There don't seem to be any good answers to Taylor's question. Meet the clone here at the basement, or at his house? The basement is home turf to you, but you're afraid of bringing the clone and the magician together in one spot—one misstep, and you could be enslaved by their magic! But to meet the clone at the villa is also fraught with danger, for it would would have the home field advantage, and quick resort to any nasty gadgets or traps the professor has on hand there.
No good decisions, but you settle on the latter, hoping that fortune will continue to favor you. There is only one thing to settle first.
"Um, Taylor?" you say. "Are you willing to be my dad for awhile?"
"What?" Taylor, who has been waiting for you to speak, jumps at the question.
"Well, the clone’s gonna be expecting my dad when we meet it out at the house. So, one of us needs to put his mask on. I think it should be you."
"How come? I mean", he hastens to add, "I'm willing to help out and everything, but—"
"My dad can't go missing", you blurt out. "He has to go home when all this is over." You feel yourself paling. "We can't put his mask on one of those things that the professor made."
Taylor looks very grave, but he nods.
"Okay, I get it, Will", he says. "If we don't figure out any other way of handling it, I guess Scott Bickelmeir can disappear for awhile. I'll go change now." He turns toward the basement door.
You pace the grounds outside, waiting, and alternately hoping for and dreading the reappearance of Taylor in the form of your "father." When the tension is unbearable, you burst into the basement to see what the hold up is.
You nearly swallow your tongue.
Your father is standing there, looming with a very haggard expression over the professor. And as your dad is dressed, Blackwell is now naked, save for the too-tight boxers that pinch him tightly under his gut.
Despite this, the professor looks up at you with a very smug expression.
"A game attempt, William, at getting your father back without my help," he sneers. "But as your 'father' and I were just discussing— Oh... but perhaps, Harris", he gloats, "you should tell your son."
"T-Taylor?", you stammer.
He turns wide eyes up at you. "It's this mask, Will", your father says in a soft, horrified voice. "It doesn't work."
"Yes it does. You—" You gulp. "You look just like him!"
"But I can't think like him. I can't fool your family, Will! Because... I don't remember anything that he remembers..."
--
But that's a worry for later. And maybe, you decide, there will be an answer to it in the mask that Blackwell's clone is wearing.
You park in front of the villa gate, and a minute later Taylor, in your dad's SUV, pulls up behind. You had dropped him off at Salopek to collect it, and the supplies that the professor had tried smuggling out, so as to better complete the deception to come.
Silently you greet each other, and silently you walk side by side up the parched walk to the portico. Taylor is carrying the supplies, and he shifts it in his arms in order to knock at the front door. You blink stupidly, then with a grimace push the door open. After all, if it's supposed to be the professor, in disguise, returning home, why would he knock?
Professor Blackwell is just stepping into the foyer as you enter, and for one terrible moment you believe that he must have escaped and beaten you back home. But this professor only peers at you unhappily. "Yes?" he says. Then he adds a startled, "Hnh!"
You don't like the exclamation, but it's Taylor who replies. "I made it back", he says. "A little late, but here I am." As the professor is staring at you, he adds, "I got Will to help me carry the stuff out."
The professor's eyes glitter as they flick between you and your father. "There was a change in plans?"
"No, just a delay."
The professor's head falls a little to one side as he studies you with a hard, hungry expression. No one speaks. The contents of the box slide and clink as your dad shifts the weight from one arm to the other.
"You'll want to take that upstairs", the professor tells your dad, though he continues to watch you closely. "You know where?"
"Of course." Your dad hesitates, then steps forward. "Come on, son."
But the last thing you want is to let the professor's clone out of your sight. "I think we should just put it down here", you announce. "In the library."
The professor's eyebrows rise fractionally. "The lad knows his own mind", he murmurs. He shoots your dad a sharp glance. "Can we speak frankly in front of him?"
"Of course."
The professor's eyebrows rise further. "Of course?", he echoes skeptically.
