When the first grenades exploded Gary sprinted to the main doors to Workshop No. 3, a.k.a. VentureCon 1 to see who was attacking. The screams of people panicking was drowned out by the explosions of more bombs. He couldn't see anything in the alley outside, so he raced out onto the extensive front lawn of the Venture Compound. The ground exploded in front of him with a deafening blast showering Gary with dirt, turf and a sharp wind of hot gases. He threw himself into the small crater the grenades left behind just as more grenades exploded around him.

Something landed on him with a grunt of stale cigarette breath and pine scented cologne.

"Get off me, you bitch!" he snarled.

"That's no way to talk to a lady." Dr. Mrs. The Monarch protested.

"You're no lady." He pushed her aside and crawled to the top of the crater (...and I just mowed it yesterday, he stewed) and peered over the edge. Hovering in the afternoon sky over the Venture Compound, like leprous moon, was the Monarch's flying headquarters, The Cocoon. Smoke and flame would erupt from its side from time to time where teams of the Monarch's minions were leaning out of windows to fire more rocket propelled grenade.

Gary was glad to see that the teams with the rocket launchers were painfully untrained since they weren't hitting anything. He was also disgusted by their lack of preparedness. When he was running things, as the Monarch's General 21, he had run a tight ship. Minions were trained and trained again until they knew their tasks. He wouldn't have tolerated such sloppiness. Of course the reason he had resigned from the Monarch's operation was still digging her boney knees and elbows into his back as she tried to get off.

"I thought you said he was sleeping off a migraine!" Gary shouted. He could barely hear himself, the blast had so affected his hearing. He hoped she could at least hear part of what he was saying.

"That's what the bastard told me." the bastard's wife insisted. "That's why I thought I could sneak out and come here. Either he was lying to get me out of the Cocoon or the idea to do an aerial assault so fired him up he's ignoring the headache. You know how he is when he gets an idea of how to torment Dr. Venture."

"I should have known you only came here to scout out the place," Gary accused.

"Oh, come on!" Dr. Mrs. The Monarch objected,. "I'm not in costume, and you know what stickler's the Guild of Calamitous Intent is about always being in costume when on Guild business. And I signed that stupid pledge of yours. And, look," she reached into the tote bag she had brought with her as she had followed Gary out into the lawn of the Venture Compound. She took out an old and tattered book. Giant Boy Detective #6. "I've had this since I was a girl. It changed my life. I came here explicitly to have it signed by the author. A man I've admired for thirty years. The last thing I want is for him to get blown up by my stupid husband."

Gary sighed. In his heart he knew she was telling him the truth. He looked back at the wing of the main building that was Workroom No 3. Adults and children were crowded around the entrance to Venture Enterprises' Workroom No. 3 afraid to stay in the hall while the shattered roof fall down on them but afraid too, to risk the bombs falling around the building to get into their cars and flee. Dean's one-day celebration of his favorite boy adventure series looked to be going up in smoke. Literally. If Gary didn't do something there was going to be a slaughter here.

"Would it help to call him up and tell him there are civilians down here?" Gary asked. "I recall the Guild looks unkindly on excessive collateral damage during an Arching."

"I can't call him. I'm not supposed to be here. Besides, when he's in one of his moods there's no stopping him," Dr. Mrs The Monarch reminded him. She was crouching next to him in the small foxhole.

"You didn't tell him you were coming to this convention?"

"He's ... not a fan of Giant Boy Detective. That Dean likes the series is always a point of jest for him. He can be kind of cruel, as you know. I thought I could avoid that. Also - if he knew I was at the Venture's and not Arching... He'd go a bit nuts."

"And this isn't 'nuts'?" Gary asked, nodding towards the hovering Cocoon. Blasts from the rocket grenades were slowing down as the minions were running out of RPGs. "I think you ought to give him a jingle before he drops a bomb on you."

"And have him holding this over my head for the next year or two? I'd rather risk the bombs instead!"

"Then you'd better make tracks before he sends in the ground-forces."

"Right. Give me your shirt." she demanded.

Gary looked her askance. "I'm wearing a jumpsuit."

"Then give me your undershirt. Or are we going commando these days." Her tone of voice suggested that Dr. Mrs. The Monarch had a plan.

