They luckily found an unoccupied table near the rear of the area, and the girl chose the seat that put her back to the wall without hesitation. Jason noted this almost unconscious preference and wondered once more who she was. He took his seat and smiled.

“I am Jason Lerner.” He offered with a smile.

“Pleased to meet you, Jason Lerner.” She hesitated, glancing to where Jason assumed the guards were stationed somewhere behind him, before shrugging and smiling back. “My name is Lin Daiyu.”

Jason reached out with his hand in a way that caused her to assume he intended for her to shake hands with him. However, as her hand reached his, he took hold of it and quickly turned it palm down; he brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of her hand lightly before she realized what he was about. The whole thing happened so quickly that she was either too surprised to react by pulling her hand away, or else she decided to go with the old-fashioned action. She certainly smiled charmingly at his bravado.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Daiyu.” He offered smoothly, recognizing the Chinese name word order.

Her eyes widened at his use of her personal name, but after a moment, her smile became even broader, if anything.

“And I am pleased to meet you, Jason.” She replied.

They both started eating, and Jason found himself feeling he should know who she was, but nothing was popping into his head. He began to get getting frustrated with himself but kept up an amiable front.

“Do you live here in the States?” He asked between bites.

She continued to smile but shook her head.

“No. I am here at USC on a one-semester exchange doing a Political Science degree. I go back in two weeks.” She lost her good humor with this admission, and Jason got the clear impression she was not keen on going home. She glanced at him under her brows.

“I like your costume. I don’t recognize the character, but it looks very good. Did you make it yourself?”

“Well, I designed it. But I had a professional actually make it up. Sewing is not really my forte.” He answered. “I’m glad you like it. It’s my sorcerer outfit.” He paused a moment. “I don’t really get to wear it much except at these things.” He waved his hand to encompass the convention. “It’s a bit much to wander around in normally. People give you funny looks if you go shopping at the local mart dressed like this.”

He tried to keep a serious, deadpan expression on his face as he said this.

She saw the joke and laughed. “I can imagine.”

He snickered a little in sympathy with her and then decided to stick his neck out. “So, who are you?”

“What do you mean?” She replied, attempting to act innocent.

He smiled and waved idly to where the watchdogs were camped at a table near the door. One was watching them, and the other was watching who came and went through that orifice.

“Half the way to ….” She queried, puzzling over the reference, then her head jerked up, looking into his face searchingly as she blushed slightly.

 “You, you are presumptuous!” She declared, but there was a twinkle in her eyes and a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth that Jason duly noted.

She was not entirely averse to this style of approach, it appeared to Jason, given the twinkle in her eyes and the slight upturning of the corners of her mouth. He was doing better with her than any girl he had ever attempted to chat up in the last three years!

He swapped back to Mandarin.

“”When the enemy gives you an opening, be swift as a hare, and he will be unable to withstand you.” He bowed and then reverted to English. “I can but try, lovely lady. I would truly like to buy you lunch if I may.”

She studied him for a few moments with a crease between her eyes as she considered him. Would she really agree to have lunch with him?

Finally, she asked. “Sun Tzu?”

He was a little surprised by her question, not realizing she was still thinking about the quote. And, of course, his lunch invitation was being simply ignored. That was more the normal response girls gave him. Oh well, so be it, but he decided for one last try and bowed again.

 “Very good. Have you had lunch yet?”

He waved his arm back the way he had come from in the direction of where the food court lay.

She looked annoyed for a second, presumably at his persistence, but found something in his face and smiled.

“No. I was just heading there, in fact.”

He bowed again and then held out his arm with the elbow held out from his body and crooked in the fashion of a medieval prince, inviting her to rest her hand on the back of his hand.

“May I accompany you?” He smiled at her.

This time she surprised him and started to laugh, then obviously recalled his earlier boldness and stifled it. She reached up and placed her hand on his arm.

“Very well. I know I am going to regret this, but your boldness deserves some reward.”

She gave him a quick smile before looking resolutely forward as she accompanied him as they promenaded down the corridor doing their best to imitate a medieval monarch and his lady, the two heavies forming the entourage. Ha! He thought to himself. Boldness actually paid off. Interesting. And even stranger was the manner in which people tended to get out of their way. Weird.

