This choice: Leap Ahead: Reflections on the Moon • Go Back...Chapter #2Reflections on the Moon by: Seuzz   Previously: "A New Mask" 
"Well, if you think I need to," you start to tell the woman on the other end of the phone.
"It's entirely your choice," Kali crisply replies. "I've told Joseph everything I can infer from the information he provided, which was copious. A trip to see me would, in all probability, merely confirm my analysis. Nonetheless, you are an interesting case, and you and I will meet sooner or later. If I arrange a flight for you tomorrow, it would merely be a case of the former rather than the latter."
"I'd like to talk it over with Joe," you say.
"Of course. Just ask him to email or text me after you've decided." Her voice is very bright--if businesslike--and you can't help thinking that its owner must be very bright and lovely herself.
You reluctantly hand the phone back to Joe. They talk only a little more before he hangs up and turns to you with a querying smile. "And so?"
"Should I go see her or hang out here?"
"It's your choice, like she said. Though if you're asking for my preference--" He chucks you on the shoulder.
That little plea is enough to settle it for you; and you firmly put away the thought that you ought to stay in order to "keep an eye" on Joe. He claps his hands when you say you'll stay. "Awesome. By the way, what she said makes me feel a lot better about, you know, last night."
"What did she say," you ask, hoping that the question won't seem nosy and that the answer won't be evasive.
"Well, the technical aspects are complicated, but the concept is easy enough to explain," he says carelessly, and hops up onto the kitchen counter. "Basically, it has to do with different planets conferring different prodigies. Oh, by the way," he interrupts himself. "That's the word we like to use. 'Prodigies'. Not 'powers' or 'magic' or shit like that."
"How come?"
"Doesn't make us sound so much like mutants or freaks in spandex." Joe shrugs. "Prodigies are things that everyone has, it's just that some people have 'em to a 'prodigious' degree. They don't make us different from other people."
This strikes you as a distinction without a difference, but you just nod and ask him to go. "What was I saying?" Joe says. "Oh. Different planets, different prodigies. So, f'rinstance, I've got Viritrilbia--that's our name for Mecury--as one of my influences, so I'm really good at languages. Frank is influenced by Malacandra--that's Mars--which makes him a fighter."
You've learned you need refreshments when Joe lapses into "lecture mode," so you draw a couple of sodas from the refrigerator.
"But different people can be under the influence of the same planet while still having different powers or degrees of them. Like me and John Reilly. We're both pretty funny guys, if I say so myself. But he can pick up languages a lot fucking faster than me. He went to Nepal one time. Crossed the border not knowing a word of the local lingo, and came out a few weeks later talking like a native. I can't do that. On the other hand, you give each of us a violin, and he'll attract cats while I attract conservatory scholarships.
"It also depends on the influence of the second planet. Again, Frank and Rick Bredon are both Malacandra. But Frank has Lurga--that's Saturn--as his secondary influence, while Rich has Eldibria--that's Neptune. Malacandra plus Lurga means Frank is a lot like an old Templar knight: part monk, party mystic, part bad ass chivalric fighter. Malacandra plus Eldibria? Rick's a skunk. Picture Mickey Rourke in a Hong Kong guns-and-meat-cleavers caper." Joe laughs and shivers simultaneously.
"Now, that's the background to what she said about you. You're linked to Sulva, we can all see that, and that's a rare alignment. It and its properties are not as well understood as the others. But based on what happened last night, it appears you've got a strong line on its reflective properties, which I didn't even know it has."
"What do you mean by 'reflective'?"
"Well, apparently Sulva is associated with mirrors. This seems to mean that Sulvans can pick up some of the qualities associated with the other planets. You know, like the way the moon reflects sunlight? The mask probably helps." He points at your face. "Those things are mirrors, in a sense, holding images of other people. That mask you're wearing mixes my image and Frank's. Kali thinks it might amplify your own natural, imitative tendencies." He shrugs. "So you've picked up a little something from me. My ability to get people to talk honestly."
You mull this: a longish explanation ending in something not far from what you started with.
But Joe has one more thought to add: "And there's the way you outwrestled me last night," he says wryly. "You picked up a little something from Frank as well." He laughs. "Probably he'd have handled this little discovery with more grace than I did."
