pete. "I'll go make myself useful. And maybe check out the Firefly panel. And look at the lightsabers. But mostly I'll be useful."
"I won't tell. Kirk out," said Claudia as her image disappeared.
--
This was not one of Myka's high points as a Warehouse agent. She'd always thought of herself as, well, a nerd, but by that she meant that she had grown up memorizing Elizabeth Barrett Browning for fun. This place was supposed to be for nerds, but all she could figure out was that everything around her was some kind of clever reference to something, but nothing she could actually recognize. She couldn't believe that a sci-fi con could make her feel so... uncool. She misidentified a bat'leth (offending the dour guy who was selling it), got laughed at by some teenagers when she thought a Wookie was an Ewok, and, as a final indignity, someone spilled a pan-galactic gargle blaster (Myka didn't know what it was, but she knew it was sweet, sticky, and bright purple) all over her shirt.
When she'd become a Secret Service agent and had learned how to kick the asses of everyone who'd ever made fun of her in high school (not that she'd ever use her training for something so petty, she told herself, but it was a nice fantasy), she'd thought all this was behind her, but there she was, a mess in the middle of an incomprehensible crowd whose idea of fun made no sense to her at all, willing herself not to cry in front of everyone.
"Excuse me," said a voice, snapping her out of her self-pity. "I saw the incident with the gargle blaster. Those things are dangerous." A tall, lanky man was handing her a cardigan.
She took it, still trying to hold onto what was left of her dignity. "Really? Oh, no, I couldn't--"
"No, it's cool," he responded. "Take it. I have too many sweaters anyway."
Myka smiled. "Wow, thank you. Really, I appreciate it." Finally, someone was being nice.
"Just look out for the Klingons," he said before he disappeared into the crowd. "Bloodwine really stains."
"I will, thanks," answered Myka as he walked away. She ducked into the nearest bathroom, took off her soaked shirt, and put on the sweater. Once she was satisfied she was mostly decent, she put her jacket back on over it, and wandered out again.
The next thing she knew, she was out in the main exhibition hall. She didn't entirely know how she'd gotten there--the last few minutes were a little fuzzy. In fact, she thought to herself, if the Warehouse were real, she'd suspect an artifact were behind this. But she was clearly just tired-- these big cons were always like that. Too little sleep and too many fluorescent lights. She couldn't even remember when their panel was supposed to be.
She wandered past a few tables selling elf ears (or Vulcan ears, or maybe they were actually the same thing) until she finally spotted a familiar face in the crowd. "Eddie!" she called out. He didn't hear her. She ran after him. "Hey, Eddie! Over here!" He didn't even seem to notice her until she jumped right in front of him.
"What? Oh, hey, Myka! Got any leads on the dictionary?" said Pete.
"Very funny, Eddie," said Myka. She looked down at his purple gloves. "So we're doing this in character now? You're an even bigger nerd than Pete! Cosplaying for your own part..."
"Um... you know what cosplaying is?" He gave her a confused look. She looked back, equally confused. Suddenly, she noticed his badge.
"Oh! Oh my god, I am so sorry!" she said, squinting at the name printed on the badge. "John, is it? From io9? Wow, you look just like Eddie, and the costume is perfect! You're a fan of the show, I take it?"
Pete had been around artifacts long enough to know that when someone you know stops making sense--like, really stops making sense--an artifact was probably involved. He played along."Yeah! Big fan! So, uh, do you have time to chat for a few minutes?" He got out a notebook and tried to look vaguely journalistic.
"Sure, a few minutes," she said. "So, uh, about the show- where do you think the story is headed next?" he asked.
"Well," said Myka, "Obviously, I can't tell you how the season's going to end, but I think one of the most interesting things that's happening right now is the relationship between Myka and H. G."
"Really?" asked Pete, his curiosity piqued, he had to admit, by some less-than-professional interest. "Uh, tell me more about that."
"Well, Jaime and I," she went on, "we just had our characters really like each other. Maybe even fall in love a little bit. I mean, why does everyone always think, when are Pete and Myka gonna get together? What an interesting twist, to have Myka fall for a woman."
