Spiral Bound Journal

Six (Degrees) to One

"Come to the cocktail hour, he said. It'll be fun, he said," Morgan muttered under his breath as he approached the hors d'oeuvres table on one side of the party space.

For Morgan, the ideal night before the start of VidCon would have involved hunkering down in his hotel room with a gallon of cold brew and surfing the latest reportings at Coindesk. Instead, he found himself on the edge of a hotel ballroom listening to some thumping, anonymous sounding techno music. At least the shindig had decent food and a relaxed dress code. Still, Morgan cursed HarHar for persuading him to attend in the first place. Morgan ended up finding himself alone in the crowd, a state that set him on edge.

The evening had started out decently enough. Morgan trekked across the Chicago River to meet up with HarHar and Astride. They were staying at the Sonesta where the VidCon team was hosting the creators' cocktail hour. The three of them hung out in the hotel's main lounge for a few minutes before heading to the ballroom. They spent some time discussing their various avenues of research and video work. Well, Astride most of the video work chatter listening to Morgan and HarHar. After all, crypto research was Astride's side gig, something Morgan keeps forgetting given Astride's skill in this field.

As the night went on, HarHar and Astride began to veer into the super chatty stage of intoxication. Morgan had sidestepped this through a combination of nursing both of his vodka cranberries and grabbing a glass of water in between. This kept him from getting swept up in HarHar's decision to talk to everyone in the room. Soon after this got started, Morgan watched as HarHar dragged Astride into a conversation with several Canadian YouTubers. Morgan attempted to join this group, but between the sheer number of people involed and their dubious sobriety he clammed up and sought an escape route.

"If you're trying to decide between the egg rolls and samosas, I'd go with the samosas."

Morgan blinked and turned to find the source of the comment. He found a taller gentleman with half gray hair standing off to this right.

"Well," Morgan began, "I hadn't planned on grabbing more snacks, but I didn't have either of these. Maybe I should get those samosas a shot."

The other man nodded and handed Morgan an empty plate. Morgan wasted no time in picking up a samosa and taking a bite. The mystery gentleman did in fact steer him in the right direction.

"What do you think?"

Morgan nodded and swallowed. "Good choice. Thanks for the tip."

"Sure thing. By the way, I don't think we've met at all this evening. I'm Gus, host of The Special Relationship."

"The Special Relationship," Morgan mused. "That sounds vaguely familiar."

"It's about my experiences growing up in England but becoming an adult in the US."

Morgan snapped his fingers. "I think Dana watches your channel from time to time. That's where I've heard that name."

"One of my friends is named Dana, actually. She's going to be working at VidCon."

"Really," Morgan replied with an arched eyebrow. "It's funny you mention that since the Dana I know takes pictures."

At that, Gus started chuckling.

"I think we might be talking about the same person," he said after a moment. "What is your channel's name?"

"EspressoNoir. You, however, may call me Morgan."

"Yes, we're definitely talking about the same Dana. She has mentioned you on several occasions."

Morgan swallowed another bite of his samosa. "Has she? I mean, what would bring that up?"

Gus gave Morgan a partial smirk. "Well, when she got back Dallas last spring, she told me about how you two met."

"Ah, yes, when I kinda went on the run because a bunch of fangirls found me and were trying to get in my pants before the damn eclipse. SO how did you meet her?"

"Well, she has been a patron of mine for a few years, but we met in person back in 2023. She agreed to be an unofficial tour guide when my wife and I visited the Minnesota State Fair. Boy was that an adventure!"

"Did you get video of that?"

"Of course! Dana even makes a couple appearances where she talks about things like attendance stats and what not."

"She definitely is a fair enthusiast," Morgan agreed. "She has half threatened to come down to Texas for our state fair to do recon, as she's put it. Anyway, I take it that even after the fair excitement wore off you two had plenty to talk about?"

"Indeed," Gus replied with a nod. "We talk about everything from US geography and various accents to what it's like to prefer really spicy food while living in the Midwest. And really, I'm glad we became good friends, as it allowed Fiona and I to get Dana to safety when everything went sideways in Paris."

"Wait. You were there when she got sick?"

Gus nodded. "It was not a pretty picture. The three of us were supposed to meet up for a late dinner so we could talk to her about her lifesaving measures during that one day during athletics competition. We decided to wait outside for her Uber to arrive, and that ended up being a very good thing. Dana quite literally fell out of the car. Her feet didn't even leave that backseat."

"Holy- I didn't know it had been that bad!"

"Oh, it was. I was the one that ended up giving her the Cortef injection before we drove her to the hospital."

"Wow."

This prompted a curious look from Gus. "She didn't tell you about this?"

Morgan shook his head. "She says her memory of that night was and isn't very good. She remembers getting in the Uber and then waking up to find a ton of frantic text messages from me that she ended up responding to telling me she was alive. Man, I...I think I need another drink."

"Well, I don't drink, but I can walk with you to the bar, and then we can catch up with Fiona. That is, unless there were other people you wanted to chat with before things start wrapping up."

"No, your plan sounds good. My initial group is off I think trying to take over the DJ booth to start karaoke or something."

Gus sputtered in a bad attempt to hold back his laughter. "Then after you get your drink we all try to find the spot in the room where the volume is the lowest and hang out there until we decide we can't take it anymore."

"Sure," Morgan chuckled. "Sounds like as good of plan as any."

With that, the two men headed for the bar.