He nodded to Takashi, who spun on his heels and led him in the direction of the arcade. As Ambrose passed through the crowd of ghosts, Profile information flooded his Feed. Thoughtstreams chattered. Billions of microblogged emotions—the fleeting joys and heartbreaks of daily life—skimmed just beyond his understanding like tiny fish scattering before an oncoming shark. A never-ending broadcast cycle of human connection, and he was missing it! Right now, something interesting or hilarious or poignant was being fed into the stream by one of his potential Friends on this very street, and all he could hear was a dull murmur. He followed Takashi past a gathering of translucent men sitting on an old-fashioned stoop. All around him the ghostly parade continued uninterrupted. So many users, and this was just one tiny segment of the logged-in population. He could spend a dozen lifetimes here and never meet them all. There would always be something happening that excluded him. Permanent insertion began to sound reasonable. Why not just stay? He could make millions of new Friends and forget all about his father, his brother, Magnus, Ivor.

He could forget about Ambrose.

He stopped and stared straight up. The top of a brilliant white atmoscraper sliced a crisp right angle into unbroken blue sky. He recognized the familiar sharpness of the edges, the seeming lack of distance between himself and the end of the block, between earth and sky. There was no haze, only 20/20 perfection and the clear-eyed comfort of coming home after a long day. He took a deep breath: the air smelled like clean sheets. He knew that Takashi could springboard him into hundreds of Friendship threads, and from there, thousands, millions, billions. He took another breath and let it out. With some difficulty, he dismissed the thought and focused on keeping up with Takashi.

Behind them, the dog threaded its way between the ghosts, nose to the sidewalk, following their scent.

7

FLIGHT OF THE CLOUD CHILDREN

MISTLETOE BIT the side of her tongue as the rumble of the Scourge chattered her teeth. She tasted rusty blood.

Run, she thought. But the vibrations in the room, her head, her belly rooted her to the floor like the wire tree trunk that held Ambrose. Knowing what to expect didn’t make the noise any more bearable. She squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her teeth, and fought the frightening urge to jam her fingers right through her ears and into the middle of her head. Instead she sealed her ears shut with her palms until stillness returned to the subway tunnels and the last of the aftershocks melted away.

She opened her eyes.

The two brothers were frozen in place and waiting patiently for her to recover. Ivor extended the police stunner toward her casually, as if he were passing a baton in a relay race. Somewhere behind her, Nelson leaned against the pile of microwaves. How far? The Scourge had jiggled her bearings. She flicked her eyes from the tiny prism at the tip of the stunner to a brown mole alongside Ivor’s nose to the downcast eyes of his brother, who seemed to shrivel under her glare.