Where did all the people go? In a bizarre outpost perched on top of a mountain, the survivors of some cyber-cataclysm ponder the fate of humanity. Although all their needs are taken care of, their memories have been so compromised that they question their very reality. When one of them begins a project that will change everything, the mysterious keepers arrive to restore order.

Author James Patrick Kelly is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award and has been nominated 10 times for the Nebula Award. His stories appear frequently in Asimov's Science Fiction, and he writes the magazine's "On the Net" column. Publishers Weekly has called him "a meticulous craftsman in the demanding short-story form".