Chapter #56Fane Fellows by: Seuzz   You stare back at Professor Jameson Hyde-White, and he stares back expectantly at you. You look over at Patterson. He's also staring at you, his eyes fixed and hard and piercing. You can feel his will pressing upon you: Say yes, you fucking moron! Or maybe it's Say no, you pansy moron, I wanna shake you off hard.
You are entirely bowled over by this offer. You're just a high school senior--barely--and you've never even had a real job. You'd even resisted your father's efforts to get you to take a job at--
Your father. Your family.
"What do we tell my parents," you blurt out. "How do we explain--?"
The professor looks mirthful, and you know what he's going to say even before he says it. "Is there any need to ask them," he says. "From the report Mr. Kim gave us, it appears that they do not even know you are missing. You haven't been home in quite while, have you not?"
There's a double of you in Saratoga Falls. They could just leave it there to live your life for you. The life that you will never have.
Because you would have a new life. Your pick of new lives. You seem to have a talent for being other people, the professor had said.
You find yourself staring at the book in his lap. He notices, and extends it to you. You take it.
It feels very heavy in your fingers. You've been pretending to be lots of other people. You could continue. They wouldn't be kids, surely. They'd be adults. Big, stupid, lumpy adults. You wince a little. If you're going to play other people, you'd much rather play people your own age. Or a little older. Guys who had more experience with--
You shiver a little.
But what's wrong with being adults? You'd be doing other people's jobs. That's something else the professor had said. Learning to do what they can do. It would be so easy to learn things--knowledge and skills--that way. School is such a dreadful thing, so boring, so tedious. How much nicer it would be to just lift what you want or need to know off of other people, make it your own instantly without effort.
Make yourself an adult almost overnight. Why didn't you see it before?
"If you don't wish to accept the position, Mr. Prescott," the professor says softly, "have no fears that we will hold it against you. No one has missed you at home, and it would be quite easy for us to return you there. It is quite a momentous step we are asking you to take, and you have my sympathy as you--"
"I'll do it," you say, still staring at the book. "I'll take the job. The jobs. Whatever they are." You look back up at him.
The professor's eyes are clear but piercing. "Are you quite sure," he says. "Do not let me bully you. I fear we were over-hasty in bringing you out, and I don't want you making a decision based on a faulty impression of our methods. You will not regret it if you give us a negative answer."
The fact of this caution, and the gentleness with which he offers it, banishes even those fears that had remained. "No, I'm sure," you say. "I liked being other people. I wouldn't miss what I'd be giving up." That's not true; you twinge at the thought of never seeing your family again. "I didn't have anything that I'd miss."
"I am sure you are being too harsh on yourself," the professor says. "But I accept your decision, and rejoice in it." He takes the book back from you. "There is not much else to say, not immediately. You will want to accustom yourself to your decision, and to do so in private." He rings a bell. "Tomlinson will show you upstairs to a bedroom. Take what rest you need."
"And me?" Patterson asks in a troubled voice as the door opens. A trim man with thinning hair enters.
"I hadn't forgotten you, Mr. Patterson," the professor says, and gives the butler some short orders. "I said we could find you a junior position," you hear him say as you exit. "You are Fane material if ever we saw it."
* * * * *
Professor Hyde-White's words to Patterson echo unpleasantly in your head as you mount the steps and enter a small but sumptuously furnished bedroom. It contains a vanity table and chest of drawers and a queen-sized bed under a magnificent canopy. You gaze thoughtfully out a window onto a broad lawn. Patterson is an asshole. If that makes him "Fane material"--
You sigh. Oh, but Patterson's a go-getter, that's for sure. Corporate types love ambition. And it sounds like you won't be working anywhere close to him.
What have they got in England, you find yourself wondering. A queen. Butlers. Actors with classy manners. Bad teeth? That seems part of the stereotype you carry around in your head. Probably it's just the same kind of people you get everywhere, that you get back in the States, just with a funny accent. Your lips twitch into a smile. What would it be like to have an accent like the professor's? "'Ello, guv'nuh," you grunt softly to yourself.
