This choice: Try replacing someone in your family • Go Back...Chapter #66A Conspiracy Is Hijacked by: Seuzz   You pull into the deserted parking lot of a supermarket on the edge of town. Your hands tremble as you take out Kim's cell phone. You're frightened and so is she. But together you feel strong enough to do this. Kim Walsh has stood up to Chelsea Cooper before, and she's got a strong sense of right and wrong. You're going to do this.
You send the email to your Dad: given his work, he has his phone set up to ring every time he gets a message, and he checks them often anyway. He can also get out of the house without it looking suspicious. So from the "newgordon" account you email him: "Go to Freylinghausen Park ASAP, meet contact, do exactly as ordered. Others in house MUST NOT know you have left. Secrecy vital. Acknowledge on receipt." Kim has sent plenty of messages like this over the last two days, so it's not a strain.
You smile to yourself after sending it. It's the thrill of being able to order people around from the shadows, though you can guess it's only a fraction of the thrill that "fake Will" is feeling. But you also smile at the choice of rendezvous location. It's where Gordon met his own golem--the one that started all the problems. Besides being convenient, it seems like a fitting place to try turning the tables on the enemy.
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later you pull up behind your dad's car. He doesn't get out, so you go over and slide into the passenger side. "You who I'm supposed to meet?" he asks.
Ycchh, this is creepy. He looks and sounds just like Harris Prescott, gruff and impatient. You reach for his face. "We need to move your mask."
He flinches back. "How come?"
"Did newgordon say you could argue?"
He snorts in the dark, and lets you grasp his brow and cheek. It's like when you were a child and used to grab at his glasses.
The mask comes off, and it's like a punch to the gut. "Oh, Jesus, Dad. I'm so sorry for all this," you whisper to yourself.
Fuck. Kim would have to be a weeper.
For tears suddenly explode out your eyes, and you bawl and sob. "I'm so sorry, Dad. I'm such a-- Such a fuck up! You've always been there to clean up after me, and yell at me, but you've always-- Always--" Your tiny chest heaves, and you gasp and hiccup. You wipe the streaming tears from your face, but more pour out. Great streams of snot gush over your lips. "I'm so sorry!"
You snuffle and blink, and your lips quiver. There's a knocking sound in your head.
No, it's not in your head, it's by your ear, you realize. You turn to look through the window.
Will Prescott is leaning there, staring back at you. "You okay in there, Kim?" he asks with a smirk.
Your heart almost explodes out of your chest.
Another figure appears beside him. "Don't be an asshole, Joe," Franks says as he leans in at the window and smiles. "It's okay, Will. It's all over. You did good. You did perfect."
But you can only stare in horror. They got them too? They got all of them?
Frank seems to read your mind, for he grabs Prescott by the neck and rips at his face. A mask comes away, revealing Joe. His eyes roll back in his head, and he slips to the ground as Frank releases him.
Frank takes a step back. "Come on out, Will. We'll tell you all about it."
* * * * *
It's either the quietest loud party, or the loudest quiet party you've ever been to. You and seven other people are crowded into a cozy bedroom at the Linley Inn, a quaint little bed-and-breakfast near the Sutton Wilderness. Frank is there, and so is Joe (still in the old clothes he'd gotten off your golem); Nash and Rick; James Lamont; Aubrey Blackwell; and a little roly-poly man with patchy white whiskers. Everyone--except for Rick, who has a bottle of expensive Scotch all to himself--has a plastic cup endlessly filled with champagne from what appears to be a single, inexhaustible bottle. The radio plays a jazzy pop song. There's much laughing and joking and teasing. But though the music is soft and the décor brown and the voices quiet, the air seems to hang with tinsel and streamers, and when you glance at the ceiling you keep expecting to see rockets and Roman candles.
Maybe it's all in your head, for you've never felt happier or in a greater mood to celebrate.
"You can thank Nash," Frank says. For the first time since you've met him he seems relaxed. He still looks dark and pale, but there is genuine warmth behind the smile that splits his face. He fishes into the pocket of the shirt you'd been wearing before changing into Kim and pulls out something that looks like a silver burr: it even drags some threads with it. "He made it, and Joe slipped it on you when you weren't looking."
