# chapters

path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121111112
author_id: seuzz
title: The One Who Once Was You
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You get your food to go and race down to Acheson as fast as you can without busting any speed zones. At the elementary school, you throw yourself into the job of carving a new brain band while wolfing down your meal. It's past supper time before you are through, and you are pretty sure that he will be on his way to Chelsea's for that cookout when you text him. But to your surprise, the reply comes quick. <i>B thr n ten,</i> Will Prescott promises you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>If he was really me,</i> you tell yourself as you pace outside the door of the school basement, <i>there's no way he'd come out here. But if he was really me, he couldn't have passed the tryouts to get onto the basketball team.</i><br/>
<br/>
The thought leaves you cold. You are quite certain that you can take anyone of Will Prescott's slender build. But this will be a Prescott powered by Gordon Black's brain. Chances are that Black always got along on muscle and meanness, and that he doesn't really know how to grapple or punch, not the way a scrappy, undersized punk like Gary Chen has had to. But there's always the chance of a surprise. That's why you changed your mind at the last moment, and decided to meet him as Chen instead of under your original face, which might have given you the element of surprise. <br/>
<br/>
The white truck you used to drive appears around the corner, and you vibrate in place as it turns and pulls up beside your Jeep. A kid in a sloppy white hat sits behind the wheel, glaring at you suspiciously for a moment before hopping out. He's dressed in a long-sleeve shirt and pants, and he's shaved. You can't be sure, but it looks like he's had a haircut since the last time you looked at his face in a mirror.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, thanks for coming out," you tell him. <i>Thought you'd be too chickenshit,</i> you want to add, but don't.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, what do you want?" he asks. He shuts the truck door, but keeps his hand on the handle.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Just jump him, man, just jump him. You can talk to him later,</i> you tell yourself. But you instead yield to the temptation to talk to him, to find out what your doppelganger has been up to, and how he's been doing.<br/>
<br/>
"Heard about you trying out for the team, heard you made it. Wanted to say, Congratulations."<br/>
<br/>
He only grunts.<br/>
<br/>
"Heard you're having a party tonight. Out at Chelsea Cooper's. You and the whole team."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. So?"<br/>
<br/>
"So you takin' any refreshments? Any party favors? Anything to, uh—?"<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck do you want?" He flushes.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, I don't want nothin'," you assure him. "Not a fucking thing. Not a fucking dime. Thought maybe <i>you</i> might want somethin', though." From your shirt pocket you extract a joint.<br/>
<br/>
The move is sheer improvisation, and your heart thumps hard inside your rib cage.<br/>
<br/>
His flush deepens. "Fuck you, man," he snorts as he yanks open his truck door.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, man, don't go to the party mad!" You leap for him. "I told you, it's gratis! Free! My little present to you for—"<br/>
<br/>
You lay a hand on his shoulder, and he surprises you by wheeling and socking you in the jaw. The world reels and you taste blood as you fall sideways, but you catch your balance. A hard wave of anger pulses through you, but you master it.<br/>
<br/>
"You'll want it, man, you'll need it," you taunt him. "You'll need something to make you mellow when you see Javits with his arm around your girlfriend."<br/>
<br/>
Okay, that little improvisation shocks you, and you panic when you see that it's caught Prescott's attention too. He freezes in place with his butt hanging halfway out of the truck as he turns a surprised glare at you..<br/>
<br/>
So ... Fuck it. You'll play the card you accidentally dealt.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah!" You grin. "Seein' Javits glomming all over Chelsea, all over <i>your girl.</i> It's gonna be rough, man. You're gonna wanna get mellow. Mellow like that cocksucker you see walkin' around with your face, gettin' fat and high and <i>laid</i> wi'chyer face, man. Wi'chyer face and cock, Black." You grin harder at him. "That's right, man. I know who you are. Know who you <i>used</i> to be, at any rate. So you got yourself back on the squad, huh? Good for fucking you. But that ain't gonna get you back into Chelsea's cunny. And it's gonna eat your fuckin' heart out, Black, goin' to her house and seein' her with him, and knowing that it's <i>his</i> cock up her cunny, same as it's some other mofo who's got your cock now an' is out gettin' laid wit'—"<br/>
<br/>
You can't believe he's let you rattle on this long, but maybe he's just in shock, for all the blood has drained from his face, leaving it as pale as a corpse's. He falls back out of the truck to stare at you with an expression of stark horror. His hands clench. But when he speaks, it's in a small, quavering voice.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you—? How do you know about—?"<br/>
<br/>
All the time you've been talking, you've also been feverishly figuring out how to turn this unexpected turn of the talk to your advantage, and you think you see a way.<br/>
<br/>
You flick a finger at the bed of his/your truck. "Let's make ourselves comfortable back there," you suggest."I'll tell you about it, tell how it was done. I can put you back the way you were, man."<br/>
<br/>
His eyes harden and he shifts from foot to foot as you loft yourself into the truck bed. But, after a long moment, he lofts joins you.<br/>
<br/>
"Sit down," you invite him as you squat on your haunches. "Kick your shoes off. Take your pants off, too. Nah, I'm not lookin' to give you a hand job," you chortle when he blanches. "I'm gonna prove I'm on the level. Gonna turn you back into <i>you,</i> Gordon."<br/>
<br/>
You hold his eye with what you hope is a friendly smile (though Chen is probably congenitally incapable of looking friendly) and wait for him to move. If this works, it will make things a lot easier. You were going to have gamble, otherwise, on jamming a brain band onto him, even though he is wearing a mask, and you have no idea what would happen in that case. But if you can talk him into taking his clothes off—or at least his shoes and pants—so he won't bust them at the seams like the Incredible Hulk, and can get the mask off, then you'll have all the time you need to get the rockbot paste into the mask and get it back onto him.<br/>
<br/>
Yes, you're practically sucking yourself off as you reflect on how smart your intuition was, to tell him that you know who he really is, and to offer him the chance to take his old life (and girlfriend) back.<br/>
<br/>
Then he floors you by saying, "What if I want to stay this way?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You snort to yourself as you drop the wisps of hair—the last of the batch you cut off your own head this morning—into the black and tarry interior of the mask, and put your lighter to it. It flares and burns with a brief, acrid stench, and the interior of the mask turns an ashy white. The name GORDON GERALD BLACK floats over its inner surface. You turn to study the face of said Gordon Black—his real, brutal face, with the thick lips and the Neanderthal brow—then with another snort you smush the mask onto him. Another face replaces it, the thin, rabbity face of Will Prescott. He glares at you warily.<br/>
<br/>
"Your name is William Martin Prescott," you tell him, and put a finger to his face.<br/>
<br/>
"If you say so," he says. His face is very white, and the whites show in his staring eyes. "But it's bullshit. I don't know fuck about—"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't gotta know fuck about Prescott. Nothing to fucking know," you tell him. A small part of you cringes, but more of you gloats. "Anyone catching on that you're not him?" you ask as Will returns you a sullen stare. He shrugs. "You got his face, you got his clothes, you got his truck, you got his classes. You're doin' better'n him, too, you got ont'a the basketball squad. Fuck." You spit over the side of the truck. <br/>
<br/>
"But forget Chelsea," you tell him, "she's not for you. Go find you another girl. If you can score on the basketball court, you can score on—."<br/>
<br/>
You grab him by the chin, and he grabs your wrist, but he drops his hand when you tell him to let go.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you drawl, and again cringe internally. "You're better looking than I think. But you pro'lly already know that."<br/>
<br/>
You give him a few more instructions as he puts his pants and shoes back on, mostly of the "Never admit you remember being Gordon Black" variety, to close off any chance that he'll find someone else to share body-swapping stories with, the way Chen and Dane and Martin Gardinhire did. Then you release him to go to Chelsea's party.<br/>
<br/>
You need to get to work yourself, but you linger long enough for a smoke.<br/>
<br/>
Gordon didn't want to change back to his old life, and truculently insisted on sticking with his new one. He liked it better, he told you, and the more you accused him of lying, the harder he stuck to it. Finally, you talked him into letting you get at his face only by promising that you could give him Prescott's memories, so he could inhabit his new identity more comfortably. He was still wary, and demanded to know who you were. <i>I'm the guy who's gonna fix your life,</i> you told him. <i>Now get those shoes off.</i><br/>
<br/>
But it's food for thought. Forget selling fembots. Are there people in the world who want to be someone else? It didn't occur to you before that there might be.<br/>
<br/>
Like, you could probably sell teenage bodies to old millionaires for all the money they have in the world.<br/>
<br/>
You wonder why you didn't see that angle before.</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211111121
author_id: seuzz
title: The World, Your Cafeteria
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Making fembots. Selling teenage bodies to old rich people. Hell, body-swapping yourself with someone rich, famous, or both, like a movie or music star. <i>Why didn't I get these ideas before?</i> you chide yourself.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Probably,</i> you tell yourself, <i>because I've been so covered up in other shit.</i><br/>
<br/>
Speaking of which, you're going to be late to work if you don't get moving. You suck down the last of your cigarette, and grind it into the grass beneath your toe.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, a lot of those ideas wouldn't have been practical and maybe not even possible before. (So you reflect as you throw the Jeep into the street and jam the accelerator to the floorboard.) You couldn't make fembots before you had rockbots to put the masks on. Sure, you could sell young bodies to old people, but then you'd have to get rid of the young people, and that would have been messy. Steal the life and identity of a celebrity? Same problem—what do you do with the celebrity after you've stolen their stuff?<br/>
<br/>
Yes, there was one obvious answer to those questions—the same answer that shows up in any story about clones, evil robots, and body snatchers—but not even with Chen's personality did you think you had it in you. Even what you did to Chen's grandfather was beyond your limit, and you only hazarded it because you didn't know what would happen.<br/>
<br/>
But with the rockbot-masks, it becomes very simple. Make a mask of them and a mask of yourself. Coat your mask with rockbot-paste. Put their mask on yourself, and your mask on them. You've got their life, they are hidden, and no one will notice that you've gone missing. And no one is really dead. (You think.)<br/>
<br/>
You feel dazzled by the possibilities. Only the fact that there are too many of them stops you from rushing off to put a plan into effect right away.<br/>
<br/>
That and the job you are now late to.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Trantham joins you on your smoke break. "Hey," he says in his quiet, inoffensive way. "You said you were going to bring me some things, some of those memory things, so I could—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh right. I've been busy," you mumble. "Don't get on my dick about it."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not trying to get on your dick. I just want you to know that I'm, uh, ready to do anything with the things when you, uh—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. But it'll be awhile. Hang loose, man." You turn to squint at him. "What's the news at Eastman, about them two ballplayers that moved over to Westside?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh," he says. "Shit."<br/>
<br/>
"Whazzat mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"It means 'Oh shit.' That's what everyone's thinking over there."<br/>
<br/>
"So they're good, huh? It's a real gut punch to the Eastman squad?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. They're popular too, people are gonna miss 'em, even though they only started this year."<br/>
<br/>
"What, are they new to town?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, they're from out west someplace. Got lots of stories about hunting game. Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just wondering. They're making a splash at Westside. So they're popular, huh?" You study the burning tip of your cigarette. "They into parties? Girls? Weed?"<br/>
<br/>
"I've seen 'em at parties. Chris has, I mean. I don't know about the weed, but Joe is really into the girls. Real flirty. More than that." His voice falls into a mumble. "There's stories that he's already managed to sleep with half the cheerleaders."<br/>
<br/>
You sense rather than see him slip you a sidelong glance. "Are you thinking maybe that they or one of them might—"<br/>
<br/>
"I ain't thinkin' nothing, and I don't want you thinkin' nothin' neither." You clench the cigarette between your teeth and inhale the rest of the tobacco in one deep, hissing breath. "I'm just looking for info," you say, and blow a thick stream of smoke into the night air. "Info's more valuable than weed. It's what tells you where the real money's at."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Why do you want to know about the new basketball players? Probably because of what Chen said in the loft this afternoon, right before you tore Chelsea's face off him. There must be something to those guys—to the one he was talking about, anyway—if they got <i>his</i> attention.<br/>
<br/>
Well, maybe. On the drive home, as you fight to keep your drooping eyes open, it occurs to you that maybe he was just turning gay inside Chelsea's mask. You'd have to admit that you've gotten a lot more comfortable surfing the thoughts and emotions inside of Chen's mask.<br/>
<br/>
So you put them out of your mind the next morning as you go on the hunt at school for possible victims. But victims of what?<br/>
<br/>
There's no point speculating on what kind of a body a rich billionaire might like to buy—that's up to individual taste—but you figure that most billionaires are men and would want to stay that way, and that most of them would like to be handsome, fit, and relatively well-off financially. You figure that would put Marc Garner's face on the cover of any catalog of bodies-for-sale you might put together. Come to think of it, you could put his sisters on it too, for Eva and Jessica, in addition to being cute blondes, are cheerleaders, and at least some guys might into that kind of swap, the way Chen himself was.<br/>
<br/>
As for girls to use in a line of fembots, there too you suffer an embarrassment of riches. Almost any girl looks good to you—as long as they are warm, soft, and fuckable—and you figure any combination would look just as good to any other guy, but you will need a good foundation, and that argues for using cheerleaders as the base element in your fembots.<br/>
<br/>
So, really, that leaves "rich assholes to switch places with" as the only category that needs investigation and thought. Off-hand, though, you only know of one student for sure whose parents would qualify as "rich": Kelsey Blankenship, whose family gets its money from its chain of car dealerships up near the mall. That's not exactly billionaire money, but at least Kelsey herself would be an attractive place to live inside, for you've no intention of <i>being</i> either her father or mother. You'd just make rockbots of them and use them as a piggy bank while living as their—<br/>
<br/>
Well, wait, come to think of it, would you even need to live as Kelsey in order to get money out of her parents? You could just make rockbots of them, and arrange for them to deposit a fat wad of money in the bank account of whoever's life you chose for yourself.<br/>
<br/>
Still, even car dealerships might not give you the kind of income you would probably come to crave.<br/>
<br/>
At lunch, then, you squat outside the Music Annex and ask Justin Roth, who shares a smoke with you, about who in the school has money.<br/>
<br/>
"Perry here does," he says, indicating Perry Small, the third of your company.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you," Perry mutters at him.<br/>
<br/>
"You do!" Justin cackles asthmatically.<br/>
<br/>
"How much?" you ask Perry.<br/>
<br/>
"How much what?"<br/>
<br/>
"How much you want I should kick your ass for not answering my question, motherfucker? What's your dad make? Where's he work?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, that's where he works."<br/>
<br/>
You show Perry your teeth but that's all. The cocksucker knows you won't fuck him up in front of Roth, but maybe he'll get the hint that he should give you an answer when you ask him later.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you asking for?" Justin asks you.<br/>
<br/>
"Just wondering who in the school's got money, who comes from money." You take a hit off your cigarette and blow a stream of tobacco smoke upwind from Perry so that it catches him in the face. "Who the fuck I wish was my parents 'cos they got some guap?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck me," Perry sneers. "You sayin' you don't got guap, dealing all that—?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't got what I want, so it's how come I deal. So yeah, fuck you."<br/>
<br/>
"Kelsey," says Roth.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah I know. Kelsey. But I mean some <i>serious</i> scratch. Like, don't we got any billionaires in this town?"<br/>
<br/>
Justin falls on his side, laughing, and there's tears in his eyes when he looks back up at you. But Perry doesn't laugh. "Proteus Technologies," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you. I said, Proteus Technologies."<br/>
<br/>
"Who the fuck's they?" You grind out the butt of your cigarette, and pluck the half-moked cigarette from between Justin's knuckles as he tries to regain control of himself. He gives you a dirty look from under his mop of shaggy brown hair, but doesn't fight you for it. "I'm asking about people, not companies."<br/>
<br/>
"It's a tech company," Perry says. "Some guy owns it, got a stinking big house, way out halfway to Fletcher Grove. His kid's on the Eastman basketball squad. Fucker."<br/>
<br/>
"Really." Your interest is definitely piqued. "What's their name?"<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna find money," Justin says as Perry digs out his cell phone, "go check out the mutant school. You know, Xavier's."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought that was just a private school."<br/>
<br/>
"Private fucking academy." Justin's growl deepens with hostility. "Rich cocksuckers. Fuck 'em!"<br/>
<br/>
"What's got you pissed?" you taunt him, but you're interrupted by Perry.<br/>
<br/>
"Straussler. Jonathan Straussler," he says. "Here." He turns the phone to show you the screen. "Blonde kid on the end."<br/>
<br/>
You turn the phone to landscape mode, then pinch and pull it to expand the picture. It's a photo of the Eastman basketball team, anchored at the end by a tall blonde kid with limpid eyes and a full mouth. You nod at it, and are about to hand it back when you recognize two more of the players: the blonde kid and the dark-haired kid who were teasing Gordon with tongue twisters yesterday. So they are ... Joe and Frank Durras, you determine from the caption.<br/>
<br/>
They are a handsome pair of brothers. Their faces, it occurs to you, could get you to Jonathan Straussler, and they could also get you access to the Eastman cheerleaders for your fembots. And through "Will Prescott" you could get at them.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh. You need to define your goals.</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112
author_id: seuzz
title: A Meeting with Mata-Hari
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's a tempting thought: Make a fembot and whore it out. But life is complicated enough. You delete the thought and return to the conversation, which mostly consists of Call and Spencer and Horner fantasizing lewdly about Jelena Petrovich and Sienna Goldman and other girls of the tattooed persuasion. When talk turns to Andrea Varnsworth, though, you suddenly feel shy and even a little sick, and abandon them with a quick "Later." They don't even give the courtesy of a return farewell.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are feeling ragged and bleary the next morning as you trudge across the parking lot toward the school. You were up until three in the morning doing and homework and finishing up a trio of mind bands for Trantham.<br/>
<br/>
But there's a quickness to your step nevertheless, for you are keenly anticipating the minutes between 9:00 and 9:10, when the apparition of Andrea Varnsworth is due to appear outside the windows that look toward C wing. Yes, it's Joe Thomason inside that lovely body now. But still, that means you'll be able to talk to that body now, to stare at it openly when you meet to talk about business. So with increasing impatience you shift in your seat as the clock edges closer to the usual time. The tension become nigh intolerable.<br/>
<br/>
And then she appears. Walking slowly, eyes down. She's wearing light purple shorts and flip flops and some kind of sweatshirt. Her hair, as always, gives the impression of being damp. <i>What's her schedule,</i> you wonder, for now you can ask why she always appears this way at this time of day. Does she have study hall first period, and she spends it in the natatorium? But if so, why does she always take this route back into the school? It would be the long way around, wouldn't it?<br/>
<br/>
"Gary, Steve," says Ms. Gladstone. "Put your eyes back in your heads and turn them this way."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
During lunch you make a circuit of the school to spy out the state of your various replacements. In the cafeteria you spot Gordon Black sitting at a table with some of the football players—including Kevin Hall—laughing and making goofy faces, apparently without a care in the world. At another table—the alpha table—sits Chelsea Cooper, wrapped inside the arm of Seth Javits. She's laughing and talking a mile a minute; the other cheerleaders at the table look very uncomfortable, though, and you don't even spot Cindy. You guess that "snap vote" must have gone off as Chen wanted.<br/>
<br/>
Then you make a pass through the hallways and outside the wings, peering into classrooms for those who don't have fourth period lunch. Inside Gladstone's classroom you spot three of them: Will Prescott, Caleb Johansson, and Andrea Varnsworth. All three are gazing attentively at the front of the room. So is Matthias when you scope out Walberg's room. Today's he's wearing a snazzy-looking sweater. Where is he getting the money to buy this stuff? You assume he's buying it, since you've never seen Matthias in these clothes before, and you don't remember finding them in his closet when you briefly played his part.<br/>
<br/>
You catch up briefly with Evans and Mendoza. "Where's Thomason," you ask, and they shrug.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fucker.</i> He's also not in fifth period. Andrea must be too scared or too freaked out by her new life. You wonder if she's hurt herself, but bury the thought before it can fester into guilt.<br/>
<br/>
The rest of the day passes without excitement, though not without some interest. The girls in Orchestra are buzzing excitedly in a corner, then explode when Eva Garner comes in. They practically swarm her. She is tight-lipped, however, and most of her responses are just variants on "I don't know" and "That's not my business." But from the content of the questions you gather that something even bigger than the snap cheerleader vote happened. <br/>
<br/>
Eventually you glean the facts: Cindy Vredenburg, having muffed her coup, quit the squad. That was followed by a housecleaning of sorts: Lin Pol and Yumi Saito are also out, and so is Michelle Estrich. And to Audrey Briscoe's horrified, "What about you and Jessica, are you still going to be on it?" Eva will only answer with a very clipped, "We haven't decided."<br/>
<br/>
You'd be interested in hearing more, maybe from Chelsea herself, but you've not got the time, and there's another girl you have to talk to.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't have her number, so you stop by her locker after the final bell. The sidelong look she gives you is a little more tremulous than you'd expect from this self-confident girl. "I wanna meet at four," you tell Andrea. "Where?"<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't immediately answer, and before she can Charles Hartlein appears at her other shoulder. "Oh my God, Drea," he gushes. "I know you're not interested but it's too delicious not to share!" He catches sight of you, and his chortle turns soft and malicious. "Hey Gary, there's a freshman disrespecting you over in A wing. Better go find him and flush him down the toilet."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea stares into her locker.<br/>
<br/>
She won't say anything in front of Hartlein, so you speak: "Text me later, girl. Lookin' forward to it."<br/>
<br/>
You catch the phrase <i>over-compensating, obviously</i> from Hartlein as you move off.<br/>
<br/>
Ten minutes later comes a text: <i>CVS by McD's.</i><br/>
<br/>
Weird, but it'll work.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The pharmacy is just across the corner from the McDonalds where you'd parted with her yesterday. You recognize Andrea's car out front; inside, you find her looking over some hair care products. "Prepping for a date?" you say as you fall in next to her.<br/>
<br/>
She gives you that same brief, sidelong glance as at the locker. "You're really not the kind of guy I'd be talking to," she says quietly. "I figure here it looks like we ran into each other if someone sees us."<br/>
<br/>
"Like in a spy movie, huh? What's wrong with your place? Your mom and dad wouldn't like my face either?"<br/>
<br/>
"Dad's someplace west, mom's working, they wouldn't care," she says as she picks up a box of hair coloring. "But Hartlein's always popping in over there." She clucks with distaste: possibly over Hartelin, possibly over the hair coloring, possibly over both or over some third unnamed thing.<br/>
<br/>
"What was he dishing about at your locker?"<br/>
<br/>
"Do you care? I didn't. This girl didn't. Cheerleader shit."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, that's a hot topic. You got anything to report? You looked <i>fine</i> this morning on your way from— Where were you coming from at the end of first?"<br/>
<br/>
"Swim practice. I didn't know you could see me."<br/>
<br/>
"Whole line of guys in two fucking wings get an eyeful of you every day, girl. Power of their erections could run a fucking factory for most of a month."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be disgusting. But I don't have a lot to report. I'm settled in pretty good." She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, a little self-consciously. "Andrea's mom isn't around much, works strange hours. I've got people always coming and going from the house, though." She moves down a few feet, kneels to examine some more products. "Give me a few eighths tomorrow and I'll start your advertising campaign."<br/>
<br/>
"Sweet, but you gotta pay for 'em. Is this girl good for it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Easily."<br/>
<br/>
"Really? She get a big allowance?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mom's a waitress/manageress at Ristorante Locarno. She leaves tip money all over the house."<br/>
<br/>
"Interesting. How much of it could go missing without her noticing?"<br/>
<br/>
"If you want that kind of action, shouldn't you have gone for Kelsey Blankenship instead of Andrea Varnsworth?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't sass me, bitch. I just mean, would this baby's mama miss thirty-two dimes?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Most of it would go right back into her kitchen drawers after I sold the shit, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're not selling, remember? But, uh, how much <i>is</i> laying around at her place?"<br/>
<br/>
A pause. "Between twelve and thirteen thousand."<br/>
<br/>
Your knees buckle, and you drop into a crouch beside her. "<i>Seriously?</i> Doesn't her mom believe in <i>banks?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"She does on the fifth of the month. And even then only if she's started losing the silverware inside all the loose cash. The money that's there now is what's left after she dumped a lot of it in the bank last week."<br/>
<br/>
You grab a shelf to keep from falling over. "God damn, she could finance our whole expansion!" You've been worried about how to buy more stuff from Dwayne without increasing the debt to Mathis.<br/>
<br/>
"As long as most of it gets paid back within a few weeks," Andrea says. She gets to her feet again.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, this is great to know anyway. Meet me tomorrow in the library before class, I'll pass a baggie to you."<br/>
<br/>
"I have swim practice at seven. How about after first?"<br/>
<br/>
"That'll work too." You look her up and down. "The exercise looks good on you."<br/>
<br/>
"And it feels even better," she says with a slight groan.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Maybe rockbot orders have an expiration date: Grandfather is being quarrelsome when you get home. But he's not too loud, and you don't want things looking suspicious, so you leave him to the nurse and to your mother as duck into the bedroom with some leftovers from Panda Garden. You want to glance through the grimoire before going in to work. <br/>
<br/>
You find confirmation that grandfather is now a –bot of some kind, like the one still in the elementary school basement. Meanwhile, the next spell uses the same ingredients as the previous two, but with some significant twists: It uses only a few ounces of graveyard dirt, but no body; and the product is to be painted onto the inner surface of a mask—one that has a brain band attached. There is no explanation for what it will do. But there never is.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hmm.</i> You've got lots of masks around, but they're riding around on people. You could experiment with one of those, even with the mask you're wearing now. But what if you break it? <br/>
<br/>
Maybe you should wait until you can meet with Caleb again.</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122
author_id: seuzz
title: Noises Off
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Whether you do the next spell with Caleb or not, you'll need all the supplies on hand, so on your way to work you swing by the cemetery and pick up a sack of dirt.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile, other plans are also ripening. During your smoke break you slip the three new brain bands to Trantham and catch up on a text from Kevin Hall: <i>Talkd w/Wade, he's intrested. Talk 2 me after school tomorrow? Heres Wades pic, remember him?</i> The attached photo does jog a few memories. He's a small kid, but wiry, with dark bangs that sweep rakishly over narrow eyes. There's a feral, rat-like quality to his intense gaze, and you could easily imagine him growing up into another Dwayne Macauly.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You meet Andrea in the library stacks after first period, and after exchanging a baggie for an envelope full of fifties and twenties you ask if she's seen Joe Thomason's ugly face around. She shakes her head.<br/>
<br/>
Nor does a circuit of the school at lunch locate him either. You do spot Horner and Spencer, though, which surprises you, since you'd heard that they had stopped coming to school at all. And yet there they are in the hallway of C wing, sneering and leering and chortling at some joke only they are in on. Spencer in particular looks pleased, and there are few things uglier than Jeff Spencer when he's looking pleased about something. His dull, Neanderthal eyes get a gleam, and his dome-like forehead gets a filmy sheen of sweat; and if you're close up to him you might even glimpse a little bit of anticipatory spittle at the corner of his mouth. <br/>
<br/>
You saw that little bit of spittle up close your sophomore year when Spencer and some of his friends caught you—Will Prescott, not Gary Chen—in a school restroom. You were just trying to get to the sink when Spencer shoved you into a wall and held you there. He'd sniggered and breathed heavily into your face—his breath stank like a gym shoe—and you saw that little gob of spittle just before he hocked it and a whole lot more into your face. All of his friends had laughed at that, and one of them whapped you on the side of the head, but Spencer let you go and just looked very pleased with himself.<br/>
<br/>
You tried consoling yourself later with the sniveling thought that it must be terrible to be so stupid that spitting in someone's face can make you happy.<br/>
<br/>
Right now, though, you just turn your head and push past Spencer without saying anything.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But after glimpsing Horner and Spencer, you're not surprised when you see their pal Joshua Call after school. You're waiting behind the portables, gazing past the fields that belong to the school and into the fields beyond that don't, when hear footsteps and turn. It's Call, in his usual wardrobe: heavy work shirt, dirty jeans, scuffed boots. Not so different from your wardrobe today. Only he hasn't got a ski cap atop his head, just greasy black hair in a ragged bowl cut. "Fuck are you doing here," you ask. "Thought you stopped coming to classes."<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't have nothin' better to do." At the sound of a high laugh he glances back toward the school. "The fuck is that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hennepin and Semple, those guys." They're audible from the other side of the portables, and they're happy since you'd just sold them two eighths a few minutes ago.<br/>
<br/>
"We should go fuck 'em up," Calls says, and you can tell by his expression that he's serious.<br/>
<br/>
"Nah, they're okay."<br/>
<br/>
"So why aren't you hanging out with them? You're queer like them."<br/>
<br/>
"So? You like hangin' out with queers too. You'd hang out with Jelena," you jeer back.<br/>
<br/>
"That cunt," he mutters, and glowers at you as though you've something to do with it, whatever "it" is. Then he stalks off again. You let him go.<br/>
<br/>
It's coming up on four, and you're still in your spot, when Kevin Hall rounds the corner. "Hey, what are you doing here," he says in a loud voice. "Thought you'd be back there with Hennepin and them."<br/>
<br/>
"Felt like thinkin'," you say, and contemplate the burning end of the cigarette. "How was practice?"<br/>
<br/>
"Brutal." He drops to the ground with a groan, and drops his voice too. "So I talked to Ethan Wade yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"So you said. Details, man."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, he's never done this kind of thing before. 'Cept hustling candy bars his sophomore year, part of a 'band candy' scam."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuckin' amateur. Lemme guess, he got busted."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but he was running it in the open where people could check on his story."<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking noob. He's not gonna fuckin' run <i>this</i> one in the open. Is this kid dumb or is he even more retarded than he sounds?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," Kevin sighs. "You're not on the hook if he fucks up."<br/>
<br/>
"Like fuck I'm not. But what experience has he got besides a dumbass band candy scam?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, he says he's bought some on the street before."<br/>
<br/>
"He <i>says?</i> Fuck 'im. You believe him?"<br/>
<br/>
"He says he got it at the Warehouse, he and his friends pitched in a couple of times to buy an ounce. He said it cost 'em three-sixty, which I think means he's telling the truth."<br/>
<br/>
"No, it fucking means he talked to someone who knows what he's talking about. So according to him, he and how many friends bought one ounce how many times?"<br/>
<br/>
"Him and two or three guys, and they bought maybe three times or four. He said they didn't smoke it all themselves, and he even sold two of the joints to a guy he knows."<br/>
<br/>
You sigh. "Does that fucker have a name?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah." He checks his phone. "Anthony McFarland. I talked to him. He said he bought two joints off Wade and Dason Mitchell, and if they ever had more—"<br/>
<br/>
"Wait, who? Dason Mitchell? The fuck kind of name is 'Dason'? That French for 'gaywad'?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. But McFarland said he'd definitely buy more from someone if he knew where to get it."<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking great. So we can sell an ounce a month down in the junior class. Open wide, I'm about to jizz."<br/>
<br/>
"I think he can sell more than that. He talked like he was really excited about that sale he made, 'cos he made a forty dollar profit on it."<br/>
<br/>
That catches your ear. "Forty? You mean twenty profit each on two eighths that he bought for thirty-six an ounce?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh. Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Click click click. Ka-ching!</i> "He sold those two eighths to this McFarland dick for sixty-five each?"<br/>
<br/>
"If that's what, uh, forty bucks' profit works out to."<br/>
<br/>
"Christ, and we've been giving them away for fifty!"<br/>
<br/>
"It might just be this McFarland kid. He's kind of dumb looking, and I think he's got money."<br/>
<br/>
"Doesn't matter. Rising demand means rising prices." Suddenly you feel feverish. "Okay, tomorrow I'm gonna give you six eighths to pass on to this Wade fuck, no charge. We can gamble this far on him. Tell him he's not to smoke the shit himself or give any to his friends. But he <i>is</i> going to give them away, to other people, even this McFarland dope. He's to pass the shit around to whoever he thinks might be interested, he's trying to get a list of prospects. He's gonna tell people he got this stuff free, and he's sharing 'cos he loves to share, and he's to ask these dipshits if they want more in the future, but that if they want more they'll have to pay 'cos he's pretty sure he'd have to pay. He's to find out what they'd be willing to pay. In a week, he's to talk to you about what he's learned, names and prices, tentative demand level. If this works and he doesn't shit all over our plans with his fucking stupidity, in two weeks we'll have a supply for him. Here."<br/>
<br/>
You hand Hall the paper you'd prepped for this meeting. "First month, we'll sell him twelve eighths at fifty-five per. Second month we'll sell him eighteen at fifty-one per. Third month we'll sell him twenty-four at forty-eight per. After that the cap comes off, but the more ounces he buys, the cheaper his per-unit cost is until it drops to thirty-nine per. That's our floor. So, the more he sells, the more gross he realizes, and the cheaper his per unit cost is so his profit grows in two directions. <i>Bang,</i> gives him an incentive to grow the market. But we're capping him at the start because we don't want him going crazy. Last thing we need are posters going up on the junior lockers. This is all <i>very quiet.</i> He's gotta understand that."<br/>
<br/>
"I think he will," says Hall, though he looks a little dizzy.<br/>
<br/>
"Good man." You clap him on the shoulder. "You handled this great. Ten percent of what he pays us will be yours for handling the business."<br/>
<br/>
He looks very gratified by that: Obviously he's not nearly as good as you at calculating just how little ten percent of the take will be.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After he leaves, you consult the memorandum book you keep on the phone, adding updates and entering new info.<br/>
<br/>
And right now you're looking at your balance sheet:<br/>
<br/>
<i>Inv. 10</i> That's the number of eighths you've left on hand.<br/>
<i>Allowance. $9.50</i> That, in hundreds, is the amount of cash you've on hand from sales. It will cover the rest of the month's "tips" to your parents, with a little left over.<br/>
<i>IOUs. $3.60 (TE)</i> In hundreds, what Evans owes you.<br/>
<i>Bank $16.15</i> In hundreds, what you need to pay Mathis to fully complete next month's order, and you won't be able to generate that from your remaining inventory while still contributing "tips" to the household budget. And you'll need a lot more than that to carry out the expansion Chen is demanding.<br/>
<br/>
So you're receptive—for business reasons, not only social—when Hennepin shouts at you as you're walking back to your car. "Hey, we're goin' out to Andrea's in a bit. Wanna go along?" That draws guffaws from the rest of the crowd.<br/>
<br/>
Andrea's got a giant cash till you can dip into.</span></div></div>


path: 1112111321122222122222212212121121211221112121312112311221121112112112111221
author_id: seuzz
title: The Court of the Doppelganger Queen
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Sure, I'd love to," you tell Hennepin and his friends. "I've never been to Andrea's."<br/>
<br/>
Looks of incredulity—mingled with horror—are exchanged by Hennepin and Semple and some of the others. But it's too late now. You have been invited, and you have accepted.<br/>
<br/>
You've no idea what kind of people show up at Andrea Varnsworth's house, but if you had to wager, you'd bet on this crowd: Karl Hennepin, Adrian Semple, Connor Davison, Andrew Harding, Lee Reynolds. The first two, of course, are regular customers of yours. The others, though scruffy, have always politely turned you away. Maybe they're genuinely not interested in weed. Or maybe they just never wanted to associate with Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
This afternoon may prove a test of them. How will they react to Andrea Varnsworth if she pulls out a joint?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Happy whoops break out as you walk into Andrea's. They're not for you, though, but those with you, and a brief damper falls over the celebratory sounds when you cross the threshold.<br/>
<br/>
Andrea's house is a couple of blocks west of the downtown district, not far from a sketchy neighborhood, and it looks like a migrant from that neighborhood. It is smaller than its neighbors and sits on a smaller lot. But it is tidy and well kempt, and the living room just inside the front door is very sparsely furnished with a futon, a bookshelf, and a desk and chair set. The floor is wood. In all, it looks like the kind of place that's been permanently laid out for a party. It's already crowded enough for one.<br/>
<br/>
Music is playing on an old-fashioned boom box: something with a steady beat, but it's not playing so loud that it would disturb the neighbors, and the beat is muffled by the bodies of the guests. Besides the recent arrivals—yourself, Hennepin, Semple, Davison, Harding and Reynolds—you catch glimpses of Eric Harlen, Rebecca Sykes, Sienna Goldman, and Roy Booth. Jelena Petrovic and Fatima Zahedi are sitting on the futon, flanking the queen of the crowd, Andrea herself.<br/>
<br/>
Her eye flicks with amusement over the faces of the newcomers, and she almost misses yours. But just as she's turning away she catches sight of you. A tiny smile flashes over her face, but it doesn't linger, and it vanishes as she leans over to listen to something Fatima is saying to her.<br/>
<br/>
It doesn't look like a stimulant party: you only see colas out. Mostly it feels like the start of a late-afternoon hangout session. More people are apparently expected, for you hear snatches of conversation, like "Yeah, Tackett's coming as soon as he picks up Kevin" and "I'll ask Brewer when he gets here."<br/>
<br/>
No one snags your elbow for a conversation, and no one offers you anything, so you duck through a doorway and down a very short hall into a kitchen. There are two friendlier faces here: Brad Murphy and Spencer Osbourne. "Whoa, hey, it's Chen," the latter gasps; his mouth widens into a grin. Brad just blinks like he's been slapped; but he always looks like he's just been slapped, and has been surprised by the assault. "Why'd they let <i>you</i> inside?" Osbourne teases.<br/>
<br/>
"They heard you were coming and knew you'd need disciplining." Osbourne laughs at your gibe. "When the fuck are you gonna start going to classes again?"<br/>
<br/>
"Soon as they start showing the lectures in IMAX. When are you gonna start ditching, start hanging out more with me and the Bradster?" He slaps Murphy in the chest; his friend blinks again, and looks startled. "You give us a buzz."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but I got parents who give a shit. Don't yours? What <i>does</i> your dad do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing." He scratches his cheek against his shoulder; his bristly blonde whiskers are almost as long as his bristly blonde hair. "But Bradley's dad's an airline pilot, you know," he adds slyly.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?" says Brad, and jerks a little.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?" Osbourne snickers. "Isn't he always at, like, thirty-five thousand feet?"<br/>
<br/>
"What?" Brad's breathing turns labored, and a little panic appears in his eye. "No, he works at Target. He's a floor, uh, something."<br/>
<br/>
"He's a floor? A tile floor?" Osbourne grins, and nudges you.<br/>
<br/>
"No! He's— Are you fucking with me?" Brad's nose and cheeks are raw from acne, and they flush more deeply with confusion.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Murphy, does your dad, uh—?" You mime taking a toke.<br/>
<br/>
"No!" Murphy looks genuinely offended. "He like, goes to church and stuff!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then why does he always seem like he's up in the clouds?" Spencer asks. "Must be a genetic thing," he adds when Brad only gapes back. "Oh, but speaking of things that take you up high." He glances back into the living room before leaning in with a lowered voice. "You got any—?" He waggles his eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
"Talk to me tomorrow, can get you as much as you need. Which is how much?"<br/>
<br/>
Spencer rolls his tongue in his cheek, then holds up four fingers. Then his thumb pops out. "How about you, Bradical Man?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? I'm gettin' five from Chen here, for me and Wooten and the weekend. How much do <i>you</i> want?"<br/>
<br/>
"How much what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, man. Ganja. How much do you want to buy?" Spencer carefully enunciates each word over a sudden upsurge of noise in the living room.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I don't have any on me."<br/>
<br/>
"Just give me a number. I'm getting five."<br/>
<br/>
"Then I'll take one."<br/>
<br/>
"That'll hold you through the weekend?"<br/>
<br/>
"The weekend?" Brad's expression of perpetual panic deepens. "Oh. No, I better stock up on, like, uh— Five?"<br/>
<br/>
Spencer gives you a look. "Better bring all you got tomorrow. I'll handle the transactions for both of us." He half turns at the sound of a door slamming from a room beyond the kitchen. "Ah, sounds like Reston's finished watering the garden."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, is Reston here?" you say. "I'll go mingle with the others. I don't need to hang out with no midget bassist." Osbourne only shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
You back out down the hallway. There's another door there, and it opens as you pass: Rebecca Sykes comes out, bumps into you. "Sorry," she says through a tight smile, and pushes in front of you and into the living room.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Dammit, she's a cute thing.</i> Tiny. The top of her head barely touches the top of your shoulder, and that's with the high heels. She looks like she's prepped for clubbing, with a leopard-pattern jacket over a tight black dress, inside of which her butt waggles invitingly as she walks away. Her dark red hair, which is flat and straight on the top of her head, curves into loose curls as it falls below her shoulders. You suck in a sharp, lustful breath as she squeezes between classmates and tucks herself under the arm of Eric Harlen.<br/>
<br/>
More people came in while you were in the kitchen. Hartlein is no surprise to see; nor is the sight of his fellow theater whores Christian Padilla and James Brewer. Hartlein is laughing shrilly, and he doesn't change expression when he sees you, though he does turn away and says something to Padilla, who in response glances in your direction. <br/>
<br/>
But you don't care. You slide over next to Roy Booth, who's by the boom box, bobbing his head. You put your mouth by his ear. "I'm bringing in a couple of baggies tomorrow. You in the market for some?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nah, I get mine from someone else," he says. He jerks his chin at a scene behind you. "Maybe you should talk to Andrea, though."<br/>
<br/>
You turn. Andrea, still on the futon, has a burning joint between her lips, and is looking up with a cool, quizzical smile at Semple. Fatima is staring at her with a scandalized expression. It turns to one of disgust when Andrea casually offers it to her. Jelena, who is frowning deeply, gets up. Connor Davison promptly flops down in her place. Andrea, smiling, offers it to him. He takes it awkwardly, smiling nervously back at her, and takes a hit that is clearly experimental.<br/>
<br/>
"You give that to her?" you ask Booth.<br/>
<br/>
"Nah. Maybe it was Reston. I didn't think she'd be into it. Try cultivatin' a relationship with her, man. Or maybe I'll tell my guy."<br/>
<br/>
