CONSPIRACY THRILLER

Over four months later in early November 2016 the results of the US Presidential election plunged Feyderbrand even further into despair. He had meals brought to his room and rarely ventured out. Some days he neglected to shave his head. By the end of the month his team were worried about him. They would meet in small groups and whisper together, glancing fearfully up at his closed door on the top floor. Desperate plans were devised to cheer up their chief Semiotician and get the project back on track.

So, one day in December, Feyderbrand had two visitors to his office. Theorist Demi Leather brought him a bright young woman from the third floor. She had come up with a scheme to throw the Americans further from the scent. It involved an intriguing shift of genre.

“Conspiracy thriller?” Feyderbrand repeated back to her looking puzzled. “Is that wise? We are a conspiracy.”

“The Americans believe in conspiracies. They can’t get enough of them. They already think there’s a conspiracy against them. Let’s give them a conspiracy within a conspiracy to distract them from the real one.”

Demi Leather weighed in with her support: “Wheels within wheels within wheels. We simply change genre and their paranoia will do the rest.”

“Let me think about it,” said Feyderbrand. It took him less than a day to give conditional approval for the switch. He would give them until New Year and then he wanted a shift to something altogether less risky.

 

OK, now, see, in another office on the other side of the Atlantic in Washington DC the head of W.A.C.O. was letting off steam to his number two. The Chief was too agitated to remain stationary and was wheeling around his subordinate in ever decreasing circles.

“There’s simply too much we don’t know. What did Scandole find in Paris? We have only rumours. He can’t tell us anything. God help him: a husk of a man. How was Harrison’s cover blown so quickly and fatally? That thing they had in that building – what happened to it? The second team found it empty. For sale. À vendre.” The Chief paused. His orbit around his number two was now so reduced she dare not move. “That was two years ago. I’m supposed to be the top intelligence officer in the country. I am supposed to know what’s going on. But I don’t.”

In her pivotal position she had some new intel but knew better than to interrupt her Chief in full flow.

“The President himself entrusted me with this job. He trusted me to keep an eye over fourteen different intelligence agencies and stop any of them going rogue. Then I had to conceal that Parisian debacle from him. I let him down. Now we’re in the presidential transition I’m as much a lame duck as the President.  The President Elect isn’t taking my calls. He has no faith in any of the Intelligence services. After Inauguration I’m finished. Maybe W.A.C.O. too.” He looked pointedly at his number two with his good eye and seemed to realise how close he’d gotten to riding over her feet. He backed up the chair. “We need a break, Consuelo. We need to give them something. As I zip along these DC corridors I think I hear sniggering behind my back.” But he had run out of steam.

Consuelo Morales was no stranger to these tirades by her chief. He was right: Washington insiders knew he was finished. Also, he had never been able to let go of the Paris fiasco. No matter how much the other agencies got excited about the Middle East or the South China Sea her chief was obsessed with the aborted mission over two and a half years ago. Like her counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic Consuelo was clutching at straws to give her chief something else to think about.

“Chief,” Consuelo removed a flimsy from the document pouch. “Something in the dailies. Could be nothing…”

The Chief slowly spread his arm and his prosthesis to indicate his number two should continue but that he wasn’t getting his hopes up.

“A conspiracy nut, a video blogger, you know the sort: hard close-ups, angry face and spittle on the lens? Well, he was broken into two days ago. In Boston.”

“Figures, he probably did it himself to show his followers he’s onto something.”

“That’s always possible, Chief. It’s been done before and could have happened this time except…”

“Except?”

“One of our agencies has been taking a close interest in this man and his video blogs.”

“Which one?”

“BOARS.”

“BOARS? Those guys couldn’t find their heads under their hats.”

The Bureau of Analysis, Reconnaissance and Security was one of the intelligence agencies being monitored by W.A.C.O. and now they were monitoring the outpourings of a conspiracy nut. The Chief didn’t have a high regard for their chief (a boots-on-the-deck ex-Navy man) but if they’d thought fit to search an office… his interest was piqued.

“There’s more, Chief.”

In the Chief’s experience there was always more: more mess to clear up.

“Okay, hit me.”

“The conspiracy theorist,” she consulted the document in her hand, “this vlogger, T. D. Tallgate, believes there is an ultra-secret society working on a global scale controlling all other secret societies…”

“But don’t they always say that? Isn’t there always an over-arching global conspiracy with tentacles reaching into every country, corrupting every government, controlling every other secret society and institution? And they, of course, are the only ones to have been able to find it.”

“Don’t forget the spurious lineage, Chief. The conspiracy has to have deep roots in the past, have been influencing events from behind the scenes for centuries, had some kind of secret input into the founding of the American Republic…”

“Is Tallgate talking about Freemasonry?”

“He doesn’t give them a name, Chief but, according to Tallgate, these people control the Freemasons and,” she carried on quickly, “they are planning something for Inauguration Day.”

The Chief’s interest was quickened by fear. The inauguration of the 45^th President of the United States on the 20th January was a security nightmare. All the great and the good (and some bad) would all be in the same place. Not on my watch, he thought. No one is going to pull off some devastating top level atrocity on my watch. Instead he was going to bust this up before Christmas and save the day. Insert himself between the pages of the new President’s good books. Out of the window he could see the restored dome of the Capitol.

“Inauguration day? How so?”

“Tallgate was planning a big reveal on that soon. But he’s been hinting there’s something fishy about Presidential inaugurations for some time.”

“And this is connected to that business in Paris?”

“Yet to be established, Chief.”

