The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Of Two Minds

Previously: "A Date with Lots of Talk About Dating" 

Blue letters seem to float above the gleaming surface of the metal strip: CALEB JACOB JOHANSSON. "Dude, how'd you get it to do this?" you ask.

"It's the spell," Caleb retorts. "I finally got it to work?"

"I mean, how'd you get that spell to work? What were we doing wrong?"

"Beats me. I finally just used the sigil already in the book."

You feel your eyes bulge a little. "That's all? You mean all that time we spent copying out--"

"I know, it sucks! But it's also awesome because, you know, from here on out--"

"So what does it do? Did you turn the page in the book?"

"Naturally." His expression is smug, then turns a little guarded. "There's just a single sentence on the other side. It translates as 'To know the mind of another'."

You stare at him. "You mean, like, mind-reading?"

"Or mind copying. Think about it, the masks only copy the person's appearance, but if you really want to impersonate them you have to know everything they know."

"Oh, fuck, you don't have to tell me that." Your knees go a little weak, and you lean against the side of the work bench. "The whole freaking week woulda been about ten times easier if-- Aw, Christ! Why couldn't we have waited until we had that spell cracked before we started fucking around?"

Caleb's eyes widen. "The fuck is your problem? Did something happen on that date?"

"No, I'm just talking about all this shit with Gordon and Dane. If I'd known what to--"

"Look, will you stop obsessing about that," Caleb says. "Besides, we gotta test this thing first, make sure it works the way I think it will."

"But if it does, I gotta use it to get out of this mess I'm in."

"Sure," he sighs. "But for right now--" He chews on the inside of his cheek. "Look, I'm gonna have to trust you with, you know, getting inside my head, maybe. You gotta put that thing on." He points at the strip you're holding.

"Why me, why am I the guinea pig?"

"I'm the fucking guinea pig here, Prescott! You'll be reading my mind! Anyway, it's not like I can use it."

"Why not?"

He blinks, and his tone turns extravagantly patient. "Because how would I know if I was reading my own mind?"

You mimic his tone. "Are you saying you can't read your own mind now?"

He quivers. "Will you just put that thing onto your forehead? No, wait, take the mask off first."

"How come?"

"Why are you so full of shit and questions tonight? I wanna see if the dingus works by itself, or if it needs a mask too."

"If you're acting like the fucking scientist, that definitely makes me the fucking guinea pig," you grumble, but stretch out on the table. Caleb does the honors of ripping your false face from your true one.

* * * * *

You emerge from an acrid blackness, and with a groan you grind the heel of your hand into your eye. You sit up on your elbows and blink stupidly at Caleb, who is standing near you, watching you carefully. "Okay, Gandalf," you sigh. "Where's that thingamafuck?"

His brow crinkles. "I already put it on you. I figured I could go ahead--"

You gasp, then lunge for him, but yank your hand back at the last minute.

You blink.

Yes, you pulled your hand back, but it was like a reflex, like when you pull it away from a hot surface. A little thought is blinking in the back of your head: Dude, this is too weird.

As you stare at Caleb, that sense of weirdness grows. Your skin crawls, for you've the extremely vivid impression that you're in a wrong place. It's a feeling like you got once when you were ten, when you and your family were visiting relatives in the mountains, and you'd gone wandering around in the woods, not paying any attention to where you were walking. In the nick of time you'd stopped at the sound of something in the bushes behind, and when you'd turned back around, you'd found yourself not three feet from the edge of a deep precipice, into which you might have fallen. The thought had rung clearly in your head: I shouldn't be here, I should be someplace back over there.

A very similar thought is banging away in your head now. You draw away from Caleb, but the sense of dislocation only grows. Now the thought becomes I should be over there, where "there" is the spot Caleb is standing.

Your friend's expression is growing alarmed in a way probably proportional to your own.

A wave of dizziness washes over you, and you hunch over with your head in your hands. A tremble passes through you, and your gorge rises. A presence is coming, a cold and clammy presence. It's behind you, but you don't turn, for with a shudder you feel it in the back of your head. It spreads over your scalp and down the back of your neck and spine and through your limbs, like smoothly dripping, gelatinous slime. The nausea increases as it invades your gut, and your temples throb, like with an ice cream headache, as it covers your head and ripples down your face.

