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  “Um, okay,” Frank said. “We’re coming.”

  “Think he heard us?” I whispered as we followed Zolo down the hall. “Or is he keeping quiet for his own weirdo reasons?”

  Frank barely had time to shrug before we both got swept into the conference room where the Q & A was being held. Anya was just inside, waiting for us.

  “There you are!” She grabbed Frank’s arm. “I asked Jaan to bring an extra chair so you can sit by me on the panel.”

  Vance was standing nearby. “What?” he said. “Since when are random boyfriends and girlfriends allowed on the panel? That’s weird.”

  “Yeah.” Zolo chuckled. “Very Yoko, right?”

  Vance looked confused. “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” Zolo said, rolling his eyes.

  Meanwhile Frank gave me a helpless look. I shrugged. What could we say? It was pretty clear that Jaan would do anything Anya asked. If she wanted Frank up there with her, why fight it?

  I wandered off toward the audience. Part of the front row was reserved for cast and crew. There was one seat left on the end, so I took it.

  “Hi,” the girl sitting beside me said. She was in the first seat outside the cast and crew area. “You with the production?”

  “Sure, sort of.” I was distracted by watching Frank. It didn’t seem very undercover to have him up there with zillions of cameras and cell phones snapping photos of him with Anya. Pretty soon he’d be posted and dissected on every geeky fan site in the world.

  But what could we do? We’d just have to roll with it.

  “Cool,” the girl said. “What do you do?”

  I finally looked over at her. Whoa. For a science fiction nerd, she was pretty cute. Straight dark hair, intelligent brown eyes.

  “Oh,” I said. “Uh, I’m an extra. You know. Like an actor, but not one of the main characters.”

  “Yeah, I know what an extra is.” She looked amused. “Actually, I wanted to try out to be an extra. But my lame parents wouldn’t let me skip school.”

  “Bummer. So you’re a Deathstalker fan, huh?” I asked.

  She nodded. “A huge fan,” she said. “I’ve been reading the comics since—”

  The sudden buzz of my phone cut her off. “Sorry,” I said, pulling it out and glancing at it.

  It was a text from Frank: JUST SAW WHO UR TALKING 2.

  I sighed. Leave it to Mr. No Fun to notice. What was the harm in getting my flirt on while I waited for the Q & A to start?

  WUTZ IT 2U? I texted back quickly.

  Then I tucked the phone away and turned back toward the girl. “So,” I said in my suavest voice. “What were you saying?”

  The next buzz came quickly. Gritting my teeth, I checked the message.

  IT’S HER, he’d texted. JANICE, THE GIRL FRM B4. ASK HER ABOUT THE DS BLOGS.

  Janice? Oh, right. I remembered Frank mentioning the name. She was the girl who’d helped get that crazy fan off Anya by pulling his hair. But what blogs was he talking about?

  “Who keeps texting you?” The girl tried to lean closer to get a look.

  I quickly stuck the phone back in my pocket again. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Just, uh, my stockbroker.”

  “Yeah, right. So don’t tell me,” she said.

  “Listen, my name’s Joe,” I said. “What’s yours?”

  “Janice.”

  Okay, so far so good. “Um, do you like blogs, Janice?”

  She looked a little confused. “Um, sure?” she said. “I try to keep up with the major Deathstalker ones.”

  “Really? Like which ones?” I had no idea why Frank wanted to know about those blogs. Maybe he had a new theory about the mission.

  “Well, there’s a few. But the one I check the most is Stalking Deathstalker,” she said. “It’s definitely the most popular one out there. In fact, the blogger’s right over there.”

  I looked where she was pointing, and my jaw dropped. “That guy?” I exclaimed. “Mr. Paper Plane?”

  Janice looked confused again. “I’m talking about the guy in the Dr. Brayne costume,” she said. “His name is Dalton Friedrich.”

  I stared. Dalton Friedrich was definitely the dude who’d launched that crazy paper airplane at Anya. He was leaning forward in his seat, staring eagerly at the panel.

  I glanced that way myself, wondering if I should warn someone that he was here. Just then someone toward the back of the room yelled, “DEATHSTALKER!”