“Surely. Get this Tallgate in here and you’d better talk to the BOARS people who got so excited about his vlog.”

“Yes, Chief.”

 

The trouble with intelligence work, thought Consuelo Morales as she waited at the crosswalk, was that you ended up chasing your own tail. She’d had a frustrating meeting with the top echelon of BOARS. In the first place they hadn’t wanted to co-operate. The intelligence community didn’t like W.A.C.O. peering over their shoulders and having a direct line to the President. The guys she’d just met had tried to stonewall her at every opportunity and then it had turned out they’d been getting excited about Tallgate’s vlog only because one of their data-sifting wonks had found Tallgate’s site when trawling the data streams for references to inauguration. So it all rested on Tallgate connecting his pet world-wide conspiracy to the big day in January. This nonsense wasn’t going to get the Chief out of trouble. She admired the Chief and what he was doing for his country but she too suspected the new President was less impressed. The Chief’s ties to the outgoing President were a little too strong. The two men were a little too close for comfort.

One thing: BOARS had categorically denied turning over Tallgate’s place. So if anyone had – who had? Another one of their own agencies? Right off the bat she was discounting the super secret society.

She returned to her office to await the arrival of the super-stealth black helicopter whisking in her Bostonian ‘guest.’

 

Later that afternoon she sat opposite him in Interview Room 2. She had watched his latest vlogs so already knew what he looked like but he had an unexpected quiet dignity when he wasn’t in front of a camera. Of course in actuality he was in front of several hidden cameras and the Chief was watching proceedings on monitors in the next room.

T. D. Tallgate was wearing a suit and tie. The overcoat he’d handed over to Consuelo (as if she was a maid, she thought) was expensive. He looked born to the money and privilege of blue-chip WASP Bostonian stock. She wouldn’t show the slightest flicker of resentment but secretly she wished they were in Interview Room 3. The one with the running water. His attaché case lay on the table in front of him. He didn’t look fazed by being here at all. It was like he was expecting it. As if, at last, he was being taken seriously. Perhaps he had staged his own break-in as the Chief had suggested right at the get-go. He hadn’t even shown any disquiet at the thorough search he’d had on the way in.

“Thank you for coming in to talk to us, Mr. Tallgate,” she said playing with the pretence that he’d had a choice. “Let’s start with this break-in.”

“They took my computers and all the hard copies of my files. They were very thorough; when they smashed their way in they didn’t care how much noise they made. But then it was Thanksgiving.”

“And who do you think was responsible?”

“I know I’m under constant surveillance by you people in the F.B.I. No offence.” Consuelo didn’t react. It was better if Tallgate remained in ignorance of who he was really talking to. “I mean, you wouldn’t be doing your jobs if you didn’t take an interest in what I’ve got to say.” Consuelo imagined the Chief next door seething at Tallgate’s ridiculous sense of self-importance. “But I don’t think so. My vlog has been going for some while. Why toss my place now? No, I think the secret group I’ve been pursuing think I’ve gotten too close.”

“O.K.”

“The global conspiracy is somehow involved in Presidential inaugurations. I’ve been looking into this in my recent posts. That’s why the conspiracy people trashed my place. They were looking for something I’d threaten to publish. In my last post I promised to reveal something that would link this secret society to the upcoming Inauguration Day. When they broke in they were after this.”

He opened the attaché case and took out an unframed engraving and slid it across the table towards her.

She studied the print. It was untinted and straightaway looked nineteenth century. She had never seen it before. Along the bottom of the picture was the title:

‘The Secret Inauguration of James Buchanan into the Right Worshipful Companie according to the One True Rite.’

It was dated March 4^th 1857. There was no attribution to a printer, engraver or artist.

The image was of three hooded men pointing swords at the bare breast of a fourth man with the rather distinctive hair of President James Buchanan. He was looking none too happy, even shocked, but was holding open his own shirt so the swords could prick the skin over his heart. He looked to be making a solemn oath with one hand resting on a book. The men’s hoods were not pointy KKK hoods but did cover their heads except for the eyes. All three swordsmen wore the respectable frock coats fashionable at that time.

They were in a wood panelled room with a roaring fire. Above the mantelpiece was what looked like a family tree but all the names were indecipherable. On the wall behind the hooded men was a painting which conveyed a geometric sign.

“That is what I was going to reveal in my next vlog. They were after this but luckily I had it with me when they broke in.”

Consuelo looked up from the engraving. Tallgate looked in earnest. In person he didn’t look like a conspiracy nut.

“But,” she said reasonably. “You could have made copies. This could be on memory sticks or inboxes anywhere from here to the west coast. ”

“Maybe there was something about the original that might tell them how I’d got hold of it.”

“And how did you come by it?”

“I received it anonymously in the mail with no explanation. That was after I started to zero in on inaugurations. I have read a lot of the literature and can assure you I have never seen this image before or the sign that has been placed here so prominently.”

Tallgate pointed to the diagram behind the hooded men.

 

“This must mean something,” he said. “I think this is the key to unlocking the secret processes behind everything that is going on in the world.” He looked excited and pleased with himself. He must enjoy spilling all this to a real interviewer instead of shouting into a lens. She could visualise a gauge monitoring the Chief’s patience levels and the needle hovering dangerously near the red.

“James Buchanan,” he continued, “has this secret inauguration the same day he is inaugurated President. Don’t you see the implications?”

“James Buchanan was a Freemason?” She could imagine the Chief’s ears pricking up. He had a thing about the Brotherhood. And their secret bosses.

