THE DOORS OPEN

Mark didn't surge with everybody else. There wasn't much point. The doors were a choke point and no amount of pushing was going to get him through quickly. Instead, he moved slowly and watched the throng of people.

There were all sorts of people. Men, women, teens and middle aged people like him. He could peg many of them as engineering students or programmers or other kinds of geeks. Maybe that was most of the crowd. He noticed something missing and filed it away for later.

Mark was slowly walking by himself. He had said goodbye to Sara at the car. She could be anywhere. Angie had disappeared into the crowd now as well. That was fine. Mark knew he had to bring the big black case and the pink backpack down two levels to B23.

Eventually, the crowd thinned some. From looking around, maybe there was going to be some kind of festival as the competition happened. Lots and lots of people geeking out over the Space Opera VR Systems Challenge. If it wasn't for the big signs, he never would have remembered the name. Maybe I'll get a hat or a shirt. A souvenir for the beach. It'll piss Renee off that I was here and she wasn't.

One shirt for sale had a picture of planet RX6 on the front and on the back the words "Level up with the Space Opera VR Systems Challenge." Mark passed it by. Maybe there'll be some other souvenir.