The last harbor

Slocum had it all: the perfect family, the perfect home, and the perfect job with X-Corp Multimedia—a major producer of interactive virtual-reality entertainment. In a world divided between protected enclaves of luxury and blighted, decaying landscapes, the ubiquitous 3-D telecasts over the Flash hold millions in thrall with their packaged, programmed dreams. Once Slocum helped devise those dreams, until his career at X-Corp self-destructed and with it his marriage. Now his world has shrunk to a tiny sloop berthed in the dingy harbor of a dying New England seafaring town, where the main attraction is a virtual-whaling theme park. In his solitary cabin he studies the legendary Smuggler's Bible and dreams of sailing off to a life of freedom. Then an enormous ocean liner docks beside him in the harbor: a floating palace of glittering wealth and mystery, with a single enigmatic passenger, a woman who restlessly walks the decks as if unable to leave the ship. For Slocum—rejected by his wife and daughter, hounded by his vengeful employers, harassed by the town police, his credit cut off, his funds running out—the alluring woman soon becomes his sole hope of escape. Only by learning her terrifying secret can he free her from her gilded captivity ... and realize his own dreams—which, in a world of mass-produced fantasy, is the most forbidden pursuit of all.