COMIC-CON

SAN DIEGO

2015

'…hey, you're the one who wanted to come along, Dad.'

Jack, wearing a T-shirt that said Let the Wookie Win, crossed his arms, glancing around at all the weirdly-dressed people, before looking at his stepdaughter Riley, who was dressed normally, in grey skinny jeans, a maroon T-shirt with criss-cross detailing and a black leather jacket.

'I gotta make sure your internet friend ain't a serial killer or something!'

Riley rolled her eyes.

'I can look after myself, Jack. And trust me, I really don't think Bozer's a serial killer. The background check I ran came up clean.'

(Riley kinda had trust issues, hence the background check.)

(She'd told him after the fact, with an apology and a bit of an explanation. Bozer had been super-chill about it.)

Ahead of them was a blonde guy dressed up as Luke Skywalker. The costume was excellent, and he had a seriously awesome prop lightsabre on his belt. He adopted another pose at the direction of the shorter guy dressed as Han Solo (just as excellently) taking photos of him and bossing him around.

Luke Skywalker smiled and shook his head in a way that was long-suffering, exasperated but ultimately indulgent as Han Solo/the photographer directed him into a third pose.

(From that, it seemed like Luke had been dragged here – in costume – by Han.)

'Almost done, Boze?'

That made Riley smile, and she moved closer to the two young men.

'Bozer?'

Han Solo turned around, and grinned.

'Riley?'

She nodded, and held a hand out for him to shake, which he took.

'Nice to meet you.' Bozer grinned wider, and she gestured at the blonde. 'Guessing this is Mac?'

She and Bozer had been internet friends for the better part of a decade. As a result, she knew all about his crazy, mad-scientist, puppy BFF, as Bozer often described him as.

The blonde smiled and held out a hand to shake.

'Yeah, it's nice to meet you, Riley.'

She smiled back at him, then gestured at Jack.

'Bozer, Mac, this is my dad, Jack Dalton. Dad, this is Bozer and Mac.'

There was another round of hand-shakes, and Jack pulled out his 'intimidating former Delta' look, which made Riley roll her eyes. Bozer quailed a little, clearly intimidated, while Mac just quirked an eyebrow, glancing between father and daughter.

Then, Bozer rubbed his hands together and grinned even wider.

'Bro, you gotta show them the lightsabre!'

Mac shook his head, but chuckled and took it from his belt obligingly, pressing a button, which resulted in a beam of green light being emitted from the hilt. It looked an awful lot like a real lightsabre.

Riley and Jack looked impressed.

Bozer looked very proud, and clapped his best friend on the back.

'My bro can actually make a lightsabre, you know! As in, it can cut through stuff, but he wouldn't make one for Comic-Con…' Riley raised an eyebrow at him. Bozer paused. '…which I guess, yeah, was a good thing, since we don't wanna get arrested.'

'Getting arrested would put a dampener on festivities, Boze. And that was not a lightsabre; it was a high-powered laser torch.'

Jack's brow furrowed as he tried to parse what Mac was saying.

'Ain't this a case of po-tah-to, po-tay-to?'

The blonde shook his head.

'No. The most notable difference between a lightsabre and a high-powered laser torch is that the former displays the properties of a solid, capable, for example, of blocking other lightsabres. The latter is just a very powerful beam of coherent light…'

Mac continued, explaining the spatial and temporal coherence of lasers, as Jack leaned over to Riley.

'He always like this?'

Jack sounded vaguely horrified.

Riley snorted and shrugged.

'From what I hear, yeah.'

AN: Because the whole gang are nerds, not just Mac. (In the background, Riley smirks as Bozer tells Jack that 'denial is not just a river in Egypt, bro!' and Mac groans at the bad pun…but points out that his best friend isn't wrong.)