Chapter 2: Paper Thin Disguise
Alright, don't panic, weird shit happens all the time. Besides, I already know where to expect... myself? I guess? Screw it, Felix. I know where to expect Felix, and now I have plenty of time to dig up some dirt on him. I can prove he's not out for blood, and also learn more about his actual backstory. Him killing his doppelganger had to be an outlier, right? First I should probably find Felix. Heck, this makes things so much more complicated than it needs to be. I should probably find some things in this room first. I have a rough idea on where things are, but there's always more that I haven't seen before.
The back room wasn't all that great, but it still was something. Felix seemed to sleep in this room tonight (not sure if he does every night) with the entire series of Lost playing on the TV. On the low table in front of the chair sat a half-empty pot of coffee and... a bottle of whiskey. It seemed to be freshly opened and I couldn't tell if it had been drank from or not, it was still pretty full. Next to that were some paper scraps with some numbers on them. Next to one of the sets of numbers (7848433) was “SH”, not sure what that means. Above all this was the number 2005. Something was on Felix's mind, for sure. I headed out doing my best to resemble Felix. The more inconspicuous I am, the better. Hopefully he has the same mentality.
I walk out of the capitol and glance around. Everything seems just a touch different, but I can't explain why. Nothing seemed out of place. I headed out, greeting a few of the people I came across. Felix would have done that, right? I tried to fake his accent but it just sounded more like a Wisconsinite doing a bad Jack McBrayer impression. Whatever, close enough. I came across what should be my house, and knocked on the door. I expected normal, at least something subtle. Felix knows what I look like, how I dress, right?
“Oh hey,” said the person who answered the door with a giggle, “Felix!”
It was like staring into a mirror that needs to be fired. The girl who opened the door was clearly me, at one point, but had done up their hair into ridiculous twin tails, and was wearing a cream-colored button-down shirt and a skirt (that I had no idea I owned), as well as black thigh-high socks and low dress shoes. God, I never wanted to punch something more in my life. “Felix, what the ever-loving christ do you think you're doing,” I asked.
“Oh hey, Ash! Ain't this a bit of a role reversal!”
God, his accent, so sickeningly honeyed, weirdly southern for a Boston-born Oregonian. And in my voice, sounded completely wrong. I hated this so much. “Felix," I said in a hushed tone, "you couldn't even be a little subtle, could you? I don't dress like that!”
“Yeah, and neither do I. Three buttons? I usually go for two on the vest this time of year. And where's the hat?”
“Felix, I need you to concentrate. Francisco clearly has access to more files than you thought. All he can do is swap them, but that's still enough to do... this. Shouldn't you be treating this with at least a little urgency?”
“Ash,” Felix began, “after the other day, I've had a lot on my mind. I didn't want to have to do what I did, haven't had to for years. I just needed some time to myself, a clean slate. And now I have that. C'mon, Ash. We can reverse whatever damage when we get the ch--”
“A clean slate?! That isn't no clean slate, man, that's me. Here, we should at least head back to the capitol and figure out what theydo have access to. That'd be a good start.”
He sighed and followed along to the capitol. I tried to push the bookcase to the side, but it wouldn't move. Felix picked up the phone on the desk and pressed a lot of buttons quickly, and it slid open. He then quickly hopped down the steps like a kid and up to the terminal, at which point he ran some tool to look at login history. A number of logins appeared, including a decent chunk of entries from between 11PM and 3AM today. “There, that has to be Francisco. Or maybe Twitch. Can't you pull a location?”
“Well, I could,” he said.
All the locations we got were mostly unusable. Some were from the park, others from a cafe. A couple of them were actually in downtown, kind of where mom works. The list suddenly closed. He pulled it back up, and the most recent one to appear was 6 seconds ago, just outside my house. “He's trying to change something again,” I said, “can you figure out what?”
“Uh, gimme a moment... well, nothing changed, just some things switched. Just looks like some of those invisible trigger objects. But see, the thing is, I can't fix them. They already covered their tracks!”
“So what then?”
“Here, let me load this Modifier up with some software... and I'll keep this handy. We just need to wait for a new change, and this will now tell us when something changes. So now, we just need to wait.”
“So that's at?”
“Yeah, I guess. Well, I'll give the capitol a call when it happens. See ya!”
Felix skipped out of the capitol, and I slumped against the wall. This seemed hopeless. There is no way in hell Felix could keep his cover at this rate. I don't know what to do with any of his stuff. Well, at the very least, I can start uncovering some actual info on the man. I sifted through his pockets and found a wallet and a flip phone. There were a couple calls to some 800 numbers, and a mobile phone port of Oblivion (which I had no idea was a thing), but nothing else of importance on the phone. The wallet was just as bland, with about $80 in cash, another dollar in change, a Boston library card, and a photo of some grassy hill. I sighed.
I checked that barred door again, but it just seemed to be another workshop again, nothing too fantastic. At the very least, I can go make sure Felix doesn't get into any trouble. If he gets arrested, that's my record it goes on. 678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPxmpH05SI3
This is gonna suck.
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