Stranger Than Fanfiction Read online

  “Really? Oh, all right…,” Terrence said, and quickly thought of another question. “How many more seasons will Wiz Kids be on the air?”

  The entire theater sat on the edge of their seats. If it were up to them, the show would never end. For most of the audience, the show had been on for the majority of their lives—for some, the show was their lives. They couldn’t imagine a world without it. Losing it would be like losing a family member, maybe even worse.

  “We’ll be on the air as long as you keep watching,” Tobey said, and made a fist in the air.

  “We’re as dedicated to the Wizzers as they are to us,” Amy said, and tossed her hair.

  For a split second, Cash considered telling the audience what he had almost shared in the greenroom. Finding out he wouldn’t be returning for Wiz Kid’s tenth season would have crushed the fans, but letting the whole world know before confirming it with his bosses would have been sweet, sweet vindication. But as Cash looked around the room at all the eager faces staring up at him, he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Yeah… ditto,” he said, and looked down at his hands.

  His answer was followed by a deafening roar of appreciation, but Cash was so far into his own head, he didn’t hear it.

  In all honesty, Cash’s relationship with the fans of Wiz Kids meant more to him than anything else in the world. Getting to do what he loved and causing so much joy in return was the greatest thing that would ever happen to him. It made all the bullshit and challenges that came with fame worth every minute. Periodic cynicism was only a tool he used to shield the weight of meaning so much to so many people.

  Disappointing the Wizzers was Cash’s greatest fear and he knew his leaving Wiz Kids would devastate them. Watching all the happiness he had inspired over the years fade and turn into heartbreak and anger would devastate him in return. Sadly, it was inevitable.

  However, leaving the show wasn’t what concerned him the most. The reason he was quitting was far more disappointing than the exit itself. Even though he had very little control over the matter, once the story got out it would spread like wildfire and his life would change forever. The inconveniences he dealt with today for being famous were nothing compared to the hurricane that waited.

  Cash Carter had a deep secret he was keeping from the world, and unfortunately for him, it was only a matter of time before the truth came out.

  Chapter Two

  A SUMMER TO REMEMBER

  The excitement of WizCon stretched far beyond the crowded halls of the Santa Clara Convention Center. In all corners of the world, fans meticulously scanned the Internet for any glimpse of the panels, exhibits, and homemade costumes inside the convention. The Wizzers’ collective efforts put the investigative teams of the FBI and CIA to shame.

  In Downers Grove, an Illinois suburb twenty miles outside Chicago, recent high school graduate Topher Collins was glued to his laptop as if it were dialysis. He scavenged through the depths of social media and ogled complete strangers’ candid photos like a cyberstalker. He kept browsers open to every nerdy blog covering the convention and refreshed the pages every twenty seconds for the latest and greatest. His in-box chimed continuously, like a toddler playing with a reception bell, as Google Alerts pointed him in more directions for another WizCon fix.

  Topher was very tall and hunched over his desk like an adult at a kid’s table. He could have easily been a basketball player if it wasn’t for his absolute lack of athletic ability (newborn giraffes were more coordinated than he was). Instead, Topher had been gifted with a brilliant mind and proudly displayed his valedictorian medal over the corner of the most prized possession in his bedroom: a framed season-six poster of Wiz Kids—signed by the cast.

  He refreshed a blog called The Nerd Herder and was mesmerized by a new photo from the convention. A voluptuous blond woman was dressed as the Nordic Alien Queen from season five; she had hand-glued individual sequins on her skin to create the character’s infamously tight jumpsuit. She left very little to the imagination and Topher’s hormones were drawn to her like a paper clip to a magnet. His face was so close to his laptop he could see the pixels of his screen.

  Suddenly, a video message appeared on the screen and almost gave Topher a heart attack. It was his friend Joey Davis, calling from his own bedroom just a few blocks away.

  “Hey, man,” Joey said. “Did I scare you?”

  Joey was black, super handsome, and unlike Topher, very coordinated. He had been the captain of the Hip-Hop Dance Team since freshman year, the lead in every school play and musical, and had recently been voted prom king. He was well liked by everyone who knew him and he always left the people he encountered with a smile. As far as Topher knew, being a devoted Wizzer was the closest thing Joey had to a flaw.

