The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Brain Block and a Brain Wave

Previously: "Post-Swap Hangover" 

A shirtless Gary Chen has to be one of the most terrifying things you've ever seen.

Oh, there's nothing aesthetically wrong with it. Chen isn't ripped, exactly, but his trim stomach shows abs, and he has well defined pecs and shoulders and biceps.

But it's Gary Chen, one of the nastiest motherfuckers at Westside, and shirtless he exactly looks like what you'd bet he is: a violent sexual assault waiting to explode.

Except for his face. His lower lip is quivering, and his eyes roll with fear. He snuffles. "Will!"

Still, you step back into the hallway. "Don't try anything," you hiss at him.

"Will! It's me! Chelsea!" He gulps.

Something catches in the back of your throat, and the scene before you, without altering in any actual detail, completely reorients itself. "Chelsea?" you gasp.

She nods. Or, rather, Chen nods. But while still looking exactly like Chen, the person in front of you now also looks exactly like Chelsea Cooper.

"You've got to help me," Chen moans. "You've got to get this—" He grabs his face pulls at the cheekbones. "Get it off!"

"What are you even doing in it?" You jump into the loft and slam the door behind you. "Why did you—?"

You do a double-take at the third and fourth figures in the loft. Both of them look like Gordon Black. But one is a petrified statue laying on his back, while the other stands over the original with a glower on his face.

"I was trying to surprise you," Chen says with a gulp, and a tear runs down his cheek. "But it's not working!"

"What were you trying to do?" you ask, and as Yumi's motherly instincts kick in you catch Chen's flapping hands and press them between your own. "Why did you put on Chen's mask?" You glance over at Gordon, which is surely the real Chen with Gordon's mask slapped atop him.

"To surprise you! I told you!" Chen gulps again, and in a low quivering voice proceeds to explain.

"I was thinking last night about what you told me, about how we're not friends and how it would look funny if we started hanging out together. I decided you were right, but since we need to hang out, on account of—" He swallows thickly. "I thought Chen would be a good spot for me to be. It wouldn't look funny that way if we, you know, were seen around together." He pulls his hands free of yours and wipes the tears away with the back of his hand.

This makes less than no sense. "Why in the hell would it not look funny?"

His expression turns puzzled. "On account of, you know." He tugs at the corners of his eyelids, making them even narrower and slantier.

You suppress the sudden, overpowering urge to slap him.

But then it somehow gets even worse. "I figured we could start going out together," he says. "If we were going out, it wouldn't look at all funny if people saw us together."

"Going out?" you yell. "You mean me and— I mean, Yumi and Gary Chen?" He nods. "Boyfriend and girlfriend?" Your shriek is sounding more and more like a steam whistle. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"What's wrong with it?" he asks, sounding wounded. "Wouldn't it make sense for Yumi to be going out with him? They're both—"

"First of all," you yell, and start ticking off fingers. "Gary Chen is the biggest asshole in the school, and I'm not forgetting Gordon when I say that. Second, he's a fucking criminal. You know he deals drugs inside the school, don't you?"

"Just marijuana, right?" Chen says. "I mean, I'm totally against that, don't get me wrong, but it's not like—"

"And he's the kind of guy who breaks teeth and arms and faces and kneecaps just for fun," you continue. "That's for third. And fourth—" You have to pause to catch your breath. "Just because him and me— Him and Yumi, I mean, are both of Asian descent does not mean it makes sense we'd go out together. He's Chinese and I'm— Yumi is Japanese, for a start. Not that I—Yumi—minds, but Chen's a fucking bigot about it! So it would be totally out of character for us to be— for him and Yumi to be—"

"Well, I didn't know all that," Chen shouts back. He's started to turn purple under his dark skin. (He's almost as brown as the average Hispanic.) "That's the other thing, and it's how come you need to get me out of this thing!" He grabs his face again. "It's not working! I'm not getting the memories or anything!"

That shuts you up. "You mean you don't have his—?"

"That's what I said!"

"How much do you have?"

"None of it! I don't know where he lives or who his parents are or who his friends are! If he has a job or anything like that!" He pushes and pulls at his face. "I don't even know what class he's skipping right now!"

