250,000 migrants remained to live at the foot of the giant space terminal. Cultures have fused together as reality and virtuality. The city around continues to grow like a weed. Life is cheap, and information is worth nothing. Boris Chong returns home from Mars. Much has changed. He acquired an aug, a Martian symbiont that changes perceptions. A former lover is raising a strange child who can “touch” data streams with his consciousness. The cousin is in love with Robotnik - a damaged cyborg, a veteran of wars that no one remembers. My father is terminally ill with memory cancer. And behind Boris, an info-vampire secretly flies in. Above them all rises the Central Station, an interplanetary hub between the Earth and the space colonies, where humanity in all its diversity has gone to avoid wars and disasters. Everything is connected to the Other, powerful entities that, through the Conversation, a global network of stream of consciousness, bring about irrevocable changes. The people and machines of Central Station continue to adapt, thrive and evolve...