“Well he was as a matter of fact but it would be the candidate who would be blindfolded not the Brethren themselves as depicted here. And this is called a secret inauguration not an initiation. No, this is something else. If only we knew the meaning of the sign…”

She knew the Chief would be bristling at Tallgate’s use of ‘we.’

“You think James Buchanan was inaugurated as something special in a secret society on the same day he officially became President?”

“Yes I do. Don’t you see? There’s something about the President’s inauguration that isn’t what it seems.”

“I think, Mr. Tallgate, that in your world nothing is what it seems.”

“We’re both living in the same world, only you can’t see it for what it is.”

The urbane Mr. T. D. Tallgate in his fine suit folded his arms. In the silence that followed she could hear the quiet whirr of the recording apparatus. She kept her face absolutely straight but could imagine the Chief next door making a circular motion with the index finger of his good hand near his temple. His good eye would be rolling upwards towards heaven. He would be squirming in his chair.

The Chief’s voice in her earpiece was tinny but insistent: “Enough already.”

 

The following day she ate her lunch at her desk and ran a quick search on Buchanan. Some things checked out. He had been a Freemason and had been publicly inaugurated as the 15^th President on March 4^th 1857. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual about him apart from he never married and failed to prevent a civil war. The last fact was considered to be somewhat more significant than the first.

Consuelo agreed with her Chief. There was nothing in this Tallgate break-in and no threat to the upcoming Inauguration Day. Nor was there any link to Paris. She could forget all about it. The Chief already had. Instead he’d got his sights set on the boys at BOARS, convinced they were trying to set him and W.A.C.O. up. Also Tallgate had got him thinking about the Freemasons again. It wouldn’t be long before he was on his high horse about the most secret occult society: the Illuminati. Wheels within wheels within wheels.

 

That evening, after work, she took the elevator down to the basement parking lot. As the number two her reserved spot was close to the exit ramp. Her W.A.C.O. standard issue black sedan was waiting for her. She thumbed the electronic key and the automobile’s lights flashed in recognition and released the locks. She folded her coat and placed it carefully on the back seat with her bag and then got in behind the wheel. She inserted the key in the ignition and the motor fired. She clicked in her seat belt and straightaway the auto started to back up. This was completely of its own volition and without her activating the Park Assist feature. She put her hands on the wheel to regain control but could only feel the wheel turn beneath her fingers. The auto stopped backing up; the motor gunned and without her doing anything at all drove towards the foot of the ramp. She tried to free herself from the seat belt before the car picked up speed but the belt would not release. She could only watch helplessly as the wheel, gear shift and pedals worked by themselves and she was driven up the ramp. The belt had tightened and she couldn’t reach her cell phone in her bag on the back seat. The automobile emerged from the basement and waited to join the city traffic. To her left she recognised Tallgate standing on the sidewalk. He gave her a smile and a cheery wave as the car nosed out into the traffic.

Consuelo reached over to open the glove box for her gun but the button wouldn’t work. The glove box was a dummy. She started noticing other little details about her car that weren’t right: the patterns on the upholstery were slightly off, the maps in the door pockets were of non-US metropolitan areas. It had looked like her car. It had her Government-issue license plates. It was exactly where she’d parked it. Her unique key had opened and started it. And yet it was a replica, a completely automatic car under someone else’s control. She was being driven in a drone car to an unknown destination. Still downtown, she thought, there had been no moves towards accessing the beltway.

And it was working well. At the next intersection the turn signal clicked on and when the lights changed the car hung a perfect left. Who was controlling the car? They must have a good view to navigate her around the busy city so well. She squinted up through the windshield but could see no black helicopters or rooftop lookouts who might be directing her car on remote. She looked in her mirror. Maybe they were simply monitoring her with their control pads and high tech joysticks?

Who could be behind this? How involved was Tallgate and his ridiculous notions? She struggled against her straps but to no avail. This was a cleverly executed trap she thought. Then she started to hear and smell the intake of the gas…

 

When she came to she was in an armchair in the panelled room from the old engraving. Another wing-backed chair was facing her. The fire was blazing and above its mantelpiece hung the old family tree. She could now see it was a representation of the genealogy of the Houses of Windsor (not its real name) and Hanover. There was that enigmatic sign on the adjoining wall which still meant nothing to her.

More importantly she was unharmed and unbound. She felt a little groggy but managed to stand up and look around. On the wall behind the chair, and not shown in the engraving, was a full-length portrait of the British Queen in full pomp and painted, she would guess, soon after her accession. The frame was gilded wood and inscribed: Elizabeth R.I.

Had she been kidnapped by the drone car and taken, she wondered, to the British Embassy? Had she fallen into the hands of British Intelligence? She knew what the Brits liked to call the “Special Relationship” wasn’t going too well at the moment but really…

The portrait dominated the wall on which it had been hung. The woman with one of the most recognizable faces on the planet was shown standing. She wore the kind of high-end jewellery and accessories that you could only get away with on a special occasion like a coronation: a crown, orb and sceptre. There was a lot of ermine going on and purple and silk and golden tassels. Consuelo leaned forwards to look more closely at the carpet upon which Elizabeth II was standing. It was a representation of the world. She was shown standing on top of the world. The Brits say we can’t do irony, Consuelo thought, but they couldn’t do humility.

“Elizabeth Regina Imperatrix,” said a male voice behind her. She spun round. She hadn’t heard anyone enter the room. Come to that she couldn’t see a door.

“The Queen Empress. A title more usually associated with Victoria. As I’m sure you are well aware.” He held out his hand. “Geoffrey Wordsworth, Ms Morales, at your service.” He had an upper class English accent. The voice of privilege. Nevertheless she found herself shaking his hand. That was the thing about good manners. He was wearing an English wool suit which, she guessed, had been custom-made in Savile Row. She’d seen something about this kind of thing on late night cable.