"She doesn't like me. I shouldn't even fucking be here."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You linger for a bit, then search for a  private area. You find it in the back yard, which is dominated by a massive vegetable garden. You text Andrea, telling her where you are.<br/>
<br/>
You wait a quarter hour before the swing door opens and she comes out. "You like my garden," she asks. "Matt Reston did. I should tell you about it. It's the only reason I'd be talking to you."<br/>
<br/>
"I need cabbage," you say. "Four thousand. By the middle of next week."<br/>
<br/>
"For how long?"<br/>
<br/>
"Seven, eight days. You'd have it back by the fifth."<br/>
<br/>
"That'll work. Remind me to bring it in."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't want me coming back here?"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't fit in. And I don't want people thinking you're where I'm getting—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm already denying it. You say your mom keeps the money in her silverware drawer?"<br/>
<br/>
"Most of it."<br/>
<br/>
"Then tomorrow, start telling people that a lot of it went missing, and you think I took it. Put me in the dog house. Also, do you know where Booth gets his bash?"<br/>
<br/>
"From me. Well, Joe Thomason. What?" she asks when you laugh sharply.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing." <i>He only suggested that Thomason should cultivate a "closer relationship" with Andrea.</i> "I won't take the cash now, but you tell people—" The door behind her starts to open. "Need me to weed your garden, Andrea," you smoothly improvise as Padilla steps onto the back porch. "Get a good root growin' down in your bushes?" <br/>
<br/>
"Get back inside, Chen" Andrea replies. "I want you where people can keep an eye on you."</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112212
author_id: seuzz
title: Tuesday in the Park with Justin
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You don't linger at Andrea's, for you can sense the hostility from the others, which you suspect has deepened since she pulled out a joint. You toy with driving over to Kirkham's. But then you'll get to talking about girls and the various things you can do with them. That is on your mind after Andrea's, but not in a way that would leave you enjoying Kirkham's kind of talk.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Why can't you get a girl?</i> You ask yourself this question knowing full well that there are two people you can ask it of: the person you really are (Will Prescott) and the person you are pretending to be (Gary Chen). <br/>
<br/>
Chen, naturally, has an easy answer to both questions. Will Prescott, in his estimation, is a sad little nobody who couldn't show a girl a good time if he had ten thousand dollars, a long weekend in a private hotel room, and a how-to guide. And all the girls sense it, so why should they waste time with him? Gary Chen, meanwhile, is the wrong ethnicity, even for cunts like Lin Pol and Yumi Saito, who are looking for—and, thanks to fuck-heads like Jordan Cooper, can get—action with a white guy.<br/>
<br/>
And what do you—Will Prescott—think? Of yourself, you only have a very confused notion of what the problem might be. Chen has a point, you glumly admit: You have no idea what to do with a girl, and you're awkward and ungainly around them, and you find it very easy to get distracted by friends and computer games and pictures of perfect girls that you can find on the internet. Real girls are messy and you don't understand a freaking thing about them except that they always seem to be looking for someone else over your shoulder when you talk to them. <br/>
<br/>
Thing is, you could say the same thing about Caleb, but when you were playing Caleb's part with Eva Garner, she seemed to respond. So what is it about <i>your</i> skin that it comes between you and a girl, in both directions, knocking the girls away and knocking you yourself off balance? You don't think you're any worse looking than Caleb; in fact, you don't think it's false pride to regard yourself as rather better looking than him.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe Chen's right: Maybe if you ditched the funny clothes, got a haircut, stood up straight, put on some muscles, lowered your voice by half an octave, showed some serious cool—<br/>
<br/>
<i>Maybe if you turned yourself into a totally different guy,</i> you bitterly think, <i>then girls would like you. Or that guy, they'd like that guy, the guy you're pretending to be. You, they're not interested in. But him, that other guy—<br/>
<br/>
Oh, and for your fucking information, Chen,</i> you silently yell at him, since you've worked yourself up into a yelling kind of mood, <i>the girls don't avoid you 'cos you're Chinese-American. It's because you're a fucking asshole, and are rather famous for being a fucking asshole.</i><br/>
<br/>
Jesus, maybe if you could find a spot somewhere between these two morons you've got inside your head—yourself and Chen—you could actually get it on with some attractive girls.<br/>
<br/>
But Chen can't afford to be nice. And not even Gordon Black, it looks like, can change Will Prescott's reputation.<br/>
<br/>
You glance around, and notice that you've somehow wound up on Plumtree Road, way west of town. You cuss and spin the Jeep in the other direction. You've driven two miles or so back toward town when you recognize a car pulling out of a side road, and honk at it. You gesture at the driver; and after flashing a peace sign back at you, he follows.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"How do you know about this place?" Justin Roth asks. He's followed you to the old elementary school—maybe a foolish place to have guided him—and the two of you are sitting under the monkey bars. There's a small playground and an extensive field behind the school, but it's always empty, for it's mostly old people living in this part of Acheson these days. So you and Justin have the soft autumn night to yourselves. The sky has deepened in color, but the lowering sun has lit the high fluffy clouds with vivid pinks and purples. One very late cricket—the last, hopeless but still hopeful virgin of the year?—is singing in the distance.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno, just stumbled on it once, a long time ago," you say with a shrug. "Too many shits hanging out at Hochstetter Park, too many old people at South Creek. This isn't a place for partying, so I come here when—" You trail off.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Justin drawls. "You know, Tsosie lives, like, a mile, mile and half, off that way, toward the river."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know that."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Of course, Perry—" He grins. "Perry lives off in that fucking so-called 'Wilderness' development that way." He waves his arm in the other direction, where Chelsea and Gardinhire have their houses.<br/>
<br/>
"Why 'fucking so-called'?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because it's not fucking wilderness," he says, his voice cracking with outrage. "You know what the definition of a subdivision is, right? It's a place where they cut down all the trees and then name the streets after them. Fuckers!" he screams at the people who live out in that subdivision. "God damn it, I shouldn't lose my temper," he grumbles, and pulls a half-smoked joint from a jacket pocket.<br/>
<br/>
"Set you up with some more of those tomorrow? I'm bringing more in."<br/>
<br/>
"Nah, I'm good," he says, then rubs his nose. "No, truth is I'm tapped out."<br/>
<br/>
"Get Small to cover for you."<br/>
<br/>
He fixes you hard with his eye as he lights the joint. "I'm not getting Perry mixed up with you, Chen. In fact, I've told him to stay the fuck away from you."<br/>
<br/>
"Am I not welcome behind A wing anymore?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hang out as much as you fucking want." He falls onto his back and crosses one leg over the knee of the other. He takes a small hit, exhales through his teeth. "There's what's business and there's what's personal, you know that."<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks, I'm glad you understand. Not many people do."<br/>
<br/>
"People are idiots. People are stupid. People shouldn't be allowed to fucking exist." He slaps at a bug on his chest. "Give it back to the fucking mosquitoes. Bears, cougars, bacteria. Whatever."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you liked people."<br/>
<br/>
"I fucking hate people, man. Oh, there are a few I like." He swings up sharply, leaning in on you with a wicked grin and gleam in his eye. "I tell you about Deanna Showalter? Last Saturday?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, what about her?"<br/>
<br/>
He laughs and flops onto his back again.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck you."<br/>
<br/>
He laughs again, louder, then his voice turns dreamy. "Down by the river," he says. "I wasn't even looking for any, I just thought Semple would be down there, doin'—" He raises up. "You know, you can sell whole fuckin' <i>bales</i> down there, most nights and every weekend."<br/>
<br/>
"Cops know it too, they're always cruisin' along there," you tell him. Actually, that's Dwayne's territory, so it's off limits.<br/>
<br/>
"They ain't never fucked with me," Justin says. "But Deanna." Now he actually cackles. "So, I'm drivin' along by the river, and I spot her and summa her girlfriends walking along, and they all start teeheeing when they see me, so I pull over and get out and we all talk for a bit. Then after I'm pretty sure I read it right, I go off to look over the river, give 'em a chance to decide which one of 'em's gonna, you know. So Deanna wins the coin toss or whatever, she comes over, and she's nervous. I hate a fucking nervous girl, you know, don't you hate talkin' to 'em when they get that quaver in their voice? Shit. So I pull her close and we kiss and—" Another draw on the joint, then he pinches it out. "Lucky I cleaned out my backseat about ten days ago, so there weren't any problems."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that about how often you get laid, every ten days?" You try to keep your voice neutral. Inside, you are frothing.<br/>
<br/>
"Pfft, fuck, no."<br/>
<br/>
"Every seven days then? Every two?"<br/>
<br/>
He lifts his head to squint at you. "I don't get laid <i>that</i> often. Only every couple of weeks. I'm sure you get a hell of a lot more than me."<br/>
<br/>
"What makes you say that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I never get any!" His voice again cracks with emotion as he sits up. "It's not even every couple weeks, it's maybe once every two months. Fuck, I got some action over the summer 'cos there wasn't any school. But before that? Gotta go back to before spring break."<br/>
<br/>
"Why don't you get a girlfriend?"<br/>
<br/>
"No one wants a dope addict for a boyfriend," he retorts. "Why don't <i>you</i> get a girlfriend?"<br/>
<br/>
"No one wants a Chinese guy for a boyfriend."<br/>
<br/>
He blinks, then grimaces. "That's bullshit."<br/>
<br/>
"Try it some time. Okay," you add when he glares. "It's because no one wants a dope peddler for a boyfriend."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, now, that makes sense," he says. "So you just do lots of 'em, one at a time."<br/>
<br/>
"I told you how often I think <i>you</i> get laid. How often do you think I get laid?"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I'm not playing that game with you," he says, and gets to his feet. "No one ever gets as much as they want, and that's too bad."<br/>
<br/>
"Why do you say that? People get laid more than <i>you</i> want them to."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't say that!"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure you did. You said people shouldn't exist. How do you think they all got here?"<br/>
<br/>
He makes a face at you and wishes you a good night.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Well, </i>that<i> was pointless</i>, you decide afterward. But it did have the effect of working out some of your neuroses, just by putting them into words of some kind.</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122121
author_id: seuzz
title: Return of the Chenbot
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You don't have a lot of homework, so after getting that out of the way and after practicing the viola you make an early night so you can make an early start of it in the morning. <br/>
<br/>
In fact, you make such an early start that the family is all still asleep when you get up. You leave a note saying you have to go to an early soccer practice, then make a beeline for the old elementary school, taking along the grimoire.<br/>
<br/>
You double-check the ingredients for the next spell and find that you have all the supplies you need, except for hair. You pull off Chen's mask—<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
—and snip off some of your hair, and put Chen's mask back on—<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
—and after rubbing away a sudden rush of exhaustion, you dump everything into a bowl and put the bowl onto the open book. You light the pile, and after it fizzles and burns for a minute or two you find you've made a thin but sticky paste. You've got a mask of Martin Gardinhire going to waste, so you coat the inside of it with the newly made goop. It goes on quick and dries fast, and when you're done, the letters of his name still float over the inner surface even though the inside of the mask is now the color of the rock-bot lying nearby. You glance between it and the mask speculatively before setting the mask onto the book. <br/>
<br/>
The page now turns. There's a large paragraph of writing on the opposite side.<br/>
<br/>
But what first draws your attention is the page showing the newly uncovered spell. It makes your eyes hurt.<br/>
<br/>
The top of that page looks normal, with ornate but neat script arranged in the manner that the book likes to list spell ingredients. But the bottom— Oh!<br/>
<br/>
It's like an out-of-order computer monitor. When you look away from it, you seem to see letters and script, but when you look directly at it, the letters fuzz and bloom and skitter away. No matter where you lay your eye, the ink jitters and scatters.<br/>
<br/>
The hell is going on?<br/>
<br/>
Only when you peer closer do you resolve the mystery. Just below the list of ingredients is a faint line, one that is rough beneath your fingertip. Rough like a torn piece of paper.<br/>
<br/>
<i>That's it,</i> you hiss to yourself. The top half shows the ingredients, but the bottom half, the part with the sigil, has been torn away, and the fuzzy thing you're seeing is the bottom part of the spell that comes after. And since the book doesn't want you seeing any spells until you've completed the spells that come before, it's messing up the writing of that subsequent spell.<br/>
<br/>
You pound the table. All that work and this is where it ends. No sigil means there's no completing the next spell. This one, the one that makes the new kind of paste, is going to be the last one you can use, because some previous motherfucking user went and defaced the book. <i>Way to ruin it for everyone, asshole!</i><br/>
<br/>
Well, there's no point raging, not when you've only an hour before classes start. You bring up the browser on your phone and start translating the back half of the spell you just completed.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The book doesn't use the word "rock-bot"—"animated trunk" seems to be the best translation of the actual Latin—but it says that the latest spell puts a rock-bot inside a mask. And when placed on someone, it turns them into a disguised rock-bot.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe. The damn translator scatters clauses and phrases all over the place in confusing ways. <br/>
<br/>
But as you look at the painted mask, and at the rock-bot, and turn the mask this way and that in your hand, it seems to make sense to you.<br/>
<br/>
The cemetery stuff makes a rock-bot. If you put a mask on the rock-bot, it turns into that person. The resulting person-bot has to obey the guy whose hair is inside the rock-bot.<br/>
<br/>
If you mix the cemetery stuff with a person, it turns the person into a rock-bot. Put a mask on it, and the resulting person-bot—which hides the rock-bot—has to obey the guy whose hair is inside it the rock-bot.<br/>
<br/>
Now, you muse, you've put the cemetery stuff inside a mask. If you put the mask onto a person ... The cemetery stuff will cover them and turn them into a rock-bot? Then the mask, which is already on the person, will turn that rock-bot into the person-bot that's inside the mask?<br/>
<br/>
That makes sense, doesn't it?<br/>
<br/>
Well, it makes as much sense as anything else. You put Gardinhire's mask onto the rock-bot.<br/>
<br/>
It's like dropping a stone into a pond. The rock-bot briefly ripples, and when those cease—<br/>
<br/>
Gah! You raise your eyes from Gardinhire's naked crotch to his face. It's already turned to stare at you with fear, worry and puzzlement. It doesn't move. <br/>
<br/>
"Sit up," you tell him. He obliges, looking like a man who's being pulled up by string and hooks. He glances down, notices his shame, and with a deep blush covers his dick with his hands. He swallows, and his eyes water as he stares back at you. "What's your name?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Martin Gardinhire," he stammers. "I think." He looks around. "Uh, I'm feeling a little confused." He swallows again.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you have a boss?" That's the really important question: Does this thing have to obey anyone? Does it have to obey <i>you?</i><br/>
<br/>
"Uh, there's Mr. Stilwell at the country club—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't mean <i>him,</i> dipshit. I mean, is there someone whose orders you have to obey? Absolutely?" You lean in to fix him with a close stare.<br/>
<br/>
He seems puzzled for a moment, then his eyes clear, and real fear shows behind them. "Yes,"  he says with quiet horror. "You."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Good enough in this case,</i> you think, and you tell him to be still while you pull the mask off him. The rock-bot reappears, now bent and sitting up where Gardinhire had been. You still have another test you want to run, though. One that makes you very nervous.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * *</div><br/>
"Anything else," Gary Chen sullenly asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Don't tell anyone that you're not really me."<br/>
<br/>
Gary Chen—and it looks and acts just like him, and is dressed just like him—makes a face. "You fucking think I'm going to go up to people and say 'Hey, I'm not that—'"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't call me names. And you know what I mean. If anyone has any questions for <i>me,</i> tell them you'll talk to them later. And don't forget to bring Caleb back here after school."<br/>
<br/>
"I won't. Can I got now? I'm going to be late."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. And when I say 'Caleb', I mean—"<br/>
<br/>
"I got you the first time," he yells, and runs up the steps and vanishes before you can think of anything else to tell him.<br/>
<br/>
Finally! You have a fully functioning Chenbot!<br/>
<br/>
There was one hairy moment when he lunged for you, but he stopped dead as soon as you told him too. A few humiliating commands—like the order to hit himself—soon convinced you that the rock-bot inside the mask overrode the rock-bot underneath. So you have an obedient Gardinhire-bot and an obedient Chen-bot anytime you need them.<br/>
<br/>
Hallelujah, this could finally be the solution you were looking for! You just have to figure out how to turn it to your advantage.<br/>
<br/>
You pull on those old track pants you found last Saturday, and sit down to do some furious thinking.<br/>
<br/>
The simplest and most radical solution is to return everyone to normal. That means tearing masks off Chris Trantham and Kevin Hall and Andrea Varnsworth, and off Tanner Evans and George Mendoza and Joe Thomason; off Seth Javits and Caleb Johansson; off Gordon Black and Dane Matthias and Chelsea Cooper. <br/>
<br/>
Everyone, except for Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
Because that's more or less what this solution is, the solution that let's you put everything back to normal without pissing off Chen. Because—<br/>
<br/>
Well, there's one more test you'd have to run, but if it worked out—<br/>
<br/>
If it worked out, all you'd have to do is put that Chenbot mask onto him, and then Gary Chen would turn into your obedient Chenbot. You could <i>order</i> him to take his life back while everyone else got theirs back. <br/>
<br/>
Okay, that's not the most ideal solution. The ideal solution is one where Gary Chen doesn't get roboticized, but still leaves you alone. Thing is, you doubt seriously that's going to happen.<br/>
<br/>
But maybe you should still hold off on turning him into a Chenbot anyway. Things are a mess, but no one is really suffering, not yet. You still have a chance of talking Chen into accepting a return to normality, provided you improve his operations as he's asked you to. Why, with a few strategically placed rock-bots—if they work as you suspect they will—you could get those operations humming real fast! Meanwhile, the Chenbot could handle the really grubby work you don't like, such as grandfather duties and the country club.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You get your first chance to decide what to do sooner than expected. It's a little after eleven when you're startled when the Chenbot barges back in. "What the—?"<br/>
<br/>
"I ran into a problem," it says. "And I said, Fuck it, let Prescott solve it, since he's the boss of me. Thomason showed up at school, finally."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean Andrea, the real Andrea?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. We talked a bit. He or she or whatever said he wasn't going to work for me anymore. No more buying ounces, no more selling eighths."<br/>
<br/>
"You straightened his shit out, right?" You say it without even thinking.<br/>
<br/>
He grimaces. "Thomason said if I tried anything like that, he'd go to the cops, because he'd get off a lot more lightly than I would."<br/>
<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1112111321122222122222212212121121211221112121312112311221121112112112111221211
author_id: seuzz
title: The Substitution Game
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You tear the mask off the Chenbot and jam it onto your own face. The move is instinctual, almost.<br/>
<br/>
And that was a really stupid thing to do, you realize after you've woken up again. If the mask now turns people into Chenbots, you just ran the risk of turning <i>yourself</i> into a Chenbot. <br/>
<br/>
The realization gives you several bad turns. The worst, of course, is the thought of what you almost did to yourself. Almost as bad is the discovery that you're probably mistaken about how the rockbots-in-a-mask actually work, which means some of your daydreams from earlier might not pan out.<br/>
<br/>
But after recovering from your momentary shock and horror, you'd settled down to reliving the Chenbot's memories of the conversation with Joe Thomason.<br/>
<br/>
It happened just before first period, when it found and confronted Thomason. The Chenbot had acted just like you would have in its place, demanding hat the hell and why the hell Thomason been absent. Thomason was very placid, and said he'd been sick. Chenbot said they needed to talk about Thomason's sales for next month. Thomason said he'd be quitting. Chenbot asked how healthy Thomason would be feeling if he tried that. Thomason coolly replied that if Chen or Kirkham or anyone tried any shit, he (Thomason) would have lots of testimony to give to the police, that he'd come real close to going to the police anyway, but decided not to because it would be "too much trouble," and that Chen would see the wisdom in letting Thomason quit. The Chenbot had let it go at that, and gone to find you.<br/>
<br/>
You fall into a chair, feeling ill and angry. You have to hand it to her: Andrea has guts, more guts than Thomason ever had. Or maybe Thomason was just sadly greedy for the dimes and nickels he could make peddling six or seven sad little joints a month around school. He and the others were always too frightened to ever make a real go of it, and you worked with them only because it kept you from spreading yourself too thin. So you never worried that a chickenshit like Thomason might ever tell you 'No' or think about going to the cops; but you're not dealing with Thomason anymore, you're dealing with Andrea, and after finding her feet she's apparently decided not to follow the script you'd given her. Well, she can just—<br/>
<br/>
You put your face in your hands, tighten your guts, sit up straight. You're not Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
No, but you don't need things unraveling, not today, not until you get a better sense of what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. If it wouldn't hurt to hide Gary Chen inside a rockbot for a few weeks or months, it wouldn't hurt to hide Andrea Varnsworth under one for a few days or weeks. <br/>
<br/>
If that's the way the –bot masks work. You're not so sure of it anymore.<br/>
<br/>
It's lunchtime at the school, so you call the person holding Thomason's phone.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm not meeting you anywhere," he tells you bluntly. "I'm not stupid. You're psychotic, and I'm not—"<br/>
<br/>
"I just wanna talk."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to talk either. I told you what I wanted to say, and that's all."<br/>
<br/>
"We need to talk because you don't want to do anything stupid! Look, you wanna meet in public, that's fine. Hochstetter Park, let's say. In the parking lot. You don't even have to get out of your car, I'll talk to you through the window. Is that okay?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to talk. You can't—"<br/>
<br/>
"Just one conversation. That's all."<br/>
<br/>
A long silence ensues, then he grudgingly agrees to meet you at five o'clock.<br/>
<br/>
You consider returning to the school inside the mask, but decide to continue working in the basement, where you've been preparing more brain bands and masks on the theory that it's good to be well-armed. You send the Chenbot back in your stead.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next time the door to the basement opens you have a warning: the sound of rough male voices approaching. You're staring at the door with a wide grin when it opens and Seth Javits comes in. He stops halfway down the stairs when you call. "Hey man, glad you could break away! I didn't want to take you away from any hot Chelsea action!" <br/>
<br/>
He boggles, and whips around to stare at the Chenbot, which visibly seethes. "What the—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, check it out, I got the Chenbot working! I sent it out to be me this morning—I mean, to be Chen this morning—and I stayed down here and worked on masks!" You hold them up. "Come on in, and I'll show you what I did."<br/>
<br/>
But Caleb remains wary. "Last time we fired up the Chenbot it tried to kill you," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"I told you, I fixed it."<br/>
<br/>
"How?"<br/>
<br/>
"A new spell. It makes up this paste that you put inside a mask, and then the –bot has to obey the paste you put in the mask."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb flinches as you run up the stairs to pull the mask off the Chenbot's face; that rock slab—still in Chen's clothes—materializes on the staircase. "See, I told you it was that rock-bot thing underneath. Come on down."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb now seems somewhat more convinced that nothing too funky is going on, for he follows you. He peers inside Chen's mask when you turn it over. "This is that mask we made of Chen," you explain. "See, it's got the crazy Chinese characters and everything. But see how the color is different, it's white like the rock-bot over there?" Caleb glances between the mask and the rock slab, comparing them. "The new spell, it makes up this paste, and you put it inside mask. But I used my own hair this time, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"This is that spell that uses a 'perfect body'?" Caleb asks. "Fuck, I knew you weren't going to wait for me. Hang on." He turns very pale, and his eyes widen. "What happened to the body? Jesus, Will, did you grind someone up into <i>powder</i>?"<br/>
<br/>
"No! This is another new spell. I got past the other one, this is the spell that came after."<br/>
<br/>
"You did <i>two</i> new spells? What happened to the one with the body? Who did you use? The old man?" A little green shows in his face.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, him, he's fine. The, uh—" You swallow around the lie that you're rapidly composing. "The dirt and hair and chemicals, they just seeped into him or something. He still looks the same and acts the same. Only he has to do what I tell him to do."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean like he's got a rock-bot down inside him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, yeah, I guess that's what happened. Anyway, that's what it's like, and he has to obey me." <i>Close enough to the truth, if you dodge the details.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's cool I guess," says Caleb dubiously. "But how useful is it? Are you telling him not to shit in the bed?"<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't tried <i>that,</i>" you say. "But I can tell him to quiet down, stop screaming, stuff like that. Makes the home life easier, I'll say that."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh." He stares quizzically into Chen's mask, and over at the rock-bot. "So let's see. This stuff inside the mask is the same kind of thing as the rock-bot is made of?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, except there's no person involved in the spell, and only a little cemetery dirt. It's real easy to make and apply, about ten minutes to cook it and stick in the mask. Then I put the mask on the rock-bot, and <i>whang,</i> it was totally my slave. The stuff inside the mask, I guess, overrides the stuff inside the rock-bot, so my hair overrides yours."<br/>
<br/>
"So I don't have a rock-bot slave anymore," he observes. "Does that mean you can't wear Chen's mask anymore?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I mean, yes I can. I tried it. I guess you can't be your own slave, because I put it on and I was fine. It was just like wearing the mask before I put the paste in."<br/>
<br/>
"So what happens if—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Here, let me show how to make the stuff. I got it all set up." You pull him over to the prep table. "See, it's exactly the same stuff as in the rock-bot spell, but with a lot less dirt. We pour it all into the bowl and—" You snap your fingers. "Hair. We'll use some of yours so that, you know, you got some of this stuff you can use to make a— I know, we'll put your stuff inside Javits's mask, that way I'll have a Chenbot and you'll have a Sethbot."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb blinks a couple of times, as though trying to figure out a very difficult sum. He gives you a wary look, but slowly sinks into a chair. "If we're going to—"<br/>
<br/>
"Just hold still," you say, and grasp his face. He grabs your wrist, but you've already got a purchase on him, and rapidly mutter the spell: Seth Javits's mask comes away and Caleb Johansson's head lolls onto his chest.<br/>
<br/>
That's when you put Chen's mask onto him.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"No, I'm gonna go hang out with Chelsea," Caleb says. "She's being a bitch, but— Have you thought about how to use this paste stuff with Chen?"<br/>
<br/>
"A little. Come back here tonight when you're done with her, and we'll talk more."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you said you had to go back out as Chen."<br/>
<br/>
"I do, for a little while, but I'm sending the –bot in to work for me. Just come by here after eight." After he's gone, you turn to the rock-bot, which he'd helped you move onto the desk.<br/>
<br/>
The quick test with the Chen mask confirmed your suspicion: Once it was on him, Caleb acted just like the Chenbot, and had no idea where Caleb Johansson was or had got off to. The personality in the mask—and its program to obey you—was all that remained. Then you'd torn it off him and proceeded to make up some rock-bot paste with his hair. So he never knew of the experiment.<br/>
<br/>
But now you know it's safe to use the paste on Andrea Varnsworth, and thereby bring "Joe Thomason" back onto your team.</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112212111
author_id: seuzz
title: Friends in Fake Places
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Hochstetter Park hasn't really got a parking lot, only an indentation in the street where one can parallel park without fear of getting sideswiped. Thomason is already waiting when you arrive, and he rolls the window down halfway when you motion to him. "Give me two minutes, and I can change your mind about the whole thing," you say as you lean in. <br/>
<br/>
Then you strike, twining your fingers about his bony temple. He reacts more forcibly than Caleb did, but you're faster with the magic words, and when he wrenches your hand from your face it accomplishes your victory: You pull off the mask of Joe Thomason, and Andrea Varnsworth topples sideways.<br/>
<br/>
You rush to the passenger side and climb in; in a trice you've the inside of the mask painted and dried with the rock-bot paste. Andrea hasn't even stirred before you get the mask back onto her. As happened with Caleb, the new –bot revives instantly, and rears back from you. You hope that's Thomason's instincts, not Andrea's.<br/>
<br/>
"Calm down, Thomason," you tell him. "You're my friend." He blinks, but visibly relaxes, which surprises you a little. Your words were just a formality, but it almost looks like he's taken them to heart. "That's right, you're my friend," you repeat. "You like me, you like working with me. You do everything I tell you to do. Right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, naturally," he agrees, though looking a little confused on the point.<br/>
<br/>
"You told me this morning you weren't going to sell any more stuff for me. Are you going to keep selling for me?"<br/>
<br/>
Now he looks uncertain. "I don't know."<br/>
<br/>
"You are. You will buy bags from me, and you'll sell them. Starting next month, you'll buy four bags from me. You'll give me twelve hundred for them."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't have twelve hundred."<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay, you'll just pay me every time you sell some. <i>All</i> the money you take from a guy, you pass on to me, starting today. Also, starting today, prices are going up to fifty-five for an eighth. If people ask why, tell them it's because of demand, you got too many people asking for it, so if they want theirs, they have to pay more to be sure of getting it. Does that make sense?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. But I already sold all mine."<br/>
<br/>
"Great. Tomorrow we'll get together to talk about who you're selling to, and we'll get you some more to deal. Bring me all the cash you got at home so you can pay for it. How much you got on you now?"<br/>
<br/>
He pulls some crumpled bills from his pockets. "Twenty-two and some change."<br/>
<br/>
"Gimme this ten, just to show you like me, and you can keep the rest. We're friends, Thomason, don't forget that. Just keep going on with your life. Do your homework, hang out with friends, whatever. You're Joe Thomason. Just do what Joe Thomason likes to do."<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs and gives you a half smile.<br/>
<br/>
"Good man." You clap him on the arm and get out of his car. From your Jeep you watch as he drives away.<br/>
<br/>
You're glad you don't have to use the same trick on Evans and Mendoza.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You return to the old school, rearm the Chenbot, and send it off to the country club. "Come back here before you go home," you tell it. It rolls its eyes but doesn't argue. You had swung by Chen's place before going over to the elementary school, so you're dressed in some of Chen's things. It's odd: Everything you've got on you've worn before in your guise as Gary Chen, and it felt totally normal. But now, in your own skin, the sleeveless tank-top, the floppy gym shorts and the flip-flops feel like someone else's clothes, no matter how much you try settling into them.<br/>
<br/>
You'd finished one mask and one brain band before breaking off to meet Thomason, and you're expecting Caleb soon, so you pause to clean up. You label the containers that hold the rock-bot paste, marking which one is yours and which is Caleb's; you make up some more mask sealant and label that container; you sort supplies and tools for making masks and brain bands. Then, when Caleb still hasn't arrived, you pull out Chen's homework and work on it for him. The English lit assignment is easy, since you were taking the same subject from the same teacher (just at a different time), and so is the bullshit "Marketing Fundamentals" assignment. You do what you can with the AP Stat and Physics homework, using what you are able to remember of the subjects outside of Chen's mask. You notice it gets harder as you go along, though, and the abilities and memories that you had inside Chen's mask seem to evaporate. By the time you give up on the final problems, you have ceased to understand the answers you'd given to the first.<br/>
<br/>
You have an easier time remembering the stuff you have to do to manage masks and deals, though: Maybe it's because it's because you were working those angles yourself, with stuff you were bringing to the merger of your mind and Chen's, but the notes to yourself flow easily across the page: Check with Trantham on Friday about those brain bands you gave him; check with Hall tomorrow about developments in the junior class; check with Andrea about her "advertising campaign"; pow-wow with Evans and Mendoza and the again-compliant Thomason tomorrow at lunch about their prospects.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Those subjects are still rolling around thoughtfully when you hear a crunch of wheels outside. A minute later Seth Javits comes in, looking like a very satisfied teenage male. He stretches his arms as he swaggers down the steps. "Oh, fuck, but when Chelsea Cooper wants to make a guy feel good she really knows how to do it," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"The secret ingredient is Gary Chen," you tease.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," he sighs. "But he's pretty good at making you forget that. Oh, I ran into Tilley just after seventh period," he chortles. "Literally."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus, what did you do to him?"<br/>
<br/>
"What did he do to himself, you mean. So I'm at the sink in the D wing bathroom, stylin' my 'do, and I turn around just as one of the stalls me behind opens up. It's Tilley, and he bumps right into me as he comes out. He looks up, totally freaks out, jumps back four feet like I'm blazing hot. Which I am. K'shzzz!" He licks a fingertip and touches his flexed bicep. "Anyway, he jumps back into the stall, falls on the floor, puts his hand inside the toilet. I just gave him a look and left, but I was laughing so hard on the inside."<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, that's horrible," you exclaim, but you're laughing too. Then you sober up. "You think maybe we oughta bring him in on this?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb does a double-take. "We don't want a dumbass like <i>Tilley</i> mixed up with these masks! You're twice as smart as him, and look how you've fucked everything up."<br/>
<br/>
"I fucked you into Chelsea Cooper's cunny."<br/>
<br/>
"The secret ingredient is Gary Chen," he retorts. "But no, we're not bringing him in."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that Caleb Johansson or Seth Javits talking," you ask. "And why does Javits hate him so much anyway? You've got an inside take on things now."<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," he sighs. "It's irrational. I feel it when I look at him, like he's a pair of fingernails scratching at a chalkboard. I think he just sets Javits off." He shrugs. "But it's <i>me</i> who says we need to keep all this away from Tilley," he adds firmly. "So what have you figured out about the paste stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly you feel very vulnerable outside Chen's mask. This is Seth Javits talking to you, and though you can feel Caleb's innocence and goofiness behind the mask, he looks exactly like Seth: Strong, straight teeth, strong nose, hard eyes, a powerful torso under the letterman jacket. And you've got a confession to make.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, the way I figure," you tell him, "these rock-bots are suddenly portable, and we can use them to hide people."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, I'll confess. While we were changing your mask out this afternoon, I ran a little test on you. I put Chen's mask on you. You know, it has my rock-bot inside it, and I put it on you and, uh, it turned you into a Chenbot, totally under my control."<br/>
<br/>
The color drains from Caleb's face.<br/>
<br/>
"I took it right off you, it was just a fast test, and I didn't want you arguing with me, so I— What are you—?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb—Seth Javits, to all appearances—grabs you by the throat. "You fucking did <i>what</i> to me, you little puke?"<br/>
<br/>
"It was just a test," you gasp. "I took it right off you! I mean, you know that, right? No harm, no— <i>Urlpgh!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
His fingers tighten, and his lips peel back. But he drops you. Eventually.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, you tested your thing," he snarls. "And you put that stuff, <i>my</i> rock-bot stuff, in Javits's mask?" You nod: your voice still hasn't returned. "And if I put it on <i>you</i> then <i>you'd</i> turn into what? A Sethbot who has to obey me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ninety-nine percent chance I would. If you want to try it, I'll let you, to make up for—"<br/>
<br/>
He waves you to silence. "No, we're good, I guess. But what if I put this mask on Javits? Would he turn into a rock-bot, or would it just go inside him again, like when we put it on him the first time?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," you admit. "But I think he'd turn into a Sethbot. What are you thinking?"<br/>
<br/>
He starts. "I dunno. What are <i>you</i> thinking?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I'm thinking of just going on like this for now, except sending the Chenbot out to work. And you're having fun, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," he says slowly. "But it sounds like you could turn Chen into the Chenbot, and we could put everyone back to normal."</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122121112
author_id: seuzz
title: Fragments of a Day
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"You could turn Chen into the Chenbot, and we could put everyone back to normal."<br/>
<br/>
That's Caleb's suggestion, but you're no more inclined that way than you were before. Luckily, it's easy to talk him out of it: "Does that include turning Seth Javits back to normal?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb turns very red under your steady gaze. "Okay, maybe Seth could stay where he is."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. How about Chelsea? Does she go back to normal?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh—"<br/>
<br/>
"Because if we turn Chen into a Chenbot, she has to go back to being herself. Is she gonna stick with you then, or go back to Gordon, who'd also be back to being himself? How's Cindy these days, is she talking to you again?" you add before Caleb can answer any of that blizzard of questions.<br/>
<br/>
"That doesn't— Look, this takes care of Chen, right? You don't wanna be stuck like this, do you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, we can turn him into a bot. Be my pleasure to. But then Gordon has to get turned loose, doesn't he? And then Dane'll have to get turned loose, and then it'll be Chelsea coming out from under a mask, and we're back to 'Is Cindy talking to you these days' because Chelsea—"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb swings at you; not hard, and you duck. <br/>
<br/>
"Calm down, cowboy. I'll leave it to you. We turn Chen into a bot, and you go back to being yourself, or we leave everyone where they are. 'Cos that's basically the choice."<br/>
<br/>
"Fine," he says gruffly after a minute of struggling. "But it's not like I'm going to stay like this forever, and then you better be ready to put that mask onto Chen. I guess we can let things go on this way until I get bored." You suppress a grin: Caleb seems deeply ashamed of this decision, which is why he is pretending he might ever get tired of being Chelsea Cooper's new jock-star boyfriend.<br/>
<br/>
You finish another mask-and-band combo in the time after he leaves and before the Chenbot returns. It looks worn out, and you too feel the exhaustion after you've changed back into the mask. Now you spot the flaw in your plan to dodge work: When you're back in the mask, you not only feel the stress and grind of your own evening, but the stress and grind of Chen's. It's all you can do to copy out the homework you'd completed, and to complete the homework you hadn't.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The Chenbot did well in the marketplace yesterday, selling the last of your stock to Osbourne and Murphy; and he managed to lay it on them for fifty-five an eighth with the excuse that it was the last he had. But the real good news comes today, during second period, when Marc Garner pulls you away from a practice scrimmage to say that the AP fucks are still in business with you, and will be buying six and a quarter ounces next month. "There's an extra weekend in November," he explains. "So don't get used to it. It'll be back to five the month after that."<br/>
<br/>
"Bump it up to eight ounces and keep it there permanently," you tell him. "You get a discount at that level."<br/>
<br/>
Garner's eyes narrow.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, it's not my idea," you tell him. "I told you, I just procure for whoever asks me, collect a percentage. My guy just jacked his price up to four-forty an ounce, but this stuff is like anything else, if you buy in big enough bulk, you get a discount. He puts his price break at eight ounces, cuts it to three-sixty per." You watch as Garner tries to calculate prices in his head. "That's twenty-eight-eighty for eight ounces with the discount," you tell him when it becomes too painful to watch. "If you buy only six and a half, you'll get one and a half ounces less, and you guys will save all of twenty bucks. Next month, if you buy five ounces at four-forty, it'll cost you twenty-two hundred. But with the discount, an extra seven hundred for three ounces carries a marginal cost of two-thirty an ounce. You'd be picking up the extra baggies at half price."<br/>
<br/>
Garner looks horribly confused—he's an AP fuck, not a genius—and objects that eight ounces is more than half again what they're used to consuming in a set period. "So lay the extra aside, save it for the month after. Or throw a bigger party, more friends. I'm telling you, it's smarter to get the discount. How many people are you buying for? Ten, twelve? Tell them they can pick up a shitload more pot if they each throw in a few more bucks on top of what they're already contributing."<br/>
<br/>
"For this month only," he finally agrees. "We'll take eight <i>if</i> you can guarantee that discount."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll lock it in this afternoon, text you to confirm," you say.<br/>
<br/>
Then it's back to the game.<br/>
<br/>
You do "lock it in this afternoon," with a memo to yourself on your phone: <i>Dope for dopes, 8 for 28.80.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"You hear about Josh Call getting' his balls kicked in?" Roth asks when the conversation lags. <br/>
<br/>
You're eating lunch with him and Small again; it's become a regular thing lately since you don't much like hanging out with the fake Evans and Mendoza and Thomason. You haven't been paying much attention to their talk, and normally you wouldn't trouble over anything about Joshua Call, but it's the third time he's drifted past view in recent days, so you turn a slightly distracted ear toward the conversation.<br/>
<br/>
"What happened?" Small asks. "He mouth off to the wrong truck driver?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, it was here at school."<br/>
<br/>
"What was he doing at school? Someone told me finally dropped out, thank God."<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno what he was doing up here, unless it was something to do with the person who kicked his balls in." Roth grins. "Jelena Petrovich."<br/>
<br/>
"No!" Small exclaims, and even you feel piqued. <i>Something happened between Call and the dyke rocker he has that crush on?</i> "What's the deal?"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't see it," Roth says, "but what I heard was Call was getting' handsy with her, had her pressed up against a locker. Anyway, Sienna Goldman came along and grabbed Call, and while he was dealing with her, Jelena tried making a field goal with his nutsack."<br/>
<br/>
Small cackles. "When did this happen? This morning?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nah, day or two back. I only heard about it this morning. Sienna was out at the portables before classes, looking for guys to come hang out at the warehouse this weekend, in case Call and his friends show up and make trouble." Justin turns to you. "You should go out there, hang out, try to selling 'em some stuff."<br/>
<br/>
"They don't like me."<br/>
<br/>
"That's tough."<br/>
<br/>
"What, are they're looking for bodyguards?" Small asks, his tone dripping with derision.<br/>
<br/>
"I think they just want lots of guys hanging out while they practice," says Roth. "You know, just to be on hand in case." He falls back on his elbows. "I guess I could go up there, it'd be fun. I just hope Call and them <i>don't</i> show up."<br/>
<br/>
"Why, you scared of 'em?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"No, 'cos I hang out with 'em sometimes. Be fuckin' awkward, socially speaking, if I had to get between them and Jelena."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
At your locker after the final bell rings, you text Kevin Hall to meet you by the practice fields at five-fifteen, which will allow enough time for all the afterschool clubs to break up. It also gives you a chance to text Andrea, then to talk to her when she calls you back at around four thirty.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm on the house phone," she says. "No chance of anyone finding your number on it. That fag Hartlein loves to borrow Andrea's cell and snoop through it. Creep."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you loved him, <i>Drea,</i>" you tease.<br/>
