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.