Quoted By:
"With the creepy doctor. He didn't seem creepy, okay? At the time? I thought it was normal, how I felt after— and I think it is normal! It is normal. That's what happens when you stitch a fake fucking guy into you. You become a fake fucking guy. I was fake before any of this, Lottie, I..." He gestures limply at the deck chair. "It doesn't matter. He wasn't that creepy before he showed up in another guy's body; started babbling some cryptic horseshit. I assume Maddie told you about that?"
In another guy's body. "What cryptic horsestuff?"
"I can't remember. Something about a script. A herald...?"
"The <span class="mu-i">Herald?</span>"
"I don't know," Ellery says. "Maybe. It doesn't matter, because it's all horseshit, see? It's all—"
The Herald. The surgery nobody alive can do. Or is it nobody human? "Are you sure he wasn't a snake?"
"You're a real comedian, anyone ever tell you that? No, he wasn't a fucking— he had arms, last I checked. And a face. Had a beard, actually, the first time. Not the second time, only the first time. So yes, Lottie, I am actually pretty sure that he—"
Blah, blah, blah. Ellery doesn't know about snakes. There's a different thing, though. "How did the doctor find out about you?"
"Huh? I don't know. He was just stopping by, I guess, thought I looked like I needed some doctoring, thought—"
"Madrigal said he went right for you. Like he was visiting for you directly." You push your tongue into your cheek, thinking. "Were you working for Headspace before this?"
"Uh, yeah," Fake Ellery says. "I think I started pretty recently before that, but I was—"
"So Management knew about you?"
"Uh... I guess so? I don't know if we were having a lot of one-on-one interactions, but I guess they were... around? I was in the ledgers?"
But they knew. But they knew, but they knew, and they can probably see strings, can't they? Just like Richard. And you. You're looking at Fake Ellery now, not even closing your good eye, and his strings are right on top of him, and they're all in straight lines. Less fancy than Gil's. Just fake, fake straight lines. What did it look like before he was Fake Ellery, though? Back when he was Ellery? Or Ellery and that guy in his head? Did he make interesting shapes back then? Did he glow brightly? What did they see?
There is something here that you almost know, but you can't address it now. You don't really want to. It would open up more mysteries. The conspiracy web would unfurl and you'd be stuck inside it forever. Or something. Something like that. It's something you kind of want Richard here for, so you can blame it on him, so he can hug you tight, or something in the middle. You don't know. You miss Richard.
But Richard is not here. Fake Ellery is here, and he is squeezing the stick he was whittling, hard. "Gods, I am such a fucking <span class="mu-i">dickhead.</span>"
(4/5)
