The Imposters Among Us

“I know who they are, and have heard of them, but I can’t say I’m friends with them.”

Mark looked at Katie’s text again. This just confirmed it. Emily and Rae were up to something, he just didn’t know what. For Mark, this was incredibly frustrating.

“Hmm, what do you think Gabby?” Mark asked the frozen form of Gabriella Borbón. The Hispanic girl was currently sitting naked on Mark’s lap, and had a blank look on her face. If she had any idea what to do, she didn’t say a thing. Gabriella couldn’t.

“What about you two.” Mark asked the two other women in the room, referring to, PhoebePage and Dawn Chavez. Like Gabriella, both teens were silent, and both were naked. Mark had posed Phoebe to be sitting at his desk, her legs crossed at the knees, her mouth slightly open with a blank look on her face. Dawn likewise was sitting on his bed, but with a joyful smile molded on her face, one of her tan legs raised, are arms behind her head. Since her was closer to her, he rubbed his Dawn dolls leg real quickly.

“Yeah, I think your right. I need to gather all the facts first. Find out all that I can and see if they are actually genuine or not. Only then should I take action. What would I do without you girls.”

None of the other occupants of the room responded. They hadn’t responded to anything in the week and a half since they were frozen in time. They couldn’t and never would again.

Looking down at his phone, he began to text Katie his rapidly forming plan.

Christmas soon came and went, and day after soon arrived. With the taking down of Christmas decorations, also came after holiday sales. It was in Mark and Katie’s option that some of the best stuff suddenly became available, what with people returning and exchanging presents they didn’t want.

“Thanks for inviting us along,” Rae Tucker said as the girl met with Mark, Katie, and Emily in the mall food court.

Lots no big deal, I could always use more friends. Though I’m not exactly a social butterfly, unlike Katie here,” Mark stated, which he noticed actually caused his girlfriend to blush. Emily actually giggled at this.

“I have to honest with you. I have a fairly wide social pool, but a shallow close one. It did take me a while to remember who you two were when Mark told me about you two.”

“Oh sorry,” Emily said. It wasn’t long, but Mark did notice a flash of fear come across the curly haired brunette’s face when Katie said this. He however held his poker face, and didn’t let his suspicions shine through.

“So, which store do you want to go to first,” Rae said, obviously trying to change the subject.

“Why don’t we go to the electronics store, I’m looking for a new laptop anyway,” Katie suggested.

“Sounds good to me,” Mark agreed.

Soon, both Rae and Emily agreed as well, and all four were on their way tot he’s tore in question. However as soon as the four of them crossed thread hold of the store, both Rae and Emily suddenly stopped in place. In fact, everyone I. The store, the mall, and whole world, stopped in place. Well, everyone but Mark Donovan.

“Katie start,” Mark said allowed.

Katie continued walking, but quickly bumped into Rae, causing the brunette in wobble in place. Katie quickly reached out her arms to stabilize the girl.

“Whoa, kind of freaky when this happens while walking,” Katie exclaimed before turning to Mark. “What’s up?”

“Rae and Emily,” Mark said bluntly.

“What about them?”

“Have you noticed anything funny about them?”

Katie scrunched her nose. Mark actually found this to be incredibly cute. “Now that you mention it, it does seem like they are trying to be too careful with what they say. I kind of thought maybe they were nervous at first and was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

“O.K, I can see how you would think that. But you weren’t there when I met them. I was in the corner of a bookshop, and Rae happened to bump into me. Then they already had their phone numbers on a slip of paper. It just seems all a little too inconvenient.”

Katie frowned at this. “Well, when you say it like that, it makes sense to be suspicious. What do you want to do about it?”

“I want to check their phones quickly and see if there is anything incriminating on there. I really hope there isn’t, as they both seem nice, but they also seem nice as dolls as well… so.”

“Got it,” Katie said before walking over to Rae and digging through her purse. Son she found a brand new iPhone. “If you will.”

“Rae’s phone start,” Mark said aloud.

The cell phone suddenly came to life, and Katie quickly grabbed Rae’s hand to unlock it. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for.

