“There’s a tutorial. If you want, I can show you where—”

“No, I mean, how does it really work?”

Takashi narrowed his eyes. His Mood-shadow shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Ambrose nodded. He had to be careful. He glanced around. A mangy brown dog nosed in the gutter.

“Like that,” he said, pointing. “That’s my dog, right? They made it for me. So do you see a dog?”

Takashi nodded. “The overlap between Friends’ perceptions isn’t quite real-time, but it’s close. They say Version 3.0’s gonna have this stuff perfect.”

“So you don’t see a cat or an elephant or anything? You see the dog, too?”

“Yeah, but the question is, what color is it?” Takashi grinned. “What breed?”

“I don’t know, um—golden retriever, I think.”

Takashi cocked his head and said, “Hmm.”

Takashi Nakamura just found out he prefers bulldogs.

“Right,” Ambrose said. “Okay. But is there somebody I can talk to who knows how Unison makes the dog I see different from the dog you see?”

Takashi laughed. “You mean a Programming Associate? You just got here, Adam. No offense, but you’re nobody. There’s, like, two billion people ahead of you.”

“No, I don’t mean a real-life programmer. I just mean … somebody who … knows things.” Ambrose winced. He was going to have to get better at this.

They watched the dog munch a ragged hunk of rawhide. Ghosts paraded past.

“Well,” Takashi said thoughtfully, “I have a Friend you could meet, I guess.”

Was it Ambrose’s imagination, or had something changed between them? Takashi’s energetic amusement had become shaded with caution. His Mood-shadow froze in place and quivered slightly.

Takashi Nakamura recommends a Friend: Sonia Carter.

A glimpse of Sonia Carter’s Profile invaded his Feed. Fifteen years old. Ex-hacker turned authorized independent Application developer. Creator of UniPetz, the hassle-free, customizable animal companion service. He thought of Lincoln.

“Well … okay,” Ambrose said, faking shyness. “I guess I should meet some more people anyway, huh?”

“That’s the point,” Takashi said. “Otherwise you’ll never be anything in here. You’ll just be … you.”

Ambrose scanned the ghostly crowd for someone he could identify as Mistletoe. Magnus and Ivor had promised she’d be right behind him.

Takashi grabbed his arm. “We gotta go to the MEIC.”

“The meek?” Ambrose played dumb.

“M-E-I-C. Mass Entertainment Immersion Center. That’s where I met Sonia. She’s always there.”

Ambrose looked around. Again he longed for his Admin Deck. A simple crowd-sort and he could narrow the search by thousands. He should’ve given Magnus and Ivor more specific instructions for finding Mistletoe, but in the rush of new information, it hadn’t occurred to him.

“Okay, but … my friend is new, like me. She won’t know—”

Takashi grinned. His Mood-shadow threw back its head and laughed noiselessly. “Ahh, so the mysterious friend is a female. Listen, when you meet Sonia, you’ll forget all about her. Trust me.”

Ambrose thought for a moment. For all he knew, Mistletoe might still be sleeping off the effects of the tracer removal. He couldn’t wait around forever.