  Someone else echoed the cry. Soon the entire room was chanting the name: “DEATHSTALKER! DEATHSTALKER! DEATHSTALKER!”

  I glanced around. The room was packed—it was standing room only already, and more people were crowding in. Most of them were chanting Deathstalker’s name. Janice grinned and leaned toward me.

  “Stalker fans are a little impatient,” she said into my ear. Then she leaned away, pumped her fist in the air, and joined the chant.

  I glanced up front. Anya looked nervous as the chant got louder and rowdier. Frank looked uncomfortable sitting there beside her.

  The room didn’t quiet down until Jaan stood up and raised his hands. “Thank you for coming, everyone!” he said into his microphone. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

  That made the chanting stop. Jaan said a few words about the movie, and then opened things up for questions.

  Hands shot up all around the room. A guy sitting a few rows away caught my eye. He had nerdy glasses, greasy dark hair that hadn’t seen a barber in way too long, and an intense look in his eyes.

  A couple of production assistants were circulating through the room with microphones. One stuck the mic in front of Greasy McNerdboy.

  “Yeah, okay,” the guy said, grabbing the mic and leaning forward to glare at the panel. “This question is for Jaan St. John. I just want to know, like, what in the five galaxies possessed you to cast a wimpy nobody as Deathstalker?”

  A howl of protest went up from several parts of the room. One came from Dalton the blogger.

  “Crawl back under your rock, Eccleston!” he shouted. “Nobody cares what you think! Don’t listen to him, Anya!”

  “Whoa,” I said to Janice as more fans joined in the shouting. “People get really worked up about this stuff, huh?”

  “Don’t pay much attention to Myles,” she said. “He’s a total loser spaz.”

  “Myles?”

  She pointed at the guy with the microphone, who looked pleased with the chaos he’d started. “He considers himself a superfan,” Janice said. “But if you ask me, he’s just a bored rich dork from Manhattan with a bad attitude.”

  A production assistant passed near us, and Janice’s hand went up. “Thanks for taking my question,” she said when the PA handed her the mic. “Are you planning to use special effects to make Zolo Watson look taller? Because otherwise there’s no way any true fan is going to buy him as Asp.”

  You guessed it. More yelling.

  Things went on like that for a while. Who knew a movie based on a comic book could be so controversial to so many people? Before long I had the gist of the drama. A bunch of people, including Janice, thought Zolo was all wrong to play Asp because he was too short. Others were outraged by the addition of Vance’s character, Parker Oberon, since he wasn’t even in the comics. And of course I already knew about the whole Anya thing.

  Most of the panel handled it pretty well. Vance and Zolo appeared unperturbed. Jaan looked amused by all the hubbub. Stan just looked annoyed.

  Anya was the only one who seemed kind of freaked out. No surprise there. When one of the PAs came up to her holding a bouquet of flowers, she jumped in surprise.

  “What’s that?” she blurted out.

  The microphone in front of her was live, so her words bounced out and interrupted some story Vance was telling about himself. No big loss there.

  “One of the fans in the back wanted you to have these,” the PA said before hurrying off.

  “Oh. Um, thanks.” Anya smiled uncertainly at the crowd. Then she stuck her nose int
o the flowers. “They smell, uh …”

  Her voice trailed off, and she looked puzzled. Staring into the bouquet, her face went pale.

  Then she dropped the flowers, jumped up, and raced out of the room without another word.

  Fanning the Flames

  Anya’s sudden departure took me by surprise. She was out of the room before I was out of my chair. I grabbed the flowers and took off after her.

  Joe was on the move too. We both caught up with Anya in the hallway.

  “What was that all about?” Joe exclaimed.

  I finally glanced at the flowers, which I’d grabbed on instinct. “I think I know.” There was a note tucked in among the blooms, where only someone looking into the bouquet could see it.

  I pulled it out. In big block letters, it read:

  YOU ARE NOT DEATHSTALKER. GO BACK TO

  NOWHERESVILLE OR U WILL REGRET IT!

  “Whoa,” Joe said as he read over my shoulder.