This was a really interesting twist, thought Pete as he heroically fought to look like a star-struck fanboy instead of a Warehouse agent whose partner had apparently gotten whammied with an artifact that makes you think you're on TV and turns you gay for H. G. Wells. Ok, he thought. Focus! Where was the artifact?
"Wow, that's really interesting!" he replied. "So, how's the con been for you so far? Met anyone interesting? Found any, uh, cool stuff?"
"Oh, well, these things are always so busy," she said, looking a little dazed. "But I've met a lot of great people so far, and I'm really looking forward to the Warehouse 13 panel. See you there? Sorry, I really have to go find something to eat, but it was really nice to meet you!"
"Sure, sure!" said Pete. "Thanks so much for talking to me. Could I ask a favor? My sister, she's a huge fan, and I was wondering--could I get your autograph for her?"
"Oh!" said Myka. "Of course." He handed over his notebook, and she scribbled something in it, handed it back with a smile, and walked away.
The page read: Joanne Kelly. Who the hell was that? He pulled out his Farnsworth and called Artie.
"What?" answered Artie. "Did you find the typewriter?"
"Uh, we got a bigger problem," answered Pete. "It's Myka. I think an artifact found her."
--
"What was that?" asked Maria as Claudia put away her Farnsworth.
"Oh, that?" answered Claudia. "It's part of this steampunk LARP I'm playing." This was the easiest undercover assignment ever. In front of this crowd, she could wave around a Tesla and bag a few artifacts while talking loudly about top-secret government facilities in South Dakota, and nobody would bat an eye. All she'd have to do was say she was cosplaying some obscure anime nobody had heard of yet--she'd stay totally undercover and everyone would think she was the coolest girl in the room. This mission rocked.
Well, except for being stuck on an elevator, but she had her laptop and hacking into a simple, non-top-secret power grid wasn't exactly a tough assignment. Anyway, Maria seemed pretty cool now that the artifact had worn off.
"You too?" Maria said, gesturing at the laptop. "I mean, can't go anywhere without the computer? I'm the same way."
"It's like I'm naked without it," agreed Claudia. Then, too late, she considered her choice of words and blushed.
Luckily, it seemed to be too dim for Maria to notice. "I've written fic in some pretty strange places," she said. "Like, this one time, I was a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding and I fled the bouquet toss to duck into the hall and finish some Buffy/Faith porn."
"Ha!" answered Claudia. "Nice one. Weddings suck!" She thought a moment. "Hey, I think I read a story once about Buffy sneaking out of Xander and Anya's wedding to have sex with Faith in a cemetery--"
"Yes!" shrieked Maria. "That's the one! Dude, this is so cool!"
"Really?" said Claudia. "No way! That is too weird. But yeah, that story's extra-awesome now that I know where it was written. Nice job making your sister's wedding a little more filthy." She held up her hand for a high-five, and Maria met it. Claudia's palm still tingled with the impact as she returned her hand to the keyboard.
"So what about you?" asked Maria. "I write porn at weddings, and you... hack into things? From anywhere interesting?"
"Oh man, where do I even start?" replied Claudia. This was actually a tough one to answer without breaking cover. "I mean, it's not actually as interesting as it sounds. I'm the tech girl at work, so it's kind of just what I do all day." Maria looked disappointed, like she'd been blown off, and Claudia suddenly realized that she really, really wanted her not to think that. So she kept talking. "I have, however, um, written porn at work," she added. Maria laughed. This better not get back to Artie, thought Claudia.
"Seriously? And you've never gotten caught?"
"I'm the tech girl, remember?" she answered. "And I'm good."
"Ok, so now I gotta ask you," said Maria, leaning in closer, as if there were other people there and they were trying to keep the conversation to themselves. "Written anything I might have read?"
"Mostly Star Trek," said Claudia. "Some Garak/Bashir, some Kira/Dax... uh, a whole lot of B'Elanna/Seven because they get to talk about computer programming and, well--" she pointed to herself with a laugh that sounded oddly nervous "--tech girl." As Maria leaned in closer to listen, it felt like permission for Claudia to lean in closer still. She was very aware of how close her shoulder had gotten to Maria's but this kind of thinking always made her nervous, so she just kept talking. "I mean, I don't know if you've read them--they're not that good."
