In the years to come, Mx. Wren Masterson will tell this story many, many times. They will change names (to protect the innocent, guilty, and gender-confused), flatten some details and embellish others, but the story will - generally speaking - remain the same. Wren couldn’t possibly have made this up, even if they had tried. It's… weird. Unlikely, improbable. But life just works that way sometimes.
Right?
November 2009. ████ ████████ rushed through the open door of the ReTerminal, contemplated her options, and chose to run right. Not like it mattered anyway, the guy couldn’t foll-
“You little shit!”
Well, damn, this is actually unprecedented. ████ ████████ has been using the ReTerminal for a few years now but literally no one has ever seen her go in before, let alone followed her through the open door. It happens today, though, it’s one of those days.
████ is being chased by a rather large and angry biker. It is not a personal thing; it is a professional thing, a deal gone wrong. As it turns out, ████ is really good with fake IDs! Being able to imprint photographs without a camera is actually quite handy. Unfortunately, ████ still has a completely inappropriate sense of humor and poor sense of timing. Handing this man an otherwise perfect forged card with the name “FIRST, HUGO” and a cowardly simper has… pushed his buttons, a bit.
In her defense, she did not know he was a member of Hell’s Angels at the time.
She ducks around a couple of corners but this man is bigger and faster than ████████████ could ever be. He’s also armed with some kind of pistol. (Wren calls it a “Beretta” in future tellings, but ████ does not know guns.) She is decidedly not armed. Since her return from ██████'s ████████, she has had… something of a crisis of conscience. Her old outlook was so corrosive; she’s hardly a doctor, but nowadays, she’s essentially adopted “do no harm, unless they’ve got it coming.”
Scamming chumps does not generally fall under this rule, because the biggest chumps have money and she needs money to live, but perhaps it should! Because as she blows through a pair of double doors, waves around, and sees somebody else in the ReTerminal, advancing steadily towards her, hemming her in, it certainly feels like she has poked her fingers in something way, way too big, and she’s about to lose the entire hand. If she’s lucky.
It’s not that the kid looks threatening. He is the opposite of threatening. He’s moving steadily but casually. Sauntering. Kind of like a modern cowboy, except in a loose Hawaiian shirt and board shorts. He is… beautiful, in a way that would almost give ████████ pause, if she were not 1) doing some deep soul-searching in that field, too, and 2) ABOUT TO DIE.
This is the first day (the first time) she has ever, ever seen anyone else in the ReTerminal. And today (this time!) there are two.
She looks back. Biker. Gun. She looks forward. Twink. Some sorta box in his hands. Oh fuck. Oh shit. Prepare for credits. Don’t call it a comeback, world. This was too short.
“Get down!” the twink calls out. His voice is forceful, but not angry - confident.
████ ████████ hits the deck just as the biker starts firing. (The strangeness of the situation has not really dawned on him, either. Nor will it! He just wakes up in an alley with no gun, no wallet, and no clear recollection of what happened. Chump.) With ████ out of his line of fire, he instead focuses on the surfer-looking weirdo down the hall, who winds up with that box in his hands and lets fly.
The biker empties his entire clip without blinking. He hits nothing but air. Matrix-style, but, not. The kid doesn’t dodge, the biker just… whiffs completely. ████ hears him make a sort of “wha?” sound before the box wings overhead and hits the guy right in the Adam’s apple. He makes a horrible gargling noise and falls over.
Now, she may be young and foolhardy, but ████ grew up watching horror movies, and she likes to think of herself as “genre-savvy”. These Michael Myers motherfuckers always get one last scare because protagonists aren’t smart enough to finish the job! Not when they have the opportunity. So after a moment of confusion, she pops right back up and kisses this dude goodnight with her boot. Ding! Problem solved. Also, concussed.
“Fuck you!” she screams. Then she swings around and stares at the twink, who looks back at her, utterly unperturbed. “Who and/or what the fuck?”
The kid extends a hand. “Come with me if you want to live, I guess?” Then he laughs.
████ gapes. She gawks. She stares. What?! For the first time, she truly processes the context of her surroundings, and her circumstances, and… her choice of outfit, for crying out loud! She’s got an army jacket! Backpack: full of contraband! She’s even wearing the Public Enemy shirt, outrageous thrift store find that it was. Who gives this stuff away, nowadays?