  “Dude, have you seen the girl in the Nordic Queen costume at the convention?” Topher asked him. “Total MILF! I’m sending you the link.”

  Topher passed the link along. Joey had a look for himself and let out a loud snort.

  “Bro, you might want to read the caption before you rub one out.” He laughed.

  Topher quickly read the credits under the photo. “Timothy?” he said in shock. “That’s a man? Oh no, I was re-creating French independent film scenes with him in my mind!!”

  “I’m sure Tim would be flattered—obviously he put a lot of effort into that look,” Joey said, and scrolled through the rest of the blog. “Man, what do most of these people do for a living? How can they afford these costumes? I swear the fans have better production values than the actual show.”

  “I know, right?” Topher said. “I saw a man dressed as a cyborg with actual plasma screens attached to his body.”

  “It makes the android costumes we wore to WizCon 2015 look like crap,” Joey said. “And we spent hours putting those together. I still have scars from the hot-glue gun.”

  Another video message appeared on both their computers. This time it was Sam Gibson, calling from her bedroom on the other side of town. Sam was petite, pretty without any makeup, and had very short dark hair. She was still wearing her yellow uniform and hat from her summer job at Yolo FroYo.

  “I literally just ran all the way home from work!” Sam panted. “I tried looking at the blogs on my break but I couldn’t get any reception. What have I missed? Have any spoilers for season ten come out?”

  “Nothing too crazy yet, just some photos of the costumes and exhibits,” Topher said. “Kylie Trig hasn’t even posted her recap of the panel.”

  “She’s been taking her sweet-ass time ever since she hit ten million subscribers,” Sam said. “What time is she supposed to post it?”

  “Her tweet said around five o’clock California time and it’s already ten past seven here, so it should be up any minute now,” Joey said.

  “Have any videos leaked from the panel yet? There are usually a bunch by now,” Sam asked as she rummaged through the Internet to catch up with the others.

  “Just a couple, but everyone is screaming so loud and shaking so much you can’t hear or see anything,” Topher said. “You’d think it was footage from a Bieber concert or a natural disaster.”

  “Same difference,” Joey quipped.

  Sam shook her hands and shimmied in her seat, experiencing a personal earthquake of her own.

  “I can’t wait!” she said. “They better give us some clues about what to expect. I haven’t been able to sleep since the season finale! Why’d they have to end it with Dr. Bumfuzzle trapped in that Reptoidian nest on Kepler-186 and Dr. Peachtree in the courtroom of the Salem Witch Trials? That was some Hollywood sadistic shit!”

  A third video message popped up on their screens. Moriko Ishikawa (or “Mo” as they had called her since elementary school) was scowling into her camera with her arms folded. She was usually bursting with bubbly energy, but at the moment Mo was frozen with dissatisfaction.

  “Excuse me, but it’s been three days since I posted chapter four of my Wiz Kids fanfiction novel and none of yo
u jerks have commented on it yet,” she said.

  Topher, Joey, and Sam looked into their cameras very guiltily. Even though Mo had reminded them twice an hour since it was published, they had all managed to forget.

  “Sorry, Mo, I’ve been serving cold, sugary fermented milk to upper-class families all week,” Sam said. “I promise I’ll read it tonight before bed.”

  “I’ve been busy with Billy,” Topher said, referring to his younger brother. “I’ll check it out later.”

  “And I’m not going anywhere near fanfiction,” Joey said unapologetically. “It terrifies me, especially yours. The last story you wrote scarred me for life. I didn’t know there were so many adjectives to describe Tobey Ramous’s pubes.”

  “I never said you had to read it!” Mo said. “Just go on there and leave a comment. The more comments I get, the more Wizzers will be interested. I’m trying to start a following here—throw the Asian girl a bone!”

  “Okay, okay, okay.” Joey laughed. “Calm down—I’ll go on right now and make something up. What’s the novel about, anyway?”

  Mo tucked her hair behind her ears and sat up in her seat, as if she was describing her work on a morning talk show.