"Tell me about one, and we'll see," Maria answered.
"Well," said Claudia, "There's one where B'Elanna and Seven decide, well, wouldn't it be interesting to reprogram some of Seven's Borg implants, so they get together and look at the schematics for how Seven's hand works, and they work together to write a program that might temporarily rewrite Seven's neural pathways--" (she was suddenly having some very vivid recollections of the scenes she'd imagined) "--well, this is geeky even for a con, but honestly, the sexiest part to write was the computer programming."
Maria grinned. "That is geeky. I don't think I know that story, but you have to tell me what it's called because I have got to read it."
"It's called 'Pathways,'" said Claudia, "and it's under the name 'ShadowsOfRheticus.' I, uh, came up with that name when I was way more into the angst than I am now, which is saying something."
"Claudia?" said Maria. Her voice sounded a little different, too, like her brain was also calculating, in millimeters, how much closer their arms had gotten over the past three minutes and plotting this on an imaginary graph and then figuring out the rate of change of distance between them by calculating the derivative of the plotted equation-- "I don't know if it's just sleep deprivation or if I've gotten really brave lately or what, but I feel like I've gotten this superpower today, where I just don't care if I'm making an ass out of myself, and it's kind of awesome, so I'm just going to say this." After a rush of words that just kept accelerating as they spilled out, she took a breath and began again. "I want you to tell me about that story of yours, in all the detail you can remember, and while you do that, I want you to show me, on my hand--" she held it up-- "exactly where these pathways are that B'Elanna is reprogramming, and exactly what they do. What do you say?"
Claudia slid across the floor to face Maria and took her hand. Suddenly, she was thinking in much more detail than she had before about exactly how many different textures were on just a hand, how the taut parallel lines of tendons on the inside of Maria's wrist felt against her fingertips, and how different that was from the pillowy muscle at the base of her thumb. "I could do that," said Claudia. "I mean, that sounds really awesome," she went on. Her words kept coming out all awkward, but Maria didn't seem to care, and so Claudia kept talking as she traced her fingertips across the palm of Maria's hand. "Well," she said, "First Seven has to teach B'Elanna how to interface between Starfleet and Borg technology, which is complicated because their programming languages are so different, but B'Elanna's brilliant, so she figures out a way to temporarily reconfigure the neural map encoded in Seven's implants, so that something like this--" she dragged her fingertip along the inside of Maria's wrist-- "would register secondary sensory input elsewhere, and so Seven would also feel something like this--" and here she raised her other hand to trace a smooth, rising line along the curve of Maria's neck.
"That's quite a feat of engineering," said Maria, leaning into Claudia's touch. "I'm getting some ideas about what these modifications might be good for."
"And I haven't even told you about--" Claudia was interrupted when the elevator jolted into motion. The lights came back on. They were going up.
"Oh!" said Claudia. "Uh, look at that."
"And I was hoping we'd be trapped together for longer," said Maria with a flirtatious smile. Claudia smiled back, but was distracted when the doors opened on the seventh floor. She grabbed her laptop, put it back in her bag, then settled awkwardly against the back wall of the elevator while three newcomers loudly discussed the geopolitics of Westeros. Claudia got to thinking. There was something about what Maria had said that was bugging her. Trapped together... that was it! That was almost as much of a fanfic cliche as Aliens Made Us Do It, and seeing both in the same girl in one day? That was no coincidence. It was the artifact.
Suddenly, the elevator felt way too small. She pushed the button for the lobby. "Hey," she said to Maria, who was looking equally awkward in the opposite corner. "Uh, look, I don't want to like, make things weird for you or whatever, or, uh--" Dammit! How did you tell someone that an artifact made them think they liked you and you're sorry if that makes it really weird when the thing wears off? This is why she didn't date, she thought bitterly. "I mean, hey, it was awesome to meet you and I really hope you have a good time and sorry if that's weird and bye?"