“M.I.6?” she asked.

“Not as such. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. However, you do deserve an explanation for your presence here.”

“You mean my abduction.” He ignored this.

“We want to recruit you, Ms Morales, into our Worshipful Companie.”

“What makes you think for one moment that I’d join your organisation?”

“You are an intelligence officer of high rank. Information is your lifeblood. By joining us you will truly be on the inside of the biggest secret in the world. This is no idle boast Ms Morales. Where do you think you are?”

“I don’t feel like I’ve been out for too long. I think I’m still in DC. The British Embassy?”

Wordsworth shook his head. “Not too far away but in fact you are in a concealed room in the White House.”

She didn’t believe him and told him so.

“And why should you? But would you believe the current occupier? Please excuse me for a moment.”

He went over to the wall and found a hidden button. The mechanism opened a secret panel and he slipped out of the room. Once again she was alone. She examined the regal portrait and the family tree and sat back down. She thought the whole thing ridiculous. How could that man think they could trust her? As soon as she got out of here she was going to take this right to the Chief.

The panel opened again and Wordsworth ushered in the 44^th President of the United States. Another one of the most famous faces in the world and a man she had actually met while deputising for the Chief at high-level round table groups. He might be the outgoing ‘lame duck’ President but that didn’t mean he’d lost any of his charisma and sheer presence. He was smiling now. She jumped to her feet but he waved for her to remain seated.

“Yes, Consuelo,” he said. “This is one conspiracy that really does go all the way to the top.”

He sat down in the chair opposite her. Consuelo’s mind went into overdrive and at the same time she felt any resolve she may have had weakening. She wasn’t going to be able to resist a fireside chat from this man with his warm honey-toned voice.

“Geoffrey, would you mind leaving us alone?”

“Not at all, sir.” and Wordsworth slipped silently from the room.

The President continued: “I want you in on this, Consuelo, and so will my successor when he has been told certain home truths. That’s a meeting I wish I could see. My, will he get a big surprise!” he smiled his famous smile. “I think Bill Clinton was one of the few to take this great office who already knew the secret. He was a Rhodes Scholar, of course, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.”

Now Consuelo felt overpowering curiosity. She wanted to know the secret above all things. She wanted in.

“I had no idea,” he went on. “No prior knowledge of what was to happen on my Inauguration Day.” He was now very serious and leaning towards her slightly.

“My successor and I will want you to head up a new agency. Over the head of your old Chief. You will know the secret but he will not. The Chief has been my friend and supporter for a long time but I know him. He wouldn’t be able to handle what I am about to tell you.”

“Mr. President, you can count on me.”

“I know it. Our man Tallgate thought so too, even after your Chief got you to throw him out. The fact is the British Empire was never beaten or dismantled. None of it was ever ‘given away’ and we are still part of it. So are all the other so-called ex-colonies and Commonwealth countries. We all look like we’re running our own affairs but it’s an illusion maintained by dummy legislatures with phantom constitutions and puppet heads of state. Like me, Consuelo. Imagine my feelings on Inauguration Day after I’d been sworn in and I was led to this secret room and inaugurated not as President of the United States but Viceroy of the Fifty Colonies. The shock and disappointment! But I took my oath of allegiance to the Queen Empress, nevertheless.”

“But the Declaration of Independence?”

“Not worth the parchment it is written on.”

Consuelo felt weak at the knees. The Empire never ended. She was a subject of the British Crown. She was suddenly and instantly less than she had been before. It all felt like a dream. But the President or Viceroy was telling her that all she had believed before was the dream. It was like that scene in The Matrix when Neo discovers his whole reality has been a lie.

“The Civil War?”

“A doomed rebellion by slave states. Look, I know it’s a lot to take in, maybe too much, but I must leave you. I have some Royal Decrees I have to put through as executive orders. Geoffrey is fully able to initiate you. He is a full member of the Worshipful Companie and a Yeoman Warder.”

“A Yeoman Warder?”

“A Beefeater. Obviously he’s in the plain clothes division.” And with a reassuring smile and a handshake the Viceroy left the room. Geoffrey replaced him and began the brief but solemn rite that brought Consuelo into the fold.

 

Consuelo Morales returned to work as the Chief’s number two at W.A.C.O. But now she was also a Commander of the British Empire and secretly working as an agent of the Queen Empress.

At the same time, without the Chief’s knowledge, she was preparing for the role she would assume in the next administration as head of all the US intelligence agencies.

Wheels were turning within wheels within wheels.

The next time she saw the Chief she handed him a juicy piece of pure disinformation.

“I have a lead on the meaning of that sign in the engraving, Chief. It represents the conspiracy that runs all the other conspiracies. They call themselves the Triumvirate.”

“Who do?”

“The Freemasons, the Bavarian Illuminati and the Vatican.”

“The Illuminati,” he shouted in triumph. “I knew it!”

 

ROMANCE

In the new year of 2017 Hull became the UK’s City of Culture and Sasha Spence had two pressing problems. The first was causing so much worry she would distract herself by concentrating on the second and more superficial of the two.

What was causing her to lose sleep was the need to dump Jake Lupasco. It had to be sooner rather than later but without losing him as a friend. She had been going out with him for nearly seven months but now he was doing her head in. She still fancied him: he was nice and kind and devoted to her but… But they had little in common.