"I mean, yes."
"Ah!" The professor's expression lights up. "I begin to understand! Well!" He beams at you—a look that makes your flesh crawl—then seizes you by the chin. You're too shocked to pull away. "I know we were entertaining the idea", he says as he gloats over you, "but I didn't know we had settled on it. Was the decision precipitate? Was that the reason for the delay?"
"Yes", your dad says after a fractional hesitation.
"And just like that he's troublesome no more." The professor releases you. "Does he know anything?", he asks your dad, "about the missing girl, and the other missing things?"
"Yes."
"And now", the professor says, cocking his eye upon you again, "he has told all and will be returning all?"
"Yes", your father says for the third time, still sounding uncertain. You feel yourself starting to sweat. There's a nasty subtext to whatever the professor is saying, but you can't follow it. And you feel Taylor in imminent danger of blowing the impersonation, because he clearly isn't following it either.
Then, of a sudden, your dad relaxes.
"Yes," he says in a much more commanding tone. "He tried to warn me about you, told me he rescued a girl from your villa. Naturally, I couldn't let him run around free after that." He settles a hand on your shoulder. "So now you've got an assistant. I mean, I've got another assistant." He turns a smug smile upon the professor.
But if he expected the professor to look impressed, he is disappointed. Instead, the clone's eyebrows have lifted so high they are in danger of leaving his forehead behind entirely.
"Indeed", he says, sounding like he's trying to suppress his mirth. "And which spell did you use, sir?" The honorific is said with an ill-disguised sarcasm. "Come, let's step into the library, and you can tell me all about it."
As he turns, something in you snaps. I can't let him get to the library, you think with a wild fear. Something awful will happen if we let him get there!
So you hurl yourself upon his broad back, knocking him face first into a wall. The professor sputters and wheels. "Get him, Taylor!" you shout. "Get his face off before he puts a— Oof!" You gasp as the professor falls back and slams you into a wall.
But you don't fall off him, gripping tightly close to his neck. Taylor drops the box with a bang and a clatter and leaps forward to grab the professor by the face. The three of you wheel inside the confines of the narrow hallway, but you and Taylor are able to overmaster the clone. You feel him freeze solid in his clothing even as he twists about to throw you off.
"Jesus!", you gasp as you slide off. "Took you long enough. What were you waiting for?"
"What were you waiting for?", Taylor spits back. "I was just trying to bluff him, waiting for you to— to—"
His eyes bulge as he does a double take at the frozen clone. You follow his glance, and do a double take of your own. Your stomach plunges and your hair crawls all over your scalp when you see what is standing there, in the professor's clothes.
It's your father. A petrified version of him.
You feel your lungs collapse, and the hallway slowly fades to black as you realize what truly happened to your father.
--
But you're not out long, if you're even passed out, and you spring upright when you are next aware of your father shaking you awake.
Except it's not your father. It's a fake. Your own father is—
You shudder and retch. But before Taylor can say anything, you're scrambling to your feet and running for the front door. The mask of the professor, which had fallen from your frozen father's face, is in your hand.
Blackwell!, you puff and pant and cuss to yourself. Got to get to the professor. Shim the mask. Beat the truth out of him. Find out what he did!
For there's no point in putting on the mask to learn for yourself, as was your original plan. As the professor himself gloated back at the basement, and as Taylor proved in your father's mask, it will only work for whoever made it. I'll hurt him until he tells me, you promise yourself. And I'll kill him if he doesn't!
The yard outside passes in a blur as you jog for the gate. The sun is bright, and a shaft of golden light stabs you in the eye, causing you to wince as you gallop for your truck. You wrench the gate open and leap outside.
An arm shoots out in front of you, at just the right height to catch you in the throat. It's like running into a sturdy tree branch. Your feet fly forward as your neck snaps back, and then you're falling. You feel your ass hit the stony ground, and then the back of your head hits something hard and sharp.
This time, when the blackness falls, there's no quick return.
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