* * * * *
You talk some more, though Joe becomes more evasive. "There's no reason to get in a panic," he emphasizes, "but Dad will definitely want Kali to put you on her couch. There's the whole fact that we can't figure out your second planet, for instance. If that's another property of Sulva--the Moon would be associated with eclipses, doncha know--it's not one our science has discovered." He starts to add something else, then hesitates.
"We've been at this for thousands of years, the Stellae have," he mumbles, mostly to himself, it seems. "But there's still a lot we don't understand. We didn't even know about Kenadandra until eighty years ago, for instance," he adds cryptically. You ask him to tell you about the Stellae and their history, but he waves you off. "Reilly's the guy for the history lessons," he says. "He likes to talk even more than I do, and he's better at it, and would make it a lot more interesting."
After that, the conversation returns to the new mask and to the continuing investigation. "You still want to check out Westside, huh?" he says thoughtfully. "There's a couple of ways we can do that."
"I can't go back as myself. As Will Prescott, I mean," you point out.
"No, if you could do that we wouldn't even be here having this conversation." He points at you. "You could enroll as Sue Durras here."
"Why did you call me that," you demand.
He laughs. "Hardy Boys reference. They don't have a kid brother, you know, but they do have a cousin. Girl named Sue." His grin is wicked.
"Well, I'm not enrolling at a school that has guys like Lester the Molester or Jason Lynch under the name 'Sue'!"
"So spell it S-I-O-U-X. That's the obvious solution. The kid in that old Johnny Cash song was an idiot."
That does sound plausible, until you remember Shep Tsosie, who would kick your ass hard if you showed up claiming to be one-sixty-fourth Cherokee or something. "And like I said last night, we don't know how long I'll be there. Especially if your dad decides he wants me to go see Kali."
"So you wanna replace someone out there," Joe says quietly.
"Frank replaced Justin Roth for a few days."
"Frank replaced you replacing Justin Roth for a few days," he retorts. "We'd need Dad's clearance for something like that. Come up with a way of doing it that doesn't hurt anyone."
You hang your head and think. Joe continues to talk. "There's also the matter of what I do. We could split up, and I could stay at Eastman. Or we could stay together, with me following you to Westside. I could switch schools." He falls silent, and you wonder if he'll voice the alternative. He does: "Or I could also replace someone."
"I could replace someone and you could enroll as Sue Durras."
"At a school that has guys like Lester the Molester and Jason Lynch?" he retorts in a voice that is not his own. "Fuck that!"
"Is that what my new voice sounds like?" you ask. He nods, and you wince. It sounds bodiless.
"We could strip the golem shell out of the Prescott mask and you could step in as my old self," you suggest. Joe's eyebrows arch in appreciation of the suggestion, but the phone rings before he can reply.
"Ho boy, Dad again," Joe says as he looks at the number. "International House of Handsome Teenage Boys," he answers. He laughs at whatever his dad says. "Yeah, I know some girls I'd love it if they poured boysenberry syrup all over me!" He turns bright red at the reply, and a rictus-like grin spreads over his face. There's a little more joshing before the conversation turns serious. It's a long talk, too, as Joe, in an uncharacteristically business-like way, lays out the various proposals for pursuing the investigation, and describes their investigative pros and ethical cons. You linger, fully expecting you'll have to get on the line.
After an hour, Joe gives a quiet "Thanks, Dad. Love you too," and holds the phone out to you while staring at it. You start to take it, but he switches it off with a faint smile and puts it on the counter. "Well, that was unexpected but in hindsight entirely predictable."
"What?" you ask, and your stomach drops.
"He said he talked to Kali, and between the talk with her and the talk just now with me, he said he thinks he's got a pretty good handle on the situation and what should be done."
"And what's that?" You want very much to sit down, but lock your knees so you won't buckle at what sounds like will be very bad news.
"He says that you're now in charge of the investigation," Joe says, and he does a pretty good job of hiding most of the resentment he must be feeling. "He says you don't have to consult with him on anything, for permission or advice, practical or ethical." Your jaw drops.
"He says that we can do whatever you think is best. He will only want a report when it's done."  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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