He looked away quickly, catching his breath. Bringing up a hand to wipe the corner of one eye, he looked back and replied, "I love you too, Bob, that is so good to hear."

"Okay good-now get!" I laughed.

He laughed back and shook his head as he disappeared.

This place, all of it, felt abruptly wrong. Like a switch being thrown, I suddenly knew something wasn't right here anymore, and that this same something had swallowed Dean in its path. Blind spots-we all had them. So what was it that they were hiding from us, what was it we weren't seeing?

I decided I was going to find out.

* Neverywhere *

Book 5:.

Nancy Killiam.

William McIntyre.

PROLOGUE.

THE POLICE STATION loomed before me at the base of the vertical farming complex, and I was gingerly making my way towards it.

The Boulevard was the only real street we had, a wide pedestrian thoroughfare that crossed from the eastern to western inlets, crossing between the four gleaming vertical farm towers that centerpinned the island of Atopia.

Glamorous palms lined both sides of the street, bordering the tourist shops, restaurants, and bars whose terraces spilled out into the kaleidoscopic melee between them. Even with the storms threatening and the evacuations announced, the atmosphere was still carefree and festive.

It had been ages since I'd been above, and I hadn't been to these parts since I was a tween. I blinked in the sunshine and confusion around me and tried to think my way through what was happening.

I felt so alone and exposed. Here I was, stuck in the middle of something clearly illegal, but what else could I do? I looked up at the towers and imagined myself as one of the psombies inside. Out of options, I just shrugged and opened the police station doors.

Cool, administrative air swept over me and the clerk at the desk, an attractive young woman, smiled at me synthetically.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asked, as sweet as a police officer could be.

"Yes, I'd like to file a missing person report," I replied, walking towards her as calmly as I could.

Her face registered just the proper amount of seriousness before she queried, "And who is the missing person, sir?"

I paused for a moment.

"Me," I answered.

Ident.i.ty: William McIntyre A BRILLIANT CARPET of stars hung above us on the moonless night, somewhere in the Adirondacks of upper New York State. Our campsite was nestled between tall, majestic firs at the side of a quiet lake. We'd barely finished the canoeing and portage to get here before nightfall, and we were all spent. A deep silence settled upon the hissing and popping of the campfire. It was nice to hang out with friends and not feel the need to say anything. I almost felt completely relaxed for once-almost.

"It's so peaceful out here," I said, leaning forward to pick up a stick and poke the embers of the dying fire. I could feel a breeze blowing across my backside, but I let it go for now.

"You got that right, w.i.l.l.y," replied Bob, slumped comfortably in his folding camp chair and balancing a beer on his knee.

"Yes sir," added Wally, my proxxi.

"w.i.l.l.y, do you want another beer?" he asked, seeing me toss my empty can into the fire.

Wally was sitting to my right, Bob and Martin to my left, and Sid and Vicious opposite me on the other side of the fire.

"Naw. I'm good, Wally. Thanks."

Poking the embers I watched their hot orange and red sparks dance around like tiny demons escaping from the charred wood. I extended my hands toward the coals to warm them and rubbed them together. It was going to be a cold night. A loon called out from the blackness above the lake with a haunting wail. It was time to go soon, but not yet.

"This is amazing," drawled Bob.

We all sat entranced around the fire.

"This is so relaxing," he continued. "Hey w.i.l.l.y, did you catch the slingshot tests this morning?"

I watched him smiling and taking another swig from his beer, grinning at me. He was usually smiling, the lucky b.u.m. Then again, he didn't have it that easy.

"I saw them, it was kind of impossible to miss," I replied. "Were you with your family?"

He laughed. "Naw, Sid and I were out in Humungous Fungus watching the mash-up version."

I grinned back. "I bet that was a lot of fun."

"It was, but my dad gave me a lot of trouble."

Wally pinged me with an alert. Oh shoot, I'd forgotten.

"Oh, ah, Martin," I blurted out awkwardly, "happy birthday, by the way."

Martin smiled, looking up at me from the fire.

"Thanks w.i.l.l.y," he laughed, and then looked at Bob, "and dad wasn't really mad, you know, he's under a lot of pressure."

"I know," replied Bob. "I'm sorry I was late. Thanks for covering for me."

"That's what brothers are for," chuckled Martin, shaking his head. "Right?"

"Yeah," sighed Bob heavily, "that's what brothers are for."

An uncomfortable silence descended and everyone stared down at the ground, everyone, that was, except Martin. He looked around at us all with wide eyes.

"What, did somebody die or something?" he laughed out.

Bob snorted, shaking his head. "Naw, just forget it."

"Forget what?"

"Just forget it," snapped Bob. "You will no matter what anyway."

Martin stared at Bob and shrugged, but Bob looked away.

More uncomfortable silence.

"I can't believe more people don't come out into nature to experience this," said Bob after a while, changing the topic. "It's just amazing. You know, doing things with your own two hands, getting back to the basics."

Now everyone nodded, except Martin who'd returned to staring blankly into the fire.

"Yeah," I agreed, but Bob could always tell my moods.

"Are you still worrying?" he asked me.

"Naw."

"Yes you are. I can tell. Just forget about it, okay? Everything will be fine. It always is," he declared, smiling sadly, "even if it isn't."

He tossed his beer can into the fire. Vicious, Sid's proxxi, started coughing as the wind moved his way and pushed the smoke into him.