"Didn't I see you buy a Venture-Con T-shirt earlier today? Use your own damn shirt."

"It's form-fitting. I need to hide these puppies," she touched her breasts. "If one of the minions happened to notice a woman running across the battlefield...I need something large enough to disguise my figure."

With an indecisive grunt, Gary unzip the front of the jumpsuit, stripped off his undershirt and handed it to her. She promptly pulled it over her dress. It hung off her shoulders like a tent. From her VentureCon tote she pulled out a souvenir baseball cap with VentureCon printed across the front and began stuffing her hair into it. She had Big Hair. It took a lot of stuffing to fit it all inside.

"Is there a nearer door?" she asked "I want to get under cover as quick as possible."

Gary sat up a bit to orient himself. "That way," he pointed.

"Good. Remember, you never saw me today!" she scrambled out of the crater and started running. Gary gave the hovering Cocoon a final look and followed a moment later. A rocket propelled grenade exploded close behind him. The day had started so nicely, he reflected. And now he was running for his life.

Actually his day hadn't started out all that well either.

The insistent honking of a car's horn outside the gates to the grounds had woken him from a heavy sleep. He'd glanced out to see who was making the noise and was surprised to find a silver Bentley waiting impatiently for the gate to open. As Head (and only member) of Venture Enterprise's Security it was his duty to let visitors onto the grounds - after he'd made sure they weren't a threat!

He pulled on his shoes, tightened his belt and ran his fingers through his hair a couple times so that it lay more or less where it should be. Gathering up a clipboard (clipboards are important. People respect a man with a clipboard) he went out to meet the driver.

Gary was a heavy-set man of medium height. His face was round and somewhat jowly, pointing to a youth of jelly-filled doughnuts and diligent avoidance of work. A tragedy a couple years back had changed his life. He was no longer the flabby man he had been. He actually could be pretty scary when he wanted to.

"Name and purpose of visit?" he asked.

"Ask little Lord Faulteroy," the driver said, jerking a thumb towards the name in the back seat. "I'm just hired to drive him around."

"I'll still need your name and the company's name." Gary reminded him, wrote it down and went back to the rear door and tapped on the glass. The man in the seat refused to look at him. So Gary tapped on the glass harder, and when the man still refused to respond, yanked the door open and hauled the man out.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" he asked in a gruff voice.

After a girlish shriek the man composed himself, pulled himself up importantly and with wounded dignity answered: "I am Winston Pettigrew, esquire. I was invited here for a small soiree of fans of the Giant Boy Detective series. I," he emphasized, "am the author of the aforesaid book series!" Pettigrew was short, portly and red in the face. Perhaps a precursor to gout, Gary thought. He was dressed in a well tailored tweed suit with leather patches on the elbows. Brown oxfords contrasted nicely with the tan of his suit. A small goatee failed to distract from his florid face. He looked to be about eighty.

"A soiree?" Gary echoed.

"Yes, a soiree. A soiree, in case you don't know is a small intimate gathering..."

"I know what a soiree is. There's just none scheduled for today. Who invited you?"

"Mister Dean Venture, to whom I shall certainly register my complaints about my treatment here."

"Dean, huh? Wait here." Gary turned back and entered the grounds through the small personnel gate next to the larger vehicular gate. He went into the Guard Shack before calling Dean. He could have called Dean on his wrist two-way communicator from beside the limo but he assumed there would be some shouting involved and he didn't like doing that in front of civilians.

"Hey, Gary," Dean said innocently as his face appeared on the small screen of the communicator, "what's up?"

"I'm calling about a man with a soiree."

Dean blinked, confused. "A what?"

"Someone called Winston Pettigrew, esquire, is at the gate. He says you invited him to a soiree?"

"Mr. Pettigrew is here? Great. Send him right up. I'll meet him out front. This is so great!"

"Dean, what the hell is going on here?"

"He's the Guest of Honor at our convention. We're holding a convention - VentureCon #1, the first annual Giant Boy Detective one-day convention. Isn't it exciting."

"Not to me." Gary told him. "How am I supposed to manage security for a convention when you don't tell me about the convention?"

"Well, ummmm."

"Dean. How any fingers am I holding up?"

"What? I can't see either of your hands."

"Guess!"

