This choice: Go out with Frank and Joe • Go Back...Chapter #43Team Players by: Seuzz   "I'm not staying here!" Gordon says. "There's things out there, and--"
"And that's why you are staying here," Frank says firmly. "We're not losing two more people--"
"You think I can't take care of myself?" Gordon yells.
"Stakes are too high. You're gambling everything--your life, Black--"
"Soldiers gamble their lives," Gordon says. "You think--"
"Soldiers are trained for it. You'd just be cannon fodder, and you'd wind up playing for their team."
Gordon turns very red.
"We need eyes out there, Frank," Joe says quietly. "Prescott and Black know the lay of the land, and someone needs to go back out there as Tsosie and the other two."
"We'd go out as Tsosie and them," says Frank. "And inside their masks we'd know the lay of the land too."
"There's only two of us, and there's three that need impersonating. Four, if the golems still think Prescott is one of them."
"Prescott is a prime target, Joe," says Frank. "If anyone leaves this house looking like him, it has to be one of us."
"And I'm supposed to handle the other three?" Joe asks wryly. "You can't put a mask on my remote."
"Then maybe Prescott, like Black, goes missing for the duration."
"They can't stay here. They'll go crazy." Joe glances around the library. "No offense, Professor."
"None taken," Blackwell says. "But I think your colleague is right. The golems may have already tried contacting the boys they replaced, and drawn conclusions from their disappearance. Conclusions not conducive to these boys' safety. It would have been better if Messrs. Black and Prescott had maintained their impostures instead of coming here with you."
"Do I get a vote?" you ask.
"It's not a democracy," Frank snaps.
"Well, I'm with Gordon anyway. I don't want to just stay here. And Small and Roth and Tsosie are friends. They'd hang out anyway, and as them we'd be watching each other's backs without it being weird."
The arguments continue, but you are insistent, Gordon is forceful, and Joe is persuasive; and Frank and Blackwell eventually give in.
* * * * *
The golems and the masks are in a spare bedroom upstairs, and Blackwell leads your quartet up before returning downstairs. Frank claims your mask for himself and lets Gordon pick Justin--a familiar home to him. Then he looks at his watch. "It's almost lunchtime at the school," he says. "We can put that to use. Black, leave the mask off for the time being. Now, which of these other guys would it look most natural for you to hang out with, you being yourself?" Frank points to the remaining masks.
"None of them, really," he says grumpily.
"Well, pick one."
"Whoever Prescott picks. If I gotta have someone dangling off my shorts, I want it to be him."
"No, pick another. We're gonna split up in pairs, and you and Prescott can't be--"
"Then whoever Josephine--" He catches himself. "Whoever Joe picks."
"You got something you wanna get off your chest, Black?" Frank asks angrily.
Gordon turns a very dark shade, and steps up to Frank, staring down hard at him. Jesus, Gordon, this isn't the time and these are the dudes, you find yourself silently praying.
"Lemme explain something, Durras," Gordon says. "You think I got a problem with you? You think it's 'cos I'm used to being in charge, because I run the Westside squad? You think I'm an asshole? Well, I run my squad the way I do because I don't just want us to win. I want us to stomp the other teams into puddles of blood and shit. You get that? And I stomp all over our guys so they'll stomp all over the other teams. So they'll fuck them!" He sticks out his lower lip. "And that's my attitude toward a bunch of guys getting together for a friendly game of ball. So how the fuck do you think I feel about those things out there and what they're doing?" His voice is ragged with rage.
"And it's my responsibility as team captain," he continues, "to make sure everyone does their job. I'm in charge because I'm the best one to run it, and I demand everything and more from the guys under me so they'll get the job done. So where the fuck do you get off thinking I got a problem with authority?"
He steps back, but continues to glare. "And if you don't want to give me a choice, and if you don't want me hanging out with this one--" He jerks his head at Joe. "Then fucking say so, instead of being a passive-aggressive pansy-ass about it! You're the expert at this business, and you're in charge, and if you don't tell me what to do--and if you don't run me at least as hard as I run my guys--then you're a fucking pussy and I don't got any respect for you. Fuck you if you think I don't take you and this shit seriously! Fuck you!"
