Monitors translated sounds of thudding feet and gasping lungs, waste-heat silhouettes, and cheerfully exhausted visages into multisensory data for the security banks. Like glowing ghosts, guests roamed through three minimalls, lounged in tiny parks and arboretums, or chased golf balls through the flames of purgatory and the gilded clouds of paradise in Dante's, the best miniature golf course in the state.

A swimming pool glittered in the sun, like a pond touched by King Midas. Here its border was a white sand beach; there a rippling frictionless slide with a vertical loop; elsewhere were black basalt cliffs for diving. A hidden wave generator sent seven white crests rippling across the surface every minute. Here was an expanse of cattails sculpted of bronze; there, swimming in a programmed curve, was a weed-and-palm-covered island. Explorers would find it to be a huge lethargic flatfish with feelers the size of hawsers writhing about its mouth. In the center of the pool rose an island shaded by an artificial banyan tree, beneath which a grass-roofed tavern tinkled with laughter and the clink of glasses. One could swim to that tavern, or stroll a glass pathway hidden beneath the artificial waves.

Four hundred Dream Park employees were partying hard: swimming, minigolfing, playing dominance games, drinking.

Sixteen stories beneath them in level three, Tony McWhirter licked his lips. A drink? Later. He focused on the work at hand, his fingers and thumbs dancing in the holographic display of a keyboard.

He was an intense man in his middle thirties. Light red hair ran thin above a lean face with chocolate eyes. His fingers were long and almost delicate, his forearms still wiry from years of college wrestling and gymnastics. Muscles bunched and corded as he typed. A window jumped into place, superimposed on the projection of the roof. It focused on a view of the bar beneath the island.