"What do you mean. Oh, I see. Umm, I'm guessing - one?"

"Bingo. That's what I think of your idea of holding a convention on the grounds without telling me? Did you tell your father?"

Dean looked away, then said, "Gloria thought that if might be easier to ask for forgiveness now then to ask for permission in advance."

"Uh-huh. So how many people can I expect for this "soiree?"

"I don't know. Gloria has the membership list. Hey Gloria, do you have the membership list?" Dean shouted to someone out of the range of the wrist communicator's television screen.

"That's twice you've mentioned this name. Who's Gloria?"

"You know her. we met at the mall a while back. I think it was just after you became our bodyguard. She was reading a Giant Boy Detective book. Number #21 as I recall, "The Mystery of Mandillos's Gold" You saw her..."

"Blonde girl, kind of mouse with a big rack?"

"Rack?" Dean laughed kind of nervously. "I never noticed." The way he squirmed on the communicator's tiny screen suggested just the opposite.

"So you met this girl and right out of the box decided to hold a convention?"

"Well, no. We talked a lot via IM about Giant Boy Detective and stuff and then one day the idea of a Giant Boy Detective convention came up but they didn't know of a hotel where it could be held so I said that we could hold it here because Pop has lots of empty rooms."

"Who's 'they?'" Gary could see that this was going to be a typical Dean conversation where things just get more and more complicated.

"Gloria, Heather and Tiffany."

"Gloria I got but who are Heather and Tiffany?"

"They're Gloria's friends. They also read Giant Boy Detective but they aren't big fans of him like Gloria and me. So anyway they had been talking about doing a convention because there hasn't been one in the area for like, ever and..."

"Wait, wait, wait! Dean I want to ask you a very personal question and I don't want you to think I'm being insulting or anything: but, you're are talking to girls."

"Is that wrong?" There was a little tremor in Dean's voice, a faint fear that talking to girls was one of those things he wasn't supposed to do.

"Inconceivable, but not wrong. And these girls hasn't screamed or fainted or tried to run away from you while you were talking?"

"Gary, I can talk to girl. I'm not a complete doofus."

The honking of the limo's horn reminded Gary that he still had someone waiting to get on the grounds. "I wasn't trying to be critical, just confused. OK, I'll let this guy in and you'll be responsible for anything that happens to him while he's here. Got it?

"Sure."

"And have one of your harem email me a copy of the membership list so I can know who to expect."

"Right. - Harem? You think I have a harem? I have a harem!"

"Right out of Tenchi Muyo."

"Who?"

"Never mind, send me the list and go out and meet this guy."

Gary hit the open button on the gate and went out to tell the driver were to go and how to get there. He watched the car pull up the long drive and make the turn after the front entrance to the side road that lead down to Workroom no. 3. Then he went in and looked for the files in his mail program.

The membership list had about 150 names. The names were already sorted by alphabet so he printed it out without looking at it closely. Who ever sent the list - the "from" line said "Heather" - had included a flyer for the convention as well as a program guide. He printed those as well and stuck them all to his clipboard.

From the program guide he saw that the convention wouldn't start for another couple hours but that the building would be open for dealer set-up beginning now. And sure enough there was a honk from a minivan as it pulled up in front of the gate. Two pudgy guys were in the front, the rest of the minivan was stuffed with cardboard boxes. Gary checked their names against the list. And because the Ventures have a lot of enemies of one kind of another, and not just the Monarch, he insisted that they unload and open each box so he could tell that it was not stuffed with plastic explosives.

While they were doing that Gary ran a mirror on a stick around the edges of the minivan looking for explosives under the vehicle. The boxes contained a variety of material: books, printed pamphlets and tattered piled of paper hastily stapled in the corner. "What is all this stuff?" Gary asked.

"Those" said the guy in a green T-shirt, pointing to the boxes of books, "are the Giant Boy Detective books. We've got U.S., British, Germany and Japanese editions. You'd be surprised how popular the Japanese editions are though I don't know that anyone can read 'em. Those boxes-" he pointed to the piles of stapled papers, "are Giant Boy Detective fanzines. We've got a complete run of "Under The Magnifying Glass" - that was the first GBD fanzine, very rare. We're hoping to get Pettigrew to sign them. Then they'll be worth a mint. Those," he pointed to the boxes of nicely bound pamphlets "are GBD fan-fic. We'll have to sell them under the table since the old man is here."

