The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Shanghaied!

Previously: "Romances in Disguise" 

You would need to go by the elementary school anyway in order to make a blank mask; and after swapping Thomason for Andrea that would be one more distraction to keep you from working through the grimoire. Between those two considerations—which you weigh as you drive off from the house—you decide it's best to work on the book.

The day is cool, but you've dressed down in giga-floppy shorts, a long-sleeve pullover, and flip-flops: the kind of wear that's easy to change out of if you get old man squirts all over you on these mornings. You've even tossed aside the ski cap for a backwards turned ball cap. But in skinny sunglasses and the banged-up Jeep, you still look like the kind of guy assholes should avoid unless they're looking to get fucked up.

Down in the school basement you examine the dingus from a couple of different angles, then take the grimoire from the briefcase. After the shit that's gone down you're not real hopeful that it will work, but you open it to the latest spell and lay it face down on the thinglehickey.

You count to five—then to ten, just to be sure—and pull it off. When you turn the book over, the page flops over to the next spell.

Awesome!

With the browser on your phone you settle down to translating.

There's not a lot of text, but the grimoire's glitchy influence causes the browser to freeze several times as you try working out a translation. Eventually you are able to puzzle out that you should place a mask on the thing, and that doing so will create a servant or slave.

Cool! It would be nice to finally have someone who would follow your orders for once. And you could definitely use the help.

But right now you need a mask.

Gardinhire's mask is in the briefcase, but even as you pick it up you change your mind. You've got several places to go, but also jobs to do here. Wouldn't it be smarter to use the mask you're wearing now—Chen's mask? If this thing works the way it's supposed to, you could send it out to talk to Caleb or to Thomason or to run errands; meanwhile, you could stay here, in your own face for the first time in weeks, to work on a blank mask to use on Andrea.

That's perfect!

For the first time in a week you feel like things are really starting to break your way. You stretch out on a table and grip the sides of your face.

* * * * *

You're very relaxed and more than a little groggy when you wake again, and you stretch and scratch when you sit up. Your hands and legs look a little weird at first, but you quickly re-accustom yourself to the Prescott appendages. You run your hands over your face, then look at yourself in the mirror. Everything seems to normal and unchanged. The whiskers on your chin and lip haven't even grown.

So, on to phase two. The book doesn't specify where to place the mask on the "servant", but you lay it on the front of the thing that looks like a head. The result is exactly what you hoped, and quicker too. Gary Chen—a naked Gary Chen, but you can't have everything—turns his head to look at you.

His eyes freeze, and for a moment you forget that he's your servant, and all the terrors of facing this asshole come flooding back. Maybe you even change color, for his lip curls into a sneer.

Enough courage comes trickling back that you're about to order him to get up when he pre-empts you, swinging up into a sitting position. He looks you up and down, and glances at his own nakedness. "The fuck is this bullshit?" He looks back up at you, eyes gleaming with murder. Then he blinks, looks around, seems to realize where he is. "Oh, right," he says. That grin reappears, and your courage ebbs away again.

He hops lightly to his feet, and you back away, knocking your knees against the edge of a desk. He snickers and leans into your face. "Boo," he says.

"Stop it. I mean, fuck you," you stammer. "You're my fucking slave, right? The book says—"

"Sure, I remember all that," he says. "I was sitting right there just a minute ago, wasn't I?" He thwaps your forehead with a contemptuous finger flick. "Pretty fucking humiliating having you up my ass, telling me—"

This is not going at all the way you imagined it would. Well, maybe it's good he's acting like the real Gary Chen. You don't want some kind of monotone robot going out in public, chanting, "I. Am. Gary. Chen. Click. Whir. I. Am. An asshole. Click. Fuck. You. Dumbass. Boi-oi-oi-oi-oing."

"Is there a point to this, Prescott, or did you set me up this way just so you could jack off two cocks at once?"

"Huh? Oh, right. So—" What did you need doing? "I think you need to call Caleb, catch up with him. You'll find him at Seth Javits's place, you know, because—"

"Yeah, I remember all that, you fucking doorknob, you think I wasn't there when you were setting things up? Jesus."

