The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

When a Body Needs a Body

Previously: "Dealing with a Chenbot" 

"What do you mean it calls for a body? How would you know?" you demand.

"I told you, I was looking at the next spell."

"It's in Latin. You can't read Latin."

He gives you a look, one that combines a very Caleb-like exasperation with a very Seth-like impatience. "Javits took AP Latin last year, okay? Oh, and you're right, I got the memories last night. Anyway, it's not like the ingredient is hard to decipher once you spot it." He taps the page. "Corpus humanum can only mean one thing. 'A human body'."

"Would a corpse work?"

"Eugh! It was gross enough getting that dirt, I'm not helping you dig up a maggoty dead person!"

"It just says 'body'. Couldn't that mean—?"

"It's an academic question because I'm not buying whatever it's trying to sell me! And if it is a real person—" He yanks the book away from you and sits on a desk with it in his lap.

It looks like he's gonna be awhile. So with a certain amount of loathing, you pick up Chen's mask and lay back on the table.

* * * * *

You wake with a headache: not a severe one, just a low-level buzz all up in your head, like a lot of bees. Angry bees, it feels like. Yes, definitely angry. Lots of them, and all very angry. You sit up and catch sight of the track pants you're wearing. The bees roar.

Oh, right. Fucking Prescott, that's who you're angry with. (You are those bees.) Having Prescott up your ass, doing your shit for you, is the most motherfucking humiliating thing ever. You hunch over and wrap your head in your arms.

"You okay over there?" calls Javits. He doesn't look up from the book. "You're not going to start cutting yourself, are you?"

"Fuck you," you mumble. And that's another thing, having Javits—who's actually that pussy Johansson—brag about all the shit he did to Chelsea—who's another version of you— "G'yod! Fuck! Fuck!"

"What is your deal?"

"Nothing." You sit up straight and get smartly to your feet. The clothes you put on this morning are bundled into a messy pile, but you flap them out and are soon changed.

By then, you've got your brain wrapped solidly around Gary Chen's again. All it took was a little willpower. Heh. "Will Power." But he's your slave again now, entirely docile, responding to every tiny flicker of command, and giving you instantly what you want: his memories, his instincts, his reflexes, his personality, to whatever degree you demand. You can hide behind him, or put him away, as you see fit.

Right now you don't need him, but you let him ride shotgun as you lean in next to Caleb. "So what did you figure out?"

"Left the work to me, huh? It looks just like the last one. Same ingredients, same amounts, same fire. Only difference is, it doesn't call for so much cemetery dirt, but it does call for a human body."

"What are you doing with Cindy these days?"

"Oh, God. That's not funny."

"It's hilarious. But seriously, have you broken up with her yet?"

"No. That's not really your business, is it?"

"Chen is making it my business." You pull the book from him. "And it will be until I find something in here that lets me deal with Chen."

Caleb says nothing. Then, very quietly, he says, "You have a Chenbot now. Doesn't that let you deal with him?"

The hairs on the back of your neck go up. "How do you figure?"

"We put the Chenbot in for you. I make it leave you alone. You go back to being yourself. Chen doesn't know where you are, and the Chenbot does what I tell it to."

"And what happens to Gordon?"

"He goes back to being himself, of course."

"But Dane's playing Gordon."

"And Dane goes free, like all the rest."

"Does Chelsea go free? But then what happens to Chen? He's playing Chelsea right now?"

"Well, he—" Caleb pauses.

Yeah, that's the flaw. The Chenbot would have to replace Chen. And if you could bring yourself to put him out of the way like that, you wouldn't be in this jam.

"You could use Chen's body in the spell," says Caleb.

That's not what you were expecting him to say. "Dude, you were just saying we couldn't use somebody in this spell!"

"No I wasn't. Anyway, I'm just pointing out the possibility."

"It's a pretty fucking horrible suggestion, given who I'm looking like. It's basically murder!"

"You're his doppelganger now, and doppelgangers are always trying to get rid of their originals. Maybe you should get with the program."

You gasp.

"Okay, I'm not serious," Caleb says. "Or, I dunno. Maybe I am. It's only Gary Chen we're talking about."