"And you said I'd only get up to no good with those pickpocket lessons," Joe chortles.
"Tank t'Perfesser," Nash calls over. "It's his design."
You glance at Blackwell. The warlock is the quietest of the bunch, sitting in a corner and looking ill at ease with his hands folded in his lap. But the little "Santa" man is next to him, talking quietly but cheerfully, and as you watch you see a small smile come to Blackwell's face, and his eyes relax and gleam.
"Yeah, it's a snooper-tracker," Frank continues. From his own pocket he pulls a candle. "We put it on you. Then, if one of us holds this candle and concentrates--" He demonstrates. "We could see you and listen in on where you were. That's how we hoped to get in touch with you after-- Well-- Thank goodness it didn't come to that."
The party in your head fades a little. He sounds sincerely happy that you didn't get turned into a golem. But what do they really think about the way you betrayed your mission?
"So," Joe continues, taking up the story as he claps you on the shoulder. "We were watching and listening while Colonel Lord was talking to you, and when that evil version of you came in. After he left you, we got over to Caleb and Keith's houses lickety-split--and I can book it when I have to--and got ourselves under their masks. Went over to goof on evil Will for a bit, and got another of these puppies planted on him. Left for a few minutes, until he'd logged into that goddamned email account, then rushed back over, cornered him upstairs, and got the mask off him."
"But you're not supposed to be able to wear it," you object.
"And we can't," Frank says. "But we didn't have to. We'd spied the password out of him with that bug, which gave us control of the account. And we had that old mask of you on hand. Rock-paper-scissors--which my brother, fuck him, always wins--" He glares at Joe, who grins back. "So Joe put it on and got into the golem's clothes. Meanwhile, I sent out an order to return the Libra to town, to this address, in fact. It should be here in a few hours, because it's in military hands and I told them to haul ass. Then we sent a message out to Fort Suffolk, ordering you here."
"That message was from you?" you exclaim.
"Yep. But then we saw you text your dad. We weren't sure what you were up to, but we shadowed him out of the house, and that's where we caught up to you. What were you doing, anyway?"
"I was going to switch with him. I wanted to hide close to my doppelganger, snoop close in case he left that email account open."
"Nice!" Joe exclaims, and high-fives you. "I'd say this counts as Will's first real field-work experience! And just about the biggest success we've had in years!"
And though you smile back and raise your own cup in a six-way toast, a cloud still hangs in your head. It all worked out, but only because you collapsed in front of the golems' unexpected offer. And the whole thing, in a way, is your fault. If you hadn't found that stupid book--
But you do your best to celebrate with them, and it isn't hard. The hours stretch well into the morning, but no one is in a mood for it to end; when people do start drifting out, you've the impression they're just taking the party to other rooms.
But at around three you look around and notice that you're alone with the one man you don't know. He's sitting by the open French doors leading onto a balcony. With a soft smile he beckons you over. "I didn't want to interrupt the others," he says as he takes your hand. "I'm so happy to meet you finally, Will. My name is Charles Brennan. I'm Frank and Joe's father."
"I'm pleased to meet you, sir." You surprise yourself with the honorific, but it feels very natural on your tongue, at least when speaking to this man. You sit next to him. "You're the head of the-- um--"
"The Stellae Errantes," he says. "We'd like you to join. And you more or less have."
And it suddenly comes out. "I don't think so, sir," you blurt. "You don't want me. I fucked up. I betrayed you, sir."
"Why do you say that?"
"I was supposed to sacrifice myself. I didn't. I agreed to work with them."
He smiles gently. "Son, you were tired and frightened and confused. That's all. You rallied at the end."
You'd like to feel as confident in yourself as he sounds.
"And we weren't going to lose this fight. Not after you volunteered."
"Because of Nash's bug."
"No, because of you. You brought Sulva with you."
"Who's that?"
But the old man just smiles. "Do you want to stay here, son? There's much work to be done still. But you can come with me. Rest for a little while. I'd like that."  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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