In a new series, hard SF by a world-famous award-winner. Dore Konstantin is officer in charge of TechnoCrime, Artificial Reality Division and, as if handling a heavy case-load almost single-handed wasn't enough, she's now got a stalker to deal with. Extremely wealthy Hasting Dervish is the stalker according to Susannah Ell -- and she should know. Firstly, she's the one being stalked; secondly, she used to be married to Dervish. Worse, Susannah claims he's swapped places with an ambitious Al, and now Dervish has all the processing power he needs to infiltrate every line of code in Susannah's AR design studio. Meanwhile the Al is using Dervish's body as a base to visit AR, and hanging out in the gambling casions of the Lowdown Hong Kong mound. This is where Goku of a Japanese law-enforcement agency, comes in. Since he likes going into AR in the persona of a nine-year-old kid, this really makes Konstantin unhappy. But if she's going to get the goods on Hastings Dervish, she'll have to deal with Goku.