Original Content

The only words that passed between them were these:

Henry: "They'll keep you safe. From her, from yourself, I don't care, we can figure it out later, but that's more important than whatever phobia is keeping you away from them."

Alan: "Okay?"

Henry: "I'll pick you up in a few hours, after closing ceremonies, okay?"

Alan: "Okay."

And that was that.

A staffer, a concerned look on her face, took Alan by the arm and sat him down in a chair - plaid padding over a painted steel frame, clearly meant for a conference room - and Henry smiled sadly at him. He waved. Alan waved back, and Henry bowed out.

"Hey," she said to him.

Alan said nothing, electing instead to acknowledge her with a look.

She placed a hand on Alan's cheek, surely to reassure him, though it just made him feel uneasy. "We're going to get you the help you need, okay?"

Alan nodded at her, and she walked away. He didn't trust that statement, of course. He didn't know how to help himself, how to get out of this, at this point. He couldn't imagine that someone else, or, more appropriately, someone trying to do the right thing, would come up with a scenario that would favor him.

In the next few minutes, he was brought a cup of ice-water and a crisis blanket, the kind with an almost aluminum-foil finish, like old-time sun-shades for cars, and somehow, that did help. Between the air conditioning of the convention center and his nerves, his extremities shivered while his core overheated. The blanket helped one, the ice water helped the other.

Another staffer poked him in the shoulder. "You doing okay there, buddy?"

The question was perfunctory. It turned out that he'd been trying to get a response out of Alan for a solid half-minute, and achieved nothing until that moment. Clearly, Alan was not. The staffer, a chubby guy in his late twenties, pulled a chair around from an unknown source, and sat across from Alan, straddling the back of the chair like some kind of teacher who thought they were cooler than they actually were, which in some circumstances made them actually cool.

Alan was not in a place to make any value judgments.

"Craig," he said, holding out a hand.

Alan stared at it for some tens of seconds before the gears turned in his head. He shook it. "Alan."

"So you're being hunted?" Craig asked, straight to the point.

"Yeah," Alan said, nodding. He had to be careful. He had to balance everything. The more he told them, the more they could protect him from Sawyer, presumably, but the more he told them, the more likely they'd link him to the girl he'd killed. As bad as things had gotten, he still believed that he could recover. Sawyer could be contained to the convention - by his analysis, she was some kind of transient killer, moving from convention to convention and evading law enforcement that way. It stood to reason. And really, from the sound of things, she'd killed way more people than he had. It was more likely that she'd get pegged for murder than him, and so, maybe, just maybe, he could get back to a normal life, she'd have to keep living her weird life, and this whole weekend could just fade into memory. Everyone had some guilt-ridden terrible shit in their past they were ashamed of, right? Some people shat their pants in preschool, some people did an inebriated murder.

Manslaughter, he corrected himself.

Sure.

"You're gonna have to give me something to work with. Your friend dropped you off without much explanation," Craig said.

That made sense. Henry had to oversee all Pioneer College Anime Clubs, past, present, and future. He couldn't focus on Alan for long, and he had faith in Alan to do things right. Granted, he probably had that faith because Alan had, mostly successfully, hidden his disappointments from him. Just like his with his father, just like with his grandmother, just like with all of his family, he'd been ducking and juking for years now. Though he could still believe that Henry believed in him.

"Well," Alan started.

He explained, as best he could, the course of their relationship. Running into her by coincidence. Her admitting a murder or many, then deciding to kill him. He positioned her decision to label him as a fellow killer as a delusion and then brushed over it as fast as possible, and continued past her initial attack on Friday onto their battle on Saturday. There, he focused on her chainsaw, her gleeful, manic energy, and glossed over his costume, his ability to defend with the sword-cane - that would be too much to convey to a stranger. The dumbwaiter, too, was ignored, her witty repartee, and the details of their time in his hotel room. He explained it as her cornering him, and then....

The rooftop was too much. The fall, even moreso. Whatever had happened this morning was so far beyond the pale as to be the Leopardon to his Peter Parker.

Craig nodded. "I can't lie, that sounds bugfuck crazy, Alan."

He laughed, and didn't realize, until snot ran down his shirt-collar, that he was crying at the same time. "It is, isn't it?"

Craig smiled. "Yeah," he said.