The food on offer was the typical range available at cons. Jason wondered if perhaps the same vendors traveled around the country, inflicting the same, well, not atrocious, but certainly very ordinary, fare on geeks from coast to coast at the highly inflated prices that all such events seemed to require. She didn’t appear overly keen on trying the so-called Chinese food on offer. After a period of unexcited perusal of the various foodstuffs available, they settled on two Caesar salad wraps. Jason went with a latte, feeling the need for caffeine, while his companion settled for an orange juice.

“I was distracted as well, lady, and owe you an apology for my clumsiness.”

He had learned Mandarin from one of his first tutors in college, who had been a Ph.D. student from Shanghai. They had hit it off, and Jason’s interest in Sun Tzu led him to take Mandarin as an elective for two semesters, and he had used it with Lee and a few of Lee’s friends. Urasmian’s spell apparently worked for old memories as well, as he had no trouble trotting out his somewhat limited Mandarin even though he hadn’t used the language for a few years.

She appeared both surprised and, if anything, became even more wary because of his use of Mandarin.

“You know who I am?” She asked, looking concerned and backing away a little more.

The heavies seemed to tense up and move as if getting ready to block him or perhaps take him down.

He shook his head, reverting to English.

“Only that you are a very attractive young lady who I nearly flattened by not watching where I was going. I feel I owe you something for my stupidity. Lunch, perhaps?” He smiled broadly.

Such open flattery and broad invitation rarely worked in these sorts of situations, as he well knew, but then this would be his only opportunity to get to know her, he surmised, having no idea who she was or where she was from. At college, you could at least get some idea of a girl’s timetable and could plan “chance” meetings based on that information. Not that his tactics had led to him getting anywhere most of the time, but the poor results were not so much a reflection of how effective the tactic was, but rather his low appeal to women!

She looked up into his face, puzzled and a little uncertainly.

“You really have no idea who I am?”

He shook his head. “None whatsoever.”

He paused, deciding his best approach. Hmmm. Oblivious ordinary male or someone awake on all accounts. She looked rather studious and very serious.

“You are obviously someone of importance given the guard dogs giving me the eye.” He tilted his head slightly, noting her eyes widening at his admission of noticing her guards. “Having two fellows watching my attempt at picking you up is a bit intimidating, I will admit, but fortune favors the brave, and you are very pretty.”

He kept smiling at this blandishment, hoping she would decide it was funny or at least so pathetic she felt she had to take pity on him. She even smiled slightly at his words which was something at least.

“So, you are trying to pick me up, are you?”

“I am now.” He replied promptly, catching her by surprise.

“It’s not every day a pretty girl literally throws herself into my arms.” He twitted her, still smiling.

She looked affronted at this.

“I did not throw myself into your arms!” She admonished him but then saw the twinkle in his eyes. “You, you are laughing at me.”

“No, I am trying to make you laugh. If a girl laughs, you’re half the way to first base.” He said blandly, watching her reaction closely as it was likely she did not know the term.

Jason had hardly made it in through the entrance before he found his eyes drawn to the extremely attractive blond in the revealing superhero costume coming down the passageway in the other direction. She walked confidently despite the very skimpy costume she wore, with that arrogant confidence of those who are either too good-looking or too rich to care about the reactions of their fellow humans. The girl never once glanced at the people moving in the opposite direction as she strode along, keeping her head turned solely in the direction of her travel.  As she passed him, Jason turned to catch a view of her from the rear and decided that she looked almost as good from that angle as from the front.

The numerous people passing in both directions soon hid her from view, and he turned back to continue in the direction he had been traveling in. He dodged around a group of large people, probably an extended family, given the similarity in looks and build, just in time to notice movement to his left, and he realized that he had reached the entrance to the TV and screen auditorium. There he found himself face to face with a girl of Asian features traveling in the opposite direction and not watching where she was going.  The girl’s attention was directed into the auditorium he had been heading for, and she was oblivious to his approach. Reacting quickly, he moved his staff out of the way in case she hurt herself but, being wrong-footed, failed to dodge completely successfully as she plowed straight into him, his arms closing about her to hold them both steady as she emitted a startled “Oof.”

Although she appeared to be fairly young, and her body was quite thin, he could feel it squishing against him quite nicely as they came together. Her startled expression only made her already attractive face appear even more intriguing.

