It all sounds screwy. Terribly screwy. You can't help thinking there must be some twist, some hidden agenda you're not seeing. Maybe the masks don't age. Maybe it's just a lie to make you think he's on the level when the colonel promises that they won't be replacing everyone.
But if the masks do age, then it does make a weird kind of sense.
You glance at the people in the next room, and flinch. You don't want to be tempted by that.
And suddenly you feel very tired. All that tensed strength you'd drawn off Frank has left you wrung out, exhausted. You just want all this to be over.
Or maybe you want time to think. There will be time, later, to refuse their offer, and force them to put you onto the book and--
But you really don't want that ending either. The human ape's instinct for self-preservation is reasserting itself.
With legs trembling, you stumble over to the table and slouch into the chair. "Sure," you tonelessly mumble. "I'll do it. Whatever."
The colonel says nothing for awhile. Then he gently lays a hand on your shoulder. "It'll be alright, Will. You'll see. It's not like you have to start tonight." As if reading your mind, he adds, "You probably want to sleep on it, and think it over. You have plenty of time to decide."
You just bury your face in your arms.
He gives you another reassuring pat. "Maybe you'll feel better if you talk to someone else."
"I don't want to see my--" You can't call it--that thing that's waiting out there--your "father."
"No. You'll like this other one."
You keep your face down as the colonel exits. Who is he going to send in? Caleb? Keith? Gordon? Some converted priest? You shudder. You hope it won't be Frank or Joe or James; you'd probably start screaming if you saw that they had been captured and turned into golems.
So your eyes twist up as the door opens again. A lanky figure enters and shuts it behind him. He cocks his head.
You groan. You should have seen it coming.
"How you feelin', dude?" Will Prescott asks you.
You put your face down. You can't even shrug at him, let alone reply.
Your double comes over and crouches next to you. Like the colonel, he rests a hand on your shoulder. "Hey, come on, you can talk to me. We don't have any secrets from each other."
You turn your head to look at him. The ridiculous hair, the bristles on the lip and chin, the eyes that twist up to peer furtively at the world. For all that, he looks calmer and happier than you feel. Of course. He's one of them, and totally comfortable in the world they're making. The world you've practically promised you'll help them make.
"I was holding my breath while you were talking to the colonel," he says. "I was really hoping you'd make the right call. Frank and Joe and them can be kind of fun, I guess. But they're not gonna win. And it'll be a lot nicer being with us. Being with me."
You find your voice: "What do you mean? Are you going out there to be me?"
"Yeah. I could tell you don't want to go home. It would be weird. I don't care what Colonel Broomstick-up-the-Butt says, it'd be weird. So I'll stick it out for you. You can be--" His laugh comes out as a hiss. "Oh, fuck me, Will, you're gonna have the fun side. Scoot over."
You would like to put a little distance between you and this imposter, so you slide over on the chair. But that just means he sits down next to you. You're both skinny, and it's a decent-sized chair, but it's still awkward, each of you balanced on a single buttock on it. He puts his arm around your shoulder and leans in close.
"So who are you going to be? At first, I mean. You can have anybody at Westside. Anybody! Well, except the wrestling team, because Rick--" He whistles. "That was hardcore."
"How do you know about that?"
"Come on, man, we got the same-- Oh! You think I'm wearing that really old mask. No, this is a fresh one. They put it on you at Blackwell's. So, I remember everything you do, right up until the SWAT team busted in."
Your eyes widen.
He smiles, and grips your shoulder more tightly. "Yeah, you made the right call. We know all about what Frank and them were planning. That was pretty hardcore on your part too, volunteering for a suicide mission. I can't even believe it myself, and I remember volunteering." His gaze goes distant for a moment. "So, yeah," he continues. "You made the right call. We weren't going to give you a chance, you know, to do it."
You take a deep breath. You're not sure if you feel disappointment or relief.
"Hey, forget about it," your doppelganger says, and gives you an encouraging squeeze. "You chose right. And this is when the fun stuff starts. Because--" He bites on his smile.
"Yeah?"
"Because I'm in charge of things now!"
His voice is hardly more than a whisper, but you can hear the shout of exaltation in it.
"Yeah," he continues, and his eyes dance. "You guys, Rick, were all right about it being, like, layers and pyramids. And there's one guy at the very top. The one who orders all the other ones around, the one who sends that book around. He's totally secret, too. None of the other guys, the other golems, know who it is. Security measure, you know. It's run out of a single, anonymous email account. Whoever controls that email account controls the whole thing. And you know who that someone is?"
There's now a mad light in his eyes. You can't believe it could be--
"Me! Can you believe it? Maybe it's kind of obvious when you think about it. Like, poetic justice, since I was the one who found that book in Arnholm's. Well, you did. But they're also giving it to me because I'd be the last person you'd suspect." He grunts. "Maybe it's a little bit of an insult, being 'the last person you'd suspect', but I won't spit at it. Yeah, I'm charge of the whole operation, get to tell everyone what to do."
You stare at him. A faint hope stirs inside you. Your hand feels numb as you slowly shift it, and stretch toward his face.
But he pulls back. "You don't want to do that, dude. They're watching, but it wouldn't do you any good, either. Like I said, we know everything those guys said about the masks. What Nash said about that other spell, about putting a couple of hundred pounds of dirt inside a mask? It works. We did that to this mask, as a security measure. If anyone, if even you, put it on, you won't get inside it. I'll just come back. Sitting on you, but you'll be asleep, and it'll still be me running things.
"But that's okay," he continues. "Because we'll be partners. I'll see to that."
"What about the colonel?"
"Oh, they're getting rid of him. He was running things, but he gave me the email address and the password. I've already gone in and changed it. And they're getting rid of the colonel. He's the only one that knows that I'm in charge, but that won't be for long. It's probably over by now. They're going to take his mask off and run it over with a tank or something, so no one will be able to put it on and figure out that it's me pulling the strings."
You let out a deep sigh and look away. They've got it all covered, don't they? Control of the book is hidden inside a nobody kid, and no one except you and that kid--yourself in another form--know it. And nobody can get inside that nobody kid to get it back. "Where's the book now," you ask, not expecting an answer.
And you don't get one. "That's classified," he grins. "But it's not even in town anymore. Off somewhere else, starting to do its business. Don't worry about it. And if you want to change places with someone who isn't already, you know, one of us, we'll just use that copy you made. You're going to making more copies, right?"
"Yeah," you mutter.
"Excellent. But right now, what do you want to do? You got so many choices you probably don't know. And you can always switch around if you decide you don't like where you landed. I don't care, as long as you keep me posted on where you are."
He waits expectantly. You're rather hoping he'll pick someplace for you. Maybe he senses that, for he gives you another friendly squeeze. "Tell you what, you probably want to start off someplace where you can scope out the possibilities. Kim Walsh is running things for us at Westside. You know how plugged in she is. So she's 'newgordon.' We got other people like that at Eastman, at Keyserling, Schuyler, all over, in fact. But we've got more at Westside than the other places. So how about you step in for Kim, look around, see who's available, or who you'd like who hasn't been changed."
If this is all going to happen anyway, that would probably be the best choice. But you're also feeling totally exhausted, and part of you would just like crawl into bed here, and put off decisions until later.
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