The door opened and Claudia pushed her way out of the elevator, leaving Maria looking bewildered behind the Game of Thrones dudes as the elevator doors closed again. Claudia hid behind one of the chain mail vendors and tried to avoid imploding from sheer humiliation. She felt so stupid for believing it was real. She vowed hastily to never again try messing with real people and feelings and all of that confusing stuff. Computers made way more sense.
Anyway, she had to neutralize the Kirk/Spock zine before everyone started bodyswapping and turning into high school students and being seduced by their counterparts from the mirror universe. She was pretty sure that even at UltraMegaCon, that would get pretty weird.
She took out her Farnsworth and called Artie.
"What?" he answered. He was distracted, and it looked like he was walking somewhere.
"Uh, Artie? This zine is definitely having an effect." She really hoped he wouldn't ask for any more details.
"Of course it has an effect!" he muttered. "It's an artifact!"
"Artie, where are you?" asked Claudia.
"What? I don't-- wait. Uh..." he looked lost. "I just need to walk a few more aisles over, and then maybe around the hall a few times..."
"Artie, you're not making sense!" Claudia sputtered. This was a bad time for him to finally go senile or have a nervous breakdown or whatever it was. "Look, just meet me by the autograph tables, ok?"
"No telling where I might be swept off to," he answered.
"Dammit, Artie! The autograph tables, that's where!" She tried to ask him something about the artifact instead, but that, too, got her nowhere. He couldn't seem to stay put, and his eyes kept drifting away from the Farnsworth, like he was looking for something across a great distance. He didn't even seem to notice when she told him she was about to hang up.
--
When she got to the autograph tables, Artie (of course) wasn't there, and like a good Warehouse agent, she waited for him instead of getting in line for an autograph (although, she had to admit, as much as she really wanted an autograph from Brent Spiner, he was kind of giving her the creeps all the sudden.)
Finally, she gave up and called Pete. "Claud, what's up?" he answered. "You get out of the elevator ok?"
She nodded. "You're right," she said. "The zine's definitely up to no good."
"Well, something also got to Myka," Pete answered.
"Seriously?" replied Claudia. "Man, I used to think cons were full of drama before, but this is just a whole new level. I'm also worried about Artie."
"Ok, I'll go find him, you--"
"Hey, there's Myka now!" interrupted Claudia as she spotted a bewildered-looking Myka through the crowd.
"Try to get her to come back to the entrance!" said Pete. "She's not picking up the Farnsworth. Also, FYI, she thinks she's someone named Joanne, she won't know your name, and she's convinced that the Warehouse is a TV show."
"Really?" said Claudia. "That's kind of cool!"
"It's wigging me out," answered Pete.
Claudia shrugged. This hardly seemed like the most dangerous artifact ever, but then, Pete didn't mention what kind of TV show she thought they were all in.
"I'm on it." She hung up and followed Myka, who didn't seem to notice her at all until she was right behind her. Myka spun around suddenly.
"Oh my god, Allison!" she said to Claudia. "I'm so glad I found you! Do you know when our panel is? I can't find it in the program!"
"Uh, you know what, I do!" she replied, playing along. "It's not until later, actually, so we have a bit of time!"
"Good! I'm tired," said Myka.
"Hey, uh, where did you get that sweater?" asked Claudia, silently cursing Pete for his utter obliviousness to fashion. Myka had definitely not been wearing the cardigan when they came in.
"Oh, this?" She looked confused for a moment. "Ok, this is embarrassing. Somebody spilled their entire drink on my shirt, but luckily, some guy lent me his sweater."
"Can you take it off for a minute?" asked Claudia.
"Uh, I'm not actually wearing anything underneath it," Myka answered.
"Dude, I have a solution to all of our problems. Don't move! I'll be right back!" Claudia glanced around her for any booth that might be selling T-shirts and darted towards the first one she saw, paid for it with money from Artie's discretionary fund (she hoped he wasn't keeping good track of that today), and ran back to where Myka was leaning against the wall, reading the program.
"Jo!" she said. "I found you a shirt! Let's go!" She took Myka's hand and led her towards the women's room.
