When the bombs first exploded on the roof Dean Venture's first impulse was to shake his fist at the falling debris and curse who ever it was that was trying to destroy his convention. This was pretty amazing because usually Dean's first impulse was to scurry to the safety of the Panic Room. Having shook his fist Dean was at a lost for what to do next. But do something he must because this was his convention. He was the chairman, the "chair" as they said in the biz, the head honcho, the big cheese. It was - mostly - his idea to have the convention, and he did a lot to plan, organize and set-up the convention. He felt pride of ownership, something he'd never felt before.

Which was not unlike how he had felt hours earlier when Gary had called to say that their star attendee, the centerpiece of the whole convention, Winston Pettigrew, was at the gate - hours earlier than expected. "What am I going to do?" he asked Gloria, his co-chair.

"Put him in the Green Room," she answered.

"Green Room? We don't have a green room, The whole house is all decorated in wood and earth tones."

"No. The waiting room for panelists. It doesn't have to be green. Just quiet, with snacks and no booze. I hear that putting booze in the Green Room is a recipe for disaster, though I'm not sure why."

"A Waiting Room! Of course! Snacks! No Booze. Got'cha." Dean looked around. "Oh. My God, I've lost Mr. Pettigrew. I can't see him anywhere!"

"He's in the limo?" She said ending the statement as a question. "You're supposed to go out and met the limo? You might want to do that?" Gloria liked Dean for many reasons, mostly because he was always polite, respected her as a woman and shared her interest in Gant Boy Detective. That he was sometimes a bit spastic was something she took in stride.

"It's such a honor to meet you, sir," Dean said as he directed the limo driver to the parking lot across from the convention site, otherwise known as workroom no. 3. "We weren't expecting you quite so early."

"Apparently neither was the guard at the gate, a rather surly fellow."

"That's just Gary. he's OK when you get to know him."

Winston Pettigrew got out of the limo and brushed down his suit. The banner over a set of double doors told him where the convention was to be but he had never seen one held in what looked like an industrial park. Still it had been a while since anyone had invited him to a Giant Boy Detective convention so ...any port in a storm as the saying goes.

Dean lead him through the doors into a large room that was still being organized for the convention. That much was very much the same. It brought back old memories of other conventions.

"We were still in the middle of set up," Dean was saying as he lead Pettigrew around and introduced him to a trio of pretty little girls. The rest of the convention committee, the con-com as it were.

"I suppose that it my fault. I took a red-eye express out here; got in an hour ago. After taking my bags to the hotel you so kindly provided I debated sitting there the couple hours until the convention started or just going early. I feared that if I laid down for even a short nap I'd wake up all groggy. Better to just come on out here and stay bright and alert."

Dean Venture was a lot younger than he had expected. Most of the conventions he had been invited to had been run by middle-aged men, early fans of his stories. They were all experienced businessmen and conference organizers. Everything had been taken care of in advance and without any hint of confusion. He wasn't a sure how well Dean would be able to conduct this conference on a professional level. And the girls... Such children! Still his fans had always been the young. He liked surrounding himself with the youths of the day. He liked basking in their adulation. Of course he wished his fans trended more to the male variety. He believed he wrote a very masculine sort of book. It puzzled him that so many of his fans were *sigh* young girls.

"I have an idea," Dean was saying. "We don't actually have a green room, but you could stay in our living room until the convention starts." He guided Pettigrew over to the corner where a blond boy was unpacking a variety of candies on a table next to a coffee maker and an couple of ice chests. Sodas for the youngsters. "This is my brother, Hank. He insisted on having the food court concession at the convention. How do you like your coffee," Dean asked. He opened a clear plastic cover to a tray of doughnuts and placed three of them on a paper plate.

""With rather a lot of cream. It's a mixture I was introduced to in Tibet and have come to love."

:"You've been to Tibet? Cool. Do you know Joshi Sikh there? Lives in a little village about three hours by donkey from Nepal."

"It's a big country. I'm afraid I don't know the particular fellow."

"That's OK, He's probably gone back to the Yeti country. They're blood brothers, you know."