<br/>
"It's all I can do keep from vomiting on him," she says. "Can't you take him out for a beating?"<br/>
<br/>
"Keep the personalities out of it, Thomason," you say. "You're no use to the team unless you <i>are</i> Andrea Varnsworth."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm," she says. "I think I am, at least where and when it counts. I helped Bethany Lewis dry her hair today. I think I turned her on while doing it. I know it turned <i>me</i> on. Oh, I also started talking about a lot of money going missing at the house, so expect to be unpopular real soon."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm used to it. How's the popularity of the product?"<br/>
<br/>
"It varies. With Sienna and Fatima and Jelena, I think I'm going to get an intervention if I keep it up."<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking troublemaking hos. They had a run in with— Oh, you probably heard. But I saw Connor Davison toking with you at the party. I never heard he had the habit."<br/>
<br/>
"Me neither. Lee Reynolds and Andrew Harding got a buzz too."<br/>
<br/>
"Nice. What about Winkler?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking twerp. No, he was like Fatima, tried giving me a lecture. Mew mew mew mew mew, I hate weasely little fucks like him. But I think Andy Tackett was interested. Am I supposed to be selling anything?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, just share and make it look sexy, the way Andrea makes everything look sexy." <br/>
<br/>
"I can definitely do that." Her voice turns amused. "I've been practicing in front of a mirror. God, I was turning <i>myself</i> on, I invented this trick of just barely putting it between my lips, then looking up under my eyebrows with this sexy little twinkle in my—"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, great," you say, taking a deep breath and trying to steer your attention back to where you need it to be. "So just keep doing that in front of Davison and Reynolds and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Are we really going to be selling a lot of shit to these dumbasses?"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe not, but every little bit helps. And you don't need to be worried about sales number. Just be out there looking good with that trick." You catch your breath with a groan after hanging up.</span></div></div>


path: 1112111321122222122222212212121121211221112121312112311221121112112112111221211121
author_id: seuzz
title: What the Boss Lady Wants
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You spend the rest of the day and night at home: practicing the viola, doing homework, and laying long-range plans.<br/>
<br/>
Andrea Varnsworth is a long-term advertising play, and Thomason will probably be happy to play that part until he graduates. The goal has to be to nudge more of her friends—and people who want to be her friends—into partaking of the same recreational substance. But there will  have to be a sustaining infrastructure.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Infrastructure:</i> That's what makes it so nice to deal with the AP fucks. They regularly pay for a regular supply, and it all gets handled within sixty seconds. No hustling for nickels and dimes among the school outcasts. <br/>
<br/>
Now you want a similar infrastructure for the group that Andrea is influencing. The trouble is that they are all a bunch of independent types with irregular demand. Even if Andrea added to their numbers, that would just mean a few more haphazard buyers for you to keep up with.<br/>
<br/>
Well, for Chen to keep up with, once he took direct control of this stuff again. <br/>
<br/>
<i>If he ever did.</i><br/>
<br/>
You put away the question of how long you will be doing this. It's easiest to pretend it will be forever. That way, when you hand it off, it will all go smoothly.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, so ideally your irregular customers would set up a regular ordering system and regular consumption venue. Guys like Davison and Tackett, maybe even Winkler and more, might then be seduced into making their consumption habitual because they would want to attend these regular parties.<br/>
<br/>
But where to hold them?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Friday is boring. That doesn't mean you relax. You have soccer practice and two hard classes; and when you spot Evan Wade going into a bathroom, you follow him in and pick a fight, just to see what he's made of. He's scrappy and he's got a few moves, and he doesn't yield when you hassle him. But he still ends up with his head inside the paper towel disposal while you explain that the B wing boys' room is your property after fifth period, and that if he doesn't like the smell of wadded up paper towels he'd better find another toilet to use after fifth.<br/>
<br/>
You send the Chenbot to the country club while you lazily make and polish a few more masks. You're not sure why you're making more, except to have them ready to go in case you need to make a switch. After all, you're just about set on moving Evans to some new position at Eastman; you'll know better after you get those three brain bands back from him.<br/>
<br/>
But the Chenbot brings more than the three bands when it returns close to midnight. On the cell phone is a text from Chelsea Cooper's number: <i>Tomorrow, 11, my place. Bring cash.</i> <br/>
<br/>
You make a face. She must mean the receipts from the month's sales. You doubt she wants to talk about the cheerleader tryouts.<br/>
<br/>
Yes, that's been the big news of the last week: Open tryouts for six spots on the team, come one, come all classes. You've barely paid attention: you've enough of Gary Chen's life to worry about without adding Chelsea Cooper's to it.<br/>
<br/>
But as for the cash: You have a thousand you can pass on to her; the rest of the hoard has to be saved for the house as "tip money" from the country club. Chen is not going to like being short when it comes to placing the final order with Mathis. What if he asks how you're going to cover it? You don't want to tell him about the cash you mean to "borrow" from Andrea. It would revive his "rich twat" idea.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"What do you mean, I should cover it?" she sneers. "You think Mathis takes credit cards?" <br/>
<br/>
"Can't you get the cash from your folks? Tell 'em you wanna buy—"<br/>
<br/>
"They're generous, but they're not complete shitwits. It's all done on plastic so they can see where the money's going."<br/>
<br/>
As with your other meetings, you're sitting out by the pool; and since the weather has turned chillier, your erstwhile boss is well bundled up, so that not even her bellybutton is showing. But she still looks gorgeous in the lustrous black sweater and matching knitted head band as she counts the bills tucked inside the fat envelope you'd given her. <br/>
<br/>
"It's not much of a shortfall," you point out. "With that there, and the three-sixty Evans owes me, you're only short two-fifty. Don't you spend that much on clothes every weekend?"<br/>
<br/>
"You trying out material for a comedy club?" She grins sharkishly. "You and Johansson skimmed some."<br/>
<br/>
"Naturally. Frog tongues and bat wings don't come cheap, and you had me pop four guys into new positions. Also, I passed out free samples to get new assholes interested. Call 'em capital expenses and greater-than-expected marketing costs."<br/>
<br/>
"So get the money from the three fucketeers. Between them, they gotta have the cash laying around in their new digs."<br/>
<br/>
"They don't."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't they?" she asks in a small, innocent-sounding voice. "I heard a nasty rumor that four thousand dollars disappeared from Andrea Varnsworth's house."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck.</i> You should have known that rumor would get back to Chelsea. "Yeah, alright, that's why the shortfall won't matter."<br/>
<br/>
She grins. "So now you're finally on the team. I told you that stealing some—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not stealing, I'm borrowing."<br/>
<br/>
Her face falls. "The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"Andrea's mom's got a buncha cash laying around. But I figure we can put four thousand of it to work and pay it back out of the first big sales before she notices it's gone."<br/>
<br/>
"Why can't we keep it? We already said it was stolen from her house."<br/>
<br/>
"We don't wanna leave traces, especially when <i>Gary Chen</i> is the accused. If we repay it, she can say that it was mistake, that the money didn't get stolen." You point to your face. "Why are you trying to put your own head in a noose?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hmph. Well, when you get the money from her, give her another job. We're having cheerleader tryouts, you know? Jesus, Prescott, you're not all faggy under my face, are you, you <i>have</i> noticed those signs we've been putting up?"<br/>
<br/>
"I heard rumors," you allow. "Six slots you're trying to fill? Way to fuck up the squad, man."<br/>
<br/>
"I've got it exactly the way I want it," she snarls. "Just me and my friends, and everyone who comes on is going to <i>owe</i> me. It's open competition, and there's going to be a line around the block for those spots. Everyone will be kissing my ass, and don't think I'm not gonna make the most of it. Fucking Vredenburg bint thought she could take it away from me, I'm stronger than I was before! One of 'em I want competing is Andrea Varnsworth."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think she'll be interested," you say, and wonder at the coincidence that Chelsea should want her trying out for the squad when that was the excuse you used to trap her for Thomason.<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>tell</i> her to be interested."<br/>
<br/>
"I think that would be out of character. She's really married to the swim team, and I think the practice times conflict."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't say I was going to pick her," Chelsea says. "Though <i>God</i> I'd love to see her out of that one-piece with her arms and legs out to here." She clumsily splays her limbs. "But it's just to cement things. I want Andrea Varnsworth competing <i>hard</i> for a spot on the squad, and I want to fucking turn her down, so everyone will <i>know</i> what kind of power I've got."<br/>
<br/>
If it weren't for the vulgar talk about Andrea, and most of the cuss words, you'd wonder if Chelsea's personality wasn't taking over Chen's. But then, based on your behavior inside Chen's mask, you're pretty sure this is Chen working out his pathologies in a different form.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what excuse I could give her—"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be dumb. Tell her you want her in the girls' locker room after cheerleading practice so she can secretly take pictures."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're pretty sure that "Andrea" will kick hard at the cheerleader scheme—you want to kick hard against it—so instead of calling her you send a text to set up a meeting. Besides, you want to see her again. Hell, you just want an excuse to be close to her. <br/>
<br/>
But the reply is disappointing: She'll be spending the afternoon with her girlfriends the Warehouse.<br/>
<br/>
Ah yes. The Warehouse. Now that's a place you need to check out closer. With his schedule, Chen rarely has the time to get in; and, anyway, Dwayne has warned him off it the same way he's warned Chen off the river as a sales location. But thanks to those brain bands Trantham brought you, there's another avenue for you into the Warenouse.<br/>
<br/>
Yeah, those brain bands from Eastman told you a lot of what you needed to know. Two of them were useless, though through them you learn that the other high school will be a hard market to cultivate. It's a much more genteel place, much more in the grip of well-scrubbed AP types and honor-code athletes. But in the third brain band one you hit the jackpot. In the character and personality of Adam Karter you find a kid with the drive and amorality of Gary Chen and the charisma of Justin Roth. If anyone could set up a racket at Eastman, this Karter kid could. <br/>
<br/>
In fact, he's got so much potency that you've pretty much decided to <i>not</i> put Evans inside a mask of Karter; with Karter's personality as a crutch, he might become a formidable rival.<br/>
<br/>
So you'd been thinking of Karter as someone you'd have to rockbot-ocize. But for this afternoon it might be a good idea to take him over as an impersonation. He hangs out at that warehouse, so no one would blink if he showed up, and you could check out the scene directly.<br/>
<br/>
And if Andrea is there? Even with Thomason running the controls—especially with Thomason running the controls—the girl is not going to touch Gary Chen. You wonder if Karter would have better luck with her.</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112212111211
author_id: seuzz
title: Another Agent for the Organization
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Yes, a rockbot is just the way to handle the Eastman traffic: dependable and subservient. And this guy Adam Karter is just the one to set up an Eastman trade for you. He's a popular guy, but a raffish troublemaker; easy to imagine as a dealer, but not the scary kind like Chen. Just a party-hearty dude who knows how to lay his hands on a bale of weed every month, and generous enough to bring everyone in to share it. <br/>
<br/>
And under his face, you scope out that warehouse where you want to set up the other Westside party scene.<br/>
<br/>
So you call Trantham: "Set me up a meeting with Adam Karter this afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
"I think he's busy on Saturdays."<br/>
<br/>
"I know for a fact he is, and I know for a fact he'll listen if you call it a business proposition."<br/>
<br/>
"He hasn't got a car."<br/>
<br/>
"I know that too, so give him a ride! Jesus! Meet me up at the Westside student parking lot. Oh, and bring all the bash you still got hand. And all the money."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's close to one on a bright (but slightly chilly) October afternoon, and you're tensed up in the Jeep when an old Plymouth rattles and sighs into the Westside lot: Chris Trantham's car. He's only a few minutes late, so didn't have long to beguile yourself with the thought that Andrea—the new Andrea—must've been out here a few hours  ago for the Saturday swim. How Thomason must be loving his new athleticism.<br/>
<br/>
You get out and approach the Plymouth after it's parked. Two doors open and two figures get out. But you concentrate on the driver. "Take a walk out to the portables and back," you tell Trantham. "Slow. Lean against my Jeep when you get back, wait for me to get out and talk." He nods and shuffles off, and you turn to other guy."Let's talk in my friend's office," you say, and drop behind the wheel of the Plymouth.<br/>
<br/>
Karter follows, and turns to you, and you get a good look at him. He's got a blonde, shaggy mop of hair that despite its crudity still manages to look stylish in a ragamuffin kind of way. Maybe it's because of his face, which is brown with angled cheekbones and a strong, narrow nose and chin. His impish grin is wide and sharp at the corners, and his teeth are white and mostly straight. <br/>
<br/>
"So you're Adam Karter," you say as you unzip your backpack. From it you pull a blank mask.<br/>
<br/>
"And you're Gary Chen," he replies in a clear but mischievous tenor. <br/>
<br/>
"Pleased to meet you," you say, and hold out your hand. He takes it.<br/>
<br/>
And with his good hand clenched in yours, you can keep him from blocking you when you jam the mask onto the front of his head. He bounces off the headrest and falls forward. You catch and prop him up, and light a cigarette while waiting for the mask to finish copying him. Briefly you regret not talking to him before ambushing him; but there will be plenty of time for later for another kind sociability once you're under his face.<br/>
<br/>
You flick ash out the window, and when a glow appears on Karter's face you flick away the cigarette itself. <br/>
<br/>
You catch the mask before it can fall into his lap, and you've got the rockbot paste out already, so it's only a minute or so before you've got his mask finished up and fitted back onto him. You're not totally sure this is going to work—will it turn him into a rockbot, or will it only go into him, then reappear? But you think you've got the answer when he instantly stirs. "The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"Quiet. Hit yourself. Hit yourself in the face."<br/>
<br/>
There's only a fractional hesitation before he complies. And he hits himself again, harder, when you order him to. A third time, and you're satisfied when he curses in a frightened voice.<br/>
<br/>
"You work for me, Karter," you tell him, shifting around to stare at him directly. "You don't tell anyone, but you work for me. You will answer every question I ask., and you will do everything I tell you. " You almost tell him that he won't argue with you, but you decide that argumentation might be a good thing, if it keeps you from making any mistakes he could warn you off of. "Do you understand?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," he says, sounding very resentful. You can fix that, though.<br/>
<br/>
"You like me, Karter," you tell him softly. "You like working for me. It's a blast. It's the most fun you've ever had. But don't tell anyone you work for me. It's a secret. You get it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," he says, sounding much happier about it now.<br/>
<br/>
"Great. Now come with me. When Trantham gets back, we're gonna drive someplace and get very intimate with each other."<br/>
<br/>
So he follows you and gets into the Jeep. You wait for Trantham, who isn't long in appearing. "Karter and I are going off to talk," you tell him. "I'll take him home. You can head off to wherever."<br/>
<br/>
So he leaves, and you drive back to Acheson to the elementary school.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Sweet!" you exclaim as you study yourself in the basement mirror. You grin over your shoulder at the seething Chenbot. "Don't hate me because I'm cute, dude."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't, I fucking hate you because you're -- "<br/>
<br/>
You snap a finger at him, and the shuts up. You go back to admiring yourself.<br/>
<br/>
Adam Karter -- and that's you now -- is finely constructed from crown to toe. Slender without being skinny, with muscles that show without showing off. Brown all over from the sun under golden hair that is unkempt like Will Prescott's without looking unmanaged; and that is tousled without looking styled. Over this body you've thrown a short-sleeved plaid button-down shirt that's as thin as a cotton rag whose tails hang over a pair of jeans cut off just below the knee. Sockless feet -- like boney canoes -- are thrust into ragged canvas shoes. A plastic wristband is the only other adornment. (Like Karter's body needs adorning.)<br/>
<br/>
Yes, he's very cute on the outside. Utterly rotten on the inside, but that's not something you need to dwell on. Happier to look forward to an afternoon at the Warehouse in the company of his friends -- of both sexes.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, let's go," you tell Chen, and dart past him for the stairs. "You just need to drop me off. I'll call you tomorrow when I need picking up. And you -- " You climb into the passenger side of his Jeep like a long-limbed spider monkey. "You just do what Gary Chen needs to do. Homework, housework, hanging out with Kirkham, whatever. Understand? Good." You buckle yourself in, turn on the radio to a station that Karter likes and Chen hates, slap his hand away when he tries to change it, and groove along to the beat while slapping the canvas top of the Jeep with your palms.<br/>
<br/>
This really is a lot more fun than being Chen, as long as you beat back the horror of what's waiting at the mobile home where Karter lives.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The Chenbot is taking you to the Warehouse, where Karter spends most of his weekends, and many of his weeknights, it being a much more congenial place than the trailer home where his mother lives. It would be congenial even if the home life weren't so horrible, as it's a party scene, music scene, and social hangout all rolled up into one. It's the place where you can have the most fun in Saratoga Falls, if you've got nerve and guts. Also, youth. No one over nineteen is allowed inside.<br/>
<br/>
No one knows how it all started or came to be. Oh, the building itself has a history that is easy to trace. "The Warehouse" is just that: a warehouse, on the northern edge of the industrial district, in the worst part of town. It was built next to the railroad tracks, plainly as a facility for loading, offloading, and storing goods, but has been abandoned for as long as anyone remembers. At some point -- in the early 1980s, if not earlier -- the city's teenagers began to congregate there, rearranging the inner walls, bringing in furniture, holding impromptu parties. These got larger and larger, and it became a regular thing for garage bands to perform there on weekends, as a tryout venue before attempting to play in real bars and nightclubs. Habit gradually hardened into tradition, and now bands play there almost every Friday night while Saturday nights are given over to dances and a more nightclub-like atmosphere. The whole things runs on the basis of a kind of spontaneous order, where everyone just seems to know what jobs need doing. There is some kind of administration and enforcement -- older kids who have been mysteriously instructed in how things are supposed to work, and ensure that they do work that way -- but there are never any adults around, and those people who run the weekend parties also arrange for high school muscle -- football players, mostly -- to be on hand to repel invasion by any outside gangs roving the streets. As there are never any incidents at the Warehouse, the police never involve themselves in it.<br/>
<br/>
Still, there must be some kind of tentacle inside the Warehouse, for Dwayne Macauley has warned Chen off of trying to deal inside the place, and that suggests that some other dealer or group of dealers -- maybe Dwayne himself -- has staked that territory, for drugs and drink are openly dealt there. But Karter -- whose habits, like Chen's, are restricted to tobacco -- has never inquired as to who supplies the concessions. But he knows who to ask, and that means you do too.<br/>
<br/>
But is that why you're going there? Or are you going there to hit on Andrea?</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122121112111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Business End of the Warehouse
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The Warehouse sits behind a whitewashed cinderblock wall, almost invisible from the street, and doesn't come into view until the Chenbot pulls up next to a sliding gate made of chain link. "Remember, stay out of trouble, and call me if something comes up you can't handle," you tell it, and it rolls his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
You'd fix its attitude, but it's kind of fun kicking it around.<br/>
<br/>
You've got Karter's cell out before you've even hopped onto the street. Karter couldn't afford his own, but he's so popular with his peers that a collection got taken up to buy him a cheap model and subsidize a service plan. You're about to call inside for someone to open the gate when you spot a figure hunched over by the front door. "Yo!" you call, and whistle. The boy looks up, then hurries over to the gate. He's got long, curly brown hair under a backward-turned ball cap, and the eager manner of an underclassman desperate to please an upperclassman.<br/>
<br/>
Which is exactly what he is.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Bell. They got you on door duty, huh," you laugh as he unlocks the gate and pushes it back. He looks immensely flattered that you know his name. "Who's inside?"<br/>
<br/>
"Drew and Lane are taking care of things," the Eastman sophomore replies. "Except Drew went out a little while ago. They called me this morning, asked if I could help out." His face is pink with pride and pleasure.<br/>
<br/>
"Cool. Anyone else inside? Any girls?" You waggle your eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
He blushes. "Some. Oh my God!" His grin almost wraps all the way around his head. "One of them -- !"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll see if I can talk a couple of them out here for a smoke, help you on door duty, give you a chance to shine." You slap him lightly in the chest, and with a wink trot up to the main door to the place.<br/>
<br/>
The walls of the Warehouse rise about forty feet above the ground, behind an acre of asphalt parking lot that is empty except on weekends. The walls are blank and weather battered, and under the eaves are some narrow and very dirty windows, most of which are broken. Massive sliding doors in the left wing open into a larger space that holds the stages and dance floors, but you head for a kind of concrete pillbox sticking out of the middle of the warehouse: this is the main entrance, and it once held -- and still does -- a small reception area. Once inside, you yell and whistle. "Yo! Lane!"<br/>
<br/>
"Back here!" a voice calls, and you follow its sound into the wing opposite the dance floor, which is stocked more like a traditional bar. Lane Overstreet is there, moving crates of beers behind an improvised bar built of battered cabinetry. He starts to say, "You need any help?" but breaks off when he sees it's you. <br/>
<br/>
Lane is dark of face and hair -- he's mostly of Italian-Hispanic ethnicity -- and looks all the darker in his leather jacket, leather pants, and leather fingerless gloves. A fringe of beard runs down the side of his jaw to his chin, and he's got piercings in his ears, nose, and lip. He also sports a penis ring, according to report, but you leave that to his boyfriends to confirm or refute. "Where's Drew?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Making a food run. I thought you were him coming back. What're you here for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Thought I'd hang out, give you something to lust for. Who's making that noise?" you continue as a wailing guitar lick floats in from elsewhere.<br/>
<br/>
"Lady Steel. Practicing. They're playing next Friday."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck. I was looking forward to next Friday till you told me that."<br/>
<br/>
"When're you guys playing next?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. Paul's being a dipshit. I think it's a girl bothering him but he won't talk to me. Oh, speaking of girls, Bell said something about some slamming hotties hanging out in here." You lean your elbows on a cabinet. "Can you confirm?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, there is one you'd like."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Tall, brunette, slim, tan all over. Built like a swimmer, but I bet her breasts cut into her time."<br/>
<br/>
That would definitely be Andrea, and you grin hard at his description of her. "Sounds like she turned <i>you</i> on."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, and that's not a come on."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. Who's your latest fantasy?" You slowly unbutton the top button of your shirt. "You can tell me." You loose another button, and rub a fingertip on your breastbone. "Who's your latest crush?"<br/>
<br/>
His eyes darken with satire. "Durras."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck." You button yourself up again. "Asshole."<br/>
<br/>
"He really cramps your style, doesn't he?"<br/>
<br/>
"He hasn't got any style! Dumbass son of a bitch. Have you even talked to him? I've known fucking Irish setters smarter than him."<br/>
<br/>
A secret smile spreads over Lane's face. "The one I like is smart."<br/>
<br/>
You sneer. "The one you like is -- " The penny drops. "Hang on. You're not talking about <i>Frank</i> are you?" You howl as Lane grins and winks. "Oh, you gotta make a pass at him! You got him for any classes?" You grab Lane by the lapel of his jacket. "You've fucking <i>got</i> to make a pass at him! Do it in front of his brother!"<br/>
<br/>
Lane pushes you back. "I'm not going to do that."<br/>
<br/>
"He's gay, you know."<br/>
<br/>
Lane starts. "Where did you hear that?"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't. It's obvious. What happened to your gaydar?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's fully functional, and it doesn't go off around him."<br/>
<br/>
"Only 'cos Frank Durras is too deep in the closet for you to pick it up. He's got to be gay. I mean, look at the evidence. He doesn't date, he doesn't even smile at girls, not that I've seen." You lightly grasp Lane's lapel. "Just get him quietly alone, tell him how you feel. I bet anything he's so bottled up he'll bust out crying with relief before you even get a second sentence out. You're sexy enough for him." You pat Lane's jacket down.<br/>
<br/>
But Lane just smiles and goes back to unloading beers. You muse over the easy way you just teased Overstreet -- a guy you yourself have never met -- about some Eastman students you've never even heard of; then, with a shrug pad into the next room, where a lot of makeshift booths and tables -- as in regular bars -- are set up. It's empty. You crane your neck and consider going up the stairs in the back, to the second floor and the loft with the makeshift walls and the mattresses where --<br/>
<br/>
All over your body, muscles tense pleasurably and relax, leaving you with a tender, half-mast erection. If you could get Andrea up there -- <br/>
<br/>
You shudder with anticipation, and dread.<br/>
<br/>
Karter could make the approach. He's got the guts to overleap that first moment of hesitation, and the daring to dart through the obstacles, and the confidence to pursue the fleeing hart. But you know it's not Andrea Varnsworth in the next wing. It's Joe Thomason in an Andrea disguise. And would Joe Thomason fall into bed with a guy? No, if it got around, got back to Chen, that Andrea Varnsworth had fucked a dude at the Warehouse, he'd be hazed mercilessly as a fag. You'd see to that, once you were back in Chen's mask, and Thomason would be too smart to run the risk of word ever leaking out.<br/>
<br/>
No, it's best to use this trip to scout out the scene, figure out how to infiltrate it, make some money off it. You return to the bar, where you hoist yourself onto the counter next to Lane. "So I need to talk to somebody about some weed," you say.<br/>
<br/>
He straightens up. "You?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's not like that. I'm not in the market to buy. I've got some I'm trying to offload."<br/>
<br/>
"Not around here, you don't."<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, I know it gets dealt. You sell it from behind this counter yourself, I've seen you."<br/>
<br/>
"Because I've got a license. You don't. C'mon, Karter, you know how it works."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't. Enlighten me."<br/>
<br/>
"If you don't then you don't. So -- The fuck is that?" He rears away from the baggies you've just dropped on the counter.<br/>
<br/>
"It's what I'm trying to sell. I got it for nothing. <i>Nothing.</i> Some asshole trying to be nice to me. I'm not gonna smoke it so I'm trying to turn it into cash."<br/>
<br/>
Lane pushes it back toward you. "I'm not buying."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you make a profit off your 'license'? You'll make a bigger profit off -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Until someone hears what I did for you, and then -- Karter, I like pain, but not that kind and in those quantities."<br/>
<br/>
"Then tell me who you buy from, and I'll try selling to him."<br/>
<br/>
"Sell it on your own, but not here. That's a fucking serious warning, Karter. " He jumps at the sound of a door slamming somewhere. "Get that fucking stuff out of here -- "<br/>
<br/>
"No, tell me who to talk to, or Drew's gonna find those baggies sitting here between us."<br/>
<br/>
Lane turns a bright red. "Fine. Reston. Talk to Reston, and he'll -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Reston?" You laugh. "You're fucking with me. Okay!" You sweep up the baggies and pop them back into your shirt pocket just as a door opens and a half-naked figure comes in, lugging a cardboard box. "Catch up with you later. Yo! Jeffries!"<br/>
<br/>
"Karter!" Drew Jeffries sets his burden down. He's dressed in baggy shorts, no shirt, and a backward turned cap. You exchange a complicated handshake. "Pay you a buck fifty to help lug some groceries in," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Forget the cash. Just gimme a ride after we offload your shit."<br/>
<br/>
The deal is struck. "Where to?"<br/>
<br/>
Well, it depends. Do you visit Matt Reston -- a bass player who is apparently linked to the marijuana concession at the Warehouse -- in the genial guise of Adam Karter, or the threatening guise of Gary Chen?</span></div></div>


path: 1112111321122222122222212212121121211221112121312112311221121112112112111221211121111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Inside Dope on the Inside Dope
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><i>You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.</i><br/>
<br/>
It's not a proverb that Gary Chen takes as guidance, but Adam Karter does. "I need to see Reston. You know where he lives?"<br/>
<br/>
Jeffries nods. "Sure, I can take you out there. Does it have to be now?"<br/>
<br/>
"Whenever. I'm in no hurry." You go out and spend the next five, ten minutes moving box after box of salty snacks from Jeffries' van to the bar. Another twenty minutes passes with you gossiping with Jeffries and Overstreet about Eastman stuff. At every moment you expect Andrea Varnsworth to walk through, but she never does, and when you follow Drew outside you still haven't confirmed that she's even at the Warehouse.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's not a long drive to Matt Reston's place: He lives in a bombed-out residential section not far from the industrial zone, and not that far from Andrea's. It's a decrepit apartment complex that looks like it was once a hotel: three wings, each two stories tall, enclose a parking lot that might have once had a swimming pool in the middle of it, and the rental office occupies exactly the spot where a hotel office might have stood. The place is treeless, airless, and even in the cool October air feels hot. Jeffries pulls up in front of a door and points: Unit 147. "Want me to wait?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can Reston give me a ride back?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't know."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll chance it. I know some people who live close by."<br/>
<br/>
Jeffries cocks a skeptical eyebrow, but lets you out. You have a feeling that unfriendly eyes are watching from behind the curtains in some of the rooms opposite, but you don't let it faze you.<br/>
<br/>
A scrabbling at the door comes in answer to your knock, and Matt Reston looks through the crack. His smile is tight but friendly. "Ay, Karter, what's up? You visiting or inviting me out?"<br/>
<br/>
"Either one. Got some stuff to talk to -- "<br/>
<br/>
Reston pulls you inside. He puts a chain on the door and locks two bolts plus the little twistie lock in the knob. "Want some refreshment? All I've got's tap water."<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay." You look around. Even the tap water in this place is probably disgusting.<br/>
<br/>
There is a single bed with only a mattress, topped with a tangled sleeping bag. In the corner is a dorm-sized refrigerator and next to it a low cabinet with a hot plate. A stink of mold and garbage permeates the air.<br/>
<br/>
You let out a low whistle. "How much you pay a month for luxury like this?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fifty, and I'm looking for a roommate. My last one -- Well, he got himself free room and board someplace else."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll think about it. I've got some business I want to talk over with you." You push the sleeping bag aside and sink onto the mattress. Reston keeps aloof by the door, even though you smile at him.<br/>
<br/>
Matt Reston is not a name known to Will Prescott. He's a musician, of fair caliber, playing bass in a band called Tiger Driver. He was at Westside until the end of his sophomore year, and at Eastman through the middle of his junior year, which is when he stopped going to school altogether. As a physical specimen he's unimpressive, being short -- very short -- with a big nose, pockmarked cheeks, and long blonde hair that's had some of its locks dyed black. He makes up for these shortcomings with a nervous energy, a loud-mouthed forwardness, and a bantam-weight speed and quickness of fist. He is, you reflect with Adam Karter's intuitions, both the most likely and least likely guy to be moving marijuana inside the Warehouse.<br/>
<br/>
"Somebody gave me something I don't have any use for," you say, and pull the baggies from your pocket. "Somebody else told me you might have a use for it, so I wanted to see if you'd give me something in trade for it." You toss the baggies onto the corner of the bed. <br/>
<br/>
He only glances at them. "I don't have a use for that."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't? Because somebody told me -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Somebody's wrong."<br/>
<br/>
"Then what am I supposed to do with them?"<br/>
<br/>
Reston shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
"Well fuck, man. I tried selling it in the Warehouse -- "<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>what?</i>" His tone turns dangerous.<br/>
<br/>
" -- and no one would touch it. They said 'Talk to Reston'. I picked up this stuff for free, but even when I said I'd -- "<br/>
<br/>
"For free?" His eyebrows work. "Yeah, I can take it from you for free."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it was free to me is what I meant. Can't you offer me something for it?"<br/>
<br/>
"A glass of water."<br/>
<br/>
You make a face. "You know what I mean."<br/>
<br/>
He sighs. "Where'd you get it?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going to tell you. I'm not trying to deal, man. I just wanna monetize something I don't got any use for. It was a one-time thing, I'm not gonna get anymore from -- Whoever. I just want -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Alright. Fuck." He puts his hands on his hips, and an expression halfway between annoyance and fear shows on his face. "Do you have anything on you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just that." You point to the baggies.<br/>
<br/>
"I mean cash. Shit," he says when you shake your head. "Because the way we do this is, you give it to me for free. You just give it to me. Then I sell it back to you, then point you in a direction where you can sell it at a profit by acting as my courier."<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck? Why do we have to -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because that's the only way I'm touching something that doesn't come from my supplier. By not paying you for it myself."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going to tell anyone," you protest.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't care." His thrusts out a belligerent lower lip.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," you sigh after a moment's thought. "Will you buy that stuff from me in return for some information?"<br/>
<br/>
"What information?" His voice drops to an octave lower than his own bass guitar could probably strike.<br/>
<br/>
"Tell me how I can start dealing inside the Warehouse."<br/>
<br/>
Reston's eyes blaze. "You said you weren't in the business! You said -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not! But apparently you're the only guy who can get me in. I've seen it coming out from behind the bar. Overstreet and Jeffries hustle it along with the beer." Reston's eyes become very hard as you continue. "How do I get a license like they've got?"<br/>
<br/>
Reston stares at you very hard. "You get it from me," he says, and that's all.<br/>
<br/>
You shrug. "Then as far as I'm concerned, that's good enough to trade you for this." You toss one of the baggies to his feet. "For the rest of them, let's do what you suggest. I don't have any cash on me now, but I know how to get some. How much do you want for these?" You wave the other baggies at him.<br/>
<br/>
But Reston doesn't answer. He stares intently at the baggies, as though trying to will them into leaping off the bed to join the other one at his feet. "Trade you more information for the rest of it?"<br/>
<br/>
"What information?"<br/>
<br/>
"How to get a license from me, to deal in the Warehouse?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? Okay."<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I don't think you can get any use out of it. But here it is. You get a spot inside, a little corner of your own, and you don't sell outside that spot, and you sure as fuck don't sell inside any corner belonging to any of the other guys. Like, you don't deal in the bar. That's Lane's area. You also buy a set amount from me at the start of every month, and you sell at a set price, no discounts. I hear you're giving discounts, and I tell someone, and he breaks your legs."<br/>
<br/>
"Harsh, man."<br/>
<br/>
"Gotta be that way."<br/>
<br/>
"This area, what kind of area is it? Is it like a physical space, or -- "<br/>
<br/>
"A physical space."<br/>
<br/>
"Time limits? Like, only certain days?"<br/>
<br/>
He turns wary. "Weekends are the only time when people are around. You can't sell -- "<br/>
<br/>
"But what if I got some friends to start hanging out there on weekdays? Late afternoon, early evening. Would I be able to bring stuff in, sell it to them? Or would I have to let Overstreet -- "<br/>
<br/>
Reston sucks in a sharp breath. "We've never had to think about that," he says. "And people don't like going to the Warehouse on weeknights."<br/>
<br/>
"I know that. But I also know how to make people comfortable." You grin cockily.<br/>
<br/>
Cupidity plays in Reston's eyes. "I'd have to think about it," he says. "But maybe. If you're serious about this."<br/>
<br/>
"I'd have to think about it too." You toss all but one baggie at his feet. "So how about we go pick up that money so I can pay you for this last baggie? Then you can tell me who I can sell it to. Unless you want to just tell me who I'd be selling it to, and then I'll just give it to you now?"<br/>
<br/>
Reston visibly tenses, and gives you the wary look of an animal that can't decide if it's being tempted into a trap. For a very long moment you're convinced he's going to curse you and maybe fly at you. But he suddenly relents with a shrug. "Probably you couldn't sell it to them anyway," he says. "You don't know them, they go to Westside. Best if you just leave it to me. You eat yet? I'll buy you supper around the corner, show my appreciation for our deal."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, thanks. But who do you know at Westside who buys?"<br/>
<br/>
"A football player named Carstairs. He sometimes picks up a little from me when we run into each other at the Warehouse. That's who I'd send you to."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You let Reston buy you a cheap meal at the nearby Waffle House, then have him drop you at Hochstetter Park, where you call the Chenbot. Back at the elementary school you fit yourself into Chen's mask to think over what you've learned, and what to do about it.</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112212111211113
author_id: seuzz
title: The Takeover Artist
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You call Dwayne Macauley -- Chen's supplier. He's skittish about talking and even more skittish about seeing you, but when you tell him it's about Westside's football team, he relents and sets up a meeting.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Paranoia is your friend when dealing with Dwayne, and paranoia is Dwayne's friend too: you don't park in front of his place, but the next block over, at the address he gave you. It's the near-twin of his own house -- a cinderblock shack, this one augmented with a rusted-out bathtub out front -- and the door is opened by a skinny woman who is probably in her thirties but has the face of a sixty-year-old. She lets you into the living room and at a grunt from Dwayne goes out the back door.<br/>
<br/>
Dwayne is twitchy, and he glares at you from a broken sofa, but you plant your feet firmly and return his look with a hard one of your own. "What's this bullshit about the Westside football squad?"<br/>
<br/>
"What bullshit's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know what bullshit I mean, cocksucker, or you wouldn't be talking to me about it now. Westside's my territory, I get to break the face of any other fucker who tries dealing there. So how come I find the football team's getting their ganja from someone else?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's your problem. Find out who it is and break his face."<br/>
<br/>
"I could and I would, but I don't go off half-cocked. I gave it a little thought, and deduced that you'd be unhappy if I removed Matt Reston's jaw with a baseball bat."<br/>
<br/>
And Dwayne blinks. Once, but hard. His eyes water a little, and he looks away. "Okay, this isn't about Westside, Chen."<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck it isn't! Those -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Are the football players dealing at Westside?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the cocksucker who's selling to them!"<br/>
<br/>
"It matters because this isn't about Westside. They're not buying inside your territory, they're buying at the Warehouse, like any asshole can. If they bring it onto school property, that's their business, same as anyone who buys at -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Then the Warehouse is a fucking back door into my property! I want it closed!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not closing the Warehouse!" Dwayne's eyes blaze. "And I'm not -- !" He masters his anger. "You go to the Warehouse, Chen?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Well, not often."<br/>
<br/>
"The Westside football squad acts as security there. Part of the deal is they get to buy product at a discount."<br/>
<br/>
Your eyes narrow. "And Reston handles the actual sale?"<br/>
<br/>
"Now you've got it. Technically, he buys their bundle from me at the same price he gets, then sells it to the squad at cost, so he's not making a profit, he's just passing it along." Dwayne spreads his hands. "It's not a back door, not if they're not reselling it into the school, and if they are, tell me so I can straighten it out. But if I cut 'em off, they won't go to you for a supply." A thought strikes him. "Unless they do already. Do they?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sometimes," you grudgingly admit.<br/>
<br/>
"There you are. You're not losing any business, not any business you're entitled to, because they're not buying at Westside, they're buying at the Warehouse, and that's mine."<br/>
<br/>
"You actually run it? That's your enterprise, the Warehouse?"<br/>
<br/>
Dwayne maintains a stony silence. You sigh deeply and stare at the wall over his head. "Okay, I get it."<br/>
<br/>
"Good. Then if there's nothing else -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on. I might have a proposition for you."<br/>
<br/>
He waits patiently while you run some numbers and simulations through your head.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
A lot of stuff that puzzled you now makes sense. You'd learned from Mendoza that Carstairs was buying weed at a steep discount, the kind of discount that wouldn't make financial sense to a dealer. Now it does: the discounted weed is payment for services rendered elsewhere. At the same time, you want --<br/>
<br/>
Or Chen would want, and you're acting as his agent.<br/>
<br/>
-- to sew up Westside tightly as your own game preserve. You are also casting covetous eyes on the Warehouse as a field for expansion, if in no other way than as a place where an extended Westside user base could regularly party, thereby giving you a regular and easy-to-supply demand point. You could solve both problems at a stroke if you could take over the Warehouse franchise from Reston.<br/>
<br/>
After a few minute's thought, you turn your attention back to Macauley, who has started to shift impatiently on the sofa.<br/>
<br/>
"If I asked Reston to describe his financials, what would he tell me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Beats the fuck out of me. Why don't you ask him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I'm <i>here,</i> not there, and I'm betting you could tell me and he might not." You hazard tipping your hand a little. "I might be interested in staging a merger of interests with him."<br/>
<br/>
"Merger of -- ? Where the fuck do you learn to talk like that? But Reston's not gonna be interested," Macauley snorts.<br/>
<br/>
"What about a buyout, then? Tell me what I'd be taking over, and I'll run the numbers to see if I can make it attractive to him to sell out to me." <br/>
<br/>
Now it's Dwayne's turn to take his time answering. He scratches his neck and rubs his nose. He looks all over the room except at you. "He buys sixty ounces a month from me," he says at last.<br/>
<br/>
"Same as me, then."<br/>
<br/>
"Same as you, but he only sells it into the Warehouse. Standing deal with the football squad is that they get six ounces for sixteen hundred. Reston sells the rest into the Warehouse at -- Well, it's up to him, but he's making a profit." Dwayne holds your eye. "And on top of what he pays me for the supply, he pays me fifteen hundred a month to service the money I advanced him to set it up."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Ah. So Dwayne's branching out into Karol Mathis's line of work.</i><br/>
<br/>
You lean against the wall and tug at your lip while running the numbers in your head. If Dwayne is being truthful -- and he probably is; you've threatened to talk to Reston to get the real numbers -- then Reston is turning a profit of about thirty-five hundred a month on his operation at the Warehouse, and a personal profit of two thousand a month after all business expenses. He's living in a lot more squalor than he'd have to suffer for two thousand a month. Either he's got a serious monkey on his back, or he's scrimping like mad so as to pay off the debt to Dwayne.<br/>
<br/>
