Chapter #39New Boss, Definitely Not the Old Boss by: Seuzz   It's morning, and "morning" in the Durras house means it's well before seven. Frank glowers silently across the table as you shove cornflakes into your mouth. You do your best to ignore him, but are finally unnerved enough to speak. "When I told you to act 'normal,' I meant to treat me like your brother."
"I am treating you like my brother," he says in an acid tone that burns dryly. "I'm treating you like the treacherous little pimple who—"
"Oh, is that all?"
You look up at him keenly, weighing your words. "Forget what happened last night after you went to bed. Forget everything that happened between the time you stepped into the back yard, and the time you stepped inside to get breakfast. Forget it, and forget it now."
He blinks, and his eyes cloud, but his frown deepens. "The fuck are we talking about?" he asks, and his tone is still angry.
"Forget you're mad at me, Frank."
Now he just looks bewildered. "I still don't understand what—" His eyes freeze. "Have you been playing with the clocks again?"
You laugh. "You're the one who told me I needed to work out more. I can't help it if it leaves you feeling like you've mislaid a few minutes of your life."
"Just leave me out of it," he grumbles. He looks down at his own breakfast of soy sausage and fake eggs. "I'm not hungry."
"Eat. It'll look weird if you don't." Without seeming to notice what he's doing, he shoves a forkful of the mess into his mouth and chews thoughtfully.
Well, at least he's not a threat anymore—not after putting a shell inside his mask and putting it to his face. Now he's just a golem. But getting him to act "normal" is going to be tricky. At the very least, he's going to notice that his "special talents" have stopped working; and he's not going to know why, now that you've erased his knowledge of what you've done to him. If he says anything to "Dad" or anyone else who calls—
"Make you a deal," you say. "I won't do any of my shit around you if you don't do any of your shit around me." That might delay any moments of discovery.
He shrugs, and continues to eat.
That'll be another problem: He may notice that he has to do what you order him to do. By erasing his memory of last night, you've also erased anything that lets him understand why he has to. Last night, when the golem woke, it instantly knew what you'd done to him, which made for a brief, hairy moment before you'd forced him back. If this is going to work, you're going to have to give him some very deep and subtle programming: something that will preserve his "normal" behavior while still making him a docile and helpful assistant. Maybe there will be some spells in the Libra to help with that.
Or maybe it will be easiest just to bring Caleb or Keith in, and let one of them take over the role of "Frank Durras."
That, of course, reminds you of what you need to do at Westside. But first you have to get through the day at Eastman.
Frank continues to eat sullenly, but you don't pay him any more heed. There's lots of fun to be had at Eastman, and some of it will be useful for dealing with Patterson.
* * * * *
"Hey Durras, don't make a meal of it!"
The voice isn't mean, so you suppress your natural inclination to flip the heckler off. Besides, you don't want to give them an excuse to come over and get a closer look.
Becky Torres, cheerleader, tastes wonderful. You suck at her tongue and mouth with yours, and clasp her tightly in your arms. When one of her arms falls from your waist, you grab at it and twine her fingers inside yours; you have to push her back a little against the wall behind the school to keep her from falling over.
That's because she's unconscious. She has a mask inside her, and you are hiding the fact that she's passed out.
And taking highly dubious advantage of the opportunity for some pretty sloppy snogging.
* * * * *
"So what's this emergency?" The speaker's face and voice are those of Will Prescott, but the impatient demeanor is completely Steve Patterson's.
"Someone's fucking around with masks over at Eastman, and it's not me," you tell him. You toss him the notebook you lifted from the box in the Eastman gym sub-basement—another one of the little adventures you had today while preparing for this meeting. "I found that over there." You give him a meaningful look. "I didn't put it there, and I don't think you did. Which makes me think that Caleb may be up to something."
"Johansson?" He holds your eye, then he opes and pages slowly through the notebook. His expression darkens. "Where did you say you found this?"
