The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Friend of My Friend

Previously: "Gimme Space" 

It's probably just as well that Caleb took so long getting back to you. You took advantage of the empty afternoon between the end of basketball practice and suppertime by calling Keith and talking to him about his "YouTube buddies." He was initially shocked by your suggestion that you swap places with one of them, but he came around to it when you told you'd help him get Yumi if he helped you swap places with one of these guys.

At first you assumed it would either be Carlos Montoya or Mike Hollister whose identity you would be assuming, and you asked Keith about them. He wasn't much help, though.

"Okay, the thing about Carlos," he told you, "is that his family owns a couple of storage places. Those self-storage units, you know, where you drive in and—? His dad owns one off in, I dunno, Scottsford or someplace like that, but his uncle owns the one out on Twentieth. Top-Shelf Storage. It's across from a Hardees, I think. Anyway, that's where Carlos has his studio.

"Actually, he's got a bunch of stuff out there. He's got two units that his uncle lets him use as long as they've got empty units. They're in this climate-controlled building, so they're always, like sixty-five degrees or something. I get cold out there, that's all I can tell you. But Carlos has got one unit where he keeps his workout stuff, his weights and shit, and then there's another unit that him and Mike use for a studio. Got the desk and a TV and all their camera equipment in it, and that's where they make those videos. You know?"

You don't know, but you murmured back something that sounded positive.

"Yeah, so anyway, if you're gonna be Carlos you're gonna have that shit to look after. I think it's okay. Carlos ain't gettin' any pussy, but that's only 'cos he hasn't tried. He's dropped a lotta weight since last year, but he's tryin' to get ripped b'fore— But you know, you don't gotta worry about that if you're gonna be banging those clay monster things.

"Anyway, that's him. And there's Mike, but you know Mike, right? Fucking goofball is what he is. We call him 'Red' sometimes, on accounta he's got that Conan O'Brien thing going sometimes, and he gets spastic. I think I'd go for Carlos if you're gonna pick between them."

But then he went on to describe two more guys who are part of this YouTube thing, but who stick to behind-the-camera stuff. The first is Philip Fairfax, whose name is familiar but who you didn't place until Keith told you he went to a national science-fair thing back in middle school, and then you remembered him as a red-headed brainiac with black-framed glasses. He sounds about as serious as a heart attack from the way Keith describes him, though Keith went out of his way to say that girls have been known to chase him; but he's apparently oblivious. Still, he sounds like a nice, quiet spot of the sort you'd like to curl up inside after the excitement of the last few weeks.

The last of the YouTube quartet is Josiah Shank, who Keith bluntly informed you is "weird," a "triple-A nerd," and an "anime freak fetishist" who has the biggest collection of hentai outside Japan. He assured you that the only reason he's telling you about Josiah—who he calls "space alien freaky"—is because you'd have to hang out with him if you became one of the other three. And yet you found Josiah interesting despite his strangeness. Certainly, he would be the last place anyone would look for you if you wanted to make yourself anonymous.

Before he hung up, though, Keith told you there was one other potential possibility: Phoebe Beauchamp. She's a soccer player but she's also taking some kind of audio-visual class with Carlos and his friends. They've been pestering her forever to make videos with them, which she's always refused. "Man, that's who I'd pick," Keith gushed, "if I— Uh— Never mind."

"You mean if you were a senior member, and you got to pick a new identity."

"Dude!" he groaned. "Don't! Please! Save her for—!"

You don't tell him that you'd never pick Phoebe, because you wouldn't want all the shit that Patterson and Lynch and the others would throw at you for wanting to become a girl. And yet, after you hung up on Keith, you found yourself thinking that maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. A girl, like Phoebe, would be a good ambush site for making copies of other girls. And it wouldn't have to be a permanent thing. Just make a mask of Phoebe, replace her, steal faces off her teammates and her friends and other girls, and then, when Keith made the senior level, you could pass her along to him.

You thought this all over at home, over a quiet (for once) dinner and afterward, so that when Caleb calls you back, you are prepared to tell him who you've chosen for your next (though maybe not permanent) identity:

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"