"Is this everyone?" Kim asks as she surveys the relative crowd of people.
It's a little after noon on Saturday and a group is gathered inside the room you've been renting at the Donna Motor Courts. It's a rather large group as well. There's yourself and Kim of course, plus Caleb. In addition Bhodi, Justin, Grant, Andy and Joe are here too. None of that's a surprise, they've been your main conspirators for lack of a better term. No the real surprise comes in the form of three more people: Paulina, Melanie and, to your even larger shock, Evie are all here.
"We're missing two," you tell her. "Lindsay and Mrs. Matthias aren't here."
Kim nods. "Well if they couldn't make it--" she starts.
"Actually, it was by our choice," Caleb cuts her off. "Marianne's sort of being kept separate. You know, adult and all. She doesn't want a bunch of kids telling her what to do."
"Okay," Kim simply states.
"Lindsay would be against it no matter what," Caleb tells her.
"Yeah," Joe adds, "she's already demanding the book so she can get rid of it. She'd just tell us to put everyone back and be done with it."
"No matter how screwed up everything's gotten," you grumble.
"Lindsay won't be a problem," Paulina jumps in to your surprise. "If she asks, we'll just say that Bhodi gave the book to me so I could get rid of it. I wouldn't want it around after what it did to my friend after all."
"So what do we tell her about where I end up? She'll need to know that."
"Does she?" Paulina asks. You don't know her too well but it's a side of her you're surprised to see.
"It'd be a good idea to at least let her know," Kim states. "But after we've already done it. She can't do anything about a fait accompli. We do it," she points to Paulina, "then go with what she said."
"We're keeping the book?" asks Andy.
"You can't just throw a magical tome in front of people and not expect them to want to go through it," Kim declares. "But we'll do it carefully. At least one of us," she motions between yourself, herelf and Caleb, "will need to be present and everyone will have to be at least aware of what's going on. It'd probably be best to set up a group text once we're ready to go through the book."
You're impressed on the one hand but on the other you probably shouldn't be. It's the type of take charge attitude and foresight you'd expect from someone who's gotten to where Kim has managed to get. Would you have been this on the ball if you had put that mask on her and taken up her identity? Maybe, maybe not but it's all moot now and you're definitely glad that you were able to be truthful with her.
"But we're getting ahead of ourselves," she says as she turns her attention back towards you. "First thing's first, we need to get you back in the game. Have you figured out what you want to do?"
Yes, it's that time. You've been dreading it yet you've also been anticipating it. You were thinking about it all last night, you were thinking about it for most of the morning. Only a little bit before everyone started arriving did you finally come to a decision. You know that you can't back out of it this time. Whatever you choose is what you're stuck with but that's for the best anyway. Your old life is gone so there's not really anything to go back to. Best to start a new one.
"Yeah," you nod. "It'll be best if we just create a new identity entirely. A girl."
Everyone's eyes go wide at that.
"I can understand wanting a new identity, but..." Kim says in disbelief.
"I know, but I figure if I want to hang around you without rumors spreading then it's probably the best bet," you tell her. You then look over to where the girls are. "Besides, I want to make it up to Evie too. If I'm a girl I can hang around her without it being awkward."
Evie looks surpised at that and shifts nervously but it's Grant who speaks. "What, like she'd develop a thing for you?" he laughs. "Oh man, I don't think that's happening though. No offense or anything dude but, uh, I just don't see it."
It's Melanie who casts a hard look in his direction. "Well guys are idiots anyway so I think that's a great idea," she says. Grant shrinks back a bit at the force of her words.
"So how's this going to work anyway?" asks Justin. "Not like you can just create a person out of thin air."
It's Caleb, however, who speaks up. "We've kind of been over this already," he says. "As long as you don't seal the mask it'll keep adding faces so the person will be a kind of blend of all of them. Now this is just a guess but it probably uses the first person to put it on as the template."
"What do you mean?" asks Kim.
"Okay, so if we take a blank mask and Will puts it on, then we add a couple of girls to the mask then the result would still be male because Will was the first person to put it on so everything's building on top of that," he explains. "So maybe he'd look really, really effeminate but he'd still be a he. Like I said it's a guess but it's the kind of guess that doesn't seem too farfetched."
"So he just puts the mask on us then," Paulina says as she points at herself, Melanie and Evie.
"Sure, if he wants to be a sophomore," Caleb replies. "Like I said, it's probably using the first person as a base so even if we added a bunch of seniors afterwards the resulting person would probably still look around your guys' age."
"I could put it on first," Kim says, "then we could use them."
"Or we can just put it on some other girls from school," Caleb counters. "I don't think Evie or Melanie are going to want Will borrowing their faces."
"I don't mind," Evie says with a quiet but surprisingly strong amount of determination.
Melanie looks at her, a look on her face of curious contemplation. "Yeah, I don't mind either," she says. "It won't be us really. Besides, he helped us so we should return the favor."
"What about getting me into school?" you ask. "I mean I made my decision but still..."
Caleb looks at Kim and Kim in turn looks at him. Nothing's said for moment before Kim turns back to you. "Caleb and I will figure something out," she says. "In the mean time, what are you going to do for faces?"
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