And so, by the time the work was done and he was dressed in too-big
clothes that hung over his sunken chest and spindly legs like a tent, he
was quite sober and quite clean and quite different.
"You look fine," Adam said, as Brent fingered his chin and watched the
reflection in the full-length mirror on the door of Alan's study. "You
look great."
"I look conspicuous. Visible. Used to be that eyes just slid off of
me. Now they'll come to rest on me, if only for a few seconds."
Andy nodded. "Sure, that's right. You know, being invisible isn't the
same as being normal. Normal people are visible."
"Yeah," Brad said, nodding miserably. He pawed again at the smooth
hollows of his cheeks.
"You can stay in here," Alan said, gesturing at his study. The desk and
his laptop and his little beginning of a story sat in the middle of the
room, surrounded by a litter of access points in various stages of
repair and printed literature full of optimistic, nontechnical
explanations of ParasiteNet. "I'll move all that stuff out."
"Yeah," Billy said. "You should. Just put it in the basement in
boxes. I've been watching you screw around with that wireless stuff and
you know, it's not real normal, either. It's pretty desperately
weird. Danny's right -- that Kurt guy, following you around, like he's
in love with you. That's not normal.
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