A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot
of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality.
The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap,
and data is cheaper.
When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris'
ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap in to the
datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is
infatuated with a robotnik - a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well
be begging for parts. His father is terminally ill with a
multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed
Boris to where she is forbidden to return.
Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all
things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv, a powerful virtual arena, and
the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of
poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien
entities who, through the Conversation - a shifting, flowing stream of
consciousness - are just the beginning of irrevocable change. At Central
Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive...and even
evolve.