The room was full of activity - convention staffers were in constant movement, in so many disparate activities that any description of them would be inadequate. Two were hiking a partition off to places unknown, a gaggle of them were huddled around some arts and crafts project on the floor, possibly signage, possibly something for the closing ceremonies. The chirps of walkie-talkies were constantly going off, and with each one of them, someone's pace picked up, moving to deal with new problems. Laptops abounded, updating spreadsheets, databases, and the official website of the convention, keeping the schedule in concurrence with what was actually happening, and maintaining information parity between the hundreds upon hundreds of staffers corralling attendees and guests of honor alike.

"When did you come to the convention, Alan?" Craig asked.

"Thursday."

"Are you staying at a hotel downtown?"

"Yeah, the Sheraton."

"With friends?" Craig said. Alan had long since stopped looking him in the face, instead electing to stare at his own feet.

"Yeah. My college anime club."

"You're in college?"

"No," said Alan. "Old friends."

Craig smiled. "It's good to hold onto the connections you make in this community. It's awful, trying to make friends out in the regular world." Craig leaned away from his chair, pulling a draft from a water-cooler, and sipped the ice-cold water. "What were you up to Thursday?"

"Just hanging out with friends."

"Like the guy who brought you here?"

Alan shook his head. "No."

"How do you know him?"

"I've known him since... I dunno, 2002? He was in charge of the Anime Club when I got into Pioneer College. He's like..." Alan winced as he spoke, but he had to say it this way- "One of the good ones."

Craig's momentum ground to a halt, and he looked over Alan. "What do you mean by that?"

Fuck, Alan thought, and he felt so desperately lonely when nothing so much as an imaginary copy of Sawyer stooped to belittle him. "I mean..."

"Yes?" Craig, perplexingly, had produced a clipboard with lined sheets of paper on it, which he was tapping with a leaky fountain pen. Alan could see the ink overflowing. Fucking hipster. Just use a ball-point like a human fucking being.

"We're all kind of shit, aren't we?" Alan said. It wasn't a shocking statement. Just one that no one wanted to make. If they weren't shit at everything, they wouldn't be weird, unsuccessful nerds, right? They had to build their own society from scratch, their own social spaces, their own means of supporting themselves, and while it made the nerd community overachievers, it made them all goddamn losers.

"That's a bit harsh, isn't it, Alan?"

Alan frowned.

"Are you sure you're not projecting?"

Alan frowned harder, though considering that the average human being was far less practiced at frowning than smiling, Alan's emotional state was poorly conveyed. But he was smarter than that, wasn't he?

"You say projecting, I say emphasizing our commonalities."

Craig tapped his clipboard with the pen and let out a low whistle. "Positive take, I like it. How about we get into hypotheticals?"

"What happens if we do?" Alan asked.

"That's the spirit!" Craig said, and rapped Alan on the knee with his chipboard clipboard. Alan recoiled into the firm back of his chair. It rocked back onto two feet, but with the combined weight of Alan and the chair now digging into the carpet on only two points, it strained, ultimately moving little. Craig waited until Alan's calves un-tensed, and the chair re-planeted itself on all four feet.

"So, say this..." He looked at Alan, saying the word pointedly, "Cosplayer, decided to hunt you down and murder you. How would they do it?"

Alan's blood flared, and his ears echoed with the sound of a screaming two-stroke engine. "WITH HER FUCKING CHAINSAW."

Craig raised an eyebrow. "A real chainsaw?"

Alan's still-oozing shoulder wound found the question distasteful. "Yes."

Craig leaned forward. "If so, how would this "Sawyer" get this chainsaw past convention center security? All cosplay weapons are inspected and peacebound, by convention policy."

"It was!" Alan shouted. Yelling burned his throat, both with bile and that ripping feeling of air running past dehydrated viscera, and with the tensing of pained nerves came a hint of a headache. It was like he couldn't do a goddamn thing without hurting himself at this point, which he supposed wasn't thematically different from the rest of his life in any significant way.

Craig's eyebrows raised, and the tip of his pen stopped dancing across the paper. "This chainsaw that hurt you was peacebound?"

"Yes!" At least, Alan thought he remembered that. The little orange sash across the handle, the orange-dyed tips of the teeth that turned his shoulder from a biologically sound structure into an overly-ambitious meatball.

Craig stroked his chin. "That is a serious allegation."

Alan felt just the tiniest bit of hope rise in his chest. "Does that mean you'll protect me?"

Craig stood up, and tucked his clipboard under his arm. "That remains to be seen. But this goes beyond my pay-grade. We're escalating your case."

