The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

How to Make a Switch

Previously: "A Beta Class of Girlfriend" 

It's a big decision, but you feel like you can't waste time over it. So after the final bell rings, you go with your gut and text Jessica Garner: Kristy Suffolk.

"You and Kristy," Jessica muses when she pops up at your locker a few minutes later. "I could see that working. I could see her going for you. Oh, hell." She smirks as she smooths down the front of your shirt. "I know she could go for you. Meet us at the studio? Ten o'clock, say?"

"Sure, as long as I'm back home by eleven. Dumb curfew," you mutter. "How come?"

She gives you a look. "So we can put you and Kristy together, you goofball. Don't worry, we'll come up with a story that'll get her out there. You just have to show up." She flashes you a last, very pert smile from under her eyelashes, and fades back into the crowd.

"I'm'a tell you, man," someone says at your shoulder, and you whirl to find Keith Tilley scowling in your face. "They're bad news, those cunts."

"They're great news," you retort. "Oh, and by the way, I know all about you. I know what you are."

His eyes narrow. "Yeah? What am I?"

"A beta."

He snorts. "Fuck you, man."

"He's got your number," another voice honks behind your shoulder. You whirl again, this time to face Caleb. "They put your picture in the dictionary next to 'beta'," he tells Keith.

"Smart," Tilley sneers. "'Cept you got no idea what you're talking about." He wheels away. Unlike Jessica, for whom the crowd seemed to melt back, he has to wedge and fight his way in, and like a drowning man caught in a tumbling tide, he is carried away by it.

* * * * *

Caleb wants to hang out with you after school, and though you're antsy to be with the real Keith and the gang, you give in. You follow him to his house, where you sprawl on his bed and talk about the weekend at the Warehouse, the video that you're doing with Carlos and Mike, and ... whatever plans you've got for the week. He seems irritated when you tell you him that you don't have any particular plans, and he frowns deeply when you confess that you might or might not call him up if any plans develop. "Depends on what's going on," you tell him.

"Like how?" he demands.

"Well, like on, uh, who's going to be there and what we're doing."

He turns very frosty at that, asking what kind of people and activities he would not be welcome at. You try explaining that it depends on the sort of thing that he might or might not be interested in, which only leads him to shrilly ask what sorts of things you might be up for that he might not. You seize with relief on the text from your mom—reminding you that dinner will be early—to escape his company.

In the back of your mind, of course, is the thought that maybe you should talk to the guys about bringing Caleb in on the secret stuff. But you decide to wait on that. You feel like you've already been pushing harder at them than your newbie status really entitles you.

* * * * *

You get a text from Maria Vasquez's phone, confirming that the ten o'clock meeting is on, but you leave for it early, as soon as you have your homework done—your dad won't look at you twice if you leave at eight, but he might if you leave at nine-thirty. So you kill some time at Starbucks, nursing the cheapest drink you can order, until nine-forty-five, which is when you head out and over to Carlos's studio.

There are a lot of cars parked in front of the climate-controlled unit at Top S(h)elf Storage when you arrive—more than you would have expected. Voices echo loudly down the main corridor as you approach the open door of the bay. One of them is a male voice you don't recognize, and it rises to overwhelm the others. The words are garbled, though, and it takes you a moment to realize that they're Spanish. You round the corner, and with a puzzled and slightly fearful frown look into the studio.

Mike and Carlos are there, perched on the side of the desk, as is Cindy. Behind the desk, with his arm around the shoulders of a blushing Jessica Garner, is a Hispanic guy who you recognize from school and also from the Warehouse, though you're hazy on his name. His face is narrow and handsome, like that of a young Cheyenne warrior, with dark, glittering eyes under coffee-black hair that crests rakishly over his forehead like a breaking wave. He grins at you, and the taut muscles of his face stretch and flex between his high cheekbones and his narrow jawline. "Ay, Prescott! El hombre de la hora!" He raises a slim hand to give you a high-five.

