Only a week ago, you'd think you'd gone mad. You're sitting in a hospital bed gazing back at a man who looks just like you. The same dirty blonde hair, crooked smile, furtively amused eyes. The same lanky physique with the little patch of brown hair between soft pectoral muscles.
Steve Patterson folds his arms. "So tell me, Will, how long until we have to get you back to the hotel?"
"Fast as you can," the other Will Prescott says in your voice. "Frank and Joe might even be back by now."
"They're not," Patterson says. "We've been watching, and they're still out taking that walk. When are they going to hit Huntress?"
"Tonight, after it gets dark."
"You gonna go with them?"
"I dunno. Maybe. They say they need me to ID Verity."
"Then we'll lay something out you can ID as Verity Walker." Patterson glances back at you. "How did you get a mask of Lydia Rachels?"
"I found a blank mask in my bag the other night," your double says. "Don't know how it got there. This crazy guy named Hal Swann, a friend or something of Frank and Joe, he kidnapped me, talked me into replacing Lydia so I could spy on you and Jonathan Straussler."
"And how did you manage that?"
"There's a bug in Straussler's office, left over from the days when his dad was running things. Lydia Rachels never disconnected it."
Patterson lets out a low whistle. "Sometimes the old ways are the best, aren't they? Okay, Lydia's mask and clothes are in the next room. Get into them so we can get you back to the hotel before you're missed."
The other Will Prescott gives you a flicker of a smile, then he and the technician exit. Patterson puts his hands in his pockets, and regards you thoughtfully with a tilted head. He crosses over to the far wall, takes a robe off a hook, and tosses it to you. "If that'll make you feel more comfortable," he says.
"First rule of supervilliany," you say as you slowly draw it on. "Never share your plans."
"I don't. Not unless it's part of the plan. What I showed you is insurance in case you get away. The only story you can tell your friends is one that will make it impossible for them to tell the real you from the fake." He lays his hand on the machine the technician had been using. "A perfect duplication, even to the memories and personalities, without a mask to remove. Your double can even wear a mask, and will be wearing one when his friends get back. Yeah, those things are old school. This is the twenty-first century."
A chill runs through you as you try to grasp and see your way around the logic.
But Patterson is still talking. "Come on, we've got some catching up to do. The other Prescott could tell me, but he's on a job. You and me are at loose ends for a little while." He sits on the other bed. "So, what's the story that you've been told? What's this about-- What was his name?"
"Braydon Delp? How can you not know? Haven't you been doing all this stuff to me?"
He shakes his head. "I'd more or less forgotten about you until a few weeks ago. Don't take it personally when I say that. I've been busy." He leans forward. "In a sense, we're on the same side, Prescott. I'm trying to help you."
"By kidnapping me? Replacing me?"
"By keeping you out of harm's way. Someone is very interested in you, and since I'm very interested in that someone, I'm interested in you."
You blink at the corkscrew--and unbelievable--assertion. "Who's that someone? Frank and Joe?"
Patterson stares at you intently for a bit, and from the way he's hesitating, you can tell he's not quite sure what to say. "The someone I'm interested in," he says at last, "is no one you'd have heard of. You'd prefer not to hear of them, either. But since they're interested in you for reasons I can't fathom--" He drums his fingers. "By replacing you with one of my agents, I can get close to their organization to see why they are interested in you. And also, as I told you, I can keep you safe."
"For how long?"
"I wish I knew. Not long, I hope. And when it's done I'll let you go. You and your brother."
"And Verity?"
"I'm afraid I can't give any guarantees there. But you and your brother will go. You'll get flensed so you don't remember anything. We'll even keep you at Proteus, with that same contract. Compensation for your troubles, though you won't remember why you need compensation or that you even need it. So come on. Tell me what you think is going on. The more you tell me, and the more truthful you are, the better I can help you."
