Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Alan is a middle-aged entrepreneur in contemporaryToronto who has devoted himself to fixing up a house in a bohemianneighborhood. This naturally brings him in contact with the house full ofstudents and layabouts next door, including a young woman who, in a moment ofstress, reveals to him that she has wings—wings, moreover, that grow back aftereach attempt to cut them off.

Alan understands. He himself has a secret or two.His father is a mountain, his mother is a washing machine, and among his brothersare a set of Russian nesting dolls.

Now two of the three nesting dolls, Edward andFrederick, are on his doorstep—well on their way to starvation because theirinnermost member, George, has vanished. It appears that yet another brother,Davey, whom Alan and his other siblings killed years ago, may have returned … benton revenge.

Under such circumstances it seems only reasonablefor Alan to involve himself with a visionary scheme to blanket Toronto withfree wireless Internet connectivity, a conspiracy spearheaded by a brillianttechnopunk who builds miracles of hardware from parts scavenged from the city’sdumpsters. But Alan’s past won’t leave him alone—and Davey is only one of thepowers gunning for him and all his friends.