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"The Torch" by Chris "Sparf" Williams

Rob's hackles rose as he stared down the escalator at the wide hallway outside of the main ballroom that served as the autograph area. The multitude of people in a relatively small space produced a wide array of scents that was difficult for his canine nose to process, and that said nothing of the overlarge, creepy mouth-breathers who seemed to be unaware of the basic rules of hygiene; conventions were indeed strange places.

Leaning a spotted arm on the railing, Rob turned to the short, pudgy canine that stood next to him on the descending staircase. The corgi was probably a third of Rob's age, if that, and nearly two feet shorter. Rob rolled his eyes. The handlers at these things kept getting younger. The corgi stared determinedly forward, risking little sidelong.

"So, you're my guide for the whole convention? " Rob asked. "What's your name?"

The corgi turned fidgeting as he spoke; the fan-boy smile on his face at having been spoken to by Rob Cantor was unmistakable. "Yes sir. My name is Jake, sir! They wanted to assign staff on a rotating basis, sir, but I told them that it was a good idea to keep a single staff member with a single guest through the entire con, that way they get to know the person they're working with. I've been staff at over fifteen conventions; I have a pretty good handle on how they're run!"

Rob reached behind him and rubbed at the dull ache in his lower back. "So, what are my official times," he grumbled, his eyes transfixed at the disgustingly 70's-esque pattern in the brown and yellow carpet on the swiftly approaching lower floor.

"Well, uh," Jake paused, "We don't have you set up with any official times for signing."

Rob's head jerked towards the Corgi, his black ears with the tinges of grey lagging behind and flopping to a stop. "What do you mean? I always have at least one official time slot," he said, an indignant edge creeping into his voice.

"Well the, uh, the con staff decided-this is totally off the record, by the way, sir- that they only had the budget to arrange the free-signing deal with one guest. If you look at the agreement you signed, you're allowed to charge up to ten dollars per signature, and you can keep your own hours at your table," The corgi's ears were pinned flat against his skull.

Rob's spotted tail swished violently. "Which guest did they arrange that with," he asked impatiently, though he suspected he knew the answer.

"I-uh-"

The pair stepped off the escalator and turned right, heading down the long stretch of awful carpet at the signing area. "Answer me, uh...whatever your name is. Who?"

"It's Jake, sir and it's Mr. Pierce that they arranged the deal with. Given how popular his new movie is-"

"Never mind," Rob grumbled. "I think I got it. Okay, so no official signing times. What events am I slated for?"

Jake wiped sweat from the tan and white fur of his forehead. "Well, there's the photo-op session this afternoon. You're supposed to go in second. At 1:30, John Pierce will be in the room. Then you'll join him for the joint photos at 2." Rob clenched his fists at that. Jake took no notice and continued. "Then from 2:30 until 3, is just you."

"Okay, terrific."

"And then there's the Q&A session," Jake continued as Rob rounded the white cloth-covered table and sunk into the uncomfortable convention center chair. "We've actually got you slated to do two of them."

Rob blinked. That was new. Probably they anticipated a lot of questions about the so-called 'reboot' of Captain Electron, and figured there would be a lot of older fans who wanted to ask him what he thought. At least it would be a different set of questions than "Did you really kiss Ethel in the episode 'The Bank Robber's Daughter?'" or "What was it like on the set?" or the personal bane of the dalmatian's existence: "How did you remember all those lines?"

"Anything else," Rob asked as Jake took the other chair at the table which creaked and complained at its new occupant's weight.

The corgi's ear flicked uncomfortably. "No, I think that's it. I brought this," he said, pulling out a thick zip-up vinyl banker's bag, "I'm also your cashier, that way you don't have to do anything but sign." Rob typically charged $30 for an autograph, and even limited to $10 that money could add up quickly. It was hard to keep track of all the cash himself, along with which photo belonged to which person and who they wanted it to be signed to.

He glanced around the hall again. His table was located in the corner of the end farthest from the escalators. Not the most ideal location, but the fans would make their way back to him. Rob only hoped that the lines didn't get snarled around like they had at his last convention in Atlanta. There the staff had been competent but communication between them was terrible and half of the people in his line bailed once they saw him and realized that he was the wrong guest.

---

For a few hours, he sat at that table, alternately bored and fuming. He could see the lines for Captain Electron, but through the throngs of people he couldn't make out the table.

