As Maxine’s investigation continues and the year passes, the action eventually extends into early September—when two planes hit the World Trade Center. Although the story begins in the spring of 2001, it’s easy for the reader nearly to forget what must inevitably occur in a book set in New York City during that year. Pynchon’s genius for constructing complex conspiracies comes into play as Maxine discovers some odd coincidences leading up to the attacks, including stock-market shenanigans and footage of something that looks to be a practice run for covert paramilitary action.

Maxine uncovers evidence that various parties were involved—hashlingerz, the CIA, Middle Eastern interests, the Russian mob, and Mossad, just to name a few. The conspiracies are multilayered and numerous, and it’s impossible to lift the veils of secrecy and paranoia to find the truth. In the end, though, the truth doesn’t really matter for the country at large, which is (mostly) happy to accept the narrative of patriotism and heroism in the face of anti-American hatred. Those who do know the truth—or at least parts of it—retreat into their own worlds of possibly paranoid fear of the danger of knowing too much. March Kelleher, who has posted incriminating footage on her blog, becomes elusive, since “the attention from cops and cop affiliates public and private has reached alarming levels, obliging her to roll up her futon every morning, hop on a bicycle, and relocate someplace new, trying not to sleep in the same place too many nights in a row.” Getting in too deep, Maxine realizes, makes it hard to come back to reality; March has become mired in the web of the conspiracy theories she’s become invested in.

As if the confusion of 9/11 and its attendant conspiracies weren’t enough, the reader is also drawn into a further pseudoreality in the form of a computer program called DeepArcher. Hidden from search engines in the bowels of Deep Web, DeepArcher is a realistic virtual world that allows the user’s avatar to explore a seemingly endless series of landscapes while interacting with other users and characters.

DeepArcher is much more than a game—it’s “a journey,” according to its creators. For Maxine, moving her avatar through the landscapes of DeepArcher is an intoxicating and enthralling experience: “A framed lucid dream, it approaches, and wraps Maxine, and strangely without panic she submits.” There is no apparent goal or endgame designed into the program; it encourages submersion and exploration. Escape from the virtual world is difficult because the program eliminates the ability to backtrack, and the pseudoreality is so hypnotic. Before she knows it, hours have passed. Hidden in the Deep Web, it’s a whole world unto itself, and one that Maxine is reluctant to leave. The computer-generated reality is not only utterly mesmerizing, but also incredibly sophisticated and innovative; more than cutting edge, it’s bleeding edge, with “no proven use, high risk, something only early-adoption addicts feel comfortable with.” As one of the program’s creators explains, “[It’s] better to stay deep… After a while it can be an addiction. There’s a hacker saying—once you’ve gone Deep, never get back to sleep.”