"Fan-fic?" Gary asked.

"Fan fiction. Kids like the stories so much that they write their own stories. Some of then are pretty good, though a lot of them are... Well, what do you expect from kids? But technically they're a violation of a copyright. Most people don't mind but with Pettigrew here, he'll raise a stink if he catches anybody with unauthorized stories. But the kids really love the fan-fic so we'll still sell a lot."

"We left the slash stuff at home," the other dealer said. He was in a yellow T with a large grease stain on the front. He began putting the boxes back into the van.

"Slash?" Gary wondered.

"Porno" Green shirt told him.

"It's not porno. Gay stuff," the other clarified. ""You know, like Kirk-slash-Spock. You'd be surprised what some people get into."

By the time that the minivan was reloaded and Gary had let them through the gate, three more cars were lined up to get in. Two of them were also dealers and while he made them open all their boxes as well, they had so much less material that the search went quickly.

The last car was a shiny, new, black Escalade; on big rimmed tires with a cattle pusher on the grill. The windows were tinted black. A step ladder ran down from the bottom of the door to near the ground instead of the usual running board. A vanity plate on the front said "MD"

Someone has a lot of money to waste Gary thought as he stepped up to the side window and waited from them to roll it down. "Name?" he asked.

"I think you know me," a soft, tenor voice lisped.

"Dr. Billy?" Gary had to stand on tiptoes to look over the bottom edge of the wide window. He could just see the large, round head of Billy Quizboy, or Dr. Billy, MD as he liked to call himself these days.

Dr. Billy had been born with multiple birth defects, including a hydrocephalic brain, a cleft palate and stunted growth. As a child Billy had been a prodigy on the game show circuit until a cheating scandal banned him for life. Since then he had had to eke out an existence any way he could. Somewhere along the way he had lost an eye and one hand. The eye he covered with a patch. The hand was replaced with an amazingly delicate robotic prosthesis. For unknown reasons, since he had never gone to school, Billy began doing underground surgery. His little hands were amazingly skilled at the work and his encyclopedic knowledge of the human body made his work among the best in the world.

Recently Billy had shown up with a bunch of degrees and certificates from the premiere medical institutions of the country, all affirming that Bill Quizboy had graduated from their institution with flying colors. He had opened offices in a lavish medical center and started calling himself "Dr. Billy, MD" and kind of got cranky when people - even old friends - forget the "Dr." part of his name. At the moment Dr. Billy was rolling in the dough from his many operations.

"Indeed, it is me, Gary," Billy lisped.

"Here for the convention?"

"Giant Boy Detective has been an idol, I dare say an icon all during my life. When life had me down I would always ask 'what would Giant Boy Detective do'. And then I'd do it."

"Isn't this a little more car than you need."

"Isn't it great? We just got it this week!" A melliferous voice cut in from across the front seat. Leaning towards the open window was a thin, weedy man dressed all in white. His hair was white to match his suit and cut with a large swath falling over his eyes like some 80's hair band member. His eyes, not readily visible inside the dark interior of the SUV were pink. Peter White was an albino.

"We thought it was time that Dr. Billy started driving in style." Peter White was in some way Dr. Billy's constant companion though there was nothing to suggest that Billy was gay. As for Peter - any guy who dresses all in white has to be a little suspect. But theirs wasn't a sexual relationship as far as Gary could tell. Peter White was, as far as he knew, a life-long mooch. He'd lived off the small earnings Billy had made before all the degrees had come flocking in. And he looked to be mooching now, only on a larger scale. Why Billy put up with Peter was a hard question to answer, unless it was that Billy had so few friends that he's take the false friendship of a mooch over nothing.

(Actually Peter received a small stipend from the OSI to report on any changes in Billy's condition. Billy had been an unwitting spy for the OSI in the past and though his memory had been wiped there was always the fear that it might come back, with what the OSI deemed disastrous consequences.)

"This car has everything," Peter was going on. "Air Condition, Satellite radio, GPS, Rear View video for backing up. auto-parallel parking. Heated Leather seats, lumbar support and build-in massage."