But he could hear him. Oh, brother could he hear him. That deep, forced-superhero tone that he himself had once perfected; it was a cliche nowadays, but back when Captain Electron had been a new and exciting property, it stood out as singularly heroic. Rob's brown eyes stared blankly at the convention floor, momentarily reliving that first signing, all those years ago, when he's still been in his prime. The show had ended, but the studio deal had required public appearances for some time after. And it worked. The kids flocked to wherever he was appearing, or at least they had for a while.

It had been in the middle of one of the smaller signing appearances the year after the show had been canceled that a little Labrador pup walked timidly up to him at his table. The boy no more than 8 years old and dressed up just like Captain Electron, with an electro-gun toy in a holster at the hip of his red pajamas and carrying a pull-string Captain Electron doll, that said something like five phrases, in his arms.

"Well, hello there, little scout," Rob had said, slightly-too-loudly and in the deep superhero voice. "What can I do for you today?"

The little boy immediately looked down and fidgeted. His black ears could not decide whether they should be pinned back or perked up excitedly.

"What's your name," Captain Electron said, trying once again. It wasn't that he was in a hurry. Not at all. There was no pressure here. Most of the people passing by took no notice of him or his signing table, his manager was outside smoking and probably having a nip of brandy from the flask that he didn't want Rob to know he carried. He just knew, from experience, that he couldn't depend on the child to say something on his own. That either over-eager parents would interfere or he would simply run off from sheer shyness.

"Um..." the boy turned his head to look behind him.

Rob looked up, following the boy's gaze until he saw a well-dressed Labrador couple, quietly urging the boy on from a distance. Rob admired that. They wanted the boy to take the step on his own. The pup looked back in Rob's direction, still not making eye contact.

"I'm not s'posed to tell. It's my secret indemnity."

The masked dalmatian's muzzle broke into a grin. Of course! Secret identity, or 'indemnity' as the case may be, was critical to any superhero, and the boy was completely dressed up, mask and all. He was playing an excellent game of pretend. Rob couldn't not play along. This was his favorite part, when the young ones really got into the swing of things.

"You're certainly to be commended," Captain Electron said, maintaining the super-hero tone. He dropped his volume conspiratorially as he leaned in closer and cocked a floppy black ear. "But, if you can't trust Captain Electron, then who can you trust?"

The little boy looked up, then, his eyes meeting Rob's, ears coming forward, tail wagging furiously. He was smiling now, and his brown eyes were full of wonder. "Okay," he said, excitedly. Then, forcing himself back to proper super-hero composure, leaned in and whispered, "It's Jonny. You gotta promise not to tell."

"My word as a member of the Justice Spots," Captain Electron whispered in return, winking.

"I have...um...a very important question to ask you....Mr. Captain Electron, sir."

Rob leaned across the table on folded arms. "Well, better ask, lad. I'm all ears."

"When are you gonna come back...um...on TV? They put on some stupid thing with a really creepy puppet at the time you used to be on."

Rob felt his heart sink beneath the costume's embroidered chest logo. This was the question was the worst.

"Well... you see... I've had to start doing more low-profile crime solving...."

"Oh! Like a secret mission?"

"Yes... something like that." He hated that the boy was completely unfazed by the lie and was taking it as gospel truth. But he couldn't ruin the kids' fantasy by telling them the truth, that CBS had decided to cancel the series and none of the other networks were willing to pick it up.

"Will you ever come back on? It's boring without you," Jonny said, searching Captain Electron's masked face for some positive response. Rob looked up, hoping to see the boy's parents coming to take him away, but they were in the same spot. The father's arm was wrapped around the mother, whose hand was placed gently on his, admiring the imagination of their little boy.

"I can't say for sure, maybe one day."

"Oh, OK. Um...well... I was wondering..." He trailed off, looking down, his posture once again the shy little boy he had been.

"Yes?"

"When I grow up, do you think I could join the Justice Spots...?"

This was safer territory for Rob.

"Well, normally, members of the Justice Spots are only Dalmatians. It takes someone of special character to be admitted otherwise. Do you think you have what it takes?"

The boy's tail started thrashing.

"I do, I do, I really, really do!'

Solemnly, deliberately, Captain Electron stepped from behind the table, slipped his hand to his belt and lifted the costume badge from its place and glanced at the shining silver of it in his hand. It was a heavy prop, made by the same company that produced a lot of police badges. He didn't like wearing it, but the studio was insistent that a vigilante superhero like Captain Electron actually be a duly deputized law enforcement officer, just so that kids weren't given mixed signals about lawbreaking.

