The man grabs her mic and whirls to us.
He’s familiar. Wearing a faded JUST DO IT T-shirt and jeans. A battered backpack slung over his shoulders.
It’s . . . I swear it’s the same guy who was messing with the crash-bar doors over on Autograph Alley.
“None of you are safe! The virus is here!”
A few people boo and hoot from the audience.
A yellow-shirted security guy on the ballroom floor is yelling into a radio and trying and failing to hoist his bulky self onto the tall stage.
The guy who grabbed the mic is pacing, pulling back a hank of greasy hair in agitation.
“I’m a scientist, a biomedical researcher from the CDC. You’ve all been locked in, okay? The whole convention center is in lockdown. There’s been an exposure. But I’ve locked us in here, in the ballroom and the exhibit hall downstairs. It’s the only way we stand a chance. Do you understand? The contagion is fatal—always fatal. There’s no cure, but if we can isolate—”
“Get off the stage!” a man’s voice yells.
Michaela stands to the side, holding out a hand for the mic, smiling with the expression you give a shrieking toddler.
A second security guard in a yellow shirt walks out onto the stage.
The scientist edges away, putting the row of seated actors between himself and the approaching guard.
“The infected are here. We need to establish quarantine procedures,” he pants into the mic as he darts to the opposite side of the row of chairs, keeping it between himself and the security guard. “We don’t have much time!”
Hoots and laughter scatter through the audience as the scientist runs back around to the opposite side of the chairs.
The security guard chases him like it’s a preschool game.
Another security guard trots onstage, then two more. They split and approach the scientist from both sides.
The audience applauds.
“You think you know zombies?” the scientist yelps into the mic, and he ducks under the reaching arm of one of the guards.
He zigs around another set of grasping arms, vaults over Simon Wong in his chair, darts forward to the stage edge.
He stands, looking out at us, his eyes wide, wild. His voice sharp, like a slap.
“The zombie apocalypse is here now.”
The audience cheers.
“Listen to me! It’s the only way we’ll survive!”
The audience hoots and shrieks applause. A guy yells, “Bring it on!”
The guards walk forward, hands up, telegraphing easy, easy, fella.
Behind me, there’s a commotion, rippling through the pod of us clustered at the back of the room.
People are talking, normal-volume voices, suddenly turning away from the stage.
“What’s going on?” Imani asks the man standing behind us.
“Someone said the door is locked,” he says, shrugging, like he doesn’t really believe it.
The back of my neck prickles.
“This better not be a performance art thing,” the man grumbles.
Imani looks at me, and I can tell she feels the same unease.
The guy onstage who says he’s really a scientist. Could he be dangerous? He was tampering with that door in the exhibit hall. Has he locked us in? I’m suddenly grateful we all had to go through security, so we know no one has a gun, at least.
“Let’s move,” I say. “I don’t like this.”
“Follow me,” Imani says, and leads the way, weaving through the crowd at the back, moving away from the doors, moving away from the crowd of people straining to see the stage, working our way parallel to the stage, wriggling through clumps of standing people.
We cut left, Imani’s Disney trick, moving through the standing people who line the back of the hall.
We get to the side aisle, where Imani stops and we look around. About ten rows in front of us stands the camera platform. There’s a small patch of empty floor on every side. I nod at it, and we leave the wall and head for it. I’m thinking we can put