Chapter #84A Talk with One Who Knows You Best by: Seuzz   It's not until you're bent over the mind bands, scratching runes into them, that you reflect on the ambiguity in the word "underground" that Chelsea had used. Your natural reaction had been to interpret it as Joe's word "invisible," which pointed toward the kind of third- and fourth-class type student you'd hung around with when things were normal for you: Caleb and Keith; James Lamont and Carson Ioeger. Gillian Kiefer pointed toward some RPG and computer nerds you vaguely know: Braydon Delp and Christian Knouse and Darrell Parsons and Howie Baylor.
But "underground" could also point toward more bohemian types. There are those girls that Andrea mentioned: Sienna Goldman and Fatima Zahedi and Yelena Petrovic. Artsy, radical types. There are the guys they hang out with, too: Adrian Semple and Tim Gerrard and Zach Reynolds and Karl Hennepin. You don't really know them, though.
Or do you? Chelsea had said that "Will Prescott", the golem you'd left behind, has been hanging out with the "portables" crowd, which would include them.
You've not talked to your replacement since being yanked to Cuthbert. You've a sudden and strong desire to talk to someone who knows how you think, and who isn't influenced by assumed personalities. So you call him.
Naturally, he doesn't recognize your voice when he answers. "I know I sound like a girl," you say, feeling embarrassed. "But this is you. The real you. Your boss. Can we meet?"
"Where have you been?" he explodes. "My ass has been--"
"Can we meet?" you ask again, more firmly. "I'll tell you all about it. It's been exciting."
"You have a cure for that hex yet?" he peevishly demands.
"Yes. That's something to talk about."
"Oh." He sounds both surprised and slightly mollified. "Where?" You give him the Strausslers' address. "I'll try," he grumbles. "Dad's been a real grouch lately."
He does manage to get away, and since he's been to the Strausslers' before, he manages to find it, even in the dark. He does a double-take as he enters the private apartment. "That's you?" he asks. "What's the deal?"
"It's a long story," you say, and reach for his face. But then you stop. From the rumors, it sounds like he's had a bad time of it recently, and you don't want to add his memories to your own. "Let's just say that I've learned a lot of great tricks recently, and I've got a team of my own. You're on it too, but--" You bite your lip. But you're now junior subordinate.
He seems to read your meaning. "Oh, I get it," he says, and his face twists up sourly. "You've got yourself some new friends. Well, so do I." He tilts his chin rebelliously.
That tears it. He was your first partner, even if he's a fake; he's the one who helped you out, who shared everything with you, when it was you against the world, when it was just you against Blackwell. You grab his face and wrench the mask free. It will be better this way, no matter what you learn and see about what you've been missing.
* * * * *
You and your old double walk along side by side through the dark, across the vast expanse of the Strausslers' estate. The ground is so flat and well-trimmed that you never stumble, despite not being able to see your own feet clearly. You've been talking; you've had too, for the trick with the mask wouldn't have worked, as you'd realized just before jamming it to your face. You've changed your imago, so can't put your new memories into the mask that holds Will Prescott's old imago; and you're already wearing a mask, which would have interfered with the other mask anyway. So you'd put it back onto the golem and summoned him outside to give him the story.
He'd interrupted lots of times, asking for clarification and expansion, as you'd told about your adventure in Cuthbert; about the vast strides you've made in your research; about the changes you'd made to Frank and Joe; the capture of two more Stellae; and the addition of Chelsea Cooper and Andrea Varnsworth to your team of allies. Most of his truculence drains away, but there's no missing the sense that a gulf has opened between you. It's not just that you've advanced far beyond him. It's that you now have closer and more powerful allies. "Chelsea and Andrea," he says thoughtfully. "Wow."
"But I miss being with you," you say. "But it's been so packed over the last couple of weeks. What's been going on?"
"I started hanging out with Justin Roth," he says. "Him and Shep Tsosie and Perry Small. Adrian Semple, some. Dane Matthias."
"And the old guys?"