The badge was splendidly detailed, with Captain Electron's atom logo as the cloisonné design at its center and five rounded points extending outward like a marshal's badge from one of the spaghetti westerns. It sparkled in the fluorescent light of the supermarket.

"Then by the authority vested in me by the Justice Spots; I hereby induct you as an honorary junior member," he pronounced, as he knelt, placing the badge into the pup's outstretched hands. "And maybe, when you're old enough, you can be a superhero too, just like me."

The kid practically vibrated with excitement, his eyes as wide as saucers staring at the badge in his hands. Impulsively, he wrapped both arms around his hero and hugged him tightly.

"I hope you come back on TV soon so I can watch you with my dad. He's a big fan too," Then the little Labrador pup named Jonny turned and scampered off back to his parents. Rob couldn't hear what he was saying, but he was jumping up and down and showing the badge to both parents. He caught the father's eye then. He was looking back at Rob and grinning. It seemed to Rob he was almost as happy as his son.

The ache in Rob's lower back returned with a vengeance. The scene of the little boy melting away from his vision, back to the ancient yellow and brown carpet and outdated wood of the hotel hallway, and his undisturbed stacks of photos, and his empty autograph line. Suddenly he felt his insides knotting up a little, and wondered if maybe he'd eaten something that disagreed with him. At his age, anything stronger than Melba toast was a risk. He stared mournfully down the concourse at where the throngs of people were dispersing from "Captain Electron"'s table. The super hero was nowhere to be seen. It was just as well, in Rob's opinion.

He sat for a while longer, nursing the pain in his back. He closed his eyes briefly, to rest them. As he rubbed them, a voice spoke from in front of him. Blue eyes snapped open and he sat up, like a clockwork toy that had been wound up.

"Um, excuse me, sir. I'd like this picture, and if you could sign it 'to Jake'?"

He's all but forgotten the pudgy little corgi that in his reverie had stepped around the table. He was holding out a twenty dollar bill. Ten for the photo (he'd chosen one of Rob's favorites, his fight with Doom Bringer in the prime-time special they'd done at the height of the series), and ten for the autograph. He stuffed the bill into the banker's bag and grinned sheepishly. Rob smiled and signed the photo, handing it back.

____

Rob didn't know why he even bothered doing these conventions anymore. Anybody who remembered him, remembered the campiness of his old show, and remembered what a goody-two-shoes his character had been. Everything he'd heard in recent years was that they'd taken the character, his character, in a really dark, almost anti-hero direction, which was pretty spectacular in Rob's mind for a character still named Captain Electron.

His grey-tinged ears perked up to better hear what was going on in the photo room. The line was out the door, creatures of every species and walk of life were there waiting to get their photo taken with the star. The mix was incredible, with everyone from dalmatians to swift foxes waiting their turn to step into the hotel suite which housed the photographer's equipment. Rob noted that the carpet here was plush and a rich crimson which contrasted with the beige, rib-textured wallpaper. This area had either been added on after that god-awful convention space or it had been remodeled.

Of course he didn't have to wait in the line. He was a few minutes early, but Jake ushered him through the crowd to the farther door, into the sleeping quarters attached to the suite. There were some murmurs of recognition among the crows, and Rob felt some of his tension melting away. They remembered. At least some of them did anyway.

"Okay, they're on the last few single-shoot ticket holders for Capt-er....for Mr. Pierce. Then you'll go in and the people who bought the picture with both of you together will get taken. And then it's your individual photos."

"Right," Rob said distractedly. He was staring at the immaculately made, undisturbed bed, and at the electric blue bundle of fabric resting on it.

"We...ah....didn't figure you'd want to try to dress up in the full costume....so we got-"

"You got the mask and cape, huh?" The dalmatian reached down and felt the material. It was a perfect replica of his old one, even down to the soft satin texture and its slight metallic reflectivity."

"You don't have to wear it if you don't want, sir, I...we just thought-"

"It's okay, Jake. I'll wear it. It's nice. You know, you guys do a pretty good job here. Lots of small conventions would have just had somebody cut a mask out of cheap blue felt and made a cape out of a towel." Rob smiled genuinely at the corgi.

An older vixen with a touch of grey in the dark fur of her ears, much like Rob's, stuck her head into the room. "We're ready for you now, Mr. Cantor."