Either way, you could run his operation more profitably than him since you wouldn't have his living expenses to worry about. You could relieve him of his debt -- which would probably ease his mind -- and even give him a monthly payment in return for selling you his right to manage the Warehouse. You could probably even get him to accept that monthly payment in the form of a management fee.<br/>
<br/>
"If I could talk him into selling out to me," you ask Dwayne, "would you have a problem with me taking over his Warehouse operation? Including servicing the football squad on your terms?"<br/>
<br/>
"You'd be spreading yourself too thin."<br/>
<br/>
"Not if I left Reston to run it. Here, I take over his debt, so he doesn't have to worry about payments to you. I buy from you on the same terms, sell to him at, I dunno, three hundred an ounce. Whatever he makes selling into the Warehouse is profit to him, free and clear. But that give me enough to service the debt to you and still drop a profit into my pocket."<br/>
<br/>
"He'd be taking a pay cut."<br/>
<br/>
"I've seen the way he lives. I bet it would feel like a pay raise if he didn't have to worry about servicing  his debt to you. And, no offense, man, but I bet he'd sacrifice a little to get you out of his life."<br/>
<br/>
Dwayne smiles faintly. "If you can talk him into it, it doesn't make any difference to me. Hell -- " He stands up with a sigh. "You're more dependable than him anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"I ain't making a formal offer, you understand," you tell him. "I was doing the figuring off the top of my head, and Reston -- "<br/>
<br/>
He waves you off. "Sure. We'll talk. But sooner rather than later, okay?" He fixes you with a sharp eye. "I don't like uncertainty."<br/>
<br/>
"Then what are you doing in this line of work?"<br/>
<br/>
He grimaces. "Beats the fuck out of me."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your proposal to Dwayne would give you what you want, and you think Chen would be pleased to see such a deal go through. Of course, the simplest way of managing Chen's finances would be to turn Macauley into a Dwaynebot. Fuck, you could turn Karol Mathis into a Mathisbot, which would simplify everything. But you have the sinking feeling that the top of each pyramid is just a facing stone in the side of a bigger pyramid, so that if you turned even Mathis into a 'bot you'd just have his finances to worry about. No, the simplest way to fix up Chen's operation is to get it into a shape that he'd be happy with.<br/>
<br/>
Trouble is, you doubt anything would keep him happy for long. Case in point: You still haven't said anything to "Andrea" about competing for a spot on the cheerleader squad. It's a stupid demand Chen has laid on you; and if he's stupid and grasping that way, there are a lot of other ways for him to be stupid and grasping -- more ways than you can possibly satisfy.<br/>
<br/>
You go home, deal with the parents a little while, and make an early night of it. In bed, in the dark, you concentrate on the fact that you're trying to get away from Chen. You can do that with the 'bot masks, if you're willing to steal someone's life. Just return everyone to normal, and disappear into some other life.<br/>
<br/>
At the same time, you can't help nursing the proud thought that you're handling Chen's business better than he himself ever did. </span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122121112111132
author_id: seuzz
title: The Takeover Artist, Part 2
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's Sunday, a little after noon, when you give Reston's door three hard knocks. You've been awake and busy since a little after eight, and all morning you've been itching to talk to him. But your gut tells you he's not the kind to be out of bed until after eleven, at least.<br/>
<br/>
But when he peers out through the narrow crack between the door and the door frame, he looks like he's just dragged himself up. He also looks hung over. "Yo, I wanna talk to you," you hiss at him. "Don't make me haul you out here to do it."<br/>
<br/>
You see his Adam's apple bobble. After a long hesitation, he opens the door. You step in, removing your sunglasses. That gives you a better view of the scene inside. Most obviously, that would include Reston, in a tank-top and underwear; a tangled-up sleeping bag; and the girl inside it.<br/>
<br/>
It's Sienna Goldman. She glares at you.<br/>
<br/>
"I wanna make this alone," you tell Reston.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't answer before Sienna does. "Then take it outside," she growls.<br/>
<br/>
You keep your eyes on Reston. "Don't make me drag her out into the parking lot."<br/>
<br/>
She answers again. "Just try it, motherfucker."<br/>
<br/>
"Can't we talk someplace else?" Reston asks. He is very white, and his hair is lank and there are dark bags under his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"No, because it's about business."<br/>
<br/>
"I bet whatever business you've got to talk about -- " Sienna starts to say. But in that moment you leap at her.<br/>
<br/>
It's an instinct, almost. You brought a blank mask with you, in case Reston proved recalcitrant, and in one bound you're next to the bed and you've got the mask out of the bag slung by your side. Sienna half-twists away, but you jam the mask down onto her face and she goes limp and silent. You spin back on Reston, who's advancing behind you, and send him reeling back with a hard punch to his chest. The blow feels like it shattered your own arm, but you pretend not to felt anything, and get in Reston's face with a snarl.<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna take it outside, we can take it outside. Or I can shut you up the same way I shut your whore up. Which is it gonna be?"<br/>
<br/>
To say that Reston looks confused would be an understatement. His eyes are wide and the rest of his features look like they're trying to fly off his face. "What did you -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"She'll be okay. She's just gonna be out for a bit. We'll leave her here and take a ride, she'll be happy about that when she wakes up, but she'll think twice about giving me any lip back the next time she sees me. Now get cleaned up, get a shower or something, get her bitch-stink off you. Get on!" You shove Reston toward the alcove where the bathroom will be. He half-stumbles into it and shuts the door. A minute later the shower water turns on.<br/>
<br/>
He takes a good long time, which gladdens you, for it gives the mask time to come back out of Sienna. You cuss yourself for wasting it on her. Now you'll have to be persuasive with Reston if you're going to make a deal with him. Maybe your show of force will work to your advantage; or maybe it will make him truculent and resentful. You search his face when he reappears, but his expression is hooded. He slips on some skinny jeans and a sweatshirt, and with one brief glance back at Sienna follows you out to the Jeep.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You get up on the interstate, so that Reston won't be tempted to jump out at any stoplights during your negotiation, and head east, not because there's anything interesting east of town but because that's the closest and easiest on-ramp to take. You quickly come to the point. "I talked to Dwayne Macauly yesterday," you say. "About his business, about the Warehouse, and about you."<br/>
<br/>
Reston says nothing until you glance over at him, and then he just says "Uh huh." He is squinting against the sunlight, which is another advantage you've got since you're wearing shades.<br/>
<br/>
"How much a month do you clear?"<br/>
<br/>
"None of your fucking business, Chen."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll guess anyway. You pay Dwayne fifteen hundred a month for the privilege of making a profit on the product he sells you. So I figure you're making at least a thousand for yourself. Jesus, Reston. With that kind of profit, the fuck are you doing living in that kind of a dump back there?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's also none of your fucking business."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? Well what if I made your fucking business into my fucking business? What if I gave you fifteen hundred a month to give me your fucking business?"<br/>
<br/>
Again, you have to look over at him when he doesn't reply. He looks baffled. "The fuck are you talking about?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm talking about taking over your Warehouse business. Actually, I'm talking about taking over from Macauly. You're buying sixty ounces a month from him. Instead, you start buying sixty ounces a month from me."<br/>
<br/>
"You're fucking nuts," he says, and sounds scared. "Macauly would -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Macauly would be okay with it. I'd be buying him out too."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus! You can't afford to -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Can't I?" You give him another glance. "Do you know all about my fucking business that you know I couldn't afford it?"<br/>
<br/>
Reston's mouth hangs open. It takes him a moment to find his voice. "I don't believe you."<br/>
<br/>
"We'll talk it over with Macauly, you'll see. You just have to tell me you're interested. Are you?"<br/>
<br/>
Reston is silent for a very long time. The changing expressions on his face suggest that his thought processes are very painful. "I don't understand," he says at last.<br/>
<br/>
"Then let me give you some numbers." You're coming up onto a country road that services some of the farms in this part of the country, and you exit onto it and park on the shoulder so that you can give Reston your full attention. He flinches back as you reach past to take a notepad and pencil out of the glove compartment. Quickly you scribble out a rough income statement.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what you're selling at," you say, "but Macauly tells me you're buying fifty-four ounces from him at two-fifty-five an ounce. I'm not including the six ounces you're selling at cost to Erik Carstairs." You hold his eye, and he blinks once, heavily. "You're also paying Macauly fifteen-hundred a month on a debt he's carrying for you. That means you're paying him fifteen-two-seventy a month." You circle the figure.<br/>
<br/>
"To cover those expenses, you've got to sell those fifty-four ounces for at least two-eighty-three an ounce, and I bet you're selling for least three hundred an ounce inside the Warehouse, which tells me you're making a profit of at least nine-thirty a month, and probably closer to a thousand." In fact, you suspect he's selling for a lot more than three hundred an ounce, but you're opening with a low-ball bid. "Now, how far off the mark am I?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's still not your business."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you so fucking hung over you can't come up with anything else to say? Then let me make you an offer. Step one." You cross out the number "1500." "I make your debt to Macauly go away. You don't pay him anything. You never see him again. You're totally square with him because I've paid it off for you. How happy would you be to be out from under that debt? Because you know what he'll do to you if you're ever short on paying it."<br/>
<br/>
Reston swallows again, and his eyes dart about.<br/>
<br/>
"Step two, you stop buying ganja from Macauly." You cross out the number "13770". "I take over the business inside the Warehouse, which means you don't got to buy anything anymore. Bingo-bango, your expenses go to zero." You draw a big circle on the notepad.<br/>
<br/>
"Then comes the magic. Step three. I pay you a thousand dollars a month to do squat. Jack shit. Nada. To sit in your fucking room and jack off five times a day. A thousand bucks a month just to get the fuck out of my way so I can have the run of the Warehouse." You write "1000" in the notebook. "That's yours, every month, no expenses, no debt, no work. Fuck, I'll won't even bitch if you keep hanging out at the Warehouse every month, playing your shit licks and getting shitfaced every night. I'll pay you a thousand bucks a month just to get out of the way and let <i>me</i> run the Warehouse business."<br/>
<br/>
Reston's eyes are starting from his head now. "You're out of your fucking mind. Why the fuck would -- " But he stops and licks his lips and gets a shifty look. "And how long would you pay me a thousand a month," he sneers.<br/>
<br/>
"As long as you want me to. Would you take this deal?"<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't answer. When you lower your shades, you notice that he's trembling.<br/>
<br/>
Finally he shrugs in a spasmodic way. "Sure. I wouldn't turn down free money. But there's no fucking way you're -- "<br/>
<br/>
"So you'd take a thousand a month from me to give me your Warehouse business."<br/>
<br/>
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Yeah, I guess, but I don't believe your shit -- "<br/>
<br/>
You put out your hand. "Shake on it. Promise me right now you'll take this deal, and then I'll explain how we work it. You'll see, it'll work out fine. You'll make a thousand a month without doing hardly any work, no debt to Macauly. You don't like the mechanics, you can back out. But shake on that number. A thousand a month."<br/>
<br/>
You hold your breath as he hesitates.<br/>
<br/>
Then Reston takes your hand in his. His grip is weak, but strong enough you think you can hold him to the promise.<br/>
<br/>
"The way we work it is this," you tell him. "You keep dealing in the Warehouse, but you buy sixty ounces a month at two-ninety an ounce." You scribble out the numbers. "You just got to sell it at three-oh-seven an ounce, and you'll clear a thousand a month profit. Can you sell sixty an ounce at three-oh-seven?"<br/>
<br/>
He stares, like the moron he is. "Uh, sure," he croaks.<br/>
<br/>
"Then we have a deal."<br/>
<br/>
He hesitates again. But when you put out your hand again, he takes it.</span></div></div>


path: 1112111321122222122222212212121121211221112121312112311221121112112112111221211121111321
author_id: seuzz
title: Done Deals
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You don't give Reston a chance to argue or second-guess himself, and you don't make any inquiries about the way he runs his Warehouse operations. You throw the Jeep in high gear and race back down the interstate to town. On the way, you call Macauly to set up a meeting. Reston makes a few mewling noises, but you keep a stony silence all the way back. By the time you pull up in front of Dwayne's, Reston's spirit seems broken, and during the subsequent meeting he totally surrenders to your "buyout" of his interest in the Warehouse operation. There are no papers to sign, of course, but in the conversation that follows, everyone's obligations to everyone else get spelled out clearly. The other two are very quiet at the conclusion of things, and you can tell from Dwayne's expression that he's not sure you'll be able to pull things off.<br/>
<br/>
You're confident, though. You've got magical aces in the hole if things get rough.<br/>
<br/>
You're happy with Reston, and you show it by treating him out to lunch at Pizza Hut. In a corner booth, you quietly talk and force him to disgorge all the details of the operation you'll be taking over.<br/>
<br/>
"I've got it set up so these guys sell in different parts of the Warehouse," he tells you. "Like, Lane Overstreet sells in the bar, and Oscar Cantu sells up in the rooms. I sell them a set amount each month at a set price, like Dwayne sells to me."<br/>
<br/>
"You parcel out the whole fifty-four ounces to them?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh."<br/>
<br/>
"You sell them all at the same price?"<br/>
<br/>
He swallows. "Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"What's the price?"<br/>
<br/>
He hangs his head and stares at the table top. "Three-twenty."<br/>
<br/>
"An ounce? So, less the fifteen hundred you were paying Macauly, you were actually clearing two thousand a month."<br/>
<br/>
His voice is so soft it is almost inaudible. "Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay. Well, I hiked your unit price, but you also shed that payment to Macauly, so net you'll still be pulling down around two thousand a month. More, if you find a way to jack your sales price up."<br/>
<br/>
Reston's jaw falls open. "That's okay?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why wouldn't it be?"<br/>
<br/>
With exquisite caution he says, "But you thought I was only making a thousand a month."<br/>
<br/>
"So I was wrong, so what?"<br/>
<br/>
His caution increases. "You're not going to raise your price to me because -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. We made a deal and I don't go back on my deals." That's a lie coming from Gary Chen, but you think it's better here to pretend otherwise. "The deal still works for me with the numbers I used. I want the Warehouse, and I got other deals that will make it pay off to me good. Gonna make me a metric fuck-ton with those other deals, but I need the Warehouse to make 'em work."<br/>
<br/>
You lean in close to him. "In fact, I need you to manage the Warehouse business for me. That's worth two thousand a month to me, or however much you make. So let's just keep things going the way they are. You sell to your guys, in their territories, the same way you're doing now. Hardly any work. Only you buy from me at my price, and you leave it to me to bust kneecaps if someone needs a kneecap busted. The other changes I want, I'll let you know when they happen."<br/>
<br/>
Reston's eyes widen. "I don't own the Warehouse, Chen. If you've got some other plans -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I do, but they won't get me in trouble with Macauly or whoever actually runs the place.  They won't even notice. But you keep your mouth shut anyway about what I just said. I'm just telling you that so you don't give me any shit when I make those new moves. Oh, better give me a list of all the guys you sell to, and what their areas are."<br/>
<br/>
It's not a long list. Overstreet deals in the bar; Jeffries deals in the booth area; Oscar Cantu in the bedrooms upstairs; Alex Massey and Michael Hurst partner on the dance floor; anyone playing in a band gets theirs from Dean Stratton. Reston looks puzzled if you ask if these "areas" are in force only on weekends, and you can see a dawning memory that Adam Karter asked him a similar question. "There's never any demand on weeknights," he says. "I guess Lane could sometimes sell to whoever shows up."<br/>
<br/>
"Then that's the first change. Start chopping it up by days of the week. Tell your guys that they can only sell on weekends. They gotta get another license, buy more supply from you if they wanna deal on weekdays or weeknights. And you're not selling any of those licenses, not yet."<br/>
<br/>
"You got plans for the weeknights?" A light dawns in his eyes. "Is that how you're going to make that metric fuck-ton?"<br/>
<br/>
"Something like that."<br/>
<br/>
"Because the guys who run the Warehouse might not like it -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I told you, it won't bother them, and you let me worry about it if it does."<br/>
<br/>
Reston looks dubious but acquiesces. Over the pizza, he gives you some more details, which you absorb attentively even though they don't really affect your plans.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After dropping off Reston back at his place, you call Trantham and the Karterbot to a brief meeting at Hochstetter Park, where you tell the fake Trantham that Karter will be taking over Trantham's distribution business and that he needs to inform all the guys he sells to of this fact. Evans accepts this dutifully, then asks how long he has to keep playing Trantham. "Until the next time we make a distribution through Eastman," you tell him. "So that all of Trantham's customers are used to the idea that Karter is supplying them."<br/>
<br/>
Then you send him away and take the Karterbot in hand. Carefully you explain your desires while trying not to pin the -bot down too rigidly. He needs to get all of his friends, and people who want to be his friends, to start habitually meeting at the Warehouse on weekdays after school. First he should concentrate on his bandmates and on people he will be selling weed to. He needs to get them used to the idea of regular, casual, but informal after-school parties at the Warehouse, and then to gradually broaden the base of people who will be hanging out there. He should sell to anyone who attends. To make sure he doesn't get in any trouble, he should talk to Matt Reston about getting a license. You've already told Reston to talk to you if anyone inquires about a new license, so things should go smoothly on that end.<br/>
<br/>
Then after sending him away, you turn to the last bit of business necessary for taking over Reston's operation. You call Erik Carstairs.<br/>
<br/>
He can't see you right away, and in fact it's nearly nine-thirty at night -- which leaves you courting trouble at home -- before you rendezvous with him at McDonald's. His eyes narrow when you inform him that from now on he'll be getting his weed from you. "I don't think I like this," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Doesn't matter if you don't like it," you tell him bluntly. "The business has changed. Reston's retired, so I'm taking over."<br/>
<br/>
"No one says we have to buy anything from anyone."<br/>
<br/>
"Does this mean your guys aren't working at the Warehouse anymore?"<br/>
<br/>
He freezes. "What's that got to do with -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't that the deal? Your guys are the muscle out there, and in return you get ganja at a discount."<br/>
<br/>
"Then I guess you know about it all."<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking right I do. I had it explained to me on account of Reston's quitting. So what's got your ladybits in a twist about it?"<br/>
<br/>
"My problem is I didn't want to fucking deal with you, Chen, which is why when we set it up with Macauly we had Reston handling it."<br/>
<br/>
"What's your problem with me?" You feel you temper blossoming.<br/>
<br/>
He smirks. "Let's just pretend it's because I don't like monopolies. And now you got a monopoly at school."<br/>
<br/>
"It doesn't matter if I do. Your deal is still with Macauly, not with me. I'm just the fucking delivery boy, and I don't even get a tip."<br/>
<br/>
His smirk widens. "Maybe we could toss you a couple of extra dollars, and you could throw in some eggrolls."<br/>
<br/>
You grip the edge of the table. "Macauly's changed the delivery method, that's all," you say, trying to keep the fury from your voice. "You accept delivery from me, or you tell Macauly you're quitting."<br/>
<br/>
Carstairs holds your eye, then shrugs again. "Fine. As long as you're reliable."<br/>
<br/>
"I am."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll send someone to pick it up from you when it's time. When are you making the next delivery?"<br/>
<br/>
"Last day of the month. No later."<br/>
<br/>
His face tightens. "Reston was delivering in the middle of the month."<br/>
<br/>
"Then you get a double delivery this month."<br/>
<br/>
But he shakes his head. "I can't pay that much that soon."<br/>
<br/>
"Then I guess you can wait. It'll keep."<br/>
<br/>
Carstairs sighs, and ends the meeting soon after that.<br/>
<br/>
His manner leaves you feeling thoughtful, and it reminds you of certain mysteries you'd not had time to ponder. Such as: Where is he getting the fifteen-hundred a month for the six ounces he's buying? According to Mendoza, Carstairs passes it out free to his teammates, so he's not collecting contributions from them. You don't think he comes from a rich family, or has the kind of afterschool job that would support that kind of habit. And why is he so reluctant to deal with you?<br/>
<br/>
You could get answers to those mysteries, perhaps, by moving Mendoza out of Kevin Hall and into Erik Carstairs. Indeed, there might be advantages to controlling a large portion of the football team.<br/>
<br/>
Or dangers, since it would be Mendoza under the Carstairs mask.<br/>
<br/>
Unless you made another -bot.</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112212111211113213
author_id: seuzz
title: A First Day at New Business
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Put in a ringer for Carstairs? It's a passing thought, but only that. You don't need to domesticate Erik Carstairs to make that end of the business work.<br/>
<br/>
Afterward, you check the texts that came in while you were dealing with him. One is from Tanner Evans says he'll give you the three-sixty he owes you at school tomorrow. Mrs. Chen wants you home -- now! And Chelsea is reminding you that Karol Mathis needs your final order for November (and the money to pay for it) by Monday at seven o'clock.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"What have you got to be twitchy about," Kirkham asks Monday afternoon just before AP Stat is about to start. The question and the voice he asks it in -- stainless steel wrapped in velvet malice -- would have terrified you back in your own skin. As Gary Chen, though, you hardly notice it.<br/>
<br/>
"Just got a lot on my mind," you tell him. You stop drumming the desk with your fingers. A moment later -- when you realize you've just shifted the fidget -- you stop your leg from jogging.<br/>
<br/>
"So go jack off and get it out of your system. You're making me nervous."<br/>
<br/>
He's nervous? He should try being you. You've meeting with "Chelsea" this afternoon -- passing along money for the November supply -- and you're not sure what you're going to tell Chen about the weekend's deal-making.<br/>
<br/>
It would be easiest to say nothing: what he doesn't know won't hurt him, and it certainly won't hurt him to know that you've just doubled his volume of business and might be on your way to tripling it. Besides, you fear that if he realizes what a great job you're doing, he'll just force you to keep doing it.<br/>
<br/>
On the other hand, the whole idea is to get his business running so good that he<i>asks</i> for his life back. And if you don't tell him the kind of profits you've set him up to make -- and if your projections aren't wildly off the mark, it looks like you're set to triple his profits -- he may think that you're ripping him off if and when he discovers what you've been doing behind his back.<br/>
<br/>
All morning you've been leaning first one way and then another about what to tell him. You're still preoccupied with it now, so that not until Joshua Call is actually next to you and leaning in to mutter in Kirkham's ear do you notice that he's come into the classroom.<br/>
<br/>
You can't make out what he says to Kirkham, or what Kirkham says in reply, but neither of them pay any attention to you. Once Call's gone you lean over to your friend. "The fuck was that about?"<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you and Call getting romantic?"<br/>
<br/>
You can feel Kirkham's eyes shift onto you behind his shades. He removes the toothpick from his mouth. "If you're feeling jealous, I'll let you suck my cock any time you want."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll leave that to Call." You slouch. Another emotion has started squirming wormily in you gut, and you're horrified to recognize that it is something like jealousy. Kirkham is supposed to be <i>your</i> friend.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jesus, maybe I really am turning into Chen,</i> you think darkly.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Then a last minute hitch in plans leaves you scrambling. Even after Evans -- very white in the face -- passes you the money he owes you, you're still almost four thousand short of what you need for Mathis to get all the weed you're planning to sell. Of course, that's the money that you're supposed to get from Andrea Varnsworth, but she hasn't brought it to school, and she refuses point-blank (in her text messages) to let you come over to her house to get it: <i>u said midweek, its monday.</i><br/>
<br/>
So on your way out of school you risk a call to Dwayne. "I need some dimes," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"How many?"<br/>
<br/>
"Three-sixty. Like, now."<br/>
<br/>
"Three hundred and sixty {i]dimes? I don't carry that kind of pocket change. Talk to Reston, he's due to -- "<br/>
<br/>
"He doesn't pick up his stuff until the second week of the month. He's not going to pay me in advance for shit I'm not due to deliver in two weeks."<br/>
<br/>
"You pay Mathis in advance. Reston can pay you."<br/>
<br/>
"It's all going into your pocket anyway, man. It's the money I need to cover this month's order."<br/>
<br/>
"Doesn't matter, I told you, I don't have that kind of -- Talk to Reston anyway. If he kicks, tell him to call me and I'll make it square with him."<br/>
<br/>
You're dubious, but you call Reston anyway. He's at the Warehouse, naturally, but he agrees to meet you at his flophouse. And to your surprise he doesn't kick when you tell him you need thirty-six hundred dollars from him in advance of when he's usually due to pay. In fact, he's bright-eyed and smiling, and you can only figure he's so relieved to be out from under all his obligations that's he's forgotten to be paranoid and grasping.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll pay you back Wednesday," you tell him. "And I'll toss in a little on top to show my gratitude anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"I guess we'll talk about it," he says evasively. "Make yourself at home, be back in a bit." He goes to the door.<br/>
<br/>
"What? Where are you -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't think I keep that kind of shit around here, do you?" he asks at the open door. "I'll be back in -- "<br/>
<br/>
You scramble after him. "Listen, you don't have to show me where you keep it, but let's meet somewhere else for the hand off." You think fast. "How about the Railroad Museum. You know where I mean?" He doesn't, so you give him directions. "It's close to someplace I have to be anyway." You check the time on your phone. "Shit, I'm running late as it is."<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever, man." He glances at you queerly. "You really don't want to hang around here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Toldja, I'm late for another appointment. Besides," you can't help adding, "if you don't like keeping your money bag here, I don't much like picking it up here."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Reston meets you twenty minutes later at the museum, and with the balance of the money for Mathis you race off to Ben's BBQ to meet Chen. What with the extra stops, you're almost fifteen minutes later.<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea is quietly fuming in a back booth. "Where the fuck have you been?" she demands as you scoot into the seat opposite her. "Never mind. Names have come rolling in for the squad tryouts all weekend, and guess who's name is <i>not</i> on it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mr. Walberg?"<br/>
<br/>
"Is that supposed to be a funny?" she snarls. "I'm talking about Andrea."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, right. I haven't talked to her about -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"I been too busy getting laid."<br/>
<br/>
Her mouth drops open.<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway, I got the rest of -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit. You're <i>not</i> getting laid." Then she turns shrewd. "You're not, are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know better than to ask a dumbass question like that. But <i>you're</i> finally getting laid, aren't you? Ten times a day, I hear, and not that I'm dying to know, but exactly how delicious <i>is</i> Seth Javits' tiny, tiny dong?"<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea flushes to pink, then to red, then to purple. You take advantage of her fury-choked silence to press on with regular business. "You still insist on being the one to pay off Mathis?" She doesn't reply, except for a sloppy kind of swallowing noise. "Because I got it all here, and if he asks where the extra cash came from, you're going to have to improvise."<br/>
<br/>
She finally masters herself, at least enough that she can speak, even if it is in a kind of croak. "Extra cash?"<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly. I told you. Or you told me. Gotta step up the sales, you said, so I'm buying eighteen-kay this month."<br/>
<br/>
"Where did you get the money?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know where. I told you. Well, after you told me."<br/>
<br/>
She looks puzzled for a moment, then hard fire comes into her eyes. "That's right. Andrea. Speaking of which -- "<br/>
<br/>
You reach under the table and jam a fat envelope into her hand. "I have to be at the country club in a little while. I hope you remember <i>that</i> too, you fucking bint." You get up.<br/>
<br/>
"Prescott! I mean -- Gary." You half turn at your name. Both of them.<br/>
<br/>
She is trying very hard to master her temper. Her color is still bad, and she gulps one breath down, and then another. She closes her eyes and she pushes the corners of her lips into a smile. "Gary," she says very sweetly when she opens her eyes again. "Please sit down. I know you have to be someplace, but I'd really like to talk to you."<br/>
<br/>
"What about?"<br/>
<br/>
She shrugs. "Us?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't -- "<br/>
<br/>
She pats the table, and puts on the biggest pair of puppy dog eyes you've ever seen.<br/>
<br/>
So you flop down opposite her.<br/>
<br/>
Her smile turns knowing. "I really shouldn't yell at you. I'm sorry. You're doing an amazing job, and I haven't told you how much I appreciate it."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Bullshit.</i><br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry I got mad back there. I was thinking about Andrea, but I wasn't thinking about you, and about how rough you're having it. Believe me -- " She can't keep the smile from turning into a smirk. "I know how rough it is."<br/>
<br/>
"Gee, thanks. I love it when a pretty girl blows perfume up my ass. It gives me a hard-on."<br/>
<br/>
You'd get up again, but her next statement shuts you up: "It <i>is</i> hard for you to get laid, isn't it? Would you like to do something about that?"<br/>
<br/>
A large stone materializes in your throat. "You're offering to help me get laid?" you thickly demand. She nods. "With who?"<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes are bright. "Who do you want?"</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122121112111132133
author_id: seuzz
title: Andrea Needs Some Friends
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>This is a very creepy offer: Gary Chen -- alias Chelsea Cooper -- is offering to help you -- Will Prescott, alias Gary Chen -- to get laid. Realistically, you're pretty sure there is only one girl that your partner can set you up with: Himself.<br/>
<br/>
And although something about that idea is appealing -- Gary Chen being literally fucked by his own doppelganger -- it's too weird.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile, you shiver at the thought that this creature on the other side of the table could set you up with anyone else, for you have no idea how that might work.<br/>
<br/>
You get up stiffly. (And the stiffness afflicts you both all over and in particular anatomical regions.) "Thanks, but I don't take charity. That's something else you should know."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are so baffled and angered and distracted by the scene with Chelsea that you don't pay any attention to where you're driving, so that instinct takes over and before you know it you're turning into the parking lot of the country club. You curse long and loud, but there's not enough time to return to the elementary school to swap yourself out with the Chenbot. <br/>
<br/>
So you go to work yourself. It's a grueling night, but by the end of it you're glad that you stuck it out. If you'd spent the night in your own skin, in the school basement, you'd probably have just brooded about the offer that you turned down.<br/>
<br/>
Tuesday morning you wake to a text from Andrea. She's demanding an early meeting in the parking lot of the same CVS where you had your first meeting with her. You dress and race out the door without even showering.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, sexy girl," you call out as you hop from the cab of the Jeep. You doubt she can hear you inside her car, and she makes no reaction except to motion you to get on the passenger side. You take your time getting in, and use the moments to slowly run your eyes up her firm, brown legs to the curve of her stomach, and the swell of her breasts. She's got a dark look on her face by the time you reach her eyes. "Damn, this is the best way to start a day," you grin at her. You stretch a hand toward her. "Mind if I -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
She slaps you away. "I've got your fucking money, but we have to talk."<br/>
<br/>
Her blow stings. "Don't forget yourself, Thomason. You like being that girl, you like having that pussy to finger and those melons to fondle? I can take 'em away if you don't -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just doing a job for you."<br/>
<br/>
"Aren't you enjoying it?"<br/>
<br/>
She bites her lip. "Jelena and Sienna got in trouble last night."<br/>
<br/>
"Not with each other, I hope. Or maybe I do." You laugh. "But they couldn't get in 'trouble' trouble, right? Unless one of 'em's secretly got a cock."<br/>
<br/>
"They were at the Warehouse -- "<br/>
<br/>
That catches your attention. "Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up. Some of your friends busted in on them. Some of <i>my</i> friends, actually." A slightly stricken look crosses her face. "Call and Spencer and Rennerhoff. Oh, and Kirkham."<br/>
<br/>
Your "Chen" personality only listens, but you flinch. The idea of what that crew of degenerates could get up to at the Warehouse doesn't bear thinking about. "What happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. Well, nothing like what could have happened." Now she definitely looks guilty. "There were too many people around, more than they were counting on being there, so they just did a lot of mouthing off."<br/>
<br/>
"So? What's that got to do with me? Or you, or any of us?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, for a start, it's going to put a kink in the scene back at my house if those guys are going to start spending more time with me." <br/>
<br/>
"Who? Call and Kirkham?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, you fuck. Jelena and them. They don't like the direction I'm taking things."<br/>
<br/>
"So tell them to fuck off. If they're not cool enough for you -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I thought I was supposed to make it sexy so you could sell a lot more product to my friends. Andrea's friends, I mean."<br/>
<br/>
You notice the shift in pronouns. Is that what the "guilty" look is for? Thomason is starting to identify more with Andrea, the way you worry you've been identifying with Chen?<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes narrow when you only answer with a "Huh?" "I said, don't you want me making it a sexy scene at -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, sure. Exactly."<br/>
<br/>
"Because I can't if they're going to be sitting around my house and frowning like a lot of church ladies."<br/>
<br/>
"I told you, tell them to fuck off someplace else, if they're going to get in your way."<br/>
<br/>
"You're not getting it, Chen! They're a big part of what makes it sexy at my place. You do think Jelena is sexy, don't you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"So I can't make it a sexy scene at my place without them."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck me, Thomason, I still don't get what  you're trying to say!"<br/>
<br/>
That guilty look -- which had disappeared briefly -- comes back. "You know, Call thinks Jelena is sexy too. Have you ever heard him talk about her?"<br/>
<br/>
"It sounds familiar, but -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe we could get them together."<br/>
<br/>
Now you're starting to get pissed off. "You want us to set them up on a fucking date?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I mean get them together like -- " Her hand goes to her chest, and she gently touches a ripe breast with her fingertips. "Like you did me and Andrea."<br/>
<br/>
The penny drops. Actually, the clang inside your brain is so loud it's more like a manhole cover dropping. "You want me to put Joshua Call into Jelena Petrovich's body?"<br/>
<br/>
Andrea hangs her head.<br/>
<br/>
So <i>that's</i> what the guilty look is for. Not guilt over what Call almost did to Jelena last night. Guilt over what Thomason wants you to do to her now. "And how does this solve your problem?" you ask as your mind reels.<br/>
<br/>
"It means Jelena and Sienna and Fatima stop giving me shit, and they start helping out at my place. Or at the Warehouse, if we start -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Wait, where do Sienna and Fatima fit into this?"<br/>
<br/>
"We do the same thing to them. With Spencer and Rennerhoff."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus! You want me to -- " You choke on the rest of the sentence.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't like the idea." She sounds hurt.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, she sounds hurt in just the way that a girl would sound hurt if you refused to do her a really big favor after you'd promised her you'd do it. The guilt is gone from Andrea's face, and now she just looks reproachful. You have to fight the instinct -- where does it come from, that instinct? -- to give in and promise her to do everything she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I don't <i>not</i> like it, let's put it like that," you say, and shove three fingertips under your knitted cap to wipe at the tickling sweat that's broken out on your brow. "It's a hard thing to do, you know, and maybe Call likes Jelena, but that doesn't mean he wants to <i>be</i> her. And the other two -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I think any guy -- "<br/>
<br/>
"And who says they'd be interested in helping you out with the party scene?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think I can talk them into that," says Andrea, and she shifts a little in the car seat.<br/>
<br/>
Your cock, already turgid, instantly starts to throb at high alert. <i>Yeah, you just </i>bet<i> she can talk them into anything.</i> The sudden fantasy is as vivid as a movie: Andrea and Jelena, Andrea and Sienna, Andrea and Fatima -- in pairs or in a quartet -- on that futon, or in a bed, gripping and gnawing at each other and pulling their clothes off. "I'll have to think about it," you mumble, and that means you'll have to think about the fantasy and about Thomason's suggestion, both. "Anything else?"<br/>
<br/>
You'd like there to be something else. You'd really like for Thomason to lobby harder for this idea, and to lobby for it by putting Andrea's supple hand on your bare thigh, and pulling your hand over to stroke her bare thigh, and to put her mouth close to yours.<br/>
<br/>
But Andrea only says, "No."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I'll talk to you about it tomorrow." You get out of her car much more slowly even than you got into it, and much more awkwardly, for the front of your shorts are seriously distended. But you keep your head down instead of ogling Andrea, and sit for a very long time in the Jeep with your forehead on the steering wheel as you try to figure out what you're going to do.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Kirkham is leaning next to your locker when you check in there before first period. "You fucking miss me last night?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck does that mean, asshole?"<br/>
<br/>
"Means what it sounds like. I heard you tried to have some fun without me."<br/>
<br/>
His silence is sulfurous, and you look over to find him staring at you. His eyes are hidden behind those shades, and the muscles of his face show nothing, but the angle of his toothpick somehow suggests unhappiness.<br/>
<br/>
But when you return his gaze with a level one of your own, he just shrugs. "You're always busy on Monday nights. Anyway, I'm here about -- " He rubs his fingertips together meaningfully.<br/>
<br/>
"Not till Friday. Saturday at the latest."<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's the schedule. You don't like it, motherfucker?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know, if I was in your business -- "<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna be in my business?"<br/>
<br/>
That shuts him up, at least until he turns his back on you and shows you the finger as he walks away.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
As you ponder things, you see one additional upside to Thomason's request: You could go along with his idea in exchange for getting him to try out for the cheerleader squad. And after a full day of thinking about it while ignoring most of your classes, you reach a decision.</span></div></div>


path: 1112111321122222122222212212121121211221112121312112311221121112112112111221211121111321331
author_id: seuzz
title: More Moves on Your Chessboard
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You've got another reason for going along with Thomason's idea: You've already got a mask of Sienna Goldman. That would be a wasted mask if you didn't use it to give someone another face, and it'll be useful for talking Thomason's degenerate friends into joining your team.<br/>
<br/>
<i>thot about it &amp; ok. talk abt it Th,</i> you text Andrea.<br/>
<br/>
You've got other business before then, though, because you've got two other dipshits to worry about.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Kevin Hall meets you at Hochstetter Park at a little after seven. "You hear anything new about the squad's ganja supply?" you ask over the burning cigarette dangling from your lip.<br/>
<br/>
"No. Should I hear anything?"<br/>
<br/>
"Probably not, but tell me if you hear or notice anything anyway. How about that Wade dipshit? You hear any more from him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not much, he's sold a couple of those eighths I gave him last week, so he's pretty happy, pretty excited."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I gotta tip for him. Tell him to try dropping a freebie on Douglas Canfield."<br/>
<br/>
Hall's mouth drops open. "You're kidding."<br/>
<br/>
"Bite me. I hear rumors. How's Wade's relationship with Canfield? They know each other?"<br/>
<br/>
"Beats me, but I don't picture Wade getting friendly with him."<br/>
<br/>
"What's your relationship with Canfield? Hall's relationship with him, I mean. Talks to him, ignores him, or stuffs him inside lockers?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mostly ignores him." He suddenly gets very vexed. "Look, I know you want us getting new sales, but Canfield is only one guy, and he's exactly the type to get busted and squeal. I don't think he's worth it, if you're thinking about -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Oh he's totally worth it, because he's one of a group." You suck hungrily at the cigarette. "What I hear is there's a circle of them dumbasses up in the senior class, don't know who or how many, but they buy bash by the ounce and burn a bale of it at a time at least once a month. Canfield's a junior, but he hangs with that group. Partakes. I want in on that action. I <i>want</i> that action, all of it, exclusive. " You hold up a fist. "I get a raging chubby just thinking about it."<br/>
<br/>
Hall swallows. "I'll tell Wade."<br/>
<br/>
"Do that. Meanwhile, how do you feel about Hall's face? You sick of living behind it yet?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "I dunno. It's kind of nice. People treat you different when you're fuckin' white."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh. I bet. Anyway, I ask 'cos I'm thinking of moving you. I figured out Carstairs' business model, so I don't need you on the squad anymore. But we could keep you white unless -- " You grin. "Or how about Rivera, man? Rivera?" You laugh, nastily. "He got the ladies hangin' off him, you know, <i>and</i> that fine piece of snatch that thinks he's exclusive to her."<br/>
<br/>
Hall turns very red and mutters a long string of curses.<br/>
<br/>
You laugh again. "Never mind, let's think about where you could do some good. You can't do no good inside Rivera. But what about the lacrosse guys? Some of them are pretty fuckin' dumb. You know any who are using, who might be?"<br/>
<br/>
"Jeb Ash is pretty chill," Hall says after a pause. "I don't know the others well enough."<br/>
<br/>
"What about the wrestlers? You got some of them on the squad."<br/>
<br/>
"Only Mitchell and Nieves. Fucking Boy Scouts, both of them. And from everything I hear, you can rule out the wrestlers. Delacroix and Brown run it clean, hard and tight."<br/>
<br/>
"This fucking school takes sports too seriously. Maybe we should keep you in the junior class, set up some of the junior guys on the wrestling or basketball squads. Who are some of the popular junior athletes?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'd have to think about it."<br/>
<br/>
"Do that. And while you're thinking about, think about Canfield. Would you mind being him for a little while?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fucker comes from a rich family," he says with a shrug. "I wouldn't mind so much, even if he is kind of a dillweed."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, money's nice. Well, keep thinking, and have a couple of names for me by the end of the week. I need a place to put Evans, too."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
From the park you return to the elementary school basement, where you quickly make three more masks, then split yourself in two by activating the Chenbot. You put it to work polishing the new masks while you concentrate on Chen's homework. The 'bot mutters at you until you tell it to shut up. An hour later you've done all you can of the homework, and the 'bot has polished up one mask, at which point you turn yourself back into Chen and finish up his math homework with his brain. Then you go home. <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You spend Wednesday in a distracted state thinking through the mechanics of how to handle Thomason's request. Chelsea texts you with another reminder that she wants Andrea to try out for the cheerleader squad, so you force Thomason to meet you at the Panda Garden after class so you can give her orders. She takes it in a bad grace -- and sniffs haughtily at the leftover cuisine -- but churlishly agrees to your demand when you call it the price she has to pay for making changes to Jelena, Sienna, and Fatima. Then you explain to her how that exchange is to be made.<br/>
<br/>
It took you a long time to figure it out, and you're not happy with it, because you can't shake the sense that there should be a much simpler and elegant -- and useful -- way of doing things. Also, you have a feeling you're courting a serious risk with consequences that might be very unpleasant.<br/>