Jake’s first love was football. He was a keen supporter of the Tigers (not their real name). He and his father had been season ticket holders and were still members of the supporters club. They tried to get to every home game and would walk to the KC stadium to watch Hull City in whichever of the top two leagues they were currently contesting. They tried to get to as many away matches as possible. Jake’s Christmas and birthday presents were invariably black and amber in colour with a tiger’s head motif. He collected match programmes in their proper binders. Money was tight for the Lupascos and they couldn’t afford much of the official merchandise. Jake wore the counterfeit replica kit his dad had bought in the market. Sasha didn’t complain but felt he wore his Tiger’s uniform more than his skinhead uniform. Too often his shaven head was covered by a bobble hat.

Sasha was completely indifferent to the ‘beautiful game’ and sport in general. Jake, she felt, was always banging on about it. Although he showed little aptitude for maths he had an obsession with match statistics. It was almost as if, it seemed to her, he was constantly playing a mental game of Top Trumps and rearranging cards representing the players in new sequences according to their changing levels of performance. Jake was a fantasy football manager, an armchair pundit, an enthusiast. He was a City Psycho without the hooliganism.

His second love was gaming: football games (of course) and shoot ’em ups. Sasha liked neither preferring quests and puzzles and construction sims. She couldn’t think of anything more boring than sitting next to him watching him play his matches or war games. Jake’s imagination played itself out only on pitches or battlefields. He didn’t read fiction or watch anything other than action films. The Twilight Saga or Harry Potter had passed him by. He liked superheroes but only from the Marvel or DC universes. He didn’t read Manga or watch anime. He was so very mainstream and Sasha so very wasn’t. He was somehow (she felt bad thinking this) rather limited.

If a list of Jake’s loves were to be arranged in order, top to bottom like a league table, she thought she would be in the bottom half. They were friends, no question, but friends with few shared interests. They called each other boy and girlfriend because that’s what teenagers were expected to do. They kissed and held hands and went to the pictures (usually to see his choice) but there was no real spark (her mother’s expression).

There were no two ways about it: Jake had to go. But she knew she had to let him down gently. She liked him and she liked his younger sister. He had been very useful to her in those first weeks here by helping her settle in. He had shown her ways of fitting into this (to her) strange northern city. He was an ally against the Plastics. She didn’t want to feel guilty for using him and then casting him aside every time she saw him. He was in her class. He was in her skinhead gang and she had the same responsibility for him as any leader does to a loyal follower. She couldn’t yet see a way around her dilemma and put off thinking about it time after time.

Her second and more superficial problem was related to the City of Culture thing. She’d enjoyed the opening Made in Hull events and the fireworks but most of the published programme so far didn’t seem to have anything to do with her. It was the City of Other People’s Culture as far as she was concerned. But there was one big thing coming up in February which very much interested her. Some big events management company had chosen to put on a Comic Con in the city. She had always wanted to attend one of these conventions. She was a fan of comics, especially Japanese manga and anime. She was also a cosplay enthusiast and spent much time online checking out costumes. Her problem was that for this, her first Comic Con, she didn’t know who to go as. Jake was no help whatsoever and wouldn’t engage with the selection process.

Sasha had started cosplay when quite young as a natural extension of her dressing up. Unlike many of her friends she had never got into princesses or Disney. Her mother subtly steered her away from playing stereotypes of prettiness and (usually) submission. It was her mother who made the costumes and they were bright and colourful and always age appropriate. As Batgirl and Supergirl she had flounced through children’s parties in her capes.

She was ready for her first grown-up cosplay at a real Comic Con except that she didn’t have anything to wear. She was old enough now to want to try something sexier but without veering into the ridiculous. She had seen enough photos from other Comic Cons to know that was easily done. Sasha had read a lot of comics and knew that most female superheroes and villains were schoolboy fantasies. To keep their secret identities they’d wear domino masks (and maybe a wig) but then would reveal as much of their bodies as possible. With their incredibly long legs and perfect physiques they were already superhuman. Their costumes suggested they had never been in a real fight. Black Canary had gone into action in fishnet tights. A cape would be totally impractical. Some outfits might have been too slippery to grab hold of but wouldn’t have looked out of place on glamour models on fetish sites. Unlike the aliens or mutants or orphans who made up most super heroines Sasha did have someone who would tell her she couldn’t go out dressed like that.

She knew there was a growing swell of opinion in the world of comics for practical costumes. They weren’t just drawn or read by boys anymore. Black Widow was a good example but she and the other Marvel and DC superheroes felt just too mainstream for what she had in mind.

Sasha enjoyed having minority tastes. She liked discovering new things before her contemporaries. She was an early adopter of new music. She would champion new causes and revive old ones. She was a skingirl in 2017. She was interested in Japanese culture and it was in the strange world of manga and anime that she would find her cosplay character.

This wasn’t without its pitfalls. Genre boundaries seemed much more porous in Japan and she could download what looked like a perfectly innocent animated series and find it was something else entirely. Even a quite straightforward Superhero anime would have unexpectedly graphic violence. She liked the way so many heroines were schoolgirls like herself who would then have adventures in strange dimensions. The downside was their costume would be their school uniform and to Sasha this was sending out all the wrong messages. Some of the girls were just too cute. Sasha didn’t do ‘cute’ even when the sweet petite Lolitas pushed cuteness so far it turned into ‘edgy’.

She kept looking and downloaded more and more anime. Some were so recent there were no English translations. She enjoyed trying to work out what was going on. That was not always easy as the heroes didn’t just fight supervillains or aliens or mad scientists like in American comics; supernatural entities were often involved. The heroes didn’t just do things like run fast or grow small or fly but could transcend barriers and create odd and wonderful transformations. It was in an anime series largely unknown in the West that she found the perfect character for her cosplay.

