The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Doubles for Pleasure

Previously: "Special Effects" 

A long time ago, when you were a little kid, you saw a cartoon—you think it was Scooby Doo but you're not sure—where a dog fell into a "duplicating" machine, and out came dozens, even hundreds, of identical dog clones, all shouting "Help!"

In retrospect, you realize it was supposed to be a comic scene, but it gave you nightmares for a couple of months. It was always the same. A TV or movie character you liked fell into some kind of machine, and out came demonic duplicates with red, gleaming eyes and white, scissor-like teeth. They'd chase you. You'd kick at them, and wake to find yourself kicking the bedclothes off.

So when a fully-dressed Carlos Montoya stands up and turns toward you, and at the same time a naked Carlos Montoya sits up and grins at you, you yell and kick at the air separating you from the horror. "What the fuck?" you exclaim.

"I told you," says Carlos. His eyes are wide. "It's magic. It's a golem. This one looks like me."

"Like you?" you yelp like an idiot.

"Sure. Don't you see the resemblance?"

"The fuck?"

"Dude," the naked Carlos says to the clothed one. "Didn't you warn him about—?"

"I did my best!" says the clothed one. "Will, I told you—"

You tumble off the weight bench and scramble up against the wall of the unit. "How—? How—?"

"Will!" The clothed Carlos dives at you. You quail, and he pulls back. "It's okay! That thing there—" He points. "It's like a robot, that's all. It's totally under control. It can't do anything I don't tell it to do."

"Well," says the other Carlos. "That's not technically true."

"Quiet. Will," the clothed Carlos continues as the other one shuts his mouth with a sour expression. "I really, really need you to not freak out. I'll shut it down, if that will make you feel better."

The bolus in your throat prevents you from replying, and you really doubt anything would make you feel better at this point, but you nod once. Carlos turns back on his twin, who mutters something under his breath and lays back down. Carlos grasps the other's face with one hand, and his lips work. He pulls at it—

* * * * *

The mask burns in your hands, and only the fear that Carlos will yell at you keeps you from flinging it away. But as you gingerly shift it from one palm to the other, you gradually become more comfortable with it. It is, after all, only a mask.

Just one that's imbued with spooky magical powers.

From the same footlocker he got the mask from, Carlos pulls the book he used to make it. And yes, it's the same book you got at Arnholms', and which you lost in a scrum behind the school portables. You say nothing about this to Carlos, and just listen dumbly as he explains. What's the point of saying anything? Either he bought it off Mendoza, or he bought it from the person who Mendoza sold it to, or from—

Well, whatever. The point is that it's come full circle back to you. Except that Carlos is the one who has been experimenting with it. Well, him and his friends.

"There's me and Mike and Keith," he says. "We were all hanging out when we started going through it, playing with it, figuring out what we could do." He's sitting on the weight bench next to you, flipping the heavy parchment pages. "We brought in Philip right afterward, because he's, like, really smart about things, and then we showed it to Josiah, since he's part of our group too."

And me? you don't ask aloud. You're showing it to me because—?

"Anyway, here are the spells we've done, so you'll know how it works." He explains them slowly, and even though you barely comprehend what he's saying, just the fact of having them explained makes you accept things a little better.

The first spell, he says, makes a mask that can copy the faces and bodies of people. The second spell seals up the mask so that it stops copying and can be worn. "Then you can put on a mask of someone else, and it will turn you into an exact copy of them. Well, except for their memories," he says.

That's the job of the third spell: it makes a kind of headband that copies brains and so gives the wearer all the memories and personality traits of the copied person. "But you still know who you are. It's just like wearing a disguise over your brain, to help you pretend better." A fourth spell makes a kind of glue so you can attach a headband to a mask. "Then you have a complete disguise." The fifth spell makes that golem thing. "You put a mask on it, and it turns into a copy of the person who is copied in the mask. It obeys me," he says, "I think because we used my hair to make it. But you can put any mask on it to turn it into copies of other people. They still have to obey me, though."

