The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

One Body, Two Brains

Previously: "Of Two Minds" 

"I think I can cover for myself, thanks," Caleb says in reply to your offer.

But you're distracted by another thought--the thought of using this new spell on Gary Chen--so Caleb's comment yanks you back to the present. "Huh?"

"God, is that what I sound like? 'Huh?'" he says.

"Yeah, probably," you say with a very Caleb-like wave of your hand. "Look, it's no trouble, I can cover for you at home, and maybe I should in case Eva--"

"No, I'll go home myself," he says, very loudly and firmly. "You go back to cover for Dane."

"I'm not going back there, not with Chen on the loose," you repeat.

"You're worried too much about that."

"Of course I'm worried! It's fucking Chen, and he's out twenty-two thousand dollars, and he's got permission to do anything short of killing me!"

"Killing Dane, you mean," Caleb says.

"And who's living inside Dane's skin these days?"

"You could always let Dane out," Caleb says. "Let him go back to being himself-- He'd just think it was a bizarre hallucination he'd been having. You can go back to being Gordon."

"So you mean I should let Chen kill Dane."

"He can't kill Dane," Caleb says through gritted teeth. "Didn't you just get through saying he can do everything just short of killing Matthias?"

"I just don't want to see Dane getting it in the neck. Listen, I've got an idea--"

"I've got an idea too," says Caleb. "My idea is to go home. It's getting late. Your sleeping bag and stuff is still here, isn't it? Then you can camp out here if you don't want to go back to playing Dane." He starts to leave.

"Will you hang on and listen to this idea I've got?" you demand.

He turns, and his manner is a little frosty. "I'll make you a deal," he says. "Since you want to share your idea, and since you're having a lot of fun inside my head, how about--" He grabs one of the many metal strips you've made over the last few days, and dangles it between his fingertips. "Gimme a copy of your head."

You grimace as you take it from him. "I shoulda known that's what you'd say."

* * * * *

At least he has the grace to not put it on in front of you. In fact, he's already left by the time you recover from the swoon after putting it on; indeed, while you were out he seemingly took care of all the business that needed taking care of. The last thing you remember is laying back to take off his mask, and when you woke you found that not only was he gone and you were back in your own skin, but your sleeping bag had been rolled out and the book laid open so you can start reading up on the next spell.

And when you look around, you find that he's taken his own mask and brain band with him.

You're a little miffed at that, for it seems like a sign that he doesn't trust you with them. Doesn't trust you? Like you'd really like to move in on his life, to live in that shitty little house alone with his mother; to worry and gnaw at the wound of his father's abandonment when he was a kid; to chase hard after good grades and career contacts so he can win himself a solid, rewarding job so he can get a wife and family that he won't abandon; to stagger through the school halls with an erect cock and a frozen tongue at the sight of all the girls who he's sure won't even talk to him--

You rub thoughtfully at your forehead. Did Caleb really pull that metal strip off of you? You have a raw feeling inside you, as though something has been torn away, and you've lost that same sense that you've got another person riding around under your skin. But the memories and impressions seem very vivid, and thoughts you recognize as not your own keep popping up unbidden. You wince hard at some of the jokes that Keith Tilley was making behind your back about you and Lisa, and silently vow to get back at him somehow. And the thoughts keep coming even after you've bent over the grimoire in the dim light of Caleb's laptop, checking the translation of the ingredients against the supplies he'd started to set out.

It's not a hard spell, and it uses many of the same liquids and powders you'd gathered for the first two spells, and after about twenty minutes you're able to set a bowl of the slurry-like liquid onto the sigil in the book. As directed by the instructions, you run your finger three times around the circle. A hard glint flashes across the stuff in the bowl, and cautiously you lift it. The page beneath turns.

The message on the other side is only a short paragraph, and the on-line Latin translator gives a straight-forward interpretation: It's a glue that lets you attach one of those metal strips to the inner surface of a mask. Cool! That means you'd be able to put the strip and the mask on at the same time instead of in two separate steps. And on mulling it over, you think you see another benefit: You could get a mask and mind-strip onto a victim in one blow if you glued a blank strip into a blank mask. Like if you got that kind of combination onto Gary Chen.