Pettigrew looked to see if his host was putting hm on but Dean seemed entirely innocent of guile. Yetis, a whole country of abominable snowmen! Ridiculous. But how did he ever miss the idea of the plot of one of his books?

Dean lead Pettigrew to the back of the room and through a small door into a corridor that, after a couple jogs ended into a room that looked like somebody's idea of a 60s Playboy pad. The smell of testosterone was enough to make him swoon. Dean lead him to a large, low couch and put the doughnuts on the end table beside the couch. "You can rest here if you want. Here's the remote to the TV and the bathroom's up stairs if you need it. I'll come back and check on you a little while, OK?" and Dean was gone before Pettigrew had time to object, not that he was going to.

Time passed pleasantly. The coffee was delicious, the doughnuts very fattening, so he nibbled to make them last longer. "The View" was just starting when his pleasant frame of mind was broken by a rude:

"Who the hell are you?"

Winston turned to see coming down the flight of stair a older, short man, hunched over, bald but with a little goatee that tried to pretend it was all the hair he needed. He looked so obviously like an older version of Dean that Pettigrew knew without a doubt that this was Dean's father.

"Good morning, Mr. Venture. I am Winston Pettigrew, esquire. Your son, Dean, said I would rest here until the convention started." He held out his hand in greetings.

"Dean, huh," the other grumbled. "What's he up to now?" Without waiting for an answer he walked through an open doorway into another room. "Oh, and it's Dr. Venture. As in Venture Enterprises. As in: 'Tomorrow's Secrets Delivered Today!'" he added in passing.

Pettigrew was for a moment perplexed because people mostly did not ignore him. Then the older man stuck his head out of the other room and asked, "Convention?"

"Why, yes, the first annual convention for the Giant Boy Detective series. I" - he laid his hand dramatically on his chest - "am the author of the series." Pettigrew waited for normalcy to reassert itself and for the little man to come back and shake his hand.

"You mean that crap Dean is always reading?" the man said instead.

A philistine, obviously but Pettigrew had an answer for that. "Really, sir, I have over 25 million copies of 'that crap' as you call it in print." Everybody was impressed by success.

"Really?" The old man, well maybe middle-aged but the bad posture and pasty-grey flesh on his face made him look a lot older than he must be. Winston Pettigrew always took care to present a healthy and well-tanned face on the world. You don't get as old as this and look as good as this, he often thought, without making an effort to take care of one's self.

The man's face had instantly became calculating and avarice. A gambler he would never be. His face was an open book for anyone to read. "And Dean is holding some kind of a convention here about it? Why wasn't I told about it? Where's my cut of this gravy train?"

He came hustling out of the other room now. "Where's this convention at?" Dr. Venture demanded.

"We came through those doors," Pettigrew pointed, "That's all I know."

Dr. Venture grumbled something under his breath that Winston Pettigrew didn't catch. "I'm sorry, sir, what did you say?"

The little man stopped at the door, "I said, 'did you have your own TV show?' I was Rusty Venture, Boy Adventure. Three seasons of top-rated television. And it lasted another ten years in syndication. I doubt that you 25 million copies compares to that!" And he was through the door, slamming it behind him, leaving Winston Pettigrew, esquire, standing in complete astonishment. All he could think of was: what an incredibly rude man.

The corridor lead, of course, to Workroom No. 3. It was here Dr. Jonas Venture had held innumerable press conferences. But it had been empty for so long (Rusty not having a lot of discoveries he wanted to share with the world) that it was a shock to see the room filled with tables, chairs, red velvet lines and people lots of people. Dr. Venture hadn't seen to many people on the grounds in a long time. And if this was a conference of some sort then they had to have paid money to get in. Even his nitwit son wasn't so dumb as to let people attend without paying something. And since this was being held on Venture grounds and using Venture buildings and supplies - why then some of that money rightfully belonged to him. "Holding out on your old man," he grumbled, "We'll see about that!"

He spotted Dean sitting at a table near the outside doors, with a couple girls. Rusty recognized a registration table even without the overhead sign that read "registration."

