Boy 2.0: Chapters 5–7

“He’s here!” Jackson shouted. “You’re here!” he added, a little less loudly.
There was simultaneous commotion and sighs of relief.

“You’re filthy,” Doc said. “Something happened. Do you need water?”
Coal shook his head. Jackson brought him a cold glass anyway.
Doc took his wrist and checked his pulse. She looked at Jackson and raised her eyebrows almost imperceptibly.
“Have a seat,” Jackson said. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“The total upheaval of your life in the space of a few hours is enough. I understand,” she said.
Coal shook his head. “So what now?”
“Now you rest,” Doc said. “It’s the best thing for your mind and your body. You sleep and we’ll see how you are when you wake up in the morning.”

“So go straight to bed, then,” Doc said. “I can give you some melatonin to help you relax and fall asleep. You’ll be surprised how much a good night’s sleep can help you.”
Coal knew sleep would not do anything to help him. His head swirled with questions.

Coal got out of bed and went to the bathroom. He opened the browser on his phone and typed invisible people. Hundreds of articles flooded the screen about people who were marginalized: immigrants, refugees, people living in poverty.

Coal got out of bed and went to the bathroom. He opened the browser on his phone and typed invisible people. Hundreds of articles flooded the screen about people who were marginalized: immigrants, refugees, people living in poverty.

He searched again, this time for invisible skin, which brought him to a few boring scientific papers about synthetic compounds that cover and heal skin damage, a few articles about burn victims, and what seemed like thousands of products about making your skin look better all being hawked by stock-photo doctors.

He knew he couldn’t have possibly heard the click of the gun. But it was there in his memory anyway, along with the look on the man’s face. It looked twisted. Actually twisted, like his features were being slowly sucked down a drain. The more Coal thought about it, the more the man’s face morphed into something unrecognizable.

Coal tiptoed downstairs and to the back of the house where Doc’s office was.
He flicked the switch. The room flooded with light that was too stark against the darkness of the rest of the house. He turned it back off, and then used the flashlight on his phone instead. Less efficient, but less conspicuous.

Skin, the largest organ in the body, had pages and pages of references. Coal squinted through every one of them and his stomach tightened when he came across skin changes, but those were changes caused by age, trauma, surgery. He dug down through the descriptions of skin changes due to trauma. None of them were about mental trauma.

“How are you feeling today?
Better?”
“Yeah,” Coal said.
“You still look a little ashen. Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”

“He called the cops on you? The guy with the gun? Who shot at you? Seriously?” Door grabbed Coal’s hands and looked at the scrapes. “They do this?”
“They didn’t touch me.”
Door shot his eyebrows up, a keep going move.
“They didn’t even say anything to me.”
Door looked incredulous. “How?”
“They didn’t see me,” Coal said. “They couldn’t find me.”

“It really happened, Door. I’m not making this up.”
“I’m not saying you don’t believe what you’re telling me,” Door said. “I just...I mean, what’s the likelihood of something like that happening?”

“But nothing,” Door said. “Until you know how this works, everything’s on the table. Every scenario, any trigger.”
“Okay, right. I need to figure this out.”

“I don’t need anyone looking out for me,” Coal said. “I never have.” He looked past Aaron to the kids pouring out of the building in full-blown three p.m. exuberance.

When it got about halfway across the field, Coal started to wonder if a goose beatdown might actually happen. But just as he started thinking about how exactly he would fight a feathery menace, and how he was definitely not going to get a recording of that, another goose nudged the stray back into the gaggle. Experiment two was also a bust.

Other than the possible attack by avian, there wasn’t anything around that could be considered particularly scary.

If he’d thought of it sooner, he would’ve just snuck onto the bus with Door. Then again, if he ran there now, he could combine the sweatiness and out-of-breathness with the fear to see if it was all three of them together that was the inciting factor.
He grabbed his backpack and started running.

All there was of him was a hoodie and boxers with his jeans bunched up over his sneakers. He put his phone down to film. He hopped and shuffled penguin-style to get the full effect of his jeans and sneakers moving without a visible body, and the empty space where his head was supposed to be beneath his hoodie.
...As he filmed, a bit more dust settled on him. It layered his skin enough so he could just make out the outline of his body, rendering him not quite invisible.

People were moving all around him. Despite being invisible, he still covered himself with his hands as he tiptoed through the site. He ducked under a couple of long metal pipes being carried by two guys, and then stood aside as someone else made their way over a rickety network of wood planks with a wheelbarrow. Coal kept checking and double-checking his skin to make sure he didn’t suddenly become visible and expose himself.

Every time a person got close, he held his breath and stiffened every muscle in his body. By the time he got inside the shell of the building he was exhausted, but also a little exhilarated. His heartbeat was all the way up.

He thought he was moving stealthily, but being invisible was slightly disorienting. Like using a game controller you didn’t have enough practice on. He stubbed his toe on a pile of PVC piping, which went rolling across the floor.

He thought he was moving stealthily, but being invisible was slightly disorienting. Like using a game controller you didn’t have enough practice on. He stubbed his toe on a pile of PVC piping, which went rolling across the floor.

He figured his best bet was to be as still as possible, and hope that not moving would keep him from being detected.
That wasn’t what saved him. It was the appearance of the tough-looking woman he’d spotted earlier.
“You lot being paid to stand there and gawk at empty space?” she yelled. After a few grumbles from the crew, she added, “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Where are we on the pour?”