by K. Weikel
Chapter 17
Getting into the city of masks is an easy thing to do when you aren’t hidden behind the mask of one of the most important people inside of it.
Becca receives several hello’s and how-are-you’s as she walks down the street. She tries not to respond, afraid her voice will give her away. That fact never crossed her mind as she was creating the plan.
She marches on anyway, headed directly for city hall with her fingers crossed in hope that no one notices that she’s not who she says she is.
Eduard keeps himself near her, ready to spring into action now that Victoria isn’t around to save Becca’s butt if anything goes wrong.
Becca makes her way up the front steps of the big building, taking deep breaths and trying not to psych herself out, though she knows that one wrong move could mean her death.
“Excuse me, Belle,” a man says, stepping out in front of Becca. “Your ID?”
“My ID?” Becca asks, trying to sound more mature than she is.
“Yes ma’am. We were told to start checking them since someone claimed you were an imposter.”
Becca laughs, hoping he doesn’t hear the nervousness present in her voice. “Imposter? Heaven’s no,” she says, trying to impersonate her mother. Maybe that’s what Belle had sounded like. “I’m sorry, sir, I think I might have left my ID at home.” Becca pats her pockets. “I was not warned I needed it.”
The man nods, his white mask covered with red lines, reminding Becca of a plaid shirt.
“I understand, ma’am. Just have it next time, please? If you lost it, you can get another one just inside.”
“Thank you,” Becca nods and begins to walk away, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Miss Belle?” The man calls again, making Becca’s heart beat a thousand times faster than normal as she turns around.
“Yes?”
“Are you okay? You sound… different.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” Becca says, smiling underneath her mask even though he can’t see her. “I’m just a bit sick.”
He seems to buy it as he turns around, nodding.
Becca tries to open the doors calmly, but she feels like she opens them too fast and steps through too eagerly. She takes a few deep breaths to calm herself down.
“Calm down,” she hears Eduard through her earpiece. “You don’t want to alarm anybody.”
Becca makes her way to the center of the building, looking for the ID place. Should she get one? Probably, if she doesn’t want to get stopped next time. The next guard most likely won’t be as nice as the one out there now.
There’s a short wooden counter with the word ID plastered on the front of it in bold blue letters. Becca walks up to it, and the man behind the counter wearing a white mask with purple swirls on his cheeks looks up at her.
“Hello, Belle. How can I help you?”
“I need another ID. I seem to have misplaced my old one.”
“Right,” he says. “Understood, we all do that. I just need you to tell me your birthdate.”
“My birthdate?” Becca says. “Why do you need that?”
“To confirm you’re the real you.”
Becca laughs. “Isn’t my mask enough to prove that I am who I say I am…” she looks down at his nametag placed on his left shirt pocket. “…Marv?”
He sighs. “I know, Belle, but someone claimed that you were an imposter.”
“By who? A white-mask?” She spits.
“No, a black—”
“Then why are you even listening to them? That’s what the Black Clan does, Marv! They lie and cheat and steal. Do you have a brain up there?” Becca turns around to see Quill, hoping she can use him as an excuse to get away. “There’s Quill. He wouldn’t be happy about you holding me up, now would he?”
“I guess not but, Belle—”
“Give me the stupid ID card right now.”
It takes a moment for Marv to get to work. He finally prints one out from the tiny printer placed at his left side and hands it to Becca.
“Thank you,” she says and turns around.
Quill is walking up to her, but she tries not to panic.
“There’s the Belle I know,” Quill says, laughing. “Always pushing someone around.”
Becca feels a surge of pride as she shrugs casually. She’d pulled off Belle. Good. She just has to keep acting like a jerk then, she hopes.
Quill drapes one arm around her as he walks through the center of the building, pulling her away from the ID desk.
“So, how’s my number one doing?” He asks.
“Just a bit under the weather,” Becca responds, hoping he doesn’t recognize her voice.
“Ah. Well I hope that doesn’t change the way you make decisions,” he chuckles. “Remember: we’re meeting in an hour to discuss what we’ve all come up with. Meet me back here then, or else.”
