At the pizza place, our usual table is empty; I am earlier than usual. I sit down. Hi-I’m-Jean glances at me and looks away. A moment later Cameron comes in, then Chuy and Bailey and Eric. The table feels unbalanced with only five of us. Chuy moves his chair to the end, and the rest of us shift a little: now it is symmetrical.

I can see the beer sign easily, with its blinking pattern. Tonight it annoys me; I turn a little away. Everyone is twitchy; I am having to bounce my fingers on my legs, and Chuy is twisting his neck back and forth, back and forth. Cameron’s arm moves; he is bouncing his plastic dice in his pocket. As soon as we have ordered, Eric takes out his multicolored pen and starts drawing his patterns.

I wish Dale and Linda were here, too. It feels odd to be without them. When our food comes we eat, almost in silence. Chuy is making a little rhythmic “hunh” between bites, and Bailey is clicking his tongue. When most of the food is gone, I clear my throat. Everyone looks at me quickly, then away.

“Sometimes people need a place to talk,” I say. “Sometimes it can be at someone’s place.”

“It could be at your place?” Chuy asks.

“It could,” I say.

“Not everyone knows where you live,” Cameron says. I know he does not know, either. It is strange how we have to talk about something.

“Here are directions,” I say. I take out the papers and put them on the table. One at a time, the others take the sheets. They do not look at them right away.

“Some people have to get up early,” Bailey says.

“It is not late now,” I say.

“Some people will have to leave before others if others are staying late.”

“I know that,” I say.

There are only two visitor slots in the parking lot, but I know there is room for my visitors’ cars; most of the residents do not keep cars. This apartment building was built back when everyone had at least one car.

I wait in the parking lot until the others have arrived. Then I lead them upstairs. All those feet sound loud on the stairs. I did not know it would be this loud. Danny opens his door.

“Oh— hi, Lou. I wondered what was happening.”

“It is my friends,” I say.

“Good, good,” Danny says. He does not close his door. I do not know what he wants. The others follow me to my door, and I unlock it and let them in.

It feels very strange to have other people in the apartment. Cameron walks around and finally disappears into the bathroom. I can hear him in there. It is like when I lived in a group residence. I did not like that much. Some things should be private; it is not nice to hear someone else in the bathroom. Cameron flushes the toilet, and I hear the water running in the basin, and then he comes out. Chuy looks at me, and I nod. He goes into the bathroom, too. Bailey is looking at my computer.

“I do not have a desk model at home,” he says. “I use my handheld to work through the computer at work.”

“I like having this one,” I say.

Chuy comes back to the living room. “So — what now?”

Cameron looks at me. “Lou, you have been reading about this, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” I get Brain Functionality off the shelf where I put it. “My— a friend loaned me this book. She said it was the best place to start.”

“Is it the woman Emmy talks about?”

“No, someone else. She is a doctor; she is married to a man I know.”

“Is she a brain doctor?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why did she give you the book? Did you ask her about the project?”

“I asked her for a book on brain function. I want to know what they are going to do to our brains.”

“People who have not studied do not know anything about how the brain works,” Bailey says.

“I did not know until I started reading,” I say. “Only what they taught us in school, and that was not a lot. I wanted to learn because of this.”

“Did you?” Cameron asks.

“It takes a long time to learn everything that is known about brains,” I say, “I know more than I did, but I do not know if I know enough. I want to know what they think it will do and what can go wrong.”

“It is complicated,” Chuy says.

“You know about brain function?” I ask.

“Not much. My older sister was a doctor, before she died. I tried to read some of her books when she was in medical school. That is when I lived at home with my family. I was only fifteen, though.”

“I want to know if you think they can do what they say they can do,” Cameron says.

“I do not know,” I say. “I wanted to see what the doctor was saying today. I am not sure he is right. Those pictures they showed are like ones in this book—” I pat the book. “He said they meant something different. This is not a new book, and things change. I need to find new pictures.”

“Show us the pictures,” Bailey says.

I turn to the page with the pictures of brain activitation and lay the book on the low table. They all look. “It says here this shows brain activation when someone sees a human face,” I say. “I think it looks exactly like the picture the doctor said showed looking at a familiar face in a crowd.

“It is the same,” Bailey says, after a moment. “The ratio of line width to overall size is exactly the same. The colored spots are in the same place. If it is not the same illustration, it is a copy.”

“Maybe for normal brains the activation pattern is the same,” Chuy says.

I had not thought of that.

“He said the second picture was of an autistic brain looking at a familiar face,” Cameron says. “But the book says it is the activation pattern for looking at a composite unknown face.”

“I do not understand composite unknown,” Eric says.

“It is a computer-generated face using features of several real faces,” I say.

“If it is true that the activation pattern for autistic brains looking at a familiar face is the same as normal brains looking at an unfamiliar face, then what is the autistic pattern for looking at an unfamiliar face?” Bailey asks.

“I always had trouble recognizing people I was supposed to know,” Chuy says. “It still takes me longer to learn people’s faces.”

“Yes, but you do,” Bailey says. “You recognize all of us, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Chuy says. “But it took a long time, and I knew you first by your voices and size and things.”

“The thing is, you do now, and that’s what matters. If your brain is doing it a different way, at least it’s doing it.”

“They told me that the brain can make different pathways to do the same thing,” Cameron says. “Like if someone is injured, they give them that drug — I don’t remember what it is — and some training, and they can relearn how to do things but use a different part of the brain.”

“They told me that, too,” I say. “I asked them why they didn’t give me the drug and they said it wouldn’t work for me. They did not say why.”

“Does this book?” Cameron asks.

“I don’t know. I haven’t read that far,” I say.

“Is it hard?” Bailey asks.

“In some places, but not as hard as I thought it would be,” I say. “I started reading some other stuff first. That helped.”

“What other?” Eric asks.

“I read through some of the courses on the Internet,” I say. “Biology, anatomy, organic chemistry, biochemistry.” He is staring at me; I look down. “It is not as hard as it sounds.”

No one says anything for several minutes. I can hear them breathe; they can hear me breathe. We can all hear all the noises, smell all the smells. It is not like being with my friends at fencing, where I have to be careful what I notice.

“I’m going to do it,” Cameron says suddenly. “I want to.”

“Why?” Bailey asks.

“I want to be normal,” Cameron says. “I always did. I hate being different. It is too hard, and it is too hard to pretend to be like everyone else when I am not. I am tired of that.”