<br/>
But Andrea has no better ideas when you explain it to her, and though Thomason is very dubious about one of the details, you snarl at him that you know what you're doing and he doesn't so he should go sit on something long and turgid if he doesn't like it.<br/>
<br/>
After leaving the restaurant, you do your usual three-night-a-week thing, and go to the elementary school. After sending the Chenbot to handle nightly work chores, you do what homework you can and polish up two more masks.<br/>
<br/>
Then you send a text to Joshua Call.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Dane Matthias is working diligently at a library table early the next morning when you arrive. You'd heard that's where he hangs out these days. You can hardly believe it now, even though you're looking at him with your own eyes, and have been for the last two minutes.<br/>
<br/>
He is shaved and his coppery hair is trimmed and neatly combed. His jeans and t-shirt look like they've been ironed. And he's wearing shoes, not house slippers.<br/>
<br/>
It's funny the way people react when they get shoved into a new life -- as you've been doing to people with the masks -- especially when they don't know how to act. Gordon Black, stuck now as Will Prescott, has gotten a reputation as a trouble-maker and as someone the bullies should steer clear of, but he hasn't thrown over any of your old friends. Dane Matthias, stuck now as Gordon Black, has turned the one-time star basketball player into a cheerful pothead, and hasn't even tried to keep up appearances. And Chelsea Cooper, stuck now as Dane Matthias -- <br/>
<br/>
You never knew Chelsea well, and mostly have the impression that she's a snotty, pushy, hyper-competitive tyrant. Certainly she'd be no more capable of adapting to Dane's life than Dane was capable of adapting to Gordon's. But she has not tried out for any athletics, nor (not to your ears, anyway) has she tried to run with a more socially ambitious crowd. From what you hear, she's just cleaned up Dane's look and plunged into the academics.<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea Cooper, brainiac? It doesn't compute. The only thing you can figure is that she's just intense on making the best of her situation, whatever it is, and the best she can do as Dane Matthias is to get good grades.<br/>
<br/>
Well, these reflections are interesting, but not <i>that</i> interesting, and you've got much more important business with the figure bent over the table in the corner with his back to the library door. You slip over next to him and grab the back of his neck.<br/>
<br/>
Dane raises up with a baffled expression that turns cheerful when he sees it's you. "Oh. Hey, Gary." Then he chokes when he catches the expression you're wearing, and feels your fingers tighten on his neck. "Um -- "<br/>
<br/>
"You're gonna visit your cousin today, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"Dwayne, you pudding-brained little fuck. Don't make me cave the front of your skull in like I almost did the other day.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. You know -- ? Uh, I guess I could -- "<br/>
<br/>
"He's gonna call or text you, and you're gonna call or text him if you don't hear from him. Dwayne Macauly, shithead. The name's in your phone."<br/>
<br/>
"Right." Fear has now completely replaced cheer on his face. He swallows.<br/>
<br/>
"It's that time of month, and I don't mean your fucking period. Jesus, man. As soon as you hear from him, and you see him, and you have that package, you fucking call me. I don't want another fuck up like we had last time. You got my number?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think so."<br/>
<br/>
"Bet you don't and bet you can't remember, so let me carve it into you." You flick open a pen and bend over Dane. He flinches and twists as you push and drag the tip deeply through the flesh of his forearm, writing your cell number there. "You don't fucking wash that off until you've transferred it into three other places <i>and</i> you can wake up shouting it from inside a deep sleep. I will fucking hurt you, Matthias," you promise with cold fury. "I will fucking hurt you, and fucking hurt you some  more, and fuck you up after you can't feel it anymore, if you fuck this up again."<br/>
<br/>
Dane blinks rapidly as he promises there will be no fuck ups.<br/>
<br/>
And yet, as you swagger to the library door, you wonder if maybe you're playing with Chelsea the wrong way. She's clearly smart and has a real drive. What if you allied with her against Chen -- the guy who's walking around now in her body?<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112212111211113213312
author_id: seuzz
title: Loading Up at the Warehouse, Part 1
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Ally with Chelsea? Tell her what's going on, and has been going on? It's a ridiculous thought, since ultimately everything that's happened has been your fault, not Chen's. You've forgotten the notion before you've even reached the library doors.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Yo, que pasa?" Drew Jeffries calls out as you swagger into the bar area of the Warehouse. "Or whatever it is you and your guys say."<br/>
<br/>
"Me and my guys?" The desire to paint the walls with Jeffries' face rises up your spine like an express elevator, and is barely restrained by the desire to prudently keep on his good side. "Which guys would those be?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno, man." He shrugs. "Who's in that army you think's following you in here, and how many are in it?"<br/>
<br/>
You show him a very stiff middle finger, long enough for it to register with him, then flick your index and ring fingers into a regiment around it. "Josh Call and two other guys. They get here yet?"<br/>
<br/>
Jeffries' face has turned stony. "Who's asking?"<br/>
<br/>
"Your mother. She's got her bed all warmed up for us."<br/>
<br/>
He drops the cell phone he's been nursing, and it clatters on the bar. "You wanna fuck with me instead, chinaboy, 'cos -- "<br/>
<br/>
Before cresting instinct can send you over the bar and into his face, you're interrupted by a soft voice. "Oh hey, Gary, I thought I heard you."<br/>
<br/>
It's Andrea Varnsworth. Sweet, hot, burning to the eyeballs and scorching to the libido Andrea Varnsworth. She's in short-shorts and canvas shoes, so there's nothing but long, bare leg from her ankles up to just below her ass. Her bust is draped in a long sleeveless tee inside of which her unencumbered breasts swim like playful baby seals. Her expression is hooded, her eyes watchful, but her pose is relaxed.<br/>
<br/>
She's caught you and Jeffries both by surprise, which gives her lots of time to cross the bar from the doorway to the dance area. "You guys aren't fighting or anything, are you?"<br/>
<br/>
The sight of Andrea seems to have turned your ears -- or their workings -- into wood, for Drew's reply is muffled and indistinct. "Huh? Is this guy a friend of yours?"<br/>
<br/>
"Something like that," Andrea says. Her voice is even softer now as she gives you a quick, shy look. Goosebumps ripple all over your body as she briefly caresses your arm with her hand. "You don't come out here much, do you?"<br/>
<br/>
It takes a moment before you realize she's talking to you. "What? No." Your voice is a croak.<br/>
<br/>
Andrea leans across the bar at an angle that gives you and Jeffries both a good view of her swelling breasts. "You don't want to fuck with Gary," she tells Drew in a very quiet voice. "Everyone at Westside is scared of him."<br/>
<br/>
Jeffries' eyes flick over to yours. They betray a deep skepticism overlaying an even deeper loathing. "Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah." Andrea's breathy voice is almost a whisper. "And you know the ones who are most scared of him? The ones he <i>taught</i> to be scared of him."<br/>
<br/>
She puts her arm in yours, and now another feeling goes up your spine: one of intense desire -- a haggard, starved-mongrel kind of desire. Your legs aren't the only things that are stiff as she pulls you over to a half-open door leading onto a bleak staircase. "I've got things set up for us upstairs," she says. You catch her casting a backward look at Jeffries just before you disappear up those stairs, but what expression she showed him, and what expression he showed in response, you don't catch.<br/>
<br/>
"You know, you didn't have to save me or anything back there," you growl. Lust has been (mostly) conquered by your knowledge of who exactly is taking you upstairs, and it has been completely smothered by humiliation. "That fucker -- "<br/>
<br/>
"That fucker's tougher than he looks, same as you," she says in that same quiet voice. "He has to be, if he's gonna hang out at a place like this on weeknights. His name's Drew Jeffries, by the way. I don't think you know him."<br/>
<br/>
"No." Strictly speaking, that's not true. You knew him quite well when you visited the Warehouse last Saturday in the guise of Adam Karter, and as soon as you saw him a few moments ago you remembered him and even his name.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, if you ever decide to start hanging out here more, you better get to know him and to like him. He's the one that sells the alcohol and weed."<br/>
<br/>
"Only him?"<br/>
<br/>
"He has a few guys helping out." You've reached the top of the stairs now. A long, dark, musty hallway plunges along under the rafters of the Warehouse. The outer wall is of brick and cinderblock, punctuated at regular intervals by broken windows. The other wall is of rude plywood, same as the floor, which sags and groans under your feet. But Andrea is still talking. "Mostly those other guys help out by promising to fuck over anyone who makes life hard for Drew," she says. She stops halfway down the hall. "Jesus, Chen, do you have to be a fucking prick <i>everywhere</i> you go?"<br/>
<br/>
"Keeps life simple if I don't have to keep track who I gotta be nice too and who I don't. Anyway, that gimped-up fag who let me in at the front door didn't give me any trouble."<br/>
<br/>
"How did you know he's -- ?" She breaks off and sighs. "Beats me why Lane liked you enough to let you in."<br/>
<br/>
"I'da liked to have seen that bondage queen keep me out."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea sighs again. "I'm just saying -- "<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have to say anything, Thomason. 'Cept I kinda like it when you do. You sound sexy." You take a step back, and drink her from the soles of her feet up to her long, slim neck. It's too dark upstairs to make out details, but the shape is mighty, mighty fine. "You look it, too."<br/>
<br/>
Her soft voice turns acidic. "Thanks."<br/>
<br/>
"Now show me where we're meeting those cocksuckers you want me to turn into skanks."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's in a room at the farthest end of the corridor, a ratty little cupboard of a thing with just space for a lumpy, smelly mattress that shows brown and yellow splotches when Andrea twists a light bulb in its socket, suffusing the space with a grimy amber light. You belch sourly when the sight and smells off the mattress resolve themselves into a sordid history of its use. "Christ, people actually come up here to do it?"<br/>
<br/>
"You could too, Chen," she says. "Get enough liquor in a girl and she'd fall onto that thing with you."<br/>
<br/>
"So go get us some hooch from downstairs. "<br/>
<br/>
"Not tonight, and I'm only doing weed these days, right? Anyway, this is where -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Here? I can't see five of us fitting in here, especially if one of us is sprawled out -- Shit! Not on <i>that!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Call and them have been up here plenty of times, they won't mind. Why are you so finicky?"<br/>
<br/>
"I use the toilet lots of times too, but I don't splash around in one that's got fifty old turds floating in it. But if you say they won't mind -- "<br/>
<br/>
"There's no place else to do things. Only up here in private, unless you want Drew and everyone else knowing what you've got in that bag. What <i>is</i> in the bag, by the way?"<br/>
<br/>
You unsling the pack from your shoulder, and it clinks as it hits the floor. "Just what you expect. Four masks. One of them ready made." You unzip the bag, and after rooting through it pull out the sealed-up mask of Sienna Goldman. "See?"<br/>
<br/>
Andrea takes it gingerly, and cups it in both hands. "Oh my God. How did you get this?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sheerest chance. Point is, even without you, I can show those fuckers this stuff is legit, and that they can get a piece of the same kind of tail as you got."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea speaks slowly when she replies. "So if you don't need me -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I don't, but I want you. You'll sell it. I can't have these assholes backing out after I show them what I got planned for them. You need to show them how much fun it is." You check the time on your cell phone. "Where the fuck are they, they were supposed to be here at eight. What about your girls, when are they due here?"<br/>
<br/>
" I'm going to call them out one at a time."<br/>
<br/>
"Won't do us a lot of good if they're not interested in coming out."<br/>
<br/>
"They will be. They do what I tell them. Mostly."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, if they did, we wouldn't need to be up here changing their minds and everything else inside them."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea snorts. "I'll go watch out front, bring up the guys when they get here." She leaves you grumbling, and probably she's grumbling a little too, as she goes out the door.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She's not gone long, maybe only a few minutes, when you hear the heavy tread of feet outside, and the rasping bass voices of the three guys you summoned. Joshua Call wasn't much interested in meeting when you texted him, but after a lot of badgering he finally agreed, and agreed to bring his friends Jeff Spencer and Jamie Rennerhoff when you said it had to do with "those wenches." You hadn't thought much more about the meeting, only the mechanics of what you were going to do, after that.<br/>
<br/>
But now that you hear their voices, it strikes you how hard this is going to be. Because these three fuckers aren't sad little shits like Mendoza and Evans and Thomason that you can push around. These are hardcore teenage psychos, like Chen Guangli and David Kirkham. You will have to <i>persuade</i> them.<br/>
<br/>
And when you look up to see them crowding into the doorway, you realize just how tricky that's going to be.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122121112111132133121
author_id: seuzz
title: Loading Up at the Warehouse, Part 2
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Joshua Call.<br/>
<br/>
It's impossible -- for you, anyway -- to look at Joshua Call and not think of a work pit in a lube shop. His flat hair gleams like an oil slick. His eyes are dark pools of the same. The hair on his arms is black and prickly, and his meaty hands are grubby. He's strong, too, with the bunched up shoulders and sinewy arms of a gorilla.<br/>
<br/>
Jeff Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
You had the displeasure of knowing Jeff Spencer slightly in grade school, where he was the dumb kid in the back of the class who glared sullenly at everyone because he didn't know what was going on. In the ten years since, he has only grown bigger and uglier and more sullen without learning anything he hadn't roughly mastered in the second grade, and has added to his sullenness the tendency to hit anyone who is smarter than he is -- a population that comprises about ninety percent of the planet. It may be genetic, for his mouth hangs open perpetually in a way that looks like he's barely holding back a puddle of drool, and his bangs, which are cut short, ride high on his scalp, as though he's suffering a receding hairline at the age of eighteen.<br/>
<br/>
Jamie Rennerhoff.<br/>
<br/>
Unlike his friends, Rennerhoff is thin and lithe, with arms and legs almost as skinny as yours, and the few times you've seen him throw a punch you've flattered yourself you could do a more creditable job. But what he lacks in physical power he makes up in mental acuity and creative cruelty. There's something aristocratic about his long, crooked nose, but he points it at the world like a perpetual jibe, and it sits between eyes that gleam with malicious amusement. His smile is wide, and his lips never part without showing a long row of smooth, white, strong and even teeth. If his hair were green and his face smeared with white greasepaint he would make a fine Joker in a junior-league Batman movie.<br/>
<br/>
You never see one of these psychos that you don't have the urge to duck and turn and scurry away, and even in a crowded hall between classes, you avoid their eyes and shuffle to the side and feel your sphincter tighten. You dread the thought that one day they might notice you, and decide to do something about you, not because you've deserved their displeasure, but because it would amuse them so.<br/>
<br/>
But now? You chuck your chin at Spencer, and hold up your hand. Call takes it in hard, rough handclasp, and you clap the back of his hand smartly. "'Sup, asshole? Thanks for coming." To Rennerhoff: "The fuck you grinning at, moron?"<br/>
<br/>
Jamie whinnies loudly through his nose, and his grin widens.<br/>
<br/>
They're looking at you, but you can tell it's mostly because they can't quite bring themselves to look at Andrea, who has squeezed past you to take up station in the far corner of the tiny room. Except for Spencer, that is, who's staring openly at her from under heavy lids as his lower lip droops. "Yo, Spencer," you tell him. "I'm over here."<br/>
<br/>
He glances at you, moving his head and eyes slowly, then goes back to staring at Andrea.<br/>
<br/>
Call speaks. His voice is deep with a rasp in it. It puts you in mind of a tire iron dragging over asphalt. "That girl like to hang out with you? 'Cos I'll hang out with you more if she does."<br/>
<br/>
"I heard you, like, stole a bunch of money off her," Rennerhoff says.<br/>
<br/>
"That was a mix up," you reply. "Her mistake. And we hang out lots. She's my girl. Right, <i>Drea?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Thomason -- or maybe it's Andrea; probably it's both -- isn't liking the attention. You wouldn't like it either, in his position. But he keeps it cool and quiet. "That's right."<br/>
<br/>
"No shit," says Call. His voice is hoarse with skepticism.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, watch this. Drea. Take off your shirt.<br/>
<br/>
She jerks a little at your order.<br/>
<br/>
"I said, take off your shirt, wench."<br/>
<br/>
The muscles of her jaw tighten, but she grasps the hem of her shirt and in a swift motion pulls it up and over her head. Her hair flies about, and she shakes it out of her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Rennerhoff makes a little choking noise in the back of his throat.<br/>
<br/>
Her breasts hang out, exposed. The nipples are large and rosy. They are also erect, so Thomason must be getting <i>some</i> kind of pleasure from this.<br/>
<br/>
"Now your shorts. Underwear, too. Let's see your pussy."<br/>
<br/>
Out of the corner of your eye you see Call and Rennerhoff -- Spencer is too locked onto the girl -- exchange startled, uneasy glances, then they too go rigid as Andrea opens up the front of her shorts and pulls them down. She kicks them off, and leans back into the corner with an imperiously upturned chin.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, spread 'em. Let's see."<br/>
<br/>
She opens her legs.<br/>
<br/>
"Now touch it. Stroke it. Rub it."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea gives you a sharp, hard glare.<br/>
<br/>
"Go on. Show these guys how awesome it is to have a pussy. How awesome it is to have one you can touch any time you want." You don't know how you manage to keep your own voice steady, considering how much you're exciting yourself. "How easy it is to turn yourself on."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus," Rennerhoff squeaks.<br/>
<br/>
But Andrea complies. She puts one hand down on her thigh and plunges a fingertip into the bush. She puts her other hand up to her neck to rub at her throat. She closes her eyes and lifts her head.<br/>
<br/>
Thirty minutes go by. Or maybe it's only thirty seconds. Either way, it seems both an eternity and an instant as Andrea Varnsworth touches and presses at herself. Her slim fingers probe more deeply into that nest, working quickly and expertly. As she works harder, she shudders and arcs her back and writhes a little.<br/>
<br/>
You let her work herself up to a degree that surprises you -- is this an act, or is Thomason really getting off on pleasuring himself in front of four of his grubby male friends? Then you harshly bring it to a stop. "Okay, I didn't tell you to take it to a fucking orgasm. That's for us to do."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea stops abruptly, and her jaw clenches again.<br/>
<br/>
"Touch her, gentlemen," you tell the other three. "Fingertip only, though, and you get three touches, that's all. Lips, nips, wherever. You'll want one of the three to be inside her -- " You waggle a suggestive fingertip. "Well, go on, you fuckin' homos. If you're gonna touch something it's gonna be her or each other." You shove Call in the shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
He snarls at you, then catches himself. He looks over at Andrea.<br/>
<br/>
"Let him touch you, girl," you tell Andrea. "Only three times, though. It's for the common good."<br/>
<br/>
Call shuffles forward on feet that are probably numb. Stiffly, he raises a hand. He hesitates, but as Andrea just stands there with lowered eyes, he puts his fingertips on her lips.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, lower than that."<br/>
<br/>
So he puts a hand to one of her breasts. He clasps it, and squeezes it gently.<br/>
<br/>
"Third time's the charm. You know you want it, if you've never touched one before."<br/>
<br/>
So his hand drops. You don't watch closely, but Andrea shifts under his touch, and her face tightens.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, that's enough." Your words don't have an immediate effect, and you have to repeat them before Call pulls back. "So tell me, Call, is that a real fucking girl, with a real fucking pussy?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh. Sure," says Call.<br/>
<br/>
"You positive? How about you sniff 'em?" You put your fingertips to your nose. Call only gives you a dirty look in response. "Okay, Spencer, your turn. Be gentle."<br/>
<br/>
He's clumsy, but you'll give him credit for not being disgusting. Then it's Rennerhoff who shuffles up. He's had time to work up his nerve, and he swaggers over and gropes the girl mercilessly, like he's a butcher exploring a piece of meat.<br/>
<br/>
And while he's busy with that -- and Call and Spencer are busy watching him -- you quietly close the door.<br/>
<br/>
"Now, you assholes don't know it," you tell them, and they all turn at your words, "but this has been a magic trick. A really serious illusion. No mirrors, but -- Fuck, you even touched her, and I'd let you go down on her and lap her up if I thought you weren't virgins and actually knew what to do with a girl. Now let me show you what you've been touching. Better move onto the mattress, Andrea."<br/>
<br/>
Thomason's earlier words notwithstanding, he drops onto the filthy mattress with much obvious disgust and draws his knees up under his chin. "Not like that, Drea. Splay it out. I want them to see you before and after." So she lets her legs fall open. You leer back at the three douchebags and point at the cleft between her legs. "Keep your eyes on that. You know you want an eyeful."<br/>
<br/>
And as they focus on her pussy, you hunch next to Andrea in a way that obscures her face. You cover her brow with your fingers, clench it, and murmur some arcane words. The mask comes away easily.<br/>
<br/>
You step back, slipping between the trio, and brace yourself against the door to stop any stampedes.<br/>
<br/>
A wise precaution. There's a hoarse "Jesus!" from Call and a shrill "The fuck?" from Rennerhoff, but it's Spencer who hurls himself at the door. You force him back, then are almost smothered as all three try to get out of the room. With snarls and kicks of your own, you drive them off you. So they huddle in another corner, staring in obvious horror and disbelief at the naked body of an unconscious Joe Thomason, his cock hanging out like a wilted sausage from a tangled shrub of filthy hair.</span></div></div>


path: 1112111321122222122222212212121121211221112121312112311221121112112112111221211121111321331211
author_id: seuzz
title: Loading Up at the Warehouse, Part 3
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Three pairs of eyes roll in fear and horror between you and the figure on the mattress. In the yellow light of that stinking room, Josh Call, Jeff Spencer and Jamie Rennerhoff push and grapple with each other as they squeeze into a corner, trying to get away from you and Joe Thomason. You feel your own nostrils flare with amusement -- an unfortunate reflex, for it fills your nostrils with the sour and salty aroma of semen and sweat.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't act like such a bunch of girls," you snort at them. "It's only magic."<br/>
<br/>
"What kind of fucking trick is this?" says Call. His tone is belligerent and a dangerous light shows in his eye. But Rennerhoff yips as Call pushes himself more deeply into the corner.<br/>
<br/>
"No trick. Not a magic 'trick'." You crook your fingers around the word. "Not like fucking David Copperfield. You touched her, you smelt her. Rennerhoff even finger-fucked her, didn't you?"<br/>
<br/>
That grin of his must be reflexive, for his mouth widens so that its tips vanish toward his ears.<br/>
<br/>
"But it's no illusion. Well, not like a do-it-with-mirrors illusion. Toldja, it's magic. Real magic, grimoire magic, fucking Harry Potter -- What is that shit called? You read that shit back in school, didn't you, Rennerhoff? What's that's stuff they drink that makes 'em change into other people?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh? Polyjuice potion?"<br/>
<br/>
"Take your word for it. Only this kind of thing is done with masks." You hold up Andrea's mask.<br/>
<br/>
They rear back. "The fuck do you know about magic?" Call says. Now his voice is definitely shaking.<br/>
<br/>
"Lots. Ancient Chinese secrets," you sneer, then spit on the floor. "Fuck me if I tell you. Question for you lot of dickless wonders is if you want the same kind of fun as Thomason over there was having."<br/>
<br/>
For a moment they remain frozen, all three of them. You're about to repeat what you said, to see if you can get it through to them, then realize they're silent because you've caught their attention, finally.<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I said," you say. "Do you want to have that kind of fun? 'Cos I can arrange it for you."<br/>
<br/>
Silence. Then a single word gets said. "How?"<br/>
<br/>
It's the first noise Spencer has made. You'd almost applaud him for it, but his being the first to ask that question is probably a mark of how coarse he is.<br/>
<br/>
"Same as I did with Thomason over there. With masks. One for each of you. Eventually," you add. "Tonight, though, you have to share one."<br/>
<br/>
You squat next to your pack and pull out Sienna's mask. "There's nothing to be scared of with these things," you tell them. "You assholes ain't the first I've shown them to, obviously." You jerk your head at Thomason. "He's been inside one, same as Evans and Mendoza have. Don't take it personally that you're late to the party." You catch Rennerhoff shooting a worried glance at Thomason, who's still asleep. "That's just a side effect, just temporary. When you put one of these things on or take it off, it knocks you out for a little bit. I guess things have to upload and download, or some shit like that. Anyway, I never seen anyone knocked out more than ten minutes, and I could slap him awake if I wanted to. I think it'll be better if he sleeps it off, though. It's gonna be kind of awkward when he wakes up and you have to talk to him about the way you was touching him."<br/>
<br/>
You laugh again, but they don't.<br/>
<br/>
"In fact," you continue, glancing back at the door, "let's move to another room. Spare us all some embarrassment. Also spare us the sight of Thomason's snake." You stand up. "I don't want any of you cocksuckers to bolt, you understand?"<br/>
<br/>
Only Rennerhoff nods at that, but you think you can trust the other two, for they have begun to look interested.<br/>
<br/>
So you lead them into the next room, which with its light bulb and mattress is virtually identical to the last one. "Okay, Rennerhoff, I'm volunteering you. You gotta better mouth than your friends, you can talk it through better. Drop your ass on that mattress, 'cos like I said, it's gonna knock you out."<br/>
<br/>
Rennerhoff squats and sits, and as you huddle up next to him you can feel him trembling. "Don't worry, this isn't going to hurt or anything. I've put these things on and off myself, and I'm hear to tell you it's safe. It's just like going to sleep. Kind of pleasant, actually, and when you wake up." You whistle. "You're going to have tits."<br/>
<br/>
"Andrea's tits?" His breath whistles inside his nose.<br/>
<br/>
"In this case, no. Sienna Goldman's."<br/>
<br/>
"Sienna?" That's Call talking, and he sounds startled.<br/>
<br/>
"That's right. I told you I wanted to talk to you about those bitches. Here's where we start talking about them." To Rennerhoff: "You're bigger than Sienna is, so you don't have to take your clothes off. Unless you want to."<br/>
<br/>
"Should I?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug. "I said you don't have to. Only your body will change, not your clothes. If you were smaller than her, you'd have to get naked so you didn't rip anything Hulk-style. For now -- Shit, just lay back, I'm getting tired of talking. All I'm going to do is lay this mask on your face. You don't even have to close your eyes. It'll do all the work."<br/>
<br/>
Rennerhoff looks worriedly over your shoulder at his friends, then scoots around until he can lay onto his back. You marvel a little at how willing he is to do this, and wonder if that's how he wound up with this group of friends: because he was a malice-ridden little pimple who didn't have the willpower to say "no" when stronger people, like Call and Spencer -- and Chen and Kirkham -- told him they were going to do something nasty and dangerous.<br/>
<br/>
It's a fleeting thought. A moment later you drop the mask onto him, and he changes.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Test it out, talk about it," you tell Call. "I'm gonna go check on Thomason." You lay a hand on his arm as you squeeze past, leaving him and Spencer alone with Sienna Goldman, who is blinking and writhing with alarm on the dirty mattress.<br/>
<br/>
You didn't give Rennerhoff much of a chance to snooze, but woke him suddenly by pinching his nose shut. But you're losing patience with these guys, and hope that they'll work themselves into accepting what's happening if you leave them alone instead of holding their hands.<br/>
<br/>
Inside the other room you find a very resentful Thomason sitting up with Andrea's t-shirt draped over his crotch. "Fuck," he mutters. "At first I thought you ran off without me, and I was pissed. Then you come back, and that pisses me off even more."<br/>
<br/>
"You're just upset to've lost your tits. How was it, by the way? I'd'a puked in your place, and I almost did when Spencer -- "<br/>
<br/>
He swings at you, but weakly, and you easily dodge the blow. "Easy there," you tell him. "It had to be done, man. I'd'a warned you, but then you wouldn't've done it. But you did -- " You clap him encouragingly on the shoulder. "And did a hell of a job, too."<br/>
<br/>
"Why the fuck did I have to?"<br/>
<br/>
"So they'd know it was real. That you were real. That those were real tits and that you had a real, velvety cunnyhole."<br/>
<br/>
"Why couldn't you be the one to show them?" He probably means to snarl it, but it comes out as a peevish whine.<br/>
<br/>
"Because I don't put these things on when I got company. Don't trust anyone with my eyes shut, that's how come. Anyway, you wanna put on Andrea's clothes, come next door and have some fun of your own with Rennerhoff? He's awake and got Sienna Goldman's pussy stapled to his crotch."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll stay here, if that's okay."<br/>
<br/>
"Suit yourself. Just wanted to check on you." You stand up, but continue to stare down at him. "It's the price you pay, you know, for me giving you those guys as playmates."<br/>
<br/>
"I figured that," he says quietly. "You don't have to keep -- "<br/>
<br/>
"And it'll be the last time I make you do something like that. I ain't bringing anyone else in. Not planning to, anyway, and if I do -- " Your laugh escapes like a hiss. "I'll make Rennerhoff or Call do it."<br/>
<br/>
Thomason just puts his face in his hands, and you leave him to return to the others.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Rennerhoff's demonstration was enough to break the ice, and Call in particular is excited to know how the masks the work. You put his questions off, but assure him that they also contain memories -- though those take a few hours to seep into the consciousness of the mask wearer -- so that impersonations are perfect.<br/>
<br/>
The word "impersonate" catches his ear: his troglodyte manner notwithstanding, he's sharp enough when he has to be. "Impersonate?" he repeats. "Like, pretend to be?"<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly. How long do you think Thomason's been walking around pretending to be Andrea Varnsworth? If I told you it'd been a couple of weeks -- sleeping in Andrea's bed, lounging with her friends, going to her classes -- would you believe me? It's true," you assure him when Call looks disbelieving. "Thomason's been living the life of Andrea Varnsworth for about two, three weeks now, it must be."<br/>
<br/>
"Where's the real Andrea?" Sienna Goldman asks from the mattress. She looks very silly in Rennerhoff's too-big clothes.<br/>
<br/>
"Never mind. She's okay, she's healthy, she's not in any pain. She's just someplace where she can't make trouble for her replacement. Oh, and the Thomason you've seen around? That's a robot. I can make robots of you assholes, too. That way you can impersonate -- " You break off with a grin, to look down at Sienna. "Well, this bitch, for one. How about it, Rennerhoff? How'd you like to go to school tomorrow as Sienna Goldman?"<br/>
<br/>
Her jaw sags open.<br/>
<br/>
"And you two," you say to Call and Spencer. "I'm thinking Jelena Petrovich and Fatima Zahedi would be real fun aliases."<br/>
<br/>
For a moment you think that's sealed it. But then Call speaks: "Why the fuck would we wanna do that?"</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112212111211113213312111
author_id: seuzz
title: Negotiations with a Devil
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Why the fuck would we want to do that?"<br/>
<br/>
Call's question -- his answer to your suggestion that he and his friends turn themselves into Jelena Petrovich, Sienna Goldman, and Fatima Zahedi -- knocks you back. You'd almost forgotten the kind of assholes you're dealing with, as, over the last twenty minutes, you'd daunted, teased, bullied and frightened them with revelations about magical masks and disguises.<br/>
<br/>
But now Call is sounding like his old self again, and there's a dangerous note in his voice. "Why the fuck would we want to do that?"<br/>
<br/>
But you rally. "You're seriously asking me that? You're seriously asking why -- " Sienna Goldman -- her dirty blonde hair sticking up in dozens of different directions -- catches your eye from the floor where she's crouching. "Yo, Rennerhoff. Touch yourself."<br/>
<br/>
Sienna blinks.<br/>
<br/>
"I said, touch yourself."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I mean," says Call, and that dark tone now has a tincture of savagery in it. "I'm not going to let you fucking touch me or -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna fucking touch you!" you retort, raising your voice over his. "Gyah, why would I do that? I'm telling you -- Rennerhoff, you gonna let that pussy go to waste? Don't you want to touch it, press it, rub it, sniff your fingers after you've got yourself wet? Don't you wanna know what Sienna smells like down there?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not in front of you!" she shouts. She almost sounds like the real girl.<br/>
<br/>
"Fine, I don't want you doing it in front of me anyway. You think I wasn't about to puke while you guys were fondling Thomason?"<br/>
<br/>
Call gets in your face. "Then why do you want us to do this?"<br/>
<br/>
You get back in his face, even though he's at least an inch taller than you, and is wearing thick-soled boots besides. "I don't <i>want</i> anything from you, Call. But I heard you talking about these girls, about Jelena in particular, and I heard what happened when you tried groping them, and how you couldn't even stick them the other night when you cornered them up here. So I <i>thought</i> this'd be a pretty sweet way for you to get back at them. By stealing their bodies, stealing their lives, doing their stuff <i>with</i> their stuff."<br/>
<br/>
You settle back on your heels. "You've seen 'em up here, at the Warehouse, haven't you?" you continue when no one replies. "They play up here, right, in some bands? You like watching 'em, don'tcha? Fuck, everyone likes watching 'em, listening to 'em. That could be <i>you</i> up there, man, singing and sweating in that sexy way. Then when you're done you come and strip off those dirty clothes and climb into a cold shower and rub yourself clean all over before getting in bed to finger yourself while thinking about the -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up," says Spencer hoarsely. There's a shadow over his face, so you can't make out his expression.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong? I'm just painting you a picture in case you can't paint it for yourself."<br/>
<br/>
"You're getting off on it."<br/>
<br/>
"No I'm not." You raise your hands. "Really, I'm not. Go ask Thomason if I've so much as laid a finger on him since he's been playing Andrea Varnsworth. All this was his idea, anyway. <i>He</i> wanted to be Andrea after I showed him what I could do for him, and <i>he's</i> the one who -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Why?" says Call. "Why did he want that? And why'd you do it for him?"<br/>
<br/>
Your smile comes easily to your lips. "He wanted to be Andrea 'cos Andrea's almost as fucking sexy as Jelena. And I helped him for the advantage. You know he helps me deal at the school. Now, who would people rather buy from? Joe Thomason's ugly ass, or Andrea Varnsworth's sweet, sweet ass?"<br/>
<br/>
Call holds your eye, then snorts. "So that's all it is. A way for you to make some fucking money."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeha, and what's wrong with that?"<br/>
<br/>
"So why don't you use this magic to make some real money," asks Spencer, and it surprises you that the obvious question is coming from him instead of one of the other two. Still waters must run awful deep. "Why waste this stuff on -- "<br/>
<br/>
"On sexy girls? Don't you want to get close to sexy girls, close enough to be under their skin, inside their skin?" You push past Call to get up into Spencer's face. "Or are you hot to be some bald old banker, in golf pants, with a stomach out to here? Does that get you excited? And I'm not asking you to deal for me," you continue, turning around to take in Call and Rennerhoff. "I don't have Thomason -- or Andrea Varnsworth, as he's going by these days -- dealing. I just have him making it look sexy. The way Andrea makes everything look sexy. The way Jelena and Sienna can make everything look sexy."<br/>
<br/>
You must have touched some kind of nerve, for Call glances anxiously at his friends. "You still didn't answer the question. Why not use these masks to get the lives of, you know -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"Bankers? Businessmen? People on the city council? State senators, U.S. senators, the president? Is that what you're asking?" You spread your arms out, as though to encompass the whole world.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," says Sienna from the mattress. "That's what I'd do."<br/>
<br/>
"You're just dumb enough to want it," you retort. "But I've thought about it." You haven't, really, but you've thought enough about Macauly and Mathis that you can spot the obvious counterargument to this case. "Yeah, I thought about it. Thought about how sweet it'd be to be running the country from the White House. All the meetings, and the speeches, and the briefings. All the people yelling at me and about me, all the decisions and the responsibilities. All the stuck up diplomatic parties and handshaking and shit. I jizzed just thinking about it."<br/>
<br/>
Call turns away with another snort. "Then something else," he says, "if being a politician sucks. Some other job."<br/>
<br/>
"What kind of a job? All the people with money enough to kick back and have fun are old. You wanna be an old white rich dude with a fat white wife?"<br/>
<br/>
"A celebrity, then," says Sienna. "A movie star, singing star -- "<br/>
<br/>
"They gotta work too, and you don't wanna change yourself totally for a completely new life, right? You want to be someone like yourself, only a little bit better off, with something you don't got but wanna have. Like, universal access to pussy."<br/>
<br/>
Silence as Call kicks at the floor, and everyone watches him. "I dunno," he says. "I don't think these girls have it so much better than us."<br/>
<br/>
"Thomason's not complaining."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, maybe not, but that's 'cos he's got <i>Andrea's</i> tits to play with." Call's glance turns shifty. "If you said that one of us -- "<br/>
<br/>
"He's not going to give up being Andrea." You say this very firmly. "And would you really complain if they were Jelena's tits you had to play with?"<br/>
<br/>
He shuts up again. Nor do the other two speak.<br/>
<br/>
"Jelena, Sienna, Fatima. That's the offer I'm making for you guys."<br/>
<br/>
"It has to be them?" says Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
"That's right. 'Cos they're friends with Andrea. Close to Andrea. They and Andrea do everything together."<br/>
<br/>
"And how does this help you?"<br/>
<br/>
You didn't want this subject coming up again, but you manage it by putting it off onto Thomason. "It doesn't help me. It helps Andrea. Well, Thomason. It was his idea. I guess he's kind of lonely, out at his place with none of his own friends to hang out with. He has to make do with Charles Hartlein." You grin. "Imagine how much fun that is."<br/>
<br/>
"Tss," says Call.<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly. Also, these girls have been riding Andrea's ass a bit, he tells me. He's not dealing, but he is using, just a little, so that Andrea's friends will buy and use a little more. Marketing, that's what he's doing for me. But they don't like Andrea marketing this shit, Jelena and them don't. But if it was <i>you</i> guys in their clothes, in their skins, in their bodies -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I get it," says Call heavily. "Fuck."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I see in it," you say. "It's why I'm willing to indulge Thomason. That's the way he sold it to me, but I could tell he's more lonely than anything else. Wants some real company. Someone he can get close to, let his hair down with, have some real fun with while he's being Andrea. He wants to do shit with you guys, and he wants it to be Jelena and Sienna and Fatima he's doing fun shit with when he's doing fun shit with you." You sense you're on the verge of overselling that angle, so you go no further. "So if you do this, you're not really doing it for me, and you don't owe me anything. You're doing it for Thomason."<br/>
<br/>
Call puts his hands on his hips. "For how long?"<br/>
<br/>
That's not a question you're in any way prepared for. "How long do you want it for? I think the end of the year would be a good time to wrap it up."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean Christmas?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, school year. There's nothing I need from these girls after that. But if you want to keep on being them after that -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I don't," says Call firmly. "Probably not. But at the end of the year, you give me a new body, whoever I pick. Same for these other assholes. Am I right?" Murmurs of agreement come from Rennerhoff and Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
"Like who?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'd have to think about it. But it won't be any loser girls."<br/>
<br/>
It's an easy promise to make. "Sure."<br/>
<br/>
And clearly Call senses it's an easy promise for you to make, for he's got a follow up. "I'll tell you who next week. And if you don't set it up -- if you don't find a way to set it up foolproof for me and my friends -- I'll blow the whistle on you. I'm sure the fucking government would love to see what you've got going on here, get their hands on it."</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122121112111132133121111
author_id: seuzz
title: Here Come the Coeds, Part 1
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's still an easy promise to make. Who cares what Joshua Call wants or demands? Even if he got the government involved, all you'd have to do is rip the Chelsea mask off Chen and leave him to take the blame while you disappeared behind some other mask. Like maybe a celebrity the way Rennerhoff was talking about. Or maybe -- and wouldn't this be funny -- as one of the agents sent to catch you.<br/>
<br/>
You don't want it to come to that, though. You tell Call you're happy to work with him, and seal the deal by crushing his hand in yours while he tries to crush yours in his. "So how are we going to do this?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll get 'Andrea' to call her friends. One at a time, get 'em out here so we can replace 'em without making a scene. While we're waiting for them to show up, I'll need to make a mold of each of you for your robots."<br/>
<br/>
"A mold?" asks Call.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, don't worry, you won't feel a thing. Will they, Rennerhoff?" The girl on the mattress doesn't answer. "Yo, Rennerhoff, you listening? You in there?"<br/>
<br/>
"What?" Sienna jumps a little.<br/>
<br/>
"I asked, are you there? What'sa matter? Starting to get some memories? Getting distracted?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know?" Her brow crinkles. "I guess I was thinking about something else."<br/>
<br/>
"See, she doesn't remember a damn thing," you tell Call. "You think she'd remember if it hurt."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but how will these robots work?" Call looks very suspicious.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you care? They'll work just like that Thomason 'bot you were hanging around with last week. He seemed normal, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Normal for Thomason, I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, your 'bots will seem normal for you. They'll do the same shit stuff you'd'a done in their place. Sit still, guys, trust your <i>lingxiong.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
But they've still got issues. Call says, "Who's gonna be which girl?" to which Spencer sullenly says, "I wanna be Sienna."<br/>
<br/>
But you're already through the doorway. "Figure it out amongst yourselves, guys," you call over your shoulder. "I don't care who's who, only it's gonna be Jelena, Sienna and Fatima. Flip for it, rock-paper-scissors it, I don't give a fuck."<br/>
<br/>
In the other room, you're pleased to find that Andrea Varnsworth has returned and is awake; you're slightly less pleased to see that she'd dressed again. "Okay, we're ready for your friends," you tell her. "Start with -- Oh, start with Jelena. Those assholes are going to fight over the other two, I think."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea takes out her phone. "What do I tell her?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's your friend, tell whatever you think will get her out here. But get her alone." You snatch up your knapsack. "Is she gonna think it's funny when you lead her up to one of these rooms?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what she'll think, but I'll get her to do it."<br/>
<br/>
"Make it this room. I'll be waiting inside. Let her come in first, then grab her from behind while I get the mask onto her."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay. Hey, are those guys going to do like we want them to?"<br/>
<br/>
You stop in a doorway again. "You mean Call and them? It's a little late to be wondering that, isn't it?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Shit and questions. Everyone is full of shit and questions. Call still wants to know how the robots work, and what's going to happen to the real girls. You tell him it's not his business to know, that he shouldn't worry, and that the girls will be okay. "They won't remember a thing when we let them loose into the real world again," you tell him. Your lack of responsiveness makes Call angry, you can tell, but he doesn't change his mind about going along with your scheme, and submits to having a blank mask put on his face -- though only after watching it happen to Spencer first.<br/>
<br/>
As for body assignments, Rennerhoff doesn't make trouble and lets Spencer claim Sienna, so while Spencer is being copied you pry Sienna's mask off Rennerhoff's face. Call would want to talk some more, but you put him off by returning to the bar to get some beers. Jeffries hands them over with a glower. "All you guys having fun back there?"<br/>
<br/>
"Regular carnival. We got a campfire going. Got any marshmallows to go with the hops?"<br/>
<br/>
Twenty minutes later, all three of your new conspirators have their faces and brains copied into three of the blank masks you'd brought. "Now I gotta take a piss," you announce once they are collected.<br/>
<br/>
"Is that part of the magic?" Spencer asks. He's become more vocal as the night's progressed.<br/>
<br/>
"<i>A</i> kind of magic," you reply. "The magic of bodily secretions and the removal of toxins. I gotta full bladder," you add when his heavy blinking tell you he needs a translation.<br/>
<br/>
"You always take your shit with you to the john?" asks Rennerhoff as you sweep your bag onto your shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
"Take a shit, leave a shit. It's a form of inventory control. Christ, you need to stop skipping Peters's classes."<br/>
<br/>