You wheel at the sound of a latch turning. Patterson is peering into your bedroom from behind a second door, probably from another bedroom. "Oh, it's only you," he says, and starts to close it again.
"Hey," you call, and he pauses to glare back at you. "What did the professor say to you?"
"Not your business," he sneers. Then he shrugs. "Just talk about putting me into some kind of training program. You're the fair-haired boy, aren't you?"
Your chest heaves as the words unwillingly tumble forth. "I could tell him I'd like to work with you, put you and me together like we were--" You try to stop, but the rest of the sentence insists on coming out. "Like we were before."
You hate yourself for saying it. Even without trying to, Patterson is still bullying you. No, it's worse. You're letting the phantom-Patterson you've got in your head bully you.
He glowers. "Like I wanna hang out more with you. You fucked up, Prescott, you fucked up so bad, and it's a fucking miracle we're not dead."
Self-reproach flares into anger. "Yeah, well, apparently I'm not such a fuck up that they don't think I got talent," you retort.
"Wait till they see you in action," he sneers back. "And I wouldn't touch that book again if--" His lips twist, as though he's biting on something sour. He forces himself to smile. "At least I don't have a loser life I'm happy to get away from. Yeah," he drawls. "This is just a lateral move for me, a faster way of getting where I was gonna get anyway." He slams the door.
You glare at it. Sour grapes, you think to yourself. You know what he wants.
* * * * *
Half an hour later you and Patterson are summoned downstairs, where you eat a small but satisfying meal of roast beef and vegetables with only each other for company. Neither of you talks. "What's there to do around here," Patterson demands of Tomlinson.
"There is a library," he replies. "And during the daytime there are the grounds." It is quite dark now. "The professor says that you have the freedom of the house."
"Library," Patterson snorts. "Bet there isn't even a TV." You let him wander off alone, and don't leave the dining room until you hear his feet on the staircase.
You do go in search of the library, but it is stocked only with very heavy reading: histories and medical and scientific books and literature of a kind that makes your eyes instantly glaze over to see the page. You're restless but tired from the day's events, and go to bed early.
That night you dream of Frank and Joe. You are in a house, and you sense that they are in the house too; you keep trying to dodge them, but they seem to close in remorselessly on you. Finally, they swim into view, to stare at you with dead, reproachful eyes.
* * * * *
"Have no worries about the Stellae," the professor tells you the next morning. He had summoned you--alone--down early for a chat in that same parlor. Your dream had reminded you of them, and you'd fearfully asked the professor about them. "We have those two in our custody, and they will not be going anywhere."
"But the others, won't they come looking for them?" you ask.
"No doubt. But how will they trace them?" The professor had smiled. "There is no trail."
And then another thought had struck you: "But you said you'd left my golem, the fake me, behind in Saratoga Falls. I think Joe was wearing my mask."
The professor pulls those notes out again and studies them through those half-rim spectacles. "Ah yes, so he was. But Mr. Kim took care of that. He was able to transfer your face to another location. I can contact him to confirm, if it will set your mind at ease."
"I don't want to bother you or him--"
"It is no trouble I assure you," the professor crisply replies, and scribbles down a brief note. "Now let us discuss what we shall do with you. I will be frank with you, Mr. Prescott." You shiver a little at the echo on "be Frank." "We would like to take it rather slow with you, at first. I see no reason you cannot continue to, ah, do as you had been doing, back in your home town, with Mr. Patterson. Inhabiting the life of another. It would be a familiar thing, and there would be no real pressure upon you. It would allow us to gauge your abilities under observation."
To find out you're a fuck up. You try to curse Patterson from your head.
"Now, where can we put you?" The professor leans back and steeples his fingers. "We might find you a spot at Oxford, inside the body of a student. There is a rowing team I might like you to infiltrate. Big, lusty lads. Alternately--" He tugs his ear. "We could send you back to America, to work with Mr. Kim."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author