In short: this is exactly like the mall corridor sequence from Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), except here, John is played by ████, the T-1000 is a pissed-off biker, and Arnie is substituted for a rather lithe and attractive young man with a book - not a box, as it turns out. Maybe a graphic novel. Also, this whole fracas is taking place in a porous netherworld tied to Blockbuster Video. (This detail is generally omitted. Trade secrets.)
No fucking way. Impossible. These things do not… merely happen. "Are you from the future?“ she manages.
”‘One… possible future.’“
"Are you fucking with me?!” she screams.
“Yes.”
“You little sh-”
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Man, this is wild, huh?” He sidles up and nudges the biker with his toe. He’s wearing sandals. This is too much. "Did you, like… steal this guy’s stash, or something?“
"No, I razzed him a bit, he hated it. Wait, what am I saying? What the fuck are you doing in the ReTerminal?!”
The kid glances up. “Is that what you call this place? Catchy. I was browsing someplace, and I just sorta… wandered in. It happens sometimes. Frequently, in fact. I go where I need to go and do what I need to do. There’s a sort of power at work. I don’t need to know the whole thing while I’m in the middle. So I just… ride.” He pauses. “My name’s JJ.”
“████’s” brain short-circuits. There’s way too much going on here. This was possibly the weirdest thing that had ever happened to her (save for that other thing, which Wren does not discuss). Now “JJ”, the gay Terminator, is trying to converse. He saved her life, so it would be rude to decline, but she’s not ████ anymore, not publicly, and maybe not even at all. So she needs a new name, on the spot, instantly.
“Nice… to meet you, JJ,” she said, with some hesitation. “My name… is… steakshift.”
JJ laughed. “Oh, is that how you drive the Wienermobile?”
steakshift beamed. “Yeah! You’ve heard that joke?”
“Naw, it’s just a 3-2=1 thing. That’s cute. I like it. What are you doing here, steakshift?”
“I mean, right now?” steakshift crouched down over the biker and started rifling through their pockets. “Surviving. Barely. With your help. So thank you, JJ, from uh… the bottom of his wallet.” She tossed over the biker’s billfold.
JJ snagged it out of the air, glanced at it (CHEKOV, ANDY) and tossed it back. “Respect, but… I don’t feel like I need this, right this second. Got anything else?”
“What, like to trade? Fuck yes.” steakshift unslung their backpack and unzipped it. She picked up the discarded wallet and socked it away. Don’t mind if I do. After a moment’s hesitation, she decided not to take the guy’s gun. Not my style. "After anything in particular? I’d rattle off a list, but that’s, uh… a good way to get rolled.“
"Smart. Got any reading material? I sorta hucked my book at that dude.”
steakshift laughed. “You sure did, that was sick. Uh, let’s see. What were you reading?”
“Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.”
(Wren does not share this part of the encounter with ANYBODY. Not for a very long time.)
████ froze with her arm halfway into the bag. Pure-strain fear surged through her system. She’d been caught. She was fucked after all. This was all some kind of game. steakshift looked up at the alleged “JJ”, again certain that she was going to die. She licked her dry lips and croaked, “Are… Are We Cool Yet?”
“Yeah, of course we’re cool.” The twink gazed back down at her, nonplussed but not alarmed. He seemed amused, if anything. Not a care in the world. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
steakshift sagged. “Sorry, I just… I thought you were riffing on something.”
“Nope, just reading Jojo! It’s really stylish, and creative, and really really gay.” The twink giggled.
(Remember: classified.)
“Oh.”
“Punch ghosts and vampires. Recursive narrative. Angry dogs. Fun times.”
“I, uh, haven’t read it myself. Do you want another manga?”
“Yeah, quid pro quo.”
steakshift nodded enthusiastically. “Can do.” They pulled a small stack of paperbacks out from the bottom of their bag. Just three. “Take your pick.”
JJ took the middle one without really looking. “Thanks, steakshift. Are you, like… a collector or something?”
“Uh, I guess? I’m kind of on the road right now. I deliver a lot of packages. Loan stuff out. Make ends meet. Pay it forward where I can. Quid pro quo. Like you said.”
“You sound like a librarian.”
She paused again, having returned the books to the bottom of her backpack. “That's… yeah, actually, I am. It’s unconventional, but I’m learning the trade from an expert. There’s this really cool old dude.”