"Yeah, nice," Gary said indifferently. None of that stuff sounded important to him. "Billy, how do you drive this thing. The pedals must be kind of far away for you?"

"I had the cockpit specially outfitted with hand controls replacing the ones on the floor. And the bolster seat is built into the regular seat and hydraulically controlled. His hand moved one of the controls mounted on the steering wheel. "I can move up-" and his head rose above the level of the window rim," or down."

"Nice ride." Gary concluded. "Anybody else in there I should know about."

"No, it's just the two of us. "

Gary waved them through then went back into the guard shack to await the next visitor.

They came in trickles and clumps. More dealers at first, about a dozen in all. Gary couldn't believe there could be enough business at the convention to make it worth their while but then Gary had no idea how much people spent at a convention like this or what a dealer considered a good take. Before the death of his buddy Henchman 24 he had been a big nerd, collecting all sorts of Star Wars paraphernalia, action figure and such. He had dressed up in costumes and staged short skits with other fans but he had never worked on a convention, had never considered the economics of one. In fact the whole idea that a convention had to have a plan just like any other business was something alien to him. Conventions, like network TV, was something to be enjoyed, not understood.

About an hour before the convention the attendees started coming, mostly fathers with their sons - or surprisingly more often, with their daughters. While he still insisted on inspecting the trunks of every car, he didn't look as closely in then as he had originally. There were several visitors who were not on the membership list. Walk-ins they called themselves. One such had given him a shock.

An old, old Lincoln Continental had pulled up to the gate.

He went up to the driver's side window and asked, "Name?"

"My dear boy, you know who I am." A soft, gravelly voice responded. Gary looked at the small, old oriental man behind the wheel. His clipboard feel through nerveless fingers.

"Dr. Zinn!"

"Eh? You're not Brock Samson!" The old man behind the wheel was as surprised as Gary was. Dr. Zinn was one of the oldest and most famous super-villain. Now in his 80s or perhaps even his 90s, he was retired from the Super-Villain business, or so he said. He claimed he had seen the error of his ways and lived now only to find peace and tranquility. But the man had been a master of deceit. How could one know if he was telling the truth.

"Where is the dear boy? I thought he was the Venture's bodyguard?"

"He was recalled by the OSI. Had some important missions to run for them," Gary told him. He marveled at the car. It must have dated from the 70s. It was enormous. Gary hadn't seen a car that large - ever. It looked big enough to seat three full size men across the back seat and had actual legroom in front and back. The trunk could easily hide a Seal assault team.

"Ah, yes. Col. Gather's remarkable bloodless coup. I had heard that there were some outlying units of the OSI that were resisting his coup."

"It wasn't a coup. General Triester personally picked Colonel Gathers to succeed him," Gary replied stiffly.

"Of course. Whatever you say. But didn't Sgt. Hatred take Brock's place?" Dr. Zinn's pale eyes looked up at Gary. He had a constant smile on his lips like a man who had discovered a great truth.

"Sgt. Hatred disappeared right after being reconciled with his wife."

"Ah, the lovely Princess Tinyfeet. You remember Princess Tinyfeet, my dear?"

Gary realized that Dr. Zinn was speaking to someone else in the front seat. He bent down to peer better through the car window. There was a woman across the seat. She was as old as Dr. Zinn but had had a lot of plastic surgery. Her face was smooth and tight. Perhaps a little too tight. Botox made it look smooth and almost plastic. Her hair, reddish, was done up in a bun. She wore a short green dress. Her legs looked stunning, considering her age. Her breasts were enormous and pointed towards the sky. She looked at Gary and smiled with her lips. The rest of her face didn't move. "Why yes. I remember Princess Tinyfeet well. We met at some of the Guild parties you were invited to. She was a lovely girl - but disappointed that her husband didn't understand her better. So they were reconciled?"

"Apparently," Gary said, "then they disappeared. It may have been a second honeymoon but Sgt. Hatred went off without his medication so the fear is that he's reverted to his pedophile ways."

"That would be sad," Dr. Zinn said. "He tried so hard to find inner peace but seems unable to uncover his weaknesses." Dr. Zinn sighed. "So who are you, someone I should know?"

"Gary Fuu, Sir. Ah - I doubt that you've heard of me."

