The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Replacements Three

Previously: "The Popular" 

You had texted ahead on leaving Starbucks, to say you were on your way, so you're not surprised that someone's waiting when you open the door to the climate-controlled unit. His face—narrow and sun-darkened, with angled cheekbones and flashing eyes under coffee-colored hair—isn't new to you, but you can't put a name to it.

"Ay, Prescott!" he exclaims, and a white grin, sharp as a scimitar, slashes across his face. "Me alegra de verte otra vez!"

Before you can say "Huh?" he grabs you by the collar and smashes something into your face.

* * * * *

Voices are sounding the next you know something, but you can't make out the words, even after you sit up onto your elbow with a wince. You look around. You're in the hallway of the climate unit—blue metal doors running down both sides of the corridor—and are sprawling on a hand cart. Dumped on it, like a bag of loose junk, would probably be a better way of putting it. It wobbles as you grab the handle and pull yourself up into a sitting position.

Two of the nearby doors are open, and it's out of one of these that the voices are coming. One voice is harsh and raucous, rising above the others, and it sounds like the asshole who socked you in the face. You stagger to your feet.

It's Carlos's studio that the voices are coming from, and there's three girls perched on the big desk, facing a guy—yeah, it's that asshole—who is lounging behind it with his hands clasped behind his head. He breaks out in that same biting grin when he sees you. "Ay, back with us, man. How was your nap?"

You glower back at him, and at the girls as they turn toward you. Cindy smiles at you; Maria only gives you a quick look up and down.

But Kendra Saunders squeals and hops over at you. You freeze all over as she takes your face between her hands and grins at you. "You are so adorable, Will!" she gushes. "I don't think I've ever told you that!"

"Your girl's in the next room," Maria says, "waiting for you to take your clothes off."

"What?"

Cindy takes your arm. "Come on," she says, "I'll show you. These guys are being a lot of jerks."

"'F'you need help getting into your new bra and panties," the guy jeers as Cindy leads you out, "just lemme know!"

"What the fuck is going on?" you mutter at Cindy. "Uh, Keith?"

"Yeah, it's me," she says. "And say hi to the new you," she adds as she pulls you into Carlos's workout room.

You jerk to a stop. Huddled behind the workout bench, with his knees up under his chin, is the most miserable-looking teenage boy you've ever seen. His mouth and eyes are twisted into a frightened grimace as he peers up at you, and his face pales under its fading, summertime tan. "Oh God," he croaks.

"Jesus," you whisper when you find your own voice. The sight fills you with horror—it's you, your own very self, seemingly torn whole from your own flesh and dropped naked onto the cold concrete floor.

"Yeah, it's kind of freaky the first time you see your own beta," Cindy says. She squeezes your arm. "Come on, get out of your things so you can send it home."

Home. That's right, you need to send this thing home. Back to your house, back to your family, so it can take your place, so it can be you.

And you've got to hurry, because you—because it—has a curfew.

"How did you make the thing?" you mutter as you peel back your suspenders and kick off your shoes.

"With a mask, Will. We explained all that to you, remember?'

"I mean—" You grimace back at the thing as you unbutton your pants. "I mean, when did you make a mask of me?"

"Just now. When you got here. What's the matter with you, Will? Don't you remember?"

"I don't remember anything! Except that guy— Who is that?"

"Back in studio? That's Carlos. Well, Marcos, that's what you have to call him now. You remember Marcos, we had him—"

"Stop telling me what I remember, man." You yank off the last of your things with a hard shiver and toss them at your doppelganger; it grabs them from the middle of the air with clawed hands. "I walked in the door and that guy just said hey, howdy, and socked me in the face with something."

"Guess he was in a hurry. Anyway, yeah, we made a mask of you and put it onto Andrea." She grips your arm. "That's a good choice, by the way," she says. "I most definitely approve."

Your eye flicks back over to your double, who is trying to get dressed while still squatting behind the workout bench. That's not me, you marvel. That's Andrea Varnsworth, and they've used magic to turn her into me.

