His Feed continued:

UniCorp Presents: Maximize Your Happiness! Stay in BetterLife longer, expand your Friendships, and achieve your goals with a revolutionary new outpatient procedure. Ask us how!

For each item he absorbed, his immediate like or dislike reaction was measured and recorded. A UniCorp Process Flow team had created a template for Adam Trevor’s personality type and would scramble to fill in the blanks as they received more information. It was usually pleasant to be in a world where things simply fell into place, but inhabiting Adam Trevor’s Unison Account was slightly unsettling. The comforting, womblike experience he’d spent his life working to maintain and improve felt off-kilter, as if he’d awakened into someone else’s dream.

A boy appeared before Ambrose on the sidewalk. Unlike the other ghosts, he was fully fleshed out. His shiny black hair flopped over his eyes, and he regarded Ambrose with a mixture of interest and amusement. The boy held out his hand. Ambrose smiled and took it. When their palms touched, a rush of Profile information invaded his Feed.

He had been assigned his First Friend.

Takashi Nakamura was sixteen. He shared Adam Trevor’s interest in twenty-first-century music. Additionally, they were both confident but accident-prone, allergic to mildew, and broke out into horrible sweats when talking to girls.

Of course, Takashi’s Profile could be a complete fabrication, just like his own. For all Ambrose knew, Takashi could be a billionaire trust-fund prince from the North Pole.

Or a UniCorp Associate.

“Hey,” Takashi said, lowering his hand and nodding curtly. “Welcome to BetterLife.”

Ambrose understood that Takashi had 42,578 Friends and spent most of his in-Unison time hanging around the Mass Entertainment Immersion Center.

“How was your first shimmer?” Takashi asked, grinning.

“Kinda weird,” Ambrose said, playing the part of a new user. “Tasted bad.”

“That’s what BetterMints are for, twitterbrain. So what took you so long? Parents wouldn’t let you join the party? You religious or something?”

“We just got the money for a login ID. My dad got a new job. Before that we lived—” He almost said subcanopy, but stopped himself. “Anyway, it was my birthday present.”

“Happy birthday, pop star. We got a lot to celebrate!”

“We do?”

“I’ve never been a First Friend before!” Takashi was ecstatic. His Mood-shadow, one of the more popular Unison Applications, began to dance on the ground beneath his feet. Ambrose laughed. By appreciating the Mood-shadow, he’d invited Application offers into his Feed:

Too many Events to attend? Feeling overwhelmed? Fake your own Account deletion with UniGone!

Mood-shadows are great, but are they Workspace-appropriate? Tone it down with a Mood-tooth. 100% fun, 0% distraction.

And he received his first Thoughtstream update, which felt like a faint fingertip caress behind his eyes:

Takashi Nakamura thinks Adam Trevor is about to have the best birthday ever.

“Um…,” Ambrose said. “I don’t have any plans, or anything.”

“You do now,” Takashi said. “Come on.” He beckoned for Ambrose to follow him through the ghost-crowd. Ambrose hesitated.

“I’m waiting for someone.”