“Or else?” Becca asks before she can stop herself.
Quill chuckles. “You know what else, Belle. See you in an hour.”
He releases her and heads back the other way.
Two more people flock to her. One of them is a girl and has bright pink and gold sparkles all over her mask, and the other one is a man with sharp, yellow designs all over his. They’re holding up papers and the girl holds a cup with a small straw to fit through the small hole in the mask where Becca’s mouth is.
“Here are your papers for the meeting,” the man says as he hands her the stack of papers he holds.
“And here’s your coffee,” the girl says.
Becca had never had coffee before. She slips the straw through the hole as she listens to the two people ramble about the meeting.
They start talking about masks and that the government should start taking pictures of people’s faces with their mask so they know whose mask is whose, but Becca isn’t listening because of the coffee. It touches her tongue and she decides she doesn’t like it. She hands it back to the girl, disgusted by the coffee’s presence.
“What do you think about it?” The girl asks as she takes the cup from Becca.
Becca shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“But you always have an opinion on what to do,” the man says as they walk through the halls and Becca follows them as they take a right down a hallway. Where are they going?
“Well, okay,” Becca says, having to remind herself that she’s not Becca, but Belle. “Our society is built on these masks that hide our faces and by taking photos of them, it would contradict the whole system.”
“How so?” The girl asks and Becca stifles a groan.
“Because our faces show our shame and our guilt,” Becca says with some sadness playing in her voice realizing what she’s saying. “We’re supposed to hide that, and when we take pictures of our faces, those regrets and guilts are stuck in time and will never change.”
The two people grow quiet as they walk down the hallway and stop at a door. Had Becca said the right thing?
“Alright,” the girl says, opening the door and walking inside. “Now we just have to tell Quill about it, and we only have an hour to make our case.”
. . .
The hour goes by fast as they talk about the pictures of the faces. If they started doing that, the Maskless would be discovered immediately. None of them have their original masks, except for Becca, who keeps hers broken and melted at the bottom of her backpack below her gun.
They meet up with Quill in the center of the building. The girl, whose name is Paige, and the man, who’s name is Damien, leave Becca with a folder of research and the leader. The other five people show up and Quill claps his hands together once.
“Let’s get started, shall we?” He says, looking at each person standing around him. He starts to walk in the other direction of the building, and the highest ranking white and black masks shuffle after him like bugs chasing a light.
“Now what about the pictures for the faces and masks together?” Quill asks after a few of
the other masks had spoken. Becca jumps forward and tells him what she knows about it (what she learned from the past hour) and why she stands the way she does.
Quill nods and turns around toward the people following after him, walking backwards.
“Someone has a brain!” He exclaims, laughing. “Excuse us for a moment.”
He grabs Becca’s arm and pulls her through a door to their left without missing a step. He lets go as she steps through the doorway, trying to look as grown-up as possible. He shuts the door while his back is turned to her.
“So you’re against it?” He says, turning around.
“Yes sir. I believe that it would contradict everything we stand for.”
“Everything I stand for, you mean?” Quill seems to growl, and it takes Becca by surprise.
“Excuse me?” She asks politely.
He quickly walks forward toward her and pushes her up against the wall on the opposite side of the room. Fear makes her feel cold and her stomach ties itself in knots.
“I will find out who you are, imposter. Just watch your back. You call yourself the Face of the rebellion but why choose that name when you grew up without one? Your ‘friends’ are only using you. You don’t know who you are. You’re not a face, you’re just an empty mask.”
Becca watches in horror as his black eyeholes stare into hers. She almost feels like he’s going to melt the mask off of her face and find out she is, though he’s never seen what she looks like.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes out. “I have no idea—”
“Yes. Yes you do. And you can’t take my power from me.”
He lets go of her shoulders and turns around to head back out the door. Becca can hear the voices of the masks outside in the hallway as Quill steps out.
The door clicks behind him, leaving her all alone in the room and not knowing what to do next.