"Mates, it's been a real pleasure," coughed out Vicious, "but I I've 'ad about enough. This nature s.h.i.te is not for me."

"Come on," laughed Sid, "we're having a nice time here! Tough it out a little, old boy!"

The spell was broken, though, and the suspension of disbelief cracked, revealing the grainy quality of the fire and the hollow texture of the night. It all suddenly felt very fake.

"Yeah, anyway, I think I'm going to get going too." A heavy weight fell back across my shoulders.

"Surfing tomorrow, right, buddy?" asked Bob.

"Sure thing, Bob, wouldn't miss it for the world," I lied.

I gave a perfunctory wave to the gang, and without another word the campsite faded away and was replaced by the white, featureless confines of my apartment.

Wally was still sitting beside me, though now on the convertible couch of my tiny living s.p.a.ce. My digs could, at best, be described as minimalist. Real s.p.a.ce on Atopia came at a premium price, and one I couldn't afford.

"Don't worry so much, w.i.l.l.y," said Wally.

"Easy for you to say. You don't live in this pill box."

"Well, yes and no, w.i.l.l.y," Wally noted, watching me carefully. "Look, I've never said this before and I'm not sure why I'm saying it now, but ..."

I waited.

"Yes?" I asked.

Why on earth was my proxxi getting weird on me now? That's all I needed, as if I didn't have enough to worry about.

He took a deep breath and looked at me. "William, I just wanted to make sure you know, well, that I love you."

I was slightly stunned, and he saw it.

"Not in a weird way," he added quickly. "I mean, as brothers, you know." He smiled at me, waiting for me to respond.

"Yeah, thanks," I said slowly, not sure of what to do with this. "Look, I appreciate that, and I like you too, Wally."

He just kept smiling at me earnestly. Geez, I'm going to have to talk to someone at Cognix technical support about this. I had lot of work to get done and I didn't need this.

"Look, I'm fine," I finally told him. "Let's just focus on the here and now, okay?"

Switching topics to the work at hand, the walls and features of my apartment morphed outwards into the sea of displays that were my works.p.a.ce. I had a busy day tomorrow and wanted to get a jump start on organizing myself for the big meeting with Nancy Killiam, who was heading the new tech company Infinixx I was working for.

Wally and I worked well into the night, pulling and pushing ma.s.ses of financial data through the deep reaches of the the multiverse, trying to make sense of the rapidly accelerating world around us.

The next morning Brigitte, my girlfriend, dropped the expected warning shot, "So, you didn't ping me last night when you got back from camping with the boys."

She tried to say it whimsically, but I could tell. We'd been together a long while now and I could sense her moods coming like winds approaching high in the treetops.

"Pumpkin," I said, attempting to deflect the approaching storm, "sweetheart, look, you know I have this big meeting I am trying to prepare for with Nancy."

"Pumpkin my a.s.s," she proclaimed, "I bet you and Wally were up picking stocks all night."

I paused, deciding on my plan of defense; feint or full retreat?

"We were preparing for the meeting," I stated defensively, "and," I added quickly, "we did do some stock picks too."

My job at Infinixx paid alright, but I'd been brought in as an outside contractor and wasn't on their stock option dream ticket. The real reason I had gunned so hard for the job was that it gave me access to the distributed consciousness platform they were developing. Being able to be in a dozen places at once gave me an edge n.o.body else had in the market right now, and in the market any edge equaled an opportunity to make money.

Brigitte pouted. A beautiful pout if there ever was one. Her full lips and pet.i.te Parisian nose, under a beautiful tangle of laissezfaire auburn hair that women of a lesser pedigree would kill for, gave her an impossibly irresistible look that hovered somewhere between beautiful and beautifully cute. Even when her deep brown eyes flashed angrily at me as they did now, it was hard to resist the urge to simply scoop her up into my arms and kiss her. So I did.

"William," she laughed in her little French accent, pushing me away. She was laughing, but when she used my full name she always had a serious point to make. I looked at her in my arms. "William, vraiement, money isn't everything. Look around you, cheri."

I looked around. We were having breakfast on top of a Scottish Highlands mountain ridge. The small, white table and chairs with us in pajamas, and her in bunny slippers, set against the backdrop of a blossoming sunrise amid rolling fog and boulders and gra.s.s and sheep-it was surreal to say the least, but she liked it and that was all that mattered.

"We're in the most amazing place on earth. We can travel anywhere we want, do almost anything we like. So what if we have a small apartment? Look where we're having breakfast! What do we need more money for?"

I tried not to roll my eyes. This was welltrodden ground. It would be nice to be able to afford more subproxxi; as it was I could hardly afford to have Wally show up at more than one event at a time. It would be nice to be able to afford to expand my Phuture News Network; right now, it was an immense effort just stay ahead of the game. Just accessing the wikiworld at this resolution to have breakfast here cost us dearly, but this wouldn't cut any ice with her. Everyone else I knew was better off than us, and frankly, it p.i.s.sed me off.

No end was in sight for paying off the multigenerational mortgage my dad had taken out for my family to get a berth on Atopia. It was a shrewd move on his part, entering the lottery for a spot here-the value of the berth had more than quadrupled since we'd won it. The size of the mortgage, however, was crippling to a regular family like ours, and we struggled under the debt. It didn't help, of course, that I'd made some bad stock picks of late and was far in the hole.