  Anya was in tears. “I thought this role was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she cried. “But now I think it was the worst!”

  Just then the door burst open. Jaan was the first one out, followed by the rest of the cast.

  “Anya!” the director exclaimed. “What happened, my child?”

  “Yeah. This better be good.” Vance sounded annoyed.

  Harmony rushed over and put an arm around Anya. “Zip it. Can’t you see she’s upset?” She glared at Vance.

  “Oh yeah? Well, I’m upset too!” Vance grumbled. “I don’t see why Stan decided to call off the rest of the panel just because the delicate newbie had another meltdown.”

  Stan emerged just in time to hear him. “What was the point in continuing?” he said with a scowl. “It was barely controlled chaos in there. Somebody please remind me never to do another sci-fi picture!”

  He stomped off. Jaan hardly seemed to notice. “Never mind, my boy,” he told Vance with a smile. “Haven’t you heard the old saying? Always leave them wanting more! This shall just increase the anticipation for our second Q & A this afternoon.” Then he turned toward Anya. “There, there, my dear,” he cooed. “Let’s go get you something cool to drink, hmm?”

  Soon we were all back in the hospitality suite. Anya was huddled on a couch in the corner. Harmony was patting her on the knee while Vivian cooed over both of them. Vance was on his cell phone in a different corner. Buzz and most of the other actors were just hanging out, doing their own thing.

  Well, all except for Zolo. He’d disappeared again.

  Joe and I found a private spot near the food table. “What do you think?” he asked, popping a grape into his mouth. “Think that note came from the same person as the text messages and stuff?”

  “Probably.” I thought about it for a second. “Or maybe not.”

  Joe grinned. “Way to be decisive, bro.”

  “No, listen,” I said. “All this time we’ve been pretty much assuming it’s someone from the cast or crew causing trouble for Anya.”

  “Totally.” Joe nodded. “Who else could get access to her trailer like that? You saw the security on the set.”

  “Right. But what if at least some of the trouble is coming from another direction? Some of these Deathstalker fans seem to get really worked up about this stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Joe agreed, reaching for a cracker. “Like, that Janice girl thinks casting Zolo as Asp was the worst decision since the invention of homework. And she seems like one of the saner ones.”

  “Don’t forget about the guy with the paper airplane,” I said. “Or the one with the mask who threw himself at her.”

  Joe’s eyes widened. “That reminds me,” he said through a mouthful of half-chewed cracker. “Did you notice that the paper airplane geek was in the audience just now? Janice told me he writes a big Deathstalker blog. His name is Dalton.”

  “Really?” I hadn’t noticed the guy. From up on the dais, the audience had pretty much been a blur of faces. I’d only spotted Janice because she’d been talking to Joe.

  Joe was already pulling out his ATAC smart-phone. “Let’s check out that blog. Dalton seemed pretty harmless, but he’s definitely kind of obsessive about Anya.”

  “Good call.”

  It didn’t take long to find the blog, Stalking Deathstalker. It was actually pretty impressive— no basic blogware default backgrounds here. Tiny airplane motors apparently weren’t Dalton’s only talent; the guy definitely knew his way around a computer. The graphics were awesome, with tons of comic art and photos and even some pretty clever embedded animation. Dalton’s latest entry was brief and dated early that morning:

  6:45 a.m. Off to FanCon! Srsly psyched to see the DS movie crowd f2f, esp the lovely Anya. Will report back l8r to all my sad peeps who can’t be there. Ciao, D.

  “Nothing to see here, I guess,” Joe said, scrolling down.

  “Wait. What’s that?” I’d just spotted a comment below the entry. It had a lot of exclamation points and capital letters.

  “Looks like someone just added it a few minutes ago.” Joe scrolled a little farther so we could read the comment. It was a spitting-mad rant about the Q & A that had just ended!

  “Wow,” I said as I scanned it. “Whoever wrote this has serious anger issues.”

  “Yeah,” Joe said slowly. “And I think I might know who wrote it!” He pointed to the screen name. “Look, he calls himself MylesEcc. Remember the greasy-haired dude who asked the first obnoxious question about casting Anya?”

