Scary Stories: Continued

23

It cost me a lot of money and a dead special-ops cop to get the facesuit. So I shouldn't be complaining, not with all the scanners oblivious of my age and income, generic ads showing up on screens and walls and elevator doors.

I'm invisible. A fake profile shows up when people glance at me through their hololenses. I'm not on any of the friends lists. Machines pick from the top of the curve, offering me a mid-sized car, a mid-sized house and a can of Coke. All the database searches come up empty.

I look at my face in a bathroom mirror, still unfamiliar, still alien after years of use. I clench both fists and resist the urge to take the facesuit off.

I know exactly what would happen. Within seconds, a retina scanner built into the mirror recognizes my true identity. My photo shows up on police scanners. Police drones, flying and crawling, flock towards the mall. I'm grabbed, I'm taken away, and then I'm made to pay for the information I've stolen. The man who had built the facesuit for me - randomized retinas, expressions and facial features hacked on top of the dead cop's software - couldn't tell me what, exactly, would happen if I'm caught. "Nothing good," he said.

I resist the urge, as succumbing means death. But it's getting harder. I used to spend a lot of time at home. I'd carefully peel off the thin layer of fake skin and nanochips, and look at my real face, sometimes for hours. But then they installed the scanners in every room of every home and every hotel, anything with walls. Personal protection scanners - PPS - they called them. They work in the dark. They never pause. And just like that, my facesuit removal privileges were revoked.

I haven't seen my face in more than a year, now. There might still be PPS-free places out there - dilapidated old buildings, cheap motels - but the risk is too great. I just keep the facesuit on at all times. I'm free to move around the city, but the price is high.

I take another look at my reflection. My black eyes (once green) look back, curiously. The corners of my pale, thin lips (once full), show a hint of a smile, even without my intention; a glitch in the software. I try to fake a wider smile, but the expression in the mirror doesn't change.

It's not just the face. While my real profiles lay dormant, monitored by the authorities, the mask's profile has taken a life of its own. Apparently, the mask loves cappuccinos (I loathe them). I get discounts on them. The mask is into tall blondes (I prefer short brunettes). I've dated a tall blonde, briefly.

The face in the mirror is still grinning. Is it me being so amused or is it the mask? Am I still me, underneath? Do I wear the facesuit, or does the facesuit wear me?