We? Escalating? Alan thought, but before those thoughts had the chance to coalesce into a question, Craig had disappeared into the whirling vortex of staffers ping-ponging across the room.

It was a strange thing to watch, the hustle and bustle of these behind-the-scenes places. Sunday was always the weakest of days at a convention, with the least events, least celebrities, lowest attendance, and with a population that was exhausted from the previous two days, bringing down the energy of the entirety of it. But back here, blue-shirted staffers were scurrying about, desperately trying to make sure that the convention stuck the landing. He watched a whole debate play out between a group of staffers, each representing the needs of a different event, and none of them having the resources they needed. Eventually, a trade was worked out: One security staffer from one panel for the water cooler of another, which would be traded to yet another panel for an extra microphone, with those three panels each paying a tax of two chairs to a fourth panel that had organized the trade. Once this had been settled, each flagged down lower-ranking staffers to assist in the transfers, and the now dozen-strong group jogged out the front door.

And, through that front door, Sawyer walked in. Immediately, she noticed him, and they made eye contact. Alan jumped in his seat, and she smiled at him.

His mind quickly put the pieces together, and he smiled back. He'd have to come up with some way of distinguishing between the real Sawyer and the one conjured up by his mind, but her, in full costume, striding directly into a staff area, couldn't be real. She'd be in as much danger as he was if she attacked him here, and Sawyer was smart.

This Sawyer saw his expression, saw what he was thinking, and shrugged. As if to reassure him of her non-reality, she seemed to fade out of existence as another gaggle of staffers passed by, obscuring her form. Alan waved goodbye. The last thing he saw of her was her fingertips, returning the wave over the shoulders of the crowd, and then, mercifully, she was gone. Though, the Sawyer in his brain was a pretty good conversational partner. He could probably use her company right now.

Instead, an oddly-familiar looking man flipped around a metal-frame, padded chair, and straddled its back in front of Alan, resting his crossed arms atop it.

"Alan?" he said, and Alan nodded, reflexively.

He had to be in his forties, judging by the creases and wrinkles in his face, and while his hair was still lush, it was streaked with quite a few strands of gray. He wore a white t-shirt, emblazoned with the logo of the first AniMass, tucked into simple jeans, topped off with a navy blazer and a pair of wire-framed glasses with lenses large enough to fit a pair of Aviators, but with none of the style. A true dyed-in-the-wool geek, from the days of basement Dungeons and Dragons games and poorly-lit comic shops.

"Enjoying the convention?" he asked, with a smile.

That was a loaded question, and Alan reeled, trying to figure out how to deliver an adequate answer. He settled on "Mostly", while still working out where he'd seen this man before. The man didn't respond at first, instead analyzing Alan's facial expressions, his body language, everything, as if Alan was submitting a feedback survey just by existing.

The man's posture relaxed a little. "I'll take that as a 7.6 out of 10. I aim for an 8.5, but I'm an overachiever, if you'd believe it."

Alan's mind scrambled for purchase, all five or so of his functioning brain cells running searches on his long and short-term memory. And about twelve chapters back, he found something.

"We talked at the formal ball, didn't we?" Alan asked. In the light, the man's seniority over him was much more apparent, and his face flushed at the memory of acting like some kind of expert in front of his elder.

The man smiled. "We did! I'm glad you remember." He held out his hand. "George Alliston," he said, and Alan shook it.

"Alan Smith," Alan said, as his mind scrambled again for missing data. He knew that name, and George could see that Alan knew it, and instead of helping him, just waited for him to put the pieces together himself. "Wait... The chairman of AniMass?"

"The very same," Mr. Alliston said, grinning.

Talking to very important people was not in Alan's wheelhouse, and so, he stammered out some deferential thank-yous and an incoherent statement on how important this convention had been to him over the years.

Chairman Alliston picked up enough of his meaning to understand. "No, thank you for your repeated attendance. I might be in charge of this convention, but I'd be in charge of a great deal of nothing if we didn't have attendees."

It felt like standard politick-ing speak, but it still made Alan's heart flutter a little.

"So, I've heard you've been feeling unsafe at my convention," he said, in a tone more paternal than Alan's biological father had ever managed.

Alan leaned in, resting his elbows on his knees. "You uh... could say that."

"Why?", the chairman asked.

Alan swallowed. So much of his mind begged him to say nothing, to deny that anything was wrong at all, in hopes that maybe, just maybe, by denying it he could make it less real. He shoved that instinct down as best as he could.