“I’m terribly sorry.” He said, smiling broadly but not actually letting her go.

She looked up into his face, startlement giving way to wariness, but she made no immediate move to pull away, perhaps too surprised to react.

“I am sorry too.” She said in a pleasant, slightly accented voice.

She quickly glanced around as if looking to escape, and Jason released his hold on her, not wanting to frighten her. Then, at the edge of his vision, he noted movement in their direction by two large Asian men in plainclothes who were unlikely to be geeks and, from the way they were moving purposely in their direction, were perhaps security guards of some type. Perhaps she had been more concerned with them taking action than frightened of him, he thought. Was she trying to escape them?

Stepping slightly back, she gave him a little bow and made some motion with her left hand that caused the two men to stop their determined approach through the streaming groups of people. So they were guards, not pursuers. Probably a good thing, he thought to himself, realizing he had nearly been faced with the first test of his determination not to show off his abilities in public.

“I beg your pardon.” She said rather formally. “I was not watching where I was going.” Jason was even more intrigued by noting the hand signal and the immediate halting of the two large security-type fellows. So, who was this attractive but otherwise ordinary-looking girl? Getting a better look at the heavies, he realized the guards were not just generically Asian but looked Chinese or possibly Korean like the girl appeared to be, as she didn’t really look Japanese. He tried Mandarin.

Sorry folks – I now have a new computer – do I need to say more?


After the first training session, his hands hurt from punching the ball in the Aussie passing method. One hand would hold the ball steady with it resting on top of the palm, and then the other hand, made into a fist, connected with the end of the ball using the inside of the fist where the thumb curled around. The best passers made the ball rotate backward and it reached their targets with surprising accuracy, even over twenty yards or more. By the end of the two weeks of training, he was tired, his leg muscles hurt, his hands hurt, and he could run further for longer than he had ever been able to in his whole life.

The training rapidly became tedious, but when the actual season started, he found he quite enjoyed playing even if he was nowhere near as good as the seasoned players, especially the ex-patriate Aussies. The bumps, scrapes, and bruises he accumulated rather readily were all part of the fun, apparently! Certainly, the other guys seemed to throw themselves about with wild abandon, even though they didn’t wear pads, and he found himself trying to emulate them. One of those unique tenets that many sports have is that in Aussie Rules, you really did have to get stuck in when it was your turn to go. No one wanted to be known as a wimp! Not having any pads on made it damn scary at first, but he found he quickly got used to the physical contact, learned to make subtle adjustments to his positioning, and even started to enjoy the whole thing up to a point.

His folks were bemused by his sudden athleticism and even more so when they discovered he was playing Australian Football! Still, all this physical activity did seem to improve his stamina considerably when it came to using his magic. Translocating items a few hundred yards, two or three times in quick succession, no longer left him weak and worn out. Shoving things around using his kinetic force push spell thing became easier and easier. The temptation to try out the translocating between Earths grew with his increased performance and stamina, but he kept himself under control, although he did spend a lot of time considering the matter.

He was fairly sure that using that same spell and moving fifty Earths east would presumably get him to the Earth that Urasmian was from, in the same relative location, going on Urasmian’s experience. But the spell didn’t let him take much with him, just what he was wearing, apparently. Or, maybe, things that he was touching? There was much food for thought there, but until he decided to try translocating to a different world, there was no way of knowing the answer to a lot of his questions. When he translocated locally, he took everything he was wearing plus anything he was holding in his hands with him. And he was afraid to try translocating to another Earth until he had more confidence in his abilities. Or perhaps he was just afraid? Hmm. Yes. He had to admit he was quite scared of jumping to another Earth. One had to be honest with oneself, after all.

Chapter 12

China girl

Condor Con wasn’t the biggest or the best of the Cons, but it was the first Con that Jason had ever attended and therefore held a soft spot in Jason’s heart. He would never forget the excitement he had felt when his dad had led him through the entrance of the Convention for that very first time! Nowadays, of course, he went to conventions as much for the ‘scenery’ as for the special guests and events at the Cons. And this year, he went as himself, or at least his magical superhero alter ego! Ha. Where else can you dress like a superhero without drawing attention to yourself? At a fantasy Con, of course!