This choice: Just go to Darcy's classes • Go Back...Chapter #2Just go to Darcy's classes by: imaj   “I have those papers you wanted,” you say, channelling Darcy’s directness, almost instinctively.
There was no choice, you realise. Memories of the David Johnson business come flooding back: The military convoys screaming about Saratoga Falls. The paranoia and mistrust at Fort Suffolk. The stress suffered by Johnson’s family. It was not pleasant, and you have no desire to repeat the experience again. And certainly not as the focus of the military’s attention.
You’re afraid.
And that leaves you with no choice but to impersonate Darcy. No one, not even your own girlfriend, can know about what’s happened to you. At least, not until you know where they stand.
“Ok,” says Jill slowly. “And Mark?”
“The door was open,” you improvise. “I’m sorry Jill, but I’m really in a rush this morning.”
“A rush,” repeats Jill unsurely. Between the earliness of the hour and Darcy’s brisk nature, you’ve wrong footed her.
“I’ve got this European history test at 8,” you continue, getting into the flow of things. It’s surprising how easy it is to mimic Darcy, and how easy it is to animate her personality and make it do what you want. “I’ve been up all night studying and all I want to do is take the test and then find somewhere to sleep.”
“Oh sure,” says Jill smiling fuzzily. “I guess I better let you get to it then. I’ll see you, what, this afternoon? Or tomorrow?”
“Probably tomorrow,” you say, turning to leave. “Bye Jill.”
“Yeah, bye,” she replies absent mindedly as you walk away. Closing the door behind you, you can see Jill looking around the house. “Mark? Mark, where are you?”
You feel a pang of guilt, but then, the alternatives would be so much worse.
*****
You put your pen down on the desk and look at your, no Darcy’s, watch. It’s an elegant silver bracelet, somehow and miraculously reproduced by the SX-3 in your body. It shows twenty five minutes past ten, the same time as the clock on the wall at the far end of the hall. That it seems to work poses some interesting questions about the SX-3 – how it was able to form a working mechanical system from your body.
It is a question more relevant than the one you have just answered, a two and a half hour essay on the Thirty Years War. The Darcy persona you’ve submerged yourself in since this morning is tired, but relieved to have finished. For you, it has been two and a half wasted hours. You push the Darcy thoughts to one side and start to think on your own problems as the test papers are collected in.
Protean would be an obvious place to start, you think as you begin packing up your equipment. As Darcy, you would have access. It would be a limited access as she is only an intern, but an access of a sort. At least she would normally. By now Jill must have realised that you are missing. If she’s told anyone then things might be difficult, doubly so if she has mentioned the incident with the SX-3 yesterday. Laying low for a few days to see how things pan out might be wiser in that case.
Your train of thought is interrupted as you leave the hall by someone shouting Darcy’s name. You turn your head and see another girl waving at you. She’s Asian, short (but then so are you now) and quite pretty in an alternative sort of way. Her shiny black hair is layered with bright neon pink stripes, tied up in high bunches at the side of her heads. A tight fitting tee and jeans show off her gentle curves.
Of course, you have no idea who she is.
You reach again for Darcy’s mind, slipping again into her memories. A name floats to the surface: Summer. A friend, simply because she’s the only other ex-Eastman High School student in this class.
“Heya Darcy, how’d you do,” she asks, smiling brightly as she bounds over to you.
A little stray Darcy thought slips through your mind: amazement at how much Summer’s personality has changed over the last year since she hooked up with that Yves girl. You file it away for future reference before returning her smile.
“Good,” you reply. “I did spend all night studying after all, so I should do well.”
“Wow,” she says. “Keen. You must be tired.”
“A little,” you acknowledge as you open the door for Summer. “I was going to go home and get some sleep.”
“Coffee,” asks Summer, apparently ignoring you.
“No, I’m too tired,” you begin, before clutching your stomach. An intense, stabbing pain grips you and you double over.
“Are you ok,” asks Summer.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” you reply before bolting into a nearby toilet. You have just enough time to push your way into an empty stall and close the door behind you before the pain returns. Your stomach turns somersaults as you kneel over the bowl and you feel something rush up from inside you.
Then it gets really weird.
Your jaw opens wide to accommodate the sheer volume of vomit, distending far beyond what should be natural. The fluid is warm and sweet. Viscous, it seems to start solidifying as it leaves your mouth. The flow stops for a moment, giving you a chance to realise what’s happening.
Jutting out from your impossibly wide mouth is another Darcy. Or her head at least, possibly even the real Darcy.
Sweating profusely, you raise a hand to just in front of your face. It as if you are melting, the fingers of your hand fusing together like a glob of molten wax. Slowly the colour fades from your skin and it takes on a bright blue hue, matching the tone of the SX-3.
You have no time to think on this as another swirl of liquid starts to move around inside your stomach. It swells and grows and, just as you think the pressure will make you burst open, well…
That’s when you burst open.
Splitting vertically right down the middle, your torso opens and Darcy comes tumbling out. She lies on the floor, curled round the toilet. Her breathing seems shallow and she is unconscious. Otherwise, she appears unchanged from when you met her earlier this morning. You rise unsteadily to your feet, by this point little more than shapeless blue mass with only the vaguest approximation of human form. Then something snaps within you and your form returns.
You are you again.
Albeit a you in your dressing gown. Stuck inside the ladies toilets. With a young lady lying unconscious on the floor in front of you. It couldn’t be much worse, you think.
“Darcy, are you ok in there,” comes a voice from outside the stall. Summer has followed you in.
Ok, so it could get worse. It can always get worse. You have no idea how you absorbed Darcy earlier, but it looks like the only way to get out of here is to repeat the process again. Unless you want to try to absorb Summer.
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