He should have thought about what Carrie was feeling. But like she said, feeling has never been his strong suit.

As he gets out of the car, he notices a BMW parked a few spaces over. Buzz opens the door and stands up. Clearly, he has been waiting for Danny.

He walks over, and Danny thinks of the first time they met.

It was his mother’s last wish that Danny spend time with normal kids. His father dutifully enrolled him in Middleton Elementary, then retreated back into his lab and the business of Sharp Industries.

On his first day at school, Danny stood quietly on the playground. He was watching the sky. (Cumulonimbus clouds: from the Latin for “heaped” and “rainstorm”; large, fluffy, dense clouds signifying possible thunderstorms according to the dictionary; minimum height 6,500 feet, maximum height 60,000 feet, according to one of his father’s pilot’s manuals.) He had not yet invented the Human Emulation Program.

Lonnie Decker, an asshole right from the start, shoved him to the ground.

“You want to fight?” Lonnie asked.

“No, not really,” Danny said, as he got back to his feet.

Lonnie laughed. “Not really? Chicken.”

He shoved Danny again.

Danny stumbled but didn’t fall this time. He wondered why this big kid was calling him a bird.

Then Buzz stepped between them.

“Leave him alone,” Buzz said. “He didn’t do anything to you.”

Lonnie frowned. Buzz was bigger. But Mike Fuller joined him, and he found his nerve again.

Buzz stepped aside. He shrugged at Danny, as if to say “Well, I tried.”

Lonnie advanced on him, his fist cocked back, signaling his punch coming from a mile away

Danny knew he was about to get hit. He didn’t know how he was supposed to respond.

But he could figure it out. He thought fast. It was what he did. He thought about primate dominance rituals and the books he’d read about school and hazing, and he especially thought about the week he’d spent with his father’s bodyguard learning how to deal with possible kidnap attempts.

He kicked Lonnie hard in the knee, then in the groin, and then, when Lonnie was bent over in pain, once in the face.

Lonnie went down on the ground, crying. Mike Fuller walked away quickly.

Buzz laughed. “You said you didn’t know how to fight,” he said.

“No,” Danny said, slowly and patiently. “I said I didn’t want to. I never said I didn’t know how.”

Lonnie got much bigger and taller, and Danny never again came close to beating him in a fight. But Danny was more interested in Buzz. Here was a boy who seemed to know how to be normal. Everyone liked him. He even tried to help Danny, though there was nothing in it for him. Danny began using him as a model for the Human Emulation Program that day.