San Diego 2014 Read Online Free Page A

matter in the grand scheme of the Rising—on the way to the convention and had chosen good seats over seeking medical care. Perhaps a heart attack or stroke claimed a life and left a husk for the virus to reanimate and control. Perhaps it was a case of spontaneous amplification, rare in the modern day, but substantially more common during the Rising, when the human body was still adapting to the infection that would become known as “Kellis-Amberlee.” However the infection entered the building, it entered, and once it was inside, there was no way it could be forced to leave.
    At 6:30 P.M. , July 23, 2014, the first major panel of the convention began. The cast of Space Crime Continuum —minus their leading lady, the lovely Elle Riley, who was mysteriously absent from the green room—began filing onto the stage. Convention security staff waved more and more people into the hall, until there were no seats left empty. That was when the doors swung closed, and what happened from there, in that room, in that dark, empty space, is lost to history.
    Given the nature of the things we did not lose, perhaps this is a mercy.
     
    * * *
    6:43 P.M.
    Elle Riley struggled to keep up with her handler as he shoved his way through the convention center, fighting against the tides of eager fans rushing for the delights of the booths against the back wall. There were less congested routes, but she hadn’t realized her handler meant it literally when he said they’d be going through the middle of the floor, and by the time she understood that he was planning to go the worst way possible, it was too late for her to tell him it was a bad idea. Not that he would have listened if she’d tried. No matter how many interviews she gave where she mentioned her past as a rabid fan of shows like Star Trek , Buffy , and Doctor Who —which was the reason she’d auditioned for a time-travel procedural in the first place—people kept assuming she was another pretty face who didn’t know a damn thing about the way the geek world functioned. Even though it was her knowledge of the geek world that told her not to try cutting between the Marvel and DC booths in order to exit the main hall at Comic-Con.
    “We’re almost there, Ms. Riley,” announced her handler, loudly enough that another half-dozen heads turned in their direction. Elle bit back a groan and forced herself to keep on smiling. This was her public, after all; she couldn’t afford to look ungracious.
    Great, more autographs and pictures and questions , she thought. Just what I needed . Maybe if she was lucky, they’d make it to the panel in time for the question-and-answer session. Or maybe she’d be even luckier, and they wouldn’t make it to the panel at all. She’d look flaky but not inconsiderate if she missed the panel because she was signing autographs. She’d look like a stuck-up diva extraordinaire if she waltzed in for the last fifteen minutes and forced everyone else to listen to the inevitable stream of comments about her appearance masquerading as questions. As if she could possibly enjoy that sort of thing. As if anyone could possibly enjoy it.
    Now they weren’t even moving, forced into a holding pattern by the people shoving past in front of them. That meant there was no good reason for the fans to stay away, since it wasn’t like she was trying to get anywhere. Sure enough, a timid voice at her elbow said, “Excuse me, are you Elle Riley?”
    Elle’s smile remained fixed in place as she turned toward the speaker, a sweet-faced woman with a slight Kentucky drawl and hair that cascaded to her shoulders in a series of artificially copper curls. She was wearing a shirt that proclaimed her to be a member of the Time Police. That didn’t necessarily make her a fan—lots of shows and stories about time travel had time police in them—but it definitely shifted the odds toward fandom.
    “I am,” she said. “And you are…?”
    “Patty! I mean…I’m Patricia