As a high-level Associate, Ambrose could have chosen to shimmer into Admin-only locations like Workspace or Greymatter, his father’s estate. But this morning he only had time for a quick update. A mirror appeared in his mind, separating his perception into two distinct sections: the inner world of his Admin Deck and the outer world of Unison. He filtered out all non-UniCorp information—countless Friend requests and Event invitations he never had time to sift through—and accessed the corporate Feed. It felt as if his mind had been opened and arranged for his perusal, and filtering the staggering barrage of information was as simple as closing one door and opening another. His corporate Feed listed Unison activity since he had shimmered out yesterday evening. He absorbed the updates:

43,987 New Accounts

3,499 Accounts sent to purgatory for nonpayment

He accessed the new Accounts and instructed the Deck to rank them according to potential profitability. One of the perks of being Martin Truax’s son was that his Process Flow team got first dibs on the richest new users. Today’s number one was Lori Frederick-Smith, a plasteel heiress from Boston Heights. She was currently logged in. He turned the mirror outward and displayed her Profile information in his bedroom.

Instantly, he was standing among the swirling details of her life. She was sixty-four, but had upgraded her Account to look young and beautiful. He watched as her tall blond avatar accepted Friendships at a high-society welcome brunch for new users. She moved among them with ease and confidence, shaking hands and air-kissing cheeks. He accessed her Thoughtstream:

Lori Frederick-Smith thinks she wouldn’t mind staying here forever.

Ambrose smiled. The world’s elderly population had been hesitant to embrace radical new social networking technology, until a recent Eternal Youth in Unison marketing campaign targeted sixty- to hundred-year-olds. New users in this age group now accounted for a huge chunk of UniCorp’s yearly revenue. Profits, as his father would say, had been effectively maximized.

Ambrose forwarded Ms. Frederick-Smith’s Profile information to his team with instructions to assign her a series of young, wealthy Friends who were almost—but not quite—as attractive as she. Unison had already begun to analyze her likes and dislikes and change itself accordingly; his team would take care of the rest. In a few days, the previous sixty-four years of her life would fade into dismal obscurity as she moved through a world designed solely for her happiness.

He felt a soft nudge against his leg. Lincoln, his UniPet dog, glanced up at him.

“Sorry, boy,” Ambrose said, ruffling the brown fur on Lincoln’s head. “I gotta go.” Lincoln spread his wings and flew up to the ceiling, where he perched upside down like a giant furry bat. Ambrose made a face and wondered why he’d ever thought a flying dog would be cool. Instantly, Lincoln disappeared from the ceiling and reappeared nudging his leg. His wings were gone.

“Good boy,” Ambrose said. Then he pressed his palms together and shimmered out. He blinked. His real-world bedroom looked drab and messy. He felt disconnected from humanity, absent from the never-ending stream of vital information. Loneliness gnawed at him. The urge to shimmer back in was almost overwhelming, but he recognized it as a symptom of the logout and took a deep breath.