Of course, you reflect grimly an hour later as you slip into the sleeping bag, you'll have to convince Caleb to go along with the plan. And he's being such a turd that he might not want to.

He's got a point, you admit to yourself as sleep begins to take you. It probably would be easier to just take Dane out of Gordon's mask, and let him take the consequences for what you've done. Isn't that what you've been doing since you started playing with these things? Letting others pay the price for your fuck-ups by sticking them into the lives you've fucked up?

* * * * *

You come out of the sleeping bag with a shout, and you almost come out of your body as well. "M'huh?" you gasp, and blink in panic at the figure advancing on you.

"What are you still doing asleep?"

You blink up at the person, but it's only Caleb, and so you try to slow your heartbeat back to something under five hundred thumps a minute.

He squats next to you and holds out a tall paper cup. It's hot to the touch. "My treat," he says of the coffee. "I had to beg the money off my mom. Anyway, I'm hoping we can get it back later today. Tomorrow at the latest, maybe."

"What are you talking about? What time is it?"

"A little after nine." He sets a heavy plastic sack down by your side. "You know how many places are open this early on a Sunday? A lot more than you'd think, thank God."

You swallow down a great gulp of bitter coffee, and it scalds your throat. But it shocks you into semi-coherence. "You were shopping?"

"Sure. I had to pick up the shit if we're gonna nail Chen this afternoon."

You're raising the coffee to your lips again, but stop before you can choke in surprise on it. "Chen? What are you talking about Chen for?" Your heart starts to thump again.

"That is what you wanted to talk to me about, isn't it?" he asks. "Just before you put that brain-thingy on, you were thinking about using a mask on him. Right?"

"Gyuh?" That was the last thing you expected him to say. "You, uh, you're cool with doing that?"

Caleb shrugs tightly. "Well, it makes sense. You don't want him coming after you, right?" He's avoiding your eye, and falls silent. Then he speaks again in a rush as you continue to stare at him. "Look, that was something else I saw last night when I had the, uh, the thing in my head. I didn't realize just how fucking scary Dane's cousin is. So, you know, it makes sense, this idea you've got." He pauses. "I don't wanna see Dane get his face all fucked up either," he adds quietly.

"So, we're gonna--"

"Yeah." He opens the sack. "I borrowed enough from my mom to make one more mask. Besides--" A nasty little gleam comes into his eye. "I figure that Chen knows how to turn that shit we took off him into cash. So if we swap one of us in for Chen--" He rolls his tongue around the inside of his cheek. "We can keep his profits for ourselves."

* * * * *

Thank goodness for that car buffer; with its help, you're able to get the new mask made and polished up inside of two hours. As you work, you explain the new spell to Caleb, and he agrees that it could be used to attach a blank strip to the blank mask, for taking Chen in one fast blow. As for Chen himself, you put on Dane's mask, then make a phone call. "Oh man," you gasp excitedly when he answers. "Like, I finally remembered where I put that stuff!"

He is guarded: "What are you talking about, Matthias?"

"Your stuff, man. Gordon didn't get it, I put it in a new place, but I was baked, man, when I did it, that's how come I was all, like, uh, Patrick Star when you asked me where it was."

Caleb is listening intently, and his eyebrows shoot up. "Patrick Star?" he mouths incredulously.

"Yeah? So bring it to me," Chen says.

"I can't," you say. "It's up at the school and I can't reach it. Yeah, I can't reach it," you repeat. "It's up in-- I don't know what it is, but it's back up in this space thing where I can't get to it, but maybe you can? You know, 'cos, you're, like, stronger than me?"

"You're not making any sense," Chen says, but consents to meet you at the portables at three-thirty. You hang up with a sigh of relief.

"So which of us gets to be Chen," Caleb asks.

Next: "Change for a Chen" 

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