TRUE BELIEVERS: Chapter 33 — The Epic Showdown You’ve Been Waiting For

True Believers is a full-length novel by Thom Dunn, based on his play of the same name. It’s a satirical tale of star-crossed lovers, aspiring comic book creators, crazed fanboys, cybernetically enhanced humans, women in refrigerators, real-life superheroes, and girls who dress like Slave Leia as their lives intertwine over a whirlwind weekend at a comic book convention in the early 2010s.

The book will be serialized on Medium throughout the month of April 2020. Here is the first chapter. Check back every day for more chapters!

Given the size of the Saturday crowd, Chad shouldn’t be surprised that he can’t find a private, quiet place to pee. It doesn’t stop him from trying, of course. But his exploration of the vast expanse of the Jacob Javits Center — from the 4th floor on 35th Street all the way to the basement at 39th and 12th — yields no such sacred space. Reluctantly, he sidles into the slow-moving (but at least it’s moving) line to the Men’s Room outside the A-section panel rooms.

Worse than the lack of privacy is the stillness and silence of standing in line, where Chad has nothing else to do but reflect, and check Twitter, and reflect, and check Twitter, and reflect some more. At least his four-block hike was enough to keep his mind distracted from the day’s other…