  “It’s a story that explores Peachfuzzle’s sexual awakening,” she described. “Written in the style of Nicholas Sparks, the novel opens with Dr. Bumfuzzle and Dr. Peachtree traveling through the Andromeda Galaxy when they suddenly crash on a planet where physical contact is forbidden. At first, they submit to the laws of the alien world with little resistance. However, the longer they’re marooned, the more an undeniable attraction grows between them. Tension rises with every passing hour. An animalistic desire consumes them! Soon the temptation is too much to bear! They must confess their undying love for each other using a language only their bodies can speak!”

  “Jesus Christ, Mo!” Topher laughed. “Take a cold shower!”

  “That sounds exactly like your last story,” Sam pointed out. “Is Peachfuzzle all you ever think about? You know it sends subliminal degrading messages to women, right?”

  The writer swiveled her head and rolled her eyes so her frustration was evident. It didn’t matter how many times she explained herself, her friends never understood her work.

  “I’m not actually writing about Peachfuzzle, I’m just using them to gain an audience,” she said. “As soon as I get a book deal I’ll change the names and locations so I don’t get sued and boom—I’ll have my own franchise! Laugh at me all you want. I’m sure people laughed at E. L. James, too, but look where writing fanfiction got her!”

  “All right, I just left a comment on chapter four,” Joey said.

  “Awesome! You’re the best, Joey!” Mo happily checked her comment box, but did a dramatic double take when she read his post. “All you put was ‘Nice adjectives.’ Is that all you could come up with?”

  “Hey, you’re the writer,” Joey said. “Why don’t you write your own reviews and have us post them?”

  Mo was initially repulsed by the idea, but the more she thought about it, the more his proposal intrigued her.

  “That’s actually genius,” she said. “Normally I’d be turned off by something so dishonest, but fanfiction is like the fricking Hunger Games—only the cunning survive. Check your e-mail tonight, I’ll send you guys comments to post later.”

  The other three were curious and fearful about the words Mo would put in their mouths, but they were always happy to support one another—even in the unsettling realm of fanfiction.

  Topher, Joey, Sam, and Mo couldn’t have been more different, but they had been best friends since the fifth grade. It started on the playground of Schiesher Elementary School in 2010 when they all dressed as Dr. Bumfuzzle for Halloween. It was a magical moment for the fifth graders—like when Tony spots Maria across the dance floor in West Side Story. Prior to that, making friends and fitting in at school had not been any of their strong suits, so finding other kids who were infatuated with the same television show was a remarkable discovery. It was the beginning of an unbreakable bond and the greatest joy of their lives.

  For the past seven years, every Wednesday at eight o’clock, the unlikely quartet would meet up at a predetermined location and watch the newest episode of Wiz Kids together. They’d spend the following week stressing about the plot, overanalyzing it beat by beat, and making predictions of what the next episode had in store. The routine repeated week after week, month after month, until the season finale put them out of their misery. (Unless the season ended on a torturous cliff-hanger; then there’d be chaos until the show returned.)

  Their enthusiasm for such an outlandish program was questioned and ridiculed by everyone they knew, but to them, Wiz Kids was so much more than just a trivial television show. It was their first memory of true excitement and gave their childhoods a purpose. It took them on otherworldly and educational adventures, showing them the world beyond the dull streets of Downers Grove. Most important, it was their first experience of camaraderie and gave them a sense of belonging they had never known before. The show was the cornerstone and driving force of their friendship, and they hoped it would continue for many years to come.

  And Wiz Kids hadn’t just introduced Topher, Joey, Sam, and Mo to one another, but also to passionate Wizzers from around the world.

  A fourth video message appeared on their computers from their e-friend Davi, a thirteen-year-old boy from Macapá, Brazil. He was thin, had light brown skin, and had wide eyes like a doe. They could see the moonlit waves of the Brazilian coast in the distance behind him.

  “Hey Davi!” everyone said together.

  “Olá, fucktards,” Davi said—his use of American slang was a work in progress. “Happy WizCon Day! Sorry it took me so long to join you. The cybercafe is busy as tits tonight.”

  “What episode is airing in Brazil?” Sam asked. “Has Dr. Bumfuzzle gotten to Kepler-186 yet?”

  “No, he and Professor Luckunckle are still fighting Nazis with General Patton,” Davi said. “Are they going into space soon? I sure shitting hope so. All this American history is hard to follow.”