"Aw, that's really sweet of you, but I honestly think the sweater's fine--"
"Well, what if the guy wants his sweater back?" said Claudia as she led Myka into the bathroom. "I mean, just to be safe."
"Yeah, I guess that's not a bad idea," replied Myka.
Myka went into the stall while Claudia put on her gloves and pulled out a bag. "Just toss the sweater over the door!" she called out. "I can carry it in my bag for you." When the sweater appeared, Claudia dropped it into the bag and ducked. Sure enough, it sparked. Myka emerged from the stall a few moments later, looking a little dazed but no worse for the wear.
"Claudia?" she said. "Uh, how did I get here? I was out in the hallway, and then-- wow, I'm a little dizzy."
"The sweater's an artifact," explained Claudia. "Made you believe that we were living in a TV show."
"You know, actually, I remember now!" said Myka. "It's fuzzy, but... mostly, I remember it. It's the weirdest thing. I remember talking about 'Myka' this and 'Myka' that, like I was just a character in some story."
"Seeing yourself from the outside sounds pretty freaky," said Claudia.
"Yeah, I guess it is," answered Myka. "But it's also kind of neat." This was why she'd always loved books, after all. Life was messy and disorganized and too close to get a good look at most of the time, but stories-- stories had shapes to them. They had rules and structures, and sometimes they followed the rules just long enough to make you really notice when they broke them. She had seen the shape of her life like a narrative arc, and more clearly than ever before, she'd understood just how much the old rules had fallen away that first time Mrs. Frederic appeared to her and promised endless wonder. H.G., she realized with sudden clarity, had brought to her life, from the very beginning, the promise of another kind of story.
"So, what did you say to Pete when you were wearing the sweater?" Claudia asked. "He seemed kind of weird about it."
Myka smiled. "I said that I thought the most interesting development this season was the relationship between Myka and H.G., and that I thought they were... well, a little bit in love."
"Eee!" Claudia shrieked. "You shipped yourself? Dude, that's kind of awesome." Her face darkened. "Wait, so why was Pete weird? Is he... not cool with you being into women?"
"No, that's not it," said Myka. "I mean, you heard the man- he reads Iron Shadow slash." Myka was clearly excited to have learned a new word today. "The problem's H.G." She sighed. "He just doesn't trust her, and I can't do anything to change that."
"So, can I ask you something about that?" Claudia said.
"Sure," answered Myka.
"So, I mean, how do you know? Like if the artifact made you think that about H.G., or if it was really you? And, I mean, I tried to ask Artie if an artifact can actually turn someone gay, and he just muttered something about Hugo experimenting with Oscar Wilde's smoking jacket sometime in the seventies and wouldn't answer my question, and--"
Myka laughed. "Claudia, I know this is ironic coming from me, but you're overthinking it."
"But thinking is good!" said Claudia. "You like thinking! I think you even like worrying!"
"Yeah, I probably kind of do," admitted Myka. "But what I feel about H. G.-- the sweater didn't invent that. And anyway, so what if it did? I wouldn't care."
"Really?"
"Nope. I would still feel it. And I wouldn't want to change that." She smiled. "In fact, if it had been because of the sweater--I'd probably just take it back from the Warehouse and go right on wearing it."
"But don't you know," said Claudia, deepening her voice and furrowing her eyebrows in what amounted to a very good impression of Artie, "that using artifacts for personal gain can unleash untold horrors into the world? Unspeakable disasters! Go back to inventory!"
They both collapsed into giggles.
"Let's go find the boys," said Claudia.
"Wait, Claudia?" said Myka as she paused in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at her new T-shirt, which was emblazoned with the word BRONY and a silhouette of a cartoon pony with spiky rainbow hair. "What's a brony?"
"Eh, that's just the first shirt I saw," answered Claudia. "But it's nothing bad! Stop overthinking it."
Suddenly, a call came through on Claudia's Farnsworth. It was Pete. "Good news: I found Artie!" he said. "Bad news is, I can't seem to keep him in one place. I'll keep following him. You guys are gonna have to come find us."