"Here, let me do that." You grab his hands, and after a moment's tussle he relaxes enough to let you pull them down to his sides. "If you lay down I'll— Well, wait. Hang on."

"What?"

It takes you a moment to reply, and you pull at your lip furiously. "This doesn't make sense."

"I don't care what—"

"Gordon." You wheel on Chelsea's boyfriend, who has been watching all this with sour amusement. "What class do you have this period?"

"CAD-Technology."

"What are you parents' names? What's your phone number? Email address? Birthday?" Effortlessly he rattles them off even as he rolls his eyes.

"Why are you asking him that?" Chen asks. "I'm the one who—"

"It's inside the mask. All that information is inside the mask," you tell her. "See? That's how come he can answer those questions. The mask contains all his memories."

"So what? This mask is the one that isn't working!"

"But it does! It has to!" you reply. "When we put it back on Chen yesterday it went around acting like him, didn't he? Just like, er, Gordon over there is acting like Gordon. Chen's mask has to have the memories inside it, same as Gordon's does!"

"But it doesn't! Or at least," he adds doubtfully, "I'm not getting them."

"Have you tried concentrating? Or relaxing?"

"Make up your mind, which one do you want?"

"I'm just wondering if maybe you're panicking or something, and freezing up."

"Oh, like you did last period," he says peevishly, "when you tried doing that backflip off Michelle onto Lin, and you—"

"Yes, like that," you snap back. "Just sit down. Calm down. Take a deep breath, and—"

* * * * *

For twenty minutes you work with her, trying to get her into some kind of mental state so that whatever kind of a block it is (for you're sure it's a mental issue) can fall away and let her get into Chen's mind. But nothing you try, from meditation to concentration, manages to connect her to Chen's memories.

With fifteen minutes to go before the end of class, you give up and return things to the way they were before. The restored Chen is as angry as a wet wild cat, and he seethes all the time he is getting dressed again, and it takes some sharp words from Chelsea to get him to stop calling you every filthy name he can under his breath. "You really want me to be boyfriends with that?" you ask her.

Her own face is very red. "It would have been me," she says, "and I wouldn't act like that with you!"

You have your doubts—you're acting more and more like Yumi with her—but you don't argue until she adds, "We have to do something about it, though. Can you make another mask of him? One that works?"

"That one does work," you insist.

"Not for me it doesn't! So if you won't make a new mask of him so I can use it, we'll have to find another person I can be so we can hang out together."

You'd like to know why you have to hang out with her more than you already do, but instead you ask her how that would work. She asks what you mean by that.

"Well, you've got Chen over there." You point at him, and he glares back. "If you're not, uh, body swapping with him, who are you body swapping with?"

"With whoever it is that we get," Chelsea says. "Dur."

You blink. "So you'd be body swapped with this other person, and Chen over there would still be like he is now?"

"Sure. Why not?" She blinks at you.

Now that she's asked it, you realize that Why not? is a question that you haven't got an answer to.

And while you're pondering that, Chelsea comes up with a brain wave. "In fact," she says, "we should do that anyway, even if you get me a mask of Chen that works. Swap me with one of Yumi's friends. Jessica or Eva, maybe. No!" Her eyes go wide, and she grabs your wrist. "Cindy!"

Your blood runs cold.

Luckily, the bell rings just then. "I'll have to think about it," you tell her as you pry her icy claw off your forearm.

* * * * *

And you do. All through third-period Chemistry. It's a good thing you don't get called on during class. Even better that you're not called on to do lab work, or there would have been explosion at your table.

It would make a lot more sense for Yumi and Cindy to be hanging out than for Yumi and Gary Chen to be hanging out. But Chelsea's brainwave scares you for lots of reasons. The main one is that it reinforces your suspicion that she has reasons of her own for making these body swaps—and you're getting a pretty good idea of what those reasons are.

But you're also scared of another direction it points you in. If you can make two Chen-like slaves with masks, why not three? Or three hundred? Or three million?

What if Chelsea gets the idea she could use these things to take over the world?

* To continue: "It's a Good Compromise ..." 

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