  “Oh just you wait!” Sam teased. “The season-nine cliff-hanger is going to blow your mind!”

  Topher’s e-mail chimed with a notification from YouTube.

  “Guys, Kylie Trig just posted her recap!” Topher announced. “Let’s go to YouTube and watch it together. We’ll press Play on the count of three.”

  “No, we have to wait for Huda,” Mo interjected. “She’ll be devastated if we watch it without her.”

  “It’s three o’clock in the morning over there,” Joey said. “She’s probably asleep.”

  As if Huda had been just waiting for an introduction, she appeared in a fifth video message on their screens. Huda was a fifteen-year-old Muslim girl from Saudi Arabia. She had a round face, big cheeks, and adorable dimples. Even though she lived on the other side of the world, Huda’s knowledge of American pop culture and Hollywood gossip always impressed everyone. If it was a headline, Huda knew about it.

  “Please tell me you haven’t watched Kylie’s recap without me!” she said, inches away from her webcam.

  “Hi, Huda,” Topher said. “Perfect timing. We were just about to go to YouTube and watch it together.”

  “Wait!” Huda objected. “They censor my shit over here—I don’t get YouTube. Can’t you play it on your iPad and hold it up to your camera for the rest of us? Pretty please?”

  “Works for me,” Topher said, and loaded the video on his iPad.

  “Huda, if everything is so censored, how did you even know the video had been posted?” Joey asked.

  Huda looked around her home to make sure no one was listening.

  “The Wizzer anticensorship train,” she whispered. “Whenever something notable happens in the Wiz Kids fandom, the Wizzers in Mexico message the Wizzers in Puerto Rico, who message the Wizzers in Cuba, who message the Wizzers in Japan, who message the Wizzers in China, who message the Wizzers in Russia, who
message the Wizzers in Turkey, who message the Wizzers throughout the countries in the Middle East like me in Saudi Arabia. It’s a very complex system and it took years to perfect, but we knocked through those firewalls like Jenga.”

  The others were impressed such a covert and proficient system had been set up in the Wizzer community, but they weren’t surprised. It was a testimony to the official slogan of the Wiz Kids’ viewership: “When there’s a Wizzer, there’s a way.”

  “That’s incredible, Huda,” Mo said. “If only diplomacy worked as efficiently as a fandom, there would never be war again.”

  “Kylie’s video is loaded!” Topher said. “Should I play it?”

  “YES!” everyone shouted, and leaned closer to their computers.

  Topher pressed Play and held his iPad up to his computer’s camera for the others to see. The video had only been up for three minutes and already had four million views. They impatiently sat through a fifteen-second ad for an energy drink called CherryInsulin, followed by the thirty-second-long introduction to all Kylie Trig’s videos (in which she sang an obnoxious theme song and hit a tambourine offbeat to the music).

  Finally, fresh footage appeared of Kylie lounging on a tufted chaise in the presidential suite of her Santa Clara hotel.

  “Whaaad up, Wizzer sluts!” Kylie said. “Welcome to another episode of Trig Talk with Kylie Trig! How am I doing, you ask? Not too shabby.… Just got back from the ‘Cast and Creative Panel’ at WizCon 2017.… No biggie.… We’ve got more to dish and dissect than a marine biologist, but first let me answer the question most of my subscribers want to know: Cash Carter confirmed that next season of Wiz Kids.… Peachfuzzle is back ON, mothafuckaaaas!”

  Kylie shook a maraca and twirled her leg above her head like she was a human helicopter. Mo and Huda squealed so loud they almost blew out Topher’s speakers.

  “Here are the deets y’all Wizzer bitches need to know from the rest of the panel,” Kylie continued. “First, let’s talk about the cast: Tobey Ramous is looking buff as fuck—I would totally tap that ass if I wasn’t afraid he’d crush me. Memo to Amy Evans: if you’re going to take a selfie on a stage, make sure to include the audience so we can tag ourselves in it later—it’s called manners. Cash Carter is rocking Robert Pattinson’s too-hungover-to-care look these days, but honestly, he doesn’t pull it off. By the way, he was totes flirting with me when I asked him about Peachfuzzle, not that I’m surprised—happens every year.”