Yesterday in the middle of a high school graduation Clayton Sanderson woke up. Not from a nap, but from living half a decade as an automaton. This curious wake from sleep was punctuated by the silent, brutal murder of Amanda Harper, the school's valedictorian. Clayton still feels the thrum of Amanda's neck snapping, the sensation running up and down his arm like a train in Italy. Clayton's first thought after the murder is to take his life, but the woman in the park, Kate, promises answers. He is not insane, she says, though what but insanity can explain his actions? Hints of a drug that bends reality, of men and women with control of the drug creating worlds of their own, of the end time when even thought will cease, surely these are no more than fuel for a mind already razed. But Clayton wants to believe Kate - he wants desperately to explain away Amanda's murder. Good Kate. Clayton will come to love her, and his faith in her promises would be absolute if he could settle a last nagging worry. Her voice soothes. Her words are like masterstrokes on a piano. He just isn't sure she's real.