Someone had translated the title and the tag line but there were no subtitles and no dub. Sasha had to discern the plot from the images alone. The series was called ‘Illusory Girl’ which Sasha reasonably took to be the name of the heroine. An ordinary Japanese High School student by day became Illusory Girl by night and this brave vigilante would battle crime on the streets of Tokyo by deluding her enemies with clever illusions. In this she was helped by three forces. Hence the symbol she took as her own and wore across her chest:

Try as she might but Sasha couldn’t work out the nature of the three forces aiding Illusory Girl. Were they spirits or demons? Were they the ghosts of long-dead samurai? Shinto deities? She couldn’t tell. She loved other people’s culture but in this instance she found it disheartening too. A Japanese person was always going to get more out of this show than she ever could. It wasn’t just the lack of a translation. There was something going on in this anime which she just couldn’t ‘get’. It wasn’t even obvious what its makers thought was right and wrong. A yakuza crime lord (she could tell this by his full-body tattoo) was represented very sympathetically. He was like a father figure to his gang and made everybody laugh with his slapstick-style comedy. It was a shame he fell victim to one of the illusions at the end of episode eight and was written out. Illusory Girl was hindered by a particularly inept sidekick called Bubblegum Boy who was also there for much needed comic relief.

The tagline for the series appealed to Sasha:

“She can be whatever she makes you think you want her to be.”

This was suitably convoluted for Sasha’s purposes.

But what really drew her to Illusory Girl as a subject for cosplay was (naturally enough) the costume. Somehow it rang a bell in the back of her mind but, more importantly, it was a good look.

If Illusory Girl could be whatever she made others think they wanted her to be then technically she had no need for a costume. She had one anyway. Perhaps she needed a default outfit to wear at one of those secret gatherings of superheroes that were convened when Earth was in particularly dire danger. Perhaps the writers and illustrators of the anime series felt she had to stick to some superhero dress codes.

Illusory Girl was dressed all in matt black apart from her symbol which was colourfully emblazoned on her chest. She wore a one-piece fighting suit with a high collar. It was fitted but made of some tough material. There were black boots and gloves and the almost obligatory domino mask. With her mother’s help she didn’t think this would be a problem to recreate. Illusory Girl had very long blue hair but wigs like that were now easily available.

 

It had taken Sasha a month to get to this stage of her research and planning. All the time the problem of dumping Jake had become more pressing. Having arrived at her cosplay character of choice she could no longer put it off.

First she went online to those forums for teenage girls that used to be called ‘problem pages’ when they were in magazines. Instead of an ‘Agony Aunt’ answering letters (always with an eye on current moral norms and possible parental complaints) it was now a free-for-all blizzard of conflicting advice. Young people would air their problems and solutions would pour in from helpful older sister types, males pretending to be teenage girls, misogynistic trolls (of both genders) and the usual timewasters.

Sasha knew better than to post her own problem and found one already posted. ‘How do I dump my Boyfriend?’ had a string of replies. Straightaway she disregarded the coward’s ways out: text him, voicemail or change your Facebook status to single. Gone too, went the over-elaborate such as the ‘mixtape’ of break-up songs or playing mind games until he gets fed up and does the breaking up. She settled for doing it fast, honestly (without clichés) and firmly in a neutral space.

When the end came it was all these things. Sasha and Jake were walking along the old railway track from Bev Road towards Duesbery Street. About as neutral as a space can get. Sasha talked of Comic Con and her cosplay choices. She talked of Illusory Girl but Jake, she realised, looked bored. His eyes were focussed on the far distance and he had wandered into the cycle path part of the track, A cyclist actually dinged her bell bringing Jake back to earth. Sasha asked him when he was going to buy his ticket for Comic Con and instead of being vague (as usual) Jake explained that a crucial league clash on the Saturday afternoon meant he wouldn’t be coming after all. Then he opined that her “dressing up” was childish. This blasphemy was delivered while wearing his counterfeit replica strip.

“We’re good friends, Sash. You’re really great but our interests are very different. I don’t think we have enough in common or feel enough for each other to be boyfriend and girlfriend – just friends. I want to stay in your gang. I’ll be your sidekick but not in a Robin and Batman kinda way.”

They were both now standing still as pedestrians and cyclists found ways around them. He looked at her with that look of devotion (and pleading) that she had always found so appealing. She was willing to forgive the slur on her enthusiasm and the Batman reference. She quelled any hurt she might feel for the dramatic twist whereby she found herself the dumpee instead of the dumper.

For the first time she had an inkling of what it meant to be relegated. But she’d got what she’d wanted and Jake had done it fast, honestly and firmly. She smiled at him and said:

“Oh, Jake, absolutely. I think you’re right and we are good friends.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He looked relieved. “And you are still so my sidekick.”

When they walked on, though, they were no longer holding hands.

 

The construction of her costume was relatively straightforward. She bought the domino mask from Dinsdale’s in Hepworth’s Arcade. She bought spares because they had to be stuck to the face rather than be fastened by elastic around the back of the head. No superhero could risk an unmasking or, worse still, a serious twanging. Flat-heeled black leather boots were in season and easily picked up in St Stephen’s. Gloves: ditto. The wig she bought online from a cosplay supplier so it was of decent quality.

The most expensive item was the form-fitting black body suit. She refused to use the term catsuit which sounded too sleazy. She eventually found one online that had the high collar and zipped up the back. It was a perfect fit and yet made of some tough material. Her mother kindly paid for it and sewed on a homemade symbol.

