This choice: Yes it does. You can become anyone else. • Go Back...Chapter #30Becoming Unconnected by: rugal b.   Yeah, you have a mask and a band and you can become someone else. Someone who can get you far, far away from anything involved with Dane, Chen, hardcore drug dealers... all of that. You're actually working yourself up into a paranoid mess just thinking about it. Well, you need to stop that. You can't have yourself jumping at shadows. You just need to stay calm and realize that shadows can't kill you... or can they? You shake the thought out. Still you need to get into a better place and that means getting far away from anything to do with drug dealing as you can. That doesn't mean you're going to catch the first bus out of Saratoga Falls but that does mean you need a new identity and one not obviously connected to you, Dane, Chen or anything. No stoners, nobody who seems like they'd partake even a tiny bit.
But you're stumped and so you plop yourself onto the ground.
"I think I'm just gonna stay here for the night," you grumble. "I can't go back to Dane's, who knows what the fuck I'll find. Maybe the wrong end of a baseball bat or something."
"Your shit's all here, right," Caleb asks and you nod. "Well that's good for now but what are you going to do? You can't stay here forever and become Basement Boy. People are probably going to come looking for Dane if he doesn't show up after a few days."
"I'll think of something, I don't know," you say in a tired manner. "You wanna stay?"
"Hell no, camping out in this shit hole is near the bottom of my list of things to do." he states defiantly. "No, I'm gonna head home and get some sleep myself. In my nice safe home in my nice comfy bed."
"Fuck you," you reply and flip him the bird.
At that point Caleb tosses something to you and it clangs on the floor. You pick it up to see one of the mind bands and look back at Caleb quizzically. "Fair's fair," he replies. "You've been digging around in my head so I'm gonna go spelunking in yours. Just take the band off and we'll be good to go."
You sigh at that. You don't want him, or anyone, in your head but he's right about it being fair. Besides, your nerves are frayed so maybe this'll put you out. With little trepidation, you raise your hands to your face, recite the magic words and pull the mask off feeling a small measure of relief, for once, as the sweet, sweet darkness takes over.
* * * * *
"Yo, dickhead! Wakey wakey!"
You're roused out of your slumber by Caleb's voice. A light has managed to creep into the basement through the slightly open door but nothing too bright which leads you to believe that it's still early, a theory confirmed when your phone tells you it's a little after seven. "You're here early," you say through a yawn as Caleb shoves a bagel and coffee towards you. "Thoughtful too. Did my mom replace you or something," you ask jokingly.
"Fuck off, I didn't want to leave you here by yourself for so long. I'm surprised I didn't find you cowering in a corner," he says with a mix of his usual acerbicness and friendly ribbing.
"So is that all you came by for," you ask.
"Well no, I was just feeling restless I guess," he states while rummaging around. He grabs the book and a pad and pencil you've been keeping down here while going over the spells. "This too, I just want to see what else there is. I took a run through your mind so I know you're looking to get someone else so I figured that there has to be a way in here to show how to combine the bands and mask."
Now nearly fully awake you scarf down the bagel and begin drinking the coffee as the two of you get to work on the book. Nothing new is really needed as most of what it's asking for in materials is stuff you've been using already. You get to mixing it the way the book tells you and once that's done place the bowl that holds the concoction onto the sigil and your finger around three times. A small flash of light emerges from the bowl and lifting it off the page automatically turns. You work to translate the Latin and realize that Caleb's instincts were right. What you've just created is a kind of magic paste that would allow you attach one of the brain bands to the inside of a mask.
The benefits of being able to do that are obvious. Attach it, shove a mask on someone and you've killed two birds with one stone. Put the new mask on and you're that person in body and mind. You wouldn't even need to be a particularly good actor either. The upshot is this makes getting a new identity much easier. Unfortunately for whoever you switch with you don't have Dane's brain but you figure that'll be their problem, not yours, and that they'll learn--as you did---the need to shape up and how to do it.
Excitedly you get to work on a new mask; the process of which is becoming second nature at this point. You're thankful that Caleb had the idea to use a car buffer because it makes the job go by so much faster, no longer having to wipe it with a cloth for a day or two to get results.
By the time you finish it's mid-morning, maybe a little after nine-thirty, and you've now got a mask waiting to be used in your acquisition of a new home. You then gather up Dane's mask and clothing as well and shove it all into a discarded bag that was used when purchasing supplies.
"So, you want to go house hunting with me," you ask.
Caleb just shakes his head. "Can't, I've got some stuff mom wants me to do around the house first," he says. "If you want we can go looking this afternoon."
"I dunno, maybe," you shrug. "But I don't want this death sentence hanging over me so I think I'm going to start my search early."
The two of you agree to go your separate ways for now, but not before Caleb forces you to keep him up to date on where you are.
* * * * *
Westside is not really on your way any place, but you wind up driving it past it as you wander around town trying to figure out what to do. You notice some activity on one of the practice fields, so you pull into the parking lot to see what's up.
It's the girl's soccer team, and you get out for a better look. You don't see the coach around but you've heard through the grapevine that Anita Nuevo, the team captain, likes to run an unofficial practice on weekend mornings when nobody is at school. Coach Puente, you guess, must trust her enough to give her a key and you can probably see why: you've never heard of Anita getting into any trouble or being involved with any of the social hierarchy drama. She seems to, you'd guess, focus on her studies and her team over any of the petty shit. Well that's good, having a good head on her shoulders isn't bad.
You think she'd make a good home but the problem is how do you get her? You never really had an interaction with her before and no way would you be able to get her alone.
As you chew over the problem, you are briefly distracted by a shout from the nearby bleachers. A couple of guys—sophomores, probably—in shorts and muscle shirts are lounging there, watching the soccer practice. "Way to go, Evie!" one of them shouts in a jeering tone.
You look back at the field. One girl, a well-built blonde you've seen around but whose name you don't know, is berating another, much smaller girl who is hanging her head and staring at the ground. There's a gathering of other team members around the commotion and Anita steps in to break it up. She puts an arm around the second girl, says something to her, and the second girl heads to the sideline while Anita begins admonishing the first.
This second girl though holds your interest as she gathers her stuff and leaves the field, heading in the direction of the locker room. You don't know who this girl is, you've never seen her before and couldn't pick her out of a crowd.
She's perfect.
Creepy as it may be you follow her as quietly as possible until she gets to the gym on her way to the locker room. You watch through the door and once you see her enter the locker room you grab the blank mask out of the bag, enter the gym and take a position by the locker room. Within a few minutes she's exiting and barely has time to take notice of you before the mask is shoved on her face; you make sure to catch her as she goes limp.
You take note that she's tiny: maybe a hair above five foot even if that. Her face is heart-shaped and wavy dark brown hair, pushed back by a cloth hair band, stops at the middle of her neckline. She's small-chested though not flat and slightly on the skinny side. Undressing her, since you'll be needing her clothes, you see a girl that is just starting to develop some vague muscle toning though nothing noticeable unless you're actively looking. Once the mask comes, you grab Dane's and shove it onto her as well as toss Dane's clothes, in a pile, on her as she transforms. Not wanting to see that you gather up her clothes and purse and dash out of the gym and into one of the nearby bathrooms. Inside you hold the girl's mask up and see a name.
Evelyn Sonia Cummings
Going into a stall you strip out of your own clothes and put the mask to your face.  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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