A hard shudder passes through you, rattling your teeth; then your nerves and gut and spirits settle. The invasive feeling withdraws to a tiny point in the center of your skull, where it burns briefly and winks out, but not before illuminating the second soul that now coats the inside of your original soul.

You keep your face covered and your eyes shut as you listen to this second soul. It doesn't speak, not exactly, but you could put its thoughts and emotions into words if if you wanted to:

My name is Caleb, and I swear by holy fucking Jesus this had better work.

You lower your hands and raise your face to gaze back calmly at--

At yourself. At a guy who looks like yourself. Well, if you want to be fucking technical, it isn't yourself, it's Caleb, because he's Caleb and you're Will. But that face is also yours--

No, hang on a moment. You raise your hands and regard your palms and flex your fingers. Will Prescott's fingers. They seem both natural and alien, at the same time.

Just as Caleb's would be, if you got into that mask of him. If you did, you bet you could pass for him exactly.

A wicked smile twists beneath the muscles of your face, and both Will and Caleb agree it would be an awesome thing to try out, especially without explaining things to the guy who's staring at you. "Where's that mask?" you ask, and fumble around for it.

"Why do you--?"

"Because like I told you," you say with exaggerated patience, "I wanna see if it and the dingleberry can work together." You spot the mask at the other end of the table, and stretch to grasp it. "Now watch closely while I do this, in case--"

"You didn't say-- Who do you think you are?" Caleb demands, and his voice is shrill.

"Just let me get this thing on," you say unwisely, "and I'll be Caleb Johansson." You press the mask to your face.

* * * * *

You wake again, this time with a feeling of alert anticipation. Of course you know why that is. You're eager to see if the experiment came off. You sit up and raise your hands.

You are briefly, very disappointed, for they are your own. You look up sharply at Caleb, who is huddled at the far end of the basement with his face in a shadow. "Hey, why the fuck did you--"

You catch yourself, and do a double-take at your hands. They're your hands, sure. Then you grin. Sure, they're your hands. Caleb's hands.

"Hey, what are you hiding over there for," you call as you hop off the table. You look around until you spot the full-length mirror, and strut over to it. You check yourself out, making a few characteristic faces. They come very naturally, and with your own memories you recognize them as perfectly like those you're used to seeing on his funny-looking puss. "This is so freaking awesome," you exult. "I'm you, inside and out."

A shadow looms behind you, and Caleb appears behind your shoulder. He looks more than a little scared. "Come on," you tell him. "Why are you looking so freaked out?"

"Um, because this is more than a little freaky?" he says.

"Wasn't it freaky when it was just the mask?" you say, and tuck and settle the shirt a little while admiring yourself in the mirror.

"That was just a mask," he says. "You couldn't have passed yourself off as me."

"I was totally passing myself off as you," you retort. "No one was spotting the difference. But I get what you mean." You pull again at the cuffs of your shirt, and roll your shoulders a little. "There's all this stuff inside, like--" Your lips twitch. "Like that secret crush you've got on Jenny Ashton--"

Caleb jerks back in surprise.

"Don't worry about it," you say. "Like I said, I totally understand. Of course I do, look at me." You grin at your reflection.

"If you're so sympathetic," Caleb says in very tight voice, "you wouldn't act nearly as geeked out as you are."

"Dude, if I was seriously trying to act like you, by being all freaked out and stuff, that would be even worse, wouldn't it? I mean, come on. I know who I am, I'm not gonna try taking over your life. That's why I think this is cool."

Caleb hunches his shoulder, but looks a little mollified by your words.

"So, you wanna stay here tonight while I go home in your place?" you ask. "Or I can stay here while you go home. Either way, one of us can start working on the next spell. You were just about to start that, I know."

"You're not going home as Dane?"

"Pfft, no. With Chen after him?"

But then: Doesn't this give you a way to save yourself from Chen?

* To become someone else: "Becoming Unconnected" 
* To become Gary Chen: "One Body, Two Brains" 
* To muddle through without making more victims: "Unscrambling the Omelet" 

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