Frank has been staring calmly at him all this time, but now just the faintest smile plays on his lips. He glances at the floor, and then puts out a hand. Gordon takes it. They hold each other's grip. Frank's composure remains unruffled, but Gordon turns very, very red, and his eyes screw up, and his teeth clench before Frank lets go of him.
Frank turns, and there's no missing the gleam of amusement in his eye. "Well, now that we've sucked each other off, let me tell everyone what they're going to do."
* * * * *
His plan is to use the lunchtime break as an excuse to go by various houses, as those will be prime targets for the golems. Gordon (as himself but with Justin's mask in his keeping) will go with Joe (as Perry) by the Black and Small households; you (as Tsosie) and Frank (as Will Prescott) will go by Prescott's house. That puts you in the passenger-side of your own truck as he drives.
You try making conversation. "You gotta understand about Gordon, and his home life," you start.
"I don't gotta understand, Prescott," he says, and his tone of command sounds like a whine when it's in your voice. "And shut up. I'm busy enough trying to review things from your point of view." So you fall silent.
There's no cars in front of your house, and there's no one inside. "Mom might be out shopping. Dad's at work. Robert's at school," you say.
"I know," he snaps. "Let's make a quick search." But you find nothing incriminating, much to your relief.
Back in the truck, your partner directs you to go to Robert's school. "If he's still himself," he says grimly, "then your parents are probably okay too," he says. Your heart tries to hammer itself out of your chest at the thought that Robert might now be one of "them."
That's probably why you don't think to say anything as you pass the old elementary school on your way out to Robert's school.
* * * * *
There are lots of kids out front of Schuyler Middle School as you pull into the front parking lot, and you and Will crane your necks as you scan the crowd. "There he is," you point. Him and some of his idiot friends are leaning against the wall.
"Robert! Hey, piss-face!" Will yells. Robert turns with a glare. He stares, and then advances slowly toward the truck. "Hurry up, I don't got all day!" Will calls again. Robert trots forward a little more quickly.
And then his eyes fall on you. He stops, and his expression turns hooded. Will pounds on the side of the truck.
Robert springs away, running back into the building. "Shit!" your double yells, and leaps from the cab. "Come on, Prescott, move it!"
But it takes you a minute to pull yourself together. Your limbs have gone limp with horror. There is no reason Robert should have run away. No reason the real Robert should have.
But then you get it in gear, and run hard after your double and your ... Well, you can still hope it's your brother. But he has vanished, and as you pound up and down the hallways, looking in all the classrooms, you can find no sign of him.
"Come on, we'll get the office to call him on the intercom," Prescott says, and the two of you sprint back toward the front. He has to show ID before they will summon Robert, and you and he sit down, to jog legs nervously.
They repeat the summons, and you get them to repeat it a third time. Robert doesn't come. "Ma'am, it's really important," Prescott pleads.
"Does he have a cell phone," the receptionist asks in a tired tone. "Maybe you could try that?"
Prescott hesitates, and you can read his mind: Robert will recognize his brother's number. "I forgot it at home, and my friend here doesn't--"
She sighs, and takes out her own, and dials the number he gives her. "There's no answer," she says after a minute, and returns to her work.
You and Prescott look at each other. Surreptitiously, he takes out his own phone and dials. Over and over again when there is no answer.
Twenty minutes later, a custodian comes in, and says he needs an administrator's help. You and your colleague quietly trail along behind. They lead you to a janitor's closet. Inside, dressed in his clothes, is a thing that looks like an uncannily exact stone reproduction of Robert Prescott. The phone in his pocket is tweeting loudly.
* * * * *
Will Prescott lays claim to it as his brother's "property," and the school lets you transfer it to the truck. There is no sign of a mask. "One of his friends is also a golem," Will says grimly as you lay it in the truck bed. "Or a teacher. We need to go by your house again."
But now you have remembered the basement, and something that golem-Tsosie had left there: A copy of a new spell, traced out by the golems.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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