In a similar situation to Bellwether and Passage, the main character, Briddey Flannigan, is part of a larger institution who gets caught up in series of escalating events.

Bridget "Briddey" Flannigan, a middle manager in fictional tech-company CommSpan, is dating Trent Worth, one of the senior executives, while fending off nosy family and gossipy colleagues.

Trent proposes that Briddey and he undergo a new procedure, an EED implant, which would allow the two of them to feel each other's emotions and take their relationship to the next level.

Briddey arrives at work the day after, finding that the staff know her news already and have lots of unwanted advice to give.

Schwarz, the company's disheveled technical genius, who seems to live like a hermit in the building's basement lab.

is either in the room or has bugged it, leaves her bed and gets lost in a cold stairwell, is rescued by staff, and is visited by C.B., who calms her down and tells her to keep quiet about hearing his voice.

Briddey spends the remainder of her stay dodging questions from the staff, the surgeon and Trent, while dealing with messages from her family, who think she is at her office.

However Briddey is suspicious of his motives, thinking he has romantic designs on her and is using some technical trickery to interfere with her relationship with Trent.

[1] However, Eric Brown of The Guardian was more laudatory, writing that "Willis tells a fast-paced tale with well-observed dialogue and some gentle humour.

One is of the movie star Hedy Lamarr, who also devised the frequency hopping technique to avoid interception of communications, which is a concept referred to in the novel.

Another poster is for a fictional movie production of Scanners Live in Vain by Cordwainer Smith, a story about men who have had neural alterations to survive space travel.