The Official Body Double

The problem with being a legend nobody's ever seen is that eventually, somebody offers money for a look. By year two, the bounty for a verified photo of Snotty had gotten silly — three magazines, one documentary crew, and a crypto guy named Chad had all posted rewards. The factory's response was, as always, silence. The Midnight Market's response was more practical: if the world wants a Snotty that badly, the market will provide one.

He appeared at the seventh-ever Midnight Market, during minute four of seven, at the table between Hex's cursed inventory and the churro stand (the Midnight Market has always had a churro stand; nobody set it up; nobody staffs it; the churros are excellent). Spiked yellow head like a jack-o'-lantern that lifts weights. Spray can in one hand. Jacket that said SNOTTY'S in letters that dripped correctly, which is the first thing everyone checks.

"I'm him," he announced, to the entire market. Then, into the stunned silence, with equal confidence: "I'm not him." Then he signed a tourist's hoodie 'SNOTTY (NOT REALLY) (OR AM I)' and the tourist fainted and the market gave him a standing ovation, and that was that. Decoy had hired himself.

The arrangement, as far as anyone can reconstruct it, was never formalized — which is remarkable, because Quackers formalizes everything, and the one time he was asked to draft Decoy's employment contract he produced a single page reading 'PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY (QUACK)' and billed for nine hours. What matters is the service Decoy provides, which is this: everywhere a Snotty needs to be seen, Decoy is seen. Everywhere a Snotty needs to not be seen, Decoy is also, somehow, seen — which mathematically proves the real Snotty was elsewhere. He is an alibi with legs.

The magazines got their photos. Three different covers, three different poses, all Decoy, all captioned 'SNOTTY, PROBABLY.' The documentary crew followed him for a month and produced ninety minutes of him spray-painting smileys and refusing to confirm or deny his own existence, which won an award for experimental cinema. Chad the crypto guy got a selfie, cried, and pivoted to farming.

But here's the thing the crew doesn't say loudly, the wrinkle that keeps the whole arrangement humming like a dead screen in the Static Fields: nobody hired Decoy. He was never smuggled in, never briefed, never paid. He walked out of the market crowd fully formed, knowing the handshake protocols, knowing where the real drops were hidden, knowing which rules were painted on which walls. When Bones — who trusts nobody and counts the silverware — ran his background check, he found records going back years. All of them plausible. None of them verifiable. All of them, when he looked a second time, very slightly different.

Bones took his concerns to the crew. The crew took them to Quackers. Quackers listened, opened his briefcase, removed a single laminated card, and slid it across the table. It read: DO NOT.

So they don't. Decoy signs the autographs, takes the photos, gives the interviews — 'What's Snotty really like?' 'Devastating. Humble. Great smell.' — and every so often, when the market crowd thins during minute six, he looks at the space where a camera isn't, and the spikes on his head tilt, just barely, like a hat being tipped by someone underneath it.

The lawyers insist Snotty exists. The lawyers refuse to say more. Decoy insists nothing, confirms nothing, denies nothing — and once a year, on no schedule anyone's found, exactly one of his autographs comes out signed in ink that hadn't been invented yet.

Those ones don't hit the resale market. Ever. Some things even collectors won't test.