"No problem. Myka's back and, uh, I'll just put a GPS lock on your cell phone," said Claudia "...not that I would ever do that for entertainment, blackmail, or any other form of non-Warehouse business," she added hastily. Myka snickered in the background.
"Boy, am I glad we're on the same side," said Pete. He looked away from the screen. "Artie! Don't touch the bat'leth!" He turned back to the Farnsworth. "I gotta go," he said and vanished.
Claudia and Myka found them pretty quickly, and Artie still refused to stop walking. He barely even seemed to notice them as he led them all down a winding path through the hotel's packed corridors.
"Mykes! You're back!" said Pete. His face lit up even more when he noticed her T-shirt and held up his hand for a high-five. "Yeah! Somepony knows what's awesome!" She high-fived him, though she had no idea what for. He went on. "So I've always wondered-- are you more of a Twilight Sparkle or an Applejack? 'Cause, you know, you're into the books like Twilight Sparkle, but Applejack's the one who would probably win in a fight, and you're pretty badass, so--"
"Pete! Focus!" Myka interrupted. "The artifact?"
"I'm thinking that walking stick's the culprit," answered Pete as he pointed to Artie. "But don't try to just take it. He got really cranky when I tried that before."
"Hey, Artie?" said Myka as she jogged ahead to walk beside him. "Where you going?"
"I want to see mountains again," he muttered.
"What?"
He suddenly seemed to notice her. "Artifacts. I'm fine! Get back to work! Shouldn't you be snagging?"
"What was that about mountains?" Myka asked.
"The road goes ever on and on," he answered dreamily.
"Of course!" said Myka to the others. "It's J. R. R. Tolkien's walking stick. Ha!" she added with a smug grin. "There are some things about this place I understand."
"Ok, so if he won't give up his precious," said Pete, "then how do we bag it?"
"I have an idea," said Claudia. She ran ahead into the crowd and entered into some kind of negotiation with a guy in a hobbit costume. He handed her a gold ring on a chain, which she held up in front of Artie like a hypnotist's watch. He dropped the stick and ran for the ring (knocking over a few Storm Troopers in the process) while Pete and Myka retrieved the walking stick and bagged it. Artie stopped in his tracks, Claudia returned the ring, and the confused hobbit wandered away.
"My feet hurt," complained Artie. "Are we done yet?"
"Almost," said Claudia. "There's a little something we have to take care of in the auction room."
When they got to the zine, Claudia managed to convince Artie to let them buy it with his discretionary fund.
"Aww, man!" whispered Pete to Myka as Artie handed something to the guy Pete was starting to think of as Bizarro Artie and then discreetly tucked the zine in a static bag. "He's just embarrassed 'cause he walked off with the walking stick! Now he'll spend all his money on the Vulcan sex story and I'll never get my awesome helmet--"
"Pete, what are you talking about?" answered Myka. Pete ignored her.
"So Claud, what did that thing actually do?" asked Pete, raising his voice again.
"Oh, uh, turns out that if you read it to the end, it kinda makes your life one big fandom tropes fest," she answered.
Pete, suddenly wide-eyed with terror, clutched his stomach protectively. "Uh, did you see any dudes who, uh, you know--"
Claudia rolled her eyes. "No." She turned to Myka and Artie, who both looked at Pete in extreme puzzlement. "Don't ask."
--
It wasn't their best retrieval record, but it wasn't their worst, either. Bagged: J. R. R. Tolkien's walking stick, the first Kirk/Spock story, and some sweater that makes you think you're on TV (and possibly also gay for H.G. Wells, insisted Pete, but Myka maintained that the sweater had nothing to do with that, and that she better not see that little note snuck into the artifact manifest.) Purchased anonymously, to be sent to a P.O. box in South Dakota: Alice Sheldon's typewriter. Location unknown: Suzette Hayden Elgin's dictionary, Neil Gaiman's leather jacket (but this was probably safe with Neil Gaiman somewhere, rationalized Artie).
On their way to the exit, they stopped briefly to scope out some promotional Doctor Who exhibit, but Artie stayed outside, claiming he had to sit down. (Claudia knew he was actually just really scared of Daleks.) Myka gravitated to a table covered in books and reached for a large, black one with nothing written on the cover.