Rob nodded and pulled the mask up against his face, tying it in the back almost automatically. Then he pulled the cape over the shoulders of his sport coat. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and nearly laughed. He looked like some sort of modern day Don Coyote, like a businessman having gone mad and decided to live in a fantasy world.

The vixen, whose name was Dawn, Rob gleaned from her name tag, held the door for him from outside with one arm. He stepped into the room, blinking at the difference in light level. The photographer had set up one of those grey backgrounds with the light area in the center and lit it with two big umbrella things and a couple of smaller lights from underneath. There were huge set of french doors with gauze curtains letting the light stream in from the outside as well, and a few members of staff manning some tables nearby where incoming subjects could place their bags and costume props and such to be picked up when the photo was done.

By the photographer's backdrop, standing slightly taller than Rob, even before age had taken its few inches, and in full, red and blue Captain Electron costume, was John Pierce, flanked by his manager, a chubby pine marten who seemed to be glued to his smartphone, a very chipper young cacomistle with a very large and expensive looking camera dangling off his neck, and a female retriever making notes in an old-fashioned paper datebook that looked like his personal assistant.

Rob had to say, the costume flattered the other dalmatian. He was lean, muscular, and the costume showed off his superhero's physique. Rob had never been in that good a shape. This was the first time he had seen his successor. He'd deliberately avoided the buzz in the magazines and on the Internet. But the costume was a fairly faithful re-creation. The red was darker, a more blood-like crimson, and the blue was brighter by contrast. The fabric was textured, like a woven Kevlar rather than a simple spandex. The gun had been given a less retro-futuristic, sleeker look and hung loosely at his hip,

"Rob Cantor!" said the other dalmatian excitedly, waving in his direction. Rob didn't move, caught off guard at the greeting. "It is absolutely amazing to see you here. Come on, come over here."

Rob did, he didn't know exactly why, but he made his way over to the photographer's backdrop and took Pierce's waiting outstretched hand, which he shook. He'd expected a typical autographs-and-sunglasses movie-star wannabe. This was a surprise.

"Listen, before they let in the next group, could we, you know, get a picture of just the two of us, in the Justice Spots pose?"

Rob furrowed his brow, but couldn't keep from smiling a little with nostalgia. "Yeah, sure, why not."

"Great, over here! This tape mark! We good, Mr. Photographer?" The thumbs up came from the cacomistle. The manager meandered absently out of the frame, staring at a grid of multicolored dots on the screen of his phone, while the retriever was off to the side instantly.

"Okay, ready?"

Rob nodded to the other dalmatian. He hadn't done this in a very long time. Right hand in a fist, against his left shoulder, bent at the waist, left arm straight at a 45 degree angle, paws slightly more than shoulder width apart, head up. Pierce took the same pose, with his arms reversed, though with considerably less popping of joints and lower back pain.

"On the count of three, look defiant and say 'Justice'. Ready? One, two, three!" The two 'heroes' complied, and the lights flashed brightly. "And one more, one, two, three."

Again they repeated 'Justice' and again the lights flashed.

"Hey, Mr. Cantor, thanks so much. I'll drop by your table and get that signed before the convention is over."

"Won't your fans keep you mobbed and slow you down," Rob replied, more bitterly than he meant to. He looked back at the taller dalmatian. His left eye was looking slightly wrong, and it took Rob a moment to realize that it was an ice-blue contact lens slipping down and revealing a brown iris underneath. He smiled inwardly. Masking heterochromia probably. Not a bad job.

"I've got ways. Don't worry. Anyway let's do this. Let them in if you're ready."

The crowd for the double photo was older, though still younger than Rob had expected them to be. And there were quite a few of them. Males in their 30s who had grown up on reruns of his show. Most of them were canids but occasionally an otter or feline would pass through. Rob settled into his old habits, offering a warm smile and a hand on the shoulder for each photo.

"And that's it for the doubles," Dawn the vixen said from the doorway. "They're lined up now for your solo shoots, Mr. Cantor."

"Can't imagine this will take long," he muttered to himself.

"All right, I've got to go change. I'll stop by your table later on and get that photo signed. And then we've got that Q&A together tomorrow. Eh, Jean? Tomorrow afternoon, right?"

The retriever flipped the page of her organizer, "Yes, Mr. Pierce."

"Great, See you later, Mr. Cantor!"

And then he was gone, and Rob was left in the suite with Dawn, the cacomistle photographer whose name he didn't catch, and the 4 or 5 older creatures who came in to get their photos taken with him. At least there are a few, he thought.