"Someone's been trying to kill me," he said.

The chairman's eyebrows raised. "You'll forgive me, I hope, if I think that sounds unlikely. We hold to industry-standard security protocols, and if someone is trying to hurt you, this convention would be a very difficult place to get away with it. Not to brag about our successes, but they'd be dealing with upwards of ten thousand potential witnesses."

Alan grumbled. "Trying?" He pulled at the collar of his shirt, hard enough to pop the top button off of its strings, revealing where Sawyer's chainsaw had torn a divot in his flesh.

The chairman cocked his head. "Well, ain't that something."

Yeah, it fucking is, Alan thought, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Now, you've got to understand my perspective. Statistically, it is far more likely for that to be inflicted by an accident, or through self-harm, than for that to be inflicted by an assailant. But," he said, his eyes softening, "As the caretaker of this convention, it's my responsibility to protect my attendees. So... why would someone attack you?"

Alan tried to think of the most unspecific, diplomatic phrasing he could use. It would be smarter, at least for his own safety, to say that he didn't know, but Alan already had been pushed far beyond his own limits, and the overwhelming discomfort of a direct lie was too much for him in the moment.

"She thinks I did something wrong," he said, before adding "Morally."

The Chairman leaned further towards Alan, hanging his chin over his forearms and thereby, the back of his chair. "Well... Did you?"

"Yeah," Alan said, hoping to avoid any elaboration.

"Can you elaborate on that? You know, to get a better idea of what might be going on here," the Chairman said.

"I'd prefer not to?"

"And I'd prefer to think that people are safe at my convention, but that's not the world we're living in, is it?"

Alan slumped. "No, it isn't. But still, I can't-"

"Why not?" The Chairman's eyes felt paradoxically soft while drilling into Alan's skull.

Alan was being pushed into a corner, and he resented that. "Are you blaming me for getting chased with a fucking chainsaw?"

The Chairman smiled. "Should I?"

Again, the Chairman's response took all possible conversational momentum Alan was working on and blunted it, like thrusting an erection into a doorjamb. "I don't fucking know, should you?" Alan said, thoughtlessly.

"That's what I'm asking you, Alan," the Chairman said. "But you seem awfully angry. Why is that?"

What an absurd fucking question. "Because I came to this convention for the zillionth fucking time, to have one pleasant goddamn weekend in my shitty life, and I get placed on a fucking hit-list for my trouble?"

The Chairman sat up straighter. "Do you feel like you deserve better than that?"

Alan's jaw dropped. "Of fucking course I deserve better! At least I deserve a trial. Some fucking mercy."

The Chairman continued to smile, as if none of these words mattered. "If you die today, you could see this convention as your last meal. That's a mercy, isn't it?"

Alan rolled his eyes. "Yes, but I'd prefer to live."

"Fair enough. Most people do."

His last memories of the Rei cosplayer from Thursday night kept popping up in his mind. She should have made it out alive, too. "You aren't taking this seriously, are you?" Alan asked.

"How seriously should I take this?"

Alan took that as a no, and fumed. "I come in here, tell you I'm in mortal danger, in your fucking convention, and you don't even care?"

"I wouldn't say that. But I'm not obligated to take your delusions seriously. I've got half a mind to revoke your badge and kick you out, for your own good."

"Does anything I say matter?"

The Chairman chuckled. "Depends on your perspective."

Alan jolted upright, knocking his chair to the floor. "Fuck you." None of this mattered. All of this mattered. "I fucking killed a girl here the other night, you didn't do shit this whole weekend, I don't even think you looked into it! I saw a guy carved in half with a chainsaw, turned into pulp and gore on his hotel room walls! And the same fucking thing is going to happen to me - her blood and my blood are both staining the halls of this fucking convention, and you aren't even listening!"

The Chairman rose to his feet.

Oh fuck.

Alan should not have said that.

Mentally, he scrambled. He could say he was just being edgy. He could say that he was delusional, and that he had to be tossed into inpatient care - hell, maybe the Chairman would come to that conclusion on his own! Hell, he could deny he said it at all, it was just the Chairman's word against his, right?

The room was, unfortunately, full of people well within earshot.

The Chairman stepped towards him, and Alan smiled awkwardly.

The Chairman smiled back, and put his hand on Alan's shoulder.

"Let's go for a walk, shall we?"