In the year 2043, the world has become fearful and emotionally fractured. Apartment towers are built with blast-proof windows. Except for violent gang members, people rarely gather in person. Anger and resentment spread through digital networks. Sensitive and thoughtful, 16-year-old Rebecca worries that the vindictiveness of her times might infect her, too. Her mother has told her comforting stories about Grandma, a woman Rebecca never met — “the gentlest soul, without a vindictive bone in her body.” Desperate to feel safe from her own darker impulses, Rebecca imagines her grandmother’s presence. Through a mysterious emotional connection, she finds herself experiencing the world through her grandmother’s 36-year-old body. Rebecca experiences something she’s never known: the bond between her grandmother and her elderly dog. In Rebecca’s time, a virus wiped out all domestic dogs. When Grandma’s dog must be euthanized, Rebecca shares the devastating grief. In a traffic jam on the way home, Grandma and Rebecca refuse to let an aggressive SUV driver cut ahead of her. Thin silver strands stream from the furious driver’s eyes, forming a pulsating web. Later that evening, TV news reports that a young man has beaten his wife to death. The story includes an interview with the murderer’s employer, who fired him that morning. It’s the furious SUV driver. Grandma and Rebecca seek him out and piece together the chain reaction. Still grieving the loss of her dog and arguing with her daughter, Grandma’s brief moment of anger in traffic ignited the driver’s fury. Already upset after fighting with his son, he humiliated and fired his employee, who went home drunk, misconstrued his wife’s concern about their finances as ridicule, and kills her. Grandma then encounters a mentally ill homeless man. She offers him kindness. He stabs her to death. Rebecca experiences the moment of death within her. In the Being, all spirits of the dead are connected. They learn that every person on Earth emits subtle emotions that connect them to others in the Human Web. Despite warnings of annihilation, they return to earth and prevent a few acts of violence by predicting the course of the Human Web. YouReality, an immersive technology that traps users in personalized fantasy worlds, is nearing 8 billion users, the tipping point that will collapse the Human Web into deadly chaos. Just in time, Rebecca and Grandma fight off horrendous barriers to find the hidden servers and destroy them. But triumph is short-lived. A voice from the Human Web: “You have less than a month to save humanity.”