"Not so much. That hex--"
"Look, I'll get it off you as soon as we start getting the school reorganized."
"Yeah, yeah, it's always one more thing that needs doing," he snorts.
You want to shove him, but instead put your arm in his and pull him close. He jumps a little, for of course you're a girl now. "Look, we're going to be making more golems, starting tomorrow," you say. "Some of them are going to be-- Dane Matthias is going to be one of them. Joe's going to be replacing him."
"Great," Prescott sneers. "I always liked Joe."
"He's different now. Well, kind of. He's got me inside him--"
"He had you inside him before."
"But in a different way. And I'm going to be making golems too. Some of them could be in that group you're hanging out with. And I'll be coming back to school this week, looking like Rosalie here."
"And that fixes things for me how?" he asks.
"You'll be part of the group."
"Just another golem with the rest," he sighs.
"You're a copy of the original me," you say. "That puts you over all the others. I'll make sure the others treat you like an equal." You've made the promise before you realize that's what you've done, but you feel it firmly once it's made.
"I still can't have the same kind of fun you and your new friends will be having."
"I can't fix everything for you, dude," you sigh. "You are a golem. But, uh--"
You hesitate long and hard before making the offer that had suddenly occurred to you.
"But do you want a girlfriend? I can arrange it."
He looks over at you, his expression lost in the black of the night, and says nothing.
"One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because I'll be making more golems for myself. For myself, not for Chelsea or Joe or the others. They're not going to be guys on the ball teams, or cheerleaders, or people like that. They're going to be-- Well, guys and girls like we hung out with."
"Oh, losers," he says with brittle cheerfulness.
"Exactly," you laugh. "Even winning all these battles, it turns out I'm best suited for hanging out with shitheads like you." You push against him lightly, and the two of you stumble; and then you snicker in unison. "Point is, I'm having a hard time figuring out who to hang out with. And then I thought, I should hang out with myself. With the old me. But who does he hang out with? Who does he want to hang out with?" You pause. "Who does he want to go out with? Because some of them will be girls. Maybe most of them."
"And you can't figure it out yourself? Who are you now?"
"I'm you and you're me. I wanted to talk to myself," you say with a simple flatness. "And you're the only real 'me' that I know."
He twitches a little, and you know what it means. It means he actually feels touched by your solicitude.
* * * * *
So you talk over possibilities. "Justin's cool," he says. "Super smart, though he's flunking all his classes. He's a little scary. Small is an asshole. Maize lives by himself, that's a place to hang out."
"And girls?"
He says nothing for a long time. "I know Justin gets laid semi-regularly."
"With who?"
"Lots of types," he shrugs. "I guess if you made Justin into a golem, you could then get one of his dates, do the same to her, and pass her on to me as a girlfriend." His tone is hollow.
"What about Sienna Goldman or Jelena Petrovic?"
"Jelena came over to Maize's one day along with Semple. She was kind of scary."
"There's also Gillian Kiefer as a possibility," you say. "But I think she's--"
"Gillian?" he cries. "Oh, God, she's adorable!"
"But I think she's dating Braydon Delp."
"That could change, couldn't it?"
"I don't know. Maybe. She is very cute," you agree. "She's got that whole hippy-bohemian thing going."
"So do you," he says, giving you a sidelong look. "Now."
The observation shocks you, but it's true, for you'd changed into some of your new clothes after returning to Strausslers'.
You want to strenuously resist the suggestion, but you can't find a reason, not at first. After all, if you're going to get your doppelganger a girlfriend, and be the girlfriend, it hardly matters whether you do it as "Rosalie" or as one of the other girls. Grimly, you're forced to recognize that maybe you don't want to be your double's girlfriend, that you were thinking in terms of pairing up golems, not of pairing up yourself with him.
But dutifully you have to accept that his suggestion is a logical corollary to your offer. You are able to grasp at one objection, though: "I think the plan was for me to be, uh, available to lots of people," you say. "The new girl who drives the guys wild."
"Oh, you were going to be the new slut," Will Prescott laughs.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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