AbductiCon Read Online Free

designated media and communications member of the ConCom, had been handed the publicity baton – and she had done fairly well in publicizing the presence of the two actors in outside media. Inside the con itself, however, things were a different matter.
    That was why Al Coe was at the printers for the third time, for the final – and correct – version of the posters they had ordered for the con.
    He should have been back with those posters by now.
    The posters, and the coffee. To the best of Libby’s knowledge (and it would have been her business to know) the posters had not materialized. And neither had the good coffee; Andie Mae would have had a loud word to say on that if it had arrived, whether or not it had matched her own august criteria in the end.
    No coffee. No posters. No Al.
    And it was now getting on for Friday evening, and the queue of registrants had grown long, and a bunch of games had already started in the designated ballroom, with three tables surrounded by players throwing dice and blissfully divorced – for the duration – from anything resembling reality. The first scattered parties would be starting in a matter of hours. The con, to all intents and purposes, had begun – and Libby was woefully bereft in any material larger than an A4 sheet hastily printed on a local color printer, cobbled together by Libby herself to be inserted at the last moment into the glossy full color souvenir program books, letting those who had just been handed the booklets at the registration desk know that the famous androids would be coming.
    But even those only announced their presence. It was the big posters to be plastered all over the hotel which were to announce a final date and time.
    “Anyone seen Al?” Libby called out into the chaos of the Green Room.
    “Not since this morning,” Xander said, chewing on a messy sandwich thrown together from the cold meats and cheese platter that had been provided for the Green Room volunteers’ sustenance.
    “I think we should…” Libby began, but then several earpieces squawked simultaneously, with people wincing and reaching up a hand to adjust the volume in their ears, and Xander looked up in consternation.
    “Holy crap,” he said, tossing the remnants of his sandwich aside and tearing off a piece of paper towel from a nearby roll to wipe traces of mayo off his hands. “Somebody better get down there. I heard that our writer GoH kind of dropped in unannounced while Dave was waiting for him at the airport – and now we seem to have a situation again – Rory Grissom just walked in the door and got mobbed … that wasn’t supposed to happen. Where’s Andie Mae? Crap. Never mind, I’ll go rescue him.”
    “Send him up here, we can hide him until they get him into his room safely,” Libby said.
    “Too late to stash him, they know he’s here. Aw, dammit . I’ve a got heap of work still to do, and now I have to go babysit a drama queen.”
    He vanished into the corridor, and two more pros turned up to fill the space he had vacated, asking for their envelopes. One was found easily, the other appeared to be missing altogether, throwing Libby into a state of near panic until the pro in question thought to mention that, since his new book was coming up under a new pseudonym, that might be the name the registration envelope might be under. In a quite different part of the alphabet.
    “Take it easy,” Libby whispered to herself, looking up for a moment and seeing a Green Room thronged with visiting pro and ConCom members and convention volunteers, a swirling melee of smiling people full of energy and enthusiasm, waiting with a delighted anticipation for the real festivities to begin on the morrow but in the meantime running into friends they hadn’t seen for months, or maybe a whole year since the last con, chattering, exchanging news, asking after other friends who had not yet made an appearance.
    It’s just the usual chaos, and it’ll only get more chaotic as