The head is downstairs, behind the booths, and it's a dark, foul place with a trough-like common urinal and busted chamber pots that might as well open directly into the sewer pipes. The concrete floor and walls are besmirched with browns and reds that you hope are mineral deposits and not bodily effluvia. Along one wall are some makeshift stalls of plywood for the use of the ladies -- though only a girl who is high or drunk would try to use one -- and you hide in one of them. For you came here not to take a shit or a piss, but to seal up the masks.<br/>
<br/>
Probably you could do it in front of the three idiots, but you prefer to keep as many of your secrets as you can, as Call is being super nosy. You make a fast job of it, for you'd mixed up the paste earlier and brought it out in a small plastic tub. <br/>
<br/>
But it's not only sealant. It's a rockbot paste.<br/>
<br/>
You've learned from your trouble with Andrea, and you're pretty sure that Jelena and Sienna, at the very least, wouldn't go along with being trapped inside the bodies of Josh Call and Jeff Spencer. So you mixed in a bit of your hair -- the same kind of hair you put in the Chenbot and the Thomasonbot -- into this paste, so that the Callbot, the Spencerbot, and the Rennerhoffbot will be perfect duplicates and under your control.<br/>
<br/>
That could prove useful.<br/>
<br/>
But even as you apply the paste, you have the nagging worry that you're doing something foolish. If it is so easy to make a 'bot that replaces a person, why hasn't someone used the magic book and the magic masks to conquer the world with an army of duplicates? There must be a catch somewhere.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You get finished just in time, too. A few minutes later, as you're on your way back up the stairs, Thomason signals that Jelena has just arrived. You stick your head into the room where the three psychos are waiting, and one glance tells you they're starting to get a little stir crazy from waiting. "Keep still and keep quiet," you growl at them. "First girl will be up in ninety seconds. If she sees or hears you, she'll run off and then I don't know what we'll do." In reply, you get a grimace from Call, a sullen glare from Spencer, and a blank, slack-jawed stare from Rennerhoff.<br/>
<br/>
In the next room, you wait in the blind corner near the door with a blank mask cradled in your hand. The target seems very long in coming, and you flinch angrily when you hear the clink and clatter of bottles next door, and a muffled bark, probably from Call hitting someone. Silence follows on that.<br/>
<br/>
Then the floor in the hallway creaks, and you hear soft voices. You can't make out the words, but it's two girls talking. You twist off the light bulb, plunging the room in darkness.<br/>
<br/>
The door creaks open, showing a paler darkness through the doorway. "Oh Christ, it stinks up here," says someone. "I'm going back -- " Her voice breaks off with a muffled gasp.<br/>
<br/>
You jump forward. There's a tangle of bodies in the doorway, and with one hand you grope at them. "The fuck?" a girl shouts, and the bodies twist about. You feel arms crossed against a chest, then a neck, and finally a face that twists away from your open palm.<br/>
<br/>
You jam the mask in that direction. There's a soft kind of a crunching noise, and a shuddering blow races up your arm to your shoulder. The mask melts under your fingers, and then your fingertips are pinching and grasping at flesh: nose, eyes, cheeks. They sink away and Andrea says, "Chen?" in a low, desperate voice. Something heavy hits the floor.<br/>
<br/>
You hop over to feel for the light bulb, and twist it back on. Two bodies are in the hallway. One of them is wearing dark jeans and a dark blouse. The other, underneath the first -- Well, you recognize the bare legs of Andrea Varnsworth.<br/>
<br/>
You seize the unconscious Jelena Petrovich by the ankles and drag her into the room. She is pale -- but she always is -- and her long brunette hair is disordered. You roll her over as best you can -- she's like six sacks of wet cement bundled up inside a larger sack -- onto the mattress. The whole thing has quite taken your breath away, and you're panting heavily.<br/>
<br/>
But the first one is down. You look up at Andrea with a grin. "Ready to call a second friend?"</span></div></div>


path: 1112111321122222122222212212121121211221112121312112311221121112112112111221211121111321331211111
author_id: seuzz
title: Here Come the Coeds, Part 2
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"I'll leave it to you to get her naked," you tell Andrea as she squats next to the unconscious Jelena Petrovich. "I got a feeling you'll be getting lots of practice at it."<br/>
<br/>
She looks up sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. I don't know." You go out into the hall and pull the door closed behind you.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't move. Where could you go?<br/>
<br/>
There's no place you'd feel comfortable landing. Inside that room as Andrea pulls Jelena's clothes off? That would feel like a violation -- a funny scruple to have, since you're about to do a lot worse to Jelena. Or maybe that's what you meant when you cracked wise about Andrea getting naked with Jelena. It's the obvious, leering comment, and you've thought often enough that that's the kind of thing that'll be happening with Andrea and her friends after you get these three new victims swapped.<br/>
<br/>
But you've also told Thomason and the others that this business is theirs, that you're just setting up the swap for them, and that the only thing you expect is that they'll use their new identities to help you move more product through Westside. Is that why it feels like a violation of privacy to watch Andrea peel Jelena's pants and top from her? Because you'd be intruding on something that you've told everyone doesn't concern you?<br/>
<br/>
Nor do you want to go in to see Call and his friends again. They'll just badger you with a lot of questions. Jeffries is manning things downstairs in the bar, and you don't want to wander far off into the dance room or outside for a smoke.<br/>
<br/>
So you end up leaning against the end of the corridor and gazing out the windows. You don't see much, for the hazy glare of the mercury vapor lamps obliterates the night shadows without revealing anything behind them.<br/>
<br/>
A minute or so passes, and the other door opens a crack. Call looks out. He blinks, and chucks an inquiring chin at you. "Waiting for Jelena's mold to set," you tell him. "I can bring you her panties in a minute, if you wanna sniff them." He shuts the door.<br/>
<br/>
A few more minutes, and Andrea opens her door long enough to hand you Jelena's things. They're neatly folded too. You take them with a sigh, and glance around helplessly after Andrea shuts the door again. <i>Christ, it's like being at a department store and your girlfriend gives you a bunch of clothes while she rushes off to try on some others.</i><br/>
<br/>
Maybe that's your problem: You still haven't got laid, and here you are surrounded by acres of succulent female flesh belonging to people who are beholden to you. Except that you know what the real faces look like under the fake ones, and that kills your interest.<br/>
<br/>
No, it doesn't kill your interest. That's the problem. It only hobbles it. Looking at Andrea Varnsworth kills your potency without killing your intense desire. The fucking masks are like a chastity belt for your cock.<br/>
<br/>
You feel your pockets for a cigarette, then think better of it. This place could probably burn down real easily if you let a cigarette get loose.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh hell, there's probably been millions smoked in this place since the city's teenagers took it over.</i> You light the cigarette and take a deep, relaxing breath. It tastes wonderful, and a slight numbness steals over you. Maybe that's all you've been missing tonight, and that's what's gotten your nerves jangly. You've been missing the nicotine.<br/>
<br/>
You bang on the door hiding the three dipshits. "Here," you tell Call around the cigarette and shove Jelena's clothes in at him. "Yo," you call over his shoulder at Rennerhoff and Spencer. "How about you two faggots go hang out in the next room over, give your buddy here some privacy for when he changes." To Call, even though the others don't move. "It'll be ready for you in a minute or two. You might as well get out of your things. Your robot'll need 'em anyway." You suck in some smoke and blow a thin stream into his face. "Wouldn't recommend you getting into these, though, not until you're tricked out like a certain guitar-straddling dyke." To the other two: "I thought I told you two dumbasses to move."<br/>
<br/>
So they move. You put them in the next room over, so that your company is spread into a trio of cubbyholes. Good thing it's a weeknight, and the place is dead.<br/>
<br/>
You've just got them shut away when Andrea's door opens and she peers out. She gestures excitedly when she spots you, and pulls you inside. It's the mask that's got her antsy. It's reappeared on Jelena's face.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll take it from here, sweetheart," you tell her. "Go downstairs and call Sienna."<br/>
<br/>
"Bring her up here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, we'll be out of your way by the time you're back." She nods, and leaves you alone.<br/>
<br/>
You take a moment to look Jelena over. She's well shaped, though her boobs aren't the biggest, and she's covered in a layer of baby fat all over. Again, you feel a twinge of loneliness and longing, but the cigarette has taken the edge off. You paint the inside of her mask while studying her out of the corner of your eye, then take it over to Call.<br/>
<br/>
"Christ, you don't have to give me an eyeful," you tell him when you open the door and he turns his hideous, full-frontal form on you.<br/>
<br/>
"You told me to take my -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Your butt crack'd be enough for me. Here's Jelena's mask. Just sit down and put it to your face, like you did with that other one. I'll get your things in to the robot."<br/>
<br/>
Back in the other room, you don't waste any time, and drop Call's sealed-up mask onto Jelena's face. Joshua Call -- naked, hairy, ropey-muscled Joshua Call -- materializes and opens his eyes. He sees you, blinks once, and rears back.<br/>
<br/>
"Quiet," you tell the 'bot in a low voice. "You have to do what I say, right?" The 'bot swallows heavily, and nods. Pain and confusion fills its eyes. "Get dressed, go downstairs, and wait in my Jeep. You know what my Jeep looks like, right?" Again, it nods. "Good. Then wait there for me. Don't touch anything and don't call anyone. I'll be sending some friends out to wait with you, and you can talk to them, but to no one else. Wait there until I come find you."<br/>
<br/>
Yes, you're nervous about sending this thing out. It's bad enough having to manage the Chenbot when you've got it operational. But the Callbot, maybe because it's disoriented by the changes, seems more docile. It keeps its mouth shut and reaches for his clothes.<br/>
<br/>
You briefly check on the real Call -- <br/>
<br/>
Only now it's Jelena Petrovich in there, resting limply on the mattress. Somehow she looks a lot more vulnerable than she had in the other room, even though now she's got Joshua Call under her face.<br/>
<br/>
-- then look in on Spencer and Rennerhoff. Both are looking nervous, which is a real trick for Spencer to manage, since his face most naturally rests in a dead-eyed glower. "Only about another hour before we're done with you two," you promise them. "Sienna should be on her way. Try to look happy about it, Spencer." He doesn't look like he's going to reply, so you leave him, and return to your station at the end of the corridor. The Callbot comes out, gives you a quick, frightened glance, and hustles down the corridor to the stairway.<br/>
<br/>
A quarter hour passes with no noise or movement from Call. You're about to check on him when your phone chimes with a text: Andrea, telling you that Sienna has just arrived. You knock twice on Call's door, then burst in.<br/>
<br/>
Jelena Petrovich whirls around. She's in her pants, but her blouse is only halfway done up. She's still in her stocking feet.<br/>
<br/>
For a moment you can't think of anything to say. Despite being ready for this sight, you're taken aback by the change.<br/>
<br/>
Then words form. "The fuck is taking you so long?"<br/>
<br/>
Her mouth works. Then, peevishly, she retorts. "I'm not used to this shit, okay? The buttons on this shirt are all wrong."<br/>
<br/>
"It's a fucking blouse, not a shirt, and didn't you ever notice the buttons on a girl's things? But sit still and keep quiet, okay? Sienna just got here."<br/>
<br/>
Jelena pales. "Shit. Really?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, really. Why, what's wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not ready, that's the fucking problem."<br/>
<br/>
"So get ready. You've got lots of time. Just do it quietly." You shut the door on the ugly face she's making at you, and retreat into the other room.<br/>
<br/>
It's another long wait, and feels even longer than the wait for Jelena. You start tapping your foot and flexing your fists, then force yourself to stop. You're almost on the point of looking out the door to see what the hold up is when you finally hear voices. One of them is loud enough that you can recognize it as Sienna Goldman's. That girl has a voice like a foghorn when she wants to use it.<br/>
<br/>
And she suddenly she does use it. From the corridor comes her loud cry, "Jesus Fuck!"</span></div></div>


path: 11121113211222221222222122121211212112211121213121123112211211121121121112212111211113213312111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Here Come the Coeds, Part 3
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You hesitate for only a few seconds before deciding that Sienna's yell means something's gone wrong outside. You lunge for the door.<br/>
<br/>
Your eyes have grown accustomed to the dark, so even in the gloomy hallway you can dimly make out the two figures a few feet down. Andrea would be the taller one, and Sienna the shorter one. The third figure --<br/>
<br/>
Christ. There's definitely a third figure leaning halfway out of one the rooms. Judging by the lumpy shape of the skull, it must be Spencer. Fucking moron must've put his head out when he heard Sienna's voice.<br/>
<br/>
In seven huge steps you're down the hallway to the group. Sienna twists and yelps. But Andrea grabs her and you press up close with the mask. Again, Andrea and her victim tumble the floor, but this time they take you with them.<br/>
<br/>
Fists, elbows and someone's forehead collide as two bodies try pulling themselves out of a three-body wreck. "Oh, Jesus Christ, Chen!" Andrea yells. "Figure out another fucking way of doing this!"<br/>
<br/>
"We got her, didn't we? No thanks to that fucker in the -- " You kick savagely at Spencer, but miss him so completely that you doubt he even knew you were trying to strike him.<br/>
<br/>
Thomason's still yelling, though. "I'm gonna break something! Like, your fucking head next time, if I don't break -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Quiet! We don't want Jeffries up here. Come on, help me get her -- This is your fucking fault, Spencer! Get out here and get one of her ankles!"<br/>
<br/>
He finally moves, so that puts four bodies in the narrow corridor, and then you bump into a fifth: the newly minted Jelena Petrovich. "What the fuck happened?" she demands.<br/>
<br/>
"Your fuck buddy almost blew it for us." You grimace as you haul Sienna along the corridor. "He put his head in the hall just Sienna was going by. No wonder she screamed."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought it was Josh," Spencer says truculently. You can't be sure, but it sounds like someone hit someone else -- probably Call punching Spencer and discovering he hasn't got the same upper-body muscle mass as he had before.<br/>
<br/>
"It all worked out," Andrea says, though her tone is angry. "Except for me nearly twisting my ankle."<br/>
<br/>
"Want me to suck on it and make it better?"<br/>
<br/>
"Bite me, Chen."<br/>
<br/>
You get Sienna into the makeshift work room and twist on the light. Her face is blotched all over with red spots. Andrea sags against one wall, and you fall back in a corner to catch your breath. Jelena stares at you doubtfully from doorway. "So, are you just gonna sit there and watch," she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"We need to get her clothes off her," you say. "You wanna do the honors, since me and Thomason did the work of getting her in here?"<br/>
<br/>
Jelena shrugs, and squats down next to Sienna. You clamber past, to crawl back into the hallway.<br/>
<br/>
A minute later, Andrea joins you. "I'm serious about us figuring out another way of doing it when Fatima gets here," she says. "I went down funny on my ankle."<br/>
<br/>
"Did you sprain it or strain it?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think so, but I could have."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay. I'll tell Che -- I'll tell Chelsea -- " You break off and bite your lip.<br/>
<br/>
"You'll tell Chelsea what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. I didn't say 'Chelsea'."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure you did, you said, I'll tell Chelsea -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I was thinking about those cheerleader tryouts. Now you have an excuse not to go to them."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea keeps quiet a moment. "Why do you have to tell Chelsea I won't be going to the tryouts?"<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>don't</i>, obviously, since I don't have anything to do with her." You rub your eyes. "I'm just exhausted. You said you sprained your ankle, I thought of the tryouts, I thought of Chelsea."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't sprain my ankle."<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking brilliant, we'll have a party to celebrate."<br/>
<br/>
There's a much longer pause. You hold your breath. You've about decided that Thomason has dropped the matter. But he hasn't.<br/>
<br/>
"Is Chelsea someone else in a mask?"<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
"Because if you got me being Andrea -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I don't have anybody playing Chelsea."<br/>
<br/>
"It'd be sweet if you did."<br/>
<br/>
"Chelsea doesn't do anything for us. Couldn't, not the way Andrea could. Chelsea's just a psychotic, stuck-up, duck-faced bitch."<br/>
<br/>
"What's the deal with Gordon lately?"<br/>
<br/>
"What deal?" She's really starting to piss you off.<br/>
<br/>
"You know what deal. He's turned into a total pothead, got kicked off the squad, got dumped by Chelsea. All kinds of stuff that should leave him pissed off, but he's walking around like he's blissed out or something."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe he had a religious experience."<br/>
<br/>
"Was he an early experiment of yours? Before you got all this figured out?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what's going on with Black, and I don't care. My brain is a little more than fried from having to deal with Call and Spencer and them, so don't make the night harder for me than it has to be, okay? I think there's still a couple of beers in that room where Call was -- next door down, I mean. Look in there and see if there's one or two in there we can split."<br/>
<br/>
After regarding you dubiously for a few seconds, Thomason slides away to check. While he's gone, the door opens and Jelena comes out. "I got her shit here. Do I give it to Spencer, like we did with me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. And kick him in the balls while you're in there. Rennerhoff, too, so he knows not to pull a fucked up thing like that when Fatima gets here.<br/>
<br/>
She bumps into Andrea on her way to Spencer's room, and you hear them talking in low tones for a minute, then Andrea sits down next to you with a rapidly warming beer. You split it, and Thomason's smart enough not to return to the previous subject. Lacking any other subject, though, you keep silent.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're sorely tempted to cancel the rest of the night after the near-disaster with Sienna, but you decide you'd rather just get things over with. You press Spencer's mask onto her face, and give the new Spencerbot the same set of orders you gave to the Callbot. You let Jelena carry Sienna's mask in to Spencer, and pull Andrea aside for a brief conference. "Okay, let's handle Fatima this way. You call her, bring her up, take her to the end of the hall like before, but instead of opening the door, knock on it. Then turn her around to talk to her. I'll open the door and get the mask on her from behind. How's that sound?"<br/>
<br/>
"And she'll fall forward into me."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'll catch her. I'll break <i>my</i> ankle."<br/>
<br/>
"I hope so. Fine, we'll try it."<br/>
<br/>
But the plan is for naught. You're just separating when you see a shadowy figure at the head of the stairs. It takes a few tentative steps toward you, and a girlish voice calls, "Sienna?"<br/>
<br/>
Thomason sucks in a hissed breath. "Fatima," she says in a whisper, and grabs your forearm.<br/>
<br/>
"You already called her?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Sienna? Andrea?" Fatima draws closer.<br/>
<br/>
Andrea's grip on you tightens. "Yeah, it's me," she calls back. "Fatima? What are you doing here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sienna texted me, said something about coming out here." The girls sounds very frightened. "The guy downstairs said you were up here." There's a hanging pause. "With a bunch of guys."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll get the mask," you murmur to Andrea. She doesn't let go of you, and you have to pry her fingers off.<br/>
<br/>
"We're just hanging out," Andrea says. "There were some guys here earlier, but now it's just us."<br/>
<br/>
Sienna's muffled reply is inaudible as you hustle into the work room and pull out the last of your blank masks. You hop back into the corridor and run forward.<br/>
<br/>
Fatima draws back from you, and quavers out, "Who's that? What's going on?"<br/>
<br/>
Before you reach her, a door creaks open, and another shadow joins those in the hall. "Oh, hey there," says Jelena in a husky voice. "I thought I heard you."<br/>
<br/>
"Jelena? What's going on?" Fatima asks again.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing's going on," says Andrea. "We're just hanging out."<br/>
<br/>
"Where's Sienna?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's around," says Jelena. She puts her hand on Fatima's arm. "Come on, let's go in here. We're sitting around tell ghost stories."<br/>
<br/>
Fatima squirms, and squirms harder when Jelena doesn't let go. "I've changed my mind, I don't wanna -- "<br/>
<br/>
You take that as a signal and jump forward. You think you make out Fatima Zahedi's huge black eyes as they widen fearfully before you cover her face with a spectrally white mask.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So we're all set?" you ask. You wish you sounded more cheerful, as you ought to sound after a difficult mission successfully accomplished.<br/>
<br/>
"I think so," says Jelena Petrovich. "I wish I knew where I lived, though."<br/>
<br/>
Sienna Goldman says nothing. Fatima Zahedi just giggles and gasps.<br/>
<br/>
"It's alright," says Andrea. "I know where you guys live. But it doesn't matter. Jelena and Sienna can spend the night with me, their families and roommates won't mind. Fatima can do a sleepover with me too."<br/>
<br/>
"That'd be awesome," Fatima says breathlessly. "Like, a real fucking slumber party, and we can paint each other's toenails and crank call cute guys -- " Jelena thumps her on the head.<br/>
<br/>
"That sounds great, I'll leave it to you," you say. In Andrea's ear, you add, "Get them to concentrate on remembering how to be, you know -- " She nods. "I'll see you around at school tomorrow," you add to the others, and half-walk, half-run downstairs. You don't even glance at Jeffries as you race past.<br/>
<br/>
In the parking lot you climb into your Jeep, but you don't say anything to the three shadow-veiled figures waiting there for you, not until four girls have come out, piled into some cars, and driven away. Then you address your new 'bots: "You assholes are my slaves, you got that?" Guttural grunts of assent come back. "Good. I might have a job for you."</span></div></div>


path: 111211132112222212222221221212112121122111212131211231122112111211211211122121112111132133121111112
author_id: seuzz
title: Send Offs, Expected and Otherwise
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"But I haven't got anything for you yet," you continue after a long and pregnant pause. You had a couple of schemes flit through your brain while you were working on Fatima's mask for Rennerhoff, but you lay them aside.<br/>
<br/>
So you tell the 'bots to go home. "Act normal, whatever that is for you guys. Only stay away from Jelena and Sienna and Fatima. And Andrea. Don't go near them, don't hassle them, don't talk about them. Understand?"<br/>
<br/>
More of those guttural agreements.<br/>
<br/>
"That's it, then. Get out of here."<br/>
<br/>
You think you catch some under-the-breath comments from the Call- and Spencerbots, but nothing distinct. As soon as they're clear of the Jeep, you turn the motor over and race home.<br/>
<br/>
You get it in the neck for being out so late without permission, but you've a few sheets of math homework with which to impress Mrs. Chen.<br/>
<br/>
But you are falling behind in your schoolwork. The last few days have been brutally preoccupied with mask stuff.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next morning brings a text from Chelsea, reminding you that "Dane" is supposed to deliver the month's supply to school this morning. <i>on it,</i> you text back. <i>andrea not trying out, ankle problm.</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>bullshit,</i> she replies, but you ignore it.<br/>
<br/>
Dane actually called you yesterday afternoon shortly after his meeting with Macauly. You put him off, though, until this morning -- a Friday -- and you meet him at a little before eight in the school parking lot. "Don't flash that thing," you tell him as with a desperate desire to please he yanks the new case out of his car. "Other than that, good job. Talk to you next month." You half turn away, then turn back when you catch him eyeing the case with open curiosity. "I said, see you next month, fuckface." He hops away without waiting for another warning. You crawl under your Jeep and lock the weed in the special strong box.<br/>
<br/>
You -- or Chen -- hates the days when he has a full load of product sitting around. It makes you -- or Chen -- think about all the disasters that could happen. Scarcely more fun is contacting people to tell them that you're ready for delivery. The first such talk occurs on the soccer field, when you manage to sidle up to Garner when there's no one else around. "Got your order in," you tell him. "You got the money?"<br/>
<br/>
"What? Oh. Sure." He sounds embarrassed.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't wanna do this?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I do. I just -- Uh -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Don't know how to handle it? Gardinhire's done it before, he can do it again for you. Tonight, at the country club. That's where used to do the hand-off, we can do it again tonight."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought I was taking over for -- "<br/>
<br/>
"You are. He's just the mechanic, swapping one bag of shit for another. He's done it before. You just make sure he's got the money. All of it."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. Anything else?" Garner's eyes narrow, and you realize you were regarding him speculatively. You shake your head, and return to your position on the field. But still the thought is there. <i>Maybe that's a new spot for Mendoza. Get the AP fucks well and truly screwed into the scheme.</i><br/>
<br/>
The only other people to contact at school are Evans and Mendoza and Thomason -- the fakes, of course -- telling them that you'll be over Saturday to give them their month's inventory. Evans whines that he hasn't got enough money to pay for the increased load; you tell him you'll carry him this month, but no further, for the extra charges. You also tell Kirkham you'll be over on Saturday with something for him. "About fucking time," he snarls softly.<br/>
<br/>
You keep an eye out for your newest recruits, and their replacements. But the 'bots of Call and Spencer and Rennerhoff -- as the originals should be -- are scarce, and you don't spot the new girls in the hall. You put away the temptation to go looking for Andrea.<br/>
<br/>
You do catch up with the Rennerhoff-bot toward the end of lunch, though, as you're making a circuit of the campus. It's out by the portables, naturally, and it looks and moves just like him. Head up, eyes alert for mischief, a nasty smile pulling at the corners of its mouth. It freezes when it sees you, and that smile starts jerking spasmodically when you approach. Must be a nervous tic.<br/>
<br/>
"Yo, where's your friends Call and Spencer?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Dunno." The 'bot whinnies a little. "Skipping, I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? Dumbasses gotta be dumbasses, I suppose."<br/>
<br/>
"I suppose."<br/>
<br/>
"If that's so, then what the fuck are <i>you</i> doing here?"<br/>
<br/>
The 'bot laughs, and swallows.<br/>
<br/>
"What do those guys do when they're skipping?"<br/>
<br/>
"Stuff." It shrugs stiffly. "Josh picks up some extra work in places. I think Jeff gets drunk."<br/>
<br/>
"Figures. But Call's a workaholic? I didn't picture that."<br/>
<br/>
"He wants money. Or needs it. I don't know." Again, the shoulders twitch.<br/>
<br/>
"And what do you do when you're not in school?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, just party, hang around." He laughs, whinnies, gulps. "Like, with Horner, sometimes Evans and Thomason." A distant look of slight confusion comes into his eye. The thing is probably remembering that you told Rennerhoff that Thomason is now a fake, and is probably thinking how weird it would be to hang out with him. The 'bot shakes itself, and that smile comes back. "Probably go up to the Warehouse again tonight. It was fun last night, you know -- " Breathy laughter whistles through its nose. "But tonight's Friday, you know, so -- " It hops on the balls of its feet. "Band's playing."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh?" You're not really interested. "Which one?"<br/>
<br/>
"Slow Fast Hazel, for one. That'll be funny, seeing as how we saw Jelena up at the Warehouse last -- " It trails off with a click in its throat, and a look of terror comes into its eye. "Except I'm not supposed to -- "<br/>
<br/>
"That's right, you're supposed to stay away from them. Well, I guess there's no harm if you go see her play."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" It leaps up and punches the air when you give it permission. <i>Fucking dillweed.</i> You wonder how the others can put up with him.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
On the way out of school when the bell rings, you get another blast from the past: Seth Javits texts, asking if you can meet with him. Caleb's been keeping his distance lately, and you wonder what this meeting is about. Is he finally maybe getting tired of the charade? After last night, you might go along with him if he says he wants to wind things down. You tell him to meet you at the elementary school basement at four-thirty.<br/>
<br/>
You've got Chinese leftover takeout and a couple of pounds of weed sitting out when the door flies open and Javits bounds inside. "Yeah!" he roars, and pumps his fists in the air. Halfway down the stairs, though, he freezes when he sees what you've got in front of you. "Jesus, man!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, can you believe it's been a month since I went into this racket? Time for a new distribution. Close the door, okay?"<br/>
<br/>
He complies, then comes back down to peer over your shoulder as you weigh out some more weed. "Was there that much last time?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I've been growing the business."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus!"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't know the half of it. Literally. Don't tell me that's why you wanted to see me, so you could catch up on my -- "<br/>
<br/>
"No. Well, yeah. We just haven't talked in forever." He perches on a desk.<br/>
<br/>
You give him a sidelong stare. His whole demeanor and body language is perfectly "Javits like". Head up, shoulders back, punchy movements, arrogant stare. "How's Chelsea? Still putting out?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh yeah. Well, mostly. She's fucking psycho, though. You know that. Way more of a handful than Cindy was."<br/>
<br/>
"Is the pussy worth it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, sure." He scratches under a pit. "You know, I guess I kinda wanted to say, uh -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, fuck it." He hops to the ground and heads to the stairs.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, man, I need someone to keep me company. What is it you wanted to say?"<br/>
<br/>
He stares at the floor, kicks at it. "You'll get pissed."<br/>
<br/>
"No I won't. I can't afford to. If I turn over this table, there goes all of this month's income."<br/>
<br/>
He looks at you sharply from under his furrowed brow. Then he shrugs. "I guess I just wanted to say I'm sorry I made such a fucking scene about the way you were acting after you got inside Chen here."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? Apology accepted, I guess. Why are you making it?"<br/>
<br/>
"I just -- " He wheels in place, dances a little, mimes a free throw and gives himself a silent cheer. "Patterson's been working me real hard since Gordon fucked himself all up. Really bringing up my game, he's got me at a whole new level, and it's fucking awesome. Chelsea's pussy is great, but -- " He smooches the back of his hand. "I'm just rockin' it these days, you know?" He hops onto another table and drums it excitedly. "You haven't noticed?"<br/>
<br/>
"Noticed how you've been rocking it? No. What's this got to do with me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, nothing. I guess I'm saying I'm really into this new, like, life for me. Me and Seth, we really understand each other now." He bangs the heel of his hand against his head. "We're all like one now, like the way you and Chen were instantly one at the start, I guess. I thought you were just being an asshole, but this merger, it's -- " He clasps his hands together and sighs happily. "Anyway, I guess I'm saying you don't have to worry about me."<br/>
<br/>
"Great. Thanks. I'll tell that fucking ulcer you gave me it can go away now."<br/>
<br/>
He laughs at that, slaps you on the shoulder, tells you he'll see you later. Up and out and away he goes.<br/>
<br/>
You lean back. <i>Shit.</i> Was that the last you saw of the real Caleb Johansson?</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: A Night Out as Jamie Rennerhoff
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You're not willing to call it quits on your new life, but you need to get out of Chen's head for a little while, if for no other reason than because you want to send the Chenbot to the country club to handle the night's work.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't want to be stuck down in the school basement all evening with nothing to do. After ten minutes of back-and-forthing with yourself, weighing whether you're desperate enough for the respite, you decide that you are.<br/>
<br/>
You call the Jamie Rennerhoff robot and give it directions to the old Acheson Elementary School.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's a very shy robot, and doesn't even knock when it gets to the school. You send it a text when you lose patience waiting, and it replies by telling you it's just outside the door. "Get the fuck in here," you tell it when you find it standing stupidly on the stoop.<br/>
<br/>
It's a dumb-looking thing, and with Chen's eyes you can hardly believe that Jamie Rennerhoff ever frightened you. He's half a head taller than you, it's true, but he's very lanky. He looks especially lanky now, having changed into a pair of knee-length shorts and a v-neck t-shirt that shows how skinny and bony his torso is. He's very pale, too, and hairless. He blinks and grins nervously at you. Why did someone who looks like this -- who looks even less threatening than Caleb or Keith -- ever unnerve you? Because of who he hangs out, you suppose. <br/>
<br/>
Also, there's that Joker-like smile and laugh, but these don't hold any terror for Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
"Take your clothes off," you tell the 'bot.<br/>
<br/>
It looks startled, but only for a moment does it delay. Then it peels off the canvas shoes and ankle socks, the shorts and underwear, and the t-shirt. All very neat and fast. You avoid looking at it, and tell it to lie on a dirty desk and close its eyes. "Keep 'em shut," you tell it. "Try to go to sleep if you can." Even though the 'bot is under your control, you don't want it seeing that you're not really Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
And just in case it does open its eyes and look around, you hide yourself behind a clutter of bookcases before taking off your own mask.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"You're fucked in the head, you know that, Prescott?" Gary Chen mutters. He slouches behind the briefcase, weighing and parceling out weed. It's the Chenbot, naturally, but it's the Chenbot resting on Fatima Zahedi's unconscious body; the original mudbot is still in the corner. He looks you up and down. "Christ, but you're a sad sight."<br/>
<br/>
You hold up your flaccid penis -- a long and lanky thing, like the rest of Rennerhoff. "Wanna closer look?" You can't help thinking it's a funny thought, and the whinnying laugh blows noisily through your nose. Your cheeks ache with a wide grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, man. You got all the fucking world to pretend to be, and you pick this -- " The Chenbot can't even find words to convey the depth of its disgust with Jamie Rennerhoff, and gives up with a grimace.<br/>
<br/>
"I need a break from being you, asshole. Don't you ever wanna take a break from being yourself?"<br/>
<br/>
The Chenbot glowers at you, and sweeps a small pile of weed into a tiny plastic baggie.<br/>
<br/>
"And I can have some fun like this, I guess. More fun than as Call or Spencer."<br/>
<br/>
Yeah, Rennerhoff has seen them up close. Spencer's got nothing to do but drink, and Call tries to avoid the drinking by finding crap to do at his uncle's body shop when he's not working at Wal-Mart. He could make quite a sum of money at all the part-time work he's picked up, except he blows it all on poker games.<br/>
<br/>
But Rennerhoff, you're pleased to discover as you stretch your skinny arms, is more your kind of guy, into videogames, TV, music, goofing off with friends and trash-talking with them. In fact, if it weren't for the kind of friends he had, the stuff he does would look a lot like the kind of stuff you and Caleb and Keith do.<br/>
<br/>
You pause after pulling on the underwear. It startles you, of a sudden, to have this kind of insight into a person whose mask you woke into less than a minute ago.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, it's probably on account of the 'bot's being on its way to see Nicholas Horner and Rich Austin to do some target shooting when Chen called. Will Prescott has never held a gun in his life -- FPS games don't count -- but there's not a lot of difference, you feel now with Rennerhoff's brain -- between playing with a real pistol and playing with a fake one.<br/>
<br/>
And that's because, unlike Call or Spencer or Kirkham or Chen, Rennerhoff would never use a pistol anywhere except as target practice.<br/>
<br/>
So Rennerhoff and his extracurricular activities were at the forefront of the 'bot's brain when you slipped into the mask, and they instantly felt familiar. In fact, the more you wriggle into Rennerhoff's history and life, the more it feels like your own.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jesus,</i> you think with a chill. <i>Did I narrowly miss turning out like Rennerhoff? Did he narrowly miss turning out like me?</i><br/>
<br/>
"If you're gonna put that shit on, put it on," says the Chenbot, and its words pull you back to the present. So you resume dressing. The shorts, the t-shirt, the socks and shoes on the bony, canoe-like feet. "How do I look," you ask when you're done.<br/>
<br/>
"Like a fucking doorknob."<br/>
<br/>
"Awesome." You inhale and exhale shakily around a stifled giggle. The laughter feels like a nervous tic. "Okay, I'm gone for the night. You know you have to make the sale to Gardinhire up at work, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," the Chenbot says through gritted teeth.<br/>
<br/>
"And finish sorting things out."<br/>
<br/>
"I know what I'm doing, Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
"Just making sure. When you're done at work, send me a text so we can arrange to, you know." You point to his face, then to yours. The Chenbot bares its teeth, and the hatred in its stare nearly burns a hole in your chest. "And you <i>know,</i> right, that you don't tell <i>anyone</i> where I am or what I'm doing."<br/>
<br/>
"I'd put my fucking face in a buzz saw before I even admitted to knowing you," it hisses.<br/>
<br/>
"Good. Okay, see you around." You turn and trip and bang your knees on the stairs. <i>Got into the brain faster than I got into the body,</i> you reflect, and embarrassment burns your face as you get back up. You don't turn around to catch the Chenbot's expression, and mercifully it doesn't chase you out the door with a taunt.<br/>
<br/>
Outside, you get in the old minivan and double check you've got your driver's license. Rennerhoff's picture looks like a mug shot of a deranged teenager, or one strung out on goofballs. You paste an imitation onto your face and check yourself out in the rearview mirror. The reflection's bangs and nose are hooked in the wrong direction, but the grin is perfectly manic. You don't find the eyes, though -- wetly gleaming with gleeful malice -- until, out of habit, it feels like, the image of a hot, swollen pussy flashes into your mind.<br/>
<br/>
Then you've got Rennerhoff's face perfectly. With an asthmatic giggle, you start the engine.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"What fucking kept you?" Rich Austin calls. He pulls off the shooting muffs and drops them around his neck. The protective goggles glint in the failing afternoon light.<br/>
<br/>
"Toldja, had to make a stop first," you yell back. Austin lives on a farm a couple of miles west of town, and you have to hike through a field of tall grass and over a ditch to reach the makeshift shooting range he and his dad have erected. The grass scratches and nicks at your bare calves. Picking your way carefully along on your long legs, you feel like a stork.<br/>
<br/>
Clouds are coming up from the south, and it looks like there will be some evening showers. That might be why Austin looks unhappy: even if you weren't late, the weather looks like it will spoil his evening fun.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Krack!</i> Horner, though, is getting in as much time as he can. That's Nicholas Horner, the closest thing Rennerhoff has to a best friend. Like Rennerhoff, he's a kid of slight build who plays remora to the gang of Call of Spencer and Thomason and the others. He holds a pistol stiffly in front of him and bends his concentration on the distant target. He squeezes the trigger and gets off another shot. Then a third before he lowers the pistol and mutters some bad words.<br/>
<br/>
Austin grabs him by the shoulder and massages it. "You don't gotta be perfect to have fun," he hollers so Horner can hear him through his own muffs. Back to you: "Here, got a new one for you to try." He raises the lid of the nearby gun case. "The one on the end." He grins and waggles his eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
You pick it up. It's heavier than Will Prescott would have expected a gun to be, but about as heavy as Jamie Rennerhoff would have expected. But neither you nor your alias see anything special about it. "It's an H&amp;K USP Tactical," Austin exclaims, and follows up the identification with a lot of technical language that you could never follow and Rennerhoff barely can. "Come on, try it out." He pushes Horner to the side and you to the fore. Horner passes over the muffs and goggles while Austin preps the pistol.<br/>
<br/>
And when you have it in your hand --<br/>
<br/>
For a moment it feels very hot, for you're conscious of what it is, and what it can do, and that you've never done anything with anything like it.<br/>
<br/>
But Rennerhoff has. You close your eyes, settle your feet, inhale deeply. It's what Rennerhoff would do, and that settles you comfortably into his psyche, so that when you open your eyes again you are completely calm. You find the target, raise the pistol, sight along it. and gently squeeze the trigger.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart leaps joyously at the crack and recoil. "Awesome!" you exclaim, and laugh enthusiastically.</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: Family Over Friends
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's bracing, that first shot, even though you only wing the target. It welds you and Rennerhoff together.<br/>
<br/>
It gives you an immense feeling of power and of peace to grip a pistol, to caress it and squeeze it and send a hot bolt of metal screaming instantly across space to fatally puncture a target. You -- Jamie Rennerhoff -- could never aim a pistol at anyone, let alone put a bullet into them -- but it pleasures all your senses and, in truth, stokes your libido, to hold and release such power. After you've sent off two more shots, your grin is so wide it's practically tickling your ear lobes.<br/>
<br/>
Austin tells you a little more about what you've been holding, and you enthusiastically describe how it felt, and you pass it along to Horner so he can try it. The three of you are soon talking, in a rough and rude way, about Austin's new H&amp;K the way wine connoisseurs might talk about a bottle of Cabarnet.<br/>
<br/>
And the smell and the heat and the heft of the pieces do intoxicate you, a little, and you flap your hands and gesture excitedly about the merits of one kind of pistol against another. Austin snorts derisively, because you've only got web learning to guide you: Rennerhoff's parents don't believe in guns and won't intentionally let their kids near one, so all of Jamie's exposure to them has been through Austin. Once Rennerhoff's on his own, though, he's determined to start assembling a collection like Rich and his dad have got.<br/>
<br/>
A gray sheet of rain comes sweeping in after about an hour of shooting, but your trio had foreseen its coming and packed things away and repaired to the barn before even the first drops began to spatter on the grass. In the ranch house kitchen, Mrs. Austin surrenders to the impetuous hunger of teenage boys and lets you and Rich and Nicholas prep baloney sandwiches and chips for supper. You sit at TV trays in a small parlor, within earshot of Rich's dad, who's watching TV in the living room. So you keep the conversation neutral and your voices low.<br/>
<br/>
You don't have much to contribute, for Rich and Nicholas keep the talk to family matters. They're cousins, actually: the youngest son and only child of an older brother and younger sister in the extended Austin family. Rich graduated from Westside last May, where he used his hard muscles and steel-tipped boots to dominate Call's gang and terrorize those portions of the junior class that weren't already traumatized by the basketball and football squads. He's the one who pulled Horner into that crowd, and through Horner pulled Rennerhoff in. Maybe it's on account of his graduating, and needing to make it in the larger world, but he seems to have mellowed, or at least turned his raging need to kick shit around in a more productive direction. His plans for the future involve working for a year on his dad's farm while taking community college courses to improve his brain before enrolling in the military. He's already got the buzz cut and the bark.<br/>
<br/>
After cleaning up from supper, he takes you and Horner out onto the back porch, where the rain -- now tailing off -- has turned the cool autumn air chilly; you clasp your arms about you as you lean against the wooden railing. "So it's Friday night, you bitches," Austin says with an evil grin. "What are our plans?"<br/>
<br/>
"A bar?" says Horner hopefully. "I brought my ID. My fake one, I mean."<br/>
<br/>
"I hope you fucking meant it, but you got any better ideas?"<br/>
<br/>
"Do you?"<br/>
<br/>
"We could go to the Warehouse," you blurt out. Rennerhoff hasn't been there that often, and it still carries the excitement of danger for him.<br/>
<br/>
"I can't," Austin says. "Graduated."<br/>
<br/>
"But you worked security out there," you say. "I bet Call would let you in."<br/>
<br/>
"He'd kick my ass to the curb, and he knows me and he knows I graduated."<br/>
<br/>
"Couldn't we sneak you in?" asks Horner.<br/>
<br/>
"I bet I could talk Call into letting you in," you insist even as you know it's an unwise thing to say.<br/>
<br/>
"Nah. It was fun when I was in school, but it's pathetic to try to go back. Anyway, I was actually thinking about -- " He breaks off with a grin and pulls out his wallet. It's brick-thick, and he has to rifle through it carefully before he can pull out the bent business card. He hands it to Horner. "What do you say to that?"<br/>
<br/>
Horner stares at it in puzzlement. You sidle over to see it, but with a gasp he drops his arm to his side before you can make out more than a smear of fancy black graphics. "No shit! Is this a -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Sh! Yeah!" Austin winks wolfishly. "Escort service."<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" Horner grabs you by the front of your shirt and almost tears the thin fabric. "Fucking escorts!" he hisses excitedly.<br/>
<br/>
You tense all over and go up on tiptoes. Whores. Expert whores. Clean, beautiful, expert whores, open for business. You twine your own fingers around the folds of Horner's shirt and grin back at him.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course, you'll have to pay for your own."<br/>
<br/>
Austin's words land with a thud. Those tense muscles in your calves and fingers turn stiff. Horner does a double take at his cousin. "Pay for our own?"<br/>
<br/>
"They're not cheap, Nick. I can't carry all three of you. I can barely pay for one myself. I'm only in a mood to celebrate 'cos I aced my first calculus test this week."<br/>
<br/>
"How much are they," asks Horner. His voice is very tight.<br/>
<br/>