"Are you the Gary who quit the Monarch. You were quite the talk of the cocktail circuit, wasn't he dear."

"Oh, you're that Gary." Mrs. Zinn agreed with her husband. "Everyone was so amazed that you'd left..."

"Or, got away alive." Dr. Zinn added.

"Yeah, whatever. So what brings you to Venture Enterprises today?"

"Why, what else, the Giant Boy Detective convention. I've been a big fan of the series since I was a small lad. I read the original Giant Boy stories back then, before they revised the series in the 60s. None of the people involved in the original series are still alive, sadly, but I am nonetheless thrilled at the chance to see the author of the new series."

"Un huh," Gary said. He thought about it for a moment, then pulled out a blank sheet from the bottom of his clipboard and wrote a couple lines on it. "Look, I know you're retired and all that, but I've still got to ask you to sign this affidavits." He handed the sheet to Dr. Zinn to read.

"I, the undersigned, do vow and affirm that I am visiting the Venture Enterprises Compound with no hostile intent to Dr. Venture, his sons Hank and Dean Venture or any one visiting the compound on this day." Dr. Zinn read. "This hardly seems necessary, dear boy. As I told you already I have no malicious intent towards anyone anymore."

"Sign it or go home," Gary insisted.

Dr. Zinn sighed. Read over the page again and borrowed Gary's pen to sign the paper.

Gary looked at the signature carefully. "Have a good time, Dr. Zinn," And pressed the control button to open the gate. He watched the ancient car drive up the road.

He shook his head at the thought of a major heavy-weight villain being a fan of Giant Boy Detective. Who would have thought. He turned to the next car in line, a beat up old Geo Metro.

"Hello, Gary," a deep masculine voice greeted him.

"You!" He exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"

"Attending the convention, what do you think?" It was Dr. Mrs, The Monarch. She was dressed in a brown dress with a small hat on her head. "As you can see I am not in costume. I am off duty today, having a little vacation."

"You're telling me that you're a fan of Giant Boy Detective? I find that hard to believe!"

"But it's true. I read my first GBD back when I was ten. It transformed my life. Suddenly I realized that life was completely open. I could be whatever I wanted to be. I didn't have to be someone's wife."

"But you are someone's wife."

"On my own terms, Gary. On my own terms! I am Doctor Mrs. The Monarch, not just Mrs. The Monarch. I'm part of a duoarchy, a co-equal in this partnership. And if I want to go to a convention about my girlhood idol I'll damn well go to that convention!"

"Nice speech. Did you try it out on the Monarch?"

Dr. Mrs the Monarch sighed. In a conversational voice she said, "Malcolm has a migraine today. He went back to bed."

"A migraine?"

"Men have migraines, too!"

"So he doesn't know you're here. Keeping secrets from the Monarch, hmmm? Playing with fire."

"Every married couple keeps secrets from the other."

Gary was scribbling on another sheet of blank paper. "You always was good at keeping secrets," he said

"Can we not go there, Gary. It's old news. It's time to move time."

"You laughed at me."

"I saved your life. If I had done anything but laugh at you the Monarch would have killed you on the spot."

"Sign this," Gary ordered. In the back of his mind he kind of realized that what she said was true but he wasn't ready to accept that truth. He had been crushed, demoralized when she had laughed at him when he'd confessed a crush on her. Nor did it matter that since then he had had a girlfriend, a real girlfriend, even if she turned out a little crazy about killing Hank Venture.

"What is this?" Dr. Mrs, The Monarch exclaimed, throwing the paper back at Gary. "My word if honor isn't good enough? The fact that I'm in civilian clothes not my costume? I'm not going to Arch anybody today!"

"Then sign the paper. It's a formality, but one I insist on." He shoved the paper back at her.

"Sheesh!" she snarled and scribbled a name across the bottom of the paper.

"By the way, what name are you registered under at the convention?"

"My real name, Sheila Kowalski."

"Kowalski?"

"What? It's a good, Polish name. Gary Fuu."

"Sorry, I was looking under 'Ballcrusher.' You weren't there."

The gate started opening. She put the little Geo into drive. "Get a life," she snapped as she drove through.

Gary sighed and turned to the next car in line. How many more super-villains were planning to show up today he wondered.