Summary

In the following chapters, the main characters Irina, Thales, and Kern are introduced, and their story lines unfold in a braided structure. Since their respective chapters vary in length, chapters related to a single character have been condensed together in this summary. In the first chapter, “Floating World,” Irina is on a plane as she contemplates the contours of the Bay below her. She thinks that the city lights are "radiant with meaning" (3). As she lands, she sees the favelas of the city. In “Negotiable Sense of Place,” Irina tells the guards at the terminals that she has an implant. The guard reads her letter that describes her profession as a computational scanner, and looks at her skull, where she has an implant that she calls "memory" (12). Irina approaches a video screen that asks for her destination. She turns off the...