The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Mindjack

Previously: "Personalities on Parade" 

You twist in your seat as you study the DM from Jack Li. It's like there's a second skin under your own, trying to squirm its way to the surface: anticipation battling reluctance.

He wants to meet up with your alter ego after school, for what sounds like a one-on-one. He seems to be very popular, and he's been out to the Warehouse before, so he sounds exactly like the kind of person you've been investigating all day. And with this DM he's made himself easily gettable, which puts him way ahead of the other four on your list.

But he's gay. He's the guy your new friends are trying to set their new friend Will Chang up with.

What will happen if you copy and wear the brain of a gay guy? Will that instantly turn you gay? You didn't invent "Will Chang" so that you could meet "cute guys"!

I can get a copy of him. That's the thing that matters, you tell yourself as, with watering eyes you study the text. It's the last period of the day, so you don't have a lot of time to decide.

"Hey Will!"

You jump in your seat and turn around. Cassie is dimpling at you from the back of the room. "What are you doing tonight?"

"I dunno," you admit in a sweat.

"Are you interested in going out to the Warehouse? A bunch of us putting together a group, and we'll be meeting at around nine— We'd meet earlier but Mindy and—"

She prattles on this way and you don't interrupt her as she takes almost a full sixty seconds to invite you to meet up with them all at Eastman High School at nine o'clock for a "shuttle ride" in to the Warehouse. You only return her a casual nod and say that you'll have to "check" your schedule.

Okay, Jack, you better be worth it, you growl to yourself as you type in a reply to him. Cassie's invite has galvanized you into a decision.

* * * * *

It's about five-thirty, and you're loitering in the parking lot of the Milagro Beanfield Warehouse, even though your truck is parked a couple of blocks over at the Koffee Kauldron. You're also wearing your own face, because though you don't want to be linked to the magical mugging you have planned, still less do you want to risk Chang's budding popularity.

You got there early, which is lucky, because Jack gets there early too. You asked him what he'd be driving, so you're prepared when a cherry-red Honda minivan comes purring into the lot. You resettle the cap on your head, then saunter over while the driver is turning off the car and getting himself unbuckled. He sees you approach, and with a smile rolls down the window to talk.

Jack Li is a handsome kid, with regular, Asian features and a wide, white, and relaxed smile that seems to come easily to his face. His skin is very clean and clear, and his dark hair is brushed up and to the side into a neat, lush pompadour. "Hey Will," he calls, and it surprises you that he knows (or remembers) who you are. "You coming or going?"

"Er, going," you improvise. You are conscious of being badly wrong-footed, now that the moment has arrived. "I was, uh, here doing some studying." You point to the coffee shop. "Now I'm, you know, going home. You?" You're unnerved by Jack's bright, confident grin, and the metal band you have palmed in your hand slips a little.

"Oh, just coming in, gonna hang out a bit before the night starts. It gets boring at home, you know." He reaches over into the passenger seat to grab a book bag.

Then he starts to push the door open. You feel the moment—the almost infinitesimally tiny window of opportunity he has given you, and which you are on the point of squandering—slipping away.

You leap in before it's too late.

"Oh, hey," you gabble as you push the door shut again. Jack looks at you in surprise. "You know you've got some, uh, schmutz on your—"

You reach through the window to point to his forehead. Then you open your palm and press the band against his brow.

An expression of surprise appears on Jack's face. It freezes there as you withdraw your hand, and you almost shit yourself as he stares back at you with a look of shock.

But his eyes, you notice after a few seconds of terror, have gone unfocused and blank, and his face muscles are slackening.

Then, very slowly, he sags to the side, falling into his book bag.

You reach in through the window and mash every button you can find until the passenger-side door unlocks. You hurry around and jump in to join him.

* * * * *

It went very fast and easy, though there was one hairy moment when another car pulled into the space next to Jack. But the woman who got out didn't even glance in your direction before stalking off toward the coffee shop.

The metal doohickey had vanished from your palm when you touched Jack, and it was nowhere on his face when you withdrew. You have the strong suspicion it must have disappeared into him, so you're not panicked, but you are getting antsy after five or ten minutes, when the strip materializes on his forehead, then slips off into his lap. You gingerly pick it up between forefinger and thumb, and leap out of the minivan. You had already prepped it for your departure by rolling up the windows and propping Jack upright again in his seat. When he comes to, maybe he'll think the whole thing was a hallucination, for you've no intention of being anywhere close by.

You sprint the whole two blocks back down to the Koffee Kauldron, where you're parked. There, inside your truck, you examine your prize.

It worked. The runes have faded, to be replaced by ghostly blue lettering that floats over the surface of the metal strip. In this case, though, the characters are Chinese, which you take as confirming that they copied—

Well, something inside Jack's head. You're still not certain of what exactly the thing will do.

The book said nothing about whether you can wear both a mask and one of these things at the same time. In fact, you're skeptical that you can, for the next spell (which you investigated and executed last night, along with making this second metal band) made a glue that attaches a band to the inside of a mask, so that you can wear both simultaneously. (That, you guessed, is for making a "complete disguise" of someone. But though the book said nothing about being able to mix and match items, there was nothing that said you couldn't.) You stopped home after school, to pick up the little Rubbermaid container of glue that you made last night, and with a paint brush you lifted from the garage you now with trembling hands attach this new metal band to the inside of the mask. Your breath is very labored as you work.

But it takes only a few seconds to get the band attached, and after you've blown on it for a few seconds, you touch it to find it firmly anchored to the inner surface.

Your skin ripples with tension as you glance around the parking lot. You are parked in the very back, next to a garbage dumpster, and there is no one around and no one in sight. Still, you crawl down into the footwell of the passenger side of the truck so as to hide yourself further. There, you cup the mask in your hands while you try calming yourself with a couple of lungfuls of air. It doesn't work, and with a miserable feeling of fear, you close your eyes and step into the abyss by raising the mask and pushing it into your face.

* * * * *

You're cramped and stiff when you raise your face again, and there's an acrid, burning sensation in your head—a feeling as though your brain has been torched o a cinder and is still smoldering. You grimace as you painfully lever yourself out of the footwell and back onto the bench of your truck.

My truck, you think with a feeling of puzzlement. You stroke the bench, trying to place why the thought My truck should feel so weird. Almost as weird as the sight of your hand, which is several shades duskier than it should be ...

The memories come like three fast punches to the back of your head: Will Chang. Jack Li. My date with him! Your heart flops with sudden panic.

But those quick punches are only the prelude to the deep, upwelling wave that rolls upward from the base of your neck and up your spine, to flood your brainpan and seep into every crevice of your mind. You have to cover your face with your hands to keep from fainting as a nauseating wave of deja vu threatens to capsize you.

Then it clears, and you are left alone in the cab of your truck with your thoughts.

With Jack Li's thoughts.

Because although you are not Jack Li—you know perfectly well that you're Will Prescott, and that you stole a copy of Jack's brain—you feel his mind and personality vividly with you, like a second brain tangled up inside your own. You touch your face, and the hard, bright thought comes unbidden: He's so cute! And I'm him! It makes you stiff with a trembling excitement.

You only meant to test out the mask-band combo when you put it on. But now that you've got it on ...

It would be a keen disappointment to Jack if "Will Chang" didn't show up. The hope he feels for this meet-up is almost a sickness, and it would be a great unkindness if you blew him off.

Next: "Coffee Nerves" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"