Chapter #70Doubling Your Fun by: imaj   “I still can’t believe how keen she was.”
You take a moment to think over Joe’s statement, mostly because you are still focused on the game on the television in front of you. It doesn’t last long though, as he handily beats you again without even trying seconds later.
It’s been an hour since Chelsea – the modified golem that you turned her into – left the Straussler house. Another two before that since reconnected her imago, and in those two hours – after she’d persuaded Jon’s Mom that all that screaming was an accident – she talked. A lot. Chelsea had talked about many things, about herself, about the Strausslers, but mostly about the people and cliques at Westside High.
“I told her that she was going to like helping us,” you reply. That command you gave the golem must surely account for her enthusiasm.
“No it was more than that,” insists Joe. “It’s all the planning and plotting against people. She loves it. She has to.”
“I could find out,” you grin. You haven’t used the remote control sigil to enter the golem’s body and take it over yet, but you’d welcome the excuse to do so.
Joe laughs loudly at that. “And maybe play with her while you were there? She must be in bed by now,” he adds in a low voice. “All alone under the covers with no one to interrupt you.” There is a long pause before he laughs again. “You should do. You’re gonna do it sooner or later anyway. Let me know what the goods are like,” he grins, gesturing expansively with his hands.
Nobody says anything for a minute. The only sound is the game as Joe easily beats you again.
“What made you go with the golem,” he eventually asks. “I thought you were all set to put some of our essentia into her? She’d have been perfect for it.”
It takes you a minute to answer. “I wanted it myself,” you say in a quiet voice.
“Hah, yeah, good one,” laughs Joe. His laughter dies off abruptly. “Shit. You’re serious aren’t you? Is that even possible, swapping ousiarchs?” He pauses to consider. “It must be, mustn’t it? You could take yourself apart in the ballroom and put yourself back together different.” He looks at you thoughtfully. “But then you wouldn’t be a Kenandandra. Wouldn’t be able to work all this out so easily.”
“Who’s to say I couldn’t be,” you protest. “Sulva, Kenandadnra, Glundandra and Eldibria.”
Joe laughs again. “Now you’re joking. Can’t be done. Rick said…” He tails off.
“It isn’t that simple is it,” you say, your own mind kicking into gear. It’s a puzzle to be solved, you are sure. If only you found the right angle to look at it from.
“You’re crazy,” mutters Joe under his breath. He throws his controller down and storms out the room.
*****
It was only a moment of idle speculation, but the idea of having four ousiarchs continues to tempt you the following day. You spend a couple of fruitless ideas toying with how to make it work in the makeshift library you have set up in the ballroom. It’s useless though, so you turn your attention to other things – using the dissection table to switch imago around. That is certainly possible given how you were able to pull apart Chelsea yesterday and you have a solution sketched out by dinner time. In the evening, Joe returns to help you with your meditation. You know that your ousiarchs are Sulva and Kenandandra, but there is a long way to go before you can start unlocking any tricks with them. Prodigies, as Joe insists on referring to them as.
Kenandandra flickers out of view from your minds eye and you turn your attention back on the material world again. “I’m sorry about last night,” you tell Joe. “Having four ousiarchs, it was a dumb thing to say. You were right. I just can’t work it out.”
“About that,” says Joe. “I remembered something. From back when I was just Joe. Uh… You know what I mean.” He fishes out an envelope from his pocket and hands it to you. The seal has been ripped open and a thick sheaf of papers protrudes from it. On the face of the envelope is a complicated looking sigil. “The sigil is a conjunction of Arbol, Perelandra, Lurga and Catilindria,” explains Joe. “I had this for months. Kali Valentine gave it to me before I came to Saratoga Falls, but I never opened it. I remembered it last night and thought it might help. So I went back to our old place and opened it. You’ll want to read it.”
You pull out the papers and look at the title: "Retrograde Motion - Part 1" 
*****
“This is it,” you say, holding a piece of paper. “Where it says ‘Perhaps the shadows are now a net’. That’s the key: I have to prevent the four ousiarchs from connecting with each other.”
“I guess it could work,” shrugs Joe. “How do you keep them apart though?”
A flash of inspiration hits you. “Layers,” you shout. “Like the chameleon mask. On one layer I have Sulva and Kenandandra, on the other Eldibria and Glundandra. Oh, but how to do it. I need paper…”
Midnight has come and gone by the time you are finished writing. New sigils lay out on both your notes and the metal sheets of the dissection table. Complicated spider diagram illustrate your plans and how you will connect the components of yourself together anew. Though you are tired, pure adrenaline keeps you going.
“Think it’ll work,” you ask Joe.
He takes one last brief look at your notes. “Layering the substantia like a mask? In theory, maybe. In practice, I have no idea.”
“Only one way to find out,” you grin, running over to the dissection table. You lay down on it.
“You're ma-“ begins Joe. He does not finish the sentence as you brush your hand across your face and activate the remote sigil.
*****
“Did it work,” you mumble with difficulty.
Light streams into the ballroom. You sit up awkwardly and look around. It’s morning now. Did you pass out last night? At the edge of the dissection table, Joe sits cross legged on the floor.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I mean, I think you did everything you were planning to, but I passed out when you relinquished control of me. I think you passed out afterwards too. I’ve been sitting here for an hour waiting for you to wake up.” He gazes to the side. “The bottles are empty so…"
You examine yourself. Everything seems to be there, so you try meditating. Sulva and Kenandandra swim into view. There is no sign of Glundandra and Eldibria.
Should there be though?
You’ve kept the two pairs separate intentionally, so you turn your attention inwards. There must be something like a switch or a lever that lets you flip between your ousiarchs. It takes several minutes, but you eventually find what your looking for. It is almost like a little latch deep within yourself. You grab hold mentally and pull.
Nothing seems to happen.
You try meditating again. Sulva and Kenandandra do not come. You panic for a few seconds, until you realise that panicking is just making it more difficult to find your ousiarchs. You try some simple concentration exercises that Frank taught you, and two round discs swim into the view of your mind’s eye.
You laugh. You laugh and laugh and laugh.
“What,” shouts Joe anxiously. “What is it?”
You pull the two new planets close, opening your hands and holding them level. Two sigils spring into life, hovering just about the your palms. The look on Joe’s face is priceless: His eyes goggle, his jaw hangs loose and he stares at you dumbfounded. You flick the switch inside you again and the sigils change.
Sulva and Kenandandra.
You flick the switch once more.
Eldibria and Glundandra.
Joe finally regains his senses. “You did it,” he states, somewhat redundantly you feel. There is a short pause. “Now what?”
“New faces,” you grin. “I worked it out yesterday, how to swap imago. It’s better than a mask, because you can’t take it off. Nothing to detect, no way to tell that you aren’t who you seem to be,” the smile spreads across your face as you explain.
It stretches as far as Joe’s face too. He looks back at you, a huge grin plastered across his face. “Fuck yeah. Who are we going to be?”
“I was going to call Chelsea over…” you begin to say.
“You want to be Chelsea,” interrupts Joe.
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