The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Corporate Strategies

Previously: "The Manager" 

The words, said directly into your ear, startle you out of your daze. "You look like you're a million miles away," says Anthony Kirk. His eyebrows twitch over a bemused smile.

Across the cafeteria table, Amanda Ferguson glances up from her phone. "Kim's just trying to come up for new reasons for how come she can never help anyone."

Anthony makes no reply, and neither do you. It wouldn't do any good. Whatever you retorted, Amanda would just top it with something even nastier. You bend back over your food and resume eating.

At least Kelsey just froze you out when you told her that Brianna Kirschke wasn't replying to your texts, and that you hadn't been able to catch her in any of her classes. But Amanda, who no doubt got an earful from Kelsey about how you "couldn't do your job," decided to say something.

* * * * *

There's a lot of pressure that comes with being "Kim Walsh." She's the student council president, she serves in a couple of different clubs, she mentors students in the junior and sophomore classes, and she's an unofficial social worker for low-income students and those "at risk" of failing their classes.

Not that you're really sharing these worries. You are only inhabiting this form until you can slip into something easier and lower profile. But it has given you a vivid premonition of what it might be like managing a school of doppelgangers, all of them looking to you for direction.

Doppel-Steve Patterson: Should I just give Ioeger a wedgie, or can I do something to his kidneys?

Doppel-James Lamont: Carson is planning to break into the fuck room. Do you want me to talk him out of it, or leave it to—air quotes—Gordon and Steve to break his face?

Doppel-Kelsey Blankenship: Should I trade Karl in for one of the football players?

Doppel-Tim Gerard: I sucked off Adrian Semple like you ordered me to, but Charles caught us, and now none of his friends will talk to me.

But what if you showed some other people the magic, got them in on this scheme? Oh, you wouldn't reveal who you really are. You'd continue to run things from the shadows. And you'd dominate your new clique, keeping control of the book and the magic, and running the school through them. Each of them (and you) would have, say, half-a-dozen to a dozen doppelgangers to run and manage, and you'd manage the lot by managing the half-dozen people you recruited.

Kind of like a corporation, with you as president!

Yes, the more you think of it, the more you like it, and as lunch ends you've determined to start laying the groundwork for it.

And the first step—it seems clear to you—is to find an alias who has lots of friends down in the "coach class" section of the school, and who would be eager to get control of some of the people up at the top.

Friends who, after you teased them with the control of a half-dozen doppelgangers, would be eager to swap lives with one of them, as you have done.

But those are future plans. Right now, you've got some more ordinary business to take care of.

* * * * *

You make a beeline for Mr. Walberg's classroom as soon as you've finished eating. The room is empty, and the teacher, who is reading a paperback at his desk, greets you with a hearty, "H'lo, Kim." You smile back, and like a computer readout, Kim's opinion of Mr. Walberg scrolls across the front of your brain: Gruff like a grizzly, but he's really a teddy bear, and he cares so much about his job.

You chat lightly with him about this and that—it's clear he dotes on Kim—until Victoria Rodriguez, puffing like a buffalo, comes blowing into the room. She does a double-take when she sees you.

Victoria is a hefty girl with a big butt and thighs like watermelons. She's also got a massive bust, which today (as most days) is wallowing around inside a loose-fit short-sleeve tee with a low-cut neckline. Her heft above and below technically gives her an hourglass figure, but she reminds Kim of the dancehall girls in the old Westerns that her dad likes to watch: girls with round faces who clearly had to be stitched inside of a corset in order to have a shape. Victoria also has lusciously dark hair that drapes past her shoulders and over her boobs.

She's got a guilty look about her, probably (you'd guess) because she hasn't studied for the tutoring session she's got coming up. It's in Spanish, no less. That's right: Kim Walsh, who looks like her ancestors came from Glasgow, is tutoring Victoria Rodriguez in second-year Spanish.

You start by flipping on a smile and asking if she's still on for Friday after school. With an embarrassed squeak, she says that she is. Then you hit her with your request. "Molly Shaw needs a favor. Her mom needs a ride to and from the optometrist, but Molly's got work. It's the afternoon we're supposed to have our tutoring session. So before we have that, could you give her mom a ride?"

