Laney, living on blue cough medicine in a cardboard city, is scanning for nodality, for the future. A future that depends on Rei Toei, the idoru - beautiful girl, virtual icon, post-human being. Rydell - ex-cop, ex-security for Lucky Dragon convenience stores - is working for Laney, sort of, but he 's looking for a future too, and for Chevette, who was once his girl (and is now on the run). And now Rydell's back in San Francisco, back on the Bridge, where it all began, and where it looks like it might all end, possibly with a number of big bangs.But endings are also beginnings...