The day of Comic Con Hull 2017 finally arrived. She put on her costume (sans mask) and put one of her mother’s long coats over the top. She remembered to remove her piercing. With the wig covered by the turned up collar and a cap she looked street-ready. She’d stick the mask on in the ladies and leave the coat and cap at the cloakroom. With a kiss for her mum and a last check that she had the ticket she set off walking to the Arena. She wanted to get there just after nine when the doors opened for advance ticket holders.

It was a cold day in early February and although gloved she kept her hands in the pockets of the coat. On the way the only people she saw were shop workers. She suddenly felt nervous with the age-old worry: what if she was the only one in fancy dress? As she walked down Commercial Road near the venue she was relieved to see more people of her age and many carried holdalls. She quickened her pace. The car park looked quite full already.

Once inside she found they had provided changing rooms and she removed her coat and attached the mask. Satisfied with her refection in a mirror she strode out into the arena proper. Some areas were partitioned off for talks and discussions and some screenings but most of the large space was filled with stands representing studios and retailers. Each stand was vying for her attention with colourful posters and life-size cut-outs of well-known characters. There were quite a lot of people here already and many of them in costume. This was just what she’d hoped. She checked out some of the stands before it got too busy.

It was wonderful. There was stuff for sale here she’d only seen online and some she’d never seen before. Merchandise in vivid packages was on every stand: toys, action figures and trading cards. There were racks of costumes to entice those who’d turned up in civilian clothes. There were stores for vintage and rare comics, anime DVDs and manga. She signed up for the cosplay competition and had her photograph taken striking a pose.

She wasn’t bothered about the talks given by special guests or autograph signings and part of her realised that some attempts to part her from her money were a little desperate. A signed photo of a twentieth century companion of the Doctor was how much? How could they charge that for a prop from a flop that had been on screen for all of 20 seconds? The anime DVDs were expensive but there were titles for sale she needed for her collection. When she returned tomorrow she would have to bring more money. She would have to work on her mother.

Sasha loved walking through the growing crowds and checking out the costumes. Cosplay was clearly popular. A lot of young people had made a real effort. It was only Saturday morning but she could already tell she wasn’t going to win the competition. She heard lots of different northern accents and not everyone was from Hull. This Comic Con was pulling in enthusiasts from all over the North.

All of the characters were recognisable. There were the usual superheroes, videogame characters and elves. By far the largest category of cosplayers was from the Star Wars franchise. An interesting number of villains had turned up. Stormtroopers and zombies were particularly popular. There were a number of Jokers (to the right of her) and lots of Harley Quinns. She wondered if this was a sign of the times. One day soon the villains would be outnumbering the heroes.

By lunchtime there were a lot of attendees and it was becoming more difficult to get to the counters at the stands. She was trying to get to the front of a stall when, through the throng, she suddenly glimpsed someone she recognised. She moved towards him slightly to get a better look. Five yards ahead of her was Joe Breeze from her class, flicking through a box of manga comics and (food for thought) he was attempting cosplay. She had to smile. Clever Joe: he had chosen well. His ‘costume’ was his white school shirt and grey trousers plus a low-slung blue striped tie and a bluish cardigan. For the price of a different school tie and an Oxfam cardy he had transformed himself into Yamato, the hottest boy in school from the 2012 anime Sukitte Ii na Yo. To be fair he had done something to his collar-length hair. It looked like he’d washed it and then put on some gel so some bits stuck up and one lock fell over his face. Yamato was the most popular boy in the shoujo, or high school romance, anime whose title translated as Say I Love You. Schoolboy by day, schoolboy by night, he was the Mr Cool of school. Sasha wondered if Joe was going for some kind of irony here but he did look good and he was in her class. She had to make herself known to him.

She adopted Illusory Girl’s classic pose and advanced pointing at her mask.

Joe glanced up from the box of recently imported manga (“Fresh off the redeye from Narita, young sir”) and saw someone coming towards him who he recognised: Illusory Girl. Joe could hardly believe his eyes.

And then she stopped still right in front of him.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

“You’re Illusory Girl.”

It was her turn to be surprised. He hadn’t recognised his classmate but he had recognised her character. The first at Comic Con to do so. She had her line ready:

“I am whatever I make you think you want me to be.”

Joe frowned slightly as he struggled to unpick the sentence and then said:

“Then you chose for me to want what I actually did want. If you see what I mean.” Then Joe blushed as he realised he had accidentally initiated some sort of chat up.

“Relax, Yamato,” she said. “Even schoolboy fantasies can sometimes come true.”

Wearing the costume of a superhero was actually making Sasha act bolder. She enjoyed not being recognised. She was enjoying her alter ego. So was Joe. He was smiling now.

“You recognised me too.”

“Sure, but Joe, I wouldn’t have thought shoujo anime was your kind of thing?”

Joe looked at her hard. Finally:

“Sasha? I would never… Sasha Spence! You look fantastic.”

“You haven’t done so bad yourself Joe Breeze.”

Sasha felt herself blushing. Now she was at it too. Shorn of their secret identities they suddenly both felt self-conscious. For some reason Sasha wanted to keep the momentum going.

“Fancy a Coke or something? I’ve been here all morning.”

“OK,” Joe said and they headed for a row of vending machines and some tables. Having acquired something to drink and somewhere to sit Sasha returned to the safe topic of anime heroes:

“You are the only person so far to recognise Illusory Girl. Do you like her?”

“Yeah, I’m a fan. Even more so now.”