“Oh, really? Damn! That’s rad!” JJ laughed. “Maybe we should stay in touch.”
“Might be hard for me. I'm… getting back on my feet. No phone, no fixed address.”
“You on IRC?”
steakshift squinted. “I’ve heard of that but not actually used it. Just, like… MSN, and Skype.”
“You should. You’d find some interesting people. You could even look me up, I can make introductions. I’m jockjamsvol6.”
She started laughing. “That is an excellent handle. Love me some music.”
“Oh, you’ll love the book, then. 'Hasta la vista’, steakshift.” JJ waved goodbye, when pushed through the nearest door and disappeared.
For a moment, steakshift stared after them, nonplussed. But I gave you the book. Then she looked back at the crumpled wreck of the biker, and realized that JJ had left his graphic novel behind.
It was the Viz Media translation of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Volume 8, Iggy the Fool and the Great God Geb. They put it in their backpack before dragging the biker out the door, leaving him in an alley, and going on their way.
As it turns out… Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is way, way better than ████ ████████ expected. They’d read the Wikipedia summary and nothing more. “They’re just song references, right?” Wrong. In the near future, Oingo and Boingo teach ████ a very important lesson, and start the soon-to-be Wren Masterson down a very important path.
Perhaps they will share some of it someday, if they ever remember.
Summer 2014. Mx. Wren Masterson has gotten very good at telling this story. It’s not for all audiences and occasions, of course, because it skates a peculiar line: too implausible, too referential, and ultimately not all that funny if you can’t stick the landing. It has a lot of setup and a good joke is short, so Wren has condensed as much as possible. Twink, book, biker, thud. “Hasta la vista, baby.” Then poof. A nice, surreal anecdote that captures a single, wild scene from MxMasters’ adventurous life. It’s good at parties. It’s good in bars. It is theoretically good for capturing the attention of that ravishing femme. You know, as an example of how life imitates art… imitating life, imitating art, while you are around Mx. Wren Masterson. And don’t you want to be? At least for toni-
“That’s not quite the way I remember it.”
The moment cracked like a teacup. God damn it, of course. We’re not done. This scene is the punchline. Wren Masterson turned away from the woman with agonizing slowness and locked eyes with JJ, jockjamsvol6, with whom they corresponded, very occasionally, but had not actually seen in years.
“Ho-ly shit, dude, what are the odds?”
JJ grinned. “Probably low!”
Wren cupped their chin and (kinda) pretended to be dismayed. “'It’s inconceivable!’” Then they looked around for the bombshell, who was gone. Wandered away. Damn. "So, what’s up, JJ? Are you surfing tonight, or cruising?“ They cackled.
"Not exactly. I mean yeah I was just passing through, but I’m really glad you’re here, steakshift. I have something that you might be interested in.” He hesitated. “I think you might need it.”
MxMasters felt a chill run up and down their spine. The missing part of the story, the part they didn’t ever tell… JJ had been there when ████ blabbed, he knew something. Is this connected? They tried to remain calm. Wren forced out a laugh. “What is it, man?”
“Well, it’s your book, for one. I just happened to have it on me.” JJ produced a volume of manga. Forgotten lore. They had loaned this out before they’d had a proper index, and they’d essentially forgotten its existence, in part because JJ seemingly picked it at random.
It was an early volume of Ranma ½. JJ handed it over and Masterson started laughing. “Good God. Of course you did.” They turned the book over in their hands, then looked at JJ. “Had a few of these when I was a kid. Liked them a lot. Didn’t know why! As it turns out I’m super fucking gay, my dude, I’m nonbinary. They/their. My new name is Wren Masterson. I go by MxMasters sometimes. I do… a lot of stuff! But I’m basically an anarchist librarian.”
“Damn! That sounds killer. You made it. Big leagues.”
“Haha, well, no, I prefer the little leagues. More manageable. Your friendly neighborhood media nerd. Easier to tell who needs help and how. Mind you, I go everywhere, it’s just a small world nowadays. All about relationships regardless. There’s a quid pro quo. Like you said, way back when.”
“See, that's radical, Masterson. That is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. I haven’t seen you online…”
“-yeah uh it’s hard to get a consistent connection where I’m staying-”
“…and I wanted to tell you about something really sweet. I think you’d be interested. Heads-up, though.”
“What?”