The sixth spell— He brushes past that one, saying it's just a variation on the golem. And the seventh spell? That's another one he's vague on, though he promises to tell you more about it later.

"So?" he says after closing the book. "You think you can handle the golem again? Because, you see, it's just—"

"Yeah, lemme see it," you say, and lick your lips. You hand him the mask.

But after hovering over the golem he puts the mask in the foot locker and takes out another. "Maybe it'll be a little better if we use someone else's mask," he says. "There being two of me was probably a little too shocking." He drops it onto the golem.

Again, there's a moment of confusion. Then Michael Hollister—his limbs and torso are pale even though his face is as tomato-red as ever—sits up on one elbow. "Oh Christ," he moans. "You change your mind, or is it another school day?" Then he does a massive, horrified double-take at you. "The fuck is he doing here?"

"We're showing Will how all this stuff works," says Carlos. A smile twitches at his lips. "You don't have to go to school, but maybe you'll need to go home for Mikey today. Here." He dips into the footlocker and pulls out a green t-shirt, some jeans and some underwear. "Get dressed."

"So where is fuckface, anyway?" Michael asks as he drops the towel and pulls on the underwear.

"You mean Mike?"

"Yeah. Fuckface."

"The golems have the same personality as the original," Mike tells you. "Mike has a real problem with his duplicate, so his duplicate has a problem with—"

"He don't got a problem with me," the fake Michael Hollister sneers. "He fucking loves having me to fuck around with. I should know, I'd get a chubby too if I had a fucking doppelganger I could send to school to do my shit for me. That's how come I—" He briefly shuts up as he pulls the shirt over his face. "If he didn't laugh in my face," he continues as the referred-to face grows redder and redder, "I wouldn't have a problem with—"

"But you'd do the same to thing to your beta if you had one."

"Fuck, yeah!" the fake shouts impatiently. "That's how come I know—"

"Shh. See?" Carlos says to you as Michael glowers at him. "Total, perfect copy of the personality, so no one can spot the difference when he goes out."

"Uh huh." You wipe your hot face with your shirt. "You said— He said something about going to school?"

"That's right. We've been taking turns putting our masks—we each have one—putting them on the golem and sending it to school to cover for us. No one's caught on— What?"

You'd jumped back. "You mean Keith has—?"

"Sure. I don't remember which days they were, but I think we've sent each of our betas in at least twice. But I don't guess you noticed. You okay?"

Now you've fallen back onto the weight bench. You breathe deeply. At least one day in the last week or two, you'd been hanging out with a fake Keith. A robot Keith. A magical copy of Keith. "That's ... pretty freaky," you gasp when you recover your breath.

"But fun. There's even been some days when—" He kneels to peer into your face, a look of concern on his. "Um, you understand some of the things you can do with these things, right? Like, I told you that people can put on the masks? So, you're not going to pass out, are you, when I say that we sometimes—?" He shrugs. "We've put on each other's masks, and gone to school as each other."

You get another bunch of goose bumps, but at least you don't feel faint. "Any of you gone to school, um, as Keith?"

"Michael did, once. I don't remember what day. We've all done some switching around, for fun. We were, uh, hoping you'd want to have fun too." He raises his eyebrows.

And that does almost cause you to swoon. They're inviting you to ... switch places with them?

You're really not sure what this invitation entails, and Carlos doesn't say any more about it, not for a solid minute, during which time he continues to peer into your face. He must have been waiting for you to say something, because after awhile he says, "You look like you've got about a million questions."

"Well, I don't know what to ask! I mean, this is—" You rub your arm. "It's a pretty fucking big deal!"

"I know. We want to share it with you, and we've got some plans for having more fun. New fun. But if you don't want to, if this is too weird, just say so. Oh, and promise not to tell anyone about this."

Next: "Carlos Explains It All" 

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