Austin looks between him and you. <i>Please say less than twenty,</i> you plead silently. <i>Please say less than twenty.</i><br/>
<br/>
The number he cites is ridiculously higher than twenty. Your grin freezes into a rictus, and you swallow.<br/>
<br/>
Then Horner says, "Yeah, I could swing that. I'll have to save up all over again for -- "<br/>
<br/>
"What about me," you exclaim. "Can you guys split my cost?"<br/>
<br/>
They both swivel in surprise. "Can't you pay for yourself," demands Austin.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, no! Not at that price! I can throw in twenty dollars -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Twenty? You couldn't pick up a whore at the bus station for that!" Rich turns back to his cousin. "We need to go by an ATM fo ryou?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can't we do something all three of us can do?" you plead.<br/>
<br/>
"Like go to the Warehouse?" Austin says derisively.<br/>
<br/>
"No, but -- " You pluck at Horner's shirt.<br/>
<br/>
He licks his lips and glances anxiously between you and his cousin. Austin's face is hard. "We can go to the Warehouse next weekend. Or tomorrow night," Horner tells you. "This is -- "<br/>
<br/>
And when Austin's face relaxes, Horner's does too. At that moment you recognize you've been cast into the cold. <br/>
<br/>
It's worse than that you haven't got the money. It's that you're not family.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, you guys have fun," you tell them. You say it very neutrally, and you hope that they'll notice that you're saying it in a very neutral way, so that they'll feel guilty about tossing you overboard so they can have a night with some overpriced hookers. "Thanks for the time on the range," you tell Austin.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," he says vaguely. "You should come back out, I dunno, like next week sometime. Tuesday, maybe." His brighten again as he turns back to Horner.<br/>
<br/>
"Call Thomason, see if he's free," Horner tells you. "I bet he'd go to the Warehouse with you, if you're wanting to go."<br/>
<br/>
You want to retort that you don't need anyone to go with you if you want to go out there, but just smile back while biting your lower lip. "I'll text you, like, tomorrow or something," you reply. He nods at you, and pulls Austin close so they can talk more confidentially about their plans for the night. So you don't even get a "Good night" as you return into the house.<br/>
<br/>
Rich's parents are more polite, though, and do give you a pleasant send off. You tug at a t-shirt that feels like it's shrunk in the humidity as you half-trot back to the minivan, and inside the cab rub and scratch at bare legs that feel like they've broken out in a rash. You cuss at Horner under your breath as you head back to town.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>What a sad little self-pitying douchebag you are,</i> you tell yourself. You even have to blink back some wetness, and when you look in the mirror, to see if your eyes are red or bruised with suppressed tears you see that Rennerhoff's perpetual grin has acquired a brittle and trembling gleam. You try wiping it away with the back of your hand, but your face muscles naturally spring back into the shape of a desperate smile.<br/>
<br/>
So you giggle, because you're feeling fucking sorry for Jamie Fucking Rennerhoff, who <i>hasn't got any friends worth calling friends, just a lot of shits who put up with him because no one else will. Jesus!</i> You wipe at your eye again, and if the giggle that bubbles in your throat didn't have a note of madness in it, it would sound like a sob.<br/>
<br/>
But what does it matter to you? Really, who the fuck are <i>you</i> to feel sorry for Jamie Rennerhoff? You're not him, you've got your own life. Okay, it's not your own life, it's Gary Chen's life, seeing as how Gordon Black is inhabiting yours --<br/>
<br/>
You steer sharply into the parking lot of a strip center and brake hard into a parking space. You've got too many thoughts flying through your head -- not all of them yours -- to handle while driving.<br/>
<br/>
You've no reason to give a fuck about Jamie Rennerhoff. You're in his mask only for the night, so you'd have something to do except sit in the elementary school basement. The obvious thing to do is to go to the Warehouse, for shits and grins if nothing else.<br/>
<br/>
But at the thought of Gordon Black and Will Prescott you had another idea. Why not use this temporary identity to go see how your first victim in this chain of cock-ups is handling the life you left behind?</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: Musical Theater
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The idea is loopy, but not lunatic. Jamie Rennerhoff is definitely not a friend of Will Prescott's, and it would be far out of the ordinary if he showed up at Will's house and suggested doing something together.<br/>
<br/>
But Gordon Black doesn't know anything about Will Prescott -- that's the main reason you want to see what's up with him -- and so wouldn't know that Prescott and Rennerhoff have nothing to do with each other. <br/>
<br/>
But after entertaining the notion, you decide it was just a bit of brain fluff, not an idea, and toss it away. You put on Jamie Rennerhoff's mask so you could be Jamie Rennerhoff for the evening, and that means doing what Jamie Rennerhoff would do.<br/>
<br/>
Which after the evening at Rich Austin's would probably involve going home and gaming the evening away, but you're in a dangerous mood. And when Jamie Rennerhoff is in a dangerous mood --<br/>
<br/>
Okay, the first thing is that Jamie Rennerhoff gets a partial erection when he's feeling puffed up with adrenaline. But going to the Warehouse without being part of a group, that would definitely be something Jamie Rennerhoff would want to do when he's feeling dangerous.<br/>
<br/>
Still, you have to consciously stop yourself when you pull out the cell phone to text Thomason to see if he's up for an evening there.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"The fuck you think you're going," says Jonas Martin. His buzz cut visibly bristles as he looks you up and down contemptuously.<br/>
<br/>
"Inside. To see Slow Fast Hazel," you retort. You're actually taller than the basketball player, but he's unimpressed at the way you raise yourself up straight and put out your chest. He's probably even less impressed with your sneering grin.<br/>
<br/>
"You think so?" says Martin. "I don't."<br/>
<br/>
You're at the front door to the Warehouse, having barely managed to squeeze the minivan into a parking place at the far end of the crowded lot. It's not a big lot, and there's no parking allowed on the streets, so most people carpool in. That earned you a dirty shout from a crowd of Eastman students when they saw you getting out of the van alone. You ignored them.<br/>
<br/>
It's almost nine o'clock now. You killed some time at home doing some easy homework, then changed into torn jeans and a silver-colored long-sleeve shirt you rescued from a thrift shop. You think you look nice, certainly nicer than the guys that Martin is letting into the Warehouse with only a cursory nod.<br/>
<br/>
"What's the fucking matter," you shrilly demand of him. "There's not a fucking cover charge, there's not a -- "<br/>
<br/>
"There's not a fucking prayer for you," says Martin. He shoves you in the chest. "So step back."<br/>
<br/>
You're about to fly at him when a strong hand grabs you. You look over. It's Josh Call. A startled look of recognition shows in his eyes when you lock yours with his. "What's going on?" he asks while gazing intently at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Your dumbass friends wants in," says Martin.<br/>
<br/>
"Tell him to let me in," you tell Call.<br/>
<br/>
"Let him in," Call says dully to Martin, his eyes still fastened on yours.<br/>
<br/>
"You're just the parking valet," Martin sneers. "I get to decide -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Make him let me in," you mutter at Call. It comes to you in a flash that the 'bot recognizes you as its master, even with a change of masks.<br/>
<br/>
Call wheels stiffly on Martin. He balls up his fists and gets in his face. "Let him in, cocksucker," he says.<br/>
<br/>
Martin resists the challenge for only a few seconds, then relents with a casual shrug. "Fine. Glad I'm only the doorman and not an actual customer." As you pass him, he puts a hand on your back and shoves you in through the door.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The percussive beat of the music had been loud enough outside. Inside the Warehouse, where it has four walls to echo off of, it's assaultive. And you're not even on the dance floor, the door to which is on your left. Above the drums and the harsh guitars a female voice rises in a wail.<br/>
<br/>
That would be Jelena Petrovich. The new one. It's a thrill of anticipation to imagine seeing what you've made in action.<br/>
<br/>
But first you duck into the bar. Jeffries is behind the counter, with Lane Overstreet and another guy you don't recognize. From Jeffries' expression you can tell he recognizes you from last night, but he says nothing when you ask for a beer, and give him five ones in exchange. You crack it open and drink while looking around. There's only a few people in the bar area, and only a few of them -- like Laurent Delacroix, the captain of the wrestling team -- do you recognize. None of them are people you'd hang out with.<br/>
<br/>
So you look into the next room, the one with the makeshift tables and booths. It's darker and more crowded, which makes it a lot harder to make out any familiar faces or forms. At the far end of the room is the staircase leading up to the fuck rooms. It's guarded tonight by a hulking brute in track pants and a knitted hat, looking like a steroid-engorged version of Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe you should text Thomason or one of those guys, now that you're inside. If you don't find someone to stand and laugh with, it's gonna be a real boring night.<br/>
<br/>
But you haven't scoped out the entire place yet. There's still the dance floor, which is where most people will be.<br/>
<br/>
When you step into that room, it's like piercing the sound barrier. It's so loud you think your ears will crack.<br/>
<br/>
It's a wide and open space of hard surfaces, taking up half of the building all the way up to the rafters. At the far end is a makeshift stage on which four people are performing. They've got their amplifiers turned up way past eleven.<br/>
<br/>
Three of them you don't recognize. But the girl in the middle -- the girl with the long, dark hair that hangs limply to her shoulders, her guitar hanging off her back as she hollers into the microphone that she clenches with two fists; the girl in the sleeveless black t-shirt and the torn jeans who has wrapped one leg around the mike stand and is cradling it between her legs; the girl who is hoarsely croaking out unintelligible words to a harsh and unmelodic tune -- <br/>
<br/>
Yeah, you'd recognize Joshua Call anywhere.<br/>
<br/>
A deep laugh builds up in your chest and comes whistling out your esophagus in a shriek much more girlish than the noises Jelena is making. You shout again and pound your hands together over your head.<br/>
<br/>
You've no idea if this is a plausible -- let alone good -- musical performance that Call is putting on as the lead singer for Slow Fast Hazel, but the crowd, which isn't heavy, seems to be buying it. You're not the only one shouting, and there's some more or less frenzied jogging in place going on around you.<br/>
<br/>
You start looking around for a girl you can do some frenzied hopping of your own with, but then your attention is jerked back to the stage by a vast, deep roar from the crowd. All the guys in the audience have erupted at once in a boiling cheer.<br/>
<br/>
With good reason. Jelena has pulled another female band member over and is French kissing her deeply while groping her breasts. They both seem to be enjoying it immensely, though not nearly as much as the guys are enjoying it. You stiffen, partly with erotic excitement at the spectacle, but mostly with pride at what you've pulled off: Joshua Call in a hard-tongued lesbian makeout session.<br/>
<br/>
The drums and guitar chords from the other players almost bring the roof down as the two girls devour each other, and only when they break off does the deafening shriek begin to die, to be overwhelmed by applause and whoops from the crowd. Jelena wipes her mouth suggestively and takes the microphone again in a loose, exhausted embrace. "Hey, thanks," she says, and the amplifier raises her croak over the whistles of the guys. "We're gonna take a break, so you assholes can get something to drink, and we can, you know -- " She nods her head at the other girl. "Pick up where we just left off." <i>Wild hoots and cheers from the guys.</i> "But you guys go give some of your money to the guys in the bar. Save some for us, though!" <i>More cheers, though more muted.</i> "Because I go to school with most of you cocksuckers and I know you and what classes you take, and if me and my mates don't walk out of here with at least four hundred dollars, I will find you and I will fuck you up! Yeah!" <i>Laughter.</i> "And if you think I'm not serious, well, the last guy I got mad at, I gave him a tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen." <i>The laughter now is nervous.</i> Jelena sways on her feet. "Yeah, I'm a bitch. But be back here in an hour for our second set, and I'll <i>show</i> you how much I love you all."<br/>
<br/>
Now there's no question she's riding the mike like a dildo, and the crowd goes crazy again. Jelena and the others totter into some area in the back of the stage.<br/>
<br/>
You're stuck watching her in admiration as the crowd surges past you back into the bar area. You're just wondering if you dare go back for a closer look at your creation when you realize someone is calling your name. Or the name of someone else named "Jamie." You look around.<br/>
<br/>
You find her close by. It's Fatima Zahedi.<br/>
<br/>
That means it's the real Jamie Rennerhoff, in another guise. Her dark eyes are shining as she struggles up to you. "Hi," she says in a gushing voice that probably has a giggle behind it. "What are you doing here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Came to see the band." You can't keep a grin -- nervous, appalled, desperate -- from your face.<br/>
<br/>
"Me too. I'm glad to see you." She grabs you by the hip, and her bosom heaves. "Come sit with me, okay?"</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: Flirtations with Fakes
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's like a demolition derby inside your brain as you try to figure out what's going on.<br/>
<br/>
Your first, wholly instinctive thought is that you're Jamie Rennerhoff, and Fatima Zahedi is coming on to you. That's wrong in every detail and every possibility.<br/>
<br/>
Your second thought is that Rennerhoff -- under Fatima's mask -- seriously thinks Fatima would flirt would with Jamie Rennerhoff, so that's what he's doing now.<br/>
<br/>
Your third thought, which leaves your stomach plunging, is that Rennerhoff thinks you are Chen and is cruelly pretending to flirt with you.<br/>
<br/>
But it's the fourth thought that settles on you with a dreadful certainty as the girl tugs you along with the crowd into the bar area: Rennerhoff thinks you're his robot replacement, and can't resist flirting outrageously with his own doppelganger.<br/>
<br/>
And since Rennerhoff himself has a thing for Fatima --<br/>
<br/>
Whoa, she just rubbed her face in your shirt. You put a tentative arm around her shoulder, and she pulls herself close up to you.<br/>
<br/>
There's a mass of people in front of you at the bar. "What do you want," you shout down at her over the babble of the crowd. "Some of this?" You thrust your own beer at her.<br/>
<br/>
"Some of that, sure, but buy me my own?" She looks up with eyes that shine and a grin that gleams. <i>Yikes.</i> You think you can see Rennerhoff's own maniac expression under Fatima's. Or maybe it's just a reflection of your own off her face, for you realize that same damn smile's popped onto your own face. You try to force it down, but it won't stay down. Possibly, it's because you're incredibly nervous. More likely, it's because your cock is rising and rising and rising. You tighten your grip on her, and she tightens hers on you.<br/>
<br/>
Finally you get to the counter, and from Overstreet procure a beer for your girl. <i>Oh God, you're already thinking of her as your 'girl'.</i> "Where do you want to sit?"<br/>
<br/>
"In there!" She points to the room with the booths, toward which large numbers of people are drifting.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think we're gonna find room!"<br/>
<br/>
"We can, some of my friends are in there already! Come on!" She pulls you into the lounge area, and pauses to look around. "Over there!"<br/>
<br/>
Not until you're close in do you recognize them, and you almost keel over with shock. It's Dane Matthias and Katie Byrd.<br/>
<br/>
And Dane is snuggled up close to Katie and has his arm around her. She's probably got hers around him.<br/>
<br/>
<i>That's Chelsea! The real Chelsea!</i> a shocked and awed voice shouts inside your head. <i>That's Chelsea Cooper -- Fuck! That's Chelsea Cooper kissing Katie Byrd!</i><br/>
<br/>
"Hey guys, can we join you," Fatima says.<br/>
<br/>
Katie looks up brightly; then her face freezes a little when she sees you. But it brightens again. "Sure. Scoot over, pumpkin," she orders Dane, who only looks at you blankly.<br/>
<br/>
Fatima gets in next to Katie, with you on the other side. "Look who I ran in to," she tells the others, and squeezes your hand under the table. "You know Jamie, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," says Katie, and gives you an insincere smile. You wrack your brains, trying to remember if Rennerhoff has ever done anything horrible to her. Nothing registers, so it's probably just his reputation preceding him. You'd smile back, but you're already grinning hard.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, she just grabbed me right after the set was over," you say. "You weren't in there for the band?"<br/>
<br/>
"They listened for a bit," Fatima said, "then came in here to claim a space for later."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't like dykes," says Dane.<br/>
<br/>
You spray out a mouthful of beer at his words, causing the others to cry out. Wracking coughs seize you, and Fatima rubs your back while patting herself and Katie dry.<br/>
<br/>
"No offense meant," says Dane when you've recovered. "I only meant -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Way to be judgmental," Katie tells him.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't! I can't help it." He leans in close to Katie. "It means more competition for me."<br/>
<br/>
You loose a shrill giggle, which earns you a look from everyone. "That's funny," you say, trying to cover yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe you think it is," Katie says. To Dane: "Why don't you mellow out? Didn't you bring a -- " She mimes taking a drag. "You told me you brought in a bunch to school today."<br/>
<br/>
The part of your brain still devoted to Chen's business spins up. "You didn't," you gasp at Dane.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure I did," he says, and takes a joint from inside the pocket of his sports coat. And only now do you realize he's wearing it again after leaving it off since that forced swap. "What's wrong with that?" He puts the joint to his lips and feels at his pockets.<br/>
<br/>
For the second time in as many minutes you have to cover yourself. "I mean, you didn't bring one of those in here from outside, did you? Christ, Dane!" you continue when he nods. "That's against the house rules!" <br/>
<br/>
He looks around. "It can't be. I see tons of people lighting up." He shrugs, and the daintiness of the movement reminds you of Chelsea herself.<br/>
<br/>
"I mean you can't bring your own stuff in! You have to buy it in here! If someone catches you with your own stuff, they'll take you out back and beat the shit out of you!"<br/>
<br/>
The joint still balanced on his lower lip, he looks around the table. Katie says, "Don't be a killjoy, Jamie."<br/>
<br/>
Fatima is looking up at you with a puzzled expression. "How do you know this?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Because you know it,</i> you almost tell Rennerhoff. Then you realize that maybe he doesn't. "I just heard about it today," you stammer. "When I told someone I was coming out here tonight."<br/>
<br/>
"I think they were turning your crank," says Katie. With a shrug, Dane lights the joint and sucks on it once. Then, peering through the smoke, he hands it to Katie.<br/>
<br/>
"I heard you cleaned up," you tell Dane.<br/>
<br/>
"I did," Dane says hoarsely, and coughs once. "That's for you guys."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not touching it," you say. "I'm serious, if you get caught -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Put a cork in it," Katie says, and takes a dainty hit off the joint. She blows out the smoke without inhaling, and peers down her nose as she holds it out to you.<br/>
<br/>
You raise your hands and shake your head.<br/>
<br/>
"Then I guess it's all mine," says Katie. "If no one else -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I'll take it," says Fatima.<br/>
<br/>
Katie gasps. "Since when did you -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Since Andrea started getting high," she says, and giggles. She pinches the joint from Katie's frozen fingers. "All of us, me and Jelena and Sienna -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Just yesterday you were saying Andrea needed an intervention!" Katie says.<br/>
<br/>
"And she straightened <i>us</i> out," Fatima says. She takes an expert draw on the joint, puts her head back, and blows out a smoke ring. "Yeah, we had a group meeting last night," she says with a snigger. "Up here in fact, and she <i>really</i> changed all of our -- Ow!" She jumps at your pinch.<br/>
<br/>
At the same time you pluck the joint from her grasp and return it to Katie. "Take this. I don't think it's good for her."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, where the fuck do you think you get off -- " Fatima says, then freezes in mid-sentence when her eyes meet yours. Almost instantly she melts back into a smile. "Except I can't stay mad at you." She lunges in to hug you. "You are <i>so hot.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"It is kind of hot in here," you mutter, and your face is burning as Dane and Katie both stare at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Why don't you rent a room," Katie says, and she doesn't bother to sugar the gibe.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's a great idea," Fatima exclaims. "Come on, Jamie," she coos. "Let's -- " She pokes you until you get up.<br/>
<br/>
Not until you're on your feet do you realize what she must mean, and you lurch stiffly as she pulls you toward the stairwell and its guardian. "Are you -- ? You're not serious, are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Aren't you?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
For a brief minute you think maybe you have a choice, but then decide you made that choice when you didn't run away at the sight of her. In a dizzy mix of despair and desire, you totter after her.<br/>
<br/>
"We want a room," she giggles at the guardian -- a thick-lipped Hispanic with a bored expression -- and squeezes your hip.<br/>
<br/>
"Fifty dollars," he says.<br/>
<br/>
Your mouth goes dry. "I don't have -- "<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay, I got it," says Fatima, and digs into her purse. "Andrea gave us all some mad money." She hands some crumpled bills to the guy. He pockets it and jerks his thumb at the stairs. "Door number three," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Is Andrea here?" you ask as Fatima pulls you up the stairs.<br/>
<br/>
"Somewhere here. Oh, come on! I want to tell her afterward what I did with you!"<br/>
<br/>
<i>What you did with me. Christ, Rennerhoff, if you only know who was doing it with you. Or who you'd think was doing it with you.</i><br/>
<br/>
There are noises coming from the first two rooms you pass, and the doors are shut, but the third door is open, and it bangs back in Fatima's excitement to enter. She shuts it and twists the light bulb, bathing the room in a sickly light. The room is just like the others you used last night. In fact, since you didn't count the doors in the corridor last night, it might be one of those rooms. Certainly it's got a similarly stained mattress.<br/>
<br/>
You vaguely wonder if the masks can keep diseases and parasites at bay.<br/>
<br/>
Rennerhoff apparently has no such qualms, though. He hikes up his dress and pulls down the front of his panties, exposing Fatima's pussy. "Touch me here, Jamie. With your cock."</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: The Understudy and His Star Turn
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Oh God, it's like some really obvious teen boy fantasy. The kind so obvious and outrageous that you've never indulged in it yourself.<br/>
<br/>
Except Rennerhoff might have. Something about the scene is very familiar, and you feel a brief wave of deja vu.<br/>
<br/>
It's pretty dark inside the Warehouse, and you've been too dazzled by Fatima's flirtations to notice the details on her. But now you notice she's wearing an emerald-green one-piece dress -- and you only notice it now, mostly, because she's pulling it up and over her head. Then you notice her sandals because she's unbuckling them and casting them aside. There's no missing her bra and panties, until they too vanish into a dusky corner. "So why are you still dressed," she asks in a breathy laugh, and falls back onto the mattress with her legs splayed. She strokes her bush. "Touch me here."<br/>
<br/>
The giggle that bubbles out of you sounds insane even to yourself, and your hands shake badly as you hurriedly pull your own clothes off. The Rennerhoff shaft is like a slim harpoon. You fall onto your hands and knees and crawl up between her legs.<br/>
<br/>
Fatima takes you by the shoulders and pulls you close. "Jamie, oh God," she croons. "This is -- " She puts one of her hands down to your crotch, and you jump a little as she rudely seizes your cock. "I want you inside -- Let me show you where -- Oh!" Your tip slips into a tight crevice. Fatima wraps her legs around your hips. "Mm, you don't have to be gentle." She sucks on her lower lip, and her eyes roll excitedly. "Just -- Um!"<br/>
<br/>
Inch by inch you work your way inside her, each thrust pushing a squeak or groan out of her. And yet the experience, for all its pleasure, is a chaos of broken thoughts and scattered physical impressions.<br/>
<br/>
<i>This is Jamie Rennerhoff I'm fucking. Mm, push. Why are the backs of my legs cold? Jesus, Rennerhoff wants to fuck himself. Should I kiss her? God, she's so wet. My wrist is hurting. Ow, why'd she twist like that? I can't believe Rennerhoff wants to fuck himself. Why can't I do this as Chen? Why can't I do this as myself? Ow, where can I move my hand? Why doesn't she want to kiss me? Damn, Fatima is so hot! But it's really Rennerhoff. Christ, fucking Rennerhoff wants to fuck himself! Would I want to fuck myself? Gah! Whoa, sounds like she liked it when I did that. My ass feels like ice.</i> "Can I --? I'm gonna try -- " You slip your arms under her shoulders and pull her up close. <i>Mm, her hair smells nice. Okay, come on, Jamie, show her what you can -- what you can -- This is what she wants, I mean, this is what Rennerhoff -- I can -- I can -- </i><br/>
<br/>
You fancy it's like a powerful, steam-driven piston exploding to life, and you have the momentary illusion that your body has turned to rubber and is vibrating in waves all over. Fatima bites you shoulder and clenches her legs tightly around you.<br/>
<br/>
And then it's over. Fatima clings to you, but you sag, and only with supreme effort do you keep from completely collapsing onto her. She gives one hard squeak, and then is squeezing you spasmodically while crying into your shoulder. Then she falls back, her hair disordered and her eyes closed. She swallows a couple of times, and moans.<br/>
<br/>
"Wow," you say, speaking despite your better instincts. "Was that, like -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"That was great," she says. "Except, did you have laugh all through it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Was I laughing?"<br/>
<br/>
"It sounded like it." She giggles, then catches herself. "I guess I shouldn't complain."<br/>
<br/>
"So, are we like boyfriend and girlfriend now?" You're so addled by the late experience that you entirely cease trying to control Rennerhoff's personality.<br/>
<br/>
"What?" she gasps. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
And when you don't say anything more, she really comes to life.<br/>
<br/>
"No! I mean -- What?" She peers at you intently. "I don't -- No! I just wanted you to fuck me, man. I mean, I want you to -- " She starts to stutter badly. "I just wanted <i>this.</i> What we just did." She sucks in her breath, and turns guarded. "Um -- Do you want to do it again?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, eventually." You doubt you could muster yourself for another go around for a couple of hours. <br/>
<br/>
"Oh, sure. Eventually," she says carelessly, and relaxes again. "Maybe lots of times. But that's all this is, okay? Just -- I don't know that we should -- " She peers at you again, this time much more critically. "Yeah, I don't know. Going out together, that's a big thing. Very weird." Her faces tenses, and remains tense even after she's closed her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
You stare down at her until you're sure she's not going to open her eyes again, then slowly pull out of her; your cock throbs weakly on its way out, but Fatima doesn't react. Once you're clear, you turn halfway around so you can nibble at her breasts.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have to do that," she says, and now sounds a little cross. "I'm not interested in <i>that.</i> I just wanted -- Hey!" She pops you lightly on the side of the head, and you raise up. "If you want to do that kind of thing, I guess we can go downstairs and we can hold hands and hug and stuff."<br/>
<br/>
So you fall back onto your side with a groan, and wipe the tip of your cock on the mattress. Hey, you might as well add your stain to everyone else's. You close your eyes and listen to Fatima's soft breathing, and the louder whistle through your nose.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Maybe you dozed off, because you're startled into a sitting position by a hard knock on the door. "Five minutes," a rough basso voice calls.<br/>
<br/>
At first, ridiculously, you think you're being summoned on stage. Then you realize there must be a time limit on the rooms. You get stiffly to your feet. <br/>
<br/>
Fatima doesn't move. "Come on, we have to get up, get dressed. Get out of here."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to," she moans. "Give him some more money, tell him we're not done yet."<br/>
<br/>
"You can sleep at home for free."<br/>
<br/>
"I wanna do it again," she says, but she doesn't sound like she has the energy.<br/>
<br/>
"I can't. Want me to send Josh up here?"<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes snap open. "Oh God." She sits up, then sags with a groan. "Head rush. Okay, I'll get dressed. Help me -- " She puts out a hand, and you stagger as you pull her to her feet. "Where's my -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"Over there." You point to the corner. She gets dressed more slowly than you do, and she wants to fuss with her hair, but you don't let her linger. Last thing you want is for that brute in the ski cap to bust in here.<br/>
<br/>
You were cutting it close, in fact, for he's coming down the corridor just as you're stepping out of the room. Fatima giggles as you pass, and you grin desperately at him. He follows you down the stairs, and you can't help wondering if he's judging your performance in the fuck room.<br/>
<br/>
Down in the lounge area, Fatima pulls you into a corner. For a moment you think she's going to renew the make out session, but she just wants you to act as a screen while she uses her cell phone to clean up her hair and makeup. You keep glancing nervously over your shoulder to see if anyone is noticing, but if anyone has noticed, they don't seem to care.<br/>
<br/>
"Wanna go find your friends after this," you ask Fatima when puts her phone away.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh. Uh, I don't think so." She makes a face. "No offense, but -- " She grabs your hand, squeezes it, and beams up at you. "That was awesome, and we should do it some more some time, but I think I'm gonna go hang out with Andrea and them, and I think you should go hang out with your friends. I thought I saw Joe Thomason around earlier, you know."<br/>
<br/>
So Rennerhoff just wanted a quickie. He just wanted to test out his equipment from the other end, wanted to see how he stacked up in the trouser department. You want to feel relieved that you're getting the brush off. But you can't help feeling hurt and insulted, like you did when Horner and Austin brushed you off.<br/>
<br/>
But then you brighten up. <i>Hey, that's something to brag about to Horner tomorrow!</i> You got laid, and it didn't cost you anything! And she was <i>begging</i> for it!<br/>
<br/>
In fact, you can go tell your other friends right now. "Okay," you tell Fatima. "See you at school Monday."<br/>
<br/>
"Um, just let me text you if I want to see you," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure thing, babe. Whatever." You have just a brief glimpse of her startled expression before you walk away on long, hopping strides.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't find Thomason anywhere, and the Callbot has only a muted reaction when you brag to it about banging Fatima Zahedi: its response is less one of admiration than one of 'If you say so, boss.' You toy briefly with going back inside to try picking up another girl, but decide that Rennerhoff's luck tonight was due to occult factors, not to his innate sexiness. So you wind up driving off before it's even midnight.<br/>
<br/>
This would give you time to rendezvous with the Chenbot and change back, but you're feeling good enough about your current skin that you're in no hurry to put yourself back in Chen's place. Besides, the Chenbot talked like it had everything in hand.</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: A Return to the Scene of the Grime
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It's a weekend coming up, and a weekend as Jamie Rennerhoff would be more fun -- or at least less stressful -- than a weekend as Gary Chen. So you text the 'bot with the vague instruction that you'll meet up with it "tomorrow sometime" and go home. The lights are off in the Rennerhoff hacienda, and you quietly make your way up to bed.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake late the next morning to some household chores, but they are low-impact and done without close supervision by the parents, and you get through them easily. After lunch you escape the house with the excuse of meeting up with Nicholas Horner -- a less scary excuse to use than any of Rennerhoff's other friends -- but he texts back that he's busy. You text a brief account of your night at the Warehouse. He says you're full of shit, and you wind up getting so pissed at him that you decide not to hang out with him at all.<br/>
<br/>
That leaves you with nothing to do, and after driving aimlessly around town for an hour you decide another trip to the Warehouse might be worthwhile. There's a pretty good chance you'll run into some of your 'bots or some of your replacements, and the face of a nobody like Jamie Rennerhoff would be a safe space to spy on them from.<br/>
<br/>
You get waved inside without a challenge, and after looking into the bar and the lounge and seeing nobody familiar, you go into the dance hall, from which issues some vaguely musical noises. There are a handful of people up on the stage, plucking idly at guitars; one of them you recognize as Matt Reston. But the greatest number are spread out in a circle of lumpy bean bags and battered sofa cushions in the middle of the floor. It's a mix of maybe a dozen guys and girls. You recognize only one of them: Adam Karter.<br/>
<br/>
He's not sitting in the middle of the group, but everyone is turned toward him, and he's sitting up straight and jabbering a mile a minute, and is clearly basking in the attention the others are paying him. There's a girl by his side, and from the way she's slowly twisting and smiling you can tell that Karter is stroking her back. And when a puff of acrid smoke goes up from one of the guys, and a joint gets passed, you realize you're witnessing what might be the start of the "Eastman" parties that you recruited Karter to organize.<br/>
<br/>
You linger just inside the dance hall for a moment before Karter catches sight of you. "Oh hey, I know who that is," he shouts and points; heads swivel toward you. He snaps his fingers as though struggling to recall your name. "Gary Chen, right?"<br/>
<br/>
Your heart freezes and you stumble in mid-stride on your way over. <i>Okay, that totally proves that 'bots can recognize their master under a mask.</i> But it's still a shock to hear yourself called out this way. And it's hardly good news, because one of the heads that's turned toward you belongs to Chris Trantham -- the disguised Tanner Evans.<br/>
<br/>
"Jamie Rennerhoff," you say as you drop into the circle next to Karter. You avoid Trantham's eye.<br/>
<br/>
"D'oh!" Karter grins. "I always get you guys mixed up." You giggle nervously. "You know anyone else here?" Karter goes around the circle, calling out names quickly. You don't catch most of them, but the few you catch do sound familiar. They'll all be Eastman students, though. <br/>
<br/>
"So what's going on," you ask. "You guys always have a kind of a party up here on weekends?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sort of," says Karter. "Trying to get these guys come hang out with me on weekdays, too." He stretches and sighs and pulls the girl -- someone named Jocasta -- closer. "I get lonely. Hey!" He leans in toward the guy with the joint. "Give Runnybutt -- was that your name? -- a hit."<br/>
<br/>
You don't correct his mistake, since his tease doesn't sound mean-spirited, and take a deep draw from the joint. "That's it," says Karter approvingly. "That'll be twenty-five cents."<br/>
<br/>
You almost drop the joint. "You're charging?"<br/>
<br/>
"Karter's going into the business," says one of the guys.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going into the business!" Karter sounds genuinely wounded. "Anyway, I had to buy this one off Jeffries, and we all said we were going in on it together."<br/>
<br/>
"You're going into the business," the guy repeats. He has a bony, impudent face and crimson-colored hair that's cut short, and like Karter he's got his arm around a girl. "That's what you told us."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going into the business," Karter says firmly. "Trantham, were you in the business?"<br/>
<br/>
Your hidden colleague shrugs. "I guess I sort of was," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"There you go," says Karter's tormenter.<br/>
<br/>
"You never said you were!" Karter exclaims hotly. "And I'm just picking up where you -- "<br/>
<br/>
"You made a profit," one of the girls says to Trantham.<br/>
<br/>
"A tiny one. I sold it around practically at cost."<br/>
<br/>
"There <i>you</i> go," Karter says triumphantly. "I'm just picking up from where Trantham left off."<br/>
<br/>
"And he made a profit," says the redhead. "He just said so. You can't be a non-profit if you're making a profit."<br/>
<br/>
"The profit just pays for my overhead," says Karter with faux-sulkiness.<br/>
<br/>
"What overhead?"<br/>
<br/>
He plucks at his shirt. "These threads don't pay for themselves." That provokes a round of laughter. "And if I wanted to be in business," he says, and lays down with his head in the girl's lap, "I wouldn't be hanging out here with you guys. I'd have a job."<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>do</i> have a job," says the redhead. "Selling weed." But he drops the subject with a laugh when Karter stretches out a long arm to flip him off.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So starts a leisurely, low-key afternoon. Slowly, the rest of the group comes into focus. Many of them are the customers that Chris Trantham had serviced, but others are musician friends of Karter. The redhead, for instance, is Terry Fitzgerald, who plays with Trantham in a band called the "Hi Hats" whose lead singer, someone named Chris Yves, is a figure who often recurs in Karter's conversation. The girl on Fitzgerald's arm is Lisa Palacki. The kid with the shaved head -- the look of a bohemian, not a skinhead in this case -- is Paul Zametti, one of Karter's own bandmates.<br/>
<br/>
There are more guys than girls present, and to your consternation you soon notice that each of the girls is either the girlfriend of a guy present, or is particularly attentive to one of the guys in the circle. This depresses you, because after last night the Warehouse is firmly associated in your head with the act of getting laid, and your imagination keeps playing on the possibility of getting one of these girls upstairs and onto a mattress. But there's no move to be made.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually you give yourself some relief by bringing the subject up in a tangential way. "Were any of you guys here last night?" you blurt out when there's a brief sag in the conversation.<br/>
<br/>
"Why would we come up here last night?" asks Karter acidly, but another guy -- a Joshua Cheswick -- chirps a "Sure!" "What the fuck was wrong with you?" Karter asks him from Jocasta's lap. "It's not like anyone was playing."<br/>
<br/>
"Slow Fast Hazel was."<br/>
<br/>
"Like I said, no one was playing.<br/>
<br/>
Fitzgerald flicks a piece of garbage at him. "What's wrong with them?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing they couldn't fix by getting a new set of players and a new set of songs."<br/>
<br/>
"I like them," murmurs Jocasta. Karter grunts.<br/>
<br/>
"I was just wondering what they do the day after a gig," you say. "Like, do they take time out to recover?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, they take time out to hide themselves from their own shame," snaps Karter.<br/>
<br/>
"I know one of the girls that plays for them," you continue, aware of how desperate you sound. "Well, one of the girls that's friends with one of them." That elicits a profound silence from the rest of the company. "I hooked up with her here last night," you say, and your shoulders twitch spasmodically. "I was just thinking about her is all."<br/>
<br/>
Not everyone is staring at you with their mouths hanging open at the blithering stupidity of what you've just said, but they might as well be. You are so embarrassed that you get up with the excuse that you want to get a beer, and ask if you can get one for anyone else. One of the guys graciously helps you cover your humiliation by giving you a couple of ones so you can get him one.<br/>
<br/>
Jeffries -- who's wearing a shirt today -- is texting when you go into the bar, but he puts the phone away to give you a friendly smile when you approach. The beers are bought and he's reaching for the phone again when you stop him with a blunt question. "Is there a charge for using the rooms upstairs? You know, the ones with the -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
Since you used one last night, why do you blush to refer to them.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure is," Jeffries says.<br/>
<br/>
"I mean, I know there's a charge for using them at night. Like, last night." God, that hideous smile is back on your face. What Jeffries must think of you for grinning at the topic. "What about in the afternoons? This afternoons?"<br/>
<br/>
He stares at you a moment, then gives you a reflection of your own grin. "Why, got plans for today?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I just -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Who with?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you." You blush when he raises his eyebrows and laughs. "I was just wondering what the rules are."<br/>
<br/>
"The rules are, there's a charge when Cantu's around. You know who he is, right?"<br/>
<br/>
You can guess, and you mumble your gratitude to Jeffries.<br/>
<br/>
But why were you asking? You don't realize the answer to that question until you're back in the dance hall, and your eyes fall on Karter -- and the girl he is fondling.</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: Girls Behaving Badly
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It feels pathetic to use a mask to get laid. Oh sure, you used one last night, but it was scarcely your idea. You just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, under the right mask, when the right person grabbed you. Even then, it was mostly instinct and lack of willpower that carried you upstairs and through the spasmodic motions.<br/>
<br/>
So you drift back into the dance hall and drink your beer and keep your mouth shut as Karter and the others talk. After you're done with your drink, you wait a bit until it won't seem pathetic, then excuse yourself with a sigh.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jesus, I'm bored,</i> you think when you're out in the minivan again. You'll say this for the life of Gary Chen, it's not boring. And since you're supposed to be responsible for it -- and because it's been yours for the last month -- you are nervous about being away from it. <i>What kind of trouble might the Chenbot have gotten up to in the last twenty-four hours?</i><br/>
<br/>
You call it, but instead of meeting at the elementary school, you tell it to come to Rennerhoff's place. "Try not to act like Genghis Khan when you get here," you tell it. "My folks are here."<br/>
<br/>
You can practically hear it sneering at you across the ether.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
it works out okay, since Rennerhoff's folks are running errands when you get home. The switch off happens without a hitch, and you don't linger with the Rennerhoffbot. The Chenbot got a lot of work done in your absence, including distributions to Chen's school friends, but there's one other place you have to go. You're glad the 'bot saved this stop for the end, so you can enjoy it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
There are three cars in front of the house when you arrive, and you eye them warily before parking behind them and going up the walk to the front door. You'd called ahead to see if the coast was clear, and you're not sure it is. "It's open," a voice calls from within when you knock, and you push it open.<br/>
<br/>
Four girls are splayed out in the living room. Andrea and Jelena are sitting on a futon, close to each other but not touching. Fatima is lying on a sleeping bag, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling. Sienna is hunched over a cell phone, tapping furiously at it. "Is it just you four," you ask cautiously.<br/>
<br/>
Andrea nods. "I had to get rid of Semple and Winkler. And you shouldn't stay long, I don't know who will turn up."<br/>
<br/>
"What about your mom?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's at work."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, is she always at work?"<br/>
<br/>
"Usually."<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I got the money I borrowed." You toss a fat envelope to Andrea. "Tell everyone it was just a mistake, nothing got stole from your house."<br/>
<br/>
Fatima giggles. "No one will believe it." She's turned her head to grin at you. Her big, coal-dark eyes shine with malicious amusement.<br/>
<br/>
"They will if Andrea swears to it. How are the rest of you guys doing? Getting into it? Anyone have a gig at the Warehouse last night?" <br/>
<br/>
"I did," says Jelena. She's been staring at the wall opposite without looking at you, and she's still staring at it.<br/>
<br/>
"How'd it go?"<br/>
<br/>
"It was fun. Everyone said I did good. It felt good." She slowly drags her ring finger across her lower lip, which is stained with purple lipstick, and licks the residue off. "I cut loose, gave 'em a really good show."<br/>
<br/>
"She was amazing," says Andrea. "I always had the impression Yell was holding back. But last night -- " She shuts her eyes and draws in a deep breath.<br/>
<br/>
"What about you two?" you ask Rennerhoff and Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
Sienna remains preoccupied with the cell phone. Fatima giggles again. "I really like it. I'm having fun." She lets her knees fall open in a most unladylike way. "But poor Sienna, her home life -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck," says Sienna. She flings the cell away and pounces onto Fatima. They kiss, long and loudly and intensely. Fatima gropes her own bosom.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess they've figured out how to make the best of it," you observe to the others. "How about you two?"<br/>
<br/>
"We're not giving you fireworks, Chen," says Jelena. "So fuck off."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's gratitude for you. But I don't want fireworks, I just want to make sure you're settling down, that you can be in character."<br/>
<br/>
Jelena turns slowly until she's looking at you. "You want me to be in character, Chen? I can be in character." She gets up slowly, and walks toward you slowly, and leans back with one hand on her hip as she stares at you from dark eyes under dark bangs. "I can kick your ass. Would that be enough in character for you?"<br/>
<br/>
You return her stare evenly. "Is this being in character, or do you have a serious problem with me?"<br/>
<br/>
She wavers and breaks off first. "Nah, I don't got a problem," she says with a stiff shrug. "Except I was having a lot of fun fucking around with that pussy Winkler until you called and fucked it up for me."<br/>
<br/>
"Really? What were you doing to him?" You are trying desperately to keep your eyes on her and not on the girls in the floor, for Sienna has climbed onto Fatima and is straddling her and put a hand up her shirt. They are making moaning noises.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, she was having fun," Andrea sniggers. "She was getting him all twisted up, playing nice and playing mean. It's too bad I'm not going to let you hang out here, or you could have fun watching her in action."<br/>
<br/>
"So lemme see you in action at school." You jerk your head at Sienna and Fatima. "Those two weren't doing <i>that</i>, were they?"<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong with <i>that?</i>" Andrea asks with a smirk.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, I don't got a problem with it, so long as it doesn't screw things up for you."<br/>
<br/>