"DON'T TOUCH THAT!" shouted Claudia as she dove in front of Myka, gloves on, and bagged the book. It sparked violently and left an acrid smell in the air. "Steven Moffat's script book. Bad ju-ju on that one. If you touch it, it reduces your personality to whatever the nearest man wants you to be. Which is BAD," she added, glaring at Pete.
He was clearly about to make a joke, but wisely reconsidered.
Myka shuddered. "Thanks. Let's get out of here."
They moved on.
"Aww, the Community panel!" said Claudia as they passed an open door to a room where a panel was just beginning. "Sure we can't stay?"
"Hey!" said Myka as she pointed to one of the panelists. "That's the guy who gave me the sweater!"
"Myka!" Claudia gaped at her. "That's Danny Pudi! Abed on Community! You didn't recognize him?"
"How was I supposed to know that?" said Myka. "You know I don't watch TV."
"Of course it's his sweater!" said Claudia. "His character is always pointing out that they're characters in a TV show and he's always reading the world through genre conventions, and maybe he plays him so convincingly that it did something to the sweater and bam! You put it on and see yourself as a TV character."
"What a weird artifact!" said Pete.
"He's a weird guy." Claudia shrugged.
Near the exit, Claudia froze in her tracks as she saw a familiar face between two Princess Leias on the other side of the room. "Guys, hold up. I gotta... talk to someone. Be right back." She walked over towards Maria, who was chatting with a crowd that had just left a panel.
"Hey," she said, trying not to replay in too much detail every single way she'd completely embarrassed herself back in the elevator. "Got a sec?"
"Yeah, I guess," answered Maria. "I mean, it seemed like you really didn't want to be around me all the sudden, so if you actually want to talk to me, then, I guess I do too."
"I'm sorry I freaked out back there," said Claudia. "I just--well, honestly, I have kind of a weird track record when it comes to these things. I mean, my last boyfriend's in the Witness Protection Program--" Maria looked at her quizzically. "Not that I had anything to do with it," Claudia added hastily. "But, you know, it's weird. And then there was the one who wrote me into his video game, and you know how that is--" Maria nodded sympathetically. "And this other time--well, let's just say that the last time I thought I was into someone new, I also thought I was marked for death, so that also kind of fizzled, and--God, what am I saying? I'm terrible at this!"
"No!" laughed Maria. "I'm the one who propositioned Nathan Fillion by saying that aliens wanted to see us have sex! I think I win the 'terrible at this' game!"
"But that's it!" said Claudia. "I mean, when we were in the elevator... wasn't that just the, uh, flu? I mean, like what you said to Nathan Fillion? Like, you're not really into me, are you?"
"Claudia!" Maria looked exasperated. "Is it really so hard to believe? It's true, I don't know how I actually said that stuff about the aliens, but... well, to be honest, I didn't do anything today that I didn't want to do. Maybe it's stuff I normally might have talked myself out, but that's different. I mean, come on! You've read my Buffy/Willow/Oz sex pollen story?"
"Oh yeah!" said Claudia. "The one where Willow buys the wrong flower from the the magic shop--"
"Exactly!" Maria answered. "And remember what they conclude? Maybe what they had did start with a spell gone wrong, but it's still a good thing. I mean, I don't think you can ever really know if your feelings for someone would still exist in a vacuum, totally separate from any kind of influence. Theres no such vacuum anyway."
"Except in space," said Claudia as she took Maria's hand. "Look, I like you. But I can't really propose anything resembling a normal date."
"I hope not," said Maria with a smile.
"And I can't really promise I'll be free anytime soon. I go where my job takes me--sometimes seriously off the grid, with no warning. But you know where to find me online, and next time I'm in Chicago, I'll drop you a line. And I mean, if you're ever in South Dakota..."
Maria laughed. "Yeah, not sure I see myself just passing through there anytime soon, but I certainly look forward to reading your next story." She grinned conspiratorially. "I mean, let's say B'Elanna and Seven get stuck in a turbolift--but for way longer. Who knows what they get up to?"
"You just may find out," said Claudia.