The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Thick as Identity Thieves

Previously: "Pickalittle Talkalittle" 

Clover Mystery wants to meet and talk to you. It could be a trap. But could you turn it into a trap for Clover? Where and when? you ask.

Get back to u, Clover replies.

It gives you a jolt when, only twenty minutes later, Jack DMs you to say he wants to meet you and Steve outside of town after school. If Clover ever got inside our DMs, you reflect (not for the first time!) they could really fuck us up.

Even though he's set up a meeting for later, Jack can't keep his thoughts to himself, but goes on to share what he wants to talk about. I'm thinking Gordon got swapped too same as Steve, he texts while you're driving up to the school. Maybe Chelsea too.

Who with? you thumb back while waiting at a light. Maybe he's on the road too, for it's five minutes before he replies, Don't know. The delay gives you time to think.

So it occurs to you now that you and the others have been too wrapped up in your own situation to think that maybe something bigger is going on. Clover has been teasing you for a long time now, but apparently hadn't been teasing Jack or Steve, so it was natural to assume that you were their target, and that Jack and Steve only got caught up in it accidentally. Even when Steve angrily talked about how he and his friends were "natural targets" for a body swap, you just thought he was just being an egotistical asshole. But maybe he's right. Maybe there are a lot more victims around.

Maybe, you think with a shiver, I wasn't even the first. Maybe most of the school has been body-swapped, and everyone has just been pretending they haven't been, the way you and Jack and Steve have been pretending!

And now that Jack has suggested that Gordon is also a victim, you see the logic, both his logic and Steve's: Gordon is an asshole, but he's the captain of the best high school basketball team in the state, with the head cheerleader for a girlfriend. He's a natural to have his life stolen. And that "no gay-baiting on my team" speech he made yesterday? No one at the table last night thought that sounded in character for Gordon. Doubtless it would have struck Jack—now impersonating Patterson—as out of character, and maybe he's seen other things out of character.

You can also see how easy it would be for Clover to make a switch-up. They can transform themself into Chelsea, and with such a disguise they could lure Gordon into a trap the way they lured you and Jack and Steve into traps. And Jack has probably had the same thought you have now: If they could lure Gordon into a trap, they could lure Chelsea (another natural target of identity theft) into a trap as well.

It's a gray and gloomy day of intermittent rain, and the school looks dismal and threatening when you pull into the student parking lot.

* * * * *

Because you've got all this specially on your mind this morning, you text Laura to ask if she has talked to Rebecca yet about that meeting she supposedly had with you. Her reply comes at the start of third: Lol u owe me. She was snotty n said it was none of my business and said u two only talked. Want me to keep trying? You tell her to relax.

But you don't. If anything, you're even more jumpy. Clover disguised themself as Chelsea to lure me and Jack and Steve into a trap, you think with a leaden heart as you sink lower into your desk. Why disguise themself as Jack, unless it's to trap and morph others? Your stomach actually begins to heave as you imagine the scenes: a smiling and genial Jack Li meeting unsuspecting classmates, lulling them into lowering their guard, then striking—transforming and trapping them in new forms!

You must look at least as ill as you feel, for Parker in the next seat over leans over to ask, "Are you okay, man?" You brush him off, and straighten up in your seat. But the nausea doesn't fade.

* * * * *

"Toldja that's what they're up to," Will Prescott tells you later that afternoon, at your rendezvous out in the countryside. Jack DMed him as well, of course, and shared his theory with Patterson the same as he shared it with you. So you and him are already talking about it, even before Jack himself arrives.

"Gordon, Chelsea, 'm sure there's others," he continues. His expression is grim and his teeth flash as he talks. "Fuck, I almost admire 'em. It's what I'd do, if I was a pussy like them."

"You think there's more than one of them doing it?"

"Whaddayu mean?" he asks, looking a little startled.

"You said 'them', what 'they' are doing."

"Well sure. They're swapping themselves into new situations. If they're doing Gordon and Chelsea, there's more than one of 'em."

"But I mean, I've only talked to one of them, if there is more than one of them. Clover Mystery."

"There's more than one of them, man," Will sneers. "No point in making all these swaps around if there's only one person."