Poor girl.

But then you shiver with anticipation: And in a few minutes I'm going to be her!

But Cindy is still talking. "And we made a couple more substitutions tonight. Philip called Kendra out, 'cos Kendra and Maria are friends—supposedly—and he also got Marcos to come out, said they were all gonna watch a movie together, but, you know. I came out too, 'cos Kendra's a bitch and I wanted to see her get it. And we managed to get Andrea out too, though that was a lot harder, apparently."

"Huh. So that's Carlos and Philip back in there? Kendra and Marcos are their new whatyacallems?"

"Betas. And it's Carlos and Mike back there, not— Philip hasn't got his new beta yet. Josiah hasn't got his either."

Right. Josiah. You're always forgetting about Josiah because he's never around. "So if I'm s'posed to be Andrea, where's—?"

But Cindy says, "Psht, be right back," and hops from the room.

You glance over as your beta stands up. He looks a lot better when dressed. Come to think of it, he looks a lot better than he should, especially after he's settled that battered leather hat on his head. Yeah, the clothes make a difference. Rugged jeans, a rugged shirt, suspenders and hiking boots and an outdoorsy hat ... It's an actual style and it suits the thing's frame.

"Hey," you tell it.

"Hey yourself," it retorts, and you feel yourself curdling a little under its glare. "They tell me I'm supposed to do whatever you tell me to do."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah." It flinches. "Fuck. And I can tell that they're right." It hunches defensively.

For a moment you're tempted to tell it to punch itself in the balls, or to do some other stupidly painful thing, to prove that it really is your obedient robo-replacement. But Cindy returns first.

"Here." She thrusts a small pile of clothing at you; a mask balances atop. She jerks her chin at your beta. "You want him staying to watch?"

"What? Oh, fuck no! You can take off now," you tell your beta.

He leaps past you and is out the door before you think to yell after: "Hey!" His face appears in the doorway, eyes glittering feverishly in a pale face. "You know what to do?"

"Do what?"

Cindy pokes you. "He knows everything you knew, Will, right to the minute you got here."

"Is that right?" You nod at the thing. "Where you going now?"

"Home, right?" he says. "Dad'll be steamed if I don't—"

"Yeah, okay, take off now. I'll see you tomorrow I guess."

Your beta gets a shifty look, then disappears. Only then, too late, do you realize: It's thinking about seeing me at school tomorrow, when I'm Andrea.

Cindy pokes you again. "I don't know if Andrea has a curfew. But Mike and Carlos are dying to have Andrea back."

Your heart bobbles between your gut and your throat, like a yo-yo.

* * * * *

It was chilly when you lay back on the workout bench and dropped Andrea's mask onto your face, and it's chilly when you wake. For a long moment you stare at the ceiling, thinking, Where am I?

Then you remember the storage unit, and the workout bench, and the mask, and Carlos and Marcos and Kendra and Cindy and Keith and Maria and ...

You close your eyes and cover your face with your hands. The planes of your cheek feel both familiar and unfamiliar. Andrea? you call into the hollows of your mind. Are you there?

In answer come images: a dowdy little white frame house; a small living room with bare plaster walls and a bare wooden floor; the lined but merry face of your mother and the faces of friends; the crisp and invigorating chill of water over your limbs and the warmth of sunlight on your arms and legs; the dusty, leafy smell of the backyard garden and the thump of techno music from inside the house—

And the phone call from Cindy Vredenburg, badgering you to come out and join her and some of the other cheerleaders who are watching a movie, and how it turned out to be inside a storage unit of all places. You didn't want to stay and was about to make some excuse for why you had to leave, when a cell phone chirped and then Marcos Rivera—who had been leering at you—leaned over and pressed something onto your face—

It should all be quite alarming, but you let these memories flutter around you like the buttery leaves dropping from a tree.

But then you cup your breasts—firm but yielding—in your hands, and a warm flush flows through you.

Next: "Alone in the Dark with You and Andrea" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"