The Fourth Ambit

Stents

When Gilles can't control his addiction to online stimulants, he loses his graduate school appointment and his access to the Ambit. Poverty and a life of pointless toil seem to be his destiny, but when he stumbles upon one of his professors in a seedy bar, Gilles' fortunes shift. In his haste to leave, the professor drops three gold UNI cards he'd been about to sell on the black market.Gilles takes the cards and uses them to regain access to the Ambit. What Gilles didn't count on, however, was the fact that the owner of the UNI cards, Facia Corporation, had put them on the black market for a purpose. Gilles becomes their newest recruit, and an unwilling Ambit tracker.

Tethers

Gilles first assignment for Facia Corpse is to steal some code from a religious park in the Ambit. Gilles never could have imagined that people would pay for a religious adventure, but it takes all kinds. And the adventure is more dangerous than Gilles expected, which he finds out when he is violently kicked offline by a teddy bear.After several failed attempts, Gilles draws on the expertise of his university friends and finally figures out how to get the code out of the park. His reputation as a tracker is secured. Unfortunately, his success also qualifies him for more complicated – and more dangerous – assignments.

Freelance

Gilles' first freelance job is to sabotage the Ambit's new underwater adventure park. He gains access to the park while it's still under construction, then plants some code that makes the grand opening a spectacular failure.What Gilles didn't realize, however, is that the prohibitions on recording in the Ambit don't apply to construction sites. Soon the park's corpse will replay the construction sequence and discover who planted the malignant code. Gilles has to scramble to avoid being discovered.

Spectres

Gilles begins working in the Second Ambit, a more sophisticated online world that includes fully digital inhabitants as well as spectres – people who maintain their online presence even after their real-world existence has ended. Gilles is asked to remove one of these spectres from the system.As Gilles struggles with the ethics of bringing a disembodied person offline, his friend Five gets into real-world trouble. If Gilles leaves the Second Ambit before he completes his task, he may be in a life-threatening situation of his own. If he doesn't, Five may die.

Children

E-Eddie hires Gilles to track a wealthy client who suspects that his Second Ambit lover isn't who she appears to be. Gilles tracks her from online zeppelins to digital daycare facilities, discovering that his client's own wife is masquerading as his lover. Why? That's a harder problem.While working on that bizarre case, Gilles also tries to figure out who killed his young friend, Five. This case takes him to the Event Horizon, where he uncovers information that brings even more real-world danger into his life.