At the same time he began sculpting the Dr. Z personality, doing it much more carefully than he had with Library Al. For one thing, he was better at it now. For another, he had finer materials to work with. In October of that year, with hundreds of thoughtfish now swimming in Babineau’s brain, he began assuming control of the doctor’s body as well as his mind, taking it on longer and longer trips. Once he drove all the way to the Ohio state line in Babineau’s BMW, just to see if his hold would weaken with distance. It didn’t. It seemed that once you were in, you were in. And it was a fine trip. He stopped at a roadside restaurant and pigged out on onion rings.

Tasty!

• • •

As the 2014 holiday season approached, Brady found himself in a state he hadn’t known since earliest childhood. It was so foreign to him that the Christmas decorations had been taken down and Valentine’s Day was approaching before he realized what it was.

He felt contented.

Part of him fought this feeling, labeling it a little death, but part of him wanted to accept it. Embrace it, even. And why not? It wasn’t as though he were stuck in Room 217, or even in his own body. He could leave whenever he wanted, either as a passenger or as a driver. He had to be careful not to be in the driver’s seat too much or stay too long, that was all. Core consciousness, it seemed, was a limited resource. When it was gone, it was gone.

Too bad.

If Hodges had continued to make his visits, Brady would have had another of those goals to grow—getting him to look at the Zappit in his drawer, entering him, and planting suicidal thoughtfish. It would have been like using Debbie’s Blue Umbrella all over again, only this time with suggestions that were much more powerful. Not really suggestions at all, but commands.

The only problem with the plan was that Hodges had stopped coming. He had appeared just after Labor Day, spouting all his usual bullshit—I know you’re in there, Brady, I hope you’re suffering, Brady, can you really move things around without touching them, Brady, if you can let me see you do it—but not since. Brady surmised that Hodges’s disappearance from his life was the real source of this unusual and not entirely welcome contentment. Hodges had been a burr under his saddle, infuriating him and making him gallop. Now the burr was gone, and he was free to graze, if he wanted to.

He sort of did.

• • •

With access to Dr. Babineau’s bank account and investment portfolio as well as his mind, Brady went on a computer spending spree. The Babster withdrew the money and made the purchases; Z-Boy delivered the equipment to Freddi Linklatter’s cheesedog of a crib.