The first thing that caught my eye was that he looked a lot younger, and taller, and stronger than I was expecting. Somehow, from that brief conversation with Felix, I had gotten the idea that he was middle-aged or older, and would be thin or paunchy, and definitely raggedy with some awful beard and thinning hair. I mean, anyone who abandoned civilization to live in the woods years ago should be looking pretty rough by now, right? Nope. Dean looked like a lumberjack. But not a real lumberjack. More like one of the really good-looking actors who play lumberjacks in advertisements online. He smirked at me in my holographic armor and said, “What the hell are you supposed to be?”“Oh, sorry. Lux, clear.” The armor vanished and I got a curious look from the strange man. “Solid holograms.”“You don’t say.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Come on in.”The second thing I noticed, after Dean stepped back and let us into his house, was that his house was full of amazing things. Intricate little cups, animal figurines, busts of historical figures including Shakespeare and Amelia Earhart, three working cuckoo clocks, several hanging mobiles of birds in flight, and on and on.
