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The Fix had been eagerly talking to Pasha, not caring for anything else in the world.
He was so good at focusing. That was his whole deal, you know. But The Fix was so good at focusing, so good at making Elias focus, that he forgot to think about anything else. It meant that he had hurt people for Mark, just because that was what he had been told to do. Well, not just because he had been told to, but- He had been so focused on it, he had forgotten. Forgotten just what he was doing. Forgotten that hurting people had meaning. Forgot that one day he might be ordered to hurt someone he cared about, or a kid, or- That was all over now, of course. Best to focus on something else. The good things. Pasha, for instance. They had been talking about a rare species of adders, sitting at their kitchen table. Or, rather, Pasha had been talking, and The Fix had been listening. And focusing. Only on Pasha.
And somehow, in all that focusing, The Fix must have missed something, because he suddenly wasn’t next to Pasha at all.
She wasn’t next to him. She was, presumably, still sitting at their kitchen table. Perhaps even still talking about adders. It was The Fix that wasn’t at their kitchen table any longer. His coffee cup was still on the table, he thought, and Pasha was still sitting in her chair- But The Fix wasn’t. He was somewhere else. Somewhere The Fix didn’t recognise, but somewhere nonetheless. It looked like- well, it looked like a woodland. No buildings, anywhere, just trees and open plains and what looked like burrows in the ground. A lot of burrows, actually. And that was all the place really was. Burrows and trees, burrows and trees. The feeling of summer heat, blistering The Fix’s skin, and a bright sun in the sky, no clouds- This wasn’t Elias’s brain, The Fix decided. If there had been a woodland area in Elias’ brain, he would have already known about it. But-
The Fix had no idea how he had gotten here. And he couldn’t even ask anyone, because there was absolutely no one around.
At least, no one he could see. As far as The Fix was aware, he was alone. He was just plain alone. Which was odd. The Fix could only assume that he was still in somebody’s brain, even if he wasn’t in Elias’. It wasn’t like The Fix could exist outside of a brain, anyway. He was a collection of energy and neuron connections. So he was in somebody’s brain. But The Fix didn’t know what kind of brain had nothing in it. He had always assumed that even animal brains would have some sort of instinct inside of them. Which- was The Fix in an animal brain? How would that even work? Animals had different instincts, different feelings, different forms of their brains-
The Fix was shaken out of his fixation of animal brains when there was movement. There. To his left-
“Hi there!” A voice said. It was a tiny little thing, a bright orange colour, and it- it didn’t look like a person at all. If anything, it looked like a member of the mustelid family. A ferret, or a weasel- “You’re not a stoat. What’re you doing here?”
A stoat. Of course. “I don’t know,” The Fix admitted.
The stoat sounded like a kid, although The Fix wasn’t sure if the brain The Fix had (somehow) ended up in was a child, or if this was simply a younger, weaker part of this brain. Either way, The Fix knelt down, to talk to him.
“But I’m The Fix,” The Fix continued. “And I may look scary, but I’m not.”
“You don’t look scary,” the stoat said. Huh. Interesting. “You just look big.”
“Well, that’s good,” The Fix said. “I wouldn’t want you to be scared.”
“We don’t get scared, here in Jaysohn’s brain,” the young stoat continued. So that was who’s brain they were in. A person- a stoat (?)- named Jaysohn. “But if we did, I wouldn’t be scared of you, anyway.”
“Thank you,” The Fix said, slowly. “Now, can I know, what’s your name?”
“Yes!” The young stoat said. “I’m Truman! Also known as Trust.”
That made sense, with how quickly the kid had warmed up to The Fix. “Well, Truman, I was wondering- is there someone in charge, around here?”
“Oh, there sure is,” Truman said, nodding quickly. “There’s Ima, and there’s Kay, and there’s Harper and there’s Granny Zure, and-”
“Is there one person, who’s in charge?” The Fix asked, feeling bad about cutting the kid off.
“No,” Truman said, shaking his head. “We’re too young for that. We’re all just sort of- running around, you know. Playing tag! Hitting buttons!”
“Right,” The Fix said.
He remembered how it had been when Elias had been young, too. Some parts of the brain had grown up faster than others- but mostly, it had been a bit of a wreck of hormones and energy and fights on what to do.
“Thank you for answering my questions,” The Fix said, earnestly, even if he didn’t know what to do next. Or- Maybe he did. “Do you know anyone with a name like mine? ‘The Fix’?”
Truman shook his head. “No name like that.”
“Or maybe something similar,” The Fix said. He supposed that ‘The Fix’ wasn’t much of a name. He had had one, hadn’t he? A name. Not just a title. “Something like Hyper Fixation?”
“Oh, you mean Harper!” Truman said, nodding again. “Yeah, she’s great. Do you want to talk to her?”
“I would love to talk to her,” The Fix said. “Is it okay if I ask you more questions, too, as you take me to see her?”
“Yeah! As we walk!” Truman declared, and started bounding down the hill. The Fix had far longer legs, and yet still had to walk briskly to keep up. “Although- you might be a bit big, for the burrow. I might have to go in and tell Harper to come up?”
“That’s okay,” The Fix said. “I’m used to being too big for places.”
Truman shrugged. “So, what else did you want to ask me?”
“Has your- has the person whose brain this is- this Jaysohn, have they done anything weird, lately?” The Fix asked.
“We were just doing what we always do,” Truman said.
“And what’s that?” The Fix asked earnestly.
“Jump off rocks. Climb rocks. Do somersaults. Lick rocks. We licked this really good rock, actually-”
The Fix thought back to what Elias had been doing, now that he had left his previous job. He had begun doing research for a smaller, more ethical company, in between ice skating and dates, and- And he had been working with a geologist, hadn’t he? Elias’ speciality wasn’t rocks, but they had been working with some, anyway, and that was a strange coincidence. Huh.
“And then we threw the rock at Jaysohn’s sister Lila,” Truman said, continuing the story that The Fix hadn’t entirely heard.
“You threw a rock at your sister?” The Fix asked, flatly. He didn’t like the idea of siblings hating each other that much-
“And then she caught it, because Lila’s awesome ,” Truman said, his eyes bright and wide and- Okay. The Fix was fairly certain that the siblings didn’t hate each other, after all. “And then Lila dared us to lick this other rock, so we did, and then I got bored and left.”
“What did you do then?” The Fix asked.
“I left,” Truman said with a shrug. “Went to a further part of the burrow. Looked around. Saw you .”
“Right,” The Fix said. “And-”
“Oh!” Truman said, stopping suddenly next to a small hole in the ground. “We’re here!”
“This is your command center?” The Fix asked.
“Yep!” Truman said. “Like I said, you’re too big. But I’m gonna pop in, tell people about you, and then go and grab Harper, okay?”
“Okay,” The Fix said, slowly. “But just remember, not everyone is going to trust me as much as you do. I look kind of scary.”
“You keep saying that,” Truman said, with a pout. “I don’t see it. You’re not scary at all! We’ve faced much scarier things than you?”
“Like what?” The Fix asked. The kid was so young, what could he have-
“A bear!” Truman said. And- what? “A zombie bear. Driven by squirrels. Oh, and big scary yellow things that kind of looked like you! And the blue, but the blue’s not all that scary because it can bring stoats back to life-”
“ What ?” The Fix asked. Because. What.
“Bye!” Truman cried out, and then dove down the hole of the burrow, to presumably go find the stoat version of The Fix himself.
And so, The Fix was left alone. Again. With no more answers than when he had first arrived in this place. Or- he had answers, he supposed. He was in the brain of a stoat, somehow. With burrows, instead of train stations, and presumably a rock or a mound of dirt, instead of a switchboard. But The Fix still had the same amount of questions, at the very least. Even if some of them were new questions, he was still left with more than he knew what to do with. In fact- maybe he had more questions than he had started with, if only because he knew more about this place than he did before. It was a confusing place. And Truman was- he was well meaning, but quite a lot. The Fix just hoped that this ‘Harper’ person, their version of Hyperfixation, would be a bit more calm. Or at least easier to talk to-
“So,” Truman said, popping out of the ground once again. He was frowning this time, an out of place expression on Truman’s normally so cheerful face. “Harper’s not here.”
“Do you know where Harper is?” The Fix asked. “Is she out somewhere further? I don’t mind to walk-”
“No,” Truman said. “I mean Harper’s not here . At all. Like how you’re here now, Harper’s not here.”
“I switched with her?” The Fix asked.
Truman shrugged. “I dunno. But apparently, she was in the burrow with everyone else, watching what Jaysohn was doing- licking rocks, obviously- when she just. Disappeared. In front of everyone. I wasn’t there, obviously, but-”
“I switched with her,” The Fix repeated, confident of that, this time. Okay. So he couldn’t discuss this with himself then, so- “Is there anyone else I can speak to, then?”
“Yep!” Truman said, with another emphatic nod. “I’ll go get them all!”
“Wait, them all ?” The Fix asked. He had meant one person. Or maybe two-
But Truman was already gone down the burrow again. The Fix supposed that learning that Harper was gone was important. A good thing to know. But it gave him no real knowledge, nothing for him to focus on or memorise. It just- was a thing he knew. A detail he didn’t have any context for. And even if he did have the context- The Fix wasn’t all that great at pointing puzzles together by himself. He just focused. That was his job. Focused and memorised and focused some more. And, besides, even if Harper not being there was something it wasn’t all that helpful. Now The Fix had nobody to talk to besides Truman. And whoever Truman was, apparently, going to go fetch from the tunnels below The Fix’s feet. He just hoped that whoever came out of the tunnel, they would be ca- Suddenly, a whole array of different coloured stoats burst out of the top of the burrow. They all swarmed The Fix, asking questions and doing somersaults and wondering who he was and- And it reminded The Fix a lot of the kids at the orphanage, actually. Not that they were at the orphanage anymore.
“Okay, okay,” The Fix said. “I can’t hear you all if you’re talking at the same time. And you want to be able to hear you, right?”
There was a pause and then- thankfully- they began to talk one at a time?
“Why do you look like that?” A pink stoat said.
“This is what people look like, in the brain I come from,” The Fix explained. He barely finished saying that, when another stoat began asking a question.
“You come from another brain? What brain? What’s that like?” A green stoat asked.
“The brain of Elias Hodge,” The Fix answered. This really just was like the orphanage. Huh.
“Why does your stoat have two names?” Another stoat asked.
“Because,” The Fix said, slowly. “I don’t come from the brain of a stoat. I come from the brain of a human.”
Every single stoat around The Fix gasped.
“What do you mean, you don’t come from a stoat?” A blue stoat asked, as they somersaulted across the ground.
“I mean, that I come from another kind of being,” The Fix said. “On two legs, with hair on the top of our head-”
“The yellow guys!” Another stoat cried out.
“Is your brain nice?” Asked a different stoat, this one light grey.
“Oh, yes,” The Fix promised. “Very nice indeed.”
“Good,” a yellow stoat said. “Nice brains are good.”
“Indeed they are,” The Fix said.
“So, what’s your name?” Another stoat asked, as he chased another of the stoats.
He could barely even keep track of their colours, they were all running around so fast. “The Fix,” he answered, after a second.
“That’s not a name,” another stoat whined. “Not your job, what’s your name ?”
“That is my name,” The Fix said. “I’ve always been The Fix.”
Well, maybe not always, but- for all the time that mattered, anyway.
“Really?” A purple stoat asked. “Your parents named you The Fix?”
“Well- no,” The Fix admitted.
But it wasn’t like he had parents, not like some people in the brain did. He had just sort of appeared, with a name. And then Mark Bition had found him, and given him a new name. A stronger name. A better name.
“Is it a bad name?” Another stoat asked, as they did a little flip. “Is that why you don’t want to say it?”
“It’s not a bad name,” The Fix admitted. “It’s just not a name that I’ve used in a long, long time.”
“Why not?” The first stoat asked.
“It doesn’t suit me,” The Fix admitted. “It’s too nice a name.”
“Well, you’re nice,” a fifth stoat said. “So I don’t see what the problem was.
“He thinks he’s scary,” Truman whispered. Very loudly. He didn’t think the kid actually knew how to whisper yet. “That’s why he doesn’t think his name suits him.”
“Well I don’t think you’re scary,” a loud stoat declared.
That caused all the stoats to break out into a mob of cheers. Some proclaiming how un-scary he was. Some declaring that he was nice. Some just asking to learn his name, over and over and over again. It was a familiar thing, being hit by this much fascination and wonder at once, especially by children. He had never had it turned on him quite like this, however. Never had so many people all fascinated by him . For so long, he had just been a man in the shadows. This much spotlight on him was a lot . But that wasn’t really why he felt so nervous. The truth was, The Fix hadn’t said his old name, his first name, his true name, in a long time. Not since Mark had labeled him ‘The Fix’, so long ago. So- The Fix was just nervous, plain and simple. But- well, this was the best place as any to say his name The Fix decided. He would find his way out of here, eventually, and they would never see him again. And- well, maybe it would be nice, to say his name out loud, for once.
“Felix,” The Fix said, quietly. “My name is Felix.”
And then- The Fix was back. Just like that, he was back.
Had he missed something again? The Fix doubted it. He hadn’t been focused on one thing in particular, at the time. That would have been impossible, considering just how many stoats there had been to focus on. And how many questions they had all asked. There was no way that The Fix could have just missed something happening, was there? Normally, The Fix was liable to miss a few things. Turns while walking. Hunger signs. Bits of conversation that weren’t interesting to him. But there had been no big flash of lightning. No announcement of what was to come. No button that The Fix had pressed. Nothing of the sort.
It really had happened that quickly. The Fix had just- said his name, and then he was back .
Back at his kitchen table with Pasha. She looked as startled as could be, when he came back. She confirmed that she had disappeared, although no one had actually arrived in his place. So- maybe Harper hadn’t switched with him, after all? But, then again, The Fix hadn’t arrived where Harper had been, so why would she have arrived where he had been? For all The Fix knew, Harper could have been running around Mentopolis. And with a stoat that small, and a city that big, who knew if anyone would have even seen her? Still- The Fix was, in fact, fixating on the mystery of what had just happened. Pasha didn’t have many ideas, although she was interested, so-
So The Fix set off into the night, like he had, so many times before. Not to hunt down a rogue thought, not anymore, but instead to hunt down his- his friends. For their help.
And help, they did. Or, at the very least, they had a lot of ideas. The Fix didn’t know how much the ideas actually helped, but- Well, they at the very least offered one thing. They had all had the exact same experience. Or, rather, not the exact same experience. They had all disappeared from Elias’ brain and reappeared somewhere else. But the brains that had arrived in, were different. And not just different, but strange. An imp-like creature, a brain with a wolf- It was all so strange. They all had stories, though. A lot of stories. And yet, none of them had any answers as to what had actually happened to them.
But The Fix knew that they would find out together.