You jump up and pace a narrow open space on the floor. "I dunno, man," you mutter. "And anyway, like you say, we're not even sure it will kill the person." You stop cold with a horrible thought. "Like , what if it gives them superpowers? You wanna see Chen get superpowers?"

"It's not going to give him superpowers."

"You don't know that!" You resume pacing.

"Look, I have to think about this," you finally tell him, "and until I decide, I do have some stuff to finish up here." Caleb cocks an eyebrow. "Nothing horrible, just some stuff to help out with the— Well, with the drug trade. Brain bands to figure out who might be in the market," you add in a mumble. "I won't do anything about the next spell without you."

"Right, same as you didn't fire up the Chenbot without me," Caleb snorts. But he leaves you to it.

* * * * *

You do make up a brain band, which takes four very exacting hours. Then you make a mask, which takes another hour. Then—it's the middle of the afternoon, and you're way overdue for a meal—you try cadging a free meal at Aunt Sue's. "I'm not gonna be able to make it on Monday," you tell her by way of an excuse.

"Come in anyway," she says. "It go to waste if you don't eat. Your mother not feeding you right. Sit." She goes into the back to bring you a plate. You've your backpack with you, and you take out the notes that Evans, in his guise as Trantham, had worked up for you. Aunt Sue asks what you're working on. "Just some stuff a friend gave me about Eastman," you say. "Just gossip about some of his friends there."

"We get lots of student from Eastman," Aunt Sue says. "Not so many from Westside."

"How do you know they're from Eastman?"

"Their jackets. Eastman closer than Westside."

True. Eastman is more or less up the road from here. Lucky bastards over there. That school—the older of the two high schools in Saratoga Falls—is close to several major business districts, while Westside sits almost on the edge of town, with residential districts and a bad industrial area between it and the same establishments. You glance around now, but the buffet is even more deserted than usual at this time of day.

Aunt Sue chats with you a bit more, then leaves you to Trantham's notes. You bend over them with your phone at the ready, to make notes for yourself. It'll beat trying to decipher his crabbed and childish handwriting next time you need to consult them:

Trantham (me) buys about 9 oz./mo. from Gardinhire, I think. He keeps around four joints for himself, maybe a little more depending. He's not good at dividing it up so I can't really say if he's selling eighths or whatever to everyone or how much to them. He tries to sell at about four hundred an oz. because that's what Gardinhire told him it goes for and he's almost buying at that price from Gardinhire already so mostly he's just selling to his friends and trying to not lose money and sharing with them so its not really like a good business set up.

Mostly he shares with his friends in the band the Hi Hats. That's the band Chris Yves set up (She's a really hot lesbian by the way if you don't know that you should totally go to their next gig.) She doesn't do any and I think she'd kill her bandmates like Trantham (me) if she found out but Trantham sells a little bit maybe 4 eighths to THOMAS GILLIMAN and four eights to TERRY FITZGERALD they get together on weekends down at the river and blow off a lot of steam and smoke so their not heavy users or anything and I don't think we could sell anymore to them.

Theirs another band Trantham and them hang out with and Trantham (me) sells almost as much to them but its only to PAUL ZAMETTI and KENT FARRELL. I don't know if Adam Karter who runs that band gets any from them but there the only 2 in that band I sell to, about 1 1/2 oz. a month maybe.

There's also JOSHUA CHESWICK who Trantham likes to hang out and he's a heavy buyer about 1 oz. a month. Also another 3 or 4 oz. to his friends DYLAN BRIGGS, NATHAN POOLE, BRENDON O'CONNELL, GABE SUNSTEIN and SAMUEL BLEVINS. Trantham gets together with them once a week or so in Joshua's basement and they're always using.

It's pretty casual, like Trantham does this with his friends, the only guys he sells to that aren't friends are 2 guys on the basketball team and that's BEN PAXON and TONY RODRIGUEZ. They heard Trantham could sell them some so they went to him, he doesn't like to look for people to buy.

OK, I guess that's all.

You fold it up after digesting it. As you suspected, Trantham is pretty useless, and Eastman needs a pro.

But that's not what you're thinking about as you return home. No, you're preoccupied by the need for a "corpus humanum."

Next: "This Old Man" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"