  I shrugged. “It rings a bell.”

  “Janice told me his name is Myles. He’s some kind of weirdo Deathstalker superfan.”

  “Interesting.” I scanned the message again. The writer seemed furious that the Q & A had ended early and insulted that nobody on the panel had taken his question more seriously. He ended with a few more digs at Anya and her inexperience. “Think we should find out more?”

  “I’ll send an e-mail to HQ.” Joe’s thumbs were already flying over the phone’s tiny keyboard. “And if we’re thinking unbalanced fans might be behind some of this stuff, we might as well look into that Dalton guy while we’re at it.”

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Myles Eccleston

  Hometown: New York, New York

  Physical description: Age 20, 5′9″, 145 165., brown hair, brown eyes, wears glasses

  Occupation: Part-time college student

  Background: Born and raised in Manhattan; has a genius-level IQ but relatively poor grades; was kicked out of several expensive private schools for unknown reasons when younger.

  Suspicious behavior: Posts frequently on blogs about Deathstalker comics and related topics. Seems unnaturally angry that an inexperienced unknown was cast as his favorite character.

  Suspected of: Harassing Anya with notes and text messages; possibly sneaking onto the movie set to start the fire in her dressing room.

  Possible motive: Scaring Anya into quitting her role because he disapproves of her casting.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Dalton Friedrich

  Hometown: Colts Neck, New Jersey

  Physical description: Age 23, 6′1″, 195 165., light brown hair, blue eyes

  Occupation: Part-time sales clerk/computer tech; writes a popular blog called Stalking Deathstalker.

  Background: Graduated from college over a year ago, and has held several low-paying part-time jobs since then. Currently works at a computer store. Lives in his parents’ basement.

  Suspicious behavior: Obsessed with Deathstalker in general and Anya in particular.

  Suspected of: Possibly being involved in Anya’s harassment.

  Possible motive: Might be setting himself up so he can step in as her savior.

  ATAC hadn’t taken long to get back to us. Joe only had time to eat three or four cookies and a hunk of cheese in the meantime.

  “Okay,” he said as he scanned the info. “I’m not buying the savior motive HQ suggests. Dalton just sounds like a dweeb. But this Myles char
acter? Major red flags.”

  “Yeah. I wonder what he did to get kicked out of all those schools. And why it’s so secret that even ATAC doesn’t know about it.”

  Joe shook his head. “Who knows? That boarding school mission we did showed us these rich kids have their ways of keeping things quiet.”

  Just then I saw Anya coming toward us. She had stopped crying, but she didn’t look much calmer.

  “I can’t believe things are so crazy,” she said, her voice shaking. “I wish I’d never agreed to come to this convention. I wish I’d never agreed to play Deathstalker!”

  “Don’t say that,” Joe said. “We’re on the case now, remember? We’ll figure out who’s behind it all.”

  She looked dubious. “I guess. But in the meantime, don’t leave me alone, okay? This whole place makes me nervous.”

  Joe and I traded a look. Her request was going to make it tough to investigate. We wouldn’t exactly be able to blend into the crowd with Deathstalker tagging along.

  I knew what I had to do. “I’ll stay here with her,” I told Joe. “Why don’t you go out and look for our newest suspects?”

  He nodded. “I’ll report back if I find the super-fans. Or anything else interesting.” Grabbing one last handful of chips, he took off for the door.

  “What superfans?” Anya asked me.

  “We’re looking into the idea that an obsessive Deathstalker fan may be sending you all those messages,” I explained.

  “Really? But what about that fire? Fans aren’t allowed on set.”

  “I know. It’s just a theory right now. But we need to follow up on all the angles.”

  Her comment reminded me how true that was. We shouldn’t get so wrapped up in this superfan idea that we forget the other possible scenario. It was the more likely one, in my opinion—that the culprit was someone from the cast or crew.

  I glanced around the hospitality suite. At least part of the cast and crew was right here. Zolo was still nowhere to be seen, but there was Vance—he seemed pretty down on Anya. I hadn’t even met most of the adult actors yet. I recognized a few of them, though.