Felixentric

Scene 30

It didn't take long for Felix to find Hen perching above the city buildings like a gargoyle statue. Felix didn't realize how much he looked like a wingless dragon until that point, but was sure his own goblinish face gave onlookers the same chills.

When Hen came down, he wasn't smiling. In fact, he looked like he'd just walked out of a funeral. "What did you do to him?" Hen whispered. His arms were crossed and he was shaking his head.

"No. I think the question is: what did you?" Felix didn't know whether to yell or cry. It seemed like he was supposed to do one of them, at least, but neither came.

"I picked him up from the street..." the quiet voice came. "I know it's hard to grasp. I know it's a lot..."

"A lot?" Felix stuttered.

Hen took a step back.

"'A lot' would be something big, but only one thing. Like learning that your best friend has been in a car accident or like you aren't going to graduate high school." The night was getting particularly chillier than other nights had been. He could see his breath in the air. "But, apparently, my thought-to-be late twin is alive, being mind-controlled by someone I thought was my friend, and-. Actually, I'm not completely sure about the rest. But I know about ten world-shifting, informational meetings just hit me at once." Plus, it turns out that I'm not God. The last four years of my life were useless and stupid. I might be Satan instead... "It's not 'a lot.' It's a meteor crashing to Earth."

"I'm sorry."

"What?" Hen? Sorry?

"I knew it would be hard to understand. I was going to tell you about him, but I didn't know when to do it. Who would?" He mocked himself, "Hey, by the way... The center of your motivational universe is alive. You thought you saw him die, but you were wrong! Doesn't that sound awful? Tacky?"

Felix shook his head. "But what actually happened was tacky too. Uncalled for, even. Why not invite me over for a cup of tea, give a melodramatic introduction, and then bring him out from behind a doorway? Why couldn't we have done it a nice way, with hugs and light tears? Isn't that what you wanted the team to be? A family? What happened to that idea?"

Hen grit his teeth. "I wasn't going to tell you tonight. You still have to master as Reli and then we have to worry about saving the world. By then, when your head was in the game, I was going to show you Hale."

"Then why did you show me, tonight? Why are you inside my brother's head? Why was he afraid, calling you a monster?" Felix's voice was rising, but he didn't notice. It was a natural effect of the shock, building up in his upper chest as he tried reeling through every awful detail of the confusing night. "Who are you, and I mean really?"

"I know it looks bad."

"It looks like shit." Felix almost didn't even realize it when it came out - the first time he managed to curse in almost half a decade. He liked the way it rolled off his tongue. "I think you're just a load of fucking bullshit."

Hen swallowed in composition. "It's not mind control, Felix. I'm not trying to manipulate you or Hale. What happened to Hale was a special case and a very long story."

Felix was shaking. "Well, you're going to tell it to me now, because what worse can there be?"

"Two meteors." Hen bit his lip. But when Felix didn't interrupt, he sighed and went on with it. "When I found your brother, he was being dragged around Jupiter Forest. It was after the laboratory fire, but the scientists still had him. When he told them they wouldn't get any information about his ancestry, they wanted to probe into his consciousness and trick him into giving away the cultural secrets anyway. I think he knew it would help them better understand, science-wise, but he also knew giving that information up would be like giving you up. I don't-."