Slocum had it all: the perfect family, the perfect home, and the perfect job with X-Corp Multimedia -- a major producer of interactive 3-D dreams. Then Slocum's career at X-Corp self-destructed, and with it his life. Now his world has shrunk to a tiny sloop berthed in the dingy harbor of a dying New England seafaring town. There he studies the legendary Smuggler's Bible and dreams of sailing off to a life of freedom.

Then an enormous ocean liner docks beside him: a floating palace of glittering wealth and mystery with a single enigmatic passenger, a woman who restlessly wanders the decks, unable to leave the ship. For Slocum -- rejected by his wife and daughgter, hounded by his vengeful employers, harassed by the town police, his credit cut off, his funds running out -- the alluring woman soon becomes his sole hope of escape. Only by learning her terrifying secret can he free her from her gilded captivity... and realize his own dreams -- which, in a world of mass-produced fantasy, is the most forbidden pursuit of all.