Mrs. Fairfax turned to Felix's sister "Tina, go get your brother the apparently deaf genius and have him come down here to help your father"
Tina nodded and ran up to Felix's room where she found the door already open. She peaked her head in, expecting to find Felix still asleep on the bed lying atop some book. Instead, she saw that the room was empty though one light was still on. Tina went to the top of the stairs and called down "Mom! He's not deaf. He's not even here. Maybe he's at Tony St. Martin's house or something?"
Mrs. Fairfax shrugged. Maybe that was it. She couldn't recall his having said anything but Felix was such a reliable boy there was nothing to worry about. Thoughts of her son Felix were quickly replaced by her efforts helping Mr. Fairfax, now wielding a hammer and not the gun he'd brandished for a few seconds, to repair the front doorway.
Meanwhile, Tina returned to her older brother Felix's room. Tina was 14 to Felix's 16. While she loved Felix, their relationship had not been without friction. She'd always felt a little intimidated by Felix's smarts. She'd always been a bit envious of him having his friend Tony with whom to talk about books and things. None of her friends had ever cracked a book unless required to for school. There were a couple girls who did, but they were goths or extreme whack jobs. Tony was more than just socially acceptable. He was gorgeous. On top of that, her mother always subtly steered her away from the same interests. Felix was a good big brother to her but his occasional digs about her intelligence rankled.
She advanced into Felix's room. Why was the light on if he wasn't around? And why was the adapter still plugged into the laptop computer on his desk? Tina stood over it and absentmindedly swirled her finger over the touch pad. Tony's, right? Or does it belong to Tony's friend Jeff, from the football team? As she tried to decide who was its actual owner, the machine whirred to life.
"Wait a minute. Felix left the machine on? Felix?!" That seemed odd. Felix was so fastidious about things, especially if the item belonged to someone else.
Then, with a hum of some classical music that she couldn't recognize the screen burst into a display with the two sides split down the middle.
"What the . .?"
It took Tina a minute to realize what she was looking at. Chronivac? Transformation? Profile this, profile that? It was a lot to take in at once, but there on the left side was a slowly spinning picture of a jackass, a donkey just like the one that had somehow crashed into their front door.
And there, above the picture of the donkey, the screen said
"PROFILE 7 - FELIX FAIRFAX"
"New weight 671 pounds"
New height, new waist size, new this, new that, even new penis size. There were listing for every part of the donkey. Felix.
It took Tina several moments to wrap her mind around the situation. Then, she let out a burst of laughter. "Felix . . turned himself . . into a jackass!? He-he turned himself into a jackass. Ahahahaha!" Then covered her mouth. Oh my god!
She clicked on the 'Help' button, sat down at the desk and started reading. She went back and forth between accepting it all and thinking it was bullshit. She started scrolling through all the profiles. All of Felix's friends were there. Tony. Claire. Jack. Tony's younger brother Mark and Tony's friends Jeff and Eric. She got the program to show the supposed last transformation and saw a naked image of Felix change into the image of the donkey. She played it again and then again but remembered that there were programs available that morphed one picture into another. And what a fantastic list of these supposed transformations! Greyhounds, lemurs, gorillas, anthropo-werewolves? Tina swung back to believing it was some fantasy game bullshit.
Then she looked out Felix's window and saw the jackass, the one that had smashed their front door. A square of light from that same window projected into the woods at one corner of the Fairfax back yard. Tina clicked back to the initial screen. She compared the jackass on the screen to the one in the woods. Identical. She smirked and opened the window.
"Felix?" she called out in a shouted whisper.
She saw the jackass sort of hem and haw and sigh then nod its head emphatically.
"You're my brother Felix?"
The jackass nodded again.
"Alright, one last test. If you're Felix, nod three times"
See saw the jackass sigh as though reluctant and then nod its head three times. She stepped away from the window and flopped onto his bed. She put her face down against his pillow and laughed hysterically as she slapped the bed with delight.
"Oh my god" she said catching her breath as she made her way back to the window and tried to consider all the possibilities.
"Come closer" she whisper shouted to the jackass that she now accepted was Felix. She saw the beast look left and right and then step slowly forward.
Tina typed as fast as she ever had, grinning all the while. Who's the stupid one, Felix, you jackass?
Outside, a nervous Felix felt the familiar electric wave pass through the 671 pounds of his jackass body. "Wh-what's happening to me?" Felix wondered anxiously as his transformation began.