______

After a quiet (and undisturbed by autograph seekers) lunch, the next day, in the hotel's little overpriced cafeteria, Rob debated just going back to his room and taking a nap. It was nearly 4 in the afternoon and if he was going to constantly feel like an old man, he might as well act like one.

He tossed the last few bites of his soggy, prepackaged turkey club into the trash on the way back out into the main autograph hall. His table was at the other end, and was obscured by a crowd who was admiring a Doctor When spaceship model that was being crewed by puppets, on display outside the video viewing room. Rob never got that British stuff anyway. He excuse-me and pardon-me'd his way through that crowd and back towards his table. Jake was there talking to a tall, black-furred canine dressed in an expertly tailored matching three-piece black suit. The fabric reflected some of the light from above, telling the dalmatian that the fabric was no doubt expensive. He was wearing some sort of insignia hanging from the vest's watch pocket, but Rob didn't examine closely enough to see what.

He approached just in time to hear Jake say "Oh, here he comes now! Mr. Cantor, you've got an autograph request, sir!"

Rob nodded politely to both of them and slipped behind his table, sitting down and looking over the photo stacks on the table. It wasn't quite time for the photographer to have printed and sent the photo-op pictures down for pickup.

"All right, sir, which of these would you like?"

"Oh, I brought my own," the black dog answered, lifting up an 8x10 photo in his left hand, white side up.

Rob nodded. "Okay, that's ten dollars then, and who am I making it out to," he asked and reached up, taking the photo. The dog answered as Rob flipped it over, revealing a picture of himself and of his replacement, standing in the Justice Spots pose.

"To Jonny, please, sir."

Rob blinked and looked up, seeing the details of the black dog's features for the first time. He was a tall, lean Labrador retriever with rich, nut-brown eyes and and a wide smile on his face. His tail wagged furiously behind him.

"You...?"

The Labrador nodded, and put a finger to his lips. He reached down and slid the sleeve back a couple of inches on his inner-wrist, revealing fur colored white, with large, round spots left his natural black.

"You're him? But, I remember you. you were-"

"A little eight-year-old boy in a supermarket, who asked you when Captain Electron was going to come back on TV. Yeah..."

Rob shook his head in disbelief. "How did you get them to give you the job?"

"Are you kidding? I was obsessed with Captain Electron. I did everything from majoring in theatre in college to taking class after class and moving to Los Angeles. Then when I found out they were finally going to be rebooting Captain Electron, well, I hired a stylist and a makeup artist and we worked out how to turn me into a Dalmatian."

"I can't believe you stuck with it for all these years," Rob answered, feeling his voice try to break a little. He force it to remain steady.

"Hey, listen. Meeting you meant everything to me when I was eight. You gave me permission to chase my dreams. Hell, you gave me this." Pierce pulled the metal object from his waistcoat pocket and held it up. It was the badge that Rob had given him. Still as shiny today as it was then. "They, uh, wouldn't let me wear it in the movie, y'know? I tried..."

"So, now you're me. That's pretty impressive, kid," Rob said, smiling. He could feel the warmth rising in his cheeks.

"Nah, I'm not you. I'm me. you're you. And we're both Captain Electron. Have you watched the movie?"

Rob shook his head.

"Tell you what, I'll have my manager drop off a blu-ray in my suite and we can watch it together. You can give me pointers. They green-lit two sequels already, and there are talks for a new TV series." The Labrador's tail was still wagging.

Rob pushed back his chair and stood up, sticking out his hand and shaking the young Labrador's hand firmly. "You've got a deal. But you supply the popcorn and the brandy, and I get to make fun of you as much as I want."

"Deal. Now, I gotta go get ready for our Q&A. You're gonna love it. I plan on talking about nothing but how much your show inspired me and colored my performance, and then I'm going to demand that everybody come and get your autograph."

The dalmatian grinned. "Okay, but remember, I'm old. You're going to aggravate my arthritis by making me sign so much."

"Bah, occupational hazard when you're Captain Electron."

"When WE'RE Captain Electron," Rob corrected. John Pierce laughed and strode off across the horrible carpet to the escalators. Rob watched after him for a while until he heard a stifled whimpering from behind him.

He turned around and Jake was standing there, hands clasped firmly over his muzzle. He was positively vibrating with excitement and making little whining noises as he wiggled furiously.

"Hey, Jake, calm down. You'd think you just saw a superhero or something."