Victoria gives you a look like OMG, r u rly asking ur not serius. "What's wrong?" you ask.

"Can you get someone else to do it?"

"You can't?"

"Um ..."

"I though you and Molly were friends."

She grimaces in embarrassment. "Um, not really. Not anymore."

"Oh."

"Can't you ask one of her other friends?"

"Uh ..."

"Like, Faith? Or Cassie?"

"Yeah, I guess I can do that."

"Sorry, Kim."

"No, it's alright. You're not the first one to turn me down," you lie. Again, you flick a smile at her. Then with a little wave at Mr. Walberg you hurry on to your own sixth-period class.

* * * * *

You don't know where to find Faith Becker, but you do know where to find Cassie Harper eighth period, and your intuition is that sweet, daffy Cassie would drop anything to help a friend. (And why didn't Molly just ask one of her friends if they could give her mom a ride? Probably because it didn't occur to her; and besides, she's used to letting Kim be her problem-solver.) As it happens, Cassie is in the same Astronomy class as Will Prescott.

He isn't there yet, but Cassie is when you swing by. She could be Kim's cousin, you suppose. Like Kim, she's a small, slim, pale red-head. But her hair is bright, almost orange, and huge freckles splotch her face. Her mouth, which is always open (she's a chatterbot), is wide and full of teeth, and she's always got a hungry look in her bright eyes.

She wants to talk about Molly and her work when you broach the subject, but you brush her aside to ask if she could take Mrs. Shaw to the optometrist while Molly is at work.

"Me?" Cassie squeals. "Oh, well I guess so. Sure! But why didn't she ask me?"

"I guess it didn't occur to her. I told her I'd find a ride for her mom—"

"Oh my God, Kim, that's so sweet of you! Sure I can do it! I know Mrs. Shaw, I'm only over at her house, like, sixteen hours a day it seems like! God, she's probably sick of the sight and sound of me, but—"

"That's great, Cassie, thanks. Friday afternoon, right after school."

"You'll probably have to text me a reminder. Do you have my number or—?"

"I think you can ask Molly to remind you."

"Oh. Right. Derp!" Cassie pokes herself in the temple and crosses her eyes. You make your escape before she can start yapping at you some more.

Cassie is a sweetheart, but you were uneasy talking to her. There was something in the background that bothered you, something that made you slightly afraid.

It's when you almost bump into Will in the doorway that you realize what it is.

Cassie Harper (Kim's memories tell you) has a crush on him. You pause just outside the classroom to process this realization.

But, somehow, it does nothing to you. It merely gets filed away under the neutral heading: Interesting.

* * * * *

The last major errand is to intercept Brianna Kirschke after class, to pitch her Kelsey Blankenship's idea for a school fundraiser: Brianna's family owns a high-end bakery, and Kelsey thinks they should donate a batch of expensive desserts that the student council could sell for a massive profit. Brianna, as you could have predicted, maintains a poker face, and when you're done you answer on her behalf: "Your folks are going to say 'No', aren't they? That's okay, you don't even have to ask them, I'll tell Kelsey that I asked you and you asked your mom, and the answer came back 'No'."

"I'll ask 'em anyway," Brianna says, but she sounds really unenthusiastic.

"What a freaking bitch!" exclaims Leah Simmons, who has been listening to this with a jaw hanging open with astonishment. "Where the fuck does Kelsey get off—?"

There follows a brittle, snippy conversation in which you defend Kelsey without really defending her (because her suggestion really was indefensible) while Leah gets more and more mad on Brianna's behalf. "I get it, Leah," you tell her, "and I don't really disagree." Leah snorts.

* * * * *

The day's events go into a stewpot of unconscious thought, and later that night, when you return to the question of Where do I find my co-conspirators? you discover you've got several possibilities.

But do you recruit these subordinates first? Or do you make a few more substitutes of your own first, building up a small gang, so you can demonstrate to your colleagues-to-be the advantages to be had from replacing some key members of the student body with docile duplicates?

Next: "A Battle Plan Begins" 

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