OMG, she thought, he’s flirting with me.

“I mean,” Joe quickly ploughed on, “the stories are interesting. There’s humour in it too but what I like the most is the artwork. On your first day at school it was her I was drawing.”

“What? When I was brought to the art room you were copying Illusory Girl?”

“Drawing Illusory Girl, yes.”

“That’s where I’d seen her before.”

“Maybe I put the idea into your head. Maybe you can be whatever I make you think I want you to be…”

He grinned and she grinned back. She realised she had seriously underestimated Joe Breeze.

 

They spent the afternoon together. They found a seat with a good view of the crowd and ran commentaries on their fellow cosplayers. They were generous and admired most costumes but some failed their quality controls. (“What is he supposed to be?”) They wondered at the growing numbers of zombies (“What a place for an outbreak to start”) until a passer-by told them there was a professional make-up artist present churning them out like a production line. They were scathing of players in straight off-the-peg costumes but would diss anything too homemade (“Is that helmet made of cardboard?) They universally praised anyone playing manga or anime characters and the more obscure the better. There was a very effective Hell Girl in her black sailor suit school uniform and at least two Sailor Moons. They saw one man having his replica gun confiscated by a steward (“The most realistic element of his costume.”) Sasha derived much amusement from spotting a girl dressed as Mei, the girl loner who gets together with Yamato in Sukitte Ii na Yo.

“Poor Mei, looking everywhere for her Yamato. You should go and talk to her.”

Joe covered up his school tie by stroking his chin. “I’m perfectly happy here with you.”

Sasha was pleased. Out of the school context Joe seemed much better looking. He had taken some trouble over his appearance today, of course, but she wondered if her first impressions of him (the boy loser sitting alone in the classroom over break) had made him invisible to her ever after. She’d been wrong, he was fanciable. Would he fancy her when she was out of costume? But for now she was a masked superhero. She wasn’t herself so she could more truly be herself. She took his hand and held it. He didn’t pull away and squeezed her hand back.

Because Joe did fancy her and his silly crush on Fliss evaporated into the heady atmosphere of Comic Con. He realised this was what he really wanted. He wasn’t Yamato going through the motions of someone else’s script for a shoujo written for teenage girls. This was real. It was his turn to feel emboldened. He leant sideways and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. She might have been surprised (was there a flicker of her eyes?) but straightaway she did the same and this kiss was more prolonged.

This was romance.

 

Later that afternoon, wrapped in coats, they walked home together. At Joe’s instigation they didn’t take the direct route up Ferensway but took a detour to see Blade. A massive wind turbine blade had been installed across Queen Victoria Square. They photographed each other in costume pretending to hold it up. After this the city centre seemed windswept, empty and shuttered up; desolate after the excitement and colour of Comic Con. Conversation continued to flow as they found themselves perfectly at ease with one another.

They parted in Cresswell Close, neither wanting to break the spell of a perfect day by encountering a parent together. They agreed to meet at the same spot at ten o’clock for the second day of the convention. They had planned to go to a screening.

When Sasha got in she hung up her coat and took off the wig.

“Did you have a nice time, dear?” asked her mother.

“Really good,” she said. “Illusory Girl was quite a hit.”

“I’m very pleased. You had been so looking forward to it. Tea ready in about an hour?”

“Perfect.” Sasha ran upstairs to look at the photos on her phone and do some serious networking.

 

Feyderbrand looked out of his high window at the lights of the city. He could recognise the different types: the lighted windows of buildings, illuminated billboards and shop fronts, a smattering of neon, streetlights and traffic. From here he could see the lights on the Humber Bridge and flashing red warnings on tall chimneys. But all the lights were signs. They all meant something. Wherever he looked he saw signs. As a Semiotician he interpreted everything as a sign. The things he saw, read, smelt or did were all invested with meaning; even the night sky with its scudding clouds, passing planes, constellations and the dominant full moon.

He looked at this satellite of planet Earth as it reflected back the light of the sun and was aware of many possible connotations of this potent sign even at the level of the mythical. But for this lab-coated analyst no dogs bayed at the moon; no men transformed into wolves. There was no spike in referrals for mental illness, no face on the lunar surface and certainly no Goddess. Feyderbrand was never moonstruck. Not for him the soft moonlight that shines on lovers.

Feyderbrand was spared the sweet currents of romance that had wafted Sasha and Joe into each other’s arms. He was wearing his dream suit. As were all the other officers and operatives within the British Extracting Co Ltd silo.

He had got used to the dream suit. One molecule thick it covered his entire body including orifices. Food and drink and bodily fluids could pass freely through the membrane but the influence of the machine could not. It was like a second skin and so microthin it was totally invisible. When it was sprayed on (every twenty eight days) he was rendered immune from any genre changes emanating from downstairs. He and his colleagues were able to think outside of genre. Wearers could resist the generic conventions governing the interpretation of every sign.

This protection was crucial so close to the actual thing itself. The American spy who had killed André and conned his way into their Parisian HQ had taken the full force of the machine without a dream suit. At that range he would soon have lost the ability to make sense of anything.

Sometimes, as now, Feyderbrand worried he was taking too much on trust from his own technicians. He couldn’t see the dream suit or feel it. He was reminded of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. What if there was no dream suit? What if in the early days of building and testing the prototype machine they had all fallen victim to a stray emanation? What if they’d become trapped in Science Fiction without even knowing it?

Romance and Mystery can shade one into one another and Feyderbrand, insensitive to genre in his dream suit, did not notice when the machine slipped a gear. He did notice the moon had gone behind a cloud and the whole sky had darkened.