"Well, what was the point of swapping us, then? Jack's popular, but I'm not— I didn't ask for this! And you didn't ask for ... that!" You point at the chest of the guy who now looks like you. "And Jack didn't ask for—"

"So what do you think is going on?" he challenges.

"Well, I just thought— I assumed—" You pause. You have just been making assumptions, and a lot of them, it occurs to you. "I assumed they've been doing it to us as a prank. Or punishment, or something. That's what they've talked like in their texts to me. Aren't they texting you?"

"Clover? No. Well, okay, a little bit." His expression turns shifty. "Of course I texted them right after all this shit went down, and they were all, like, el-oh-el, I'm just having fun, you should try to have fun too. Motherfucker. But—"

"But that's what I mean. Like it's a prank."

"Don't be so fucking gullible," he says, then glances away as Steve Patterson's sedan appears over the crest of a nearby hill, speeding toward you. "All that 'prank' talk is just a cover. It's identity theft." He shivers visibly. "And we're just the start." He falls silent as his old sedan pulls up.

"Hey," Steve says as he unfolds his lanky self from the car. "So I told you guys what I'm thinking. Whadda you guys think?"

"Makes sense to me," you reply, and Will nods. "Has Gordon been, uh— I mean, I heard about that talk he gave the team yesterday. Is that what got you thinking this?"

"Solidified it." He turns a chilly glance onto Will. "You heard about that speech he made? Does that sound to you like Gordon?"

"No. Not that I got a problem with it," Will adds. "Team comes first, any bullshit about who does what with his cock—"

"But Gordon wouldn't have made a speech like that," Steve says.

"Is that the only thing that got you wondering?" you ask.

"No, there've been some other little things that bothered me, but I was thinking it was just my imagination. You know, being paranoid." His expression tightens. "And I was thinking about what Steve was saying, about him and Gordon and Chelsea being, uh, natural victims for ... identity theft."

You feel Will's glance upon you, but you don't react, and instead say, "Well, I think there's more going on. More of it, I mean."

"How so?"

"Well, I told you I've been seen in more than one place. And I was just thinking ... Well, when a fake Chelsea showed up, that's when we got switched. Maybe when a fake Jack Li shows up—" You let the implication hang in the air unspoken.

"Huh," Steve grunts. "So you think maybe Preston got switched?"

"He's been to national competitions," you reply. Glancing at Will, you explain, "Some people might want to be champion basketball players. Others might want to be champion musicians."

Steve's icy gaze sharpens. "You mean—?"

"This isn't just pranking." You again glance at Will. "Like this guy's been saying, they're stealing identities of people they want to be. Like Gordon and Chelsea. And Preston, I guess."

"We're being pranked," Steve points out.

"Maybe we are. I assume we are. But that doesn't mean it isn't ... more than that ... with the others."

Steve mulls this. "You were seen with Preston. But also with Rebecca Sykes. Do you think she's a victim?"

"I dunno," you admit, for it seems unlikely. Then a thought strikes you. "Except— You hear she went after Chelsea in the hallways.

"Oh, you bet I heard about that," Steve drawls. "Up in the loft afterward, Chelsea was all—"

"But it wasn't her." You snap your fingers excitedly at the sudden thought. "I bet it was Rebecca up there, transformed into Chelsea!" You turn to Will, who is listening intently. "If Chelsea got turned into Rebecca Sykes— If she got turned into anybody, like we did—! Well, what do you think Chelsea would do? We've been taking it pretty cool, but would Chelsea?"

"You mean," Steve asks with grim amusement, "would Chelsea go after her with a hairbrush?" He too looks at Will, and a hard, conspiratorial smile passes between them. "Oh yeah, that definitely sounds like Chelsea," he says.

* * * * *

Jack says he'll approach Rebecca Sykes, to see if he can get her to confess to really being Chelsea Cooper. Then, all together, you can confront the fake one. You're so excited by this that you completely forget to tell them about your intention to meet with Clover.

So when Clover texts after you and the others have gone your own ways, saying, Suffolk wilderness twenty minutes, you haven't set up an ambush.

Next: "Closer and Clover" 

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