"What the idea of holding this - this thing - without my permission? You may be eighteen, Dean Venture, but this is my home not yours. You want to hold a party for your friends, you got to ask me first!" He began with the bluster, demands for money would come later after he had cowed Dean a bit.

"If we had asked you you would have just said 'no,' because you always do," Dean whined. "You tell Hank and me we've got to go out and make something of our selves but then you never let us. This was my convention, I organized it, I advertized it, promoted it, and got all the guests of honor to agree to come. Isn't that something, Pop? Isn't it?" Dean had a guilty flash that he was going to have to explain to Gloria and her friends later why he hadn't mentioned their very large contribution. When arguing with his father nuance was never an advantage.

"Do you have any idea how much electricity this place uses when you turn on the lights? Or the air handling system? It's costing me a fortune!" Dr. Venture said, not wanting to get into the other question.

"I'm sure if Dr, Venture can present us with an itemized bill for expenses we can come to a reasonable settlement."

Dr. Venture turned to glare at the girl who said this. She was a little blonde, actual butter-gold hair, maybe 15 or 16. She was sitting in front of the cash box with what looked, from Dr. Venture's perspective, like a proprietary stance.

"Who's this? One of your trollops?" He asked.

"Pop! You apologize to Gloria this instant!" Dean had shot out of his chair in an instant and held his hands clenched at his side. Dr. Venture was unused to seeing his son talk back to him or glare at him, or hold his hands in fists as if he were about to throw himself at his father. Where the hell was Gary? he wondered what good is a bodyguard if he isn't around to guard my body?

"Trainee, Dean. I said 'Trainee' - not that other thing." He backpedaled. And there was Gary, wandering around a series of tables, the dealer''s room though just what do you call a place divided off by velvet rope and nothing else?

Dr. Venture could see that this was going nowhere. He had lost control of the conversation. Time to beat a strategic retreat. "You haven't heard the last of this, mister," he warned. I'll have the estimates on the expenses later tonight and you'd better have your books up to date as well!"

He turned away with a smile, knowing that when it came to cooking the books no one was better than ol' Rusty Venture. By the time he got done expensing the Workroom Dean will be in debt to him for the next decade!

And as he was turning around Dr. Venture noticed Hank's HankCo food stand in the corner. If Hank was running true to form he was selling off anything he could swipe from the kitchen and keeping all the profits. Time to get his share of those profits as well. He was half way to Hank's counter when he noticed something much more interesting, much more exciting. Something reeking of L'amore...

Dr. Girlfriend took a cup of coffee and a couple doughnuts from the HankCo stand, paying the rather exorbitant price for them. "And I thought I was the crook," she muttered to Hank as she accepted her change. He didn't argue with her but had the decency to blush. She wondered who the burly guy who was working beside Hark was. He looked oddly familiar with his blond hair and big chin. A long lost brother she wondered, then had to laugh at the idea. Where would Rusty Venture have found a girl willing to have sex with him?

There were several cafeteria style table and chairs surrounding Hank's stand. Most were filled with men in their thirties. Fathers patiently waiting for their son or daughter to be finished with the convention so they could go home. If she sat among them they would soon by circled around her table shamelessly flirting, even the ones in very committed relationships. It wasn't anything she did or wanted. It was just the price the world demanded from any reasonable good looking woman. Being left alone was not an option.

In the corner, though, was an old couch that probably had been in there since the days when the workroom had been in actual use. It was massively built so no one had bothered to remove it. Dr. Girlfriend sat down at one end, balancing her coffee cop on the couch's large, flat arm while taking a dainty bit out of the doughnut. Still fresh! Hank was actually selling a quality product. The coffee, too, was excellent. She looked at her watch to see how much longer before the author's talk and book signing. There's already been a couple nice panels on the series. She quite enjoyed the one discussing the secret timeline of Giant Boy Detective stories and how they tied into real world mysteries. The speaker was not only very imaginative but extraordinarily knowledge about history. She was taking a break from current panel, about collecting GBD since collecting was out of the questions with The Monarch attitude about the stories.