"I told you, at Eastman. Look, it's complicated. Fastest way to get up to speed is to put this on." You take out Becky's mask. "It's a girl I scored today, and she's the one that put me onto this stuff. It's weird, doesn't make any sense."
"Fast work, getting a girl."
"Look at me," you grin. "I'm good."
He takes the mask and reads the name on the inside. He looks back up at you, his eyes glittering with suspicion. It looks like he's not going to play along—
And then he drops to mat in the middle of the Westside fuck room—where you're standing—and puts his hand to his face. As he rips the mask away, he falls back, and you spring over to him. The blank mask is already in your hand and you quickly press it onto Patterson's just-revealed face.
You hum lightly to yourself as you wait. You're not worried about being interrupted. Just before the meeting, you'd used the phone—and Joe's gift for mimicry—to warn all comers away from the fuck room using Patterson's voice.
When the mask reappears on his face you drop Becky's onto him, then sit on the girl who appears there. You already have some golem-sealant made up in a little container, and you apply it to the inside of Patterson's just-prepared mask. You must have woken him up when you dropped onto him, though, for Becky's eyes flutter open. She seems confused at first, but then flushes. "You're opening yourself up to a shitload of trouble, Prescott," she says.
"No, I'd call it a shitload of possibilities," you cheerfully retort, and blow softly into the mask.
"Gordon will—"
"Gordon will what? No, wait, don't tell me. I'll wait until I get your mask on myself, and then I'll be able to answer the question myself. But I'll answer it as you."
"When I get out—"
"If you get out, you won't have to do anything, because I'll die of shock." You smile. "Golly, you're beautiful. I hate to do this, but—" You rip her face off.
After that, things become a little complicated.
First, you put Patterson's mask onto him, and order the newly enslaved Steve Patterson call the old fake Patterson and have it come out to the school. You have to hold your breath over that, for the old golem doesn't have to obey the new golem, but force of habit proves strong. While you are waiting, you take yourself out of Joe's mask, and once the old golem-Patterson has arrived, you and the new golem-Patterson grapple it into submission. You strip it of its old mask, revealing the real Joe Durras, onto whom you place the golemized mask of himself. You then treat the Will Prescott mask with golem-goop and put it back on Patterson. Only then are you able to sit back—rather breathlessly—and don Patterson's mask.
This is how you are finally able to get your first inside look at the guy who's been running you and your friends ragged for a few weeks now.
* * * * *
You open your eyes to a headache. All this popping in and out of various masks ... Ugh.
You sit up and look over at Joe, who is gazing back with an expression of cool contempt. You snort at him.
"Don't look so pissed, Joe," you tell him. "After what you did to your brother last night, you're the last person to complain."
"Don't remind me," he mutters, and turns away.
You let a smile twist onto your lips. Yeah, there's been a lot of double-crossing going on, hasn't there? You and Patterson, Joe and Frank, Johansson and Tilley and—
You blink a few times, hard. Johansson and Tilley and Prescott.
Dirty, double-crossing sons of bitches!
You leap over to the cabinet. With exploding anger you twist at the lock and yank open the door. There are the top-secret masks, the ones Patterson meant to move before— With trembling hands you flip them over one by one until you find the two you know are there.
Harris Prescott and Umeko Prescott. Your father, and your cousin.
Masks procured by Keith and Caleb as part of their initiation.
You have to smile coldly at the ruthless ingenuity of it all. (And since you're thinking with Patterson's brain, you do regard it as ingenious.) Keep the plebes under your thumb through blackmail: Make each one do a dirty job, and dig a secret ditch between the friends by making one of the jobs a dirty betrayal of one of the others. What would Prescott think of his friends if he knew that Keith had used Prescott's mask to get a copy of his dad, and Caleb had used it to get a copy of his favorite cousin?
And they'd gone along with it, and never told you.
Well, you do know what you would think. And you're suddenly much less inclined to bring them into a genuine partnership.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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