Danielson was somewhere behind him now, hidden in the rush-hour crowd. Straight ahead sat one of several fountains that dotted the lobby floor. One side of the fountain was hidden by a sharply sloping wall, which Ambrose leaned against as he looked up at Version 2.0. This, he knew, was a genuine real-time projection of actual events in Unison. He wondered what it was like to see it here for the first time. He imagined being a normal kid on a field trip, standing in the middle of the lobby and looking up at—

“Mr. Ambrose.” A soft voice to his left. He turned. A building security cop in a black UniCorp windbreaker, stunner baton dangling from his belt, disruptor slung across his back. Ambrose smiled.

“I don’t have a pen.”

People who approached him for an autograph outside of Unison liked to do so the old-fashioned way. They were always much older, and the novelty of a boy genius in their midst made them awkwardly reverent.

The man extended a hand. “Welcome to your building, sir. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” His smile widened into a toothy grin.

When they shook, Ambrose felt the tiny jolt of an unauthorized message transfer, which his own palm receptors should have blocked since he hadn’t given permission to accept. The smiling guard had hijacked his email filters.

“Carpe somnium,” the guard said, dropping his hand.

“What?” Ambrose tried to place the man’s face, voice, handshake. Nothing. “Wait!”

It was too late. The guard melted into the crowd and disappeared. Ambrose tried to follow, but the crush of tourists and fleshbound commuters starting their day had intensified. He found himself boxed in, then pushed back toward the fountain. Danielson was nowhere to be seen. Ambrose rubbed his palm, which throbbed in the aftermath of the hijacking. The message transfer had taken him completely by surprise; probably just the excitement of the day interfering with his Process Flow ability. Any big deviation from the daily routine tended to throw the whole system into chaos.

“Danielson?” he called out. A young girl gazed at him with huge green eyes—color-modded for intensity—until her mother yanked her away. Was this another one of his father’s tests? Or one of Len’s pranks? He could try to unspool those particular Process Flows and figure out exactly what his family might have planned for him. Or he could just access the message. Why not? It would only take a second.

He looked around for a private corner, but great masses of tourists and Associates surged everywhere. Next to him, a purple-hatted UniCorp Ambassador was leading a group of awestruck children beneath the 2.0 projection. Beyond the group was the café, and beyond that a series of doors that led to the courtyard. He turned practically sideways and edged his way through the crowd, into the bustling café, and out into the vast center courtyard, which was weather-programmed opposite the current season. Outside it was a balmy and cloudless summer day, which meant the courtyard was having a blizzard.