But you're distracted by the girl standing just inside the doorway: Kristy Suffolk. Her eyes light up a little when she sees you, and she smiles.

"So is this everyone?" Carlos says.

"Yeah," the Hispanic kid drawls. "Let's make the party official."

Before you can say anything, Mike and Carlos hop off the desk and cross over to Kristy. You jump back as Mike clasps her in a tight embrace, and Carlos shoves a bluish mask into her face.

* * * * *

"Yeah, we're all of us getting another beta," Marcos Rivera tells you. That's the name of the guy in the guy who had his arm around Jessica, though the guy under his mask answers to the name "Carlos Montoya." "Tilley got another one—you know, Javits—so 'tis only fair the rest of us get another one too. So, this is mine." He stands back on his heels and shows a wide, blinding smile. "Got him this afternoon, thanks to this chica here." He squeezes Jessica and flashes her a toothy smile.

As for why Carlos chose Marcos Rivera, who plays on the school soccer team, as his second: "Blame Keith," he sayswith a shrug. Marcos, he explains, used to give him all kinds of shit back in elementary and middle school—teasing him for being fat and stuff like that—and though Marcos has laid off since entering high school (he now just ignores Carlos), Montoya still holds a grudge, and couldn't resist the temptation to do unto Rivera what Tilley did unto Javits.

"But there's also—" he adds as he lifts Jessica's hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles. "The matter of his three girlfriends. Which is maybe going to expand to four?"

"Not if you value Marcos's friendship with Marc," Mike warns him. But Marcos only rolls his eyes.

But it isn't Mike who spoke; it's Beta-Mike. The real Mike, it turns out, is over at Chelsea Cooper's house, getting his own second beta: Kendra Saunders. And of course you'll get a chance to have a second of your own—someone to go with Kristy— but Marcos assures you there'll be no rush for a decision. Philip and Josiah are still thinking over their choices.

These revelations come after you've been woken back up. Immediately after the betas had put a mask onto Kristy and carried her out of the unit, Marcos had handed you a mask. "It's the one we made of you, it's yours now. But you need to put it on, put all your most recent memories into it so that it's all up-to-date, in case you want to, you know, send your beta home as you while you go home as Kristy." He nudged you and leered.

So you sat down on the floor and a thoughtful sucking on your upper lip you had put it on. Darkness overwhelmed you; then you felt yourself being shaken awake. You were groggy, but the blood got stirring again once Marcos and Cindy had you on your feet and were dragging you into the storage bay next door.

That's where you are now, in a makeshift gym, looking down at Kristy, who is lying on a padded workout bench. She isn't very tall—she's half-a-head shorter than you, you deem—even though she is a basketball player. But she looks very fit. She has an hourglass figure with a large bust and pronounced hips. She is presently dressed in loose jeans and a nylon windbreaker, but you know that she has strong legs and a toned arms. Her complexion is light enough that rosy circles blush faintly under cheeks, and her hair (a platinum dirtied by streaks of darker gold) is pulled back in a braid. "I gotta say, I'm fuckin' jealous," Marcos says as you and he gaze down at her. He drapes a friendly arm around your shoulders.

Cindy comes up beside you and hands you a mask—the same mask that came off of Kristy. The betas were working on it in a corner of the room, just as they are working another mask (the one that copied you) now. The inner surface of the mask you're holding is now an off-white color, and a name in large, Roman letters is floating over the surface, like a 3D effect: KRISTY ANNE SUFFOLK.

"So what are you going to do?" Cindy asks. "Change faces with her tonight, so we can be girlfriends?" She squeezes your arm. "Or take her out on a date?"

"You'll have to switch with her close to bedtime, whether you switch with her tonight or switch with her later on.," Marcos says.

"Why's that?"

"On account of it usually takes a full night's sleep to get all the memories, the personality, all that shit. Otherwise, you have to fake your way through the day without knowing anything about who you're supposed to be."

"Better decide fast," Cindy adds. "She'll be waking up any minute now."

* To continue: "Arguments with Yourself" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"