The corner of the room where the couch had been pushed was quiet. The echoes from the many laughing and chattering fans were muted here. Relaxing. She hadn't realized how out of place she'd feel here, surrounded by children half her age, or even a third her age. As a fan she was glad to see that so many kids were still reading the series that had meant so much to her when she had been that age. She was a little surprised that there were so many girls here. She had always thought Giant Boy Detective was a boy adventurer series and she enjoyed it only because she had been such a tomboy. Was the world full of tomboys today. Or was the series more girly then she had thought?

She picked the doughnut for another bite when she felt someone sit down at the other end of the couch. "Well, well, well." A too familiar voice began. "If it is isn't Dr. Mrs The Monarch. Or should I say 'Charlene.'"

"Nothing happened" she automatically replied.

Dr. Venture slid off the arm of the couch and down next to her. "You keep saying that, but who exactly are you trying to persuade: you or me?"

'Why can't you believe me when I tell you nothing happened?" she asked.

"Maybe because I think you doth protest too much." Dr. Venture leaned closer and smiled up at her smugly. "I think you're just using this excuse for a convention to get a little more of the ol' Rusty."

"Nothing happened!"

"Why don't we leave this gaggle of giggling teeny-bobbers and go some place private for a little more of that 'nothing happened."

"Doctor Venture..."

"Call me Rusty."

"I'd rather maintain a professional relationship here." she snapped. "I'm here, in mufti, mind you, because I happen to be a fan of Giant Boy Detective. The author of the series is to talk today and sign books. I happen to have my very own first edition of Giant Boy Detective Number One, which I intend to have signed." She reached into her Venture-Con tote-bag and brought out a very old and somewhat tattered hard cover. The cover showed the traditional image of the eight foot tall baby-faced detective and his much smaller companions as they creeped into a dark cave. "I didn't come here looking for you. I had rather hoped I wouldn't see you. because I knew you would go through all this." She took a casual sip of coffee to emphasis her apparent nonchalance.

"You know, it's hard to believe that nothing happened because when I picked you up at that bar you seemed all over me in a way that could hardly be faked."

"You didn't pick me up, I picked you up. It was all part of a ploy to get you injected with that horrible butterfly serum of the Monarch's."

"But those kisses seemed real enough."

"I'm a very good actress." Sheila looked at her watch again. It was still a half hour to the talk. She couldn't dodge Venture that way.

"I don't think that was acting."

"I keep telling you, nothing happened. Why won't you listen to me."

"Maybe it's because all I can remember is being injected with that serum and waking up the next morning naked in bed with you sleeping next to me - also naked!" Dr. Venture cast her a wicked grin. "If nothing happened how did I lose all my clothes? And if all you were doing was trying to inject me with that serum, why did you wait until morning to summon the Cocoon and make your escape?"

"It was dark. I couldn't find all my clothes. I - I didn't want to leave anything behind that you might put into your trophy case."

"I don't have a trophy case. That was my father's thing," Dr. Venture said bitterly. "But the last I recall you were still dressed. So how did your clothes get on the floor when I was already passed out? Hmmm?"

"Ok, Ok, Maybe a little something did happen but you can never tell the Monarch. Promise me you'll never tell the Monarch."

"I don't have casual conversations with The Monarch like I do with you. Your fruitball husband - no offence intended - is out to kill me."

"You can't tell anyone else about this either, because it might get back to Malcolm and things would get unpleasant all around."

"Kick you out of the Cocoon - again?" Dr. Venture teased cruelly.

"He'd come after you with a fury you have never seen before."

"Oh, Please. The Monarch has always come after me like that. He has only one setting - all out craziness." He looked at her with gooey eyes. "So what did happen between us?"

Dr. Girlfriend sighed. She was a sucker for puppy-dog eyes and Dr. Venture could be so cute when he used them. "The shock of the serum knocked you out as expected. I waited for a minute to make sure everything was proceeding as normal before calling the Cocoon for pick-up. Then all of a sudden you sit you and called me a 'naughty girl' before jumping over the bed and throwing yourself at me like a mad man. I'd never seen a man so aroused. You had me in a corner and was tearing at my clothes before I knew what was happening." She stopped, realizing that she was about to say something she had never admitted to anyone before, not even her self. The truth was she kind of liked crazy sex.

