By Mary Rosenblum
First Published: 1993
David Chen severed his family ties to become a virtual reality artist on the Net. Jewel Martina left an impoverished family in the ‘burbs to become a medical aid, on her way to becoming a VR deal-broker in the economic network that spanned the world. When Jewel saves David’s partner’s life, it becomes clear someone wanted him dead. There is trouble brewing on the Net, and as Jewel and David are caught up in it, they search the Net, the flesh world, and their own unhappy pasts for some answers. Nothing was ever as it seemed on the Net, where illusion was the rule of the game–but for Jewel and David, the difference between real and virtual was a matter of life and death….