"We're making it sexy for people," says Jelena with careful insolence. "Isn't that what you wanted? That's what Thomason says you want. For us to make it sexy." She steps back and raises her chin and tucks her fingers into her back pockets.<br/>
<br/>
Yes, she's sexy alright, and you ignore your phone when it tweets at you. Jelena is wearing a black t-shirt with the slogan LIKE ME FUCK YOU stenciled across its front, and tight jeans with big rips, and boots. Her mane of dark hair is wild and unkempt. You'd like to peel her clothes off, like the bark off a tree.<br/>
<br/>
You cover your lust by flicking a finger at her chest. "Your shirt needs a proofreader. It's missing a question mark after 'me'."<br/>
<br/>
Her lip curls. "Hey Sienna, am I missing a question mark up here? Hey, I'm talking to you, bitch." She kicks Sienna in the side.<br/>
<br/>
"What? I'm busy!" Sienna raises up long enough to snarl that, then plunges back in to Fatima.<br/>
<br/>
"It's her shirt," Jelena tells you. "We've been swapping clothes around, seeing what works for each of us."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, make yourself visible at school, if you don't mind," you say. "I'm curious to see what it looks like."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, this is all for your pleasure, isn't it, Chen?" Jelena says. She pulls up her shirt and shows you a boob. "That's a little picture you can take home with you for tonight."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Why don't we take it up to your bedroom, have some real fun?" you suggest to Chelsea after you're seated. "It's gettin' too cold to keep meeting back here."<br/>
<br/>
"Here" is the back patio, as it has been for most of your other meetings with the real Gary Chen. That cold front has dropped the temperatures, and instead of lounging in the sun in shorts and a skimpy top, she is bundled up against the cold, hugging herself and trying to keep her teeth from chattering. The collar of her jacket is up around her cheeks, she has a scarf over her chin, and the giant, fluffy ski cap is pulled down almost to her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna meet at the fucking library or something, make it a study date?" she snarls. You were late replying to her text, and maybe that's why she's in a bad mood. "So what's this bullshit about Andrea spraining her ankle?"<br/>
<br/>
"She twisted it or something. Not enough to put her in a cast, but enough that she shouldn't be stressing it. She's gonna have to miss the cheerleader tryouts."<br/>
<br/>
"They're tomorrow!"<br/>
<br/>
"Like I say, she's gonna have to miss."<br/>
<br/>
"This is bullshit, Prescott! I told you I wanted her -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Life sucks, man. Deal with it. You're gettin' it good everywhere else."<br/>
<br/>
"Am I?"<br/>
<br/>
"You look good from where I'm sitting. Except you got too many clothes on. Let's go inside and let me warm you up a little."<br/>
<br/>
She offered you something along those lines the other day, but you turned her down, and she's obviously not in the mood to renew the offer. "Did Dane at least get you the stuff yesterday?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I got it, and I distributed it. All except the stuff for Trantham. I'm changing things up there."<br/>
<br/>
"How? Why?" She looks alarmed.<br/>
<br/>
"Trantham was a loser. I found you a new contact, one who can grow things at Eastman. I gotta get his stuff to him, was gonna do that but then you yanked me out here."<br/>
<br/>
"Is he the one buying all that extra stuff you paid for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Some of it. Rest of it's like you asked me to do, give more to the three fucketeers, find a sales point down in the junior class, that stuff."<br/>
<br/>
"So give me numbers and names."<br/>
<br/>
"Why?" You grin hard. "You thinkin' of comin' out of retirement, takin' the business back? I'll happily take over from Chelsea for you."<br/>
<br/>
She leans forward with a glare. "I don't trust you, Prescott. I don't trust you not to fuck things up." She jabs a finger at you. "You've got nothing up there I didn't have, but when you add your brain to mine I figure you're lopping off at least half my smarts."</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: The Ultimatum
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You get to your feet. You don't even decide to, you just instinctively stand up.<br/>
<br/>
"You put me in charge of your life, motherfucker, so I'm in charge of it now. Anything I screw up, I pay the price. Anything I get right, I get the reward."<br/>
<br/>
And suddenly it's like the top has come off a well-shaken bottle of cola. Sudsy anger fizzes up the sides and back of your neck.<br/>
<br/>
"<i>You</i> wanted to be Chelsea Cooper, asshole, <i>you</i> wanted to suck basketball cock and finger cheerleader pussy, and <i>you</i> wanted to stick me with all the shit that <i>you</i> wanted to get away from. Well, now <i>you're</i> Chelsea Cooper, and that means you got <i>fuck all</i> to say or do with Gary Chen. You wanna manage your old life? You take it back for yourself, you <i>cunt</i>, you do it yourself in your own fucking skin. Otherwise, you sit back, enjoy the ride Seth Javits is giving you, and stay the <i>fuck</i> out of my way."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't -- !"<br/>
<br/>
You bend over her. "I mean it, you dripping whore. You stick to what you got now, and forget you ever were this poor son of a bitch -- " You point to your face. "Or you take it back and keep it. Because I'm sick of you yanking my chain like I'm your fucking dog. I didn't ask to be you, not permanently, but I'll take a permanent change of address if that's what it takes to get you to fuck off and leave me alone."<br/>
<br/>
You straighten back up again as she turns a deep scarlet. "You think you got a hold over me, but you don't," you continue. "But I'll play fair with you this far. I'll give you till midnight to decide. Do you ever wanna be yourself again? If you do, text me, and I'll give it all back to you tomorrow. Otherwise, don't count on ever getting your life back again. And if you don't want it back, if you want to stay as Chelsea Cooper for the rest of your life, letting squirmy wormies crawl up your cunny and squirting out babies like they was cookies at the Keebler factory, then just get the fuck out of my face, get the fuck off my back, and get the fuck outta my life!"<br/>
<br/>
You fix her with one hard glare, then stalk off. "Outta my way, shit head," you mutter at Jordan when he tries stopping you at the sliding glass door. For a moment you think he's going to try grabbing you, but he lets you leave unmolested.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're still driving down the road when the shakes -- which you knew were coming -- finally hit you, and you pull into the parking lot of a strip center for a smoke.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck.</i> You just gave Gary Chen an ultimatum. And whichever choice he makes, you are screwed.<br/>
<br/>
Because if he takes his life back, you make yourself completely vulnerable to him and his friends.<br/>
<br/>
And if he doesn't, you'll be stuck being Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
You get out and lean against the Jeep and suck hard on the cigarette, filling your lungs with stinging -- but soothing -- tobacco smoke, and stare at the asphalt.<br/>
<br/>
Actually, you reflect, you were screwed from the moment you put Chen's mask on. Or from the moment he figured out what was going on. You've just been delaying things, hoping that something would turn up or change so that you could get out of this mess without having to face the consequences of what you've done. And even now it's not like you're going to have to pay a price. Not unless you want to.<br/>
<br/>
Because that rockbot paste means you don't ever have to face Chen's vengeance, not if you don't want to, and you don't have to stick it out as him if you ever get fed up with it. If Chen says he wants his life back, you can always just replace him with a Chenbot, and can continue to manage his affairs remotely, maybe even from under the mask of Chelsea Cooper, if that's what you decide you want.<br/>
<br/>
And if he decides to let you keep playing Gary Chen? You can do like you did with Rennerhoff last night, and find yourself a nicer situation while letting the Chenbot keep things going in its mindlessly vicious way.<br/>
<br/>
It's a gambit that occurred to you a long time ago -- one even Caleb has been mildly lobbying for -- and you've not faced it because you've not wanted to face it. The past few weeks has just been one desperate dodge away from the only solution that makes sense.<br/>
<br/>
But now you've forced the issue, and you're going to have to figure out what to do about Chen when he texts you a decision.<br/>
<br/>
You finish the cigarette and finish another one without really deciding for yourself what you're going to do. You're just trying to steady yourself so that you won't get into a wreck while driving.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But you can't delay the day for long. You've got errands to run, and after burning through half of it, you toss a third cigarette to the curb and get back in the Jeep.<br/>
<br/>
The first errand takes you to the Warehouse, where you meet the Karterbot and give it a supply of weed. It has no money for you, obviously, but the thing is completely under your control and will simply pass on the cash it collects from selling.<br/>
<br/>
Not that you're short on cash at the moment. The strongbox under the chassis is heavy with money from the bulk sales the Chenbot made last night and this morning. You hardly lighten it any when you swing by some supply stores to get the makings for more masks. You have no idea what you'll do with them, but it's best to have them on hand so you'll be prepared for whatever Chen might throw at you.<br/>
<br/>
At the elementary school you get three rough masks made, and one of them polished, before you have to break off and return home for supper. Grandfather has been very docile since you used that spell on him, and maybe that's contributed to a better atmosphere at home, for Mrs. Chen hasn't been riding on your homework and viola practice. But she comes down on you hard, just the way she used to, when dinner is over, and so you have to buckle down to do school work in the dining room instead of returning to the elementary school.<br/>
<br/>
At eight o'clock your cell dings with a text. It's from Chelsea. Your chest tightens as you open it to read it.<br/>
<br/>
She wants to meet at the municipal library to talk.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm meeting some guys at the library to study," you tell Mrs. Chen as you pull on a jacket.<br/>
<br/>
"No you're not, you're working here." Her mouth is very set.<br/>
<br/>
"I have to, it's for a project!"<br/>
<br/>
"Your project is here! You'll goof off if you go out!"<br/>
<br/>
"I won't goof off! It's a serious project!"<br/>
<br/>
"Who are you meeting?" Her eye goes to the phone in your hand.<br/>
<br/>
No use lying about it, she'll just grab it from you and check. "This girl, Chelsea Cooper."<br/>
<br/>
"So it's not studying! Sit down, work!"<br/>
<br/>
"It <i>is</i> studying! I can't goof off with her! She's the head cheerleader, and her boyfriend would kill me if we were goofing off!"<br/>
<br/>
"Head cheerleader? Like that girl Lin is a cheerleader?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh ... Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
She studies you closely. "You talk to her about Lin?"<br/>
<br/>
"I could."<br/>
<br/>
She nods gravely. "Then talk to her about Lin. And study!"<br/>
<br/>
"I will! Thanks!" You grab your stuff and run out the door before she can change her mind.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You've almost completed a circuit of the library before deciding that you've beaten Chelsea there, and then you get another text from her asking where you are. After a bit of texting cross-talk, she directs you to a distant corner in one of the wings behind lots and lots of stacks. There are two overstuffed chairs, and she's curled up in one of them. She looks at you gravely as you approach. "I didn't like the way you talked to me this afternoon," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, I'm not taking it back. What's your answer?"<br/>
<br/>
Her jaw tightens, but she keeps her composure. "I've decided I want you to give it to Kirkham," she says.<br/>
<br/>
Her words are like a slap in the face. "Give what to him?" For a moment you think she's telling you to give Kirkham a blow job.<br/>
<br/>
"My life. That mask you're wearing. Give it to him and let him take it over." She leans forward. "I want you to explain it all to him, tell him about these masks and what you and I have been doing. Then I want you to give him that mask so he can take over and start playing me. I'm firing you, Prescott," she says in a hard voice. "I'm hiring Kirkham in your place."<br/>
<br/>
This is ridiculous in so many ways. You snort. "Why would Kirkham want to be you?"<br/>
<br/>
"He would," she says confidently. "He's always been jealous of me. And when you tell him how much weed he'd be dealing, how much money he'd be pulling in, he'll grab it. He's always wanted my business, he's just too much of a stubborn prick to say so."<br/>
<br/>
You have your doubts, but you ask a more pertinent question. "And what happens to me?"<br/>
<br/>
"You can be my new boyfriend. Steve Patterson."</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: A Permanent Change of Footing
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You don't trust Chen, not for an instant. But there's nothing wrong with negotiating with him, pushing him, tricking him into revealing his intentions.<br/>
<br/>
"So are you planning to stick it out as Chelsea?" you ask with a leering grin. "What do you think Kirkham's going to say about that?"<br/>
<br/>
"He'll understand," Chelsea stammers. "He'll bust my balls about it -- " She stops in the middle of the inapposite image. "But fuck 'im if he does. I'll make him see it my way."<br/>
<br/>
It might be unintentional, but she pushes her breasts out slightly.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. And he's gonna see things your way even after he catches you fucking Steve Patterson?" You snicker. "You <i>know</i> what he's going to say about that, especially if he knows it's really me you're sucking off." <br/>
<br/>
"He won't give me any shit," Chelsea snarls, but the color of her face tells you even she doesn't believe it. "Look, I'm willing to put up with it, if that's what it takes to get you to do this. I'm really paying you a high price."<br/>
<br/>
You laugh. "You sure as fuck are. And where does Patterson go? The real one. I know where I'm putting myself after I'm him." You click your tongue lasciviously.<br/>
<br/>
"You turn him into Kirkham, right? Isn't that what you did with the fuckwits, you just switched their faces with -- "<br/>
<br/>
"I can't really do that here." Well, you could, but you're not going to tell Chen about the rockbot paste. "See, the guys I switched the fuckwits with, they didn't kick at it. Like Chris Trantham, he wakes up in Tanner Evans's stupid face, but he's such a dipshit he doesn't know what to do with it, so he just plays along. But I don't see Patterson playing along with a body swap. I mean, you didn't, right? And once Patterson figures out there's body swapping going on, he'll do a little math -- he's taking Calculus, and this ain't even half as hard as calculus -- and figure out what happened to Gordon, that there was a body swap there. And if he talks to the guy who looks like Gordon, the way you did, he'll track it all back to whoever is wearing Gary Chen's face."<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea is now looking very pinched, but you press on. "And he'll figure out where you are, too. 'Cos when he talks to Gordon he'll find Dane Matthias, and then he'll remember how screwy Dane Matthias has been acting lately. He'll go talk to that Dane, and when he does he'll find Chelsea Cooper."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what can he do about it?" Chelsea says shrilly.<br/>
<br/>
"You did something about it."<br/>
<br/>
Her lips compress so hard they disappear. "Isn't there something in your bag of magic tricks you can use to bluff him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nope. We can't use Patterson."<br/>
<br/>
"Then think of someone else, someone who won't cause any problems if you swap 'em with Kirkham."<br/>
<br/>
You lean back. "Who? It's gotta be someone big and mean, 'cos I ain't moving into any face where you can fuck me up. And anyone like that is gonna cause problems once he's inside Kirkham. And anyone who's be safe inside Kirkham wouldn't be safe for me."<br/>
<br/>
"So change schools. If I scare you that much," she sneers, "maybe you oughta run."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I'm not going with your idea. I'm sticking to what I said before. Either you take your life back tonight, or you leave it with me forever." You check the time. "You got a little less than three hours to make up your mind."<br/>
<br/>
She's shaking when you leave her. Probably she's been trembling all through your conversation, but by the time you get up from the table she can't hide it anymore.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You drop in at a nearby McDonald's and nurse a cheap coffee while waiting for a text from Chelsea. After an hour you send her one of your own. <i>if i don't hear from u, means u stay that way.</i><br/>
<br/>
Eleven o'clock comes, and there's no answer. You go home, to noodle around on some more homework. When midnight passes, and then a twelve-fifteen goes by, you decide that her answer has been given.<br/>
<br/>
Gary Chen has traded his life permanently for that of Chelsea Cooper.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But that doesn't mean you've permanently traded your life for that of Gary Chen. Your excursions into the identities of Adam Karter and Jamie Rennerhoff have proven that you can take time off from being Chen, and there's no reason you can't manage Chen's operations from another identity, the way Chen himself has tried managing you from the identity of Chelsea Cooper. You're not keen on turning yourself into either Karter or Rennerhoff on a full-time basis, and would like to stay close to the Chenbot for the same reason that Chen wants to stay close to you: to make sure it doesn't make any blunders while operating on its own.<br/>
<br/>
You could puzzle it out by yourself, but you'd feel better talking to someone. Besides, you want to see how much of a change there's really been in Caleb. So you text him, and he agrees to meet you at the elementary school late Sunday morning.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He's swaggering it just as hard as when you saw him last, driving his truck in fast and skidding to a halt just short of where you're standing. "Hola," he shouts as he hops out. "Or whatever guys like you say."<br/>
<br/>
You're too subdued to take offense. "Haven't seen you in a while," you say. <br/>
<br/>
"You just saw me the other day."<br/>
<br/>
"I mean I haven't seen <i>you,</i> uh, Caleb." It feels very strange to be using his real first name. "But I guess you haven't much of me, either."<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "Well, it's been awhile since we took these things off."<br/>
<br/>
You decide it's best to be direct. "Look, I gotta talk to you about Chen. He pulled me out for a talk yesterday, and he scared me a little with what he said."<br/>
<br/>
"Only a little?"<br/>
<br/>
That lights a small flame in you. "I can handle him, fucker. I think I did. But I don't trust him not to make more trouble."<br/>
<br/>
You tell it to him, all of it. He is very sober by the time you're done.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I don't blame you for being worried," he says. "He's gonna think up some kind of twist to hit you with." Caleb cocks his head. "But can't you figure out what he's going to do? You've got his head."<br/>
<br/>
"That's no good, I can think up too many things for him that he could do. And he's more desperate than me, and he's got Chelsea's brain too. She's a schemer herself."<br/>
<br/>
"True." His brow furrows. "This isn't going to fuck me up with her, is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Is that all you can think about, how it's going to screw up your fuck schedule? Worst that'll happen is she'll stop putting out.<br/>
<br/>
"As if that's not bad enough."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "What I'm thinking about is moving someplace else," you say. "I figure I can leave the business to that Chenbot and hide somewhere Chen can't find me. He can't do anything to the 'bot, you know, and if he doesn't know where <i>I</i> am -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't the simplest thing to just turn Chen into a bot?" Caleb says. "Shit, we've talked about this before. Either way you're talking about doing to someone what we did to Javits. You're talking about turning someone into a 'bot while you take over their life. So who deserves that kind of thing more, Chen or some poor dumb asshole?"<br/>
<br/>
That's a point. You've been resisting doing that, at least to take care of yourself. But you've already done it to bunch of other people, because Chen's business has forced you to. Andrea Varnsworth, Jelena Petrovich, Sienna Goldman, Fatima Zahedi, and Seth Javits. Not to mention the people who are walking around in a very confused and disoriented state: Gordon Black, Chelsea Cooper, Dane Matthias, Chris Trantham, and Kevin Hall.<br/>
<br/>
The only person you're <i>not</i> protecting is yourself, and you're hurting lots of other people by not cutting things off at the root, with Chen.<br/>
<br/>
You see all that, now that Caleb has laid it out. It would be simplicity itself to set things right. Get Chelsea's mask off Chen, and get the Chenbot mask onto him. Pull the masks off all the other people. Resume your life as Will Prescott. The Chenbot would secretly take your orders, and you could even collect those extra profits it would be making --<br/>
<br/>
Ah. There's the temptation. To keep control of Chen's operations through the Chenbot. That would mean keeping most of the people where they are, since they are serving him. Oh, Chelsea and Gordon and Dane could go back to normal. But all the other changes you've made, all the other agents you've salted around -- <br/>
<br/>
"But if you're not going to listen to me," Caleb says, "why <i>don't</i> you turn yourself into Patterson, just without telling Chen about it?" His voice jerks you back to attention. He repeats the question when you ask him to. "That's where you could hide out, if you're too scared to actually do something to Chen. Put the Chenbot in play, turn yourself into Patterson. You could keep an eye on Chelsea from there, same as I could. And we'd be hanging out again. Hyah! Unh!" He punches you lightly in the shoulder a couple of times, and goes into a boxer's stance. "Hell, we could switch off, take turns being Stevie and Seth."<br/>
<br/>
That's a variation on the idea, though one that wouldn't turn Chen into a 'bot of himself. But it would still leave him free.<br/>
<br/>
And as you think of Chen acting outside your control, a sense of dread starts to oppress you. He got into the body of Chelsea Cooper by wrong-footing you in the first place, by finding some unlikely allies. He could do it again.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, he's already mentioned the name of one person he could reach out to: David Kirkham. Maybe you could anticipate him by taking Kirkham's place.</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: A Fork Into the Future
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"No, the simplest thing is to get rid of Chen," you say. "You were right the first time, you were right a long time ago. Just turn him into a Chenbot. That takes care of everything."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb shrugs. "Sounds good to me. But you can still turn yourself into Patterson."<br/>
<br/>
"No, we're gonna put everything back to the way it was." It's a hard thing to say, and the wish to keep Chen's occult operations as they are claws at your guts.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it claws at Caleb's too. "Does that include me? Are you telling me I have to give up this?" He flings his arms out, showing you the awesomeness that it is being Seth Javits and having Chelsea Cooper as a girlfriend.<br/>
</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: A Spider in His Web
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>And that's where you find the excuse not to make any more change-backs than the one. If you're going to indulge Caleb by letting him stay as Seth Javits, then you can leave everything else more or less as it is now.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you saying you wanna stay as Seth Javits forever?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, maybe," he says without hesitation. "It's pretty fucking sweet, you know. Seth's no dummy, and he's got moves I don't." He dances in place, his sneakers scuffing noisily in the turf, like he's playing basketball on a dance floor and marrying a three-point shot to an electro-shimmy. "Look, at least until the end of the year, okay? And then we can talk."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," you sigh.<br/>
<br/>
"Sweet. And then you can be Patterson -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I know you're set on that, but this about letting people go back to normal, not screwing up more people."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." He looks surprised. "I thought it was about getting the upper hand, finally." His squints skeptically at you. "You know, I haven't been saying anything about it all since you got me into this position, 'cos I figured you having Chen's brain and all, you knew some reason we couldn't just pop a rockbot mask onto Chen. I didn't think it was because -- " He blinks hard. "So you wanna go back to being Will Prescott?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
He snickers. "Dude."<br/>
<br/>
You bridle. "What's wrong with being Will Prescott?"<br/>
<br/>
He snickers again. "Nothing, I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"He's not in any more trouble, is he? At school, I mean. Or at home."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck if I know. Point is -- <i>Three-point</i> point is -- " He laughs at his dumb attempted witticism. "Why settle for Prescott when you can be Patterson? Fuck, I'd trade up to that even from here."<br/>
<br/>
"It's about putting people back, Caleb. Mostly."<br/>
<br/>
He sobers up without losing the skepticism. "So Gordon goes back to being Gordon?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck. That means I gotta fight with him up in the loft, 'cos he's definitely gonna want to come back up there. You gonna let Chelsea go too?"<br/>
<br/>
"We'd have to, if we turn Chen into a 'bot."<br/>
<br/>
"Great. And then she busts up with me and goes back to Gordon." His skeptical expression deepens into a glower. "You might as well put <i>me</i> back to normal, then."<br/>
<br/>
You relent. Except for turning Chen into a 'bot, you'll leave everything as it already is, at least until the end of the school year. "So where do I go? If we turn Chen into a 'bot of himself -- "<br/>
<br/>
"You turn into Patterson."<br/>
<br/>
"Stop that. I'm not interested. Are you really that queer for him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Then turn him into a Chelseabot," Caleb says. "That'd suit me. Turn Chen into a Chelseabot the way you turned Javits into a Caleb-bot. Then I don't have to worry about her breaking up with me, and I can make her suck me off any time I want."<br/>
<br/>
"Doesn't answer the question, where do I go?"<br/>
<br/>
"Stay the way you are now? Alright, if you don't want to make any more masks -- " He twists his toe into the grass and sucks in his cheeks. "Um. I guess one thing you could do is turn Chen into a Chenbot, and then <i>you</i> could slip into the Chelsea mask. I mean," he adds hurriedly, "Chen's having fun at it, so -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus! He <i>has</i> to have fun at it, you dumbass! Or at least he has to pretend he's having fun at it, since he's thinks you don't know what's going on!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," Caleb grumbles. "I knew you wouldn't like it."<br/>
<br/>
Except you kind of do. Chelsea is certainly very sexy, and Chen has already shown you by example how much fun it could be to play the part of Chelsea Cooper. If it weren't for Caleb and the leering satisfaction he would take in it, you might do it.<br/>
<br/>
Well, you might still do it, if you can't think of an alternative.<br/>
<br/>
The alternatives, unfortunately, consist mostly of people you're not keen on impersonating: Tanner Evans. George Mendoza. Joe Thomason. Jamie Rennerhoff. Joshua Call. Jeff Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
It might be possible to impersonate the people that the real assholes are impersonating, but that would involve several layers of impersonation. Could you really pretend to be Joshua Call-pretending-to-be-Jelena-Petrovich?<br/>
<br/>
There is one other possibility, though. You could turn Chelsea into a Chelseabot, and leave Chen under that mask. But you could take one of your original victims -- Gordon or Dane or Chelsea -- and turn them into the Chenbot. Then you could take over the position they currently hold: Turn yourself into Dane or Gordon, or go back to being yourself.<br/>
<br/>
So there it is. You can turn yourself back into yourself, or into Dane or Gordon; you can take over as Chelsea Cooper; or you can make another victim and turn that person into the Chenbot while you take over that person's life.</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: The Original Three
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You rub your forehead. All this thinking is getting to be a strain. You need to make a decision. And the easiest decision is to turn Chelsea into a Chelseabot for Caleb, and for you to push Gordon or Chelsea or Dane under the mask of the Chenbot while you take over one of the roles they are currently. So those three choices are:<br/>
<br/>
Gordon Black, who has fallen completely out of the high school firmament, losing his girlfriend and his place on the basketball squad and attaching himself to a bunch of potheads. From what you hear, the guy who's playing Gordon is having fun, but is there really any point in being Gordon if you're not picking up what he used to have?<br/>
<br/>
Then there's Dane, who is still hanging out with Dane's friends but has cleaned up his act and is studying hard. That's not your idea of fun, but you could always take him back to the way he was before. And he would be the ideal place from which to manage the Chenbot's affairs. No one would think twice about seeing Dane with Chen, and no one would suspect that genial Dane is the mastermind of a giant dope ring.<br/>
<br/>
And finally there's yourself: Will Prescott. God only knows how Gordon has screwed up your life at home. Dare you return to find out?</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: The Old Boss, Same as the New Boss
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You rub your forehead. All this thinking is getting to be a strain. "Ah, fuckit," you exclaim. "I'll think of something later. Let's just go take care of Chelsea before it's too late." You look up at Caleb. "Text her, get her to meet you up in the fuck room. You remember how to get masks off?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, you grab their face and pull."<br/>
<br/>
"What are the magic words?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh ... "<br/>
<br/>
You laugh mirthlessly, and tell them to him again. "I'll be waiting down in the school parking lot for when you've got the mask off him. Call me and I'll run in so we can finish it."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't trust me to do it right?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wanna be there anyway for when it's done. Sweet, sweet vengeance." <br/>
<br/>
Caleb sets it up and leaves. You go down into the basement to pick up the rockbot paste -- a container containing Caleb's hair so the Chelseabot will obey him. Your eye falls on the unfinished masks you started to put together.<br/>
<br/>
You shiver when you think that you don't have to have a single vacation spot away from the Chenbot. You could give yourself a couple.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The end of your apprenticeship to Gary Chen turns out to be anticlimactic. You park on a side street near the school so Chen won't see your Jeep. The wait is dull, and after thirty minutes you get a ping telling you that Chelsea has arrived for a Sunday afternoon date with her boyfriend. You're just pulling into the parking lot beside the gym when you get another text telling you the mask is off your old foe.<br/>
<br/>
You tear into the gym and across the floor and up the stairs. Caleb pulls you inside the loft. Splayed out on the mat is an unconscious Gary Chen, looking very silly squeezed into Chelsea Cooper's clothes. "Gross, isn't it?" Caleb says. He hands you a mask.<br/>
<br/>
You drop to the floor, peel open up the rockbot paste, and smear its insides. You blow it dry. It's only about then that your heart begins to race, as you bring things to a conclusion. You slide the mask onto Chen's face, and Chelsea's appears in its place. Her eyes flutter open.<br/>
<br/>
There is some slight confusion and some talk after that. From the way the Chelseabot is talking, it remembers everything that Chen was doing while pretending to be Chelsea, and the 'bot seems inclined to keep pushing you around. You explain to Caleb how he can get it to change its mind and attitude, and after he's talked to it a bit, it settles down to being his faithful girlfriend and no more than that. Still, the thing grazes you with a quick glance, and inside that glance you think you can see a desire to keep managing your affairs. But --<br/>
<br/>
"So, that's it, then," you say, hopping back a couple of feet to put your back against the door.<br/>
<br/>
"That's it," says Caleb quietly. "What are you going to do now?"<br/>
<br/>
You don't know. You're still unsettled, and are more unsettled the more you look at Chelsea. It feels like you've finished running a long and grueling race, but the moment of triumph has eluded you somehow. The moment isn't really a victory for you; it's only a complete defeat for Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. I won't stick around, though. You don't want me here, and it'd be funny if anyone caught me up here. Besides, you'll want to teach your new toy how to do all those things she wouldn't ever do for you before."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb, you notice, doesn't argue. "So, see you in school tomorrow?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." You shift from foot to foot worriedly, then yank the door open and leave without another word. Your feet are heavy but your head is light as you take the stairs down two and three at time, and the sound of your boots hitting the floor echoes loudly around the gym. There's a fast, hard flutter in your chest, and you sprint over to the side door and out, and you tear around the corner to your Jeep and jump in.<br/>
<br/>
You ran all the way as though something were chasing you.<br/>
<br/>
In a sense, something was. And the moment you fall into the seat, it catches you.<br/>
<br/>
A raging boner. <br/>
<br/>
You throw your head back, groan, and open your trousers to let it out. You have no idea why you've got such a boner, but you do.<br/>
<br/>
It's not the first you've had from inside Gary Chen's body, and you've had some pretty big ones before, ones that hurt. But you're never had one like this. You're pretty sure it has nothing to do with what happened  up there in that loft. You sure don't feel a strong desire to fuck the Chelseabot, and you feel no swelling trumpets of triumph at beating Chen, finally, for that's a victory you could have had a long time ago. As you grip the headrest with both hands and blink rapidly you try thinking it through. Why here, why now, in this way, are you having the worst kind of boner when your strongest emotion isn't lust but dread?<br/>
<br/>
Dread. Yes, that's what you're feeling. A deep, aching dread that tears at your chest and blackens your thoughts. And thinking about that dread, turning your attention to it, is only making the erection worse. You grind the heel of a hand into an eye and suppress a whimper.<br/>
<br/>
The answer comes when your cell tweets. It's a note from your mother. And in that very familiar thought -- <i>mom wants me</i> -- you solve the puzzle.<br/>
<br/>
That's not "Mrs. Chen" anymore. That's <i>your mother.</i> Same as the phone and this Jeep and the clothes and the life are now yours. They're not just yours, because there is now no one else to claim them. <br/>
<br/>
You turned Gary Chen into a Chelseabot. <br/>
<br/>
And that means that <i>you</i> are now Chen Guangli. For there is no one else to be him.<br/>
<br/>
And why is this giving you a boner?<br/>
<br/>
Because Gary Chen hasn't jacked off since you took control. Because you've been too gingerly with the fantasies and the physiology, too grossed out to touch yourself except when pissing into a urinal.<br/>
<br/>
But you're Chen now, and your body is telling you what it wants, and telling you that you and it belong to each other now, so there will be no excuses.<br/>
<br/>
With an anguished and reluctant groan, you clasp the shaft with one hand, and with the other pull a tissue from the glove compartment. A minute later you've blown a powerful load into the Kleenex, and still your cock won't relax. Not until you've pushed it back into your trousers, started the Jeep, and driven around for twenty minutes does it subside.<br/>
<br/>
But it's still growling.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Alright, fuckers, lemme see your prospects." That's what you say to Mendoza, Evans, and Thomason when you meet them at Hochstetter Park a little after three.<br/>
<br/>
"Tell that Canfield fuck you want to meet him after school Monday out by the portables." That what you tell Kevin Hall when you talk to him at the comic book store a little after four.<br/>
<br/>
"All your friends know that Karter's handling your shit now?" you ask Chris Trantham when you see him a little before five o'clock at a Wendy's for a fast bite. "Good. I want you back at Westside on Tuesday after school, I'm giving you a new spot. You and Mendoza are gonna starting working some of them AP fucks for me."<br/>
<br/>
Maybe you're just trying to distract yourself, but you're busting with energy and determination, and in those series of fast, hard meetings you send your minions racing out to complete your orders. It occurs to you that maybe Chen was right, maybe you weren't actually handling his affairs as well as you could have been. You were, after all, acting only as his agent, and a reluctant agent, and even though you were proud of the job you were doing, you really weren't doing it as hard as you could have been. You were wasting time indecisively with Mendoza and Evans, for instance.<br/>
<br/>
That stops now. Chen's business is yours, and there's no reason to run it the way he would.<br/>
<br/>
Including turning some rich bitches into creamy milch cows<br/>
<br/>
But even though you are now firmly in charge of the life and business of Gary Chen, that doesn't mean you are planning to work as him 24/7. You can still do it from the side, switching in and out as need arises. What you need is a place where you can meet with and work beside him without raising eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
You're thinking about two such places as you carve runes into a strip of metal. One is a recruit that you thought about using a long time ago: Justin Roth. He's good with guys and good with girls, and you thought about using him as a "marketing agent" before giving Andrea Varnsworth to Thomason. Chen already hangs out with him sometimes, and you could draw a larger sales circle around him the way you've drawn one around Andrea and Karter. In fact, you could use Justin's face to pull those two circles together so that they overlap and reinforce each other as well as whatever circle you draw around Roth himself.<br/>
<br/>
And the obvious way to do the latter is to order Andrea to take Justin into her bed. That's another reason to make him your new headquarters.<br/>
<br/>
That would satisfy you, but it wouldn't satisfy Chen. For him there's another possibility, one that the Chenbot has noticed but you haven't -- not directly -- at the country club. A new girl who has gone to work there as a greeter. She's Asian, so she'd satisfy your mom, and she's definitely cute. She also goes to Eastman, so the connection would not set off dissonances at Westside. Her name is Dana Pak.</span></div></div>


author_id: seuzz
title: Rites of Obedience
path:
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chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Your plans for a new hiding place are somewhat long-range. You've got plans for Monday afternoon after school, and you've got to get things set up for that.<br/>
<br/>
So after you finish up the one mask you'll use at school tomorrow, you send out four texts and go home. There you get the last of your homework done and are in bed by two o'clock. You put yourself to sleep instantly, for tomorrow is going to be a busy day.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Mendoza -- the fake one -- is already on his way back to the portables when you run into him at around seven-thirty. "Yo, how much you sell this weekend?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, a little?"<br/>
<br/>
"How the fuck much is a 'little'? Give me a number."<br/>
<br/>
"An eighth?"<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus." How the fuck could you think a fake Mendoza could handle a greater sales load when the real Mendoza probably couldn't? Well, you've got a solution to that. "We need to do it in the farthest portable on the right," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"What do we need to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"You need to shut up, that's what <i>you</i> need to do."<br/>
<br/>
The rest of the walk passes in silence, and you let fake-Mendoza follow you in. You point to a chair. "Sit," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
Slowly, he complies. You drop your backpack and step behind him. You throw one arm around his chest, and with your right hand grab his face. He struggles a little, but taking the mask off him is like twisting his neck: he slumps like a lump of cold meat when it comes off. With the mask in your hand, you bend around to look at him.<br/>
<br/>
Yep, it's still Kevin Hall. Like it could be anyone else.<br/>
<br/>
Well, it won't be Kevin Hall for long. Not here, and not later. You open up your bag and take out the rockbot paste.<br/>
<br/>
A few minutes later George Mendoza is back on his feet, straightening out his clothes. The puzzled look on his face has vanished after you told him not to worry about what just happened. "Be back here after class, this same portable," you tell him. He nods, and you let him leave while you repack your supplies.<br/>
<br/>
The fake Mendoza now has no memories of ever having been anyone else, and he will follow your orders perfectly. He will follow your orders for the rest of the day, when it's Kevin Hall under the mask, and he will follow your orders perfectly this evening and afterward, when it will be Douglas Canfield under it.<br/>
<br/>
It's so much simpler this way, and ten minutes later it's simpler still when you've also turned Tanner Evans' duplicate into a perfect rockbot.<br/>
<br/>
It's five minutes until first bell when you close the portable door behind you and head off toward the main building. You glance over at the sound of raucous voices: Joshua Call, Jeff Spencer, Jamie Rennerhoff, Nicholas Horner, Brophy Maddox, and Alex Massey are clustered nearby.<br/>
<br/>
It's a relief to see Call and Spencer, as you weren't sure the 'bots would obey the texts you sent them last night.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The rest of the day passes without incident, and you hustle a few eighths onto some of your regulars. At lunch you go looking for Roth, but he's not around. Not that it matters. Today is not the day for making any kind of replacement, and if he's decided to skip it won't upset any of your plans.<br/>
<br/>
But you would have liked to hang out with him.<br/>
<br/>
At the start of seventh period you finally get a reply from the real Mendoza, telling you that he's set up that meeting with Canfield. You give him a curt <i>thx</i> and shoot a text to your goon squad to be on hand. In fact, you tell them to skip last period altogether so there won't be any chance of a fuck up.<br/>
<br/>
But then Kirkham delays you as you're coming out of the orchestra room last period. "Got me an invite to a sexy part of town after school," he tells you.<br/>
<br/>
"It's your mom's night at the strip club?"<br/>
<br/>
"Go ahead and laugh, fucker. I was going to tell you where, see if you wanted to come along. But if you'd rather bang my mom in your fantasies 'cos your mom don't give it to you no more, well -- " He shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
"So where is this sexy place?"<br/>
<br/>
"Beg for it."<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, I'll tell you anyway. Andrea Varnsworth's."<br/>
<br/>
Your blood chills. You cover it with a sneer. "Now who's bragging about having a vivid fantasy life?"<br/>
<br/>
"I shit you not. Fucking Jelena Petrovich as'd me out there."<br/>
<br/>
That chill deepens. "She's just fucking with you. I heard about what happened at the Warehouse last week. What almost happened."<br/>
<br/>
A slow flush creeps over Kirkham's face. "Yeah? Well, I thought she was fucking with me, right up until she backed me into a wall in the library and put her hand down my shorts and touched my cock and told me some of the things she wanted me to do to her with it."<br/>
<br/>
"She's queer, didn't you hear that?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's what makes it hot. But it don't matter whether she's fucking with me or wants me to fuck her. Either way, I'm heading over there at four, because either way I'm gonna make her bend backward and feel it."<br/>
<br/>
You know Kirkham well enough that you don't doubt he means to.<br/>
<br/>
"And I'm asking if you wanna tag along, maybe pick up anything that falls offa my plate."<br/>
<br/>
You look over his head toward the portables. "I gotta meet my man Mendoza on some business now. But I know where Andrea parks herself. If I show up, I show up."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be too late. I might not leave anything for you."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So Kevin Hall and Douglas Canfield are already at the corner of the Agricultural Annex when you get out to that side of campus, and Call and Spencer and Rennerhoff and Mendoza and Evans are squatting by the portables. You pass Shep Tsosie heading away from them with a scowl. Probably your goons told him to go fuck himself somewhere else. You told them to keep the portables clear of witnesses.<br/>
<br/>
You give them a glance as you pass, and they watch you alertly, but you say nothing but instead steer over to the other two. Neither looks very comfortable.<br/>
<br/>
For Kevin Hall, it's probably very awkward to be hanging out with a dillweed like Douglas Canfield. One look at Canfield tells you he's obviously uncomfortable at standing around with Kevin Hall. You get a nice, long look at him as you approach.<br/>
<br/>
He's a tall and gangly kid and would look a little bit like Caleb if viewed in dim light from a bad angle. Like Caleb, he's got a big nose and a nervous grin, and his tightly curled hair is cut short. He's wearing a plain, long-sleeve sweater and cargo shorts. In other words, he's just the kind of fuckfaced dweeb that Will Prescott would hang out with, except that this fuckface is probably too rich and socially connected to soil himself with Will Prescott's company.<br/>
<br/>
He can't dodge Gary Chen's company, though.<br/>
<br/>
"Yo," you call to Kevin, and jerk your chin at Canfield. "This him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, thanks for coming," you tell Canfield, and put your hand up for a clasp. He fumbles at it, and you go out of your way to make him feel lame and uncool by doing some complicated things with your fingers. "You know who I am, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, Kevin says your name is Gary."<br/>
<br/>
"Right. Do Garner or Gardinhire ever talk about me at your clambakes?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, clambakes?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. You know, those monthly socials at Kelsey Blankenship's house, where all you guys with clams get really, really baked."<br/>
<br/>
It takes him a moment to catch on to what you're saying, and his face both tightens and pales. You instantly feel 80% more contempt for him. You glance back at the goons, holding their gaze until they get up and start to come over.<br/>
<br/>
Back to Canfield. "Listen, I know all about those things," you say, getting close and lowering your voice. "I wanna talk to you about them. Because I wanna know where you and your friends are getting your shit. I think I can give you a better deal."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know anything about that," he stammers.<br/>
<br/>
"No? You calling me a fucking liar when I say I know what goes on out there?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I -- We -- I just -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Ayiyi blah fucking blah. Listen to this guy," you say to Hall. To Canfield: "I got me an office over there in that portable. Let's go inside and talk."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't -- " But all his resistance collapses as five hard-faced goons cluster around him. You step out of the way, and let them escort him into the portable. They are all very silent. Even Rennerhoff doesn't giggle.<br/>
<br/>
And once you're inside and the door is locked, you jerk your chin at Call. "Hold this fucker down. Spencer, you hold him by the hair, I need to get at his face," you add when Canfield starts to struggle. You take the blank mask from your bag and advance on the terrified Canfield. "Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your goons are totally silent as they lay the unconscious Douglas Canfield across the teacher's table. They are so silent that they make even you a little nervous, and you glance up to find Kevin Hall giving you a rather wide-eyed stare. You affect not to notice.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I need you out of your clothes, same as I need you -- " You jab a finger at the guy who looks like George Mendoza " -- out of yours. Call, get Canfield out of his shit." Silently and efficiently, Joshua Call strips your latest victim of his clothes. <br/>
<br/>
As he works, you ponder whether to accept Kirkham's invitation.</span></div></div>