It was what had drawn her to Phantom Limb, the man who introduced her to the Guild of Calamitous Intent and the world of Super-villainy. There was something electric, infinitely exciting about dating - sleeping - with a super-villain. After discovering that her old college professor was a professional criminal with super powers (His arms and legs were invisible but could conduct a killing jolt of electricity) The other boys in her life seemed bland and uninteresting.

But sensations pall after a time and she had grown to realize that Phantom Limb was more of a paper-pusher then a criminal. He wanted to control the Guild and the other super villains involved. He spent more time as a salesman then as a rogue killing machine. So she had gone off on her own, creating the persona of Lady Au Pair, and finding her adorable, murderous moppets. It was exciting times but being an Arch had not been for her. They had done a couple of pretty good capers. Had created a reputation that a Lady Au Pair plot would be clever, tricky and successful. Then had run dry of ideas. She just didn't have the imagination, the spark, the fire, to find a nemesis and really go to town on him.

So she gave up the Lady Au Pair thing and became the second in command for Truckulese. That was when she first called herself Doctor Girlfriend. But Truckulese, a man with a fetish about implanting truck parts into his body wasn't all that much in bed and his plots to hijack valuable truck cargo was more minor league than she's cared to admit.

So she had drifted around for a couple years looking for someone who needed a clever, organizational person to put their plans over the top. And all the while Phantom Limb had been trying to get her to come back. Eventually, having left one more weak-kneed super-villain she had realized that there simply wasn't anyone else around who could fill the void she had in her life. And Phantom Limb at least seemed to fill it a little better than anyone else.

This time he had a new identity for her, Queen Etheria, complete with a new costume, which was pretty hot and unforgettable as long as you didn't try to bend over, walk, run or fight in it. Queen Etheria's costume was a very short clear plastic rain coat with white bars painted on the plastic over her breasts and groin. About all it was good for was standing around in or sitting down. She looked good in it, but then she looked good in anything she wore. It was just more of a thing one wore in the bedroom for the brief seconds it takes for a lover to rip it off.

So for a time she was content. Then she noticed that one of the henchmen was eyeing her all the time when he thought no one was looking. Certainly Phantom Limb never caught on. She didn't encourage Shadowman #9, at least she didn't think she had. Then one night he had shown up at one of Phantom Limb's Guild parties wearing a home-made butterfly costume. He had the craziest eyes she had ever seen and made no effort to disguise the fact the he wanted her badly. The thought of having an affair while living with another man was just too wicked for her to resist. Five minutes later he had her in his old, used car carrying her off to paradise. Fifteen minutes later Phantom Limb had tracked them down, sent her to her room. While arguing with her Phantom Limb had unwittingly let the Monarch peel away.

Phantom Limb's shouting at her had reminded her all to much of her father, who had constantly called a slut, a whore and a wicked, ungrateful child. Within the week she had moved in with the Monarch and was organizing his bachelor pad into a proper lair.

"It doesn't matter what happened that night," she told Dr. Venture, "I love the Monarch and always will, because he is so constantly aroused, so passionate, so... "

"I'm not especially interested in his love life, just ours." Venture reminded her as she got momentarily lost in recollections of the Monarch's hot monkey love.

Sheila decided to sip a bit of her coffee to give her time to think of what to say. "The thing is," she finally began, "Is that for all his - attention, I - uh - sometimes - I like a little bit on the side. And when you came after me with that trouser snake in your pants I - I guess I got turned on a little. "Besides", she said with more confidence, "I didn't want you tearing off all the buttons on my dress. It was a very nice dress."

"So we did do it!" the Doctor exulted.

"Please, keep it down."

"We're surrounded by kids! None of them care what a couple of old codgers like ourselves as saying." Rusty has scooted up close to her and slipped an arm around her neck. She knew several ways of breaking an arm in such a position and had done in on more than one occasion to aggressive suitors back before the Monarch, before the Guild and all the craziness began.

"So how was I? Did the ol' Rustinator make your clocks chime?"

"You were OK."

"OK! Just OK. I thought you said I was coming on like an animal and that was just OK?"

"You acted like you never had sex before. I kind of had to coach you through it. It kills the mood a little."