“Right here, holy shit,” Katie exclaimed, a look of fury starting to develop on her face.

“What is it?” Mark asked, not sure if he actually wanted the answer.

“Your right. Something is up with them. They are both being paid to spy on you!”

“What!” Mark exclaimed in shock.

“Who is wanting to spy on me?”

“Hmm, some chick named Delilah.”

Mark had a look of confusion on his face. “Who the fuck is Delilah?”

“Not sure,” Katie said with a. Frustrated look on her face, before suddenly becoming wide-eyed. “It does look like she’s rich though.”

“Why do you say that?” Mark asked as he approached Emily’s frozen figure and turned her around by the waist. This caused the girl to wobble in place on her heels briefly.

“There’s info about payment, quarter front, the rest later. Jesus.”

“What,” Mark asked as he groped Emily through her shirt.

“It looks like they were being paid 10 grand each to do this.”

Mark stopped, his hands still squeezing Emily’s breasts. “10 grad to spy on me. What the hell did I do?”

Katie gave her boyfriend an annoyed look. “Think, Mark, think. You froze three of our classmates permanently in time a week and a half ago. Then tried to cover up their disappearances. Clearly it didn’t work as well as we thought.”

“Well… fuck,” Mark exclaimed. He let go of Emily’s breasts and sat down on the floor. “O.K new plan. First off, these two are definitely getting frozen, permanently”, Mark declared, gesturing towards Rae and Emily.

“And how do you plan to cover their disappearances up? Clearly your last plan didn’t work as well as we thought.”

Mark looked to the two frozen girls again, low key panicking. “Well, uh…. obviously not right now. Too many cameras.”

“Why don’t you invite them to your house? If you're freezing them, you need to bring them there anyway. Might as well have them bring themselves instead of carrying them. Plus they will be able to get more info for their… contact, maybe set up a meeting with her so we can get more info on her as well.”

Mark looked to Rae and Emily again. “Yeah, O.K let’s do that.”

“And the excuse for these two disappearing?”

“Well… uh… obviously they left evidence on their phones about what they were doing right? You think that would be sufficient to throw anyone off?”

“Except it still mentions you right? Plus, whomever this Delilah is would have notes that implicate you, right?”

“Oh fuck,” Mark said desponded. He put his head in his hands, when suddenly he shot up again. “That’s it,” he declared, almost physically jumping for joy.

“What’s it?” Katie asked, confused by Mark’s sudden happiness.

“Don’t you see? This is the perfect opportunity to wrap everything up!”

“How,” Katie asked, very much confused.

“Someone who hires some girls to di her spying can’t be doing this legally, so this Delilah definitely doesn’t work for any law enforcement agency.”

“O.K,” Katie said, trying to nod along.

“That means, this must be a private investigation. And not a good one at that. I know from my dad that there are certain ethics that one must follow, and hiring two teenage girls to do your dirty work is definitely in violation of that. If someone looks into Rae and Emily’s disappearance’s, they will blame this Delilah woman.”

“I think I understand that they’ll primarily blame her, but that doesn’t get you off the hook, now does it?”

“Oh but it does,” Mark exclaimed.

“How so?”

“Well, like I said, their Delilah isn’t ethical, and that tends to go hand and hand with not being good at their job. When we find her, we destroy any actual evidence she might have that makes sense, and replace it with something completely incoherent that looks like the ramblings of a mad woman.”

Katie blinked a couple of times. “So your going to freeze this Delilah plus these two, and fake evidence to make it look like she was a mad woman who sent Emily and Rae to their doom.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, I guess its better than what I can come up with. From what I can tell from their texts, your not even mentioned by name.”

“Even better,” Mark exclaimed joyfully.

“So now what?”

“We put everything back, and continue on with our day. It doesn’t make sense to have them come over to my house just yet, but could at least suggest the idea.”

“O.K,” Katie said, shrugging. “Sounds like a plan.”

Soon, the two put Rae’s phone back and quickly took their positions. Mark then restarted time, and then four of them continued to walk into the store. For Rae and Emily, they were completely unaware of what just happened, or the fact that their fate was now sealed.