Chapter #64The Golems' New Master by: Seuzz   Intellectually, everything the colonel says make sense, and though it sounds very screwy, it's screwy in a way that also seems weirdly plausible.
You also understand the appeal of his offer. What were you doing with Justin and Perry and Maize and Gordon, if it wasn't borrowing more advantageous lives for a spell? If you accepted the colonel's offer, you could have all that, easily, with them arranging it for you. You wouldn't even have to do any work.
Except make copies of those sigils, and that hardly qualifies as work.
But all this appeal is in your head only. Your heart remains stonily true to your friends. You just shake your head.
The colonel regards you for a minute, then shuts off the light in the other room and stabs a button in the wall. "Are you letting me go home now," you ask with slight satire.
"I'm afraid it's too late for that, Will," he says. "Unless--"
The door opens and a figure steps through. He's tall and gangly, with a shock of ill-kempt, straw-colored hair and thin arms. He closes the door and shoves his hands into his back pockets and balances on the edges of his feet, and fidgets. He's wearing jeans and sneakers and a dark t-shirt emblazoned with the name of your favorite band. In fact, it's one of your shirts.
Because, in fact, it is you.
"Is there any point in talking further with him," the colonel asks your double.
"Nah," the other Will Prescott shrugs. "I almost busted in here ten minutes ago to tell you to save your breath. He's totally queer for those other guys." His voice is insolent, whiny, abrasive.
"Then I'm sorry, Will," the colonel says, and he sounds genuinely regretful. "I would much rather it not come to this point." He turns to your duplicate. "Have you logged in?"
"Yeah. Already changed the password."
"Best of luck to you, then." The colonel opens the door. To an unseen person in the hall he speaks. "Will Prescott--the one you just let in--is free to go when he wishes. His father is waiting for him in the VIP room."
"Yes sir," a crisp voice answers. The colonel gives you one last grave look, and shuts the door, leaving you alone with your replacement.
"You're such a fuck up, man," the other Will Prescott snorts. "Have you ever made the right choice in your life?"
"It'll never work," you retort.
"What?" His grin is nasty.
"What you're planning. You going out there so Frank and his brother and the others will think you're me. They've got a way of spotting golems."
"Yeah, well, that wasn't the plan, smart guy, though I'd like to see them try. The fact is, I'm actually in charge of things now."
"What?"
"That's right. The colonel was in charge, but now he's given me the keys. They're going to take his mask off and run it over with a tank. The golem underneath will get a new mask. Doesn't matter of who, of course. It might even be Robert. But, anyway, the upshot is that now I'm in charge of things. Got the top email account, the one that can order everyone else around."
"The fuck?"
"Yeah, it's a security thing," he shrugs. "I mean, it's always the last guy you'd expect, right? Well, it's actually Kim Walsh running the newgordon account at Westside, which you'd kind of expect. But now I can boss her around, and through her boss everyone else there around. Boss all the kids at Eastman around, and at the college, and here on the base. In all the other places, too. I'm, like, president of the United States of Golemania!"
Some kind of mania, you'd agree.
"Yeah, so, I'll be going back to school, be a dork--pfft--but be the secret puppet master no one suspects. I even get to order that book around. Frank and those guys will never find it, it's not even in town any more. And I'm the only guy in Saratoga Falls that knows where it is, or can get it back."
You stare at him, a wild hope beating in your chest. If Frank and them would try getting in touch with this thing--which they almost certainly would, just so they could figure out what had happened to you--then they can get that information out of the mask. You try to keep your face from betraying any hope.
But maybe it slips through anyway, for the smirk returns to the face of the other. "And don't think your friends can get it out of me either. Nash was right, you need to dump a couple of hundred pounds of dirt into a mask if you're going to put a shell thing inside it, but that's what we did to this one. Too hard to do on any of the others, but that's more security for me." He points to his face. "It's totally sealed up in here. They can't get in. In fact, if one of them tries putting it on, I just come back."
Your heart sinks again. And then you realize-- "Wait, how did you know about what Nash said?"
"Dude, it was all in your head," he snorts, and then blinks. "Oh, wait, you thought I was that really old mask you guys made? Fuck no, I'm fresh. They made me by slamming a mask onto you when they busted into Blackwell's. So yeah, I know everything Nash and Rick and Frank and Joe said. I know all about what you guys are trying to do." He shakes his head. "I'd say I'm impressed, but that'd be like bragging. I actually volunteered for a suicide mission! Go, me!" He laughs, then sighs. "So, that's not going to work for you either." He grimaces, with something that almost looks like sympathy.
"So what are you going to do with me?" The thought that you won't even have a chance at trying Frank's plan fills you with horror and despair.
"That depends. The whole reason I'm telling you all this, why I'm being all Dr. Evil instead of capping you in the head, is because-- Well, fuck it, man, I told you I was running things, but it coulda been us! Us, dude! Not me or you and Gordon, or Justin and Perry, or even Caleb and Keith. Just you and me. The same guy, just in two different bodies!" He grasps your shirt. "Fuck us, Will. I'd be running the golem side, the whole goddamn conspiracy, and you could be making those spell copies and living it up as a rock star. We'd be total kings of the world!
"And we could still do that, couldn't we?" He tightens his hold on your shirt, and a pleading expression comes into his eyes.
But it doesn't remain long. You'd made your decision, and he sees it in your eyes. "Goddamn it, you are such a fuck up," he mutters. "Doesn't bode well for me and my decisions, does it?" he adds glumly.
"So what are you going to do with me?" you ask again.
"Oh, we'll turn you into a golem all right," he snaps. "You got some weird power or shit, and we don't want you getting back with those other guys, so we'll seal you up all good. We thought about shooting you, but they probably got ways to bring people back from the dead. Like us." He actually shudders before continuing. "So, a golem it is for you. We're not gonna put a mask on you, though. Not even gonna put you in a storeroom. No, they're already digging a hole and we're going to drop you into it, and it's a deep one. Then we're gonna fill it up and cover it with asphalt." He flashes you pained look. "I really do hope it kills you when we pour that stuff on you. It'd suck to be you if you were awake under there for a hundred million years, waiting for it all to wash away."
All the spirit leaks out of you. For a moment you actually almost beg him for mercy, tell him that you've changed your mind and will help. But it's too late. He knocks on the door, and it opens. "Hey, can I go now," the new boss of all the golems whines at the trim soldier blocking his way. "My dad's waiting, and he's gonna kill me if he thinks I've been goofing off back here."
"And that one?" the soldier asks, indicating you.
"Whatever the colonel said to do with him," Will Prescott says. "Don't ask me, I don't fucking know anything." He steps around the man, and is gone.
The soldier calls into the hall, and three more soldiers follow him into the room. You stand up straight and offer no resistance as they pick you up by your arms and legs and hustle you out.
* * * * *
They take you into what looks like a hospital, into the back and into a small room. You crane your neck and see a book, open, lying on a gurney. You have only a brief glimpse of it before they drop you onto it.
But it's enough to tell you the fake you was lying about the book being out of town. Probably everything else was a lie too.
Not that it's a comfort to know that you resisted to the bitter end, now that it's upon you.
They quickly bind your wrists and ankles with thick leather straps. A bucket of earth is dumped onto your chest, and then topped with a small bowl of other powders. One of the soldiers takes out an enormous Zippo lighter. He shoves a huge cigar into his mouth, expertly lights it, and puts the lighter away. He blows out a huge stream of smoke, and glances around at the other soldiers.
Then he thrusts the cigar into the muck on your chest.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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