Dr. Venture removed his arm from around her should and crossed it with his other one to pout. "My dad could have any woman in the world, and apparently did at one time or another. While I've had sex exactly three times in 44 years. It just isn't fair."

"You've only been with three women?" Sheila asked

"No, I've only had sex three times. And yes, with three different women. But only once each. By the way, why aren't you pregnant?"

"What?" Dr. Girlfriend was astonished and more than a little revulsed by the comment.

"Look. I had sex with my then bodyguard, Myna, once! And she had the boys. Then she went crazy and had to be locked up. The other time I had sex was with some underaged girl who was the president of the Rusty Venture fan club. She said she was eighteen but really she was only fourteen. One night of pleasure and she's knocked up! I've had to pay for that mistake ever since. My dad had so much sex you'd think the world would be littered with bastard Ventures but I'm it. I don't even know who my mother is. Dad buried that information so I couldn't find out. And when he buried stuff it tends to stay buried.

"There's your brother, Jonas, Jr. " Dr. Girlfriend reminded him.

"He was some kind of parasite inside my body for 43 years. It doesn't count. My dad had sex with everybody and never got anyone pregnant. I have sex twice in my life and the girl gets pregnant each time. Which is why I wonder how you didn't get pregnant, if we really did it?"

"You wore a condom."

"The only condom I recall finding was about twenty years old and falling apart."

"I always carry a supply in case of emergency."

"You were planning to have sex with me all along? Mee-ow!"

"I wasn't planning to have sex with you," Dr. Girlfriend reminded him. "This was just a ruse to get you injected with that butterfly serum. The Monarch had been very clear in advance that I was not to have sex with you. But when you're working out scenarios of how this plan could go wrong rather obviously being forced into having sex to order to get close enough to you was a possibility so I brought along some condoms."

"Ok, OK." Dr, Venture said conciliatorily. "I was just wondered, you know, because Brock - I suppose you've slept with Brock as part of your little wanderlust thing?"

"No. Oddly enough he wasn't interested the couple times he had me prisoner and could have had his way with me." She turned away from Dr. Venture, regretting ever getting into this conversation. She didn't like talking about her personal life like this. It made her feel cheap.

"Hmpf. Probably because Brock thought you were a man. A post-op Trangie."

"You tell that Swedish murder machine that I am all woman," Dr. Girlfriend exploded. "Every part of me is 100 percent all woman! - except my boobs. I had them fluffed when I married the Monarch!

"I thought you looked a trifle more, ah, buxom, in your Mrs. The Monarch costume. Which, mind you, I greatly admire, when I'm not running for my life away from you."

"You like it? You don't think it's too vulgar. I thought the color scheme really worked out nicely." She forgot for the moment being angry at Dr. Venture, more interested in whether he thought her costume worked. Super-villains spend a lot of time getting their costumes just right, and woman super-villains ever more so. But one rarely got any feedback on their appearance.

"Oh, it's really nice. Very attractive, very flattering. I'm surprised the Monarch lets you out of the Cocoon in it."

"Well, he was a little jealous at first. And I can't believe that Brock Samson thinks I'm a man!"

"Maybe it was your voice."

"I've got nodules on my larynxes. You'd be surprised how many woman have deep voices. I can't believe that stuck up pig, How could he think a thing like that about me. What do I have to do to convince him that I'm all woman."

"gynecological exam."

"Arrgh! You people are such pigs!" She got up and stormed away, or rather stormed towards the part of the room fenced off for the panels and speeches. Dr. Venture sat behind wondering what it was he'd said that had offended her so. She had asked a reasonable question and he'd given her a very logical answer. That was no reason to call someone a pig.

On the whole, though, Rusty thought this had been a very productive day. Learning that sometime had happened that night with 'Charlene'. The third time he'd ever had sex in his life. Who knows, maybe he'll have sex a fourth time before he hit fifty!

Then, because he couldn't let the boy get away with holding this convention without his approval, he went over to Hank's refreshment bar and harassed him about a share of the profits since it was in one of his buildings and the coffee, pop and doughnuts had been ordered on his credit card.