You glare at him. "Would you shut up and stop it?"

"Would you get out of my fucking clothes so I can go take care of business?"

Well, he's got a point. You kick off the flip-flops and peel off the three articles of clothing you're wearing; just as quickly, he gets them on. You shiver and glance around. That sleeping bag is here still, but there doesn't seem to be anything else to wrap yourself in. "Hey, before you see Caleb," you tell your servant, "go home and bring me something to put on."

"Yeah, I'll get right on that," he says as he tosses the grimoire in the briefcase and closes it.

This surprises you, naturally. "What are you doing?"

"Packing," he says, and bounds over to the steps. "Have fun, asshole," he calls. "If you get hungry, maybe you can catch some cockroaches. If you're lucky maybe they'll taste like popcorn."

"What the— Come back here!" But he's out the door, and even as you run up the stairs you hear the padlock closing. "Hey!" You pound on the door. "Come back! I order you— I command— Open sesame! Cumum backum! Uh, returno expresso por favor!" A car engine turns over. You jump to the floor and peer out the window. Chen, at the wheel of his Jeep, peels away.

* * * * *

For almost five solid minutes you can only rage impotently. What the fuck is it with the grimoire that it keeps setting you up this way? You've no clothes, no phone, no way out.

Gradually you settle down and make a careful search of your resources. There is nothing magical left: all of that was packed in the box. You do have supplies for making magical stuff, but you can't see how a mask or brain band or glue can help. You open all the desk drawers and cabinets: dust and dirt and grime and a few tools that you yourself had stocked the basement with.

But you make one discovery: some track pants inside the sleeping bag, the detritus of your last sleepover here.

So, if you got out you wouldn't be running around naked. Only half-naked. But where could you go?

You don't know anybody who lives nearby. There's only your house, which is currently inhabited by a fake version of you.

But there's no place else to try for.

* * * * *

It takes about ten minutes with a combination of tools and a few cuts, to get one of the windows removed from its casing so that you can squeeze out of the basement. It's a chilly day, but the work has warmed you up, and you try to keep warm by jogging back to your house. At least maybe then you won't look like a total doofus, running along in only some saggy track bottoms. But you're not wearing shoes either, and—Ow ow ow!—the stones so bite your feet that you're limping within only a minute.

But how the fuck are you going to get into your house without being seen? Worse, without being caught by the guy who's been stuck playing you for the past—

You try to calculate the time that's passed. Two weeks? Three weeks?

Ten, fifteen minutes after setting out, you're two houses down from where you live. There's a fire hydrant at the corner where you're standing, and you kneel beside it and pretend to be fascinated. Your dad's car is out front. And so is your truck.

What does Gordon think of the truck?

You shake the dumbass thought from your head. Focus, Prescott!

There's an alley behind the house; if you got back there and over the wall, where everyone could see you from the living room—

Okay, that won't work. There's the garden trellis at the side of the house under your bedroom. If you could get up it to look through the window, it would break beneath you, probably—

That won't work either. There goes Keith Tilley, driving slowly past, toward your house—

Keith! "Hey!"

He jams on the brake, makes a sudden stop. You run up and jump in. He stares at you with wide eyes. "The fuck are you—?"

"I had an accident," you say. "I was out jogging and I had an accident and I don't want my folks to find me like— Will you put it in gear and get us out of here?"

"What were you out jogging for, you called me only, like, fifteen minutes ago!"

Shit! "It was a fast jog," you improvise, "I didn't know you'd be here so soon, you're usually so slow. Get off this street, Tilley!"

He puts his car in reverse, slowly backs up, turns, drives back the way he came. Meanwhile, you're plotting furiously.

You need to call someone. Caleb, probably. Unless the robot is with him, which is where it said it was going. Or you could call Chelsea. Unless robo-Chen decides it wants to meet with the real one.

"You got a phone?" you ask Keith. He looks at you skeptically, but pulls his from his pocket.

Next: "Dealing with a Chenbot" 

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