Takashi burst into the clearing, breathless and red-faced. Ambrose waited for him to mention their strange and abrupt good-bye in the stadium. His First Friend gestured wildly toward a gap between the trees.

“What are you doing hiding, Adam? Haven’t you seen it out there? It’s beautiful!” His Mood-shadow wrapped wriggling orange tendrils around his legs and waist.

“Yick,” Mistletoe said, stepping back.

“Nice to meet you!” Takashi said.

“Hi,” she managed weakly, eyeing the Mood-shadow’s twisting vines with distaste.

Takashi Nakamura is 01101000011011110110110101100101.

Ambrose waved a hand in front of his Friend’s face. “Um, Takashi?”

Takashi looked straight through Ambrose to the other side of the clearing. Then he giggled distantly. “You ever—you ever just see how all the layers of the world fit together? And how they’re for all your Friends and for you at the same time? It’s like you’re the simplest nano, okay?” He pinched his thumb and forefinger together to demonstrate the tiny size. “And you’re dedicated to this one repetitive function—back and forth or up and down—and at the same time you’re this”—he waved his arms, struggling to convey the blissful understanding racing around his brain—“pinwheel of Friendship!” he said triumphantly.

Ambrose pointed at the Mood-shadow, which was reacting to Takashi’s profound happiness by climbing up his chest and wrapping around his neck.

“Is that supposed to happen? I mean, are you…”

“I’m finally me, Adam! I’m everything I ever wanted to be.”

Warily, they followed Takashi through the trees and out into the sunlight. Beginning at the foot of the hill was a vast field that stretched toward the hazy skyline of bitmapped ESC. The field was populated by millions of users swaying and jostling together in groups like tightly packed schools of fish, which gave Ambrose the alarming feeling that he was looking out across the floor of a waterless ocean. It took a few speechless minutes for him to realize that the users were milling about with a purpose, a slow forward progress that dragged them toward a looming monstrosity that threatened to blot out the perfect Unison sun.

“Greymatter,” Ambrose said.

“Told you it was beautiful!” Takashi yelled over his shoulder as he ran down the hill.

Martin’s estate was the size of a city. New additions sprawled from both sides, the stacked glass and intertwined chrome of modern atmoscrapers dwarfing the original Victorian manor. The expansion crept along the perimeter of the field, a sparkling twenty-first-century subdivision enclosing the mass of users like two giant claws.

As the users reached the front of the estate, their figures decomposed; months of decay happened in a sickening instant. From the bodily wreckage of each user, raw data unwound in colorful skeins that slithered into the walls of the house.

The estate was consuming Profile information.

“Is that good or bad?” Mistletoe asked.

Ambrose’s Feed screamed: