"Henry, I need a quick favour"
"Sure thing doc, fire away."
Magnus has let Tesla drive, she was willing to risk his road rage for the chance to call her Sanctuary. They needed to know that she was going to take a little longer than planned, and she needed some expert advice.
"Our buyer is away for the weekend, attending some sort of convention. There was something about costumes, so I thought it might be your area of expertise."
"I don't remember any comic conventions in the area, let me just google it for you. Do you know where it's being held?"
Magnus rattled off the address that Mrs. Pennell had given her, and heard the quick keystrokes of Henry typing it out on the other end. "Here's something" he said after a moment, "not one I've ever heard of, but judging by the name... dude."
"Henry?"
"This is gonna make finding your Praxian artifact a little difficult, doc. It's called Gearcon, and from the looks of it it's a steampunk convention."
"Steampunk?" Magnus had never heard the word before.
"It's sort of a genre, like superheroes or mystery novels or whatever" started Henry. From the tone he was taking, Magnus knew she'd picked the right man to explain. "It's Victorian science fiction, or things written like Victorian science fiction. Stories about people from the nineteenth century coming up with ray guns and zeppelins and time machines and stuff. They've got books, music, graphic novels... dude." The part of Henry that worked for the Sanctuary network finally caught up with his nerdy half, "Magnus, you're practically like their god."
This was all new to Magnus, but it made a certain kind of sense. She herself had very much enjoyed reading the earliest attempts at science fiction, despite their many inaccuracies she'd always appreciated the effort that people like Jules and Herbert and Mary and the like had put into imagining the impossible. Of course, living through the Victorian era twice had given her a firsthand understand of all the parts of it that were less than glamorous, but through the future's rose-coloured glasses Magnus could see how there were parts that could be admired. "I don't think I can go about explaining my credentials there, Henry." They were trying to keep a low profile, and she was supposed to be dead.
"Right, obviously. Well, it shouldn't be to hard to find your guy. Says here he's on staff organizing the masquerade - that's the costume contest - tonight. You can probably find out where he is through the staff desk, looks like he's one of the head volunteers."
"Thank you, Henry."
"Let me just see if I can hack into their system and get you some prereg tickets. It's a pretty big con, you'll be waiting for hours if you haven't bought in advance. But I think I can - oh my God."
"Henry? What's wrong?"
There was a muffled sound on the other end of the phone, like Henry stifling a laugh. "Nothing, doc. Nothing. Vlad's still helping you out on this one, right?"
"Yes..."
"Dude, I would pay money to see his - I gotta show Will something, call me back if you have any trouble."
He hung up very quickly, which was odd. But Magnus trusted Henry with her life, whatever had come up must have been important.
"Well this day just keeps getting better" Tesla chimed in with his usual sarcasm.
"Eavesdropping, then?"
"Vampire, remember? Damnit! Turn signals, have you HEARD of them?"
"Well, I think it could be fun" Magnus ignored Tesla's running dialogue with every other driver on the road. If he was going to be the pessimist about this, then she would take optimist. "A little trip down memory lane, right?"
"More like a bunch of acne-ridden children trampling on a history we both lived through. You can't honestly be looking forwards to this."
"Well, it beats another run through the sewers."
A/N: There seems to be a real steampunk convention called GEAR con, any resemblance is purely coincidental. I needed a generic name for a fictional con, and all the good ones were already taken.