You feel utterly baffled, lost in a maze of mirrors. But Patterson's puzzlement seems genuine. And if he hasn't been the evil genius plotting against you, if you're just a pawn in someone else's game--
You sigh. "Okay, so my senior year in high school, at the start of the year? I came down with amnesia. You said you know about that." Your tone turns accusing. "You said that you--"
"I said that we did it," Patterson says. "'We' is Huntress, and I wasn't working for Huntress then."
"So when did--?"
"You tell me your story," he says gently. "And I'll clarify where I need to."
Pawns know nothing and never do, you think bitterly to yourself. "So I came down with amnesia," you say. "I'm told that one of our classmates, Braydon Delp, found this book of magic, that makes these masks. He used the book on me, made a mask of me, and replaced me, for a little while. I don't really know what he got up to, but it involved those two guys, Frank and Joe." You hesitate, for Patterson's face has been slowly twisting into an expression of deep incredulity. "Delp trapped them somehow while he was disguised as me. Then he let me out and hit me with a car and gave me amnesia to cover up what he'd been doing. And then I just went on with my life," you say with a shrug.
Patterson stares hard, then asks in a faint voice, "And when did you get mixed up in it again?"
"You didn't have anything to do with that?"
"With the amnesia, yes. Huntress did, I mean. But like I said, we didn't pay any attention to you until a few weeks ago."
"Why? What were you--?"
"Just tell me what happened last week," he says, this time more impatiently. "Then I'll see if I can explain."
"Well, Frank and Joe got loose. They found me and almost killed me because they thought I'd done that stuff to them. But--" Your head is a whirl, because so much has happened, and what you thought you knew is falling apart around you. "There was a university professor mixed up in it. Anyway, Frank and Joe got loose, and after they questioned me and did a little more investigating they decided that Braydon Delp was behind it. Even my amnesia."
Patterson cocks an eyebrow. "So what have they been doing about it?"
"Trying to find Delp. But he died a couple of years ago. Or it seemed like he did. But Frank and Joe said they found the real Delp just a few days ago. He'd been wearing a mask of some woman, and she'd died in a fire, and when she died--it was Delp who actually died--it broke the spell. The fire also destroyed the book he'd been using to make masks. I guess that's why the spell broke." You wrap it up with a limp shrug.
And Patterson? He rears back with a look of utter astonishment on his face. And he remains staring at you even when you ask if he can "clarify" anything.
"No, I don't think he can," he finally says, and looks very dazed. "I had no idea that this Delp guy might have been mixed up in it. He wasn't when--" He suddenly catches himself.
"He wasn't when what?" You get a sharp pang in your temple, for your question sounds like part of a cross-talk vaudeville routine.
"This is all extremely mysterious, Will," Patterson says, and rubs his forehead. "I'm trying to unravel it myself."
"Why is everyone so interested in me?" you ask, and hate the way it comes out as a whine.
Patterson's smile is wan but sympathetic. "I wish I knew. If it's any consolation, I'm only interested in you because that someone else I mentioned is interested in you. Once I figure out why they're interested in you, I hope I can tell you."
"Before or after you wipe my memory again?"
He smiles tightly. "Before. It'd be a small kindness. Well," he sighs, and stands up. "This has all been very baffling, but--"
"This someone you're interested in," you blurt before he can go. "Does it have anything to do with a little town called Olympia?"
Patterson pauses and stares over your head for a very long time. "I don't know. I hope not," he adds, and shivers hard. "But come on. You'll want a friendlier face to talk to."
Stiffly, you stand and follow him out. He leads you through some white corridors, and down a couple of flights of steps, and past several security check points. You wind up in an open atrium surrounded by several rooms sealed off by metal bars. He slides a card through a reader next to one, and gently but firmly pushes you inside the cell, closing the door behind you.
There are two bunks, and a door leading into another, smaller room, inside of which you can glimpse a toilet.
You're not alone, though. Verity Walker is slumping on one of the bunks. Like you, she's in a robe, and her eyes are closed.
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